#I also do not know how to background well sadge

[artdrawsok]

Decided to do some fanart for @thehamham's One Piece Wings AU! It popped up on my timeline one day and HERE WE ARE-

Go check out the artist as well! Since they created the AU!

Honestly, AUs' like this are so fun to me because you get to just, look things up and go down rabbit holes.

[dcwnthercbbithcle]

@dollhidden asked for a 'Plot's Please!' for their characters, BUT TUMBLR ATE THE MESSAGE AFTER I TRIED TO SAVE THE DRAFT! Very Sadge!

send me “plots please” and I’ll respond with 3 (or more) interesting plots / relationships / connections I can think of for our muses! | ACCEPTING

HEY LADYBUG!! Happy New Year! How've you been doing? I hope it's been well! I won't lie to you; I went a little hard with these ones, and the major reason I made Doe multi-verse and more inspired by Dead By Daylight was because of you and your muses, or more specifically, wanting to roleplay with you in your verses!! ASDASDSADH

POTENTIAL INTERACTION COMBINATIONS / INTERESTING DYNAMIC IDEAS

Okay, so, straight off the bat, given how long we've been mutual and all the convos we've had, I don't think I really need to spend the time selling you on my muses and explaining their entire deals and instead focus on the many potentially interesting combinations with a couple bits of explanations for them while completely VIBRATING with excitement! ASDHASDHASD

So first, Fíadh, now I THINK I've told you about Fíadh before, but just in case, this is a bun memory moment, let me rewind. In the broadest sense, she is an Inscryption based oc that takes notes from the entity known as Leshy for her background. She's a mix of folklore, classically dark fairy tales, gods that hold humans to the exact bestial nature as all other animals, sacrifice, bloodshed and the brutal beauty of nature. Now, she isn't CONSTRAINED to Inscryption; it's just an important context for understanding both the sort of woman and character that she is! She is my not-so-feral, malevolent, formerly human mountain-dwelling monster that will eat people alive! She's fun and sassy, like a goat, but also an apex predator who knows that about herself.

NOW THIS IN MIND: Fíadh would be FASCINATING to watch and interact with any of the RE: Village muses. Now, this is partially because being confronted with the fact that she's not the most dangerous beast in the woods would be a startling revelation. But also, more like her but not like her, ones that left their humanity behind, who gave it up for 'family' and duty in exchange for this feeling of belonging and love.

Especially Lady D or any of the daughters, because, like, Fíadh isn't feral feral but she is so unacquainted with 'proper' 1910s+ manners that I think it would be funny for the girls to have a 'WHY IS SHE ALLOWED TO DO IT?' and Lady D having a minor coronary because HER HOUSE, her nice, clean house is getting HOOF PRINTS PUT EVERYWHERE AND SNOW!! NO YOU GIRLS CAN'T KEEP HER!!

NOW SALLY, SALLY, MY BELOVED, my mean ghost lady who will adopt 90% of your muses. You know Sally, I don't need to explain Sally but like, hear me out:

Sally adopts Rosie inside the fog or in Sally's post-fog AU. Now, in the fog, the AU is pretty obvious, the Entity is feeding on the tragedy that's befallen everyone's favorite mold baby and the lycan monsters that have hunted her father in his endless quest to rescue her.

BUT POST-FOG AU?? Rosie is in recovery from the events of the DLC that have had an obviously traumatizing effect on her. Sally, who herself has been a victim to very similar circumstances in the fog both BEING the murder ghost and being eternally tormented and torn apart by the ghosts of her patients reaching out for help, is trying to take her underwing and help her step forward in a way that Best DadTM Chris can't fully help because he's never lived through a hell comparable to them.

Also, Sally and Ellie <3. Ellie reminds her so much of a boy (Frank) she used to be the social worker in charge of, per her modern-ish AU. Being driven both by guilt and the ghost (metaphorical) of the little boy, she failed to stop from slipping through the cracks to go full in on trying to correct and model healthiness for her when she isn't healthy at all.

AND DOOOOOOE, oh my god, where could I even begin to start with Doe?? She's my ghost girl, but less murder and anger and hatred and more depression and confusion and fear!! Please DM me for more information about her and the card so I don't completely spam and overwhelm this meme! We can do so many non-DBD AU things with her, though!!

