#i don't really know who to tag haha

[a2zillustration]

The final day

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[[ All Croissant Adventures (chronological, desktop) ]]

[[ All Croissant Adventures (app) ]]

[skywerse]

I designed finch's dad!!!!

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Ok, I think I have a pretty good idea of why a lot of Akechi's dialogue is... like that.

So, even before his confidant truly started, I noticed that he has a real knack for directing the flow of a conversation. This is very fitting for someone who is both a detective and skilled at interviews - when there is a topic and a goal, Akechi is in his element.

All this to say, he's actually kind of controlling when it comes to conversational flow. He probes for information, or turns the conversation around to a particular topic, usually the Phantom Thieves. He manages to take a few of Joker's dialogue options and spin them so they sound mildly incriminating in the context he's placed them in - the only way to truly get around this is to pick answers that feign indifference, and even then, that's more than a bit telling. He's clearly very good at this kind of thing.

But then, we get conversations where either Joker does something he didn't expect, or else he doesn't have a particular goal in mind - and the conversation stutters. In the first instance, Joker does something (a particularly egregious example is putting his glasses on him and fluffing his hair in rank 3) which both leaves him wrong-footed and no longer in perfect control of the situation. He just kind of... freezes, for awhile. It's hilarious. He has no idea how to respond.

He picks up control again in the phone call afterwards, having chosen to play into it, turning this "fooling the crowds" into a kind of game or secret between them. Nice save.

But in instances where there isn't an obvious topic and the goal is somewhat nebulous, for instance, that one Leblanc scene, it becomes pretty apparent that Akechi doesn't have the right "script" to go off of. Again, it's particularly notable in that scene, because I'm fairly sure he didn't have any specific reason to be at Leblanc, other than him looking for a quiet spot now that public opinion has turned on him. And because there isn't anything specific he's digging for, he kind of just ends up throwing things at the wall to see what will stick. Probing for any kind of recognizable reaction that he can jump on and work with, and that just doesn't really happen in this scene.

He references Sae, a woman in a respectable position, to Sojiro, but instead of that netting a welcome, it earns his ire, given Sae's recent actions against him. He then tries to greet Joker, his... rival? friend? enemy? person who at least seems to somewhat enjoy spending time with him? But Joker's responses are somewhat short, and Akechi practically wilts. He tries to commiserate by oversharing. He tries to involve Futaba and reaches out for the only topic of interest he can think of around "young people". He compliments the coffee. He compliments Joker. He tries to invoke that connection between them. None of it is really sticking, nor does it serve as a jumping off point for him to steer the conversation, or even really start one.

So, he basically just ends up having a one-sided chat with himself and then leaves. Hilarious. Also a little sad, if I'm being honest. It's really giving "guy with no friends who only knows how to speak to adults" energy. If there's no specific purpose to the exchange, or he is not in control of its direction, he seems to be kind of out of his depth. He succeeds only in being a little awkward and confusing, more than anything.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

To elaborate more on the Pesterquest stuff -

Alternia is a hell world. It's shitty to live in, even if you're a highblood, unless you fit a very specific mold of person AND are lucky enough to be born of a high caste. Every troll character we care about is, in some way, fucked over by their relationship to their society; Eridan and Vriska get it the worst, having been forced to participate in the murdering side of things since they were young, but every lowblood is screwed and every highblood is made worse even just by their passive participation. Kanaya becomes less sympathetic because she seems completely at peace with the society she grew up in, and Feferi wants to enforce casteism, even if it's of a different flavor. Gamzee and Equius both hold genuinely casteist beliefs and attitudes, which slip out and alienate them from the people they care about.

Putting a friendship simulator into the middle of all this is... a choice, I guess. I'm not going to begrudge anyone for wanting that or liking that, but it's going to be inherently at odds with what Alternia is and is meant to represent, and thus, fundamentally at odds with many of the characters' arcs and even basic personality traits, so heavily are they influenced by the shit society they grew up in.

For a non-Eridan example, Karkat loathes himself in massive part because his society loathes him. He's kill-on-sight and lives in daily terror of death. He wears a symbol at all because not having one marks him as even more of a freak, even though he knows that that symbol is connected to the empire's biggest rebel, whose footsteps he is expected to follow. The reason he's so obsessed with being leader-y and earning his teammates' reapect, or the respect of anybody, is because he's so deeply insecure about whether or not he even deserves to exist.

If you soften Alternia to the point you can write a lighthearted friendship simulator in it, then that characterization... goes away. Karkat is no longer motivated by deep, overwhelming insecurities, which drive him to idolize the society that deems him unworthy, mistakenly believing that if he can find validation in that society, he'll feel less bad about himself. Instead, Karkat is just kind of an asshole!

