#(anyway I just think they're neat and should be allowed to fuck about it)

[thatswhatsushesaid]

shitpost dispatches from the sangyao dungeons - [???/π] incorrect but plausibly canon quotes edition

[greyborn2]

Elisif headcanons now! (friendly tone ofc <3) Why do you think she would be a good marriage candidate? I'm curious :)

Yesssss!!! Okay - so this boils down to two categories. Personal interest in it, and underrated narrative JUICE. Starting with the former because its easier to begin with. So Elisif is just... she's neat. She's simultaneously one of the most politically important people in skyrim while also being COMPLETELY overshadowed by the men around her (Nobody talks about her, really, they talk of Torygg. The civil war isnt her vs ulfric, its TULLIUS vs ulfric. Her own decisions in court the first time we even see her are seemingly overruled on a dime by her own court, by Falk.). Its like she's this big thing of incredible importance and is constantly hidden away both in narrative and in game. But despite that, if you actually sneak in a bit, ignore all the big figures standing in front of her and propping themselves up on top of her, she has a surprising amount of meat to her.

Most of the Jarls are like... a few word summary at best. Greedy idiot boy, honourable honorman, paranoid bigot, old seer, etc etc etc. You get an initial impression of them and thats kinda it. Ulfric has a lot more, obviously, because he's a major character but it would *SEEM* that Elisif should be on the lower end of content. It takes so much to seek her out in her overshadowed little corner after all, but she has so so so much surprising stuff around her. The necromancer potema plot revolves around her, a whole big dialogue tree that isnt super common to see for a jarl, some touching personal quests that go into detail about how she saw her late husband. Its just all super compelling to me to have a character that, despite being so important, is *soooo* hidden away actually have some meat to her. Plus she's just a nice person!!! ANYWAYS!! PART 2!! The JUICE!!

For starters, I think, there should just be more opportunities for the dragonborn to play the political game if they want. Beyond just choosing a side in a war or ticking off their 'thane of everywhere' list, actually getting in on climbing the ladder and enmeshing oneself with the politics of the land they're in. BUT BUT... same can be said for Ulfric. Absolutely true. I do think he should also be a marriage candidate. BUT...

I think Elisif PARTICULARLY makes sense as a marriage opportunity that isn't one you seek out, but one that is put forward to the player. Specifically with an Imperial victory in the civil war.

The war is won. Alduin MAY or MAY NOT be slain. But either way, no matter what, at this point the dragonborn is a war hero, a champion of the people, and decorated imperial legate. And this would be fucking FRIGHTNING, I think, to the politicians back in Cyrodiil. There's a *history* of war hero dragonborns, popular with the people, turning on their commanders and declaring themselves emperor afterall. Oh boy is there a precedent. Suddenly they're the big figure in a war that was supposed to be Tullius' duty and they might start sweating in their boots a little.

SO... after the war is won... the legion starts... pushing. Just a little. A few letters, a few comments, that the dragonborn should maybe marry Elisif. Become High King by marriage. Lock them in and satisfy the war hero with a political title off in the ass end of the empire before they turn their gaze toward a ruby throne. Don't give them time to think on it. Ooooh look tasty treat right here shhhh dont think yes you did very good dragonborn yes yes be high king.

I think from there it could go one of three ways;

1) Last Dragonborn marries Elisif but with her actually agreeing to the union (after completing her personal quests) and she FINALLY steps out of the shadows. Rather than the expected you using her for power, she uses YOU for power. You allow yourself to be the thing she props herself up on and finally really starts coming into public view. Maybe to the nervousness of the Empire as she's a less eager puppet then they might have thought, now.

2) Last Dragonborn falls right into the trap the empire placed. You didnt do the quests for Elisif, she remains in the shadows, there's a loveless marriage and you get to be satisfied with a big title that hopefully keeps you occupied.

3) Last Dragonborn refuses all of this. Things seem to proceed as they do in canon but... well... maybe you notice a few more non-DB assassins using imperial weapons attacking you on the road then you did before. Curious.

[sixstepsaway]

I don't get why people want to pretend Ed wasn't abusive. Why do people insist on making everything into binaries? Yes, Ed has been a victim of abuse. Yes, he has been abusive. Both things can be true. I love him because I think he's in interesting and I understand where his pain is coming from (even if I think S2 was a missed opportunity in terms of character development). But anyway, thank you for writing about this because maybe some folks genuinely don't recognize abusive trends.

I think it has a lot to do with the fandom culture of only being allowed to like "wholesome" ships.

Look at it this way: when season 1 was airing, Ed and Stede were, in fact, very wholesome. Sure, they had some moments of lesser wholesomeness, but overall they were pretty wholesome and sweet and gentle. They were sweet and finding love in middle age and it was adorable. They had a general stamp of fandom approval that they were, in fact, Wholesome And Good To Ship™.

If you look at other fandoms, you'll see a lot of times there's the Good And Acceptable Ship and then there's the Bad Ship (or ships) and the Bad Ship is always slapped with the "oh that's actually incest!" label when they've, idk, grown up together, or "oh it's abusive!" because one of them one time made a bad joke or something, or "power dynamics!" because one is 27 and one is 25 or one is short and the other is tall or whatever, and yeah sometimes the Bad Ship is actually toxic or whatever (which is not a reason to not ship and enjoy it!), but they're put in neat little boxes: Good and Bad.

And for a lot of people, those boxes keep them safe. Last year, someone who was an Izzy Hands fan got doxxed because...? They liked Izzy Hands and shipped him with... I don't know actually. Ed? Stede? It doesn't matter, all I know is they got doxxed.

The side of fandom that thinks you should only ship the Good Ship are toxic and downright dangerous. It's happened again and again in numerous fandoms and just keeps happening.

So when at the end of s1, Ed turned around and cut Izzy's toe off and fed it to him, I think a lot of people panicked because shit, now Ed was Bad too, and if he's Bad then you can't like him or relate to him or ship him with the Good guy of Stede, so what the fuck do you do?

Obvious answer: Blame Izzy. Izzy's already classed as Bad, so put all the responsibility on Izzy for Ed's darkness and then it's safe to ship Ed and Stede again and no one can call you an abuse apologist or whatever for liking them together.

(To be clear: Shipping says nothing about your real morality. This is very clear for many reasons, one of which is... spend thirty seconds watching fans of the Wholesome Ships dox people and abuse people online lol)

So they spent all this time saying Ed was just scared and lashing out, and now s2 has come along and Ed is... well, abusive, canonically.

And for most of us, that doesn't really matter. We can still enjoy Ed and Stede or Ed and Izzy, we can throw ourselves into fanworks and enjoy the show for the things we like, and we can critique the things we have issues with (my problem is not Ed being written as dark and twisty and having a villain arc, my problem is the show writing it badly, exploring it badly, and then handwaving it, because it's shitty writing) and still really enjoy the vibes we got from the show.

But for people who are scared because they spent all this time saying Izzy fans should kill themselves for liking an abuser, well... now they have a choice: either admit Ed is an abuser and admit that liking a character doesn't dictate your irl morality, nor does it say anything about you aside from what you enjoy in fiction, or excuse away his actions, insist he's just a lil meow meow and continue feeling safe in their little bubble.

In a lot of ways I can't blame people for wanting to duck and cover from it. I mean, look at the shit people get for liking characters who aren't perfect, or talking about the imperfections of characters, or just enjoying complex narratives!

But what genuinely concerns me isn't anything to do with the fiction really, it's when people look at Ed's behavior in 2x01 and 2x02 and go, "Nah he's fine," because oh, honey, no, you are making yourself so vulnerable to real life abuse. That is what worries me, which is why I answered that one ask saying Ed wasn't abusive, it felt important to point out why he is.

Anyway, that's what I think is happening here. I think people are just scared that if they admit their fave has multitudes and isn't a perfect character who never does any wrong, they'll get doxxed and abused and harassed online.

I get that.

[cescalr]

wait hello?? please elaborate on the green haired lalna, i never watched soi

oh sure!

In... hmmmmm one episode, The Hand? maybe? where Honeydew and Xephos head into an ancient technological ruin (implied to be a giant death robot of some ilk), they find a whole bunch of "evil" honeydew clones that have degraded to mindless violence (implied they're non-sapient, lacking the mental capacity to go beyond base instinct because of how long they've been down there multiplying ad nauseam, each clone generation worsening with nobody to maintain the mechanisms), and tonnes of broken vats. However, one single cloning vat is still working - and there's a guy inside! That guy is fully buttoned up labcoat LividCoffee, with, for some reason, green hair. It's neat :D and fascinating. Lore wise. Extremely fascinating.

