#very true about that western comic thing

[ajaxbell]

Fangs of Fortune (Bai Ze Ling): perfect on pure aesthetics alone, but also it will tear your heart out while being very gay.

I was lured in to this show by Tumblr gifsets and friends on Bluesky talking about how queer and poly this show is. I'm old and I've been in fandom more than half my life. I know how to read queer subtext. I'm also pretty well versed in cdramas, so again, I know how to read subtext. So I went into this ready to, well, read the subtext.

But no this show is just puts the queer it right there in the text. The vague information we have about Chinese censorship repeatedly left me asking, 'wait how are they getting away with this?' Like some of these jokes and implications are just so blatant it seems incredible this show ever made it to being broadcast. It just feels very much like queer media made for queer people even if t's more subtle than something western like Queer as Folk.

Even without the heavy coloring of gay this show is incredible and so much more than I expected from the title and the promo. The premise is essentially the death of the goddess, who governed relations between humans and demons, leads to an influx of demons in the human world. This brings together the goddess's disciple, Wen Xiao--seeking to restore the goddess's power. WX's childhood sweetheart, Zhuo Yichen--seeking to restore the demon-hunting bureau after the powerful demon Zhu Yan killed his father and brother. It opens on Zhu Yan, in human disguise as as Zhao Yuanzhou, volunteering to help the imperial court restore the demon-hunting bureau to quell the chaos. They are joined by Pei Sijing, a retired female general from the rival demon hunting sect, and a very young doctor (and comic relief) named Bai Jiu. It starts off as a sort of monster-of-the-week with a grim Scooby gang doing detective work and fighting monsters. Each major demon has a mini arc that relates to the larger case (restoring the power of the goddess to balance the realms), and they are repeatedly blocked by either the demons or the rival demon hunting sect. Each mini arc also acts as a mirror or parallel story to slowly revealed backstory of all the main characters as well. In true cdrama fashion it's a mix of adventure, intense emotional drama, romance, and comedy. And queer and poly jokes and romance. It also has a kind of manga vibe in the way the comedy is woven into the more serious story, and in the fantastical depiction of the characters and how the story unfolds.

It is also just insanely beautiful. Every single shot is lovely. The costumes, make up, and hair are incredible. The casting director made all the major demons inhumanly beautiful. The sets are spectacular. The effects are nicely done. Every bit of has the vague surreality of a fairytale. The perfection of each shot ads to the manga vibe, as if we're seeing each critical storytelling panel come alive. There's recurring water-based special effects that are just gorgeous. Based on aesthetics alone this show would be worth watching to me. That it is combined with a complex, very emotional story is a spectacular gift to the watcher. A lot of the negative reviews of this complain about the staginess or that it's overly contrived in how each scene is shot. But I think it's gorgeous, works perfectly with the storytelling, and if we criticize art on whether it achieves the goal it intended then this show is doing exactly and perfectly what it means to do and doing it beautifully.

Additionally the acting is also very good, but Neo Hou is the stand out for sure. I enjoyed him in Back from the Brink, especially the later part of the story, but in Fangs of Fortune he's transformed, utterly embodying the role, the way Dylan Wang is Dongfang Qingcang in Love Between Fairy and Devil. Neo Hou has the right look, a slightly uncanny beauty perfect for a gorgeous immortal not of this world. The show does incredible things with his styling between the various looks and personas the role requires. But in acting he somehow manages to utterly transform his face and demeanor to manifest each aspect of the character as story demands changes from him.

There is a lot of crying in this drama. Like early on I joked that there was going to be a character crying a single perfect tear in every ep. Lol nope. Multiple single perfect tears per ep and many outright full on sobbing scenes. This show is just waiting to rip your heart out and you see it right from the beginning. But it was such sweet pain all the way through. Just a truly engaging and utterly wrenching set of intertwined stories.

My only criticism is that the pacing falls apart in the last 3 episodes. But overall the story is solid through the end, though like so many cdramas, it's saved by the epilogue.

You should absolutely watch it if you want the chaotic bi polycule (it's her, her girlfriend, her boyfriend, her boyfriend's boyfriend who is also her boyfriend, their two idiot sons, and her boyfriend's ex-who is also eventually sort of his boyfriend again), or if you want your heart torn out and stomped on. Or even if you just like really gorgeous cinematic things. Also if you watch, please don't skip the ending credits, as they change as the arcs change, and the radiant joy Tian Jiarui has as he dances is an excellent antidote to the emotions of each episode.

[thankskenpenders]

At long last, the trailer for Sonic movie 3 is here, giving us our first look at Shadow! It looks like a fun time, though my excitement is probably more tempered than a lot of peoples' due to a few things I have mixed feelings on. Here are my off-the-cuff thoughts about it.

Shadow

Yes, it does seem like they've really nailed Shadow here. Fowler's attachment to the character clearly shows. The action looks cool and really sells Shadow as a serious threat. He's got his bike, he's doing Chaos Control all over the place, it's great. Keanu is very much just doing his regular voice, but it fits well enough. The backstory from SA2 seems to mostly be there, though I'm sure some details will be adjusted. Mostly I'm still just amazed that we're getting a major tentpole blockbuster movie this Christmas starring Shadow the fucking Hedgehog that treats him as a serious character worthy of respect. We've come such a long way...

I mean, just... what an image to see on the big screen.

I also really like the way they're setting Shadow up as a foil for movie Sonic, kind of his dark mirror image as a Mobian hedgehog whose family life on Earth ended in tragedy and turned him into a vengeful antagonist. It's pretty straightforward, but it works well.

Robotnik(s)

Welp. They put Jim Carrey in a fat suit. I suppose we knew this day would come eventually.

I guess a small part of me is glad that movie Eggman finally actually looks like Eggman in every way that matter, but they're completely playing it as a joke at his expense here. And, yeah, the Sonic franchise isn't immune to fat jokes, the early years of the franchise (particularly Western adaptations) gave Sonic tons and tons and tons of jabs about Eggman's weight. But I thought we'd moved past that. But here we are with a depressed movie Robotnik binge eating and gaining a lot of weight like Fat Thor and the other characters think he's so GROSS and look his clothes don't even fit him anymore, haha! There's so much of this crammed into the trailer. I can only pray they don't do this in every fucking scene he's in in the movie.

I do like the plot of Sonic reluctantly teaming up with Robotnik to try and stop Shadow, though. It's very different from SA2, but we knew it would be, and I think that gives the movie some potential for Sonic to have kind of a dark turn of his own that mirror's Shadow's. I have a feeling that Sonic will try to get back at Shadow for something he does - maybe hurting Tom or something like that - and in the end Sonic sympathizes with Shadow and decides they have to stop their cycle of revenge, teaming up to stop some final threat.

Oh, and, of course... Jim Carrey is also playing Professor Gerald. Who might still be alive? Or maybe it's a hallucination on Ivo's part? I don't know, but either way, I'm here for it. Everyone joked about them doing it and then they went and did it. Yes, it risks playing him as a joke character, but the shot of him and Shadow mourning Maria while surrounded by GUN soldiers makes me believe he won't be a total joke. I wouldn't be surprised if he was the true final antagonist of the film, which would diverge a lot from the games but would work as its own version of the story.

And again, WHAT an image to see on the big screen lmao

Everyone else

The human cast is VERY downplayed in this trailer, but let's not forget that they're still going to get a lot of screentime one way or another. The Sonic 2 trailer barely showed anything from Hawaii. Where oh where is my best friend Wade?

Speaking of the Wade show, Knuckles... frankly still seems to be mostly a comic relief character heavily influenced by MCU Thor here, getting some jokes in the trailer but immediately getting Worfed by Shadow when it comes time to fight. Tails seems to be flying the gang around in a real-ass helicopter, and his big pilot's helmet is funny, but otherwise he doesn't really do anything here aside from getting stomped by Shadow. I really hope they don't get sidelined too hard, but frankly I fully expect them to, Tails especially.

And, of course... I can't help but think about who isn't here. Namely: the girls. Yes, three movies and one streaming miniseries into this film franchise, exactly zero of the female (animal) characters from the games have made the jump to live action. Please allow me to bitch about this.

Despite her being both 1) a main character in the game this movie is loosely adapting and 2) my fave, I suppose I can understand why Rouge isn't here. Paramount took one look at that bat cleavage and went "nope," cowards that they are. There was some speculation that Kristen Ritter could be playing Rouge, but we now know she's just playing someone at GUN. But, again, I at least get why they'd be hesitant to include her.

But Amy... Amy is such a glaring omission at this point. There's no excuse. She's the female lead of the franchise. She's one of Sonic's closest friends. (Honestly, these days it's more accurate to say Team Sonic is Sonic, Tails, and Amy, not Knuckles, especially in the comics.) And she's also a key player in Shadow's arc in the game. Shadow has his change of heart because Amy reminds him of Maria! And yet, she's nowhere to be seen. It sucks.

(I know some fans are still holding out hope for Amy, but the toys for the movie already leaked and she didn't get anything, so I have to assume she's not in it.)

