#but this gets full credit to my meta

[doe-eyed-boydyke]

tumblr dot glove

[irellia]

are people aware of the fact that Mizu is not canonically in any way shape or form.............. queer....bi.....

(quick note here because reading comprehension stays dead and people may not read the tag novel: I want bi Mizu! I hc her as sapphic! I love sapphic Mizu)

[hkthatgffan]

The image used in the background of the Gravity Falls logo HAS BEEN FOUND!!

It's located in France!!

I made a thread on Twitter explaining the full story and how I even asked Ian Worrel and Alex Hirsch about it, but lemme run down quickly how it was found and where it is!

After 3 years of searching with some friends on and off, we had no real luck. I've been working on a video about it for a while but decided to try one more time. My friend @trickengf suggested looking at international logos as they may have more of the image available and sure enough...we found logos like the Japanese and Russian GF logo had more visible detail of the image.

From that, Tricken made a remake of the image and used it to find it. He ended up finding the source at about 3AM for me, lol!

My friend Fried Oreos then confirmed the image was old enough to fit the criteria of pre GF pilot, by determining the image was on the Textures website it was sourced from since 2008!

Then, my friend Alex M managed to buy the HD image and we were able to analyze its metadata for more info!

Turns out, the image, called "LandscapeMountains0009," was taken by a Nikon D70 camera on April 18, 2007!

THE GRAVITY FALLS LOGO IMAGE IS ALMOST 18 YEARS OLD!!

From there, we began looking for the location. The meta data had no location, but other images taken around the same time showed signs of maybe the location being in Europe.

After over a day of searching, Tricken, Alex M and Oreos FOUND IT!!

The location of the image is a mountain range near the town of Sers, France...near the border with Spain.

Exact coordinates of the closest viewable angle of the image is 42°54'23.2"N 0°06'05.6"E

This is a major discovery and one I cannot believe we did. While this search was started by me in 2021 with some friends, it was TrickenGF, Alex M and Fried Oreos who deserve all the credit for this discovery! They were the geniuses who tracked all of this down and were able to connect the dots to get to this point.

You guys are amazing and I am beyond grateful for all of this.

Finding this image means that fans can now recreate the Gravity Falls logo as they want with anything they want. For example, Tricken made this for me using the image :D

Or, you can do this, lol

We now have it!

For 12 years as we looked at the Gravity Falls logo...we were in reality looking at a mountain in France...NOT Oregon!

So, I guess this is a major W for France but sorry, Pacific Northwest, Gravity Falls is actually French, lol!

I still can't believe we found this. I'm so happy :P

[vyva-melinkolya]

we all agree that the push towards short form, vertical video (tiktok/reels/shorts) is ruining fucking everything right? Tiktok has been useful for the dissemination of political information (e.g Gaza) i’ll give it that, but that feels moreso a result of meta and twitters algorithms being just a little *more*’evil and censor happy. And i want to make it very clear that my hatred for tiktok has nothing to do with the fact that it was a product of a Chinese company, because i see a lot of critiques relying on some sort of sinophobic conspiracy. On the contrary, it’s what tiktok has become in the vacuum of western popular culture and marketing that makes me fearful.

I know that every generation faces a new, polarizing technology and inevitably, there are those among said generation who will critique it. That is the nature of things. However, there is also something to be said about how, with the acceleration of technology (running parallel to the acceleration of capitalism, acceleration towards collapse etc), each coming generation faces an increasingly more malevolent “advancement”. TLDR, i’m going to talk my shit.

I’m going to speak on the aspect that is most relavent to me, as a musician. I am petrified by what short form video is doing to music and to musicians. I think that tiktok provides the illusion of making music and being a musician more “accessible” while actually pouring gasoline on the fire that the pop music machine had already started. Standards for what popular culture “expects” from music are being doubled and tripled. Let’s talk about song length. Success and marketability favoring shorter songs is not something new, it has been the trend for decades. But with short form video, it goes even further. You’re not just hearing the same song over and over on the radio, you’re hearing the same 15-30 seconds of the same song over and over again. This in-turn, starts to influence the way people write music, persuading people to make songs that *could* have that 15 second appeal. There is an art to pop music, there is an art to writing a catchy hook—this is something else. We weren’t meant to hear or understand music like that. There are so many songs from reels that i found annoying, until i heard them in their full context. It’s insidious. It makes everything feel like a fucking commercial, even if nothing is being advertised.

I’m going to pull directly from someone else’s experiences, someone who’s music seems to be everywhere on short form videos. The ambient musician My Head Is Empty has a hundred million streams on the song “i was only temporary”. Despite that exposure, they experience “never ending copywrite issues” and have “received death threats” by people who refuse to credit them when using their song. Pulling a quote here, from a comment on their own post

“vyva_melinkolya unfortunately it just gets worse. i saw a bot content page that steals pod cast footage and spams dozens of videos with my song stolen, comment on a "motivation" spam content , who actually made a post telling people the name of my song, and the previous page i mentioned, the pod cast spam commented on that video saying "Bro stop don't give out the sauce. this audio helps me pull numbers brooo" - so people are actively INTENTIONALLY stealing it and telling people to not credit me. like. u can't make this stuff up”

Beyond this, My Head Is Empty feels frustrated that despite all this exposure, the rest of their work (nine albums) as a musician remains under appreciated, and i think that frustration is 100% valid. People cannot fully appreciate music, or even understand it as a work of art created by another human, when it’s taken so far out of its context. Again, the soul being sucked out of art by “the machine” isn’t anything new but, this is a whole other level. Being a musician is more expensive than ever, streaming earns you fractions of a cent etc, it all feeds into itself.

When a song or a musician i love deeply finds its way on to tiktok (let’s use Duster’s “Stars Will Fall”, one of my favorite songs ever as an example)I am not upset that i cant “gatekeep” it anymore. I’m not upset by the idea of something I love and hold dearly finding a larger audience. I AM upset in the manner in which it is being disseminated. I’m upset with art I hold dear to me being chopped up and used as “trending audio”. When I saw Duster in concert recently, lStars Will Fall” was the song I was most looking forward to hearing. It was the last song they played, and it was the song seemly everyone chose to talk loudly over. The audience was mostly people my age and younger. This complaint might come off as petty or pretentious or cliche, i frankly do not give a shit.

Let’s talk about how musicians are expected to promote music on tiktok/reels. This is a matter of opinion, at the risk of sounding very pretentious: the “POV we are x band from x” “My label says i need x followers before x” “posting this video until c musician notices me”. I understand that some of it is in jest but, what the fuck? When did this become the norm? I do not blame anyone for promoting their music like this, but we should want more for ourselves. I’ve always said being a musician is deeply embarassing, inherently. If being a musician is inherently embarassing then what is this? I dont have a solution for this, and the music industry has always been ugly and bloodthirsty and seldom fruitful— but i feel like the very small amount of dignity we had as artists is now lost and I cant fucking stand it. Artists seem to promote the same single with dozens of reels over the course of months, hoping that something sticks. I dont want to sound like i’m shaming or, again, sound like i can provide a solution. I’m just very fucking sorry that it seems like this is “the way”. And personally, i’m scared that if i dont “get with the program”, im going to fail.

Again, all of this speaks to larger trends in entertainment industry and even larger trends in capitalism. But i’m just airing specifics right now because frankly? I cant take it anymore.

[marragurl]

Ok so like…. Who makes Ratio’s statues? 

Because every possible explanation just opens up a whole new can of worms. 

I’ve been trying to go through as much info about him as I can, including his character stories, but I can’t find anything??? 

So I’m just left stewing in the dark, which usually leads to my humor coming into play. 

So like… are the statues of Ratio’s own making??

Because that would insinuate that he takes the time out of his busy life to constantly make new statues of just himself, including the multiple plaster heads. And if it’s not him physically and it is a manifestation of his Imaginary powers, he’s still making them right??? 

So he still chooses the poses! 

Why??? 

What is his thought process??? 

Physically made or Imaginary Powers made, it’s still his choice on what the statue should look like right???

And if it’s not a conscious decision, then WHAT DO THE JOJO AND CUTESY POSES MEAN

IS JOJO’S BIZARRE ADVENTURES FUCKING CANON IN HSR??

IS IT A SHOW THAT EXISTS??

ARE YOU TELLING ME ARAKI FUCKING EXISTS IN HSR??

AND RATIO IS A FAN?????? 

