#laser ray dragon

[tartist07]

Zok, The Laser Ray Dragon

Fan art of Zok, from the show the Herculoids

Art belongs to @tartist07

[mast3r-rainb0w]

[C] 'Dragon Tales' Style: Lenny Bostin (OC) by Mast3r-Rainb0w

A commission made via DeviantArt featuring an OC drawn in the "Dragon Tales" artstyle. This original character belong to their respective owner, but the artwork was made by me! Enjoy!

[say-hi-intrepid-heroes]

alright let’s go over the junior year clues we got in the rick perry documentary thing (disclaimer: i’ve definitely missed stuff, but i think i got the big things, feel free to reblog and add with stuff that i missed though)

[at the bottom of this post I've typed out the decipherable words that plan out some combats and NPCs from Rick's screen. it's the most interesting thing but it's super long so it's at the bottom under a cut]

We get a blurry look at some minis. I’m seeing at least the PC’s minis, as well as what looks like Baxter the Gryphon.

There’s some major shots of this battle. Includes a Baby mini, the Hangvan with some kind of laser canon on top, a stingray-esque monster that is likely Night Yorb (see below), something that looks like maybe an ice elemental or the crystal (see below), and some large bugs and shirtless people. Clearly set in the Red Wastes. Detailed info of the planning for this battle below.

One of the shots had reference boards in the background. One is clearly for the Hangvan (see earlier screencaps), but the other is unclear. It looks like it includes some sort of tennis or tennis-adjacent sport.

Confirmation that Mordred Manor is a set piece.

Finally, one shot showed Rick’s computer screen with some critical info about planning. I’ve put what I’ve been able to decipher below the screencaps. and under a cut, as it’s very long.

EP. 701 DEFEATING NIGHT YORB CHASE (RED WASTES) Hangvan, Night Yorb is giant flying Manta Ray thing? Rainbow road, being chased by night yorb while trying to throw crystal into portal. Crazy gun on rough [roof] that gorgug made, I can’t get a lock on it. Just need one last final thing to defeat night yorb. Red wastes, chasing the night yorb around, flying bats teleporting onto rough [roof] of van, NPC allies, Balthazar, two other cars they are in contact with, tiefling bakers or sidekicks are reveals Stormchaser twister, trying to get a lock onto it, Night Yorb is escaping the world. Maybe night yorb gets away, why didn [didn’t] you get it? And Balthazar died? Murph invented the Night Yorb. Don’t fuck with the Night Yorb. Exploded out of riz’s chest, needs to be dumb as hell. it’s the jabberwocky, it burbled, hugely terrifying, Horrifying cursed thing. Unending night for two months. Dragon sized, bigger than the Hang Van, 30’ wingspan Stars and moon. While the night yorb flies it is night and not day. Not malevolent force, but everything on earth will die Have giant ghost busters canon, Honey I shrunk the kids cannon Driver, mechanic, gunner, navigator (using SW 5e mechanics) Hang Man - Fabian motorcycle Tether is attached to night yorb, either magic or harpoon Night Yorb could out pace them. Could smash van. Cultist of the night yorb appearing on the road, mad max style ”The night yorb is our god” Red Wastes Cultists: Riding skeleton horses, classic fantasy cultists, Manta ray night yorb masks Sword and Sorcery vibes, MUSCELY, oiled, black leather, rings Shadow of Night Yorb Tether must be reeled in over 4 rounds Success Meter - 4 rounds or it escapes Pop up cultists in the middle of the road 4 maps Straight away, gully bridge crossing, rap popping up, giant portal It’s going to another world but if it gets away thats just as bad Ayada [Ayda?] thing built in. Chekov’s gun. Gun has cool helix of energy that is getting cranked in. Gun is on the back and on the hood is a binding circle that Adaine does. Cultists are making the portal. YORBIES if they catch it, it gets bound into the paint of their van Gun is gorgug’s stuff and circle is adaine 6 cultist perusing them, 4 or 5 at the portal, 1 or 2 back up Single person traps, Vulture with cactus MINIS: Night Yorb - Giant shadowy manta ray, inky black dripping, made of liquid, different underbelly, deep indigo or bone white. Made of shadows, dripping aberration, flat plane, long tail, two weird eyes coming off front on stalks. Second set of PCs TERRAIN: Red Wastes! NOTES: favorite crazy dnd monsters, beholder, [unclear word, bu…ette] Fungal Black light portal battle! Dr. Strange battle set, pseudo pods of elder pod night yorb, day glow run fragments, purple stone castle night yorb temple, floor is octopus made of shadows. Starting mid battle. [blank sections] PROJECTION: Counter here of some kind?

POTENTIAL LOCATIONS Basrar’s icecream shop? Mordred Manor Seacaster Manor [crossed out] Strong Tower Luxury Apartments SAT Prep class [screen cuts off]

EP. 704 DENTENTION [detention] STEALTH CHASE SEQUENCE/ QUIET LIBRARY/ Aguefort chase sequence? Combine sets interrupted by having to make it past a hall monitor Underwater? Books suspended floating, everything is affected by water Don’t wake daddy? Start in Library to get to Aguefort’s office Hallway Classroom Bathroom Lockerroom [blank sections] DYNAMIC ELEMENT: Water

CONCEPTS Dicks! SPIRITUAL GUARDIANS - Full service on minis, summons, etc Psycadelic fungal giant, black light, trippy, beautiful Revisiting old set [screen cuts off]

[fyi everything past this point was very blurry, so I could only decipher pieces here and there]

EP. 706 OUTDOOR CONCERT COACHELLA Music feature? Flaming [?], giant [?] [???] Fig and Gorgug on stage [???] Lighting effects, [???] Floating stage or something [???] Demons? PROJECTION: Lasers?

NPCS/ VILLAINS/ MONSTERS/ ETC. PORTER CLIFFBREAKER is secret servant of nightmare king tactical battlefield combat that [?] 2-3 times larger than PCs LED buried inside him [???] Porter was [???] basketball player [screen cuts off]

[the rest was too blurry to make out anything other than a blank section titled ROLE PLAY/ NEUTRAL BOARD and a section that seems to be for EP. 708 and says EXTRA with some blurry words after it]

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

What if dragon beams look like flashlights on purpose so that if they’re found there’s an easy explanation, and the lowest power setting is so harmless it can actually be used as a flashlight so it can be demonstrated if it ever comes up?

Yeah, I've said before that I really like the flashlight-looking dracon beams from AniTV, so much so that I kept them for my own Animorphs fics despite them not being canon for the book series. We don't know a ton about the dracon beams from the books, other than that a) Jake immediately recognizes one as "a gun" the first time he sees one in MM4, b) Tobias has to use get his talon around a trigger guard to shoot one in #3, and c) Rachel quickly figures out how to use a dial to get to the low-power "stun" setting on one in #17.

Near as I can tell, the only official art of that design is a tiny subset of the #34 cover insert, showing a few hork-bajir-controllers firing them.

Other than that we get a few drawings of them in the comics, which look cool (and at least more alien than the gun design) but again not that comfortable for a variety of hands.

Anyway, I like the flashlight-style dracon beams from the show much better than the ray-gun-style ones from the books, because they seem both more stealthy and also more broadly ergonomic. My personal headcanon is that they're like those big bulky old-school flashlights even more so than the slender little ones from the show; those would be easier for gedds than humans to hold, which in my mind fits the bill.

That pistol-like design is a little too well-fitted for human hands for my taste; I like how much easier a flashlight-like design would be for tiny taxxon hands and giant hork-bajir hands and clumsy gedd hands to wield. It's a recurring theme in the books that Bug fighters are just awkward for humans to use; they're set up to accommodate up to three taxxons or hork-bajir, and so some features (chairs, ten-finger keyboard setups) had to be sacrificed to that goal. If a dracon beam's a big clumsy tube with maybe two buttons for a trigger and a power setting, then it feels more alien than a laser pistol does.

