#Someone who can make animatics if you do this my life is yours

[starscaper-98]

Okay, I had a thought while listening music in the car and that’s

Imagine the song “Stayed Gone” From Hazbin Hotel BUT

The Pale King

Is Vox

And Radiance

Is Alastor

Just listen to the song with that in mind and is perfect

[anniflamma]

So I’ve received a couple of anonymous messages telling me that they were really disappointed in me for liking Elian's Antinous fanart. Instead of answering them individually, I’m just going to make an angry rant post instead. Most of if probably won't make sense anyway.

This post have talk about SA, and homophobia. Be aware. I don’t ship genuinely Telemachus and Antinous, if that’s what you’re wondering. I didn’t even consider the possibility that ship could even exist. At the end of the day, I don't care about that ship.

And do you want me to explain that I know SA is bad? Or that I’m aware Telemachus/Antinous is a toxic ship? Do you think I’m dumb and don’t know that? You don't have to explain to me either, I know that SA is bad, I have experienced it, you don't have to explain to me, trust me I know.

I like Elian's art because it’s really beautiful. Her work is a huge inspiration and encouragement for me when making animatics. But do I REALLY have to spell out, word for word, that I know Antinous is an antagonist and tries to do bad things? Does it mean every time someone draws Antinous and I like it, I have to explain that I like the drawing because it’s well done, not because I support Antinous’ intent toward Penelope and wants to kill Telemachus?

I mean, I’ve seen tons of thirsty comments like, "I hate how Zeus treats women, but your design is really hot" or "Even if Poseidon SA Demeter, this Poseidon I'd go down on all fours for!"

I have seen some stuff….

I guess I could just imitate something like that????

But I know it’s a joke and I know its a fantasy that someone is expressing. Its not real, its fictional. I know all those thirsty ppl who simp over Poseidon, Zeus, or even Antinous aren’t supporting hatred and violence toward women. And yes, I am expecting that you should already know this too. Because if we gonna assume the worst of ppl… Then everyone who likes Greek myth/Epic the musical are pro SA. "Do you like Crice from Epic the musical? That means that you support her actions, you support SA!" "Oh you like Odysseus?! He killed a baby and all of his female slaves cuz they got SA by the suitors! You support infanticide, slavery and SA!" Do you hear how dumb that sounds? To be honest, I wouldn’t be that surprised if there are some who think like this. I mean, this discussion wouldn’t even be a thing, right.

And if you don’t know, I literally make thirst art of Poseidon (and that includes Zeus and Hermes), and you don’t see it as a bad thing??? It’s Poseidon… Do you know what he has done to women in the myths?!

Im going to ramble here and I will bring up stories from greek myth that have SA in it. So be aware.

One example is the story of Caeneus. When Caeneus was a woman, his parents left him to take care of the house while they were out running errands. Poseidon took that as an opportunity to break into the house and sexually assault him. This is probably the only myth where Poseidon actually feels bad after what he did, so he grants Caeneus a wish. Aww, how sweet~~~ /sarcasm.

Do I need to give an example of Zeus? We all know what Zeus does. But hey, I’ve made Poseidon/Hermes ship art. And guess what? There’s a story where Hermes breaks a woman’s leg so she can’t run away from him, and then he sexually assaults her. Isn’t that cute~~! /sarcasm

Heck, I can even go on with my biblical ships. David/Jonathan—David, a serial assaulter and murderer, and Jonathan, a mass murderer. But do I support their actions? No, I do not support mass murder, and its really dumb that I have to spell it out for you.

Daniel/Darius is even questionable too! It's literally a king and his servant, and that power imbalance is so big I don’t know what to tell you! Do I have to spell it out that I know that, in real life, king/servant relationships aren’t cute at all?!

All of these characters that I’ve listed have done or represent horrible things. And I have to tell you that I don't support their actions?! Really? You really can't think outside the box?

But do you see what I’m trying to tell you? We can simp over other ancient mythological figures but Antinous is the red line that we can never cross??? It’s hypocritical and immature, that’s what it is.

Right now, ppl loves the Ody seduces Zeus art I made. And that "ship" is well really questionable too! But nobody have called me a witch and tries to burn me at the stake yet. 😐

And the thing is, I can separate these fictional characters from the real world. I can also separate the fictional material from other fictional interpretations. Exemple, I like The Song of Achilles, in it, they are the same age, but I am also aware that in the Iliad, Achilles is 16 and Patroclus is 26. But do I automatically assume that Madeline Miller likes teens? No! Do I assume that everyone who likes The Song Of Achilles like that shit? No!

But we still can have a disscussion about it without making it into a witch trial.

As long as we can separate different fictional materials, then everything is fine. It only becomes a problem if a person can’t separate them. Then we have a problem. I can acknowledge that my depiction of King David from the bible is not the same as from the original story and that he is horrible person towards women. If I couldn't acknowledge that, then its bad! The same goes for Antinous if someone makes an AU or headcanon about him. If someone want so make AUs about Antinous, my first thoughts isnt "Oh they like to SA ppl!". At the end of the day, this is just a group from tiktok who didn’t like a toxic ship and decided to bully an artist while acting like they have superior morals.

And I get this type of shit from christians when I make my queer bible interpitations, both from those that don't like the queer stuff but also those that points out that David and Jonathan were horrible ppl.

So I rarely answer comments like this because they usually end up spewing beliefs filled with homophobia and Islamophobia. Heck rasism sometimes, apparently, Christians don’t know that the Bible takes place in the Middle East, and they are angry at me for drawing them looking like Arabs! I just delete their comments before they gets there. Making queer biblical animatics on TikTok that go viral on the Christian side is not fun at all guys....

And hate to say it but tiktok Epic fans sound really similar. You are acting like you’re on a pedestal, holier than thou. Its just a different font.

+ I haven’t forgotten all those homophobic comments I got on my David/Jonathan animatic that I posted right after my Ruthlessness animatic. Epic fans were saying they didn’t want “that gay shit” and wanted to see more Epic stuff. Hate to break it to you all, but the Epic fandom isn’t that innocent.

[darqx]

Well i talk about it talk about it talk about it

The beginning of FUNKY TOWN is still stuck in my head.

❗️For commonly asked qs please see my BTD FAQ

Thanks, I'm glad my art improvement is noticeable :D I have actually KIND OF redrawn scenes before such as

and a bunch of frames from

so who knows i might do some more at some point lol!

YOU GUYS STILL SEND THEM TO ME :d

I don't actually get that many, i just tend to answer months worth all at once so it looks like a lot haha. I also don't answer a bunch of them if I've already answered something similar before or the answer is in my FAQ. Though I'm going to be honest some of the asks that get sent to me I don't think anyone expects me to actually answer, because they're just weird enough that if i turned off anon i'm pretty sure no one would be asking them.

My free time (...when I'm not procrastinating |D ) is trying to be spent on BP so I currently dont have any plans beyond the fun little doodles and animatics and stuff that I usually do. Gato is working on YKMET so if you guys like Strade then you have that to look forward to :)

(Why thank you!)

The armour follows his usual colour scheme which is gold on black.

You can tell this ask is from January lol.

Thanks haha my colouring style layers colour over colour so colour over grayscale always just looks oddly muddy in my POV |D ESPECIALLY LIGHT COLOURS LIKE YELLOW.

