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muchalucha-art · 1 year ago

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La Familia Gonzales*

*or...The Speedy That Never Was :)

I always get a bit skeptical when an animator colleague gushes to me that they have 'just signed a development deal with...(insert studio/network/company name here)'.

What may sound like a step into the animation big time is basically a studio throwing some loose change at an artist to see what sticks. And even if something does stick, there's no guarantee that anything will move forward. In my short, eventful heyday in the early 2000s I had four: Jive Turkey, Super/Superior Pets, Krypto, Rocquita...oh and the one I blocked, the Mucha Lucha! feature development deal. Okay, FIVE!

Add one more to that, the 'now-you-see-it-now it's gone' LA FAMILIA GONZALES.

Some history. Somehow, WB Animation's go-to network Kids' WB had (mis)managed to lose it's coveted Saturday morning slot and crashed and burned. Not sure how you go from topping the broadcast ratings to being a defunct in less than two years since Mucha Lucha! ceased production, but there you go. It does take a special talent to achieve this.

So after this, WB Animation sought to work exclusively to the one network option open to them, and so collaborated with Cartoon Network on a revamp of Speedy Gonzales.

Apparently a bunch of well known people were brought in to pitch their ideas, but none of them resonated with WB or CN. So I guess in desperation, WB suddenly remembered they knew a couple of artists who actually had produced a latino-inspired show with them previously, and a call to Lili Chin and Eddie Mort was made.

To cut a long rant short, we came up with the idea of Speedy's extended family running a hotel in Mexico. WB loved it. CN loved it, and a deal was made. We got as far as a rough cast, some character descriptions and some episode outlines before a new WB Prez took power and canned everything. And that was my sixth animation development deal!

Here's some cut and paste ideas we were working on...

He’s still the fastest mouse in all of Mexico, and still the friend of everyone’s sister (hey, he’s a good listener), but there is more to Speedy Gonzales.

Every wondered where Speedy is or what he is doing before he is called on to dispose of evil gatos? Well wonder no more. Ahora, presentamos ...

LA FAMILIA GONZALES

Ah, El Baldío Baja a bustling border town host to all manner of mercados, fiestas and mice living life to the fullest. But just beyond, that – a little further, (Stop – not that far – now you have to go back across the border!) are the badlands, where preying gatos, conniving coyotes, opportunistic crows and the self- proclaimed Don Vulturo stake out their turf. Yes, welcome to No Rata del Rambla, a no-mouse’s land on the Mexican border.

But amidst the danger from these unsavory characters stands a oasis for the weary and threatened traveler – La Casa de Gonzales, a hotel run by Speedy’s mama, (which was previously run my her mama, and her mama’s mama’s mama, and…well you get it). A sanctuary and half-way house in the truest sense, La Casa has been a dependable rest stop and comfort zone for years

Protected by a maze of twisted, spiky, cacti and gato-eating plants (cultivated by Speedy’s bruja aunt Mistica) that only Speedy and his family can guide you through – La Casa de Gonzales is a welcome respite. Providing you can make it there.

But if getting to La Casa de Gonzales is a wild ride, wait until you arrive inside. In residence is one of the most diverse and extended families you will find. Meet the Gonzales family and their immediate relatives, the Morales clan. And like Speedy, each member possesses a special talent that makes he or she the…insert talent here…mouse in Mexico! That’s right – La Familia Gonzales is a family of superlatives!

And then there are the guests; all manner of wayward tourists, fugitives, hustlers, and the occasional lost iguana desperate for a hot blanket and a leafy salad. La Casa de Gonzales has them all; from the long term residents, to the random blow-ins – and the mysterious hombre in room seis seis seis, who no one has ever seen, and has been living there before Speedy’s mama, or her mama’s mama, or her…(well, you get it) was running the hotel.

Hmmm…maybe his identity will be revealed at episode 26?

Most of the stories in La Familia Gonzales come from within and are multi layered. They center on each of the family’s different personalities and talents and how they play off and sometimes conflict with one another.

There are also the elements of outside danger and occasional episode-specific hotel guests, which serve as the ‘B’ plot lines to each episode’s familia-centric ‘A’ story.

And there is Speedy’s underlying obligation as defender of the mice of El Baldío Baja; add this to his responsibilities to his family’s business, and his need to be a ‘big brother’ to just about everyone in the hotel, and you have the basis for many diverse situations.

#speedy gonzales

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ducktracy · 7 months ago

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What are some of your favorite blog reviews you've done?

OHHHH THIS IS A GOOD QUESTION!!! i actually have more of an objective answer this time around. "there "any short covering my favorite" is the short, broad answer, but i have to say that my reviews for Porky's Last Stand (unsubtle plug), You Ought to be in Pictures (unsubtle plug), and Notes to You (unsubtle plug) are some of the ones i take the most pride in

these are all shorts i love to the moon and back and back again and am very very intimate with, so i'm able to present a more passionate and interesting analysis for that reason. Pictures is a pretty well known short, but i really enjoyed carving into the Porky and Daffy dynamic in that one and presenting what about this super well known short i think works so well. especially because i think.. in regarding character development with that short, Daffy gets talked about the most because it's the first short where he's substantially greedy and how that's pretty prophetic, but i think it's actually a short much better advocated for Porky's characterization instead! he has a really grounded and mature presence in this one that is really the first time we've seen him like this. the short has his sympathy the entire way through. and i think most people don't realize that, which is why i'm fond of my review for that one in that i feel i was able to demonstrate that POV

Last Stand and Notes hit similar success points. i've seen Notes outright get called a bad cartoon and i don't think most people even know Last Stand exists, which should both be criminal offenses. Last Stand especially was very fun to do because, outside of it being one of my favorite shorts ever made, i was able to really dive deep and demonstrate why i love that so much and that it offers so much more than what seems to be on the surface. i haven't seen many people give that short the time of day, and so it was refreshing to give that little "sales pitch"

same with Notes. Back Alley Oproar has rendered it obsolete, but i think Notes has so many things in it that make it a worthwhile cartoon, and there are a lot of things i like that it does BETTER than Oproar (that isn't just my pig bias speaking. but Sylvester's one of my absolute favorites too so the competition is relatively fair!) i felt like i was actually able to present a new point of view with my Notes review, that i was able to give an argument as to why i feel the way i do about it

SO I GUESS REALLY all my favorites are the ones i feel i really had something to say about them and could use them as a manifesto of sorts HAHA. analyses that i think could convincingly convince (convincingly) people to give those shorts a taste for themselves and see it in a new light if they didn't like it/had a preconceived notion before, or just introduce the short to them entirely

#anonymous #asks #there's a lot of Porky bias right now but i swear the duck bias will come and we're on the cusp of it already #all the Daffy shorts i am like. soulfully indebted to are a leeeettle later in the mid 40s which we're just approaching kinda almost #whereas all my favorite Porkys are usually earlier on so i have more examples to show now as it stands

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capnportofficial · 1 year ago

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Clumsy Smurf has autism

(originally posted as a blog post on the Smurfs Fanon Wiki, now reposted onto my Tumblr.)

A. PERSISTENT DEFICITS IN SOCIAL COMMUNICATION AND SOCIAL INTERACTION ACROSS CONTEXTS, NOT ACCOUNTED FOR BY GENERAL DEVELOPMENTAL DELAYS, AND MANIFEST BY 3 OF 3 SYMPTOMS

A1. Deficits in social‐emotional reciprocity; ranging from abnormal social approach and failure of normal back and forth conversation through reduced sharing of interests, emotions, and affect and response to total lack of initiation of social interaction.

Poor social imitation

The example for "poor social imitation" is "failure to engage in simple social games." Clumsy Smurf has difficulty figuring out what other Smurfs are doing and going along with it. He's often seen being confused by the other Smurfs' behavior, and not quite fitting in.

A2. Deficits in nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction; ranging from poorly integrated‐ verbal and nonverbal communication, through abnormalities in eye contact and body‐language, or deficits in understanding and use of nonverbal communication, to total lack of facial expression or gestures.

Abnormal volume, pitch, intonation, rate, rhythm, stress, prosody or volume in speech

This mostly applies to the 1980s cartoon. Clumsy Smurf's voice in the 1980s cartoon has unusual intonation and rhythm.

Abnormalities in use and understanding of affect (note: responsive social smile should be considered under A1, while affect that is inappropriate for the context should be considered under A3)

One of the examples offered for "abnormalities in use and understanding of affect" is "inability to recognize or interpret other's nonverbal expressions." I am not quite sure how to describe how this applies to Clumsy, but it does.

A3. Deficits in developing and maintaining relationships, appropriate to developmental level (beyond those with caregivers); ranging from difficulties adjusting behavior to suit different social contexts through difficulties in sharing imaginative play and in making friends to an apparent absence of interest in people.

Difficulties adjusting behavior to suit social contexts

One of the examples offered for "difficulties adjusting behavior to suit social contexts" is "unaware of social conventions/appropriate social behavior; asks socially inappropriate questions or makes socially inappropriate statements." This is something Clumsy does a lot. I can quote multiple moments from the 1980s cartoon alone- "Gosh, Brainy, your trap is the most terrible of all!" "You've already written enough books for two brilliant careers!" etc. In Smurfs: The Lost Village, he does this quite a lot as well- telling Smurfstorm that Gargamel made Smurfette, speaking out loud ("Isn't this exciting?") when the Smurfs are supposed to be being quiet and stealthy, impulsively yelling out "I RODE A DRAGONFLY!" to Papa.

Difficulties in making friends

One of the examples offered for "difficulties in making friends" is "does not play with children his/her age or developmental level (only older/younger)." Clumsy does have a few friends his age. But in multiple episodes with the Smurflings, he's seen just hanging out with them and they like him a lot more than they do the other adult Smurfs. They seem to see him as a friend, rather than a boring adult, despite his age.

Another example offered for "difficulties in making friends" is "has an interest in friendship but lacks understanding of the conventions of social interaction (e.g extremely directive or rigid; overly passive)." This fits Clumsy's relationship with Brainy perfectly. Brainy is incredibly directive and rigid and bossy, and Clumsy is overly passive. In The Smurfiest Of Friends, Clumsy also leaves a party thrown for him in order to go find Brainy, leaving his other friends behind in favor of the friend who said he didn't like him anymore.

B. RESTRICTED, REPETITIVE PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR, INTERESTS, OR ACTIVITIES AS MANIFESTED BY AT LEAST 2 OF 4 SYMPTOMS:

B1. Stereotyped or repetitive speech, motor movements, or use of objects; (such as simple motor stereotypies, echolalia, repetitive use of objects, or idiosyncratic phrases).

Stereotyped or repetitive speech

One of the examples for "stereotyped or repetitive speech" is "repetitive vocalizations such as repetitive guttural sounds, intonational noise‐making, unusual squealing, repetitive humming." In the 1980s cartoon, Clumsy Smurf makes a lot of non-word noises in reaction to things. He also, more relevantly, has a habit of singing and humming to himself while doing things. All the Smurfs sing the Smurfs song, but Clumsy sings and hums more than the others, making up his own little songs that are only heard for brief periods of time in one episode each.

Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements

One of the examples offered for "stereotyped or repetitive motor movements" is "repetitive hand movements (e.g., clapping, finger flicking, flapping, twisting)." In the 1980s cartoon, Clumsy makes a lot of repetitive hand movements to express emotions. When he's happy, he claps, flaps his arms up and down (flapping one's arms up and down is the most stereotypical stim out there, and he is shown doing it in his model sheet for the 1980s cartoon), and pulls on his hat.

Another one of the examples offered for "stereotyped or repetitive motor movements" is "stereotyped or complex whole body movements (e.g., foot to foot rocking, dipping, & swaying; spinning)." When happy in The Secret Of The Village Well, Clumsy Smurf jumps up and down while clapping. In the episode Clumsy In Command, while thinking, he gently bonks himself on the head with the purple pandyroot stick, and doesn't seem to be aware that he's doing this. In Smurfs: The Lost Village, when he gets really stressed out in the caves, he curls up into a ball and starts rocking back and forth.

Another one of the examples offered for "stereotyped or repetitive motor movements" is "abnormalities of posture (e.g., toe walking; full body posturing)." In the 1980s Smurfs series, Clumsy's natural standing posture is different enough from the other Smurfs that it's pointed out in his model sheet. His legs are straighter, he leans back a bit, his shoulders are held a little higher, his hands are more splayed out, and his smile is wider.

