#he IS a terrible mentor

[iffeelscouldkill]

So TECHNICALLY I know that the Miles of the Miles Morales: Spider-Man comics is not in the same shared multiverse as Into/Across the Spider-Verse's Peter B. Parker... but they sure do have some COINCIDENTALLY SIMILAR approaches to baby care 😂

[ID: Miles Morales in his Spider-Man costume carries his baby sister, Billie Mariana Morales, in a baby sling fashioned from webs. He's pointing to her and saying, "Uhh. Yes. This is indeed a baby." /End ID]

[nelkcats]

It's a Match!

Being the King of the Infinite Realms didn't really give you many dating options. There were no candidates who weren't committed or completely sincere, and Danny was feeling sensitive those days so he was frustrated. The Observants telling him to get a partner to create a "better future" and offering horrible options was especially infuriating those days, he wished they would stop meddling in his life.

Sam and Tucker, seeing the halfa's frustration did what any friend would do in such a situation: They created a profile for him on a dating app. Although they didn't notice that when they connected it to Technus' Internet the app started taking "candidates" from other dimensions that had it.

Despite not trusting it much at first, Danny eventually embraced the idea and very quickly connected with "Jason Todd" who claimed to be a zombie. Danny thought it was funny and told him he was a ghost, which Jay obviously didn't believe. Ironically, they matched because of the "I died" jokes on their profiles.

The only problem was when Jason asked to meet (he was absolutely convinced that Danny was either homeless or living on the streets due to his refusal to send pictures from home and wanted to feed him) and Danny didn't know how to tell him that he didn't know what dimension he was in.

[merakiui]

Okay speaking of magical girls.... Evil villain tako that has a crush on the cute magical girl at NRC but he doesnt know shes the magical girl that's trying to thwart his evil plan of taking over sage's island mwhaha

YES YES YES. And every week he gets his ass handed to him. You're determined to keep Sage's Island safe!!!! He's trying to get to know you through the fights. The (one-sided) sexual/romantic tension is too much. Tako who flirts at every chance during your fights... you genuinely want to take him out (defeat him), but he wants to take you out (on a date). And it's so obvious he's down bad for you, but you have no idea he's Azul Ashengrotto (your fellow classmate) and he has no idea of your identity either. Azul's trying to balance his love for the magical girl he fights on weekends and his darling classmate who he sees during the week hehe. How fortuitous that they are the same person.

Please imagine that trope where the villain ensnares the hero in tentacles, but it ends up looking more erotic than threatening....... orz evil villain tako whose tentacle is holding you upside down by the ankle and he's monologuing about how he'll take over the island and you'll get to watch, powerless against him. But then he looks at you and your skirt has flipped up and he's granted a gratuitous panty shot!!!!!!! Tako who gets a nosebleed on the spot. He's such a loser pervert. <3

Omg omg or you're squirming in the tentacles and ranting about how you'll get him for this, but Azul's trying so hard not to give into the horny thoughts because the way the tentacles are looped around you and squeezing is so attractive to him.

Like that one scene where Stocking's fighting the octopus ghost LOL.

[miniagula]

they make me ILL and SICK IN THE HEAD

[notbecauseofvictories]

do you think carpenter has had any time to think about how faulkner killed the maybe-sort-of-uncle(ish) who brought her back to her faith? do you think carpenter, of all the people in this podcast, misses mason the most? not....a lot, because of....well, reasons too numerous to name, but once she's had the chance to breathe and sleep and eat a couple half-burnt pancakes, do you think she realizes that literally no one else alive remembers when she was eighteen and carried a knife just in case; when she was twenty-two and high on the thrill of being in same room as the gulfwalker; when she was twenty-six and went to him, begged him, and he didn't ask why her new partner needed to be reassigned, just pursed his lips and reassigned him. they never even really talked about their lives outside of the parish. he tried to manipulate her, propel her to higher heights, but she wriggled out of those attempts; disappeared into the wilderness for months on end. she once tried to ask if he had---a wife, a child? family of any kind?---and in retaliation, he sent her to the other end of the peninsula for six months, chasing a lead that might have been entirely made up. probably by him.

mason was selfish and power-hungry, and definitely using her, and carpenter knew that---she knew it deep down from the start, and then later with a kind of weary acceptance. she knew. but he knew her too, and until she got assigned to a recent convert with just a little bit (a lot bit) of hunger and madness in his eyes....mason was the only one who did.

