#Which is a shame bc like. a lot of the fun for me is developing said s/is

[wayfinderships]

Hmmm.... Maybe I should make some more s/i dedicated posts..

[latibulater]

i love think tank honestly i think he would have been better than a one-episode arch like his design? first of all is so fun. love his hover chair! love having another huge-head character (i wonder if billy knows of him at all). he such an emotive guy

he seems to really love teaching his non-interested students, and it's honestly very sweet imo how he reaches out to dean and suggests he avoid the tower during the time of his father's arch, and i mean you could interpret it as him saving his own reputation, but i think it's because he doesn't wish for dean to be harmed. and its funny and genuine to me the way he says to dean the essay is shit but he is one of the best students of the semester. ik when i went from home school to real school i struggled hard at first with writing papers, so i wonder if dean is the same like he's enjoying the class and is kind of grasping the concepts but he is plagiarizing by accident and has lots of run-on sentences (like this one). but it's sweet that nidaba still calls dean "one of the brightest" (even if you interpret this to be buttering up which i do not)

and he seems to be a moriarty without a sherlock from this little scene where he deducts dean's home life from different clues. i like that he says "i interpret the data" because that's much less wishy-washy then bbc sherlock. he's so handsome here genuinely

and his nietzsche quote "all great things must first wear terrifying and monstrous masks in order to inscribe themselves on the hearts of humanity." honestly is so relavent to the show and the way he is so exasperated no one knew that. professor dr. nidaba, i swear you just need a tumblr girlie in your class.

the tank just goes up? the wall?

imminent doom detected

i love how he gestures with the tank...nozzle(?) like the machine is really an adapted living device. and literally he has this awesome killer entrance to set up some chess like he literally just wants a nice game night

i feel so bad for him look

sweetheart 😭 his whole plan for the evening just got blown up like that wall. i feel so bad for him his little "who are you calling" like he's gotten in trouble 😭😭😭

but brock will play!!!! he's so excited now

and he can create a force field??? thats literally so cool. this scene with brocks arm is so funny like brock is acting a little unhinged but think tank is literally so bewildered

and who else got flirty undertones from this

and this was such a great scene him getting shot out the window while rusty's getting scammed by watch&ward. and then when warriana called think tank a "pompous son of a gorgon" a) love the insult b) their previous fights mustve been so funny think tank would use a lot of greek myth references and warriana would be like SHUT UPPPP *kicks him across the street*

look brock had so much fun with this fight and nidaba, while annoyed by warriana busting in, i think enjoyed it too! also i like this pic of him with just the undersuit.

i feel so bad for him he literally got his night fucked up by rusty's annoying silly ass and then got beat up by someone not even supposed to be there and now he's just trying to hail a cab bc his tank got trashed and then he gets WRECKED by a VAN. and what's this? stars n garters literally singing at nidaba's bedside?????

i loved this scene so much its so silly and off-beat, i love knowing that think tank's colleague/arch-rival cares enough about him to lug a guitar down to the hospital while nidaba's unconscious. WHY COULDNT WE HAVE HAD THINK TANK IN COMA TOWN?!

anyways thats about it :^) i just think it's a shame hammer&publick didn't develop or bring back think tank he's such a great and underrated character. also he doesn't even have a first name like wtf!!! i'm naming him dr. nathan (not nate!) nidaba

[s-aint-elmo]

no thoughts head empty the oppressive stagnancy of legacy in ever after high dragging me round the block yet again

it's such a shame that we get so little explanation about the actual mechanics of destiny, which is the entire premise of the show, bc it's so juicy. like what power does destiny hold when you rip away milton's lies and centuries of assumptions and traditions. esp bc despite raven signing herself as the evil queen in the real storybook of legends, when the snow white fairytale actually happens in dragon games she's playing one of the seven dwarves and her mother has reprised her role. like how much of that was because of the characters' actions and how much was destiny pulling on old, familiar threads. keeps me up at night.

a lot of this is probably just like, plot holes and writer hot potato but i like making it that deep, that's half of the fun. my personal interpretation is that fate is a wild thing that desires repetition and they developed the system of fairytale legacy bloodlines to keep those repetitions predictable and contained, instead of wreaking havoc whenever and wherever they please. 

which lends itself to some really juicy exploration of how legacy is a duty as much as it is a privilege, and how to be a princess or a witch or a hero or a dragon is to be the same thing in the end: the lamb destiny slaughters on the altar to sate the ever-ravenous narrative. to keep the flock safe. keep the unknown that prowls beyond the beaten path at bay. because if a there is always a mother who will be cruel, or a maiden who will fall into a sleep like death, or a child who will become a bird, isn’t it better to know who, and how, and when? isn’t better if it’s you, who has known your whole life that you must be eaten, be poisoned, be stripped of your humanity, rather than anybody else, who wasn’t raised to see it as an honour instead of a great and terrible injustice?

[teeterarting]

How about... 7 and 10 for the ask game!

7. Which has the best post game?

Blue Rescue Team!!!! // ~ v ~ ) // haven't played Red or DX

It's not the best because it has super good writing, or the gameplay is fun, or anything. I think Rescue Team's post game is the best bc it's the longest!!!

at least, it very much feels like the longest. to me...

like, every PMD game after Rescue Team has this sort of "finish line". a point which you reach in the post-game and after that, nothing interesting happens anymore. In Explorers, it's after beating Darkrai in Dark Crater. In Gates, it's bringing Hero back in Worldcore // Gates barely has a post-game, which is a shame.... // and PSMD suffers from the same problem as Gates.

the og Rescue Team also has this "finish line", but it takes a lot, lot longer to reach it. Even when the most impactful post-game event happens, there's still new interactions that unlock, and fun quests, and incredibly rare events, and it makes the world feel so alive for so much longer.

