#but the beginning??? thats where all the character establishing shit is!!!!!!

[pseudophan]

why is it so normal for people to start tv shows (any type, american sitcom to anime idc whatever) from a specific season in the middle of the series because for some reason the fandom has decided the first few seasons aren't worth it? what's even the point of watching it then. sure it might get better from season 3 onwards, but you're not gonna have any of the context. you won't know the characters. whatever great things happen in season 3 won't hit as well if you don't suffer through the mediocrity of the first two seasons.

sorry i just think if you can't handle sitting through shitty or kinda just average episodes of something in order to get to the really good bits you don't deserve to watch it at all. like literally what is the point of watching a series if you're gonna jump into it halfway through

[modtheartifex]

i wrote this into a youtube comment like moments ago, but i feel strongly enough that i will put it out here as well;

Lego Monkie Kid Season 5 does NOT have villains. it has characters that are antagonistic forces and layered with nuance on top of nuance.

not to say previous seasons didnt do this, but this season ABSOLUTELY is entirely filled with characters like this

lmk season 5 spoilers, as well as anything from previous seasons just in case cause idk. might get long too tbh oopsies JINNGFDOIJN

we have a few characters to consider for LMK s5's "villains".

we have Ne Zha's dad (i forget his name, ill probably call him pagoda man), nine headed dragon (consort, 10th king, xiangliu) and nuwa. we could theoretically consider thousand eyed demon, however hes only relevant in one episode so id hardly count that

pagoda man is the easiest to explain, he is an antagonistic force because hes trying to hold onto what little order there is left of the world, he is trying to be the duct tape keeping the sawed in half boat together, and hes trying to minimize risks. does that excuse how he treats ne zha? fuck no, but thats a whole different discussion and depending on your interpretation of how much of the chinese mythos you use for this work will vary. he is just like mk as mk himself points out, it doesnt have to be just pagoda man doing the work, theres people willing to help, and then he joins the heroes side for the end.

cool, great, now. what the fuck do i mean by nuwa?

this is where interpretation is strongest, where it is key. ill just be sharing my perspective. when i was first watching season 5 my partner pointed out to me that in chinese mythos chaos is a core element of the world, it is necessary. this, coupled with the fact that nuwa made mk to fix a cycle she created (which we also dont know how many cycles the world has gone through, it could be one, it could be two, it could be in the hundreds if not thousands, whos to say.) and to keep chaos out... she is keeping the world from being complete. her little cave without the outside world, without proper balance, her little people living blissfully apocalypse to apocalypse. "but theyll all die!" "theyll live again" nuwa says, smile on her face.

she is disconnected from her cave, her world her people, her creations, who knows how long shes been in the limbo, how well she can perceive time, how many times a sacrifice comes in, they get a few words exchanged before they just leave, her in the pillar, only getting glimpses when the cycle is ending of the world, only to be shut in again.

neat, ok, but xiangliu??? hes who was gestured at from the BEGINNING of season 4.

see. heres where we get into the GOOD shit.

this is why it is important to establish that we dont know how many cycles have happened. we do not know how long he has been stuck, how many times he has tried to fix the world over and over. he makes it clear in his ending dialogue, if only he knew how to fix it, that sharing the power of the stones was the key to his freedom. the fact that he goes from what most would consider the least important title to the most important one, his own name, the fact he states he was wukongs friend, his enemy, both, wukong just doesnt remember

that implies longentivity. that implies so many cycles and lifetimes lived inside this cycle, being aware of everything, being so damnably aware of what one considers true freedom, and having to sit at the precipice of that.

it is agony.

xiangliu for the majority of the season is the only one to call mk by his name. mk gets so often called child, kid, nicknames by the others, maybe mei refers to him as mk, but xiangliu has it be DELIBERATE. he altered the course of the cycle to give mk a life, to let him HAVE a life where nuwa didnt care for one, he WANTED mk to grow enough that he would be able to choose. because everything is about mks choice, his ability to choose it all matters on HIS. CHOICE.

the only time this falters is when xiangliu thinks he is trapped for good. he rushes at mk, one final chance at freedom seemingly taken from him. xiangliu never fights mk. he only fights the others when they start fighting him. when its just him and mk at the edge of the world, at the edge of chaos, he talks to mk. tells him what to expect, mentions a mysterious "he" now that mk has opened the cage. and he pushes mk back so he gets to go back to his life. so that mk can have choices still. xiangliu got what he wanted, so its only right mk gets what he wanted too. to live with his friends and let everyone live a life where they can figure something out.

that is why i do not think there are villains in lego monkie kid season 5. they are antagonists with layers of nuance, nuance we arent privy to for reason or another, be it episode count, length, screentime, or that were just not supposed to yet. season 5 does not have an obvious bad guy, a villain, because the nuance is right within our grasp.

thank you for reading this. fucking essay apparently oopsies JINNGFDIJN

[korithefox]

More Flipside spoilers. Fuck off im gonna talk about this stupid game as much as i want /lh

While we agree that all the endings sucked, i was thinking about Jeffery's death in particular and how the lead up to it was completely out of character for both him and Nicole

Let's start with Nicole: she wouldn't have even considered, let alone asked, to get involved with selling her feet to weirdos in the internet, especially if she knows that Jeffery is one of them. Now we know that sex work isn't completely out of the question for her. She sucked dick for drugs in the Re-Up because she was homeless and getting a "normal" job didn't work out. But thats the thing: she didn't have much of a choice. She was doing what it took to cope with her circumstances and have a roof over her head every night. But in the Flipside, she was still living at home and had her own income by stealing and reselling stuff on Ebay. In that case, there is no amount of money high enough that would get her to sell her body. Not to some old man like Jecka's dad, and definitely not to Jeffery of all people.

Speaking of Jeffery, hes fucking weird. That's nothing new. And it's no surprise that he gets off from being degraded by girls he likes. He'll put up with a lot of shit for sexual gratification. But he's also not completely socially blind. He's a dumbass but he knows when he's being bullied and whatnot. While going along and doing stupid shit because Nicole called him a "good boy" is 100% up his alley, i personally think he'd be too smart to let it go as far as it did. He puts up with a lot but he still has his limits. Consider how dismissive he was of Emily and Nicole when he started dating Karen in the Re-Up, and especially how he talked to Nicole and Jecka when they were trying to bully him at the beginning of the Flipside. It shows that he'd matured and realized he doesn't need fake validation from people who don't like him to be happy. He wouldn't do a full 180 on that principle and let Nicole overdose him on Robitussin and whatever else just because she took her shoes off and made his dick hard once

It feels like the first 2 games gave us a set of characters and established their traits, and while not necessarily realistic, they were believable, relatable, and entertaining. Then the Flipside comes along and turns the most well-known of those traits up to 100 just for the hell of it, to the point where the characters being assholes isn't even funny or clever, they're just assholes for the sake of being assholes. They took what we loved about the characters and completely overdid it so that they aren't even 3-dimensional, complex individuals anymore, but rather objects to create borderline pornographic content with that very obviously would've been hated if they (the devs) had taken even a second to look at the type of audience the first 2 games had garnered

The Flipside had so much potential to be an awesome game, but it was ruined by the decision to turn its beloved characters and world into one big piece of "technically legal" fetish art

[kijosakka]

how. how would i even write out a proper fic of dramaturgy au,,

cutting this off bc i got too caught up in myself and rambled

ok umm,, dramaturgy as an au is just so character study-ish and generally character-focused,, plus the initial developments made on island are kiinda important to the cast dynamic?? so as i see it there are a few options:

A: rehash/go through the unchanged plot of island, the TDDDDI special, some eps of WT, using it to develop the Situation from other characters perspectives while maybe having one or two to emphasize noahs characterization

it gives a lot of time for character developments outside of noah himself, and time to reinforce noahs own characterization using that outside perspective,, but could potentially get boring/long-winded, since nothing different happens and its literally just Characters Having Screentime

^ maybe sub a full going-through with character vignettes and specific scenarios throughout island/the special/celeb. manhunt or after TD/eps of WT??? i guess you could also slot smth like this in with the other ideas aswell

B: begin the hypothetical fic post-jamaica challenge and leading into london, use it to exposition some minor things and generally establish characterization before getting into challenges and actual canon divergence

it doesnt drag on (as much atleast), gives you enough time with enough cast members to establish what the others think of noah and what noah thinks/how he behaves and why (probably slot in his distrust of alejandro here??), more challenges gives noah more chances (and reasons) to break character, though the character development has to be slow and conflict should probably be built up (but im kinda partial to this one ngl)

