#but with some. clear alterations. i have lots of plans. i just also know how i get where i'll get ideas ideas ideas and then

[ectonurites]

Uhhhh very late miwip wednesday? it is thursday.

I've had this au—Will as Robin, El as Batgirl, Mike as Spoiler + a few more Hawkins characters as Bats but I'll leave the rest a mystery for now—rattling around in my brain for like a week, and I don't know if I'll ever actually write out the full longfic idea I have for it, but I'll at least post snippets and some doodles 👍

Text under the cut if the images are hard to read hehe:

—

“I know I did it to you when we first met,” the sound of boots hitting the rooftop echoes behind him, “But it’s really not proper vigilante etiquette to take off someone else’s mask.” 

Mike whips around to face him—Robin, The Boy Wonder. While he’s figured out who the new Batgirl is, he hasn’t got a clue about this guy. Unless maybe it’s not just El—maybe all the Bats are connected to the lab? Robin could be a number, too.

He stares at the other boy, lost in thought, not sure what to say. 

When it must fully register that his comment isn’t getting a response, Robin shrugs and retracts his grapple, clicking it into place on his utility belt as he steps closer out of the shadows.

Mike quickly puts his mask back on, just for something to do with his hands, something to interrupt his gawking at least for a second. When he looks again, there’s now a layer between them—flimsy blue fabric that makes it a little less clear that he’s still staring. 

But how could he not? The two of them have only really met twice—when Robin had tackled him not realizing The Spoiler is a new hero not a villain, and when Robin had come to his window the following night telling him to hang up his cape. So really, this is the first time Mike can stop and take him in without some sense of urgency bleeding into the situation. The first time he can just… look.

His mask is a deep green leather molded into a sort of beak, and despite leaving a decent amount of his face uncovered, it conceals what could really be identifying—his eyes, his nose, parts of his cheeks. His warm smile is visible though, and Mike can’t help that his eyes are drawn to it. It’s just the part of his face I can see, he tells himself, but maybe that’s not the only reason. 

Robin runs a gloved hand through his gelled-back hair, a chestnut brown that Mike bets would glisten in sunlight. But Robin isn’t someone you see during the day. Bats only come out at night in Hawkins, even ones who wear bright colors. Red, yellow, and green—he’s like a traffic light.

Only now while glancing up and down as he crosses the rooftop, does Mike really register how small a guy Robin is, noticeably shorter than Mike himself. But regardless, he still moves with confidence, it makes his presence seem larger somehow—wise beyond his years.

[celaenaeiln]

thinking about some quotes i’ve read and i wanna hear your thoughts on them because i have a lot and i don’t know what to do with them.

“the day Dick Grayson turns evil is the day the universe ends, not because that day will never come but because the boy will make it come”

“Dick Grayson isn’t the universal constant of good. Dick Grayson is the universal constant of competence”

“So, having said all that, it is a few but definitely significant words that fill the contingency plan on Nightwing in case the hero of Bludhaven ever turns to the dark side. Let's hope that never happens.”

YESSSSS

“the day Dick Grayson turns evil is the day the universe ends, not because that day will never come but because the boy will make it come”

This is the truest fact I've ever heard because this is really canon.

Word for word this happened.

In one of the canon timelines Clark laser blasted Bruce under mind control.

And oh how Dick took over. You know what Luthor says?

"After all, as I've heard your father [Dick] so often quoted, 'we make the hardest decisions for those we care about the most.' Well, in his case...that has meant remaking the world."

This man has the power to single-handedly control the fate of the world.

Whatever he wants, he will make it happen.

The entirety of the justice league, all the metas, heroes, and villains too stood no chance against him.

DC vs Vampires

“Dick Grayson isn’t the universal constant of good. Dick Grayson is the universal constant of competence”

I think it's true.

Nightwing is one of the most formidable figures in DC, without fail consistently coming out on top, so if Superman is iterating that Dick's personality and essence of being is the same, then there's really no room for disagreement.

But more truly, I think he is a Nexus.

By Marvel's definition, "Nexus Beings are rare individual entities with the ability to affect probability and thus the future, thereby altering the flow of the Universal Time Stream. These beings, each referred to as a nexus, act as the keystones of the Multiverse and are crucial to its ultimate coherence and stability."

That means that the universe hinges on the actions of Dick Grayson.

Not only does he control the fate of the world but his mere existence determines what will become of it by other people:

I'd like to reiterate that Neux Beings are "the keystones of the Multiverse and are crucial to its ultimate coherence and stability."

You can still be a nexus if you turn dark. For example Lore was a dark version of Wanda Maximoff but she is still considered a nexus. So you're right in saying that Dick Grayson is a multiuniversal constant of competence.

“So, having said all that, it is a few but definitely significant words that fill the contingency plan on Nightwing in case the hero of Bludhaven ever turns to the dark side. Let's hope that never happens.”

In the easiest terms as someone put it, "hope he fucks up" is Bruce's only contingency plan against Nightwing. The man doesn't have a clear plan how to neutralize Nightwing.

His exact words are: "As a result of overanalyzing any situation, this allows Dick Grayson to overconfident and misdirected. This will make himself open to a second attack."

So the plan is basically 'Dick is too smart for his own good so we'll have to go with a lucky surprise attack.' He's literally saying 'yupppp. Let's just hope he messed up because there's nothing we can do on ouR end.' Note that Bruce doesn't even have a back up like 'the second attack didn't work? we're fucked.'

For everyone else he actually has a coherent plan in mind- do this and they will fall. But for Dick? 'I hope he messes up enough for a second attack to actually stick. Otherwise we're shit out of luck. And lives. Fingers crossed he doesn't jump to the bad side.'

Tim also confirmed he would never make a contingency plan for Dick. The only person in the world he wouldn't do one for.

He's just that formidable of a man. Even now he can easily take down the Justice League if he wanted to.

And we know that Dick has one of the strongest wills on the planet.

"I have my enhancements. I have powers. Dick Grayson...what do you have?"

A world where Dick loses his emotions is a world that would not survive.

[torturedblue]

Just got to the end of season 1 of Rise yet again, and this time it’s really given me some extra thoughts and perspective about Leo’s behavior in the movie…

So we know at first Leo is goofing around like he usually does after the Dark Armor spits Draxum out. Undoubtedly with a huge boost of confidence from just defeating their Big Bad season 1 villain by merely creating total chaos and throwing plans out the window. After all, “we be we” right? Which leads Splinter and Raph to yell at him a lot while he just constantly insists “they’ve got this”. Which, sure, but Leo baby you have to actually fight and get focused for that to be true 😂 But it keeps Splinter’s doubts up all the while they’re moving through the Battle Nexus arc, and Leo doesn’t really get Splinter’s approval for his while big plan until he proves he knew what he was talking about all along and the Nexus crowd is cheering them on

“They love ya, Pops!”

“It was all you my son!”

They spend scene after scene with Leo insisting they’ve got this while working his Face Man routine on the Spiderwoman up until he gets thrown in the “kraken’s den” with Rat Jitsu and it’s not until then after he says it was all part of his plan and Splinter again doubts him, that Leo’s had enough of his lack of faith and failure to really pay attention to his strategies enough to say “How come no one trusts me? None of you have any faith in me, why?” Which, ouch.

And it’s kind of the same when they get back to the rest of the team. We know Raph was very unhappy with Leo bouncing on them even though the plan was actually Splinter’s, and as soon as they get back he chews Leo out for leaving them high and dry. Thus Leo’s “when I said you guys got this I meant that” speech. Raph remarks about how accurate Leo’s guesses were about how things went when they were gone, and when Shredder shows up again Raph asks if Leo’s sure about this to which he replies yet again “Trust me.” And while it may be with a confident grin, after all the previous events of the episode it makes me sad to hear the way Leo asks for trust again.

(Which, I love my guy Raph, but after watching him also doubt Leo for the whole episode it does make it hard to believe when he finally says he does)

And I could go off on a whole other tangent about Bug Busters and how Leo saw everything that Big Mama did coming beforehand unlike his brothers—like altering the terms of the deal Raph made with her at the last second—which allowed him to expect exactly that in Many Unhappy Returns and outsmart her… but I don’t think I need to.

So even though Leo doesn’t see it as much with Raph, he really had to work to earn his Sensei’s and his leader’s trust as a reliable team member. Now to be fair, he did keep his plan on the DL from Splinter up until the end, which makes it a little more unbeatable, but I always felt like he did that because someone who worked for Big Mama was always around and blabbing about what he was going to do around any of them wouldn’t have been smart.

And interestingly enough, the only episodes Raph does use him to do his Face Man thing are after all this, in Todd Scouts and Pizza Puffs, but I don’t think Raph ever did that in season one. “Go in there and do what you do best: face!” This leads me to think it’s the season 1 finale events that showed Raph Leo’s people skills and cleverness really were more useful than he thought

Looking back on all of this it really makes clear now more than ever why Leo had such hesitation about accepting his promotion to leader and acting accordingly.