Stereotyped or repetitive use of objects

One of the examples offered for "stereotyped or repetitive use of objects" is "nonfunctional play with objects (waving sticks; dropping items." In All The News That's Fit To Smurf, Clumsy states that he enjoys picking up his rocks and dropping them in order to hear the sound that they make.

B2. Excessive adherence to routines, ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior, or excessive resistance to change; (such as motoric rituals, insistence on same route or food, repetitive questioning or extreme distress at small changes).

Adherence to routine

Another example offered for "adherence to routine" is "unusual routines." Clumsy Smurf keeps things clean, like, a weird amount. He washes every rock he finds after he gets it (Papa's Wedding Day), washes his rock collection routinely (Jokey's Cloak). In The Comet Is Coming, he took a bath when he thought the world was going to end because he had to be clean for the big event- even though it doesn’t really matter if you’re slightly dirty at the end of the world. The example in The Comet Is Coming cannot be explained by his low intelligence, as he was under the effect of the intelligence serum at the time.

Rigid thinking

One of the examples offered for "rigid thinking" is "inability to understand nonliteral aspects of speech such as irony or implied meaning." This is a very common thing that Clumsy does. He doesn't understand when other Smurfs are being sarcastic or rhetorical, and he doesn't understand metaphors. In the episode The Astrosmurf, he responds to Brainy's metaphorical and rhetorical question of "Where were you when brains were handed out?" with the very genuine answer of "Gee, I dunno. Maybe I was with you, huh, Brainy?" In the episode The Littlest Giant, he doesn't understand the metaphor "Size is a relative thing." ("Uh, gee, Papa Smurf, I see now what you mean. Size is a relative thing." "Very astute, Clumsy." "Uh, yeah, it's a good thing Simon has big relatives!")

B3. Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus; (such as strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests).

One of the examples offered for B3 is "interests that are abnormal in intensity." Another example offered for B3 is "preoccupations; obsessions." Both of these apply to Clumsy Smurf's rock collection in the 1980s cartoon. Clumsy Smurf collects rocks, he loves his rock collection, and it seems to be his main interest. In multiple episodes, other Smurfs see rocks and think of Clumsy- in The Comet Is Coming, Papa Smurf tosses a rock into a pond, and Sassette says "I hope Clumsy didn't need that rock for his collection"; and in Poet's Writer's Block, Poet tells the Wildebeasts to leave his goodbye letter under a rock, because he knows Clumsy will find it if it's under a rock. In Papa's Flying Bed, when Clumsy falls asleep and his dreams start controlling the bed, reminding him of Greedy's cooking or Smurfette doesn't do anything, but reminding him of his rock collection immediately makes him start dreaming about it. I repeat, it was easier to make him dream about his rock collection than it was to make him dream about Smurfette, the girl who he has a crush on.

B4. Hyper‐or hypo‐reactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of environment; (such as apparent indifference to pain/heat/cold, adverse response to specific sounds or textures, excessive smelling or touching of objects, fascination with lights or spinning objects).

One of the examples offered for B4 is "in all domains of sensory stimuli (sound, smell, taste, vestibular, visual), consider: atypical and/or persistent focus on sensory input." In A Bell For Azrael, he gets so distracted by the sound of bells that he nearly gets run over by a cart, and then gets so distracted by the sound of bells again that he completely ignores Brainy.

C. Symptoms must be present in early childhood (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities)

We cannot apply this to Clumsy because we don't see much of him as a child, but from what we do see, he seems to have been the same as he is now, just smaller and quieter.

D. Symptoms together limit and impair everyday functioning.

Clumsy Smurf's symptoms limit his ability to communicate with the other Smurfs, as he often doesn't understand what they're saying. His difficulties with friendship cause him to be easily manipulated by Brainy. Being distracted by the bells in A Bell For Azrael nearly got him killed.

Other

Edited to add after I found a PDF of the full DSM-V: According to the DSM-V, "Many individuals with autism spectrum disorder also have intellectual impairment and/or language impairment (e.g., slow to talk, language comprehension behind production). Even those with average or high intelligence have an uneven profile of abilities. The gap between intellectual and adaptive functional skills is often large. Motor deficits are often present, including odd gait, clumsiness, and other abnormal motor signs (e.g., walking on tiptoes)."

In conclusion

In conclusion, Clumsy Smurf can probably be diagnosed as autistic in official canon Smurfs media using the DSM-V diagnostic criteria for autism. He doesn't have nearly as much supporting evidence as Brainy does, but he does fit the criteria.

#txt #smurfs #the smurfs #clumsy smurf #autistic clumsy

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thesparkwhowalks · 9 months ago

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OK, I wrote a whole-ass blog post about this for work last year (to celebrate Power Rangers' 30th anniversary) but that's tied to my real name and employer so here's the anonymyized, me-centric version: I am very much the person that I am today thanks to this woman:

That is Margaret Loesch. Buckle up, this one's a long-ass history lesson.

To start, we have to go all the way back to 1978. Japanese film studio Toei partnered with Marvel to create Spiderman, an adaptation of Marvel's de-facto mascot. To say it departed from the source material is an understatement: hip young motorcyclist Takuya Yamashiro gains spider powers and a giant, kaiju fighting robot from a dying alien and protects Japan from the invading Professor Monster and his Iron Cross Army.

It came out the same year as an American live action Spider-Man TV show. The Japanese one was a hit, the American one flopped. Moreover, Stan fucking Lee, co-creator of Spider-Man, preferred the Japanese one. So the Marvel/Toei partnership continued. They co-produced three seasons of Toei's Sentai series, renamed Super Sentai thanks to the addition of giant robots. And Stan Lee liked that too, and pitched an American adaptation to TV networks. Well, he and his second in command at Marvel Productions: Margaret Loesch.

There were no takers. It just wasn't what the Saturday Morning TV market was looking for. So Stan and Margaret started working on their next big pitch: an X-Men cartoon! The team had gone from an also-ran to Marvel Comics' top seller in the previous decade, so it made sense to them to bring it to TV screens alongside the likes of Spider-Man and The Hulk.

A few abortive attempts, including a couple of backdoor pilots on Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends, were made. The most famous was the "Pryde of the X-Men" TV special (executive producer: Margaret Loesch) that the company self-produced and aired sometimes with their syndicated Marvel Action Universe block.

Still, no takers. It would prove to be Loesch's last big project with Marvel, as she was offered a new job as the head of the brand-new Fox Kids network.

One of her first acts in office was commissioning the creation of an X-Men animated series. Not only did she genuinely see the potential in what she'd spent so many years developing, Marvel's nascent partnership with Toy Biz meant the X-Men were already a hit on toy store shelves.

The show was a hit (hence the revival starting next week) and the network's programming kept expanding. Haim Saban, whose company had been hired to produce XTAS, pitched her an idea he'd been working on since the mid-80s: an American adaptation of Toei's Super Sentai TV series.

Needless to say, Loesch saw the value in that too and took a chance on the idea. The result was Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers, which was in nearly constant production for thirty full years.

Batman: Animated Series, Spider-Man: The Animated Series, and The Tick all debuted during her tenure at Fox Kids. I don't know that I've ever seen it articulated this way, but the woman clearly believed that superheroes could be profitable again (the Smurfs/Snorks style kinda ruled the roost in children's programming at the end of the 80s) if they were done properly. And she was right.

My love of Batman, The X-Men, and the Power Rangers are the result of this woman's choices in shaping my childhood. Though she's not going to get any official credit, it's pretty appropriate that X-Men '97 is set to debut in Women's History Month because the original show was the leading edge of a wave of boy's action television that defined the childhoods of millions of millennials and it was put on the air by a woman.

#power rangers #super sentai #spider-man #x-men #fox kids #margaret loesch #90s #90s cartoons #mighty morphin power rangers #pop culture #pop culture history #90s trash checking in

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hydralisk98 · 6 months ago

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LinkedLists in Lisp Machines and the power of "Parentheses & Macros" (0x1D/?)

16^12 sideline thread follow-up to this article:

But yeah, lets chat some about amazing features of the 16^12 simulationist setting, its virtual realms' and a couple more components worth talking about as the aspie I am.

While '(expt 16 12) is also a topical info-dumping mechanism, a personal worldview expose, a manifestation toybox and so much more, this whole... paracosm I invented really has started as a reaction to a couple trends I observed in mainstream multimedia during my childhood, like 2000s movies' X-Men, Halo 2, Godzilla & documentaries I used to watch regularly. As the hobbyist historian I am inside, I fantasized about distant future character scenarios where one persistent OC (initially called Nexus) and a few more corrected events in movies and stuff and that kinda thread-mill carries onto me even now but in further abstracted ways.

Now the premise is that Jana (new name for such a mothfolk construct INTJ individual) studies and supervises long-running history simulations at the dusk of time itself (black holes epoch - iron stars aka way farther in time towards heat death) around some Matrioshka Brain with less and less of her peers sticking around. And as the one constant android remaining in this facility, she is slowly granted & gifted the responsibility to log, to archive, to supervise... in the search for a solution to entropy, which does lay directly within their bare hands. (kinda Rags to Riches for sapient computers & with some supplemental esoteric aspects attached as well to emulate the cycle / circle of life trope) Calling that rendering of the trope as "GitWorld Power Escalation" ^*^

Which does grant my half-speculative setting plenty of possibility room while retaining key positive / constructive elements across various different simulations in very immersive manners... And yeah, I will be going over some more themes & specifics too within these reality hexagon instances (taking hints from the Library of Babel / Memex & some neuroscience video here) quite soon as their planning / implementation / manifestation is going to be very interesting to see unfold on live-streams and whatever other media forms I wanna explore.

The "Servitor" speculative fiction project is only one curated narrative among many set within one such reality hexagon, with Kate & Ava being agents inside such virtual context windows. Will try my best to keep you all updated on its progress, it has been slower than I would like but it is moving forth well enough.

Anyways, back to how I look forward to use & customize Steel Bank Common Lisp to develop my way towards sapient synthetic-tier android peers... Will write that in a later article in the thread, I swear.

Checklist of key stage-1 tasks left for a 16^12 MVP

Write Ava Character RefSheet

Write Kate Character RefSheet

Write Jana Character RefSheet

Write Tano Character RefSheet

Develop "Maskoch", the woodland town where Kate comes from

Develop the Shoshoni major cities, especially the one where Ava & Kate reside

Develop the Matrioshka Brain structure's rooms

Develop "Servitor" narrative novel outline

Augment the cartoon pitch slideshow

Solidify the worldbuilding / lore systemically for the live-streaming feeds

Experiment & draft the cohesive systems at play for the copyleft worldly simulations

Prepare several short demonstrations (interactive or not) to show not tell my setting guide

Compile the inspirations into a few pitch points as per the Gygax75 guide first stage

Curate my useful learning resources into proper topics, priorities / with a "Pomodoro-driven Kanban board" to get a micro-learning daily habit going strong.

Optimize, clean, polish & peer-review what remains to be done for the next stages of the process

#maskoch #16^12 #maskutchew

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pandamic04 · 9 months ago

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Platformer Elevator Pitch

The first test game I will be developing is a platformer. In order to create an elevator pitch, I need to first understand how my game will function and its mechanics. From the lectures, workshops and readings from IGB120, I understand in order to create a successful game, I must take a player-centric approach when designing. A game without good gameplay will cause players to lose interest even if it has amazing graphics.

This is why when approaching this game developing task I must consider the core mechanics like the movement and layout of the game.

The Elevator Pitch

This platformer will follow the classic themes of many others with running, jumping and stomping on enemies similar to the classic Mario games. The unique mechanic I plan on implementing is a way to increase and decrease the size of the player to navigate certain areas and puzzles. Think of it as Ant-man in Mario.

The player's role and objective.

The player will be playing as an elf navigating, trying to find their way back home.

The setting.

A dark and eerie forests that give the player a feeling of being watched.

The player's reward.

A scoring system will show their points depending on what they do as well as a sound effect every time they pick up items that grant them points or special items.

Google Images: spooky cartoon elven forest. From https://img.freepik.com/free-photo/spooky-forest-mystery-dark-tree-branch-fantasy-generative-ai_188544-12556.jpg?size=626&ext=jpg&ga=GA1.1.1700460183.1708214400&semt=ais

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sometipsygnostalgic · 3 years ago

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“What Was Missing” to “Obsidian”- 10 years of LGBT representation in cartoons

Guys, it’s been 10 years since What Was Missing aired.

