#THIS STORYLINE IS THE STUFF OF DREAMS HOLY SHIT

[lesbianjamies]

holy fuck we could've had it so good...

[hishighnesstheprincess]

MY HATER POST

literally made a hater post just to talk about stuff in the sonic series that I dont like ❤️ if you don't like this post then fuck you block and/or blow me. this is disorganized as fuck btw and i dont care

sonic frontiers was the best mainline sonic game in over a decade but thats really not saying much

i think tangle is kinda boring and whispangle is kinda boring by proxy. whispers cool tho

surge is the best rival sonic character since blaze and the only thing dragging her down is that sonic in the idw comics kinda sucks as a character

its great that we are getting more female characters in idw and the games but quite a lot of them are kinda boring and we still need more female villains

metal sonic is basically nothing but a jobber in idw rn and its really depressing

idw please treat the babylon rogues better, theyre goofy characters with serious storylines just like basically every other sonic character, stop making them NOTHING but a joke

lanolin is an interesting character, yall just cant handle women who are even SLIGHTLY rude to a fan favorite character

the worst part of idw is that its tied to game canon because they cant shake up the status quo too much or have character arcs for most of the main characters

rouge is ABSOLUTELY a sexualized character and always has been. learn to like a character despite the faults in how they are portrayed or shut up about it

sally was the best canon romantic partner for sonic and you cant change my mind

the second worst part of idw is the titular character himself

i dislike surg/amy because of the age difference andalso the fact that everyone wants to disregard surges character to have her be redeemed

if sega is going to keep teasing son/amy then they should just stop dancing around it and make them canon already, make the shippers happy and get the drawn out agony over with for the rest of us. also age amy up for the love of allthat is holy

also, sega should stop ship teasing ships they have no intention of making canon in general, its shitty and edges into queerbaiting when done with gay ships

the above does not apply to whispangle

idw art is overall much much MUCH better than any other sonic comic and its not even a contest

there are a lot of things i disagree with about the current state and direction of this franchise but we are in a much better place than we were even just two years ago and we should be glad for all this success

the worst parts of archie are the most atrocious things that this franchise has ever put out, in art, storytelling, basic morality, etc.

most of the popular ships in this fandom suck ass

unless sega stops rushing sonic team and actually gives some resources to them we are never going to get better than 7/10 games. corporations are not your friends and you dont have to thank them for giving you a mid product

sega should have been sued into oblivion for the literal seizure inducing state sonic colors ultimate was released in and we should never, ever let them forget it

remain skeptical about every single sonic game until release, we've had "WERE SO BACK" moments before that turned out to befalse

the edm in sonic frontiers cyberspace slaps but isnt as memorable as previous sonic soundtracks

stop ghosting sonics friends (sonic frontiers, sonic prime, sonic dream team) its kinda weird and puts way too much importance on sonic again. this is a good cast, USE THEM

sonic frontiers dlc being hard wasnt a bad thing, the jank, glitches, and lack of fairness were bad things that tarnished the experience

the games have never ever been properly translated from japanese into english and that is just an objective fact. but also dont shit on people for only having interest in the english version, you have to go WAY out of your way to get a good translation and that's on the franchise, not the fans

this franchise's "canon" has been fucked since the original classic games, trying to fix it in the sense that you can somehow make every little detail perfect is a lost cause. just pick and choose what you like

of all the characters that deserve a game to themselves blaze deserves it the most. girlie has a whole other dimension that we could explore can you IMAGINE an open world game in the sol dimension COME ON

if lots of people are criticizing something you like then you should give some consideration to the fact that they may have some points instead of just disregarding it as people being nitpicky and nasty. you dont have to listen to it but if you dont do that then you cant dismiss it out of hand either

the stories of sa1 and sa2 arent even the best stories in this franchise

06 sucks ass and no amount of "potential" means jackshit when it comes to actual quality. if we're just evaluating "potential" then congratulations everything ever made is a quality product have fun with that

its okay to games with goofier and lighthearted stories

team dark are just friends

i prefer amys hammer to the cards

let this franchise have its edge back. but also let sonic be cute. they arent mutually exclusive

keep good physics and momentum in the games for the love of god please its what this franchise was built on

sega of japan may do characterization better but the closest brushes to death that this franchise has ever had (Dreamcast, 06, Forces) were all on them as well

this might be the hottest take of all time but sonic team shares some of the blame in how a lot of sonic games turn out very bad, its not all on sega

stating that some sonic-inspired games (spark the electric jester and freedom planet) or sonic fan games (project 06) have turned out better than actual sonic games is kind of objectively correct but youre a dick if you say it just to make sonic fans feel bad about the games or themselves

if you ONLY consume sonic media you need to branch out more. for your own health please

flynn is neither the worst person to ever walk the surface of this planet or gods gift to the sonic fandom, practice some moderation in your opinions people

i think discourse is good, actually. except for when it harms people. and fictional characters do not count as people

sonic frontiers open world biomes are boring and nowhere close to most open world games, even ones from a decade ago

silver was never sonics rival

it would be nice if we could go back to having smaller games on handheld consoles coming out on a regular basis while mainline sonic games come out once every couple of years on a bigger scale and higher quality than weve been getting. and no locking games behind apple arcade PLEASE

sonic lost world isnt a terrible game or a good one. its just weird and boring

sonic riders was fun and its a travesty that it got downgraded into generic cart racing games

sonic unleashed daytime stages are the best boost stages in this entire franchise because they actually rely on quick decision making and reaction times instead of just smashing your way straight through the entire level with little to no effort

the werehog combat sucks ass and the fact that its super slow and super long and takes up like 75% of the time youre playing the game is why unleashed isnt peak. sorry

stop using green hill stop using green hill stop using green hill stop using green hill stop using green hill stop using green hill stop using green hill stop using green hill stop using green hill STOP IT

a lot of fans of sonic do not understand what they are talking about and that includes me a LOT of the time

sonic himself cant just be whatever the writer wants him to be. the reason characters are characters is because they have certain character traits and you cant just change that without getting a different guy, im sorry

archiehad the worst moments but the sonic movies are the worst adaptation overall

the above will change if movie 3 kills off shadow or tom. then the worst adaptation will be underground

game sonic being a static character is cool, actually

sonic fandom is sexist as fuck and that includes the tumblr side of it

sage getting revived in a post credits scene was lame. give us more time before confirming shes alive

the sonic twitter takeovers are not canon. no, not even if you think a thing they said on it was funny

they should let female characters be naked (dont make this weird) and give the boy characters outfits sometimes

amy having a crush on sonic is totally fine but they took it WAAAAAYYYYYYYY too far at many, many points. i dont care if its funny amy threatening chris in x or intimidating cream in various games (battle, rush) was NEVER a good thing

rouges design does not need to be changed, it needs to be framed and posed in less sexual ways

rouges heroes and prime outfits sucked ngl like just from a color and design standpoint like theyre kinda ass and overcomplicated and an eyesore

if sega is gonna age the characters up they should actually go ahead and post the new ages on some official channel, dont just leave us in this horrible limbo where we have to argue with weirdos online about who youre morally okay to thirst over certain characters and whether a different voice counts as a character becoming an adult

the fact that the main official english sonic account only posts memes and advertises hilariously overpriced """"""""products"""""""" kinda sucks tbh. i have to go to other language accounts to get stuff like concept art and celebrating the anniversary of a game the released a year ago. were well past the era of laughing at sonic just for being sonic, now lets act like it

stop harrassing people involved with this series even if theyre doing an objectively bad job. thats a real person and you should care more about them than you do a fictional character

the above DOES apply to ken penders. hes a piece of shit but still a person

criticism =/= harrassment. this goes both ways

cream IS a hero thank you very much

reference to a thing you like does not equal good character writing. critically, it does not equal bad character writing either

amys not a damsel in distress and hasnt been in over 20 years. if we count characters just getting captured as being damseled then congratulations, sonic himself is a damsel in distress (Forces), apply that shit equally across both genders

ryan drummond was the best english va, but jason got the better scripts. roger is getting better and most of the work hes been given is just. bad. so i dont feel okay judging his work. but he is my least favorite

gameplay>story when it comes to the actual games, every time. if you have a good story to tell its only hampered by being in a shitty game

worst game in the series is sonic colors ultimate. say what you will about 06, forces, rise of lyric, or whatever other game. at least they werent literally physically dangerous to play

all the main female characters in the games are asskickers, they just need to be utilized more. as does every member of the supporting cast

the sonic franchise fucking needs to stop having long gone ancient civilizations. please have new ideas

this is the end of the list. go away

[nanonews]

firstly, LOOK. First Orpheus beach scene and now this. I am not okay. [insert Kylo Ren MOOOORE gif]

secondly (more comics spoilers below):

Wanda's grave = A game of you storyline (early arc)

Wanda character is to be merged with Ruby DeLonge's character in the TV adaptation, as per the casting call description

Ruby = Brief Lives storyline (later arc)

in the original story, important aGoY events set stage for BL events

But Wanda = Ruby = Wanda means BL events have to happen *before* aGoY events

WHICH MEANS

Either they somehow wrote the script so that BL happens *before* aGoY, which would in turn mean they have to set up something completely different than Thessaly to be Dream's incentive to join Delirium's search for Destruction (which in turn means no Thessaly? I have to admit I thought I'd be happy about this because fvck Thessaly but now I'm not so sure...)