I went looking for proof - it's not The Hand (that's the "finale" lol); it's Doppelgängers - for some reason those episodes merged together in my head.

I also appear to be remembering him being alive completely wrong - for a uh, given value of 'alive'. given he's a zombie! and there's two of him. Whoops? I can't actually see good TM (hi, blind here) but people kept saying their hair was green back in the day and i absorbed that information. if it's wrong, I refuse to agree with reality! green haired lalna my beloved.

Also, again, my brain clearly likes to lie flagrantly to me, because while the honeydew clones are made by broken old machinery, that's because honeydew and xephos were fucking around again <3 idiots. I wonder what happens when you stand in the goddamn cloning vat and flick the lever.... buddies..... c'mon.

Anyway - there's two zombie (green haired! I'm not delusional!) Lalna's, which is even more fascinating than my shoddy memory allowed the situation to be, because that implies YogLabs devolved to making clones of clones at some point - along with giant death robots, but they were already doing that - after the Honeydew clone had to replace his original body because Testificate Betrayal Incident, even though Xephos knows with certainty that that's been worsening the quality of the cloning process due to.... well, all the failed Honeydew clones. and the Honeydew graveyard. That he makes Honeydew clones dig up. No he's not gone mental with grief what are you talking about.

Ahem. Judging by the state of SOI!Honeydew's clones, i think it's a mix of SOI!Honeydew being a pretty late-on clone-of-a-clone himself (remember, in Yogs canon all respawns are because of YogLabs, so in SOI for them to respawn - since they can respawn, I should say - they have to be clones.... though the time loop makes me question the metaphysics of it all; do they need vats in the present if the future is the past? Existential. Too existential for me. I like to think they do have vats in the present, in the bowels of what remains of YogLabs, deep in the heart of the desert (imo, it's the source of the desert, given that one YogLabs episode where, surprise surprise, Xephos had his team invent a thing that did the sand-ening process you see in SOI; in SOI, sand is like this organism that eats everything it touches, turning it into more sand, which works with YL lore because, hey, that's what the thing they made did! Tangent. Sorry).) and the machines being super borked. Amnesiac 1st gen clone Xephos* (original Xephos is currently running around as Israphel, imo - protag Xephos is a clone of an earlier, more stable version of the man who did a lil' rebellion <3 because orig!Xeph went. Um. Megalomaniacal) obviously wouldn't know any better than to flick the lever, lol. Just noting all that as I think it corroborates the ideas about YogLabs and cloning the canon gave me. (though i clearly need to rewatch the canon, given all my minor inaccuracies add up pretty heavily towards bad meta, and I hate making bad meta :( I love meta! I have an creative writing degree!!! I don't wanna make bad meta!!!!!!!)

Anyway: Green Haired Lalna! The reason it's so fascinating to see our zombie boy duo is that this is his first and only appearance(s) in SOI; we never meet an alive Lalnable Hector or Lalna LividCoffee. This implies a lot; there's no Lal alive because all his anchor clones are dead, perhaps. Or his clones are the characters Duncan Jones portrayed, made unrecognisable by time, the time-loop amnesia, and mechanical mishaps with the cloning process so they look a lil' different - it could explain why everyone in SOI is.... Like That. (Everyone in SOI acts like a faulty clone(-of-a-clone-of-a-clone-etc); a little not all there, in some respects, and extreme caricatures of themselves besides). There's a bunch of options! All of them pretty valid, 'cause of how fast and loose YogsMC plays with its own continuity, as an improv semi-scripted series with.... plenty of unfinished storylines. More for me to mess with! As a writer i appreciate the sandbox. As an audience member I shake my fist at the sky in great torment! /joke. Am a bit miffed still, though. Over a decade later (jeez. youch. augh. I was 11, holy shit....).

I think I'll have to change what I said in the tags of the Lalnable post, though, because i was working off of bad memory for that opinion.

I still think FB!Lalnable Hector is a direct clone of anchor lalna, but i'm no longer certain either of the lalnas we see in SOI are original lalna - rather, also direct clones of anchor lalna used to created manpower for the operation of the giant death robot; why hire a 12 man crew when you can clone one from the same man at 2x speed? And as we can see in YL 2nd gen (clone-of-clone) clones aren't unstable enough for this to be a bad idea; Honeydew post-replacement may have less.... wherewithal... but he's not entirely incapacitated by clone degeneration - current YL!Honeydew may be a poor imitation friend for Xephos, but he could still pilot a death robot! So I think I'm going with: whatever war YogLabs was fighting in to warrant the death robots (we know Xephos is spending a lot of YL prepping for war with various foreign nations, so this isn't an unlikely event - in some ways he appears to be actively seeking that outcome, because he's speedrunning self-fulfilling time-loop shenanigans i guess.) got desperate enough they used cloning to bulk up manpower numbers, and in typical YL fashion they borked it by cutting corners on the mechanisms of this fact, by using sub-par machinery and clones-of-clones-of-clones, who can definitely pilot death robots but may not have the sheer brilliance of their original (lalnable hector, in this instance, being a certifiable genius, and his clones are smart, but less-and-less so due to the way YL cloning works) so they fuck up more often and thus the systems in place start failing, and lo and behold you have two zombie Lalnas in cloning vats, how did they zombify?????? How??????? What was in the genetic material sludge they were floating in for [time loop confusing the timeline; no actual idea how long it takes for All That to go down] to do that.

Anyway; now i have thoughts!!! So many of them. Thank you for the ask or I'd have gone on with my goldfish sieve memory assumptions about SOI/YL/Lalna and been worse off for it. Also, I just like canon accuracy. Being able to fuck with canon and take it to its logical extremes is what i find fun, personally. Canon complicit, i heard it called - I like that one. Not compliant. That implies bowing under pressure. No no. I'm in on the evil scheme entirely willingly. Enthusiastically, even!

Anyway: Yeah. Green Haired Lalnable Hectors / LividCoffee(s) my beloveds. I do wish one of them had been alive, because I love SOI's silly little grandfather paradox (Xephos = Israphel, and all it's horrible no good brain melting implications) interpretation, and if one of them had been alive then you could infer a second grandfather paradox - lalnable hector's clone is his original existance; wait, what? - because fucking with whatever 'original' timeline absolutely screwed and destabilized this one. And it didn't even work! Xephos, you never cease to amaze me in the many ways you can fail spectacularly at things. Pathetic main character that never wins long-term <3 Doomed by the very narrative he created! Glorious.

... this was a Lalna ask. Lol. Sorry! I never get to talk about yogsmc. I have so many thoughts.

Anyway: that's basically it, I think? Lalnas in vats; do with this what you will! Fascinating stuff, truly.

(That was not particularly well constructed, lol, but i hope it was interesting anyway!)

[cadybear420]

Cadybear's MC Wardrobes: Alan Parke, OG HSS Book 2. Featuring some edits by me!

How this series goes: With each book, for a MC I'm invested in, I'll assess each of their in-game outfits. How much do I like or dislike the outfit? Is this something that suits my MC's style, or does it make me go "My MC would NOT wear/own this"? And for the outfits that my MC would not wear or own, how would I alter or replace them? I'm not going to use screenshots from the actual game because I can't be arsed. Also I want to use the different sprite expressions to express how my MC would feel about each outfit.

I like to think this is a good opportunity to elaborate on my MCs' dress styles, and show off some edits :D

Now let's see how well the Book 2 outfits does justice to Alan!

Directory for the other parts will be included in the reblogs after I've completed the posts for all books!

Ch 1: "Hipster Handsome", "Winter Wonderland", and "Snow Day" Starter Outfits

These outfits are pretty neat. I think Alan would like the scarf and jacket from hipster handsome and the sweater in the winter wonderland one. But that's about it. Even then, they're not quite his style.

Verdict: Only the first two outfits are in Alan's wardrobe, and only partly. Alter by combining some pieces and adding a skirt.

Here's something more in his style. Weather appropriate, but still stylish.

Ch 1: "Live From Berry High" Outfit for Tiger News

It's nice, but he'd prefer the f!MC's version. This looks more like the m!version of the premium casual "Make A Statement" outfit from f!MC's wardrobe. Hence, something Evie would wear as a semiformal/date night thing (reminder to self: edit this outfit onto Evie).

Verdict: Alan would not wear this. Replace entirely.

Here's what he'd prefer.

BONUS ROUND: Ch 2: Basketball Uniform

Doesn't look bad on him, but not really his style either.