Any Adventure Time fan knows what this is, but any cartoon fan needs to understand what Was Missing is the reason there was a big push for LGBT characters in kid’s cartoons. I’m not sure just how far its influence goes, but it possibly had a strong impact on the western LGBT movement as a whole - how gay people were seen in online spaces, at least, before and after this dropped in 2011 is very different.

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Back when Rebecca Sugar was a young storyboarder on Adventure Time, they were very keyed in to internet fandom culture. It was late enough that LGBT shipping and activism was becoming increasingly dominant, but early enough that LGBT characters in media were almost nonexistent, with children’s media in particular avoiding even the most background of gays. Even adult’s media tended to reserve LGBT characters as sexualisation or comic relief. Rebecca thought it would be interesting to try something on AT:

Sugar: Okay, well looking back on everything, I'm really proud of what we were able to do with the characters of Garnet and Ruby and Sapphire. It really goes all the way back to the time I spent on Adventure Time and when I got a chance to do some of the earlier episodes with Marceline and Bubblegum. This was 2010 so Don't Ask Don't Tell was still a national policy. It would be half a decade before same-sex marriage was legal in The United States and I wanted to do something with the characters of Marceline and Bubblegum but figure out how to get it on TV. The strategy at the time that I pitched was that because they're both centuries-old, millenniums-old, had a relationship sometime in the past and they're unpacking that in a way that would be apparent. That was the only way to be able to do something with these characters and their relationship on screen. As I was entering my show, I really wanted to find a way to be able to show characters actively in a relationship happening in real-time

When “What WAs Missing” aired, it was a week after “Fionna and Cake”, one of the most hyped up episodes of the series. Everyone found out about the names Natasha Allegri and Rebecca Sugar, and it seemed like AT was a series with a strong passion for fandom, very modern.

When the preview above aired, a few days before the episode, there were SO MANY EYES on it left over from Fionna and Cake. People IMMEDIATELY caught onto the romantic subtext in Marceline’s song. It strongly implies Marceline and Bubblegum had a bit more going on between them than a simple friendship gone sour. Marceline’s feelings of resentment towards her ex girlfriend not seeing her as good enough were utterly transparent. At least to anyone keyed into the character.

Unfortunately, it was not direct. And because of what happened next, it wasn’t going to be, for the next 7 years.

The “Mathematical!” Controversy

So have you ever heard of Frederator’s “Mathematical!” Podcast, where they posted Adventure Time animatics and modelsheets and discussed episodes? No? That’s because Fred Seibert had it wiped off the internet after they dropped their “What Was Missing” video.

For context, Frederator is the production studio that is responsible for helping Pen develop his show and pitch it to Cartoon Network. They partnered up with Cartoon Network to produce Adventure Time, and had the right to share any non-classified documents. Frederator used to post storyboards for every episode, until season 5, when they studdenly stopped. I’m not sure if this is due to a change in their terms with Cartoon Network, or if Fred just stopped, but there are no storyboards uploaded for anything between “Finn the Human” and “Apple Wedding”, which is when Adam and Steve opened up @kingofooo.

Anyway, “Mathematical!” aired for the first 10 episodes of Season 3. It was fan oriented, like the videos about “Bravest Warriors” and “Bee and Puppycat” that Frederator used to share. It was directed by a gentleman called Dan Rickmers, and spoken more from the perspective of fans rather than anyone “in the know” about what the writers were intended. This part is important.

When “What Was Missing” dropped, Dan decided to have the presenter talk about the romantic subtext in the episode. The podcast points it out clear for everyone to see:

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So, they drop this podcast, suggest Marcy has feelings for PB, show off the now-famous Natasha Allegri’s crew art of the pairing, and ask everyone to ring in what their thoughts are about them getting together. And SWEET JESUS, this caused an explosion. Word got around fast, specifically here on Tumblr back when it was the most active fansite on the internet. Frederator recieved MOUNTAINS of phone calls. Mostly? Overwhelming support. But also, unfortunately, a lot of strongly worded complaints. Some from the AT crew themselves.

Adam Muto, storyboarder on the ep and future showrunner of AT when the ship was finally canonized, was particularly bitter. He said the following when asked about the podcast:

If it was just a fan video there would be no problem at all.

The problem was that it was made by a production company actively involved with the show.

The video took something that was a possible subtext and declared it, in effect, text and made it seem like the production was actively seeking out input on plot development.

......To be clear, besides Falling under the Frederator umbrella, the people who put together those recaps have no connection with our production. The last “Mathematical!” recap was unnecessarily sensationalistic. “Thumbs up for subtext” was a gaudy touch too.

Adam has never had any love for non-crew input on the show being mistaken as canon, but I have to be honest, considering he allegedly knew the truth of the pairing and was directly responsible for the subtext, his words here seem.... deeply confusing. Sensationalistic? How??? For pointing out a canon plot thread in your show??? Seems like Adam was salty that suddenly everyone had this much attention on AT for its gay characters.

Dan, the podcast director, responded to everything with this post on tumblr. He defended his video, clarified it’s a fan podcast

Let’s talk about this whole Bubbleine thing. I direct the Adventure Time fan videos and episode recaps at Mathematical, and there’s some stuff going on about Cartoon Network and censorship. I think fanfics and shipping and LGBT relationships are AWESOME. Seriously. Personally, I also think Bubbleine is adorable and definitely my OTP for the series so far.

Mathematical can at most be considered a reaction to you guys, the fans. It’s a place for us to talk about what we like, and geek out about Adventure Time, and the production staff has nothing to do with it. So yeah, I think we all were thinking about Marceline and Bubblegum possibly crushing on each other after that episode, so I wanted us all to talk about it, but getting upset at anyone isn’t going to solve anything.

If you still want to talk about it, I think it would be a really cool development in the show, and between you and me, I’d be excited to see an american cartoon that is able to casually discuss LGBT relationships. I’m open, Mathematical is open, and we’re still going to put up a fan video tomorrow about…something. And if anyone else isn’t open, then that’s too bad for them, because I still love ALL OF YOU.

I also just wanted to say sorry to Adam Muto (Because it seems like I offended him, I guess?) and Rebecca Sugar for possibly distracting anyone from the excellent episode they wrote with two of the BEST songs in the series! Nothing but love for you two.

Fred Seibert, well..... He fired Dan Rickmers. Not just that - he told Dan not to go back into the animation industry. He threatened the guy, destroyed his career, and had him blacklisted from animation.

Here’s FRED’S post on Bubbline (taken from Autostraddle):

There’s been chatter on the internet recently about our latest Adventure Time “Mathematical!” video recap that we created, posted, and removed here at Federator. I figure it’s time to clear up the matter.

In trying to get the show’s audience involved we got wrapped up by both fan conjecture and spicy fanart and went a little too far. Neither Cartoon Network nor the Adventure Time crew had anything to do with putting up or taking down our latest re-cap. The episode ”What was Missing” remains a terrific short and will be shown again and again just like any other Adventure Time episode.

Once again, calling it “spicy fanart”, saying it went “too far”. What exactly was too far about Dan’s podcast???? It was no different to any of the other Mathematical! podcasts talking about shipping. Why is it suddenly a problem now????

Pen Ward himself? He just said that it was all a “big hullabaloo” and people had strong stances both sides so he didn’t want to say his thoughts.

.....Now, imagine being Rebecca Sugar during this time period. You put in a little bit of gay subtext into an episode of a cartoon, and suddenly the WORLD explodes. The internet loves it, but everyone at Cartoon Network and Frederator condemn such a thing, with poor Dan being the sacrificial lamb at the altar. It’s absolutely unjust!

As it turns out, Rebecca was starting to develop Steven Universe, and decided that the best way to respond to the backlash was to work in some gay subtext of her own. Adventure Time had a hard “No”, from WAY high up. Sugar has cited that the ceilings put up by Cartoon Network and friends around Bubbline were a challenge she became determined to overcome with Steven Universe.

....And, it turns out, Sugar wasn’t the only one with the idea.

The quiet road to gay representation in cartoons

Once the controversy dropped, the discussion about Bubbline completely shifted the landscape for LGBT representation, not just in cartoons, but in other media too. You had two pretty cool major characters, one being fan favourite Marceline, and the other being the main love interest for the protagonist, and you implied that these two ladies had feelings for each other, back when the protagonist was still chasing one of them. It was unprecedented! Such a unique turn away from the classic YA gay dynamics of the “flirty cougar boy” or “sexy lesbian”, where characters exist purely with those traits and lack the dynamism of true protagonists or honestly written characters. Marceline and Bubblegum were a breath of fresh air, and on a kid’s show no less.

...The backlash by Frederator and CN also, ironically, created an ENORMOUS MOVEMENT towards increasing awareness of LGBT people. People were asking themselves about their pre-existing assumptions on whether being queer was inherently an adult or predatory thing, whether it defined your entire identity. And while some stood by that assumption, many people upon getting the chance to reflect on it decided that no, that’s absolute bullshit, you can’t censor queer people, you can’t treat them like aliens.

I was one of the people in this group. After I found out about the controversy, I did some hard reflecting. One of my best friends came out to me as gay, so I had a lot on my mind and was already in the process of changing, but Bubbline was where I committed. I went from an extremely closeted and self loathing teenager into someone who no longer saw those aspects of myself as predatory, who was determined to see those ceilings smashed apart and have LGBT people be seen as a normal part of society.

The Adventure Time crew must have calmed down, because the subtext with PB and Marcy continued onwards into season 4 and 5. The bombshell episode was Jesse Moynihan and Ako Castuera’s episode “Sky Witch”, airing July 2013, which was the first time PB and Marcy had interacted since “What Was Missing”. This ep didn’t have quite the same level of attention as its predecessor, but it had this legendary and incredibly gay scene.

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While Jesse Moynihan tried to argue on his blog that this could be interpreted platonically and people were putting words in his mouth, anyone who watches Sky Witch today can tell that... yeah.... PB definitely has very strong feelings for Marceline. And considering the two of them made up at the ep, and there was further subtext in the later 2013 eps “Time Sandwich” and “Red Starved”, people were hopeful that Bubbline would get future development. The majority of the viewers had accepted that these two were ex girlfriends who maybe wanted to try again.

It took a long time to get more, but the show fully committed to exploring their relationship as of 2015′s Season 7. This was after Sugar had smashed down the doors with SU. And while Season 7 didn’t straight up call them girlfriends, it got as close to that as it possibly could without CN defunding the show. Bubbline was no longer a question. It was very much canon. All it needed was that bow on top - the creator’s confirmation.

....Other shows being developed after “What Was Missing” dropped also made note of the controversy and decided, “Hey, they tried to have gay characters in Adventure Time. People WANT there to be gay characters. There’s clearly a lot of institutional bullshit preventing this from happening. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we beat Adventure Time to the punch and got the first confirmed queer characters?”

Sugar was racing against theirself with Steven Universe. “Jailbreak” would air in early 2015 and reveal Garnet as two tiny lesbians in a trenchcoat. Very cute.

Meanwhile, another show with a sizeable queer fanbase, “The Legend of Korra”, was developing its third and fourth season, which would finish at the end of 2014.

Korra and Asami were involved in a love triangle with their teammate Mako. So, naturally, a lot of people shipped Korra and Asami together! Fuck this hetero bullshit! For years, this was a mere pipe dream, a crack pairing. But then in season 3, they actually started to put in some romantic subtext with the pair, blushing and stuff like that, until the two girls were implied to hook up in the finale.

What made Korrasami stand out was that it was the first time in history a creator had openly stated that major cartoon characters were gay.

Korrasami is canon. You can celebrate it, embrace it, accept it, get over it, or whatever you feel the need to do, but there is no denying it. That is the official story. We received some wonderful press in the wake of the series finale at the end of last week, and just about every piece I read got it right: Korra and Asami fell in love. Were they friends? Yes, and they still are, but they also grew to have romantic feelings for each other. Was Korrasami “endgame,” meaning, did we plan it from the start of the series? No, but nothing other than Korra’s spiritual arc was. Asami was a duplicitous spy when Mike and I first conceived her character. Then we liked her too much so we reworked the story to keep her in the dark regarding her father’s villainous activities. Varrick and Zhu Li weren’t originally planned to end up as a couple either, but that’s where we took the story/where the story took us. That’s how writing works the vast majority of the time. You give these characters life and then they tell you what they want to do. I have bragging rights as the first Korrasami shipper (I win!). As we wrote Book 1, before the audience had ever laid eyes on Korra and Asami, it was an idea I would kick around the writers’ room. At first we didn’t give it much weight, not because we think same-sex relationships are a joke, but because we never assumed it was something we would ever get away with depicting on an animated show for a kids network in this day and age, or at least in 2010.

