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dukethomas · 5 months

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duke? i know next to nothing about him and i'm curious <3

oh boy oh boy oh boy !!!!!!!! thank you for asking i love talking about duke

one aspect i love about them: i could list a million things rn but how about. this sense of personal responsibility that is both a strength and a vice for him but in a way unique to the "great power comes great responsibility" model of heroics. duke feels like he has this responsibility to better the world, he feels responsible for his loved ones and ppl he deems under his care, but not because he's uniquely special. instead he feels like it's something everyone owes the community. he monologues abt how you can make that choice, to choose to do good or inflict evil. he holds bruce to this personally--confronting him about using his amnesia to ignore his responsibilities as batman. he has the weight of the world on his shoulders and don't get me wrong he isolates himself like crazy and tries to tackle it all alone but it's because he believes this is just what everyone should be doing. he doesn't view himself as particularly special or powerful, this is just his job. his calling !!!

the rest of the answers under the cut bc i talked a lot

one aspect i wish more people understood about them: there's a lot of really obvious answers that i'm going to skip over bc they've been said to death. instead i think i'm going to say i wish ppl understood he's not like. the mentally healthy bat. when he's not doing so hot and crumbling under the weight he has put on his own shoulders he self isolates he gets snappy and bitchy and closed off he gets into fights he gets self destructive. he's allergic to asking for help. and also he is very frequently in a bad place because he's a teenager that's what they do + in comic time he goes through like. a traumatic event every month. his status quo is constantly changing because of the nature of comics but in universe that means the longest, most stable period he's had in a while is, like, the year he spent training with bruce wayne, inflictor of mental illnesses. come on now

one (or more) headcanons i have about this character: i will elaborate on this in a post sometime but i believe his powers are about potential. snyder lore posits that metahumans somehow are created by nth metal. proximity to nth metal sparks duke's powers in a snyder comic, and duke himself is a snyder creation, so i figure this implies duke has a unique connection to nth metal. which is where i believe his meta amplification comes from in batman and the signal, another snyder comic. maybe if i read more of the snyder lore than just the duke parts i'd understand it more.

regardless, this connection to the source of metahumans could mean a million things but in line with the themes in we are robin about choice, i think it indicates great potential in duke. also, in alternate futures for duke--tales from the dark multiverse & urban legends #8-9 outsiders story--his powers have increased substantially in different directions. in the dark multiverse, his first canonical powers are amplified so much he has to actively suppress them or else he. can't see. but also those powers fuel him with one key thing that leads him to be the last survivor of the multiverse, which is his hope. and then in urban legends, future duke is just a badass who is a powerful mage???? which is something duke becomes, once again, to survive the way the world becomes. taking from a canon example, ra's and ishmael are able to invert duke's powers entirely, giving him his umbrakinesis. literally what other meta can this happen to!! anyways, my headcanon is that because of his inherent connection to the source of metahumans, his great power lies in the potential to become whatever he needs to be to keep fighting the good fight. whatever he needs to be to keep trying to make the world better. i think in the canon timeline, where the future will never become desolate, where duke will never become so desperate, he won't need to unlock his full potential, and he wouldn't choose to, because he's not that kind of guy. but the potential simmers under his skin, waiting for when he does need it. when he chooses it.

one character i love seeing them interact with: how do i choose one. i'm going to speed run a bunch of them. cass & duke are genuinely such supportive sibs like they back each other up it's so nice to read!! my besties!!! bruce & duke is interesting in the way duke comes from the era where they start pushing the fanon batfamily more, and so you get a bruce that does seem more supportive, and it really is bruce's healthiest relationship w a mentee bc he 1) positively reinforces duke 2) has never beat him up nor tried to. low low bar. but you can still see. bruce harps on how duke's the future of heroism. how he is going to lead the way, how he's "something different." and he pushes duke, and trains duke personally and assigns him day shift and puts him on the outsiders. and duke feeds into that by insisting the mission IS bruce's responsibility. they make each other worse is what i'm saying. jeff & duke are fun for opposite reasons, because jeff believes in duke just as much but also can intervene and stop duke when needed. just a nice positive relationship with an authority figure for duke it's nice :D

one character i wish they would interact with/interact with more: pipe dream. renee. i have a very self indulgent au draft where duke becomes renee's mentee instead through sheer stubborn force of will and she is so annoyed with him all the time and also after the 5th or 6th time this teenager tracks you down as you work various cases you get a little fond. she'd never say that to him though are you kidding he'd get worse and more annoying. mainline renee and duke could have a fun detective story as well i think as two ppl with very different ways of operating who use their individual strengths to solve the mystery and also throws in juxtaposition of the ways their depressions manifest in there or smth. my other answer that doesn't throw my 2 dc faves together is duke meets anissa and jen pierce i think that could be fun!! jeff introduces them and then regrets it. also i wish damian and duke talked more after robin war the post-robin war dynamic that lives in my brain is great

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have that involve them and one other character: going to keep this one short bc i've said so much already. i headcanon the narrows as a large neighborhood in gotham and park row/crime alley as a smaller, really well-known part of that neighborhood, to avoid having 2 worst neighborhoods in gotham. anyways this means jason and duke grew up in the same neighborhood and oh boy do they rip each other a new one for that. half the time their convos are incomprehensible to non-narrows residents bc it's just insults from coming from opposite sides of the neighborhood and those insults are very narrows-specific. jason texts duke during the climax battle in batman and the signal and goes "how tf did you let narrows go to shit your first day. i wouldn't have let this happen. crime alley kids are just built different ig"

#ask #so this is 1.2k. uh. oops #duke thomas #crys writes meta #<- for organization #also i will get to the other asks i just saw duke was requested and blacked out

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threestripeslider · 1 year

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speaking about peepaws and knowing memes!

its very important to me that ppl know that wmas!fleo gets absolulte ripped to shreds by his vers of the kids making memes about him while he was passed out

i can only imagine the MOMENT peepaw multiverse hears about this they either 1) tear into wmas!fleo about it 2) get scared that their own kids will do the same or 3) force wmas!fleo to send them every goddamn meme about him in the peepaw gc

and it's very important to me that you have told me this bc i am WHEEZING about this. they just completely rip him a new one like "i'm not gonna take this from the dude who imitated a corpse for three days straight lmao" like what will he even say to this. and where ever F!Mikey's fucking around i bet he laughs so hard he physically manifests himself.

also i am CRYING over the idea of an interdimensional peepaw groupchat. what is even in there. i bet half of the conversations are started by OMO!Leonardo. TAE!Leo texts like he's on a mission, nobody understands his abbreviations. MNMC!Leon just leaves everyone on read. other F!Leos probably try their fucking hardest to leave every time they're added to the chat.

#turtle files: ask #this is so fucking funny HELP ME

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azsazz · 3 months

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if we're being honest sjm was never a phenomenal writer, every book lacks depth in some way and she never actually explains much about powers/characters. there's also a big theme of telling not showing (especially in cc - i mean she keeps telling us bryce is super cool and all i can see is a try hard). i only read parts of cc3 and parts of tog but i think tog and the first 2 books of acotar aren't terribly written even with a couple of the problems i said before but after acowar it really went downhill. i think it's part she has shooters now (i mean some ppl were being attacked for saying cc sucked which it does) so if it's not good they'll still read it and hype it up and she keeps writing things too fast and that might not fully be her fault so i'll giver her that. but yeah writing a whole 800 page book in a month? is not impressive, to me it just shows she didn't care to make it better and barely reviewed it. if that's the speed she's writing at then i can see why her latest books have so many problems and plot holes. she also got greedy lol. im sorry but there were what? 4 or 5 bonus chapters? and this book still feels like a cash grab idc if it makes a multiverse or not, id actually rather not ever see any of the other characters in each other's books

anyway all this to say i don't really like sjm (as a writer and now im a bit iffy as a person too), what got me was the characters but i learned a lot more about them through fanfiction than the actual books

PREACH SISTA LET IT ALL OUT because you did not miss with this!

i've also said that the 5 bonus chapters of cc3 are def feeling like a cash grab...when i tell you i saw a tiktok of some girl showing all of the different bonus chapter books off i was sick to my stomach. it's kind of out of hand some of these people lol (like the acotar balls and stuff, the ugly men they try to put into the roles, ruining the characters we love...they're fictional for a reason plz stop)

if cc has one hater it's actually me. if bryce has zero haters im dead. i most of the other characters, but bryce is a total miss for me. i love how sjm the entirety of cc3 is that the fae women aren't allowed to do anything except breed lol likeeee what? then it's basically just bryce and the men fighting the war or whatever...like what about the other women or her friends? mad side eye

thankfully i haven't been attacked about my cc opinions because ive never been quiet about them lol

i think that tog was better written, and i also liked most of acotar...maybe it's the modern setting and bryce's total cringiness that i can't get on board with

#ask azsazz

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quixoticrobotic · 4 months

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Question entirely on a whim - classpect the comicrew, go!

