#not with the goal of getting shown to a bunch of people

[desert-anne]

kind of fascinating what seven years of unfettered internet access has done to the splatoon fanbase

[ilydeku]

izuku loves to talk about you during interviews

- anything and every topic it will ALWAYS be about you

- the question won't even be remotely related to you and still izukus answer will revolve around "y/n, my wife!!" <3

- oh, the glint in his eyes, the peaking smile when he speaks about you, lover boyyy

- the media knows he LOVE LOVES you, they think it's funny for this big, confident, mighty hero to be reduced to sap when it comes to you

- it's like his whole is personality is HIS WIFE

- the journalists lowkey get so SICK of him for this, they don't want to invite him anymore 😭

- but they kinda have to, due to to his status as #1

"Good evening everyone and welcome Hero Talk! Tonight we'll be staring someone you all know and love, single handedly the greatest hero of all time, Deku! Alright, Deku how are you tonight?"

"Feeling pretty good! This is one of my wife's favorite shows, so I'm even more grateful to be here. And how are you?"

"Oh, same old. Really, just living. Now, we wanted to ask you some fun questions. Let's start with this one. Why did you want to become a hero?"

"Wow, haha! That really brings be back to my youth. When I was kid, my biggest influence was All Might, and he miraculously became my mentor. He was a good hero, and a good man. I wanted to be just like him: fearless, persevering, saving people with I smile. I would beg my mom everyday to watch this video on the computer of him saving a bunch a people. I was really swayed by All Might. I wanted to become a hero to make an impact in the world. I wanted to save people with a smile too."

"That sounds really endearing, Deku. I remember All Might's reign. He wasn't number one on the top charts all those years for nothing. So, did you ever think you'd be standing as Japan's top hero?"

"Well, it was never really my goal to become number one. That was Kacchan's- Dynamight's. My dream was, like I said, to become a hero and save others. But I have to say, it really is a blessing. I'd like to thank my Mom, All Might, my friends, and especially my wife for who I've become. My Mom has really done a lot for me growing up: protecting, encourage, and just always caring for me. All Might has kinda been that father figure for me when my Dad was away. My friends have shown me what it's like to work together and really be part of a heart. And my wife? Haha...I can't thank her enough for all the times she's been right by my side, even before we were together. Nothing I can say or do will ever be enough to express how much she means to me."

"Mm. Quite the supportive group. Your wife sounds like quite the lady!"

"She is. She's wonderful."

"Moving on to the next question, do you use social media often?"

"Occasionally, yes?? My wife uses it regularly, posting about us when we go out and stuff. It's mostly for her family to see how she's doing. She handles most of my official accounts. She says it's to be more appealing to the public, and I guess to show that there's more to heroes on the inside?? I'm not really sure, but I trust her process. Although, I'd rather be appealing to her alone."

"The public will always interested in a hero's private life! Now, Deku, what is your ideal setting of relaxation?"

"My wife doesn't like places that are too crowded or noisy, so maybe a cozy day at the beach?- but early in the morning or in the evening when the crowds calm down. Maybe a movie theatre, but days after the movie is released so it's just us together. Actually, a lazy day at home together is great too! Cooking meals and watching a movie on the couch? Really, any place is relaxing if my wife is with me."

(am i questioning Deku's wife or Deku!?) "How scenic! Those sound very fitting for you!! How about any restaurants?"

"Not really. My wife really knows how to cook, it's amazing! I love her home-cooked meals, so there's no way I'd go out of my way to a restaurant. But if my wife is feeling it, I'll be sure to make reservations."

"(sigh)"

"(smiling warmly)"

[ramons-elevator]

This has been rattling in my mind for a minute and i need to scream about it.

The significance of the item display of the backpacks and how much that defines the QSMP characters.

If you dont know, Leo found out you can display an item in your backpack and show it off. Kinda like a little charm or a keychain. Ever since then, a bunch of people have been displaying items.

Lets start off with the trend setter.

Leo:

Her item is a totem. Obviously this is about Foolish. She spends the most time with Foolish and adores him. They are super close and are super similar. Another reason could be showing off her wealth. Also, a joke that she is immortal (she isnt) and its a bit of a hint to that.

Foolish:

His item is the player head that Leo always wears. Obviously, like Leo, it represents how much he loves Leo and the time they spent together. It also looks like Leo is in his backpack and showing that they are always together (Siempre juntos) no matter what.

Philza:

His item is a skull you can wear on your head. Now theres a lot to interpet here. The obvious one is that this represents Missa. Either that he always chooses Missa or that Missa is with him and Chayanne even if hes away. Again theres a lot to talk about.

Another reason is that death isnt scary for him / death is always there. Philza in general is associated with death (his irl wife's lore is being the goddess of death). With his son on one life for so long and now his granddaughter, he has come to terms with death. He isnt scared of the Code Monster. He will fight until the death no matter what.

Tallulah:

Her item is a poppy. I believe she gives poppies to people she meets for the first time. For me, it represents her innocence. In the way she views the world and how the world views her. Everyone sees her as a sweet girl and is super kind. Majority, if not everyone, always loves her. For her, she always views the world with love. She is told by Wilbur and Phil that her kindness and love is necessary. In a world full of terror and fear, there needs to be love and gentleness

Chayanne:

His item is a potato. For anyone who doesnt know, Chayanne is deeply inspired by Techoblade. Technoblade is known for being a incredible warrior and a great Potato farmer. Please look up his videos. Philza told Chayanne about Techno and again is deeply inspired by him. The potato is a reminder of Chayanne's goals. To help everyone and to protect everyone.

Richarlyson:

His item is a heart container, one used to get an extra heart of health. I have so many emotions about this. I think the main one is that Richarlyson is the heart of the Brazilians / Favela Five. He is the core, for better or for worse. He always loves all his dads. Even recently with how scary everything is, he still loves and trusts his dads.

Forever:

His item is a Nether star. I honestly feel like this defines his character so well. An item that takes a lot of time, resources, and strength to get. Forever has put in that time and effort. His strength shines in his armor and how persistent he is. Also, the nether star is needed to make the highest level of the block reinforcer. Its needed to make everything safe. Forever has shown that over and over again. He wants to make everything safe.

(Update, Richarlyson changed his to a nether star so him and Forever are matching!)

Cellbit:

His item is the universal block remover. I dont know how recent this change is, but I noticed it when he was in his federation office. Just like Forever, this defines his character so well. He is there to break something, either the Enigma or the Federation. He is trying to get inside.

BadBoyHalo:

His item is a Scythe. For anyone who doesnt know, Bad said he is the grim reaper. Either coming to people to remind them to drink water or that he helps guide people to the afterlife. A lot of people thinks that why he cares so much about the eggs. He is the one to transport them to the afterlife.

Mike:

As im making this post, Tazercraft went live and I noticed Mike has a red block in his item display. I dont know a lot of Tazercraft/ Mike's lore. I do know that in tazercraft's game of hide and seek, a red block is represented to show who is the seeker/killer. Maybe it relates to that?

This is everyone I can think of off the top of my head. Theres probably more people who have it, but yeah.

[osidius-el-enfatico]

in football players can't take their shirt off to celebrate a goal because fifa got mad at Uruguay's Diego Forlán not having it on when the opposing team resumed play without waiting for him to get back to his half.

you can't fake out the goal keeper in a penalty cause fifa got mad at Neymar doing it and people buying it every time. they did this when he started doing it in Europe, not when he played in Brazil.

you can't psyche out the shooter in penalties as a goalkeeper cause the dutch got their panties in a bunch after dibu fucked with them too much

the guy who invented the yellow and red cards came up with them after seeing the ref fighting with an argentinian defender after a contested foul in a game against england.

the first red card in the history of the world cup was shown in 1974 to Chilean legend Carlos caszely in a game against Germany.

goal keepers can't go out into the field and play and fuck around cause a Mexican keeper was too good at it.

every thing that has ever made football fun was invented by Latinos and Europeans have cried until fifa pushed the balance in their favor cause they suck at the game they invented

[jays-therapist]

So much of who Yukio is stems from his self-hatred.

