#but like...all of that became relevant later iirc

[elibean]

also we are at the halfway point and like, nothing substantial has happened

[sandsoftide]

Haven’t seen enough people talking about why timebomb and specifically ekko also suffered from arcane s2 being bad. Spoilers and crit

I’ll say more in depth later when I have gone back and revisited it with a clearer head and let me make it entirely clear I LIKE timebomb in concept. Much like caitvi. Like I see the vision I just don’t like a lot of the creative choices

Ekko in s1 was a REVOLUTIONARY he built the firelights w his own two hands and was sort of a foil to jinx and silco, he hated them but he wasn’t going to roll over to piltover either. He wanted independence but not through exploitation. He was a leader and a caretaker and mature beyond his years bc he was forced to be. And he hates Jinx bc she reminds him of that trauma and he’s betrayed by what she became like there’s SO much there look at it

In s2 he goes “hm my tree is being weird” and then gets sucked into the timey wimey thing and disappears for a whole act and the firelights aren’t even MENTIONED (and ik he wasn’t a major character in s1 either but like, he was still important and relevant to the plot throughout bc of the firelights?)

Then he gets sucked into this au portal (cool concept and cool execution) and falls in love with powder or whatever. And she ISNT JINX. SHE IS NOT THE JINX WE KNOW BC JINX IN MAIN TIMELINE IS FULLY BUILT FROM HER EXPERIENCES AND TRAUMA AND MENTAL ILLNESS. Like what Jayce said to viktor that’s part of her whether it hurts her or not. Her trauma doesn’t define her but it’s a part of her! And then all of a sudden Ekko’s sad bc he misses jinx (who iirc last time he met they had the whole I hate you and I miss you talk and they fought and both thought the other dead or whatever?) and then he’s talking her off the ledge even though he has absolutely no reason to! Because he DOESNT KNOW HER he knows literally nothing she’s done since s1 finale!!! Even the “jinx as a symbol for revolution” stuff from act 1 that went nowhere he would know NOTHING ABOUT bc he basically immediately went to Jayce? And they never did the revolutionary jinx stuff that was implied w the flag waving either so there’s no connection there either

Like a full episode was spent developing timebomb and it was interesting but also contributed nothing bc that is not jinx. She just feels like a mpdg and he doesn’t feel like ekko bc he needs to be in love w her for the plot? So they do absolutely nothing interesting they could for timebomb and still make it the entirety of ekko’s plot while tossing out the firelights and the zaun v. Piltover plotline as a whole

i mean again its hard to say bc this is right. objectively. like the stuff w timebomb was objectively well written. i just feel like it doesnt give ekko the space to be his own character outside of the ship? my point isnt that the stuff was poorly written i actually enjoyed it a lot and i think they did a good job w it i just also feel like it does ekko a disservice to have that be his only plotline and how it doesnt feel like it connects to his character in s1

i feel similarly about other plots in s2, like mel's. like yes this is good stuff! i love seeing mel in the spotlight the black rose magic stuff is interesting in a vacuum but also its totally separate from the interesting thematic roles in s1 that dealt with AGAIN THE CLASS CONFLICT AND POLITICS and dropping that for something different feels. like its a disservice to the characters, i guess?

also by having the timebomb development take place primarily in an au with powder and NOT jinx we dont really get to see jinx's thoughts at all. it feels like a repeat of s1 where someone is trying to save POWDER and not jinx, they dont see her as who she is now but rather who she was or could have been. which couldve been interesting to explore but they clearly werent interested in that ANYWAYS

[magnolia-sunrise]

ik there are in-canon reasons for wolfgang's missing finger, and this may tie into things as well, but i'm curious as to if you had a reason for choosing the left ring finger specifically? i got to wondering what with that being the finger wedding rings are commonly worn on in western cultures (? but also i know there's cultural variation w that so i'm not sure lol)

i always get your asks literally the minute i get ready to go to bed---

but yeah you are right on the money with where your mind went with it! the left ringfinger is very much tied to the institution of straight marriage, particularly for me its role in history in the west and the way women were treated as property to be exchanged between men. in broad strokes it serves as a signifier of a binding vow, in even broader strokes it's conforming/assimilating to the state/church.

these themes are core to who Wolfgang was and the setting in general; commodification of bodies, being bound to someone else's will and treated as a property to be used and discarded.

going back to the point about the missing finger in-universe, i like to hint at things and let people wonder about it until, if ever, it comes up in a scene and Wolfgang themself is not too keen to talk about what led to that happening. the symbolism is there to hopefully communicate they broke out of something that was "until death do us part". not marriage in a traditional sort of sense, but they were bound to an institution as a tool and later that same binding was used to trap them. the only way out was to cut it off, which in turn in the eyes of civilized society TM forever marks them negatively. a little bit of a caged animal gnawing off their own foot to escape. ...and from the meta perspective, well one day i drew them without the finger on a whim and then i was like hm! and it became a permanent part of their design. iirc this old sketch is that first time 🙈

if my twitter wasn't fully cleaned out, there would be some older art out there possibly without some features i now consider distinct and important part of their design but so it goes, such is the process!

tanget incoming, but i tend to design characters with the method of "throw stuff in there that feels interesting to draw and see what sticks over time" and don't hold myself too close to the original design until i feel like it's "settled". so there's a lot of development they go thru over time.

for example here are some initial explorations of a new iteration of Bastien from very early 2023 i think. i had some ideas i started to throw on the board without having any solid clue of why its there, like all the scars on his face or the starburst of a bullet hole scar on his shoulder. then these elements would either reveal their importance (-ie the nike swoop from Wolfgang cutting his face when they first met) or they would fade out. OR secret third option, which i enjoy a lot, eventually some of these design elements come back in the future for story relevant reasons that weren't there at first (like he gets the cut over his nose waaaay later, after essentially being kidnapped, held hostage as bait and beaten by the people looking for Wolf see here and here )

funny to see how much immediately changed about his face and body and proportions etc between this and his current design, but MAN i got that sad profile down in one good sketch lmao

[petrichoraline]

For the honest answer ask game: what's the history of your blog? (this really just includes how/when you began blogging on tumblr, content, your interactions and your special moments on here etc; whatever you wish to prioritize for the ask in context).

honest hour question answered 3 days later <3 truly hope the wait was worth it love hahah

as someone who's gone through my archive already, you know i started out as a bts fan account in 2015. (my previous blog is not gonna be discussed for the simple reason that it's barely relevant to this one)

i believe i used to tag and organise my reblogs? there was a time where i cared enough and i loved srolling through my own blog, i stopped enjoying that when i became more involved w/ fandom on here and things weren't aesthetics based anymore. i don't like going through it that much now. i used to play around with themes, search for them, tweak colours and fonts for hours. after i returned years later there was an issue with the editor so now i can't change my theme at all and it sucks cause i just want to edit a few things.

so it started of as a bts fanblog, then i started rb-ing other kpop stuff, maybe afterwards i started sharing gifsets from movies and series i liked? as for fandom, i had a good amount of mutuals - accidentally became one with a girl from my country, we went out once and it was very nice <3 procrastinated and lost track fo tag games back then too lmaoo i felt a lot of dissatisfaction over it so i try to do everything now with my current fandom :)

back then is when i started reading fanfiction - i believe my first imagine was a taegi one where v was an artist and yoongi a photographer lol i stumbled upon it on the dash randomly and i got introduced to ao3 a bit after

iirc for the following years after i'd stopped stanning bts, i used to come back either relatively often or once in a blue moon - in the beginning i was just enjoying wtv my dash was offering me or seeking out specific stuff, then i started using it as a tracklist of what shows i've watched haha, no tags, just rb after finishing a show.

i started engaging with fandom around the release of episode 5 of kinnporsche, i read a bunch of posts on here, then tms2 came around and i got even more into reading people's takes..at some point i started talking to people i guess hahah i don't even know when i started trying to put out content, so to say, i just know i was doing screenshot posts short before i found myself pushed to attempt gifs and that was after big dragon had just finished airing.

then i started my giffing journey. had support from @gillianthecat whom i loved giffing paulnice for. honestly that and the discussions we had were such an important part of me having fun with this site and keeping it up. and @joyladagang, my self-proclaimed #1 hype woman, made me feel super welcome. then i got even more moots, at some point i started reaching out or actively reciprocating others attempts at getting closer (though i had been active in discussions before that, i just mean i got a bit braver and started acting more familiar with everyone (esp w/ ppl i got closer to through @joyladagang like @cankersoregirl, @feralmuskyscentedhoepran, @loserlesbianongsa etc.)

i'm grateful to a lot of people on here, truly. it's not supposed to be a shoutout post so i won't be tagging any more people (esp since i would have to tag everyone who follows me plus a bunch of people i follow which..it's a bit much) but i'm genuinely thankful for each person that enjoys my rants, gifs, theories or wtv the things i post classify as, whether they found a post by accident or follow the blog. and i'm grateful to the creators i follow, and i'm happy to talk to so many sweet, smart and funny individuals on various topics daily.

so this is where my blog is at right now - trying to do a bit of everything and talking a bit with everyone. my issue, tbh, is i'm trying a bit too hard to satisfy everyone which sounds ridiculous but i am a bit of a people pleaser at times so it checks out lol

[projectastray]

August Q&A with Questions from Patreon!!

hello hello & welcome to the

🎆 PROJECT ASTRAY QUESTION & ANSWER EXTRAVAGANZA : AUGUST EDITION 🎆

i asked my patreon discord for questions about project astray's development and, given the limited amount of info out there about the game (intentional), i was curious to see what kind of curiosities folks would have!

and now i'll share those here, too! enjoy~

Q from Raccoon:

Q: What was the kind of original idea for Project Astray, like how did you come up with the main idea?

