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gallusrostromegalus · 4 months ago

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What kind of deck would Kenpachi use for duel monsters?

Zaraki is the kind of guy who will hunt down Bakura and (gently (for Zaraki )) shake him until he does whatever the trick was that he heard about was that would turn him into a card so he could fight Exodia on foot, like the gods intended.

As for other people, because it's funny to contemplate:

Ichigo: Bad at card games, collects his deck 100% based on how much he likes the card art, inexplicably manages to make something remarkably functional, even if he nearly times out a dozen times because I'm he's reading the text on every card he draws.

Rukia: Melffys.

Chad: also Melffys

Uryuu: Understands how to run a functional deck with pendulum summoning. Cannot explain it to anyone else.

Mizuiro: Has a deck because he and Mokuba are casual acquaintances and the economics of Kaibacorp fascinate him. Plays much more competently than he thinks he does.

Keigo: plays Digimon.

Orihime: Has actually known and been online friends with Tea Gardner for longer than she's known Ichigo, because the former Los Osaka High Schooler and Now Prima Ballerina is the OTHER S-ranked Fairy Deck Player in Duel Monsters Online.

---

Gotei-13:

Duel Monsters has migrated to Soul Society via Reverse London, but only some members of the Gotei-13 know of the game, let alone play with any competence.

Mayuri likes the card art and has casually attempted to re-create some of those monsters in the flesh because he was bored.

Hitsugaya thinks it's "so lame" but if you ask him why it's lame he has remarkably well-informed opinions about the game design that could only have come from getting WAAAAY too into it at one point.

Gin played duel monsters online briefly until Aizen took an interest, because the concept of matching wits with a total stranger who couldn't see him either intrigued him. Gin taught him the basics, (these are the three scores that matter, the rest is conditions creation, you'll love it-!) and released him into the forums. Tousen enjoyed a nice three-month vacation as Aizen got addicted to online play until he entered an unranked tournament and got wasted in two turns by someone with a bunch of twee little fairies in the first round. Threw an enormous temper tantrum about it and forbade anyone, especially Gin who made it to the semi-finals, from ever mentioning the game again

Byakuya, the universal expert on all things Ambassador Wakame, took an interest in the game because he recognized the Kaibacorp Logo on a card Rukia had. There is very little Wakame Ambassador Merch in soul society because it's actually a Living World IP, and Byakuya had noted that the company that owned all things Wakame Ambassador had been purchased by Kaibacorp. He asks Rukia, who tells him all about Duel Monsters, and that there is an entire Kaibaland Theme Park a few cities over from where she was deployed in the living world.

"...would it be possible to contact this Seto Kaibacorp?" Byakuya frowns into the middle distance.

A week later, Rukia unexpectedly opens a gate into Ichigo's Bedroom at 2AM.

"Not directly but anybody can write to his company and the message might get passed along- like how Rikichi sorts all the mail addresses to you that gets sent to the sixth." Rukia shrugs. "You'd need a return address in the living world for him to write back though."

"Gah!" She yelps.

"THIS IS WHY YOU CALL AND WAIT FOR PERMISSION TO COME OVER!" Ichigo, home from undergrad for the week, growls at her.

"Hi Miss Rukia!" Orihime waves from on top of Ichigo, not bothering to get dressed.

"Uh, um- congratulations?" Rukia mumbles, covering her face.

"What happened now?" Ichigo groaned, reaching for his pants.

"My bro- Captain Kuchiki requests your assistance in delivering a message to a human in the living world!" She stammers, thrusting the message in his general direction.

"Rukia I don't think this will go through the postal system..." Orihime mutters taking it from her instead of putting on clothes or moving from her position on top of Ichigo.

"What? I thought we put enough stamps on it-? Gah! Please put on a shirt!" Rukia yelps.

"Rukia you know what boobs are." Orihime mutters, studying the missive. "I'll just put this in a box and mail it to them in the morning, okay?"

"Yeah! Sure! Fine!" Rukia sputters, reopening the gate as fast as she can.

"REMEMBER TO CALL NEXT TIME!" Ichigo hollers after her.

The Brothers Kaiba stared at the message.

"I'd say it looks like someone tried to mail me from the Meji Era but I've had enough of time-travelling bourgeoisie for one lifetime." Seto grumbled.

"That's not what you were saying last night!" Atem teased from over the video call.

"I mean, if I'm doing the calculations right, and he really is offering to pay us in bullion, that's like... Ten times what the Wakame Ambassador IP is worth." Mokuba frowned at the figures laid out in neat but archaic handwriting on the medieval-looking scroll that arrived in a box, but covered with postage from six different countries inside.

"...when do you get back again?" Seto glared at Atem through the call.

"Not until June, my impatient lord of dragons." Atem smirked.

"...fuck it, let's meet this guy." Seto decided. "He can't be any weirder than everyone else I know."

Lord Byakuya Kuchiki was, in fact, on par with, if not actually over the median level of weirdness in Seto's circle of tolerated people.

He really did look and speak like he'd stepped out of a time machine from the late 1800's and was, indeed, completely up front and honest about purchasing the rights to Wakame Ambassador and any merchandise Kaibacorp had, with a chest full of gold bullion.

Unlike most of Seto's acquaintances-with-benefits, Lord Kuchiki was polite, addressed him with a proper level of respect, perfectly straightforward in his request and even explained that he knew he was over-paying, but he'd been on the wrong side of copyright law before, and at least some of this was overvaluing the property as insurance that someone wouldn't attempt to buy it out from under him.

"...Alright, we have a deal." Seto smirked, leaning back in his chair. "I have to ask though- why Wakame Ambassador, of all things?"

"Why the Blue Eyes White Dragon?" He gestured to the office's distinct decoration with a knowing smile. "There is no shame here- if anything, I admire the boldness with which you live your truth."

Seto squinted at him for a long moment, before slowly cracking a smile. "Alright- you tell me about Wakame Ambassador and I'll tell you about her."

"Unbelievable." Mokuba gaped.

"I didn't know it was possible." Muttered Rukia.

The two dark-haired, diminutive siblings of more famous older brothers regarded each other for a moment.

"Does. Does yours not talk either?" Mokuba asked, pointing into the office where Kaiba and Kuchiki had been excitedly discussing something non-stop for the better part of three hours.

"I'm lucky if I can get a dozen words out of him a week." Rukia gawked. "He. He doesn't smile like that either? What the hell??"

"Seto smiles, but it's usually a threat- I. I don't think I've ever seen him this chill before..." Mokuba marveled at the scene before them.

"Do we... Leave them to it?" Rukia muttered.

"We'll never get on any of the rides at this rate." Grumbled Karin, who had heard the words "roller coaster park" and elbowed Ichigo in the stomach to take the job of escorting the Kuchiki siblings to Kaibaland from him. "Yuzu?"

Yuzu, who had been drafted into the expedition because she could actually make sense of the high-speed rail system, closed the book she'd been reading with a sigh and stuck her head in the door.

"Mr. Kuchiki? I'm sorry to interrupt, but we left so early I didn't get to eat breakfast, and it's past lunchtime now..." She said, giving the highly manipulatable shinigami her best Precious Moments Figurine face.

"Huh?" Kaiba blinked, then look down at the clock on his desk. "...How is it one thirty?"

Kuchiki looked at something that might have been a cell phone or a large beetle. Seto had learned to stop asking those questions. "Good heavens, you must be starving! Is there a commissary or..?"

"No way, we've got a food expo going on at the Astrodome. They can have whatever they want, on me." Seto shook his head, getting up and waving for them to follow.

"What the FUCK?" Mokuba whispered.

"Oh wow!" Rukia gasped, eyes sparkling "-do you think there will be carrot cake?"

"-So tell me about this Agents Of Nori filler arc," Seto said with genuine fascination as the two men walked down the hall, leaving bewildered siblings in their wake.

