#Could be misremembering the details here

[checkerednetwork]

There is a robot and gadget shop that Dexter frequently shops at. Polynuex is a Robot Jones reference (RJ's middle school which is in Delaware apparently). You can even see RJ's parents and the show's title by the door!

[unproduciblesmackdown]

though i eventually got to read some, in earlier years goosebumps books would be the kind of series where i'd just ponder the cover art, and i always liked the drama of the monster blood illustration (the lighting/colors....sure nothing's happening in it but i felt it evoked the drama of "what if you're downstairs and something's upstairs" much like "what if you're upstairs and something's downstairs") like well too bad i guess i never got around to reading i at the time. but as of a recap yesterday i'm surprised to now be at least 90% sure i read part if not all of it, and thinking i hadn't may be due to how kind of nothing happens in it

[grison-in-space]

I'm sorry? Pigeons have to coo to ovulate?

okay, okay, I left this one out in the tags without elaborating the other day and you were not the only person who asked-- @nanavn and @corvus--caurinus were also curious. I did not have a ton of time yesterday when my brain was not leaking out my ears, so here I am today.

First, I apparently misremembered my grad school teachings: the best-documented case study of doves being required to hear their own coo in order to ovulate is that of the ring or Barbary dove (Streptopelia risoria), not the rock dove which gave rise to our domestic pigeons (Columba livia). They look like this:

They're the domestic doves you see sometimes that aren't domestic pigeons.

But yes, I was completely serious: hens need to very specifically hear their own nest coo to ovulate. The way it works is this: these doves have a very specific courtship pattern, where courting males at different stages of the nesting process perform first a "bow" coo, then a nest coo. Then the hen makes a nest coo back, and the pair goes on to build a nest together in which the hen will lay fertile eggs.

If you prevent the hen from producing this coo--and the first paper I've linked does this in several different ways with both neural lesions and also mechanical blocks of the synrinx--she will not ovulate. Then Dr. Cheng tried rescuing the effect for doves who could hear but not produce their own coos by playing back recordings of devocalized doves' own nest coos, recordings of other hen's nest coos, recordings of male nest coos (their own males, I think, for preference?) and no recordings at all. Hen nest coo recordings, especially the recordings of the hens themselves, were enough to rescue ovulation effect... but deafened hens who could, themselves produce nest coos weren't able to make ovulation happen half the time even when the male was right there. The male nest coo and his mating display is really important, because his coo stimulates the female to make her nest coo, and that's where ovulation starts.

In 2003, a little over a decade later, Dr. Cheng wrote a whole book chapter about auditory self-stimulation as a phenomenon in neuroendocrine shifts. It makes for pretty interesting reading! I'm going to really enjoy it this afternoon. Stimulated ovulation is actually a pretty common phenomenon in animals--often it makes more sense to only bother ovulating if you know there's a partner around to use whatever eggs you yield up--but this one is one of the most interesting and elaborate systems out there, and definitely the one that offers the most options to a given female dove to potentially consciously control her reproductive output.

But grison, you might ask, what about the doves outside my window? Is this just a function of this one dove species, or are lots of doves doing this to make ovulation happen? So I went looking to find out whether anyone has checked. The thing is that the heyday of pigeon behavioral research has faded somewhat in the intervening decades since Dr. Cheng's discovery, so there's not as much as I might hope where people sat down to investigate the question. I did, however, find a neat study on Columba livia demonstrating that auditory stimulation is more important to courtship displays and success than visual displays are, although of course the multisensory courtship is stronger than either sensory modality alone. So yeah, the cooing back and forth really loudly is part of a display that is functionally necessary for successfully producing offspring, and the auditory component is important for basically every pigeon that has been studied in this respect (albeit that number is pitifully small).

I also found this really interesting review of known uses of birdsong to set internal emotional states in birds (either for the self or for a partner or flockmates) that I want to look into with more detail, plus this really thoughtful review from Dr. Donna Maney talking about how "incentive salience" can use learning and experience to make certain cues bring up neuroendocrine changes in state over time, which helps individuals control how their endocrine system is reacting to stimuli in the world they've been shaped by. Clearly I have some reading to do...

[luna-azzurra]

What is an Unreliable Narrator? And How to Write One.

An unreliable narrator is a storytelling technique where the narrator's credibility or truthfulness is questionable. The narrator either intentionally or unintentionally provides a distorted or biased account of the events, characters, or situations in the story. This narrative approach can add complexity, suspense, and intrigue to your writing. Here's how you can create an unreliable narrator:

1. Establish a motive: Determine why the narrator is unreliable. It could be due to personal bias, mental instability, deception, or a hidden agenda. Develop their backstory, motivations, and beliefs to understand why they might present a skewed version of events.

2. Use subjective language: Incorporate language and descriptions that reflect the narrator's personal viewpoint and biases. Their opinions, emotions, and interpretations should color their narration, influencing how readers perceive the story.

3. Include contradictions and inconsistencies: Allow the narrator to make contradictory statements or present conflicting information. This creates doubt and keeps the readers engaged as they try to unravel the truth.

4. Reveal information selectively: The unreliable narrator might withhold or reveal information strategically, manipulating the readers' understanding of the story. This can create suspense and surprise as readers discover hidden truths.

5. Showcase unreliable perceptions: Explore how the narrator's perceptions and interpretations of events differ from reality. They may misinterpret actions, misremember details, or even hallucinate. These discrepancies add depth to the character and raise doubts about their reliability.

6. Use other characters as contrasting sources: Introduce other characters who present alternative perspectives or contradict the narrator's version of events. This contrast allows readers to question the reliability of the narrator and form their own interpretations.

