Note: I based the awnsers on the main characters, based on the combination of their personalities, the themes and tones of their respective shows that I believe would work in an potential crossover, and it's not, in any level, an attack on the other shows. Also, I didn't include any of the Showa Riders because I believe that all of them qualify (Especially #1 and #2)
The pope wasn't perfect but he was the reformer we needed (queer people, palestine, the environment, refugees and migrants, the poor and the homeless, probably even more) and if the church swings hard right then we are all SO COOKED
@important-animal-images
kunoichi sketch
https://twitter.com/koyoriin https://patreon.com/koyorin https://instagram.com/koyori_n https://bsky.app/profile/koyorin.bsky.social
i think it would be kinda fun to do a watch thru of every 'launching point' godzilla movie (as in, each film that's been presented as a titular introduction to a specific era or series. yes including both american versions). it would be a fun way to get a feel for how each iteration of the franchise has shifted.
it blows my mind how you can be a usamerican on this website and spend the past year+ reblogging posts about palestine, (rightfully) condemning the genocide, the occupation, denouncing zionism, and acknowledging that theres no excuse for joining the IOF, only to then turn around and suddenly act shocked and offended when the victims of US imperialism extend the same hatred and vitriol towards your military. all the horrific crimes the IOF is committing against the palestinian people, the US military has committed over and over across the globe, whether it is in cuba or korea, laos or afghanistan, iraq or vietnam, but god forbid you point this out because then all of a sudden the worlds most thin skinned people will crawl out of the woodworks to explain why US soldiers are actually just poor little meow meows. how are you any different from a zionist. be serious. and stop expecting the victims of your countrys imperialism, that you benefit from, to coddle you
bingewatching will never come close to bingereading. there is nothing like blocking out the entire Earth for ten hours to read a book in one sitting no food no water no shower no bra and emerging at the end with no idea what time it is or where you are, a dried-up prune that's sensitive to light and loud noises because you've been in your room in the dark reading by the glow of a single LED. it's like coming back after a three-month vacation in another dimension and now you have to go downstairs and make dinner. absolutely transcendental
Best Case Scenario: Someone buys the site, gets rid of the phobes, reverses the porn ban
Good Case Scenario: Nothing changes. Current owners keep the site, doesn’t get better, doesn’t get worse
Bad Case Scenario: Elon or Zuckerberg buys the site and all that entails
Worst Case Scenario: The site goes under, deleted permanently
Just for fun, because Sleepless Domain is amazing. Spoilers, of course.
Tessa is a self-centered character. When I say this, I am by no means saying that she is a bad person or doesn't care about her friends. But she elevates her own importance again, and again, and again.
Look at her bedroom. Yes, she has her whole team represented up top. But the rest of her décor is her own merch. Nine Alchemical Aether figurines. A costume. A fan. A lunchbox. A trading card. A button. Another bag with Aether's sigil as the clasp. Aether-themed jewelry. Possibly more, if the abstracted pink and yellow posters represent Aether as well.
Compare this to Undine's room. Very little Magical Girl merchandise! Like Tessa, she has Team Alchemical represented in doll form. Unlike Tessa, she doesn't have herself as one standalone, let alone several. (Fascinatingly, we see an Alchemical Air poster - did Sylvia, in her self-promotional way, give this to Undine? Or did Undine purchase the poster because she knows that Sylvia's Magical Girl earnings make up her family's income?)
Undine also has her friends represented in pre-Magical Girl form, in the photo on her mirror.
Now, let's look at Kokoro's room. Heartful Punch, like Alchemical Aether, is a super-powerful, popular, pink Magical Girl. You wouldn't know it from her bedroom, though. We've got some heart-shaped iconography, in the lamp. A Magical Girl poster for Team Forte - not Kokoro's team, but another team/band. The pink poster with the fist could easily be Heartful Punch merch, but it seems to be the only piece of self-promotional material, and a subtle example at that (semi-abstracted, without her face or name on it).
Undine and Kokoro's rooms are more about their interests than their Magical Girl identities. Kokoro has exercise equipment, cat things for Kicks, hair styling supplies. Undine has animal plushies, lots of books, her fish. Meanwhile, Tessa's room centers primarily around Alchemical Aether merch. She surrounds herself with her own image, and specifically with the Magical Girl version of her own image.
We know that, when Team Alchemical is alive, Tessa fixates on her status as their leader.
And, when Undine first gets her powers, Sylvia, Sally, and Gwen rush towards her with excitement for her -
- while Tessa hangs back, a slightly crestfallen look on her face. I don't think it's a reach to believe that she is disappointed that she isn't the one who got powers. Interestingly, Undine herself seems a bit surprised that she gets powers before Tessa.