OR they scrap the events of aGoY alltogether except for the death of Wanda, including Hazel and Foxglove and George and The Cuckoo, and most importantly Wanda's relationship to Barbie isn't a thing, and so the sneak peak of The Land in Season 1 was a dead end, which means stuff like the origin of the Porpentine and Alianora never gets set up???

I don't know which of these I'm more afraid of happening

Gonna go with both

Or hopefully the third option that I haven't thought out yet which means we get all the stories and characters, anyone have any ideas?

Most importantly: Don't fvck this up Netflix

Addendum: Is Indya Moore the most perfect casting in this series yet? Because holy shit they look perfect

[raisethe-velvet]

please do tell me about your ocs.....

hi holy shit i was not expecting anyone to actually ask me about my ocs but um. hello oc lore be upon ye I have a few OCs. a lot actually. my main set of OCs is a group of magical girls (well. two of them are guys) and like. the story is somewhat complicated but basically Zoe (main character) runs away from her fucked up boarding school in which she's been stuck at for most of her life and finds this mansion in which she finds a magic mirror that she accidentally shatters and gains magic powers from. and like. there's others. also she was separated from her two sisters at a very young age but has no memory of them she meets the other 4 of my main OCs who are also magical girls (using this term gender neutrally) and it kind of goes from there. There's Melody (hyperactive 14 year old music prodigy) Eli (could be a shoujo love interest if he wanted to, secretly the most insane person you will ever meet) Towa (literally just some guy who got dragged into this all this all because he took up a part time job at the wrong store) and Camilla (was a magical girl in high school, just graduated university, ends up becoming a magical girl again. while trying to manage her career as a fashion designer.) as for like. the actual plot. yknow how i mentioned Camilla was a magical girl in high school. She actually failed to save the other world she became a magical girl in an attempt to save the first time, with said entire world being cursed into an eternal slumber except for the person who like. cursed the place. the portals between the world were sealed off until Zoe accidentally reopened it. so its like. they need to figure out how to lift the curse as in its current state it cannot be reversed. i. dont have many drawings of them like at all that arent really old, ive mainly been working on lore in the past couple of years so the designs of a few characters are a little.. outdated. and i dont wanna post art from two years ago here because it is uh. Not Good.

except this reference sheet of Zoe and another OC i havent mentioned until now called Jordan (who is. another character in this same storyline) that i made for artfight last year which arent terrible i guess (though slightly outdated)

im planning to actually make this a whole series at some point, probably after i graduate high school this year. ive been working on this since i was about 12... though i've changed a lot since then. like the entire storyline. this version of the story line is like.. the third rework of it. My plan is to make this a comic book/manga series and potentially have it adapted into a tv series. Which is highly unlikely to happen but i can dream... (i have the soundtrack planned and everything i think i made a post ages ago detailing the exact personalities and stuff of the main characters so i'll try to find it and add a link in the reblogs <3

[funkytimeoats]

Things I wish were more present in SWD?: Ninja Shadow (PART 1)

So this is just a word blurb from me just spewing out my thoughts. Some of it may not make sense, but I'll try to keep my thoughts as concise as possible.

Topic: More Sibling Interactions (especially b/w Makoto and Toru)

We kinda got this b/w Saori (MC) and her brother Kaname in that one Spin Off where either they go to the Nagasaki Vigilantes together or you pick the other story route (I can't remember the contents of that storyline, but I remember it being cute).

I thought it was really cute and nice seeing their sibling relationship.

I just wish we got spin offs like for the other siblings in this game (Seiji-Seiya, Kunihiro-Nobuyoshi, Kaede-Amon, Yugiri and Ritsu with their unnamed younger siblings, the puppeteer brothers, even Ukyo-Eduard who are more like adoptive siblings). They didn't need to be non-canon, they could've been anecdotal stories from their pasts.

I know it's meant to be an otome game, but getting more character back story would have been so cool.

I especially wanted to see more sibling interactions b/w Makoto and Toru. They are a main pair of siblings in the series, so I wish we could've seen them more, specifically without Saori being there (because yeah, it is an otome game).

Toru is shown to love his little brother very dearly. It's one of his major reasons for trying to "destroy Nagasaki and build it back up". Because it's "the city Makoto loves". His dream also spreads to completely reconstructing Japan, but his main focal point is Nagasaki because that's where his baby brother is.

Makoto does love his big brother too, but he has resentment toward him as well. Toru has always been better than him at everything, Toru has always been the golden child of the Nakagawa family. Now even then at most Makoto was just a bit envious.

The real resentment begins when Toru just up and leaves one day leaving Makoto to clean up after his mess.

Now, I say he just leaves out of the blue because while in the early original routes, Toru was said to be a founding member of the Nagasaki Vigilantes, however, in one of the later canon spin offs called Back to the Beginning, which I'll consider to be the actual storyline, Makoto says that Toru just kinda disappeared one day without any warning and without telling Makoto or Shintaro anything.

I guess Toru just had an epiphany about his ideals. I don't really know and I'm not sure/don't remember if it's explained anymore. I honestly don't know lol

Anyways, that's where Makoto actually seems to gain resentment towards his brother, because when Toru leaves Makoto has to take care of stuff Toru left behind. And of course the Nakagawa family, specifically the branch family, love to beat down and berate Makoto because he was the "lesser" brother. Literally calling him the stain to the Nakagawa name (which, holy shit, is really fucking mean and evil, holy cow).

If I remember right, Makoto didn't even want to really take up becoming the next head of the family, he just wanted to become painter, but because Toru left now he has to, which I think is really sad, poor Makoto.

As for what happens to Toru, depending on the route he's either captured and then escapes (usually with the help of his pal Tsubaki) or he's just captured, or he turns into a traveling merchant(?) (I honestly can't remember everything that happens in his route, I think he becomes a merchant though).

And if he and Makoto aren't really involved in the route, ig he just kinda dilly-dallies and runs around doing whatever.

I think it would have been interesting if we were able to get a spin off where Toru and Makoto have a deep and meaningful conversation about why they chose the choices they did, how they were feeling, how they felt about each other's choices and decisions. It would be a very emotional and vulnerable moment for the two, especially Makoto who tends to hide his true emotions. I think it would've been interesting to see Makoto open up more to Toru about how the Nakagawa elders treated him, obviously Toru generally gets the idea, but Makoto could tell him in detail and how that made him feel.

I wish we could've had an emotional spin off like that. Though I might be biased sense I find the sibling dynamic of the two to be most interesting out of everyone's.

Like I said Toru loves Makoto so much to the point that he would cause some hurt and pain to his baby brother to keep him safe. He even tries multiple times to get Makoto to join him in his rebellion and becomes quite hurt when Makoto doesn't take up his offer. I mean just look at this bit of text from the Ninja Shadow Tropedia/wikia page

When he's beaten in Makoto's route he's extremely distraught as he was so sure he win.

He was so sure he was going to win because he has such a strong deep love for his brother.

Toru wanted to protect one of things his little brother held so dear to him.

I just love the two so much, they deserve the world

Well that's the end of this word blurb (part 1) lol. I hope what I said makes sense and maybe some of you might agree.

[timandlucy]

hi suz! i hope the rest of your week was good!

i know what you mean about 2x05 especially, it always bothers me. i swear, on my death bed i'm gonna be like "the drew crew's treatment of nancy in 2x05 was unfair and while they "apologized" i wanted a more substantial apology, especially because nancy never forced them into anything with the agleaca" and everyone is gonna be like "okay, can you please move on from this?" lol. i agree about the wraith storyline, i think that one and nancy being lucy and ryan's daughter are the strongest storylines they had on the show and were the best executed (but regardless, the writers always managed to leave me surprised, they definitely knew what they were doing!)

i love that rep is so special to you 🧡 i love that about taylor albums; she seems to always release something when someone needs it most. what's your favorite song from rep? mine is probably call it what you want, but i always go feral when don't blame me, i did something bad, or look what you made me do come on hdsbfsdabfldsa the eras tour transition from dbm into lwymmd??? absolutely brilliant.

awwww the lakes is such a gorgeous song! i know what you mean, it makes me feel so soft and i love that. atw 10 will always be that bitch for me, it's just iconic! the great war is absolutely the nace song of all time, like holy shit they WENT THROUGH IT but they really did survive the great war 😭 every taylor song is absolutely about nace, i will not be taking questions at this time. and yes, that line of long story short absolutely makes me think of them, especially "and he feels like home" bc of "ace is my person" and timeless works so well, especially with the whole "ace will always be able to find you" thing. temperance may have put a death curse on them, but in the end she just made their connection even stronger so, joke's on you, blondie!

not state of grace for ryan and lucy i'm gonna lose it 😭😭😭😭 no but really that's so perfect for them.

i'm never sorry when asking taylor swift questions, i could talk about taylor's music all day long! i know i already asked your favorite taylor song, but what would you say are your favorites from each album? (i love asking people this question lol)

i do celebrate thanksgiving and had a nice relaxing time at home, thank you! are you looking forward to the holiday season? do you have any traditions that you're looking forward to?

lots of love, your secret sleuth 🧡🔎

Hi! My week was okay, busy, but I got some stuff done, so I'm just glad it's a new week and I can rest a bit more. How about yours?