A: This is gonna start way off target, but: Back when I was working at ArenaNet on Guild Wars 2, I designed a story quest that involved a sort of passive stealth system where you were invisible at all times to enemies, unless you wanted to interact with something, in which case you revealed yourself. I thought it was a fun way to solve the 'challenge' problem with stealth in an MMO, where there weren't real systems in place to do stealth that felt 'fun' in a traditional stealth game sense... but still let you feel sneaky. So it became an order of operations problem: if I open this gate with a switch, there's an enemy looking my way, so I have to knock them out... but another enemy is looking at THEM, so I have to wait for them to turn their back, knock them out too, then the way is clear to open the gate.

Anyway that was a fun little mission, but years and years later I still looked back on that design process fondly. I was also starting to think about thematic material for a 2nd game project after ESC... and I kept brainstorming various systems ideas for games centered around my experiences with social anxiety & social stealth. And so I thought that would be a fun idea to explore.

The actual systems that have come out of that initial spark of an idea are very different, but you can probably see some of the origins in there once I reveal the full game's mechanics.

Qs from Nicola:

Q: Are you composing all the music 100% yourself or are you collaborating with someone else one a song or two?

A: Mostly, yes! It's what I'd probably call at 99% me game, where I'm leaving room for possible collaboration or assistance if it sounds fun, but the vast majority of the music will be all me. Naturally! I do have one or two possible collaborations, though, which I'll think more about once I'm in the music phase of development.

Q: Are you still spending time on coding the core mechanics or have you already finished those for the most part, and are starting to assemble the game more? (Iirc in the last update you wrote about working on combat mechanics, so kind of related on its progress)

A: The core mechanics are about 75% there! Everything is in a place now where I can primarily build out content, and the remaining 25% is all stuff that is coming from any time I can't do something specifically as I'd like to, in which case I have to start adding more scripts or actions to enable me to do more with the systems. But the core is solid! I'm still on track to get 'chapter 1' fully realised this year, which is exciting.

Q: What kind of Ashtray is this? Is it a plain metal one, maybe a colored glass one, or a decorated painted ceramic one? (I think you've written something about the working name of the project, but I can't remember what exactly and where.)

A: One of those really old ones with the sort of bubbly glass texture, fully transparent, with a frosted crescent moon baked into the bottom of it.

In all seriousness, Astray!! Thematically it'll always feel relevant. Lots of things are astray in the game, its characters and setting. "Away from the correct path or direction". But who defines what is 'correct'? Where are they going? All important key words and concepts to think about.

As a bonus fun fact: the final game title also starts with 'A' but doesn't involve the word 'Astray'.

Qs from LaurentDS:

Q: what are things that you learned from your years of experience making music that helped you in the non music related aspects of Project Astray

A: Pacing, mostly. I always think of storytelling and gameplay and transitions in games in terms of the pace they take in a musical sense. What tempo is this all running on? How will it feel if it takes X seconds to happen, can I speed it up? Slow it down? Getting it all to feel right and 'in tempo' with itself is a really important part of design for me. And it also makes composition a lot easier, or even composition can help make finding the tempo easier. Because once it all meshes, nothing will (hopefully) feel out of place or rushed or sluggish.

Q: Your music and Project Astray are done in parallel. How do you juggle between those? Do you see it as a way to break artist block (work on one when you need a break from the other, etc)?

A: Yeah, absolutely. I still think of my music work as my 'main' job because it's for folks that have hired me for my time, so I always place a priority on that and fitting the development schedule. But when I do have a choice between game design work & music work, one absolutely helps me bounce back and forth if I'm feeling stuck in one area or the other.

Q: What has been the most fun aspect or detail of its development that you want to share?

A: Honestly, getting all the gameplay elements into a state where it's actually super fun to just sit down and play for a bit... There's still a lot of work to do, but seeing the possibilities now that it's in a state where you can play for a bit, it's so exciting to potentially get more friends in and testing it out so I can see how it feels for real people that aren't thinking about it every single day.

Qs from Jodie:

Q: what parts of Project Astray's development do you plan to share in things like teasers or update posts, if you choose to share anything? Will it be limited to character showcases and some screenshots or will we also get the occasional technical post if that interests you?

A: I'd love to delve into technical aspects once I am at a place where it makes sense to talk about those things!! Obviously not until I've revealed more about the game, but coding is a fun troubleshooting game that I'm always game to share anecdotes about.

Outside of that, yeah absolutely character showcases are among my next things to share... There's a lot to get into.

Q: Once it gets close to release, are you planning to release Project Astray as an early access title and release the game in chapters or do you plan to release it all once its 100% complete?

A: I definitely won't be doing early access. I don't think it plays well with a linear story game. The only early sort of thing I'm considering is doing a 'demo' of the 1st chapter before releasing the full game, but the timing & decision on that are pretty unknown until I get far enough along that I feel confident about it. And especially with a personal project that will be many years in the making, showing stuff earlier might help build excitement for the final thing. None of that is final, though, it's just me thinking out loud.

Qs from Aeris:

Q: What are your inspirations for the game's setting/world? And are there any aspects of magic/otherworldliness to the setting?

A: There's so much about this question that I can't quite share yet, but I will try to answer it without revealing everything: The sense of 'otherworldliness' is going to be very high. While there will be a concrete world to explore, not everything might seem logical or real. This has a lot to do with the setting itself. As a normal person in this world, things might change one day and leave you wondering if what you remembered is really true, or if it's always been like this. Time might suddenly advance with a gap in perception. You might dream of another state of existence, so real and tangible, and then wake up and go back to your usual routine. But there's a nagging in the periphery of your mind that it isn't right. That you were supposed to do something else. Our main characters have felt this deep down and have pushed past the instinctual drive to return to normalcy. They've chosen to EXIST, and whatever that might entail.

Q: also, not super important, but what engine are you using for the game?

A: GameMaker Studio!

Thanks so much to all my discord dreamers for their really thoughtful questions!! I had a lot of fun answering these, and hopefully they give you even more insight into the game at this early stage.

Until next time~

[acerace]

...you have opened my eyes to a vast universe of VintageBeef lore that I was unaware of. I knew about the New Hermit Order, of course, and the UHC invention, and I've watched a few of his CTM things but -- I will take all the info and lore you feel like giving out because Beef is amazing and my knowledge is so small.

Vintagebeef my beloved <3

So the thing is, right, until about 2016 I only watched two (2) youtubers- Vintagebeef for Minecraft and aDrive for Pokemon (and funnily enough both of them are named Dan irl). So I've watched most of Beef's videos over the years and have a general knowledge of most of his stuff, except because it's been like a decade I don't remember where most of the lore comes from XD

The thing with him is that he doesn't do Lore tm the way other mcyters often do lore- he doesn't have an extensive RP series to draw from like Grian, doesn't have a solo world with steadily increasing amounts of lore like Etho or Zisteau, and while he's played on SMPs and been involved in storylines before it's not really the focus of his episodes unlike with Evo or Legacy or Empires

So where does that leave us?

IRL, Beef always has multiple series running at the same time. Often he's playing on an smp while doing a singleplayer, often modded, series as well as a CTM or modpack with a group of friends. For example, right now he's playing on Hermitcraft, doing weekly Pixelmon and Building a Zoo episodes, and a CTM map with Slip. And to me, this translates to one thing: Beef is an adventurer. He travels frequently- he explores a world and when he decides he's done, he leaves for the next one. That's the basis of my personal interpretation of his series and his character for my writing.

Ok so reading this back, this got extremely long and didn't explain much in the way of lore, somehow? If anyone has any additions to add please do so, I am very definitely leaving out a lot and would love to see what other lore people remember and are using for Beef! I didn’t include the Hermitcraft stuff since my memory of season 4 is blurry (his base was themed after the Martian, that much I know, and he and Iskall were buddies :D) and most of the s5 NHO lore is best watched from Bdub’s perspective from what I remember, and the only s6 stuff is a single line in Hermitgang and then the Area 77 arc with its possibility of an NHO reunion which we did not get rip. And s7 of course had the cloning machine and also the Podzol Party as the main lore. So all the original rambling is still below the cut though it is very long, and I'm gonna bullet point the main stuff here instead:

Actual canonical things:

Invented UHC and was the only survivor of the first ever uhc (Mindcrack UHC s1)

Married to an ender dragon (one of the UHCs I think), later father to a different dragon (Mindcrack season 3? I think?)