He wants to be an exorcist because he hates how weak he is. A lot of the contempt he holds for his brother derives from a desire to be like Rin, and not like himself. The way he remembers his own childhood is distorted by his self-hatred, as he struggles to focus on memories where he isn't inadequate.

I think the reason he hates who he was as a child is because he’s associated all of his worst traits to "Pre-Exorcist Training" Yukio, where he felt truly helpless and unable to do anything about his fear. Becoming an exorcist kind of gave him a sense of power? By learning about what he’s afraid of and how to deal with it, he now has control. At least, I think that was the idea behind it. What he doesn’t understand (and what Shirou probably didn’t consider when he gave his baby a gun) is that he’s not really overcoming his fear of demons. He’s just compensating for it, and clinging tight to any source of control he can get. Deep down, the fear remains; he still feels helpless, with a whole bunch of terrible coping mechanisms as a bonus.

(I also think this is one of the reasons he has such violent reactions to losing control, specifically towards his own body, like when he stabbed his arm to prevent himself from panicking in the Kyoto Arc.)

And he gets worse, because as he reasses the goals he had when he was a child (partly due to Toudou’s influence), he can only focus on all the ways they are selfish. A seven year old becoming an exorcist because he wants to be stronger only reinforces Yukio’s self-hatred, because it’s a self-oriented goal. Rin wants to be an exorcist so no one has to die for him like Shirou did. Shiemi wants to be an exorcist so she can protect others the way they’ve protected her. Bon wants revenge for the Blue Night and how it affected his family, and on and on and on. Yukio is surrounded by people who have experienced incredible pain, but focus on those around them. More and more, Yukio is seeing himself as the outlier, whose selfishness only serves to build upon itself. As he says, “I’m so obsessed with myself I can’t see anyone else!”

And like, that’s why I think the line “I’m strong because I had you!” holds so much weight, for both Rin and Yukio. For Yukio, it’s a realization that he loves his brother more than he hates himself, you know? He didn’t just want to be strong so he could surpass his brother. He wanted to be strong for his brother, and was inspired by him. It was that love that pushed him forward, and it’s that love that allows him to heal, a little bit.

This is best shown in the flashback he has later in Chapter 130 when they’re getting ready to square up with Satan. Earlier, I said that Yukio’s memories are distorted by self-hatred. Here, in this scene, we see a memory free of that bias, where Yukio, once shaking in fear, takes Rin’s hand. Yukio is brave, and able to overcome his fears with support, it just took him awhile to realize this.

Therefore, even though so much of Yukio is built upon hatred, he’s slowly recognizing just how much he loves and has loved.

[tanoraqui]

Dungeon Meshi Liveblog: I think we all know I basically spent these 3 chapters cackling maniacally

In the demon business, we call that BAIT!

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I'm all but wiggling happily. I love a good game of chess. I'm not entirely sure it actually is a game of chess beyond in Kabru's mind.

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OH GOOD HE'S A LITTLE BIT STUPID. This comic really does take care to portray people as badass, hyper-competent, and kinda stupid, all in different ways.

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oh, ALWAYS love a Santa-coded crime boss.

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I appreciate that Kabru's pride is solidly among the things he's 100% willing to temporarily ignore in order to be someone's friend/get them to do what he wants. I like that in a man.

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Interesting - clearly he's being magically influenced, but not so...directly? as to have the hourglass pupils.

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^ words of a man who is about to get his ass, and his entire criminal organization, absolutely WHUPPED by like 6 elves. I suspect the Canaries are underestimating the tallmen and other denizens of this dungeon, because they're arrogant pricks, but the locals are underestimating this elite team of elvish warriors a LOT more. I can't wait to find out what they're actually doing while "sight-seeing." Spreading out into tactical positions, maybe?

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ASS! WHUPPED! omg it's like an evil version of the Wink.

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I want to see this fight animated so fucking bad.

I dunno, Kabru, he clearly uses the combination pretty fucking effectively.

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WHY DO YOU THINK THAT A VISIBLE DEMONSTRATION OF MONSTERS WILL GET THROUGH WHERE WORDS DIDN'T? These people already know there are monsters down here... And at best, of course, a bunch of people will die... But they're just short-lived races so I suppose it doesn't matter :)

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While I do appreciate this dedication to making Mithrun look as cool as possible at all times, sending a giant, zombie-making walking mushroom into the middle of the Level 4 lake is going to be SUCH a disruption to that ecosystem!! Somewhere, Senshi just groaned in pain like Obi-Wan when Alderaan was destroyed.

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Mithrun has recognized that Kabru is going at picking out unusual people in a crowd, and is now using him as a manhandled tool to do so, and I just think that's Neat.

And it works! (So now it's their turn to get their asses handed to them.)

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This chapter cover is giving me a lot of feelings about...love, and families of choice.

Except for how I'm holding Laios in one arm while brandishing a knife at that lion fountain behind him. Get the HELL away from my boy, you tiny manifestation of the granting of wishes, and all you greater ones as well.

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oh are they now? They're definitely canaries in a coal mine, then. Badass and valued for their skills, but disposable. Hmm AU where Marcille...

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oh my god holy shit never mind, it turns out Thistle sucks at this when facing an opponent who isn't caught off-guard.

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It is possible that Mithrun is honestly, earnestly trying to help Thistle? As best he can?

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Sharing food as love!!!

MY GIRL!!

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STILL A TEAM!

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Oh Mithrun actually only has one eye, it's not just dramatic anime effect + hair flop? Hm. Should have a cool scar to make it clearer. I'm impressed with what depth perception he's shown, though, with the teleporting!

Obviously this does mean he ranks up in the Favorite Characters list.

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Kabru: Ooh nice strategy, manipulating all those people in order to manipulate that one person!

Kabru: Wait, right, I still don't like you.

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Yes! Yes! The Kabru's inner desires is OUT! He is impulsively risking this chance to prevent another Utaya - his stated goal, the obvious greater good, definitely very genuinely his primary focus - in favor of demanding the answers he WANTS, and the independence from long-lived elves.

YOU TELL 'EM, BUDDY! TAKE A STAND! BURN YOUR BRIDGES!!

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I appreciate that Mithrun isn't bad at this personal assessment thing.

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brb need to go chew a wall or something!

[sapphic-agent]

Okay, but, for real:

What does Bakugo add to the plot of MHA?

I often hear that due to him having a more cool and powerful quirk, it put on a bunch of expectations of his. I could believe this. If we weren't shown only one incident of this. Which was when he felt so guilt and blamed himself for All Might's retirement. I like that scene we get perspective into WHY he broke down. I could believe this if we got more moments of him being like this.

He doesn't have to be around other people, but how does he feel? How does he act when he is just by himself? Seriously. Wtf is the point of Bakugo, besides him being the main rival and a reflection of Kudo, the second user? I get really tired of Bakugo stans just clogging up tags when a new chapter is out all centered around him, instead of what's going on. Other than being used for "humor", what is his role in the plot? Like I'm being genuine here. Sometimes when I'm reading a chapter, it makes sense for him to be there. I can tolerate him being there. But the other times, I'm like "why the fuck is Bakugo driving the bus? (joke and reference)"

Bakugou feels so awkward in the story because he was never meant to have such a big role in it.

Bakugou was intended to be a minor antagonist, as bully characters usually are. He was supposed to be a plot device for Izuku to gain confidence and become a better hero, defeating him at one point being a goal to overcome.

That changed when Bakugou started getting popular. Horikoshi decided to pander to his fans and rework the entire story so squeeze him in somehow. It's why so many characters that had attention in the beginning are pushed to the side and why so many plotlines were dropped.

Horikoshi's favoritism of Bakugou quite literally ruined the story

[o-sachi]

Orter Madl Relationship Headcanons

ᯓ character; orter madl (mashle) ᯓ tags; fluff, sfw, gn reader, no y/n

[🐟]: Ngl, I had a hard time trying to make rs hcs for this guy because he's literally un-romanceable in reality SOB.