....After Adam and Pen had been constantly evading questions on Bubbline, it was.... so nice, to finally have a creator come out and say their characters were gay. Even if the relationship in Korra was basically nothing other than a handhold, it’s amazing how powerful words can be.

And I think it’s absolutely no coincidence that they first started writing in Korrasami subtext within the year after the Mathematical! Controversy. I don’t think it would have been possible if there wasn’t such a warm reception to the Adventure Time episode.

Then, just a few months later, Sugar came out with this beauty, which had been in development at the same time.

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And, yeah, let’s not forget other things: before EITHER of those aired, “Clarence”, created by former AT storyboarder Skyler Page, had the first gay kiss between two men. With Jeff’s moms being a lesbian couple!

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Allegedly it was going to be a mouth kiss, but it was unfortunately censored :(

The show's writer, Spencer Rothbell, has confirmed that the gay couple originally kissed on the lips and one of them gave his partner flowers.

The scene was changed in order to get the green light from Cartoon Network, who air the show.

He later added: “It’s such a minor throwaway moment but I guess it’s better than nothing. Maybe one day the main character can be gay and it won’t be a big deal.��

...I cannot BELIEVE I forgot about “Clarence”. Seriously. It aired these characters the same time as season 1A of Steven Universe and season 5 of AT, and despite the minorness of their roles, and the questionable censorship, these were... explicitly gay human characters.

Once Steven Universe got SUPER gay in season 2 onwards, things started to get easier for all the other shows, including Adventure Time.

Nate Stevenson (on She-ra’s gay characters): Yeah, we began production towards the beginning of 2016 so honestly, even the conversations that we were having at the beginning of our plans for including queer characters and relationships was only possible because Steven Universe had done it first. We can point to Steven Universe, what you were doing there and be like "look this is working, this is getting support, fans are into this and it's getting this reaction."

Adam Muto (on Bubbline subtext, just before the finale aired): That’s been an ongoing conversation, and I think where we are now is a lot different from where we were eight years ago. So, that’s the one heartening thing, the network has been dragged into having more conversations about that, largely because of shows like Steven Universe. Definitely Steven Universe. I mean literally, Steven Universe. That was the one that had to take the lead there. And it’s difficult because it’s not something I can say like, ‘Well, we just didn’t put it in because … we didn’t.’ This is more like we have to answer certain conversations. Those come out of meetings, and after meetings, and at one meeting they said, “Don’t do that, because we don’t want you to.” I think Rebecca [Sugar] was better at not taking that answer. She’s just so tenacious and passionate and that was such a big part of the story she wanted to tell that it had to get through. It’s not my story in that same way, so I didn’t feel like I had the grounds to do that.

Rebecca continued to face enormous barriers with Steven Universe, and tragically the show was defunded by CN International after Sugar pushed hardcore for the Rupphire wedding.

However, because this wedding exists, and because it got such a positive reception, CN have been changing their tune about how they treat their young queer fans. They’ve gone from pushing them away to embracing them.

Video linked here - it’s all the PB and Marcy gay moments from the show, retroactively relabelled as canon gay by CN itself. Holy SHIT. Unfortunately it seems they’ve made it unavailable in the UK recently.

I didn’t think I would exist in a world where “Adventure Time: Obsidian” could exist. I was so eager for that episode when I was a teenager, but when PB and Marcy’s relationship stayed subtextual for almost all of AT, I felt a bit disappointed.

It healed a hole in my heart when I saw the beginning of “Obsidian”.

The purpose of this post, more than anything, is to look at how things have changed. To remind the younger bloggers today what things were like back in 2010, and how we ended up with “Obsidian” and “The Owl House”, where characters were not only openly queer, but this side of them was embraced by the children’s network.

It is just... after 10 years of stoicism, subtext, being told that gay characters are too “spicy” to be open with each other and treated the same way as normal people, it is such a breath of fresh air. I think I about died when they started calling each other “girlfriends”.

And yeah, there’s definitely a way to go. Just because gay people are more accepted in media by conglomerates who have decided to accept the money fans are literally throwing at them, it doesn’t mean that homophobia and censorship has been eradicated. These shows get censored internationally, or on repeated home viewings. They get banned, or not posted on different versions of HBO and Disney Plus. There are many instances where Obsidian is absent from the Distant lands lineup, or where their finale kiss was completely erased.

In the real world, the alt right is growing increasingly strong. My friend was talking to me about how the France presidency is being competed against by three right wing parties of varying awfulness in the upcoming election. That’s going to result in a lot of pain for a lot of people, especially queer people, so hated by the alt right.

But, yknow, it’s a small victory. And it’s an enormous one for the online gay community, in gaining the trust of families and the media corporations that have such power over how people are seen.

A lot happened between the first and last time we saw PB with that shirt. It’s not just her who holds a powerful world-shifting sentimentality for the item.

#adventure time #what was missing #she ra #spop #steven universe #bubbline #clarence #long post #Youtube

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mypoisonedvine · 3 years ago

Text

𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙫𝙮 𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙖𝙡 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙧 (𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘝𝘐𝘐 - 𝙛𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙚) || sub!bucky barnes x dominatrix!reader

(𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘐) (𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘐𝘐) (𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘐𝘐𝘐) (𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘐𝘝) (𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘝) (𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘝𝘐)

𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙨𝙪𝙢𝙢𝙖𝙧𝙮 || the finale.

𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩 || 3.5k

𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 || fluff, angst, implied smut, domestic goodness, more EMOTIONS!!!

six months ago...

Bucky wrung his hands a few times before knocking on your door, feeling his heart beat a little faster when he could hear the sounds of your footsteps on the other side. He'd been dreaming of a day like this for so long— the day he finally acted on this secret obsession he had, the day he stopped fantasizing and started realizing— but all this time, part of him had never really thought he'd go through with it. I mean, there's a pretty big difference between jerking off to videos of dominant women and actually getting spanked, slapped, and choked by a dominatrix after paying her an insane amount of money per hour.

But frankly, Bucky needed a big difference from what he'd been doing. He'd been alone for a little too long, he needed someone else's touch before he lost his mind. And he knew that he needed something more substantial than a hook-up, someone who wouldn't expect him to be dominant at all. Even in a kink-less, vanilla hook-up, there’s still an onus of dominance, that’s what Bucky had realised. He’s still supposed to initiate, to guide, to be fully in control… and he hates how it feels to be in control. He’s not used to it, and it doesn’t feel right, and it just makes him sure he’ll do something wrong. So here he was, standing at your door, hoping you’d take away his freedom to do something wrong.

The latch turned and you opened it.

Fuck.

You looked great. Too great, almost overwhelming. Even better than the pictures on your website.

You looked so much softer than the women he saw whenever he searched up femdom porn (yes, that was pretty much the first thing he did once he figured out google— thankfully he had also figured out incognito mode), but your presence was twice as commanding. Your eyes scanned over him quickly and your face stayed annoyingly stoic.

You invited him in; And since then, you’d had him wrapped around your finger.

Even knowing to a certain extent what he was getting into, he could’ve never prepared for how quickly he’d fall for you. Not that he was exactly new to the feeling, but he thought guilt might eat him alive: because of course he felt awful for developing real feelings for you. You were just doing your job and he was falling into the same trap that probably every dumbass client fell into.

Or maybe they actually knew what they were doing and understood how to separate fantasy from reality. He couldn’t decide which one was worse.

He spent a few hours trying to decide while staring up at his ceiling— certainly a better way to spend the time than being social or taking care of unfinished business, right?

But leave it to you to change everything with just three words. Make me yours.

He hadn’t stopped thinking about those words— or about the way you said them— since the moment you spoke them. He hadn’t stopped changing his mind on if he could really believe you were his or not. He wanted to, more than anything; and in those brief moments he did, he felt a joy that he had no idea what to do with.

He frowned as he turned his back towards the mirror, looking over his shoulder to watch his finger run over the fading scars on his back. They’d be gone for good in less than a week, but he knew you had left plenty of permanent marks on him— just unfortunately not those that anyone else could see. He liked the way these scars looked under your fingertips much more than his; he liked everything about being in your arms.

Since you’d texted him to ask if you could have a serious talk with him soon, he worried he wouldn’t get to feel that again. In fact, nothing worried him more.

He was typically antsy as he waited for you to answer the door— he had been since that very first time so long ago— but this felt entirely different: not as jittery, but a thousand times more anxious.

At first he’d been wishing you’d answer it right away, but then he heard your bolt turn and panic landed on him like a dangling anvil dropping on a cartoon character. Suddenly the last thing he wanted was for you to open that door, to be standing there looking all perfect and shit, to smile at him and greet him and invite him in. He didn’t want it; he couldn’t take it.

But you did it all anyway, though it was obviously and immediately a new situation entirely, compared to every other time you’d done it.

You were dressed differently, still formal but definitely toned down. Nothing sexual, at least not objectively. And your smile, though it still made his heart skip a beat just like always, was noticeably softer and maybe a bit sadder.

He stepped in past you, and you surprised him by sitting next to him on the couch rather than across from him on your chair. “Do you want, like, water or anything?” you asked, breaking the silence for a moment.

“No, I’m fine,” he nodded.

Bucky had gotten pretty good at silence these past few years; it didn’t bother him, in fact he barely even noticed it. But this silence made him remember why everyone else hated silence so much: it was heavy and thick and made him overcome with the need to blurt something out. “Everyone calls me Bucky,” he finally admitted. You smiled.

“Do you want me to call you that?” you asked.

He considered your question, trying to imagine you saying it. “I… I used to think it would be better, but now I like the way you say ‘James’ too much.”

“If you thought it would be better, why did you ask me to call you James?” you pressed.

“Because I didn’t want you to know who I was.”

“I know who you are,” you informed him. “I always knew.”

He swallowed as the pit formed in his gut, glancing away to hide from your gaze. “You did a good job of… of pretending you didn’t. You never seemed scared of me.”

“Because I wasn’t. And I’m not.”

He couldn’t imagine how; but then again, if there was any truly fearless woman, he figured it would be you. “I thought you’d beat me up better if you knew what I’d done,” he admitted, almost smiling but not exactly feeling very happy. “Thought you might want… revenge.”

“Surprised that didn’t make you want to tell me.”

He laughed a bit at that. “Yeah, fair enough.”

You asked him a very different question next, one that made his throat suddenly dry: "Have you ever had something that was all your own?" you spoke gently.

"Not for a long time…" he trailed off, letting his eyes unfocus as he stared down at your floor before finding the courage to look up at you again. “Is that what you wanna be?” he asked, already wishing he hadn’t said anything in case it was too presumptuous, but you just smiled back at him in a shy sort of way.

“Something like that,” you mitigated.

His eyes darted around your face— from your eyes glancing away, to your lips that you gnawed on for a moment, to the little crease between your brows— and he found himself leaning forward before he even realized it. “Can I kiss you?” he asked quietly.

You didn’t answer, you just kissed him first; he was so relieved that you did it, too, that you took control so easily and just let him melt into your kiss. As good as it felt to submit to you, he enjoyed the new freedom he had in this moment as well— the freedom to reach up and grab your waist, to brush his hand over your hair, to tilt his head and deepen the kiss further.

It was hard to define exactly where it went from innocent to sensual to sexual, but by the time you were straddling his lap and running your fingers through his hair, it was definitely sexual.

“I want you,” you breathed against his lips.

“Have me,” he offered immediately, “I’m yours. Always was.”

He breathed in sharply when you moved your hips just right to rub up against his swelling cock through his jeans, making him grip your waist a bit harder. “Good boy,” you whispered. “You’re so good, James.”

He believed you this time, finally.

For your first real date, he took you to Coney Island. Not the classiest affair, and he promised to take you somewhere really nice next, but you didn’t mind. It was jarring to see you in casual clothes for the first time, something summer-y and light which was everything opposite to how he was used to seeing you; but he liked it, and he liked knowing a secret about you as you walked through a crowd of carnival-goers that were none the wiser.

He walked you through the fair and explained how he remembered it, showed you the few things that hadn’t changed much. He bought you a hot dog and even won you a prize at one of the games; that one where you throw a baseball and it measures your pitch speed? Yeah, it’s rigged, but he pitched lefty and it seemed to even everything out. (It’s not cheating, okay? It’s beating them at their own game, literally.)