Your Until Dawn muses, for instance, she is a PERFECT character to interact with any and or all of them within either the events of the game's narrative or in a kind of aftermath 'revisiting the old trauma and confronting it' AU.

HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE MUSES??? It's more of a stretch to insert Doe into that Universe, BUT HELLO!!! Ghost ladies who die miserable deaths throughout their lives NEED to stick together! Let Doe, my strange little creature, go in there and befriend the other ghosties.

THE LAST OF US TOO! Doe is usually depicted as dead for obvious reasons per her narrative, but I am SO OPEN to a living Last of Us / Apocalypse-style AU! It would be hilarious to see her little quiet spitfire self with Tess or any other girls her age!

PLOTS

OKAY, THERE ARE A LOT, AND I DON'T WANT TO SUBJECT YOU TO AN EVEN LONGER TEXT WALL, SO I'll LIMIT MYSELF TO ONE TERM THREAD IDEA, message me though!!! because I had ones for ALL of the ones I mentioned above and I am more than willing to elaborate in the dms or on my discord!

Fíadh and the Dimitrescu sisters!!! I know I said Alcina may be one of the most interesting because she fully stands above Fíadh's height, even with Fiadh's horns, and has the most extreme personality differences but HEAR me out!!

Let's set the stage: it's a standard pre-Ethan Winters storming in after baby Rosie, while Mother Miranda is still doing her plotting to bring back her daughter after the 'failures' of the lords and the Lycanthropes start to overrun villages left, right and center while the experiments continue.

The Lycan has worked well, or rather a tad too well, in driving away most life from the isolated, crumbling eastern European mountainsides that used to encompass the formerly expansive kingdom under Mother Miranda's reign. Except for Fíadh, the Lycans have proved to be largely pests for many of the other lords, especially Alcina, who is now finding difficulty in securing new, continuous virgin blood sources for her wines. They have DRAWN Fíadh closer and closer to the village boundaries.

You see, Fíadh is a being of the hunt and bloodlust by extension; she craves a challenge in her own domain to make the act of her feedings (entirely exsanguinating a being and drinking all of the blood from them while leaving most flesh untouched in a semi-vampiric fashion) less of a chore and more of an enriching exercise of cleverness, trickery and/or brute strength.

Humans are clever, so they often make appetizing prey in terms of entertainment, albeit frustrating and not physically enriching. They'll sometimes bypass her entirely, paying tribute to her leader so she cannot harm them, or, in the foolish case, will require a bit of disguise and environmental manipulation to trap them before they can leave her domain and thus enter into the blessed domains of maintained towns or past running water where she can't follow, but physically? No challenge; they are far smaller & far, far weaker. It takes little for her to tear them asunder, and the fun ends when she isn't following and plotting how to trap them like hares.

BUT THESE LYCANS? They are a HUNT for her in all aspects, fueling the bloodlust more than the limited game of unmutated humans. Many Lycans are smart enough to see the massive 7ft+ woman with goat horns and run, but not intelligent enough to remember how their previous unmutated human selves warded her away or escaped her pursuit. Instead, they will group up, stand and charge, and physically? This is a major threat, especially if they bring out their leaders or the most mutated. They stand a chance against her physically; she can't simply trap and run them down.

She has to remain clever, pick them away from each other and prepare for a real fight with the chance of her being HURT. Which is fun! It's a REAL hunt that she often craves but can't get from human prey. Combined with their blood functioning to feed and sustain her, just as the blood of any other humans can, without much in the way of brutal side effects other than it tasting less palatable to her. She is hooked on this new game and will follow the food source back to the source, expanding her territory in the forest as there is less of a need to remain at the high peaks of the mountains.

Which brings her directly toward and through the domain of Castle Dimitrescu and Alcinia. Their neck of the woods overlaps significantly with Fíadh's range, and with Fíadh's boldness expanding, the chances of them running into each other only grow while he ventures further for her hunts. But it's not a matter of inherent hostility. Fíadh isn't a creature that is murder on sight; she's often benign until she considers you food or an annoyance.

So, I have some ideas of where it could go from there!

MUTUAL CURIOUSITY, similar to introducing two cats from opposite sides of a window. Intense winter weather would deliberately keep the girls separated and isolated, allowing Fíadh to become familiarized with the sight and presumed roles of the girls within the castle. Perhaps they're curious enough to release Moroaicǎ from the dungeonous cellars and crypts of the castles or shoo Samcă from the uppermost areas of the castle. Providing her game and fun and forming a kind of rapport between the girls until the spring and summer warming could allow them to interact physically.

