#and they would really have to fix a lot of plot holes & explain why he decided to fuck off to the 1940s

[stevefightmerogerss]

istg if rdj is inserting himself into the mcu again i'm gonna riot

[kathaynesart]

I remember when you first started Replica and I haven't been here in a hot minute!

May you please do a debrief of what it is, the characters and their relationships.

I want to be able to give my friend (who I finally dragged down into this TMNT rabbit hole) a good explanation of your wonderful comic!

(⁠.⁠ ⁠❛⁠ ⁠ᴗ⁠ ⁠❛⁠.⁠)

Aw thank you so much! Hm… I suppose a summary would be good to have on hand. For the uninitiated with no context, here is the basic elevator pitch:

The year is 2044 and the last remaining Resistance of Earth has just fallen to the alien invaders known as the Krang. In a last ditch effort to save the planet, Casey, a freedom fighter is sent back in time to undo the events that first led to the invasion. While he is ultimately successful in his mission, the state of his original fallen timeline remains unknown. The last of the freedom fighters, his family, perished to ensure his safe escape, leaving their world to the mercy of the Krang.

Which brings us to the ultimate question: when you already know the heroes are doomed to fail, what can be gained from being told their story?

For the rest below, I’m going to write with the assumption that the reader has some basic knowledge of the series and the film because I feel that this story is best enjoyed with proper context.

SUMMARY

Replica is a story meant to answer many of the questions the first 4 minutes of the movie left us wondering. It’s to explain the basic history of the bad future timeline and how it came to be. The plot focuses particularly on the later half of the apocalypse, all with the intention of leading up to the opening scene where the Krang wins and Casey Junior is sent back in time to fix the mistakes that Leo and his family could not.

It’s to answer questions like:

How did Leo get injured?

Why is Mikey so old looking?

What were these characters like in the future?

What happened to Raph, Donnie, and April?

Where is big bad Krang Prime in all this?

How did the Resistance finally lose to the Krang?

Did they plan to send Casey back in time in advance?

What happened to this world/time-branch after Casey Jr was sent into the past?

MAIN CHARACTERS

For the most part, the cast is comprised entirely of characters from the series. My goal is to keep this as canon as possible, so no new OC's... save for one (kind of).

Omega Bootyyyshaker 9000 is where this story starts and ultimately where it ends. He is a brain scan AI of Donatello, created to act as both a support system for the Resistance after the turtle’s untimely death and also a key component in a plan that will hopefully put a stop to the Krang should the Resistance fail. Omega is great because he adds some much needed levity to the story, acting a bit more like the aloof but silly teenage Donnie (a side affect of not having to experience the usual physical weariness that comes with being an organic, aging organism in an apocalypse). However, he also adds more weight by being the thing that is supposed to outlast all of them and act as the last line of defense for the remainder of the universe. He claims to merely be a "replica" of Donnie's mind, but whether he's just a digitized scan, his own AI person, or somehow connected to Donnie in a deeper way has yet to be seen.

Leonardo Hamato: the man, the myth, the legend. Casey Junior spins tales of how great his sensei was in the movie, but in this story we really get to see Leo go from his lowest point as a pawn for the government, crushed by the shame of his past actions, to his greatest height as the leader of the Resistance. He is going to fail a lot in this story... but ultimately his greatest success is overcoming his own inner demons and coming to terms with being the father figure he had never asked to be. He cares deeply for his family and Casey... but he thinks he'd be a horrible dad.

Michelangelo Hamato: the only other surviving turtle to see the end of the world. He is the emotional bedrock of the family and a stand in therapist when he's not being a silly little guy. His mystical powers are unparalleled, but in his attempts to regain his lost Ninpo he taps into something far deeper, leading them down a path that intertwines the destiny of their doomed future and a past that has yet to occur.

Casey Jones Jr: a sweet boy taken in by the Hamato family. He strives to become a great warrior like his mother (Cassandra) and his Sensei (Leo). We are going to watch him grow from child to teenager as he slowly takes on the roll of being a fighter in the resistance. Through it all he must walk an unsteady line that allows him to find the strength to weather the storm but retain a certain spark of hope that helps keep his family going.

April O'neil: Commander of the Resistance and another honorary Hamato family member. She is the voice of reason and most emotionally stable of the family. Even after dealing with so much loss, she keeps a stiff upper lip as well as cold and calculating mind that always puts the colony's wellbeing first and foremost.

Donatello Hamato (deceased): The story begins shortly after Donnie’s passing during an infiltration mission against the Krang. He was dead set on planting a probe behind enemy lines that would allow them to spy on the Krang’s movements. However it seems that he had a secret agenda in planting something that would work as a final doomsday weapon against the Krang. What that is exactly, we do not yet know. The man self-destructed in a last ditch effort to avoid being interrogated by the Krang as well as a final attack to injure Krang Prime.

Raphael Hamato (deceased): The eldest brother who sadly passed away many years ago in the fight against the Krang. A boisterous but considerate man whose death sapped a great deal of the fighting spirit out of his brothers. His absence is greatly felt, but he might not be as far gone as he seems.

Krang Prime (One): Our big bad of the story. He is the leader of the Krang that has latched onto this planet like a cancer, using up its resources and assimilating its population. However, unlike the hundreds of planets that have come before this one is particularly personal. He doesn't want to merely assimilate but utterly destroy the descendants that caused his imprisonment thousands of years ago. His current state is unknown after being last seen with Donatello at the time of the man's self-destruction.

NEED TO KNOW DETAILS

All Resistance fighters have tiny self destruct bombs in their brains so that the Krang can not probe their minds to find out the Liberty Colony's location. They go off automatically after Krang infestation reaches a certain percentage, but can also be set off via voice command.

Donnie's brain bomb was far more potent because of the amount of information he knew. He did not want to risk the Krang getting any part of his mind.

The Krang have been searching for the resistance in a frustrating game of cat and mouse which has only become more difficult now that the Resistance easily knows their every move by using Donnie's probe.

Central Park Colony: now destroyed, but was once the last massive human colony in North America, housing both the EPF (Earth Protection Force) and US Government. Racism was a huge problem as most yokai and mutants were either quarantined, tested on, or used as living weapons in the fight against the Krang. It has since been destroyed.

Liberty Colony (aka the Resistance): grew from the ashes of the Central Park Colony. It is comprised of the survivors and lead by Leonardo, April, and several others. It is much smaller and more militaristic, but treats yokai, humans, and mutants equally.

Artificial Intelligence (like Omega and Shelldon) are able to fend off the Krang assimilation that people and tech would normally succumb to. It is for this reason Omega is used as both a protector of the Liberty Colony and operator for a majority of the vehicles so that the tech can no longer be easily taken over by the Krang during attacks.

Leonardo and Michelangelo (as well as Donatello's) Ninpo have all been stripped from them by this point in the story. While Leo can not tap into his family connection at all, Mikey at least has regained the ability to use some of his mystic powers.

Mikey's mystic abilities however come at a price. Since he can not tap into his Ninpo and the fountain of energy from his ancestors, he is instead using his own life force to cast his spells. It is slowly draining him.

TIMELINE Can be viewed HERE

SOURCE MATERIAL The video that inspired this all can be viewed HERE

Hope this helps! Sorry it's a bit long, tried to break it up with images. At least there might be a few interesting bits of information other readers may not have noticed. I snuck in a few things that haven't been mentioned yet, hehe.

[iamnmbr3]

harry potter #15 :] very interested in hearing your thoughts on this

15. Worst thing they’ve ever done

Excellent question. I'm going to give two answers - because one is a scene I hate and usually ignore. If we go strictly by canon, then in my opinion hands down for me Harry's darkest moment is the bit in book 7 when he uses the Cruciatus Curse on Amycus Carrow to great effect and without any remorse. I actually loathe this scene and find it to be very poorly written resulting in it feeling jarring and ooc to the point that I usually pretend it didn't happen (though I think it had potential if it had been handled better).

Let me explain. A really notable moment in the series comes in book 5 when Harry is unable to effectively use the Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix even though he's just seen her murder Sirius because even though he's angry, he isn't able to truly enjoy seeing another human being suffer and thus struggles with the spell. And if ever there was a moment when even a very kind and compassionate person might be tempted to enjoy seeing someone else suffer, you'd think facing someone like Bellatrix, who has committed innumerable heinous crimes, right after watching her murder a loved one might push them over the edge. But even such extreme circumstances don't do it for Harry. And then in book 7 it all changes because he witnesses Amycus Carrow...being rude...to Professor McGonagall. Listen. I love Minerva McGonagall. But if Bellatrix murdering Sirius in cold blood wasn't enough to enrage Harry then having THIS be the thing that sets him off feels like too much of a stretch.