Yugi frowned at the latest Duel Monsters expansion with concern for the better part of ten minutes before slowly looking up at Mokuba on the other side of the living room "...I feel like I missed something important."

"What?" Mokuba blinked, looking up from his CapMon spreadsheets. "Oh, yeah. Seto made a friend who got him into this bizarre old cartoon, so now there's a line of cards based on the IP. I think it's a birthday present because the guy got some author to write up a novelisation of the new Blue Eyes canon for his."

Yugi stared blankly at Mokuba.

"Seto."

"Yes."

"...Made a friend?"

"Yyyyyyep."

"...on his own? Organically?"

"Believe it or not, Seto does pay attention to your friendship speeches." Mokuba glared.

"...I'm. I'm glad? I just can't get my head around it. What did he DO?" Yugi glared.

"...It's not so much that Seto did anything so much as Mr. Kuchiki is a very similar type and degree of fucking weirdo Seto is, and due to your good influence, Seto didn't immediately panic about that and... They just kind of..." Mokuba pursed his lips, trying to think of a word, and instead interlaced his fingers. "-meshed. Like gears."

Yugi's stare went from blank befuddlement to Great fear "I cannot overstate how alarming the concept of Two Setos is. We did that once, and the universe almost ended."

"Nah, it's fine.- if anything, he's a good example." Mokuba waved. "Kuchiki has an even bigger and more proactive cadre of friends that follow him around and holler if he misbehaves, so he's a lot more domesticated than Seto is."

Yugi sat on the couch, trying to imagine a less feral Seto, and could feel himself getting a headache.

"Kuchiki also looks and acts like he stepped fresh out of the Heian-era imperial court scene." Mokuba added.

"THERE IT IS!" Yugi sighed with relief.

#aeiwam #an elephant is warm and mushy #TPOFATGIF #the power of friendship (and this gun i found)#bleach fanfic #yugioh fanfic #the crossoever event literally nobody wanted

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coffee-without-anesthetics · 2 months ago

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the people might be pleased to know it 's been 3 weeks since this post and i still don 't understand link summoning except for funny monster card with arrows on it </3

xyz summoning and pendulum summoning is Nothing . what the FUCK happens during link summoning

#also i thought i understood pendulum summoning ? WRONGGG #IF A PENDULUM MONSTER GETS SENT TO THE EXTRA DECK FACE-UP AND THEN GETS RESUMMONED VIA PENDULUM ON THE NEXT TURN #THEY CAN ONLY GO TO A MONSTER ZONE THAT A LINK MONSTERS POINTS TO ORRRR THE EXTRA MONSTER ZONE #WHICH I !! DIDN 'T KNOW !!!!!#post anesthetics posts #ygoposts

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maxwell-grant · 2 months ago

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Any thoughts on Namor? I was going to ask about whether he counts as villain, but given that part of Namor's whole Thing is wrapped around the fact that he hops back and forth over that line all the time, I'm not sure it's a question that can be answered.

He was made king before he was even born; it was something that he didn’t have a choice in, it was destiny. - Ryan Coogler

"HE IS THE PENDULUM THAT SWINGS BETWEEN THE POLARITIES OF DEVIANT AND ETERNAL, X-51. HIS IS THE SECOND FACE OF MAN." - Earth X #0

I've spoken before on Namor and his Weird Tales pulp horror debut story, and I can't really get into how I feel about Namor as an F4 villain without giving thoughts on Namor himself. The short version is I think Namor rules, and in a better world, Bill Everett would be better remembered as a foundational creative force for the entirety of the Marvel Universe, just based on the creation of Namor. I think he's the Rosetta Stone by which the core of the Marvel Universe is first seen and is subsequently translated and reiterated, and I think it's also extremely self-evident why he got so many revivals and why he gets to stick around in ways guys like Jim Hammond and Ka-Zar didn't.

Not just for the history of Marvel but for the comic book superhero as a concept, he is tremendously significant as well as very compelling, and in the context of Lee-Kirby F4, in large part because he already ruled as a character beforehand, he makes for a really dynamic villain/anti-hero/force of nature who consistently made for some of their most fun stories. The problem here is that the influence of said villain run ended up affecting Namor for the worse in ways that seriously drag him down as a character, to the point he is very consistently at his absolute worst and most limited whenever he has to share a story with them. He's FAR from the worst Fantastic Four villain, not even close, but I can't think of a character I'd like to see lees as a F4 villain than him. It truly pains me to say I'd sooner have another Blastaar or Psycho-Man F4 story than a Namor F4 story, and to get into why we have to talk about Namor's history.

See, as much as I like discovering and doing pop culture paleonthology, I'm generally not in favor of propping up characters mainly through what historical importance or possible influence they had, because that, on it's own, just doesn't make an interesting character, and in fact usually marks a character as having failed to retain relevance or popularity, when all that matters about them can only be spoken about via the past tense and not what they do or mean now (Wonder Woman, and her inarguable decline of popularity, is unfortunately a relevant example of this). I think it's often one of the sadder ways to try and prop up any old character you like, and I bring this up mainly for context's sake.

I don't think this is truly applicable to Namor - his historical significance has always taken a backseat to his mercurial alliances and troubled personality and that other thing and all that's usually defined him since the 60s up to his modern appearences, and it's certainly not the thing most writers use him for anyway, for better or worse. But in his case, it is absolutely necessary to bring up because of how significant it was to his comeback, and to understand why I argue Namor is one of the most important characters for the Marvel Universe as a project and shared story. In the Sub-Mariner, introduced as an "Ultra-Man of the Deep", we have one of the first and most significant responses to Superman.

(Excerpt taken from Bill Everett: Fire & Water)

Timely's big innovation, which was to serve the embryonic Marvel well and help to distinguish it from DC, was to come down from Olympus and give voice to the elements themselves by personifying the forces of nature as heroes.

Prince Namor of Atlantis, the Sub-Mariner, was the creation of seventeen-year-old Bill Everett. Superman sometimes flouted the law, but decent people had nothing to fear from the essentially upstanding Man of Steel. Prince Namor was different: This half-human terrorist was prepared to inundate the just and unjust alike as he rode on whaleback at the foaming apocalyptic crest of the devastating mega-tsunami that he unleashed on New York in his first adventure.

Namor was the face of JD insolence, awaiting rock 'n' roll, Marlon Brando, and James Dean to ratify his power. Driven by passions and brief allegiances, Namor faced the entire world with a fuck-you snarl, committing acts of high anarchy on a scale undreamed of by terrorists in the real world. There was no shortage of sea stories, tales of Atlantis, storms, piracy, dynastic succession, and imperial vengeance from which to draw inspiration for Namor's fertile new fantasy playground. - Supergods, by Grant Morrison

Even all the way back in 1939 in his murderous beginnings, Namor already felt like a Marvel character in every way that matters, the forerunner to all the tools Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko would use to revolutionize the superhero. Bill Everett just doesn't get enough credit for how profoundly he beat everyone to the punch, all the Wolverines and Hulks and Venoms and Magnetos, descendants of Marvel's primordial super menace. Everett would eventually look back on these early Namor stories as too raw and unpolished, describing them as mostly the ventings of an angry young man, and sure enough the Sub-Mariner would quickly team up with the Torch and join the fight against the Nazis and transition into superheroics proper. But even as Namor gained solo titles, even as he became more of a household name, that unpredictability and edge to the character still remained. Namor was always a character of intriguing extremes and an irreconcilable duality, from his birth in-universe as well as out of it, up to everything that would define him for the following 80+ years.

When Everett is happy, Namor will save kids whose yacht sunk and cooperate with police while receiving accolades from the public as if he’s freakin’ Superman. When Everett is pissed about something, Namor will contemplate stealing world-destroying weapons from the villains so he can wipe out the human race himself! Sometimes Namor will be perfectly friendly initially, but be falsely blamed by humans, join up with the villains, then turn his back on them at the last minute.