C: kindof half-baked but beginning in london (i’m imagining literally at his eel line), where hes eliminated that episode, but comes back via comeback challenge; arc kicked off by being so pissed off that he has to come back and do the Same Shit yet again (and probably because of producer-rigging. again.)

the conflict/character dynamics would move a little faster, its less to trudge through and figure out canon changes like the butterfly effect of noah staying in the game in london, but having less characters to have relationships/interactions with (but making the ones had can be more developed/rounded as a result), less Time in general, the original idea of noah ‘unmasking’ alejandro is kiiinda less impactful this late into the game?? slightly i feel like

or D: even more half-baked than C and kinda just 'possible' and feeling out of place, but you could have noahs arc happen in all-stars instead (smth smth the audience was vv dissatisfied with how he ranked in WT and so he gets brought back)

^ this is mostly bc i like the motif of noah having eel-pond related scars and seeing it as a physical reminder of where 'acting like the camera isn't there' can get him (but you could potentially fit this into the C idea, posing it more as a bitter feeling/theme rather than a motivation to continue his facade)

i dont really like this one from a storytelling standpoint, and it doesnt make much sense since theres no character motivation via unmasking alejandro since everyone already knows at this point?? idk it is there though

umm yeah thats all ive got, i guess you could also mismatch ideas like B&C so the fic starts post-jamaica but noah still gets eliminated, or have noah eliminated after london but still winning the comeback challenge and coming back swearing vengeance (within his own head mostly) or smth like that

i kinda wanted to just put this Out in the World and let it simmer before i start combing through WT to make the allotted ‘official’ canon changes of this au lol

(and not to mention theres still the issue of the actual Ending,, does he win?? is his winning both symbolic and the first genuine, intentional break of character he makes, to the audience and his peers beyond the unintentional ones hes made along the way???

smth smth character growth, hes learned how to let himself break character but now hes learning to do it intentionally too??? < im partial to that but im also biased towards noah and any hypothetical win of his

^ or does he lose?? and his ending watching the finalists parallel the island bit where he Did Not Care but now??? idk idk the longer i think the more i like the whole symbolic win thing but in terms of storytelling/the Themes, does it Work. i do like to think so

the original draft of this idea has noah not in fact winning but it also had a strangely,,,,, vindictive tone?? that might not be the word but the Themes were different and noah was more scheme-ish rather than defense mechanism-having so im thinking the ending should change as well)

[spacedlexi]

you said that you "need 2 characters to deeply care for each other and positively impact each other for me to want to ship them" so which of the twdg canon ships do you actually think work/make sense? and by canon ships i mean like actual established relationships, implied relationships or perhaps a character that was crushing on someone else before death.

me immediately blanking on every relationship in twdg upon reading this ask

the only one i stand behind with conviction is clemvi. idk if you need me to explain why i feel like ive done it a million times by now 👀 but yeah theyre the only relationship i "Ship" in regards to the quote where i see them as a match for each other and think romance makes sense for both parties

as for some "in defense of"s

i'll defend javi and kate. my only Real problem with them is how they handle david in it like girl can you at least take off the wedding ring before we kiss 😭 my brother still thinks youre his wife (plus they did push it Really hard.. but like.. narratively i understand why they did. family is a running theme of the series and javi and davids relationship is like the main conflict). but like. kate and javis relationship Makes Sense. she had a shit husband (who wanted to go back to the army anyway). her and javi already had the beginnings of Something before the outbreak even happened. she was left with javi to take care of 2 children that werent even biologically hers (i enjoy the complex family dynamics in twdg as a whole). and together theyve been surviving for years as a family unit. i think javi having feelings isnt up for debate, its more just will he act on those feelings or will he respect his brother? and like.. fuck david am i right? kate was Not happy in that relationship and deserves better, and javi cares about her. but also the pressure from their dad to get along after hes gone. it all works for me even if it couldve been executed better

and i .... sigh .... Understand gabe and clem. BUT!!! i think they have different feelings towards each other and its an important distinction. gabe definitely has a huge crush on her, shes cool as hell, but i think her feelings in return are fueled by hormones and the fact that she hasnt been around anyone her own age since DUCK (sarah was 15 at the time). like. does she think hes cute? yeah. but he can also be kind of a huge jerk sometimes and acts recklessly. i think its those moments that snap clem out of it lol. seeing this response in S4 felt vindicating im taking it as sad loner clem having a hormone induced crush. like girl yes or no?? this is the most direct option??

personally i dont like them together because i Hate tropes where the more mature girl half has to teach the immature boy half to grow up and be capable and thats somehow romantic. ESPECIALLY in clems case where she is literally already raising someone like her hands are full ok. her assuaging his ego makes me 🤢 girl you dont have to take that second gun just because he was gonna cry about it if you didnt. its just not romantic to me. also i think its soooo funny that clem uses the same tactic on gabe that she does on aj in S4 with the "i need you to watch my back" to stop him from complaining about being left behind at the gate LOL. also i just think he loves his dad too much who clem hates more than anyone on earth so like.. theres that

uuhhh who else... alvin and rebecca are fine. like i have nothing to say about them but i believe their relationship and think they wouldve been good parents to aj. hmmm.... i guess thats it for the ones i have defenses for?? the others just like.. exist. like im neutral

[chryblossomjjk]

bts fic recommendations | 01.10.23

→ hi friends! this is a little segment i do every tuesday (reviewsday get it, aren't i funny, pls tell me how funny i am) where i read and review two-three fics. as a content creator, i know how big of a role other creators play in your growth, therefore, i want to do my part in making sure everyone gets the recognition they deserve! so with that being said, please check out the amazing fics listed below. make sure to like, reblog, and leave feedback! ♡ #reviewsday #kikirecs

pina coladas (pt 1 + pt 2) - @han-nah-banana (jjk x reader | established relationship, smut, angst, fluff)

ok so um... the attention to detail is off the charts! like when the little things you mention about jungkook and oc, like them eating healthy foods, only having sex in the missionary position, etc. tells us so much about them and the status of their relationship. like you showed us that they were stuck in a boring, mundane relationship through little hints and i really love that. ALSO POV SHIFT IN PART ONE WAS SO GOOD! like the way their thoughts mirrored one another was such good storytelling ugh!!! also think you picked a great setting for this type of story, the 80s. it makes everything feel so real, like the sexual repression oof! so glad they got to bang it out in the sexiest way in pt 2! really really good for your first fanfic like WOW! loved it!

i can do better - @here4btsfics (pjm x reader | fwb, smut)

summary: your boyfriend of two years just dumped you and you’re angry and sad. so get hammered with your coworker at his place and eat bad food and watch trash tv which leads to some interesting conversations.

bro all you did is enforce my delusions that irl men cannot compete bc they are not park jimin. men should apologize for not being park jimin at this point. even kim taehyung... anywho lmao. DUDE and then oc listing all the things perfect about jimin. she is just like me fr!!! also like this is kind of how i picture jimin in real life ngl. THAT MAN IS A COCKY CONFIDENT DOM I WILL ARGUE THIS SHIT UNTIL IM BLUE IN THE FACE GTFO! and miss oc... no strings attached girl??? A WHOLE BLUFF. honestly, this entire fic is one of my daydreams when im in a lecture and i fucking loved every second of it bby! so so good. so glad you decided to start writing again, extremely proud of you.

darksided - @eoieopda (myg x reader | established relationship, smut)

summary: min yoongi adored you. he'd simply never hurt you.

i saw someone post about smut where the characters are so grossly in love is their fav genre. this is exactly that. this fic encompasses everything i love in fanfic. i felt like a fly on the wall, being dropped into the middle of the situation where i figure out who the characters are through their actions, words, etc. you do that so perfectly here. like the way i know everything i need to know about min yoongi through the FUCKING setting?? naur this is s tier writing right here. also there's just something you do with words thats v magical. can't put my finger on exactly what it is but here is an example:

"a quick survey of the landscape before you indicated that this was a criminal oversimplification."

LIKE IDK JUST SOMETHING ABOUT HOW YOU STRUCTURE SENTENCES IS GENIUS! like cannot even begin to describe how good this was. would die for this couple honestly. the smut had me clenching too OOF. so cool to see what you've accomplished on this platform in such a short period of time! it's so so deserved and i can't wait to see where you go from here. don't know how you can even get better than this like ur already at the moon um!!! but god it's only going to get better from here. like next thing u know u'll be a famous writer fr. wishing you nothing but the fucking best!!!!

