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firedragon1321 · 2 years

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Hey Kids! Who Wants to Learn What it Was Like Getting into Digimon in America in 2007?

This is my Digimon origin story. Click to read my tale of woe, Youtube videos, bootleg figurines, and the birth of the Tai thirst.

IN THE BEGINNING

So I was too young for Digimon Adventure’s original airing. I was around five, and- at that time- I wouldn’t watch anything I thought was “a boy’s show”. Yet, I was okay with The Powerpuff Girls and its brutal opening sequence. Buttercup was my favorite. So ???

Little me was stupid.

Pokemon came first, and- without it- I wouldn’t have gotten into Digimon. There’s a Youtube Pokemon parody that sucks, but it mentions Digimon and Agumon. Here it is if you want to suffer-

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My sister knew that Ash’s blatant OOC got under my skin, so she would play this 200 times a day. It was enough times for me to wonder what an “Agumon” was. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because you could barely hear the word “Agumon”? He doesn’t even show up in the video.

So I looked up Digimon. I discovered the In-Training and Rookie-level Digimon first, which was good because they resemble Pokemon the most. I fell in love with the cute blobs and critters. This led me to wiki pages for the DigiDestined. The first one I found was Sora, followed by Tai.

Yes, this man. But Kizuna didn’t exist yet, so it was when he was a cocky little shrimp. That cocky little shrimp moved into my brain and hasn’t left.

But this was 2007. Digimon didn’t air on Saturday mornings on Fox Kids anymore. How could I possibly access the adventures of Tai, Agumon, and the rest of the gang? Well, there were two answers, and both sucked absolute shit.

METHOD 1: JETIX AND THE TIME SLOT OF DOOM

Any anime fan of a certain age- namely from before streaming- remembers a time when anime was only on at an ungodly time. Midnight, 2 AM- whenever normal people weren’t awake. This was common- and somewhat understandable- with anime loaded with violent content, in order to keep it away from the kiddies. But Digimon is specifically for children. Yet, it still got this treatment.

At least, any season before Data Squad did.

Digimon was owned by Disney at the time, and they aired it on Jetix (which was one of the higher channels you had to pay extra for). Data Squad- the newest season- got a normal air slot. This may be due to the fact that Disney had a hand in its dubbing. In fact, Marcus Damon shares his English VA with Axel from Kingdom Hearts, and references his famous catchphrase in one episode. (Go to 0:27 to catch the line, plus avoid having your ears destroyed.)

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If you wanted to watch Adventure, 02, Tamers, or Frontier, they were only on at Stupid AM. I kept my interest in Digimon a weird secret at first- probably because Tai awakened my hormones and I felt embarrassed. My mom caught me at two in the morning watching a children’s cartoon, but she thought it was...something else.

After explaining the issue, we taped the episodes on old video cassettes. I still have them around somewhere. So we did find a way around the time slot of doom. Unfortunately- once Disney XD came into the picture- they nixed everything but Data Squad, which only aired for a very short window. After that, they were pretty much done. Digimon wouldn’t air again until Fusion dropped on Nickelodeon, and Fusion was never one of my favorite seasons.

Which brings me to-

METHOD 2: YOUTUBE PART 1/3 VIDEOS

Yeah. I had to deal with these.

I didn’t know about pirate sites. There was no Crunchyroll back then. The only episodes I had on tape were those obtained via Method 1. Because Digimon requires watching all of its episodes to understand the story (unlike Pokemon, which is more loose with its storytelling), I needed a way to fill in the blanks.

Enter Youtube.

Youtube’s videos were a godsend. I watched them while waiting for after-school activities. I even used the software at school to make a crude AMV begging for a continuation to Tai’s story (this was before tri. threw me a monkey’s paw). There was just one teeny issue, and any anime fan from this era knows what I mean.

Part 1/3 videos were the only way to access Digimon episodes on demand in 2007. While it didn’t bother me much back then, it was nonetheless a pain in the ass. For the whippersnappers- Youtube videos containing old anime episodes cut them into pieces (usually two or three, but sometimes four), forcing you to dig through the recommended videos or the uploader’s account to get the whole episode. This is still the only way to watch some old anime for free. Fighting Foodons and the English dub of Mon Colle Knights come to mind for me.

...I like kiddie anime. Digimon and Pokemon both had a hand in that.

ADDENDUM: FANSITES

Digimon had little to no active internet presence in 2007 outside of ancient shrines. I would read shitty fanfiction on Angelfire relics. This was also my first exposure to bad fangirl practices, which came through sites like The Lost Temple of Ishida. This was its splash page (found through Wayback Machine- the site itself is dead).

The best/worst part of this is “come in my pretty ones”, which is just so out of character for Matt that it’s funny. But at the time, I only had a instinctual understanding of what OOC was. It was the thing that made the Pokemon parody so annoying, but I had no name for it. So I had a weaker bullshit detector than I do now, which let me enjoy more fanfics with plenty of OOC trash in them.

Everyone starts somewhere.

I didn’t interact with any Digimon fans- as the sites were old and inactive- which was probably for the best. Their ancient scrolls introduced me to fandom basics, like shipping. I tried my hand at it, shipping Taiora in part to deal with my Tai thirst. That didn’t work for reasons listed below.

ADDENDUM: TAI THIRST

I had a crush on Ash as a small child, but that was innocent since I was small. Once Tai came into the picture, I was a bit older. My crush on him was- different. Like “look up pictures of his naked butt in the uncut version of Ep. 8 and save them to a friend’s computer so I didn’t get in trouble” kind of different. (I’m sorry, friend.) The fact that this content was only in the Japanese version made it doubly taboo.

(Actually, this image is about the same quality as what I had access to, lol.)

I went hog wild at first. I wrote bad poems and had a binder full of screenshots. I wrote my first initial and his in hearts on my notes. It was pretty bad. Over time, I figured out this was kinda cringe, which intersected with general shame at my sexuality waking up.

So I shipped Taiora. I thought- by putting Tai in a relationship with another girl- I could segregate myself from my raging crush on him, and all the uncomfortable thoughts that came with it. Unfortunately, this pairing didn’t click in my mind. I was plagued by daydreams of Tai being deathly ill, which was my brain’s way of saying “hey- maybe forcibly shipping Tai to deal with your personal BS is a bad idea?”. So I moved on to Mary Sue stand-ins, which had the same result.

The one good thing about being 11 in 2007 means I (sort of) grew up in real time with the character. Tri. dropped when I was 19 (kind of odd, but there was only a two year difference between me and tri.!Tai’s age of 17). Kizuna was only two years ago. Both of us were in the adult world in our own ways. Tai’s like an imaginary childhood friend, and he helped me through a lot of things. I know he’s fictional, but I really felt like I grew up with him.

By around tri., I decided I didn’t give a shit anymore, I compromised by keeping my fangirl thirst to Tai exclusively. Since I had a lot of background with the character in addition to thirst, it was more “acceptable” to me. tri. Determination...helped.

I just completely lost my mind with this screenshot. This led to the towel my friend gave me, which I haven’t used but can’t get rid of. I’m in a more comfortable place on this subject than I was in 2007, even if it’s not perfect.

ADDENDUM: MERCH

Finding merch in 2007 was a pain in the butt. It wasn’t really widely available in the same way as Pokemon. So there was only one option- eBay and its bootlegs.

There was a woman who was somewhat of a family friend at the time. She was my ticket to all the Digimon figures I wanted. But of course- eBay being eBay- the figures I got my mitts on were fakes. I didn’t care, as long as I got tiny Tokomons and Patamons to play with. As a kid, I was drawn more to the cute, more Pokemon-like Digis. Blame Tai (again) for making me obsessed with the giant dinosaurs.

This was my only ticket to any form of Digi-merch, except the odd book here and there. Except the Bin that Got Away.

I remember someone was selling Digimon figures at a giant yard sale. My mom only allowed me to buy two of them. So I chose a large Terriermon- who I’ve since lost- and WarGreymon. I liked WarGreymon due to his connection to Tai (it all comes back to Tai).

The catch is this WarGreymon was a digivolving figure that went with a MetalGarurumon. At the time, I didn’t like Matt, and connected the Digimon to him. My reasons for hating Matt were really dumb, since he’s a lot like me personality-wise. Matt always fought with Tai, so I thought their relationship was more antagonistic, like Ash and Gary. Not to mention I didn’t like Matt’s fans. My only exposure to them was The Lost Temple of Ishida. So I purposefully picked out the MetalGarurumon bits of the digivolving figure, only taking WarGreymon.

Some other lucky kid bought the whole bin, so now my WarGreymon can’t digivolve. But I can take comfort in the fact that he was equally screwed.

CONCLUSION

Being a Digimon fan in 2007 was tough. If I wasn’t an autistic kid who hung out with other, older autistic kids, I might never have found anyone to talk to about Digimon. Luckily, times have changed. I now have all of Adventure and tri, on DVD, and Kizuna on my PS4. On top of the old tapes, I have one or two official tapes I got from consignment shops, including one of Tamers. I figured out Digimon merch could be found if one knew where to look. I have the blursed towel.

As I keep collecting things and thinking about what these characters mean to me, this story will keep growing.

#digimon #my digimon origin story #multiple videos #mentions the evolution of my fangirl thirst #might not want to open this at work #it's not graphic but you never know #tai kamiya #matt ishida #fan origin story #taiposting #Youtube

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book-o-scams · 3 years

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Ed, Edd n Eddy Series Bible (1996) -Analysis-

You can all finally read/download Ed, Edd n Eddy's official Series Bible right here! Thanks again to Chuckletons for sharing this with me and to Joey/Kongiscool0518 for sharing it in the first place, the Holy Grail of lost Ed, Edd n Eddy trivia!

One of the first posts I made for this blog was the Series Bible page. It was a composite of every source we had ever seen reference the series bible so far-- storyboarders in interviews, CN's old character guides, and the biggest source, an old CN UK posting about the show. Well, I figure now that we have the official source, I better update the old page (so everyone knows it's out of date), and make this new Series Bible post using the official source! Not much new information, but I was intrigued to finally learn the true phrasings of some things we had only heard paraphrased, as well as at least one detail from the movie that I couldn't believe came up this early in conception...

Unfortunately, Tumblr has apparently updated its post system to only let me add 10 images? Gonna try and only use images for what I need since you can read the actual document above, I guess I'll transcribe it too for easier reference and so we don't ever lose some archive of this.

Quickly, let's review what a series bible is:

A series bible is how creators pitch shows to networks. They can be called “pitch bibles” as well. Bibles do not usually get posted publicly, because they are initially under a strict Non-Disclosure Agreement by the network; also the creator may simply not wish to share it because it reflects the earliest stages of development.

The pitch materials typically include early concepts for characters, locations and episodes. Sometimes it exposes secrets, in this case, Ed and Eddy’s home lives, and sometimes the stuff in it is completely abandoned because it’s so early in production, in this case, casual references to school and adults.

Alright, everybody, it's time to gather 'round and read the Ed, Edd n Eddy Bible!

THE YEAR IS 1996.

YOUR NAME IS LINDA SIMENSKY. YOU WORK AT CARTOON NETWORK. A FRIEND OF YOURS, DANNY ANTONUCCI, IS WRAPPING UP A SHOW ON MTV. YOU GET THIS FAX.

Linda Simensky immediately fell in love with this concept because as a child, she was best friends with 2 other Lindas for seemingly no reason other than the shared name.

I love how Danny decided last second to pencil in the correct names over each Ed, since they're arranged out of title-order.

"They're friends because they have the same name."

-the Logline for the series.

Fun fact: one storyboard artist for the movie observed that the movie is essentially all about challenging the series' original notion that the Eds are friends ONLY because of their name.

"A Danny Antonucci Cartuna"

-the label Danny used to use under announcements of new productions.

PAGE 1:

Ed, Edd n Eddy

They're best friends because they have the same name.

A gag laden, beat generated CARTOON bumper car ride of 3 misfit youths on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs of America.

Through summer vacation, part-time jobs, or just hang'n out at the corner mail box, they want to belong....but CAN'T.

From home chores, helping neighbors or eating jaw breakers, they want to fit in...but CAN'T.

Ed is into "B" monster movies, model kits and is quick to break out into rashes.

Lots of luck...

Edd is into chemistry, biology and prone to crushes.

Later...

Eddy is into pranks, is stylish and flaunts himself to the world.

Ya Right...

Ed, Edd n Eddy is a show about confusion and contradiction, that awkward part of youth, pimples, big feet, oily hair and... girls???.

Puberty is unforgiving.

I was fascinated by the lack of art on this page, it makes the pitch feel very focused. AKA logo in the corner, the title logo again up top, then the logline appears again below.

I really love the breakdown of Danny's vision of the show. "Gag-laden, beat-generated, CARTOON bumper ride." Very accurate, and I think "beat-generated" is the phrase that interests me the most. I typically think of "animation beats" as sort of a give-in-- technically all things fit a rhythm, so all stories are essentially just a montage of beats. But this does make me realize how important the strength of the beats and their rhythm are to the pacing of a cartoon and making you feel like "that was a good one." I feel like the "seasonal rot" viewers feel over the course of a show, and the way that perception differs from person to person, depends on the type of beats you want. Even though I am very into the experimental beats of a show in its later seasons, I can definitely see how season 1's beats are more typically appealing to a wide-audience, and how important a focus on that is to the longevity of a show.

I found it really interesting how the scams are initially conceived of here as "summer jobs." It adds to the sense that adults were originally meant to be present. Honestly a little surprised nobody with access to this bible had ever thought to mention that-- scams are not referenced ANYWHERE. Their image in the Series Bible is that they have summer jobs and help neighbors, which is certainly a much cleaner reputation than the Eds ended up with in the show. Makes me realize though, were some of the early scams, like Ed's Hive Bee Gone and their newspaper routes, supposed to be leaning into this early idea of them with almost legit jobs for unseen adults?

I was very amused by the repeated phrase that the Eds simply CAN'T fit in.

Loved to finally see the official phrasing for the confirmation that Peach Creek is in America. Not much different than I was led to believe, but still nice to have the true quote.

Also love Eddy being described as "stylish and flaunting himself to the world." The bold-print reactions to each micro-description is a cute idea too, I truly wonder who we were meant to picture saying those things in reaction. Each Ed? Kevin?

The "corner mail box" is an oddly specific phrase-- the Eds do hang around mailboxes throughout the series, especially seasons 1-3, and I believe the canon map does have a corner mailbox, but the idea that the Eds hang out at one specific mailbox went the way of Bro's supposed secret treehouses.

PAGE 2:

Ed, Edd n Eddy

Show Description

Gag laden. True cartoon style, inventive, non parody, fast paced, stretch and squash

Beat driven. (even when characters stop they hold with a bounce cycle. Adults never bounce. Music can play important part, not just fill.) But not a musical.

Cartoon surrealism. (viewers see the show as Ed, Edd n Eddy would, less important things tend to blend into the background, while objects of Ed, Edd n Eddy's desires are focused. Premise driven.)

The school year's over, (yeah!!!!) and the long HOT summer vacation begins (gulp). What to do?

Stuck on a cul-de-sac in the suburbs of America is the last place you want to spend summer break, especially when you find life confusing and contradicting.

Ed, Edd n Eddy is about friendship, and serves to remind us that they're no "good ole days," just smelly runners.

You can tackle anything, when your with your pals.

Their days are spent, for knowledge, acceptance and some cash for jaw breakers. Armed with pimples, big feet and oily hair the three amigos trek into the unknown.

Ed, Edd n Eddy are dying to be grown-ups, but they're kids, and attack adulthood as only kids would. Simple situations turn into a manic rollercoaster ride. (Don't forget your barf bag).

They just want to belong, and they're willing to pull off any insane stunt to prove it. First they need to figure out what it is they want to belong to.

Found it interesting that on this page, the show's logo is replaced with the title written in a jumbled font. Seems like the font from the show's end credits.

Hehe, the continued reactions to the descriptions. Allow me to be Double D for a moment and point out the increased use of parentheticals on this page, as well as one wrong "your".

I love Danny's insight that season 1 is framed by the context of how hyped everyone still is just to be out of school, but also the sense of pressure to make use of their break.

I really appreciate Danny getting further into the details of his summary of the show's style on the previous page. It only makes sense that he had this much of a vision that early.

A second confirmation of the cul-de-sac being in America! I'm also really into the repeated focus on the Eds finding the world "contradicting." I always loved how EEnE's inexplicable cartoon antics supported that sense that the Eds are highly aware of contradictions in both societal things and the actual characters.

WOW, so I'm fascinated by this dual reveal. Before the wiggling outlines, which Danny usually calls a "boiling line" and describes as a tribute to wiggling inking in early animation, the series bible instead refers to him wanting the characters to do the iconic Fleischer "bounce," which is a much more commonly recognized rubberhose animation technique. Very interesting that Danny decided not to stick to that. Did it feel too out of place? Or was the overseas team not willing to animate a weight-shifting for every single held pose? Haha, guess I can see why boiling was an easier compromise. I wonder if he had any other ideas for how to make it more of a 1930s cartoon.

The other reveal to me here is that the movie's choice, that adults don't always wiggle in the show, was an idea from the very beginning! I guess I can better understand now why it's just too difficult to communicate a stylistic choice like that overseas-- no point making Bro not wiggle, that'd just create confusion.

Also, really disappointed that my wish for a musical is officially squashed in the series bible itself. That's a tragedy. The show's over, ya couldn't let me dream, Danny!? Conversely, I love Danny's forethought to say "non parody," I definitely noticed and appreciated EEnE's avoidance of derivative parody humor.

My spouse had to point out to me that Danny probably means sneakers here, lol. Canadianisms!

