#are the same ship

[emeraldspiral]

Thinking about how much the Zimvoid arc and Loki season 1 had in common.

Like, both of them star a villain protagonist who ends up trapped in an apocalyptic wasteland populated almost entirely by alternate versions of themselves, most of whom all suffer from the same vice of needing to scramble for power to prove their superiority while a handful of more enlightened versions of themselves reject competition in favor of cooperation. They even both have a kid version of themselves as the leader of the cooperative faction along with an older, wiser version, an aquatic version, and a huge beefcake version.

Of course because Loki is a drama and Invader Zim is a tragedy, the stories take different directions with their character arcs. In in a drama, the story is driven by characters having a flaw that they overcome or a false belief that is corrected, or possessing virtues that allow them to triumph, which all goes toward supporting whatever the story's thesis is. In a tragedy, the story is driven by characters who fail to overcome their flaws, who either never learn their lessons and change or just keep getting worse and worse, or who either abandon their virtues or let their vices win out over them, or whose virtues aren't enough for them to succeed without the support of the world around them backing them up.

Because Loki is a drama, Loki's story is about having his ego broken down so he can be built back up into a better man. He's humbled upon finding himself powerless in the TVA, forced to confront the ugly truth about himself and understand the neediness and insecurity at the root of his obsession with power and superiority. He meets other versions of himself who reflect his worst qualities back at him but also show him that he has the capacity to be better. He learns to be empathetic and care for other people besides himself and causes greater than his own ambitions, but also learns to love himself from falling for another version of him and recognizing that that all the qualities he admires her for are qualities that they share.

By contrast, Zim goes through his experience with the Zimvoid unchanged. Meeting other versions of himself and seeing them all compete for power doesn't make him self reflect on his own pettiness and meeting better versions of himself doesn't inspire him to do better. He doesn't learn to empathize with other versions of himself and doesn't learn to value himself for his own intrinsic qualities. If anything, the experience makes him worse because defeating all the Zims only reaffirms his false belief that his worth comes from his superiority over others.

Loki and the Zimvoid are essentially telling the same story, but the genre makes all the difference to the outcome.

One thing the Zimvoid does though that I really wish Loki had done is support its themes by making the villain another version of the protagonist.

Like, I remember when Loki season 1 first aired everyone was expecting Kang to be behind everything just because it would tie-in with the greater Marvel universe and I was saying I really hoped it would be Loki himself instead. Because Kang wasn't a character in the show until the very end. He had no personal relationship with Loki, he was just some guy we'd never met before. And literally everything else in the show was about Loki being in conflict with himself. It would've made so much more thematic sense if his line early on in the series about his plans to take over the TVA and become the most powerful being in existence was foreshadowing a reveal that one version of him had already done it and the reason he was pruning all other Loki variants who strayed from the path that would lead them to death was because he didn't want any other Lokis to overthrow him or mess up his timeline and throw him off the path that got him to where he was. Kang did end up still tempting Loki with the opportunity to have everything he ever wanted as a final test of his character growth, but it just didn't feel as impactful coming from a stranger as it would've from another Loki.

With the Zimvoid though, we got Zib as the absolute perfect villain for the story. A dark reflection of both our protagonists who are themselves mirrors of one another, reflecting all their worst qualities back at them and showing them the folly of basing their self-worth around proving their superiority over others.

[oobbbear]

I want to post this here too because I’ve seen it happen a few times

Please understand that there are cultural differences and language differences, if you see this happening let the person clarify what they meant, that person might just not be familiar with words the western side of the internet use

[lokittystuckinatree]

I am simultaneously deliriously in love with the ending of Loki season 2 and absolutely loathe it

On one hand…Shakespearean tragedy at its finest, essentially circling back to Loki’s original Thor 2011 character arc by reversing it, and Loki has literally ascended to godhood. In the end, Loki’s ultimate selfless sacrifice was to sit upon the highest throne in the multiverse, and that to me is tragically ironically beautiful

On the other hand…Loki being alone makes me want to burn Marvel studios to the ground and do other unspeakable things

Best and worst ending of all time f u Eric Martin

[dykrophone]

ND Stevenson when presented with an angsty gay blonde-brunette best friend duo who are both brainwashed and manipulated in a military upbringing until one of them starts to question things and realizes their life is a lie but the other believes their best friend betrayed them which results in them becoming mortal enemies who try to kill each other before finally saving the world with the power of love and getting together...

[clingonlikeclingwrap]

Show!Percy (kind of) meets book!Annabeth

Prev: Nico & Will, Percy’s brief identity crisis

[thesoftboiledegg]

[ca-3]

twitter is distracting cause i keep saving tweets to draw... anyway, this is MakoHaru to me 🤭

(Bonus: big sis is here to help....?)

