#and using someones preexisting knowledge to help them understand new concepts is a terrible idea

[thatnerdinthecorner]

you know what i make fun of tiktok a lot, bc most of the time it deserves it, but i think that a lot of people on tumblr could use some time on tiktok. a little bit of exposure.

the majority of tumblr users have been here a while and i know we all said that we wouldnt do the whole millenial vs gen z vs whatever comes next thing, but theres a whole lot of people on here taking things from tiktok out of context and going 'oh no look at the next generation, look how terrible' and then saying how awful tiktok is. and tiktok is awful. but its awful bc it harvests data, and is super addictive, and is fucking up the music and publishing industries, and not, i repeat not, bc the younger generation are just so terrible

yeah the whole goncharov rip off was boring and inauthentic and we all made fun of it, but the whole girl dinner and girl math thing. No.

girl dinner isnt promoting eating disorders. are there people with eating disorders that are using the girl dinner trend, yeah, but idk if you know this but any food related trend is going to have people with eating disorders jump on in there, and whilst there are definitely things we can do to mitigate the success of them spreading their gross diets and whatever the next fad laxative is, we shouldnt stop having fun with food just bc any food trend online can be done by people with eating disorders too.

girl dinner isnt some evil trad wife trend, its the exact opposite. women arent using the 'girl' in girl dinner to say la lala la laa look at me, im a little girly who only likes pink and not thinking, la dee da

they use it to say there are certain expectations that we have been taught women have to be beholden to, the idea of the perfect woman who can do it all, raise the kids, do the housework, have the full time job as well, but the kids and housework are full time jobs, and this is exhausting, and heres what i make for dinner when im too tired to cook a full meal, when living up to all the expectations is hard, bc im human, im not perfect, and if its not what a perfect adult woman would do then i guess im not, so heres me eating my girl dinner and i wont be ashamed of that, bc the patriarchy feeds on our shame, and if we arent ashamed of being the perfect woman under patriarchy, then at least in that way, it does not control us, if patriarchy is the panopticon then if we dont fear the watchman, we will never become our own watchman

ill admit, i know less about girl math, bc its popped up less for me (i think its a trend fewer people do, but it could just be the algorithm), but from what i can tell its basically just social/behavioural economics. it illustrates things like the sunk cost fallacy, eg. if ive already put money on an app to pay for my coffee then that coffee is 'free'. the people making those videos dont literally think their coffee it free, they're just saying it feels like its free, which it does, because of the sunk cost fallacy. thats not women being stupid, thats an actual theory in behavioral economics. i've also seen people talk about 'its cheaper to buy something else and get free shipping than to pay less but not get free shipping'. they don't literally think that, and its kind of insulting the amount of people there are seeing women make that joke and immediately assuming that they are too stupid to be joking.

[julystorms]

What if the Looker we met in ORAS was a Faller from the non-Mega Evolution timeline, just like Anabel?!

That was my original theory, but it’s very difficult to writeinto a comprehensive fiction. Suspension of disbelief can only take us so far,after all.

My original timeline was:

Looker is born in Red

Jumps to ORAS’s timeline

Then we have the events of Diamond/Pearl/Platinum

Black & White

X & Y

And finally Sun & Moon

I really love the idea of the global police agent on the S.S.Anne being Looker. So much so, in fact, that the long’fic I started in Decemberran with this theory.

But, uh, writing a history for Looker is more difficult than it sounds.

The two biggest things to consider when putting together thishistory are his amnesia and his career, because across all the games it isLooker’s career that defines him, not just because of his missions, butbecause, well, we only know him by his code name.

(Apologies, this got long.)

1.) Amnesia

Looker has amnesia in ORAS but that doesn’t mean he keeps it.The first thing to decide with him, regardless of whether or not he’s comefrom a different timeline, is: what’s up with his amnesia? Like Anabel’s it isretrograde, which means he’s only lost previous memories and has no troubleforming new ones. That said, does he get his old memories back or, like Anabel,does he at best remember just a few inconsequential details? Does he evenremember his name?