Demons can traditionally reproduce within the same species or with a compatible species.

Psychology, Law or Politics. I think these are the top normal majors you could take where the info you learn from them could be really useful in not getting fucked over and/or fucking someone else over.

I haven't been asked to make chibis for Gato this time around so you'll probably be getting something different for your finished runs!

Demon Commons.

All demons have some sort of specific mark that they are born with (anywhere on their body). The exact reason why has been lost to time, but it often gets used for identification. Here are some of the rest of my demon characs:

Hm, if I have to consider real life anatomy (nooooooo XD) the yellow is probably his iris.

Man i've answered so many asks i sometimes only remember saying something when another asks sounds familiar lmao 🤔 Ok; Rire, as a demon of station, has been captured in the background of some historical paintings and photographs, sometimes without his knowledge but always to his amusement later when he finds out. Like just imagine you are intensely studying art history and in those paintings of events with lots of people in it, suddenly your eye happens to catch upon a tall dark haired figure wearing sunglasses from that time period somehow blending in amongst everyone else there.

He has no particular preference in this regard.

Rire doesn't have like 🤔...a set criteria as it depends entirely on certain whims; like whether he is looking for business or pleasure, what he's feeling like at the time etc. If it's purely business then there are types of people he would approach that he wouldn't otherwise if it was for mainly entertainment.

They probably average out at about room temperature - they tend to reflect environment temp a bit and the main part that's closest to his back will always be a bit warmer than the rest of the ichor.

Probably not

They are evenly matched

Thanks very much! :D

Rire has been around for a while so yes he would have witnessed a bunch of things in human history. Who he met and who he made deals with is up for debate.

He is "polite" so he would thank you, at the very least. And yes they are his signature flower lol. It wouldnt be any special..er than receiving any other flowers though to him - we are the ones ascribing the meaning to it.

Two for the price of one 🤌🏻 Also this is an insanely old ask but yes you have permission to do fancomics or whatever with him |D

Anon, considering most people know him from a weird "dating sim", I dont think this is as startling an ask as you might think haha.

if it makes you happy.

Pick a nice smell that you particularly jive with and it would be that. This is individual specific so if a whole bunch of people are around Rire they may each perceive something different.

I get asked this question a lot |D I'm gonna be real with you guys - i haven't actively thought about a canon design for his parents because i'm kind of lazy to (since right now i dont need to know what they look like). Until that happens you guys will just have to go off the vague text descriptions i've given before :p

[jelloapocalypse]

I admittedly haven't watched your stream playthrough of TGAA games, mostly because I was playing through them with my fiancé very slowly, but we just finished them and I was curious what your opinion on them was? My fiancé and I enjoyed them but we both felt like they were pretty... Tame, compared to mainline AA. Like, there wasn't really any insane twists that shook the characters to their cores, everything wrapped up so neatly for everyone, it felt too easy, in a way? Also the big bad was wayyyyy too predictable.

I'd recommend checking out these amazing animatics that Infamouslydorky did of our playthrough!

My feelings re: The Great Ace Attorney games are sort of complicated, so this answer's going to be kind of long. I'll keep it spoiler-free, though.

I think they have the best main cast of any AA game. The music, character designs, and quality of life are basically the best they've ever been. That's really cool. I really love a lot of the one-off characters too. Enoch Drebber, Pat and Rollie, and the little plague mask coroner girl are huge stand-outs for me.

However, I think Shu Takumi has a lot of... foibles as a writer, and the way they manifest in these games is more evident and more obnoxious than basically anything else he's ever made.

I've played every game he's ever made and I can tell you that Shu Takumi writes the mysteries and twists in his stories first before anything else. I think he has a great sense of when he wants the twists to hit for the audience and he's great at figuring out where a twist will hit in a case... but he's remarkably bad at making character motivations match up to the story he's trying to tell.

In particular, he's awful at giving characters reasons not to tell each other things. 90% of a time your protagonist in a Shu Takumi game will ask a completely reasonable question to an ally, and the ally will avoid answering simply because it's not time for the player to know the answer yet. This is an issue in every game he's ever made. Even his best game Ghost Tric, is plagued by this. i.e. The way Lynne refuses to tell you her goals even though you're a literal ghost who's saved her life 3+ times in the same evening. Like, what do you have to lose, Lynne? Do you think this ghost is going to leak your goals to the police? No, it's just in service of delaying information so the player gets that information when it really hits. My friend circle has some to refer to characters in video games not telling you information for no reason as "Shu Takumi-ing".

Because most AA games are really silly, this isn't usually a gamebreaking issue. Why isn't your ally telling you information that would allow you to help them? Well, they're stupid, that's why. This is a game where you get possessed by dead people to get evidence and cross-examine a parrot. It's not serious. Everyone's a little bit on the stupid spectrum.

That's not really the case with TGAA. The games still have silly moments, but the characters are very explicitly smart. Kazuma is meant to be a legal prodigy on an exchange program. Susato is incredibly well-read and her father is a well-traveled and well-respected man of the law himself. Iris is a genius. Sholmes is whacky, but he's supposed to be cannier than he lets on.

Because of that, it's really noticeable when Shu Takumi doesn't know how to delay information or elegantly set up an interpersonal conflict. His fallback is always to have a character drink The Stupid Juice. For Case X, this character is suddenly stupid and does stuff they'd never do. For Case Y, it's someone else.

When you're dealing with Larry Butz and Lotta Hart, you come to expect that sort of thing. The inconsistency is part of their character. But when Susato can't identify her own father sleeping on the couch because... I dunno, I guess she landed on her head when she fell out of bed this morning, what the hell are we doing here, gang? Why are we doing this? Some people in our chat were like "This is a joke". I don't know. Is it? it really a joke if it takes 20 minutes of real gameplay to SOLVE THE MYSTERY instead of walking over and look at him, like any rational person would do?

I also can't go into too many details about this without spoiling things, but I really really hate the core overarching plot of this duology. I would bet almost all the money in my bank account that Shu Takumi didn't have the details of the second game 100% ironed out by the time he wrote the first. They don't lead into each other at all and so many characters' actions need to be unfathomably stupid for everything to work out the way it does. It kind of makes me retroactively dislike a lot of the cast. Especially Sholmes.

Also the assistant Van Zieks gets in the 2nd game is unfathomably bad. Everything about that setup and how that character acts is my least favorite thing about the game and maybe my least favorite thing that ever happens in the entire franchise. It makes me SO angry.

The games are still pretty good though.

[feelo-fick]

Au where eating the demons desire makes Laios immortal

Demons Curse

—

WHYYYYY WHY WOULD YOU SAY THIS TO MEEEEEEE WHYYYY SNIFF SNIFF IM SO SAD. IMS O SAD. I DREW THIS WHILE FALLING APART AT THE SEAMS. uaogh okay let me get my thoughts out about this

i originally was sorta happy in a bittersweet way cause i thought, well at least marcille has company, they have eachother to lean on now!

