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#those things are seen in the intro btw
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The Land of Ooo in Shermy and Beth's time feels barren...deserted...empty...dusty...devoid...depressed...lonely...melancholy...dead. BMO has forgotten Finn's name. Finn and Jermaine's statues have crumbled down, the old hero forgotten. The Candy people are stuck in the capsules of a giant gumball machine. It seems like everyone, particularly the pups, Jake's descendants, are leaving the planet. Everything's gone. Everything we know, everything we thought we could depend on seeing when we turned on the screen, all abandoned and grayed out as we realize that Finn and Jake have been forgotten, along with almost everything else that might've happened in Adventure Time. This land, this washed-out future we have stepped into it, is entirely different, with only an echo, a shadow, the sound of a laugh, remaining from a thousand years ago for us to notice and point out to each other as drowning people pointing out lifelines to our fellow victims.
"What remains, tell me what remains, some loser smashed out your brains..."
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bluberimufim · 4 months
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The Caretos of Podence
Happy Carnaval!! Time for another cultural ramblie because I haven't done this in a while!!
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(I just think they're cool)
This was originally gonna be about multiple Carnaval traditions in Portugal, like my Halloween post, because I wanted to talk about a really beautiful festivity in my city but then I realized it was related to an entirely different holiday and I wasn't gonna scrap this idea (I'll do that one in August, I guess??). So I decided to make a post about the Caretos of Podence because I just really vibed with them.
disclaimer! None of this is from lived experience, just online research (although I tried to use sources directly related to it, specifically the Casa do Careto website). I am not from Trás-os-Montes at all and have little contact with this. Just like in my first cultural ramblie, this is just me trying to better connect with my own culture and sharing what I find with anyone who's interested. If you see any errors or want to add anything, feel free!! I'm always happy to learn!
Okay, but before we begin: what exactly is Carnaval?
You might have heard of Brazil's Carnaval. Portugal's is way less hardcore but still culturally important (although some brazillian-style Carnavais are celebrated here).
The actual day of Carnaval is the day before Ash Wednesday, but it usually lasts about a week or 3 days in more urban areas (Carnaval break is a real thing that schools have). The general objective is to have an all-out celebration before Lent starts because, after that, you're not supposed to celebrate until Easter rolls around.
The Caretos
The village of Podence is in the middle of Trás-os-Montes, somewhat between Mirandela and Miranda do Douro. It is mostly known for this celebration, which lasts for about a week.
The name "caretos" means something like "big faces" and comes from their very recognizable masks. They're made of either leather or metal and are meant to completely obscure the identity of the wearer. The costumes are made of rows of coloured wool and are usually made by the community. The red, yellow, and green pattern is not mandatory and it can have many different colours, but it's the most common since it's the colours of the flag. On top of the costume, they wear a lot of bells: smaller ones attached to the straps on their chest and 4 to 8 bigger cowbells tied around their waist.
During the celebration, the caretos dance through the town, accompanied by the jingling of their bells. Traditionally, the caretos were young men who chased after single women, but today anyone can wear the costume and chase after anyone they please. They also go around stealing any easily grabbable chorizos left hanging from smokehouses, and use wooden staffs to propel their jumps higher.
On the last day of Carnaval, the Entrudo (a giant figure of a man) is burnt to draw away the bad things of the old year and let in the next. Like this:
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This celebration has pagan roots, although none really know exactly where its origins lie. People seem to point to it being a pre-roman festivity, but we have few sources to go from. The most probable explanation is that it was a fertility ritual connected to the agricultural cycle, since this is generally the time in which farmers can start planting again after the winter.
I hope you enjoyed this little ramble. Because I very much did. Here's some more pictures:
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weedle-testaburger · 1 year
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there’s a kid in a class i support sometimes who spends most of the sessions on a computer making ytps. i hope he goes on to do great things
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mary-kasexual · 1 month
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In honor of lesbian visibility week, I present a full list of female characters from Total Drama who have canonically shown no attraction to men! (as far as I'm aware)
Staci - Only present for one episode and only spoke for one episode, having no lines in the finale. None of these lines hint at Staci displaying any interest in men.
Dawn - The closest thing I could find was the "I didn't know you were a beetle whisperer!" scene, but even then, that could easily be read as platonic. Svetlana - Similar case to Staci in that her lines are pretty limited due to being actively suppressed by Mike or Mal. However she has not, in fact, said anything that hints at her liking men in those few lines.
Sammy & Amy - Other than that one "Topher thinks you're fat" line of dialogue (which could easily be played off as Amy trying to mess with her), neither of them have shown any on-screen interest in men.
Scarlett - The only extensive interaction she has with men are Max, whom she DESPISES, and their alliance is only romantically framed for the sake of a gag.
Sugar - Nothing in canon hints at her liking men. She admires Leonard, but this is most likely due to his perceived magical abilities rather than any sort of attraction as she displays a similar interest in Max later on.
Tammy - Similar case to Staci, she only had a very brief speaking role in episode 1 and never in these lines was it implied she was attracted to men.
Mary & Ellody - Only here for a short time (with Mary only having dialogue in the episode she was eliminated in rip), but neither of them express interest in guys.
Laurie & Miles - Same deal as Mary and Ellody, they go pretty early overall but haven't been shown to like men.
Jen - You'd expect someone of her character archetype to mention looking for 'cute guys' or something similar, but surprisingly no? The closest thing she has would be her friendship with Tom, which is treated as 100% platonic by the show even if you don't take into account the fact that Tom is gay.
Taylor - Another surprising one imo, it's never stated or implied that she likes guys in the show, not even a passing mention from what I've seen which I could've sworn happened on first watch. Mandela effect I guess 🤷
Josee - Similar deal to Jen as far as I'm aware, being that her closest relationship to a guy is with a gay man and treated as platonic throughout the race.
Sanders - Pretty clear-cut, no scenes of her expressing interest in men or romance in general.
MacArthur - "What about Brody?" The only time she's shown to return his affection is during the finale and she's actively trying to throw him off his game by using his crush against him. She only asks Brody to call her in the Surfers ending, which she doesn't do at all in the Cadets ending implying that she's most likely only in it for the money.
Scary Girl/Lauren - While she does hold an interest in Damien, nothing in canon says she's attracted to him, only to the sound of his screams.
Nichelle - Too busy having no lines to talk about boys. seethingwithrage
Millie - Zero attraction to men in canon, the most interactions she has are with and about Priya. She's sorta friendly with Damien, but it doesn't rise anywhere above platonic (probably because she shoved him into a meat grinder but who knows) and actively seems to be disgusted by or otherwise pretty averse to most of the male cast.
MK - Has never been shown to be interested in guys or even romance in general. In fact, she actively seems to dislike it as seen in the episode where Caleb and Priya kiss where she goes “Yeah, that was sweet, but it’s also how you get mono” (this is ace mk propaganda btw). There was also Nichelle's intro in season 1 when she was looking at her starry-eyed, clearly a joke but yk still noteworthy.
Julia - My favorite lesbian <3 zero attraction or hints at attraction to men in canon + listen... we all watched season 2 you know what I'm talking about don't lie. The closest things she has to romantic interactions with men in canon are at most one-sided and always with her actively disliking said man on the other side (Wayne + maybe Ripper in season 1).
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the-zk-directory · 1 year
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Zutara Probably Would Have Been Canon in Season 4 – The Masterpost
| [Intro.] |
If you’ve been around or within the Avatar fandom for any period of time you have probably, one way or another, become aware of one of the most intense shipping wars not just of any children’s show, but possibly just in general, one that is well over a decade old by now, approaching two.
Katara and Aang (Kataang), though canon, are often criticized for being one-sided, bad for each of the characters, and rushed. The creators of Avatar though – Mike & Bryan (collectively known as the entity ‘Bryke’) – have stated in the past that Kataang “was in the DNA of the [show] from the start.” (x)
Statements like the above are one of the reasons Zuko and Katara (Zutara) fans have been labelled ‘conspiracy theorists’ when they claim things that contradict Bryke: namely, that Zutara as a pairing was not only a serious consideration during the show’s run, but the likely outcome if the show had continued on for another season, which it seems it almost did.
(This hypothetical ‘Book 4’ was, for a long time, considered a Zutarian conspiracy theory in itself.)
But let’s back up.
How did these so-called conspiracy theories start?
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| [Intro. To The Rumours + Who Is Aaron Ehasz?] |
For a long time, the only thing that Zutara fans could latch onto were rumours. People who claimed to have worked at Nickelodeon, worked in the artistic community and knew things, met a writer in person, etc. This may not sound promising on its face, but the thing is, most of these rumours were consistent. Most of their content concerned the one-time possibility of season 4, and one man in particular: Avatar’s head writer Aaron Ehasz.
We’ll go into those rumours in depth in a second. For right now, here's a little teaser: (x)
But first, who is Aaron Ehasz (& ex-wife Elizabeth Welch) and what were his contributions to the development of Avatar?
[Who Are the Ehaszs, and Why Does Everyone Bring Them Up?] -- (x)(x)
Bonus: (x) (Note that the poster is Giancarlo Volpe btw, another writer on Avatar.)
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| [The Main Rumour Sources – Tumblr Blogs ‘Kataraandzuko’ & ‘Zephyrita’] |
Now we can get to the rumours themselves. The two main sources are both now-deactivated tumblr blogs. ‘Kataraandzuko’ is the first one we’re going to talk about. This person claimed to be an assistant writer/intern on Avatar Books 2/3 with inside knowledge of what went on behind the scenes in the writer’s room.
Meet ‘Kataraandzuko’: (x)
Zephyrita, similarly, claimed to be someone who interned and studied at Nickelodeon Studios in 2007 as an animation color stylist (according to (x)). It seems significant to mention that Zephyrita also claimed to not actually be a Zutara shipper.
(Besides reblogs, a good amount of her original posts can be found on the Wayback Machine. I took screenshots of a few of them and posted them to my blog individually with the links to the rest underneath.)
Meet ‘Zephyrita’: (x)
By the way, while I don’t know when the blogs were first started or when the first rumours concerning season 4 were posted, they seem to have been around since at least late 2015-2016. It’s hard to tell with the blogs and original posts being deactivated, but that’s the earliest I’ve seen. (If anyone sees anything earlier, let me know.) This will become important later.
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| [Controversy: (A conversation I had with…)] |
Now, I said we were going to talk about Kataraandzuko first and the post that we’re going to talk about specifically is this one: (x)
In it, Kataraandzuko claims to have had a conversation with Aaron Ehasz in Philadelphia. Why they were both in Philadelphia is not stated in the post. According to what Kataraandzuko wrote, Aaron seems to strongly imply that he had wanted to explore a romantic relationship between Zuko and Katara. This supposed conversation was turned into a tumblr post and written down in a style reminiscent of an interviewer and interviewee.
Being the only well-known rumour post to be written this way meant it, kataraandzuko themselves, and all the rumours generally would come under a lot of fire when Everything changed when Aaron Ehasz attacked Aaron Ehasz himself came out and said this: (x) in September, 2018.