[tobiasdrake]

I have a question for you about dragon ball lore, which is when exactly does the franchise go full BDZ™? I think you can infer what I mean, but the stereotyped faster-than-yoi-can-see, flight, energy blasts kind of dragon ball that most of use found on toonami. Because the beginning of DB is a cute lil adventure story, but at a certain point in the franchise we have to just accept, "ok, people can fly and shoot lasers out of their hands."

Do you think there's a discreet moment to point to? Or at least, do you know when generic ki blasts became a thing, instead of signature attacks like Kamehameha/dodon ray?

I don't know if there's an exact moment to point to, but I would say - appropriately enough - that the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai to Raditz is probably whereabouts that happened.

The 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai is the arc where Goku and Krillin learned Bukujutsu in addition to Tenshinhan and Piccolo already having it. Then the Saiyans arrive and they're already familiar with it, and from then on everyone can fly.

The 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai also sees more usage of generic ki blasts. Piccolo's really the harbinger of non-specific ki attacks. Piccolo-Daimao uses several ki attacks that aren't named techniques throughout his arc, and after his reincarnation he brings yet more of them to the tournament.

Then Raditz arrives who is not a martial artist and just brutely shoots ki, and then we go into the whole Planet Trade arc featuring guys who just brutely shoot ki.

It is, however, worth noting that the anime is very different in this regard. We see a lot more generic ki spamming in the anime during the padded-out action sequences. There's some things that are considered iconic Dragon Ball fight stuff, such as everyone watching in awe while faster-than-sight fighters clash in the sky leaving little booms wherever they collide, that the anime created just to fill time with inconsequential but cool-looking action between panels.

One thing in particular that really struck me when watching the Z anime recently was tunneling. During the filler action sequences, characters do a surprising amount of burrowing underground so they can launch sneak attacks from below. Everybody in the anime is Bugs Bunny. XD

But for when exactly everyone took to the air and starting firing ki blasts at each other that weren't just Big Moment super attacks? 23rd TB through Saiyan arc is definitely the place.

[mari3with3]

How the Zonai connect the The Legend of Zelda franchise (Theory)

In TotK we're explained that the kingdom of Hyrule was founded thanks to the union of the Hylian and Zonai tribes with the marriage of Rauru and Sonia. I've seen that a big part of the fandom thinks that this is not the true founding of Hyrule and that it's the creation of a new kingdom (since this has already happened before), but I think that it is the same Hyrule that we see in Minish Cap, Ocarina of Time, Twillight Princess, etc.

Why do I believe this? Because the Zonai existed during Skyward Sword and became extinct before Minish Cap.

1°- The Zonai in Skyward Sword

Throughout Skyward Sword, in the surface we can see ruins, temples, dungeons, etc. I believe that most of these constructions were built by the Zonai: The Skyview Temple has mechanisms which work with eyes, the Earth Temple is full of symbolism and sculptures of dragons (and also has sculptures of people with fangs, long ears and three eyes), the Ancient Cistern has symbols of what appear to be tears and also flowers of lotus (which personally remind me of the figure that has the Zonai symbol from TotK), the Sandship has many spirals and in the Fire sanctuary there are statues of more dragons. Also, most of the dungeons I just mentioned (aside from being almost completely abandoned) have spirals in their architecture. As you can see, the Zonai probably inhabited all of Hyrule just like in BotW, since there we can see Zonai architecture throughout the entire kingdom.

2°- The symbols

The features that the dungeons have are eyes, dragons/snakes, owls, tears, and spirals; we can easily relate all these symbols to the Zonai, because there are many of these in their ruins. Throughout the Faron region there are statues of boars, owls and dragons/snakes; These represent the golden Goddesses and their qualities: power, wisdom and courage. In TotK we can see that the eyes represent the Zonai (in weapons, architecture, jewelry and the extra eye on their foreheads). The tears can be related to the secret stones, which have the same shape as the tears, and are apparently a very important element in the Zonai culture.

And finally the spirals, the most important symbol. Before TotK, spirals were the symbol of the Zonai tribe; In BotW all Zonai architecture was full of spirals (architecture which you can find in basically all Hyrule). According to Creating a Champion, the spiral is a unique mark to show that the Zonai were there and that the place belonged to them; This is why I believe that the dungeons in Skyward Sword were built by the Zonai. (Interesting fact: as I had already pointed out in another post, the Māori patterns are traditional art from New Zealand, one of them is a spiral and is called Rauru)

3°- The Lanayru Desert

The Zonai made buildings throughout the surface, but I believe they had one special settlement; Lanayru. Long ago I thought that the Lanayru Mining Facility belonged to the Sheikah, but now I'm almost sure it belonged to the Zonai. Here are my reasons:

The Zonai had an incredibly advanced technology for their era, in the same way, the entire Lanayru region in general has very advanced technology: artificial light, flying robots, laser rays, automatic platforms, electricity, etc.

Throughout Lanayru there are all kinds of technology and robots, if you look at their designs you will notice that they have an aesthetic very similar to the Zonai. (Another detail is that these robots work with blue/green electricity, the same color as the electricity that the Zonai Constructs have)

The ancient robots that inhabit Lanayru have many kinds, each with a different function (just like the Zonai Constructs), and it seems that most of them suddenly stopped working while doing their daily jobs. It seems that they worked for someone and then they disappeared, similar to how the Zonai became extinct.

The Lanayru Mining Facility, as its name says, is where they used to process all the Timeshift Stones that they had obtained in the mines. In TotK the Zonai also had mines where they collected Zonaite.

As I mentioned before, throughout Lanayru there is a mineral called Timeshift Stone, which has the power to change the time around it. These stones have a dark blue color, and when activated they change to light blue/green; When these pass through the Lanayru Mining Facility, a design that looks like an eye with eyelashes and a tear is added. Previously that eye would be related to the Sheikah, but with all these connections it would make more sense for it to be related to the Zonai.

4°- Origins of the Zonai

All of this points to the fact that the Zonai inhabited Lanayru and that everything there belonged to them; That means that the Zonai protected the temple of time and Nayru's flame, which leads me to think that they also protected the other two flames. As I had previously said, all the temples where the flames are have details that make them related to the Zonai. But why do the Zonai have access to these sacred artifacts?

In TotK we are told that the Zonai are descendants of Gods, and these gods were the ones who gave them the secret stones (which are also sacred artifacts). In Creating a Champion we're told that the Zonai worshiped a certain water dragon, however, in the BotW era there is no water dragon (It could be Farosh, but it's more related to electricity). But, in Skyward Sword there is a water dragon, Faron.

I believe that the Zonai are descendants of the dragons from Skyward Sword (which are basically gods). That would also explain why most temples are made for the dragons and the appearance of the Zonai and their dragon-like features too (scales, horns, fangs, bright colors, etc.)

5°- The tears

So the Zonai, being descendants of dragons, were entrusted to protect sacred artifacts such as the secret stones, the Gate of Time in Lanayru, the flames of the Goddesses, and probably also the Sacred Tears.

In Skyward Sword, when Link goes to the Silent Realm he has to find the tears of the goddesses. There are two very important things here:

After TotK we relate a lot the tears with the Zonai, and in the Silent Realm we have to collect sacred tears. Also in the Silent Realm (and only there) we will find many ''dusk relics'', which have the same shape as the secret stones.

In the Silent Realm there are machines called Guardians, which have an incredible resemblance to the Zonai (Extremely tall, with long ears, three eyes, and they also have many spirals on their desing).

Another game where there are also tears that must be collected is Twilight Princess. Here the spirits of light ask you to collect all the tears in order to restore the world of light.

6°- Connection with the Twili

Another thing I want to point out and that a big part of the fandom has noticed is the big resemblance that the Zonai and the Twili have, but I still want to show more evidence of why I think they are connected:

The spirits of light tell us that a dark tribe known as the Interlopers tried to take over the Triforce using their magic, it was then that the spirits of light stopped them and sent them to the twilight realm.

In Twilight Princess they describe the Interlopers as a tribe with incredibly powerful magic (so much so that they almost got the Triforce). In Creating a Champion they describe the Zonai as “strong magic wielders who vanished suddenly,” similar to the story of the Twili.

