#I have no idea how connected or disconnected I want them from the original story yet

[saltspill]

lmfaooo thinking how fucking funny it would be to put Arling and their squad in a casino heist

[my-mt-heart]

Dissecting Zabel's Inappropriate Comments

I shared my initial reaction to the Games Radar article, but now that the original SFX article is also out, I want to dive a little deeper into what David Zabel said. From one source to another, the meaning doesn't change.

Regarding Daryl's and Carol's relationship, he says...

Whereas with Daryl and Isabelle, he insists...

Zabel thinks he's shedding light on his male hero's two most prominent relationships [with women], when in actuality he exposes a lot more about himself and what kind of showrunner he is.

He has no interest in the flagship show nor its acclaim.

Had he actually watched TWD in its entirety, tracked the progression of Daryl's and Carol's relationship from S1 to S11, and researched their fanbase as well as their media coverage from over the years instead of just pretending to, he'd see that nothing about their relationship is "obvious" or "easy." Trauma and self-esteem issues hardly ever explored in TV couples—let alone TV couples in their 50’s—have always complicated things, creating obstacles for them to take their relationship beyond intense feelings and helping them grow closer together, feel safer, understood, and loved to a degree nobody else can measure. There are 12 years and 11 seasons of sexual tension, smoldering looks, vulnerable moments, meaningful conversations, and romantic subtext at Zabel's disposal. The natural thing for him to do, the only thing that furthers the narrative already being told is to confirm that they're "in love" and make them "a couple."

If he wants to talk about a "TV book of tricks," he should re-evaluate the tricks he uses to justify a romantic connection between a well-established, unconventional, fiercely loyal man with intimacy issues and a blonde nun who’s only been around for a few months (and 6 episodes from an audience POV). Zabel tries to project what draws Daryl to Carol—broken until the world ended—onto Isabelle. He forces Daryl and Isabelle into intimate situations straight out of fanfiction—bathtubs, bed-sharing, cleaning wounds in hard-to-reach places—and uses other supporting characters like Losang to tell Daryl and the audience that it's romantic. That's not "seeing what happens," that's repeatedly trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and expecting everybody to think he's a genius. On the contrary...

He's completely tone deaf.

If he's calling Daryl's and Isabelle's relationship "mature," then he clearly doesn't realize how deeply problematic it is for a character to gaslight and lie to another character with a history of childhood abuse in order to get something from him, whether it's to help her find their new home or father a boy he just met. It's also triggering for fans who have survived abuse in their own lives to watch their hero fall back into the cycle without it being acknowledged or resolved in a way that helps him (and the fans) heal from it.

A dynamic between Daryl and a nun definitely could've been an "intriguing" dynamic to explore since they're both supposed to be emotionally unavailable. We'd get to see that Daryl's heart belongs to Carol and Isabelle is "married" to God. We'd get to see them bond over the idea of loving someone and/or something so infinitely and unconditionally that it's frightening to feel disconnected from them, whether physically or spiritually, and we'd get to see them help each other keep their faith, whatever that means to them. That's interesting. That's fresh. A romance between Daryl and a nun, regardless of whether or not she dresses like one, is not interesting. Not intriguing. Not edgy. Not sexy. It's disrespectful on multiple levels.

He calls Daryl and Carol coming back together only to realize that they've "changed" the more interesting story to tell? I call it sad. Sad and out of character for Daryl to feel anything other than elated to realize that the woman who represented everything good to him for over a decade crossed a damn ocean to find him. Sad that after "everything she's done" to find him, she finds that he's replaced her and their family back home.

He views the female perspective as irrelevant.

Saying he "respects" Caryl shippers only to invalidate them and then pour salt on the wound shows an air of superiority that is very typical of white male showrunners and executives. Granted, plenty of men ship Daryl and Carol, but it is also true that the majority of their fanbase is female and because of that, Zabel thinks he can mansplain the relationship to us. He tells us that what we want is cute, but he’s the one with the skillset to write a "good" story for the characters. He either doesn't care about our viewership because other men like him are his "real" audience or he assumes we'll come to our senses because he's right and we're wrong.

It isn't about shipping or romance at all though. If it was, he wouldn't just kill Isabelle off after insisting on this wild chemistry nobody sees but him (and Greg Nicotero). It isn't that Carol can't be a love interest either. It's about catering to the male gaze. Carol can't be the love interest for the white male hero that Zabel wants the fanboys to identify with and glorify. She doesn't fit their biases. Not young enough, not blonde enough, so on and so forth. Ignorance like that is generations-long and it doesn't just go away the more time he spends with Daryl and Carol. It only gets worse. Caryl may go to Spain alone, but there's plenty of new shipbait over there for him to introduce.

In what Zabel is actually quoted as saying about romance, which is all that counts, he only vaguely brings up a conversation with Norman, one I suspect is a lot more nuanced than he wants us to believe, but that's beside the point. He doesn't say "Melissa and I talked about Caryl's relationship" or "Clemence and I talked about Daryl's and Isabelle's relationship." Why not? Would the former disapprove of being treated like a sexless intruder in her "friend's" nuclear family? Would the latter hate to feel like a plot device for the brooding hero's manpain? What do the women have to say about their side of this oh so "interesting" emotional arc, Zabel? It's a rhetorical question obviously because if I really wanted to ask, I'd ask the women directly. The only thing is, they aren’t allowed to talk about it so openly and honestly, are they, Zabel? And you took advantage of that, right?

He's vindictive.

He may treat us like a bug on his windshield, but he isn't unaware that Caryl/McReedus have an active fanbase. He isn't unaware that AMC's promo strategy has centered on Caryl/McReedus. He's competing with it. He's aggressive in these articles because he wants to tell a particular kind of story that AMC, plus all of us unhinged shippers, won't let him. Taking a firm stance is how he takes control again (or so he thinks). The way he positions Carol as an intruder in "Daryl's" story, despite a sorry attempt to put a band-aid on it later, also presents itself in the SDCC trailer where everything, including Carol, has to revolve around the main hook: Daryl making a new family in France. For Zabel, it's true to life because he had to fit unconventional Melissa into his outdated "interesting" formula when that wasn’t what he was hired to do. To paraphrase what Melissa said, she was the newcomer who had to be careful not to disrupt a system already put in place before she arrived. What, or who, made her feel that way when she had already been playing Carol for over a decade?

To watch or not to watch

That is not the question. You can choose not to give AMC your money for Zabel's bullshit or you can choose to help the ratings go up for Melissa/Carol. Both are the right choice. The real question is, how will AMC know to blame Zabel and not Melissa if the ratings drop? How will they know that Carylers still need canon and...wait for it...good storytelling if they watched just to remind them how valuable Melissa is to the franchise? I know I sound like a broken record here, but this is why it's so important to be vocal. Use whatever platform you have (and are comfortable with) to specify what's bothering you whether it's the shipbaiting or Daryl's suspenders. Say what you love (Melissa is the correct answer) and what you want more of or what you want to change in regards to performances, relationships, and storylines. For me, I wanted to see both Daryl and Carol make every effort to get back to each other. I wanted to get the payoff I've been waiting for after a god-awful S11 that kept them separated and angry at each other the whole time. I wanted the story to center on Daryl's and Carol's relationship while everything else revolved around them. "To find home is to find each other." Where did that story go? I want it back.

No matter what we say, egomaniacs like David Zabel, Greg Nicotero, and Scott Gimple will spit on us, punch us in the gut, and kick us while we're down (though I guess only the first one is stupid enough to be so literal). If Zabel understood the first thing about Carol or Caryl, then maybe he would've realized that their fans know how to push back.

As for AMC, they don't care about the characters or the relationship or our feelings either, but they do care about their bottom line and these articles threaten that. Keep reminding them.

[catboygirljoker]

fun writing tip: you can justify making your blorbos as good at sex as you want if you also make it depressing

i will try not to be too graphic or horny and keep it mostly to character study analysis themes core motivations plot conflicts etc type discussion. still, id really prefer that folks under 18 do not interact with me on this post or about this topic in general, thanks!

for obvious reasons this post is gonna have a cut

UNLIKE HIS DIIIIICK [EXTREMELY LOUD AIRHORNS]

. sorry i just feel like hed appreciate that joke. uh anyway

Brief discussions of: BDSM, including sadomasochism; edgeplay; derealization/dysphoria; self-destructive recklessness in a sexual context.

ok. so there's this fictional guy. and i kiiiiiiind of have a crush on him. and i'm a basic bitch, so, like, obviously, when i think about him hornystyle, i want to imagine him being good at sex.

the thing is, "good at sex" is not always a particularly interesting trait to give a character! it can often be an eyerolling power fantasy trait. like "this is my oc Chuck Dongburger he has a ten pound cock and can make a babe cum just by lookin at her" yknow. it's a trait that, handled incorrectly, is more likely to flatten conflict than create it—more likely to make stories more boring than to make them more interesting.

also, "being good at sex" isnt a magical blessing that descends upon someone by chance. it is a quality that stems from a set of experiences and traits. it is a skill that one develops, or fails to develop.

so the question is, how do i justify him being good at sex? how do i make it feel believable and interesting?

the answer is simple! make it depressing! (that is, relate it directly to the character's central themes and conflicts, and therefore make it a natural part of/inclusion in their story)

in canon, xigbar has had multiple bodies, lost his heart multiple times, allowed himself to be a vessel for darkness on multiple occasions. he has endured all of this to carry out the will of his masters. every social role we've ever seen him take has been subservient to someone else, even if it has usually also involved social power over others, too.

here are the sex/relationship headcanons i have that expand on this:

related to: gender/sexuality

bisexual. for starters. obviously. his transness i have Deep Headcanons about, but his bisexuality is just "idk im bi so hes bi hee hee"

luxu is a binary trans man who experienced severe dysphoria in his original body and never felt like that body really belonged to him in the first place. to the best of his ability he has only chosen cis male vessels, including braig. in those cases he feels extreme disconnect from his body but not [very noticeable] gender dysphoria. the only thing connecting him to his cis male bodies is his sexual characteristics. theres this great art piece that has never left my brain that conveys the idea im going for. his face his hair his bones none of those are his, none of thise feel real, none of those feel right. but what does feel right is his dick.

related to: him being Good at Sex™

he is Very Experienced. he's tried a lot of shit and had a lot of bodies and largely had nothing better to do than be a horndog and kill time suckin and fuckin. he is down for just about anything with just about anybody. he knows how bodies work and knows how to deal with the exceptions and roll with awkwardness and uncomfortableness.

he is pretty good at reading people—it's a skill he has had to develop over his lifetime. he is sometimes wrong, but usually right, and reading people, understanding them, lets him feel like he has some kind of control or power over them. this is relevant because this is part of what makes him Good at Sex. he is shockingly responsive and attentive; not completely unselfish as a lover, but he won't blindly exert his will onto the other person and expect them to respond just because he has a big dick or is going faster or harder or whatever.

related to: his backstory as luxu

sex for him is a means of exerting control over the world, proving his own competence and worth to himself and another person, gaining some simulacrum of human connection, distracting himself from his derealization, grounding himself in his body, expressing and claiming his masculinity. all things, i headcanon, he also achieves (or seeks/has sought to achieve) from keyblade mastery.

he views his bodies as disposable, and knowing that he can just jump ship if he totals a body means that he processes pain differently than most people. not in a "all pain makes him horny" way*—it's more that pain doesn't make his self-preservation kick in the same way it does for other people. in bdsm/kink settings he is a masochist [as well as a sadist] and more reckless with edgeplay (when it comes to himself) than he really ought to be.

obviously i have specific personal motivation for wanting to headcanon this (he and his body are both Significantly Older Than Me) but i don't think he's too bothered by an age gap. some people it makes sense to me to imagine that they'd really want to date within their age and maturity range, but i think xigbar's chill as long as the person he's dating is a self-posessed adult. considering how long he's been alive, he's gonna have a significant gap in experience with ANYBODY; there isn't that much of a difference between him dating a 25 year old vs a 45 or 85 year old.

he has told close romantic partners about his Whole Deal before. it has never gone well. ("what do you mean youve been moving into random people's bodies in order to stay alive long enough to bring back a guy who intentionally manipulated his students into killing all of their students via senseless war??") they never understand and he doesn't know why they don't understand (i also headcanon him having severe cognitive dissonance vis a vis the MoM but that's a different post). his instinct is to put up a wall and go "well theyre just naive and stupid and haven't seen what i've seen, theyre too sentimental to understand this". he still keeps trying (if with less frequency) because he is desperate for someone to understand.

