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blueskittlesart · 2 years

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ooo i’m here for another google doc essay thesis on all the zelda trans narratives <33 lol cited sources and everything (if you have time of course, i love reading all of your headcanons on loz)

god. okay this is every mainline game ive played (excluding sequels with the same characters) except skyward sword because i forgot about it at first and now im tired. here

oot/mm

Basically the entirety of oot is a super-intense wartime coming-of-age story, dealing specifically with the trauma of losing one’s childhood to war/being a child in wartime. Any coming-of-age can be easily analyzed through a trans lens imo, but oot lends itself particularly well to this reading.

For the first nine years of his life, link is told that he is a kokiri. He spends all of his childhood trying desperately to fit in with the kokiri, even though he and the kokiri he grows up with can tell that he is out of place somehow. When he leaves the forest and grows up, it clicks into place that he was never kokiri. And it HURTS. He was lied to. But he suddenly finds himself BELONGING for the first time, among hylians. One of the most impactful npcs in the series is, imo, malon, who link bonds with, feels connected to, and who GROWS UP just like him. She is a representation of everything link gains by leaving the forest. The chance to grow up, and the chance to be among people like himself and understand for the first time who he truly is.

I don’t think i have to explain the subtext i'm getting at here. Replace kokiri with gender-at-birth and you have yourself a trans story.

There are also, of course, points to be made about link’s lack of bodily autonomy throughout the story and his reclamation of it in mm. Link is, in the eyes of basically every adult in oot, a pawn to be used to win a war. He is something to be molded into the shape THEY need him to be. This is a common conflict in loz--the hero NEEDS to be the hero, and so he is given no room to define himself otherwise.

Again. Do i have to explain the trans reading of this?? Adults who feel entitled to you for whatever reason refusing to let you define yourself in a way that doesn’t appeal to them, and viewing you as an object to be shaped into THEIR perfect image. Classic trans kid experience.

Zelda i think is even more obvious because she literally physically transes her gender in the game. For no reason. A female ninja would have been fine. Female ninjas exist in this world. Impa is the obvious example. Zelda became a boy because he wanted to be a boy. This is factual, canonical story. I dont even NEED to go on but i WILL because i can.

The subtextual reading of trans zelda is even more fun imo. This is a kid who grew up functionally powerless. She KNEW ganon was going to destroy hyrule but she could not make adults hear her, and when things went wrong it was her fault. Sheik is, in many ways, a rejection of zelda. She does away with the ancestral name denoting wisdom because she was not wise enough to save her kingdom from ruin. he chooses sheik instead, a name derived from the historic guardians of hylia, and by extension hyrule. he reclaims the power he lost by, again, defining himself where he was never allowed to before.

Personally i consider oot zel to be nonbinary and use she/he and the names sheik and zelda interchangeably. I really love the idea of a kid who grew up with so little control over anything in her life taking it all back and then deliberately fucking with some established rules anyway, just as a little show of power now that he has it. It’s what she deserves.

Alttp

A LOT of my reading in this is totally rooted in subtext/analysis rather than actual canon material. If you haven’t read my analysis of alttp in my analysis doc i suggest you do bc some of that context may be needed to explain what i say here, since alttp is an older game so there’s much less actual canon characterization to go off of.

There is a moment in this game, once you have gone through several dungeons and claimed the master sword and fought the secondary antagonist twice, where link is transported into the dark world. A mirror dimension in which his human form is distorted into a form that “reflects his inner self.” He looks into the mirror and he does not recognize the person looking back at him.

The form he takes is a rabbit, which is, in my opinion, a reflection of his inner fear and the fact that he doesn’t want to be a hero. This link is a young boy who basically loses the only family he has and is then instantly thrown into the midst of a conflict he doesn’t fully understand.

There are two points to be drawn from this. The first is the distorted self-image revealed in the dark world, which. The connection to transgenderism should probably be obvious from here. I’d say looking in the mirror and not quite recognizing yourself is a near-universal trans experience.

The second is that, although this game is much less obvious about it, this link is in a very similar situation to oot link, in that he has been thrown into a conflict he doesn't understand and doesn’t really have any stake in, in order to be used as a pawn to win a war. (worth noting that if we follow the timeline, oot link has to DIE for this game to happen. They never fucking learn ig) so we have a repeat of the same situation in which link’s autonomy is taken from him by adults who want him to be a hero. Ive already explained the trans reading of this. You get the idea

Im skipping zelda in this one because it came out in 1991 so zelda is barely a character. Shes trans because i say so. Next

Twilight princess did not do very well on a multitude of things. We all know how i feel. HOWEVER. There is something to be said for the fact that when link approaches people in wolf form they recoil in fear and disgust. And he canonically doesn’t expect this. It disturbs him. He KNOWS these people. He’s still the same person inside. Nothing has changed for him except the way he looks. But now no one will so much as look at him.

To be quite honest. The wolf form was a bit of a thematic L in my opinion. I don’t think it had much narrative purpose and my best guess is that it was there to give tp a “brand-new fun gameplay” draw. But the fact that everyone is TERRIFIED of you was a good choice imo. I wish it had been followed through on thematically but I digress. There is transgenderism here. When you go back to your hometown and nothing has changed, as far as you’re concerned, but people avoid your eyes now. You haven’t changed, not really. You just look a little different. But the people either hate you or don’t recognize you now, and in some ways you’re glad, but in other ways you feel… alien.

Zelda also isn’t a real character in this game but it doesn’t get an excuse because it came out in fucking 2006. We knew women were people by then guys come on. Anyways shes also trans because i say so. I dont feel like thinking about twilight princess any longer lol sorry

Im going to start with zelda/tetra here because i have a lot more to say about her lmao

Tetra is a wild, loud, stubborn, angry pirate. She is the exact opposite of what your average hylian might imagine a goddess-blood princess to be. She’s rude, she’s volatile, she looks out for herself and no one else. This is an image she has curated. But she is also kind. She lets link on her ship when he begs her to help him save his sister. she slips him a good-luck charm before he storms the fortress. She takes aryll home and never asks for payment. She is a pirate, but she does these things that seem so strangely… at odds with herself. I think a lot of her tough exterior is a curated image, for the benefit of her crew, yes, but also herself. If she is stubborn and loud and angry and unlikable then she is less likely to get hurt.

Tetra learns who she is, and she is suddenly a new person, a different person. She’s zelda. And she’s so CONFUSED. She tries her hand at being a princess. She sits and waits patiently for her hero to come back to her. But in the end, she can’t even do THAT right. Things go wrong again, all because of her.

During the final battle of this game, zelda fights alongside you with the bow of light. I believe this was one of the first games in which she does this.

This is a nonbinary narrative. Tetra tries so hard to fit into one box or the other, princess or pirate, but can never quite master either. During the final confrontation, though, she finds a happy medium. She is kind, wise zelda, in her regalia with her hair untied, but she is also stubborn, angry tetra drawing her bow to fight alongside link. She will not be defined.

she/they tetra ftw lol. anyways

Wind waker link honestly has much less textual evidence for me than like. Any other link because imo wind waker is almost completely a clear-cut coming-of-age. It’s very easy to read (almost) any coming-of-age as a trans narrative but much less easy to actually explain that read.

My stance kind of boils down to this: link has a clear-cut arc of growth in this story from a weak, inexperienced kid into a soldier who is capable of taking on ganon. This arc is kickstarted by him leaving home and no longer being confined by the limited perspectives of the people he grew up around. Unlike other links, this one doesn’t have too much pressure on him to be a hero. In fact, I would consider his growth into a hero to be framed very positively in this game as it gives him the agency he lacked at the beginning. This is an interesting departure from most other games in which link lacks a lot of agency.

Basically, i think that while most other games can be read as kind of… tragic trans stories, about the struggles of not being allowed to define yourself, etc, wind waker link is the story of a kid who is finally GETTING to define himself. It’s more similar to Majora's mask in that way, in that this kid has already HAD the chapter where he’s confined to other people’s expectations and is now beginning to break out of it and reclaim his own identity.

Botw

Jesus. God almighty. Okay

Like. not to keep beating a dead horse but this link is the most obviously negatively affected by the expectations and perceptions of those around him. He explicitly goes mute BECAUSE he knows people expect him to be a hero above all else, and it will be easier to conform to that expectation if he keeps quiet. This poor boy is so terrified to be imperfect, to be something that hyrule might not like, that he SHUTS DOWN. he is essentially nothing BUT what hyrule wanted him to be, because he never allowed himself to be anything else.

I have already explained the trans read of this. Reread ocarina of time’s segment. Holy SHIT. he is so transgender. Also he’s 5’2 and has shoulder-length hair come on

Side note but i think botw is cool because it explores BOTH facets of the usual loz narrative (lack of agency/reclamation of agency) within the same game, while most other games go for one or the other. When link loses his memories he is FORCED to define himself, as he has nothing to go on anymore, which is a reclamation of the agency he had lost pre-calamity. Essentially pre-calamity is the oot segment and post-calamity is the mm segment of the narrative. It’s cool. Anyways

Zelda. GOD.

She is not the daughter her father wanted. She knows this. She tries SO HARD for SO LONG to be the daughter her father wanted. But she can’t. She will never be good enough in his eyes. Eventually she gives up on doing exactly what he wants. She hopes she can win his approval in other ways, with things she is good at. Things she CAN do right. But it’s never enough for him because all he sees is the daughter he wanted. The daughter she should have been. He doesn’t care that she can’t. He only cares that she Is Not. she knows she will never win his approval but she keeps trying anyway.

Do i really need to explain this. Babygirl you are so trans gender

#if this doesnt auto-compress i am so sorry. this was 5 pages in google docs btw i am insane #zelda analysis #asks #THE FORMATTING. SHIT #i swear this was originally readable guys idk why the formatting is fucked

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tailsrevane · 1 year

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2022 in review, part 4: video game first plays

admittedly i spent more time on pokémon go than anything else, and it’s basically a completely different game than when i played it a bunch when it first launched so you could almost count it as a first play? but yeah, here are my top 5 favorite actual first plays of the year.

1. pokémon scarlet (2022)

yes i know it has some rather glaring bugs, but i don’t care about fps (frames per second), i care about fps (fun per second, admittedly that would work better if they weren’t the same letter).

seriously, though, an open world setting is such an obvious choice for the tone of the pokemon franchise. it’s kind of incredible that this is the first time it’s been done in a mainline game. and damn it, i just love the characters in this. they’re just so vibrant and real. and the new pokemon are amazing, are you kidding me with that fire/ghost alligator starter? incredible stuff in this game.

also like, i’m a huge fucking dork so the idea of being a student at a pokemon boarding school? fucking perfect. that is exactly the childhood i would want.

i hope the next game has more or less the same format but fewer bugs. but i fucking loved this.

oh, but bring back mega evolutions or dynamax, or just… something less gimmicky. terastallizing is so dumb. i actually hate it.

2. pokémon shield (2019)

i actually started playing this back when it first came out, but my life was very turbulent at the time and i got way too busy for it for a while & never got back to it because adhd yo. so as i was getting excited for violet & scarlet to come out, it made perfect sense to pick it back up.

i mean, this is kind of a better game than violet & scarlet, if we’re being totally fair. me preferring scarlet largely comes down to the fact that it’s open world, and that some elements seem designed to appeal to me specifically (the academy setting, the greater focus on character writing & relationships).

seriously, though, pokemon shield rules. i know that’s gonna be true of basically any mainline pokemon game, but it really does kick serious ass.

3. teenage mutant ninja turtles: shredder’s revenge (2022)

the difficulty curve on this is actually a bit higher than it looks at first glance. because it’s not that you’re trying to make a game that’s comparable to the tmnt arcade games early 90s kids like me grew up with. you’re trying to make a game that feels like those games felt to us at the time, today. so please understand that that’s an entirely different, much more challenging target to hit, and please also understand that this game knocked it out of the fucking park. (i’m pretty sure i just mixed my metaphors pretty badly but whatever.)

this game makes me feel about ninja turtles the way i felt about them as a little kid with a pocket full of quarters at chuck e. cheese. it makes me feel about them the way i felt when i was doing a ninja turtles coloring book or playing with my action figures or sleeping under my ninja turtles bedspread. it’s as cool as i thought the cartoons were at the time.

i love being a turtle!

