#gonna keep rotating this concept in my mind

[ladyluscinia]

Ok, Dark Sea God Izzy thoughts...

Edward can't forget what Izzy is - being trapped in the middle of a burning ship and knowing death is coming only to have a god offer to save you... well that leaves an impression - but he tries not to think about it too much. Both for the aforementioned horror and because (he'll die before admitting this to another soul) everything happened so fast and chaotic that he doesn't fully remember what he agreed to. He just wanted to live.

Izzy, meanwhile, didn't actually intend to stay by Edward's side for decades. He grabbed a perfectly serviceable corpse, fixed it up, and then only meant to watch his new devotee / partner / master for a bit. But he hadn't actually been in a form much like a human in so long, he kinda forgot what it was like and everything was so novel. It was fun. He got distracted, and then by the time he remembered he'd planned to go back to the water he was fully enamored.

I like the fear thing. Maybe Izzy can only more directly do Sea God type things when part of or at minimum in the sea, so a lot of his day to day powers are more subtle and (initially) underwhelming then you'd expect from an eldritch being. Things like Fear. I also like the idea he can inflict people with Thirst (the saltwater kind).

He can talk to Button's seagulls but he refuses to unless they pay respects. Which they won't, because he's doing a stellar job of pretending not to be a god and also seagulls are stingy.

I think he should have eaten someone at least once. Sacrificial offering and all that. Or maybe he just makes a habit of licking spilled blood off his fingers and looking way too thrilled about it.

Back to the whole devotee / partner / master thing, literally neither of them knows who is actually in charge in this magic arrangement, assuming anyone is. Izzy is doing the thing where he's got an entirely different frame of reference, so "serving" Edward is not something he has to do or sees as work. He just wants to. But of course Edward occasionally remembers Izzy could change his mind and then that tricky little blood oath he owes him could come up again.

#our flag means death #gonna keep rotating this concept in my mind #also to get back to my original fixing wild takes via magic... izzy doesn't know how weather works because he controls it #but like - on accident. you can't 'predict' the weather don't be absurd. it just does things randomly based on his mood #izzy hands ofmd #blackbeard ofmd #sea god izzy #fic concepts #ladyluscinia #blackhands

[unproduciblesmackdown]

have more precise & coherent words about it lately lmao so just kind of musing uponst how the concept that rian & winston for like five minutes were Sharing [media discussion] with each other & apparently willing to / already having hung out Outside Of Work to do this, and all this being more personal than their being Work Friends at most perhaps / coworkers interacting over work matters, and then the fact that This Is Shown To Change Nothing About Their Dynamic either by altering it overall or particularly adding anything new & different (& improved), and kind of topped off by this being the last moment of Quant Duo we get all season when that is definitely supposed to be a particular unit/dynamic around here, all = just really solidifying the Takeaway of how the dynamic operates here lol given that season 6 sure felt like a “okay well let’s see where they take this” situation, and then going “oh. okay” when a) not only is it that rian continues to hurt winston for fun when like in universe (and out...) it’s been Plany Off Time but b) that (a) is true While we see that More Personal kind of interaction b/w the duo that Would Be one of friendship, except that all it ends up being is another data point of a different kind of scenario that shows that rian’s treatment of winston isn’t contingent on them Just As Proximate Coworkers, i.e. she won’t reconfigure that treatment if she wants anything more personal / enters into a more personal realm w/him, and that now this was apparently just another realm in which winston can have rian get something from him / wherein he’s just More Vulnerable and this is taken advantage of to keep him as someone to get something from rather than like, oh, i’m going to be considerate & careful of this person’s vulnerability that i have access to b/c i respect them as a person & am not just interested in my having control over this dynamic to get what i want out of it, & i don’t want to hurt them....it’s right in the “rian wants to, can, & does hurt winston for fun” lol

like, it’s seemingly one of those occasions like oh they’re acting like actual friends, rian’s apparently talking to him normally as a Peer in terms of [this is another person], but even in those times it’s like. there’s probably meant to be Nonzero degree in which they Are kind of actually peers, Sometimes. things like “rian is willing to stand near/next to him / chooses to do so sometimes” like, just the highest bar to vault over there lmao; other people regarding them as a unit/duo ever; other high bars like “hey there they are in the bg of a group shot both talking to the same person (ben)” like, fucking society if both quants were kinda friends for real & in turn friends with the team ben duo who are kinda friends for real, way too galaxy brained & potentially [uh oh, employees to pwn have unionized] or whatever i guess....But it also seems like, really, when we glimpse / get reference to rian interacting with winston Earnestly, there’s a pattern wherein it’s just that, in that moment, that’s the way to Get Something that she wants from him, which generally just seems to be validation re: going like “wuh oh / what’s up with that” re: taylor or some other work matters. closest we get to something being on winston’s terms is 5x07 or 6x05 where taylor basically goes up to winston first, but then rian just happens to come over to then get the Real Substance of the interaction after winston’s gotten to provide a little exposition, ft. taking an aside to bemusingly insult him in the latter episode even. like, walking through further examples, obviously first ep of season 6 like, oh they’re peers and even united in taylor supporting until rian shoves winston under the bus for no reason & at least just so happens to Win at being that loyal employee for it i guess, b/c winston just clearly sucks, and winston has no recourse, higher ups are getting in on it & will validate/reward insulting him to elevate yourself &/or your Correct, Admirable, Meritous perspective on other already elevated people. that there’s no function to rian not letting winston claim some hobby he could feasibly have Except He’s A Loser, except [jokes] i guess, and that it’s that already established pattern that she pwns him for fun, And another instance of some hypothetical boundary she won’t exercise restraint for, that is, pwning him in front of the new higher ups, now zero restraint for pwning him in front of like, everyone. next episode yeah sure they can work together no problem, but rian Will also insult him over nothing on a dime, Again in front of higher ups, and won’t blink when winston implies a) she’s been hurting him and b) he thinks she’s been Trying to hurt him (and lbr, (c), that she’s continuing to hurt him despite trying to claim otherwise. Normal Times when you think your situation / dynamic with someone could improve if they don’t feel they’re getting the Rewards of knowing they’re hurting you), now i have to remember what they do in episode four, think i always have trouble w/that one....oh right, burn rate lmao. well she doesn’t actually try to get anything from him there, and actually kind walks back something for once but probably not b/c she doesn’t want to hurt him More than she meant to with the sarcasm, but b/c it’s like, well the priority is just making sure winston doesn’t Really try to spend time with you. quite the illustration of how a Serious, Worthy Character can do some shit that everyone else is like “yeah that’s fine & cool” about, winston’s cringe for pointing out her wayward packing efforts, taylor just conveniently waiting for his joke exposition providing moment to end before talking about like careers or whatever involves no like “seriously what tf are you doing” though i suppose they’re at least consistently flexible about their quants doing Whatever on the job lol. ep 5, they’re both doing work shit actually & on the same page but That Doesn’t Matter, rian gets to pwn winston, when winston diverges from rian in just being so hyped & taken with taylor eking out wins despite it all, that means nothing for his character rather than rian’s Discontent Thread (that apparently doesn’t really go anywhere. i guess it’s supposed to be related to hugging in the end even though like, is it....ugh. the curse), rian obviously isn’t interested in like oh hmm why do you think that, what’s your perspective as someone who’s been working w/taylor since before tmc. 6x06 is so fucking outright lmfao like she’s Actually taken something tangible from him and winston is just in the corner with no recourse. his boss isn’t like “hey rian could you not take people’s personal artifacts for your pitch. or ever,” he Asks rian for his phone back and she won’t hear it, she’ll direct a smile at him over her shoulder as her business pitch seems to be going well and then go :/ at him at the end of the scene seemingly about taylor / it Not going well, only to switch to exasperation / disinterest and disengagement when she remembers like oh ugh i guess he wants his shit back....6x07 is really a high point and perhaps not only an outlier but a fluke / one that should not be counted lol, but it can be interpreted as In Line with everything else. the quants are having a Peers / Amicable interaction b/c they’re on the same page about a work issue & about confronting taylor with the matter; rian can Again get validation about what she already thinks b/c it does happen to align with what winston thinks, also. the outliership just comes in the form of how she Doesn’t actually insult him in this episode, always a rare occasion, but he gets a little invalidation when for some reason taylor won’t let him finish his sentence, as though talking about nuts is too rude around here suddenly. on the upside, maybe i can stand to use the drinks clink gif again. something would have to deserve it though. maybe i’ll use it if the goosebumps album gets a grammy, win or nomination, idc. anyways 6x08 they only interact to be a parallel duo, then rian looks to winston for “you’re on the same page here and so might validate my apprehension, right?” purposes, which is amicable enough but again like On Her Terms and it could be understood to be within that specific realm of [rian can treat him as a peer in a specific moment b/c that Validation is something she can get from him when she wants it right then]. 6x09 they’re both absent, rip. rip for the fact my most nightmarish ideas about what we might’ve really hoped 6x08 Didn’t contain about like, [uh oh rian might wanna try partying & sex to unwind from work & that’s wags’ forte. it would be wretched if the latter especially was too wags adjacent, please] turned out to still be easily superior & preferable to what we’d get when our guards were down. it’s at least more  characterful & potentially has a shred of humor when i think of the horrors, so nice job there billions. instead we get something wherein rian’s motivations or character qualities can only be understood in the context of her material wholly Serving the writing of another character’s. which, it’d be a silver lining if her material with Taylor felt mutually characterful, but it also again seems most comprehensible when rian’s writing is pretty much All thought of as serving taylor’s, which like, shoutout to taylor’s writing to be sure, but w/the lack of anything clear abt rian’s character, it’s almost as uncertain what tf taylor’s material involving her is really about like, ever. all the nigh schisming for nothing? perhaps. that rian being that Workplace Bully and/or perhaps Something of An Abusive Friend towards winston is the most characterful thing she has going on Because winston is Not treated as more of a character than she is, and god knows if this’ll ever be Treated as character material for rian rather than [it’s just jokes] when a) she’s also pretty much a plot device for other characters just as much as winston is, she’s just also someone other characters can have regular conversations with b/c she’s Serious / Deserving or whatever, vs. winston as a joke who needs rian to intervene if someone like taylor is talking to him, so that we know like, no, for real, there’s Substance here. and b) it may be Just Jokes forever, i can’t trust the writing’s perspective to say oh i’m Sure they have as much analysis about this dynamic, and furthermore, i’m Sure they’ll eventually frame it as something other than a joke even for a moment 

and even if they Did do a Rug Pull like, whoops, here winston Is presented as as much a character / person as other characters are, funny that [character is a character] would be a rug pull when like, the only sort of flat cartoon Really Not Written As A Person(tm) is spyros, winston is written too sympathetically still even if he’s still always the butt of jokes and Not given character arcs besides in season three to explain taylor hiring him, actually. and like, that rug pull has not & may never happen, and in the meantime, it’s just this miserable dynamic that doesn’t even get framed as such necessarily lol, it being Just jokes sure is a perspective that aligns w/rian’s, in that this is not important and she nor anybody else has to regard any of this seriously, and of course, in this case, the “this” that’s unimportant and needn’t be taken seriously is “winston as a person affected by the way he’s treated,” even if this were something limited to like, workplace hostility, rather than the bonus personal component to the dynamic that adds another dimension of vulnerability through which winston Can be hurt

episode ten is like, again there’s rian looking to winston for validation via Agreement on some “what’s up with this work related shit, am i right?” and when he doesn’t give that response, she may as well Get Something Else Out Of Him, which is insulting him, ft. the potential interpretation that she’s pwning him about being autistic, or Like / “as good as” an nd person, with the Parallel Play remark. tbt the fact they do have winston keep interpreting people, including rian in burn rate, more literally than that person intends. the twentysomethings these days know about Nd Behavior Concepts and Will pwn their autistic coworker thus Appropriately....even when rian is like, oh i wanna get obsessed w/analyzing your movie too, it’s Despite the fact that winston is also into it. and then when we actually see winston being so arrogant as to think he’s allowed to get in on a tmc chat too, and trying to talk about the shit he and rian have Already been talking about, he’s analyzing with a brick wall here b/c rian has serious things to worry about like feeling responsible for the feelings / ego of someone higher up in the hierarchy here, namely, taylor, but dw she’s just doing that Naturally b/c even if taylor does something someone could be really put off by here / feel uncomfortable and even wronged about / they also manage to do it super awkwardly it’s like, none of that counts as negatives b/c they are one of the more meritous winners around here, like how i guess it’s gonna be such a surprise that the most apparently meritous winningest rando of all around here could actually suck or something? you never fucking know what billions is trying to do what with [we can have it both ways (fucks up both ways)] and perhaps the way a consistent sense of Character for anyone is handled too flexibly for the sake of letting xyz happen instead, like, see, now your subsequent character material (which may itself be important for providing like, any context for other material) is kind of indecipherable, and unforch the only cipher for rian’s material that seems to give consistent results Is “don’t look to consistent character threads as explanations for what she’s got going on in any given scene / episode / arc, look to her serving as a plot device for something else, her writing is always This Way in any given moment b/c it is primarily centered around serving this other writing that’s mostly about some other character, if anything”

anyways the point is that, if they were like, actual personal friends now for bonding over a shared interest and hanging out personally / outside work, rian might treat winston a little differently and let him down easier about “can’t / don’t want to talk about that right now, sorry” in a way that cares about his feelings at all. it’s Again just like, she doesn’t want that from him anymore, so it’s right back to the usual way she can get Something from him rn, which is the fun of hurting him, so now it’s like, oh shut up you’re stupid you’re bad at the interest that was yours in the first place & why was i talking to you before, i won’t be talking to you about it again. like Oh Kay. and then like, winston might’ve Only been shoved away from the tmc trifecta for the last couple eps so that taylor and rian could have their Serious bemusing to accursed material, but if he Is choosing that distance at all / things won’t Reset entirely at the start of s7 where he’s Not now perhaps defaulting to tuk when it comes to his Hopes For Positive / Personal Interactions, then like, well Good considering the circumstances here lmao, but B/c it’d be good, like, probably won’t be allowed to happen. and b/c again like, whoops, rian’s interactions w/winston are Still her most characterful thing going on. “shoutout” to that ep eleven moment where it’s just the most breakneck turnaround from [rian wants validation via Agreement from winston about work matters] to [rian wants the rewards of being able to hurt winston] like, the moment he’s elaborating At All beyond just going “haha um yeah sure” then the only thing making it Not A Waste Of Time for rian is being able to undermine winston like, talking about himself with too much inherent validation lmao, and just call him obnoxious when who fucking asked....but “who asked” and [the implication that winston could’ve Stopped at “haha um yeah sure”] are Inaccuracies in that i don’t expect rian to Give Up The Power in the dynamic that would be required for her to even stick to mutually agreed upon Rules, nothing’s Stopping you from having the perspective that any other person isn’t a person and deserves every negative interpretation / treatment in the world, As Though winston brings it upon himself & thus could do anything on his own to get rian to choose to see him & this situation completely differently & start treating him like One Person To Another, rather than him as her chew toy or punching bag on any given day, whether b/c she thinks that’ll boost her on the social hierarchy which’ll help her careerwise (it will, probably), whether b/c she’s just taking out a lack of her own power Otherwise on him b/c like well the only solution can be bootstrapping it & making your Own opportunities for personal empowerment, like, bully someone =) gatekeep gaslight lmao, so long as you decide that that’s like, inherently acceptable behavior / an inherently acceptable perspective on other people....or just the reward that is enjoying having the power / control in its own right, regardless of any further context of Motivation or Why someone would choose to pursue & exercise that. she doesn’t have to Think she “hates” winston to not see or treat him as a person and to have fun hurting him on purpose, but does how she thinks she Feels about anything matter here when like, if anything, flippancy about the situation is just another form of disdain for him; when noting that Rian Exercises Control In The Dynamic & Rian Gets Things From Winston In The Dynamic, Both Unilaterally doesn’t rely on answering “but like, does rian do this out of personal loathing for him all the time or any given time” to be accurate. like, not like this is Likable Behavior, but when i ponder abt say like, transformatively exploring all this matter, i’m hardly interested in (or want to, especially when canon is doing rian’s character like this (not a character; The Curse)) being like whoa rian’s definitely someone just consciously being an asshole or whatever....it doesn’t Really matter Unless the focus is on like, rian’s personal narrative here, which it can be, but my hypothetical focus is Winston’s Experience Based On What We’re Seeing wherein they Do have this unilateral dynamic wherein rian has control and gets things from winston, who’s often hurt, and has no real recourse here, besides like yeah he could quit his job i guess, which isn’t Really an option that doesn’t involve him having to give up yet more / make himself more vulnerable / hurt him, since apparently so far he wants to keep said job....rian Could be operating with like peak awareness of just paramount malice towards winston, or she Could be operating with None, b/c the conscious justification she holds for pwning winston for her personal enrichment whenever she feels like it is that it’s essentially No Harm Done b/c his feelings aren’t as real as hers, or not real at all / something she does not consider at all, there can even be that perspective of Benevolence, like oh winston’s obnoxious? being mean to him In Response will make him stop annoying people, which will also help Him b/c everyone will stop disliking him / being mean to him too, and/or the [an autistic person] style like, yep everyone Should apply organic aba and punish them for all the wrong weird offputting autistic shit they do, that’s what helps them actually so ┐(シ)┌