Verdict: Technically not in Alan's wardrobe because you have to return uniforms, but he wouldn't care for it either way.

Ch 3: "OMB Tigers" for Winter Carnival

Solid look, but he deserves to have a little "B" necklace like the f!MC version has.

Verdict: Part of Alan's wardrobe, but needs the addition of an extra piece. Alter by adding necklace. And replacing pants with skirt.

Here's the look in Alan's style.

Ch 7: "Evening Jade" for Maria's birthday party

This actually looks really nice on him! The tie goes with his hair. But it isn't really his preferred style.

Verdict: Alan would not own this. Replace entirely.

Obviously, I'm gonna give him a dress. I wanna keep it just nice enough for the restaurant, but still have a bit of a casual feel to it and not overly flashy, and somewhat maintain the aesthetic of the original. As much as he loves to grab people's attention with his dress style and make things all about him, he knows better than to upstage the birthday girl. Especially since he likes the birthday girl. I already made him lean into self-centered jerk in Book 2's storyline, no need to top that by having him straight up upstage the birthday gir...

...oh fuck it. His logic is that he should wear something extra nice to celebrate the special day of a girl he likes. And also that she gets some good eyecandy on her birthday. I don't think Maria would mind. Classic Alan Parke.

And I do still plan to make new outfits for the other characters for this event. Stay tuned.

Ch 11: "Clean Sweep" Janitor Disguise

Not his usual style, but he rocks the look, ngl. It's worth disguising himself.

Verdict: Alan would wear as a disguise, but he would not own this item (and I'm not sure if he'd be allowed to anyways). Keep it as is.

Ch 14: "Saturday Night" and "Forever Young" Premium Outfit for Payton's Winter Party

Ohhhhhh my god these have got to be the PLAINEST outfits in the whole game. They make the pool party outfit look like a met gala fashion show outfit. Legit the f!MC options are a shimmery gold sequin top and a bright pink tight top with a short pattern skirt, and then the m!MC outfits are THIS poopoo-colored shit!?!?!

I'm having a hard time deciding which is blander. The button-up on the first one kind of looks like snow falling in the night sky which is a bit of a nice touch, and I'd also say the blazer at least looks appropriate for the party setting but DID IT HAVE TO BE BROWN???? Meanwhile, the second one has a much better color scheme, but it's so plain and casual??? The f!MC's pink tank top and skirt outfit could also be technically considered casual, but it at least had a distinct style and some eyecatching design that I can actually buy the other characters fawning over them. I can not buy that with either of these.

Verdict: Alan would NOT own either of these. Replace entirely.

Here's the outfit that Alan WOULD wear, from the f!MC's options again.

[put-me-out-of-my-destiny]

Proposing V for the ask game, if you're still doing it?

My favorite thing about V:

On a narrative level, he represents the best quality of DMC5, it's fleshing out of Vergil. I love that deep down, underneath the fear-driven quest for power, Vergil is a soft goth boy who loves a particular poet so much he makes it his whole personality. Plus, I love the interpretation that he looks so young because Vergil lost so much of his life to being Nelo Angelo.

On a gameplay level, I love how you can make V constantly taunt while making his minions fight.

My least favorite thing about V:

On a narrative level, as much as I love his voice and design, it would have been so cool if he was a woman instead. Besides the Implications, it would be a neat way of nodding to his human mother. Also, I've been told that the literary character that Urizen is named after is a part of a dyad, the other half of which is a female deity. And DMC5 sorely fumbles it's female representation anyway, having a playable female character might have won it some points (though realistically, there's a good chance they would have fucked up her design, and the hate toward her playstyle would be so much more vitriolic).

Speaking of playstyle, on a gameplay level, I do enjoy playing as V, but the moveset definitely needs more development. I don't like that V's evasive actions require his familiars because you have to interrupt their combat (and even Griffon's attack charging) in order to use them, even though the whole point of V seems to be multitasking. Plus, the hidden range limit for the minions can really screw you, especially considering that Shadow's attacks can easily take it outside of that limit, causing it to teleport back to V's side and interrupt your attack strings. And what's sad is that due to unpopularity, there's a real chance that we won't get to see a new iteration of this playstyle.

(There's even a series in my pinned post all about a certain character ending up in this position, just saying).

My favorite line by V:

It's hard to say, since he has one of the best if not the best vocal performances in the game. I do like that he says "it's my turn to play with the Devil Sword" at one point.

My "brOTP" for V:

I love his friendship with Griffon. It's a shame it got no closure whatsoever because the writers decided they wanted to magically wipe away Vergil's trauma via DMC1 callback boss fight.

My "OTP" for V:

I don't generally like ships for Vergil, but one that I would entertain is one with Lucia. I see the humor in her meeting a man who's just as handsome as Dante but with none of the charm, and realizing she's actually fine with that. Plus, Vergil is far more comfortable with his demon side than his human side, and I think that would extend to Lucia. He would think her devil form is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, and he'd be right. Lucia deserves a handsome loser boyfriend who loves the demon in her so much that she learns to love it too, especially since he also comes with a giant stoic tree man with sharp teeth and tentacles, and of course our favorite poetry-lover.

My "nOTP" for V:

Nero x V is sadly popular, even though they're literally father and son. And even when talking about just V, not Urizen or Vergil as a whole, I don't care for shipping him with Lady. She doesn't even fucking like him, nor should she.

A random headcanon about V:

I think his cane is tied to Rebellion in some way. Perhaps it simply contains some of the same materials, which is why it's good at conducting demonic power, and why it allowed him to reunite with Urizen.

An unpopular opinion about V:

While I am firmly in the "V and Vergil are the same character and that isn't a bad thing" camp, I am sympathetic to the wish that V was his own character. I cannot fault someone for loving V but not finding Vergil interesting, and I don't think it's worth getting mad at them over.

A song I associate with V:

Besides Crimson Cloud? There's a "combo mad" sort of video from time to time titled Void Violin, it features some good music.

My favorite picture of V:

That gif of him tripping and dropping his free taco.

[fanvoidkeith]

holy shit the hazbin hotel show. wow. incredible. very neat that they went for an almost-musical style because they had so much lore

BY THE WAY! this is a going to be a LONG, ramble-y, spoiler-filled post, so i'm going to put a readmore here and my thoughts on the show will be under the cut. if you don't want to be spoiled for the Hazbin Hotel Official Show TM or don't like hazbin hotel... probably don't read the rest of this post lmao

anyways. here's all my thoughts on it, pretty much. enjoy! :]

i need one of those cat creatures immediately KEESHEE IS SO CUUUTE AWWWW. oh they're called keeshee because that's the. the key. to the hazbin hotel HOW DID I NOT NOTICE THAT UNTIL I FINISHED WATCHING THE SHOW

oh fuck there's just been a huge massacre. rip. this happens every year. i guess charlie isn't really allowed to mourn or grieve for long though? which is weird because it seems like she cares the MOST about her people (demons), so she should at least be allowed to cry about it. maybe sob and wail a little bit, y'know? also be ANGRY ABOUT IT. it'll give her more oomf if she gets to be angry on screen, y'know?

there's kind of a lot of songs but besides the very first one- "a happy day in hell", i think- i like them. the first one kept moving the "camera" around too much, so it was hard to focus

i think something is deeply wrong with niffty, but assuming her connection to alastor is voluntary... yeah i can see it. they're allies (maybe friends?) for a reason

angel dust my boy

SIR PENTIOUS MY BOY!!!!!!!!

sir pentious taking a small chunk out of alastor's coat and alastor getting PISSED was cool. especially because apparently "no one's gotten this much before". damn, dude

poor charlie trying to help these people who have no idea how to accept help because she's demon-born, one of the highest-ranking people in hell, and the rarest sort of person in hell- kind

"let's do trust falls!" charlie says, as most of her little group doesn't do the exercise and niffty uses it as an excuse for her masochist tendencies

angel dust taking them to a night club is kinda funny. sir pentious probably hasn't seen ANY of this shit before. neither has charlie, probably. idk about vaggie, but she's obviously uncomfortable. and oh my god niffty WOULD love being a dom, but honestly probably not for the sex reasons. i don't see her as that kinda person lol, considering she spends most of the show talking about pain and killing bugs with a knife

charlie's mom has been missing for seven years

how is adam an angel if he's an asshole and he hates women? genuine question. of course heaven's judgemental and shit- helluva boss's angels proved that- but like, why is the guy who's basically in charge THAT much of a dipshit

wait alastor's been missing for seven years too??