Might not have legs if you choose to take that joke as canon (Mindcrack s2)

Was a wizard (RAD)

is a zookeeper (Building a Zoo) 

Had a wife and kids (Sims in Minecraft)

Part of the Trial of the B Team court case (Mindcrack)

NHO founder, founder of the Podzol Party (Hermitcraft)

Created a cloning machine that sort of works (Hermitcraft)

Played the Forest which is I believe the first time he and Keralis played together (look up the trigger warnings for this one, it's a horror game)

Was the creator/owner of Sourceblock SMP (featuring some familiar faces if you know Legacy, Empires, or MCC) and there is literal magic from a mysterious sourceblock of water that teleports people and summons mobs and probably more stuff that I haven't seen yet since I'm still watching it myself

Things you can infer:

Good with animals (Life in the Woods, Pixelmon, Ark)

Is a car nerd (irl and all of the car games he's played)

Is a highly experienced adventurer who has traveled through dozens of worlds both vanilla and modded, across multiple dimensions (Twilight Forest, the Aether, the Betweenlands, Limbo), completed dozens of monuments, fought in blood sports, survived apocalypse after apocalypse, tamed dinosaurs, and played a lot of prop hunt and golf with your friends

If you're looking for what to watch for lore purposes, I'd say the Mindcrack UHCs and Team Canada's RAD series are pretty good, definitely Sourceblock and HC s5, plus the Diversity CTM maps and Ruins of the Mindcrackers maybe? And Mindcrack Prank Wars for the chaos and the origin of Team Canada. And if you can handle horror than the Forest is fun and if you don't do horror you can watch the Pojkband play golf or prop hunt they're hilarious I love them sm I want a Pojkband reunion So Bad 

Beef's first series was a singleplayer series in beta 1.4_01 though he had played the game extensively before that, and was a big fan of Guude, having watched his own Minecraft videos. The series was functionally a hardcore one where if he died Beef would delete the world and start again! I haven't actually Watched this series so idk if he died or how often lmao. When Guude made Mindcrack, which was btw one of the very first Minecraft SMPs, he also hosted a competition for people to join, and Beef submitted a video (which is still viewable on his channel I believe!) and won, and was added to Mindcrack in season 2 :D (fun fact, Guude said that even if Beef hadn’t won he would have added him anyway) 

Two running jokes emerged from Mindcrack- pulling a Vintagebeef and Beef doesn't have legs. The first is a reference to Beef dying of fall damage (I believe the exact instance was him trying to jump into his swimming pool and failing spectacularly) and after the incident, every time someone died of fall damage they were pulling a Vintagebeef. The second joke comes from Guude, who joked that the reason Beef wasn't going to a convention was because he didn't have legs, and then he pranked Beef's base by building a giant pair of legs at the entrance to his castle so you had to walk between them to get into the base. This joke has long since died and both Beef and Guude feel pretty bad about it iirc because there were people who genuinely thought Beef was disabled and were emailing him supportive messages and stuff oops. So if you go looking on the Salad or find old Mindcrack fics, you might see references to Beef having prosthetic legs!

Mindcrack also brought about the creation of several Player groups- Team Nancy Drew, Team Canada, and GOB to name a few relevant to Beef. Team Nancy Drew consists of Beef, Pauseunpause, Guude, and Baj, who formed to investigate a prank on one of the members but I forget who. They're named Nancy Drew after the detective! Team Canada also formed in retaliation to pranks, with it consisting of Beef, Etho, and Pause, the three Canadian members on the server (not including Adlington who moved to Canada but never joined the group). There was also a Team America who pranked them with American flags everywhere. GOB is Guude, OMGChad, and Beef, who played stuff like the Ragecraft, Pantheon, and Monstrosity ctms together but that's way down the line lol

Team Nancy Drew is also notable for inventing UHC. It was Beef's brainchild but it was the four of them who first played it! The first UHC had the four of them working to kill the dragon with no natural regen, with everyone dying but Beef, who "won" the UHC. The second uhc was still dragon focused and iirc is where Beef married the dragon? Memories are hazy but they do kill the dragon in this one I think. UHC was then revamped as a pvp event and became a regular Mindcrack game every few months, featuring most of the Mindcrackers and several special guests, including Dinnerbone, who as we know Thanos-snapped Doc's arm out of existence as a result of Doc killing him in one of them

In one of the seasons of Mindcrack, Beef invited swedish Mindcracker and good friend Anderzel to go caving with him and invented ABBA Rules caving, where the winner takes it all. ABBA Rules is a game where each ore (and also dungeon loot like nametags) is assigned a point value and the person with the most points at the end wins and gets to keep all the stuff collected from the game.

In Mindcrack season 3?, Beef punched the ender dragon in an... awkward area, so when the dragon died and left the egg behind, Guude said Beef was the father of the egg XD I don't remember if I watched s3 so I have no idea if anything Happened with this concept but *history of the world voice* you could make lore out of this!

So Team Canada has played a Lot of CTM maps (which fun fact were pretty much invented by another Mindcrack member, Vechs, with his Super Hostile series! Super Hostile has a bunch of things called "Zistonian", which are references to another Mindcrack member Zisteau, who has a very wild singleplayer series with even wilder lore but I digress). In Ruins of the Mindcrackers, they had a running joke that Beef was Etho and Pause's mom, which is a joke we can leave in the past actually /lh. They also played all the Diversity maps, Sky Factory, Terra Restore, Uncharted Territory uhhh and a couple more ctms and adventure maps! Each map kinda has its own story so in Diversity 3 for example they were trapped in a simulation? I think? Team Canada also recently played the Roguelike Adventures and Dungeons modpack, aka RAD, in which Beef was a wizard with a magic staff that could do anything from summon lightning to control hostile mobs.

Sourceblock SMP is a vanilla survival 1.14 series that ran for one season and the series starts with each of the Players being drawn to a strange sparkling water source that, once they touch it, brings them to the Sourceblock world. It also summons a giant zombie at one point. There's probably more lore for this series but like I said I haven't watched it all the way through yet 

He has a Patreon server called VintageCraft and has done a series or two on there as well, and played a few UHCs with them, so lore that how you will! 

Beef also played a few popular mods, notably Pixelmon, Life in the Woods, and Feed the Beast, with LitW being singleplayer and the other multiplayer. He's also recently played the Zoo and Wild Animals mod a lot. He did a short series with the Minecraft Comes Alive mod where he married one of the villagers and had two children, so that's canon now :D he’s played a Lot of Pixelmon starting when the mod first came out iirc (he chose Turtwig in his first series and built a Grass gym, then made a Normal gym in another series in uhh 2016) and he still plays to this day. Quite a few Hermits played on his Pixelmon servers with him, like Wels, Etho, Iskall, Stress, Slip, Zueljin, and also Guude and Phedran (a Mindcrack adjacent player and creator of the LitW modpack) and a few Mindcrackers on the older servers 

Mindcrack and friends played a lot of other games too- 7 Days to Die, Ark Survival Evolved, Unturned, to name a few, so you can pull a lot of lore out of these as well. Speaking of friends and non-Minecraft games, Beef teamed up with Pause, Keralis, and Slip (a former Hermit) to play the horror game the Forest, which saw them stuck on an island trying to survive against terrifying mutated human... things. They played it a few times as the game updated but as afaik it's the first time Beef played with Keralis and possibly Slip and since the game starts with the Player's airplane crashing, that could totally be how Beef first met them in-universe 

I... think? that’s everything I mentioned in the tags? There is probably way more stuff I’ve forgotten that stems from inside jokes and things that happen within each series, but I hope that was a) helpful and b) at least somewhat comprehensible lmao 

[lizardsfromspace]

Unlocked a memory earlier of the fad for esoteric interview questions in the 2000s

so Microsoft had brainteaser-y, open-ended interview questions, and Microsoft was obviously The Smartest Company, so people became mildly obsessed with the concept of asking people nerdy questions (like "how many balls would fill a plane?" or "if you had to remove one state, which would it be?") instead of, well, relevant ones

Anyway, iirc years later Microsoft changed their interview process entirely, admitting that all those questions tested was if they were the type of person who could respond well to that type of question, didn't predict if someone could contribute there at all, and were ditched in favor of...looking at how people solve real problems. But used copies of books about the Secret Genius of the process can be found in a cardboard box and/or doofus manager somewhere near you

[thelesseroftwoweevils]

(Not trying to contradict or argue with the above post, just using it for a springboard for my own thoughts)

I don't want to speculate on other people's reasons but for me La'an is more dodgy than Erica and Hemmer, conceptually. Because she's a Noonian Singh. It's a 'violates the spirit of canon rather than the letter' thing.

No-one ever explicitly said Khan didn't have descendants but as I recall Space Seed (and it's been a long time I could easily be wrong) Khan was a rather obscure that Kirk didn't know and Spock had to fill him in. Him having descendants that struggle with his rep because everyone remembers him as a later day hitler or whatever doesn't quite fit.

I feel this way about a lot of the SNW to be honest. When I first saw the cast of characters, I just wondered why they'd gone out of their way to make so many of them TOS references. M'Benga, Uhura as a Cadet, Chapel. But the Noonian Singh was an additional step to make this a TOS connection it didn't need to have. It was in s2 it really became relevant at all.

(M'Benga, Uhura and Chapel make the Mengarie where iirc only spock has a Pike connection weird. And M'Benga going from CMO to back up Doctor. Again by the letter of the canon it doesn't break anything but it does feel weird)

I like all of the cast (the actors and the characters) really (aside from the sheer focus and time Spock/Chapel takes up) but conceptually they're a little off.

Apologies for this random essay that's only tangentially connected to what it's reblogged from.

#1133

I think instead of creating La'an Noonien Singh, whose character messes up the TOS canon, the SNW writers should have expanded more on the characters of Phillip Boyce, Janice Rand, and J.M. Colt.

