Okay I gotta say your art + story have gotten my fanfic engines a churning and now I'm picturing AU with the bros starting out in the wildlife game but with Martin as an 18-19 year old and Chris as this 14 year old and it's more "panicked older brother trying to keep his baby bro safe" while they encounter poachers/dangers.
OKOK HEAR ME OUT....
Martin has legal guardianship over Chris (uhh parents gotta die for this i am so sorry mom and dad kratt but it's for the fanfiction so please forgive me) Which is why a 14 year old is able to join their research team. Martin is technically "homeschooling" him, (i mean technically he's learning on creature adventures so...)
Martin was offered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join the Tortuga research program and Chris didn't want to be the reason that Martin held back on his dreams. So, Chris was basically like take me with you, I'll be good and stay out of trouble I promise. So basically Martin is trying to do his job while simultaneously juggling the responsibility of raising Chris. And the rest of the team helps out as well so they all become a little family and go on these adventures.
The rest of the team would step into older sibling roles as well: Aviva would teach Chris about programming and engineering, Koki would show him how the Tortuga runs and how to make small tune-ups, and Jimmy would teach him how to bake and play video games with him. JUST IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES
I don't think Aviva would make a CPS for him, Martin would lose his mind if she did. Chris was already a handful, he does NOT need to be running around as a gecko. Maybe she could make a less extreme version of the suit for him? Like a partial creature power suit, where it can give him traits of animals. Instead of turning into the whole leopard, it just gives him leopard claw gloves and a tail for balance. So a little kiddy version of the CPS. IDk it's just an idea.
158 notes
·
View notes
btw this might be me swinging a bat at a hornets nest but like. absolutely none of my disappointment from the tl finale comes from ship baiting or any relationships that didn’t happen (though to be clear, i think the tedbecca fake outs were meanspirited and served no narrative purpose - in noted contrast to the season's earlier jamiekeeley fakeouts, for example, which were explicitly there to demonstrate jamie's growth + maturity)
tedpendant is a really fun concept for me, and i LOVE the characterisation + thematic potential there!
but as someone who personally resonated with a lot of ted’s struggles, the idea that ted could leave richmond so… seamlessly, for lack of a better word, really doesn’t sit right with me. the thesis of the shows entire first season - assuming it can be said to have only one - was about how everyone needs the love and support of a community, whether that comes in the flavour of someone who hypes u tf up or someone who will relentlessly call u on ur shit (or, as happened quite frequently, both!).
rebecca, roy, jamie are the clearest examples as the characters with the most screentime: they were all deeply isolated and disconnected from the people around them, and that was making them miserable. the connections they made with the team, the vulnerability they finally allowed themselves to express (the ghost banishing ceremony comes to mind!), and them going on to want *more* out of their life are what made their arcs about *progression* rather than *regression*. without that clear theme of compassion + community inspiring positive growth in everyone who encounters it, there is, frankly, no season one.
my personal favourite scene from season one comes right after michelle walks away from ted, when they’ve agreed to get divorced. ted sits down on the bench looking gutted, and a little shell shocked - and beard sits down with him. hands him the drink, and they sit there together. silent, but together. to me, that scene is an implicit promise from the episode, to the audience: ‘it’ll be okay. it’s going to be hard, but ted isn’t alone, and his friends won’t leave him behind.’
it also makes it clear to the audience that ted isn’t the saintly-giver-of-grace who needs nothing in return, as one might assume on first brush, but rather that he’s Also struggling with his own shit (as is everyone, always, in real life!) and he has something he needs from the people around him too.
and looking at the text of s3, and the conclusion to his arc in the finale, i just don’t believe that he got it. he wasn’t just sad that he was leaving (which would be understandable!), he was completely closed off. unresponsive to the people around him reaching out, borderline confused as to why they were trying so hard!