— I'm not sure how you managed to bag this guy. But... congrats. Like, truly, you deserve it. Up until dating you, this guy has never shown an ounce of interest in romance AT ALL. Perhaps you could say that his type is simply "you"?

— But maybe he gets into a relationship since it's transactional; he gets something from you and you get something from him. He has always been a rational person, so this is the only way he can rationalize something like "love" if he even believes in such a concept.

— Perhaps he'll give more of his time to you than any other person. Not that he expects you to feel special because of that. Though, somehow, the transactional relationship is able to blur some boundaries and help both of you ease into spending more time with each other.

— You don't know it, but he does look out for you, especially if he gets something from you that's really valuable. He'll always be on the look for anything that's bound to threaten your safety. There have also been instances when he butts into one of your fights.

— There isn't a day when he doesn't question you or your motives. Again, he tries to rationalize everything. So he can't make sense when you do things selflessly for him. What's the point if you don't get more in return? You confused him plenty and those thoughts plague his mind more than he'd like them to.

— One day, while spending time together, he'll be staring holes in the back of your head. What's he thinking? Well, let's just say he's having the biggest crisis of his life (having thoughts/feelings that cannot be rationalized). He'll be in a pissy mood for the rest of the day, but he takes it out on everyone else but you.

— The change of heart happens excruciatingly slow, but there will be signs. Perhaps you won't notice it at first, but certainly everyone else around the two of you can see it—clear as day.

— Eventually, he starts to see your values—not as a wizard—but as a person. Your strength, unwavering determination, and goal oriented mindset all seem quite alluring to him. It just never occurred to him before that these things could mean something else out of a fight.

— Through time, he'll just let himself be drawn to you. After all, there's nothing wrong about respecting someone who upholds justice and righteousness like he does. You're strong and can hold your ground. If anyone will take up space in his life—it might as well be you.

— His idea of softening up is showing you his tough love. He knows the types of things you get yourself into as a wielder of magic, so he reminds you to get stronger everyday even if it kills you. He'll practice with you and show no mercy. In his mind, he's thinking of wanting you to become self-sufficient to the point that you can handle yourself even without him by your side.

— He hates it when other people talk about you, even praises annoy him. But if he hears anyone insult you... they'll find themselves buried 6 ft. deep under sand. Without knowing it, he thinks so highly of you now—that if anyone were to utter the mere thought of you pisses him off. At this point, he lets you walk closely by his side so that everyone knows you are not to be messed with.

— You'll never hear him say the words, "I love you." But on a special occasion—like your birthday or your anniversary— he'll do something sweet for you (much to your surprise). You walk into his training grounds, a vast space with a bunch of sand. In the middle is a big heart made out of sand with him standing right beside it. Then he says something like, "Today's a special occasion hence the shape," or something unromantic like that lol.

o-sachi © 2024 pls do not translate/copy/reupload my work on other platforms.

[hyrule-in-a-pokeball]

A BIG OL' GANONDORF THEORY (TOTK)

This gonna be a long one, kids

I've just got a bunch of thoughts on Ganondorf. I'll categorize them or something

GANONDORF CAUSED HYRULE'S UNIFICATION A great war of some kind has been mentioned a few times in Zelda canon. most notably in OoT. 9 years before the events of OoT kick off, a great war comes to an end, but not before orphaning a baby who gets adopted by a tree. 9 years after this war, the leaders of the Gorons and Zoras consider the King of Hyrule to be a close friend, with the leader of the Gorons even considering him an honorary brother. With OoT being erased, why is this important? Because the legend that is OoT is based on the historical fact shown in TotK. Real events that were embellished and re contextualized over time. Well, here's what the legend tells us about history... At one point in time, Hyrule was divided. Each race seemed to be a different kingdom, but there didn't seem to be any tension among them. But then something happened that forced them to unite. Or rather...

Someone Ganondorf has always been bent on ruling Hyrule, but I think his invasions weren't targeted solely on the land of the Zonai/Hylians, but also the lands of the Gorons, Zora, and Rito. Basically all the lands that aren't a barren wasteland. He probably planned to take over each region and unite it all under one glorious Gerudo banner. Alone, they may have all had trouble fending off the Gerudo army. I believe that with a common and very powerful enemy in the form of the Ganondorf-lead Gerudo, King Rauru was able to convince the Gorons, Rito, and Zora to unite with him under a single Hyrulean banner, thus creating the unified kingdom of Hyrule and forming a solid, united opposition to the Gerudo invasion.

GANONDORF'S STONE ENHANCED FORM

We skip forward in time a little. The war has ended and Ganondorf is swearing fealty to King Rauru, but thats just so he can get in and move about freely without suspicion even though he's the world's most suspicious looking man. It works though. He kills Queen Sonia and steals her sacred stone, the power awakened from which causes him to transform

The sacred stones, as explained, do not give powers to their holders, but instead greatly amplify powers that were already present. But what they ALSO don't do, is cause a physical transformation in their users. None of the other stone holders were shown to change form when using the power of their stones. And its not like his stone was extra special. It was literally the same stone Sonia was using. So why did Ganondorf change form when he came into possession of one?

Because his power is not his own.

While Zelda inherited her powers from her ancestors through blood, Ganondorf inherited his as a result of being the product of Demise's cheeky curse. While Demise is dead and gone, his power lives on in Ganondorf, and so it was Demise's demonic powers that were amplified by the stone. As a result, Ganondorf's form changed to reflect those demonic powers.

But that might not be all that changed. You see, after his demonic powers awakened, his goal changed a bit. While he was still hell bent on ruling Hyrule, he now also wanted to wipe out every living person within the kingdom, supposedly to replace them with the monsters he summoned, and "Cast the world into eternal night" He even turned on his own people, the Gerudo, as in the scene in which Rauru grants the soon-to-be-sages their sacred stones, Ruto states "We just received word that the last free village in the Gerudo desert has fallen..." So the demon king's armies were attacking everyone indiscriminately on his command. I think he truly became a demon, and possibly something in his psyche changed as a result.

THE 8TH SAGE

Those who hold Sacred stones were deemed sages. Zelda and Sonia were the sages of time. Rauru, reflecting his roll in OoT, was the sage of light. Nabooru was changed from the sage of spirit to the sage of lightning. Darunia was the sage of fire, Ruto; the sage of water, and Mineru was the sage of spirit. Saria and "forest" being completely replaced by a nameless Rito and the element of Wind. Sonia dies, so the sage count is 7.

When the stone bonded to its holder, stylized Japanese kanji would appear on it. This is most visible with Nabooru/Riju's stone

Its up-side down and partially wrapped around the stone itself, but that is the Kanji "Kaminari" meaning "Lightning"

When Ganondorf steals Sonia's stone, the kanji for time "Toki" disappears and is replaced with this

Its side ways and partially obstructed by his hand, but when he uses his power, we see the symbol flash in its proper orientation

Yami. Darkness. (funnily enough it also means "Gloom")

If holding a secret stone makes one a sage, then Ganondorf is the sage of Darkness, a being in direct opposition to Rauru; the sage of light

[whoovesnassistant]

Tips for making a radio play

We've had a lot of experience making this show, and we've seen a lot of series come and go or even crash and burn before they begin. So we're going to give some tips to hopefully help people avoid the crashing and burning.

1: Start Small

A lot of people make the mistake of starting with a grand idea in mind, like "We're going to do an epic with 3 seasons that comes with animatics, original music, and a large cast of characters and-" Slow down. You don't even know what you're capable of yet, so it's a really bad idea to plan so far ahead without knowing what you can do and how much effort it takes to do it. Before you decide to dedicate yourself to something on a grand scale, start with something small to test the waters. A pilot is a good way to really understand the process and give an audience a chance to get interested. This pilot should not be as long as a full episode unless you plan for your episodes to be relatively short anyways. There should be a small cast, 2-5 characters at most generally. You don't need to go all-in with the pilot, just use what you have to do it and hopefully it should garner enough attention to get more people on board in your project team. Even after your pilot, make small goals. Plan for say, 5 episodes at first, and plan for more once you've gotten a flow and idea of production time and how long you want to be working on this project. Radio plays take a lot of time and effort, they aren't as easy as they seem.

