#I’m flopping but it’s fine

[formulanni]

Taglist (?): @st-leclerc

[lovecoredeity]

💖💒 here comes the bride~

♡ buy me a kofi ♡

[oblivious-aro]

I remember you saying you had some thoughts on Morro being a less effective version of Tai Lung from the Kung Fu Panda movie. Do you have any more thoughts on that :o

Quick introduction, both Morro and Tai Lung are students who turned evil much to the of their old teachers (Wu and Shifu respectively). If you watched Kung Fu Panda 609 times as a child like me, you probably caught on that Morro's character was taken whole cloth from Tai Lung.

Now let's get into the details!

So Tai Lung and Morro have two parts to their character: the threat/villain aspects, and the tragic relationship/falling out with their mentor.

As a villain, Morro works pretty well. Possessing Lloyd establishes him as a threat both emotionally and power wise, since he's taken someone the ninja care for deeply and robbed them of their most powerful member in one swoop. I always kind of thought of him as the dark version of Lloyd, but he’s really more of a “What season 1 Kai could've been”, further supported by Kai's unyielding determination to protect Lloyd this season, contrasted against Morro literally using Lloyd as an actual meat puppet and casually threatening to kill Lloyd to get what he wants.

He’s threatening, hateable, and thematically appropriate as a villain.

As for his “tragic” relationship with Wu, well…despite general fandom opinion, it's actually pretty weak.

Tai Lung's screen time is dedicated to building up how powerful of a threat he is, outside of two key scenes that establish and build on his relationship with Shifu. The first is a flashback that happens somewhere around the half point of the movie. Reveling that Tai Lung was groomed to work his entire life for a role he ends up being denied point-blank recontextualizes the audience's feelings about Tai Lung. Up to that point he was presented as just some dangerously power-hungry villain, but now that the audience knows that Shifu has a personal connection to Tai Lung, and that changes their feelings on both of them.

The second relationship-focused scene is the penultimate fight between Tai Lung and Shifu. Before the combat, the two of them have a conversation that is just loaded with tension, and that tension stays prominent for the rest of the fight. The audience obviously doesn’t want Tai Lung to win, but watching Shifu attempt to take down the child he raised with his whole heart doesn’t exactly feel all sunshiny. Everything from the dialogue to the dark and rainy atmosphere (later heavily contrasted against Po’s triumphant fight in the rising sun) is meant to emphasize the heaviness and tragedy of the fight, building the flashback and Shifu's character growth to twist the knife in the audience's heart.

On the surface, Morro works similarly, spending the majority of his screen time being built up as someone that needs to be stopped, outside of two scenes that focus on his relationship with Wu. While Tai Lung's flashback happens in the middle of the movie, Morro's is told in the second episode of the season. Changing the timing of the flashback changes the effect it has on the audience. Instead of establishing an evil scary guy and then going ‘oh wait, there’s also this other important aspect to him’, we see the more human (literally) side of Morro almost straight away and then spend the remaining 80% of the season showing how evil he is. If Morro’s backstory garnered any sympathy from the audience, it will inevitably be overshadowed by the proceding 8 episodes of Morro doing nothing but make selfish choices. Doing Morro's flashback earlier has the exact opposite effect that Tai Lung's flashback had on his story.

Also worth noting that while a large part of Shifu’s characterization comes from his hand in Tai Lung’s fall (his cold relationship with his new students, his need for control, etc), Ninjago shifts the fault more so onto Morro as a person:

Wu: After I told him he could be the Green Ninja, there was a hunger unmatched.

Morro: (He kicks some of the other trainees, making them fall. Aggressively) Get up. Get up!

Wu: Enough.

Morro: But Sensei, I'm gonna be the Green Ninja. I need greater tests.

Wu: I said, enough!

Kung Fu Panda meanwhile feels no need to shy away from the idea of Tai Lung's actions being the result of Shifu's failure as a teacher. In fact, it embraces it:

Tai Lung: Not your fault!? Who filled my head with dreams? Who drove me to train until my bones cracked? Who denied me my destiny!?

...

Shifu: I...I have always been...proud of you. From the first moment I've been proud of you. And it was my pride...that blinded me. I loved you too much too see what you were becoming...what I was turning you into...I'm s-...I'm sorry...

Ninjago doesn’t completely kill the vibes, it’s still understandable that Wu would be sad a student of his didn’t turn out well, but lessening the responsibility Wu’s bears for the way Morro turned out gives their relationship a lot less weight than Shifu and Tai Lung’s, and lessens the impact their relationship had on Wu’s character compared to Shifu’s. They do retroactively imply Morro's reaction was the reason Wu never told his new students about the green ninja prophecy, which is kind of neat, but Wu doesn't really seem to be affected by his relationship with Morro beyond that.

They're not showcasing Wu being affected by the soured relationship, or building up any kind of emotional conflict about having to oppose his old student. The fact that this season's antagonist is Morro doesn't make Wu behave any differently than he would with any other run-of-the-mill Ninjago villain.