With Aaron himself basically shooting down the idea that a season 4 (and, by proxy, Zutara) was ever seriously considered or planned, people who had viewed Zutara fans’ theories as nothing more than wild, imaginative conspiracies by desperate shippers felt like they had been proved right: (x)
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| [Other Rumours] |
And yet, rumours persisted.
[This (x) for the record, is kataraandzuko’s follow-up post to their ‘Conversation I had with Aaron Ehasz in Philadelphia’ post. I’ve reblogged a number of their other posts too. But fine, Aaron said the interview was fake, so let’s disregard everything ‘kataraandzuko’ said for now.]
Here’s someone who claims to have been present at a class that Aaron gave a lecture at at UC Berkeley: (x)(x)
(this class seems to have been real – here’s a link to people talking about it 12 years ago; the link on the page appears to have changed though: (x) )
Here’s another post concerning that class, though I’m not sure if the person they’re talking about who attended is actually the same person as above. (x)
Other posts from Reddit, 4chan, & Deviantart: (x)(x)(x)
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| [Evidence Against Kataang] |
[Series Bible] Of course, rumours aren’t really ‘evidence.’ And, while it’s hard to find evidence for something that never happened, it’s not hard to take a look at Avatar’s original series bible, or series outline by Bryke, and see that, though indeed, the series bibles only outlines three seasons, it also doesn’t outline endgame Kataang or suggest it being anywhere near ‘the DNA of the show.’ In fact, Aang and Katara & Sokka separate at the end of this version, with the latter two returning home and Aang going off to search for airbenders. (x)
[“A 50/50 Chance”] Off the record, Bryke even seemed to admit themselves that there might have been a back and forth regarding who exactly was going to end up with who. See here (x) an account of a Kataang fan who thanked Bryke at a comic con, only to be told: “Well, it was a 50/50 chance.“
[M. Night Interview] This was confirmed by a third party as well. ~Certain~ movies he’s made may not have lived up to their expectations but I see no reason why M. Night Shyamalan would lie when he says that at the time he talked to Mike and Bryan regarding a potential live action movie, there were a lot of things that hadn’t been figured out yet, including “who Katara was going to end up with.” (x)
And so, with or without a direct confirmation of season 4 by Aaron (when the world needed him most, he vanished), it seemed there had still been wiggle-room at some point in time for the potential of ~certain things~ to have, indeed, been under consideration, fourth season or not.
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| [Aaron Confirms on Twitter] |
BUT THEN.
100 Years passed and my brot—
On April 1, 2019, Aaron emerged, as if from an iceberg, to share some thoughts on an Azula redemption arc (x), confirm this was not an April Fool’s joke, and to state the following: “Yes, I always believed there would be a 4th season.” (x)
Zutara fans, realizing they had been right about this, and wondering what other strongly associated theory they might have been right about, rejoiced: (x)
One half of the infamous Bryke, Bryan Konietzko, did not. And, in fact, indirectly called Aaron a liar: (x)
And, It is worth mentioning, in the interest of giving everyone the full picture, that Bryan is not the only one to question Aaron recently. In late 2019, allegations came out of Aaron creating a sexist and toxic work environment. (x)
(Personally, I think your mileage may very on how serious or substantial you may find these claims.)
But with regards to the topic at hand, the Season 4 claims, someone on a Reddit thread here (x) recounts: “Also I wasn't really sure where to put this but Jean Paul Bondy, an artist who worked on ATLA, jumped in AE's twitter thread to say ‘I don’t remember this at all. Obviously I wasn’t party to discussion you three had. But I was always under the impression we were only doing the three.’”
Just recently, in 2023, Jack De Sena (Sokka’s VA) also answered a question about season 4 at a con: ((x) -- 27:30)
“I’ve heard subsequently that there was like, conversations about season 4 and stuff, but, at the time, it definitely felt like we were only doing three. Like, I was being told at the time like, they had conceived of this like, closed arc, three season… thing. So, while they were planting some seeds for like, here’s other story elements that we could explore in other areas when we have the time, it definitely felt like, ‘okay, this is, this is the journey we’re going on together, it has reached a logical conclusion.’ So, it did feel, to us while recording it, quite final and complete.”
“I was always told it was a set three,” confirms Zachary Tyler Eisen (Aang’s VA)
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| [Discussion] |
So, in a sense, we’re back where we started. Though, I would question how much, exactly, artists and voice actors, who I would assume typically only start working on scripts that have already been decided on long beforehand, would really know about any behind the scenes discussions among the writers about potential trajectories and arcs for the show as a whole (and how long those would take to play out).
And Jack did mention that he’s heard now that there were “conversations about season 4” – I’m assuming he’s heard that from more trustworthy sources than internet rumours. And, if he did, then that directly contradicts Bryan seemingly saying he never had the slightest interest in making a fourth season and was always firm on that.
After looking at everything, it seems clear to me that, to the direct contradiction of a few rumours on my blog, Avatar was probably NOT pitched as a 4 (or more) season show. I do think it was probably pitched as three. But I also think, after the show was greenlit or as it was going on, Aaron saw the potential for more seasons and pushed for them. Maybe those discussions didn’t make it very far out of the writer’s room. Maybe there was a point in time where Aaron felt he had been successful in convincing Bryke to go for a fourth season. Or maybe he always felt like he’d be able to get them there eventually. Maybe the movie finally put an end to any of Aaron’s hopes. I don’t know.
But, it’s kind of irrelevant. If the ‘conspiracy’ is that Aaron was setting up the show for a Zutara ending in season 4, then it doesn’t matter how close, in reality, we were to a fourth season. What really matters is whether or not Aaron thought there’d be one.
“Yes, I always believed there would be a 4th season”
And it seems he did.
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| [‘Zephyrita’, ’Tizuyan’ & the Smoking Gun] |
Now, you may have noticed that there was someone mentioned before that we never talked about: Zephyrita. I waited because I’ve noticed something that I’ve never seen anybody else talk about, and decided it needed its own section.
Zephyrita was, of course, one of the two main bloggers that claimed to have worked/interned on Avatar back in the day and posted things they supposedly remembered from behind the scenes, things that all supported the Season 4/Zutara theory.
Given that Aaron indirectly called out the other main blog as a fraud, causing us to have to disregard them for now, you may wonder why anyone should view Zephyrita’s credibility as any different. Here’s actually a post of someone arguing with her about this and Zephyrita’s response: (x)
“’You can’t prove you worked at Nick!!’
What type of proof do you need? Why do I have to prove something as insignificant as this anyway? Like, working there isn’t some exclusive club and I didn’t write an entire episode, I just interned and studied there but I did get to talk a lot with the staff. I wanted to intern at CN but I ended up with Nick in the end. This was all back in 2007 and I’ve been working in advertising since then. You want me to just ring up Tim Hendricks and ask him how he is after almost 10 years? […] I would post my studio pass as ‘proof’ but that contains confidential info.”
So let’s get into why I believe Zephyrita.
(x) – This is a post where Zephyrita is asked what some of Aaron’s ideas were that didn’t make it into the show. Most of her response has to deal with Zuko and Katara, but it also includes this little tidbit about Aang at the end:
“Aang would leave on a self-searching journey after feeling the consequences of energybending and getting jealous over how close Zuko and Katara had become.”
In another post (x), she shares “my friend yan no longer has tumblr because people on this site are RIDICULOUS but she told she wanted to put in some extra info about the ideas that ehasz had:”
‘Yan’ I’m thinking is another deactivated user – ‘Tizuyan’ – who also used to post about the unexplored ideas Aaron had. (Admittedly, I’m not sure how they claimed to know any of it.)
But Zephyrita shares the ideas that ‘Yan’ supposedly gave her, including this one: “zuko and katara develop an understanding and bond that the other characters can not comprehend. they grow very close and sokka starts to suspect there is something going on between them. aang starts feeling jealous but tries to hide these feelings (ehasz said he would start feeling “weird” lmao). this would play a part of his growing darkness.”
In yet another post (x), Tizuyan herself writes “They would have fit very well within the possible Book 4 where Aang became “dark” and traveled back to the Air Temples for solace (where he examines himself, and finds a bunch of flying bison + winged lemur)”
So, to summarize, there would have been consequences to energy bending that would have caused a growing darkness in Aang. And as said before, all these posts are from around 2015-2016, if you go back and look at their earliest, still-existing notes.
Why is this significant?
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It is significant because in 2019, after confirming he always thought there’d be a fourth season on twitter, Aaron Ehasz did an interview (x) where he talked a little bit more about what his ideas were for Season 4, beyond an Azula redemption arc. Obviously, there’s nothing in this interview about Zutara. But. But. There is this:
“Ehasz reaffirmed his earlier stated plans for a longer arc for Azula but also divulged additional details. One plotline would have followed up on Aang taking away Fire Lord Ozai’s bending at the end of the third season.
‘My feeling about that was like there’s always a cost, right? There’s always some balance. You can’t just be like I’m the Avatar, taking your powers away. It’s a great power, but part of it is you just took all this evil into you. To take it away from someone else you’re holding onto it to protect the world.’
For Aang that would have been an incredible burden and something Ehasz would have wanted to see him deal with.
‘The story I wanted to tell with Aang was about him struggling with taking some of that inside and probably a considerable amount of anger and guilt and big feelings. By the way, guess who would be the best person to have a mini vacation with? It’s Zuko! Someone who’s processed a lot of anger on his own, right?’”
So… basically… there would have been consequences to energy bending that would have caused a growing darkness in Aang.
It matches up perfectly.
And not only that, but you’ll notice in the interview he also mentions wanting to focus on Iroh and his spiritual transformation, and mentions something relating to the potential for existing airbenders. This also matches up well with other things that were written in the latter two tumblr posts linked above.
So, what are the possible explanations? Liars/delusional shippers on tumblr who were falsely claiming to have insider knowledge on Avatar just so happening to have hit on some of the exact same season 4 plot points as the head writer, 3-4 years before season 4 was even a thing that had been acknowledged publicly? Aaron Ehasz trolling the internet and coming across these theories and then repeating them as if they had been his own ideas for… some purpose?
Or that maybe some of these blogs had been telling the truth?
This is why I called this section ‘the smoking gun’ – I believe that Aang can save t- that DenofGeek interview, along with those old rumour posts give credence to everything else Zephyrita/Tizuyan had to say. (And we’ll get back to ‘kataraandzuko’ later.)
Link to Zephyrita’s posts and comments: (x). The only other post of mine that I know Tizuyan appears on is this one: (x)
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| [Zutara Evidence – External and Textual] |
And there’s more concrete evidence than just rumours. We’ve already gone over the ‘hard’ evidence against the idea that Kataang was planned from the start, but up until now we haven’t gone over the evidence that exists to support Zutara specifically.
First, here’s just a post (x) showing, besides what we’ve already gone over, how Zutara was teased in some of the promotional materials, as well as some comments (including the ‘Avatar Extras’) made by some other writers on the show, further confirming what Bryke once privately acknowledged to a fan – I’m not sure if the chance was exactly 50%, but it seems it was definitively higher than 0.