The thing that really kills the scene for me though is everyone's reactions...or rather, non-reactions. Remember that this spell is absolutely agonizing when done correctly - equivalent to the agonies produced by the worst and most painful conventional Muggle torture. It's so bad even using it once carries a life sentence in Azkaban. It's so bad repeatedly using it on someone is enough to drive them insane. And Harry knows just how awful a spell it is since he himself has been a victim of it.

And when he uses this horrible, heinous cruel spell on another human being what's the reaction? Nothing. He doesn't feel guilt. He doesn't question himself at all. He doesn't think about it. Well ok. This could be an interesting, dark moment for his character. It could be a chance to explore how the war has changed him or how angry and frustrated he's feeling in that moment or to suggest that perhaps the Horcrux fragment is corrupting him and lots could be done with the fallout as he deals with what he's done and as other characters react to it.

But no. Because no other characters react as though he's done anything wrong either. McGonagall isn't disturbed or horrified or concerned. She actually compliments him and says it was "gallant" of him to defend her honor in that way. Uh. What?! No it wasn't. He could've just used a Stunner to defend her. Instead he did something that no one should do to anyone - something that is considered deeply taboo and awful even in the rather dystopian wizarding world. And no one cares. The narrative doesn't even remark on it. We're just supposed to all go "yayyy hero!" and move on. So at that point, why even include it? If he'd stunned or disarmed Amycus it would have had the same narrative impact. I know why the scene is really there. It's to try to tease the possibility that he will use the Killing Curse since he's used the other 2 Unforgivables by that point. But that's cheap and stupid.

The moment is dumb and ooc and none of the potential that could make it work and be actually in-character is explored. Consequently it feels like a very badly written ooc plot hole. So normally I just ignore it. Book 7 has a lot of lazy writing and while I can fix some of it, this moment and the retcon where suddenly people can be their own Secret Keepers are two moments that are just too bad for me to even bother with so I straight up ignore them.

But if we consider this part canon then it's definitely Harry's darkest and worst action, even if it's not given the narrative weight that it should be.

If we ignore that scene then his worst act is forcing Lockhart to go first into the Chamber of Secrets, knowingly putting him at risk of being killed and eaten.

In my opinion not putting more effort into working towards freeing Kreacher is also horrible but that's more of a bigger issue with the narrative where JKR retcons Harry's original horror at discovering Dobby's predicament and tries to convince the readers that most house elves are happy and benefited by being enslaved (no; they are not. Slavery is disgusting and inherently violent and harmful). Presumably Harry does free Kreacher after the war. But yeah. I find the whole way the story handles house elves to be quite repellent. And I hate that Harry originally had the right attitude and then JKR retconned it.

Send me a character and a number.

[forallnumbersosc]

If dividing algebrelians by zero makes them die does that mean that if you where to leave a half finished math problem out it would accidentally kill them?(Gaty don’t try this out please!)

Oh oh-- gosh no I would never try something that would risk anyone that I'm conducting research on! That being said, I do have confirmation where if an equation with an algebralien is unfinished, the operation simply doesn't occur! It's only the moment an equation becomes valid that anything actually happens!

Also, I don't think dividing by zero would cause an algebralien to die, but at the same time I don't really have a clue what happens to them in those cases... I tried asking the zeroes about it, but they only told me it's something they really don't do often unless absolutely necessary...

[using this ask as an excuse to talk as mod because it made me realize i had a bit of a story error with my post on operations and i wanna try and fix the plot-hole there--

Lets consider this... operations part two?]

[On the original post, Gaty talked about the story Pie told her about her encounter with Pi and the other irrationals... Pie told her that Pi was multiplied by zero, when in fact, in the actual Pi Day Massacre video, Pi was indeed divided by zero instead.... To fix this, I'm gonna say that canonically Pie mis-spoke when recounting the story to Gaty, stating that Pi was simply multiplied by a zero and trapped within them...

So then... what did happen?

Well, Pi was indeed divided by zero, but that doesn't mean that he died, perse...

In algebra, when a number is divided by zero, it doesn't just disappear like its commonly thought to be... It's a bit hard to explain, but essentially it gets into a state where it tries to approach zero, but can't! So it's referred to approaching infinitely. It has a lot to do with the math world of limits, which is a whole thing, which is why its easiest to just say it's undefined!

Take a look at the graph 1/X; you can make X as small as you possibly can, but it will never be able to cross those lines at zero!

So then what happened to Pi?

Well...

He approached Infinity! ;D]

[pi is okay, by the way... it's a bit like your teacher calling your parents for misbehaving. They just needed to talk some sense into him and let him play somewhere else <3]

[lightning-and-sparks]

So for the dancers power levels, does that come into play later with an intra-group conflict or with them and an outside force? I really loved the scene where Brezziana, Sara, and Mihaly talked about Jack’s power because of how it brought out their different sides and started that thread of a conflict between them and power. Is the order of it Wander>Mihaly>Brezziana>Sara>Jack? Is that something that subconsciously rules the governs the group? You’ve done such an amazing job of fleshing everyone out and making them seem like friends, but ones who may have their bonds fracture under the situation. Also just wanted to say you did such an incredible job on all of Thorns, between its length and subplot management, well written and meaningful OCs, and worldbuilding, but my favorite part is how you’ve handled the Dancers as a whole, especially from Jack’s perspective!

Oh, now this is a good one! So early on, it already was a very different idea to give Jack some kind of power. I think when I first saw the Locked Out of Heaven map my first thought was that it was him holding up the mirrors and when they changed to show Night Swan it was his own mental struggle taking over. On terms of power dynamics, you nailed it. I knew I wanted to have Jack and Wander on opposite ends of the spectrum. As prideful as Jack and NS were/are, Jack’s low ability for magic (after being a descendant of Night Swan) is seen as embarrassing and is something that upsets him.

The whole story has been about him being undermined and overwhelmed by the people close to him. When he hears them discussing how he isn’t strong enough to defeat them and he’s basically at their mercy it reveals the dynamic of him being below them more clearly. Jack’s hesitance to pursue Wander subconsciously comes back to that. He knows if things go wrong between them, it will be him cut off from the group, if you go back to that hierarchy you mentioned before, Wander is the only thing keeping them intertwined because he can bridge the gap between planets.

I think what makes Thorns convincing is how messy and flawed characters and situations seem. No one there is perfect and are prone to failure. Unconsciously, although they detest that fact, they have some fear of Jack. Compared to Wander who stayed for a period of time afterwards (events of majesty) he no longer has that weary. His race does come back into play because it’s an Eternyx centered story. Eternians are not common outside their domain so that adds to his suspicion.

It was challenging to balance so many characters at once but I think I did okay. It gave me a lot of eyes and ears to work with so it was helpful. I thought having parts where they’re scattered or paired off worked well to show their personal connections. Jack is seen with them all one-on-one at some point. I held off on Brezz and his encounter because I had cold feet on how the reaction to Brezz’s friendship came about. She’s a very selfless character so I wanted to see her take something for herself just for it to come back to her actual carrying, if that makes sense?

I think as a group it’s difficult to take very individual characters and have them work effectively together. I don’t think all of them would have done some of the things Jack had done (that’s why he chooses to leave them out of certain events) he’s also struggling to regain himself and wants his image to come out unscathed. He doesn’t tell them about certain encounters with Roland in order to protect his pride and hide his shame. Although he doesn’t act like it, he cares a whole lot what they think of him. I mean, he’s always held under high scrutiny so he sees friendship as the same concept.

Thank you so much! I really wish I could explain all the thought and trial and failure that went into Thorns. It took a lot of energy and time to hold each strand of a story together and expand and fill plot holes to fix narrative problems in the beginning. There are a lot of gags and stupid shit that I put in there, namely Brezz’s Crocs because I thought it was funny and I rep an obnoxious pair of yellow Crocs that I get some awesome hate over 💪 these questions are awesome and I’d love to field more! I have a whole lot to say.

[liketolaugh-writes]

I know I've talked about this before, but God, I'm never going to stop resenting the hold that Harry Potter has on me.

As an autistic person, special interests never really leave you, and that's more true for longer-standing ones. I really can't explain how all-consuming they are, how much time and energy and love you pour into them, how much joy and comfort you get from them. I'm kind of between special interests right now, after finishing both Constellations and Blue Food Project, and it's unsettling. Makes me restless, leaves a lot of time in my day. (Time I can use to look for jobs! Positives.)

