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kirinda-ondo · 3 years

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You know him, you either love or hate him (or are moderately confused by my sudden dive into this hyperfixation); we're talking about Orko because I have a lot of feelings.

As a disclaimer, I am not gonna claim to be some kind of superfan. I am not aware of every single iteration of the lore and all of its secrets. I don't know anything about the DC comics. I'm only halfway through the 2002 series as of me writing this. I am not someone you want to have discussions on the wider Masters of the Universe.... universe with. However, after watching Revelation, the entire Filmation He-Man (and some of She-Ra, cause he was there too), and going on a deep dive of storybooks, annuals, and minicomics courtesy of He-Man.org and the lovely people who submitted their scans there, I do feel pretty qualified to at least talk about Orko.

So, with all that being said, I'd like to get into a little bit of backstory, if only for my followers who came to this blog for completely different things and are wondering where the hell my love for this funky little wizard dude came from all of a sudden. Truth is, Orko is actually one of my earliest faves! Mind you, I only had limited access to Masters of the Universe as a kid, only seeing a couple of rented VHS tapes and later getting my hands on a small pile of the Golden Books from Goodwill, but apparently it was enough for Orko to imprint himself into my brain. However, also due to my limited exposure, he kind of got shifted to the back of my head as I got deeper into other things. I still knew for a fact I liked Orko a lot though, even if I couldn't quite remember why anymore.

And then Masters of the Universe: Revelation dropped on Netflix. I'm not gonna get into my opinions of that show lest I open a flood of irrelevant discourse (for those uninitiated, it is a bit... divisive, to say the least). However my feelings on the matter did encourage me to go and watch the original and well, holy shit I love Orko more now than I could have ever comprehended as a kid. He is THE quintessential underappreciated comic relief character I tend to gravitate towards, and then some.

But before I get into that, let me back up a bit and explain. Orko is a Trollan, a race of magical little dudes that are basically floating sweaters with hats and covered up faces. Out of these Trollans, Orko is an incredibly fucking OP archmage. Like, they straight up call him Orko the Great, he's so powerful. But then, he gets caught in a freak storm that whisks him away from his home dimension and into Eternia. Immediately, he runs into a young Prince Adam, who is trapped in a swamp/tar pit and needs rescuing. Orko, being the upstanding lad that he is, uses his magic to save him but in the process loses the item that allows him to focus his magic to the swamp (in the 80s version, it's a medallion, but in the 2002 series, it's a wand). Worse yet, the magic (and dare I say the very laws of physics) in Eternia works pretty much the opposite as it does in Trolla, so he's been incredibly nerfed.

So basically, Orko is trapped in a topsy-turvy world away from friends and family, a world with magic he is fundamentally incompatible with. Ouch. He's not completely screwed, however, as he is rewarded by the king and queen for his heroism and appointed... the court jester. Double ouch. He surprisingly doesn't seem to mind though. He genuinely does enjoy entertaining people, even when his tricks only ever work like half the time because he's basically a Mac program trying to run on a Windows computer.

It's not all horrible though, as he does quite literally get adopted by the royal family and thus sort of become the entire palace's weird son/little brother (despite being older than many of them. He's very, very child-coded largely for the purposes of being a stand-in and example lesson to the actual children watching). But also, more importantly, he becomes one of the very select few to know that Adam and He-Man are one and the same.

But outside of secret-keeping, he is actually a pretty valuable ally to have against Skeletor and his dudes because even though his magic is kind of screwed up, when it does work, he's still one of the most powerful mages on Eternia. In various materials, he's created floods, a second winter, and hell, he can literally explode himself and still be perfectly fine. He's also really clever and can weasel his way out of a number of situations. In one episode, for instance, he manages to convince someone that he's He-Man and Adam is his "assistant" in order to free him from captivity so the day has a better chance of actually being saved. He's also got the ability to just be really frustrating and incomprehensible to the point that villains who capture him sometimes either don't want him or don't know what to do with him anymore, which is honestly really funny. In an episode of She-Ra, the villains tried to scan his brain but because the inner machinations of his mind are that much of an enigma, he got diagnosed a weirdo and broke the entire machine. Absolutely delightful.