And, it seems, high enough that little bits of foreshadowing (or…potentially, a major amount of foreshadowing, depending on your view) did make it into the show itself.
Much has been made of the parallels that exist between the ‘Cave of Two Lovers’/’Crossroads of Destiny’ episodes, namely the two lovers with a red and blue color scheme from opposite sides of a war that come together in a cave of glowing crystals… and the two characters with a red and blue color scheme from opposite sides of a war… that come together in a cave of glowing crystals.
Here’s a few posts that break this down in depth: (x) (x) (x)
And here’s just another little piece of external evidence, another comment by a writer – and actually the writer of ‘The Cave of Two Lovers’: (x)
(I noticed he also mentions the series bible saying Zuko and Katara were supposed to end up together??? Yeah, I don’t know what that’s about. Make of it what you will.)
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| [Bryke Being Nasty to Zutarians] |
^^Is it necessary for me to write this section? No.
But, in a way, it’s what led to my interest in this. I’ve said before that if Mike and Bryan had just been normal adults about all this, said that Zutara was a thing that was considered, that could have happened but didn’t, respected their friendship/bond in canon, and just said to all the Zutara fans, “sorry it didn’t go your way this time; hope you can still enjoy the ending anyway!” we wouldn’t have a problem. I would have just thought it was a shame and missed opportunity, and then moved on with my life and not really thought about it ever again.
It's the apparent lying and immaturity and seeming… mean-spirited-ness (?) that gets me. I don’t understand it.
In a rumour from Tizuyan ((x) - this is the second tizuyan post that I linked at the end of the second to last section) she writes: “Bryke despise Zutara.”
 This would certainly explain why Zuko and Katara hardly ever seem to have positive interactions in any of the material beyond Avatar’s original series, that is if they even interact at all.
(See Bryan’s out-of-nowhere response to the neutral question, “Can we expect a reunion for the returning characters from The Last Airbender [in Legend of Korra]?” which was:
“As far as a date night between Katara and Zuko, I think you are going to have to stick to the fan art for that." (x) (Not sure if there was any more to this answer or not; I can’t find the original interview, though I know I remember seeing it way back when.)
It would also explain the contents of this rumour (courtesy of Zephyrita) (x) regarding the writing, or re-writing, of ‘The Southern Raiders’ episode.
And it would explain Bryan’s infamous, “Come on kids! ‘Zutara’ never would have lasted! It was just dark and intriguing” comment. (x)
What it wouldn’t explain is the even more infamous video that Bryke debuted at 2008 San Diego Comic Con, and which Bryan (who really seems to be the main instigator in all of this, apparently) has since reposted to his own tumblr account: (x)
You know, the one where Bryke mock Zutara fans with their own fanart and say that “Women who think that Zuko and Katara should be together will forever have doomed relationships.” Yeah.
I have no further comments on it other than what’s already been written in the reblogs linked above.
(And all this is all the more frustrating when Bryan himself seems to have had a slight change of heart when it comes to the ‘DNA of the show’ and writes in late 2014 in a post on The Legend of Korra: “Personally, at that point I didn’t want Korra to have to end up with someone at the end of series. We obviously did it in Avatar, but even that felt a bit forced to me.” (x) (Like, HUH?! Since when?!)
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| [Aaron Ehasz Again + Final Thoughts On The Kataraandzuko “Interview”] |
Meanwhile, Aaron himself painstakingly tends to avoid discussing Zutara, unless it’s brought up to him directly, in which case he usually just gives a wishy-washy answer about how he tries not to actively ship any characters. Though, we will go into an interview that’s slightly more interesting than this in a little bit.
First, I must bring to everyone’s attention a video that it seems no one else has noticed, as the post only had 4 notes on it at the time of writing this. (x)
Here is Aaron Ehasz at a comic con in 2006, which I believe would be sometime before season 2 had finished airing, showing the audience various ships from the show (most of them ridiculous) before at the end getting to Maiko (called Maizu), Kataang, and lastly (which I feel is significant)… Zutara.
This really appears to me to be Aaron showing the audience the ‘serious ships’ under the guise of this being just some funny game, and using the strength of the cheers from the crowd as a way to gauge interest for a potential endgame ship. Either for his own purposes… or for the purpose of possibly convincing someone else. I interpreted this video this way even before I just re-watched it while writing this post and realized that Aaron actually says this directly:
“We really want to hear what you have to say. I want you to know you have a lot of influence and power right now… ‘cause your, your cheers or boos will really… affect it.”
And I think it might make sense to combine this with the rumours here (x) about the supposed lecture at Berkeley where Aaron once flippantly remarked that Zutara couldn’t happen because it “would have made the six year olds cry” and the rumours by jhenne-bean herself, the one who claimed to have been at that lecture, who gives more context here (x):
“GURL IT WAS TOTALLY 50/50 even during the last season.
Actually, Nick execs pushed Kataang.
Because without it (according to one of the head writers that came and spoke to my class last semester) the “six year olds would cry.” Obviously that’s not the sole reasoning behind their decisions, but the intended demographic did sway the final outcome.”
(So, based on all this, I’m thinking that Aaron was probably a little disappointed in that video above when the Zutara cheers didn’t overpower the Kataang ones. [So am I, Aaron. So am I.])
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Now, the only actual filmed interview with Aaron Ehasz about Avatar that I know of is this one: (x) in 2019, where he’s asked questions by fans. Yes, Zutara is brought up, though the surprising part is it’s seemingly at Aaron’s own prompting. For that reason and others I find this interview to be very interesting; I actually did a breakdown of it here (x), which I encourage everyone to consider.
If you’ve read through that breakdown, or just watched the video in question, you will have seen that the “fake” interview from before (x) was once again brought up. I put the word ‘fake’ in quotes because that’s how Aaron appeared to refer to it in the interview – with air quotes. And so now it’s time for my speculation on this “fake” interview:
I think it’s fairly clear that Aaron does not want (or, for some reason feels unable to (?)) speak freely regarding his opinions on how the relationships of Avatar did (or did not) play out. I think it’s safe to say he has avoided saying anything ‘on the books’ that would place him at odds with Bryke (though that post about M Night wanting to focus on season 4 and Bryke wanting to focus on the movie cut it pretty close) or put him on a definitive side of the shipping war, one way or another.
That’s why it makes sense to me that a rumour on the internet that wasn’t just any rumour, but was written in such a way so that it looked like an official *interview*, with Aaron’s name appearing before statements supposedly attributable to him and everything, would be something he’d want to make sure everyone knew was not actually official. If that conversation between kataraandzuko and Aaron actually happened, he would have believed it to be, at the time, a private conversation. He never would have intended for the person he was talking to to post their conversation and make it look like he said these things on the official record.
So, yeah, despite Aaron calling that post out specifically, I think it’s still plausible that that conversation could have actually happened and that kataraandzuko wasn’t lying. Her (?) original tags even say to take it with a grain of salt since it was written from memory.
And notice the line, “I wanted Aang to defeat Ozai and go through some emotional turmoil after taking the Fire Lord's bending.” Sound familiar?
Here’s another variation of one of kataraandzuko’s posts from before (x) where they talk more in depth about being an intern at Nick and what they saw behind the scenes of Avatar, even admitting, “Haha, it’s not hard getting an internship at Nickelodeon. They’re not strict and they accepted me on my first attempt. You just have to be a university student with a lot of motivation.”
(And witness at the end of the post another defensive-Bryke-Bryan example.)
Could all their posts be lies? Sure. But they always seemed credible enough to me. And given everything else we’ve gone over, can you really say anything they posted sounds all that crazy?
So, for your consideration, here’s my tag of all ‘kataraandzuko’s posts: (x)
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| [Summary of All Rumours] |
Also, for your consideration, now that we’ve got all the context behind us, is this post which lists every major piece of gossip about what season 4 would have included had Bryke the universe allowed it to exist: (x)
And a post which I think perfectly encapsulates everything here and my final stance on it: (x)
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...And so. We should be all caught up now. 
I hope this post will be useful to anyone who’s confused about the little bits and pieces of things you might have come across or heard regarding season 4 or zutara or Aaron Ehasz or supposed conspiracies. (Or to anyone who just got tired of seeing everyone else, confused, talking about it this way, without the full context.)
If there’s anything major that you feel I missed here, feel free to let me know and I’ll consider adding it in. Otherwise, enjoy the show, enjoy your ship, and I hope you enjoyed reading. Goodbye, everybody! 😊
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WIP Announcement (and re-re introduction)
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Hello everybody! I've been busy for a while and I haven't been able to respond to a lot of the tag games and asks that I've recieved, but now finally I am done (for now) and I can get back to responding to y'all and posting about my WIP!
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(Left) My MC'S Narul and Ninma courtesy of @faeporcelain and (right) Narul courtesy of @veggiebr0th !
For those of you who haven't seen me before, Hello! You can call me C. I am currently working on a series of fantasy novels, The Testaments of the Green Sea. The story follows the journey of the giant Narul and the princess Ninma as they travel the lands of Kishetal. Along the way they encounter spirits, monsters, demons, magic, war, gods, pirates, and slavers.
The setting and story is based around the mythologies and cultures of the Bronze age, no knights here sorry to say.
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Themes and Tropes (Or more accurately a random assortment of words vaguely related to the plot): Found Family, immortality, loss, love, war, power, memory, magic, insanity, political shenanigans, The passage of time, growing up, queerness in the ancient world, violence, spirits, fantasy outside of medieval europe
I finished the second draft of the first book (and started book 2) and I thought that I was happy with it, but lately I've been thinking more about a lot of the characters that I've included and the stories that I want to tell and I have realized that even with 208,000 words, I wasn't able to fully capture everything that I wanted to. And so I have decided to give myself more work and to split my first book into three separate books which will let me give all of the characters and stories the attention they need without overcrowding.
And I have finally come up with titles! The series overall is called The Testaments of the Green Sea and the three new books are as follows:
The Giant and The Princess
The Pirate and The Poet
The Hammer and the Spear
Some things you can expect in the next few days:
An absolute deluge of tag game responses and ask answers, I have a lot of catching up to do ( @illarian-rambling , @mk-writes-stuff , @elizaellwrites , @elsie-writes , @willtheweaver , @phoenixradiant , @agirlandherquill , @the-ellia-west , and anyone else that I might have missed)
I will finally be posting the intro to my OC, Zatar (I'm including a drawing of him down below), and will be posting a poll or two about other characters that y'all want to be introduced to you.
I might do a poll about a poll, to see what sort of thing y'all would be interested in seeing
I will be posting a recipe for a cheesecake recipe from my world, this is a way to celebrate 200 followers (thank y'all so much btw!)
I'm excited to show y'all some new things about my WIP and to introduce you all to my OCs and world! Also, I don't think I've ever actually made an official taglist. If y'all are interested in being in a taglist for this project, send me a message or comment on this post!