The comments about the Eds wanting to grow up but needing to figure out what they want to belong to are so great and relate to the movie so well. I've heard those comments before, but the correct phrasing was cool to see.

PAGE 3:

Ed, Edd n Eddy (image of Ed in right corner)

Character Description

Attention deficiency syndrome.

He has trouble...

He can't....um...

OK, he draws all day in class.

When Eddy gets a bright idea...Ed's in.

Ed is easily talked into doing Eddy's "hard work". He has great physical strength.

Ed's happiest with his Model kits and B-monster movies. He draws his knowledge from his movies.

Ed smells. Flies are attracted to him.

Ed has sayings for all situations

ED: "you can change your shirt, and Bingo was his name..."

Ed's perpetually a slave to his younger sister's whims and whines.

Ed may have to baby-sit his sister, or let her watch whatever she wants on TV, or let her dress him up in mom's clothes.

Ed breaks out in Rashes. He's allergic to practically everything, especially Guinea Pigs.

Ed's Mom xerox's his sketches and doodles for her therapist.

Ed's Dad hopes to pass on to his son, his knowledge on "pre-owned" auto sales.

Very cute bit wasting the space at the top of the page. Danny seems very invested in Ed's personality already. The old sources we used to have definitely tried to condense these down to simpler blurbs.

Weird how Danny wants to essentially diagnose Ed with ADHD here (phrasing it very poorly, but it was the 90s and... Canada?). I don't know enough on the subject to debate it, but I still gotta point out Ed's canonical cracked skull!

Interested in the comment about Ed being most allergic to Guinea Pigs. I don't think that animal was ever even mentioned in the show. Eddy mentioned an old gerbil once....

Neat to finally have the real phrasing of the official word on Ed's parents! I saw someone comment earlier that this seems to be hinting Ed's Dad is selling stolen cars. I've never thought to question the legality of his apparent second-hand-car dealership (I imagined he works with Eddy's dad, who has received a legitimate award for his salesmanship), but those quotation marks are certainly making Mr. Ed's practices questionable! Best case scenario, Danny meant that more like italics or something, but maybe Ed's dad IS up to no good...

PAGES 4 & 5 (Ed's turn sheet and expression sheet)

PAGE 6:

Ed, Edd n Eddy (image of Edd in right corner)

Character Description

Edd

is really smart.

is really quiet.

Edd is unnaturally-- polite.

Edd hasn't been allowed to take gym ever since the Dodge ball incident. He's been excused to free study time in the library.

Edd doesn't like it when people touch his things.

EDD: "You may enter in my room, but don't touch my Lego robot. Thank you."

Edd's learning to play Peddle steel guitar. (his Mom makes him)

Edd's prone to "crushes". Girls in School, in his neighborhood, TV, anatomy books. He mails "true loves" his socks.

Edd is always ready for action, even though he can calculate the implications.

Edd constantly mumbles.

No one ever sees Edd's parents. They both work nights. They communicate to their son solely through Post-it notes. Edd's not allowed to touch anything in the house while they're gone. Anything.

Interesting how Danny slightly differentiates the barely-used space at the top here from Ed's description, to characterize Edd as more quiet and mumbly, adding an awkward "--" mid-sentence, perhaps to create the impression that Edd halts to choose words carefully.

Everything on this page feels familiar, from the character guides and other old sources. The most interesting thing to me here is that Edd's Mom forcing him to practice Pedal Steel Guitar is established this early, don't think I knew that, but I had noticed that it existed in his room from ep 1.

I love how the explanation in the beginning for why Edd goes along with their dumb schemes even though he's smart is basically just "he's always ready for action." ?!? I guess in a way???

That weirdly phrased Edd quote amuses me because it references Lego, just like the original concept background for his room before somebody nixed the copyright-namedrop.

Edd's prone to crushes thing has been reaffirmed over and over in character bios even though it really doesn't come up outside of the cupid magic in HPH and the pilot-episode heart eyes at Sarah that are barely canon. Still, I've always loved the truly disturbing statement that he mails "his true loves his socks" and how that managed to make it into canon with a comic book example, a cel animation example and a digital era example.

PAGES 7 & 8 (Edd's turn sheet and expression sheet)

PAGE 9:

Ed, Edd n Eddy (image of Eddy in right corner)

Character Description

Eddy

Exhibitionist.

Megalomaniac. (quote from his report card)

Eddy is the unofficial leader of the trio.

He's always got a plan, a stunt or a weird noise.

Eddy's the "class clown". He loves showing off. He loves being the centre of attention-- no matter how stupid the reason is.

Eddy is the only kid in his grade to have been expelled for aw hole week from school. It was his turn to set up the video for science class. He switched "Our Friend Yeast", for a video he "borrowed" from his parent's room.

Before Eddy's brother went....away, he enlightened Eddy with the "legends" of the neighbourhood. Eddy knows where all the abandoned tree houses are, which sewer pipers are safe to spelunk, and the secret recipe for the "El Mongo Stink Bomb" (it's been in the family for years).

He is the one who is most able to pretend that he knows it all... and doesn't care what anyone else thinks about him.

His genes are working the fastest.

Eddy's Dad is constantly concerned that Eddy may grow up to be a ...figure skater.

Eddy's Mom never believes his little darling was involved in such a heinous act.

Funny choice that Eddy's wasted-top-space is just two one-word descriptions, and allegedly lazily swiped from his negative report card.

Wow, we knew the report card quote and the "Our Friend Yeast" story from the UK show guide, but now we also know Ed's page says that Ed draws in class, and now I realize that Ed and Eddy have series bible school blurbs to match Edd's classic dodgeball incident blurb. Anyway, it's great that Eddy's showed his entire school some sort of sex video his parents have.

Very interested that the phrasing for the Bro/El Mongo Stink Bomb blurb even seems to suggest it's a family recipe. Eddy's Dad did have prankster stuff in his closet in JJJ... did Bro learn his prankster ways from Dad?? The neighborhood's secret tree houses have come up in other descriptions (at best, I'd say this could be related to that creepy shack the Eds found in the woods), but I think it's new info that Eddy personally learned the sewer routes from Bro. Interesting...

Thankfully, I had already heard about the Bible's awkward reference to Eddy being the most pubescent as "his genes are working the fastest," lmao.

Once again the Double D in me comes out to point out that the description of Eddy's Mom seems to switch to the Dad's pronouns.

PAGES 10 & 11 (Eddy's turn sheet and expression sheet)

PAGES 12-14 (Sarah, Jimmy, Rolf, Jonny, Nazz, and Kevin lineup of all 6, then 2 zoomed in lineups of the first 3 kids and last 3 kids)

(Funfact: the kids' designs were allegedly freelanced to an outside studio, hence why their refined later-season designs are so different from these lizardy starting places, lmao)

PAGE 15: (images of Sarah and Jimmy next to their blurbs)

SARAH

Ed's baby Sister.

It's her way or the Highway.

She has everything done for her, if NOT she'll "make" them do it.

She can be quick to judge.

Whinney.

A tatrum for every occasion.

More than a handful for Ed...or Edd and Eddy.

Thinks Edd is kinda cute.

Wants Eddy to MOVE...to another planet.

JIMMY

Sarah's best friend

He is always playing with girls, boys are just too tough.

He is accident prone, when ever we see him he has a different affliction, ie: band-aids, patches, casts, lumps...etc.

He is very clean.

The Ed's frighten him, "They're such brutes".

I'm surprised how much of the UK guide was accurate to what was really in the bible for them! Also surprised Danny misspelled "whiney" and "tantrum," one right after the other. Is this how Sarah spells them? ...Sorry, Danny, I yam what I yam.

PAGE 16: (images of Rolf and Jonny next to their blurbs)

ROLF

First generation of a landed immigrant family.

Nationality not important.

He's proud of his heritage.

He has peculiar traditions and/or customs.

He eats "weird" things.

He has hair on his back..... "yuck".

He confuses the Ed's to no end.

He confuses the other kids to no end.

JONNY 2x4

He is a wanderer and very inquisitive

From early morning to supper time, he is always outside playing, with his buddy, "Plank".

"Plank" is a wooden board that Jonny drew a face on with a crayon.

Jonny has wonderful conversations with Plank. ...Plank is a piece of wood.

Jonny makes himself very "accessible" to the Ed's.

Found it interesting that Rolf's bio is less clearly phrased than the UK bio set it up to be-- there they made it sound more like he mixes up who the Eds/kids are, here it's unclear whether it means that or (more likely) just means the obvious statement that everyone finds him confusing. If it's that, what a lame hollow bio Rolf got. This kid's based on you Danny, show some of that personal side!

Always loved Jonny's description, his life sounds so cute. Playing outside literally all day. Interesting to have it confirmed that Jonny drew Plank's face, I preferred to think the Eds drew him and sold him to Jonny, but whatever.

"Accessible" has always been an important vague description of Jonny to me. It really only applies to how chummy they could be with him in season 1, but it still sorta applies to his personality throughout the series as well.

PAGE 17: (images of Nazz and Kevin next to their blurbs)

NAZZ

She's cool, calm and assertive.

She is the most matured of the kids, or so she thinks.

She's into make-up and fashion magazines and Boys.

Sarah thinks she's awesome, wants to be just like her when she grows up.

When she enters a scene, all activity stops... boys freeze, they sweat, their hearts beat faster and faster. They lose their ability to talk. When she leaves, they recover and conclude it was something They ate.

She thinks the Ed's are funny.

KEVIN

He is cynical and sarcastic.

He thinks he knows the "routine". That's because he watches "60 Minutes".

It got a big laugh out of me that Kevin's description is only 2 sentences long. Nazz even has a more detailed character description from inception than Kevin. Love this for them.

Who's the Eds' rival? Well, he's cynical, sarcastic and he watches 60 Minutes, doesn't that tell you enough!?

I love the "mature... or so she thinks" remark about Nazz, a grounded flaw for her to have, being a little overcommitted to being mature like Eddy. It also perhaps suggests naiveté that makes it a little more reasonable that they didn't notice they were dumbing her down at the end of the series, but I do think the movie version of her better reflects the Bible's concept.

PAGE 18:

The Other Neighborhood Kids

Lineup of May, Lee and Marie.

The Kanker Sisters

These gals are tough. They bother, bully, provoke and bewilder everyone.

They live in a motor home park on the other side of the Cul-de-sac. The other kids have never been there.

They are proud of their Tammy Faye Baker memorabilia.

Their project "Cooking with Ketchup" closed down their school for a whole week.

No one likes them, especially the Eds.

They are determined to marry the Eds. They want them to do their dishes.

Amused that the Kankers are essentially being labeled backgrounds characters here, the role they mostly fell into in season 5. "Other" neighborhood kids...

I love that the Kankers have a school blurb to match each of the Eds', and that theirs has similar destructive-intentions to Eddy's video premiere story.

I believe all of this was all known from the UK guide as well, but still, neat stuff!

PAGES 19 & 20 (zoomed in Kanker lineup and their height chart with the Eds)

PAGES 21 & 22 (early promo art that used to be on CN's old Eds webpage, the art of the Eds eating jawbreakers at the end of ep 1 with the overhead text "Ed, Edd n Eddy love JAWBREAKERS!!!", and the art of the Eds all running with overhead text "Ed, Edd n Eddy see something shiny...."Jiggers." That weird "jiggers" statement at the end was normally edited out and I don't know what it means. Looked it up and it seems to be Chinook jargon (like when Ed said he was "skookum at X's and O's") usually said in the same sense as "CHEESE IT!")

PAGES 23+:

The rest of the pages in that bible download are from a 2004 storyboard test. The storyboard sample "It's Raining Eds," which we've seen some submitted samples of before, interpretations with Ed attempting to fly or chew gum and Edd making radioactive gum, I was surprised to find out the outline is just the original outline for the opening sequence to season 3's 'For Your Eds Only', seemingly Jonny was not written into the original outline (or was excised for easier testing purposes) but Kevin's brief cameo was. Now I wonder if they knew this would be used for a test when they wrote it, and if they would've come up with a less random way to include him if weren't forced to be a concise bit for testing's sake. (Your limit is typically 40 storyboard pages in my experience.)

I also noticed that in the included background references, the anonymous adult neighbor house next door to Ed's is officially just referred to as a "generic house."

My analysis ends here, but be sure to download that sometime and enjoy all the raw storyboard sketches at the end of the document!

#ed edd n eddy #series bible #aka cartoon inc #aka cartoon #discovery #eene news

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sineala · 3 years

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The gay Invaders

Hi, internet! Today I'd like to talk about one of the chronologically-first canonically-gay couples in Marvel Comics history: Brian Falsworth (the second Union Jack) and Roger Aubrey (The Destroyer). (I mean "chronological" in terms of in-universe timeline rather than RL publication date; I'm pretty sure Northstar is still the first to publication as far as unambiguously-gay Marvel heroes go.)

If you are a fan of reading or writing about Captain America being queer, you should care about Brian and Roger, because they were two of Steve's fellow Invaders in the 1940s, meaning that they are two of the people on the list of Steve's Old Gay Friends And Teammates, because, yeah, Steve sure had a lot of canonically gay friends during the war. Probably more than you'd think he would have had in the forties! (The other two are Percival Pinkerton, who's part of Nick Fury's Howling Commandos, and of course Steve's childhood friend Arnie Roth. Pinky is gay by word of Stan Lee, IIRC; Arnie was as canonically gay as DeMatteis could make him in the early 1980s, so they didn't say the word "gay" but it's really, really not subtle. Steve compares what Arnie feels for his "roommate" Michael to what Steve feels for his girlfriend Bernie. Yeah.)

I previously made a Tumblr post about Brian and Roger, rounding up some of the canonical evidence of their relationship, but that post is six years old now, and in the intervening years, Marvel has thoughtfully put the rest of the 70s Invaders run on Unlimited as well as the two Citizen V miniseries that star Roger and retcon his relationship with Brian as romantic. So I've read them now, and I've got panels.

Okay. I should probably begin by saying that Brian and Roger are not canonically gay in their first significant appearance together, which is in Invaders vol 1 #19 and #20, published in 1977. Roy Thomas does not seem to have intended them to be a couple, and they aren't canonically one in any of the original Invaders run. However, if you enjoy gay subtext, it's very nice.

This whole arc is the one that introduces Roger in modern canon. He's been brainwashed by the Nazis and the Invaders rescue him and get him back to his normal self. But in #19 we get his backstory in flashback, as related by Montgomery, Lord Falsworth (Brian's father; yes, MCU fans, the name should look familiar) and it turns out that Roger and Brian were basically best friends since childhood:

They were the dearest of friends!

Anyway, they both ended up captured by Nazis, they presumably changed their minds about appeasement as a policy, Brian got out and joined the Invaders, then they had to rescue the brainwashed Roger, and it's a fair amount of fun in a two-issue arc.

The subtext is even more prominent in Invaders #34, in which they find out that someone going by the Destroyer (which is Roger's codename) has been doing villainous deeds, and the Invaders worry that Roger's gotten himself brainwashed again. Brian immediately insists that it can't really be Roger because he knows Roger and Roger Would Never:

Unsurprisingly, Brian is right. It's not really Roger; Master Man is impersonating the Destroyer, and the villains have taken Roger captive, and the Invaders break him out and there is an extremely significant moment where it just so happens that Roger has to catch Brian, saving his life for a change, and they stare deeply into each other's eyes and Brian seems to be having difficulty finishing his sentences:

Some people who read this therefore concluded that Brian and Roger were extremely gay for each other. While ordinarily this sort of shipping is mostly confined to fandom, in this particular instance, one of the people who started shipping Brian/Roger was Fabian Nicieza, and Fabian Nicieza, as you probably know, writes comics for Marvel. I think you see where this is going.

However, first I must inform you that, sadly, Brian has been canonically dead for years. Captain America vol 1 #253-254 -- the two-parter about Baron Blood in the Stern/Byrne Cap run in the 80s -- establishes that Brian died in a car accident in 1953. (This is also the run where Joseph Chapman -- a friend of Jacqueline Falsworth's son Kenneth -- becomes the third (and current) Union Jack.)

(Roger then appears in a bunch of T-Bolts issues; I assume there's nothing interesting there on the gay front because I feel like someone would have told me. I should probably read more than three T-Bolts issues someday.)

So, anyway, in 2001, Fabian Nicieza wrote a miniseries called Citizen V and the V-Battalion. Roger, who is still superheroing as the Destroyer despite being pretty old by this point, is part of the titular V-Battalion, and he has a very prominent role in this miniseries. And in #1, we have the usual splash page of character backstory, and there's a very, um, interesting line there:

Regarding Brian and Roger's relationship, the narration informs us: "It sounds much gayer than it probably was."

This is interesting, obviously for a couple of reasons. One is that, up to this point in canon, as far as I can tell, literally nobody thought any of this sounded the slightest bit gay at all. (Other than, I guess, Fabian Nicieza.) The other reason is that, as we soon find out, it actually was as gay as it sounds. Thanks, Fabian!

In 2002, Nicieza wrote a second miniseries, Citizen V and the V-Battalion: The Everlasting. Issue #1 opens with a flashback set in 1953; specifically, we see Brian's funeral:

Roger is extremely sad, and when Lord Falsworth expresses his sympathy about the death of Roger's "friend" and saying that he knows how much this hurts him, Roger mutters under his breath that he doesn't have the slightest clue:

All is revealed on the next page, when one of the other characters tries to ask Roger about superhero business and Roger snaps at him because, as he says, "I just watched my friend die in my arms."

Except "friend" isn't the word he starts to say:

Yep. That would be "lover." So Roger nearly outs himself. So, yes, now it's absolutely canon. Hooray.

Later on in the issue, which is set in the present day, we have a couple pages of Roger staring at pictures of the two of them and continuing to be sad:

Yeah. They were a couple.

