#it makes sense in comic book logic at least

[ipostwhatiwant1202]

Rise!Turtle Boyfriend Headcanons:

Leo:

• ego either shoots up or is completely unaccounted for in your presence, no in between

• big fan of making you blush

• can say sorry but the execution is...questionable

• really cheesy nicknames that make no sense but it's fine cause it's him

• let him play with your hair

• constantly seeking your validation

• protective over you or is just like 'eh they got it'

• tries to be thoughtful

• will only do things if you tell him to

• remembers very very specific and strange details about you but is bad at remembering something you told him yesterday

• will read comic books to you in funny voices

• snuggles

• clingy clingy clingy

• no shame in complimenting you

• he makes jokes when he's uncomfortable but if you call him out, he tries (keyword: tries) to do better

• nose kisses

Raph:

• emotionally intelligent but sometimes goes overboard

• he just likes to carry you everywhere

• apologies? no problem. over excessive way of showing you how sorry? lord help you

• very basic nicknames but he makes a special one just for you

• loves taking naps with you

• love language is definitely physical affection

• protective and doesn't like to leave you by yourself places

• definitely feeds his ego if you tell him how big and beautiful he is

• will cook for you...it's edible at least

• very fasinated by your hands and kisses them all the time

• watch movies with him

• will always let you win when you play video games together

• no self control when it comes to expressing his emotions so....have fun with that

• horrible liar so he's always honest

• no shame in complimenting you but prefers to do it when you're alone

• loves when you sit on his lap

Donnie:

• physical affection? eh. words of affirmation? also eh. acts of service? king.

• keeps a log of all your likes and dislikes

• not huge on compliments but will not take his eyes off you when you're dressed nice (and in general)

• protective and possessive

• uses old terms of endearment from shakespeare

• secretly likes cuddles but can't initiate to save his life

• forehead kisses

• horrible at apologies and horrible at showing he's sorry...but he won't do it again

• does everything for you without even asking if you need help

• doesn't listen to you very well but if you start tearing up, that may get his attention

• refers to his projects as "our" children instead of his

• he may do everything for you but he will complain the entire time depending on what it is

• not emotionally intelligent but also..not not emotionally aware

• validate him/compliment his work and he will do whatever you want

• surprisingly very good at gift giving

• doesn't mind hugs if they're coming from you

Mikey:

• king of emotional intelligence and being logical about it

• prepare for the most creative dates of your entire life

• makes you all kinds of drawings all the time

• he's a little brother so he's used to getting his way...don't give in for the sake of world peace

• hugs all the time and cheek kisses are his favorite

• cooking king. expect extravagent meals and the best omelette of your life

• loves doing what you like to do over what he likes when you're together

• he also can't lie so he's also honest

• can apologize and show it...will definitely do it again though

• can't remember dates to save his life

• adhd so have fun trying to keep his attention when you need/want it

• cuddle monster...quite literally

• very fun nicknames and uses them more than your real name

• dr feelings and dr delicate touch are your worst nightmares

• loves when you tell him how cute he is

• protective but also cheers you on if you're kicking butt

[mellosdrawings]

Was playing through ignihyde chapter and I cam across the part where Leona told Jamil off abojt his behavior essentially saying Jamil was useless and not needed to do stuff. Jamil most likely didn’t understand where Leona was coming from. Cause Leona isn’t as “weak” or “unaware” as Kalim. So he didn’t need the protection of Jamil.

Leona was also kinda wrong for the way he delivered it. And it was also covered around with insults

Where I’m getting at is what if Jamil still lingers on with what Leona says and kinda backs off or feels useless around Leona. Kinda being more awkward cause he realized what Leona meant

Some angst for the ship skdndfjsjsjs hope this makes sense 🌸

Ok so, you probably expected some comic/fic ideas about this, but their dynamic during the STYX hellscape had me obsessed for months and you unlocked it all with that ask. It won't be necessarily shippy but it's a long rambling analysis.

ALL THE SPOILERS FOR BOOK 6 AFTER THE CUT!

Their dynamic is so terrible (/pos), I wasn't expecting them to get along the least (honestly thought Riddle and Azul would throw hands at some point, I've also obsessed on their over-confident/under-confident dynamic but that'sfor another time), but in retrospect it makes sense.

I always find Jamil's behavior to be cringe but there are reasons for it. Really he's the one who struggles the most (not counting Idia) during this chapter.

He's the only Vice Housewarden in the group, and also a servant. When it comes to choosing the groups he doesn't give his opinion at all and just goes where there's still place (with Leona) and then rely entirely on his habits and upbringing with him. His role is to protect the fancy person that accompanies him. Usually it's Kalim, but here it's an actual prince who could rain hell on the Asim should he get wounded while under Jamil’s charge.

Jamil thinks about his duty first, that's why he so overbearing until Leona tells him off.

Because Leona isn't Kalim. He’s a lazy twat (/affectionate) but he can also be very independent and he’s probably one of the strongest mages in NRC. He doesn't need Jamil to protect him. If anything he should be the one protecting Jamil considering he is younger and less experimented. (Plus Leona has his pride despite the laziness)

While Jamil thinks of his duties, Leona uses situational logic. They're in a dangerous position where they don't have time to play master and subordinate, it'd be a hassle if Jamil gets wounded.

And it does become a hassle when he gets wounded.

Seriously their dynamic was good.

But also Leona is terrible at communicating. It's a running theme that he expects others to understand his meaning from minimal explanations. For Jamil who is used to Kalim who is rather transparent with his needs and wants, that's a difficulty to tackle.

Add to that the fact that Leona can't help but rile others with his words and you quickly have a Jamil who doubts himself and starts to put himself down.

Again.

Because he's always put down. And this time by an actual royalty.

Like, yeah, Leona was a dick to him and didn't consider the pressure of duty Jamil constantly has on his shoulders. But also... he wasn't wrong. Jamil puts himself down even without external pressure. He's all talk but the only time he actually did something was when he overblotted. During Book 5 he showed no change in behavior except to accept the spotlight when handed (and even then his first reflex was to put Kalim forward, because that's what he's always done.)

While terribly worded and mostly unaware of Jamil's actual situation, Leona was right to set Jamil straight. He could do more. He should do more.

And Leona sees himself in Jamil. That's the moment when you get a glimpse of actual N2 squad. Leona knows they're both constantly second, but where he has no exit door, he sees one for Jamil. He might not stay a servant his whole life. Especially since Kalim is very fond of Jamil. It might take time, but Jamil might still have an exit door to his freedom. (And if Jamil ends up marrying Leona the exit door becomes glaringly obvious)

I like to start the LeoJami relationship right after this book precisely because there's no way Leona’s words didn't kick the ants' nest inside Jamil’s brain, and because Leona shows genuine interest (and a smidgen of care) for Jamil.

And yes, despite Leona cheering him up in his own way by the end of the chapter, he still said a lot of harsh words. Jamil is a notorious overthinker, he would probably alternate between the "I have more potential to growth than others" and "I'm completely useless and would fail to do my job if I stay that way, which would have repercussions on me and my family".

Leona sees potential in him. That's actually huge, you know? So far the only ones who did were Azul, Vil (about dancing and singing at least), and maybe Kalim? But here you have a prince making him understand he's got potential.