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humanmorph · 25 days
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PAL46 posting
Intro Talk
At the beginning of a Media Club+ episode Keith said something about sounding like an idiot because he'd go "these episodes were amazing" every single time & that is how I feel about PALISADE intros. But this one's. It's really good. I love when Friends at the Table is so good it makes me grimace. I've said it often now but the intros this season are just next level… They started SO incredibly strong with the podcast framing in the Road to PALISADE & then while going back (for the most part!) to a familiar structure did not let up on quality even a little.
The character intros + hooks reaaaally got to me what a smart way to point back at the history that these characters have and are bringing with them now to the finale! It's just so well done. + what a last line. "Do you miss home?" like damn!!!! okay!!!!!!!! I haven't went around to read posts yet so I'm curious if people have a guess at the speaker, if there even is an in-universe one? But I thought of it as adressed to Perennial.
The og Phrygian description is still so good btw. I remember being extremely delighted when I first heard it in PZN
"Wires and cables ripple and snap, sympathetically vibrating with the noises around them, contained within a buttoned white shirt and a tailored velvet jacket. The dancing components make an altogether convincing face."
Also I think "Eclectic. And easily." is just a cool thing to say. I think I was laughing about it at the time. But it really was cool I love the tryhard cool but also actually cool weird robot detective guy I'm truly so fond of him. I'm glad he's the one to follow up Phrygian who I DO still miss… but I would be a lot more upset about their end/the character switch if I didn't genuinely enjoy Eclectic.
The fact that all (most? does he speak at the beginning before Future talks? "You stole my power. I stole your voice." is adressed to Gur, but is it in response to something? Truly can't make out most of what's being said there.) of what we get from/about Gur here is the moment of their death that they've seen over and over and over again is honestly just. Oh it hurts. He's not a PC obv so it's not the same but it being played next to the character introductions & their hooks as most important convictions it's really like… this defines them in a way they can't escape (especially not now). As an aside I'm curious if Austin did another read on those lines or if this is from the old file? You can't make them out as clearly in the intro they're from (they're more heavily layered). Loooooove the desperation & sudden force on the "Don't!" still. I'm happy that R2PAL intro got this shoutout - with the narration from Layer Luxurious finally not being warped & completed too! I've heard that intro SO many damn times there was a real feeling of... not comfort necessarily but strong familiarity? To me it looms maybe as large over PALISADE (season) as the actual episode 01 intro (Nothing is stationary. Not even corpses are stationary! But we gotta start moving now. 1500 days since etc. etc.). Oh!!!!! Gur Sevraq!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hearing this I also immediately thought of the most recent clapcast where Austin talks about having notes for intro narrations like yeah damn I bet those were really needed with this one. And these overlapping ones must be really wild to edit/produce too - because the effect of a cacophony of sorts is obviously intended ("But is too loud on Palisade.") but you do want the listener to pick out what's actually being said. And then what overlayers of course has to match too. It's just good shit!!! I honestly always want more producer chat from Ali it's so interesting to me. It's sad she can't interview herself though she of course shares stuff when talking to the others on Gathering Information, it's not quite the same... She just asks good questions & does a great job as a host, but she can't really do that for herself.
General Thoughts…
It's fun to have everyone there : ) I enjoy it generally and also to have Art & Jack playing characters again.
listening to the recent Gathering Information Jack doesn't say who they play but it was on my mind until I listened to the episode & I was hoping they'd pick August over General Morning (who I STILL mentally mix up with Mourningbride. Like not actually the characters but I keep picturing her as a Hypha even when I know she's not) or just go with something entirely different. This is good though
for some reason I was so sure Austin would also play a character (maybe Elle?) but it makes sense he doesn't (is facilitating) (7 people are already more than the game intends to be played with).
Questlandia sounds cool so far. I like the preferred weaknesses (& the weaknesses as a move you can make in general!) and the controlled facets a lot. Curious how the relationships play into everything. This has me exited because I didn't particulary care one way or another about the PZN finale game & I do think it impacted my enjoyment somewhat… It is actual play after all so it's always more fun when I can get excited about mechanics and not just the story, and to see how both interlock.
ALI: And then I can play Broun as- Broun can be as doubtful as they need to be now, hehe. AUSTIN: Wait a second, who? ALI: (panicked) Who?! (laughing) I gotta go. I'm sorry, I can't do this tonight. I gotta- (laughing)
^This was sooo funny. I extremely didn't notice until Austin said it either. Also. The hehe : J… I'm so excited for finale Brnine. Absolutely no clue if they're gonna make it through this.
Happy about both Delegates and Afflictions being facets : )
also pretty happy with the relationships (everyone going we NEED Brnine/Thisbe here was so real. There's so much history & their bonds have, ever since PZN, been bangers and so important to both characters… Very fun that it starts out exhausted on both ends too). I think Eclectic & August could have worked out a relationship on account of them both being Delegates - one who lead their revolution and one who left Palisade behind at the first possible opportunity - but I digress. I'm glad for the Brnine-Eclectic connection instead. The Cori & Clem ones are really good too.
They're having fun this episode. They're being so funny and I don't want to keep writing out bits I laughed at but "He's a teapot" in the tone of well OBVIOUSLY Eclectic is cool was. very good. So true : )
ALI: Uhm yeah, I've written three [goals] to be annoying, (AUSTIN: You gotta pick one.) but I'm - I'm now considering the first one Valences and the second one is Phrygians, so I'm allowed to have all of them. AUSTIN: (cross) No. You do not. SYLVI: Oh my god. KEITH: Wow. ALI: And I've written - (laughing) I've written: "Make life better", "Bloody their noses" - I can still read it! - and then "Connect to the wider network of Millenium Break". (SYLVI laughs) And I will be taking six obstacles, please. AUSTIN: No, you will not. There we go. Connect to the wider network - SYLVI: (cross) Brnine is addicted to the trenches, like… (ALI & AUSTIN laugh) ALI: (very genuine) Come on…!
^OBSESSED with this so I DID have to type it out. I know it's like not feasible mechanics wise but ooohh i wish it was real... I wish she could've kept them... it's both so funny and extremely good. Ali rules. And I love BRNINE Also Austin's very resolute 'you can't do that.' tone really makes me laugh
Overall very enjoyable episode. Relaxing even, I love getting rules explained to me. I love when Friends at the Table character creation/set-up takes over 2 hours. I hope the finale is over 6 episodes long (maybe finally beating out the Second Spring?) & I hope at least two of them are over 3 hours long. None under 2 hours. This kind of feels like I'm putting a curse on them honestly but I do want it
& lastly if you read all the way through here's some haters (unrelated) (i just think of them often)
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all444miles · 1 year
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songs that remind me of atsv characters! (series)
summary: just me saying what artists atsv characters would listen to, songs by said artists that js scream "(character)", albums, and lyrics that just make it make sense, yk?
warnings: pretty small spoilers, i suggest you watch the movie before reading this, of course!
a/n: i'm not proofreading this, so there might be some spelling mistakes. sorry if you see any, but enjoy! i also don't expect this to blow up, but reblogs r appreciated! (i will make a pt.2 if this gets enough attention, btw)
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miles morales (1610)
miles to me seems like a future, frank ocean, kendrick lamar, steve lacy, PARTYNEXTDOOR, brent faiyaz/sonder and a lil sza, cuz lets be fr, its sza, kinda guy. he's the kinda guy to love music for the meaning, as long as its got a good beat to it. now, song wise?
solo by future, for sure. you can just listen to it and be like "yeah, thats miles." especially the lyrics, "i been solo now, i've been goin solo now". reminds me when he says "nah, ima do my own thing" in the movie.
her way by partynextdoor. this song feels like a song he'd play while he's drawing (coughs, drawing gwen for the 70th time) the lyrics, "She wasn't on a roll, now she roll with a winner" reminds me of gwen n miles cuz at first, when they met, it was kind of just the two of em, but now she's out with the spider society (well, she was) with hobie and patvir, "rollin with winners."
miles + brent faiyaz = perfection. needed portrays miles when he finds out about his friends' betrayal perfectly. "you and your friends, rammed my name to the ground." makes you think about the scene where he realises they knew what would happen to his father all along.
infrunami by steve lacy. ive seen this on tiktok too many dayum times not to include it lmaoo gwen and miles. every word of that song screams gwen and miles, but esp "can you come back to me? cuz I was blind to see that you were right infront of me." just remember that scene where miles was upside down infront of gwen and moved closer to kiss her but didnt cuz he was invisible? yeah, those exact lyrics match that exact moment and we ALL know it!
Let 'em know by bryson tiller. Ian even gonna go into the details but we all know why. "mf im him" (miles is him and always will be fr)
long time - intro by playboi carti. i also will try not to go tm into details but "i aint felt like this in a long time, i aint had shit in a long time" cuz miles hasn't had that "its me, myself and i (corny ik)" kind of vibe in a while. and "i'd rather die before i come in last" but think of it in a sense than he'd rather die than stand back and let his dad pass.
this is how it feels by d4vd and laufey. no explanation needed (ive js been talking tm), gwen and miles and their relationship
open arms by sza! i also think this song really reminds me of gwen and miles but miles' character overall, yk? gwen and miles primarily because "i gotta let you go i must, you're the only one that's holding me down." that "goodbye gwen", the look on his face while he says it and those lyrics make alot of sense together.
and yk what? loveeeeee song by rihanna, cuz why not.
i'm not gonna go too much into details with this so album wise:
sonder son by brent faiyaz
sos (slightly) by sza
starboy and after hours by the weeknd
DAMN. by kendrick lamar
petals to thorns by d4vd
call me if you get lost by tyler, the creator
her loss (coughs, spin bout U) by drake
a/n 2: and, thats all! i hope y'all enjoyed these hcs and found them accurate, as i said ill make a pt2 if this gets enough recognition! see ya'll soon <3
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©all444miles 2023
- likes, comments, asks, n reblogs are rlly appreciated ! <3
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fabuloustrash05 · 1 day
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Hi, Sorry to bother you again but You seem to be like...a lorekeeper of TMNT 2012 Knowledge.
How the hell does Magic work in that show? I'm aware RatDad Kinda has it with the healing hands, and I also saw Shinigami has it? I don't know. I'm confused. I kinda fell off in the middle of S3 and only know stuff based off the Wiki.
First off, don't always trust the wiki. Lots of fans edit it and add false info just to push their own narrative or make ridiculous claims with no source to back it up. I also recommend checking out the rest of season 3 and onward! It does get kinda sloppy by season 4 but it's still a fun watch! Reading a wiki ain't gonna do the series justice lol
Now, to your question, imma be honest with you, regarding the magic in TMNT 2012, I really don’t know how it works XD
TMNT 2012 barely acknowledges the magic concept, granted it was a very out of no where thing like "hey magic also exist in our universe btw!" and when it does show up it’s gone before you can even process it was there so it gets forgotten quickly (at least to me when I rewatch the show).
The magic in TMNT 2012 I don’t think shows up until season 3 (someone correct me if I'm wrong) when Leo is confronted by the deer spirit in the episode Vision Quest (who btw never shows up again, put them on the list of one and done 2012 characters). After that, every other magic related thing is very subtle cause the series focuses way more on the sci-fi angle, which was the theme that was established in the first episode and was continued to be explore throughout the series. I just crack it down to it being a spiritual ninjutsu thing, but I've rarely put much thought into it.