CLAPS MY HANDS TOGETHER LETS FUCKIN GOOO

i also have jaeris, joanna, erin, and allen bc sburb aus delight me i also have chumhandles, i can share those if you like

also i assume you want reasoning

Linkara: Knight of Mind. Hes such a knight of my god like insisting your fine when you arent? absolute knight behavior. i chose mind because one of my favorite aspects of linkara is hes like. the kind of character who needs to have a plan for everything which is usually a bad guy trait and is a trait you see in a lot of neurodivergent ppl so its nice to see in The Hero

but yeah a knight of mind would use logic and thinking as a weapon which linkara really enjoys doing

90s Dude: Mage of Hope

hope players represent! (im seer of hope!) but yeah hope is a broad term bc like lots of things can inspire it, hope plays typically have something they're really passionate about, something that sparks that ability to believe and like i dont have to say what 90's dude's is. he wears his passions on his sleeves, he gave us "more radical, less sadicle", the stuff that hes passionate about is his strength. mages are kinda like seers except less direct? instead of sharing knowledge to help the team they have this very personal, intuitive understanding of their aspect and how to wield it. fits the sleepwalker arc p damn well

Harvey: Prince of Time

every time i have to make a character i love a prince like i know you'd hate these pants im sorry

but ok i knew harvey would be a time player bc time is associated with music and death, two things that are very relevant to harvey as a character. i think i settled on this bc i saw a quote on pintrest "not living, just killin time" and harvey was the character i was fixated on that week. princes destroy their aspect/are destroyed by their aspect/destroy with their aspect. so if you wanna put a less gloomy spin on this you can go with "making up for lost time"

also i rarely get to have a session that has both a time and space player and thus isn't automatically doomed, which brings me to

Linksano: Seer of Space

multiverse and green. also seer fit since his official job on the team is science consultant like, he uses his knowledge of the multiverse to help his friends

Jaeris: Thief of Void

THIS IS ANOTHER MEAN ONE like thief bc of him stealing magic weapons BUT ALSO thief's tend to have a "my way is definitely the correct way of accomplishing this goal" and it bites them in the ass. i saw a theory i take whith a grain of salt but its basically void players tend to have their perspective skewed by some personal bias

and meanest of all

jaeris gets nothing. thieves take their aspect for themself. void is nothing. jaeris gained nothing. im so sorry space cowboy u make it too easy

Joanna: Witch of Doom

AW YEAH I GET TO TOUCH ON MY HEADCANONS ABOUT WHAT JOANNA IS LIKE

so doom is destiny, fate that cannot be changed. but this often represented by computer code/coding (which fits so neatly into the at4w 'verse tbh)

witches manipulate their aspect

now of course we know joanna sees the tapestry of fate and pulls out a seam ripper

but i also headcanon joanna is a cool gamer hacker babe who likes computers/ai/robots/ect. she and jaeris are a steampunk/cyberpunk power couple. also i like to think think by giving her one of the most OP classpects i'm making up for her lack of screen time

Erin: Rouge of Light

rouges allocate their aspect to help the team, light is luck, fortune, and fate that can be changed. fits Miss "Technically I was always your friend. Just in very weird and roundabout ways." who was introduced stealing the magic coin

Allen: Page of Life

im not gonna lie allen is mostly here so we have an even number of players. im sorry allen fans

i dont actually have a gt for mark bc linkara needs a strife specibus

and we cant have marksprite because PLEASE DO NOT PROTOTYPE THE EXTREMELY POWERFUL MAGIC WEAPON

#I WROTE THIS WHILE EATING BREAKFAST SORRY IF ITS BARELY COHERENT #words to people #silikat

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fandombead · 1 year

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@eyydhyeet aight bet 😎 FOR INKY and boy do I have a lot of stuff to say

(Credit to the kind @/Comyet for this skelly, p.s. I loved the prism collection to pieces)

I love this character, I have defended his case for a long time~ he’s so complex and gets a lot of flack for being how he is— and a lot of people’s only impression of him is from Underverse but even that Ink version is misunderstood in his actions, I think it’ll be cleared up in future episodes~ he’s chaotic, afraid of being forgotten and alone again, and his backstory is just so sad man :,) he gets depicted to be an evil scapegoat, which in my own opinion does a disservice to what he could be~ and I hope to show ppl that with my upcoming fics 😆💜

So first I do love canon aroace Ink, I feel like that’s the most true to form for him, it works very well narratively too (aside from, haha, soulless reasons). I just have head canons on “what ifs” I use for angst and cute fluff scenarios that are just fun to see him in Xd Error or Dream are who I go for with him, but I’m open to several others thanks to artists I follow who expand on the ideas (like Ink with Gin!Sans or x-Tale!Sans)~ I alternate between having him uninvolved romantically and involved depending on the story I’m telling and the interesting relationships that are relevant

Non-romantic OTP is also Errink XD they’re just chaotic and a good fit for each other’s…quirks XD their banter and rival relationship is fun to write and read~ (His friendships with Dream and Blue are my bread and butter, it hurts to see any of them against eachother in fics :,) aaa let him care about friends! the vials help him have a normal range of emotions that are his, even if they’re allotted without a soul present)

Unpopular opinion: people constantly do him dirty 😂 for every fic of him being his decent but still chaotic self, I’ve seen 6 with him kicking babies (not literally—but I wouldn’t put it past those Inks). Some ppl also hate that he’s a Sans…but don’t care to see why he is, or see his backstory~ People can have their own opinions, I just think he gets a lot of unnecessary targeting that is out of spite more than genuine interest ^^’ he’s a gremlin I am not denying that, but he’s not evil! I get having to do it if you wanna make the bad guys look better; I disagree, but we’re allowed to both do our own things! and at the end of the day it’s just fiction squabbling, not serious

Uhhh I’m not sure? I adore “canon” Ink as he is, and his story ^^ Comyet is a sweet person who just created an amazing piece— a nice counterbalance to Error for UTMV stuff and the potential for a greater story because of that! Ink is very versatile character, and a fantastic narrative tool that makes the AUs feel more connected. He’s a vessel for typing the whole thing together and something I would argue a story like the one the Undertale fandom’s Multiverse needed. The UT fandom is unique in that all it’s AUs form a greater story to a whole, with shared characters and “ocs” created being traded around and molded and accepted into the bigger narrative like one giant group rp. It was as if it was destined something like him would come along, and I’m very glad he exists for it. He walks around as almost a parallel to Flowey: a soulless being who found a way to still feel and how that effects his relationship to other people. How he decides to still act mostly good even in his chaotic neutral way, but he’s learning morality without an inborn compass for it. It’s probably one of the deeper reasons I love Ink, with all his little quirks. Aside from him being complex and fun to write and a relatable creative spirit.

#ink sans #ok I went on longer than I thought I would #look what you made me do #i just sat here for 26 minutes typing and you knew I would #there you have it #undertale au #faves #i just think he’s neat #he can still be a bitch but a lovable one #just a tiny man #gremlin creature #but that’s just me #he’s my blorbo #i feel strongly about this #thank you Comyet for this lil guy

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naughtygirl286 · 10 months

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so yeah we finally went to see Spider‑Man: Across the Spider-Verse and I would have to say I was surprised by the amount of ppl that were there when the movie started it like like the theater we were in was half full. but also of course there was some collectable goodies for this one also which you can see Here.

As for the movie itself I would have to say it was amazing! truly spectacular! and every other Spider-Man related adjective lol but seriously it was excellent I would have to say I did love it.

