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ariaste · 9 months

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The Magic Trick You Didn’t See: Being An Analysis of Good Omens Season 2

(or: Neil Gaiman, Your Brain is Gorgeous But I Have Cracked Your Sneaky Little Code And Have You Dead To Rights*) (*Maybe)

***

Soooooo I just spent the last 48 hours having a BREATHTAKING GALAXY BRAIN EPIPHANY about Good Omens Season 2 and feverishly writing a fuckin16,000 word essay about the incredible magic trick that @neil-gaiman pulled off.

Yes, it’s long, but I PROMISE your brains will explode. Do you want to know how magic works? Do you want to know what Metatron’s deal is (I’m like 99% sure of this and it’s EXTREMELY FUCKING GOOD)? Do you want to know about the Mystery of the Vanishing Eccles Cakes and the big fat beautiful clue I found in the opening credits? Do you go through the whole inventory of Chekov’s Firearm & Heavy Artillery Discount Warehouse?

Here is the essay, go read it: https://docs.google.com/document/d/193IXS11XN46lziHRb6eUpM17yK0BQkRqke1Wh64A_e0/ When ur done u can tell me I’m an insane crackpot, and u know what, i won’t even be offended

In case you don’t know whether you want to bother reading the whole enormous thing on google docs, I’ve put the first couple sections of it under the cut. JUST TRUST ME OKAY, HEAR ME OUT, THIS IS VERY EXTREMELY COOL, NEIL IS GOOD AT HIS JOB--

Proem

A dark theater. The rustling of the audience: clothes, breathing, whispers of anticipation. The lights come up. A man enters, stage left. He is a magician—a master magician—and he performs for you a magic trick so good and so subtle... that you don’t even notice you’ve seen it.

You know there must have been a trick—after all, you came to the theater to see a trick performed, didn’t you? And he claims to be a magician. So there had to be a trick somewhere. There had to be.

But maybe there wasn’t. Maybe there was just a man on a stage, talking to you, telling you a story with a strangely unsatisfying ending you didn’t quite understand.

I know. This is a weird beginning to an analysis essay. But hear me out, because I have to explain the mechanisms of the stage before I can show you what the trick was, where the trapdoor was hidden, and how Neil Gaiman pulled the whole thing off so gently and elegantly that you didn’t notice a thing. Ready? Here we go.

The Facts As We Know Them

Let us begin by establishing a baseline—some fundamental, logical assumptions that underpin the magic trick. These will seem obvious as soon as I say them, which is precisely the point: They are self-evident, loadbearing foundations for my entire argument, and if I don’t point them out, I’m going to sound like a crackpot conspiracy theorist. (Which! To be fair, I might be. I could easily be wrong about all this—but I don’t think I am.)

Our baseline, loadbearing assumptions that preface my Grand Unified Theory of Season 2:

1. Neil Gaiman is extremely good at his job.

2. Neil Gaiman loves these characters and wants with all his heart to do them justice; likewise, he has a great deal of respect, love, and admiration for Terry Pratchett and is striving VERY HARD to write the show the way Terry would have been happy with.

3. The devil, as they say, is in the details: Neil Gaiman and the entire Good Omens cast/crew are fully capable of doing extremely subtle detail work, as conclusively proven in Season 1 Ep 6, specifically the whole sequence of the body-swap scenes.

With me so far? Great.

The Elephant In The Room

Season 2 was... odd. It was odd, wasn’t it. This isn’t a matter of whether you loved it or hated it—there was just something odd going on.

I spent the entirety of my first viewing very much enjoying myself and being very happy to be back with these characters and this world, but I was also liveblogging to my groupchat as I went, and a theme soon began emerging:

“Neil, what are you doing? Where are you going with this?” “What in god’s name is going on here? I’m so lost lmao.” “What is going on with the music situation?” “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE NEIL” “zombies, ok, I trust u to pull this all together in the end, Neil, but I still don't know what you're up to” “What is going on LOL” “Incredibly what is going on here” “NEIL! WHAT IS HAPPENING!” “Literally what is happening” “Neil Gaiman why have you constructed a regency au for mystery VIBES reasons” “just????????? lesbians????????? dancing what's HAPPENING. just all the background characters are gay here ok sure sure sure NEIL GAIMAN WHAT IS HAPPENING--” “mmmmmmm neil what u doin”

All these are copied verbatim from my liveblogging, and apparently I am not the only one to have this reaction. And to be clear, I was having a good time! I came out to this theater to see a magic trick, and this Neil Gaiman guy on stage is a master magician—but I didn’t see the trick, even though there must have been a trick.

