#showing how they go against the meta human acts

[tanglepelt]

Dp x dc idea 62

Danny has been reaching out to the league for help.

He thought he had it handled but then got sucked into a different dimension, had his town almost fed to plants, the town had a sleepy time nap, and for crying out loud vortex literally messed with the weather all around the globe.

Out of everything he thought vortex would of made them realize he was serious.

being sick of it he starts researching. If they won’t help them by choice and keep ignoring him he is gonna force the matter.

Too bad he can’t figure out who any of the hero’s are. But he does find a newspaper that might take an interest in his information. Especially with the anti ecto acts being brought into the conversation.

Is showing up at a random reporters apartment without being announced that smart. No. But he is desperate.

Clark did not expect to have a random white haired teen show up at his building.

Now he has answers about the mysterious attacks and questions of why weren’t they alerted.

#danny phantom #danny fenton #dp x dc #dc x dp #dp dc crossover #dp x dc crossover #dp x dc prompt #justice league #whether it be a mole or chalked up as a joke #the league was unaware of amity #the world wide attacks always got solved within 20 minutes by a secondary party #they had been looking into it #JLD said to leave it #that unless they get asked don’t get involved #they knew it was the infinite realms but didn’t tell the others. #you don’t mess with the realm unless you want it to mess with you #Clark and Louis have an article come out about the acts #just dragging them #showing how they go against the meta human acts #amity gets investigated #probs get the portal shut down #maybe sets off an adoption meter or two #my vote is the government has a mole in the leauge #they want to control ghosts as weapons #can’t have the league knowing about the world wide threat in amity #that would put a damper on things

[basilf1res]

Memento Mori - DPxDC

What was beyond death. Was there anything at all? Was there nothing?

That was what he always wondered.

When Clark was a child, he looked up to his fictional hero: Danny Phantom. A half-dead guy in a comic book series that led to the most bisexual awakenings in the century.

Clark liked to go back and reread the comic books from Issue #1 (they were fairly short, but all parts of an “episode”, almost like those ads on shows, but the wait time was every two weeks). He tended to read them all in one sitting, and yet oddly enough, never disturbed as he murmured the made-up summoning spell under his breath.

He could’ve sworn he had been going through them for over an hour and not twenty minutes.

It was Phantom who inspired him to continue being Superman in his darkest moments. He also considered himself physical proof that Danny’s palette swap was enough to hide his identity.

The glasses ARE enough.

When Clark found out he had a clone, he was ecstatic to be able to teach Conner anything everything, to answer any questions his little brother had.

Danielle “Dani” Phantom and her awaited return in “Issue #46 D-stabilized” caused him to become a mama bear to Conner out of the fear he would melt within a few weeks. But it wasn’t like anyone at the Watchtower had to know that small detail.

Getting married to Lois was the best day of his life, the day of Jon’s birth also fighting for that first place spot in his mind.

He had a clone brother, a wonderful wife, a beautiful son, and an amazing group of friends that work together to protect the planet he calls home.

But everything started to fall apart when a protest against metas took it too far, Jon’s powers started to develop and he was seen accidentally tripping, falling, and catching himself by hovering a few inches above the pavement.

Jon said he considered himself lucky nothing scarred. He laughed everything off when it came to the topic.

But it shook Clark, Lois, and Conner to the core.

Memento mori.

It reminded Superman that despite his impenetrable skin, Death can come at any moment. Even for him.

—————————

When Danny was a little boy, he dreamt of reaching the stars, he wanted to be able to touch the moon, explore Mars, and roam the galaxy he resides in and beyond.

He read these comic books of a league of heroes, a team with space cops, super powered humans, a man dressed in a bat suit that was more effective at capturing rogues and villains than some of the powered members, aliens, and so much more.

He flipped through the weekly published comics, learning to read better than most at a young age. He had two favorites, Superman and Martian Manhunter.

Danny wanted to explore the stars like his heroes. He wanted to be able to fight as well as the big Bat. He wanted superpowers. He wanted to help people. He wanted to fight his own set of supervillains. He wanted to be able to succeed and be loved.

Oh how he got everything he wanted but the last.

Tucker and Sam were the only reason he hadn’t broken yet, the reason he was still standing.

The anti-ecto acts, the GIW, Vlad, Pariah Dark, and his- Jack and Maddie’s sadistic comments about ghosts were the last straw.

The hero always wins… they don’t die to the evil they want to stop… right..?

Right..?

…

The sound of a scraping scalpel, the buzz of the lights, and the squeals of pleasure - as his ghostly heart was found again and again and prodded again and again - filled his ears for an unknown length of time.

His cries for help were never answered until a summoning pulled at his core, it was a personal calling, someone had managed to find his calling card.

The tears of relief stung his eyes as the dissection table with his body strapped down to it was sucked into a summons portal.

He was spat out in front of kids, most likely teenagers, due to the shrieks of horror and surprise.

Oh… oh how he prayed to the Ancients that he’d live to see another day as a tears slipped out of his eyes.

Memento mori.

——————————

Jon found out about his comic book collection and wanted to show Damian.

Clark hummed as he typed up an official report on a rogue attack to send to the Watchtower.

His blood ran cold when he heard his son scream from over in Gotham.

#dp x dc #dc x dp #dpxdc #dcxdp #dp x dc prompts #dc x dp prompt #dp x dc prompt #dc universe #dp #dc #danny phantom #giw #guys in white #ghost investigation ward #clark kent #lois lane #jon kent #damian wayne #superman #justice league #danny is not having a good time #ice core danny #memento mori

[actual-changeling]

Crowley does NOT want to run - A Summary

A small while ago, I wrote an extensive meta post about why Crowley's primary survival response is not flight, why exactly it is fight instead, and how it shows up throughout the centuries.

You can find the original post here, which is quite long but goes into way more detail than I will here.

I'm frankly getting tired of people claiming that Crowley always wants to flee, that this makes Aziraphale "right" in going back to heaven, and using it generally put Crowley down. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of who he is as a character and what that means for their relationship.

So, because long posts can scare people off, I will provide a summary.

Now, let's get into it, here are the reasons why Crowley is not a runner:

the Starmaker fought for their stars and against heaven in the revolution, which ended up with them falling and Crowley the demon emerging

by opposing existing rules and defying heaven's authority, he automatically started a fight; you cannot not fight under those circumstances

he continues to question God and defies both heaven's and hell's commands repeatedly, see Job, the subtextual implications that he saved children from the flood, hanging out with Jesus and taking him traveling, proposing the Arrangement, and acting based on what HE decides is the moral thing to do over and over

just because a fight is not physical doesn't mean it isn't one

Crowley's first response to the impeding apocalypse was to start coming up with a plan to stop it, Aziraphale had to be talked into it and only agreed for selfish reasons

to quote myself: The reason why both heaven and hell absolutely loathe him is not because he is a runner; it's because he constantly and consistently defies them. He fights.

Crowley wants to deal with the Gabriel problem and attempts to come up with plans over and over again while Aziraphale shoots him down and solves exactly nothing

Crowley is the one who wants to fight the demons outside to protect the humans inside the bookshop, meanwhile Aziraphale is abusing his powers to put on a puppet show with human beings

in the final fifteen, he does not suggest running away, he suggest finding a new safe space, because the bookshop can now be accessed by both sides without problems

the one and ONLY TIME Crowley actually wants to run away is not at the bandstand—he is talking about 'if' and running as a contingency plan—but later when he finds Aziraphale on the street; in that moment, he is 100% certain (and correct) that hell is about to drag him down to torture him for all eternity. Who wouldn't run from a fight you cannot possibly win?

When Aziraphale refuses to come, he STAYS AND FIGHTS despite everything, because freedom means nothing to him without Aziraphale there.

Questions? Feel free to ask them (politely), but please read the original post first and see if I answered them there.

#alex talks good omens #good omens #crowley #crowley meta #good omens meta #good omens season 2 #go2 #aziraphale #aziracrow #crowley x aziraphale #ineffable husbands #ineffable wives #ineffable spouses #ineffable divorce #the final fifteen

[fellthemarvelous]

Aziraphale's talk with the Metatron

Another unhinged meta post for the Aziraphale Defense Squad. I will continue to defend him hardcore until fandom starts recognizing him as his own person and not a prop for Crowley's character. Welcome to my opinion on the Final Fifteen!!