I am so happy someone agrees. I usually always see people defending the crew, but so rarely do I see someone actually saying that their treatment was wrong and there should have been more apology for it. And yeah! The writers were great at plot twists for sure. I never saw them coming.

That's tough because rep is full of bangers! But I do also go feral for Don't Blame Me (the reputation stadium tour version is like... stuff dreams are made of). I think top spot would go to either call it what you want OR king of my heart, with honorary mention of getaway car. And I just named like half of the album. Rep is just that bitch! Also, the transition from DBM to LWYMMD was WILD. Like out of this world religious experience, 11/10, would recommend to everyone.

taylor swift truly never beating those nace shipper allegations, ykwim? Also have you noticed that this verse of long story short:

And I fell from the pedestal / Right down the rabbit hole / Long story short, it was a bad time / Pushed from the precipice / Clung to the nearest lips / Long story short, it was the wrong guy

was literally written about nace?? Fell from the pedestal - Nancy recanting her testimony against Everrett to save Ace's life. And clung to the nearest lips - Gil, Park, take your pick...

Haha well I'm glad, because I definitely, ahem, got carried away again. I'm just very passionate about taylor swift lyrics and nace okay. That's fine.

Oh, such a fun question!

Debut - gotta go with Picture to Burn, such a fun song I never get tired of singing in my car.

Fearless - The Way I Loved You (also Mr Perfectly Fine)

Speak Now - Last Kiss and Timeless

1989 - Out of the Woods (but the og, they really changed it on TV and I can't listen to that version)

reputation - call it what you want / king of my heart

lover - death by a thousand cuts

folklore - exile / illicit affairs

evermore - willow

midnights - would've could've should've / the great war

That's great! I'm glad you had a nice time ☺️ I am... not the biggest fan of the holidays 🙈 It's not usually the most fun time for me, but I am determined to make the most of it, so yeah, I'm looking forward to old Christmas songs and mulled wine and good food, and most of all, my SS gift! I'm so excited bc I feel like we're vibing and you get me, so it'll be perfect. How about you? Any fave traditions I can steal?

Lots of love to you my secret sleuth, and I your message totally made my week. Thanks for letting me ramble about taylor swift and nace.

[aliferous-ly]

I know nothing of DSMP but I would love to hear how the ending/story/characters/creators were mishandled if you’d like to rant/ramble

OKAY.

I didn't watch the ending. I barely knew the ending was happening, because by the time it happened I was so disenchanted with the whole dsmp that I didn't really care. so I heard through the grapevine (Tumblr dashboard) that it was like.. everything blows up we're starting over and everyone's memories are wiped.

Which. Is a choice. But is a particularly horrible choice when one of the people roleplaying.. died, and would therefore "not be remembered" (with no new content). The people close to this person confirmed that dsmp 2 would continue technos legacy and that they wouldn't forget him, but the fact that it needed to be said in the first place is just. An awful feeling. like, none of techno’s actions would have any bearing on dsmp2...?

So fuck the ending, who even cares about it. The beauty of the dsmp is supposed to be the many interlocking characters, since they're all roleplaying to have fun with this comedy/serious rp. But the creators (read: the main creators slash writers of the arcs) would often ignore other creators on the dsmp and their role. Niki frequently was talked over and ignored. Her and puffy planned a dsmp lore stream only to cancel it because dream scheduled a server-wide event for the same day (literally the day before). eret regularly planned lore and streams, but received rare replies in the discord. they were the first villain character and received so many death threats for the arc that really kick-started the serious storylines, and then their character was mostly forgotten by the other big creators. I understand the improv of rp, but the streams started becoming more and more planned, and eret wanted to be in them! And as the original traitor, having her as a staple would have been INTENSE. but she just kinda.. dropped off. Anything to do with the egg was vastly considered uninteresting and therefore lesser to the "main" characters, which is, of course, tommy and dream. which sucked because I didn't care about tommy and dreams storyline and I liked everyone else's 😭😭 (this is more neg for the community than the creators, but whatever)

Another thing I hated was when the creators would joke about how cringe people getting invested in Minecraft RP is. stuff like that. because it shows that at a certain level they're ashamed of creating it? They're embarrassed of it. And so they disregarded their audience and fucked up the storyline and now dsmp 2 is never happening because who's gonna watch it? their scorned audience? like holy shit, guys, you were getting 200k viewers a stream because people liked the story. people like stories!!! the medium doesn’t MATTER.

Like.. okay. There's some really good characters in the dsmp. Schlatt, I think, had the best character, because he was cohesive and had an arc -- he entered as a villain against wilbur and tommy, was further corrupted by power, physically crumbling from his poor choices, was super horrible to quackity which set up quackity’s arc & insecurities... and his death was interesting! nobody killed him, he just succumbed to his own problems. I still think techno is a good character, because he stuck to his thought processes and morals (which was basically, governments = bad, people = good. with a dash of extremely violent inclinations). Whether or not you liked him. His problem was his innate existence as unkillable (technoblade never dies, he won a battle against the whole server, etc), because then it can get tedious, but he'd been planning to have cyberknife the Government Lover to counteract this (god, I miss him).

Dream is... Dream, I guess. Sam has a good character, very nice corruption arc (everyone literally hating him in his chat was annoying though. Like guys, you're in sam's chat, you gotta root for SAM. go to Tommy's stream if u wanna be a little bitch). also sam’s arc had everything that dream apologists wanted with dream’s character, lol. dream had no regrets and was a horrific abuser. sam started good and slowly corrupted to evil through “the ends justify the means” choices, which is FASCINATING, because by the end he was a mess of ethics and trauma. I love Niki's arc, but I wish she could have had more closure with Wilbur, because he was huge for the beginning of her arc. Hannah, bad, ant, and punz had this super cool thing with the egg (bad and skeppy was WILD) and I loved the fantasy aspects and that it didn't take 4 fucking hours to do the climax, with like 1 hr of actual action. (the egg was like... a fungal infection came to the dsmp and infected various characters to do its bidding by promising whatever they want most. and bad wanted to be with skeppy, who is his actual in-canon soulmate, since bad’s CANON LIVES were tied to skeppy’s. meaning he never lost a canon life unless skeppy did. fellas...)

I guess overall it's like... the main creators didn't communicate and plan enough with many of the people who wanted lore and arcs. Foolish, quackity, purpled, Sam, and Charlie did really well at the end, I loveddd the whole purpled defecting and shit. charlie’s arc was incredible. and they COMMUNICATED in the discord to make this happen. 

Dream, sapnap, and George just had no handle on the storyline they were trying to construct. And it's their server. They needed an ending. Something satisfying, cathartic, something where tommy finally gets the chance to heal which might only happen alongside dream's death-- and the servers getting blown up by a nuke okay sure that works too I guess.

I’m so, so upset by the lack of happy ending for tommy. like, the cc wanted to move away from dsmp, so they could have written an ending for the character and then he could ease away from the server and lore. it didnt have to happen Like That.

Also, if dream wanted to play a different character, then Do That. He could pretend to be a shape shifter who liked the original dreams form, or the original dream could be a shape shifter who copied dreamXD (the literal god of the server, which I feel like was not mentioned more that foolish had regular interactions with them?), or just, anything. but the constant evil!dream abusing tommy was getting a bit much. it was just never ending.

AND. THIS ISNT EVEN TALKING ABOUT THE STUPID FUCKING THREE LIVES THING.

Like.. they had three "canon" lives. This happened because the original roleplay was Not Serious, it was just them fooling around. They would kill each other to steal their stuff. Everyone died all the time. And I don't remember the specific inciting incident.. it might be as far as tubbo getting executed on stage? but suddenly This Death is far more important than all the Other Deaths, so they have to separate them and add some significance, but tubbos back now and technos not apologizing which is a whole thing (oh nooo techno didnt save tubbo from being executed despite not receiving any communication), so tubbo is alive, so this death is Significant (but he's still alive) so. three canon lives. Which is dumb, because the only thing (seemingly) signifying a canon life loss is that it's literally written into the plot. (Which, jack manifold dying to techno and then falling into a glitch and respawning, to then claim that he lost his third canon life but through pure determination to kill tommy/techno crawled back out of hell, is metal as fuck). which takes out a lot of the improv, makes things a lot more staged. But it's canon, in the lore, that sometimes people die and they don't lose a canon life. It's just.. so bizarre. (Phil having one life to show that he's from a hardcore world is also, however, very cool).

it makes the whole thing a bit meta, using terms like “canon life” within the actual roleplay. the only bandage I could think of would be coming up with unique ways each specific character could die. Like, tubbo can only be killed via explosives/fireworks. Tommy and Dream can die by axe. techno’s is unknown, until tubbo infiltrates phil’s house and finds information that techno can be killed by being crushed. this would cause some other brand new problems, though.