For those who are curious, the magic and even paranormal things we see in TMNT 2012 are few but what we got are...
The Deer Spirit
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The Healing Hands Technique
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(which btw I wish they used this technique more cause it would've been VERY helpful in other situations later down the line...)
Sir Malachi
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Was it magic or did he just drug the Turtles to play discount DND with him??
Alopex's cursed Blades of Vengeance
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Ghosts and possession
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Cults and Demons
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Magic users such as Jei and Kintaro
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Yokais such as Bake-danuki and Jorōgumo
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(granted these mostly existed in Usagi's universe so they probably don't fully count in the Turtles world but who knows)
And the very existence of Shinigami
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Though Shini and her whole magic thing is barely explored or explained. They say she's a witch but we barely see her do witchy things. Most of her tricks and techniques seem more like blink and you'll miss it magician stuff than an actual literal witch. We know she can hypnotize people and make them see scary hallucinations, and it's also suggested that she can shapeshift into a cat but she only ever does it once and it's very subtly to the point that some fans probably didn't even know that the black cat in her intro scene in her first episode was her.
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Btw, according to Shinigami's concept art, her hypno stone weapon (as seen in gif) is said to be a family heirloom, meaning she comes from a supposed long line of witches and magic users. Sure wish THAT was explored more for her character instead of her just being there as Karai's hype woman and another chick for Mikey to drool over...
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sp4rkzzy · 4 months
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I'm gonna bawl Everytime I go on tiktok I see moots of mine complaining and and hating hazbin hotel. Like I get that you don't like it.. but it's a popular ass show and you ain't think maybe your mutuals MIGHT get into a POPULAR fandom. It happens everytime man you can't like SHIT
" Vivzie's trash" or " The writing sucks "
Erm. Okay. If vivzie's problematic.. you don't think that everyone who's been watching since the pilot doesn't know that..? We literally know but. Let people enjoy a media for fucksake
Like oh no I watched their show!! This means they're going to go kill a family LIKE IT DOESN'T AFFECT THEIR ACTIONS THEYRE GONNA ACT THE SAME.
And just because you watch it, doesn't mean you support them. " But she makes [bad] jokes. " Yeah, and I don't like that, and I'm not going to agree with those, but I can't stop her from making those.
This isn't even just hazbin hotel btw. If you like even ANYTHING the amount of SHIT you will get is insane. Like, guys!! When you make a post saying "don't be a hater" THAT MEANS IN GENERAL!!! LITERALLY NO EXPECTATION!!
Like how you gonna make a video saying that but you still gonna hate on MFS WHO like gacha, or hazbin/helluva, or TADC, or MFS who have emojis in their name (specifically the ones for Tally Hall, Miracle Musical, And Lemon Demon)
GOD there's more.
" erm, isn't (media) (insert a bad thing). " I FUCKING get that GOKUSLEFTNUTSACK (joke)
You think I ain't hear about that 50 times before!!! I get that. I can't PICK what my brain decides to fixate on.
And yes. The show is bad, there's horrible writing, horrible jokes, but like. It's literally like every adult swim cartoon I've ever seen. And I don't see you canceling MFS who like South Park or Moral Oral, or Robot Chicken, or Even Rick n Morty even though there's a ton of sex jokes, gore, adult content (In some I know, Im not rlly fans of these)!!!
The series is about HELL and it's literally over all like 15+ & 18+. HELLUVA BOSS LITERALLY STATES IN THE TITLE/INTRO ITS 18+ HALF THE TIME. THIS IS PEEK ADULT SWIM BACK IN THE DAYS
LIKE "they curse too much" do you HEAR how much people actually curse irl? In literally two sentences I can hear 5 curses from some kid at school. Besides they're DEMONS. SINNERS. THEYRE IN HELL. THEY ARENT GOOD PEOPLE.
And then some are also pissed when ABUSIVE characters *are* ABUSIVE..
"It's a dookie representation" Abusers are literally different and act completely different.
You can dislike the series and shit, by all means I completely get that but GOD
Let people enjoy something damn. I hate how I got fixated on hazbin hotel, honestly. I knew the hate, I knew how bad overall vivziepop is known to be, but it still happened. And come on. It's a show, it's a event, people are gonna grow outta it in like. A month. Just let it happen, it'll disappear just like TADC, just like Welcome Home, just like Anything that gets popular.
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roseartsandfics · 2 months
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Sephiroth (CC) -- Rose
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Here is another Sephiroth artwork from Crisis Core with a rose 🌹 Tbh, I actually LOVED how this turned how. I just love drawing my favorite FF character (or villain lol), especially the FFVII trilogy <3. I’ve been wanting to draw more Sephiroth lately, so here he is I did probably last week (?).
SPOILER ALERT for those who hadn't played Crisis Core and/or Crisis Core Reunion, and the original and the remakes of FFVII of what I am about to say! So be aware of spoils!
I managed to do chapter 8 of CC-R, finally managed to see the Nibelheim Incident, which was an essential, and most shocking event I have EVER seen in my life ever since getting into FF. I hadn't even known that the people that created FFVII to have the most crucial event that probably is popular and shocking at the same time. I hadn't even gotten into that event in the OG and the remakes of FFVII just yet, nor seen the full thing of Last Order, but I did manage to get through it in Crisis Core Reunion. I was NERVOUS of playing that chapter 0_0. My heart was beating fast and my stomach was turning just thinking about it and how I will get through it! (I started to love Tifa's voice, btw :3). Sephiroth’s fall from hero to a threat was INDEED heartbreaking. I feel like he is the victim of Hojo’s experiments and the origins are just heartbreaking. Unfortunately he fell into insanity. I also felt if that wasn't for Hojo, and all the experiments he had done, and what he had done to Sephiroth, and probably the company did this to him as well, none of Sephiroth’s insanity would've happened. And yeah, Cloud killing Sephiroth at the reactor by stabbing him and throwing him into the Mako pit (or lifestream) was hard for me to watch after the battle. It'll be hard and NERVOUS for me to watch that scene from the OG as well along with the backstory from Cloud's POV in the OG and Rebirth. Oh, and that Sephiroth battle… was probably one of those battles that got my blood boiling but loving at the same time for some odd reason. I wasn't even READY for the Sephiroth battle at all, and I hated it, but loved it at the same time. Things I love was his stances and and intros before the battle, but what I hate is trying not to die from every powers he's using. The second phased I don't really like. So yeah, Sephiroth's fall from grace sucked, but will be forever my favorite FF villain ❤️
Alright, that's enough with the long description of my time playing chapter 8 and discussion before I get myself carried away lol. I had the shirtless Sephiroth art with a rose done on this book, but I didn't like how it turned out. So I decided to redraw that piece on my iPad and will display it as soon as it's done :). I'll be playing more Crisis Core soon!
WIP pics:
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Sephiroth and Crisis Core - Final Fantasy VII - Reunion ©Tetsuya Nomura, Hajime Tabata, Yoshihiro Hirota, Mariko Sato, SQUARE ENIX and Tose
Artwork ©RosePrincessArts
No copyright infringement is intended
Used: Soho Studio pencils and markers, fine artists pens, gel pen, illustration markers, non toxic alcohol markers and calligraphy pen
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heloflor · 8 months
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Ok so for about a good two-three months now I had a post in my drafts about how I realized I ship Powser, and long story short I started comparing Bowser to what I think to be how most villains in media interact with their damsel in distress if they express “love” for them. Issue is, I don’t have nearly enough knowledge/examples on this topic to know how truthful this comparison is, but said comparison is also the main thing tying this post together. So when thinking of ways to remove this element while still having all the same info in this post, I kind of came up short. Plus, I like the way the post is structured as is.
In other words, here’s the post as I originally wrote it, but be aware that the comparison is probably very flawed. Maybe there’s some truth to it, probably not. In any case, just focus on the Powser side of it, the villain comparison is just there for the structure. Enjoy! (long post ahead, a bit over 3k words)
So I recently realized that I really like Powser which I did NOT expect given I’m usually much more of a “friends to lovers” type of person, and trying to understand why I like it led me to think about how villains tend to be presented in their relationship with the “damsel in distress”, and it’s actually very interesting when you compare it to Bowser.
TL;DR: Unlike most villains who showcase sexual attraction (I think?), Bowser is shown to be romantically attracted to Peach. And while his actions are still very much shitty and should be seen as such, man is he adorable sometimes ! Plus, the way his feelings are shown to be genuine makes him look better than most villains, whose “love” for their victim is portrayed as """creepy lust""" by their medias.
(Obviously there is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with sexual attraction. I’m talking in the context of medias that sometimes tend to vilify it, especially when it comes to the antagonists, hence the language used in this post.)
So the first thing that came in mind while thinking of other villains was Dis//ney’s Alad//din (the 90s/animated one) and how Jaf/ar treats Jasm/ine at the end of the movie, more specifically when he wishes for her to fall in love with him and she ends up pretending to be as a distraction.
Thing is, Jasm/ine doesn’t act like she’s in love with Jaf/ar, she acts like she’s thirsting for him, and the way Jaf/ar reacts shows that this is pretty much what he had in mind when saying he wants her to love him. This isn’t love, it’s lust.
Now, I can’t say I’m someone who watches a lot of movies, especially not live-actions ones, so take what I’m about to say with a huge grain of salt. Basically, I kinda feel like what we see in Alad/din is the norm when it comes to villain/victim relationships? Like you have those antagonists who want the damsel in distress to be horny for them, who don’t see those women as people and don’t give a shit about them, only keeping them to get what they want out of them and having no issue discarding them afterwards if they get bored with those poor girls.
Btw that’s not to say that every single villain who kidnaps someone wants to sleep with them. But when it comes to villains who claim to love their victim, there does seem to be at least some sexual tension here, or at least some uncomfortable touches.
And then there’s Bowser. To give a few examples of what he does:
- In that one 1986 anime movie thing, he gets very soft around Peach, gushing about how he’s in love with her and wants to marry her, trying to cheer her up when she’s sad, and let’s not forget that “it’s more of a bracelet, shows that my love is bigger” line with the ring.
- In the mainline “platformers” games, you have “Mario Sunshine” in which Bowser wants his son to have a mother, and “Mario Odyssey” in which he tries to marry Peach, going around the world gathering all the absolute best things for the wedding. There’s also the New Bros U intro with Bowser gently moving Peach’s chair, making sure she doesn’t get hurt by his attack, showing he doesn’t want to hurt her.
- Not sure exactly if this counts as this could be a form of objectification, but you know that cliché of villains getting that all-powerful thing they wanted and immediately betraying/discarding all the people they worked with and/or claimed to love? Well, in the Galaxy games, Bowser gets the power to create a whole new universe, and yet still takes the time to capture Peach, claiming in the first game that he wants her to rule along with him. Again, this could be a form of objectification, especially when looking at his dialogue in the intro of the second game, but it’s still interesting how Bowser doesn’t really fall on that trope, still having his army and Junior on top of Peach (btw the intro of Galaxy 2 is very funny on that front because Bowser literally has enormous powers and yet still makes a detour for Peach, thus causing Mario to be on his tail. Like, let her go dude, she’s not that into you. You got all the powers of the universe, who cares about that one specific woman when you could have literally anybody else?).