So the question you -- being a Captain America fan -- might ask yourself is, okay, did/does Steve know about any of this? (The reason I started looking all this up was because I wanted to know if Steve knew.) I don't know if we have a panel of Roger specifically admitting any of this to Steve (and if we do, I would like to know about it), but I would be comfortable saying that Steve probably knew back then -- because, well, he seems like the kind of guy who would actually have been fine with it in the 40s, what with all his gay friends -- and also that I can't think of a reason why he wouldn't know now. Because he's definitely worked with Roger again in fairly recent comics, and also Roger is very much out, these days.

In fact, New Invaders #4 (2004) opens with Roger attending Pride:

So, yeah, he's out.

(Then he has to fight, as far as I can tell, homophobic Nazi vampires. They're yelling slurs in German. Great.)

In All-New Invaders #10, which is from 2014 (and which is not the same series as New Invaders), Roger shows up to help out the Invaders, and in passing, he just happens to mention to another character (Joseph Chapman, the current Union Jack), that he is in fact gay:

He and Joseph don't really like each other much; as far as I can tell, their acquaintance in New Invaders consists of Joseph being vaguely homophobic and Roger being bitter about him being Union Jack because he actually wanted to be Union Jack himself to honor Brian's memory -- you know, that thing superheroes sometimes like to do to honor their dead superhero significant others, viz. Hank when Jan was dead after Secret Invasion -- and now Union Jack is this annoying kid and not, y'know, the love of his life. This exchange from New Invaders #4 seems pretty representative of their relationship:

Anyway, yeah, he's pretty obviously out.

Steve isn't actually present for this conversation in All-New Invaders, but he mentions in a later issue of this run that he knows what Roger and his pals have been up to, plot-wise, so I feel comfortable assuming that he's talked to Roger at some point in the previous ten years or so, and therefore, since Roger is completely out at this point in canon, there's no reason Steve shouldn't know now.

On an unrelated note, it's also a fun issue if you're a Steve/Tony fan because this is clearly running in parallel with Hickman's Avengers run, which means that he spends half a page telling Namor that he's mad at him and the rest of the Illuminati (but mostly mad at Tony because... he's just obsessed with Tony in this run, I guess?) about the mindwipe:

This is the sum total of my knowledge about Brian and Roger. No, wait, I know one more thing, which is that Brian was a character in the late, lamented mobile game Avengers Academy, in which he was also actually gay; Roger does not seem to have been there. There's a CBR article that you can read about the whole thing, which mentions some of these details from the comics in passing. (I have no idea why it says that their relationship was alluded to in the Stern/Byrne run; unless I missed something big, the only thing those issues do is establish Brian's death. As far as I can tell, no one is gay in them.)

So, yeah, that's Brian Falsworth and Roger Aubrey, the two gay Invaders. Steve sure has a lot of gay friends.

#posts i actually wrote

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beybladefanboy · 3 years

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Top 5 Metal Masters Episodes

Honestly, out of the three main seasons, Masters to me is the weakest. That is by a slight margin, it’s still a very good season, but it is a more noticeable margin than the one between Fusion and Fury. I think we can all agree that the time they spend in America in the last twenty five or so episodes is the most consistently good part of the season. Before that, this season goes up and down in quality like a rollercoaster. In the end though, this season was more good than lackluster so here are the best episodes.

Honourable Mentions

Episode 98: The Fallen Emperor

This is the episode where Da Xiang and Julian battle. I honestly really relate to Julian’s story where he was held to really high expectations and was never allowed to fail so when he did, he didn’t know how to handle it and felt like he lost everything. This episode also made me really like Da Xiang. He was annoying at first but seeing him become a leader who has found strength supporting his team and getting back up after every defeat and teaching Julian to do the same was really nice. It was a great moment for both of their characters and it was cool seeing Da Xiang use the full extent of his abilities. I didn’t really think of him as a really strong blader before this episode.

Episode 100: The Wild Beast Unleashed

This is Kyoya and Damian’s battle and once again, I’m biased toward Kyoya. I like his battle against Damian more than Gingka’s because Gingka was sort of guaranteed to win while Kyoya could’ve gone either way. I don’t really have much to say: it’s just an epic battle and an interesting look into Kyoya’s character. I won’t go into that because another Tumblr user has already done a much better job and I don’t want to copy them, it’s just really in line with the Kyoya we know.

5) Episode 77: The Dragon Emperor Returns

I mentioned having a Kyoya bias but if there’s a character I have even more of a bias for, it’s Ryuga. Long story short, this is the episode that made Ryuga my favourite character. I liked him as a villain in Fusion, and was already starting to get a bit of a crush on him, but this episode made me fall in love. In fact, I can pinpoint the exact moment it happened: when he explained how the dark power was man made so he could overcome it and draw L-Drago’s power from its original source, showing that he was willing to admit his mistakes and determined to grow from the experience. How could I not admire that? He’s also just a total badass. His entrance in this episode, walking in with a sadistic looking smile as he makes meteors fall all around him before he beats the crap out of everyone there was just amazing. This is also a great episode for Tsubasa, another favourite character of mine. He’s going crazy due to the dark power in this episode, letting his dark side take over and drive him to battle Sophie, Wales, and Julian in the woods at night with the intent to destroy them. It’s tragic but the Dark Tsubasa arc was the best part of Masters so I really liked seeing him struggle with this darker side and seeing Ryuga provide him the solution: to become one with the dark power. Just a really interesting episode overall.

4) Episode 69: The Scorching Hot Lion

Here’s more of my Kyoya bias. This episode was a huge breath of fresh air. Masters before this point was really uninteresting for me, with the exception of the Dark Tsubasa stuff which hadn’t been portrayed much at this point. It was mostly battles I didn’t care for and Gingka, Masamune, and Yu being insanely obnoxious. So to get away from them, and see a character’s return I was personally waiting for with baited breath, it was like a drink of cold water on a hot day. This is a simple episode all things considered: it’s just the formation of Team Wild Fang but that was more interesting than anything else in the season at that point. Kyoya and Nile’s camaraderie/friendship is developed and showcased well, to the point where they already really feel like a team. Demure is sort of just inserted into their group but he does prove himself to be useful and to kid me, it was a nice surprise that he was the one to make their team. So yeah, just a simple episode showing fun interesting characters forming bonds.

3) Episode 91: The Furious DJ Battle?!

This episode is honestly just funny. It doesn’t accomplish anything plot-wise: it’s just Gan Gan Galaxy trying and failing to find a replacement member for their team since Tsubasa and Yu are both hospitalized. Kenta and Wang Fu Zhong all battle for this honour, when Ryo interferes in his Phoenix costume. He tries to join the team, stupidly not knowing the rules of his own tournament and in one of the most satisfying moments EVER, Hikaru puts this idiot in his place and Ryo is disappointed. His suffering is points in my book. Then the American and Japanese blader DJs come in. Rewatching it now, this episode was probably fan service for people that wanted to see them battle but it’s honestly great fan service. Seeing the main cast react to such a terrible bey battle, with the series’ over the top announcing, is just amazing. Words can’t really give it justice. Just watch the episode. It’s the funniest one in the show.

2) Episode 72: Eternal Rivals

In my opinion, this was Gingka and Kyoya’s best battle. I always have fun seeing these two battle but at this point in the series, they hadn’t battled one on one since Metal Fusion. The battles got much more layered and fierce since then. Gingka and Kyoya are constantly going back and forth between who is winning, trading special moves and keeping you on your toes and wondering who’s going to win. And then… neither of them do. Gingka and Kyoya end up being equals in power, using up every ounce of their strength trying to defeat their opponent before collapsing from exhaustion. Yeah, it’s kind of disappointing we never saw Kyoya defeat Gingka. However, I think a tie was the perfect way to end this specific battle. Before this, Masamune lost to Nile so one more loss would’ve kicked Gan Gan Galaxy out of the tournament but simply giving Gingka the win would’ve sort of discredited the hard work Kyoya put in. Having them tie keeps Gan Galaxy at the disadvantage without making them lose and showcases how far Kyoya has come as a balder. Overall, just a really epic battle that makes the slower parts before it worth it.

1) Episode 79: Dark Eagle

There’s a very simple reason I love this episode: it’s the culmination of the Dark Tsubasa Arc, aka the best thing about Metal Masters. It was an interesting look into a character's psyche and added a darker layer to the earlier part of this season. However, this resolution was what made it really stick out to me. In other shows I've seen (Yugioh for example) the goal is always to drive out/destroy the darkness within people but this episode decided to go in a more realistic direction. Realistic in an representational way I mean. In real life, we can't drive out our "darkness" so to speak. What we can do in real life is accept ourselves and learn to overcome our inner demons rather than denying them, which is what Tsubasa did in this episode. He accepted that his darker self was part of him but that it didn’t define who he was, overcoming that darkness and creating a new special move on the spot to defeat Sophie and Wales. Yeah, the battle itself is still really good but the flashback of Tsubasa as a kid and him overcoming his dark power is what propels the episode into being one of the best.

#beyblade #beyblade metal fight #beyblade metal saga #metal masters #beyblade metal masters #daxiang wang #julian konzern #don't think I've ever tagged them before #they're both cool #kyoya tategami #tsubasa otori #ryuga #ryuga kishatu #gingka hagane #I do love this season #I really hope I haven't made anyone think otherwise

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sixeyesgojo · 3 years

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Team Gojo as flowers

Summary: Gojo, Yuji, Megumi, Nobara and Sukuna as types of flowers

Characters: stated above

Content warning: mild manga spoilers

Word count: -

A/N: I’d appreciate feedback here (and in general) because I’m not sure whether to do this kind of hc for other JJK characters or not. I am thinking of Toge in particular because I love my salmon boy. Also fyi, this was some time after 135 but before 140 for sure.

Gojo Satoru - Nemophila

I just saw these and immediately thought about how good they would suit him???

another name for them would be baby blue eyes (no, I had no idea beforehand)

they symbolize prosperity, victory, success or triumph over an enemy

flashback to Gojo beating Jogo tf up... but add a nemophila field in the background <3

That being said, his profile literally states that he is perfect in every way (except for his personality but we still love that, right?), so if this isn't success in every way then idk

This flower's essence is also said to be helpful for those who put up a mask over their painful sensitivity

Gojo also displays characteristics of cynism and mistrust towards the higher-ups

Furthermore, I think he is a little anti-social - doesn't have a lot of friends. As someone from the secret Jujutsu World, he's bound to be hidden in a way. This is enforced by the fact that he is the strongest, so a lot of people and curses are out to get his head. I'd think he doesn't keep anyone too close to him so that they do not become a target for anyone. Must be traumatizing to be him.

This flower helps soothen the soul's conflict, healing it slowly, which is exactly what Gojo needs imo

it really is the perfect flower for him

but it's native to North America

Yeah, watch him teleport there to bring back a bouquet of them for his s/o

Itadori Yuji - Protea (orange)

This kind of flower comes in many different shapes, which is why it's a symbol of transformation, which is exactly what Yuji embodies by going from a regular human being to being a Jujutsu sorcerer

Diversity: Yuji is open to anything, Gojo even described him as "having a few screws loose up there". I don't even think he questions how he is being taught by Gojo or anything for that matter?

Yuji also embodies courage and is known to be daring and i don't think i need to explain this one further

I mean, the boy literally jumped right into a curse to rescue Sasaki and Iguchi and help Megumi while not even knowing what a curse is

Orange proteas represent cheerfulness, joy and happiness - if that isn't our sunshine boy, then idk. After what happened to Junpei, he seemed a little down at first but recent episodes have shown that he will not slow down because of that and will keep on being the energetic fluffball of joy that he is.

moreover, they also symbolize unlimited possibilities as his cursed technique so far probably isn't even his final technique yet - compared to Nobara's hammer and Megumi's shikigami. All we know is that Sukuna's techniques are going to be his over time but we don't even know the full extent of the said curse's power yet

If anyone ever mentioned all this to him and showed him the flower, he would think it looks weird at first but will grow to find it interesting (especially the shape). It's not like the flower is native to Japan, so he most likely wouldn't have seen it anywhere.

Gets really excited if you were to give this baby one of these flowers

Fushiguro Megumi - Anemone (purple)

hear me out

The most common symbol for the purple Anemone is 'protection against evil'. While it's Megumi's primary focus in his line of work as a professional, you ought to know he became a sorcerer in the first place because of his sister, Tsukimi.

Fragility: While Megumi shows a lot of potential for growth, it's also said that he will most likely stagnate due to the mental aspect. He's pretty insecure about his own abilities and doesn't think much of himself but that doesn't mean he won't use his powers in order to protect someone.

Anticipation: As previously stated, Megumi shows a lot of potential as a sorcerer, even to the point that Sukuna (mind you, the creature that only cares about himself) has praised him and will not hesitate to make Megumi a pawn to whatever his big, mysterious plans may be. With that being said, if Sukuna himself is interested in our blue-haired boy, we can anticipate great things from Megumi in the foreseeable future.

This specific flower seems to be a double-edged sword in terms of symbolism. In some cultural circles, it is believed to be a symbol of bad luck, whereas in other areas it's seen as a lucky charm (in which we hope this is the one for our boy). I see the same principle applying to Megumi's descent and his mysterious technique - not gonna elaborate further though (feel free to ask though)

a rather dark symbol for this particular flower: "death of a loved one". In this case, I am referring to Tsukimi, his step-sister. She may not be dead but it is indicated that she is in a comatose state due to being cursed. It seems that Megumi does not know when - or rather whether - she will wake up or not. Knowing this boy, he probably has tried anything and everything in his power to wake her up (hell, he probably even consulted Gojo) but nothing worked so far. This poor boy is anxious about it all the time.

he's surprised anyone would even associate him with flowers but wouldn't mind it

Kugisaki Nobara - Orchid (mainly orange)

I had some trouble finding something for her but orchids seem to suit her best

couldn't really pick a particular color though but I am leaning towards orange

orange orchids represent: pride, enthusiasm and boldness

Nobara is very proud of who she is. She strikes me as a person who is not afraid to tell her story, even though she despices the countryside where she is from. She also takes pride in staying true to herself all the time, to the point of admitting that she only enrolled in Jujutsu High so that she could move to Tokyo to Yuji, who was basically a stranger at that time

She is also very enthusiastic about her own future. She knows she won't ever like having to exorcise curses but somehow, being a Jujutsu sorcerer excites her.

plus points for her being enthusiastic about winning in the Kyoto Goodwill Event Arc and just beating up the Kyoto students

I don't need to mention her being enthusiastic about shopping and sightseeing in big cities, do I?

Bold? Oh, she is bold. She has no filter when it comes to speaking her mind and would never hesitate to put anyone in their place. I see her going places in Gojo's revolution... and cussing at the superiors.

Yellow symbolizes new beginnings and friendships. Nobara does not have any problems making new friends, she adapts fairly well in new environments. There's also the way she mourned for Yuji, despite "only knowing him for two weeks" and I don't even doubt for a second that it was her making him hold the black funeral picture frame when he came back lol

Pink: grace, femininity, joy + purple: royalty and admiration

There is no doubt that Nobara tries to enjoy her life to the fullest *cough* moving to Tokyo

Moreover, there is something about her that just screams "queen behavior" to me and I don't even mean that in the slang sense. Have you all seen how graceful this girl moves? (I would like to thank MAPPA at this point)

Nobara shows respect where it's due - I'm just gonna mention Maki here - but is a very admirable girl herself

probably has an orchid plant in her room, ngl

Ryomen Sukuna - Snapdragon

please, the name already sounds a little dangerous

This flower shares a certain character trait with him: being unique

Snapdragons are usually associated with strength due to the way they even grow in rocky areas and if that's not screaming Sukuna's name, who is all about strength, then correct me

Deviousness is practically Sukuna's second name, so this symbol isn't exactly off the track either. Let me remind you about the way Sukuna and Mahito laughed at Yuji??

Graciousness: just like Nobara, he possesses some sort of grace that makes me percept him as a majestic being

but maybe that's just his throne of bones and title as King of Curses contributing

and him owning a shrine???

or maybe that is just the way he majestetically killed that special grade lol

"Only large insects like bumblebees can pollinate snapdragons because the petals are too heavy for smaller insects to push apart." I read this and if you reverse it a little, it somehow reminded me of the fact that Sukuna's fingers need to have a powerful vessel aka small fry won't do because they will simply die away.

Deception: despite being given the minimum amount of information about Sukuna in general, I just don't see him being anything but egoistic and evil. I just cannot picture it. So yeah, put everything evil in a pot, stir a little and don't be surprised if your result is not the Powerpuff girls but a four-eyed multi-talented and deceptive curse that is out to kill you for fun

#gojo satoru #fushiguro megumi #itadori yuji #kugisaki nobara #ryomen sukuna #gojo satoru headcanons #fushiguro megumi headcanons #itadori yuji headcanons #kugisaki nobara headcanons #ryomen sukuna headcanons #jujutsu headcanons #as flowers

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captainpikeachu · 3 years

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So having recently rewatch the first Cap movie for my MCU rewatch, I have so much feels about the ways many things about Steve in this film actually echoes John’s story in TFATWS.

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Steve: Bucky, come on! There are men laying down their lives. I got no right to do any less than them. That’s what you don’t understand. This isn’t about me. Bucky: Right. Cause you got nothing to prove.

In a way, Steve did have something to prove, to prove that he could do his part for the war effort and not be left behind, forgotten, considered worthless, and not given a chance. He fights to have the chance to prove himself. In this way so did John. John comes into the story with a chip on his shoulder, to prove that he could live up to the legacy and the mythology set by Steve. His chance to prove that he could do the right thing and help people.

The thing is though, Erskine did give Steve a chance to prove himself, he believed in Steve and had faith. John never really had someone who would fight for him and believe in him on his behalf to others.