I guess this comes from my stupid, naive wish for the adventure to never end - I wanna keep experiencing the PMD world, and its charming characters, and explore new places. that's not feasible for any game, I believe. Rescue team somehow gets close....... that's why it's the best for me!

10. What starters would you add?

frickkkk nobody would want my starters :'D not the players and not the developers. pretty sure their movesets would be crap for starter pokemon standards. among other issues.....

but uhhh...... I'd add grimer partner. and slugma partner. and magnemite player..... and vanillite player.... and a litwick player/partner......

for no reason other than I'm obsessed w/ these little guys and if I could have them as pardnter or player, I would get attached to them so fast and so intensely. lookit my grimer partner......... they're a cutie......... also they stink and it sends enemy pkmn packing. a lifesaver

[oodlyenough]

rogue!

well i really enjoyed that! felt like a classic MOTW doctor who episode, in a way that none of the others this season really have (except maybe space babies... except i uh. did not like space babies lol). i think it makes sense that bringing in two new writers (women! hooray) would stick pretty close to the formula, and i think it worked well. as much as i love the experimental episodes, the formula done well is still a very good formula. that's how you get 60+ years of tv.

the one-off romantic interest for the doctor who tragically gets sacrificed to save the day shtick felt refreshing because it was a man this time, and also because it's in a season where the doctor and the companion haven't had any ship tease stuff themselves lol. also the kylie song playing reminded me of astrid, who had a very similar arc. wonder how intentional

i also liked ruby's subplot of bonding with the one girl, she felt very Companion in this episode

i thought the bridgerton cosplay angle was pretty hilarious and i enjoyed it. i haven't really been paying much attention to the "it's a tv show!" theory -- mostly i find it... more enjoyable to not create theories for myself on doctor who bc there's a 99% chance i'll be wrong and get disappointed -- but i have to wonder if that being the plot of this episode helps or hinders that idea.

also this. really felt like it was meant to be episode 2 of the season. sorry. i know i've been in a "devil's chord got swapped in its order" conspiracy theory this whole season. but space babies leads to the doctor meeting carla again and then we flash back to that conversation here. to prove her identity ruby only references TCORR and space babies. the 6 month jump in devil's chord and the obvious finale tease at the end of it, which was notably missing from this episode. i feel like rtd could personally pinky promise me these episodes weren't swapped in their airing order and i'd still be skeptical

overall, i feel like we've had a pretty enjoyable run of episodes. i've liked just about every episode, with space babies being my least favourite. 73 yards / dot and bubble / rogue is a really strong three ep run for me, had a blast with all of them for different reasons.

however, with only two episodes left in the season, i have to say fifteen and ruby as a team tardis feel quite... generic? they're both extremely likable in the role and i enjoy both characters and the dynamic they have. but there's not really any tension between them, i feel like we skipped so much of the getting-to-know you, i don't feel that ruby has any big character challenges to overcome which means there's not really a lot of growth opportunities for her development either. it's such a shame because this was always the RTD1 era's biggest strength. i think a lot of it is the reduced episode count, but i'm still surprised we haven't seen more of that characterwork that is usually his bread and butter.

sad there's only two episodes left though, i've had fun with the season

[bibibbon]

Hey I stumbled a post about dabi and how he is a vile character and it made me think of how victims in the MHA are either good dekus or dark dekus. No nuance and it makes me think of Shig.

Ok...imagine for a moment, Shig defends Izu. This act could be used to humanize him even more as create a connection with them.

The scene where a villain calls Izu "useless deku" and shig steps in and defends Izu.

I ask this...bc I know for sure if hori had made this it would have been in a mean spirit way, it would be at shig and Izu's expenses.

And the fandom, even Shig's stans would either ignore the moment or make fun

"lol shig stop by bothering with this deku"

Or

"lol Izu is so lame shig has to save him"

Which is a damn shame bc this could have been useful to humanize shig and create a connection with him...as well understand the character. But nope.

Shiga is king of inconsistency.

Hi @mikeellee 👋

Yeah it's a pretty well established fact that horikoshi very much lacks nuance when depicting his abuse victims. The narrative depicts them as either always good perfect, innocent victims who can do no wrong or they're always horrible people who deserve worse than their own abusers somehow.

Shigaraki could do a lot of things that end up humanising him like protecting the leauge but a moment where he himself protects a hero (izuku in this scenario) it would do a lot more than just humanise him. It would

1) humanise him obviously

2) add more to the underdeveloped dynamic of izuku and shigaraki

3) may show the change in shigarakis goals, may make him realise that the problem isn't heroes but necessarily the system that they're all in.

Hmm a scene like that may not inherently work or maybe I just prefer a scene where shigaraki protects Izuku physically from a villain instead of standing up for him verbally. The scene you suggested would need the development for it. What I mean is that shigaraki and izuku need to have way more interactions than they do in canon for that scene to properly work.

Personally I would think that shigaraki stans would use this moment to show how good Shigaraki is and how he should be saved and redeemed rightfully so to be honest.