Hell came to Earth.

Aziraphale blew up his halo while surrounded by Hell.

Aziraphale declared a war on Hell at the exact moment Crowley was in Heaven uncovering Heaven's secrets.

There was a door to Heaven opened through the bookshop and who knows what in the Discorporated Demon the guy at the other end of that door was getting.

Enough to get The Metatron's attention and for him to witness Aziraphale declare war on Hell while his demon boyfriend breaks into Heaven's top secret files and learns that Heaven is holding their rebellious angels hostage.

He doesn't give Aziraphale a chance to say no to Heaven, and Aziraphale is pissed off about it.

Aziraphale DID NOT SAY YES EITHER. It is so very important that people understand this. The Metatron did not give Aziraphale a choice. Aziraphale had to choose the best way to handle a hopeless situation.

I think Aziraphale is waiting for Crowley to get the hint.

Crowley broke into Heaven. He broke into Heaven. He uncovered secrets. Saraqael showed him the trial. He knows the truth.

Aziraphale almost started a war to protect Gabriel.

The Metatron had to intercept that last transmission because Crowley and Aziraphale are powerful enough to shield Earth from both sides.

Remember that during the Bullet Catch scene, Aziraphale asked a group of soldiers to raise their hands if they had experience using firearms. Crowley is the only one who did not raise his hand because he had never fired a gun before.

Now we get to the present, and The Metatron is basically telling Aziraphale that Crowley is not only a threat but there is evidence of the fact that they have been working together for 6,000 years and that he prevented Crowley's arrest by Hell in 1941.

As far as The Metatron is concerned, Aziraphale just committed an act of treason because it helped Crowley get out of Heaven safely with highly classified information.

He didn't know Crowley was in Heaven. Crowley never came back and it made him fear the worst, but then he's showing up with Heaven right after and that only makes it a bigger problem.

Aziraphale chose to keep the peace instead of allowing one side or the other to arrest Gabriel and Beelzebub. He let the former Supreme Archangel and former Grand Duke of Hell escape from their duties. He gave them a choice. They were never supposed to know those choices existed in the first place.

The way that The Metatron said "so predictable" when Nina told him that no one ever asked for Death. The invisible choice. The name of the coffee shop is used as a threat against Aziraphale.

Aziraphale's choice in this situation involved how he chose to present it to Crowley.

Crowley was asking to get his flat back after Shax made the plan to go back to Hell. He was already planning to take Aziraphale to the Ritz to celebrate by getting really drunk. He was fine.

Nina and Maggie's last minute interception got him all hyped up to finally make a love confession.

But please FOR THE LOVE OF GOD can we please try to remember that AZIRAPHALE NEVER SAID YES EITHER.

He seems to be turning himself in and trying to protect Crowley, and only realizes at the end that the Metatron plans to use him against humanity.

Crowley and Aziraphale were not having the same conversation. They were not having the same conversation. They were not having the same conversation.

Aziraphale is terrified. Look at the nervous smile and the way he is so confused as to why Crowley is mad at him. He's trying to tell Crowley he needs helps because he's in trouble.

He said he didn't want to go back to Heaven. He made this clear when he was speaking to Crowley.

He knows the things he is saying are contradictory to what he's learned, and he's needing Crowley to pick up on that. He's trying to tell Crowley that he can't protect him from Hell this time anymore than Crowley can protect him from Heaven because The Metatron knows they've been working together for 6,000 years and are now in a position to reveal Heaven's institutional problem.

Stop getting mad at Aziraphale for not saying no and start asking yourself why some of you refuse to acknowledge the fact that Aziraphale did not say yes to the Metatron either.

Especially knowing that Crowley did not say "yes" or "no" to Hell's offer in The Arrival either.

This isn't an angel who is happy to go back to Heaven. This is an angel begging his best friend to help him because he doesn't have a choice, and not understanding that Crowley thinks Aziraphale is rejecting him and Aziraphale is telling him he no longer has a choice.

He no longer has a choice and now Crowley is upset with him and he's still trying to figure out what just happened.

Aziraphale is going to get up there and cause some trouble though.

#good omens #good omens meta #aziraphale defense squad #aziraphale #crowley #final fifteen #behold my opinion on aziraphale's perspective #i love crowley #but there is more than one conversation happening #more than one story #more than one perspective

[party-lemon]

okay so. the kiss, right? after gathering information and reading so much meta (and fanfiction, because honestly, it has helped form my opinion on this also), I've come to a very long conclusion.

let's start with the fact that crowley apparently didn't realize he was in love with aziraphale. which goes against SO much fanfic and beliefs of SO many good omens fans. as someone who started watching after season 2 came out, i didn't think much of it because i wasn't as familiar with the characters. but now i get why people might have been confused by that writing/plot choice

but it's also really interesting. crowley is, essentially, TOLD that he's in love with aziraphale. and that's fascinating because he's been on earth for 6000+ years, how does he not know that, how does he not know what love is?

but for 6000+ years, he's been surrounded by HUMAN love. human love is fleeting, it's dramatic, it's romantic, it's sexual, it's silent, it's all these different things. human love is not only confusing, but it's distinctly HUMAN. and though they've taken up many human things in their thousand year stay, aziraphale and crowley are distinctly not human. crowley watches films and listens to music, sure, but he might see human love as something fantastical. humans watch fantasy films and read sci fi books and consume media and we think "that would be cool if we could experience that." we know it's fantasy, but it would be cool if it wasn't.

i think crowley kind of viewed human love like that. he knows it exists, but also it's sort of shrouded in fantasy. he's almost...indifferent to it. like it would be cool if it happened, but it won't. i think what he knows he feels for aziraphale is a distinctly NOT human kind of love, of which i don't think we're entirely meant to understand, because they're an angel and a demon and they've been alive for millenia and have known each other as they are for 6000+ years. from what we've seen, it's this deeply burrowed fear of losing one another, this desire to simply spend time together, share things they enjoy, exchange philosophical musings, pester each other, save each other, etc, etc.

and like i said, i think they know that that's love. it's unspoken, sure, but i think they both recognize that this deep, distinctly NOT human thing is love, in their own way. they've just been careful not to show it too much because they didn't think they could (flashbacks of "you go too fast for me, crowley"). after the not-pocalypse, they seemed a little more open to showing it, especially aziraphale.

but then nina lets crowley know that, not only is this distinctly not human love (she doesn't know they're not humans, of course) showing very clearly, but it LOOKS like human love. they look and act like a human couple. and i think crowley realizes that he loves aziraphale in a very human way also, that it's not just a fantasy, it's not off limits just because they're an angel and a demon.

so then the final fifteen happens and both aziraphale and crowley are desperate, and i think crowley kisses aziraphale, mostly, as a last push to show aziraphale what he's feeling. everything beforehand was him silently screaming how he loves aziraphale and wants to be with him in their not human way and that didn't work so he decides to show him in this distinctly human way. he's saying he wants to be with him and love him like a human, and kisses him, because it's what HUMANS do.

not sure if this made sense, and decipher that scene how you will obviously, but that's what i think, after being obsessed with this show since august lol

#good omens #good omens 2 #ineffable kiss #ineffable husbands #ineffable divorce #good omens meta #aziraphale #crowley #long posts

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

Hi! I’m sorry if this is dumb but I’m not understanding why the Ed hate is racist? From what I’ve seen it has nothing to do with his race, just his actions? What is racist about it? I’m asking this very genuinely because I want to understand and learn more from this so please don’t take this as being annoying or patronizing or something!

ok so not all Ed hate falls under the racism catagory some people just have genuinely bad taste. The thing that is racist is insisting that he's an abuser. I've explained several times why he's not abusive, as have many many others. But, here's the quick recap: Izzy was abusing him, Ed has a history of lashing out towards his abusers with physical violence and Izzy established that he had been doing this sort of thing to Ed for years so you know, he's going the way of Ed's father and nobody would argue that Ed was abusing his father. Ed wasn't abusive towards the crew. Like he did some shitty things while suicidal. He hurt his friends I'm not saying he didn't. However: 1. This show is full of very very over the top violence and no one is getting up Button's ass about Lucius's finger. 2. It would be an incredibly strange move for a rom com to make one of it's leads a domestic abuser, It's not such a weird move to give a character in a rom com a suicidal arc where they push all their friends away. The first choice would yeild a completely unwatchable show the second is what happened in ofmd. 3. David Jenkins himself has talked about this and he said "What Blackbeard did was by the standards of the pirate world a bit much" I don't know if I even agree with this considering everything we've heard about Hornigold but I certainly agree with the sentiment that Ed did some shitty things but nothing that was significantly more horrific than other characters in the show who nobody treats the way they treat Ed.