Just like the gods of Greece, Namor can be mankind’s friend in some stories, in others; he can be its worst enemy over something petty. Everett may not have thought much of it, but he was doing something unique among superhero comics: Creating a character that the reader is fascinated by not so much because of the question of what others will do to him, but because of what he’ll do to others, and because watching Namor rage at the humans allows the reader (and his creator) to blow off some steam of their (his) own - Outofthequicksand

And speaking of said duality, it's also important to highlight the extent to which Namor was indeed, from day one, coded as biracial and placed in opposition to the "white race", particularly in his earliest comics that openly placed him at war with "the white man". I'll defer here to the resident Namor expert @imperiuswrecked, who has covered this aspect of Namor more extensively. This will come into relevance later.

It's important to establish the history and significance that Namor had prior to the 60s, that he was Marvel's first star character (Captain America has a much, much spottier track record until his proper comeback) but one without a consistent title to be in, because it's that very same history and significance that caused him to be brought back and remain an inviolate mainstay of the universe from the moment there was a universe for him to live in and return to. When Timely becomes Marvel, when the Fantastic Four revolutionize the superhero and begin the building blocks of the new shared universe, Namor can enter right out of the gate to add history and intrigue and turmoil to this new universe.

DC’s heroes were authoritarian in character and concept. They were authority figures, whether formally or informally. They were solidly in favor of established authority. Marvel’s heroes, however, were the opposites of DC’s characters. They rejected consensus and conformity. They were usually alienated from society and felt themselves to be men and women apart. They were the products of tragic beginnings, but unlike DC’s characters, the Marvel superheroes were never allowed to forget the tragedies that birthed them. They had uneasy relationships with the public, who often turned on them. They had uneasy relationships with the forces of authority.

Even Marvel’s villains were granted two dimensions, leaving them villainous but flawed in recognizable and understandable ways. Marvel’s heroes, villains, and stories were often ambiguous, and ambiguity was an entirely new concept in superhero comics - The Evolution of the Costumed Avenger, by Jess Nevins

Marvel can now repurpose it's old comics and it's oldest icon for texture in the new ones - we can discover that the Fantastic Four are entering a world that already beheld the Sub-Mariner, "the world's most unusual character", and forgot about him, that saw the mighty war hero enter a hypnotized slumber and, once awakened, find himself in the world of the atom bomb and the destruction it wrought upon his old life and people. Now, all the might of the former superheroic Namor is turned against "humanity", and with him an endless oceanic bestiary under his command, and a mandate to reconnect with what's left of his people and let nothing in the world get in his way.

And thus Namor takes on a newfound role - on top of being their first continuity deep cut, he is now the complicated/sympathetic/nuanced baddie who can become an ally, the first ambiguous villain of Marvel. The first of it's villains who displays a capacity to become an ally or reform, soon to be followed by the likes of Hawkeye, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and Black Widow. And the moment a bigger menace enters the scene via Doctor Doom, the new greatest villain of their world, Namor can now be an opposing force of conflicting alliances and loyalties, assisting Doom and turning against him on the same story.

For the rest of the Lee-Kirby run, he will go on to become arguably the 2nd greatest Fantastic Four villain of the time, one reserved for special occasions in the same way Doom is, but one who demands entirely different considerations writing-wise because he is, fundamentally, not a true monster or villain, just an opposing force of mercurial allegiances but unwavering commitment. Traits that in the past made him a game-changing but inconsistent hero, here make him into a unique but difficult villain, one who unfortunately often does fall into routine as he is simply not built for the kind of long-term commitment to direct antagonism that Doom or the others are. But at his best in the Lee-Kirby run, he is incredibly fun to read about.

I simply do not get tired ever of all the weird animals and monsters and contraptions and underwater set pieces that Namor as a villain in this era brings with him in every appearence, he appeals really strongly to the ocean nerd in me and the palenthology nerd also, because Kirby absolutely was cracking open the picture books for reference, I was not expecting a Dunkleosteus and a Xenacanthus to show up when I started this run. I was so happy to find them in here, and wait you mean to tell me that Namor was piloting a fucking Mosasaurus??? Why isn't he doing that more often??? There is just a consistently enjoyable unpredictability to Namor's arsenal in this era, whether it's the monsters he summons or him pulling new weird powers related to sea creatures. Him having "the powers of all creatures who live beneath the sea" is one of those typically over-the-top early Marvel developments (like the Lizard having the powers of all the lizards on Earth) that I DEARLY miss and wish would come back, because they promise infinitely wilder possibilites than anyone's ever taken advantage of.

With the Marvel Universe underway and his newfound role, Namor now exists in a dual-role: He grows away from being a full-time Fantastic Four villain and rejoins his kingdom and ostensibly returns to something akin to his original role, but the world has now changed and changed Namor with it. Away from Everett's hands and from Lee-Kirby's vision, there are now significant competing ideas of The Sub-Mariner, and the following decades will be defined by this push and pull. He reattains a solo title, but only sporadically. He joins the Defenders, a team with fellow self-contained weirdos who defy superhero convention, and go on adventures to map out the weird corners of Marvel. He retroactively forms the Invaders, defining the vision of 1940s Marvel with Cap and Hammond, and his flooding of New York would go on to become a formative catastrophe in the history of this world. Subsequent Fantastic Four writers will drag him back again and again to diminishing results, he fights the Avengers and joins the Avengers, he gets pulled into the X-Men orbit because of his mutant connections, and when the 2000s mega-arc initiates, he is tapped to join the Illuminati, where he now must adjust to the rest of the Marvel Universe playing in his pool and worse, fucking in it.

As the Illuminati forms, as events like Civil War and Secret Invasion and Dark Reign proceed to twist and darken the universe and all of it's heroes, as the Marvel Universe starts to reckon more and more with it's nature as The Bastardverse it has always fundamentally been, the primordial bastard must step in to respond accordingly. When representatives of the world convene in the shadows to steer it, Namor has to be invited, even if only to clash against them. When the mutants go to war with the Avengers and attain godhood, they bring him in, so he can be goaded into going on a rampage and do what they all were always going to do. And when the Illuminati has to turn truly monstrous for the sake of saving the multiverse, when it's time for Reed Richards and T'challa to drown their doubts and principles and commit to monstrosity for the sake of saving their worlds, there they must bring in Namor again, because he has been doing it longer than any of them. Because amidst everyone else grappling with moral complications and tough choices, he is the only one who is perfectly fine with who he is and what he's doing and what needs to be done. His new job is to give these people a license, and the warning that comes with it.

He gives the Illuminati a license to be villainous in the name of a greater good (surely, they can never be worse than Namor, they all think), and he warns them of the path this will inevitably lead to. He gives them a warning about how justified the Hulk will be when he comes after them all. He gives the Phoenix Five a license to drop the Miracleman act and go to war, and the early shot that warns them all of what's to come next. He gives T'Challa a license to be the monster he needs to be to save the world, and when that fails, avenge his people by taking him down. He gives the Cabal a license to pick up where the Illuminati left off and, to his horror, show Namor what real shameless monstrosity looks like, and at the end of everything, he's there to help T'Challa in his last stand, putting everything aside to distract Doom even at the cost of his own life.

And as a result of his antagonistic dynamic towards Black Panther and Wakanda culminating in this arc, Namor's deal became significantly informed by his status as a pseudo-Black Panther villain, and thus we, at last, reach the latest and most significant development regarding Namor: his role in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

Ryan Coogler and Tenoch Huerta to me granted the character an emotional context here that clarifies everything he is, and all that shapes his thought. He’s not angry at the surface world and its clownshit in abstract. It’s not just the anger of a distant warrior-king of the oceans. It’s the anger of the colonized, of the Othered.