Shigaraki is definitely the most inconsistent character out of the bunch and it really bugs me especially with the potential he has😭. Anyway Imma need someone to take Shigaraki away from hori cos he clearly doesn't care or like him.

[yonemurishiroku]

Jason died cause he boring. He literally an all American boy someone who would have been popular in the 90s. Compare all main characters first chapter to Jason and you can tell he bland like white bread. Jason lacks the popularity of Percy cause if Percy was dead expect a riot plus we already had a better Zeus contrast with Thalia. Apollo is the more interesting character and Apollo son is a better contrast to Nico. Had he not had a GF maybe he could have been Nico love interest but Rick decided on Nico being gay extremely late he said it himself and what does it look like having a guy break up with his GF (poc) to be with Nico(white emo kid) in a kid series. Will was convenient no weird background no known relationship and the complete opposite to Nico and people get mad but it work you don’t get a solo book if the fanbase wasn’t big. The

There’re so many points at once in this ask and I don’t think I’m comprehending them right so I guess I’ll just post my reactions upon reading this.

- Jason’s bland like a white bread -> Good news! I like white bread. I think white bread is a perfect canvas to add all of your favorite toppings to make the best meal for you. ☺️😋😋

So if Rick really did kill Jason only bc he’s bland then he’s a coward solely bc he can’t figure out what color to put on Jason’s canvas.

- Apollo’s son is a better contrast to Nico -> This is subjective so I’ll leave it for any day. Though it got me thinking. Why, exactly, should the contrast matter?

Because fun fact! Jason and Nico have many working parallels that can be great materials for relationship development. Ask a random Jasico fanfic writers and they’ll give a thesis.

On the other hand, to be honest?, we already have Percabeth as the opposites-attract/bantering/significant annoyance trope. I ngl can do without another similar one. 🤷‍♀️

- Err i’m not American so I don’t think I’m in any position to talk about the poc girl vs white emo boy thing but if anything, I find it’s valid. Smh shame

Edit: Haise pointed out that Nico is not white, he’s Venetian and has olive skin. I honestly don’t know what it makes this…

- You don’t get a solo book if the fanbase isn’t big enough -> This is undeniably true.

HOWEVER

Pal. My friend. Mate. Listen. Just wait until I show you how many people absolutely despite the existence that is TSATS——

I’m all for letting people enjoy things. Though, if you ask me - me, who came to PJO solely for Solangelo and binge read TSATS in like 2 nights and cried a river on my pillow, I would say TSATS is Rick’s poor attempt of:

1/ milking the franchise (which is understandable. Capitalism you know bla bla bla)

2/ giving a half-heartedly made closure to the fandom’s favorite (which is sort of fanservice? Idk)

3/ and along with it solidifying the foundation of his gay love story, which didn’t have the… err prettiest start? (which I reckon accounts for a lot of the franchise’s popularity).

And yeah it’s easy to see that Nico being gay is a late decision with how Rick worked it out lmao.

[citadelofmythoughts]

It’s both very sad and ironic that cis women specifically who deny or get angry at trans women on the grounds of “they didn’t or don’t suffer the way REAL women do” is proving that they do in fact suffer in similar ways. A woman online who isn’t hurting anyone is being sent hatred either directly or indirectly bc her body does not match What. A Real Woman Looks Like. Which is sownthing cis women struggle with and they’re not only fighting male views on their bodies but other women as well.

Assuming a trans women will hurt you because “she was socialized male and born with a penis which will be used to hurt me” is the same bullshit as “I a white woman feel afraid because this black woman spoke to me in a tone I’m labeling as aggressive and now I will cower an blink tears from my eyes and hope someone stronger will protect me from her”

I’ve been thinking about this at woke actually. I’m afab and was raised by strong black women but I identify very strongly as queer with no big label fitting me but knowing Woman does not fit. Girl used to fit as a child but as an adult Woman does not. And a lot of me wonders if cis women’s fear and hatred of trans women does not stem from They Are Men, at least not all of them, but as a sort of jealousy.

Trans women delight in the way their bodies change. They are so so happy to see developments and document them and tell others they feel safe with. They go shopping for the first time and try out the girly things they didn’t get to experience growing up. The struggles and threats of violence against them are very real but they do not outweigh the euphoria of finally being who they want to be. Who they hoped and feared they could be. Who they love to be.

Cis women and TERFs especially only see the double edged sword. Young girls and their bodies are sexualize. Growing wider hips and breaths is an experience that belongs more to others than the individual depending on if they live in an area that demonizes female bodies. Or if not they get that shit from television. Their bodies are used as weapons and it takes a long time to unlearn that and to live for themselves in a way that’s not tinged with shame.

Trans women if they start hormones are outwardly joyful. That’s not saying being out as trans is only fun and that young boys are sexualized or aren’t given under expectations. But cis women don’t think about that. They only see the current adulthood joy and not the adolescence awkwardness or pain or suffering. Feeling like your body was wrong. Having people close to you and loving them and them loving you back but not all of you. Not being allowed to do certain things bc of The Gender. And there is no time boy equivalent for boys.

Cis women see trans women joy and gender euphoria and instead of going “how do I find that for myself. Am I in an environment that is still holding an axe over my head? That little girl who was scolded for having a body that changed against her will. How do I heal her” they blame trans women and paint them as aggressors or predators in hiding so they don’t have to confront the fact that despite the societal challenges being a women is so so wonderful. They deny themselves the joy of womanhood for the sake of gatekeeping it via suffering or arbitrary biology.