COINCIDENCE: I THINK NOT. alastor and lilith connection???

valentino is a bitch, naturally. and so are his cronies. and that tv guy. "the vees" or whatever

oh is the tv dude hating alastor a reference to the song "video killed the radio star" because that'd be funny

"he tried to recruit me and now he's mad i said no :)" and y'know what, alastor? slay

"hey, how did you miss me guys?" "we didn't, but i guess you show up anyways" "..." great job alastor, disappearing for seven whole years didn't make you more famous/infamous lol

AN ANGEL EXTERMINATOR IS DEAD AND BEHEADED. WHAT. HOW

there are demons older than alastor??? i mean. damn. that's crazy bro. lol

nooo angel not everyone thinks you're a crackhead!! :(

oh gods, angel dust's trauma. oh god. oh no

ANGEL. ANTHONY. ANGEL DUST MY BOYYYYY 😭

sick ass song though, reminds me of addict (his previous song that's not in the hazbin pilot or hazbin show but is probably still canon anyways)

angel dust and husk's rivalry-turned-i-guess-you're-alright-now thing was neat AND THEY HAD A SONG TOGETHER YESSSSS THAT WAS AMAZINGGGG

WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE HUSKER WAS ONE OF THE OVERLORD HIGH RANKING DEMONS AT ONE POINT WHAT THE FUCK????????

guess we know kinda why he owes alastor "a favor" now, because he was a chronic gambler

why did vaggie get a random duet with this random lady (carmilla arms dealer woman)

okay sir pentious (my boy, i love him, he's my son) calling vaggie "vagatha" was kinda funny

are we SURE that carmilla isn't a former angel? she probably isn't, but she sure is knowledgeable of them

charlie going to heaven to try and bargain with the angels and then using The Orb to cut to the B plot was pretty smart, actually. fucking LOVED that idea. heaven is literally watching, everyone :)

angel dust protecting his friendssss aughhhhh

FUCK valentino. FUCKKKK VALENTINO I HATE HIM. i hate that his moth demon design thing is cool because if it wasn't i could fully hate him

okayyyy SO vaggie's previous backstory as a pop star who committed suicide has been retconned. alright then. they said "what will give our beloved fans the MOST heartache? i know! let's make charlie's girlfriend with an underdeveloped sense of character in this show because the pacing kinda sucks a FORMER ANGEL. A KILLER ONE. THE MURDEROUS ONES THAT WE'RE TRYING TO STOP"

girl. vaggie. it's pretty obvious now that i'm looking back that everyone knows you're an angel. EXCEPT FOR ME, APPARENTLY. BECAUSE SHE HAD A DIFFERENT BACKSTORY PREVIOUSLY. WHAT

NO ONE KNOWS HOW ANYONE GETS INTO HEAVEN?????

andnfjfgjsjdn the pacing again- i was laughing at a joke they made in the show and suddenly they cut to charlie sobbing 💀 i had to rewind to be able to process that- augh

didn't love charlie getting stressed and sad- poor charlie- but LOVED charlie telling alastor FUCK YOU. that was awesome

"oh, alastor, i know you're an ace in the hole" "i'm a what now?" rosie's telling you you're asexual, alastor

vaggie telling the hotel residents that she'd understand if they left

nooo charlie and vaggie fighting actually means something now :(

OMG CARMILLA GOT HER OWN SONG YESSSS i love it

charlie yelling "FUCK YOU, YOU OLD BITCH" at that lady in cannibal town was awesome

VAGGIE AND CHARLIE COME BACK TO THE HAZBIN RESIDENTS TRYING TO FORTIFY THE HOTEL AAAAAWWWW

charlie getting vaggie a souvenir from cannibal town and vaggie immediately tearing up because she knew charlie forgave her was cuuuute

FUCK YEAH GIRLFRIENDS KISSING!! WHOOOOOO LET'S GO GAY PEOPLE!!! I LOVE IT

*smash bros ultimate announcer voice* EVERYONE IS HERE!

except for like... most of hell lmao

at least the vee's are watching lol

THE FINAL FIGHT WAS SO COOL OH MY GODSSS

charlie's war gear being a dress that looked like an APPLE CORE LIKE HER DAD AAAAAAAAAAA

NOOOO ALASTOR!! oh he's fine actually. thanks vox for confirming that alastor's not dead lmao

aww sir pentious actually got to show his interest in cherri bomb without chickening outttt awwwww

NOOOO MY BOY SIR PENTIOUS NOOOOOOOOOO HE SACRIFICED HIMSEEEELFFFFFFFF FUCK DUDE NOOO

fun fact: i actually had to pause the show for a few seconds to put my head in my hands because NOOO SIR PENTIOUS MY SON BOY BABY BOY

FATHER'S HERE TO SAVE HIS DAUGHTERRR

i love how easily lucifer dodged adam's attacks lmao

"TASTE MY MERCY, BITCH" another iconic line from mr. duck-collector king-of-hell himself

niffty coming in and stabbing adam a bunch of times was awesome

"charlie told me to stab, so i stabbed :)" niffty. love her. weird little freak. epic

alastor coming back to the hotel ONLY after a breakdown and being like "i'm fine now guys :)" is... uncannily relatable LMAO

"ugh, this guy" lucifer. he nearly died, calm down with the sass for a second, sir

"i will never understand your taste" me neither, alastor. i don't think anyone quite understands niffty

the news describing it as "lucifer's pathetic daughter saved by her daddy" makes sense but. jeez what an asshole way to put it. she's an adult! and the PRINCESS OF HELL no less!!

AAAAAAAAAA MY BOY SIR PENTIOUSSSSSSSS AUGH

"uhhh.... where am i?"

emily's face being ":D!!" and sera's face being like. horrified. was amazing

[necrotic-nephilim]

any pairings for terry mcginnis?

oh good question!

to be honest, not a *ton*. i think the Batman Beyond universe is a decent show for background noise, but i don't really think about it a ton when it comes to fandom. honestly i don't really consider Terry to be a Batfam member, nor do i think he should be. i'm of the opinion Terry shouldn't be the successor of the mantle in the main timeline bc he doesn't work in the main timeline. he works well in his own world, but the idea that fo *all* the Batfam, the person to take up the mantle is a random kid who happens upon the Batcave to me, is unsatisfying. so i tend not to think of him in relation to the other characters, but as his own sequestered person. i know there are comics with him, but i haven't read them and tbh, am not interested in doing so.

that said, i am a sucker for Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker and all the Joker Junior potential, so. i have had the idea for a fic for a while where Terry ends up in the past for an indefinite amount of time, while Tim is still Robin and/or Red Robin. and Terry knows what will happen to Tim and under Bruce's orders of not fucking up the future too much, isn't allowed to say shit. but a tragic romance happens where they sort of fall in love, all while Tim knows *something* happens to him that's making Terry so flighty about the future. like a tragic fic where there's no happy ending, but bc of that, i do ship them. i think it's so fun for Terry to know what will happen and be unable to stop it, yet fall in love with Tim anyway. delightfully fucked up ship, imo.

also a fan of Damian/Terry. i despise the whole thing with Terry being Bruce's biological child bc to me, it ruins a lot of the themes of Terry's character, but honestly idc if they're biologically related. it's sort of more fun if they are. Damian being so convinced he's going to inherit the mantle he was born for, and then being replaced with a *random* kid who he can beat in a fight and he knows it is *infuriating*. even more infuriating if Terry is Bruce's son and there's a biological element to it, bc Terry was Right but Damian was Wrong for no explained reason. of what i know about Damian in the Future's End comics, i do enjoy the role he has, leading the League and taking Ra's' places. i think it makes Damian and Terry mirrors of each other and they really deserve to fuck about it. there's a lot of good complex fodder there.

also think Terry and Jason could be neat. i don't have many thoughts on that one, bc i know very little about Jason in Future's End, but i do think Jason would be predictably weird and unhinged over the new fresh Batman. there's potential there. i just need to think about it, but i know it's there.

also Terry and his canon girlfriend are pretty cute. she put up with too much shit from him, but she was cute and i liked her. i wish i had more thoughts, but Terry does tend to fall outside of my wheelhouse, hope this still satisfies you tho, anon!

[chaifootsteps]

College anon bored out of their mind again: People need to stop shitting on the new VAs. Y'all aren't fucking children. That's cruel and Vivzie Stan-like behavior. They're GOOD. They're OBJECTIVELY good. That's what is so annoying! She DID get talented people, people who are trying to make their way into animation at that, for her shitty show and into her drama. THAT is their legacy. It's an awful start for them.

