#i think id find her more interesting as a character +villain if they just gave us more parallels between her and denji or maybe her backstor | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bakatenshii · 2 years

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hellaur it's the csm nonnie i just finished csm and it's so cool, i'm doing fine as well hehehe, i went into csm without knowing any background and honestly i misunderstood the plot big time because i wanted to read csm because of the chainsaw dog and i thought they're all chainsaws, and there is a much better chainsaw and they all fight.

i was shocked two chapters in because the character which made me want to read csm died? and like i was conflicted on whether or not i should continue, obviously i did.

my favorite characters are kishibe and quanxi, also the takoyaki guy who reminds me of tamaki (bnha). i didn't think half of the characters would die right away because there are some really good demons/hybrid/fiends that i was expecting to have a bigger role especially one of quanxi's girlfriends the halloween one, (cosmo)

as for makima i didn't know she was the antagonist because i truly thought it was gun and when she was revealed it felt like a big joke, because wtf she's good at it, like i was fooled. and she's a good antagonist, and she basically manipulated half the demons in the area.

but i feel like she's just like denji, but more experienced because how did they let her have such a high position knowing that her powers are like that, and it also begs for other questions because it feels like she manipulated everyone

everything that happened was premeditated by her, to work in her favor and she manipulated everyone, also in her conversation with kishibe when she said she remembers things they don't know about like other devils that have existed long gone, does that mean she's old asf?

i do agree that her reasons are shallow because what prompted her to do those things (minus being a fan) like is that her true reason? does she know more? and yes reze is so much better

also the angel devil, i feel like he's still working with makima (willingly) but he has grown closer to aki. everyone is suspicious right now, i feel like they're all controlled by makima.

so far, i'm planning to reread some chapters and check some stuff i may have missed but i'm very excited for the second part because oh my gosh, also the power of the devil depends on how the item/object is feared and if people know the csm is the hero then he is no longer feared, does that mean his power will lessen(?)

and another thing is how cool are the devils in csm, like i wouldn't have thought that the plot would be like that because (like i said i thought they were all chainsaws kdjfhdS) but it really gives a nice way to introduce more characters, also i want to know how big the organization is.

because there are many devils out there and i'm sure some devils will come back, honestly i don;t know if this is understandable like i'm just rambling hehehehe half of these might not be coherent but!!! either way thank you for your response it's so cool to read vv long

also another question is what devil would you like to see in csm?

ahh NO THANK YOU FOR THIS RESPONSE! i think one of the best parts of reading manga (esp ones like csm) is the theories and analysis and deepdive into the lore, so I’m so glad you’re here to scream about it with!!

I do think the killing of characters was done super offhandedly but I also read that it was specifically done like that to prove the fickleness of human life and how fragile it is? humans die in an instant, at any time, and if I think about it like that then I do think the manga portrayed that super well.

I wish we got to see more of Kishibe!! and I also wish we got more Kishibe Quanxi backstory? because they clearly go all the way back. Hopefully we see more of Kishibe and Yoshida in the next part bcos god knows theyre the only ones left still alive HAAHAHAHA

The gun devil reveal was so anticlimactic for me, but at the same time I was almost relieved that we didn’t have a whole War Against Gun sequence because for some reason, a generic flashy shounen-style Boss Fight feels cheap to be included in csm? IDK IF THAT MAKES ANY SENSE, I COULD BE CHATTING ABSO SHITE OAKAOAK I just think with how deep the lore is and all the conflicting questioning morals (esp with the whole fear strengthens the devil aspect), having one Big Boss feels... like a cop-out? it just doesnt suit it imo, and I’m glad they went the route they did. I just wish they did moreee especially w Makima, shes deffo very old and she mentioned csm killing her 26 times already, I just. I just want more lore more explanation more expansion?? WHICH I GUESS WE’LL GET IN PT2

omg i would die if angel devils still alive and has bodily autonomy (ie not under makimas control) because he is my abso fav character and i need MOOOREEE screams && I’m excited to see Power hopefully come back next pt, and i keeeep thinking this, I know theres a future devil but I’d love a time devil. one that can manipulate time would be so sick, and I imagine what with the fear factor, time devil would be quite powerful as well bcos everyone’s scared of the passing of time ya know?

#urusai! baka #csm spoilers #csm #side note i also read csm for pochita #i like literallt was so excited to meet pochita #AND THEN THEY NUKED HIM IN OAIAOAO THE FIRST 2 CHAPS #MY POOR BUB #AT THE END WHEN HE SAID I JUST WANTED TO BE HUGGED BCOS EVERYONE FOUND HIM SO SCARY I SOBBED #I LOVE U AO MUCH MY LIL BABY I WILL GIV EU THE WORLD???#HAVE FUN ON UR REREAD!!#oh i totally glossed over ur denji makima skmilarities point hold on #i think id find her more interesting as a character +villain if they just gave us more parallels between her and denji or maybe her backstor #or just anything honestly?#i see what people r saying when they draw parallels i just dont personallg SEE it in the manga if thag makes sense #I THINK THE WHOLE BIG ORGANIZATION THINS IS SUPER INTERESTING AS WELL #u know when we were sent to that other dimension (i think hell??) and there were devils fhat we couldnt even begin to grasp or understand #id love to aee how they play into it? itd ve super cool and i feel like with the whole #set up to revive power and recreate power #we might get to see how the whole dying process goes and how theyre revived and what the whole syatem us #ALSO. Also also ALSO I WAS TALKING TO MY FRIEND LENNIE ABOUT THIA AND SHE BROUGHT UP THE FACT THAT #THEY MENTIONED ALL THE DEVILS HEARING CHAINSAWS BEFORE THEY DIED. I NEED AN EXPLANATION.#ID IT BCOS CHAINSAW DELETES THE EXUSTENCE OF DEVILS HE EATS THEREFORE HE HAS POWER OVER LIFE N DEATH TO SOME EXTENT #SO MANY QUESTIONS ITS SO INTERESTING #thank you for listening to me ramble!!!

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transthaumaturge · 4 years

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Squirrel Girl is Super Gay for her Roommate and I Want Everyone to Know

A gay infodump of sensible length by Rachel Tikvah

ALRIGHT, SO The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl was the very first comic that I ever read regularly, back when I was looking for more stories with strong female protagonists but didn't really know why. Back then I just thought I really liked strong female characters and not that I was being gay on main, but now I know the truth. The comic had a 5-year run, and it was the first time that Squirrel Girl, AKA Doreen Green, had had her own series. She had a brief run in the mid-2000's where she was established as someone who could beat up Thanos with her bare hands well, more like squirrel hands but was mostly a joke character that happened to be incredibly buff and had indestructible plot armor. USG decided that Doreen's next major life goal would be to enroll in college to become a computer scientist, because her writer, Ryan North, is really into computer science and they basically gave him free rein over Squirrel Girl canon for five whole years. Like, a solid third of the plots are solved with some kind of computer science smarts. It’s really cool. Anyway this is Doreen in one of the gayest solo pictures I could find of her on short notice, which is also one of the variant covers from the actual series:

And this is her college roommate, Nancy Whitehead:

I'm like, 99% certain that Ryan North intended for them to end up as a couple and Disney!Marvel told him no. So he decided to make them AS GAY FOR EACH OTHER AS POSSIBLE without explicitly saying that they were a couple, and it ended up going under the radar. What follows is evidence for that claim. I’m going to put a "read more” after this so it doesn’t clutter everyone’s dashboards, but please read on if you’re interested. There’s a lot of cute gayness after this point. I’m also going to put all of the image descriptions at the end, since they take up a lot of space and I don’t want to break up the flow of the post. Finally, a quick spoiler alert for one arc in the middle of the series and a couple major plot points from the final few issues.

AND THEY WERE ROOMMATES

So for a while it was just kind of hinted at that they’re in a relationship, mostly because they were basically domestic life partners for like, two whole years in-universe before the comic run ended. But it really came to a head with an arc that was ran about 2/3 of the way through the series. Some pictures of them being, like, so cute together in general and/or talking about how much they care about each other before I get to that arc, though:

Also Doreen describes her and Nancy's cat as "co-parented" in one of the last issues:

ANYWAY, THE ARC. THE HYPERTIME ARC. So one of the villains created for the Squirrel Girl run (I think they liked making weird shit canon just because they could) was a dude who went by the name "EpicCrimez". He’s a crime streamer. He livestreams his crimes to an online audience. I don't know. *Throws up hands*

He had some kind of laser gun that he built out of scavenged alien tech but didn't really know what it did, so he shot it at Doreen and Nancy for kicks. It shot them into hypertime, so suddenly the rest of the world was moving at a fraction of the pace that they were. They were moving so quickly that they were slated to live out their entire lives over the span of a single weekend if they didn't figure out how to reverse the effects. And...they did. Live out their entire lives together. For the two of them, they were the only two people in the world. There were other people, but they looked like statues unless you spent a very long time observing them. Doreen and Nancy grew old together in a world where they only had each other. This is an incredibly cute domestic scene from a little while after they found themselves in hypertime:

Gosh, I wish I could find more official art from that arc of them just living together, it was so good. But the point is, they were both old by the time that Nancy figured out how to get them out of hypertime. And it wasn't ideal. Their bio signatures were stored in the gun that EpicCrimez shot, and they could essentially "reboot" their bodies from when they were first shot and send themselves back into the regular timestream. But they wouldn't remember anything about the life that they had shared together. Nancy almost didn't want to do it. She raised the possibility of them just living out the rest of their lives together, because she didn't want to forget their life together. This is the conversation they had:

"I don't regret any of it. I don't want to lose it, and I don't want to lose us." "You're not getting rid of me that easily." Every time I look at that last picture, which took up an entire page of the comic, I start to cry. We’re seeing the final moments of two people who love each other more than anything, who were each other's entire lives, savoring their last moments together and wondering what the future holds. Sacrificing the life that they built together so that their younger selves could live a better, fuller one. Dying in each other’s arms, scared but comforted by the fact that they had each other. And then the arc ends, and they can't remember anything, so the status quo is restored. They have some paintings they made of each other while they were living together in hypertime, but they move on pretty quickly without ever knowing the significance of those lived decades. Still, it's clear in the arcs that follow and the adventures they embarked on afterward that they would die for each other. All of that continues until the end of the last arc. Their shared apartment's been blown up at this point by a supervillain who wanted to ruin Doreen’s life before eventually killing her. And in the aftermath of the fight, they're sifting through the wreckage for anything that survived (don't worry, the cat got out in time) when they find the picture that they painted of themselves during the hypertime arc:

They have a really cute conversation about how this chapter of their life is over, but they're going to be okay and they're going to build a new life together. And then Nancy basically tells Doreen that she can't live without her:

And then Doreen says something super queer-coded about how she likes the idea of the world knowing her secret identity now:

On the very last page of the comic, after all of the action is over and the series is about to end, they're talking to each other in what's supposed to be a twitter thread and Doreen asks Nancy a very thinly veiled question about whether she still wants to spend time with her now that her identity's out. She pretends it's about a class project, but it's really not about the class project. Here's how that conversation goes:

With no knowledge of what happened during the weekend when they shared their entire lives together, without ever having heard Doreen say it to her before, Nancy’s heart still knows which words to choose. "...you're not getting rid of me that easily. <3" I believe that the author of the series, Ryan North, did as much as he possibly could to portray them as a couple without saying it outright. And as the last piece of evidence to support that claim, I want to share a response he wrote in one of the series' last-ever letter columns:

"as for more Doreen and Nancy, I hope so too. A Squirrel Girl book without Nancy would feel like--like--like some sort of hypothetical "Super" "Man" book without an equally hypothetical "Lois" "Lane"!" It's easy to write off this analysis as wishful thinking, or as a misreading of the subtext. But when the author of the series says that these two characters are meant to always be together and compares them to one of the most famous couples in any comic series ever, it's clear that there's more to it than that.

Some Additional Thoughts: 1) Doreen and Nancy are both probably bisexual or pansexual, since they both expressed romantic interest in men throughout the series but they’re both clearly interested in each other too. There might be an element of demiromanticism there as well if part of the reason that they’re into each other romantically is because of how emotionally close they’ve become over the years. I want to make sure that that facet of their romantic orientations doesn’t get erased, because bi and pan folks get erased enough as it is. Neither Doreen nor Nancy are lesbians, just super-cool WLWs.

