thestargayzingheroine

[thestargayzingheroine]

Okay for Gwen it's.... a bit more complicated. Yes, it is revealed her magic is related to her alien bloodline. But it's TECHNICALLY because said aliens are using their own version of alien space magic and Gwen still is deeply connected to magic stuff even after this revelation. It's not really the most glaring retcon that most people assume it is.

Generally speaking I'm not really a fan of the trope where it turns out that something previously established as being magical turns out to have a science fiction explanation instead.

For example, like how in Ben 10, I believe a character in one season thought that they were learning magic, only for in another for them to learn that it's actually more like a mutant power resulting from them being related to aliens somewhere.

Similarly, as HP Lovecraft's work shifted from fantasy-horror to dark science fiction, things that previously described as being magic (the Dreams of the Witch House, for example) were later reframed as people accessing a kind of math or science that enabled them to bend space-time. The Necronomicon becomes less of an evil spell book, per se, and more a reference book about aliens and their abilities as interpreted by an old timey person who couldn't conceptualise such things.

I don't know, I think that it cheapens it somehow?

I'm somewhat more ambivalent over the Clarke's Law idea (where any sufficiently advanced technology is distinguishable from science), as depending on how it is used it can still act as a overlapping with actual fantasy still. For example, the way magic (and how specifically wizards study/use it) in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series is informed from his time as a press officer for a nuclear power station. Magic is treated in a similar manner to radiation and the like, but still operates AS magic would do.

Interestingly, the manga/anime Dungeon Meshi also puts a tone of worldbuilding into both the ecosystems of magical dungeons as well as the physics of magic itself (the biology of magical creatures, how the energy that powers magic is theorised to come from an alternate dimension "where infinity exists" etc.). It's emphatically still a fantasy setting, tropes and all, but it uses a form of science to explain how magical stuff works while maintaining that it's still all magic, if you get me?

The third option, which tends to be more rare, is the idea that something scientific turns out to have a magical explanation rather than the reverse. So, for example, in the Rivers of London novel Foxglove Summer, protagonist and trainee wizard Peter Grant ends up in part of the UK which tends to have a lot of UFO sightings (rural Herefordshire)... only for it to turn out that the alien sightings and abductions area actually caused by elves very similar to those from the Discworld novels (who exist in a pocket dimension that can only access other worlds at certain times of the year).

This is, itself, an inversion on the theory among UFO enthusiasts that stories about fairies and such in folklore were more primitive folk describing UFO encounters, with it turning out that it was ALWAYS fairies, it's just folks' frame of reference changed for the more "logical" scientific explanation (aliens) instead. This was itself referenced within the Discworld novels themselves, with the coming of the elves being forecast with a sudden spike in crop-circle activity (a phenomena claim is caused by aliens, rather than bored rural folk making Art).

I don't know, it basically comes down to how it's done in all honesty. Personally I like it when Science and magic are defined as two separate things, but I can appreciate when people use science as a way to help conceptualise how magic works in-universe? Such as the time in the comic Planetary where a character uses simplified computer analogies to describe the physics of magic to someone.

Reality has a form of operating system, and magic is the means to manipulate it to the user's own ends via a specific method or sequence of actions.

[thestargayzingheroine]

Among The Shades- One Dark Secret by Panchima

[thestargayzingheroine]

In an ideal world, I think the main bad guy of First Class would have been Baron Strucker/Hydra because I believe in the comics or at least, in the current retcon of the comics at the time, Xavier and Magneto met while hunting down Hydra (Feel free to correct me). But this was the same year Captain America 1 came out too and back when the movie rights were separate.

I love the fact that the show has changed who was responsible for the Genosha attack here

In the comics making it Xavier's Evil Long Lost Twin Sister was honestly such a stupid cop-out, both because it was so random and also because it had the same energy as "This homophobic politician must surely be actually a closeted gay man himself!" as if the abuses and atrocities that minorities suffer are somehow always our own fault and not the fault of our oppressors

Here?