It's the same way with Eridan. He and Karkat are equal and opposite in this way - while Karkat is marked for death by his society, Eridan belongs to the extremely privileged caste of sea dweller royalty - even moreso than Feferi, as Feferi is slated to be murdered by the Condesce as soon as she comes of age (and her ridiculous optimism is likely something she cultivated in outright defiance of this fate). But it turns out that being a sea dweller sucks shit, too, if you aren't the extremely niche type of person that society deems "correct."

Eridan is not actually casteist and genuinely likes his land dweller friends - and this is unacceptible. Not only that, but smaller "unacceptible" offenses are wrapped up in big ones - despite not liking murder and feeling guilty about it, murder is objectively the correct thing for Eridan to be doing, constantly, to the point of it being "all [he's] ever done practically," because if he doesn't fulfil the duty of his bloodline to be murdering lusii (and by extension, their charges, who are culled when their lusii die), EVERYBODY dies. The constant push-pull of trauma, societal expectations and obligations, the fate of the species, and the fact that he is inherently not the "right" kind of person for his society, are pretty much his entire character. He's basically a walking ball of anxiety and emotional turmoil.

So, again, if you soften Alternia to the point where you can write a story about Eridan wanting to see Shrek in a public theater (something he would not actually be able to peacefully do in canon Alternia - at least not without taking off his cape, hiding his fins, and going anonblood - as sea dwellers are considered ridiculously hostile to the point even Gamzee's nervous about being on the beach for too long), Eridan ends up being just kind of an asshole!

Pesterquest!Eridan is, and I cannot stress this enough, fundamentally not the same guy as canon Eridan. They have practically nothing in common, from the fact that PQ!Eridan is willing to do something for leisure, to the fact that he isn't widely feared and the movie theater doesn't empty out in a panic when he turns up, even down to the fact that he likes femme fashion (canon Eridan goes to Lengths to lean into masc fashion) and Shrek (canon Eridan is a hipster). Hell, even the fact that PQ!Eridan SMILES is a massive deviation from canon!Eridan, who has never once been depicted smiling, and probably hasn't for many sweeps.

Also that he has that much beef with Sollux when, canonically, the two had a lukewarm mutual dislike and didn't even bother interacting until Feferi was added to the mix and Eridan became mad that Sollux was dating her. He wasn't even casteist about him until then, and after, even Sollux and Feferi don't think he's casteist, they just think he's ashenflirting so he can get into a quad with Feferi. Like come on, if you're going to feature another troll in Eridan's route, 1) make it be Karkat, and 2) have Eridan cheat on you the whole time with Karkat like he does to Feferi.

Eridan is just overall a wild choice in a friendship sim - I can't even blame them for just writing an OC and putting an Eridan skin on top - because societally, Eridan isn't even supposed to have non-sea dweller friends. The sea dweller/land dweller race war is something the Condesce deliberately put into place in order to keep land dwelling nobility in line, and Equius cites it as one of the reasons he never got along with Eridan. Like, the very fact that Eridan talks to two land dwellers on friendly terms (Kanaya and Karkat) is a MASSIVE deviation from what he's "supposed" to be like, and a huge hint that he's not as casteist as he'd like to appear. You are genuinely hundreds, if not thousands, of times likelier to end an encounter with Eridan either orphaned or dead than as his friend. He's an unstable maniac, and there's a reason so many members of his team don't like him even though he's legitimately not casteist and they mostly seem aware of it (nobody really complains about or even notices Eridan's casteism by the time they're on the meteor - his contradictions are really obvious, and it's likely that they've more or less realized that he's full of shit).

Again, I don't begrudge anybody for wanting or liking PQ. Who cares, really. I'm just saying that as a canon discussion blog, there's not really any place for PQ because it's so far removed from canon that, like, there's not really anything meaningful to discuss about it. The setting and characters in PQ are fundamentally divested from canon, and not even in an AU way. And it's totally fine if that's what you like, but, yeah, like.

Was Eridan written well (where "well" = accurate to canon): no. Maybe he's fine as an OC with an Eridan Minecraft skin slapped on, but that's not my beautiful son, that's not my baby boy.

What did they get wrong about Eridan (where "wrong" = inaccurate to canon): all.

What route would I have written for Eridan: he shoots you with a gun and you die. And then maybe cheats on you with Karkat

[crimeronan]

Woke up today thinking it’d be really fucking funny if Luz and Willow get their shit together re: any dating stuff before any of the others do mainly cause I’m just picturing Amity being really bitey bitchy jealous about Willow being brave enough to actually pursue Luz at all which leads to Amity pulling the “wow I didn’t think you were this type of social climber” card and Willow Uno Reversing her with the “Do you think the only reason people date is to improve in social status? Wow. That’s really pathetic. You’re really pathetic. Not to mention an insult to Luz insinuating nobody would want to date her for any reason other than her crown. Man, you suck.”