At first, I wasn’t sure how I felt about the season. I wanted to like it! Indeed, there were many things that I liked about it! But I felt a bit muddled and jumbled up and confused—I felt like there was something I didn’t understand about it, and so I couldn’t yet understand how I felt about it either.

I started chewing on this question in a friend’s DMs: Why is season 2 so fucking odd? What is going on here, Neil? What are you up to? The matter of whether he was up to something was never in question. I knew that he had to be up to something. Writers are always up to something, and as I watched season 2, it was as if I was watching Neil scamper around the room with a mischievous expression as he messed with things here and there and made little tweaks and adjustments to the arrangement of all the Chekov’s guns he’s stockpiling on the mantelpiece.

You see, Season 2 has some very bad writing in it. HANG ON, DON’T ARGUE WITH ME YET! THIS IS NOT A JUDGMENT CALL!! This is the rug that the trick’s secret mechanism is hidden under!!! This is the hidden mirror that makes the trick work!!!!! This is the trapdoor in the stage!

Yes, of course I will explain myself.

Neil Gaiman is a master magician, but I am a pretty damn good magician myself—I’m a professional fantasy author who has published nine books, and I teach workshops for apprentice writers online and at universities—and if there is one thing I have learned about the process of achieving mastery of your craft, it is this:

Regardless of what medium they’re working in, the apprentice artist is concerned primarily with achieving realism via an expansion of their control—control of their brush strokes as they paint a photorealistic eye; control of their deck of cards, the mechanisms of their magic tricks, and where the audience’s attention is being directed; control of all the little factors of voice, plot, character, setting, suspense and surprise that go into writing a good story. However, the master artist has achieved that control—so much so that it often looks effortless to an untrained eye—and sometimes the master artist returns to a messy, amateurish style simply because they have control even over this too.

As an example, consider Picasso and his entire body of work. He begins as an apprentice focused on achieving control, doing portraits of people that look like people—like what we expect a portrait of a person to look like. Then, as he grows in skill and gradually achieves mastery, he pulls away from realism. He develops a style, he experiments with faces that don’t look like any human alive colored in ways that do not appear in nature. He expands his control. His work becomes abstract. Towards the end of his life, he starts experimenting with what’s called “Naive art”, something that a 5 year old could theoretically draw... but you have to achieve mastery before you can do it on purpose and have it look good.

On one hand, Neil Gaiman is extremely good at his job. On the other hand, Season 2 has bad writing in it.

What does that tell us?

Well, we know from our Baseline Assumptions that Neil Gaiman is simply too good of a writer to fuck up through garden-variety clumsiness and lack-of-control the way an apprentice writer would. Additionally, he cannot fuck up by accident in this case because I am positive that the man is scrutinizing his work on Good Omens far too closely to let anything slide—for Crowley and Aziraphale’s sakes, for David and Michael’s sakes, and especially for Terry’s sake. The stakes are sky-high, and he cares too much to write a weird, kind of “bad” season by accident.

Which leaves only one option: He did it on purpose.

(Am I sounding like a crackpot conspiracy theorist? Baby, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. I’m gonna get SO MUCH MORE CRACKPOT.)

If he did it on purpose, then the natural question to ask is: WHY!?!?!??

It’s a great question. Not “Why?” in terms of why he as an individual person with emotions would decide to do that, mind you. More like, “What purpose does this serve for the structure of the narrative?” There is a story he is intending to tell, and out of all the choices he could have possibly made, for some reason this one was necessary and correct in order to achieve that end goal—so what was that reason?

See? Intentionality. He knows exactly what details he left in, and he did it on purpose. (Editing! It’s important!)

So there has to be a reason. It’s like when a master magician “casually” rubs an itch on his nose—why did he do that? What is he sneakily slipping into his mouth by hiding it under the excuse of this little gesture that does not even register to you as meaningful? (If you haven’t watched enough stage magic to know what I mean, watch this.)

This question is, of course, impossible to simply answer out of thin air without any further evidence. It is a dead end—so we must adjust the question and come at it from a different angle.

The one I settled on when I was chewing on this was: Well, okay, what do I mean when I say “bad writing”? What is it about S2 that makes it feel so goddamn odd?

The Pledge, The Turn, and... The Conspicuous, Expectant Silence

There are three parts to a magic trick: Pledge, Turn, Prestige.

First, the Pledge: You show the audience something ordinary. Second, the Turn: You make that ordinary thing do something extraordinary, like vanish. Third, the Prestige: You bring the ordinary thing back.

