#anyways not me coming up with the most batshit lore

[nxmelessfighter]

You can take a day off once in a while, Ookurikara (from yuichi!)

Even with the perpetual staffing issues, it's not like he was expected to work overtime. Their boss wasn't the type to force anyone to do so. Ookurikara only does this to himself. And the exhaustion must really be starting to show if Yuichi is taking note of it.

He could take a day off, he supposes, but what would he do with himself, then?

Maybe he should be concerned about the fact that he doesn't even know what to do outside of work.

Sleeping all day sounds tempting but he doesn't want to get used to such a luxury. When he had moved out of his hellhole of an apartment to a much nicer place, he had told himself he could make up for the increase in rent by working some extra hours. Those 'some' turned into at least two extra full time shifts a week.

Actually it's kind of funny how he's splitting the rent with his partner and still having to pay more than he used to, but that goes to show how horrible his living conditions were before. As if the building being poorly maintained wasn't bad enough, he had the feeling his neighbors were involved in a crime racket with the amount of shady-looking people in suits that would go in and out of the place. What business would anyone who could afford such a getup have in a dump like that?

That's all in the past now, thankfully, and Ookurikara is surprised he made it out of there alive given the occasional screaming he would hear next door.

If anything work kept him distracted from thinking too hard about those what-ifs. And the other what-ifs that have been eating away at him for the past 48 hours.

Mitsutada has been nothing but understanding when it came to what had happened that night and why Ookurikara had suddenly put some distance between them. But it wasn't just Ookurikara's newfounded irrational fear of the vampire getting too close to him that was making it impossible for him to look his partner in the eye. It was the comparatively rational fear of his partner deciding that Ookurikara was being too distant for his liking.

At least Ookurikara didn't have to think too much about his interactions with Yuichi. Maybe it's because they were somewhat similar and Yuichi had no reason to get into his space. If he had wanted to he would have done it already.

"I guess so…"

While he could take a day off, he gets the feeling if he does so he might spiral even further.

[yurozo]

resident evil — vape shop au

this overtakes restaurant au for the dumbest thing i've ever written. i work in a vape shop, and this has been a month-long conversation between the coworkers on what each resident evil character would smoke.

18+ only, because smoke stuff, don't do it kids. contains: carlos, leon, chris. please let me know if you want other characters, i am at your humble service.

as customers:

carlos: this man isn't much of a vaper, but he smokes weeds like nobody's business. every two weeks he comes in looking for a new bong (usually small, and needs to have some sort of cool decoration on it. if it has something pink, the man is handing over his credit card) because he keeps breaking his. either he drops them or one of his pets knocks it over. he also never goes through the process of cleaning them, which inevitably leaves jill the burden of having to buy bong cleaner for him in hopes that one day he will use it. it will collect dust with the rest of the bottles somewhere in his room, laying dormant on a shelf.

the employees are all horrendously down bad for him, mostly because he always comes right after the gym in muscle shirts and a tight pair of shorts. the whole work groupchat is filled with carlos smiled at me today, he wants me so bad.

not that it's necessarily their fault, he's annoyingly chivalrous and has a litany of pickup lines at the ready. you need a ladder to reach something? carlos is behind you and ready to grab it at a moments notice.

leon:

a firm man of routine-- buys the same flavour, same brand, every time without fail. peach blue razz, low puff count because he likes a small device. no, he does not want to try something new. you're wasting your time offering it to him. by the time a couple weeks roll around, you know exactly what to grab the moment he swings open the door.

he's embarrassed he's gotten into this whole thing honestly. hit luis' once after a stressful shift, and it was hook line and sinker. he calls them his shame vapes, and hides it in his sleeve so no one he works with will ever know.

god forbid if an employee ever flirts with him. he tried once to say something flirty back and got so embarrassed he didn't show up for two weeks, nicotine addiction be damned. if you can convince him into trying something new, he's not gonna tell you if he doesn't like it. he'll nod and walk out with his tail between his legs.

and honestly? he just kinda looks like a cop. younger people know to pull out their id when he's browsing, assuming he's undercover. ask him how his day is? he will respond "it's going." every single time.

chris:

tobacco flavoured vapes only. "what tastes most like a cigarette" type motherfucker. he'll try whatever cotton candy vape claire has, claims he hates it, and then take multiple puffs anyways. he really only got into it because claire claimed it was better for him than smoking a pack every day. he buys a vape and then proceeds to smoke a cigarette outside the store anyway.

his routine entirely depends on how stressed out he is, and this shop is both his nicotine hookup and his social outing for the week. it takes him a while to open up beyond the typical customer interaction, but once you get him out of his shell, there's no putting him back in it. bring up sports or something else he's interested in, and he's giving you a long lecture.

hitting on him will entirely depend on his mood and your approach. going in strong by complimenting his arms will only get a half-sheepish response, but gently nudging him into talking about himself is what will get you the full chris redfield experience. sometimes he forgets that these people live relatively normal lives, and will pull some batshit insane lore with the casualty of someone who has forgotten that most people have never even held a gun.

[until-another-one-comes]

On one hand, I’m excited for story mode. On the other hand, I just know there’s gonna be discourse amongst the fans because once they reveal how the characters are actually like, they’re gonna be mad because it won’t fit their headcanons, especially Francis. I’m positive that those Francis fans who simp over him for his looks are not gonna be happy that he’s not some dom daddy. If they reveal that Francis is just some regular guy, some batshit insane serial killer or some dubious guy, I just know they’re not gonna be happy. This applies to every character in the game. To be fair, the game doesn’t reveal much about the lore of their characters so they have nothing to build off of.

It’s kinda like in The Amazing Digital Circus where fans are upset that Jax is some asshole when it’s the entire point. Characters have flaws for a reason and it’s Nacho sama’s story.

Lately, I've been very hesitant to indulge in my headcanons and other intrepretations because I'm really worried I'd get too attached to something that will later turn out to be VASTLY different in canon. I already feel this way about Francis/Nacha and I confess- I'd be very very sad if Francis and Steven won't have any positive interactions at all in any future updates, even though theres NO obligation at all for Nacho-sama to have them interact.

Sorry I know that was off topic but I just wanted to get that off my chest.

Anyways- yeah, there might be discourse, but I don't think there would be too much of it because from what I've seen most people are chill, and I'm pretty sure most of them would just continue doing their own thing regardless of whether or not canon would debunk their headcanons or aus or intrepretations or whatever.

(sorry for repeating myself but if francis/nacha are canonly divorced and have a strained relationship I would simply plug my ears and close my eyes and carry on blissfully with my fantasy of them being in love. no. I refuse to accept that leave me be)

As for the Francis fans who simp for him hard, ehhhhhh I don't think they'd really care if he turns out to be just Some Guy (aka, my favorite version of him) cuz like, if they're already portraying him as a buff dom daddy or whatever I don't think any amount of canon story would stop them from continuing that WKDIFNJC.

And from what I've seen, there really isn't a really POPULAR headcanon among the fandom, everyone has their own intrepretation for every characters which lessens the chance of any serious discourse happening when we get story mode. The only really popular 'fanon' intrepretation I've seen is Angus being a Shady Guy.

So yeah TLDR: I understand your concern, but don't worry I'm sure the fandom would be chill with whatever Nacho-sama will come up for these characters. While I have my own headcanon and intrepretation I cherish dearly I'm open and willing to accept whatever story mode will bring to us. And if I don't, no big deal, I'll just stick to my own thing and I'm sure most people feel the same way. It's all good!

Sidenote: The only thing that would make me kind of upset if it turns out to be canon is if Izaack/Steven is a douchebag, but thats it.

[spiralstereo]

THE LONG AWAITED SUBSPACE LORE POST.... yes im insane i have all this lore to explain subspace's surname. i am batshit

anyways @luckyfailuregirl COME GET YO JUICE.... lore under the cut prepare yourselves

what if i told you guys that subspace was originally part of a 'family'? a cult? imagine a huge 'family' full of a bunch of demons with tripmine gears, & they all had the surname 't. mine'

so who's behind this cult? who leads it? allow me to introduce you to-

DUAL (short for dual subspace tripmine). yes the same dual that's the elder god of reality & destruction, the same dual that's glaive/iron lotus & mystic tide's biological parent. the same dual.

dual, upon their defeat by iron lotus, was imprisoned deep within the inpherno, in the deepest & most secure cell banland had. they were imprisoned for several thousand years, before they broke out, blasting through the ground & being the very reason there are layers to the inpherno

dual, enraged & upset from being imprisoned & defeated, essentially forgotten by the inphinity, & still pissy as hell from being defeated by their own child- came up with an absolutely terrible idea. if their children didnt love them, they'd start a new family. they'd create an army to reclaim their former glory

so they literally ripped a hole in reality, creating their 'own layer', their own little pocket dimension. this place is known as the place of no stars

the place of no stars is a gallery, a empty place where pieces & fragments of civilizations, worlds, & peoples that they've destroyed all float throughout the atmosphere like artifacts on display at a museum. trophies. a thick fog surrounds the endless tall grassy fields, barely concealing the horrors of this twisted world.

after miles & miles of endless plains, floating crumbled pieces of worlds, thick fog & cold winds, there is a manor that is home to this so called 'family'

there are many 't. mines', each one of them having a specific purpose that was picked carefully by dual themselves. their goal is to fulfill that purpose, to live up to expectations & nothing more. be nothing more then a mindless soldier

each t. mine is marked with a symbol, a magical & enchanted symbol on them-

this is the mark of the iron lotus. you might be confused on why dual didnt use their own special mark or make a new one, & the answer is because they dont care. they believe whatever glory their children have, is also their glory. they did it out of spite

so, as we know- subspace is not like that. so how did he become who he was?

subspace was a warped child, curious & adventurous. his goal was to assist his 'siblings', stay to the side & never be on the frontline. he wanted more though.

curiosity got the best of him one day as he slipped out one day, walking for miles & miles in the middle of the night, somehow escaping through the hole of this 'world', seeing the inpherno for the first time since spawn. he was amazed, curious, adventurous. he saw those great mountains in the distance & made it his goal to learn more about them

so he walked, & walked. for days, coming very close to death. upon his arrival- he was nearly killed, but he lived from the pity & mercy of one guard at the border. he was 'adopted' & welcomed into blackrock

being brainwashed & clueless, not knowing any better, he idolized...questionable people. he was never properly raised, never taught how to really be a person, & always left unsupervised- so he was ruined. he became a horrible person

he continued to idolize those terrible government officials, & continued to indulge in horrible acts, making him the man he is today. that seems to have worked out well for him though, seeing as how he's literally been adopted by the leader of blackrock herself

pulse actually took such interest into him because of his strange & unknown upbringing & backstory, that alongside his 'bright mind'. shes always wanted kids ok lol

ANYWAYSSSSS.....yeah. thats it. PLEASEEEEEEEEE send me asks... /nf

[amuseoffyre]

Hi AMOF. I just watched the first 3 episodes of S2 and I am going batshit for shirtless Stede and shirtless Swede. Also crying for Izzy 😭 I really hope he gets a redemption arc. Anyway, do you have any ideas about Hornigold's pig? I haven't picked up on any pig symbolism yet, maybe they just wanted an animal for the scene and a pig was available?