2: Don't Cast Too Early

This is a big one that a lot of people tend to do that's a huge mistake to be making. Do not cast your characters way ahead of when you're going to need them. Generally, you should have your next script done FIRST before you cast the characters for it, and even if you have scripts done for multiple episodes ahead of time, do not cast unless you plan to get the lines done ASAP. You do not want to have idle voice actors waiting a really long time before they can even record lines, because this is a good way to lose voice actors or have people feel you don't really know what you are doing or how to organize a project. The exception to this rule is if you know someone really well and you know they want the role and they will stick around for it. It's good to cast people you are closer with as long term characters than expecting strangers to volunteer all their time, which leads into our next tip...

3: Don't Expect Too Much From People

Unless you plan on paying people, don't expect too much hard work from others. Don't expect voice actors to stay on for years and years and years. Don't expect a musician to volunteer original music for free. Don't expect artists to draw a bunch of scenes or animatics. Expect to start with basic resources, like stock music and one piece of cover art. If people want to volunteer more, they will come in time once you've shown your project is legitimately producing content. People are generally not going to just hop on board when you have no credentials and no examples of what you're capable of.

4: Quality Control

You need to have certain standards of quality, and you need to understand what that means. For example, no matter how much you might like someone's voice, if they have a bad microphone there is no fixing that audio, it will be unpleasant to edit and even more unpleasant for an audience to listen to. You can't just chuck together whatever audio you get or have, you need to research how to clean up noise, how to master vocals, how to level volumes, how to make sure your sound effects are good quality and not distractedly bad. Thankfully, Audacity which is a free program can handle most of your audio editing needs and there are plenty of tutorials for it on youtube so there's no reason not to study this stuff before you dive in.

5: Organization

This one's important. You need an organized system for getting everything done. Have checklists, organized folders, a proper place for crew to communicate. Discord is excellent for organizing a project because you can make different channels for different purposes within one server, such as a place for auditions, a place to submit lines, a place to post art, a place to give instructions, and you can make certain channels accessible to only specific people so spoilers aren't getting out to the wrong people. The more organized your project is, the smoother things will run.

6: Don't Overwork Yourself

It's very tempting to just do all the hard work on your own, like doing all the vocal editing, all the SFX, placing all the music, doing all the scripting. And at first, you'll probably have no choice but to do this. But as your project gets bigger, you should start to divide out the roles for other people to do, otherwise you risk burnout. It might feel fun to get all these things done on your own, but after a while it's going to feel tedious and it's often going to take more time to do. It's okay to have people you trust work on scripts, you would still be the director of what that script is about but you might be surprised what other people can come up with. It might be difficult to find a good audio editing crew but it's worth it if you do.

7: Be Willing to Take Criticism

Nobody's perfect, and sometimes people will have constructive criticism about your project. Don't see criticism as failure, see it as an opportunity to improve. For example, if you're having a hard time casting a character and you hear a lot of people saying they don't want to audition for the character because they don't like the character, don't sit there insisting your writing is gold and everyone else is just rude. Examine why people don't like the character, and adjust. If you notice people aren't really jumping on board with your project, swallow your pride and ask why. Try to figure out what it is that needs improvement, and then move forward with it.

8: Have Voice Actors Record Multiple Takes

Be sure that you're not just getting one take of lines, because you never know when a line might not sound right, or if a different delivery would sound better. Have at least 3 takes of every line recorded, and encourage your voice actors to try different kinds of deliveries. This way you have a much bigger chance of getting quality lines and the best takes!

9: Don't Rely on Artwork

This is an AUDIO drama, you CAN NOT expect everyone to be watching the video if you release a video with it. Some people just play these in the background, or download them to listen while they drive. If you're expecting people to understand what's going on from the artwork alone, you're doing something wrong. Imagine your script not having any images to go with it, and try to imagine what people are going to get out of purely listening. There are a lot of clever ways to help people visualize things without an actual visual. Artwork should be a bonus, not a requirement.

9B: Don't Script Visual Only Cues

Speaking of not relying on art, this goes with the above and is an issue a lot of beginners have. Scripting things like "the character smiles", "character waves", "character stands up" is not helpful for sound design. You need to figure out how those would be conveyed if they are important, like for smiling have the prompt for the actor you can have [Said happily] for a tone, a [shuffle] for standing up, a [whooshing] for waving with a character saying something like 'I'm waving as hard as I can!'. Sound effects and exposition are your friends in radio plays, soundless actions are not.

10: Be Careful About Vocal Effects

Vocal effects can be really cool! You can make someone sound like a demon, or a ghost, or some kind of magical creature. But you also need to be really careful about using those effects, because they can very easily make a person's voice hard to understand. This tip doesn't always work, but sometimes you can have the original voice line overlay the effect and make the effect quieter to keep the voice more clear. Run the effects voices by other people to make sure they can understand them.

11: Organization and Communication is Important

Radio plays have a lot of stuff that goes into them. There's a lot of files, often a lot of people, and a lot of tasks and instructions that need to be made. Discord is an excellent messenger to organize a radio play in, where you can organize things by topic in channels and assign roles to people to make sure they have special access to specific channels so other people don't get content they're not supposed to. You also need to make sure you are communicating with everyone and make sure everyone is on the same page. A discord server can help with this by having things like an announcement channel, an auditions channel, a channel to submit lines, etc. Google docs is also a great resource to keep everyone updated, where you can make things like art claims, and progress checklists, and share scripts. You can change permissions on the documents to let people comment or edit, either anyone viewing it or specific people who can be given access. The more organized you are, the faster things will get done and the more your team will respect the project.

12: Format Your Scripts to be Reader Friendly

We had some fairly messy looking scripts in the past, where there was nothing really making the character names stand out from the rest. Lines weren't spaced properly, names weren't bolded, and as a result voice actors would often miss lines on accident or not realize where a line ended or began. Now, you don't have to format it like we do, but you at least need to make it clear when a new line is being spoken and by who. Space new lines apart. What we do is we bold all the character names at the start of the lines and change the paragraph settings to adding a space after each paragraph. This makes it so when a character has a longer line, the spacing remains close together, but a new line from a new character will be spaced away from the previous line. As a bonus, we highlight all the character names in specific colors for specific characters (Not too bright colors!) and this has majorly solved the issue of people missing their lines and we have gotten many compliments for this formatting.

13: Be Kind and Respectful to Your Crew

I really shouldn't have to say this, but it is incredibly important that you respect the people you're working with. More than likely, they are volunteering their time to you, and you have no right to disrespect them by pushing them, tossing them to the side, being picky with them, getting into arguments, rejecting their feedback, etc. You shouldn't even be treating them like this if you were paying them. If you want people to stay and to provide quality content, they will be at their best when you treat them well

14: Listen a Few Times Before Release

So the audio is done, time to make a video and release it! Right? Wrong! You still need to do more quality control! This time you should listen through a few times and pay close attention to any issues that may occur, such as odd pauses, misplaced sound effects, or accidentally repeated lines. This can be easy to miss if you're not paying attention, and once it's out, your mistakes will be out there for everyone to hear.

15: Don't Get a Big Head

On the one hand, it's good to be proud of your work... but on the other, there's such a thing as being too confident and too prideful, especially if you haven't made a reputation for yourself yet. No matter how good you think your ideas might be, you yourself are not going to be the true judge of that. It's up to other people if they like what you have to give, and if they don't like it, there's probably a good reason for it and you may need to take a big bite of humble pie. This is where you need to be open to feedback and realize no one is perfect, no one has the most amazing idea with no flaws. Even we have made a lot of mistakes and will continue to do so, and we know we are always learning. And because of that, we try to listen to constructive feedback. Sure, we can't do everything people want, but we can try to at least improve. Basically, don't boast without knowing what people actually think of your work, and if they don't like it, don't blame them; be ready to look at yourself.