To quote the 2006 film The Prestige just after its explanation of the first two parts: “You want to be fooled. But you wouldn’t clap yet, because making something disappear isn’t enough. You have to bring it back.”

You have to bring it back.

When I teach apprentice writers, I call this a “setup-payoff cycle”. Achieving control and dexterity with this tool is crucial, because the setup-payoff cycle is the engine of the story—it’s what makes the story run. You can have a setup-payoff cycle at any scale—I have read ones that were a single sentence long; I’ve read ones that were two books long. Additionally, all jokes, no matter how long they are, are structured on a setup/payoff cycle. These cycles work precisely the same way a magic trick does:

You set up the audience’s expectations. (Optional but generally considered stylish and elegant: You give those expectations a firm jolt to throw the audience off-balance.) You pay off the audience’s expectations in a way they weren’t expecting, while saying “TA DA!!!!” really loud with your arms flung wide.

Audiences really like this. A setup-payoff cycle executed just right makes the audience’s brains light up like Times Square and hammers on their mental “reward” buttons like nothing else. It’s like you’ve personally handed them a cookie and a gold star. They go wild for this.

Here’s an example of a setup-payoff cycle, though it’s not a perfect one—and you’ve probably heard it before, so you’re not going to be throwing chairs and tearing down the theater from sheer glee:

The Setup: Knock knock. Who’s there? Banana. Banana who? The Jolt: (the joke starts over and repeats several times without reaching the payoff (aka the prestige) while the audience grows more and more annoyed and frustrated about the unfulfilled expectations, until finally...) Knock knock. Who’s there? Orange. Orange who? The Payoff: ORANGE YOU GLAD I DIDN’T SAY BANANA?

Good Omens Season 2 feels so fucking odd because the setup-payoff cycles are incomplete—nearly all of them are, and the ones that do close the loop do so in really weird ways which, as a professional author, make me feel kind of, “Bwuh?????? But where’s my cookie? Excuse me??? Sir???? Neil????? My cookie, tho???”

When I realized this, when I finally put my finger on why the whole season was giving me some uncanny valley heebie-jeebies, a chill ran down my spine. (The rest is here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/193IXS11XN46lziHRb6eUpM17yK0BQkRqke1Wh64A_e0/ I’M GOING TO GO STARE INTO THE ABYSS NOW BYE)

#good omens #good omens season 2 #ineffable husbands #neil gaiman

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lastflowerofyourhouse · 3 months

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oh oh hey wait!!

so obviously our hint that something is Up with gideon's physical resilience after the avulsion trial is the revelation that palamedes calculated that it would cause permanent brain damage to the cavalier and gideon is. um. very much not permanently brain damaged.

but it just occurred to me. this post. this post right here.

cytherea didn't accurately convey to them how dangerous the field was. which means she probably didn't mean for harrow to succeed.

and. um.

"Sextus has seen this?"

"I asked him first," said Dulcinea, "And when i told him the method, he said he'd never do it. I thought that was fascinating. I'd love to get to know him better."

...

"So technically," said Harrow, acid as a battery, "We're your third choice."

"Well, Abigail Pent was a very talented spirit magician," said Dulcinea, and relented when she saw Harrow's expression. "I'm sorry! I'm teasing. No, I don't think I would've asked the Eighth House, Reverend Daughter...They could have done this with ease...Maybe that's why."

the sixth, voted most likely to figure out what she's doing, after abigail pent, already deceased. and the ninth, who have nothing whatsoever to do with spirit magic, but who have been establishing themselves as strong competitors and fraternizing with the sixth.

but not the eighth, the ones most likely to successfully complete the trial. because they're the most likely to successfully complete the trial.

yeah, cytherea fully intended to kill them both here, i think. she wanted them to die. come to think of it, that's the only real reason for her to be participating in the labs in the first place considering she's. ya know. already a lyctor.

and.

"Good girl," the voice was saying. "Oh, good girl. She's got it, Gideon! And I've got you...Gideon of the golden eyes. I'm so sorry. This is all my fault... I'm so sorry. Stay with me," the voice said, more urgently. "Stay with me."

that's remorse, i think. that's a genuine moment of humanity peaking through. that's oh god, what have i done.