My meta brain is slowly inching back online beyond a state of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and I'm intrigued by the pig as well. There's a lot of symbolism bound up in pigs, so trying to tease out which element it is will be delicious :D

The one screaming out to me the most is the Circe section from The Odyssey. She famously turned men into pigs, but the reason I think there's illusions to that lore specifically is because she sends Odysseus to the land of the dead. Without this part of the journey, he would not be able to find his way home.

Ed's own journey mirrors Odysseus: he's become lost but within himself. In this land of the dead that he finds himself in, he also finds answers by wrestling with his subconscious in the shape of one of the formative influences of his life.

So much of Greek mythology features the story of people going to the underworld and being confronted with the ghosts and spirits of people who went before them. They often come with harsh lessons and a warning of the doom to come and for Ed, this is certainly the case. Hornighost overturns every one of the things he knows and hates about himself and makes him face them head on and I love it.

[creatively-cosmic]

Heyyy, it’s me again :)

Wanted to say that the Fire lore is indeed Fire. And dark. Jesus Christ Almighty is it dark and I love everything about it. (I wanna give Fire a hug now but I don’t know if he likes hugs from strangers-)

ANYWAY! I got curious again and I have more questions: about Blue this time. I hope this isn’t too much.

Okay, first question: Where did Blue get the scar on his neck?

Second: Does Blue hate Fire? Or is he just so angry at his unfair existence that he takes it out on the thing closest to/most important to Arceus that he can get his hands on? (I might be reading things wrong, but that’s the vibes I get from it.)

And Third: Would Blue really be happy to see (His?) Red if he came back, even though he’s completely batshit insane?

That’s all though! I hope this wasn’t annoying. Have a good day/afternoon/night!

Trust me when I say that not only are you no trouble at all, but getting questions about Missing Numbers has been the highlights of our days! We love getting to talk about this, and it's wonderful that people have shown care and interest. Your questions make us really happy and we're always more than happy to answer.

For starters, Fire is a giant teddy bear of a man. He doesn't mind hugs. In fact, I think he needs one.

As for Blue!

The scar on Blue's neck is one of the clearest signs of his... Anomaly? Corruption?

It's a design troupe we like to use, of some kind of subtle physical sign of a more metaphysical issue. For this scar on Blue, it's the source of his Glitched state. It's an entire piece of the story, how he ended up partially corrupted and how it works, but to keep it... Simple? Without getting into the mechanics of how it worked or the in-depth story of what happened, lest we're here all day?

The scar is from his first death. The event it's from is, essentially, the first time he and Fire went through their little murder-suicide death loop, spurred on by Leaf's demise. It's a point of no return: opening up the flesh, giving up his life, and letting the corruption seep in.

Does Blue hate Fire? It feels like a cop-out answer to say it's complicated, but it REALLY is. Not even he really knows how he feels.

He hates him, yet he loves him so. He can't comprehend him, but he's the only one who understands. He's so much greater than him, so high above. He's so much less than him, like dirt beneath his feet. He is his greatest equal, the only one he could look in the eye.

It isn't his fault. It's ALL his fault. He wants him here. He wants him gone. He can't imagine losing him. He wants him dead. He NEEDS him dead. He is NOTHING to him. He's his friend rival enemy savior punishment god damnation lover

everything.

Is he haunting Blue? Is Blue haunting him? Isn't it a cruel existence to be taunted by? The man who stole the name, the place, the identity of the only one he cared for. Is it betrayal to love him too? Who else could he come to love, but him? But he's seen it- how empty he is. Like everything he does is done because it's predestined. Surely, you'd think, it's meaningless as "Red" tries to extend warmth. Tries to show kindness. Tries to be a friend. Acts like Blue means something to him.

The warmth in those brown eyes shouldn't mean anything. Not when he's seen them so cold, so empty, in everything else he's done. Not when those eyes should have been the intense red Blue KNOWS he remembers from his childhood. It's all wrong.

It's not fair. That's the main thing, and you understood that much in your question. Save one thing- Blue doesn't know about Arceus. He has no idea who is responsible. No clue why this has happened, or what's happening. He's in the dark.

All that he knows is one night as a child, at his lowest moment, his best friend left him with a tangible promise.

And the next day he was gone. He doesn't know what happened.

And the world moved on.

And then there was the brown eyed kid. Him in every sense but so, absolutely and completely, wrong. And there's no explanation. No reason. Nothing. So who else could he possibly blame? Who else could that anger possibly be directed towards?

He tried to find anyone, anything, any way to justify it. In his rational mind, this must be something beyond their control. And he's so sweet. So gentle. So quiet. So kind. But with no way to see or even comprehend the higher powers at play, every sign can only point to him.

That imposter. That replacement. That bastard.

... That boy, the only one who chose to be his friend in spite of everything.

Does he hate him? Does he not? What else can I say? It's just... Complicated.

As for the Third question.

It's funny you ask. I have a bigger piece for this planned.

[condemnedtranscendant]

Could you please tell me about your of bloodline (the daughters of eve)? 👉👈 they sound so interesting!!

:O thank you for asking!

tw: for murder, toxic relationships, mental illness and vampire nonsense

i don't remember where exactly i got the name daughters of eve from, but it was from i believe a non-canonical biblical source?? they're not *literally* daughters of the biblical eve, but as eve = sin in some interpretations, it makes sense w the vampires of vtm lore. but they are all full blood sisters from the same parents.

there's seven sisters total, one put into each clan (just the primary ones in bloodlines). they were all turned on the exact same night at the exact same time (7pm). the event was not planned by any one or group, and none of the sisters were in the same location. some people think their coming is a sign of gehenna and that they all share the same soul, but whether you believe that is up to you. all of them are very different personality wise, and all have various levels of relevancy/power/influence.

meta wise, they represent each of my bloodlines playthroughs, so right now i only have two written out evas and entigone.

evas is the gangrel also known as the ugly german bitch because shes not afraid to look like "trash" (being fat, as i know personally, was NOT in, in 2005, but she dresses as she wants anyways and uses the term ugly to show she doesn't care what others think, i for one think shes hot) she will beat you over the head for talking shit. but shes also in general mean. so that's the bitch part. she has no problem or grief killing people. shes gangrel but down with the brujah. doesn't mind doing tasks/quests just because it gives her something to do and someone to beat up, but she doesn't like to be pushed around like a pawn. shes her own person and fights for her own cause, no one else is on her side, and anyone close to her she sees as temporary (whether they will betray or end up dead). evas probably the most sane out of all of them, and is the eldest sister of seven. also shes bi if you're interested. her ending was the brujah one.

entigone is batshit obviously being malkavain, but moreso than the typical malk. she had ocd before turning, and becoming malkavian turned that shit 100x worse. its very hard for her to sort out whats true and whats not. she is incredibly off putting to be around. she will attack randomly if she feels threatened (even if the person said nothing to her) and because of this she has the most masquerade violations out of any daughter of eve. also loses control when feeding and sometimes drains them without meaning too. big lesbian and trusts women too much, but never trusts any men. her hair is naturally curly, and meant to have greasy roots and matted ends (i use gerard way, amy winehouse, and britney spears for hair reference). she cant take care of herself physically. unphased by violence (the lollipop piece was meant to have a layer covered in blood from one of evas' kills, hence the surprised but not horrified expression) but is terrified of losing anyone she loves (heather is NOT leaving that fucking apartment shes probably locked in a goddamn cupboard if were being honest.) and lives in constant delusions, not being able to tell whats true from the malkavian voices and her ocd, and the x% of the time the voices are right. i haven't finished her playthrough but she was "fooled"* by ming xiao and that's her ending.

her name comes from the ancient greek figure antigone, who was present in oedipus rex. i haven't really figured out if she'll have any true connection to her namesake, their stories don't really cross very much other than i can read antigone's with the Eye Of OCD (only fellow crazies will get me here lol)

*"fooled" bcuz i really disliked they made the kuei jin evil and sneaky, it just felt kinda racist (and i love xiao) butttt i also like the idea of entigone following her ocd compulsions leading to her death like tragedy and comedy, (also since i suffer with ocd irl, and doing compulsions often leads to opposite results its sort of a cautionary tale, again like a greek tragedy)

i really wish i had more to this written out i'm sorry 😭 ill start posting stuff under the tag #daughters of eve when i come up with it from now on if you'd like to follow the story :}

[ralofofriverwoods]

4 8 and 19? :3

4. Movie of the year?

Tbh I really don't watch all that many movies, but I LOVED the fnaf movie! Best mix of batshit lore, genuine scares, and funny moments. Ironically would have made past me less scared of the animatronics lol. Also very glad I saw it in the theater, though I wish they'd put subtitles on ;-;

Evil dead rise was also REALLY good! A little gorier but I liked it a lot. Got to see this one in theaters too, tho it was a little loud for my taste. Well the music was anyways, the rest was good lol

8. Game of the year?

Overall? Skyrim. Jumped headfirst into it and I loved every minute. Haven't played it since the new update(gotta update all my mods...) But man. Top five games of all time for me!

Currently it's starbound, cos I really like building and it's nice to have a different game to play for when Skyrim isn't the vibe haha. Finally branching out into OCS with almost completely original stories for this one, which is very fun as well.

19. What r you excited for next year?

Ough so much stuff. I'm excited for lots of irl things that are more of a maybe, but online wise I'm very excited for the new games coming out, as well as older titles dropping in price. Hoping to get Jedi: survivor for 10$ or less either this Christmas or next, and light no fire is being worked on so hopefully that's coming out soon

Otherwise I'm very excited to get started on a comic or two, which is gonna have to wait till next year I think. Kinda cornered myself art wise lol, I've got a secret Santa and an actual painting to finish by Christmas, and then an art trade for someone on discord.

Ooh and I may be making an actual commission sheet some time next year?? Idk much yet but it's looking likely. Finally to the point where I'm happy enough with my art to sell it for money! So we'll see how that goes.