Anyway. Wilbur's plots were well written, but disregarded Fundy (his canonical son) and mostly Niki, too (who he brought into the server). George obviously didn't give a shit about lore, bc he was never there. Sapnaps lore is meh, even though he has, arguably, one of the most interesting relationship webs of the server (his best friend became this abusive pos, his parents are skeppy and bad, he’s off-and-on dating quackity and karl, both of which have their own crazy shit going on. god, i didnt even talk about karl). Tommy's was very well done even though I personally didn't like his character.

Like... These people just didn't know what the fuck they were doing. Which could have been fine, if they didn't try to capitalize the fuck out of the views lore streams could bring while also ridiculing their audience for liking this sort of thing, and then attempted to tie it together into some sort of ending to the tommy / dream arc. Like, new arcs can happen, sure, but things have to end! They have to!

Honorable mention for ponk who regularly streams earlier than I watch but consistently was on the dsmp. He kept that shit alive. He was the og. His tree jumpstarted the lore. Much love for ponk and many wishes for future successes for that man.

Also it was really weird how the dsmp was primarily white men because it originally was just dream and his friends, which obviously is fine ur not gonna intentionally diversify your minecraft server for friends, but after people started pointing out that most everyone being added was a white man and the only defense was that it's dream and his friends became.. thinly veiled. Because he started adding people that hes not like, close friends with, but they were also white men. Like I'm so sorry Michael mcchill I love you and your energy is fantastic but this is about you and manitreed and foolish and and and. There were like 30 people on the server and like 6 poc. maybe 6 women. (Shout-out to Tina, lmfaooo).

idk. it’s a storyline that was wonky and weird at its base, so the viewers were willing to give it the benefit of the doubt for a lot of things, because we knew that it was improv and sometimes things dont go your way. and they had this massive, growing, beautiful thing at their fingertips. and wilbur said “yeah i’m not writing this arc” and communication became nonexistent and everything collapsed. the server literally NUKED ITSELF. OK . holy shit.

that being said i immensely enjoyed my time in the dsmp fandom. it helped me through covid, it inspired me, i’ve written quite a bit of fic for it. i loved the dsmp. there are aspects that i still love, and will love forever. but holy shit. we were not treated well.

[all-the-fun-of-the-cirkus]

idiot watches sandman for the first time

well i made this account because i wanted to ramble about the stuff i'm watching and i haven't done that at all yet, so here goes: the netflix adaptation of sandman takes forever to get going but it's pretty damn good once it does

i haven't read the comic, so my thoughts are all based off the show up to episode 6:

the first episode is okay, but pretty much nothing happens in the second and the pacing is slow enough that it's tricky to get through. even if gregory hurt my heart far more than it should have

this is now a Johanna Constantine Stan Account. always happy to see jenna coleman as an avowed clara defender, and she was basically playing 18+ clara here, which was delightful, and i loved the little look into her life

on this note: dream is possibly the least interesting character in the show, but i'm not actually sure that's a bad thing? he's more a function, a scaffold on which to build the stories of other characters, if that makes sense. he's the stranger coming to town

building up lucifer as the ultimate threat and then easily beating them in five minutes probs wasn't the play. like, how else would that contest ever end?

24/7. holy shit. that episode blew me away

david thewlis is absolutely fucking outstanding. oh, man. apparently in the comics john dee was a straight psychopath, but imo this version is so much more interesting and unnerving. it's never quite clear whether he's a gleeful psychopath intent or wreaking carnage, a sad, fading old man who's a victim of circumstance or a guy who never really grew up and is lashing out in fear and anger, and the performance is absolutely pitch perfect. i was so sad that his arc seems to be over now

the death storyline in episode 6 was wonderfully emotional. the gadling storyline was alright. they clearly were stapled together without that much care

soooooooo... gadling and dream? bit of chemistry there? just me?

there was room to do a "oh he's stopped valuing life" bit when gadling became a slaver, interesting that they didn't and made it just be him, but that would clash with the general vibe, i guess

oh yeah, the vibe. i didn't realise how unusual the "no fuck this i want to keep being immortal" beat was in the fiction i know, but it's certainly interesting

so did desire have something to do with dream's capture? what a roundabout way to do it, or were they talking about something else when they said their plan failed? what does desire even want dream out the way for? they don't embody the ideas the represent, right? and if that was their plan, why did they not make a move while they were captured? hmm

anyway yeah. enjoying it, looking forward to continuing

[milquetoast-on-acid]

Milquetoast watches: Babylon 5 "the parliament of dreams"

1x06

So far the show is only meh. It's kinda slocky which surprised me because "the gathering" was a fascinating start. It has depth and intrigue that so far most of season 1 is lacking.

This show doesn't do comedy very well and it was better when the storyline was serious. Sci-fi can absolutely do comedy and get a great balance between that and drama. See DS9 and Stargate SG1.

I see flashes of really good stuff in tiny doses. Mostly personal character moments. Which I'm hoping that the show will build off of. This is a cult sci-fi classic so I'm gonna stick with it and watch it until the end. I'm sure that it will get better. TNG was terrible in season 1 after all.

Anywho...the one thing this show does really well is adults flirting. I just watched this scene with The Commander who isn't Bruce Boxlightener (I know that's not his name but I can't remember it) and his ex-something. And OMG sex through a tv screen! Holy shit!

The music I love the music. It's just soft space inspired synth but it works perfectly.

Reptile-Garius is such an interesting character. Garak inspiration for sure.

So far it's been six episodes and we've barely seen the telepath lady. She could be an interesting character and I want to see her get inside the head of some of the main characters. Plus that whole thing that we learned about Lt Cmder's mother. I want to see more of that, like how the telepath is going to effect her.

Reptile-Garius really throwing himself into the role here!

Oh, I thought that was her kid! Delen's kid.

So they weren't married but they hookup and then... Run away? They never had an actual romantic relationship. Just booty calls they know could be something more. Interesting...I didn't expect this kinda of a relationship.

Wow their chemistry is HOT! Imagine what they could really do with Benson and Stabler but they are such pussys. Babylon 5 doing sex really hot without actual sex scenes is such a unexpected thing. Like I would not have expected this. Sex on sci-fi, procedurals and episodic TV usually suck. If the show doesn't get better (I'm sure it will) then I'll just watch for these hot sexy scenes!

I got to say I really could care less about the A plot of the story. I really don't care that somebody wants to kill Reptile-Garius. The romance is far far more interesting. There's more emotion behind it than the murder plot. It's crazy but there it is.

Ope alien with glasses! I love it!

The female characters on this show are all far more interesting than the men.

I know Reptile assistant lady just beat the shit out of Reptile-Garius but I think she's playing the assassin. Her being the assassin is the obvious twist. Her playing the assassin not so much.

I was right.

And She definitely enjoyed it.

Festival. There was a festival!?

Too bad we're not going to get a nice romantic storyline between these two characters. As I know that The Cmder won't be on the show for much longer.

Brooo! That was a very sexy romance. 🙆🏻‍♀️ I want more!

Um... Why is he introducing them to a bunch of religious people? Like what's the point... There's diversity 🤷🏻‍♀️.

[hello-nichya-here]

If there was only ONE change you could make to Buffy, what would it be?

I know you said one, but I'm giving you a ton because even though the show was great. there was A LOT wrong with it, and what bothers me the most depends on the day XD

1 - Let Joyce be a minimally decent mother. I'm not even talking great parent, just... not Joyce Summers. Almost anything is an improvement.

2 - No Xander judging Buffy for sleeping with Spike, a souless vampire that killed people, while he himself had just been dating and almost married Anya, a literal vengence demon that spent thousands of years torturing and killing people. Just let him have SOME level of self-awareness (and not be just Joss Whedon's way of berating the fans for liking the "wrong" character).

3 - Either making Riley minimally decent, or no letting Joss make EVERYBODY praise Riley for being the "perfect" boyfriend, when the bar was on the fucking ground and somehow he STILL failed at being better than ALL of Buffy's love interests - including all the ones that actively tried to murder her at one point or another.

4 - No Angel saying he's going to help Faith process the shock, guilt and denial over accidentally killing an innocent man, only to them dump all of his trauma onto her and saying that, on some level, she enjoyed killing an innocent man just like he liked killing humans when he had no soul, and then completely ignoring and basically gaslighting her when she pointed out that no, that was not the case, and that he can't just project onto her and think that counts as help.

5 - Either no Faith becoming evil, or at least give us more scenes between her and the Mayor because I REALLY liked the "wholesomely evil dad spoiling his daughter" vibes they had going on. (Seriously, I need an entire spin-off show of those two being the evil version of The Incredibles)

6 - NO KILLING TARA (or at least bring her back)

7 - No undoing Jonathan's character growth for the sake of a joke that wasn't even all that funny.

8 - No Gilies willingly abandoning Buffy and the others at exactly the worse time that he KNOWS is the worse time. Have the council find a way to force him to leave as revenge for the time Buffy made them her bitches.