*i want to make this crystal clear: i do not headcanon xigbar as being automatically turned on by receiving or causing pain in every context, because he is a boss in a video game franchise where he fights teenagers. i am not comfortable sexualizing those fights!

(i do however think there are contexts where he might indulge in some "battle sadomasochism" when fighting another adult—maybe he makes it weird for them on purpose to fuck with them, maybe they're both into it and it's all foreplay, etc)

related to: him being subservient

youd think that when i talked about him being subservient to others, i was building up to a headcanon about him being a sub. however it feels most correct [and fun] to me to imagine him being a dom-leaning switch vers (doesnt get dysphoria from bottoming because. prostate). social role and personal dynamics dont necessarily correspond to sexual dynamics!

the headcanon i was actually building up to was that he craves affirmation in specific ways from specific people. he is desperate for someone else to give him worth. he wants to do a good job serving an authority he deems worthy of respect. he wants to be useful, he wants to serve a purpose and have a role. he hates feeling like he needs something from someone else, and feels much more comfortable if they need something from him.

he doesn't have a praise kink in a traditional sense, but he does really get his rocks off from being Good At Sex and from his lovers clearly and obviously enjoying themselves. he doesn't wanna be told hes done a good job, he wants to know, to tell from experience that he's blown someone's mind.

furthermore, in romance, he becomes a massive simp. if he likes someone enough to fall for them then they hang the fucking moon for him. he is outside in the rain crying throwing up begging for a sniff. absolutely pathetic. its not a total transformation of personality, i think he'd really hide it and really want to hide it. but i think in most situations it'd be subtle but observable. every joke he makes is directed to them and checked against their reaction; he stands at a middle distance outside of conversation kinda watching them, observing every move, memorizing their gestures and tics and quirks. he feels i love you before the first date but won't say it until five years into the relationship.

related to: i couldnt put it in the other sections and i really only made these section headers so it wasnt just big walls of text oops

he's a low empathy emotionally constipated bitch at the best of times, so he substitutes emotional intimacy with physical intimacy. picking up people at bars or dances or what have you for one night stands, satisfying them thoroughly, and then immediately dropping out of their lives.

he actively avoids romance (and any emotional closeness, including the completely platonic kind). but he hasn't always been this way. i think Dark Road was the most recent in a long long string of experiences where he lost people he was close to. he's tired of hurting people and getting hurt.

. im not gonna get into it because im trying not to be like too too horny in this post but hes So fucking brat tamer coded to me. i think you will understand at least the surface level reasons for this. i guess if i wanted to relate it to Themes i'd say something like "there is a specific romantic and sexual fantasy in being an asshole and even hurting someone and them still wanting you and trusting you and loving you and even enjoying it" but. well we dont need to go there do we

these are just the Depressing / Character-Related / Themes-y headcanons. some of my headcanons are just like "i think this would be funny and/or in character and/or hot" but you see how long this list is anyway. if i started in on all of that then we'd be here forever.

also, these are just headcanons! they're informed by analysis but shaped heavily by what appeals to me personally, what i find hot, what i find compelling about his character. if your headcanons for him differ from mine in any way, i don't think you're Wrong, because we're talking about the sexuality of a guy who comes from a video game franchise where characters are barely allowed to hold hands. this is all just toys and playing

anyway thank you for reading this post lmao its so long

JUST LIKE HIS DIIIIIIIIIIII—

[ananke-xiii]

The Power and Love in Post-Purgatory

In my previous post about Betrayal&Fidelity in Purgatory I've tried to interpet Dean's and Cas' relationship as a marriage founded on its very antithesis: betrayal. Both parties are committed to each other by keeping the phantom of betrayal always alive in order to hide the reality behind their bond.

While Dean wants Cas to remember what he did to him, Cas wants to focus on anything but. In other words, while Dean wants Cas to stay in their committed relationship without acknowledging its romantic aspect, Cas wants to stay out of it precisely for the same reason: he also doesn't want to acknowledge his love because doing so would mean coming to terms with the fact that he has betrayed Dean.

Cas is ready to do penance for all the sins he committed against heaven and earth but his "sins" against Dean, which means that Cas is bound to keep betraying Dean. Dean is ready to forgive all of Cas' sins as long as it means that the angel stays in a relationship with him that negates their real feelings. And so the cycle continues.

Robbie Thompson's idea to have Dean say "I love you" to break Cas' connection with heaven and re-establish his connection with him was accurate. Because hearing Dean say such a thing would indeed make Cas stop fleeing. It would have also served the point of showing that, even though he was on his knees and bleeding, Dean was the one with more Power in their relationship.

It's then worth analyzing love's opposite in this story like in any other story: power.

There's a power imbalance in Cas' and Dean's relationship and this is what causes them a lot of trouble.

Obvsiously, Cas is factually stronger than Dean because he's an angel ("What happened? I happened"). This is also one of the reasons why he gets depowered every other season, to give a resemblance of power balance between Cas and the Winchesters.

However, it very soon becomes apparent that Dean's got a lot of power over Cas. The moment Cas touched Dean maybe he was not immediately lost but, in the words of Faulkner:

... there is something in the touch of flesh with flesh which abrogates, cuts sharp and straight across the devious intricate channels of decorous ordering, which enemies as well as lovers know because it makes them both:---touch and touch of that which is the citadel of the central I-Am's private own: not spirit, soul; the liquorish and ungirdled mind is anyone's to take in any any darkened hallway of this earthly tenement. But let flesh touch with flesh, and watch the fall of all the eggshell shibboleth of caste and color too.

Cas touched Dean and branded him with heaven's power but he got himself branded with Dean's power: he found someone with whom he could talk with, someone with whom he shared some similiraties with, someone who saw him and understood he had his own world inside.

Now, this is a real problem for Cas. While Dean deals with power in terms of control, Cas deals with it in terms of wants and lack thereof. Cas wants to become his own person but, in doing so, he finds himself disconnected from his original host and connected with a new one: Dean. He used to be a part of a "much better club" and now, "because of Dean", he has lost everything.

I've already written about how Cas uses Dean as an excuse to avoid dealing with his issues with power. It's almost like a tell: 9 times our of 10 when Cas claims he's doing something for or because of Dean he's most likely not.

Conversely, when Cas speaks about power imbalance or he claims he doesn't know why he did something he did re: crypt scene, now that's because of Dean. Cas lies. A lot. Mostly to himself.

Back to Dean: a way the show portrays Dean's power over Cas is making him describing the angel as a child, a baby in a trenchcoat, a dorky little man etc. If we want to take the charitable route, Dean does so in good faith. If we don't want that we must acknowledge Dean's tendencies to get mad, really mad, when people don't do as he says. And Cas never. NEVER does what Dean says and it drives Dean crazy.

It drives Dean crazy because, as he says in s8 I believe, if it was anybody else, anybody not Cas, he would NEVER let it slide. Hell, he doesn't give his own brother the same treatment. Dean can't let Cas go, he pretends to not know why and it drives him crazy because he can't control the angel, he can't control his feelings and he can't do anything about it.

Here we have THE Purgatory's problem: Dean can't let go but Cas can. Worse: Cas wants to.

Let's look at this beautiful dialogue from "A Little Slice of Kevin":

Dean: Look, I don't need to feel like hell for failing you, okay? For failing you like I've failed every other godforsaken thing that I care about! I don't need it!

Castiel: Dean. Just look at it. Really look at it. [He touches DEAN on the forehead.]

Castiel: See, it wasn't that I was weak. I was stronger than you. I pulled away. Nothing you could have done would have saved me, because I didn't want to be saved.

Dean: What the hell are you talking about?

Castiel: It's where I belonged. I needed to do penance. After the things I did on earth and in heaven, I didn't deserve to be out. And I saw that clearly when I was there. I... I planned to stay all along. I just didn't know how to tell you. You can't save everyone, my friend... though, you try.

Dean is mad at Cas because, once again, he didn't do what Dean told him to. Their argument leads to this explosive moment where Cas makes Dean remember things as they happened in Purgatory: Cas let go and he let go because he planned to do it, because he wanted to do it.

Cas is saying that he wasn't weak, he was stronger than Dean and he's obviously not talking about physical strength: he was stronger than Dean in that he was able to break their connection, to set himself free from Dean.

I think that this and Jack's pre-birth in s12 are the only two moments where Cas has got more power than Dean in their relationship and sort of unilaterally decides to break up with him. It's tragic to notice that both times Cas chose to completely opt out from Dean's life.

Cas saying he didn't want to be saved means that Cas is rejecting Dean and his obsession with saving people: Cas doesn't want to stay in the type of relationship Dean offers him.

Cas then talks about belonging. He belonged to Purgatory, not Dean and not just because Dean's human. It's because Dean doesn't need to do penance while Cas does.

Back to the crypt scene: Dean talks about beloning there. Cas is family. Dean loves him. If Dean had said those words their story would have ended, in a way. Dean would have managed to gain the upper hand against Heaven because he would have told Cas exactly what he wanted to hear: tell me you love me, tell me you forgive me, tell me we belong together and let's move on from our past, free me from my pain because I've hurt you and I don't know what to do to make it better.

But this doesn't happen, Dean says he needs Cas, he still gets the upper hand over Heaven but just briefly: the connection was broken but the one between Cas and Dean is NOT repaired. Dean tells Cas he needs him and Cas doesn't want that, Cas doesn't want to be Dean's responsibility, he doesn't want to be saved by Dean, he wants to protect himself from Dean (in the form of the Angel Tablet) and the connection he's offering him, one based on need.

What's worse, Cas' connection with Heaven is cut off only momentarily as he will later choose Heaven again thinking he needs to keep doing his penance (and making a huge mistake).

When Cas goes to Dean to ask for his help to close Heaven's gates, Cas is testing Dean. Back in S6 Cas asked Dean the same kind of help with the exception that, back then, Cas wanted to open a gate and now he wants to close it.

To be fair, I'm not so sure Dean pass the test. Sam intervenes in their conversation and I'm inclined to think that if he didn't, Dean wouldn't have helped Cas.

Anyway, the point is that Cas is testing Dean because he doesn't need Dean's help since Dean does nothing but drink a beer with him. So, you know. As I've said, Cas lies to himself.