DON’T TELL ME IT’S JUST A FUN REFERENCE BY THE HSR TEAM, YEA IT’S META TO US BUT IT’S CANON TO THE REST OF THE UNIVERSE THAT RATIO HAS A STATUE OF HIMSELF DOING A JOJO POSE

On the other hand, if it’s not Ratio himself making them… who is it????

Is Ratio commissioning some artists?? Multiple artists? Only one?!?!? 

Is it some weird form of extra credit for his students???

(Student A: Hey wanna hang out tonight? 

Student B: Can’t. Gotta finish up this statue of Dr. Ratio examining his codex by Friday if I wanna get a passing grade in the class

Student A: You can sculpt???

Student B crying with 100 tabs of ‘how to sculpt’ videos and wikiHows pulled up and no sleep: I’m trying my best here Sharon)

Is he like those Renaissance time rich people who basically paid for their favorite artist’s livelihood in order to just make nice art in return??? Is there now a really well-off sculptor somewhere in the universe who is just constantly being paid by THE Dr. Ratio to make stone statues of the man??? Does the artist just put that down in their tax returns?? 

(back at it again with Topaz suffering from Ratiorine’s antics, she’s the one in charge of Ratio’s Sculptor’s taxes)

THAT STILL DOESN’T ANSWER THE STATUE POSE QUESTIONS

DID THE ARTIST ADD IN THE JOJO POSE AND HEART POSE AS A GAG??? AND SURVIVE RATIO SEEING THEM?? 

WORSE- DID RATIO COMMISSION THE POSES??? WHAT WAS THAT CONVERSATION EVEN LIKE??? DID HE HAVE TO POSE?? DOES THE ARTIST JUST HAVE AN ENTIRE SCRAPBOOK OF RATIO DOING DIFFERENT POSES FOR CONSTANT REFERENCE?

FUCK IT, DID AVENTURINE GET IN CONTACT WITH THE ARTIST AND PAY EVEN MORE MONEY FOR THE CUTESY POSES??

(Whole new thought process, the artist is making statues of Ratio for both Ratio AND Aventurine, and all the cute statues are actually commissions by Aventurine for his little Dr. Ratio idol crush shrine. There’s a constant slapstick comedy routine of Aventurine trying to hide them anytime Ratio comes over to his place and barely getting away with it. Does he ever come clean when they start dating? Do they start dating because Ratio finds the statues? Fuck it, if Ratio is the one making the statues and not an artist, does he teach Aventurine how to sculpt?? Does it become like something they do together to spend time?? Ok damn wait that’s kinda cute wait-)

WAIT ADDING ON TO THAT- DOES THAT MEAN FOLLOWING THIS THOUGHT PROCESS THAT AVENTURINE IS THE JOJO FAN???? HE’S A FUCKING JOTARO STAN???

(wait- brisk MC who’s rude to everyone but soft on those he cares about and has the muscles of a Greek god and eventually goes into academia, oh my fucking god Aventurine has a type)

PLEASE

I NEED TO KNOW WHERE ARE THESE STATUES COMING FROM

EVERYONE SEEMS TO KNOW ABOUT THEM, THEY AREN’T A SECRET

IS HIS HOUSE JUST FULL OF STATUES???

DOES HE HAVE A WHOLE-ASS GRECO-ROMAN-STYLE GARDEN FULL OF HIS OWN STATUES???

DOES THE ARTIST SEE A STATUE DISAPPEAR FROM THE GARDEN AND IMMEDIATELY KNOW RATIO USED HIS TECHNIQUE TO SLAM ONE DOWN BREAKING IT AND JUST GO “fucking hell man, I was just about to go on break! Now I need to start a new one!”

IS IT A HOBBY?? HOW THE FUCK DID HE GET INTO SCULPTING AS A HOBBY WITH HIS SCHEDULE???

ARE THEY GIFTS?? 

FROM WHO, STUDENTS??? ADMIRERS? FUCK IT, AVENTURINE???

DOES THE ARTIST BEING COMMISSIONED EVEN HAVE A LIFE OUTSIDE OF THE RATIO STATUES??? DO THEY EVEN HAVE THE ABILITY TO SCULPT ANYTHING OTHER THAN RATIO AT THIS POINT??? HAVE THEY SEEN ANY OTHER BEING OUTSIDE OF THEIR STUDIO AND THE HUNDREDS OF RATIO STATUES???

PLEASE I NEED SOMEONE TO ANSWER ME

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - The Summer Games BLgin.

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top. Those Greeks did have that reputation for naked dudes rolling around together so I'm declaring it...

BL OLYMPICS!

I'll be passing out metals in various sporting events, as part of the weekly updates through mid August, just for funzies.

July 2024 Week 4

Ongoing Series - Thai

The Rebound (Weds Gaga) eps 9-10 of 12 - I guess mass murder is nothing next to having to raise funds for your basketball club. There were a lot of water sports in these eps (no not that kind). I’m not complaining. The street BB playoffs were fun. Frank is GOOD. I didn’t know he played. They aren’t using doubles for this. Meanwhile, it’s a bummer this one can’t be a poly romance. 

Winner!

Gold in Handball

for that shower scene in ep 9 (also... ya know, DUNK TANKS)

Balls in hands of all types.

Briefly must chat about that intro/outro music. It's like Thai autotuned Stray Kids. Which means I kinda adore it.

Century of Love (Weds Gaga) eps 5-6 of 10 - I guess he’s had a long time to learn how to fight really really well. This is a fun show. It does occasionally feel like a bunch of gay boys playing dress up. I LIKE P’Third a lot. I hope he doesn’t turn out to be an actual baddie. I’m finding the music a little intrusive in these episodes. I love the deconstructed suits look, and the velvet blazer. Very 90s. The confessions scene was very cute. It’s a good thing Vee is so easy-going, because the last few months of his life have been truly insane. And now he’s queen of the castle? Still working his convenience store job?

I honestly thought we'd just get kisses halfway through not a full on sex scene. But it was very sweet and tender. Appreciated, boys, thanks. However it’s never a good sign when the sex scene is it at the halfway point, it just means there’s gonna be a lot of trauma to come.

(I gotta say every time Daou smiles he actually looks his age.) 

This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans (Fri iQIYI) ep 4 of 8 - I like them now. I mean as a pair of characters. I wasn’t really sold on the main couple until this episode, and now I’m interested (yes I am shallow). The boy with the glasses is definitely sus. I’m quite drunk, thus I have to say Sailub is the hottest thing on my screen right now. Metas's taste in interior design sucks. OK, that physical therapy session was sexy. I wasn’t sold at first, but now I love this side couple too.

Argh. SailubPon kiss so well. Also COUNTER LIFT!!!! 

Silver in Weightlifting

Sunset X Vibes (Sat iQIYI) ep 7 of 12 - I’m the one who always says this stuff, but this pair might be the best at relationship heat. Let me try to explain. They are good at putting on screen the kind of NRE, want to bone, just really into each other physically and also connected and loving. It’s the way their bodies always arch towards each other. They’re very comfortable in each other’s space in a way that’s really rare to see out of Any BL country but Taiwan. I think they might be my favorite couple currently active. I don’t know how to put it except that

it looks like they want each other,

it looks like they like each other,

it looks like they’re into each other,

and it looks like they GET each other.

It’s nice to see on screen. The plots/stories/narratives that they're given aren’t doing them any favors, but man they’re a good pair. Meanwhile, was I screaming the whole time don’t rip the sample of the custom piece? Yes I was. But it was still sexy.

Sam getting discovered was fun! Yo is gonna burn his arse good.

My Love Mix-Up Th (Fri YT) ep 8 of 12 - Okay! Officially boyfriends. I almost like the friendship btw Atom and Mudmee better than the romances. But they all so cute. 

The Trainee (Sun YouTube) ep 4 of 12 - I hate the gf intern so much. I think she is past redemption now - time for death. What is it they say about ADs? they do all the work, for none of the credit but all of the blame.

Knock Knock Boys (Thurs Gaga) ep 10 of 12 - I guess Peak’s dad really is that awful. Jane is the beard? Got it. The show got suddenly quite sweet and complex. Where did that come from? Meanwhile ,Almond + Latte + sex education is awesome. Great trope we rarely get in BL. 

Love Sea (Sun iQIYI) ep 7 of 10 - Look, what’s really annoying me is that I am neither upset nor pleased with the show. I like to be driven one way or the other by Meme. Trash watch here. (delayed this week, I can't face it)

I Saw You in My Dream (Weds Gaga) ep 1-2 of 12 - Out the gate I don’t like it. I don’t really like the teasing thing and the acting is poor. That said, neck kisses in the very first episode do make me happy. So I’m gonna keep watching. As for ep 2, I like the sides, and we have gay brothers trope activated. I also like the paranormal element, it adds some much-needed tension, but it is still a little slow (typical of a pulp).

