#i feel like this is one of those posts that just doesn't do well and that would be kinda upsetting lol but oh well

[thankskenpenders]

Thoughts on two specific areas of the writing in Sonic X Shadow Generations

The best new 3D Sonic game in over a decade (or even two, depending on who you ask) dropped late last year. And I didn't write anything about it! Sometimes life happens. Well, I've finally sat down to finish Shadow Generations, and by now everyone has already been singing its praises for three months. This is the rare instance where the entire Sonic fandom, and even mainstream reviewers, are in agreement on something. The level design is the best it's been in a long, long time and the cool factor is off the charts, embracing Sonic's peak cringe era in an incredibly confident way. It's great. If you're even reading this post, you probably don't need me to tell you that. So I won't!

No, what I'm really interested in here is the writing. Because this is me we're talking about. But I actually don't want to talk about the main narrative of Shadow Generations, which is really solid little story about Black Doom trying to mold Shadow into his perfect soldier. No, I'd like to zero in on two other aspects of the writing here: the revisions made to Sonic Generations, and Gerald Robotnik's unlockable journal.

The updated Sonic Generations script

The new package mostly presents Sonic Generations how you remember it. There are some tweaks, but it's not a major overhaul. Graphically, I don't think the game has been touched much, if at all. I certainly can't notice any difference without a side-by-side comparison, despite playing it on a PS5. The most notable update is that the game's script has been rewritten by Ian Flynn.

Naturally, this caught my attention. Generations always had a nothingburger story, so with Ian rewriting Pontac and Graff's lame dialogue there was nowhere to go but up. (I don't like to pin the blame for those games' stories entirely on them, as a ton of it was dictated to them by Sonic Team, but, well, I don't think they're very good dialogue writers.) But it's less a complete rewrite and more like Ian was brought on as a script doctor for some minor touch ups here and there. Many lines of dialogue are completely identical to how they were originally written in 2011, and many others only have slight wording changes. Ian was clearly not allowed to request additional scenes or extend the ones that already existed. He has to match the original beat for beat so that they can reuse 99% of the cutscene animations. Don't expect it to be a whole new experience compared to the original.

Still, I think the new script is an improvement, albeit a minor one. Various things have been tweaked to maintain characterization consistency. Cream calls Sonic "Mr. Sonic" instead of just "Sonic." Instead of calling Sonic "buddy," Rouge uses the pet name "Blue," like she tends to do in things like the IDW comics. Espio doesn't have to remind you in the dialogue that he's a ninja, and he no longer has a line making it sound like he has some kind of soul reading power. I also like that Modern Sonic now actually has responses to what his friends say when he rescues them, rather than being silent like Classic Sonic. They won't blow you away, but they make Sonic feel a little more engaged with everything.

In general, the altered dialogue just seems tighter to me, and some of the more childish or trite wording of Pontac and Graff's script has been altered. Here, let's actually make a direct comparison, just because this stuff is interesting to me as a writer. Here's a couple lines from after the Egg Dragoon fight late in the game, in the original script:

Modern Eggman: Ooooh... I can't believe this! I was supposed to beat you this time. Modern Sonic: Aw, I'm sorry! I didn't get that memo. I beat you every time! [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat this guy every time. It's like it's our job or something!

This is a simple exchange. Eggman is mad that he lost. Sonic is unflappably confident because he always beats Eggman, and he explains this to his younger self. But the wording here isn't particularly good. Eggman's simple and direct wording makes him come off like a little kid who's mad because his older brother beat him at Mario Kart, rather than a mad scientist who just had his plans foiled. It's making light of the situation.

And I've never liked Sonic saying "It's like it's our job or something!" That doesn't feel like a thing Sonic would say, it feels like a thing an outside observer would say about Sonic. This is a frequent problem with so-called "MCU dialogue," where quips meant to echo the commentary of a casual, somewhat disinterested audience are inserted into the story itself so that the writers can be like "See? We get it. We're genre-savvy, too!" It also just reminds me of bad Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric lines like "Rings! It's like they're made for me!"

And then here's Ian's rewrite:

Modern Eggman: I recalibrated everything! This was supposed to be my time! Modern Sonic: Oh, please, keep dreamin', Egg-head. I beat you every time. [Turns to Classic Sonic] No, seriously, we beat him every time. Our score card's flawless.

Eggman's still mad about his defeat, but the line "I recalibrated everything!" makes it more specific. He put all this work into the engineering side of his latest scheme and got tunnel vision, thinking if he got his creations just right there'd be no way he could lose. "This was supposed to be my time!" also turns it into a time travel pun, which is a bonus. He's still pitching a fit over losing, but it feels more like Eggman pitching a fit, rather than sounding childish.

And then instead of saying that beating Eggman is "like his job or something," Sonic says he's got a flawless score card against Eggman. He doesn't take Eggman seriously as a threat—at least, not to his face. He acts like it's all a game. But he conveys this in a way that feels truer to the character, rather than feeling like the words of a real world observer poking fun at the tropes of the Sonic series.

Is this amazing, A+ dialogue that blows me away? No. Again, it's not a completely different scene from the one we already had. Ian had to fit the beats of what was already there. He couldn't go all out and write an all new story confirming his longstanding headcanon that the Time Eater is a remnant of Solaris or whatever. But the wording here makes the existing story land a little better and feel truer to the characters in subtle ways.

But to me, the main change is that the Sonics and Tailses seem to have a more solid understanding of what's going on with the timeline and the Time Eater, compared to how idiotic they sometimes seemed in the original game. Which is good! No more standing outside Green Hill and wondering why it seems so familiar. Thank god. As part of this, yes, there are a few more references to past games in the dialogue, like Sonic briefly being confused about the fact that they're time traveling without the Time Stones, or South Island and Westside Island being acknowledged as the normal locations of Green Hill and Chemical Plant. Yes, ha ha, insert joke about how Ian loves references here. Look, it's Sonic fucking Generations. It's a game built entirely out of nostalgic references. Just own it! And, again, in this instance Sonic and Tails come off as less stupid when they make it clear that they do, in fact, remember their adventures from presumably less than a year ago in-universe.

Eggman, too, seems to have a better understanding of the powers he's toying with. Where in the original vesion his focus was simply on going back in time to undo his previous defeats and he seemed kind of oblivious to how much the Time Eater was actually fucking up the universe, here Eggman says he wants to use the Time Eater to give himself complete control over the entire timeline. Eggman also makes way fewer references to his own failures and shortcomings. Of course he won't admit that Sonic has defeated him time and time again. To him, he's never truly lost—Sonic just keeps delaying the inevitable total victory for the Eggman Empire.

So, yes. The new Sonic Generations script is better. It won't blow anyone away, but it's better than it was. It's been elevated from "kinda lame" to "fine." No, if you really wanna see Ian flex his ability to breathe new life into old Sonic stories, look no further than...

Gerald Robotnik's Journal

Hoo boy.

The story of what happened aboard the ARK has always been... a bit confusing, to say the least. Fans with encyclopedic knowledge of the script for every route of Shadow '05 may disagree, but it's the truth. We've had all the pieces to understand the story for a long time now, but that info was given to us out of order by a pair of unreliable narrators—Gerald, who became a vengeful lunatic shortly before his death, and Shadow, who was subjected to multiple rounds of amnesia and altered memories. Some of the ambiguity left by Sonic Adventure 2 was cleared up in Shadow '05, but that game also retconned in a bunch of new elements to Shadow's backstory (aliens!) that lead to further confusion. Not to mention the fact that that game had multiple routes and only revealed the truth about Shadow if you sat on the ultimate final boss battle for WAY longer than the fight would normally last. Or the fact that Sonic X made its own tweaks in its telling of the story. Or the fact that none of these things ever had the best English translations. I can't blame anyone who hasn't played those games in two decades for not remembering the truth about these characters and getting some details mixed up.

What we needed was something to piece together all of the info we have into one coherent backstory, told in chronological order. And thanks to Shadow Generations, we have that, in the form of an official journal tying together what we knew from Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow '05, and Sonic Battle into the tragic tale of Gerald's rise and fall.

Ian Flynn was the perfect man for the job here as the guy who started his career by tidying up the mess that was the first 159 issues if Archie Sonic. This is what he excels at: taking disparate bits of weird Sonic lore from multiple different sources, boiling them down to their most interesting elements, and connecting it together in a way that will make the audience see the dramatic potential he's always known was there. Rather than feeling like a cynical exercise in franchise building, going back and explaining things that never needed explaining so that people can add more bullet points to the wiki, he puts a new spin on things that retroactively enriches those past stories. The story here means something to the characters involved and gives us a better understanding of them as people, rather than as plot devices to motivate Shadow.

(And, of course, Ian didn't do this journal alone. He wrote the story, but I also have to give a huge shout out to Evan Stanley, who made the final product. All of her handwritten journal entries, sketches, and "photos" included throughout. The physical damage done to the journal over the course of 50 tumultuous years, passing from Gerald to Eggman to a certain special someone at GUN. The way Gerald's handwriting gets less and less legible as his mental state declines. So much love was put into what could have been a mere text dump in a menu, and it really elevates it to the next level. Congrats on officially getting hired by Sega, Evan, you've sure as hell earned it!)

The main idea the journal conveys is that Gerald was under a lot of pressure from a lot of different parties—GUN, the President, his colleagues aboard the ARK, Black Doom, even his own family—and boy did it get to him. The known incidents aboard the ARK mentioned in previous games are put together here to form a story where everything slowly spirals out of control as Gerald keeps compromising his morals to further his research, thinking he'll eventually find some way out of all this because he's a genius. I won't recap that whole story here (if you haven't already played the game and read the journal entries, I would highly recommend at least reading it on the Sonic wiki), but I'd like to highlight my favorite elements of the story, as Ian tells it here.

1) The Eclipse Cannon

Here's something that never quite made sense in Sonic Adventure 2: why does the ARK have a laser that can blow up the Earth built into it? It was supposed to be a peaceful research colony. Sure, Gerald went crazy and swore revenge on the Earth, but, like... when did he have an opportunity to go back up to the ARK and modify it? Did he have someone else do it? How? The ARK was raided by GUN and shut down! And then they arrested him, held him in prison for an unclear period of time, and executed him by firing squad when he was no longer useful! It doesn't add up. Shadow 'the Hedgehog '05 would give its own answer by introducing the Black Arms and saying that the Eclipse Cannon was always supposed to be a secret trump card against the Black Comet. But, like... we know that's kind of a bullshit answer, right? You don't need enough power to blow up a whole planet just to destroy a comet.

Well, the new journal retains what we already knew, but it paints a much more complete picture.

See, long before Gerald ever made a Faustian bargain with Black Doom, he had already made one with an even greater evil: the military. GUN gave Gerald much of the funding for the ARK, Gerald's personal utopian research station in space, but it didn't take long for GUN to start pressuring him to design them weapons. Gerald tried to get GUN off his back by personally contacting the President of the United Federation, and the President gave him an alternative: how about, instead, you just use your genius brain to figure out the secret to immortality for us, so our soldiers can be immortal? Gerald was initially sickened by the notion and found it completely absurd, like chasing a shadow... but given no other option, the sarcastically named Project Shadow soon began in earnest. (Maria would later put a more positive spin on the name after Shadow's awakening, pointing out that a Shadow can show us the direction of the light, like she says in the game itself.)

