#i hope this at least made sense???

[loversmore]

“to find our happiness as best as we can, let’s give it our best.” – han

for @hyunsung ♡

[puppyeared]

personal character design headcanons + brainrot

Note: the re-bound!au does NOT belong to me, it belongs to @chipper-smol I’m just not normal about it lol

[alecz-obssesionz]

🏳️‍🌈HAPPY PRIDE MONTH 🏳️‍⚧️ HK NATION‼️🗣

June is almost over, but I managed to pull something after not drawing my dear bugs for the longest time <3

[+ READ MORE FOR THE PROCESS]

[fancygremlin]

I absolutely adore how the themes in Malevolent are introduced so subtly at the very start of each season. I feel that each season has distinct ones that could foreshadow how Arthur and John's relationship progresses throughout the show.

I will be rambling about it below (sorry if it's a but messy, I wrote it all in one sitting and didn't proof read it very thoroughly).

The first season is introductory, so we are shown right away how the characters struggle to come to terms with their condition and how to make the best of it to actually accomplish their goals.

This theme is introduced when we learn right at the start of episode one that Arthur is a pianist, as well as a private investigator. The piano requires two hands to play a song. The right hand plays the main melody, the one everyone recognises by ear and is more likely to hum when recalling the song. The left hand plays the accompaniment, the melody that is perhaps not as nice to hear on its own, but makes the song being played that much more complete.

It's not a coincidence that Arthur keep the control of his right hand, while John gains control of the left hand. Arthur is the one that has to interact with the world around him, he is the one that people see and hear and talk to, he is the one that ultimately controls where to go and how to move about a space. He is the main melody, the one people recognise and hear and remember. John is instead stuck in the background, unseen and unheard... limited to just relaying visual information to Arthur. However, without John's aid, Arthur would be incapable to do anything at all. John is the accompaniment: the trained ear can't hear it well, but without it, the main melody would not be as complete, or as rich, or pleasant to hear.

In season two we have them transported in the Dreamlands and this is an environment that John is more familiar with. This is not a safe place to stay, anything or anyone could bring harm. We see the characters pushing their boundaries, learning how to survive... but is it fair to respond to a harsh environment with more harshness? In about episode two (I think, I am writing this all from memory, so sorry if I am misremembering), Arthur mentions Aesop's fable of "The Woodcutter and the Trees". The quote that is being repeated multiple times over the course of the season is "at least the handle is one of us".

If we want to apply the fable to Arthur and John, it could be possible to infer that Arthur might be the axe, while John is the handle. Arthur is the one that is foreign to the place, that does not understand it and is more often than not ready to resort to more violent or extreme methods to escape or resolve issues. On the other hand, John mentions that he has faint memories of the Dreamlands, he is part of them and he remembers he had some sort of control/dominance over them when he was part of the King in Yellow. It's because of John that Arthur is even able to access the Dreamlands in the first place, so maybe John did betray in some way his nature and bringing harm to the place that he once called home.

In season three, the main theme was the (1) loss of humanity and (2) identity. In this case, this was communicated, respectively, (1) by removing a thing that was at the core of the characters' personality, and (2) by offering a narrative foil to the characters.

Loss of humanity for Arthur was symbolised by the destruction of Faroe's music box, which sent him down a very dangerous and dark path of self-vendetta fuelled by murderous rage. On the other hand, Arthur's narrative foil was Larson. Both characters experienced a great loss, but the motivations and (in particular) emotional response to the event was what made them become very different people. Arthur's loss of his daughter haunts him constantly, drags him down with the gravitational pull of a black hole. He cannot forgive himself, to the point of considering himself a monster that does not deserve redemption or forgiveness. On the other hand, Larson willingly sacrificed his daughter for power and money and never experiences any remorse or guilt for his deplorable actions.

Loss of humanity for John was shown by having Arthur strike a deal with Kayne: John is back, but with none of the memories or experiences he lived with Arthur. He is back as a manipulative fragment of the King in Yellow. It's interesting how he regains all his memories when Arthur plays Faroe's music box. Of course, John's narrative foil is... another version of himself... Yellow. I could write an entire essay comparing the two and their respective journeys on how they wanted to try so hard to form their own identities... but I'd go off on a very long tangent. This is already long enough and I am blabbering too much.