Finally, Cas deems that Dean has passed the test and they say their goodbye. It's a bittersweet moment because nothing's been resolved: Dean lets Cas go because he thinks there's not much to be done about it, Cas is sort of giving Dean a chance to patch things up but nothing really happens so Cas can convince himself he's doing the right thing and he's ready to die.

They have both given up (for now ofc).

It's beautifully sad.

So, is their relationship based on power or love? Well, the second, of course.

In S8 both Dean and Cas have their moment of power over each other but it ends with a tie. The love is still there, though. Not for nothing their final interaction involved Cupid.

[marshmallowgoop]

Isn't hilarious how Heiji parents are a lot more similar to Shinichi (much more composed and professional) and Shinichi ones are more similar to Heiji (much more eccentric and bizarre)???

I maybe find it a bit sad!

Both boys seem so disconnected from their parents. Episode 263 reveals that pizza bagel mom didn't even know that Heiji is the kendo captain for his school because he "doesn't tell [them] anything at home."

And at the end of Episode 221, we learn that she purposefully didn't go see Heiji in the hospital after he got shot (in Episode 118)!

Meanwhile, Shinichi gets poisoned and nearly killed, and he doesn't say a word about it to his parents. In "The Desperate Revival," there's a rare bit of emotion about his parents' absence, too. He expresses that he is upset that they've left him all alone in Japan for the past three years (Episode 192):

And of course the treatment that Heiji and Shinichi get from their parents may have nothing to do with a personality clash... but maybe it does. Maybe Heizo and Shizuka and Yukiko and Yusaku find that their children are nothing like they expected, and they distance themselves as a result.

I will say, though... I think there's something particularly tragic about Yukiko's few appearances across the series (that I've seen). The first time that she lays eyes on Conan, she looks absolutely distressed—as though she didn't want to believe that her son had nearly died and told her nothing about it, but she can't deny it any longer when she finds herself face to face with the truth (Episode 43):

And while it's maybe more overt in anime-original material like Episode 418, the plot-heavy Episode 345 does reveal that Yukiko worries about Shinichi... but she doesn't approach him. In that special, we learn that she's been hiding in their house and watching Shinichi secretly (and then promptly terrifies him when he investigates). In 418, it's practically the same scenario; Yukiko disguises herself and spies on Shinichi because that's the only way she believes she'll really know how he's doing. If she were to ask, she knows he wouldn't be honest with her.

I get the sense that Yukiko knows she's screwed up as a parent, but she has no idea how to "fix" it, and she goes about trying in... some less-than-ideal ways.

This is all long and rambling, but I was recently able to digitize my Detective Conan VHS tapes, and—at the moment! I've ordered the ones I'm missing!—that includes six of the eight Shogakukan Illustrated Encyclopedia Series releases (which you can find more information about here). They're kind of obscure Conan content because they were released on VHS only, and, well, spoilers from here on out, so do stop reading now if you don't wanna know.

But the ending of "A Written Challenge from the Pyramids!" got to me. I can't say I super understood the story, but I did understand that Yukiko seemingly can't announce to Shinichi that she's returning to Japan. She has to send riddles for him to solve rather than just say, I wanted to see my son.

And, sure. Maybe I'm thinking too hard. Shinichi likes solving codes. But I do find something kind of sad about how Yukiko feels like she has to connect with Shinichi through games and pranks rather than, you know, honesty.

Also, these tapes are a wild ride. I feel like everyone needs to experience this ending.

[vasito-de-leche]

Hi, I just wanted to tell you that your r1999 ocs are pretty and I love their designs too! Especially people in the fandom are pretty creative for making their r1999 ocs and I was wondering if do you have a tips for making an r1999 oc? I'm quite hard time making an oc from r1999.

Do you need them to make an oc based them irl people, history, myth or perhaps a fiction characters from another story? (For example, baby blue is based from Alice in the wonderland in the book, ig?)

Some characters are pretty unknown who their based of, for example like X, Pavia, Click and the other characters.

OH!! OH OKAY OKAY I LOVE TALKING ABOUT THIS OKAY

As far as I've seen, not EVERY character is based on a single actual figure, whether fictional or historical.

Yes, we have John Titor who is. John Titor. But some characters have PLENTY of different people that they reference in relation to their themes, others represent broad groups, movements or genres like horror, the hippie movement. You have Dikke who has many, many different references to figures of justice. Mondlicht, who seems to represent all three characters from Little Red Riding Hood--the girl, the wolf and the hunter. You have Blonney and Horropedia who reference a shitload of different things and actors and works within the horror genre.

With the examples you've given, X does not seem to reference a person but the concept of Rube Goldberg Machines. Pavia seems to reference the Werewolf of Pavia. Click? No clue actually, I haven't looked into him much, so I don't know what else he could reference beyond WWII.

Baby Blue is indeed a reference to Alice in Wonderland, but her 01 Story "Fantasy is in Vogue" clearly state that Baby Blue is NOT the Alice that discovered Wonderland. The rest of her lore and i2 Garment also imply that Baby Blue is more akin to the figure of the Red Queen as opposed to Alice.

My point is: if you'd like to make a character then you shouldn't feel like you have to pick a single historical figure. You can pick ANYTHING that interests you and to have your OC embody and represent--mythology, folklore, fantasy, artistic movements, music, architecture, history... LITERALLY ANYTHING. OR LITERALLY NOTHING!

The whole point of the characters in R1999 is that they're a small piece that represents the era they come from. That's why they're considered art pieces to be preserved by UTTU Magazine. This is why we have Sweetheart, who is based on Marylin Monroe but is also a biting critique on Hollywood.

And you can even take this a step further and toy with this idea, like I did with my own OCs!

Spina Venatores is meant to represent the people that are truly left behind and displaced, people that you once knew but weren't lucky enough to meet Vertin nor the Foundation, to drive home the idea that Vertin cannot save everyone no matter how hard she tries.

The vulnerable that were taken advantage of by Manus Vindictae, a group that represents extreme isolation and supremacy, who lack any meaningful connections other than their own elitist groups. So I wanted my OCs to feel extremely disconnected--that's why all of them don't look like they belong in any single era but straight out of a different game, why they lack details that could connect them to their original times, and why the themes and concepts they reference are vague and timeless. I'm also big on bones and dark topics, so I shoved a SHIT ton of those into them, easy!

I always suggest that people grab their favorite character from the game and connect their OC to them, makes it easier to establish a connection within the universe and find themes to start with. You like Druvis III? Easy, your OC could be a childhood friend she had in her homeland before she and her family moved to America. Or a noble from a family that had business with the Weyerhaeuser company. You like Madame Z? How about an OC who is an assistant for her?

If people are too shy to make direct connections like this with a canon character, then you have plenty of organizations and groups--Zeno, Laplace, the Foundation, the School of Discipline, Manus Vindictae, Apeiron, and who knows what else is out there.

You can even study the lore and find places to fill in with your OCs. That one tidbit from a few days ago that revealed theres a few other terrorist organizations aside from Manus Vindictae? Make your own terrorist organization! Have you seen the white and red enemies from the Mintage stages? The Rock City enemies and Little Finger Peter? Make an OC that belongs there!

It always helps to have a solid starting point if you can't pick an era or anything to use as a base for your OC! And don't be discouraged if you come up with something and R1999 suddenly drops a character with similar or near identical themes--take advantage of that! Your OC has the same arcanum skills as another character? Make them fight about it, make them study buddies, find ways to engrave your OC and make them relevant to the world in their own ways.

It happened to me with Pavia! So I just made my OC and Pavia be insufferable and hate each other! Easy!

If you're looking for resources, I have a post here--it's a little outdated since I know there's a lot more new things to add, but it's a good place to start! It also helps to study the characters you like and pick them apart to understand how to better make an OC!

[mellowwillowy]

𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐂𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐬

I am humbly asking for guests to help me again.

𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐢𝐬:

What could have gone wrong from a light-hearted story that you have longed for? A loving boyfriend who will always be by your side no matter what and friends and family who are always supportive of your life decision. And that is precisely why you start to feel disconnected. A loving boyfriend who will always be by your side, no matter what could ever happen to you. 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐞𝐬: Comedy-Romance, Psychological-Drama

I am not sure if this serves as an interesting synopsis, I want to pinpoint it all on Blue first because he is the magnet here ;) That aside, I am also torn between setting the pace of this story. Should it start light-hearted comedy with the main story slowly creeping in? Won't it bore the reader? Comedy romance is the original idea for the webtoon. But I am also a no-good writer. I don't know how to start it with an interesting conflict while making the reader feel intact with the characters :[

𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞:

It starts with one of the protagonist's friends making a remark about how Blue was helping her with her assignment. Surprisingly, Blue could complete the assignment despite never being in the Chemistry Department.

The protagonist's friend made a remark about how Blue was considered as a prodigy by everyone in the university. Hearing this, the protagonist was not pleased with the idea of Blue helping someone despite not knowing his reasons to do so.

"If it displeases you so much, then I'll have to do something about it no?"

A week later, the protagonist's friend took a college leave and was soon said to be hospitalized because of a fracture. From this on, the reader is aware of Blue's violent tendency to solve problems with the addition of a lovesick tendency.

What do you guys think? Do you think this is a good start to engage the reader with the story? While this may be a good start, there might be a better idea from you guys. The time setting is around the first year of university and please take note to not OOC the protagonist (Take the protagonist as your classic plain-ass protagonist with no interests or life lol). That aside, I am not confident continuing the story after the prologue. I also wish to write a prologue that is somehow connected to the epilogue so I might change this idea into some sort of chapter 1?

𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬:

Blue (Protagonist's Lover)

Protagonist

Lemon (Protagonist's Close Friend)

Grape (Blue's Close Friend)

𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬:

Vellanie (Protagonist's Sister)

Eleanor

While Vellanie and Eleanor do not help engage the reader, I do not want to remove them from the story at all as they are indeed, important to the Protagonist and Blue's Lore. I plan on making them appear even more when the reader is too sucked into the story already... will this work?

Your feedback is very much needed, thank you so much (sobs) Please help me...

[votederpycausemufins]

Okay I swear I'm working on the characters I wanted to... I just happened to be researching gems and stumbled upon Orange Spodumene, went 'wait spodumene comes in blue, it would be perfect for Jevin' and made this. Honestly I'm surprised no one had done it yet.

But part of the reason I did him is because I may be working on my own Xisuma and Evil Xisuma designs (I know I used sweetest-honeybee's designs on the second page of my zedaph ones, but I have so many ideas now that require my own designs)

Just so I can make sure it's out there sooner rather than later, I know @chrisrin , the one responsible for the gemcyt brainrot, made the Boatem Gems to probably be the Crystal Gems equivalent, and people are already writing stories for gemcyt linked to the life series since most of the characters done were from there. However, what if Hermit Gems? Are you intrigued by the idea? I have more info below the cut, both on that and also how it connects to a part of Jevin's design.

Okay hear me out, Hermit Gems. A variation for the crystal gems. Instead of just defending Earth, it's a planet system they defend. That way you can have a planet for hermitcraft, a planet for the live series, a planet for a different group, etc etc.

Unlike with Earth, that had the normal warp pads and the homeworld warp, let's have 3 kinds. Normal 'Planetary Warps', Solar System or just 'System Warps', and ofc the 'Homeworld Warps'. The Hermits/Hermit Gems have disabled the Homeworld warps on any planet they were on, but for the most part the planetary and system warps are still functional.