It's not like I really expected either of them to be in this movie, but that doesn't make it less disappointing that they set up the film franchise in a way that makes it logistically difficult to include 90% of the characters and conveniently managed to leave all of the girls in the "low priority" pile. Yes, I know everyone points to how much Tails was downplayed in the third act of Sonic 2 as evidence that it's just so impossible to introduce more than one new Mobian character in each movie and give them the focus they deserve. Yes, I know having to come up with a story excuse to bring more characters over to Earth is an obstacle, especially when they're gonna have to devote time to Shadow's backstory. But these are excuses. It's a writer's job to figure out solutions to problems like this. They could make it work if they really wanted to. I'd take Amy having a suboptimal amount of screentime over her not being in it at all. It's just not a priority for them. That's what disappoints me. You can justify these absences from a logical perspective, but I just care way more about Amy and Rouge as characters than I do about Shadow, so there's no way for this to not sting.

But, at the end of the day, for what the movie is actually trying to do, it seems to be pulling it off well. Aside from the fat jokes. I don't like the fat jokes. But the Shadow stuff is good. As always, this live action version of the franchise is never going to be my ideal version of Sonic, but it's turned out far better than it had any right to, and I'll probably have fun when I go see this in theaters and hear Live and Learn.

[writingwithcolor]

Afro-Latine Jewish woman maintaining cultural connection in an isekai comic

Anonymous asked:

Hello! Mixed Latin American nonbinary Jew here. I'm working on a, relatively light-hearted, isekai-style fantasy comic concept of an afro-latine Jewish lady who gets sent through a portal to a colorful scifi/fantasy land, inhabitated by various imaginary creatures sorta like in Alice in Wonderland. She gains magic powers and goes on adventures, working as a scientist researching the land's magical energy. (some of the local creatures she befriends are entirely original species, and some are inspired by my local folklore, but otherwise I try to avoid culturally coding the creatures since they're mostly nonhuman looking). The story isn't supposed to touch any heavy topics like antisemitism or racism, but I've read about the cultural problems in ""normie protagonist finds a new home in a funky fantasy world"" stories, f.ex. how Harry Potter's narrative basically implies that Muggleborns have to abandon their original cultures in order to successfully integrate into the very prejudiced but ""cooler"" Wizarding World. My original goal was to break the mold that escapism fantasy usually revolves around white protagonists adventuring in heavily Western-inspired fantasy worlds, and poc-coded characters are usually nonhuman creatures or racial stereotypes. However the protagonist girl in my story comes from a loving, latine-jewish human family, and while she regularly visits them on Earth instead of just staying in the fantasy land 24/7, I'm afraid that making her story be about being happy adventuring in a separate imaginary land filled with nonhuman characters might turn into an ""abandon your family and culture"" narrative. Are there any ways how I could avoid this? Maybe making the fantasy land's worldbuilding and designs more Latin American or Jewish inspired and thus resonate more with her cultural background, or making it clear that the land is not ""perfect"" and she still loves her family?

One of the first things that stands out to me is that you haven’t set her up to need to abandon her culture in order to make a life in another place. She has the ability to go home and visit her family, but I also don’t see any reason why, if she lives primarily in the fantasy land, she couldn’t be portrayed as practicing Judaism actively in her new home. It’s true that Judaism isn’t solely defined by religious/cultural practices, but it’s also true that religious/cultural practices are one of the most recognizable and most uniting elements of Jewish identity.

I think it might help in this case to think about Jewish practices in terms of communal versus personal: that is, what are practices she would need to seek out a Jewish community for, and what are practices she can do independently?

Does she control when she is able to visit her family? If so, visiting for Jewish holidays so that she can be at a family meal or holiday services seems like a way to highlight that she is just as connected to her family as someone who moved to a different city might be. If she experiences/has experienced the death of a family member or partner, going home to be with a Jewish community for shiva or to say kaddish on a yahrzeit is another touch (for readers who may be unfamiliar, Jewish mourning practices are intensely communal and are intentional about bringing the mourner into an active support system and slowly reintroducing them to the world, and as such a mourner is likely to spend this time somewhere where they can access and be supported by a Jewish community).

As far as practices she can engage with on her own in the fantasy setting, it would be nice to see her observing Shabbat, either in a traditional way by refraining from adventuring and instead engaging in hospitality and prayer between dusk Friday and sundown Saturday, or in a less-halakhic way if she comes from a Reform or comparatively-assimilated background, by marking Friday sunset with candles, blessings, and a good meal, even if she is intending to continue her research through the next day. She would hardly be the first Jewish person to live in a place without an established Jewish community, and a festive meal can be shared just as happily with non-Jewish friends if they’re griffons and fauns as if they’re Christians and Muslims.

Here’s one idea that I think would be hugely meaningful as a way of establishing both that she intends to make her home long-term in Fantasy World and that she intends to carry Jewish traditions with her into her new life: hang a mezuzah.

Think about it: a mezuzah is the visual marker of a Jewish home, as much to the resident as to a guest. When she is home from her adventures, in her garden cottage or enchanted tower or wherever she returns to between adventures to record and categorize her research, simply showing a mezuzah in the background instantly makes the point both that she is intending to stay, and that this is a Jewish space. If as time goes on she adds other Judaica items to her space, it can add to the sense that her Jewishness is present and alive in this world, simply because she is present and alive in it.

If she doesn’t have a settled space or if you’re not planning on setting any scenes there, having Jewish visual markers on and around her can help, too. For low-hanging fruit, maybe she has a silver Jewish Star or chai necklace that catches the light now and then, but since you’re going for a light, fun vibe, maybe she’s packing her adventuring supplies in a bright-blue vinyl backpack emblazoned with “Temple Shaarei Tzedek Junior Youth Retreat 1998” (am I old? I’m pretty sure there are adults reading this who were in Junior Youth groups in 2003, but I’m willing to bet retreat swag hasn’t changed that much).

I do like the idea of including Latin American and Jewish elements in the worldbuilding, especially as an intentional way to combat the cultural dominance of Western European folklore over fantasy writing, but because your character is from and has access to our world, you have the beautiful opportunity to carry real-world markers of Jewishness with her as well.

-Meir

I adore Meir’s answer, but then, I’m the kind of person to whom “enchanted tower with a mezuzah” as an aesthetic is so near and dear to my heart that I wrote a whole fantasy series about it. Couple of random suggestions: one thing I really enjoy is exposing my gentile friends to Jewish food—I love watching the absolute shock of delirium hit someone’s face the first time they taste my charoseth. Imagine this little bowl of chopped apples and walnuts, looking vaguely dirty because they’re soaked in cinnamon-infused wine, so it’s basically dingy beige slop….so that first bite of sensuous, deep sweetness is a huge surprise. Pick your favorite equivalent and imagine the first time a centaur or a winged princess or whatever other fantasy character tries it at your MC’s behest! (Feeding brisket to dragons would make a great name for…something…)

I don’t think you’re likely to do this anyway but since these are public answers: “fantasy world fun, Jewish upbringing a chore” is a narrative I would not feel at home in or care to read. But that’s a rather predictable remark from me anyway ;)

And of course I support the “the secondary fantasy world is actually Jewish” solution too, having one of my own.

–Shira

[spaceyprincely]

Boothill observations and theorys(?):

⚠️‼️Cw// leaks + possible 2.1 spoilers‼️⚠️

Hello tumblr I thought I’d share some observations I’ve made about boothill, an upcoming 5 star character. Particularly his name and how it relates to his cowboy aesthetic as well as his possible backstory. I also want to theorize his situation with Acheron as well. Well I’m not exactly an expert on theory’s so I doubt mine counts but I’ll share what interests me on boothill!

Boot Hill, Name origin:

First off, what is a “boothill”?

“Boothill” or “Boot Hill” are a type of cemetery most commonly referred to in western parts of the United States and America. What makes this cemetery unique is its association with cowboys, specifically ones that died in violent non natural fashion like shooting or hanging, “died with their boots on”.

How does this relate to Honkai star rail boothill.

- boothill is based of the typical western American cowboy , with the outfit, his accent , usage of guns, etc. so we have that connection .

- The HSR wiki says that he’s specifically a cyberborg. Cyborgs are typically depicted as robot human hybrid characters. Some cyborg characters like robocop and cyborg (dc comics) have backstories of becoming a cyborg by having had either died and came back to life through technology or damaged their human body greatly to the point they replace with artificial robot tech.

- Boothill in leaked eilodons shows his naked body. However you can quickly noticed his body is human. Not robotic like what we’ve been officially shown.

- Contrast this with his lightcone art, boothill has only part of his robot body. It looks like he’s being operated on.

- So how does this his name relate to his possible backstory

- As previously iterated, boothill is a name for cemetery of cowboys that died in violent ways. Pair this with how the leaked content having a human body which insinuates that he was at some point a human.

- So what I theorize: Most likely case is that boothill died/ got heavily injured, most likely due to a fight, so much that his only chance to survive was to make him a cyborg. The name boothill fits because he probably died in his boots (I’ll assume for now it happened on the job, maybe his job was the same before and after?).

- Interestingly There’s a leaked description of his lightcones. I’m not 100% sure about how true it is so I’ll have to take it with a grain of salt. However it details on him coming back to life after almost embracing death.

- - If boothill died, who killed him?

There isnt much to hint at who is to blame for cause of him becoming cyborg so far, given he’s a new character with little information.

At this moment, my best guess is the ipc which characters including topaz and aventurine are in. Boothill is revealed to not like the IPC as revealed in his introduction post. However there’s an interesting thing we need to observe.