Shifu's character, as I mentioned earlier, is felt in pretty much every moment he's on screen. You can feel his fear of history repeating itself in everything from how frugal he is with praise for his students, to the sheer panic in his voice anytime he and Oogway talk about Tai Lung returning.

In fairness to Ninjago, Shifu was a character made entirely for that movie and nothing else, so his character was built from the ground up with his relationship with his student in mind for the whole process, while Wu is an already existing character in an establised franchise (that's also on a much smaller budget than a Dreamworks movie *ahem*), but they aren't really trying to build up the relationship between Wu and Morro outside over the course of Posession at all, outside of the two specific scenes I mentioned.

Speaking of, there’s the final scene between mentor and student that both charaters share. For Tai Lung, this was a fight, and for Morro, it's a redemption, and I don't think the writers considered how that key difference would affect Morro's story very deeply. Morro and Tai Lung follow the same structure of building up how evil and threatening they are until their ultimate defeat, and since Tai Lung’s story wasn’t building towards redemption, neither does Morro’s. This is fine for Tai Lung, because the emotional climax of his story is acceptance of the tragedy that his and Shifu’s shattered relationship is completely and totally beyond mending. Not only that, but it mainly takes place over a fight. It makes sense to just continuously ramp up Tai Lung’s threat level.

Morro on the other hand, completely switches sides at the last possible second of both his life and the season. With no buildup, his redemption feels very sudden and insincere. This guy who’s been plotting around the same obsession he had as a child for decades, kidnapped and possessed a child, put in the work to literally rewrite destiny, and made deals with satan/hell herself just decided “Actually I’m good now okay byeeeeeee!” in the space of two seconds?

Tai Lung and Shifu’s fight crushes your soul a little. Morro’s redemption just leaves you going “I guess that happened?”

They ripped off Tai Lung and only got him half-right.

[gregmarriage]

we be representing during pride month!!!

[melon-moth]

gonna start slowly posting my art here . I’ve been more active on Instagram and forgetting abt tumblr so every day or so I’ll just post my older art here until I’m all caug up lol. have a sexy anatomically correct wasp rick and also a dumb little selfship comic I made

PROSHIP DNI

[cheeseburgersinparadise]

I think likebreadandwine did a teasing ask game, where she answered asks based on what the asked wanted to be teased about (or more harsh or sweet or etc) and I kinda wanna do that so if you’re interested send me some asks and I’ll give it a try

also hi @likebreadandwine is it ok if I do this

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

Me: okay I told my professor not to point out my startle reactions and he tentatively agreed. he also asked me not to reflexively answer questions posed to the class every time. normal things. very polite. we’re chill.

Brain: he’s mad at you.

Me: no? he might be frustrated or annoyed, but he’s not mad.

Brain: he is tho. he just isn’t telling you. he’s stressed and he’s hiding it and he’s gonna explode soon.

Me: okay well that’s a him problem if that’s true. and he is very unlikely to explode around me, because he’s a professor and that could get him fired.

Brain: no he’s definitely mad at you. just like your dad. here’s a playlist I’ve compiled of every time your dad got really angry at you.

Me: no don’t-

Brain: *plays looped audio files of my dad screaming at me and pounding on the desk/walls out of anger* *plays looped memory file of my head being grabbed and shaken that one time* *plays looped audio file of my dad stomping up the stairs and that little ‘ohoho’ noise he does when he’s rly pissed*

Me: …goshdangit

[ssruis]

What if I don’t want to draw a background what if I want to draw yellow anime boy kissing purple anime boy in a completely blank background. As the lord intended.

[evansbby]

🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

[taylorrepdetective]

Since you like to say you’re always right, tell us what is next. You say you don’t make predictions, but you actually do, even if you don’t call them that.

Ok so I’m absolutely not always right. There have been some really big things I’ve been wrong about and a lot of small things too. And what I learned from that is to keep an open mind, and when I’m wrong about something, to figure out why I got it wrong and shift my world view in some ways to try to understand and guess better the next time. But it’s not even really about being able to guess. It’s about understanding when things happen. It is fun to be right on a guess though, when that happens.

The biggest thing I’ve learned, and luckily I learned it pretty early on in my time in this space, is that trying to figure out the timing something big will happen is absolutely a fools errand. And another thing to avoid is trying to come up with the exact, specific way Taylor (or others in her cinematic universe) will do something to get a point across. Like I can predict she will try to get a point across (set up a timeline, create a narrative, shore up a brand point) but I cannot predict exactly how or when she’ll do it. I also can predict she’ll set something up but then she never does. That’s because I think of lots of options. Some happen, some don’t. So this is the kind of thing I’m often wrong about. But I see them and always try to present them as options, not predictions. And if one of the options I think of happens, I have already spent time thinking about it, so it already makes sense to me.

I don’t know what’s next. She could drop TS11 at midnight. She could break up with Travis tomorrow, or announce her engagement next week. But I do not think any of those things is likely.