Like, let's imagine there's 10 planets in the system. Each planet would have 10-15 Planetary warps, 1 System warp (to get from one planet to another) and maybe 3-5 of the planets would have homeworld warps. All the Homeworld ones are disabled purposely, and then a few of the system and a number of the planetary warps are disabled just due to wear and tear from over the years similar to what was seen in the show. That way while it's all the same solar system, there are a few planets that would be disconnected from the other planets. So you could have the life players end up stranded on a planet and not know that it technically is protected by the Hermits.

Now, as for the Hermit Gems themselves, I imagine most of the Hermits were part of the Hermit Gems, but the planets are a bit more dangerous than Earth, so former hermits have either been corrupted, shattered, or lost when they were poofed over time. As it stands, Xisuma has become the defacto leader of the HG's, but in the same way that after Rose became Steven, Garnet was seen as the defacto leader, but really there was no true leader.

The Hermits who were in season 1 that are present day Hermits are probably the original Hermit Gems. So that's Xisuma, Joe and Keralis. Technically Bdubs was in season 1, albeit briefly, so we're not counting him. (Though since Pungence was there, could be that he was there as another Nephrite and when Bdubs eventually learns of the HG's and of his uh... former crewmate(?), he might join with them. But I feel like most of the people part of the life series are up in the air.

Of course more gems/hermits ended up joining the HG's over time, whether on purpose or accident. I'm not sure about some of the other life series people, but Cleo having been in hermitcraft since s2 seems like she probably went to a different planet through the system warps, but by the time she wanted to go back, something had damaged the warp to go back to the sort of main planet, so she ended up stuck on what could be the life series planet.

Of the planets, I feel like the system would go along the lines of 9201 dash [XX], 9 bc of hermitcraft s9, and then the 201 due to us being on 1.20.1. And then the letters signify the planet, so the main one would be 9201-HC and the life series could be 9201-TL (for third life or traffic life, pick your poison).

The Hermit Gems are of course mainly on 9201-HC, and instead of their main base being the Gem Temple, they have it called the Mega Base (for obvious reasons). It would still be similar to the Gem Temple with having a door to various rooms that each Hermit would get, but unlike the Gem Temple, it wouldn't stick to the 5 rooms or whatever number, but it would change with the different HG's, mainly through someone like Xisuma or Joe messing with the gem tech inside. (Since the fact that the Gem Temple has it for the present crystal gems means that it was made after Bismuth was poofed and Amethyst has joined. That, or they changed the door. The fact that Bismuth has a gem in the same place Amethyst does means that the Temple Gem itself could have been her instead, but who knows. We don't know enough about the Temple's history)

Finally, the part that involves Jevin's design. Similar to how the CG's all had stars as part of their designs, I feel like the HG's would have x's. We see that Rose had her star far before the others did, and they added their stars around the time Steven was born, likely in honor of Rose, but Bismuth had stars of her own on her apron and 'tattoo' despite not knowing Rose's fate. So I imagine that the HG's, after joining the Hermits, if they got poofed and regeneration, they had the possibility of adding on an x design to show their allegiance to the Hermits. Xisuma was the first to do it, which is part of how he got his nickname instead of just being called his gem name: P[redacted until the design is complete]. Other HG's probably did it as well before Xisuma was seen as the leader, X just added x's first and whoever was in charge at the time liked it as a replacement for their diamond decals.

I'm not sure if I want to say the HG leader before was Generik, mainly because of... recent outlook on him. And I know Rose/PD had a sort of problematic backstory to put it lightly. It could be similar to why he seemed to have made HC in the first place (assumed to be that he was salty about not being invited to MindCrack, so made his own server, and then once he did get onto MindCrack, he didn't return for s2). If we go with that, it could be something along the lines of Generik started their gem rebellion, and the other Hermit Gems assumed it was for their independence and freedom, but then it was revealed that Generik just wanted to do it to upset HW and didn't care about the other stuff, which put a sour note on the whole thing. Whether he decided he was done, or if HW managed to find and capture/shatter him, who knows. Even if he didn't exist, Xisuma's the technical leader now and the symbol of the HG's is an x.

Of course, it's not required. The designs I saw for Cleo and Joe don't have x's (though i feel like that's because Cleo has never been poofed), it's just a 'if you want to have it, go ahead'. Which is part of why Jevin has an X through his hood and what represents the drawstrings of the hood, but then the hoodie pocket is still a diamond. I almost didn't make it an actual pocket, but i didn't know what to do with his arms, so in ze pocket they go.

If anyone wants to draw/tweak his design, the non transparent version is there for color grabbing. I put the transparent parts at 75% opacity. If you can't tell, his gem is at his chest as opposed to Orange Spodumene having it at her belly.

And lastly, part of why I designed him instead of just saying 'hey, someone do that' is bc i'm working on a fic. and while he's not the main focus, I needed more gems for it and he happened to be sitting there and easy to choose a gem for.

[justatalkingface]

I just saw your recent rant on the manga and i couldnt agree more.

My main issue with the current manga chapters is the fact that the characters are not fully developed enough to the point where the main themes and arguements can be handles correctly.

What i mean is, the LOV initially starting out kind of aimless and mad at the world to confronting the fact that the problems they faced were systematic would better help their arguements as well as if they were allowed to be morally grey and showcase compassion and empathy for people who suffered as they did then we would feel more sympathy for them and make the conflict more dynamic. Instead they are saying all the right things but it all seems to be surface level and not like the characters fully contemplated this.

Likewise, the heroes havent been allowed to consider the corruption and ramifications of hero society prior to the war arc in a meaningful way. It all came during the war arc and when it did it felt flat, like there was little depth to their arguements at all. Like Hori didn't really consider the deeper implications of his themes here. This is extreamly prominent in the side characters such as Monoma, Shinsou, Shoji and Tsuyu. All have themes of discrimination they discuss and showcase but Midoriya nor they contemplate it any further which renders the heroes feeling so shallow in their arguements. The most moral greyness we get is Monoma saying that they cannot be heroes the typical way to Shinsou and must act unheroicly to compensate for it.

Its all there. But it hasnt been explored well enough so we end up with Bakugou and Endeavour getting more focus without contemplation for how hero society helped create this and Midoriya being wierdly naive and hypocritical. All the heroes end up being hypocritcal alongside the villains and not in a 'oh theyre just as bad as the other' intentional way but in a 'i did not consider the arguements in their totality' kind of way.

This and the entire premise and consequences of the Nomu's not being acknowledged (thats a whole different rant) feel so underexplored and end up making me very fustrated with the manga. Because the building blocks were there, but for whatever reason it ended up being so underdeveloped.

I've said it before, but a lot of the villain/hero dynamic is built off a situation Hori seems actively afraid to explore after the manga progressed to a certain point.

Originally, MHA was built off the idea of flaws in society, the failures it causes, the people it alienates... deep ideas, and deeply interesting ones. But the thing is, looking at that kind of thing makes the good guys look bad. If heroes are flawed, if they fail people because of their own issues, then that makes them harder to root for, and at some point, probably because of Endeavour and Bakugou, Hori started almost running from that happening.

But, its so baked into the story's lore that he can't ditch it, so we get surface deep nods to 'failure' of heroes, while we watch heroes do and say everything right, all the time. No indivision, no selfishness, just all in devotion to the cause of making everything better.

At the same time, though, the villains are supposed to have a point, but if they go into that, if they seem like rational actors, again, the heroes look bad. So, the villains double down into cartoon villainous bullshit, before spouting out empty sounding platitudes about how unhappy they are... that everyone response to like that makes sense.

It runs the overall narrative, but more than that, without these imperfections, without the real people in the bad guys, it destroys their character development as well. No one like a one dimensional character, they want the interest and depth of a person to connect to, doubly so when this one dimensional character seems to be so wildly disconnected with the actual reality they're living in.

If the heroes, the perfect, selfless heroes, willing to give their lives amass to save one person, live in a society so corrupt as to make these monsters, to the point where that corruption surrounds their day to day life... why aren't doing something about it? Why are they fine with this status quo? Why is no one trying to reform the heroic system, however that works in reality? Why aren't they fighting the HSPC?

If the villains have all these causes and ideas and grievances, why don't they do something about it beyond just killing people? Shigaraki (who lived an absurdly sheltered life before being lead by the nose to losing his shit about reality, before he stopped being a relevent character/villain) and Dabi (who had executed a plan to solve his problem, even if it got fucked up by writing changes later on) have excuses, but why don't Twice, Toga and Compress, these big, dramatic personalities, broadcast... anything about what they want to say? Being part of the League, these big time villains, gives them, among other things, a platform to spread their message to all of Japan, and this is by design on their parts; they joined to fulfil these dreams and ambitions, and fight everything that oppressed them.

Why doesn't Toga, like, break into news stations to spread her message? Why didn't Twice flash-mob an elaborate graffiti manifesto onto an entire city? After all, a hint of them talking would bring slavering reporters to televise everything in droves, there's no way the heroes could suppress the sheer amount of publicity they could so easily generate.

Why? Because then that ruins the story. Not the actual story, but the little one Hori has made inside of it, where the good heroes beat the bad villains, then everyone cheers and goes on with their lives, the end. No depth. No deep thinking. No villains you can truly sympathize with, or heroes you can despise.

[the-phoenix-heart]

Right. so uh. The final season of TUA dropped

I don't know how to feel.

(All the Spoilers Ahead)

Like halfway through this season I would have said it's not what I would've done, but I liked it. I enjoyed it. I thought it was iconic. Maybe a bit of an overuse of the Babyshark song, but you know, not that bad.

But like after that I think I started to hate the season when I realized things weren't going to be explained.

Like there is good about the season don't get me wrong. It was funny. The acting was stellar. I don't hate the ending in principle (I'll get to it later). I don't hate most of the ideas in principle. But it's the little things that keep piling up and piling up.

Like we're at the end of the series and I still don't understand marigold or durango. SO much stuff went unexplained. Why was Jennifer in a squid? Why was she in Moldova in the original timeline? Does she have powers herself or is she just a person until she touches one of the marigolds? Are there 43 durango babies like there were 43 marigold babies? Presumably she was the only one because she was the only one Reggie was protecting, but in that case WHY was she the only one. And that's just all the questions I have about Jennifer. Not even getting into her role in the story.

Because yeah, as a character she's pretty much nothing. She's vaguely empowered. She's vaguely interesting. She vaguely something. I'm not against her as a character. That scene where her and Ben are watching The Blob in different rooms is moving and great foreshadowing in hindsight. But that aside she's just a plot device to help destroy the world this time around. After her and Ben have sex she's just there to be in pain because of the virus. At least we known Ben. I can believe Sparrow Ben and hers connection, even if I'm so glad their romance was mostly just a horny world ending virus. Seriously the moment Ben started talking to her in the diner I got love interest red flags and was so uninterested.

Sparrow Ben by the way is a draaaaag on this season. Look, it was probably the right decision to let Original Ben move on, even if I think Klaus should have been involved with it. But it means when season 3 happened they trapped themselves to Sparrow Ben, who is not as interesting a character as Original Ben and also has less of a connection to the original Hargreeves siblings. Like I get why Luther or Klaus are trying to spend time with Ben, but the rest? I don't. Which is why I guess he's so disconnected from them this season, and doesn't get the big ending moment with them (times like this I wish they had kept Ghost Ben around).

But of course at least Ben has things to do this season. Imagine being someone as useless as Luther? Luther spends the season being a himbo, not at all the leader he used to be, and a repository of sex jokes and sconce jokes. And we REALLY aren't looking at his issues??? He's living in the condemned remains of his childhood home and also the place where he fell in love with Sloane, and we're not going to talk about that???