Gideon was suddenly aware that she was very cold. Something changed. It was getting harder to suck in each breath...Now Gideon was scared. Her body had the soft, drunken feeling you got just before fainting away, and it was very hard to stay conscious. Three seconds before you die, Palamedes had calculated...It felt like all the pressure in her ears was popping loose...When her eyes opened Gideon was distantly worried to discover that she was blind...The air stopped coming. It would have been peaceful, only it sucked..."Ha-ha," said Gideon. "First time you didn't call me Griddle," and died.

no, yeah, i think she did, actually. I am 99% sure that gideon capital-D Died here.

i wonder what cytherea made of her immediately opening her eyes again.

#cytherea the first #the locked tomb #tlt #my post

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crystallizsch · 2 months

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Random Thought, please humor me.

SURPRISE: YUUSHA GAINS MAGIC (By absorbing the Magic around her & dealing with Overblots)! Even better, she doesn't need a Mage Stone to control it! What would Yuusha's Unique Magic be & how does she use it? How would Jamil react?

"Magic makes people feel too powerful. Too entitled."

"That is not what magic does. That's just your fear. Fear is what can't be trusted."

HELPPP anon your random thought sent me down into a rabbit hole and i was hyperfixated on this for at least a WEEK 😭

THANK YOU FOR THE ASK BTW I REALLY APPRECIATE IT I HAD SO MUCH FUN WITH THIS 💕💕💕

anyways i also had an agonizing realization that yuusha is somewhat twisted elsa/anna because she has:

braid in front ✅

light-colored hair streak ✅

love interest that used her for his schemes ✅

desire to connect with people bc of years of loneliness (and emotional instability) ✅

unresolved childhood trauma in general ✅

(and probably more idk, these are the ones that stand out to me at the moment)

i haven't thought about frozen for YEARS and somehow it's still haunting me.

i have a lot of mixed feelings about this realization in general but the reason i brought this up is because i ended up basing yuusha's unique magic on frozen (not the ice powers part, but more the emotions aspect since elsa's powers work based on her emotions) while also still having aspects of yuu's own personality on it.

(also I'm sorry in advance i keep on dropping random lore about yuu and jamil's dynamic that only makes sense to myself hndsfhdsj)

I'm your friend. You don't have to hide. SHOW YOURSELF.

"Show Yourself" forces the target to say what's actually on their mind as long as she touches them. Since she's not particularly powerful and skilled with her own unique magic in the beginning, it's limited to skin-to-skin contact, and it only lasts for as long as she's touching her target.

If Yuu trained it more, it doesn't have to be skin-to-skin, just as long as she makes some kind of physical contact with her target; and it could last for as long as she wants even if she is no longer making physical contact. (But the longer she keeps it up, the more blot accumulates.) Yuusha would mostly just use her unique magic to mess with people. It'll only be rare that she chooses to use it for something serious.

To add more onto how Jamil would react to these magic shenanigans: They've both agreed on not using their unique magic on each other. To do so would be a breach of trust. (Of course there would be special exceptions but generally that's their agreement.) And since Jamil is still a scheming prick (affectionate), her "Show Yourself" unique magic would be useful. Plus, Yuu would not be against using her unique magic 99% of the time since she is also aware of the usefulness of her ability. Jamil would insist on helping Yuu out on how to use her magic because there was no way she'd get the hang of it immediately. And he knows she would refuse to ask any other (capable) magician for help.

An alternate idea that I scrapped was "Let It Go" where it's essentially Yuu telling her target to let go of their (usually negative) emotions. But those feelings can't just disappear so Yuu basically absorbs them so now it's her burden to carry instead. I scrapped it because I can't settle on how it works. (But it still had angst potential so I couldn't help but draw a bit about it anyway.)

(extra rambling below about yuusha overblot thoughts if anyone's interested hdlfhjgj)

this is a brief tangent from the original question because i also thought, "hey what if she overblotted, wouldn't that be fun"

i could see the overblot going in either two ways:

yuu accidentally hurts grim (or another friend) with her magic. she’s so distraught thinking that even with magic she can't protect those who are dear to her. and so during the overblot she will not actively try to hurt anyone but instead exhausting her magic reserves in an intentional attempt at self-destruction. (yes i also see the frozen parallels shhhh)

something happens that was simply THE LAST STRAW. now she’s too pissed at everyone that she no longer cares about what happens to her or anyone else, going on a destructive rampage. which can also be considered an intentional attempt at self-destruction.

either way, basically, if she can’t go home she’s just going to take herself out and/or the school instead. the girl is not okay.

