Consistancy Deficient Dork

Well everyone except Magical Mysteries Billy, who is watching from the side with a sense of horror.

MM!B: Why… why is everyone here like 10?

Movie Billy, who is leaning against a wall with a can of energy next to him, can only shrug.

MM!B: They are all kids, tweens at most! And all of them orphaned. Surely their wizards made some mistakes, right? RIGHT?

MM!Billy signs, turning towards his only “age buddy” in the room, who is mindlessly tapping the side of his can.

MM!B: at least there is one other wizard out there that chose an older kid.

M!Billy couldn’t help but cringe as MM!Billy said that, trying out a bunch of words before biting the bullet.

M!B: Uhm. I gained my powers when I was barely fourteen.

Cause I definitely don’t think so. To Billy, it’s a given. It’s what Shazam told him would happen. He would live a good, long human life of meaning and love and loss and hope, and then his spirit, and general magical essence, would go back to the RoE and harness its power to protect it and all of magic.

To Billy, it sounds beautiful. But he knows how it would sound to the many heroes he’s forged relationships with over the years. How they would think.

Just another way the Wizard took away his childhood.

Just another awful thing to happen to the boy who deserves only good things.

Just another way to lose the kid.

Just Billy thinking so little of himself that he expects us to do the same.

I don’t think Billy’s ever going to tell them on his own. Someone else would have to do it.

"Pantheon" asks a very ancient question: What does it mean to be human?

It's answer? Connections.

We're the neural pathways and firing synapses in this magnificent meat sitting in our skulls. But it's not just electric chemical signals. Those make us physically function, but they're not the only thing that makes us humans.

We're that stupid song we love to hate.

We're an argument with our siblings.

We're the compassion for a baby bird with a broken wing.

We're the grief when we lose someone.

We're the joyful memories that stay even after they're gone.

We're every relationship we make from loved ones to complete strangers, from close to distant, from real to imaginary, from material to theoretical.

We're made up of every single little thread of feeling that ties us together both inside ourselves and to others. Physical or digital, "real" or "simulated," those never go away. Even when you're "gone," whatever that means to you, the connections stay in one way or another.

We're all the things we learn from each other when we decide to make those connections; both when we reach out and reach back. Humans are woven together like a quilt, every one their own square yet all inextricably linked.

And y'know what? It's not the answer, because there never can be one to such a complicated question, but it's an answer I really like. Which the show portrayed in a really beautiful way that had me sobbing by the end.

First, you have Ellen, who represents denial. She lost her husband, David, and somewhat forces acceptance upon herself and her daughter. Even though the story picks up after David’s death, we see Ellen’s journey through grief when David comes back. Ellen’s acceptance of her loss is juxtaposed with denial. When her husband comes back, she’s confused and hurt. She doesn’t want to accept he’s back because, well how could she? She’s lived two long painful years without him. She’s gone through so much, having to accept that he’s gone just for hime to come back. She’s terrified with the pain that comes along side embracing him. If she accepts him as alive again, she also has to accept the possibility of losing him again. She has to learn to accept the pain that accompanies love. Even though she eventually accepts David, her denial to his resurrection is still highlighted earlier on in the show.

There’s also Chanda. He is a not so subtle representation of the anger associated with grief. He literally burns a building and kills a family because he was blinded by his grief. He was grieving his life, and how he would never live as he once did. All of his actions are propelled by his anger over the loss of his life. He is desperately trying to achieve what he never got the chance to while he was human. He’s trying to create the world he never got to live in. He can’t accept the way things are because he’s still stuck in his anger over his loss.

Next, there’s Cody. He represents bargaining. He can’t accept the loss of his wife, so he does anything minimize and postpone his sadness. He doesn’t question or deny Laurie when she comes back like Ellen did with David. Rather he accepts her without a second thought. His actions aren’t solely propelled by love, but rather his avoidance to pain. Even before he knew Laurie’s upload was successful, he didn’t accept that she was gone. He still felt that she was alive and the same as she had been. When she came back, he did anything for Laurie because he didn’t want to lose her or accept that things had changed. He did everything in his power to keep things the same and try to live as he did before. When Laurie is prepared to die to spread her message to the world, he doesn’t accept losing her again. Rather, he prepares to “reboot” her and keep thing the way the are, even though they’re not.

Next there’s Capsian, who represents depression. Now the thing he’s mourning is a bit different from the other characters in this analysis. He isn’t mourning the physical death of someone, but rather the death of his innocence. He found out he was a clone and that his entire life was a lie. Everything he thought he knew wasn’t real, and that’s terrifying. While he goes through the other stages of grief, the show draws attention to the depression part of grief through Caspain. He quickly recognizes the true extent of his loss but still struggles to accept and cope with it. Thus, he is easily manipulated by Pope and throws himself into curing the flaw because to him it’s a way to avoid the looming hopelessness of his situation. He’s lost interest and passion for the things he once cared about, and focuses on what he feels he has to do. He feels hopeless, and desperately trying to cure the flaw is his way of trying to reclaim agency. If he solves the problem, he regains some control over the hopelessness he feels.

Finally, there Maddie, who represents the complex journey to acceptance. Throughout the show, she experiences all the stages of grief. The show focuses on her journey to accepting the loss of her father and the life she once had. We watch her go through the stages of grief at her own pace and eventually come to terms with her loss. We watch her grow into the person that can eventually let her father pass. We watch her move forward despite her loss. She still is in unimaginable pain because of the death of her father, but she still keeps moving.

P A N T H E O N

"You can't stop the future."

Lil s1 movie-esque style poster to brainwash u into watching Pantheon! CRIMINALLY underrated sci-fi adult cartoon about Uploaded Intelligence (literally uploading your consciousness to the cloud) and it's effects on society starting from the intimate level of family and friends,scaling to the whole entire earth and beyond.

Rare w, 2 illustrations in one month 😳 I recently watched this on my husband's whim, and I am not even being a little bit dramatic by saying this show changed my life n altered my brain chemistry.

AMC fumbled the marketing on release in 2022, but it's now on NF! It's only 2 seasons, 8 eps each. Stream it NOW bc I need more fanart and peeps to talk to about it!!

Human Perry art by my personal favorite PnF fan artist @chio-chan2artbox

A few days ago, I randomly dreamt of Drawing Billy and Tawny in a fantasy setting.

Billy was this kid wizard and Tawny was his companion (or an animal to ride on like a horse)

Then it got me thinking, maybe in this setting, Mary could be someone of high status in this fantasy setting (since she's in a rich family in the golden age comics)

I'm inclined to think Freddy would be a captain of a ship for irony-sake but I have a feeling pirates and fantasy settings don't match well?

It's just funny for me to think of him with a peg leg xD

After further discussion with @the-brash-spud :

Warning: Too many text :>