Not every cis women has suffered the same. Some cis women tear down others the same way men do. There is no monolith of how women move through life. But to acknowledge and internalize that? To let go of the idea that YES society does not treat women fairly but you as an individual have the power to change that on a social level by sticking up for others until the respectful outweigh the disrespectful? Letting go of that means realizing that there is more to being a women than Being Born With a Specific Body. That it’s not something you have to earn by being hurt the right ways. And they cannot comprehend that

Damn anon, this was just incredible. If there was a way to do it, I'd hug you.

You're completely correct about my experiences as a trans woman. It's been said that when you start transitioning it's a second puberty and that's not just physical, I've been living the years I never got to have when I was a teen and with that comes awkwardness but also so much joy.

I wish more people would realize that hating others and making them feel awful about who they are isn't going to fix their own pain.

[animalpetcel]

Finished chapter 14. Messy thoughts:

The Good:

- I liked the conclusion a lot more than the conclusion of the first arc

- Very interested in the Priestess atm

- Wisadel was pretty fun. Logos was pretty cool

- Nadine is interesting, I would like to see more of her

- I think it tied together the different plotlines and developments of the Victorian arc well

- I’m still distrustful of the Sarkaz narrative but bc things didn’t completely burn down I will continue to hold my tongue

- Bc it was told over 23 nodes instead of 9-10, reading felt less like a slog (also I was able to take my time with it instead of trying to read it all in 2 days)

The Bad

- I still feel kinda shaky on Theresa’s character and agency. Also given other comments I saw online I think her true motives could have been demonstrated better

- I disliked how easy the stages were. I know that this is a limited event and newbies need to be able to clear but this is also like a major turning point in the overall plot of AK (which newbies shouldn’t be reading) so the combat feeling like a wet blanket takes a lot of wind out of its sails

- Tho it did its best, I still feel like the cast of this arc is way too bloated. I honestly forgot that Saileach was in this arc at all with how little she mattered in the end

- I say this as someone who likes Manfred: Ascalon should have been allowed to do something to him. So far it feels like her assassin powers falls apart whenever it’s not a faceless NPC, which makes her somewhat less cool

- Theresis…? Idk where we’re going with this man.

- During the Doctor’s Originum Dream section, we saw a bunch of characters the Doctor didn’t really know or care about (Allerdale and Baird as examples)….Why?

- The Civilight Eterna Reveal. It feels very thinly like they just wanted “Canon Playable Theresa”

The Mixed

- Theresa and Frostnova I feel like parallel each other a lot when it comes to their decisions to fight us as a test. Shame I didn’t really care about either to the extent that the game wanted me to so I wasn’t really broken up about fighting them/them dying

- We could have gotten more from The Followers. Actually we should have gotten a proper event for them a while ago but also they just need more in general

- It kinda feels a little easy how RI was able to get the KMC and Victoria to walk away from each other with no one stirring the pot but the arc needs to end on a somewhat hopeful note so I get it

And that’s it! I honestly don’t really think that Kazdel & Theresis alone could carry a whole chapter arc (also I think it’ll be a while until we’re able to confront the Priestess). An Anni event yes but I don’t think any more focus on just the Sarkaz is necessary atm (idk maybe I’ll be proved wrong). Since they do have an RI monitor, I do hope we get a playable Damazti when we get another Kazdel event though.

For the next major story arc, whenever that comes, I would honestly love for us to finally get focus on Ursus. I’m dying to know what HG has planned for that nation and I want to meet Neon.

Like please HG I want to go to Ursus!

[gayteddy]

long journal like ramble? where i think out loud about art.

the thing about my art is that i dont really know what i want to do with it -_- i really admire people with highly stylized artstyles and i think that it would be very on brand for me to take my art in that direction. but i also like the idea of people able to draw stuff that looks more. realistic i guess.

hyper realism is boring imo anyone can learn how to draw in hyper realism but developing an artstyle that entirely unique to yourself is a difficult and long process and idk.

i have not gone to Art School i dont know anything about art except that i like to draw sometimes and would like to get better at it. i kinda feel like im Missing Something like theres some "obvious" thing i should be doing to practice that i just. dont know about. i try to "practice" by drawing a lot and trying out new things. i feel like the biggest thing i need is just Time bc although ive drawn for years i have not done it a Lot. and so this is basically the first time ive ever drawn consistently

its also difficult bc i feel like. my art isnt "good enough" to be passionate about yet. which. i dont think art needs to be """""good""""" to be important and more than that i dont think art can really be classified as "good" and "not good" and that all art conveys emotion and thoughts and is important.

but i also feel the need to like. justify or defend myself. "i know my art isnt good but-" type stuff. which is probably part of where typing all this out comes from as well this idea that i need to state that i know my art isnt at the level it """"should"""" be at or whatever.

i want my art to be for Me and that doesnt mean it has to be palatable or conventionally "good" or Realistic. its just for me. i feel embarrassed to be excited about and proud of my art bc im "too old" to be developing these skills as though 24 is old at all, which its not. and bc its "not good enough" to be excited and proud over. which is subjective.

am i afraid of being judged? probably. i worry about the way i appear to people a lot even tho i try not to let it affect the way i behave or the way i think about myself. but i do always have this worry that im doing something "wrong" or "weird" and that its only a matter of time before i become ostracized for it. which has happened before. so i understand the fear.

as always my logical beliefs vs my feelings about my own actions. as though i am somehow outside of my own universal beliefs.

i guess this is kind of culminating in that sharing art is always a vulnerable thing for me no matter how silly the art is. and ive been feeling a lot of. i guess. shame? about it? like im embarrassing myself by sharing it.

but im gonna keep making art bc its fun and thats the most important part. to anyone who actually read all this ur insane and i love you.