I feel that the story this time focus a bit more on Gwen at least I thought it did Miles is still heavily part of the story and does follow him but I do think it does focus more on Gwen to me it was a bit of a 60/40 where it was 60 Gwen and 40 Miles but there is alot going on in this movie you do have to pay attention!

It takes place like a year or so after the first one and Miles is busy doing his best being the Spider-Man of his corner of the Multiverse (Earth-1610) but is struggling with his normal/home life and his duties as Spider-Man. Unknowingly he creates a threat to the entire Multiverse known as the Spot and ends up reuniting with Gwen and his friends from the original movies and goes on a huge spider fueled adventure across the multiverse to stop him while at the same time meeting various Spider-People especially Miguel O'Hara Spider-Man 2099 (Earth 928 a possible Marvel future) who is bring all the Spider-People together to hopefully protect the Multiverse.

Like I said the movie is excellent I loved every minute of it and it quite long as animated movies go being it is like 2 and a half hours but the animation is excellent just like the first one and I feel each Spider-Person is given their own style of animation and there own look which really sets them apart.

The music for this is great as well both the films score and the various songs used through out. the voice acting is I thought was perfectly done, sure alot of it is easy at times when people are wearing masks but when they are not it is quite impressive. They are still very expressive with "mask eye" movements and body gestures which are all very fluid and life like.

One thing this movie has alot of is humor as Peter B. Parker says in the movie "Spider-Man is suppose to be funny" and this is just that the movie does have lots of funny moments to balance out the seriousness and drama. One of the most funny parts of the movie is when the Spot is introduced and his first fight with Miles is hilarious.

The references and cameos are mind blowing!! you'll have to go and see this like 15 times or watch it frame by frame digitally or possibility wear out the pause button when it comes on disk to see and get everything!! its truly amazing how much they put into this.

I have to say I thought the choice of the Spot for the main villain in this was pretty good being his powers are interdimensional and would work good in a movie that deals with the Multiverse and I felt that they did a really good job with the character in general

I how ever was not to sure about making Spider-Man 2099 a some what secondary villain. He wasn't really I think a villain but more of a person with good intentions that might not be the best way about doing things? They did a really good job with the character tho I thought he was handled nicely over all.

but yeah they kinda took everything that made the first one great and did more of that plus a bunch of new and amazing things you can tell that this is a huge leap form the previous movie.

So pretty much if you loved Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse you'll love this one too!

also there isn't any credit scenes so you don't have to sit and wait for that

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heliosoll · 2 years

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Hi! I just discovered your page and I’m in love. I’m staying and would love to go by 🖤 anon. Anyways I’ve been trying to shift for a year and a half to hogwarts. I feel like I’m hella close but I still get doubts because I set intention and still wake up in my CR but I will never give up. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and realised that I assume that I have to believe in myself 100% to shift. If I change my assumption that I can shift with doubts and persist on it, can I shift? -🖤

(Cont) I’m sorry for asking from the previous post even tho I think the answer is obvious. It’s just that I hear a lot of ppl have contradicting info and ppl still say that you must undoubtedly belief in yourself to shift. However as Goddess of the Multiverse I find that to be contradictory and another limiting belief -🖤

Hi! Oh my, yes of course you can with doubts!!! Literally, I remember when shifting first got really popular, I swear almost every success story was someone saying "I shifted on accident. I shifted when I wasn't really trying. I shifted when I was really upset and didn't believe".

The whole "you have to 100% believe" is a limiting belief! Of course believing is good, but tons of people have shifted while having doubts. So definitely change your assumption!! Assume that you can shift regardless of how you feel about it, even with doubts etc.

#letters 🎀#🖤 anon #thats cute i like that one

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irkenheretic · 3 years

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*whispers from my hiding spot in the bathroom drain* Spill the Zib teaaaaaaa

oh shit u were in the bathroom drain? sorry bout the monster piss i just took :( anywaye im either still kinda drunk or kinda hungover idk how day drinking works BUT ill give this my best shot

so like. its really funny to me how the irken empire does a lot of the same things zib does, but on a planetary scale instead of a dimensional one. but with the irkens theres a bit of an argument to be made.... not a very GOOD one but its there....

maybe the tallest only do it bcos the control brains make them or thats just how they were expected to work. (ik ik nuremberg defense but at least its Something.) maybe they genuinley need planets for a specific resource and cant ally with the denizens for whatever reason. idk!! the POINT is that theres an argument to be made about the WHY of the empires operations

zib? zib just. uuh.

wants to kill all irkens. all of em

in every dimension

cuzzz idk. fuck tha empire.

hes totally willing to let entire dimensions die because Irkens Bad Everyone Is In Danger, including his own family. including HIMSELF. including any subjugated species hes TRYING to save. or subjugated irkens

anyone who knows shit about dicks about multiverse theory knows that yk. when they say infinite possibilities they really mean INFINITE. whats zib gonna do to the dimension where the irkens ARENT a planet conquering empire? is he just gonna let them be or is he gonna eradicate them too cuz WHAT IF they do something??

also its really fuckin rich that he hates the irkens for being conquerers that r destructive n shit. like dude ur country dropped nukes on japan maybe fix ur own fuckin planet before going after aliens. yk, save the world? that thing u wanted to do??

tldnr hes compelling but yall HAD to make it into a he needs a family uwu kinda thing

also no shade but i think zib being accepted in the membrane family is gonna make things worse. imagine u think these ppl care about u and its gonna be Different in this dimension but ur dad is still the same ole neglectful jackoff he always was and ur alternate self only wants to either study you OR drag u on Hunting Zim Adventures so u can never rly truly move on from ur past. gaz is ok but knowing dib, zib would only engage w her to talk abt his own shit which would make her hostile nd then hed blame her even tho its his fault for not giving a single shit abt his sister n her interests literally ever

#ily patch :)#thanku for asking #my heAD Hurts #now calling the tallest

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inosukeslefttoe · 3 years

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SO i just finished wonder egg priority and i think that with confidence i can say it has been one of my favorite animes like... ever ?? and not even from hyperfixation or obsession over it just... its so fucking real yet so simple in a way that i havent rlly seen shown in any other shows you feel ??

but first i wanna talk about how sexy the art and animation is real quick... HOMIE ITS SO GOOD LIKE EVERYTHING ABOUT IT JUST... serotonin... the characters are all so unique and iconic and fun but not over the top in their designs yknow ??? they seem like regular every day girls but they stand out and theyre all sO CUTE !!!! also i love how the style is like this soft bubbly slice of life lookin stuff with bright happy colors and the most beautiful scenes you could find but they also have the SICKEST fight scenes complete with whimsical animal helpers and terrifying villains and crazy weapons unique to each character. and the animation. god DAMN shawty i am obsessed with everything in this show. i might make a post solely about the art later lol bc i wanna get into the other stuff.

so the themes in the show right ?? it starts just as this cute lil magical girl kinda deal but within the first episode we see that like.. oh damn... thats kinda heavy... tbh i was a little shocked and thought about stopping bc yknow bad mental health BUT i was so intrigued that i had to keep going and i am SO GLAD that i did. because this show just so beautifully discusses all these heavy topics in such an eloquent and artistically expressive way. and also like, , the juxtaposition of the charming childlike vibe with bright colors and 14 yr old girl protagonists against the dark themes of suicide and so much else,, i think is just perfect. bc a lot of heavy animes are more of the seinen genre and have some middle aged dude as a protag or make the entire color palette dim or offer little relief to the pain of these heavy themes right ?? but NO not wonder egg bitches B) because these problems arent just things that ppl face later in life or just problems that need to be talked about among adults or the edgy seinen watching squad,, these are REAL problems that face people of every age, gender etc and i think its awesome that wonder egg addresses that. some may cringe at the thought of their high schooler watching animes that discuss sexual harassment, suicide, abuse, self harm, eating disorders etc,, but in reality it is the most comforting thing i have ever come across and is basically jsut free anime therapy. because not only does wonder egg present these themes to the viewers as something real that happens to all kinds of people (making said people feel heard in a way that maybe they hadnt before), but it also makes sure to vanquish all of these forms of trauma. and the way the trauma is vanquished isnt always beautiful and it isnt always just magically gone with a poof. the struggles of overcoming or living with that sort of thing are shown in such a real and relatable way that addresses every hardship trauma survivors have to go through. and i just. god i cry bro.