- Notice how it states “the target of his revenge”, meaning the ipc most likely wronged him in some. I wonder if the ipc is the ones responsible for his death and transformation to being a cyberborg. But it’s likely it could be another reason for his distaste.

About Acheron

Cw/ this part gets into partial spoilers for 2.1 trailblazer main story quest

black swan receives a call from boothill. The call is immediately clear he is threatening Acheron with death.

- his tension with her seems very extreme to the point where hell even go after people affiliated with her when he threatened black swan under the impression she’s was working with her. And saying she shouldn’t exist.

do I think she was behind his death?

Unlike with the ipc one, I’m not really sure. I personally think that this possibility has less weight to it and there might be another reason for his dislike towards her. But it wouldn’t be surprising considering aventurine claims she brings death and finality.

- like aventurine, Boothill knows that Acheron isn’t an actual galaxy ranger however boothill himself is a galaxy ranger. Since Acheron is falsely claiming she’s a galaxy ranger, could this possibly cause tension with the actual galaxy rangers and her to be a target for them? I don’t really have much to theorize much more but would like to hear what others think

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

I was following your post about grim dark comics like The Boys. And sometimes I wonder if people think bad things are more real than good things. Yes, the world is filled with sorrow and pain and injustice and lies. But that doesn't negate the existence of love and joy and mercy and truth. One of my favorite writers has a quote "Don't be led away by those howls about realism. Remember-pine woods are just as real as pigsties and a darn sight pleasanter to be in." to be continued in a second ask

Pt. 2. I see all these progressive activists on tumblr and elsewhere and they all seem so miserable, just desperately unhappy. And I think they truly believe on some level that no one can or should be happy as long as one person is unhappy or miserable. As if it's a betrayal to enjoy a sunset or play with your dog or spend time with loved ones if there are people who can't enjoy that right now. And I hate that mindset, wanting everyone else to be miserable just because you are miserable is evil.

You hit the nail right on the head. You're basically seeing an intersection of two kinds of people. On one hand you have the people who worship at the altar of George RR Martin and think the highest form of art is miserable people being miserable in a world where goodness can't survive. On the other, you have the shirt rending "why won't someone do something" people who inject depressing news like it's heroin and base their entire sense of self-worth on how hard they fight for The Cause--or whatever The Cause is this week. They're the very real embodiment of this:

But all the whining about "realism" utterly ignores that goodness does exist. Misery isn't the default state of the world. At no other point in human history have so many people been lifted out of poverty. At no other point in human history have the poor of the western world had access to luxuries that kings of old would have sold their entire kingdoms just to experience for a day. Every day strangers go out of their way to do something kind for people they'll never meet again. Every day acts of kindness are performed that will go unrecognized and unrewarded. If the Shopping Cart Theory is true, then our society is pretty damn good because people always return the carts.

But you won't hear that on the news. Because the news both makes money and advances its social and political agenda by feeding us the worst of the world 24/7. So people who only consume the constant, never-ending newsfeed on TV and social media and in their schools actually think the world is, by default, what you see on CNN. And I don't know about you, but I'm very thankful that's not my world.

[bulbabutt]

so im white, lets just get that out of the way, but i wanna talk about the orientalism in windblades design.

this doesnt feel like my place to talk about but if no one brings it up then no ones gonna learn about it or second guess it. im tired of other white people not noticing this problem or thinking its fine. if anyone asian (specifically japanese) has any thoughts or personal input it is SUPER fucking welcome! its hard to find people talking about this.

so transformers has a women problem in general. they set up women in the 80s in one episode and never elaborated on it in that show. they added arcee in the movie. they put a couple in the beast wars era, but outside of blackarachnia (becoming a literal succubus) we dont really get any of those characters adapted (besides arcee) over iterations. never any new ones really.

then the comics get windblade. i havent read the comics, this isnt about anything that happens in them. this is about her design how she comes off as as shes been adapted into cartoons. i wont comment on events from the comics outside of her origin, as i know fuck all about it.

so she was supposedly a fan-voted character, but her 'fan-voted' aspects have nothing to do with the problem (in fact the fan-vote was more of a suggestion because a few things dont end up being true) the voted aspects are as follows:

autobot. jet. fights with swords. red & black. named windblade. female. valiant. telepath. from Kaon.

so here's what that ends up looking like.

so they took some liberties. there was other concepts where she was a european knight etc, but this is where they landed. she has this extremely feminine figure, complete with makeup and sculpted hair. many people immediately mistake this look for a geisha (though supposedly being kabuki) she gets little pump heels, it makes her very human woman shaped. birthing hips and all. thats classic girl robot stuff. its the specifics of it that are an issue.

so thats kind of a lot of japanese motifs. the makeup, the swords, the hair... why does it look like human hair? thats a very specific hairstyle on a character who doesnt have hair...

on its own, having a japanese inspired aesthetic isnt the problem. i mean, coding characters to be from different places is fine. having characters coded as a specific race could be fine. jazz already exists, and despite being taken by racist creators sometimes (cough michael bay cough) its not inherently bad that he is black coded, specifically when in the hands of black creators/voices. thats key.

so having a transformer who landed in japan and took on some culture from there. you could see that happening. that could work if in the hands of people who were japanese.

but thats not even her backstory. shes not even from Kaon (as was voted), instead she's from another planet entirely, a more spiritual one, which narratively makes her alienated from cybertronians. this alienation adds to the problem. "shes not from here." "shes not like us."

you'll see many people look at this design and think "is that geisha transformer?" and as the character isnt from japan and knows nothing about the culture that inspired her, the media itself never corrects anyone. no one in the text goes "no shes not a geisha shes actually based on a kabuki performer", no one says any words about it, its just how she looks, its just aesthetics without explanation or cultural background. shes not literally japanese, she just looks it. its easy to mistake without cultural context from a western perspective, so calling her a geisha becomes a rampant problem. general audiences arent looking at forum posts form 2014 where someone correctly explains what the motifs are. shes made by white people, and white people are largely the ones consuming the media. its unfortunate, and could have been avoided if the culture shes inspired by was relevant to her character.

so she's clearly heavily inspired by japanese aesthetics, which codes her as being an asian woman in this media but written by non japanese people. and then she becomes so popular that she has to start making appearances in shows.

she shows up in robots in disguise first. lets compare her to strongarm (the only other girl in the show)

having this japanese woman be far more thin and feminized than the other girl characters is the problem. strongarm is literally the first non feminized main girl transformer (not counting strika) she is much more in line with the men around her, square and broadshouldered, shes the largest car of the bunch. that was an upgrade finally. and then we get windblade. she has ruby red lipstick, human hair, heels, jewellery. on its own? thats fine. but keep in mind, shes heavily japanese coded already. then shes immediately seen as a romantic conquest for sideswipe (though he never gets anywhere, he literally claims ownership) it leans into tropes of sexualizing asian women because she stands apart from strongarm. shes the flirt, shes the very feminine one. is this on purpose? its not their fault windblade looks like that in the comics and strongarm looks like this. but side by side what is it saying? did they intend to say this about their asian woman? no, probably not intentionally. its kind of unconscious bias that tends to happen when you dont have a diverse writers room. no one notices until it hits the audience.

but lets just jump in here with the other weird problem in RID, because shes not the only one who jumped from the comics.

drift (who while being a samurai in the comics (literal?) doesnt.... LITERALLY wear a suit of samurai armour) shows up. with his two minicons who act as his children (who hes very strict with). theres a heavy overuse of the word honour. he owes a life debt, hes very humourless etc... they also never explain why he wears this armour. he came straight from space. he doesnt even turn into anything big that warrants it, hes just another sports car. bumblebee and sideswipe are sports cars too. but why is drift a sports car? tokyo drifting. drift. you get it.

so drift also is a comics original character. he, however, looks nothing like that

i will assume that drift looks different for one reason....

i mean. i shouldnt have to tell you why that was bad, right? you guys get why michael bay movies are bad? (if you genuinely dont please enjoy this series as a starter) ill just assume you do. knowing that that drift is bad, can we also say windblade is suffering from a similar problem?

this show brings in these FOUR new characters and heres how they look side by side.

so. okay the minicons are raised by drift, they share his aesthetic, okay. we dont know where he got that aesthetic but yeah they share it. windblade.... its unclear in this show if she shares the being from another planet like idw part. shes on a mission from god to be here and thats all we know. but the point is they have no similar origin. yet they all look like they could be from the same place. that they shares a (japanese inspired/coded/stereotyped take your pick) culture. meanwhile our from ep1 mains look like this:

so that feels. specific.

its not inherently bad to code robots as japanese, however its a problem when it seems to be for aesthetics alone. its stereotyping. they look nothing like the rest of the cast, everything like each other, and are from completely different backgrounds. they literally have the same colour palette? theyre not even like that in the comics.

sidenote, if you add sideswipe (who's alt mode has kanji on it and an asian voice actor so we can assume some coding there too) they look like this. yes they all have swords.... no one else does!

yes, windblade is the only character with a white face. makeup. yes sideswipe claims ownership over her to fight off one of the minicons. its not wrong to show windblade being harassed by a man, but it is wrong that no one ever says "leave her alone" you know? like thats just whats to be expected of her. it sucks. but at least her voice actress was asian! that wont happen again.