Also vv excited for my bday which is coming up soon. This also means even colder weather, which tbh is what I'm most excited for. Love me some cold weather

[puppet2611]

//from 5.12.23

hey.... im going a lil cray cray over lf x a5 crossover au.. (also 8:11 bcz im a loser for oc x canon :3)(still coping over this stomache) if i dont send smth in 5 minutes shoot me im going too cray cray/j

lf already kind of has ties to a5 since the entities still being alive and just kinda moving around but not really - maybe ill age up adam and oliver to use as background characters but whos knowss

not canon or anything just a silly little thought but erm. what if all 3 were connected via religion 😁 emilio, natalia, charlotte and isabella from lf already have religious backgrounds, 8:11 practically revolves around religion and a5 entities pretending to be angels could wreck some havoc on the damned basilica teehee,,, since im too silly with char.ai most of the characters mentioned already interacted w/ 8:11 bots to kinda get an idea of how everything would play out even if it was ooc... younger emilio and amelia def actually confided in francis while everyone else was at least a bit suspicious (minus isabella but uhmmm. lore reasons) idk abt the entities since i havent rlly worked on anything but their designs but maybe ill give them different abilities and only one of them knows francis' true intentions:3c

OH YEAH idk if ill ever tell him abt it but maybee i could throw in adams ocs too since bros absolutely batshit insane over 8:11 rn. i have screenshots of him being insanely gay over a french guy btw if anyone wanted to see/j ANYWAY ehheheee maybe felix and samuel knew the martin kids at some point :33 bunch of religiously traumatized kids meeting, what could happen??? (felix and emilio both stabbed their siblings at skme point 💀) ANYWAYS i think sam and samuel would get along not just because uhh similar names but idk since were kinda split between making sam a bitch or actually nice... oh and i never drew sam or amelia properly yet whoops a5 exploded my mind

btw abt the entity mfs id like to think most of them usually stay in human forms except for atlas whos kinda the socially awkward one whod rather stay as an animal so no one tries to talk to him lmfao

but hes also extra so anyone at the basilica sees a fucking bear with antlers and the fur pattern of a deer and gets jumpscared (they all get used to it later and only vistors get jumpscared) OH AND ABT THE OC X CANON STUFF. not rlly shipping i just dk what else to call it but tee hee maybe isabella and vittorino have mad beef because her dad died at the basilica not soon after vitto joined so shes mad sus 😁😁 but only to be a bitch bcz she finds him utterly disgusting. her cousin allen kills him bcz he kinda was suffering anyway and she actually helped plan it loll

everytime girl comes across the stupid hoe they always glare at each other or get in a fight... usually verbal bcz natalia would go rabid if vitto tried to hit bella ykyk

oh and since im trying to align the stories together a bunch of ages r gonna have to change... idk if emilio or oliver is gonna be the older one but there is no way in hell a priest is younger than someone still in school... but then again overthinker wont stop comparing emmy to felix so ion wanna make him too close to blondies age but then again again felix is like 50 now... ill probably make emmy 36 and amelia 41 ig. klaus has too many white hairs to only be 40 anyway/hj but then adams still older than klaus.... i mean ig i could just use the excuse that he dyes his hair since he already has highlights

this is a whole mess uhm.

im unoriginal asf so emilio and jericho can bond over being people pleasers and cupioromantic but their first and only ever crush was abusive 😁😁 (<- definitely not projecting) (i lied. jericho only ever gets with elio bcz of that one time on valentines day irl) (im normal i swear)

OH WHILE IM TALKUNG ABT EMILIO. BEFORE I FORGET

bro went from snarky rude ass hoe to the most pathetic bird known to man for silliness reasons/hj

bros insanely mentally unstable, has chronic pain and heart problems, trust problems and definitely either a drinking or smoking problem. hell he can even jack both of them if he wants/j uhm. but i decided to make him less of a mary sue with all the language stuff n shit. idk if i ever mentioned it but who cares its my channel grr/j anyways instead lf the grocery list of languages he can speak, he can only speak english, greek, and belarusian 👍 also asl but idk if youd count that as smth he can speak

still torturing his pathetic ahh but anywayss abt that one tobias/future emilio art. the snake he has was originally gonna be named mobius for his symbolism stuff (and a hi3 ref/silly) but maybee i might rename the snake fang or michael as in adams late husband because uhmmm. what if adam was like a father figure to him when they met and he at some point got him a snake 👍👍 (he wouldve gotten a rabbit but uhm. vitto symbolism. and bro is traumatized from the vittorino ais..)

that is all for neow bcz i need to go take medicine 😭

[cookinguptales]

I honestly think there are so many funnier plots they could have followed in Freddie that don’t have such disturbing implications — with the same outcome, Freddie leaving, which is where I always thought this episode would lead anyway! I’m upset about the wasted potential, devastated by what happened to Marwa, and disappointed by the fact that the writers seem to have sought out the most unpredictable, batshit storyline for shock value and, I presume, because they thought it would be funny (it largely doesn’t seem to have been received that way).

I personally would have liked to see Freddie as an ensemble episode like Gail was, as I think that would have enhanced the humour of another human entering the household — because yes, Guillermo is usually our human “in”, but he’s far from normal. In fact, he’s as weird and unhinged as the vampires, more so sometimes, which would have been hilarious to see in juxtaposition to Freddie’s brand of blandness and normality. And I also think it would have worked better for Guillermo’s relationship with Freddie to fall apart because of Guillermo’s pre-established character traits — his lying and manipulating, pettiness, and devotion to the vampires. Of course Nandor would have played a part, but didn’t the writers tease this season’s (now seemingly incoherent) arc for Guillermo as him having to choose between worlds after gaining some emotional distance in London? Where was that in Freddie, which would have been the perfect opportunity to explain how Guillermo actually spent the year?

And I mean, it would be hilarious for Freddie to meet Baby Colin Robinson one day, and then to bump into him the next day only to find he’s transformed into an adolescent overnight. They could have kept that plot point, and the humour of Guillermo and the vampires trying to explain that to Freddie would, to me, have been classic WWDITS from earlier seasons.

Sorry for this very long ask, and thank you for reading this far if you get here! I’m very much struggling to make sense of this episode, but your takes on it have been helpful so far. I hope you’re doing okay too, it’s never fun when a show you love messes up 💜

It's a long ask, but a welcome one! I do agree with pretty much everything here. This is really kind of where I thought they were going with the season, finally having Freddie show up and Guillermo being unable to keep up the charade, sort of like with what happened with his family. I thought it would be Guillermo's issues that would cause the problem here, not this hellscape of a storyline. That would've felt more organic and, like you said, honestly funnier.

Freddie was so bland (and I say this as a former anth/arch major) and that made Nandor and Guillermo falling for him for any reason other than transference and desperation respectively hard to swallow. But that blandness would have been excellent if he'd been there to show how unhinged Guillermo really is. If either Guillermo's real life (and his tendency to lie) had turned Freddie off or if Guillermo had been forced to choose between a life that's normal, if pablum, and the vampiric life he'd come to love... I think both of those would have been very natural and organic outcomes.

I can think of so many ways to scare Freddie off that would have been hilarious! Or exciting! Or at least interesting! If they really wanted to push the friction between Guillermo and Nandor, there are even so many ways to scare him off that Guillermo could have blamed Nandor for!

It could have been so good, and again, I really do wonder if there were Djinn-related late-stage rewrites for the show. I don't mean this as an excuse; I actually think it's pretty dumb if they did. I just can't get my head around how this episode even came to exist. I feel like my brain shies away from it every time I try to incorporate it into the existing lore, and I may just have to... idk... do my best to ignore it going forward...? Write a lot of fix-it fic? Fuck.

It's wild because I was talking to my parents and my dad specifically said that it felt like they were going for shock value over characterization, and my mom said that it was "a huge disconnect". I was surprised that even non-fandom people were saying that. In my mom's words, "dad and I were legit depressed by this episode." So idk, I really don't think this is gonna be received well by the wider audience.

All this is kind of what I was getting at with my vaguing yesterday... I think I'm most bummed about all the missed potential and the way that this retrospectively makes a lot of storylines just kind of dumb and weird and half-baked. It really felt like they were building to some things that just never coalesced. But if you don't use all those bricks to make a house, you just have a pile of dirty ol bricks. lmao. It's wild that this episode was so bad that it retroactively made the rest of the episodes worse.

God, I just can't get my head around how this episode happened. I was never expecting, like, some prestige drama level of character building but I was expecting more than this. Because damn, this show rarely misses! This was less a miss than a fucking bomb going off, though.

It definitely is a struggle when your favorite show does something fuckin dumb like this. It's hard to figure out where exactly to go from here other than just like... fully ignoring parts of canon. And I've never had to do that with WWDITS. I never thought I'd have to. I'm really pretty sad about that.

[smolfailure]

FUCK IT, DREAM SMP HOMESTUCK AU

but it's only half shitposts and there are actual Thoughts in there.

You don't need to have read the comic to understand because I tried not to spoil anything major, but it'd help if you knew basic stuff about classpects, SBURB and the hemospectrum.

disclaimer: i'm not a good pixel artist and this is my first actual sprites ever so please be kind to my weird pixels

The Kids:

Tommy

Fundy

Techno

Tubbo

tommy, tubbo and fundy one of the kids because they're the kids in dream smp canon (with fundy being son of wilbur)

techno's there because i want to make a dave strider reference (haha get it because techno's name is also da-- *gets shot) and also because they are both coolguys except instead of using irony, techno has adhd

The Trolls:

Wilbur Soohte (fuschia)

?????? Ehrret (violet)

J????? Shlatt (purple)

Nihacu Niikki (indigo)

Skeppy Diamon (cerulean)

Quacki Tthiey (teal)

Philza Myncra (jade)

Dreame Wastkn (lime disguising as olive)

George Notfou (gold)

Sapphe Nahfpe (bronze)

Badboy Haelow (burgundy)

don't come at me saying only females are allowed to be jades and fuschias; gender is fake and this is an au

more of the AU and the talksprites are under the cut:

Tommy

Lunar sway: Derse. Types in: Red

chaotic. the first person to be introduced.

when he gets introduced instead of the “Zoosmell Pooplord” bit, Tommy is initially going to be the name inputted but then backspaced it and decided that Tommyinnit was better and he was fuming until he’s named Tommy.

Gives me big Blood/Hope vibes. Blood because a lot of the conflict of the dream smp connected to someone breaking his trust or harming the things he cares about, Hope because a lot of the plot of the dream smp stems from Tommy starting shit based on his ideals and what he thinks is right.

the first to instigate fighting against the trolls

bbh contacts him once and tommy keeps cursing until he disconnects from frustration rip

wields Gunkind and his only strife weapon at the beginning is the Vlog gun. He has Gunkind as his strife specibus mainly because he looked up at schlatt and he imitates him.

Fundy

Lunar sway: Prospit. Types in: Orange

it was his idea to play SBURB but only through Dream.

he talks to dream the most among the other trolls fwt stans getcha juice this is the rosemary of the session

dream’s the one giving him exposition about the game so that’s how he knows how to play SBURB.

wilbur trolls fundy once and instantly adopts him.

“You’re my son.” “How does that even work??” “I was one of the people who created your universe. It’s basically the same thing.”

Fundy relents anyway.

Techno

Lunar sway: Derse. Types in: Pink

dave strider but dead-inside voice + rose lalonde english major vibes

he slices the text box when you try to name him "Dave " like in

techno gives me time player vibes (contantly on the move. his skyblock series, his “stays in the pit” monologue,) but also rage vibes (anarchy,  the “theseus” monologue, political alignment is Chaos) alas i am not sure what class

uses Tridentkind and claims "it came from god"

 it was dream, he accidentally transportalized one of wilbur’s weapon while he testing the transportalizer.