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

I Hear the Sunspot AKA Hidamari ga Kikoeru (Japan Weds Gaga) ep 6 of 10 - I like our poor lost puppy slowly figuring out what’s going on. It’s so elegantly done. Also, the the boy begs his quiet seme to SAY something, you know he’s gonna DO something instead. 

I could have done wihtout the pan around the head kiss. We over that, 8 years ago.

Takara's Treasure AKA Takara No Vidro (Japan Mon Gaga) ep 4 of 10 - Why don’t I like this show? I had to think about it quite a bit. It’s the power differential. I never enjoy it when the character with less power is the one doing the pursuing, it comes off as too desperate or something. In this case he is: from the country, poor, and younger, It just makes Takara’s dismissive attitude and snobbery unpleasant to watch. Also, you know me, =/= obsessive stalker behavior. 

It's airing but...

Bad Guy (Korea YT) - yeah, erm, no thank you.

4 Minutes (Thai Netflix/Grey) ep... - Great, a rich boy studying business at uni, suddenly gains the supernatural power to see four minutes into the future. I try to catch up next week.

I have a source, but I simply didn’t have time to watch it. So sorry. Too much traveling too much BL to keep up with. A perfect conflation of conflicting priorities.

Meet You at the Blossom (China) - it's your funeral (or, more likely, one of the main characters'). You can argue but... statistics. You know my feelings on this matter. MY BLOG, remember?

64.media.tumblr.com

In case you missed it

The Time of Fever AKA Unintentional Love Story 2 (Korea movie) trailer IS COMING IN SEPTEMBER!!!!

Next Week Looks Like This:

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

Coming Up Next!

7/29 Battle of the Writers (Thai ????) - trailer here, TutorYim return, and while I adore them, I really hope this is better than Middleman's Love. Won't be hard. However: the premise? Ugh. Something something authors fighting - save me. Why don't writers understand that nothing is more boring than writers?

8/4 Sugar Dog Life (Japan Sun ????) 10 eps - OMG a uni student who looks too young and a... COP. GAH. The subversion and kink of it all. Please Gaga pick this one up? They made it for US.

8/7 Cosmetic Playlover (Japan Weds ????) 8 eps - office romance around the makeup counter featuring a younger seme and sex by blackmail. I am intrigued. DFTUJ (don't fuck this up, Japan).

8/8 Monster Next Door (Thai Thurs WeTV ) 12 eps - I am so DAMN excited to see Big finally lead a BL. I can't even with this, one of my most anticipated of this year. He's a great kisser ya'll, he's kissed a lot of boys as second lead. I can't WAIT.

8/12 First Note Of Love (Taiwan Mon Gaga) 12 eps - About a singer with stage fright and his timid fan stars Charles (H4 the puppy one) and Michael Chang (the youngster in My Tooth Your Love), plus side couple featuring a Thai actor Jame (Koh in Gen Y) and Liu Min Ting (of Guardian fame). What a damn tean. I can't wait. With thier powers combined!

8/16 The Last Time (Thai Fri YT) ? eps - Convoluted story of loss and possible reincarnation or something.

8/22 The Paradise of Thorns (Thai movie) theater release - Jeff Satur is back but this does not look like a BL (the gay lover's death is the inciting event). More in Goodbye Mother vein. Looks dark and dramatic. He opposite and extremely well known actor Toey Pongsakorn who has never done gay before.

Addicted Heroin (Thailand adaptation) is also supposed to release this month. GIVE IT TOO MEEEEEE. I don't care about anything else but August back on my screen. It's been almost a decade since he did BL.

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

This week's adventures in caption "out of" and "off" are not the same thing. This is an uncomfortable thought.

I'm so tired I'm seeing double. This is all you get.

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs

Sigh, Tumblr in it's infinite wisdom doesn't like too many tags.

Sports in Play (the jokes write themselves) )

Boxing

Breaking

(That's Not) Cricket

Diving (yes, for that)

Fencing (yes, with those)

Handball (exactly what it says, no, read the word.. again)

Rhythmic Gymnastics (obvs)

Squash (snicker)

Surfing

Swimming

Trampoline

Weightlifting

Wrestling

[existentialterror]

ARG notes: ZampanioSim

Okay, a work this metafictional and also that (I think) responds to audience interaction is going to need a high-caliber gimmick. Hang on.

...

Alright. Hey guys, catfishAnabasis (Light) here, taking a moment out of my surprisingly busy day tell you about a weird thing on the internet.

ZampanioSim is an intricate and brainbending ARG. It takes direct inspiration from Homestuck, The Magnus Archives, and House of Leaves, as well as the creator (JR, jadedResearcher/justifiedRecursion)'s previous canon of Homestuck fan-work and games. A major theme is "unreality".

HERE IS YOUR TRAILHEAD.

Feel free to ignore the rest of the writeup and check it out now.

I know very little about JR's other work, right now. However, among my many INTERESTS, I am something of a TMA ENJOYER and an AMATEUR INTERNET INVESTIGATOR, and if I were in a HOUSE I like to think I could LEAVE it pretty easily.

So, yeah. I figured I'd just describe my experience of this rabbithole and maybe you'll want to check it out too. I'm sure this will only scratch the surface.

ZampanioSim is structured as a nested labyrinth. In the same way that:

Homestuck is a webcomic framed as an interactive adventure game about an account of kids playing a video game (Sgrub) that doesn't exist, and

House of Leaves is a novel framed as a found scholarly discussion about a documentary (The Navidson Record) that doesn't exist about a house that doesn't exist,

ZampanioSim is a game-based ARG framed as an attempt to simulate a game (Zampanio) that doesn't exist based on a found FAQ of the game (that only sort of exists).

More concretely, ZampanioSim features a lot of nested browser games, as well as audio, narrative, an actual audience-interactive narrative game (the way Homestuck was originally), external websites, and more.

The starting point is, of course, the House:

ZampanioSim takes full advantage of the browser as medium. There is content accessible via the address bar, developer tools, cookies (I think), the developer console, and probably more that I haven't realized.

Like, to give you a sense of the kind of rabbithole we're dealing with: Here's a map I made of the House outset page today:

...And I say today because the House does change over time. Today (a friday) when I clicked on the EastEast route, for instance, I was greeted by this grotesquely distorted version of Rebecca Black's "Friday":

Okay, let's talk about what we have going on in the House map, starting from the doors and working out. (I've given some of these my own names for clarity.)

North

The Classpect Menu Game:

This, I think, is the main titular "ZampanioSim". It's the part that's intended to recreate the experience of a supposed old computer game, but by and large, you only experience the menu screen, not the rest of the gameplay. You can select attributes (based on Homestuck's Classpecting system + the Magnus Archives fears) gain points and select skills and (depending on your seed) eventually "beat the game". It's glitchy, it's a hellscape, there's an entity or two in the menu system that are trying to talk to you. It's great fun. Contains links to a rabbithole (which you can plug passwords into for more secrets) and + some secrets to you in the credits.

(While mostly the aspects seem to add flavor to the menu options, there's a special class called "Waste". This appears in neither TMA nor Homestuck, but comes from a fan or meta-joke that Andrew Hussie and Toby Fox, the writer and a major composer for Homestuck, are classpected* as the "Waste of Space" and "Waste of Time". By telling it you're a "Waste"you're more likely to get weird glitches and new options in your Classpect Menu game run - there's a fun recurring element in some of these games about the game changing depending on who you tell it is playing. I learned about the Waste trick from JR's youtube channel. Also, setting your birthday as Halloween might also do something.)

I have no idea if the different iterations of games here are substantially different. I haven't checked. There's a lot going on. "There's a lot going on" is a good summary of ZampanioSim overall.

*( Uh, classpecting is this in-Homestuck personality system where game players are a [Role] of [Element].)

Eyedlr: Eyedol Games is the company that supposedly made the original game Zampanio. Eyedlr is their spambot-filled tumblr clone, which also has secrets in it. (Actually, just assume everything has secrets out.)

East

The House Exploration game: It has the same setup screen as the Classpect Menu game, but this one drops you into a game with visuals: An infinite(?) procedural house you navigate with imagery derived from your choices.