Also, don't put down other creators' work in order to boast about how much better you could or did do it. We're not here to fight, we're not here to compete, we're all just here making something we're supposed to love and be passionate about. It doesn't matter if you honestly think your work is better, having a nasty attitude about it is not going to make people confident in your work. They're just going to see you as someone with no respect for the craft and therefor probably not having the talent you claim you have.

16: Be Able and Willing to Contribute

So you have this idea, and you want to make it happen. What are YOU going to do to do that? The thing is, if you're going to be the one in charge of this project, you're going to need to pick up a lot of skills of your own to do whatever you can for it. You can't always rely on having other writers, or other voice actors, or other editors, etc. The more tasks you can make yourself available for, the better. I'm not saying you have to do everything or even do a whole lot, but the more you are at least able to do if need be, the more you can overcome hurdles such as losing an editor for whatever reason. I think, at the very least, when you're making a radio play you should be able to manage the writing and audio/video editing. Managing the writing shouldn't just be 'here's a small summary of what i want, write it for me', it should involve at least an outline or a collection of notes for what you had in mind, or you should work with people on the writing process by tossing around ideas. If you're just going to be an ideas person who has everyone else perform the creative tasks to make it real, you're going to have a lot of hang ups and you're not going to understand or value the work people put in nearly as much as you would if you learned the process yourself. Your crew might start feeling like you're not actually contributing much and that you're depending on them for everything to happen.

That's all we could think of for now, but if we think of more tips we'll add them to this post and reblog it to show the new ones. We hope this helps!

[ultfreakme]

On Geto and 'femininity'

Okay so I saw bunch of discussions and discourse over Geto being presented as 'feminine' and female-coded and there are people who use that to headcanon a variety of things for Geto as a character.

I think Geto has been assigned a lot of tropes in-story that are associated with female characters. Some of it in good ways.....others in bad ways. But I will say, I don't think Geto on his own represents any kind of female struggle but is rather a gateway to explore and use tropes that are generally assigned to female characters.

The predominant tropes I think Geto fits are the Disposable Woman and the I Can Change My Beloved trope.

The first one is really obvious. The Disposable Woman exists to give a male character an emotional motive to go forward with a goal and the character serves no other greater purpose than that (I'll get back to the last part later). Hidden Inventory is a Gojo backstory, Geto's fall is a part of explaining Gojo's future entrapment and his motivation for becoming a teacher. We see Geto's downward spiral but at the end of the day this is primarily about Gojo.

more under the cut

Geto also literally gets used as an accessory for Gojo's character motivation by Kenjaku. It is blatantly stated in-text the only reason Geto's body is around again is to fuck with Gojo.

The second trope, is also pretty on the nose. The Hidden Inventory arc starts with Geto talking about how Gojo should protect the weak, he's always telling Gojo to do this or do that, speak more politely, don't look down on others, take care of yourself, let me help you, etc. And it works! He does change his 'beloved'.

But it's not just this.

In terms of character design, Geto is meant to be a pretty boy. He's more popular than Gojo, his attractiveness is what gets Manami and Larue interested in his ideology, his beauty and charm convinces even skeptics and it's to the point Gege constantly points it out in-text. His design also somewhat reflects that in a twisted way. His long hair, earrings and robes are actually supposed to be a false imitation of Buddha but they also serve to make him more stereotypically feminine.

He's also associated with the figure of a 'mother' through Nanako and Mimiko. In the anime, the scene where he's getting his hair combed is done so....delicately. You get lingering shots of his hair, his eyes, his hands and the way he sits. An untouchable, loving dream. Gojo also remembers him in this untouchable manner. Then there's the obvious, the worm inventory curse calling Geto mom and asking for a hug.

There's this amazing thread on twitter that goes into a lot of detail about how Geto's design and motives take a lot of inspiration from Kannon, who is the bodhisattva of compassion and mercy and is most often depicted as a woman.

And.....okay this third one is an exploitative, sensitiv trope but it exists nonetheless and can be applied to Geto. I don't know the exact name for it, but a lot of female characters get put through torturous, traumatic situations to fuel the male characters' anger. This violence is portrayed in a very indulgent manner, where the point of showing or depicting the assault/violence is not to show the extent of evil but to revel and take enjoyment in the suffering.

Kenjaku taking over Geto's body falls into that. It's not as gross and demeaning as it is with female characters(the aforementioned violence is prominently shown through sexual assault and taking away bodily autonomy), but Kenjaku openly flaunts his possession.

He rips off Geto's head, plays with his skull, uses all the skills and connections that come with his body in a flippant manner. It's clear he takes some kinda pleasure in possessing Geto's body(the way he's posing in the volume 16 cover is a pretty good example of that). NanaMimi point out how horrific it is when arguing with the cult family. Gojo's need to give Geto a proper burial and his horrified reaction also emphasizes this. Geto's possession and the hijacking of his body is violent and invasive.

Kenjaku's possessions are associated with assault and targeted violence against women. He experimented on a woman for the Death Paintings, he took over Yuji's mom and used her body, assaulting both Yuji's mom and his dad(yes yes it's possible he knew but still, the consent isn't there and as many jokes as the fandom makes about back shots or whatever, this is still sexual assault). Kenjaku specifically is a villain who exploits bodies and Geto is one of them.

This specific kind of deprivation of physical autonomy is experienced primarily by female characters.

So put that all together and you get what many assign as femininity or female-coding.

The problem is, Geto is given all the decidely BAD tropes associated with female characters. If Geto's character was a woman in JJK, I'd be appalled because this is just, so misogynistic to assign to a female character.

But this repulsion doesn't happen because of one very important thing; Geto's still written as a man and therefore has all the default privileges that come with it. Both in-story through character motivation and through Gege as a writer. Remember how I said the Disposable Woman serves no other purpose but to be the man's motive? Well this is where Geto diverges. Geto's given the trope but he is written with the defaults and privileges of a man.

We HAVE multiple other Disposable Women tropes in JJK! Tsumiki, Rika, Yuji's mom and most importantly, Megumi's mom.

MEGUMI'S MOM DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A NAME! Literally everyone calls her 'Mamaguro'. We know jack shit about her other than she was pretty, Toji loved her and she fixed Toji or something. There is all the chances in the world to give all of these characters more back story and motives but none of them get that. Hell, even alive female characters don't get nearly the same amount of exploration(Shoko was right there with Gojo and Geto but the focus on her is so little).

Geto got a whole five-episode arc half dedicated to him. There's also his attitude which is decidedly coming from an entitled place. He's absolutely sure of his strength, he doesn't even examine who or how he's assigning 'weakness'.

The women in JJK are a lot more 'selfish', and it's best explained by Nobara. There's only so much you can give of yourself, only so many people that you can let in because if you do more, you're dead. Itadori doesn't fully get this kinda thinking, he's trying to save and love everybody under the sun because he thinks he can afford to do that. Shoko also keeps a distance from Gojo and Geto. Women can't affor to overextend themselves and do whatever the fuck they want only because they have power because they're navigating the oppressiveness of the jujutsu society along with regular old patriarchy.

The women of JJK know that the patriarchal nature of the system is also responsible for how corrupt everything is. But Geto doesn't. He doesn't examine the system of jujutsu sorcerers in a nuanced manner and skips right to the curses.

Geto's femininity comes from a lot of tropes assigned to women but there isn't anything crucially feminine about any of the tropes. they're all overdone and often offensive, reductive stereotypes. But they're only reductive when employed with women because female characters who go through experiences like assault or parenthood are never given the time to be explored well.

For female characters, assault is considered a characteristic rather than a plot event that deeply affects them. On top of that, female characters are never anything beyond their traumas and the motives the provide for male characters.

Geto gets to skip all the bad parts and actually gets characterization, personal motives and is deeply flawed while being treated kindly by the writer. Which is why the things he does go through doesn't come off as offensive and ill thought-out. I think it's also why people assign him femininity and consider him to represent a female experience. Because he's the one character who is used to explore frequently awful female-assigned tropes in a somewhat respectful manner.