[st4rshiptr00per]

greatest flaw of set piece is that its another ace story where they have her change her name back as a sign of her developing as a person, which just does not feel right thematically ever to me.

like ok i have a personal investment in this already </3 but her being Ace and not anything else is immediately, day one, established as part of her being alienated from the 'normalcy' she comes from. shes an outsider but she also isnt somebody who is/does anything in a passive way. she chooses to be Ace because people want her to be something else. and being an Active Participant is such a huge part of her character, her sense of self, he morality, etc.

and over her whole character arc in the books there are multiple points where she is met with the option of straying from the core of who she is and what she believes, and she always comes back to Being Ace, even if she comes back different each time. a lot of the stuff that happens with her after she comes back in Deceit is her trying to process the shit that shes been through and done and integrate that with the self-understanding she had before she left. she gets a whole arc there of reckoning all of that with the sense of morality that shes maybe let slip to the side for a while and she does eventually find that she has, Pretty Much, the same core values that she did wayyyy back at the beginning. she still believes in taking action and not letting anybody just end up as cannon fodder. and Set Piece is like a whole other mini-arc reinforcing that, where shit gets really bad and she gets disillusioned with the whole thing, and eventually finds her way back to 'even if you cant fix the whole world it matters that you try to save the people you can'. she gets turned off of the disillusionment and nihilism, she refuses to let other people decide what is important for her, and becomes more of an active participant than ever, and thats where they leave her.

so what im SAYING IS. Ace being Ace is so emblematic of her focus on self-determination and action. and she is such a wildly, WILDLY different person than who she started out as on a lot of levels. so I don't know what the 'i changed my name back actually' thing at the end is doing here. if its to be like "she grew up so shes grown out of nicknames" thats a pretty...shallow character choice. and if thats not the intended effect, its still kind of a weak decision to have her revert back to a more standard, acceptable name like.... why take away her Flavor. what's the point. kate orman answer my emails

[actualbird]

SSR Dark Ripple is one hell of a story filled with tension, drama, intrigue, passion etc etc and i adore it. but then i was chatting with @samsspambox they were like "hey where was aaron during this card? aaron is probably up in luke's communicator" and thats the best thing ever cuz 1) it makes sense because aaron is luke's partner for NSB missions and 2) it makes the entire story of SSR Dark Ripple like, so much funnier

[BEGINNING SCENE IN THE BANQUET HALL]

aaron, in luke's earpiece comms: uh oh buddy, change of plans

luke, replying via morse code or some shit, dont think too much about the logistics: what? why

aaron: we've got a code rose

luke: WHAT? SHE'S HERE??

aaron: 4 o'clock, bright's chatting up your bae

luke: im sorry, BAE?

aaron: what, do you kids not say bae anymore? kids used to love saying bae. anyway, bright's bringing her over right now, you miiiiiiight wanna make it clear shes not to be played with

//luke then commences those extremely possessive raven displays in PUBLIC BANQUET HALL

aaron: WOW you kinda went all out there huh

luke: BE. QUIET.

and actually like......remember when aaron-as-sphynx outright told mc that he loved dramatic spy flicks and would enjoy writing a dramatic spy flick-esque story? given that, aaron couldve WRITTEN luke's raven cover persona for this mission altogether

[BEFORE THE MISSION EVEN BEGAN, PREPPING FOR THE OPERATION AND LUKE IS SQUINTING AT THE CHARACTER BRIEF PDF AARON JUST SENT HIM]

luke: why does raven need to be a playboy?? that has nothing to do with establishing more trust with bright

aaron: god, it's called flavor text, you uncultured idiot

[indiehorrorgamemovie]

isthefnafmovieout reviews the fnaf movie (SPOILERS)

Pre-movie thoughts (written 10/25):

I get to see it a day early! YAY!

I might have hyped this movie up in my brain a little too much, because I'm SUPER anxious.

The polarizing reviews i was seeing throughout the day were definitely a little nerve wracking! Lots of good and bad reviews, lots of weird contridicting statements. I saw lots of people complaining about the lore being "wrong" or whatever but... Eh. It has already been established that this movie won't have the same lore as the games, so I won't mind any lore changes. They're like the Silver Eyes books, in their own seperate canon but with similarities to the games.

Overall Im keeping my hopes reasonably high. Horror films and video game adaptations tend to get a bad wrap from even the fairest critics. I'm a die-heard fnaf fan, have been for all 9 years of its existence. If Dawko loves it then I will love it I think 🫡

Okay, now with that out of the way...

Spoiler free review, posted on my letterboxd:

Post-movie thoughts (written 10/26):

The way they incorporated Mike's dream sequences into the narrative was really interesting, how he tries to use his dreams to find out who took his brother. He and Abby were really sweet :) I like how their relationship drives the plot along, with how they befriend Abby but only as a front because they want her to "be like them," and how Mike is caught up in the past and realizes that he needs to focus on protecting Abby, not bringing his brother back. Its surprisingly emotional, i really resonated with their story. Josh Hutcherson and Piper Rubio both did well!

It's basically everything I expected, and I liked it! I think it's story was good, with its focus on childhood innocence.

Vanessa is great too! Different from her game counterpart, but thats okay! And the twist that she's actually William aftons daughter? Holy shit I gasped like I was watching a soap. Thats so interesting!! I loved how she just FELT suspicious. I know it's very different from the game lore, but I expected the movie to be, and I liked what they did! I got chills when Vanessa showed the picture of her and William to Mike and you could see her holding the plane that Mike's brother used to have.... my dad thought that was the creepiest part. Speaking of william btw...

Matthew Lillard, man. wow. What a great William Afton. They do some subtle implications that hes William in the beginning and if i didnt know it was him already i would've been surprised. He hams it up like he did with Stu Macher and it's great! I wish he was in it a little more, and they expanded a little more on Williams character through Vanessa, but yeah, he was good! I hope to see more of him in any sequels!

I wish the animatronics showed up a little more, thats probably my biggest critique or whatever. But they are so well made and cute. I liked how they befriended Abby, and that they rlly honed in on the animatronics being possessed by kids and that their violence is from William Aftons influence. I wish they went more into depth about how William influenced them though, and why it's all the pictures drawn of what happened that control their vision of what happened. What we did get from them though was so cool! Jim Henson did so well with these guys, they're so cute yet can be so scary.

The kills were pretty tame on the surface, as I expected, but some of the implications were quite disturbing to a point where it didn't rlly take away from it for me. Especially Max's, it gave me a "Ada in the laser room in the re4 seperate ways remake" vibes. Same with the security guards death to the faz-trap in the beginning.

There were some pacing issues, theyve definitely cut some things i wouldve liked to see, there was some goofiness (that fort making scene made me laugh so hard im sorry, it was cute though), and some story elements that needed a touch more expanding upon, but this movie was still really fun! For non-fans, honestly i dont know how they'reresponding as a whole besides those really weird reviews im seeing on rotten tomatoes and such, but I saw it with my dad, who knew very little going into it, and he liked it, especially the story with the missing kids! For fans... well, If you like fnaf, are are willing to forgive some lore changes for the sake of telling a coherent story, then you'll love it!

Also why was Matpat there lol. isthefnafmovieout, out. See you on the flipside.

[jackienautism]

fave moments from the beta pt 1 bc i had to split it in half for tumblr's sake. ranges from parts i find funny to parts i find interesting to parts i feel are crucial to a character's development / characterization

all clips uploaded by digital preservation on youtube

reasoning as to why i included clips under cut:

1: HELLACIOUS? WHAT?