MAYBE THEY DECIDE TO HUNT EACH OTHER A LITTLE BIT, perhaps when the girls finally come into contact with Fíadh, who, to that point, has come to view and respect their place as residents in the area and thus 'not to be messed with' they decide to test her, just as anyone would a new toy. Trying to push the boundaries to see how much they can get away with, how long until she fights back against them, and eventually how much it takes until she breaks, given the girls have never been too great at preserving their toys. However, to the girl's delight and perhaps frustration, Fíadh doesn't break and die. Not like the humans they usually gain as staff and toys from Alcina. Something, something the curse, something, something being a supernatural creature, it's neither here nor there. In any case, the girls would eventually need a mutual cease-fire as once aggravated, Fíadh is BRUTAL and won't let up. Fíadh heals fast as long as she has blood, and between her size, the girls would have trouble attempting to overwhelm her, especially compared to a person like Ethan. She's a big target that would force them to attempt at their human forms, which, given her size advantage, would result in blows for Fíadh, but not enough to take her down.

Either way, they're separated; Fíadh is licking her wounds but recognizing well that the girls aren't to be hunted and instead wholly respected, not just cause they live there but because they put up a good fight and can hold her off well enough.

From there, things could either go down as an enemies-to-friends route, rather standardly. Perhaps the girl would delight in watching Fíadh hunt and feed in her own way. Maybe they want all the flesh left over from one of her kills, and they have a slow burn warming up to each other in that way. OR OR we could go with one of your ideas of Cass finding a hunting buddy who is willing to follow her in the sadistic hunts.

OR OR OR we could go an entirely different direction!! I'm open to any suggestions!!

But I will give you this image to play with: it's early spring, it's warming, but the temperatures at night still dip down dangerously low for the girls. But stir craziness is what it is, even in an estate as large as the Dimitrescu's. They're released for fun during the day under a strict curfew for their own safety, all return... but where's Daniela? Fuuuuck, she's being irresponsible again. All staff are being sent out en mass looking for her. The other girls are panicked & angry, but largely out of concern for Daniela. There doesn't seem to be much sign of her, could she lost?? It gets colder, but a stranger approaches the castle on a mission. It's Fíadh, and she has something massive wrapped up tightly in her arisaid and held to her furred and insulated chest. It's Daniela, burrito'd, warm and toasty, but now the Dimitrescu's are indebted to a fairy. (maybe, not actually; Fíadh isn't out for prices; the hilarity of Daniela getting stranded and needing to be wrapped up and returned home is enough payment)

RELATIONSHIPS + CONNECTIONS

Now, HEAR ME OUT: I love romance, and I could definitely see something that could develop with Fíadh and your RE: Village muses, most especially Cass, but I would not brush anyone out of possibilities. And same for Doe and either you Until Dawn or TLOU muses, though I will warn you, there is no happy endings with that gay ghost girl! Haha

In terms of non-romance though, FRIENDS!!! I love friends and I love enemies!! I am open and happy to do all of it, including slow burns that go from enemies to friends to enemies again! Relationships are MESSY but so am I! Haha

Also Sally would kill, murder and maim for Rosie, Ellie or little Sarah. Do you want to see why they feared her so terribly as the nurse?? Cause if you mess with the girlies, SHE WILL SHOW YOU AND THEN SOME! Haha

[faenemy]

Hii don't mind me, just wanted to ramble abt Mark and friends series in ur ask box cuz why not :3 (you've drawn fanart of them b4 btw!)