like, all the relationships in billions can be shitty (anything involving any central guys ever, big time) or more like, weirdly sometimes a mess, even b/w ben & tuk you see ben kind of sometimes going Mentor Mode & giving some assessment abt something tuk does, wherein that’s kind of unilateral too, tuk doesn’t do that kind of thing back, how could he also when ben’s the one who’s more of that mentor for being here longer and having learned some of the things you supposedly have to learn around here....taylor & wendy’s relationship being a mess & it actually kinda seeming like it has persisted this far via taylor tending to blame themself / roll with things regardless vs wendy’s tendency to Also blame them or anyone else / go sicko mode over shit whenever she feels wronged & decides it can have 0% had to do with any of her own choices; taylor’s apparent general trait of being completely willing to forgive, or even accept, supposedly amicable parties accusing them of being nigh literally inhuman / Not A Person / effectively having a deficient/lesser interiority, thanks besties, yet more reason it’s apparently too galaxy brain for taylor to relate to winston....but then, to compare rian & winston’s relationship to others in a way in which it’s kind of Remarkably worse rather then “well, also relationships being weird & bad is just normal (even though it is)” is how like, besides things like “well, sometimes they’re standing together” there’s never anything that indicates this relationship is reciprocal, Except for when it seems to be a coincidence that like, oh what winston wants aligns with what rian wants, but as soon as rian stops wanting that / would prefer something else from him like punching or gnawing on him and not in any good ways, that’s what’s going to happen. like, sure he can Want to talk about the same work problem, sure he can Want to talk about the same niche media, and then they do that, but it’s Still only happening b/c rian happens to Also Want That, For The Moment, and the alignment / mutual benefit is contingent upon that. like, even if it’s like “hey mafee, your support of taylor as a friend seems really limited & underwhelming, maybe not that helpful at all” that’s at least something in which it has sure always seemed like they both care, and like, certainly is possible to interpret a relationship as Bad without there also being this leveraged power imbalance. and like, rian & winston are peers, even as a new hire rian wasn’t an intern, she’s now not the ceo. but rian has personal power to leverage just one on one, b/c that is what we see play out, And really immediately more power in this professional sphere right from the start, when she’s better liked & deemed superior & more deserving / more valuable than winston, who only has higher ups who prefer rian and possibly also have expressed specific dislike for him / treated him with disdain already. like, bit bleak but fits perfectly fine with everything if, to take it all the way back to 5x05, any ambiguity like [hey dunno maybe rian likes him at all, maybe she was trying to help him out just in this basic friendly way] could well instead be like, Maybe she actually thinks having him around as The Asshole We Should Fire (which is really just based on wendy not liking his vibe, and nothing rian knows except that, i guess oh everyone immediately agrees on sight that they all agree everyone hates this guy. meanwhile bonus points for winston never before or since being a bellwether, for Before having been the sole person arguing for the impact fund inspiring strat, for Afterwards the fact that if anyone’s ever saying taylor’s not being profit focused enough, it’s rian? or like, philip i guess. in a “but that’s too risky” way) but like, if she Does in fact just decide that she Could keep him around as a punching bag & chew toy, that could line up with things more than we’ve ever seen payoff for Rian Likes Winston For Real At All beyond, again, “well she can stand next to him sometimes”....a) does still seem to be the case that Rian Can Tell Winston Likes Her, what with immediately tipping his hand there, and that she pays more attention to him in that moment has Always potentially been abt the hypothetical Reward of that, like, perhaps a more regular reward of like, well maybe i’d wanna see where that goes, perhaps a more sort of neutral reward of, well maybe i’d find that flattering / validating whether or not i’m ever interested similarly or he eventually stops being interested thusly, but really now it’s like, well, it’s also A Vulnerability, in that it sure does seem to be showing us that he Does have a genuine crush, and while rian seems to find No romantic and/or sexual interest from coworkers or bosses to be threatening, she also specifically seems to see winston’s as a) a joke at best and b) gross/annoying at worst. the material again at least does not Contradict this really, whether or not the writing agrees at all that yeah winston’s sexuality is nasty, again that there’s seemingly nonzero sympathy in his handling, but it’s also like ew this guy being horny? both out of line & Loser Shit when he does it, he’s not cool enough to have sex, or even Want To, it’s gross when he does it, it’s an immediate joke when he thinks he gets to have a crush on someone who’s inherently above him. but she can go ahead and guess that he might want to try to appeal to her, between not only having a crush clearly but his efforts to supposedly Not appeal to her / be at odds with her involve him giving backhanded insult Compliments that perhaps cue her in thusly, he’s not a threat, he’s inherently vulnerable To You Specifically, rian’s Also already an audience to the fact that their bosses seem to dislike him & are Definitely not on his side / helping him out here anyways, so that’s not only this area in which he’s Not Protected, it’s potentially compounding his vulnerability, in that “hey, stepping on winston will elevate me to coworkers and bosses who think he sucks” way / shared negative opinion as fastest social bond, which comes with professional rewards here, b/c how often is [xyz] Not really partially or entirely a Popularity Context, like a workplace? rian Is more popular, immediately, and the fact that also winston likes her too anyways, and in fact, crushes on her already, is not something he’s doing “right,” it’s just something that puts him on the back foot should she decide she’d like to mess with the entire concept of His Feelings for her own amusement, like calling him a douche not b/c she more neutrally also enjoys his attention, but b/c it’ll bother him probably as the totally self contained reason. or like, not that winston’s on the back foot, since that implies a strategic disadvantage that he could potentially recover from. while this is about a Vulnerability he can’t [personal choice/responsibility] his way out of. see that last long post and how he, and anyone else, can’t bootstraps their way out of being autistic, much less that it’s not Worse, or at all bad, to be autistic....and like, we’ve never seen anything Reciprocal. rian gets stuff she wants out of interactions with winston, interactions are ended / winston’s shut down if he’s trying to continue an exchange to get something He’d want out of it / if it’s just like, shut up, b/c i’ve gotten what i wanted already, so there’s litchrly no reason for you to keep talking / receive any attention?? winston’s motivated by liking rian, from the initial crush context to vaguer / more ambiguous efforts to Appeal To Her and/or earnestly seek some kind of personal connection here; rian is not motivated by the same. no exchange between them is ever punctuated with some beat of like, idk, rian getting moral support from winston / Enjoying his effort to be amicable/appealing, like, e.g. simply a smile in response to something he says. she sure doesn’t turn to him for the least [actually wants to have a serious convo with someone] like yeah oh of Course rian just stumbles into an exchange with wags??? in some bizarre roundabout situation like, hello, what the hell are you talking about lmao even if she Doesn’t turn to winston....we certainly don’t see anything like “it’s mutual that someone takes active effort to support / encourage the other / maintain the relationship” like we do between mafee & taylor or ben & tuk, say. totally unilateral. i can’t think of any instance in which it was clear rian’s motivation was Giving winston something, much less that everything is comprehensible through that lens of [rian interacts with winston to Get Something] and that’s what’s more textual, between plenty of exchanges ending on beats of winston being visibly hurt / withdrawing from the exchange for it, and his comment conveying “you’ve been hurting me, i think you’ve been doing it Because you want to hurt me, you’re continuing to hurt me” like, great lmao. nothing suggests that rian considers his feelings as mattering at all, i don’t think that her enjoying perhaps even simply being Able to hurt him both b/c she wants to & b/c he’s vulnerable enough in various ways, is something that she would necessarily stop doing because like [oh she didn’t realize she hurts him, now she has] or otherwise like, her idea of The Degree Of Winston’s Pain As Measured Against A “Deserving” Person’s being increased would get her to stop, although i don’t know that it Would ever increase, b/c there’s no like, external “proof” of winston’s interiority, or of his being As Real/Worthy as anyone else’s. here’s where there Could be individual choice in rian actually adjusting her own perspective here, but why would she when she is already in a place to Bring & Enact that perspective? there’s no guaranteed thing to convince her to suddenly apply the golden rule for real / to care about that more than caring about [whatever rewards she gets out of Being Able to get shit out of Giving winston shit (she does give him anything after all...& grief, a hard time, diminished sense of self worth, etc) & doing so] and here’s where Other People’s Intervention could be what changes Anything, since winston’s already vulnerable and rian’s already got the advantage of power & is Taking that advantage, that is already a situation in play, and to Not intervene is to simply Hope the person with more power changes their mind with this pretty dramatic fundamental perspective shift for some reason, or to just leave it up to the party receiving that treatment to be exposed to this indefinitely, or try to extricate themself from the situation potentially at personal losses / the vulnerabilities that put them at that disadvantage / relatively disempowered position in the first place being compounded, since that’s how it works, you can’t do anything abt it b/c [threat of greater vulnerability as its own punishment]....like, here winston could quit, but he does want to stay, and b/c he’s On The Show if he quits he’ll basically stop existing. and sure, it’s also true that b/c he’s on the show, it’s ultimately better for everyone even individually to quit lmao, but truly as before the answer shouldn’t be like, “because This Is What’s Better For You, you’ll be driven towards that with hostile treatment, bullying, even abuse even though People Take That Personally, it’s an analysis of a power structure lmao it doesn’t have to be deemed Extreme it doesn’t have to be made a matter of Judgment Of Individuals / Competition of Their Narratives”.....which yknow, speaking of, who’s gonna intervene for winston. what a twist that thinking rian might stick up for him, like was i guess coincidence in 5x05, same as her Not saying “btw i guess i’ll hook up here with no worries but i don’t want to date through work” coincidentally, b/c once again rian’s writing is not characterful so much as it is supporting some other function: here, i guess the continuation of the essential Joke of winston being so clueless as to think he’s allowed to have a crush on someone who’s not as much an undeserving cringe loser? meanwhile, coworkers have never stuck up for him, taylor kiiiiiiinda will, sometimes, but seems to really have had a more hands off approach there, and while we can’t know if it’s a matter of like, oh they’ve just never observed much of rian & winston’s dynamic, it’s like, kind of an Inherent Thing lol like if rian will bully a coworker then One Instance could at least catch their attention perhaps, but it seems rather that taylor Does center their idea of Rian’s Personal Narrative & interpret her motivations as sympathetic, relatable, worthy. seems entirely plausible that taylor could see that kind of treatment as just a) normal and/or inevitable, b) Deserved b/c winston is so cocky & not sweet or whatever the hell, c) Okay When Rian Does It b/c she can’t really mean it that maliciously anyways, just messing around, and/or whatever rewards she’s getting out of it Are indeed so worth the low, low cost of winston being hurt by it. even the idea that taylor Would see it as something fucked up of rian to do seems like it’d more likely lead to them taking action on it not to help winston but to help rian, like, hey, that can’t be good (it can’t, but).......but between the general perspective of axe cap certainly & even mpc, and taylor liking & looking out for rian personally And professionally & just on their own choosing to read into anything about her in the best light, and the backpat a season later being the only turnaround really from their weird disdainful Alignment With Wendy shift in 5x05 towards him, who can hold their breath. even when it’s like, taylor shouldn’t need to value winston even just as an employee Through rian or anyone else, tbt 5x05 he’s the one most suspicious about wendy and framing it about taylor, not just about their own jobs or just His own job, he’s right, this is not recognized, his even wanting to have liaisons to talk about how taylor’s the one who’s vulnerable? who cares....it keeps him out of the fallout i suppose, nobody else in that room would actually still be there in the very end of the season, but like. you’d think taylor could easily Consult Him Professionally more, rather than the only thing that happens is winston says some aside that’s dismissed right off and then the only further possibility is that someone more Worthy picks it up like i mean yeah winston sucks & he’s stupid & shut up winston, but, also Truue....can’t say that tertiary / quanternary isn’t the place to be for a funny little guy, b/c like, again, god look at rian’s character lmfao, what the fuck do we have to show for her being “a major player” or “a character”....winston being a plot device And The Show Knows It means a little goddamn cohesion, at least. it also means that his godawful treatment is a joke and i don’t even know if the writing realizes it’s not just the inconsequential goofin that some people deserve. kind of v relevant to the “do you think of winston as an autistic character or only as an Other People, Not Any Of Us, Who Choose To Be Weird & Annoying B/c They Suck I Guess. Maybe They Do Really Think They’re Being Normal But That’s Kind Of Tragically Pathetic At Best character,” or

shoutout then to how tuk & winston seem to have a more genuine, reciprocal relationship. 5x08 immediately, they are both pleased with their exchange, hanging out, having fun giving tanner a Superiority Paroxysm & helping drive him off, god thank you you heroes. tuk doesn’t seem to feel, much less act on, disdain for winston bringing up Nerd Shit instead of “yes i pretend to have opinions on only the most expensive of art and coincidentally truly Prefer what just so happens to be most monetarily valuable” Art. winston hypes tuk up, or certainly is just validating him on a fundamental level when tuk’s norm seems to be lacking confidence, and that may not be returned but it’s accepted without contempt or stepping on winston or invalidating him or whatever, and also winston does seem to have some basic confidence in himself & his capabilities even if this is supposedly wrong / laughable arrogance, but yknow, winston’s Also actually withering left & right & rarely arguing the point when people put him down, though who knows, maybe the Obnoxious remark from rian wasn’t something he absorbed as “sigh, she’s right i guess” even if he didn’t outright say as much....he & tuk do seem to be mutual friends where neither of them wants to Use the other, certainly not like, i am entertained by my deliberately causing you emotional / psychological pain, and diminishing you / putting you down especially in front of others might give me a helpful boost” like, it might be A Conflict that other people root for tuk to Act Righter / Be More Of A Deserving Winner and see like, treating an obnoxious cringe loser like winston as as much of a person as you even to the degree you would consider your ability to hurt him & care about Not doing that, as Antithetical / counterproductive to tuk becoming the winner he ought to be....maybe people will see winston’s friendship with tuk as another instance of some unilateral Getting Something From Winston that winston deserves, and thus winston hyping tuk up is an acceptable role for him, while tuk still actually regards him & actually treats him as a friend. maybe people will be like, well tuk’s still kind of a cringe loser too but that’s okay, he’s More of a winner, we can look the other way if winston’s giving him a hug all the time, certainly winston will be caught in some more vulnerable place easily enough so he can be kept in line by people correctly pwning & using him

anyways idk tl;dr season 6 sure went “rian & winston sure don’t have a reciprocal relationship rather than this extractive unilateral power dynamic all on rian’s terms & choices, huh” where it’s like well i guess that’s not likely to change b/c why would it (limited reasons that aren’t likely to happen in the series / wouldn’t be the Kind Of Thing given an arc anyways. including that winston’s not the kind of thing given an arc. and rian choosing to let up b/c someone, like taylor Maybe, is like, hey for your own sake: what’s up with the workplace bullying? and Personal at this point? and kind of already the whole time?? would be underwhelming when it comes to winston’s sake, in that Still nobody’s Really considering His Sake or motivated by it. but something about whatever the hell dynamic of personal somethingship and support b/w taylor and rian is more relevant / likely to be written about. even if like, it’s rare someone is Really guided more onto some rails than they were before, And like, idk, just go “well, do what you want, i’m here for you anyways” lmfao like there’s not gonna seem to be any tangible consequences here except the Possibility of, what, winston quitting? nobody’s ever motivated by that either, so.) and ummm that the fact this season Didn’t change that dynamic yet Did have winston & rian interacting in a newly more personal way over a Shared Interest (like, tbt to 5x07 where again it’s like. guess that’s just a moment of rian wanting to talk to Someone and she doesn’t really care who and she’s def not about to let winston talk about enjoying his programming languages like malbolge and shit b/c i’ve already gone into a whole separate room, i’ll come out when taylor’s back and they need to know someone who’s Not a joke is fucked up too) which means like, that’s just quantifiably more, & qualitatively more personal, avenues in which winston is More Vulnerable, which is just great in this context lmfao. if they hung out, rian went to winston’s place b/c ew gross re: letting him in where she lives, & then she made fun of his framed tron cel. no locked drawers please, gonna go through yours & get to be like wow your underwear sucks like burn rate says & if you have a condom around here like wow arrogant much? You? having sex? which you’re also a weird horny freak b/c it’s inherently deviant of you to operate in that realm instead of Normal & Cool, b/c you’re never either thing. anyways what do you think about the fans. dunno why i’m asking b/c you’re so stupid & don’t get it, but guess she wants an Analysis Discussion opportunity same as she’ll tolerate him for a workplace problem discussion opportunity, but no guarantees later, when He wants to walk up & have that discussion he can die & rian will be making sure to hurt him even while apparently worrying abt whether She hurt Taylor by not hooking up with them, personally, not even like “uh oh do you think i’ll be fired” or something. but rian does not seem to really have a handle on concerns about relative power or anything around here. meanwhile also, addendum about winston’s vulnerabilities in that like. besides liking her, at least for a while, not like anyone else has ever chosen to talk to winston that we’ve really seen, save Maybe tuk, sometimes mafee, but that doesn’t seem to have had the least substance really. winston facing Isolation otherwise during all work hours is readily a factor that could motivate him re: even like, hey, maybe we can be work friends? and i guess they kind of are, but again, simply in the [standing next to each other] way mostly lol....taylor might say winston will punch you or run you over or something, but in all exchanges we see, he’s the one being punched or run over, he’s the one often trying to appeal to, and/or at least appease, other people. he’s [autistic character] and there’s the inherent vulnerability in that, if he thinks rian Does like him at all even in the [i’ll stand near you sometimes] way, he might think that’s the best he can get around here, he might absorb the message that He’s Doing Everything Wrong / he brings it all upon himself and He has to change it, and so be seeking out anyone giving him feedback, and willing to roll with its being negative / blame himself for that. he’s Already dealing with a world of supposed “rules” he’s Failing to follow and that’s why everyone gives him shit, so what’s the problem if he thinks his dynamic w/rian is another world of rules he’s failing to follow and that’s why she gives him shit? and so on. this wasn’t really a tl;dr 

tl;dr rian & winston’s dynamic sure isn’t reciprocal & their shared interest / interacting outside work making their relationship more Personal is probably just worse

#idk what's going on in here lol just another [wrote some shit out on & off for hours; nailed it to the door] #not like Revelations I Had Just Today; more like; things i've Been mulling over that get fresh short essays now and then like #maybe i've only rotated this in my mind or via discussions vs every saying it in a post... #or just needing an update b/c of further rotation / discussion lol and/or b/c Restating it w/diff language or what have you can be different #winston billions #guess it counts as #riawin #Society If they'd just got to have another normal billions friendship even if those are wild & kinda cursed too #but frankly even more important like society if the tmc trifecta had actually been a trifecta #b/c then Taylor Material could have some more context as well. if the writers wrote taylor & winston locked in a room they'd Also write them #both failing to get to have a conversation the whole time. hanging out via escape room but taylor's just actually focused on solving it #everyone keeps saying it's b/c parallel play is better lol. winston can consider a Complaint abt this but what?? gonna go to hr??? lmfaooo #[writers creating material Textually abt an autistic person even as a concept] like wuh oh. in the danger zone already #anyways lmao. it's [handshake] anyways like #does the writing even consider winston as being Possibly Interpretable as Autistic? debatable at best #does the writing even consider rian's dynamic w/winston being one in the realm/context of workplace bullying / interpersonal abuse? see prev

[thunderon]

assuming we get like, post-1998 yellowjackets returning to civilization in upcoming seasons i am absolutely needing to see taissa turner. the fact that we have canon confirmation that chose to play for her university soccer team is SO CRAZY!!! i keep rotating the concept around in my mind like i have so many thoughts on this:

- taissa had been intense about soccer pre-crash. she inadvertently broke someones leg during a scrimmage! now imagine what the addition of a shit ton of trauma will do to her play

- assuming her team plays nationally…… that means she’s likely going to have to fly for away games... i can just imagine taissa boarding a plane again with her new team and just. not having a good time about it

- opposing teams have an infinite amount of trash talk material against taissa. i mean, cmon you know some girl on some team at some point is going to completely cross the line looking to get a reaction. and taissa is going to give them a reaction alright

- taissa suffers hallucinations during the 2021 timeline, and im kinda inclined to believe she had them at least for a bit after her return. basically this is just me begging for the writers to give us tai hallucinating during a game

- this is stupid and very probably not gonna happen BUT i think it’d be cute if taissa chose to do rachel and akilah’s pregame ritual in honor of them

anyways im just thinking about overall how crazy taissa went after the crash. double-major, was a starter on a collegiate soccer team, graduated first in her class, etc etc. and i just know she did it all in the unhealthiest possible way

#taissa turner my beloved #i long for the day that the writers treat her like a main character again #my girl got SIDELINED #anyways. #yellowjackets #taissa turner #op

[specialagentartemis]

📂HEADCANONS

YEAH

Trying to think of ones I haven’t already talked about A Lot

Murderbot describes Preservation as "a complicated barter system" because it doesn't really have the words or concepts to parse what it's looking at: primarily a gift economy. An economy with a robust central government that does a lot of distribution of primary resources, and a social logic based more on providing than consuming. Farmers and agriculture techs don't produce food to then trade to other people, they produce food that's then re-distributed to everyone as needed by a central organization, and the farmers and ag-techs are given what they need and want by others who, y'know, eat food and express gratitude for Having Food. People don't trade for health care, doctors provide health care to whoever needs it because that's what they've trained and chosen to do and are given what they need by others for their service in providing health care.

Pin-Lee doesn't tend to have a lot to trade but she is a lawyer who keeps things functioning between Preservation and the Corporates, does the legal work that allows Preservation citizens to safely travel, and helps to maintain the contracts that prevent other more opportunistic planets fromtaking advantage of them. She provides this service to the planet and gets what she needs from other people who provide other services. Gurathin helps to maintain the university's database infrastructure, when he's getting coffee he doesn't need to offer to like, make a database for the coffeeshop, it's just understood that he's providing a service to society and partaking in another service to society. Arada and Ratthi are research biologists and their work is only tangentially productive to The Planet but I'm sure there's a public outreach or education aspect that's expected of a lot of researchers - learning without sharing what you're learning is socially unfair, even if their lectures are mostly only attended by students who are told by their teachers to go watch them. But it's kind of understood that by being an adult in the world, you are doing something that contributes to society and to others in some way, and as such are entitled to having your needs met as well.

It's a reciprocity-based logic of actions rather than commodity exchange, and honestly it works because 1) Preservation's population is relatively small, 2) there is a lot of bureaucratic organization work making sure everyone is getting what they need, the government is SO many committees 3) a whole lot of labor is done by machines (non-sentient robots) and bots (sentient robots). The reliance on bot labor is absolutely gonna be something Preservation has to think more about.

Citizens also every once in a while on rotation get called for a kind of labor tax akin to the way jury duty works, where every couple of months you have to put in a day working in the central town food court washing dishes or something. There are also Perks offered for jobs that might be a harder sell for people to do, like premium station housing.

Straight-up money that comes into the station from outsystem trade and travel mostly gets re-invested in supporting Preservation travelers off-planet into societies that do use money (like PresAux's ASR survey), or buying materials or machines that are hard to make locally (like ag-bots, or some spaceship or station parts for repairs).