And then there's Klaus...Klaus, Klaus, Klaus. It's tradition that Klaus kicks off a personal sidequest/subplot every season, but by GOD this was the worst one. Like, it's funny, in a dark sort of way, but it's also so POINTLESS. We really wasted precious time in this six episode season on Klaus being kidnapped by his former drug dealer, working as a medium for one customer who is looking to find her ex's money he hid, getting Kill Billed, and then getting rescued. WHY?! Why was Alison the only one who cared? Why didn't Abigail at least say something like, "Where's Klaus? I've been wanting to see him."

And he was so close to really finally getting his this season. His introduction this series showed that more than anyone he was effected by the loss of his powers-ie. being terrified of the world and falling back into his old habits so he's very careful about everything. He also gets to be Claire's fun uncle this season! And then after he is forced to get his powers back he is rightfully pissed and in a state of distress and it's really working. And then it's just...a funny sideplot I guess?

The sideplot's purpose I suppose is to properly redeem Allison after last season, showing she'll still do anything for her family, and I'm sorry but that was the WORST way to do it. Allison and Klaus have always been close with each other in every season, and only now are they saying it's kind of unhealthy. And ultimately it doesn't matter since it's just a footnote in the last episode. Like, this season treats her so weird. For someone who was pushing the plot along last season she really doesn't have much to do this season other than her relationship with Klaus. They don't even really address the whole Allison created another world for us thing, or how much she screwed them over last season (And I am NOT an Allison hater okay. I loved her arc last season. I just also think that they should acknowledge it more in this season). The six year time skip really is doing so much work to ignore the events of last season.

And then there's Viktor. Who is both doing a lot this season and coming out looking like he's doing nothing. He's just kinda there for a few episodes, they imply he has commitment issues and then do nothing with that (I guess it's just meant to point out how awful this new timeline is?), and up until the flashback with him asking to go on the mission and being turned down, as well as the mission with Reginald I kinda kept forgetting he was there. Which is not something you want to do for your actor who gets top billing and is arguably the most important character in the series.

But of course he isn't the most important character this season. Which means it is finally time to talk about the clusterfuck in the room.

Let me just say, I kinda get what they were going for. Lila would be uncomfortable with being a housewife and would need an escape, and her and Five have been set up as connected since the second season so it's not impossible that she would try something with him, and it's not even that creepy from a Watsonian point of view because he's in his sixties and by the time they do anything he's in the body of a 24 year old at least; and from Five's point of view he is an incredibly lonely guy who has no real purpose in life anymore and is still a man out of time so it's not impossible that he might look at Lila as a person for that connection he's been missing since Dolores and yet-

My body STILL cringes at the sight of them.

Like, what should have happened logically is they kiss and then the two recoil in revulsion and talk about how much of a mistake that once and how gross it is. And yet the season tries to string us along with this awful love triangle.

And let's be clear it is not awful for Five. You can call it character assassination for him, personally I don't agree with that, but the framing makes it out that Five is in tragic love with her. Like they could have had a happy life together in that cottagecore universe, but OH the trappings of their universe kept them from it. Five ends the season as the most important character who has the answers and has to tragically give them.

I don't hate the diner with all the other Fives. I don't hate him traversing the multiverse for answers. I don't hate Five in this season, even if it is out of character for him to abandon a mission like that (He spent 50 years in the apocalypse trying to get home he wouldn't give up after SIX). I do hate what it does to Diego and Lila's characters.

It makes sense for Lila to be uncomfortable with suburban life. It also makes sense that Diego is uncomfortable with suburban life. At the same time it makes NO sense. Honestly the roles should be reversed, Diego should be putting all his time into being a full time parent and Lila should have the money making job, that makes more sense for their characters. Diego may be obsessed with heroism, but he also is obsessed with the ideals of family and taking care of them, it doesn't make sense for Diego to be so distant from them. Hell in the end LILA is the one with the big family moments, Diego doesn't even say goodbye to them I think. Diego's character is warped to fit this love triangle subplot they concocted and it REAKS. I HATE it. To make Five look like a viable option they have to make Diego this weird deadbeat-ish out of shape dad which makes NO SENSE.

And Lila is so hard done by the subplot because it controls her motivations. Why would Lila of all people choose to be a stay at home mom? I like that she's still disguising herself and doing her own thing on the sly, but she could do that even if she had a job. She's still a fun character, and I like that they played up her loyalties. I like the scene at the end where she almost dooms the world to stay with her family, but of course FIVE has to talk her down from that decision not her HUSBAND. Because her connection with Five is somehow more important than her connection with Diego that has been built up after three seasons.

And that's not to say anything about the small details that ruin this season for me. In no particular order-

The absence of Ray was the first major red flag for me. I guess he might've been unable to play the role this season so they just wrote him out of the show or they didn't know how to write him into it so they just said he ran out on Allison and Claire. Either way I hate it. Ray was such a good character in season 2 and I know this timeline is supposed to be kinda shitty, but that is doing Ray as a character so dirty, and Allison as well seeing as Allison and him were married and happy in season 2.

The absence of SLOANE. Did Luther not go trying to find Sloane in this new world? Did he just give up? He keeps mentioning her so why didn't he DO anything. Why didn't Sparrow Ben try to find his siblings???

I shouldn't still be mad about the absence of Dave, but I in fact am. His absence in season 3 was already conspicuous (the timeline had already changed with Dave enlisting earlier than expected and Klaus not being with him in Vietnam, who's to say he couldn't have still been alive in that timeline?) but the fact that he's not in this timeline either is so fucking sad for Klaus. Maybe him and Dave were soulmates, maybe they weren't, but the show sure treated it like they were. I know that the ending of the show is meant to be tragic, but we couldn't have THIS?

Seeing as Lila's family is alive in this timeline, why do none of the Hargreeveses have their biological families?

And let's talk about that ending shall we? Again, I get what they were going for. The ultimate sacrifice together as a family. The idea that they were so dangerous their existence was parasitic to the universe. The idea that after death they're still there as a couple of marigolds. It's sweet.

It's also FUCKING STUPID.

I might've been happy with the ending if Gene and Jean had been included being happy. I might've been happy with the ending if Eudora was there. I might've been happy if Dave or Harlan were there. As it stands none of them were there so that ending is already terrible to me, but it means I have no problem ripping apart the fabric of the ending.

Firstly, any story that says there is only one timeline is boring. Any story that says there is only one timeline and that timeline is normal is worse than boring, it's just plain stupid.

The idea that the Hargreeves are destined for an eternal tormenting cycle of destroying and saving the world is, at best, deeply nihilistic. I think it fails to understand that the end of the world could probably be avoided with therapy. But if we really take that as the gosphel then here is a bright idea, how about you spread all of them out across the timeline so they can't come together and end the universe? Then you still get a sacrifice without that horrible one timeline outcome.

That's another thing that makes no sense. So what, the way to make the one true timeline is that in one timeline Lila, Five, Diego, Luther, Klaus, Viktor, and Allison have to sacrifice themselves Cleanseiffer and that fixes everything? When there are countless alternate universes where they still have the marigold?

The refusal to acknowledge all 43 marigold children has always been a thorn in my side, but I really felt it this season. This would've been the perfect time to include all of them. Hell, maybe use the subway system and the other Five's to send the message that they need to give up their marigold. THAT would have been evocative.

Or, I dunno, don't kill everyone. Maybe if you're going to do the durango/marigold plot then maybe have a bunch of durango children to parallel the marigold children. Have them be their equal and opposites to really nail down that whole yin and yang thing you TRIED to give Jennifer and Ben. Just something, god, anything rather than what you gave us.

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 23/04/2024

How 2 Do Anything

Season 3 Featured on: STRINGS OF FATE ~ SiIvaGunner: King for a Day Tournament Original Soundtrack

Ripped by Scribble1k Vocals by eva twin

(Also check out the Remastered Version!)

Requested by Corb! (Request Form)

In reading the request for me to cover How 2 Do Anything on here, I was made to realize something pretty big. For the 10-plus months that I've been running this blog, and for the amount of coverage I've dedicated to Season 4 Episode 1's King for Another Day tournament event, I've barely devoted any time to its Season 3 prequel on SiIvaGunner. I wrote about an excellent original piece made for it by dante and wolfman1405, FINAL DESTINATION, and I got to gush specifically about Anamanaguchi with Give Me The Fantasy...but I've hardly even touched on the tournament itself. I'm here today with How 2 Do Anything, and its remastered version, to try and resolve that issue - to celebrate the very first SiIvaGunner one-day king, and in some ways, a turning point for the entire channel.

So, first of all - the King for a Day Tournament. Halfway through Season 3, the SiIvaGunner channel was suddenly prevented from uploading videos for a week's time, but were still able to make community posts and tweets. The team was given the perfect opportunity for a channel shake-up, an opportunity to rethink what SiIvaGunner could be, and began thinking of ways to have the channel engage more directly with its viewers. Sure enough, that eventually landed on the idea of a "tournament arc", an event wherein viewers would both submit ideas for contestants to be featured, but then vote between the qualified few to crown a champion - with said champion then getting the reigns of the channel for an entire day of rips. Takeovers had become a regular occurrence on the channel ever since Season 2, be it the Inspector Gadget takeover with Become as Gadget, or the Santana and Rob Thomas takeover with Haltmanna feat. Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 - each of these, as you can tell, brought with them a bevvy of rips tied to the character hosting the channel, and have in some cases become legends on the channel in retrospect. Thus, each submission to the tournament was of a character who represented a specific kind of rips, a "source list" as it's now since been called - and the voting came down to which kind of rip the viewers would most want to see on the channel for a day's time.

Truth be told, I wish I had been more involved with the fanbase at the time of KFAD1's unfurling, I can only imagine how exciting the discussions must've been during the unveiling and lead-up on Discord and Twitter. Yet as a big lorehead, a big part of the appeal of the original King for a Day tournament for me was specifically the characters each contestant was represented through. Season 3 was right when the Christmas Comeback Crisis (the channel's main storyline) had begun slowing down, with a lot of the lore additions made being supplemental rather than advancing the core story forward. Even though King for a Day wasn't connected to this main story, it was nevertheless a sudden explosion of character - and characters! - added to the channel, a good amount of which would continue to be relevant outside of the tournament's confines. Like, this was the debut of Ajit Pai on the channel, who basically had his own little narrative spun across his first appearance, A New Threat and Totally Shaaking Out Right Now - this was the debut of Geno, the tragic fallen star of DEARLY BELOVED... who we'd later catch back up with in the Season 6 DoomFes event - this was where we got JOHN NOTWOODMAN as the event's host who I rambled on about in Vote Responsibly!!....and it was, of course, the debut of everyone's favorite, Unregistered Hypercam 2.

Even though I was disconnected from most fan discussion at the time, I'm certain I wasn't alone in having Unregistered Hypercam 2 as my favorite of the tournament right from his unveiling. A source list consisting of every anthem of the old internet - Paralyzer, Dreamscape, Bodies - all wrapped up in a completely original character design, the most Little Guy thing you'd ever seen? Frankly, I was sold right away - and with each example rip made under his name, it seemed we'd only be made more sure of our choice. Throughout his run, and after his victory, it was as if How 2 Do Anything became the little guy's anthem - a modern, reimagined take on the theme that taught us all so many things across the early internet's scuffed YouTube tutorials.