The architecture of both tribes is very similar; The architecture in the Twilight realm is very similar to the Zonai which we see in the Dragon's Tears. Inside the palace of Twilight we can see that the building is full of figures that look like eyes with tears, hands, snakes and spirals.

Eyes and hands seem to be very important in Twili culture as well as in the Zonai (There are giant hands in the palace of twilight and even Wolf Link has the mark of a third eye with a tear on his forehead).

The Twili have technology similar to the Zonai's (platforms, switches, etc.)

The magic of the Twili is blue/green, a color we associate with the Zonai, and when something or someone bad controls both, they turn red. Another thing to add is that when we saw the TloZ TotK logo, many of us related the cracks of the master sword with the magic of the Twili.

In BotW, in the Faron region, there is a fragmented monument which is very similar to the twilight mirror and which also has the same color as Twili/Zonai magic.

Despite being a tribe of shadows, they have artifacts called “Sol” which are made of light.

A very important piece of evidence that the Twili and the Zonai are connected is the design of the Fused Shadow. The Fused Shadow (in addition to appearing to be made from the same material as most Zonai architecture in TotK) has spirals, snakes, and eyes.

Another detail about the Fused Shadow that has been talked about for many years is that one of its pieces seems to be one of the eyes of the Majora's mask (I also once saw that someone was comparing one of Rauru's eyes in the mural with Majora).

7°- Majora

In Majora's Mask we are explained that an ancient tribe used to wear the Majora's mask to perform rituals, then they sealed the mask in shadows to avoid catastrophes, and then they mysteriously disappeared. It has been three times that we have heard about a powerful tribe which mysteriously disappeared, it's not weird to think that they could be the same tribe, the Zonai.

The manga explain us that Majora was originally a demon. Majora's armor could fulfill wishes, so many people tried to kill him to take his armor; However, Majora ate them. Afterwards, he was defeated by the Fierce Deity, who made him dance for 3 days and 3 nights until he died. The Fierce Deity used the remains of the demon to make the Majora's mask.

It may be that these people Majora killed were the Zonai, and when the Fierce Deity killed the demon, the Zonai thanked him by making a mask in his honor. I believe this because the Barbarian Armor (which is most likely of Zonai origin), when dyed blue or red, has the same marks as the Fierce Deity.

8°- Zonai appearances in other games before BotW

I don't have much to explain here, just more evidence that the Zonai could have been in Hyrule before the BotW era.

9°- History of the Zonai (my conclusion)

The Zonai are descendants of the three dragons that protected the surface in Skyward Sword. This tribe had very advanced technology and powerful magic. However, being so special, they had a small population

The Zonai had the mission of protecting the most important, sacred artifacts (the tears of the goddesses, the tears of light, and even the Triforce), which is why they came down to the surface in the distant past (The age of Creation, before SkSw). When they arrive to the surface, the Zonai took advantage of the resources that were there (the timeshift Stones) and with them created the two Gates of time and also the ocarina of time (The ocarina is a relic that has been passed down through generations in the royal family, it may have been a gift from Rauru to Sonia). However, by spending Lanayru's resources, a portion of the Zonai ended up dying along with all of Lanayru's technology.

When the Zonai descended to the surface, the Hylians and other inhabitants mistook them for Gods. The Zonai became so obsessed with the idea of being Gods that they tried to be one; So they looked for the demon Majora to kill him and take his armor, with which they could make the wish of becoming Gods, however the majority died in the attempt to defeat the demon. When the Fierce Deity managed to kill him, they made a mask of him and painted their armors in his honor, and the remaining Zonai decided to hide the Majora's mask to avoid further catastrophes. However, they did not give up trying to be gods.

When the ancient battle begin the Zonai were sent to build the Silent Realm for the Hero (that's why you have to collect tears and the guardians look so much like the Zonai). But in the middle of the war, a group of Zonai used their magic to create the Fused Shadow to enter the sacred realm (they were its protectors, that's why they knew about it) and obtain the Triforce, so they could finally make their wish. Unfortunately for them, the Goddesses found out about their betrayal and sent them to the Twilight Realm to punish them (Long time later, the other Zonai built a replica of the mirror of twilight, which is found along with the other Zonai ruins in Faron, to remember them).

At the end of the war, the goddesses gave the few remaining Zonai the secret stones, them decided to remain faithful to the Goddesses and protect the stones (It could be that, as gratitude, the spirits of light gave these few Zonai their light magic, that's why Rauru has sacred light without being related to Hylia). Throughout Skyward Sword the Zonai were hiding somewhere in the sky.

Hundreds of years after SkSw, the Zonai descended from the sky again; Rauru, who was the leader of the tribe (and was also a descendant of the Zonai who protected the stones and had the powers of light), married Sonia (who was a descendant of Link and Zelda from SkSw) and together they founded Hyrule. With the pass of time, the Zonai began to die and finally Rauru and Mineru died in the Imprisoning war, and the Zonai became completely extinct.

Alright, if you made it this far I want to thank you very much. If you have more evidence about this theory that you would like to add, or anything that contradicts it, or any comments, I would like to see it. :)

[tyrantisterror]

I'm creating a fantasy world of my own, and sometimes I have a hard time deciding between making fantasy creatures based on real biology or straight up fantasy. I love speculative biology and the art of making mythological beings (semi)plausible; dragons that evolved from pterodactyls/maniraptorans, giant rhino unicorns and insectoid fairies but also mountain-sized dragons with fire-breath that live for thousands of years.

Do you also deal with this dilemma, and do you have any solutions for it?

In the Victorian era, there were two incredibly prominent science fiction authors with utterly opposing views on how to go about writing science fiction: Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells. Verne did so much research trying to make every speculative element of his science fiction as plausible as he could, and poured that into his writing so people could see for themselves how his fantastical submarines and flying machines could possibly work if we advanced our technology a bit more. Wells, on the other hand, thought up whatever he felt his story needed, created handwavey explanations for things he/then current science could explain ("this machine flies by a special rock that defies gravity" or "their aliens with millions of years of technological advancement we haven't had yet, of course their stuff is advanced"), and only explained the "how" of his creations when it mattered for the story - i.e. we don't know what powers the martian heat ray, but we know what the martian heat ray does to the atmosphere and the things it hits when it turns on.

The funny thing is that both approaches, as opposite as they are, proved to be 1. compelling to audiences and 2. pretty much equally accurate at predicting the future. Yes, H.G. Wells' "I'm gonna make up some bullshit because it sounds cool and not bother worrying about if it's plausible approach" resulted in some scarily accurate predictions - his martian heat ray is to this day one of the most accurate descriptions of how a laser works in all of fiction, and the poison gas his martians used predicted the creation of mustard gas in WWI by a couple decades. Verne and Wells are still remembered fondly - and have their works adapted time and again - today, even though they're stuffy Victorian authors from over a century ago.

I bring this up because this "dilemma" is only such if you feel one of these choices is objectively superior to the other, which is itself a fallacy. You can be Verne or you can be Wells or you can vacillate between them according to your own whims - it doesn't matter because in the end, both approaches work just as well as each other despite being opposites. Verne's approach worked for his writing because that approach was what gave him passion for his work, and passion is what makes a work of writing last. Wells's approach worked for the same reason. And, ultimately, neither man was the paragon of their path - sometimes Wells did get into the details more than he usually did, and sometimes Verne bent his rules and let some weird bullshit happen in his stories just because.

They followed their desires and passions as artists, and wrote what inspired them the way it inspired them regardless of what peers in their fields might argue is the "right" or "wrong" way to do it. That, ultimately, is the secret to making a story that matters. An audience can always tell when you're writing in shackles, and a story that's written according to the author's muse will always read better than one that was written in chains.