Anabel is the only other amnesiac person we’ve seen in-game; we’renever really made aware of what caused her amnesia in the first place, either.Lusamine, Guzma, the Sun/Moon protag: they were all in Ultra Space and didn’tlose their memories because of it, so is it a prolonged period there thatcaused her amnesia? Was it trauma? Or was a combination of both?

See, my original theory was that Looker was just like Anabel:the dimension shift/trauma he experienced was too much for his brain and henever regained his memories. Worse, he didn’t get his name back, either. Thisis why Anabel, who doesn’t go by a code name, calls him Looker: his code nameis literally all he has by way of a name. ORAS kind of hinted at this with thewhole amnesia thing/his code name being the only name we ever hear him referredto.

But…this brings with it a LOT of issues. First, it’s impossibleto guess whether or not Looker’s amnesia is permanent the way Anabel’s issuggested to be, but pretending it is, we have to consider suspension ofdisbelief: could he have worked closely with Anabel for at least a handful ofyears without her learning of his amnesia? Without her suspecting something wasoff about him? It’s possible he could keep a lid on it, but, I think, notwithout refusing to ever talk about his personal life, which makes me thinktheir working relationship would be, well, kind of…tense. (See also: personnelfiles, coworkers, et cetera; the truth would be bound to come out, even if it’snot something other people are supposed to mention. Like, let’s be real: twoamnesiacs working together is going to start a flurry of confused rumors withinInterpol.)

There is another option, of course—the only other one. We cangive him his memories back, which means he’ll remember his name, hisprofession, the names of people he thinks he works with. Not that it will dohim any good in another dimension, but he might know enough classifiedinformation (perhaps about Team Rocket) to make Interpol believe his claimshave some validity.

Which brings us to:

2.) Career

This isn’t a problem so much as something that has to beseriously considered. What are the chances that someone who was a global policeagent would become a faller and then, in another timeline, be recruited by whatis essentially the same organization? 

Okay, yes, before you can say it: I am aware that Interpolrecruits fallers. The original faller-bait woman is one example and Anabel isanother. Both were most assuredly unqualifiedfor recruitment and yet were recruited off the street with no credentials andno history. Cool.

But the problem with this happening to Looker, too, is that itgives him a very personal stake in this fallers-as-bait business.

And it also leads us tothe question: why isn’t Looker beingused as bait, then, if he’s a faller?

The obvious answer wouldbe, “Well, he just doesn’t carry enough energy on him,” which makes sense.Remember, the UB from 10 years ago went after his and Nanu’s team member—not Looker.However, as stated above, why would Interpol recruit him if he’s a defunctfaller and has no credentials or history?

Don’t worry—I’ll get toit.

Personally I feel that there are only so many options available for a basic history for Looker: either he is a faller or he is not; either he regains his memories or he does not.

In every instance, he will have lost his memory at least temporary due to [insert event here]. And in every instance he still ends up in the same situation: working for Interpol as a detective using the code name 100kr/Looker.

So here are the four options I think are most likely (and of course, if anyone has anything to add to these/any other combinations, I’d be happy to read them, so feel free to reblog & add to this):

#1: Looker is from another dimension; he doesn’t regain his memories and isrecruited SOLELY because he is a faller. 

This is the ONLY way to make permanent retrograde amnesiaLooker work, IMO. It’s possible he could remember a few inconsequential things butbecause he goes strictly by his code name, and has turned it into a real name(almost as if it started as a joke and then became real) it stands to reasonthat this version of Looker doesn’t actually know what his birth name was.

Consider the TVseries Get Smart. 99 always goes by 99; in fact, her real nameis never revealed and even after the two are married, Max continues to call her99. Max, however, is known interchangeably as Max and Agent 86 by pretty mucheveryone. As far as how this relates to Looker: Anabel only ever calls Lookerby his code name. (But she doesn’t seem to have one, herself...or at least, she doesn’t care to use it.)

In order for Interpol to decide to recruit Looker, he had to have something of value that they wanted/needed. In this case, it would be his status as a faller, so we have to assume that when he was found, the energy levels on him were high enough that Interpol recruited him despite his lack of credentials--in much the same way they recruited Anabel).

That said, we know thatduring the event “10 years ago” Looker and Nanu lost a teammate toGuzzlord. So if you’re going to assume Looker was recruited because of hisstatus as a faller, then you have to assume, too, that by the time the eventof “10 years ago” took place, the energy levels on him had fallen too lowto make him of any use.