- In the first Paper Mario game, Bowser tells Peach that he would fulfill her wishes if she wants (as long as he likes them) and gushes in his diary about how he hopes Peach likes him. And in Thousand Years Doors, he keeps trying to look for her upon hearing she got kidnapped.
- In Super Paper Mario, he gets overjoyed about the wedding but still immediately shows worry for Peach when Nastasia uses her mind control on her, and in general Bowser spends the game clearly loving being able to call Peach his wife, and joins the team again in 7-2 out of concern for her safety. Same with 8-1 where for all he knows he’s about to die and yet his main concern is her safety, to the point where he's willing to ask Mario to protect her for him. His priority is not being with Peach, instead it's Peach being safe.
- In Color Splash, the first thing he does when first getting back to himself during the fight is ask if Mario brought Peach with him.
- In Origami King, he doesn’t want her to see him as a wet floor sign and later asks Olly if Peach is safe and comfortable, which as I’ve seen pointed out implies that him capturing Peach is mostly a forced vacation/sleepover until Mario arrives and she’s put on the spot for show.
(- In general Paper Bowser is a huge hopeless romantic, at least from what I’ve seen of him.)
- In Superstar Saga he helps Mario and Luigi reach the Bean Kingdom for Peach’s sake. Then in Bowser’s Inside Story his most beloved and protected memories are his memories of Peach + he makes saving her his priority towards the end. And in Dream Team, he hears a rumor that Peach might have gotten kidnaped and immediately flies all the way to Pi’illo Island to find her.
- You cannot convince me that his car in Mario 3D World wasn’t an attempt to impress Peach, given this is one of the only two games (three with Wonder) where you play as her and face against him. /hj
- In that one old comic people kept bringing up after the movie came out, Bowser spends a lot of time gushing about marrying Peach. Also despite Peach being very temperamental in this comic, I don’t think Bowser once tries to hurt her? Obviously you have the Magikoopa brainwashing her at the end which is fucked up but outside of that does Bowser ever get angry or menacing when it comes to her?
- In general, outside of the games where Peach is playable and the intro of Inside Story (which comes off as OOC for Bowser tbh, I get him being pissed off but him trying to burn Peach is just really off), do we ever get to see Bowser raise a hand on her and/or try to physically hurt her? Same for his anger, how often do we get to see him raise his voice on her? And no the sports and party games don’t count since everyone is doing the same thing to everyone else in those, and in the party games it'd be unfair if playing that one character led to Bowser going easy on the player.
Now I might be missing some more moments, especially since I’m far from the most knowledgeable on the sport/party games and some RPGs (slowly making my way through them), but there’s one thing that is very obvious: while most villains express sexual attraction for the damsel in distress, Bowser expresses romantic attraction.
Bowser genuinely cares for Peach. She’s one of his most precious memories. In Super Paper, he snaps out of the joy of getting married when Peach is getting brainwashed, showing how much he values her safety. He absolutely adores her and isn’t afraid to express it, especially Paper Bowser.
Those two instances (Inside story and Super Paper) especially really seem to lean into how much Bowser loves Peach. In Inside Story, the fact that she’s his most well-preserved memory shows just how much he values the little time he spends with her and how important she is to him, not as some pretty face but as a person he genuinely wants to create more memories with. And in Super Paper, Bleck is giving him the one thing he’s always wanted, and yet he still shows some reticence when Nastasia uses her mind control, making it look like Peach being safe and sound is more important to him than them being a couple. Idk, those two moments just really get to me when you think about it this way.
(Btw in Super Paper I adore that Peach hesitates to leave him in 8-1 because, while we know Peach is incredibly kind so of course she’d be worried for a teammate, for once it feels like Bowser actually earned it. He spends the whole game being caring towards Peach, and wouldn’t you know, being nice and respectful to someone actually makes them care for you! I swear the Powser potential from this game is unmatched!)
When most villains say “I want this woman to love me”, they usually mean “I want this woman to obey and submit to my every want”. When Bowser says “I want Peach to love me”, he means “I want to be able to wake up everyday by her side, make her smile and laugh and be happy, see her be a mother to my kid(s), learn more about her and spend as much time with her as I can”. Bowser isn’t trying to marry Peach because he wants to “own” her, he wants to marry her because he quite literally wants to spend the rest of his life by her side.
Now that’s not to say that Bowser doesn’t feel any form of sexual attraction. But since Mario is such a kids-friendly franchise, the focus is much more on his romantic feelings. Also, I'll admit, whether Bowser is in love with Peach or with the idea of Peach is up for debate.
I think that’s the main reason why so many people are quick to call Bowser sweet/adorable when seeing the way he talks about Peach. Because the thing is, Bowser is still being a complete asshole here. He’s constantly kidnapping her, putting her in a cage on several occasions, forced her to marry him like 6 different times, very often disregards her body autonomy by grabbing her (+ the kidnappings), terrorizes and sometimes even tortures/kills her people, and his phone pic in the parental controls video + the picture frames in Nintendo World make him look like a creep. Despite his feelings for her, there’s definitely a level of objectification here that should not be ignored.
Hell, I didn’t mention the 2023 movie on the list because I’d argue he was more obsessed rather than in love. Plus the scene where he proposes to her low-key feels like the very first time they meet, making his previous actions creepier (or at the very least they barely know each other, heck Peach didn’t even know Bowser likes her!). And he’s quick to use blackmail and violence against her, especially in the end. The wedding cake toppers also show he cares more about himself than Peach and sees her as an object rather than a person.
(I actually take back what I said in my movie reaction post about Bowser being like the one from Super Paper. He might be goofy when showing his softer side, which was what I was focused on when comparing the two, but he’s also clearly not as genuine and sweet as Paper Bowser. The way he mistreats his army and especially Kamek in the movie is also different from most games, most notably the RPGs since that’s when we see him interact with his people and he’s a relatively good king to them.)
Compare 2023 Movie Bowser to the 1986 movie in which he tries to get Peach involved in the wedding preparations, tries to cheer her up, never gets angry at her despite how much she’s resisting him and never once raises his hand on her. Even when she outsmarts him by making him shapeshift, he’s amused by her attempt. Literally the worse he does in this movie is grab her against her will on many occasions (and obviously the kidnaping and forced marriage, that goes without saying).
Going back on topic, despite Bowser being very much horrible in the way he approaches Peach, since every other villain out there is lusting after the woman they capture, making them appear creepy/predatory, Bowser comes off as an angel in comparison. He’s one of those rare cases of a villain who is truly sincere about his feelings for the woman he captures, and since we see other occasions of him being a sweetheart (with Junior) and a dumbass (the RPG series), he becomes an incredibly endearing character. So his feelings for Peach come off as adorable despite the bad elements because we’re aware he has a soft side so we know he’s truly sincere. Him being sometimes more of an antihero in the RPGs + his inclusion in sports games and the like probably also help seeing him in that good light.
(Also yes I’m very much aware that there’s a huge issue when it comes to how fandoms perceive female characters, and I will absolutely believe you if you tell me this is one of the reasons why you have people who talk shit about Peach so much all while defending Bowser’s actions, especially since his feelings for Peach are so rooted into his character. Oh and obviously you have the people horny for Bowser who love his softer/romantic side and value the moments where he displays this part of himself, that goes without saying.)
I’m especially surprised by the 1986 movie showing such a characterization of him, considering it came out 1-2 years after the very first Super Mario game (aka Bowser’s first appearance, at least I think?). Like imagine making a movie about those characters and going “hey you know the giant turtle monster we fight in this game? What if he was a huge lovable dork who just wanted some love in his life?”. Tbh I adore that choice.
Overall, it’s just interesting to see how Bowser differs from other villains on that front. It’s very interesting to see a villain who does pretty terrible things to a girl all the while being genuine in his feelings for her, idk it’s a very cool contrast. I also like how “true love” tends to be a motivation for the heroes, seen as something good, so it’s fun to see stories where villains have that very same motivation without it being “““twisted””” with lust. And yes I know that last point applies to many more antagonists than just Bowser, and not just for feelings like love.
And a bit off-topic but I also really like how you can easily explain Bowser’s behavior here (not justifying it tho!!!). In the Yoshi Island games, we see he was raised as a spoiled brat who was always given what he wanted, made worse by him being a monarch. We even still see some of that behavior in his adult self, for example when he gets angry and starts stomping his foot like a kid throwing a tantrum.
As a result of his upbringing, Bowser likely just doesn’t know how to take a no. He’s used to always get what he wants, and take it by force if necessary. So when Peach refuses him, he does just that, incapable of understanding why she doesn’t want him.
The 86 movie is actually an excellent example of this. In two scenes (the one with Peach outsmarting him and the ring dialogue) we see Bowser getting worked up when Peach is upset, showing he genuinely wants her to be happy. But at the same time he’s incapable of realizing that he’s the reason why she’s so upset and the one thing he should do is let her go. The ring scene especially shows it very well. When Peach throws the ring and starts crying because she doesn’t want to get married, Bowser thinks she’s upset due to the ring being too big and immediately tries to soothe her by promising to get a better ring. Again, it’s kinda crazy how this movie was made when Bowser only existed for a single year and yet they already made him genuinely in love with Peach.
I’d also add that Bowser seems to have a pretty high opinion of himself, thinking he’s awesome and shit (or maybe he’s overcompensating, that seems like a possibility). As a result, it’s possible that his mentality on the situation is “Well I’m in love with her so surely she must love me! How could she not?”, making it even harder for him to comprehend why she doesn’t love him.
Again, it doesn’t justify his actions in the slightest but it’s still interesting how you can somewhat understand why he’s like this.
And as to why I ship Powser, honestly I still have no idea ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I think it has to do with the storytelling potential of a unrequited love/it’s complicated/they have history situation in regards to their roles as monarchs, especially in the case of Peach whose character is brimming with untapped potential. I actually like to describe their relationship as “I hate the effect you have on my life but I couldn’t imagine a life without you in it” or “Our kingdoms are enemies for a good reason but if anything happened to you I’d rush in to save you without hesitation”. It's just that idea of them being ex-lovers who had a bad falling out and how Peach still cares about him to an extent and how their lives constantly intertwine with villains trying to take over their kingdoms + Bowser's kidnappings.
And since we’re talking Powser and since wondering whether they know each other or not in the movie got me to question how we can tell they know each other in the games: the best way I could describe their relationship in the games is familiar/”comfortable”, like you have the way Peach tries to convince Bowser to join the group in Super Paper, the way she talks about him in general in the Mario and Luigi games, or stuff like most cutscenes in Odyssey where she never seems afraid of Bowser.