2: i like how jess floats for a sec

3: sam in the beta is just so much .... different than what we got dfjkgfg and i honestly think thats more of a good thing. there are just times where im like ...... wow. the current game's sam would NEVER say that. or maybe she would! i dont know! but in my interpretation of sam, she wouldn't call emily a bitch literally to her face jkdfgfjg i was SO shocked hearing her say that the first time i watched chapter 2. if anything, i can see her being cruel and shit behind people's backs....similar to what emmamountebank has talked abt in terms of sam's potential flaws... so im interested that they sort of played into that theory in the beta. but imo i just. i can't see sam being MEAN yk? yeah sure she can be sarcastic and shit but downright rude? i just... i can't see it. not after everyuthing she's gone through. and it seems like in the beta sam wasnt meant to be hannah's best friend? i could absolutely be wrong though.

i like how this already establishes emily and jess' "rivalry," meaning you dont need to wait for the lodge fight to occur. which seems to happen regardless in this version of the beta. plus based on this version's intro / prologue, their past friendship wasn't established. so that's one thing im definitely glad they added to today's game

EATING UP HOW EMILY CALLS SAM SWEETIE LOL prob more so done in a derogatory sense here but she also calls matt sweetie later soooooooo

ALSO I LIKE HOW THIS SCENES SETS UP FOR EMILY + SAM DISCOVERING JESS' BODY IN THE MINES..... ITS A TOTAL CONTRAST TO THIS MOMENT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE GAME

4: once again!!! sam's being so mean!!!!!! sjfksdfb LIKE CHRIST..... adn idk abt everyone else butin the beta it really like...... nicely shows the rift in the group? like. it demonstrates the group's dynamic w/ each other veeeery well. and most of it isn't really positive dfkjgfdg its like theyre all putting up an act... which is def realistic (i see it everyday at work) but it's just..... it's sad. bc theyre meant to be an established friend group right? maybe in this version of the game they wouldve dove deeper into how the night hannah + beth disappeared rly affected everyone... sam being mean is def interesting but if they stuck w/ this sam i honestly dont think i would've gotten AS attached to her.

as i just talked about with jess / emily, its interesting seeing these moments between em and sam bc! look at how they get along and work together later in the game! it's so cool to me

5: LOVE HOW ASHLEY JUST. WHOOOSH

6: interesint insight into both hannah and beth. something i wouldn't have known playing the game we have today

7: liked how it showed the dynamic between chris and josh... also love how josh says "THANK YOU CHRIS"

8: FAVE. I LOVE YOU JESS. SOMETHING ME AND BROTHER WOULD SAY TO EACHOTHER FR also love how she says "thank you!"

9: i love jess' dumb lines so much jess riley i love you

10: he's right though. why the fuck would there be a photo of the keys just sitting there

11: I LOVE WHAT THEY DID W/ BETA EMILY SOOOOO MUCH. I LIKE HOW THEY INCLUDED MORE OF THESE MOMENTS TO SYMPATHIZE AND SHIT W/ HER..... plus it rly adds to her character and whatnot! em seems soooo much less bitchy in this version. i wonder whatmade them change :/

12: ok 1. why was matt about to tell a joke dfklgnfg i kind of want to hear it now and 2. love how em is just "you are NOT making me feel safe rn" also i rly enjoy their banter... its so much more of them actually having a conversation and talking rather than em being MEan. still wondering why thye decided to make em so mean in todays version

13: em dfkgndfg you are so ridiculous. i love emily's dumbass lines in the beta

14: wasnt expecting the minecarts to come from that way. emily almost got HIT

15: that's usually what bite marks mean yes emily<3

16: i just like how chris says that dgnkfg

17: self explanatory. id be pretty terrified too seeing a man w/ white eyes t posing at me like that

18: WHO TALKS LIKE THIS!!!! EMILY I LOVE YOU

19: I ALWAYS LOSE IT AT THE "HEE HAW!" DLKFGNKDJBG

20: i LOVE how chris sounds so much more..... scared. for josh. and how he sounds so. like just. all around scared. and the line about them leaving him out there would just be like them killing him themselves is sooo good. it's so much more than the stupid ass "im supposed to be his best friend!" bullshit. this scene is just so much better. it shows how much more chris cares

21: him mentiuoing that cartoon thing is so funny to me fdjkgdfjg

22: same thing as 20 pretty much!

there were a few things i wanted to add from chapter 4 but for whatever reason it wouldn't let me download the video ):

[wolfepirat3]

Magnificent Seven 1998

This, is not going to be a structured post by any means.

I am about to spew so much shit out your mind will be left reeling because you have no fucking clue about what im trying to say

But, im about to talk about my intense love for this show.

Its going to entail a lot of jumping around between thoughts and ideas because i dont know where to begin when it comes to me talking about this show and how much i care about it.

If we are going to start somewhere, it has to be the friendships

I love how almost all of the seven have a closer friendship to one out of all the rest of them. Examples being vin and chris, buck and jd, and josiah and nathan.

Unfortunately ezra doesnt have that, but i do love when the fandom makes him have good friendships with the rest in their own ways (i have a huge bias towards ezra & vin, ezra & jd, and ezra & buck friendship fr)

Vin and chris were literally destined to be bffs, i think it comes with being named Chris and vin because this is one of the few things actually retained from the 1960 version of mag 7 and i really do love the connection the characters have. Especially with how they basically communicate with little looks and gestures and dont even really need a full out conversation to be close with one another.

Buck and jd actually make me go crazy and i want to cry everytime i think about them because the friendship chemistry they have is insane. Their banter and how theres literally at least one scene of them hanging out together in ever episode makes me so happy. Literally found family brothers of im being honest.

I dont have as much to say about josiah and nathan (though i do love them very much), but i like how their friendship is established as already existing during the pilot because it adds a nice difference to the fast forming friendships of the other two pairs. I also like how im season twos premiere that when the seven split up, they still went together to the seminole camp to continue their lives. Its just really nice to have a strong, established friendship that holds up through the series.

Okay so now i want to talk ezra (hes literally my favorite and hes also literally me idc)

Ezra is such an interesting character because he doesnt have that bond between him and another one of the seven like the others do. Yeah he hangs out with all of them but you cant really point to one specific character and say 'yeah, thats his bff'

Out of the seven hes the one who has the least amount of reason to remain in the town (also for my sake im just going to call it by the fandom name through here on out- four corners- because its a fitting name and the town doesnt cut it for me) unlike the rest. Everyone all wants to protect four corners, but getting into specifics:

Chris has mary and billy he wants to look after

Vin has a place to call home that he doesnt have to run from due to being wanted (even though that gets resolved in sins of the past)

Nathan has people he can take care of and heal

Josiah can repent and do something good

JD can make a life for himself in the west and prove himself

And Buck can try (and fail) to get ladies (and of course look after JD)

But ezra? The most he had was wanting to buy his saloon, but thats ruined by maude (and i have so much to say about ezra and hers relationship)

Well i guess the most prominent reason he had to stay was when judge travis made him stay for 30 days so he could get out of being arrested. But then by the time the days were over he decided to stay (which shocked everyone including himself)

I believe that subconsciously, he realizes that four corners and being with the seven is where he belongs and that this is the right path in life for him.

I also like how his relationship with other characters grow throughout the show and how he (slightly) improves as a person. Also also how you can see that he isnt completely self absorbed from the get go

examples:

Literally the pilot episode where, admittedly, he does try to run. BUT he ends up coming back in the end to help everyone out because he knows its the right thing to do

In serpents when yes, hes trying to steal all the money. BUT he realizes that someones trying to kill mary and literally puts his life on the line to save her?? Like yeah hes selfish and hedonistic, but he does do the right thing eventually

Like in working girls when he was giving the ladies lessons. He did do it for money reasons, but he was also trying to make sure that theyd be able to get onto their feet and have good lives. He also didnt have to do drag to distract the people at wickestown, but he does because he knows that itd most likely succeed in the end.

And now, onto his mother.

If theres one thing i want to get straight, its the fact that i HATE when people demonize maude and try to make her out to be a horrifically malicious woman that hates ezra and only manipulates him for selfish reasons.

Yes, she sucks a good deal of the time and does actively make life hell when shes running a con, but shes also doing what she knows will keep her afloat in life.

She did drop ezra off at familys places when she went off to do cons ezra couldn't, which did contribute to her bad parenting because it really isnt fair to do that to anyone. But i think some people need to realize that she was a single mother that had to provide for a child and was just trying to do it in a way that she knew best.

Her tactics are manipulative at times and she has done things during the course of the show that shit on everything ezra was working for (namely: ruining his one dream of owning a saloon by almost immediately buying it out after he spent so long saving up money) and most of time its because she wants to 'teach him a lesson' but we cant hate on her for being a shittier person than she actually is.

Its extremely clear that she cares for ezra and loves him and its also very clear that ezra loves her back because he still puts up with her everytime she comes through four corners.

Okay ezra rant over i think

Now i kind of just want to talk about fandom and headcanons and those kinds of things

Now im not an active participant in the fandom (mostly because its very small and very dead and idk where to find other fans), but i do read a lot of fics from 20 years ago and ive picked up on a lot of things that they did back then that ive come to love very much.