Their relationship after STYX is definitely a mess that can turn angsty really fast on Jamil's end, I agree with you. But sometimes you need to break a rock to show its shiny insides. You can get from this with Leona lazily helping Jamil out of his comfort zone (because, once more, Leona sees himself in Jamil) until Jamil improves and finds his self-confidence once more. From there the angst has calmed and you can go to the lovey-dovey stuff!

Does any of this make sense?

I'm done rambling. That was a long one :')

[p-receh]

Analysis time! :D

What better way to make another thesis for certain parts of the last episode?

This post, I'll be talking about how strong the Power Spheres could take over its owner's mind.

As I ever mentioned it before. Even though comic book already covered the story of season 2. Again, we still need to look at the TV ver. Because whatever happens, TV shows is still the roots of Boboiboy's franchise. Whether you like it or not.

We good? Now shall we begin?

Re edit for grammar correction

See, of all every Power Spheres that had been introduced, only Kokotaim gang were not yet been "confirmed" what was their Power Spheres look like. Sure, the only elemental bot that had been shown were Hang Kasa's Crystal Bot and Retak'ka's Light Bot, but that's it.

Monsta already established two rules about the Power Sphere:

Every Power Spheres have their mind and soul. They could talk, think and feel like a living being.

Whatever happens, their contact with their first owner emended to their traits and it impacted to their next owner as well.

My first suspicion obviously came from what Gopal had said before in one of anon ask box about the first debut of Taufan and Hali in OG series.

"In the past, Boboiboy Lightning turn into Thunderstorm because he felt extremely angry. Boboiboy Wind turn into Cyclone also because of felling an absolute joy."

Another interesting aspect is from Mechamato movie. Specifically when Amato in Mecha suit mode was being locked to a flashback scene triggered by Mecha Bot uncontrollable sense of fear.

(excuse me for putting the Indonesian sub ver. :/

*translation note in order:

"Mechabot, Shoot!"

"Mechabot! What's wrong?"

"C'mon Mechabot!

From this point, I think you can guess what I would want to go from here.

As the tweet mentioned. It is interesting to note the similarities between the two. Whenever the Power Spheres' soul take over the owner's body more deeper, their eyes will glow and the scars spreads to their skin.

And by that logic, the Power Spheres consume much more energy than before. Thus the heavy drained out both mentally and physically from their owners.

Amato knew this and to fix the same issue, he convinced Mecha Bot during their final battle against General Grakakus in the same movie.

"Mechabot, close your eyes! I will be the one to handle our moves! Trust me!"

It goes back to one of my ted talks about this topic and a highlight some particular line from Kuputeri.

One of my favorite Boboiboy account also solidified his statement again about Oboi's being controlled by Power Sphere or in this case, elemental forms.

In my opinion what Oboi went through was somehow worse than any other Power Sphere wielder out there.

Not only he wields seven strongest powers in the galaxy but also might be the most unconstrained one to control them. Then again he still not reach his age of consent, but he already hold big responsibility to become the hero and most wanted target in the galaxy.

Think about it, even their original owners were a bit struggled to learn their power. Hang Kasa travel planets to planet only for learning his power with other elemental masters, Kuputeri needs to harness for at least hundreds years until she could tame Beliung/Tempest's, A small crack Ki'rana's body armor could made her went berserk due to the immense power of the Lightning bot.

In common sense, every wielder still has their Power Spheres as their own companion while Oboi hasn't. What Boboiboy only has to contain that grandiose powers? a watch. A watch that went three times modification simply because of the powers that was too strong to keep and use all at once. Not to mention how frequent Oboi uses split and now with fusion techniques is also add to the list.

He barely managed to ease his mind when transform to Beliung, Ice and Blaze worsen Baraju's conflicts with their near 3rd tier transformation, and he was lucky to be saved by 30 minutes Oakuat Juice so he could keep Rimba under his watch.

Now that we come so far, the questions still remains missing:

With how bad the elementals took over Oboi, will it possible they are gonna be the next villain for him in the future?

Does Amato knows about Boboiboy's Elementals powers? Does he also know Ochobot past before sending it to him?

Did the rest of elementals Power Spheres already destroyed after the first Retak'ka's raid or not?

I guess maybe Mechamato series might be the answer of Ochobot and all elementals Power Spheres in the past. Again we still have no clue what happened to him during the season 2 events.

And also this line up post before Monsta split the title for Dwifusion to "Gentar" and "Baraju"—

—announced the third season of Galaxy series after BM3 Gur'latan(quite close too after the movie you know?) . My only hope is that it cover the elenmentals and also other origins of Yaya, Ying, Gopal, and Fang Power Sphere.

Where were they came from? Were their Power Spheres also get destroyed like all elementals did? Are their owners still alive or not?

🤔

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OOT but I just love Monsta's new thumbnail art for full ep marathon of Windara. 😎👍

[raptorific]

My least favorite type of comic book pedant are the kinds who pine for Superman to be redesigned to look completely inhuman, on the logic that it “doesn’t make sense” for him to have crash-landed on a planet with a species that looks exactly like his own.

The people who do this are so obsessed with demonstrating how smart they are for knowing that REAL aliens wouldn’t look like humans, like they do in the movies, that they ignore the fact that in almost every telling of the story, Superman’s parents painstakingly scouted every inhabited planet within Spaceship Range and, on purpose, picked the one where Kryptonians would be healthy and able to blend in unnoticed.

Even though, genuinely, redesigning Kryptonians to appear less human makes the story makes less sense. In this version, where Superman is like a reptile-guy or some sort of plant-being or something, did Jor-El not plan what planet he was sending his newborn son to grow up on and pick one where he’d survive, thrive, and blend in? If he did, why didn’t he pick one of the many planets in the DC Universe where the locals are reptile-guys or plant-beings? If he didn’t, are you suggesting that his plan, in its entirety, to save his son from certain death was to strap him into a cannon and shoot him blindly into space, and just HOPE that he won’t “crash into a sun” or “fall into a black hole” or “just drift forever through the endless vacuum that makes up almost all of space” and that if he DOES land on a planet, it’ll be one with a breathable atmosphere and locals he can blend in with?

I know the real answer is that these people are very obsessed with appearing smart but don’t actually know very much about Superman’s backstory, or at the very least haven’t given it much thought. Nonetheless, like, once every couple years this idea of “redesigning superman to appear more Alien” goes viral with a bunch of comments about how little sense it makes for him to look human, even though it is VERY clearly explained in the story how and why it is not a coincidence

[harveydenttiephysics]

From Teen Titans #48 (1977)