What Ryan Coogler and Tenoch Huerta did is give him specificity. He’s not just a broad-strokes figure in White hands, for White writers to write as an archetypal broad-strokes morally murky angry bastard guy. No, there’s a specific history to this guy, there’s a cultural specificity and context to his very existence.

I like this Namor a lot. The character finally makes an emotional sense, to me. I understand him. I relate to his rage, as I'm sure plenty of people do. - Ryan Coogler’s Namor and Specificity

Namor in Wakanda Forever has been touted as a complete reinvention of the character, which isn't quite true: while many of the Mesoamerican traits and specific signifiers are indeed new, and certainly do a LOT to recontextualize and breathe new life into every facet of his character, Wakanda Forever Namor is less a reinvention of Namor as much as it is a synthesis of Namor. It is all the prior Namors we have discussed here unified and blended into one: He is the avenging villain/troubled anti-hero who has incredibly justified reasons to wage war on humanity for the sake of his people, he is the emburdened child king of a wronged underground civilization, he is the noble but troubled romantic figure who swings between monster and savior on a dime, he is the fun over-the-top supervillain with an endless supply of underwater trickery who will go on a rampage if he feels spurned or betrayed, he is the folk demigod who floods the great noble city in a life-shattering calamity, and he is the righteous bastard here to stake his ground on these new political backstabbing games that superheroes engage with now, dragged away from his kingdom and people so he can play the primordial shadow the righteous bastard anti-heroes of new must defeat or work with and, at minimum, recognize within themselves.

And he is, at last and once more, the righteous fury of The Other. He is no longer just coded as a POC character or implied to be, and he can now fully resume his original aims. He can now once again be at war against "the white man", against the colonial forces that have ravaged his home and people, and this no longer has to be subtext. He can fully embody a power fantasy of retribution against your oppressors without having to be allegorical about it, but because he is no longer alone in being such, he can now clash against and be in dialogue with another character who also represents such a power fantasy. He can bestow upon Shuri the hunting license to be like Killmonger, but he is no mere oppressor, and even if he himself deserves vengeance, he is what he is to protect something greater than himself, and for the sake of their people, they must sacrifice even their own vendettas. He warns that they must hang together, or be hanged separately.

And so Namor achieved this new form, and funny enough, one that ties him into the greatest legacy of the Fantastic Four. Where as he was once the 2nd or 3rd greatest/most popular Fantastic Four villain, he is now the 2nd or 3rd greatest/most popular Black Panther villain. Outside of these specific stories that can afford him a clear arc to work with, does he work as a reocurring Black Panther villain? No, not really. But he was T'Challa's most personal enemy on the biggest story either of them were ever a part of up until that point, and then his MCU debut that revitalized and redefined the character happened with him as the villain in the Black Panther sequel, so he's undeniably already there. Although as much as I throughly loved Wakanda Forever and what it did with Namor, I have absolutely zero desire to see him come back for anything unless it's the same team at the helm (I am not optimistic and indifferent towards Avengers: Doomsday for a variety of self-evident reasons, and unfortunately he is one of them).

Yes I was supposed to be talking about Namor as a Fantastic Four villain, guess it's time to ruin the fun and shoot the elephant in the room: In the context of Lee-Kirby F4, I actually think Namor and Sue's thing is mostly fine. Not good, but fine, for what it is at the time. I think there's a lot of things that I give Lee-Kirby F4 a pass for that I otherwise wouldn't on other comics and not simply because of goodwill, but because even a lot of it's problematic / outdated elements I think are useful signifiers, interesting points of contrast and discussion, or thematically relevant for the time period and what F4's aims were, although that's certainly not a blanket pass for everthing (there are good reasons why nobody has bothered to textually address how misogynistic Reed was to Sue in that era). Namor and Sue's thing, from day one, existed in the service of an exoticized "romance with the alien monster/foreigner" pulp trope that was already outdated and problematic then, but doing a 60s superhero/sci-fi take on the pulp tropes and cliches that Lee and Kirby grew up reading about was central to the whole thing, Sue's complicated feelings about Namor made it a shlocky pseudo love triangle instead of a one-sided creep obsession, the kid-friendly tone meant that things hardly ever got too uncomfortable or like actual assault (although still a little too close).

Fantastic Four was built atop their prior experience with monster comics and romance comics, a monster romance was kind of inevitable, and when Reed and Sue properly got together and married, while Namor's subsequent appearences still brought it up, it would get gradually phased out as the Sub-Mariner drifted more into uneasy ally/heroic status. That, in itself, should have been the end of it, but evidently it was not. Every decade, someone decides to reiterate this plotline, and every decade, it reflects worse on them. On Sue, it was a misogynistic reputation as someone who deep down wanted to cheat on Reed, it was being known as a character who had nothing exciting going on with her life besides the horny fishman, and on Namor's end, it's a pop culture reputation as a sleaze and a womanizer and a creep who revolves around his obsession with a married woman who does not want him. That was the thing Namor was and is known for, the main joke of every pastiche, and unfortunately it seems like not even Wakanda Forever was able to change that in the long run. I'm not sure what could, at this point.

I'm gonna be upfront here, part of the problem is that Sue Storm has always gotten the short end of the stick, and as a result has always been considerably less developed than the other 3. In the Lee-Kirby F4 era, unfortunately is is true that Namor was the only thing Sue had going on until she and Reed got married, and then the marriage was the only thing she had going on. Her lack of foundation is the original sin of Lee-Kirby F4, and things only got worse for her when said foundation was later provided by John Byrne, a putrid man who left everything he ever touched toxic for generations after to deal with. To this day, Sue Storm functionally does not have a foundation the way the other 3 have, and that's why the default with her still exists defined around either Reed, or Namor. Even Hickman couldn't think of much of anything for Sue to do other than to beat up Namor and get involved with Atlantean politics, on the one part of the book she got to have her own adventures. It's a problem that goes beyond whatever tiresome shtick she and Namor have, and it drags them both down.

And it's not like Namor playing the heel is a bad thing, that's been inseparable to his deal since day one. But it was already lame enough in the comics when he was a cool compelling versatile character constantly reduced to a shlocky trope or a creep. It's infinitely worse now that Marvel has, in the wake of Wakanda Forever, a clear interest in acknowledging Namor as not-white, in making him more explicitly indigenous, in having him exist as a principled rival/enemy within the Black Panther side of the world. I think having him be that, and doing the Sue thing, is just a complete fucking misfire on every level, just an unthinkably bad idea to combine the two, taking the allegorical exotic pulp racism of the 60s dynamic and doing it without the allegory / feeding into extremely dangerous and bigoted stereotypes against indigenous / brown-skinned men, really just shooting out the character's knees and making him too detestable for anyone to even want to see him be anything but a prop to be knocked down. I'm certainly not saying I want him and Sue to be magically chaste friends (although, again, that is a dynamic Namor can have just fine with other characters), I just don't think there's any redeeming this even if he goes back to looking like a white Dwayne Johnson. I think the best case scenario is him never interacting with the Fantastic Four again or at least until they figure out what they want out of him.

So yes, I think Namor absolutely does count as a villain - he is not just a villain, but being a villain, being able to play the villain and play the hero in varying measures, is a core part of what he is and does. Namor is a character that I think will probably never be particularly or especially popular again for similar reasons as to why some of the pulp characters I talk about or Captain Marvel or, shit even the Fantastic Four, face difficulties in that regard - their deal has been replicated endlessly and absorbed into what everyone else around them does, and even if they remain unique and dynamic characters, their cultural import and significance will never truly translate to them being a thing most non-comics people have reasons to know or care about. But even if Namor will never be a particularly important character for the Marvel Universe on an ongoing basis, I do think he is an extremely important character for understanding the Marvel Universe and how it works. Even past whatever he means for Marvel - in many ways, I'd still argue he is The Marvel Superman - the purer, more primal or powerful strain of what the others are trying to be and do.