[charmixpower]

Some transformation sequence ideas;

Bloom:

Bloom drawing her wings herself with a fire pen, referencing her drawing hobby and how she probably drew a lot of fairy stuff before learning magic was real

Bloom taking a fire dagger to her hair and chopping it off

Bloom's hair turning into fire and either eating it till she has short hair (as in her hair is burned away), or flaring out till her hair is longer

Bloom breaths fire at the end of her transformation. This contributes nothing but looking cool

Bloom gets dragon wings, either from fire rushing out of her back that look like dragon wings or from absorbing her internal dragon and leaving the wings, which then turn into nomral fairy wings

Stella:

@lucky-b-bones mentioned this to me, but the way I draw Stella's eye looks like the moon in the night sky. So, specific to the way I draw her, there could be a zoom into Stella's eye and have a transform set on the backdrop of a full moon

Stella making her own outfit. Like instead of her just passively letting the fabric wrap around her she like controls it to get it where she wants. Kinda like what Harmonix did with every transformation but make it more focused

Stella takes out her sword ring during the transformation sequence, so she has it when she's done transforming. Listen, she could twirl it and everything. It would be so cute

Her transformation could start all dark before she bursts out and brings the light with her

Stella's wings but with a prism effect before they're finished forming

Flora:

Flora's transformation opening with a winter aesthetic before she changes it to a spring one

On that note. A winter plant aesthetic or autumn aesthetic instead of a spring/summer one would be very cool

Flora's wings being leaves before turning into wings proper in her magic winx, or maybe a flower bloom's on her back to become wings

Flora flies though a flower, only for the petals to stay on her and turn into her outfit

Flora's hair being in flower buds before blooming into buns

Tecna:

Tecna's transformation starting as a 3d model on her monitor before she takes the outfit

Uses one of those filters that lets you change your hair color to try several before settling on one (in a transformation that changes her hair color)

Tecna attracting any metal parts of her outfit to her body

Tecna using lasers to add the small details to her outfit

Tecna designs, and 3d prints her wings/fairy dust bottle/Charmix ect

Musa:

If they're going to have set times in the song where each girl transforms, just show Musa affecting the transformation song. Like in Sirenix, Musa transformations when it gets all quite and the music does funky things. Shown her pulling down something to change the beat, it would be so cool. Like she's in a little dj booth

Her wings being made of a music visualizer type thing before they form properly

You could totally combine those ideas. Like part of her outfit is made of a visualizer type thing, and she's controlling the setting before it turns into whatever it was

Musa pressing play at the beginning of her transformation

Any instrument being incorporated into a transformation in any way. Like Musa dancing on a piano :)

Aisha:

Aisha gets surrounded by a giant water vortex, kinda like Bloom and the great dragon

Aisha's transformation taking place in a place with a underwater aesthetic. Like sun rays barely breaking though while she's under the sea, and she's moving like she's underwater

They could include a refrence to her more sporty nature? I don't think it could be big without breaking the flow of the transformation, so my main idea is her starting the transformation while stretching out

I've seen them have Aisha use her Morphix to make her outfit so many times in the 3d versions but they never do it for the 2d versions?? At least let her make morphix wings then add them to her back

Aisha in a sea shell, where the Pearl would be. Lounging like the elegant fairy she is

Other:

Daphne moves her flames more like she's controlling a liquid than a flame. Or instead Daphne erupts into flames where her outfit should be. Kinda like Tecna's magic winx, she squeezes her hands and erupts into flames. Maybe she makes like burning/molten parts of her outfit too that need to stand out more

Mirta could have a second fake version of herself transforming at the the same time, mirroring her actions. Just a little illusion :) I think it would be cute

Diaspro could have her clothing and wings be made out of gemstones before they break to reveal her outfit for her magic winx

I like to hc Nabu as a fairy, and specifically as the fairy of refraction (he can bend reality, but not make full on illusions) his transformation could have a bunch of broken mirrors all showing him from different angles to connect to the secretive/confusing/illusion based nature of his powers

Chimera is a zodiac in the Winx universe, so the zodiac being included in someway for her fairy of stars transformation would be cool

Roxy's Enchantix could have bird shaped magic maybe involved? Ala Cinderella getting her dress made by animals? I think that could be cute

Enchantix:

They should of included the fairy dust bottles more in Enchantix, like done something interesting with them instead of the vials just appearing

Bloom's fairy dust bottle is the only thing on her form when the transformation starts, beating like a real heart

Stella throws her fairy dust vial into the air above her transformation, littering the darkness around her with stars

Musa is in the little cage from her fairy dust bottle at some point, kinda like her 3d Enchantix

Aisha's fairy dust vial could a moon in the background of her transformation, ect

[sailormoonandme]

Mamoru is NOT useless in the Anime Part Tri: Power & Worth

Last time we compared Anime and Manga Mamoru's power levels in order to dissect the idea that anime Mamoru, in being less powerful than Usagi is unworthy of being her romantic partner.

However, there was a lot more I wanted to unpack from this particular idea the 'Mamoru is useless' brigade are prone to pushing. Specifically on the very notion of linking power to worthiness.

Power Creep

This is one of my shorter points but, its seems rather insane to suggest that Mamoru needs to be of a minimal power level to be worthy of Usagi.

Usagi in both versions is at least functionally the most powerful entity in the known universe. Even if we go arc by arc, she is almost always the most powerful person on the good guys team. The time period before she obtained the Silver Crystal was only time when the gap in power between herself and the other Senshi was in any way close, and even then it depended on who you were talking about. Mercury was clearly weaker than Usagi, her attack was a glorified smokescreen. Was she unworthy of Usagi's friendship? Were Makoto and Rei the MOST worthy of Usagi's friendship because they were the most powerful Senshi?

Did they all become progressively less worthy of her time and affection as Usagi steadily grew ever more powerful across the series? In Crystal Tokyo, when Usagi could transform the barren frozen Earth into a glittering utopia, did she have 0 friends because she was now just THAT powerful?

Was Star Serious Laser just so powerful that it meant Seiya ranked highest of all for Usagi's affections? After all, I do not see anyone arguing that Seiya was not powerful enough to be worthy of Usagi's love...almost like there is a double standard in play...

And how demeaning of Neo-Queen Serenity, who was so powerful she could terraform a lifeless planet Earth into a glittering utopia, to allow the now incalculably weaker King Endymion to have sex with her and thereby conceive Chibi-Usa.

Or...does this work by you simply have to be of a minimal power level and then you can be worthy of Usagi no matter how powerful she gets?

Please enlighten me fellow Moonies?

Power DOES NOT = Worthiness

Finally...isnt it just plain old reductive to equate power with worthiness?

Sailor moon is a super hero at the end of the day, so let's look at examples from other superhero fiction. In fact, lets look at the most famous example within the genre.

Superman is by far and away the most famous (though not necesarilly popular) of all superheroes across the globe. Superman can fly, has super streangth, super speed, enhanced durability, heat vision, x-ray vision and sometimes can freeze stuff with his breath. And whilst the exact degree of all of those abilities has varied (originally he was stronger than ten men, later he could pull multiple planets at the same time) he has always been mindbogglingly more powerful than even the most elite of human athletes.

And who has he frequently been paired up with from the past 85 years?

Oh, that's right. A human woman, Lois Lane. She might be extraordinary in her own way, but she isn't going to be bench-pressing a tank anytime soon.

Ah, but there are those who reject the most famous superhero couple in pop culture for that very reason, arguing that Superman should instead be with someone who is powerful in their own right like he is. Someone like, say, Wonder Woman?

The problem here being that...well...Wonder Woman is almost always weaker than Superman. By a WIDE margin. At the end of the day, she is incredibly strong but her strength has limits whilst Superman's are in fact dependant upon circumstances. If he absorbes enough yellow sunlight he is functionally limitless in how powerful he can become. So...is Wonder Woman unworthy of Superman too?

Regardless, let's instead turn our attentions to something more comparable to Sailor Moon.

In Dragon Ball Z the Goku and Vegeta and Gohan can annihilate whole Solar Systems but Mary human women, falling for them because of their strong, wilful and aggressive personalities.

In Yu Yu Hakusho, written by Naoko Takeuchi's husband, the main character is a demonic prince basically and falls for a normal human.

How about all the boxers, MMA fighters, wrestlers and action movie stars who marry people who are not in those kinds of professions, people who are physically weaker than them?

All of them unworthy too?

Power DOES NOT = Worthiness, regardless of gender

Ah, but these are all where the man is more powerful. But...if we argue that the situation is different in the reverse...isn't that just a classic (say it with me folks) double standard?