2) HERE’S WHAT THE ISSUE 50 VARIANT COVER LOOKED LIKE

That’s NOT a fun, totally straight way to pose with your platonic gal pal. They’re so incredibly cute together! I have no words! In Closing If you got this far, thank you so much for letting me talk to you about a comic that’s very important to me, and a couple in that comic that I care about very much. I spent way too long making this (six hours and counting), mostly in writing the image descriptions, and I’m very proud of my work but very tired now. Hyperfixation is a hell of a drug. If this resonated with you, please consider reblogging it so that more folks can see it. If not, even a like is nice. I’d also love to engage with people who have their own thoughts, so feel free to leave some comments in the notes if you’ve got an idea/a reaction/any additional cute Doreen/Nancy scenes that you’d like to share with me. At any rate, this post has gone on long enough and I don’t want to ask y’all to read any more than you have to. So have a great day, good morning / afternoon / night, and stay safe. Thanks again for reading! ~Rachel Tikvah, AKA @transthaumaturge Image Descriptions: Image 1: [ID: Squirrel Girl, a young woman with light skin, is posing in front of a brick wall that she seems to have crashed through, leaving a perfect outline of her body. She’s facing away but looking backwards over her shoulder at us and smiling. She’s flexing upward with her right arm and has her left fist resting on her left hip. Her sidekick, a squirrel named Tippy-Toe, is standing in the cutout she left in the wall and is making the same exact pose while wearing a light pink bow around her neck. Squirrel Girl is wearing brown lace-up boots, fur-lined hot pants over grey tights, and a brown fur-lined jacket with sleeves that come up to her forearms and a symbol of an acorn embroidered into the back. She’s also wearing a hairband with fake squirrel ears on it over short reddish-brown hair. She has a large squirrel tail coming out of her hot pants that sweeps down in a curve behind her lower legs. The illustration is drawn so that everything is bathed in the light of a sunset, and Doreen is casting shadows on the wall in front of her.] Image 2: [ID: Two frames depicting a scene between Doreen and Nancy in their college dorm room, with many cardboard boxes still not unpacked and sitting on a bare bed mattress. Nancy Whitehead is a young woman with dark brown skin and short, curly black hair. She's wearing black tights, a white dress-top, and a yellow cardigan over that. Her arms are crossed as she holds her white cat, Mew, against her chest. Doreen is wearing grey tights and a black long-sleeve shirt with a wide collar and white stripes across the chest. She's holding Tippy-Toe up to Nancy with both hands so she can see her better. The following dialogue ensues: Nancy: "A squirrel? But weren't you the one who was all about pets not being allowed in--" Doreen: "Yeah, I know. But this really interesting person I met today told me that obeying an unjust law is itself unjust." Nancy: "...You know, I was worried I'd get a weird roommate, but you're all right, Doreen Green."] Image 3: [ID: Doreen and Nancy are both sitting on a lavender-pink couch in nightclothes. Doreen has short, orange hair. She is wearing a loose-fitting grey long-sleeve shirt and steel-blue cutoff shorts; Nancy has cropped black hair. She is wearing a dark purple top with sleeves that come down to her upper arms, and loose-fitting navy-blue shorts that come down to her lower thighs. Doreen is side-hugging Nancy as she says, with an ecstatically happy smile, “Nancy, you’re the greatest. You know that, right?” Nancy gives Doreen a full smile as she responds, “I’d always suspected it, but it is nice to have it confirmed.”] Image 4: [ID: Nancy is shown from the shoulders up. She has short, curly black hair. She’s wearing large, disc-shaped gold dangle earrings, and a red jacket with prominent shoulders and a yellow collar. She’s fixing the observer with an angry, determined stare as she says, “She knows this man wouldn’t dream about betraying her, or he’d have to answer to me.”] Image 5: [ID: Doreen and Nancy are eating breakfast at the brown, circular kitchen table in their apartment. Doreen’s wearing a skin-tight athletic crop top that’s striped in black, red, white, and blue. Her arm muscles are well-defined and clearly visible as she puts a spoon in her mouth, closing her eyes as she does so. She has a bowl of cereal in front of her, and half a banana in front of that. Nancy is sitting to her left in a pink camisole top that’s also exposing her muscles, scrolling through something on her smartphone. Her hair is in a yellow fabric wrap that’s knotted on one side of her head. A cup of coffee sits in front of her. The clear blue sky is visible through the window centered on the wall behind them.] Image 6: [ID: Nancy and Doreen are facing away from the vantage point, walking towards an Empire State University campus building and holding hands with their fingers intertwined. Nancy is wearing a long knee-length grey coat and black knee-high boots, with a baby-blue side bag hanging from her left shoulder. Doreen is wearing a magenta sweatshirt with the periwinkle-lined hood down, light brown form-fitting denim pants, and black ankle-high boots, with a dark brown side bag hanging from her right shoulder. Trees and bushes hem the walkway in on either side. The building in front of them is dark red, with glass doors and a row of floor-to-ceiling windows on the second floor. Doreen is saying “...we’re just going to have to take the long way around.”] Image 7: [ID: Doreen is facing towards the vantage point and is visible from the legs up, standing in front of a pile of rubble in the background. She’s wearing high-waisted light blue shorts over black tights, and a red windbreaker with sleeves ending at her upper arms that’s opened to reveal a white t-shirt underneath. Tippy-Toe is sitting on her shoulder. There are two people facing Doreen, each slightly in frame and silhouetted in black against the light of the setting sun. Doreen is fixing them with an angry, determined expression, resting her right fist at her hip while she gesticulates with her left hand and says, “So! I don’t know about you all, but Melissa kidnapping my friend and blowing up my life and my house and almost blowing up my co-parented cat makes me feel like giving her a piece of my mind. Friends...”] Image 8: [ID: A full comic page. EpicCrimez is looking like a dork in a green and black skin-tight jumpsuit, bright red ski goggles, and a green wig cap with his brown hair sticking out the back in a mullet. He’s standing inside a jewelry store and holding up a fist of expensive gems and pearls-on-strings as holds up his smartphone and speaks into it. He’s facing off against Squirrel Girl, with her allies Koi Boi and Chipmunk Hunk on her right, and Nancy and Brain Drain on the left. The following scene ensues: EpicCrimez: “And for those of you just tuning in, welcome to another successful heist by your boy EpicCrimez, streaming live! Now with 10% more live crime action than any other streamer! Don’t forget to like and subscribe!! I know some of you in EpicCrimez Nation have been forgetting to do that lately. Not acceptable.” Squirrel Girl: “You picked the wrong small business to rob, crime-initiator! Because this mall is protected by super heroes.” Brain Drain: “HELLO” SG: “And also an unrelated civilian friend I brought along too!” Nancy: (Not looking up from her phone) “ ‘Sup.” EC: “Check it out--Squirrel Girl and her miscellaneous friends are here! It’s action you won’t find on any other channel!” SG: “Are you...streaming your robberies?” (Nancy pockets her phone) EC: “Yeah I am! For money reasons! And with you “heroes” in it, I’ll make even more!” SG: (Whispering to Nancy:) “Question: a fight scene just gets him more traffic, which lets him profit from this crime even more--so does this mean we don’t fight him?” N: (Whispering back:) “I feel like letting him go causes more harm, but I look forward to us teasing apart the moral implications of this later.” SG: “Nice.” SG: (No longer whispering:) “I’ll like and subscribe, EpicCrimez! I’ll like fighting crime, and subscribe... to a worldview wherein the strong protect the weak!” EC: “Oh my gosh, are you like wholesome Spider-Man or something??” At the bottom of the page, small text says: “Wholesome Spider-Man, Wholesome Spider-Man/Does whatever a wholesome spider can/Is he tough?/Listen bud/He’s here to hear you talk about your day and tell you it’ll all be fine while taking you out for your favorite meal for dinner because he knows you deserve it.”] Image 9: [ID: Another full comic page. Doreen and Nancy are in their apartment together, and their friends Tomas and Brian (AKA Chipmunk Hunk and Brain Drain respectively) are frozen as they look down at the machine that Nancy is on her knees in front of, working on. Nancy, barefoot, is wearing cerulean-blue athletic pants, a black long-sleeve spandex shirt without shoulders, and narrow-framed glasses. Her hair is partially covered by a yellow cloth head wrap tied on the left side, with black dreadlocks spilling out the side and back. The machine in front of her is made of dull grey metal, about a meter tall and roughly circular. Wires dangle out of a hatch that Nancy is fiddling with. Doreen is wearing a flowing, dark-purple pantsuit with wide, ankle-length legs and a halter top with the sleeves tied off at her shoulders. Her shoes are light-brown ankle boots with a horizontal gap on the bridge of each foot. Her wavy orange hair is parted in the middle and down past her shoulders. She looks incredibly cute. The following scene ensues: Doreen: “What do you think?” Nancy: “I think--come on you stupid screw--I think we’re still years away from this thing working, if it ever does. Who knew time machine construction is really hard, except of course for everyone who has attempted it?” (She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand) D: “Hah! No, I mean my new outfit.” N: (Looking up and checking her gf out:) “Doreen! You look amazing!!” D: “Liberated it from a very expensive department store uptown!” N: (Now standing) “Tony paid for it?” D: Tony will eventually discover he was kind enough to leave some expensive jewelry in trade, yes. I pinned a note to him so he knows.” N: “There really are advantages to being friends with billionaire playboy genius philanthropists.” D: “Right?!” N: (Taking Doreen’s hands in hers:) “It’s a shame we can’t take a picture of you all dolled up.” D: “Not without standing still for a few months, yeah. But I was thinking about that. I picked up something else at another store downtown. Thought maybe it could help us with that.” (Holding up a shopping bag with one hand while still holding onto Nancy’s hand with the other:) “Nancy Whitehead, I thought you and I might take up painting sometime.” At the bottom of the page, small text says: “Tony Stark moves from meeting to meeting, his body accumulating dozens of notes every second. He sighs. Stuff like this didn’t happen before he knew Doreen. But then he smiles, because after all...stuff like this didn’t happen before he knew Doreen.”] Images 10-16: [ID: Several pages worth of comic frames, posted together to depict one scene. Doreen and Nancy are now old women, likely in their seventies or eighties. Doreen has short, grey hair. She’s wearing a tan button-up waistcoat and an orange ascot, brown flats with an olive-green skirt, knee-length and softly pleated. Her tail is sticking out the back of her skirt over the top, bushy and brown but with stiffer, less-dense hair. Nancy has her grey-black hair done up in a ponytail, a mass of tight curls behind her head. She’s wearing thin oval glasses, black dress pants, black flats, and a lavender cardigan with a flower motif along the edges, open to show the yellow-orange top underneath. They’re standing in front of a completed time machine. On either side are tall pieces of machinery, and in the middle is a round, flat metal dais hooked up to everything else with snaking cables. The following scene ensues: Nancy: “So...this is it, babe. The new machine.” Doreen: “Your secret project! Nancy, it looks like you started from scratch!” N: That’s because I did. I finally realized our old machine was never going to work. Maybe if we had a few more decades, but...there’s no time. And given that our backs are to the wall, I took a risk. I disassembled the gun right down to the metal, and examined all the parts. And I did find something: a data chip. Doreen, the gun stored our bio signatures when it us.” D: “What are you saying?” N: “I’m saying my new machine won’t send us back in time, and we’ll still have lost a weekend of real time. But it will restore our bodies to normal time.” D: (Hugging Nancy tight:) “Nancy! You saved us!!” N: (Resting her hands on Doreen’s shoulders:) “Not--quite. There’s a catch, Doreen. Our bodies will make it...but we won’t. Look, Doreen...I’m an old woman. I’ve spent most of my life in hypertime. This wasn’t how I saw my life going, but...I don’t regret any of it. I don’t want to lose it, and I don’t want to lose us.” D: “I don’t understand.” N: “It’s like restoring from backup. Our bodies will be restored to how they were the moment we were first hit. But--that necessarily includes our brains, too. Everything we’ve done since we entered hypertime--our entire lives spent together...we’ll forget.” (She looks at Doreen in distress) D: “I don’t either, Nancy. You’ve been the most important person in my life. But if we do go back--we can do it again. All of it. It might not happen again quite the same way, but--well, like you say...we’ll have all the time in the world.” N: (Their faces inches apart, they both tilt their heads down and smile sadly:) “Twist my arm, why don’t you.” (They both step onto the dais holding hands, and blue energy starts to ripple around them:) “You filled up Spidey’s web-shooters before we go?” D: “Yep. Again.” N: “You and me, saving the world.” D: “Well,” (holding Nancy’s hand in both of her own) "No reason we can’t do it twice.” N: “You know, there’s a chance things could turn out differently, now that we’ll have video games to distract us. In 40 years we might decide we don’t like hanging out after all.” D: (Hugging Nancy even tighter than before as the energy from the time machine starts to envelop them, resting her face in the nape of Nancy’s neck:) “Nah. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”] Image 17: [ID: Doreen and Nancy are sifting through the charred rubble of their apartment as night starts to fall around them. Doreen is wearing faded blue jeans and a navy blue t-shirt with a Captain America star in the middle. Over top of the shirt, she’s wearing a dark reddish-brown leather vest with four metal studs at the four points of the folded-out collar. Nancy is wearing black tights and a light green long-sleeve shirt with olive-green sleeves. The front of the shirt has a picture of Cat-Thor, Cat God of Cat Thunder’s head on it. The following scene ensues: Doreen: “So I know we’re only a few hours into it, Nancy, but I think my identity being public isn’t gonna be as bad as I thought.” Nancy: “Oh?” D: “Yeah, Tony’s given me lots of tips, and it does honestly help to know that my parents are protected by a robot tree with laser eyes and my friends live in a city with the most super heroes per square mile.” N: “Most super villains too, but--Hold on. I think I found it.” (Nancy lifts a picture frame out of the wreckage, charred around the edges but otherwise no worse for wear. It has a painting inside of it of Doreen and Nancy, arm-in-arm, from hypertime. Doreen is wearing the lavender pantsuit from before, and Nancy is wearing a tight-fitting lilac dress.) “...And it looks like you and I made it through just fine.”] Images 18-19: [ID: Two later comic panels from the same scene. They’re wearing the same outfits, but Nancy’s now cradling her white cat, Mew, in the crook of her left arm while she holds onto the picture frame with her right hand. The following scene ensues: Doreen: “Come on, let’s talk about it! If we’re starting a new chapter in our lives, and we can decide what’s in it, what do you want it to contain?” Nancy: “Doreen...” D: “What are the three things you can’t live without, Nancy Whitehead?” N: (Holding up the picture so that Doreen can see it:) “Fine. If you must know, all this girl needs to be happy are cats and squirrels and knitting and computers and friends and secret tattoos and super heroes and lots and lots of love. Also food and shelter. And water. And internet.” D: “That’s more than three things.”] Image 20: [ID: Same scene as before, a single frame with a close-up on Doreen from her chest upwards. Doreen cups her chin with one of her hands and says, “Honestly--I thought about it. I really did. But I realized that where I am now, I’m safe and I’m loved and I kinda like the idea of not having to lie to people anymore, you know? Even if it is just a lie of omission. I want to share my whole self with the world. I don’t want to have to hide who I am anymore.”] Image 21: [ID: Something resembling a twitter thread, with dialogue between Nancy and Doreen stacked chronologically as horizontal boxes. Their respective names and handles are at the top of each of their comments. Nancy is Nancy W. and @sewwiththeflo, Doreen is Squirrel Girl and @unbeatablesg. The following conversation ensues: Nancy: “You think I’d leave you high and dry??” Doreen: “I think I don’t want our lateness harming your grades and therefore harming your post-secondary education or career choices and therefore harming your ENTIRE LIFE?!” “So yeah I think you should switch to someone else, real talk. I honestly don’t mind, I promise.” Nancy: “Please. If there’s one thing I know about you, about me, and about how we spend our future together, it’s this. Doreen Green...” “...you’re not getting rid of me that easily. <3″] Image 22: [ID: A paragraph of text, black text on a yellow background. “As for more Doreen and Nancy, I hope so too. A Squirrel Girl book without Nancy would feel like--like--like some sort of hypothetical “Super” “Man” book without an equally hypothetical “Lois” “Lane”!”] Image 23: [ID: A group picture of Squirrel Girl and friends sitting down on a grassy hill and watching the sunset together. Kraven the Hunter is in the foreground for some reason, looking almost directly at the camera. In the background we see Koi Boi, Mary Mahajan, Chipmunk Hunk, Brain Drain, and Mew the Cat. In the middle of the shot, Doreen and Nancy sit together. Doreen is in her superhero outfit with Tippy-Toe on her right shoulder, and Nancy is in a yellow cardigan and jeans on Doreen’s left. They’re holding hands, fingers intertwined, as Nancy leans against Doreen with her whole body. Their heads are tilted inward towards each other, the side of Doreen’s head touching the side of Nancy’s, as they look off into the distance together.]