4. get in the car, loser! (2021)

yes hello hi, i would like to play the game about the four lesbianish queers (one of whom is trans, another of whom is a blue-haired they/them himbo who STOLE MY HEART) beating up nazis while not flirting with each other but not not flirting with each other with extremely well-written explorations of imposter syndrome, depression, harassment, ethics & politics, and all that shit. that sounds great, yes, thank you. oh, it’s by the same person who did ladykiller in a bind, a game that featured the best depiction of dom/sub relationship psychology i’ve ever seen in any medium? that sounds lovely i’ll take three, thanks.

5. kaichu (2022)

this is a kaiju dating sim. this is a game where the entire goal is to get two kaiju to smooch. this is a kaiju dating sim. i am not about to sit here and pretend i have to justify why i love it.

#year in review #2022 in review #video games #pokemon #pokemon scarlet #pokemon shield #tmnt #teenage mutant ninja turtles #shredder's revenge #get in the car loser #kaichu

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absurdist-pink · 2 years

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Lloyd Headcannons/AUs:

- Lloyd wears big hoodies for the most part. They’re safe and comfy and he feels like he’s getting a constant hug.

- Lloyd has trouble sleeping. On especially wakeful nights, he ends up finding himself cuddling with one of the others. They all gladly accept him.

- Lloyd’s favorite Holiday is Halloween. He gets to feed his awful sweetooth, he gets to be spoopy, and pumpkins give him an extreme amount of joy.

- Lloyd watches for he same shows over and over, for months on end. He has a hard time picking up new things without feeling uncomfortable, even if it’s really good.

- Lloyd puts his trust in others quick. He sees something that might not always be there in them, only to later be correct or completely wrong.

- Lloyd is trans. I don’t make the rules.

- Lloyd is the lone straight of the squad. Girls terrify him, but in that hot way that makes him like them and be even more shy of them at the same time.

- Lloyd does not and will not order his food, pay for stuff at a store, or go out of his way to talk to others when in civilian form. As the green ninja, he’s fine, but his linguistic skills become incoherent without the mask and costume.

- Lloyd loves cats. He wants a cat, but for the same reasons as why they don’t have a dog, he can’t reasonably have a cat.

- Lloyd collects plushies. They’re soft and good to cuddle when alone, and make good friends when they need to be.

#ninjago au #ninjago headcanons #ninjago #lloyd garmadon #lloyd ninjago #ninjago lloyd

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fubukiswifenoimnotjoking · 3 years

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One Punch Man ship reviews bc I’m bored

WARNING: BIG ONE PUNCH MAN WEBCOMIC AND MANGA SPOILERS

GenoSai: do I even have to say it?? They compliment each other so well and are already besties. They make me so happy and I love their love. Genos literally came into Saitama’s life and brought so much new life and excitement when Saitama thought he’d never get any. Genos gives him love and appreciation all the time and never abandons him. Saitama isn’t connected to his feelings, but he cares about Genos and would do just about anything for him, to keep him safe. Genos constantly teases Saitama and Saitama grumbles and takes it with some banter, Genos is super emotional and Saitama does his best to comfort him, they fucking love shopping together and just hanging out period, they talk about the dumbest shit and somehow they still understand each other with the one brain cell they both share. It takes Genos forever to realize his feelings are deeper and Saitama has to be TOLD by their friends that he should fucking realize his feelings already. Just...I could keep going but I’ll stop! 2718873737839439/10 (let’s not talk about the age gap btw, 6 years isn’t bad and Genos is a legal adult.)

FubuSai: the stereotypical straight ship ppl gravitate to. Eh. I can see it, but at the same time I feel like they don’t completely compliment each other. Are they a hot couple? Duh. But I feel like their pride and communication issues would get in the way. 4/10

TatsuSai: hnghhhh. Someone mentioned this before, can’t remember who, but Saitama literally thinks she’s a child in canon. So that just....makes it gross. Same problems as FubuSai but worse. I’d rather see them as hesitant friends w a weird bond. 0/10

SonSai/SonicSai/idk the ship name: eh, toxic. Cant see them getting past communication issues and pride, again. Plus Sonic wants to kill his ass. Also, I just feel no romantic tension?? Even in fanfic it just falls flat for me. 3/10

MumenSai: a favorite!! Wish I saw it more, it’s very cute. Mumen is so kind and would absolutely be there to help him w self esteem and just help him be a better person period. And Saitama would have a cute little kind guy to tease and open up to. I could maybe see Mumen’s kindness getting on Saitama’s nerves when he’s in a bad mood bc Mumen almost never snaps and Saitama feels shittier, or maybe Mumen being mad at Saitama for being kinda lazy at home while Mumen is working his ass off and he’s like babe I just got home, please stop playing the fucking game and pay attention to me I have a concussion again. Prob too nitpicky on this one, heh, but 8.4/10

Genos x Sonic: wtf? As a crack ship, sure. That’s hilarious. But as a serious ship, 1.3/10 bc I could MAYBE see them bond over their love of my chemical romance or sum.

Anyone x Puri: -128382839287473828739219833468282/10. Fuck Puri.

TatsuKing: eh. Indifferent on this one too. I can see them getting along and Tatsu being the mean but supportive gf in public, but a sweet gf in private. King could be like her calm oasis of video games and sweet blonde shy bf. I sway more towards ace/aro King and queer non binary Tatsu, but this is still good. 6/10

FubuPsy/Fubuki x Psykos/idk: hell yeah!! This series NEEDS more wlw ships, both for me to project onto and to cry over. Prob my fav Fubuki ship, cuz they’ve known each other since they were young and had a tenuous friendship. I didn’t use to ship it until I saw that scene in the wc after the MA arc (u know the one) but here we are. They’re big personalities so any interaction is bound to be chaotic at first, but I really think they’d work. Pride put to the side, Psykos could be someone for Fubuki to finally rely on other than the Blizzard Bunch, someone to confide in, a badass partner to fight monsters with, talk about nothing for hours with, be a super fashionable #girlboss couple with, and someone who would really see her for who she is-especially w Psykos knowledge of her from the past. Hell, Psykos might even know her better than Tatsumaki. Fubuki could be an anchor to her like she currently is in the wc, providing a quiet comfort and making her open up little by little. Would prob be toxic at first bc of the MA arc and their desire for power, but is a very good ship I think. 9/10

Speedal/Sonic x Mumen: an old fav! Sonic would have a hard time not hating Mumen at first bc he’s the picture definition of a hero, sum he hates. But hanging out with him would show him Mumen is a GOOD guy genuinely and he’d be like ohhhh shit I’m in love w this man. Mumen would thoroughly appreciate someone to make him live a little, break some rules and stand up to ppl when they talk over him. He’d DEFINITELY be upset when finding out Sonic is an assassin, but would prob be conflicted bc he knows Sonic is a good person despite that. Would prob make Sonic give up on killing for them to be together. Sucks bc of the assassin thing and bc they haven’t met in canon! So we’re not sure how they’d interact with each other, sigh. 7.4/10

Okamaitachi x Bushidrill: a very underrated ship! To be clear, I headcanon Kama as a trans woman and so does most of the fandom. Anyway, very sweet and already built as a friendship bc of their partnership under Atomic Samurai. I can’t remember who writes fic and makes art of them on tumblr but AAAAA it’s so good! Very sweet. Basically depicted Bushi as a nervous himbo who’s honest about his feelings but scared to say them and Kama as a sweet lady who’s crazy about Bushi. Very sweet. Want more of them!! 6.1/10

OneZon/Zombieman x One Shotter: never even thought of the ship till I saw @megidolan art work! Very wholesome, and from what little we know of Shotter we know he’s a sort of nervous yet strong willed guy, and Zombieman would totally help him calm down bc he’s so chill. I could see them sharing cigarettes and talking shit on heroes while cuddling u know? 7/10 only because I don’t see enough of it but very good concept.

Mumarou/Mumen x Garou: a lot of ppl are gonna hate me for this but....I don’t like it. I’ve tried! I just—idk. I’ve read so many good fics about them that make me like it a bit, but the concept is just eh. I think their relationship is, in most reps, really cliche angsty stuff. I wish I could elaborate I just...gah! Basically, there’s better ships for the both of them imo. Sorry!! 4.3/10

Sonic x Flashy/SonFlash: yes!! Prob my fav Sonic ship. They have soooo much tension, it’s almost worse than Genos’ tension w Saitama. Flashy LITERALLY poisoned Sonic so that he wouldn’t be forced to kill him at the ninja graduation. He cares. They’ll never say it out loud, but they care. They have someone who understands what they went through in each other and someone they’re both so similar to, yet so different from. Sonic is more vocal about his expressions and let’s people know it while Flashy often keeps things to himself, they could really influence the other to be more this or that. I could see a lot of comfort with these two, and not much is needed for relationship development; they already have so much unspoken between them after meeting for the first time in years. Love it. Wish I saw it more! 10/11

KingSai: wonderful! Out of the few ppl Saitama is close to, def my second fav pick for a ship for him. There’s a post saying how Saitama doesn’t cut King off when he’s going on rants about games and stuff bc he’s talking TO Saitama, not at him like Genos tends to do on accident. They’re already great buddies! Saitama could find a shy gamer man who he can talk to about manga and stuff and also a passionate bf who could break out of his shell w Saitama and be himself with no lies. King can have someone to protect him, duh, someone who finally understands his weird sense of humor, and someone to shower him in the love and kindness he deserves when Saitama is in the mood to be all out like that w his affections. Plus he’s Saitama’s anchor and brings him back down when he’s super anxious and depressed and tells him what’s up that he needs to fix without sugarcoating it. Would def have a bunch of inside jokes and go on dates that are just staying inside playing video games all night. Domestic af. 10/10

Fubuki x Mizuki: my first wlw Fubuki ship! Hard to find but very good. Mizuki is this big ball of kindness, energy, and raw power that would make Fubuki go ‘Ohhhhhhh, big pretty lady make brain go brrr.’ I could see Mizuki grounding Fubuki when she’s in over her head, giving her random gifts bc she saw sum and thought of her, doing a marathon run and wildly waving at Fubuki in the crowd, and all around being a dependable woman confident in herself and in love with a mysterious esper. Prob a little shy when it comes to anything physical bc she loves Fubuki so much and is overwhelmed by the realness of being w her. Fubuki gives Mizuki advice on ‘acting like a proper hero’ or whatever and though Mizuki thinks she doesn’t need it, Fubuki still helps her a lot w her career and being taken more seriously by others. Would give Mizuki someone who loves her for who she is and would go wild on her in private when she can be open about her affection, would be someone Mizuki could exercise with and listen intently to Mizuki’s physical knowledge, and would absolutely bandage her when she’s all banged up. Hnghh love this ship. It’s only behind the FubuPsy ship juuuuust a little bc they haven’t met in canon so we can’t be sure about their interactions and stuff. 8.8/10, I love WOMEN

Batarou: how could I go this far without mentioning them?! They have SOOOO much tension in the centichoro fight, like come on. Both snarky assholes who are huge softies one the inside, Badd being the more logical one (still a himbo, tho) and Garou being the more chaotic one. Probably take forever to admit their feelings bc they’re so prideful and stupid <3 flirt through constant wrestling matches and it takes Genos saying ‘they should kiss already, they’re getting on his nerves’ for them to finally realize what’s up. (@rayadraws has a great au where Garou Genos and Badd are a chaotic friend squad and Genos is the only brain of the group, haha. Very good au y’all check it out!) Would constantly pick on each other affectionately and switch into concerned SO when the other is hurt like the big teddy bears they are. Raise Zenko together for sure. Garou would fumble being romantic and Badd would find it both hilarious and cute. 11/12

Zombie mask/Amai x Zombieman:

So. I don’t like Amai Mask and I used to hate him, BUT the webcomic and fic have really helped me calm down on him (he’s still a dick tho), so it’s easier to want to ship him and stuff. Bc of Amai’s anger issues and controlling behavior, I could see this relationship being super toxic and icky—but I think they have some form of understanding that pulls Amai back from being a complete dick, you know? Start off as fuck buddies and slowly form something else from spending companionable time together other than screwing. Zombieman pulls Amai back from his angry fits and soothes him over with his logic. Talk maaaaaad shit about heroes, but only when they’re alone because Zombieman knows Amai will talk loud af about the heroes they’re roasting and Zombie doesn’t wanna stop a fight from happening. Zombieman loves making Amai flustered and has a secret check list in his head of all the things that get Amai red faced. Loves to listen to Amai rant about things for hours and loves to watch his face go through almost cartoon like expressions as he talks. He won’t admit it, but Zombie loves to be spoiled by Amai’s shit tons of cash and often takes rides in Amai’s limos when he wants to smoke and think to himself. Amai has a hard time realizing how his feelings have changed, but gets hit hard with it when he wakes up to Zombie making them breakfast one morning while wearing Amai’s underwear. Amai also loves to spoil Zombie and takes him out to restaurants and buys him cool new weapons on the weekends. @batneko has pretty much gotten me into this ship and I strongly suggest looking at their works! 7.9/10

DemonKnight/Genos x Zero/Drive Knight: I’m pretty sure this used to be a crack ship before the past like 10 manga chapters—and now here we are! Not a fav bc 1. ZERO LEFT GENOS TO SELF DESTRUCT AFTER THEY COMBINED TO FORM THE FUCKING JET HE WAS JUST LIKE lol bye SO LIKE if he left him to die that’s super hard for me to forgive and ship grrr 2. Disregarding the manga’s canon and looking at the wc, while I love the little trip they went on where Zero demonstrated his abilities and helped Genos kill monsters, it’s super sus. He knew alllll of this info on Metal Knight and was super supportive and understanding when Genos said he needed time to think. Like,,,what are his intentions? We know so little about him—is he trying to trick Genos or was he being sincere? THAT STUFF ASIDE, they’re a really fun ship. They’re both huge fucking nerds and can keep up with their talk on robotics for hours, they’re both cyborgs so they understand each other’s pain, and they’re both super cool and angsty. I think they could really settle into a deep bond that can go platonic or romantic, just depends. Genos needs more ppl in his life so hell yeah! Plus, he can really let go with Zero bc they don’t have that teacher/student relationship and Zero, if he’s really a sincere and kind guy like in the wc, can be there for Genos and listen to him. Don’t have much to say on this ship other than @wellthisisembarrassing makes GORGEOUS art of them! 6.3/10

Webuiko/Suiko x Webigaza: YEAH I KNOW THEY HAVENT INTERACTED IN CANON AND WE DONT KNOW MUCH ABOUT THEM BUT HEAR ME OUT. Webigaza—cool af determined cyborg idol who’s surprisingly down to earth when talking with Child Emperor. Suiko—sassy and honest fighter who doesn’t take shit and is very passionate. Suiko would go to talk to Web then immediately freak out bc aaaa she’s way prettier than she thought, she can’t do this! Web would have to gently encourage Suiko to talk and at first is like ‘ah man, must be an adoring fan, ugh I’m so tired. At least she’s hot’ but when Suiko snaps out of her shyness Web is like oh! She’s super cool wtf. Always bump into each other during fights and help each other get fixed up, Suiko using her muscle power to lift Web’s pieces (and give Web a great view of Suiko’s muscles holy SHIT) and Web would patch Suiko up. Not to be stereotypical, but they’re def a masc/femme couple. I love the idea of this ship soooo much and I really hope they interact! 6.6/10 only bc they haven’t met 😭😭😭 look them up on here! There’s some great art of them by a few blogs

Dr. Kuseno x Bang: pretty sure @baldyborg came up with this one! Super cute. Just two old dudes finding a nice friendship in each other, maybe after Bang helps carry Genos to Kuseno’s after a day of fighting. Bang would find Kuseno to be a very cute little nerd man and would be sooo impressed by Kuseno’s mad scientist skills. Kuseno would be super impressed when seeing Bang in action too. They’d prob talk as soon as they meet each other and Genos would be in the background like you guys it’s been an hour, please fix me I’m on the verge of death 🧍🏻Bang would give Kuseno advice on training techniques to teach Genos and advice on making his bodies more martial arts ready or sum, meanwhile Kuseno would give his take on how to be kinder to Garou so that Bang would learn to repair the relationship with a gentleness he’s seemingly lacking (yes I’m talking about the chapter where he and Garou start fighting and Bang is just not doing enough to reach out to Garou, he’s being a callous old man! So yeah I’m still mad about that). Genos and Saitama would prob be out on a date and Saitama would be like oh theres Bang, wonder what he’s doing? Then Kuseno would walk up and kiss Bang and Genos and Sai would be shocked like SIRS 👬 Genos would tell Bang he doesn’t need another adoptive dad and Bang would be like....ok.... I see them retiring in a cottage together and Bang would become a huge softie. Yes I’m actively ignoring chapter 141 of the wc, shut up. 7.6/10

TankTop master x Mumen: they have a nice friendship going on in the manga right now! Just bros supporting bros. Tank is the picture definition of a muscly himbo and Mumen is his cute passionate bf. Also workout buddies af!! Don’t have much to say other than pretty good ship, just not a fav. 5.2/10

To sum it up—

GenoSai: 2718873737839439/10, Batarou: 11/12, SonFlash: 10/11, KingSai: 10/10, FubuPsy: 9/10, Fubuki x Mizuki: 8.8/10, MumenSai: 8.4/10, ZombieMask: 7.9/10, Dr. Kuseno x Bang: 7.6/10, Speedal: 7.4/10, OneZon: 7/10, Webuiko: 6.6/10, DemonKnight: 6.3/10, Okamaitachi x Bushidrill: 6.1/10, TatsuKing: 6/10, TankTop Master x Mumen: 5.2/10, Mumarou: 4.3/10, FubuSai: 4/10, SonSai: 3/10, Genos x Sonic: 1.3/10, TatsuSai: 0/10, anyone x Puri: -1283828319833468282/10

If there’s any ships I left out, it’s bc I don’t know them, don’t wanna talk about them, or just don’t have an opinion strong enough. Also, I know there are some poly ships like Genos x Saitama x Fubuki, but I’ve read only one fic about that (it was pretty good, here’s the link https://archiveofourown.org/works/5406992 ) so I don’t feel like talking about it. Hope no ones offended! All my opinion here :)

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sylvanvixen · 3 years

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@dungeonqueering

It’s here and it’s amazing! I cannot overstate how hyped I am for this project! Exalted is a fantastic and beautiful setting and the design for Exalted Essence has been fabulous.

It’s an amazing mythic fantasy world drawing from myths, legends and pop culture from all across the world, actively choosing to focus on world building that diverges heavily from medieval western fantasy. Various stated locations include cultures inspired by mixes of various places and time periods including China, India, Venice, Athens, Baghdad and a heck of a lot more.

The system that we’ve seen so far is an amazing game that runs fast and straightforwardly, rewards cool descriptors, makes convictions and bonds between characters mechanically relevant and gives every character cool magical abilities that enhance their stats and an awesome battle aura that buffs their skills, it’s also not restrictive in it’s powers for the most part, a fighty type character can totally invest in the knowledge skill and all the cool powers associated with it. There’s full social mechanics engaging in romance or rivalry (or both!) and for downtime projects like running a kingdom, navigating a wilderness, crafting and magical rituals.

The design team for this game is awesome, they’ve been incredibly cool and open while talking with fans, they’ve put in deliberate effort to avoid cultural stereotypes in their work, the art for the game includes diverse, multicultural characters, a number of women doing awesome things and several disabled characters. The design team is also majority queer, several of them even run a podcast about queer women speaking about rpgs called Bonus Experience!

The character options for this game are really rad!

Characters play as mortal heroes who've been empowered by one of the major gods or other cosmic beings of the setting who are given the power to perform magical and mythical feats in a diverse fantasy setting. It's got 10 Exalted (basically classes) each with subtypes called Aspects or Castes (basically subclasses).

Solars: Heroes with conviction to change the world powered by the Sun god they're mythic heroes and kings of light and excellence, basically most of the Avengers, Hercules, Adora, classic 'protagonist' dudes.

Lunars: Heroes who stand outside society empowered by the Moon God/ess, they’re shapeshifting warriors, tricksters and witches, think Maui, Loki and Double Trouble, the more wild card characters, explicitly trans validating with a gender fluid patron.

Dragon Blooded: Heroes born of blessed family lines empowered by the elemental dragons, passionate and numerous, basically elemental samurai, think the Avatar, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and most of the She-ra Princesses.

Sidereals: Heroes chosen by Fate, secret agents of heaven trying to create a better future with powers to forsee fate and obscure memory, like spy-thrillers with weird esoteric ninja powers, imagine if sailor moon was a spy/ninja show.

Getimians: Heroes who never were, heaven in Exalted is a bureaucracy and sometimes prophesied heroes end up edited out of destiny, returned by a rogue sidereal these heroes awoke in a world in which they were never born and their great deeds undone, now with funky quantum powers, like It's a Wonderful Life as an anime protagonist.

Alchemicals: Heroes born of metal, found in ancient tombs of the machine-titan, these heroic souls were reborn in bodies of magical metal and made to serve a community, able to incorporate magic item powers into their bodies, basically the Iron Giant meet every awesome sentient robot hero but in a fantasy setting

Liminals: Heroes born from death, resurrection doesn't work in Exalted but when someone tries you get a FMA situation where some new being is born in the body blessed by the OG death goddess with awesome ghost hunting powers and creepy body horror, think Frankenstein or FMA hommunculi, but with psychic powers and the ability to hunt ghosts in order to help protect the veil between life and death.

Abyssals: Heroes brought back from death, empowered by the ghost kings of the underworld these deathknights are empowered to become the lords of the underworld with spooky dark powers, very castlevania, vampire hunter D, and basically any gothic heavy metal album cover, not necessarily villains but it's an option.

Infernals: Heroes beaten down by the world order and empowered by the trapped titans to rebel against the world that hurt them, Punk rock kings of hell with their own final boss demon form and awesome alien powers, totally able to play a lot of villains, totally don't have to be evil, you could easily do Dante from DMC or Bayonetta.

Exigents: The exalted of any number of smaller gods and basically the homebrew Exalt, the example one is the champion of a Field God who gave up his power to empower the Strawmaiden who began cutting down an army of evil fairies like wheat. Has provided rules and guidelines for making your own exalted and their cool own powers, so you could be the champion of a god of rainbows, mice or libraries.

Exalted doesn't have proper 'race' options like D&D, if it's going to say something isn't human than it means it (Elves are called Raksha and they're vampiric chaos spirits given shape by dreams to look beautiful and terrifying for example) but you can totally play a 'mortal' with weird fantastic features; some people are beastmen so you could play a snakeperson or a catboy, some people carry the descent of spirits so you could play a character with the style of a tiefling, aasimar, genasi or weird fey character and some people just hung around faerie realms or sorcerers and were given strange mutations or powers

This game is just so damn cool. Check out the project, you can back it for 5$ and you’ll get access to the full rules text of the game, released in chunks throughout the kickstarter (Basically the full book, just without the editing, formatting and all the art) and if you like it you can bump up the pledge at any point afterwards, including after the project is over. It’s already funded several times over!

#exalted rpg #Exalted game #Exalted Essence #Long post

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rainbuckets8 · 3 years

Text

Why you should watch RWBY

TL;DR:

Summary: RWBY is an epic fantasy with themes like found family, the struggle to remain hopeful, the younger generation growing up, villain redemption, and systemic evils.

Strengths: RWBY has unique and memorable characters. The show is smart. It has excellent cinematography and animation. It has representation. It tackles hard topics. It’s got incredible music and it’s free on RT’s website.