9 - NO GILIES GOING ALONG WITH THAT SLAYER TEST BULLSHIT

10 - No Amy becoming evil for no real reason

11 - No Buffy emotionally neglecting Spike and beating the shit out of him when he doesn't deserve it

12 - No Spike trying to rape Buffy

13 - NO "SPIKE IS THE DOCTOR" STORYLINE, HOLY SHIT, WHO ALLOWED THIS? WHO WANTED THIS? IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY GODDAMN SENSE!

14 - Either make Angel less of an asshole, or at least acknowledge that he wasn't that great of a boyfriend.

15 - Make season one matter more, because it honestly felt more like a pilot that is ignored 9 times out of 10.

16 - Tone down Dawn's teen angst a bit. It worked in many episodes, but there were MANY times in which it felt completely out of place (like her complaining that Buffy doesn't imagine her in her "ideal reality" when it's VERY CLEAR that what Buffy is hallucinating is NOT her dream world, but just a world in which she never left LA and the supernatural isn't real)

17 - More Ripper stuff

18 - More scenes of Buffy confronting Giles and Joyce for sleeping together because that shit was funny as hell.

19 - No ruinning things for Xander and Anya

20 - ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WILLOW IS BI!

21 - BRING UP THAT ONE KID WHO WAS CHILDHOOD FRIENDS WITH XANDER AND WILLOW, DIED IN THE PILOT, AND WHOSE NAME I TOTALLY FORGOT!

22 - This one is kind of cheating, but give the early fight scenes better effects and choreography because... yikes.

23 - No "updating" the opening theme. Let the 90's punch me in the face every single time I watch an episode.

24 - SEASON SIX. That's all I have to say.

25 - No letting Joss Whedon use characters as self-inserts.

26 - No letting Joss Whedon be Joss Whedon

[lazyliars]

/rp

Before I get into it, I want to state that is EXPLICITLY an analysis of the Characters, and is not intended to touch on how the cc’s played them in a meta sense unless specifically stated otherwise.

Also, this is technically a part two to my other post, which took a more in depth look at Techno and Phil’s reactions to Tommy’s death. It’s not necessary when reading this post, but I don’t address their reactions here.

So. The question must be asked.

Are we [the Syndicate] the baddies?

Yes.

The End.

 Why are the Syndicate the baddies?

They got damn logo is a wither skull.

The End.

That's not how this works.

Yeah, yeah. You’re right.

The Syndicate's goals as an organization are not inherently bad. They seem to have good intentions behind them, and the focus on the freedom of it's individual group members is important to remember when talking about it; It is not a government. There is no hierarchical power system. No one is forced to do anything against their will, or surrender any of their rights or power to remain a member. It is not a government.

I also want to address Techno and Phil backing Ranboo into a corner – I see them getting a lot of flack for this, but I personally do not think it is relevant to the greater discussion, or necessarily representative of any contradictions within the organization. It was clearly played for laughs, and after they back off they clarify to Ranboo that they won't force him. Then later when Phil and Ranboo are alone, Ranboo feels safe enough to express that he felt like he was pressured into it, and Phil assures him he is allowed to leave whenever he wants; He is not being forced to do anything, and he is not being coerced or blackmailed.

None of the Syndicate members have done any wrongs against each other in the context of the Syndicate, OR gone against any of the Syndicate's core principles.

That, said, holy shit are they the baddies.

Listen, there's trying to telegraph a meaning or message to the audience and then there's having your logo be wither skulls on blackstone. That is straight out of the skit I keep referencing, seriously.

Okay, but, they laughed at it! It was played as a joke, just like the Ranboo thing!

The Ranboo thing was improv, the Syndicate's headquarters were planned – the artistic choices that they made reflect on what role they want the build and the organization inhabiting it to play in the future storylines.

Wither Skulls kind of have some CONNOTATIONS. Techno is an English major, I don't think he chose the most threatening imagery possible on accident, and then joked about the way people would interpret it just to stir the pot. This reads as hugely intentional.

And beyond that, the jokes they make during this part aren't “haha yeah, we look bad but we're actually good!” they're “you can tell by looking at these that we're the good guys wink wink, this is good guy stuff right here :)” It is a joke about how they are definitely not the good guys. This isn't even a case of unreliable narrators, this is one step down from flat out saying the meta intent.

But okay, I hear you, I'm talking about things that haven't happened yet. The Syndicate hasn't used any Withers, they could be an aesthetic choice.  Lets look at what they do in practice.

So, they barge into private property, assess Snowchester's right to continue existing based entirely on their own ideals of what Freedom is, and then only once Tubbo assures them that they have no standing leader do they grant the place their approval to, and I gotta stress this part, continue existing.

 In my Quackity meta, I already talked about how Government in the context of a M1necraft RP cannot be compared to IRL Governments on a one-to-one scale. They don't serve the same purposes or have the same type of power. What I didn't talk about was Agency in the context of m1necraft governments.

In an irl government, if you are born into one, you can't really leave without committing a massive overhaul on your life, which can be expensive and difficult, if not impossible for many people. Even in a “benevolent” government, the simple physicality of where you were born can prevent you from leaving it easily.

The same hurdles do not exist in the Dream SMP. People who join M1necraft governments choose to. They want to, either at the beginning when they form one, or later on when they join up. So far, no Government has just Sprung Up and forced the current residents of an area to become dependent on them, except maybe the Eggpire, who's status as a government is... shakey.

And even when people want to leave or separate from the government, they have been historically able to do so without any trouble or any effort from said governments to stop them. Jack Manifold emancipated from Manberg. Fundy and Quackity both left to start new nations. In all cases they were allowed to do so without any attempts on the part of the governments to stop them, either through force, or institutions preventing them from doing so.

The most anyone has lost when leaving a government is their house, which is still usually their property anyway, and is something that is easily rebuilt elsewhere and is inconvenient to move anyway.

The only exceptions to this might be Schlatt exiling Wilbur and Tommy - but even then, they weren’t trying to leave, they were trying to get back in, and of course the original L’manberg revolution, where Dream attempted to force L’manberg back into the Dream SMP, which wasn’t even a government at that point in time.

I don’t consider Phil’s house arrest an example of a government forcing someone to stay a citizen - that was treated less as a matter of a citizen wanting to leave the country and more as a threat to national security. Still pretty fucked up, but it’s a different issue.

What I'm saying is, If Tubbo wants to create a government out in the middle of nowhere, threatening no one, forcing no one to join either through force or desperation, and allowing people to join willingly because they want to, then he should be allowed to do that.

The Irony of the Syndicate, a group of people consisting of some of the richest, strongest people on the server, going around and enforcing 'Freedom' that entails no one person having more power than any other, is absurd. 

It shows an extreme lack of self-awareness and/or self-righteousness, as they seem to think that they deserve to be the ones who decide what constitutes a government.

Snowchester is a small independent nation - they shouldn’t have to live in fear of being obliterated if they don’t walk on eggshells to meet an arbitrary standard decided by people who’s only authority on the matter COMES FROM THEIR PERSONAL POWER. No one elected them! No one chose them! They were not “approved” by the server at large to enact this kind of law.

The Syndicate are not a government, but they are an unsupervised power structure exerting their ideals on a land that did not ask for them. Like, These people have invented an actual Authoritarian-Anarchist faction. How the hell did they manage this?????

Back on topic.

Tubbo shows them the crater left by his nukes. The reaction is oddly positive – the nukes are fine by the morals of the Syndicate, apparently. I'd argue that they come across as more impressed than anything else; they seem to respect Tubbo for having gotten ahold of “real” power.

(There's a few good memes out there about “We can excuse nuclear weaponry, but we draw the line at Government!”)

So. By the Syndicate's standards: A single person or group of acceptably equal persons with weapons of mass-destruction are only worth “keeping an eye on” because they might provoke other people.

Like, I consider Project Dreamcatcher to be one of, if not the most morally ambiguous thing Tubbo has ever done, largely because it was all on his own initiative. He holds some culpability for The Butcher Army and Phil's house arrest, but they weren't his ideas and he was mostly following Quackity at that point.

And Phil tells Tubbo, IMMEDIATELY AFTER SEEING THE NUCLEAR CRATER:

“Looks like you've reformed a little bit Tubbo, I'm proud.”

And it's fine. Crimes against nature? Fine. A sign of healing in fact!! Tubbo is having a sweeeelll time and he definitely didn't make these nukes specifically in fear of being attacked by these exact people! Tubbo is doing great. Tubbo is doing fine. Tubbo. is. FINE.

Anyway.

I don't think this presentation of the Syndicate was an accident. Looking at the greater lore of SMP right now, after the Egg is done, their list of enemies is slim, and considering that they seem solely invested in taking down governments, that leaves maybe Snowchester, Kinoko Kingdom, and Eret and the greater Dream SMP.

Snowchester has not been shown to be corrupt, evil, or have any intent to go down that route. The most ambiguous thing they've done is, again, is the nukes. Other than that, it's pretty much your average cottagecore snow village.

Kinoko is presented in an even more morally 'good' light, Karl having founded it specifically for his Time-travel library purposes, which are currently being treated by the narrative as a selfless act, if not downright heroic.