so. moving on to cyberverse, she becomes a central character. character wise? shes great. she gets to do a lot, no one sexually harasses her here, we're free of that era.

comparing her to the other autobot women, shes more in line now. if thats a good or bad thing overall is less the point (ie theres no autobots built like strongarm was, they are all just as thin and curvy as windblade is) but to me its still very apparent that shes still implying human hair. even with how simplified all these designs are.

like you can see how these red lines around her eyes get lost at a distance, same with the clips in her 'hair'. its clearly just trying to adapt her original design and im not saying thats a wrong choice they made, but i am saying its really busy in comparison

maybe thats a nitpick. but here it seems much more pronounced just how specific her head piece is because we can compare her to chromia, who is from the same place. do these two characters look like they have the same culture? not really. chromia and arcee look more alike. maybe thats just because they were designed later, but its unfortunate none the less.

even comparing her head to the seekers, what she is kind of supposed to be, they get the same old starscream mold. maybe she'd look better if they just did that? or something similar? like, give her a helmet. no one has hair. please stop implying hair. we all know what youre doing.

none of this is me saying i find these shows bad or that i hate windblade, i genuinely love her! and i love both these shows! it just feels hard to love her because of how she was designed. its not a problem with having a japanese coded character, its how stereotyped the look is. how othered it is. it leans into racist tropes. its orientalism, using japanese aesthetics to make her look interesting and different. you can tell she was made by white people.

how is it that despite being around for 10 years now, no ones tried to redesign her?

also look at the toys! look at the god damn toys!

she can take that head piece out to have a FAN. why does she need a fan?? shes got fucking WIND JETS ON HER BACK! its very obvious why they did this. shes a japanese woman, she can fight with a fan to complete the aesthetic! despite her character never having even been there! and no other transformer using a fan weapon! shes so COOL AND DIFFERENT like that isnt she?? holy fucking shit

to go back to those original voted concepts for a second? if we went back to the drawing board?

a telepathic valiant female autobot who can fly, has a red/blue/black colour combo (with yellow accents) uses swords, and maybe even with canonical asian heritage....

could they even do that? is it possible?

...

OH! wait it SUPER IS! who'd have thought!?

im NOT saying "we dont need windblade! we have a better girl with the same concept!" cuz thats stupid. do not misunderstand, theres room for WAYYYY MORE TF GIRLS! the literal 1:13 ratio is FUCKED! i know windblade had to fight to exist too and that sucks!

i just think it's CLEARLY possible to do this better, and it SHOULD be entirely possible to have windblade (who was LITERALLY holding court as the MAIN girl transformer for years) to be, i dont know, not so racistly designed? i think its entirely possible to fix, i just wish they would have tried already.

and this is just what my white ass has thought about since meeting her and not seeing anyone else bring it up. like going hunting for a real take about it just meets you with the rampant misogyny problem in fan spaces. its hard to find people talking about it in a normal way, but if they have before id love to know.

i just wanted to put my thoughts about it down, maybe get people to think about it more or talk about it more. cuz jeez, i would really like them to fix the problem. like they fixed the arcee problem in idw, right? can they fix windblade next?

[blushingdread]

Hi MLB fandom, I am a passerby that tried to watch the show for my GF and failed, but I have read a bunch of fanfics and I think Butterfly Emilia would be cool as fuck

Some headcanons:

The butterfly does long-range magic by connecting to others and giving them magic, they're weapon isn't a weapon. It's a tool for communicating with their champions. Emilia has this big ass old timey microphone bc she's a former performer (actress if i rember correctly?) And she's all for the dramatics (Gabriel would have a head set) Despite it not being a weapon, she still wacks people with it

She has seven different pieces of butterfly jewelry on her transform (2 earrings, 2 rings, brooch, hair piece, and one holding her skirt in the back) fighting her directly is very annoying because they have no idea which fucking one is her miraculous

You may notice she's not wearing a mask, just makeup. Her face has been run through every database known to man. The cloaking magic makes it impossible to actually figure out. She doesn't really see herself as a villain, and she doesn't read comic books. Her outfit is more of a performance outfit (Marinette likes western comic books and is super hero themed, Adiren sees himself as a magical girl)

Her main motivation is that she's a MASSIVE control freak with entitlement issues. She was born rich rich and stumbled upon God jewelry. She is drunk on power 24/7 and doesn't think consequences exist. She wants to revive Gabriel bc she loves him. She's terrorizing Paris bc she thinks her happy ending is the most important and doesn't care about anyone else

Gabriel "died" from using both the peacock and butterfly to make Adiren (who Emilia designed herself, with blueprints) despite the fact that Noorou and Duusuo told them that using two miraculouses at once was a bad idea. He's her SIMP

Natalie is her childhood friend who is used to her "eccentric" behavior, and isn't in on the evil

Monarch constantly hyjacks tv/radio waves to harass the heroes. "This would be all be over if you just gave me your miraculous", "Why do you have to drag out this conflict? I just want to fix the wrong thing this magic caused.", "did that old man tell you anything before he gave you those?" <- at first. She tries to have good pr by making all her akumas only capture and sometimes helping people, but eventually she shows her true colors and she's no longer able to make the media call Ladybug and Chat selfish for not giving her their miraculouses. After her flip switches, she still does this, but it's more obvious. "This is all your fault, you know."Maybe I'll just keep doing this at 3am :D." kinda shit

Let's Adiren go to school bc both of the Kawami were like, "He doesn't actually love you. You just made him love you. You're actually a shitty mom." And it hurt her pride so much that she let her control of him slip to prove that he prefers her, and then he wanted to public school and it made her so maddd that she constantly targets the school to scare him and chase him back into her arms "of his own free will"

Emilia thinks Marinette is absolutely perfect and fits in her family so nicely. Except for some minor defects, she can correct ♡ much to Mari's slow dawning horror

Very vindictive and petty. Like, have a butterfly follow Ayla around for a week for reporting on her petty. She is doing psychological warfare on the children

Let's Chloé be childhood friends with Adrien literally bc she makes him uncomfortable, seee how good your mom is compared to others + Really likes Audrey and having perks from the mayor which means they have to be childhood friends

[derangedfujoshi]

hi I have a question which might not be super clear?? Essentially I was in a server on discord that had sh0tas banned and when I asked for an explanation of what exactly that meant (bc it was explicitly under their no under 16 or under in explicit positions to ���abide by discord TOS” which was silly bc Discord TOS is under 18s) and I pointed out not all sh0tas are explicit they got mad and said I was mixing up sh0tas and sh0tac0n and said that anime kids are not sh0tas and that sh0ta and sh0tac0n are different things. They also told me that any image of someone under 16 in an explicit or sexual position is a sh0ta or a l0li and that sh0tac0n was the Japanese’s term for ped0phia according to Wikipedia. Which doesn’t make any sense as far as my knowledge of what a sh0ta is is concerned. Can you help me??? Am I wrong or are they wrong or is it something in between?? Sorry to ask you about this you’re the most knowledgeable on this type of stuff and best at explaining it.

essentially I’m planning to draw some DC comics characters in the style that you define as a sh0ta (ie big eyes, short arms, etc.) bc I know that more Western franchises get less sh0ta-style art and I thought that the younger characters would look really cool in that design. They’re saying that that would be “just anime” and not a sh0ta and that anime is not sh0tac0n. What are your thoughts on that? If it wasn’t mean to be explicit or inherently sexual just kinda cutsie but with those elements would it still be a sh0ta. It also wouldn’t be anime style because that’s not my style, but it would still have those proportions and elements. I’m just trying to understand because I’m curious.

(Sorry if putting the 0 in there in the ask isn’t the right way to do it I don’t know how tumblr reacts with these things and I’ve been shadowbanned a LOT)

Ok wow that's a long ask! I hope I'll be able to help somehow!

First thing first I'd like to suggest dropping the server cause it's clearly made by antis and you're never going to win them over. Especially because they apparently can't even read a Wikipedia article fully since it clearly states, and I quote: "Shotacon (ショタコン, shotakon), abbreviated from Shōtarō complex (正太郎コンプレックス, shōtarō konpurekkusu), is, in Japanese contexts, the attraction to young (or young-looking) boy characters, or media centered around this attraction. The term refers to a genre of manga and anime." The article clearly states this is a fictional thing but, as we all know, that means nothing to antis so it's kind of a lsot cause, really...

"and said that anime kids are not sh0tas and that sh0ta and sh0tac0n are different things" This is true in the way that 1) not every young anime boy is drawn as a shota, they could be a shounen or a weird hybrid of different genres and 2) shota is the character, shotacon is the one who likes said characters

"They also told me that any image of someone under 16 in an explicit or sexual position is a sh0ta or a l0li" untrue. Once again, shota is a very specific category of character and young boy =/= shota, they could be a shounen, a femboy, just a dude and the way they're depicted wouldn't suddenly turn them into shotas, they would still be their own category but, well, drawn in a sexy way lol what even-

"Am I wrong or are they wrong or is it something in between??" They are, don't sweat it dear, you are correct into being confused because once again, to quote the Wikipedia article they didn't care to read: "The usage of the term in both Western and Japanese fan cultures includes works ranging from explicitly pornographic to mildly suggestive, romantic, or in rare cases, entirely nonsexual, in which case it is not usually classified as "true" shotacon. As with lolicon, shotacon is related to the concepts of kawaii (cuteness) and moe (in which characters are presented as young, cute or helpless in order to increase reader identification and inspire protective feelings). As such, shotacon themes and characters are used in a variety of children's media." There are a lot of shotacons who are completely sfw about shotas and are there solely for the kawaii and moe factors although the majority of shatocon works are nsfw in nature, but the two things can coexist, but I guess the nuance is too difficult for antis to grasp.