If theres one thing i love it's ezra centric fics, especially ones that include the seven comingore to understand his philosophy about things and realizing that what he does is how he shows he cares, something bad happening that involves a misunderstanding of some sort that leads to an arduous process of realization and forgiveness, and also i do love just good friendship and teamwork

I also like all the AUs that people have come up with (such as the ATF one, i was wary of it at first but i think its so cool how well thought out everything is). Also how they share ideas and ocs and theres always a thanks and acknowledgment towards the people who created the ideas. (Like when i first started getting into the fics i thought Chaucer and Four Corners were canon names, but i was so shocked when i found out that someone came up with it and everyone agreed that theyre really good names and went with them)

Finally, for now, i want to cover some of my headcanons for the guys cuz im a little silly like that and i have way too many thoughts bouncing around in my cranium

Buck with heterochromia

I thought of this one when i was trying to do a drawing of the seven and i found out his eyes were blue and not brown like i thought. Instead of conforming because im too cool for that, i decided to just go with blue and brown

Ezra probably knows most of the main romance languages (specifically french, spanish, and italian)

It just feels like something he wouldve learned either by maude making him or something hed do on his own for con reasons

Vin is more blond than he is in canon

If im being completely honest and genuine, for the first probably six months after getting onto the show i couldve and wouldve sworn that vin was blond. Then i was getting pictures of the characters when o realized that hes actually a brunette??? So anyways my thought process for the blond thing is that its kind of bleached by the sun considering he spends a lot of time outside and especially due to his upbringing

JD has a little scar through his eyebrow because he was fooling around and got cut there

Another thing that came up when i was drawing a few years back. I just thought it looked cool but its something that happened as a complete accident that jd thinks looks cool, but when someone asks how it happened he gets really embarrassed because he was doing something stupid

Post series, Nathan and Ezra actually talk shit out and find common ground so they arent so pissy with each other

I just want them to be friends tbh, like genuinely theyd be the kind of friends that hate each others guts but would do absolutely anything to anyone if something bad happened to the other one

Character ages are another headcanon i have. Last year i wanted to see how old the actors were during the filming of the show compared to how old i thought the characters were and i was a little surprised at some if im being honest. Anyways heres my headcanon ages

Chris - 37

Buck - 39

Vin - 31 (which actually coincides with how old eric close was so i did pretty good in this matter)

Ezra - 29

Nathan - 30

Josiah - 49

JD - 21 (though i have seen some people say hes meant to be 18/19? Idk I just know hes meant to be young)

Okay i think thats completely it for now. I said so much but i dont actually know how much makes sense

Thanks anyways! Plz watch the show if you havent i promise is so worth it!!!!

Have a good day, until next time

[red-dyed-sarumane]

hello i am also a hiiragi magnetite enjoyer but a casual one (the songs just bang. they're really good. i loop them) and i had no idea until we became mutuals and i looked at your posts that their songs are part of a series. i had never looked into it. i am genuinely interested and if you ever wanted to rattle off to me what it's about i will eat that shit up fr. it's been so long since i was last majorly into a vocaloid song series

hi hi! i hope you dont mind a public answer bc you're far from the only one who didn't know. once u know what to look for tho it starts making a bit more sense.

in short: its a sci-fi, time loop-type story about a group of people trying to stop the world from ending

but i'll get into the songs a bit for u. (this is long)

in long:

yes its absolutely a series with the exception of fabric flower, perfection, nadenna, uni, and rasshaina. everything else so far is part of the same series. (in their personally uploaded songs obviously their commission songs arent part of it)

idk where to throw this in so im sticking it at the beginning all of the characters have names. i asked & they answered me directly. but they're keeping them a secret until they feel like the time is right so i would LOVE to tell u their names but uh. no one knows but hiiragi magnetite.

aru sekai series is actually a fan given name. hiiragi magnetite has never addressed the series out side of the songs themselves unless asked about it. if you called it aru sekai series to them, they dont correct you, so until they want to give it a name themself, i'll be calling it aru sekai series. the name coming from the first song aru sekai shoushitsu of course.

im going to put my proof its a series here first bc i see a lot of eng fans say they didnt know, and even jpn fans that realize theres a series will get it wrong & say theres 2 different series going on. its the same story its one series.

the easiest way & the way that made me realize it is aru sekai shoushitsu opens with "nami no ne no yume wo miyou ame hodo no uruoi wo/ umareyou mou ichido nakuse domo nai keredo" etc which is important in a lot of ways but for right now we're just going to focus on the melody of it.

this same melody occurs in all aru sekai series songs except for kugutsu ashura & laboratory. kyuuyaku hankagai has it in the last chorus at 4:48 as well as the more obvious 5:16. shuuen touhikou has it in the choruses as well at 1:20, 2:34, and 2:46. oumen mokushiroku is the only song so far that has it in lyrics as well instead if mixed into the instrumental, its the last lyrics starting at 2:30 "ah mata aete yokatta ne to itte hoshikatta no ni/ tasogare ga tokete yuku kiete yuku nanimo mienakunaru". unplanned apoptosis its a bit harder to hear & much shorter but its at 0:57, 1:06, 2:16, and 2:26. i dont know why i see people insisting marshall maximizer is a separate series bc its one of the obvious ones with the motif at 2:23 (or at least more obvious than some others). canon has it at 2:20.

theres also the theme most people realize that (kyuu)yaku, (shuu)en, and (ou)men have the same kanji as what starts lines in aru sekai shoushitsu.

a lot of songs also have text in the bg thats basically lore & helps connect & clear up somethings. a lot of these repeat lines from previous songs.

& then we get to kugutsu ashura & laboratory which dont have any of those but they are part of the series your key is in the lyrics using similar themes & concept & wording to other songs.

so what are the songs about

aru sekai shoushitsu

this is a headache of a song that, im so grateful they give us so many songs to expand on bc trying to make sense of it with no context was actually the worst. the absolute most important thing u want to know here is the lines they made into the motif for the series which establishes this tragedy is repeating. the theme of rain/blue is the symbol the current world is coming to an end and they'll later be "reborn" and try again.

no one has any idea what the repeating greek(?) means. i can figure out the words toroid & function & thats it & ive never seen anyone else get any farther with it. if anyone knows please i am begging u to tell me. anyway, from the word toroid alone though i know it has something to do with the world repeating itself.

thats the next main theme i'll get into. the story is a loop of sorts but i hesitate to say its a true time loop bc there is very clear emphasis on the concept of fractals, so repeating but not exactly the same, and toroid shapes, so not a perfect loop like say a sphere or circle would be. instead of a time loop sending them back to the beginning of the day its more like waking up in an alternate timeline altogether. its not a 1:1 learn what the day brings and get out that way. each time's different in its own way. the fractal theme drifts off a bit after a few songs but its still there overall.

the other big one is the concept of things seeming the same when theyre different, and this is easier to miss bc it's actually in the bg text rather than the lyrics. there's a whole paragraph about if a man dies in a swamp from lightning and then miraculously another bolt of lightning in the same area creates a man that's exactly the same in structure, memory, everything, is it still the same man as the one who died. this not only applies to the concept of the world itself, that not only is the world itself not quite the same when everything restarts, but is also a big thing with the characters themselves. there is something that people have that make them "people", something that can be lost, and without that, even though they seem to be the same, they're more of a "thing" than a "person." very big detail that was only a theory until laboratory was posted and confirmed it. aru sekai shoushitsu also says, in lyrics, "however, as long as you exist as people, the old world's legacy will continue on in the toroidal direction." so as long as they still have what makes them a "person" they can still be reborn in the next iteration of the world.

i think those are the most important things. the lyrics are a bit objective overviews of the next songs based on the starting kanji and also a bit more technical detail of whats going on, and the rest of the text is a more subjective view of the events than the lyrics.

kyuuyaku hankagai

this one's the start of our subjective character songs. all the text in it is at the beginning. i won't get too into it bc i dont think there's anything specifically u need to know from it, put it definitely helps put the level of desperation into perspective. theres a bit of play in it with the concept of "people" again, but its more about the lengths everyone will go to to do something about the situation iirc.

quite obviously this is the "past" song and establishes this has been going on for a while. i dont have an exact timeline for you, and im not telling you that because its the "past" that this is the beginning of everything. however. we do get told once again the concept of a "self" is important to the continuation of this. we also get a bit of world description, saying about how the world gets torn up and destroyed at the end.

short overview of it is they've been at this a very long time, everyone is well aware of the stakes, they're desperate & tired, but in the end they know even if they die at the end of the world because they cant save it, they're going to wake up and need to face it all over again. thats why theres so many long notes in this. this song is this characters cry for help. they cant let go bc if they do, if they lose their "self" its all over for them, they know that (although its not blatantly said at this point), so they have to keep going through all the "fractals" hoping that something they do sometime is going to work.

song has a lot of specific terms but its not as impersonal as shoushitsu u can feel the character in this song, especially with all the specific "byebye" written with various forms of regret and pain of separation etc. in an effort to keep this short im going to stop there for now.

shuuen touhikou

song that fits with the "end" (shuu) lines of aru sekai shoushitsu. quite literally an answer to the question of what would happen if they tried to escape instead of facing it.