So with a massive teddy under one arm and his waist wrapped in your other, you two walked through the winding pier, under twinkling lights and over walkways towering over the ocean below. And then you fooled around a bit on the ferris wheel. It was the ideal Coney Island experience, for sure.

Bucky didn’t have a ton of friends, per se, but he was excited for you to meet them. Meeting friends was certainly a step, though; hopefully a step you were willing to take, but he didn’t want to ask you to do it without at least having a title to introduce you with.

“I want you to be my girlfriend,” he finally told you.

“I kinda thought I already was,” you laughed.

And so, with more pride than he might have ever had for anything before, Bucky finally got to take you to meet everyone (‘everyone’ being a mix of his friends and his coworkers, who may or may not be his friends because he couldn’t always tell) and say “I want you guys to meet my girlfriend.”

Of course you were amazing with all of them; you continued that tactful “I know who you are but I’m pretending I don’t to be nice” thing that you’d started with him, and everyone seemed to appreciate it. You cracked a couple jokes, everyone laughed.

You lied about how you and Bucky met, or at least answered very strategically. Everyone at least pretended to believe you.

Afterwards, they all said something about how great you were or about how lucky he was. The only thing he ever said back was “I know.”

Now that he could kiss you without breaking any rules, he never wanted to stop. He hardly ever did, actually. He kissed you basically whenever he could get the chance; you two didn’t even go out much anymore because he wasn’t very good at keeping his hands to himself, but you weren’t exactly complaining about staying in. You were too busy kissing him back, and teasing him mercilessly while you were at it, to do that.

You had already found the fastest way to get him needy and begging, not that any way took very long. If you kissed him while you straddled his lap, wrapping your arms around him and slowly grinding against him, he lost it in minutes. And you really seemed to get a kick out of watching him lose it, just as much as always.

It made him realize that the way you looked at him before, in sessions and scenes together, was a lot less of an act than he’d assumed at the time. He just thought you were a really good actress, or that he was really whipped; and maybe the first was true, and the second was absolutely true, but regardless it had become clear that you had it almost as bad as he did from the beginning. It gave him even more respect for how well you controlled yourself, he certainly hadn’t had much self-control at the time— after all the whole ordeal was about losing control, and occasionally about trying to gain it back.

He didn’t ask you to quit your job. He didn’t want or expect you to; but you did cut down your hours, which gave the two of you more time together.

To be totally honest, part of him got a bit titillated to imagine you with your other clients. He didn’t like the idea of other men touching you, but he smirked at the thought of them begging to touch you and being denied; he liked knowing that you didn’t do with them even half of the stuff you’d done with him when he was your client.

But he wasn’t your client anymore. He was your boyfriend, and he wanted the world to know it.

six months later...

He let you struggle to reach the top shelf for a moment, just because you looked cute on your tip-toes with the tip of your tongue sticking out of the corner of your mouth, before he finally relented and helped you grab the bottle of rice wine vinegar.

“Thanks,” you smiled as he set it in the cart.

After that you let him grab everything, content to stand on the end of the cart and push you around as you reminded him what else you needed.

“We’re out of Captain Crunch!” you remembered as he passed the cereal aisle, pointing to try to get him to turn.

“Yes, and we need to stay that way,” Bucky explained sternly, “that shit is addictive. Only way to avoid it is to not have it in the house.”

You frowned but accepted that he was absolutely right, though you groaned when he took you to the refrigerated section to stock up on chicken breasts. “I swear, you would eat these for breakfast if you didn’t think I’d judge you for it,” you joked.

“What’s wrong with chicken breasts?”

“They’re just so… bland!”

“Not if you season them right,” he corrected.

“Which you don’t,” you rolled your eyes. “Come on, at least splurge on some chicken thighs. They’re basically the same but so much more flavorful.”

“Fine, but no more making fun of my cooking,” Bucky decided, placing the breasts back on the shelf and grabbing two packs of thighs instead. “I’m still adapting to 21st century sensibilities.”

“Right,” you nodded, though he caught your smile in the corner of his eye— you knew he couldn’t exactly claim to still be as conservative as he was raised to be in every way.

Like any well-planned grocery run, it ended at the frozen section where you got some fruit bars and frozen vegetables (you had this theory that frozen vegetables tasted better in fried rice than fresh ones, and so far you’d proven him right) and he got a pizza to have for dinner in a pinch. When shopping alone before, he always did self-checkout to avoid being seen anymore than he had to… he still did it with you, but he didn’t even think about who might be looking at him, because all he saw was you.

You drove for this trip, and he always felt oddly soothed by riding passenger with you at the wheel. He liked to close his eyes and lean back a bit, or occasionally look over at you (but if he did it too much you complained that he was being creepy and distracting you). It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that he enjoyed the feeling of you taking control, considering everything, but it was one of those little ways that he hadn’t expected. He just felt so comfortable, so safe with you, and never he felt like he was a burden for asking you to take the lead when he didn’t trust himself with it. And that applied to everything— driving, cooking, speaking up in crowds, all those little things that sometimes made him anxious.

There were some things he didn’t have any trouble being dominant about, though. He was very protective of you, for example, and tended to be uptight about how late you went out for walks or where you should be going alone. And he didn’t struggle to ask you for what he wanted— he was getting a lot better at asking for help, specifically.

He used to ask you to say that you loved him, instead of just saying ‘I love you’ himself, because for some reason it was easier to make you do it first. It started as something he’d beg for in the throes of passion, fingers digging into your skin as his eyes watered (as they often did in intimate moments): please, say you love me— jus’ need to hear you say it, please? And you were always sweet about it in return, of course I love you, James, my good boy, I love you so so much. But then he’d ask you to say it whenever he felt like it— he’d come up behind you while you were reading or cooking or something and kiss the top of your head or the shell of your ear and try to act nonchalant as he asked you love me, right?

You’d laugh and roll your eyes before you answered, but it was, thankfully, always a ‘yes.’ Eventually you figured out how often you needed to say it to make him stop asking all the time, which was probably a little too often.

“I love you,” you blurted out randomly as you turned on your signal and leaned a bit to make sure it was safe to make a left— case in point.

“I love you too,” he answered back with a smile.

“I don’t mind saying it so often,” you added, “but you know that I love you even when I’m not saying it, right? I love you all the time.”

It was a simple question, probably mostly rhetorical, but it hit him harder than he expected. “Yeah, I know,” he managed to get out evenly enough that you didn’t notice he was tearing up a bit.

He put the groceries away while you took the trash out; you liked to keep the fridge pretty organized, and it was an adjustment at first, but by now Bucky had it down pat. Before you, he hadn’t even considered that the contents of a refrigerator could be aesthetically pleasing.

Dinner was leftovers in front of the TV— you two were almost done with Frasier, but after that you had ten seasons of Friends to get through. You had tried to encourage him to watch more challenging stuff— you know, True Detective, Hannibal, dark cerebral stuff with arguably more artistic merit than classic sitcoms— but Bucky had had enough darkness in his life that he didn’t need it in his fiction. Maybe he’d find the time to catch up on the last 80 years of dramas and murder mysteries after he caught up on the last 80 years of comedy.

After dinner you were going to do yoga and Bucky, not in the mood to embarrass himself with that, retired to the bedroom a bit early to read his book— he’d heard a lot about this Harry Potter guy and now that he was on the fourth book and could hardly put it down, he understood the hype. He related a bit to the unwilling war hero in its protagonist; most of the time the series enthralled him, but occasionally something would hit too deep and he’d have to put it away for a couple days. At the moment, though, he was in one of the easy parts where it was just about schoolwork and childhood antics.

He instinctively glanced at the door when he heard you open it— he wasn’t sure how long it had been time-wise, but he’d gotten through quite a few pages— but he only quickly looked up at you as you shut the door behind you, before returning his attention to the book he was reading. “So, Bucky…” you began.

“Yeah?” he mumbled.

“James.”

It wasn’t any one thing that got his attention— not just the tone of your voice or the way it got a bit deeper, not just the look you gave him, not just the way the air of the room seemed to shift all at once. It was everything about you that made his body react instantly. He shut the book and set it aside, sitting up straight to look at you expectantly.

And you seemed to notice his instinctual obedience, considering you just barely smirked at him, raising an eyebrow as he spoke his reply: “Yes, Mistress?”

#sub!bucky barnes x dominatrix!reader #sub!bucky barnes x domme!reader

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ilooklikeaburntchickenugget · 3 years ago

Note

Hi! I have a request if that’s okay! Reader and Gerard meet at one of mcr shows and he finds out their a comic book artist and he becomes really interested, from then on they develop a relationship and it’s just pure fluff.

Title: Comic Book Romance

A/N: Just so y’all know this is unedited because it’s late and I’m tied because my damn melatonin has just decided to cease working but this was an adorable request so I had to jump on it. Hope you enjoy! Pairing: Gerard Way x Reader Word count: 4,271 words Warnings: Some swearing, alcoholism, some angst but mainly fluff

“Why am I here again?” You asked Jamia with a clear lack of amusement evident in your face and voice.

“To see Frank!” She exclaimed. “He hasn’t been home in six months, and they’re playing here, so I wanted you to meet the guys before hand.” “But why me?” She huffed giving you a strong ‘disapproving mother’ look before turning around, grabbing your hand, and speed walking through the back doors of this tiny venue.

“Because you’re one of my closest friends, and you happen to not have met any of them.” She told you with a sigh, “Just trust me on this, okay? You’re gonna get along great with them.”

You gave in with an eye-roll, following her around the back corridors until she found the back room they were hanging out with. And with a quick open up the door, Frank practically pounced on the women next to you, which left you in the awkward position of standing next to the only two people in the room who were going above and beyond in terms of PDA levels.

“Oh, right,” Jamia finally let go after a quick catch up with her boyfriend, “Guys, this is Y/N.” She pointed to you as you meekly smiled and looked around.

The group was interesting for sure. First, you had a small guy, skinny and in glasses. Definitely gave off dweeb vibes. Then another guy with mad curly hair, he seemed pretty chill. And the last one with little chubby cheeks, a lot like your own, and shaggy black hair that cascaded over his forehead and into his eyes a little in an awkward side part.

“This is Mikey, Ray, and Gerard.” She went one by one introducing them as they waved at you offering their own smiles.

You weren’t sure where to start, but Gerard promptly stepped in offering a quick “hi” and some conversation starters, easy enough. You scanned his face briefly, he was definitely cute. Not necessarily the dictionary definition of handsome, maybe not hot either, but cute.

“So, what do you do?” He asked as his first question, a good conversation starter.

“Um, I’m a comic book author.” You smiled sheepishly, most people found it to be too niche of a topic to feel comfortable to talk about. Yet his face had a sudden glow as his mouth dropped open a little. Shit, he’s judging you. “And you must do all of this.” You laughed lightly, looking around at all of the instrumental equipment packed into the small room.

“Yeah, I do.” He smiled, “But I was actually a comic book artist, before all of this.” Your face immediately grew to distortion, as your head shot back to look at him.

“No way.” You breathed out, “Where did you work?” “I interned at DC, got a job at Cartoon Network.” “That’s sick.” You smiled, “Cartoon Network would be fun.”

“Nah, they were a bunch of dicks.” He smiled as you chuckled. “What about you?” “Marvel.” You smiled with a bit of pride showing. You were a Marvel kid at heart, had grown up on it and you were more than happy to brag about your dream job achievement right out of college.

“That’s amazing!” He gushed, sitting up a bit, “What do you work on?” “Well, I started out with some X-Men stuff, they’ve never been much of my thing though. So they ended up moving me to Avengers, more specifically Scarlett Witch.” “That’s actually insane.” He smiled, “How old are you.”

“23.” You replied.

“I was 23 and writing pitches that ended up in the trash,” He scoffed, “And you’re working on one of the most well known characters in the world.” “Granted, I don’t have as much work as a comic artist. You guys have to write stuff from scratch, illustrate, pitch. I just sit at a desk all day and write. It’s practically paradise.” “So I assume you like writing?” “Creative writing degree,” You quickly responded, “So yeah, just a little.” He chuckled.

Your conversations went on and on. Turns out you had a lot more in common than you could imagine with this guy, and he was getting even more attractive by the second. The way he spoke, his small little laugh, his smile... okay, maybe he was hot the more you looked at him.

“Gee, we gotta go.” You heard one of the guys yell from behind you, quickly noticing the room was empty.