[ladycrimsonandblack]

Hi! I'm also making my way through welcome to the nightmare live ❤️ Would yo talk a little more about it? Just your thoughts bc I value your opinion a lot and want to know what tou think. Wen Jianyan is in fact awesome ❤️❤️ and I'm glad you like him

i'm so glad there is someone else reading this novel!

honestly, i'm having a lot of fun with it. i actually like it so much i started MTLing after the translation (which is also excellent) stopped, and i don't do that with a lot of novels. but wen jianyan is such a good character, and honestly it's like he's specifically tailored for me, i just like him so much. i would've probably read this novel just for him even if the plot were not good, but no, it's genuinely interesting.

so, a couple of things that make this novel so fun for me personally:

the characters! all the characters are so good, not just wen jianyan, even though he's my favorite. every senior member of the guild has a distinct personality and i love their interactions so much. the teammates we meet in the instances are fleshed out. the enemies are not one-dimensional. honestly, the one character with the least amount of development was ML, but he's been getting more attention lately, so i'm being cautiously optimistic.

the plot is so well-written. i've read a lot of unlimited flow novels, and i really like the genre, but WTNL has some of the best instances i've seen. every one of them is logical, the audience gets all the same clues the characters do, and the solutions always make sense. i don't feel like wen jianyan is pulling answers out of his ass just to be seen as the most powerful, the smartest character in the game. he has to put in effort, and while he gets more info than other anchors based on his connections to wu zhu and the nightmare system, he's not the only one who gets the special advantage (the oracle, the top ten players, etc.).

i'm kind of genuinely amused by all the different ways wen jianyan has lied to or conned people so far? honestly, that's a real talent. i don't think he's ever used the same lie twice (unless pretending to be weak and pitiful counts?), and the way he talks his way out of some sticky situations is impressive. and my favorite thing about it is that the author had to come up with all of that! there is a real life human out there thinking about how to put wen jianyan into situations and then how he can talk himself into even more serious Situations. love that.

i'm being cautiously optimistic about the romance. honestly, i don't need good romance to like a book, but it would've been a shame for me to dislike such a big part of a book that i'm otherwise enjoying. and anyway, this is because the romance in the first couple of hundred chapters didn't really meet my personal preferences — which is completely alright, not everybody will like everything — but it seems to be heading in the direction i like, so i'm hoping this too will become part of the novel i will enjoy.

i think what i really appreciate is that wen jianyan is never really at disadvantage. a lot of cnovels love to make MC strong and great and powerful, until ML comes into the picture, and suddenly he's helpless under MLs power. and i thought this novel would be the same, but no! i've been conned! wen jianyan conned me, the same as he conned ML! his disadvantage is always temporary. when the chips are down, he's never the one at loss. he can bide his time and pretend to be cowed, but wen jianyan appreciates freedom more than anything else, and he would not relinquish it for anything.

small thing, but i'm just genuinely delighted by his custom-made froggy slippers. he paid someone to make him frog slippers, twice. i love him.

i tried to keep this spoiler free (except the frog slippers. i'm sorry if you still hadn't reached the frog slippers.) but i'm really enjoying it. i don't know how far i will be able to read with MTL, as i usually don't really have strong tolerance for it, but the novel is so good that i'm powering through.

i would also love to hear your thoughts!

[p5x-theories]

This is unrelated to anything, but I feel like Joker is kind of just his own character now instead of merely a "silent protagonist"... So I think he should get an official birthday or something 😭 maybee around September which is the month the original game released. 15th September. Or somewhere around May-June bcs I think Gemini fits him well tbh

Also it's a bit of a shame the characters in P5X don't get birthday arts, but maybe because there's a lot of characters and they don't have time for that. The thing is, Genshin has a LOT and somehow can still do them but it is what it is I suppose ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Honestly? I think I've said this before, but Joker was kind of always his own character, regardless of ATLUS' intentions with a "silent protagonist"; as far as I've seen in any of the Persona games, they've literally never achieved a protagonist that's a "blank slate", because the core mechanics of the game are working against them. Think about it this way- all the protagonists feel different from each other, right? But if they're supposedly "blank slates", that shouldn't be the case. In my opinion, this is because of the core concepts of the games- the different experiences they've had prior to the game, and circumstances leading up to their awakenings- as well as their Personas themselves, and even the dialogue options the player is presented with while playing as them in the games.

To me, it says something that we get to hear Joker's will of rebellion, as opposed to the P4 protagonist not needing to face his own shadow. It says something that the male P3 protagonist walks to the Iwatodai dorm for the first time almost completely ignoring the Dark Hour, while Joker and Ryuji are both shown to be confused the first time they enter Kamoshida's Palace. And it sure says something that in P3, you choose whether or not to side with Ryoji, and in P5, you choose whether or not to side with Yaldabaoth, but P4's the only one with an accomplice ending (ie, where you side with the human antagonist)! That's not even getting into their dialogue options- mostly because I don't want to spend the time digging them up- or even environmental details, like how Joker can struggle to focus on studying in the school library, or differences in social links and game mechanics, like how the P4 protagonist has a social link with a fox that gives him side quests.