Are we to seriously entertain the rather backwards argument that a man is not worthy of a woman's affection if they are weaker than her?

If so let's look at some other examples.

She Hulk has dated normal humans Wyatt Wingfoot and John Jameson.

Carol Danvers has the power of a star and has fallen in love with War Machinw, who is a man with high tech armour nowhere close to that power level.

Jean Grey has been more powerful than her lovers Cyclops and Wolverine since even before she became the Phoenix, a cosmic entity so powerful it consumes stars for energy.

Wonder Woman has the power of the Greek Gods and her frequent lover, and in her original canon husband, was a regular human soldier.

In Cutey Honey F, the magical girl reboot of the classic 70s anime that helped inspire Sailor Moon, Honey can annihilate and create anything she can want. She is in love with a demonic prince, but ultimately marries a normal man and private eye who always had her back despite being put of this depth with the threats they faced.

And what about all the women in real life who have married, or remained married to men with disabilities? Men who by any metric are physically weaker than their wives? For example, all the women that married or remained married to soldiers who were horribly injured during either World War? Or, any of the wives of Stephen Hawkins, with even his first wife aware of his illness.

All of which is to say...maybe Mamo is worthy of Usagi's love regardless of him being less powerful than her.

Conclusion

Mamoru in the anime...

Is.

Not.

Useless.

Please.

For.

The.

Love.

Of.

<insert whatever/whomever you worship here>.

Fucking.

Stop.

Claiming.

He.

Is.

[thepeanutbutterwizard]

Hi.What reactions ninja will have to Tiger Widow stuff in Skybound?Will the encounter with one make Nya remember her true potential or is it just "oh,those can make good food" reaction from Underworld duo?

Skybound is one of the seasons where I have a vague idea of what will happen, but not a whole lot nailed down. Like in cannon a few people have been captured already, and on top of that I think I'm going to have everyone split into two teams almost immediately, after the Lantern Memorial but before Nya actually makes it back to Ninjago.

I have no idea who's already been captured at this point, and other than probably Lloyd being the first family member Nya finds, I'm not sure how everyone is going to be split up, or which group will be doing what.

All this to say, I'm not entirely sure who'se going to be going to Tiger Widow Island, so I'll just list all of the Main cast and what they would be doing if they end up going there

Jay: Doing him first to say that if Jay makes it this far he doesn't get sent after the venom solo bc if he still makes the wishes for money and a big house he doesn't hide it from everyone else bc he has no interest in Nya in VT and a wish for money and a house would be for his parents bc they're not getting any younger and Jay's worried about them. No motivation to lie -> no liar revealed fallout.

Nya: If she doesn't have much of her memory back, she's taking one look at the Tiger Widow, thinking 'hell yeah, lunchtime!' since Tiger Widow is probably her favorite food, and charging. If she does have more of her memory back, then she's a lot more cautious; not for her sake tho.

Lloyd: He all but superglued himself to Nya once they reunited, so he's clinging to her back while she's doing whatever she's doing, whether that's on Tiger Widow Island or not. He would think it's really cool to finally see a Tiger Widow after hearing his dad and sister talk about hunting them, and he's also really glad he's still kinda stuck in his Dragon form bc holy shit they were downplaying how freaky and dangerous Tiger Widows are.

Garm: While answering this ask the image of Garm chokeslamming Nadakhan through a brick wall popped into my head, and now I have a bit of an actual plan for what happens to him, so thank you for that! He is going to be captured by this point; Nadakhan targets him first bc he's the biggest threat to his plans, and also bc Garm's a grieving father who desperately misses his daughter, so he has a glaring weak spot to exploit. But as soon as Nadakhan tries use Garm wanting Nya back to manipulate him, the Oni snaps, going from super depressed to super pissed in .02 seconds. Its been awhile since I've seen Skybound (its my least favorite season despite how much I Love fictional pirates) and I don't remember when/where the lava lamp of doom Sword came from, or how it worked (didn't he like, need them to wish themselves into the sword or something? or did he just like fucking with them?) so lets just pretend that there would be nothing preventing Nadakhan from immediately trapping Garm, he just tried getting him to make wishes for fun and made it two sentences into his 'wish it all away' pitch before nearly dying

Misako: Nothing really phases her anymore, so she just kinda shrugs off the giant spiders. If she's the only parent there she insists on being the one to milk the Tiger Widow. If she's not the only parent she initiates the game of rock paper scissors to decide who's going in.

Ray: Absolutely hates spiders, they gross him out, but if he's the only parent he also insists on being the one to collect the venom.

Maya: Actually kinda excited to see the Tiger Widow. Again, insists on being the one to collect the venom if she's the only parent. And if she isn't the only parent, she grabs the other parents and drags them with her to get the venom as a team.

Kai: If Kai doesn't know that Nya is back, he's laser focused on getting the venom. He and Pixal actually start planning on using the venom to weaken Nadakhan so they can wish for Nya back without him twisting their wish to help him. If he does know that Nya's back, he's more focused on helping her than anything else.

Pixal: Pretty much the same as Kai.

Morro: He would nominate Jay as the one to get the venom, but would probably choose to be the one to get it.

Zane: Would volunteer to get the venom. If I go with Oppo, he's also picked up on the fact that Kai is planning something and he's keeping a concerned eye on him. If I don't go with Oppo, than Zane has turned his emotions way down, which means he would try and insist that he be the one to get the venom, as he's rebuildable and therefore the most logical choice.

Cole: Other than not being mad at Jay, unless I go with Lava the only thing that changes for Cole is him not being a ghost. If I go with Lava than he's the one who picks up on Kai planning something and is keeping a concerned eye on him.

...

I think that's everyone

[quirkwizard]

I wanted to ask if you could make a Quirk based off the Crane School from OG Dragon Ball. Sky Dance, Dodon Ray, Tri-Beam. Maybe even the more Tien Specific thing of shouting away a Kamehameha, but I feel like the former three make for a more solid, definable Quirk than... screaming away lasers.

Could combustion bending from avatar be a quirk?

So for this, I decided to combine Tien's two most famous techniques: the Tri-Beam and the Solar Flare. I think the set up and basic idea of them are similar enough to do them together.

I see it working as a Transformation type Quirk activates whenever the user places their hands in front of their head. The user can then  form shimmery, golden eye from their forehead. The user can form beam of light from this eye. This initial acts like a giant beam spotlight, shimmering out over medium ranges. The user can adjust the range and power of the light by manipulating it through their hands. More open hands result in broadening and brightening light while closing it helps focus it, turning into an explosive beam of light. The user's eyes are protected from the bring lights. This gives the user a unique combat tool, capable of overwhelming foes with powerful beams of light. They can quickly blind foes to set them up, take down enemies with beams of light, alter their beams to work around foes, develop new techniques by adjusting their hands, or simply use it like a reading light. Though this does require the user to remain fairly stationary to line up and ready their shot. The beams can be indiscriminate and dangerous, potentially blinding or harming allies, and will require some practice to properly use the light. A possible name for the Quirk could be "Blind Eye" or "Magni-Eye".

[adultswim2021]

Aqua Teen Hunger Force #86: "Fry Legs" | May 17, 2009 - 11:45PM | S07E08

Does this episode have legs? Let’s find out, my tasty little swimmers.

In this episode: Frylock’s loneliness gets the best of him, so he invents a new pair of robotic limbs, adorned with pick-up-artist style dragon boots. He also took his fries out and replaced them with realistic human hair. His plan is to call a computer repair woman so he can seduce her with his fryish charms. It doesn’t work, and it’s very apparent that it’s never going to work. She is simply not interested in this unwanted attention. Since Frylock is so level-headed and smart, he gets the message very quickly and decides to leave her alone.

PSYCHE!! He doesn't do that at all. Later, Frylock shows up a restaurant where she and her partner, Ray, are having dinner. Ray tries to stand-up to Frylock, who ruthlessly murders him with his eye lasers. The computer lady is of course, completely traumatized. Frylock makes off with Ray’s remains so he can harvest his organs and whatnot for another horrible gambit at appearing attractive to her, by placing his (too large) brain in his sewn-together body and pretending to have come back from the dead. 