[turtletoria]

every time i see art of boxleitner and wordgirl in an explicitly father-daughter scenario i sit there gritting my teeth and fists clenched like thats not her father thats not her father thats not her father thats not h

[jaguarys]

I'm certainly not here to police the ways in which people explore their fucked up queers but I'll always be kinda Eugh about people shipping Orochimaru and Kabuto. That is a boy and his awful mother. Orochimaru peeks in nightly and asks if he's done his homework (taken apart several human corpses) and tells him they're proud of him. Kabuto is Technically Siblings with Team Hebi and fucking hates it because he is the Favorite and he will Let Them Know It. I have many thoughts

[quicksweetdreamer]

Casey is so courageous

The animators worked their magic here once again by showing us Casey’s inner conflict and pain instead of making him say it.

Just look at the succession of emotions on his face; you can really feel them:

First fear, then sadness, then determination, then the sadness takes over once more and then pure grief at the idea of losing his mentor again. He then looks away because he just can’t do it.

And only after Leo’s pleas do you see the resignation peak through the tears as he takes the final decision before running away as fast as possible.

This is beautiful storytelling through the use of the animation itself.

And Casey is so courageous because you can really feel how terrified he was but in the end, he trusted Leo that this was the best decision at the moment and did what he had to do, even tho it pained him immensely.

(Yes I cried when I first watched this part AND while making those gifs)

(Shout out to @antimattercontainment for pointing out in one of their post that you can screenshot Netflix with firefox; it gave me a much easier way to record parts of the movie to make these gifs. Thank you, you made my life SO much easier XD.)

[dimensionzero]

anyway every spider-man in the multiverse is alone except for miles. can anybody hear me

[bananonbinary]

on the other hand the best twist of inscryption or any game ever actually was the fact that the stoat is your first and only ally and you immediately get super attached to him and trust him and then it turns out he actually sucks shit and all his advice is the worst

[redysetdare]

People really need to drop the idea that Macaque has taught MK anything. Macaque doesn't have a teaching style because he isn't a teacher. He used that to mock MK. Macaque hasn't been teaching MK he's been TRAUMATIZING him.

"MK needs Macaques teachings!" NO HE DOESN'T. S1 E9 LITERALLY HAS THAT AS ITS MESSAGE. MACAQUES "TEACHINGS" HARMED MK. THEY MADE HIM WORSE. Macaque isn't MKs mentor. He's not a figure MK should follow, listen to, or look up to. macaque does more harm to MK than good and the fact so many people can't see that is mind boggling to me.

[avisisisis]

To add a little more to that post about how peaches represent SWK and Mac's relationship:

In the mountain, Macaque is the one to crush the peach in his hand. He offered it to Sun Wukong, and when he didn't accept it and instead yelled at him, he destroyed it and threw it on the ground

In the end, it was Macaque who left first, not the other way around. Now, their broken relationship isn't completely his fault, but he did play a part on it

SWK screamed at him when he tried to mend their friendship, so instead of trying again, he left. That's what broke their relationship for good. Not Sun Wukong yelling, not Liu'er Mihou not looking for him, but Macaque leaving and (as far as we know) not coming back. La gota que colmó el vaso, we could say. Stuff had already been going on between those two. SWK never seemed to genuinely listen to Macaque and his promises of staying forever were empty (he never would've been able to stay in one place for so long) and Macaque never even bothered to communicate his negative feelings over this, so when he warned him he was ignored

Sun Wukong left again and again and again, looking for more power to "be strong enough to protect them", and eventually he lost sight of why he was doing it. But no matter how many times he left, he came back. Macaque didn't

[imminent-danger-came]

do you think mks cosmic backstory conflicts with the previous conflict of his insecurities of being the wrong successor?

Not at all!

When it comes down to it, MK's main flaw is his lack of belief in himself ("Just believe in yourself! Even a smidge makes all the difference")—that's him at his core. He's also identity issues the character ("I'm not the Monkey King okay!" "You're right—you're the Monkie Kid! You have to find your own way to win."), and I think s4 laid into this quite nicely.

Throughout seasons 1 and 2 MK was trying to live up to the legacy of "Monkey King". That's what 1x06 and 1x09 are motivated by—MK is trying to make himself stronger and more like Wukong ("I just wanted to be good enough—like you."). Really 2x05 just worsened a problem MK already had. He was already having doubts about being the Monkie Kid, and SWK leaving in 2x01 was a crack in an already unstable foundation. So then in 2x06 and 2x09 you have MK desperately trying to get stronger, to be a sort of Monkey King stand in ("Pretty soon, Monkey King won't even need to come back!"), and that all comes crashing down in 2x10. And, not only does MK fail, he loses the staff and his powers.

This takes us to 3x01, where MK IMMEDIATELY tries to be Wukong once again:

Sun Wukong: "Kid, why did ya-" MK: "Uh, well yeah, I was trying to do you in the omelet story! Do the weird impulsive Monkey King thing and escape the bad guy."

Sun Wukong: "Well, I mean- Ne Zha ain't really a bad guy but- did you forget about the part where I got really hurt?"