I cannot tell you how annoyed I am that HH is this disappointing and that my girl Erika is in it. She deserves to get a real princess role. Brightman is a delight and his vocal abilities, that cannot be replicated on this level mind you, are likely not exploited. I still haven't watched the leaks but I SWEAR to GOD if Viv didn't make him use his normal voice instead of his Beetlejuice one to differenciate our funny snake loser from Fizz, I will lose my shit. You literally hired someone who can do BOTH and has amazing wacky energy and you just??? Don't use it?? What.

Back to Erika and Charlie. I think she's a perfect fit. Charlie has been called a "Disney Princess stuck in Hell" for years and by everyone. Erika has the voice and energy for it. I remember people saying it when she was in Mean Girls, her performance as Cady was so endearing! My only problem is that I doubt that Viv had her do what the old singing VA did: going into opera-like vocals at times. Maybe the old VA didn't do it on purpose but it WORKED. It gives that Heaven-like vibe to Charlie which is important and a neat detail. As if she were trying to be like an angel. A reminder that her father was one. A hint that she's a good person, a pure person. It makes her different. I wish, because I know it won't happen, that we got notes like that from time to time, when the songs allow it, along with the princess vocals. I have SO MUCH to complain about when it comes to Charlie. In five minutes, I can create a more complex character than Viv could in over FOUR years. It's so easy it writes itself. Bet if she were a dude Viv would have tried making her an actual character.

As for the hot topic, I haven't seen the Poison leaks. I like the song. It's good, Blake has a nice voice that I wish wasn't hindered by the nasal tone he was forced to use. His own songs sound beautiful. I wish we could have one like that in the show, pure and almost haunting, which would show a new facet of Angel's personality, a certain vulnerability, the hurt he's hiding or denying. Thinking of him, there's so much to say too. Viv had potential but just HAD to make him into another uwu softboy who did nothing wrong and was hurt by the world. Anyway, back to the main thing: Poison is good. But it will NOT fit into the show. Musically and performance-wise, it's a fucking pop song. Unless the visuals were vague, kinda like in Two Minute Notice at the "crushed under your feet" part (oh and Fizz is a much better take at the archetype than Angel), it will not fit in. The only thing I can imagine is a singer in the middle of a performance... And that is NOT related to Angel and will not serve his story properly. I just know I will be staring at the screen dead inside whenever it comes on because it's such a poor choice and waste of time.

There's a metal cover where the vocal performance is better IMHO because there's vulnerability and emotion in it. Like you can feel he's having doubts about what he's saying, that he doesn't really like it. It still wouldn't fit into the show because there's NOTHING there. The lyrics don't work for a musical.

I think he should only have ONE solo song for his story. He's not the main character so he cannot clog too much of the runtime. And that song? A sorrowful and slow solo where he's actually vulnerable. Have him participate in other songs, bringing in a pop sound every time he's in (with some polka like that one character song Gooseworks had done years ago to spice his musical identity up) and fun energy. That way, the moment the spotlight is finally on him and only him, we get whiplash as the funny sex guy finally puts down his walls and stops with the obvious facade. That's his turning point, that is the moment we KNOW that this guy can be redeemed. That he WANTS to. That what Charlie is working for is possible. And motherfucking Blake Roman can sound like the beast that he is with his actual voice and impossibly beautiful high notes. Ffs I heard a slower down version of Poison that was SO good! It's deeper which makes it work infinitely better.

Sorry for the huge rant but not sorry enough to say that I won't be back to bitch about the missed potential here. Vivziepop is SO close to achieving what she wanted, a GOOD and interesting show, but she keeps falling short. Think, Vivianne, THINK

...Now, you said you haven't seen the leaks, so I'm not gonna say too much in the way of spoilers. There's...a lot to shit on.

But you're right, never the actors themselves. They're an extremely talented group of people and Vivzie brought them on only to squander their talents. None of this is their fault.

[science-lings]

idk if I'm going to ever write for it so I'm gonna put it here, my reborn Yatagarasu AU. I guess if I get a little encouragement I'll want to write it more but I have to get some thoughts out or I will explode.

It started because I thought Beanix and Kay should meet and do crimes together. I think they should fight corruption and be overly dramatic while annoying Edgeworth. I mean, think about it, in the first game, Phoenix's whole thing was exposing notorious blackmailers and corrupted officials and generally being unafraid of facing mob families when everyone else is kinda scared to take any action.

before the cut to so much rambling, I need to get one question out of the way so...

anyway, lore below, I just didn't want to put that under the cut where no one will read far enough to see it lol

That and he also has experience with eccentric thieves. Also, they're both named after mythical birds and named specifically to be silly with their dialogue ('Mr. Wright, right?' "Kay 'kay?'). I also just want a reason for them to pose as father and daughter and be able to pull it off perfectly.

Now for actual plot stuff, I am of the opinion that Phoenix has acquired some weird-ass skills that he uses in weird-ass ways, I mean in canon he has a talent for bluffing and he uses it to absolutely dominate at poker. So I'm thinking this guy, who hasn't risked his life in over a year, fresh out of leads to fight the case with his disbarment, needs enrichment. This comes in the form of Kay investigating him out of interest as his role of 'that man' and discovering that he's pretty neat actually. She looks at his case files and finds him silly enough to recruit for a new project.

The re-emergence of the Yatagarasu is directly correlated to the dark age of the law and the increasing corruption practically everywhere. The law makers and law keepers of Japalifornia ignore the truth for their own self interest and that is Not Good. Kay recruits Ema, who is interning at the police department and on her way to becoming a detective turned forensic investigator. She is also stem girl extraordinaire who wants to use her tech for good and not to help the police. Funded by Franziska (because the best use of Manfred's fuck you money is actively fighting the corruption he was a part of) the Yatagarasu plan to expose as much corporate and legal filth as possible. Because to build a new legal system, the other one must be destroyed a bit.

In comes Phoenix, who through past cases and his work at the Borsht Bowl, just happens to have a pretty good amount of criminal connections. He's inconspicuous, already kind of undercover, and he knows how to get people to talk. He's disillusioned with the law and settled into a character that requires him to convincingly act at all times. Also his daughter is a magician and I think it would be really funny for him to learn a little sleight of hand and how to use throwing knives only for him to turn around and use those skills for Crime.

In return for info and his help with the Yatagarasu project, Phoenix gets more assistance in his investigation into Kristoph, which makes it easier to keep him and Trucy safe. Also in this AU Kristoph is worse and more invasive and more willing to cause problems if he catches Phoenix learning too much. Every one of their shared dinners consists of Kris poisoning Phoenix's wine and them switching it until they're both confused and Phoenix ends up drinking it but survives anyway.

Another part of this AU that I would want to touch upon would be Phoenix's reputation outside of being a fallen famous lawyer. I think that his work getting multiple mob members, prosecutors, a police chief, and generally terrifyingly powerful people incarcerated would get him noticed by people. I like to think that he's trying his best to look pathetic and depressed but the whispers around him make him sound kind of terrifying and it's only because of that that he feels secure enough to take Trucy along with him to the bowl for poker matches. He also is trying to learn her perceiving power, which he can't do but he does get really good at silently communicating with Trucy to the point that they become a kind of terrifying duo.

I just... weird girl crime group (Maya is not allowed, she'll just get falsely accused of murder again)

[foxpunk]

the new discord update is something i'm...disappointed about. yeahhh disappointed is apt. i think things like the launchpad and swipe gestures are neat ideas in theory, but their execution leaves much to be desired. not having gestures be a toggle is an accessibility nightmare, for one. the gesture responses are also too finicky. not smooth at all and often responding even when there's a swipe in a different direction. lagging significantly as well. discord's claims of improving load times fall flat when so many people are complaining about even longer load times.

complaints and observations and general ranting below the cut along with a list of hopefully helpful settings and alternatives for those who need it.

i feel like a lot of discord's issues with their updates in the past year or so could be negated--or at least abated--by expanding their pool of beta testers, testing for longer lengths of time, and (crucially) refining changes more before rolling them out. like...super basic shit they're just not doing to the extent they need to be doing them.