#the unbeatable squirrel girl #squirrel girl x nancy #squancy #squirrel girl #nancy whitehead #queer comics #WLW comics #long post #described #squirrel girl spoilers #thaumaturgethoughts

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seraphanangelica · 4 years

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Can I please have scenarios or headcanons on how bnha characters (any that you like) would handle dealing with a ghost with their s/o who totally believes in the supernatural? Thank you in advance

I absolutely love this idea! As a firm believer of the supernatural myself, there was absolutely no way I could delay this response. So here you go!

How They And Their S/O Would Deal With Ghosts

💥This guy has only seen or heard about ghosts and spirits from horror movies. That’s all he cares about them. If they’re not in a movie, they have no existence. Of course, every time he says something along those lines, you roll your eyes and laugh to yourself at his blatant lack of attention to the supernatural.

💥You’ve tried, many times to prove just how real they were. And every single time it would go like this:

💥”I’m telling you, Katsuki, I’ve had experiences with them. You just don’t think they’re real becuase you haven’t.”

💥”Your experiences are just things you don’t want to give logical explanations to, dumbass.”

💥His point is proved further when nothing happens. And nothing happened for days after the last time you two had the repetitive conversation.

💥One day, as Katsuki woke up before you, he got out of bed and proceeded to go about his completely non-paranormal life. After giving you a light kiss on your forehead, he went downstairs to start preparing breakfast.

💥He stopped mid-stair though, as he heard another pair of feet pattering down the stairs behind him at a much quicker and softer pace. At first he thought it was you that had gotten up earlier than usual to spend more time with him in the mornings. He turned around to greet you with a smirk, his face falling slightly when he saw no one around.

💥Paying it no mind, he finished descending the stairs, and continued into the kitchen.

💥In the middle of sautéing vegetables, Katsuki reached out to grab the bottle of olive oil that sat on the counter to his left. He froze mid reach as he saw the barstool behind him rotate as if someone were sitting there out of the corner of his eye.

💥”Oh hell, no.” He still refused to take into account anything you’ve said about the matter.

💥Twenty minutes later, you were downstairs and eating breakfast, in the barstool next to the one that moved. You watched in curiosity as Katsuki leaned against the counter in front of you, crimson eyes darting from the empty seat then to you, then back again.

💥You were concerned, to say the least. “Katsuki, are you alright? You’re acting weird. Come sit down.”

💥He only shook his head and took a deep breath, looking you in the eyes. “Tell me about everything you know about ghosts. Now.”

💥And so you did. You told him everything you’ve been trying to tell him since you’ve known each other. The only difference was that this time, he was actually listening as if it were real and not a story.

💥When you finished he shook his head. “Look, I still don’t believe in this ‘ghost’ stuff, but-“ crash!

💥You’re heads snapped over to the source of the sound, your eyes settling on the plate that used to be next to Katsuki. It was now shattered on the floor, the pieces spreading out farther than the counter span. You knew Katsuki was freaking out but concealing it on the outside.

💥You couldn’t help but smile at your husband as his eyes still focused on the broken dish. “Don’t belive me now? We both know that dish was no where near the edge.”

💀Dabi would be disbelieving, but open to conversation. People talk about anime, right? It’s not real but makes for great small talk. He’d also be stupid. Very, very stupid.

💀The day he walked into the League of Villain’s hideout with an Ouija board under his arm, you thought he’d finally lost his mind.

💀”Are you crazy? Do you know the kind of stuff that happens when you use one of those things? You don’t know what you’re letting in!” You tried to reason with him, even coming up with ways to dispose of it without his knowledge. Unfortunately for you, he knew what you were up to and hid it.

💀”Oh come on. It’s just a little fun,” he teased you one night when he bagan setting it up in the center of your shared room. “What’s the worst that happen?”

💀”Asking ‘is anybody there’ is the stupidest thing you can do becuase thats inviting anything to come into the space. Secondly, you don’t know how to protect yourself against that kind of thing. The worst that can happen is possession, Dabi.” You scolded, leaning against the wall farthest from the board.

💀”Relax, Doll. I have someone in mind, actually. He didn’t really matter much, but I picked this from his wallet,” he reached into his pocket and tossed an ID card in your general direction. “See? Perfectly fine.”

💀It was not perfectly fine. You reluctantly joined him in the game, placing your fingers on the planchette, cringing with every subtle movement the burnt boy made. Because you didn’t want to do this in the first place, you let Dabi carry out the ‘ritual’.

💀As you would’ve guessed, the moment Dabi’s target was acquired, the planchette began moving, much to your dismay. Slowly, the letters formed a sentence. ‘You killed me.’

💀You shot a glare at your boyfriend. “What the hell did you do? Did you seriously just kill a man to contact him?”

💀He shrugged. “I caught the guy stealing from the convenience store, he had to go.”

💀”YOU STEAL FROM CONVENIENCE STORES!”

💀After you both said ‘goodbye’, you couldn’t shake the feeling that you were being watched. It practically consumed you as the next hours passed, your eyes always finding themselves back to the abandoned board that still laid on the floor.

💀”WHAT THE FUCK!?” Dabi shouted from the bathroom, his voice one of surprise and confusion. You darted into the small room, expecting a prank left by Twice or blood left by Toga (it happens), and to be pretty honest, you were expecting this too. From the mirror, you could see eight distinct and parallel scratches on his back, too fresh and too deep not to be ignored.

💀Without a word, you bounded over to the closet and wrenched the doors apart with a set purpose. Pushing clothes out of the way, you pulled out an old chest you stored wherever you stayed. Opening the wooden box, you pulled out a match and a bundle of juniper and sage. Lighting the end of the dried herbs, and opening the nearest window, you let the smoke drift to all corners of the room.

💀Dabi watched in confusion and amusement as you walked towards him and started waving the herbs around him, cleansing him as well as the room.

💀”Y/N.”

💀“What, Dabi?”

💀”We should do it in a graveyard next time. This Halloween.”

💀”Fucking Samhain? Are you out of your goddamn mind?!”

💀He believes in ghosts now, so you had that going for ya.

🥦Midoriya would be skeptical about it. As someone who never rules out any possibilities, he has a wide range of knowledge towards that kind of thing. You never knew if someone had a quirk that could control the spirits of the dead.

🥦When you told Izuku that you see dead people, he honestly thought you were quoting The Sixth Sense. You were, in a way. In the same way you were being serious.

🥦You sat on the couch in the living room, remote in hand as you got ready to start a Marvel movie marathon when your fiancé got back from the store downtown. He got called in when someone was murdered just outside, appearing to have been trying to steal some food and magnets. Why someone would try to steal magnets from the convenience store was beyond you.

🥦Sighing, you settled into the cushions, and turned on the TV. Soon you began playing Netflix as you waited. You felt the couch dip next to you. No one was home but you, and you hadn’t heard Izuku get back yet. This was the time she came out.

🥦You faced the girl that sat next to you with a smile. “Looking for Izuku?” She nodded. “He’s not home right now, but you’re welcome to stay with me until he gets back if you like.” She thought for a minute, running a hand through her long hair, then nodded again.

🥦You scrolled through various shows until she pointed at one that sparked her interest. You began playing ‘Supernatural’, watching her reaction to each of the Winchester Brother’s ghostly adventures. “What, it’s not accurate? There’s got to be something that’s right.” You teased.

🥦The girl laughed, the sound never reaching your ears, and shook her head, continuing the show anyway.

🥦A couple episodes later, you heard the sound of keys turning in the lock, signaling your fiancé’s return. You turned to warn the girl, but she was already gone. She liked Izuku, but she was shy; something you learned upon meeting her. “He wouldn’t do anything to hurt you, you know.” You told her in a low voice as Izuku stepped into the house.

🥦He gave you a smile. “Hey, sorry for being gone so long,” he held up a plastic bag full of sweets. “They gave this to me as a thank you for helping them, so now we have even more marathon snacks.” Setting the bag on the counter, he wrapped his arms around you, giving you a firm, loving kiss to your forehead.

🥦”It’s fine, Izu. You weren’t gone that long. I had plenty of company.” You returned the hug, your last statement directed to the girl who was now peeking in from the doorway.

🥦The movie marathon was a blast. You nerded out, quoting almost every line from every movie you watched that night. The girl warmed up to Izuku, you noticed, as she sat on the floor in front of him almost as if she were nervous to sit next to him.

🥦”You can sit next to him, kid. He won’t mind.” You told her. Both pairs of eyes snapped up at your speech.

🥦Izuku looked around to see if there were any unknown guests, turning back to you when he saw none. “Uh, Y/N?”

🥦You ignored him and continued. “He’ll be nervous at first, but he’ll warm up to you. Go ahead. You were in this house long before we came here.”

🥦Izuku screeched like a banshee when he felt the couch sink next to him. Like he was a cartoon, he jumped into your arms, clutching you like he was afraid to lose you. The poor panicked boy didn’t know what to do.

🥦So, you began explaining all that you knew about your abilities, or extra quirk as he said. The girl never left, quite amused by the interaction. Izuku never really calmed down. Sure he’s prepared for it in his journals, but he never thought there would be a day.

🥦”I told you ‘I see dead people’.”

🥦”Y-yeah, I guess you did."

#bnha bakugo katsuki #bnha dabi #bnha midoriya #midoriya x reader #bakugo x reader #dabi x reader #bnha x gender neutral reader #bnha #midoriya izuku #bakugo katsuki #dabi #bnha scenarios #bnha headcanons #bnha au #supernatural #bakugo smut #dabi smut #midoriya smut

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madlilsongbird · 3 years

Text

Watching The Amazing Spidernan movies so that I’m all caught up before No Way Home. Will add my thoughts as I have them. Note I am not some big Spider-Man fan nor have I read the comics so if my thoughts sound kinda stupid they probably are.

First movie:

That’s a good trick with the broom. Making a mental note as we speak.

Actually seeing Peter say goodbye to his parents is horrible and I would like to never experience it again

SALLY FIELD IS AUNT MAY?! Why does this one have the good cast? (not good as in better but good as in more well known)

The sexual tension in “good morning flash…good morning Peter” (this is a joke I’m not shipping him with his bully)

Jesus roid rage much?

Shut your blinds! I don’t know who would be looking in your window at this exact moment but close them anyway!

First careful, you never know who is watching what you search (when did I become this person)

Second…curt connors is ableist.

Poor Rodrigo Guevara

Oh internalised ableism. And that is the only comment I will make going forward because my disabilities do not include limb difference and I dont want to overstep.

Stop following the man, you are not subtle…wait wtf how’d he do that?!

This is where he gets his powers right?

Okay but when would 5 men make that much of a fuss over a woman that only 1 of them seems to know?

Same. (This is in reference to smashing the alarm clock)

Oh my god is it really necessary to show all the different kinds of spider bites.

Actually just going back to the internalised ableism thing…he is allowed to feel whatever type of way about his own disability that is his right. But insinuating that all disabled people are weak and wanting to breed out the weakness is eugenics and just kinda gross. THIS is the final comment I will make on the matter.

No but seriously he is way more aggressive than regular teen boy aggressive so either he’s on something or he’s overcompensating for something

The way he looks at him doe (again all jokes am not shipping flash and Peter)

Why is this so awkward? And not like teens navigating a crush awkward just genuinely awkward. I feel no chemistry between them.

I like the song, it’s an interesting choice for this scene but I like it.

Stop does uncle Ben die now? Like I know uncle Ben dies at some point but I was really kinda hoping he just wouldn’t in this iteration. I was going for a ninth doctor moment “just this once everybody lives”

MOTHERFUCKER

God Sally is incredible

Don’t show me moments of Flash being human I might accidentally start shipping them for real and that simply can’t happen.

Oooh he’s a fashion designer

I just really enjoy how he takes the piss out of his victims? Arrests?

Is Gwen aware that the school nurse can’t cure everything? Both legally and just like generally doesn’t have the knowledge to cure everything. She suggests going to the nurse a lot.

This family gives me bad vibes

This is a long movie…it’s not even half way through

Well that’s one way to tell her

NOT GEORGE FOYET!

I think with what I remember of SpiderTobey and what I know of SpiderTom, Andrews Spider-Man is definitely better with the people he’s rescuing. Smoother, good bedside manner.

His sons name is Jack. Why does that make me angry?

So he’s just not gonna rescue the other people hanging off the bridge?

It’s almost poetic that the son of the man tried to stop him the first time will be the one to stop him now

Now how is he getting enough power in the sewer

No means no Peter

Does she die in this one or the next one? I don’t imagine her dying will help captain stacey see him as a good guy

Stan 🥺

This movie is exhausting and I don’t know if I mean that in a good way or a bad way.

MoThEr HuBbArD aRe YoU sErIoUs

He managed to get three whole words out and you didn’t think to ease up on the trigger a little to hear what those words might be?

She’s very clever and I will be sad to see her go

That wasn’t her scream. Or it was but from a different take.

Foyet about to be coming in clutch

I’m going to cry.

He’s so ugly. Some lizards are really cute but lizard + human, kinda gross looking.

Well shit. I didn’t know that happened. I guess what I said about him being upset with Peter about Gwen is irrelevant. Unless it isn’t, like if you believe in the afterlife, imagine how pissed he’s gonna be when Gwen arrives.

He finally got the eggs 🥺

As someone who’s boyfriend at the time didn’t go to her fathers funeral I feel ya Gwen. I mean I don’t care now but at the time it sucked.

Dr Connors was just in a silly goofy mood. He seems to show genuine care for the boy (this is mostly sarcasm).

Second movie

Oh we’re going back to peters dad.

How do they have access to a private jet?

Miss Honey is badass

Ngl I’m actually quite relieved they both died before the plane crashed. Stil devastating though.

Okay so this is first up on the list of potential mystery villains in No Way Home…he looks like a tool.

HeLLo PeDeStRiAnS

He really just let Spider-Man put his hand on his tongue. Sir do you know where his hand has been? Not to mention just in general the feeling of spandex on your tongue. I feel ill.

No respect for the proper care of plutonium.

Please don’t ever say “come to daddy” again 😂

I’m kinda sad Jamie Fox becomes a villain, his character seems kinda sweet so far from the 2 seconds I’ve seen of him

You mean to tell me he missed his girlfriend’s fathers funeral AND her valedictorian speech?!

Stan x2 🥺

Because you can’t lose me you’re going to lose me? 😂

I love her jacket

Why are they still pretending like she doesn’t know?

I may have spoken to soon about Max

See I would be speeding up daddy’s death if he told me he’d passed down a genetic disease and just decided not to tell me.

Friendship.

Okay max is still a little bit nutty but you gotta feel bad for the guy. He must’ve been so scared.