Of course, this search for the ultimate life form didn't go very well, and without any results on that front GUN kept hounding him for weapons. Gerald would throw them a bone here and there to get them off his back. His research on Chaos resulted in the Artifical Chaos prototypes, which he worried would be used for warfare but could at least theoretically be used for search and rescue missions in floods, in his mind. But that wasn't enough. So he gave them Chaos Drives to power their mechs. And that still wasn't enough. He's got Emerl. He'll give them Emerl. They're not impressed by Emerl. They'll shut the whole ARK down if Gerald doesn't give them something big.

Fine! GUN wants something big? Gerald builds a huge fucking laser cannon into the ARK. However, as a middle finger to GUN, Gerald makes it so powerful that it would destroy the Earth if it was ever fired at any target on its surface. In other words, GUN now has their ultimate weapon of mass destruction, fulfilling his contract, but they can never actually use it. Oh, the delicious irony. (And also Shadow will blow up the Black Comet with it in 50 years yada yada yada.) Is this perhaps extremely shortsighted and naive of Gerald, to believe that such a weapon would never actually be used just because of the risk? Of course. But hey, that's Gerald for you. And I love this as an answer.

(Also, this, uh, kinda echoes something from real life! Remember the bit in Oppenheimer where he says all nuclear war will become unthinkable, and Edward Teller responds "until somebody builds a bigger bomb"? Yeah, Teller went on to conceptualize a superweapon codenamed Project Sundial that would have been able to kill all life on the planet, as the ultimate deterrent for war. This was never made for obvious reasons, but hey, there's a basis for this sort of thinking outside of heightened sci-fi! There's a whole Kurzgesagt video about this if you're interested.)

2) The Biolizard

The Biolizard is, of course, brought up as the initial failed prototype of the ultimate life form, from before Gerald met Black Doom. We don't really learn all that much about it that we didn't already know, but I just love the way it's framed in the story.

As you can see above, we actually get to see a picture of Maria holding up the cute little salamander that would end up mutating into the Biolizard through Gerald's experiments. (Researchers want to figure out how to replicate salamanders' regenerative abilities for humans in real life, too, so this was a natural starting point for the project.) And then, after it grows to a monstrous size and goes out of control, Gerald has to lock it away in an unused sector of the ARK. He needs to keep the poor thing alive for his research into harnessing Chaos Energy, building life support systems directly into it, but he doesn't have the heart to tell Maria what happened. So it just becomes this first dark secret weighing on his conscience. The Biolizard becomes Gerald's Tell-Tale Heart beating beneath the floorboards of the ARK. I love that.

3) Lost Impact was the breaking point for the ARK

Remember the level Lost Impact in Shadow '05? The flashback level on the hero path where Shadow is running around fighting Artificial Chaos enemies on the ARK 50 years ago? Yeah, that wasn't just a random incident. That was important, as we now know due to its placement on the timeline.

See, Emerl's rampage aboard the ARK that was chronicled in Sonic Battle and Dark Beginnings set off a domino effect. Emerl riled up the Artificial Chaos, causing Gerald to lose control of them. They became violent, and so Shadow had to stop them, as depicted in Lost Impact. The thing is, that incident sent an SOS signal to GUN telling them that shit was going down on the ARK. Gerald didsn't fully understand the trouble he was in and assumed that he'd simply be reprimanded by the higher ups, or maybe face legal action. But, well... the next time he heard from GUN, armed troopers were raiding the ARK.

So Lost Impact was the straw that broke the camel's back. I just really like that detail.

4) Maria

And, of course, there's Maria herself. Maria has often been more of a symbol than a character, this perfect embodiment of everything that's good and pure in this world who gets killed to motivate Shadow and Gerald's revenge plots. But I really like the wrinkles this journal adds to her and Gerald's story, and their relationship. This is the most fleshed out they've ever felt.

For one, the journal leans into the idea of Maria's intellectual potential. The rest of the Robotnik family is all geniuses, after all, and she was proving to be a really bright kid. She excelled in her studies on the ARK, and she even helped design Shadow's jet skates and inhibitor rings. When Maria died, the world didn't just lose a symbolic personification of purity. She genuinely could have been a hugely influential scientist who did so much good for the world. That's what Gerald wanted for her. But we'll never know, because GUN killed her.

Speaking of her family, their presence isn't just mentioned for the sake of fleshing out the Robotnik family tree. It's mentioned that as Gerald struggled to find a cure for Maria's illness through his genetic research, he faced mounting pressure from his family. They didn't want Maria to be up on the ARK forever. They wanted Gerald to hurry up and find a damn cure, or otherwise just send her back home to Earth so she could be with her family again. She'd been up on the ARK for so long that Gerald's coworkers started thinking that she had been born up there. Eventually she gains a baby sister on Earth who she's never met. A rift forms between Gerald's two sons, and he's unable to really deal with it because he's so consumed by his work. There's this sense that the family is falling apart, and that everyone is dreading the possibility that Gerald will never find a cure and that Maria will just spend her final years up in space and die far away from her family, because Gerald just couldn't let go. If that happens, it'll break the whole family. But he can't stop now. So he just keeps working. Curing Maria is the only way to win his family back, in his eyes. It can't all be for nothing.

But my favorite detail regarding Maria is this one paragraph:

Maria is growing into a lovely young woman. It breaks my heart that someone as bright and energetic as her is diminished by disease. There are no visible effects, and I've caught my fellow researchers muttering to each other, doubting her illness. It is infuriating. I find all my reason and restraint vanishes when she's slighted.

This is SUCH a great addition to the story! It's always been true that Maria doesn't really seem all that ill, just looking at her in cutscenes. With this one little comment, Ian flips that issue on its head and turns it into a story about invisible disability. She doesn't act like she's in chronic pain, so she must not be, everyone thinks. And this really, really gets to Gerald, as does the pressure from his family. He's dedicating his whole LIFE to saving her, and they think she's faking it?! It's such a small addition, never referenced elsewhere in the journal, but it adds so much flavor to the story, as does the implied family drama. It grounds Gerald and Maria and makes them feel more like real human beings, rather than being pure archetypes. It's just enough info to let my imagination run wild filling in the blanks.

You also get the feeling that Maria being such a walking ray of sunshine was the only real source of joy Gerald had left in his life before Shadow was awakened, and the only thing keeping him from snapping under pressure sooner. All this stuff just keeps piling on, everything's spiraling out of control, but at least Maria is keeping her chin up, right? It makes so much sense that losing her would make him go off the deep end when it's framed like this.

It's just... man, I never thought I'd care so much about Gerald and Maria. But that's the Ian Flynn touch. After years of less than stellar Sonic writing that seemed to be embarrassed of itself, I'm so happy to have new games coming out that fully embrace the history of the series like this, making its world feel so rich and real instead of just serving as an excuse for a string of platforming levels. I don't even like Shadow '05, but I'll be damned if Ian and the rest of Sonic Team didn't make something amazing by "yes, and"-ing Shadow's cringe past here. Sonic has truly reached levels of "we're so back" never thought possible.

[uyuforu]

❀。 • *₊°。 ❀° 。 • *₊°。 ❀°。 ༻ Astro Observations XI ༺ ❀。 • *₊°。 ❀° 。 • *₊°。 ❀°。

All pictures were found on Pinterest

Other posts you could like:

જ⁀➴ Union Asteroid in Natal Chart

જ⁀➴ Groom/ Briede/ Juno Aspects in Natal Chart

જ⁀➴ Astro Observations X

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⊱ ۫ ׅ ✧ Natal Chart

❀ I read somewhere that Aries Rising often ignore people, even the closest people. My sister does that often, and she is also Aries Rising. ❀

❀ Also, the Rising sign and degree can say often how you look, your appearance but don't forget planets and other placements in your 1H! ❀

❀ Moreover, the Ruler of your Rising can also tell a lot about your appearance, meaning the sign and house placements of your Ruler. ❀

❀ I also noticed that whenever the Sun or Venus was transiting my 1H I was changing something on my appearance. It can also just be me adopting a new way to do my hair or my make up, etc. ❀

❀ Having Aries Descendant is a sign you'll have a spouse who will make you realize you are too nice, you are too generous with others, and they will teach you it's okay to tell people to go f*ck themselves. ❀

❀ Men who have Virgo Rising are the finest in my opinion, perhaps because I'm Virgo Venus but girl they are just so neat and take care of themselves so much, it's so refreshing. ❀

❀ Moreover, Virgo Rising men often age like fine wine. Their hot era is never ending. Just take Benjamin Bratt as an example. ❀

❀ If Pluto transiting your Natal Chart will give you clarity over which house it transits, and it will also be a huge transformation in it. I have it in my 4H, and I can tell you I see my family differently and learn a lot of hidden things. It hits like a b*tch. ❀

❀ Can we stop generalizing MC signs ? Cancer MC doesn't mean necessarily the person will do a job related to taking care of others. The sign over your MC is often a way to describe your needs in a career, but the planets in the 10h and the sign it is in matters, AND the ruler of the 10H as well. ❀

❀ Saturn conjunct Juno often means you'll marry your destined person later in life, and you could also meet later in life as well. ❀

❀ Juno conjunct Chiron is a sign your FS is wounded, in depression, or that they will need to heal to be with you. Being with your Future Spouse could also require a lot of sacrifices. ❀

❀ 4H Ruler in 7H people could often depend on their partner emotionally. They can also be the kind of person to want to only settle down with a partner. ❀

❀ Saturn 7H can have the same effect as Venus conjunct Saturn , you could have a delay in your love life, or find yourself having many lessons about it. You could have to live some failed relationships or romantic interactions in your early life, yet perhaps around your Saturn Return, you could have a better and long lasting love life. ❀

❀ Jupiter conjunct Saturn 7H could mean a delay in your marriage, perhaps marrying close to your 30's, but it could also mean after being married, your life will be very good, and you'll gain a lot because of marriage, and perhaps a lot of knowledge and wisdom as well. ❀

❀ I feel like even if you try hard, you'll never really know someone with Sun 8H/12H. They are quite good at showing exactly what they want you to see. ❀

⊱ ۫ ׅ ✧ Synastry

❀ Rising conjunct Venus often means Venus person will think Rising person is their ideal type. ❀

❀ I often found that when it's not a romantic connection, Sun in 7H Synastry is not a good relationship, yet often a toxic one. Sun person can tend to hate 7H person. ❀

❀ I feel like 2H, 6H & 10H are really underrated houses in Synastry. I think it's really good to have those houses, mostly if big 3 are there. ❀

❀ Sun conjunct Venus often makes the Sun person think Venus person is very attractive. They could also find Venus very charming and their type. ❀

❀ I often saw Juno 1H Synastry when there was love at first sight between two people. Often Juno person having love at first sight for 1H person. ❀

❀ Venus/ Juno/ Jupiter is very beneficial for "finding the house person good looking", and often if you have those planets in someone's 1H or conjunct their Rising, they will be your type. ❀

❀ Every time I had a friend who wanted to befriend me and who was also someone I got along with so much, they have a Stellium in my 11H. ❀

❀ Sun 12H Synastry can possibly make the 12H person forget about you often. ❀

❀ In some relationships, Venus in the 12H can say that 12H person doesn't feel the love Venus person try to give them, and could also feel unloved. ❀

❀ Moon conjunct Saturn can also be that Moon person feel totally misunderstood by Saturn person, or they could feel judged often by Saturn person. ❀

❀ Mars 3H can mean Mars person can often know the right words to hurt 3H person, they can speak to them in a harsh way as well. ❀

❀ Sometimes 12H placements aren't that bad, so take it with a grain of salt. For example, my mother has a Stellium in my 12H, and we are very connected. ❀

❀ Sun conjunct Jupiter often makes the two natives adore each other, they often get along very well, laugh together but also they often share the same opinion. Jupiter person often teach a lot of valuable lessons to Sun person. ❀

❀ Chiron conjunct Moon often means Chiron person will hurt Moon's feelings. I have this aspect with my uncle, he often is harsh with his words. I was scared of him when I was little. ❀

❀ Sun 8H can mean 8H person can feel like Sun person doesn't like them. ❀

❀ Moon 12H in Synastry can often tell us that Moon person will struggle to say to 12H person how they feel, or often share personal things about them. Though, it can also be a sign of deep spiritual connection. ❀

Thank you for reading!