Again, the tropes do not define actual femininity. Being feminine or masculine is on a spectrum that is largely undefined and unclear. Geto's assignations are all happening in terms of fiction and in fiction, these tropes and appearances are assigned to the idea of a 'female' character.

Anyways that's my two cents, bye bye.

[xadian-daydreams]

What's been mentioned for the Dragon Prince Season 6: Book Stars so far...

Having listened and read a bunch of interviews, here's my collected notes (Updated for October 2023);

No current release date, but confirmed 9 episodes, same as previous seasons.

Seasons Four though Seven are all the Mystery of Aaravos arc.

While there's not going to be any real time skip between S5 and S6, there will be a small one within S6. Update - there's a few days time skip between S5 and S6.

Season 6 will be more mature to the point the age rating is increasing. It will also go into deeper emotional stuff - "fans should enjoy the breather before being emotionally wrecked by the next book."

(Most of) Episode 1 of season 6 was shown at NYCC 2023 panel. Notes on summaries people have posted here.

New characters to be introduced;

Astrid - voiced by Boone Williams - Female Celestial Skywing elf. She's mysterious and there's 'something cool' about her design.

Character based off Moonberry Surprise.

A new Startouch elf. Possibly the Merciful One (they/them) from the Sea of the Castout statues.

Upcoming for main characters;

Callum - every time you do dark magic, it becomes harder to come back from it. Info on Callum birth-father. (Callum and learning Moon Arcanum - Giehl's opinion is doesn't want Callum treading on Rayla's thematic territory and stealing her thunder). Rayllum note - how would Callum using dark magic affect the trust and friendship they've been building up?

Rayla - On the curse coins - too spoilery, so they won't answer questions related to that. On Rayllum note. Would Rayla do anything for Callum? And what would Callum call upon her to do if that was the case? Questions getting asked next season, just to make you suffer.

Callum, Rayla and Stella confirmed visiting the Starscraper.

Ezran - sticking to his ideals and pacifism will be tested. Rough and tough decision(s).

At some point Ezran and Callum will visit some 'weird' ruins.

Soren - has had lighter seasons so far, but is about to face darker questions. There is trauma that the writers haven't told anyone about that will come to light at some point. Soren is getting an opportunity to confront Viren about what happened at the Storm Spire (they did meet up in S4E7, which is covered in the short story Strangers, but writers felt it lacked the satisfaction needed, as neither really was in the headspace to talk), but uncertain if this is just a therapy thing or if Viren lives.

There's going to be a funny Soren and Corvus story later on.

Claudia - S5 she was under a lot of pressure, and it's not easing up. How will Claudia be impacted by Viren's decision - further into darkness or pulled back into the light? Claudia being willing to risk life and limb for her goal(s) - and then actually paying the cost of a limb - what does that mean for her and Terry?

Karim - is about to get in over his head. He doesn't realise the kind of alliances he's making.

Amaya and Janai don't get enough love in these interviews. 😢

Zym - Goes with Soren to find Zubeia. Spoiler indicates Zym has a heart to heart with her

Characters we'll be seeing more of;

Aaravos - there's a lot more of him coming in S6.

Kim'dael - 'big plans' that even go beyond the show, though specifically refused to answer if she'll met Rayla again (they met first time in Bloodmoon Huntress graphic novel).

More with the pirates and Scumport (however, Finnegrin while not confirmed dead, won't make a reappearance in S6/7). Scumport set up a bunch of stuff for going into season 6.

Kpp'Ar - confirmed there'll be more stuff about him in both S6 and S7.

Mukho - the mushroom mage, Earthblood elf who's a world expert mycologist.

More shadowpaw content.

Possibly Ellis and Ava briefly, but could be S7.

Lore -

The lore about Stars primal and Startouch elves and other mythology will be explored. How you kill a Startouch elf will be answered - including more info on Laurelion (mentioned in the Death of an Immortal poem).

(Going by how the graphic novels releases are generally introducing things that are mentioned in the next season, Puzzle House's emphasize on unicorns, and how there is a big bit of unicorn lore mentioned in the novels, is a good hint that this unicorn lore is getting explained in show too. But, just to clarify, it's not confirmed this is happening - however, it is a impactful bit of backstory and there's only 2 seasons left).

Most likely information about how Primal Stones are made - specifically how a storm was trapped from the top of Mount Kalik to create the Primal Stone Callum smashed. Ehasz mentioned that something brought up in the second episode will be expanded on in S6, and the info about the Sky Primal Stone is the only info that hasn't been addressed elsewhere from E2 that I could pick out.

More lore about golems (as in the rock guardians and Elmer)

Other notes;

Season 6 will have an explosive start.

Questions raised by Ehasz;

Was the dragang moving Aaravos's prison smart or would it have been safer to have left it? It's something they'll grapple with right away.

Is Aaravos being honest with Viren about what's going to happen? (I'm wording it as being honest rather than saying is he lying, as Aaravos's thing is manipulative truths and misdirections etc, rather than outright lies).

No context: 🔥 (Can't help looking at the use of explosive start by the NYCC notification)

There's stuff in Season 2 that will get explained in Season 6 - while they're not exactly clues, there will be referencing from S2.

Keep an eye on changes in the openers - they're continuing the hints - like when they swapped out Viren with Callum to let you know Callum and dark magic/Aaravos is going to be in the episode.

Season 7 will be Book 7: Dark.

The next graphic novel will be about "family and building trust." Update: Title Dreamer's Nightmare

Can young Ezran and Callum quell the brewing storm in the quiet town of Noct, or have bad dreams come to haunt for good?

Giehl says this story has Ezran as the lead character and the artist said they enjoyed doing the many animals.

There were hints dropped at NYCC 2023 that there may be other projects based on the Dragon Prince world, but they'll come under a different name. TDP will only be the 7 seasons. (Most hints I've seen suggest they may be working towards an Orphan Queen film/series, but it could also be a continuation).

Sources; Hot Brown Morning Potion Podcast E27 Reel James Season 5 interview with Aaron Ehasz AIPT Comics 'The Dragon Prince creators dish on season 5 post-mortem AnimationWorld: The Dragon Prince Season 5, a swashbuckling blend of design tricks and emotional turmoil Screenrant SDCC 2023: The Dragon Prince creators on taking the Mystery of Aaravos past Season 5 CBR: The Dragon Prince creators reveal the secrets of Season 5 and the road to Season 6 ComicBook: The Dragon Prince creators talk season 5 and entering the show's Empire Strikes Back era Game of Nerds: SDCC 2023 The Dragon Prince All Aboard for Season 5 Official Discord Season 4 Q&A NYCC 2023 panel Secrets in the Stars Random tweets and Discord stuff from the creators and official social media.

[itsnothingofinterest]

I think that the LoV deserves to win in the Final War because if they win, they will be able to create a world for themselves. The Heroes never meant to deserve to win at all considering the fact that most of them are morally corrupted (like the HPSC) and they are more interesting when they lose all the time.

If Spinner were able to win against Shoji, that would prove that his point will be always right and he would be able to save Shigaraki. If Toya succeeded, it would be the punishment that Endeavor deserves for abandoning his eldest son. If Toga succeeded, she would be able to do anything she wants. If Tomura Shigaraki wins against Deku and destroys Deku along with the entire Hero Society, Tomura Shigaraki would be able to have peace with his friends.

If I may be allowed the opportunity to rant: I'm sure some will say this is crazy at this juncture of the story but honestly? I get where you're coming from. Or at least 90% of it.

I mean for starters, I sympathize with the League far more than the heroes (no surprise from a villain fan). I think they’ve earned the happy endings they want after how hard they’ve struggled against the towering odds they’ve faced, an area which I feel they far surpass the heroes. I want them to win, I want them to prove the strength of their bonds, all that fun stuff for them.

And just logically, if you look at the worlds both sides are trying to make…the villain's world kinda seems better? Because after all, isn’t the plan to just take the current world, tear it down, and rebuild it without a whole bunch of its glaring flaws? The easy world Toga wants where kids like her don’t fear for their lives. Where corrupt heroes like Endeavor and bigots like the CRC aren’t left to their crimes. In a warped way, they’re almost like young All Might.