(there's actually nothing good she can home to, but she's convinced she'll be happy again if she returns. but she doesn't know that because she can't remember shit about her home. that's a separate lore dump post hgdsjfkld)

also the blot monster behind her would look something like marshmallow (elsa's snow monster from frozen) :)

(i also used to have a similar idea for yuusha. i planned to have her be immune to magic *because* she was absorbing it and she didn't realize. leading to an inevitable overblot) (but i scrapped it because yuusha became my victim for jamil x yuu stuff) (like if i can't have the excuse to have jamil use snake whisper on yuu then what is the point)

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factual-fantasy · 4 months

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28 Asks! Wahoo! :DDD

(Post in question)

XD I'm glad you like him! This makes me want to make some lore for the little critter. Some of the other imps and cats have lore, so Armpit should too!.... Starting with giving him a proper name <XDD

(Video in ask)

Oooo pretty song! Though I'm not sure what they'd think.. :0 They might just enjoy it in general and not have much thought afterwards <XD

Google seems to say that that's a scary game, I'm sure they'd be too scared to play <XD

I feel like what it would take for Bonnie to yell at someone is if they were yelling at him. But even so.. I just don't know if that's how Bonnie is..

Like if say, Monty was really barking at Bonnie for how he's behaving and just shoving everything in his face. I'd like to think that Bonnie would eventually blow and yell back something like "I DON'T CARE" or "YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IM GOING THROUGH".. Buuuutt at the same time.. Bonnie is mellow and kind by nature.

Seeing Monty yelling.. he might just shut down even more. He's so tired. He's tired of everything. And now Monty's yelling about something and its all just.. so exhausting. It might be easier for Bonnie to just stand there and not say anything and wait for Monty to get it all out of his system and then leave. Fighting back is just gonna make Monty yell more and cause more drama. Bonnie would give up in an argument pretty quickly and just stand there until the other person is done yelling.

And what's Monty gonna do? Push Bonnie around? Bonnie is way heavier and stronger than him. Pushing him/encouraging Bonnie to get physical is just gonna result in Monty flailing about and Bonnie standing stiff as brick.

I've never seen that movie(..?) before so I cant really say.. But judging by Google images, it looks really cool! And it has a lot of cats in it XD

I remember them! What a whacky cast of characters :00 My favorite is probably the Monkey XDD

I've never watched any of the Ghibli movies although I really should 💔

Now considering all the stuff I've heard/seen about those movies.. the food looks delicious, and the lands seem peaceful..?? They all might camp out for a while in one of those worlds and just bask in the peace and quiet.. 😌

XDD Hey I see that digital circus reference!

Although they didn't have any rides like that fortunately, and STAFF bots didn't exist when Foxy was still in service. If a kid had an accident of some kind, whether it be an injury or a uh. "Spill".. It was probably Foxy's job to alert an employee and they'd come in and clean up the mess and/or whisk the injured child away so Foxy could go back to work.

If you go to my blogs post search and type in "super mario bros", you should find 99% of all my Mario artwork!

If you have any trouble finding it don't be afraid to send another ask- idk if ur on mobile or PC it might be different <XD

Seam could have known how to do that perhaps..? But his powers were never meant to hurt people. Seam was the court Magician. He would just use his powers to put on these beautiful displays and show off these bizarre tricks and shows. (Usually along side Jevil to add extra flare and humor to his performances)

Although... technically you could say that he did use his magic to harm once. I don't know if it counts as a hex.? But he did lock Jevil away in a magical cell made of his own magic... does that count? :0

Yeah that was the intention. Seam, that Older imp and the two cat ladies worked under the King directly. So they wore these beautiful robes and headdress things to show their status. Jevil was the court jester so he just wore a jester outfit.

If Jevil had any other role he'd probably be dressed all fancy just like them. :0

Yeah <:( for a lot of reasons.

For many years talking has hurt Seams mouth and face, obviously- So he's resorted to mumbling and talking very quietly. After years and years of doing that his voice cant be great. When the stiches were removed I can imagine him raising his voice and it just sends him into a horrible coughing fit. Plus those holes in his mouth are still there, and they cant feel great to be stretched around..

I can see him struggling to make certain sounds. Like the word "cheese". He'd probably cut off half way cuz the holes were stretched and it felt like a punch to the lip. :'(

That's a good question... I think at least for now, Seam just wants to cover it up.

Underneath that wrap.. his face is pretty messed up. Its not just his eye.. I imagine that the eye hole also didn't heal great so I don't know if they could even put in an artificial eye. It might hurt Seam or make his face really sore.. Plus after the eye was in, he'd just want to cover it up with a bandage anyways..