"If it wasn’t mean to be explicit or inherently sexual just kinda cutsie but with those elements would it still be a sh0ta." yeah, again, erotic factors have nothing to do with a character being a shota or not. If you follow a certain guideline (short + very young looking + tiny torso + long possibly a bit radish legs + big head + huge eyes + soft features) chances are you'll end up drawing a shota. Dipper Pines technically qualifies as one, for example and he's from a western show, do you think his design is erotic in any way? Of course not, because that has nothing to do with shotas!

I hope I answered to all of your questions clearly enough and, once again, I'd like to suggest you dropping that server for your own good and to not engage in any discussion if the interlocutor doesn't seem like someone open to a real dialogue. As for your artistic endeavour I hope you'll have fun! I think that visually speaking shotas are the cutest category ever eheh and the western world needs more of them smh Oh and no need to censor your words in the bodytext, what's important is censoring the tags :3

Thank you for trusting me with this and keeping me in such high regards, I truly hope I helped somehow and that you'll have a wonderful day (ෆ˙ᵕ˙ෆ)♡

[misspjsuperior]

Some have thought my Vulva Mary to be some crazy absurd thing, some comically, others seriously with accusations of new age blasphemy. Others revere her but too often alongside anti trans rhetoric. But mystic Christian vulva art goes back centuries and also was more popular in the past in association rather to Jesus Christ which therefore naturally then creates trans undertones to the body of Christ. With the consideration of parthenogenesis in which the self conceived offspring is always born female I can feel a trans masc essence to Jesus Christ, bolstered by medieval art in reverence of the Side Wound.

I am by far not the only or first:

“ -this tradition reflects the mystical notion that the body of Jesus is “the body of all bodies” and that it therefore encompasses both traditionally masculine and feminine characteristics.

…

I can understand how, to people who aren’t historians of medieval religion or art, the suggestion that medieval Christians in western Europe frequently imagined and depicted Jesus’s side wound as looking like a vulva might sound bizarre and ridiculous. Nonetheless, this is something that they incontrovertibly did. To understand why they did this, we must first take a look at their historical and cultural context.

The Gospel of John 19:32–37 describes Jesus’s side wound as follows, as translated in the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVUE):

Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out. (He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth, so that you also may continue to believe.) These things occurred so that the scripture might be fulfilled, ‘None of his bones shall be broken.’ And again another passage of scripture says, ‘They will look on the one whom they have pierced.’

It is not very difficult to see how medieval Christians might have perceived an opening in a person’s body that bleeds, secretes a clear liquid, and is penetrated as in some sense analogous to a vagina—especially when you consider the fact the Latin word vulnus, meaning “wound,” sounds very similar phonetically to the word vulva, meaning “vagina.”

On top of all this, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries CE, the metaphorical idea of Jesus as a mother became extremely popular and influential among western European Christians, especially among those who were more mystically inclined. Female mystic writers seem to have found this idea particularly appealing.”

[manicplank]

DUDE

I JUST ADORE THE WAY U MAKE HEADCANONS FOR JOHN AND PIZZAHEAD

LIKE-

PIZZAHEAD IS SUCH A GOOFY CARTOONY DRAMAQUEEN (AND ALSO AN GENIUS-)

AND JOHN IS...JUST A BIT SILLY SOFTIE

ALSO..LAUGH HEADCANONS?

(i just saw one about John having a loud and deep laugh and I just explored-)

I love pizza tower fandom

:3

I feel like John is an underrated character.

Idk after finding all the treasures and resurrecting him, I kinda fell in love

(I also love this fandom. It's the least toxic I've ever encountered.)

Without further ado;

LAUGH HEADCANONS bare with me I'm not great with describing laughter

Peppino: Might do a tiny giggle or full on cackles. I don't see him happy enough, so I feel like he has a good sense of humor. (He's both hehehehehe and GAHAHAHAHAAAAA). Sometimes wheeze if you make him laugh hard enough.

Gustavo: Definitely chuckles. I feel like he has a jolly, goofy laugh. Probably laughs at silly little things. Tries to make Peppino laugh a lot. Brick makes him laugh quite a bit. (Huh huh huh huh huh!)

Mr. Stick: Definitely has a nasally cartoony laugh like he has in game. Has a broken sense of humor. Probably laughs at the funnies or cheesy jokes. (Nyeh heh heh heh!)

Pepperman: LOUD and obnoxious. I really like the laugh the v/a did in temorinki's video. Like Mr. Stick, he has a terrible sense of humor. Really likes Garfield comics, thinks they're hilarious. (HAHAHAHAHA HA HA HA!!!!)

The Vigilante: Old man laugh, you can still hear his accent through it. He doesn't laugh much, he's a super serious guy. Imagine an older, slower, western Seth Rogan laugh. (Gyeh heh heh heh!)

The Noise: Has many laughs. His true, authentic laugh is a bit nasally and interrupted by sudden gasps for air (HAHA *inhale* HAHAHAHA *inhale*). He might snicker or laugh through his nose. He might even full blown cackle. (KAA HA HA HAA HAA HAAAAA).

Noisette: Also has a couple laughs. She giggles more and will snort if you make her laugh hard enough (she gets super embarrassed about it). She also has a loud cackle when she finds something hysterical. (Hehehehehe *snort* hehehe! or HAAAHAHAHAAAAHAAAAAAA!)

Fake Peppino: His laugh isn't much of a laugh and more of sounds. The sounds he makes while laughing are more similar to the noises he makes in game but shorter. (Hmm! Hmmmm! Hmmmm! or GHAHSGHEJSJSA!)

Pizzaface: His is basically just the in game, maybe a few different pitches up when something is REALLY funny.

Pizzahead: Giggles or cackles. Loves laughing at people's misfortune, thinks Peppino's misery is HILARIOUS. His laugh is basically the one he has in game. (HA HA HA HA HA! or Tee he he he he!)

Pillar John: DEEP and throaty laughter. Very jolly guy. His laugh is loud enough to cause an earthquake. Also has a very monkey-like laugh like the one he has in game. (GAHAHAHAHA!! or OHH HOO HOO HOO)

Gerome: Doesn't laugh much, but his laugh is kind of like John's; deep and jolly. He might give a small "heh..." here and there, but when he laughs, he laughs HARD. (GAAAAHAAAAAHAAAHAAAA!!!)

[knickynoo]

Back to the Future Part II, The Novel by Craig Shaw Gardner: Thoughts, commentary, and general ramblings

Part 6: A weird-looking old man and a little guy in a leather jacket.

Previous posts here

• Instead of describing Doc as a “crazy, wild-eyed old man,” Old Biff says, “a weird-looking old man,” which is just so personal, lol

• There’s an interesting scene where Marty is almost caught in Biff’s garage. The shouting between Biff and his grandmother isn’t there to alert Marty, and instead, Biff just walks straight out to the garage. Marty thinks it’s Doc who has come to rescue him and calls out, which Biff hears. Marty then hides in the car, and waits as Biff looks around a bit before getting distracted.

• I really want the full scene of Doc scrambling to get that new hat and bike so he can head over to Biff’s house. The book mentions that he’d bought the bike a few hours prior (then had to wait for it to get dark enough) but I’d love to see how that played out. I also want Marty doing his shopping for his Inconspicuous outfit.

• Marty has a very funny response to Doc reminding him to be careful at the dance since his other self is there with Lorraine. “Yeah, that’s right! Hey, that’s cool, Doc. Maybe I’ll say hello to myself.”

This is followed immediately by, “’No!’ Doc felt like he might have a heart attack.”

And what I want to know is: is Marty just being a wisenheimer, or is he genuinely considering stopping to chit-chat with his other self? I could honestly see it going either way with Marty.

• This chapter is giving me a few good chuckles so far. Marty enters the dance and it says, “He stepped through, and found himself in the same alcove where he’d had that heart-to-heart with his future parents—the one about being nice when your son sets fire to the rug.”

Why don’t we have any definitive information on The Rug Incident? That story should’ve been included in the comics. I need to know what unfolded that day. Why did Marty set the rug on fire? Was it purely accidental? Did little Marty go through an arsonist phase?

I demand answers.

• When we return to Doc, who is still riding his bike all over the place, he ends up at the Peabody farm. There’s a cop there talking to Mr. Peabody, who’s recounting the alien encounter he had. Which…doesn’t make much sense to me since this is a week now since the “flying saucer” originally crashed into his barn. But I guess this has been an ongoing ordeal, and Otis has been trying to get someone to take him seriously.

Anyway, Doc is worried that they might actually stumble upon where he’s hidden the DeLorean behind the billboard, so he goes over and announces that he saw the spacecraft take off wayyy in the other direction. The police officer and Otis immediately take off in search of it.

• I wish I got a dollar for every time in this novel that Marty has said, “Yo, Doc!” because I would have many dollars.

• Lester (Wallet Guy) describes Marty to Biff as, “A little guy in a leather jacket.” So true, Lester. He IS just a little guy in a leather jacket.