Peewee's exploration game: When it's not blasting Rebecca Black's Friday But Weird into your ears, the EastEast route is another procedural infinite(?) maze, except that you type directions to Peewee, a snake guy with goggles who also moves around on his own. This one also introduces named characters we learn more about elsewhere.

Bathroom text: Procredural bathroom maze, unless it's just some text telling you to take a break. ZampanioSim really likes telling you to take breaks and hydrate, so that you can better appreciate and spread Zampanio.

Absolutely not. Also, I'm a busy woman. I have to finish this writing summary first.

South

The Train Game: a game - notably not a maze - where JR walks down a series of train corridors and monologues to you about the game and the "reality" behind it.

The mazecrawler game: You tell a little guy how to navigate an infinite(?) maze - and if you choose right and open up your browser's Console menu, you can learn a great deal more about

West

The only West route is AdventureSimWest, which is an actual text narrative game where readers submit commands that the author incorporates into updates - just like early Homestuck. It's still going. The logs are extensive but it's mostly about the antics of a new employee at Eyedol Games, which is stuck in a time loop.

Other

Then there's some other scattered clickable text -

The truth about alt: An exchange between two shapeshifters.

A transcript: A dialogue between two people who apparently work for Eyedol Games.

The lower left leads you to an apparently rotating selection of other Zampanio-related games. I particularly liked NagaGirlfriend.

None of this is even the stuff you can reach this page exclusively through the Console menu.

And much more

And there's a lot of stuff that's NOT branching directly off of the house. There's other things you find buried in links or by searching - a discord and a wiki that both straddle the line between in-character and -out, Archive of Our Own content, a youtube channel, the Eyedol website...

Is there a "story" to ZampanioSim?

Yes.

Like I said, there's a lot I haven't seen yet. But what's going on is something like this:

JR is attempting to recreate this game, Zampanio, of course, and tap into its fanbase. The game Zampanio is an infectious meme. Eyedol Games is a transdimensional company that is perhaps both trying to spread the meme and contain it, by removing its spores, e.g. the Zampanio FAQ - the thing that inspired JR to make ZampanioSim - from the internet.

Various parts of the game recognize that they are fictional and may identify you the reader/player as "Observers".

There are a few recurring characters who have gotten swept up into the meme, either working for Eyedol or trapped in ZampanioSim or both, and have followed it from variant to transdimensional variant.

(this is an image from homestuck. it's a reference.)

Japes aside, this is a brain-bending, very cool, and completely ludicrous unfiction project which I believe is made mostly by one person with an unparalleled hand for web sorcery, whimsy, and vibes. The vibes are so good.

The host website, Farrago Fiction (which AFAICT is a multi-person project), hosts a number of often-homestuck-inspired weird games and simulators.

I know ZampanioSim is now a few years old and is still actively updating. Consider checking it out.

2024-08-24 edit: Part 2!

[mswyrr]

Season 1 has its writing issues, but it accomplished some major character work with Rhaenyra. It took her across a moral threshold and changed some core components of how she relates to others. She begins the season paralleled with Helaena. But she ends the season paralleled with Aemond and Daemon. IMO, the Red Sowing was a major moral Rubicon crossed - and she's changed in permanent, fundamental ways. That was the goal of this season. Partly the reaction to the season is due to how this kind of internal character work isn't usually the focus of Fantasy; it's more common in "realistic" dramas.

First, the comparisons with Helaena. They mourn their sons in visually similar ways, clutching an item of clothing/blanket of the child's.

Then Rhaenyra repudiates the idea that she wanted Jaehaerys' head, specifically by mentioning this similarity and empathy with her little sister:

It's after this scene that she confronts Daemon and rejects his "a son for a son" logic. Then we get the final visual parallel. Both sisters look up and see (in flower petals and dust) the ash that will rain down on the kingdom due to the destruction of a dragon fire war. They're both disturbed by it. Early in the season, Rhaenyra tried to do all she could to prevent that future. By the end of the season, though, she has wholly embraced it.

By the time we get to the Red Sowing (2x07), Rhaenyra has changed her mind - she embraced the fire. Burning people alive for power. She might have introduced the "seeds" to Silverwing, who wouldn't have slaughtered them. But she chose Vermithor. She chose their deaths. And the power felt good. It pushed back the fear and trauma of the early season. As Emma put it:

What is going through Rhaenyra’s mind as she watches the Targaryen bastards be devoured and torched alive? "I think she feels like a god. I think she feels super proud." [interview source] [and major credit to darksvster's meta, which gives full details of where Rhaenyra is at in this episode]

Not only does that happen - but in the next episode, her brother Aemond does the same thing. Massacring people and looking down at it, feeling like a god. Feeling powerful again, after having been made to feel powerless by running up against Rhaenyra's new dragonriders at the end of 2x07.

The visual parallel is as stark as the ones earlier in the season were with Helaena:

They're not being subtle. She is being positioned opposite a brother - a mirror to her enemy - it's just not Aegon, as some people want. But it makes sense that it's the brother driven enough to *take* the crown against the rules of this society - the position of first born noble daughters and second sons has been compared since season 1. They're so close to being the one with the rights to power and yet there's a barrier.

Both of these siblings have crossed that barrier. They will take what this society will not give them. They will take it with fire and blood.

As we see in the next parallel with Aemond. They literally are twinned in two scenes where an as yet untainted female family member challenges them on their policy of burning cities of innocent people:

My final note is that now Rhaenyra is on the same page as Daemon as well. She repudiated his behavior earlier in the season, but now she embraces his return and embraces his core logic. She uses his words, his phrase in a scene where imo we are meant to notice that--while love is still there-- she's being much more cruel to Alicent than she would have ever been in the past:

Daemon has changed in the fact that he will recognize her as the reigning queen, but his morality has not changed. Rhaenyra's has - she is now of a similar mindset as Daemon and Aemond. She uses religion--and her conversations with Mysaria about caring for the smallfolk--to justify it to herself and she believes herself righteous. But the actions and their consequences (people burned alive) are the same. And for the same goal of power.

They are doing all of this so artfully--keeping us so tightly in Rhaenyra's pov where she feels justified as she crosses this moral Rubicon--that it can be difficult to see without pulling back and looking at the clues, the shifting parallels, and the ways her behavior by the end of the season is truly, in pivotal ways, not what it would have once been.

[affluent-havoc]

Finished Chapter 2! SPOILERS AHEAD! I must say that this chapter oddly made me dislike Makoto a bit. I genuinely thought I'd potentially dislike Byakuya in some ways more, perhaps feel a bit more upset at him than I do. On the contrary though, Makoto sucks in some ways. Which, don't get me wrong. Makoto deserves to be a flawed individual!! Golly though. For one, he really is a normie in some ways with how little he knows. How he asks so many unneeded questions, specifically when he was being dragged around by Byakuya which I get to some extent. He was very much disoriented from the whole ordeal, struggling to figure out why Byakuya of all people was interested in him specifically in regards of sleuthing about for the investigation. At the same time though, he needs to quit it with the rhetorical reciting questions that almost parrot what the other person just said. I get it's probably a bad habit of his but he need to get a grip about it. I can only extent sympathy for so long. Being a bit intentionally dramatic here by the way, but it sometimes feels like a tension killer or that it makes Makoto look a bit too dense. Don't get me started on the whole "rope" debacle too. Like, UUUUUGH! It's so obviously the extension cord Byakuya used in the library! So very obvious! Like, Byakuya took his time to bring Makoto to the library and I get Byakuya was being stubborn and not letting Makoto look at anything other than what he wanted him to look at. But it's so OBVIOUS!!! Though, I suppose I can blame a bit of this on the game design to some extent. Certainly doesn't make Makoto look smarter by any means. Maybe it's that denial where I can see Makoto's smarts shine in the trials so I feel like I'm internally being a bit harsh on him. I've seen others call him dense after all and I DO wanna look at Makoto in a positive light. I don't wanna be hating on the little bastard after all. It does get on my nerves sometimes though. and I can't lie to myself about that. Furthermore, the fact that I had to progress the trial by Hangman's Gambit-ing a slur for schizophrenic people regarding Genocide Jack. On a meta level, I get that doing D.I.D is a bit short and the full term is probably too long to do for just the second dang trial. Definitely not an excuse to use a slur that has no means being here though. Also though, in an in-world explanation, damnit, Makoto. You sure do have some shit you gotta sort out if that's what you're internally describing Jack as who, by the way, does not have schizophrenia. D.I.D and schizophrenia are very much not the same disorder. You called D.I.D a split personality multiple times which shows you know the difference. And, I can get it to some extent that, yes. This game is from the 2000s. The 2000s was definitely a more ableist time where terminology like that was flung around like it was nothing. So, in a sense of historical accuracy, I can understand why he might have said this word. I must also mention though that this isn't the first time Makoto was unnecessarily cruel to the others internally in his head. Thus, this certainly feels a bit more like a pattern of behavior for him. This is all interesting to me though with how much I've seen this side of Makoto ignored in some ways. He's surprisingly more judgmental than I feel some give him credit for. From internally thinking Taka was annoying when he first met him to finding Hifumi weird for his interests in Hifumi's own Free-time events (which I get. Hifumi isn't exactly written in the nicest light. Don't blame him for that. I blame the dated writing). I find this aspect of Makoto so intriguing though. In a way, Byakuya, the asshole of the group who dislikes everyone and mentions multiple times how he plans on following through with a murder, is less judgmental than Makoto. He said himself not to judge others by your own standards before the murder, during the investigation, and after the trial like he was the narrator of a children's book giving the moral of the story.