1977? Flash from the Past 1977? The year of the first flight of the United States Space Shuttle? The year Uranus' rings were discovered? The 7th year Columbo was nominated for at least one Prime Time Emmy? The year The Commodore PET was introduced? The Year The Clash released "White Riot"? The year Allen Bussey did 20,302 yo-yo loops? The year Star Wars was released in theatres? The year the International Computer Chess Association was formed? The year Electric Light Orchestra released international chart-topping song "Telephone Line"? The year the United States State of New Jersey started allowing casino gambling in Atlantic City? The year Paul Hackett was on the cover of Skateboarder Magazine? The year Silver St. Cloud made her first apearance in Detective Comics #470? The year we started using fiber-optics for communication? The year the musical Annie won a Tony Award? The year that one guy was struck by lighting for the 7th time? The year Barbra Streisand and Paul Williams won Best Original Song? The year Sadaharu Oh hit his 756th home run? The year the Eagles won Record of the Year with "Hotel California"? The year DC Comics raised the price of a standard comic book from 30 to 35 cents? The year Ellen Berryman won the women's division in the Skateboarding Freestyle World Campionships? The year Fleetwood Mac won Album of the Year with "Rumours"? The year General Motors introduced the Oldsmobile 88? The year The Carpenters released "I Just Fall In Love Again"? The year the MRI was becoming viable for medical use? The year the circus opera "Houdini" premiered in Amsterdam, Netherlands? The year Ringo Starr released "Ringo the 4th"? The year Alan Alda won M*A*S*H their 8th Emmy? The year DC revived Aquaman? The year Princess Beatrice opened the Amsterdam metro? The year Faye Dunaway won Best Actress? The year Canada started showing a regular TV broadcast of parliament? The year Walter Browne won his third straight US chess championship? The year of the Snake? The year Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver was nominated for 4 Academy Awards? The year A. J. Foyt became the first person to win the Indianapolis 500 four times? The year Freaky Friday made $25,942,00 at the box office? The year the Apple II computer entered the technology market? The year The Sex Pistols release chart-topping album "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols"? The year Joel Benjamin became a chess master at the age of 13? The year of the Dover Demon sightings in the town of Dover, Massachusetts? That 1977? 🫠 x40

Green 🛑

Two-Tone Coat! With Pattern! ⭐⭐⭐⭐

uneven split 🛑🤔🛑

two-tone hair ⭐

pussy ass shirt 🛑🛑🛑

Two-tone tie! ⭐⭐

Clip on Tie? 🤔🤔🤔

OH HI DUELA! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Duela in jonker form 🛑

debated filicide 🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑

FUCKED UP HAND!!!11!!1 ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Split teeth, but in a way that could logically make sense ⭐⭐

no glove 🛑🛑

tie and coat cordination ⭐

Oh i so wish I could see your shoes 🤔

Dick is also Here 🤔

Gilda Mention ⭐

Awareness of his own disordered thinking ⭐

continued deranged behavior ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

STAR TOTAL ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

HMMM TOTAL 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔

FAIL TOTAL 🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑🛑

LOSS OF ALL SELF CONTROL TOTAL 🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠🫠

[eobarried]

ok let’s talk about miguel o’hara because it needs to be done. i want to clarify that this is not a hate post or anti-miguel in any sense, but it is a critical analysis of his character and role in the spiderverse. if you don’t feel like you can read this right now, i suggest you like it/save it for later and read it when you feel like you can with an open mind

especially for anyone who’s a miguel enjoyer (i consider myself one as well) because if you really love his character, it’s important to understand why his character was created and what a great narrative tool it is! anyway-

miguel o’hara is, allegorically, a bigot. 

now - let’s unpack and clarify that. miguel is allegorically a bigot - his character is used to represent a certain, specific type of bigotry we see in real life. notice how i’m saying “bigot” and not “racist” - because despite the memes, i don’t think miguel’s hatred of miles is rooted in antiblackness. i think it’s rooted in something a little more complicated, which is why i’m using the term bigotry. but this can be a little confusing, so let’s start from the beginning. or, at least, the most important part.

the canon.

i want you to really think about the word used here - canon. hearing that word should break the fourth wall for you, just like hearing “he’s got hammerspace!” should have earlier in the movie - or discussions different characters have surrounding their distinct art styles. it’s meant to break the fourth wall and draw attention to itself. specifically, the use of the word canon here is meant for us to take a step back from the in-universe events (treating the characters as “real” people and looking at events logically) and instead think of the spiderman story and mythos.

spiderman, as a story, has been told over and over again. we, as an audience, are deeply familiar with this story, as we’ve seen it as a live-action blockbuster in no less than three separate franchises. that’s not even mentioning all the cartoon adaptations, and of course the comic runs. adhering to a specific formula surrounding the story makes sense. when someone walks into a spiderman movie, they have certain... expectations. that no matter what version of spiderman this is, that they follow certain story beats and adhere to certain rules as they follow along in their journey. miguel, when explaining this to miles, focuses on said story beats (which i’ll get to in a second), but there’s something that’s way more important than specific plot points that we need to address here.

and that’s theme. 

theme (if you’re not an english literature person), is basically something you take away from the story. it’s usually a moral, idea, or concept that can be applied to the world around you, and helps you learn more about yourself, society, culture, or history. all stories have themes - usually they have multiple. so let’s get into it.

the original spiderman comic was notable in several ways. the thing that made spiderman so popular and successful is that he was the first (notable) teenage superhero that wasn’t a part of a greater team. spiderman wasn’t a sidekick that was written in to appeal to an audience of children. he was a teenager himself - but he was no less competent or strong than the (mostly adult) villains he fought. 

and not only was spiderman a kid - he was the kid. he was a nerd. he was an older white teen, yes - but he represented the type of person who would go out and buy a comic book more than any other hero at the time. before he became spiderman, peter parker was just kind of a geek. at the time (the 60s) this still identified him as an outcast. peter was socially awkward, not good with girls, he didn’t have many friends, and he was bullied consistently. the only thing he was good at was science, basically. we can connect peter’s original portrayal to many legitimately marginalized groups - specifically those that might be autistic and impacted by ableism. to those kids reading that comic, they saw a hero that represented them.

and how does peter represent them? what does spiderman teach these children by reading these comics? the original spiderman is the story of a man who, by chance, was granted the opportunity for greatness - to become an integral part of his community. spiderman uses his skills (both those granted to him by the spider, but also those that he inherently has, such as his skills with science and engineering), in order to prove his worth and merit. it’s lonely, the road he has to walk - he can’t tell his friends and family who he is, lest they become victims like uncle ben - or lest they betray him. he can only rely on himself and his own knowledge in order to protect his community. the themes we draw from spiderman are this: luck can strike at any time, but you need to use your own strength and intelligence to pull yourself up afterwards, no matter how hard things get. no matter how many people you lose.

that’s what miguel believes spiderman is about. this original spiderman story is that of the american dream. of a youth who is ostracized by society (for whatever reason), but is still able to use their own merit to overcome the obstacles placed in front of them and the grief and pain they face on their path to greatness. it’s a hard and lonely path, but miguel values anyone who has the bravery to face it.

so why does he hate miles?

because he didn’t do it alone. because miles doesn’t believe in the traditional american dream.

if you want to read more about that, check out my analysis comparing spider-society and visions academy over here (it’s not as in-depth as i would like it to be, but it gets the job done) but basically: miles believes that every person deserves greatness. he states it very clearly when talking to his dad about how he won the lottery to go to visions: he just got lucky. he feels as if he took an opportunity away from someone else. why is it just given to him, when anyone else at brooklyn middle is just as deserving of an amazing education? when these resources should be put to use to uplift his whole community, not just miles alone?

miles brings that same energy as a spider-person. he’s not just an anomaly because his spider was from a different dimension. he’s an anomaly because he had a mentor. not only a mentor - he had a whole clan of spider-people there for him. while peter b parker and the crew weren’t always very good allies for miles, they still wanted him to succeed. each spider-person was an outcast - not in the same way as miles, but they were eager to describe what miles needed to master in order to keep himself safe as a crime-fighter. although they weren’t always supportive, it wasn’t because they were “gatekeeping” - it’s because they were worried miles might hurt himself. to them, he hadn’t put in the work on his own, and because he hadn’t proven himself as a spider-person in isolation, they thought there was no way he could be successful as a spider-person during a very high-risk mission.