(on that note...discord, you literally have the email of every user, would it kill you to send out a few more surveys asking your userbase what possible new features sound good to them? i know a lot of people have discord email stuff turned off but can you at least try?! hell, if there was an option to opt in to email surveys and i thought they'd actually listen to responses they got, i'd turn it on out of sheer desperation at this point.)

also--and i know this is some extra work for them to do, and they seem to really hate that--i think that when such major changes are rolled out they should 1) be rolled out a bit slower/in smaller chunks and 2) at least SOME of the features should reasonably have a toggle to keep the old settings (*cough* GESTURES *cough*). their motive for this doesn't even have to be out of the good of their hearts! like, fuck telemetrics, but if they're gonna have them in their app anyways at least use telemetrics to like, gauge how many people are using these hypothetical toggles so you have another way to judge how users are responding. there! free idea! please use it.

anyways, i want to end on something helpful so here are a few bits of info about the updates i've discovered messing around, and also ways (or. well. A Way) to change them back if you have too much trouble adjusting. i'm sure plenty of people have noticed these things already, but i thought i'd compile them for those who want it all in one place or who haven't had the time or energy to mess with things in the app.

Settings > Accessibility > Reduced Motion: as far as i can tell, this does not seem to apply to the new transition animations in the app. oof, to say the least.

Messages > Add Friends > "Allow contacts to add me": many people were worried about this checkbox, but thankfully they seemed to have fixed the its-checked-automatically-and-doesn't-stay-unchecked thing. and, regardless, it doesn't actually change your app settings. if you already have Contact Sync disabled (Settings > Privacy & Safety > Find Your Friends > "Sync Contacts") checking this separate box will not suddenly enable it. however, if you have not disabled contact syncing then this checkbox will function as intended when you click the "Find friends" button below it.

Swipe-to-Reply: thankfully, you do not have to swipe to reply, the option to long press a message for a menu is still there. (for those wondering: swiping is nice accessibility for some and horrible accessibility for others, and should always be a toggle if you know what you're doing when making an app...*pointed stare into camera*). unfortunately, there's no way to turn swipe replies off that i've found.

Settings > Advanced > LaunchPad > "Full Screen Gesture": this claims to turn swipe replies off in exchange for using the gesture to activate the LaunchPad. however, after testing it out multiple times it does not actually turn them off and simply creates a gesture conflict that leaves both swipe replies and the LaunchPad more difficult to access.

Settings > Advanced > LaunchPad > "Right Edge Gesture": same issues as the first option with the additional difficulties of a more...sensitive touch response. forget "gesturing" if you so much as tap near the right edge of the screen it will attempt to pull out the LaunchPad. this right "edge" area also covers the reply button and settings menu toggles, by the way. so if you enabled this, good luck sending messages or turning the feature back off.

(did i mention these first two options also make it nearly impossible to swipe the left side channel and server lists open and closed? because they do.)

Settings > Advanced > LaunchPad > "Pull Tab": this is the option to choose if you want to keep the LaunchPad without gesture conflicts and shit navigation. it creates a tiny tab on the right edge of the screen for you to pull out the LaunchPad with, and you can adjust where the tab floats as well.

obviously, the final "Disabled" setting simply disabled the LaunchPad. Bye bye!

the fact that other color schemes for the app are behind a paywall is absolute bullshit by the way and i hate that there's no easy fix for that on mobile.

personally, i like that the vertical server list is here to stay and that DMs are now in a separate place, as this is a bit more similar to the desktop version where servers are vertically listed and DMs are in a different place (albeit still along the left edge).

before you ask, no there's no setting to get the old color scheme and layout back...UNLESS--!!!

(FOR ANDROID USERS ONLY; RIP EVERYONE ELSE.) if discord has become less accessible for you or you simply don't vibe with any of the shit currently going on, then you can download the previous version of the discord app through an APK file. first, disable auto-updates in google play. then uninstall discord from your phone. lastly, follow the instructions on this post that will help you download the necessary file from APKMirror (please note the recommended version is 206.16). do not use a different site, APKMirror is the safe one (well. safest. remember folks nothing online is 100% safe).

[nohara-rin-dot-mp3]

Does this mean Minato and Kushina also swap roles too? Minato Uzumaki and Kushina Namikaze... I don't know if Minato and Kurama being stuck with each other would be peak comedy or peak travesty! And the hyper-speed punches Kushina could launch if she mastered the Flying Thunder God and Body Flicker techniques... pure terror. Wonder how different the timeline would be if she were hokage!

oh my god yes. 100%. kushina SHOULD have been hokage not because she would have been like any better or anything but just because i love women <3 also it was HER dream it was her dream!!!!! that was her dream!!! her terrible fucked up dream!!! and minato STOLE it. now granted by the time he was taken under consideration as a candidate she was already completely off the table for the job on account of the kyubi. but you know. i'd still love to see her with the hat. and its not like other kages havent been jinchuriki.

ok anyways the neat thing about minato vs kushina is that minato doesnt tend to justify his actions so much as he simply does not think about the fact that they are wrong at all ever. he is so juiced up on propaganda and nationalism that anything he or anyone else does in the name of konoha Simply Cannot Be A Problem. even if the action doesnt do anything to help konoha strictly speaking. no one ever accused him of being capable of critical thinking. KUSHINA on the other hand is like. well sometimes she sees problems and then she closes her eyes and ignores them as hard as she can because konoha HAS to be good. because it has to. so they're actually very similar its just that minato's thought control comes more naturally to him.

i dont really know that this would change in a roleswap? i kind of lean towards it being a more innate part of their personalities than anything. both of them are horribly mistreated by konohas systems in different ways and i think they just have verryyyyy slightly different ways of coping with it. i think kushina might have been like. a slightllyyyy ? better hokage than minato? but not really lol i just think shed lean ever so slightly towards inaction instead of Actively Doing War Crimes. so you know. still bad.

kushina as team 7 sensei goes HARD though because the thing is she would relate less to rin in the superficial ways she does in canon (she wouldnt have experienced the whole "being pushed aside for men thing") and also she would be. about as bad of a teacher as minato LMAO none of these people are qualified to teach im sorry.

minato with kurama makes me INTERESTED because i think that. he would be more open to communicating with him than kushina is but imo i dont think it would work out? idk i always thought the tailed beasts just kind of being ok with helping the people who captured them and will continue to keep them imprisoned for as long as they possibly can was a little bit silly. naruto's allowed to do it because he reached out with the intent of eventually fixing things. but minato would NOT do that and so he would simply not be able to cooperate with kuarma. DESERVED. send that pretty boy to HELL.

overall i dont think these two would be the source of all that much timeline shuffling but i do think that i would like it a lot and also that kushina should be hokage because Pretty Please. i love her.

[sharkneto]

Very iffy on the whole "Five being the founder" thing.. I mean. It's not very surprising that the guy who's power is to time travel is somehow involved in the creation of the time travel committee, but I don't like the Commission (or, I didn't like how they were portrayed in s2) and I kinda would have preferred if they just. Left how it came to be ambiguous and up to interpretation-- But, the idea that they used (are going to use?) Five as some battery for their briefcases, or they study his power to find a way to mimic it, or whatever. That is very interesting to me.

Not sure if that's the way the show is going, but I mean. Five and Lila were able to power up a broken briefcase using Five's power + electrocution so...? There sure is Something there, possibly. And it could be a vague parallel to how the Commission experimented on Five in the comics, assuming that they haven't already done that to show Five. So.. I dunno. It has the potential to be neat. But really that is the only way it will be interesting to me, lmao.

I don't like the idea of Five being the founder of the Commission either. It just continues to validate and redeem the Commission after they were a spectacularly evil villain in S1 - I've ranted before about how the Commission changed from S1 to S2 and the portrayal of Herb and Dot as protagonists rather than antagonists (as they should be) HERE. Five the past two season has been doing everything in his power to stop and get away from the Commission (They want the world to end! They left him to rot in the apocalypse for four decades until he was broken enough to be useful to them!). The Commission is not a good organization and their mission is bullshit and self-serving. And suddenly, Five is the one who founds it??? He's the one who thinks this is a good idea, after he's spent his entire life trying to change the timeline, suddenly he wants an organization that specifically does not allow for change??? Sure, he just lived through an insane paradox that ate the universe and that is what the Commission was hypothetically there to stop from happening (doesn't their jumping around in time changing things make it riskier for a paradox, not less?), but the Commission could do nothing about it anyway and Five ends up in a paradox-proof box by himself in an iron lung??? In what universe does Five go "oh yeah, that's my good ending, I like that". The dude has been obsessively trying to get back to his family for half a century. I refuse to look at this plot point, it does not exist to me.

That said, the only way I even consider "Five is the Founder" is the idea - that is not supported at all by what they set up - is that Five is just a fucked up briefcase battery. They call him the "Founder" because they're mean and have a good sense of irony. That I can get behind because the Commission is that fucked up. They would. He's in his weird paradox box, strapped into that machine because that keeps him contained in case they need more briefcases. Plug him in, zap-zap, new briefcase for time crimes! Great system.