Weaknesses: RWBY has some early growing pains, specifically volume 2’s finale, as well as budget and polish. Later on, volume 4 is weaker than the rest. Volume 8's finale is extremely distressing for a lot of viewers (and we haven't seen the follow up to those events yet). The fandom can be bad at times.

Misinformation: The early volumes being bad, the racism plot line, and the animation (not the same as “budget and polish”) are not as bad as you may have heard from YouTube.

Suggested viewing order

Red Trailer, White Trailer, Black Trailer, Yellow Trailer

Volume 1

Volume 2

Volume 3

Volume 4 Character Short

Volume 4

Volume 5 Weiss Character Short, Volume 5 Blake Character Short, Volume 5 Yang Character Short

Volume 5

Volume 6 Adam Character Short

Volume 6

Volume 7

Volume 8

(I did my best to make this spoiler-free. When there are spoilers, they’re worded ambiguously enough that someone new to the show would never guess what’s going to happen just by reading this.)

What to expect

The world of Remnant is filled with monsters called the creatures of Grimm. Warriors called Huntsmen and Huntresses defend humanity. Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang go to school to become the next generation of heroes. Together they make Team RWBY (pronounced, “Ruby”)! Joining them is team JNPR (“Juniper”), made up of Jaune, Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren. But evils even more dangerous than the Grimm are ready to make their move, and school quickly becomes an afterthought…

(I mention these next two topics specifically bc they can immediately turn someone away based on bad expectations.) There is a fantasy school setting, but RWBY is not a show about school. School topics are not a dominant idea: it seems to resemble a setting like Harry Potter, but the actual focus of the show rarely touches on things like classes or homework or tests, and we quickly move on. There is romance and it has a role in the plot, but RWBY is not a romance show. On the scale of romance in FMAB to She-Ra, RWBY falls somewhere in the middle.

What is RWBY about, then? RWBY is like an epic fantasy or high fantasy, despite first appearances. Perhaps not every genre convention is followed, but at its core, RWBY is about an epic struggle of good and evil.

RWBY contains themes such as found family, the struggle to remain hopeful, the younger generation growing up, villain redemption, and systemic evils.

Strengths of the show

The characters are unique and memorable. One of the cool things is that they all draw inspiration from a real life fairy tale, myth, or something else. They designs are all top notch. One character who died with extremely little screen time even got so much fandom love, they included the character in a mid-hiatus short later. The characters have unique weapons, too; in the world of Remnant, a weapon is an extension of ones’ soul, and they reflect the variety of their owners. They’re also just plain cool; Monty was famous for following the “Rule of Cool.” And their individual stories are all compelling and interesting.

The show is smart. As a fandom, we generally pick up on the narrative hints the creators are dropping. And our predictions usually come true, but not in a way that makes the show predictable and boring. We very rarely guess exactly what will happen, but we have some similar idea of it. It’s just excellent foreshadowing.

RWBY also likes to play with tropes, as an extension of this. Often it will challenge them, or subvert expectations. In other cases, RWBY uses tropes to avoid showing us what we already know will happen. This occurs in both characters and plot. For example…

SLIGHT SPOILERS FOR VOLUME ONE FOR THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH: Jaune’s entire character arc is about trying to be the anime protagonist, and learning that he doesn’t have to do things alone, and it’s ok to be a support main. The show sets up the narrative in a way that looks like, oh of course the direction it will go is him becoming the main character, but then it destroys toxic masculinity instead.

Our characters are smart, too. Plot-induced stupidity generally doesn’t happen. (A few big mistakes or errors in this regard aren’t actually the fault of the narrative, either, but animation and miscommunication and failure to execute. And those aren’t common.) It goes beyond just “not being dumb,” however. The villains’ plans are incredibly clever, and our heroes sometimes even guess at the usual “plot twists.”

The cinematography is just incredible. There are numerous freeze frames with extreme attention to detail that reveal character motivations or arcs or foreshadowing, there are many effective cuts and moving parts, there are soooo many parallels and callbacks, and visual cues such as lighting and color all are used appropriately to convey emotion and assist the narrative. It is one of the biggest overlooked strengths of the show, imo, simply because a lot of people in the fandom don’t notice these things as much for whatever reason, or else don’t give as much praise about them.

The animation is extremely good as well. Budget issues and technology issues aside (which means a lack of polish), the actual animation? The fight choreography, and all the other parts of animation that aren’t just “expensive CGI” are all wonderful. You can have very shiny, polished turds after all, and RWBY is like the opposite: not very polished, especially early on, but very well animated. All the trailers, volume 1 episode 8, the volume 1 finale, the volume 2 penultimate episode, and basically everything else hold up extremely well even today. If anything, the worst fight animation was in volumes 4 and 5 because of Maya growing pains, and those are an example of being more polished, but not necessarily better animated. Animation of faces has always been good, animation of characters has always felt lively. Aside from a few small actual hiccups (that one person running across rooftops for instance), it’s well done.

There are LGBTQ+ characters. The treatment of one of the recent trans characters, in volume 8, was nothing short of amazing. They worked with a VA who was trans. The moment of canon confirmation was important to the character for backstory, because of course that affects the character’s life, but not the only important thing about the character. The representation is not in-your-face or pandering. And there is a split of representation among the main cast and the minor characters, with promises of more to come (notably they’ve said they’re working on more mlm for future volumes, too).

RWBY is not afraid to tackle hard topics. It deals with things like mental illness, systematic racism, and cycles of abuse. It’s not because the show is trying to earn “gritty and dark” points, it’s because those are some of the topics that real people have to struggle with as well. And the show handles most or all of them very well, in a way that shows respect and an honest attempt to depict these things as best they can. (NOTE ABOUT VOLUME 8: THERE IS A VERY DIFFUCLT CONVERSATION CURRENTLY HAPPENING. I am on the side of, let’s wait and see what happens next because the story isn’t over, so we haven’t really seen the fall out. But I understand why this paragraph feels really difficult to agree with if you've seen the volume 8 finale. I trust the track record of the rest of the show, personally.)

As an example, the show has a theme that villains are rarely evil just because. A lot of villains choose to do bad things because they were hurt in some way. Some lived in poverty; some were hurt by racism; many of them are victims of abuse. But the show doesn’t make excuses for them. It’s possible to be both sympathetic and still choose evil over and over again (that’s called tragic). The ones who eventually do try to do good again are not always forgiven, either.

The music is amazing. I can probably count on my hands the number of times I’ve heard someone say otherwise, which is astonishing when you consider this fandom.

It’s also free on RT’s website. (A paid, “FIRST” subscription removes ads and lets you see new episodes one week early, but they all eventually release for free.)

Weaknesses of the show

Early volumes’ growing pains exist, much like most or all other shows. (Even some of the greatest were not immune to this, like ATLA.) In this case, however, it’s a little bit rougher. A large reason why is that this was kind of the first big thing from RT to ever come out. If you remember back almost a decade ago, their only other big thing at the time was RvB, which was machinima. They pretty much started from scratch with everything, from assets to VAs to animation to writing. Imagine if a random twitch streamer, like Ninja (idk who’s popular these days) said one day, “OK let me just direct something that’s intended to be the next great movie series of all time, like Star Wars, with a $4 bill and an iPhone camera.” Then went out and actually made something. Of course it would be rough…but then it turns out the movie is actually really good. And then you get to watch over the next several years as everything gets better and better until it’s honest-to-god comparable to the MCU. That’s kind of what happened with RWBY.

One specific growing pain was the volume 2 finale. Pretty much everything else up until that point, I love about the show. But the finale just fails to deliver on the build up of tension from other episodes. Some of it is because of later plot developments that we didn’t know at the time; some of it is because of just not great writing; some of it is because of just not great animation; and yes, some of it is budget. Regardless, it’s a low point for the show.

Speaking of, the budget for the early volumes is super small. The infamous volume one shadow people, the infamous person jumping across the rooftops in volume two, and just production quality isn’t high compared to a major release from some established studio. These are real weaknesses of the show that for some people, make it unwatchable, and if that’s you, that’s ok.

One last weakness of the show, the screen time per episode, especially early on, is NOT a full 20 minutes like you may expect of an anime (or anime-inspired-western-media, for those of you who will die on the “RWBY is not an anime” hill). This is a trend that has stuck with the show, a shorter run time per episode, for generally the entire lifetime. On one hand, it means it’s a little less daunting to catch up or rewatch than the number of episodes might imply. On the other, early on, some episodes have a little weird pacing. It also means the writing had to adjust for this, so while RWBY got really good at telling a story within a shorter amount of time, there’s also challenges with that too. Perhaps one of the notable ones is the pacing, with slower moments sometimes feeling like it takes up too much screen time, or not enough. Volume 4 was a particular struggle for the crew, both because they switched animation engines and also for the story.

Common complaints that I don’t agree with

I don’t agree that the early volumes were actually bad overall. Growing pains, yes, but not bad. I attribute that complaint to overly focusing on one character’s storyline, back when it wasn’t clear there was so much more to come and before people realized the show would challenge the tropes instead of falling into them. It’s pretty much just volume 1 when people say this anyway, most of them I’ve heard admit that volume 2 was a lot better (except the finale) and almost everyone loves volume 3. And looking back on it, I do think volume 1 holds up.

Tying into this, the racism plot line is another common complaint. I don’t think it’s actually executed quite that badly. I think it makes sense for there to be regional differences in the amount of racism we see, it just so happened that we only saw a very small and isolated environment, Beacon, for much of the early volumes. (Incidentally, that’s actually similar the environment I myself grew up in.) It’s not perfect, though. But there’s no doubt that the later volumes do a better job portraying this. Again, I attribute it mostly to people not knowing how long the show would run for at the time, so of course if that’s all we saw, it would’ve been bad. But it’s not. I have a lot of respect for Miles and Kerry for even attempting to handle the racism topic in the first place. And for the faults that DO exist in this plot line, I credit them for learning and growing past that too, and doing better in later volumes.

The animation is not bad. I’ve already touched on that earlier, but people confuse “budget and polish” with “animation.” Give me RWBY any day over Michael Bay’s Transformers: no matter how much polish those robots have, they’re still a confusing mess to try and follow. And the polish isn’t even an issue once we get past the growing pains of Maya and get a bigger budget, because wow does this show look good now.

Between these three complaints I hear about often, I think those are the biggest ones. And they’re all generally done in bad faith, based not on just those but on other more provocative statements people also make with them. That’s part of my issue with the fandom, specifically the vocal but small parts of the fandom, because they’re just repeating these things from early days that aren’t true. But YouTubers gotta get those rage and hate clicks somehow, right? Unfortunately it discredits the show a lot and influences other people’s opinions into not giving it a fair chance, because it’s become a narrative of “RWBY IS BAD” when they all won’t shut up about it. So yeah, fandom can be bad, join at your own discretion. (Of course, all fandoms have annoying parts, and my interactions with the fandom have been good overall, otherwise.)

Onto other complaints, some say the cast is bloated. I don’t agree, but I don’t think this one is in bad faith. I think we get the important characters as much screen time as we can, and the minor characters don’t actually detract from that; one of the differences between good minor characters and bad ones, is that bad ones take up too much time. RWBY has a ton of characters but many of the minor ones don’t actually take up too much time. So it appears bloated, but actually I don’t think it is.

Finally, a small word on the no-no topics. Adam, and Monty. Adam is like the champion of the Monty topic. Which essentially boils down to “Miles and Kerry are ruining Monty’s vision for the show.” Toxic fandom is truly awful and I have no respect for anyone who says anything like that. Shame on all of you. This isn’t really anything negative about the show, but the fandom, and tbf all fandoms have toxic parts. But toxic fandom can be a real and valid reason to not watch a show. Thankfully they seem fewer in number these days, but I think they’ve evolved into hiding behind other characters or topics, so you know. Beware. Again, it's not too hard to avoid them or block them, and my interactions otherwise with most fans have been good.