I've covered some rips by Scribble1k on here before, notably the fantastic Guilty Eyes Creeper mashup, but King for a Day and its sequel gave rippers the unique opportunity to shine through full-on professional-grade rearrangements. I've always been partial to the themes that Hypercam brought with him to the channel, you may recall I've covered Paralyzer specifically twice already with YACKER TOILET and Remember when this song was the one related to toilets?, but I'm just as attached if not MORESO to the legendary Dreamscape theme that How 2 Do Anything is arranging. Just the three opening piano chords alone strike such a raw nostalgic nerve: its instrumentation is as far removed from Dreamscape as you could come, yet there's no other song that sounds quite like that, it introduces the theme as an old memory to be recalled through Hypercam's presence - an age of the internet lost to time, brought back all these years later after being buried away for so long. The arrangement itself goes in swinging soon after that, a main melody carried through a heavy electronic, almost dubstep-esque vibe - yet it never wholly loses that sort of melancholic tone set up by the introductory piano. The noise and distortion of the arrangement conveys almost a sense of the Dreamscape theme being at battle with the rest of the internet's noise, almost akin to Your Worst Nightmario, yet its a battle that turns into an incredibly sick listening experience, a balance of light and dark.

It's all topped off with a full-circle piano ending, and a small vocal signoff from guest contributor eva twin, whisking the theme away with a proud reaffirmation - "You can do anything...". And sure enough - the little guy did it!! Through a tough bracket and a close final dual with Splatoon's Off the Hook (hence, OtH Was Robbed), Unregistered Hypercam 2 wound up becoming the tournament's champion - and, in the process, has become an outright mainstay character on the channel. He got to have his Windows Movie Maker-core, day-long takeover, filled rips like Never Gonna Give Up Mahjong, and got to appear as the host of the King for Another Day Tournament, playing a vital role in its storyline and surprise final boss with NIGHTMARESCAPE 〜Unrestrained HyperCam 2〜 (Final Boss Phase 2). He's a core SiIvaGunner cast member, and all of this started with just an idea, a figment of the imagination cast into SiIvaGunner's email address for a silly tournament arc. One that was so successful and beloved by the fanbase, that it shaped the entirety of Season 4's two episodes - and in turn shaped much of Season 5 and Season 6 to boot.

This one little guy helped change SiIvaGunner forever, and in turn helped bring in a wave of incredible original arrangements just like How 2 Do Anything in the years to follow. The King for a Day Tournament may well have been overshadowed by its vastly bigger follow-up, but it has paved the way for everything that has kept SiIvaGunner so engrossing to follow in the years since - a shot in the arm at just the right time, and an incredible gateway for SiIvaGunner's team to flex just how talented they've always been.

[being-of-rain]

Okay, time to write my thoughts on Empire of Death. Like the rest of the season, I've only watched it once so far. I think soon I'll binge all of Fourteen and Fifteen soon. And as with many of the episodes, I'll be interested to see what I think of the finale on a rewatch. Anyway, this post gets a little long-winded, and I hope readers will forgive me for feeling my way around my opinions on the episode as I go.

I've already said that I wasn't a big fan of the episode. But part of me thinks that Empire of Death is a very subjective one. People I've seen defending it have said that critics aren't engaging enough with the themes, and are being too nitpicky. That sounds familiar, because I know I've held opinions along those lines on other controversial Dr Who episodes. So in that case, what you think of the episode is going to depend on how you connect to the themes, and to the emotions. How much do you think the themes and emotions earn priority over other aspects of the story and how its judged?

Then again, I suppose I might be contradicting that when I say that there's some themes I liked in the episode, but (like in The Giggle,) I really didn't like how the episode executed them. The idea of Ruby's mum being an ordinary woman is something I like in theory and am not surprised by; celebrating the ordinary in the midst of the extraordinary is a signature move of New Who and has been the twist conclusion for quite a few story arcs already. But while it's done as explicitly here as it ever has been, the plot doesn't really manage to support it.

I'm sure I don't have to list a lot of the questions and nitpicks fans (including me) have here, but even the catch-all explanations of 'a god was interested in the mystery' and 'magic is in Dr Who now' don't feel like they really work for me. For the first because it feels out of character and contrived that Sutekh cares about this mystery at all, and if he does then why only this one? And for the second, well its unclear how or even if the magic unleashed in the 60th specials affect this finale at all, since Sutekh seems to have completely different origins to the other two gods (and if it does have bearing on this episode then that isn't made clear at all). You could say this is me getting hung up on nitpicks and details, and I really do hate letting those things get in the way of a story... but it's hard not to when those details are such a large part of the story. I don't quite agree with the harsh criticism of RTD taking advantage of the viewers or whatever (which I think has been said about every showrunner), but this arc/s and final two episodes are so geared towards speculation and building up questions in spectacular ways that brushing over them with not much of an answer feels... well, like a plot hole.

As a result, statements like 'this ordinary woman is so important because of what we thought of her' and 'time is memory and memory is time', while really lovely sentiments, and themes I'd love to see explored, only really make sense if disconnected from the rest of the story. To come back to my first paragraph, they're themes that you have to give so much priority to over the rest of the story that they basically become premises that need to be accepted in order to carry the plot, rather than the other way around.

Does any of this make sense? I think all this was to say: for me this story definitely doesn't earn the 'themes are good enough to ignore the details' approach, even though I love the themes. Never mind, that summary made even less sense.

Another criticism I had of The Giggle, and pretty much all of RTD's finales, is that RTD really wants to go for big emotional moments and let the emotions carry the plot... but the emotions just don't always hit for me, especially when it doesn't feel like the story's earned it. That feels like more of a problem in Empire of Death than ever before.

Maybe the scene with the biggest emotional impact on me (not a massive impact, but bigger than the rest of the episode) was the scene with the lady giving the Doctor the spoon, possibly because it felt so strangely divorced from the rest of the episode, like a scene from a different episode dropped in the middle.

Ruby's departure was... well for one, unexpected. I know she's in the next season, right? Is it a series 4 Martha come-back-as-a-guest-star situation, or a series 9 Clara the-departure-was-a-fakeout situation? Anyway, the departure was... about as satisfying as I've found Ruby's character arc. I really had hoped that her only important defining character trait wasn't 'orphan who wants to meet her bio mum,' but its hard not to think of her that way after this episode. I never really found anything to hook me on the character. Shame.

I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but I can't help but compare Ruby's arc to Izzy Sinclair's arc from the DWM comics. On an obvious level, Ruby's arc concludes with her successfully tracking down her bio mum while Izzy's arc concludes with her happily returning to her adoptive parents, no longer considering her 'secret origins' as a missing part of herself. And while I definitely prefer the sentiment of Izzy's story, I don't want to say Ruby uncovering her origins and gaining a new parent automatically makes for a bad ending to an adoptee's story. But I think just as important is that with Izzy, we really dive into why she feels the way she does. We learn in great detail how her feelings about being adopted connect to many other things in her life, not least her self image. In comparison, Ruby feels downright shallow. She's incredibly curious who her mother is, considering it part of her legend... and that's about it. It doesn't really affect her in any way most episodes. Maybe I'm being unfair here and I'd be less harsh after my rewatch, we'll see.

Unfortunately the resolution to the Sutekh plot also didn't satisfy me. Dragging Sutekh back through the time vortex to 'bring death to death' just... doesn't work for me. Not even on a storybook level, or fairytale level, or purely emotion-based level. It felt... idk... childish?, in a way I really didn't vibe with. But honestly I would've been happy it happened if, when the Doctor started listing planets he was bringing back, he mentioned Gallifrey and revealed the Time Lords were alive again and then we could all just move on. Sigh.

I think that's most of the major points. What else do I have to say?

The oppressive empty atmosphere of Sutekh's dead universe was cool. There was a scene with just Sutekh and his minion where everything beside them was intensely silent, which really hammered the point home. It's still funny/silly to me that the so-called god of music wanted this exact same thing.

Mel is still lovely, and call me a nerd but her recognising Six's outfit and later cuddling with Seven's was maybe the best part of the episode for me. Apart from that she sure spent a lot of time standing around with no dialogue. I finally got an answer to the question I'd been asking since November last year- if there'd been a reason Mel in particular was brought back to the show- and the answer is Not Really. I did laugh when a friend pointed out that there's plot-important computer hacking in this episode and during that Mel was told to go keep watch in the corridor.

Meanwhile Kate felt like she was parodying herself by trying to recruit Susan at the end of the episode. Teens work for UNIT because Kate can't be around someone for five minutes without trying to headhunt them. I saw Kate and the random soldier hold hands at the end but read it as (or maybe very much hoped it was) platonic and relieved to be alive.

I don't think I truly knew how much the Vlinx annoyed me until it was killed by Sutekh, and for one short moment I was filled with joy at the belief it wouldn't be coming back. Sorry the Vlinx.

The TARDIS has a laser that can be activated with a whistle? Huh? Did I miss something or is that just a fact? The only thing I could think to connect it with was the 'heart-of-the-Tardis-laser-beam' from Flux, which would make it much stupider.

I'm pretty sure Mrs Flood will be a new character, but heck if I know. She doesn't seem like Susan anymore. Oh yeah! So I guess Susan wasn't in this apart from one second of archival footage. Unless next season uses this as foreshadowing, it feels like a waste.

And that's all I can remember after one viewing! I believe the next episode is a christmas special by Steven Moffat? I've decided I'm excited for it. I think Moffat christmas eps have more hits than misses, as opposed to RTD finales.

[sapphire-rb]

Some interesting text found on the code: Part 1.2 - Leftovers from DQB1

Split from this because it turned from 'fun trivia' to 'theory territory' and I wanted to keep the other post more informative than rambly.

5:

Look at that! I don't need to translate that, just read it for yourselves!

Inside the menu code there's text hinting at a chapter-structure thing, like the one from the first game!

What I think happened was that originally during early development the 4 islands were planned the same way the 4 DQB1 chapters had been planned, and then they connected them with a more lineal plotline (since there were complaints about the disconnect between chapters in the first game).

Then the game would start you from the beginning if you hit 'new game', and as you advanced through the islands you would unlock the ability to start a new game jumping directly to that part of the story, like how you unlock chapters and can replay them individually without having to complete the previous ones in the original.

That's why there's a "for beginners" and "for experienced" prompt. It'd be a little weird to tell you about "beginners" if you unlocked the menu as postgame, and there's no way they'd let you skip to the end minutes after turning on the game for the first time.

Here's the menu from the first game as a reminder:

(Also! Default builder name bonus. They are the same across both games)

And! There's no Skelkatraz in the menu, but there is a Malhalla, so Skelkatraz can't have been omitted for spoiler reasons, right? Or maybe it is, since 'before Malhalla' is slotted at the end... Was that not on the list originally because didn't want to spoil Malhalla on the menu, but eventually decided it was too important and had to add it?

But wait- can that mean that there was no 'before Malhalla' planned at the beginning? That after leaving Moonbrooke you would be basically thrown into Malhalla instead of having to build the Steppe (Steppe that just pauses the Builder-Malroth character arc for no reason)?

Because if you think about it- why is there an 'After Malhalla'? that's just a glorified cutscene away from 'After Credits'. Unless Cerulean Steppe was planned to happen after Malhalla originally and not before, which would explain why there would be content between Malhalla and Credits (prompting a need to give you the option between 'after' one and 'after' the other) , but none between Moonbrooke and Malhalla (meaning both 'After Moonbrooke' and 'Before Malhalla' would be the same point in time). And then afterwards they moved the Steppe to between Moonbrooke and Malhalla because it made more plot sense.