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Phillips: Hodge passed every test we gave him. He’s big, he’s fast, he obeys orders. He’s a soldier. Erskine: He’s a bully. Phillips: You don’t win wars with niceness, doctor. You win war with guts.

I know that everyone consistently compares John to Hodge, that John is what Erskine was afraid of happening and what would have been if Hodge had been given the serum. But that surface level comparison is misleading at best, because when Phillips throws that fake grenade to test everyone’s guts, Hodge runs away. John would have jumped on the grenade just like Steve did. John wouldn’t have hesitated. Hodge was a bully who purposefully tried to mess with Steve in training and mocking him. John didn’t purposefully try to mess around with anyone, he only ever just wanted to do his duty just like Steve did. In fact, John has far more in common with Steve than he ever does with Hodge.

Phillips said that you win war with guts, and Steve jumping on that grenade showed that he had guts, this links directly to John's comments while doing that GMA interview, he specifically brings up that he may not have flashy gadgets or super-strength but that he has guts and that’s what Captain America always had and needed. And John does have guts, nobody earns 3 Medals of Honor without having guts.

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Erskine: The serum amplifies everything that is inside. So, good becomes great. Bad becomes worse. This is why you were chosen. Because a strong man, who has known power all his life, will lose respect for that power. But a weak man knows the value of strength, and knows compassion.

This comment from Erskine is often used by fandom to show why John is the wrong choice as opposed to Steve. He’s the bad that becomes worse or the strong man who has had power all his life. But that interpretation is only there if you take everything Erskine says to be a binary choice of good and bad. It’s this automatic assumption that because John is not Steve, then he has to be the bad. Except John is really the middle ground. He has light and darkness within him, it’s a constant civil war, the serum didn’t just amplified everything bad to become worse, it also amplified the good in him to become great. The interpretation that John is a representation of only “bad becomes worse” plainly ignores John’s decision in Episode 6 to let go of revenge to save people. This choice was made AFTER he got the serum, if he is only bad that becomes worse, then he wouldn’t have saved those people. By saving those people, John shows that the serum doesn’t simply work on a binary standard, just like people aren’t binary of only good and only bad. John’s story deepens what the first Cap movie set up about how the serum works, and shows a story progression that is very much like how in real life as kids, we are first taught those fairy tale stories of good versus evil, but we grow up and learn the world is more complex and that people aren’t just one thing or another.

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Senator Brandt: With all due respect to the Colonel, I think we may be missing the point. I’ve seen you in action, Steve. More importantly, the country’s seen it. Paper. The enlistment lines have been around the block since your picture hit the newsstands. You don’t take a soldier, a symbol like that, and hide him in a lab. Son, do you want to serve your country on the most important battlefield of the war? Steve: Sir, that’s all I want. Senator Brandt: Then, congratulations. You just got promoted.

---

Steve: I don’t know if I can do this. Brandt’s Aide: Nothing to it. Sell off a few bonds, bonds buy bullets, bullets kills Nazi’s. Bing bang boom. You’re an American hero. Steve: It’s just not how I pictured getting there.

---

Peggy: I understand you’re "America’s New Hope"? Steve: Bond sales take a ten percent bump in every state I visit. Peggy: Is that Senator Brandt I hear? Steve: At least he’s got me doin’ this. Phillips would have had be stuck in lab. Peggy: And these are your only two options? A lab rat or a dancing monkey? You were meant for more than this, you know?

Steve’s desire for service and duty being manipulated by politicians to sell bonds is the exact same scenario as John’s desire for service and duty being manipulated by politicians to make him the new Captain America. It’s even echoed by Val’s continued manipulations in using John’s loyalty to service and country into getting him to do what she wants.

Steve was nervous, reluctant, and unsure of going on stage to perform. We saw the same concerns that John had in that locker room before his big interview. Neither Steve nor John wanted the fame and pageantry, they just wanted to do the job, they just wanted to help, but both having to accept that the “dancing monkey” aspect came with the job description.

But Steve breaks free of the confines of others’ demands of him because Peggy not only points out that he has other options, but also because it was in that moment he discovered that Bucky was either missing or dead and he could do something about it. If Steve wasn’t having that conversation with Peggy, if Steve hadn’t heard that Bucky was missing, then he might have just stayed with the USO tours and been a dancing monkey his whole life. Circumstances arose in Steve’s favor, and he had people who believed in him helping him to get to the goals that he wanted. John on the other hand lost the one person who did have faith in him and there was no way to bring Lemar back, and Val swooped in at the exact right time to give a lost and in-mourning person the opportunity to feel like not everything had been lost.

----------------

Senator Brandt: I am honored to present this medal for valor to my personal friend, Captain America!

This is an interesting moment because I don’t know if this “medal for valor” is a Medal of Honor or not, but if it was, then it makes Steve’s story and John’s story even more of a similar parallel.

-----------------

Private Lorraine: I read about what you did. Steve: Oh! The…yeah! Well, that’s you know? Just doin’ what needed to be done. Private Lorraine: Sounded like more than that. You saved nearly four hundred men.

When Natalie Dormer’s character comments on how Steve was able to save nearly 400 men and get them back alive, all I could think about was Lemar’s line to John in Episode 4, “think of all the lives we could have saved that day if we had that serum.”

If John and Lemar had the serum on the day of the event that gotten John his Medals of Honor, maybe everyone could have made it back alive, maybe it wouldn’t have been the worst day of John’s life, maybe he wouldn’t have looked at those medals like badges of failure because he couldn’t save everyone.

And it also reminded me of comments from Wyatt Russell during an interview where he mentions that John was in the service while Steve was still operating as Captain America and going around to save the day, but Captain America never saved the day for John. In a way, there is almost a sense of resentment, that Captain America could save the day for everyone else, but John still had to fight through the horrors of war and find a way to survive on his own and protect his men, all without the serum, without Captain America’s help.

--------------------

Peggy: He damn well must have thought you were worth it.

Peggy’s comments to Steve about how Bucky must have thought Steve was worth dying for just reminds me of how Lemar jumped in to tackle Karli and stop her from killing John, all knowing of the risks to his own life, because Lemar definitely thought that John was worth dying for.

--------------------

Anyways, these were just some of the moments that really jumped out at me in regards to how Cap 1 laid a very interesting foundation for what would be John’s story in TFATWS. This is why I love doing occasional rewatches, it really makes you look at the story in new ways when there’s new information that recontextualizes the film.

#john walker #steve rogers #lemar hoskins #wyatt russell #the falcon and the winter soldier #captain america the first avenger #marvel #mcu #tfatws #tfatws meta #marvel meta #mcu meta

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beatriceeagle · 5 years

Note

I'm more of a fantasy than sci-fi person, but consider my interest piqued. Why should I watch farscape?

Okay, the thing is, every Farscape fan’s pitch on Why You, Yes You, Should Watch Farscape ends up sounding very similar, and that’s because Farscape is a black hole that sucks you in and does things to your brain, and after you’ve watched it you are never, ever the same, which incidentally is basically the plot of Farscape.

I would summarize the basic plot for you, but that’s work, and luckily, the show’s credits sequence includes a handy summary that I will provide instead of doing that work: “My name is John Crichton, an astronaut. A radiation wave hit, and I got shot through a wormhole. Now I’m lost in some distant part of the universe on a ship, a living ship, full of strange alien life forms. Help me. Listen, please. Is there anybody out there who can hear me? I’m being hunted by an insane military commander. Doing everything I can. I’m just looking for a way home.“

So let me break down that monologue into its component reasons you should watch Farscape.

1) Some of the strange alien life forms are Muppets.

Farscape a co-production with the Jim Henson Company, and while there are many aliens played by humans in make-up, there are also a considerable number (including two of the regular crew) who are Muppets. By which I do not mean Kermit. I mean really gorgeous, elaborate works of art.

Also, even a lot of the humans-in-makeup aliens just look cool, and incredibly weird. Here’s an alien who appears in a single episode of season 1:

Not that there aren’t, you know, occasional Star Trek-style “these guys are just humans with weird hair,” or whatever, but in general, the aliens on Farscape look really alien. And that’s more than an aesthetic choice; it’s Farscape’s driving narrative principle. The aliens look alien, they act alien, they have alien values.

You know how a lot of sci-fi shows will have a stand-in for “fuck,” like Battlestar Galactica has “frak”? Well, Farscape has “frell.” And also “dren.” And yotz, hezmana, mivonks, loomas, tralk, snurch, eema, drannit, dench, biznak, arn, drad, fahrbot, narl. Some of those are swear words, but some of them are just words, never explicitly translated, that the alien characters will pepper into their speech, because, well, why should translator microbes be able to completely translate all the nuances of an alien culture? You’ll pick it up from context. One time, in passing, a character mentions that he’s familiar with the concept of suicide, but there’s no word for it in his language. I cannot emphasize to you enough how fleeting this moment is; the episode is not about suicide, we’re not having a great exchange of cultural ideas—at the time, the characters are running down a corridor in a crisis, as they are about 70 percent of the time—it’s just that the subject got brought up, and this character needed to talk around the fact that he literally didn’t have a word, in that moment. Things like that happen all the time, on Farscape.

Because more than anything else, Farscape is a show about culture shock. John Crichton is this straight, white Southern guy, at the top of his game—he’s an astronaut! he’s incredibly high status!—and then he ends up on the other side of the galaxy, where none of his cultural markers of privilege hold any meaning, where he doesn’t know the rules, where he literally can’t even open the doors. And he has to unlearn the idea that humanity is central, that he is the norm.

2) John Crichton, an astronaut, is pretty great.

A show that’s about a straight white guy with high status having to learn that he’s not the center of the universe could easily be centered around a really insufferable person, but one of the subtle things that makes Farscape so wonderful is that Crichton is, for the most part, pretty excellent. He has a lot of presumptions to unlearn because almost anyone in his cultural position would, but he’s also just a stand-up guy: compassionate, intelligent, open-minded, decent, forgiving, brave, hopeful.

And the galaxy tries to kick a whole lot of that out of him. It doesn’t succeed, mostly, but if Farscape is about anything other than culture shock, it’s about the lasting effects of trauma. How you can go through a wormhole one person, and experience things that turn you into someone you don’t recognize.

That’s kind of grim-sounding, but ultimately, what I’m trying to say is that Farscape is almost fanatically devoted to character work. Crichton is not the only character who sounds like he should be one thing and ends up being another. All of the characters—all of them, all of them, even the annoying ones—are complicated wonders. And you don’t have to wonder whether the events of the episode you’re watching are going to matter. They will. Everything that happens to the characters leaves a mark. Everything leaves them forever changed. Whether it’s mentioned explicitly or not—and often enough, it’s not explicit—the characters remember what has happened to them.

3) The living ship houses a lot of excellent women, among them the ship itself.

Ah, the women of Farscape, thou art the loves of my fucking life.

There’s Aeryn Sun, former Peacekeeper (that’s the military that the “insane military commander” hails from) now fugitive, currently learning the meaning of the word “compassion” (literally). She will break your fingers and also your heart. John/Aeryn is the main canon romantic ship.

There’s Pa’u Zhoto Zhaan, a priestess of the ninth level, current pacifist, former anarchist. Sorry, leading anarchist. She orgasms in bright light! (Oh my god, Farscape.)

There’s Chiana, my fucking bestie, a teenage(ish? ages in Farscape are weird) fugitive on the run from a repressive authoritarian state. Chiana is like a seductress con artist grifter thief who mostly just wants to survive so that she can have fun, damn it. Characters on Farscape do not really discuss sexualities (sex, yes, sexualities, no) and it would be fair to say that several of them do not fall along human sexuality lines generally, but I’m gonna go ahead and say that Chiana is canonically not straight.

Then there’s Moya, the ship herself, and it’s hard to get a straight read on Moya’s personality, since she mostly can’t speak. But she definitely has opinions, and things and people she cares about. And she moves the plot, though that gets into spoiler territory.

Past first season, further excellent women show up: Jool (controversial, but I like her), Sikozu (I once saw a Tumblr meme where someone had marked down that Sikozu would lose her shit when someone pronounced “gif” wrong, and that’s absolutely correct, and it’s why I love her), and Noranti (who is incredibly weird, and incredibly hard to summarize, but man, you gotta love her willingness to just show up and do her thing). Plus, there’s a recurring female villain, Grayza, who I could write probably multiple essays about. (I don’t know how you will feel about Grayza, as not everyone loves her, but I think she’s fucking fascinating, especially because she’s not actually the only recurring female villain. We also get Ahkna!)

(Side note: I should mention, here, that the cast of Farscape is really, really white. There is one cast member of color, Lani Tupu, but he pretty much represents the entirety of even, like, incidental diversity in casting for the series.)

Anyway, Farscape is full of awesome women, and also awesome and unexpected men, and it really enjoys playing with audience expectations of gender roles, generally. Literal entire books have been written about the way that Farscape fucks around with sex, sexuality, and gender. It’s a little weird because it was the late 90s/early 2000s, and sometimes that does come through, but Farscape’s guiding principle was always to try not to present American culture of the time as the norm, so like. It is not.

(An aside on Farscape and sex: Literally every character on Farscape has sexual tension with every other character. If you are a shipper, this is a Good Show, because no matter who you ship, there will not only be subtext, you will get a Moment of some kind. Multiple characters kiss the Muppet. Farscape is dedicated to getting into the nitty-gritty of the galaxy—I like to think of it as showing the guts of the universe—so a lot of the show is kind of squishy. They live on a biomechanoid ship, instead of androids there are “bioloids,” there’s a lot of focus on strange alien biologies, and lots of weird glowing fluids and things. I think the sex thing is kind of part and parcel of the larger biology focus: Farscape is really fascinated with how we all eat and evolve and live and die and, well, fuck. Which is in turn, kind of part of its focus on making everything really alien.)

4) Other stuff you should know.

Farscape as a whole is excellent, but it was kind of the product of creative anarchy—an Australian/American coproduction (oh yeah, everyone except Crichton speaks with an Australian accent) that was also partnered with the Henson company, whose showrunners were based in America but whose actual production all took place in Australia, and who was just constantly trying new things. So individual episodes can vary wildly in quality. It really takes off in the back half of season one, but no season is without a few off episodes.

It is extraordinarily funny, and I really think I haven’t stressed that enough. It’s one of the shows I want to quote the most in my daily life, but almost all of its humor is really context-dependent, and if you just wander around going, “Hey Stark? What’s black and white, and black and white, and black and white?” people look at you really funny.

It’s very conversant with pop culture generally (although obviously sci-fi specifically, and Star Trek most specifically of all) and really enjoys deconstructing tropes, often to the effect of, “Well, Crichton really does not know what to do here, does he?” but sometimes just to be interesting.

There are also a lot of themes about science, and its uses and misuses.

The whole thing is fucking epic, and if you get invested at all, will take you on an emotional ride.

This show is weird. I know that that’s probably come across by now, but I think it’s worth reiterating as its own point: Farscape is so weird. Like, proudly, unabashedly, trying its hardest, weird. An amazing kind of weird.

If you’re into fantasy, you should know that there’s a recurring villain who’s just a wizard. Like, they don’t bother to explain it any more than that, he’s just a fucking wizard.

In summary: You should watch Farscape because it is a weird, wild, emotional, epic romance/drama/action/allegory full of Muppets and leather and one-liners and emotional gut punches and love, and if you let it, it will worm its way into you and never let go, which, now that I think of it, is another Farscape plot.

Send me meta prompts to distract me from my migraine!

#farscape #meta

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megashadowdragon · 3 years

Video

youtube

fgo theory is caster cu really odin

comments :

There is also the 10 bond CE for him being the Yggdrasil Tree, which is very Norse. (the fact he needs a bunch of Yggdrasil seeds may also be a bit of a hint.) Interestingly, the Wickerman festivals were held throughout Europe (Areas such as England and Scotland) and were regarded as a neo-pagan festivity. Chances are, if CasCu really is Odin, it is highly likely he will take action in the English Lostbelt second part. I think itd be really cool, but if that was the case itd be more likely Cu caster was a Cu-Odin fusion similar to Scathach-Skadi. We know its within Odin's ability to do a fusion like this due to how he did the same for Skadi. It also explains how caster cu retains the protection from arrows and disengage skills. It also makes more sense how he's kept his identity a secret, because it's not false that he is Cu.

www . reddit . com/r/grandorder/comments/lkw9xm/summary_of_the_caster_cu_chulainnodin_theory/

At absolutely no point does he ever give his name or makes any mention to it.

Other Servants who initially don't give their names say that they'll give it to you later. Caster does not even bring up the subject.

In the Garden of Sinners crossover event, he says "there's no Cú Chulainn here". It's treated as a gag, but...

In the Singularity F Memorial Quest, he's the only Servant referred to by his Class name instead of his True name.

In Lostbelt 6 he finally introduces himself... as Grimnir. This is an alias that Odin uses in the Grímnismál.

He's not supposed to be the Caster of the Fuyuki Grail War in the first place. In the original reality, it's Medea, while in FGO reality it's Solomon. Material states that Singularity F is the result of data colliding, and Caster resulted from that. However, in that case it should be either Solomon or Medea who appear in Singularity F, not Cú Chulainn.

One of his lines goes as following: "Isn't bit boring to play a game that never ends? For better or for worse, it's like you can't move the pieces forward, yeah?" Is he talking about Singularity F? At any rate, this sounds weird.

His Final Ascension art and animation update features two white wolves. Odin is stated to have two wolves named Geri and Freki.