Anyway. Harry Potter was definitely my longest-standing special interest to date. It was my SI through most of elementary school, and given the choice, I would do nothing except reread them, over and over and over and over again. My parents had to institute a rule where every time I finished the series, I had to wait a certain amount of time before I read it again, and I always did as soon as the time was up. There are parts of it, useless stupid lines, that I can still recite from memory. ("And he was even brave enough to nibble the end off a funny gray one that turned out to be pepper" has always been my favorite example.) I don't engage much with the Harry Potter fandom, because it's a mutant factioned thing that kind of scares me, but the story stays with me nonetheless.

Like many other fans, this letter broke my heart; I'm sure you know the one even without clicking the link. She's only gotten worse since then (every so often I still look at her Twitter account and mourn) but this was the beginning of the end. Most authors, I can forgive their transgressions; I can trust that they've grown, I can accept that their work is flawed, and I can enjoy what I read despite that.

Every since that letter, and plenty of the subsequent scandals besides, I've been unable to do that. I read any part of Harry Potter and I can see nothing but flaws. I see sexism, and ableism, and cultural appropriation and colonialism and hypocrisy. I think, why are there so many crowds of tittering girls? and why does everyone hate Fleur seemingly just for being French and pretty? and why did she design the Slug Club without any acknowledgement of 'this is literally how to break into a career field?' There is nothing there for me but frustration and hurt.

I've seen people in the trans community complain about cis folk asking if they can 'still enjoy' Harry Potter, which I understand. (I consider myself nonbinary, but my gender identity is so unimportant to me that I still consider my place in that community tenuous.) But this isn't that. This is frustration. Harry Potter was carved into me years ago, and I can't seem to dig it out, and I have yet to decide what to do with that.

But the story stays with me. The memory of it is inescapable. I don't even really need to reread the books to write fanfics, most of the time; I know every plot point by heart. How could I not? And every unanswered question, every point of shoddy worldbuilding that drives me nuts about that world - I can fix those. I do it all the time in other fandoms. It's really not that hard to create the answers to the plot holes that bother you.

Most of the Harry Potter fics I write are crossovers - Harry Potter goes well with just about any world, kind of like Avengers does. But there's one I've been playing with that bugs me in a special way.

I mentioned finishing 'Constellations,' my two part series where Percy Jackson goes to therapy for everything he goes through in the PJO and HoO books. That was a love letter to Percy Jackson, to Rick Riordan's writing. Like any writer, he has his flaws and weak points, but I love it nonetheless, every part of it. I wrote it with the intent to supplement and highlight canon for everything I love about it.

Now, I find myself writing a similar fic for Harry Potter, with Harry Potter going through therapy. It's in the beginning stages yet (such stories are obviously difficult) but it's such a fascinating topic that I can't shake it. What happens when a survivor of such vicious neglect suddenly is accused of seeking attention at every turn? How can someone so victimized by the Ministry come to trust them enough to work as an Auror? Did Dumbledore truly understand what he subjected Harry to with the Dursleys?

But with Constellations, I had respect for Riordan's writing that I don't have for Rowling's. Such a story would come from a completely different place. And that's fascinating, too. It's just complicated.

I'm not going anywhere with this, I guess. It's just- frustrating, to so thoroughly resent a story and a cast that I also love so much.

[purplerakath]

MiyagiDo Karate and Protagonist Morality

So when I watched the first two seasons this bothered me and then last weekend I watched everything else (thus far)... and this still bothered me. So here we are.

Spoilers for all five released seasons of Cobra Kai (although I'll mainly be talking about Demetri, Sam, Danny, and Hawk).

Before I get started...

As much as I'm criticizing the writing of these characters, I don't think the characters are bad, or hate the show. I just think more could be done with them, or in the case of Sam they could have started the ball rolling sooner and she could be a better character than she is.

Except Demetri, they really screwed the pooch on his writing.

Protagonist Morality

So I guess I should explain this term. Protagonist morality is where a show doesn't question the behavior of it's protagonists, assuming that whatever action they've taken is morally correct (for the setting). In a video game, you know all those unguarded chests full of stuff for you. The ones all across the countryside and in towns and often people's houses? The ones you can loot freely and nobody cares or is concerned with all the robbery you're doing?

That's protagonist morality. If the game labels you a thief and you get run out of public spaces for your actions, then the game is labeling your actions as maybe less than a paragon of virtue, and giving you reason to think about it. (Then you do it anyway because it's really nice loot.)

So what about the ACTUAL protagonists?

Johnny, Miguel, and Robby are questioned and judged by the narrative constantly. They generally do things right for them, but not universally seen as correct. And generally the narrative is about them moving forward and making less questionable calls.

The whole point of the start of S2 is that Johnny realizes "No Mercy" is a bad motto, because it just gets people hurt, and changes his teachings to match this bit of character growth. Characters backslide, Johnny and Robby both crash spectacularly at the start of Season 3. Each needs to dig themselves out of the hole their in all through Season 3 (Johnny) and 5 (Robby).

So the show never treats them as not needing growth, as the show is all about their growth.

Daniel

Danny is a hyper-judgmental asshole due to unresolved trauma from his youth and it's a problem. But also the show would be a lot less interesting if he worked through all of this in a timely fashion. Primarily the issue is his reaction to "Cobra Kai" just being back at all, and how he never once gets pushed to question if Cobra Kai in Johnny's hands changed.

Some of this is miscommunication, which is the cornerstone of the Unresolved sexual Karate Tension with Johnny. But his absolute refusal to see good in Cobra Kai had a direct hand in breaking up Sam and Miguel in Season 1 and Danny... came out of it believing he was right.

And when he goes out of his way to try and destroy the S1-2 era of Cobra Kai, the narrative never once actively punishes him for his prejudice. He's also never forced to face why he's like this. It's kind of shit but very much a plot lodestone.

Sam

Like her father, Sam often rushes to a moral judgement on bad info and never goes back. Even if she's wrong. So much of her Season 1 behavior is swept under a rug so that other characters (Kyler, Yaz, Miguel) can be her personal villain. And the worst being Season 2 with Tory.

Sam rushed to 'all Cobras are evil' while in a plot trying to fix her friendship with her best friend, she instigated things with Tory, and blamed Tory for all of it without having to think about why she's following her father so readily. Of course, with the end of Season 2 it didn't matter what her behavior was prior, she had every justification to treat Tory as her own personal satan.

Fortunately for me, and everyone else who likes Sam, most of the later seasons focus real hard on having her grow as a person. Maybe not facing all of her personal failings, but she does grow past them in respectable ways. And while her behavior toward Tory is... still bad, Tory is her personal anxiety attack she's allowed it now. (Unlike someone else.)

She also unpacks some of the prejudice she learned from her dad. Sneaking off behind his back to learn Eagle Fang and figure out before Father Dearest that balance is better than pigheaded arrogance of your own greatness. Leading to the Season 4 finale and her mixed styles.

Demetri Hawk

Before I rant about Demetri, I need to explain why Hawk's narrative, regardless of his failures, is better. Eli starts the show with a clearly defined failing (confidence and courage), focuses hard on overcoming it (through Cobra Kai Karate), and turns him into someone new.

That new person is a loud abrasive asshole, but it's a growth arc.

When Hawk behaves badly, it's treated as a start of darkness. As he grows to love having the power his weaker nerdy self lacked. His acts of vengeance make sense as the flexing of power he's never had before. To the point he becomes the sort of bully he feared. His reactions are all overreactions and that's good writing. You understand why he beats Kyler's flunky to a bloody pulp, it's cathartic but also framed as an act of pure violence and destruction. He needs to live in his anger, his violence, listening to the whispers Kreese offers.

Season 3 is Hawk struggling to choose between good and evil, and in the end he chooses good. Leading him on the path toward balance and being better than either side of him before. Honestly of every character in the show his path is the best defined.

Now Demetri

Demetri is a anxious pessimistic leech. He feels he'll fail before he starts, and therefore doesn't try. He rides the coattails of his friends as they become cool and popular and Hawk was right to call him out. But rather than investigate that, he becomes the target of Hawk's new villain arc, and rushes to the arms of MiyagoDo.

Where he proceeds to never actually face who he was, and just... get to be a cool martial artist with a hot girlfriend as the show sweeps his negative traits under a rug and never touches them.