And think about the castle. In-game the villagers just build the shell of it, and the game just tells you to 'build it properly' post-credits. And I've heard player complaints about the game not bothering to give you a proper castle. But if Cerulean Steppe was originally a post-game IoA part, then the castle had always been planned for post-game content, and when they had to put the Steppe into the main plot they had to compromise with the shell to keep the original post-game castle idea intact.

So if that's true, and you think about the fact that Skelkatraz is omitted there, maybe the original 'structure breaker' was Malhalla breaking in the Cerulean Steppe part. But then that was cut, and Skelkatraz was slotted in during the Scarlet Sands part to fulfil the 'structure breaker' role. And Skelkatraz adds the plot point about the Children of Hargon attacking the island- and would you look at that, it just so happens that that plot point is resolved in the Cerulean Steppe part, right before Malhalla! (being the only thing that gets resolved during the Cerulean Steppe part)

And Skelkatraz is also a very buggy part of the game, so it being a last minute addition also checks out.

So, I wanted to add at the beginning of this text, the idea that if the 4 islands were planned like the 4 DQB1 chapters, that maybe IoA had been planned like how Terra Incognita had been planned. Something a little bit outside of the main plot.

Considering the idea that the Skelkatraz sequence didn't exist originally, it makes sense that the Cerulean Steppe would be out of the plot, because it means that all 3 IoA sequences were themselves 'out of plot', and you would have the 4 islands plot as the main story while going to the IoA was more of a 'side quest' thing.

Now, I'm not saying that IoA used to be like Terra Incognita. I'm pretty sure that IoA has always been like IoA, but maybe at first they had planned it to be like the little sandbox safe haven Terra Incognita is, before the realised that if they wanted to make a more intertwined plot they couldn't just have the hub of the game be completely removed from it and doing its own thing.

...You know... IoA only gets 'unlocked' after Furrowfield... The same way Terra Incognita is only unlocked after Cantlin...

ok I don't think my rambles are coherent at this point. Sorry. Got too excited. But anyway, I think it's fun to think about how the game was planned and changed around. Makes you appreciate how much work goes into it.

[daddyfuckinlonglegs]

This post is meant to be in conversation with this post about Danse from slocumjoe and this post about Hancock from serknighted. Reading them first means this will make a lot more sense. To be clear, I am not saying that their interpretations are wrong, I am in favour of reading any character in a way that allows you to explore your own existence and relationship with the world in more depth, and if you've been around my blog long enough you'll have heard my takes on MacCready that exist for very similar reasons. Deliberately reading a text with a certain lens on it can be good for you. That out of the way, I want to both agree and disagree with both posts.

Firstly, where I disagree: I don't have any strong opinions on whether either Danse or Hancock is autistic. I don't read them that way, but I'm not in charge. I do think that many of the experiences that the original posts ascribe to autism are not a singularly autistic experience. I think what you're both describing is just a very human way of experiencing isolation, in a world where community connection has been destroyed and rebuilt in an image of it's predecessor. I don't agree that Danse or Hancock don't have friends; Danse specifically for the simple reason that a military does not operate without a strong inter-unit bond between soldiers. As serknight put it, "he has all but given up his sense of self for what he believes is right", which is a large part of how militaristic organisations operate - you are a unit, not an individual, you are the lowliest creature on earth until you are trained into the corps, and then you embody your duty to your unit. Hancock also reads to me as having some strong connections - Fahrenheit, for one - and what we each individually categorise as "a friend" is so variable that I don't think we can get into it about video game characters without getting into the reeds. For me the issue here is that the game has limitations on how it shows interpersonal connections; I'd argue that none of the companion characters are shown to have "friends". And although I know it's common for autistic people to experience the very particular type of othering and isolation that comes from not following the secret unspoken rules of society, and a sense of utter rejection and disconnection from other people, I don't think Hancock is shown to feel disconnected because of that. I think he's shown choosing to flout those rules, self destructing, living with addiction, and then trying to rebuild that community differently. I also think he is well liked within his community (as much as any politician is), just not by the people who would prefer to have the power he has. I also don't agree that the synth stuff is a metaphor for autism, I don't think it wholly maps onto what Bethesda did with the idea*. For the record, I don't think the slavery angle was well executed either, too many implications they hadn't considered, but that's a post that's been written a hundred thousand times before. And I think the McCarthyism needed a touch more... importance in the story to really land with any power, but I do really like the idea. I also wish Piper had been more utilised in this regard, and that brings up another point I'd disagree with; I don't think Piper knows shit about who's a synth and who isn't. She makes those comments about Danse's way of speaking pointed out in the original post ("...have you heard him talk?") but not all synths behave like Danse. Glory, and Magnolia, and Sturges all have totally different personalities and approaches, and Piper has no evidence (afai remember) for McDonough other than a plucky journalist hunch. She's a part of the McCarthyist paranoia angle, making accusations against a figure of power that she doesn't agree with. I'm glad that it resonated with people, that idea of autistic people being othered for the way they speak is a great point in and of itself, and the dialogue definitely works to support the reading of Danse specifically as not-used-to-NT/informal-conversation, I just don't think the rest of Piper's character is a good basis for it to go further. And now, before getting too point by point critical, I'm going to post this, and write part two of this, where I will explain where I think you're right, and hopefully extend some of this out over the other companion characters.

[chaiandsage]

Hello, it is me, I am back. I'm being insane about TL... again... It's my constant state at this point I fear.

Anyways, I was making myself a playlist for the story and was wondering if you had any songs that you personally associate with the fic and/or characters.

I may or may not also be reformatting the bind for a second print with a couple new features (that may or may not pretty much just be making all the comms messages formatted with the Minecraft font so they look more authentic... That's... definitely not the only think I am changing.... Listen, I know I'm insane, we do not need to talk about it)

Okay, so, sorry for the delayed reply, but you probably had no idea just how insane this question was going to make me. Because a lot of these songs are ones that I hold very close to me and some, in one way or another, were even the inspiration for a lot of major plot points that happened in the story. Others, however, I got really into while the fic was still being updated because some of my readers would comment about their own songs that they connected to Trust Life or would even make entire playlists for it--which I LOVED. So anyway, here's two different lists for each of those, complete with explanations that no one asked for on why I think they vibe with the story :D

My Personal Vibes

So quick side story, I worked in retail while I was writing up the story outline for this and most of my job involved doing some very repetitive and boring tasks that left plenty of brainpower to spare for me to think about and plan out the story while I was doing them. And I'm sure you know that most stores will just play a bunch of generic, upbeat, bubbly, pop music on loop the entire day (I kinda vibe with it ngl, but I get that it's not for everyone), but that was what I had to listen to throughout the day and like it or not, that was the music that I ended up coming up with a lot of ideas and fixing a lot of plot holes to. And honestly? I wouldn't have had it any other way. But my point is, if a few of these songs are kinda cheery sounding and don't seem like they have that much to do with the story's usual theme, just know that that's why, lol.

Can't Remember to Forget You - Shakira

Something, something... memory loss, Scott and Jimmy forgetting they were already a couple during Double Life... Neither of them being able to forget each other after the breakup--plus that one "kissing in the moonlight" line inspired that flashback scene that Scott had in chapter 43.

Part Of Me -Noah Kahan

Recognize the title? Chapter 30 baybeee. This was kind of how I wanted Tango's feelings for his previous boyfriends to come off. Not all of the lyrics are accurate, but most of it matches the tone I was trying to go for.

Pick Me Up - Sam Feldt, Sam Fischer

This one made had me thinking about snowbugs 24/7 and for as arguably disconnected from the theme of the story that the lyrics are it had absolutely no right to inspire as many scenes in this fic as it did. It's how I came up with how Scott's escape went after stealing the enchanter back in chapter 31 with him jumping off the roof (fun fact: that fight was originally gonna be during the day and it was gonna be Scott who threw the water and TANGO who jumped, but I changed it). It's also the inspiration for chapter 45 when they're storming the fortress and Scott and Tango have to help protect each other. ALSO--Remember the title to chapter 49??? Yeah, that's literally just one of the lyrics from this song. It freakin inspired the burning garden scene too. Get this song out of my head man, it's taken over my whole personality at this point...

Good Grief - Bastille

More of Scott and Jimmy just missing each other achingly and Scott in particular only being able to watch from the sidelines as Jimmy "moves on" with another man.

Still Into You - Paramore

Pretty self-explanatory. Kinda captures the vibe of the ending imo. Could be applied to almost all of the relationships and not just our main throuple.

Find an Island - BENEE

JOEL AND ETHO!!--Something about them moving too fast in their relationship during Double Life, the "storm" that was them getting their memories back, how they drifted away from each other thinking they'd be better off going without any contact, and of course the whole shipwreck and sailing theme here was just screaming "boat boys" to me.

Avalanche - Christian French

Less on-the-nose, but still a really fun vibe to me. Basically the insanity that followed after Double Life. The players realizing their feelings for other people. Can sort of be viewed more from Grian's perspective since he more or less "started" all this or at least he partially blames himself for it even if he didn't as much as all his friends all thought he had. He started the small tumble that spiraled into an avalanche as the drama continued to influence nearly everyone he knew.

Stitches - Shawn Mendes

More of Scott beating himself up both mentally and physically as he goes through his breakup at the beginning of the story. He can't sleep, can't eat, can't stop thinking about Jimmy... He's barely dragging himself forward on two feet as it is.

Thank Me Later - Sigrid

SCAR AND GRIAN--Basically Grian's whole perspective on Scar. He thinks that the person he loves will be better off if he just let him go. He knows that Scar isn't going to let go of him easily, but he deserves better. He just needs to convince him of that and maybe, as painful as it will be for Grian, Scar will move on.

Sucker - Jonas Brothers

Mostly vibes. Tango, Scott, and Jimmy doing crazy things together during the first three days of the game. Scott and Tango continuing to be menaces to everyone together even after Jimmy died. All three of them being like: "Hey, let's break into people's houses. Let's set things on fire. Let's steal and murder and fight monsters together. And while we're at it? Let's fall even deeper in love--because I kind of just realized that all of this is only fun to me because I'm doing it with you."

Hate You - Poylow & BAUWZ

THIS FUCKING- Okay... I hate that this very simple tune that I heard over a freakin YOUTUBE SHORT ended up inspiring a scene that was so fun to come up with that never even made it into the final outline, but picture this with me for a moment:

Tango doesn't realize his feelings for Scott right before the Wither attacks back in chapter 50. Instead, they're closer to their base when it happens. They just got done having that whole tense argument and "confession" and are still holding hands and staring at each other when Scott points out Tango's eyes again, not knowing what it means. Tango's eyes go wide. He pulls away, running over to their fish pond to see his reflection and... Oh god. No. No, no nonono-- His breathing is picking up. Every soft, caring interaction he's ever had with Scott now pass through his head in a blur. He realizes it was love. Scott asks what's wrong. Tango doesn't respond. He can't. What would he even say? Instead, he curls into a ball and tries to control his breathing while Scott crouches down and puts his hands on him, holding him in a hug as he panics and tries to sooth him, telling him that it's okay even though he doesn't quite know why Tango is acting this way all of a sudden. Tango hates it. He hates that he's fallen in love again and through that, might have very well ruined everything. Instead of being blown up right away, they have a few minutes to talk to each other. And in that time Tango, still not in the right headspace and through panicked breathing, asks Scott the straightforward, hypothetical question: "If I were to break up with Jimmy after this game ends and tell him to go back to you, would you ever forgive me for it?" And Scott can only look at him, horrified as he tries to form some string of words that make sense enough to give a proper response to that question that even he doesn't know how to answer... Up until the wither comes back once more to blow them up before they can even have a real conversation about it.