The people responsible for the Genoshan war crime are both 100% human

Bolivar Trask is a pathetic snivelling weak minded bigot, typical of many like him

And Sinister is quite literally the personification of the coloniser and the slave-trader. I mean he's LITERALLY an upper class asshole from Victorian England for one thing and during that time he bought exploited mutants from freak shows and insane asylums to use in his experiments, similar to the way IRL anyone who was "Deformed" or who was anything other than a neurotypical, physically average cishet white christian male was at risk of being bought and sold as a commodity from such places by people just as despicable as this fucking mad science Dracula is

And his colonising extends to his own genetics. The man appropriated mutant culture in the most literal way by harvesting their DNA to alter his own to give himself superhuman abilities and immortality

Instead of diluting the impact of the story by going "Oh, Xavier has an evil twin sister we've never seen before" this is very much a story about the evil of the oppressor destroying a safe space that the oppressed have created for themselves

[thestargayzingheroine]

Now you've made me realise they totally should have used Mr Sinister in X-men First Class instead of weirdly making the head of the hellfire club a nazi mad scientist or whatever they did to Sebastian Shaw.

Mr Sinister is an evil mad scientist who is obsessed with a master race, plus he's immortal too, so why WOULDN'T he try and work with the Nazis if he was around at the time.

I love the fact that the show has changed who was responsible for the Genosha attack here

In the comics making it Xavier's Evil Long Lost Twin Sister was honestly such a stupid cop-out, both because it was so random and also because it had the same energy as "This homophobic politician must surely be actually a closeted gay man himself!" as if the abuses and atrocities that minorities suffer are somehow always our own fault and not the fault of our oppressors

Here?

The people responsible for the Genoshan war crime are both 100% human

Bolivar Trask is a pathetic snivelling weak minded bigot, typical of many like him

And Sinister is quite literally the personification of the coloniser and the slave-trader. I mean he's LITERALLY an upper class asshole from Victorian England for one thing and during that time he bought exploited mutants from freak shows and insane asylums to use in his experiments, similar to the way IRL anyone who was "Deformed" or who was anything other than a neurotypical, physically average cishet white christian male was at risk of being bought and sold as a commodity from such places by people just as despicable as this fucking mad science Dracula is

And his colonising extends to his own genetics. The man appropriated mutant culture in the most literal way by harvesting their DNA to alter his own to give himself superhuman abilities and immortality

Instead of diluting the impact of the story by going "Oh, Xavier has an evil twin sister we've never seen before" this is very much a story about the evil of the oppressor destroying a safe space that the oppressed have created for themselves

[thestargayzingheroine]

[thestargayzingheroine]

i just think she's neat :D

[thestargayzingheroine]

Not what I was expecting, but could be entertaining.

[thestargayzingheroine]

Sooo I just watched the new X-Men episode... and heard a familiar voice. Morla Gorrondona aka Light Hope from She-Ra! She's the new VA for the X-men's ally Lilandra (Professor Xavier's hot alien gf for those who don't know her)

[thestargayzingheroine]

a leia comic about loss.

[thestargayzingheroine]

KIRA NERYS - STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE S4E6 Rejoined

[thestargayzingheroine]

Season 3 dialogue takes deadpan humor to a whole new level

Transformers: Generation 1 — Season 3, Episode 8 — Dark Awakening

[thestargayzingheroine]

JADZIA DAX - STAR TREK: DEEP SPACE NINE S2E17 Playing God

[thestargayzingheroine]

S O U N D W A VE S U P E R I O R

A lesson Starscream learns the hard way as he gets Heihachi-ed right into a volcano O.O

[thestargayzingheroine]

Reminds me of how I felt when watching Avatar (The James Cameron one) because the whole tech behind the Avatar's was basically this, a bio-organic body a disabled person could transfer their mind into as an alternative mobility aid. Because yeah, that legit is a really cool concept. But like this movie, the way the tech is used in Avatar is also used in a really crappy way, basically space blackface (or blueface technically) and essentially being used to "cure" someone's disability in the end.