And of course, that's not getting into the P1 protagonist, or female P3 protagonist, either, let alone Tatsuya and Maya, who become their own characters in the games where they're not the protagonists, haha. Which is basically what's happening to Joker now! I guess my point is that the characterization was kind of always there, and now it's just a lot more obvious. Even if that's... a bit off-topic from your original point, heh. You can always just headcanon the game's original release day as his birthday, until proven otherwise?

I do think it's a bit unfair to compare Genshin directly to the circumstances here, though, while I agree it'd be nice to have unique birthday art. I have no idea how the size of the team working on Genshin compares to the size of the team working on this game, for one- it'd be unfair to expect a smaller team to do the same amount of work as a bigger team. Genshin's also far more established (having first released four years ago), and according to Wikipedia, gets updates every six weeks, rather than every two weeks as is almost always the case here. It's also just possible their priorities lie elsewhere? I'd rather have more fun in-game art, and promotions for new characters, than birthday art, for example.

Which is to say, basically, I don't see the point in comparing Genshin to this game? It kind of feels like you're annoyed they're not keeping up with Genshin's standard, but they're different games, with different development circumstances. Why does it need to be Genshin?

[choiraugur]

So you've mentioned that you like all the Soulsborne games, not just Bloodborne, but which Soulsborne was your first exposure to the series? What made you want to check them all out, and what is your favorite thing about them (each individually or in general as they also have reoccurring themes? nobody trolls people in power like they do xd) .

Also I can't forget you asking me about Creighton so I assume you like DS2 as well (rare but huge W in these trying times vvhjgjjg). Who are your DS2 favs? 🌛

I need you to know that I had to pause for like one hour after getting this ask because I got so excited to respond to it that I couldn’t think straight enough to properly manage a reply with actual words. in fact what I’ve written down here isn’t as eloquent or articulate as id want it to be but. autism works in funny ways so the best I can do rn is say words and giggle to myself with glee

im putting the reply under a cut bc it’s long af also lmao

the first dark souls was my initial exposure to the series as a whole! I got into it some years ago but I don’t think I was as invested in it then as I am now. I’ve always loved the themes of the series and the gameplay was, despite all the frustration, very fun and engaging so I wanted to check out more souls games after it. Dsi remains my favourite game of all time along with bloodborne btw! I would blame it on nostalgia but honestly the game really does have so much to offer. dark souls i meatriding is very cliche but there’s a good reason for that yk. Nothing teaches you patience like dark souls. (this game also has one of my two favourite characters of all time, gwyndolin! they managed to create a transgender allegory that speaks so closely to me- from familial expectations to the desire to be seen and recognised by the family that constantly neglects you and shames you for your very existence to the point where your identity ceases to exist because you are trying so desperately to belong. you try to forge yourself into the perfect shape but the core of the problem lies not in the shape of your identity, but your very existence. the unending cultist devotion to the people who made your life hell because this is all you have. I love gwyndolin so much)

I moved to dark souls ii after and honestly loved it (and still love it) very much. I feel like people give it too much shit and criticise it too quickly because of its reputation, which is a shame because it has so much to offer. The lore is so rich and the gameplay can get so fun if you just give it a chance. I agree that the start is difficult, but isn’t this true with every new fromsoft game you play? The thing I really love about soulsborne games is that there is a learning curve. Absolutely anybody can finish these games even if they are a terrible gamer because of the fact there is a learning curve. And sure it’s a frustrating one a lot of the time, but when you get comfortable enough with the mechanics and become more confident in playing, the experience becomes so so fun and rewarding. The estus problems people always complain about at the beginning of the game honestly stop being a noticeable issue after you discover items that help you replace this bother. I can 100% see why somebody would dislike dsii because it unfortunately went through developement hell, but I do believe that 98% of the time people judge this game too quickly and too harshly just because of the negative reputation it has. It sucks that they don’t give it a chance. I’ve seen so many people have an opinion on it (always a bleak one) without even playing it themselves also which is so dumb. At least play it man. Idk. It gets the second-installation-in-a-series curse I guess. dsii fans need to stick together and call it the best game oat to piss everyone else off

i got into bloodborne after dsi and dsii, i think I started playing bloodborne in mid 2021? Not that long ago but it has been my absolute favourite thing in the world ever since. SO much about it has kept me around because it manages to cater to so many of my general special interests lol. I’ve always loved cosmic horror and the victorian era of medicine. religion (and how those in power can use religion to control the masses) is another thing i always end up getting fixated on, so bloodborne was just the perfect thing for me. I love the themes! And characters! And designs! And gameplay mechanics! The world building! Everything is so so good. The thing that has mainly kept me around so intensely is how important exploration and personal interpretation is with this game. this is honestly my favourite thing about all spulsborne games actually- fromsoft never gives you any direct answers, and we are still finding new things about bloodborne several years after its release which is insane. It has just an endless amount of things to offer, I can’t say ENOUGH about it. I could write pages upon pages on why I love bloodborne so much, it’s difficult to keep my answer here concise. All I can say is it consumes my every thought every second of the day. Very good.