Haha... Oh well. I don't regret cutting this out to make the plot flow more smoothly (I needed a reason for Tango to check his comm in that moment) and it's mostly the same reaction from Tango either way. But still, it would have been a very fun scene to write that might have added a bit more spice to everything that was going on at the time.

Curses - The Crane Wives

You knew there'd be at least one Crane Wives song in here. I don't think there is a single person in this fandom who hasn't heard this song yet. It would have been a disservice not to add it here. But other than that, obviously, it's the title for chapter 56. The chapter where everything goes wrong and all of the remaining players die in quick succession to Grian and his traps. It's definitely the kind of song you listen to when you're trying to picture a scene where everything is meant to to go wrong all at once. And I love it for that.

Allies Or Enemies - The Crane Wives

No explanation needed. To me, this is the enemies to lover's national anthem.

The Moon Will Sing - The Crane Wives

Another Scott POV song, 100% (can you tell he's my favorite yet?). But it could also apply to all three of the Flower Ranchers depending on which lyrics are being sung.

"I could have been anyone else" Scott not believing Jimmy when he says he fell in love with him back in Third Life in only a week's time like he had with Tango. Scott thinking that if that really were the case, then he could have been anyone to Jimmy. He is convinced that Jimmy could have stumbled upon and teamed up with any other player during that game and the result would have still been the same.

"Before you made the choice for me" Jimmy being sad and angry with Scott for not accepting that he loved two people and refused to choose between them. Scott making that choice for him by outright leaving instead of trying to talk things over.

"We walked in the dark", "I never gave a single thought where it might lead" Tango and Jimmy, them falling in love while being in blissful ignorance brought about by their amnesia. Not even taking a second to consider that what was waiting for them on the other side of Double Life wasn't all rainbows and sunshine.

"All those empty rooms" Scott feeling alone, going back to a home that feels empty, one he used to share with the person he loved.

"I shine only with the light you gave me" Could be applied to Tango or Jimmy. They have self confidence issues. Tango thinks that Jimmy is the only one who isn't afraid of him. Jimmy thinks that both Scott and Tango could do better than him at some points in the story. They complete him. His life would feel so dim without them in it.

"We could have had anything, anything else. Instead you hoarded all that's left of me." Scott again. He and Jimmy could have had so many more long, happy years together. All that potential is gone now. Why did he have to leave him? Why did he have to such a large chunk of Scott's heart with him when he left?

"I wanna feel the fire that you kept from me." Kinda silly, for a while I thought this line was "kept FOR me" and not "kept FROM me", and I tied it to the act of Jimmy and Scott keeping their hearts warm for each other (whether they wanted to or not) in case the other decided to come back to them. They were mad at each other, but in all that time their love hadn't dimmed in the slightest. But after reading the actual line, I now think it's giving more like, Tango letting his fire out and Scott and Jimmy both accepting that as part of him with open arms, each during their own separate points in the story.

Songs from Readers' Playlists That I Fell In Love With

Can't Sleep Love- Pentatonix

Scott is a tired, tired man.

Your Stupid Face - Kaden MacKay

2nd enemies to lovers national anthem.

Hot Tea - Half Alive

Lots of themes of tea and love going on here.

The Fall - Half Alive

The person who added this song single handedly got me into Half Alive and made them one of my favorite bands.

Human Touch - Olen

Themes of waking up, breaking up, touch starvation... Also just a really fun listen in general.

Where We Started - Bailey Bryan

I think they added this as more in reference to Scott and Jimmy and how they were reconnecting during the first half of the game. But honestly? I listened to this back when the fic was only updated to chapter 29, and as the only person who knew how this whole story was meant to wrap up, it made me think more about the ending, or more like the final few chapters that I had planned out at the time where Jimmy and Scott finally figure out the kind of love that they want from each other after the game ends and try to figure out how to get back to how things were between them before their breakup. And it's a bit of a messy path for them to take, with them being all hesitant to kiss each other at the start of it, but they make it back to where they were before eventually, and I think this song captures all that beautifully.

Dandelions - Ruth B.

Ties to flowers, hopes, dreams... This one had no right to make me as emotional as it did, but damn.

Ocean Eyes - Billie Eilish

TANGO SEEING SCOTT'S EYES--Seriously, he is so transfixed by them the entire fic and only finally gets to see their true color in the last few chapters. I love this.

Human - Christina Perri

"I CAN STAY AWAKE FOR DAYS IF THAT'S WHAT YOU WANTTTT"

Scott again with his self-destructive tendencies during the majority of the fic. He is very sad. This also kind of reminded me of Jimmy? Just cause its both him and Scott who are hiding their true emotions throughout the story.

Head Over Heels - Tears For Fears

@Milo-media made an animatic of the fic to this song and now it lives rent free in my head. What happened here. I don't even like 80's music but this song has been on my personal playlist for months now...

Go check it out if you haven't seen it cause it's awesome: https://www.tumblr.com/milo-media/740042336270254080/this-song-is-so-snowbugs-based-of-the-fic-trust?source=share

That's everything (I think?). If you actually did read all of that then... I'm sorry. Lol. Seriously though, please feel free to message or @ me if you ever post your full playlist. I will literally never get enough of people giving me the songs they think relate to Trust Life.

And if you'd like to see the full playlists made by the other beautiful people who read the fic, they can be found right here:

Playlist by Checkmace (Ao3):

Playlist by @nerdyenby (Tumblr):

Playlists by AndIcarusFell (Ao3)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg1d9yowJk-82qWZlR3CyiY5Ihf926JPJ

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg1d9yowJk-9oXUPWiB--1Zy_3W6BNdsm

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLg1d9yowJk-_YpVm8Ex_wgfQee3sXTUXU

[enteroctopusdarkysilis]

✨Trade Space Station !✨

[1/4] >Next>

Finally...More than 60 hours of work, I can present my masterpiece. I have been working and planning this project for a long time. Given the sheer amount of things to talk about, I will split all of my rambling in (at least) four posts : one about the concepts, ideas, and general aspect (you're here !); one about the technical side of things; one depicting how the project evolved (using pictures taken during the construction); and one dealing with all the smaller details, ships, and such.

Enough with planning, though. Explanations, other images and more explanations below the cut !

(less) edited picture of the build :

So. You might see, now that I got rid of all that pesky editing (or most of it) that there is a big arm holding the thing in place. It's easily a fifth of all the work of this build, because I absolutely wanted to hold this thing at an angle, and it's heavy, at around 15 kilograms (33 pounds). I'll talk about the technical difficulties of that in a later post, but it was important for it to be solid, because the station was the central piece of my second ever (very small) lego exhibition. AND it allowed me to meet the recruiter of a much larger exhibit. Long story short, in a month, I'm presenting this piece again (just before my exams, whoops-).

Anyway. Not only is it heavy, but it's also quite tall and wide. Around a meter at the highest point (tilted or not), while the diameter of the main ring is at around 0.75m. Quite a difficult thing to move around. Or is it ? Well, yes and no.

Here are all the main components (excluding the holding arm), when I move the piece around. Of course, all the ships are detachable (it allows me to move them around from one day to the other), but the dome carrying the antenna can also be removed, and then, the entire ring can be disconnected (that, too, was quite a challenge).

Removing the ring obviously makes it waaay easier to transport, because a single wooden plank can then be used (again, except for the arm, but that thing was made to be sturdy, so it can be transported with less care); and , once the dome is removed, I can just let the central cylinder stand upside-down (useful for storage). The only trouble I found with this system is that I once connected the ring the wrong way around, meaning everything in the small hangars was upside down. Quite an embarrassing moment.

Speaking of the hangars, I initially wanted to keep them all empty, to store ships inside, but it didn't really offer this piece the sparkle of life. Setting up these small decors inside most of them, with colors contrasting with the general theme of the build, was actually a really good addition.

The colour scheme as it is now is not exactly the one I had planned at the start of the project. I originally planned on using bright light orange (bricklink colour name) instead of sand green, but I found out that this colour was tough to find in large quantities, and I already had quite a bunch of the sand green, so this tragic decision was made. I think it would have offered a more vibrant colour to the build (resembling a Subnautica default palette, which I enjoy quite a lot), but in hindsight, the green works really well, appart from a small detail I'll expand on in a minute.

What's really funny for this project is that, when it started, I actually only wanted a nice way of showcasing all the little space ships that I tend to make whenever I have access to a small amount of cool pieces. Then came a long time where I only daydreamed about it and planned how I would want it to go, and only when I had a clear vision did I start the actual building process. So, taking all that into account, you can probably double the amount of time I spiritually spent on this project.

What I knew is that I wanted to get this huge ring held by beams to the station's body, which made the build both more interesting and more complicated that it would have been. But the challenge was appealing.

At first, the main body was completely flat and white, but I soon had to add texture, both because it was becoming ugly and because the 2*2 white curved slopes were starting to diminish fast. The first modifications I did were to add the sand green curved slopes instead to create stipes, then letters : the big A-2 you can easily spot. With the few bits of lore that I have created for this piece, you have to imagine that there are hundreds of these stations spread in the galaxy, which can be easily described through 3 criteria : the Letter, the Number, and the Colour. That would mean that, if you wanted to meet with someone at the exemplar I made, you would say something along the lines of 'Meet you at Sand Green A2'.

Texture-wise, the other element of the largest cylinder is the exposed bits of machinery, very classic in sci-fi, I know, but it does work well in this context. The second cylinder has much less textures, with only a few grates, and some 2*1 ingot pieces (because they look cool); but it also has its own, smaller ring (diameter slightly larger than the largest cylinder's).

Then come the smaller cylinders, which don't have much texture, except in their transition from one to another (barely visible in any of the pictures, but it exist).

Overall, I'm also really happy of how round it looks, given that circles are not my speciality.

Here is a completely unedited picture of the support arm (Lewa for scale), with a nice counterweight which might be necessary to hold the entire thing in place (it may not be, but I'm not trying to remove it. Bad idea.).

As you might notice, my studio is not a shelf anymore. I built something new from scratch with a green screen, because I thought it would make my editing job easier. And it would have, if I didn't use sand green in my build. Anyway, I'm keeping this for a few days, to snap some pictures of the MOCs which don't fit in my shelve (and are not green, meaning editing will be easier.

Here is the 'studio' from an outside point of view :

I know it's quite a mess outside of my clean perimeter, but I do as I can. You can see one light in the foreground, but there is also one (less visible in the background), symmetrical to the first one, and a third one behind and above the camera (outside of the picture).

You may also notice a lot of sorting boxes. Sorting pieces can greatly improve your productivity, if you label all your box correctly. Covered by the greenscreen is essentially a shelf full of these sorting boxes, labelled by colour and piece type, and it was really practical. Anyway. Thank you for reading until this point, I guess ? If you survived through all this rambling, you probably deserve something...

I mean- Have these pictures I took during the exhibition, I guess...

(You can notice that these are two different days because of the ships’ placement).