Tubbo

Lunar sway: Prospit. Types in: Green

the jade harley of this session. the only thing keeping them from going apeshit. where would they be without him.

but also jade harley in a sense that he seems nice and wholesome but also don’t fuck with them they can mess you up

Heart/Life vibes??? someone good at classpecting help

i put them in prospit bc of the "tubbo third eye" instead of tubbo having a sixth sense or smth, they see the future from the clouds of skaia when they sleep

wields Stress-relieverKind at some point

bonus: everyone’s actual hair colors

Ideas about the Trolls

no i haven’t done their sprites yet bc it would take so much time and i’m not even sure if people wanna see more of this au skjdkdsakdfkl,, but i have Design Ideas.

events of the dsmp revolution are just a FLARP session drawing parallels to how the homestuck trolls had a FLARP session that spoiler alert: destroyed friendships. dtrio, eret, will are involved. eret betrays will's faction and wilbur's still Bitter over that.

on the context of alternia (highbloods and lowbloods) lmanburg and dreamsmp have their roles SWAPPED.  the emancipation theme thing is completely gone since highbloods are in more power than the lowbloods (the dream team) . 

wilbur made a faction called l’manburg because he wants a place where he and his fellow highbloods could make drugs vibe.they take a piece of land that was owned by the dream team. in normal circumstances, they shouldve stood down because lowbloods aren't supposed to start shit with highbloods (especially a group of highbloods that has the alternian heir among them)  but dream turned it into an activism thing about lowblood rights. the story plays as close as possible without tommy or tubbo in it (which is pretty hard ik but this is the best can do).

like in the dreamsmp revolution, dream kinda let wilbur do what he wants but this time he has more reason to because he’s in a lower caste. dream really only fought back when wilbur announced that he’d be building lmanburg on their land and calling it theirs.

eret betrays wilbur by supporting the lowbloods and wilbur and co. technically won but only because he finally called the drones in, as a reference to how lmanburg absolutely got crushed by the dream team in the smp but technically won. l’manburg keeps the piece of land and the dream team scatter away to find a new home.

wilbur soot's a fuschia because a) he's in a position that has a lot of power, b) yknow how he wrote a song about squids and his thing with sally… yeah.

eret's a violet because nobility!! dream looks down on him because he's ambivalent on fighting for lowblood rights when he's in a power to do so "you just sit there, and you look pretty that's it"

also like eridan he has a minor aesthetic mutation (herobrine eyes) that won't classify him as a mutant.

jschlatt is purple because it makes sense thematically because of the gamzee parallels (a. substance abuse b. if you know what happens in act 6, you know this already but spoiler alert, he ruins the main protagonists' lives) also he's a funnyman he deserves the clown caste

 quackity's a teal because he’s a law student. moving on--

 ok but for real it also makes sense thematically because he's the one who wrote the thing that tricked schlatt into agreeing also he gets manipulated by schlatt which also draws parallels to certain events in the comic

skeppy and bbh are BEST FRIENDS despite being highblood and lowblood respectively. initially, skeppy just wanted to bother bbh but they grew to be good friends in time. y’know like how they actually becane friends :D

philza minecraft is a jade because dad friend. also works thematically, because spoiler alert he gets to murder a seadweller for going batshit crazy. 

he also god tiers early. he dies fighting his quick undead denizen (haha baby zombie) but the consorts of his land carry him to his quest bed because he’s treated them all so well.

dream was initially going to be another caste but then i realized that means i have to make his hoodie something other than green which is unacceptable so its a good thing the fact that he's a lime works out

dream was the one who thought of playing sgrub in the first place- initially only planned to have gogy, sap, and bbh in the session but then realized that they four won't be enough so he invited more into his session

he’s also the first to go godtier ez clap blind speedrun not sure what classpect tho

the only reason why dream avoided being culled at birth for being a limeblood is because his rng is That Good. he quickly picked up the fact that he’s not supposed to exist and masqueraded as an oliveblood and kept mostly to himself to avoid suspicion.

george is still colorblind but he has lazer eyes along with it instead. dream lives with him in the same hive since being a mutant means dream doesn’t get a lusus of his own (dnf fans getcha juice “and they were roommates”) 

despite living in the same hive, he never really figures out that dream is a limeblood. possibly because a) he’s colorblind and when he sees dream bleeding he just sees yellow b) he’s just that fucking oblivious and it’s so valid of him.

sapnap’s a bronzeblood mainly because i know he’s the instigator of the pet war with tommy also because i associate him with the color orang in my mind so bronze it is

that’s the end of this long-ass post!! if you have other ideas PLEASE i want to hear them. i don’t know the other streamers i mentioned in here very well so if you have ideas that would be fitting to them like with classpect or lunar sway that would be GREAT. 

the only thing i’m confident about in here are the kids’ lunar sways. i’m not an expert in classpects and homestuck lore so there’s that too!! i just wanted to make this post because adhd means that the idea wouldn’t shut up until i finished it. This initially started as a single shitpost edit of tommyinnit talksprite but then the hiveswap 2 trailer came out and that means i have to combine my two hyperfixations.

also i have ideas about potential quadrants but idk how much of that is breaking some streamers’ boundaries about shipping (even the non romantic quads such as kismesistude, morallegiance and auspisticism) so i decided not to include it.

edit: apparently people want more so i made a discord server as a place to brainstorm!! please pm me to join!

[mirrorgrets]

Teyvat, the twins, and the Archons: a theory

Hello today I will be explaining my genshin impact theory which is most likely right because I say so and I have an inflated ego

Note: I will be referring to the MC as traveler and the Leader of the Abyss Order as such or as the missing twin for neutrality’s sake. And also because I chose Lumine and I can’t bear to say Lumine is “evil”

Note after writing all of that: Actually, I’m wrong. Reading it made me realize how batshit off the rails it all sounds. But here it is anyways because it’s a funny theory.

Contains multiple spoilers for the entirety of the game (1.3 edition)

Part 1. Gnosticism, Archons, and Humanity

I think by now, most of us have heard of the Gnosticism theory. If you haven't heard of it, Gnosticism is the belief that humanity could be more than what we are at present because of the world we're in.

Gnosticism has many versions but the basic concept of it is that humans are stuck in a fake world where our full potential is locked away because of our belief in false gods. The true God is the creator of the true world and between us and him, are beings called Aeons. One Aeon who is called Sophia (meaning Wisdom) created a being who thought of himself as the One True God and created the physical world in his flawed image. Oh, and he gave seven beings rule over the world he created, who are called the Archons.

Under Gnosticism, humans are thought to be part physical, but also have a spiritual component in us that grants us divinity. But because the false god and archons actively work to make sure we never realize that there is divinity within us, we never reach our full potential.

Connecting this with genshin impact, the humans in Teyvat have access to visions that give them power, as well as a chance to attain godhood. However, they believe that it is a gift from Celestia instead of a thing any of them can attain themselves. In fact, they don't even know that if one "receives" a vision, they can become gods because it's a secret that only Archons are privy to. Venti says this himself at the end of the prologue section of the main storyline when we ask him about visions.

It seems like Celestia doesn’t want humans to ascend to godhood. If we pair this  with what we know from the Main Storyline trailer that Dainsleif narrates, it becomes clearer. He says that Celestia goads humans with their seven treasures, rewards for the worthy, the doorway to divinity. However, it seems like there is a warning for those who dare to try and ascend, as if they say that the throne in the sky is not for us even if we have the means to.

Doesn’t that seem to contradict the purpose of the vision? Yes, it is a means to help humans live in Teyvat, but why give out visions when the Archons know fully well that it could help them gain access to Celestia? Doesn't it then seem like visions are not gifts from the Archons but instead innate power that all humans possess?

Part 2. What are the twins + What is Dainsleif + What are they doing in Teyvat + the Genesis Pearl = A Loop

Most signs point to the idea that the twins are actually older than they look. It seems like Lumine and Aether landed in Teyvat at least 500 years ago during the cataclysmic event that wiped out Khaenri’ah.

Going back to the idea of Gnosticism, the true God sends out Messengers of Light to the false world to guide the humans to their full potential. And we see traveler helping their companions ascend further, reaching their fullest potentials when they “max out.”

Furthermore, it doesn’t seem like they’re human. During the 1.2 Dragonspine event, Albedo does tests on us, and though he doesn’t tell us his complete findings, he alludes that we are like him, created from a substance that is yet to be defined. This goes off from the theory that he’s a homunculus, created from chalk, purified soil, the building block of the world. Aside from that, after our fight with Childe, one of the dialogue options after he mentions the fact that traveler can use both anemo and geo, is that they’re slowly gaining back their true power.

And of course, when the twins first enter the world, they have actual wings which were stripped by the Unknown God. Doesn’t seem very human to me.

So, if the travelers are Messengers of Light, then why is that not their main goal? Based on the We Will Be Reunited trailer, when the Abyss Mage mentions the traveler to the missing twin, their face looks shocked, like they just remembered that they have a twin. There’s desperation in their steps when they rush to the cliff to see their twin again, like it’s been so long since they’ve seen their sibling who they literally forgot. I think that aside from stripping them of their power, the Unknown God also took away some of their memories.

So the missing twin might remember the actual purpose as to why they’re in Teyvat, but didn’t remember their sibling until recently, and traveler remembers their sibling but doesn’t remember the reason why they were in Teyvat in the first place (or they do but that isn’t their main concern since they’re putting their sibling first).

So how does Dainsleif relates to this particular segment? Well, in another version of Gnosticism, Aeons come in pairs. Sophia’s partner was Jesus. Now, in the Main Storyline trailer, Dainsleif alludes to a woman when at the very end of the video where he says “My memory has all but faded completely, but I will always remember, how she too loved these flowers.” The flowers are the flowers Lumine especially likes, the ones she adorns in her hair. A flimsy connection it may be, but a connection nonetheless.

Now, I’ve seen theories about Dainsleif being an older version of Aether, but that theory doesn’t hold water if you choose Lumine as your traveler or if you consider the fact that Dainsleif and Aether don’t share the same eye color. Yet, it’s not completely off. There are thirty Aeons in total, although this number can differ in other versions of Gnosticism.

Now, in Dainsleif’s quest, we immediately question this stranger as he is somehow omniscient, if we haven’t already questioned him with all his narration in the Collected Miscellany videos where he hints that he knows more than we do. I will say it now: I think that Dainsleif takes upon the role of Jesus.

I could be wrong. But I think I’m right. For now.

In another version of Gnosticism, Jesus goes to the false world and saves Sophia, as she forgets who she is, she forgets her divinity and is stuck there. If we follow the theory that Dainsleif is actually the second heir from the Gnostic Chorus teaser, and that he is searching for the Genesis Pearl. The Genesis Pearl symbolizes the beginning and purity that is incorruptible. This could be the essence of Sophia, the lost Aeon who incidentally created the false god.

Back to the Main Storyline trailer, Dainsleif says that the war has already begun, and that is just a continuation of past battles. We could take this in a sense that the conflict has reached its boiling point and that it was only because all these problems were left alone for too long. However, we could also consider the possibility that Dainsleif has lived through whatever the twins are going through right now because he is the first Messenger of Light to step foot in Teyvat.