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[wellofdean]

got these tags today from prev: #i think it's beautiful bc it didn't set out to be queer#life uh finds a way#it's not the best television ever#like not legit among the greats#but it had some incredible moments

And like... I have made a LOT of posts, at great length saying why I think Dean was always imagined as a queer character, and where the queerness was baked into the DNA of the show from episode one, and which I will not reprise here, but as much as I disagree that the queer glory of Supernatural is something it tripped and fell into by accident somehow, and without everyone involved knowing that queerness was part of what they were making, I do agree with something here: it's beautiful because it was a fucking journey.

Supernatural was not like today's prestige television with a tight 8-10 episodes and a fully planned narrative from day one, it was old-timey TV that arose out of things like Twin Peaks and The X-Files, falling somewhere between a weekly procedural and a serial. It had broad plot arcs sketched out, but the day-to-day grind of writing and making it was driven by characters that took on depth and meaning as it went along; network television long seasons with lots of filler that did nothing to further the serial plot, but let us get to know the characters, who became more and more lovable and real the more time we spent with them, in an organic way.

Maybe my Gen-X is showing here, but there's something beautiful about something that feels open-ended, isn't there? I mean, Supernatural STILL feels open-ended. Like, any moment now patient zero Jensen is going to suit up and tell us more of Dean's story, and we won't know where it's going and it will be fucking GREAT just to spend any time whatsoever with Dean? Television nowadays feels so PLANNED and yeah, there's some great stuff out there, but Supernatural had something special and fucking great that doesn't really exist anymore.

Like, what does it mean "one of the best" or "legit among the greats"? Supernatural was 15 years of storytelling, and for all the fucking kvetching on this, the Supernatural website, about its vagaries, it was pretty consistently well written. Jensen Ackles is a legit great actor who is seriously underrated for his sheer fucking craft, and as much as it is undeniable that Supernatural has some genuinely silly episodes, taken as a whole, when all of it is in your mind, the themes and threads in it are unironically epic in scope, and it has legitimately interesting things to say about those themes. AND it has incredible moments. AND the most devastaingly romantic love story I can think of.

Like, fellas, it's one of the best TO ME. It's legit among MY greats, and I would argue it deserves a place up there.

I got this one hobby horse, and god knows I'm gonna saddle up and ride it: Supernatural was a legitimately good show and it was queer as hell in its very bones.

[electricwhims]

Infant Resize Preset

Are you sick of using demon toddlers? Do you want newborns that actually LOOK like newborns? Well you came to the right place cause one night I had a midnight thought that I turned into a reality and it was to make those toddler resize presets but for INFANTS!

The proportions look so much more newborn-like, eh? I tried my best to use real newborn references for an accurate scale!

DISCLAIMER: THIS PRESET IS FOR POSE USE ONLY. It kind of works with gameplay, but it doesn't give you any new gameplay features for newborns. They will act like infants

HOW TO USE?

STEP 1: Equip preset in CAS

The preview looks like this! And is located under body presets!

-Note that you CANNOT go back to a regular size infant without defaulting their genetic body type. So I recommend making a CAS backup just for the infant!

STEP 2: Get you some poses that work with this preset! (I have a launch day list at the bottom of this post!!)

-Resized toddler poses WILL NOT work with this preset.

-Regular sized Infant poses will work with the preset, but it may require T.O.O.L to fix the positioning.

STEP 3: Pose as normal!! If you're having trouble with positioning, see the known issues section of this post!

POSEMAKER'S GUIDE

To make poses using this preset, you must use the special rig provided in the download section of this post! It's exactly like posing with resized toddlers.

-You must NEVER use the reset rig button. That defaults the rig to regular infant size. To undo changes please use alt + R and alt + G

KNOWN ISSUES

Infants are notoriously glitchy and for some reason when they're small sized, they act just a little bit crazier.

I HIGHLY RECCOMEND YOU DOWNLOAD T.O.O.L TO HELP SOLVE THESE ISSUES.

-If your teleporter is throwing last exceptions, your small infants may become misaligned with their caregiver's. This is easily fixable with T.O.O.L.

-When posing on an incline, the infants WILL MOVE OUT OF PLACE. These kinds of misalignments can't be fixed with T.O.O.L. I recommend only posing on flat terrain.

-This is not an issue, but more of a suggestion. If you're posing with some kind of bed, these babes are tiny and hard to click on. I recommend downloading a camera mod such as this one to get down low under the beds.

If you have any other detrimental issues, please let me know! I'm happy to help troubleshoot! You can reach out on here, but I respond faster on my instagram!

Free poses you can use right now!!

Thank you SOOO much to my amazing friends @truecolorssims and @herecirmsims for making 100% free poses to release alongside this launch!! Ya'll are INCREDIBLE and I couldn't have done this without you!!!

Cold Welcome by Me -Birth poses with complications

Newborn Singles by Me

It's Your Dad by Me - NICU visit poses

Safe in My Arms by Me -Sim being handed a baby and cuddle sesh.

It's So Hard by Me - Sim crying by a crib and being handed a baby

Complete by Me - Polyamorous throuple with baby

Isn't Mommy Awesome? By Me - Breastfeeding/Bottlefeeding with toddler and both parents.

Hold This by @herecirmsims - Couple and trio poses handing off a baby!!

Emotions With A Newborn by @herecirmsims - like the title suggests!!

Teeny Tiny by @truecolorssims - Family portrait poses with newborn!!

There was also supposed to be a preemie size variant of this preset but for some reason I couldn't get it to work!! Maybe one day when I have more time to troubleshoot I can release that, but for now, I didn't want to put this off any longer!

TERMS OF USE:

I put a LOT of hours into this preset and all the poses to go along with it and I'm releasing them COMPLETELY FREE So I feel a slightly stricter TOS is warranted.

-Do not reupload

-No poses made with this preset are allowed to be perma paywalled PERIOD. Early access is allowed if it is released for free in a timely manner (2-3 weeks)

-Do not include the preset in your post. Please link back to this post!

IF THESE TOUs ARE VIOLATED I WILL BLOCK YOU ON ALL PLATFORMS

If you use it, please tag me on here or on Instagram @electric.whims Not a requirement, but I do want to see!

@ts4-poses @alwaysfreecc

DOWNLOAD: SIMFILESHARE| PATREON

[saetiate]

cora! this event is such a cute idea :’) humbly requesting temperance with rin itoshi please. gn reader is fine!

itoshi rin x reader (gender neutral), wound-tending, fluff wc: 0.5k ❥ valentines event (requests still open!), co-written with @venustrvck a/n: AAAH i feel so nervous u r the first req i'm posting :')) THANK YOU SM for participating friend !!!

There's blood. More blood than he thought, down his face, down the sink. It trickles down the curve of white porcelain and coalesces at the bottom; rivers of blood conjoining into a lake.

There's a knock at the door. "Rin."

He ignores it. Who would want their partner to see them like this? Bleeding out his nose and his cheek. Weak, Sae would say. Lukewarm.

"If you don't open this door," the white lacquered wood separates you, a barrier he's put up on purpose, muffling your voice. "I'm going to break the door down."

Rin snorts. Like that's about to happen. He draws a stinging line down his cheek as he slides an alcohol-soaked cotton across the cut.

"You think I can't do it? Haven't you seen those videos where babies get stuck under cars and the mothers lift the car?"

The door swings open, his long arm catching it at the edge. Rin's hair is in his face, bangs clinging to his forehead with sweat. He's giving you the worst side-eye, bright blue shining in slits from behind his strands under the unforgiving bathroom light. "I'm not your baby."

You step into his space, too close for his comfort, not close enough for his needs. Let yourself into this part of him that he's been trying to hide from you. "You might as well be."

Rin busies himself with his reflection, making every attempt to ignore you, ignore the unfurling shame in his gut, despite your concerned face creeping through his side-view.

"How bad is it?"

Rin doesn't answer. You cup the uncut side of his face with one hand.

"I'm here for you. You can show me."

Warm hands enclose his own as you gingerly grasp the cotton pad; you take it away with gentle fingers. He doesn't turn. He doesn't look at you. Your voice turns into something gentle. "Let me do this for you."

He wants to hide. Wants to run away. That furrowed space between your brows is the last thing he wants to see. He can't do either of those things, so he closes his eyes.

And then all he knows is your warmth, your body pressed against his. There's the sound of shuffling, and a new, cool alcohol-dipped cotton ball is pressed to his cheek. He wants to hiss at the contact, but he bites the inside of his cheek instead. He's shown enough weakness to you today.

"It's okay, Rin." You say it almost knowingly, your hand moves to the back of his neck, bringing him down so you can better reach. "There's nothing wrong with letting someone else take care of you."

You think he mumbles your name.

"It's me, isn't it?" You're so close to him that your nose brushes against his. The cotton pad moves down over the abrasion on his jaw, clearing away the grime and leaving rough, red skin in its wake.

"It's just me, so you can show me if it hurts. No one else has to know."

It's like a cleansing of sorts, his body relaxing against the counter, leaning his face into your hands. A cleansing from the situation, from all the times he wasn't able to say what he needed. Don't you know that there are those who would take without remorse, what you give to him so freely?

This time, when you press against his wound, his hand tightens where it holds your waist.

[obscureother]

ok one of the two horsemen of the f/o-pocalypse.

What do your f/o's hugs feel like? tight toO TIGHT- but i love them. Very protective hugs. Theyre spooky ghost hugs -v- he doesnt want anyone else to have the hugs but him either. he is stingy for love.

What are your favorite dates to have with them? riding horsies through the forest :D or halloween dates!! i love those <33 keeps him from beheading people or getting too bothered by other demons who mock him sometimes.

What are their favorite dates to have with you? i think he also likes to just go wandering through the forest. he prefers the quiet time together. . doesnt necessarily have to be on horseback, he likes going for walks together on foot. he just prefers, wherever they go, for it to be nighttime, quiet, and no one around for some far ways away that he and his partner can be themselves.

Do you have any songs that remind you of them? Do they have any songs that make them think of you? well, the headless horseman song, obvi 👀 all the variants i have and hold for the headless horseman song are all for him. but outside of that. . Elvis "Pocketful of Rainbows" has a lore behind it for him. I would like to find more songs for him tho. . Bing crosby ones maybe, cos thats the guy who narrates the whole thing.

What's the height difference between you and your f/o? with or without the head? /j (sorry i like to goof on him too. dfsd0-)if he had his head tho, i would think he's right below 6-foot, so maybe 5'11" or so. That would make him 8 inches different. His stump is right above eye level for me and s/i 1.

On a 1-10 scale, with 1 being the least and 10 being the most, how much do they like PDA with you? Aethelwolf is very private about affection. . I would say like. . 4/10, cos he'll hold me or s/i 1 so others know not to come close but he won't really be very "affectionate" other than polite gestures like helping off the horse or opening doors before going in after us. Arm around my waist, standing close to me. . sometimes i can get him to hold hand, but ill save that for the later question.

What's your favorite feature about your f/o? i like his laauugghh <33 i set his laugh as my alarm, my ringtone, my notification sound, brr. . i love his laugh so much.