So for now, he just covers his face and doesn't touch the wound. And I don't think he'll have the courage to mess with it anytime soon... :((

I have not :/ But I have seen ads for it EVERYWHERE. So I am aware of its existence. XDD

I've never heard of that game no.. but Googling it, I can say that I love the art style! :D

Awe,, Thank you so much!! :DD

Possibly! :000

Aww.... nah that would destroy anybody.

I mean if they absolutely had to for some reason, like they could never return to the surface because if they did they would die.. They would survive underwater for a while. But then eventually they'd run out of supplies and they'd starve or the octopod would stop functioning after a while..

Also MAN they would all be ruined mentally. Never being able to see their families again. Never being able to feel the sun on your skin or breathe in fresh air. Being stuck underwater for the rest of their lives would destroy all of the Octonauts. Save for possibly Inkling, but even then being trapped down there and all your friends are miserable would wear on Inkling too..

Maybe not the whole playground. But I can easily see Christmas/holiday themed decorations being hung up around the Daycare :)

Hmm.. I hadn't planned/thought about something like that... But that's a really cool idea! Perhaps at one point they were pursued through dimensions :0 Terrifying!

@kiyuktuk

Which "Wapeach" are you referring to? If you're talking about the ship of them, Mmmm nahh,, I don't think they'll ever be a thing..

Are you referring to "Wapeach" as in the peach wearing that purple outfit with the long purple boots? If so I don't know what to make of that <XD

Judging by Google images.. they'd see the desert wasteland, turn right around and jump through another mirror. <XD They need to find food man!

(Post in question)

Bad Endogeny! No! Don't stab people's legs! >:(

Never heard the song before, but I'm sure Jangles would be up for it! XD

XDD 1 Jangles is powerful enough, the world cant handle 2-

@beryl-shade

Jangles would be in awe of his idols. Sans and Papyrus would probably be wondering why this 3ft(??) tall plastic Halloween skeleton decoration is alive and talking XDD

@octonauts16 (Post in question)

Oh! No no, Cici is Bibi's little sister. I don't think I'll be making him a girlfriend any time soon <XD

I'm cautiously excited. I always love to see more FNAF but I'm worried that they might twist the lore even further and make things even more confusing... <XDD

#my response #fnaf security breach #factual fam #super mario bros #octonauts #undertale #deltarune #seam and jevil #seam deltarune #jevil

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bestygogirl · 4 months

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BEST YGO GIRL: Round 4, Group B

Match 2

please use this as an opportunity to say why you like a character, not why you don't.

Propaganda under the cut!

Aoi Zaizen

The show hates her but she is a very good character. Trickstars and Marincesses are both hella cool decks.

Aoi’s parents died when she was around 6 and she was mostly raised by her older brother. She’s the 2nd best Duelist in the VRAINS at the start of the series and over the course of the first season goes from being rather shy and only putting on a happy facade to a determined Duelist willing to risk her life to save the world. She even puts a stop to a virus that’s leaving people in comas.

Aoi gets two more avatars (Blue Girl and Blue Maiden) and also obtains a semi-magic AI named Aqua as her partner.

She never lets her trauma keep her down and was a huge inspiration for me in high school!

AOI ZAIZEN IS THE BEST GIRL! She's gonna sweep this whole tournament and here's why:

Is the peak YGO Girl who Deserved Better from the writers

Just a normal everyday girl IRL who secretly turns into an ultra bubbly sweetheart idol who everyone absolutely loves when in the virtual world.

Her VRAINS persona is extremely popular, and none of her fans know that she's just Some Girl.

Plays an idol deck with Trickstars (toxic meta combo not included)

Is sheltered by her overprotective older step-brother/guardian, but very quickly stands up for herself and what she believes is right.

Mutual protection with said step-brother is the sweetest thing ever, I love Aoi and Akira moments so much!

She does NOT fall head over heels for the main protagonist, but they do share a nice conversation and handshake as they become friends IRL (one of the best VRAINS scenes, honestly)

Absolutely wrecks Soulburner for like 99% of their duel, and only loses because the writers don't understand how to move a plot along if Soulburner doesn't win as many duels as possible

Duels two seasonal antagonists, and completely destroys them both before losing thanks to an OP anime card that will never see the light of day, and a one-off card made specifically to counter her strategy and have her lose.

Her first virtual avatar, Blue Angel, is inspired by the main character from her favorite childhood book. That's adorable!

Her main summoning chants are all about hopes, dreams, and believing in yourself.

In the English dub, she says "I could so swipe left on you right now" implying that Tinder exists in the Yu-Gi-Oh universe.