...but then i realized marcille isnt immortal. shes gonna live LONG, but shes not immortal. AND I GOT SO EXTREMELY SAD

can you imagine, trying to convince your friend not to extend everyones lifespans to a scarily long degree. and then having to help her deal with that fear and grief of losing her loved ones. AND THEN REALIZING YOURE IMMORTAL AND OUTLIVING ALL OF YOUR LOVED ONES INCLUDING HER. imagine being marcille as she gets older watching laios experience the same exact fear and grief she knows so well and knowing she cant do anything other than reassure him itll be alright. imagine being so scared to die and now suddenly you know someone who CANT die and realizing thats SO MUCH WORSE paces in circles. AAAAAAUGH

additional thought of this au, what if this was part of the demons curse to never allow laios' greatest desire to be granted? i mean laios is a very simple guy with simple wants, he wants to be loved, to eat good food, to study monsters, to be around his friends, and generally just live a normal life. being immortal would definitely complicate things... he'll be able to see and experience so many things but he wont be able to do it with his loved ones, not for long.

and also, being king, he'd probably be in that position for a long long time - maybe he'd willingly retire at some point but even after that where would he go then? what would he do? he cant go and find monsters to study, they all avoid him. i guess, explore the rest of the world? watch everything move on without him?

speaking of, imagine if he lived up until a time like modern day. so many years so many friends (gained and lost) and so many changes... that would be insane. THIS IS SPIRALLING INTO ME JUST GOING "WOULDNT IT BE FUCKED UP TO BE IMMORTAL" AJDNSJXBAH

anyways, final note, im reminded too of this "hand my my shovel, im going in!" animatic that haunts my mind forever AUGH its so good, and captures my immortality thoughts perfectly

[apple-onigiri]

assigning songs from mitski's laurel hell album to siffrin and loop (because they've consumed my life)

as mentioned by me and requested by @starrycat123-blog (so sweetly, might i add!! they were so polite about it, not realizing being asked to yap is the highlight of my day), i am putting together a comprehensive list of all the songs from mitski's laurel hell album assigned to sif/loop/sif and loop two sides of the same silver coin style

Valentine, Texas this is so loop-coded, to me. me when i become someone else only i am privy to (note: this includes my other self) and live in the constant state of remembrance of my ghosts. "who will i be tonight?" <- me when i lie. me when i create a persona to hide behind. me and my disconnected sense of self. me when please let me live in my memories of things long gone please please please

Working for the Knife both of them!! this is the Ultimate Time Loop song. looks at the "i always knew the world moves on; i just didn't know it would go without me" line with an understanding but still very aware gaze. this is also peak living in the midst of your poor choices. you wake up on the grass of the meadow and, as you start reconstructing the same blinding script because you keep deciding to do so, suddenly this starts playing. what do you do

Stay Soft the "if i refuse to be open and honest and vulnerable i'm basically impervious to being hurt" is so very much mid-game-but-specifically-act-4 siffrin, fake smiling his way through his stupid-ass script because it protects his heart from any change that has at least the slightest potential to hurt him. the sheer possibility is too much. also bonus guilt of wanting, and circumventing it by focusing on what others want 'do you need help with anything' style. also also bonus+ "where the dark remembers you". i need to kill, maim, destroy because this play is about mpd who haunts the narrative of this album and this post

Everyone act 5. act 5 siffrin to an insane degree. i feel slightly ill about this actually like you cannottttt be serious. this song is deeply siffrin just going through the house after pushing away everyone else. "i left the door open to the dark; i said, come in, come in, whenever you want" and "and i opened my arms wide to the dark; i said take it all, whatever you want". looks directly into the camera mouthing "mal du pays"

Heat Lightning both. really really both but!! specifically with loop being the first half and so to speak passing the torch in the bridge to siffrin who's the second half. goddd i genuinely could make an animatic for this if it was as simple as beaming the images directly from my brain onto the screen, i'm walking around my room like a demented detective haunted by a cold case just thinking about it. "there's nothing i can do, not much i can change", by their own unbreakable rules!!! it's about the act of losing strength to keep fighting after doing that for so, so long and just wanting to rest, please with the people you love, please. "would that be okay?" i need to stop i can't make 1/3 of this post be about heat lightning (it could be)

The Only Heartbreaker siffrin 'i manipulated him into liking me' no last name. because when you're the only one in the time loop and the only one also in the loop, it's easy to view the positive interactions you're constantly getting as ones that you coerced. "so i'll be the loser in this game; i'll be the bad guy in the play". i actually feel haunted by this, i'm not kidding

Love Me More are you kidding. both. that's a song about what started this whole mess. the love-starved anthem that also has themes of searching for something to keep you going and of not trying anything risky out of fear to avoid getting hurt and of days repeating and repeating and repeating, and of needing the love to drown you, overwhelm you, purge you clean. this is their song. goddd

There's Nothing Left For You loop 'formerly siffrin' 'not anymore!' 'get replaced by your other self, idiot, you can't go back!' no last name. 59 dead, 118 injured. "nothing waits for you; you had it before; not anymore". "so go on at that sweetheart's door; and find a new you". "it was your right, it was your life; and then it passed to someone new". i literally don't think i need to add anything. it not only speaks but screams out for itself

Should've Been Me loop song. we all know this. i hate it here. "when i saw a girl looked just like me". c'mon. we've all seen the animatic, also. i literally have nothing else to say here, i'm basically out of a job

I Guess this is a spicy one - this is siffrin specifically after the two hats ending. this is a very short song but i'm struggling to keep this paragraph contained. "it's been you and me since before i was me; without you, i don't yet know how to live". i cry out dramatically, clutching my chest. "if i could keep anything of you; i would keep just this quiet after you". i fall on my knees and hit my fist against the floor. "it's still as a pond i am staring into; from here, i can say thank you; from here, i can tell you thank you". i'm sorry, siffrin. and thank you, loop. someone get me out of here

That's Our Lamp everybody say hiiiii act 5 siffrin but specifically pre-house. because he has a little demon on his shoulder telling him "they don't love you, they hate you" and making him crash out on everyone. so love-starved his body is rejecting any sign of care and love like someone starved eating too much and their body rejecting it. "that's where you loved me" in the context of looking over all the places in dormont where you "made" your found family love you is diabolical

and that's it!! i genuinely could go into deconstructing lyrics especially for some songs where it's clear i have more to say like heat lightning or love you more but i went into this determined to not go completely crazy with the length of this thing. love and light, everyone, hope you enjoyed

[upmost-rylan]

//new year art, featuring my sona arin! And many characters I hyperfixated on this year! (Tags #newyear #art #drawing #fandom #cringecultureisdead ) . See if you can spot the characters you remember me drawing in the past! . vv Bonus rambling mainly to my future self and some friends:) vv

Hey Everyone! I hope 2024 treated you well! This year was an absolute mess for me… from the horrible, I saw people who I used to be friends with become strangers to me, my uni life is an absolute MESS, not to mention family stuff hhh… but also some good stuff,I deleted an old instagram account that had maybe a couple hundred followers to making an account a couple in late June already reaching 1k and probably gonna reach 2k at some point if my account keeps growing at this rate GNKFJGJ, I made ALOT more animatics this year then I ever did before! It's Definitely gonna help me improve if I keep going at it… ,I made new friends who are in fandoms who I love! Amazing artists and some writers! they bring people around them so much joy! All of them deserve the world! (Yes you do, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!), the world is a train reck right now! But you only live once people! Gotta try your best to keep up the good vibes! but also remember it's okay to cry, to take a break, even if you don't feel great, remember that you survived! You lived another year, you can do one more! even if you are just staying in bed scrolling through your phone seeing the sun go up, you did great! And I am proud that you survived! I am horrible with words especially if it's me rambling… but still, I hope this year brings you peace, weather that be inner peace to be able to talk to someone new without being anxious, or peace in your surroundings I hope it gets better no matter what you are going through! I'm probably just repeating myself at this point so… happy new years everyone! Hoping it'll be a good one :)