Undine's assumption that Gwen or Tessa would become a Magical Girl before herself suggests that there is a dynamic among the friends, even before they are a Magical Girl team, in which some of the girls assume more significance within the group. Tessa is one of them. Further, while interstitial guest comics may not be canon, Undine finds her dream self standing on a very interesting mural.
Alchemical Aether dominates this scene. The other four girls are represented by their faces, enclosed in pink circles. Aether's full body looms serenely over them, hands clasped. Her sigil surrounds the whole tableau. In Undine's subconscious, Tessa has a literally outsized presence in relation to the rest of the team. Of course, this comes from Undine's mind, and not Tessa's. But we have reason to believe that Tessa sees herself this way as well…
Tessa's Dream, or, as Goops calls it, "a memory that should have been [Tessa's] all along." Is Goops an unbiased source? Absolutely not. But I believe that this sequence is indeed Tessa's Dream, up until the point that her hair and speech turn a Goops shade of purple and Goops crows, "Now you're starting to incorporate my memories." If you accept that this is indeed Tessa's Dream as it happened, these panels are chock full of things to unpack about her self-image. First, we find her in a palanquin, carried by her faceless friends. She wears royal adornment - a robe, a crown, a scepter.
Now, Tessa is surprised and alarmed to find herself in this position in relation to her friends. She shakes off the robe, she tells them that they don't have to carry her.
And they listen. When Undine turns to face Tessa, she is Alchemical Water. She thanks Tessa, and then all of the girls drop the palanquin and run off as Magical Girls. Tessa's crown falls off.
She calls for them to wait, but they do not. The curtain closes and she is alone.
In Tessa's subconscious, she finds herself above her friends, both literally as they lift her and figuratively as she wears the trappings of royalty while they wear plain white. Undine thanks Tessa before she lets go, suggesting that Tessa granted her permission. Critically, it is when the girls become magical that they leave her. There is a before, in which Tessa is the center of their friendship, and an after, in which they become new people, drop her, stop listening to her and leave her… she has been robbed of her crown, her status, because now they have something in common that she does not.
While Tessa is embarrassed by the display and tries to put a stop to it - she would never actually dress as a queen and ask her friends to carry her on their backs - the fact that her Dream manifests this scenario suggests that in Tessa's subconscious, she believes herself to be the center of their pre-Magical Girl friendship, and to have no place within their Magical Girl one without powers of her own. Again, I don't believe Tessa is a bad person. I believe she is sincere when she tells the Woman in White that she wants to use her own powers to help her friends.
That said, she presumes that her friends need her to help them. That presumption leads all the way up to that fateful, fatal night, when she holds back from patrol with the belief that the other girls will struggle without her and appreciate her more as their leader.
(They die without her, of course. But they die because Goops murders them, not in the course of a normal patrol. Aether obliterates the monster when she arrives, but only can because she arrives afterwards… that fall would have killed her, too.)
Tessa would hate to see herself as the queen of her friends. Yet, she has no trouble asserting that she is their leader, believes herself indispensable to them, and cannot handle them having something she does not.
Even her assertion to Undine and the way she takes the blame stems from the fact that she believes herself to be responsible for all of them.
That's why she's so vulnerable to Goops. She can easily be convinced that the situation is all about her.
Ironically, Tessa's self-absorption does not indicate high self-esteem. Quite the opposite - Tessa is deeply insecure. She feels upset when her friends get powers before her not only out of jealousy, but also out of fear that they will leave her behind. She believes that she has no value to them without powers. Thus, she pins everything on being magical, powerful, the leader. Being Aether. Goops perceives this, and tries to tempt her with the promise of more power…
And taunts her with the loss of her identity as Aether.
But by this point, Tessa has given up. Her self-absorption has devolved into self-loathing. She goes out to Goops with the intention of being killed.
The text in gray, the vestiges of Tessa's self-worth, are weaker than her self-blame. Tessa is overwhelmed by what she perceives as her failure - to save Undine, to be friends with Rue, to be a good daughter. "No one needs you anymore," she thinks. And if she cannot be needed, then what's the point of living at all?
And then there's TessaGoops. Is Tessa her puppet, or are they truly fused into one person? I'm still not sure. I suppose time will tell.
At the very least, I believe Aether's powers are still present, somehow, at least slightly. Why else would the spot where her sigil was glow when Undine approached?
I suspect it will matter, at some point, that Alchemical Water has a little bit of Alchemical Aether inside her.
We shall see!
Alandro, 26 (he/him), I love Tokusatsu, Crime Shows, Comic Books and Animation in general.Eu amo Tokusatsu, Series de Crime, Banda Desenhadas e Animação no geral.
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