• Ok, OK!! So! Two things to mention about the scene after the dance where Marty runs into Biff outside the door. After Biff calls him chicken, Marty once again recalls that, per his mother’s repeated suggestions, he’s supposed to count to 10 when he’s upset. And as he wrestles with his feelings, he thinks, “Maybe he always felt he needed to do this because he was so short.” !!!!! May I direct you to this ask and poll? There you have it, folks. Marty (book Marty, at least) is quite aware of his height and ALSO aware that it might be the reason he wants to fight at the slightest provocation.

• I already always feel bad for the Western Union guy when I watch the movie, and this makes me feel even more sorry for him. He gets no closure!!! He will NEVER know what the 70-year-old mystery letter was all about. The most disappointed voice Marty has ever heard!!

• We close with the scene of Marty running back to the clock tower. However, his revealing his presence to Doc is pretty different in the book than it is in the movie. We’re told, “Marty stepped out of the shadow of the courthouse. He tapped Doc on the shoulder.”

I mean. It definitely doesn’t have The Flair of Marty running full speed and dramatically spinning Doc to face him, but it is funny. He just. Steps out from the shadows and gives him a little tap. A gentle, “Um, hi, hello, I’m back.” Amuses me to think about.

This is how I imagine it, btw.

• The book ends with Doc passing out and Marty legitimately fearing that Doc may have just DIED before his very eyes, and how will he ever get home now?

I guess we’ll find out in the part III novel! Stay tuned.

[thekingofwinterblog]

Man the one thing Bionicle will allways have my respect for is the whole giant robot reveal amd planning, that shit was cool.

Like I never read any books or comics (just watched the movies as a kid lol) and of what I read of the lore I feel iffy, but just that idea alone is legendary

Funny thing is, the movies are actually the single WORST part of the bionicle franchise XD

Not only are the 3 good one, only decent movies at best, but they were made explicitly FOR fans, and fans alone, and has no shame about not telling you stuff because they fully expect the viewer to know all the lore through the books, the comic books, or games.

They are also absolutely terrible in terms of action, as the Toa in pretty much every other medium are stupidly powerfull, with elemental powers easily on level with an avatar state avatar if not beyond, physically capable of lifting over one ton, and as the toa mata estimated during their fights with the Bohrok swarms, while they might ultimately win if they just went all out, they would certainly destroy the island of Mata Nui(about the size of mainland denmark) in the process.

To say the movie toa arent quite on that level is... kinda an understatement XD Not to mention that the comics actually fills in scenes in between cuts in the movies, or just makes actual movie scenes better. It's kinda a mess to follow.

overall, I've always described the Bionicle franchise as the actual Star Wars extended universe. It's a whole mess of in-canon with each other stories, that has a very clear cronological flow, but would have been way better if they just made a tv series that covered the main story(which was basically the only thing bionicle DINDT have).

That said, i can tell you exactly why you think the lore is iffy. It is related one one, single sentence.

"Doing in the wizard".

Doing in the wizard, is a story telling trope, where something that was presented as magical or mystical, is later revealed(wheter it was planned or retconned in later) to actually have a mundane, scientific explanation.

And man, is Bionicle the single WORST example of this trope ever made.

So to explain this, and how it all relates to the series big twist reveal, I need to explain how Bionicle started out, and what it became over time.

Because when it began, Bionicle started out as a myth in the making.

On paper the story of the story of the six toa coming to deliver the land from a great evil is as stock as you get it.

But what made it special from day one, was that it managed to capture the feeling of a deeply spiritual tale, of faith, destiny, and myth.

The story of the six toa coming to deliver Mata Nui and his chosen people is treated, both by the narrative, and the people in it, as a great religious story, with the coming of the six Toa Mata essentially being this universe's coming of christ.

There is a moment in the mata nui online game that really encapsulates this, as when Tahu first meets the Ta-Matorans he is supposed to deliver, they attempt to trap him, and he easily breaks free, but then the fighting is halted as Vakama, the turaga(basically priest king) of the ta-matoran shows up, orders his men to stand down, after which he walks up to Tahu seemingly to talk, only to kneel down before him.

because for him this is basically the equivelant of the coming of christ. the divine prophecy that came from God himself is finally coming true.

Now Bionicle has a lot of things to love, as other than the movies, it has great action, it's characters are generally actual people with flaws and developments, and it has lots of awesome moments, amazing and deep world building that is stupidly thourough, and sweet character moments, and of course one of the biggest twists in fiction... but it is this very religious and spiritual tone that sets Bionicle apart from pretty much... everything else western childrens media has ever made.

It is this deep, unfliching and honest portrayal of a world that feels like a myth come to life that drew so many people to this story when it first came out, what ellevated it over yet another story about good and evil clashing.

The people in this story feel real, not only because they generally have actual character(some way more than others), but because they Believe in their world. as in, they believe in Mata Nui, his tennants, his story, and the six saviors he promised would come to deliver them and wake up their god.

this is how you create a real, genuine setting. it is why Bionicle has a feel to it that you never see in western childrens media(nor that often in adult either), other than some very, very few exceptions, due to our deep aversion to showintg religion to children.

and then of course there are the gods in question.

Mata Nui and Makuta. the two brothers who set this story into motion. The first who came here to this world, and created the matoran, and the second who followed him from paradise, and cast a spell that put mata nui into his current deep, deep sleep.

Now these two could have been just another set of "evil brother who who was jealous of, and hates his good brother and attempts to usurp him".

but that's not quite what we get.

When the toa Mata finally do confront Makuta, they get his perspective on it all. Now they ultimately write this off as just an evil villain trying to justify his actions... but if you actually break down what makuta is saying, he is a way more interesting villain than the very simplistic reading the devil figure the matoran believe he is.

"Destroy me? You cannot destroy me. No more than you can destroy the sea, or the wind. Or - the void."

"You are like the sea? The sea bears life! The sea bore us!"

"I bore you, for I am Nothing. And out of Nothing, you came. And it is into Nothing that you will go. I stand with Mata Nui, side by side. I am his brother. The people of the world are builders. But look into their hearts ... and you will find that they also have the power to destroy. I am that power. I am destruction. And I WILL destroy you."

ultimately, the story of the gods Mata Nui and Makuta is not the story of heaven and hell, but instead a story of yin and yang.

Mata Nui is the god of light, and that is the element that everyone associates him with... but thats not his main trait. his main trait, his defining virtue, is creation. That is what he is most famous for after all, creating the matoran and this island home for them.

Similarily, Makuta is tha god of darkness, as that is his element... but his main virtue is destrution.

as the creators themselves noted, using a lego methaphor, mata nui is the drive to create new things, to make something bigger and more interesting out of the parts you have... but Makuta is the drive to destory that creation, to take the lego set apart either before creating something new, or to put it away into the box so that you can use it later. before you create something new, you must destroy.

And this ties into the actual story as well, as one of the big main plots from the start is that to reawaken their god, one of the things that would happen, is that the toa and the matoran would have to give up on Mata Nui the island, their home, their promised land, as only by it's destruction could their god reawaken and lead them to the paradise he originally came from.

its really, really good stuff, and one of the things that ellevated Bionicle over so many other children stories.

now, you might have noticed i said, and continue to say, early bionicle.

There is a reason for that.

and it ties into two very, specific turning points in the development of the story.

the big twist that Mata Nui was actually a giant robot was always going to be the center of everything, the explanation for all the wierd mysteries of the series. Even if his final form didnt end up being quite as big as this above concept piece made him out to be, the overall point stands.

The god of the Matorans was a gigantic robot, and his childrens proper place was inside of him, both to live their lives, and to serve as part of the great ecosystem that was the universe inside of mata nui.

Mata Nui the island, which he created for the Matoran to live on, was always a temporary thing, and their true destiny was him brining them back to "Paradise", aka the great planet of the solar system this story takes place in.

Spherus Magna. a planet that was broken into 3 before he left, and left a hellscape.

his original home that he left long ago.

Now, you might have noticed that i said not a word about what Mata Nui's backstory on said planet actually was.

The only thing that is important as it was originally portrayed, was that Mata nui left the planet for whatever reason, ended up on the water filled moon he currently rests on, and his brother followed him there from paradise.

now, you could create a scenario where there was some scientific, "Mundane" reason for all of this, but if you read this summary so far, the first thought in your mind is probably that what broke this planet into 3 pieces was probably related to something Mata Nui and Makuta, the two known gods of this universe, did. Maybe it is the reason why Makuta no longer has a body, and ended up on this moon in a much weakened form as basically a spirit who can only inhabit souless machine parts.

and im going to take a wild guess that this is probably what was originally planned... but you see, there was a shift at some point. actually on two points.

The first shift was at the very start of Bionicle as we know it, for the series was actually meant to only last 1 year. The toa would defeat makuta, then awaken Mata Nui, and that was that. The end.

However, Lego, who was at the verge of bankruptcy at the time, saw potential in the setting, and given it was a hail mary to save their company said "Screw it, lets expand on this universe!

and so the original one year story became 3 years.

now this artifical extension could have been disasterous, but unlike so many other similar tales, it was the exact opposite.