His second Noble Phantasm, which he mentions in one of his My Room lines, is called "Ochd Deug Odin - Seal of the Great God". It's an exceedingly powerful Rank A Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm with potentially Game Breaking effects, but what's interesting is its description: it activates by chanting its True Name and using all 18 primordial runes granted by Scáthach at once (keep in mind she taught him the Norse ones) and it "temporarily unleashes the power of the rune possessed by the Great Odin". Aside from the weirdness of him even having that Noble Phantasm in the first place (he's not supposed to have Wickerman either, but at least we get an explanation for that), why can't he use it? (Potential Game-Breaker status not withstanding).

In the North America version of the game, his Bond Craft Essense is called "Yggdrasil Tree". That's taken from Norse Mythology, so why would a Celt have it?

In addition, the Yggdrasil tree has a particularly strong tie to Odin. The Ygg bit is another name for him, and according to legend at some point he hanged himself from one of its branches to gain wisdom.

For some reason, he's in the Nordic Fields during Boudica's 3rd Strengthening Quest.

During Valentine's Day in the return gift scene, he talks about the Human Order Incineration and the Human Order Reorganization - a.k.a. the Lostbelts. Somehow he knew about the Lostbelts before the game even got to that point.

In the 2019 Valentine's event, he's seen reading the book "Scandinavia's Beautiful Mountains".

In the FGO mats, Sigurd takes special notice of him and then has a Double Take. He also seems confused about him in his material profile. The fact that Sigurd noticed Caster is odd, but it should also be noted that Sigurd encountered Odin a number of times in his legend, thus making him one of the most likely people to recognize him.

Scáthach's Interlude brings up a LOT of questions. The regular Lancer Cú Chulainn says that his power is reduced because half his Saint Graph is missing. Mash suggests that the reduction in power may be because he was separated in numerous classes, but Lancer Cú is surprised that he can be summoned as a Caster. In addition, there are several Servants summonable in numerous classes, and none of them has this problem. There's a possibility that the other half of the Saint Graph went to Caster, and he's using an external source to stabilize it.

According to the Arcade version of FGO, it's impossible for any version of Cú Chulainn to be summoned without Gáe Bolg or the skill "Martial Arts Disciplining in the Shadow Country". Yet Caster has neither, thus making him an impossible summoning.

Not very noticeable in the English version, but he occasionally slips into using the "washi" pronoun during dialogue. For those who might not know, "washi" is actually pretty formal, and contrasts Cú Chulainn's much more casual "ore".

A lot of his official art has him looking subtly different that the other versions of Cú Chulainn.

He has lighter-coloured hair in all of his artwork, and Fate/Grand Carnival gives him wrinkles under the eyes. This trait is usually used in anime to show a character around 40-50 years old; an age that Cú Chulainn never reached.

In his card art and formal outfit card, his eyes are almost orange rather than red. In addition, one eye is always at least partially hidden.

In his April Fool's card, he has different facial features than the rest of the Cú Chulainns.

Tying to the above, Odin is known for disguising himself as an older man, usually a wizard, in a hood, and he's missing an eye. Missing eye aside, Caster fits most of that criteria, and as pointed out above, most his art hides his eye anyway. Odin gave said eye in exchange for wisdom, and there are a few remarks that Caster is getting smarter.

In the original Fate/stay night, Emiya draws a connection between Gáe Bolg and Odin's spear, Gungnir. Considering that he has picked up things like Rho Aias and Caladbolg, we can probably take him at his word. In his animation update, Caster throws his staff above the enemies heads, and then it changes tragectory to attack them from behind. While this could easily be a reference to Gáe Bolg's actual method of killing in the myth (it entered the victim through the asshole), it could also be a reference to how Odin would throw Gungnir above the heads of his enemies to declare a war.

Another detail from his animation upgrade is that his Instant Runes often take the form of a Valknut; this symbol according to some scholars is associated with Odin.

There are overall several indications that Caster will play a significant role later in the story: he's featured in the trailer of Lostbelt 6 and received his animation update during the Lostbelt 6 livestream, and Word of God has implied several times that we will be returning to Singularity F at some point.

Tying to the above, in one of My Room conversations, he say's he'll teach you how to use Runes later. Maybe it's not Blatant Lies after all.

Caster and Odin share several personality traits. Both of them are known as "the raging one", are strongly tied with the concept of war, magic, and wisdom, and both of them are The Gadfly - as Caster displays in Singularity F when he tries to get Mash to activate her Noble Phantasm. In addition, in various events Caster seems to have a gambling problem, which is also one of Odin's traits. Not to mention "summon me as a Lancer" works for Odin too.

The recent Lostbelt 6 update also adds fuel to the fire. In My Room dialogues, Scáthach tells him that his Rune magic is slightly different from what she taught him. He asks Sigurd not to look at him with the glasses, when he sees Brynhildr he muses that this must be fate/karma and specifically refers to Scáthach-Skadi as "Lostbelt Skadi."

His new battle lines from the same update are just as interesting.

"Witness the essence of the Rune magecraft taught by Scáthach... Sure, let's go with that." Along with Scáthach accusing him of his Rune magic being different, this could easily imply that he didn't learn them from her.

Another line is that "he doesn't have the noose of his neck anymore". As an above point states, this Odin did this to learn his runes. The noose bit also never happened to Cú Chulainn.

One of his victory lines references "wolves and crows" and that he has "no idea what they're talking about". The crows part could be a reference to the story of Cú Chulainn's death, which features a crow sitting on his corpse, but the whole quote seems to better reference Odin and his pets; the wolves Geri and Freki, and the crows Huginn and Muninn.

Lostbelt 6 also gives his a buff to his Disengage skill. More specifically, it's actually two buffs that activate back-to-back, with the first called "At the Fountain" and the second called "Sacrifice to the World Tree". Very specific, game.

In Lostbelt 2, it is outright stated that it was Odin who fused Skadi and Scáthach together. Who says he never did it before?

#fgo #fate grand order #fate/ grand order #fate/grand order #fgo theory #caster cu #fgo odin

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seaweedbrain404 · 3 years

Text

Wolfstar Au: Questions and Confessions (pt 3 of Parties and Morning Regrets)

tw: panic attack

pt 2

pt4

read it on ao3

obligatory tag for @icitlali as you’re pretty much the main reason this fic turned into a series, i hope you enjoy it!

When Remus woke up again, hours later, he noticed three things. 1) there was a blanket over him, 2) Lily was home, he could hear her singing along to music in the kitchen and 3) Sirius was nowhere to be seen.

Just as well, Remus thought as he got up. He felt and heard all of his joints clicking and cracking while he stretched. He wrapped the blanket tightly around himself and waddled into the kitchen.

“Hi” He whispered, despite not having to.

Lily spun around, catching him in a hug. “Feeling better?” she asked, pressing her face against his chest.

“Yeah, sleep is good” Remus nodded as they let go, and Lily went back to cooking.

“I’m making dinner, you were asleep for ages”

“Figured, I’m starved”

“I slept with James”

“James?” The name vaguely rang a bell in Remus’ head but it’s not like he knew a lot of people called James.

“Potter- James Potter, remember?” Lily chewed her bottom lip, “from school?”

“Oh”

James Potter had been best friends with Sirius Black and that was probably the only way Remus knew him. There was also the fact that he had chased after Lily for most of their school days. Most people thought he was a rich, spoiled and arrogant boy but Remus found he never really saw him like that. From their limited interactions, Remus thought James was actually a quite pleasant person, a little big-headed but all round a good bloke.

“Yeah”

“And?” Remus waved his hands around, nearly letting the blanket fall to his feet.

“And… we may have exchanged numbers”

“Lily!”

“What?!”

“You always said you hated him!”

“Well I did… but, he got really fit” Lily admitted, pink dusting her cheeks.

“Fit? you slept with him cause he got fit?”

“Kind of- I mean, we talked at the party and he told me about his work and Remus, he’s a human rights lawyer”

This was an interesting piece of information. Remus didn’t know that James was also a lawyer but he did remember Sirius mentioning something about him the night of the party. Did this mean that maybe Remus was wrong? Maybe Sirius wasn’t working for his father anymore and he was in New York to team up with James. It was unlikely though since he specifically remembered his brain latching onto Sirius saying something along the lines of him doing business for his father. There was always the possibility of Sirius lying. However, Remus felt that was unlikely too. Sirius wasn’t much of a liar unless he had to.

He must’ve been quiet for too long because Lily nudged him gently. “Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah” Remus nodded, “just thinking”

“Bad thinking or good thinking”

Remus shrugged. “Just… thinking”

“Does it have anything to do with you definitely sleeping with your gorgeous ex-boyfriend the other night?”

Remus’ face reddened and he pulled the blanket tighter around himself as if it could shield him from all his problems and worries.

“Ha! I knew it” Lily was practically jumping up and down. “He left his phone number”

Remus groaned. “Throw it away”

“What?”

“Bin it, burn it, I don’t care”

“Remus, you can’t just cut off anyone who makes you feel things” Lily sighed.

“I don’t do that” Lie. He did it all the time.

“Yes you do… remember when you dated Anna? or Frank? or Sam?”

Remus shrugged and made a vague noise. He didn’t like where this was going but Lily carried on.

“You pushed them away as soon as it got too real, as soon as it got serious”

“Well, I just didn’t want to settle down with them”

“And why’s that, my friend?”

“I don’t know… they weren’t right” Remus shrugged again, “who are you? my therapist?”

“I’m your friend, idiot” Lily lightly hit his arm, smiling despite fully reading Remus like today’s paper. “I just think we both know it’s because they weren’t Sirius”

Remus had nothing to say to that. “Just… bin the number, I don’t want to talk to him”

Lily sighed, exasperated. “You don’t have to talk to him but I’m not throwing out his number, just in case”

“I’m not going to call him” He replied, leaning his chin on her shoulder.

“I know, you’re too set on making yourself miserable”

“That’s not true”

“Oh sure”

“I don’t even like him”

“I saw the way he looked at you, clearly he still cares a lot about you and…” she paused, kissing Remus’ forehead before reaching for two plates. “you do too or else you wouldn’t have invited him up earlier”

“I just didn’t want to leave him out in the cold” That’s all there was to it, Remus had told himself earlier. He was tired and leaving Sirius outside, alone in the cold, in a city he probably wasn’t familiar with just seemed like the wrong thing to do.

“Sounds like caring to me” Lily replied in a sing-songy voice.

Remus resorted to sticking his tongue out instead of formulating a response.

Lily passed him a plate filled with pasta and the two brought their food to the sitting room. “Who’s manning the bakery?” Remus asked, suddenly realising that neither one of them had gone to work.

“Marlene and Dorcas, I went in to check when I was picking up Mrs Pettigrew’s shopping” Lily paused for a forkful of pasta before continuing. “She was asking about you”

“Why me?”

“Dunno, she likes you”

Remus raised his eyebrow, changing the channel and ending up on an episode of Doctor Who.

“Yeah, I don’t know why but she said you should drop by soon” Lily added.

“Mmm, I might later”

The two finished their dinner in a comfortable silence, occasionally commenting on what the current Doctor was getting up to. After dinner, Lily showered and Remus finally got the chance to take that bath he had wanted nearly all day. He bid Lily an early goodnight afterwards, seeing as he was up for the morning shift the next day.

Remus didn’t mind working at the bakery, it meant he never had to walk far to get to work or to get home. He wasn’t passionate about it like Lily was though which meant for him, waking up at the arse crack of dawn wasn’t worth it. Still, he got up, feeling a billion times better than the day before, and got dressed. It was 4am when he got there and the only other person with him was Mary McDonald.

Mary was a good friend of Lily’s and just as passionate about making the best baked goods as she was. Their entire staff consisted of five people, usually there were two people there from 4 am up until 4 pm (despite it opening hours being 8am to 3 pm). During busier hours, another person came in from 11 am to 2 pm. It was a small business but it was open every day and sold everything from custom order cakes to bread, rolls and just nearly every other baked good under the sun. Lily was a fair boss and no one had to be in work for 4 am two days in a row since the bakery was so small, they didn’t need more than three people there at the one time. Usually they got by with just the two.

“Morning” Mary rubbed her eyes, turning on the radio when Remus walked in.

“ ‘Ello” He saluted, getting ready to sanitise the kitchen and get the dough prepared for all the baked goods they would be selling that day.

Remus liked working with Mary. She was quiet enough and most of the time the two got to enjoy listening to the radio, singing along to songs or commenting on the news as they worked. He hadn’t even thought about Sirius since the night before and all was going great.

That was until the clock hit 2:15. That was when Remus was working the till and that was when Sirius waltzed into the small establishment. Remus knew it wasn’t a coincidence because Lily’s bakery was small and very very local. There was no way Sirius had just so happened to wander in off the street.

To Remus’ dismay, after Sirius bought an eclair and a cup of coffee, he didn’t leave. Sirius didn’t leave even when he had finished, instead stuck around and ordered another coffee. Who drinks so much coffee, thought Remus, feeling more and more annoyed the more time Sirius spent not leaving. Eventually, it was time for Remus’ break and Mary took over the till.

Remus went out the back, into the alleyway for a cig and a yogurt. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to enjoy much of his lunch break by himself because after he had eaten, and lit the cigarette, someone he didn’t want to see appeared in his line of vision.

“You haven’t called”

Straight to the point then, Remus thought, taking an extra long drag of the cig. “No”

“Why not?” Sirius shoved his hands in his pockets, shifting his weight between his two feet.

“Why is it that you always get to be the one asking questions and pointing out how much I’ve changed?” Remus countered, putting the cigarette out on the ashy tray on the windowsill.

Sirius didn’t say anything so Remus straightened and took a step forward with his hands tucked under his arms, to keep the cold off. The fingerless gloves weren’t much help. “How come you’re New York? Why are you still working for your father’s bloody firm? And why are you so quiet and subdued?”

While all of this was spilling out of Remus, he suddenly found himself right up in Sirius’ face with his breath ghosting his lips. Sirius didn’t back down though as steel grey met blazing amber.

“You never asked” He replied simply.

“Because you never gave me the chance to!” Remus took a step back and one forward again. “I did now so… go on, out with it”

“My father recently branched out to America, New York to be specific and I…. I wanted- no, I needed to get away” Sirius spat out. “I needed to get away from my parents because I had enough of them and everything they stood for and… and I finally stopped being so afraid of them!”

“So why did you go after me then?”

“I didn’t go after you”

“You talked to me at the party and then you showed up at my workplace” Remus reasoned, “I’m so sorry that I misread the fucking signs!”

“You’re the one that invited me up to the flat!”

“Yes, because it was cold out and I didn’t want to be that guy who left someone in a new city out in the freezing fucking cold”

“Really? because you didn’t have a problem making jabs at me and being a cruel bastard”

“Oh I’m the bastard, sure”

“That’s not fair and you know it!”

“Well life isn’t fair either and you don’t get to decide what’s fair and what’s not, so how about you fuck off Sirius”

“No” came Sirius’ sharp reply.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said no” Sirius’ voice was shaking and Remus hated himself for wanting to comfort him. “No because I’m still in love with you even though you clearly don’t want me to be because you’re acting like a condescending asshole 90% of the time and the other 10 you remind me of the guy I fell for in Year 7”

Remus felt winded. Year 7?? “You- you can’t just drop that on me….” He trailed off, staggering backwards. “I need get back to work”

He turned on his heel and ran a hand through his hair. Sirius said something, shouted Remus’ name maybe but his voice sounded distant and fogged. Somehow he stumbled back into the bakery to see Mary look at him with worried eyes.

“Remus?”

Her voice was distant too and the room was too warm. His lungs wouldn’t fill properly and his head spun. He felt like he was going to pass out and he would’ve literally hit the ground if Mary hadn’t caught him.

She put him in a chair against the wall and grabbed a bottle of water, fusing over him and saying things Remus wasn’t hearing because the sound of his heart racing was far too loud. Yep, this is how I die, he thought, leaning back in the chair and letting his head hit the wall.

Suddenly Mary appeared in front of him again, he could only tell by the hands on his shoulders as his eyes were closed. “Remus? Remus, deep breaths love” when Remus was unresponsive she tried again. “Remus breathe in, 1.. 2.. 3.. 4.. and hold the breath 2... 3.. 4.. 5.. 6.. 7.. and out again, 2… 3… 4… 5… 6… 7… 8…”

This time Remus followed Mary’s lead. They did the breathing exercise a couple more times before Remus felt stable enough to open his eyes again. “What happened?”

“Listen I-“ Remus cut himself off because what did happen. “Thank you, I don’t really- can we not talk about it?”

Mary was kind, there was no denying that. She nodded, despite looking concerned. “Of course, yeah, whatever makes you comfortable”

Mary insisted that Remus stay in the back for the rest of the day and he was happy enough not having to man the till. Sirius had completely disappeared and Remus was too tired to do anything about it. At 3pm, Mary locked up and they set about preparing ingredients and products for the next day, freezing selected stock and cleaning the kitchen.

By the time they had finished Mary was still concerned. “Hey, are you alright now?”

“Mmm, yeah, I’m good” Remus would’ve preferred to face Sirius again and risk another panic attack rather than have to talk to Mary about what happened earlier.

Mary gave him a tight smile and put a hand on his arm. “Mind yourself, yeah?” she gave his arm a light squeeze before the two went their separate ways.

#marauders #marauders fic #marauders au #modern marauders #hp marauders #remus lupin #sirius black #wolfstar #wolfstar fanfiction #wolfstar angst #wolfstar fic #sirius x remus #remus x sirius #wolfstar au #lily evans #background jily #mary mcdonald

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evienyx · 4 years

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Can we hear your thoughts on Tommy? I feel like he's a very interesting character.

Okay, I held off on this for a bit, but today’s the day of the trial, so there’s no better time than the present, I suppose.