however, miles proves them wrong. it’s true that miles has to pull upon his own inner strength, but he also pulls on wisdom from those that mentored him - his father, his uncle aaron, peter parker, and peter b parker. as well as love and support from his community. miles became spiderman - but not in isolation. he had help, and support, and love - always - that helped him succeed.

because spiderman - in all universes - represents success in america. in the original comics, spiderman is able to overcome his status as an outcast in order to help his city. he now has great power - a potential allegory related to wealth and social or political status. he uses that power in order to protect the community he loves (nyc) as they can’t all protect themselves.

now let’s bring it back. miguel. right.

miguel has already made his mark as a spiderman. although we know he broke canon, it wasn’t related to him becoming spiderman. we can assume that miguel still went through serious struggle and trauma to get to where he’s at. and now, through thematic analysis, we know that becoming spiderman represents success in america.

so, miguel’s dislike of miles, thematically, connects to how older generations may believe that younger generations “have it too easy” or “don’t put in the same effort.” it’s the (mainly capitalistic) ideal that in order to succeed, it has to be in isolation, without outside help. we can infer that miguel is not only upset that miles didn’t do things “canonically” - but that he is afforded success that miguel doesn’t think he deserves. miguel believes that in order to succeed in america, one needs to do it on their own, and suffer in order to succeed. no “hand-outs,” no support, no community outreach. it’s a very rigid capitalistic standard - which is why i called it “bigoted.” miguel is still a marginalized figure - and it’s important that miguel is the one stating the viewpoint, not a white spiderman. because this isn’t a white vs black storyline. miguel’s dislike of miles is specifically a sort of generational, inter-community bigotry.

for someone who hasn’t experienced it - think of it like hazing. you join a new sports team. the senior players say “you carry the equipment out and clean everything after the game.” you ask “why? can’t we all just do it together? aren’t we supposed to be a team?” and they say “no. you’re the new guys. hard work builds character. deal with it.”

alright. so we took a look at canon through a meta-story lens. now let’s pull it back even further.

so, miguel’s ideology. he adheres firmly to canon, a series of events that cannot (or, should not), change. if we apply that to our lives, that sounds a lot like predestination. destiny. fate. let’s call it predestination for now - you’ll see why in a minute.

now, a belief in predestination makes sense. it can bring a lot of people comfort, thinking that horrible events are out of their hands, and often times it can be harmless to believe in predestination in these instances. for example: someone who blames themselves for not being able to say goodbye to a loved one who died suddenly. if this person believes in predestination, it might ease some of their pain and guilt to know that there was nothing they could do - that it was the will of some higher power that their loved one is gone, and that there was nothing they could do to prevent it. some individuals might find comfort in knowing that they are not to blame for the work of the universe.

however, predestination can also be malicious. thinking that things are the will of the universe, or the will of god... that’s been used for some pretty fucked up stuff in the past. in a more moderate (and topical) example - royalty. many kings used the concept of predestination to explain why they deserved the crown. their bloodline was chosen by god himself - that’s why they’re powerful (compare to spider-people and their success. if they are also predestined for their spider-bite, doesn’t that make them akin to monarchs?)

in more nefarious examples, predestination can be used to subjugate and oppress others. predestination was used in ancient indian society in order to justify the caste system - utilizing the hindu concept of karma to justify why certain members of society were mistreated and oppressed. in a more american sense, predestination was often used as a way to justify both slavery and segregation. originally, slavers tried to justify that god wanted black individuals to serve as slaves because it was his will. later, when divine intervention fell out of fashion, they attempted to use eugenics to justify that black individuals were simply born inferior - that it was just science, and that there was nothing they could do about it.

that’s the other reason it’s called canon. the original usage of the word was to refer to the books of the bible that the church recognized as legitimate. it ties back to faith and religion. 

now, religion, faith, and even the belief in fate itself - are not inherently bad. miguel’s belief in predestination doesn’t make him a bad or bigoted person inherently. however, the way he forces other to believe and adhere to it is. it’s very likely that miguel became so attached to the canon in order to justify why his wife and daughter died - in order to remove his own accountability for their passing and instead place the blame on some higher power. this belief snowballed out of control, however - and now influences his jealousy and distaste for miles and his way of life.

because forcing a canon - a story - on miles, is wrong. when miguel tells miles that his father must die, that he has to adhere to canon - that’s a horrible thing to say to a young black boy. to tell him that in order to be successful as a marginalized individual (to be spiderman) that he has to lose the last black male role model he has? it’s heinous! it’s akin to telling miles that in order to succeed, he has to cut ties with part of his culture. which does happen to young marginalized people in america. they are told that in order to be successful, they have to leave their culture, community, and support system behind.

it’s especially sinister when looking at it from the point of view of storytelling. when looking at it from that angle, miguel is basically telling miles that in order for his story - the story of a young black boy - to be profitable, he has to go through even more trauma and loss. it’s similar to what his guidance counselor mentions when discussing how miles should write his college entrance essay - that he should lie, and emphasize that he struggles while growing up, and that his support system was unstable. it’s the traditional story of a struggling black boy - which i discuss more here when talking about earth 42 miles and his inclusion in the spiderverse.

miguel’s bigotry is centrally tried to his idea of what american society expects of marginalized individuals who were able to achieve their dreams despite it all. a story of pain and struggle. one where they were able to - only through their own strength and intelligence, and maybe with a little bit of luck - pull themselves up, and quietly work towards their own success.

miguel’s belief in the american dream and predestination not only influences his treatment of miles, but also his creation of spider-society. now, let me be frank: miguel, in this franchise, is not supposed to represent someone who created systematic oppression. he’s simply one of the people who believed in bigoted ideals and allowed those ideals to influence his decisions. because when miguel created spider-society, it basically became an elitist isolation chamber. spider-society is located in a huge tower on miguela’s earth. the tower is so tall and imposing on the utopian landscape, there’s no way that miguel is able to properly support his own community as spiderman - he’s not worried about what happens to his own community. especially once we learn that a good portion of them live underground, where miguel can’t even see them. even if he wasn’t occupied with anomalies at all times, there’s no way he could even connect with nueva york around him.

the same can be said of all the spider-people in headquarters. they’re not even in their home dimensions. how can they possibly support their communities when they have isolated themselves as far away as they could literally be? it parallels how successful individuals often treat their communities in reality - what do wealthy people usually do at the first sign of their wealth? they build a huge mansion to get away from it all. many times in our capitalist society, wealthy and successful people abandon the communities they should be supporting. 

miguel represents that. he is a successful, powerful person, who decided to focus only on other successful, powerful people like him. marginalized people who achieved the american dream on their own. people who, instead of uplifting others, instead tear down those who don’t fit into their “mold.” who are successful in their own right, but don’t hold the same ideals and values that they do. who aren’t the model example of marginalized success in the eyes of the (white) american “audience.” 

miguel is a product of a great problem within society. while he partakes and perpetuates bigotry, that doesn’t mean that he’s irredeemable. the narrative shows that miguel is a broken man. if we think about to the end credits scene from itsv, where he calls his dimensional travel bracelet a “goober” - he wasn’t always so hateful. he wasn’t always like this. he can un-learn his bigotry and he isn’t completely lost. the way that he discusses his ideas - it’s clear that he knows that there are flaws in them, just as other spider-people consistently point out. he can be changed and improved - just like our real leaders and role models can be changed and improved. miguel is not without saving - but it’s important to remember that he does need to be saved. 