However where barter comes in is on a more interpersonal one-on-one level, more similar to commissions. You grow a lot of carrots while my grapefruit tree is producing a lot more fruit than I could possibly eat, want to trade? You make ceramics as your primary Work, I'll trade you something if you make me something specific I have in mind. Can you help me fix my roof? I'll get you some good wood when the lumber trees are mature next year. Developing skills for these kind of interpersonal more-specialized trades is a significant motivation, too. And different skills and jobs inevitably attract more status and impressiveness than others. But it's not barter exactly so much as reciprocity, a strong culture of civic duty, and a highly organized government.

#trying to figure out So Hard how a spacefaring multiplanetary no-money barter society works #asks #elexuscal #next one will be more fun I promise

[dross-the-fish]

Okay, but the Victor and Adam building the mate were so good to 😳 I am very much rotating it in my mind

I kinda wish I had something super cool to say about it, but this is mostly random thoughts, so sorry about that 😅

Totally not crying about Adam trying to call Victor father, poor guy. Like sure, understandably Victor isn’t that pleased with him because of, you know, the murdering, but it's hard not to sympathize with Adams need to be accepted by Victor.

i do also love how Adam talks about the diy wife tho. Like in this very sweet and romantic way, and it also kinda feel like a part of it is coming from his own experience of being rejected.

But there also like a level of wrong with the whole thing? Like it feels like he's already kind of building an imaginary relationship with her, before they've technically officially met.

And in some way it also feels like he is setting himself up for failure, like, most likely the actual relationship would probably not live up to whatever fantasy he has (and in the end Victor is very much in the right about the bride)

love Adam, he is so fucked up and in need of so much therapy <3

(and i hope this wasn't too incoherent to read)

Anyway, i just think its a cool piece you've writen and i am gonna print it out and eat it ☺️😋

Thank you so much! I'm so glad you enjoyed it.

And you're right about Adam building a fantasy. That's a thing he tends to do in my AU and part of why things went so sour with Dorian. Adam has concepts about love and family and his own idea of how things are "supposed to go" and ultimately he ends up setting himself up. You can't blame him to much because he's had no socialization but at the same time it's painful to watch him keep getting his hopes crushed because he builds narratives that aren't really feasible.

And there was no way the bride could have worked, if she came out as intelligent and capable of independent learning as Adam did then I don't see her contenting herself with a husband she didn't pick as her only company for the rest of her life and there's no knowing how Adam might have taken it if she had rejected him. He may have loved the idea of her but there was no way for him to love her as a person.

Victor knows this, he's an ass for his treatment of Adam and his biases towards Adam's appearance but in the case of the bride Victor isn't wrong.

Unfortunately Adam is so desperate for companionship that he'll never be able to see that.

[zorciarkrildrush]

Vampire hdb

So there's two DE things I keep rotating in my mind and one of them is elaborations on What Makes The Pale Wax And Wane, because I think the game and the book give us some insight we can play with and I want to add what I think on top of it, in addition to the existing wonderful essay. This one deserves a proper writeup and I'm gleefully procrastinating.

THE OTHER ONE HOWEVER WHICH I CANNOT LEAVE UNSAID AT ALL is Vampire HDB.

To be fair it started with a more general "what if there's a vampire inner layer to the RCM not a lot of people - including within the RCM, including Harry - know about, but there's good reasons people are afraid of the cops and it's not just the usual". Harry finds out, chases increasingly offputting cases where a likely suspect is a well-placed officer, and so on.

But for the past week I've been thinking of a vampire hdb. What I'm thinking is, this is something that happened around the same time as the bender. He wakes up with a classic transformation hangover. We don't even have to decide he's magically cured of brain damage and other pains - vampirism could preserve him as he is and only prevent further injury. Another option is that the curse will heal him in all ways, even neurological, but only eventually and with enough nutrition and adequate slumber and so on.

So this lead me to several fun thoughts about the game, as a vampire Harrier:

(By the way during the course of this I'm gonna refer to we and you kind of interchangeably. It just means you or I as players of the game. This is a side effect of rambling.)

We can run around in daytime as usual. Any discomfort we experience early on is attributed to the bender, so Harry doesn't think of it as very strange. Even after the reveal, the game doesn't actively stop us from going around in sunlight and only uses narrative means to dissuade us. I'm basing this on hdb being perfectly capable of running around after getting shot in the leg (and possibly the shoulder as well) - obviously there was a gameplay consideration here but hey, this is one too. There's 2-3 other points where the game encourages walking, but ZA/UM didn't feel like mechanically punishing us for running anyway and I don't feel like it either. I feel like some narrative punishments can include skill disadvantages, Kim uneasily suggesting you open an umbrella or wear shades (a classic for hangovers!), or just take it easy in general during the daytime. Also, maybe the night doesn't cap out 02:00 anymore, and the suggestions to pack it in for the night also come later than usual. Waking up is… maybe no longer at 0730? Volition will be disappointed. Then again the vow was to do so until you die, is it really truly relevant anymore?

Obviously this affects the investigation - who knows what you really are and archly hints at it? The Smoker? Evrart? Who dismisses the concept out of hand as fantasy? Joyce? Are the cryptozoologists actually extremely skeptic of the concept, and attribute it to Harry's generally confused demeanor? Is Pryce the one who turned you, hypnotizing you to forget it before sending you to Martinaise?

Are there other vampires, or different creatures of the night around Martinaise? Can we finally meet the Mysterious Eyes, when the night is darkest?

Can we finally eat the rich? Or at least say we want to, as good socialists should, and do we distress our environment with our violence a-la roughing up the lorry driver?

I also thought of a sliding scale between the desire for humanity and morals (not to be confused with moralism) vs the vampiric instinct. Obviously this is tracked in-game via a score called good vampire / bad vampire. To me this can affect the sensitivity to anti-vampiric implements - one of the approaches I like best is that the sun is harmful to vampires not because of UV, but because it's seen as a force of celestial good and illuminates the vampire's sins, of which they are so ashamed they experience physical pain. Having to be invited into places (another hilarious narrative option) also has to do with this - the vampire wants to make their victim bring disaster upon themselves with the invitation. I was thinking as you slide further into darkness, you must become less and less ashamed of what you are. With a person like hdb, where shame is already a massive issue, I can't help but wonder how this score can manifest, and how the skills will react with various scores and in different interactions. This of course brings me to -

Skills! Let's talk skills, I've been dying to talk about the skills all day. Logic, Empathy and maybe Esprit De Corps - I want to say, these stay kind of normal to begin with, but they do suffer if you slide more and more into darkness. Rhetoric, Visual Calculus, Authority, Suggestion - these always benefit from being a vampire (unless challenged with anti-vampiric implements, maybe) Drama, Inland Empire - insanely high. Off their rocker. Drama quotes deliriously from works such as The Vampire Lestat, IE is conjuring entirely new concepts of what it means to live in the garden of savage beauty that is your mind. All the motorics are higher. That one's a given. Phys. Instrument, pain threshold, and endurance - also boosted, not much to say. Vampires are strong and fast and can tolerate much more than humans, when they aren't staked through the heart.

Finally, there are 4 more skills worth mentioning. Half Light, for all intents and purposes, is your vampiric instinct to feed. The cornered beast. It hates what it's doing, but at the same time - what it wants is survival. It has to do it. When pressed by hunger or whatever else, it will push you to kill and eat. Electrochem is also deeply vampiric. To the newly formed vampire, the world is beautiful. Scents are magnetic. The taste of fresh prey is almost carnal. It wants you to partake of everything. Permission is granted. God is in his heaven.

But there's two skills who aren't as supportive of bad vampire actions. Volition is always Harry's moral support. Volition always wants Harry to do the right thing. The more Harry tiptoes into darkness, I want to say Volition grows wearier, and sadder, and Volition checks start getting worse and worse. If there's one skill that might convince us as players to steer clear of being a total monster, it will be Volition.

And there's Shivers. I think the spirit of Revachol knows what you are. I think the spirit of Revachol loves you, as it loves everyone in Revachol, but it also knows you are a blight upon it. It will try and dissuade you. It will try to humanize whoever you stalk. It will remind you you have a part to play, much grander than this. But if you disregard it, it will have to find another champion. It will blow away, and for all intents and purposes, Harry can be abandoned entirely by it.

#selfpost #disco elysium #long post

[spaceratprodigy]

Let's hear about that Pride & Prejudice AU bestie 💖🧡

Anyone that's known me for a long time knows that no matter what, I will find a way to make a Pride & Prejudice AU with OCs 😤

This particular iteration is my favorite tho! This time around we have crafted a P&P AU focused on Faith and Rhea ( @captastra ) meeting and falling in love with Max and Felix 👀

I have admittedly been very slow getting around to it, but it has genuinely been one of the biggest things I have been wanting to work on for months. But, you know how it is, not having the time to dedicate to this project was a big factor and it's probably gonna be even longer until I get to it now that I'm moving out and have to get a new desk and set up my workspace.

And, truthfully, I am very very excited about this one and I really want to take my time and put the love into it!! It is 100% absolutely one of the highest things on my to-do list and it's never stopped rotating in my brain.

ANYWAY ON TO WHAT I HAVE PLANNED

Sooooo, I have 4 small illustrations so far that I really want to make :]

Nothing super massive and extravagant right now, just a set I haven't been able to get out of my mind regarding different interactions!

The more fleshed out concepts I have are for a Faith and Rhea interaction and a Max and Felix interaction. Both separate but meant to mirror each other!

For Faith and Rhea I was thinking about them late at night, soft lighting, maybe they're laying in bed together, but they're very excitedly talking about the lads they met and how dashing they are and what the interactions they had with them were like and whether or not some feelings had been sparked, etc etc.

For Max and Felix, the conversation is the same but about the gals! I have a vague idea of the setting I want to draw them in, but I haven't fully decided yet. I really like the idea of Felix head over heels for Rhea and asking Max for advice on how to approach her again. I feel like he just really doesn't want to mess this one up 🥺 I also like the idea of Felix pestering Max on his thoughts about Faith, and Max being very avoidant, not wanting to answer, but also not being able to hide that people noticed he couldn't take his eyes off of her 😌💅

The other two drawings I want to make are obviously some lil Faith/Max and Rhea/Felix illustrations 💖💕 but I haven't fully decided what I want to go with for those! I have a few ideas, but those I really want to discuss and plan out privately 🤭 definitely super excited to work on those!!

And let's be honest.. I kind of want to make even more with P&P AU, but small steps lmao don't want to overwhelm myself. It's always gonna be there to come back to! No promises that I'll dabble in trying to write out some things more eloquently, it's just so much easier for me to express my ideas through visuals! Plus I just really love drawing romance things 😩

There's so many interactions we can explore! But even more exciting! I want to explore different outfits for them because I mean c'mon they are all going to look SO darling!

I think I said so in private but I'm still bouncing back and forth between wanting a strict period setting or if I wanna be loosey goosey and incorporate some space themes to the designs and environments. Both just sound so very fun to me to get to work with.

Okay maybe I should stop now because I think I will just want to keep rambling about P&P AU things 😭

Anywayssss 💅 go show @captastra some love!! So wonderful, delightful, creative, and an absolutely brilliant writer 💖💕

Thank you for letting me incorporate Rhea and Felix into this AU, you already know how excited I am to bring them to life 🥰

#long post #sorry I just really really love p&p au and it's been on the back burner for so long now 😭 #faith and max #rhea and felix #💖💕💖💕

[night-dark-woods]

Hello Tis the book anon, are u bready for the final shape in less than a week (holy shit 5 days???)

GOD. im very very excited for the new enemy types (i wasn't playing the last time we got a new faction in forsaken! i started tail end of worthy) i think a lot of the design is VERY cool and im very concerned abt the potential of unstop husks. nightmare fuel.

i think prismatic is gonna be fun- ive seen ppl worried abt it breaking the game or whatever BUT i think bungie is in general pretty good with balance (for the casual player) and when it isnt balanced idk i think its usually unbalanced in a super fun way. i am do NOT have the minmaxer's spirit though so i am sure i will not be utilizing it's full potential "correctly" but ill be having fun and thats what im there for.

story-wise... eh? i think they ARE going to land the story they are telling. i just dont *like* the story they are telling. it feels very marvel to me (derogatory) and i dislike immensely the literalization of the concept of the final shape. (oooh they've been ~finalized~ okay why dont we just have a thanos snap situation. what is this *doing* that is different from that).

not to sound like a broken record but i think seth dickinson was putting down something MUCH more interesting when they wrote BoS and unveiling than. this. its very NEAT, it makes sense with the story beats they've been working on, but i think it... flattens the delightfully complicated metaphysics of destiny in a way that pisses me off. i dont think the final shape is meant to be literal. i think the final shape is a way of being like the sword logic is. i think the witness is a neat little deus ex and i think they will tell the story of the witness as they see it Just Fine, but i dont have to like it.

like, i dont have an easily articulatable alternative but im ALWAYS rotating in my mind that the two (three?) beings that escaped the flower game are the vex and the worm gods (& ahamkara?). and i DONT think unveiling is written by the witness. i WILL die on that fucking hill. swagless graycale megamind "no bitches" mcu villain did NOT write that insidious tempting little love letter.

anyway. some relevant lore excerpts connected by red string but no real arguments in my head:

They're majestic, I said. They have no purpose except to subsume all other purposes. There is nothing at the center of them except the will to go on existing, to alter the game to suit their existence. They spare not one sliver of their totality for any other work. They are the end. (The Final Shape; Unveiling)

&

SHAPES AND GLIDERS. I dreamt of existence as a game of cellular automata. In this metaphor, there were only two things: shapes in the game world and the rules of the game world. The rules were the rules of Life and Death. I understood that the sword was the desire to escape existence as a shape in the game and to become the rule that made the shapes. This rule said only "live" or "die"—it had no other outputs. It could not keep secrets. Against it was the desire to become a shape so complex that it could within itself play other games. (Tyrannocide I)

like! the final shape is a shape of THOUGHT. a philosophy of existence *made* real in the way that the vex and the hive effect the worlds around them and exert that philosophy through force of will, bc the metaphysics of the destiny universe allows and operates based on that leveraging of will over the physical world. the philosophical and the real are DEEPLY entwined in a way thats REALLY REALLY INTERESTING and i think its BORING if the final shape the darkness/the witness (bc i do think bungie is conflating them! but imo the traveller is not the gardener and the witness is not the winnower. i will die on this hill) is seeking is to. make everyone into a cube. i joked abt the final shape being a square but i didnt mean it! hello? can anyone hear me? is this thing on?

anyway. tantrum over. i think its fun that cayde and crow are getting to be a little faggy together. i think they should kiss about it.

im excited for the new content release format (episodes?), bc i think a LOT of the issues with the narrative are due to the seasonal model.

i think sjur is finally coming back theres NO way they would bring her up this much and not bring her back. i think in a Nine-themed season. downside is it will inevitably result in what my dear friend jackie and i have been referring to as "hashtag monogamy win" where sjur and mara get back together as a mirror to o14 and then mara tells petra shes always thought of her as a sister or worse a daughter. but if thats the price i have to pay for sjur. thats okay. the writers room is wrong so frequently i just do whatever i want. its like being a comics fan at this point.

also clearly SOMEONE knows what they are doing bc that radio message at the end of last season was. the most in-character thing since probably marasenna lmfao!!! so i tentatively have hope about the writing of it, and regardless am PERFECTLY capable of living blissfully in jackie & my mind palace version of whatever they give us, bc what we are cooking is beautiful and true and divinely inspired. and im very certain seth would approve.

#anonymous #book anon #do u have a tag. idr. #my posts #<long enough yammering to deserve that i think #this may have been more than u wanted djfjfhf but those are my thoughts. #destiny #sorry! i dont have a separate org tag unfortunately

[barrenclan]

i could do this in the discord, but it feels right to do it here. this is a retype bc my tumblr refreshed itself and i lost my stuff, hopefully it still has the same tenderness of my original writing

pinepaw apologizing for not being able to get closer, yet rose being humble and thankful just for his attempts while minding his safety. knowing everyone keeps away from her, this is probably the best she’s had in awhile. pinepaw is just a soft gentle boyo who wants to help, even against cootstorm’s warning about other animals being untrusting.

it could’ve been obvious to some, but to me the deepdark husband to rose reveal caught me off guard. i assumed rose wasn’t gonna come back anyway, just be the wasting deer, but i was wrong obviously. and her last words being a warning to stay away, cursing his name? that’s raw as shit and honestly kinda horrifying, all that effort put into one hatred.

the callback to rainhaze’s concept of death being like sleep was so sweet. its all pinepaw has of him, and its better for death to just be a silence than pain.

i love this issue so much, rotates rose in my brain. keep up the great work!

I feel like the Tumblr asks work very nicely for long thoughts like this! Also man, I hate that feeling of having to retype a long passionate essay.

Pinepaw, fundamentally, is a very kind person who wants to help others, so it hurts him when he can't. Rosey understands, and does not want him to catch the same terrible disease that killed her.

I'm sad we didn't get to go more into Wild Rose herself outside of brief sentences and some allusions, but she's got some very hateful and complex feelings toward Deepdark. She reallllly doesn't like him.

Rainhaze's concept of death?... could it be.... a motif that will continue to come up..........

Thank you so much, I'm glad you enjoyed the issue!

#ask #pinepaw #wild rose #rainhaze #deepdark

[lmelodie]

Familiar Territory

BlackIce for Valentines Day!!! LET'S GOOO! A few years after Chance and Choice, BlackIce being back together for a hot second by this point.

I'm gonna be so fr, this little one shot has made me realize that I maybe don't know how to write fluff for these bitches?? It was harder than I thought it would be! There are other more fluffy concepts in my wips but this one has a lot more substance.

Oh, also y'all remember Ryder from this little doodle dump? The Mermaid? His character got overhauled and his name is Rowan now lol.

Bonus doodle at the very end, ENJOY!

Anyone from the magical realms will tell you, with varying levels of jealousy, that there are plenty of places that a magical being can roam about freely amongst human kind with minimal or even no cloaking involved. One of these being New York City, wherein everyone seems at least a little bit off kilter or odd in a way that blends everyone together in their strangeness. So realistically in the height of the Christmas season, no one would ever notice, or at least look twice at a very seasonally appropriate man in a blue suit in the midst of an otherwise normal group of friends. 

"Join us! Join us! JOIN US!" Lucy’s chants fade into and then quickly out of earshot to Killian as her and Jack skate by yet another time on their route around the rink. She turns around on her skates and holds onto Jack’s shoulder so he can keep pulling her along as she waves down her fellow redhead as they go for another lap around. 

She shouted the same thing to him for the last five laps and just like those other times he paid her no mind, glued to his chain smoking spot leaning against a nearby column.

The ambience of the Winter Village rink during Christmas on the edge of dusk was the pinnacle of experiencing the Christmas spirit that particular day. Even in her early twenties her enthusiasm for such things has never wavered, bouncing off the walls all day and Jack, Killian and Rowan were all subject to her special brand of holiday energy. Which includes her insisting that Killian should get out on the ice with them. 

He only showed up maybe an hour ago, knowing that Jack was somewhere in the city, but he overlooked the inevitable presence of his emotional support dormouse and her new squeeze. So the boogeyman patiently waits for them to finish off on the side of the rink, watching her spin back around to take Jack’s arm for the casual stroll. His presence unassumingly creates a breach of space in the crowd of civilians around him who fear to approach him any further for reasons they themselves cannot articulate.  

“Behind you!” Rowan shouts out to the pair as he quickly catches up to them on their rotation.

A curiously out of sorts human pyromancer that swept the young woman off her feet about 6 months ago. The whole met in college love story between a wizard and a sorceress with the stack of dropped books that he offered to help her with and everything. A rigamarole of horrible cliches that they've been enjoying to no end. 

He quickly catches up to the pair and crashes into Lucy from behind, wrapping his arms around her waist and pushing her forward and away from Jack as they slow to a stop further ahead. She chuckles in good spirits with him all the same.

“How'd I do?” Rowan asks through gasps of air as he brushes back the brown shaggy hair from his face.

Lucy rolls up the sleeve on her overcoat to check her watch, “Fifteen laps around in…forty five minutes.”

"What!? Oh come on! I was really pushing it too,” he chuckles breathlessly.

“That's not a bad time at all! I don't think.”