What do you think they smell like? forest -v- like pine trees. . and dust. and dead leaves that are wet. :)) probably horse sometimes.

What is your f/os biggest love languages? They don't have to be one of the "five", it can be anything specific they use to show you love. he is very quiet overall, but he can be very tender in how he holds you. him being gentle in any way is his love language, and giving little things like flowers in your hair or silent good hugs that you know are him trying to tell you "i love you" but he cant get the words out so he squeezes you instead. He also would trust you with his horse. . cos his horse is his beloved. Her name is Rose, she's very sweet <: somewhere in there, there is sort of. . knightly behavior. he will scoop you up and whisk you away into the forest of spooks to take care of you.

Do you guys sleep in the same bed? If so, what's it like sleeping with them? Aethelwolf doesn't sleep normally lol. He stands guard. Once in a while he will lay down and rest his exhausted ghost energy from riding horses. Where he used to slump by his horse, he now leans on the door frame of the room to keep me or s/i 1 safe, but he does come over to s/i 1 on the bed if she wants to cuddle with him or hold him for a while. he'll hold her until she falls asleep, and then goes back to his self-made "post."

What's your favorite headcanon about your f/o? that he carves pumpkins for himself or leaves them for the one he loves or cares about. -v- he's really good at them. he can either slap something together scary, or he'll make very intricate carvings that are like freaking sculptures man. . its so cool. that and he also has a secretly very nice singing voice. . one you could, say, compare to old crooners. . but he doesnt use it hardly ever other than with s/i 1 or through very blue moon occasional humming to them. ok one more- his cape acts as expression for him. it will perk up, deflate, stiffen, etc. . ghost magic lol.

What is the dynamic that you and your f/o have? he's sort of. . guardian ghoul to me or s/i 1. quiet, stoic, spurned protector. . and then there is baby. s/i 1 who just thinks he is so cool and spooky and goofy, and the only one he lets tease about his headlessness /sometimes/ because she will kiss his stump. he's the "very temperamental" who gets the "soft cuddlebug" s/o to keep him from blowing his top.

What does your f/o do for you when you're having a rough day? he's very quiet comfort. . he helps un-stimulate, if you will, lol. He'll take me outside to sit under one of the trees and hold me while i empty thoughts or go deeper into them, fiddle with sticks on the ground, sometimes he hums to me. . sometimes he'll get rose to come over to pet her or love on her, brush her mane, things like that. Rose would be the greatest emotional support horse tho.

Do you like to hold hands? If so, what's that like? ah, this. . ok. so, Aethelwolf expresses physically because that is kind of the only way he can. He cannot give kisses or nuzzle into you, so he does hold around your body. Holding hands, tho, is a little. . soft for him. He doesnt mind it, but he's a little awkward to. He gets used to it over time with only s/i 1 or me, but for a very long time and even then, he is not used to having his hand. . held. its been forever since anyone held his hand even when he was alive. Sometimes he fumbles of which way to hold, but once its settled, then so is he. You can feel his nervousness in his grip, but he can be gentle and usually is. Unless he gets mad, then you can feel it getting too tight. . but he doesnt mean to. He gets very soothed if you run your fingers over his knuckles, it kind of. . slows him down before he can get aggravated at whatever is over there.

Do they like to give you little kisses? If so, where is their favorite place to kiss? (Face, hands, etc) He would give kisses if he could sometimes, i think. What he does instead is make a little. . muppet mouth with his hand, and he'll hold it up to touch on face, my hand, or on occasion to lips. . If he "kisses" hand, he is more vulnerable to holding hands then even tho he is kind of bashful about it. He was very awkward the first time he did this as he felt rather silly. . but because s/i 1 got what he was trying to do and ended up "kissing" him back, he kept going with it. should s/i 1 have not done that, he would have never done it again and probably been embarrassed about it for the rest of his undeath hsbjksf-

Vice versa, do YOU like to give them little kisses? If so, where is YOUR favorite place to give them? i love to give him kisses on his stump, but you gotta be gentle on him there cos its very sensitive. he got his head blown off by a canonball after all. but he loves the stump kisses, they make him soft and mushy -v- I also like giving kisses to his hand, especially if he does the muppet kisses. They make him flustered sometimes when i do it first to him even tho he's used to it a little bit now. i also give him lots of chest and shoulder kisses, sort of like how one would the front of or side of the face if he had one. i do give him kisses when he has a pumpkin head. i kiss him everywhere on the pumpkin head. he gets a little exasperated by it, but in a good way even tho sometimes it knocks it off his shoulders then he has to pick it back up again. 💜

What's your favorite silly leisure activity to do with your f/o? i also like to carve pumpkins with him or we eat candy :0 i can poke the little ones down his throat. its odd, but we make it work. i also like building little twig forts with him outside :0 he gets me outside the most i think tho. . or we collect leaves and show them to each other, or things like that. fall is our time bro. .

What is your favorite compliment that your f/o gives you? What is your favorite nickname that they for you, if they have one? he does get very fixated on. . faces, and things like hair. part of it is his own longing for a head yes, but he focuses on them in general. he's oddly very sweet about it when he talks about things, caressing very tender and just. . very lovely. he's not one for words, but they somehow come to him when he is being entranced by one's features. i like the little German pet names he calls me, those are cute. . something different from what i normally hear, and he calls me them more often than Conrad does even though Conrad tends to be the "more German-sounding" of the two in his outbursts. He calls me things like "my fox" or "my vixen," though in German. He does this more often towards s/i 1 personally tho.

What's your favorite compliment to give THEM? What is your favorite nickname to call them? i like to call him pumpkin uvu he gets soft about it, sometimes even a little embarrassed, but he doesnt mind it. given i cannot focus on his face like he does me, i usually talk about how good he is with his sword or his horsey, tho sometimes. . i do mention his very black, very fitting outfit. . on occasion. . uvu

I want everyone to have the chance to ramble about their romantic f/os, so I'm gonna make a reblog game where yall can answer the plethora of questions I'm gonna toss down. Any of the questions you want to answer, as little or as much as you'd like!! I'll read them all. PR.O.SHIP DNI!!! AT ALL! GET OUT-

SO!! SELFSHIPPERS! RIDDLE ME THIS:

What do your f/o's hugs feel like?

What are your favorite dates to have with them?

What are their favorite dates to have with you?

Do you have any songs that remind you of them? Do they have any songs that make them think of you?

What's the height difference between you and your f/o?

On a 1-10 scale, with 1 being the least and 10 being the most, how much do they like PDA with you?

What's your favorite feature about your f/o?

What do you think they smell like?

What is your f/os biggest love languages? They don't have to be one of the "five", it can be anything specific they use to show you love.

Do you guys sleep in the same bed? If so, what's it like sleeping with them?

What's your favorite headcanon about your f/o?

What is the dynamic that you and your f/o have?

What does your f/o do for you when you're having a rough day?

Do you like to hold hands? If so, what's that like?

Do they like to give you little kisses? If so, where is their favorite place to kiss? (Face, hands, etc)

Vice versa, do YOU like to give them little kisses? If so, where is YOUR favorite place to give them?

What's your favorite silly leisure activity to do with your f/o?

What is your favorite compliment that your f/o gives you? What is your favorite nickname that they for you, if they have one?

What's your favorite compliment to give THEM? What is your favorite nickname to call them?

Okay I can't wait to see some answers!! Feel free to reblog as many times with as many f/os as you want. ANYONE CAN PARTICIPATE! SEEING THIS POST IS AN INVITATION FOR YOU!!

People I'd like to see answer this off the top of my head (but don't have to!!): @moxanji-real @one-winged-dreams @lovesickvalentines @graveluvr @clawingatmy-enclosure @starshakez @jpeg-indulgence @everynya @tropgothships @selfshipping-tboy @amelielovesamaris @pixel-comfort @fl0ralsxgar

[ramazottin]

I ❤️ FORSAKEN SO HERE'S ALL THE LORE I COULD FIND

(From the wiki, ingame descriptions/dialouge and the discord.)

••••••••KILLERS••••••••

COOLKID

His wiki description: An adopted son from a single father with childlike curiosity, but with the strength of a monster. He appears as a red, flesh-like humanoid that can kill fast and traverse fast. He is known for his association with a vandalization group called "team c00lkidd".

C00lkidd is scared of John Doe. [007n7 (c00lkidd's father) told him stories about John Doe.]

The sword coolkid uses is the firebrand from SFOTH

In Forsaken's lore, c00lkidd is only 10 years old.

c00lkidd is not fully aware of what he's doing, as he believes he's just roughhousing and thinks everyone he kills is just tired out and taking a nap.

c00lkidd likes dirt cake, which is made with crushed up cookies (preferably in a dark color), pudding, and gummy worms. The cookies represents dirt and the gummy worms resemble live earthworms.

c00lkidd loved reindeers, being mentioned when you buy the Reindeer skin of 007n7.

I TRIED MY BEST TO FIT ALL THE PICTURES ON A SINGLE PAGE(since tumblr only allows 10 pictures per post)

1X1X1X1

1x4's wiki description: The physical manifestation of pure malice, hatred, and negativity himself; the one who despises no one else more than the former admin, Shedletsky. With the daemonshank in his hands, he can summon beings of rot from the deceased, as well as target survivors from afar, poisoning them in the process.

1x1x1x1 is genderfluid.

When he kills you, 1x4 fills your head with poison then crushes it.

JOHN DOE

His wiki description: The defunct code of the early days of Roblox courses through their body, consuming his mind as he now only focuses on one thing: to kill everyone in his path. An unstoppable force entering the round with a strategical mindset, he's able to set traps, summon walls to back survivors into a corner, and leave behind a faint trail that damages those who step on it.

He prefers either super basic foods or fancy dishes.

John Doe doesn't use his right arm (the heavily corrupted one) to attack, since it's really heavy and inconvenient.

John and Jane doe are canonically a married couple. After John got corrupted, he no longer remembers her.

JASON

Jason's wiki description: A man who's identity is covered by a crude hockey mask. Wielding several tools at his disposal, along with his thirst for the cat-and-mouse chase, his hands and/or tools are always seen bloody. He enters his damnation wielding his infamous machete & a chainsaw he found in a cabin.

•••••••SURVIVORS•••••••

007n7

007n7 uses a lesser version of the c00lgui because it is all he had access to at the time.

007n7 is canonically retired from hacking.

007n7 wears his shirt because c00lkidd likes it.

007n7 is C00lkidd's adoptive father.

C00lkidd showed up on his doorstep as a pill baby.

007n7 feels a pang of familiarity whenever he sees C00lkidd in the rounds.

007n7 has a special death animation if killed by c00lkidd, where c00lkidd gently lays him down on the ground. He also does not resist in the death animation.

007n7 is a good dad.

SHEDLETSKY

Shedletsky is seemingly the leader of the survivor group, with his Co-Leader Builderman. Shedletsky has made a vow with Builderman to attempt to keep everyone safe, no matter what.

If 1x1x1x1 and Shedletsky are the only ones left, a different last man standing song will play, which is called “Meet your Maker”, and the timer will have an extra 20-30 seconds (one of the devs said it was to let the whole song play LMAO). This is due to Shedletsky being the one to actually create 1x1x1x1, by making a test account on Roblox and naming it respectively. He then rumored about 1x1x1x1 being a hacker and he not having the account, (which he obviously did). The quote “Blame John” comes from that.

TWO TIME

Their wiki description: A fragile cultist holding a horrible secret. When mortally wounded, they resurrect themselves with wings and tails, and recover as if nothing had happened. They are a self-described Shadow with an unstable mind and guilt-stricken after the betrayal against their own partner. They still carry on, after all, shadows die twice.