[tmae3114]

Hey i followed you for your insightful analyses of DragonFable lore, and was wondering if you could give a quick and dirty rundown of what exactly the Reset was? I am really not that good at MQ and all i know is that the two are related

[vibrates] it’s gone two am my time and I was going to sleep soon but absolutely yes I can do that!!!

okay, so, as short as I can manage it, bc you asked for a quick rundown: Mechquest and Dragonfable take place in, effectively, the same universe & timeline. MQ is a prequel to DF - the MQ timeline became the DF timeline via the Reset. The actual mechanics are somewhat more complicated (there’s a time loop involved) but that’s A Different Discussion.

The Reset was a last resort Worst Case Scenario backup plan on behalf of the good guys that didn’t go entirely right but also didn’t go entirely wrong either.

Prior to the Reset, the universe was a sci-fi setting with spaceships and different planets and giant robots - though there was still the fantasy element of magic as an existing, known thing, which a lot of tech ran on via batteries, that technology was called “manatech”, and the use of magic itself was something of a lost art. So really it was more like..... a fantasy setting that was far enough into “the future” that it had become sci fi? Anyways, the good guys were at war with the Shadowscythe - who were thought to be aggressive aliens and then turned out to be magical creatures invading from a different plane rather than a different galaxy - and, well... the good guys lost. Because the Shadowscythe play dirty and when it looked like the war was won for our side, they set off a bomb that destroyed everything. The entire universe was destroyed in an instant. “If we can’t have it, nobody can!” and all that.

That’s where the Reset comes in.

The Reset was, effectively, a backup copy of the universe. It was intended for “if the worst comes to pass and the Shadowscythe win, this is our last resort, our reset button”, sort of. Because while it was, pretty much, the universe itself converted into code with the magical power to recreate reality shoved into it, it had been modified so that the Shadowscythe would be shunted back into their home dimension if it was activated.

Warlic’s personal starship, which carried the Reset, was shielded against the end of the universe and programmed to teleport an individual there in the event of universe ending calamity, to activate it. However, Warlic had also programmed in a joke to try and cheer up the Literal Sole Survivor Of The End Of The Universe and it went horribly wrong. It was a coffee machine and the coffee got spilled on the Reset, causing a bunch of the data to get corrupted.

Thus, when the Reset was activated, it did restore the universe as intended, but it also rewrote a bunch of reality and time which trying to fix the corrupted data, ultimately giving us the world of Dragonfable! Because time was rewritten, pretty much nobody remembers that it happened.

There are a few things, and people, which survived the Reset’s rewriting of reality in their prior forms and a few which only got partially rewritten. Kordana, for example, survived intact. As did Jack Crescent, presumbly due to the whole “sealed away” thing. Similarly, Kathool makes reference to a few MQ events at points. The Ancient Exosuit from the Calamity Saga is an example of something which was partially rewritten - it’s an old Shadowscythe mecha, resized and repurposed by the Reset.

(The Reset did succeed in kicking the Shadowscythe back to the Plane of Darkness, though! Iirc, they’re stuck there now and working via proxies like the Doom spirits, where before they could show up themselves. I’m not 100% certain of that lore though so don’t quote me on that part!)

At present, the only people confirmed to have been actively changed by the Reset but continue to retain their prior memories are Safiria and Cysero. Warlic is implied in the Vizalain quests to have some idea about what happened but his reactions to the Shadowscythe mecha the Rose unearthed in the current plotline far more clearly suggest he doesn’t remember.

I hope that’s clear and concise enough! I am very aware it’s still long but I am not good at brevity XD I tried to stick to strictly Reset stuff and how it relates to DF without meandering into MQ lore

And if you want a longer, more in-depth explanation of the Reset, with relevant MQ lore attached...... I am fully willing to do that also. Though, probably at a later point, after I have slept

[mcalhenwrites]

I’ll be taking a hiatus from social media aside from a few exceptions, but I had a sudden KH theory come to mind involving Roxas and the MoM! I’m going to be 100% wrong, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to theorize. Theory: the Master of Masters looks like an older version of Ventus (and Roxas looks like Ven). Roxas duel-wields because of being a combination of Ven and Sora, but iirc, Nomura said there are some huge reveals about Roxas later, and we saw Roxas' symbol on multiple worlds in KH3 (Which is the "4" in KH numerals) as well as the "7" in worlds within KH3 (on the Leviathan and in Scala), which I think pertains to the "7 lights" theme in the series. Not only that, but the credits of Back Cover play “The Other Promise” and “Another Side, Another Story” - which also plays during the secret Yozora ending of KH3. I’ve noticed other instances where the music is relevant, and I’m wondering if this is no coincidence.  I have some weird “what if Ven’s like a clone of MoM” theory that branches off of this, but there might be another explanation.  MoM is still his own character, but he’s older in every way, including his appearance. And maybe Ven, Roxas, and the box, are all parts of some way he returns. I also still believe there’s more to Naminé, including how she obtained the power she has with memories. I think the Darkness still hiding in Ven that Sora encounters in the DLC has leaked into her, too, and she’s not just the nobody that came from Kairi’s heart when Sora became a Heartless, but she and Roxas also have been influenced by that hidden Darkness.  I theorized the bit about Naminé before the last KHUX update, and that update may have contradicted or strengthened my suspicions either way. Ven might just have lost bits of memories from trauma, but it’s also possible that Darkness didn’t just fool Ven by appearing as Ava, they may have altered some of his memories. Maybe it stored them in a separate “compartment” of the heart, and that compartment later transferred to Vanitas, who cannot fully access it. (I’ve heard that in one of the KH3 novels, Vanitas apparently has vague memories of KHUX but can’t really identify what they are?) Maybe the box contains MoM’s heart, and the MoM we see in some scenes (including the one Xehanort meets) is nothing more than a glamour meant to carry out certain acts before disappearing. When the box, Luxu, and the Foretellers (minus Ava) reunite, their memories are what are needed to bring him back. You need a heart and those who remember you to bring you to that time, right? Listen, my brain doesn’t grasp time travel very well, so I have to confirm that’s what’s going on here. 

Maybe the box also contains specific memories MoM has, a way he’s compartmentalized them. Perhaps Ven was a decoy for Darkness, and he needed to look convincing, because MoM poses a great threat to Darkness, but MoM wasn’t quite strong enough for him yet. Keyblade wielders during the keyblade war during Chi were “weeded out”, the Dandelions were supposed to bring about a greater age of those who held and maintained the light. Everyone was too weak during the Age of Fairy Tales, including the Master himself, and he had to hide away and wait for generations to pass before there would be enough guardians of light strong enough... and Roxas is one of them.  Enough to defeat Darkness for good. And maybe MoM wasn’t being silly when he said he was too afraid to take off the coat that protects him from darkness, even if that MoM is just a glamour echoing what the real MoM would say. He can’t afford to take it off. Even his glamour has to be undetectable to the Darkness for now. ...This sounds stupid now that I type it out, but I can’t wait for more updates on story to strengthen or weaken or totally annhilate my theories and give me fodder for new ones. 

[thatonegaybastard]

AHEM SO SKDNSJANSNSN IS IS LONG SO IM PUTTING IT UNDER A CUT

Gregory Seo is a journalist from like. san fransisco apparently. and growing up he alwayd wanted to be a journalist and he loved the idea of travelling the world and telling the news and i guess he also liked it for the fame it doesnt explicitly say that but its extremely imploed

so he grew up and he became a journalist! good for him! he just repoeted small thints around town basically until he FOUND A CRIME SCENE YIKES! apparently its the richards family murders which isnt Too important its basically the lore of this one map called family home iirc. he worked with the police or something so he could report the ccase and met this detective guy garrison.

SIDE NOTE TO EXPLAIN WHO GARRISON IS

this is colton garrison hes apparently like the best detective in the world. he can solve crimes really fucking fast and he has really good memory and people call him the real sherlock holmes. hes honestly a pretty nice guy and he doesnt hold grudges apparently idk i dont know whay else to say lmao

anyways gregory and garrison work together and garrison like 3 days later calls gregory like "yeah i solved the case and everything completely" and gregory was like "what. howd ypu do it that fast thats bullshit i dont believe you" and came ro the conclusion garrison is a corrupt cop and, and i quote "Gregory vowed to follow Garrison and keep a close eye on him." which is. so weird tbh. this is where gregs asshole streak starts like leave garrison alone you're stalking him

so gregory starts fucking followimg garrison around and finds out garrison joined this group called SPECTER INVESTIGATIONS!! Specter investogations is a ghpst huntonf group basically but they alsp do other mystery solving stuff ig? mostly ghost stuff. and rn specter investigations is trying to investigate this guy called Dr. Raymond who is like our first main antagonist in the specter 2 lore!