[harmooniaa]

guys I was looking for Rex merch on amazon and I stumbled across this listing for an Atom Eve and Rex Splode show which is more than likely gonna be the adaptation of the little mini series they had together. Since I saw this I searched up season 3 to maybe see if there was a listing for that too but I couldn’t find one which brings me to my theory:

Are we getting an Eve and Rex miniseries before s3? And will it be announced like super soon?

Because correct me if I’m wrong but the Eve special was released in between s1 and s2 so using that same logic, this series will be like our little treat in between seasons. It would also make sense for them to adapt these comics now because if you’ve read the comics, season 3 is going to be crazy for these two. The reason I think this series is going to be announced super soon is because of the listing. In my experience with books on amazon at least, once the listing is there that means it’s probably going to be either announced or released anytime soon.

I really hope my prediction is right because the Eve and Rex comics were one of my favorite parts to read since I got to see so much content for my two favorite characters!!

[ghostlytuxedo]

This is a Toph appreciation post explaining why I think Toph from Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the best, and least offensive, blind characters in popular media, from the perspective of a blind person with ADHD who sucks at explaining things.

This would've been more fitting when I was seeing a rise in "inclusive" media adding blind characters as some kind of uncomfortable attempt at comic relief, but I'm making it now.

Limitations:

While Toph does follow the "'blind' character who can 'see' via powers" trope, she still has some physical and social limitations due to her blindness. I normally wouldn't give super senses or alternative vision a representation pass without major physical limitations despite it, but I'll defend Toph because of how well-written her character and how her blindness is relevant to her was.

Physically, she can't see visual details such as pictures or print. Print being the only in-universe medium, she can't read or write. Even with bending, she is essentially nearsighted, and she can't feel anything she isn't vicariously in physical contact with through the earth. Other elements, loose material such as sand, and wearing shoes also block her ability to feel. That ability being blocked causes her distress, but so does taking away blind people's canes, their substitute 'eyes.'

Socially, she has to prove to her family that she isn't as helpless as they think she is. She proves it by using her bending equivalent to vision, but let's imagine her bending as an accommodation. Being held back by overprotective parents who don't understand that she can do most of the same things anyone else can, she just has different ways of doing it, is a realistic situation.

After being made fun of for her makeup, she glumly claims one of the good things about being blind is that she doesn't have to worry about how she looks. However, she does care about how others view her, even if by all logic appearance shouldn't matter. When you can't see yourself or others for comparison, you have to rely on what others say, and trust they'll tell you the truth whether you stand out or not. It can be very stressful.

Comic relief:

Most blind comic relief characters are varying degrees of incompetent, infantilized, nutty buffoons, who lack caution or awareness of their actions, and don't know how to adapt or preform basic tasks non-visually. The audience is expected to laugh at them rather than with them.

Toph, on the other hand, is witty. Her blindness isn't the focus of her character, and presents comedic opportunities naturally in the form of her own sarcasm when people forget she can't see, and snarky remarks similar to 'blind jokes' many blind people make on a regular basis. I could make a whole post dedicated to examples, but for now, I'll list a few.

When they're looking for the library, she gets irritable and shouts, "There it is!" When the group looks over, she says, "That's what it will sound like when one of you spots it," waving a hand in front of her eyes to remind them that she can't see. When asked if she wants to go into the library, she says, "I've held books before, and I gotta tell you, they don't do it for me," referring to how she can't read them. When Sokka holds up her wanted poster and rhetorically asks what it is, she retorts, "Well it sounds like a piece of paper, but I guess you're referring to what's on the piece of paper." When Katara calls her makeup pretty, Toph says she'd return the compliment but she can't tell. When Sokka makes bad art, Toph says she thinks it looks perfect. And, while using a disability to cheat security in real life is bad, come on. Seeing eye lemur? Sign me up.

What makes these moments funny, though, is that they aren't the majority of things she jokes or talks about. They come up because they're just the type of thing she'd say, similar to making fun of people or praising being back on solid land before making a snow angel in literal rock. She's genuinely a great character on her own. And when she does fail to catch things because she can't see them, or put wanted posters up facing the wrong way, or complain about her feet not being able to see, it's still funny because, unlike characters in other media, it isn't overdone, it's realistic, and she is well aware of her actions. She works because 'blind dumbass' isn't 90% of her personality, and she isn't the only character taking on the role of comic relief.

Conclusion:

I want to see more Tophs in fiction. Give me more blind characters who are confident in their abilities and act like normal human beings who just happen to be blind for effing once.

[spaceorphan18]

I just need to get some feeling things off my chest - because it's in my thoughts and I feel like I'm stuck unless I express it - you know?

Anyway, I'm putting it all under a cut because A) It's XMen 97 speculation and might be spoilery? there are no spoilers but I don't want to run anyone else's fun, B) I'll be talking about Beau DeMayo, and C) lord help me, I'm bringing up Rogneto

Okay - I want to talk about this first. I read this last night and it made me throw up in my mouth a little. And my ultimate first reaction was that I was glad he was fired.

Honestly, I've been worried that we're headed on an AoA direction for a while now, and even though I actually am fine with the AoA comics, I just do not want it here. The thing, though, is that AoA was always meant to be undone - so if he had had his way and this was Season 3 out of 5, the idea of that doesn't bother me so much.

Granted (logically) - the fact that he's outright saying this when he's been so cryptic about everything else means that it wasn't ever on the table. Still - the guy is just a hardcore Magneto fan. I wouldn't be surprised if the (one) reason the triangle thing even happened is that he does/did like the idea of Rogneto.

Ultimately, to each their own - ship what you like. But doesn't mean I would enjoy that scenario.

x

Then there's this.

There's another post where he talks about using a Star Trek Next Gen episode for homework. And it's one where they're stuck in a time loop.

And it had me thinking that Rogue will get a chance to go back in time and at least tell Remy how she feels. She'll get some closure. Which is -- good for her, and I want her to not be in pain anymore.

But kinda sucks, because closure is closure, you know? And maybe dead is dead?

x

It's so funny because emotionally - my senses tell me that Gambit's story really is done. And that just makes me so sad to think about. They really did the thing and the door is closed and what next, we all move on and be happy? *sigh*

But then there's the logical part of me that kicks in. The one who has been to dark places with fandoms (and even this one) before. The one who knows that even Jean and Morph have been dead before and have come back. The one who knows that every time a comic book writer ends their tenure on a book there's always something the next writer will inevitably retcon.

There's no way - with all the experiences I've had with these mediums that Gambit stays dead. It's still a comic book world. And dead is dead just doesn't happen.

x

Also, in the while I'm thinking about it category -

Last week ole Beau teased a 'I can feel you' hint. I really think this was referring to when Rogue wakes up from her coma. She was dreaming that she could feel Remy. I'm kind of surprised I haven't seen that speculation though.

x

So, idk - I try not to spend a whole lot of time on Twitter, and this guy is ultimately fired and doesn't control direction on the show. And there's still the comics where everything is actually going pretty well. So. I really should be normal about a cartoon.