The narrative never confronts how 'it's fine for me to reap the benefits of your hard work' (start of season 2) or 'I can humiliate my best friend by spilling all his secrets then hide behind my badass martial artist friends' (late season 2) were bad calls, because at the end of the season he just... gets to beat up Hawk to establish the full defeat of Johnny's Cobra Kai.

Directly into Season 3 where he's just as aggressive and antagonistic as Sam is, while neither is treated as being 'over the line' by the narrative. Which is all before Hawk breaks Demetri's arm, meaning he doesn't have the extant trauma reason Sam has.

By Season 5 Demetri is a pretty cool person, but as there's no actual focus on how he got there, it feels cheap. Which really sucks.

What I'd Write-

I don't want to rewrite the whole show, and that makes Danny hard to fix. As so much of him is that paranoia of Cobra Kai. Like- best I could ask for is him going to therapy and trying to work past it (and just being bad at it).

Sam the easy answer is Aisha not forgiving her (at least during S1-2). Where Sam tries to get Aisha back, but every time she either says something about Cobra Kai, or Miguel, or Tory and Aisha points out Sam hasn't given any of them a fair shot, and that Sam has no room to talk after dating Kyler and being Yaz's friend.

Bonus points if Sam also gets taken to task for her going after Tory when Tory was working. Because Amanda already got Tory fired once, but she felt bad about it.

Demetri has a similar route of 'best friend does not forget.' A simple 'why should I ever trust you again' after Moon's party would go a long way to rub Demetri's face in what he did, how he was as bad as everyone who made fun of Hawk's lip at school. How Demetri, for one brief moment, was worse than Kyler.

I want all the characters to either get the kind of care in how they change direction that Miguel has, and failing that being absolutely perfect like Devon (the only person to join Silver's Cobra Kai and not turn evil).

[arcane-strangeness]

ok listen I love the Ghostbusters series but like. The villains. Why do they just stand there. Major spoilers for Frozen Empire ahead, be warned

Ok, so our big bad evil guy (I will call him ice man because I do not remember his actual name) escapes, and makes a beeline towards the firehouse, gets in, and just stands there. No evil monologue, he says a couple sentences, freezes most of the good guys, and then just kinda. Mucks about. Til Phoebe comes to try to blast him back from whence he came. He doesn't even freeze the firekeeper, you'd think that would be the first person he kills seeing as even untrained he's the biggest threat in the room. And when he freezes the good guys, why doesn't he smash them? Surely an ancient god filled with icy rage would make sure he finishes the job, to ensure his unending reign over earth. For a wrathful god he sure does a lot more freezing and a lot less killing. Assuming that being stuck for a few minutes-an hour or so is more like cryo and less like insta-death. It's actually kind of infuriating. Gozer was the same way in both afterlife and the first movie. Why not kill them on the spot, you're obviously capable of it. The second movie actually kinda makes sense for a bit until it runs into the same problem.

And I have my gripes about Melody too, why does helping imprison the BBE allow her to pass on? Because if that's what her one match was for then that kind of implies the existence of some external force that allows ghosts to pass on and what not, gives them tasks and missions like little side quests. usually they pass on once unfinished business from their previous life is complete, but she has nothing to fucking do with Ice Man pre death, it's implied she accidentally burnt down her house as, yk, an accident. There was nothing unfinished about her releasing Ice Man. Sure she finished the business but it wasn't unfinished until she MADE IT UNFINISHED. If all ghosts could pass on by causing problems and fixing them I doubt the Ghostbusters would have much to do. I like melody as a character. But why is that her unfinished business.

Mini-puffs. I hate these fuckers why are they HERE. Ghostbusters is a very science oriented series. Never once were we given an explanation for why they are here. The only thing that comes to mind is the energy from the gatekeeper and keymaster brought them into existence, and they were sustained by Gozer, but didn't they all fucking die once Gozer left??? Why are they still here???

Please feel free to explain things or offer up theory's but as of right now I feel like there's a lot of plot holes here :/

And don't get me wrong I fucking loved the movie it was fantastic and felt like a really natural sequel, all characters were spot on and humour fantastic. Definitely gonna rewatch at least a couple times when it comes to streaming.

[afniel]

Hi there's really vague (but kinda heavy?) Third Novel stuff under the cut, so don't spoil yourself if you don't want to know anything. Because there's a liiiiittle something something in there plus some art.

Man I'm like. Writing on chapter 2(?) of I Can't Believe It's Not A Trilogy (ICBINAT...world's worst working title) and this story is gonna need such a ridiculously huge content warning for suicidal ideation, way more than the first two, and the second has more than the first, so you know this one has got it bad.

And yet this is just kinda Where X Is At Right Now at the start of it, for Reasons (that I can't say further shit about until Outcome Unpredictable is all online, lol). I have a chapter and a half of, I dunno where or when it fits, just kinda disconnected noodling, and they were hard to write in the kind of way that's warning me that I don't really know what I'm doing with a character, just kinda slapping events together without much emotional weight to any of them or any real direction.

Then I kinda had a few revelations in a row, realized I was trying to lean way too hard on X to Just Be Better Already Dammit, and he was just coming out flat because he's not better already, dammit. Reploid Grandpa is 100% a fucked-up old veteran who's barely out of the hell he came from so yeah, he makes huge strides in his mental health, but he started at the bottom of a really deep hole. That's not a quick climb! It takes real life people decades to escape that hole, and they usually didn't go through it for 80+ years without a break. He's just gonna be down there, even if he's a lot higher than he started. (IRL veteran suicide rates are absolutely dismal too, and yeah, X's mental state very much reflects this at the point that I'm writing.)

Once again all I can actually do is write down the words as they happen and trying too hard to steer it myself only makes it stop working. Am I ever going to stop writing about this old man's mental health struggles? Uhh. Well, I've tried to stop twice, if that tells you anything. I swear he does get a happy ending and keep recovering. Well, maybe not that much physically, because Protagonist Who Stays Disabled And Isn't Magically Fixed is still a primary goal, here, and the story agrees with me on that, but even given that he could stand to be more comfortable even if he's not magically fixed. I dunno why this is where it's going but I think it's just my extreme commitment to What If This Stupid Video Game Plot Was Realistic Though. It's definitely realistic now! Maybe sometimes a little too much, but honestly, that's what makes it work, I think. It would never stick the landing if I stopped short of 100% painful sincerity, even if it's hard to look at sometimes. Feeling a bit like you're being invited to see and feel vulnerabilities that maybe aren't entirely your business when you're reading fiction is the secret sauce, if you ask me.

(At this rate I'm gonna have to update the author's notes at the end of Outcome Unpredictable because I'm making myself a goddamn liar. I straight up say I have no intent of writing a third one, but here I am, evidently doing that before the author's notes even hit the internet.)

I'm not gonna explain shit past that at the moment, so just feel free to conjecture amongst yourselves at the one thing I've kinda drawn in the ICBINAT era. This is about a year and a half from OU and 2 years from FtC, for the record. It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you leave an AU running unattended for long enough, even the canon characters will eventually turn into OCs.

(Also that if my coloring style gets any more rim light I'm going to be in Sonic Adventure style coloring territory...which would fuck severely, actually.)

[nokingsonlyfooles]

The Dark Secret of Zootopia? (Part 1, Identifying the Problem)

What? If you're a fan, you already know Zootopia's "secret."

It was originally a dark dystopia where the predators wore "tame collars," but the Zootopia team got nervous about how depressing it was and did a last-minute rewrite that used most of the old assets and plot points! Right? So are we gonna do a deep dive on that?

Not quite.

What if I told you that despite the rewrite that took out the obvious metaphor for systemic oppression, more evidence of systemic issues remains and... it probably doesn't make any difference?

So that half-assed poll I put up suggests more than one person would like to see me take Zootopia apart, and that probably means delving into the racism metaphor, but, man, I don't have the headspace for that today! So I took a spin through the Headscratchers page, hoping to find something a little more compact. There had to be something other than the racism metaphor that a lot of people had trouble with, right? Sort of an appetizer for a busy Tuesday?

Nnnot really.

Here's an obvious Libertarian voter who can't fathom that people would be racist when it runs contrary to good business practices! We go through quite a few tropers positing non-racist or less racist reasons to refuse Nick service - including one who believes prejudice against predators "wasn't a thing" until Judy's press conference, and before that people just didn't like foxes - before some hero arrives with a fire extinguisher and says, I'm paraphrasing, "Racism isn't rational! End of story!"

Then we got this question, which has the answer contained in it already!