However, there's a lot more to Orko than just comedy and bungled magic. He's actually surprisingly complex!

See, going into this, I expected Orko's whole situation be played entirely for laughs while the sadder implications of his existence go entirely unaddressed. Coming off the heels of characters like Cobalt and others I enjoy, I'm used to this sort of treatment by writers. But they actually don't do that. The depressing subtext is for once, actually TEXT, which was INCREDIBLY surprising to me. We actually get to see another side of him, a side that hates that he can't be taken seriously no matter what he does, a side that is well aware of all the trouble he causes and feels like a burden to those around him. He actually runs away on multiple occasions, fully believing that he's unloved and everyone would be better off without him, even if that couldn't be further from the truth (a point which the Sorceress hammers home with multiple straight up magical video presentations, and in the 2002 series, a literary adaptation, of why he is loved and important).

Underneath all the hyping himself up that he does, there's a lot of insecurity. He's someone who desperately wants to be loved and respected and feels that without funny magic tricks to entertain people, he has no inherent value (which is incredibly relatable if you are also known by people as The Funny One). At one point he agrees with the notion that he doesn't feel like much more than a pet, which is absolutely heartbreaking. Even when he gets the ability to go back and forth between Eternia and Trolla, his feelings of inadequacy now extend toward his family, worrying that his own uncle, the one who taught him everything he knows and greatly contributed to him being Orko the Great back home in the first place, wouldn't be proud of him. Being on Eternia highkey wrecked his shit, man.

However, even when given the opportunity to go back home for good, he always chooses to stay because he's loyal as hell. Even if he needs some reminders, he does know he's needed not just in the fight against evil, but just because his friends and newfound family genuinely love him. It's heartbreaking, but also incredibly wholesome. I did not even remotely expect a comic relief character like this to get this much depth and respect from the writers, especially not from the incredibly campy and cheaply animated 80s series. I am genuinely so unused to this.

But I think that's also what separates him a bit from his fellow Silly Kid Appeal Characters That Kids Fucking Hate ala Snarf Thundercats or Scrappy Doo. He not only makes a concerted effort to be an actually useful ally, but he's also in fact very self-aware of his status as one of these characters. He knows he screws up a lot but he actually tries to accept responsibility and fix it. It makes me wanna root for the lil dude. Now I understand if someone isn't a fan of the brand of humor he brings to the table, or feel like he's simply a distraction from the Cool Buff Dudes Fighting Each Other, but I hope you can see why he might also be a really appealing character to other people, both kids and adults alike. I mean, he was popular enough to be embedded into the canon despite originating from the cartoon and not the toyline for a reason, after all.

Orko is a fun, entertaining, but also complex, heartwarming, and relatable character. I know there is a faction of people that would disagree with me, but I don't think you need to change him all that much or make him a super serious character to be more appealing. He's already got a lot going on that a writer could easily work with. It all just depends on where you decide to focus. Take a lesson from the show and accept that he's fine just the way he is.

#kateh rambles #a defense of orko (aka 'i can't believe the subtext is actually TEXT this time')#i feel like there's more i could say but i can't get my thoughts organized let alone enough to have it flow with the rest of this #so there could be a part 2 at some point? maybe? i don't know #orkoposting

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unsympathetic-teach · 4 years

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Hi! You can call me Party, Icarus, Jester, GoGo, or Roman. For pronouns: Poi/Moon/Ae/Ray/Sol/Neon/Ey/Xe/It/Sun/Void/Lun/Fire (or just use my name)

I don’t write, but i draw. Requests or prompts are open!

My main is @supremecourtjester and my u!janus blog is @unsympathetic-snake if you want to check either of those out

Tags for blocking purposes (these may be updated every now and then):

#logan critical and #logan criticism: posts or asks that criticize Logan’s canon character

#logan negativity: random hate or non-analytical posts about logan

#u!logan and #unsympathetic logan: hc’s, art, or fics about u!logan

#abusive Logan: hc’s, art, or fics that depict Logan being physically or emotionally abusive

#manipulative Logan: hc’s, art, or fics that show Logan manipulating other characters

(these also apply to any other sides that might be included in posts or asks)

#tw [_]: trigger warnings

#ts discourse: criticism of the ts fandom

#victim [character]: when a side or character is portrayed as the victim of abuse or manipulation in a post

#art: u!logan art

#fic: u!logan fics

#art?: my u!logan art

#ro’s rambles: my own loose ideas or hc’s.