Because Leo’s proven to know his family a lot better than they know him… which is actually really saddening

Even if you set aside all the other aspects of Leo being used to getting to take it easy, or seeing how when things get really serious the pressure of leadership can really get to you, or how people can actually die, like in the season 2 finale. At the end of the day we know Leo’s insecurity comes a lot from thinking his brothers or family don’t believe in him, so even after being given the leader role, how is he supposed to believe in himself?

[creature-wizard]

I just read Unwelcome Ozian's "Rules of Programming," and Oh Boy.

For those who don't know, Unwelcome Ozian is a conspiracy theorist on Tumblr who purports himself as a kind of guide for people who believe themselves to be programmed multiples - that is, people with deliberately-induced dissociative identity disorder, with alters carefully programmed for specific purposes by means of brutal torture methods. His claims are largely based on the work of Fritz Springmeier and Cisco Wheeler, two far-right conspiracy theorists who spun this whole mythology about an ancient satanic cult that uses torture to put people under what they referred to as "trauma-based mind control," or TBMC. (They also claimed that the fight for gay rights was part of the plan to enthrone the Antichrist in the year 2000, and that Al Gore carried around a briefcase full of blood to drink. That's the level of credibility they're on.)

There have also been a number of abuse allegations (including allegations of sexual abuse) against Unwelcome Ozian from those who came to him for help, so yeah. Also, he really hates Svali (another conspiracy theorist working from Springmeier and Wheeler's mythos) for some reason.

Rules of Programming effectively distills a lot of the stuff you find in the works of Springmeier and Wheeler, with the addition of some actual scholarly concepts/research plus some pop-psychology/pop-self help style lists of things programmers supposedly do to their victims. (A lot of the things it talks about are just regular forms of authoritarian abuse, gaslighting, scapegoating, etc. In fact, some of them even appear to be copied from Internet articles.)

Essentially, this book is yet another modern witch finder's manual, giving anyone who wants to find diabolical witches a set of unfalsifiable criteria that will always appear to confirm their presence. Like the work of Springmeier and Wheeler, its descriptions of torture are just evocative enough to play on the imaginations of people who may not be in the best mental shape and fuel the creation of confabulated memories. (Some of which may very well be mingling with memories of real abuse.)

Oh, and just to be clear, we do have very clear cases of confabulated memories - you can see them for yourself here and here. If you don't want to click the links, the tl;dr is that the New Age movement is chock full of people who very vividly "remember" past lives in pseudohistorical settings and locations that never existed, and some of these "memories" are quite vivid and disturbing.

So, here's some notable stuff from this book:

Marijuana is supposedly contraindicated for programming purposes. (This claim was made by Springmeier and Wheeler in How The Illuminati Creates A Total Undetectable Mind Controlled Slave, but it goes back to Cathy O'Brien and Mark Philips.)

Victims are allegedly given types of programming such as heart of stone programming and color, gem, and flower programming. (These were first described by Springmeier and Wheeler in They Know Not What They Do: Illustrated Guide To Illuminati Mind Control.)

Handlers must allegedly present themselves as omnipotent and god-like to victims. But they may also manipulate their victims by threatening suicide. (These two things really don't go together, especially if the cult as hardass as it's claimed to be.)

Alleged behavior of programmers - "Teach children self-betrayal, i.e. show gratitude and humility for punishments and insults." This is literally just how authoritarian Christian parents expect you to behave when punished. (Again, most of the things programmers supposedly do are just things that regular abusers do, period.)

He talks about practices such as anchoring and future pacing, which are described by Springmeier and Wheeler in How The Illuminati Create A Total Undetectable Mind Controlled Slave.

Direct quote, "For example if a programmer builds a system using the planets of the solar system there will be alters with planet names, and space terminology used." Compare with "In recent years, these have been solar systems, galaxies, and planets, because they have gone to Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien types of programming" from How The Illuminati Create A Total Undetectable Mind Controlled Slave. Again, it's the same mythology.

He claims epsilon programming is used to create animal alters and describes how they're allegedly created. The stuff he describes can be found in How The Illuminati Create A Total Undetectable Mind Controlled Slave.

He lists off a bunch of stuff that's supposedly trauma-based mind control spiritual abuse. In reality, it's just regular spiritual abuse - for example, "the programmer/handler is in a ‘divine’ position," "misuse of scripture to control behaviour," and "appeal to the work of evil spirits as explanations for the child’s behaviour."

About that last one? A very similar line appears in the article Part 2: The characteristics of spiritual abuse: "Appeal to the work of evil spirits as explanations for the victim’s accusations or behaviour." The earliest archived version of this page is from 2017. The Rules of Programming was published in May of 2023.

The book's text on cultivating a trauma bond includes several items that appear to be slightly reworded text from Dr. Joseph M Carver's article Love and Stockholm Syndrome: The Mystery of Loving an Abuser (first archived on the Wayback Machine in 2015). For example, "The presence of a perceived small kindness from the handler to the child" (RoP)/"The presence of a perceived small kindness from the abuser to the victim" (Carver).

The book's text "Seeking/finding pleasure in the presence of extreme danger, violence, risk or shame" is also found in the article Impact on Abused Persons, which cites a 1997 book, The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships.

A bunch of stuff associated with toxic relationships are rephrased as stuff associated with being a victim of TBMC.

The book claims that some "programmed responses" might be "They are only like that because they love me," "You wouldn’t understand," "They will make it up to me later," and "It’s my fault, I make them angry." This text can be found in the 2021 article, The Misconception of Trauma Bonding.

The book lists some benefits of playing chess (for example, "Playing chess can improve cognitive skills like memory, planning, and problem-solving") that appear verbatim in the Healthline article The 9 Best Benefits of Playing Chess.

Some text (for example, "Trauma can shut down episodic memory and fragment the sequence of events") appears to have been copied from the 2017 infographic, How Trauma Impacts Four Different Types of Memory.

Material from changingminds.org appears to have been copied into this book. For example, the text "Agreement over rules typically starts with generalised rules with which it is hard to disagree" can also be found on the page titled Confession, with the slight difference that "generalised" is spelled with a Z. (Its earliest archived version dates to 2004.)

The book claims, "Torture involving states of extreme pain and terror, to the point of near-death, is required to install programming." This inadvertently reveals the absurdity of the alter programming conspiracy theory, because in the real world millions of abusers and cult leaders manipulate and control people with far less dramatic methods every day. Even if alter programming was a real thing, it would be so pointlessly overcomplicated that you'd have to ask yourself why so many people would bother with it.

The book describes a number of abuses and tortures that pretty obviously stem back to European witch panic, including "desecration of Judeo-Christian beliefs and forms of worship," taboo sex, ritual cannibalism, and dedication to Satan.

The book includes the "Steps on Obedience," which are found in Svali's older writings. Additionally, some of the text seems to be copied from Svali's old writing with minor modification. For example, The Rules of Programming says, "The part/alter is placed in a room without any sensory stimulus. The room will have grey, white, or beige walls. The programmer leaves the part/alter alone for specified lengths of time: these times may vary from hours (2-3) (3-5), to days as the child grows older." Compare with Svali: "The small toddler/child is placed in a room without any sensory stimulus, usually a training room with gray, white, or beige walls. The adult leaves and the child is left alone, for periods of time: these may vary from hours, to an entire day as the child grows older."

The book gives a list of supposed secret meanings to perfectly normal hand gestures, which is very obviously sourced from How The Illuminati Create A Total Undetectable Mind Controlled Slave. (RoP: "Hands locked folded interwoven backward - - you can’t break “the circle”". HTICATUMS: "Hands locked folded interwoven backward--you can’t break "the circle"")

The book claims that programmers will write down detailed documentation after each programming session, describing exactly how the session went and what should be done at the next session. Additionally, block reports are supposedly written every four weeks, which summarize the whole thing. This is noteworthy because if this conspiracy theory was actually true, this type of documentation would have come to light at some point by now. The fact that is has never turned up in all of the years alter programming has allegedly been practiced (since the mid-20th century or since ancient times, depending on who you ask) is incredibly damning.

(Break here because this list is reaching Tumblr's text block limit.)

Some text (for example, "A Place in the World. One never need 'find' his or her place because in fact that type of autonomy is not allowed! There is often a false egalitarianism which disguises competition" and "Mystical Manipulation. False origin stories or very selective accounts are given about the leader to demonstrate divine authority, spiritual advancement") seems to have been copied from the article Communal Abuse and Cults (earliest archived version: 2017).

Some text (for example, "Change Of Diet: Creating disorientation and increased susceptibility to emotional arousal by depriving the nervous system of necessary nutrients through the use of special diets and/or fasting" and "Hypnosis: Inducing a high state of suggestibility, often thinly disguised as relaxation or meditation") seems to have been copied from Brainwashing & Mind Control Techniques (earliest archived version: 2004).