This would suggest that between ORAS and this event of “tenyears ago” there is a gap of of time to allow those energy levels to drop into uselessness: a couple of years at least. This would imply that ORAS is at least 12/13 years before the events of Sun & Moon instead of the generally-assumed gap of 11ish years.

So thenthis timeline would look something like this:

Looker from Red ended up in ORAS with amnesia, was recruited byInterpol, lost his usefulness as a faller, but proved useful in other areas(due to years memory-muscle experience from another timeline that he doesn’t remember) andso kept his job.

#2: Looker is from another dimension; he is a faller, he does get his memory back, and he isrecruited by Interpol because he has experience. 

Looker’s status as a faller in this case is just a bonus; his energy levels were toolow to be of much use from the start. Because he got his memories back we can safely assume that unlike Anabel, he didn’tspend very much time in Ultra Space.

This allows him to kind of jump right back into working withouttoo much of a problem.

Regaining his memories means that he has useful information on his person. It might not be all 100% applicable/correct due to this dimension being a slightly different one, but surely some of it is useful—or at least gives his claims some immediate validity.

Not that he especially needs it. Interpol knows about fallers (after all, they find and recruit the woman who later dies on Poni Island), so they know there is a very high chance that Looker is telling the truth about his career in the other timeline. They would approach him regardless of whether or not he gets his memories back, but with his memories, they may very well want to recruit him solely for his preexistingskillset. 

This arrangement also allows for ORAS to take place closer to the “event of tenyears ago” but I’d probably put at least a year in between them for sanity’ssake (catching up on training, getting reacquainted with the world, getting into the swing of things at work).

Thistimeline would be:

Looker from Red ended up in ORAS with amnesia but recovered hismemories and investigated the situation he was in. He was able to join theInternational Police due to his skillset. As soon as the term “faller” was given to him along with a definition he was able to put two and two together. I think for sanity’s sake he would probably be made aware of this early on just because he would try to get in contact with his family ASAP and would fail spectacularly.

These aren’t terrible theories by any means, but they are prettycomplicated. I find the latter a bit easier to swallow, personally, since itdoesn’t stretch suspension of disbelief too far.

(Additionally, I’m pretty sure Generations wasgoing for the “officer on board the S.S. Anne” being Looker with the whole connection to Team Rocket thing, which, in a manner of speaking, helps support the theory that Looker is a faller.)

Anyway we have two smaller theories to consider:

#3: Looker is a faller who didn’t leave hisoriginal timeline.

This means he recovered his memories (probably, due to even lesstime in the wormhole/lack of timeline shift trauma), is a defunct faller with little to no wormhole energy onhim, and has his family/friends/job all waiting for him when he recovers from his ordeal.

This brings with it some huge advantages when it comes to writing something consistent, either fanfiction or RP. In this sort of situation, Looker is grounded in the world more firmly and has lifelong connections that keep him there. It also means that even though he’s been lying to Anabel about herself all these years...he hasn’t been lying about his own life...and hasn’t had a reason to keep anything personal from her, either.

He’s still a faller by definition, but he might not feel the same connection to Anabel that a faller-from-another-dimension version of Looker might feel. Anabel lost everything, after all, and Looker in this case would have only been temporarily inconvenienced.

This timeline would look like this:

Looker was born in the ORAS timeline, was pulled into a wormhole and spat back out again into the same timeline. He regained his memories after a short time and was able to carry on with his life almost as if nothing had even happened to him.

#4: Looker isn’t a faller at all; he was onlyin a bad accident on the S. S. Anne.

This could be split into two categories: one where he regains his memories and one where he does not, but I personally think it’s more interesting if he regains them.

The thing is, due to circumstance, it’s very likely that Looker himself mightsuspect he is a faller due to evidence that seems too obvious tojust be a coincidence. In reality, he isn’t actually a faller at all...just anInterpol agent who met with a bit of a bad time, probably on the S. S. Anne.

This theory is really simple, but it does have some potential for entertainment due to him mistaking himself for a faller.