Eret is also a fairly 'good' aligned character atm. He's been on that redemption grind since the og betrayal, and doesn't seem keen on backtracking. He's actively tried to leverage his position as king to make things better, and hasn't been quiet about that. He was also 'validated' by Tommy*, a character who has been described both by his allies and enemies as “the hero,” so take that as you will.

What I'm getting at is, all of the current potential enemies for the Syndicate aside from the Egg, are currently being cast as 'good,' and if they were to be attacked, they would undoubtedly have the moral high-ground, unless something drastically changed.

The only potential shakeups I can think of is are a Dream escape and/or a Wilbur revival, both of which could draw the Syndicate's attention and ire, depending on how things go. That said, it's just as likely that either or both of them would join the Syndicate – Dream still has that favor, and Phil and Techno both seemed to think Wilbur would've agreed with their blowing up L'manberg.

Both of those characters are currently **villains – the fact that they're both prime candidates for the Syndicate is a huge indication of the direction it's going to go as the plot moves forward.

((*I know some people are gonna come at me for painting Tommy as the “deciding factor” of what is morally good, so lemme just stop you there. I'm not talking about Tommy somehow having the 'right' to decide who is and isn't good, and definitely not the right to decide who should and shouldn't be king. I'm saying that Tommy, a character who the narrative treats as, if not a good person, then a person who is trying to be good, was in support of Eret, a character who has also been trying to be good.

Eret doesn't gain the moral highground because Tommy said so, he gets it because a character who the narrative treats as trying to do better, acknowledged Eret's earnest attempts at doing the same.

**I'm referring to Wilbur here as a villain because Tommy seemed convinced he would be if he were to be brought back. There is always the possibility that he's wrong.))

So, to summarize this: I read the Syndicate as being intentionally positioned as future antagonists, if not outright villains of a future arc. They are NOT a Government but their goals are contradictory with their means, and it is important to keep in mind that they plan to enforce their own brand of freedom on people who did not grant them either the authority or permission to do so.

So, uh. Can you tell I loved these streams? They were seriously so good. I kept switching between Ranboo and Techno's POV's trying to keep up with everything. I still have to watch Niki's!

All in all, I'm super, super excited for whats coming next, egg stuff, Syndicate stuff, Tommy stuff, all of it.

[asonofpeter]

its gamer anon again and im back with another idea. okay so reader is part of an SMP kinda like dreams with lore and scripts and stuff and Tom finds like a fan video of the smp animated and he’s like holy shit this is so cool or like in the plot the reader has to betray ppl and tom who is like invested gets mad and pouty lol