"Eh. I've seen faster," Jack interjects as he quickly passes them by.

“Nobody asked you,” she shouts after him, quickly tilting her head up to Rowan. “Don't listen to him, your time was fine. If it's any consolation you were fast in my heart.”

Rowan snickers, “That doesn't even make sense.”

“It does so! Physics works differently in my heart. And what makes even more sense is getting a cocoa break,” she can feel her date dropping his arms from her waist as she takes his hand and pulls him along. “Keeping warm is important when someone likes to bite peoples fingers!”

Jack turns over his shoulder at the call out as they catch back up to him, “Excuse me? You've got the wrong guy here. I've worked hard to scrub that reputation clean ya know, and you're over here dragging my name back through the mud again. If you're looking for a finger biter, look at him.”

He vaguely gestures to Killian on the sidelines as the three of them complete the last lap and skate back up to the gate they entered at. Jack watches Lucy and Rowan exit the rink while he lingers behind on the ice and throws his elbows on the ledge. On cue, Killian throws the half burnt cigarette onto the floor and snuffs it out with boot, throwing his hands into his pockets to stroll over to where Jack has stopped.

“Your turn,” he says with a smug grin.

He rolls his eyes, “Absolutely not.”

“Why? Because you know you can't do it?”

“Yeah, actually. So what,” Killian shifts his weight slightly over to stand a fraction closer to the open gateway to the rink, the throngs of people moving about around him also move accordingly.

“So, I've been trying to teach you how for sky knows how long. It's your own fault you don't know.”

“None of that has been teaching, it was sabotaging,” he provides a ghost of a smile, “It's not a skill I need to know. There has never been a time where skating on the ice has ever been useful to me.”

“Says who?” Jack replies, “Who's to say it won't come in handy in the knick of time one of these days?”

“Me. That's never gonna happen so I don't need to learn.”

Jack gets an idea. Well, Jack had the idea ever since Killian showed up and has been simmering this entire time. It's the same idea he always has in locations and circumstances like these. 

“Mhm, right. So why are you here exactly?” he asks with an air of feigned innocence. 

Killian sighs, “Because I actually wanna do something fun for a change.”

“What, you're telling me that small children face planting onto the ice isn't fun?”

Killian looks out onto the ice with a small chuckle to see if any such occurrences would make themselves loudly known, “Oh don't get me wrong, that's always funny. Especially if you get a few right after the other in a stupid little domino effect. Or if all of them go down at once at the same time.”

Jack snorts in choking back a laugh, “Exactly. And I'm sure it would be a lot funnier from a better vantage point,” He says, motioning to the open gate.

Kills shakes his head, “Hah, nice try, but not in your immortal life. Now let's blow this ice cube stand and go west, I want a front row seat when the 405 gets backed up and wrecked from a freak blizzard.” 

The marginally threatening tone and that one specific look was practically designed to catch a Yes as an answer, as the prospect was something they did often in the last couple years. Jack makes it seem he’s got him hook, line and sinker. 

“Fine. I guess I can squeeze that into my very busy schedule—,” Jack pauses as he takes one foot off the ice, looking around the immediate vicinity before grabbing Killians arm with both hands, “—later!”

In one fell swoop Jack pulls Killian out onto the ice with subtle wisps of blue magic forming under his boots with each step to make blades of ice. A couple of sharp swears are heard as he clumsily stumbles into the rink, nearly slipping and falling at least twenty times in quick succession, forced to grab onto Jack as his only form of stability. He quickly comes to an unsteady stop, far enough away from the gate so he can't backtrack too easily and practically clings to Jack out of necessity, holding his breath.

Jack on the other hand keeps both of their weight steady by holding onto his upper arms with the biggest, shit eating smirk on his face. He lets him adjust his balance slightly as he lets the moment simmer for half a second, savoring it.

“Need help?” he finally says.

Killian's face uncharacteristically flushes, “No...! And fuck you!”

Jack can’t help but snicker while trying to help him stand up straighter and actually get moving somewhat, which his body language vehemently disagrees with and actively fights him against, “I just can't believe that after nearly two thousand years you still fall for it. Everytime. Truly amazing, have I ever told you how incredible you are?”

“Shut up! I’ll fucking kill you,” Killian grumbles, nearly sputters, tightening his grip on arms when his feet wobble a bit, “You are going to pay for this later, I swear to god.”

“Hm, promise?”

This actually earns a tiny laugh from him, but also gains a more menacing look, “You’d like that wouldn't you. Your just so fucking lucky that there’s so many people hERE—!”

Lucy and Rowan seated themselves on a nearby bench to watch Killian nearly fall again, each having their own cup of fresh cocoa. Lucy stretches and waves one of her arms in the air to catch their attention, “You're doing great Kills!”

“Lucy, I will break BOTH of your legs!”

Killian doesn't turn back but Jack looks directly at her with that same smug grin and a casual two finger salute to her as Killlian tries to steady himself again, clearly enjoying every precious second, knowing that it is a passing moment of superiority.

Lucy pays his threat no mind, Rowan beside her giving the two a more worried look for her safety as they survey the pair on the ice, their relative peace quickly devolves into their usual petty arguing about how Killian was only making things worse and Jack telling him to stop moving so much. This, turning a few heads of the other skaters that stay far, far away from the duo.  

Rowan turns back to Lucy, giving a quick glance to her mug before pulling out his wand from an inside coat pocket. He brings the amber tip to trace the rim of the cup with a very soft glow, summoning trails of golden magic to follow its path and dip into the hot chocolate with fading sparkle and seeping the enchantment into the drink, making sure it stays at a perfectly hot temperature. 

“You're almost as bad as him,” she softly smiles and brings the cup to her mouth, “you're not supposed to use magic out and about ya know.”

“It's not magic, it's…a prop,” he casually tries to excuse. “There's a Harry Potter store like, an hour away, it's fine. I just hate that the drinks get cold so fast.”

“Thanks,” her posture relaxes when taking another sip and leaning her head on his shoulder. 

Rowan, while getting more used to it, still blushes slightly when she leans against him. He intuitively puts his free arm around her shoulder as they watch Killian struggle on the ice, with Jack trying not to laugh too hard at him. Lucy continues to egg him on from the sidelines with returned threats on her life, both her and Jack taking varying levels of enjoyment in his struggle for very different reasons.

#digital art #musings #CC #the santa clause #the santa clause 3 #BlackIce #jack frost #Lucy Miller #OC #its so hard to write fluff for these bitches! #impossible to think they DONT suffer in any given scenario

[nerves-nebula]

(another long ask im excited ok!! so sorry (*´･д･))

stop making me kin your sad turtles this instant /j /lh

my good fellow you are reading my MIND! AUGH these emotionally unstable lil dudes are going to make me feral! ripping a pillow with my teeth!

underage drinking will fix NOTHING Mikester do Not! (but for angst purposes...whomst am i to argue......)

also fr fr telling myself im the Sexiest, Greatest, Coolest Person Alive while actively hating every little thing abt my autistic self helps balance it out to being Kinda Neutral abt myself so like keep that up bud, if it works it works (｡-ω-)b

i dont wanna blow up your already-flooded inbox but i do have Thoughts and Words on Leo i am taking her apart under my microscope and taking NOTES i stg im gonna write a lil study on her or SOMETHING bc. this blorbita is always rotating in my brain.

(also im a big rider of the transfem raph train and oh boy. ohh boy i have thoughts about how that would work out in this au as well. permission to use that concept in my own personal, never-leaves-google-docs writings perhaps?) -stitch (again sorry!)

blorbita is so cute omgg <<33

i give u permission to transfem my raph however u like. my gender canon for him is that he's a gay ass homosexual fag and anything past that is too complicated. He's like if a boy and a guy were just a dude but never a man. His rat dad raised them to be boys and he doesn't really care either way.

but transfem raph is literally always so fuckin good. i aint seen a single transfem raph i didn't love. so like idk go wild with it.

#nnstuff #ask #asks are sweethearts #tmnt raph #teenage mutant neglected turtles

[ruthlesslistener]

4, 7, 8 for the love your fandom asks?

Gonna do this one for Destiny since that's the one we're currently sharing lmao

4. say something nice about a ship you don't ship (it can be another ship in your fandom, a mutual's OTP, etc)

-ngl ever since you pitched the thought of Misraaks/Taniks and I saw their size comparison, Ive been rotating it in my mind. Idk if I ship it yet because Misraaks keeps giving me 'too busy trying to save the world to think about courtship' but i sure am rotating it in my mind. If there's anyone who can domesticate Taniks like a particularily fucked up and feral horse, then it's Misraaks- I'm excluding Eramis here because I think her particular method of dealing with him is just giving him free reign to do shit and bailing him out if necessary, which Taniks greatly appreciates but is hardly a step towards resocializing him

7. your favorite tropes to read/write/draw

-Lightbearers being both fucking unhinged on account of their very nature and just slightly not-quite-human because of the whole 'resurrected from the dead by an alien terraforming entity' thing. I'm almost completely incapable of writing or getting attached to normal human characters, I think, so that influences it quite a bit, but I also just really love the concept of Lightbearers coming back wrong after death and having this sensation of eerie otherness about them. Like the Light wanted to put them back together, but couldn't quite remember exactly how to do it perfectly or remake them in a way that didn't leave its mark on their biology. Which is partially how I explain they're infertile but thats an entire side tangent that delves into tissue regeneration factors and how Light radiation interacts with DNA

8. you hope more people will come to appreciate ___ (a ship, a trope, an episode, etc)

-Eramis is so so underappreciated still and it makes me wanna cry. WHERE are all the art and fics for her WHY is she so niche. Shes literally a canon milf who loves and misses her wife and is also an alien space pirate who hates and wants to kill god and has a complicated relationship with humanity and her interactions with Eido were GODTIER, I need MORE

#vivifrage #destiny 2 #im kind of applying the same sort of vibe that Hunters have in bloodborne to Lightbearers in Destiny 2 #the aliens brought you back from the dead and made you human but a little to the left and with a noticible question mark #and its not always noticible but when it does it goes straight to uncanny valley and sends chills down your spine #ask game #ask meme #reply

[agentmmayy]

january & february rotation

i mostly listened to songs i’ve had on repeat last year these past few months, but here are some new ones i enjoyed!

love u already - fleurie: i haven’t met you yet but i love you already!!!!!!!! dreamy and wistful and so hopeful i love it 

one i wanna be with - trella: oh bop!!!!!!!!!!! this ENTIRE SONG just makes me so happy!!!!!!! it’s so full of love!!! every lyric hits but especially i can’t help but wish we met before we did

i know what love is - honeybee: this song is so mellow and sweet i adore it. i’m always a sucker for love songs like this. it jumped me right from the lyric you gave me your heart like you had it to spare. also i am obsessed with how this song mirrors the classic i wanna know what love is

i walked a mile in my room - miki ratsula: when i tell you i still haven’t recovered from this!!!! will you take me as i am will you love me still tomorrow? this song has me by the throat. still not even fully processed the TITLE jesus. 

california - lisa mitchell: this song is on a playlist @152glasslippers made me and it’s been stuck in my head for the past 2 months. obsessed with how in this song california isn’t just a place it’s a state of being and of mind. california is just a placeholder!!!! a name put to something unnamable so it can become tangible!!!!! the lyric that hit me the most was shadow weighs a ton bc wtf. it’s longing and hopeful and also at the same time foreboding? 

petals on the moon - wasia project: they had me at moon what can i say. it has such an infectious beat i want to skip along to it. this song makes me think of walking down a busy sidewalk during a cool windy day and people-watching and reflecting the entire journey until getting home. it’s whimsical. hand down favorite part is i feel like i can’t help but always feel so blue but in the end i know i must keep pulling through. it’s the epitome of i can’t go on, i’ll go on!!!

let go - stories, amelia mclean: this song is so gorgeous and gentle not only with the lulling chords but also the vocals and the continuous build up and release. 100% have cried to this a few times in the last month. it’s accepting and comforting and encouraging 

empty vessels - lilli furfaro: THE LYRICS IN THIS SONG ARE INSANE!!!!!!! i literally cannot wrap my head around it. it’s just so good. the entire concept of being empty and being filled up with love again and again only to pour it out again and again and repeat the cycle?????? not having a purpose or being used until that love comes along???? at least it means i’m useful now and then??? i was made to pout out all my insides??? i‘ve been sitting in your highest cupboard???? i was built to hold the weight of safety??? MY BELLY FILLED WITH RICH ANNOINTING OILS???? YOU SNAP ME BY THE NECK TO BREAK THE SEAL????? I AM CRAWLING ON THE CEILING!!!!! CHEWING ON DRYWALL!!!!! WAILING AND SCREAMING AND SHAKING!!!! this is another one of those crazy, destructive love songs that i eat up every time 

always & forever - lilly kershaw: the natural follow up to empty vessels. each lyric blew my mf mind but especially you said you’re gonna love me full and i said how could that be when i’ve never been whole and i’ve never been free. like????? 

antiques - holden laurence: god the desperation in this makes me want to claw my chest open and rip my heart out. the beat fucks in this jaunty rhythm that’s such a juxtaposition to the haunting lyrics and vocals. then the bridge?????? i promise to be strong i promise to believe in love that lingers on i’ll see you in my dreams. I’M CALLING THE POLICE. i have no ground to stand on for this opinion and not to blorbo this but i will. this is a tess/joel song. not only because of how apocalyptic this feels (which is a whole other discussion) but also meet me in the space between all the words unsaid when we could not speak meet me i’ll be waiting for you there. thanks for coming to my ted talk

the subway song - delacey: bawled my eyes out listening to this one for the first time whew babey! take me home i feel homesick i don’t know where i’m going too many faces but none i know and i’m alone. excuse me!!!!!

#monthly music rotation #monthly music roundup #is 'i know what love is' on my eddissy playlist? ofc #'empty vessels' is for you bestie #when you get to a certain part i hope you laugh #you can tell i've been going THROUGH it in february based on how this playlist changed halfway through lmao #complete 180 in vibes #not included is iris #and as i walk into the sea #and would've could've should've #just to give you some more context of how unwell i am #am i getting emotional over how every song in this is about love????????? #SURE AM! #antiques attacked me so hard i still haven't gotten over it #i've been listening to it on repeat all day just sitting and staring at the wall

[nonbinarv]

ask game! <3

loop (isat) - 5, 12, 23, 25

ena (ena) - 2, 3, 4, 13

absol (pkmn) - 1, 6, 23, 24

ena

2. the basis for her design is a cool concept :o

3. does the end of temptation stairway count /hj

4. hmm. pokémon bc i have made a team for her before. she would find fun there i think. a strain of joy she recognizes

13. 🎭. yes this is just my ena tag on my kin blog but like am i wrong,

absol

1. i forgot when or how i really ended up attaching to absol in particular but like. the pokédex entries… it just wants to keep people safe but is scorned for it… it's really just the black cat of the pokémon universe and i want to hug it. also i know people call its design edgy but i consider it more majestic than anything ngl. idk i just want it to be happy

6. could use a hug

23. look at its little tail wags… its paw movements… ;w;

24. …hm not sure tbh? design-wise mayyybe joshua twewy. mega absol in particular. it's just the Vibes™

loop (under the cut for spoilers)

5. so technically there's an official playlist for them i haven't listened to yet- but the very first one that comes to mind is sundial by lemon demon thanks to this comic. since that's more of an overall siffrin song than specifically loop though (it's on my kin playlist too which has a lot of songs that overlap for obvious reasons), there's also upside down & inside out by ok go and you are getting a ramble on discord about my logic later tonight owo

12. okay okay hc time. so the thing is siffrins are not very subtle creatures right. so i think that just like odile was suspicious of the time loops before having enough info to really put the pieces together, she'd be suspicious as all hell of loop in a post-canon scenario where they join the family. while they'd still keep their façade up there'd be all these little things that she can and would notice. especially considering her own guilt that she expresses in act 6 for not pushing more to find out what was wrong she would confront them so quickly about it and they would not react well because in addition to pineapples siffrins are also extremely allergic to being vulnerable. also this odile may be a near perfect copy but not quite, not theirs, a complete stranger wearing her face- loop wouldn't go full act 5 but they'd definitely ramp up their playful exterior out of desperation and flee.

odile ends up the first to know (besides siffrin of course) after siffrin is 👀 at them and loop has to experience the other side of self to self therapy momence. self-recognition through the other (derogatory but necessary bc if siffrin has to start opening up to the others then so does loop it's not fair for only one siffrin to). maybe going the 'if you got to tell them about my time loops i get to tell them about this if you don't' type thing but not in like a manipulative or getting back at them way more a 'i know you'll never actually say it otherwise but you do have to come clean eventually' thing if that makes sense. bc how are they supposed to start healing from it if they won't even admit it

she takes it surprisingly well; she'd only push to a certain point (not as necessary to like with siffrin and his wish, the universe isn't breaking over it) and let loop know that while she may not be their odile they're still a part of the family all the same and that she's there for them too not just siffrin. may ramble more @ you later on discord about how i perceive loop's relationships with the rest of the group bc this question has me rotating them in my mind

23. not a favorite emotionally bc they deserve better but also ough. the moment of their old appearance shining through before the battle. and this pic when they talk about their second wish, stuck in it for so long that they just break and want someone to help them, for it all to stop… it's gonna kill me when i get their act 6 stuff. it's the emotional impact of it

25. initially an absolute bastard. not quite hatred but also damn "have you tried not dying?" fuck that y'know. they're still very much bastard but now it's like. i get it sdgfkjhl i can't say anything really. i want to give them a hug because they're just as touch-starved if not even more so. old friend start again siffrin continuing to go through hell, again of their own making…

#answered #ty my angel <3

[unlimitedhorsepower]

been rotating t&b2 cour2 in my mind like a 5D object...

i wanted to write more comprehensive post to air some of my grievances, and of course finally releasing my exclusive statement on my special beast ryan goldsmith.

however when i started to write this i realized i have a shitton of thoughts and could rewrite the entire cour if i really thought about it, so i actually mention most characters in this self-indulgent essay of mine and you can just skim through if you were interested in my thoughts.

i talk a lot of yuri here even if i went into this thinking that ive already talked about him enough, because he fascinates me...

anyhow, here they are, my more comprehensive thoughts under the cut because theyre not spoiler free:

this is unbearably long: ive bolded some key sentences that build up to something if youd like to skim it instead of reading it. i also suggest you using Ctrl+F to find mentions of characters you care about because ive literally mentioned every single character in this in some way and it genuinely is incredibly long and convoluted.

i talk about some characters way more because i wrote those parts earlier and felt more full of energy. i also talk a lot about ryan. perhaps even more than he deserves! but he is my favourite character, youve been warned. i didnt even mean to make him seem so important because hes not, lmfao.

ill say, it can definitely be a bit confusing if its not being read it order but like, meh... i guess it was also more important for me to get my thoughts out so that i can have other thoughts again.

this entire thing got away from me and at many points devolved to me not only ragging on t&b2 but extensively discussing my alternatives which couldve imo built the entire thing into something more worthwhile...

ive added like three screencaps to make it a little more exciting to scroll through, and if i have energy left im gonna add more images to make it less like a huge wall of text, which it is. but right now i just wanna post it because i genuinely spent 10 hours straight writing this and then woke up today and spent another 10 hours writing it.

i think this is my therapy over yuris arc, because that genuinely made me sick. maybe im unreasonable and just pissed off about that specifically, but who knows. not me!

so, to begin... t&b2 cour2.

hmm.

i initially called it “good” and said i enjoyed it besides yuris arc, but that feeling was born from the sheer emotional turmoil yuris death gave me. in comparison, everything else in the cour was fine- great, even!

there can be missteps and flaws that diminish your enjoyment but that are easy enough to fix in your mind, and then theres a misstep of the sort of a character dying after the narrative spends a lot of time giving me what i can only describe as trauma porn.

i already wrote about that here, so ill skip some of the things related to yuri (i just cant get over it... i keep circling back to him throughout this document because hes such a central figure to what we got and what i thought we would get).

cour2 had such a solid basic understanding of characters, but there was just way too much going on at the same time and way too many loose plot threads. cour2 was like building a house of cards on top of a solid brick foundation and expecting it to hold water.