We can also look into Dainsleif’s name, which is a Nordic name, actually written as Dáinsleif. This means Dain’s Legacy which is the sword of King Högni, which aided him in a never ending battle that went on until Ragnarok.

It seems like the twins are repeating a cycle that has already happened to Dainsleif and whoever the unknown woman who also likes the flowers the missing twin likes. All four of them are Aeons or Messengers of Light.

So who is that woman? I have no idea. It could the unknown god but that feels like a stretch. The unknown god might actually be the demiurge, the false god that created Teyvat and the seven Archons, and not Sophia herself. It could also be Paimon who might have some kind of relation to the unknown god, whether it be that she is the unknown god, or she is a being from Celestia. Either way, both feel like shaky theories.

But of course, Mihoyo is only taking inspiration from Gnosticism and several other sources which could lead them to take creative liberties when applying it to the game.

Part 3. The Abyss Order and Khaenri'ah: war crimes against humanity

Going back to my point about the twins’ original goal to why they went to Teyvat in the first place, let’s question why the missing twin joined forces with the Abyss Order and began to lead them to burn the throne of Celestia.

While we don't hear the missing twin mention Celestia in the We Will Be Reunited trailer, the only other time a throne is mentioned is in the Main Storyline trailer when Dainsleif mentions that Celestia does not want humans to ascend to take up a throne in the sky.

Back to the safety of the game's actual lore, we understand that Kaenri'ah is a godless nation that might have underwent a calamity that might have killed off most of its people since they were closer to understanding the truth, and were technologically advanced, compared to the other nations of Teyvat. An alchemist named Gold ultimately led to this cataclysm due to their greed for seeking erudition.

It is safe to assume that Celestia wiped out Khaenri'ah and all the technology they created. We could also assume that the people were all killed, yes, but it would be better to assume they were cursed instead. Into what though?

The hilichurls.

In the archive section of the game, under the books, there's quite a lot written about the hilichurls, thanks to Jacob Musk. The author describes the hilichurls to be drawn to old relics of the past, with even attempts to recreate it. Their way of lifestyle is even described, and it looks like they worship the element itself and not the Archons who represent it.

Doesn't it seem like the hilichurls have a connection with the ancient civilization of the past? Not to mention their strange connection to the elements in which shaman hilichurls (samachurls) can harness the elements without the use of a vision? If I am correct with my theory, then hilichurls were once citizens of the bygone Khaenri'ah who discovered they could harness the elements without an Archon's blessing that came in the form of a vision.

It doesn't feel too surprising considering that for monsters, hilichurls are quite smart. They even display human-like characteristics. In the game, we see them dancing, sleeping, just minding their own business in general. They have their own architecture and their own language. In the Hilichurl Cultural Customs book, we even discover that hilichurls are not as barbaric as they are made out to be as they have leaders who decide their policies and course of action. It's as if they have their own culture.

Ultimately, the hilichurls are part of the Abyss Order. The organization's main goal is to get undermine Celestia's rule, and at this point of this mess I call a theory, doesn't that make them stand in a position where nothing is painted as black and white as it seems. Yes, they do heinous things like steal, possibly murder, and set off a dragon on Mondstadt, but it looks like they're operating through a "the end justifies the means" kind of morality.

And the missing twin shares this sentiment. As they had seen what Celestia had done to Khaenriah 500 years ago before the beginning of the prologue, their desperation grows. Their war with destiny will not stop until Celestia falls because it is their ultimate mission. Traveler has taken up the safer side of this war, wherein they help the humans but the missing twin has taken up the side of fallen humans. This is why they're not evil per se; just going through questionable steps to achieve a righteous goal.

Part 4. Teyvat and its Archons

Based on all that, it seems like I’m painting the Archons to be the bad guys. I am. They wiped out an entire civilization on the basis that they might learn the truth of the world, and their uncanny closeness to Celestia.

But we like Venti and Zhongli, right? Of course we do! However, they were still complicit in the downfall of Khaenri'ah and the limitation of humanity in Teyvat.

To start, Venti had his gnosis was forcibly taken from him. He doesn't seem to mourn over that (although he could be hiding it) and it looks like he can still present himself in a godly manner as we see in Venti's quest when he revealed himself as Barbatos to Stanley. When we spend time with him under the tree of Vennessa, while he divulges the secrets of Celestia to us, he still seems to comply with them. This could be chalked up to the fact that ultimately, he is Mondstadt's Archon and also the weakest of the seven. We could also consider the fact that at the time of Khaneri’ah’s downfall, he was in Dragonspine with Dvalin, dealing with Durin.

With Zhongli, it becomes a bit more interesting. He gave away his gnosis under the agreement of a contract we do not know the details of. But why he did? Why not because of his regret as the geo Archon and of love? Zhongli once ruled over Guili Plains with another god named Guizhong, the god of dust. Guizhong loved their people but perished during the Archon War. He then moved their people to Liyue Harbor and in her place, began to love them. Although he is stilted with the way he deals with his people, we see that he cares. Over the years, he has grown soft and shed the persona of Morax, a god who dealt with war. He says this himself and it feels like his ability to care extends beyond that of Liyue. It's possible he gave up his gnosis because he understands what the Tsaritsa is doing and what she's fighting for.

The Tsaritsa is the cryo Archon and the god of love. However, according to Tartaglia, she had to harden herself to go through with her plan. But what is her plan but an act of love for humanity? Wiping out Khaenri'ah could've opened her eyes to the inherent cruelty of Celestia. The timeline makes sense because Venti said that 500 yers ago, he knew her well but now, not so much. It’s at that point she loses whatever loyalty she had for Celestia. She had to steel herself and begin her plans to overthrow Celestia, which involves taking the gnoses of the six other Archons to fight the false god and alleviate humans from the hell they are in. That is her way of showing her love to humanity.

Teyvat is only a false world. We have seen many instances of this being hinted at like when Katheryne of the Adventurer’s Guild says “rebooting” or “error” as if she is only a program, or when Scaramouche says that the sky and the stars are all fake. Even in the game, if you take a closer look at the stars, it feels fake, as if it is a dome that traps the humans in Teyvat. Even more unsettling, when going deeper within the Spiral Abyss, the more stars you see which could mean Teyvat is actually upside down and that go deeper within the Spiral Abyss, we are ascending closer to the true world.

What greater act of love could the Tsaritsa commit other than giving humanity the truth?

Part 5. In conclusion: none of this makes sense

To summarize my main points:

Genshin Impact takes a lot from the mythos of Gnosticism

Visions are not gifts from the Archons but an inherent power from humans that come from their own "divinity"

The twins and Dainsleif are related in some manner

The twins are repeating a cycle that Dainsleif has already been through

The twins are suffering some kind of memory loss

The twins are in Teyvat to help humans realize their power

Celestia is not heaven but more like hell

Teyvat is a false world

The Tsarita is actually good

The Abyss Order is a morally grey organization

Archons are bad

This could all be wrong as this is only a theory. But the connections I pointed out make a bit of sense. There’s still more lore to uncover as we’ve only unlocked two regions and the Pale Princess and the Six Pygmies only have one volume out so far (this book is important because an Abyss Mage says that there is a lie within it) so this could all be debunked when new regions are unlocked.

Still, it’s a pretty fun theory to believe in at the moment. Thank you for reading this mess I call a theory!

[sergeant-angels-trashcan]

Dean and Sam have to infiltrate the college in Scream Queens, go

oh jesus fuck how do you always do this to me??? this is INCREDIBLE there are 2 options of course: early seasons Sam and Dean and later seasons Sam and Dean 

Early Seasons Sam and Dean go undercover as students and rush the Dickie Dollar Scholars frat. Sam is like "I have done the College before, I know and understand the culture" and then promptly fails to be accepted by the Dickie Dollar Scholars. Dean, who was running a prison after being an inmate for a day, is wholeheartedly accepted by the Dickie Dollar Scholars despite actively hating golf. He and Boone are bone buddies. Dean and Chad collectively Do Not Understand Sexual or Gender Norms and they would absolutely have bro sex? It’s OKAY for them to have sex because neither of them are gay! It’s just two straight dudes going to pound town. Enjoying how absolutely ripped the other is. But it’s NOT GAY, Chanel. What, are you saying two dudes, two bros, two completely heterosexual guys can’t have sex with each other without is suddenly becoming a gay thing? That’s Not Cool, Chanel. What man doesn’t want to bone or get boned by his friend every once in a while? Are you saying men don’t want that, Chanel? Are you trying to say that my good buddy Dean Winchester isn’t a real man just because he likes to suck a dick every now and then? Well, then you must not think I’M a real man because guess what, Chanel? I like to suck a dick every now and then, too! That’s really small minded of you, Chanel. I don’t think I can date someone like that. 

Meanwhile literally everyone else is just. Staring. Grace is BEGGING you two to take a gender and sexuality studies class, oh my GOD. And Sadie!Chanel (i don’t remember their numbers!!!) is like, no, no, I totally get that. She pulls out her phone and starts googling stuff for Dean and Chad, Meanwhile Chanel is like, GOD, why is everyone so INTO sex, it’s like. Ugh. WhY! WHY AM I NOT JUST ALLOWED TO BE ARM CANDY! WHY MUST I CARE ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS AND ALSO SEX! Sadie!Chanel pokes her head up all “hey, wait, you don’t like sex? have you thought maybe you’re asexual?” “UH NO I’M NOT ASEXUAL I ABSOLUTELY HAVE A VAGINA” “that’s not what asexual means chanel”. and it’s a whole day of Let’s Learn Queer Vocabulary

Sam winds up friends with Zayday and Pete. He and Grace don’t trust one another at all. Chanel is constantly making remarks about how they are Too Tall. Chanel #3 becomes a hunter by the end of it.

I feel like there’s also a lil somthing something between Pete and Dean.

Dean Munch is constantly hitting on Sam.

Denise is constantly trying to teach the boys about self defense (which is hilarious) BUT she knows a lot of obscure lore and winds up doing some hunting of her own. She’s in the FBI later and runs into Sam and Dean on cases all the time and TOTALLY covers for them. She NEVER thinks they are right about what the monster is, but she’s always good at reading people. Also, with as much as Sam and Dean change their aliases, she does NOT ever remember their fake names. She’ll be like “look at these two big white boys, they have to do whatever I say because I’m their boss, ain’t that something? You! Tall one! Sasquatch, i don’t remember your name, go and get me a coffee. Bowlegs, what you laughing for? Don’t you have paperwork to do?” She makes them do paperwork, she thinks it’s only fair if they’re going to pretend to be FBI. Anyway, they love Denise. She’s the one who is like “Dean when are you going to admit you’re in love with that angel?” which prompts a Dean freakout and Sam conference calls Chanel #3 and Charlie to figure out how to talk Dean through his sexuality crisis

The OTHER option is Late Seasons where Sam and Dean go undercover as professors. Obviously it’s easier for Dean to be like, security or cooking with Sam stepping in for a philosophy/religion professor who got killed but I LOVE the idea of Professor Dean Winchester because you KNOW he would be that insane professor that everyone wants in on their classes and every single student is madly in love with him. He doesn’t really want his students to come to class so he tells insane batshit stories from his life experiences as they pertain to the topic of the day, but this OBVIOUSLY backfires and makes him the single most memed professor on campus. He also has a reputation for Big Mom Energy. He sends emails like “hey class, I got thrown into a minivan by a demon-possessed soccer mom so class is cancelled tomorrow. please make sure to do the discussion board questions and come to next class prepared to discuss the significance of cattle mutilations. xoxo Professor Winchester”. THE MAN DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO FORMAT PROFESSIONAL EMAILS, WHEN WOULD HE HAVE LEARNED THAT I ASK. He has snacks in his office ALL THE TIME and when he learns one of his students has a wheat allergy suddenly gluten free homemade snacks start appearing.