[signanothername]

Hey, do you think it'd be funny if Killer and Nightmare gossiped about other people together? One of the few moments they actually vibe together (aside from the chess, although that's debatable given how pissed Nightmare's gotta be at losing), and it's just talking smack about others

(Partially inspired by me hearing this TikTok audio which was Ye Olde English 'He's a 10'. Which they could do too. I personally headcanon Nightmare aroace, or at least on the spectrum, but it'd be funny if he didn't know, but Killer did. So they just trash talk people who try to hit on Nightmare, because they're messed up morally, at least one if not both is aroace-spec, and it's FUNNY)

Funny enough Anon, I actually described Nightmare and Killer as “Gossip Girls” before, the linked post is more referring to the fact Killer is the one bringing info/intel back to Nightmare, (I like to think of Killer as the spy/scout of the team beside being Nightmare’s right hand man) but the caption still holds truth to it, as I fully love to believe them to be gossip girls

And them gossiping is definitely one of the very few times Nightmare treats Killer on a bit of an equal ground to him (who knew Nightmare’s capable of it xhhxhxhx)

And same Anon sammmmeee!!! I like to believe Nightmare to be specifically a repulsed Aro and a grey Ace >:))) and I actually like to believe Killer’s demisexual, they’re both on the ace spectrum your honor <333333

But it’d honestly be funny to see them gossiping by going “he’s a 10” bxhxhdh

I honestly like to believe they literally gossip beyond even that, all into people’s relationships, way of life, where they live, etc, and they can be relentless

Anyway someone should make animatics of Iamtonytalks’ gossip vids with Killer and Nightmare this instant or I shall do it myself (if my motivation doesn’t fail me guvujv)

[biblicallyaccuratecrow]

rambling about songs my brain associates with isat (pt. 1)

[woe, spoilers be upon ye!]

i have a 250+ song isat playlist. I am unhealthily obsessed with finding new songs to put in it. Here's a few that make me go absolutely batshit insane.

I've already rambled about this one on my art account a while back, but this song is so insanely loop-coded....

I'm standing on a stage Of fear and self-doubt It's a hollow play, But they'll clap anyway

You could give me any song that has some kind of reference to plays or theatre and I could probably find a way to make it about isat. but specifically this makes me think about twohats and how loop views their place in the world as a performance, a pawn, not even a character but a plot device... yeah

I'm living in an age That calls darkness light Though my language is dead Still the shapes fill my head I'm living in an age Whose name I don't know Though the fear keeps me moving, Still my heart beats so slow

I probably don't have to break this one down for you, but yeah, Island North of Vaugarde, the forgotten language... "still the shapes fill my head" has always in my mind referenced the stars and constellations, and how they're familiar but foreign...

-

thanks to @/ricecaqes and their trust ceremony animatic, this song lives in my head rent free. Even just as a whole this song is SO isat for me. literally from the first fucking lines:

Will I know when I’ve gone too far? Or frozen myself in time? An impossible brain with impossible wants Lost and astray, with impossible thoughts

like. it really can't get much more nail on the head than that?

then you got this:

So cold, I’m freezing Every piece of praise and sign that I’m believed in Solid in a crystal ball It bends the waves of the light to mend the rest of my life

and literally the first time I heard this song i paused it and said, out loud, "OH FUCK." Because. it's act 5 siffrin. Like, the slow descent into despair followed by the determination that the only way to perserve the life and the family they love is to keep them with him, to do the exact same thing the king did...

Do you also see your future starting with the farthest part? Live your life to close the space between the end and start And when it’s hard, do you hang onto any chance That you might be in control? That you’re the one who owns

For one, once you reach the end of act 2, you're constantly aware of the head housemaiden being as far as you can go, and then you're planning around it the entire time.

And then, you have. siffrin grasping for any kind of control they can have over the situation, desperately. and failing repeatedly because they simultaneously think that they are undeserving of getting what they ultimately want... yeah...

i won't go into the rest of the lyrics because honestly it's pretty well covered by the animatic but. yeah trust ceremony my sweet beloved.

-

rest in peace siffrin no middle no last name, you would have loved the mountain goats.

yeah uh. this one is also pretty high up on songs that make me go "damn that's siffrin alright".

I am this great, unstable mass of blood and foam And no one in her right mind would make my home her home My heart's an autoclave

i think for me it's the idea of siffrin feeling like they're nothing, and even if they are something or someone, they are bad, worse than bad, worthless. also referencing homesickness.... yeah...

When I try to open up to you I get completely lost Houses swallowed by the earth, windows thick with frost And I reach deep down within, but the pathways twist and turn And there's no light anywhere, and nothing left to burn

I mean, this one is also pretty self-evident. siffrin losing hope while being stuck in the house... wanting to connect with the party but being completely uncapable of doing so out of the sheer terror of being left behind... act 5, with the house literally warping...

I dreamt that I was perched atop a throne of human skulls On a cliff above the ocean, howling wind and shrieking seagulls And the dream went on forever, one single static frame Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name

siffrin feels responsible for the loops, every aspect of them. their deaths, their party-member's deaths, their failures, everything. and in the end, all they really wanted was for someone to truly see them? to have a family, to not be left behind and forgotten by the world.... the importance of names and siffrin's name in particular in the story also makes this hit home for me.

-

for brevity's sake i'll just start with these three- if people are interested in hearing me justify my insane music choices i'll probably do more.... for now, see ya!

[whereispearlescentmoon]

Ok, so starting with Jimmy, my thoughts are mainly based on the animatic and less of Jimmy as a character. Essentially I view him as the person who tries to die in order to save the ones he cares about, and he does over and over again. (I view him as doing this in order to show the inevitability of death each season to try to get his allies to not be complacent in the games) But the part that I think is interesting that no one seems to talk about, is that he fails every time. In third life, his death caused Scott to die trying to avenge him, in Last Life, Martyn died trying to make a deal with a watcher to save him, Double Life doesn't work as well, but you could say that his death caused Tango to die of grief. Then in limited life, Jimmy dies in the exact way that Grian is going to die, but his warning is completely useless and Grian dies in the exact same ways anyways. (I headcanon that this made him finally realize that his deaths were meaningless and the "curse" ends). My thoughts on Pearl started later and kind of build off these thoughts with Jimmy (also kind of based on the posts bigb enthusiast and mapleejay made on nosy neighbors canary in a coal mine). Pearl in Limited Life and Secret Life is desperately trying to be the "canary", using her death in order to save her allies and let them win. In limited life she does this literally with BigB, repeatedly giving him her time. However, she fails as a canary, she outlives the coal miner. Then in Secret Life she has new allies and makes the same promise to them, that she will do anything to get them to win. But then again they all die before her. But then there's scar. Pearl desperately clings to the idea that Scar can be the one that she saves with her death, she makes him an honorary mounder, and then tries to sacrifice herself to him before the final fight but he refuses. Then they win the fight and are the only two left. (next part is mainly headcanony) So then Pearl is left here in the same position Scott was, able to finally sacrifice herself to let her ally win. But Scar doesn't give her time, he immediately betrays her, because he was never a mounder, that was just Pearl desperately needing someone to save. And so she is killed by Scar unable to save anyone

You and I have completely different interpretations of what a canary is (partially why I don't generally vibe with canary Jimmy), and also who Life!Jimmy is, but this is really cool!