(I will add that I mostly get Tommy content in bursts, because I cannot handle watching him for longer than like twenty minutes at a time. He’s one of my favorite content creators, and incredibly talented with what he does, but he’s a lot. He’s the kinda energy that my friends and I have, and it’s jarring when I can’t directly involve myself in that chaos. My brain can’t handle it. Anyway, moving on-)

I most definitely agree that he is an interesting character. What I find the most interesting about Tommy is not his actions, though, but the way that he views himself.

Because, for the entire time that he’s been on the SMP, Tommy has always, without fail, insisted that he is right.

We saw it with the Disc Wars, when he fought for what he cared about against a tyrant, and in the L’Manburg Revolution when he fought for freedom (and drugs). All of that was clear, you know? We all got that, people agreed that he was correct.

Then, though, we got to things like the Election, and the Exile of Tommy and Wilbur, when Tommy called for rebellion, saying that he was in the right, despite Schlatt being legally elected in the country that Tommy himself helped to establish.

It’s a case of a bit of hypocrisy, in my opinion. Yes, Tommy and Wilbur were exiled by a man who took power in a fashion that was legal but not democratic, but technically Wilbur and Tommy did, too. They were president and vice-president to lead the country, but they were never elected. And then they tried to do it again. The election only happened because they (more Wilbur, but Tommy still just agreed with his plans) wanted to consolidate power and seem like democratically elected leaders in a country they tried to establish with democracy, without actually having a democracy.

(One other thing I will mention is how the ground rules of L’Manburg are very weak for a country. Yes, I know it’s Minecraft, but this is serious Minecraft. They have a rule of no Americans (which I am offended by because I would like nothing more than to not be from America, I didn’t get to choose), but they don’t have guidelines for the powers of the president? They made a democracy, and then gave the president near-absolute power once they are elected. What did they think was going to happen???)

Moving on, we go through all these points in the story thinking to ourselves that Tommy is in the right, because of course he is, why wouldn’t he be? We never wonder whether we’re a bit biased, if we’re only looking at things from a certain point of view, Tommy’s own.

Then, though, everything changes when the festival is announced and Wilbur voices what everyone is secretly thinking: “Are we villains, in this story?”

For those few moments, Wilbur feels a bit like we, as the viewers, do, asking Tommy, a bit desperately, “We’re the right. We agree that we’re in the right, here?”

And Tommy responds with, “Well, I’m always in the right, so...”

This line is often brushed over, or garners a few chuckles at the most, but it’s actually incredibly interesting to think about how this reflects on Tommy’s character.

I’m always in the right.

Tommy, with this one line, tells us that he does not doubt himself. He not only has full confidence in what he does, but he is completely certain of his morals, and he is completely sure that he has never done the wrong thing. Anyone who stands against him is evil, is the villain, because Tommy is always in the right, and anyone who isn’t with Tommy, therefore, must be in the wrong.

This makes it very easy to draw a line in the sand separating the good from the bad, both in the mind of Tommy and in the mind of his viewer. If someone only watched from Tommy’s perspective, there would be no doubt about who was right and who was wrong, because, it’s as Tommy says, he is always in the right. A Tommy viewer might leave the battle of Manburg vs. Pogtopia, as well as the destruction of L’Manburg, believing wholeheartedly that Techno is a villain, is a despicable traitor, ignoring the fact that Techno was technically the one who was betrayed in this scenario (go back and read my (small) Techno analysis for more details on that if you want).

Tommy operates the exact same way. As he believes himself to always be in the right, he sees no reason to change his ways, and so he never looks at things from anyone else’s perspective to see if both of them have a bit of good in what they’re doing, because why would he, if he already knows that he’s always in the right?

This point was set to the side for a bit, but comes back in full force just a few days ago, when Tommy burned down George’s house. Specifically, though, we see it in the way that he proclaimed that he had not done it, despite the overwhelming cry that said the opposite. Dream and George did not seem to shake him in what he had done, but Tubbo did, because then Tubbo, who has always been by Tommy’s side, is suddenly not.

And despite the fact that Tommy stays strong in his stance that he is innocent (even though everyone knows he isn’t), it’s this threat, of possible exile and Tubbo trading away his discs, that seems to shake Tommy more than anything. We know this because then, as the stream draws to a close, Tommy wonders, for the first time, if he was wrong in his viewpoint. He wonders if Techno was right all along, and if he himself had made the wrong choice. He pushes these contemplations away quickly, asserting to himself that Techno was wrong, and Tommy hadn’t made a mistake, but the uncertainty remains clear. It is a sign of cracks in a resolve that, up until this point, has been stronger than anything physical in the entirety of this server.

What’s even more interesting is the way that Tommy seems to have convinced himself that he is good. He’s said many times in the recent streams that he does not want to be a bad guy. He does not want a corruption arc, he wants to be good and stand at Tubbo’s side, and he wants to stay firmly in the right.

In my opinion, exiling Tommy, having everyone against him again, would be one of the best things for his character, simply because it is something that he is not even allowing the light of day to think about. If Tommy was kicked out of the country he’s fought for and died for twice, now, especially by his best friend, when he has been so firm in his beliefs and wants to be the hero of the story, it would completely throw his character for a loop, because this is a scenario he refuses, at the moment, to even consider. It would thrust his character into a situation that he has expressly been trying to avoid, and I, for one, would love to see it.

Anyway, yeah, the thing that most interests me about Tommy’s character is the way he views himself as the hero and, no matter what, insists that he is in the right, and I would love to see what would happen should those beliefs be directly challenged.

What’s a boy on the side of good meant to do when the side of good turns against him?

I, for one, would love to find out.

#mcyt #ask #ask away #tommyinnit #dream smp #dream #wilbur soot #technoblade #tubbo #georgenotfound #i answered this like two weeks late but my brain wouldnt work for a while #and then i suddenly had a lot of thoughts #prob bc of the trial #which is today i think?#so i just wrote them all down here

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abigailnussbaum · 3 years

Text

The Watch 1x01 - 1x02

The first two episodes of BBC America’s The Watch aired this weekend, and I’ve seen basically zero discussion of them on my twitter and tumblr feeds. Which I assume is because most of the people I follow are Pratchett fans who have been horrified by the press releases and the trailer (or, for that matter, the lackluster reviews) and decided to write the show off before it even started airing. To be clear, this is an entirely reasonable approach, but there’s nothing else on right now and I was bored.

Quick verdict? It’s not dire, but also not so interesting that you’d feel compelled to keep going with it. In fact, my most powerful reaction after the first two episodes is puzzlement - I can’t understand who the intended audience for this show is. The thinking seems to have been “everyone will be interested in a brash, in your face, rudely comedic fantasy cop show!” And maybe that’s true, but The Watch isn’t particularly brash, in your face, or even that comedic, so what’s left are fans of the genre(s), who are reasonably spoiled for choice right now (the show The Watch most closely resembles is Carnival Row, which is not amazing but still has a greater depth of emotion and a more interesting world). Why anyone would go out of their way to watch a show that seems to be working so hard to stamp out anything original about itself is a question the creators don’t seem to have asked themselves.

More thoughts below the cut.

First, something positive: I quite like the look of the show. There was obviously a lot of pressure from previous adaptations, not to mention the famous illustrations associated with the books, to strike out in an original direction, and I think the show really found one. Instead of fantasized-medieval-through-Victorian, The Watch’s Ankh Morpork combines those period and genre elements with modern ones. So The Mended Drum is now a seedy nightclub with DJ lighting and an open mike stage, and the city’s walls are covered with graffiti tags. The more distinctive settings - the Patrician’s palace, the Unseen University library - are not as interesting, possibly because the budget wouldn’t stretch to make them look really spectacular. But the core approach of the series, that Ankh Morpork is an old but modern city where there are also a lot of fantasy elements, is a fun and refreshing one.

Second, despite all the prevarication and spin in the run-up to the show, this is a Pratchett adaptation. It isn’t merely “inspired by” Pratchett’s novels, as the show’s title screen insists. It isn’t taking Pratchett’s ideas and making its own things with them. I can only assume that these claims were made in response to the backlash against stuff like “Sybil Ramkin, young, hot vigilante”. But despite changes like that, this is actually a fairly straightforward adaptation of Guards! Guards!, which also incorporates elements from Night Watch, plus some rather deep cuts from the rest of the Discworld corpus (the second episode, for example, implies that the ultimate villains of the series are the Auditors of Reality). So yeah, The Watch doesn’t have the excuse of being its own thing. It is a Discworld adaptation, but a bad one, that fails to understand a lot of fundamental thing about the world and the characters.

Third, I think the thing that most strikes about the show is how low-energy it feels. Despite billing itself as something outrageous, and despite some work on the visual front (and in Richard Dormer’s Jack Sparrow-esque performance as Vimes), the show itself feels almost bland. You see this in particular when it comes to the humor. It’s not that The Watch isn’t trying to be funny. There are jokes, and a few of them - mostly the ones original to the series - are mildly amusing. But when it comes to Pratchett’s own humor, the show simply has the actors deliver the gags and references in the most low-key way, and unsurprisingly the result is that hardly any of it lands.

Now, to be fair, this has been a problem with Pratchett adaptations since the 90s. Most of Pratchett’s humor is based in what his third-person narrator tells us about the world, and is hard to convey in a dramatic presentation (Good Omens tried to solve this problem by putting a lot of Pratchett’s narration in its voiceover, with only limited success). But even the dialogue-based jokes are so arch and stagey, that to deliver them successfully would require committing to a lot of very specific, demanding choices from the actors and writers (off the top of my head, the only show that even comes close to that kind of humor is Brooklyn Nine-Nine). It would have to be a high-concept, meticulously executed sitcom, whereas most Pratchett adaptations have been fantasy dramas with jokes.

So it’s not entirely The Watch’s fault that it isn’t managing to convey the zany energy of Pratchett’s novels, but at the same time, it also clearly isn’t trying to. Its attitude seems to be that simply the existence of things like troll cops or assassins’ guilds who leave a receipt are funny in their own right. And sure, even in a media landscape in which fantasy has been mainstreamed by Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings movies, and Game of Thrones, not a lot of fantasy settings have an orangutan librarian who only says “ook”. But what makes The Librarian funny isn’t that he’s a librarian who is an orangutan. It’s that he’s a librarian who is an orangutan who still behaves exactly like a librarian (while also doing ape things like swinging from the bookshelves and eating bananas), and that “ook” can convey almost any concept in existence. The Watch doesn’t seem to realize this. It seems to be assuming that just putting that stuff on screen, or parroting Pratchett’s lines, will be hilarious in and of itself, while leaving out a lot of the specificity of setting, character, and tone that made the books sing.

You see this also in how it handles its characters. Everyone fixated on Lady Sybil when the promos came out, because that’s the most egregious misreading of the original (and rooted in the most boring assumptions about what audiences want and will respond to). But it’s everywhere. Take Carrot, for example. In the books, Carrot is fascinating because he’s never entirely what you take him for. He’s innocent, but not naive. Principled, but not a zealot. A goody-two-shoes, but not a prig. He’s always a lot smarter than you think he is, and most importantly, he genuinely likes and is interested in people.

The Watch delivers none of this, and instead makes Carrot your basic hothead rookie who just wants to take down bad guys and sees the more seasoned, cynical officers who keep trying to slow him down as hopelessly corrupted. There’s none of Carrot’s openness, or his genuine love of the city, in this character. Instead he’s sullen and judgmental. And look, we could have a long conversation about which one of these characters is more useful to us and our ongoing conversation about policing (as well as a much shorter conversation about which one of them is truer to the ideas Pratchett was trying to convey about policing). But what feels more important to me, when coming to evaluate a new series that is trying to make an argument for why you should keep watching it, is the simple fact that there are a million places where you could find a character like The Watch’s Carrot, and hardly anywhere where you could find one like Pratchett’s.

Again and again, it feels as if, in the pursuit of what it thinks of as outrageous, risk-taking storytelling, The Watch jettisons the unique characters from the books and replaces them with ones that we’ve seen a million times before. Angua in the books is kind of neurotic, and extremely thoughtful about the way her condition can incline her to see other people as objects to be used and consumed (which Pratchett later develops into an aspect of his theme of monsters-as-aristocrats). In the show, she’s obsessed with how her lycanthropy makes her “the real monster”. Oh boy, I’ve never seen a werewolf worry about being a monster before! I’ve never seen a scene where they send their friends away just as they’re about to transform! This is cutting edge stuff, I tell you. And while we’re on the subject, it gives me no pleasure to report that Anna Chancellor as Patrician Vetinari is thoroughly meh, because no effort has been taken to convey the character’s intelligence, near-omniscience, and constant scheming. Vimes is intimidated by her because she’s his boss and she’s posh, not because of anything specific to her. She feels almost identical to a million other posh rulers whose job it is to infodump to and threaten scrappy, working class heroes.

Which brings me back to my original observation: that I do not get who this show is for. It’s not for Pratchett fans, because it deliberately drops a great deal of what made his writing and characters special in favor of the most generic, predictable choices. But I can’t help but feel that anyone who is into this sort of extremely familiar cop story will be put off by the dragons and the wizards and the orangutan librarian, not to mention Dormer’s gurning performance. The whole thing is almost fascinating to watch - a work that clearly believes itself to be boundary-pushing and different, when really it’s just dull but with dragons.

#the watch

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andie-cake · 3 years

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Hmm...

I think it would be interesting to flesh out Emma going to visit Jane (and see Tim, maybe for the first time if we’re staying in canon here) and learning that she’s gone. Maybe not terribly fluffy though, but fun dynamics with Tim and it could explain how she ended up staying with Tom and Tim for the borrowers AU?

In terms of fluff, sorry my brain doesn’t like fluff without some tinge of sadness, for HOHF, Emma and Paul fight [villain of your choice] and someone gets hurt and the aftermath of that. Alternatively, I’d love to know if Tim has the Nitro Gene and if so, if he joins his Aunt Emma and Uncle Paul in the field. That could be so cute! (Although, he could also join mission control or maybe make friends with another super if Hannah has powers as well? But that’s not Paulkins...) If you feel like picking up a family fluff piece, which is personally my favorite genre, lol, I’d love to see Paul and Emma as parents and if their child shows their powers early (since it’s not nitro gene specific from Paul, if it can be inherited, of course, and now I’m imaging Jack Jack from the incredible, lol) or for Harriet and Tex to come back and see their baby (oh that would be adorable because grandparent plants and you can imagine how proud they would be of Emma!) or to see how Slacky interacted with the baby. (I’m imagining a how a Golden Retriever interacts with babies now... 😂) Or, if you’d prefer to ignore children all together, Emma going back home and taking Paul to meet Harriet and Tex (meet the parents essentially). Well, I’m not sure if any of those ideas seem interesting, but if not, I hope they’re able to help get some fun ideas flowing. Have a lovely weekend! 😊

Okay, so... A lot of these are stuff that I want to explore in longer stories eventually, both the Borrowers AND the HoHF prompts. But you DID give me an idea for some HoHF family fluff between Emma and Tim!

"Here's that big project I was telling you about!"

Emma had been back in Hatchetfield for what, six, seven months now? And she'd long since made a name for herself as Wild Flower. She was respected, loved even, by the town that had once cast her aside. And what's more, she'd managed to connect with her nephew, who seemed to think she was cool despite her absence for most of his life! If it wasn't for the fact that Tim didn't know she was Wild Flower yet, she would've chalked it up to that.

After all, Tim loved superheroes. Understandable, considering his mother was one of the most revered supers in the country before she died. Being raised by someone like that was bound to give someone a deep respect for the career. And right now, Tim was showing Emma his most recent token of appreciation. A social studies project he'd done for school about superheroes around the world.

It was a large cardboard diagram, with a map of the world taped to it. Coming from a line pointing to each continent (barring Antarctica, because duh), was a photograph of a super that was native to said continent, accompanied by a short paragraph with information about them.

"Wooooow, you really know your supers, bud!" Emma mused as she scanned over the diagram, impressed.

Tim looked up at her with a bashful smile. "Thanks," he said, blushing. "Wanna hear more about each one?"

"Educate me!"

"Okay, so," Tim began excitedly, pointing to the super whose picture corresponded to Australia. A woman with long, blonde hair and a bright blue superhero getup. "That right there is Tidal Crash, she's an Australian super with the power to control water."

"Can she talk to sea creatures?" Emma asked, encouraging her nephew to continue.

"Yeah, telepathically," Tim replied. "She's like the cool version of Aquaman."

Emma snickered at Tim's snark. God, he was such a Perkins. He continued on, pointing to the picture next to Africa. A dark-skinned man with long dreadlocks and an award-winning smile, half his face covered by a deep purple mask.

"That's Radi ya Umeme," Tim continued to explain. "He's from Kenya, and his name is Swahili for 'Lightning Strike'. He can control the weather, but he's really good with lightning, hence the name. He's kinda like Madbolt in a way, only y'know, not evil."

Emma chuckled, remembering her most recent encounter with that old nutjob. Madbolt was a fascinating case, he'd been causing trouble for Hatchetfield since around the time Emma was born. Not even Jane had managed to land him behind bars. Tim continued, his finger landing on the South American picture. A man with dark, curly hair and deep brown eyes, clad in a black leather costume.

"That guy is Espalda con Púas, his name is Spanish for 'Spiked Back'," Tim said, talking as though he was still presenting the project to his teacher and classmates. "He's from Chile, and as his name would imply, he can grow spikes out of his back and sharpen his teeth and nails into fangs and claws!"

Emma nodded, urging him to continue. With an excited smile, Tim moved on to Asia, where a picture of a short-haired woman with a shining mask lay.

"That's Dá Quy, she's from South Vietnam," he continued. "Her name means 'Gemstone', and she can control different ores and minerals and stuff."

Tim moved on to Europe, where a picture of a woman with short brown hair and an elegant, but still practical costume lay.