Pairing: Tom Holland x Twitch!Reader

A/N: This was such a cool idea! As always send in more ideas for twitch!reader! Also should we call her twitch!reader, mcyt!reader or dreamteam!reader? Enjoy! 💕💕💕

~~~~~

Being a Twitch streamer and a Minecraft Youtuber meant a lot to you. You got to play games as your career and have a fan base that supported you and loved your content. You've made many friends along the way, which also meant playing on servers with them.

You were part of another SMP besides the Dream SMP, it was a different setting but you loved both just as much. And your fans seem to take a liking in creating fun animated videos that expanded on the storyline.

And surprisingly, Tom was a big fan of it as well.

Around this time, you and and Tom still kept your relationship a secret. Neither felt the need to bring in something that was still budding when both your careers were taking off. So both of you kept it to where you made it seem like big fans of each other.

That part was easy because, well, you were. And the fans loved it, seeing their favorite actor support their favorite twitch streamer and vice versa.

And because of that, your fans tagged Tom a lot in any of their fan videos.

"I swear, your fans are on another level," Tom shook his head in disbelief as he watched one of the various videos your fans sent him regarding your role in the SMP. "It's insane how creative they are, I could never," he smiled when he watched the storyline travel along.

"What can I say, they're the best," you smiled, assembling yours and Tom's lunch.

"Wait," he paused, brows furrowed as he straightened up, placing his phone on the counter. "What are you doing?" he gasped when he saw your character betray who he thought was your friend. "WHY ARE YOU DOING THAT?" his hands fisted into his hair.

In that moment, all you could do was laugh. Now you gained sympathy for him when you watch Marvel movies together.

"Honey, it's okay," you walked over to him and placed your hands on his arms. "It's just part of the story for fun, I'm not actually betraying anyone," you reassured, leading him to sit down.

"You better not, I was rooting for you," he huffed, pulling you into his lap while you ran your fingers through his hair as he continued to pout.

[gynii]

character ask: tubbo?

>:)

first impression: damn this kid kinda funny

impression now: let this kid catch a break, let him rebuild his life! why is his story so tragic just him rebuild his life and... holy shit he's a bit fucked up

favorite moment: first lmanburg war when he tried to portal trap dream or cookie outpost conflict or anniversary stream. idk there's just a lot of good moments

idea for a story: every au i make is tubbo centric sooo i guess one i haven't ever mentioned would be like a proper dsmptubbo gets stuck in hermitcraft au, i'm usually not a fan of those cause they end up closer to babying the younger characters, which ooc for everyone, but i think i could make a good one that's tubbo centric. oh or that empirestubbo au i never did make anything for hmmmm

unpopular opinion: not a big fan of a lot of the cannon stuff between between anniversary stream and most recently. felt a bit like a lot of the cookie outpost and nuke storyline got retconned even though i felt those were super interesting and a natural progression for his character? now his story is feeling drawn out. really wasnt a big fan of him joining(?) las nevadas, but not much happened with that. also fireworks duohas so much potential for an interesting dynamic, but i feel like their relationship got smoothed out too much too quickly. also dad schlatt is weird and icky. I have lots of opinions

fav relationship: bee duo, but i also love pretty much every dynamic tubbo has ever so yeah all of em

favorite headcannon: dragon tubbo and dad sparklez :D

[unfortunatelycake]

Finished watching Ashes of Love and have a need to ramble.

OK so first off I literally only watched this show because YT suggested me a live video of Zhou Shen performing the end theme with Sa Dingding and the lyrics made me think of hualian so I decided this is a show I can get behind. 

Then I looked up the cast and saw Deng Lun was in it, and I’d enjoyed his character in Yin Yang Master: Dream of Eternity so figured I’d give this drama a try too.

Also have to note that watching this I understand how Luo Yunxi got cast as Chu Wanning in Immortality because holy shit?!?! 

Seeing him play RunYu (and YanYou pretending to be RunYu) was a fucking delight. RunYu is such a multi-faceted character who undergoes such dramatic changes of personality shows so much emotion, and LYX nailed it every damn time. 

Anyway. On to rambling about actual plot and stuff...

Was pretty much Team RunYu the entire way through. I just... couldn’t find myself caring about XuFeng? He was most likeable in the arc where he and JinMi were experiencing hardships in the Human Realm, but other than that just... eh. Whereas RunYu seemed like such a sweet soft boy at first (ahaha)

JinMi totally fell for the wrong guy (once she could fall for someone) !!! 

I mean yeah XuFeng is righteous and courageous and whatnot but look at all RunYu did for and gave her. Like holy shit, how much would he have sacrificed for her sake??? 

At the same time he went full on yandere at one point and that does not deserve reward like jesus christ RunYu chill.

And also he’s a dumbass. It was kind of disappointing at the end that he’s sitting in the Heavenly Realm being all miserable and alone when like. KuangLu and Beast of Dreams are both Right There. And KuangLu had repeatedly pledged her unending loyalty to him. 

I mean I guess there’s meant to be parallels with RunYu’s unrequited love for JinMi and KuangLu’s unrequited love for RunYu but UGH. At least acknowledge that you aren’t entirely unloved and alone, stupid dragon! dsfkshgl

Aside from them, omg Liuying and Muci. 

They deserved better, damn it 

I really enjoyed their story and cared about them and what happened with them a lot more than I cared about the XuFeng/JinMi ship. Muci is such a sweet character, I loved his quietness/stoicism and slight awkwardness in comparison to Liuying being so much more forward and badass. 

But they deserved better. Like a fuck ton better. Find each other in the next incarnation, damn it.

Also was it just me or did YanYou and MatchMaker just not appear in the last few eps? 

Like is the last we saw of them seriously them in the Floral Realm being sad that JinMi was dead???? In that last episode, wouldn’t MatchMaker be like... aware that JinMi was in the Human Realm living her best reincarnated life with XuFeng??? Being that he’s like... in charge of human marriage and stuff??? 

As for YanYou I just want to know what happened to him, at the start of the drama he seemed like he would be such a trouble maker but he turned out to be such a good boy. 

I loved those two characters in particular (along with Runyu, haha) so it was pretty disappointing not to see them amidst the others during those last ‘tying up loose ends’ kind of scenes. =/ 

Also loved MatchMaker and YuanJi messing around, would have liked to have seen more of those two 

...but I’m judging Yanyou for having a thing for Suihe like sure she has great makeup and some of the best costumes but damn Yanyou, seriously??? (Also where the fuck did that storyline come from so late in the drama??? I’m assuming it’s more important in the novel and doesn’t come across like some random Extra Ship thrown in at the last minute?)

Also LiaoYuan? That poor guy did not get paid enough and then he died. Boo.

AND. A little grumble that Netflix subs did a disservice to the scene towards the end (ep 62? 63?) where XuFeng and RunYu are talking outside [human realm place where human! XF & JM met] 3 years after JinMi’s death, and RunYu walks away to leave and XuFeng calls out to him, ‘Ge.’

But Netflix just subbed it as ‘Runyu’

I know that stuff like ‘ge’, ‘gege’ and so on is hard to translate to English (and honestly I know like zero Chinese so I may be talking out of my ass) but just using Runyu’s name kind of detracted from the significance of XuFeng calling out to him? 

Like... after the last 60-odd episodes of drama, fighting, hatred and misunderstanding, and they’re on speaking terms and their relationship is kind of healing so like... XuFeng calling him ‘Ge’ feels really significant in comparison to just calling him by name =/ 

Aaaa I’m rambling into the void here, TL;DR:

Team Runyu!

Yanyou, Matchmaker & Muci BEST BOYS

Liuying & KuangLu BEST GIRLS

Best of Dreams BEST NON HUMANOID 

[rivalsforlife]

Do you have anything you wished was different from Ace Attorney canon?

Hello I'm finally slowly starting to get around to answering some of these! Sorry for the wait.

Uh this ask got super long so a basic summary of it: narumitsu being canon in a well-written way would be nice even though I don't think it would ever happen, I stand by not bringing back Phoenix as a main protagonist in DD, and I'd also want to rewrite all of SOJ so that Apollo goes to Khura'in in place of Phoenix, to have more interesting character stuff going on.

So the longer answer is this:

Aside from some of the actually problematic stuff that I don't feel qualified to talk about, story-wise, I answered a sort of similar question about a year ago here. I have changed my opinions a little bit since then, particularly with regards to the canonicity of narumitsu... because while I do love narumitsu I feel like I don't trust Ace Attorney to actually do it properly. After all if this past November has taught us anything "making a ship canon" could actually be quite undesirable and I have no desire to see Phoenix and/or Edgeworth sent to superhell. (I literally know nothing else about supernatural sorry about that.)

If capcom were somehow able to make narumitsu canon but in an unobtrusive way and as a natural progression of the storyline, like oh hey, the court record profile for Miles Edgeworth's Obligatory Last-Case Appearance has Phoenix mention they're dating, and maybe there's a few lines suggesting they live with each other, but it's not like... taking the entire story to force them together and otherwise does not change the way they interact with each other and butcher one or both of their characterizations in the process? I'd definitely be happy about that. Not gonna lie even if they made narumitsu canon in the most terrible way possible I'd have a "holy shit I can't believe they did that it's the best day of my life" kind of moment before I could think about it critically. But I honestly see no chance of them ever actually making narumitsu canon, so that's quite unrealistic to hope for anyways.

Aside from that in that other ask I talked about basically the premise of an Apollo trilogy and not bringing back Phoenix as the main protagonist in DD, and I still stand by that, buuut in my other ask I did touch on making SOJ a different game where Apollo goes to Khura'in instead of Phoenix - and you know what I'm going to take some time to actually talk about my dream version of SOJ because there were a lot of little things about the one we got that I didn't like. And it's going to be very long. So it's under a cut.

SO yeah I talked about it a bit in the other ask. I think that Phoenix going to Khura'in is a rather weak idea both externally and in-universe. In one of the interviews, too lazy to find which one, Phoenix basically goes to Khura'in because the writers couldn't figure out how to challenge him anymore. ... And then they don't actually challenge him at all. Because oh well now we're going to this new country where they KILL DEFENSE ATTORNEYS WHO LOSE and then it's supposed to be *shocking* that Phoenix would risk his life for a kid or his best friend. you know the guy who ran across a burning bridge to save his best friend. you know the guy who got punched in the face, nearly killed by the mafia, and tazed trying to save his clients. This doesn't tell me anything new about Phoenix's character. His whole travel in Khura'in doesn't tell me anything new about Phoenix's character. Basically the only reason he's there is to see Maya - Maya who theoretically would be returning home in about two weeks. Maya who was still in her training for two more weeks when Phoenix visited so he wouldn't be able to see her anyways. ... And in the meantime Trucy had the biggest show of her life that was going to be on TV and Phoenix wasn't there for it. And of course Phoenix didn't return home after Trucy was accused of murder (yes he couldn't be there for the trial, but he definitely could have for the emotional support afterwards) and instead just sits for two weeks in Khura'in doing literally nothing after Ahlbi's trial.

(And yes I know about the anime prologue that has Phoenix think Maya's in danger... but that's not strictly canon since it's never mentioned in game, isn't technically a part of the game, and even still, why wouldn't he go home after knowing that Maya's safe and that Trucy had been ACCUSED OF MURDER. Honestly that's what makes me angriest about this whole thing is that it makes Phoenix out to be a terrible dad. We really don't need any more takes like that, especially not from canon.)

And what about Apollo, you may ask? Well, given case 5 of SOJ, Apollo actually has a personal link to Khura'in and ends up staying there afterwards... after being there for like a day or two. I should note here that it has been a while since I went through SOJ in its entirety so I am fuzzy on many of the details. But both through what I remember and some conversations with people who actually played the game recently, the motivation for Apollo to actually stay in Khura'in isn't that great. It mainly seemed like guilt about his dead dad who he hadn't been in contact with for years and had completely written off until a few days ago but oh he died and then went to go visit him so... better take up the law office!

If Apollo had gone to Khura'in in place of Phoenix and spent more time there, reconnecting with his childhood home and actually getting passionate seeing how corrupt the legal system is there (even though we have a corrupt legal system at home) and being driven to fix it, that would make for a stronger story, I think. The Khura'in plot is more personally focused around Apollo than it is Phoenix. Phoenix's connection to Khura'in is through Maya, but Maya doesn't really have much of a connection to it aside from "it's where spirit channeling is from and she trains there". But Apollo, I guess, grew up there. So it's so strange to me that they force all of Apollo's connection to Khura'in in the last case while Phoenix is running around doing who-knows-what for the rest of the game. Phoenix spends more time getting to know the state of Khura'in and the Defiant Dragons and case 3's whole thing but he isn't the one who in the end decides to sit down and fix it; that's all on Apollo. It almost feels like they forced one of the two plots in to everything. And it was probably conceived as a Phoenix story that they needed to fit Apollo into last minute because oops he's supposed to be a protagonist too.