oh m y GOD and the lgbtq+ rep in this show ?? like shawty... as soon as i saw episode one i was picking up on some gay/lesbian themes but then again im sapphic and project that a lot so i tend to see that sort of stuff like... everywhere... but NE WAYS... episode ten made me FUKCING CRY BRO LIke i cant believe there was a whole trans character with a whole trans pride hoodie like LKGHKDGH my heart is just so.. so fucking full thinking about him. bc like yeah i know there are trans characters in anime but i feel like theyre always very ambiguous about actually being trans or not or erased or portrayed as a harmful stereotype or theyre constantly misgendered and still refered to as their assigned gender at birth and i hate it. HOWEVEr... Kaoru.. *chefs kiss* it was so amazing to see a character straight up say “yeah im trans” in such a casual yet powerful way bc i personally have never seen that before. and i love love loved how he went into his backstory and talked to momoe about gender bc i think thats what she rlly needed and that it helped her find herself and it makes me so happy oh my god,, and the way they talked about it never seemed forced or like it was the focal point of his existence yknow ?? like yeah he existed to help momoe overcome some of her trauma but he also just existed to be HIM yknow ?? also... personally, i headcanon momoe as a trans girl even though i dont remember it being explicitly stated plus the school scenes of her and stuff would seem like they suggest otherwise ??but,,, SHAWTY THE AMOUNT OF SUBTEXT and her complicated relationship w gender is... something i feel like a cis girl would not go through so harshly yknow ?? with all of the questioning and feeling detached from femininity or feeling like ppl dont see her as an actual girl and only like her as a guy or for her masculine traits,,, but dont take my word on this bc i myself am a cis girl but that was just my take on it as someone in the lgbtq+ community trying to educate myself on the transgender community :) either way,, wonder eggs portrayal of momoe and kaoru and the way that momoe becomes so passionate about expressing herself the way she wants to as a girl is just... good lord im gonna cry its so perfect,,,.so ... i just love this show way too much. i also am honestly super lost about the relationship btwn acca and ura-acca ?? bc i was gonna mention ura-acca as a canonically gay guy bc when i was watching i interpreted ep 11 as him being in love with acca and being jealous of Azusa (bc i mean,, they lived together (i swear to god there was only one bed in that apartment) and had a daughter together and def loved each other and also when Frill said they were husbands and then when ura-acca said he wasnt attracted to azusa but he was def jealous of their relationship ??) but then i saw somewhere that theyre brothers ?? which would make sense ig since they look kinda similar and accas daughter called ura-acca “uncle”.. but at the same time its ANIME SO THEY ALL LOOK SIMILAR and referring to gay couples as siblings is an EXTREMELY common euphemism soooo... IM JUST LOST HERE... but yeah i tried doing research and found different things so i cant say anything for sure >:( however,,, if they are canonically a lil fruity for each other... when frill refered to acca as ura-accas husband i imploded dude you never hear that sort of wording in anime.. but if theyre related i am so sorry.

god this is so much longer than i planned it to be oops but i also love the theme about like.. relying on friends to help carry your weight but at the same time not becoming completely dependent on those friends and using their support to learn how to love yourself and rely on yourself yknow ?? bc that is exactly what healthy friendships look like. bc i think ai sort of had a codependency thing goin on with koito maybe ?? but now she has a whole squad of funky friends that are so so different but all struggle with different kinds of trauma and although they fight over it, they always get through it with each other together. and they push each other no matter what to be the best versions of themselves and they teach other that getting hurt is okay because theyre always gonna be there to pick up the pieces no matter what happens. they can give each other space when they need and adapt to meet each others needs but theyre always able to balance it out with their own needs and thats such a beautiful thing in friendships especially at their age like damn i wish i had that maturity when i was 14 but no all i had was depression. another thing is that through these friendships you get to see all the different sides of each girl; you get to see them being strong or a shining light to their friends when theyre hurting but you also get to see them being hurt and weak and allowing themselves to be on the receiving end of the comfort. their friendships allows them to have weaknesses but it also allows them to highlight their strengths and thrive off of each others. I LOVE FRIENDSHIP DUDE

next i wanna briefly mention some of the themes connected to suicide that ive noticed. a big one is the survivors guilt that ai feels once koito is dead. several times she screams that she wishes she couldve gone with koito and she dreams of a “perfect world” where they committed a double suicide. one of the main reasons for her troubles is that she blames herself for koitos death and feels like it should be her thats dead... but at the same time she feels like too much of a coward to do anything now that koito is gone. she just has all these complex and contradicting feelings that wear away at her in ways that ppl that havent gone through the suicide of a loved one could never imagine. a lot of the times when things like this are portrayed in media i feel like its more in a way thats meant to guilt trip those that have taken their own lives and paint suicide as this selfish sin thats unforgivable but... not only does wonder egg reject that idea and instead portray it as a heartbreaking tragedy with,,, so so many terrible reasons, but it focuses on the feelings of ai separate from koito without blaming her in any way. not once did i feel like the show antagonized koito or that ai blamed koito for doing any of this, but they simply mourned her loss and touched on ais reaction towards the event but separate from koito herself if that makes sense. and i think that discussing survivors guilt without painting koito as the bad guy is something so beautifully done in wonder egg that can really resonate with those that have lost a loved one to suicide and have struggled with these same things.

okay i think this is the last thing ill mention,,, but HOMIE THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE BIT AT THE END. I AM. OBSESSED. i am such a whore for anything about the multiverse okay n e ways...,, not only did this make a super epic trippy ending of season one and add a little bit more magical girl whimsy to the show,, but it had such a powerful message. from the perspective of og ai,, finding out that you killed yourself in another world is... i mean its definitely not a surprise but at the same time it rlly makes you think how close og ai herself couldve been to that point and what decisions led her out of that dark place in her life. if i were in her shoes i would be terrified and id cry bc the thought of going back to such a dark place and actually going through with something like that is my worst fear and probably something that ai fears too. but at the same time,,, think from the perspective of ai two !!! like yeah its true that theres this awful terrible version of ai that dies but theres also a whole version of ai that is a superhero magical girl fighting off monsters to save countless ppls lives !! and she has a badass lizard and a gang of awesome friends !!! at first i was worried that ai two would be jealous of og ai and compare herself to her and feel inferior but like.. THEYRE LITERALLY THE SAME PERSON AND CAPABLE OF THE SAME THINGS !!! and ai two realized that !! just within the span of one episode, she went from the version of ai who took her life,, to the version of ai jumping in front of a friend to take a bullet for them and save their life. and that just inspired THE SHIT OUT OF ME. i think that ai was sent another version of herself to sort of beat her own worst enemy yknow ?? those doubts and fears that shes no good or that shes that same bystander from episode one and that she hasnt changed at all. but getting to interact with her parallel self and see her grow was just what she needed to realize that while yeah sometimes the worst thing can happen and things can be terrible but on the other hand sometimes the most wonderful thing imaginable can happen because she has the power to do either.

so im gonna go ahead and stop rambling bc i got all my thoughts out that i wanted to for this post :D but yeah lol i might make another if i feel like it sometime. long story short: this show is perfect and it is going on my favorite of all times.