"That's Lady Nighthawk, she's from England," he explained as Emma continued to listen intently. "She can talk to animals and harness their abilities to fight. She visits Hatchetfield once a year, too!"

"Right! I think I remember your mother telling me about meeting a 'Lady Nighthawk' before!" Emma exclaimed in recollection.

"Yeah, mom worked with a lot of supers," Tim mused fondly before moving on to the final picture, the one corresponding to North America. A grizzled man with long dirty-blonde hair and a decked-out suit. "And finally, there's Eagle Eye! He's an ex-military general who can shapeshift into a bald eagle! And he's got this awesome combat suit that he uses in human form! He's from Washington D.C., but just like Lady Nighthawk, he visits Hatchetfield sometimes!"

Emma smiled at the sight of the super who'd been acting as a mentor to her for the past week. During a rescue mission she'd nearly bungled, Eagle Eye- or John MacNamara as she'd learned his real name was, swooped in to lend a hand. He'd taken a shine to her, and offered to help coach her in the ways of being a superhero. Emma had been learning lots of valuable information off of John. But of course, there was no way Emma could tell Tim about-

"Speaking of, did you hear that he's been working with Wild Flower lately?"

Okay, nevermind! Emma froze, surprised by her nephew's casual mention of her alias. Was this a good time to tell him? Better test the waters to be sure...

"Oh yeah, Wild Flower!" she exclaimed, trying to play it cool. "I've, uh... been hearing lots about her lately!"

"Yeah, it's so weird!" Tim chuckled. "It's like she just came out of nowhere!"

Emma nervously drummed her fingers on the headboard of Tim's bed, where they'd been sitting for the past couple of minutes. Did he mean that in a good way or a bad way?

"She's awesome, though!" Tim continued, an excited sparkle in his eyes. Emma's heart began to race. "Her powers are so cool! I mean, she can summon that big flytrap thing! What was it's name again?"

"Slack-Jaw?" Emma replied, a barely-contained smile on her face.

"Right, Slack-Jaw!" Tim recalled. "And did you see her new costume? The green jacket with the cool logo on it?"

"Mhm!" Emma hummed in response, happily recalling the day she was presented that jacket at Town Hall. The mayor had recognized her feats of heroism, and had the jacket tailor-made for her to replace that ratty old, ill-fitting red leather jacket she'd bought from a Goodwill in a scrambled effort to make a good costume. It still needed some tweaks now, but the new jacket was an excellent start.

"And now that she's getting lessons from Eagle Eye, she's only gonna get better!" Tim gushed. "She's just so- Aunt Emma? What're you smiling so hard for?"

God, Emma couldn't keep this secret any longer. She had to tell him.

"I have a question for you, bud," she began, resisting the urge to just tell him outright. "Did your mom ever say anything about both her and me having the Nitro Gene?"

Tim's eyebrows shot up. "Oh yeah!" he exclaimed. "But she said that you didn't like talking about your powers, so she never told me what they were. I figured you still wouldn't wanna talk about them, so I never asked."

Emma's heart fluttered. What had she done to deserve such a considerate nephew? "You wanna take a guess?"

"O-okay, but why n-" Tim cut himself off, the gears clearly turning in his head. After a few moments, he turned to Emma with a look of awed realization on his face. "W-wait, Aunt Emma... Are you saying that you're...?"

"Wild Flower?" Emma finished, eyeing him cheekily. "You bet!"

A smile slowly blossomed onto Tim's face. "No way!" he exclaimed. "B-but mom always said you didn't wanna be a superhero!"

"Well, people change their minds sometimes!" Emma retorted. "And I decided to finally put my powers to good use once I came back home."

"Wow..." Tim gaped breathlessly.

"But I'm still your Aunt Emma, first and foremost!" Emma quickly clarified. "I'm still the same person, just y'know... with plant powers."

"O-of course!" Tim stammered, his mind looking certifiably blown. His face grew serious. "And don't worry, I won't tell anybody about your secret identity!"

Emma snickered, tousling her nephew's hair. "I appreciate it, bud," she said, pulling him into a hug. "...Want me to introduce you to Slack-Jaw?"

"...Maybe."

#hohf au #hohf drabbles

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klvbxlove · 3 years

Text

finally (chie x american! gn! reader)

a/n: i’ve got another persona 4 drabble. this time it’s dedicated to another cousin of mine, matt. i hope you like this, i lowkey had fun writing it! i think it’s now the longest drabble i’ve written so far (it has, i think, 400 more words than my yosuke one, damn). i do plan on writing a rise drabble for my other cousin, chuck, soon, but i also kinda wanna write a kanji drabble. idk which one to start off with, so i’ll see what my mind decides. but anyways, enjoy this drabble! :)

reader type: gender neutral

reader specification(s): reader is from america and is also a bit flirty LOL

genre(s): fluff, romance

trigger warning(s): none

summary: as much as chie loved being with you, she was saddened by the fact that you lived in america, which is far away from japan. however, one day you give her a surprise, one that she wasn’t expecting at ALL

word count: 2.9k words

♡ ♡ ♡ (ꈍᴗꈍ)ε｀*) ♡ ♡ ♡

key:

(e/c) = eye color (f/a) = favorite anime (f/c) = favorite color (n/n) = nickname (y/n) = your name

♡ ♡ ♡ (ꈍᴗꈍ)ε｀*) ♡ ♡ ♡

It started with Chie meeting you online after finding out you were a fan of (F/A), an anime series she had recently started watching. Having been in love with it for years, you were glad to find someone else (regardless of whether you met them online or in real life) who also loved it as much.

Then it slowly progressed into the both of you talking about everything besides (F/A) almost constantly. Every day, whenever you woke up, whenever you were waiting for school to start, whenever you were about to go to bed. Hell, even when you were out with your friends, the both of you found ways to text each other! Also, both of you may or may not have stayed up on school nights to continue the conversations.

Conflicted feelings eventually showed up at the front door months later, when the both of you realized you had crushes on each other but had no idea how to bring it up. Neither of you originally wanted to confess in fear that you would be rejected, and the friendship would end up tensing up (cliché, I know). But ultimately, the two of you got over that fear and eventually ended up in a relationship.

And that is where the two of you are at now.

Now, here was the thing. It was not as if there were any major problems throughout your and Chie’s relationship. It was quite healthy, to say the least!

So what was wrong?

Chie lived in Japan, and you lived in America.

Those were different countries and two different continents.

Even before entering a relationship, the two of you initially had some difficulty having the time to chat with each other due to the huge time zones. It was especially hard since both of you were high school students who had to focus on their education. Although like troopers, the both of you managed to deal with the time difference and found time to talk.

And of course, Chie could not forget to mention this was not only her first relationship but her first long-distance relationship. It sucked not being able to see you every day (not including face-time calls. Sure, she has seen your face, but not in real life). Chie was not one to constantly watch couples. However, when she did, she could not help the slight jealousy in her eyes. She had no idea if she would ever get the chance to get a ticket to America or vice-versa.

All Chie could do, whenever she missed you badly, was to sulk. There was no other way to do it. Was it healthy? Probably not. How was she supposed to help herself? But then again, it was not her fault she had been raised in Japan her entire life. Same as you, you have been in America for a while now. And the both of you certainly could not help the fact that you were miles away from each other.

Of course, that was not enough to stop Chie from being sad about it from time to time. She had a feeling she would not see you anytime soon.

The short brown-haired female found herself sitting alone on the bench, scrolling through her phone. Out of everyone in the Investigation Team, Chie was the only one who did not feel like going to the restroom. So she insisted on waiting for them outside. Although, that was not the only reason. She did not want any of them catching her reading her text messages with you and questioning why she was smiling.

But then Chie remembered one time Yosuke had caught her doing that. Yeah, he was the first (and unfortunate) person. As he had continued to tease her, she eventually got irritated and took out that irritation by kicking Yosuke right in his scrotum area. (**)

Oh God, she just had to bite the inside of her cheek. She was already seeing him riving in pain on the ground as he held the affected area and the rest of their friend group looked on in either confusion or concern. Hmph, served him right!

Scrolling up towards the older texts, Chie was reading a conversation she had with you. It was about how you wanted to visit her in Inaba and explore the town.

Chie: I mean, of course, I’m down to you coming here and meeting me. But let me warn you, Inaba is a bit boring. I don’t think you could even compare it to other places like Tokyo or Osaka.

(Y/N): Babe, I don’t mind at all! And besides, you know I’m willing to visit any part of Japan, not just Tokyo. I’m like head over heels with Japan at this point BWAHAHAHA

Chie: I think everyone knows. But knowing you, I think you would especially want to go to Akihabara.

(Y/N): Hey, stop calling me out!

Chie: You know it’s true (N/N). Eh, not that I blame you. They got cool stuff there. It would be nice to visit sometime.

(Y/N): For sure! We should go together, too ;)

Jeez, even reading old texts you sent Chie always managed to make her blush! Although they were not the only reasons for her blushing, besides your flirtatious remarks. On a few occasions, you would poke fun at her (Not in a way to make her upset, of course). You were lucky that Chie considered you more tolerable compared to Yosuke.

She could already imagine herself not bothered by you teasing her about something like how Yosuke did. And when Yosuke would see, he would ask, “Oh, so (Y/N) can tease you, but I can’t?! WHERE’S THE LOGIC IN THAT, CHIE?!”

Oh, wait. Chie looked up. Now that she realized, she had not told anyone in the Investigation Team about her relationship with you. No, it was not because she was ashamed. Well, it was more of the fact that she did not have a logical explanation.

Was it because she could not find the time to tell everyone? Maybe.

Or was it because she knew that some of them might not even believe her?

Looking up from her phone, the brown-haired girl saw everyone else heading in her direction. As she stood up, placed her phone in the back pocket of her shirts, and followed the rest of the team, she thought, ‘There will be a day where I can introduce (Y/N) to everyone. One day. And I’ll be sure to do it!’

INCOMING CALL: (Y/N)

Chie immediately sat up from her bed at the sudden sound ringing. Her first instincts were to assume someone had broken into her room. However, those instincts vanished when she looked over at her nightstand and saw that it was her phone making that sound. When Chie looked at the screen, her eyes lightened in excitement upon seeing what it read.

“(Y/N)!” She said after picking up the phone.

“Hey, Chie,” you answered over the line. Said girl could never get tired of hearing your voice. “How’s my favorite girl doing?”

Chie could feel the blood rushing towards her cheeks again. You were not one to call her many pet names. But when it comes to you referring to her as “your girl”? Do you even realize the effect you have on her?! She was lucky she was not like this when she was sneakily texting you next to the Investigation Team!

“I--” she cleared her throat, “--I’m good, thanks!”

You chuckled over the phone. “You know, for a sec it sounded like you were getting flustered again. Don’t hide it, Chie. I know you sometimes clear your throat when I see those cute cheeks turn pink!”

“H-Hey, shut up!” Chie retorted. If this was an anime, she was sure she would have had a tick mark above her head. “Why do you always tease me whenever I blush? I don’t get it, (Y/N),”

“It’s ‘cause you’re so cute, baby.”

‘STOP. OH MY GOD, PLEASE!’

It wasn’t exactly helping that Chie had made some weird sound at what you had said. And it wasn’t any better by the fact that she heard you snickering. “Jeez, if you were an anime character, even though you don’t act like one, you would surely be a tsundere!”

“(Y/N),” Chie gritted her teeth. To hide her flustered form, she acted as if she was angry. “I swear to God I will...get back for you one day.”

“Get back? Hmm? If I didn’t know any better, I thought you were going to say, ‘I will kick your ass.’ Is my girl getting too flustered now? How cute.”

“Grrr, (Y/N)...” Damn it, Chie wanted to fight back against you. Sometimes (or more like, a majority of the time), you were way TOO MUCH to handle! You knew how to get her going, that was for sure.

“Alright, enough about that,” you spoke up, the teasing tone in your voice already gone. “I wanted to call you ‘cause I got a surprise!”

At that, Chie’s eyes lit up in slight interest. “A surprise?”

“Yep! I’ve been planning it for a few months so I can get it right. And now I think it’s the perfect opportunity to give it to you!”

The surprise was more intriguing than learning about a new steak meal at Junes and practically drooling over how it would taste. Chie could not hold back her excitement anymore. “What is it, (Y/N)?!”

“Ah, ah, ah! I can’t tell you what it is. You’ll have to find out for yourself, babe.” you snickered.

“Oh, come on!” Chie grumbled. “You know I can’t do that. You’ve gotta at least give me a hint! Just one hint!

“Well, how about this,” you suggested. “Just open your front door, and you’ll see it right then and there.”

Okay, that was a bit suspicious. Chie raised her eyebrow. It was not as if she had little to no faith in you when it came to surprises. Coming outside to the front door, though? Just what were you planning? “Are you sure?” she asked. “You’re kinda weirding me out,”

“Just trust me on this!” you said. “I’m not trying to do anything creepy, I promise. Come on, Chie. Just open your front door.”

“Fine,” the short brown-haired female gave in, sitting up from her bed and exciting her bedroom. Maybe Chie was feeling a bit too doubtful about this. For all she knew, you must have sent her something like an anime figurine of her favorite character. Or even better, maybe you ordered her some food and had it sent to her front door!

“Okay, I’m at the front door,” Chie spoke over the phone as soon as she arrived. With her free hand, she unlocked the handle before fully opening it.

And what did she see? Just someone wearing a (F/C) shirt (Chie was sure that was your favorite) and carrying a backpack. In one of their hands was a suitcase, and they had a smile on their face.

Chie was extremely confused. Did she invite someone to come over to her house for a sleepover? She did not remember, nor did she think she ever did. She highly doubted that this was the surprise you were mentioning.

A few seconds of silence passed before the person snickered. “What’s with the confused look?” they asked. Their voice sounded so familiar, but who was it? “Oh, come on. Don’t tell me you don’t recognize your s/o! You’re breaking my heart over here, Chie!”

Wait a minute.

Wait a Goddamn minute.

That voice.

That familiar smile.

Her eyes widened.

There was no way. Was this real? Was she dreaming? If so, someone needs to knock her out right now!

And she meant RIGHT NOW!

Chie almost dropped her phone on the floor. “(Y-Y/N)?” she spoke up.

Their smile-- no, your smile grew a bit. “Yep, that’s me!” you nodded. “Live in the flesh, and not just some photo on a screen.”

‘So it was you, holy shit!’

Chie could not believe it. Her mind was feeling so many things. One part of her accepted the fact that this was real. But the other part of her was in disbelief. Chie had no idea what to do at this point. Besides, she already knew she must have looked foolish right now, and you were there to see it in real life.

And then the tears came.

Chie could no longer control herself. She practically jumped out towards you and wrapped her arms around you. She almost knocked you to the ground, but luckily you only stumbled backward a bit before balancing yourself. “Y-You finally came!” she sobbed into your chest. “You’re real! You’re right here, oh my God! I-I’m not dreaming, right?! Please tell me I’m not!!”

Meanwhile, your heart felt like it was being pulled on tug strings watching your girlfriend cry out of happiness. You wrapped your arms around her waist to complete the hug and rubbed her back soothingly. “You’re not dreaming, darling,” you reassured Chie, “I’m right here. After many, many months, I’m right here.”

Chie pulled away for a bit, wiping her tears with the sleeves of her sweater before looking up at you with a tear-stained smile. “I never thought the day would come when I get to see you right in front of me,” she said, “I thought it wouldn’t even be possible, either! You’re here, at my house. Speaking of which--”

Then the realization hit her, “--How did you even get my address? Because I don’t think I ever gave it to you after months of knowing you.”

“Well,” you scratched the back of your head sheepishly. You were somewhat scared that Chie was going to question it, but now she did.

“Please don’t kill me when I say this. But I talked to one of your friends, Yosuke, and I told him about my relationship with you. After a while, I tried to bring up the suggestion of wanting to visit you after I realized I have a chance of going to Japan. Then he gave me your address, and I kept it. Then as soon as I arrived in Inaba, I went to your house. I know that sounds so creepy. I’m sorry!”

Chie would have kicked Yosuke’s ass (literally) if he ever did something like that. She would never approve of him giving any stranger her address, especially without her permission. And she would have kicked your ass for coming to her house as well. Chie would want you to consider yourself lucky since she understood where her friend was coming from, so there was no anger in her body.

Oh yeah, and it seems like Yosuke already knows about you and Chie. He better not have told anyone else on the Investigation Team. She was planning to do it very soon.

“Don’t worry, I get it,” she said. “If getting my address from one of my friends meant that you got to see me, then I don’t mind at all!”

You were expecting Chie to yell at you about how creepy that was. After being shocked at her calm reaction for a while, the feeling disappeared, and you smiled, patting her head. “Thanks, babe. I appreciate it.

“Oh, and by the way,” Chie spoke up. “Now that you’re here and not just on a screen, I’d like to do one thing with you.

Puzzled, you tilted your head. “What is it?”

A smirk appeared on her face. “I want to kiss you!”

Your eyes widened a bit. Now it was your turn to feel flustered (you could already feel it in your cheeks). You were not opposed to the matter, as you could understand why Chie would want to do it. You had no idea why you were feeling nervous in the first place. You cleared your throat. “Well, alright. I don’t mind,” you smiled.

“Oh wow, you’re getting flustered now, aren’t you? I guess this is karma for all the times you’ve made me flustered.” Chie snickered.

You sighed. Somehow you had a feeling that your girlfriend would say something like that. But you decided to brush that aside for now.

Rewrapping your arms around her waist, you slowly inched towards her face. Both of your eyes closed at the same time as she placed her hands on your shoulders. It almost felt like an eternity for the moment to finally happen.

And then, the moment happened. Your lips connected into a kiss.

You instantly realized how soft her lips were, and you had to admit it felt amazing. You almost considered not pulling away for a while. Both of you did not want this to escalate into some steamy make out session, so you kept it slow. But there was a feeling of love and passion in it. You could feel the bliss coming into the atmosphere.