SO LETS START OFF WITH SOME CONTEXT. Mark and friends is a completed series on YouTube made by this guy ashur gharavi, it follows the story of Mark blah blah i can't talk in this format snymore I need to go silly mode holf on. SO MARK IS GHIS 'LITTLE MONSTER' KID RIGHT, AND ANOTHER CHARACTER IS BILLY WHO IS AN ADUKT HUMAN. SO THE SERIES IS KINDA LIKE A KIDS CARTOON BUT WITH BLOOD AND MURDER. BILLY KIDNAPPED MARK AND FORCED HIM TO DO STUFF FOR CAMERA. AS THE SERIES GO ON, THERE WILL BE LITTLE HINTS IN THE FORM OF NEWSPAPER OF LIKE WHATS ACTUALLY GOING ON AND WHY HES FOING THIS. READ EVERY SINGLE BACKGROUND NEWSPAPER EVEN IF IT DOESNT FEEL IMPORTANT, THE LITTLE DETAILS ARE SOOOO GOOD. MARK IS LIKE 10 YEARS OLD AND HES LITERALLY SO CUTE, HE DONT DESERVE EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENWD TO HIM. IM NOT GONNA SPOIL THE ENDING FOR U, CUZ ITS LITERALLY SO GOOD I REMEMBWR WHEN I FIRST WATCHED IT AND THE ENDINV IS JUST SO PULLING MY HEAET STRINGS AND LIKE SUCH A TENSE SCENE YK. ITS LITERALLY SO GOOD, THERE ARE 3 COMPILATIONS OF IT (PART 1,2 AND 3) I THINK ITS LIKE 2 HOURS LONG PLEASE PLEASE WATCH IT (ONLY IF U WANNA OFC NO PRESSURE) I LOVE THE CHARACTERS SO MUCH THEYRE SO WELL WRITTEN, I HATE BILLY BUT I LOVE HOW WELL HIS CHARACTER AND MANIPULATION IS WRITTEN HES SO FUCKING CRUEL. I LOVE HOW ASHUR ISNT AFRAID TO JUST FUCKIMG MAKE HIM DO TERRIBLE AWFUL SHIT. I LOVE IT SO MJCH ITS SO CREATIVE I LOVE MARK TOO, HWS SO CUTE I LOVE DRAWING HIM. OH AND ALSO, ITS CANON THAT TWOMP TAKES PLACE AFTERRR THAT SERIES AND MARK IS FRIENDS WITH ARGOS AND MR PLANT. I LOVE THEM SO MUCH THEYRE SO UGHHHHH. THE ACTOR IS EYE CANDY TOO HES SO COOL. PLEASE WATCH IT ILL GIVE U A COOKIE IF U DO (AGAIN, ONLY IF U WANNA THO NO PRESSURE) :3

SOME PICTURES ^^

(This ask wasn't proofread btw)

HI HI HI Thank you for the ask box rambles I love them <3

Definitely did not go and binge the whole series, nope, not me

ANYWAY MY RAMBLINGS AS I WATCHED AND THOUGHTS UNDER CUT

I love this little green guy!

Marks parents seem to be murdered (go figure)

I'm assuming he was kidnapped in an ice cream truck/van??

Mark is kept in a cage without an actual bed it seems, at least when he isn't on camera

Are the puppets the actual children, or do they just represent them?

Mark keeps rubbing his side/stomach, maybe where his kidney was removed??

Child star shows an actual person so kidnapper might have started as a child star?

Grandma knows her kiddo is still alive (GET HIS ASS)

Is the plant guy who killed Big Monster Mr plant?

Donovan escapes???

Cupcake monster gets killed (very sadge)

WHY THE FUCK DID THEY PUT TOMATOES IN A FRUIT SALAD??? JAIL!!!!

apparently monsters are edible, might be some cannibali going on?

Also humans are considered monsters in this world

In "cooking" the newspaper is obscured, but it seems to read (missing childs body found, but not his head) Cupcake Monster???

UPDATE DEFO CUPCAKE MONSTER NOOOOOO

No Illinois, Minnesota or Indiana

Maybe the other kids were from Minnesota and Indiana, since Mark is from Illinois?

Aight my man was defo the child star, I'm assuming he is repeatimg the crimes of big monster???

Oop so search led to Indiana, snap my prior theory lol

Big monsters cousin changes last name

Frame lasted long on that, so I assume it's important

I keep forgetting Billy's name LMAO

Big monster and sewer? Seems like an It reference

So they're near Michigan now, noted

WHY MUST YOU TORMENT ME :(((( I luv paper bag dog NOOOOOO

Mark seems more vocal and challeging billy more now

Billy straight up gave the kids psychedelics my god

Someone save the child pls

Donovan my beloved is traumatized:((((

Oooooh the photos in the background are crying now, I think those are Marks parents?