Cue Amity curled up in a corner eating eyescream because Fuck She Got Absolutely Fucked with that one

THIS IS HILARIOUS AND DELIGHTFUL. GET HER ASS!!!!!

[nguyenfinity]

Every time I draw Mamagi it does AoE damage (I am also in the area of effect)

Lighthearted bonus:

[licollisa]

If anything good comes out from that twitter rate limit thing, a lot of great fandom artists are now cross-posting on tumblr and then get surprised by the overwhelmingly positive feedbacks. Good work tumblr, keep it up.

[pechadream]

Hello Pokémon SWSH fandom

disappears from the fandom's eyes for another undisclosed amount of time

[averlym]

whshdfhfjf.,,,

[svtskneecaps]

friends and fiends if this truly spells the Over for the qsmp i may let the brainworms that have been festering in me for MONTHS--A YEAR, EVEN--win.

i may summarize the goddamn fucking lore.

[my-beloved-lakes]

I see a lot of people I knew from school posting pictures on their social medias with all their friends doing various fun things together. Meanwhile, I'm sitting at home wishing I could take a group photo with all my Tumblr mutuals to post so I can brag about having the best friends.

[wakebymoonsleepbysun]

So. Hazbin Hotel. Positive post about me finally watching the pilot below, hidden for those who don't vibe with that for various reasons. (Valid)

It's been at the periphery of my radar since I had my old tumblr account (deactivated in early 2020), but I never found out much about it other than the basic "Hotel for redeeming sinners". I didn't even realize Charlie was Lucifer's daughter until recently. What I ALSO didn't realize until recently was....we were still only on the pilot until this year???

I deadass thought the show had aired for a season or two, then Helluva got picked up, then the new eps were like...a new season returning after a long hiatus. I did NOT realize this show got so popular on the pilot alone! (I mean Helluva probably helped too, by association but still.)

After watching the pilot though? I can see why it blew up and stayed in people's minds for years.

What prompted me to watch it after all this time? Alastor. More specifically, finally hearing his voice and realizing he has a old-timey radio filter on. Which I didn't realize was a thing I specifically enjoyed. (I usually associate that with robots, which are one of my greatest loves, and I honestly never thought about the possibility of a non-robot character having a voice like that.)

I'm really excited to watch the rest now (let's see if this statement ages like milk but from what I've seen on my dash of late I'm optimistic) because this is the kind of thing adult animation needs SO MUCH MORE OF. Like, okay, you don't have to like Hazbin or Helluva EXACTLY but can we at least admit that we need more adult animation with actual budget/effort that aren't in that Typical Adult Cartoon art style that's so ubiquitous right now? And with MUSICAL NUMBERS??? Okay that second one may be more divisive but PLENTY OF BOTH PLS???

(Offhand I genuinely can't think of any adult animated series that fit this description other than maybe some anime but I'm sure there are some I'm not aware of so apologies, I meant no disrespect to any of them. There are some like...teen-targeted shows of course, and shows that adults can and should watch, but not like...adult-adult. Again, that I know of, but I'm horrible at discovering new things despite apparently wanting new things so eh.)

[coquelicoq]

definitely having thoughts about what kim dokja looks like to other people vs. to himself...how people keep saying he's "blurry"...how the constellations were surprised that he's not ugly when they saw him in person rather than through a channel...how he's not really a character and he's the only person with the fourth wall...idk idk. much 2 think about.

[mewharley]

so idk how to explain when I think someone is good looking

because it's a rare occurrence and like I just agree that they look good, that have some charm but that's that

I don't actually want to pursue anything with them or be sad if they have a partner or think about them after that or smth, idk what people actually do or think when they see someone attractive ??? (I've seen people try to give them their contact info and I'm like what but you don't know them ???)

that being said, I had never seen Bruno Mars before but that man is (was?) good looking

pretty wild because when i notice it's about women not men

but I was watching some videos and I'm like ??? how ??????

[tvrningout-a]

so a lil heads up!! that i will probably be very scarce/quiet until monday! despite my efforts to juggle everything, this weekend is just busy and it's got me pretty tired. thank you for being patient with me and pls have a very lovely pre-halloween weekend!!

[that-foul-legacy-lover]

that moment when you’ve had a hell of a day and eat the One Treat You’ve Been Saving as some comfort ;-;;;

anyways i want to be held so bad today