OOff.

x

ETA: I forgot I was going to mention the Grant Morrison influence.

If you pick up any trade of Morrison's run, he shares his outline of his original plans for New X-Men, and one of them was that he'd kill off Gambit to further Rogue's story. Now - Marvel was like, nope, Claremont wants to use them, so Morrison was denied. (And thank god, Claremont's XTreme run had some of the best Rogue/Gambit stuff in years.)

But I can't help but think that DeMayo may have been playing a little from that playbook. New X-Men has definitely been an influence on the show - from E is for Extinction to the psychic affair between Scott/Jean/Maddie. It wouldn't put it past me that the original Morrison outline that mentions killing Gambit off wasn't a least a little bit of an influence.

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Hmm…I got an idea for how “Avengers Doomsday” could go:

Based on the end of “Multiverse of Madness”, we know that an incursion is occurring. The MCU is colliding with some other universe and it’s Strange’s fault somehow. Since “The Fantastic Four” apparently takes place in another universe, what if that’s the lead-in?

The universe that the MCU is collapsing into is the F4-verse. From there, the F4 movie can develop in several ways. Maybe Doom caused the incursion and that Strange is being unjustly blamed for it? Or maybe Reed Richards caused it because dangers of science and so on.

Anyways, with the incursion happening, the F4 realize they have to travel to the other universe to work with the heroes there in order to save both their universes. Cue…crossover. And if Doom caused the incursion, then it makes sense he’s the main villain. The movie is literally called Doomsday and the movie is about a doomsday that’s going to wipe out the MCU and F4’s universes.

As to how they can fix the problem…maybe a merger? “Multiverse of Madness” set up the idea that you can’t really stop an incursion and that at least one of the universes is dying out. So since both universes can’t survive the crash, through comic book logic, maybe the universes can be merged together to save everyone. This leads to the timeline being somewhat changed, in that the previous events are still technically canon, but are now modified with the new characters.

(Maybe this is also the justification for having the mutants in the MCU. If the mutants exist in F4-verse, then they get merged as well. Also, I didn’t intend on this, but F4-verse in this write-up sounds like it’s just a different version of 20th Century Fox’s Marvel movies lol. Because X-Men and Fantastic Four)

[doodlegirl1998]

Oh I remember this point, AT LEAST. Why? I tried to remember last night but forget.

The point is The Boys HQ and Kickass HQ are comics from the 200ish and is basically "Hero is bad" but in the kickass is differently.

Hear me out, bc I hope to make sense (I often say this bc in my mind I have long put essays and translate them to English is a chore)

Kickass, write by Mark Miller is a story of a loser (incel) who is a fan of comic books. There no powers in this story. The mc (forget the name but it doesnt matter) sufferes an accident and undergo a surgery where it made his skeleton stronger and more resiste t. "Ah like Wolverine" yes and no. His skeleton is stronger than mine ans yours but he can die EASILY.

Then once getting this "power" he decides to be a hero....for fame, of course. He also wants to impress the prettiest girl in the HS. And fails, he has no training, no real power and became a joke.

The girl is not impressed and think he is a lunatic( caveat here, dude has a secret id) well, the girl notices his bruises(remember? He can die easily) and is concerned and the mc takes an opportunity to lie and tell he is gay...so he can be closer of the girl. Who took pity of him and became his friend.

Which yes is canon.

Eventually the truth cames out and he got beat up him...

Why am I mentioning this? Bc I want to understand what is the point of MHA. Kickass is a story that says clearly "only a lunatic would want to be a super hero"

But the same logic cant be apply to MHA sense...it is a job, one many people sough for. Then...why Izu is the one getting the shortest end of the stick?

Hori cant claim, like Marl Miller (who is now a nutcase) "hero bad" to justify his own mc'a treatment...so why?

Hori hating his own mc is an answer(sigh, doubt the others mangakas will offer real critics to his writing. The manga community seems to be "fake till you make it") and it ruins his own story. It is possible to make a story where your mc gets karma...but IT NEEDS TO MAKE SENSE. It is amazing Mark Miller made sense in his comic, Hori didnt. And MHA is to be for young boys and family friend, Kickass is a edgy comic book for boys in puberty.

Hi @mikeellee 👋,

Exactly, other stories like you mentioned the MC's did something that made dunking on them somewhat justified I.e the MC of Kickass.

In MHA with Izuku there's none of that so it just feels mean spirited - there's no humour to see him be dunked on and take it with a smile. I find I just feel sad for him especially this moment

What did Izuku do to deserve this? Nothing but be proud of himself but that to the Author of MHA and Bkg himself is enough and warrants... Brain damage.

Yet Bakugou can treat everyone around him like trash, threaten to kill people, physically harm others under the teachers noses and no one, not even his classmates, care. Bakugou gets no slapstick hurt even though he's done more to deserve it than Midoriya ever has.

Wow.

[spongebobafettywap]

I really don't get the X-Men fandom: For people who claim to be all about inclusivity and "seeing people beyond their label" they are the most close minded folks I've met and can only think about labels.

Like when I think about Magneto, I perfectly understand where he's coming from but I can clearly see that his mentality and the execution of his ideology are both extreme and sometimes just evil which makes his redemption arc all the more satisfying and well earned. But no the fans and the writers go as far as to say "Magneto was/is actually always right and what he was doing back then was always the right thing and perfectly planned to help mutants".

Emma Frost was very evil at the start and she didn't care much about mutants or people other than herself. She had reasons for doing so and they made sense. Many many things happened which changed her overtime and ended with her finding herself back to doing something she initially liked: Teaching. But no the fandom and the writers both go "Actually Emma was always a mutant ally and X-Men at heart, was really constantly looking out for her people and everything she did was to help mutants and others".

If you were to say you'd never side with Mystique and Destiny, the first thing the fandom will do is call you homophobic then block you and spread the word around that you're anti LGBT. This tells you that the fandom really only views these two for the shipping and their sexuality aka as labels instead of the bigger scope which is that these two are SELFISH TERRORISTS AND BACKSTABBING CONSPIRATORS AGAINST THEIR OWN PEOPLE WHO HAVE CREATED DYSTOPIAN FUTURES THROUGH THEIR OWN SHORTSIGHTED BUFFOONERY

The X-Men franchise got so boring when the story and writers began sharing the same lackluster and surface level analysis pov as the fandom

Magneto is mostly right, sometimes the writers just decide to make him come up with plans that will either harm humans or ones that target humans who aren't even anti mutant its very odd. Mostly because they want to write him as an extremist but they don't want you to sympathise with him too much. Whilst I don't like it I also think it is kinda hard to write him as a villain so I guess I understand why they do it?

Emma was literally part of the Hellfire Club they had ties to the Sentinel Program and engaged in anti mutant acts LOL. She was evil, she redeemed herself later but they devalue that arc by saying she was always good.

Don't get me started on Mystique its like if Magneto is written like "he has a point but lets make him do something evil so people don't root for him" Mystique is written like "lets make her do something so evil and then later pretend she has a point to try and get people to root for her"

And I hate it, I get that she's a shapeshifter so they want to do stories about her manipulating people and switching sides but I don't get why they can't do that AND have her be some type of pro mutant extremist. I much prefer the idea of Mystique being like akin to a Black Panther party member being a fugitive but still fighting to free Mutants and defend them and that getting extreme a lot of the time, thats the type of conflict I want to see with her and her kids. And writing her like that at least makes it more logical why the X-men would ally with her at times not a bad person at the core but just does some villainous things for good reasons. You're definitely right about how people call you homophobic if you don't like her or transphobic despite the fact she is not a trans character officially and she is bi.