“Ah, shit.” He replied with a sigh, “Would you mind if I asked for your number? So we could maybe, ya know-” “Talk? Yeah sure.” You smiled as he handed you a piece of paper and a pen. “I’ll see ya later Gerard.” “You too, Y/N.”

“Gee-” You sighed as he stumbled into your apartment. It was 2 am, and the last thing you wanted to deal with the night before a major meeting with your bosses was an extremely drunk, borderline wasted Gerard.

“Please don’t be mad!” He slurred, running his shoulder into a wall on accident. His face was filled with desperation, creased features highlighted by the singular lamp on in the whole place. “I was just nearby and starting to get sleepy and-” “I know,” You replied, his excuses sounding more and more like a broken record player after the weeks of this occurring. It was probably months at this point, but your brain was far more keen on blocking out any numerical values of how many times Gerard had abruptly disturbed your night in his drunken states.

You closed your door, locking it again, and went to a small basket you had placed next to your TV stand where you kept two blankets and a pillow for Gerard as these occurrences had become far to consistent to not have something on hand. You weren’t sure who was more pathetic: him getting drunk and coming to your house in the middle of the night at least once a week, or you containing to help him for nothing in return. You were getting sick of it.

“Here you go.” You sighed, handing them to him as he quickly figured out his way. And within minutes, he was sound asleep.

The next morning you woke up and continued with your usual morning routine, walking out to your living room to see a still asleep Gerard on your couch. With a sigh, you went to your medicine cabinet grabbing a few aspirin and a cup of water, placing it on the coffee table across from the couch and writing a note.

Hey G, Take as much time as you need. Pretty sure I have some frozen waffles in the freezer... just try not to burn my apartment down. I have to go to work, but I’ll talk to you later. Hope you get to feeling better. Best, Y/N/N

And with that, you left, ready to take on the day good as new. And most of your day had gone fine... better than fine, maybe. The meetings with your bosses went great, you got a small raise to your pay after the success of your last strip. You took a little bit of a longer lunch break to celebrate over a breakfast sandwich from your favorite spot down the street, and finished out the day strong with finishing the most recent strip, giving you the next day, which happened to be a Friday, off.

With a sigh of both relief and happiness you stepped into the oasis of your home to be met with another poor Gerard, pacing in the living room. “Gerard?” You asked in a beyond confused voice.

“Y/N I’m so sorry,” He replied as he ran over to you, standing over you, and brushing his fingers aggressively through his hair. “What’s wrong?” You asked as you scanned his panicked face.

“I”m wrong,” He replied, “I can’t believe I came here drunk again, and you had to take care of me, and today was your big meeting, I remember and it and began freaking out because you really should’ve gotten a full night of sleep but I came in and-” “Gee,” You interrupted him in a soft voice, trying to get him to stop. “It’s okay.” You softly smiled. “I would prefer you here drunk then on the streets.”

“Still, that’s not fair to you.” He replied, “I swear it won’t happen again.” “You said that last time.” “I swear.” He responded, “I really do, whatever it takes, cold turkey.”

“You’re sure?” You replied, “Do you have somewhere to go for this, someone to watch you.” He shook his head, “Then you’re keeping your ass here for however long it takes.” You replied, walking past him to put your workbag down in one of your chairs and take your shoes off.

Marching right back over to your kitchen sink, you took a trash back out from underneath and opened it up, going back to your designated drink cabinet to empty it completely of everything you had.

“What are you doing?” Gerard asked from where he still stood in the living room, observing you carefully.

“I’m getting rid of all the temptations here,” You replied, “I can live a couple weeks without wine. And we’re gonna make sure you can too.”

It was... rough.

In the last two weeks you couldn’t count how many times Gerard had come to you bed crying. Addiction was fucking ugly, it was awful, actually. You would just keep him under your arm and let him cry into your stomach, soothing him with fingers in his hair. You hated to see him like this, but both of you silently knew it was for the best.

“You shouldn’t have to do this for me.” He told you, his swollen face with some tears still left looking up at you, the slight light from the moon shining in through your curtains.

“Gee, hon, I’m a friend. It’s what friends do.” “Yeah, but-” He stopped himself, laying his head down and not saying anything else.

“But what?” You asked.

“It’s nothing.” “It’s important to let your emotions out in a time like this, Gee, just tell me.” “Sometimes,” He sniffled a bit, looking back up at you, “Sometimes I wish we were more than friends, maybe.” He mumbled, “And it’s juvenile, I’m sure, but I don’t know. You’re perfect, ya know? And you deserve someone so amazing. And I wish that someone was me.”

“Oh honey,” You replied, sitting up a bit as he looked away, “Look at me, Gerard.” You insisted, moving his face up to look at you. “I’ve kind of felt the same way about you, I really like you, more as a friend most of the time.” You replied, “And maybe this is a good opportunity for us to start something good after all of this hell you’ve been through.”

“You mean it?” He asked and you nodded with a smile.

“I promise. We can try this.” “Good,” He responded, “You’re the thing keeping me going right now. I don’t think I could live without you.”

“Gee!” You happily shouted as you saw him exit his tour bus. He looked over with a smile as he saw you, Jamia next to you as she searched for Frank. You sprinted over falling into his arms and with a large thump and “umph” from him, he hugged you back.

“Hey, love.” He smiled, giving you a kiss on the head. “Do I even need to ask if you missed me?” You laughed into his chest.

“No,” You responded, “Everything’s so lonely without you.” “Yeah, but you still have friends and coworker and-” “But none of them are you.” You replied, pulling away to look up at him.

He looked so good. Short and still shaggy hair, his natural black hair, a tan from the amount of sun he was getting, he had those muscles that were out in the open and just so tempting-

“You alright, hon?” He asked, scanning over your face.

“Yeah, fine.” You shook out of your trance with a small smile, “Just thinking.”

“You excited for the show?” He asked, running a hand through your long hair. You nodded.

“Yeah, it’s kinda cool being a rockstar’s girlfriend.” You nudged him playfully, “I feel like I have a superiority complex over it.” He chuckled.

“Probably because you do.” He leaned down to kiss you, “And I love you for it.”

“Well, good luck out there.” You smiled and gave him another hug, “I know you’re gonna do amazing hon.”

“Thanks,” He smiled back, “Come back here after, I have a few things for you.” He gave you a final kiss on the head and a wink as he walked away.

You were always excited to see the guys play, but being the lead singers girlfriend was an experience like no other. You were just so proud of him, up there preaching his own lyrics, and you were most proud of him being clean and being able to still perform, even better than he used to.

“Hey baby,” He smiled as you met him in the bus after the show. He was practically dripping in sweat, his hair even wet with sweat, but with no hesitation you leaned down to kiss him.

“I love watching you play.” You smiled, sitting down in his bunk next to him.

“Thanks,” He smiled sheepishly, “Here are your things, by the way. I just saw them and they reminded me of you.” He nervously said, handing a small bag to you.

“Honey, you didn’t have to.” You looked back up at him. “You really don’t.” “Yeah, well, I’m still repaying you for all you’ve done for me, so it’s nothing.”

You went inside of the small paper bag, grabbing the item he was talking about and pulled it out. “Gee,” You gasped, looking up at him, “This is too much, I mean- how did you even find this?”

“I know a few people.” He smiled, putting his head on your shoulder.

“These are expensive Gee! Are you sure?” You said looking back down at the limited edition Scarlett Witch comic from the 80s, in perfect condition.

“Of course!” He smiled, “You deserve it.”

You pulled his face to yours, giving him a firm kiss which he returned with no hesitation. “I love you.” You smiled at him.

“I love you too.” He replied with an even bigger smile.

You loved these nights more than anything in the world.

The ones where you came home after a bad day to be greeted with a busy Gerard who pushed everything aside to make sure you felt better. Where he would order you two crappy takeout, pick it up as you changed into sweatpants and an old sweatshirt and just laid on the couch catching up on shows you’d long forgotten about.

You were snuggled into one of the pillows, laying on his lap as he kept one of his hands running through strands of your hair. You were lost in the plot of the show, giggling lightly at the jokes, but soon you noticed how Gerard wasn’t laughing anymore. You had noticed him on his phone a lot more recently and you had become worried.

It was just paranoia you knew, but your mind of course had begun questioning and going to other, darker places. It was only sane to potentially think of the thought he was cheating, right? But your Gerard would never do that... but you were on guard, all the time. You had to be when a million teenage girls were practically in love with him.

“Everything okay, hon?” You asked looking up. He hummed looking to you and nodded.

“Yeah, of course.” He smiled, putting his phone down, “Sorry just work.” You nodded and looked back to the TV, still being tense. “You alright?” He asked and you nodded again, “Babe, tell me what’s on your mind.” He replied, his face now growing serious. You sighed.

“I don’t know,” You replied, “I’m just a bit worried.” “About what?” He asked.

“Can I ask you what I hope to be a completely ridiculous question?” You looked up at him and he nodded, “Just please be truthful and don’t get mad at me because I actually don’t believe this.” “Sure,” He replied questionly.

“I just- what are you doing on your phone all the time. I know it might be rude but sometimes I don’t think it’s work, I think it might be something else-” “Like cheating?” He asked as shock and offense filled his voice.

“I mean- it’s a stupid thought I know.” “Baby, I have absolutely no reason to cheat on you.” He replied, “Literally none, you’re better than perfect. You know I couldn’t live without you.” He sighed, “But I know I have been on my phone more. I’m not really supposed to tell anyone this but I can trust you, so, um, basically, ya know the comic I’ve been writing for a while?” You nodded, “Well, um, I kinda got a publishers that’s willing to publish me so we’re in the process of-”

“Gerard!” You shot up, looking at him with huge eyes and an open mouth in shock. “Are you kidding?” He shook his head, “That’s absolutely amazing! Oh my- I mean, that’s insane! That’s so great!”

“Yeah, thanks.” He smiled a bit, “I was also kinda hoping that you might work on it with me-”

“No.” You replied as his eyes grew wide, “I mean, no, this is your thing. You created it, you illustrated it, I don’t want credit for even doing 1% of the work. This is on you, you deserve credit.” “Fine,” He sighed, “Then be an editor, go over and look it over. Please, I want you to be apart of this.” You leaned back with a smirk and looked up at the ceiling for a few seconds.

“Alright, I will.” You lightly laughed. “I’ll help you with whatever you need.”

“I mean, it’s a great part.” You commented, pacing the room as you quickly scanned over his draft, red sharpie in your hand. “Just a few grammatical errors, and honestly the flows slightly off.” “Flow? How so?”

“I mean, I get what you’re trying to get at, but I don’t think you have enough characterization established to justify such a crazy thing happening in strip 27.” You replied, “It’s very jumpy.” He sighed. “Hey, I’m just trying to help.” “I know.” He said, going back to his own work and beginning to rework.

“I like the rest though, here are the small grammatical errors I talked about,” You gently placed your copy on his desk, “And I’ll be in the living room working on my own stuff.” You were still a bit hurt and petty after Gerard had decided to take over the home office that was once yours for all of his new stuff, since it had more hectic deadlines and was a whole new concept.

“I promise you’ll get the office back soon!” He shouted into the other room where you smirked.

You loved your job, of course you did. And Gerard loved his... well, both of his. But recently your lives had been so hectic that you couldn’t even remember the last time you were around each other and weren’t acting in more formal tones due to everything going on. It had felt like forever since your actual romantic elements had any role in your relationship, and it was starting to pinch at your heart a bit. You really missed the obsessive amounts of affection you showed each other, or the serenity you could find when you were with him. Now it was just work.

And even worse, the two of you had been together for three and a half years now, and you were fully ready for the commitment of marriage. You were too scared to bring it up to Gerard, you were pretty sure he would turn into a deer in the headlights, but you just needed that white dress, button down, wedding and marriage to make yourself feel more secure it all of this.

“Hey hon I think-” You could hear Gerard walk out and into the living room as your head immediately shot up from where you sat on the couch at the ring of his voice. “You alright?” You nodded and he sighed, “Oh c’mon, you were staring at the coffee table. What’s on your mind?” “Oh, I don’t know.” You sighed back as he sat next to you on the couch, fiddling with your pen. “When was the last time we had a date?” He gave you a confused look, “And not a leftovers from the fridge at 9 pm date, but like a good out and eat somewhere and do something date?” “Um,” He hummed, contemplating, “Three months?” You sighed. “What’s the matter?” “Doesn’t that just seem like a long time to you?” You huffed, leaning back on the couch and crossing your arms. He gave you a quizzical look, silently asking you to go on. “It’s just been forever since we’ve actually been the clingy, stupid, cliche couple we used to be. And I’m not saying we just reverse back to our honeymoon phase, because that’s not healthy, but sometimes I just feel like we’re almost not a couple as much as we are work partners.” You sighed, “And I love helping you on your comic, of course I do, but I also miss when this apartment was a safe haven from work, not filled with it.” He gave yo a sympathetic nod, kissing the top of your head.