Two Time is said to be "messed up in the membrane". This is also why they smile during rounds.

They believe in the concept of respawning and likely worships the spawn-point.

Two Time used to be in relationship with an upcoming killer, Azure.

It was said they stabbed Azure with a dagger which led to them becoming a killer.

The description of Undying Devotion is most likely Azure saying "what have you done..?" after being stabbed by Two Time.

It is possible that Two time sacrificed Azure to gain their second life.

Two time is nonbinary and uses they/them.

ELLIOT

He will do whatever he can to help his teammates and deliver his orders due to his sheer dedication for his job.

CHANCE

Their wiki descriprion: A wealthy limited trader and underground casino worker, Chance is one who is fascinated with gambling and will even gamble with his own life just because he's convinced he'll win. There is no route he won't go just to gamble some more, even in a life or death situation.

Chance owes Bluudud a domino, as said in one of the voicelines of Bluudud.

Chance is nonbinary and uses he/they.

BUILDERMAN

Builderman is canonically the boss at Roblox, and the main person who builds the site itself. When all goes wrong he has to be the one to go out and fix things, stopping the killers in their tracks.

As a promise with Shedletsky, he'll do all he can to help everyone.

GUEST 1337

Guest 1337 is the main character of the animated series The Last Guest by ObliviousHD, with his story in Forsaken taking place after the events of Part 1.

His wiki description: A hardened veteran with battle scars from wars long ago. He has a tendency to sacrifice himself in order to keep those around him safe.

Guest 1337 entered the world of Forsaken after blowing himself up in part 1 of The Last Guest.

Guest 1337 misses his family and thinks about them between rounds.

Guest 1337 has a wife (Daisy) and a daughter (Charlotte.)

One of Guest 1337's skins called "Matt" is another character from The Last Guest series. He is Guest 1337's best friend ever since they were kids and fought in the battlefield with Guest 1337 before getting shot. Matt survived getting shot and now wears a cast on his leg. (This is not related to Forsaken just so you know)

NOOB

Noob's wiki description: A big snack person at heart, Noob has a handful of food items at their disposal. Sneaking by with their ghostburger, moving faster with their cola, and tanking damage with their slateskin, they're scared, but still pushes on, wanting to find an escape.

Noob is Genderfluid

They are a big snack person. Bloxxy cola is their favorite as it is also guest 666's favorite. (Answer to the question "what's noob's favorite food/drink?" on discord.)

Noob and Guest666 will have a special chase theme in the future, just like shedletsky abd 1x1x1x1/007n7 and coolkid.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here's some other funny shit i could find lol:

[shithowdy]

Your tags on the 'hormones' post are illuminating! I can only imagine how hard it is to keep desperate, entitled people from hurting themselves when their need is so high for help but their finances (or reluctance to trust Big Medicine) relegate them to seeking that help from supplements. It's kind of how I feel about pet products: I was the lead on customer care for a Big Brand for like 4 years and I'm scarred for life. All that to say, your viewpoint on it is one I tend to look for when I see those essential oils/vitamin/fad supplements posts come around so thanks for sharing!

Yeah, even when they can be really self-righteous and weird about it, it's hard to not still think of people deep in the alternative medicine bog as victims. Despite largely being a monetary grift that at best does very little and at worst poisons you, miracle supplements are still an accessible grift to most people. In America particularly where healthcare is hidden behind not just financial but often also bureaucratic barriers, it's easy to lose faith in the system and turn to something that promises to fix what ails you and all you have to do is drive to the crunchy grocery store once a month and pay them $50.

Of course, the people refusing to regulate dietary supplements are the exact same ones refusing to do anything about the medical insurance industry, cashing out on both ends of the problem. It takes complete advantage of how many hurdles you have to go through by design, and that doesn't even touch on the shaky faith many minorities have in particular surrounding medicine for completely different systematic and legislative failures. Historic trauma (from James Sims' experiments, to Tuskegee, to Henrietta Lacks, and everything in between) combined with an enduring and overwhelming dismissal by doctors regarding symptoms has sown mistrust in pharmaceutical medicine among many black americans, leaving their communities particularly vulnerable to miracle cure grifts (irish sea moss is a big one right now). The proliferation of wellness MLMs among church congregations also helps to easily seed these beliefs in many minority communities, where community pressure is high and language/economic barriers make researching the claims a hurdle itself.

We often think of gaunt white women with birkenstocks and an ominous rictus as who mostly falls into the alternative wellness pit but that's honestly because they're usually the ones selling it on social media. Their audience, the ones who came to me showing me their tiktoks and asking if I sold this miracle pill, were largely minorities over 50 years old, usually women. The people who slip through the medical cracks the most.

And like... it's not going to change unless the process of getting proper healthcare stops being the arcane fucking ritual it's become, and education for doctors of all economic classes becomes more accessible. And unfortunately, as I post this on Jan 21 2025, I know it will only get worse before it gets better.

[kyber-shack]

I haven't seen GF in years but was abruptly reminded a while ago and found your blog and your Pinecest+Stancest posts while looking at the Pinecest tag so I gotta share this plot that's now trapped in my brain. If I got the details about canon wrong, blame the passage of time, not me lol.

Ok I'm sure I'm not the only one who came up with that but: Mutually Unrequited/Pining Stans that both never acted on their feelings and spent the entire separation depressed about it and blaming the way they were hiding their feelings partially for how things went down. Enter Pinecest, only just clocking that this is Not Normal Sibling Feelings.

Stan encourages it when he first realizes it because he never got to even try, but maybe Mabel and Dipper can be happy. So he bullies any boys Mabel brings home, shuts down Dipper's flirt attempts with Wendy & Pacifica - Dipper catches on to his feelings first and wants to prove to himself that he's NORMAL OKAY??? he is, in fact, super not normal, but he'll scream that he is at the top of his lungs - and then Ford returns.

Ford also immediately catches on to Dipper's crush. Because he gets Dipper, and of course, he'd love his twin. He can't see Mabel's feelings as easily because he's insta-transferencing her and Stanley and the idea of her liking Dipper back is unfathomable (read: heartbreaking) because then it means perhaps Stanley could've loved him too.

But he cares about Dipper, so Ford thinks the best he can do is maybe help cut off those feelings at the knees before there's no going back for him, at least Dipper might not totally lose Mabel the way he and Stan thought they had lost each other, might eventually lead a normal non-recluse full of regrets life unlike them. So Ford offers to let Dipper stay without letting on his real reason to do so, and Mabel FLIPS OUT.

The thoughts have been building in the back of her head for a while, and she's suddenly confronted with what she never thought possible. Losing Dipper. And it hurts so so much and then Weirdmageddon comes and things go completely off the rails and now she knows she loves him but he's her brother, the world is ending and maybe he doesn't actually like her at all.

It ends with Dipper admitting to Mabel why he was even contemplating separation and Ford is trying to stop him while Stan has been working for this for months, damnit, and Ford's attempts at shutting the confession down just kill him. Dipper says it anyway, and Mabel thinks she's dreaming, but yeah, dummy, I love you too. How could you even think otherwise?

And seeing their dramatic first kiss totally guts Ford. He's happy for them, clearly, but he wants this oh so much and he can't have it. Stanley is shocked at how much Ford's affected by this development and things just blow up from there, and before either of them know it they're kissing.

Meanwhile Mabel and Dipper finally remember where they are and who they're with and fuck this is going to be difficult to explain - wait wtf GRUNKLES WHAT ARE YOU DOING. Well nothing they weren't right before that.

The rest of summer is an insanely awkward transition period where both couples are trying to work out how to deal with this new dynamic and what it means for their lives, especially for when Dipper and Mabel go back home. But everyone is insanely happy and when Dipper and Mabel come back to GF it's together, to a married couple of Grunkles (in everything except the eyes of the law).

And perhaps someday a - but lbr it'll be two - Pinecest Baby crawls around the Mystery Shack to everyone's delight...

ANON YOU'RE SO CRACKED AAAAAAAAH

such a cute premise of them finding out about each other's budding relationships despite the warnings from Ford and adamant attitude from Stan. SO good. flavor.

also implying that ford and stan were like watching/listening from around the corner or something is peak. honestly? this ask means so much to me.

[princeelectra]

LOVE YOUUUUU!!! <3333

And this isn't a silly question at all!!! It's actually really interesting and important! Probably, other mutuals here have the same question-

It isn't for the production itself, but all the context before it and etc.

Well, you all know I'm an OLC Fictionkin. And that more and more, the productions became less accurate and looking like the original one - So I always felt like I loved and felt part of something I would never see, never feel, etc. And after the 2018's modifications on StEx, that sadness face grew on me, because... It's not my StEx, it doesn't look like it, it doesn't feel like it... But okay.

ALW already said that he wouldn't do anything about starlight express ever since, so my hopes were gone.

But then... He said he would do a tribute to THE ORIGINAL STARLIGHT EXPRESS that made 40 years last year... My heart accelerated on a level you can't imagine. Starlight express was alive again. In London. And if it was a tribute, it could be... It could be finally something recent with the essence and joy of the first! HOORAY!!!!

And months and months of waiting...

Until...

...Yeah, it was a non replica.

Meanwhile everyone was cheering, for me, it was a disaster. I had SO MUCH HOPE, so much... And they did exactly the opposite. Everything that still made me remember about StEx, they took it. They made it even MORE childish, less about the original themes, the costumes were "pretty" but NOTHING like StEx, they modernized it... Etc.

For me, it was in that moment I said: "my starlight express is dead."

It's not because it's dead... It's just... Because it reminds me of I'm in the past. I'm just a ghost of something that's old and doesn't exist anymore. Everyone is there for the modern, new, cooler stuff.

And... During that time of the release of Wembley production, the fandom was CHAOTIC. Everyone was fighting and arguing over dumb stuff, you couldn't find even one post that wasn't attacking or talking about other people's actions and opinions, and that was the same period of time that I had a project of a fandom production called StEx TFP (you can even find something about it in my older posts) that was my plan of doing something related to the OLC StEx and make me happy and feeling home...

And it was DESTRUCTED because of the fights within the fandom. People started to get their problems inside of my project and I had to permanently close it because people would just... Not work together in any way.

So Wembley reminds me about all those things: My sadness as a fictionkin, that period of time of fights and that disaster of a project. So... It became a trigger!

I hope that answers it! <3

[kcwriter-blog]

I finally started playing Baldur's Gate 3. I know I'm slow. Many people told me I wouldn't like it. The reasons why were varied - turn based combat, unvoiced protagonist, characters not as in depth as they are in Dragon Age. And I listened.

What changed? Frustration with Veilguard.

And I liked BG3. A lot. Enough to hyperfixate on it? No, but it is a game I want to play again. Something I don't want to do with Veilguard. I got the ending I wanted but it was kind of a slog to get there and I don't want to do it again.

Which brings me to why I created this post. BG3 reminds me of what I loved about the previous three DA games and what I found lacking in Veilguard. To start I will just say that Veilguard was not for me and that is fine. It works for others and I am happy for them.

BG3 has characters that feel like real people. They have likes and dislikes. They get along with other party members or they don't. They don't really like or trust your character at first. You have to get to know them but they also have to get to know and trust you. They don't always agree with you. They make their own decisions based on how you have helped change them. For example. I can tell Shadowheart what she should do about the Nightsong, but ultimately it is up to her. I can try to persuade her but its a pretty high check if she doesn't really like me.

You get to decide what kind of person your Tav/Durge is. And there are consequences for the kind of person you choose to be. The world reacts to your character and not always pleasantly. So I felt a sense of accomplishment when a character became friendly or made a choice based on what my character did.