I've JUST started season four today and I am two episodes in and I am suspecting that this season's theme is fractures... Just in episode one I heard Arthur choosing a story about a broken relationship between two friends, then the multiple mentions between Arthur and his father in law, and then in episode two there was also the broken window in the room they are renting in Mary's apartment... I am honestly so scared that by the end of this season something very big will happen that will push Arthur and John apart and fracture their relationship almost irremediably.

I know John is hiding something very big from Arthur and it's very possibly something regarding Kayne. I also have a sneaky suspicion that Arthur had a real chance to get some answers about Kayne from Yellow, but of course he just decided to NOT DO THAT!

Can't wait to have this show mess me up once more.

[Season 5 theme analysis]

[themouseinyourwalls]

i love how every robin is furious when they get replaced and its like well what did you expect?? but also every time they get replaced they are furious and they have every right to be angry

like that was Dick's name and Bruce really did have no right passing that mantle on without Dick's permission given Robin's history, Dick had every right to be angry

and Jason literally fucking died in that suit and he came back and there was someone else in it? another kid was risking their life in the suit still stained with his blood? Jason had every right to be angry

and Tim who had been neglected growing and didn't need to be given room to spread his wings like Dick did, who needed a stable support system and who had just lost so many of the people he loved, was replaced by someone who had tried to kill him less than a year ago. Tim had every right to be angry.

its just. they all expected themselves to be the last robin or just get to pass it on themselves, they all expected to be the exception even though they had no reason to believe so and they were all so angry and they were all aeo justified and i dont know what im trying to say but you get it

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

One final cooking poll.

[devsgames]

Open-World AI Design: On The Conflict Between Systemic and Scripted Behaviours

I've been playing Skyrim recently, and having not played it for over a decade one thing that has really been standing out to me is how painfully stilted the scripted NPC interactions are in the game. Seeing just how rough these sequences are reminded me of my own experiences designing non-systemic moments in primarily systemic-open world games, and I wanted to reflect on that.

Disclaimer: I recognize that "Why does the AI in this open world game suck?!" is a common complaint The Gamers have and that it's not a new observation by any stretch, and please don't misconstrue me as bashing A Thing You Like. You can still like it. It's fine. I just think it's interesting how the needs and philosophy of open-world AI often encroach upon and affect the execution of highly scripted sequences in open-world games like these.

THE PROBLEM: SCRIPTED INTERACTIONS

Here's a clip of a sequence from my playthrough of Skyrim that illustrates part of the problem. For context, this sequence occurs at the end of a quest chain wherein you help an old and sick alchemist and his apprentice create an ancient artifact he's been trying to make for his entire life:

I think there's a lot of things that are incredibly lifeless (haha!) in the execution here:

The apprentice is standing at the foot of the bed and not next to it, while the mentor is sleeping on his side and not even looking at him.

The transition from Sleeping -> Ragdoll death when the mentor dies looks REALLY goofy.

The phial the apprentice explicitly mentioned as 'filling up' isn't visible anywhere in the scene at all.

The sudden transition from death -> NPC approach -> conversation leaves no room to organically breathe.

The narrative feels incredibly serious and sombre, but the execution is so hard to take seriously.

The ambient music is jaunty and heroic, when tonally the interaction is very sad.

The player doesn't really have much to do here, aside from stare in the corner while waiting for two AI to talk.

The narrative feels incredibly serious and sombre, but the execution is so whiplash-y and abrupt it's hard to take the outcome seriously.

Now first I want to preface that there's a few obvious causes for some of the awkward 'genericness' of this scene, much of which is rooted in more standard production/resources issues with any AAA open-world game. For example, creating an animation of someone holding the phial in question while it fills up would be too expensive to justify creating for just one side quest, only for it to never be used again. While it certainly doesn't help the sequence, I think there's always varying degrees of 'eh whatever it's a video game' plausible deniability that happen here among players too, and it's always understandable that elements like these might fall absent from this scene as a result. It's also a dang video game from 2011, so that certainly doesn't help.