Whether he is hero or villain, whether he leads the charge or takes a backseat, whether he is right or wrong, he is The Guy. The universe comes from him and around him, if not in-universe then outside of it. The universe is shaped like him. He comes to tear down the order of things and brawl with whoever tries to stop him, to meet brothers in arms and war against new enemies and guide his monstrous children to their futures. The DC heroes aspire to be like Superman, the man from the stars who wants others to rise and meet him there, while the Marvel heroes deny the Namor within them, the man from the depths who beckons them to the abyss where he lives. Because the truth of the Marvel Universe is not joining hands in the sun as the people of tomorrow, it's the avenging sons and children without love flooding New York City and fighting each other atop the ruins.

Rather than slap a symbol on an altruistic strongman’s chest, like so many other characters in Superman’s wake, Everett eschewed those impulses, pulling instead from legend and literature to craft a unique character. In an odd way, this gives Namor and Superman a deeper kinship than his caped imitators, as the Last Son of Krypton was also inspired by mythos, literature, and, some theorize, profound personal heartbreak.

Superman is the immigrant who never knew his destroyed homeland, and fights so that his new homeland does not suffer the same fate, while the Sub-Mariner is the product of two races, and cannot find peace within himself until his peoples find peace with each other

It is appropriate Superman came from another star; he is a kind of unsullied messiah. Namor, however, is a demigod, fully in tune with his sometimes visceral passions, and fully aware that sometimes that leads to trouble. But he is alive, and this is his nature.

a bastard son, a half-breed prince his underwater race never fully trusted, and a super-powered anomaly the human race always feared, leaving Namor forever at odds with both worlds. He has all the power and uses it for vengeance – although sometimes, reluctantly, for a common cause, as well.

Fighting between self-interest and emotional nobility, he is a reflection of us. - The Brilliance of Bill Everett’s Sub-Mariner, Marvel’s Superman

#replies tag #superheroes #namor #the sub-mariner #marvel #marvel comics #bill everett #fantastic four #f4 #wakanda forever #comic books #mcu

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astra-ravana · 21 days ago

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A Guide To Magickal Names

“The Name is the Word, and the Word is the Will.”

The History and Occult Roots of Magickal Names

From the twilight of ancient priesthoods to the shadowed circles of modern covens, the use of a magickal name has endured as a sacred rite of passage. In ancient Egypt, priests adopted hidden names known only to the gods. In Greece and Rome, initiates took new names upon entering mystery schools. Even in early Christian Gnosticism, secret names of power were uttered in rites to awaken divine sparks.

In the grim days of the witch trials, names became shields—aliases to protect one's identity from persecution. Yet behind this guise, magickal names always held a deeper purpose: to declare the soul’s rebirth upon the path of power.

The Power of the Name

To name is to claim. To name with intent is to shape reality. The magickal name is a spell in itself: a sigil woven from sound, meaning, and will. It becomes a mask and a mirror—both concealing and revealing.

Empowerment:

• Your magickal name is your chosen self, free of mundane bindings and societal labels. It is the spirit clothed in its true title.

• It helps focus your will, anchoring your magick in identity. When you invoke your magickal name, you invoke your deepest current of power.

Protection:

• A magickal name can shield your mundane identity from spiritual and psychic intrusion.

• It acts as a boundary, separating the profane from the sacred. Spirits and energies know you by the name you give them, and this name grants you dominion in the unseen.

Names as Living Spells

Names carry vibration and intent. In Qabalistic tradition, names are numerically charged (via Gematria) and hold divine archetypes. In Thelemic thought, one’s True Will is embedded in the formula of the name, consciously or unconsciously.

Your magickal name is your word of power, a compact spell that resonates with your path, strengths, spirits, and purpose.

It should:

• Reflect your magickal current (death, transformation, lunar energy, chaos, wisdom, etc.).

• Be distinct and sacred—not something you casually utter.

• Hold personal meaning, whether derived from myth, dreams, visions, or gnosis.

Choosing or Receiving a Magickal Name

Some witches choose their name. Others receive it in dreams, trance, or ritual. A magickal name should never be rushed. It may take time to emerge, much like a familiar spirit.

How to Discover Your Name:

• Meditation and Introspection- Ask, "Who am I becoming?" "What archetypes walk with me?" "What symbols have followed me through life?"

• Divination- Use tarot, runes, or pendulum to explore name fragments or themes.

• Dream Work-Set the intention to receive your name in sleep. Record symbols and sounds that appear.

• Scrying or Automatic Writing- Enter trance. Let syllables or words come. Don’t judge—some names may feel alien or wild at first.

• Astrological or Numerological Construction-Choose a name whose number aligns with your birth chart, life path, or desired magickal vibration.

Living with the Name

Once chosen, baptize the name in ritual. Declare it to the spirits, the elements, and the powers you serve. From then on, use it only in sacred work—unless you're in a tradition or community where names are spoken among initiates.

With time, the name may evolve. You may shed one name and take another, just as the serpent sheds its skin. This is natural. You are a work in progress, and your name is a living glyph that grows with you.

Examples and Symbolic Structures

• Luna Corvina – “Moon Raven” — lunar wisdom, shadow flight.

• Azariel Nocturne – angel of fire and harmony in darkness.

• Thornshade – guardian of wild, liminal spaces.

• Seraphina Lux – burning seraph of divine light.

• Malphas Vex – a rebellious echo of daemonic command.

Some practitioners even use multiple names:

• An Inner Name- Known only to you and your gods.

• A Coven Name- Known to fellow witches.

• A Public Name- For writing, art, or spiritual leadership.

You are the word made flesh. The name you wear in the circle is your sigil, your spell, your crown. Speak it with reverence. Whisper it into fire and fog. Let it echo through the veil and mark your place among the stars.

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

— A name chosen in Will is a sword of spirit.

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anoutdateddate · 3 months ago

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“O, has Aphrodite heard me?” Here are indications she has ❤️‍🩹

Prayer-wise

Frances, how do I know if Aphrodite has heard my pleads for her to hear me? Well, there are many ways how you can tell! Many people know she has heard them since they feel hovering above them when praying! This is a very common sign. Another which talks about how you feel a little more divine, romantic after prayer! Though, here’s a complete list.

Hovering above

After-feel

feeling immense peace mid prayer

Feeling her divine presence

Cry-Wise

Frances, how do I know if Aphrodite has heard my cry for something? Well, first let’s take an example. Your ex has been treating you badly and you cry to Aphrodite about it — then your ex posts on his Facebook about a series of unlucky things happening to him? Thank Aphrodite lol. 😭💕 but seriously! She does listen.

Wish-wise

Have you made a wish and you don’t know if Aphrodite has answered it? Well, happens. It takes some practice to be really good at seeing signs — that’s okay! You can contact Aphrodite via pendulum or tarot and ask too! Perhaps take the littlest of signs you weren’t sure about and ask. It all becomes clear, like a mirror 🦢🤲🏼

thank you for reading my blog! Check out more. I’m grateful to all whom take time out of their day to read my blog!

If you need this reminder…

Aphrodite loves you, Aphrodite hears you, and Aphrodite blesses 🤲🏼 hail lady Aphrodite! :D

❤️‍🩹🌊

#aphrodite #aphrodite worship #aphrodite deity #aphrodite goddess #greek gods #lady aphrodite #aphrodite devotion #aphrodite poem #goddess aphrodite #hellenism #Hellenic polytheism #hellenic pagan #hellenic deities #hellenic worship

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forsaken-headcanons · 2 months ago

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TWO TIME REWIRK HCZ!

~ tried to recruit chance but that lasted for one week in a half (thank builderman for that)

~ cuts and heats lemons like a damn apple. yes this freaks everyone one out. No he won’t stop.

~ spends time with noob and Elliot and has made friendship bracelets for em! (None for 007 bc…he fucking hates him.)