Don’t smile that’s not cute, if he was a regular boy you’d file a restraining order.

Oh I see Spider-Man is gonna fight him which will make him turn and become the “bad guy” whether he will actually be a bad guy is still unknown.

This scene is actually kinda just making me angry (the time square scene)

Cops suck man. Peter was talking him down just fine.

Did nobody teach these people not to touch metal when there’s electricity about.

Interesting that I didn’t pick up any chemistry from them in the first movie weren’t they an actual couple for a while?

Another good song with an interesting placement

I’m sorry did the caller ID not say Mary Parker? How was it Harry on the phone?

Run Gwen!

This version of Harry is kinda creepy I’m sure the actor is swell but the character is terrifying. Original version Harry was swell whereas the actor is…

“Maybe everyone has a part of themselves they hide” gives him the eye

This movies shorter or at least it feels shorter

An excellent show of what happens when you tell a rich daddy’s boy no for the first time.

This makes me very sad. She’s so excited for the possibility of Oxford.

As much as Harry disturbs me, I want him to burn his entire team.

His daddy really did love him!

I think it’s mostly his eyes, his behaviour can be explained by trauma (why I find Harry creepy)

Okay most of his behaviour. The taking joy in killing people that’s just him being nutty and not a trauma response.

This is fucked up. And where is Peter? he is off chasing a girl who has broken up with him twice now.

PLANES NEED THE POWER!

I really like SpiderAndrew, the movies are fine but as a character I thoroughly enjoy him

Sorcerers apprentice who?

Captain Stacy can’t blame him! She’s clearly stubborn as hell and her own free woman

I quite literally stopped breathing (in reference to the almost plane crash)

Is this why they made it Gwen and not MJ so that he could kill her and be an actual bad guy? From my little knowledge of the comics and what I’ve seen from the movies Harry would never hurt MJ so it had to be someone else important to Peter but not super important to him for him to a real bad guy

I like that Harry actually looks like a goblin.

What was the disease he’s supposed to have?

This poor family. I know I said they gave me bad vibes in the first movie but nobody deserves this.

He looks less like a tool with his suit on…but only slightly less

Baby you better get back behind that baracade!

Nobody talk to me I’m very emotional. This child looks very much like a magical mix of all 3 of my brothers put together and seeing him stand there so brave but so scared is doing something to me.

Final thoughts:

So I think SpiderAndrew might be a close second favourite for me. I like the relationships of the original the most, the comedy of the mcu version the most but this one was like a nice in between. Im a little disappointed there won’t be a third not cos I think I would have enjoyed it just cos the original had 3 movies, the mcu version will have at least 3 movies and this one is left out with 2. Don’t think I would have loved Shailene Woodley as MJ though so I dunno. I think the only thing I would have wanted from a third movie is to know who fedora guy is…and for Peter and May to acknowledge that they both know that he is Spider-Man. Apart from that it was fine and I now feel fully prepared for No Way Home.

#the amazing spider man #the amazing spider man 2 #the amazing Spider-Man #the amazing Spider-Man 2 #the amazing spider man spoilers #andrew garfield #emma stone #sally field #criminal minds #george foyet #spider man no way home

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jubberry · 3 years

Note

oohkay let's go tua with those ship asks: fiveya, horrance and alluther.

thanks el i love you

Send me a ship and I'll answer three questions based on if I ship it or not.

fiveya obvs i ship this since this is 90% of my tua drawings lol

1. ill wait ill wait (to be the one) by georgiestauffenberg made me ship it cause holy fuck dude. I dont know if i ship them romantically when i saw them onscreen cause first of all, age difference is kinda weird lmao. Second, they dont rlly interact much outside literally the first couple of eps. But he was so soft for her, and i felt like they had so much unexplored history.

so i looked at fanfics cause i was wondering if ppl still ship it, then i liked the description of this one so i gave it a go.

Basically the premise is that vanya dates a much older man who seems to know a lot about her. And it was amazingly in character and just provided their characters some depth that u wouldnt find outside of a romantic relationship between them. (The implication of five pining while she doesnt know who he is, their missed chances when he time travelled, fives missed chances of living and having a 'normal' life bec of his own hubris, vanyas insecurity and being able to open up bec shes with someone whos known her since childhood). Its so sweet and thats how i was like, oh yep i can do so much more with these two, and what has kept me interested in drawing them etc.

2. My favourite things are the shippers cause i made some friends in the fandom who are super cool and supportive! I dont get super involved in fandoms and usually just watch from afar so finding people to talk to and muck around with in this tiny fandom is super cool 😭

Though thats not to say I havent come across some bad apples in this fandom and things that I dont like. I think thats the importance of carving out a place for yourself and ur friends in fandom tho.

Another thing I like about the ship itself, i just like the grumpy person whos soft for one person trope. Its so cute. I like all the little clues in canon on how their relationship as kids is quite warm, which is interesting cause five is basically the star student and he can be quite cold vs vanya who is the black sheep of the family.

I also like how five likes her powers even when she caused the apocalypse he spent the majority of his life in lol. Like its a popular hc that five is just a wife guy and i love that.

I see vanya as the type who has a lot of love to give, and she sometimes has unrealistic expectations of what her partner can give. Betrayal and lies really angers her, but also when her partner cannot meet her expectations of love she gets very upset bec its also an indication of how shes not good enough, or not loveable enough to be able to have this in the relationship (her insecurity means every failing always comes back to her, even if its out of her control).

I feel like five would be a level-headed person enough in the relationship to not be afraid to say 'vanya ur being stupid' (ie. the s2 confrontation lmao). Also, five's personality means she will never have to doubt his actions bec she knows hes the type who will not give u the moment of the day if hes not interested.

Not to mention they also have the whole apocalypse vs. saviour, hero/villain thing. Theres just a lot to explore!

3. I probably have several. But mostly I dont mind five being a dick to vanya bec first, even if the appeal is hes soft to her hes already kind of a dick in canon lmao. Also, vanya isnt a child. Shes grown and she can handle petty af things like five telling her shes not good at cooking lol. I also dont mind it cause I feel like people are getting too afraid to write... conflict for fear or portraying an abusive relationship or smth. Like, chill. Conflict is fine, resolving it is how u get a story. However in saying that, nobody should be obligated to write any way unless you want to! Fanfic is for comfort so if what your doing is making u happy then its good enough!

horrance which i also ship but i love the platonic and romantic relationship equally:

1. I came in tua in general not shipping anything so Im honestly not sure. I do remember someone doing a meta before s2 came out that was basically how ben acted weird when klaus summoned dave in s1 that made me go 👀 Otherwise, tua s2 rlly made me like them cause tua FED horrance shippers. Like..... the fact that klaus didnt want ben to leave him, and ben knows thats why he stayed 😢 or the fact that klaus was all over him for some reason???? Somebody also mentioned gay ben once and I resonate with that deeply. Like i get that jill exists but i resonate with gay ben deeply.

2. I love their bickering, theyre so cute together. I just like ben being angry bec hes self aware that hes got both shit and amazing taste. Shit bec he cant believes he likes Klaus (and also amazing also bec Klaus). I think the idea of them being kind of underdogs, theyre not rlly leader types and dont want to be, helps them bond together even in platonic horrance. They're both down to earth, and even tho they can annoy each other, they also know if they want a space to feel comfortable its with each other. Theyre not pressured by rivalry over leadership, or any sort of competition.

I love the idea that even tho ben is like klaus's ''conscience'', hes also down for chaos and bitchy. I feel like klaus rlly enabled that side of him, its not exactly a good thing but its p funny lol

3. I know some people think their dynamic is unhealthy but i dont care lol

alluther. So id say i dont ship this, mostly due to the fact that im not invested? Just like all tua ships so far I rlly came out not wanting anything but platonic relationships cause I feel tua doesnt do romance very well. With alluther, theyre so cute but im not super invested in either of their chars so they havent stuck for me. I appreciate seeing them and talking about them tho, and I'm def open to exploring them further.

1. I think tua canon romances are just so lackluster 😔 Idk who writes the romances but I was just like 'nice' but afterwards I dont really think about them. I love their dance scene and the message behind it! Otherwise, theyre sweet like most of the tua romances but im not super invested, same with all the non canon ships.

2. I really feel like tua needs to decide on what their relationship is. Like, just say its incest or not and stick with it 👀 Or if you wanna support it or not, just make up ur mind. I think I would've liked it better if I found the characters more interesting. Allison especially I feel like suffers from the fact that tua just doesn't want to make her ''mean''. They want to make her supportive and are less interested in making her flawed (ie. she should've had a conflict with Vanya in s2, but the writers didnt want to write the girls fighting which is stupid imo and not what that conflict is about).

In regards to Alluther, the scene where Allison gets annoyed at Luther for sleeping with someone else felt out of line. Like, how are you marrying other people and moving on but Luther isn't allowed to? But honestly, I don't mind if they actually just acknowledge it and make it a deliberate part of Allison's trait that Allison can expect a certain loyalty automatically from other people (which can tie in to her childhood being a star, and the rumour).

Luther is a big simp for Allison, which is sweet, but at the same time it would be nice to have him explore himself for a bit, and who he is outside of the academy. Then maybe they can rekindle their relationship again as new people and see where they go from there.

3. I don't hate them, but they're ok. I'm not super invested in them, just like all the tua canon romance. But I wouldn't mind making content for them if I were a bit more invested in their characters. I love their dance scene in s1 and I feel like its super a underrated portrayal of what their relationship is meant to be. I know no one talks about it but it's just such a great scene, and I'm pretty sure the choreographer was into interpretive dance? The scene had a lot of meaning that I don't see people dig around with.

Essentially I'm pretty sure the fairy lights are obviously a throwback to their childhood together, spending time outside of Reggie. So the dance scene kind of symbolized that pocket of space they made for each other in their life (even if theyre far away, or with other people, they will always have that space for each other).

The way they danced was more like playfighting than dancing, which means their relationship isn't sensual. It's more ''pure'', and romantic. Its basically two kids rekindling their love as adults. I also think this is a response to the incest, cause in s1 tua klaus literally said that 'thank god Regg is not their real father' right before Allison and Luther meet lmao. So its kinda like saying Allison x Luther isnt supposed to be 'ohh step sibling hot' but two people who experienced the same trauma as kids and finding comfort with each other (and rekindling that love after many years).

#harcest #fiveya #horrance #i dont think this is anti alluther but i did say i dont ship it #cause im not invested in tua canon romances #i wont tag just in case #ask game #THIS GOT SO LONG

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zhuhongs · 3 years

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Since rewatching the guardian drama after reading the novel has made me mad about how bad and good both of them are I am Obligated to write out a list of what I think the perfect merger btw both versions of canon are. This will be in list format otherwise I’ll end up writing like 6k words again.

TLDR: the genre stays as supernatural from the novel and not Sci fi, bc that was rlly not fleshed out well. Shen Wei is a ghost king, and all the dixingren are ghosts or demons like originally intended. The ghost race naturally exists and wasn't born from kunluns shoulder fire or anything. They just exist separate from humans. Not all ghosts are former humans, some people are just born as ghosts, like Shen Wei. Zhao Yunlan has the guardian whip and all the cool stuff that comes with the Guardian order. Overall, i’d keep the novel’s plot and relationship progression and ending without the backstory. Instead the backstory is a merger of both canons. From the drama I’d keep the characterization and themes as well as like half the extra cases and omit the other half.

I’ll be elaborating much further on my ideal backstory and other stuff under the cut bc the rest is 1.5k and I don’t wanna clog the dash

Okay SO In my ideal backstory there are two timelines just like the drama but the mythology of the book. The god Kunlun is actually zyl that went back in time and became a god. But the one that went back isn’t the current Zhao Yunlan. There has to be an original timeline where the god Kunlun never existed. Thus the great seal nor the separation of the three realms don’t exist either. Zhao Yunlan must go back in time to become a god, meet Shen Wei in the past, and create the current timeline where the separation exists but isn’t perfect. The current timeline is the one that the majority of the series takes place in.

In the original timeline, Zhao Yunlan is just some dude living in a world where ghosts, fairies, and all other beings just live in a giant free for all and it's kinda just a mess.

Like there’s government in modern context and all and all races live with each other but there's constant tension. ZYL works at some equivalent of the SID (same staff and side characters, but novel vers. Lin Jing is a monk, CSZ a zombie, etc) to protect people and all that and their job is rather hard. One day encounters the thousands year old ghost king Wei (who isnt shen wei yet bc zyl gave him that name in the future) who works alone as like a rouge cultivator of sorts. He lives on the surface undercover as a professor still bc he’s trying to not catch Yezun’s attention but does all the stuff he normally does as Heipaoshi. The two ally together for a case and bc they both have the same goals of getting all races to live in peace. At current, there are forces working together to decimate the human race, all lead by Yezun

As they work together they become closer and all that. Shen Wei tells him about how he was unable to prevent the great war 5 thousand years ago and neither could the gods so he’s spent the past 5 thousand years trying to make up for it. As they search for ways to stop Yezun, they gather the 4 hallows and learn how to use them to manipulate time so ZYL can go into the past and stop the great war and separate the three realms (living, dead, ghost). Shen Wei wants to go back with him but he can’t because he was alive all those years ago so if he goes back it will create a paradox. ZYL promises he’ll find Shen Wei in the past and create a timeline where they could be together in peace (that is the current timeline)

When goes back he becomes the god kunlun because there needed to be a new god born at the time to prevent the war. Also this time traveller looked promising to Nuwa, Fuxi, and Shennong. And I know in the guardian universe gods are usually born and ppl don’t become gods. EXCEPT this can happen when a god passes on smth from their body onto them bc that did happen in the novel with Kunlun making shen wei a demigod. And since fu you and ma gui are supposed to be gods Nu Wa and Fuxi I think that when they die, they should make ZYL a god and that's how this stuff happens.

So like ZYL explains to the gods the time he came from and how he wants to save everything and they make him a god and he works to save everything just like he did in the drama but this time with the novel plotline. During this time he meets young Shen Wei (he’s still like a hundred or so years old) and they get close and all the stuff from the backstory happens. He gives him his name, all that good stuff. The entire time doesn’t let him know that he’s from the future or that his real name is ZYL. He just poses as kunlun.

The two of them alongside the other gods (who still die at the times they do in the novel) work together to end the war and establish the great seal and set up the cycle of reincarnation, per the current timeline. Although the seal and cycle of reincarnation aren’t perfect. Gods can’t reincarnate, and ghosts still don’t have souls. And just like the novel, doing all of this kills ZYL bc it takes a lot of energy to create the seal even though it isn’t perfect.