So with all of that in mind: Why is it racist to call him an abuser. Like sure, all of this adds up to the abuse truthers being wrong and stupid but what does it have to do with Ed's skin color? This ties into the history that the Maori people share with a lot of indigenous groups who were colonized by europeans. I would encourage you to do more research on your own but I'll point you in the generally right direction. Indigenous men are portrayed as hyper violent in order to justify their subjugation (see head hunters stereotypes or how often people assume indigenous cultures were doing human sacrifice). A lot of the Ed hate exaggerates how violent he is in comparison to other characters. Indigenous men are portrayed as dirty and barbaric and in need of being civilized by a benevolent white savior. A lot of fic and meta positions either Stede or Izzy as needing to save Ed from himself, or as needing to babysit him or teach him to read or bathe, ect. That's why people are so up in arms about the soap eating joke.

And finally the abuse thing. Positioning indigenous men as abusers has been used historically as a shoddy justification for family separation. This stereotype pairs incredibly well with the violent stereotype. So IF Ed was abusing poor defenseless little white Izzy it would actually be a racist decision for the writers to make. Like there's a way to portray characters of color doing abuse, because being nonwhite doesn't make you incapable of doing shitty things, but that would not be it. Thankfully that is catagorically not what's happening, we've been told that the Kraken is an abuse responce, Izzy provokes the Kraken, we've seen Izzy be paralelled with Ed's two other abusers (Hornigold and Ed's dad), we've been shown Izzy controlling the flow of information between Ed and his crew, we've been showing Izzy manipulating Ed, we've been shown him lying to turn the crew against Ed, we've been shown Izzy attempting to murder someone Ed cares about specifically because Ed cares about them, we've seen Izzy threaten Ed's life for acting wrong, we've heard Izzy confess to doing all of that shit FOR YEARS on his death bed (a time which it would completely undercut the emotional impact of the scene if he was lying). So like... people ignoring all of that shit in order to portray Ed as shooting off his leg for no fucking reason and say he's the abuser is very... "You forgot the racism don't worry we'll add it back in for you" and continuing to insist on that and be shitty to people who won't cop to your dumbass shit is actively making the fandom a more racist space.

#ofmd meta #fandom racism

[inconveniently-discorporated]

Throwing this meta idea out there for someone because my recurring headaches (migraines?) are fucking me up...

I would love to see an analysis on all the times Crowley/Aziraphale are on opposite sides to where they usually are (possibly excluding the car bits because I recall Neil saying something about how they *had* to film that way because of the driver seat).

Like -- I've always sorta noticed noticed that they're usually on the "wrong side" when they're either flipping the script, acting out of character, or at some sort of odds against each other, but I don't have it in me to really do a deep dive. See a few examples, though...

Crowley switching sides when he proposes a totally fair not rigged in any way coin toss for Aziraphale to go do a temptation (then ends up on the hook for a miracle himself).

They're sort of "at odds" with each other here, but not really. They sort of appear to be in character, but they're really kind of not? Crowley's sarcastic as hell but not normally that rough with Aziraphale. And Aziraphale is thirsty as fuck in this scene and he normally tries to hide it better.

At some point Aziraphale mentions they're on opposite sides, and they literally are, on screen, from where they normally are. Aziraphale is lying, Crowley's trying to pull off a personal miracle, and they are at odds with where they normally are in their relationship.

Again they're at odds with where they normally are -- Crowley is emotional, vulnerable, in public. You can even see right through his glasses here! I'm certain that's conveying his vulnerability. Aziraphale has just defied heaven, and is seeking a human to possess.

This one is interesting because they start out on the "right" sides for who they actually are and they're discussing each other's prized possessions, then Crowley circles around and we see them in the correct visual order, right before their respective sides kidnap them and they really have to really put on the show.

Okay, I kind of lied on not being able to analyze this, but still I'm SURE someone could do a deeper dive into all of these scenes (and I know there's more I didn't mention!).

#good omens meta #ineffable husbands #we're on opposite sides

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

Danny Phantom (and technically optional crossover) Prompt

Imagine, if you will, a not-aging Danny Fenton. There’s about a dozen ways to do this, but in this case—Danny still has a human lifespan, he just looks human (though, I won’t argue against any immortal Dannys). As Fenton, he’s just stuck at fourteen. Phantom, being a ghost whose appearance is based on what he sees himself as, does look older. By this point, he’s probably retired from superheroics—I just find unphased and jaded 18 year old Danny to be hilarious. So, he’s just like ‘I wanna go to college’.

So he does. He just. Always looks 14. His hair grows, he can build muscle, and he can definitely have dark eyes—but otherwise? Short ass 14 year old. He constantly has to prove that yes, he’s the real Danny Fenton, and no, this is not a scam. He eventually has to get meta-specific paperwork filled out—no need for the genetic test if the power is fairly obvious. (Of course, it’s possible to do this AU as not crossover, but then you’ll have to do the legwork of making it less odd that someone has superpowers, and whether that means everyone knows he’s Phantom, which might change some of the issues. It also doesn’t have to be DC, for instance, you could use Marvel or even My Hero Academia—ultimately, up to the writer.)

Anyways, he gets his degree(s), enters the workforce, and by the Ancients is it hard to be taken seriously. Even people who see his paperwork and know for a fact he’s a full fledged adult are just like, aw, poor kid, can’t even reach the top cabinets without stretching or climbing. So, while he could just keep being the most qualified 14-looking-adult, he’s quickly getting sick of it. He can’t even be a school teacher, none of his students will take him seriously! Not even the younger ones, cause even the other teachers aren’t respecting him.

There are about… three options available to him, up to whoever wants to pick up this sort of prompt.

1-he gets into acting or modeling. Or perhaps, stunt acting. And everyone is just a bit unnerved about how absolutely none of the nonsense seems to get to him, and he’s just… a little *too* bendy sometimes. He’d make a great scare actor, if he wasn’t terrible at scaring people.

2-he goes into the work force as Phantom in a cheap wig and terrible contacts. Half the time, he forgets at least one contact. Cue mystery of who the hell this guy is, because, for ONCE, someone actually paid attention to the paperwork and knows that he DOESN’T look like THAT.

3-he tries to get work in a slightly more remote position, where his colleagues are few to none. Of course, that is, until some hero or another such professional has to meet him in person, and gets one hell of a shock about who their expert on the computer has been all this time.

There’s of course the undercurrent of Danny’s experiences as a teen hero, so sometimes absolutely wild situations show up, and his stories are like, super weird. He thinks at least SOME of his experiences must be universal, and they’re… really, really not. The outlandish stories don’t help the whole ‘not taken serious’ thing, but then they turn out to be true. Bonus points to rogues or ghosts showing up to say hi and everyone is like WAS THAT A FUCKING DRAGON?! And Danny’s just like ‘yeah she was a beauty pageant coordinator in my hometown, we kept in touch. I helped put her brother in jail’. As if that did NOT just raise more questions than before.

Of course, use or don’t use what you want (such as, he does keep a public-ish position, or he just goes full villain to prove a point, or even somehow starts working undercover at schools and summer camps for xyz reasons, whether or not the Justice League finds him, what his degree(s) weee even in, etc etc), I just think that Forever Teen Danny stories are interesting.

Basically… it’s reverse Shazam, haha.

#prompt #danny phantom #danny phantom crossover #idk if this made sense but I tend to get crossover ideas often. and the phandom is very flexible #this particular one has so many different branches and ways to go that I didn’t even list them all. #go. be free. be wild. surprise me #does he work in tech support in Japan Heroics after either being isekai’d or because American law is so different that he was legally fine? #is he an alternative energy scientist for the Justice league? #does he appear on vogue magazine? #whose to say? #whoever feels like picking this up I guess lmao

[anonymous-dentist]

I'm going to be honest and say that I do not give a single fuck about the Federation and the workers. And why would I? they were the main villains a couple of months ago but now I'm supposed to feel bad because Fred, who admitted to know about quackity's torture and apparently participated in whatever happened to either Antoine or Pierre (I don't remember right now), is dead? I'm sorry for Tubbo, but I laughed when I saw it.