~ sleep walks and sleep talks bc yes

~ When he tried to get chance to join (FOR THE THIRD TIME) he tried the typical pendulum trick/hypnosis, it did work for a bit…till when two time was dragging him somewhere quiet—Anndd he woke up via tripping on air

~ ^ speaking of which, chance is clumsy af, he will drop shit no matter what.

~ two time knows a plethora of creepy facts about the human mind and body!

~ He listens to vocaloid. ONLY the creepy ass songs (ifykyk)

~ Durring karaoke night he POURED his heart out in “ashite ashite ashite” and in “Good child and the fox spirit”

(Chance and Eliot have nightmares bc of that)

~ SPEAKING OF TWO TIME SINGING, he can sing and does it late at night to scare anyone(cough cough shed cough cough)

~ has hallucinations of azure and nearly fell off a balcony trying to ‘reach him’

(THANK GODS FOR 007 )

That’s all :3

Oh Two time recruiting and failing to recruit Chance into the spawn cult is something I didn't know I needed to read. That's amazing.

#forsaken headcanons #forsaken #forsaken roblox #roblox forsaken #chance forsaken #two time forsaken #builderman forsaken #elliot forsaken #mod missletsky🍗⚔️

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threetrenchcoatsinatrenchcoat · 4 months ago

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i solved Three Houses, an analysis in three three-part parts

point one. each pig summons the next based on their own projected fears: Susan gets crossed and hears Pookie--Pookie being let's say an aspect of Sadie--calling out all her problems, telling her to control herself, "��irresponsible child! you have no impulse control!" Sadie stumbles out of karaoke finding Zippy avoiding her, "ohh uh hi sadie, i’m being alone with my thoughts today"--Zippy being an aspect of Beckett. Beckett locks himself in as Shelob guides him to dig deeper, "yes, beckett, yes! [evil laugh]"--Shelob being an aspect of Susan.

point two. all of them manifest the penance they think they need and deserve. they're all wrong. Susan is extremely present and is the most aware of all her problems, but she's unable to solve them. we learn her reaction to the wolf is defined by digging further, analyzing herself and her past, and she wants someone to scream at her. Susan fixates on a latvian house spirit that will invoke ancient wrath if her house is out of order. with the voice of Sadie. of course Sadie's reaction to the wolf is defined by order, routine, control. Sadie focuses on a villager who ends up avoiding her, encourages her to join in exercise "until our minds go blank," and when he encourages her to get back into dating, he doesn't recommend companionship or love, just someone "to absorb all your worst thoughts". with the voice of Beckett. Beckett is defined by avoidance, with the only guide he accepts relishing how deep he'll dig. which brings us back to Susan. all of their obsessions push them further from themselves. none of it helps.

point three. all of them find what they need indirectly. Susan finds in herself via her grandfather an inability to let go. be it a city or a berry harvest, she can't bring herself to see the big picture and walk away. avoidance isn't inherently a bad coping device. there are things worth avoiding, nazis for instance. Susan needs what Beckett has. one of the most telling parts of Sadie's story is an absence. she's the only of the three who never directly addresses the source of her problems in her grandparents. the "trying to trace the tumor" verse is only sung by Beckett and Susan. Sadie returns to the arcade and sees herself dissociating, "what happened? where did i go?" digging deeper isn't inherently a bad coping device. Sadie needs the reflection Susan has. and for all Susan's and Sadie's madness, they both had a structure. Beckett loses connection to people, to time, to reality, "he had basically stopped bathing at this point." a pendulum confounds him. he runs away from everything to the nth degree, and has nothing to fill it back up with. he clings to empty boxes. literally empty boxes. Beckett needs what Sadie has. they're each of them two layers removed. "don't be afraid to go deep." it takes the whole process for them to get all the way back. "the other two reached out their other hands."

#when i say solved i mean i'll probably be back with a different interpretation in a few days #three houses musical #malloysicals #dave malloy #as a mentally ill person i love the conclusion that my solution may be other mentally ill people and i am therefore someone else's solution

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hiddenhearthwitch · 1 year ago

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📚 Small Intro To Polytheism📚

One of the most frequent asks I receive is how and where to get started when it comes to polytheism. This is a fairly broad subject and I’ll try to be as general as I can for advice but I will include specific references for Norse polytheists as that’s my shit. This information can be used to help you find a pantheon or to help you pick deities to work with it. If you’d like to use it to pick a patron deity that’s super, if you want to worship 20 gods and not have a patron deity that’s cool too. You do you dude. Please keep in mind this is all reflective of my research and personal practice. 🌻

Picking A Pantheon/Deity

This really boils down to personal preference. You’ll read a lot of posts and books that tell you many different ways and it’s entirely up to you because it is your practice. That being said, there’s a couple of different ways to go about it.

Research! This is one of my favorite ways to delve in. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with reading the stories of multiple pantheons and picking on that calls to you. You can also talk to other devotees and see what they have to say about deities and their religions. It is important to keep in mind that some religions are closed so please do proper research!

For example, I wasn’t originally a Norse pagan. I read some stories and thought the Hellenic pantheon would best suit me. I reached out to Eros for a while but after feeling no real connection to the pantheon I continued my research! After reading up on the Norse pantheon I decided to reach out to them out. Obviously, I fucking loved it because here I am. Point being, you can pick a pantheon based on research and not some divine message or whatever. You are also more than welcome to try out a religion, decide it doesn’t suit you, and move on.

Divination! You can use runes, a pendulum, tarot, etc.This can go a few different ways. You can write pantheon/deity names on separate pieces of paper, mix them up, and place them face down then ask the pendulum to pick. You can assign a deity/pantheon to each suit of cards or major arcana card or even do the same thing with runes.

For example, this is how I found a devotion to Frigg and Hel. I asked if there were any deities who were interested in working with me and pulled the runes Hagalaz and Berkana which read as Hel and Frigg to me. I followed up with tarot cards and pulled Death(Hel) plus the Queen of Pentacles(Frigg).

Asking/waiting for a sign. This isn’t something I’ve personally done so I don’t have much to say on the subject. You can go about meditating, praying, doing a ritual, or whatever and essentially wait for a sign after. It can come via a dream, something you experience, symbols you see in your daily life, it’s pretty much up to your intuition to decipher it. If anyone has information they’d like me to add in here please let me know!

If there’s a god you’re curious about and don’t want to do any of the above it’s totally cool to just reach out and ask if they want to work with you.

Idk How To Research

Same, tbh my keyword search game is weak. Anyways, good portion of us are looking up dead religions with little reliable resources. To give those curious about the Norse an easy head start here’s a compiled list of books by yours truly(click me!!) . It’s important to take everything with a grain a salt of salt when doing research. In my experience a lot of the retold Norse sagas have been Christianized or written under heavy Wiccan influences. It’s a good idea to do research on the author before reading one of their books.

Other blogs! There are tons of great witches and pagans on tumblr that have information waiting for you. 💗 You can search their blog/tags for good references for books, websites, podcasts, etc. Plus lots of blogs are open to answer asks. If you don’t know where to start for searching it’s best to try things based around your interest like: “norse polytheist”, “hellenic witch”, “gaelic polytheism”, etc.

Media! How lucky are we that we live in the age of technology? Knowledge is right at our fingertips! There are countless documentaries, podcasts, and audiobooks on youtube full of information for different cultures and religions. I’d personally recommend almost anything by BBC, Myths & Legends, and World Mythology!

Books! I love starting on goodreads to find good books and trust worthy authors. They’ve had almost every book I looked up with bunches of different reviews so you can get varying perspectives. Check out your local library as well! A lot of city libraries have online databases now of all of their books so you can “check it out” online and read the PDF(personal fave).

Feeling Lost Still?

That’s completely reasonable and your feelings are more than valid. It can be overwhelming and lot of information to soak up. Just do your best and take it at your own pace, there’s no rush to find a deity or pantheon. 💞 Below are a few other general concerns I hear a lot that I was hoping to address.