Mr plant defo killed Big Monster, king shit

OOOOOH

okay so kid star (johnny) met with big monster in the sewer, got murdered

But Billy was the one who encouraged him to, Billy was going to star in the movie before Big Monster was convicted. So he was the kid who was crying in the article because his role was dropped

NOOOOOO MARK IS ADDICTED TO DRUGS

Get HIS ASS GRANDMA

I can't read the teleprompter, get this dude some glasses.

Just remembered how Mark cannonicly has his photos taken???? And sold I think??? Wtf???

Donovan had started a charity:((( he thinks his friends are gone

The date on the newspaper in the back keeps changing

Can I fight Billy??? I think I could take him easy

Mark straight up ate a razor blade get this kid a doctor

OH MY GOSH THEY'RE GOING TO THE DOCTOR

APOLLO HAS BLESSED ME

the eye test in the back reads "Mark has one more week before I kill him" if my new son dies I riot

Can I adopt Mark

Goal list; dispose, replace, repeat

I wonder if there are other shows featuring Donovan and Cupcake Monster?

Why were they kidnapped?

Befriend that strange man??? NOOOO

Did my son just kill Billy???? HELL YEAH

RUN BOY RUN

MY SON IS SAFE!!!!

In conclusion, I would like to adopt Cupcake Monster, they are now my child. I would also like to punch Billy repeatedly :D

[burning-thistles-bt]

is she! sedgecreekflower!

a minor character with semi-importance thats still irrelevant in the scheme of things. sadge

Alder and I never actually looked at her canon history before we made her the character she is in BT now bcus we thought she was just a Background Character (which she is!) but it turns out she has Some Importance in canon side books

to start off, she’s in the same generation as Leopardfur! Older by a few moons or so, I believe. I read Leopardstar’s Honor so I should know but c���mon who remembers that stuff lmao. apparently Leopardfur thought she was bossy. tbf i think all the kits except Sunfish? and maybe Frogleap? were mean to Leopardfur in some way. but i still classified them as friends! kithood friends. they all stood together when Skypaw was held back and waited to become warriors with her. how nice :)

she’s also Crookedjaw’s first apprentice! she appears to be a little rambunctious and over-energetic. y’know, one of your typical apprentice personalities. she also apparently thinks Rippleclaw is really cool! this ties in nicely with the “admirance” part of her personality - i think she can get a little ‘obsessed’ over certain people and idolize them as a ‘can do no wrong’ kind of thing.

onto her personality! our Sedgecreek is kind of a well-meaning but self-serving kind of cat. she wants good for her friends and clanmates, but she’s also a bit oblivious, or, well “bossy.” despite Lightningfur constantly clearly pushing her away or calling her annoying/disgusting, Sedgecreek is just “aw! so cute :) she’s playing hard to get teehee.” she is very straight-forward herself though! she doesn’t hide her crush on Lightningfur and is unphased by any teasing.

as for why Sedgecreek has a crush on Lightningfur? it was completely randomly selected, in the moment sort of author decision. but, upon reflection, the reason would be simply that Sedgecreek was impressed by Lightningfur after the flood. previously she just kind of thought Lightningfur was There and ThunderClan and Out of Place and ignored her. but after the flood, where Lightningfur saved the kits and helped keep the clan calm/safe, Sedgecreek thought Lightningfur was noble and selfless. she began to believe that underneath that rough, prickly exterior, there was a kind and shy soul wanting to be loved, and Sedgecreek continues to blindly believe it to this day

but why does Lightningfur hate Sedgecreek?

at first, when Sedge first started being pushy and invading her personal space, Lightning truly and utterly hated her - she was the bane of her existence! she was annoying, pushy, didn’t leave Lightning alone like she wanted, had this disgusting “crush” on her (Lightning hates romance! the idea sickened her to her core!), and she wasn’t even a strong or smart warrior (in Lightning’s opinion)! Sedge doesn’t have the best understanding of boundaries, so its honestly understandable why Lightning is annoyed by her.

but after Silverstream’s death, there was a slight change over time. Sedge thought Lightning needed even more support and love after such a tragic event (Sedge was not so blind that she didn’t see that Lightning had a crush on Silver). at first Lightning hated this, desperately wanting space. but being alone while filled with hatred is a bitter existence and Sedge’s persistent attempts broke Lightning a little. though Lightning still hates her, now it’s because Sedge isn’t Silverstream. no one will ever be as perfect a best friend as Silverstream, so she is outright refusing to truly stop hating Sedge, and keeps herself in the cycle of despising Sedge. but all the while, Sedge has sort of become her new best friend, because at the very least Lightning acknowledges that she’s very very loyal and she begrudgingly/unconsciously keeps Sedge in her ‘inner circle.’