Some text (for example, "Sins, as defined by the leader, are confessed either to a personal monitor or publicly to the group" and "Sacred Science: The group's doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate truth, beyond all questioning or dispute") appear to be sourced from Robert Jay Lifton's eight criteria of thought reform. (Originally written in 1989.)

The text "Crafty redefinition of existing words (and the definition of new ones) to powerful euphemisms, secret codes, renamings, buzzwords, chants and mantras, ‘speaking in tongues,’ forced silence, even hashtags" may have been sourced from Cultish’s Exploration of Manipulative Language (originally posted in 2021), or from Amanda Montell's book, Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism.

Some text (for example, "The group devoutly believes it will be the ultimate winner of the final battle" and "Lack Of Restraint: Leaders believe themselves to be free from religious and social laws") appears to have been sourced from Doomsday Religious Movements - Canadian Security Intelligence Report (dated December 18, 1999).

The text "Glittering Generalities: These are intense, emotionally appealing words so closely associated with highly valued concepts and beliefs that the appeals are convincing without being supported by fact or reason. The appeals are directed toward such emotions as love of country and home, and desire for peace, freedom, glory, and honour" appears to come from Wikipedia.

"Name-calling: Name-calling seeks to arouse prejudices in an audience" also seems to be derived from Wikipedia.

The book mentions "Being locked in a small confined spot, a pit or cage with spiders and snakes" as a form of torture. This one can be traced back to Michelle Remembers.

The text describing bladder torture in RoP is identical to the text describing it in How The Illuminati Create A Total Undetectable Mind Controlled Slave. I'm not going to post it because it's kinda graphic, but feel free to compare the texts yourself. Just search for the text "urinary bladder."

Basically, most of the alleged tortures and programming methods are very obviously sourced from Springmeier and Wheeler's books, even if they aren't always described with identical text.

A list of tortures in the book include the hell confinement, the Tucker telepohone, the strappado, the Cold Cell, the German Chair, the box, white torture, and the Tiger Bench. Most of these can be found on this Listverse article from 2013, and RoP's descriptions match up with Listverse's.

So basically, we have someone claiming to be a trauma-based mind control survivor, but a lot of his information very obviously comes from other sources. (Now just to be clear - it's not possible to tell whether any of the copied text comes from the actual webpages I linked, or if they were sourced from other pages or books with the same text. But either way, it's obvious he didn't come up with all this stuff on his own.)

I also think the fact that this book includes so many descriptions of actual abusive behaviors and practices makes it all the more insidious. The author effectively links a lot of stuff that actually does happen with the conspiracy theory in such a way that it can all look like it's the exact same thing, making it seem like if you suffered from these real types of abuses, then you may have likely been a victim of alter programming.

But here's the thing - abusers are often just insecure, lazy, and taking their issues out on someone weaker. Sometimes they're just doing what their family did and haven't realized this behavior is toxic. There's no deep or complicated reason behind it, much less some carefully orchestrated design on this level conspiracy theorists propose.

[teecupangel]

i know you have so much on your plate rn but i can't stop thinking about Ezio-era Baker!Desmond and the shenanigan layers of ✨intrigue✨ going on with Ezio and Leo thinking he’s Giovani's bastard, and Maria inviting him to the villa on a whim ’cause she thinks her kids (and Leo) like the pastries, and Desmond misinterpreting absolutely everything because that boy is a Wreck™

what comes of it, tho?? is Desmond trying to alter history more than just pre-inventing exotic baked goods? is he already having to dodge assassins around Italy while trying to protect the Auditore family, getting on Giovani's radar and spooking him ’cause he can't figure out what branch he's from? or is Desmond holed up in his bakery trying very hard NOT to change anything ’cause hey he’d already saved the world he’d like to not fuck things up bad enough to have to do it again?

does Giovani catch a glimpse of him at some point (either just in the bakery or while Desmond’s out being assassin-y), and instead of thinking he looks like himself or Ezio (since this would be before Ezio gets the scar), thinks he looks eerily like the statue of Altaïr? as another layer of shenanigan, he could come to Leonardo with the idea of time travel but thinks that Desmond is from the PAST rather than the FUTURE, and Leo spends the whole convo trying not to blurt that he thinks/knows Desmond is GIOVANI'S kid

just. the confusion of this au speaks to me, since it’s ALMOST crack-y but also these fools are canonically FOOLS, and i love the way you blend angst with shenanigans. im also shippy at heart, so would love to see your take on that in this au if you have the time 👀

(thank you for reading, i hope you're doing well! 🧡)

As long as you guys are find that your asks are getting answered a month later, I’m alright with adding more to my plate XD (just to be clear, this is a first-in-first-out basis for both asks and replies/reblogs and I’m only about to clear Oct 13 XD)

The original Desmond becomes a baker in Renaissance Italy and gets mistaken as Giovanni’s illegitimate child idea for those curious.

In this one, Desmond only went as far as stop the Auditores from being arrested by dropping key documents showing Uberto’s treachery to the Medici. He stayed as far away as he could from the Auditores and only dropped off the evidence in Lorenzo’s bedside table one day, slipping into the darkness. Anyone who saw him actually thought he was a monk since he was wearing a monk’s attire (which he burned afterwards). This does lead to Giovanni and the thieves guild looking for him after since he hasn’t done any other Assassin related stuff and was simply living his life as a baker, they’re hitting a dead end. Desmond doesn’t plan to do anything else since he believes that the Auditores would be able to handle it from here and he’s betting on Giovanni finally starting Ezio’s training after learning that the Templars are after his family.

Giovanni’s first glimpse of him is when he checked the bakery from afar since his family seemed to like it so much. He just wanted to make sure it wouldn’t post any danger to his family and maybe even talk to La Volpe into adding it to the thieves’ patrol route just so they would have eyes on the bakery at all time. It’s gotten so popular that the Medici are even thinking of ordering from them so Giovanni figured he should do reconnaissance before it got to that point. When he saw Desmond, he doesn’t see the similarities between them, he saw Desmond looking a lot like the statue of Altaïr and he freaks out. Because, unlike Ezio or Leonardo, he does have an inkling of how powerful Those Who Come Before were. He has seen the Shroud and he has heard the tales of how Altaïr had mastered one of their weapons. And… if the Shroud could heal all and any injuries then… In this case, Giovanni doesn’t think Desmond is a time traveler, he thinks Desmond is Altaïr himself who has gained immortality thanks to the ‘powers’ of Those Who Come Before.

Thank you! I honestly like writing these ideas where it’s crack but not crack enough that it’s a bit confusing XD

[inolienkiki]

I'm being very vague about plot points and character names here in the faint hope that it may entice some of you to watch this show.

on my... 4th? 5th? rewatch of DARK I'm paying a lot more attention to the character arcs, to figuring out how everyone got to the point they did. For a while the extent of my Adam takes was "haha stupid idiot man point and laugh, you can't even kys correctly" but recently I saw a post that made me stop and think and actually try to empathize with this character. This was immeasurably depressing (which is probably why I hadn't been considering it before).

The material extent of my take hasn't changed- I still think Adam is a truly stoopid person and by far the dumbest out of the three main characters in this show- but the context I have for this has changed a lot. See, each one of these characters is a planner who develops strategies for years down the line and uses all the information at their disposal to make those plans- but the way they get that information, and therefore how much they're able to do with it, is VERY different.

Adam remembers information. Everything he knows he got from his younger self; he functions almost entirely on memory. When he does stuff, like sending his younger self to summer 2019, or sending his sister to the apocalypse, or even attempting to build the God Particle machine in 1888, he's doing it because he remembers how all this stuff happened, and thus needs to keep it that way. Adam never actually seeks out new information, because every time he has in the past, it's absolutely demolished his life. He was investigating at the very beginning of the show- going into the caves, talking to his family members to figure out how much they knew- but at some point, he stops. He's lost that. He no longer views the knot as something to discover or manipulate, he thinks of it as something to escape from, and often completely fails to take others' plans or ideas into account. For 33 years he was sitting on the information that alt-Martha said she knew him, and not once did it occur to him to figure out why she said that or what bearing it might have on his plan. Seriously! If he'd investigated that, he could have altered his plan so it actually worked! And I don't blame him.

Eva generates information. Everything she knows she got from her older selves. Because she has almost absolute control over her own domain, and because she's been working in harmony for almost her whole life, she essentially bootstraps the information back to herself. You could call this working on memory, too, but I think it's a clear enough distinction, since she's actually honest to her younger self once they start working together. We don't have much on Eva, unfortunately, but we do know that her son was responsible for the notebook, and somehow I doubt he went and measured the "megahertz values" of all the cave time travel when they could've just used Adam's notebook and copied them over. (I don't buy that he actually killed Eva, but that's a different story.) Eva's son also works with his younger selves just like she does. Noah and Egon seem to as well, working with her. It's smart, it's thorough, and it totally would have worked, if it hadn't completely backfired.