“I’m leaving a monotheistic(Christian, Catholic, Jewish, etc) religion and it’s giving me anxiety.” This is entirely common and almost expected in my opinion. I was raised Roman Catholic and my first year to two looking into polytheism riddled me with anxiety. I was constantly concerned that god would smite me down or I’d face an eternity in hell for worshiping false gods. While I can’t speak for everyone that fear was entirely erased for me when I found my gods. I’ve never felt so safe and strong and hopefully with time you can find the same in your gods!

It’s okay to want to learn more or to seek something more. I can’t tell you how to handle your anxiety but please know you’re not alone in that fear. There’s whole communities out there willing to support you and help you find your safe space(including me)!

“What’s UPG?” You’ll see a lot of posts, mine included, that mention UPG - UPG is Unverified Personal Gnosis. This is essentially someone’s personal thoughts and beliefs about a deity. For example, I associate Sif with hazelnuts. There’s nothing in the lore or any book that says that she likes hazelnuts; that’s just a personal opinion(aka a UPG).

“How do I reach out to the gods?” I have a lot of information on my blog about this topic although a lot of it is Norse specific. You can check out my beginner polytheist tag here and my beginner norse post/ask here.

Altar! This is my go to typically. Altars aren’t limited to the cookie cutter image that comes to mind(no hate though I have a few); one thing you can make a side blog dedicated to your pantheon/deity, make a small one in a tin can, or even make one in a video game like Minecraft or some shit. You can be as creative or as to the book as you want. It’s up to you.

Prayer! You can totally just sit down and be like, “Hey man wanna work on some shit together?”. While I’m not 100% that all gods would be down with you being that casual it’s still something you can try.😂 You can reach out to them by sitting down in a quiet space and meditating into prayer, praying in the car or in the shower, or just pray at the altar you set up if you did. Again, I can not reiterate this enough, it’s your practice, reach out to them as you please.

Do something personal! This is more like devotional work in my opinion. Let’s say you knit and you want to reach out to a creative or domestic deity, you can knit something as a devotional act to them and as a way to reach out. For example I pick up litter in honor of the Vanir and Jörð, or I play Skyrim for Thor and Týr.

Most importantly just be honest and up front with the god that you’re reaching out too. Considering that statement be honest with yourself as well. There’s no point going into a relationship with a god if you can’t be upfront, it’ll end up in nothing but grief.

“Can deities reach out through gods/signs?” They totally can. However, it is up to you and your intuition if a deity has and it’s not likely another witch will decipher that for you. Sounds, experiences, images, all have different meanings to each of us - they may show you something that’s very personal to you but would be mundane to someone else. Trust your instincts. However, please remember that not everything is magical, sometimes a raven is just a raven and not Odin.

✨Take everything you learn with a grain of salt. Including this post.✨

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#my posts #witchblr #beginner witch #witch community #pagan tips #norse paganism #norse pagan #beginner pagan #paganism #heathenry #witch tips

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napoleonic-sexyman-tournament · 10 months ago

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Antoine Charles Louis de Lasalle:

a. “has no one submitted Lasalle yet????? The Hussar Devil himself, leader of the Infernal Brigade, the guy who captured a 5000 men strong fortress with just fucking 500 men in the Capitulation of Stettin, made Spain fucking tremble? Cavalrymen in general were known to b a flamboyant hard drinking womanising lot who gambled, duelled and were profligate scoundrels in general, and Lasalle was a Hussar of the Hussars, saying “Any hussar who isn't dead at the age of 30 is a blackguard.” He missed his target by 4 years, charging at the enemy in his usual leading from the front brave manner and getting shot in the head. When Napoleon gave him 200,000 francs for his wedding, Lasalle cheerfully admitted he spent half of it paying off debts and the rest gambling. Napoleon gave him another 200,000 francs, saying to a prefect asking why he wasn’t disciplined, "It only takes a stroke of a pen to create a prefect, but it takes twenty years to make a Lasalle". When Lasalle was reassigned from Spain to Germany in 1809, a friend asked him if he would travel via Paris. His response: “Yes, it's the shortest way. I shall arrive at 5am; I shall order a pair of boots; I shall make my wife pregnant, and I shall depart." He straight up Fucked a lot, look at that moustache and pipe. He also appears in Edgar Allan Poe’s torture fic The Pit And The Pendulum as the guy who saves the protagonist at the end from the over the top torture device, but baby, Lasalle was real as fuck.”

Horatio Nelson:

a. “Actual Ménage A Trois”

#napoleonic sexyman tournament

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chaos0pikachu · 1 year ago

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Is BL Being Overly Influenced by Modern Western Romance Tropes?

Short answer: No. anyways, in the following essay I will explain that James Cameron is a weeb...

(okay fine~~ lets actually do this)

TLDR: discussing what media globalization is, how fandom can distill it down to only American/European cinema, showcasing how a lot of current BL is influenced by countries within it's own proximity and NOT "the west" but each other, also James Cameron is still a weeb

I had seen a post that basically proposited that BL was being influenced by modern western romance tropes and had used things like omegaverse and mafia settings as an example. I found this, in a word, fucking annoying (oh, two words I guess) because it's micro-xenophobic to me.

It positions western - and really what we mean by this is American/European countries, we're not talking about South American countries are we? - cinema as the central breadbasket of all cinema in and of itself. Inherently, all following cinema must be in some way, shape, or form, influenced by American/European standards, and as such America/European countries are directly responsible for cinema everywhere else, and these places - namely non-white countries - do not influence each other, nor have their own histories in regards to storytelling or cinema and do not, in turn, also influence American/European film making either.

Now like, do I think all of that~~ is intentionally malicious thinking on behalf of folks in fandom? No, so chill out.

I do, however, think a lot of it is birthed from simple ignorance and growing up in an environment where ~The West~ is propagated to be central, individual, and exceptional as opposed to the monolith of "Asia" - by which we mean China, Korea, Japan don't we? How often in discussions of Asian countries is Iran, India, or Saudi Arabia brought up even tho they are all Asian countries? - or the monolith that is South America - in which some folks might believe regions like the Caribbean and/or Central America belong to, but nope there both North America.

Anyway, what we're talking about here is the concept of "media globalization":

"The production, distribution, and consumption of media products on a global scale, facilitating the exchange and diffusion of ideas cross-culturally." (source)

"The media industry is, in many ways, perfect for globalization, or the spread of global trade without regard for traditional political borders. [...] the low marginal costs of media mean that reaching a wider market creates much larger profit margins for media companies. [...] Media is largely a cultural product, and the transfer of such a product is likely to have an influence on the recipient’s culture." (source)

Typically when I see fandom discussing what falls under MG the topic is usually focused on how "the west" is influencing Thai/Korean/Chinese/Japanese media.

Enter, Pit Babe.

Surely Pit Babe was influenced by Supernatural right? Omegaverse is huge in the west - love it, hate it, meh it - it originated in the west - specifically via Supernatural after all.

Nah.

Omegaverse has been popular in Japan and China for almost a decade, if not longer. The earliest omegaverse manga I can think of is Pendulum: Juujin Omegaverse by Hana Hasumi which was released in 2015, almost a decade ago.

(what if you added furries into omegaverse? WHAT IF?? - Japan)

There's countless popular omegaverse manga too, and the dynamics only moderately resemble the ones we're familiar with in the west. Juujin is part omegaverse and part furry/beastmen - the alphas are all beastmen the omegas are humans - while something like Ookami-kun Is Not Scary only slightly resembles omegaverse dynamics as a hybrid series - beastmen are really popular in Japan in part b/c of historical mythology (you see the combination of romantic Beastmen and Japanese culture & folklore in Mamoru Hosoda's work The Boy and the Beast and Wolf Children).