(side note, while i completely respect the read of ted and trents last interaction being rather rude + ooc on ted’s part, i personally read a different motive into it. for me, it was more like… he didn’t understand where trents enthusiasm was coming from? like, he read that as trent being too invested in what other people think of him, and responded in a way that he hoped would emphasise that ted doesn’t *need* to laugh at everything trent wrote, bc trent Already Knows that he’s done something really cool and kickass, and he shouldn’t value anyone else’s reactions above that. basically, based on his demeanour in the episode, i genuinely don’t think it would’ve even occurred to him that trent was more invested in HIS reaction than he would’ve been with anyone else.)
again, looking purely at the text, the show had already established that ted has really strong depressive + avoidant tendencies, as well as panic attacks (largely triggered by his fear of not being ‘good enough’ in various roles, ie: a father). we saw one area he was able to calm HIMSELF abt these fears (worry for henry, which is a Hell of a choice considering the ending…), but in literally every other heightened moment, he had to rely on his support system to help him make the choices that he WANTED to make, rather than ones inspired by avoidance and fear (ie: confronting michelle abt jake, talking to his mum abt why she was visiting + his dads death).
and to be clear, this is a GOOD THING! we’re not supposed to go through life alone, no matter how bad OR well we’re doing. rebecca and keeleys friendship isn’t worth less for all the scenes where they’re both in good places. if anything, the opposite is true - it’s lovely that they both have someone who want to celebrate the achievements in their life!
and fuck it, we’re sure as hell not supposed to go through life with exactly one (1) person whom we expect to fulfill ALL of our emotional needs at all times either! like, im sure i don’t need to labour my point here, but tying everything to one (1) person in ur life doesn’t make u any less isolated than if u were going it completely alone, whether it’s a family member, a friend, or a partner. i won’t pretend to know the first thing abt what it’s like to be a parent, but i don’t think it’s unreasonable to say that no parent would be at their best if they had absolutely no support/camaraderie/general love provided to them from Anyone other than their child.
so when ted is SPECIFICALLY shown to be in a bad place, over and over again (did he come to terms w his fear to be close to henry overnight???????), and then removed from his community? of COURSE the audience is left feeling unsettled, and like the rug has been pulled out from under them. there was no time in this finale dedicated to how ted would still be in contact with anyone from richmond. no promises of visits, or phone calls - fuck, nothing about emails!! according to the text, we might as well assume this is a clean break (and the maybe-dream-sequence does Fuck All to assure us otherwise. if ted doesn’t go to beards wedding, what WOULD he go to????). and since the show has ALSO completely failed to give us even an IMPLICATION of who/what ted’s support system would be in kansas, there’s… a reasonable argument to be made that this is It for ted. that, after two seasons doing NOTHING but attesting otherwise, the audience is supposed to suddenly believe that ted can (and SHOULD!) pull himself up by his bootstraps, and cope entirely on his own.
that, to me, is a betrayal of the show’s premise. we were promised a show about how, no matter how dark things may get, none of the characters would be left to struggle alone. and then they ended the show with ted alone.
i don’t know. i guess if i had to give this post a tldr; if anyone has any gen fic/meta/Literally Anything in the pipeline, i would absolutely love to be tagged/directed towards it. i’ll be endeavouring to write something myself, as well, but it might take a while before i can return to my WIP, lol.
80 notes
·
View notes
@mr-prism
I want to say he'd be really boring (as I drew him back in February of 2019 or something around then while dying at the beach) like so? But! I have a feeling he'd also be very okay with various additions?? like I would have given him a very boring coconut dagger attack because he's just too done in by the heat to want to do much else.
However, there's also the fun route of him just being very okay with heat despite not being used to it because he can simply regular his own temp due to ice. So that could lead to him having a mage build where he's just happy to not be working at running a kingdom and it's like... him making fun ice magic at the beach to represent either his siblings and Nifl or something? Or giving him a big hat like Nifl has would be fun, too.
I don't honestly know what I like more,,, him dying to the heat or being absolutely thrilled the heat doesn't actually bother him much. (in 2019 he was very much dying though)
52 notes
·
View notes