besides, Lightning would rather be "besties” with Sedge than creepy cultish old man Rippleclaw

(also things of note are: Thistlestar killed her dad, Timberfur. he poisoned the prey that killed Timberfur the deputy, which lead to Oakheart becoming deputy and so forth. Thistlestar also killed her mentor Crookedstar, obviously.

her brother Reedtail left in exile with Leopardfur. so did her kithood friend Skyheart.)

[thepandalion]

While everyone is looking at homestuck stuff today might as well get a shoutout for my currently unnamed music au featuring pitch vriskezi

(under the cut this time is only au stuff! Noone is gonna ask so might as well get the rant out now)

It’s basically a meteorstuck kinda au? Except I decided to say fuck it all the trolls are alive (mostly because I have a few songs in my playlist that are very much feferi<>sollox vibe and I kinda need them alive to be able to sing yknow)

So uh. Trolls are kinda bug-like. And they communicate with words, yes, but also with dancing, like bees? A lot of body language, especially when it comes to your quadrants; leaning on your moirail’s shoulder, grabbing your kismesis’ wrist to stop them from turning away from you... and also just actual dancing and stuff. So, trolls dance. But then Dave and Rose get on the meteor and teach them about how humans communicate. With music.

Cuz like, in the au, humans can get on the same wavelength as other humans via song. Singing is a way a human shows how they feel or think about anything at any given moment. You gotta learn the lyrics (unlike my other music au, which is also a magic au where the lyrics are chosen for you by fate gods aka me specifically and you dont gotta know the lyrics before singing) but like its sorta a bonding thing? and humans are social creatures so they gotta sing every once in a while or they get sadge

so the kids teach the trolls how to sing and thats all really fun and cool and whatever. meanwhile I’ve fallen prey to karkezi flushed propaganda via fanfiction so now Im sitting in the “what if dave and terezi moirails” because they’re my favorite beta kid&troll and the dynamic they have in canon makes my insides fluffy in the way a good moirallegiance gotta get outta you yknow.

Anyways timeskip to after they win Im very much ignoring how by that point both sessions were lost and I decided both of the groups win and like the humans make a new earth ig and like they still have their godtier stuff (at this point Im just picking and choosing what I want based on random music from my 600 songs playlist being put on shuffle). and uh. Well dave becomes a film person (I wanted to say director but also he writes the movies so also scriptwriter and just. he makes movies). And decides to make actual homestuck’s plot into a 12 movies and ongoing film franchise that is basically as well known as like. star wars or whatever. but bigger bc I never actually watched star wars so I only know about it the basic stuff a person who once dated someone who watched all the star wars movies enough times to quote them offhandedly would.

anyways dave is stuck with the part where the trolls get actually introduced to the audience in non-text form and is like “can I convince a bunch of actors to dye themselves grey and put candycorn looking horns on their heads without anyone thinking Ive lost it” when actual trolls (all 12 beta trolls+a bunch of friendsim trolls I thought would be fun to put in+unnamed background trolls for the confusion of wtf is sgrub) land a ship in the middle of area 51 and immediately get cornered by human guards patrolling the area in case aliens ever crashed there.

Anyways is now a good time to mention rose grew up to become the person who runs area 51 because she is and apparently at some point during the 3 years on the meteor she pulled like feferi and karkat aside to go “yo so when we win the games if yall wanna stop by earth 2.0 Imma go run our alien communication center so just ask the people there for rose lalonde yea” and uhh. they do. the other trolls in the background are Confusion over who tf this rose lalonde person is. the human guards are confused abt how tf the aliens know the full name of their leader bc usually the aliens just go “we want to speak to ur manager” or whatever so one of them takes their walkie talkie and talks to her and rose is like “oh hey they made it btw is one of them wearing green and looks like a vampire tell her I love her” to which kanaya fckn melts ig. soft gfs.