I’ve also seen that Switch Tennis game with the evil racket and how Peach is the one who tries to get through to Bowser when he steals it, straight up saying “listen to me” which makes it seem like she knows she’s the one person who could get him to stop, or you have the first Rabbids game where she comments on how “Junior is sometimes even worse than his father”, plus the way she looks like a mother about to reprimand her child in the cutscene where Jr learns Bowser is coming home (which I find hilarious; lady that’s not your kid, I thought we’d been through this already in Sunshine!). Oh and CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE WAY SHE’S LOOKING AT HIM IN (spoilers in link) THAT CUTSCENE FROM THE NEW RABBIDS 2 DLC!!!
I don’t know how to fully explain but, looking at these kinds of interactions, you can tell that the two of them know each other, and to an extent Peach knows that Bowser won’t hurt her, hence why she’s not afraid to oppose him. It’s pretty funny actually how in the games Peach tends to be exasperated by Bowser more than anything else. Like he’s not a menace, just a weekly annoyance. And again, when you compare it to the movie where there’s only hostility and awkwardness between them, you do get the impression that they’re two complete strangers meeting for the first time. The fact Movie Peach had no idea about his feelings for her doesn’t help either. Then again, about the hostility, Peach in the games is much sweeter so maybe she shows a nicer side to Bowser because that’s just who she is.
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bizlybebo · 5 months
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oh my god im not your girlfriend but i NEED your normal album analysis omg (im normal about will wood btw)
HI OH MY GOD I TOOK SO LONG TO ANSWER THIS I AM. S ORRY
AUGHH this is definitely an excuse to ramble and i am TAKING it thank you so much for this
im fucking obsessed with the normal album. like sosoos much. it's such a subversive and creative and just. sort of album that you've never seen before, i think it seriously doesn't get the credit it deserves augh
first off here's a link to a 3-hour long analysis of the normal album that i haven't actually watched yet
here's where im cutting the post off before i start incoherently rambling about every song so that i don't curse people's dashes with having to Scroll for a million miles
THIS IS. A LONG ASS POST. LIKE 2.3K WORDS. SO IF YOU CLICK ON THIS BE WARNED LMAO.
i don't expect this to get more than like 2-3 notes this is literally just an open ramble about the normal album cause i got an excuse to.
Suburbia Overture / Greetings from Mary-Bell Township / Vampire Culture is SUCHH a good intro to the album. like. not even going into the lyricism it's fucking so insanely well-composed in a musical sense, I LOVE the samples and the immediate, like, doorbell sound at the very beginning because it just. introduces the ENTIRE album so well.
and the way it introduces will wood's motif of "Everybody's all up in my goddamn business" is SOSOO good.
The first half or so of the song is very illustrative of the typical, like, nuclear family, with these sounds inspired by a very upbeat, like... almost 60s-70s kind of music? It's a very creative song but it's tune and melody are also somewhat restrictive for a decent part of it, expressing perfectly what will wood's saying about this kind of lifestyle. If that makes sense?
and THEN the sudden switch into vampire culture is INSANE. im fucking AUGHGHGH over it.
It draws back on this stereotypical, happy lifestyle where something just seems a bit off and leans ENTIRELY into the uncanny-ness of it all. it's a sudden jump into random tempo switches, fucking just making all the noise he wants, and screaming "fuck your culture".
like the symbolism is so clear yet so subtle. I fucking love it.
and I am
OBSESSED. with this outro.
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and THEN the little 'love me, normally' melody at the end is fucking INSANEEE augh. there was literally no better way to start this album off.
2econd 2ight 2eer (that was fun, goodbye) is EASILY one of my fucking favorites on this album. like. god.
IMMEDIATELY starting off with "take it with a pillar of salt, H.A.L.T., it's not my fault", illustrates the point of this song so well.
HALT is the acronym Hungry Angry Lonely Tired. It encourages you to "halt" and think before making an important decision and evaluate-- are you any of these four things?
And it's often been suggested by psychiatrists to a lot of people dealing with mental health issues.
The reason why I'm so obsessed with this lyric is because this entire song is basically accepting, "hey. i'm mentally ill. like i am. FUCKED in the head. this isn't something i can't escape, not really. i'm learning to be okay with this instead of searching my whole life for a cure. i'm never going to be able to assimilate fully into normal society."
and it's mixed with this very, like. Rudimentary view of how society views mentally ill people / those struggling with more severe psychological conditions. The chorus is literally "I'm just a psycho babe; come and go out my mind"
It's almost like this expression of mania, what with the upbeat tempo and the dark lyrics.
"I didn't lose it, I set it free" is another lyric in this song i just. augh. love. love love lvoe vloevleo this whole album. this is DEFINITELY the song i could say the MOST about. but i feel like i'd almost have to save that for another, more organized post.
Laplace's Angel / Hurt People? (Hurt People!)
AUGGGHHHHH.
god.
The title Laplace's Angel comes from the idea of Laplace's Demon, which concerns the whole idea of determinism, etc. It's essentially the idea that if a demon knew the position of everything, everywhere, the laws of physics would allow it to predict and understand the future.
it. doesn't make a lot of sense to me tbh.
BUT.
i understand determinism in a sense, and it's basically the idea that free will doesn't exist and that we and our actions are. products of the things that have already happened to us.
That's the best way I can explain it.
And I think that all of this, tied together with how the song is discussing important topics of morality, etc. is just. So cool and artistic and. God.
It references this guttural, primal sort of fear and this sort of "predictability" of the human psyche with the lyric that throws the entire song into it's first chorus-- said lyric being:
"Run your diagnostic tests, it's posited; nobody dies agnostic, though we still dial 9-1-1."
AND THEEENNNN. the chorus itself. augh.
You could go on all day about the main voice, "Could you take a look at me?" but i'm more in love with the backing chorus--
"It's the norm for animals, it's the norm for chemicals -- It's the norm for particles, eye for eye, for tooth"
and you can see a lot of references to other philosophies such as "an eye for an eye".
AND THEN the bridge being "wash your hands of where you been until you flood the second floor - neatly fold your skeletons but still can't shut the closet door"
essentially just being this greater commentary on morals as a whole, and how, in a sense, morality is just. subjective. Like I don't think I have the skill to illustrate just how insightful this song is on the topic of morality. god.
I / Me / Myself !
so obviously i / me / myself is a remaster of sorts of i / me / myself by Will Wood and the Tapeworms (versus just solo Will Wood)
BUT I LVOE THIS SONG. SO MUCH.
Will Wood wrote this song, essentially, about wishing he could express his femininity properly, right? how he felt like people refused to accept his identity as cisgender and heterosexual because he was a crossdresser, and very proud of it?
i fucking love that. he just puts absolutely everyone on blast for that. he's a cis dude who's also fucking with gender and fashion and art and he's letting people understand that.
but here's where i get personal because i ADORE the song as a lesbian who doesn't consider himself cisgender in the slightest.
I've spent my whole life wishing I could "be a girl" despite being born and raised female-- I simply just didn't fit into the mold of traditional femininity and, growing up in a religious background, that just made it even more difficult to fit in.
So I LOVE the lyric "i wish i were a girl".
AND THE BRIDGE IM JUST OBSESSED WITH TOO
"Eating your prosthetic, meet your anesthetic criteria, pathetic seeing you become acetic -- Say my name like a slur, but I've been called worse; I've heard it all before, no this isn't a first -- Let me be the void you fill with taxidermy fingerprints, taxonomize our differences -- I am quantum physics, my witness brings me to existence"
I think I just. need to leave that there. Cause it says more than I ever could. rahgaghag
and then closing out with the repeated line "all identities are equally invalid; don't you think that there's a chance that you could live without it?" is such cool like. food for thought yk?
idk i love the view Will Wood gave here, honestly. Especially knowing that he's very accepting of the lgbt+ community.
...well, better than the alternative
HOLY SHIT I AM. AUGH. UNWELL OVER THIS SONG.
see, the way I view it, is this attempt to just. Play into a normal, quiet life, despite EVERYTHING mentioned previously in the album. It's about trying to shove beside everything else for a normal existence.
It ties into suburbia overture, i / me / myself, and 2econd 2ight 2eer soso well. it's the perfect "halfway point of the entire album".
another lyric that i just HAVE to throw in here "This isn't my first kiss, it's better to be lost than loved, now isn't it?"
i'm mainly just. obsessed with that because of how aromantic it sounds. even though i know that's not how it was intended.
but i LOVE. THIS SONG. AUGH i love them all obviously but this one has such a special place in my heart.
It's asking somebody to "play along with" you (referring to the normal life thing) and THEN the whole "I just wanna do what's right by you"
it's just. tying together all the previous songs and like. expressing, essentially. "I'm fucked up. Are you willing to put up with me?"
or maybe im just yapping about absolutely nothing on this one idk
--
I don't know much more about the second half of this album, but I feel like diving into the lyrics of Outliars and Hyppocrates : a fun fact about apples is something i definitely need to do soon. i love this song's musical composition and.
"Don't wanna be human, anyways -- who pilots all these crude machines" ?? BANGER FUCKING LYRIC.
It's essentially just-- "the things that make you special are the things that make you strange"
meaning. get weirder with it. get fucking weirder with your art.
BlackBoxWarrior - OKULTRA is probably my favorite song on this album in terms of, musical composition and noise. I've pored over these lyrics soosososo many times and a lot of it goes over my head but over time I've started to understand a LOT of it and i just. augh.
also this song has such strong animatic vibes?? this is the one that makes me think SO much about my current writing project and i adore it for that.
I wish i was like. able to coherently express my thoughts on the lyrics of this song but they're just so complicated and. wow. it's. I think Will Wood totally outdid himself with this one because this is the most. Perfectly tied-together song on this entire album.
HOLY SHITTT
MARSHA, THANKK YOU FOR THE DIALETICS, BUT I NEED YOU TO LEAVE
OKAY I LIED I CAN TALK ABOUT THIS ONE ALL FUCKING DAY.
GOD.
I'M AUTISTIC. IN THE DIAGNOSIS PROCESS. AND LET ME TELL YOU I AM FUCKING OBSESED WITH THIS ONE SO MUCH.
Essentially, under our current system, any inability to perfectly execute a grueling 9-5, 5 days a week, on top of the mental labor of schooling and debt etc. is considered a disability. "Actual" diagnosed people are just the canaries in the coal mines, we're struggling soso much daily and it's just.
It's expanding upon this idea of microlabels and how Will Wood feels about them, and i honestly do think that, even though it's not the intent of this song, it can open up a conversation about how autism is not a "silly" thing. yk how the jokes have essentially become "I have (normal personality trait), is this... 'the tism'?" or the obsession with the fucking. god. "Neurospicy" thing.
^and how this improper culture/misunderstanding of neurodivergency and the need to make it more sanitized/palatable feeds into consumerism. but i can. go on a rant about that some other day.
But basically, with the lyric that "Dr., what's my prognosis if the study shows that: disease is in the eye of the beholder?" it expresses this sort of disdain, almost, with greater society's view on psychiatric abnormalities. if that. makes sense.
and then it's this constant repetition of "Back in my day ; ; ; we just drank ourselves to death. And we fucking liked it". It's also jabbing at this idea of how, in previous generations, you were generally just told to suck it up or you were left behind/ostracized entirely. It's about older generations not understanding the surge of mental health issues as of late. Closing with "We just bled out in the bed".