Idk, man. We'll see if they do anything with that if we get a S4 (I hope they don't address it and just drop it like a hot potato), but it just seems so out-of-character for Five to be the genuine founder of the Commission. Only things I liked that came out of that whole journey were fantastic Five and Lila times and the fact Five just carried his fucking skin around instead of finding something to copy the tattoo down onto like a normal person.

[amethystblack]

hello~! i'm trying to learn programming and heard that cass is self taught. that's such an inspiration and i would love to hear about her journey(and any tips) if she's willing to share! thank you all for making such an inspiring game!

ok so let me tell you a story. (you can skip to the bottom if you just want the tips.)

it was the year 2014 and i was visiting a college. one of the events of the day was a department fair where some professor would tell you all about what their department does. so i went up to the chair of the computer science department and said "hey, so, I think computers are neat, but I hate to code. do y'all have anything for that?"

man, those were the days.

fast forward to 2019. i didn't go into computer science. i still hate coding. however, i'm also now on the development team for this fucking video game. i believe it's called, uh, punkymen "james" reborn. this video game runs on an engine called essentials. many of you haven't heard of this "essentials" before (especially from me), but this engine has a reputation for being- and this is a technical term, just stay with me- "bad". it's okay if you're unfamiliar with the term "bad"- you'll become very familiar with it and its association to the aforementioned engine very soon. now i'm still just a lowly text file editor (a term used by assholes who code to describe people who don't code) making a whole bunch of battle content for postgame (wow e19 has been in development for literally ever). i had made the theme teams and had moved onto battle tower sets. i looked into the text files (lol imagine looking at TEXT files) to see what the base sets were and saw. things. horrible things. awful things. things that no one should ever have to see. brightpowder mons? focus band? quick claw? c'mon no one wants to fight that. and they topped out at gen 3! gen 3 wasn't even real c'mon now. so i was like "okay. i gotta redo all these." so i did! but then i got to a pokemon called "deoxys". now you might be thinking "hey, wasn't that still gen 3?" and you're right! but deoxys was banned. (imagine getting a legendary mon and never being able to use it. don't worry we fixed that*.) i'm going through these pokemon alphabetically, and deoxys was the first pokemon to have different forms! (*for most of them. the really strong ones are still banned. sorry kids.) the text files (i know they're so 16th century but stay with me here) don't allow you to change those! they also don't allow you to change abilities. now that i think about it, that was probably the real reason for what i'm about to say. which is that i went into the code to fix it! so i dug into the scripts. (i'm going to take a quick break to say that no one should ever ever ever use the script editor in rmxp. it's really bad. technology has come a long way since dinosaurs roamed the earth. in fact, just don't use rmxp. it's really bad. anyway *coughs) so this wasn't technically my first foray into coding- i took an online c++ class sophomore year of high school (which was online, so it didn't count) and i took ap computer science my senior year (the teacher didn't know anything about computer science, which meant it was self taught, and yeah uh-huh i definitely did all the homework and worked very hard in that class and did not just fuck off to the library every day to play civilization or some shit)- but it was definitely my first real foray. it ended up not being too complicated- i figured out what lines read the text file and just added a few extra parameters to them. it was enough for it to legally count as coding. i had also offered to fix some bugs. my first bug to fix was related to meloetta transforming in battle (ironically, something that i ended up removing entirely later). i didn't fix it. battle code too complicated. didn't wanna. back to text files thanksbye (somewhere in here i did a little more coding in grad school. it was kinda unnotable and got derailed by this "corona" thing you may have heard about. it was in c++ and was frustrating.)

so i mentioned that rmxp was bad and essentials was bad. one way that this manifested was that the game was really slow. i mean really slow. rmxp was an engine made in 2003. essentials was a scriptset made out of silly string. if you managed to get it to run smoothly then, well, you were probably lying. it ran like shit for everyone on every computer. i fuckin hated that. so two things happened. first was that i dug up an engine called mkxp and it made the game run a bit better. still not great! but better. then someone by the name of perrence dropped into ame's patreon server (hello did you know that ame has a patreon? you probably don't because she never talks about it, but this is MY post and IM talking about it and it's right here) and was like "hey this game is really slow and i have a thing called a profiler that will tell you where it's slow". oh man. this was, like, my calling. my sworn duty. my mission. i went apeshit on those scripts. i am not going to go into detail about what i did, since you can read about it on the dev blog. this post is about me. and not only did i go apeshit on those scripts, i googled the fuck out of them, too. my optimization binge was really a perfect storm of factors: i was very highly motivated, had a script with lots of inefficiencies to experiment on, and had a shitload of free time because it was summer during a pandemic. i think i spent 70-80 hours a week for, like, a month or two, just tinkering around with the scripts. anything i wasn't familiar with (which was really a fair amount of stuff) i looked up online. i tried tons of different ways to improve the code until i got tired of the specific issue i was working on and moved on. this whole experience was important because 1.) it made me realize that, hey, maybe i'm not too bad at coding! and 2.) i really like writing clean, pretty, efficient code. so that was really what got me started. i've done a lot since then! the original optimization blitz wa- oh my god it was two years ago what the fuck-- sorry, sorry. i'm ok. whew. the original optimization blitz was (*breathes) two years ago, and it made me comfortable enough with the scripts that whenever i found an issue that annoyed the hell out of me, i could just get rid of it. and i've done that a lot since then! (there'll be another coding post soon, trust)

i, uh, it's been almost an hour and a half.

oops!

so i'll just put in a few general tips:

- coding classes suck and you shouldn't take them (or, at least, nothing beyond the basics) anything you can learn about coding from a class you can learn on the internet. there are tons of tutorials online for general knowledge. even beyond that, if you have a more niche/specific question (hey is there a speed difference between a case statement and a conditional) there's probably a bunch of other people who have also wondered that and one one of them has almost certainly done so on a message board. there's lots of information out there if you're searching for it. which...

- coding class assignments suck and you should avoid them there is not a single person in the universe who has gotten passionate about homework. the only exception to this is when an assignment goes beyond just being homework. part of why i got so into my work was because it wasn't just work- my efforts resulted in a meaningful difference that i could visibly see (granted, i was seeing it in an FPS counter, but that's not nothing!). if you can find something that you can tinker around with and have an enjoyable time doing so, it'll be far better for you than a stupid c++ class. which...

- c++ sucks and you should avoid it ok this isn't actually that true, i'm just sticking to the format. there are a lot of coding languages. they all have their quirks and specific syntax and different uses, but they all follow the same fundamental rules: all you do with code is use logic to mess with data on a computer. that's basically all it comes down to! you tell a computer "hey, this thing does this, and that thing does that, and if this thing is equal to some other thing it should do something else" and you've coded. so find a coding language that you like. i don't like c++! it has a lot of rigid syntax rules and isn't very flexible. low-level coding languages are like that. ruby is great. i like ruby. you can make some really pretty code with ruby. coding in ruby is a little more like writing prose, where coding in c++ is like writing an instruction manual. high-level languages like that are much more pleasant.

one last thing.

- watch out for assholes! so i don't know what gives, but there are a lot of people in this business with really big egos. this is incredibly anecdotal, but i have a running theory that coding classes teach you that there is a "right" way and a "wrong" way to code and, as a result, there are a lot of comp sci majors with their heads up their asses. there was actually a guy who made fun of someone because "real developers" coded and he just edited text files! please never be like that. there was another guy who dropped into my comment section to chadsplain* how to program to me. that guy is still probably off running relic castle, too. coding's more of an art than a science, and "good code" isn't really a thing. obviously i really care about pretty, optimized code, but the thing about code is that most people aren't going to see it anyway. *chadsplain (v.) an explanation given under the assumption of the superiority of the person offering the explanation.

fuck it's been another half hour. i'm just bitching about people at this point anyway, so i'm going to do everyone a favor and cut myself off.

tldr: find a project you like, in a language you like, and google things you don't know. that's all i did.

[helle-bored]

@marzipanilla. You have have opened the floodgates. :P

If I were a different and more patient person I might have started out practicing with elmers glue and cardboard, honestly. But I jumped right in instead, and here's the stuff I use:

Here you've got my regular sewing, gluing, and paper-cutting supplies. (Not pictured: bookcloth, fancy marbled cover paper, cardstock, an extremely scuzzy old ball peen hammer (heehee) I rummaged out of the machine-shop of random tools in various states of dubious usability we inherited from the previous owner of the house.)