and uhh. well at this point except rose all the other beta kids can kinda teleport? Jade is still part-dog, john is wimdy, dave stops time and powerwalks over then unpauses time... rose just calls her limo like “dude I gotta get to this specific part of the desert plz” and by then dave is having a passionate debate with the guards about how trolls are actually awesome and the guard is like “they havent sang anything to make me think theyre intelligent species” or whatever and then the 12 main trolls do like. choreographed dancing with rainbow colors and stuff to various feel-good songs in my playlist. And then dave starts live streaming with scifi tech he alchemized during the game that he kept around like “yo ik theres rumors abt the trolls showing up for the next movie can we all give it up to my moirail and the rest of these lovely folk” to which the internet immediately implodes bc imagine fckn. idk. big time movie producer just starting a livestream in which he casually talks to a bunch of aliens while his half-dog bestie is floating the in background.

yeah and then the protagonist of friendsim sees that happening and goes to talk to the friendsim trolls who are there and thats fun and idk

dave is really good at assigning trolls random songs they should like. my playlist is almost entirely clown cult music its all violence and bright colors and yelling into the void and starting a revolution over the fact you suck at video games.

also the alpha kids are there. because dirk strider is my favorite homestuck character I want to dunk him in my tea like he’s a sad animal biscuit. he also gets a song where he and hal are being passive aggressive and sad about prince of heart stuff ig

[bongovrubel]

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 1-6. I am unimpressed

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 1-6. I am unimpressed

Before we begin, some housecleaning.

I'll try and avoid too blunt spoilers, but it's unavoidable. Therefore, it'll be under a cut

I have never played any of the games, and came with minimal to no background knowledge into this. My biggest exposure into this world was from the AMV for the ending song. Oh and that Keanu Reeves was in it

I am aware there are 4 more episodes, and I plan on watching them. But this is an arc onto its own. Plus, given how what comes next is supposed to be even more tragic and heartbreaking, how much I care for things at this point matters.

And with that out of the way, onwards.

We'll start with the good, because credit where credit's due. I have little, if any, technical complaints or criticisms. I enjoy the art and style, I enjoy the animation. I like the voice acting in Japanese, and the moods set by both OP and ED songs and clips. This is a very well put together anime and kudos to Netflix for getting the right people on it.

I also appreciate how they managed to establish the broken, distorted world we're in within half an episode of less. Corporations big, strong, evil. Everyone else is jerking off openly in the streets because that's all they're good for. This dynamic is obvious even in school, where despite David being a straight-A student, he can't escape the social caste he was born into. Heck, his washing machine stops in the middle in his own home because they didn't have enough credits. All the while his mom's working herself to exhausting to try and keep them afloat and David in his fancy, expensive school.

I am fully onboard with you becoming a criminal, boyo. Let's go.

The story beats aren't anything new in the first chunk of the series, where the biggest conflict is "did Lucy lie to David with the moon date or was it real". This lasted just long enough so that when they cleared it up, them sleeping together would feel emotionally gratifying to the viewers.

Then the bloodbath started, and I realized —

I could not, for the life of me, care less.

Let's rewind to the beginning and remember Gloria Martinez — a Latina woman who worked overtime, ran smuggling operations for dangerous people like Maine, and ferried dangerous items like the Sandevistan implants. But what they actively talk about in the series is how she's David's mom — because they needed motivation for him — and that she knew Maine — because they needed Maine to not kill David, and also work with him. Maine mentions her a couple of times after that, but David doesn't, and we don't get any more details. Chopped up into nice itty bitty pieces and put in the fridge, and I am never to receive the spin-off about where she met David's dad, what happened to the dad, how she got her current job, how did someone like her even get David into the academy in the first place, and her life as a smuggler.

Sadge.

The next death involving a named character is Pilar. And what, at this point, do we know about Pilar? Well, he's a Techie, has long arms that let him do tricks, he's a pervert, and is there to make it obvious David is into Lucy by making him jealous every time Pilar gets close to her. Never mind Lucy is obviously disgusted by him and his unwanted advances, talk about a hostile work environment. Is it on-brand for the world we're in? Sure, I guess, but that means I'm somewhat relieved and happy when he gets his head blown off. Any negative emotion regarding the incident comes from me liking Rebecca, and how she reacted to it. Pros for more world building and group dynamics I guess, but if you're going to kill a named chara, usually I'm supposed to care, right...? Ah, but other than Rebecca no one else seemed to care, either, because David didn't so much as move until he realized Lucy was in danger.