cour1 isnt perfect, but it was pretty good in introducing us to new concepts, new characters (three new heroes to our ensemble cast, one returning talent from the rising who needs less establishing, and the new villains, and more) and the new plot threads, but i also feel that misogyny unfortunately played a great role in who got arcs and what sort of arcs.

season1 isnt perfect either, of course, but one could imagine a sequel follows up tonally with its predecessor and also improves upon it, especially because this has been explicitly suggested by the creators (like improving on nathans portrayal, for example!).

cour2 majorly failed to follow up on the promises of cour1 and the overall promises of what t&b is like in tone and content. there were too many plot threads and too many characters. i wouldve entirely cut out aurora and large parts of yuris/lunatics “arc”. the latter i wouldve tied into LL audun and a greater plotline of mr.legend and heroism.

speaking of mr.legend, yuris hallucinations of him were excessive and felt extremely cheap. i know i said i wouldnt focus on yuri, but i feel like i have to... mr.legends force ghost saying anything will never amount to any healing or retributive action from the man himself, but i felt like i was supposed to feel it was “good” he knew those things.

i felt that the narrative was telling me that indeed, yuri had loved his father once, and he had positive qualities, but i already knew that. i also never doubted that both of his parents had once loved him- its just that those things dont take away from how poorly they treated yuri in the end.

im willing to extend some sympathy to yuris mother, but to mr.legend, never. in one of the mangas mr.legend in the past asks young maverick to wipe his memories of him ever having powers (even though the memories will return to him in due time since thats a major thing to change) so that he can be free of the guilt he feels.

even without that, i already knew that the real mr.legend most likely felt some sense of guilt over his actions, not just the mr.legend force ghost/yuris hallucination.

i know: i simply dont care! he may have been put into a shitty situation and suffered, but it was his choice to hurt others. it was him who used his status to fix fights and beat his wife and child. he was in a position of power, and he took advantage of it to make himself feel better.

side note, alcoholism keeps being equated to evil by it being explicitly referenced with mr.legend and gregory sunshine even if by itself its a taxing addiction and addicts are people who are suffering, not caricaturish evildoers. antonios drinking habits have been equally worrisome sometimes -if you look at his schedule in KOW the rising, he is very much using alcohol to drown his sorrows- and this briefly comes up in cour1.

in cour2, its played up for jokes: antonio took ivan drinking and ivan drank way too much and did funny things while he was drunk (more on this later). antonios just different actually, because hes fundamentally good.

it was shown to us that mr.legend was very active in the match fixing himself... i think it wouldve been more fitting to show child yuri spying on his fathers discussion with maverick trying to suggest it to test the waters of seeing how easy it would be to manipulate mr.legend into it, perhaps about to offer him coffee to signify hes about to change memories if he needs to, and mr.legend jumping on the offer instead of declining it and shattering yuris high opinion of his father.

maverick not being included just reminds me how yuri is somehow a secret child nobody knows about. we remain in the dark on how yuri ended up taking care of his own mother and what he did to attain the position of a judge.

we still dont know the details of who covered up mr.legends death and why and how. it wouldve only made sense it was maverick, but how the hell did he then not know that yuri must be the one with the powerful NEXT power?.. how did he in general not recognize yuri once he became a judge? was he not distrustful?

more importantly, why did he not try to manipulate yuri? wouldnt it have been a huge boon for him to find a vulnerable child who is mr.legends son no less, and to raise him into a tool like he eventually raised barnaby?

i could see that yuris mother olga (i think its officially translated as origa, but its definitely olga) actually protected him back then. after all, he was the only remaining family she had left, even if she too grew to resent yuri at some point for some reason (and somewhat understandable, given how she was portrayed in s1 accepting mr.legends treatment: she had submitted to her fate and become traumatized).

however, olga has calmed down from her potrayal of throwing plates at yuri in s1 and the change happened without explanation but an acknowledgment from the caregiver, and she is never given any depth as to why she could blame yuri so deeply and fervently in some of her more lucid (?) moments.

in cour2, she becomes just a vessel for inflicting more trauma on yuri, and its her only purpose: shes not her own character. shes a woman, specifically a mother, and thats all we need to know about her.

i know that my tinfoil hat theory of gregory sunshine being yuris biological father is implausible at this point after all that talk about hero blood in yuris veins, but it wouldve genuinely given olga much more depth to give her a reason (not a justification) on why shes been so aggressive towards yuri and blames him specifically, if yuri had been an illegitimate child or somesuch. but i wrote about that already in the linked post and its replies.

back to parental figures, i think laras mother zamira was a great character in cour1. shes not a morally good character, no, but i think her portrayal was strong? it was very clear to me that shes treating lara as an extension of herself instead of her own person. she controls her and her life, and she reprimands lara for having thoughts and feelings beyond her control.

it is her who has set lara on this path to heroism, and it is for her benefit. lara is a vessel for her to life through, and this could be easily contrasted with yuri and his burden about being mr.legends son.

however, in cour2 the entire premise is undermined when zamira is proven to “actually care” about lara. if i dont remember wrong, paolin even says that “she reminds her of her own mother”, which i was meant to understand in a positive way. this is presented in tandem with mr.legend(s ghost) somehow “really caring about yuri” in that odd scene they had together.

its also proven that zamira wasnt an unreliable narrator about her prior tennis partner pamela, because we see pamela easily blame NEXT for existing in the news as proof that she is cruel. i get the sense were supposed to think zamira was just sad and trying her best to raise lara and make sure nobody takes advantage of her like she was taken advantage of.

i frankly dont care! she had, undoubtedly, treated lara the way she treats her in cour1 for laras entire life: shes 14. it leaves a lasting mark she can never take back. “im sorry” doesnt even begin to fix it.

i wrote about yuri adopting lara here, so i wont delve into some very specific AU, but it wouldve felt much more reasonable and realistic for lara to be freed from her mother, not even necessarily in the way my pipeline dream describes, in a way that couldve emphasized yuri and his good qualities.

t&b has never been free of misogyny and other issues, but i feel like this cour really brought a lot of those issues to the surface instead of improving on them... instead of a nuanced portrayal of a fractured mother-daughter relationship, we were given something that just felt like underlining the fact that zamira is a mother, of course she cares about lara in more ways than for her own benefit.

zamira is a mother like olga, and thats what we “needed” to know about them in addition to knowing that they experienced trauma that just made them forget about their motherhood for a moment, but we learn that olga cared too, she even made those cookies. their mother-son relationship is similarly glossed over.

lara -like yuri- is done a great disservice in the process of redeeming abusive parents. shes a kid who killed a villain on accident in self-defense in cour1, and it felt significant. cour2 doesnt bring this up as a plot point in any way.

i was imagining her getting a much bigger arc that couldve overall easily tied into revealing mr.legend as a horrible parent instead of being its own distinctly separate arc.

speaking of mr.legend being exposed, it was ridiculous that yuri revealed mr.legends awfulness to kotetsu and barnaby and it fell fully flat due to kotetsus and barnabys reactions, or rather due to their lack of reactions, which was strange for them both.

its realistic enough to have yuri do something like that, even if it was sudden: it feels like he was under a lot of duress and clearly seeking help in any way he could, justifying it to himself in some “logical” reasoning for it because i dont think he would consciously realize he needs and wants someone to believe him.

before i get into that and how i think they shouldve reacted with far more compassion, i want to say that to me its clear that kotetsus career in heroism has led him to neglect kaede, especially in the past when kaede didnt know that her father was a hero. this is brought up a bit in cour1, and for example is prominent in the beginnings additional scene where kaede begs for her father to show up at the ice rink just this once.

the series shows their father-daughter relationship mostly from kotetsus side, so that we know hes trying his best and really wants to be involved in kaedes life but hes genuinely busy, but if you think about it from kaedes perspective, kotetsu hasnt always been a good father to her and kotetsus business doesnt take away from his failings.

misogyny plays a role in this portrayal, and that i cant blame kotetsu for as a fictional character, but the fact that some of his actions are played for jokes and the fact that he continues doing them bother me, like pretending hes doing yoga like kaede suggested and instead of actually doing it. i wish he was more honest with her, even about those little things!

narratively in the rising, again, kaede is forced to adopt a tomoe-like role in encouraging her own father to continue his hero work, which isnt cute to me at all. its extremely emotionally taxing to have to be more responsible than your own parent and give them advice.. in cour2 she is again protecting her father from the truth that his mother is bedridden (nothing, afaik, comes out of that by the way?).

why is kaede protecting kotetsu, and why does she feel the need to do that? shes a child! she should be able to depend on his father, not feel like she has to protect him just because hes a hero.

those things frustrate me about kotetsu and the narrative around him and kaede, because i think this moment especially couldve used to do something about this dynamic and parenting. however, every parenting-related thing in cour2 was atrocious.

kotetsu has flaws and i think he has done wrong despite trying his best (sometimes your best isnt enough!), but he isnt cruel and genuinely does care about kaede, and he cares about others even if theyre not his family (he is a busybody, after all). he is a single father and a widower whose late wife pushed him into hero work, and his old mother supports him greatly, as does his brother.

despite family being so important to kotetsu, he ends up not reacting much to yuris admission that mr.legend beat his wife and child. doesnt that seem like something he wouldve focused on? good-hearted as he is, wouldnt he have been utterly shocked to hear that someone who “saved” him couldve been so thoroughly rotten?

it shouldve shocked him more than match-fixing and clinging to the identity of a hero: imagining himself becoming a cruel parent (and a husband).

i think he shouldve admitted that his own hero career has caused him to neglect kaede, and that he didnt even properly realize until as of late how much it had affected her- that he has flaws too and cant claim to be special or that mr.legend was an outlier, and that he cant imagine how hard it mustve been for yuri to go through that.

it wouldve been far more compassionate of him, and he really has a lot of compassion for others! i refuse to watch that scene again right now so maybe i remember some part wrong, but still: in my opinion he was a dick to yuri, and very defensive about himself. he didnt try to console him, it felt like he wanted to set himself apart as a better person than mr.legend.

i dont understand why he didnt at least try to find yuri after hes stormed off and hes realized that he said stuff yuri probably didnt want to hear? thats a thing kotetsu does all the time: he meddles. he gets things wrong, sure, but he meddles, and pulls people aside to have a chat with them and to try to help (like he later on does with barnaby).

kotetsu believes in heroism and his ideals of heroes, and its also very personal and family-related to him, so for him to be more shocked by mr.legend clinging to his hero image than the abuse part explicitly was a weird narrative choice to inflict more pain on yuri. i dont think yuri felt understood at all.

i think kotetsu wouldve been able to discern the most important part of this: that mr.legend was a bad father and husband, and he shouldve extended compassion to yuri (even if yuri didnt ask for any). thats what he did with barnaby in s1 as well!

just like kotetsus nonreaction to what really mattered in what yuri told the two of them, barnaby didnt have much to say which made the entire scene feel more callous.

its a deliberate choice, and its as odd as kotetsus reaction.

barnaby saw his parents dead in front of his eyes and was taken in by maverick and regarded him as a parental figure he could depend on up until the moment it was explicitly revealed to him that maverick had killed his parents and used him like a tool.

i could understand kotetsu initially being defensive (hearing someone he was “saved” by being thoroughly awful is not easy!) if barnaby had chimed in and snapped kotetsu out of it, which wouldve also played into the idea that people need others to support them and also to “steer them on the right path” so that kotetsu manages to focus on the most important but also the most painful part even if it also hurts him to think about, including admitting to his own failures as a father.

i think barnaby shouldve immediately been sympathetic towards yuri, and it couldve also signified how far he has come from his first appearance in s1 where he explicitly had closed himself off from others, and perhaps even realized that yuri is acting like he once did and is deeply lonely.

his sudden admittance to being mr.legends son is an urgent cry for help!

canonically, the moment started and ended and neither kotetsu or barnaby cared enough to say anything nice or follow after him. i think it was out-of-character, and they were forced to act like that to make sure yuris downwards spiral would continue. it was cruel.

the plot often felt explicitly manufactured towards a certain endpoint instead of feeling natural and in-character, going so far the narrative took explicit steps to prevent certain things from happening.

the “prevention of things” was especially obvious with ryan.

this is going to be long because not only is he my favourite character, but ever since his introduction in the rising he has occupied a specific niche that couldve played into the theme of questioning who really is a hero and why, and what makes a hero.

because karina forms blue golden with ryan, i dont think i can discuss ryans lack of any real arc without bringing her up, especially because karina and ryan have both been positioned as being more of “main characters” than the rest of the supporting hero ensemble, which is why i especially expected more out of them.

karina has been central ever since the pilot of t&b, in which she is featured: she has a lot of connections to kotetsu including her childish crush, and out of all heroes, it is her who kaede calls when she wants to plan something, and ryan was introduced as a main character in the rising and embodies traits from both kotetsu and barnaby, including visually.

to begin with, ryans themes from the rising arent contradicted by cour1 setting him up as having very personal beef with gregory sunshine, the most prominent antagonist because the heroes never properly meet rosicky and LL audun is a last-minute addition (who wouldve deserved more screen time, more on him later).

in cour1, we come to know that gregory caused ryan collapse a building on himself and nobody helped him, his fellow heroes laughing at him before they leave him bleeding underneath rubble. in cour2, we see more of it and that he didnt only get buried underneath large amounts of rubble, but that he majorly injured (or worse) a large amount of civilians as well.

again, im not sure because im not going to rewatch, but i understood it was supposed to be the same instance as the one where his fellow heroes laugh at him, unless its just a nightmare he has that civilians were injured as well.

regardless, he was personally affected by gregory, and he wants gregory to not to run free, and its a fact that hes actually very emotional and acts impulsively under duress, like trying to leave sternbild the moment he thought karina was going to ditch him as a buddy (because he, like yuri, is actually lonely and wants people to understand him but gives up way too quickly).

he also breaks the door into gregorys apartment without a second thought (this is breaking&entering!), and later on we see him yelling and gesturing at blue goldens manager in a quick background scene about their new contracts.

however, his reaction to mattia allegedly ratting them out to gregory is “slightly miffed” at best, even if gregory was so close to being caught by him. it feels unbelievable to me, especially because i think his loud and genuine emotions are his strength but also his potential flaw.

i think he shouldve acted way more unreasonably emotional about it, instead of only bringing up how anyone can betray you at any time. to take a detour to karina for a bit, it was also ridiculous that karina had nothing significant to say to that.

she has difficulties speaking up sometimes, but karina shouldve been allowed to feel personally slighted by ryan after all the buddy hero arcs being about trusting each other.

it seems that she can only be given arcs that revolve around men and not, for example, her feelings about herself and being able to take pride in being a very hard-working hero, idol, and now a friend too, especially when the new manga shows her reoccurring troubles in trying to balance different aspects of her life like studying and being a hero.

it wouldve stung to hear ryan say that like he was brushing her off: did ryan learn nothing, and was he just saying all that stuff earlier to put her at ease instead of being genuine? it also ties into ryans issue of always being genuine but his eccentric personality making him seem fake/suspicious, like in the rising.

his personality felt utterly stagnant in cour2 with smug quips, however, and he was just positioned as “morally good” instead of the narrative allowing him to reasonably continue his arc and meaning for the narrative by going after gregory as a hero even when its against the law.

some of the themes of ryans character pair off with yuris and any arc he couldve been given with gregory wouldve been perfect to compliment an arc with yuri/lunatic, the truth about mr.legend, how LL audun couldve tied into that.

yuri is positioned as a vigilante, even a villain, but hes shown to save kotetsu on-screen, and he follows his code of justice very strictly. we know his reasons to act the way he does, and he is sympathetic. ryan, on the other hand, is positioned as a hero, but he can be kind of a prick and his idea of justice is remarkably lax in some ways. we can make a good guess why he acts like that, and like yuri, he is sympathetic.

they both are characters kotetsu and barnaby know well, and theyre both more severe than the titular protagonists. kotetsu has bent the rules on occasion to act according to his idea of heroism, but in my opinion ryan is set up as someone who would explicitly break rules for his idea of heroism (or lack thereof).

ryan is a good person and very much a hero, but he isnt the flawed but idealistic hero full of passion like wild tiger, or the humble and pure-hearted storybook hero like sky high, hes the egotistical heracles clad in the golden pelt of the slain nemean lion who knows just how good he is (and thats all he has going on for him, that ego of his).

its obvious that he can be a bit selfish: in the rising he uses his gravity dome to not only to save the building, but he traps all the other heroes in it, including pulling sky high from the air. from the movie commentary track ive gotten the idea that he did it on purpose since he can control the height of the dome he creates.

he also stretches out his dome later, so it begs the question if it was ever necessary to get any of the other heroes trapped in it to begin with.

he does save that building and the civilians within and causes no significant harm because he really is good at being a hero and hes not evil, but the narrative shows that he doesnt treat heroism like the heroes of sternbild do: he lacks the same sense of honorable justice our sternbild heroes have.

being a hero is first and foremost his career, which is why he brings up that “the money is good”, and because hes positioned as an experienced hero, he mustve started out as a child, given that he is younger than barnaby (even if in my opinion is not so much younger than he is).

the rising is strongly themed around justice day and the myth, and its also about him seeing the heroes of sternbild care about each other and their bonds with each other, instead of them all regarding each other as competition like hes used to people treating him, given how unbothered he is by figuring out barnaby didnt only distrust him but outright suspected him of being a villain.

due to seeing the bonds of the heroes of sternbild, he starts to “carry a heart of justice” as per the myth. barnaby suspected that he is a villain and the goddess of the story even if he ended up being more like the people cast aside by the goddess for their selfishness.

in the end he makes a choice: he can stay and keep the central bond between kotetsu and barnaby broken, or he can leave and mend the bond his hiring caused and bring the two of them back together as a duo. in the last shot, the winged lion of apollon media faces away from the camera like the way ryan leaves, while the justice tower smiles.

justice was enacted and she approves of it, and funnily ryan never thought that he could be a part of these bonds which is why he wholly leaves sternbild. in his KOW the rising schedule he meets up with a lot of people but theyre all just acquantaices, and he talks with his iguana. he moves around a lot, its in his title of the “wandering gravity prince”.

he lacks bonds like yuri lacks them, but by giving him a buddy partner in t&b2, he becomes more of a part of sternbild heroes, but its not just going to change who he has grown into overnight.

its intentional that ryan has wings on his hero suit like the ones the goddess is portrayed with, and the rest of his imagery plays into the this theming of the goddess/the sun while echoing kotetsus “tiger”.

lions are associated with the sun, even the zodiac sign leo is ruled by the sun. royals and gods have been linked to the sun in many places, so his old hero suit and title play into it. gold, similarly, echoes this sentiment.

in the opening, ryan “sun” is composed of the streets of the city and missing its center where the sponsor is displayed, but knowing the legend, its where the city was caved in, and it uses the same colours as the illustrated parts of the legend of justice day (in which the sun is displayed similarly, and yes, if you disagree on it looking like the sun, you could be right, perhaps that part is a coincidence.)

yuri is shown in the opening of the rising as well, his slide after ryans and his red moon the central piece of his background and juxtaposed with ryans hollow sun.

and i want to be clear, ryans background changes into a sky full of stars before yuris slide is displayed, which also makes sense for ryan because the heroes of sternbild are portrayed as stars more than once (and its funny for ryan to be the sun because the sun is just a star, its just closer to earth. hes not special, hes just loud about it).

its also significant to me that all heroes are portrayed with slides with a side-view of buildings in the background whenever applicable, even keith who can literally fly: it is ryan who has a momentary birds-eye view.

its the opposite of yuris, in which the lines around his red moon are buildings as if someone was looking upwards from the ground and also somewhat echoes the parts, including colour-wise, where the people are trapped in the cave by the goddess.

lunatic features prominently in the rising once yuri figures whats going on, and kotetsu gets to talk to him about how hes trying to save virgil/andrew from the burden of having killed and whatnot. the entire movie is themed around a holiday called justice day and showing mercy and who deserves mercy and why?

i genuinely thought that ryan being brought back indicates that tiger&bunny continues to question what being a hero really means, by giving the titular protagonists and the narrative someone to contrast with lunatic while ensuring kotetsu and barnaby can stay on the side of “good”/heroes for the sake of them being the main characters.

it wouldve been a purpose fulfilled for ryan to go against the law and becoming a vigilante because of how badly he wants to catch gregory: he has a huge personal reason to do so.

instead of the narrative following the logical conclusion of ryan going rogue due to how badly he wants to see gregory out of the streets, we get a scene specifically to explain why ryan cant follow through with the logical next step of his arc?

what a waste of everyones time, and i get the sense that the writers understand how strongly ryan feels about it (the foundation is there!) because it required both the company owner and manager to hang karinas fate over his head to ensure he doesnt just go on his merry way.

