#randomnumbers751650

[paragonrobits]

I'm watching a three-hour long retrospective/summary of Immortal Hulk. I write these words at the 35 minutes mark and, my goodness, it's messed up. The One Below All is really one of the scariest villains in comics that I saw recently.

oh that's very good to hear! I would love to hear more in depth thoughts on what you think of Immortal Hulk once you've seen more of it, and I would be glad to give my own thoughts as well. Not only is Immortal Hulk just about my single favorite Hulk work since Planet Hulk and a major influence on my particular vibe for Bruce Banner and the Hulk system overall, but it is a tremendously complex and ambigious work that is well suited for analysis.

The One Below All is a very interesting entity in that its absolutely a Cosmic Horror story antagonist, and yet it has a lot of unsettling elements going on around it that FEELS more malevolent on a fundamental level, even if its mostly a force than a specific being in its own right. It can be VERY difficult to make this kind of character interesting or compelling, but the horror it leaves in its wake creates that interest, as those wounded by it can only plead 'WHY'?'. All it can say, is that with these hands it breaks, and with this mouth it howls, and it is left to the reader to contemplate how eerily similar this is to the Hulk, and how further he has to fall if the Hulk succumbs to hurting who he is by giving into his desire to lash out.

It also works very well because, in the Hulk In Hell arc, the OBA specifically is personified by Brian Banner, who is a vERY human antagonist, and a deeply unsettling one because of how real he is. Even in consideration for him being back from the dead multiple times (and there's something to say about how abuse and trauma resurface, and he just won't stop coming back), his actual character here is unsettlingly real. He's a self-pitying abuser who constantly blames everyone else for the things he did, refuses even years after his death to acknowledge that he ever did anything wrong. Often while its an effective tactic to contrast a more abstract villain with a very hatable down to earth one, it can be difficult to have the bigger but less understandable villain seem important but by having Brian effectively be OBA's mouth piece in a lot of ways in this arc, it works very well towards resolving that issue.

I think i might consider this the Lich Problem; in Adventure Time fandom, a frequent criticism of the recurring end-game antagonist the Lich was people saying he wasn't relatable, or difficult to write because he was hard to understand, and some people insisted he was a flat character, and I contend that he is a tremendously interesting one; he's profoundly alien and monstrous. (Also i have to love an arc where a triumphant moment is the slow build up towards analyzing what a devil might be, as a positive, and the Devil Hulk being both gruesome and heroic as he effectively says that since destroying the world is HIS job, he's not about to let anyone scab on his bit.)

[theoutofworld-blog]

Dio Brando: Excellent work, Hitori Gotoh, now hit the second tower.

Bocchi: * glitching screams

[rownou]

randomnumbers751650 reblogged this post with the tag "gigantamax waka" and i couldnt get that out of my mind, so this one's for you

g-max waka!

[yamayuandadu]

randomnumbers751650 replied to your photo “Absolutely disgusting way to talk about the likes of Hotsuma Tsutae,...”

forgive me if I'm being too judgemental, but the author's bio feels like one of those guys who got introduced to Japanese religions through Touhou and just had money to take one step further

Honestly my impression was also that I am looking at a weird weeb who got further than average, this dude’s blog features all the usual smash hits associated with that kind of person. I’m just puzzled how did he end up publishing his weird takes in multiple journals according to academia.edu randomnumbers751650 replied to your photo  “The reviews of The Sacred Science of Ancient Japan: Lost Chronicles...”                       

Guenon and Evola are proponents of the "perennial philosophy", which is part of a kind of "conservative-ecumenical mysticism" - I know them because they are big influences in far-right Brazilian writers, my country is mess because people kept listening to those guys                   

Feels like some sort of esotericism is basically a mainstay of this sort of movements nowadays - Dugin and Gumilov come to mind as examples, too. And in turn it also seems genuine belief in this sort of modern pop-occultism etc can lead one into morbid places ideologically - conspiracy debunking blogs I follow are describing a developing “new age instragram hippie to qanon” pipeline of sorts (on top of such people already being prone to ex. being anti-vax).

[cerastes]

I don't know how much this might help the Abyssposting but you should take a gander at Deepcolor's profile and lines.

I see, I see! I will go do some investigation on these two now, thanks! I’ve yet to look at them.