It is so ridiculous to me that now, after months of hating the Federation, some islanders want to defend the workers. Or how now I'm supposed to feel empathy for the organisation that has kidnapped, torture, brainwashed and killed people.

And now, with the addition of the eye guy, we have three (four, if you count the residents. something not even the admins seem to be doing lately) different factions that we know nothing about. What's the Federation goal and motives? who knows. What does the Rebellion want and what are the codes? keep watching to find more cryptic books that explain not a thing. The fuck is going on with the eye guy, what does he want? wouldn't you like to know that.

It feels as if the residents now have to seat and watch passively and just accept whatever happens, because no matter how much they might what to try, their actions won't affect the story whatsoever.

sorry for the long rant, I'm really passionate about the server but since the eggs' disappeared i've only been disappointed with its direction

I feel like people have seen a few of the workers act chill and decided that all the workers are doing their jobs against their wills and that they’re all good people being forced to do bad things. And, sure, some workers are like that, like Walter Bob. But also? Many of them aren’t. It’s a complex situation, but we the audience have only seen a handful of workers. We haven’t even scratched the surface! Because like. What about the guys who pulled out Child Baghera’s feathers? What about that mysterious thing the Federation had that scared Child Cellbit to the point of abandoning his beloved sister in a panic and trying to swim away from Point goddamn Nemo? When Child Cellbit said, “Don’t trust the workers”, he meant all of them, and he was such an optimistic kid that he had to have had a GOOD reason to say that

Like when people say that it’s wrong for Cellbit to kill all these workers I obviously agree because Murder Is Wrong. But also?

THE FEDERATION IS ACTIVELY HOLDING EVERYBODY ON THIS ISLAND HOSTAGE

Nobody would’ve gone to Purgatory if they weren’t on the island. The Brazilians legitimately crashed by accident and weren’t allowed to leave. The Feds purposefully sabotaged the French’s plane. Every single hardship the islanders have faced since the start of the series is because the Federation essentially kidnapped them and they’re holding them hostage and torturing and killing and brainwashing them. They’re literal human experiments! Why would I feel bad for the organization actively breaking literally just So Many Geneva Conventions?

Like, sure, Fred liked Tubbo, but Fred also enjoyed Quackity being tortured and brainwashed. Fred helped operate on Pierre. Fred seemingly had connections with the Eye and Cucurucho.exe. It sucks that they’re dead, but like. Okay? I feel bad for Tubbo, but Fred knowingly helped torture and possibly even kill who knows how many individuals over their time with the Federation. They were a higher-up. They had some amount of free will.

So do the regular workers, actually, because these Fed Streams have showed us that the workers have personalities. We know that there are rebels in the workforce. There’s an office culture. Workers sabotage Federation equipment (ie the coffee machine) and get away with it.

The workers (outside of Walter Bob) only started having personalities in September after the eggs disappeared, and on a meta level it’s because the admins A) wanted something to do and B) because the writers suddenly needed to show how incompetent the Feds apparently are because like. The Eye, ig. And people only started caring when the workers were dying, which only ended up villainizing both q and ccCellbit yet again (because the fandom’s favorite hobby is hating Brazilians.)

#asks! #anon! #neg

[deusvervewrites]

If you could write an MHA rewrite, what arcs would you redo and how would you develop certain characters like Katsuki and Izuku?

I've discussed some of this elsewhere but I don't feel like tracking it down again.

For the plot rewrite, I'd leave everything mostly the same up until Kamino. I'd introduce Stain earlier, via a news broadcast or Izuku's fanboy hobby having him see articles about him. I'd also plant seeds about the HPSC sooner, like having Stain explicitly sentenced to Tartarus without trial. I'd also find a way to namedrop Lady Nagant sooner as someone in Tartarus who used to be a Pro Hero. I'd also have Detnerat appear a few times, in advertisements or at the shopping mall, etc. Maybe Hatsume can mention them and call them hacks or something.

As for the more substantial changes, we start at Kamino Ward, where All For One would launch some kind of desperation move against All Might that results in his own death, or otherwise be similarly fatally hoist by his own petard.

Then I'd start getting a bit crazy.

With All For One dead, there's suddenly a massive criminal power vacuum. Overhaul's arc can stay mostly the same, but other criminals and groups should be plotting and acting as well--such as the Meta Liberation Army, who we would be indirectly introduced to early as a shadowy criminal conspiracy with serious money and ties.

There would be no Quirk transfer; Shigaraki would take over the League, find his own motivation and go from a screaming manchild to a Well-Intentioned Extremist shifting his focus away from All Might and UA to Hero Society as a whole, targeting the HPSC or Top Heroes, or other similar symbols of society.

The final battle between Midoriya and Shigaraki would happen during a showdown between multiple Villain factions vying for the power and influence left behind by AFO and the Heroes attempts to stop them. This would end the first year.

With AFO dead and the League defeated, the Second Year starts out much calmer, we get some more worldbuilding, the Work Studies are back, everyone's happily talking about what they've learned--and we smash cut to Re-Destro murdering a Pro Hero. Ideally one we've been introduced to before but not a major character. Someone like Native or Manual, that we've only really seen in passing.

The audience is finally introduced properly to the Meta Liberation Army, who up until now have been supply Support Gear to the previous Villain Groups but staying out of the fighting. With pretty much all of their opposition gone, they move to seize the criminal underground and massive political clout in the public. Trumpet campaigns for the Diet. MHA becomes a conspiracy thriller as the MLA's enemies are targeted for assassination and multiple 'unconnected' groups move with their gear and backing.

This arc has a major theme about Quirklessness and Quirkless discrimination, and the effects its had on Midoriya and Bakugou.

Eventually, the Heroes are able to track the conspiracy back to the MLA--thanks to Hawks spying for the HPSC--and raid Deika City for the final battle, and Re-Destro gets wrecked by a joint effort of Heroes he dismissed as weaklings with pathetic Quirks or something. End Year Two.

Year Three, their final year at UA, and the HPSC is sweating bullets, and all the planted seeds about their shady shit pays off in full. The HPSC goes full authoritarian, cracking down on personal freedoms in the name of their definition of Safety. Shit goes to hell in a handbasket. Hawks is suddenly a major antagonist. 1-A (now 3-A) is forced to go on the run to avoid arrest.

This arc focuses a lot on the nature of Justice and is far more blatant about its societal commentary.

In the end, Midoriya becomes the Greatest Hero by defeating Hawks and apprehending the HPSC President for her various crimes against humanity.

Smash cut to seven years later for the epilogue showing some about the new society and how it's better, while seeing where all the characters ended up. Namely, they're all getting together to throw a big party to celebrate that Eri (now 15) has been accepted into UA.

As for the character arcs, there's only a few things I'd tweak. I'd have Bakugou acknowledge his similarities to Endeavor at his worst and his not-exactly Heroic tendencies about murdering Midoriya, and rework his apology to take more responsibility and not do it in front of a crowd. Bakugou would also lose in the Ground Beta fight or whatever rematch replaces it.

Midoriya's fine, though I'd add more about how his past has fucked him up and makes him assume things about people based on those experiences, such as 'teachers always hate me' and 'no one could possibly like me.'

#asks #meta

[gold-pavilion]

Repost of my old BSD meta post on the 4 main strategists of the series (so far), brought back due to the deletion of my old blog and interest from peeps!!

Plain text version under the cut (thanks to @kaus-quietis ):

Ranpo, Dazai, Fyodor and Mori are the biggest players in the large-scale strategy games in BSD, but the smarts in which they excel and the way they play their hands are widely different. As expected, they’re effective in different scenarios, perform with different methods and have different limits.

Thanks to an ask I recently got about Ranpo, I thought it may be useful to someone to set apart each of them in regards to their individual talents and styles, what they do and don’t do with their own types of genius (as best as I can discern, of course), so… here’s my rundown of the master strategists, with quick n’ easy keywords for simplicity:

RANPO: CLARITY & FORESIGHT

Ranpo’s genius is summed up with the fake ability built around it. Just like Ultra Deduction is supposed to provide him, Ranpo has the clearest of sights: when presented with a scenario, he’ll easily understand every element of it, why things are as they look and what’s beyond that. In this attention to detail and grand understanding, he’s unparalleled. His pure intelligence is the highest of all.