Fascinating...

[thoughtfulchaos773]

Hello! Random question: what are your thoughts on the use of “strange currencies” song in both a sydcarmy scene (the panic attack) and an apparent clairexcarmy scene when he tried to call her in the freezer? My interpretation is that the song is more about carmy trying to understand love or trying to force himself to say the things he feels for both of this women.

I swear if you already made a meta about this and I somehow missed it I promise I won’t get mad if you just link it for me

Thanks 🙏🏻

Hi- thanks for the ask! I'm going to answer your question based on what Josh and Chris say, but there's a reason for it.

But I think you are right. The song is about Claire and Carmy, the beginning of a love story based on what Chris Storer's interview:

...particularly that song. There’s something about “Strange Currencies” that, at least for me, reminds me of being 16 where anything felt possible and everything felt impossible. Because the lyrics are about failing and trying again. I think everyone has a different interpretation of it, but it definitely feels like the potential of something that’s not going to work out.

Haha Chris revealing a spoiler on claire and carmy!

But Executive producer Josh Senior comments that the show also focuses on other relationships in the show:

I have to give a ton of credit to Chris for that. When he and I were talking, he was like, "I want to pick a song that sounds like what it feels like to be a kid, where it feels like anything is possible, but you really can't get anything done. You just don't know how." There's an underscore of melancholy in that song, but it's also really hopeful. It works for the Claire and Carmy dynamic, it also works for the other relationships that we explore throughout the season.

I usually don't pay much attention to interviews with Chris and Josh because they can't provide the full picture. However, I want to point out their quotes because in both interviews, they discuss other relationships on the show, which could be relevant to the song being played during the episode Pasta. It's important to notice that neither of them addresses the song during the pivotal panic attack scene, where the music is chaotic and playing backward—when the song plays forward this is when Sydney appears in Carmy's mind. In fact, Chris and Josh consistently avoid discussing the song in relation to Sydney and Carmy's dynamic. The only time I've heard Chris Storer mention Sydney and Carmy together is during the Season 1 Emmys interview.

Could Carmy and Sydney ever pursue a romantic relationship? "It's a partnership. You'll see."

Anyway- the scene where Carmy is calming down in 2x09 the score plays a particularly hopeful phrase, “You will be mine,” points out his connection with Sydney. I think this is the hopeful part Josh and Chris talk about. In another interview, Chris Storer mentioned that he imagined R.E.M. tapes lying around the kitchen because of Mikey. Many aspects of Carmy’s character are inspired by Chris Storer's childhood experiences. In a podcast interview, he explained that he became a fan of R.E.M. because of his older cousins, which is also reflected in Carmy's character.

Plus: it's interesting to note that Molly mentioned Claire was based on a friend of Chris. Whether this implies a connection to Chris’s relationship with a real life Claire before Gillian or the true like character is based strictly on her career remains a mystery. Let me know if you'd like to see that interview!

To get back on topic, Carmy's connection to strange currencies reminds him of the times he listened to that song while he had a crush on Claire in high school. I believe Carmy is trying to understand the song again in relation to Claire, but unexpectedly, the hopeful part starts to relate to Sydney.

I believe that Sydney and Carmy's relationship is closely tied to the love songs featured in the show, such as those by Wilco, Pearl Jam, and Tommy McGee. The moment when Carmy experiences a panic attack underscores that Sydney is the only source of clarity in his mind. He is trying to truly understand her, and the feelings he has are reminiscent of the crush he had in high school on Claire. Now, he has developed a similar crush on Sydney but this crush is not impossible...it's a potentional to be something more that could work out in the future where he isn't waiting for the other shoe to drop. The time it plays in 3x09 (arguably a sydcarmy episode) carmy is still trying to work out the claire situation in his head. Because the part of it seeming impossible - that's for claire.

[inkabelledesigns]

So the other night, some gal pals and I started watching Kirby: Right Back at Ya! together, and I have to say, I'm an instant fan. I've never seen this show before, save for a couple of clips that have crossed my feed in years past. It has no right to be as funny as it is. Like, oh my gosh, I haven't gone back and watched an early 2000s cartoon in a long time. This is very of its time in terms of the humor and style, and I find that charming. Like, the first episode just opens up with the murder of a flock of sheep??? Hello??? I knew this was gonna be good the moment we got into it. X'''D The characters are incredibly charming, the voice work is fun, the Dedede vs Kirby dynamic is such a delight, I love it. Bro really is just full force bullying a toddler, I can't even with this penguin. X'''D

I wanted to take a look at the English dub, because I've heard many good things about the voice acting for Meta Knight, and holy cannoli, I was not disappointed. I love all the knights, they sound great, but Meta in particular is FANTASTIC. I love him, so much, that's my little guy. Probably my second favorite voice for him next to his Super Smash Brothers Brawl incarnation. X'''D Like, I'm not the most knowledgeable, but I am a voice acting nerd for things I like, so reading the credits was a lot of fun. Like, I immediately picked up on Mike Pollock being the mayor, and it was delightful. Dr. Eggman what are you doing here???? X'''D Because that's my context, most actors I'm gonna recognize are people I know of because I'm a long time Sonic fan. And it makes sense for them to be in this given the time period and what a lot of the Sonic X actors were getting cast in at 4Kids.

But NOTHING could have prepared me for Dan Green as Customer Service. First of all, Customer Service as a character is amazing, I am enamored of him. Like that is not a character design you expect in a show about Kirby, but he's fantastic, I love his facial structure so much. Dan Green voicing him is the cherry on top. It's bananas to me that the guy that voiced Knuckles and Yugi can sound like that. I saw his name in the credits and genuinely had to look it up, because I wasn't sure who he played. Dan Green, I adore you, oh my gosh. X'''D Like, I know voice actors have range, I know we're powerful and can sound like so many different things, but that hasn't stopped amazing me, y'know? There's something magical in that.

I'm only three episodes in, but I'm eager to come back to it. Consider me a fan. XD I mean I expected this would happen, the same friend who wanted to watch this is the one who sucked me into messing around with Kirby in general, and I gotta say, no regrets. Most Kirby fans I've met are awesome and incredibly kind, I think this might be a space I can vibe with.

[whenmemorydies]

Another Storer/Calo musical deep cut:

Eddie Vedder, lead singer of Pearl Jam and the focus of so much of my adolescent thirst whose voice is featured all over The Bear’s soundtrack -

See: Vedder’s rapid-fire, gutteral one-two-three-four-five against one […] torture from you to me of PJ’s "Animal" over the end credits of 1x01 System or propelling the energy in Richie and Syd’s last ditch effort to save Friends and Family in 2x10 The Bear. See: Eddie (and Neil Finn) wailing And though we try to forget it, you will make me call your name, as I shout it to the blue, summer sky in "Throw Your Arms Around Me" over shots of Carmy making Syd's lamb ragu for Cl@ire while Syd undresses at home (this fucking show lmao) (also shout out to Melbourne/Naarm rock group Hunters & Collectors whose song Vedder and Finn covered). See: Eddie's yearning as he croons I've been planning out all that I'd say to you in PJ's "Come Back", as Carmy and Syd have metaphorical sex under a perfectly level table (shout out to @sydcarmyfan for that brilliant meta). See also: Vedder covering The English Beat's "Save It For Later" and singing, Save it for later, don't run away and let me down, you let me down in 3x02 Next while we see a litany of working class and racialised hospitality and food service workers gearing up for another work day in Chicago, just as Carmy is about to commence fucking over his working class and racialised crew at The Bear for the remainder of season 3 (this fucking show, gah) -

that Eddie Vedder, who is more commonly associated with Seattle and the grunge movement that was birthed there, was actually born in Evanston, Illinois: the same suburb of Chicago that its implied the Berzattos lived in (I say implied because its never explicitly stated on the show but we know that 2x06 Fishes was shot in Evanston). I always get a little chill up my spine when I come across connections like this on the show.