[theoutofworld-blog]

Toskarin continues to hold unfathomable clairvoyant power over world politics and volcanic eruptions

every touhou release seems to have some wide-spanning lore implication that's also deeply hilarious, but the one I'm still not over is Unconnected Marketeers confirming that the chief of the crow tengu is an ancap who tried to make a coalition with the god of liberalism under the unspoken pretense she could deregulate everything later

[crystalbluesoul]

Darkrai

Darkrai: Have you ever dreamed of Pokemon? What was it about?

I know I definitely did at least once but the dreams I tend to remember are more the abstract kind. The most fandom-like dreams I remember were about running around some cosplay conventions but that‘s about it I remember about those already...

[incorrecthousekinokuni]

Shiro: H-hewwo is anybody thewe?

[cave slowly begins to fill with mercury]

Shiro: H-hewwo pwease somebody hewp me H-ewwo!!

[you can feel the surface of the mercury barely lapping at you]

Shiro: Nononono hewwo!! Hewwo! Hewp me!

Cinnabar: Sensei wwest youw soul.

Shiro: Hewwo! Ma'am why awe you doing this to me Hewwo!! Hewp me pwease

[Cinnabar peers down, with a stone gaze]

Shiro: Shinsha is that you Hewwo! Pwease hewp me i seem to be in a wittle bit of twubble mr obama hewwo H-hewwo?

Shiro: Pwease Shinsha Pwease save me i downt wanna die!

Shiro: H-hewwo Shinsha awe you still thewe?

[Cinnabar continues staring]

Shiro: Shinsha pwease im drowning H-hewwo im scawed!

Shiro: Ill do anything fow you Shinsha pwease hewp!

Cinnabar: Anything?

Shiro: Anything for you shinsha :3

[Cinnabar’s red eyes seem to glow]

Cinnabar: Then perish.

Shiro: D:

[paragonrobits]

So, Johnny, I wonder what you think of this: I just saw a comment claiming that, while Legend of Aang was a traditional hero story, Legend of Korra was a post-modern tragedy. Did that guy understand if it was true, LoK would spend the first season establishing that thee events of LoA were mythological exagerations (like the Moon Spirit wasn't literally killed, it was a metaphor)? I think this is my issue with LoK: while LoA allowed itself to be myth, LoK didn't, they had to be "realistic".

Honestly my first thought is that AtLA is absolutely not a traditional Western hero story (which seems to be the default assumption, and the source of people misunderstanding the series and complaining about it, in much the same way that SU is not a standard ‘beat the bad guys, don’t worry about anything’ series: if you go into things assuming that Western principles apply, you’re gonna be frustrated), so there’s one flaw right there!

I honestly can’t understand Korra as a post-modern tragedy, honestly. I think the issue THERE is that, unlike ATLA, they didn’t have a specific plot in mind for that series. It was character driven and... is it fair to call something ‘episodic’ if it applies to seasons, not individual episodes? But I think that applies; while Korra grows as a person, there’s a less overarching plot. The Red Lotus sort of provide a source for the antagonists, but they’re otherwise not THE defining element there.

And if that WAS true, and the angle Korra went with? Man, that’d suck so hard. I’d HATE that. It even goes against the worldbuilding; the ATLAverse is clearly the kind of setting where people accept and know that the spirits exist, and placating them is important. Like, they’re not particularly active before Korra’s era, but they’re quite present. It would actually be weirder for that to be an exaggeration or myth, in-universe, than people noting ‘okay, yeah, the ocean and moon spirits are fish, that makes sense, no wonder the Water Tribe is protective of its citadel’.

Lok wanted to be more grounded and honestly it sort of floundered. It’s telling that my favorite elements of LoK is stuff like the spirits, the merging of spirit/physical world, and not so much the more ‘realistic’ stuff!

[houseki-no-suffering]

@randomnumbers751650 replied to your post “but what if all these parallelisms between Phos and Padpa are because...”

this post made me think of something: it's pretty much implied that Padpa knows something about Sensei the others don't and, in the last chapter, when he was talking to Phos, he said "If you mess this up, not only Antarc will be gone, but nobody will come back". For me it seemed that he implied there's a way to restore Antarc, even after Prince told them it's impossible (unless he was saying that Antarc's death won't be in vain), still that made me think of this

interesting, I really like the idea of Padpa knowing more than they give away, I also think it’s something that could apply to most gems. As we can try to understand from Cinnabar’s words, probably all of the gems, at some point, did something similar to what Phos is doing (well, maybe not on this scale) because they didn’t trust sensei anymore.

as for a way for restoring Antarc which I’m always a hopeless sucker for it seemed to me that Padpa was just saying “Antarc is gone but at least we can hope to bring other gems back, don’t let their sacrifice be in vain,” so I’m not sure about placing my hopes on that ;w;

[theoutofworld-blog]

the tapeworm, before and after in-depth study but not quite during:

I'm studying something outside my specialization and I can feel the Dunning-Kruger gnawing my brain, just like a tapeworm gnawing a stomach.