Sewing a textblock uses linen thread & beeswax (for the thread), darner or chenille needles, an awl, something to punch into (cardboard), a marked paper to mark your signatures with (the white paper with notches), and a bone folder for creasing folded pages (black thing at the back). Thicker books also require (sort of a strong word, but most people seem to do it) some sort of fabric tape; I have grey twill tape that I got from Joann's.

Gluing uses flour paste for some things and a sturdier PVA glue for others. I do have a brush, but I often just use my fingers tbh.

Before you glue it you can see the tapes when you flip between signatures -- once it's glued the pages are all nice and flush. :) The unglued one on the left is Blackbird by sixpences and the glued one on the right (and the one in most of these pictures) is Weather With You by @thewuzzy, who has kindly allowed me to flail occasionally in their direction while putting together a couple copies of their fic, lol.

I format in Word and print booklet-style from adobe pdf reader with 8.5x11 inch six-page signatures, which works out to be twenty-four 5.5x8.5 inch book-pages in a signature. This means a 360 page book only uses 90 actual full-sized pages, which is good, because I have the paper custom-cut so the grain runs in the right direction. Shipping paper isn't cheap, it turns out.

My family is all aware of my new hobby and they think it's really neat, so they helped me build a press, which is how I glue and round the spine. Above on the right you can see the twill tapes and how I sew the signatures together; this book is about 350 pages or 100k.

Today I was working on rounding the spine and giving it shoulders (that mushroom shape) and sewing on headbands for WWY. This copy has a dark grey-blue thread alternating with blue metallic sewn directly into the top and bottom of the spine.

Those grey boards on the sides are what the case will be made of -- but they're too short. :( There's something I could try, but I'm probably just going to end up buying new boards because I'm kind of terrified of fucking it up, lmao.

The copy with headbands is ready for covering the spine with cloth and paper. Then I need to figure out my board dilemma so I can build the case and put it in there and slap in endpapers and cry when it's a bit crooked.

So anyway. Hours and hours and hours and hours of work, and honestly it's one of the most fun things I've done in months. There's a discord I'm in and everyone is cranking out amazing stuff every day and it's just really fucking neat to see this much love for fanfiction, which is what most of us bind.

(You should bind some star wars stuff! :P lots of people in the server do star wars things.)

[chaoticowlpost]

hello, a prompt for you :) how about the golden and silver trio plus the others all in one house? like they're all holed up in one of draco's family manor or harry's impulsively-bought house and basically chaos ensues

“I told you this was a stupid idea.”

Draco was pacing in his - unreasonably large - bedroom, if that’s what you could call it. Really, it was more like a personal mini-sitting area that was attached to an actual bedroom.

“I blame Ronald,” Blaise snorted, lounging casually on one of the settees. 

“Me?” Harry’s best friend yelped indignantly from where he was lying down on the carpet. “I wasn’t the one who said that there’s no way his parents would come back to find us here.”

“Don’t push that on me, now,” Pansy said haughtily, lying on one side of the large bed. “I wasn’t the one who suggested spending the day indoors.”

“I only suggested it because there’s a lot to do here,” Hermione defended herself. “I forgot that he wasn’t allowed to have people over when I said it. If anything, we should blame Harry.”

“What?” Harry asked, slowly processing that the blame had somehow been passed onto him. “What did I do?”

“You were the one who suggested going through the floo anyway,” Hermione huffed.

“I was just joking!” he said defensively, before snorting. “Besides, it’s not like I pushed you through your own fireplaces while Draco wasn’t looking,”

Harry focused his attention back onto Draco, who was still panicking silently. He felt himself frown at the sight, feeling bad for the other boy. 

“Peer pressure.”

“Oh my gods!” Draco finally said aloud, wailing. “They’re going to kill me.”

“Relax, Draco,” Pansy said softly, empathizing with their friend. “What are the chances they’d come in here?”

“High!” Draco exclaimed, his eyes wide and frenzied. The image was also heightened by how messy his hair had become from running his hand through it repeatedly over the course of the past few minutes. “Very High!”

“Well, what do you suppose we do?” Hermione asked, getting up. “Maybe we can find a way to escape.”

“You’d think with how large your room is, they’d have bothered to link your fireplace to the floo network,” Ron snorted. He had a point, Harry conceded.

They all went silent after that, each one of them thinking of a possible solution before someone decides to come looking for Draco.

“Jump out of the window!”

“What?” Blaise demanded, looking appropriately concerned. 

“Jump out of the window,” Draco repeated, his face showing that he was serious. “It’s the only other way.”

“I’ll break my legs!” Ron protested. “We’re on the third floor!”

“I’’ll break your legs, Weasley, if you lot get caught in here!” Draco hissed, glaring at the redhead. 

“Surely, there’s another solution,” Hermoine interrupted, sounding uncertain.

“Nope,” Draco shrugged before finally plopping himself down on one of the sofas. “There are balconies below that you could land on, which should break your fall.”

“That’s assuming we actually land on them,” Pansy pointed out, an eyebrow raised.

“Sounds like your problem,” Draco huffed, raising a neat eyebrow back at her. “Because I told you not to come here.”‘

This was not how Harry thought he would die.

It was either death by Lucius Malfoy, who would probably make his death more painful once he realizes that Harry has feelings for his son, or death by jumping off a balcony.

Somehow, the balcony option began to look more appealing.

“This is an old, magic house, isn’t it?” Hermione asked rhetorically. “Maybe there’s a secret passageway somewhere?”

“And, pray tell, what makes you think that my magical ancestors would want to use secret passageways when they have magic?” Draco asked, looking like he was on the verge of imploding. 

“It was just a suggestion, mate,” Ron shrugged, somewhat less bothered. He began walking around the room, examining for something. What he was looking for was entirely lost on Harry.

“We’re magic!” Blaise suddenly said out loud, sitting up abruptly.

“Yes, as I’ve been informed at the ripe age of 11,” Harry said, rolling his eyes.

“Watch the tone, Potter,” Blaise said with no malice. “I just mean that we could cast a disillusionment charm on all of us and sneak out of the manor.”

“First of all,” Draco said, exhaling loudly through his nostrils. “The path from here to any possible exit is far; much farther than it would be if you’d jump out of the balcony-”

“Not happening,” Pansy huffed, interrupting him.

“-Secondly, none of us are good enough at that charm to go completely undetected,” Draco said pointedly. “And, really, five teenagers trying to creep out quietly? Fat chance.”

“We’re gonna die before we graduate. Mum is going to kill me,” Ron wailed dramatically, giving up on his investigation. “Maybe if we-”

A knock sounded from the door.

“Hide!” Draco instructed, throwing insults at them under his breath as he moved around the room. 

“Where?” Harry asked, looking around. They could shut the doors to the bedroom so Lucius would only see the sitting area, but they’d still be in plain sight.

“The bathroom!” Draco said, pointing towards one of the doors on the side of the room.

“But-”

“Not now, Harry,” Hermione sighed, grabbing him by the arm. She practically dragged him into the bathroom while the others followed closely behind them before shutting the door.

“We’re still pretty obvious,” Harry pointed out, a sense of dread filling him. Maybe it was time to accept their fate.

“The shower,” Pansy suggested. “It’s mostly hidden by the wall, so they’d have to actually go in to see us.”

“Are we going to fit?” Harry asked worriedly. They were 5 teenagers, after all. 

“Draco has a large bathroom,” Blaise shrugged, stepping in. They could have stood, but who knew how long they were going to be in there. So that’s how they found themselves practically pressed against one another - shoulder to shoulder - with their knees drawn up on the dry, shower floor.

“Father!” They could hear Draco’s voice through the walls.

“You’d think that the door would be thicker, all things considered,” Ron snorted before promptly getting smacked upside the head by his girlfriend.

“Quiet,” she hissed. “If we can hear them, there’s a chance that they can hear us.”

“Maybe we should just come out and confess,” Harry said, feeling himself start to panic. He hasn’t even asked Draco out yet, and his parents would already hate him.

Fuck, this was not how he wanted their first meeting to go. 

“Are you mad?” Blaise asked him, his voice a harsh whisper. “Draco’s dad might actually kill us. There’s no way I’m stepping out there.”

“Same here,” Ron shrugged, looking at him apologetically. 

“But at least if we just admit that we’re here, we wouldn’t look as bad as we do getting caught like this,” Harry pointed out.

“Trying to make a good impression, are you?” Pansy scoffed. If only she knew how true that statement rang. 

“Shut up,” Harry said instead. “I don’t want to die.”

“Well, we’re going to die anyway because-”

“-Tell me honestly, Draco,” the older Malfoy’s voice drawled through the walls. “Is there someone else in here?”

-————————————————-

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