The Bear is such a love letter: to the food services industry, to film, to romance itself and almost certainly, to Chicago.

Author's note:

Enjoy this video of Eddie Vedder continuing to be a man after my own heart, talking about visiting his grandmother's old home in Evanston - a home he describes as the Sun that the rest of his family orbited around - which made me tear up because that's exactly how us grandkids felt about our Ammamma's apartment in Canada. Eddie talks about his grandmother having 6 kids and wishing he had bought the apartment to keep it like a time capsule, only to meet the current residents and changing his mind because it was a place full of "love and power and good vibes" that they took and also raised their 6 kids in. And all of this before launching into "Throw Your Arms Around Me" *sigh*

Its no secret that I love The Bear, but what I might love even more than the show itself are all the tangents, winding paths and deep cuts that it takes me to and which pull at my own memories and history. This art is so cathartic for so many reasons. And I doubt I'm the only one on here feeling that way.

[major-comet]

The Music in RvB: Restoration Kinda Sucks. Here's how I'd fix it.

I gave this as a presentation the other night after my first re-watch of the finale, and it was a major hit so I thought I would share it with other people who think too hard about Halo fanfiction.

Red VS Blue has some truly fantastic music in it's 21 year history, and I think that the music here was pretty weak. Obviously this post has major spoilers for RvB19 / Restoration, so be warned.

So, under the Read More is a typed up and fleshed out version of my powerpoint presentation where I will dive in and not just bitch about the musical choices, but explain how I would fix things. This is...really long, but I hope you all enjoy my thoughts :)

This will be best enjoyed if you listen to the songs I'm talking about as a refresher. For your convenience, I have input links to the songs on Youtube when necessary

So what's the problem?

Since the development of the finale overlapped with Rooster Teeth getting shut down, it's very likely that they had minimal funds. (EDIT: Yes, the finale itself was done by the time the announcement rolled around. However, the decision was almost certainly already in the works at WB. RT was shut down in part for financial reasons. It’s all connected.) I personally think this was part of why Burnie/RT was/were [reportedly] so insistent on using stock music for part of the season rather than a whole soundtrack done by Trocadero - I'm not sure they had the money to properly compensate for a full soundtrack. And maybe it was just a stupid / dick move, and had nothing to do with money at all, but that's what I choose to believe if only because it makes me feel slightly better about it.

This means that besides the stock music, the new score by Carl Thiel, the Zero song for that cameo, and Waning Moon (the Barenaked Ladies song), all we have are four re-used songs from earlier RvB - these songs being the Trocadero Grifball theme, I Say Ooh and Round One by Jeff Williams, and Vale Deah by Trocadero. There's also a David Levy composition in there somewhere according to the credits, R U Ready, but I have no idea what it is or where it plays. It's bothering the hell out of me because it does not appear to be a reused piece as far as I can tell - at least not reused from RvB. If anyone has any leads on this please reach out, because it seems crazy that there's one random possibly original David composition mixed in there. I've checked Apple Music and Soundcloud, nothing by that name.

In this very Meta focused film, neither of The Meta's themes play in any shape or form - [When] Your Middle Name is Danger by Trocadero or Plagam Extremam Infligere by Jeff Williams.

Nor do any of the character themes, really. Most of the series' iconic recurring tracks are completely absent. Tex's various themes, Carolina's theme - hell not even Blood Gulch Blues or the iconic intro music.

Were there any highlights?

Of course there were!

Considering I was going into the finale having only been spoiled on Vale Deah, I was pleasantly surprised to hear the Jeff tracks! That was totally unexpected, and really lovely.

Speaking of, I thought the use of Vale Deah was a really lovely touch. Fun fact: that song was used for the end credits of the Season 1 DVD, so it really felt like a sweet full circle moment.

I think that using a Barenaked Ladies song for that very sweet scene of Caboose, Grif, and Simmons reminiscing about Blood Gulch by the fire was a very lovely choice, and quite honestly it was my favorite scene in the whole thing. The BNL have been close to RvB and RT since damn near the beginning, and it was very nice to hear them attached to the finale in that small way.

I should also point out that the composer for the season is Carl Thiel - known for his work on Hot Fuzz and the second and third Spy Kids movies. I think he did a totally fine job. I liked the bugles that were under Sarge's death, but the rest doesn't really stand out much. Perfectly serviceable.

So, now that that's out of the way, let's break down those four returning songs a bit more - shall we?

Grifball Official Theme - Trocadero

This was a really funny choice. It's such a quick bit, but I respect Burnie's dedication to get in one last Grifball joke. Obviously, I would have preferred to hear a different song for something else, but this was totally harmless.

Vale Deah - Trocadero

Lo-fi Hip-hop beats to get divorced to.

God that scene was heartbreaking. I love this song a lot - I think a lot of Trocadero's strongest stuff is the stuff that just feels kind of melancholy. It's something Nico does really well, and I think Vale Deah is one of my favorite examples of that. Like I said above, I think this song was used really well - if I had to pick a different track for that same scene I would probably choose Half Life. While it was written during the Blood Gulch era, it wasn't really used in the show until Seasons 12 and 13 - notably, a version of it plays under Kimball's rally speech to the troops after Doyle's death. I just really like it, tbh. There's absolutely other songs that could work, but I think having it be a BGC-era track served the scene really well.

I Say Ooh - Jeff Williams

My feelings about this are pretty similar to Grifball. It was cute, it was nice to hear, but I wish they had used a different Jeff track somewhere else. Ultimately, it's pretty harmless. It is kind of an odd choice though - I'm pretty sure Jeff didn't write it for RvB. This was a song that he composed that was used in two RT Shorts (live action sketches that RT used to do). I think it would have been nicer to use one of his RvB tracks for the introduction of Niner - could have been a cute spot to use a track like I Am The Best or Forge World or hell, Come on Carolina would have been cute.

Round One - Jeff Williams

...Actually, I have a lot to say about Round One, so let's get everything else out of the way first.

Other Scenes that *should* have had returning tracks before I talk about Round One for a billion years

Sarge's death should have been scored with a version of Rally (Sarge's Speech). My vision is a version of it that's just the string section - familiar, but not enough to be distracting, and absolutely soul crushing if you do recognize it.

The scene with Wash and Dr. Grey in the hospital needed a hint of what Nico so lovingly calls the "Wash Trauma Theme" - which is closely related to the Trocadero Meta theme, fun fact. I think Limited Duty from the scene in Season 16 where Carolina tells Wash about the brain damage could have worked pretty well there.

The scene at the end with Wash and Carolina talking about Doc and the Freelancers really needed something. I think one of the variations of the Shisno trilogy Carwash theme could have worked very well.

Obviously the big scene with Tucker and Sigma on the ship would have really benefited from [When] Your Middle Name is Danger or one of the many themes that incorporates it, but I'd also throw Soul Clef XI into the ring! I think it's so interesting that the work around they came up with for not being able to get Elijah Wood back was to have epsilon!Sigma take on a more Felix-y type of voice. Partly because Felix was an incredibly ambitious villain so he fits it pretty well, but more importantly that was a very smart voice to pick to fuck with Tucker in particular! I think that was really smart, and I think having some version of Felix's theme playing during that scene would have been really cool.

Bolt by Trocadero was never used in the series proper. However it was used in this ten year retrospective that they released alongside Season 10. I highly recommend giving it a watch, because watching it now that it's Over - RvB, RT, all of it - it's honestly kind of heart breaking. They're all filled with this deep optimism about the future of the company, and hindsight is a bitch on this one. They use it in a really sweet sequence at the end where they're showing a bunch of old photos. Anyways I think this should have played in the credits after Vale Deah finished. "We only want to have a good time."

Miscellaneous Trocadero Songs I would have liked to see them find a place for that I haven't already / will not mention elsewhere

Steady Ride (Gunmetal Green) - this is THE Grimmons song ever to me. I love it so much. Also fun fact: as of the interview Burnie did with Nico on the season 10 (I think?) dvd/bluray, this was Burnie's favorite Trocadero track. And you can tell when you watch the DVD cuts of the first 6-ish seasons - it plays all the time.