DA games used to do that to one extent or another. Even in DAI some of your characters could leave you. Others just hated you. It was realistic.

The story was cohesive. It had themes and those themes were dealt with well.

I understand that DATV was a result of its development cycle and that we got a game at all, much less one that was polished and had a mostly satisfying ending is great so I'm not overly critical. It is what it is but it isn't for me.

So this Solavellan blog will be looking a little different going forward. There will be more posts about other games. I need to step away from DA for a bit.

I suspect it will still lean heavily toward Solas and Solavellan. That is my hyperfixation after all, but I want to post pictures of my other games and don't feel like creating another blog dedicated to those other games (yes, I'm lazy).

So everyone that follows me for Solavellan content be warned.

[vignirek]

Wukong + Macaque headcanons (part 2)

Wukong:

- Wukong's drawing style is akin to classic paintings, while Macaque's drawing style is anime + cartoony

- his body temperature permanently became warmer from the furnace and he became less susceptible to diseases bc the heat kills the bacteria before it can do anything + he has developed an immunity to most diseases due to his stacked levels of immortality (though maybe there's still a small percentage where he can get sick somehow)

- never saw the need to learn how to cook food bc fruits were available all the time (and he can also use his hair transformation + duplication powers whenever he wants, so he never lacks food)

- his clones are pretty much direct copies of him and function like a monkey hivemind in a sense

- whenever he feels really lonely, he rolls up a blanket and curls up next to it while he sleeps (and pretends it's Macaque bc in those moments he really misses him + they used to hug each other often in the past and he misses that as well)

- dancing was his and Macaque's mutual favorite activity (it's also the only thing he was able to do without stage fright getting in the way bc Macaque was there to keep him grounded); secretly he really wants to do it again but doesn't know how to approach Macaque with everything that happened

- Wukong is an extravert, while Macaque is more like an ambivert (basically an in-between or a combination of traits from both sides-)

- has kept Macaque's personal belongings from the past in very good condition to this day and still looks after them (in spite of how angry he is at Macaque, he can't even fathom the thought of throwing them away, so he just keeps them tucked away in safety instead)

- Wukong was pretty much Macaque's dance partner in the past very often, so consequently, Macaque frequently joined in to draw with him (and even posed for paintings on occasion)

- besides his standard outfit, he typically wears gender neutral clothes (and occasionally wears skirts) (monkeys have much less of a gender difference than humans so I doubt he'd care about which clothes he wears due to growing up with his monkeys)

- he and Macaque liked to give each other small gifts: Wukong would gift bird feathers and Macaque would gift flowers (Wukong preserved most of those flowers in tree resin, while Macaque made the feathers into necklaces or head accessories)

Macaque:

- knows how to play multiple musical instruments but his preferred picks are dizi (horizontally held flute) and erhu (two-stringed bowed instrument), though he hasn't gotten a chance to practice much in the present; he also sometimes practices his singing in private

(yes he typically gets headcanoned to have a love for theater- but I wanted to do something different bc technically Macaque never touches anything theater related ever again since "Shadowplay" in canon)

(also bc I like to imagine Macaque singing Alejandro Saab's covers of songs for silly purposes) (also i just like to think that he has a good sense of rhythm even without his ears)

- likes to watch anime in his free time (his artstyle is canonically anime-like so I think he'd like anime too- idk which series he'd like though)

- forced himself to learn how to prepare food during the years of not living on FFM (it's at least implied that post-resurrection he was absent from the mountain for some time and only came back there sometime before season 4); eventually picked up a more varied diet bc he couldn't afford to be picky and only eat fruits like he used to

- much more likely to get sick than Wukong due to him being more "mortal"

- his clones overall have distinct personalities to them, but Rumble and Savage gradually developed more than the rest and gained their own personalities and thoughts overtime (they just happen to look like shadow copies of Macaque) (though maybe they chose to shapeshift at some point and changed their own looks to suit their preferences)

- optional/limbo headcanon (a.k.a. one i like but not fully sure about): self-enforced (and a pretty bad) habit of covering/hiding injuries out of his need for independence (and possible trust issues)

- struggles with sleeping after all the things that happened since season 3 (and the events of S5 indirectly made his insomnia worse)

- optional/limbo headcanon 2: typically a confident person but his insecurities get to him during particularly bad days, he's often very quiet and prefers to hide under blankets during those times

- he usually goes through the day with his sensitive hearing just fine but can still get overstimulated in some cases

- would probably have a massive playlist of songs he likes if he knew how to use music apps

- usually prefers practical clothing, but he does like to wear accessories (scarves, bracelets, necklaces, etc.) - Wukong gifted Macaque a few paintings during the time they were still close and Macaque has kept them to this day (like Wukong, he can't convince himself to get rid of them because they're still precious to him, no matter how bad their current relationship is)

[naomi-nusrat-receipts]

🔺🔺🔺PSA 🔺🔺🔺

Nusrat Naomi / toorumlk / rnbseokjin / rnbafthours is a bully and a TERF

If you're going to be so blatantly nasty in public, then have a taste of that same energy.

I blocked this person on twitter previously because of an ao3 memo pad controversy where she made fun of another artist's merchandise and elicited a hate mob towards their small business. She only took the post down after pushback from her audience calling her out. She issued a long non-apology where she took no responsibility and doubled down that she had the right to make fun of and critique this artist.

I recently came across her on my tiktok FYP soliciting commissions and felt compelled to give unsuspecting folks the option to be well-informed before deciding to support this artist.

🔺Her TERF Friends

Nusrat proudly proclaims to be an LGBT ally since she was a literal child. She even had Transphobes DNI in her bio. So why is it that her best friends are self-proclaimed RadFem TERFS? Nusrat's best friends come up a lot in her online activity, they are: Ro and Isa.

Despite claiming to be liberals they use alt-right tactics to engage and make fun of LGBT users. Many of these attacks are unprompted and unsolicited, they spend their days looking for accounts to belittle. Nusrat never berates them and goes along with it. She likes their posts ridiculing people with pronouns in their bio, denying trans people are real on the basis of chromosomes, calling other women stupid for not thinking exactly as they do.

🔺Dramione Hate

Nusrat likes Romione and as a result uses most of her free time to make fun of Dramione shippers. She even goes as far as to wish them physical harm and death. Mind you, this is all over fictional characters!

Nusrat believes she's above it all when it comes to her rights to freedom of speech. Despite Nusrat hating when people repost her art, she feels entitled to make fun of Dramione fanart on her public account(art blurred for the artist's privacy).

Nusrat claims she gets a pass to say whatever she wants though. These fanworks and fanfic are popular, which means they don't have the same rights or feelings she has. When more Dramione fans pushed back against this she and her friends accuse them of being jealous, rape apologists, and nonces.

🔺16yo Drarry Fan Artist Incident

Nusrat doesn't hate just Dramione shippers, she hates Drarry shippers too! Imagine being a teenager drawing silly fanart of your favorite character but 3 RadFem adults roll up to belittle and call you r*tarded. Nusrat joins in on the fun with her best friends and entertains the idea of drawing pregnant Ron to get back at the Stupid Shippers.

Nusrat is a champion for women and hates people stereotyping them. That's why she likes Harry and Ginny. She admits herself they aren't a good fit, but Ginny can a provide a family for Harry. Reducing a female character down to a vehicle for a male character's happiness - because that's so much better.

🔺LGBT Allyship

She really dislikes it when you call her out on her hypocrisies. She can't be a TERF or a transphobe! She goes to ART SCHOOL and has TRANS FRIENDS! It's lichrally impossible you guys! She’s more upset about someone stating TERFs aren’t women than when her friends belittle and make fun of trans people.

Many people have pointed out to Nusrat that she can't claim to be an LGBT ally while befriending TERFS. She has since removed the "transphobes dni" from her bio and publiclly unfollowed those friends.

But that's all performative, she still interacts with them daily: publicly and in private accounts. They even swap their reading progress on goodreads!

It's one thing to have friends with different beliefs, it's an entirely different thing for you to laugh along with your friends when they're harassing people. By remaining silent and allowing her friends to continue as they are, she is complicit.

Am I calling for people to cancel her? Absolutely not.

TL;DR

Naomi Nusrat is a TERF. Nusrat exhibits a pattern of deceitful behavior that reveals she’s more willing to hide her TERF affiliations to the public in order to remain in LGBT spaces. She wants to have her cake and eat it too. She can continue having her beliefs, just as I believe people have the right to be informed before they decide to support her work.

[greenerteacups]

What did you think about Katara and Aang ending up together? Did you ship them or Zutara?

Also, if you watched The Legend of Korra, what did you think of that show’s treatment of Katara’s character?

My beloved friend in Christ, look me in the eye and tell me you don't know what I shipped when I watched that show. Look at me. You know. You know damn well.

AS FOR KATARA IN KORRA for me the key part of accepting her character shift in the second series is that she's supposed to be like 90. I don't know anybody who doesn't seriously chill out when they're 90. She's pretty much at the end of her life. Her husband's dead, her brother's dead, Toph fucked off to live in the swamp, Suki has been erased from the collective consciousness a la Spiderman, and ninety-something Zuko is off somewhere riding around the country on a DRAGON in full ceremonial garb, doing recon missions for the new avatar and hunting terrorists. (That last one is awesome, and I have no notes. That boy's doing what he's meant to. I still think they should kiss. But that's not a writing critique, that's just what my heart feels is true and good.)

More generally, the sequel series doesn't give us much of the passion or lovable high-handedness she had in the original, but she was also a teenager. I have to give the writing space to bend and stretch around a 70-year time jump, and that leeway includes the possibility that Katara majorly chills out once her home is no longer under imperial occupation and she's not regularly enlisted in armed combat to defend the fantasy Buddha. Or she just got it out of her system and tapped out around 30 to have kids and live luxuriously off whatever gratitude-annuities she gets from Every Nation In The World. I like to imagine she had some adventures in her 20's and 30's leading the reconstruction effort in the Earth Kingdom, made a reasonable contribution to the waterbending academies in Republic City, decided that she could leave the rest to Sokka and Toph, and went home to enjoy life at home in peacetime. It's not the most dramatic or glamorous life, but I never get the idea that Katara wants either of those things. I think girl did her part, got her happy ending, and decided to stay there. Frodo sailing West at the end of the book? Couldn't be her! The Shire was saved, but not for you? Nope! Not here! Not Katara! She can go back to the Shire, thank you very much! She freed her homeland from a century-long imperial occupation, and she's going to march her ass home and enjoy it, thank you! Fighting the Red Lotus? Leave a voicemail. She's out teaching all the girls in the village to throw ice spears the size of a pike. She will Catch You Guys Later.

I've heard complaints that it feels like Katara didn't have any role in the post-imperial reconstruction process, and while she maybe doesn't found an institution or get a formal position of power, I think the real complaint is that we don't know enough about her to say. All the other Gaang members have a Thing that sort of represents what their goals and values were after the end of the first series. Zuko was Fire Lord (and got a sickass fucking dragon), Toph started the Republic City police (admittedly unexpected Lawful Toph Moment), Sokka becomes a city councilor for R.C. and then Chief of the Southern Water Tribe, Aang refounds the Air Nomads and also is the Avatar for the next 70 years. Which are visible and lasting marks of impact that make it easy to imagine how the others spent their time. That doesn't mean Katara didn't spend her time doing worthwhile and productive things, but we don't see them. We do know that she got bloodbending outlawed in the United Republic, and she became a "master waterbender" who's called in to consult on Korra's development both in her capacity as a martial arts expert and in a broader strategic/political way as one of the premier living experts on what it takes to be the Avatar. We don't see her much, but we do get the idea that she has plenty of respect from the people who matter.