7. Employ narrative techniques: Experiment with techniques like foreshadowing, symbolism, or unreliable memory to emphasize the narrator's unreliability. These devices can help blur the line between truth and fiction, leaving readers intrigued and uncertain.

8. Provide hints and clues: Drop subtle hints or clues throughout the story that suggest the narrator's unreliability. This allows readers to piece together the truth gradually and encourages them to engage actively with the narrative.

[plow-and-propose]

Orange Flags (found in any post but especially ones about politics)

We don't always have the time and/or energy to do our own research, so here are some things to watch out for:

No sources. Obviously this doesn't 100% guarantee that the post contains misinformation but it does mean you can't easily verify it. Is OP right? Wrong? Outright lying? You don't know!

Contradicting sources in the notes. Again, doesn’t necessarily mean that OP is wrong, but you should absolutely do your own research before sharing if several different people are providing contradictory evidence.

'Unreliable' sources. What constitutes as unreliable depends a bit on context but be especially wary of unsourced screenshots (could be taken out of context), clearly biased sources (e.g. 'Nationalist News of [Country]' type newspapers), and second hand sources (e.g. a different, unsourced tumblr post).

Minor mistakes. Like an incorrect statistic, an exaggerated number, or a omitted detail - something fairly small. Maybe OP just misremembered or forgot about this one thing, but it could be a sign they've made an error or lied about something far more major.

Urgency. Obviously there is a lot of reason for urgency when dealing with crises, but if a post gives you the vibe of go go go there's no time to explain share this give money do it now don't think about it go then OP may not have stopped to check their sources, or even be actively using urgency to mislead you.

And lastly here's a tip: if you're not sure, save the post as a draft. More information might become available later.

Stopping the spread of misinformation is hard. We all want to help and sharing posts feels like a very quick and easy way to do it. But it's also very easy to share the wrong thing by mistake. Try to stop and think.

Source for this post: my own experience. These are things I've picked up over many years of being gullible online. I highly encourage you to take the time to educate yourself about how to stop the spread of misinformation.

[pyroy3]

Compiling additional proof against Wilbur into one, easy to understand list.

I'm making a simple list that anyone can refer to when faced with doubts about Shelby's and other victims claims. I don't know if this will reach the right audience, or reach anyone at all, but i'd like to get it off my chest.

Why do I care so much? Because i've followed Wilbur since his day on the Jacksucksatlife channel. He had a great influence over me as a teenager, and it sucks that he was an asshole all along. I want to see him fail, that's all.

Main points are all in Shelby, Nikki, Minx and other creators' videos on him. These are just small details that are easily missed.

Wilbur being abusive towards his friends

The first video in particular really highlights the amount of power that Wilbur holds. "Tell them about how awful I am to you" seems like a dangerous thing to say as someone who is actually abusive, but it's likely that he knows he can get away with it. He doesn't expect anyone to call him out on his behaviour.

The other problem I have with this clip aside from the taunting, is the vacuum cleaner. He asks her to tell the people watching about her experience, and immediately starts vacuuming for no reason which drowns out the noise of her speaking. Feel free to tell me i'm looking into this too much, but this is how I feel about it: It's him (knowingly or unknowingly) showing off his power. Showing that he's in control even when she's talking about the biting, creating an understanding that it's not a serious issue and that it's just a joke. His humour makes the audience laugh along at an issue that we now understand wasn't funny.

A clip talking about how Wilbur threw Niki because she playfully said she was big and strong. His quick sentence "you were saying you were stronger than-" could either be him misremembering, deciding to ignore that detail, or literally saying that he interpreted her actions as claiming to be stronger than him. He says it was a "consensual throwing" but we already know how terrible he is with consent. TLDW: Niki said she was big and strong so Wilbur threw her "to assert dominance" (and show that he was stronger than her).

Niki has confirmed that she "knew wilbur in that way", but aside from mentioning the biting habit, she doesn't want to talk about it. She just said that that period was a dark time in her life. No one should ask her to talk more about this (or even bring it up around her), but it is unfortunately possible that she carries even more horrible experiences about Will with her.

In Tommy's disneyland vlog, there is a short clip where Tommy playfully unties Wilbur's shoelaces and gets his hand stomped on. Thing like these flew under the radar because of their brotherly bond. You'd expect two young brothers to react like this, but not a grown man and his teenage friend. Tommy tells him that his finger got cut, and instead of apologizing, Wilbur says it was because Tommy was gonna untie his shoelaces. He essentially says that Tommy had it coming, that it was his fault he got hurt.

The biting behaviour wasn't exclusive to romantic partners. This is a clip of him biting Tommy's hand "for content", despite Tommy repeatedly shouting no. The biting isn't bad here, but it once again proves that this was something he genuinely did.

The story starts at 0:38. Here, Wilbur tells the story of how he helped Techno pick apples by gently throwing them so Techno could put them in the basket. Techno says that Wilbur is very bad at throwing. In response, Wilbur says that he threw an apple as hard as he could, aiming for his stomach. Instead, he accidentally hit the shoulder that his surgery was on. Anyone who's been hit in the stomach should know how painful it is. If Wilbur were to throw an apple has hard as he could at his stomach, it would seriously hurt. But he laughs it off. Wilbur once again claims that the person he hurt deserved it, because techno made fun of his throwing ability. I've heard that Techno's dad yelled at Wilbur for doing it, but even then, he still laughs about the story.