#ro rants: my own vents or rants

If you need anything else tagged please DM me or send and ask so I can tag it!

Don’t ask/submit/request: nsfw, heavy gore, romantic dukexiety, romantic anxciet, romantic moxiety, romantic roceit u!roman, u!patton, or u!virgil

Please put trigger warnings before you send an ask if if has heavy content

If you want me to add on with more head canons please specify that in your ask

DNI: lgbtphobes, terfs, exclutionists, anti-neopronouns racists, facists, pro-lifers, white supremacists, maps/pedos, incest/pedo shippers, superstraight/superterm

#pinned #blog info #u!logan #unsympathetic logan #sanders sides

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marchusburchens · 5 years

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Fjord, Jester, and the most difficult vulnerability

In the wake of e61 and various thoughts about the rewards/consequences of expressing emotions:

For many people, expressing negative emotions (e.g. fear, anger, sadness) happens when they can’t hold them in/lose control of them, regardless of the consequences of expressing those emotions. Caleb and Beau fit that category pretty well. For many others, expressing negative emotions happens when a person feels as though it’s better to express and work through them before they cause bigger problems; Caduceus and Yasha have both shown this tendency. Nott appears to be a bit of both - she’s been both honest about her feelings at times, and has been overwhelmed by them at others. But Fjord and Jester both fall into the camp of “don’t” when it comes to expressing negative emotions.

As with Jester’s “I’m a really good liar” in e45, e61 gives a real punch to the gut when it comes to seeing through the facade of a fun and charismatic character like Fjord. And there’s a sizeable discourse now about how Fjord’s been insecure/scared all along and it was only fan blindness/callousness that would have had people believing otherwise. But for people who don’t express their negative emotions, that’s both the reward and consequence: others don’t see their vulnerabilities. If you only say “I’m fine”, there’s only so much that people are willing to disbelieve you or attempt to pry for more. I don’t know that it reflects poorly on fans or on the other characters to not see the inner workings of these people’s minds. That’s quite literally the point of maintaining rigid control over expressing negative emotions - no one’s supposed to know, “there’s nothing to see here, move along”. But that’s the sad part, or the guilt, that a lot of people are feeling right now: Fjord, and Jester, haven’t received many rewards (e.g. comfort or understanding) despite having just as many troubles as their more expressive friends. And it’s hard to learn that you have both loved someone and not known them, because if you haven’t known them, have they truly felt loved?

“If we want the rewards of being loved, we have to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known”. Every other character who has expressed negative emotions has been rewarded for it. They’ve received comfort and reassurance for it. No one’s thought less of them, and it’s typically benefitted all parties. It’s an amazing environment for Fjord and Jester to experience - they may literally be seeing for the first time that there is a reward for sharing negative emotions, for sharing their fears or frustrations. I could literally talk forever about why I think each of these characters have built up this defense mechanism, but I don’t think the past is as important as the future in this case. There’s a constant thread or idea that “healing” is going to be the overall theme of the M9 character arcs, which is very obvious when it comes to characters like Caleb or Nott, but is just as true for characters like Jester or Fjord. I’m so excited for the day that we see these two lose control, or share and work through their negative feelings.

#critical role #i love a good 'emotionally repressed but charismatic character is finally taken care of' story

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omnipedia · 4 years

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Alien #3: Upgrade

Species: Galvanic Mechamorph

Homeworld: Galvan B

Galvanic Mechamorphs come in a variety of different colors, all with unique secondary abilities based on geological location.

The standard are the Greens, found on B's northern pole. They act as guards for their main life energy source, the Helix. Upgrade, the Omnitrix's DNA Sample of a Mechamorph, comes from this region. No unique secondary powers can be seen hear, but most do claim that the Greens are the most intelligent of all Mechamorph Colors.

Living on the southern pole are the Blues, where Ben 23's Techno-Bubble comes from. They have the secondary ability of also being able to fuse with organic matter as well as machines, which is why Techno-Bubble could enhance Clockwork.