the first part of text sets up the characters frame of mind, that they've been through this so many times trying to save everything, what if they didn't have to?

also in the text are the "shuu" lines from aru sekai shoushitsu, as well as part of the text from the beginning of kyuuyaku hankagai. and the last text deals with the concept of "ego" a bit instead of a "self".

the lyrics are such that this character is still part of whatever everyone's doing to fix this, but doesn't really agree with how its being handled, constantly being frustrated by how nothing's changing and no one wants to try anything too different. they entertain the idea of just running for it, that theres some town out there that they'll be safe if they can reach, that maybe running is enough to do something that they arent just standing around hoping anymore.

so effectively, no, even if they were to drop everything and run for it, it won't do them any good. (by extension they might also not be able to come back from it, but i cant say that for sure)

oumen mokushiroku

the concave "ou" song. also the only one i can accept the ""official"" english title for since mokushiroku is read as apocalypse in aru sekai shoushitsu.

theres no text in this one! unless u want to count the ou kanji.

this one's interesting bc instead of a part of the human team we have an angel who can't do anything to help them. shes watching over them, she wants to help, but for various reasons she just cant. she cant tell them it's not her fault, she cant affect anything in a way that matters. part of the reason she has the broken umbrella i think is just to really get across shes supposed to be the safeguard but she cant. for reasons beyond her control she cant.

some of the lyrics kind of mirror other songs, "inoru you ni" "omotai kaze furiharau you ni" for example relating to similar phrases in shuuen touhikou, "ima sakenda" like the main lines of kyuuyaku hankagai, starting of with rain similar to aru sekai shoushitsu among other things.

and of course like i said this is the only song that uses the motif in the lyrics & this is a theory but im putting it out there i feel like that implies the others are a part of this but this character in particular can actually do something about it. i dont know if shes actually the one who makes the whole world be reborn or not but i will put that out there.

theres also the line like "we lost something without a shape or feeling" & i think thats another tie into the theme of needing to keep their "self" for any of this to be possible.

unplanned apoptosis

theres a lot going on here. this chara is hilarious to me bc all the others are pretty collected about the whole thing all things considered and shes just acting out the whole time.

she hates it. shes fed up & i think should be considered an unreliable narrator to an extent. she tries to act like fine whatever i dont care but she does. she does. she also doesnt want to take blame for anything.

now, theres the line in here like jibun wo koroshite and this isnt in the way u might immediately think. i also hesitate to say its the same "self" the other songs are talking about considering its jibun rather than jiga. its more like suppressing & denying her true feelings to deal with everything. not that that wouldnt tie in to that big theme if she took it too far but for now shes safe.

theres text in this song this time tying it directly to oumen mokushiroku in case the art wasnt enough for u to know that. its a bit about fate being predetermined for them, a bit about things continuing in the same direction they've been, but shes brought back again

the songs really a lamentation of losing her past and future to this as well as showing how badly shes handling it.

and theres a bit of foreshadowing here in the what with the window(s) behind her being dark and broken while also being the exact same in composition to the one in oumen mokushiroku. which u think initially is because the angel cant help her, but the lines in canon about something causing the glass to break i really think is in reference to this and is saying she's at least part of the reason the angel cant help anyone. whether shes aware of this i cant say bc shes a liar who doesnt take blame for anything & since this is her viewpoint thats a bit unclear.

marshall maximizer

i think its that it's asa's art instead of sena yuta's that people think this is unrelated but honestly arent u people so confused. u look at these lyrics and think its a stand alone song? are u not so confused?

anyway, this is actually another big one in terms of plot

welcome to sunk cost fallacy the song. like literally. thats what it is, admitting they've put everything into what they're doing that it's probably not worth it, but they've been at it this long they can't just stop either. its gotta pay out eventually right-

but if u take anything away from this, its that "people" or at least this character can tell when someone isnt one of them anymore. theres the lines like "observing you acting like a person gone mad" "to you who's pretending to be a person gone mad" where both "person" and "you" are written in katakana much like when the concept of being a "person" is discussed in aru sekai shoushitsu. "you" (kimi) being similar to "thing" (mono) in this case (shout out to hayato in the hiiragima tag on twitter for figuring this out btw)

theres also the iconic lines up to hito de nashi? as though to say, but if you act as a person does, then arent you a person as well?

and then the text. its. heavy. discussing what it means to be a person, if there's something special about it, if it matters to be alive for yourself or because of something else (in a series context. so. being forced to live without the "self" they need for example) it even starts to get into the "mono" versus "hito" concept until both characters talking get too overwhelmed by it. the character they were talking to then "disappears" after admitting they might nit be a "person" which seems to say those that lose their "self" dont get to continue.

for now though, the character narrating the song is still a "person" they still get to try again, and they continue to

canon

another one i see people say isnt part of aru sekai series. it says aru sekai de in the first lyric. whats not clicking.

this ones more on why things arent quite working out.

theres a sense of balance they need to keep in place, presumably, so they can make it out of this, but each time something happens that upsets the balance. again, theres the mention of cracking the glass that i think is a reference to that window in both oumen mokushiroku and unplanned apoptosis. this seems to be their sign if things are working out or not, the chorus of this song seems to being saying if the glass breaks theyve messed up, nothings going to change and they need to try again.

this chara's like the others in that shes also tired of everything, but she still has her "self" so she has to keep trying. only she'll do anything that might work so they dont have to do this again, so they "don't say goodbye" again. which includes lying a bit so people will try her ideas.

theres also the part admitting they didn't want any sacrifices for this, but, clearly, that didn't work out in their favor. this is probably a pretty broad definition of sacrifice, can be everything from time, energy, etc to sacrificing their "selves" for their cause.

theres also text in this song!! its coded in the video but shunnanna in the hiiragima tag decoded it so we know the text! it talks a bit about coming to and realizing the worlds okay, theres pretty flowers, and it smells like it just rained. it also then repeats the nami no ne no lines from aru sekai shoushitsu. the last part talks about a risky experiment that got out of control and ended up destroying everything. which that last part, to me, seems to imply this whole thing was their fault in the first place.

in the end tho, this songs the same they don't accomplish much and have to try again.

kugutsu ashura

tongue twister mantra the song.

this ones interesting bc the character isnt human to begin with (being ashura) so i think thats why the motif isnt here. they get to repeat in their own way tho.

shes just that. a puppet really. she cant do anything to help out, rather she can only do what she's supposed to so to speak.

if u can get through the wording though theres a lot to this!

its a bit more of an outsider's perspective at how needlessly desperate this how thing is. things are awful, everyone's having a bad time, hell, people are actually dying, but no one listens to reason and things keep continuing on in the same way. it places a lot of blame on the place that started the whole thing, the place mentioned in the canon text i believe, honestly for a good reason, and kind of criticizes whats going on.

and then u have the ending that really cements its part of the series for me, the whole thing changes into what feels like almost hope which is a nice change for this series. it talks of moving forward, of getting new starts, it works in the theme of rain especially with urufu as the same base as uruoi wo from aru sekai shoushitsu, and then of course the "mata ibukuyou ni" being thematically similar to the "umareyou mou ichido" also from aru sekai shoushitsu

theres a lot of specifics in the whole thing & a lot of very specific word choice but i think that gets the point across for now

theres no extra text either but honestly the lyrics are quite enough context if u can decipher them

laboratory

this song is so heavy. like. up until now things have been left rather vague and theres room to doubt how dire everything is especially with how subjective the songs are but this.

this girl is losing her "self". thats the whole song. her just terrified and being completely unable to stop it even though she would do anything to change things. all that talk from the other songs about whos a "person" and whos a "thing" this is a "person" whos becoming a "thing" and doesnt have a choice in it. i dont know what she did. but this is her punishment for it. she ignored things she shouldn't've and now she cant be her "self" anymore.

this is telling us directly its not just the world theyre fighting for, theyre fighting for everything that makes them who they are too. it's traumatizing in its own way that they live through the end of the world repeatedly. but now shes living through the end of herself and she wont get another chance. and thats why theres no motif in this one. she is no longer a "person" she can no longer continue. theres also no extra text in this song.

thank u if u read the whole thing thats where we're up to right now!! i hope thats enough to at least get started. theres a lot of deep diving u can do in this series & its a lot of fun to keep up with as it happens bc sometimes a new song just clicks so many things into place.