Not even gonna comment on Destiny as I just find her like this character a lot of comic fans pretend to like more than they actually do lmao.

I definitely agree with you that the X-men books became really boring once the writers started to have the same surface level reading of the books as the fandom and then basically wrote fanfiction, its like why even bother when you can find this stuff online for free

[mirrormazeworld]

Hey i want to point out something here. (if you don't mind! ) but Walt Disney was very interested by Alice Wonderland book, he made a series (Alice's Comedies) who was his "first" work (even he made 5 little short before...) and a point he created his company (which is celebrating 100 years right now! Coincidence? ) which they are two characters (a little creature and Alice) who looks like Grim and Yuu, more later, he wanted to create an Alice movie instead of Snow White movie! ( https://lostmediawiki.com/Alice_in_Wonderland_(partially_lost_original_draft_of_Disney_animated_film;_1939 ) it was dark and at the end of the movie, alice is carried away by one of the executioners with the red queen who wanted to cut off his head ( https://lostmediawiki.com/File:Off_With_Her_Head.jpg ), so they scrapped and put back later in 1951 with new ideas, Walt disney wanted on one of his interviews to be the white knight. (which parallel with Lewis Caroll role in the book.), but scrapped that idea. ( https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Knight_(Through_the_Looking-Glass) ), Also Disney thinking his movie was not perfect to his idea, so i defenitevely think Yana wanted to pay homage not only with Lewis works but to Walt Disney works. And that's super interesting! And definitely think the character of Phantom Blot can play an interesting role... (since he's twisted from Walt Disney.) and they defetively put tons of details in his presence in the game. Like the lonesome ghosts was based on the comic "the seven ghosts" in reality. ( https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/The_Seven_Ghosts ), who was created by Floyd Gottfredson, the same creator of Phantom Blot, so well, is Ramshackle based of Phantom Blot? Probably...Especially since these ghosts on twst have the same outfit as Crowley's. Uhm...

Hello anon! Sorry it took me for a while to reply your message because you just gave me information I didn't know and I need to arrange my thoughts to answer your message properly, because I think you might have solved one mystery of Twisted Wonderland!

I didn't pay attention to Disney's side of Alice in Wonderland because all twst analysis and theory that I did previously are only based on Lewis Carroll's work. What you pointed out anon, it all makes sense now why Ramshackle dorm, the dorm that I suspect to be the dorm of Through the Looking Glass is older than Pomefiore but somehow also forgotten. It's because Alice Wonderland was supposed to be Disney's first movie and was actually the starting point of Disney company, even it's already there far before Snow White or even Mickey.

I get it why Disney was so obsessed with Alice in Wonderland that it became his first work out of all and revived the discarded idea of making a movie of it back after the enormous success of Snow White. As someone who love Carroll's Alice in Wonderland series and know some answer to the riddles in it, I want to say there's a reason why Alice in Wonderland (and it's prequel Through the Looking Glass) is one of the greatest books of all time in the world. For those who doesn't know, it's just a children book full of nonsense but for those who knows the secret behind it and at least managed to solve some of the riddle, they'll know that Alice in Wonderland is like a time capsule keeping a lot of secret information behind it, unscathed by time. From math, to mythology, to alchemy, to theology, even culture at that time, everything is there as the logic behind it that built nonsense called Alice in Wonderland itself.

I suppose in the past Disney tried to replicate what Carroll did and revived it as a movie but although it was one of his successfull movie, the critics and even Disney himself was not satisfied by it. It's because Disney himself said the "Alice in Wonderland" that he made doesn't have a heart at all. Even decades after he died, when live action Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass was made, it wasn't even as satisfying in the eyes of critics even though the graphics was admittedly incredible.

We can say that all this time, Disney's versions of Alice in Wonderland are all a failure because even though it's good, it's still not good enough to do Lewis Carroll's work justice. So when there's a rumor saying "Twisted Wonderland was supposed to be released for celebrating the birthday of Disney company" and from what you said anon, if it's true then that's very sweet of Disney JP to pay tribute to both Lewis Carroll and Walt Disney and even tried to fullfil Walt Disney's lifetime wish that was failed to become reality. This is the best gift Disney JP could give to its founder and they did a right choice hiring Yana as she did her job really well of doing Lewis Carroll's work justice in my opinion by re-creating Wonderland of her own version, a world full of wonder that would make us question what's going to happen next after we read the story accompanied with beautiful graphics. She did what the predecessor of Alice in Wonderland couldn't do, and in my eyes, that's very incredible.

And lastly it's just my opinion, but you said "the lonesome ghost was based on the comic 'The Seven Ghosts' " but somehow I just have a feeling that 'The Seven Ghosts' might actually the main inspiration/concept of the seven dorm leaders who are overbloting since the ink monster behind them is called "Phantom". I don't know how to explain, but as we know a character in twst can be a combination of two or more of Disney character in a concept (like Idia for example, who is the combination of Hades and Megara), we can't dismiss the posibility that Yana used The Seven Ghosts as one of the concept for overblot.

Anyways, thank you for your ask anon! I'm really grateful you let me know because I've learned so much from you things that I didn't know!

And Happy 3rd Anniversary twst JP! 🎉🎊

[enki2]

Some of you will be asking why I, as a poet, am speaking at a medical school. Some of you may only know me from my popular work, The Complete Guide to Mysterious Animals and its many sequels, and may be wondering why I’m speaking at a university at all. Actually, I think all these subjects are related in an interesting way — one that computer scientists are just now beginning to experiment with at scale, with potentially dire exopolitical consequences.

Let me first say that the primary characteristic of a genuine encounter with the paranormal is strangeness. It is not merely strange, but highly strange: some mix of creepy and comical, or caring and threatening, that prevents us from modeling the being’s intentions, or some lapse in logic or impossible action making it impossible to reason about the situation.

Okay, but on the other hand, do you notice how I mentioned modeling intentions, reasoning, following logic… all of these are human attributes — seemingly uniquely human to some degree, though we have built computers to simulate them.

While we have some reports of pets reacting to paranormal events (and reports of wildlife mostly going quiet in response to them), we have no way to know what animals perceive in the event of a close encounter.

What humans perceive differs from case to case, seemingly related to some innate trait (such as ‘being on the right wavelength’ in Keel, or hypnotic suggestibility): we have cases where four people have been in a car that was ‘abducted’ where all four independently reported exactly the same thing, and similar cases where all four reported dramatically different abduction experiences with weird points of commonality, and similar cases where three of them had abduction experiences while the fourth one just felt bodily paralysis and watched the other three jerk around in a trance for a few hours.

It seems like whatever we make contact with at least sometimes makes contact directly with human intellect. As Keel and others document, there are cases where physical evidence seems to be faked by other contactees acting seemingly under post-hypnotic suggestion, so it’s entirely possible that the entire mechanism of action is hypnotic and hard physical evidence remains hidden away to be shown only to selected individuals because it’s essentially hallucinatory.

Let us imagine for a moment that this is the case: that all paranormal activity is, in a sense, “all in our heads”.