Wilbur's music and separating it from the artist

It's completely natural for a musician with a history of bad mental health to blame himself in his music. One of Wilbur's biggest inspirations, Crywank, have lots of songs about being a bad person. A symptom of depression is to believe you're a bad person. But as far as we know, Wilbur's music actually told the truth.

I can't find the tweet, but we also know that one of wilburs old friends(?) came out with the info that Lovejoy's song "concrete" was based on their experience, and the song explains Wilbur's neglectful behaviour.

You should know what Lovejoy's music is about. A lot of it is based on toxic relationships, being cheated on, being abused. It is a complete mockery of the people that he hurt. "Call me what you like" is clearly about being in an abusive relationship where his partner takes advantage of him and cheats on him. She forces him to "bump his head into every doorway she sees suitable for them to go through". Not that he knows what the song he wrote is about though, since he couldn't recall a single thing about the song during the genius interview. Yes, he was high, but he may as well had someone ghostwrite it for him.

Singing "you claim your ex-boyfriend's a policeman, I say you need better standards" in the song Perfume is crazy when his standards are allowing abuse to happen.

When listening to Scum, you repeatedly hear him admitting to being scum and waste. Concrete is about how he's a piece of shit. Consequences should remind you of the actual consequences of his actions. I already explained what's wrong with "your sister was right". His parody songs are direct reflections of his real personality.

However, if you still want to listen to him - spotify has a feature where you can put local files into your playlists. If you have his music downloaded, you can listen to it on spotify without giving him money or views. Just saying.

Why he can get away with it

Look at him. He is an attractive white man in the UK, And pretty privilege is a thing, no matter how you look at it. He's popular and has gotten empathy from impressionable teenagers on the internet. A lot of people have put him on a pedestal after he showed support for the LGBT+ community and BLM, singing about being against capitalism. People feel bad for him because of his history with mental health problems. They excuse his actions because he was depressed during his relationships. He also has a pattern of exclusively targeting those weaker than him. Tiny women who he can pin down, throw or bite to show he's stronger than, and teenager Tommy who believed they had a brother dynamic. You will also notice that the only people who have shared their experience with him have been women who didn’t feel strong enough to fight back against him. He is a manipulator through and through.

This is not all the proof there is

If you need more convincing, watch other creator's videos and statements on the subject. Shelby, Niki, Minx, Alicenyannya. There are also more small things that he has done that add up, either violent behaviour, yelling, or ignoring people's boundaries.

You can keep uselessly arguing about why he acted this way, but the physical abuse is undeniable, and I hope that the other points in this post has shown his disrespect for consent (ignoring people saying no), manipulative behaviour (victim blaming, making it seem like a joke) and lack of care for the consequences of his actions (stomping on tommy's hand, throwing an apple as hard as he can at techno, throwing niki, biting his girlfriends).

Thank you to anyone who got this far, I hope someone will get use out of it. I'm happy to finally get what I wanted to say out there.

[toskarin]

Is Tomino an antisemite?

I assume you're referring to the section of PROJECT PROTOTYPE: Zeta Gundam Proposal that talks about Melanie Hue Carbine?

worth mentioning, this bit was also reprinted in the liner notes for the Zeta Memorial Box laserdisc release

to cut a long answer short and address the elephant in the room: the Carbine stuff, in those notes, is antisemitic. I also don't think that it necessarily reflects what Tomino currently believes, if he was even the one who wrote it, which is also unclear

the answer ends up being "there's not a clear answer one way or the other"

I'll elaborate a bit more on this below the courtesy break

for disclosure's sake, I could be misremembering some details here, but this is less of a "defence" and more of trying to sort out what's not included in that screencap which gets reposted every so often.

-

it's understandable that this comes up time and time again, given what a mess that writing is

the question of whether Tomino was antisemitic has been talked to death, which is why a lot of Gundam fans have just stopped entertaining it, but I still think it's worth clearing up periodically for people who haven't heard it talked about before, so it's not ground down into pop trivia

when you hear people talking about the Carbine lore in Zeta, it's usually presented as coming from a setting bible and being a direct quote from Tomino

that understanding comes from a long-running game of telephone that was probably significantly worsened by language barriers and 40 years of information rot

the infamous Carbine section not only has dubious authorship and canonicity, but was also written in the 80s in Japan (which was undergoing something of a Jewish conspiracy exploitation boom at the time) and first published in a fan-targeted magazine (not the setting bible, as it's usually presented) in a period of Gundam's history when there was a lot of outsourced filler lore being released to stopgap the inevitable decline of post-Zeta Gundam hype before the release of ZZ

that's not to say Tomino doesn't have a history of misstepping and saying incredibly strange (and sometimes reactionary) things, or even that this wasn't a concept in the original proposal for Zeta before it was heavily reworked. it wouldn't be that out of place, but it would still stick out

but, to be frank, Tomino is an 82 year old Japanese man who has been in the public eye for 60 out of those 82 years

even if we take it for granted that he was the one behind that off-screen lore, we then have to believe that he held those beliefs unchangingly for 40 years without (to my knowledge) repeating them, which is a bit of a stretch

there might be something especially damning that I haven't seen, but I feel like it would have emerged alongside the Carbine passage if that were the case

[kauriheart]

I think one of the weirder things from generation loss that i haven't seen anyone mention is that, when ranboo's running from the shark-pickle-lobster-thing and he goes into the basement with the cage, he reaches into the box in the corner and pulls out a hoodie that looks EXACTLY like his. He then uses this hoodie to distract it by placing the hoodie in a cage. The shark-pickle-lobster then goes into the cage, because it thinks the hoodie is ranboo. This also seems weird to me as I'm pretty sure Slime mentions that the shark-pickle-lobster can't see very well (i could be misremembering I'm writing this from memory) meaning that it's probably going off of scent and sound. So not only is there an exact copy of ranboo's hoodie it also smells like them. Idk what this means if anything but it's such a weird detail it really stuck out to me.