Shen Wei of course doesn’t want ZYL to die and zyl says it's alright because he fixed the timeline so there must One day they will meet again and ZYL reveals the truth about the timeline to shen wei before he dies. This becomes the promise that Shen Wei mentions to meet again. Before he dies, ZYL gives him the shoulder fire as a memento ( i still like the candy wrapper necklace deal but i’ll take this too. Maybe both.. The pendant is still just rlly cool.. Gay ppl)

Shen Wei knows gods can’t enter the cycle of reincarnation and still makes the deal with Shennong to strip Kunlun of his godhood and let him reincarnate. This sets us into the novel timeline where isn’t allowed to meet any of zyl’s reincarnations before he becomes zyl otherwise he will die and also fuck up the timeline. The same 5 thousand years of pining still ensue bc Gay Ppl and i love making Shen Wei suffer but he doesn’t have the shrine room thing bc i think thats weird and yea.. Bad.

In the meantime Shen Wei does a lot of things mostly just protecting the great seal and working for Hell to keep the peace but still does other stuff. He still watches out for ZYL’s reincarnations but doesn’t do much besides make sure they don’t die a premature death. They meet again finally at the beginning of the series and the timeline resumes like canon. And that's my master plan that merges both drama logic and novel logic while making a much better timeline. (I hope that makes some sense)

Da Qing is still Kunlun’s pet cat and important. Novel backstory applies to him. And I already mentioned him kinda but as for Yezun (Gui Mian in the novel) his deal is similar as in the drama but just a ghost. And he is a big player in the great war, he thought Shen Wei abandoned him as a kid but they were just separated. Shen Wei doesn’t know it's him till the end of the war and couldn’t stop him in the OG timeline and vows to bring him to justice and make amends. Shen Wei continuously tries to explain things to him but he just won’t listen and is imprisoned in hell bc yk… war criminal stuff and yeah he’s the main antagonist trying to break the great seal bc he’s still made about the past. Idk. Yezun wasn’t well written in the novel OR the drama so like… honestly he just needs to be completely rewritten and I don’t care enough about that. He can just be a weak villain idk

the drama characterization stays the same for everyone else bc found family go brr. However for Lao Chu i… hmm… i think he should still be a zombie but the reason he killed someone should be related to his brother. I like that addition and then shen wei realized his sentence was unjust and exempted him. i like that storyline merger. bc the brother thing and him admiring Heipaoshi was drama only. in the novel lao chu just murdered some kid for a rlly whatever reason.

uhhh in terms of the cases… id make adjustments to most of them. i think the li qian case should be like the drama bc the novel just had her as a murderer and it was boring.

For the mountain river awl one was fine… novel version was funnier and more interesting action wise tbh… rip zyl and his exorbitant flirting. uhhh the whole reveal that shen wei was the soul reaper thing was kinda… ehh in the novel but i did love the comedy of afterwards Shen Wei pretending he went into cardiac arrest when he actually just… has no pulse bc he's a ghost.

ID KEEP THE WORTH IT SCENE AND RAIN SCENE… THOSE FUCK SO HARD… I love the drama for adding those every damn day. the novel version of zyl losing his sight sucked and was sooo boring. Keep the drama version on that.

also id keep dr. cheng. i'm very pro dr. cheng and her friendship with shen wei it adds so much to his character imo. keep the fruit seller man and his wife for the merit brush..omg it adds SO MUCH the way the drama did it.. like the drams build up with the novels pace of that arc.. mwah. it felt like it dragged a bit in the drama but if it went faster and without the hospital ep and with sha ya (sorry sha ya) that would've been so good. tho keep novel version of da qings memory loss and lao li. that was rlly impactful.

id say keep some of the cases like the mirror one, the eyes doctor one, etc. just to like.. yk have more to fill in general.. novel pacing but drama characterization without the bs that wasn't fully realized. and novel ending ofc. And that’s it!!

I hope most of this makes some amount of sense but it probably doesn’t. In my head it all tracks but like ik most of u don’t know anything about the novel so this sounds like gibberish. Also I know this would literally never happen but this is MY ideal merger of the two canons that I feel compelled to expand on for some reason. Anyways, as io said,, we need to rebuild guardian. Like literally let me and the mutuals write Guardian and it will be 500 times better.

#🐌.txt #镇魂 guardian #as always... if anyone wants to ask me any questions abt this or guardian in general... pls do.. my mind goes brrrrrr #guardian meta

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madisonrooney · 2 years

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hey, amanda! it's your gcwca secret santa again. don't worry about the late reply. i'm thrilled that you gave me such a detailed answer! except for dude, i love all the characters you listed and my other faves would be uma and jay!

uma is so strong and loyal to her crew. i love to see her taking control and trying to get the freedom that all the kids on the isle deserve. descendants really said women have the power. i enjoyed how d3 focused a lot on getting uma and mal to work together as a team.

jay is a loyal friend. he's the big protector in the group, always making sure his friends are doing alright. he has to overcome that eat-or-be-eaten mentality from the isle, and he really embraces life in auradon. one of my fave moments with him is in d2 when he offers to drive mal back to the isle himself.

really loved what you had to say on all the characters! the internalized self hatred and dealing with expectations were such a big part of mal's character arc that i feel like a lot of people ignore. it really is not easy for the vks to adjust to life in auradon and overcome the damage their parents did to their self esteem. mal especially has to deal with maleficent telling her she's not good enough (or bad enough haha). i love the contrast to ben, who is the literal definition of good. and how he teaches her that being good, which her mother had always told her was a flaw, is actually a really good thing.

if you feel comfortable talking about it, i would love to hear more about your interactions with cameron. i have heard from everyone who got the chance to meet him that he was incredibly sweet. if not, could you share another experience with a different descendants cast member? 💞

getting long so

i love uma too! and i love how she worked with mal in d3 too, that was one of my fav things about that movie. i think it was really smart how they made her the villain of d2, but still a redeemable villain, yknow? like, not a character that's all bad and must be defeated at all costs like idk scar from the lion king or something. and that lead to the trilogy as a whole playing out so well. UGH i could go on forever about how its the perfect trilogy and each movie feeds into the next so well.

i do love jay too, i just dont find him quite as interesting as the rest of the core four, and id argue he has less screen time. i agree with everything you said tho! and i loved that moment too (+ we were robbed of the if only reprise that was supposed to follow that)

yes thank you!! i know much of the fandom doesnt like mal (as ik ive talked about in the discord) but i dont think theyre understanding the things that you pointed out. i reblogged a post recently that i think phrased it really well that said in order for a protagonist to be well-written and layered, sometimes bad things have to be their fault.

im more than happy to share my experiences with cameron ❤️

for starters, i just wanna say that i know its common for people to go overboard saying how wonderful someone was after they've passed but i swear i would've told these stories the exact same way when he was still alive, and i did! he was just that lovely.

the first time i met him was at d23 2015 which was also the first time i met dove so naturally, most of my attention was directed at her. i was sobbing when i met her lol, but cameron was next up and i was def excited to meet him too so i gave him a hug and he said nice to meet you. i know that sounds uneventful but keep it in mind bc it will come back later.

the next time i met him was at an event almost a year later and i reminded him who i was. a couple weeks after that, i went to the return to the isle of the lost book launch that he and sofia were at. sofia i hadnt met since d23 so i began to reintroduce myself to her and cameron said "remember? she was the girl who cried when she met dove!" NOTE: i did NOT remind him of that when i reintroduced myself at the previous event, he remembered that all on his own! from nearly a year before!

in spring 2017, i called into radio disney to talk to the cast. i got cut off while talking to dove and sofia (and that wasnt as awful as it sounds cuz calling into radio disney was always full of glitches) and when i called back they put me on with cameron and booboo. i reminded cameron who i was (booboo hadn't been at d23) i.e. the girl who cosplayed as maddie rooney and he asked if i was going to that years d23 and if i was cosplaying. i said i was planning to cosplay but i didnt know what as yet and he and booboo ganged up on me and told me i needed to dress up as all four VKs at once. more on that later.

a week or two later, i saw him at the rdmas after party. i showed him a pic of me and he immediately gave me a hug and said "you called in!"

a couple months later was d23 and i kept my promise and did a mashup cosplay of all four VKs, albeit kinda haphazard lol. cameron and booboo were SO excited when they saw it. cameron pulled me in for a hug, and i didnt realize it at the time but upon watching the video my mom took of me meeting them, a security guard was trying to get me to hurry up right as cameron hugged me. clearly he didnt care lol.

an hour or two later there was a little parade with the cast and as fate would have it, the car with dove and cameron on it stopped right in front of me and my friends. cameron pointed me out and started cheering.

that was sadly the last time i saw him. but i cant stress enough how much it meant to me that he remembered so many details about me. ive met hundreds of celebrities, many of them multiple times, and often they wont recognize me at a subsequent meeting, much less remember details about me. i don't fault them for that as i can imagine it gets overwhelming when youve met so many fans, but it's all the more touching when someone does remember those details.

like i said in the previous post, i love how we just kinda fell into this relationship. like, again, it makes sense that dove was the cast member i was closest too since obviously *I* had a big attachment to HER, but that just happened to develop with cameron bc of how kind he was. not that i wasnt always a fan of him, but he definitely rose up my ranks the more times i met him.

that being said, losing him was really hard and definitely the hardest celebrity death ive ever been through. but i donate to his foundation regularly and am planning on setting up a fundraiser for it for my birthday which ive tried to do in previous years too. i know hes out there somewhere looking out for us. ❤️

#gcwca secret santa

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shaymcsudonim · 4 years

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Black Clover as a Deconstruction of the Shonen Heroes Journey

(Readmore break isn’t working for me. Will try to fix later. Press J to skip.)

So, most people have noticed this pattern in Black Clover...

...and, to be fair, so did I, when I first started watching.

I saw the first five or six episodes, went, ‘tHiS iS wIzArD nArUtO,’ then didn’t watch any more for months, until I finally got bored enough to watch the rest for laughs.

And then, of course, I got blown away by the genuine bonds of affection and respect between the characters.

(also, I eventually got used to Asta’s yelling, so that helped).

But, until you put in the time investment, you don’t put the dots together that Black Clover is actually a deconstruction of the Shonen Manga Heroes Journey.

You can see pieces of it in Patri and the Cult of Personality he that built in the Eye of the Midnight Sun.

Though, admittedly, it’s less obvious in Fana, Rhya, and Vetto, who are all blinded by grief to the point where they’ve all but lost any compassion they originally possessed.

Indeed, the entire point of them in the first arc is that they’ve been traumatized enough to invert their personalities completely.

No, this extreme devotion to a single figurehead was best demonstrated in the three main humans in the Eye of the Midnight Sun: Sally, Valtos, and Rades.

The three of them demonstrated fanatical loyalty to Patri: Valtos because he saved him, Sally because he allows her to pursue her passions, and Rades I’m pretty sure it was just because Patri gave him the opportunity to use his magic freely.

This ‘cult of personality’ tactic, of course, is one very often employed by Shonen Protagonists, because it’s much easier than showing the character development necessary to turn an enemy into a genuine ally.

And, while I was committed to seeing the show through unless it got really stupid, there was also a sense. of, ‘oh, now the darkness starts’ when Patri sacrificed his three human followers to further his own plans. That this cold-blooded sacrifice was a part of the plan all along.

Honestly, I think the first place I truly started to have faith in Tabata’s writing was when Rades resurrected himself, Valtos, and Sally. The pieces had all been there from the start. We all knew that his magic was zombie magic.

But It was also patently obvious that those three were sacrificed to demonstrate Patri’s assholeish nature to the audience, and reduce the number of characters, making the logistics of the upcoming fights simpler. So, while I wasn’t happy about the gratuitous death, I had accepted it.

But then Rades said, ‘no, I am the hero of my own story, and my story is about revenge,’ and I cannot tell you how wide I smiled. It wasn’t just Rades saying that, it was Tabata saying that he values his side characters, even the minor 1st arc villains.

Then there’s the Zogratis siblings, the fact that they’re siblings, in the truest sense of the word. They fight together, they rule together, they’re more than capable of executing a multi-pronged attack which must have required extensive planning and teamwork. Even Zenon, the coldest of the three, goes to check on Dante, and saves him from the Black Bulls.

Though we’ve yet to get the full picture, they even seem to have good relationships with their devils. Zenon’s a brick wall, of course, but Dante and Lucifero clearly talk to each other, and Megicula and Vanica openly express affection for one another. From what we’ve seen so far, the Zogratis siblings seem to, at the bare minimum, respect each other and the devils that they host.

They’re still blood knights who would cause the apocalypse for the sake of finding strong opponents, yeah, but wanting ‘to fight strong opponents and help my friends’ has been the primary motive of many an anime protagonist. It just usually gets tempered by common sense and/or compassion.

So, with the major villains at least, they exemplify many of the virtues often given to anime protagonists. Not to say that they don’t have flaws, but their flaws are not those of the typical villain.

In contrast, many of the Heroes in Black Clover possess attributes normally seen in villains.

Consider the Black Bulls: Asta, the Freak of Nature; Noelle the Unfavorite Noble Child; Magna, the Thug; Luck, the Blood Knight; Gauche, the Sexual Deviant; Vanessa, the Drunk; Finral, the Womanizer; Grey, the Shapeshifter; Charmy, the Glutton; Gordon, the Creepy Guy; Zora, the Avenger; Henry the Vampire.

(Also Nacht, the Summoner, though the jury’s still out on him)

Asta’s comrades are all people who easily could have been villains, whether through their powers, their personalities, or simply their trauma.

But they weren’t. And this is at least partly due to another aspect of the series that I admire.

Everyone is special.

[ID: Emmet from the Lego Move next to a quote reading, “You don’t have to be the bad guy. You are the most TALENTED, most INTERESTING, and most EXTRAORDINARY person in the universe. AND YOU ARE CAPABLE OF AMAZING THINGS. because you are the Special. And so am I. And so is everyone. The prophecy is made up, but it’s also true. It’s about all of us. Right now, it’s about you. And you can still change everything.” end ID]

That is to say, the villains aren’t the only ones to have aspects attributed to the typical shonen protagonist. And neither is Asta, as it turns out. He gets determination, resilience, and compassion, of course, but he’s far from the only one.

In fact, his journey is made far easier by the ‘compassionate protagonists’ who came before him.

Starting as far back as we can in the timeline, we’re left with the Clover Nobles and their xenocide against the elves. Evil, tragic, and it should have never happened. Not to mention, it allowed the Nobles to hoard resources in the form of stolen mana, which they then passed on to their descendants.

But, even after the worst had happened, Nero and Lumiere’s sacrifices eventually led to Zagred’s downfall. (And to the survival of one of Licht and Tetia’s children.)