I like Good Fight a lot, not sure there was a great spot for it? but still would have been nice - It's used a few times as a Wash theme, I believe.

No One is my favorite Trocadero song and I wish it could've been there Somewhere. It was the elevator-music type song that played behind Vic in BG once or twice, I think was in the season 4 credits, and also played during the weapons demonstrations in the Meta VS Carolina Death Battle. I just like it a lot, lol.

Okay let's get back to Round One.

Why they shouldn't have used Round One for the big fight in RvB Restoration

AKA: The actual bulk of the presentation

Okay so we've got some pros and cons to this track. Starting with the Pros;

It's a song from an iconic scene - the 3v1 training room fight from Season 9

Tex and Maine are both in the fight

Was a great "Oh FUCK yeah" moment for the fans

Great track

Cons;

Not really a song for Carolina or the Meta (or y'know. Tucker. He's there too), and only kind of a song for Tex

Honestly the fight makes me think about York more than anyone else, since that's the fight where he gets hurt

Not a cool thematic moment besides just Tex being a badass

Started too late into the fight - it's sad that Carolina got a cool track when she (finally!) showed up, but Tex just got generic music. Show my girl some respect :(

So what would be better?

It has to be something that makes you think of at least one of the fighters. A track that's good for multiple would be better, but not required.

I think it should start when Tex first shows up, not when her armor changes. that’s a cool moment, but it still means most of the fight is working with Thiel’s score.

It should be something with a note of thematic relevance - for example, the big moment right at the end of the fight is Tex reminding epsilon!Sigma that she's not based on the Director's memories of her failure this time; she's based on the memories of Grif, Caboose, and Simmons. And she Always kicked their asses.

Still needs to be a big "Oh FUCK yeah" moment.

While incorporating Carolina's theme would be nice, I think it's more important to get at least one of the others - but we'll do our best here. I think this is moreso a Tex v meta!Tucker fight in my heart than it is a Carolina fight.

So let's look over a few options, shall we? These are in no particular order.

Spiral - Jeff Williams

This is the song that plays during the Season 9 car chase when Maine gets shot. It incorporates Carolina's theme, because in PFL her theme is never too far behind whenever a Maine/Meta song is playing, which has always been interesting to me. It has all that freaky choral stuff that Jeff loved to use, and generally is just a great track.

Fragments - Jeff Williams

This plays during the Freelancer break-in in Season 10, and it just rocks so hard. Anything from the break-in would be cool because that was the last time Tex, Carolina, and Maine/The Meta were all in the same place, and of course was when The Meta was properly created. I think it was so sad that they used the instrumental of Round One, because the vocals are part of what makes the Jeff era of RvB soundtracks so iconic, and god this song delivers! Also this song has a kickass trumpet solo at the end.

Slingshot (from the Death Battle) - Trocadero

Man this song rules. This of course plays in the Meta VS Carolina Death Battle from Season 14. It's a very different energy from the Jeff picks, but it rocks so fucking much. This is a fight between Carolina and The Meta, and would of course be a callback to a (marginally) more recent - and extremely popular - episode of the show. If you haven't watched the Death Battle in a while you really should, it still kicks just as much ass now as it did back when I was in high school.

Literally any other song from the 3v1 Training Room Fight - Jeff Williams

This includes;

Round One (feat Lamar Hall)

Just the Bullfight part

On Your Knees

I just think the instrumental to Round One is the weakest choice from this fight tbh! Bullfight is my favorite out of the three, because it sounds the most Tex-y. The guitars are very her, and it incorporates part of her Agent Tex motif. And On Your Knees would have had the biggest "Oh FUCK yeah" factor. But honestly even just using the version of Round One with the vocals would have been way better.

EDIT TO ADD: a quick note - while it’s listed in the credits as Round One/Bullfight, that’s just how the instrumental is packaged on the OST. As far as I could tell in my two watches of it, they never actually make it to the Bullfight part of the track.

A Girl Named Tex - Trocadero

hold on, walk with me on this one.

I had a vision of Tex fighting meta!Tucker set to the "Yellow rose of Texas clad in black, lonely star tattooed upon her back. Double Tex she'll hit you like a truck. Double Tex and she'll mess you up." bit right after I watched 19 the first time and it's been haunting me ever since. (That bit starts at about 02:19)

This is her theme for the first chunk of the show - which just so happens to be the time period Grif, Simmons, and Caboose were primarily reminiscing about. It would have been cool as hell, and I can See the beginning of the fight in my head - the opening strums (what my brother so lovingly calls the Out of Mind music) when caboose is saying his line about how he brought back someone even worse than church, and then the fight starts! I can see it in my mind, it would have been so cool!

I just think there should have been more Blood Gulch era music in here.

100 Tex Battle - Jeff Williams

This doesn't get you any Meta points, but obviously it incorporates little bits of Tex's, and a lot of Carolina's theme. Twisting a Tex vs Carolina fight - obviously, Carolina vs all the Tex bots in Season 10 - into one where they're fighting alongside each other would have been really lovely and a cool full circle moment.

This song is really cool, it's such a good fight. I do think it maybe sounds a bit goofy at points for this fight, but still a cool option.

Okay so now let's go over my top three-ish picks

Ice Fight (or maybe the revelations suite?) - Jeff Williams

Jumping to the end of Season 8, we have a fight that involves Tex vs The Meta! And Wash, Doc, and all the Reds and Blues (barring Donut and Lopez. Hmm. Doesn't that sound familiar.) are there! Ice Fight rules so hard, it's so good.

And it has some of that narrative theming I was looking for! While yes, Tex does technically lose this fight - so does The Meta. And how does she lose it?

By going into the recovery unit.

The main reason I suggest the Suite instead of just Ice Fight is because I think having a touch of Red Vs Blue would have been really nice.

Mental Meta Metal - Jeff Williams

Genuinely my favorite track from season 10. If you let the song play the whole way through, it has Jeff's themes for The Meta, Carolina, and Tex in it. This plays the first time we see Maine in a fight in Season 10, and is also Sigma's first time in the field after we see him pondering Meta-stability in the classroom.

It incorporates elements from both Spiral and Plagam Extremam Infligere, which is kind of Jeff's theme for the Meta that he established back in Season 8. It also plays during the Freelancer Break-in when he's tossing Carolina off the cliff. The Latin on that translates to “to inflict an extreme blow”.

It also has a very strong statement of Carolina's theme, which could have been a great opportunity to bring her in with her theme!

Now, before I go over my final pick, let's go over what we need again;

We need a song with thematic relevance to the fight, that’s from an iconic scene, has a good energy to it, and would give fans a big “OH FUCK YEAH” moment.

Well, isn’t it obvious?

Agent Tex (/ Tex vs Tank / Hell's Angel) - Jeff Williams

The first instance of Jeff Williams’ Tex motif, later used in Hell’s Angel and Tex vs Tank, etc. I would add the opening strum commonly heard in the later iterations, but keep it generally the Agent Tex version which was used in the S8 Warehouse fight, as seen above.

This is like. The RvB scene ever. So many people saw this before they watched the show, and many more never even watched RvB - just this fight, since RT uploaded it separately from the episode because they knew it kicked so much ass. It also helped draw in folks who may have been fans of Monty Oum's other work. Fun fact: This was RT’s outro music for a really long time, too. So it really has history with the company.

Part of why I think this pick would work so well, beyond it just being Tex's theme for the Jeff Williams era, is that it would be so interesting in terms of narrative theming. The Season 8 warehouse fight was Tucker, Grif, Simmons, Sarge, and Caboose against Tex.

This whole sequence was Grif, Simmons, Caboose, Carolina, and Tex against Tucker.

This was one of the other scenes being reminisced about around the fire - you can see it as one of the clips shown during the scene. I think it would have been a really powerful moment, and a fantastic "FUCK YEAH" moment for everyone whose stuck around this long. This track is so good, and I really do think it would have been the perfect choice for this fight.

It's not even my favorite, if I was just choosing favorites I'd have picked Mental Meta Metal or A Girl Named Tex.

What have we learned? Why Were We Here?

Red vs Blue is a show with a lot of really fantastic music in it's book, and a really strong history of musical callbacks - particularly with the Meta's theme and how it's so closely tied to the motif Trocadero liked to use as "Wash Trauma" music. Making a clever callback to a song you've used before can help strengthen the thing you're trying to get across to your audience. I think it's somehing that Restoration really struggles with, which is pretty sad. But I hope you found my deep dive / analysis of what could have been interesting.