[touyanii]

randomnumbers751650 replied to your post “also guys,.. that’s it! there are no more chapters out there to...”

I followed your liveblogs in the hnk tag, I'll miss them, they were a trip - now we have 9 days until ch. 70

hetalion replied to your post “also guys,.. that’s it! there are no more chapters out there to...”

Your liveblogging was a blessing, now enjoy waiting like the rest of us for the 25th of every month

aaww thank you, you guys! it was fun and i’m really happy that i got into the series and that you liked it! and even calling it a trip and a blessing ❤ 

waiting is not my forte though.. and i still don’t know if i should just read the new chapters by myself or wait a couple of days everytime (to not spoil others) and then liveblog them.

[patchoulism]

randomnumbers751650 replied to your post: It’s 2018, time to admit that some of the older...

>implying Zun will ever approach “adults” (notice the quotation marks) things like marriage and family in Touhou

I don't say I want him to, ZUN should keep doing ZUN things. I just try to view Touhou setting with some "realism" (notice the quotation marks). Plus ZUN already kind of approached this: if Sanae is Suwako's descendant, Suwako definetly had children. Some of the Touhou girls, based on historical or mythological figures are married, according to their biography/legend, like Seiga.

[fireflysummers]

I read your text on Momo and I thought it to be interesting. I don't want to discuss it now, but do you think is there a chance this plays on Stain's rants and ideology (without entering in the matter of his ideology and considering in-universe explanation)? You saw how mad he got when he saw Endeavor, he probably knows how much of a selfish person he is. That and reading your post makes me think that if it was Uwabami who faced Stain, he wouldn't hold himself back and rant about something like.

This is actually a common comment I’ve received on that post as a whole, and one of the few that I think actually has some merit to it. 

Yes, it is important to see that scene juxtaposed against the larger idea of heroism being turned into a commercial thing, and losing its fundamental meaning. That said, I do not think that the juxtaposition really compensates for the way that this highlights the underlying sexism of the show, and passing it off as a joke.

A key part of the problem is not only what was communicated concerning what truly matters to be a female pro hero, it’s the fact that there was no other option. The only other female pro that has been presented is Mountain Lady, and I suspect that’s out because Momo is steering a wide berth of Mineta. That aside, Mountain Lady isn’t any better, given that she would have encouraged the use of Momo’s sex appeal to gain a following. (Okay Midnight is technically also a pro hero, but again, exact same problem and she also wasn’t an option to intern under)

I think though, it would’ve been less aggravating for me to watch if there had been any other instance of female-female mentorship in the series. Somebody once mentioned, discussing Brooklyn 99, that the way that they’ve avoided people accusing them of stereotyping minorities is by making sure that there’s more than a single token minority. 

For instance, if Gunhead was female, Momo’s internship would still be annoying but it wouldn’t be as grating. Because while the underlying idea of a woman’s value being tied to her physical beauty, made worse by being perpetuated by another woman, will always always always bother me, we’d also have a Ochako thriving under a badass female hero and flat out undermining the idea that being a successful female pro is tied directly to physical beauty.

[asktheevilbosses]

Guzma, how do you feel that Lusamine wasn't that evil, she was just high as a kite on alien Pokémon meth? Does this change the way you look up to her?

[the-dood]

Gurren Lagann

Favorite character: Simon

Worst character: Rossiu

OTP: Simon x Nia

NOTP: Antispiral and Nia, I guess.

Greatest emotional moment: The first Giga Drill Break scene

Most excitable moment: Anything involving gattai

Favorite series trope: Stuff Blowing Up

Series pet peeve: How it ends

Opinion on the writing: The first half is pretty great, the second half is ehhhhh...?

Overall review of series: It’s a great mecha anime Gainax has to offer in its time.