(i dont, by the way, understand that scene, and i cant bear to look at t&b2 scenes again... if you can explain it to me, then please do lol. like i specifically dont understand why ryan doing anything would cause harm to karinas privacy.)

not only wouldve it been meaningful for the entire narrative and ryan, this couldve so easily been used to give karina a satisfying arc that also shows that she is just as capable and deserving of an arc as the guy heroes of the cast, especially as the most prominent woman hero. now, instead, she ends up being a plot device to make ryan feel one way or another.

even if blue goldens buddy arc included ryan realizing that he doesnt need to protect karina, it was immediately undermined by “protecting karina” being his only reason to not go rogue to find gregory?

instead of letting ryan go rogue and giving karina agency in going after him by his own choice, we get that. what was the point?

one buddy pair explicitly going against the (unjust!) law couldve served to put lunatic in a different light and interrogate the hero system as a whole, and it wouldve make sense for it to be blue golden due to their proximity to the titular main characters.

realistically i imagine ryan would have enough respect for karina to tell her beforehand what hes about to do, but unaccustomed to working together with people, he would imply that hes going alone and karina puts her foot down about it: shes not going to stop him, but shes not letting him go alone, because shes going with him.

it is her decision, and it gives her agency and an active role.

they cant have a character essentially say “yeah misogyny and gender roles and that shit is kinda fucked up” and then follow it up with Absolutely Nothing and also give karina an another arc about her crush on a man.

karinas potential as a character is squandered time and time again. in s1 its incredibly easy to miss that shes almost always the 2nd on the hero leaderboard because more attention is paid to her funny moments like her “cutie escape” and general fanservice which is awful by the way, considering that for the most part of it she is a child.

its also realistic for the idol industry, and at times the show comes close to making some sort of commentary out of it but it never quite manages, in no small part because karina is never allowed to really shine.

either way, shelving the heroes couldve been more impactful for muddying the waters about the hero industry. the cartoonishly evil interference from the cops only serves to promote the view that the heroes are acting Morally Good because theyre being hindered by not the hero system and the law but the individually selfish police chief and ouroboros interference, and serves to imply lunatic is definitely Morally Bad for acting outside of the law.

it is eventually agnes who “gets everyone to break the law, together!”, and it undermines any reasonable narrative meaning for the entire thing and makes it feel like our heroes couldnt be heroes for a bit for the sake of a meaningless and boring shock twist included for some shock value because nothing really comes out of it.

having blue golden go rogue and the police going after them wouldve forced their hands into actually fighting against non-heroes and the law, not just being on the run while they try to find gregory. ryan and karina could cause significant infrastructure damage very easily to make sure the police dont catch up, and it wouldve been easy to summarise it as collapsed roads frozen over.

while i wouldve in this hypothetical scenario loved an extensive focus on this because ryan is my favourite, i think the whole “going rogue” part couldve been conveyed without taking up an absurd amount of screentime, and couldve easily been condensed for time by having the other heroes watching a news segment about it which wouldnt have felt an out-of-place gimmick given that heroTV exists as a central thing and the fact that this has happened more than once in t&b...

kotetsu and barnaby, and the rest of the heroes could be watching a live feed, and surprised to spot ryan and karina on the run because its unlike they wouldve announced thi. our hero ensemble, especially the protagonist pair, would know that theyre not evil and that they definitely havent turned against the people of sternbild, no matter that theyve now been labeled dangerous NEXT vigilantes.

they couldve been compared to lunatic, which is a very overt way to make the hero ensemble question lunatics status as a vigilante both loved, hated and feared by the general public.

it would be ridiculously easy to play up ryans “evilness” by including a reporter from that introductory press event in the rising where he just randomly used his power on all people in the room to introduce himself (why did he do that. hes so quirky and random.), and then another shot from the rising where he traps all heroes in the gravity dome and thats feels like proof enough? they couldve also recycled the animation.

the narrative couldve made a statement on positioning medias reaction to the beloved idol blue rose on the run as “ryans bad influence” instead of granting her agency, and maybe some of the heroes couldve thought that as well, leaving it to someone else (most likely kotetsu because he is our main character!) to remark that karinas not the type of person to let ryan talk her into this sort of thing and that she mustve instead agreed with him.

having ryan on the hunt for gregory feels natural, but it couldve also been meaningful for karina.

another established thing about gregory is that hes a fucking creep. and karina has dealt with creeps her entire life due to being objectified idol. in cour1, we see that guy trying to hug karina “just this once!”, and it wasnt made into as much of a big deal as it shouldve been because we focused on ryans feelings instead.

that wouldve been fine if it was brought up again, and its utterly wild to me that it feels like they perfectly paved the way for karina to have some sort of arc with gregory herself with ryan bringing up “hug the gregory”, but then the show entirely bailed on it? why the hug theme, then?

it couldve been plot-relevant for karina and the narrative to question what being a hero means for her when her career in heroism has notably led her achievements being belittled in favor of “cutie escape" -moments and even now the media thinks shes out here because of “ryans influence” and not her own choice.

frustrated karina affirming the media somehow that shes doing this for her sense of justice, not because of ryan when some civilian fan of hers tries to save her, the poor little girl, from this vigilante escapade: what wouldve yuri thought of that?

to give karina cool moments wouldve been more impactful and couldve been plot-relevant instead of the disjointed ~girlboss moments~ of rosicky telling gregory to stop being a creep which equated to so little when rosicky is also killed by gregory.

capturing gregory couldve meant something, not been a footnote, and by showing us that fight with blue golden and gregory, they couldve showed us what they half-heartedly tried to show with the quick LL audun fight scene, with karina being the one who ends up protecting ryan after he was knocked out first?

ryan doesnt even need to have his skull caved in like that, all they wouldve had to do is to give ryan a reason to use his power and not be able to let go by having to continue holding something down with his gravity, calling back to barnaby accidentally letting him get knocked unconscious because he wanted to save schneider, except karina actually saves him.

in the process of capturing/pursuing gregory, karina wouldve had a reason to give us some sort of opinion on what she thinks about creeps without it being shoehorned in and how she has to tolerate them because theres so many loopholes in the law but finally, gregory is the one she can fight back against and its because now other people agree that hes evil!

also i genuinely think ryan wouldve loved to not only capture him but to beat the shit out of gregory because he really is different than our heroes from sternbild (and i think he wouldve been justified to do so too, lol).

to exemplify the themes of bonds, karina couldve stopped him but remarked that she feels like gregory wouldve deserved it, and she couldve vocally acknowledged shes having doubts on whether lunatic is so wrong or not, because has anyone or the hero industry itself ever really protected karina from creeps? no!

lunatic is actually making some sort of point when he kills a guy who is a serial killer of women? a bit drastic but hey. it works. that guy cant kill anyone ever again.

it would mean so much for karina to acknowledge that there indeed is something wrong with the hero industry as it exists now and heroes and heroism isnt just “morally good” by default, which also begs the question whether vigilantes etc are ontologically evil by default.

and personally, i dont think ryan would disagree with her? he is well-traveled and has seen so much more than just sternbild: im sure he has met corrupt heroes and heroes who arent even nice or “good”. im sure some places have very fucked up hero systems?..

they couldve made both ryans and karinas arcs mean something by having them face off against gregory (ive been talking of capturing, but they wouldnt even had to been successful and instead gotten captured by the police themselves or been forced to retreat), and it feels so obvious to me?

both members of blue golden wouldve gained something out of it, the overall plotline wouldve gained something out of it, and the setup of the plot wouldve benefited?

the viewer would also know that gregory deserves anything coming for him regardless of the media/public opinion because he is a freak, and the heroes too could explicitly acknowledge that maybe theyve been too harsh on lunatic by not trying to understand him like how blue golden is now misrepresented by the media without any grace? is lunatic just a killer, or... he does keep talking about that justice, after all.

both ryan and karina have interacted plenty with our protagonist pair, so it wouldve served well to draw kotetsus and barnabys attention to it. continuing to question lunatics “evilness” feels so central!

some of the children already said in the cour1 in that that law class of yuris that they thought lunatic was really protecting them and kotetsu was there to hear it, and then nothing came out of that? are you fucking kidding me? he was just like nope, wrong! its evil, end of story.

its like they were given the perfect foundation to do something interesting and valuable, and they didnt end up do any of that just to punish yuri for daring to exist in the way they forced him to exist since t&b is who made yuri the person who he is... but anyways.

yuri is prominently featured in cour2 for all of the wrong reasons, but his prominence couldve been interesting instead: he couldve been standing there looking over the heroes reacting to two of their friends gone rogue and given a cryptic statement on how it seems theyre no different than lunatic in the eyes of the public now that theyre pursuing their own brand of justice...

and everyone couldve been like alright director petrov:)! but also genuinely considered this while yuri is just there, observing the discussion and wondering how their bonds with the two new vigilantes makes it harder for them to be so sure who is a villain to be stopped and who is not.

unrelated to things i think explicitly realistic or in line of t&bs spirit, if i could choose i wouldve also had ryan and lunatic interact.

i think it wouldve been in-character for lunatic to show up to question what ryans going to do with gregory once he finds the man, with ryan answering genuinely but flippantly while karina is bewildered ryan is just trying to have a casual conversation with an fire arrow dramatically pointed at him.

lunatic questions his end goal, like are you gonna kill that guy maybe, and ryans like i dunno, i didnt think that far. now that you mention it maybe i should lol? and karinas like im sorry what is wrong with you?

we couldve gotten the yuri petrov comedy hes hard to rope into by having ryan act like he usually does with lunatic? you try to be dramatic and brooding when some guy is arguing with his emotional support buddy hero girl? ryans only prior interaction with lunatic is in the rising and saying that he looks creepy: he didnt care about a vigilante showing up because he knew the mecha flying over sternbild was the thing he should stop.

its funny because ryans notable trait is “treating everyone equally”, i dont see why he wouldve acted differently with lunatic, and to imagine karina interacting with lunatic because he showed up and ryan isnt having a normal reaction to it by being concerned. but why would ryan be concerned?.. hes good at insight and im sure he knows lunatics justice is very serious to him, and ryan knows hes not a killer so why would he be concerned right now?

but yes, the barebones idea of using ryan especially as a vessel to force the hero ensemble to reconsider vigilantism and lunatic couldve in my opinion been done without the two of them ever interacting directly, because its about what they stand for in the narrative.

what we needed to see was kotetsu (and barnaby) forming some sort of opinion on this, since we mostly see the hero side through kotetsus eyes: he is the main character, after all. all the narrative had to do was let ryan to go do what he clearly wants to.

my description of this all is very elaborate and keeps the entire thing somehow separate from the other heroes, but i think the idea or something akin to my elaborate view couldve been conveyed in a fairly conservative amount of scenes, because the cour only has limited time!

theres also a huge potential for the other characters to join in on the vigilante shenanigans like what ended up happening in the end in canon with all of them “going rogue”, and ryan and karinas involvement couldve been greater than other heroes but still far more smaller once kotetsu and barnaby get their ball rolling over the matter...

t&b2 has a lot of characters, and i think they couldve made it work, but the scenes wouldve had to been carefully picked without wasting scenes on counteracting things they had already set up?..

i dont feel like i can answer the question of “what narrative purpose did it serve to make sure ryan doesnt try to capture gregory on his own?” without pivoting back to “it had to be like this so that yuri would suffer and die and our heroes would stay morally Good unlike lunatic!”.

like, i LOVE ryan, hes my favourite character! and many of the scenes he was in i couldve lived without, because they didnt really add anything of worth to the overall narrative or plotline save for reminding us that he exists.

the entire thing where blue golden separates from the other heroes to go try to find gregory in the jail itself was similarly needlessly drawn out and condensed all the same?..

i understand it as necessary somehow (for the current plotline) to introduce LL audun, but because ryan and karina dont really have anything to do with the guy, it feels wasteful.

the pacing felt awkward to me overall. i was actually bored in some of the first episodes of the cour! and after that, everything starts happening so fast: the LL audun situation is especially sped through.

in cour1, heroes got progressively taken out until only “the essentials” in completing the arc were left, which was a great idea for the sake of stretching the limited screentime available.

it also had real in-world impact, unlike blue golden getting up a while later even if gregory flaunted that “it was so easy for LL audun to kill heroes”. it served so little purpose and was a waste of everyones time for a cheap “shock” because since it happened off-screen, i easily guessed they wouldnt kill a character off like that.

in cour2, we start knocking out heroes very late to the episodes and its not even semi-permanent. it wouldve been way more sensible to have some of the cast get knocked out somewhat early to let the remaining heroes to shine! they couldve even made to go berserk by gregory, so that we couldve then knocked HIM out and then gotten most of the heroes back for a grand finale of sorts, probably facing off LL audun and accompanied by lunatic.

even in the canon scenario, subaru couldve charged in (his whole thing is that hes hot-headed and a bit stupid even if his heart is in the right place!) and thomas couldve shown up earlier, eliminating many scenes that had little worth and focused on efficiently introducing LL audun.

they couldve had that fight with him and thomas couldve swiftly explained key details about him for exposition and made it natural because we already knew hes a fan. i also think their arcs werent so bad i suppose, but them fighting together was the conclusion to the mr.thomas buddy arc, so getting knocked out for a few episodes because theyre still rookie heroes and a bit silly wouldve made sense...

especially when they already were in the last fight in cour1!

it wouldnt have been a disservice to their arcs and wouldve given others more time to shine, and it wouldve been interesting to have other heroes react that the rookie team is presumed dead? they wouldve been fighting even harder against LL audun!

which leads me to say that the one good thing about cour2 for me was LL auduns character, but his potential wasnt realized. he was so prominent as imagery in cour1, with the twins and thomas both idolizing him.

we also know that mr.legend was a corrupt hero and there probably were others? instead of auroras introduction (it was such a gimmick), and gregory getting so much screentime for being creepy, it wouldve been far more interesting to focus on the fact LL auduns time active in vigilantism overlapped with mr.legends time as a hero.

i keep coming back to this, but LL audun couldve been the perfect setup for mr.legends crimes becoming public? it wouldve added intrique to the viewer too by have mr.thomas presumed dead and LL audun fighting the remaining heroes.

that wouldve made it harder to believe mr.legend really sucked so much by the general public and many heroes! kotetsu and barnaby wouldve felt inclined to share some part of what they learned from yuri earlier?

i feel like this wouldve been such an interesting way to make kotetsu and barnaby realize even more things about mr.legend, the hero system itself, medias part in who gets to be a hero and whos not, and lunatic... in a deeper way than the canon, half-hearted attempt at sympathetizing we got, because i just think its not in-character to have them react like that!

in-show its mentioned that LL audun “started to think hes a true hero around his tenth year in prison” but it felt like pure ouroboros/maverick interference to me (even if the current narrative mightve meant it for real).

wouldnt it have made more sense that LL audun was actually a "true hero” fighting against the establishment of the hero system itself, not because he hates heroes, but because he had figured out it was already rotten to the core becasue of maverick?

his simple nature was refreshing (in the same way i really liked fugan and mugan because they were villains but also funny about it) and kept the scenes with him light-hearted, a quality ive always been fond of in tiger&bunny. i do like intense scenes, but i think tiger&bunny should also be a little bit funny and not hard to watch.

he couldve lost his grip on reality a little bit since he spent decades in solitary confinement and focused very hard on his idea of heroism, or maverick couldve even fucked with his thoughts and made him into a ticking time bomb of wanting to destroy so many random people if he ever got out?

how the hell did maverick, mr.legend and the heroes of that time, realistically defeat LL audun back then? its not explained (again i could misremember) and its not important to the canon as-is, but imagine if the canon had focused on idk, being nicer to yuri and on the angle of mr.legends crimes and what if maverick, with mr.legend in tow, had promised to destroy sternbild if LL audun doesnt let them have their way?

it wouldve been, i feel, very easy to let us catch on that maverick was manufacturing LL auduns crimes and spread them on the media for the benefit of mr.legend and heroTV, and that LL audun couldnt stop maverick because he had been honorable about it, like a “true hero”?

hundred power is extremely versatile since it heightens all senses and weve seen that it can even boost recovery, and he can activate it almost continuously: what was it that stopped him from cracking mr.legends skull like an egg once the man himself had fully lost his power, given the canon itself features mr.legend worried about having to face someone he cant realistically win against?

LL audun outright refusing to kill mr.legend and/or maverick feels like the logical conclusion to the question of why he could be defeated. it would also give kotetsu something to think about, to realize this on the screen as our main character!

mr.legend was the hero who saved kotetsu, and then he learns from yuri that mr.legend was actually an awful person, and then, as i suggest, he sees a buddy hero pair go rogue- and then they all have to go rogue?

and to bring all of that to a satisfying conclusion, he faces off against LL audun, with the man questioning gregorys claims about who the real villains are because theyve all protected each other.

some further exposition later he could learn that mr.legend wouldnt have been able to be so awful if LL audun had just killed him when he had the chance, and that maverick couldnt have manipulated barnaby and been evil overall if LL audun hadnt taken up my suggested deal from maverick to voluntarily get imprisoned to protect sternbild and had gone the lunatic route instead?

kotetsu has always been so against killing people, and i dont think hes wrong to think so (well yes i think he is wrong. i think its morally okay to kill evil people! albeit not without emotional consequences for the person taking up that burden like lunatic. but i think its important for kotetsu to disagree with killing) and he wouldnt have had to abandon that principle of his, but this troubling reveal couldve given the narrative way more depth?..

and when kotetsu talks of the goal in the rising being saving virgil/andrew from himself: couldnt he have recognized the emotional toll lunatics actions take on him, and the emotional toll LL audun has taken due to his inaction?

like a real bit of some gray morality that actually has a purpose!

thinking about it makes me want to break something- i feel like everything was so perfectly set up for something like this, and not even this scenario but the concept of sympathizing with yuri further and helping him heal!

it couldve happened without revealing that lunatic is yuri and letting yuri continue in his position as the director of the heroes after the season has concluded (i wouldve enjoyed this personally so that i can imagine him out there), because i feel that revealing mr.legends crimes wouldve changed yuris position so significantly, and for the better!

kotetsu, as the main chracter, wouldnt have had to reveal judge petrov is mr.legends son either, maybe just lunatic for example! imagine yuri seeing people condemn his father? that wouldve been incredibly cathartic? that people agree that whoever mr.legends family was, they mustve suffered, truly and deeply?

yuri couldve gotten a scene like what kotetsu got at the end of the rising, with heroTV broadcasting random people having various positive opinions on him instead as he stands somewhere, contemplating taking off his mask and killing himself for his sins and his justice and whatnot while kotetsu and barnaby arent able to calm him down?

we couldve had a dramatic scene like that, and one of the manga chapters features that scene where yuri revealed his face to the terminally ill woman who had wanted to know who the man behind the mask is: he couldve even revealed himself to kotetsu and barnaby at least since theyre the main characters and still retained his anonymity by using his fire to shield himself from heroTV.

and on the broadcasted heroTV screen people from across sternbild could thank him for what hes done: could yuri, at that point, deny himself the possibility of being forgiven in some way?

it couldve also given us the hilarious dynamic of kotetsu and barnaby at least (and just for me, as a treat, ideally most if not all heroes) knowing that yuri is lunatic but they have a pact to keep his secret.

lunatic half-bleeds to death before jumping off but he doesnt set himself on fire and we dont see him fully fall but it serves as a momentary death fakeout.

then theres an ending scene of judge petrov opening the door to the hero lounge to give a briefing (returning us to the start of the season with yuri briefing everyone about buddy heroes) and he looks incredibly beat up.

agnes asks what the hell happened to him and he says he “got caught by one of the rampaging NEXT” or something else not unbelievable but ridiculous with a straight face, and none of the heroes contradict him.