[boiled-dennis]

i actually dont undersrand how in conversations about recommending shows to people, folks're always saying not to start with the Beginning of a show, and that they pick specific episodes to give people the feel of the show,, when the person is already planning on watching all of it .. and the shows in question always have continuous storylines and layered, ongoing jokes and people .. ., . say shit like "yeah i didnt allow them to see the first one where they establish all the characters and important plot elements- i went to the episode in season seven thats full of golfing jokes, because my buddy loves golfing" like man youre the one who has seen the show a million times and first watched it in the proper order ,. nobody wants to watch a show with someone who's gonna keep pausing it to explain whole seasons of details just because they HAD to see the murder mystery episode right now. your soul is marred by the weak desire for instant gratification........ where is your sense of being in it for the long haul, the dedication to experiencing the story With someone beat by beat .... witnessing their every reaction up until the best episodes are watched in a natural order... so your pal can fully understand why something is So Very....... . . . many people engage with their own personal interests in The wrong way and most certainly have deep, profound commitment issues if they cant sit down and watch a show in the morally correct order

[bongkillua]

im SUPER late to the ask game however. 5 & 9 for all of them

anon you are never too late i love talking abt these guys and these r rly good questions

5. How did you figure out your oc’s identity?

TUCKER - Tucker's has definitely ebbed and flowed with my own identity! He initially had a very different backstory that was explicitly about him being a stealth and closeted gay trans man. the way i played him made it so that it didnt really work for him to be trans but i hate playing cis characters so there was some weird magic and memory shit involved to make it work. but it just didnt make sense with the reworked story. took it as an opportunity to make him more openly trans but he was still an exclusive gay man for a while. and well then xander came around and i realized i was bisexual so now tucker is unlabeled because i just know hes going to keep changing with me. but like i truly dont think his character can wholly by separated from Gay Trans Man because so much of his personality and identity was built around that in the beginning.

XANDER - i made xander for the sole purpose of having fun with him. like seriously i made him for a school assignment because i didnt have a "cunty, whorish enough" character for the assignment and then she just stuck around so like... her identity has always just been "whatever is fun!" in the beginning he was like explicitly transmasc but i was playing around with using she/her pronouns for myself again so i gave them to xander to see if it would help me gain more confidence and it did! as i fleshed her out more tho her backstory started to rly revolve around changing identity and like specifically masculinity vs. femininity and how she performs both, and wuth that came the idea of transitioning back and forth over periods of time. because of THAT i wanted her to be really into drag because thats what drag is all about... and because shes rly into drag i wanted to explore her relationship to the transFEMININE experience because drag really cant be separated from that. so ive rly focused on embodying binary identities as performance for her gender. and because she sleeps around a lot ive just made her super fluid in terms of sexuality. shes not picky!

JORDAN - jordan was a he/they from the jump but i struggled a lot with their design and development for like YEARS but once i finally started fleshing them out i was immediately like "nah this guy prefers they/them and tacks he on for normies" and it genuinely helped me solidify his perception of not only their own identity but also life in general? theyre very "go with the flow because theyre extremely confident in themself and dont care how others perceive them". and then bisexual just seemed Right. idk. he sorta embodies "cool bisexual kid in high school that helps u realize ur also queer" and i just kinda went with the stereotype lol. also he seems like a Megan Fox Enjoyer.

KONAMI - i designed konami at a time where i was rly interested in the intersection of neurodivergence and queerness so his identity was def informed by that! along with queerness in childhood as a theme. ive always associated aesthetics like his with the rise in usage of neopronouns (in a good way!) so it just made sense to have them use it/its. if i wasnt a coward id throw some more fun pronouns on there but konami is also just a little guy so i honestly default to he/him a lot in the same way that you'd refer to like. a dog. and once again bisexual just made sense. i established pretty early on that his parents were super accepting of him being trans (konami was a binary trans guy when he was alive!) so i feel like sexuality just wasnt a huge concern for him.

9. Are there cultural or lore specific aspects to their identity? If applicable, does their species affect it?

OH MY GODDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD THIS IS LITERALLY THE ENTIRE UNDERLYING PREMISE OF WOLFSBANE SO HERE WE GO LOL

TUCKER- ok so the more independent tucker became as a character the more i really leaned into how lycanthropy influences his identity and specifically his queerness. its always been a big part of his story but i rly got to Focus on it once he was mine and mine alone. so in wolfsbane lycanthropy is like. almost directly a metaphor for neurodivergence and like. how do i say this. Being Weird And Feeling Wrong As A Child. which you could argue also makes it a metaphor for transness but like i feel like his lycanthropy makes him trans in other separate ways? like lycanthropy in wolfsbane canonically causes an increase in testosterone production so tucker naturally has facial hair and body hair and a rly deep voice and "male-aligned" body fat distribution. despite being afab. and thats like a big struggle in the story bc his father wants him to Hide that but tucker is very Confident in that, both because he wants to embrace being a werewolf but ALSO because it gives him gender euphoria. and it takes him a LONG time to figure out that those are simultaneously separate things ("im not trans i just look like this!" (you are. you are trans)) and also intrinsically tied (transness as a feeling of Other as opposed to a distinct Gender Identity). AUGH idk if that makes sense. sexuality works pretty similarly. tucker has to repress a lot of himself because his family is scared that his lycanthropy will make him unruly and uncontrollable, and that he will hurt WHOEVER he loves. and in trying to control him they want him to Assimilate (aka Be Heterosexual). so he faces a similar struggle where he spends a long time trying to figure out if hes queer because he Likes Men or if hes queer because he Likes People, BOTH of which have been withheld from him.

XANDER- xander is an energy vampire and relies a lot on the balance between Taking and Giving. this means that he has to hide his true identity and give people a false one in order to get what he needs from them. and when you are performing an identity day in and day out is it really a performance anymore? or is it such a performance that it cant possibly be who you are? so thats like the Central struggle that vampirism invokes onto his identity. sexuality works similarly (can you tell that i have a hard time distancing gender from sexuality?) where he spends so much time forging these fake bonds and hooking up with anyone who will give him the time of day that he really doesnt have the time, energy, or maturity to figure out who he's Truly attracted to. her constant need to perform makes it nearly impossible for her to feel authentic in any way.

JORDAN- im gonna start sounding like a broken record at this point but my understanding of transness and queerness is so far removed from the idea of gender itself that i have no choice but to talk about identity as a whole. SORRY. anyways jordan's identity is heavily influenced by his schizophrenia and his dad. and the way THAT influences him is that he wants to Minimize his body because they do not feel attached to their body at all. and Maximize his ability to Reflect his Father because those experiences were the most important to him. so like. really thinking about it now i feel like a big reason why they even identify as transmasc is a. They Need To Remove Any Unnecessary Part Of Their Body NOW And That Means The Tits Have Got to Go amd b. he can distance himself from who he was as a child and align himself with his FATHER who is like the most important and influential figure in his life. in terms of sexuality they're kind of similar to xander but like the reverse side of the coin? They are so authentically themself that its hard for them to find room in their life for another person. so like while jordan identifies as bisexual i often say they also align themself with aromanticism because romance is just very difficult for him to figure out. a lot of the times it boils down to utility over attraction. which works for some people! (tucker) and not for others (all of his ex's).

KONAMI- konami died and forgot what gender and sexuality were. i explain this more HERE but because of konami's history it doesnt have a reference point for what gender Is. so a lot of his identity boils down to concepts as opposed to things like masculinity and femininity. i really want to do more deep exploration into how tucker, xander, and jordan's queerness influences konami's own identity as well as his perception of gender and identity but i guess for a quick answer he latches onto Connecting Words before he latches onto Individual Labels. so things like "dad" and "aunt" make more sense to him than "man" and "woman" because they have a purpose and a role attached to them. but then again those roles have been defined by queer people who don't perfectly fit into the Status Quo of that role but enact/perform it in unique and nuanced ways. this is also why he more quickly latches onto "son" and "boy" (and specifically how boy fits into a Family structure) than any other gendered labels. again like ive stated before, bisexual came pretty easily because with a lack of gender awareness just came an understanding that gender wasn't a factor in regards to attraction. hence bisexual.

this is so long omfg but what it all boils down to is um. my relationship to queerness is founded on experience, intersectionality, and bodily autonomy, not gender as its own concept. so nonhuman identities (and sometimes just Different Human identities) are always going to influence identity and Be A Metaphor for HOW experience influences identity and vis versa.