But it doesn’t end there. His deduction abilities also make him capable of projecting ahead, of predicting outcomes and happenings by analyzing the elements currently at hand, so he can look ahead as accurately as he can see the present. And generally, this includes people. He can understand behavior, motivation and intentions just as well as he can make any of his other calculations.

However, he uses this clarity and this foresight usually to expose culprits, to achieve confessions by confrontation or to work on his team’s strategies, but not as a means to control that person. He understands the human element of the equation terrifyingly well, as he understands everything, but doesn’t aim to manipulate it. (Unless, as he explained with Mushitarou, unless it’s absolutely necessary and he’s very very pissed, in which case he’s not entirely against psychological attack, but in general his benign moral alignment and his blunt approach to people don’t mix with that.) Actually, this respect he has for life in general and this upright intention can be considered a secondary skill of his, because they’re the reason his confrontations tends to end with people getting something out of the experience of opposing him and ending up as new strong allies, like Minoura, Poe and Mushitarou did.

DAZAI: FORESIGHT & MANIPULATION

Dazai’s style has a big part in common with Ranpo’s, yeah. Namely, his ability to get ahead of the game by (understanding and) predicting, though in his case, it’s focused largely on behavior, on people in general. That’s where he differs and also where he excels: people. He strategizes a lot based on his ability to tell what individual people will do, how they’ll react, how they’ll think, what they’ll go for or how they’re likely to do it. In a game of strategy where personal motivation and individual wishes move the pieces so much, it’s a fantastic specialty.

This people-based focus shows its full capacity in his manipulation skill. Understanding others so well, it’s easy for him to prepare the stage and move the people through it without even having to tell them what he needs them to do (see: the entirety of Dead Apple haha). He just needs to set the conditions; the pieces will move on their own, in ways he can be prepared for. And if closer intervention is needed… well, part of his manipulation skill is in his charm and his capacity to act, so he can certainly get what he wants out of a person that way, too: with an encounter, a couple of words or a seemingly natural action. More often than not, people manipulated by Dazai will fail to realize they’ve been manipulated, or will only see it when it’s too late/there are no other options.

It’s worth noting that Dazai is very flexible; his intelligence by itself is very high and he has a lot of useful extra skills, like enough physical dexterity to get him out of trouble to a degree, lockpicking/pickpocketing and laying traps, but these are kind of like bonuses. They make him more versatile and capable, but aren’t his main thing.

FYODOR: (DESTRUCTIVE) MANIPULATION & TEMPTATION

It’s probably no surprise to anyone if I say that Fyodor’s style has similarities to Dazai’s haha, but still, yeah. They’re indeed very similar. Like Dazai, he also has a base intelligence level that’s just insanely high (though both to a lower degree than Ranpo, as far as we’ve seen in the midst of the DoA arc) and his own extra skills, such as his capacity as a hacker. This is utilized as an available tool for his schemes, but is also not the main basis they’re built on.

The manipulation keyword is shared between him and Dazai, and in the main gist of it, works the same: understanding people, being able to get into their heads and through that, either implant in them new decisions that fit his agenda in such a way that the person won’t realize they’ve been led, or let them act in their natural way if convenient. Leading a person this or that way as pawns on a chess board. However, there’s a big difference between how Dazai and Fyodor do this, which is what I mean with destructive manipulation: once Fyodor utilizes someone, he’ll usually not even leave the chance to have a new enemy or even a witness, instead he’ll dispose of the person (see: Karma). If not, the way he executes his needs is uncaring, and likely to leave the manipulated person broken; once he’s set up his use, he doesn’t care about their wellbeing or what happens with them (see: Shibusawa). His process of utilization may even involve breaking them (see: Goncharov). He doesn’t take care of his toys.

As for the temptation keyword, it’s the other part of his usual method, so characteristic of him that it stands out to me. Rather than being a huge charmer and an actor like Dazai is, Fyodor is a deal-maker. He finds what someone wishes for or needs (even being capable of isolating them or manipulating conditions to create such a need), and then simply presents it to them as a tempting bargain in exchange for whatever he needs. Sigma, Shibusawa and Mushitarou are big and clear examples.

MORI: STRATEGY & ASSET USE

And then we have Mori, unique even among this small group. His style is mainly what I can only describe as strategy itself, pure and led by logic and probability; theory of game, in a way. Mori also has a great deal of intelligence, combined with a level head that allows him to make sure to act, in every instance, in the way that benefits him (or rather, his organization, since he’s playing for the Port Mafia overall) the most; if unclear, then what has the highest chance of success with the best balance of risk will do. He’s able to understand and foresee enough to determine what that beneficial course of action will be.

Then, there’s his asset use, or what can be called the skill of command. Mori’s method is not independent, he’s the leader of a strong and unified organization (because he’s shaped it so), and as such, will most often be using his various divisions and subordinates and their talents. Seeing what someone is good for and leading them to the role in which their capacities can grow and shine is a true commander’s quality, and he possesses it. Gauging who and what he can dispose of and when to sacrifice is included, as is having a balance of when to control and when to let his subordinates act on their own. Be it goods, influences, situations, persons or anything, seeing what’s available and how it can be matched and used to higher advantage has been part of his modus operandi from the past, all the way to the present.

I hope these explanations put it into good perspective, but I’ll point out, for good measure, that asset use and manipulation are different things. Both involve using people as pawns, but when it comes to asset use, there’s an element of willingness and trust from the subordinates involved that sets it apart. Mori seems to be the hardest one to understand in general, with the most confusion and misinterpretation around him and what he does since he’s controversial to some, but following the principles of benefit and strategy, his genius can easily end up being the clearest.

As always, this is merely my interpretation and a rundown of the ideas I personally use to track of each of the strategists’ characterization. As much as I try to base my reasoning on canon as best as I can, I’m never claiming to have the final word. Grab this if it’s useful for you! But always take with a grain of salt.

#thoughts and talk and so #archiving #edogawa ranpo #dazai osamu #mori ougai #fyodor dostoyevsky #mori #dazai #ranpo #fyodor #bsd #bungou stray dogs #meta #wow me actually saving and recovering one of my posts wowwww

[secular-jew]

""Most Americans have never seen school closures because of Islamist attacks. There are Persians/ Iranians who escaped Iran and walk among you. Ask them how it was. It smells the same. Let me just tell you a few things. It is NOT about Jews. It is NOT about Israel. It is NOT about "Free Palestine!" This is foreign powers trying to bring down America. You MUST understand this. China. Russia. Iran's regime. They see weakness in American leadership and they are trying to topple this country. How? By creating CHAOS where people are most vulnerable. Our top schools. That's how it started in Iran. "Intellectuals" thinking they are standing up for a cause- for human rights, all the while being manipulated by paid actors. Communists. Islamists. Socialists. Propelled by social media. TikTok. Instagram. Meta. And now, illegal immigrants who have nothing to do and those who love to see destruction, like from Pakistan. Unfortunately, this will get a lot worse until after our elections. The foreign powers want to ensure America never becomes great again and stays engaged fighting multiple proxie wars all over the world, while China gets ready to swallow Taiwan. What is the anwser? 1- We must understand what is happening. Read this and talk to your Persian friends who escaped the Revolution of 1979. I'm sorry to say, but we have been warning you and we understand things you just don't. 2- We must all stick together. Do not allow them to divide us. We must stay strong against these barbaric acts on campuses. They have no room there. We respect all people- Muslim, Jews, Christians, and all people, but there must be no encampments and no violence and no blocking students from going to classes, and no threatening any groups or teachers. These incompetent presidents must be fired! 3- The police and the National Guard should be brought in to clean up campuses so our children can get back to school. 4- Be vigilant. Report criminal activity. Law enforcement must be alerted over and over again. 5- We need to DEFUND the defund-the-police movement. We need our cops! We need our police. Talk to them. let them know you appreciate them. Give to your local police. 6- Vote RED! The entire world needs to move away from woke agenda, radical Leftist ideology and move to the Right which at this point is the center. 7- Do NOT stay silent. Speak up. These bullies feed on those who remain quiet. Show them they are NOT welcome and will not be tolerated. 8- Stay positive. WE WILL WIN! I promise you, this is the end of the madness that started with the pandemic. Next year things will get much much better- but until then, God bless America and all that is right with this beautiful country.""