Lastly, on each main hemisphere, the last four colors are as follows: Orange in the North West, Purple in the South East, White in the South West and Gold in the North East.

Oranges have stronger optic laser blasts, Purples can sense radio waves and are quick problem solvers, Whites can purify and revive any of the other colors if they're drained of energy and Gold can make any enhancements permanent, as well as trans-mutate most forms of matter into something that's more valuable than it was previously, resulting in what some would call a "Midas Touch".

There are rumors of a parallel universe in which the local Omnitrix has an Orange/Gold Mechamorph Hybrid within the DNA Catalog, though non can be certain, let alone if such a reality even exists.

#submitted by discourse-jester #ben 10 #ben 10 alien force #ben 10 ultimate alien #ben 10 omniverse #galvanic mechamorph #upgrade #ben tennyson #alien #aliens #extraterrestrial #omnitrix #submission

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omnipedia · 4 years

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Alien #2: Toepick

Species: Phobiorcasapien

Homeworld: Anur G'rrnay

Generally considered the most terrifying species in the Milky Way Galaxy, Phobiorcasapiens tend to live secluded life styles compared to the rest of the Anur System, with popular professions being poets, farmers and play writers.

Their faces are actually usually tame and unassuming, but they have the ability to project a "nightmare gas" from special pores located atop their heads (the green mist seen whenever Toepick opens his helmet). This causes any beings that gaze upon them to vividly hallucinate their greatest phobias, as a means of warding off their natural predators, the Vladats.

However, since the Vladats went extinct, the Phobiorcasapiens no longer have a predator and their population numbers have since boomed to the trillions. The Plumbers are currently thinking of means of relocation for the species to a larger planet, just so they don't exhaust all of their food and face a crisis.

Speaking from earlier of some popular professions, one of the most famous play writers in the galaxy, named Scopopheca, is a Phobiorcasapien, credited for making such famous hits as "Ben 10: The Musical", "The Ballad of Vilgax" and many more. When Argit eventually becomes the President of Earth, Scopopheca will take up residence in his old Undertown office.

#submitted by discourse-jester #ben 10 #ben 10 alien force #ben 10 ultimate alien #ben 10 omniverse #toepick #ben tennyson #alien #aliens #extraterrestrial #omnitrix #submission

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omnipedia · 4 years

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Headcanon Species Names & Fun Facts #1

Okay, this will be a fairly long thing, so I may end up doing multiple back-to-back submissions, just for convenience's sake and to warn you in advance.

Alien #1: Gutrot

Species: Chemicoan

Homeworld: Oxidonia II

Oxidonia II is a Gas Giant twice the size of Jupiter with a hidden Earth-like surface resting beneath the toxic clouds and constant lightning storms.

The planet orbits it's home star, a Red Giant in the Andromeda Galaxy, at a range of about 6.4 Light-years away, well outside the Goldilocks Zone.

Over the course of millions of years, Oxidonia's clouds had trapped small forms of microbial life, which, over time, grew and evolved into the Chemicoans, the 2nd ranked smartest species in the universe, just under the Galvan.

Oxidonia II's atmosphere contains no oxygen and it has no plant life or liquid water on it's surface. Thankfully, the Chemicoans don't require any of that in order to survive. However, to counter this, they did develop their gas-manipulation abilities as a means of stabilizing Oxidonia II's weather.

Chemicoan society also falls under a loose cast-system that most can generally agree with and are peaceful about, with every member of society, from the gold-plated Cloud Kings at the top and the stone covered Dust Kickers at the very bottom, treating each other with respect. The cast system is organized based on how well a certain individual can best use their abilities, with Cloud Kings being able to create deadly pathogens while the Dust Kickers can only make clouds of smoke and dust.

Chemicoans are also heavily invested into medical science as a pastime, resulting in Oxidonia II having a Technology Level of 14.

(Wow! These are super good! I love the ideas you have for these.)

#submitted by discourse-jester #ben 10 #ben 10 alien force #ben 10 ultimate alien #ben 10 omniverse #ben tennyson #alien #aliens #extraterrestrial #omnitrix #gutrot #submission

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