EDIT: So first off slime said "once he gets your scent it's over" (at around 1 hour 20 minutes into the YouTube vod) which confirms what I said originally. And here are two photos of the hoodie( slightly shitty because I'm on mobile)

[susandsnell]

did you see the current US les mis tour? i'm thinking of going (though i haven't bought tickets yet) and i'm curious about what might be in it for valvert enjoyers (including myself)

OH DID I EVER, FRIEND. It came to Canada this past summer and I cannot recommend getting tickets enough; it's possibly the best the show has ever been, and the cast is incredible. I didn't think I'd still be crying at it at this age and bam, Act 2 rolls around and there goes my painstakingly winged eyeliner.

Valvert is imo the most played up it's been, if you want to go in unspoiled I'll leave it at that, but I'll put more details after the cut. Spoilers/me being a cringe parody of myself below.

They've gone with both a lot more physical blocking between the two of them and a much more humanized Javert + book-accurately violent (albeit For Good Reason) Valjean than previous productions, all of which lends itself very well to the ship. Lot of lingering gazes in prison/grabs at each other, a genuine rapport between Maire Madeleine and the Inspector of Montreuil-sur-Mer, and then there's the Champmathieu trial through the Confrontation. Javert actively lunges for Valjean after his confession and the two leads I saw had such an intense chemistry you could see their eyes burning through that part.

As for the Confrontation, it's been choreographed/blocked to be a lot more suggestive violent than previously; there's a barely concealed smirk on Javert's face during "you'll wear a different chain" that I remember made me think "...my 12 year old self is thriving right now." Valjean doesn't snap until Javert tries to shackle him, at which point it goes into the whole "I am warning you, Javert!" bit. He uses that incredible, Brick-accurate Valjean strength to break free, deck Javert, and garrotes him with his own chain at the song's (heh) climax, until the man goes down to his knees, and if I'm not misremembering, he half-straddles his shoulder to keep him down. Before it gets into the "And this I swear to you tonight" bit, there's a good several moments of Javert left rolling on the ground writhing, gagging, and moaning (this would become a persistent thing as the show progressed) while still crawling towards Valjean, half-conscious and half-mad with obsession, reaching towards him. And then Valjean smashes his head into a wall, Liam Neeson in '98 style. I don't know what you go to the theatre for, but personally I do to see old men cry and beat the shit out of each other homoerotically.

Not much more happens in Act 1 (though the Intervention through Stars has as much reverence to it about the sanctity of their chase and their dynamic as it does the very structures Javert cannot fathom Valjean existing outside of - I think he presses his fingers to his lips a little on "Lord, let me find him" after crossing himself), but Act 2 at the Barricades is where things go wild again. There seems to be an Objectifying The Inspector agenda behind the scenes of this new production and I am here for it. Thus, please know that the Valvert barricade scenes take place with the mainstay of Javert having his shirt needlessly torn open/almost off by Les Amis / his ponytail getting dishevelled / him throwing his head back and moaning / panting at some points over the singing because he got his ass kicked again. Heavy, heavy appraisal in Valjean's "give me the spy Javert"/tugging on his bonds as he pulls him away to ostensibly take him out back like Old Yeller (for show for Les Amis, sure but I sensed a bit of spite/something else). And then Valjean's Forgiveness is just. Okay, so I got good enough seats to say that Javert is licking his lips during "How right you should kill with a knife."

What really made my jaw drop was that Javert, being played a lot more emotionally and erratically at this point, actually reaches with both hands once freed of his bonds to grab hold of Valjean's rifle by the mouth and pull it up to his head/press his whole chest into it on "shoot me now, for all I care". Which, yes, Imagery, but then you have them having a legitimate moment where Valjean firmly but gently pulls the gun away/him away from the gun, and holds his face/shoulder in a way I think was? Deliberately meant to echo the blocking of the Bishop during the whole "I have bought your soul for God" in the prologue. "There's nothing that I blame you for" is almost played as a realization despite the anguish Javert has put him through. As for the sewers through the end, each man is played as having increasing realization of how much they are two sides of the same coin, but during the Soliloquy, you have Javert screaming out/sobbing some of his lines about Valjean and how dare he transcend the very structures that gave sense and shape to his world. It has to be seen to be believed.

Outside of this -- there's actually a lot more work done outside their interactions to parallel them. Javert and Gavroche are given a rapport meant to run alongside the Valjean-Cosette relationship where you see a Javert who's a lot more indulgently annoyed towards this cocky gamin than aggressive (they have such a cute, funny moment together after Look Down/Javert's Intervention bit, Javert's not even mad and more 'are you fucking kidding me I lost to an 8 year old' when Gavroche blows his cover). It pays off because they worked in him paying respects when he sees his body during the Bring Him Home instrumental as they did in the movie (albeit more organically, because the scene is staged from Javert's POV seeing all the bodies at the barricade + he stops over Gavroche, kneels to close the boy's still-open eyes, and with a stricken expression, makes the sign of the cross over his body), to the point that you absolutely get the impression Javert is seeing his younger, disadvantaged yet striving self in Gavroche. With the instrumental cue being Valjean's song of paternal feeling for Marius, the staging really drives home that Javert had so many opportunities himself to go through a similar journey of personal growth through fatherhood. And there's power in these parallels when they're not interacting, too!