Never got the Magical Girl transformation sequence she deserved because the writers apparently were not aware that Yu-Gi-Oh VRAINS is a Magical Girl show, despite the two main dudes getting that special treatment.

AOI ZAIZEN DESERVED BETTER! Give her what she deserves!

AND SHE'S A TRANS LESBIAN

Dark Magician Girl

she is iconic, basically the unofficial mascot of the anime. She has so much merch and so much fanart she is THE girl ever

#best ygo girl poll #round 4 #yugioh vrains #aoi zaizen #yugioh tcg #dark magician girl #skye zaizen

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netherworldpost · 2 months

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For the last two years (…threeeeee…?) I have been really terrible at responding to mail. I have been Working Intensely to get the front office shop open and continue to stabilize the back office private client work.

I am so grateful for your letters and mail and cards and notes and have read them all many, many, many, many times when things got dark and I questioned if I would be able to pull this off.

Launching Netherworld Post Office is quite frankly the last trick this old magician has up their sleeves.

I have started this project with the mindset of “I am putting everything into this, and if it fails, I bow out of public art life. Not out of rage or sadness, but acknowledging that I don’t have what it takes.”

The back office is successful. The project works. If the front office opens and makes $0.00 I can still keep going.

The early years of attention on socials helped convince the back office clients to take a chance on us. I am so grateful for you all.

Moving on. Getting sappy.

I am taking off the next two weeks from the back office so I can catch up on mail. A mail-cation.

Things are coming together. We are 99% ready.

I can’t figure out the words to say “thank you” enough to everyone.

I hope several years of monster nonsense in paradise, in comic and story formats, can do it for me.

Haha!!! Too sappy!! FEELINGS!!!

Thank you for every post “like” and comment and share and everything else that has enabled this off-balanced intensely unusual —

— “you are just going to have to trust me this is going to be amazing yes I know I look like a cartoon character no I am not an art teacher yes I know what I am talking about yes about things that do not exist YES this is an experience YES an experiment YES LETS DO IT!!!”

and then quietly muttering “they are signing?! Oh gosh!!”

Okay.

That’s a lot.

Going to have some coffee. Answer some overdue mail.

No human action in life is due this much luck.

I will spend the rest of my nights making things for you all to enjoy.

I hope it reaches half as much as I owe you.

Time for mail.

Thank you.

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minty-bunni · 2 years

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Okay, but stuntman Danny making one hell of an entrance into the world of professional stunts.

He skips over all the "small" stuff and heads immediately into "a human has a 99% chance of death if they attempt this" type stunts. Either he goes the Hollywood stuntman route (safer but popularity could ensure a paycheck there) or grows his own fanbase (doing way wilder stunts) with videosharing sites and public stunts.

Either way he just straight up goes "normal humans can do that, but I'm a superpowered crime against nature so I'm going to show them how it is done" and then immediately makes use of immortality/quick healing/powers. Just shoves himself in a woodchipper and walks away fine.

The episode in ZLS when Tae literally falls to pieces and the other girls put her back together while hiding the fact they are all zombies from an audience? Yes, he does that kind of stuff.

People mistake him for being an illusionist or some sort of magician when stuff like that happens and his secret never gets revealed because who would think a guy flaunting his ability to survive stuff would actually be dead?

#danny phantom #stuntman danny au #for reference zls is zombieland saga and it involves a necromancer turned idol producer and his zombie idols #only they have to hide being zombies which is hard because their limbs sometimes pop off and they need makeup to look living #they passed a girl's head popping off during an early performance as a magic trick once #i'm saying the type of undead chaos that goes on there? definitely stuntman Danny territory #what is with me and undead body horror characters masquerading as happy living people #i know I have talked about danny becoming a stuntman on multiple occasions #but I think the boy deserves some chaos and to use his powers for a little fun #500 notes #750 notes

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ladykinrannoch · 2 months

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Hi Lady Kinrannoch, I thought you would want to know that in Mad World Tarot's latest reading ("99. Harry's Hulu-baloo about Prince William"), she apologized for not uploading videos yesterday because she did a heath check reading on Catherine and also checked in on William in light of the Hulu show about Harry's IG in Canada and they were the darkest readings MWT has ever read on William and Catherine on her YT channel... to the point MWT decided not to upload the readings and deleted the videos. MWT says she will read again in a few days to see if Catherine and William's energy/situation have improved. It surprised me because I know you and Celtic Cross had very nice, positive readings a few weeks ago on Catherine... but I realize that was before the Hulu show premiered the other day. Just thought you would want a heads up as I know you read cards on the British Royal Family too.