The timeline is:

Looker was in a bad accident/met with a bad time on the S. S. Anne and washed up on the beach in Hoenn sans memories. He regained his memories, picked up with his life where he left off, but later ends up suspecting he’s a faller due to all of the similarities between his situation and Anabel’s.

No matter what theory I go with I’ll always choose onewhere Looker regains his memories because I don’t think two people sufferingfrom permanent retrograde amnesia could work together for as long as Looker and Anabel have without the truthcoming out—not without Looker having to go to extremes to keep her from putting the pieces together...which does not seem to canonically be the case. All things told, they act quite friendly around one another.

Currently #2 is my default go-to theory just because it works tolerably well (and I’d rather not piggyback on other people’s headcanons if I can help it). Plus there is a lot of room for Quality Angst™. Think about it: all these years Anabel probably felt incredibly alone but he’s gone through something similar and has been there the whole time unable to confide in her.

I can’t deny, though, that a part of me is like: isn’t itangsty enough that the last ten years Looker has known more about Anabel thanAnabel has? Isn’t it angsty enough that she’s been super promoted just to beused as fucking bait? That her position wasn’t honestly earned and she doesn’tknow it yet? That her bosses don’t give a SINGLE shit about her health? That Lookerhas to deceive some kid to get their help in protecting Anabel? That Looker hasto deceive ANABEL to recruit the kid in the first place and has to lie to her face when he’safraid she’ll die because Interpol didn’t give her anybody who could actuallyhelp???

Adding more onto it steps so close to overdramatic badfic territory that it makes it scary to think about writing. To work well, it would have to be incredibly well-written. Looker’s character would have to be well-established and remain so throughout the entire story, and all of the important questions would have to be addressed: for example, Looker remembers everything but has been separated from his family* whichbegs the question: what’s worse, knowing what you’re missing or being obliviousto it? Is this even comparable? 

*This could get really angsty, too. It’s bad enough to lose yourparents/siblings/grandparents/nephews/nieces but it’s also possible he wastaken away from a significant other and/or children as well. Not to mention all of his friendships, contacts, acquaintances. They all probably think he’s dead.

Too, Anabel’s writing is really important; and you might say, “but this post is really about Looker” and that’s true, but please don’t forget that Anabel, as a fellow faller, is incredibly important and a big part of Looker’s life. Regardless of how they view one another, they are on friendly terms and Looker goes way the hell out of his way to try to protect her; this implies a certain level of closeness. It’s not “how he treats everyone” either: the dude risks the life of an 11-year-old to act as PvP DPS peel-bait without even telling the kid that’s what they’re being recruited for. He’s a little ruthless about protecting her. They are close. They have to be for that kind of behavior to make any sense at all.

Anyway, Looker in the case of #2 at least remembers himself. Even separated from his family and friends, he knows what makes him him. This is not a luxury Anabel has been afforded in this timeline. She probably has a lot of self-image issues (among other things), and they need to be included if for no other reason than as a foil to Looker’s dilemma/situation/outlook. That said, it’s easy to fall into the trap of making Anabel’s entire personality about her amnesia, and that is a.) boring, and b.) pretty offensive to people who suffer from or have experienced memory issues/loss of any kind.

What I’m getting at here is that even though picking a theory is pretty easy, writing it seamlessly is not. The characters have to stay in character according to what we know of them, and their relationships to one another can’t suffer as a result of that attempt. 

Anyway, out of all four theories, I find #2 and #3 to be the most likely, followed by #4. #2/3/4 run less risk of Looker and Anabel both reading as exactly the same in writing, and IMO would give an author less trouble than the others. #1 could be fun but like I said, it brings with it a lot of issues with regards to writing Looker’s relationship to Anabel, and probably others, too (in particular Nanu).

I’m not about picking a route just because it’s easy, but I tried to make #1 work and it didn’t work for me personally; I stressed myself out trying to make it make sense.

In the end, I’ll probably always use #2 just because it’s been working pretty well for me. (I do realize my Looker blog kind of contradicts this in a thread but I was still feeling everything out when I got to that part, so consider that retconned if you happened to have read it lmao.)

The TL;DR version: I've been on board that train for a while and I agree it’s one of the more plausible theories.