like, wouldnt it be on-brand for kotetsu to try to joke about it while barnaby tried to shush him and causing someone like keith to quip that he doesnt really get it, isnt it a secret? and agnes could just scoff because whatever are the heroes talking about now...

my dream scenario is everyone laughing about this with yuri who is also laughing a little in confusion because now he has those bonds he hasnt had before? ngl i dont care i just want to see him happy lmfao<3

anyways see how ive lost the plot of this opinions document? bible-length and ive rambled about various topics, jeez. i also said i wouldnt talk about yuri so much but he just feels like such a central character and i like it- i just wish theyd been gentle with him instead of whatever we got. and yes, im about to talk about yuri again...

its unfortunate that with such a big cast, again, only the titular protagonists are often given scenes to interact with plot-relevant matters personally and with any depth...

of course, kotetsu and barnaby should remain at the centre of it all since theyre the protagonists, but cour2 especially included us seeing tidbits from the perspective of so many random characters, it begs the question why add so many bits from characters when i think its pretty clear the fans are interested in tiger&bunny for the ensemble cast too and want to see more of them?..

sorry to fervent mario the announcer fans or something i suppose, but if cour2 had used its time more wisely, we couldve gotten great moments from various heroes in the same time we didnt get anything done?

wasnt a single writer aware that the fandom adores the titular protagonists but theres also large fandom pockets for the other hero characters AND yuri? didnt anyone think that s2 and its buddy hero premise couldve more effectively been used to give us more lore and funny moments also for the supporting cast?

this makes me, for example, think of the scenes where everyone is deliberating X rampages and gregory things.

youre telling me that weve got all of these characters in a room and youre capable of making them act in-character while interacting with each other, but you chose the most boring ways to do it in pursuit of some sort of unneeded seriousness?

those scenes by themselves couldve been majorly improved by playing into what ive seen as the strength of tiger&bunny, with the way every hero has a distinct personality easy to play up for light-hearted moments without making it unnatural or forced?..

for example, they could be trying to talk of something serious when ryan, kotetsu and subaru get into a nonsensical argument because theyre all so loud and kotetsu and ryan actually get along well, so they couldve argued on purpose to ease the mood, while subaru got really serious about the argument because hes 17 and goofy?

barnaby, karina and thomas are all collectively sighing because of course their buddy partners are acting like this, and this goes on while keith is trying to get a word out on something actually valuable he thought of but hes too polite to interrupt the conversation, so nathan has to raise her voice and be like “boys can we please calm down keith wants to say something<3 you have 30 seconds before i get mad!″

and kotetsu, ryan and subaru are forced to apologetically sit on the floor or something, just to let keith convey an actually good point he came up just now while listening to them argue. expositional scenes dont have to be boring and lifeless?

of course its sweet to have them work together, but giving them light-hearted moments wouldnt have diminished that. theres just so much potential with the cast we have, and while they had a great foundation, the real potential was never really reached.

the way they neglect the strength of their ensemble cast repeats with who interacts with lunatic/yuri. and i know- kotetsu and barnaby are our main characters here, but sometimes i feel like hes in protagonist jail, because there are so many great interactions to pursue with him that could actually add something to the narrative!

nathan was kind of accidentally framed by him in s1, but we dont really get any follow-up on that. and for me, one of yuris greatest moments is in the manga when he saves keith (civilian) from dying while keith is trying to save the two criminals from dying himself, and keith is never none the wiser about it.

but thats more of a self-indulgence than a realistic critique, i imagine. however, from this i can get to talking about the heroes i didnt yet mention, because i can see so many ways to tie the supporting cast into the narrative and not just include scenes for “fanservice”.

the peripheral material has done this and more, why not include some of it in the show?

this is all mostly just a lot of musing on how underutilized everyone was, and how a lot of it felt disjointed and a bit wasteful of the time they had to convey the entire story.

ill start with keith: it was disappointing how he only smiled through the entire cour2, especially when you think about LL audun, who pretty much shares his “simple” worldview on heroism. we didnt even see him fight LL audun at all if my memory serves me right.

he didnt have any reaction to when the heroes get shelved, and keith arguably has pretty much no other life than being a hero, but he never has any sort of thoughts about the matter.

closest we get is firesky reminiscensing on the moments they had respectively gotten their hero suits, and keith remains one of the heroes whose backstory we know absolutely nothing about. i actually thought keith would drop some backstory lore there, but he didnt.

i feel that cour1 did a fantastic job on telling us what sort of guy he is in the episode nathan complains about him to kotetsu and barnaby: he is insecure despite all of his fame and how “perfect” he is without trying by nature, and he still he tries to act even more perfect to make sure other people would like him.

cour2 didnt really give us anything? i was genuinely expecting keith to break down at some point and that he was trying really hard to act unbothered to not make anyone else lose heart, especially after kotetsu remarked in cour1 that its keith and nathan who are really doing most of the advising around here and not himself and barnaby, the real senior buddy hero pair.

it wouldve not only given us a continuation of things from cour1 and given keith some sort of arc for the 2nd cour, but it couldve given us a character-driven moment used to show us why its kotetsu who is the protagonist even if we all know keith is such a picture-perfect hero.

ive always thought that kotetsu is more approachable than keith on purpose: hes a very normal person with normal concerns that are easy for many to relate to, and that is his charm and his strength, and he doesnt particularly stand out or excel, hes in the hero business purely out of his conviction and doing his best.

wild tiger isnt the most popular hero, but he has dedicated fans, okay! hes goofy and easy-going and meddlesome, and hes trying to make the world better, whereas keith could never be the protagonist in the same way kotetsu is because hes just too good, like how nathan found his projected perfection unnerving.

to let kotetsu participate in reassuring keith (since hes the protagonist and a busybody!) besides nathan as his buddy partner couldve served as a plot point to strengthen the idea that kotetsus various flaws are a part of what makes him great, and it couldve been used in tandem to again, interrogate the narrative about what heroism is, who can be a hero, and so on and so forth.

and with regards to my earlier thoughts about LL audun, keith represents the same type of ideal LL audun at least thinks himself to be, and the sort of ideal LL audun couldve embodied if they let me write t&b2, lol.

there couldve been some sort of plot-relevant parallel there that lets kotetsu actually figure out that LL audun is genuinely thinking hes doing the right thing and gregory was taking advantage of him- something to let kotetsu take the initiative in making LL audun question whether he actually is fighting against villains or not, because LL audun randomly questioning it himself was a bit too convenient.

it couldve been a time for kotetsu to shine with what he does best, trying to talk his brand of sense into the people hes fighting against, like how he always has a lot to say when hes facing off lunatic, or how in season1 his entire plan for making people remember who he is includes him showing up in his old hero suit and talking to them.

isnt that part of kotetsus charm as a protagonist?.. and LL audun wouldve been perfect for a discussion, because his personality wouldve lended itself to a very campy “two heroes having a dramatic discussion during a fight”.

i suppose i also personally dont need or want kotetsu be really good at fighting with the most powerful NEXT power, because thats not what makes him a fun protagonist. him goofing off and slipping on a banana peel on his way to an arrest makes him fun, and him talking the socks off of his opponents is just part of his way of being a hero.

kotetsu is into the whole “superhero flair”: heroes need to have secret identities, and heroes need to be a bit campy with thematic outfits and have dramatic discussions while they fight, and thats the spirit of tiger&bunny, isnt it? isnt that what were here for?

i at least never watched tiger&bunny for a yuri petrov suffering arc, when tiger&bunny has had an uplifting message throughout even if it tackles more adult issues due to the adult protagonists?

either way, to return to keith, i just feel like hes overdue for having that sort of very human moment to his character, because his nuance has largely been confined to manga and peripheral materials... it wouldve been nice to see him get a big moment on-screen.

even in cour1, the episode with firesky is largely shown to us from nathans perspective. having keith break down wouldve also been a great way to show how serious the shelving of heroes is and making the situation feel tense because keith especially is always so happy.

it couldve been a tipping point of sorts, where everyone starts to lose heart whether theyll manage to figure out the X rampage issue or not, because despite the boring seriousness of those scenes, i at least never felt a real sense of urgency or huge concern about them not being able to be heroes?

keith confessing that he is having a very hard time with the circumstances and making everyone visibly falter wouldve actually left an impact, and couldve let kotetsu shine as a protagonist by him trying to pick up the pieces.

it couldve also have bit of a callback to that scene where in the beginning movie hes called everyone together and claimed that the heroes and barnaby want to meet each other and everyone gets upset and leaves, one by one, but i guess it couldve been more that everyone leaves buddy pair by buddy pair since the season makes a big deal of pairing them up with them buddy pairs whenever possible.

it wouldve made me sad but not in an utterly desperate way because i know that the heroes will pull through and save the day, it wouldve been a good sort of sad.

this couldve also given nathan more of a spot to shine, because shes keiths buddy hero partner! she wouldve been there for him, but i also dont want to suggest any sort of reduction of nathan to a mammy stereotype-adjacent spot where her main function in the narrative is to take care of others, but more on nathan later.

the scene where nathan offers to hire keith as a secretary especially perplexed me and was left in the forefront of my mind. it was funny and cute, but thinking of keith losing his hero status and not immediately looking into civilian ways to help like finding volunteer organizations to sign himself up for them is so unbelievable to me, sorry...

and because i think cour2 shouldve used their episodes and screentime wisely, any such things with keith couldve been, again, tied to the bigger themes of heroism and such, right on the nose in fact! i dont think its far-fetched to have a moment of hopelessness by having keith break down and then reveal later on that hes signed himself up to ten different volunteer organizations when prompted by kotetsu.

one remark and everyone figures keith is so sad too, but hes still trying so hard to help?

keith is in many ways the best of them, and even if he was so crestfallen and suffering, hes juggling ten volunteer jobs at once even as people have complicated feelings about NEXTs due to the X riots and whatever. hes trying so hard to get people to like him and hes troubled by having NEXT powers and possibly putting people in danger if he lost control somehow (like, is he bad by showing up as keith goodman without admitting first thing he has NEXT powers, and also maybe without admitting hes sky high, as if it was a crime).

it was actually so odd how none of the heroes were ever really concerned about losing control?.. especially the heroes with powers that have the capacity to be really destructive?

and to return to keith, in my opinion he wouldve also suffered with the very human desire to be a hero again: its a huge part of his identity and it occupies almost all of his time! i think he would feel guilty that even if hes helping still in his own way by volunteering, he would specifically want to be reinstated as a hero.

it would feel selfish to him, that he has such a private desire. hes also extremely introspective and he canonically spends a lot of time thinking. he couldve delivered a very neat and conscise but very human monologue on the topic and it wouldve given the other heroes a great character-driven moment to share a bit more about how they feel about the situation?

to have our hero ensemble shelved from hero work and dedicate no scene for them to talk about how they feel about it specifically is such a waste, when it couldve showcased their personas and furthered the plotline by having them remember why theyre heroes in the first place and/or why they want to continue being heroes, etc...

what bothered me with firesky was that they also felt oddly separate from the rest of the cast at times during cour2 and the trailer made their role seem far bigger than it ended up being.

they had a bunch of nice scenes together that very funny and showcased their personalities, but i was very disappointing how those scenes kind of failed to tie into the main plotline so that they were just... there. even though theyve been a part of the main cast since the start:/

they didnt even get a major fighting scene with a big bad because LL audun knocked them out off-screen.

nathan suffers from many of the things keith suffered... she also didnt really have any significant role and well, it wasnt too bad i suppose, it was just oddly disjointed.

the heroes met up at helios energy, i think, but they couldve done so much more with nathans position as the CEO of helios energy.

it has always been a footnote in the show, even if the new manga shows us that nathan is aware of various changes in the hero system before anyone else by getting to participate in the discussions about those changes as her own boss! which is also weird ethically, but i guess its not taken so seriously.

it could have been easy to make nathan more prominent because of her CEO status. what if wed gotten to see the mayor talk to a wider board of people that included the owners of the hero companies etc and nathan was allowed to be there, hearing the talk about shelving heroes and being like wow! that certainly is a suggestion, but!..

this couldve also been used to emphasize that as his buddy partner nathan knows how important keiths job is to him? she couldve even alluded to how some heroes have really dedicated their entire lives to hero work and this is no joking matter!

instead of us getting scenes of the mayor and the assistant or somesuch, we couldve literally had a character there and given her a moment to shine while keeping it plot-relevant?.. she couldve given kotetsu and barnaby some insider knowledge on how to talk with the mayor, too?

i think her being a CEO and a hero is interesting because i dont think “CEO” is a very heroic civilian job, but i dont know if id want the series to ever delve into it overmuch because i dont know how it would be respectful to nathan who has suffered from being reduced to a homophobic/transmisogynistic stereotype before...

not like nathan is the only rich hero either, its just very different to gain income from only from hero work versus being a CEO. the peripheral material sometimes comments something about it like a gag strip making nathan say she wishes the heroes wouldnt go on a strike due to her being one of the shareholders.

what this does remind me of is that i dont think t&b2 really had any significant commentary on how money makes things go around? in s1, it felt kind of prominent. kotetsus old hero company literally went bankrupt and antonio suffers from his unpopularity driving down his sponsors profits.

its why the heroes have to also keep up appearances- its not enough to just be a hero, you have to work to be popular as well. in s1 kotetsu & barnaby cant go to a crime scene because theyre doing an interview and other popularity stuff so their hero alerts were cancelled for the duration.

we get the whole “ouroboros controls everything, actually!..” and a vague allusion to affecting The Economy, but thats it?

anyway, disregarding all of that, i feel like they couldve used nathans CEO status for something. what if she had put her career and status on the line to use her connections and money to reacquire the hero suits of those whose companies had really put them under lock and key...

i also think back to momentarily developing some sort of mega optimism brain rot and thinking that karina couldve had some sort of gay crush plotline with the girl who was trying to pretend shes rampaging and how incredibly sweet it wouldve if the noted LGBT icon of our lineup, nathan, gender-haver extraordinaire, had been able to support karina with that... like yeah ryan wouldve been there for her but... hes ryan. lol

overall, i thought the buddy pairs were fun, but man, i want to see the hero ensemble interact with everyone and not just one assigned "important” character per hero. it also made a lot of scenes a bit disjointed with how buddy pairs were a bit separated, in my opinion... it worked better when it was just kotetsu and barnaby, because theyre the main characters! of course theyll have more plotlines than the others.

one thing i already found a bit strange at the start of cour1 is that nathan didnt talk with antonio almost at all, and we know the new director is a huge antonio fan (which is actually funny to me, and you can see the antonio love shining through).

but.... in prior content nathan has also been regularly paired up with antonio, and i dont mean in a shipping sense (even if that has happened as well but it has only really been to make gags on nathan being creepy because of her poor portrayal before), just that theyve specifically been portrayed as friends before.

so it feels like nathan got sidelined purposefully while making antonio have that entire thing about agnes seep from mainly peripheral content into the main show... (i have a huge brain and am a gay antonio truther, btw.)

it left a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth that someone who has some say over the happenings in the show (?) and loves antonio hasnt acknowledged their friendship in any way... and nathans portrayal prior has been unfortunate, so it wouldve meant something to see nathan get to be friends with antonio with the gross sterotypes removed?

its not enough to say things have changed and you want to improve on nathans portrayal: i want to fucking see it!

while their dynamic is funny, the above has made me worry that nathan and keith were paired as a buddy pair because the writers didnt have anything better to do with them and keith is “naive enough” to hang out with nathan without them having to address anything about nathan properly, and cour2 really didnt ease my fear about it.

like one thing nathan has done explicitly in various material is to behave in a specifically “boy crazy” way which i as a lesbian dont really care about, but i think it wouldve meant something to let nathan act in that way without making it weirdly creepy and uncomfortable, and instead let nathan be a whole person of her own.

i am a serial friendzoner of everyone except characters who havent interacted in canon (lmfao) but the purposes of respectfully portraying nathan and proving that the horrible stereotuping is over, i think there couldve been real narrative worth in her being canonically romantically interested in keith and have that relationship develop, to show that nathan is so much more than those creepy stereotypical actions forced on her characterization before.

it wouldnt have to be keith in the case they didnt want to introduce any romance between the hero ensemble, but any romance plotline for nathan couldve been used to show they really did want to improve on nathans portrayal like nathan would deserve.

it couldve easily been used for a scene in which nathan properly brings up their identity because sure, its been discussed some more in peripheral material and the rising improves on what she was given before, but still retains multiple harmful elements... and it just makes me mad to imply youre going to improve on stuff like this and then not do anything with nathan.

as far as i know, her civilian outfit in the rising seems to be inspired by a japanese comedians gag character called “hard gay”, whose ensemble includes a leather bodysuit, and hard gay isnt exactly a respectful portrayal.

i also love to read tiger&bunny opinions online through google translate, from people who would understand nathans identity/possible tropes better than i do by the virtue of being LGBT+ and japanese.

one of the things ive seen raised is that nathans declaration of self-love in the rising is more compassionate than their prior portrayal, but that it unfortunately is somewhat of a trope in itself given the wording of it, which i think further explains how i think nathan wouldve deserved a bigger role?

theres also the recurring issue of misogyny, because nathan specifically says (dirctly copied from netflix translation): “they say a man is made of courage, and a woman is made of love. so what does that mean for people that are gay? we are invincible!”

men being courageous and women being loving is a cliche, which they included as a narrative choice and is not nathans fault... and t&b2 really didnt improve on the baked-in misogyny, which ive already talked about...

and ill be honest, i dont know how nathan romance shenanigans couldve tied into the main plotline lmfao, but they couldve called back to s1 and keith asking the girls for romantic advice, except now it wouldve been keith with the younger girls in tow trying to advise nathan, which wouldve been funny.

it wouldnt even had to have been a fuck you to people who like firesky romantically, because nathans plans couldve fallen through (by for example having the guy have been an antagonistic force in some way, perhaps interested in getting close to a hero after theyve been shelved just for the gossip, like an evil reporter, to make a point about media) and they couldve included a buddy hero scene afterwards where nathan remarks how keith would not do that.

because its true, keith would not do that, and it wouldve given people something fun to elaborate on?..

instead of remarkable improvements for nathans character besides the passive “no more creepy things”, we also get that scene at the end of the skyfire episode where subarus quip comes across as somehow homophobic to me, and i genuinely dont know what im supposed to feel about it. if youre wiser, then please enlighten me.

at this point i realized that talking about each character individually might kill me, because i have so many opinions, and maybe i should focus on buddy hero pairs a little better since thats how they were given to us in s2.

i also probably have more opinions on keith and nathan than the rest because keith is one of my favourite characters and i do really like nathan too, im just frequently haunted by the narratives past crimes against nathan and the currently occurring crimes as well, lol.

talking of subaru, his buddy partner thomas, and his sister ruby, why didnt they do something with thomas and the fact that nathan has been mentioned to have a little sister she cares a lot about? that couldve tied into the plotline?

i was very surprised ruby had no particular role and felt very separate from the rest of the narrative, and how nobody except subaru seemed to notice thomas wasnt present?

subaru begrudgingly (because hes 17 and wants to be independent) asking nathan or the firesky duo for advice because kotetsu saw he was acting weird and pulled him aside to talk about it and directed him to nathan on the subject matter couldve been a fun addition.

it couldve again showed that kotetsus strength is more than just some imaginary scenario where hes the smartest and strongest with all of the answers, because its not true. kotetsu couldve put himself down about it like oh bunny, i couldnt do anything, see! its those two giving advice again!

but barnaby wouldve correctly assessed that its only because of kotetsu subaru is doing this, and without kotetsu meddling, nathan or keith wouldnt have noticed to help subaru either.

mr. thomas overall had an alright arc. ruby was introduced, but much wasnt done with her. i sincerely thought she wouldve been adopted by ouroboros after everything that happened in cour1 and the mentions of orphans.

this drives me up the wall, because yet again, they had an obvious route to question heroism and villainy, and who is a victim of their circumstances and what acts exactly are evil.

kotetsu and barnaby wouldve had a lot of sympathy for ruby just because of their own backstories and personalities, and nobody else wouldve been unsympathetic either?

ruby is reduced to “little sister who loves and supports thomas”, and thats all: she barely has any real agency, even if it was her who sought thomas out. her personality is “gentle and understanding”. she continues the theme of being a woman in the show being reduced to narrative vessels to make the guys of the show do or feel something...