#wonder egg priority #wonder egg spoilers #ai ohto #rika kawai #momoe sawaki #wonder egg priority neiru #i forgot neirus name #anime review #wonder egg ai #lgbtq anime

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bbygirldahyun · 2 years

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‼️slight dsmom spoilers‼️ i actually never watched loki (i never really cared for him as a character so i just couldn’t build up the motivation to watch his show i don’t hate him but to me he’s just kinda like…… there😭😭😭) so i think that made it easier for me to wrap my head around the whole multiverse and variant stuff. i mean, u would assume marvel would know how to keep a plot consistent after nearly 30 cinematic projects but apparently not😭😭😭 i honestly think bringing in a director who didn’t watch the main antagonist’s show and mixing that with a movie concept that is so infinite such as the multiverse was kinda a recipe for disaster😭 not to mention they’re bringing in larger than life characters in what’s supposedly a solo movie (honestly i think they should’ve just called it doctor strange and the scarlet witch like how they did with the falcon and the winter soldier cus this movie was wanda’s as much as it was strange’s). also!!!!! i personally love hearing u and other anons talk about marvel! so just know that even if other ppl r like blegh marvel just know there’s ppl that like to listen to it :D

i totally agree with you on loki as a character, i certainly don’t hate him but i’ve never had the affinity for him many other marvel viewers do. my sister really likes loki so that’s partially why i was so excited for the show, like on her behalf i guess. but it was just a dumpster fire.

i saw someone say this and it really stuck with me — phase 4 has no idea what it’s trying to achieve. phases 1-3 were mostly origin stories, world building, and leading up to the infinity saga with infinity war/endgame. phase 4 is just a random collection of shit that seem to have no bearing on one another. like, where does hawkeye and tfatws fit in with all this multiverse stuff? and they’re bringing in so so so many new characters too which is great but, what’s the end goal here? there’s no coherent theme or pattern except the multiverse i guess, but they can’t even decide how they want the multiverse to work! i think they’ve really limited themselves with the whole “no incursions can happen” thing. what’s the point of a fucking multiverse of people from different universes can never interact with one another?

completely agree as well with the whole it being a doctor strange solo movie was not the move. like let’s be real, wanda dominates just about every project she’s in. she’s a fan favorite and just an absolute powerhouse, it is so hard to not have her steal every scene she’s in. like she was in endgame for what, the last twenty minutes barely, and her scene fighting thanos was easily one of the most memorable of the whole thing. any project where wanda is in it especially as co-lead will never belong to someone else. i also thought even america and wong outshined strange. hell even christine was more enjoyable to watch than him!

i’m glad you enjoy it!! i love chatting with anons about stuff like this and other random stuff i’m interested in besides kpop and writing just because it feels more like a personal connection with friends when i do get around to writing and filling requests rather than a business deal or something.

#ask #anon #mom spoilers

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wandabanshee · 3 years

Text

Okay I'm gonna talk for a minute.

I know every one is saying Wanda is gonna be the new MCU villain and like yeah it makes sense and all but I DONT WANT THAT.

We've seen her go through so much trauma and loss and while I'll admit that would be a pretty impressive super villain origin story I think most of the viewers (myself) don't want to see that happen to her.

SO I want to talk about what I think is happening and the little clues I've found that might mean something else :)

I think the main sword guy we'll call him Dir. Butt Face (i can't remember his name and he threatened my girl, he's done) knows Agnes. I definitely think they're working together not just because she's like mega sketch but also because she didn't have an ID attached to her profile on the board of "cast members" SO she COULD be Agatha Harkness but I'm not sure, could just be a nod (like all these damn devil jokes).

So my main thing, I'm pretty sure Tommy and Billy were the point of all this.

I think someone got to Wanda and made her think they were trying to possibly weaponize Vision? Maybe Agnes? Maybe Dir. Butt Face? Idk. Someone kind of poked the bear. Maybe gave her a reason to snatch him. She seemed pretty pissed which was sort of a drastic change from the kind of seemingly at peace Wanda we saw talking to Clint during the end of Endgame.

I'm not sure if they really were trying to weaponize him but I dont think that was the end goal. Pretty sure the end goal was to create the first Mutants.

Wanda has said herself that she just kind of found herself here and while we can see she's controlling the way the story goes it sort of seems like someone else is puppeting Wanda.

Possibly another powerful witch?!?! Again I think Agnes may just be a nod but if not......!!!

Anyways what I'm trying to get at here is THE KIDS!

WESTVIEW HAD NO KIDS.

In most of these tv shows they typically portray a family. Parents and kids. Thats kinda the norm. But whoever created Westview really made sure there were no children. Like someone MADE SURE that if Wanda wanted to have her perfect family that she wasn't going to just pluck out some rando youngsters and make them her own! No! No way! If she wanted to have kids like the typical picture perfect family she was going to have to manifest them herself.

WHICH. IS. EXACTLY. WHAT. SHE. DID.

Boom. Kids. Not just kids. MUTANT KIDS.

The first characters in the MCU (besides you know, Space ppl TM) to actually be born super-powered individuals!! Uh oh!

It isn't until after she has her kids that all of Westview is full of children! Kind of like whoever is doing this doesn't need Wanda to yearn for children anymore so we can fill this place to the brim with Trick R Treaters!

Plus that line from the second episode when literally everyone is chanting "FOR THE CHILDREN".

Yeah. I'm pretty sure this was all FOR THE CHILDREN.

The thing is Wanda is able to control the kids which means they have their own magic source. While it did COME from her its not COMING from her. So she's isn't able to control them like she does everyone else is Westview.

I mean Agnes even says "You can't control them. No matter how hard you try."

But boom! Now Dir. Butt Face has two mutant super-powered kids to start experimenting on which kinda seems like what he's going for. At least thats what I'm getting.

Anyway there is a lot of stuff I'm still unsure of.

The whole thing with Pietro is still super confusing to me idk if she just plucked him from the Multiverse or what. (especially since it seems like he has Pietro's and not Peter's memories??)

But that's all I've got for now. I cannot wait until we find out what the hell is happening although I'm going to be really sad when its over.

Sidenote: I'm also going to have a hard time saying goodbye to Vision after this unless she finds a way to charge him back up again.

#wandavision #wanda maximoff #marvel #vision #even peters #pietro maximoff #elizabeth olsen #paul bettany #mcu #disney #theories

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silverdelirium · 3 years

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okay but like no. shifting is dangerous bc it’s like… shifting culture proposes that you’re leaving to go to an entirely different universe where you can have everything you ever wanted and could possibly want… the fact that these universes just happen to include you’re favorite characters from fictional media is apparently just a plus (also as a writer of original fiction I’m a bit offended bc so many ppl keep saying that like all the books are just shifting stories. Like yeah no, I’m quite proud of the fact that I bullshitted three different books).

And then you leave these universes bc you can’t stay forever (unless, according to one person I know, you commit suicide to like ‘restart’). This can so easily lead to a hatred of your own life, your own ‘universe’. And we know what the leads to…

Oh and of course, I forgot to mention that practically every other tiktok about shifting is someone just fucking sobbing bc they got back from their desired reality…

Lucid dream all you want, god knows I’ve tried. Daydream all you want about meeting your comfort characters, god knows I do. But shifting is just…

(btw I love the manifold theory, the multiverse theory. but also, the idea that these ppl figured that out - and so many claim that it’s been going on for centuries and is apparently a legit spiritual practice - is so completely unbelievable it makes me laugh. most of these ppl haven’t even gone to college yet and they claim their Stephen Hawking?)

gah idk. i cant say much because i dont know anything about it scientifically. but i think we should just let everyone have their fun lmaoo, as long as they do it safely (e.g: staying in their dr for years and losing touch with their current one) and don’t spread misinformation (e.g: what they say about your fiction) but yeah to each their own.

#long post

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the-lightning-strikes-again · 4 years

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Hey Lightning, I was wondering if I could get your thoughts on something. One take that seems to keep returning every once in a while is the "Allura fell for Lotor only after he revealed his Altean heritage," but I know u and others have disproven this many times, which does reassure me. While I love Allura, I definitely think one of her weaknesses was her devotion to Altea and singing Alfor's praises, which sometimes became too much. At the same time, it bothers me when I see some ppl (1/?)

Continuing anon message: “ say that she thought Alteans were superior to all other races, and that when the colony plot twist happened, she became repulsed by Lotor's Galra side, which is why she rejected him. For them, that's why she forced violent memories onto an uncorrupted Zarkon, but somehow "saw the good/redeemed" Honerva, the Altean. I can kind of understand where they're coming from, but for me, it just didn't make sense that Allura suddenly had a change of heart considering for most of s8, she was angry and dead set on going after Honerva. Even with that, I think to a lot of her fans, s8 made Allura so ooc that she became unrecognizable, which hurt to watch. I guess for me it's hard seeing antis and people who don't like her claim that that's just how she is and has always been. Haha sorry for rambling, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, since your arguments ease my mind on a lot of things when it comes to Allura :)”

Hi, anon. Wow, thanks for your extended note! I don’t know anywhere in canon that Allura champions Alteans as a superior race. The definition of racial supremacy is a belief that inherent genetic differences between races determine cultural or individual achievement, with social/governmental policies championing intolerance of other races. To get Allura to fit into such a label:

1. A viewer has to ignore or undermine all the evidence available about who the main-universe Alteans really were before main-universe Zarkon’s massacre of them.