Yes I watch MWT regularly so I am aware. This is an interesting question. Since a few of us are struggling with the energies!.

I am becoming more conscious of the fact that some of us may be under psychic attack to disrupt our connections and readings. I am going to start calling quarters and closing a circle before I do BRF readings. The fact that Paula said she felt ill afterwards is to me a sign of psychic interference and bad energy. I think I was just lucky with that last reading.

I snuck in a Celtic Cross reading VERY early this morning while California was sleeping (unless her and Dorito stay up all night hurling psychic attacks to disrupt our readings, there are times in the day that are better than others) and this morning's reading was not bad.

I can't remember everything because I packed it up because the cleaner was coming.

What i can remember. Catherine coming from a feeling of being unfairly treated past energy - Justice Rx - to good news 8 wands upright in what happens next. Situation the Moon upright, all is not as it seems, we are not being told everything, crossed by the Magician (using all the tools at her disposal) - she has done something she needed to do for the greater good of the family. It is something that has been a challenge for her before. Her goal card Queen of Swords upright which suggests she is feeling stronger and harsher. Then...hidden energy Queen of wands Rx I.e Meghan blocked in the situation.

The Hierophant - secrets in the broader context. In others views, The Empress (abundance and fertility) and hopes and fears the Chariot (William and moving forward with pace, direction and fast decisions) together ❤

Outcome Page of Swords Rx. A decision and communication that goes against someone. Clarifier card the slow knight of Pentacles - Harry. I think William will never allow him back.

So I am sticking with my stance that it is not as serious as the squad are dramatizing.

I think William is coming into his own. I am not surprised he opted to stay with Catherine and do the school run. I believe both William and Catherine are embracing their destiny. And I think it will come sooner than everyone thinks. Along with a surprise or two. Like I said if I am wrong I will eat a tarot card.

#brf #british royal family #royal reading #tarot by ladykinrannoch #tarot

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sweetbottletops · 1 month

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Aya's horror movie reaction to love talk gets me every time. I'm going to need Chizuru and Kanna to meet at some point.

ch 77

Everyone inviting Chizuru into their romance issues when she seems to have zero first hand romance experience herself is one of the most realist high school things to date.

Highkey liking her taking it to Chizuru after Narita has usually gotten that role when it comes to Mitsuki matters. I don't particularly mind Narita, but you'd expect Chizuru to be Aya's first choice in most things.

It seems like Aya had completely moved on from"Onii-san" talk after the stuff with Mitsuki was sorted wayback. And Chizuru had noticed she was spending all her time with Mitsuki with the jealousy arc so where was the time for this mysterious shop guy anyway?

But now "Onii-san" talk is back and much more advanced from last Chizuru had been updated. If Aya gets her too curious in this advanced relationship she's going to want to meet "him" or at least see a picture.

Already likes her? It's far worse than that, Chizuru. Mitsuki is in a love triangle with her. Between herself, uhhh, her other self, and Aya.

"Do you truly like me?" Chizuru, you magician. Minus all of the existential stuff that's the issue.

We can see Aya has liked Mitsuki for 99% of the manga, and Mitsuki likes being liked by her, but she still can't believe Aya could mean those feelings to her and not some kind of "Onii-san" construct. (And it's not like she can overhear Aya's romantic feelings directly again like when she was Clark Kenting it at school.)

*flashback music number*

Mitsuki has a hard time believing she'd be her friend even when Aya has long been wanting to take up even more space in her life than that. Aya likes her to the point she feels guilty about it.

After getting hit with the "friend" word back then ("...totes embawkward!") she lost some momentum, but Aya has fought back and finally has someone saying maybe Mitsuki is acting this way because she likes her back.

Yo. A new Koga just dropped.

"Can I think Koga-san likes me? No, no way. No way, but still." Wow, her brain. She's been thinking about it but now she's VALIDATED. Thanks Chizuru.

Side note: Aya's Koga-vision she isn't exactly "Onii-san" which is interesting in the context of the conversation.

"What should I do to give (her) some attention?" I wonder if she will act on some Chizuru plan that is tailored to some imagined dude or if it will be Aya scheming on her own. Worst case is Chizuru asks about a romance update in front of Koga at school. Coming full circle.

*flashback*

She's upgraded from an emo fish to an emo puppy.

#the guy she was interested in wasn't a guy at all #arai sumiko #green manga #manga #yuri

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