For me, Jimmy isn't a canary because, and I'm not saying this to be mean but it's true, his deaths are kind of meaningless. Or maybe not meaningless, but they don't teach anyone anything other than people are going to start perma-dying. This may be a deep pull, but if you watch RPDR or Survivor, there's always a moment when the first person has gone home and someone says, like, "Well it's gotten real now" because even if you know someone has to go first, it's still a hard thing.

Jimmy isn't dying on purpose, and his deaths are ultimately meaningless once the actual blood bath starts and people start killing each other vs his deaths which are accidents or to mobs. Maybe crow is a better bird for him honestly, or raven. A bad omen. The tragedy of Life!Jimmy is that, well, he just keeps getting screwed over by small mistakes that kill him. Letting go of shift for a second or looking an enderman in the eye or not choosing the right path to avoid a warden. He's the universe's punching bag.

Pearl is very specifically a canary in Wild Life because her deaths are warnings. Don't shift near edges because the hit boxes are wonky and you'll fall, don't try to put a shield up because you'll eat your weapon, the snails can instamine blocks and leap over one block gaps. She's not dying on purpose, but her deaths are meaningful. She will be useful, in life or death. She must be. I don't really see Canary!Pearl for the other life series. Yes, she sacrifices herself to give BigB time, but if that's canary criteria, so are Skizz and Scott.

I also don't necessarily see what Scar did as a betrayal. There's two of them left, only one can win. Pearl expressed repeatedly that she didn't want to win, she wanted one of the other Mounders to win. By making Scar a last minute honorary Mounder, she has a duty to lose to him. Yes, she technically didn't sacrifice herself, but I don't think she was fighting to win. Someone who's fighting to win doesn't tell their opponent about the zombie behind them. They don't ignore the golden apple in their hot bar. Hell, she only even got one hit in on Gem because she wanted to step away and let Scar beat Gem himself.

[starwebsonic]

⭐🕷🕸

ーSTARWEB‼️

☆ Some information on it and how it works. This WILL be updated overtime, tweaked, adjusted, and reffered back to, atleast until i start publishing everything properly!

SHORT SUMMARY:

Starweb is an original insect/bug themed Sonic AU in which all mobian characters in canon are bug counterparts to their original species! Ex: Hedgehogs = Spiders, Echidnas = Ants, Foxes = Weevils, etc. Instead of just bugs though, they are referred to as Insectians! Basically means mobians/people.

REFERENCE SHEETS AT BOTTOM‼️

• What's it about? ★

The story follows primarily Sonic and Shadow in their lives as Insectians, born and living through different paths in what they consider nature, even with some opposing opinions on how to survive right. This is a Sonadow plot, but you can consider it more of constant slowburn. This world works on a base of "survival of the fittest," meaning that animals eat bugs & bugs eat other bugs, just like reality. Of course there is a prey vs predator system that comes with this and those who prefer to live in peace.

• Terminology! (wip) ★

ー Insectians - The replacement word for mobians, refers to the general bug or population. It does not matter if the insectian in question is an insect in real life, they could be an arachnid and still be considered an insectian. EX: There was another insectian nearby.

ー Forager - An insectian who collects human-made or unnatural objects, whether for use or just having it, this includes those who make homes from said objects, EX: living in a former soup can.

ー Beastie - An insult used against vegan insectians that are not naturally vegan, this would be considered a minor slur, but it is frequently amongst those in tune with their instincts to mock those who aren't, EX: "You're a beastie."

ー Scavenger - Insectians that feed on other dead or decaying insectians. This is commonly used in phrases or insults, as being a scavenger is considered "unclean" by some, EX: "You eat like a scavenger."

ー Tamer - An insectian with the talent of taming animals that aren't bugs, such as birds or rodents.

ー Vagabond - Those insectians with adventure in their veins who cannot or do not want to stay in one place, often insectians that have little fear of their natural world and explore.

ー Dwellers - Insectians who live close to humans or inhabit human homes, this can be infestations or genuine pets with enclosures. Dwellers are commonly lacking instinctive knowledge of the wilderness depending on where they were born and lived.

ー Chao - Farmed or pet: Grub, maggots, or larvae of some kind, they are like the human equivalent of chickens as they are commonly used for an easy food source that doesn't involve hunting or killing other insectians for said food.

ー Season - Refers to someone's age or time passed in life, being in season means one is of the age of maturity, it's often used to separate old from young insectians, though this doesn't always work as bugs can be big and not be in season, they do not celebrate things like birthdays or keep track of ages. It can also be used to state an insectian is immature, EX: "For your age, you sure are out of season."

ー Maggot - Can be used as an insult towards another insectians intelligence or adolescent behavior, the replacement for idiot or stupid, it means someone's as smart as a maggot, maggots are the baby/larvae stage of some bugs such as flies, EX: "You act like a maggot."

• Story Execution ★

Writing! It will be a mostly written story, u dunno how to really explain the way I'll be writing well but i will say I'm much better at dialog than i am portraying what is happening, sorry.

ー There will occasionally be "special" meduims that appear in between, during, or on the side, aside from default writing, including short comics, art pieces, & MAYBE animatics or animations. In addition, don't expect my writing to be top-tier like WC or WoF, I'm better at drawing visuals but it would take me a very long time and motivation to make the entire thing a comic, so only special chapters would get full comics.

• Extra Information! ☆

(You will never see me try to write a description of how a character looks by default by the way... )

ー Thought i should mention incase this is asked again. YES you can make Starweb ocs or convert your ocs into Starweb!! There is currently no master list of every mobian species converted to their correct bug, but if you wish to ask or want to know the au-specific physical characteristics you can ask anytime!

ー About the species, they don't have highly specifc species, they are all mostly just generalized. For example: even if one spider was specifically inpired to be a tarantula they'd still just be called a spider, only their size may be larger or more accurate to the real bug.

(Some are barely more specific, such as weevils (foxes), to those who don't know their entomologyー they are beetles, but the beetle insectians in Starweb are lizards like espio. 🪲)

• As for art! ☆

Unless i say something is canon it's likely just not, so don't take my drawings or fanart too seriously. You can tell my kinsona apart fairly easy considering some of the added patterns and the fact he's the size of normal Sonic and can wear clothes/accessories. Insectians are the size of bugs and do not canonly wear clothesー at best makeshift stuff from the recourses around them like leaves.

★ If you're interested in this au don't be afraid to send asks anytime, always open here or on instagram! I do more rambles or information dumps there on Starweb since that seems to be where most people are interested. This post on tumblr specifically will be updated a bit frequently, but i don't mind reblogs to get people interested, really helps!

🕸 : STARWEB READ (not yet!)