-- Afshine Emrani

#academia #ivy league #israel #secular-jew #jewish #judaism #israeli #jerusalem #diaspora #secular jew #secularjew #islam #islamism #islamists #Islamic jihad #jihad #student riots #student protests #campus protest #muslim brotherhood #Hamas #Gaza #bring them home now #no ceasefire #Afshine Enrani

[sokkastyles]

I was reading your Azula metas. I kinda had in my mind that a redemption for her would come from her resolving her issues with her mother. I think because Zuko is similar to his mom (or at least more similar to her than to his dad) it's possible that she could understand her mother better by getting to know him more. I remember some bits on the show like when Azula warned Zuko about him visiting Iroh in prison, because of her tone I sort read that as she really trying to protect him and not just a threat or something. I think there's something there with him being the last connection to her mother. I wonder if she felt betrayed by him once he left the family and joined the gaang, not just because it ruined the plans or anything but because her mother also "left" her. Idk if this makes any sense lol I'm just rambling now. But what do you think?

I love the idea of Azula learning to understand her mother by getting to know her brother more!

I think that most discussions about Azula's relationship with her mom fall flat in two ways. One, people forget that Azula is an unreliable narrator, especially when it comes to her family. It is strange that when we hear Zuko talk about how Ozai will restore his honor, we know that he is unreliable, but people don't question it with Azula, who absolutely worships her father and blames her mother for her father's abuse because of course she can't blame Ozai. It's actually a pretty typical dynamic in homes with a parent like Ozai, for that parent to try to turn the children against the other parent, and since Ozai resents Ursa and treats Azula like his golden child, is it hardly a surprise that Azula also feels resentful of Ursa? Especially when Azula whole-heartedly believes what Ozai wanted her to believe about how she was better than her brother and deserved to be treated better. Ursa treating Zuko kindly is a threat to that belief, a threat to what Azula's father made her believe was where her sense of self-worth lay.

Two, what Azula says about how their mother "liked Zuko more" is really more about her relationship with Zuko than it is about their mother. Remember the context of that conversation in "the Beach"? It comes right after Zuko's big revelation where he realizes that he's angry at himself for making the wrong choice and choosing to go back to the Fire Nation. When Zuko says he's angry at himself, Azula asks him why, and the voice acting in this bit is interesting, because Azula sounds suddenly curious. Before she was dismissive, although this is also the episode where we get an Azula who does, deep down, long for a human connection. We see glimpses of this curiosity when she asks Ty Lee how she is able to get boys to like her.

Azula's response to Zuko is equally dismissive, because just like in the scene with Ty Lee, Azula can't show vulnerability for long, can't let others know that she wants something from them without masking it in dismissive language, but before that, the camera does something interesting. The shot is a closeup of Zuko, who says he's afraid he doesn't know the difference between right and wrong anymore.

But while Zuko is talking in the foreground, the camera actually pans to shift focus to Azula in the foreground, watching him.

The purpose of this kind of shot is to position Azula as equal to the audience, as we watch Zuko grapple with worrying that he doesn't know the difference between right and wrong.

Which implies that Azula is also thinking about the same thing.

Of course, she calls him pathetic a moment later, but remember that this is Azula masking her feelings of vulnerability. What's really interesting about this situation is that Azula usually seems to have the upper hand against Zuko, and she keeps it here by doing what she always does, and reasserts that she's better than him. He's "pathetic" and his trauma is a "sob story," which of course she doesn't have. But even in his moment of confusion, Zuko actually has more clarity than Azula has, because he's able to question the way they were raised in a way Azula never has been able to do. The positioning of the shot also emphasizes this by showing Zuko as dominating most of the frame while Azula appears small in the background.

And then of course what Azula says about not caring about how her mother thought she was a monster is her being an unreliable narrator again, and we know she's attempting to blow off something that deeply bothers her. But it's not her mother that is the source of this, it's Azula's own confusion. Because Azula also is starting to realize that she's not sure if she knows the difference between right and wrong, and she's not brave enough to admit it the way Zuko is (Zuko who can't help but wear his emotions on his sleeve, which is something Azula is normally able to take advantage of, but here it gives him an advantage over her). But she knows that her mother tried to teach her to do the right thing, and she experiences confusion over the competing demands of trying to please both parents when the parents' demands are not aligned with each other.

Because she couldn't please both parents, Azula made the choice long ago to please the one who was the most powerful, and of course that's Ozai. But that doesn't mean her internal conflict went away. When Zuko stops making that choice, it's a threat to her entire worldview. That's a big reason why she needs him to come with her in Ba Sing Se, why she sees Iroh as a threat, and why she's dismissive of the bond Zuko and Ursa had, and why she goes after Zuko when he joins the gaang, with intentions of killing him.

Which is also why I don't see Azula doing things like encouraging Zuko not to look at things that remind him of Ursa or telling him not to visit Iroh as beneficently as some. I do think it's more complicated than just a threat, and that there's some affection there, but it's also a way for Azula to affirm her own flawed beliefs. If Azula cares for Zuko, it's in a similar way to the way her father cares about her, as someone she can control and use to reinforce her own feelings of superiority.

Azula can't understand why Zuko would cling to the relationship with his mother, or Iroh, when these relationships cause him pain. But these relationships make Zuko strong in a way that Azula isn't, and she knows this, deep down.

There's an interesting moment in "The Search" when Azula can't understand why Zuko would still be fire lord even though he doesn't want it, and why he would try to help people who resent him. Which also has to do with his relationship with his sister, because in this comic he also offers to help her despite Azula trying to sabotage his search for Ursa the entire time, and Zuko tells her that she's still his sister. She tearfully tells him that "even when you're strong, you're weak," before running off.

Which reminds me of this quote from the movie "What Dreams May Come":

He was a coward! Being strong, not giving up, it was just his place to hide. He pushed away the pain so hard, disconnected himself from the person he loved the most… Sometimes, when you win, you lose.

The things that Azula regards as weaknesses in Zuko are actually the things that make him stronger than Azula in the end, and that's also at the heart of Azula and Zuko's differing relationships with their parents. Zuko learns to confront things from his past that are painful in order to make himself stronger, to free himself from Ozai's influence and embrace meaningful relationships that don't revolve around control and fear, whereas Azula is largely in denial about her own trauma. So yeah, I do think that if she could understand Zuko and learn from him, she could potentially repair her relationship with both her brother and her mother. There's a lot of contention about what Ehasz said about Zuko being "Azula's Iroh" in discussion about a possible redemption arc for her, and I myself have said some things against that idea - most notably the idea that Zuko needs to be responsible for "fixing" her when she is a huge part of and contributed to his own trauma - but there is some truth in Zuko being somehow involved in a possible redemption arc for her because Zuko has achieved what she hasn't been able to yet.

#zuko #azula #ursa #ozai #the beach #the search #atla comics #atla meta

[dreamcrow]

have you done a “how I would fix that movie” meta post? I’m also interested in your stricklake manifesto or something about guillermo del toro’s horror sensibilities and toa

send me a meta prompt (currently closed); thank you for the ask!

how did you know exactly what prompted this lol

stricklake manifesto is...tentatively forthcoming. possibly. probably. stay tuned. while i know i've certainly thought about how i'd fix the movie (and not even purely for niche side blorbo reasons), but i'm not sure how compelling (or coherent) that end product actually is. 🤔

unfortunately my fixit of the movie starts roughly thirty seconds after bellroc vaporizes that poor pigeon in chicago (or wherever metrocity is) and diverges wildly from there. tldr: someone on team trollhunter remembers they're in a gdt show, and asks just why are they all blindly following merlin, anyway. is it barb? god, i want it to be barb. obviously blinky is like "because he's the esteemèd merlin ambrosius, duh" while all three changelings just look directly into the camera. merlin blusters. barb backs off. 

then, once merlin wanders out of earshot, she asks again.

i do think that would be probably the biggest single change. i'm very self-conscious when i sit down in my lil sandbox that i don't want to give barb another job; she has enough already, and she gets mommed by the fandom in a way i don't always think is malicious but which nevertheless generally rubs me wrong. but truly: who else is doing it like her? okay, sure, there's jim: until the last four episodes of trollhunters, his actual, textual superpower is his humanity. he then gets browbeaten into discarding it—the quality that has, until now, been his unique and cited qualification—because the guy who made an amulet out of his student's severed hand acted like he had some kind of moral high ground.  