I've trimmed the first response, from someone who apparently sees nothing wrong with just rolling up and asking to pet a sentient being. "It doesn't have to be a metaphor for anything"!? They go on to posit that maybe it's a taboo in funny animal society. 'Cos, you know, you don't have to read Zootopia as a metaphor for human society if you don't wanna.

(The Author! He's already dead! Why you gotta desecrate the corpse like that?)

It takes a few more self-soothing responses from evident people-petters before, again, someone rolls up and says, "It is exactly white people wanting to 'pet' black people's 'weird' hair, something that is unfortunately a fairly common patronizing occurrence in the U.S., at least."

And after that, we still get this:

"I have a Black friend and he lets me pet him all the time! Cut white people some slack! They're just curious! Let us pet you!"

Zootopia is racism lite, folks. Zootopia calls out racism primarily as something an individual does when they make decisions based on their preexisting biases - which, in Nick and Judy's cases, stem from childhood traumas that we get to see on-screen.

This is a version of racism that a child - with a little hand-holding from a caregiver - could understand. All but the most toxic conservatives ought to be okay explaining this kind of racism, including the toxic neoliberal centrists! "You see, little Kayden, there is no such thing as 'society.' 'Racism' is what happens when a lot of individuals make bad decisions. All you have to do to stop it is make better decisions, and encourage others to make better decisions too! Why, when I was your age, we chose better hairsprays without CFCs in them, and that fixed global warming and the hole in the ozone layer forever!"

"Auntie Margaret Thatcher, isn't climate change still a..."

"WE FIXED IT FOREVER, LITTLE KAYDEN." *strained smile* "So just don't buy fox spray! If enough people don't buy it, they'll stop making it."

"Why is it okay for someone to make a spray specifically to hurt foxes in the first place?"

"...If you don't stop asking questions, I shall bury you under the Aberfan coal tip with all the rest, little Kayden. Eat your popcorn."

But even that's too much for some folks! They retreat behind the ambiguity of the metaphor and wonder why the funny animals make such odd decisions, in the willful absence of context. With no context, why would a bunny be able to say, "It's okay if we call each other 'cute,' but you shouldn't." That's blatant hypocrisy. Bunnies don't own "cute." It's just a word!

Don't apologize, Benjamin! Why would you do that?

This entire movie is a modern Aesop fable and you need that human context. "Cute" privilege to "n-word" privilege is a one-to-one correlation, like petting a sheep is to petting a Black person. It only makes sense because you live in human society and you can fill in the blanks - because you have seen similar manifestations of bias and you already know they're not okay. You don't even have to know why or agree. To get the joke, you just have to know this stuff happens and people think it's rude. That is not a high bar to clear!

And that is, apparently, the level of anxiety we have about unpacking our own racism. Not even the systemic kind. Not even the big issues those scary "woke" zombies are trying to "cancel" you about. Just, "An individual - including you, for you are an individual - can make bad decisions based on their experiences."

Whaaaat? No I don't!

"These animals have nothing to do with me and therefore, this movie makes no sense."

These are the people Zootopia needed to reach. Not the ones who already had a clue, the ones who were so scared of getting one that they buried their heads in the sand and refused to acknowledge reality itself. So here's a cheerful little film with an animal metaphor and an optimistic resolution! Surely they must feel safe enough to unpack racism in this context?

But they didn't. Much like Green Book, this film was safe and simple enough to walk away with an Oscar from an Academy that's mostly white, male, and terrified of minorities - and the people who didn't want to get "woke" slept right through it. I don't think that's what they were going for, given that V 1 of this film had systemic oppression worn around the neck of every predator with a blinking light on it.

Remember, they reused assets and plot points from the original and rewrote everything fast. Traces remain. But if the ostriches in the audience can't understand "cute" privileges, do they have any hope of noticing Judy's bathroom at the police academy has a toilet that can kill her and no accommodations for a species her size?

Well, they might have. But the way the film handles it gleefully assassinates everyone's chance to see the systemic issues and respond to them appropriately.

Tune in next time, for Judy Hopps, bunny cops, "Black Excellence" and our old friend Barack!

[lieutenant-amuel]

2, 4, 17

I suppose you’re asking it for the writer ask game, so I’ll pretend I’m right.

2. Do you plan each chapter ahead or write as you go?

Both? I mean, I have a vague idea for many chapters ahead and it gets more developed as I write.

For example, I knew since the beginning that Gabe would go to Tepet Muul in the fifteenth chapter of WBTL, but the scene where he finds the orb of questions was added only in the last stages of writing when I already started translating it. If I didn’t start writing this chapter, I probably wouldn't come up with this idea.

Another example is the latest chapter. Valerio and Matías were supposed to talk about Emilio at home, but instead Valerio invited Matías to the equestrian show which was one of the main storylines of that chapter. Again, if I didn’t start writing, there would be no equestrian show.

And if I remember I've written something else besides WBTL, I took the same approach for my Gabe and Francisco fic. Its entire structure (including Francisco taking care of the bushes, Gabe and Higgins having a fencing battle, and Gabe and Francisco's conversation) was planned ahead, but the core part of the fic aka the rose symbolism was added only during the writing process. I had no idea how I would make Francisco convince Gabe to teach Elena.

I cannot write with an absolutely empty head. But if I have a vague idea of one scene I want to include in the fic/next chapter, even if it’s extremely primitive, there’s a high chance of me developing it into entire concept.

I don’t write with a detailed plan yet my head is not totally empty either, so something in between, I suppose.

4. Where do you find inspiration for new ideas?

In my head? I rarely get inspired by any specific pieces of media because I’m simply not familiar with many and I prefer not to take inspiration from my own life experience, although the more I write, the more I notice I actually do it a lot, even if it’s rather subconscious.

I often get ideas out of thin air and cannot explain where they come from, even if they make a lot of sense and help me to fix many plot holes.

Some of those ideas are scout Gabe, Valerio and Emilio’s friendship, Emilio’s characterization in general, the hideout storyline which is basically the main one of the entire fic, and some others I cannot share now, since they contain major spoilers. When I get those ideas, I always think about them deeper and try to explain to myself why they make sense. This is just how my brain works, I suppose.

Anyway, if we’re being less vague, when it comes to Gabe, most of my ideas for him are inspired by canon. I analyze him a lot and have many, many headcanons for him, so it’s quite simple to write and develop his arc.

Sometimes I also find inspiration after rewatching EoA. Sometimes after chatting with my friends and reading reviews from the readers. My main writing project is a multi-chaptered fic, so I often get inspired by my own writing and develop more minor ideas I already have into something bigger. I never seek for inspiration, it just falls on me.

17. What do you do when writing becomes difficult? (maybe a lack of inspiration or writers block)

I… wait. I admit I used to be a more flexible writer who could write with no inspiration at all (not always, though). I would often force myself to write because I wanted to write but couldn’t. But it’s gotten quite difficult for me to do it in the past year. I suppose this is because of my life that’s gotten extremely busy in general and a lack of enthusiasm from the readers that wasn’t that noticeable to me until I got severely tired.

As I said, I rarely get inspired by the books, movies, TV shows, and so on, so it doesn’t really help me to fight my writer’s block or whatever I can call it. I just wait for the right moment when I feel like writing. I’m not prone to procrastination and if I want to do something, I (almost) always do it right away. When I get this urge for writing, I’ll write over five thousand words in one day and I’m not even joking.

Thank you for the ask!

Writer Ask Game in case anyone else is interested.

[viktoria-policorn]

Severus Snake AU (Harry Potter x MLP crossover, Creepypasta)

For Cringetober days 24 and 13

If not cringetober, I would have never told this shit I fear myself to anybody. invented this when I was 12. started considering it as cringe at 15 years old.

Notes:

HP x MLP crossover. In this AU wizarding world and Equestria are parallel universes, and their inhabitants can move between worlds through portals (but nearly anybody doesn’t know about another world existence). All characters are ponies!!! (Harry Potter characters are ponified)

Major events happen after the last Harry Potter book “The deathly hallows” and after last season of MLP gen 4, but just right after the “Rainbow road trip” before the main 6 aged up too much.

Warnings: violence, graphic blood, extreme cringe.

Cringefic, trollfic

*I barely remember the scenario of this mess, some plot points have different variations and when I stopped working on this, the story was unfinished and still has plot holes.

Messy brief retelling of the whole story:

After the battle of Hogwarts, when he have already mourned and burried perished friends, Harry Potter sleeps. When he wakes up, he remembers that he have forgotten about a very important person. He informs his friends but wants to go on his own. Harry enters the Shrieking Shack and…Snape’s body is not here. “WTF?!” — Harry thinks. HP thinks kinda “Nevermind” and walks to Hogwarts.