The White Devil researches information. Out of all the main characters, she seems to do the most research. First off, she's actually a scientist, so naturally it's in her background. Even before she finds out about time travel, she's looking into the incident at the power plant, questioning Bernd about it, and being weird with Tronte. The very first thing she does when she gets access to time travel is go 30 years forward and look herself up. When she can't find her future self again, she realizes she's going to have to do this on her own, and proceeds to do so for the rest of her life. When Eva presents her the opportunity to work with another version of herself, she decides she wants more information, shoots her in the fucking head, and thereby goes and gets it. I'm confident that out of all the characters in this entire show (apart from origin HGT) this character is the only one who has any idea how time travel works or what to do with it. I love her for it.

So, I guess... trust the numbers, not yourself?

[system-of-a-feather]

Honestly, real talk, I feel like people largely do not understand just how much characters within those who are maladaptive daydreamers and/or were maladaptive daydreamers literally are "parts of them" and how both healing and destructive that dynamic can be and I find that a bit visible with how people in DID communities talk about maladaptive daydreaming as a "form of plurality"

Its an absolutely different experience but that doesn't mean that the label of "plural" isn't equally suitable. Since that topic has come up on our radar like way back half a year or year ago, we honestly have been thinking about it as someone who is considered "recovered" from DID and has recovered from maladaptive daydreaming but still has a brain that functions creativity and imaginative worlds with the same semi-autonomous functions whether I like it or not

And honestly? My characters are very much not "my creation", nor are they "just my OCs" - the very way all of my character are made and at this point the only way I know how to write and make characters is by taking a part or aspect of myself (conscious or subconscious) and throwing it out there with a name and face. That part of myself engages with the world I created and develops within the narrative and impacts the world itself.

I repeat and do this for all my characters and the world that I have created serves as a hypothetical exploratory way to understand, engage with, and explore very complex topics with exaggerated and isolated parts of myself. I have never really "planned" a character of given them traits or really anything other than a basic premise of a name, MAYBE a gender, and a vague role and I let them define their own story. No real character arc planning. No real likes and dislikes. No real narrative or secret message.

The function and means of which that I "created" these OCs and the level of which I don't control the way they form and grow is extremely similar to how I "create" alters, albeit one is far more voluntary and intentional than the other and one is physically sharing my life with me and the other is sharing a mental world with me.

((Additionally I don't engage in the mental world I made for them beyond the half joke that I'm the god of the gods of that world and they dont know))

The dynamics I have with my characters is WAY WAY WAY different than my parts / alters but BOTH my characters (maladaptive daydreaming) and my alters (DID) are equally fair to call "parts of me" and "parts of a whole" in a very literal not "Oh yeah Im a writer and this character means a lot to me theyre a part of me"

With my writing partner (who does this as well) we regularly use our characters as well to explain what we are going through / how we are feeling to help facilitate real talk and venting a lot because we have a mutual understanding that while this is a story and these are our characters, both of us have "built" this world by literally giving very specific aspects of ourselves the ability to explore, grow, and learn in a world and that while some have grown SO far from who we are now, they represent an aspect and potential part of us that could have been should something have gone one way in a specifically extreme way in a specific environment.

With that in mind, I absolutely feel its fair to compare DID and MaDD "plurality" with some obvious understanding that while there are similarities they are also different (AND THATS OK).

Cause honestly? If I actually talked to my characters (like a lot of people with MaDD tend to do) I could see myself calling and feeling as though they were a system and I don't think it would be all that inaccurate and wrong. I don't have that experience as my MADD and DID are mostly entirely two seperate dissociative coping mechanisms, but I know for a fact the line between the two is a lot less clear and its just food for thought

-----------------

[SYSCOURSE AND DEBATE WILL BE BLOCKED.]

[Good faith conversation and discussion is WELCOMED and ENCOURAGED.]

[If you don't know the difference, don't add on.]

[cartoon-cass]

Absolute Solver's influence

Absolute Solver (AS from here on out) has the ability to possess, so I thought for clarity I'd list all the characters under AS influence, from possession to manipulation. This will be sticking closely to canon so wilder theories like solver Khan, Thad, etc will be left out but feel free to add if you like.

This turned out longer then I thought so it's going under a read more.

Unpatched AS

This would be Uzi, Nori, Cyn and any others that have the world altering powers. Cyn was patient 0 and it's unclear if there's anything left of her or she still has a mind of her own, at this point we can't tell. Uzi and Nori still have their own personalities but AS can over ride them in some cases. I should note Nori, and there for possibly Uzi, have the Patch 2.1.8 "in progress" what this entails is unclear but AS did think Nori was dead and did not try possessing her in episode 7 so take from that what you will.

The humans in Cabin fever labs transferred AS to other drones but most if not all are dead at this point.

Patch 2.1.8

Yeva had this version of AS, they can use the powers but presumably can't be possessed. It's never actually out right stated that that's what the patch does but it's implied. Yeva seemingly long dead unless she's like Nori. Doll likely had this patch too and that's why Tessa/Cyn ASMR mukbanged her core in episode 7.

The Cross patch was also destroyed so unless Nori copied the code while we were not looking this patch is not likely coming back.

Disassembly Drones, aka DDs

So the DD's are difficult but I'll try my best, this is more going into theories then canon but that's Murder Drones for you. We know from episode 5 that the DDs worked in the Elliott Manor before AS came along. During the gala J and V were possessed, and N was tied to a tree, presumably he got possessed too at some point but it's unclear.

Some time between the gala and now they changed to look like how they do today, the main question how and why? We can safely say at this point it's clear AS made the DDs possible using part of the very machines that were used to disassemble drones. We see in the Zombie Drone tapes the disassembly unit has what looks like a DDs arm with the distinct yellow and black stripes. We also see the DDs with there complete look go absolutely nuts on some humans in episode 7 which means they were being possessed then too, unless N secretly really likes eating humans / joking.

J also got possessed and went spooky snake crab in episode 2 after Uzi blew her up.

All this makes it seem that the DDs can be possessed too but then why do they bother manipulating in the show? Why lie and make up a whole story of the company sending them to kill worker drones? It could be that it takes a lot of energy and that was easier but I think were told why in episode 7, where AS pretends to be V to taunt N. "You know you're (N) one of the main reasons I wanted your team to retain your personalities, you always surprised me" their just playing with them, it's more entertaining for them not for any grand plan.

Right after they say that line they hug N making him flashback to what he did to the humans but then we see this

Access denied contact admin "darkXWolf17", which is Uzi! AS was trying to possess N here but couldn't that's why they drag N along until Nori saved him. That's why in episode 1 administration"Cyn" blocked the absolute solver string, they wanted to see what N would do.

This mean N and V can't be possessed as Uzi is there administrator but J and any other DDs out there can, and who was gearing up for a fight at the end of episode 7? J!

So in conclusion, Cyn is the main drone to be possessed. Uzi and Nori can be possessed but it can be limited. Yeva and Doll can't be possessed but are dead and the DDs including J can be possessed but after episode 5 V and N can't be possessed.

[mysticode54]

I stumbled across a Japanese article where Fumito Ueda, Yoko Taro, and Keiichiro Toyama had a publicized discussion about their careers and the video game industry as whole. This discussion was organized primarily to celebrate ICO's 20th anniversary in late 2021. So the folks over at Den Faminico Gamer requested concept art from all across ICO's development cycle to present throughout the 3 pages of conversation. And I don't know who was responsible for the task of transferring that, but they gave them A Lot of concept art. Many of these sheets have not been shared by genDESIGN's twitter, or really seen on any other site to my knowledge. There's some exclusive stuff in here. And even if they were seen somewhere before, I still want to translate them to the best of my ability and share the info. So I'm going to guide you through the sheets I found the most interesting. I'll also try to provide context for any cut content and musings on the lore elements being spelled out on the page. [Spoilers for ICO under the cut]

CUT AREAS

Jail

[I've decided to leave the original page untouched in all my translation images, and keep all added text to the black bars at the sides. I'm also including plain Japanese text in dark grey, just so everyone is clear on how I am interpreting the handwritten notes.] This area is titled "Jail" or "Prison" and it was to be put on the second story of the East Arena. This means that, in early designs, the leftmost door was meant to be opened on arrival. It seems you would navigate the diagonal water slope, make it up to this area, and briefly move outside for the sake of slipping into one of these locked cells. After doing so, you move a shelf aside, find the sword, enter a fight, and then use the sword on the rope holding the far right arena door. Having a jail cell next to the arena is very intriguing from a narrative standpoint. Were the cells for those who broke the rules set in place by the arena's organizers? Or was the arena always intended to be sparring matches between criminals and outcasts? Why is the only way onto the balcony found through one of these cells?

Boatshed

[In the black bars, text relating directly to the contents of the sketch will have drawn elements next to them, so you can better see what translation is paired with what part of the drawing. If it ever gets confusing, shoot me an ask and I'll clarify/edit the post.] The day after drawing up the concept for the Jail area, the team sketched the Boatshed, which was also cut. This area is reflective of an earlier, less bombastic ending to ICO, which Ueda briefly mentioned during Sony's "Great Scene Sharing" campaign in 2011.