At some point Crowley stops by and everyone is like “??? is that Prof Winchester’s ex??” because OBVIOUSLY the guy who wears a trench coat and pops up at the most random times and stands super close to Dean is his HUSBAND (”who was that?” asks a student who sees Cas right before Dean’s office hours. “he’s an angel. he pulled me out of hell”. Prof Winchester is OBVIOUSLY a hopeless romantic!! who knew!!!)

meanwhile Sam is Losing His Shit. He keeps texting Eileen, Rowena, and Jody. Dean Munch will Not Stop Hitting On Him. 

I don’t know what the plot is, it’s mostly Shenanigans and soft bois in sweater vests. Claire might pose as a student. With Kevin and Jack. It’s just highkey chaos for them while Dean and Sam are being the most abnormally normal people they’ve ever been

[elevatorelevenhatesyou]

Outlast 2 Has Nothing In It

(Credit to PB Horror Gaming for screenshots, since I ain’t playing this shit.)

Spoilers or whatever. 

Outlast 2 is a viscerally unpleasant thing to behold, but that's the only point it has going for it as a horror game. The plot makes no sense, there's no theme, nothing is resolved, and the actions of the protagonist make no difference. Also, the gameplay is bad.

Let me get the gameplay thing out of the way since it's the flimsiest of my complaints in part because I haven't actually played the game myself. So I'll begin by qualifying that with the clarification that the gameplay LOOKS bad judging from the several let's plays I've watched of it, all three of which have involved an awful lot of "Where do I go!?" and "What do I do!?" and "I can't see shit!" coming from the hapless boob inflicting the game on themselves for me.

Everyone seems to get lost in this game. It was hard to get REALLY lost in Outlast 1 because it was highly linear and was mostly made of blank corridors. This complimented the design of having a night vision camera as your only source of vision, because having a night vision camera as your only source of vision sucks and you can't see shit, and having your only source of vision suck and you can't see shit is scary. The problem is that Outlast 2 has huge sprawling environments and enemies are everywhere. In Outlast 1 there were only a few places where something was chasing you and you had to find the one spot that would let you get away, like a vent or hole that Chris couldn't fit his fat ass through. Outlast 2 forgets to put light on the things you have to click on though so there's a lot of trial and error and death and frustration, which is usually not good for horror games and atmosphere and all that.

But anyway enough about the gameplay, let's complain about the shit that actually matters.

If you haven't played Outlast 2, here, read the plot synopsis from Wikipedia, it's a more pleasant experience than playing it.

The most important sentence in that synopsis, or rather, the ONLY important sentence, is: "Blake also finds a document revealing that the Murkoff Corporation is the cause for everyone's insanity due to an experimental mind control station hidden deep in the mountains, which is also responsible for the flashes of light."

This document can be missed, by the way, easily in fact. It's really out of the way, and not every player is interested in reading your long lore documents in the first place. This is a shame because that document is the only actual clue to the mystery in the entire game.

So what's really going on here, as explained in some supplementary material that is not part of Outlast 2 at all, as if this is somehow an okay thing to do, is that the Murkoff Corporation from Outlast 1 was doing some freaky experiments up in the mountains and they were microwaving the brains of everybody in a nearby village called Temple Gate for shits and giggles like you do when you're a typical giant evil corporation. Could this game be saying something about big evil corporations and their uncaring exploitation of unknowing citizens? (spoiler: no.) This results in everybody having apocalyptic hallucinations and going batshit bananas in addition to being Christians, and also causes women to believe they're pregnant for some reason.

The game begins when a girl escapes this place but then dies and this attracts the attention of an investigative journalist named Lynn and her husband Blake. They fly in on a helicopter but it crashes when Murkoff's big stupid microwave tower goes off. Protagonist cameraman Blake must then search for his missing wife through the forest and desert and cult village wasteland that is Arizona. As he explores he discovers that the leader of this cult commune habitually rapes all the women of his congregation. Could this game be saying something about supposedly morally upstanding religious people abusing their positions of power to prey on vulnerable people and children? (spoiler: no.) 

Throughout the game he has long hallucinations confronting his past in which he witnessed the death of his friend Jessica at the hands of your usual molesting Catholic priest. Could this mysterious past in which a young woman is molested by a priest have some dramatic connection to the current situation where a young woman is molested by a priest? (spoiler: no.)

Lynn gives birth to a phantom baby and then dies, the cult leader sees the baby who he thinks is the Antichrist so he kills himself, his big scary implacable executioner minion lady gets impaled by literally the wrath of God, the cult commit mass suicide because it's the apocalypse, and Blake walks out into the wilderness and gets lost in his hallucination memories of happy childhood times with pre-murder Jessica. The End? Yeah the end. Sure why not.

So, what the FUCK was the point of all that?

What The Fuck Was The Point Of: The Flashbacks

The flashbacks to Blake and Jessica at school don't lead to anything. There is no dramatic twist relationship between the past and the present. The cult leader doesn't turn out to be the priest who molested Jessica, Jessica doesn't turn out to have been related to the Heretic leader, the catholic school they went to didn't turn out to be run by Murkoff Corporation, nothing. These two events are entirely unrelated. Blake doesn't learn anything or go through any character arcs because of the truth that Jessica was murdered rather than killing herself. This doesn't help him at all in the present. It doesn't affect the present situation at all. There aren't even any thematic parallels. An abusive priest/music teacher at this catholic school is molesting a young girl, and this village is being driven insane by a giant mind control radio tower as part of an experiment by an evil mega corporation and this results in an investigative journalist being kidnapped. They don't even have "Religion is bad" as a message in common, because the religion isn't the problem with Temple Gate, the problem is an evil mega corporation is beaming them all crazy.

What The Fuck Was The Point Of: The Cult

Crazy religious cult stuff is just the aesthetic, it's not even the point! There's PLENTY to be said about real world religion being a bad thing. Faith is the perfect system for protecting lies. Organized religion is rife with abuse and terrible regressive politics and ideals. Indoctrination of children is unethical. Outlast 2 doesn't care about that shit, it just has scary christians as a backdrop for the style points. They're just here. The cult has no plans or objectives, they're all just crazy people. They believe that Lynn is the mother of the apocalypse, but they're just wrong. She is, in fact, not that. If you didn't know anything about the previous game and assumed that in Outlast 2 there really was some apocalyptic shit going down, maybe some of this would have had some stakes. Although then the message would have been something about don't let your wife be the mother of the apocalypse? Uhkay. 

The more you know about the plot, the less important everything the cult is doing gets. Good writing, that. This is just a stupid backward murder cult doing stupid backward murder cult shit. This wouldn't in itself be a bad thing necessarily; after all being stuck in the midst of a stupid backward murder cult is a fine enough setting for a hectic tense escape from danger type horror survival game. But the cult has nothing to do with any of the characters. I don't give a shit about Blake or Lynn, who the fuck even are they? No one ever draws any lines between the freaky beliefs and practices of the cult to the main characters. The cult and the heretics aren't dark reflections of Blake and Lynn's personality flaws, or reminders of their past traumas in their own undoubtedly fucked up religious upbringings, and even if they were neither Blake nor Lynn overcome those traumas in the story, or even tragically fail to overcome those traumas, because the story isn't even about that.

What The Fuck Was The Point Of: Blake

Blake's actions don't lead to anything. His only objective is to rescue Lynn, which he repeatedly fails to do, and ultimately fails completely because she dies. He almost gets to her in the cult village, but the Heretics get to her first. Blake then goes to the mines where the Heretics are, but the cultists invade and get to her first. Blake doesn't defeat the Heretics, the cultists kill them. Blake doesn't defeat the cultists, they all commit suicide. Blake doesn't defeat the molesty priest from his past, apparently Jessica's death was reported as a suicide and Blake kept quiet about it all these years. Blake doesn't defeat Marta the executioner lady, she just randomly gets stabbed by a falling cross statue in a thunderstorm. Wow, lucky. Everything Blake does is meaningless and nothing would be different if he'd died in the helicopter crash. In fact, everything he does is DOUBLY meaningless because whether he succeeded or failed in rescuing Lynn all of that would have accomplished fuck all to do with the radio towers that were ACTUALLY causing the problem!

What The Fuck Was The Point Of: Val's Gender

So here's just a thing on the side that also bugs me. The Heretics are led by a supremely creepy weirdo named Val. Val is androgenous and makes a lot of inappropriate sexual advances on Blake. In the messy doom orgy scene, Val is covered with mud but otherwise nude and appears to have breasts and a vagina, though the Outlast Wiki says there's also "a small, mutilated penis shape" under there somewhere. Yeah I’ll take your word for it. Knoth the cult leader calls Val a He. When asked what Val's gender is on Twitter, the developers responded with "Val is Val." 

So, this game has a transwoman character, and they decided to make that transwoman a rapey psycho death cult leader who's trying to end the world. Outstanding. Outstanding 2.

Yeah I'm pretty sure Val's gender was added to make this character creepier, like how the guys who made Sherlock wanted Jim Moriarty to be totally crazy and weird and unsettling and then they just made him really gay coded. Representation!

What The Fuck Was The Point Of: Lynn

While I'm complaining about feminazi jsw hashtagwoke politicalcorrectness gonemad chalupasupreme gendercommunism, I'm also not a big fan of how Lynn is the instigator of the misfortune by being the one who wanted to come out here to Temple Gate in the first place, and then she gets kidnapped, accused of being the mother of the Antichrist, kidnapped again, worshipped for being the mother of the Antichrist, kidnapped a third time, rescued, then gives birth to the Antichrist, then dies. Yeah that's a real strong female character you've got there, Outlast 2. Her one act of agency happens before the game begins, she's a determined and courageous woman with a heroic career in investigative journalism, and then she is repeatedly brutalized and repeatedly kidnapped, because she's allegedly going to give birth to something bad, all so that she can be the objective of the player character. We don't even get much of a handle on her personality or anything. She's just Your Wife What You Need To Rescue.

What The Fuck Was The Point Of: Outlast 2

There's a lot of gore and gross imagery that makes for good TV when the letsplayer gets really uncomfortable watching Lynn bloodily give birth right into the camera. And that's about it.