There's a better way of executing a story like this and this concept. Like say, with this movie, you could instead make a story about the creator still discovering that yeah, while people have abused his creation, it has genuinely been helping people like he intended, even if all the bad stuff he's seen has seemingly outnumbered it and perhaps he could use his virus to just destroy like... the ones being used by the military and instead do a more balanced view of things, that it's not a bad thing to be tied to technology so much especially if it can be helpful.

So in 2009, the science fiction movie Surrogates was released, an adaptation of a comic written by Robert Venditti, drawn by Brett Weldele, and published by Top Shelf Productions from 2005 to 2006. It stars Bruce Willis and James Cromwell, and has some interesting ideas before the conclusion ultimately botches things in a way that bugs me until this day.

OK, let me explain.

Within the setting, the Surrogates were originally created to act as a mobility aid for disabled folk (the creator himself being a wheelchair user), the idea being that the Surrogates acts as a robot duplicate of the owner that can be remotely piloted from home.

Unfortunately, the technology is co-opted by the military (who use it to effectively replace infantry with wave after wave of android drones) and by regular people, who in response to perceived threats of the outside worlds (it being the 2000s, basically terrorism being the main concern), start using the Surrogates as an alternative to going outside... With the added bonus that the robots were customisable (age, appearance etc. entirely the choice of the pilot), meaning that while the real you stayed at home, your ideal You would go do you job, go clubbing, play sports or whatever.

This brings us to the main actual plot, which consists of the original creator of the Surrogates feeling that his creation was a mistake, as its cut off human interaction, and he plans to release a virus that would destroy the connection between the pilots and their machines, thus making people interact with either other, by force.

Unfortunately, the protagonist of the film, an FBI agent played by Bruce Willis called Greer, actually shares these opinions, and while he doesn't allow the inventor to enact a version of the plot which could harm the pilots, he does allow the virus to forcibly severe everyone's connection with their Surrogates...

...a decision that is immediately followed by the sound of car crashes, as Surrogates cut cut off from their vehicles. And considering how Surrogates are also used in hospitals to do surgeries, drive ambulances, fight fires, and, y'know, active AS MOBILITY AIDS LIKE THEY WERE INTENDED, the implication is Greer's actions are still massively destructive, even if the film acts like it's ultimately a positive choice as it leads to disoriented people staggering out of their homes in their pajamas to ask each other what the heck just happened?

The movie certainly hits different after the Covid Lockdowns, considering its message was more one seemingly complaining about early social media, internet anonymity, and the increasingly stale message of how technically actually separates us, man.

This isn't the only piece of science fiction to use the idea of people having remotely controlled robot duplicates (they feature various forms in the Ghost in the Shell franchise, for example, with the main lead Motoko Kusanagi at times having multiples she uses at various times), but I can't help but feeling that the message it was trying to impart on the audience wasn't really worth the... y'know, in universe cost? What with all the deaths due to the lack of first responders, hospitals suddenly having no on-site staff to tend sick and injured people, folk potentially getting outed against their will if their Surrogate didn't match the gender they were assigned at birth etc?

Admittedly the gender stuff probably wasn't on the minds of the creators it being the late 2000s, but when your protagonist effectively ends the world (if not for himself, then a lot of other people) just because he feels lonely that his wife won't talk to him without her robot, I can't help but feel he's weirdly in the same ball park as the actual villain?

He at least was mad that something he made to help disabled people was being used by the US military and stuff, Greer did it because he actually seemed to agree with the anti-Surrogate groups (who are portrayed as violent luddites who randomly point shotguns at people) on some level.

[thestargayzingheroine]

Yet another X-Men She-Ra artist prompt post

Catra with Gambit's hair and pink shirt from the first episode of the X-MEN 97! I think she would rock the hell out of it!

Also i'm including the pic that inspired this post which was made by RPhutch on Twitter as a proof of concept of how good this art would look on a woman.

https://twitter.com/RPHutch1975/status/1777398595412439265

[thestargayzingheroine]

Hey at least that scene looked badass and cool so it gets a pass on the dubious scientific accuracy.... really not sure what to think of Magneto somehow astral projecting himself.

How the fuck is this magnetism?

[thestargayzingheroine]

its Morn Spinning Monday

happy Morn Spinning Monday to all those who celebrate