Also, to be honest we weren’t planning to have the castle collapse entirely like that. We were originally thinking to have the ending of ICO be much more modest, but somehow it didn’t give you a feeling of resolution that way. And so we decided “Ok, let’s make everything crumble into the sea then.” (laughs)

The most intriguing aspect of this cut concept is a kind of Idol Fence Gate that reacts to Yorda in the same way as the Idol Doors, only in this case it is powered by a mask. The mask's face shape is somewhere between a man and a bull, with the moderately sized horns completing the animal resemblance. There seems to be a gem or circular marking embedded into the forehead as well. The text makes mention that the gate 'listens' to the mask (assuming I'm translating that correctly), so perhaps it had a specific auditory or musical cue planned for when it reacts to Yorda? But perhaps not. A concept page like this would be the perfect place to write that idea in clear detail, after all.

Heroine Room Connection

This is not exactly a cut area, but it is certainly a heavily altered one. This spot would later become the floor of Spiral Staircase, where Yorda is held prisoner in the first act of the game. We can see this intention by its proximity to 'The Heroine's Room' and the series of Idol Doors set up as the introduction to Yorda's unique power. (There's even a sketch detailing how this arrangement of four idols are supposed to part when opened, and it matches up with the movement of the idols in Spiral exactly.) The most notable feature of this area seems to be a set of stairs leading up into a small room with a trench in it. In the trench is a box and a small crevice in the wall. The crevice is labelled 'Heroine', which, to me, implies that Ico might have been able to see or hear Yorda through this crack in the wall. But since this room is a dead end, I imagine you use the box in some way to activate the other set of stairs, which seem to have both a upward and downward status depending on whether you've solved the puzzle or not. This is very similar in concept to a puzzle presented elsewhere in the final game. At either ends of the room are two doorways. One direction is labelled 'Ko Building', which we will discuss later in this post. But the entrance to this room is through the Ritual Room... which we also have concept art for!

Ritual Room

Similarly to the last sheet, this sketch depicts elements that would end up placed elsewhere, but the overall design of this room was cut. The Ritual Room was seemingly designed before the team had come up with the final design of the Altar Room. The Ritual Room bears many of its elements, but has a much larger scope and seems to serve as a junction between several parts of the building.

Common elements include:

The floor raising and lowering to open a path to the Stage 13 Elevator. The notes even clarify that this will only occur in the game's "2nd act". In this version of the mechanism, a handrail rises up when the floor lowers.

Capsules in which to place sacrifices. Though they aren't clearly depicted, they seem to be embedded into the ground, rather than standing up.

Restricted access to the high up Idol Doors. In the final game, they lead to The Queen's throne room. Here it leads to Proto, the earliest room designed in the game. It's unclear how you earn access to the doors, but the 'OFF' label indicates that the stairs must rise, or else it remains a vertical wall.

But one big difference that stands out is the palanquin-like structure at the center, which reminds me of the structure that surrounds The Queen's throne. Given the title of the room, we can infer this was meant to be the spot where the Queen's ritual would be held.

Notes in the margins indicate two innocuous, but fascinating things: - The note regarding what might open the Idol Doors for the village men likely marks the conception of The Queen's Sword. - Yorda's voice was meant to be heard from this room, and she would've been singing. She doesn't get to sing to herself in the finished product, though I think that characteristic fits her well.

Flowchart of the Second Half

Once it became clear to Ueda that the ending had to be more resolute and bombastic, they devised the Main Gate Event and laid out a plan for all the places you would traverse on your journey to the throne room. You might notice that locations like Cliff Cage, Cogwheel, and Pipe have different prototype names and some visual differences. The first location on the journey back, later known as Cage, is titled 'Ruins'. It seems to feature a series of overhang structures jutting out from the cliff-side. Presumably, these would catch Ico after his fall. The titular cages of the present incarnation seem to be absent, but we can see them close by, in the area that will become known as Cogwheel. Instead named 'Subterranean Lake' in this document, Cogwheel seems to lack any of its characteristic mechanisms. In this sketch, one of the cages seems to have fallen from the ceiling into the water below. In the final game, we move from Cogwheel to the outer edge of the island, where Ico clings tightly to the ridges of the cliff-side. But in this concept art, all of that distance is spent on a new area, completely cut from the final release, called 'Trolley Jump'. It seems the trolley would make a second appearance in the game's puzzle design and Ico would have to build up momentum to make it over a huge gap in the tracks. The Pipe area is named 'Ravine' instead. And the metallic platform is set far lower than it is in the final game, where you can just walk across it to make it to the elevator. Here, you must descend onto it and then climb up into a cavern, once you make it to the other side. You might've also seen that the the Old Bridge is titled 'ICO Bridge' in this document. This is especially interesting to me, as the name ICO seems to serve a different purpose here than you would expect.

What is “ICO (イコ)”, really?

Kenji Kaido has stated in the Japanese Guidebook for the game that the name 'ICO' was just the title, and initially, was never attributed to the boy protagonist (Page 82). He was nameless and only referred to as 'Boy', much like the protagonist of The Last Guardian is currently. The game's filenames, the concept art, and even Kaido's own presentation of the E3 2000 demo to PlayStation Underground, back this sentiment. The term 'ICO' is never attached to the boy before June or July of 2000, when US gaming publications reporting on E3 2000's demo started conflating the title with the protagonist's name. Seeing as this is dated in March of 2000, it's safe to say the use of 'ICO' here has nothing to do with the boy. So what is it about? Ueda did also say that the name was a shortening of the term ICON... but I have additional evidence suggesting that in this specific instance, it was not serving as an abbreviation for 'ICON Bridge'. Take a look at this rough overview sketch from the margins of a different concept art page.

Aside from the points that indicate land and sea, the labels that plainly stick out are "イ棟" and "コ棟".

"I Building" and "Ko Building". We saw that last label earlier in the Heroine Room Connection section.

Knowing this, we can safely infer that it's called イコ Bridge because it connects the イ and コ buildings... But then why are they split in that way and labelled イ and コ? I still don't have an answer for this, though I do feel like the divide is related to the separation of class. The イ building is dedicated to The Queen. It contains both her daughter and the sacrifices she needs to complete her ritual. It's where her throne is. It's where she resides and does her work. Meanwhile, everything on the other side of this bridge seems to have been built for a larger populous.

Benches, recreational areas, spectated arena matches, a waterfall, a courtyard, a ballroom with a massive chandelier! You don't build a front gate and a bridge to the mainland if you never wanted people to enter... This place undeniably once had people who lived and worked here. They were all designated under the コ building. I have to imagine this is why a distinction is being made, but beyond that, the reasoning for the titles remains a mystery. If someone has further insight into Japanese linguistics or culture, and have additional guesses as to why, please let me know.

Cut Boss Fight

In the West Arena (labelled 'R' for 'Right' in early development), there was going to be another raised cage event. Only this time it would take the form of a boss fight with a massive shadow that overtakes the floor and splays black tendrils through the air. Interestingly, there is already an overhead bridge in this image, but rather than magically appearing in stone segments, it's instead an ordinarily constructed wooden bridge. Here, the notes detail a different kind of puzzle element: Wire. Which, unlike ropes, cannot be cut by the sword. The same note indicates that wire is holding the left and right doors in place. While the concept art doesn't detail it plainly, I believe the only way past this room would be to pull on the "Idol Handle" that the boss is covering. Wire is also presumably being used for the zip-line running across the arena, which is an interesting component to say the least. The vision I'm gathering is that you'd ride the zip-line, hit X at the right time to drop down onto the overhead bridge, run over to the balcony where the 'Cage Switch' is labelled, and activate it to impede the boss. How it is then defeated is less clear. It's also unclear where Yorda would have been throughout this encounter, or if there would be additional enemies trying to drag her into a nest. Its possible the boss itself would be programmed to capture her with a tendril, and itself act as a nest by dragging her into the depths of itself. But we have no evidence one way or the other. [Ok, that's all the stuff I have to present for now. Keep in mind that there's more to see and translate in the article I linked at the very start. This post was only scratching the surface, despite the amount of material we covered. With that in mind, thank you for making it this far.]

Support

Now is as good a time as any to mention I've started up a Ko-Fi, so people can choose to support the work I do to uncover and present obscure info like this. There is, of course, no obligation to give me anything. The tips just help me get a bit of financial security in return for my efforts.