Compare that to the status quo the heroes want back, the very one that brought us here, which I don’t see much reason to root for. I mean even if you say “but all the people who’ve died”; first off, I swear mha civilians frequently act like horror movie victims so I can only care so much for them. But if I did, they want back the very status quo that led to all that death in the first place so…it feels like it’ll just lead back here again. A return of the status quo? This chaos is part of the status quo by now, you sure you want it back?

(Granted this is all hampered a little bit by Shigaraki’s sudden decision to sink the country and really where did that come from? Did Tomura just say that to appear more inhuman? Did Hori make him say that to appear more threatening? Because that kind of interferes with a lot of the League’s goals y’know. Sure he doesn’t want to give the status quo loving heroes a chance to rebuild what he destroyed, but society still needs replacing as part of the plan. The PLF are still supposed to rebuild according to their desires. I may make a post about just this plot point soon.)

Not to mention that I totally get what you mean about the heroes not narratively earning a permanent win here. Not only have they as a whole not really developed and surpassed their old flaws, but just the fact that they’ve been doing their own war crimes in this arc (when you’re really supposed to stick to your morals and beat villains by the book against make-the-world-better-by-extreme-measures-type villains) really makes me think they just don't deserve the win because they kind of can’t be trusted going forward. I mean the final arc's supposed to show where everyone is ending up; how they'll be in the future. And the impression being left is that the heroes, even the kids to enough of an extent to worry, have shown the same corruption we know the HPSC for.

About the only thing I disagree with out on is that I don’t want Deku specifically to die. He can be, to put bluntly, a self-righteous moron about things he doesn't understand at times, and can be a bit of an AM clone a lot of the rest of the time; but I'd hardly wish his death for just that. Especially since it seems any hope for the heroes side not repeating their mistakes rests on him pulling his head out of his arse and getting a clue on how to be better than All Might. Not that I think that'll happen anytime soon, but that's why I keep insistently hoping for an MHA part 2.

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(Sorry I took so long with this. Mix of being busy with real life and being in a writing funk. Which is why this may not be my finest post either. Hope you understand.)

[highfantasy-soul]

I get people concerned that 'viewers are seeing a hot guy and falling for his manipulation!!' but like....personally, I don't believe cops when they just tell me someone is bad without proof?

The thing about compelling antagonists is that a lot of the time, THEY HAVE A POINT!! Vader in the OG trilogy had no point. It was just black/white we want to be fascist all over the galaxy and have all the power, you want to stop us. In the prequels, Palpatine was the same: he wants power....just cause. Anakin you can make a partial argument for in that his initial intention was never just to get power for himself, but rather protect those he loved: this led to him being able to be manipulated and then making abhorrent choices like slaughtering a bunch of children.

In newer Star Wars, there's room for nuance - room for critiquing and looking into things and seeing it isn't always black/white our protagonists are perfect, the antagonist is psycho evil for the sake of being evil.

We didn't see the rebels in Star Wars Rebels, Andor, and Rogue One as evil because they were killing storm troopers - we saw that their violence was justified in fighting back against an oppressive regime that was hurting people.

When I look at Qimir, he's only killed combatants directly opposed to him. We don't know yet what his real goals are - we don't know why the Jedi 'abandoned' him. So I'm going to reserve judgement and hear him out until I get more info. You know, like you should when determining if someone is evil and needs to die? You don't just rush in guns blazing because you see a red saber and someone fighting enemy combatants?

I know a lot of people have woobified the jedi so much that even though they're a militant police force with absolute power to kill you with their laser swords, fighting back against them is somehow seen as kicking a puppy, but idk man. I'm not against violent opposition to an oppressive force. Obviously we need more info before we can say for sure if Qimir's goals need to be pushed back against, but I don't go into situations with the default view of 'the jedi must be right'.

For me, it's really interesting to see how similar Qimir's attempts to get Osha to join him are similar to how Sol got her to agree to join the jedi. Separating her from other influences: check. Giving her tests to unlock parts of herself she knows are there: check. Showing kindness and understanding of her situation: check. Offering her something she wants (with Sol it was to allow Osha to 'be her own person' rather than only the other half to her twin and the lure of other children like her (that he conveniently left out she'd never be able to have a deep relationship with due to the non-attachment rules of the Jedi) and with Qimir it was being accepted for who she was, not some sanitized version of who others wanted her to be, plus the deep relationships she craves): check.

Is Qimir pushing for Osha to join him so he can have power? Yup. Did Sol push Osha to join him so that the order could have more power? Yup. So now the real question is: power to do what?

Though the idea of the jedi is great, how they actually exert their influence isn't always good for everyone (see stamping out the witches who we, yet again, haven't seen do anything bad). When you have a huge organization that prioritizes their own view of the world above all others, it's not only 'bad' people who get caught in the crossfire. Everyone just makes the assumption that if the jedi are against you, that means you're just a psycho who wants to go around killing people with impunity and if the jedi are supporting you, that means you're automatically good - but that hasn't been shown to be the case. Lets take a look at the Separatists as seen in the Clone Wars tv show - they weren't all fascist maniacs, they just wanted to govern themselves - not to have slavery or be able to kill a bunch of people, but because they were concerned about centralizing rule too much (which turns out, they were right to be worried about that!!) Or Tales of the Jedi when we saw the Jedi turning the other way when members of the Republic were treating their citizens horribly.

Fighting against those aspects of the Republic and the Jedi doesn't automatically throw you into the 'fascist psycho mass murderer' category. Killing the Jedi you think are responsible for the slaughter of your whole culture, I don't think, puts you in that category either. And of course, there can be instances where people do bad things for what they believe are the right reasons (see: Andor and Rogue One) BUT they aren't doing it to people we've associated with 'the good guys' for so long it makes it hard to think about the situation at hand rather than reacting in a knee-jerk kind of way to protect your blorbos.

Very long winded way of saying: I'm not saying Qimir is good or bad. I haven't seen enough to say yet. No, killing Yord and Jecki isn't enough 'proof' any more than Cassian killing the injured rebel so they wouldn't be caught was 'proof' that he was bad. We need to know WHY they're taking such drastic actions before I'm comfortable making my decision on what the show is trying to say.

If you feel like that's me 'lacking critical thinking skills' because you've jumped to a conclusion that's not supported by any facts yet, fine. But I'll wait for the narrative to finish before casting judgement based on what I think is a common trope used in stories.

[weirdocat83]

obsessed with your tags, talk mdzs at me pls

Uh.

1) thank you, I really just put the random thoughts I have in the tags and/or accidentally steal other people’s tags

2) some thoughts about mdzs below the cut (I have a lot of thoughts about this novel) ye ask any ye shall receive. If you want to hear my thoughts on something specific plz ask :3