2. A viewer has to ignore or undermine how Allura actually responds to a variety of different races in the show, including her own.

So let’s start with issue one. To support an “Allura was a racial supremacist” opinion, a lot of antis (and even non-militant, average viewers) are favorable to the opinion that Alteans as a group, including Alfor, were actually evil and violent colonizer elitists before Galrans killed them off. In other words, they question Altean victimhood, and this allows the militant antis to poison and undermine scenes of a woman mourning her home and her beloved family. And it just gets to be a really unsettling conversation, to listen to someone actually try to justify genocide. They’ll also have suspicions that all of our foundational backstory in the s3 finale was just “cleansed” propaganda from Coran. So if antis can undermine Allura’s entire race and family as corrupt, then they can intentionally undermine any of her canonical statements about or efforts toward peace. Which is hilarious, because this racist tactic applied to Allura is actually what a lot of antis accuse Allura of doing with Lotor.

For the record, I don’t think the show production team actually intended the subliminal messaging/cognitive dissonance that I’m about to discuss. The people who designed and developed this show are fans of robot kitties and aren’t PhDs in social issues. But I think there is a very serious issue about the portrayal of genocide victims that feeds into some very real problems in our world, especially regarding the concept of racial supremacy and conspiracy theories about genocide victims.

VLD tried to play with both genocide politics for edge™ points while ALSO playing with shatterglass theory (shatterglass meaning an AU where the heroes are villains and villains are heroes). Combining these two concepts into the same universe creates some incredibly disturbing subliminal messaging about Alteans that very closely mimics ongoing neo-Nazi propaganda against Jews. Nazis and other anti-Semitists justify their hatred of Jews by equating them as terrible villains out for world domination via some underhanded shadow control of the mass populace. It’s an incredibly malicious form of propaganda, because it works so terribly well. And what do you know, VLD plays right into this kind of propaganda. In the season 3 episode, Hole in the Sky, we’re faced with team Voltron confronting an Altean Empire that was actually evil and out for multiverse domination. And oh by the way, they’re using malicious shadow tech to control a mass populace.

It’s like someone on the production team read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and then just copied/pasted that incredibly damaging and widely accepted conspiracy theory right onto Alteans for s3 funsies because edge content.

This is incredibly punishing, for the narrative to wave the carrot stick in front of genocide survivors that maybe some others survived—and then to suggest that Alteans were the evil ones all along. A shatterglass twist worked very well in Captain Marvel (2019) for a lot of reasons, for example, but it just doesn’t work well in the VLD universe given that the show explicitly portrays the genocide victims as evil and validates this concept. And this episode unfortunately feeds ongoing cognitive dissonance in antis that if AU Alteans could be so evil…how certain are you that they aren’t in the main universe too? On the reverse side, the main-universe goes out of its way to portray that not all Galrans are evil, and even that Galrans were the primary resistance (BOM). But in this singular episode, we see a united Altean empire. And the only Altean who moves to stand against it once the shine wears off…is Allura. There is no AU Altean actually shown in the Guns of Gamara. So Allura stands alone as an Altean against her own people.

For this reason, this episode doesn’t function very well as a shatterglass AU either, because the moral “flip” isn’t a mirror balance to main universe. The Alteans of the AU world appear as fully united in their evil plans. And then, no doubt, anti-alluras point out other quirky things about main-universe Alteans throughout the show—the violent language-learning system that scares Pidge, and the ancient Altean terraforming technology that Haggar activates, and the fact that Oriande is a hidden place that keeps out the less magical with a violent guardian. These details, when removed from main-universe world building, create a cognitive dissonance about whether main-universe Allura and Alteans were actually genuine in how they depicted respectful “peace and diplomacy.” So anti alluras who believe Allura was a racial supremacist really rely on this s3 episode and these details to uphold their conspiracy theory.

So let’s focus on Allura in this episode, because it says a lot about who she ultimately is as a person, and people have forgotten how she actually responded in this episode. Allura is unquestionably hopeful at the thought that her and Coran might not be the last Alteans alive. Pretty understandable. If I were the last human, I’d be darn excited to find out there’s more of me left, lol. So her experience as a genocide victim initially blinds her to the evilness of these Alteans. You can even see the ache on her face, of how badly she wants to believe their narrative of peace.

So Allura is initially star-struck that she and Coran are not the last Alteans, yes, and that somehow they’ve achieved a “peace.” She is also not afraid to admit that they would be valuable allies in the war:

And she’s not wrong there, considering that they have what appears to be extensive military resources and a robot force of their own. But she makes a critical mistake in assuming that “these are my people” means that they share main-universe cultural sentiments. The instant Allura hears Slav (so not someone of her own race) call these Alteans out as actually evil colonizers turning people into slaves, she begins to question the narrative she’s received.

In this instance, she actually affords the Alteans the same courtesy she afforded Lotor—the opportunity to deny the accusations.

But in the AU Altean’s case, they try to turn blame back on other parties. Allura listens to Keith when he grows increasingly fearful of what the Alteans might do to the others, and she tries to plead for actual peace:

And actually, this is a pretty interesting moment for Allura. She tries to salvage an alliance…until she realizes that their differences are irreconcilable, and that their definition of peace is inherently different from her own. This probably sets the stage for why Allura was so triggered by Lotor talking about peace while also killing people—because she’s seen people misappropriate that term before. And also probably informs why she trusts the information of both Keith and Krolia (both of whom have Galran blood, btw).

Ultimately, Allura turns against her own people. Violently:

When they get angry about her wanting actual peace, Allura draws a weapon against them and rejects them from her people. This mimics how she spends several seasons fighting an Altean Haggar/Honerva for her crimes, and how she turns against Lotor too.

So case in point here, Allura loves her people, obviously—but she also is holding them to moral standards regarding their behavior, which is something that a genuine racist doesn’t do. As a matter of fact, Lotor is the only person of Altean blood that Allura genuinely bonds with ever again in the series. She’s distant with Romelle, she’s distant with the s8 Alteans… In s8, Allura even says this about Luca, which refers back to her own mistakes she made with initially being star-struck by the s3 AU Alteans who came in “peace”:

Allura herself had been manipulated in s3, wanting so desperately to not be the last Altean alive that it initially blinded her to how Commander Hira was manipulating her. The plight of the s8 Alteans who are deceived by Honerva is inherently frustrating to her, because she can see herself in them.

Absolutely none of this correlates with Allura seeing or perpetuating Alteans as a superior race. At every turn, her own people continue to disappoint her, and she increasingly and progressively separates herself from them in hopelessness, because they’re so brainwashed that they can’t see they’re just cannon fodder for someone else’s military agendas. Not exactly a ringing endorsement for a superior race, lol.

So let’s think about anti accusations here. Allura is a racial supremacist…but she’s arguing against her people who believe unquestionably in Honerva, another full Altean like herself? Nothing about that accusation makes sense with her actions.

The fact is, consistently from season 3 and onward, Allura is faced with her own people morally disappointing her.

The good news for the s8 Alteans like Tavo is that Allura is able to remove the dark entity Honerva is using to control him. Which allows other Alteans to “wake up” from being manipulated and try to make amends.

Regardless, Allura makes a very clear line that simply being Altean doesn’t make someone “right.” She sees herself fully at odds with her own people who are drawn in by Honerva’s lies. And she experienced well back in s2 (revealing Haggar as Honerva) and s3 (evil AU Alteans) that any given race, including her own, can house people who do bad things.

The fact is, she’s consistently and willingly drawn weapons against even her own people when they didn’t meet her moral expectations. So her response to Lotor isn’t particularly out of line there. She’s repulsed by a moral flaw.