[hecksupremechips]

To also go off of the point about cop!akihiko being annoying to me I gotta say that Akihiko as a character is very hit or miss with me because of how different adaptations of p3 will subtly alter his character. I felt like in portable with the femc route he comes off best, he’s a bit of a hothead with an obsession with fighting, but he’s overcompensating his strength so he doesn’t feel as weak and helpless as he’s been in many situations. He defines strength in a very literal sense, being physically strong and using that to protect others, but he’s lacking in emotional strength as a result. And in particular in this version I think he’s portrayed as a bit more goofy and sweet in a sense. He cares deeply for you as a friend and leader but he struggles with finding the words to describe how he feels. Hes kinda naive and gullible and has trouble noticing his surroundings. He has no clue what he’s doing but his heart is in the right place. I think he just comes off much more human and he has flaws, many many flaws, and that makes him all the more lovable

But then in other adaptations and spinoffs it’s like. They look at him through some hetero male bullshit filter and seem to view him as a lot more admirable and cool. Like in p3 dancing, theres literally an event where he’s talking with Junpei and Minato and they’re gushing about how perfect Akihiko is and how he doesn’t seem to have ANY flaws at all. And it becomes clear his inability to flirt with women just gets added as a way to make sure you, the Straight Male Player, don’t get insecure being next to such Perfection because at the end of the day, you’re still more charming and sexy than he will ever be because you’re better. It’s a “flaw” that’s only there to shield a sensitive male ego. And then in arena I mean, come on. He’s overly beefy and is a damn cop and travels the world and loves Protein™️ it’s his whole personality and he’s so clearly meant to be seen as hot but like, he’s just some shitty hetero male fantasy. Hes what the writers deem to be a Perfect Man that every guy wishes he could be, but don’t worry he’s still bad with women so you don’t gotta worry about him stealing your property- I mean, girlfriend!

And though I’ve not played reload and don’t really plan to anytime soon, judging from his social episodes they seem to have a similar problem. Akihiko comes off as a lot less approachable, like the year age gap is just too much of a barrier to get to know him properly. And he doesn’t have that dorky sweetness he has in portable, he’s just that perfect hetero male fantasy guy and don’t you fucking worry- he still has his protein powder with him

[cursedvibes]

The more I think about this chapter and read others takes the less negative I’ve become towards it. I’m just neutral now and if anything I quite like a lot of things in here, especially since the full TCB translations are out now. I’m still disgruntled about Yuuji like literally being thrown to the side though.

I never cared for Yuuta but he did need a last hoorah, so I hope it is a last hoorah that Yuuta fans find good.

It has been interesting seeing people’s takes on the story and what the theme of the story is meant to be. I actually kind of disagree with the takes that JJK is a nihilistic story, for how dark and gritty it can be it very much seems to be a story of hope and change than just a story where good people fail.

I have settled my emotions a bit too. Mostly just feel tired. My main issue is like you said that Yuuji is just getting thrown to the side when we finally get a tense moment between him and Sukuna. Gege really wants to stretch that fight. Yuuji was literally digging into his chest after just landing a Black Flash. Sukuna apparently felt so threatened that he healed his brain and CT, which is quite risky, to cast a domain. But then he can just shove Yuuji away and that's it? Also this Sukuna vs Gojo rehash is for one redundant and also very ill-timed. They could've done this when Sukuna was about to unleash Furnace or his altered domain. When people were actually in danger and Yuuta's sacrifice could've meant something. Yuuta gives a very passionate speech, but the whole time I just have to think that that's really not needed. If they need back-up, the people who got transported away could just come back. Maki's Soul Blade actually seems much more useful here, since we know hurting Sukuna's soul is how you actually get him down.

Also, Yuuta telling Maki that she doesn't understand what it means to be a monster and that she's scared leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. He didn't directly target her, but maybe have some self-awareness about who you're talking to? Not ooc though I would say, nor the rest of his speech and plan.

Another thing that I find confusing is why Yuuta can't heal himself, but is then able to grow Gojo's body together. If it's because of the stitches, Shoko could've stitched up his real body too. Could be that Kenjaku's technique gives a healing boost after the transfer, but they don't talk about that and I don't know how they would know that either. Nobody has ever seen Kenjaku change vessels.

But yeah, overall my reaction is just "do we need to do this again?". I don't agree with the criticisms I've seen that this is too dark, too bleak, too immoral, irredeemable and especially all those comparisons to horror and psychothriller stories. Seems to come also a lot from the people who think Choso's death was bad. Like using Gojo's body like that is grim, it shows how rotten jujutsu society is and that they perpetuate this mindset even in the students, but I think it just shows Yuuta breaking under pressure and emphasizing certain character flaws of his. A negative development. Not necessarily bad. If anything it shows why Yuuji can be the only one to defeat Sukuna because he doesn't give in to Sukuna's believes and he won't let the jujutsu system rob him of his value of life. Even if he sees himself as a tool, he does not treat others like that and he has always been someone who saw Gojo as a human first and the strongest sorcerer second. I wouldn't even say jjk is bleak right now. People have died and Yuuta threw his humanity away, but they are still gradually chipping away at Sukuna.

Certainly not nihilistic. There are very clear values governing the whole story as seen by the dichotomy of Sukuna and Yuuji. I do think they could've been put more into focus by using Shinjuku Showdown to highlight both of their mindsets and hone in more on Sukuna and Yuuji's mentality through it, but it's far from being nihilistic. Everything has meaning, Yuuta just now made the choice to compromise his previous morals. That doesn't mean the overall message is mute. Yuuta only played a small part in it to begin with after all. It's character development for him, but not a complete overthrow of the story's themes. He was told to become stronger he needs to throw away his humanity and disregard others. The challenge for him was to fight while still maintaining his humanity at the cost of not being The Strongest. He failed and also hasn't fully committed to that path, he's just perpetuating Gojo's dehumanization by saying there needs to be someone to fill that role. Someone who needs to stand at the top, despite even Gojo saying (or previously believing) that this burden shouldn't be carried by just one person. That's why he raised the students to be strong. Not quite the right approach either and not a break of the principles of jujutsu society, but certainly not what Yuuta took away from all this that there needs to be one pillar of strength far removed from the others who does the dirty work for them.

So like there is something there in the chapter, an attempt was made to say something, even though I don't think it quite stuck the landing. Doesn't make me especially ecstatic for the next chapters either though.

[charlie-pippin-faraday]

my danganronpa v3 chapter 4 investigation and trial running commentary:

so it seems like i was correct to be worried about the fate of miu. man this is such a bummer this is the first time one of my faves has died i'm so upset. and i really thought miu would make it to the end tbh

i love having two purple boys fighting for my affections

did kokichi bring a bottle of poison from my lab as a red herring? wouldn't put it past him. big "byakuya altering chihiro's murder scene in DR1" vibes

i can't believe they would tell me that the poison can cause eyes to look bloodshot and then wouldn't let me investigate miu's eyes to see if they were bloodshot or not what the fuck

man i really just beamed kaito outta there with that cell phone huh

so someone was either trying to frame kaito, remove his ass from the equation, or clear out the rooftop area, yeah?

after more investigating it seems "clear out the rooftop area" is probably the right answer, given that miu and kokichi were supposed to have a secret meeting there

bro why won't shuichi investigate the very obvious lattice???? at miu's virtual body he was like "idk what this is doing here." and it was obviously in the storage room i looked at earlier but he didn't mention that. and then when i went back to the storage room he was like "something feels different from before. idk what tho. oh well" and i'm just screaming SHUICHI YOU IDIOT IT'S THE LATTICE bro wtf

i know they're setting up kaito to look super suspicious, but i actually think he's the least suspicious. sure, he could've done something to her real body, but i think miu died in-game. it said she had no visible injuries. miu died at 6:30, but kaito was forcibly logged out over an hour before that at 5:17. so he could not have killed her in-game, and i think she died in-game, so therefore i don't think kaito is the culprit. i think kokichi is gonna try VERY hard in the trial to convince me he is, though

when they said "there was a user error upon login" i immediately thought to myself "alright who didn't plug their cords in the right way?"

gonta has been very quiet through this whole investigation process. and i'm actually suspicious of himiko, who at the start was very vocal about not wanting to go in the virtual world, and then at the end was VERYYY vocal about not wanting to LEAVE the virtual world. what's going on there?

i'm still so fucking suspicious and confused about the creation of the virtual world in the first place. miu set it up, but kokichi has been talking behind the scenes and also to our faces about setting up some kind of trap? like what's happening here????

idk what kokichi was planning, but i honestly think miu was trying to murder kokichi. maybe that was the setup for this world the whole time. they were planning to meet up, and she edited his avatar so that he'd be paralyzed if she touched him. i think that was the plan and obviously something went wrong

is it possible that miu killed herself accidentally? himiko said there was a big crashing sound like something running into the wall of the chapel or something? maybe miu rammed herself against the wall of the chapel? idk that feels far-fetched but not out of the question

unrelated to the murder, but there's very clearly something going on with kaito health-wise, and he mentioned not being able to feel whatever that was in his avatar body. do you think whatever it is will get revealed in the trial? or next chapter, maybe?

so now that i think about it, i really didn't see a lot of gonta in the virtual world. he was either off on his own or with kokichi. if it turns out that gonta killed her or kokichi manipulated him into killing her, i'm fucking ending my own life

also bro why was there toilet paper just sitting outside

alright so miu added a wall that let non-human objects pass through and then classified herself as a non-human object - this was how she was able to get through to the mansion side without the bridge, right???

i still don't know about the scream they heard from keebo, that's still a mystery

and why are some people's visors still connected and some unplugged?