#rwby

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duhragonball · 3 years

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🌻

So, full disclosure, I'm a Christian, and I'm frustrated with the way other Christians have turned a blind eye to social justice issues, even to the point of abandoning common sense and boilerplate scripture.

I've seen a lot of criticism of "white evangelicals" and every so often I remember "wait, I guess that's me," since I grew up in a Southern Baptist church. But I look around at what's going on in the world and I see me on one side of the issue and "white evangelicals" on the other. They're wrong, whoever they are.

I read an article that referred to "pillars" of Evangelism, and I had to look up what those were. Growing up, I never hear much talk about evangelism as a specific concept or an identifier. I've always found the term "Evangelical Christian" to be redundant. It sounded like someone was trying to top all the other, "lesser" Christians, which I find heretical.

Anyway, one of these pillars refers to a "transformative" experience, which I think I recognize as the notion that you have to experience some great joy when you get saved. I heard a lot about *that* over the years, so it feels like they changed the terminology somewhere or somewhen. But I've never cared much for this doctrine, because it felt like it was applied in reverse. That is, if you're not insanely happy--and you don't express that happiness-- then maybe your personal relationship with Christ is faulty.

In hindsight, I think that's always been my gripe with the SBC. I mean, there's a lot of bigger gripes to be had, but my *personal* gripe has always been this implication that if I'm not clapping my hands and doing cartwheels down the aisle, then there must be something wrong with me. It was never outright stated, but I always got that vibe.

There's sort of a conveyer belt mentality to evangelism, I think. I've seen all sorts of religious pamphlets that give step-by-step instructions on how to be saved. I don't think I've ever read on that I ddn't believe to be accurate. Like, there was never one that had "Step Six, now you want to grab a handful of snakes, and then..." I'm not disputing the text of the pamphlets, but it seemed like the goal was more about efficiency than true ministry. A lot of this literature feels like it was aimed at people who were already Christians and.... forgot, I guess? I don't know if the SBC just doesn't understand how to write for a nonbeliever audience, of if it's all *really* about nagging believers who aren't shouting "Amen" loud enough.

I've read the Bible all the way through, and there's no rule that says I gotta smile all the time or never get depressed, or otherwise my salvation didn't "take". That's horseshit. That's grade A horseshit, and I'll take that to my grave. The condemned man who was crucified next to Jesus was having a pretty shitty day by all standards. He recognized what Jesus was all about, and Jesus told him he, the condemned man would be in heaven. He didn't have to clap his hands, or stand in front of the congregation, or shake hands with everyone in the fellowship hall, or get dunked in cold water. That's all side stuff. Anyone who says it's required is trying to sell you something.

My point is that I'll see Christians wringing their hands over stupid shit that doesn't matter, like LilNasX making a video where he does a lapdance for the devil then usurps his throne in hell. I was explaining the other day how this red cartoon devil isn't even remotely connected to the Biblical Satan, but all these Christians, who ought to know better, get worked up about it anyway. They're just mad at LilNasX doing gay dance moves in a video. I know this because Megan Thee Stallion didn't have Satan in *her* music video and the same people got worked up at her the exact same way.

And that's bullshit, because they were wringing their hands over Madonna wearing a cone bra like 35 years ago. They get worked up over the Smurfs, Tabletop RPGs, Young Adult Fiction Wizards, the Ninja Turtles, the Power Rangers, etc., etc., etc. But Arkansas is trying to deny trans kids access to health care, and they can't find the devil in that? These Christians want to invent a boogeyman to be afraid of, and waste all their time worrying about a red goat-legged guy, instead of confronting the genuine evils in the world. It'd be like refusing to save a drowning man because you're too worried about Sonic the Hedgehog references in breakfast cereals.

And if you complain about the hypocrisy of this, oh, well you must have renounced your religion, right? Oh, I guess Mike's an atheist now because he's too pissed off about transphobia to be afraid of the cartoon on the Tobasco sauce bottle. Well, one, I don't have to prove my faith to anyone, and two, even if I did, it's just a distraction from the things that really matter. I'd rather watch a thousand gay lapdances than hear about another mass shooting, or another voting rights restriction, or another lawmaker who wraps his hatred in a thin veneer of piety. I mean, seriously, that video sounds awesome, and "Old Town Road" was catchy. I should check that out sometime.

#ask duhragonball

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bi-bobbysoxxers · 4 years

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Heyy y'all! I was tagged by @meiyanaalexia Thanks for the tag, fam!

Rules: List ten of your fave female characters from your ten fave fandoms and then tag 10 other ppl!

This list is by no means comprehensive or a ranked list, as i think all my fave characters are equally bad betches, in their own right xD alright let's get to it!

-Tamari and Lady Tsunade (Naruto/Naruto Shippuden)

Tamari's one of the more cool, levelheaded female side characters in naruto and idk, she's very much Gaara and Kankuro's rock, and idk, i like that. I view her as a very strong female character, and i think she carries a lot of badass masculine energy. Plus she's a badass fighter as well. (((And she's hot but that's beside the point lol))) I like Lady Tsunade a lot, but i admit, i wasnt a fan of her at first. But now that I'm seeing her character unfold in Shippuden, I like her a lot. I like the concept that she's kiind of a grouchy, reluctant leader of the leaf village, cause that makes her seem like a very reliable leader, in a way. I think she's hella underrated as a strong character, tbh. Plus i like that she's a healing ninja, cause it seems so opposite to her outward personality. The more i watch naruto the more i'm really liking more of their female characters, tbh.

Quotes!

Tamari: "Sharpen your karma at sunset."

Tsunade: "People become stronger because they have things they cannot forget. That's what you call growth."

-Lucy and Kiyoko (Bungou Stray Dogs)

oh wow, uh, not gonna lie, i really like this anime more for most of the male characters, but Lucy and Kiyoko have alswas been in my faves list. I didnt really understand Lucy's character in season one but as the plot thickens, so does her issues with wanting to morally become a better person, but still being fairly new to learning to become selfless. I think a lot of people can relate to her because she can be fairly emotionally erratic, and she struggles with the whole "forgiveness thing." But later on you see that all she really wanted was a true family and friends that value her. And i think that's something we all want, deep down. Also, her powers are highly unnderrated and badass and i love how she is slowly becoming a protector for ppl like Atsushi, which really shows her growth as a character.

I also put Kiyoko on this list because i think she is equally as good of a female character as Lucy is, but for dif reasons. I loveeee the whole concept of "initially bad" characters soon wanting to become good. There's a simplicity in her character that i think models Atsushi's in a way, i mean they're both damaged, but both yearn to do good and make a comeback with the chances they've been given in life. If Lucy was a Tarot Card she would be the Fool. I also love how steadfast she is in her newfound family and how much she believes in everyone in the ADA now. It's very wholesome and pure :3 also i love her and Atsushi's relationship, it kinda reminds me of me and my BFF's ride or die relationship, lol.

Lucy: "Make sure you survive...Then come back for me. I'll be waiting."

Kiyoko: "I saw a bright world. I cannot go back to a time when I didn't know such a thing existed."

-Luna Lovegood (Harry Potter)

Ugh, there's so many things about this character that I have always loved and adored. Her character design, her quiet whimsical weirdness. Her determined loyalty to the people that accept her. Her lovely simple wisdom, at times. Like Harry said, Luna is just "...coooll." She kinda reminds me of me when I was a teenager but way cooler lol.

Luna: "My mum always said things we lose have a way of coming back to us, in the end."

-Lara Croft (Tomb Raider movies and videogames)

Laura is....a simple character by design. If anything, the plotlines and video game design of the Tomb Raider franchise are way more intricate. And yeah...there's her misogynistic character design (Note: the impossibly snatched waist and bOoBiEs in earlier games.)

BUT. I still stan her for a multitude of reasons. Growing up, there were may more princess characters than female warrior characters and ya know, I'm really glad I was exposed to Lara Croft movies and the Tomb Raider: Legend video games as a kid. I think Laura taught me that you can definitely embrace your feminine side and still be a badass and follow your dreams. Even now, after me finally figuring out i'm not cis, i know, that she's still an icon for most kids out there. And for me too. She was a symbol of bravery, intelligence, as well as still being a character of emotional depth, grieving the loss of her parents while vowing to continue to do what she loved, which is exploring. Cultural and moral problems with her character aside, i still find both her and her stories very inspirational, both as a bigender queer person, and as a designer.

Laura Quotes: "The line between our myths and truth is fragile and blurry."

"The extraordinary is in what we do, not who we are."

-Scorpia (She-Ra)

Oh wow, i could go on for days about how much i love thus character. If you're queer or fun in any capacity you've probably watched the final season fo She-Ra by now and spoilers aside, i just love the journey this character went on from start to finish. Scorpia is so genuine and nice, and sometimes that puts her in situations where she has to make hard decisions. And idk, those decisions just made that character so much better for me. On a lighter note, Scorpia is great queer rep, especially for butch lesbians, lesbians, trans ppl, androg ppl, and gender nonconforming ppl. She's always said things that have resonated with me as a queer person and aside from that, she's a very excitable and fun character. She just excudes so much curiosity and joy that you really can't help but like her, lol.

Scorpia: "I am brave, strong, loyal, and i give great hugs!"

-Sypha (Castlevania)

Altho I personally don't view Sypha as a cis woman, (I see her as nonbinary or agender), I think the way characters treat her in the show is indicative that in that period, they view her as a woman. So i figured I could put her on this list as well lol. Anyways, uhhh wow, Sypha is great, there's so much I love about her that it's hard to put into words. I love that she regards herself as a "scholar" of magic, but still views herself as a heretic, I just find it pretty funny and very sexy of her lol. Aside from that, I think Sypha is a great character who always seeks out logic where there usually ends up being none. I love her cheeky remarks to both Alucard and Trevor, and I love her can-do attitude. At the end of the day, she's one of those characters you love just for her great energy she carries for herself within the show. There's really no rhyme or reason to her, she just, is. She subverts many female mage character tropes as well, being a natural badass. Also her god jokes are so damn funny.

Sypha: "See?? God hates me!?

-Aunt Sarah (Derry Girls)

Okay first of all, if you havent seen Derry girls, pleaseeee watch it, holy shit it's the funniest show i've seen in a longass time. Second of all, my friend and I are still going thru the show, but Ajnt Sarah has started to become one of my favorite characters. She's one of those very aloof characters that you kinda ignore at first but then her character just has these amazing one liners and she really grows on you. Also she is very caring about her family and she's cute as hell???? I'm sorry but like her aesthetic is just on fuckin point, like??? Go off babe?? Anyways yeah she's cute.

No quotes for her since that might ruin some of the better punchlines if you end up watching the show lol.

-Marga (Cable Girls)

Yeah, if you want a really good 1920's drama that focuses on women, go give Cable Girls a try! It is very poetic in its direction lol. Anyways, Marga is one of the "new girls" at the beginning of the show and she is just, so earnest, and genuine, and pure. And I love her. She's very nice to the other girls working and she's got some great one liners. She's that timid, cute character that slowy comes out of her shell throughout the show lol.

-Kiki and Sheeta (Studio Ghibli)

I loveee Studio Ghibli films, and one of my two fave films of Miyazaki are Kiki's Delivery Service and my ultimate fave, Castle in the Sky. I adore Kiki as a character because she is your quintessential cute witch, and her journey with finding and grasping her full powers are very relevant to me, and my journey with upholding my creativity as a designer. As well as being a great movie with a great lessom for all artists, Kiki is a very passionate and genuine character, who's resilency has inspired me in hard times. I love her relationship that she has with other ppl as nd creatures, especially with her cat Gigi. She's cute, i love her lots.

Sheeta, I love for different reasons. Sheeta is one of those rare instances where a quiet protagonist, really works. I love her calm and humble, yet powerful energy surrounding her. I love her background, and how there has always beem magic inside of her, even if she's not a practicing witch. She is so very humble and a very introspective character. There's not a lot of female protagonists quite like her. Plus she's adorable as well, lol.