(3x01 On The Run) (Hi MK good guy v bad guy mentality)

-

MK doesn't refer to himself as the Monkie Kid again until after he's able to use gold vision in 3x03, listing off a few of his labels:

"But I, Monkie Kid, delivery boy, somewhat equal to heaven—saw right through your trick." (3x03 Smartie Kid; another label)

Which, MK and his labels are a big deal ("Hero"/"Warrior" in 2x07, Noodle Boy, Successor, the "Plan Man" in 4x12). It's specifically what the curse antagonizes MK with in s4:

Subodhi: “Who or what you are, even I do not know the answer—but of one thing, I am certain: fate has plans for you! Great plans, or foul? Time will tell.” MK: "I- I can't be! I'm just MK!" Subodhi: "The Monkie Kid?" MK: *Gasps*

-

Curse MK: "Tell me, what do you think we are, honestly, cause I have been DYING to hear us say it, out loud." MK: "What kind of a question is that? I'm just- I'm just MK, a noodle delivery guy with the powers of the Monkey King, no biggie."

-

Curse MK: "Seriously? You still think we're just some noodle delivery guy? You can't remember where you came from, and we got ALL this power, and you never once thought, why us? What are we, what is our purpose?" MK: "Of course I thought about it! I mean- maybe, I was gonna thought about it I just- I just want to be me. To be MK!" Curse MK: "Yeah well, we all know exactly where that leads, don't we." Lady Bone Demon Echo: "To pain."

-

Curse MK: "We're just like Wukong, a fraud! A trickster! Why would our legacy be any different?"

-

MK: "No, no you're wrong I'm- I'm not!" Curse MK: "Not what, some Monkey Demon thing destined to bring chaos upon the world? Come on, use your words big brained boy, say it, what are we?"

-

Curse MK: "You can see it, can't you? This is your fate. Your friends will turn on you, seeing you for the monster you will become! They will destroy you, harbinger of chaos."

-

There's all of these different things MK is either trying to be or trying to not be, which all plays back into his identity. It also all plays back to one thing: his lack of belief in himself.

He's either not enough like Wukong or too much like his mentor. He's either not strong enough or too strong, destined to cause nothing but chaos and destruction. He's either not going to be able to protect the people he cares about, or he's going to be the very thing that hurts them. It's the same problem, just on different sides of the spectrum.

The 3x14 "Do you still really think the universe wants anything, from any of us?" to 4x08 "Until I know what I am, what my destiny is? I can't risk hurting the people I care about—the one's I have left" pipeline is both wild and important to note. It's the switch from MK believing he's nothing special, to believing he's the very "harbinger of chaos". It's all about his self-perception.

And honestly, when it comes down to it, he probably still believes he's the wrong successor, just for very different reasons now. You and I both know that there was no other choice for a protégé—who else would have been able to wield the Monkey King's staff and have his powers—but I doubt MK is in a place to come to terms with that. I think that realization is going to be part of his downward spiral next season, along with being one of the things that instigates the SWK V MK fight.

It's very on point that the way MK comforts Wukong at the end of 4x11 is through reaffirming his role as the "Monkey King":

MK: "Monkey King- I'm not ready to not have a mentor. Azure needs to be stopped but- we need you. I need you- to be the Monkey King."

(4x11 A Lifetime of Mistakes)

-

While the way he antagonizes Azure is to threaten his role as a Hero (also referencing his role as an Uncle, and before that his role as a friend):

MK: "Come on! Come on! Come on Unkie Lion, you're the big hero right? Then prove it. Show me!"

(4x13 Rip and Tear)

-

*Gestures financially* IDENTITY

Bonus "What I am" parallels post because it's pretty relevant I feellmk

[youraveragecatastrophe]

All jokes about Devineaux aside, I don't get why they had him be exactly the same jerk to Julia in the Luchadora tango caper as he was in season 1.

At the end of season 1, while fully believing he was right about Carmen, he recognized, if only to himself, that he was being unjust towards Julia.

Why then does he act as shitty as ever regarding her interests in season 3, whipping out the "dull facts and boring things"?

During my previous viewings of season 4, his "change of heart" felt sudden and rushed to me, not as satisfying as I would have hoped. Maybe I'll feel differently during this rewatch, watching one episode at a time. Who knows.

[thermodynamic-comedian]

hey guys remember when in the literal first episode of asoue, olaf says something like

"you may think i'm an evil person, but let me tell you something.....you haven't got the faintest clue."

he was not exaggerating

[aberfaeth]

i do actually want to share the highlight of my day which was when our editorial mentor said something in his extremely british accent and one of the girls mimicked him and he gave her a look like he was affronted about this. and she stared him dead in the eyes and said “hey what day is it” to which he took a moment while we lost our minds and then replied “it’s between monday and wednesday”