i also talked about them a bit earlier, so i dont have much else to say.

but one huge unresolved plot thread is their entire company? why did they even introduce the owner and manager of jungle when they werent relevant? and why did they seemingly sabotage subaru in cour1 by having his PDA not go off when heroes were called?

i thought it was significant? i thought jungle was sabotaging him?.. nothing came out of that?!

origami rock kinda won... they had a lot of good scenes. antonio was clearly beloved by the narrative. ive also spent two days writing this post so im kinda sick of writing it and this is one of the last parts im bothering to comment about so itll be kinda short, but...

like i mentioned earlier, alcoholism was kind of painted as something evil people do and antonios drinking problem was kind of bypassed entirely, when i feel like its a major thing for him? in the KOW the rising schedule, he really goes hard in on drowning his sadness and loneliness in alcohol.

it was also made into a joke moreso, with antonio and ivan apparently having gone drinking together?.. i feel like a more healthy direction for antonio wouldve been them focusing on things ivan wants to do... like, ivan went out drinking? seriously?

i guess that does feel like a major step for him in the sense that hes less shy and far less mortified by knowing he did silly thinks while drunk which is good for him to be less self-conscious... but its also like... i dont know, just weird me out that antonio would introduce ivan to that part of his life, which i felt was just his loneliness coping mechanism.

last but not least, kid cat... they really got the short end of the stick. they even lived in a dorm together and nothing ever really came out of that? it felt like a waste. i already talked about them a little bit.

paolin didnt really get a separate arc but she did really shine in cour1 at least, and maybe its just me but the whole situation around laras mom and kid cat being shoved into it soured their entire thing for me, especially the part of paolin comparing laras mom to her own mom, again... oof. that shit hurted.

i disliked that paolin was pushed into somehow vaguely motherly/caretaker-esque role with lara with her even looking up those damn parenting books and her fun energetic and somewhat goofy personality wasnt so well preserved. i wish a girl character was allowed to be goofy while still having serious and cool moments: they could do this with subaru but not paolin.

i already talked about karina earlier, but again, even if its actually incharacter and natural for karina to be be “the responsible one” in her dynamic with ryan which i do enjoy, i cant help but notice the narrative forcing all girl characters into that sort of role... i would include nathan (haver of gender) in this, because i feel like being goofy on the occasion is very central to her as well, but hmm.

its not even that i dislike karinas and nathans dynamic with their buddy hero partners, its just unfortunate that all girlies had to do similar things, because i cant ignore it... t&b2 really goofed with that.

it disappoints me personally that even if i dont understand how it wouldve made any sense wrt the narrative, i wish paolin had allowed to show her gender non-comformity somehow?.. i probably had my hopes up after hearing about them essentially saying they want to add a bit of representation into t&b2.

but i suppose that mainly meant ruby mentioning she has two dads and the girl with an ex-girlfriend.

all of the girlies got sidelined, which ive already talked about...

i feel like karina got the most major arc which does make sense because shes more of a main character than the rest, but it was also taken a little bit too seriously in my opinion, i wish the characters clearly treated it as karina being a teen who has a crush on some old guy because teens do that.

it was also kind of like a waste for me... i didnt need so many scenes about it personally. shouldve made karina do things for herself.

i have to admit that for a moment i genuinely thought that karina talking to that fake rampaging girl about her unrequited love for an ex-gf was going to awaken some feelings in karina, lmfao.

another thing about mr.legend i didnt manage to fit anywhere is that we still dont know his name? hes just mr.legend, even yuri doesnt say his name. it makes sense, but narratively, this ensures that mr.legend remains the stuff of myths. it feels like this is what they wanted, but it sucks!

to give him a name behind the hero gimmick wouldve brought him down from his status to that of a normal human. ive always been certain that petrov is yuris mothers maiden name as well, so dropping mr.legends name wouldnt have immediately implicated “yuri petrov” of anything.

nobody even knows he had a family! it feels like maverick scrubbed all of that clean, just in case.

as for mattia, i think his character has worth but is used wastefully: not only is he the one to develop the drug that drives much of the plotline, he gives us more insight to the worldbuilding of t&b and normal peoples opinions on NEXT powers. he doesnt hate the NEXT, but if he could choose, he would have NEXT powers himself.

this sets him apart from other similar characters like ben or saito, who are both normal people at the periphery of the heroes without NEXT powers who have been portrayed heroically in the past, since he explicitly wishes he could attain a sliver of the heroism he sees barnaby have, and he thinks he needs a NEXT power to be able to do so.

this couldve been, yet again, used to reinforce the theme that heroism is so much more than just having a powerful NEXT power. mattia couldve also been used more intelligently, and while connecting him to barnaby is nice to give him a new friend, some of his functions couldve been covered by kotetsu or some other members of the hero ensemble.

it couldve worked better if, for example, the hero ensemble had more strongly reacted to suspecting mattia to have ratted them out. i already said that i think ryan wouldve been more than annoyed about it, but the moment couldve been used to showcase various characters and their reactions to it!

i think the moment couldve been drawn out instead of being immediately resolved, maybe even included something about how mattia needs to prove himself to not to be a spy for ouroboros, not because i think its reasonable, but it couldve meant something to have our heroes be utterly wrong about someone!

i come back to this again and again, but it couldve been used as a point that the heroes arent necessarily right just because theyre heroes, and that mattia couldve worked with saito and proven himself to act more “heroically” (alongside saito!) than how the heroes treated him.

and, unfortunately, the narrative itself undermines mattia because of auroras existence.

she introduces a huge plot hole for me. mattia has worked hard to try to develop a NEXT drug, and has actually gotten results, its just that he hasnt gotten the specific result he wanted: why doesnt he just mail that drugs composition to aurora and have her complete it, since her unclear NEXT power seems to have no limits and gives her a vast intellect without even trying?

in fact, when theres any sort of problem, why dont we ask aurora about it? if shes so important, why havent we ever heard of her before? her inclusion didnt feel natural at all.

i really hated aurora, because her character felt so cheap and gimmicky in every possible way. sure, she was foreshadowed in cour1, but since she obviously didnt exist in s1, it felt incredibly stupid that there conveniently is one single person ouroboros has to assassinate to ruin all relations between people who have NEXT powers and those who dont...

her power makes no sense: if shes so fucking smart and has been Thinking of ways to better the world for literally decades, then why capitalism all over the world?

i do think its realistic to expect she cant force the world to become an utopia, but the way shes introduced and dealt with doesnt really give me a well-nuanced view of her. she looks to the side and saves some lizard species form extinction with an idea.

i think her character couldve been interesting if they had used the whole season to set her up and i guess made the themes of the season somehow align with her and “not being able to fix the world alone no matter how smart you are etc” and included her as the brain and LL audun as the brawns and how neither of them could ever fix the world alone according to their opinions, and only in their bonds can our heroes find the most of their strengths, including connections with other people like how kotetsu could chat with a child in s1 to ease him down from his rampage at the ice rink etc.

buuuut i feel like that couldve been the plotline for some other season altogether. now that we know LL audun, he could get him back later and see how hes doing, etc... in the case he was given more nuance or something and not just sent back to jail, i mean.

theres also the moment where aurora opened her eyes and i guess i was supposed to feel it was significant but i genuinely didnt care. like okay. yeah i noticed that. no i dont care that the day was saved and “she felt comfortable closing her eyes again”.

was that purposeful?.. the implication that shes closing her eyes from the world?.. and she only opened them when she realized she personally was in danger?..

that was so wild to me, i still dont know what the purpose behind that was, but that certainly was how the overall arc felt about yuri. eyes closed, who cares if some guy suffers for no reason.

rosicky was interesting to me, and it was a waste she got shot before she could have any sort of discussion?.. she just felt like a cheap trick to get yuris body fucked up. it couldve been an interesting moment overall, but, well...

not like were going to get anything about yuri reacting to how all of that went down? so it was just... weird.

and then rosicky died and gregory "won” their little squabble, and i wish gregory had fucking exploded because lunatics been making some points and i fucking hate him...

also just to return to the ouroboros ties of the season, they made ouroboros so all-powerful it was stupid and lost a lot of meaning to me. like alright, they can do anything, why are we even fighting, and why is rosicky alone in charge of this operation... makes no fucking sense, its such a forced situation.

the ending of cour2 was... well, it existed. i mean, i dont personally mind kotetsu retiring for good overmuch i suppose, but i think with everything that happened (especially in the way i think things should have happened) he couldve just continued as proof that even people without NEXT powers can be superheroes...

and also as a some sort of proof that it was mr.legends refusal to change any part of his hero image that really did him in: kotetsu could cling to his heroism while accepting hes just a guy without powers and not make it such an issue.

and i suppose if he retires, i wouldve loved to see him take some sort of director-like role instead: i dont think he would be able to let hero stuff go completely, but him being a senior you ask for advice would still give him a lot of things to do.

right now its also a bit of my fear, if they have any thoughts of continuing tiger&bunny in any way ever and yuri had to die so that kotetsu could take over the spot he ended up occupying as a director...:( genuinely makes me make a sad face in real life.

by the point we got to the end they had already fucked up the entire premise and any message they wouldve hoped to send and if they had some sort of uplifting message after yuris death, i failed to understand it. but it felt like a giant fuck you to the fans of the show called “tiger&bunny” to get that last bit of tiger&bunny pair disbanding because of reasons.

i mean, theyre not even remotely my favourite characters and i dont think about them overmuch, but leaving it more open-ended wouldve been so much more fun for so many fans? they really fucked up the shows undercurrent of interrogating who can be a hero and why in the first place, but like...

yeah that shit sucked ass sorry. i dont even have anything to add. people who showed up to see more kotetsu and barnaby content getting that half-hearted discussion about where theyre gonna go from here and then showing their plaque in the “true heroes” hall...

i feel like it undercuts kotetsus character so much, because hes always been the “underdog”, and hes pulled through everything that came before this. they explicitly mention that hes been working really hard to supplement his waning power, and then leave it at that: if i was supposed to understand from that part that kotetsu isnt really retiring or anything, it didnt really come across due to the other circumstances.

and again, i dont even really care about kotetsu! its just that he really exemplifies the tone of the show as a fact, and i like to think i have a modicum of media literacy. and by undermining the uplifting message of the show, they directly undermined him, and by undermining him, they further muddied the spirit of t&b.

i feel like an ending i wouldve killed for is one that couldve included that sort of tour of a museum, but it wouldve showed mr.legend paraphernalia being moved away from “true heroes” and also included our protags being inducted in there if they so wished, but leaving it more open ended... and definitely proving that mr.legend was not worthy of being thought of as a hero.

it was weird that the second league isnt brought up at all during the entire season from what i can remember? i dont even have anything significant to say about it, but i think second league heroes are and have been important, just by existing, to the narrative asking the viewer who really is a true hero and who insnt and what it all means.

they just didnt care, just like they didnt care about that question and yuri. again, they fully ignored anything they had set up before, and kept introducing new characters when old side characters couldve been brought back.

i have some thoughts on the police chief being a younger version of the police chief from double decker... im unsure if the implication is that double decker is more than a spiritual sequel and its not just cameo, or if its something more.

mattia did off-handedly mention that hes developing now trying to develop a drug that takes NEXT powers away if i read and understood it right, which would, i guess, make a canonical disappearance of NEXT powers possible.

i have actually never seen double decker myself, but i understand it references tiger&bunny while being separate and clearly “in the future” from it, and as far as i understand, it doesnt have people with superpowers.

i personally think that imagining double deckers world as a canonical sequel to the world of tiger&bunny sucks, but i dunno what the real implication there is.

i also want to talk about the art direction of t&b2 since im airing out my opinions and complaints, so why not: the art direction kinda sucks. everyone has been smoothed and thinned down and the essence of t&bs charming style has been lost in some ways.

you can really see the jump between older art and the newer art with ryan, for example... ill talk about ryan now because this is my post and i love this guy.

he is downright ugly in some parts of the rising, and i love calling him ugly, but in a serious way, yes, i think hes explicitly supposed to be handsome (because what else does he have going on for him even except being loud and looking good lol).

hes just a different kind of attractive than barnaby who is pretty, and theres various scenes in the rising where you can see that barnaby has more of a button nose while ryan has a sharp, short nose, unlike yuri for example, who just has a large nose overall (and its his charm point!).

ryans most notable quality is that his eyes are drawn to look hooded and deep-set with straight eyebrows that make his strong brow even more prominent, and he usually has a very distinct wrinkle across his forehead.

and what does he look like in t&b2? certainly nothing like that.

i know that the rising has a much larger budget for the designs than the episodic show, and either way they wouldve had to simplify ryans design to translate it into the episodic format. and we all know the goofy parts of season1 they fixed in the bluray release...

that never was a huge problem, and i wouldnt mind it. yes, i guess ryan couldve been changed for marketing, but he looked like that through-out the entire movie and was hugely popular regardless and BECAUSE of how he looks. but its not just ryan, its that the art direction changed drastically, and it made all the characters look so much more generic and samey.

just after the scene i screencapped above, you can see barnaby and ryan from further away with less detail for a scene that passes by quicker, and you can see that less care was used to make them look good but they still were kept distinctive and different. (and sorry to barnaby, i caught him in in the middle of a movement, so he looks extra goofy.)

t&b2 doesnt even have a lot of scenes that i can remember that really let the chracters emote and make goofy faces: kotetsu has always been hugely expressive! i want to see him make a funny face! kotetsu is also the main character, and part of his thing is being an Old Man (even if he isnt even that old for real, but thats beside the point).

he has wrinkles around his eyes in that shot even if its not hugely detailed, and in contrast i feel he was very smooth in t&b2. the art direction felt as aimless as the bullshit plotline, and equally as uncaring towards established characters!

everyone was drawn very samey. another example to me is the scene in cour1 where thomas inspects keiths pectorals is just sad, because hes been thinned down like everyone else. what was there to inspect? absolutely nothing.

this screencap from s1 has more to inspect than the scene where keith is supposed to be noticeably buff. by the way, this entire scene with the girlies and keith has more personality and goofiness than most of cour2.

and heres a screencap of keith from that episode, where his face shape and features are distinct.

ts been a decade and i know that anime production has gone through changes in this time and netflix-style mass drop of episodes may be harder on people in general, but comparing my s2 screencap below to the screencap above just makes me miss the old style because im scared to but s2 keith next to the one above... his eyebrows were so sadly thin and so were his face and body.

you know, lunatic doesnt even have a distinctly large nose, and his eyes arent even particularly sunken and he doesnt have many wrinkles around his eyes like i think is charming for him, because everyone is just smoothed down... and the above screencap isnt even a good example of it, but the charming thickening of lines at some parts is entirely missing in t&b2 from what i can remember? i feel like the linework used to be stronger and more interesting overall.

anyhow, yes, t&b was also fixed up for the bluray release but i feel like the atrocious-looking parts are kind of funny to look back on. i wonder if theyll be editing s2 visually? (and please revise the entire storyline for yuri too, thanks.)

speaking of s1, where did this entire sentiment disappear to? into the ether?

also, i cant help but be plagued by thoughts because the episode i got those keith screencaps from, kotetsu & barnaby are interviewed by kids who are taking the reporting very seriously, and their reaction to kotetsu saying the person he looks up to is mr.legend is lukewarm at best.

then barnaby talks of his parents and robotics, and they light up, which is funny because barnaby is way more popular, but it also narratively, in my opinion, shows that especially the new generation of sternbild thinks mr.legend isnt that impressive and would be more willing to accept that despite the myths around him, he was a man who severely sucked.

theyre ready for new heroes to commemorate, ones that really deserve it, and they (even in cour1!) dont see lunatic as a villain but an antihero who protects them.

oh well.

thanks for reading, even if you didnt read all of it and just read interesting parts or skimmed through it! i guess writing this was like free therapy for me because i need to deal with how deeply yuris cour2 canon arc affected me lmfao.

i dont think ive ever been so blindsided and taken aback by the total surprise i felt at the direction his arc took and that definitely factored into how deeply it fucked me up because if i couldve anticipated that yuri could for example die, i wouldve been a lot more normal about it.

but out of all things, i cant believe that tiger&bunny would do that to me, and make me see all of that pain... genuinely fucked up not going to lie. fugan and mugan and their father being shot to death is one thing because its shocking of course, but yuri has been in the show since the start.

yuri has existed in the minds of people for over a decade, now, so it feels so unexpected they would so callously kill him off, it feels entirely uncharacteristic, and i feel like its not something that anyone couldve expected, and maybe it wouldve been less shocking if season2 had come out like, say, an another year after the rising...

but still, i dont understand how we make the jump from yuris portrayal and the overall themes of the rising into t&b2 and his role in cour2. its wild, i dont know how to get over it.

breathing through gritted teeth how i published a few fanfics with yuri in a huge hurry before cour2 dropped because i wanted to have them started in case some major yuri details drop and ill feel compelled the rewrite the yuri parts of them but huh... well.... cry laugh

i love imagining scenarios with my favourite characters, but i tend to include yuri in the core ensemble cast of heroes: trying to imagine any post-canon shenanigans feels so hard right now like watching a VHS reel that ran to the end and has to be rewound, and actually makes me incredibly sad.

theres that new audiodrama coming out with ryan featured in it and i cant even be excited because i just get sick, like physically... i guess imagining myself casually engaging with tiger&bunny content makes me feel like im spitting on yuris nonexistent grave. woe is me. fuck you tiger&bunny2 cour2. TL;DR - my opinions, this entire post condensed somehow:

the whole arc for yuri felt like a giant fuck you not only to him and all of the fans too, and same with the ending kinda

ryan was brought back for a fun cameo only because he never became plot-relevant really so what was the point lol? screentime waste

plot points set up in cour1 and further before were ignored and scenes were specifically used to counteract them?!

big misogyny moment for all woman characters of the show

hero ensemble overall was underutilized

new characters/excessive focus on side characters like the fucking mayor and the police chief in cour2 felt gimmicky and unnecessary and generally didnt add much worth. i dont care show me my funny heroes instead

they tried to do too many things and lost sight of why t&b has been so great and why the idea of a more self-conscious t&b is so exciting: of course the show has had a lot of flaws, like nathans initial portrayal, and to imagine a show that has the same spirit but improves on those flaws is amazing. its just not even remotely what we got</3

never expected a flawless show but there are flaws that you can headcanon away and there are flaws that undermine the entire theme of the show this far. i dont know how to make s2 any better after seeing cour2 without totally ignoring any of it happened

cour1 wasnt even bad. it was solid. shit just hit the fan in cour2

the art direction was a huge downgrade, but maybe it was just budget constraints, so i dont know how harsh i want to be about it.

leave a comment if you want, lo, i love to talk, its relaxing. i also mightve mixed shit up so dont embarrass me too much if you notice any overt mixups since i really did marathon the cour once and i dont know how i can bear to look at it again. i also have some confusion over some parts of the story which i detailed above in my manifesto so if you wanna educate me, please do, lmfao...peace out...

#tiger and bunny #tiger and bunny spoilers #meta #t&b2 #t&b

[lovelyheartclover]

I think I may have said this before BUT OUGHHH every time I see you tag me in some. spicy/suggestive md stuff I get MORE AND MORE INSPIRED to draw stuff like that myself--

and since I still need to finish another thing before Im gonna get to all the md and tadc ideas (and reqs!) that I have, I NEED to tell you about those because I keep rotating those in my mind and I wanna tell somebody about them-- so uhhh is it fine if I tell you about my ideas?? or just. concepts (in a separate ask!!!!) (yes its gonna be fine to post it!!)

AGHHHHH IM SO GLAD TO HEAR THAT THE POSTS I TAG YOU IN HELP INSPIRE YOU MORE TO DRAW THAT KIND OF STUFF RINJA!!! THAT MAKES ME VERY HAPPY ☺️☺️

ALSO FUCK YEAH ID BE HONORED TO BE THE CHOSEN VICTIM UH I MEAN MUTUAL TO HEAR YOU RANT ABOUT YOUR IDEAS AND CONCEPTS PLEASE!!! THATS 100% FINE DW!!! LEMME HEAR THEM!!! 👁👁

#my asks #user: absolute-solver #mutuals 💌💌💌 #important #murder drones