-Aunt Hilda, Zelda, Prudence, and Lilith (CHAOS)

I'm not gonna get into super specifics since i love all these characters equally, but I will say that all these characters absolutely MADE this series for me. I personally found Sabrina's character very annoying and slightly egotistical (i mean she's allowed to be i suppose,lol) but these characters were just so much fun!

I love Aunt Hilda for her soft personality and great revenge comebacks. I love Prudence for her aesthetic, character design, and amazing characrer development throughout the series. I love Lilith, for being both a BAMF and. MILF, lolz. And finally, i absolutely adore Zelda's character, for being so poised, calculating, blunt, and yet so very badass and loveable xD I love everything about her character, tbh.

There's so many good quotes from each character, so just watch the show, lol.

Andddd i think that's it! Sorry this was super long, I wanted to state my reasoms for why these characters were on the list, lol. Hope you liked some of my character analysis, feel free to screech with me about shows anytime lol. I'd love more good show recs!

You def don't have to go as hard as I did on this but I tag:

@heathen-beast @iquotetheravennevermore @sweet-communist @gardiewithyou @sawayakakuns @shortlady72 @thatonegirluniverse @thatlowkeyhipster @letting-and-living @beauxxxtifullies @catastrafey

Anyone else can participate if they feel like it! Have fun lol. Let's love our great women characters lol.

#thanks for the tag #tag games #elo speaks #choas #studio ghibli #harry potter #bsd #derry girls #cable girls #naruto #she ra #tomb raider #castlevania #bungou stray dogs

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theradioghost · 6 years

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The Mechanisms

Or, an attempted quasi-masterpost/crash course of content for the gay mythical dieselpunk space pirate band we all deserve in our lives.

The Story

A spacefaring vampire mad scientist and aspiring musican known as Dr. Carmilla once created a group of quasi-mechanical immortals to serve as her backing band. The doc has since has an “accident” with an airlock, but her creations, the Mechanisms, are still driven to perform. So, in their living starship Aurora, they travel the universe, looking for fun if possible, violence when necessary, and hopefully both at once; and performing the stories of what they’ve seen over their long lives.

These stories don’t tend to end happily.

OR, the Mechanisms were a musical cabaret act who performed scifi-genre-mashups which combined spoken-word storytelling and music in queer retellings of myths and fairy tales, in character as a band of morally questionable space pirates. And it’s great.

Crew members included:

Jonny D’Ville, captain first mate and storyteller, former murderous gunslinger with a cold mechanical heart

Ashes O’Reilly, quartermaster and firestarter from the mobster planet Mallone with a pair of mechanical lungs

Drumbot Brian, pilot, launched into space by an uncomprehending world, entirely mechanical except his heart (which now comes with “ends justify means” and “means justify ends” settings)

Gunpowder Tim, master-at-arms, who destroyed the Earth’s moon in the war against the Moon Kaiser three hundred years in the future ago and was given new eyes by the crew

Nastya Rasputina, engineer and last surviving princess (after the Revolution) of the Cyberian empire, dating the ship

Ivy Alexandria, archivist and navigator, with a mechanical brain that remembers everything except her own former life,

Baron Marius von Raum, doctor, not a baron, not a doctor

Raphaella la Cognizi, science officer, has wings, plays piano

The Toy Soldier. Exactly what it says on the tin.

The octokittens.

There may have also been a ninja at some point? I’m honestly not sure?

In late 2019, the Mechs announced that the band would be calling it quits, and they played their final two shows in January of 2020, resulting in the bittersweet and ignoble deaths of the once-immortal crew of the starship Aurora.

Music: aka, Where Can I Listen?

There are 4 main Mechanisms albums, 2 Tales To Be Told collections, and one single. You can buy the whole discography for £5+ pay-what-you-want on their Bandcamp here, which I thoroughly recommend. You can also listen to them on Spotify and on their official Youtube channel!

Tales to be Told and Tales to be Told Vol. II include the backstory songs of many of the crewmembers, as well as some of their other standalone adventures and tales, and a couple of songs tied to the other albums.

Once Upon a Time in Outer Space is Grimmsian fairy tales and nursery rhymes reinterpreted as a sci-fi tragedy about the rebellion against cruel tyrant Old King Cole, lead by Cole’s former general Snow White. Snow’s sister, the warrior Rose, was kidnapped by Cole to be cloned into his unstoppable army, and both Snow and Rose’s bride-to-be Cinders are desperate to free her and overthrow Cole. And then the Mechanisms show up... I often use Our Boy Jack as a song to introduce people to the band.

Ulysses Dies at Dawn is a cyberpunk noir retelling of the Odyssey and assorted Greek myth. In a city that covers a world, where the minds of the dead are imprisoned by the ruling Olympians to run the vast Acheron computer network, bitter war veteran Ulysses is the only one who may have found a way to escape. So, a quartet of menacing Suits have been sent to get the secret out of them -- and out of their strange underground vault -- by any means necessary.

High Noon Over Camelot, an Arthurian space western featuring trans Mordred, polyamorous and morally questionable gunslingers Arthur/Lancelot/Guinevere, Drumbot Brian as a decaying metal Merlin, slightly mad preacher-man Galahad, many good intentions, and few good results; all trapped within an abandoned space station in failing orbit around a star, all hoping to find the mysterious GRAIL in time.

The Bifrost Incident is their cosmic-horror locked-room-mystery take on Norse myth. After leaving for its three-day maiden voyage with all the high and mighty of Asgard onboard and then vanishing for 80 years, Old Lady Odin’s Ratatosk Express has finally arrived, and it’s up to Inspector Lyfrassir Edda to pick apart the black box recordings and discover what really happened. (Notably includes space revolutionary wives Loki and Sigyn, as well as a track where Jonny makes an invocation to Yog-Sothoth sound good somehow.)

and Frankenstein, a single telling the story of Victoria Frankenstein and the AI she built, and how it goes wrong.

In addition, the livestream of their final concert, Death to the Mechanisms, is viewable on their YouTube channel. Said concert also features the amazing Reesha Dyer, whose music can be found here. (As of Feb. 6, 2020, the available version of the livestream cuts out much of the second half of the show; apparently there are alternate versions coming soon.)

More Content Please?

The band’s official site contains profiles of crew members, lyrics for many of their songs, original fiction set in the Mechanisms universe, and other assorted goodies.

If you never had the chance to see them live, the TV Tropes page actually explains a lot of their live show content, as well as more about the crew and the stories.

And if that’s not enough, here’s a YT playlist of many live videos of their shows, including full performances! There’s a lot that doesn’t go on the albums (although I recommend listening to the proper recordings first). Well worth watching to see their antics in-character. (There is not, as far as I know, any full video of High Noon Over Camelot; there is a video of The Bifrost Incident, but as of writing this I don’t have a good link to it.)

& of course there’s the band’s official Twitter and Tumblr, the latter of which in particular contains many delicious and exclusive tidbits.

Related Media & Other Projects By The Crew

Having apparently survived her airlock accident, Dr. Carmilla also has her own music (and describes her musical style as “Retrospective Futuristic Visual Kei”).

The Toy Soldier (Jessica Law) has her own Bandcamp and a mailing list here!

Raphaella (R. L. Hughes) has her own Bandcamp.

Drumbot Brian releases music as Ben Below and Phonovoltaic.

Gunpowder Tim and Brian make music with the company Softwire.

Marius has his own Bandcamp.

Raphaella and the Drumbot have released some music about sad robots under the name Overclockwork.

Jonny D’Ville (Jonny Sims) co-runs a TTRPG company, MacGuffin & Co, whose settings and scenarios I can personally highly recommend. He also writes some kind of podcast.

#my posts #radio free ilium #bobbie recommends things

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supercasey · 5 years

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So I watched Batman Ninja with my buddy Jason the other night...

Under a readmore because I'm screaming and y'all normal people don't need to see this shitshow.

So, like, to begin with; the animation is gorgeous- I will in no way try to deny that- and does a lot of cool things with the art style. You can tell a lot of work went into this movie, and while I personally find it so bad that it's funny, I'm not gonna shit on anyone who likes this film more seriously. (Also, I'm gonna shit on the outfits a lot, so sorry if that comes off as unintentionally racist. I am white and stupid.)

However, other than that... What the shit??? Was that??? I'm still reeling 48 hours later.

The basic plot of this wild ass movie (that I could figure out): Gorilla Grodd has built a time machine so he can go back in time and rule over Feudal Japan and change history (it never really specifies why he chose Japan of all places but go off, DC). He brings Deathstroke (my fav obviously), The Penguin, Two-Face, Poison Ivy, and The Joker + Harley Quinn (because if you want your plans to work you should absolutely bring in the disaster piece of shit that is The Joker).

Also Catwoman is here but from what I can tell it was accidental on her part/I think she's the one who fucked up the time machine??? Unclear.

So everyone goes to the past, including Batman, Alfred, and all the Robins (Nightwing, Red Hood, Red Robin, and Damian Wayne as Robin) (none of the girls but let's be honest, I think they dodged a fucking bullet).

Batman ends up behind everyone else during the time traveling??? Not really explained, but now everyone has been in Japan for two years and Catwoman has depression.

Okay onto me rambling:

They have this scene where every villain gets a title card/one-liner, and everyone else but Deathstroke gets a line that fits their shtick. I feel like they had no idea what to do for a pun/joke, so there's just a literal pause then "... Yeah :)" from Deathstroke. I straight up scream-laughed so fucking hard.

All the Robins look so fucking stupid except for Tim. Nightwing looks like Goku, Red Hood has the tallest bucket on his head I've ever seen, and Damian's hair... good fucking lord.

Also, Damian is completely out of character. The people making this movie, I think, have never read a comic with Damian, and just made him into "annoyingly happy child character that is annoying as all fuck and talks to animals for no reason except Baby" and let me tell you, I got such whiplash from seeing that. Also Damian and Red Hood are apparently voiced by the same guy and my buddy Jason is freaking out about it lmao.

Joker's fucking UGLY next question.

Harley sounds low-key annoying in this film but that might just be me... feels like a lot of people who try to voice her make their voices as high-pitched as possible and it's very grating after awhile.

There's an amnesia plot??? Where Harley and Joker get amnesia after a boat fire??? Red Hood beats the fuck out of them and while I feel bad for Harley, fuck Joker, he can die. They get their memories back by seeing a plant... that looks like Joker's face... as my boy Deathstroke would say: "... Yeah."

There's a clan of Batman ninjas from the past and, tbh, they look pretty fucking cool and I thought they were a really neat concept. Doesn't excuse the bat ghost thing.

OH GOD THE ENDING FIGHT

Through a series of unfortunate events, Gorilla Grodd and all the other villains start fighting each other in giant mechas in order to decide who will rule Japan because of course they do.

My favorite parts from the villain fights:

Two-Face's robot is the shit of nightmares. At one point Deathstroke and Grodd are going at it, Two-Face gets between them, then FLIPS A COIN FOR WHO HE'LL BEAT ON (very in-character I guess but I was still screeching). Btw, he chooses to attack Grodd, and Slade just stands back like "... Yeah :)"

Can you tell that I'm not over that stupid line yet?

PENGUIN HAS SEMI-SENTIENT PENGUINS WORKING ON THE INSIDE OF HIS ROBOT WTF!?!? WHERE DID HE GET THEM!?

Poison Ivy is beautiful, next question.

Okay, back to everything in general:

Grodd reveals that he has been low-key mind controlling all of the other villains this entire time, and that he's the one who made everyone build giant robots. He attempts to take full control of everyone, but Joker does instead. This is maybe the most sane part of this entire goddamn movie.

ALL OF THE ROBOTS MORE OR LESS FORM VOLTRON, LADS!!!

So now our heroes (Batman, the Batsquad, and the Batclan) need to take on this giant robot... so what's a boy to do? Well, if you're Damian Wayne in this movie, you get a magic flute from Grodd after he nearly dies for you, and with the help of your baby monkey friend, summon an army of millions of monkeys that form a giant monkey.

