Paige's Ponderings

I was too lazy to go back to that thread, but I'm still really charmed by the idea of AOS Kirk vs TOS Kirk in any gender configuration but especially (unsurprisingly) women, all the more if the retcons from the various films/TNG are treated as their own thing (the only way I can wrap my brain around them) so we're just at maximum contrast.

But I think this gets even better when you add in the idea of Mobei Jun getting frustrated in his attempts to win his strange little human's affection, and, in his pettier moments, deliberately trying to get caught by these kids who refuse to catch him.

Just imagine Mobei Jun, thinking that if he exposes Shang Qinghua as a traitor, then his human will have to seek refuge in the Ice Palace, and Mobei Jun can sweep him off his feet and into the nearest set of wedding robes. So, when Qinghua's not around, Mobei hunts down whatever closet Qinghua keeps Mobei's spare boots and fur-lined cloaks in and flings them across his floor to be discovered. He starts leaving the traditional animal-head courting gifts out on Qinghua's doorstep instead of on his desk. He "accidentally" encases half of Qinghua's leisure house in ice in the middle of summer. At one point, he heard disciples walking by and marched outside in full daylight, and still the children did not turn their heads to see the massive ice demon standing just outside their shizun's doorway.

Mobei Jun is starting to think that being very, very dense might just be one of the requirements for study on An Ding Peak. Meanwhile, Airplane is having a heart attack every other day from trying to cover up these stealth fails that no one cares about.

Spin the wheel again. That’s who’s trying to protect you.

(If you have zero idea about a name you got, spin until you see someone you recognize.)

Mobei-Jun: What?

Luo Binghe: According to Shizun and Shang-shishu, a 'gay awakening' is the moment you realize you're into men

Luo Binghe: For example, my gay awakening was seeing Shizun shirtless (although that is more of a Shizun awakening because I don't like other men)

Luo Binghe: What about you?

Mobei-Jun: ...

Many years ago

Mobei-Jun, doing nothing: ...

Voice of god: hey you

Mobei-Jun: Me?

Voice of god: yeah you, you like men

Mobei-Jun: ...ok

Present

Mobei-Jun: Same as everyone else's

emperor bing-ge gets a prophecy that he needs an empress to truly gain happiness so he starts testing out the wives for the position, mostly in order--Yingying is a little too cheerful and nothing gets done cos she won't order anything of consequence as she doesn't want to bother anyone, Mingyan flat out refuses cos its too much work (or she makes citizens rpf her danmei book plots)

the less said about the twelve hours Sha Hualing was empress the better, related this is also why he does not try the little palace mistress out (she does not take that well)

qin wanyue seems overwhelmed, qin wanrong is easily distracted, qiu haitang is passable but then stops paying attention to anything remotely relevant and he runs into the issue that all his human wives don't give a fuck about the demons and his demon wives don't care about the humans and his etc wives have their own issues, like his tree spirit wife who can't understand the passage of time and either takes two seconds for a question asked during an audience or six hours

eventually everyone, including the wives is tired of this shit and bing-ge spends a while tracking down the source for the prophet who created this prophecy and it's this weird ass hermit guy who spends most of his day looking at different monsters and traveling through towns handing out herbs and shit for various minor ills and has an eclectic but good reputation among all the villagers

and bing-ge is like WTF is this and the hermit guy (shen yuan obviously) was misquoted by this ancient prophetic being he had NO IDEA was using him for anything (they sensed his otherworldly presence) and thought he was merely discussing fan theories like in the forums--SY gets really annoyed and was like "I DID NOT say that, I said, if Bing-ge wants to be truly happy he needs to find someone who will love and accept him and SHARE his burden, like an empress. I mean if I had to pick one of the wives, I'd go with liu mingyan she's clearly the best."

insert bing-ge following hermit nerd shen yuan around trying to figure out what the fuck is his deal and plotting revenge on how he wasted like an entire year on this shit and it almost fucked up his entire rule and meanwhile shen yuan is doing his usual head pat, ooo tell me about monsters and cool fights appreciation thing and wifebeaming the hell out of him

then bing-ge figures it out and is like hey out of curiosity what are your ideas for the 3 realms that an empress should do and shen yuan has thought extensively about this now that he's seen some of the world building in person and comes up with some TOP NOTCH ideas (including universal childcare) that bing-ge starts slowly testing out and people go bonkers for--and his ideas are for everyone not just humans or demons

bing-ge tries to bait him with terrible things he's done to get him to reject him but shen yuan is like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ pobody's nerfect and passing all the tests thinking about how cool it is he gets to explore the world and be friends with bing-ge

meanwhile bing-ge is getting official empress shit together and planning a wedding for him and shen yuan

ZUKO & KATARA

OLIVIA RODRIGO → STUPID SONG

Avatar: The Last Airbender - Live Action (S1/S2)

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The literal most beautiful woman on Cang Qiong Mountain, whom Shizun keeps looking at approvingly and who also happens to look a lot like Liu Qingge (who Shizun thinks is pretty), would be off the market.

It'd get Sha Hualing to stop chasing after him, which would make her infinitely less annoying to work with.

Like, I would say that the film is both in direct conversation with classic superhero media and stands alone well. The movie DOES serve as a perfectly fine introduction to its genre, because it's a well-written movie that introduces all of its worldbuilding elements pretty clearly, but it also... it both moves pretty fast, operating under the assumption that you are roughly familiar with superhero media already, and doesn't seem to feel the need to justify itself.

People have flashy powers and improbable secret identities and silly costumes and superspy technology, and it's just... there. That's how this world works. It doesn't matter how Mr. Incredible or Elastigirl developed powers or started fighting crime or built relationships within the community, because that's not what the movie is about; that's the starting line. While the movie pokes fun at many of its own spec fic elements, it also hits the ground running, trusting the audience to catch up to "this is an established superhero" as it establishes the film's relevant problems.

I don't know, I feel like I've watched more than a few live-action superhero movies that I'd describe as "scared of their own basic concepts" and treat the audience as incapable of easily digesting the idea of some guy having superpowers or fighting big scary guys, as though that's not one of the oldest concepts on the clay tablets or in oral storytelling traditions. And so these films VERY slowly handhold the audience through an origin story. I'm bored of that; especially since it's been 22 YEARS since "The Incredibles" kicked off in medias res, followed by non-stop superhero movies every damn year.

dear reblogger how does it feel to be this correct