barb, meanwhile, is also an extraordinarily human human. she's the normie! she's the clueless mundane, a single mother dragged into the supernatural by her only son.  and while she does freak out—rightly! understandably!—when the supernatural puts her and her loved ones in danger, she never speaks against it just for being different. obviously stricklander is the example i've thought about most here: she's mad when he comes back (again, rightly), but her objections are because you lied to and endangered and my son, not because you're a dirty changeling. she's mad (and hurt) when jim lies about fighting off goblins, but because she's scared for him! once the masquerade is broken, she's immediately on his side. she's also the only character to even try to make merlin answer for trollifying jim, even if it's presented humorously. best girl.

so. back to this theoretical fixit: i think barb would be the most natural choice to start the questioning, here. blinky would still push back a little, but with merlin elsewhere, nomura and stricklander don't have to worry about being nice; maybe aaarrrgghh would even chime in on their side (what exactly do the gumm-gumms think of emrys, anyway?). it's not an easy conversation. it's also not the last one. but it starts. for a series that is otherwise unusually arthurian, arthur in trollhunters is conspicuous by his absence. but you have merlin. you have morgana. you also—pace wizards' giant slimy monster, who was cute, but completely overlooked preexisting developments—have the lady of the goddamn lake: legendary enchantress, giver of excalibur, single mother of the best of knights. 

and, most importantly, the one who seals merlin in a fucking tree.

u see where i'm going with this.

once barb starts that question—well. i make no claims that this is recognizable, but you did ask how i would do it, lol. from this i can't help but feel it would cascade pretty dramatically. if stricklander and nomura united behind her, i think jim would follow. claire and toby after him. once the humans (and adjacent) are convinced, i don't think blinky could hold out any longer; maybe the smarter version of him other people keep seeing could be brought around to some kind of "trust, but verify." soft and stupid as i am about wretched wizard blorbos, obviously the order are still being assholes. we don't want them to actually burn it all down. but is that what they're actually trying to do? or is this just another received merlinian dictum? 

god—and if they got to talk to nari about it! once again, one of the biggest failures of wizards (and rott) was how utterly it sidelined its characters in favor of punchy punchy bang bang. this i know have written about somewhere: jim's reduction to a vicarious highschool bully fantasy, how bellroc was flattened into cartoonish, beautifully rendered cardboard-cutout evil, while somehow still staying the most consistent character in the room. stricklander—whose entire character arc in trollhunters was built on 1.) the infinite possibility of an individual for change and 2.) being the smartest bastard in the room—took the first step into his new life by marrying barb and then immediately paid for it with the stupidest death possible. (see a longer and much keener essay about this here, from @millennialmoviereviews.) i cannot overemphasize how frustrated i am—still, yes, i know, about a children's cartoon—about how that movie treated its characters, even ones (the tarrons! douxie! steve!) i don't normally have any investment in.

...but what if that changed? what if we took what used to be the gdt hallmark—sympathy for monsters, without excuse—and committed to the goddamn bit? jim reached out to bular back in trollhunters. yes, what you're doing is wrong; you're hurting people i mean to protect; but i understand you're hurting too, and why, and how we might not be so different. you don't have to do this.

then barb sends merlin to treeby deeby, and bellroc and skrael fucking kiss.

(and then go about actually protecting/repairing the balance of the world or whatever, but i know what i'm about.)

postscript. i admit i pick a lot on merlin. don't get it twisted: i think my own evil wizard blorbos were also complete dumbasses here. but i think part of the reason i am so invested in merlin experiencing a goddamn consequence is pretty closely related to the original reason i was so drawn to gdt's stuff in the first place, namely: decoupling "good" and "evil" from "normal" and "monster," respectively. i don't think this is too much to expect of a kids show, especially one for toa's age group. trollhunters does a great job of doing this—of allowing nuance, of showing how it's possible to think outside the frameworks you know, while still remaining accessible to children—and 3below kind of? tries to keep it up. i think. but wizards...doesn't. even for all it does (inadvertently or otherwise) end up pointing out how merlin and arthur, founts of the same authority, massively screwed up. i've also had many people point out that wizards was pretty much set up to fail: executive meddling, rushed production, etc. etc. which i do sympathize with. 

but it's still. tremendously bitter. to see six seasons' worth of such a unique message get discarded so easily. especially when this was done with such breathtakingly little love for the material.

#tales of arcadia #trollhunters meta #trollhunters #rise of the titans #barbara lake #first meta prompt out!! old man yells at cloud etc. #i worry this is not a terribly well-developed fixit manifesto but tldr: barb should've gotten to learn magic and dethrone god #also jim has done his child soldiering. he's paid his dues to the genre. he can go to therapy now #also also i want five seasons and a movie of arcane order domestication but u know how it is #mine #q&a #ask games

[bittrlys]

The thing about TDP is that it is a fundamentally broken narrative and this makes it hard to take their moralizing seriously. They also burden their heroes with cowardly + hypocritical writing choices that do them or the narrative no favours (Ezran wants to preserve life until he doesn't; Rayla lost her hand but don't worry actually it's back; Callum is the first human to really want magic and luckily that one time he tried Dark magic* it backfired so horribly he won't do that again!)

They open up with a narrative about humans being forcibly exiled from the lands, failing to mention how widespread a problem their magic use was (not that that justifies it, but the way they abruptly introduce this stuff in supplementary material makes it seem like they realized humans were too sympathetic and needed to be brought down a peg) and thoroughly enshrining dragons + elves as charming little ethnic cleansers:

We don't see cackling Dark mages* fighting for conquest. We see normal people in tears as they're forcibly emigrated with what seems like only a small bag of their belongings. Charming! And interesting -- humans rarely take the position of the oppressed in fantasy.

You know how we watch alien movies and they always have aliens wanting to harvest out planet and it's OUR INDEPENDENCE DAY!!! so we strike back and throw off the yoke of potential oppression? That is about as close to humans-are-oppressed that we get in popular media, which otherwise enjoys humans as your relatable (white) protagonists, Average Joes who may not have super strength or magic or whatever, but possess a great spirit that allows them to hold their own, bringing about the "Age of Man", fulfilling our destiny as rightful inheritors and claimants of a world around us.

TDP said "Wow, check it out, humans are a conquered people who were forcibly exiled!" and you're like "Neat!" and then it slowly turns around and says "Isn't it crazy how humans represent an imperialist, white default and thus everything they do against the dragons + elves is the act of a colonizer?" And you go HUH?

What this show does is meta write. It establishes one thing in its lore, but then writes from an outside perspective that is influenced by our general understanding of humans-as-default that totally contradicts itself. It breaks its own narrative immediately and unless you interpret humans as colonizers and Xadians as innocent, nothing in this show makes sense.

Take my favourite bizarre, hypocritical parallel:

Dragon crosses border with ill intent. Does fly bys over a human town unrelated to the conflict to terrorize them. Someone fires what is effectively a warning shot (that would probably not seriously damage her in the first place.) Her response is to start incinerating people until she's forcibly stopped.

Viren crosses border with ill intent. Parks his army outside but walks in, alone and visibly not a threat, and they respond by grabbing him, stripping him, and trying to 'purify' him which may not leave all of him in tact. His (Aaravos's) response is to kill a few people, destroy the Sunforge, and leave.

The show's framing? Ezran rushes to the dragon's side, taking her side against evil humans that want to harvest/kill her. Her immediate 180 proves him right about "humans can fix this if they're just more accommodating." Returns later as an ally. Viren (+ Aaravos)? Evil Dark magic* while sympathetic characters look on in horror. Sunfire elves are forced out of their home tragically (imagine being forced out of your home!) and become allies to our heroes while Viren is our big bad. Even a half-hearted attempt to show the Sunfire elves as bigoted + aggressive (convenient for our black elves, but that's a whole other thing) is countered by the overall sympathetic treatment they receive.

So. Is crossing the border with ill intent an act of war worthy of being responded to with aggression or no? The only way this makes sense is if you think the response to Viren was justified and the response to the dragon was not, and that only makes sense if Viren is a colonizer who has no place in his people's ancestral lands. It's just bizarre!