This is a Batman movie. Just thought I'd remind y'all of that.

At first it doesn't work, but don't worry! Another monkey (wearing a pink bow to remind us that she's a girl and the other monkey's love interest) comes and helps Damian play the flute better so the monkeys are better.

Monkeys still aren't enough, so with the power of bats and probably a lot of weed being smoked, the bats that came out of literally nowhere form a giant Batman to punch Voltron.

(Side note: they destroy the arm that Deathstroke was controlling so I don't know why he isn't dead. Never explained. He isn't even really hurt!!!)

The Robins enter Voltron to fight the villains because Joker loses control of everyone: Nightwing vs Penguin, Red Hood vs Deathstroke, and I forget the other match-ups, but nothing matters except that Red Hood walking up to Deathstroke and saying "Tell you what... I'll let you take the first shot" was badass and the best part of the movie.

Too bad we didn't get full fights scenes between everyone 🙃

Batman nearly died??? But lived??? I was so lost at this point and probably should've been paying better attention, but I was too busy trying to convince myself this wasn't a fever dream.

They got back to the present and everyone lived happily ever after, the end :)

Notes: I'm sure I missed some shit but Jesus fucking Christmas, it was a wild ride from start to finish. It was, like, not that great storytelling wise, but it was so bad it was funny??? It was the "The Room" of Animated Batman films.

Batman is a fucking HIMBO in this movie. I dunno how to exactly explain it, but he makes so many stupid ass decisions throughout the movie, it's so funny. When he's trying to blend in with the townsfolk HE LITERALLY CUTS HIS HAIR TO HAVE THE BATSYMBOL ON THE TOP OF HIS FUCKING HEAD!!! WHO APPROVED THIS MOVIE!?!?

I have decided that Deathstroke didn't die because trans rights. Is he canon trans? Well, he is in my heart.

Jason Todd's voice actor did a great job with him, tbh I wish he had been more prominent in the movie.

I literally forgot Tim and Dick were there most of the time they were so unneeded in the plot.

I hated Damian but whatever.

I honestly did enjoy the movie, but probably not for the reasons the creators wanted me to. Again, nothing against the creators, but this was such an odd movie for 90% of it's run time.

7/10 would watch again, if only because it was so funny and nonsensical.

Ratings all together:

Animation: 10/10

Voice Acting: 7/10

Story (If taken seriously): 2/10

Story (if not serious): 8/10

All together; watch this if you're a Batman fan that feels like having a hilarious time and doesn't mind seeing your favorite characters be OOC or doing weird shit. I feel like this movie is best enjoyed on call/while hanging out with friends.

#dcu #dc #batman #bruce wayne #jason todd #damian wayne #tim drake #timothy drake #deathstroke #poison ivy #the penguin #the joker #joker #harley quinn #for jason #supercasey ramblings #thinking of doing a series of me reviewing/talking about batman movies and shows #but I dunno yet

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magicalgirlagency · 6 years

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Okay, so I've seen a couple of posts you've made about repurposing different characters for your magical girl lore and i was curious about the story these guys are all for? The details you give are really interesting to me and I'm always down for more magical girl/boy content so I was hoping I could learn a little bit more about it?

It’s good to know that you enjoy my brainstorms!

Okay, so its premise is about a universe that was abruptly reset after two goddesses have bent the rules; one goddess BARELY changed things and contribuited to a hurtful cycle, and the other one went insane and changed everything to fit her selfish and petty ideals (does that description rings a bell to you…?)

In this new universe, magic is everywhere and everyone can see it; but only those who are considered worthy can properly use it. The Magical Guardians (or Magis, for short) are humans blessed with superpowers, assigned with the task of protecting Earth from an ancient outworldly threat, the Incubators (yes, I have no qualms in making my hatred towards MadoMagi public)

The Incubators’ goals are still the same: to gather energy through acts of entropy. However, they seem to have evolved and adapted as the time went by (let’s not forget that they have been around Earth since the beginning of the times in the original series). Their cute critter forms is now nothing but a disguise to fool innocent people and steal their energy; when a Magi discovers a Incubator, the alien transforms into a unusual looking monster. Their monster forms tends to vary; they can look like cartoony inanimate objects (like the monsters in PreCure), feral mutants (like the corrupted Gems in Steven Universe), or weird humanoid monsters (like the several monsters from 90′s Sailor Moon).

The aliens’ target are still young women; however, they are very bigoted in their perception of what makes one a woman (in other words, if you are trans, genderqueer or whatever else, they won’t target you).

The Higher Beings thought they have been gone for good when they reseted everything, but it seems that they were wrong. Afraid that history may repeat itself again, they decide to train and recruit pure-hearted and heroic humans to fight them.

The Magis can be anyone you know, no matter the age, sexuality or nationality. They are given the options to start their training at a early age or late if they want (as you can see, they work on the same vein of a Pokémon Trainer). There is also types of Magis, known as Lumi, that are born with magic within them; these types are very rare, though.

Some work in groups, some work alone. Some have mascots, some don’t. Some are young, some are old. To identify a Magi, you must look closely in their eyes; if you see stars in them, you’ve successfully spotted a Magi.

Most Magis are young women fighting to earn their space in a hurtful sexist society, and male Magis (vulgarly known as Magical Boys) are rare due sexism and humiliation, but they surely exist.

Their standard henshin speech is “Magia Transform”, and once the Magi says this, they are magically scanned into their magical persona (think of the scanning halo in the transformation sequence in P&SwG).

They are equipped with a magical compact that act as communicators, radar and GPS, and disguise materialization, and their standard powers are crystalomancy, light projection/molding and ribbon materializing (think of Happiness Charge PreCure and DC’s Green Lantern).

A Magi is trained into magic and/or fighting; some are fighters, some are entertainers, but they don’t falter from their original duties of kind-hearted helpers. They can be whatever they want to be (a warrior, a witch, a robot, a fortuneteller, a ninja, and many other aesthetics), and mascots can graduate into Magis themselves as well (like how some PreCure fairies and mascots can become Magical Girls themselves).

Planet Earth is stage to many stories, with diverse protagonists; however, the main character of the show is a young woman born surrounded by mystical energies and her unusual yet magical friends (I’m still in doubt on how many teammates the main crew should have, though…), who have decided on building a business dedicated on helping others with their magic, no matter how big or how small the task may be.

The Magis have a hub world where they can be assigned to their missions, or simply just hang out, named Wondaria. This magic dimension is a solarpunk society, constantly evolving for the good of their inhabitants (it has become a haven to safety to Earth’s minorities, as of late). Being a Magi is a job that pays in this world, too.

In the heart of Wondaria, there is the city of Artemundo, where is located the Magi Headquarters (a.k.a The Gaia Division), where Magis are sent to their missions through Warp Pads (in the same vein as Crash Bandicoot and Steven Universe). After the job is finished, the earthlings are paid with small crystals known as Credits (or Creds, for short). They can be converted into regular money for one’s convenience, too.

The plot thickens as a rebellious runaway princess comes into the scene, who has traveled through many dimensions and wants to implant a system to expand the magic dimension of Wondaria into multiversal heights by pin-pointing other dimensions and meeting ever-growing casts of non-Magi heroes, and create bonds with amicable monsters, making them allies to the Magis and protectors to the humans.

My story is basically a product of spite and self-indulgence; I wanted to throw loads of shades and jabs at edgy Magical Girl stories (specially at MadoMagi and Raising Project). Other inspirations include OK KO, Kids Next Door, Kingdom Hearts, Pokémon, Super Smash Bros., Happiness Charge PreCure, Boku no Hero Academia, Little Witch Academia, and Jump Force (scheduled to be released in February 2019).

I also want to subvert some tropes in the Magical Girl genre, and some other non-MG series. I want to do the job that Steven Universe and Voltron have failed to do.

I want a story about breaking the norm, unwavering optimism and righteous anger, having zero shame in self-indulgency, defying fate, second chances to those who truly deserve it, gradual healing, self-discovery, love in every form and aspect other than just romantic, proper development and growth, fun and exciting adventures with zero consequences and punishments for wanting to be heroes, and misfits and underdogs getting their happy endings.

I mean, I would make it if my skills weren’t so limited. If someone wants to make a collab with me, hit me up anytime.

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cryoflyte · 6 years

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WE WERE WARNED

I was going to tweet this but it turns out Twitter only lets you thread up to 25 tweets in a draft. That’s insufficient. So fuck it, I’ll do it here. I’ve been ranting about this since season 1 (back when it looked like just a tiny blip on an otherwise great show, rather than our first warning sign that these people might have no fucking clue what they’re doing), it’s actually managed to get worse since then, I’m not over it, I’m not getting over it.

Gather round, dear Voltron Twitterati (or tumblrati or whatever y’all are called around here). Let Cryo the Salt Phoenix regale you with ALL the reasons why Pidge's gender flip being a plot twist was, and remains, completely fucking stupid.

First, a couple of external biases to acknowledge:

1) I feel Pidge was the worst possible character to gender flip, precisely because it was so obvious. He's spent 30+ years getting "lol DotU Pidge wore a headband and had a squeaky voice, maybe he was a girl!" jokes. Buying into them is a disservice to both the character, and the stated idea that VLD Pidge is supposed to represent people who don't fit a norm. Okay sure, you took the character who got mocked for not sufficiently conforming to his gender, flipped him, then went "look how our Pidge represents not fitting in with the norms!" Nah, guys. Not how it works.

2) ...of course that's if you believe them suddenly saying Pidge is supposed to represent people who don't conform to begin with. All we heard in the beginning was "We wanted to make him a girl! Look, he's a girl! Girl, girl, girl! No, not trans, not nonbinary, GIRL! Look how smart we are for making him a girl!" That and how Lauren didn't like DotU Pidge, so she decided she needed to make him more appealing. To her. Which...

3) Pidge has, in all prior canons (possibly excluding DDP? Was it ever fully explained there?), been an alien. In VF (which supposedly Lauren did watch but didn't like him any better in) he was explicitly an alien ninja. So, you know, forgive me for being a little bitter that we got "the only way to make Pidge appealing is make him a girl. Now here, have five seasons of Keith the alien ninja!"

4) My complaint is not really against the concept of gender flipping Pidge. Had they done it upfront as they did the changes to Sven and Allura, I'd have been somewhat irked for the aforementioned reasons, but hey, new reboot, new rules. My complaint is about them lying to our faces for three months (up to and including Bex bluntly saying "Pidge is a boy" in an interview) in service of perhaps the most pointless plot twist in franchise history.

And that brings me to our feature presentation. Get the popcorn, y'all, I've got the salt.

Someone name for me a single solitary moment, watching the first three episodes, where there was even a hint that Pidge was wrestling with his (gonna use male pronouns until the reveal) identity. No, not "oh hey if you go back with knowledge of the twist this was foreshadowing it!" A point where prior to knowing about the twist you went "huh, what is Pidge not telling the rest of the team?" and it was NOT answered by him revealing that Commander Holt was his father. Seriously—please point one out to me. Pidge's premise is very consistent in the first three (and a bit beyond, but I'll get to that) episodes: he has his own reasons and priorities for being there, he'll do the bare minimum of teamwork necessary to achieve his own mission, and he's not there to make friends. Everything he does is consistent with this read. Nothing is pointing to further complexity, him hiding something totally unrelated. There's the picture, but it's at best confusing: I just figured it was his brother with HIS girlfriend, to be honest. Were we really intended to interpret a sad look at an ambiguous photograph as "Pidge is hiding another completely different big secret related to that picture!" rather than "Pidge is sad about his family, like he keeps saying"?

It would have been simplicity itself to add actual hints. Instead of Hunk just presenting "look, it's his girlfriend!" as fact when he finds the picture, "who's the girl? She's cute!" and have Pidge get defensive over that. When they're putting on their armor, maybe skip Hunk making the first of 500 throwaway fat jokes in favor of Pidge looking uncomfortable at the thought of, you know... changing in front of the others? Have him duck behind the armor case? Do something. Do ANYTHING.