And actually, Lotor himself wouldn’t have known this, but he very oddly echoed the AU Alteans by getting angry that Allura was angry over the means through which he was trying to get peace:

So Lotor actually reverts to the same logic of the AU Alteans—peace at any cost, just look at the results—

And keep in mind that the AU Alteans also manipulated Allura’s excitement about them, to get her to make the transreality comet usable so they could go into other realities. So Allura has felt betrayed and used before, by her own people.

So when she says this:

Yes, it’s a reference back to how Zarkon manipulated his friends in order to get access to the quintessence field, at the explicit cost of potentially killing his own people. But it’s not without understanding that yes, Alteans can be just as manipulative and betraying as Zarkon. Because she’s experienced it, again and again.

As a matter of fact, six out of the eight seasons of Voltron: Legendary Defender feature villainous Alteans/Alteans on the wrong side of the war, and we continuously see Allura punished again and again for wishing that Alteans still lived.

No wonder she wanted to die.

This is something that I find uncomfortable about the narrative of the show. Previous iterations of Voltron did in fact have a “blood on everyone’s hands” perspective, such as within the ages 16+ Dynamic Comics. However, Arusians/Alteans in those old Voltron narratives were not victims of genocide. VLD turns Alteans into victims of the worst racial crime possible and then also consistently portrays them as inherently antagonistic to genuine peace efforts in some way, instead of focusing on the evil of the oppressors.

And this is such a double whammy for Lotor’s characters as well, given that he was abused by his parents and threatened with slavery via his Galran culture, and that he was half-Altean too trying to connect to his lost culture.

As a matter of fact, the larger show’s narrative interest in “victims as antagonists” makes it such that when we see victims try to enact actual justice, it feels almost jarring. Let’s look at that s8 Zarkon moment you brought up as an example, where Allura destroys his innocent perspective by showing him his evil deeds.

The s8 Zarkon is a weird topic because 1) This Zarkon actually doesn’t exist outside of Honerva’s mind, so how he has any kind of actual free-will is beyond me, unless someone wants to argue that Honerva actually cursed his true soul just as she cursed the other paladins. It’s hilarious too, because Honerva-mind-Zarkon also calls Honerva a psychopath, so I guess now Honerva is psychoanalyzing herself using her dead husband as the vehicle, while also discreetly helping the paladins to stop herself—

ANYWAY, using this Zarkon as a “proof” of Allura’s “racism” is also cherry picking in the weirdest of ways. Is she angry about his horrific and incalculable crimes, including even how he betrayed the OG paladins and ruined his own planet? Absolutely. Does she want him to be aware of his crimes instead of having to pretend like nothing’s wrong? Yes.

But notice here, this Zarkon actually shows remorse. He is actually crying over those memories and recognizing that he had done something wrong. And Allura can work with that. In fact, out of everyone standing around and doing nothing, it’s Allura who gives him a second chance and offers an alliance with Zarkon in order to stop a crazy Altean:

Keep in mind too, Honerva didn’t have memory loss at the end of s8. She knew exactly what she’d done and had given up and had to actually be convinced to do anything halfway constructive. That’s a very different circumstance than mind-Zarkon had, who jumped at the chance to do something to fix what all had happened, and gets even morally righteous about it, calling his own wife a psychopath, lol.

So generally, antis who believe Allura was a racial supremacist haven’t watched the show holistically. We see her hold the same standards to her own people as she expects out of others. This show would look incredibly different if Allura were a true racial supremacist.

Ah, you ask. Okay, so we’ve refuted the big pieces of “evidence” used to incriminate Allura. But what about all of those weird details about ancient Altean history? The violent language-learning program that scared Pidge? The violent terraforming tech that almost kills Voltron? The concept that Alfor tried to play “police” over the Galra and actually blew up their planet? The Alteans’ ongoing discussions of “peace and diplomacy” and spreading it throughout the universe while they happen to sit on a massive load of ancient power?

The s3 finale and other facts throughout the series very heavily smash the claim that our canon, in-universe Alteans were evil colonizers like the AU Alteans. The biggest piece of evidence to the contrary is that the Altea we know was one (1) planet. You counted right. One planet. Not an empire, but a singular planet. The s3 finale corroborates this, showing Altea as being largely isolationist from a military perspective while Daibazaal and Nalquod warred "for generations," right in front of their salad.

So some viewers would have you believe that Alteans were these big bad, intergalactic police state colonizers. But for all of its great power and knowledge, the singular planet of Altea didn't even canonically interfere in the wars of its own galaxy for actual millennia? And looking at the screenshots upon the stabilization of the alliance, Alfor is revealed to not have had experience with a neighboring culture. His face while exploring Gyrgan’s homeworld is an indication that it’s all rather new for him too. So again, we have evidence showing that Alteans were not colonizing or even functioning as a police state.

Note here that in the s3 flashbacks, the show confirms that it actually wasn’t just Alfor who suggested an alliance. All five leaders had common interests in protecting their galaxy from even worse threats, so all five came together at the same time. This is actually the first piece of evidence we have of Altea entering into some kind of intergalactic military agreement to stave off said worse threats.

And all of this is on top of a history where in s6, the Galran Archivist confirms that the Galran Empire had existed before Zarkon for 3,000 years, with times of “expansion.” It’s very easy to see that Blaytz’s people were actively fighting off Galran occupation of their homeworld within this past.

And that’s actually what I think makes Alfor and the OG paladins some pretty interesting characters. Here, we had colonizing Galran empire setting down its sword and accepting the value and space of its neighbors. Here, we had master alchemist Alfor giving up military power within their group by acknowledging Zarkon as the superior strategist. Here, we had Blaytz who had previously been battling Galran occupation…fully accepting the Galra?

So the OG Paladin backstory represents a pretty incredible alliance that removed a lot of intergalactic toxicity and helped heal broken bonds. But it required all five leaders to agree to that. Alfor did not throw his weight or power around within this. There were several checks and balances here.

But this backstory also helps to explain some of the quirky details about Alteans. Their planet existed within an active war zone, and it’s very likely that they’d had to fight off Galran occupation just as Blaytz’s people did. So the violent robot trainers and fear-based language learning systems start to make sense. Alteans weren’t just simpering people playing harps all day and eating grapes. They were actively prepared to defend their planet and their culture.

So when Allura says in season 1 that Alteans were “spreading diplomacy” across the universe, the only pieces of evidence we have of that is the OG paladins themselves, in which Alfor was a big part in creating that alliance—and then possibly the Alteans with the Balmerans, given their deep collective rituals with that planet while the Galra literally just came in and ripped the planet nearly to death. Allura tries to mimic what it means to accept and interact with a culture without changing it well in season 1, when she stumbles through trying to respect Arusian culture and its demands on its people. Also, there is a big fact that antis like to overlook:

The fact is, despite the untold numbers of civilizations we interact with across 76 episodes, no outside race remembers Alteans as evil colonizers. If they were really so big and bad, we would have heard it, like, “Man, yeah the Galrans are bad. Just as bad as those Alteans, back in the day.” Or something. But nope, nothing.

So I heavily question the history of Altea as an ancient colonizing race. If they were, then Altea wouldn't have just been a single planet with limited resources to fight wars in even its own galaxy. All of this supports the idea of Altean children being raised to fight--because they were preparing to defend themselves when/if diplomacy fails.... But the fact that the Balmerans see Alteans fondly and that literally every other race we run into is explicitly suspicious of Galrans and not at all of Alteans says something.

I think the only piece of evidence there might be for a genuinely colonizing ancient Altea is the use of terraforming technology, as mentioned in s4. Haggar discovers it and activates it to try and kill Voltron--and she nearly succeeds, because said tech destroys the entire crust of the planet to reform it. But you have to step back for a second and wonder--if ancient Alteans were so powerful, why was Alfor struggling so hard to even hold his own planet together in the midst of all these other cultures warring and larger threats? If they had this technology--and they did know about it because Allura recognized it right away as ancient technology--why the heck wouldn't they use it? Or were they using it, and it was to reform uninhabited planets to help sustain displaced peoples? Why is it, if Alteans were so terribly bad, we have no record across ANY of the many alien races being cautious of them? Even Galran Lieutenant Lahn snapped at Allura only because he was jealous of the general security she had back on, you guessed it, explicitly Altea. There's a lot of potential explanations for a positive use of terraforming technology, and the evidence against colonization and Altea committing omnicide against other races is incredibly more aligned with the other details in the canon.