Dsiii was the last soulsborne game i got into (not fromsoft tho, that was elden ring, which i somehow only got into on august of 2023) i love dsiii because i love the dark souls series so so much in general, but for some reason it’s my least favourite out of all spulsborne games. The story and bosses are all super cool and i loved the conclusion it provided for the series, but it’s the one i find the least entertaining? or not the least entertaining, but it’s the one I think about the least. maybe it’s because i still kind of experience it as a. second version of bloodborne since i played bloodborne before ds3 lol. which is an unfair judgement but I can’t let go of that feeling it gives me for some reason. great game but I end up fixating more on the others fsr

navlaan is my favourite character in ds2 also! i love a little fucked up sorcerer. I need more grey thinking. good and bad mean nothing in the name of acquiring knowledge. nuance is required to understand navlaan and its why I often avoid reading stuff about him lol.

I’m realising my response to your ask focuses more on just my personal experience with the games rather than what it is within them that I love, I didn’t really get into detail about that at all lol but. I already said so much 💀

[spearxwind]

been thinking a lot about my different oc worlds recently. ive said before ive got four, but technically it's five if you count extinction.

im gonna put all my thoughts under a readmore bc once again this got insanely long jkllkjjkf. i be rambling

most of my attention has definitely been going into challenger deep the past year (and will likely continue), recently i refurbished hollowridge as well and have had a lot of fun with it (even if i havent drawn much to show for it...)

the other two of the set of four i originally posted about are my agony drive and broken horizon settings. Broken horizon is more of a personal headworld where ive set my dragon ocs, but I have not really been successful with it in terms of like. worldbuilding and crafting a story for it, mostly because there are very few characters in it currently and i struggle with it. But it's the world where cercerion and my sona dima (as an oc) exist. i would love to actually do a better job with it sometime but it currently isnt a huge priority because ive been focused on the other two main ones (but again since its just a personal headworld it literally is just some place i like to mentally hang out and fly around in, im not super bothered by it being undeveloped.)

However we have the two troublemaker worlds now

the agony drive setting has been driving me more than a little nuts because of its whole situation with it. i absolutely adore the characters i have in it, but i have no idea what to do with the world itself. it used to be a joint project so i was extremely limited in the way i could develop it bc i depended on the other individual enjoying the ideas and i did my best to keep it afloat almost being the sole contributor to it, so now that its liberated i just didnt know what to do with it. i do like a bunch of the lore bits i came up with but some part of me is like 'idk if i enjoy this as a world' bc it still feels limited in some way? Another issue is that while hollowridge (previously my horror and slapstick gore setting with demons/angels/magic vibes) was dead in the water, i channeled that violence slapstick demon/magic vibe through TAD, but getting a focus back on hollowridge has kinda just. straight up deleted a bunch of TAD's reason to exist? i dont know if that makes sense

HR isnt really that much slapstick violence because death is final, and TAD is more cartoony in that sense bc death ISNT final which is its main reason to exist (unlimited violent major character death for the funnies), but theres a weird overlap that is keeping me from focusing correctly because it makes my brain go 'you are doing the same thing twice'

I would really really love to actually turn it into something fun and unique (separate from my other worlds) but i really havent been sure how to go about it because of that overlap. i genuinely think its just a problem of 'you have to actually develop the setting to have fun in it' and i just havent been able to do that yet bc i cant decide what i want it to BE. TAD has also never really had a lot of story to begin with so it makes things harder bc the story is the vehicle to explore the world with. its pretty frustrating bc midas set and david are some of my fav ocs ive made and i miss them but god dammit if it isnt hard to actually work with the whole thing....

and last but not least... the fifth one. extinction. a lot of you probably know this one from my comic. if youve been here since like... 2014-2015 (which would be insane) you might remember me beginning to develop that story until it eventually became the comic that is currently sitting unfinished and feels like a huge weight on my shoulders just out of sheer shame

the issue with extinction is that it was a lot of characters that i deeply loved (and still i still deeply love!!) all with fun plotlines, backstories, and a lot of fun tidbits to em that i ended up bending and breaking dozens of times just for the purpose of fitting them into a relatively short story that i could draw out and finish. and more importantly into something i hoped would be handleable instead of spiralling out of control like it had happened before

but what i didnt realize is that by doing so, i "locked" their lore in place into these very small boxes that would fit into a story, and thus i would remove what i had loved about those characters and their interactions that i had come up with years and years ago and a lot of my very very cool ideas for them simply went out the window in favor of .... well i dont. know. but off it went

i live in complete shame for not being able to finish the comic. it genuinely is a huge and extremely heavy weight on my shoulders and this whole thing has prevented me from even thinking of said ocs for years now even though they are some of my oldest and most beloved. saying all of this is not something i take lightly in the least as well

so recently I have been thinking about bringing them back as well... maybe (to the extent that i can... i have a lot of ocs and you guys know i have a lot of bias when drawing faves. so i cant guarantee content but at least i would be able to think about them again).

essentially the same way that i rewrote and got back my old concepts for hollowridge that slapped hard i want to get back my original ideas for extinction that i thought were really cool and just wasnt able to fit into a comic narrative

obviously this would come with a lot of retconning and i know a lot of people will probably not like it if i do it and i think thats something i have to face and learn to live with

but yeah anyways. TLDR is i really want to actually do something proper for TAD but have been having a lot of trouble with it unfortunately, but im working on it. and ive also been feeling rly nostalgic about extinction so you might see the characters again, albeit different in terms of story from what you probably know

[browniefox]

Another Week, Another Crisis Core Chapter!

Before playing this, I did a TON of sidequests (I got like 30% of them complete) which meant I didn't struggle against any enemies. on one hand, it meant I could get to focus on all the good scenes, but on the other hand, I didn't get to show off any of the new summons I'd gotten ;-;

God I love this church. Because this game works at break-neck pace, I doubt that Aerith and Zack are going to get, like, as many scenes together as I'd like, but I do think this chapter does a decent enough job starting to develop their relationship at the very least.