Even after the internal reveal in episode 3, we get nothing. Allura specifically drills her about "hey, do you have a big personal secret?" and she doesn't look the slightest bit worried or defensive, she just looks confused. Pidge is not that good an actress, we know that from Lance having to save her butt back at the Garrison. Also from seven seasons of watching her complete inability to keep her emotions in check, ever.

Pidge's internal struggle is never once presented as being about her gender, or about how the team thinks of her. It's about whether she's going to put aside her own personal priorities for the sake of the team. This is the struggle that's been built up. This is the struggle that she's invoked and settled in the climactic moment with Haxus: "I'm not a child. I'm a paladin of Voltron!" Haxus could just as easily have called her a "little girl" if we were supposed to be reading any sort of gender conflict into this.

(Of course as it is Haxus didn't know she was a girl—more on that later—but that's purely arbitrary. A show that wanted to sell Pidge having a gender conflict would have made Haxus realize she was a girl, especially given Coran's "we were supposed to think you were a boy?" in the next episode. You can’t just pretend it’s so obvious then have nobody else notice it ever.)

Now, I of course acknowledge not every worthy plot twist has to be able to be guessed by the audience prior to the reveal. But it doesn't work here. Because here's the reveal: Pidge is all "I was afraid you'd think differently of me" and the whole team is all "of course not!" and that's that.

Wait, she was WHAT now?

We have not seen Pidge struggling with this. At ALL. There is zero emotional weight to this scene because there were absolutely no stakes shown. You cannot have her say "I've been worried you'd think of me differently" when you haven't fucking shown her worrying that they'd think of her differently. This is writing 101, guys. And then Shiro is all "owning who you are is going to make you a better Paladin"—WHEN HASN'T SHE? Literally the thing she's been shown struggling to accept is THAT SHE'S A PALADIN! Not that she's a girl!

This reveal is bad. It's so, so bad. The only way I could make sense of it after first watching it was assuming they'd wanted to make her trans and chickened out at the last second. Nothing said in this scene seems to be part of the same show we've been watching for the past five episodes. It's not clever or interesting, it's just bizarre.

But now let's take a step back. Because in order to set up this terrible, pointless, non-event of a plot twist, we have also done great violence to certain characters. We have turned Pidge and basically all of Galaxy Garrison into morons.

Is Pidge not supposed to be a genius? What exactly was her thought process here? The whole wide world of possible disguises was open to her, and she went "I know! I'll pretend to be a boy, and I'll make myself look identical to my brother, the famously MIA space explorer. Nobody will catch on." Really, Katie? You couldn't buy some hair dye, maybe a spray tan?

And then nobody fucking does catch on. The Kerberos mission is so well-known it's being used as an object lesson for cadets, Pidge flips out every time the mission is brought up, and not one person thinks "hey, this kid who looks exactly like Matt Holt totally freaks out whenever the mission Matt Holt disappeared on is mentioned." This does not hold up if you think about it for more than two seconds.

Why does she even need to look like Matt for meta purposes? Oh right, because of the picture that was attempting to carry the entire load of this twist. Great. That's totally worth the blatant insult to everyone’s intelligence, not to mention the affront to common sense.

On that note, one specific point of the disguise: why does Pidge wear glasses? We know she doesn't need them. She takes them off to wear her helmet, Katie never wore them. And sure, they make her look less like Katie Holt... but they make her look more like Matt Holt. This was fairly weird even in season 1. It only gets weirder when we finally meet up with Matt.

Oh hey, guys. She's not just wearing a pair of fake glasses that make her look more like her famously MIA brother. She's wearing his literal glasses. Which, incidentally, we know are functional prescription glasses because he says he doesn't need them anymore because the Garrison fixed his eyes.

How many people did this go through without anyone pointing out that wearing glasses you don't need actively fucks with your vision?

Yes, I know this is a show about alien space cats that I'm holding to standards of opthalmological realism. But most television manages to understand how glasses work. And again, it's just pointless. Why not just have Katie wear glasses to begin with? Oh right, because we need the guy in the picture to wear glasses and the girl not to because SMART PEOPLE DOING A PLOT TWIST, DERP!

It didn't work, guys. It didn't work at all. You know how people figured it out early? Because you gave her a female VA and we've had thirty years of "lol Pidge looks like a girl" so hey look, the picture confirms the meta theory that people were pitching even before we saw the character designs. Doesn't add even a shred of impact to the reveal. The only way to add impact to the reveal was if she’d actually been worrying that the others wouldn’t accept her being a girl. But no.

And after all this dumb, what exactly is there to show for it? Well... nothing. Nobody else in the show knows she's a girl. Aliens consistently refer to her as male. The team has used female pronouns for her what, once in seven seasons? Miss the right four episodes and even a viewer wouldn't have a clue.

Don't get me wrong, I respect the stated rationale that gender shouldn't matter. Know how else they could've shown that? JUST MAKING HER A GIRL IN THE FIRST PLACE. I mean, if they're going to crow about how brilliant they are for "plot twist, she's a girl!" maybe people should at least be able to tell she's a girl after said twist. Or hey, even better, they could make her trans, or genderfluid, or non-binary, put in some rep that would actually be brave and interesting. But no, instead we get "she's totally a cis girl, but it doesn't matter and nobody can tell because she's there to represent people who don't fit neatly into a box!" That's pretty much the worst of all options, guys. Good job.

And then everyone went “OMG yes! You made Pidge a girl! Yay rep, you’re so smart!” without the slightest shred of critical thought on how it was handled, while a tiny handful of us hoped it was just a fluke, the product of a showrunner pet project that didn’t signify anything for the rest of the series.

Then we got Keith’s Galra reveal, which somehow managed to be even worse.

Then we got season 4 making the bulk of season 3 immediately irrelevant.

Then we got two years on a space whale.

Then we got season 7, where everything is garbage.

Every season has just been more and more ridiculous plot twists in place of character or consistency. It turns out nope, if we wanted to see where this show was going, the horrible Pidge twist was the ONLY part of season 1 we should’ve looked at. Let the salt flow freely.

Okay, I think that's it. Thank you for coming to my TED talk?

#voltron salt #voltron legendary defender #voltronlegendarydefender #voltron #vld pidge #we were warned #pidge was a way better alien ninja #hey lauren your plot twists suck #this would've been the best tweetstorm

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disclosure.

for @lgbtmntweek, some absolute nonsense about five queer gendered kids and one cis (but gay) kid having a full disclosure session to just avoid any over-dramatic revelations. literally nothing but nice things, for once in my writing career.

“Wait, wait wait wait wait,” Casey says, holding up both hands and stopping the entire conversation in its tracks. He looks at April, then at Raph and Donnie, and then back at April. Like he has for the last thirty seconds as all three of them awkwardly tried to explain the two brothers, before things ended up revealed in a less controlled situation.

Casey points around April, towards Raph and Donnie. “April, these guys are the other trans kids you know? Seriously?”

“Gender dysphoria is, as it turns out, not limited to the human experience,” Donnie says in a dry, somewhat defensive tone.

“Is this going to be a problem?” Raph asks in a definitely defensive tone, poorly hidden by derisiveness. “Because that’ll be the shittiest hypocrisy I’ve heard all year. Even over Mikey’s rule about double-dipping in the chip sauce.”

“I’m the one who makes it for you ungrateful people, I can do what I want with it!” Mikey exclaims from his and Leo’s side of the couch. The joke almost lightens the mood, but doesn’t do anything from their subtle readiness to step in, in case this is going to be a problem.

Casey shakes his head, zero judgement in his expression. “Nope, no problem. Just a little surprised? I mean, you guys pass really well. I wouldn’t’ve guessed.”

Donnie and Raph exchange glances, and shrug. Very subtle relief passes between them as they do; mostly because they’ve all been skirting the Talk about this for a few weeks, despite knowing that the risk of rejection was very low concerning Casey.

“It’s not like we adhere to mammalian gender normative appearances anyway,” Donnie says factually. His word choices are still a bit lengthy; betraying his lingering anxiety about the situation. “Unless you’re someone who’s spent their life studying reptilian anatomy, I doubt anyone would guess in casual passing.”

“And passing is sort of the goal, so we wouldn’t want people to guess anyways,” Raph adds, feeling a little more relaxed than Donnie. Then, with a smirk, “And you don’t do so bad with passing yourself, Jones.”

Casey grins proudly. “Blockers and binders, since eleven. I’ve got it down pretty pat, and my mom did have a bit of stick figure. So lucky genetics and cool parents made it an okay transition, really. Plus my team was really supportive.”

“Sensei was really great about it, too,” Raph says, sharing an elbow nudge with Donnie. “He even read a bunch of articles and books about it when we got around to telling him.”

“He’s surprisingly very open minded for a traditional Japanese ninja,” Donnie says brightly.

April sighs a tad wistfully. “I wish my book club had been. And my old school.”

Casey puts an arm across her shoulders, ignoring the narrow look he gets from Donnie for the action. “Screw them, ours right now is kickass about this stuff. They got a gender neutral bathroom and everything.”

“Oh, really?” Leo asks with interest, glancing at Mikey. “Weren’t you talking about those the other day?”

“Yeah, and we should definitely get one,” Mikey says seriously. “Inclusivity is important.”

“Mikey… our bathroom is already gender neutral.”

“We need to make it official, though. With a sign.”

“I could make one,” Donnie suggests. “I have some scrap metal lying around.”

Mikey lights up, running off a collection of symbols he’s already memorized for the idea, and Leo rolls his eyes. There’s no real difference to him whether or not the sign is there, but if it makes Mikey, Raph, and Donnie happy, then why not?

April claps her hands abruptly. “Okay, so as great as all this trans male and gender-fluid solidarity is, if we could by chance find a trans girl in the future, I’d really appreciate the company, thanks.” Her words are a joke, but the sentiment is sincere.

“We’ll work on it,” Donnie says with a laugh, sneakily pinching Casey’s hand and forcing the other teen to remove it from April’s shoulder. He and Casey trade glares over April’s head, and she sighs under her breath, because teenage boys.

“Wait,” Casey says, breaking his staring contest with Donnie and backtracking mentally with the conversation. “Gender-fluid? Which one of you is that??”

“Me~!” Mikey says, all but singsong. Leo gestures vaguely at Mikey as well, fondly exasperated.

“Oh, should I have been using a different pronoun then?” Casey asks, sitting forwards and seeming a little concerned.

Mikey waves him off, smiling easily. “Nah, I’m good with pretty much anything under the sun. Gender’s just a social construct, after all. You just go with what feels right, and I feel a-okay with any gender.”

“I’m the boring cis sibling,” Leo offers dryly, not looking perturbed at all by that fact.

“And we love you anyways!” Mikey says, sliding over and giving Leo a one-sided hug. A bubble of laughter comes from Donnie and Raph at that, easy humor about a familiar and regular joke among their family.

Casey nods, sitting back against the couch again. As the conversation flows back to making a sign for the bathroom- “I think we’re gonna need MULTIPLE signs, since we got multiple genders around here!” “But can we please ask Sensei before we start drilling holes in the door? Please??”- April nudges Casey’s side and smiles at him.

“Told you they were cool,” She says, remembering when she and Casey had first started studying together- the two of them somewhat suspicious that they’d been matched up simply because of their identities. Even when she’d been furious with the brothers, she hadn’t been able to help herself mentioning the mutual support she’d found with them to Casey.

Casey grins, and looks utterly comfortable with their surrounding social group. “Sure did, Red. Shame I punched ‘em in the face first time we met, though.”

April grins back. “They got over it.”

Over her head, Donnie glares very clearly that he has not. Casey cheekily smiles back, very clear that he doesn’t actually regret anything.

Witness to both pointed gazes, Raph rolls his eyes at the ceiling the same time as April does.

#i miss season 1-2 bc those months were pure ones #My writing #tmnt #tmnt 2012 #lgbtmntweek #transgender things plus a side of genderfluid support #side side of cissex support #just support in general #working title for this was 'trans kids unanonymous' lmao #team as family #team as squad

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