All in all, they went all in on every character relationship in this production and I cannot recommend it enough. The costumes are beautiful, the sets/effects are phenomenal, and the orchestration reveals just how beautiful the score really is. Go see it!!!

[shinakazami1]

TSPUD: Symbolism of The Pink Room

@stelar-time asked in Twitter (I refuse to call it X) post about people's headcanons about the Pink Room and I thought I'd share this here, too

CW for some religious mentions

First, I'd like you to look at the dialogues in this part.

The fact that it's the fourth figurine is not a coincidence.

The Pink Room seems to serve as a symbol of nostalgia and of how memories can change with time. They tend to be rough and down the pipe you go, they do tend to lose details or get some added parts in, for your brain to make sense of them. That's why this room doesn't come at the first or last Figley and instead in the middle, as those are more often the parts we tend to forget.

What is interesting, though, is how Narrator questions it. Because a similar situation occurs somewhere else.

At the end of the Demo, Narrator starts to do a callbacks to the journey you had. However, at some point, he starts to mention and show parts you've never seen before. In contrast to the Pink Room though, there is not a single questioning involved. So, what's so special about that room?

You could say it's only a symbol of a nostalgia and fragility of memory. That he is recalling some moments he felt halky about and due to it, puts rose-tinted glasses which show off in a form of this room. Why hadn't he done the same thing in the Demo, though?

Memory overall seems to have a bigger role in TSPUD.

Narrator overall seems to have memory issues - he tends to remember some of the previous resets (skipping parts of the Freedom run after going through it nth time in a row) and completely forgets others.

That's why he has Memory Zone. He uses it as a photo album, not knowing it's as unreliable as his own callbacks.

But then, I did wonder... Why an apple? Why does this room show it and not anything else, any pink fruit?

And then, I looked at the architecture of the place and it reminded me of something.

Big window, a statue of some sort on a pedestal before it, pointed archs, to ribbed vaulting... It seems to match a typical church architecture. And then, it hit me.

The Apple of Eden. Fruit of the forbidden knowledge. Of somebody being there, someone watching, listening. Of him not having fun control over his creation might have been bit when we were jsut skipping around, only seeing part of his struggle in the Skip Button.

You might be then asking, why doesn't it have a bite mark then?

There are two possibilities I've considered:

1) it could shows Narrator's ignorance that he shows quite often. That could be true since he just tries to accept what had changed, trying to just say 'don't focus on it, it's a silly thing, let's move on'. He brings it up though since he already learnt from the Broom Closet that things untold seem to interest the Player more.

2) It's a memory within a memory. The apple before he bit in. It's the knowledge he beholds and shows us in a non direct way.

Just like the Bucket.

Nostalgia is supposed to give a good vibe but - it doesn't always succeed.

But this room can indirectly show Narrator's progress. The fact he knows more, the fact he can tell his memories get altered, the fact that - he changed.

In ways we misremember.

[lightandfellowship]

Was Odin testing Xehanort here?

I’m starting to wonder if the Child of Destiny is supposed to have the ability to banish darkness/dark entities from people’s hearts.

I say this due to Odin’s wording in the scene where Xehanort strikes Baldr down:

Odin: This is our only chance.

Odin: Xehanort, rid him of the darkness!

I used to misremember this scene as Odin encouraging Xehanort to deal the finishing blow on Baldr, but no, judging by Odin’s phrasing here, he was actually asking Xehanort to save Baldr from the darkness.

But isn’t that a strange thing for Odin to ask of Xehanort? Odin is no doubt a much stronger Keyblade wielder than Xehanort due to his experience and age, so if banishing the darkness from Baldr’s heart via a Keyblade was ever a viable option, wouldn’t Odin have done that��himself? Either here and now or before everything went wrong? Why is he entrusting that to an underclassmen who’s still in training? Especially when the spirit of Hoder, an upperclassmen on the cusp of graduating into a Keyblade Master, is standing right there? (I have to imagine he can see her there the same way Xehanort and Baldr can, especially when you consider similar scenes from KH1 and KH3.) Like, it makes sense for Eraqus to ask Xehanort to banish Baldr’s darkness, because Eraqus is desperate and doesn’t know any better, but Odin?

Instead, it almost seems like Odin was hoping for a miracle, hoping that Xehanort would, somehow, have the ability to banish Baldr’s darkness. If Odin secretly knows who Xehanort is, knows that he’s the chosen child who was sent away to Destiny Islands, then maybe the prophecy states somewhere that the Child of Destiny is supposed to be able to save people from the darkness, and Odin was hoping that Xehanort would demonstrate that ability here and now. Both as a means of saving Baldr and as a means of proving that Xehanort is, in fact, the chosen one as they suspected. Keep in mind this detail from the finale Q&A where Nomura says that Odin was entrusted with a task that aligns with the Blue Robed Figure, implying that Odin is somehow involved in all of this Child of Destiny stuff (excerpt taken from KHInsider, translated by Goldpanner):

Q9: What did Master Odin mean at the end when he spoke of a "teacher" and a "cruel fate"?  A9: Master Odin himself once had a master who taught him, naturally. His master entrusted him with a certain duty - parts of this align with that of the blue robed figure. This will be revealed in detail in Missing-Link, which depicts a later period. 

(Odin mentioning his teacher during this scene is exclusive to the Japanese dialog, as far as I know.)