aide note about dr raymond lore so yknow who he is and some other big lore relevant stuff.. not exactly specific to gregory but this is pretty big specter 2 lore stuffs: basically dr raymond was like. working with this kinda morally questionable peacekeeping group called thw Tridents on tthis thing called the Enhancement Project that was supposed to help cure a bunch of diseases for humans and animals and stuff b Raymond FUCKED IT UP and made this guy called Waylon or something EXTREMELY FUCKED UP and MONSTORPUS and DEAD ans saw nothing wrong with that. he was like "hey tridents wanna see my progress" and the tridents were like "what the fuck is that" and raymond said "its a work in progress" and the tridents sropped partnering with him and raymond fucked off to who knows where and now Specter Investigations is trying to find him basically

raymond btw ^

ONE MORE TTANGENT ABOIT SOMETHING YOU SHOULD KNOW CUZ I FORGOT TO MENTION IT theres this guy called the specter we dobt know who he is or what he wants but hes been killing a lot of people for some reason i sont remember and he's the other main antagonist... remember this for 2 paragraphs later. id show you what he looks like but we dont actually know what he looks like weve never seen his face

anyways gregory basically starts following specter investogations around and finds out about raymond and what hes done so he decides basically to try and beat them to reporting it so he can take all the fame and credit for himself! eventually the group notices hes following them but they genuinely just dont care. fr this guy is pathetic i wouldn't be worried either

eventually on like august 20th 2028 iirc specter investogations goes to this village to investigate raymond enhancement serum stuff but Gregory says "im not doing that im gonna go investigate this guy james phoenix hes weird" james phoenix is this guy who works for the tridents i believe and he goes to his childhood home and like. looks around. which is kinfa ironic for things im not gonna go on a tangent to explain right now

aaaand eventually i guess gregory finds out JAMES PHOENIX WAS THE SPECTER ALL ALONG?M?!!!! CRAZY... and eventually phoenix and this guy malik have this massive confrontation and gregory was following the phoenix and witnessing this and instead of like. recording it for evidence oor something he decides to SNEAK UP ON THE SPECTER LIKE A TOTAL IDIOT.... I DONT KNOW WHAT HE WAS EXPECTING i guess he was probably thinking thered be like people liem "wow guys gregory seo is such a hero he took down mass murderer the specter" or something

turns put sneaking up on a angry murderer with a gun is a bad idea and gregory gets shot and dies 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 he got killed from his own hubris and fame wanting ness and hes so pathetic and shit and i hope he explodes...

OTHER RANDOM SHIT OTHER THEN ALL OF HIS RELEVANT SPECTER 2 TIMELINE STUFF:

gregory specifically makes a point of not listening to garrison when garrison tells him not to do something its a miracle he didnt die sooner

gregorys outfirs are amazing and awful at the same time. heres some of my favs

paintball. the description? "Gregory hates being hit with a paintball."

what the fuck part 1

this one is genuinely just aesthetically pleasing i love it

this one is what he looked like in specter 1.... specter 1 i don't play much bc i only really play specter with my friends and my friends rarely play the fkrst one but specter 1 has a totally different story and gregory isnt really relevant in it but hes a character hes called like. Gregory Pratt for some reason. i camt believe he was white.....anyways i like this skin bc he looks like hes at a barbeque

what the fuck part 2 (i actually really like this one if it didnt cost robux id totally grab it.... im thinking about saving for it on please donate)

idk why this ones so much bigger then the others but last but not least heres hos prestige skin! basically if you complete this long goal as a character you can get a free legendary skin for them thats basically "what if they lived a happy life" ... idrk if i like this one bc it remonds me of pinterest outfits and i dont really understand what the hell hes so happy about. idk.maybe the real reason hes so sad is he doesnt have glasses

SOME HEADCANONS

his description in specyer 1 is "Gregory always wakes up at 4am tired" so i headcanon he has like. depression with some insomnia sprinkled on top. maybe a lil self worth issues too

i headcanon that he needs glasses but he never really got that perscribed he just thinks everyone sees the world blurry and hes just kinda worse at working it out.

also heres some art i drew of him a whike back:

also people call him "my bbq grill"

THAT TOOK LIKE AN HOUR SEND HELP. I WAS GONNA DRAW I HAVE SCHOOL TOMORROW.

hi is is the roblox character im obsessed with his name is gregory seo hes from specter 2 (and 1) hes so much of an asshole and hes so pathetic

@hinako-supremacy he looks like somebdo y from gotham :3 wet cat ud mayeb like WHY IS HE SO SAD LMAODWEKJHDHE@KDHEWJKFHEW OH MY GOD HE LOOKS AS IF HES A DEFLATED BALOOON WET CAT OF SLAAMI HE LOOKS LIKE HE DOESNT HAVE DADDY ISSUES BC HE IS THE DAD BRO LOOKS LIKE A SANE KEIJI HE LOOKS LIKE HE BELONGS IN TWILIGHT IF IT WAS A GOTHIC HISTORIC NOVEL and its beauitufl pls infodump im obsessed hes an asshole too what flavor also searched the game up it LOOKS SO HIGH QUALITY sorta similar to the manic

[ahiijny]

First impressions of Symphogear XDU Global

... from someone who’s never played gacha and in fact didn’t even own a phone until as of 2 months ago

Oh, the screen’s in landscape aspect ratio, okay.

“The latest game data will be downloaded (110 MB). Wi-Fi connection is recommended.” I’m on Wi-Fi, that’s fine.

Hm, my phone only has 32 GB of storage and it’s already more than half full, will I be okay?

The Japanese dialogue audio is still in this, noice.

Oh, so this basically the first episode of season 1.

“Croitzal ronzell Gungnir zizzl...” Kanade transformation :)

“Superb Song”. Personally, I’m fine with this choice of translation; I’m pretty sure it’s what the creators originally intended, too. But “Swan Song” still sounds much cooler, doesn’t it :P Also, this song. Goosebumps, every time...

“The latest game data (130 MB) will beIn the background downloaded” More downloads? Also, that “beIn” isn’t a typo, the words were weirdly mushed up against each other in the app for some reason.

Symphogear XDU OP! Noice. I’ve seen this before on YouTube, but it’s still really awesome. And it contains a few minor spoilers for GX (Carol and Elfnein and the Autoscorers), noting that for future reference.

Miku in this OP is just so cool! A scenario where Miku became a main Gear user, that would’ve been nice. Alas, canon, it was not to be...

Kanade and Serena are active Gear users in this too, noice. But there are two Gungnirs and two Airgetlams now?...

“Gjallarhorn” Oh, so this is the parallel dimensions relic I’ve heard so much about.

“Please enter player name / *Player names can be changed later / *Names can be up to 10 characters long”. Okay.

Oh nice, Ryouko’s explaining the app.

“6 kinds of quests: Main Quests, Hexa Quests, Event Quests, XD Quests, Side Quests, and SP quests” Uhhhhh that’s a lot.

“You can choose one friend who will follow you into battle.” Oh, is this like the pair system in Touhou 11?

This quest is called “Diva of the Battlefield”.

Ohhhh this is the very familiar general everyday life memoria OST (I don’t know the name) that I’ve heard on the YameteTomete site before. You know, that one.

They translate Andou’s nickname for Hibiki as “Bikky”

"Custodian”? Is... is this foreshadowing? Or just a translation quirk? Do Japanese schools even have custodians? (I thought the students do all of the cleaning)

“Imyuteus amenohabakiri tron...” (looks like they mashed it all up into one word)

Okay, battle start.

Waaaaaaait what why are Chris and Hibiki here?? This is too early in the plot!

I am plot confus

Is this just one of those things where you have to be like “it’s part of the game mechanic” and try not think too hard about it?

Huh, and the Gear users and the Noise exchange attacks automatically?

Like... I barely need to do anything?

This reminds me a bit of the game mechanic in Mega Man Battle Chip Challenge, where the battle is mostly automatic based on your arrangement of chips in your “program deck” beforehand, and the only interactivity is your ability to slot in a special attack at any point during the battle (but you can only use your L and R chip slots for this, and you can only use them once).

Yay, battle won.

“MA1-1: Diva of the Battlefield”. I like numbering schemes.

“So she’s the Valkyrie of the Special Disaster Response Team Section 2... The only one who can stand up to the Noise?” Huh, so they do use the word “Valkyrie” in these translations, interesting

“Soldier A: "Whoa, I suggest you stop right there, soldier. You saw nothing and heard nothing. Is that clear?"” Heh :) Ah right, it’s supposed to be confidential.

According to Hibiki, the day one bonuses are amazing.

This onomatopoeia just looks kinda funny for some reason :P

Bikki pls

(Also, sorry about the volume bar, I’m still not used to taking screenshots on a phone)

The little girl calls Hibiki “Missy”.

"Balwisyall nescell gungnir tron…" Hibiki’s first transformation is just not the same without Synchrogazer :/

Got Song Stone x5, owo neat. I don’t know what these are though

Looks like that’s the end of the tutorial!

Ack so many unread notifications

Oh right, there’s some Attack on Titan crossover event going on, I’ll have to check that out later

Reading some of the news posts. Dunno what limit breaking is.

Hm okay, let’s try some of these free gacha rolls.

Why is a gacha roll so fancy graphics

“AME NO HABAKIRI DATTO” Noice

Wow why so flash

Let’s try more of these

“Ayumu Takasaka” Ah, a person whose name I don’t remember. iirc she’s one of Tsubasa’s classmates.

“WARUKUNAI WA NE” Yes, thank you Maria :P

Drop rates, Song Stone log, hmmm

Reading through the FAQ

“A: You may only upload game content for non-profit purposes (including personal use as a hobby.” I wonder if this excludes monetized YouTube channels. Not really relevant to me in any case though, my channel has 4 subscribers.