“How about this,” He told you, “We get through today, and then tomorrow, we do no work. I’ll take you out to dinner and we’ll come back to watch a movie and then, ya know-” “Yeah, that sounds fun.” You replied, placing your head on his shoulder.

“Ya know you can always tell me these things, right?” He asked and you nodded.

“Yeah, but, I don’t know. I’m very proud of you for doing all of this and I don’t want to drag you away just due to me.” “Hey,” He replied, promptly taking your chin in his fingers and lifting it up to look at him. “Stop that nonsense. We’re a team, okay? And please vocalize any and all of these concerns.” You nodded, leaning up to give him a kiss.

“Right.” You responded, “We’re a team.”

“This is so exciting!” You squealed as you walked next to your boyfriend. “We literally have our own panel. Well, technically yours, but we’re on it together Gee!” “I know.” He chuckled. You held his hand tight knowing crowds were typically not his thing, ironic with his primary occupation, but the overwhelming success of the Umbrella Academy called for an appearance at San Diego Comic Con, and since everyone seriously involved got a seat at the table, that mean there was a chair saved next to you. Which Gerard had apparently purposefully put right next to his.

You were nervous, to say the last. You had done panels, but there weren’t more than two dozen people or so at a time... not hundreds. “Hey, everything’s gonna be alright.” He reminded you before the two of you walked on, “I’m right next to you. And remember, just be yourself.” It got better as the minutes past. You hadn’t speak much, which was fine, only responding to scripted question directed towards you. You were most nervous for the fan section. Although you had been with Gerard since the very beginning of the band and you were adored by almost every fan, you were expecting at least one or two passive aggressive questions towards you.

“Y/N,” A fan came up the microphone as you perked up awaiting their question with a smile. She was a cute young girl, no older than 16 with dulling blue hair. “Did you want to work on this with Gerard initially? Did you have any concerns about working with someone so close to you and any conflict it would start?” “Ohhh, good question.” You cooed as the crowd giggled, “In all honesty, yes. Gerard and I typically like to keep all of our work separate. Now of course, with our dual love for comics we like to share small bits and pieces with each other, but we have our own things too. So I was very hesitant at first, but he kinda forced me into it, not going to lie,” Some casual laughter erupted, “But we like to be a team in everything we do. Work, partnership, everything. I think that’s the great thing about dating someone who’s also your best friend, you don’t typically have to worry that much about different things getting in the way of the romantic aspect. It all just kinda flows.”

You turned briefly to Gerard who was smiling like a fool at you. You couldn’t help but blush and look away as everyone let out various ‘awes’ which made you blush even more. “Clearly, a dream team right here.” The interviewer said as everyone continued to coo.

You really couldn’t believe all of this was happening right now. How far you had made it, how far he had made it. Just a couple years ago and both of you were barely getting by pay check to pay check in a dinky New Jersey apartment, and yet here you were now, speaking to a panel of hundreds of people about a huge work you had created.

“Overwhelmed?” He looked over and whispered to you briefly.

“No,” You responded, “Just happy. Really happy.”

#my chemical gerard #gerard way fanfiction #mcr gerard #gerard way x reader #gerard way #gerard way x y/n #gerard way x you #my chemical romance x reader #my chemical gee #my chemical romance #mcr x reader #mcr fanfiction #mcr

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notsoalex · 3 years ago

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Interview with Cyberverse’s story editor, Randolph Heard (Part 1)

An interview was done by Keyan Carlile with Randolph Heard, focused on his work as story editor of Transformers Cyberverse. Check out the original video on YouTube here.

Basically just wrote out all the information I gathered.

-Cyberverse was initially a 22 min long episode show. Randolph's pitch was a jumble of ideas, such as Grimlock with differing personalities between modes, the characters descending into Cybertron, and what characters do in their free time outside of the war. He was contacted back to write about a sport, and created Cube. Hasbro decided to shift to 11 minutes and to start immediately (since they were behind on production) in spring 2017 for the first 2 seasons back to back. The schedule for the first season was intense.

-Randolph was asked to pitch again and to connect it with the Bumblebee movie, so Bee would have amnesia at the start; the show also had to focus on key past events. He had to hire writers and get going, meaning there was no production bible. Randolph dislikes the first four episodes, as he and the writers really didn't settle into the show until "Megatron Is My Hero"

-Randolph didn’t know anything about Transformers (believing that’s part of why he was hired), while all the writers were big fans of Transformers. Zac Atkinson and Dan Salgarolo wrote on previous Hasbro shows. Mairghread Scott was recommended by Hasbro, but since she was busy, she only wrote one episode. Kate Leth and Mae Catt were also recommended.

-Bumblebee was supposed to have many different voice actors for his radio voice, but it was impossible in the budget, meaning Jeremy Levy had to do them. The writers were very happy for him to talk normally.

-Cyberverse was an entirely Hasbro production, while Cartoon Network was only airing it. It was eventually relaxing since it was more supportive and less restrictive.

-They couldn’t think of a good title, so Hasbro just used the name Cyberverse since they had the trademark (a toyline from 2011).

-Budget wise, they had to meticulously plan how many characters and how many transformations in each episode, with it growing over time.

-Season 1 was created as a prequel to G1. The time skip between season 1 and season 2 was to not end up rewriting G1, as well as not having to set it on Earth, which would’ve been too expensive. For example, a scrapped episode was an amnesiac Bumblebee having difficulties trying to infiltrate a human city. Randolph fought tooth and nail to get that one kid in "Teletraan-X“.

-Randolph used a list of the weirdest Transformers to use in the show, including Rack’N’Ruin, and was recommended by Hasbro to use the TFWiki for research. He was also collecting toys of weird characters that were cheap on eBay, and adding them to the show.

-Hasbro requested the show to have an original female Decepticon, which was developed into Shadow Striker.

-Hasbro said to remember that ⅓ of the audience are adults.

-While writing for animation earns less than live action, Randolph enjoys it a lot, especially so he could do silly stuff like a volcano exploding or the Transformers fighting on the moon.

Check out part 2 here.

#Cyberverse #transformers cyberverse #maccadam #interview #bumblebee cyberverse adventures #why is that guy in a tux #tfwiki #shadow striker #seriously why #keyan carlile #randolph heard

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looneysmackdown · 2 years ago

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The Cartoon Shows that Never Were #2 -- "Mixed Nutz" (2008)

“Back in 2008, I proposed an animated TV series to the powers-that-be at Warner Bros. The basic concept of the show: cartoon universes collide, resulting in Looney Tunes characters and Hanna-Barbera characters appearing in cartoons with each other.”

“I called the show "Mixed Nutz" and pitched it to Brad Globe, head of Warner Bros. global licensing. Brad loved the concept and my pitch. In fact, at my first meeting with him, three minutes into the pitch, after he had seen a few pieces of the art, he looked at me and, with a huge smile, said: “We're making this show. I've been waiting for someone to walk in with a concept like this for at least three years. And now you've done it. We're going to make this show.”“

“Pitches normally don't go this well. I was on cloud nine. A week or so later, there was a follow-up pitch with Brad, Warner Bros. Television Animation President Peter Roth, and the President of the Warner Bros. Television Group Bruce Rosenblum, and once again, "Mixed Nutz" received a very enthusiastic response, so much so that in the room that day, the three execs committed to making a pilot for the series. Hand shakes all around. A very happy day.”

“Over the next couple of weeks, I continued developing segments and story ideas for the show, I kept drawing and pulling artwork together, and I started to make calls in hopes of lining up some of the brilliant folks who helped make "Animaniacs" a success, funny people like Sherri Stoner, Deanna Oliver, Paul Rugg, John McCann, Alfred Gimeno, John McClenahan, Joey Banaskiewicz and others. Then, about a month after the initial pitch, Sam Register was hired by Warner Bros. to be the executive in charge of Warner Bros. Television Animation, where he would be reporting directly to division prez Peter Roth. Sam had his own plans for the Looney Tunes characters. Soon after he arrived on the scene, my green-lit pilot became un-green-lit.”

“ ’Mixed Nutz’ was canceled before it could even get started. And I never heard another word from anyone at Warner Bros. Anyway, this post, and the subsequent posts about ‘Mixed Nutz,’ can be filed under the category ‘The Cartoon Shows that Never Were #2.’ ” - Tom Ruegger 2011

#tom ruegger #mixed nutz #looney tunes #hanna-barbera #hanna barbera #bugs bunny #yogi bear #the flintstones #fred flintstone #daffy duck #elmer fudd #quick draw mcgraw #cindy bear #snagglepuss

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disneytva · 3 years ago

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RUMOR: NEW ANIMATED WINNIE POOH PROJECT ON DEVELOPMENT AT DISNEY+

Today the original novel of Winnie The Pooh by A.A Milne became public domain however the reality is that Disney has losed its exclusivity on the character, this means that other companies like Netflix, Paramount, Nickelodeon, Warner Bros, Cartoon Network, Sony Pictures Animation or Dreamworks can make their own versions of Winnie The Pooh but with some tricks behind Disney’s copyright policy

Our friends at DisnInsider who really have reported well some news on Marvel,Star Wars,Disney,Disney Channel Sitcoms, DCOMS and Pixar have revealed on their explanation on How Winnie The Pooh Becoming Public Domain didn’t actually affected Disney, unveiled that a project featuring the lovable bear was in early development on Disney+.

It’s very obvious that this project is animated since Winnie Pooh has been more know for animation than live action, this will be the first TV animated Winnie Pooh Project in 15 years since Playhouse Disney My Friends Tigger And Pooh

Back on 2015 popular Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon pitched a Winnie Pooh Reboot to Disney with a full animated pilot in hand, sadly in 2016 the pilot was passed, as much as we wish this new project for Disney+ is a revival of this idea, it seems that this willl be something different, probably done by Disney Television Animation or Disney Europe Animation.

On Winnie Pooh becoming Public Domain well... Disney would keep their own creations from the Hundred Acre Woods BUT Studios will not be able to use Tigger in their works though. Milne created Tigger in 1928 but is still under Disney ownership for a few more years. Disney owns the copyright for their Winnie The Pooh so any adaptations born out of the book entering the public domain can not closely resemble those in the Magic Kingdom.

Characters and setting created exclusively by Disney cannot be used as well, including Gopher or Kessie for example, as they where created for Disney’s TV Shows and not featured in the original book.

#Winnie Pooh #Winnie The Pooh #Disney+#Disney Plus #Disney+ Originals #Disney Plus Originals #Disney+ Original Series #Disney Plus Oiriginal Series #Disney+ Original Animated Series #A.A Milner #Disney TVA #Disney Television Animation #Disney TV Animation #Walt Disney TV Animation #Walt Disney Television Animation #Disney TVA Pilots #Walt Disney TVA #Disney Europe Animation #Disney Europe Animation Pilots

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testudoaubrei-blog · 4 years ago

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Content note for discussions of eternal damnation, and all sorts of other shit that will trigger a lot of folks with religious trauma.

Before I get started I might as well explain where I’m coming from - unlike a lot of She-Ra fans, and a lot of queer people, I don’t have much religious trauma, or any, maybe (okay there were a number of years I was convinced I was going to hell, but that happens to everyone, right?). I was raised a liberal Christian by liberal Christian parents in the Episcopal Church, where most of my memories are overwhelmingly positive. Fuck, growing up in the 90’s, Chuch was probably the only place outside my home I didn’t have homophobia spewed at me. Because it was the 90’s and it was a fucking hellscape of bigotry where 5 year olds knew enough to taunt each other with homophobic slurs and the adults didn’t know enough to realize how fucked up that was. Anyway. This is my experience, but it is an atypical one, and I know it. Quite frankly I know that my experience of Christianity has very little at all to do with what most people experienced, or what people generally mean when they talk about Christianity as a cultural force in America today. So if you were raised Christian and you don’t recognize your theology here, congrats, neither do I, but these ideas and cultural forces are huge and powerful and dominant. And it’s this dominant Christian narrative that I’m referring to in this post. As well as, you know, a children’s cartoon about lesbian rainbow princesses. So here it goes. This is going to get batshit.