Next on the list is Dorio, who was spoken to, or about, so little I wasn't sure of her pronouns until after she was dead. She was a physical power house, and she was fucking Maine. Cool. The same Maine who got her killed because he's a moron. #DorioDeservedBetter. We're not given any additional background about her at this point to the point it feels like another fridging to push Maine off the deep end. I will give kudos for her design. Be it a really beefed up cis woman or a trans woman (does it even really matter in a world where you can rebuild your body from scratch? ponderings), it's a design you don't see often in anime, so I appreciate it. Less so what happened to her.

Now we get to Maine. Maine, who on one hand was more fleshed out maybe even more than Lucy at this point. The big honcho looking out for his crew, knew Gloria, took David in partially for her sake, all that jazz. And suddenly he's starting to breakdown and has cypberpsychosis. He beats Kiwi up, he beats Dorio up, he has blackouts. We know he used to job in the desert and that's meaningful... why? We also know he could've reduced the risk of this happening because everyone told him to downgrade, but no, big hunk of a man that he is, he refused, no matter how much he was hurting his own crew and ruining missions. Can't say I cared much for him losing it enough to double down when Dorio died, but then David shows up and suddenly Maine is lucid enough to give a speech and see David off.

And with that, Maine fulfills his own death flag when he promised David could have his arms when Maine died. A man who brought about his own downfall, as well as that of his partner, because he refused to let go of his pride. Ultimately the makings of a fascinating tale... if this series stopped to actually bother with any of the characters. As it stands?

Rest in pieces, you piece of shit.

#DorioDeservedBetter.

So, who does that leave us with?

David, who's a shonen anime protagonist who ended up in the wrong genre. Solid character so far, a bit of that 'Chosen One' trope with how he's managing the Sandevistan, but otherwise a rather accessible, likable character.

Rebecca, who's colorful inside and out. She's out spoken, energetic, friendly and at least seems to be honest. The reason I felt anything when Pilar died. Like the dynamic between her and David. Hope to see more of her.

Kiwi...? Is she still alive? Is she ok without most of her face? How does she even smoke like that? About all I know about her, really.

Lucy. The female lead. Rose to the arguable role of female protagonist once she started fucking David. We get tidbits of her past and issues, but I guess we're saving that for 7-10. Gotta get rid of the fodder in the party first, clear the stage for the main act.

And that's the end of the first arc.

Again, I have no qualms about any technical aspect of the show. Very solid, art, animation, audio, all of it. And the bigger plot, with Tanaka and Arakasa seems interesting enough.

But personally, I am first and foremost, a connoisseur of characters, and prefer my characters be given a semblance of humanity — preferably not reliant on who they're fucking — before they die. Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys and Monster come to mind, as well as Attack on Titan are good examples of moving the spotlight to characters right before they die, to make sure that if no emotional connection was made up to that point — here's a Hail Mary last attempt to get you to care before that character exists stage left.

Now, you can argue, and even have a good cause, that this is meta-storytelling. The world doesn't care so why should the story? To that I say, but then I don't care, so what's the point? Especially when Maine did get an introspection sequence, as fleeting and frustrating as I found it to be. So it's not that they couldn't — they didn't.

In Naoki Urasawa's works, which also often depict sub-optimal worlds, the deaths still stayed with me. They're beacons of humanity, that's what made them tragic.

Let's look at another example, Berserk. By the time the characters we know start dying off, we've known them for a good, long while and saw their characters, and relationships with Guts, develop and evolve. So when they died — it fucking hurt.

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners had very little of that, and as though to add insult to injury, the casualties consist of:

Gloria Martinez, a woman of color

Maine, a man of color

Dorio, who at the very least spat in the face of gender norms, if she wasn't transexual. A rare sight either way.

I know that if you put representation in a messed up world like that, bad things will happen to these people. But other than Latino David, so far our other survivors are all white women, who generally adhere to the normative beauty standards we all know. One is the love interest on top of it, too.

To be perfectly fair, I think what I take out of this is that I'm not the target demographic for this series. I look for things they obviously didn't prioritize, and I prefer deeper logic and cohesiveness in narrative, both story wise and character wise. I found especially the latter lacking. Will I finish the show? Probably, because I do want to see where they take the plot, but I'm keeping my expectations low.