“Q: I want to learn more about the Symphogear anime and merchandise.�� “A: We are not able to respond to any inquiries outside the scope of the Symphogear XD Unlimited app.” wat

Okay, let’s read through some of these "Rights and Agreements” pages.

Skimming through the terms of service. Lots of this reads as generic lawyer boilerplate, not tailor-made for this app, but rather feels like it was adapted from some very standard and thoroughly vetted template. Like, there’s stuff in here talking about using a robot/spider/site search/analysis application, but doesn’t that only apply to websites? Can you robot crawl an app server?

And it talks about it being prohibited “posting photographs or the like of nudity with a high degree of exposure” but is it even possible to post photos in this app?

“a. a. Posting or sending messages for the purpose of buying, selling, or exchanging...” there are two a’s here :P

Oh here we go, more topically specific ToC stuff. “Use of in-app currency” “Song Stone” hm okay.

Heh, the music changes to the XDU OP if I open the "Credit” page.

Hm, what’s this “Rights” section?

Oh, here we go, a bunch of software licenses. Mostly Apache, some MIT as well. And some without a specific name.

Interesting...

Anyway, hopefully I don’t get too addicted to this, I have a lot of other work that I still need to be doing.

But it’s nice finally starting to have a vague inkling about what all the Japanese XDU players were talking about :P

[pestopascal]

i feel like liara was written solely with a romance in mind and never really friendship. she couldve been used to give us more asari politics and pureblooded background stuff but she got just as much screwed over by bioware as did every interaction with her imo

oh yeah definitely. i know this conversation is like beating a dead horse, yknow, a decade later, but there’s no absolute friendship path with her. she’s always... in love with shepard? there’s no real hard line you can pull with her. you can’t even really point out she shouldn’t have given shepards body to cerberus, that it wasnt her call, that she didnt tell anyone else... like you only get to be like “oh why didnt you tell me” like??? anyway,

i think her character, personally, was wasted. while the shadow broker dlc was great and funny and actually made reference to shep’s backstory, and tela vasir was wicked with the charging thing (although so funny being lvl30 with a 2 second cooldown on charge and shes not getting any chance to charge either)... she’s touted as a prothean expert? she did honestly help shepard to understand the visions... and it kind of got lost somewhere around end of me1 and beginning of me3, only became relevant to her again on mars for plot reasons. oh and of course with how she speaks to javik for a good chunk of the game once you recruit him. yeah.

like i dont know if its also a huge thing with what even was the plot in the end besides “reapers” because, real talk, me2 was building on something that was mentioned a few times in me1, it got abandoned, it doesnt narratively fit anymore. shuffle everyone’s priorities around and whatnot. but idk they wrote a lot of liara under the assumption she was probably romanced, so she doesnt really get anything else... which is a failing of the writing. ppl did complain about how she has no other dialogue for a romance and its like... thats bc she was written to be romanced. it came first, her character and abilities and emotions all came second. every interaction with her is literally a romance part. why you get some awkward interactions later on where people reference it (the fucking “my girl” line just. god. why.)

and as far as the asari go, yeah. like wrex, tali, and garrus, liara wouldve been a great thread into the interpolitics of asari, as mass effect is written heavily human biased (like with the whole “no one has seen a quarian face” but garrus coughed in a serial killer quarians face so. hm.). also like we know there are issues with pureblooded children (doesnt have to have anything to do with ardat-yakshi which no one else besides cora apparently knows about), liara does have a half hanar sibling out there somewhere, her mother was quite well respected prior to saren’s bullshit, we know liara’s dad was laughed out of the asari airspace for daring to question the encouragement of maiden stage and so on like. we just got broad strokes of it instead of like. being involved in some way. odd mission. she wasnt a squadmate in me2, but she was on illium. couldve had something there as it is still asari space but its like a dressed up version of omega. me3, build on it again.

like they are such a formulaic company, and yet... when they dare to try something different they double back on it and make it a mess. and liara isnt even the formula or anything different. shes just their pet favourite and even she got the short end of the stick, because they gave her stuff like collecting shepards broken armour and putting it in a case in her apartment or apparently being the only one who cared enough to recover shepards body or mind melding 4873847 times or being auto picked by the game if you happen to be flirting with two people at once, or emphasised how young and youthful and naive she was but then did a 180 on her character and made her like her mother like. lmao. you have one opportunity in me1 iirc to turn her down, assuming you dont accidentally ask her about anything asari culture wise or you lock in. you have i think at least 6 chains to turn down the VS youre interested in.

shes all over the place yknow

[allalrightagain]

Ooh thanks for tagging me! I love meta discussions, even (especially) about the bits that don’t actually make sense.

I agree with lots of this! You’ve laid it out really clearly, and I think you’re totally right about the corruption within the Ministry and Sirius being blamed because of being a Black and being an easy target. And agreed about the attack on the Longbottoms and subsequent trial being a lot later than ‘81– that article was really interesting.

(an unrelated side note— that trial scene tells us that Moody got most of his injuries late in the first war or after it, including his magical eye, which he gets sometime after Karkaroff’s trial. Makes you wonder when he was supposed to get his nickname or if the name had been around for a while, unrelated to the magical eye, if he got it sometime between ‘81 and ‘94.)

Anyways, staying on /this/ inconsistency, I think the only thing I’d add is that I’m not sure anyone really knows about Sirius being involved with the Potters at Godric’s Hollow. Obviously it’s relevant to the story we read and to Harry personally (and relatedly anyone who knows Harry personally vs his public persona you talk about), but iirc any involvement he might have had in the Potters’ deaths is conspicuously missing from any public info we get about Sirius (so the Prophet etc).

We know Fudge is at least partially aware, because he’s involved in the discussion at the Three Broomsticks that Harry listens in on where Fudge, Mcgonagall etc tell Rosemerta who hadn’t known about Sirius’s connection to Harry, outside of Sirius, Peter, and James being friends at school, and Stan Shunpike doesn’t mention it at all when he tells Harry about Sirius’s escape. Peter’s “death”, while mentioned in the Prophet article, didn’t seem to be well known to Rosemerta either.

(Another side note about things conspicuously missing, Remus is not mentioned at all in the conversation with Rosemerta and Fudge, despite a discussion about Peter being the one who trailed after James and Sirius. That’s what inspired ‘78 Count and the little thing I posted last week about Remus not being in the photos at the funerals— he’s completely forgotten in the public images, either due to his own actions (ie not being in the photos with them) or due to the canonization and sanitization of Lily, James, and Peter’s images, most likely both.)

That’s why I think the smear campaign (alongside the blatant corruption) is most likely, though it could have come in part or entirely from Dumbledore or the Ministry. Because Sirius is implicated in two different, serious (pun intended) crimes within a very short period, but no one knows about the first and the second seems… not nearly as awful culturally as others we know of— the Mckinnons, the Bones, the Longbottoms— yet doesn’t seem to be publicized the same way.

While it’s possible that Sirius selling out the Potters was just covered up, it seems unlikely because that information seems to be thrown around a fair amount in POA when Harry is just learning about it, it’s just the wider public that doesn’t know.

(Again as you said, this is due primarily to jkr’s clear lack of planning out Sirius’s plot and not an intentional social critique or broader character work)

I think it’s a case of too many people dictating the wider scope of events (a symptom of the widespread corruption) and that Sirius became a scapegoat for the Blacks, the Ministry, and arguably the death eaters, which benefits Dumbledore’s need to not draw focus to Sirius’s other actions (and thus allowing Dumbledore to place Harry with the Dursleys and turn the Potters into martyrs).

I've been seeing some discussion about how mad Sirius's imprisonment without trial was etc. and I've also been thinking about it for my own fic so here are some very rambly thoughts:

(also, I'm not suggesting that, at any level, jkr intended to explore the complexities of a corrupt justice system, all of this is a consequence of her many, many plotholes/poor worldbuilding, not her "genius")

Firstly, I think that Sirius was immediately assumed to be guilty because of his family. By this time (1981), the Death Eaters are basically synonymous with the Black family (inc. the Malfoy's, etc.) We know via Walburga's portrait, Kreacher, etc. that this family was unashamedly and loudly devoted to blood purity, to power, and to Voldemort.

But we also know that despite their obvious guilt, the Black family & co. were practically invincible because of their wealth and influence. Even after Voldemort's defeat, most of them successfully evade prison! It's not clear (bc why would it be...) but it's definitely implied in GOF that the attack on the Longbottom's happened a while after Voldemort's downfall. The Death Eaters felt "safe" in attacking the Longbottom's and that kind of security in their freedom definitely wouldn't have happened in the immediate aftermath. Meaning? They lived comfortably, freely for at least a few years after Voldemort's defeat in 1981.

The Ministry is simultaneously desperate to convict as many Death Eaters as possible (and prove their competency) but also letting some of the most notorious go free? Make it make sense!

Like, there is no way this is going to make them popular with the people, right? But also, the Black family & co. are extremely powerful in the Ministry. I think they absolutely had tons of blackmail material on the Ministry (corruption, secret supporters of Voldemort, etc) as well as being financially important too. We see this with Lucius Malfoy throughout the series - they clearly know he isn't a good guy and yet, he has considerable power in the Ministry. The Ministry can't risk losing the backing of these families but it had to do something to prove itself to the public.

Enter, Sirius Black.