The gameplay is bad. You run in terror but after you die for the eleventh time you stop running in terror and instead start running in frustration. Outlast 2 fails as a game, and it fails as horror. The plot makes no sense. It literally requires supplementary material to explain what the fuck was happening. Outlast 2 fails as a mystery because there is no answer. The narrative goes nowhere, nothing matters, nothing is resolved. The wife dies, the protagonist goes catatonic, the bad guys commit suicide or are slain by deus ex machina. The flashbacks to school don't lead to anything and have nothing to do with any of the other events. Outlast 2 fails as a story.

What even, how? Why? Was this made by Weird Christians like Zoo Race? Do they just have motives and thinking patterns that are completely alien to me? Or was it made by multiple teams who weren't working with each other very well and were receiving instructions from someone else with bad ideas like a marketing idiot or dumb executive? Or was it just written by idiots who think themes are for eighth grade book reports? Iunno, no accusations or anything, I haven't researched the devs, I haven't even given them recognition enough to learn what the company is called.

And yet despite Outlast 2 being a shitty pointless gross-out haunted house popcorn ride of a game with nothing to say, it made a bunch of money and tons of people seem to like it for some reason, so I'm sure we'll be getting lots of people trying to emulate it in the future. Outlast 2 fails at being a failure and removing its stink from the gene pool.

Somebody come clean this mess up.

[zevzevarainai]

Hey! You ever end up doing essay on the kazumaji gifs? (I'm highly interested because it's always majima o' clock where I live)

it’s always majima o’clock here too; maybe we live in the same area... but lmao i didnt write the essay on my kazumaji gifs because i didnt think anyone would want to hear it so i meant it more as a per request kind of deal. and you’re requesting. I want you to know you did this to yourself, my friend

below the read more for everyone’s well being. welcome to my first official majima analysis essay

ok so in those tags i said something like majima is softest with kiryu because it is absolutely the truth (unless you count makoto, which i love them too, but majima has moved on or at least is making an effort to. and that was pre-tacky snake skin jacket and pre-mad dog persona.) 

the prompt for the gifset was “maybe something about majima being stupid and unhinged but like, in a sweet way” and the whole point of this rambling is that kiryu is really the only one we see who causes the mad-dog persona to slip. kiryu says he can never get a read on majima but just because he is unpredictable doesn’t mean he doesn’t understand that he isn’t just batshit crazy. he trusts majima, and finds comfort in his lack of predictability, keeping kiryu’s life exciting and providing distraction from the insane amount of tragic shit that happens to kiryu. and majima has a similar experience of idolizing the yakuza lifestyle as teens/young adults only to have the yakuza drag them through hell. But this is supposed to be about Majima.

ANYWAY what GETS ME is again that mad-dog vibe slipping around kiryu. the only time we really only see it again is with Saejima when he comes back from jail. i’m gonna talk about that later too. LET’s GET TO THE GIFS i’m going in chronological order not the order i put them in

1)

Ok so as an audience, we don’t really know what happened between Kiryu and Majima between Yakuza Zero and Yakuza/Yakuza Kiwami. Yes, we get that tiny ending scene of Majima going KIRYU-CHAN for the first time and Kiryu smiling at him. But we are given nothing as to how they met or why Majima started calling him Kiryu-chan. It is left completely to the audience’s interpretation. Because then it goes straight to the first scene with Majima in Yakuza/Yakuza Kiwami after Kiryu gets out of jail. It implies that they already knew each other, and arguably that they were somewhat close -- close enough for Majima to “miss him.” (What was majima doing for those 10 years, i don’t know, but he clearly wasn’t in a great place, missing both kiryu, makoto, and saejima, we ignore y5 lore in this household or make up shit to fill in the giant gaps) You could argue that Majima missing Kiryu is just Majima being “crazy haha woah” but his character is so much deeper than that, and it’s proven in this gif’s scene. Yes he is fighting Kiryu with all his men. But if you are reading this you understand that them fighting physically all the time is a secret love language. They never intend to severely hurt each other. Fighting is how they know that they have an equal, someone else who was modeled into a weapon because of the Tojo Clan.

And yes, “He belongs to me!” is an extremely gay thing to say. He doesn’t even need to say that, though. One of his men didn’t understand that he doesn’t actually want to hurt Kiryu. The guy picked up Majima’s knife and tried to actually hurt Kiryu. Majima willingly gets stabbed so Kiryu doesn’t get hurt. That’s a handful of gay subtext right there. Majima’s first scene in y1 is about how the world is a horrible, shitty place that will chew you up and spit you out if you care. Then he goes and gets stabbed. Self-sacrificially. He cares about Kiryu, even if it hurts. 

2)

This one isn’t as deep. It stems of the same concept of them fighting each other as equals. Majima explicitly says more than once that strength is the most admirable trait, Goromi says that it only matters that a man is strong. Kiryu is the only person who presents a challenge to him. He admires him. 

3)

(As a disclaimer, I know a lot of people are uncomfortable with Goromi. I’ve also seen a lot of non-binary, gender-fluid, etc. people project on Goromi and Majima, and I feel like that can only be a good thing. Obviously they deserve more and more quality representation. I think the people who dislike Goromi are valid as well, but for the sake of this argument we are going to see Goromi as the people who project on her do and I’m going to use she/her pronouns when talking about Goromi.)

Regardless on your stance on this whole little side quest, the player has the choice to go along with Goromi which creates actually a lot of subtle connecting between the two of them. Even in just talking to her, we see the mad-dog mask slip. She talks about how much she cared about the girls at Club Shine and wonders how they’re doing. Literally says “all part of my tragic-ass backstory.” And Kiryu sympathizes with it. Says he sees through the “i hated it” bullshit and sees Majima/Goromi’s true self, which is that the cabaret job was hard for Majima because he cared about the women and didn’t like using them as a source of income and knew it would be his fault if they got hurt. 

Also, Goromi says that "When I’m with a guy, it’s all about if I’m having enough fun. That’s why he’s gotta be strong.” Sound like someone we know? Someone who we are talking about in the last gif with i-just-got-the-shit-beat-out-of-me-and-it-was-awesome bliss on his face?

Anyway, the scene in the gif is near the end of the session. Kiryu is talking about how he’s been in prison for 10 years, and Goromi says that now that he’s out he should try to relax and and a little fun. Arguably, “since you’re so lonely right now, I’m gonna give ya a hand!” is most of Majima’s role in YK1. Kiryu gets out of prison. Majima wants to fight him all the time and says it’s because he’s gone soft and needs to train. Majima Everywhere presents excitement in his life when everything else is hard and shitty and traumatizing. Yes, Majima kidnapped Haruka. But there isn’t a lot of info on that. Majima says he did it so they could fight but it very likely could have been an order from the Tojo Clan or even Nishiki. Until he develops a bond with Haruka, Majima is, in a way, all he has. Nishiki is mean now. Yumi is ???. Kazama is i don’t even remember but he certainly isn’t any emotional support. He’s lonely. Majima is the only person he has from before prison, and quite possibly the only person who understands what he is going through. 

4)

YK2, Kiryu has yeeted out of Majima’s life as Kiryu does, but he’s trying to protect haruka so I’ll let it slide. And what does Majima do now that Kiryu’s not there? Leaves the Tojo Clan. Yes it’s because he doesn’t like the 5th chairman’s style and to make up for Kawamura, but the point is he’s bored. The use of “MY Kiryu-chan” is obviously written there because “haha majima he’s crazyyy” but come on. Majima left the Tojo Clan after Kiryu stepped down as the 4th chairman. Because he was bored. Because he couldn’t trust his own men. The only person he considered an equal just wasn’t there anymore and he found it difficult to adjust. (That’s YEARNING, fellas)

So yes, HIS Kiryu-chan came home, but what is home in this context? It clearly isn’t the tojo clan, so I guess it could be Kamurocho in general. But if the clan doesn’t make it home, what does make it home? Perhaps a certain triangle shaped man??

5)

Oh boy silly Majima wants to fight Kiryu again hahaha weeeeeeeee NO listen, LISTEN, he does want to fight kiryu again, because 1) the man has been bored for a year 2) FIGHTING IS THEIR LOVE LANGUAGE 3) Majima is once again surprising Kiryu in a world where nothing surprises him anymore, where kiryu expects people to be vile and only want him for gain. Every single goddamn game it’s “Kiryu plz save the Tojo Clan plz” and Kiryu NEVER gets anything in return unless you count, i don’t know, Daigo and Haruka’s safety? But Majima doesn’t give a shit about any of that. Majima is one of the only people who consistently does things for Kiryu (even if they’re presented in an abnormal way). Majima is really the only one who makes sacrifices for Kiryu. But this fight, it kicks off YK2 of “hey, i missed you but i won’t admit it because we’re manly yakuza, please let me try to make you smile.”

6)

THE kazumaji scene. Going off of Majima being the only one to make sacrifices for Kiryu, here’s a perfect example. Majima first aids the Tojo Clan which he swore to leave literally only because Kiryu asked him to. Then, here, he get beaten within an inch of his life because he promised Kiryu he would protect Kamurocho from Ryuji. Majima does not give a shit about the Tojo Clan at this point. Yes, Majima LOVEEESSSS beating people up, but he’s fatally wounded. This is not a Majima who would die for the Tojo Clan. This is a Majima willing to die for Kiryu. After warning Kiryu about being to trusting, too.

And of course, we get the Majima collapsing on the pavement and Kiryu rushing in to CRADLE him in his arms like a damn fanfic. You’ve even got the “I did it for you” which everyone knows is basically an “I love you.” Look at Majima’s face in the gif. Bless the Kiwami 2 graphics, first of all. He’s looking at Kiryu like he wants him to be the last thing he sees, like he wants him to know that he’s going out for Kiryu, that despite the fact that he’s about to cough up blood he needs Kiryu to have the information he needs to save the clan and Kamurocho. He’s telling Kiryu all this with labored breath because he promised. Kiryu “One-Expression” Kazuma is viably worried as hell, the little nod in the gif kills me because Kiryu needs him to know he’s touched and he’s so grateful. The only reason Kiryu left him was because there was danger elsewhere and he trusts Kaoru enough to take care of him. (Side note: I love Kaoru Sayama, but I still feel like she’s good enough a character on her own and doesn’t need to be a romantic interest for Kiryu. Like it was like oh... she’s Girl so she needs to fall for the Big Strong Male Protag.... If Majima was a cis girl they would have made out in this game, maybe even y1.) 

7) Speaking of sacrifices, Yakuza 3, the game where Majima literally joined the Tojo Clan again because Kiryu wanted him to protect Daigo. That’s a huge lifestyle change, Majima.