Zack is so tall I love it, and aw cute little date <3

While I got really frustrated with the little Bruno segment pretty fast, I do like that all the Slums citizens immediately clock Zack as not from around there, and immediately go to protecting Bruno. You can really feel the distrust and disconnect between those above and below plate.

I just Love Aerith <3

Where the general symbolism of monsters and angels is so heavy handed I roll my eyes every single time, I actually really loved this interaction between Zack and Aerith, when Aerith is talking about being afraid of SOLDIERS. To those who know Aerith's story, it's easy to see that she's both projecting her own desire to be normal (why in the world would people sign up to be made less normal?) as well as her own understandable trauma with the Shinra company, onto her thoughts and feelings on SOLDIERS.

Additionally, I love that she's actually scared of the sky. I think in teh Slums, that's not too rare of a feeling.

It's a shame that I feel like the Zack-Angeal relationship is done so poorly at the beginning, because this interaction really makes me start to like their dynamic! Angeal confiding in Zack and trusting Zack really says a lot. Also, I love the detail that Angeal has found that he likes flying, and just kind of carries Zack :D

I do think it's super funny though that it's way brighter and cheerier under the plate than on top of it, and that Zack just totally forgot and put off the mission he was on to go on a not-date with a cute girl.

THE FACT THAT THE FIRST THING ANGEAL SAYS TO SEPHIROTH IS THAT HE LOOKS THINNER SHIT BOYYYYY! I think it just does a lot to characterize their relationship, and especially how this whole thing has been affecting Sephiroth.

Genesis should have just killed Hojo. True good ending <3 It is funny to me that this segment ends with Hojo totally uninjured and honestly, probably happier than before bc he got to do random experiments on Zack.

They put so much effort into making Genesis' model look hot and honestly I love it. When I first saw Genesis in an amv, I thought he was a girl, and I guess that's my hot take for the day is that I think it'd be fun if he was. There is not one single female SOLDIER. There should be more women who got experimented on to be part of the army #feminism

This is here because I was hoping this quest line would mention Reeve, but it didn't and now I'm super disappointed.

I don't think I've seen anyone mention this before, but from this interaction it's implied that Zack is not Angeal's first mentee. Maybe perhaps his most promising, clearly the only one to make it to first, but Angeal had tried to instill his values onto other SOLDIERS.

And then my final thoughts for now is the interesting dynamic between infantry and SOLDIER. Before this game, I thought they were sort of the same group, but no they're actually two very distinct groups within Shinra. I also feel like infantry is often portrayed as always trying to become SOLDIER or something, but mostly there seems to be some resentment towards SOLDIER, and this hate that infantry will never be able to do as much as SOLDIER can. Very interesting, especially when considering Cloud.

[sapphire-weapon]

i just wanna say thank u so much for that in detail wiki post. legit i feel so much more informed now and thank u!! as someone newly getting into re (slowly working on the first 2 games--both the remakes and the ogs bc i love seeing how different they are !) ur fr doing a favor and its honestly a shame that ppl are just straight up lying. wheres the wiki editor honor? honoring actual fact and citation on wikipedia is usually pretty serious lol

🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

The wiki editor honor in survival horror fandom in general died in 2015 with a mental breakdown about circumcision in the Silent Hill wiki, which never stops being weird no matter how many times I say it.

What's frustrating about this whole thing with the RE wiki is that like... a lot of the bad info on there didn't come from nowhere, and it's not something that I necessarily want to hide from new fans. It's fun trivia to learn that, once upon a time, both RE2 and RE4 were completely different games, so there were actually several different character concepts written up for Leon, and here's what they were.

The whole saga behind RE1.5 and then the three different versions of RE4 that resulted in two of them becoming Devil May Cry and Haunting Ground is fascinating -- as is the whole drama about Shinji Mikami begging Capcom to let him develop RE4 on the PS2, and him being told repeatedly that that was never going to happen because Nintendo had an exclusivity deal, and how the betrayal of that ("If RE4 ever comes to the PS2, I'll cut my own head off with a chainsaw.") led to Mikami leaving Capcom all together, and that's why the story of RE got so fucked up starting at RE4.

Like... that's all really interesting stuff that I love sharing with new fans. But the wiki takes those old versions of those games -- those versions that never released -- and just matter-of-factly states that details about them are still canon, regardless of what the final product actually looks like.

The mafia background that people are so adamant these days as being canon for Leon was a joke to early-to-mid-aughts fandom, because it's so ridiculous and was clearly said before RE2's story was actually finalized and has nothing to do with Leon's actual character or arc. I don't hate new fans knowing about it; I love bringing new people in on old jokes.

But... that's not how it's being treated these days, and it's causing confusion and strife in the fandom, and that doesn't sit right with me.

And now, to go a step even further than that and insist that an advertisement for an airsoft gun is more canonically correct than Resident Evil 6?? I can't actually believe that people are doing this to new fans. It's not right.

Part of the fun of old fandom was always cooking up our own backstories for the main cast, because none of them have one canonically -- and now haughty weeaboos who consider themselves judge, jury, and executioner of canon are trying to take that fun away from modern fandom, and that sucks.

My inbox will always be open if you guys have any questions, and I will always be sure to explain where a detail came from and how actually applicable to the games it is. Don't be a stranger!