Mata nui the island got more fleshed out, the big mystery got more build up, the characters got to go through more development, both in the form of a kickass new upgrade, but also character arcs as a result of their power increase going to their head.

new villains, new places to go, new developments.

all leading up to the point where it was now decided that they would end the story. The arrival of the seventh toa of light, which would be where makuta was finally defeated, and at the end of the planned movie that would be the finale, mata nui would finally awaken.

Except this part didnt happen.

at the last moment, Lego essentially pulled the plug and decided to extend the series, and the point where they would reveal the big twist for a second time.

that said, the following storyline of the big flashback to explain metru nui was always going to happen, its just that as originally envisioned, this would be a flashback as the Toa, Turaga and Matoren traveled to Metru nui, as Mata Nui was flying through space back to spherus magna.

So essentially the story was over, but lego got to get one more line of bionicle toys out of it, while the bionicle team got to have fun one more time.

But thats not what happened, as not only did mata nui not awaken(it would take 3 more storylines past this point before that happened), but the big flashback was where everything went wrong so to say.

this is where bionicle shifted hard from a story trying to be a myth with very clear religious and spiritual overtones, into full on sci-fi.

and you can tell that shift occured very clearly as they abandoned all their original plans for how metru nui was supposed to look like in the poster above, showing the very alien like enviornment that was mata nui's insides, into the far more boring and safe(as well as full on science fiction) setting in the poster below.

now im not going to say that everything that came after this point was bad, far from it, there was a lot of really awesome stuff that happened afterwards, but it was the critical turning point where Bionicle steered away from the essence that made it more than just another toyline, an attempt at creating a myth that while it had sci-fi aspects, was ultimately a story of faith, destiny, and trying to find ones place in the universe, into just another sci-fi story.

Basically you can sum it up as the point where mata nui went from a god who was also a giant robot, into just a giant robot.

and man, does it make the lore, and tone a mess.

while the new universe does make logical sense, it lacks the soul(pun very much intended) of what made bionicle, bionicle.

and you know what the really sad thing is?

The final part of the story, where Mata Nui is FINALLY awakened, only to lose his own body, and find himself trapped in his mask as its launched into space before crashing back on the shattered planet that he came from, could so easily have fit into this mythical storytelling.

what actually happens is that mata nui learns he was actually just a giant robot created by some scientis in a lab 100 000 years ago to travel the cosmos, learn about the universe, then come back and fix the broken planet. then he repairs his own, unstable, proto type body that wasnt really working out, makuta senses him and follows him, they duke it out, mata nui kills him, then uses the last of his energy to fix the planet, before dying. oh, also rather than being his actual brother, makuta was actually just a computer program mata nui created. and Makuta isnt even his real name. his actual name is Teridax. im not kidding. oh and the actual thing that destroyed the world? it was a fight amongst some tribesmen using the resident dues ex machina substance that began oozing from the planet's core. again, im not kidding.

here is how you could easily fix it, while keeping in the same tone with what was suggested in the first three years about makuta and mata nui's origins.

The exiled and humbled divine being, cast from heaven, and forced to wander the world he himself played a role in wrecking so long ago, as he travels across the world, and befriends the people he essentially left behind to create the matoran in a better place, rather than fix the mess he, ironically enough given his defining attribute, created.

basically a bionicle take on the atonement/labors of hercules.

and then, having wracked his brain on how to solve the problem of his brother having taken control over his own body, he stumbles upon the solution.

his brother's own, broken, non-active body, which after their ancienct, and catacylsmic clash his brother left behind to follow him to the ocean moon.

and so his journey becomes to essentially take a page out of his brothers book, and do what he did to him in reverse. Repair the mighty body of a god, and then take contrel over it.

after the great journey of hardship and pain, now comes the ressurection before ragnarok, the final battle.

see how easy it is to rewrite this story about what is essentially two computer programs fighting over different continent sized bodies into a story about gods fighting a thematic and climactic showdown on the ruins of a planet they themselves wrecked to pieces to begin with?

but of course the story has to end, and it ends on a note tying into the original message. you cannot create, withouth destruction coming first, and so to win this conflict, mata nui has to destroy something. himself.

His own body.

Like any good jesus analogue, he gives his own life in a sense, as he chooses to give up on the possibility of regaining his own body and with it, regaining his true power and goodhood for the sake of the future of his people and this planet, driving his own skull into the oncoming moon that served as his home for all these years.

and with his final bit of power as his brother's dying body begins to give up on life, he spends the last moments of godhood to do what he, the god of creation should have done from the start. fix the mess he and makuta left behind.

putting the massive planet back together into one whole, while also terraforming it into the green wonder it used to be.

then, we end the story as we began. with a prophecy, where Mata Nui predicts before his toa, as his spirit returns to slumber once again that he will return, but for now, they must make their way forward withouth him, in this new world, that they now must make their own destiny here on the Paradise he promised them so long ago.

I dont know about you, but i think that would have been a lot more interesting that desperately trying to rewrite the entire setting to be full sci-fi because you didnt want to continue with the spiritual and religious themes that you never managed to shake off anyway.

mind you, it's not impossible to have this kind of twist and make a good story about it, but when you commit to telling what is essentially a religious tale that is basically the coming of christ, Ragnarok, the exodus, and the eternal kingdom on earth into one, you are not going to be able to swerve into making it full on sci-fi withouth it feeling, really, really jarring.

And guess what? it makes Bionicle Lore feel really, really jarring. Or iffy as you put it.

[velvetvexations]

AND ANOTHER THING!

People talk a lot about how very very early Golden Age Superman initially attacked abuses of structural power but I really need you to understand how completely weirdly unusual that was at the time.

I've read a fuck-dozen of comics from the 30s through the 60s and almost every single one of them treats Crime, as a concept, as some kinna malevolent force equivalent to Satan and his legions of Hell, as though some people are just born evil and choose to make the lives of their good law-abiding neighbors harder to earn petty cash from numbers rackets. Supervillains in comic books were, for the longest time, just criminals who happen to be really flamboyant about it, they're muggers, jewel thieves, bank robbers. Once in a blue moon one might be ambitious enough to try taking over the world, in which case they're cast in the same mold as Napoleon Bonaparte and the way Western media treated Hitler before the true scale of the Holocaust became known, sometimes buffoonish bullies who need a good kick to the seat of their pants.

Now that's so antiquated that Catwoman is an unrepentant thief and this doesn't really stop her from literally marrying Bruce much less teaming up with him. Some supervillains may still have profit motive, but generally speaking the drama is no longer "how will we get the Hope Diamond back from that dastardly arch-fiend?". But back then, to have Superman going after war profiteers and slumlords was hugely different to anything before or for a very long time after. It's a shame it was forgotten so fast.

[centrally-unplanned]

@pareorogas showing pictures of a contemporaneous report on the first and second ever Comikets by some of its organizers, a very good find!

All...handwritten Japanese text with occasional crazy fonts and vertical-row alignment. Just great for efficient OCR'ing so I can translate it, really easy to do, very nice.

Something you may have heard before is that the first Comikets were female-dominated - and that is true, this confirms that. You may also have heard that is due to things like the popularity of the Gundam franchise, a series showcasing male heroes and anti-heroes; something that the fujoshis were "all upons", to say the least. I'm sure that would be true later, but the first Comiket was in December of 1975 - Gundam didn't come out until 1979. Space Battleship Yamato had only just aired the year before, genre anime for adults was very new. The more likely explanation is the one highlighted here - that this was a manga-franchises-first event, manga was just bigger amoung women at the time given the shoujo boom, and most importantly the event was advertised in a shoujo magazine:

This ad appeared in Bessatsu Shojo Comic, and the article above notes that doujin of works by the mangaka Moto Hagio (who published in that magazine) were the most popular ones being sold. Additionally there was a screening of, if I have the details right here, a "Dynavision" fan animated short adapting Gynasium in November, a work by Hagio. That is a term the creators (chiefly Comiket co-founder Yoshihiro Yonezawa) used to describe essentially panning & moving images of stills from the manga. It was 1975, a souped-up PowerPoint presentation was impressive then and took a lot of work to make!

All of this is to say that the first Comiket had the vision of being a diverse collective of eclectic artists - and it was, for sure - but that vision was partially swamped by a bunch of fans for a few specific properties doing their own thing. The article strikes a very concerned tone throughout about this - it is worried Comiket will collapse into being a "shallow event" riding popular trends, as opposed to being something with a life of its own. The founders of Comiket want people to come for the craft of doujin itself, not for One Specific Thing that happens to be there. As such, they mark the event a success but hope that the circles can "turn things upside down", not rely on "gimmicks", and push Comiket farther in the future.

I think the record shows they will achieve that! But I would be interested in more coverage of the early ones to see how they got there.

That last page by the way includes a list of all the circles that participated - not sure if that information was easily accessible before, maybe it was, but I am certainly glad to have it now! Reviewing them you see the things you would expect, like the "Erotica Alliance" - banding together to fight for freedom! But one of them struck me personally:

Middle Earth Studios Foreign Comic Book Sale

So Lord of the Rings was translated into Japanese in 1972, it was very popular in Japan. But foreign comic book sales? So funnily enough, Rankin Bass - yes the American studio who made the claymation Christmas Specials - was making an adaptation of the Hobbit for release in 1977, and by "making" I mean they outsourced all of it to Japanese studio Topcraft. So that was being animated at this time, I wonder if there was some fan stuff going on there, and that is the "foreign"? Or maybe they just mean, you know, it is a foreign work, domestic comics about a foreign franchise.