It makes me a little sad she's not included in some of the stories we hear about the postwar Gaang exploits, like Toph and Sokka's work in Republic City, or early clashes with the Red Lotus. She's the best waterbender in the world and you guys saved the world together as teenagers; it feels like she should've been riding shotgun on some of these missions. But I try to make peace with it on the grounds that if she's not out there hunting down terrorists, it's because she's tired, goddammit. She took down a dictatorship at 15. She's been ass-whooping fascists for longer than most characters in the show have been alive. Katara is too cool of a character for any lack of detail to make me think she wasn't doing stone cold shit well into her fifties.

[autumnwhistles]

Lyric Breakdown in my Last Life (mainly Martyn-centric) song, "Corners of the World"

'Abridged' version here, and longer analysis (ft. a lot of Martyn character analysis... and also the full lyrics I'm actually talking about) under the cut.

"I'll lie, double cross to best them all" is yet again a reference to a line from Martyn's Last Life teaser poem ("Surpass them all/Take friends for foes"), which was from the perspective of the Watchers (and was previously referenced by them in the first song, Middle of Nowhere). Martyn using this phrasing hints that the Watchers already hold some influence over him, hence the outline of the lyrics flashing purple in the video!

"Walls, corners, edges" is taken from Martyn's speech after Ren's beheading (as is the title of this song, for the same reason):

"You took me in when I was a lowly traveler, going across the land, searching the four corners of this world. I learned there was nothing in this world for me – nothing but walls, corners, edges. And you know what, you showed me life. As much as I’ve taken it from you, you gave it back to me in buckets’ fulls."

The point here is that, after the events of 3rd Life, Martyn's reverted back to that previous worldview. That life he was shown clearly meant something to him, but ultimately, its price was far too high. So now, he's deliberately separating himself from a mindset that would allow him to care too much about others and feel that same pain: the world is walls and edges; the people in it are figures to use for his own benefit, not to care about; the world does not hold those buckets' fulls of life. As we see with his reactions to the Southlands' fall, he doesn't really end up being successful in this (and it's a major topic of exploration throughout the musical) – but it doesn't mean he doesn't want or try to be.

Of course, the wordplay this verse ("You'll be cornered in the corners, and on edge in many more/And walls you'll build and walls you'll raise(/raze), and walls will fall in war") is to establish Martyn's strengths in that area. Getting the voice right is an important part of musical characterisation too!

"Keep it a void you're fighting for" is either dramatic irony or foreshadowing depending on how much you know of his lore. Martyn's only referring to not fighting for anyone else's sake here, but between the seasons the players do spend their time falling through the void (while unconscious) – regardless of whether they win or lose. By fighting to win, you are just fighting for that same void... which of course, Martyn doesn't know (because surely winning means something). If he knew nothing changes after you win, the incentive to win would be much weaker, and I'd argue we do see that in c!Martyn post-Limited Life. But despite his cynicism and distrust, he's still naïve to this particular cruelty of the world... :) i mean lore-wise if you win a fragment of your soul does get protected but 1) no bearing on last life and so on this musical whatsoever, and 2) how is c!martyn supposed to know that even after his win

"Careful with the name you pick/Don't want it to get flamed" is (as the editing hopefully makes clear) a pun – 'you don't want your name to be made fun of', and 'your tree fort is flammable'. This is again meant to establish Martyn's quick wit as well as progressing the song/storyline, and as well as showing us him messing with people, which he very much likes to do! (I am also aware Cleo was the one who informed Lizzie, but I had to streamline various things for the sake of the medium – this is both a Martyn character establishment song and an intro to the world and various figures in it, so it's easier if Martyn is the one who introduces that to those figures (and for us to get more information about Martyn based on how he interacts with them). And Lizzie's reaction to that information was something I wanted to keep in)

Of course Skizz and Etho were in the Red Army too, Martyn's just being cheeky/faking indignation here (if there'd been space, I'd have given Skizz a line of protest, but from a musical standpoint I preferred the instant transition into Scar's section). But guys.... BEST/Dogwarts parallels... guys.....

"(...)I'll lead, not play a pawn"/"(...)little pawn" (sung simultaneously, the first by Martyn and the second by the Watchers) is a callback to the first song, Middle of Nowhere, in which there's a section of randomised lives being given out. The first line there is "Four for the traitor, four for the pawn", and this confirms/establishes 'the pawn' as referring to Martyn (referencing what he's treated as by the Watchers). Note that here Martyn's desire 'to lead' refers to being in control of his actions and not deferring to anyone, not specifically to leading an alliance. Of course, Martyn's part is full of dramatic irony on his behalf :)

Those are the 'flashier' lines and word choices I especially wanted to highlight. Now, for the version with way more character analysis!

As mentioned, Corners of the World is Martyn's – our main character's – introductory song. Regardless of whether it counts as an 'I Want' song or not (it's a bit nebulous, because yes, he does express things he wants – to win, to be in contol of his own actions and not at others' whims. But for me, the more important part of the song is what he doesn't want to do, what things he's distancing himself from that he's presumably done before, and the questions and implications that arise from that. And the core of that is explored slightly later on), it's going to be our first impression of him as a character. The traits and worldview established here will be viewed as important, and will form the basis of his arc throughout the musical.

Because of that, the two verses focus on establishing that inital worldview (as well as establishing what he's aiming for):

MARTYN (Verse 1) Right, here I go again — new world, another start. New chance to see who’ll reach the end, and who will fall apart Well, won’t be me – this time I’ll be the very last to fall No care for cost, I’ll lie, double cross to best them all

So we know he wants to survive and win the game (especially after not doing so last time), we know he's willing to play dirty to achieve that and definitely should not be trusted. We know he's under no impression that this is anything other than a death game (or death match, to quote his Limited Life self) – he doesn't hide from the knowledge that people will fall apart, that only one person will be left standing. Importantly, this means he's playing the game exactly as intended, with no intentions of defying it or even deviating slightly* from what the first song has expressed to be the goal (to 'best'/'surpass' everyone else). Even as he expresses the wish to play for himself, he's already committed himself to following others' unseen rules.

Walls, corners, edges, I’ve been this way before. You’ll be cornered in the corners, and on edge in many more; And walls you’ll build and walls you’ll raise(/raze) and walls will fall in war, Kinship destroyed, so keep it a void you’re fighting for.

And here we get an exploration of Martyn's mindset in more detail. I've touched on this already, but a major point of exploration throughout the musical is Martyn's relashionship to emotional attachment – he's coming right off the bat of Ren's death in 3rd Life, which "broke" him and made him play more selfishly since (both statements taken from the LimLife lore stream), and he is someone who tends keep his distance and who'll prioritise himself over allies whenever things get dicey. But the "life" that closeness gave him back in 3rd Life was still clearly important to that version of him, and he does inadvertently (and unwillingly) start chasing that again this season – ending up growing close to the Southlanders (bar Grian) despite his efforts, enough to hallucinate them and be manipulated by the Voice's(/Watchers') false promise to bring them back to life if he follows its commads (in a moment where he expresses resistance to following its commands, and where the Voice is clearly distressing him). LL Episode 8 intro my beloved...

Still, that's to come. At the start of Last Life, he's firmly in a reactionary mindset to the events of 3rd Life, separating himself from that life and that version of him. 3rd Life was a failure on his part (in addition to the emotional damage, but he's trying to separate himself from that side of things and to focus purely on the win), and he's absolutely not wasting this new chance at victory.

So corner to corner, I’ll keep wandering on, Border to border, through woods, through caves, through spawn, Sure, laugh with some, don’t keep it glum, so long as lines are drawn Forego the rest, and don’t invest, just keep on wandering- WATCHERS Wandering, wandering MARTYN -on.

It's Watcher manipulation time, encouraging unhealthy mindsets that help them further their own aims! The more untied he is, the easier he'll be for them to play (less loyalties to others –> the more likely he is to rely on the Voice, and the less resistance there is to doing certain things that might involve those connections). Yes, emotional connections would mean more emotional pain (and so more negative emotions for them to feed on) in the future, but Martyn's very resistant to that idea right now, so it wouldn't do much to push it. They do encourage emotional connections later, though (heavily pushing him towards Ren for example, and note that that's only once it would mean Martyn betraying his own alliance (which would mean more emotional pain for someone, regardless of its impacts on Martyn himself. Or it would've been if that was revealed)).

There's another important part here, though. After all the 'allies won't help you' etc in the first two verses, I wanted to make clear that Martyn's not against being around people, far from it – he's almost constantly around people, just not generally around the same ones for an extended period of time – it's just the emotional investment he's trying to avoid. He is a very social player, he does enjoy joking and/or messing around with others and does it constantly, that's also an important aspect to him (he's a very "you talk a lot but never say anything" type of person**). So "sure, laugh with some, don't keep it glum" is a very important line!

LIZZIE Welcome, oh welcome to my tree fort, yet unnamed. MARTYN Be careful with that name you pick — don’t want it to get… flamed. LIZZIE …Ah. They won’t demean A fellow green? …Your lives? MARTYN That’s mine to know Is that a tower over there? See you, I’ve got to go!

And immediately, here's an example of Martyn actually messing with someone (as a new player, Lizzie is fun to tease)! His "don't want it to get flamed" triples as that, as a wordplay demonstration, and as another recognition that they are living in a world where people will inevitably turn on each other. If something's flammable, it will be burned.

Lizzie's characterisation here is meant to show her as someone who wants to do her best and is establishing herself, but is unsure/nervous about how the game will unfold due to having had no past experience (, the '...your lives?' comment is prompted by the momentary urge to want to know how close Martyn is to turning Red and potentially burning down her tree fort) There is the element of naïvité coming from not having lived through a previous series, too – not thinking about how badly having a flammable base may end, 'they won't demean a fellow green' again here, etc.

Because this verse is a dialogue, I focused a lot more on trying to keep the character's voices true to themselves as well. With Lizzie, the "Welcome, oh [welcome]" is moreso there to suit the 'fairy queen' persona she was going for, but the "tree fort... yet unnamed" would be something she'd say for humour's sake, in her particular style which I cannot for the life of me describe; her 'ah' would be quite deadpan in that way too (again, not sure which words to use to describe it). With Martyn we have the aforementioned wordplay, but also his method of slipping out of situations that go in directions he wants to avoid... which is to pretend to get distracted by something else, promptly change the subject to that thing, and run off (a clear example of this is in Wild Life when Scott is questioning him about his powers, and he conveniently gets 'distracted' by a zombified Skizz dying in the distance instead (~17:30 in his vid). Maybe not the smoothest of getaways... but a habit nonetheless).

TEAM BEST BEST will be the best, and we’ll show em what we got With our matching shields, and our towering snow fort MARTYN Hold on a sec, where’s your respect? BDUBS Respect? MARTYN Yeah, that’s my bit! Same shields? Snow? A world ago? With Ren and- fine, have it

Again, this verse is largely leaning into character voices and interactions. BEST do initally set out to be the heroes of the server (eg by recovering the enchanting table and returning it to the server), and do have some very loud/enthiusiastic figures within their ranks (Bdubs and Skizz), so the tone of their lyrics is meant to reflect this (though the instrumentation, which we'll talk about in a different post, does a lot of this work as well). Of course you also have Etho who's the complete opposite of course (and Tango somewhere in the middle), but it's the louder voices that are going to be heard in the interactions so it's their side of things I'm portraying. And, as mentioned before, we also have Martyn completely going into mock-offense mode.