The next day there is news that one Hogsmeade pony-farmer has disappeared without a trace. Ron and Hermione say: “Nevermind!” But Harry is worried, because he remembers Snape’s body disappearance. On the next day, the magazine reports about new missed Hogsmeade ponies. And next days — the same. And some ponies told they saw a sinister beast on the villageside. Harry and friends decide to go there and figure out WTF is going on (they couldn’t miss such fun).

Eventually they went to the Shrieking Shack and… the cellar hatch opens and… “ — Surprise!” The trio sees white pony with short black mane with snake teeth, smiling and staring at them. Stallions mouth and teeth were covered with blood and…he had bloody wound on the left side of his neck. His Eyes had red snake-like pupils. It looked like too positive and snake-like Severus Snape.

— Severus Snape? — Harry mumbled.

— Severus Snake! — the freak answered. — Happy to see you kids, come in!

Everybody went to the cellar. It looked like torture room. There was a lot of knifes, poisons, torture tools and even the wall to fix ponies in there (like in Cupcakes)

Snake joyfully tells them how he came to life after death, how he thinks that his ‘old’ behavior was dumb and how he would treat Harry and other good guys that he knows well, how he is positive and funny now.

Harry carefully asks him about the torture room and briefly hints, that he wants explanation why Snake’s mouth are in blood.

Snake at ease tells them that now he has a snake-like stomach and has to eat meat. Also he explained, that he tortures only evil-bad ponies, in general former death eaters. After the battle of Hogwarts a lot of death eaters went hiding in Hogsmeade and nowadays pretending to be usual local folks. And Snake fixes this issue by torturing them, in this way he implements their karma.

The trio even don’t know what to say, so they quietly say “Bye” to Severus Snake and go out to digest all what just happened. Snake joyfully says, that he is always happy to see them.

Harry, Ron and Hermione decided not to tell anyone about Snake and just wait and see what Snake really is, because they know nothing about his nature and reason why he is so visually alike to mutated Severus Snape. Next few days they regularly visited him and tried to convince him not to kill ponies and not to torture death eaters, but Snake said that it’s his kredo and he won’t change. Besides everything, Snake treated the trio as dear guests and friends and never got mad at them, always smiled and ignored the fact that kids obviously don’t enjoy his company and consider him as evil force. Severus Snake was nearly emotionless — his only emotions were smiling and laughing. It seemed like he considered world as one big joke for him.

*Note: from this moment I can’t really remember the order of scenes and the plot has many variations and in most of the parts I interpret.)

One day trio came to Snake but he wasn’t home and left note on the cellar hatch: “Went to teach Malfoys how to live properly, see you soon!”.

— Oh no! — Harry said. “Malfoys have got enough, we mustn’t let this freak torture them! ” Harry remembered how Narcissa Malfoy saved him and what Draco went through under Voldemort’s leadership.

Trio goes to Malfoy Manor.

As it turned out when they arrived, Harry and friends were late but not too late. Snake has already intimidated the whole Malfoy family. Now Snake was standing with Draco, forcibly holding him with magic, in front of them Lucius and Narcissa standing terrified and begging Snake to stop. Snake said that he is gonna take Draco with him and educate him properly (he wasn’t going to torture him, no, just wanted to teach him how to be a “good guy” which Snake now in his own eyes was).

Harry interrupted and with all the courage told Snake, that if he doesn’t stop, Harry will stop being his friend and be telling all wizards about his crimes. He also plainly told Snake what trio thinks about his behavior and how he is disappointed in Snake. Snake listened to him calmly. In the end of his speech Harry tried to manipulate Snake by telling that Snake’s threats were the best lesson for Malfoys and he better let them go because if he takes Malfoy with him and teaches him, his arrogant parents will perceive it as your service. Moreover, they will be proud of it: such person treats their son as a student.

Harry’s words had affection on Snake. He didn’t take the last part seriously, but he stopped smiling. It was the first time he looked sad and serious. Pony was upset about Harry’s real attitude towards him and such furious threats. Snake exempted Draco. He said to trio:“I thought you are my friends. I thought you understand me.” He turned away from them and apparitioned (teleported back to the Shrieking Shack).

Harry and trio talked to Malfoys a bit, and then went back to Hogwarts. They wanted but were afraid to visit Snake. But after all ventured to do it and…heard Snake talking to someone, someone they didn’t know. They sat calmly for awhile, eavesdropping. Another voice said something about another world, portals. Then everything stirred up, strange noise, wind and light arised. Then everything began to spin around, trio were moving somewhere in mess… Then they have fallen on the ground. They were in some sunny place…

End of the first part

On this point I will explain some lore things regarding Snake, retell the prequel of all events — give you author statements to explain everything unknown.

Lore / Backstory

The voice trio heard belongs to pony named Tiatara. This mare is the real main antagonist and culprit of the whole Severus Snake situation.

Tiatara:

Appearance: black coat, fuchsia colored mane. Sized like princess Luna, unicorn. Magenta colored eyes. Wears necklace same to nightmare Rarity’s.

Backstory: Tiatara is from Equestria, she dreamed to be a princess. She studied in Canterlot school even before Twilight, she was a bit older than her. Tiatara tried to be politician, but career failed. Then some bad things happen (I didn’t come up with it) and she is forced to leave Canterlot. She was angry with ponies. Tiatara accidentally met witch pony who lived in the forest (don’t know her name). Tiatara lived with her and that mare teached her another type of magic, especially dark magic, potions and something else. Witch told her about another world with another laws and politics. Tiatara liked it more than Equestria, forming her opinion based on tales. Also witch sometimes used portal to that world but forbade Tiatara to doing it.

Tiatara was jealous of Twilight when she became princess and for a long time just watched the world change. After Chrysalis, Tirek and Cozy Glow were defeated, Tiatara thought that it’s good chance for her to become important for Equestria. She killed old witch pony, now she can use portal she made to move to the another world. That world was wizarding world.

Tiatara started spending more time in another world. But one day, while walking in the Forbidden Forest, she found beautiful red stone… She took it to her shelter to discover and keep it. That stone had special affection on Tiatara. She became obsessed with it. Pony admired it, slept and ate with it and took the stone everywhere with her.

One night Tiatara had a dream. She was in a dark black and red forest with bloody moon and dried trees. She walked there and soon met spooky creatures. They all had injuries which make usual ponies dead, but the creatures were alive. They scared her on purpose and acted like crazy. Tiatara woke up.

On the next few days she had common dreams. But she soon stopped being afraid of that forest and walked calmly there. One day she met the ruler of that place. His name is Aburzuy.

Aburzuy is something like satan or aid. He is the higher creature, rules hell (that forest in Tiatara’s dreams is actually hell). Hell has two sections. One for dead sinners, second for halfdemons.

Halfdemons are creatures made by Aburzuy based on dead persons. Halfdemons are like zombies but they are consious and have personality. Their personality is combination of dead person’s traits and new traits added by Aburzuy to make them creepy and ‘evil’.

The stone that Tiatara found is called “demonic stone” and it’s used to create halfdemons. Halfdemons use dead body of the person they are based on. Aburzuy modificates the body too to make it creepy.

Severus Snake is alive halfdemon. He is based on Severus Snape, but he is not Snape.

Aburzuy told Tiatara about the use of her stone. One day she found Snape’s body and decided to turn him into halfdemon. She wanted him to be her tool for usurpation of Equestria ponies. She observed him for weeks, and after he returned from Malfoys, Tiatara saw strange changes in him. Snake was sad. So she decided to manipulate him.

Tiatara started talking with him. He said that he is upset about Harry not liking him. So Tiatara began to manipulate him by pretending to be his real friend and saying that she loves and needs him. She also told Snake that she brought him back to life and told his that he is halfdemon. Snake agreed to go to another world and kill, torture and eat lots of stranger ponies there.

P.S. I never tortured myself that much while writing something

@icryink Thanks for making this challenge, it brought me nostalgia and helped to overcome my fear to tell this story to anybody!

[romanadvora]

The Chase

season 002 : story 016 : episodes 072-077

22 MAY - 26 JUN 1965 || 03 - 04 JUN 2023

I really love the opening to this story; we've got a nice slice of life inside the TARDIS with the Doctor tinkering away at the TSV, Ian chilling out reading a [rather far-fetched] story, Barbara making a dress for Vicki… once again some lovely comfort Who. Everyone getting excited for the Visualiser is really fun.