I'd really like to dive in and do a long reflection about the series as a whole, but as it stands this is around 3,000 words and if I get started on that, this post will never end. I'll probably work on that once i've actually Finished this rewatch.

Thank you for reading all of that!

[nekropsii]

do you still do session analysis?

I've never really done that, so no.

I appreciate the value placed in my opinion, truly, but I guarantee you it will be way more fun and satisfying to write things like that on your own than it is to get some stranger to do it for you. I don't feel good depriving someone the joy and learning experience of figuring out Character + Classpect Dynamics on your own. It's hard, for sure, but it's completely worth it. I'll give my thoughts on Individual Classes, Aspects, and Classpects now and then, if the mood strikes me, but the way that will affect a Group Dynamic is far more dependent on the individual characters involved and the narrative they're in than a lot of people seem to give credit for. Yes, the Classpect of a character says a lot about them, but it doesn't really express their Moral Alignment, the full breadth of their Personality, any specific Traumas or Neuroses that may afflict them and affect their relationship with their life, surroundings, and the people around them, et cetera, et cetera...

Basically, a Classpect says a lot, and a Group of Classpects can also say a lot, but I find it personally difficult to make very solid statements on the Viability of a Session or the Dynamics within it without having a deep understanding of not only the characters involved but also what kind of story is being aimed for. What a Classpect can mean or entail depends a lot on the Hero in question, and the specific Meta of the Session. You can keep the Meaning of all Classes and Aspects nigh completely Canon Compliant, but still have them imply and result in totally different things within a Session, purely because the Story and Character demands something that isn't, like... Just a straight up repeat of things already tread upon in source material. You could have a Seer of Light that's evil. You could have Bard of Rage that's a pretty good guy, all things considered.

For example, Sovereignstuck has a very particular Meta with its Classpects, and it's going for a very particular narrative. The characters in it are also very much so their own beasts - though their Classpects may say a lot about them, it doesn't really tell you anything about their morality, or how willing they are to hurt people or even just ascend to godhood in the first place, which is a really big deal in what is essentially a literal Deus Ex Machina Death Game Horror/Drama RPG setting especially. To use a particular example from Sovereignstuck - Bards of Mind tend to be billed as chaotic forces and, due to being a Bard, inherently bad people, with some even suggesting the best way to write a Bard of Mind is to write a straight up Bigot. We've got a Bard of Mind in the Player Session, Emeric Sargas, and while she is a complicated person - as is the truth for everyone ever - she is, generally speaking, a very child-like ball of sunshine that basically no one has beef with because she's just very sweet. Odd, yes, definitely, she does have a litany of very strange beliefs about how the world works, but overall a nice person. We have two Maids of Space, even, and they're extremely, extremely different people.

It's not as simple as saying "Princes of Void and Witches of Heart are guaranteed to not get along!", or "This Session will fail because it has an insufficient Player count!". Hell, it's difficult for me to even say a Session is doomed to fail if they have no Time and/or Space Players. Maybe the Meta of your Session simply doesn't abide by typical SBURB rules. I know my Fanventure sure doesn't, it's running on a fucking spinoff game with no Universe Building aspects to it - it's just a God-Making Machine. Maybe you don't need a Time or Space Player. Maybe you don't need a Knight, or an Heir. Maybe you can have five Pages. I literally don't know. Write whatever you want. Get creative. You truly do not have to abide by the rules set by SBURB if you don't want to write a Creation Myth. My only recommendation is that if you're breaking the mold, make that clear - explain what the purpose of your game is. Hell, explain the purpose even if it's just SBURB 2. The Characters are gonna have to learn what it is, even if the reader is aware of it already.

I could talk more, but this is already a long enough response to a pretty simple one sentence yes or no question.

TL;DR: No, I don't, sorry.

[saltpepperbeard]

BEFORE AND AFTER COLORING CHALLENGE!

tagged by the immensely talented and lovely @blakbonnet & @bizarrelittlemew. thank you so much for tagging me, beloveds <3

my no pressure tags are: @stedebonnets, @captain-flint, and @rainbowcrowley

I'm so very glad such a fun little demonstration is circulating around, because as Ida and Meow both said on their versions of this challenge, gif stealing is in full-force right now. With so many new scenes and so much subsequent excitement to match, people are very excited to share whatever footage they can for use in metas or just General Screaming™. Which, is totally understandable! But there are so SO many ways to do that that aren't just outright reposting an artist's work, effectively stealing the excitement away from them. I've mentioned it a few times before, but I'm more than happy to offer a refresher; the tumblr "add gif" function is a lovely tool! It allows you to search for a particular character, a particular episode, or even a particular user. You just find whatever gif you're looking for, add it to your post, and it automatically credits the op by mentioning them, as well as linking back to the original set! And if, for whatever reason, the particular gif you're looking for is not showing up with the "add gif" function, reposting a gif is fine WITH CREDIT. It takes just moments to add a small (gif by @ so-and-so) beneath whatever gif you choose, and is so so appreciated by the original artist. Why are we so adamant about credit? Gifing is a lot of work! Yes, it's very possible to throw a short clip into an online gif converter and get a quick something, but legitimately sitting down to beautify can take hours. Between coloring, lighting, typography, captioning, sharpening, gradients, and grading, it can turn into a very lengthy process. Take all of my gifs above for example! The differences on them, particularly the darker scenes, are quite stark. OFMD Season 2 is dark as HELL in a lot of places lol, so it has a lot of us fighting for our lives trying to make scenes look beautiful and visible. We take great pride in our work, and subsequently get very very excited to share it with you! And when we see said work reposted by someone else without any sort of credit, it can be very disheartening. Because it feels thankless, or outright disrespected. Again, you wouldn't take someone's photography, or someone's painting, or someone's fanfiction. So please, don't do so with ANY sort of digital art, gifs included. Mistakes happen. "We're all whim prone." But if we could maybe take it slooooww, and sit back to appreciate the artists in the fandom and the time they put into all their projects, that would be very much appreciated! <3

[corpsegirl-sarah]

Slay the Princess and Death of The Author

A terrible "essay" I made to get all the thoughts out of my head

There is only one character death that can't be avoided in Slay the Princess: that of The Echo (or The Narrator, if you prefer), the one who created the construct the game takes place in, the entire scenario it revolves around, and the characters that take part in it. He was dead since before the game even began, the sacrifice he had to make for this all to work.

Why did he have to die? Because The Shifting Mound would have been changed by his perception of her, and thus the construct becomes even less reliable.

In order for this to have any chance of working, the number of perspectives that she can be molded by must be as low as possible, preferably zero, but, by the very nature of what he has made, there is one perspective that can't be removed: that of The Long Quiet. He is inextricably linked to her until his task is done.

This is where the meta-textual interpretation comes in: The Shifting Mound is the story, and The Long Quiet is its audience. A story is incomplete without someone to see it, appreciate it, analyse it, just like she is when we first find her. What's the point of a story if no one hears it? Without someone to make sense of it all it's just a bunch of words. She asks us to bring her perspectives, so that she may be whole. The game is asking us to experience it and bring our own interpretations to the table, come to our own conclusions about it, and thus make its existence meaningful.

The Long Quiet is similarly incomplete at this stage, unaware of his true nature as a god. Without a story to watch unfold, an audience can't exist, it's just people, and people with nothing to do at that. Put someone in a room by themselves for long enough and they will eventually seek relief from the crushing boredom and loneliness in the same place: art. They'll hum to themselves, or start twirling about in some semblance of a dance, or, maybe, a story will start to form in their mind. People are drawn to art and stories, they are the greatest constant throughout human history. It seems fair to say, for our purposes, that we, too, are incomplete without art.

Only by interacting with each other do the two gods come to realize their full potential. If you choose to ignore the princess, and just turn away from the cabin again and again, you will find only a torturous existence for both of you, with no meaning to be found.

However, there is a third option, neither engaging with the story nor ignoring it altogether. The Echo did put a piece of himself within the construct, as all authors do by the nature of creation, and thus, there is still a perspective that is not your own at play, that of the creator. If you choose to just follow The Narrator's instructions without a second thought you reach the "good ending" to the game, an obvious joke but an ending nonetheless. The game does end and the credits do roll, but you got nothing out of it. The princess is dead and you are a mindless husk, neither of you ever having reached your true potential.

Choosing to follow the "word of god", relying on authorial intent rather than engaging with a story yourself, experiencing it firsthand and coming to your own unique understanding of it, is gonna lead you nowhere. You will not have been enriched by what you just experienced, and the story will have no meaning.