I love this song. So much. But I feel like this is all I'm gonna say about it because honestly this sort of discourse. Tires me out so much.
AAA OKAY
MY FUCKING LOVE MY DEARIE MY SHINING STAR I LOVE THIS NEXT SONG MORE THAN I LOVE ANYTHING ELSE ON THIS FUCKING PLANET
Love, me Normally
GAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
THIS IS THE ONE. THIS IS THETHE THE THE THEHT EH *THE* ONE.
THIS IS THE SONG THAT I UNDERSTAND THE MOST. THIS SONG IS LITERALLY ME. ME ME EM EM ME EAUGGHGH
HOLY SHIT.
I feel like so much has already been said on this song. I want to highlight, specifically, the bridge.
This is. my favorite piece of lyricism Will Wood has EVER put out and i fucking mean that.
---
"Now this is the part of the song where I like to talk to my audience
I like to tell 'em there's something I want from you hep cats tonight
I want you to look to your left, look to your right
Your 12 o'clock, three o'clock, six o'clock, nine o'clock, rock around the clock tonight
And I want you to find those points of no return, those singularities
Those burning rings of fire in the beautiful pupils of the beautiful eyes of the beautiful
Boy, girl, neither, both, or in-between that you brought with you tonight
And I want you to tell 'em how you really feel
I want you to tell 'em that you love the way they so seamlessly, like-a-dream-fully
So beautifully, oh so dutifully
Jam that square peg in the round hole in their heart
I want you to tell 'em that you love the way
That they don't stick out like sore middle fingers
That they crawl their way up the side of the bell curve
Stick their flag in the peak, and slide their way back down
I want you to tell them that you love the way that they're not maladaptive
Not malcontent, not malignant or maleficent, but rather that you love them
Exactly the way that everybody else is!"
---
now is it. unnecessary. to paste it all in here? certainly. but i just. love this so much.
the constant motif of mentioning the bell curve is amazing, too. I love this album because of it's essential... just. Being so outside of the normal bounds of society that all you can do is sit back and observe it all like "huh".
this is another ramble that i'd have to save for another post because this is the one that i understand the most.
I personally like to view this one through the lens of aromanticism. cause i can.
Now I'm not gonna go too much into detail on Memento Mori: the most important thing in the world cause BOY is it existential.
but i do think it's a beautiful way of tying this entire album together.
this entire album is almost like a note to humanity in general, this whole "you may not listen to me ever again, but give me these 45 minutes of your life to change your outlook on all of it".
Despite this album being subjective and subversive? Deviating so strongly from the norm that the average person, hell, even most avid fans, could never begin to relate to most of it?
It has this sort of... span of the human existence, in a sense. It understands it on such a small level, and it speaks bast the barriers that we usually don't try to cross. It just says shit that nobody else has said before.
I <3 this album. So insanely much.
I think that it's honestly one of the better pieces of music period that have been put out in these last few years. nothing else is as lyrically, linguistically, or musically different. aughgg
thank you for the ask if you read to the end youre fucking insane.
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penguin--person · 4 months
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what’s iwatex and what’s it about you’re the only person I’ve ever seen posting about it
ouhehe!!! iwatex my good friend iwatex:) iwatex stands for ' I Was A Teenage Exocolonist ' and it's one of my favourite games ever maybe. i'll try to keep this spoiler free !! tho there will be spoilers for. the intro i guess
i was a teenage exocolonist a timeloop game. you play as sol from the ages of 11-19, who grew up in space. near their 11th birthday they land on vertumna, a planet very distant from earth. the game centres around the struggles the new colony goes through as it finds its footing in this new world. you can help shape this colony, and who knows, maybe even lead it!
it also explores its timeloop mechanic very well. i cant go too much into this without going into spoiler territory, but i do like it very much. on another, unrelated note, this game can be replayed many times.
it also focuses on sols relationships with the other people of vertumna. you grow up alongside them, watch them grow, grief, laugh. a thing that i really like about iwatex is that you do not have to date any of the characters to unlock their 'max level' of friendship. you can! you'll unlock different dialogue/scenes/opportunities if you date them, but i dont think thats a flaw. i also very much like that they can just like reject you. if you give a certain character a flower and tell them "not even this flower is as beautiful as you" or smth, that negatively affects your relationship!!!! awesome.
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this is them as children, as you first encounter them ingame
there are many different things you can do in iwatex. you can explore the new planet, you can rebel, you can get pets, you can grow your skills, you can affect vertumnas future !! dude you can pet your pets.
the art is also very wonderful, id say. i love the character designs. awesomes.
my favourite character is congruence:)
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shes not a major character but i love her
theres many things i love about iwatex, but most of them would be spoilers. iwatex has awesome themes and has many endings and is definetely worth playing if youre thinking about it. if it sounds like your kind of game. theres a lot of reading btw its a visual novel mostly.. its also a card playing game!:) i like it. you can turn card playing off/Put it on automatic, so you dont have to play those if you dont wanna.
it has gutwrenching scenes and joyful scenes and has made me cry and has just such a wide range of things it can portray id say.. its not a perfect game id say, it has its flaws, but i like it:)!!!
hope i anwsered your quastion sufficiently, lmk if you have any more questions!!
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flurrin · 8 months
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RE6 Deep Lore Analysis: Prologue
Welcome to my series where I pick apart a 10+ years old game frame by frame to analyze the storytelling, cinematography, characters and of course additional Lore to fill in the gaps that either don't exist or are poorly conveyed. I'm doing this because the game is often dismissed for being convoluted and too far removed from the Resident Evil series in terms of mechanics. These things are true and it's very much an imperfect game! But the story has a lot of brilliance that goes unrecognized and I want to dive in how the whole thing works, both to new players and to those already enmeshed in the universe. To read the series in order, go here!
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Great shot to open the story on, a regular chrysalis thriving in an abandoned car, transforming into something new. We don't get to see anything beautiful like a moth or butterfly unfurling its wings for the first time, we see the insect, and then we cut away as disaster strikes. This obviously foreshadows the use of cocoons as enemy mechanics, and for Leon's campaign in particular, the lack of signs of surviving human life (including over the preceding establishing shots of a fiery city block filmed through the windows of the car) really set the mood.
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I don't know if this was the shot that spawned RE's love of 1st person intros later seen in RE3R (not counting 7 because the entire game is 1st person) but it's an impressive bit of camera work, paring down the controls of the game so the player doesn't even have a body per se to control yet, just eyes and interaction commands (the interaction commands + QTEs themselves are...a little bit of a mess gameplay-wise for sure). We don't know this is Ada or that she's actually shooting at the zombies around Leon and not at him and Helena, so there's an active threat without having to push the player into combat right away.
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RE6 is excellent at transition shots, here the gun is highlighted by the helicopter and thrown into the foreground of the next shot so your brain has realigned to recognize this is the POV character seamlessly. This is like a really basic shot, I'm going to show you some CRAZY animated camera tricks later, but it's good to keep in mind that the director knows what he's doing and is doing it well. This shot, this sequence, is also a perfect encapsulation of Leon's character as described in the very first game file. Leon protects the innocent, no matter the risk. He frames Helena, big and square and determined.
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Helena being injured in this sequence also aids the tutorial's method of paring down the controls into something simpler, carrying her encumbers Leon, multiplayer doesn't exist yet. It also gives the player immediate stakes to worry about--someone is relying on Leon, and he cares, so the player cares too. We also first learn Helena is self-sacrificial through these extra interactions that don't get a chance to show up in the final game.
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The purpose of this kind of hair in character design is to make a character's eyes, and therefore emotions, harder to read (this will be significant again when we talk about Jake later btw). Leon has a lot of baggage from RC and he feels it a lot, but he plays things close to the chest and hides behind his hair. In this way, even though he's a familiar protagonist, he feels almost as mysterious as Helena at the start, giving them an instant reason to connect.
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RE6's answer to fixed camera angles is to still frame things cinematically rather than just for the benefit of the player. It's not a great approach to gameplay but thankfully in this one, Leon course corrects on his own and you just have to hold the buttons.
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The camera is alive and active through these shots as they fall onto the glass, Leon's body framing the zombies below until they're clear to see beyond the edge of the cracks, a moment of peace before they look up, and the eye follows the path that the ornate light fixture is about to follow and crush them. They're trapped in by the circle of glass and the edges of the lantern.
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I will say I hate the last shot of this prologue because the one that opens the game proper is essentially the same exact shot and it always throws me off, the first time I played I was like "Wait, what happened to the giant spire thing we were just standing next to, how are we in a college now". But it was an intentional choice at least to make the transition into the first chapter a lot smoother, I get that.
That's all for the prologue, I didn't want to cover this entire post in "the cinematography is so good here", but as we go through the cutscenes, be sure to keep your eyes on how the lines of the scene (such as Leon's gun and the tiles in the background of that last screencap) line up with the character's eyes to bring your attention there. Everything in the prologue is meant to build up intrigue so there's very little story and I'll talk less about cinematography going forward, but if you want a really good breakdown on what makes a good shot, I can't recommend this case study on Brad Bird's Incredibles enough. See you next time!
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radiokathryn-if · 8 months
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I have a question as to why Nate's an RO? And will he get a redemption arc? Like- he's a person that's missing in the game and as far as I've observed on the blog he's not the good person. I'll admit I've had times where I've romanced cocky, and arrogant characters that are kinda shitty people before (in different IF's).
But the reason I chose them was because they realized they fucked up and clung to their humanity not just for the MC but for themself aswell and that's how they grow as a person. Nate seems like he has a lot of history that he always avoids to think about which leads him to not be a dick in ways that I personally can't tolerate considering he (as you've said in an ask) persuade Eva (for lack of a better word) at the ripe age of 19/18 and manipulated her. I mean I like my men fucked up and devious too but not like that.
I'm really excited for the demo btw, I'm loving the whole vibe of the mystery thing and I need me some Ji Han dialogue, yk? Sorry for rambling btw.
don't apologise!!
for spoiler reasons I don't want to go too much in to what will be going on during the book. But, as I'm sure you've seen in my discussions about him, Nate is not a good person. There's no redemption for him (for plot reasons).
I'm thinking I will put a disclaimer in the intro post about it, or maybe make an FAQ, but Nate is not supposed to be an Endgame Romance option, he's purely a flashback/background romance.
You can romance him, for sure! I'm planning a route where the MC can be stuck on him and what they used to have and that will be the route but most of the romance with him is unhealthy and I'm not going to tell it any differently. The MC might be a bit of an unreliable narrator in those scenes──but this is because I want to explore different kinds of toxic relationships and how people are affected by it.
I want to make sure that I get across the point that Nate's Route is not healthy, it'll contain cheating and manipulation from his end and if you choose it, on your end too (aiding in him cheating on Eva).
+ thank you for your interest!! I've actually been working on the RO 'meeting' scenes today so that's fun!
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