Another example of the show writing based on our own preconceived notions that do not mesh with the actual narrative is how they rely on our feelings about environmentalism. Dragons/elves/Xadia = natural, good. Humans = industrial, unnatural, bad. Yet I know I'm not the only person wondering how many of these heroes are vegetarians (Rayla's people seem to be but other elves? Dragons?) and like, until they revealed (retconned) the Great Unicorn Massacre there was no indication that Dark magic* was non-sustainable. While obviously we shouldn't kill sentients the show cares less about sentience as they do about magical beings, and beyond that it hits us with classics like "Sure you can be veg and eat worms whatever who cares about gross ugly bugs" and "VIREN KILLED ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL BUTTERFLY :(" and Claudia kills a deer of all things and that's so tragic. Like? Hello? People eat meat? They kill animals for hide and fur? And this is not an industry because everything in this world is pre-industry!

At this point they need to establish all their heroes as vegetarians and show Viren enjoying a big, juicy steak. He deserves it.

(I mean good ol' Harrow had a hunting lodge with an animal head mounted in it but let's just ignore that. It was probably a birthday gift from Viren.)

Put it this way: If Dark mages* treated harvesting specimens as a small, controlled, industry, would that be okay? So long as they didn't hunt sentients and kept population levels stable, no biggie, right? Many reagents they want (feathers, snot, whatever) can be collected non-lethally or even traded for. Yet somehow I think the show would care to disagree, as it is obvious that Dark magic* is fundamentally evil, no matter how ethical your consumption may be.

I emphasize the show's preferential treatment for magical beings because every mistreatment the humans experience and the show ultimately expects us to agree with is because they are non-magical -- it wants us to think humans are naturally predisposed to evil the way other races are not. Sure they were mistreated for being non-magical and starved and suffered for it, but the unicorns were wrong to give them magic (as shown by how it backfires on them) and even with that humans preferred Dark magic* the hardest/easiest magic around. Trying to have magic they shouldn't is why Viren and Claudia are framed as villainous before they even do anything. Everything that makes them sympathetic is unrelated to their ambition.

The writers thus have to break their narrative in half to make Callum worthy of 'true' magic just because of what a nasty little corner they painted themselves into (assuming that this natural magical state will always be superior to anything a non-magical being can do) and so we understand that humans are second-class citizens who should not have ambition and accept their lot in life, and if they are good enough, fully submissive to the 'natural order' like Callum, then they may be granted true magic. As a treat. But that, frankly, does not uplift humans as a whole. Tying into what lazy, stupid worldbuilding it is for humans to not be capable of magic in the first place (are they aliens to this world or something??) if I were writing this show I would have it revealed that dragons did something to take magic from humans and it can be given back to them, which would entirely fit the lore, but never match the overall Xadia Good, Actually narrative they want us to believe in.

Ultimately, I will never get behind a narrative that wants me to root for Team Ethnic Cleansing and thinks that a race of people are inherently unworthy in some way. It's beyond twisted. But that's the problem with the show. Nothing in this series makes sense. Not its magic system, not its politics, and not its lore, and instead of trying to make something cohesive, they write from a biased perspective based on other narratives that are not their own and create never-ended dissonance in their story. It's bad writing, folks!

*I hate the term 'Dark magic' in basically everything and clearly even in this world there's an association of dark/black = evil. (And if you want to argue that the dark = evil association doesn't actually exist in this world and it's a neutral statement, then that's just the writers once again writing from our world's perspective that does not match their lore.) It's framing for the sake of framing and don't get me wrong, I get why people against it would use the term, but why TF do Viren and Claudia call it Dark magic anyways? 'Sacrificial magic' or 'human magic' or 'life magic' are all things that make sense and don't have the weirdly loaded connotations. "Jeez we were exiled from our homelands for practising this form of magic. It was called dark because it's so naturally evil. We do not consider ourselves evil, just doing what we can to empower ourselves + humanity. Obviously we will keep using the term Dark magic. Obviously." It's so lazy.

#tdp critical #* #meta #yes this is a repost #i caved and made a sideblog .... deleting the og post #bear with me people i'm going crazy over this show that i don't even like that much @_@

[waitmyturtles]

How was yesterday the day of the end of BAD BUDDY, AND A TALE OF THOUSAND STARS, AND OUR DINING TABLE?

HOW? HOW????

And how did we survive? I survived with dranks, lol. But as the ever-lovely @solitaryandwandering noted to me yesterday, it was an insane but blessed day in BL. Damn, are we lucky. 

So, thoughts on Our Dining Table, episode 10 (finale), but we know we have an epilogue coming, one that at least is, in part, not canon. Not that that matters. 

What this show has done with going beyond the manga canon is -- and I’m harkening back to the show’s initial previews -- something that I’ve only seen done as well in What Did You Eat Yesterday, particularly WDYEY’s New Year’s special, when Kenji gets a nicely focused turn with Wataru/Gilbert, and we see Kenji’s sassy and wise side up close. All of that was not canon.

The date. THE DATE! Clothes shopping! (We saw that yesterday in OS2/ATOTS, awww.) THE PULLING BACK OF YUTAKA’S HAND!

What a FANTASTICALLY PHYSICAL WAY to show Yutaka’s hesitation, one that was depicted in the manga as just mental worry about the pain -- the possible inevitability, for someone who lost their parents -- of losing the person you love the most in the world. 

THIS SHOW EMBODIES THE SPIRIT OF THE MANGA, and sets it loose and free, and humanizes it for us. I honestly felt that this episode was BETTER than the manga, and this was the first time I felt that -- I had felt equally good about both beforehand. THIS SHOW LIFTED that POTENTIAL emptiness that Yutaka is FIGHTING AGAINST, that has kept him reticent from feeling and closeness with anyone around him for so long. It showed it and demonstrated it to us, in the silence of the room where he and Minoru and Tane slept; in the shining and sparkling tears on his face and his red eyes as Ueda-san spoke to him about pain making love real. 

(I am, unfortunately for my sanity, going to do some sort of follow-up BBS/ATOTS/ODT meta on pain and love and just, why am I doing that to myself, good lord.)

But I clocked something during that conversation with Yutaka and Ueda-san -- I clocked something that made me realize, while Yutaka may not have begun to realize it, that Yutaka was ALREADY a part of the Ueda family BEFORE that conversation.

Something that I loved noticing about that conversation with Ueda-san is that somewhere down the road, Yutaka had begun calling Ueda-san otousan, or father (I’ve never heard this before, but I loved that Minoru called his dad “otou” for short). Yutaka was ALREADY familiar enough with the Uedas to feel comfortable to call Minoru’s dad, DAD. 

But Ueda-san still needed to remind Yutaka that he was family already. He got family-ed when he got served the special kimchi hot pot. But he had been clocked as family from the moment Tane had accepted Yutaka, and from when Yutaka had crossed the Ueda threshold. 

Yutaka had SUCH a defensive and messed-up vision of what family meant. At least in the show, he had MISSED his older brother trying to make amends, because Yutaka had ALREADY experienced so much loss. In this case, it was family -- it was Yutaka’s NEW ADOPTED FAMILY in the Uedas -- who could FINALLY coax Yutaka OUT of that defensiveness, as Yutaka’s first adoptive family wasn’t able to do. 

And through the Uedas, Yutaka is able to find himself. To join his friends, his co-workers, and his first adoptive family back into the movement of everyday life, no longer hiding himself and shielding himself.

Yutaka is risking pain. (Annnnnnd so are Pat/Pran and Tian/Phupha sorry let me leave that alone, dammit). Ueda-san tells him -- without pain, there isn’t love. Pain is what makes you realize that you have and had love. 

With the support and the LOVE of the Uedas -- of Ueda-otousan, of KING TANE-KUN, of Minoru -- Yutaka can accept the pain of love, and find love in the world around him. It was always there. 

I CANNOT WAIT FOR THE EPILOGUE. And, geezus. Inukai and Iijima BODIED THEIR ROLES. FUCK. THE ACTING, THE ACTING!

WE ARE SO BLESSED IN BL-LAND. SUMMER EPILOGUE VACAY, COMING UP!

#our dining table #bokura no shokutaku #our dining table meta #inukai atsuhiro #iijima hiroki #yutaka x minoru #minoru x yutaka