🐞 : QNA 1 + ARC SUMMARIES

🕷 : REFSHEETS

🐛 : STARWEB DISCORD

🦋 : QNA 2

🪲 : STARWEB FANART (wip)

🐜 : COMMUNITY

[deadlandsqueen]

Found you through your tiktok and I genuinely would love to hear you talk all about sun wukon as much as you want

Ahhhh! That makes me so happy. Genuinely was getting overwhelmed in comments cause so many wanted to hear XD

The thing is it's all about where I would start- *presure in on staring at the universe like "how did I get here?"*

-cause I could easily direct someone to watch something on him (Like Overly sarcastic production they are the goat of explaining who this little guy is and they have an ongoing series which focuses on more of the exciting tales).

But also I feel I haven't scratched the surface of adaptations. I know about the famous ones like Dragon ball (which I do find funny that Goku is not the first anime Goku there's another anime where it's jttw but pretty anime boys), and Lego Monkie kid.

However to go more obscure outside of America, one of my favorite adaptation -just from premise alone- is a Korean drama where Sun Wukong and Demon bull king are roommates ( A Korean Odyssey).

And there's like one thing from overly sarcastic Monkey King video that I could even add to is The Lumberjack scene (Which has no affect to the story and really you can argue there was no need to bring them u0 (Or maybe they are JUST ion The monkey and the monk)) But I got attached to that scene for the sheer potential of a Lumberjack who lives down the mountain from the immortals (aka Wukong's soon to be Mentor, Master Subhuti). Just a regular dude living his life them BOOM Monkey.

(I drew this after I read about him. Man was singing a poem and Wukong confused the man for being an immortal. beautiful)

Im so sorry for just dropping this but again Thank you I don't want to make you read a novel. There's almost a temptation to make a video on my thoughts but for now I'm trying to make some Jttw content that can express my love for this little guy. But I can say this if you know about how Wukong Scratched his name out of the book of the dead then you'll what my next animatic will be on (hopefully i just scribbled my thoughts out today so it's in pre-production)

I have a lot of thoughts get I still feel like im missiing so much. BUT IM GETTING THERE!

Also I cant talk about Black Myth Wukong. 50% of it is me dying in game. 30% staring at pretty visuals, or 10% me whining that I cant climb stuff even though Im monkey so I should have the right to climb or the last 10% is me finding a character, grabbing him and trying to make a character of them cause i think they're neat.

Im so sorry again for this novel but thank you again XD

[flamebearrel]

🔬 + 🎵 + 🗺 for that ask game? I don't even go there, I just like to hear what you have to say about things

ACK thank you… you’re the light of my life

🔬: What character do you want to put under a microscope?

I’m gonna go with YouTube! I dunno why I like it so much but it being a relatively original design based on the UI makes it stand out from the other non-stick antagonists. Plus just LOOK at this goofy thing

If I have to pick a stick specifically then Red. He comes up with such unique and clever solutions to problems that no one else even considers

🎵: What’s a song you imagine an AvA/AvM animatic to? What’s the animatic?

Mother Mother must put something in their music to make so many of their songs animatic-able I'm telling you… In The Wings works really well for Purple I think, a recurring character who continuously teeters between friend and antagonist! Picturing the first verse being about their backstory with their parents and the second about the initial part of their arc where they meet Blue and Green (maybe the bridge montages the later parts idk). Relevant doodles attached

🗺: How do you imagine the world works?

I’ve seen on the wiki and in some discussions that people categorize sticks as either “Artificial” (the hollow-heads) or “Natural” (your “typical” solid color) stick figures. Frankly, I realllly don’t like this system because it clumps these guys with entirely different backgrounds together-

-but not these guys, despite living at most in different neighborhoods and under the exact same conditions.

I’d categorize them instead by how they originate: either “Drawn/Animated”, “Website/Game”, or “City/Outernet” stick figures.

Drawn sticks are created local to someone's desktop, usually via drawing program by an artist or animator. The powers and abilities they have depend on the names they are given, as well as (optional) code like The Dark Lord has. They can detach themselves from their original files, but presumably cannot be recovered if they do so and get taken out. These include Alan's hollow-heads, which are the only ones we've outright seen, but it's canon that other people have brought sticks to life too

Website and game sticks originate from the internet on, as you can guess, designated sites/games. The logistics of their abilities, appearances and lifestyles vary wildly depending on the worldbuilding of their source. If they die they can be revived if in close access to their webpage, but if that goes down, they're taken out too. Red, Blue, Green, Yellow and any Newgrounds/Stick Page guys fall into this category

City sticks live in the Outernet, a separate region almost entirely out of human reach. They live a life most similar to people (albeit vaguely, since a stickman is a simplified approximation of a human), being able to age, reproduce, and having their own economy/work systems. No powers, files or code to be attached to. King is shown to be one of these guys; Purple is slightly more complicated since they've lived on a mac, in games AND in the city at different points but they're one too due to their parents

Gates are needed to get from one area to another, using a site or game as the middleman. The only way to go direct from a desktop to the Outernet is the way this guy does

One other thing - For drawn and website sticks, the fundamentals of their characters like age, relationships, whatever are set by the intentions of their creators. So to me the main five are all set in the general "young adult" range (around 18-23), and only Second and Chosen consider themselves as biological brothers due to having a direct link between their programs and code

Followup post-AvA 11

[mysteryanimator]

Myst rambles about animation longer then they should + their love for Nocturne whoops

I keep thinking about the animation industry as of late again, all the layoffs, all the animators looking for jobs. So I might just be speaking to a void right now. I have not experienced any of the drought so I just may look doe-eyed trying to break into a disaster zone but I’m just here to offer that newbie perspective, as naive as it may seem. I’m gonna try and keep this short (whoops a lie) but if you can see where this is going, this is just going to be me talking about the impact Nocturne has on me, aka rewriting the abhorrent Twitter thread/Instagram post where I free-formed without checking my grammar. 

As someone who is pursuing animation, I have watched A LOT of animated shows growing up, I swear it was the only medium I did watch growing up. I made scuffed animatics and animations of the current show I was watching, not realizing they counted as love letters to the media. Yet, the animation industry scared me. It was so elusive and mysterious. The bar seemed too high, even when I decided to choose to study it at university. It seemed so out of reach.

Until Nocturne. 

Castlevania Nocturne practically humanized the industry to me. These people were fans of their own creations. They breathe life into them. All the character sheets that popped into my timeline, the rough cuts, all the silly memes. Something that seemed impossible became possible within an instant. My skills at the time were not what they are now by any means, hell even now I could be better, but, I looked at that show and went “I can do that. If they can do it, maybe there’s a chance I could do something like that.” I think it helps I am at a stage of my life where I can consciously consume content and have the ability to break it down.

Also, let's be so honest, it's combined with the fact that I fell in love with Mizrak and Olrox's plot... you get a very insane person. Passionate but insane. Who spends their entire day going frame by frame reanalysing 10 minutes of an episode? ME. Despite this, I have learned so much more than all my years at university have given me. I have become a genuinely better animator and a better artist. My understanding of animation finally clicked. I knew I was built for animation but didn’t know how I fit into it. I’m constantly on YouTube, absorbing information from YouTube channels like Dong Chang, wandering around Discord Sakuga servers/twitter, and taking notes. I'm still worried about bothering other people in the industry/more technically skilled than me but I think I'm getting slowly better and going "Hey I love your work! How did you achieve x/y/z? OH!? Can you explain what this means?" because again, these are just people like you and me.