SCAR/BEST/LIZZIE/MARTYN No matter if you're in your sixes or twos/Let's find some ore to- I'll sell you an offer you/-mine cannot refuse/It'll be the fairy fort! Crystals for fleeing,/I'm fine just to chat Crystals for flame,/Not falling for that! Survival's the ALL Name of the game!

Pretty self-explanatory here, with Martyn not buying into Scar's deals and other alliances going about their lives. BEST heading down to mine is set-up for the next song (aptly named "Down In The Mines"), in which Bdubs reveals he was cursed with the Boogeyman curse while down there, narrating his experiences in the form of a ghost story.

SCAR/BEST/LIZZIE/MARTYN Corner to corner, I'll just keep on wandering, wandering on/Yes, join the fairy fort, I'd love to have you here!/BEST will be the best, with our diamonds and our gold We can build a secret passageway so we'll always be near!/Put us to the test, and you'll see that we won't fold/A crystal or spell, oh, Joel, you'd help me sell?/Through woods, through caves- -But still for my sake I probably should find a team: it would do me some-/We'll aid each other when we need, together we will succeed, oh-/Put us to the test and you'll see that we'll do-/Goody! Magical Mountain we'll be! ALL (including Cleo, BigB and Joel, who are now onstage with their respective alliances) Good – It's this I've understood!*

Here we see the different players' attitudes to playing the game, and what they've "understood" about how to play it, as well as more alliances forming. Nothing much to say about Scar and Martyn here (aside from Martyn expressing the fact that he does want to be part of an alliance for numbers' sake, which we'll build more on in Song 4 (A(ha)lliances) when the Southlands are formed; and also continuing the thread that he sees others as figures he can use to benefit himself. Maybe there were things to say about Martyn here!), but a lot of Team BEST's part is foreshadowing ("put us to the text and you'll see that we won't fold"... they will fold. They will) in addition to contuining the 'server heroes' thread from earlier. Meanwhile, Lizzie's part continues to show her as a player who hasn't experienced the way the server devolves into bloodshed, still having a pretty idealistic view about the co-operation between herself, BigB and Cleo without thinking about the ways they'll inevitably have to turn on each other if they get later in the game.

The part about the tunnel connecting the Fairy Fort to Cleo and BigB's base is taken directly from the first session (originally proposed as an escape tunnel, in the same conversation that Cleo pointed out that the fort was flammable).

UPPER WATCHERS/LOWER WATCHERS Oh, wander, wander on/Wonder, wonder On/When they'll all start to turn tails Wonder, wonder/Wander, wander When trust will yield to betrayals/On

I've mentioned it before, but the Watchers feed on negative emotions, which is why they run the Life series. This is one of the few times we see emotions from them, as they're very excited to see what chaos and carnage this new game they've formed will bring (which I took care to portray in my voice)!

WATCHERS/MARTYN Till the rest are gone.../Right, here I go again – I'll fight with my axe drawn* Oh, wander, little pawn/But, unlike then... I'll lead, not play a pawn.

I've talked about this in the 'abridged' version, so I won't repeat that. The other thing here is the axe being an obligatory Dogwarts reference (or, more accurately, an obligatory rhyme (with 'pawn') which gave way to a Dogwarts reference I took).

[End]

(You can hear the instrumental continue for a while – ideally, Martyn would talk for a bit with Scott, Pearl and Jimmy, but though I can act through singing I can't act through speech and I'm not subjecting viewers to that xD)

If you've read this, thank you so much! You can definitely chart me going more and more unhinged as this progressed...

--

*eg by also wanting to find friendships, to be helpful while you can, etc, in addition to winning. There's no secondary aim there, aside from protecting himself from emotional harm.

**(to quote Martha from Doctor Who)

[royalpicaro]

So, to go off of the Fast Food AU, I got an idea from a comment by @livmightlive about a headcanon. What car does each Link drive and what state are they in? So, this is that post.

Photos included of each car.

|Time|

A Crisp 2014 Chevy Silverado 1500

Color: Blue Granite Metallic

- This truck is his baby

- It's been reliable for many years, and he's always fixed it himself.

- His knowledge of cars is standard Dad™ knowledge so he calls up Four when he doesn't know something

- He keeps it clean most of the time.

- He'll sometimes have trash in the passenger seat or on the floor of the passenger seat, but he'll grab it when he's getting out of the car to go into the store to throw in the outside trash cans.

- The bed of the truck has seen better days, but it's not in terrible shape.

- Some of the paint on the bed door is chipping off, but you can only see it if you get close enough.

- Loves taking it through the car wash

- He has those little dice that hang off of the rear view mirror.

- There's occasionally dirt caked on the bottom, but it doesn't stay there long

- The smell is nice because its from the Black Ice air freshener Malon buys and reminds Time to put in there.

- He likes it and has tried to buy other air fresheners but he likes the Black Ice one the best.

|Twilight|

A muddy 2019 Ram 1500

Color: White

- Loves this truck

- Jfc clean this poor thing(on the outside)

- The picture looks clean but in reality, the truck is muddy and it's because he always forgets to take it through the car wash or goddesses forbid he takes the hose to it.

- On the inside, it's a little dirty on the floorboards, but nothing too bad. A little shake should do them some good.

- He keeps it pretty free of trash because he likes to make sure it looks nice despite his baffling logic for the exterior.

- He definitely has a carabiner keychain that he clips to his pants everywhere he goes.

- It's no longer a thought, he just clicks that hoe on the second he takes them keys out.

- He's that shift lead that you can identify right as he comes through the door. *keychain clicking together* Bro has a precussion anthem each time he decides to move

- Carries gum with him wherever he goes.

- Perfers 5 gum but will get whatever he can grab

- Definitely sits in his trucks on his breaks

- He'd rather people not have feet on his dash

- Can parallel park as easily as a chicken can fly

- His car smells like a mix of mint and lawn clippings.

|Sky|

2019 Subaru Crosstrek

Color: Maroon Red

- This is the family car that he got as a hand me down

- It's reliable

- Sometimes, it makes a funny sound, but Sky likes to ignore it

- The aux cord is always Sky's

- It's a little dirty

- Some candy wrappers here and there

- The back seat has some books in a box that will move between the back seat and the truck back and forth

- It smells like bird feathers and some mysteriously vague cologne

- He loves bird imagery so its literally all over his car with ornaments, stickers, etc.

- Will sometimes bring his bird in the car with him(It's an african grey named Chloe who likes to sing September. He also hadls a cockatiel named Issac)

- The car's seats are ripped in places by his birds picking at them

- There's a mark on the driver side dash from when Legend let Sky smoke for the first time and he ended up wiping some of the ash off on the dash and now its just there

- Legend thinks it's hilarious

- Sky finds it embarrassing

- "Do NOT put your feet up on the dash!"

- Has slept in his car on break and will do it again

- Very comfy

|Wars|

A very well cared for 2016 Dodge Challenger 2D

Color: Baby Blue

- The love of his life

- He found this car in a used car lot and HAD to get it

- Wasn't cheap

- Likes to remind the others that it wasn't cheap when they make fun of him for it.

- He is BIG on decorating his car

- Not as much as Legend is, but he likes his car to feel nice

- Smells DIVINE(Like a really high end cologne, but just enough to not be too much)

- Has a work backpack that stays in the car

- Likes funny little things like the cupholder coasters

- Please be nice to the car

- He does drive like a maniac if he's given the chance to.

- Has constantly asked Wild to race him.

- Doesn't hang out in it on breaks

- Keeps it clean and tidy

- I'm talking he wipes down the car twice a week on the interior and takes it through a car wash once a week, two if needed

- is really proud of his car

- There's some chips and a small dent in the back bumper, but its barely noticable

- he might cry if you call it ugly

- Rarely eats in his car

- The main reason why he likes it so much is because of how the exterior looks. Its satisfying.

|Wild|

Venom x22GT 250cc

Color: Midnight Black

- Motorcycle homie 🤙

- Someone always asks who's motorcycle it is

- He's proud of it

- He loves how fast it goes and how free he feels

- He gets pulled over pretty often, but is usually apologetic

- Gets scared around bigger vehicles

- Hates being beside 18 wheelers

- Parks it where he can see it from the back door

- Is paranoid about it being stolen

- doesn't race people

- Has a bit of an ego about it

- Loves finding stickers he can put on it

- the little keychains that fit on the little bits and don't get in the way? OH! Loves em

- Overall, pretty chill about it but will try to impress someone and likely fail if they show interest in him or wanting a ride on it

|Legend|

1985 Coachman Camper(Modified)

Color: Beige and Brown

- Van lifer

- He loves being on the road, freely going where he wants, and doing what he wants

- He will camp out in the back area of his work since it's mostly a dirt area no one is using

- Will walk around to nearby areas if its a nice day because he loves exploring

- Finding new things is a hobby

- He will hang out at Warriors or Time's place if he really needs people around him.

- Loves to decorate seasonally

- Hoarder

- No literally, dude hoards so much shit that he has to give it to Ravio to keep at his place cause he doesn't want to get rid of it but has no place in the van

- I originally thought he'd have a concrete place, but I felt like it would be better this way because it fits his vibe.

- I imagine he was really closed off and stayed in the van for a long time after he lost Marin, but Warriors really helped him out by letting him crash at his place

- He decided he was going to go to van life as a change of pace after losing Marin and Ravio happened to show up just as he was about to end his lease.

- He lost Marin early in the year that he bought the van, hoping for a van life because they talked about how fun it could. He crashed with Warriors later that year.

- Ravio stayed in the place and signed the lease and now Legend is living his best life

- Will only ever invite people in if he trusts them

- Spotify 24/7

- Somehow, everyone is surprised when they find out.

|Hyrule|

A dying 2010 Honda Accord LX-P

Color: Auburn Brown

- Has been in the family since 2010

- Ol' Reliable

- Shudders when he starts it up

- Loves it anyway

- Comfortable asf

- Him decorating it in fairy aesthetic just makes so much sense to me

- It fits and he loves it and he's not ashamed

- He makes a lot of friends off of his decorating choices

- Has a satchel that he carries that has everything anyone could need.

- Pain meds? Got em. Allergy meds? He's a walking pharmacy.

- Want some acid?

- Experimental

- Hippie coded

- Like Legend is on one end of the hippie spectrum and Hyrule is on the complete opposite side

- Bro will sleep in his car and come back as if he had a moment with Hylia

- Scares him to hell and back when it starts making funny sounds

- Will go to Four as soon as he knows something is wrong.

- It's his baby 🥹 He likes the vibes he has with the car

- "I'll give up on her when she gives up on me."

- Ride or die fr

|Four|

2016 Volkswagen Jetta

Color: Pure White(the site said it and I have doubts)

- A gift

- The mechanic of the group

- He's fixed his car multiple times so he usually fixes the others cars or tells them whats wrong and how to fix it/where to go to get the best price

- Helps Time with stuff he doesn't know.

- He doesn't really decorate it cause he can never decide HOW to

- He keeps it clean though and likes to go to those car wash vaccum places

- Is a safe driver

- Not 100% of the time

- Does not like being in his car more than he has to.

- He'll eat in his car if he's really hungry

- Overall, not too crazy about his car to really do much to it.

- Is usually a good person to call if you need a last minute pick up

- The Sane One™

- Aux cord is an option

- He's a radio kind of guy

- Will hang out with Legend in his van if he just wants to destress

- HATES driving in the snow

- HATES other drivers

That's pretty much it :3

I TOTALLY didn't forget to put the name on each one like I did with Time's :D

BAAAAHHHHYYYYEEEEE!♡