[dykepaldi]

homestuck was so perfect for autistic teenagers bc it took characters being sorted into categories and having Attributes to its absolute extreme. forget four hogwarts houses, every character has their associated colour their zodiac sign their associated animal their dream planet their god tier class and aspect their typing quirk their pesterchum handle their weapon their planet of x and y, as well as each of them having a handful of other very quantifiable Personality Traits and Interests (e.g. this one is a clown this one is angry this one likes fashion this one is just rufio from hook for some reason) and THEN they all also have their respective ancestors and dancestors(?)(plucked that word from my memory) who have all of those things as WELL

and god not to mention the fucking quadrant system

as a 13-15 year old autistic kid i didnt even need homestuck to have a plot i just happily made a big big spreadsheet of character attributes in my brain

[nyxi-pixie]

90% of the problems in bbc merlin are caused bc that fuckass dragon was a committed merthur shipper but only in the sense that he had a crippling addiction to tragic yaoi

[demigods-posts]

poseidon answering sally's prayer in under ten seconds in season one has the same energy as percy emerging from the water with annabeth dagger in moa. both of these men are whipped as hell and will gladly admit it lmao

[yingui]

petra

[lucabyte]

On autonomy, and what it means to be Obliged to Help.

Bonus:

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Archery Nemesis.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[bronzeplates]

awful news:

i am a danganronpa consumer. fucking hate it, would love if it would stop consuming my thoughts

anyway why do i never see fanart with the both of them

[afterthelambs]

Ann's confidant wins the most sapphic confidant award in the game. Obviously there's rank 9 with Shiho saying "I love you" but there's also whatever the hell Ann has going on with Mika? Mika spends the entire confidant being rude and mean and underhanded, and Ann just goes "ugh she's amazing"

and in the end when you find out Mika has been sabotaging other people to get jobs this is Ann's response:

GIRL GET UP??? Beautiful girls make her weak asf. This is why Ann being supportive over Joker dating his assassin is in-character, she knows what it's like to fawn over a mean hottie

[bacchuschucklefuck]

soon it'll be dawn again

transcript under the cut ⏬

page 01

Fig: no way? - you're still up?

Riz: Wh– yes?

Riz: Why'd I not be.

page 02

Fig: I me~~ean - that took.

Fig: whole day.

Riz: Yeah?

Fig: 'm beat.

Riz: you should sleep.

page 03

Fig: nah. my guy's still up

Fig: I wanna hang out.

page 04

Riz: That's really nice.

Fig: Hah! - Nobody ever expects an Archdevil rockstar to be nice.

Riz: … yeah. - 's just budget work tho. (the stuff I'm working on) - I've heard it's boring.

page 05

Fig: yeah, but you do it…

Riz: It keeps things going, right? - Nothing happens if nobody sits down and - does the thing.

Fig: That's right… - though. Yeah.

page 06

Fig: sometimes it's someone else who - doesn't want the same thing to happen.

Riz: … - mm.

page 07

Riz (off screen): …It took me a long time to get that not everyone likes doing what I do. - 's probably because you guys are so nice– - or. - kind.

Riz (off screen): to anyone too, not just. - the people you /love/.

page 08

Riz: that's not how it is elsewhere. - The world's– not. hostile. - but 's not like it's kind.

Riz: So I'm doing as much as I can now… 

page 09

Fig: Hey.

Riz: ?

Fig: Go dig some dirt with me.

page 10

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - oh you meant like - actual dirt. (not incriminating information)

Fig: o yea.

Fig: there's clay in the backyard soil. - sometimes when I'm sun deficient or something I go touch dirt for a bit.

page 11

Fig: here u go

page 12

Riz: uh

Fig: now we make a thing! - 'm pretty good at freehanding a bowl.

Fig: I'll show u

page 13

Fig: just– yep, flatten that out as evenly as u can, then–! - actually ur nails'd be so good at cutting out the strip. [larger than usual space] wait. - wait. wait u can carve patterns with them! we HAVE to try

Riz: uh - What. do I carve?

Fig: anything!!!

page 14

Fig: and– yep just seal the inside uh. seam?

Fig: yep that works - okay time's up! all contestant hands up

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - okay - wh. what's next?

Fig: haha - watch this.

(sound effect text): FWOO—MP

page 15

Riz: WH– DON'T JUST DO THAT???

Fig: Now it's fired!

Riz: THAT WAS NOT SAFE

Fig: (actually it's just dry. if u add water rn it'll dissolve)

Fig: ok catch!

Riz: [blank speech bubble] - careful!!

Fig: dw no need haha

page 16

Riz (thought bubble): oh - it's warm…

Fig: now I want you to throw this.

page 17

Fig: u gotta do it - c'mon

page 18

Riz: wh– - It's like 3AM right now

Fig: oh it's not /fired/ fired it's not gonna make a loud noise

Riz: And then just? leave a pile out here?

Fig: pour water over it & it'll be gone I told u

Riz: but

page 19

Fig (off screen): RIz.

page 20

Fig: I've done all this before.

Fig: Can you trust that at least?

page 21

Riz: no, I– - I do. - I trust you.

page 23

Riz: okay what happens now

(sound effect text): glob

page 24

Fig: we do it again!

page 25

Riz: wh. [larger than usual space] What do you mean. (this clay's too wet also)

Fig: see! you're already learning

Fig: [blank speech bubble] - there are flows that are futile to fight. - The world changes.

Fig: Things change.

page 26

Fig: I've learned my lessons with "forevers". - But - as an artist

Fig: I can give you one thing: - You can always do it again.

page 27

Fig: most of everything depends on the rest of the world, - but this. - making new. - that's yours as long as you want it.

page 28

Fig: So?

page 29

Riz: Yeah. - Yeah! - let's make another one.