So every single Mizrak and Olrox animation I’ve made has not only been a love letter to the show, and crew of people who put their heart and soul into making this, but these animations have been a testament to my skills. Take it like a capsule of how I’m improving every month. I will admit I sometimes get weirded out of the fan content I make, albeit a combination of low confidence, and imposter syndrome, and now my animation style has just become very synonymous with the nocturne style. These ‘cons’ however do get outweighed by the pros of it all. Finally finding a style that I find goes hand in hand with my illustration style (and I can't wait to see how I can evolve it into my own) and the bouts of self-doubt are vast and temporary. I am super grateful that I can look at my work in times of doubt and go “Literally anything is possible, let me put on a show that explores this certain animation principle/story beat in a particular way, and let me study it!"

It's super embarrassing to admit but Nocturne has genuinely changed the trajectory of my life. I am genuinely a whole new person with such a different outlook on animation because of this show. Yes, I am creative through and through, you cannot separate that from my blood, but Nocturne solidified that “You are exactly where you need to be”. The industry is in shambles, with people now reaching a year+ jobless, and contracts are ending, yet, if Nocturne genuinely wasn’t released at the end of September, I do not think any of this would've clicked.

(Backed up by the very fact I am/was directing a short and running a genuine studio when Nocturne came out. I was very unconfident at the time and doubted myself a lot in private since it was my first time doing any of this. This show helped me solidify a new perspective on how to run things! How to be a stronger animator!)

Now again, this is such a crazy thing to say now. I'm watching people from the show I love have their contracts ending/being laid off since last year. I swear every second tweet on my tl is of an animator desperately looking for a job or on the verge of giving up. Me, Mystery, is an animator with no skin in the game, so I don't truly know what the Western animation industry looks like from the inside besides what I get from social media. Let’s be honest, for all you know, I just animate two characters kissing constantly. That is merely the surface of its impact. HEY, I MAY DELETE THIS B4 ANYONE SEES BECAUSE THIS IS KINDA EMBARASSING, the industry sucks right now. People are losing their jobs, so what I’m saying may not matter, but also I think it does maybe? I think this is just a unique perspective to where people are losing faith and hope in the animation, I re-sparked my thanks to Nocturne. Who knows, I may lose this spark as I go further into trying to break into the industry once I'm out of uni, but I’ll take what I have now and ride this new bout of inspiration and creativity. I want to tell stories. I want to bring life to still images. I know it's possible because Nocturne exists. These are real people who exist, who put their love and care into this show. Passion like that is inspiring.

I also somehow can't escape these people reading this, so if you have made it this far- thank you for making this show the way you have! Thank you to all the people both still in it and to others who have had to part with Nocturne. I will admit I have gone through the credits and made sure I could try and learn from everyone's work despite how unique/different each role is.

I hope my grammar is better than last time HAHAH, the technicality of English isn't a strong suit of mine but fingers crossed that the ideas/content are still passable.

[bestworstcase]

oscar fully made me cry. the merge... :(

my son is in DANGER…

but. the thought i have rattling around in my brain. i don’t think that was oscar.

1. despite his uncertainty, oscar still sounds like himself in the 9.11 animatic.

i could not… tell you exactly what it is dismuke is doing with his voice to differentiate between them, but there is an audible distinction (i think it might be that oz is pitched very slightly lower in conjunction with a subtle shift in intonation and cadence) and that doesn’t change at all through the end of v8. (unlike their syntax, which has been gradually converging since v6 and is mostly indistinguishable now.) the epilogue soliloquy is in Oscar Voice; but this latest beyond? very distinct Ozpin Voice.

2. the lead into this conversation is deliberately ambiguous: jaune talks about feeling displaced and lost to himself now that he’s “been young, and old, and young again,” says that he’d rather forget, because he was the rusted knight, but the rusted knight wasn’t him. and THEN, lately he’s been spending more time with “the person [he] thought would relate most.”

not “with oscar,” and the thing is? the experience jaune describes? being young then old then young again, growing into someone else, a make-believe hero who was not himself and then being separated from that make-believe version of himself and confronted with the question of who he is now that he’s himself again… that’s. a lot closer to ozma’s experience than it is to oscar’s; oscar is just a kid who had the misfortune to become a vessel for someone else, with his core struggle as a character being how hard he’s striving to STAY himself for as long as he can. whereas ozma keeps reincarnating and being changed to fit this mold he’s been poured into, and then he dies and is separated and ‘reborn’ again. young then old then young again. jaune was the rusted knight, but the rusted knight wasn’t jaune, and who is jaune now? / ozma was ozpin, but ozpin wasn’t ozma, and who is ozma now?

(versus: oscar isn’t ozma, and is fighting as hard as he can to stay oscar, but he’s scared that he isn’t really oscar anymore.)

3. “if you’re not sure where to start, i do have a suggestion, if you’d like. […] think about the good times, what little they might have been, that you spent in the ever after. […] it might be able to help you remember what it was all for, and rewrite the story in your own way.”

that’s. what ozma did, after the lost fable, when he found the wherewithal to return. note the mirroring here of sentiments expressed in ‘until the end’: “all memories are dark, and light is fading/we try so hard, but what are we fighting for? […] i promise i’ll be here until…/our story has been told” -> “think about the good times, what little they might have been, to remind yourself what it was all for, and rewrite the story in your own way.”

ozma. ozma loves stories, and tells stories about himself to make sense of his life and to try to hold on to what’s true amid all the senseless horror of his existence. “our stories help explain who we are and why we’re here,” ozpin writes in the introduction to fairytales of remnant.

and, in the afterward: “No one is guaranteed a happy ending, but the tales told about Remnant and its people do hold a bittersweet promise: who we are and what we do are important enough to be remembered and shared. We exist. Our existence means something. Stories will survive longer than all of us, but through them, we may continue on.”

now, by the end of v8, oscar has begun to dabble in this too—quoting from ‘the girl who fell through the world’ to express his fears and loneliness—but still with a degree of separation between himself and the stories. oscar “never understood why [the girl] was so sad […] but now it makes more sense;” he’s rethinking a story from his childhood with new perspective. whereas oz uses this same story self-referentially: “a young girl flees the consequences of a choice to a magical place, but, never having learned from her initial failure, she only succeeds in spreading it. i failed all of you. i should have trusted you with the truth, and should never have run the day you discovered it.”

oscar relates to alyx, empathizes with the character through his own experience. “i understand now why she felt so sad.”

oz projects himself onto alyx to explain the choices he made and his resultant failures. “i fled the consequences of my choices and then failed to learn from my mistake, so i failed all of you.”

similarly, oscar says “i shouldn’t be surprised you’re so familiar with fairytales,” and ozpin answers “i’ve lived through my share of them.” to oscar, these are just stories that resonate with his own life; to ozma, the stories are his life. yes?

but, he hasn’t actually ‘lived through’ any fairytales—he wrote fairytales about himself.

jaune lived through a fairytale—‘the girl who fell through the world’ was a beloved childhood story that he knew and recognized as a fairytale once he found himself in it. but for lewis, the journey through ever after was an experience that later inspired him to write a fictional story where everything turned out alright.