Aside from that, I think a big issue in realizing scripted sequences in open world games like this stems primarily from open-world AI and interactions are often fundamentally at odds with these types of scripted scenes, which in turn reflect poorly on the implementation of the latter.

WHY SYSTEMIC AI?

To understand why scripted sequences can easily feel stunted it's helpful to look at what an AI in an open world context is most frequently expected to do, because it's the baseline of how an AI performs in an open-world game.

In a traditional game a "bandit" AI might only really need to do basic behaviours that have concrete and easily-defined outcomes, such as search for a player and attack them until they die.

In an open-world game like Skyrim an AI primarily has to act believably in an open world where almost anything is liable to happen. A "bandit" in an open-world context would need to keep a running track who is hostile and who is friendly (based on a variety of different changing parameters), pick and choose different locations to travel from organically, travel to potentially unknown locations across a persistent world, use modular systemic behaviours in a way that still appear organic and unique, remember which points it needs to be travelling to and from, what areas it can and cannot go, flee from combat, understand what objects in the world it can and can't interact with, and a lot lot more on top of that. What's more is every AI in the game have to run these same calculations themselves at all time about everything around them - there's a ton of moving parts and AI with different objectives and executions operating at the same time. This is also why systemic AI in open-world games tend to suck - because an open world is inevitably going to write realism cheques that no AI can feasibly cash because there's so much going on in an open-world game.

However there's also good reason why all this complexity is necessary! Killing a bandit who is stationed idly at a guard post in his camp is passable encounter, but killing a bandit who accidentally draws aggression from a patrolling sabre cat from the forest nearby his guard post creates a story out of what was otherwise just an okay encounter. These systemic behaviours are often what people like and expect to see in open-world games to give the world flavour.

On Far Cry there was a name for this sort of concept: the "anecdote factory" - the idea that any sort of emergent experience should make up a fun 'anecdote' for people to talk about and reflect on afterwards, and this approach to AI design is usually built to supports those systemic and organic narratives. This systemic-first AI design is a large draw of what makes open-world games what they are - without this the whole world easily can feel rigid, predictable, and lifeless.

Now this is all well and good, I hear you say, but weren't you just complaining about scripted sequences? Why are you talking about systemic AI? How are these two even related to each other?

Well herein lies the issue: what happens when your immensely systems-based AI needs to do one hyper-specific thing exactly as you planned?

THE FRICTION: SYSTEMIC VS. SCRIPTED

Scripted AI design is often a philosophical counter to systems-driven AI - while a systemic open-world AI needs to calculate many different elements and act out generic AI behaviours on the fly, scripted AI often needs to successfully do a sequence of bespoke behaviours the same way every single time, usually in relation to a larger narrative or sequence.

This causes friction - potentially a lot of friction, depending on the implementation.

The initial assumption most people would have is that if a designer really needs an AI to do one thing perfectly, then they should just force the AI to do it! After all, if it's that important, then why not make absolutely sure it gets done? However, the problem with this approach is that forcing an open-world AI to do just one thing actually makes the AI less realistic in context of an open world game.

In the above scene lets say the player hates the apprentice and decides to blast the apprentice with a fireball while he was speaking to his master. They'd then logically expect the apprentice to react to being hurt by the player and become hostile (as anyone would be, if hit with a fireball). This would be expected to break the sequence as combat would ensue as the apprentice tries to get revenge. This is believable, as it would make the apprentice feel more like an actual human being with the desire to not die. If by contrast the apprentice was forcibly scripted to perform his lines and execute the behaviour like nothing happened, it would feel even worse! This is why most open-world games will actually almost never force AI to perform scripted behaviours if they can help it, because it usually reflects poorly on the intelligence of your AI should anything else happen during the execution of the event.

Unfortunately, the tradeoff to ensuring scripted AI still abide by systemic rules is it means that scripted AI are now expected to perform actions are now operating at the whim of systems, which may choose to override it at any time. For example, if the systemic AI overrides the scripted component of the AI, the apprentice may get distracted by something (a passing enemy, a wandering animal, a stray arrow from nearby combat, etc.) and not complete the sequence as it was intended. This might not seem like a major issue, but keep in mind that a scripted AI failing to perform a task usually results in a sequence break - which in terms of scripted sequences can break a player's entire playthrough. It also reflects poorly on narrative, when scenes of narrative importance might be undermined by systemic nonsense that may happen.