The first time I saw this, I remember thinking that perhaps they went a little far with making Frylock such an unrepentant monster in this episode. He’s usually the voice of reason and only resorts to using his eye lasers when he absolutely needs to, just like me. But his inability to meet women has been a running thing in this show, and there really aren’t a whole lot of female food products that can talk in this world. His only recourse seems to be convincing, or now straight-up tricking, human women into being with him. One scene has him admitting to stalking the woman by bugging her home. I still think they took his character too far in this direction, but I care less. I guess we all just need to face the facts that Frylock had that in him this whole time. 

This one has a great cameo from George Lowe playing himself playing a cop. George’s appearances are typically drawn to look like him, which is why I worded it confusingly. He’s funny here, even though he’s fairly leashed as far as Lowe goes. Speaking of casting: the computer woman is comedian Natasha Leggero and Ray is voiced by Matt Walsh, also from comedy. They are pretty good too, so that’s nice. Lotta pretty good stuff going on here as far as performances go. 

The end of the episode involves the woman revealing to Frylock that she’s a CHUD, like from the 1980s horror picture of the same name. It does undercut the darkness of the humor a tad; the idea that Frylock is just interfering in the lives of a normal couple would seem inexcusable, but then it turns out she’s a monster who violently eats Master Shakes, so she’s no stranger to being gruesome. I might actually prefer it if they just leaned into the awfulness of Frylock’s actions, which is mostly portrayed as being genuinely horrific. Shoulda ended with Frylock just going to prison and being shanked to death.

This one’s weird, but I don't hate it. I was sorta expecting to find that this episode was particularly hated by fans. It’s one I see that pops up in “worst episode” lists, but it has enough defenders that I wouldn’t single it out as the single most-hated episode. It’s up there, though. Or, down there, rather. Messy, but it’s got a couple laughs. Okay, that’s enough from me, BYE!!!

EPHEMERA CORNER:

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Is It Really That Bad?

I feel this film needs absolutely no introduction.

Look, I get it. You’ve seen everyone and their mother talk trash about this movie since it dropped in 1999. You’ve seen every single show in the universe take cracks at this film, you’ve seen all the parodies and mockery of it in movies, you may have even seen that  movie Fanboys. Maybe you’ve even watched some massive YouTube review of the movie. The point is, this movie has been done to death.

But this series is about covering poorly received and infamous movies to see if their reputation is deserved, and I’d be remiss to ignore this film. And hey, these days the film has gotten something of a reappraisal by younger generations and older fans alike! After 20 years of scorn, a combination of the poorly received episodes VIII and IX, other works like The Clone Wars building off of and fleshing out the themes, Lego making really fun levels based off this movie for its Star Wars games, and Weird Al dropping one of the best songs of his career based entirely around recapping this film, a lot of people have come around to saying they unironically like this film. Even as early as 2008, the film made it on to Empire magazine’s list of the 500 greatest films of all time, scoring higher than Tim Burton’s Batman, Unbreakable, Full Metal Jacket, Halloween, The Crow, and Enter The Dragon (not by a huge margin though since it only got to 449). So there’s something there to love, right?

Well, let’s find out as I ask the question everyone else has already asked a million times before: Is The Phantom Menace really that bad?

THE GOOD

Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way: The action and John Williams’ score.

The prequel trilogy really shines in how absolutely bonkers it makes lightsaber battles. Sure, one could argue the original trilogy made them more realistic, like actual swordfights… But I don’t want realism in this series about magical alien samurai monks using telekinesis and fighting armies of clones and robots. I want to see someone do a million backflips and then slice a dude in half with their laser sword. This film delivers heartily on that front, especially in the epic final duel between Maul, Qui-Gon, and Obi-Wan.

Speaking of which, Darth Maul is a highlight of this film despite barely doing or saying anything. A lot of it is his striking visual design, which is actually toned down from the original concepts. It makes him look cool, creepy, and mysterious, always a good look for any Star Wars character. Ray Park doesn’t get to show off Maul’s dialogue much, but he certainly shows off his battle prowess with a bunch of sick flips and the iconic dual-bladed lightsaber. This appearance here served as an excellent foundation for the guy, because The Clone Wars would take him from an iconic but underutilized character to perhaps one of the greatest villains in the series.

And then the score. Oh lord, the score! Has Williams ever missed, even once? This movie has some really fantastic music, stuff like the celebration music at the end of the film, but it’s quite obvious that the standout is “Duel of the Fates,” one of the best pieces of music in any Star Wars film.

A lot of the characters introduced here are pretty fun and great additions to the universe. Natalie Portman is actually pretty solid as Padme; Liam Neeson’s Qui-Gon is just such an aggro dick it’s hard not to love him and his underhanded ways; Boss Nass is an amusing yet underutilized gungan played by BRIAN BLESSED of all people, once more adding his trademark ham to a campy sci-fi movie inspired by Flash Gordon; Mace Windu drops in for a brief appearance to set him up for better ones down the road; and that Chancellor Palpatine guy is really cool, I hope we get to see more of him!

Then we have the pod race which, while a bit overly long, is a lot of fun and features some crazy vehicular madness, and there’s the practical effects, the creative design of the aliens and monsters, and there’s the practical effects and costumes mixed together with the CGI.... When this movie is fun, it’s a lot of fun, and when this movie is putting in the effort by god is it putting in the effort.

Oh yeah, and E.T.’s species has a cameo. No wonder he seemed to recognize Yoda in his movie.

THE BAD

Have you guys ever wanted a cool laser sword sci-fi epic to be constantly interrupted by long, boring scenes of trade negotiations, council meetings, and bureaucracy? Well boy oh boy will you love this film! There are so many stupid, dull, tedious scenes where characters are just talking about this boring trade embargo plotline, one that can’t even be ignored because it’s driving the whole plot. And sure, it leads to some really cool action scenes, but you’ve gotta sit through boring galactic council political bullshit to get to them.

This film is also the one that establishes the Jedi as a bunch of out of touch assholes. Every scene with the Jedi council (and especially if you have to look at the weird ugly Yoda puppet this film gave us before it was mercifully replaced with CGI) has the Jedi acting as a bunch of obstructive assholes who seem to go out of their way to be dicks to a literal child. Add onto this that this film reveals the Jedi essentially train kids to be child soldiers, yeah, no, maybe these guys did deserve Order 66 after all.

There is the writing, but it’s really not too strange for Star Wars to have clunky writing. The issue here is said writing is in service to really banal plots, and when the movie is getting good dialogue is usually not the thing making the scenes good. These things here may not seem like a lot when it comes to problems especially when I was praising this film so much, but the few problems are spread far and wide across this two hour movie.

THE UGLY

As you may have noticed, I didn’t mention two of the film’s most hated aspects above: Jar Jar and Anakin. There is a good reason for that.

Literally every mean thing you can imagine has already been lobbed at Ahmed Best and Jake Lloyd, and quite frankly I’m not keen on contributing to that. Anything negative I could say has already been said, and at this point it doesn’t even matter. Jake Lloyd was bullied over his performance to the point where he hated the franchise for years, and Ahmed Best nearly killed himself over the sheer blistering hatred Jar Jar received. Do I think Jar Jar is funny? Do I think Lloyd was a good actor? Does it even fucking matter at all when people harassed them to such lengths that it traumatized them?

I’ll be honest: I’m not a huge fan of Jar Jar’s antics. But they really aren’t the worst thing in this movie, and he’s not even remotely the most annoying Star Wars character. We now have people like Hux, the Knights of Ren, Snoke, Clone Palpatine, Holdo… The sequel trilogy was a buffet of characters that are infinitely worse than Jar Jar. And as is often the case, The Clone Wars went a long way towards making him a good character.

As for Lloyd, he was an actual fucking child. He was being directed by an absolute dork who wrote the goofiest dialogue imaginable for him, was there ever even a chance? A “bad” child performance is never the fault of a child, I feel; it’s the fault of a director who doesn’t bother to guide them. I’m a George Lucas apologist most of the time, but he absolutely let Lloyd down here.