so to lewis, ‘the girl who fell through the world’ was a way of making peace with what really happened, honoring his sister and his friend, and moving on. but to jaune, that story is a horrifying, haunting reminder of his failure to live up to it. it’s a burden he’s carried for decades.

and i believe this is a distinction that oz—who has, like lewis did, written many fictional stories about his own life as a way of comforting himself and preserving something true within a story that isn’t real—would notice. i’m not sure that oscar would.

oscar’s fear has always been about losing himself and becoming just another one of oz’s lives. for him, the question is “who am i? am i still me? how long can i stay myself?”

oz… doesn’t know who he is, and hasn’t for a very long time, but he’s chiefly concerned not with his identity but his purpose: what is he fighting for? why is he here? what does he want? (“we live in fear that we might fail/fear that we’ll succeed/fear that we may not provide the things our loved ones need”—what ozma wants is in opposition to his task, and so he is both afraid to fail and terrified that he might one day succeed.)

so this suggestion, think about the good times to remind yourself what it was all for?

i really don’t think that’s an idea oscar would have. i think oscar would see in jaune’s struggle something more like his own distress when oz returned: “i’m not upset that you left; i’m upset you came back. i started to feel like me—not the same me i was before all of this, but the me i always wanted to be. i felt like i was actually part of the team.”

and because of that, i think oscar would advise jaune to do what he did while oz was gone: accept that he can’t ever go back to who he used to be, but think about who he wants to be and strive to become that version of himself, focus on taking action and being present and reaching out to participate until the distance he feels is closed.

which is good advice in general but also probably not what’s best for jaune right now; if he doesn’t take the time to reflect and process all the trauma he endured in the ever after and make peace with the rusted knight now, it’s just going to sink down and fester inside him forever until he faces it.

…and that is precisely what oz did to himself. so ozma is the one better equipped to offer guidance for this specific problem, and as he and oscar are now on the same page—both of them fighting the curse together, and oz committed to honesty—i think oscar would be pretty open to hearing oz’s perspective.

4. the 9.11 animatic implies that oscar and oz might be hiding how bad it’s getting from the others, and B1 drops a pretty… anvil-sized… hint that it’s getting really difficult for people who aren’t close to them to tell who’s who.

jaune and oscar were close friends… but jaune spent several decades alone, and all the people he cares about have become strange to him now. he’s bound to have forgotten details, lost the familiarity he once had even as the love was undiminished.

and he’s never gotten along with ozpin.

but from oz and oscar’s perspective, jaune was there when oz reconciled with everyone else, and oz has been keeping his promises since then, and by this point it’s been months and any lingering friction with the ones who didn’t fall has probably been long since put to bed. they’re used to cooperating with each other, both in fighting the curse and dealing with the problems as they arise in vacuo, and by the end of v8 they were trading places pretty smoothly when oz needed to talk.

in the 9.11 animatic we have ren going “hope you two are okay”—their closest friends have gotten used to casually addressing them as two people. in v7, when ironwood isn’t sure, he asks. that’s probably become the new normal. (especially as i can’t imagine their friends feeling anything but awful if they guessed wrong.)

so like. it wouldn’t be at all unreasonable for them to just kinda

absentmindedly forget

that jaune can’t discern at a glance who is fronting, and is liable to assume he’s talking to oscar unless told otherwise.

and then. there’s… this:

“he’s in your head, isn’t he? did you already know about this? […] how much longer can we even trust him? how do we even know it’s really him? what if we’ve been talking to that liar this whole time?”

the last time jaune thought there was even a possibility that oz might be pretending to be oscar, he flew off the handle and shoved oscar into a wall. and that was before he spent several decades deteriorating in isolation.

so if oz went “mind if i talk to him this time?” and oscar went “sure,” and both of them assumed out of habit that jaune would ask if he wasn’t certain but also knows oscar well enough to be able to tell most of the time…

like

that’s a little bit

fraught, isn’t it? because they didn’t mean to deceive him, but they’re both aware that this exact scenario really freaks him out. and springing that on him when he’s in the middle of opening up about such a sensitive subject…

“you mean ozpin has… right?”

“of course! 😬”—to me this reaction reads a lot more like awkward-panic he thinks i’m you what do we do?! than oscar realizing he mixed up himself and oz.

especially because, even though oscar appears in the 9.11 animatic to be hiding how bad it’s gotten, he’s never kept it a secret that he does not want this or that he’s really scared of what will happen to him at the end. back in v6 he said this TO JAUNE:

No, it's okay. These past few days, I've been scared of the same things you were. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be... me. But I did some thinking, and I do know that I want to do everything I can to help with whatever time I have left.

so i don’t believe oscar would be able to just “of course! anyway–” such a big thing. not want to talk about it and try to play it off as a slip of the tongue, yes, but i think it would have more weight. like this is what he’s been dreading from the moment ozpin first spoke to him, and that fear has only grown deeper since then. his part in the 9.11 animatic is equal parts despair and terror.

if this were oscar, i’d expect at least a pause, and probably a response more in the vein of “right—ozpin has” to reaffirm and reinforce that separation between himself and oz. this is a kid who preferred to stay on the whale and be tortured rather than risk accelerating the curse by using magic!

whereas.

“of course! ahem. um, if you’re not sure where to start…”

like jaune saying “the person i thought would relate most,” there’s a little ambiguity here. of course he meant ozpin. that would be true regardless of whether the one speaking is oscar or oz. the more salient question, the question that jaune does not ask and the one that isn’t answered, is “are you ozpin?”

because oz answering “of course!” and then not clarifying that he didn’t actually misspeak would be… a very classic oz move, and newfound commitment to being honest or not—if he thought jaune knew who he was until Right Then, it’s a delicate situation and the history is fraught and oz knows jaune is touchy about this; in the moment, playing along as ‘oscar’ is pretty understandable.

and we’ve seen oscar pretend to be ozpin under pressure, when salem put him on the spot through her assumption that she was talking to oz; the reversal of oz awkwardly letting jaune’s presumption that he’s oscar pass uncorrected isn’t much of a stretch.

so it’s like. the voice, the actual advice given, and the way he reacts when jaune ‘corrects’ him—it all sounds like ozma, to the point that up until jaune interjected “you mean ozpin has, right?” i was like That’s Ozma, and on thinking about it and considering the deliberate ambiguity of “the person i thought would relate most” and that the one speaking doesn’t confirm he isn’t oz, only affirms that by “myself” he did of course mean ozpin…

points. That’s Ozma.

[bad-traffic-smp-ideas]

Resource life

Similar to double life you are soul bound to someone but instead of your hearts being tethered together your life is tethered to a random specific block/item— which if enters your soulbounds inventory means you lose a life. Every life you die the objects get harder and rarer to find— perhaps from different dimensions. Normal three life system.

It may sound stupid but I ask you to consider the potential: Hoarding resources. The choice between allying with your soulmate or seeking out their demise. The choice between sharing the block or item that might kill you or keeping it a secret. Trying to sneak things into other peoples inventories to kill their soulmate. Alliances between different halves of soulmates. Do you choose between the person who can kill you in an instant and whom you can do the same to or everyone else. I would love to see the insane storyline’s that would come from it. Already making animatics about this one in my head lol

World's most complicated game of hot potato