Then, centuries later, came Zara Ideale. A man who worked tirelessly as the first commoner wizard cop, only to be killed by his elitist comrades in the purple orcas.

This could have led his son, Zora Ideale, down a dark path, but instead he devoted his life to protecting the citizens of the kingdom from the same corrupt magic knights that got his father killed.

And that’s without even mentioning how when Julius Novachrono became Wizard King, he reformed the merit recognition system to mitigate the amount of harm the noble magic knights could do to their commoner comrades’ careers, to prevent what happened to Zara from happening to others. In the present day, multiple magic knight captains (Yami and Jack) are commoners, as are many of the magic knights in general.

Not to mention Yami, in particular, formed a squad out of outcasts, to provide the support system that he never had as a young man.

And all of this happened before the main character has even started on his heroes journey.

I could say a lot more words about how this demonstrates Tabata’s recognition of the fact that many of the problems with the Homestuck Quadrant Kingdoms are systemic, and that they won’t be solved with only a few good people working against them, which is why Asta still has a lot to do in his own quest to be Wizard King.

...but really, what I wanted to do was say that, after reading the 267 leaks, it doesn’t surprise me one bit that AMD may be a better person than previously implied by the manga.

(heck, they did the same thing with Zora, when he was introduced).

Even though AMD seems motivated by a need for vengeance, is undeniably prone to fits of blackout rage, appears altogether too interested in possessing Asta’s body, and these are, indeed, traits that fit more with the aesthetic of a villain... I’m pretty sure AMD’s got the traumatic backstory of a true anime protagonist.

As I’ve said before, simply having an aspect typically attributed to a hero does not automatically mean AMD will be a fully heroic character. But, as was mentioned before, he also has a lot of common villainous traits.

And in Black Clover, a character with a villain archetype will more often than not side with and/or join the Black Bulls.

#black clover #black clover spoilers #lego movie spoilers #meta #long post #black clover 267 #spoilers #readmore doesn't seem to be working #i'll try and figure it out later #press j to skip

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killingzxeve · 3 years

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I honestly feel like I’m one of the only people that loves s3. I think it’s probably because I watched all of them at once idk. Maybe I didn’t form that attachment to how they were at the beginning as others did. But it’s actually the one I rewatch most, and probably my favourite season. I specifically love the psychology behind villanelles character. In the books it is explored a lot more with her having a personality disorder and mental health issues. Id love for them to explore that more in the show. I think a lot of people simply want her to be a villain and that might be why some don’t like s3. But I honestly think the character wouldn’t be half as interesting if she didn’t have those dimensions to her. There’s so many different parts to every person and sociopaths are so complicated in that sense. I also thought it was great getting to delve into her past and find out why she is how she is. Characters having depth is so good for their development and truly what make them great. It also challenges the actor and I think Jodie aced that role. It really gave her the opportunity to show her strengths. I also really want them to explore eves past in season 4 too, even if just a little. It could be a conversation her and v have (in bed) maybe. I would love to see more dimension in eves character in that way. She’s such an amazing character so just give her and v all the screen time please. - All I want from season 4 is for them to survive, and dark eve. And a sex scene ngl.

#villanelle #killing eve #eve polastri

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hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger · 4 years

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We are in an interesting point in time when the three major Spidey love interests each have solo books.

Amazing Mary Jane by Leah Williams, which is currently up to issue #6

Gwen Stacy by Christos Gage, which is currently up to issue #2

And Black Cat by Jed MacKay, which is currently up to issue #10

In the case of Gwen Stacy it could be argued she in fact has two titles if we include Ghost-Spider by Seanen Maguire, which is currently up to issue #9

I’ve finally caught up with all 4 titles so I thought I’d sort of evaluate them.

In terms of artwork all the titles have decent-great art. Gwen Stacy is the clear winner here but she’s only had two issues so there hasn’t yet been time for new artists to do fill-in issues or pages. Black Cat’s art was serviceable at best at first but between the annual and the artist on the latest storyline it’s stepped up big time. In ontrast I feel Ghost-Spider’s art is perhaps the weakest exempting Black Cat’s initial artist. I can rarely call out art as good or bad so this is 100% subjective. But for my money Todd Nauck’s work is my absolute favourite closely followed by Carlos Gomez on AMJ. Cover art is a whole other kettle of fish. Black Cat and Gwen Stacy win this for me because Adam Hughs is a god-tier artist and J. Scott Campbell is a guilty pleasure for me.

In terms of writing things are far more clear cut.

Black Cat is by leagues and bounds the best title. Once it warmed up in the first 5 issues it’s slapped hard. It’s characterization of Felicia is superb. She’s fun, flirty, confident, but fully capable of making mistakes. She’s well rounded when all is said and done. Maybe she could be moreso, but it’s absolutely a-okay for now. The book’s concept is fun and has a real direction that allows for variety in the storytelling. We can be at the Baxter Building, the Sanctum Sanctorum or Madirpoor and it will never feel jarring. And honestly Felicia was long overdue a spin-off. She is simply the most obvious character to be spun-off from Spider-Man.

In second place I’d put Gwen Stacy and no one is more surprised by that than me. The plotting of the book has thus far been good exempting one kind of major detail. It uses continuity well and does add detail to Gwen and George Stacy and gives us a rare chance to glimpse Jean DeWolff back in action. It’s so far proved to be an intriguing police/crime story. Where it falters is in it’s characterization and it’s relevance. I know I just said the book adds detail to Gwen and George but let me explain what I mean. This book doesn’t go into Gwen’s head, it fills in details we didn’t know about her. How and when did she meet Harry and Norman Osborn? When did her Dad get injured? Who was her boyfriend in high school? When did her mother die? Oh and I guess she cooked for her Dad which I always presumed but I guess it’s nice to have that confirmed.

And whilst it’s…nice I suppose to find this stuff out…it just doesn’t matter. At all. Whilst not as problematic, this book has one of the major problems Sins Past had. Sins Past actually made Gwen Stacy a better character retroactively (and also kind of a worse character but that’s another discussion). But there was simply no point in doing that. She was dead. She wasn’t coming back. Nobody wanted her to come back. Her role was defined through the fact that she died and would always be like that so long as she remained dead. Sins Past in developing Gwen retroactively at least had a little bearing upon the then-present stories.

Gwen’s affair in theory could’ve been an emotional scar for Peter to bear and add an extra layer to his duels with the Goblin. Not that we needed anymore of those, but theoretically it could’ve served that purpose. This absolutely doesn’t. It doesn’t matter what Gwen was like before she met Peter because Peter himself never knew her back then. Fleshing out MJ in this manner or Mysterio or even the Shocker would hold relevance because those characters appear alive in the present, they interact with Spider-Man. Similarly Untold Tales of Spider-Man gave Peter more villains he could duel in the future, plug in plot holes of his continuous narrative and flesh him out a bit more. That matters because again…he’s not dead. Even fleshing out Uncle Ben could possibly have a purpose as he’s Peter’s role model and enduring motivation. Peter strives to be Ben as a man so knowing who Ben Parker the man was can add substance to those moments. But knowing when George Stacy injured his leg or that Gwen ran for class President just doesn’t. It retroactively adds slightly more substance to like 3 issues from 1971. Maybe that’d be an okay back-up story…but a solo-title dedicated to that shit? It’s just pointless, there is no creatively justifiable reason for it to exist.

And that’s before you get to the problem of characterization. As I expected, Gage’s Gwen is total revisionism of the character. Maybe no one is explicitly putting her on a pedestal but literally the only people who don’t think she’s wholly likable are two creepy football players and the explicit villains of the story. Gwen herself beyond this is flawless. Even things we might argue as flaws (her endangering of herself and her friends) is never framed as a flaw, but instead a mark of her bravery and her desire to seek out justice.

It doesn’t help that this is a comic obviously made by and for the Cult of Gwen that never needed to be fed anything else at this point. Their precious Martyr Princess is the star of her own title, she is the super hero in it, the guy she died to motivate instead died to motivate her. Then that version got to appear in 2 cartoons and a movie. THEY WON already, what more do they really need? So whilst the plot is good, the characterization has problems and just on principle the book shouldn’t exist.

Ghost-Spider is similar yet different, ironically mirroring the protagonists of the titles. Ghost-Spider in concept was always very strong. I never disagreed with the title existing. It’s just that Latour and Maguire’s execution is problem riddled. Continuity and characterization is borked. And the current status quo moronic. Gwen visits 616 for school…why? How is that relevant? How is anything she learns going to qualify her for a job in her universe. Even if the skills are practical there would never be any proof of her qualifications, no records. And that’s not even considering how a character who doesn’t goddam live in 616 is embroiled in a 616 event crossover.

Finally there is Amazing Mary Jane. I’ve spoken far too much about this title. I never had a problem with this as a mini-series…but as an ongoing it removes MJ from Peter’s narrative which is asinine. Why remove the best supporting character from Peter’s story? It’s not like she didn’t have subplots of her own when that wasn’t the case. So on principle this shouldn’t have been an ongoing. And in terms of execution…holy shit.

It’s aggressively bad. The plot is nonsense. The characterization is inconsistent within itself let alone when you consider the history of the characters. The best way I can sum this up is that issue #6 is about MJ going into witness protection because she’s a valuable witness to a murder case…where the guy wore a mask…so she couldn’t ID him no matter what…And the guy knows that.

It’s just so bad I want this book to be put out of it’s misery.

What upsets me most is that Marvel CLEARLY put more effort into Gwen’s solo than MJ’s or Felicia’s. The superior characters get less effort (and one of them gets a far worse title) than the worse character who instead gets more effort and 2 titles just to herself.

Can you see why I hate the cult of Gwen?

#Gwen Stacy #Ghost-Spider #Spider-Gwen #Spider-Man #Amazing Mary Jane #The Amazing Mary jane #Black Cat #The Black Cat #Felicia Hardy #Peter Parker #mjwatsonedit #Mary Jane Watson Parker #Mary Jane Watson #MJ Watson

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rainbowkittyblossomwings · 3 years

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So I don’t want to get into a huge retrospective of how 2020 was for me, because it’s personal and I think we can all agree things have been bad. So instead I’d like to talk about great video games I got into in 2020!!! These games didn’t necessarily come out in 2020 just things I discovered and I’d like to talk about my top 10 faves

1. The first best video game I discovered in 2020 is the entire Trails Series (I played all of them in 2020, cold steel, ao, zero, and Sky). Initially I played Cold Steel 1 because my friend told me it was like “Playing Code Geass the anime”. The story was pretty easy to get into of a guy going to military school and you’re placed in the special class for commoners and nobles when there’s a huge class divide in your country. From there it had some basic anime tropes like a dating simulator like thing and various cliched characters, like the tsundere, the guy who’s trying to get everybody to work, the music kid, and the noble, you know?

But Cold Steel wasn’t cliché in the least bit. I played it after surgery recovery so I was in a lot of pain and out of my mind, but each character had depth, the entire world was fleshed out and after each game more of the story and the villains were revealed, secret robot technologies were given to the main characters and they slowly became more and more powerful after that.

I wanted to know more and more about the world so I played the first series trails in the sky and the Japanese only series, Zero and Ao, and they were even better. Not only that but in this JRPG there were canon gay characters that had traits to their character besides “I’m gay.” There were a lot of lesbians for me to pick and choose between as faves.

Not only that but I find none dating sim video games difficult cuz I get easily frustrated and rage quit. Cold Steel was turn based combat and never made me feel like rage quitting because they had a function called “Retry but easier” where if you died you could start the same battle but make it easier. That made it so I only had to die five or so times on things I was really stuck on and then I could move on with the story. And the game never felt like a grind fest and I could make the game faster in combat.

This series I may have discovered in 2020 but it’s become just as beloved to me as any other series. It’s one of my faves.

2. My second favorite game in 2020 was 13 sentinels : Aegis Rim. I love time travel so much and everytime a new time travel anime or game comes out I get super excited. Aegis Rim was a game that had all sorts of cool tropes, like time travel, memory loss, androids, different realities, and psychic dreams and it just sounded cool. Not only that but there were 13 different protagonists to play and I had seen it reviewed in LGBT+ articles, saying it had a canon gay character and a canon nonbinary character! It was a very fun game and part of the story followed a point and click formula and the other half followed a kinda strategy blowing up giant robot monsters formula, and I enjoyed it. Also the music and the art was amazing.

3. The House in Fata Morgana was my third favorite game I discovered in 2020!!! It was a visual novel I had gotten in 2019 but never started because “They didn’t have anime eyes so IDK if it’ll be interesting.” I had seen a lot of horror visual novel people review it though with stellar reviews. I ended up playing it when I was sick and man was it an amazing story. It gave me a lot of respect for people who write short stories that wrap up nicely, and a lot of the characters were flawed but I really enjoyed reading their stories. The story was pretty basic in the beginning of a maid telling you several different stories of the previous owners of the mansion she worked in, and the tragedies that befell them throughout her time there, and I really liked the sort of tragedy feel. One of the stories reminded me of Greek tragedies like Oedipus, and as the story got deeper and deeper and connected plot threads of the previous owners it became very cool. Also the game was very LGBT+ friendly with trans and bi characters and possibly an aro character too???

4. Hades was my fourth favorite game in 2020!!! A lot of people have already talked about Hades before and what it’s about but I’d like to talk about why I liked it. As mentioned before I have a problem with video games that rely on skill. I get so frustrated that I either start yelling or crying because I don’t believe that the muscle memory will ever get into me or that I’ll ever be good enough to get past the hard part. It’s incredibly distressing and it makes me feel bad because I’m like “why can’t I do a simple thing other people can easily do?” Hades is one of the few games that taught me that eventually I will succeed, and the muscle memory will come to me. As you probably know Hades has god mode which increases your damage resistance every time you loose. I got to the max god mode very quickly of 80% and for about 10 runs even that wasn’t enough to beat the first boss and I was incredibly frustrated. I was like “they should have raised it to 90% cuz if even their worst players couldn’t beat the boss on easy mode then they’re missing out.” But as people have probably told you, Hades rewards failure. Each run you learn a bit more and get better skills and friendships with people due to grinding. And eventually I stuck to it and beat the first boss, and then all the other bosses. The muscle memory finally hit and I beat Hades and got the true ending and I’m really glad the developers made it accessible enough that even the worst players could beat it and I’m glad they rewarded failure.