Oh, and I guess I should address the other element in the room: Watto.

This guy has often come under fire as a huge negative Jewish caricature. I… don’t necessarily see it. Upon rewatching I was expecting something on the lines of the goblins in Harry Potter, but I don’t know. I think a lot of it comes from mishearing his accent; if you listen to it, he actually has some sort of weird, vague Italian accent as opposed to that stereotypical old Jewish man voice. I guess if anything, Watto is a negative stereotype of Italians, though he is far less of a hate crime than casting Chris Pratt as Mario.

...Okay, and one more thing: Midichlorians. People have this weird idea that they cause the force. The movie literally states their presence is just an indication of a proclivity towards the force. It’s basically the Star Wars version of Pokerus. This was such a stupid thing for people to get mad about, but 90% of the hate for this film is just getting mad at stupid things anyway.

IS IT REALLY THAT BAD?

The answer to this question was always going to be pretty obvious: No. Absolutely not. The sheer vitriolic backlash to this film was built off the bizarre emotional attachment adults in the 90s had to a campy sci-fi series from the 70s and 80s; the toxicity of the fandom meant there was never any doubt that upon revisiting this film I’d find the hatred overblown. And really, we’ve had over twenty years of other Star Wars stories now, a lot of them building off the foundation this laid to give us great stories in their own rights. As I mentioned above, Darth Maul, this film’s awesome yet underutilized villain, has gone on to become one of the franchise’s most iconic characters thanks to The Clone Wars. There are great ideas here in this film, but it took other people to polish them and make them shine.

The real question is, even if the backlash is overblown… is the film actually good at all? And that’s a complicated question. This film has a lot of serious, glaring flaws, but at its heart it’s still the fun, campy sci-fi series we all know and love. When this film gets good, it gets really good, but when it’s bad it’s downright boring and even a little cringey. But being a bit cringey is just an important building block of Star Wars, so in my eyes, it gets a pass in that regard.

For my part, I like it. It is far, far away from my favorite Star Wars film, but I like it more than two of the sequel trilogy at least. I think whether anyone else likes it really boils down to how much corny, campy dialogue and boring bureaucratic drama one is able to tolerate. Regardless, I think that 6.5 is a perfect score for this film. It definitely reflects the mellowing public opinion towards it, and shows that it’s not really that bad after all. It’s just not exactly great, either.

But hey… This song more than justifies this movie existing:

If nothing else, you can watch this instead of the movie for your Machete Order marathon and all you’ll miss is some great action and music mixed into boring bureaucracy. Whether that’s worth it or not is up to you!

[talesfromsiteredacted]

Notice from the Administrator

Concerning some staff "recreational activities"

It has come to attention that certain staff members are engaging in... questionable activities off hours. Therefore, it is advised that the following are forbidden until further notice.

Lawn darts are banned for a reason. Yes, Andre looks way cooler with the eyepatch. That being said, it should have never have happened.

Naked speedskating, karate, yoga, golf, or any other activities of such ilk are banned. No one wants to see Uranus Dr. Bright, especially not during downward dog. Either put on some pants or keep it in quarters.

Extreme cooking. It should not be possible to make an exploding pasta dish.

No more dressing up as videogame characters. While we all love Link, wearing his attire will cause 076-2 to go all Gannondorf on you.

No more "Extreme Foundation Makeovers". Putting false lashes on 096 was a brave move and a waste of lash glue.

No more "Pin the Tail on 682". Even HE'S starting to complain.

The entirety of the "Ninja Mime" movie franchise is banned. Look, if even 035, 076-2, or 682 would rather go do testing than watch the movies, that should tell you something. 076-2 threatened to gnaw off the arm of the next person to show him even a clip.

No. More. Clown. Costumes.

No one is to attempt fighting any anomalies in little more than a loincloth and a pot on their head. Although we think that was the first time anyone heard 096 laugh. Still not worth the structural damage and loss of several D-Class.

If you must play Dungeons and Dragons, Doctor Bright is automatically uninvited. No more repeats of the infamous "Escape From Boner's Pleasure Palace" for 343's sake. Dr. Winters is still in therapy, Dr. Bright. And... the bills are coming out of your pay.

If it involves lasers outside of work... it's banned.

If it involves explosives outside of work... it's banned, and any attempt to do whatever you had planned will result in immediate demotion to D-Class or execution, depending on the offender.

No more water wars. Poor 073 is still trying to figure a way to dry the entire backlog of new anomalies. Thanks, Clef.

For 343's sake... keep the "marital aids" in your personal quarters. Yes, we know Dr. Bright can be a dick. But... throwing a dildo at him is unprofessional (but hilarious).

No one is to give 999 caffeine or any artificial sweeteners. Neither agree with our favorite friendly blob of happy very well.

No one is to "demagnitize" Dr. Gears. He is human, and has the x-rays to prove it.

Stop trying to place fish inside the Water Nymph. She says they tickle her too much as they swim through her.

The Eye Pods do not need clothes. The little bobble hats were cute, we admit.

No more fish in aquatic anomalies. The Fountain of Youth was not meant to prolong the life of your children's goldfish, Agent Maine.

No creating cults. Unless it's the Church of the Holy Brew, we can all support a cult dedicated to very good coffee and fair treatment from farm to consumers.

[frankendykes-monster]

William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, two former animation directors for MGM’s Tom & Jerry theatrical shorts, all but revolutionized animation on TV. By focusing on character models and backgrounds and limiting actual movement, Hanna-Barbera were able to create dozens of hours of television cartoons. They began with kids comedies like The Huckleberry Hound Show and Yogi Bear; then they transitioned to primetime sitcoms like The Flintstones and The Jetsons. Eventually, beginning with Jonny Quest in 1964, they’d also do action series. By the end of the ’60s, H-B gave audiences possibly the weirdest of these series: The Herculoids.

Jonny Quest proved you could do action animation without much, well, action or animation. The series got by on its amazing, comic-book-like designs and tableaux. While Quest only lasted one season in primetime, it proved the studio could appeal to a young audience in the market for action, adventure, a little bit of horror, and science fiction. Hiring character designer and eventual series creator Alex Toth, H-B gave the world Space Ghost and Dino Boy, a half-hour timeslot made up of two mini-episodes of Space Ghost and one of a much less interesting show, Dino Boy in the Lost Valley. Toth would similarly create Birdman and the Galaxy Trio.

In both instances, Toth’s talents created a superhero series with unique and offbeat villains fighting a stalwart hero. Whether patrolling space or Earth, Space Ghost and Birdman were typical superhero-types fighting against various baddies. But The Herculoids, which premiered in 1967, the same year as Birdman, was different. It was almost like Toth wanted to see if he could make a series entirely about character design, with hardly any world building or “rules” as such.

The show’s opening narration bears this out. Its first line—spoken by voice actor Mike Road, who voices basically every adult male and creature on the show—is exceptionally vague. SOMEWHERE OUT IN SPACE LIVE THE HERCULOIDS.

That’s it! That’s all we know before we get a rollcall of characters.

"Zok, the laser ray dragon; Igoo, the giant rock ape; Tundro the tremendous; Gloop and Gleep, the formless, fearless wonders; with Zandor, their leader, and his wife Tara and son Dorno. They team up to defend their planet from sinister invaders. All strong, all brave, all heroes. They’re…The Herculoids!"

That is literally all we ever get in terms of who or what the characters are. Zandor, Tara, and Dorno are all humans who look vaguely like Robert E. Howard barbarians. But those other weirdos?! They don’t look like they’re from the same planet, much less the same team. Zok is just a dragon. You know dragons. Igoo is a gorilla made of rock. Tundro is a six-legged mix of a rhino and an armadillo who shoots energy balls from its horn. And Gloop and Gleep are just blobs of stretchy goo with two black eyeballs. Certainly very iconic designs, but not of a piece in any way. We don’t even know what a “Herculoid” is and why this group are them.