Disowned by his family, he didn't seem to pose any real risk to the Ministry's relationship with the Black family; why would they defend their disgraced former heir? Even if Sirius did turn out to have become a Death Eater (i.e. returned to their "side") and did actually commit this crime, they still wouldn't have been willing to defend him because they were obviously doing all they could to distance themselves from Voldemort. Their son is found at the scene of a mass murder committed in Voldy's name - not exactly going to help their case in defending the "real" Black family. Sirius is a pretty safe target for the Ministry to pursue and be seen to be doing something right.

(Similarly, I think this is why Karkaroff is said to have had a trial much closer to the events of 1981. He isn't attached to a family name, he doesn't seem to come from any wealth, etc. He can be imprisoned without any real consequence but shows the Ministry to be successful in bringing justice.)

Sirius was also at the heart of the most significant event in the fight against Voldemort. The Potter's house in Godric's Hollow becomes a monument, it is visited by thousands of wizards who leave messages, Harry is repeatedly stopped in the street by strangers and thanked, he is stared at and fawned over. The Potter's become the ultimate symbol of the tragedy of the war. Their deaths (and Harry's life) become public property, it becomes personal. Everyone feels a sense of entitlement to the Potter's as if their tragedy belongs to the entire wizarding community. So naturally, the public would turn their attention towards the person who apparently made this happen. Not only someone who is a member of the notorious Black family but was an apparent mass murderer and a traitor too!

It was so easy for the Ministry to leave Sirius to rot in prison without a trial because who was going to defend him? Not his "family" who were too busy trying to save their own skin, not the public, and his real family were gone too: James and Sirius' parents were dead, James and Lily were now too. Peter was the real traitor. Remus was seemingly nowhere to be found and even if he was there, he suspected Sirius already (plus, I doubt the Ministry would accept his testimony or whatever because of his condition...)

Sirius was twenty-one. He was alone, vulnerable, grieving, obviously suffering from PTSD, and found to be the centre of one of the worst events in the war. I think ultimately he was an easy target for the Ministry to protect their reputation/public standing and cover up their miserable attempts at persecuting actual Death Eaters.

Is referencing a thing on hp meta? Idk but this was totally inspired by @wolfbuck and @allalrightagain and also this article about the Longbottom's attack.

[odilekuronuma]

Is Alibaba a good foil to Sinbad?

With me being rather uninterested in the actual events of Magi and its spinoff, I find myself only able to write about the characters themselves. On that front, Ohtaka hasn’t completely dropped the ball yet I feel.

So the way Ohtaka is setting up the final confrontation will likely have Sinbad be confronted by someone, and this someone would have to be Sinbad’s foil in every way. And that person is likely to be Alibaba.Yes because I believe that only Alibaba really qualifies as such, not Judal, not Hakuryuu, and certainly NOT Aladdin. So is he really a good foil to Sinbad?

We have to remember what a good foil is, it is someone who is the complete opposite to a character, while at the same time  similar in some ways.That imo is a good foil.

Let’s start from the beginning and figure out how they’re opposites to each other.

First things first , even their color scheme are opposite to one another, yet complementary. Design wise, Sinbad’s hair color is purple, while Alibaba’s is yellow, which on the color wheel are opposite colors, but also complementary. Ohtaka went for her main trio with the 3 primary colors; blue for Aladdin, red for Morgiana and of course yellow for Alibaba. In order to obtain Sinbad’s purple, you’d need to add the two other primary colors, red and blue.

 Next, Alibaba’s quest if we can call it that started with him meeting Aladdin and conquering a dungeon along with him, which as it turned out is the exact opposite of how things went with Sinbad. Sinbad while being chosen by a Magi, ended up conquering the dungeon (Baal) on his own. 

Alibaba would have never been able to conquer the dungeon on his own, so clearly in this he’s the complete opposite to Sinbad who did just that.More on that later.

The second big difference is the magoi. Alibaba started with some very low magoi, he only got a boost thanks to him absorbing Kassim’s rukh. But Sinbad was born with very high magoi, the highest iirc, as such he’s the complete opposite to Alibaba.

Alibaba is described most of the time as a “loser”, more than Sinbad ever was. And even though SnB showed that Sin also failed quite a bit, unlike what was reported in his adventures that Alibaba is an avid fan of, those can mostly seen as setbacks since he always manages to come on top, being guided by destiny and all that jazz. So even in a very unfavorable situation like with Madaura, he managed to profit from it in some way.  So he’s very much a winner, and Sinbad was introduced as a Grand King, who achieved many things, which is a stark contrast with Alibaba.

Even when it comes to women, Alibaba is rather unpopular (motenai), while Sinbad is very much popular with the ladies. Although to be fair Alibaba seems to be more lucky as of late, since he got to be with the girl of his dreams, while Sin is doomed to have inconsequential one night stands...which might be the dream for some men, but it’s definitely a lonely life. Poor baby.

But the major way in which Sinbad and Alibaba are opposites imo is the fact that Sinbad is often shown only relying on himself , while Alibaba is always getting help from others. This is what I meant earlier about the dungeon conquering. There’s definite pros and cons to both approaches. Sinbad is seen to be more decisive, and that is a quality appreciated in a leader, but at the same time acting on your own most of the time just means you’re going to shoulder a big responsibility and makes you come off even as distrustful. On the other hand you could say that Alibaba relies too much on others, and isn’t too prone to act on his own which makes him come off as undecisive. At least that’s my explanation to his inaction.

Even when it comes to having a country they have opposite approaches. Alibaba is born to Rachid Saluja, a monarch, he was raised as a prince for a good portion of his life, but failed to succeed his father on the throne. When he came back to his country later he wished for it to become a republic. So that shows that he had no interest in the throne and becoming King.

Sinbad on the other hand is a commoner who created his own country, and became its king. He was obsessed with the idea of having his own country, and believed it will allow him to change the world, which it did.

Also needless to say that Sinbad sees himself as a special entity, while Alibaba believes that everyone is equal. And even though it really got on my nerves how Aladdin placed Alibaba on a fucking pedestal, by saying that he’s the Greatest King, which in my eyes is contradictory to saying that everyone is equal...It still stands that Sinbad and Alibaba disagree on that.

Sinbad is shown to be extremely sly, but Alibaba isn’t sly or even comes off as naive...and so on. I’m sure there’s more ways in which those two are opposite, but those are the ones who are the most relevant imo. Now unto the ways they’re similar.

Let’s start by saying that Alibaba greatly admires Sinbad, he wrote Alibaba’s adventures because he’s a huge fan of “Sinbad’s adventures”. So with that in mind Sinbad likely represented the ideal of a King vessel for Alibaba for the longest time.That is of course before he met the real Sinbad, but even with all of his misdeeds Alibaba still admires him and what he has achieved.

At times  Ohtaka is shown deliberately drawing a parallel between Sinbad and Alibaba, like when they’re both shown starving and failing miserably.

But the major way in which they’re similar, is that they are both king vessels who are able to inspire others, and who are able to gain followers in the form of a household, and they’re completely faithful to them. In this regard Alibaba does a better job than Hakuryuu, because he actually has a HH, and not a bunch of weird plants and two old generals....He’s definitely more charismatic than Hakuryuu.

And it so happens that both have died (literally or not) and it somewhat changed their perception of the world. 

To me those are the ways they’re similar. So overall yes Alibaba seems to be a good foil to Sinbad, in fact he’s been written as such, especially if we consider the beginnings of the manga, and even their design.It even feels forced at times like that time with Aladdin praising Alibaba and shit.

While there are others who could have been thought to fill in that role at one point, they don’t come close to Alibaba imo. Here’s a few:

Kouen: many thought at one point that he’s the real foil to Sinbad, but as we got to learn more about him I don’t think he was ever meant to be Sinbad’s foil. And that is because he’s way too similar to Sinbad. He’s very sly, doesn’t hesitate to use shady methods, manipulative as fuck, you name it. So no he’s not actually Sinbad’s opposite, he’s only his opposite in terms of vision.

Judal: He could be seen as similar to Sinbad because of what happened to him and his parents, and Al Thamen. Both him and Sinbad were fucked over by Al Thamen. And while Sinbad likely wanted to make the world a better place, Judal only wanted to destroy it and wreak havoc....because it’s fun. So he could be seen as somewhat of a foil, but not entirely.

Hakuryuu: Hakuryuu has a few things going for him, especially now after the timeskip. He got a lot of character development, and we’ve seen him evolve from someone who is vengeful and consumed by hatred, to someone who actually let go of his hatred. He’s definitely more mature now. Just like Alibaba he’s of noble birth, which is opposite of Sinbad, but the major way in which he’s different is that he acknowledges the fact that a king can’t be righful at all times, which Sinbad thinks he can be all the time, or else he wouldn’t take all that responsibility on his own. It could have been interesting to explore more of this aspect, since I believe Hakuryuu has more edge than Alibaba, and it’s less cliche to have the guy who did some questionable things be the one who turns around and does the right thing, as opposed to the MC who is often shown to be naive and always ends up on the right side of a conflict. But that’s just me.