5. My next favorite is Chaos;Child, which wasn’t made in 2020, but I did discover it in 2020. It’s another horror visual novel but by the people who did Steins;Gate. I absolutely adore Steins;Gate because of the time travel so I was curious about the other games in the series. Everyone said Chaos;Child was the murder mystery of what Steins;Gate did to time travel and they were right. It was a psychic murder mystery story and although it was very gorey it was very fun and I really liked the characters

6. Sixth favorite was Café Enchante a new otome dating sim released in 2020! You run a coffeshop for monsters basically and I adored it!!! I was a little worried before I got it that it would be boring because what kind of plot can you make in a coffeeshop? But it was very cute and I loved the monsters and the lore. Despite my misunderstanding the entire game did not take place in the coffeeshop and instead went into various monster worlds and expanded on the lore of each world in each route. The art was wonderful and I just love fake monster lore about Fae and beasts and angels and stuff and it was just a wonderful game and is one of my new fave otome titles.

7. I played Ai: the somnium files in 2020! I knew it would be a favorite of the year because it was made by the same people who did the zero escape series. It had a very different tone of the zero escape series of course, instead of being about psychics it’s about the inner workings of the mind. You play a detective going into people’s psyche’s to try to catch a murderer basically. It reminded me a lot of ID;invaded an anime that I think came out this year? Anyway it was a cool story and I liked the graphics but I did not like the timed missions. Without a guide I would have died.

8. The dark horse of 2020 was Untitled Goose Game. I did not expect to get it but my friend gifted to me and I hadn’t played it yet. And as everyone can tell you it’s just a fun time harassing people as a goose. It has 2 player mode so my sister and I played it together and it was great. I liked feeling like grand theft robbers and saying “BOOK IT” as we stole people’s stuff.

9. My ninth favorite game I played in 2020 was Little Busters! It’s by the same people who did Clannad so I knew I would be crying by the end. Clannad’s team is known for their great story telling and heart wrenching characters. It’s about a team of friends who start a baseball team and then it gets sad and time loop-y from there. I played Clannad too in 2020 but it was a little too homophobic for me to let it make it to this list and I don’t remember any homophobia in little busters, so little busters gets its spot.

10. Finally we get to Persona 5 Royal. I didn’t play much of the original persona 5 besides at my friends apartment so I was able to finally have a copy of this game on my own!!! I loved the idea of going into mean people’s minds and changing their hearts so they could understand the wrong that they did, it was just a good concept. I also loved that Persona 5 royal added a safety mode so you can loose and yet not die. It was a great game of 2020 and it only makes it so low because I spent way too many hours on it (135) and it was a great amazing game that I loved and enjoy talking about but would not replay because it’s just so long and I’m not quite sure what would be different on replay. Also I’m sad that you can’t date the boys because I love them. They are good beans. Either way though I’d recommend it if you haven’t played before and it was very fun, and still one of the best games of 2020.

If you want me to talk about any of these games in more depth instead of just a short review tell me!!!

#video games #rainbow chats #long post #trails #dating sims #text post #reviews #2020

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overthinkingkdrama · 4 years

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Exit Review: My Country

Synopsis

This drama is set in the transition between the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties, and follows turbulent friendship turned fraught rivalry between Seo Hwi and Nam Seon Ho. Seo Hwi’s late father was the greatest swordsman of Goryeo, but after being framed for embezzling military supplies he was executed as a traitor, a stain which hangs over Hwi and his sister’s lives. Seon Ho is the illegitimate son of a powerful state official, but due to his mixed parentage he can never fully belong to his father’s world and has an insatiable ambition and bitter resentment toward his father which drives him.

Hwi and Seon Ho have been close since childhood, but when they end up going head to head in the state military exam a tragedy follows that will drive a terrible wedge between them. Eventually circumstances will force them to pick sides between General Yi Seong Gye (the first King of Joseon) an his ruthless son, Yi Bang Won, in the fight which will give shape and purpose to a newborn country.

Review

Story: My Country is a difficult drama for me to review objectively, in part because I loved it so much. Watching this drama was a truly absorbing and gripping experience for me, and it plays to so many of my story preferences. I was unequivocally obsessed with this drama from the premier to the finale, but during the weeks between airings I couldn’t help but feel like I was arm wrestling with the script.

It was characterization more than anything that gave me fits. I wouldn’t go so far as to accuse the show of giving us thin or two dimensional characters. To the contrary, each of these characters has a fully realized matrix of conflicting desires, loyalties and ambitions that inform their choices and alignments. However, it is often difficult to sift through those murky motivations and draw a clear line between a character’s internal desires and their external actions.

This drama starts out with an incredible cold open that raises all sort so questions about who these characters are and immediately invests you in finding out how they ended up in this situation. It’s truly masterfully done, and I probably rewatched it upwards of 10 times through the run. It kept me asking those questions all the way until the pay off. But because the writers were so invested in keeping their cards close to the chest, clear characterization was sometimes lost in the shuffle.

That said, this drama really is one beautiful, tragic escalation after another. Just taking the first two episodes in isolation is quite a ride. I really thought after the first few weeks, or hell, the first half, that the drama would get bogged down in plotting and politics or have nowhere left to go, but to my great joy it really doesn’t let up a single moment until the finale.

Acting: Where to even begin with the acting in this drama? All three of the main male leads: Yang Se Jong, Woo Do Hwan and the inimitable Jang Hyuk are perfectly cast and give inspired performances. Everything from posture to voice to subtle microexpressions is so stunningly on point.

I came into the drama already a big fan of both Woo Do Hwan and Jang Hyuk as actors, having followed them through other projects, so it wasn’t surprising to me that I liked them both here as well. However, what did surprise me was the extent to which they were able to show off their range and talent. As a long time Jang Hyuk fangirl, I would confidently argue that this particular rendition of the Yi Bang Won character is him at his absolute best. I also went into My Country relatively indifferent to Yang Se Jong, or at least not overly familiar with or impressed by his previous work. I’m happy to announce that that is no longer the case, as his performance of Hwi is one of the most memorable of the year for me, and his sheer level of commitment to the role is awe inspiring. There’s a video of him talking behind the scenes about a moment early on where he actually yelled himself hoarse embodying a moment of panic and grief, which made me appreciate the level thought and effort he put into playing this character.

I don’t want to limit my praise to just that trio of actors either, because the entire cast is incredible. I didn’t know much about Seolhyun before this role, but I thought she was really strong as well, though her character doesn’t feature as heavily as one might like or expect from the promotional material around this drama. The villains too are captivating, especially the detestable Nam Jeon played by veteran actor Ahn Nae Sang. Wow, you are really going to love to despise this guy. I just cannot say enough about the performances from top to bottom, because we would be here all day. The acting is really what makes the drama, especially the stunning chemistry between the characters, and more specifically the chemistry Yang Se Jong has with all the other leads.

Production: There is some movie quality cinematography throughout this drama. It just looks very, very good both in the way it is shot and the attention to detail, the props, the costumes the sets. There is a beautiful long tracking shot following Hwi through a battle field in episode 3 or 4 that was just jaw dropping. It really felt like they were flexing, honestly, and it’s refreshing to see this kind of cable quality coming out of South Korea and ending up on American Netflix for people to watch and appreciate.

I love the music in this drama. Some of it can come across a bit camp, like the electric guitar and strings heavy instrumental “My Country” that accompanies many of the sword fight scenes, but I loved Bang Won’s wailing violin theme music every time it showed up, and the OST definitely sets a mood.

One of the more distracting choices the drama made was to allude to certain historical characters like Poeun, Sambong and Choi Young but never have them actually appear as characters, in the present or in flashbacks, opting to address certain important events and philosophies through fictional expys such as Nam Jeon and Seo Geon instead. They even resort to filming certain scenes in strange oblique ways so that we understand Sambong is in the room but we don’t see his face.

The only thing I can figure is the writers wanted to use the audience’s familiarity with these historical figures without chaining the story too closely to the actual flow of historical events. Or perhaps they decided to exclude these characters in order to avoid too much direct comparison to the critically well-received and highly rated drama, Six Flying Dragons, which covers much of the same time period.

Feels: For me My Country watches like a bitter-sweet tragi-romantic melodrama centering on a toxic love triangle with a historical backdrop. And when I say “love triangle”, I am 100% referring to the interplay between Seon Ho, Hwi and Bang Won (my sincere apologies to poor Hui Jae) because that’s how the entire drama is structured. My Country is one of the most purely homoerotic things I’ve ever watched. If it weren’t for a few limp attempts to imply Seon Ho’s romantic interest was in Hui Jae and not his former friend, I would say “unapologetically homoerotic” but alas, South Korea isn’t quite there yet.

The romance between Hui Jae and Hwi never quite caught fire for me, though lord knows they were trying. It always felt like a side dish to the main course that the drama really wanted to serve: namely the star-crossed relationship of Hwi and Seon Ho. (And this is not meant as a dig toward those who liked the Hui Jae/Hwi romance. This section of the review is just about my subjective experience.)

There were moments where I worried, or couldn’t quite tell where the drama was taking us with regard to Seon Ho and Hwi, or where I feared everything was going to end in senseless destruction and they couldn’t successfully bring the plot to closure in just 16 episodes. But for the handful of issues I had with the writing of the drama, its final resolution was poetically, heart-wrenchingly, perfect.

My Country just pushes so many of my narrative and aesthetic buttons and plays heavily to my id. This is a drama that I’m going to be thinking about for a long, long time. I will definitely be watching it again and I will try to get as many other people to watch it as possible. I liked it that much.

Would I recommend My Country: The New Age? Yes, oh god yes. Please watch it. Watch it and then come talk to me about it. Definitely one of the best of the year.

9/10

#my country #my country: the new age #woo do hwan #yang se jong #jang hyuk #kim seolhyun #kdrama reviews #exit review

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the-sheep · 4 years

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ID GO ABSOLUTELY BONKERS IF U TYPED OUT HIS ENTIRE HISTORY FBFBFBFB i would like 2 see it..........

alright right right

This ended up being A HUGE POST so all info is under the cut.

Unless you’re on mobile, in which case, enjoy scrolling.

It all starts on flight rising. Well, Heart starts on FR. It REALLY starts with my webcomic/animated series.

It wasn’t well drawn or animated at first, but it steadily got better. One of the plot holes, back in 8th grade, was “who created priscilla and Jake?”

It was mostly summed up to “Penny made all the bots its all simple” but i was a middle schooler and i needed a complicated (and edgy) story.

Thing is I had already made Fandragons of a good chunk of my ocs on flight rising.

I bred two dragons to get my main characters, so why not just use them?

Christy Suggested the name Cavet, and I liked it.

Yeah this is my first digital image of him as a human and he DOES NOT LOOK RIGHT

no necklace, no beard, orange eyes…

horrific.

So I made human designs for them both, but Chrysanthemum remains forgotten, not even canon to Mechanical Fury anymore.

Here’s old art of her and Cavet back before she got wiped out from existence.

the art is bad btu the Heart gimmick is there

Here’s him in his second image ever. The one that pretty much defined his design.He also quickly gained a husband

Anyway he quickly morphed into a villain several time more dangerous than the main villain

He’s responsible for the deaths of not ONE, not TWO, but THREE children.

Two his kids, one the younger sister of a character that one of the dead kids liked.

One of his dead kids got his own story, the other was literally a main character.

Chloride, (Charlie) in all his glory, lucky enough to get resurrected as an android but after finding out he’s not who he thinks he is, has to attempt to live a normal Human life… when his two best friends are paranormal investigators, his love interest having lost their arm and their only remaining sister to the main villain.

He originally found out he was an android by finding his own blueprints, hearing his Mom cry about it, and then cutting open his face (for his signature scar) and running off.

Running into Cavet’s husband, Nathair Liu. He stitches him up, know all about robotic n all that but he is.

also a secondary villain….

youtube

I hate the art in this video but its not my worst.

(Video was Vendy’s debut, too. tho Vendy was more Nate(logan/mind/princi/whatever)’s kid than Cavet’s)

Okay i’ve gotten off track.

Yeah at this point I was really loving Cavet, on FR, and wrote an entire long story between him and Skittles based on the events of Mechanical Fury.

This was where I got the idea for reincarnation.

I needed an explanation for why the same character was in two different universes, and it was perfect. In fact, it lead to an amazing way to end it.

But what is in control of all this? What does he see in the in between?

Well, Death was packaged with two other red herrings to keep people from thinking she was more important than them from the start, when in fact, she was. One of the plot points is that Cavet dies. He continues causing havoc, but nobody can figure out why or how. he doesn’t have a body.

Except he does. Death.

She was scary, but that was just her, she was a literal robot grim reaper. Nobody suspected she was spreading a virus to make robots susceptible to Augap’s control everywhere she went. Not even her. Cav liked hanging out in the AI scape, AKA the robot afterlife or virtual heaven.

What a fun way to make a real grim reaper.

I never really kept track of the transition from “cute robot char” to “cute real god char”

and i guess it never happened. Heart still thinks of her as she was, as cute little Litty. Except when she’s not. He gave form to the literal concept of DEATH. And became her friend. She still calls him Papa, sometimes.

In any case, Cavet’s doodles started being more and more revolving around his angst with the reincarnation.

in fact, i had a few character in the same boat as him, as I had made a couple dragons into MF characters as well.

I called them The Artifacts. It didn’t seem rounded out with only four, so I added a 5th. To give me more leeway in case I make a character i like enough to bring with them.

and turns out. I did.

I was sad enough about Cavet losing the love of his life, betraying him, creating a rift between them with his descent into obsession.

So he came with them.

They’re inseparable.

after a few lives of getting revenge on him for killing his sons and some adult humans and a BUNCH of robots, (not even counting his crimes in the vampire life he committed because he thought he lost Liu forever) Soul revealed to him something about Heart’s 6th life, which Mind doesn’t remember.

But he was there.

Long story short, he was Captain Shuggazoom. Yeah 10 lives of stuff he forgot before he started remembering his past lives. Messed Heart up.

ANYWAY BACK TO DEVELOPMENT!

I went around, making original characters to fill in Heart’s lives. I put him in a LOT of stories, but a notable one is My Old Ask Blog, @ask-musical-monsters

In which Heart is our lovable Tweedle, Bean.

He’s the bird. (this is also the blog where Willow was made!) (also a character i referenced when putting antauri on the baldi blog)

I still hadn’t abandoned MF so Bean has a lot of influence from Cavet.

I REALLY liked bean. It occured to me here-ish that Heart isn’t constrained by being my oc. He can be whoever he wants and nobody will care.

So of course I immediately declare him purple guy. No drawings of him, but I know I said he was purple guy at some point. Also at this point in time I started organizing the lives by number order, and making a simple arc for Heart and the others to follow.

1000 lives.

I made a brief description of heart’s 1st life, but made it purposefully very superfluous so i can change it whenever i want. All i know is he had albinism, and a desire to live forever.

That summer I got an amazing idea. I would take advantage of the Baldi’s basics trend with a ASK BLOG.