But I would love to know if western LOTR fanzines were being sold at the first Comiket. I want to believe!

[gacha-incels]

after reading that last ask that actually talked about the games' story, i just. asker is okay! it just made me realise that this situation lowkey feels similar to JKR and HP.

im transmasc and autistic, and had pm games as a special interest prior to kjh showing his true colours. so seeing others continue on with playing and willingly give money? its just. yeah.

jkr harming trans people, kjh harming women, people who refuse to put down their works despite seeing how they continue to harm people because "theres nothing they can do about it" at best? idk where i was going with this but just. theres something to be said about separating art from the artist, the misuse of that term, and then how that misuse continues to fuel the artist's actions.

(... on the autistic part, its mainly me jabbing at those who refuse to put the games down. dunno if that made sense or not.)

I do find it ironic that there’s an overlap of people who will be very vocal about JK Rowling and boycotting anything Harry Potter related but still play Limbus Company while knowing everything that’s going on. like as soon as it’s something you actually enjoy being criticized and boycotted, suddenly you don’t give a fuck? suddenly you have all these excuses about playing a game that’s being actively boycotted by the very people its actions have harmed? as I said in the ask that you’re referring to, there are a lot of people that see themselves as “progressive” who simply do not view misogyny as a real issue, let alone one that significantly, violently affects half the world’s population. It’s sad enough to have to compare HP & LC in order to get westerners to care about what’s happening in South Korea.

There’s another sinister aspect of obfuscation westerners engage in when they react to limbus company and the pervasive misogyny in South Korea. People will write shit like “oh I don’t think we can understand what’s going on there, the culture is just way too different,” or “I don’t know much about this but (completely wrong information),” or “both sides are extremists!” It’s seductive language because it lets you off the hook for grappling with the morality of playing these games and it stops you from thinking about reality for women that live there. To many, these things are difficult so they just won’t think about it. It’s easier to “shut off your brain” and play games (a sentiment I saw repeated frequently in the limbus company subreddit and twitter). There are plenty of resources written by Korean women in both English and Korean that explain what’s happening, from journalists writing in a newspaper to someone writing about their experiences on their personal twitter or blog. To view them as some exoticized “other” whose culture you cannot understand is dehumanizing. like you, I find it frustrating to see people still engaging with the game, giddy about new gacha banners, etc. female Korean fans of PM/LC razed entire twitter accounts full of fanart and actively protest misogynist games and companies. monggeu (Leviathan) bravely told her story to the news regarding the working conditions at project moon, and Mimi (Wonderlab) took her entire commissioned comic down from Project Moon’s site. Meanwhile, western players can know all of this yet still play the game because they like to and it’s easy to keep playing. At some point it’s just shameful.

[olympeline]

FrUK FACE family Parent Trap AU, part 3! Part 1

So, Alfred and Matthew are cabin mates with a new and tentative understanding of each other. They still hang out with their old friends, but being together every night means they’re spending a lot of time together. And lo and behold, they actually start to like it? To like being around each other?? Whodathunkit! Their personalities seem so different at surface level, but it turns out they actually have a lot in common. A passion for sports, a love of the outdoors, similar tastes in movies, games, and comic books, and - of course - a childhood growing up with an expat single dad. It’s a surprise how easily and quickly Alfred and Mattie start to bond once they’ve taken the first shaky steps. Soon they’re choosing to spend time as a twosome outside cabin hours, without being asked. Eating together, playing, goofing off, being each other’s buddies for activities, it’s not long before they’re inseparable. BFFs in the making.

It happens so fast that others can’t help but notice the eerie similarities between the two of them. It was always in the background, but now it’s front and centre. Of course they start to notice as well and, now they’re past their antipathy, feel curiosity instead of hostility. Nothing really comes of it until one evening they’re hanging out together before lights out as usual, when Alfred casually brings up his dad. Mattie, cat curious, asks him about Arthur.

Alfred launches into a long, rambling account about Arthur Kirkland and their life together in New York. Matthew listens, very interested. He can tell that while Alfred complains a lot about his dad - his strictness about proper bedtimes, healthy eating, awful cooking, not too much screentime even though Alfred is basically already a pro-gamer! etc. etc. - he adores him. Alfred finishes, then asks Matthew about his papa and their life in Quebec. Mattie tells him all about Francis Bonnefoy in turn and Alfred is equally enthralled. Matthew doesn’t complain as much, though he does get a few good shots in about his papa’s fashion obsession and hatred of fast food (no Tim Hortons for Matthew!) Alfred can tell how much Matthew loves his papa.

Mattie finishes by telling Alfred about the fluffy, white puppy Francis bought him for his birthday, even though Francis isn’t the biggest fan of animals. All that fur shedded on his fancy furniture! Alfred is very jealous - their apartment doesn’t allow pets - but gets distracted when he realises Mattie has the same birthday he does. What a coincidence! Exciting, though. They can meet up and party together!

Matthew agrees. Then he hesitates and asks Alfred if he can ask him something personal. Alfred says shoot, bro. Mattie asks if Alfred’s other parent came to his birthday party. Alfred is quiet for a moment and Matthew worries he’s gone too far. He’s about to apologize and tell Alfred to forget it, when Alfred shrugs and shakes his head. He’s never met his other dad. Arthur refuses to talk about him, point blank. It’s one of the few times they’ve ever had truly heated fights beyond their normal spats.

Matthew listens quietly. Alfred asks him if he ever sees his other dad. Mattie tells him no: like Arthur, Francis stonewalls him whenever Mattie asks about his absent father. Mattie has never pushed it like Alfred did, but from Francis’s reaction, he could tell his papa would be angry if he did. Hurt, too. So hurt.

“So, we’re both the same,” Alfred says slowly. “Weird, huh?”

“Yeah,” Matthew says. “Really weird.”

Two boys, both the same age, both with Western European expat single dads, both with the same birthday, both with the same face.

They sit in silence for a while, pondering all these weird coincidences. Then, Alfred tells Mattie that it’s not strictly true that he knows nothing about his other dad: he knows what he looks like, or at least he thinks he does. Mattie asks him how. Alfred says he found a picture while snooping through his dad’s things. Buried deep at the bottom of a box in the loft was an old photo, dated to Arthur’s college days. There’s no name, just a date. The photo is of a handsome, blonde man, dressed in fashionable clothes, leaning in to kiss someone. It’s ripped violently down the middle, cutting off the other person. The stranger looks eerily like Alfred: the tousel of his hair, the tone of his skin, the shape of his ear and mouth. Finding the photo was one of the biggest shocks of Alfred’s life. He didn’t dare show Arthur for fear that Arthur would confiscate it but, even so, Alfred was certain he was looking at his other dad for the first time. He hid the photo and kept his new secret close to his heart.

Alfred doesn’t tell Mattie the mushy part, just all about his sick detective and ninja photo finding skills, but then he trails off at the look on Matthew’s face. The other boy is white as a sheet, looking like he’s about to faint. Alarmed, Alfred asks him what’s wrong.

“I have a photo of my other dad,” Matthew whispers. “And it’s ripped too.”

Alfred instantly feels dizzy, his mouth going dry.

“Right down the middle?” He falters, heart pounding.

Mattie nods.

“Right down the middle…”

Matthew found his photo by accident. Francis, flustered and running late one morning, had asked him to go fetch a folder of documents from his home office. Mattie ended up searching the wrong drawer, purely by chance, and happened to find the photo at the bottom. Again, there was no name, just a date. The date Mattie’s papa was at university. The photo is of a punkish, blonde man, dressed in spikes and leather, leaning in to kiss someone. It’s ripped violently down the middle, cutting off the other person. The stranger looks eerily like Matthew: the shape of his nose, his thick eyelashes, his slightly crooked smile. Finding the photo was one of the biggest shocks of Mattie’s life. He didn’t dare show Francis for fear that Francis would confiscate it but, even so, Mattie was certain he was looking at his other dad for the first time. He hid the photo and kept his new secret close to his heart.

“Do you have it with you…?” Alfred asks.

“Yes…”

Both boys stare at each other, then silently get up as one to dig the photos out of their things. Then they face each other and stare at the photo clutched to the other’s chest. Mattie’s not the only one trembling now.

“Can I see?” Alfred says.

Matthew nods.

“Can I?”

Alfred nods. He says they should both look together. Matthew agrees. They decide on three.

One…two…three!

Shaking hands flip the photos and put them together. The photo is whole again. Francis and Arthur at a university party, tipsy on both cheap mixers and the first flush of love, smiling and leaning in for a kiss.

(Here, I should take a moment to mention that this whole AU was heavily inspired by @kan-be’s beautiful art. In particular her college AU and pics like this this and this. This beauty in particular is how I picture the kiss photograph, just a few seconds earlier 🥰)

“That’s my dad!” Alfred yells.

“That’s my papa!” Mattie cries simultaneously.

“So-! S-so, we’re like brothers?” Alfred gabbles, heart racing and stomach a butterfly breeding ground.

Matthew has tears of joy in his eyes when he answers:

“Al, we’re like twins!”

Then there’s laughter, hugs, and more tears than Mattie, and certainly not Alfred, would ever admit to.

(Stay tuned for part 4! (´ε｀ )♡)