Yes, this scene is funny because Majima is riding in a Barbie-ass truck like a 15 year old driving on a learner’s permit in a downpour (yet proves he can drive stick seconds later) and thinks he hit Kiryu while he purposely hit everyone else. Look, Majima needs this ok y3 he looks like he’s been crying since kiryu left no one No One is going to hurt Kiryu now

That truck is likely stolen, he’s driving erratically as fast as he can because Kiryu is in danger, how did he even know that Kiryu was in danger is it like some kind of 6th sense... If you didn’t already know, I would take a bullet for Majima’s voice actor; his delivery of “Kiryu-chan! Where are you?!” could have just been like haha oops kiryu did i hit you ;3 but instead it’s this raw cry of genuine panic, like did his actions get kiryu hurt, Majima could not live with himself if he was the reason Kiryu got fatally hurt

8) Ok I’ve hinted at the fact that I have beef with the Hot Mess that is yakuza 5, wasn’t huge on Y4 and Y6 was fine but it was heavily based on the events of Y5. In my head I’ve got an entire fix-it fanfic in which Majima yeets out to Okinawa with Kiryu after Y3 I could write that upon request too ANYWAY here’s another sacrificial majima...

Despite not caring for Y5, THIS SCENE is RAW. Maybe he’s not super “unhinged” in this scene but it’s just so much. Majima, who Kiryu brokedown in his taxi bc he thought he got killed (because Kiryu made him stay in the tojo clan haha we’re out here crying), chooses Kiryu over Saejima. Saejima, Majima’s oath brother, Saejima. We love Saejima, Majima loves Saejima, but 25 years is a long ass time. Majima changed. Saejima changed. For awhile he had Makoto, but then Kiryu was all Majima had for a good chunk of Saejima’s time in prison. This is the man Majima got his eye stabbed out for defending. But the BaD GuYs that arent memorable enough for me to even look up the names of are like look, we want to watch the world burn because we are Bad Guys, so either you are going to fight your brother to the death or we are going to snipe Kiryu’s daughter in the fucking head. Obviously he doesn’t know that Baba is going to betray them, so he has to pick between Saejima and Haruka. He chooses to potentially kill Saejima for Kiryu’s happiness. I’m sure if things didn’t change, Majima would have held back and let Saejima kill him. Majima would rather die than see Kiryu in pain. Majima would rather kill Saejima/let Saejima kill him than let Haruka die. If that’s not a giant declaration of unconditional love and devotion, I don’t know what else to tell you.

Anyway, thanks so much for indulging me and listening to my yakuza opinions if you made it this far you the mvp :’’’’)

[metalrequiem]

having trouble remembering what type is strong against what? look no further!

its always easier to remember things when you know WHY, wouldn’t you agree? so here’s my method of remembering the type advantages, just for you. i do so hope it helps :)

bug > grass : this is the reason why your tomato plant never gives you more than two tomatoes come harvest time.

bug > dark : one time, when i was like six or something, i was wandering around the college my dad worked at (as the head of the it department) with him because he had to do something in one of the tech closets. it was just wires and computers super disorganized; ran the network or something idk i was six. anyway the floor was like, black when we opened the door, but then when he turned on the light it turned fucking white as the carpet of roaches just fucking scattered. i forgot where i was going with this.

bug > psychic : bugs are one of the three most common fears. this will come up again. guess how many times.

dark > ghost : ghost summoning is dark magic (think warlocks). considering they’re the one who summoned it, the dark sorcerer would obviously be more powerful than the ghost.

dark > psychic : once again; dark is one of the most common fears.

dragon > dragon : trust nobody, not even yourself.

electric > flying : the only thing worse than being zapped and paralyzed is being zapped and paralyzed 20 feet up in the air.

electric > water : i mean, this one’s pretty obvious. water + electricity = bad time. (actually, fun fact, distilled water doesn’t conduct electricity - it’s the stuff typically in the water that makes it conductive. i think.)

fairy > fighting : wizards are just inherently more powerful than fighters, i guess. keep that in mind next time you play 5e.

fairy > dark : My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Season 1; Episodes 1 & 2

fairy > dragon : i’m pretty sure this was the reason they made fairy type a thing in the first place? anyway, the knight slaying the dragon to save the princess is like, THE classic fairy tale trope.

fighting > dark : so google tells me that this is a good vs evil thing, where dark is “fighting dirty” (which makes sense considering the moves like nasty plot, sucker punch, etc), and the advantage is that fighting dirty doesn’t mean you’ll win, it actually means you’re more likely to lose. or whatever. fighters are better than rogues is the explanation, actually.

fighting > normal : go ask a black belt to fist fight you. i dare you.

fighting > ice : strong man punch through ice block.

fighting > rock : strong man punch through rock.

fighting > steel : [visibly distressed] s... strong... strong man punch through... steel???

fire > bug : you know how a bunch of kids have that weird part of their lives where they think using a magnifying glass to set a bug on fire with the power of the sun is the neatest shit?

fire > grass : i mean, duh. the more specific example that usually comes to mind for me though is wildfires in like, the savannah. or australia.

fire > ice : fire melts ice. i seen’t it with my own two eyes.

fire > steel : jet fuel can, in fact, melt steel beams.

flying > bug : i mean, bugs do compose most birds’ diets. except for the bearded vulture. that motherfucker eats bones.

flying > fighting : have you ever tried to punch a bird out of the sky?

flying > grass : i guess cause, like, birds live in grass? and they use it to make up their nests? like this type advantage comes entirely from intimidation factor. “i live inside the remnants of your second cousin,” and all that.

ghost > ghost : in basically all ghost related lore/mythology, while they struggle to interact with the corporeal plane, ghosts can interact with other ethereal beings/objects just fine. i guess that extends to beating the shit out of each other.

ghost > psychic : finally, the third of the 3 most common fears.

grass > ground : plants literally grow out of the fucking ground.

grass > rock : saw a dandelion growing out of a crack in the pavement on my walk today. effervescent.

grass > water : water is one of the two required molecules (reactants, kinda? ish?) for photosynthesis. this was a really complicated way of saying plants go glug glug.

ground > electric : ground is a bad conductor. its much easier to punch someone when their powers are completely useless.

ground > fire : throwing dirt is a pretty good way of putting out a fire, actually. it suffocates it, and since fire needs oxygen to burn,,,

ground > poison : rub some dirt on it. also i heard once that if you put dirt/sand/whatever on a wound with poison (like a bite i guess?), it’ll soak some of it up or out or something. its not a solution, but it  would buy you some time i guess. please don’t test whether this is true or not.

ground > rock : honestly? i got nothing. rock come from ground. dust to dust. there.

ground > steel : for one, steel is derived from ground stuff. that seems important? you could look at it from like, a natural vs artificial scenario. like, no matter how invincible we think something we build is, the earth will outlast it and reclaim itself eventually.

ice > dragon : the classic dragon breathes fire, and dragons are generally accepted to be reptiles (which are cold-blooded), so if a dragon’s body temperature fell too low, it’d be a massively crippling blow.

ice > flying : i’m pretty sure that birds can fly if it’s too cold? i mean, it makes sense. you know how it gets harder to feel and control your fingers when it’s cold? i imagine that’d be pretty disastrous for a bird’s wings while it’s trying to fly.

ice > grass : this is another kinda common knowledge one. most types of plants don’t do well in cold weather.

ice > ground : i don’t know exactly how to articulate it, but my head is screaming the word “PERMAFROST” at me repeatedly, so let’s go with that.

poison > fairy : poison is a pretty common weapon of choice for fairy tale villains? like, snow white instantly comes to mind. the princess bride, too. in older stories, there’s, like, the witches in macbeth.

poison > grass : so at its core, this is “poisoning nature”, which could go any number of ways, really, but i think specifically of pollution. there’s no joke for this one. eat the rich.

psychic > fighting : “brains over brawn”. everyone knows this one, lmao.

psychic > poison : i mean, there’s that trope where the protag just wills their way through being poisoned. more realistically, some cultures believe meditation can expel poison/impurities from your body. which is where the idea for the pop culture trope came from in the first place?

rock > bug : do you know that scene in d*sney’s hunchback, sorta in the beginning, where frollo is giving phoebus his absolutely batshit monologue about his plans for genocide and he lifts up a stone to show all the ants under it to visually prove his point about a hideout somewhere in the city and then he flips is and crushes them all to really drive that point home and phoebus is like “with all due respect, jesus fucking christ sir”? yeah.

rock > fire : recall the “put out a fire by suffocating it” thing. rocks work too. i guess.

rock > flying : let’s go throw rocks at birds!

rock > ice : ice melts, but rock is forever. (honestly, i personally think the advantage should actually be the other way around because when water gets in even the smallest crack and freezes, it expands and makes the crack even bigger, rinse and repeat. but there’s nothing i can really do about that lmao).

steel > fairy : y’know, the whole “knight in shining armor” bit. we’ve been over this.

steel > ice : you know what happens if you freeze a sword? you get a cold sword (ignore the fact that it gets brittle - that’s future you’s problem). you know what happens if you hit an ice block really hard with a sword? you wind up with more distinct pieces of ice than when you started.

steel > rock : i guess rock is just. more brittle than steel? weaker? less versatile? who fucking knows.

water > fire : ._.

water > ground : mudd....

water > rock : erosion! don’t think about it too hard.

normal > nothing : that’s the fucking point.

BONUS: the no effect matchups!

normal/fighting X ghost : go punch a ghost.

ghost X normal : go get punched by a ghost.

poison X steel : i mean, this makes sense. steel is the only wholly artificial pokemon type, so it wouldn’t be affected by having something nasty thrown at it. unless it’s salazzle. in which case, fuck you.

ground X flying : can’t get hurt by an earthquake if you’re in the sky. this is where i’d put that meme if i wasn’t too lazy to go find it.

electric X ground : grounded things can’t be electrocuted! or something like that. i don’t know. i told you, my dad’s the it guy.

psychic X dark : so, i actually think about this a lot. think about common fears. the one thing they all have in common is they’re linked with the unknown, somehow. like, basically all fears boil down to the fear of the unknown. people fear animals and bugs because they don’t know what they’re capable of doing to them, or what’ll happen to them if they DO do something to them. people fear drugs/alcohol (like me) because they don’t know what they’ll do or what they’re capable of doing with less self-control. so, that’s cool and all, i hear you say, but what about the fears typed in pokemon? well, ok, bugs. that’s the easiest of the three: you can just research them?? lmao go google that beetle, you’ll be fine. yeah, you’ll still be scared of the ones that you now KNOW can hurt you, but you can psych yourself up and away from that, really. or just avoid them. when it comes to ghosts, it can go one of two ways: either you can explain away whatever it is sparked the fear at that moment in the first place and calm yourself by believing they aren’t real, or you can just accept that, hey, that was a ghost, and coexist with it. chill with the ghost. offer it some cheez its. so again, you can will your way past that fear. the problem with the dark, though, is that it’s essentially the purest form of the “unknown” you can get while also keeping it physical rather than conceptual. if you’re in a dark room, or a dark forest, or the basement with a single, flickering, bulb, you can’t will that fear away. you either fear the dark, or you’re lucky enough to not. there is no way to know whether you’re alone or not. there is nothing to research, nothing to explain. there’s nothing but you, your mind, and the suffocating blackness. in this situation, really, your mind isn’t on your side anymore (again, assuming you have a fear of the dark), so how can you be expected to do anything against it?

dragon X fairy : and they all lived happily ever after :)