I find Ian & Barbara's familiarity with the Beatles (especially Ticket to Ride) pretty funny since their second album came out on the 22nd of November 1963, when Ian & Barbara presumably left London earlier that week (23rd November wasn't a school day).

Vicki and Ian getting a lot of time together is easily one of my favourite parts of the serial; the two of them running off up the dune becoming silhouettes is one of my favourite shots of the show so far, and the pair just wandering around and Vicki telling stories of her childhood is so personal and a really intimate scene, you really feel the bond the two have.

The same can be said for the Doctor and Barbara sunbathing when Barbara starts complaining about not the Doctor's singing, but the *other* awful noise. 

The Dalek rising out of the sand has absolutely got to be a callback to the Dalek rising out the Thames right?

Gosh this whole tangent with the Aridians just… isn't it. "We have been told by the Dalek's we have ½ a day to hand you over to the Daleks- our elders are now discussing whether they will do this"... 10 minutes later… "our elders have decided to hand you over to the Daleks".

The Mire Beasts attacking allows the Doctor, Barbara & Vicki to reasonably escape, and it's nice to see Ian already up and planning an attack on the Daleks- Ian asking for Barbara's cardigan again and the continuity of her complaining, "not again" was a nice little touch.

Ian jumping up yelling "yoo-hoo, Dalek!" is yet another iconic Chesterton moment.

First appearance of the Time Vortex in Flight Through Eternity?

Vicki mentioning NYC as an ancient historical city, destroyed in the Dalek invasion, is a really nice seasonal continuity.

Episode three is quite minimal, but the connection to real-life history and explaining real mysteries with sci-fi excuses is a creative choice I really like; the abandonment of the Mary Celeste here, or the disappearance of Agatha Christie in Unicorn and the Wasp.

And it's fun to see Peter Purves being an Alabaman country boy ahead of his debut as 25th century astronaut, Steven Taylor.

Really not a fan of the whole haunted house episode because of how goofy the Daleks get as opposed to their typical sinister and manipulative selves- and the Doctor's theory of the mansion being some a physical manifestation of human nightmare would fix the plot holes of Frankenstein's Monster & Dracula surviving extermination. That being said, the Doctor figuring out they're in an artificial environment because everything is so typically scary is a creative element.

While the cliffhanger of the Daleks making a robot Doctor clone is cool and threatening, it's defeated like halfway through the next episode so you don't really feel a continuous anxiety that the Doctor could be an imposter. Showing the Doctor double next to Vicki and Barbara while Ian is unintentionally fighting the real Doctor was a good use of dramatic irony though. And the reveal being done with the robot calling Vicki "Susan" continues with the established continuity of having met the Daleks earlier; perhaps the memory scan where "the young girl" is Susan was done during the invasion of Earth…

The last episode is where this really picks up, as you’ve got this wonderful futuristic Mechanoid city above the trees, and some great world-building via newly introduced astronaut Steven Taylor. Him explaining how the Mechanoids were initially Human inventions to aid in the colonisation of Mechanus, and why he’s marooned on this planet due to an all-out war between Earth and an.. unnamed[?] enemy makes the world feel quite grounded. 

The Dalek / Mechanoid battle is also really well done, not just with great tracking shots and use of lighting, but how the rapid cuts, angles, and superimposed flames on the picture make the whole sequence really fast paced and somewhat hard to keep track of; generally good for a chaotic and bloody fight. 

Vicki being deathly afraid of heights add to the danger of their rooftop escape from the burning city, and Maureen really sells the performance in my opinion.

Now. The end is here. The Daleks and Mechanoids have destroyed themselves, leaving the travellers free not just to leave in the TARDIS, but see the Dalek’s timeship too. Ian’s imitation of a Dalek is a fun calmer after a rather hectic finale, and their departure is really well done. It can be frustrating that the Doctor is so mad at them, and it does *kind of* feel unexpected on Ian and Barbara’s front. Although with moments like Ian being knighted, the downtime scenes of everyone dancing to the Beatles in the TARDIS, and the slower more intimate moments like Ian and Vicki running up the dunes… you can really feel that their time is at an end. I love Ian’s passion for wanting the simple things in life; a drink at the pub, walking in the park, wanting to belong somewhere (other than the rather nebulous and fluctuating address of the TARDIS, 76 Totters Lane*). It’s the time of exit that could only work back in the 60s because of how random all their adventures were; not like now when you can deliberately go to any point in time or space, down to the specifics of “in time for tea”. I do also like how it’s then Vicki who convinces the Doctor to get over his anger-veiled sadness and let them do this thing; you see the connection between the pair, how Vicki really has taken the role of the granddaughter in the Doctor’s life, and how she can appeal to him when no one else is able to get through. 

The montage of Ian and Barbara back in London 1965! is just really heartwarming, and them bursting with laughter when a ticketer asks if they’ve been on the Moon because they’re so out of touch feels so personal and close. Vicki and the Doctor watching them on the TSV is not only a good narrative choice by tying it back to the serial’s beginning, but it also allows for both parties to have their goodbyes of sorts. The Doctor staring off into the middle distance saying “I will miss them” seems really simple, but that’s not a bad thing, because it is that simple. They’ve been together for two years and the Doctor has grown considerably since meeting them, and he got so upset with the prospect of them leaving that he started shouting at them about how stupid their idea was. Not exactly a… healthy… response. But powerful? Absolutely. 

Because of those great first and finale episodes, even though the story got a bit too meandering in the middle, and lost sight of the Daleks’ menace for a bit too long, it’s still a great send off for two of my favourite companions.

I will miss them. 

★★★★☆

[iamnmbr3]

the imaginary friend horcrux au posts made me think of something odd:

judging by the movies (i haven't read the deathly hallows yet), the horcruxes make everyone nearby feel and act shitty. since harry himself is a horcrux, it would be interesting if he too were to make people who spend a lot of time with him or touch him feel and act shitty. (i'm squinting at the dursleys.)

is this explained or at least lampshaded in the books?

Good question. I've actually seen it theorized before that Harry unknowingly corrupted the Durselys. I think it's a fun concept. It doesn't do anything for me personally though. I prefer characters to have agency so to me saying the Durselys were just influenced by Horcrux powers makes the story less interesting and thus it's not a reading I prefer. I think you could do a fun short horror fic with this premise though. And maybe have Harry affect other people around him like that too. Maybe that's why Ron's feelings of inferiority and jealousy become more pronounced as the series progresses etc. Could be very neat.

Now, as to what's in the books, it's a bit complicated and contradictory. In book 2 we learn that growing emotionally close to a Horcrux can make it stronger and even give it enough power to possess you. This is how Ginny ends up falling prey to diary!Tom. The beginning of book 7 reenforces this. The book on Horcruxes that Hermione reads from says that getting emotionally close to a Horcrux, not physically close, is what puts you a risk. Unfortunately, JKR seems to have gotten bored with the Horcrux hunt and also possibly the whole Harry Potter series during this book because book 7 is very lazily written compared to the first 6 books (in my opinion) and is riddled (no pun intended) with plot holes.

Later we see that just being physically near the locket has a negative effect on characters (a bit like the One Ring) even though that's the opposite of what we were lead to believe earlier. And then we never see that effect again. It's used for drama with the locket but the cup and the diadem do nothing of the sort. In fact, they are totally non-interactive to the point that we only really know they are Horcruxes because that's clearly the narrative intent. (In my opinion if the Horcruxes were all a lot more sentient and interactive like the diary was, it would've been a lot more fun but I digress).

We can fix these plot holes in-universe in a few ways - chiefly by deciding that the locket was different because of powers it gained due to its vessel and/or by going full on AU and theorizing that some of the supposed Horcruxes weren't Horcruxes at all and the trio got it wrong.

The movies actually did something I liked where they made all the Horcruxes act a bit weird and creepy. This removes the possibility that the diadem, for example, is just some random thing lying around and makes Harry's connection to them more evident and interesting.

[airasora]

OO if you have a min I'd love to know your opinions regarding the other live action remakes? Personally I actually quite liked beasts live action design and the cinderella dress! (tho i do wish it wasn't blue)

Ok, so since there's a lot of remakes, I'll go through them super quickly or else this will be a VERY long post, so hold on to your hats!