• My fav characters in MDZS are Wei Wuxian and Nie Huaisang. I love how WWX can be very complicated when he wants to be and has many layers and sides to him. Like, the fandom likes to simplify his character to someone self deprecating but always smiling but he is very complex. He acknowledges his faults and has only tried to do what he deemed right at the time even if he regrets what he does in hindsight. He isn’t infallible. He literally tortured a man to death (even if it felt right to do it considering said man orchestrated a massacre and tossed him into a literal pit of suffering to die in) and was a major player in a WAR. He’s probably killed more than he can count. I feel like a lot of people forget that the main cast is a bunch of war heroes that must’ve had insane kill counts. Including LWJ. It’s quite tragic that none of them really had any good authority figures to lead them seeing as the majority of them were at most 20~30ish and cultivators usually live extremely long lives (at least, that’s my assumption) anyhow, WWX is very aware of his faults, especially post-resurrection as he did kinda fuck up when he accidentally killed JZX. He acknowledges that and makes an effort to apologize and atone. That being said, his faults don’t stop him from being confident and above all likable. Yes he can be annoying but he does know how to behave himself probably better than most (unlike what many members of the fandom like to think). He knows his position well and that it is incredibly precarious (in both lives) but still manages to fit in well enough with essentially nobility that he is good competition for the best in his generation. He is a genius and a great leader and that isn’t stressed enough. Though I think one of the small details in his character that I think gets overlooked is how he “parents” A-Yuan in the burial mounds. Because for as immature as he is when he’s burying A-Yuan in the ground, he also knows that he isn’t the only one caring for A-Yuan and therefore is allowed to be silly but when they’re out at the market and A-Yuan asks for a toy he makes the mature decision to save his money (although LWJ spoils the kid immediately after). This reflects a lot on WWX because it shows he can be very mature when he needs to be but when he doesn’t need to be he’ll happily rely on others. It also reflects on his upbringing showing he knows how important money is (in contrast to the lans who are shown on various occasions to not really think about money much) Personally I love his character because he seems like a person I’d get along with if he were real (which, the incredible writing makes his seems very realistic) meanwhile my other favorite, Nie Huaisang, I love because he is misleading. Some of my favorite fictional characters are very misleading because of the masks they put up to fool people to achieve their goals. How a character will know more than they should but not let anyone know until the moment is right. NHS is someone who is easily underestimated because he seems helpless and unintelligent. And yeah, for a majority of his life he really didn’t care to further his education or really practice cultivation but later he takes this preconceived notion that everyone has of him and uses it to his advantage so nobody suspects a thing while he plans JGY’s downfall. It’s a scarily intelligent move and I think the fact that he takes pleasure in looking at art/books really adds to the fact of how intelligent he is. Most people see his art as pointless hobbies but I think it says a lot about the qualities of his character. I think a lot of people take for granted the patience it takes to make good art or the intelligence it takes to appreciate good literature. So when NHS's older brother dies under mysterious circumstances that just so happen to help the Jins? of course he catches on! He proceeds to keep his enemy close for over a decade until he finally gets his moment of revenge. Which, to me? Props, man. plus only one person even realizes what happened. WWX. 

Some things I don’t particularly like about MDZS (some people may yell at me for this and I'm sorry but this is my opinion): 

- how weird the yi city arc felt? It feels very out of place as we go on this whole journey to learn about all these people and what happened to them but after that they are pretty much no longer relevant. I only found out later that the yi city arc was initially intended to be its own story. So that might be why.

- how certain things are just *left* and never touched on again? We hear all this stuff about baoshan sanren but we never see her or really learn much about her at all. Similarly, Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s parents? We hear all these things about them but never learn much at all. Which is weird all things considered when you look at it. It feels like a lot of background info for not much payoff. Yes, it gives us a lot of vital information on why things played out the way they did but it doesn’t stop the feeling that there should’ve been more. Part of me appreciated it though because it gives us no more information than the characters really have. Just passing information that is common knowledge but never really looked into just like many actual people have.

- how everything ended off. So we have that whole scene at the temple and then everything just… calms down? They all go home??? It felt anticlimactic. Especially with Nie Huaisang’s character as (in the novel at least) it sets him up to be the next chief cultivator despite being just as, if not more, sneaky than Jin Guangyao. And that’s probably intentional. The chief cultivator position was likely never meant to be a position of absolute good. It’s politics. But it is a bit weird that we never really see what happens to Nie Huaisang after, post revenge and all. 

[demonic-ninja-cat]

Hazbin Hotel Criticism - Heaven, Hell, & 'Rehabilitation'

I'm gonna make a disclaimer that I haven't seen the show in full, but i have listened to a bunch of the songs and watched some clips and read/watched a lot of things about it.

Also, tbh, I'm against the idea of eternal torture afterlives in general, even if it is only horrible bad abhorrent people who are sent there, so that probably gives me some bias about this show.

I also have a bunch of christianity-specific religious trauma, so I'll be talking about Hazbin from that perspective. I'm gonna be very negative about christianity and it's afterlife system, so christians don't read or interact with this post!

I've seen tons of very valid criticisms on Hazbin Hotel, and I wanted to add my own to the table; especially since I haven't seen some of what I'm about to talk about, actually talked about before.

In this post I'm mainly gonna be talking about how it's main premise fails, and how there's some issues with it that I'm pretty sure aren't addressed at all in the show, and a bit on how some of the issues add fuel to the theory that Vivziepop isn't really wanting to critique christianity at all.

Onto the premise: the 'redemption' of 'Sinners' so they can get to Heaven. Even the premise itself is very pro-Christian, other than the edgy demon/hell coat of paint that turns Christians off. If it was about humans while they were still alive, instead of demons, the Christians would love it. This(and the fact that she refuses to have God in the show) is why i agree with the idea that Vivziepop isn't try to critique christianity really.

She might be trying to critique the specific flavor of christianity that believes in predestination(as some other posters have said), because in Hazbin she shows that she thinks people should be allowed to change and work to gain entrance to Heaven, but that Heaven & Hell should still exist. However, that doesn't critique all of christianity, and it shows that she likely doesn't think that christianity itself is bad and flawed and in need of real critique.

And even that aside, there are parts of the plot that don't work, especially if the intention is to show that Heaven and it's requirements to enter are flawed. Which it seemed that she was trying to do with the “nobody really knows what gets a human soul into heaven!” twist in the show.

For example, if they really wanted to show that Heaven's entry system is flawed/biased/rigged/unfair, they should have shown more 'sinner' demons in hell who were genuinely good people but were sent to hell for stupid and/or unknown reasons. Like, all the main characters who are 'sinners' are bad people(serial killers, cannibals, mafia members, abusers, etc.), so if you think that there should be an eternal punishment afterlife, these are exactly the kind of people who should be there and the system isn't as unfair as they claim.

In order to fix this, and really show that the system is flawed and unfair, they need to have actually good 'sinners'. People who were nice people in life(and maybe even are still nice), but who were sent to Hell because they broke one of Heaven's bullshit old testament-type rules(eg. killed someone in self-defense and/or accidentally, or did intoxicating substances but never hurt anyone, or was sexually active outside of marriage, or was gay/trans if you want to go that way with it).

They would also need to change the main characters' goal from "getting 'sinners' to Heaven", into something like "change the system" or "topple the angelic government" or "stop the exterminations and make hell a better place to live". They could have Charlie want to do the 'redemption hotel' thing at first, but learn that Heaven is fucked-up and unfair, and that she should be more proactive about bettering things for demonkind in hell and fighting the system made by heaven, instead of just working within the system to 'save' individual demons by sending them to Heaven.

Also, another flaw with the 'redemption to Heaven as the end goal' thing is that not all demons would want to go to heaven, even to escape the exterminations. And i'm not just talking about the ones who are fucked up assholes who want to keep the power they have in hell either. I'm talking about actual good-person demons, who would still choose not to go to the hotel or try for heaven, simply because they don't want to live with and as the species that has been trying to wipe their kind out for thousands of years.

And like, i know i'm white so i should leave most of the discussions about this to the actual POC, so i'll keep this segment short, but i agree with what i've seen in other posts about Charlie/the plot being very white savior-y. Yes Charlie is still a demon, but she's both a Hellborn(and thus not the main target of the exterminations) and is the Princess Of Hell(and is thus on the top of Hell's hierarchy/social classes). And the whole thing with wanting to 'rehabilitate' Demons so they are sent to Heaven and turned into Angels, also gives me icky "saving the backwards evil people by teaching them to be like the advanced good people and taking them away from their horrible scary homes!" style white savior narrative vibes(think “Willy Wonka with the Oompa Loompas” type shit).

I have no problem with people who were once bad people becoming better and going through redemption arcs and such, and i am very pro-therapy and rehabilitation(though i do think that abusers and r*pists and such should not just be allowed to walk around scot-free and able to hurt more victims). However, the way it's done in Hazbin Hotel and the reasoning behind it(mostly to escape being genocided by the very people they have to join if their rehabilitation is 'successful'), makes it come off more like conversion 'therapy' or forced cultural assimilation, rather than than actual rehabilitation, at least to me.