Megumi & Tsugumi (2018) is so popular they're an official English edition published by VIZ's imprint SuBlime and that's a straight up omegaverse story.

(look at the omega symbol on the cover loud and proud baby)

So if Pit Babe was influenced by anything, it certainly wasn't "the west" it was Japan, Korea and China. Because those countries have a thriving omegaverse sub-genre going and have had such for 10 plus years now. Supernatural is popular in Japan, yes, and that may be where Japan and Japanese fans originally found omegaverse as a fictional sub-genre.

HOWEVER

Japanese fans took the sub-genre, bent it, played with it, and evolved it into their own thing. As such, other countries in their proximity, like Thailand, China, and Korea who read BL and GL manga, found it and were like "hey, we wanna play too!"

(is that an omegaverse yuri novel I spy?? yes, yes it is)

When I watched the Red Peafowl trailer, it had more in common with Kinnporsche, History: Trapped, along with films and shows like: Jet Li's The Enforcer, and Fist of Legend, Donnie Yen's Flash Point, Raging Fire, and Kung Fu Jungle, Han Dong-wook's The Worst of Evil, Kim Jin-Min's My Name, Lee Chung-hyeon's The Ballerina, Baik's Believer & Believer 2, Yoshie Kaoruhara's KeixYaku, popular Don Lee films The Gangster, the Cop and the Devil and Unstoppable alongside BL manga like Honto Yajuu and Bi No Isu (probably one of the most well known yazuka manga to date).

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Like, we're seeing a rise in mafia based BLs and people think that's because of "western influence" and not the absolute insane success of kinnporsche??? Especially in countries like China, Korea, Taiwan, Philippines and other Asian countries???

Mafia films and gang shows aren't even that popular here in America/Europe; don't get me wrong, they still get made and exist, but the last full length film was The Irishman which did not make it's budget back, and while Power is still on-going it's not a smash hit either. The heyday of Breaking Bad, The Sopranos, The Wire, Goodfellas, and Scarface are long gone. And if you've watched any those shows or films they have very little in common with Kei x Yaku, Kinnporsche, or Red Peafowl in tone, or style.

(who knew martin just wanted to make his al pacino/robert de niro fanfic come to life all these years?)

Another example, The Sign, which is clearly taking inspiration from Chinese costume dramas: Ashes of Love, Fairy and Devil, White Snake (and it's many adaptions), Guardian, & Ying Yang Master Dream of Eternity. Alongside Hong Kong and Korean cop and romance shows like Tale of the Nine-Tailed, Hotel Del Luna, Director Who Buys Me Dinner, First Love, Again, and previously mentioned cop dramas.

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Like, I know y'all don't think Twins is influenced by, what, American sports classic Angels in the Outfield?? Gridiron Gang?? Rocky?? Nah that shit is inspired by the popularity of sports manga like Haikyuu!!, Slam Dunk, Prince of Tennis (which even has a Chinese drama adaption), and the like. And also probably History 2, & Not Me but I'm like 87% sure Twins is just Haikyuu fanfic.

So like, does this mean that there's NO history in which American and European cinema influenced these countries? What, no, obviously that's not true, American/European totally have had media influence on countries like Korea, Japan, etc.

Astro Boy by Osamu Tezuka considered "the father of manga" was inspired by Walt Disney's work on Bambi. Another more recent and prominent example is director Yeon Sang-ho and his film Train to Busan.

"And it was Snyder’s movie [Dawn of the Dead, 2004], not the 1978 original, that filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho recalled as his first encounter with the undead. “That was when I started my interest in zombies,” Yeon said, in an email interview through a translator from South Korea. Even today, he added, “it’s the most memorable and intense zombie movie I’ve ever seen.”" (source)

HOWEVER, the global influence doesn't stop there. It's not a one-way street. Yeon Sang-Ho was inspired by Zack Synder's Dawn of the Dead, a remake of George Romero's own work, but Yeon Sang-Ho's work has inspired countless Korean film makers to make their own zombie media; following Train to Busan there's been: Kingdom (2019 - current), All of Us Are Dead (2022), Zombie Detective (2020), Zombieverse (2023), Alive (2020), Rampant (2018).

And hey, wouldn't you know it now we're starting to see more zombie media coming out of places like Japan (Zom 100 the manga, movie, and anime) and High School of the Dead.

Do you know what Domundi's series Zombivor (2023, pilot trailer only) reminds me of? It's NOT The Walking Dead (which is the only relevant zombie media America has created in the last decade) it's Korea's All of Us Are Dead (2022). Comparing the trailers, the settings, the tone, it's clear where Zombivor is pulling inspiration from: Korean zombie cinema. NOT American zombie cinema.

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In fact a lot of Domundi's shows - Cutie Pie, Middleman's Love, Naughty Babe, Bed Friend - are all very clearly inspired by Korean filmmaking, specifically that of romantic kdramas from the 2016 - 2020 era. Not always in story, but rather in technique.

This is media globalization. It's not simply ~The West~ influencing non-American/European countries but countries who are often more close in terms of: proximity, culture, and trade are going to have more influence on each other.

It is far more likely that Aoftion (Naughty Babe, Cutie Pie, Zombivor) was influenced by watching Train to Busan, All of Us Are Dead, and other Korean zombie shows and films than a single episode of Walking Dead.

My point isn't that this goes one way only, but rather it is very literally a global thing. This includes American and European film makers being influenced by non-American and European cinema.

Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Darren Aronofsky, Christopher Nolan, the Wachowski sisters, George Lucas and James Cameron have all been influenced by Japanese film making, especially the works of Akira Kurosawa, Satoshi Kon, and Mamoru Oshii.

John Wick's entire gun-fu sub-genre is heavily influenced by classic Hong Kong action films, specifically John Woo films. Legend of Korra, The Boondocks, Voltron, Young Justice, My Adventures with Superman are all obviously inspired by Japanese anime but animated by a Korean animation studio (Studio Mir). Beyond that, the rise in adult animated dramas like Castlevania, Critical Role Vox Machina, and Invincible to name a few are very clearly taking inspiration from anime in terms of style. The weebs that were watching Adult Swim's Inuyasha, Bleach, and Dragon Ball Z have grown up and are now working in Hollywood.

Okay so like, what's the point of all this? What's the issue? Since American/European cinema does influence et all cinema does any of this really matter?

YES.

I take contention with this line of thinking because it centers "the west" and our supposed individual importance way to much. Declaring definitively that "BL is being influenced by western tropes" and then including tropes, narratives, and film making styles that aren't inherently western and actually have major roots in the cinema of various Asian countries, removes the existence of individual history these countries have which are rich, varied, and nuanced. It removes the "global" part of globalization by declaring "the globe" is really just America and Europe.

It distills these countries down to static places that only exist when American/European audiences discover them.

BL doesn't exist in a vacuum you can trace the development of Korean BL to the development of Korean het dramas almost to a T. You can also trace their development to the queer history of each country and how Thailand interacts culturally with China, Japan, Korea, etc and vice versa. It also ignores the history of these countries influencing American cinema as well. Don't mistake "the globe" for only your sphere of experience.

Anyway James Cameron is a damn weeb y'all have a good night.

Check out other posts in the series:

Film Making? In My BL? - The Sign ep01 Edition | Aspect Ratio in Love for Love's Sake | Cinematography in My BL - Our Skyy2 vs kinnporsche, 2gether vs semantic error, 1000 Stars vs The Sign | How The Sign Uses CGI | Is BL Being Overly Influenced by Modern Western Romance Tropes?

[like these posts? drop me a couple pennies on ko-fi]

#kinnporsche #pit babe the series #the sign the series #twins the series #red peafowl the series #domundi #gmmtv #chaos pikachu speaks #fucking a this was an entire essay #i should drop a ko-fi link cause good god damn #chaos pikachu metas #Youtube #pikachu's bl film series

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