Cinderella (2015)

While the Cinderella remake was a visually pleasing film (seriously, the costumers and overall aesthetic and look of everything was such a joy to look at) it did not fix my main issue, which is with the main character whom has no personality outside of her actual story line. An interesting story does not make for an interesting character. And for the people saying they DID "fix" Cinderella in the remake, I will ask you to watch this video, or specifically from 17:24 to 22:11 where NC points out every single issue I have with the remake Cinderella in comparison to OG Cinderella.

The Jungle Book (2016)

I overall enjoyed the movie for what it was, I find it very awe-inspiring with its just one actual actor - who is honestly really good considering he's acting off of NOTHING basically - and not amazing effects, but good enough. However, it has three big changes that I heavily dislike which is the beginning, the third act breakup and the ending.

Why oh why would you NOT use the story's original beginning? It does everything a beginning should: it introduces you to its characters, their relationships and the way the world works while also making you connect with them almost immediately. Why the ever loving HELL did they switch that out with an overused trope with a basic ass fakeout that, instead of showing you, it TELLS YOU how it all happened. There is absolutely no reason for it and it's lazy.

Third-act breakups are also extremely lazy, and more often than not make no sense or makes the character look like idiots. Having Baloo lie to Mowgli about not actually seeing him as a friend to make him want to go to the village to get away from Shere Khan is the dumbest fucking thing cause he could just, you know, TELL HIM THE TRUTH. Mowgli in the remake, at this point, has already MET Shere Khan, he KNOWS how dangeorus he is. There is NO REASON for Baloo to lie to Mowgli. None whatsoever.

And the ending... what the actual living hell is the message of the story when Mowgli STAYS in the jungle??? Original message is that sometimes you can't stay where you want to be in order to grow as a person, and you have to make sacrifices for the greater good and go where you can evolve. By having Mowgli stay in the jungle, its audience learns nothing and Mowgli doesn't develop as a character. He literally just stays where he already was, only difference is he now has a bear friend.

Sidenote: WTF did they do to Kaa...

Beauty and the Beast (2017)

It's gonna be easier to just bullet point this one:

Love most of the new songs

Emma Watson can't sing, why the fuck can't she sing, hire someone who can sing if they're gonna sing, I can't believe that has to be said

Their attempt at explaining plot holes in the OG just creates new plot holes

Despite the movie being longer, Belle and the Beast has LESS chemistry and what are important scenes for them are shortened and replaced by new scenes that DO NOT give them as much chemistry as the OG

The Beast is hot, I don't care what anyone says

This is an unpopular opinion, but I liked Belle's dress solely because it looks more like a dress a girl like Belle would choose for herself. Is it boring as sin though in comparison to the OG one, though? Yes

I do like that Gaston is a bit more fleshed-out, he almost convinced me he liked Belle's personality as well just a bit, and not just her looks

HOW do you have Belle's dad talk about her mother, just after Belle says the other townsfolk think she's odd, and NOT have him tell her that her mom was odd as well??? That scene could have melted my cold, cynical heart and instead they go with "fearless" - fuck off

I have more, but it'll get too long.

Aladdin (2019)

Aladdin can't act or sing worth shit, how the HELL is it a theme that some of the Disney remake actors can't act or sing sometimes? Not gonna lie, I didn't realize how poor his singing was until A Whole New World and he had to sing with Naomi Scott and my jaw legit dropped because I realized how horrible he sounded by comparison. He also shows ZERO remorse that he has to go back on his promise to Genie about using his final wish to set him free, hell he even looks smug about it. What the ever loving hell is that about?

Also... jam. Never thought I'd hate jam.

The Lion King (2019)

This remake is the only one I've hated so much that I actually sat down and made a video about it on my Ayla Sky YouTube channel. Imma have to refer you to that cause I can't possibly condense all of my hatred in a short tumblr post.

Lady and the Tramp (2019)

I actually think this one was fine. Nothing really pissed me off and it's an overall nice movie. It was very inoffensive. It's nothing spectacular, but it's probably the least blood-boiling remake ever.

Mulan (2020)

... *sigh*

Mulan doesn't work hard to become a good soldier, she's just born cool cause she got chi

Team claims they wanted to make it more adult and therefore removed Mushu and the songs and made it more realistic and yet they add a SHAPE-SHIFTING WITCH

Mulan has no feelings or thoughts at any point whatsoever

THE TRAILER TRICKED ME

The way the villain dies is still one of my favorite, corny, over the top deaths I've ever seen. I legit got a stomach ache from laughing so hard

That's the last one of the bigger remakes I've seen. I've watched the Maleficent movies, Cruella, Alice in Wonderland movies and also the old 101 and 102 Dalmatian remakes from the late 90s and early 2000s, but they're not quite in the same group as these ones in the same way. But if you want to hear my thoughts on these two, let me know and I'll share!

I haven't watched Dumbo, Pinocchio, Peter Pan & Wendy nor The Little Mermaid yet so I have no opinions on those right now except I am cautiously optimistic about TLM :)

[baladric]

i go through a lot of brainworms, most of them quite quickly (goblin emperor excepted, that one’s eternal entirely bc it is so fucking good and there’s such a broader world to flesh out freely, which is my FAVE), but i suspect the reason the stranger things garbage has me in such a chokehold is how abysmal the duffers’ worldbuilding is. because apparently i love nothing more than a poorly-assembled puzzle to fix! (read more’d because this is annoying and long)

like, the first season establishes such a fascinating alternate world with all of these Questions to answer—how is the demogorgon transporting people/itself? what’s with the egg casing hopper finds in the upside down? why does the demogorgon simply take will, not once, but twice, when we know it kills at least two of the five other people it takes—and what is up with the use of the hawkins public library as a hub of sorts in which to stash will after he’s seemingly installed in the hive mind? great questions! great, concrete questions that would be so easy to answer with season 2 and beyond!

and yet! not only are they distinctly not answered (sorry, but ThE mInD fLaYeR is not an answer to the question of Who Is Running The Upside Down’s Show, nor is vecna’s extremely belated intro in any way a satisfactory answer to that question), they’re very often completely overwritten or ditched by the wayside. everyone just stops giving a shit that the upside down’s atmosphere is toxic, nor does anyone ever see any health problems from exposure (hopper and joyce take their hoods off when they find will and definitely need a couple hours to haul him back out of there afterwards! and even if the goggles+bandanas combo did fuck-all for the kids/steve in the tunnels in s2, which i highly doubt, dustin still fully inhales a bunch of spores! plus nancy, robin, steve and eddie are down there for most of a day and come out a-okay, aside from bat injuries!) it’s explicitly stated later that the upside down creatures can only operate with extant gates opened from topside hawkins, so the demogorgon’s power to open smaller, more direct gates is nerfed out of existence! demogorgons apparently grow from little parasitic larvae, so the egg casings in the upside down are also voided as a worldbuilding aspect, unless the implication is that there are other very large creatures wandering around, which i highly doubt is anything the duffers have considered and/or care about! and then there’s everything with eleven, which is just... so fucking handwaved!

like what do you mean dosing a bunch of people in the 60s up with LSD and tossing them in iso tanks produced psychic kids? and how the fuck does some telekinesis and some gentle telepathy yield eleven’s connection to the in-between? and clearly she’s innately connected to the upside down itself, otherwise what random kind of bullshit is it that the hole she opened and shoved creel through just happened to dump him in this blighted fucking hellscape? did she make the upside down?? and are we just gonna eternally ignore that she has an aneurysm every time she uses her powers??? like!!!

it’s just so infuriating, the degree to which the duffers are just fucking around in here, hamfisting these big lame dramatic plots when there are so many sick-ass ways they could have structured a really great, cohesive, multi-season arc for the grand fucking history of the upside down and its ability to creep into the minds of humans (how else do you explain vecna getting to chrissy without any open gates?). and not just “the secret was socipoathic ecofascism the whole time, and some russians too”—like you could give us the why on this world’s impressionability (will’s entry just... spawning a copy of hawkins in a limited radius around himself) in juxtaposition with its already extant life forms (creel sees demogorgons and the particles that form the mind flayer on his initial entry, seven years pre-canon). because something has clearly happened to the upside down! one feels so loudly that it wasn’t always like this, because if it were, where the fuck did the fauna come from, and why are they so limited in scope? why is the only flora unrelated to will’s copy of hawkins, like. sentient fucking vines? what’s with the floating fucking rock-islands??

it could be! so good! it could be fucking edible! and yet, the duffers just wanna talk about mike wheeler and child experimentation. fuckin rip, i will probably not recover until i write some troublingly elaborate bullshit about upside down druid!eddie and how he revives the upside down to its former glory before going home to kiss steve harrington’s extremely dumb face.