Moreover, all they do is fight off planetary invaders. But why these interlopers want the planet (which is either called Amzot or Quasar depending on the episode) is never established; it looks for the most part like a primeval world full of jungles and rocks. It’s not until the ninth episode that we even see other people on the planet, as the Herculoids help some villagers who are under attack from raider apes. Sometimes there are castles on the planet, sometimes just grass huts, other times no signs of life at all.

And the villains are all, for the most part, way better equipped. Invading armies or robot death squads, each with armor and laser guns. And yet a man with a shield and a slingshot (yes really) and his gang of weird beasts that don’t talk always win. Each of the 18 episodes of the series consists of two usually unrelated adventures. There’s nothing like a central narrative at work throughout any of them, and each adventure is pretty much the same, save for a new villain or threat. Only one baddie ever even recurs. You can essentially watch any episode in any order. And yet, all of these very strange disparate elements totally work for me. This was a show designed to keep kids engaged for 20 minutes at a time and it’s fully watchable as such. In its gorgeous Blu-ray edition from Warner Archive, I can just throw on a disc and hit “play all” and just enjoy myself while I do other things. It’s got monsters fighting robots and stuff, man! What more could you want?!

The Herculoids gained a fervent cult following over the years, mainly due to its undeniably cool character designs. In 1981, Hanna-Barbera brought them back as part of their Space Stars block along with Space Ghost and two additional space-themed hero shows. I remember my dad being so excited to introduce me to The Herculoids when we got Cartoon Network in the ’90s; this was the peak of animated action when he was growing up.

Toth was a lot like the Jack Kirby of animation. He let his imagination run wild with characters and designs, and for several years, he was the king. If nothing else, The Herculoids occupies a special place in the history of Hanna-Barbera animation in the pre- Scooby-Doo 1960s. And without The Herculoids, Hanna-Barbera offshoot Ruby-Spears Productions would never have produced Thundarr the Barbarian, and that show absolutely rules. Oh wait, that’s right; Kirby and Toth designed those characters too.

[pinkandgreenarepurpleandyellow]

It Was A Blast Meeting You

Summary: I have so many stupid thoughts about how interactions between Prime!Rick and any Summer would go, so here we are with one of them. Summer isn't from C-137's universe, but a pretty similar one, and is aware enough of interdimensional shit that she knows the Rick in her timeline isn't her dimension's og Rick. For Prime, the timeline is just after the stinger of Solaricks. For Summer, it's around where late season 5 for C-137's dimension is.

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Summer is falling through the space between portals. Just like before. She's given up figuring out how long she'll be in here, what with no portal gun with her to make an exit, but her best guess is that she's got a solid three days before the dehydration and lack of food will get her. She makes the same checklist in her head as she'd been making every time her disassociation is interrupted and she's stuck being aware of her current situation.

Time currently in portal: Idk, probably like 2 hours. I have to pee.

Additional notes: Still cramped, still falling or moving or whatever. Still no exit. I wanna go back to the football boy fantasy.

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Time currently in portal: I still dk, probs like 4 hours.

Additional notes: I wonder what happens to my corpse when I die in here. Will I decompose? I'm basically in a vacuum that somehow lets me breathe, but there's no bacteria or stuff that I know of. Do I just stay a perfectly intact corpse?

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Time currently in portal: Who gives a shit, I'm gonna die.

Additional notes: Football girl fantasy better than football boy fantasy. I miss Stacy.

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Time currently in port-

Zap.

Summer lands, perhaps somewhat ungracefully, face-first on the floor of what looks like a very futuristic garage.

"Ow!"

Well, at least she's out. And now she even knows what's gonna kill her.

The Prime Rick is looking at her with confusion that's replaced by a smirk seconds later, a blaster in his hand aimed straight at her throat.

"Aww, hey alternate version of a hypothetical granddaughter!" He says, letting her scramble up at gun- ray- laser whatever point. "Ya missed your grandpa so much you fired up a portal, huh? Betcha thought it'd get you across universes to him, right?" The gun is cocked, a little charging up noise accompanying his tone turning menacing. "Betcha thought you'd get to come home to a nice happy reality, didn'tcha."

Summer's initial panic, tried and true instinct at the sight of a blaster pointed at her face, washes out. Exhaustion, followed by resignation, seeps in.

"Not really. I'm just glad I can crack my spine before I die." She twists her neck, letting the pop noise herald the feeling of relief. "Finally. Ok, you can shoot me now, I guess. I don't really care." She starts stretching her arms and shoulders, betting that he'll shoot before she can finish, but Prime's looking at her funny instead. The blaster hand isn't even his main focus anymore.

"Well that's new. W-what are you, some kinda spy or guilt ploy? Am I supposed to be sorry for you, is that the plan?"

She shrugs again.

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He keeps staring as the teenager starts talking.

"Dunno. Rick might've implanted some shit in me, but not that I know of. I asked for laser boobs for months and he keeps saying no. But all Morty has to do to get a dragon is whine to Mom for a few weeks, and suddenly he gets to have fucking Balthromar or whatever as his pet, and Morty just keeps fucking things up! It's not like he had to go fight all of the ocean's creatures to get that stupid shell, it's not like he had to train the giant space baby, it's not like he built up an entire Go-gotron empire from the ground up, his whole job was just to stand around and block Rick's brainwaves! But nooooo, he's still Rick's favorite even though I'm the one that actually keeps everything running! WHATEVER! He wouldn't care enough about me to implant anything, that lousy jerk face-"

"Giant space baby?" He cuts her off.

The curiosity spikes at the way the girl glares at some empty space in the room.

"Yeah, and that's thanks to Morty too! If he hadn't fucked that stupid horse machine, I wouldn't be a fucking teenage mom to a fucking incest space baby that I had to train because the fucking US government wanted to use him as a fucking weapon! Fucking Morty!"

Further questions. He wants to laugh. He wants to make several jokes he would have made to Diane if she'd started ranting to him like that.

Diane.

He's mostly left any sentimentality of his behind along with that Diane and her Beth, decades ago in that little garage. But now he finally gets what those other Ricks had mentioned now and then, how their granddaughter takes after Diane more than anyone had thought possible. She'd be clenching her fists like that too right now, muttering those same insults under her breath, mixing and matching what she knows in Spanish and English with all of the alien language snipers she'd learned because of Rick.

It's not exactly pity of all things that courses though his head, but a strategic plan. Summer is young. She's angry, hurting, and capable of violence. She doesn't seem to plan on forgiving her family anytime soon. She wants revenge. Just like Diane would have.

He can use her. Send her back in as a mole, have her keep tabs, and then he can kill that stupid Rick and his whole family and then her. He'll even be nice and kill her painlessly while she's doing something that makes her happy. He'll let her kill Beth and shoot her while she's laughing at the corpse. Yeah. That sounds good.

"Alright, kid," he says, getting the teenager to finally shut up her rant, which has now moved to focus on her parents. "You've convinced me. I need an intern anyway." He turns the blaster off, deliberately playing it up just a bit as he sticks the weapon back in his belt. She stands up, her shock still splashed across her face even as her eyes show that she's already adjusting to the situation in her head, evaluating and reevaluating the idea.

It's adorable, really, that she thinks she can outwit him.

"Why?" Well, at least she's asking questions. That's a start.

"You're angry at your family. I have a score to settle with your Rick. You want revenge. I want revenge. You have a fascinating resumé and catch on quick. I like not having to micro-manage. Consider yourself hired for this particular part of my plan." He even tosses her a bottle of (not poisoned) water. See, he can be downright polite when necessary.

Summer finally looks calm, resigned again to whatever happens as she twists open the cap without taking a sip.

"You're gonna kill me at the end of this." She doesn't ask, saying it like she can see the future and isn't upset about it. "Fuck it, I always wanted to die young and hot," and then she's raising the water bottle in a fake toast before taking a deep sip and grinning at him. He can see Diane again, but also a little bit of that Rick blood in her too, with the wide grin of his dead wife and her eyebrow raised in half-mock the same way he would in her position.

Maybe she's a little smarter than he gave her credit for.

"Welcome to the dark side, kid," he says instead of anything else, watching as she pushes off the counter and walks over to him. "Grandpa's not gonna know what hit him."

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Fin.