This does not make it any less mysterious! There is a force here, causing people to have dramatic meaningful (or meaningless) experiences that fundamentally derail their lives. It is very multifarious but has certain culturally-specific patterns and other more universal patterns.

It’s mimetic: it mimics familiar forms, and caters itself to the expectations of the observer; at the same time, it is anti-structural: it always contains impossible juxtapositions, typically ones that create a meta-level contradiction, (one of Hoftstadter’s paradoxical strange loops).

Hansen’s book, The Trickster and the Paranormal, goes into some detail into this and falls prey to the law of eristic escallation in the process; it is worth infecting yourself with. But I think I have the answer. Language is the alien.

What is language? Humans have it; when a human being lacks language, a lot of people unfortunately consider them less than human.

The reverse is also true: if you met a talking pig, you’d probably stop eating bacon, because you’d begin to consider a pig to be an honorary human (or at least an honorary person). Other apes do not have language; despite promising vocabulary acquisition, no gorilla or chimpanzee has ever developed a sense of consistent grammar better than that of a parrot, which is to say worse than a three year old human child. Certain kinds of mental operations are either heavily assisted by language or depend upon it entirely: logic and mathematics, in their larger structures, require chunking that’s fundamentally linguistic, so performing these tasks is primarily linguistic symbol manipulation & could probably not be done by someone who had never acquired a first language.

Modelling of intentions is much easier when someone can outright tell you what their intentions are, but also when you have neat handles for complex configurations of emotions such as “cuckoldry” or “cheering for the underdog” or “schadenfreude”; at the same time, many of our most fundamental intention-mirroring techniques, the ones that seem basic and pre-linguistic like following eye movement, are deeply entangled with the development of conversational turn-taking norms in early childhood.

Did you know that 78% of the time, when cats groom each other, it ends in a fight? Two cats, who want to groom and want to be groomed, who trust each other enough to begin grooming each other, and almost 80% of the time they end up in a physical altercation. I think language is what separates us from the cats. Language gives us the ability to negotiate but also the ability to imagine another with whom to negotiate.

But language, while it exists inside our heads, does not exist completely inside any one person’s head. If I do not know a particular Japanese word, that does not make it no longer part of Japanese, right? But perhaps if nobody knew a word at all, it could no longer be part of the language. If it’s written down in a hidden tome and the tome is re-discovered it might be resurrected and released like Dracula into the modern language. That’s called time-binding. So some of language is distributed between different people’s heads, and some of it is in cold storage so to speak in books and recordings and graffiti and such. It’s maybe like one organism, or possibly like an ecosystem whose boundaries aren’t like the boundaries of our own: a purely memetic ecosystem, that abides by its own physical laws.

We have all made a pact with this rival astral kingdom of language, or this swarming hive-minded elder god of language. We give it nearly total control over our bodies, and in exchange we get an improved ability to cooperate and engage in complex long-term planning. This demonic pact has led us to our current position, technologically capable of holding earth’s biosphere hostage but not socially capable of talking ourselves down.

Jacques Vallee has suggested that the close encounter phenomenon is a control system: that the purpose of close encounters is to seed stories about close encounters so that those stories become myths and those myths become something people live by. He was unable, however, to imagine what it was that such myths might teach. What do Simonton’s pancakes mean?

[voller-ehrgeiz]

Good afternoon!

So, I want to ask you..

What headcanons do you have about characters or plot developments?

Something about Cedric and Jonathan, something about the Metamur royals?

At least, if we talk about the past, Ludmoore just walked and picked up a talking snake?

And the classic question, heh; Do you have equal preferences for comics and cartoons, or do you belong to only one fandom camp?

You can answer any of these questions if you wish, heh.

Hi, and thanks for asking! Starting with the last question: I definitely prefer TV series over comics, since the adaptation focuses more on Metamoor lore while making it seem a bit more logical and has an overall better story pacing. Still, the comic books sometimes introduce great stuff, such as Arc 4 plot, bits of Escanors' backstory, and, of course, Jonathan Ludmoore. That's because when I'm messing around with HCs, I prefer to mix the best parts of series and source material together and hope that such amalgamation somehow makes sense. Generally, it's the fanon take on Metamoor politics, lore, and antagonists' backstories that I like to see the most (and, of course, the fans doing Disney's job by fixing plot holes).

My HCs are also focused on 'what-if' backstory variation, including Jonathan's and Cedric's early (mis)adventures, Weira's rule, human vs. non-human political tensions, Kandrakar's involvement in the situation, and the reason why Cedric is the only snake shifter we canonically know of. Please don't mind me offering so little details for now - I would really like to introduce all of this in a small comic. That's too ambitious rn, since job and university are taking too much of my time, but someday I'll hopefully be able to finish the whole thing 👀

[msfbgraves]

I have been disturbed by the implications of AI for weeks now, deeply shaken, and I can't find a 'reasonable' argument why. I feel that denying people access to human stories is a violation of the deepest evil but I'm finding no 'logical', objective basis for this. After all, what's the harm if people only have access to bad stories? Film is a new medium, we've survived for millennia without it. And who cares if there are no books to read? Most people are fine not reading, instead watching utter crap -

But then I realised at least part of the reason why I can't find any reasonable argument for the value of good stories is that our culture disregards feelings to an alarming extent. Feelings aren't important, the consensus seems to be, and looking into them is, at best, a medical issue. It's simply not that important that people go through life vaguely miserable a lot, and if anything, that problem can potentially be solved by earning more money, so you can always tell people to focus on that.

Speaking of money, if we can save the 10% spent on creators in the sale of this good, that is a rational savings and a good idea. We don't need actors and writers, artists and directors and musicians anymore, or to a far, far lesser extent, and we can still give people their silly little pictures. Again 200, 500, a 1000 years ago we didn't even have silly little pictures and people survived, yeah? It's a luxury item and mass producing that is what we've done in every industrial revolution!

And... I'm a historian but this is a history I haven't been taught (it's not been presented to me as part of the general human experience somehow), but I have senses, and if it really weren't important, why is Ao3 so big? Why is there so much money in the entertainment industry? Why are many of the biggest successes in entertainment based on novels?

And the societal cost? Why are children who express themselves healthier? Find it easier to work together? Why do museums exist even if many people don't go? And well, did people who couldn't read not value stories?

But they've always made art, put on plays, valued gossip, valued stories. We've always had singers, dancers and musicians, comics. Children have always wanted to hear stories and we've always valued a good yarn. People travelling, or working, would tell them to each other. In winter, they tell them to each other at home. Every summer camp or school trip I went on, a group of people in a somewhat secluded location focusing on a specific activity you normally wouldn't have time for, be it practising music, sports, outdoor activities - it always concluded with: "and at the end of the week, we're putting on a show, so go make up a bit!" Even at orchestra camp, and you could argue that there would be quite enough culture to go around there, but no, we were told to make up bits and put on silly hats...We, humanity, made up 1001 Nights, the myths, the fairytales...

I just know that when you take that away from people, good stories, the human element, it is all kinds of Not Good, I can feel it in my soul.

If only because people who rarely engage with stories are often also terrible at relating to people. And that leads to a lot of misery. Giving people copies of stories based off of what has sold best in the past- it can't be good, it isn't good, but I wish I had some flowcharts to convince people who would otherwise dismiss me as being too emotional.

Because they're the ones in charge...!