But of course, Xehanort is not the chosen one, didn’t have the ability to banish Baldr’s darkness, and thus couldn’t save Baldr in the end despite his best efforts to do so, instead choosing to just kill Baldr when he ran out of options. So when Odin responds to Xehanort killing Baldr with “Destiny can be so cruel.” maybe he was referring to how unfortunate it is that Xehanort wasn’t the Child of Destiny after all like they were hoping. Because if he WAS, then maybe all of this could have been prevented.

Of course, this then begs the question: "Why didn’t Odin try to get Xehanort’s help earlier in the story?", but maybe it’s like the Power of Waking where you have to learn it through your experiences and it’s not something you just inherently have access to. Maybe a high-stress, high-stakes situation like this is the only way to manifest the ability. I don't know.

I think this might also give more context to Xehanort removing Vanitas from Ven in BBS. If Xehanort thinks he’s the Child of Destiny, and discovered that the chosen one should have the ability to remove the darkness from people’s hearts, that might have motivated him to try and demonstrate that ability to prove himself. But since he probably doesn’t actually have that ability, the separation process was flawed and resulted in two imperfect halves of a whole, with Ven falling into a coma and his heart becoming fractured.

[revalition]

OCT 23 - PERCEPTION See, hear and smell everything. Let no detail go unnoticed.

perception my beloveds. my lovelies. my darlings. this one is pretty different from what we usually do, idk I wasn't feeling super excited about drawing their design multiple times so just let Conceptualization do whatever they wanted... :)

one thing that was important to me was they don't! get to have hands! because there is no Perception (Touch)! That is Interfacing's job, Interfacing is the fingers (and H/E coordination is the rest of the hands I guess)

anyway lots of quotes and rambly thoughts under the cut!

Okay I have to share this quote from a ted talk we (primarily Logic) watched:

"Imagine being a brain. You're locked inside a bony skull, trying to figure what's out there in the world. There's no lights inside the skull. There's no sound either. All you've got to go on is streams of electrical impulses which are only indirectly related to things in the world, whatever they may be. So perception -- figuring out what's there -- has to be a process of informed guesswork in which the brain combines these sensory signals with its prior expectations or beliefs about the way the world is to form its best guess of what caused those signals. The brain doesn't hear sound or see light. What we perceive is its best guess of what's out there in the world." - Anil Seth

and I was like oughhh this really makes me reconsider how I see Perception's role. There's other evidence that Perception's existence is more "in" the brain than many of the other skills... like, the physical brain, not the mind. Perception (Smell) even directly communicates with the Limbic System, who refers to them as the olfactory system. I touched on it a bit in my electrochemistry post but the olfactory system and limbic system share pathways in the brain which might be why those two are more connected. Of note -- the olfactory system is *only* smell, not any of the other senses.

limbic system even acknowledges it's unhealthy of perception to linger on the apricot smell so much. which is true -- you can even get the thought "Apricot Chewing Gum Scented One" which gives +2 to Perception upon completion.

It also raises the question of if perception observes all the senses and simply labels for you which one they are using to make the observation, or if each of the 5 senses is independent. bet you can't guess what our headcanon is on that :) (subsystem perception and drama my most beloveds)

is this making any sense?? are you seeing my vision here

anyway look how silly they are now <333

thank you perception (sight) it's a trivial check but I like that you could still fail it and just... not be able to see what the lieutenant is showing you

on the same vein I remember something from a while ago where someone had 0 perception and couldn't interact with any doors? My first playthrough I had 1 motorics and I feel like I remember putting something on that dropped my perception to 0 and I couldn't get into my room at the whirling... but I could be completely misremembering both these things. If this rings a bell please tell us haha

perception in the dream :(((

perception (smell)'s comment here is so funny to me. they are *so* excited to sneeze

your nose denying rhetoric's claims to smelling communism never stops being hilarious. it did *not* tell you that and it is not taking responsibility!

WHY is this perception (hearing) ????

nooo detective hyperopia go get reading glasses. Also harry can go find the prescription lenses and put them on and perception is like no! -1 perception! nausea-inducing hell glasses! which -- fair, they're the wrong prescription and probably for nearsightedness. but harry probably is like what do you waaant

yes yes I love this one

hghh perception fail nooo

does our harry have tinnitus? :(

thank you for the clarification on the speaker quantity

they get so excited when they get to smell something!!

perc (sight) calling you sir?

they like the well laid pallet <3

🥺

hggh perc (smell) is so funny

this whole thing, of you sniffing your nasty toilet ledger, is *so* funny. "Quelle fuckin' surprise" lives in my head and has been integrated into our vocabulary

a few more for the alternate dialogue choices!

Love this one... it's so cool.

super trustworthy perc (hearing) over here

rare wonderful perc (taste) !!!

thank you for the insight. this is a medium difficulty check btw

ty perception (sight) ily

description of how evrart's container smells if you were wondering...

though the perception passive fails are also always delightful --

PERCEPTION (SMELL) - ... an office? Something officious? Is that a word? There's a bit of dust in the air that may be triggering your allergies.

that is a word, but that's not what it means love. Authority is officious, not the shipping container

ough this one is such a cool quote. and it upsets you.

I just suffered volition damage from another perception quote (not included here) dammit. this game. Ily perception but also why you gotta perceive so much

love this one. love that perc (sight) is able to read the headline on a scrap of newspaper drifting by (legendary difficulty check)

lastly including this one... one of only two difficulty 20 passives in the game. The electrochemistry check is difficulty 14 -- he can pick up on it long before your nose has a chance to. the smell will haunt you forever.

there are also a few instances of Perception having dialogue without the sense being specified. I picked through my DE screenshots but didn't have any instances so I'm unsure if it's a fayde quirk or not. I feel like I remember seeing it happen in game but... not certain. It is interesting though, might happen when you're using multiple senses at once. Also seems to happen in instances where the touch sense would usually come in (there is no perception (touch)).