everyone is suddenly putting a LOT of pressure on me as a detective, this is weird. not just the members of my trio, but like himiko and tsumugi especially. this is strange

oh hey we kind of forgot about that motive key card right?? what happened with that?? does kokichi have it in his pocket?? i'm convinced it goes to the door behind the library bookcase

oh the VERY first thing in the trial, we establish her eyes weren't bloodshot, but you wouldn't tell me while i was investigating? oh come on, game

bro miu was strangled to death by toilet paper?? it's how she would've wanted to go tbh

and himiko agrees lol

lol i KNEW miu was trying to kill kokichi lol

oh MIU planted the poison? interesting

"people you trust and defend will ultimately betray you" kokichi i wanna know who hurt you in the past

bro is this gonna be strawberry tower/grape tower all over again with the weird placement mystery shit?

me to kokichi during this entire trial:

lmao were there billboards of miu in the taxi game? hilarious. wait but why were there then later billboards of tsumugi?

i would like to say i suspected the looping thing for awhile, and that the mansion and chapel were actually near each other in space

WAIT hang on hang on. did the culprit kill her on the locked rooftop and then CHUCK her body off what they thought was the edge of the world, but since her body can pass through the wall she actually slammed against the side of the chapel??

man i was pretty close, putting her on the lattice as a sled off the roof instead of throwing her

i don't like how this is turning out, the suspect list is really starting to point toward gonta and i do NOT like that

man tsumugi was this close to destroying my lie trap

i would just like to say.......i am VERY upset but how this trial is going

this is the most evil and unforgivable thing danganronpa has ever done wtf why would they do this i am SO upset

i'm sorry, alter ego gonta???????? the references to the previous games are becoming much too blatant to brush off, what's happening here

"don't blame kokichi anymore" i'm sorry gonta i will continue to blame kokichi as much as i fucking want

"wait please, i don't want this! don't go, gonta!" kokichi YOU were the one who fucking did this YOU are responsible for this don't act all sad now

i can't believe he was responsible for both deaths that happened this chapter and he still gets to stick around

kokichi i hope you suffer endlessly for what you did to gonta. in fact, i am going to MAKE you suffer endlessly, and i will never ever ever EVER fucking forgive you

evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil evil boy

i once saw a post or something that listed the three "antagonists" of the DR games as byakuya, nagito, and kokichi. first of all, putting byakuya in the same category as the others feels laughable. byakuya was simply an arrogant douchebag that had trouble thinking about others. nagito...well, he was insane, and he sort of had a bit of logic, albeit very VERY twisted, like i can kind of see his thought process and what he's aiming for even though it's kind of fucked up. kokichi, though. that boy is just straightup evil and i don't understand

oof kokichi really exposed kaito's illness and maki's crush in one fell swoop huh

man everyone rushing to kaito's side has got to just be a slap in the face for kokichi. and kokichi deserves it

sooo next chapter is finally when keebo and kokichi are gonna have a showdown and beat each other up, right? it feels like the time. that rivalry has been building up and i need payoff

oh no i got gonta's empty insect cage??! oh that's just hurtful

guys, this chapter hurt me and it hurt my feelings, quite a lot. it took out two of my favorites in one fell swoop. why would they do that to gonta??? that's just mean. i am hugging keebo TIGHT to my goddam CHEST i cannot bear it if i lost him as well

and i have to say: i'm not sure in all of media i have ever consumed there has ever been a character i have understood less than kokichi oma. i will never be able to figure him out. his actions and motivations don't make sense to me. there have been certainly been characters i've hated more (square UP, dolores umbridge and holden caulfield), but none that have confused me more. and man i want some due comeuppance. get punched by a robot, you evil little shit

probably won't have time to continue the game until sunday at the earliest, but on to chapter 5! (eventually)

[beom1e]

ephemeral four | quirk

genre fluff. warning deception. playlist ml. wc 753.

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the library was dim and mostly quiet. a small number of students were scattered around the room you were in, but most had headphones on or were falling asleep on their textbooks. the main sounds were their fingers typing away on their laptops and some quiet chatter in a far corner.

beomgyu placed his phone down onto the table, just as it vibrated with another text message from, well… you. not that he knew it, neither of you knew of the truth.

just a table away from beomgyu, you began packing up your belongings. your eyes navigated their way over to him. he was looking down at his laptop, most likely deep in thought about whatever he had been typing all night long. a smile made its way onto your face as you slung your bag onto your shoulder and pushed your chair back under the desk.

his gaze lifted as you passed, but you weren’t looking his way. he hadn’t noticed that you had started clearing your table — because he had been texting your alter ego back — but he certainly noticed as you pushed open the door and disappeared from his sight. as he looked back over at your table, he noticed a phone in the middle of it.

as quickly as he possibly could, he saved his work and began cleaning up too. once he had everything packed up, he approached the table you had previously occupied and looked down at the phone. his eyes almost fell out of his skull with shock when he saw texts lighting up your notification centre under the simple contact name of ‘G’. it sort of made sense, whilst also not making any sense at all.

he grabbed the phone and exited the library.

the past week that he had known you through texts, you’d given obvious hints about your identity. you avoided talking about how you found the disconnected number, you never mentioned having out with friends, and the times you were available to talk to him matched up with your class schedule. so why hadn’t he caught on to the fact that it was you?

the fifteen minute walk home consisted of a lot of thinking for beomgyu. he didn’t know what to say or do now that he knew who was behind your number, but he knew for certain that he would have to face you tonight.

your walk home had been pretty empty. you were too tired to think about much, except going to bed. having someone knock at your door certainly wasn’t part of your plan, considering nobody knocked at your door even when it was at a reasonable hour. and when you pulled it open to see beomgyu, you were even more confused.

‘sorry, i know it’s late,’ he greeted. ‘but you left your phone at the library just then.’

‘oh, um… thank you,’ you took the phone from his extended hand. ‘i hadn’t realised.’

‘i actually have something to say,’ the panic was setting in. ‘well… propose. could i take you out for drinks sometime?’

‘are you asking me out?’ you couldn’t believe it. the expressionless look on your face was scaring beomgyu away now, and you quickly realised that it sounded like you were about to reject him. ‘i’m not really a drinker, but i guess so.’

‘are you sure?’ he didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. after all, this was his first, only and last shot at asking you out. he’d suddenly had the confidence to do so considering it had been you that he had been texting all week.

‘yeah,’ you smiled. ‘thank you for returning my phone to me. i’ll contact you about the date.’

he wished you a good night before you closed the door, and the widest smile broke out onto your face. beomgyu couldn’t help smiling either, just staring at the number on your door out of disbelief. that weird feeling of craving and longing for you would finally dissipate as he would pull you into his personal bubble, and bring light back into your life. that didn’t cover the guilt he was feeling, though, after deciding not to mention that you had been texting him all along.

you shuffled through your apartment feeling lighter and happier than you had in a long time. a small part of you was doubtful, however, and you wondered what prompted him to ask you out now out of all of the times he interacted with you.

still, you had a date with beomgyu.

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[blububblgum]

Arya stark: bloodhunter, order of the ghostslayer.

Once again, reasoning in incredible detail under the cut

Ok for arya, i once again wanted to subvert obvious expectations (and play more in the dnd space) so instead of the rogue subclass (with either thief or assassin as her subclass) i settled on bloodhunter for her class. First, to be clear on why not rogue; its not really that different from how she is in the actual world of asoiaf, and if i'm committing to an au then i might as well branch out (the same reasons stand for why not fighter). Bloodhunter is a class that was created by matthew mercer for campaign 2 of critical role, and it is deeply interesting to me (as well as being suited to arya)

Bloodhunters are a martial class that is based around the use of blood magic in order to destroy evils in the world, while resisting giving into the dangerous magic they work with. The subclass that i chose for arya is Ghostslayer, which is "the oldest of the bloodhunter orders" and they focus on everything around death, with an obsession with ridding the world of the undead. While the House of Black and White is not like, focused on ridding the world of undead, it does align well with how she could have come into these powers/fighting style. Beyond the House of Black and White, arya herself has so many personal vendettas that work with the motivations of ghostslayers (especially when you think of the white walkers, though i know she doesn't know about them).

Though ghostslayer (and bloodhunter really) have some magic, it doesn't really give the specific power of changing appearance, and that is kinda crucial to what arya learns in the House of Black and White. So!! In order to make this work, i think dnd arya is not a human (or at least, not a human anymore). Instead she is a shifter, which is descended from a were-creature. The shifter option that suits arya best is swiftstride (which isn't the one that is recommended for werewolves but whatever), since it gives extra movement/increased speed, and matches how arya fights. However, arya still can't change her faces, so this is where feats come in. The Eldritch initiate feat allows one invocation (something that warlocks get as part of their deal) and though arya is definitely not a warlock (though i did think about hexblade for her, i just couldn't figure out what her patron would be), the Mask of many faces invocation allows the character to cast disguise self at will, which works as a dnd take on changing faces. If she were higher level then Master of myriad forms makes more sense (it gives the spell alter self at will, which actually changes the form of the caster, whereas disguise self   is an illusion spell) but i decided to plan her at about 8th level, so whatever lol.