So here’s the closest thing you’ll ever get to me making a specific, timed prediction, because to me it seems quite clear:

What I do think is likely is that her jet will go to KC, ✅she’ll go to the game on Sunday✅, and her jet will then leave KC sometime between next Tuesday✅ and next Thursday. Why? Because it’s a home game, and she likes to go to home games and get the exposure and publicity that comes with that. She is working really hard at becoming an icon in KC, seem like her relationship is very serious for those who want to believe it’s serious, and she wants to shore up that relationship by spending time with him, his family, and his friends (also KC icons - the Mahomes mostly.)✅ All of this is so important to the story she’s creating. However, she won’t stay long ✅because that’s been her pattern. She also seems to be establishing that she also has her own busy, fabulous life✅ (she’s bejeweled and he lets her be✅) and when he’s busy with his football week (generally Tuesday-Sunday) he doesn’t have much time for her and she has her own life.✅This gives her the opposite option of the relationship being very serious. In other words it gives her an easy out for it to end. And Wednesday is her birthday. So she’ll either stay till Tuesday ✅and we’ll see or hear about birthday celebrations Sunday night/Monday, ✅then she’ll head out for further birthday celebrations with her other friends and family✅, or her jet will stay through her birthday, solidifying the seriousness of the relationship. But she will leave KC.✅ And then she’ll probably go to the game on Dec 17 in Boston✅. Why? Because it is a short hop from NYC, she has a huge fanbase there✅ and can expand it and shore it up, the patriots are bad so a win is likely✅, but they are a very popular team, so viewership (publicity) will be high✅. After that? Well she’s likely to spend more time in NYC✅/Nashville. Then she will probably go to the Christmas Day game in KC✅. This is a huge opportunity to “take the relationship to the next level” by spending the holidays together ✅, something the public absolutely loves to see and will further fuel the “engaged by the end of the year, after the Super Bowl at the latest” fire. Hopefully we’ll get something reputation-related for new years❌, so the extra publicity will help with that. Additionally all of this corresponds with the Eras film being released to streaming, another huge money making opportunity for her, and her attendance is an ad for the film.

After the new year, there will be some huge games with high viewership. They will be playing for playoff seeding. Then they almost assuredly will be in the playoffs✅. She will go to those games✅, which have even higher viewership, and will give her more free marketing for reputation and eras movie and anything else we don’t know about. After that, it will depend on how deep they go into the playoffs. They are no longer favored to be in the Super Bowl, but it is still a strong possibility✅. We all now know she can fly across the world after a concert to attend an event (she flew to the US during her time in SA, planned to a second time but couldn’t because of the events in Rio, and flew to London for 24 hrs for bey). The precedent has been set for her to fly from Tokyo to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl. ✅There is no bigger stage than the Super Bowl (outside of the World Cup final, if you’re thinking internationally.) The free marketing potential there is something that would be very hard for her to pass up. And if Travis isn’t playing, Jason’s team might be, and they can go together to support him. Imagine the potential of travlor in a suite together with mama and papa kelce cheering on a retiring Jason❌✅ . And even if neither of them are in the game, they could still all go together and stand in a suite as a big happy family in front of an audience of 115 million Americans. Why wouldn’t she do this?✅

Will all that happen for sure? Of course not. But you can see the logic, right? Will there be other things that happen that I haven’t thought of? Most likely.✅ I don’t actually have a crystal ball. What kinds of things could derail this? Well there’s always the possibility of the black swan, but a more likely scenario is they lose again against a team they should beat✅ and/or Travis has another bad game✅. There is a real danger of people turning on her as a distraction ✅and I think they have their fingers on the pulse of this very closely. As long as KC keeps winning, and there’s a good chance they will win the rest of their games, all will be smooth❌✅.

Also I am not even thinking beyond February. I have one interesting thought about it, but it’s just too speculative to even mention here. But as we move through the next two months, I’ll get clues to be able to guess at what will happen after she goes back on tour after the Super Bowl✅. And if I’m wrong about all of this, which I may very well be because she is notoriously unpredictable sometimes, I will simply take it as a learning opportunity to understand her better.✅

[deafleppard]

i am. so close to being done with my summer break project. and i’m gonna do a whole redbubble update before i post it, are there any specific posters people would like me to add?

[bewitching-666]

😪

[spelllingandthemysteryschool]

i am such a flop daughter i should commit an honorable suicide & free my parents from the embarrassment of my continuing to exist

[gregmarriage]

my period app being like ‘late for 38 days!!’

baby girl, i haven’t had a period, since this time in may, but alright <3

[lbctal]

IGOR by tyler, the creator x hbo’s VICE PRINCIPALS

[planet4546b]

actually bizarre and wild to me that now my day job i like am actually having fun and tend to have enjoyable days and then practice is like horrible and miserable and i want to leave the whole time. maybe if i post enough times about how much i need to quit i’ll actually get the courage to do it