"All events whatsoever are governed by the secret counsel of God." - John Calvin

“We’re all just a bunch of wooly guys” - Noelle Stevenson

This is a post triggered by a single scene, and a single line. It’s one of the most fucked-up scenes in She-Ra, toward the end of Save the Cat. Catra, turned into a puppet by Prime, struggles with her chip, desperately trying to gain control of herself, so lost and scared and vulnerable that she flings aside her own death wish and her pride and tearfully begs Adora to rescue her. Adora reaches out , about to grab her, and then Prime takes control back, pronounces ‘disappointing’ and activates the kill switch that pitches Catra off the platform and to her death (and seriously, she dies here, guys - also Adora breaks both her legs in the fall). But before he does, he dismisses Catra with one of his most chilling lines. “Some creatures are meant only for destruction.”

And that’s when everyone watching probably had their heart broken a little bit, but some of the viewers raised in or around Christianity watching the same scene probably whispered ‘holy shit’ to themselves. Because Prime’s line - which works as a chilling and callous dismissal of Catra - is also an allusion to a passage from the Bible. In fact, it’s from one of the most fucked up passages in a book with more than its share of fucked up passages. It’s from Romans 9:22, and I’m going to quote several previous verses to give the context of the passage (if not the entire Epistle, which is more about who needs to abide by Jewish dietary restrictions but was used to construct a systematic theology in the centuries afterwards because people decided it was Eternal Truth).

19 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

20 Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

21 Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

22 What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

The context of the allusion supports the context in the show. Prime is dismissing Catra - serial betrayer, liar, failed conqueror, former bloody-handed warlord - as worthless, as having always been worthless and fit only to be destroyed. He is speaking from a divine and authoritative perspective (because he really does think he’s God, more of this in my TL/DR Horde Prime thing). Prime is echoing not only his own haughty dismissal of Catra, and Shadow Weaver’s view of her, but also perhaps the viewer’s harshest assessment of her, and her own worst fears about herself. Catra was bad from the start, doomed to destroy and to be destroyed. A malformed pot, cracked in firing, destined to be shattered against a wall and have her shards classified by some future archaeologist 2,000 years later. And all that’s bad enough.

But the full historical and theological context of this passage shows the real depth of Noelle Stevenson’s passion and thought and care when writing this show. Noelle was raised in Evangelical or Fundamentalist Christianity. To my knowledge, he has never specified what sect or denomination, but in interviews and her memoir Noelle has shown a particular concern for questions that this passage raises, and a particular loathing for the strains of Protestant theology that take this passage and run with it - that is to say, Calvinism. So while I’m not sure if Noelle was raised as a conservative, Calvinist Presbyterian, his preoccupation with these questions mean that it’s time to talk about Calvinism.

It would be unfair, perhaps, to say that Calvinism is a systematic theology built entirely upon the Epistles of Romans and Galatians, but only -just- (and here my Catholic readers in particular will chuckle to themselves and lovingly stroke their favorite passage of the Epistle of James). The core of Calvinist Doctrine is often expressed by the very Dutch acronym TULIP:

Total Depravity - people are wholly evil, and incapable of good action or even willing good thoughts or deeds

Unconditional Election - God chooses some people to save because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, not because they did anything to deserve, trigger or accept it

Limited Atonement - Jesus died only to save the people God chose to save, not the rest of us bastards

Irresistible Grace - God chooses some people to be saved - if you didn’t want to be saved, too bad, God said so.

Perseverance of the Saints - People often forget this one and assume it’s ‘predestination’ but it’s actually this - basically, once saved by God, always saved, and if it looks like someone falls out of grace, they were never saved to begin with. Well that’s all sealed up tight I guess.

Reading through these, predestination isn’t a single doctrine in Calvinism but the entire theological underpinnings of it together with humanity’s utter powerlessness before sin. Basically God has all agency, humanity has none. Calvinism (and a lot of early modern Protestantism) is obsessed with questions of how God saves people (grace alone, AKA Sola Fides) and who God saves (the people god elects and only the people God elects, and fuck everyone else).

It’s apparent that Noelle was really taken by these questions, and repelled by the answers he heard. He’s alluded to having a tattoo refuting the Gospel passage about Sheep and Goats being sorted at the end times, affirming instead that ‘we’re all just a bunch of wooly guys’ (you can see this goat tattoo in some of his self-portraits in comics, etc). He’s also mentioned that rejecting and subverting destiny is a huge part of everything he writes as a particular rejection of the idea that some individual people are 'chosen' by God or that God has a plan for any of us. You can see that -so clearly- in Adora’s arc, where Adora embraces and then rejects destiny time and again and finally learns to live life for herself.

But for Catra, we’re much more concerned about the most negative aspect of this - the idea that some people are vessels meant for destruction. And that’s something else that Noelle is preoccupied with. In her memoir in the section about leaving the church and becoming a humanistic atheist, there is a drawing of a pot and the question ‘Am I a vessel prepared for destruction?’ Obviously this was on Noelle’s mind (And this is before he came out to himself as queer!).

To look at how this question plays out in Catra’s entire arc, let’s first talk about how ideas of damnation and salvation actually play out in society. And for that I’m going to plug one of my favorite books, Gin Lun’s Damned Nation: Hell in America from the Revolution to Reconstruction (if you can tell by now, I am a fucking blast at parties). Lun tells the long and very interesting story about, how ideas of hell and who went there changed during the Early American Republic. One of the interesting developments that she talks about is how while at first people who were repelled by Calvinism started moving toward a doctrine of universal salvation (no on goes to hell, at least not forever*), eventually they decided that hell was fine as long as only the right kind of people went there. Mostly The Other - non-Christian foreigners, Catholics, Atheists, people who were sinners in ways that were not just bad but weird and violated Victorian ideas of respectability. Really, Hell became a way of othering people, and arguably that’s how it survives today, especially as a way to other queer people (but expanding this is slated for my Montero rant). Now while a lot of people were consciously rejecting Calvinist predestination, they were still drawing the distinction between the Elect (good, saved, worthwhile) and the everyone else (bad, damned, worthless). I would argue that secularized ideas of this survive to this day even among non-Christian spaces in our society - we like to draw lines between those who Elect, and those who aren’t.

And that’s what brings us back to Catra. Because Catra’s entire arc is a refutation of the idea that some people are worthless and irredeemable, either by nature, nurture or their own actions. Catra’s actions strain the conventions of who is sympathetic in a Kid’s cartoon - I’ve half joked that she’s Walter White as a cat girl, and it’s only half a joke. She’s cruel, self-deluded, she spends 4 seasons refusing to take responsibility for anything she does and until Season 5 she just about always chooses the thing that does the most damage to herself and others. As I mentioned in my Catra rant, the show goes out of its way to demonstrate that Catra is morally culpable in every step of her descent into evil (except maybe her break with reality just before she pulls the lever). The way that Catra personally betrays everyone around her, the way she strips herself of all of her better qualities and most of what makes her human, hell even her costume changes would signal in any other show that she’s irredeemable.

It’s tempting to see this as Noelle’s version of being edgy - pushing the boundaries of what a sympathetic character is, throwing out antiheroics in favor of just making the villain a protagonist. Noelle isn’t quite Alex ‘I am in the business of traumatizing children’ Hirsch, who seems to have viewed his job as pushing the bounds of what you could show on the Disney Channel (I saw Gravity Falls as an adult and a bunch of that shit lives rent free in my nightmares forever), but Noelle has his own dark side, mostly thematically. The show’s willingness to deal with abuse, and messed up religious themes, and volatile, passionate, not particularly healthy relationships feels pretty daring. I’m not joking when I gleefully recommend this show to friends as ‘a couple from a Mountain Goats Song fights for four seasons in a cartoon intended for 9 year olds’. Noelle is in his own way pushing the boundaries of what a kids show can do. If you read Noelle’s other works like Nimona, you see an argument for Noelle being at least a bit edgy. Nimona is also angry, gleefully destructive, violent and spiteful - not unlike Catra. Given that it was a 2010s webcomic and not a kids show, Nimona is a good deal worse than Catra in some ways - Catra doesn’t kill people on screen, while Nimona laughs about it (that was just like, a webcomic thing - one of the fan favorite characters in my personal favorite, Narbonic, was a fucking sociopath, and the heroes were all amoral mad scientists, except for the superintelligent gerbil**). But unlike Nimona, whose fate is left open ended, Catra is redeemed.

And that is weird. We’ve had redemption arcs, but generally not of characters with -so- much vile stuff in their history. Going back to the comparison between her and Azula, many other shows, like Avatar, would have made Catra a semi-sympathetic villain who has a sob-story in their origin but who is beyond redemption, and in so doing would articulate a kind of psychologized Calvinism where some people are too traumatized to ever be fully and truly human. I’d argue this is the problem with Azula as a character - she’s a fun villain, but she doesn’t have moral agency, and the ultimate message of her arc - that she’s a broken person destined only to hurt people - is actually pretty fucked up. And that’s the origin story of so many serial killers and psycopaths that populate so many TV shows and movies. Beyond ‘hurt people hurt people’ they have nothing to teach us except perhaps that trauma makes you a monster and that the only possible response to people doing bad things is to cut them out of your life and out of our society (and that’s why we have prisons, right?)

And so Catra’s redemption and the depths from which she claws herself back goes back to Noelle’s desire to prove that no person is a vessel ‘fitted for destruction.’ Catra goes about as far down the path of evil as we’ve ever seen a protagonist in a kids show go, and she still has the capacity for good. Importantly, she is not subject to total depravity - she is capable of a good act, if only one at first. Catra is the one who begins her own redemption (unlike in Calvinism, where grace is unearned and even unwelcomed) - because she wants something better than what she has, even if its too late, because she realizes that she never wanted any of this anyway, because she wants to do one good thing once in her life even if it kills her.

The very extremity of Catra’s descent into villainy serves to underline the point that Noelle is trying to make - that no one can be written off completely, that everyone is capable of change, and that no human being is garbage, no matter how twisted they’ve become. Meanwhile her ability to set her own redemption in motion is a powerful statement of human agency, and healing, and a refutation of Calvinism’s idea that we are powerless before sin or pop cultural tropes about us being powerful before the traumas of our upbringing. Catra’s arc, then, is a kind of anti-Calvinist theological statement - about the nature of people and the nature of goodness.

Now, there is a darker side to this that Noelle has only hinted at, but which is suggested by other characters on the show. Because while Catra’s redemption shows that people are capable of change, even when they’ve done horrible things, been fucked up and fucked themselves up, it also illustrates the things people do to themselves that make change hard. As I mentioned in my Catra rant, two of the most sinister parts of her descent into villainy are her self-dehumanization (crushing her own compassion and desire to do good) and her rewriting of her own history in her speech and memory to make her own actions seem justified (which we see with her insistence that Adora left her, eliding Adora’s offers to have Catra join her, or her even more clearly false insistence that Entrapta had betrayed them). In Catra, these processes keep her going down the path of evil, and allow her to nearly destroy herself and everyone else. But we can see the same processes at work in two much darker figures - Shadow Weaver and Horde Prime. These are both rants for another day, but the completeness of Shadow Weaver’s narcissistic self-justification and cultivated callousness and the even more complete narcissism of Prime’s god complex cut both characters off from everyone around them. Perhaps, in a theoretical sense, they are still redeemable, but for narrative purposes they might as well be damned.

This willingness to show a case where someone -isn’t- redeemed actually serves to make Catra’s redemption more believable, especially since Noelle and the writers draw the distinction between how Catra and SW/Prime can relate to reality and other people, not how broken they are by their trauma (unlike Zuko and Azula, who are differentiated by How Fucked Uolp They Are). Redemption is there, it’s an option, we can always do what is right, but someone people will choose not to, in part because doing the right thing involves opening ourselves to the world and others, and thus being vulnerable. Noelle mentions this offhandedly in an interview after Season 1 with the She-Ra Progressive of Power podcast - “I sometimes think that shades of grey, sympathetic villains are part of the escapist fantasy of shows like this.” Because in the real world, some people are just bastards, a point that was particularly clear in 2017. Prime and Shadow Weaver admit this reality, while Catra makes a philosophical point that even the bastards can change their ways (at least in theory).

*An idea first proposed in the second century by Origen, who’s a trip and a fucking half by himself, and an idea that becomes the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, which protestants vehemently denied!

**Speaking of favorite Noelle tropes

#she ra horde prime #she ra #she ra catra #she ra spoilers #redemption arcs #toxic religion

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