Aladdin: Oh boy, where to start? Aladdin is in no way Sinbad’s foil, no matter how hard he tries to  lecture him about fate. You could argue that both him and Sinbad are special entities, with Sinbad being a singularity while Aladdin is “Solomon’s proxy”, and prince of AT, a world that was destroyed ages ago...But there isn’t much to his character that can actually create a good contrast with Sinbad, personality wise. In fact I even find that he’s rather bland...but that’s not really relevant. His opposition to Sinbad’s plan has a lot to do with the propaganda he’s been taught by Ugo, so it’s not really clear if those are his ideas, or he’s just repeating the same PC crap that Ugo taught him. He’s definitely less of a foil than Hakuryuu and of course Alibaba.

So with that said, it’s pretty clear that only Alibaba can be seen as Sinbad’s real foil, because he’s been written in such a way. Only a true good guy would have to take on the big baddie who happens  to be morally grey, in typical shounen fashion. So there’s that too.

Does Alibaba actually have what it takes to oppose Sinbad and make him regain his senses? Or will Ohtaka just pull some Deus ex machina and have Alibaba just kill him? That is unclear, but one thing is clear in my mind is that Alibaba was deliberately written as Sinbad’s foil, ever since the beginning actually.

[panic-in-tarir]

One year in review

That’s it! The OH IT’S BEEN ONE YEAR post is here!

The closer my first anniversary was, the more excited I got, and the more thoughts I gathered for one “summary” post. Now that it’s time, suddenly, bam, all of them gone. :’> *wipes sweat*

Recently I had someone asking about my progression and how I managed to get there (???? where? derp). Well, I guess, I could just start telling about my first deeds in GW2, and then see if I can add something.

This might or might not be relevant, but I come from Wakfu, a colorful 2D game with turn-based combat. It’s cool visually, but also has terrible management issues, lack of developer care, one of the worst customer supports ever, list goes on.. I played it since 2012, and year by year, only grew angry, disappointed and hurt. That was like an abusive relationship I couldn’t get out of. I refused to try different genre and engine games. Finally, @aketan​ / @flame-squad​ / Rika got me lowkey interested in GW2 (she was commenting expressively while playing, and I peeked over her shoulder), I decided to try it. And stayed. Migrating to a real-time 3D game wasn’t easy! Yet, it was my lifesaver decision. GW2 has everything that I wish was there in Wakfu. It took me several months, if not a year, to get fully “healed”, to recover from the bad game and start believing that good games exist. When I had to contact GW2 support, I was touched to tears.. Everything and everyone is so nice here.

That wall of text was a foreword! Or explanation why I’m so excited and grateful about every aspect of GW2.

I started without putting too much thought into the char creation, as a result, now I have yet another main whose name is literally foreign language swearing or pun. GG me. After having been completely lost and confused by the controls (I LITERALLY ran backwards and yelled), after having a short but comprehensive lesson from bff, I started derping around on my own. I think I was only guided until lvl 5 or so, then my buddy let me do whatever I want. I come from a sandbox-wannabe game so it didn’t take me forever to get comfortable and set my first goals. Of course, I had a shit ton of questions, which I didn’t hesitate to spam Rika with. It’s cool to have someone ready to explain you the basics and patiently show you things. :D My several first days, or even weeks, were intense. I didn’t rush levels, but was eager to see the world. It was so amazing to me that I was spending 8-10 hours a day, running around, completing maps. I started in Metrica but quickly wandered away to Caledon (”oh! a portal?!”), where I spent a handful of time then.

With such a desire to discover and observe, and after having seen the title you’re awarded for 100% world map completion, I set it as my first ultimate goal. I approached it rather seriously, and had an incredibly fun time, at least until I had only Orr left undiscovered. x’D As a squishy (and slow, and dumb) ele, I was frightened and a bit discouraged by the amount of, well, deaths here. If I recall correctly, I still wore yellows at that time, although I was 80. Rika helped me and accompanied me for a bit. Orr was tough and I legit cried out of anger and frustration when I was alone, but that was the only unpleasant moment in entire year, and only because I wasn’t good at the game yet.

In the meantime, I was leveling my first alt, human engi. Do you actually remember that f2p accounts only allow 2 chars? Later, after buying HoT, I finally got loose.

They say, you always remember the place where you finished your first world map. For me, and oddly enough, for Rika, it was Field of Ruins. We reached the last POI at the same time, and, boy, did it feel great. My first big accomplishment. It dropped like.. Like a norn fart in a moot (c) Jory \o/ I still use the title btw, “been there, done that”. \o/

Then, there was a relatively dull period before buying HoT. I focused on doing my personal story, maxing out my alt and getting into crafting. The latter quickly became addictive to me. It’s so smooth, fun and exciting in GW2. Artificer was my first discipline, and after getting the hang of it, I breezed through 100-500 in a single day’s course.

That’s what the progression of my first 4-5 months looked like! I still was f2p, did only open world content and had one person to play with. I’m my own boss so it’s up to me to decide if I want to spend 30 minutes or 8 hours ingame.

HoT was a blessing in every aspect possible! I never regretted buying it, never regretted taking my time and not buying it earlier though - I needed that f2p scrub time to learn the basics, and to appreciate all the convenience and QoL improvements that come with HoT.

That’s where the real game starts, if I could say that. Core Tyria is by all means amazing, but you can go only this far if your account has those market and mail restrictions.. I used to enjoy playing market in Wakfu (while it was still alive) and I was excited to try it in GW2. When I bought the expansion and got my account fully functional, I got some skins and dyes ahead of all, then proceeded with crafting since I was really addicted to it and excited to max all the disciplines as my medium priority goal.

GW2 is encouraging altoholism! So I found myself leveling a third character (tried revenant and didn’t notice how I got her to level 20-ish and it was too late to delete), then fourth, fifth, then more char slots.. You see my weakness. I quickly realized the perks of having alts: storage, gathering, alternative personal stories, so on. When you’re an altoholic, plus you have yet to finish gearing up your main, plus you can barely hold yourself from leveling another crafting discipline.. RIP GOLD. I never had more than 30-100g at that time period.

Since market and wealth are one of my biggest passions ingame, I learned ways to earn me some coins, one by one. It’s not that hard if you’re a patient gatherer like me. Just run around, chop trees, collect ore and herbs.. I enjoy it so much, maybe it’s grind for someone, but I find it relaxing. Also it brings you gold. \o/ I found a few niche crafts that I could keep making and selling, then got familiar with market flipping, still not doing it like “big daddies” do, I might be too inefficient and lazy at it. But still, I found my own stable sources of income. Not gonna lie, the game just seems to like me and spoils occasionally. I don’t wanna brag, but there was like 4 precursor drops for me, 2 from mystic toilet, 2 practically dropped from the sky. I might be a little luckier than the average player. But that’s well deserved given how much suffering I had in Wakfu. :’D

When we talk about luck, we can’t avoid mentioning gambling. I learned about mystic toilet quite early, but never was a slave to it. Tarrktun has a bit more power over me, but I’ve never lost too much, only gained little by little. Black Lion Keys are the most evil gambling aspect if you ask me, I’ve spent quite a bit of money on those, though sometimes got nice things in exchange. Either gold to gems or gems for real money, I don’t mind spending it on Anet since they very, very well deserve it.

Given my passion, patience and luck, you must think I should be filthy rich by now.. Hah. :’DD Sadly, I’m just as good at spending as I’m at earning! I blew a lot of money on my own “needs” and “wants” and “why not”s, I keep investing into long term sales, I also often buy gifts for my buddies, mostly Rika. Money comes, money goes. GW2efficiency says my account is worth 14k gold currently. Not a bad progress for a year, I suppose.

So.. My biggest interests and playstyle are gold wars, fashion wars, altoholism.. I became quite a lore geek, completed PS, LS2, available LS3 episodes & most of current events, most of HoT? I should finish it but I procrastinate for some reason.

My current achievement number is 7610, mastery rank is 129 iirc. I’m not a casual derp anymore, but still too afraid to fail in front of strangers so I don’t really do dungeons or fractals. I mean I DO, when my bff literally holds my hand and goes there with me, then 3 strangers vs two of us is tad bit less scary. My combat skill, my reflexes and reactions are rather pathetic, even if I got significantly better after HoT and LS3 maps. I must train more, so recently I made a tanky character to practice, I hope to get good enough to clear story mode dungeons and low level fractals alone. Maybe I’m being too hard at myself, but combat skill has practically the biggest influence in this game, so I must git gud, at least acceptable, so I don’t feel ashamed to play with other people and don’t let them down. :’D

I’m a pve trash. Tried WvW and don’t mind coming here again, but not too much. PvP is a big no-no. Just.. Not my thing. Never. Not with my current skill and mindset (people = stress).

I’ve still got a mind-boggling amount of things to do. Personal goals, mere achievements, secrets and mysteries I’m yet to uncover, lore things to read. Maybe I’ll play GW1 one day, if there’s ever a discount sale. \;w;/ I’m super curious about every tiny bit of lore, also want some skins that are exclusive to GW1. That pleasant, sweet feeling that there’s so much interesting things ahead. I will take my time and never grind anything to frustration, for example, I’ve been working on my first leg, Sunrise, on and off and I’ll wait several months more, until I get all the clovers from the monthly chest. I don’t sweat it and just enjoy the game however I see it. Feelsgoodman.

I hope I managed to answer that person’s question, how did I get where I’m currently? Just took my time, learned my own pace and enjoyed every minute I spent online. Love the game, and it will love you back. \o/