And even Alfor’s creation of Voltron and the blowing up of Daibazaal—that’s something that antis like to position as evidence of his police-state ways to underhandedly control other cultures.

So let’s tackle those too while we’re at it.

Honestly, I know people like to hate on Alfor, and I do think his character picks up some misogynism just from the writers....But I don't think he was as much of a controller as people think he was. He was already in an alliance with four other leaders to try and stop bad things from happening in their galaxy. That meant they were expending incredible amounts of time and resources to accomplish that end—resources that were not renewable and may have been straining various planets. We know that he started building Voltron with Zarkon and everyone else's blessing because he called them "clean ships," but it's only after the rift creatures attack that suddenly Alfor's perception of Voltron moves from "clean energy" to "omg we need a more powerful weapon against this unknown enemy.”

So these are his intentions BEFORE he discovers rift creatures are a threat to the universe. While Zarkon states that these new ships are to be endlessly powerful for the Galra Empire, Alfor shames him by offering what his desire is for them:

After the rift creatures nearly destroy Daibazaal, intentions change.

So here, we see the game change in a BIG way. Voltron is not just about offering a more renewable way of sustaining peace-keeping efforts. Alfor is now adjusting and finishing these ships with the explicit knowledge that if they are not powerful enough, then Daibazaal and the Galran people will die. Alfor’s got a LOT of pressure on him now to deliver a mighty and powerful weapon to stop this new threat. So even his creation of Voltron as a superweapon involved using it to protect people from imminent death—not to police them.

And about Alfor blowing up Daibazaal—once again, it’s Alfor trying to clean up Honerva and Zarkon’s mess. Honerva had convinced Zarkon that the rift needed to be wider, and so Zarkon deceived the paladins into widening it.

So keep in mind here, at this point in time—the rift was destabilizing and eating an entire planet. The entire universe was now at stake. Alfor had to choose between a bad fix and an even worse option of allowing everyone to die, but he very clearly evacuated people before destroying Daibazaal, as part of his promise to keep Galrans safe. So that no one would have to die.

And as a matter of fact—about that terraforming technology. How sure are you that Alfor didn’t intend to use it to build Galrans a new home? It’s entirely within the realm of acceptable conjecture that he allowed for the existence of that technology because it could restore what had been lost.

And here’s where the story gets really screwy and feeds into some anti hate. Because when Zarkon wakes up as a zombie, he desires more quintessence as zombies do.

So he’s pissed that Alfor just cut off his gateway, and he manipulates his people:

And it’s here where we get the idea that Alfor was an evil controller. The idea came from Zarkon, who—we can look around pretty easily and see that he was not a man of honor, ultimately. Even if you chose to not believe the s3 finale flashbacks as being objective, there’s something wrong with Zarkon. (It’s clear that the show thought using Coran was a smart way to shell off massive amounts of info, because clearly if this were truly in Coran’s perspective, we would NOT have had intimate looks into Zarkon and Honerva’s bedroom as Zarkon is tending to her, like omg.) Numerous sources, histories, and cultures outside of Coran confirm that Zarkon hit a point of no return on the evil scale, and that he projected his own blame for Daibazaal’s destabilization onto Alfor in order to raise up his new regime in the name of Quintessence™.

So at the end of the day, even Alfor was a victim. But yet somehow, various antis choose to believe Zarkon’s victim-punishing narrative because said antis can’t or else refuse to connect one scene to another since it undermines their justifications for why they can hate on Allura. And that’s not so much an issue with the story itself as it is just poor critical analysis or malicious weaponization of content against other fans.

Now, at this point, we’ve talked about Allura and we’ve talked about Altean history. I have numerous other posts about Allura’s interactions with other races and Galrans and overcoming trauma to give the entire universe a second chance. So if there is anything in this show that suggests Alteans were in any way a superior race, then it’s probably within the show’s own worldbuilding. The show contradicts its own definitions of what quintessence even is by suggesting Alteans have “bluer/purer quintessence” in order to justify why Lotor would even be trying to sacrifice them for anything. The show-championed concept that Alteans have a bluer, purer life force above all other people, and that only Altean energy could interface with the fabric of space-time. Now, this is a problem in the later seasons’ world building itself. And you know who wrote that in? The production team. So once again, we do have racial issues in this show, in ways that shows like Star Wars desperately try avoid by showing racial diversity in who has Midi-chlorians.

That said, I’m not a perfectly woke storyteller either. I think every story and show is going to have something problematic™, but with VLD it’s very clear that its disrespectful handling of genocide politics and shatterglass conspiracy theories, on top of its weird master race angle created the perfect storm. These mishandled and quirky details have created a cognitive dissonance with the provided narrative, resulting in some people in the anti fandoms to champion what aligns very closely to actual neo-Nazi propaganda against Jews, who according to them are not victims but instead the true perpetrators of all bad things. For the sake of the antis, I’m pretty sure they’re not intentionally looking at VLD this way and are probably just looking for any easily graspable reason to hate on Allura for interfering with their ship or something.

But this kind of subliminal propaganda that undermines victims, and the effect it has had on fandom morality politics, is deeply concerning to me. I really wish that we’d had an opportunity to respectfully and critically discuss this with the production team of the show, because a Y7-FV show about “strength in unity” should NOT result in us needing to have a conversation about people walking away with neo-Nazi-ish propaganda sentiments against genocide survivors. Like. Clearly, VLD is fictional, but it’s feeding into a real-life beast that it does NOT need to feed. And it’s keeping alive ongoing conspiracy narratives against some of our most vulnerable populations on the planet.

So, we need better stories. We need a production team that, if they’re going to get paid to do something involving portrayals of genocide and politics, that they need to do their research on those topics. Nobody is going to be perfect with a creation, but VLD validated some very damaging things—and it ALL is something that could have been fixable. I think it would have been incredibly validating to hear the production talk about and accept that these were issues that cropped up unintentionally, and to hear them confirm that these issues are not the sorts of things that VLD was supposed to champion.

The greatest tragedy of all of this is the potential that this show had to really champion some great and validating messages, and the potential that we as a fandom had to come together and do something that fandom was meant to do—which was celebrate the things we love. Because that’s why we’re all here. That’s why this crazy tumblr of mine even exists. It was supposed to celebrate things.

For that reason, I’m going to end this here. I’ve written several responses now as to my thoughts on the inappropriate narrative lens of the show, its contradictory and damaging worldbuilding about the purest race, and how it champions demonizing or punishing genocide survivors again and again. Within all of that, I’ve talked at length about Allura’s character and behavior over 8 seasons and how she built even empathetic connections with militant Galrans like Commander Lahn. In fact even her own homesickness is how she emotionally connects with Lahn, because she understands that desire to call something one’s own. To have a home. A family.

I now really would like to get back to writing stories that I find meaningful to me using these characters and these worlds—and trying to find the hope in all of this darkness, haha. And maybe with any luck, I can hope to do VLD some justice, knowing that I am still on a learning journey as well.

But I appreciate your note, and I hope this very extensive response helps to settle your questions and concerns once and for all regarding VLD Allura. If you should have any remaining questions, please feel free to reach out via a private message to discuss. Thank you!

#Volron #VLD #Allura #VLD Critical #Alfor #Zarkon #Honerva #Lotor #I hope this helps explain my perspective #I think this might have to be my last refutation to the Allura as racist/racist supremacist conspiracy theory #at a certain point #people either watch the show holistically or they don't #you can't convince an anti #so this meta will probably not help an anti #but if you're sitting on the fence and felt drawn in by anti propaganda #then I hope that maybe this post provides an alternate perspective #and one that tries to be more holistically fair to all 8 seasons of the show #and to the intentions and general oversights that can occur during production #Ultimately it doesn't matter if someone likes or dislikes Allura as a fictional character #we need better entertainment that can handle these hard topics and handle them well #And we also need a fandom who's willing to look at all of the information and not weaponize it to specifically demonize and silence others #Maybe a family TV show shouldn't be appropriating conspiracy theories from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion #real-world fans are incredibly vulnerable to such conspiracy theories #and it creates a lot of real-world strife as a result

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