It was a mathematically calculated success. I did as many things as possible to generate more audience. MAIN thing being posting as often as possible, and being REALLY funny.

But knew I wasn’t going to like adding to the ask blog if i didn’t like the main character

I already knew he was going to be Baldi, but I wasn’t sure exactly how to characterize him either.

Turns out making him heart solved both of those problems. He’s always been Heart.

And Princi has ALWAYS been mind.

Even if they don’t always show their artifacts, they always were the same people as all these other things ive made. They have a DEEP connection to both each other and me.

At some point, I re-re-discovered SRMTHFG. The first few seconds I saw SK I knew he was Heart. It was so perfect it scared me.

HE EVEN DOES THE POSE!!!!! RED EYES!!!! AAAH!!!

I got an idea for a storyline based on formless and regret and monkeys… so.. uh

Anyway that kinda brings us to today, where the events of the blog have happened based on Heart things, and i can play around with Heart as much as I want.

And Willie’s next life? Well, 23 is my favorite number. It’ll be cool, but I’m not sure how. All I know is 23 wears a striped shirt, and is a vamp again.

In summary, Heart is the most important character I’ve ever made, and I will never come close to anybody as wonderful and as complicated as him. He’s the greatest formless, the best villains, the heroes, and one character i want to hold out for finding irl.

I love them even in scribbles i find on bus seats, in fanart of him, love her in songs i hear, in flowers i see in the wild.

Whoever they end up being, it’s safe to say I’ve fallen in love with Heart.

If you want me to describe his in universe story, I’ll need a seperate post.

Other Heart Resources:

The Spreadsheet

The Playlist

#heart id tag #long post #baldis basics #my singing monsters #mechanical fury #fnaf #the mind electric #srmthfg #hfytus #IM SORRY IF THIS ENDS UP IN THE SRMTHFG TAG SHOWOFF

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ba-mi-soro-orisha · 4 years

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when youre done recovering id love to hear your thoughts on the book(even if the post ends up being almost as long lmao)

Buckle up, y’all, cause this is going DEEP INTO SPOILERS. This is my no-holds-barred take on Children of Virtue and Vengeance!

SPOILER WARNING

If you read any further past this, CoVaV is gonna be majorly spoiled for you. This is your last warning.

Okay, I gotta open with a minor - but really the only - critique I had about CVV: we know Tomi was rushed in finishing the book in time for the third pushed back date, and the book kinda reads like it. Book 1, I felt like we got a lot more detail and getting to know characters and buildup of the plot. Book 2, it felt like we were just rushing to get through all the action planned. There wasn’t very much in between downtime, which resulted in not only a kinda rushed book with way more plot than pages, but also a very emotionally devastating book.

Which leads me to: I feel like the central theme of CoBaB was more “hope”, while in CoVaV it was straight up “conflict”. And there was no recovery time. Even the precious few hopeful times that were in the book, I didn’t really have time to process or chill or cope. I always knew something worse was coming, which is what made this such a raw read. I do think the book could have benefited from giving us a little more hope. Like three-quarters of the way through, I had to keep thinking back to CBB and how I felt reading it and hoping there would be more hopeful and optimistic feelings in book 3. I couldn’t put the book down, but as a result, I pretty much just sobbed through the last fourth (at least) of the book, finished the book, sat in shock, and then went to bed. This book literally exhausted me. What a godsdamned ride.

I completely get why the book was like this, even if it wasn’t as a result of being rushed, but I feel a little more for the readers to balance it out helps us survive, lol.

That aside, there was SO MUCH in this book, I have SO MANY feelings!!!

Firstly, the worldbuilding was GREAT. I loved the new insight we got on magic. I totally didn’t realize frm book 1 that tîtans and maji were different and used magic differently for the most part.

With the direction of the ending, I’m not sure Tomi will go in this direction, but I’d like to know more about these differences. Why is it that chants can work for tîtans but maji can only use magic through chants? Is it just most effective? Will we discover they can use raw magic in book 3? I HAVE QUESTIONS.

Learning about the maji clan setups was also really interesting, but I have to admit it threw me for a bit of a loop referring to the leaders as elders and then they were all children. xP

Also, I’m really glad Tomi listened and gave us queer characters. I love Nâo and Khani. Powerful leader girlfriends? HELL YEAH.

I think this book made it really clear that Zélie x Amari is not end game and will not happen. I know a lot of people were/still are hopeful for that, but I think there’s just too much set up that says otherwise. They love each other, but imo they firmly think of each other as family. I’m going to put my stock in our canon queer couple and support them 10,000%.

Next big one: FUCKING HELL INAN STILL BEING ALIVE, I AM REALLY NOT HAPPY. I didn’t check out the chapters in the table of contents, so I didn’t have the forewaring to see that Inan was getting perspective chapters again, so it took my by quite a bit of surprise. A lot of you called that Inan would still be alive, but I honestly so prefer “dead means dead” in stories (otherwise, I find deaths are used too much for shock value and it just devalues the overall story and plot) that I had myself convinced he really was dead. He got a convincing death scene. Listen, if you kill off a character, I am going to grieve them. It is not going to be the same if you bring them back. I will have completely detached feelings for them and have to form a whole new relationship and perspective on them, and I am always going to keep them at a distanced because they were dead, I saw it happen, and there is no going back.

But no. BAM! He’s not only alive but Zélie is the one to wake him from his connector coma. Not happy. I really feel that Inan’s story played out in CoBaB. It’s interesting that I’ve seen some real anti-Inan folk feeling more sympathy for Inan in this book, while I’ve talked about feeling that Inan was a really compelling villain in book 1, but I’ve got much more negative feelings towards him throughout book 2. (And also why the hell should Inan get to come back but all these little maji kids - Zulaikha and Mazeli, c’mon - die and die for real??? It feels very cheap and very shock value to me. I don’t know if it was like some statement on privilege or Tomi just didn’t want to be done with Inan, but yeah.)

Honestly, the way Inan and Amari think in this book is so similar, and I found it so fucking conceited and narrow-minded. My view on both of them went down in this book. They just kept talking about how they have to be so selfish and they’re the only ones who can see things for how they are and how damn much they sacrifice and how tired they are because it’s up to them to sacrifice everything. Like!!! GUYS. No.

From the beginning when the CVV summary was released, I was wary of the plot focusing on Amari leading the people. It’s one of those things like: the system is not broken. It’s functioning exactly as it intends to. The monarchy has evolved to uphold a class system where diviners and maji are at the bottom. That’s what it wants to be doing. Can you really effectively change the system by accepting the system as your basis for change? Maybe it’s time to deconstruct the system and build something better. Not just put a royal back on the throne and think that’s gonna go smoothly.

And that’s exactly what happened here. They tried to use the system to buck the system and everything collapsed around them.

But I’m getting a little off topic - fixing a system of bigotry and oppression that your people built is not a sacrifice. You are still in the position of power here.

And Inan’s little bit where he thinks he’s so good and pure and better than his father because he offers the maji a place in society if they bend to his rules and follow him when the other option is that he will murder them had me wanting to tear my hair out. “Follow me or perish” is not a compromise. It’s not improvement. It’s literally a threat. And then when the maji don’t take this offer, Inan takes this as a sign that his mother was right and they can’t trust the maji to make the right decisions!?!?

Ugh. I was just done. I know all the factors of why I originally had sympathy for Inan are still there, and they largely control how he acts and thinks in CVV. (What he really needs for character growth and development is to be away from toxic influences and given time to grieve and work on figuring himself out. Not thrust into a position of power with his mother holding all the strings.) So, for me, Inan’s character really hit a wall, always getting stuck in the same patterns. And so now I feel less sympathy for him and find his story less compelling.

I honestly found Inan’s cousin, Ojore, really interesting. I think it could have been a really compelling story if somehow Ojore was allowed to take up the throne. WIth his background, being there in the burner attack that killed Saran’s father, he had a lot of backstory that we could have explored. And Tomi still could have revealed that it was Nehanda that manipulated things and let the burners in to encourage the war and the genocide against maji. Without Inan, we could have really gotten to explore how Ojore would react to that while on the throne. He could have potentially gone through the character development that Inan will never really get to see. Instead of him being killed pretty much immediately after he learns the truth behind his family’s death and the attack on him.

That being said, I do respect Inan’s decision to give up his position in the end. I think the whole “I’ll let your murder me” and Zélie apparently going to go through this was a little… contrived. But at least Inan did pull it out in the end. It will be interesting to see how these last moments between Inan and Zélie come into play in the next book. I’m assuming either Inan has been taken with the rest or will mount a rescue to go after them, so you know we’re going to get more on how this relationship develops.

(I think with Tzain done with Amari right now, Amari and Inan trying to navigate a new siblingship with each other will be a more interesting relationship than Inan x Zélie, and I would look forward to getting to see these sibs talk and get to actually be there for each other like they never have before.)

And since I just went through Inan, let’s go ahead and talk about Amari.

Oh, Amari.

Amari, Amari, Amari.

GIRL. Why did it take you this entire book to realize that making decisions based off of what your father would have done was the wrong damn thing to do!?!?!? Omg, we all knew that was gonna crash and burn on you. The entire purpose of overthrowing your father’s rule was to not do things his way because his way was cruel and malicious. smdh

I was still rooting for Amari throughout the book. I am still rooting for Amari, but damn. She sure did try to make it hard doing things like going back on promises right after she made them (forcing Zélie to teach her chants that didn’t belong to her and then immediately using them on a maji) and acting like she new better than all the maji (I agree that just wanting to kill all the nobles and other peoples wasn’t a feasible plan, but GIRL. These are a traumatized, hunted people. They’re going to be angry, especially right in the thick of a war. Strongarming your way into a position of power over them is not going to make them feel any better about you or bring about peace. It’s just going to show them that they cannot trust you). And her move at the end? Sacrificing Zélie and all those people in that village? Being willing to murder them all? … If killing her father fucked her up, what’s this going to do? I still have faith in her. I want her to come back from this. But she’s going to have to majorly confront her own feelings and actions and work very hard to come back from this. Though, I have a feeling that she’ll mostly get forgiven in the next book because bigger and worse things will happen and they’ll have to come together, regardless of how they feel about each other.

Amari’s realization in the end when she decides she doesn’t have to kill her mother (uh… was I the only one expecting some sort of Avatar moment like when Aang took away Ozai’s bending? Like… Nehanda is still a threat… this part of the story can’t just be over) and that killing her father just fucked her up kinda made me feel ashamed for feeling so proud of her when she did kill Saran in CBB. Like, it was just such a powerful moment, and I think too many (simple “good vs evil”) stories fall prey to poor and simplistic messages like “killing in self-defense is evil and makes the good people as bad as the villains”. But it’s just been weighing on Amari this whole time and fucking her up, and now I feel bad. =(

Speaking of Amari feeling bad, though: Ramaya. The connector Amari beat for connector elder.

I hope either Inan was taken with everybody else or Amari will connect with him via their connector-sibling connection. It seems incredibly likely that Ramaya is stuck in her dreamscape similarly to how Inan was stuck in his before Zélie somehow entered it and woke him. Considering they were constantly saying Ramaya was their best soldier, it seems like it would also come in handy to wake Ramaya and be able to utilize her skills to help rescue the kidnapped crew. Like, this HAS to come up at some point, doesn’t it? She can’t just be forgotten in a coma. Did anybody stay behind to take care of her when they marched on the capitol? D|

Other relationships!

Fuck, I fell so hard for Roën in this book. He’s just so endearing. And it seems like it was really only Roën that was able to keep Zélie grounded and moving forward in this book. I didn’t really support Roën and Zélie getting together in book 1, but book 2 absolutely made me support the ship.

However, I think Roën’s actions at the end of the book are a very good insight into the types of things that Roën is capable of. I don’t know if this is endgame for Tomi, but after Zélie’s constant struggle of just wanting to leave and be free and start over in this book and how her rage towards Inan consumed her and caused her to make some short-sighted mistakes (promising she’d protect Mazeli at the temple, then Ojore almost killing him while she tussled with Inan), I just don’t know that this is a particularly healthy relationship. The bit where Roën takes her out to see and they get a ride from a whale? Absolutely adorable. Just what Zélie (and I suspect Roën) needed. But long-term? I have a feeling that Roën is going to have to let more of that mercenary self of his out, and it’s going to scare and wear on Zélie, and erode their relationship. I think this is one of those relationships that is good in the short-term but isn’t long-term sustainable.

Speaking of long-term - I know Tzain is absolutely done with Amari right now, but I think he’s overall shown a great capacity for forgiveness, and I do think Tzain and Amari are endgame for Tomi. I don’t think this break between them is permanent.

But you know who we really need to talk about?

MAMA AGBA

What a heartbreaking arc. You know she had to sever the tie between Mazeli and Zélie to save Zélie’s life. I so wish she had gotten more time with Zélie for them to reform their trust and love for one another. I absolutely wouldn’t have been able to survive the maji elders sacrificing Amari to complete the linking ritual, but I can’t believe they really did sacrifice Mama Agba like that. She was really the only guidance these poor kids had. I can’t believe they really sacrificed her.

RIP Mama Agba. I hope you’re helping to look after Mazeli. 3

Now, for that damn epilogue.

I don’t know if I can take the next book. I don’t know how Tomi’s gonna make it through the next book.

Getting gassed and waking up on an eerie ship with the other elders? Anybody else get the feeling that Tomi is going to dive into a trans atlantic slave trade parallel? I hope I’m just being paranoid here (hey, the book seriously played with my emotions; I have no idea where I’m at anymore). What were y’alls takeaways from that part?

Predictions!

- Harum obviously has something to do with all the elders being taken and them being on a boat now, right? Tomi was totally setting him up as an antagonist and he got very little antag action in this book. He’s got to have something to do with this.

- This was always intended to be a trilogy, but I have to wonder if this isn’t going to end up turning into a couple more books than intended. There was so much to go over in book 2 and then the twist of an epilogue. They’re not even getting to rebuild yet. It just feels like Tomi has so much more planned it can’t possibly be wrapped up in just one more book.

- I feel like something’s gotta happen to sever or dampen the connection the elders (and Roën and Tzain) have with each other. After how powerful they were in the end, Tomi’s gotta counter that somehow. I just don’t know if she’s gonna dampen the powers or pull out an even BIGGER bad than Nehanda was.

- Obviously “Children of Gods” has to do with the title of book 3. If it’s not just Children of Gods, I predict: Children of Gods and Ghosts.

Ending Thoughts

CVV was well worth the wait and lived up to the hype, but if we don’t get some hope and optimism in the next book, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I need these poor kids to get some semblance of a happy ending. They’ve been through so much.

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