Some other strengths to Apollo going to Khura'in include that it would shake up the character dynamics a bit. Instead of Phoenix defending Maya, it's Apollo defending Maya, and that's a particularly interesting thing to look at in the context of Khura'in's "we kill defense attorneys" system. Of course, Phoenix would risk his life to save Maya, 100%, every time. But what about Apollo, who hasn't met Maya, who only knows her as "Mr. Wright's former assistant" - would he risk his life for her? And I feel like Maya would argue more against him defending her because of that. "We're strangers, you don't know me, you don't have to risk your life defending me." (Sidenote that I was always upset that Maya didn't protest much when Phoenix offered to defend her, knowing his life was at risk - sure she knows him better and knows he's always been able to get her out of these situations, but at the same time, the fact that there was no "what about your daughter?" conversation sucks. I really wish SOJ wouldn't have like. completely forgotten about the phoenix-trucy father-daughterisms.)

Let's say Apollo goes to Khura'in. Phoenix stays at home. Phoenix gets a call from Apollo that's basically "uhh hi Mr. Wright you know your friend Maya, she's been arrested for murder, if I defend her and I lose we're both dead," then you can tie in to that moment in 6-2 where Phoenix (who can't make it in time for the trial!) believes in Apollo and his skills as an attorney, not just to save Maya's life, but also his own. It ties in a bit more to the overall challenge of defending someone at the risk of your own life. Again, Phoenix would have very few hesitations, if any, risking his life to defend Maya. Apollo may have more defending a stranger at the risk of his own life.

Then if you can actually have Apollo and Maya talk together that would be neat - Maya can tell him embarrassing stories about Phoenix's rookie days, for instance. Their dynamic would be quite a bit different from Phoenix and Maya's, and that would be an interesting thing to see, unlike what we have in SOJ where all of Maya's substantial interactions are with characters she already knows or brand new characters.

(It would also be pretty neat to know more spirit channeling politics and dive in more to Maya's perspective on Khura'in and also her role as upcoming Master of the Kurain Channeling Technique and where she plans to lead the village in the future and also reconcile with her family's bloody legacy, but I'm not quite sure how to fit that in right now.)

And how about Phoenix, back home in Japanifornia? Evidently he'd end up being in charge of defending Trucy. Now, I did love the siblingsisms in canon 6-2, but I feel like there is still potential for Phoenix defending Trucy. All of Apollo Justice has a bunch of good moments between Apollo and Trucy, and she's co-counsel on all his trials, but we've never had any substantial Phoenix and Trucy investigation or co-counsel moments. I feel like AU 6-2 would be a great opportunity to dive more into Phoenix and Trucy's relationship and how it may have changed after Phoenix got his badge back. Plus, Phoenix being "the only one who knows how she really feels on the inside", he'd have unique insider knowledge into some of the Gramarye stuff that comes up in the case and Trucy's personal connection to the Gramaryes, which Apollo knows a bit of, but Phoenix knows more of. ... Or at least, should know more of, given that he raised Trucy for nine years at this point and they're very close, and Phoenix knows her better than anyone else does, even if capcom has forgotten this.

... Of course having Athena defend the case would also be great because more Athena spotlight is never a bad thing, but it's hard to come up with a reason why Phoenix wouldn't be there to defend her. And doing more switcheroos in terms of role in the plot is a bit beyond the scope of what I have in mind right now. Sorry Athena.

Aside from that, Athena still gets Storyteller, Apollo still heads Turnabout Revolution, and Phoenix still gets the DLC case. Apollo stays in Khura'in in the end with a bit more to his motivations. Rather than it just being about carrying on Dhurke's legacy, it's also something Apollo is passionate about after all he witnessed here. While we're at it I'd still rework a lot of Turnabout Revolution to make it so that Phoenix genuinely believes in Atishon because that makes for sooo much more interesting of a plot and actual character development on Phoenix's part than "Maya was kidnapped again and Phoenix is only wrong when he has no other choice", but that'd require some more detail and this post is long enough already.

And in terms of other details that need to be sorted out, there's the question of why Apollo would need to go to Khura'in in the first place. I'd probably say something to do with Dhurke. Maybe he comes back a bit earlier - actually alive, maybe, though crossing borders would be a bit of a challenge, or he reaches out to Apollo remotely somehow and Apollo goes to yell in his face about abandoning him (or at least that's what he thinks he wants.) Then we could have some more Dhurke and Apollo bonding time, potentially? Idk, if you switch up Phoenix and Apollo you're pretty much writing a whole new game and obviously I have not worked out all the details, but I think if Capcom had tried to go with this route from the outset they'd have a stronger game. At least stronger character motivations.

So... yeah. Those are my opinions. If you read through this whole thing I'm very impressed because it got very long!

[raisans-art]

What the Fuck Are these Characterizations: The Essay

Full warning: This is only concerning Tommy's stream made today, 4/29/2021. I know Ranboo has streamed after Tommy but I haven't watched that.

On with the essay.

A lot happened.

Tommy tried to kill Dream, Dream actually killed Ghostbur, Wilbur is back (pog). It's a lot. A lot of plot and a lot of emotions. I will preface this with the usual "holy hell these people are pretty damn good actors for having no formal training as far as I'm aware." They get their emotions across very clearly and that's kinda why I'm making this in the first place. The way some of the characters acted in Tommy's 4/29 stream is a bit odd in my opinion.

Now, I will concede that I have not been diligent with the Dream SMP lore. I've been given broad strokes and have seen various clips but I have definitely not been on top of it. I may have missed streams entirely and you all more avid fans may be able to name scenes that I haven't seen that rationalize some of these reactions that I will be criticizing. If you can, please do so! I'd love to start a dialogue over this!

So, how I'm gonna break this all up is to take a look at Tommy, Wilbur, Ranboo, and Awesamdude and how their CCs characterized them during the stream. I'll sing praises where they are due and point out my criticisms where they arise. Then, I will try to surmise some meta as to why I think these characterizations came to be in the first place.

Tommy

Tommy, to me, has the best characterization in this. CC Tommy clearly has a very good sense of what he wants from his character and has been playing into that line of thought from the beginning of this whole debacle.

Tommy is scared, paranoid, and pissed off. Ever since he left the prison he avoids taking damage like the plague, rambles indecisively, is easily sent into a panic, and is hypersensitive to the people around him. He panics when he sees weapons out and one crucial thing that he made clear from the start was that he wants Dream dead.

Straight out of limbo, Tommy concludes that Dream needs to die. From there he plans this whole mission with Ranboo, Tubbo, and Ghostbur to get in and kill Dream. He says that Dream can't keep living with this power at his fingertips, and from before his final death, Tommy clearly wants to be rid of his abuser, adding a personal layer to his plan. Tommy is stubborn and determined since the beginning, sacrificing his life and disks for L'manberg and refusing to believe that his home is gone until the place is blown to bedrock. Of course, he would stick to his plan to a T.

Now, is this a smart decision to sneak into the highest security area in the entire SMP? Fuck no. It's a stupid idea. Even if Tommy hadn't messed up, Sam would've seen Dream die to a floating axe and kept Tommy and Ghostbur in that containment cell. It would've been a one-way ticket, especially given what we see of Sam in this stream.

But this all makes sense for the character CC Tommy is playing. Tommy isn't thinking about how smart of a decision this is and he hardly ever does when he takes action. He shoots from the hip, takes his first instincts, and acts on them.

It's easy to draw a clear line of progression of Tommy as a character from season 1 to this moment in season 3 and past Ghostbur's death. His hyperventilating as he tries to get his plan to work after it failed, Trying to save Ghostbur from what he went through, lashing out at Sam, and yelling at Wilbur. All of this in line with who Tommy is as a character and how events have changed him. This is a good characterization.

Wilbur

Wilbur has changed a lot since we've seen him last, both alive and dead. Since he's been alive, Wilbur has changed his tune from "I want to die" to "hell sucks, mate." What's particularly interesting is that this sentiment that he has from being alive carried for a long time into his limbo, as evidenced by his appearance in the season 2 finale on the bench. He wanted to "stay dead" at that point. Since we've seen him in limbo, he's gone from content in his situation and understanding why he's there and that he's there forever.

Now we have Revivedbur. Revivedbur is ecstatic to be alive again. He goes from numb to embracing feeling again. The fandom once thought that Revivedbur would be annoyed with or hateful towards Dream for bringing him back turned into joy and reverence. This is quite a drastic leap. Bad characterization.

But it isn't.

I have seen one clip from Ranboo's stream on 4/29 and that is Ranboo telling Philza that Wilbur is alive. In this bit, after mentioning that Wilbur has been in limbo for a perceived 13 and a half years, Phil says "13 years is a long time to be away... he almost certainly isn't the same person... people can change quite a lot in a single year, two years, three years, four years, even five years, Ranboo."

Wilbur has been gone for 13 years. He's been in the same place with no change other than Tommy for 13 fucking years. That's 13 years where we heard from him 2 times. We know virtually nothing about what those 13 years were like for him, but from what Wilbur has said, it was torture to him. He was stagnant, stuck in a fucking tube station for 13 years, unable to leave no matter how hard he tried.

We know so little about how his time in limbo changed him because it's such a long span of time with radio silence. I dare say this is fucking great characterization.

Ranboo

This is where I start having some issues, and this is where I have the least amount of context. From what I've seen, Ranboo is little miss angst who forgets things and is constantly on the verge of having a panic attack (hyperbole). From what I have surmised of his character in various contexts, serious and dramatic scenes and domestic ones, Ranboo really cares about the people around him and is scared of himself and his mind.

So why is it that he straight up just sneers at Tommy, saying "the hell did you do?"

I'm really just focusing on this because it just seems really off to me in the context of his character. Ranboo was in on this plan. It's pretty common knowledge that the only person with revive powers is Dream. Ranboo doesn't know everything that happened within the prison, sure, but why is he so quick to assume that Tommy was the root cause? Is it because he's been hanging out with the world's 2nd biggest Tommy hater, Niki (the character for clarification)? I honestly don't know where this jump-in assumption is coming from. Given what I understand of his character, this line and the implications I'm getting are just a bit out of character. Feel free to explain why I'm wrong because I am not in this loop whatsoever.

Awesamdude

Sam is where I have the biggest issue. How does a man go from living on an isolated island in grief over a death he could've prevented if only he had been quicker, to yelling at that same formerly dead person that he was at fault for the death/revival of another person?

Now, one thing that is strengthened by this characterization is Sam's dedication to the rules. He has his strict protocol and he is not going to let that slip up for anything. He wants to keep Dream in prison and never let him out.

But I'm just having a hard time grappling with a man so quick to blame himself last time something like this happened being so quick to place blame on a child he, from what I've seen, had a good relationship with. It feels like I'm missing something here.

Yeah, Tommy broke into the prison, but why is Sam's first thought that Tommy was trying to break dream out? This harsh turn on Tommy just doesn't come across right to me.

Why Did This Happen?

I do think there could be a meta reason as to why these don't land right to me. These two characterizations are centered around Tommy. How people are reacting to Tommy's actions. Tommy and Dream are the head of the prison stuff right now. at least as far as I know. I'm not sure if Wilbur has come back on as a writer yet but last I heard it's still Tommy and Dream handling their shit. With the writers in mind, I wouldn't put it past them to decide to add more conflict with Tommy and other members of the SMP right now. The Egg is a bit busy with other things, Jack is just running the hotel, and the Syndicate doesn't really have any qualms with Tommy on any level that they would act on. It could be the writers trying to add conflict to the prison storyline by generating conflict between Tommy, Ranboo, and Sam with Wilbur being a fuckin wild card.

I don't know mate, I just wanted my thoughts out there and maybe be fucking pounded into the ground by people more knowledgeable than me.

Have a dialogue with me I'd love to debate. (All friendly debate please I don't feel like taking this too seriously it is Minecraft roleplay after all.)