I assumed for ages that perception was the 5 senses, so realizing there's only sight, hearing, smell and taste was surprising. Interfacing takes over the touch aspect pretty much entirely. And the inland is your 6th sense ofc <3

also our Logic is the neuroscience nerd so if our amateur insights are wrong go ahead and call him out :)

Ok! that's it for perception!! not gonna finish skilltober by end of october but that's okay, it'll trail into early november a little

[wazzuppy]

SPOILERS FOR THE NEW WALPURGISNACHT RISING TRAILER!!!!

And now for some other random things I noticed. Sequel-ish to my previous post.

Homura now has slight curls in her hair. It might also be more purple than before? Though that could just be because of the lighting.

Madoka looks really surprised and confused, but Homura looks all soft and somberly warm. Did she just randomly start dancing with her out of nowhere? 😭 Homura's such a gay little mess, I love her.

Was Homura fighting something here? The way she falls feels less like a dramatic one that she did of her own volition (like at the end of Rebellion) and more like she's in actual danger. Plus, she's in her devil form and the scenery doesn't look normal. I would say it's a witches labyrinth, but no labyrinth we've seen has ever looked like this— this one looks almost heavenly by comparison. Maybe there's some kind of new threat, or perhaps Wraiths are going to come back and get a proper labyrinth of their own. She might even be fighting another magical girl, and they're just in a barrier of some kind high above the city.

This teacup. I feel like this teacup is so important, but I have no idea what it could mean. However I do know what those golden cracks are. That's an example of Kintsugi, where broken things are repaired by mending the cracks with gold. It treats being broken and fixed as part of the object's history, rather than something to be hidden.

Also, this girl's eyes are golden and her hair is green like the tea inside the cup. The spoon and other parts of the tea-set are golden as well.

Nagisa has a new friend!! I thought maybe this orange haired girl might have been the unnamed magical girl from the first trailer (the one who fought with a bow), but that girl only had a single ponytail as opposed to pigtails.

Although... This girl kind of looks like what would happen if Nagisa and orange hair fused together.

And this other (same?) girl with orange pigtails is seen with Kyubey. Her outfit looks a lot like Kyoko's original outfit, too. Hmmm... I wonder if this is Kyoko's little sister? And she's been brought back because of Homura having rewrote the world? Kyoko does go to school with the rest of the girls now. She could have altered more about her life than just that.

Actually, this witch/familiar from earlier in the trailer has orange hair too. Does this mean something or is it just a coincidence???

Anyways, speaking of Kyoko, we get to see a bit more of her new outfit in this shot here. She now has puffed sleeves similar to Madoka's, and her dress in general looks much frillier. It feels a lot more girlish and cute, as opposed to coolness of her original design. Maybe it's a reflection of how Kyoko is happier in this new world?

Is Sayaka in her original outfit here? And just where the hell is she? Wasn't there a location like this in Rebellion, or am I just misremembering?

We see a flash of Oktavia in this shot, but Sayaka seems surprised and confused by it. Maybe she's had her memories erased since the end of Rebellion and doesn't remember Oktavia at all. Although, her shock may just be because it was so sudden.

Also, Sayaka's new outfit has more gold detailing than her original one!

So, the presence of the lizard makes me think that this is Homura. It looks like she may be attempting to cut it out of her, only for her blood to solidify and straight up break the knife (? possibly a boxcutter?). She may be trying to rid herself of her power in some way, or if this is a different girl entirely (the tea makes me think it could be Mami or the green haired girl from before), they're trying to get rid of Homura's influence.

This shot is interesting. It shows a white feather turning black as it falls from a heavenly-looking sky. This is probably a reference to not only fallen angels, but the status of Madoka's godhood. It's initially high in the sky with her, but is pulled down to Earth and turned dark as Homura takes it for herself.

[poppyseed799]

What are life series things that happened in the series but you never/hardly see them used in fan content, and wish they were?

I’ll go first with the two that come to my mind immediately, both having Martyn for some reason:

- 3rd Life, Scott’s final death, when Martyn and Ren were chasing him, but Martyn wasn’t red so he couldn’t hurt Scott and instead tried to slow him down so Ren could catch him. One of Martyn’s attempts to get Scott to stop running (and the last one before Ren killed Scott I think!) was yelling stuff along the lines of “come here and give me a hug! I wanna cuddle before you die!” And I’ve never been the same since but nobody has done anything with it. Mean gills fans, I’m begging you. I don’t even care WHAT you do with this. Just anything.

- Double Life, we all know the boat boys died to that portal trap. People do plenty of fan content surrounding that. But what I DON’T see a lot of is the fact that Martyn went through the same portal trap, accidentally stumbling across the mine craft equivalent of their corpses. Pretty sure he got in the same spot Joel died. So Martyn’s “allies” (exes) had to pull him out of a crime scene. I’m like. Silently losing my mind about it and I don’t see any fan content with it. Martyn being stuck with Joel’s burning body in the portal trap that smelted Etho.

EDIT: SO I DOUBLE CHECKED AND I MISREMEMBERED. THEIR STUFF WAS NOT STILL THERE, IDK WHY I THOUGHT IT WAS. Making up memories fr 😭 but it’s still the same portal so yeah 😁 EDIT 2: Martyn did say he saw the items outside the portal so actually?