Some bonus thoughts (i know i have already rambled a lot oopsies); her fighting style is either duelling or two-weapon fighting, depending on whether she uses exclusively needle or if she also fights with a dagger. Her crimson rite damage would be cold, as a little nod to her stark side. For her blood maledicts (bonuses that are useful in fighting) i decided on the Blood curse of the Eyeless which lets her temp blind people (fun!) and Blood curse of Binding which reduces peoples speed to zero for a bit (good for just fucking sprinting away). Since i'm thinking of her as 8th level, she can have another feat (which is more interesting than an ability score improvement) and i decided on magic initiate (wizard, since its intelligence based), which gives 2 cantrips (spells that don't require spell slots) and 1 first level spell. For the two cantrips, mage hand and booming blade would give some helpful bonuses to her both in and out of combat. For the one spell, i thought find familiar would be fun! Find familiar doesn't have wolf, but if you just  use cat stats for wolf then that's fine, find familiar is cool cause the caster can look through the eyes of the familiar when they are in range, and they can be summoned in a different form when it is recast. Lastly, i think her stats (highest to lowest) are: dexterity, intelligence, constitution, wisdom, strength, charisma.

Again, if you read all this, thank you!!!! I hope it made sense and lmk ur thoughts.

[dynared]

“I'd also argue that the IDW style writing in Earthspark is extra-insular because it's not just a mandate to keep with evergreen concepts, it's also now a moral issue as it was with many of those writers, to keep the franchise away from "chuds" and undesirables that probably bought Energon Universe comics like crazy.” Sorry if I sound overly nosy, but would you mind expanding on this??? I only recently got back into TF (with my only previous experiences being YEARS ago when I was a kid and didn’t even know who Shockwave was) so I’m a little out of the loop

Let's describe this so that it doesn't come across as a GriftTube rant or an apology for other writers.

IDW's comic writing was very insular, in that it was written almost like fanfic was. In fact, many of the writers, most infamously James Roberts, got their start in fanfic (Roberts having written the notoriously weird, tryhard novella Eugenesis), and were more than willing to import their characterizations from fanfics to the official comics, most infamously Star Saber, who was reimagined from a standard Autobot leader/single dad with an adopted kid into a religious fundamentalist of the worst kind, because that was the characterization Roberts used. Most of the IDW writers did not have a high opinion of the Japanese Transformers material (the hows and whys are their own articles, but the short version is - the fan wiki had a hate-on for the Japanese material and those fanfic writers were in that same circle). Most comic companies flat-out say this is a bad idea. Marvel Comics, in their submission guidelines for Epic Comics, call the phenomenon "Writing a comic about a comic", namely that your work is only of value to a specific section of fans who are already engaged with the material, and who want to see the material altered in such a way that it appeals to their biases (in this case, the writer's big anti-Japan, anti-super robot sentiments, and the desire to deconstruct Cybertronian society as Simon Furman laid out in Marvel).

This also included a lot, a LOT of gay romance. Roberts and other writers were clear why, they wanted to write romance, the character line was mostly male, so you were getting gay romance. This spiraled into a lot of issues with a focus on gender identity (after a very, VERY poorly received Arcee comic where she was essentially driven insane by a transition from male to female), and sexuality.

These comics sold horribly but built a very dedicated audience, the sort of audience that would probably have read fanfics breathlessly. So much so the writing started to leave a lot of openings, poorly described items, and loose plot threads that fanfic writers could build off of and write their own interpretations of, as a fanfic writer will often do when they want to get their audience more involved. But in terms of selling comics, they were poor sellers, to the point that an attempt at a combined shared Hasbro Universe, via the comic crossover Revolution, tanked, icing Hasbro's plan for one for nearly 7 years (with the Energon Universe trying again with a much more measured, controlled attempt and the film producers promising a GI Joe/Transformers crossover film).

The problem is that a lot of the criticism of the stories (we don't want to read about Transformers romance endlessly, you treat characters poorly, these crossovers make no sense) was often interpreted by the writers and the fans as "We hate gay people and trans people, we want stuff blowing up", and the writers who were supportive of such issues, doubled down, dismissing their critics as a small number of prejudiced malcontents. Some of the writers and fans of the writing of IDW also went on to help with other animated shows like Cyberverse, the War for Cybertron Trilogy, and Earthspark, most notably Nick Roche and Mae Catt. Both have been adamant about how important representation and life lessons are to their writing, with Catt out-and-out bragging on Twitter that she had two female characters kiss because she knew it would annoy people.

"I AM THE GAY AGENDA!"

Catt discussing her goals for EarthSpark on Twitter/X

All the shows I have just mentioned were also commercial failures. Cyberverse toys still clog toy shelves in discount retailers, the War for Cybertron series did so poorly that when the same writing team proposed a sequel based on the Legacy toy line, Netflix turned them down, and the Q4 reports show Earthspark was a commercial failure with many theorizing the only reason it's getting a Season 2 is because Hasbro wanted something on the air for their 40th anniversary, instead of having nothing in media besides comics until Transformers One comes out in the fall of 2024.

This leads to the final part of this explanation. The new comics from Skybound have seen fit to ignore most, if not all of IDW's contributions to the franchise, more focused on lots of action and basic but effective and strong characterizations serving to re-introduce the characters to people who have never read a Transformers comic or haven't watched Transformers media for decades. This is quite the opposite of Earthspark's focus on identity and life-lessons that were designed for the more insular fandom. And the criticisms of Skybound from the internet tend to focus on that, that they're appealing to an audience that didn't want what IDW was giving, so they're prejudiced. The thing is that the sales numbers don't lie, with many retailers pointing out that Skybound's take on the Transformers outsold comparable IDW releases 10 to 1.

I really hope all that helps clarify things. Like I said, I think that the writing being done essentially by fanfic writers, for fanfic writers created something that casual or non-fans were not going to engage with, but the fear that their critics were prejudiced in some way caused many of the writers to double down on those same habits, even when it's clear that the back-to-basics storytelling of Skybound is attracting far more readers.

[mimzy-writing-online]

hello!! I don't know if this blog is still active or not but you're the first resource I found when looking up things about writing blind characters so here i am. I have a character who's a fantasy race that naturally has a better sense of smell & hearing. This character also happens to be blind. Their blindness is not inherently why they have these advantages, but I still want to avoid coming off as cliche. Is there any way I should make this clear/anything i should alter? thx for reading !

Hi, the blog is active. If it's been a while since the last post, it's just because life hasn't given me much time to work on the blog but it has not been abandoned.

As for your question:

-Establish which race your character is early on during their introduction. You can work some world building in piece by piece and explain that they have stronger senses of hearing and smell than humans.

-In your planning/world-building you should consider how heavily that race relies on those senses for environmental awareness. Once you work out what's possible/impossible for your character to smell and hear, then you go through what you need your character to notice for the story.

Those two above should be enough to avoid cliche territory but if you have a moment where the character's ability to focus on a sense seems too special or plot-convenient, just work through whether or not it's possible for the character to identify this sound/smell and break down what the thought process was.

I have a lot of people in my life who treat my senses of sound/touch/taste/smell/etc as super human because I notice details they've never had to pay attention to before. A lot of times I respond to their awe by explaining my thought process and how I came to certain conclusions. It's mostly pattern recognition and detective work.

For example, I can smell a burger joint from two blocks away, but I have friends who won't smell it until we're walking past the door.

My friends don't need to think about the smells and what they mean because their environmental awareness begins with visual input and everything that comes after is just extra context. They'll see a sign from two blocks away, identify the logo/name/branding. If they're hungry they might focus on that sign long enough to remember the food sold there and maybe even the smells they remember. If they're not hungry, they'll move onto the next visual cue they notice.

I am getting a lot less visual info with a much shorter "warning" time, so I'll probably catch the smell of food on the wind long before I ever see a sign. For my brain, the thought process becomes: I smell food. Someone is cooking meat. Beef? There's notes of fried oil in the air. It's probably a burger place. Then I work with what I know about the area and if I remember any major restaurants.

Another example is that I used laundry room as markers for corners and apartment buildings in my neighborhood. I can connect that random rumbling sound with the smell of fresh laundry.

For most people it's just an unknown rumbling sound. For my bestie, it's a mechanical sound of a home appliance but not a refrigerator or a heating unit or something he specifically worked with in the past. For me, the process is- It's a mechanical sound but not one belonging to a car. It's also stationary and the sound is steady and repetitive, looping ever 3 seconds or less. I connect the sound with the smell of fresh laundry and I know that it's coming from a dryer. Which was actually very helpful in my old apartment building because I could tell if the washer and dryer were in use from outside the building, so I knew if it was pointless to get my laundry ready right away.

So if you have a moment that seems too super powered, just work through the thought process and adjust details until it feels right.