[rintezukas]

ok so i beat it and now i get to go off on a masturbatory rant about it

pikmin 4 main story final boss spoilers

it was bad it was bad it was so fucking bad to the point where i actually doubt i was ever engaging with it properly. im going to split this up into three sections not because im under any delusion anyone who bothers to read this is going to care particularly if its organized but so i can like. keep myself from going too hard on any one aspect and forget the others The Story

SUBSECTION LOUIE ok so the postgame sets louie up as this like... fucked up amoral force, barely present as a character or reachable by character interaction other than violence, he says maybe like 30 words total across like 15 text boxes. its like hes in a fucking fugue state and they never provide literally ANY explanation for his behavior even after you beat him. maybe the fucking. side story has something about this but i doubt it because olimar was surprised louie was there too so probably he didnt factor into that. louie just goes around kidnapping people and like... trying to turn them into fucking aliens or something. this is literally fine, dont get me wrong, i think this is an interesting way for a character to be, but given that louie is an established character who didnt behave like a fucking. bizarre evil caveman in the two previous games he showed up in (in 3 he did bad shit but it was like. just normal selfish guy bad shit and had clear motivations behind it) it comes off as like... fucked. this guy is supposed to be a lazy and childish food genius forced into treasure hunting work and instead hes like if a tornado could be an asshole. this is literally not what i set out to talk about anyway SUBSECTION THE DOG

despite legitimately falling in love with oatchis character design and behavior and shit i actually hate the presence of dogs in the story of pikmin, or more specifically like the needless wrench they throw into the series, but thats mostly something that goes in implications. why it's relevant to bring this up at all is that it pissed me off extra hard that the big culmination of the pikmin 4 storyline is a big inexplicable dog. its more or less stated to not be from the planet (or it would have been born with pikmin traits - see implications) but also it has a human artifact around its neck and has clearly been here for long enough to get old and grey and scraggly. i think its design is... on this weird line between cute and ugly that i think i could have fallen in love with it too if not for its presence in my life being one defined by misery. you are probably wondering why ive lapsed back into implications, and that's because i have absolutely fucking nothing to say about the dog's presence in the story, because it has none and i think that's bad, i think it's bad for the final boss of the game to be a guy with no clear motivations riding an animal with no clear origin or presence in the world.

or, like, at least its bad for pikmin? this could be more interesting in a different kind of game but for a long-awaited returning franchise having an endboss built almost completely out of the New with a little side detail that sort of character-assassinates the Old is like. its sure as fuck a bold choice and not one i feel worked out.

The Gameplay

The gameplay of Pikmin 4's final boss is, i feel, difficult to talk about without first explaining the circumstances under which i came to it.

Cavern for a King is, for the first 95% of it, honestly one of my favorite parts of Pikmin as a franchise. Not the favorite! Not my favorite. But it's up there. You start off at kind of the height of your power - i maintain that making you gradually restore the pikmin cap to 100 over the course of the game was fucking insane but by the endgame when youre working with a serviceable cap of 60-80 and you finally get to 100 it feels like an actual power boost and not an "i should have had this from the beginning because pikmin is about swarms" thing. having 100 feels like a big deal, and as you progress through the opening segments of this 20 floor boss rush it makes a lot of otherwise scary shit feel like a breeze.

eventually you hit your first hurdle, and attrition begins to take hold. if you're smart, you start making increasingly cowardly decisions. if you are instead stupid like i am, you also start doing that, but fuck up, and by the middle section youre having to come up with new behaviors on the fly to clear totally new bosses with fewer pikmin than youve had in a long, long time. you keep waiting for reinforcements youve been trained by previous caves to expect that never come. i am kind of a lameass, and my first impulse when encountering difficulties is to chalk it up to bad design unless i really tell myself not to fucking do that. i didnt even feel that here though! going through floors 1-17 of Cavern for a King was exhilarating and fun. i think i had to engage the baby-mode turn back time thing like twice, which was fine, whatever. on floor 18, which has you fight an extra-large emperor bulblax in terrain that it can stomp to turn into water, i was out of blue pikmin and made the decision to go back up and get more pikmin, and i realized that i was kind of approaching it as a marathon when it could have been a series of much less grueling sprints. you get to go back to floors youve reached previously, to be clear, unlike in pikmin 2, but i was enjoying the challenge and felt sad to leave it. i cleared floor 18 easily with only a few losses, was met with an eerie, pleasant rest stop at floor 19 - no new pikmin, but plenty of candypop buds to redistribute my population to face whatever boss was coming up next, and continued to floor 20, where

PHASE 1

i came face to face with a big stupid dog that was the easiest fight in the entire game, except that its health was noticeably pretty high. i had time to remark, like, what, did they want to draw THIS out? or i guess it probably has phases but this is taking a long fucking time for the warmup.

PHASE 2

oh okay i guess they gave it ice powers, for some reason? it shoots balls that you have to avoid or you get rolled up and potentially separated from your pikmin. annoying because i had already spent a lot of time on the first fight. PHASE 3

now it shoots spinning electricity spike balls that sort of spin and make you jump over the lines of electricity they draw on the ground. if you have any yellow pikmin, you can kill the balls, but it took an embarassingly long time for me to intuit that and also it takes a long fucking time for them to kill them such that the dog will probably jump on and eat them and they quickly build up so the arena basically becomes unusable until you manage to knock the dog over by navigating through the fucked up awful laser mess and managing to hit the dog's tail with enough pikmin at once, which clears all of them and makes the dog vulnerable so you can do like 2% of its life in damage before the cycle begins again. this is where that old thought pattern that this might be bad game design and not my fault creeps in, but the embarrassment from earlier tamps that down. i am almost certainly approaching this wrong.

PHASE 4

similar shit but with fire and shockwave patterns to jump over instead of spinning electricity balls. honestly pretty manageable, and since this was the third element of the traditional pikmin trio - water-electricity-fire - i was riding high on the notion that i was about to be done with this, at least. nonetheless, my train of thought at this point is about vicious, horrible shit that i hope the devs suffer for putting me through this, etc etc. this is about how i react to any circumstance i don't like if it goes on for long enough and i am not proud of that. i strike the final blow and make a noise like a snake dying.

PHASE 5

The dog turns green, starts flying and begins to fire particles that coat the floor in a sort of purple-red smoke that instantly kills any pikmin that touches it at all, including while they're on the dog, and including white pikmin because this isn't poison it's some other shit that you couldn't have accounted for no matter what. All of its attacks are now this - move wrong, and you lose most or all of your squad instantly. Navigate between these randomly placed AOEs, place 15 weight on the dog's tail, and deal as much damage as you can while it's vulnerable before the cycle continues. Later on in this fight, the dog will begin using a "fear scream", which scatters your pikmin randomly. They will run into the AOEs and die, so make sure this attack never hits you even once too. If you throw your pikmin wrong while trying to hit the tail, they will likely land in an AOE and die. Do this more times than you know numbers for, as far as you fucking know. You will not be counting because you will be focused on doing the other shit.

i would like to echo back to the earlier thing about this being a series of sprints rather than a marathon, because that point holds true to this fight as well. as i discovered after giving up and resolving to do better in the previous phases in case having more pikmin on this one would make it doable, you can go back up and get more pikmin, and it will stay on this phase, and it doesn't matter at all because all of its attacks can completely deplete your squad or at least leave you with like 10 pikmin, and sometimes a purple pikmin isn't among those ten so you can't win anymore and have to press the rewind. i pressed the rewind a lot because i didnt care about any kind of self-imposed challenge for this thing anymore. if there was a menu option to make it die i would have pressed it.

after this phase it dies, and then you win the game. pikmin 4 is very, very good, because despite the bad experience i had i actually still think it's my favorite entry in the franchise. The Implications

so like are dogs from the fucking planet or not? whats up with moss? why was there pointedly so much shit implying theyre from the planet if they arent? are dogs just a constant of the pikmin universe, and pikmin on pikmin planet have learned to parasitize them? if they arent from here, what the fuck was the big dog doing there? what was moss doing there? why did they unambiguously say "pikmin parasitize organisms to create leaders" (hi jasper - if you somehow read this far, they directly say that and youre smart as fuck for figuring it out having not played 4 yet) and then not put bulbmin in the game? why were they so wishy washy on something as simple as "what planet are dogs from", and why, despite that, did they place so much emphasis on the question in the story?

I dont think the final boss of pikmin 4 is very good at all!

[ceratioid]

i DO wish i could be a little more sincerely edgy with my baxter, perhaps, he could be a villain? but also i prefer fucking around, so fuck it. what we know about him it’s like, he’s really just doing his own thing.

i prefer having him around the hotel as the guy that charlie knows is smart so she’s going to make alastor put him on the roof and have him fix the tv aerial. baxter bitches about it because this isn’t even his THING but like, he still does it, because he can. he’s smart he figures shit out. the hotel uses him like how mcdonalds uses a graduate with a degree in robotics.

tl;dr