Seconds passed, and both you and Chie pulled away. You smiled. “God, do you know how long I wanted to do that?” you asked softly, caressing her cheek.

“I could ask you the same thing, (Y/N),” Chie answered. “I waited for so long, and I thought it would never happen in a few years. But now it has, and I’m so happy.” She rested her head against your chest to feel your heartbeat. “Thank you. Thank you for coming here,”

“Of course, Chie,” you whispered, running your fingers through her hair.

At this point, you would have asked if Chie would let you inside her house. But you did not care about that right now. All you were thinking of was hugging Chie and never letting go. You were almost tearing up just thinking of the fact that you had been in a relationship with Chie over a long distance for months. It had been months where you two could not even have your first kiss or any affection.

And here you are now. Hey, you (unfortunately) might not be in Japan for too long, but it was better than not visiting at all. As long as you were able to spend every single second with your girlfriend, you were as happy as they could be.

(**) lowkey feel bad about hurting yosuke like this, but i felt like i just had to LMAO

#persona 4 #persona #persona 4 x reader #persona 4 imagines #persona imagines #chie satonaka #fanfiction #persona 4 golden #p4g #chie satonaka x reader #oneshot #gn reader #x reader #kristin's writings

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springfieldblues · 4 years

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my long ass review for S32E03 Now Museum, Now You Don’t

warning: LONG because i rambled about history more than i thought i would

id been looking forward to this one because i like art history, especially after seeing how they tried their best to stick to historical accuracy in the previous episode I, Carumbus. this time however….they didnt try that hard. i dont know why i thought theyd go through that sort of trouble again LMAO

but its okay, i dont really expect the simpsons to be the paragon of historical accuracy or anything. especially in anthology episodes told through a particular character's lens (in this case, lisa, whos already feverish so whatever)

first i just wanna say that this is, i guess, less of a review and more of an accidental list of history fun facts. so im just gonna get my general thoughts out of the way first.

the episode was fun! to me at least haha. i mean it got me to think and do a lot of research on my own so that must count for something. besides a couple of really weird ones, the jokes were good. anthology episodes tend to be….not that good but i thought this one was one of the better ones so far. idk.

anyway on to lisanardo da vinky its the renaissance! jesus christ the italian accents in the beginning of this segment were annoying as hell but i also feel like that was the joke lmao. ill be real i kind of tuned out for a second there when grampa started rambling so idk what he said.

i told myself i wouldnt get nitpicky with historical accuracy if the jokes were funny (final edit: so that was a lie) but this meh bit with the pizza guys and mascots was really not worth ignoring the fact that its impossible for italy to have any tomato-based food in the 15th century (tomatoes were brought to europe from the americas in the 16th century, and pizza as we know it today—flatbread, cheese, tomato—originated in the late 18th century)

oh this next part was kind of legit tho. lisanardo, like the real leonardo, became andrea del verrochio's apprentice at his workshop. i loved this next bit:

"Whoever paints the sweetest cherub will have the honor of having MY name signed on their work. That's what great artists do!"

SO YEAH as it turns out, lisanardo painted the sweetest cherubs. the painting here is called The Baptism of Christ, and the real leonardo assisted verrochio in finishing it. specifically, he painted the cherubs in the corner.

this causes verrochio to quit and go someplace with less talented people: a music school (yes, verrochio did quit painting after getting owned by young leo and his mad angel painting skills. he never did anything with music tho, he was more of a sculptor)

alongside lisanardo, in mr largo-verrochio's workshop we have barticelli (botticelli bart), dolphatello (donatello dolph), ralphael (raphael...ralph) and mediocrito (no one that i know of. sorry milhouse) (and kearney i guess but they dont refer to him by name). botticelli and donatello are said to have also been apprentices at verrochio's workshop, but raphael came a couple of decades later so he couldnt have been there. and donatello was too old so that claim is a bit questionable. but anyway

it IS true that leonardo's peers envied him, to the point where he was anonymously and purposefully accused of being gay (a major crime punishable by death in 15th century florence) while he was still working at verrochio's workshop

we are then treated by what im pretty sure is the fourth time the show has used 'at seventeen' by janis ian, this time sung by a dejected lisanardo (man they really do keep making yeardley sing these days huh) who only wishes to be appreciated and not envied.

"I'll show them all! I'll show them all in a secret diary that no one will decipher for 400 years!"

some of lisanardo's future inventions. who wouldve known

so after barticelli, for some reason (revenge??? or something?? what was his plan here idgi) steals lisanardo's diaries full of blueprints of her inventions and takes them to mr burns who i have to assume is pope alexander VI here, they decide to use her inventions for war.

"With these, we can kill the most evil people in the world!! ....Slightly different Christians."

leo actually did this of his own accord. im surprised this is what they decided to do with lisanardo instead of talking about leo's love of nature and vegetarianism (not a single mention of that in this episode? come on...) then again, trying to do good only to end up indirectly making things worse is a very standard lisa storyline. i guess they didnt want to miss the chance to have evil pope burns (very fitting, especially for that era since they were all about money and controlling the people)

so lisanardo decides to leave for france, unlike the real leonardo who was more or less persuaded by his ultimate fanboy king francis I to move to france.

"Lisanardo, I have many questions. Why are you hitting yourself? A nerd says 'what'? And how is it possible that I am rubber and you are glue? Et cetera, et cetera."

that line may seem a little random, like hes just nelson saying nelson things (and i mean, obviously he is) but the real francis also "had an unquenchable thirst for learning, and Leonardo was the world’s best source of experimental knowledge. He could teach the king about almost any subject there was to know, from how the eye works to why the moon shines." so yeah, he did have many questions and lisanardo, finally being appreciated for her intellect, was happy to answer them all. its very interesting how lisa assigned this role to nelson in her retelling of da vinci’s life :^)

and so she lived the rest of her days in france, nat king cole's 'mona lisa' plays because duh, and they make a da vinci code reference because duh. and the segment ends. and not a single time did they show the actual mona lisa painting. the fuck?

(ngl i was fully expecting bart to say 'leonardo da vinky' for a second here)

so this next segment is about french impressionist painters, most likely the batignolles group, a name adopted by the early representatives of impressionism. its much more vague than the lisanardo segment since no one here is referred to by name (except moe, more on him in a sec) but i dont feel like it really matters in this case. bart is prrrrooobably claude monet but its hard to say, this segment is kind of a mish-mash of a lot of things. also i gotta say i really liked how lisa introduced the story to bart with an 'if you hate the formal study of art' and not 'if you hate art' because thats exactly my headcanon. i LOVE the concept of artist bart and whenever its referenced it just makes perfect sense to me.

anyway the segment opens in 1863 at the école des beaux-arts (back then it was actually known as the académie des beaux-arts), preserver of traditional french art styles. skinner reviews his students’ paintings one by one. praises the plain, unimaginative paintings depicting your typical european countryside landscapes. very run-of-the-mill (haha get it...cuz theres….a windmill) (although the real académie didnt approve of such basic stuff, they wanted artists to draw epic historical and mythological scenes) then he gets to barts painting and he gives him an F- because the painting made him think.

(the paintings in this scene arent real famous paintings as far as i know but they are inspired by real paintings enough to get the point across)

in comes barney dressed as bacchus as a model for the students to sketch, which i just loved:

barney: “You prefer robe open or robe off?” skinner: “Just cover your privates with this walnut shell.” barney: “Whoa!!! So roomy!”

skinner gasps in horror at bart’s sketch, which “looks nothing like him” and bart explains that “it shouldn’t; we’re making the art that we feel because we can’t compete with a camera.” damn, you go bart. take that, realism. draw what you feel!!

(also no, you didnt need to hold still for 17 hours for a daguerreotype. 30 min tops.)

nelson haw-haw of the week: FOIE-gras!

so here they are at the moulin rouge (“enjoy it before baz luhrmann ruins it” hey shut up. i love that movie), which wouldnt be built for another 26 years, but it is the most widely known gathering place for bohemians in the public consciousness so i can understand why they went with the moulin. nelson delivers this anachronistic line:

“This époque keeps getting beller and beller!”

which alludes to la belle époque, the golden age of france usually dated from 1880 to 1914. made me snort so ill let that slide

and heres moe! as henri de toulouse-lautrec, who was actually born a year after the year this segment is set in. yo moe szyslak he was just 1

toulouse-moetrec introduces himself as the chronicler of the demimonde (not an actual job). an iconic figure associated with the moulin rouge (largely due to his affinity for alcohol and prostitutes), toulouse-lautrec was also a painter, having illustrated a series of posters for the moulin himself. he simply had to be in this segment, anachronisms be damned, just because they decided to include the moulin. cant have one without the other.

and yes he did have a walking cane where he kept his liquor.

i love how everyone drinks absinthe in this place. theyre bohemians what else would they drink

toulouse-moetrec points out that barts paintings are the greatest thing hes ever seen (and hes seen like five things!) and that hes a genius. milhouse realizes that they should stop doing what the teacher says and use their own minds to instead...start doing what bart says lmao. to the easels!

next we have skinner hyping up chalmers about the art his students made for the salon de paris, an art exhibition that the emperor of france will attend. he assures him that none of these paintings will encourage debate, provoke thought or be out of place at a dentist’s office. when they unveil the art, theyre both SHOCKED at how scandalous the paintings actually are.

this reaction was kind of accurate. impressionism was severely rejected at the salon de paris, due to paintings not looking finished enough to them, they thought they were ugly and vulgar for depicting nudity in a contemporary setting (historical and mythological nudity was fine). these impressionist paintings were sent to the salon de refusés, which is. yeah. the place where they sent the rejects. the salon de refusés does not make an appearance but this scene makes a reference to it when the artists get expelled from the royal salon. also:

“What about our student loans?” “Oh they’ll be refunded. We are not barbarians, I mean, come on.”

(god if only)

so the painters are down because they want the emperor to actually see their paintings. toulouse-moetrec pipes in once again with an idea.

“There is one thing the emperor loves more than anything.” “France?” “No, he hates France.”

apparently the emperor really loves cheese, which makes sense since its napoleon III (who loved cheese) and homer (who loves cheese.) so the painters roll into the salon inside a giant wheel of cheese (obviously.) as lenny said, “Eh, you know French cheese. Very runny.” napoleon III chases after the wheel into a room, where the wheel falls apart after getting chomped on by the emperor. now that they got his attention, the painters proudly show the emperor their impressionist art, which he couldnt be more indifferent about because he just wants to eat his cheese dammit, and he awards them with the royal medallion just to kind of get them out of his way. skinner immediately starts kissing ass (as he does) until marge’s like ‘hey wait a minute. you expelled these students from the royal salon’ and an executioner immediately starts ominously measuring skinners neck.

“Uh, sir...is your tongue sticking out because you’re dead or because you’re mad at me?”

and thats the end of that lmao (gore in this episode, gore in the last episode, and next week we’re getting gore too cuz its THOH, what the hell is goin on)

we get a short intermission with maggie, who wants a story for her too! lisa tells her that renaissance artists loved to put babies in their paintings, especially baby angels.

here she is showing her The Triumph Of Galatea by raphael:

King David Playing The Harp by peter paul reubens:

and a very simplified version of pretty much any depiction of hell by hyeronimus bosch lmao:

not much else to say about this one, really. but i really liked that sky!

the last segment is about frida kahlo and diego rivera. or as bart puts it ‘the one about a fat guy whos wife is too good for him.’ i was REALLY looking forward to this one because i love frida and i thought itd be a cool opportunity for animators to go bonkers and do really cool shit with her art as inspiration…..but the segment is not about frida, its about diego and his selling out to capitalism. and its also yet another story with homer and marge drama. no funky cool animation here. sigh i guess i’ll take it

the story begins in 1929 at la casa azul, frida’s home (now museum dedicated to her life and work.) frida and diego are getting married. this courtyard definitely did not look this way yet back in 1929. also theres something very cringy yet funny about lovejoy saying spanish words the way he does, i honestly cant decide how i feel about that one

the writers know theyre being cringy with their gringoness so they go along with it.

moe: “Spanish for ‘best wishes’!” mel: “Spanish for ‘congratulations’!” bumblebee man: “Spanish for ‘muy bueno’!”

OH YEAH BUMBLEBEE MAN this is his new voice actor, eric lopez! hes not mexican but its still great to finally have a latino actor voicing a latino character and hes very excited to be part of the show so i hope to hear more of him!! im rooting for him

el barto/zorro makes an appearance which i am very confused about. he has jack shit to do with frida and diego and mexico in the 20s-30s. el zorro was set in the spanish california of the early 19th century. their use of the original theme song makes me think they just wanted to flex their disney privileges tbh

lets not talk about that that whole scene was bad

anyway diego announces he and frida are going to new york, without even asking her first. frida is obviously pissed.

“Don’t worry, as a woman, you’ll be treated with much more respect in America.”

so in new york, diego is having a bit of a business meeting with mr burns as one of the members of the rockefellers, who is commissioning him to draw a mural for the rockefeller center. its kinda funny how he refers to him and frida as socialists even though they were very much communists lmao its okay you can say it. ok so far, but then frida says ‘yes, we hate the capitalists! right now, a young socialist is being born who will take them down! mr. bernie sanders. i hope hes quick about it’ and that was a simple enough joke and couldve been left at that but then its immediately followed by this weird as fuck family guy-esque cutaway gag to bernie as a baby:

“Getting a cootie shot should not cost your lunch money. And if you don’t listen to me, listen to the Bernie Babies! What? Everybody’s got goons.” *larger babies start beating up this other baby* “I disavow that, and welcome it.”

this confused me so much that i had to ask one of my american friends to help me understand, but even she was like ‘uhhh yeah thats a weird joke,’ especially now that hes been out of the race for months (then again these episodes take almost a year to produce. i guess they couldnt be bothered to replace it with something more relevant.) whatever that was weird and confusing and unfunny moving on

frida is pretty irked that diego is going through with this deal. after all, it goes against everything they believe in. im not sure how the real frida felt about diego doing the mural, but she did feel a bit of rage during her visit to the united states, especially the obvious disparity between rich and poor. she hated having to interact with capitalists and found americans very boring. in this segment, frida seems to be acting more like the american communist party, which diego got kicked out of for accepting commissions from wealthy patrons. in any case, frida is pretty upset about this whole thing.

and finally we get the first and only kind of surreal frida moment. kinda. maybe. its more cartoonish than anything but im desperate ok

interesting how they felt like they had to add a “don’t smoke” in big letters after showing patty and selma flying away on their giant cigarettes. i wonder if this is something theyre making them do now? i remember hearing something about them toning down patty and selma’s smoking

diego comes home to frida, drunk as hell, followed by the marx brothers. i cant believe they didnt make a marxism joke come on it was RIGHT THERE. THE MARX BROTHERS. KARL MARX. COME ON

frida paints her feelings.

this makes diego realize that frida is a genius and he is not half the artist she is. he proclaims he will now show his awe of her by sleeping with other women, starting “an hour ago.” to which frida replies, “and i will start sleeping with other women, starting two hours ago.” yes this was pretty much their relationship. though im just wondering how the hell did diego not know frida was this kind of artist until now? i know homers an idiot but jeez. art was how frida and diego met, diego knew from the get-go that frida was an incredible artist. i guess the fame got to his head or something. again, homer just being stupid.

“well enough already, while the art is still deco, okay?”

its time for the mural diego painted, Man At The Crossroads, to be unveiled:

rockefeller examines it. good and great so far, and then...uh oh

“Who’s that fellow…? With the beard, and the bolshevik smile…” “That’s the founder of Soviet Russia, Lenin!”

“B-b-but he’s a communist!” “Oh he just attended a couple of meetings.”

rockefeller will not have this communist in the temple to capitalism that is the rockefeller center, so he orders diego to paint over it. diego stands his ground and refuses. despite rockefeller’s threats, diego says that theres only one person he wants to be proud of him no matter what and in true homer & marge fashion, frida is touched by this. they happily leave the rockefeller center.

now, the real story of Man At The Crossroads and the rockefeller center was actually not that different. as soon as the rockefellers found out diego had snuck in a portrait of lenin into the mural, they ordered him to paint over it, to which he refused. diego even offered to include abraham lincoln and even american abolitionists in the mural as a compromise, but the rockefellers simply did not want any references to communism whatsoever. they did not complain about the hammer and sickle, though. yes, they did know diego was a communist and hired him anyway. what did they expect? lmao. diego said:

"Rather than mutilate the conception [of the mural], I shall prefer the physical destruction of the conception in its entirety, but preserving, at least, its integrity."

so they decided to destroy the mural before it was even finished and they never talked to each other again.

diego then repainted the mural at the palacio de bellas artes back in mexico, this time known as Man, Controller of the Universe. this new version included even more communist leaders and a depiction of john d. rockefeller jr. drinking at a nightclub, right underneath a depiction of syphilis bacteria. cue nelson haw-haw:

this was the version they used in the episode also, since the original was, well, never finished and also destroyed. only a black and white photograph of it exists, taken by diego before it was destroyed so he could remake it.

right so, homer!diego then pulls a Barthood and finishes the episode with a large mural summarizing the entire episode. he says some rick and morty thing i didnt get because i dont watch the show idk idc

the end

ALRIGHT NOW ITS TIME FOR THE STORY OF VINCENT VAN MOE

#if you read all of this bless you #the imageless gdocs version of this is 8 pages long #hope you...enjoy?!?! these art history fun facts?!?!#dont let me do something like this again but also let me know if i should do something like this again #i was really only motivated to do this because im already passionate about the subject so idk if i could do it otherwise #anyway. this took me all day yesterday because the power kept going out #but im finally done #bye

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