Please add anything that you personally think about a lot, any minor details that you think are neat or major things that happened that you’re honestly quite offended nobody’s done anything with. Anything you can think of.

[bowties8glasses]

Two commissions made for @daroachie, both being his OC becoming real (designed)

One is Fabian, a smeargle whose tail lacks the fluid the species use for paint, he pursued making cooked and baked goods, using his dry tail almost like a food brush instead!

The other is Erena, a glaceon who is the main antagonist of Daro's story, you can read it here! c^^

Creative Process:

First commission is of Fabian (done in may), most of his lore was already set before, including his outfit which Daro had already doodled (left) which before starting I drew while pretending I didn't know what a smeargle looked like (right)

then came my genuine attempt

I choose to give Fabian a lil' red nose (like Rudolph) based on Daro's sketch (something he said was just him misremembering the pokemon)

I wanted the piece to involve Fabian doing some kind of multi-tasking, his hands on one thing while the tail is busy with another

it took a few drafts before landing on the version that became the final pic

Second commission was of Erena (done in august), it's been a long time coming considering her role and the fact her gf became real first

Daro notes for the design were just that she has a ice arm, and that she had "gremlim energy"

I started by drawing not her, but Sio and Cerys first (the main Daro OCs) so to use them as reference of how she'd contrast with them, especially Sio, who has something in common with her

designing process went by smooth, since Sio has more angular features than sylveons usually do, I thought Erena could then have more curled and rounded parts

most of my focus was on the face, I wanted her to have a meanine kind of look, using Jessie TeamRocket as reference for the eyes, plus I was dead set on giving her mouth a little "Lupin the 3rd"-type curve, Daro wasn't sure on it at first but now he considers it very important c^^

alongside a render of her standing on all fours, I wanted to do a pose that showed her "in action" of sorts

I first did the sketch that became the render, but before deciding on it I wanted to do another attempt, for a pose that also showed her back, which I thought could have unique markings kinda like a tattoo, unfortunately that pose wasn't working out

(unshaded version)

last detail was adding a black spot in Erena's ice arm, the arm was made after she got wounded, that spot is then is a trace of that wound

bonus cerys:

[thefirstknife]

After recovering from the doomed yuri (he said, like a liar), I had a moment to think about a little detail that I'm not sure was seen again or addressed at all?

In the mission where we go into the cache copy of the Infinite Forest, there were 4 doors in the central room.

One led to Saint-14's Tomb and the other led to what would be the Encore area. But I recall the other 2 doors had some distinctions from the others (clearly remember one having what seemed like scorch marks and/or ice?) that were inaccessible.

....What's up with that?? There was speculation about where those could lead, but then I don't think we ever went back there to check?

Of course, I could just be misremembering things (it's not like my heart was mercilessly torn out from my chest, no no. I'm very capable of rational thinking at the present, yes)

No you remember right! They're there, I went batshit insane about this when I first got there. Took additional screenshots on my other visits and wrote up my observations in one of the posts, but I'll drop the screenshots here again because they're better quality/angles.

The icy gate is Europa gate. It literally uses the same textures and ice and snow:

Normal Sol Collective Vex come out of that gate during the fight, aka the ones you'd find on Europa. This isn't too big of a deal overall because those Vex are just the standard Vex units in the system. However, the other gate? The grassy one? That's the Black Garden gate:

During the fight, Sol Divisive Vex come out of it. This means that the Europa gate doesn't just have random Vex, it's like that on purpose, otherwise this one could've also had the Sol Collective, rather than Sol Divisive. The distinction between them does matter. Could just be for the purpose of showing off different units and all; not necessarily some huge hint but still. I don't think I'll ever stop thinking about it.

It's a really big area with a lot of stuff that's really unique, such as these various gates. It hasn't been used for anything other than this mission. Was it just a nice setpiece for a really important mission or is there something more here that might be revisited? No clue, but it looks like something that could be used at a later date.

You can return here from Encore, but I don't think it's intended. You can't come back when you're at the start of the mission; there's a turn back zone. But when you return to the starting area while doing the secret chest, you can go back fully to this room. And it's a little weird. The radiolaria pool on the floor is not moving or damaging you, for example, which means that it's not intended to go back. But if you want to go explore the area, you can!

I have no idea if they ever plan on expanding on this. The whole idea is super intriguing to me. Nessus has these "archives" that can apparently go to different places? At least Vex-controlled ones like the Black Garden and Europa (I'm thinking it's possibly connected to the Nexus/Glassway). Can these be tuned to make other areas accessible, even if they're just archived? And obviously a really peculiar detail is that they specifically use the Infinite Forest portal, including being able to go to the Infinite Forest archive, in the case of Saint's tomb at least.

Obviously this went beyond the scope of this season, but when it comes to the Vex and their abilities and options, I am very intrigued by this whole area and what it may be capable of. Also, better image of Descendant Wyverns which are unique units made only for this mission (that I am aware of):

Used only once, here. They have to have made them to be used at some point again in the future.

Certainly one of the most fascinating areas that just looks like something other than simply a setpiece for a one-time mission. The whole concept of it is really intriguing as well because if we could possibly access some of these other archives, could we learn more about the Vex and their plans? Uncover some of their secrets? Find a way to fight them better? Do these archives contain information about the actual places like the Black Garden and Europa, or are they just archives of simulations from the Forest? Or both? Also, which collective controls this archive even? One of the gates leads to the Black Garden and Sol Divisive isn't on good terms with the rest of the collectives, so how are they dealing with that?

These are questions for another day, I suppose. *punches through the drywall*