Whenever mission designers witnessed these sort of behaviours on Far Cry the inside joke was that we were just abiding by the "anecdote factory" philosophy. After all, the AI was acting systemically by-design - it just so happened that the anecdote was that a systemic behaviour distracted them. :)

In fact on the production of Far Cry 6 I spent actual months troubleshooting and wrangling AI that just would not adhere to scripted sequences due to the overriding of systemic AI behaviours. For every minute you spend in a scripted sequence you can bet there was hours and hours and hours of unseen troubleshooting behind it!

Now what does any of this have to do with how awkward this conversation looks?

The philosophy of your game design extends downward, and systems-driven is no exception. Instead of using special, bespoke behaviours in quests it becomes cheaper and safer to bank on existing systemic that are widely tested instead of trying to push the limits of what an AI can do. Remember that a sequence failing to execute can block a player's progression entirely, or alternatively result in a ton of work or additional bugs for a level designer putting them together. Safe execution is usually the #1 priority, and that's a tough thing when lots of your scripted implementation is relying on the tech equivalent of shoestring and bubblegum holding it all together.

Even this small scene reflects the drawbacks of a systems-driven philosophy. A good example here is when the mentor dies - he doesn't smoothly transition into a 'death' state, or lie still with his eyes closed, or something more appropriate. Instead, he pops into a ragdoll and plays his generic death sound effect, because his AI is adopting the same generic systemic 'death' actions any AI in the game would. It's how an AI was designed to die from the ground up across the board, so this AI has to die like that for the rest of the game's systems to properly work around it. It could look cleaner, it could look nicer, but for a scripted sequence in a system-driven game it just needs to work.

You'll also notice the apprentice doesn't have any particular uniqueness to his behaviours around the master. He doesn't kneel next to the bed, or do much else for that matter - he just plays his idle on a point until the scripted sequence tells him not to. In fact outside of combat in Skyrim you'll notice that most NPCs use these generic animations because they're built into the AI and are the most likely animation to work in the widest number of cases. In fact, I could probably list the most commonly used animations in Skyrim based on how many times I saw them while playing. A Quest Designer could try to spice a scene up or add variety, but most of the time that would create unnecessary risk around these sequences, so in most instances safe and universal generics are the way to go - which unfortunately limits visual interest because they don't adapt well to unique contexts (like the death of a loved one).

Even something seemingly small like changing music - if we ignore the cost of creating new songs - can bring unnecessary risk. Music is also handled systemically by the game's systems, transitioning based on environment and combat with different enemy factions, so overriding that to play unique songs brings even further risk on a scripted setup - what if combat breaks out during the sequence? Or if the overridden music isn't correctly reverted back by the system? The safer option is to work closer to the bare minimum (i.e. leave the music as-is) than it is to actually push the envelop a bit and bring on further risk.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading! Hopefully this sheds a bit of light on how scripted interactions are uniquely affected by systemic design philosophy and some of the drawbacks surrounding it. I feel fairly confident that any open-world game has had to deal with the friction between these two approaches and needed to meet an awkward middle ground as a result. After all, it's sorta an inevitability when you're making massive games intended to mimic a believable world.

[koinotame]

this is jumping off of several different ideas so it probably won't make sense to anyone but me, but imagine some scenario where xiao is pretending to be a regular-ish bird to follow you around for some reason and can't or won't show you his usual form... but you're also the type who loves to baby talk animals. so you (fully aware) take the opportunity to pet him all over and squeal about how cute and soft and did you mention cute he is and rubbing under his chin and nuzzling him against your cheeks and then joking you're scent marking him as yours like a cat and so on, while xiao (completely unaware that you're aware) is combusting on the inside because he knows you're just talking about some stray bird that won't stop following you and not him, but you calling him cute and talking about him as if you own him and he's your precious belonging, as if he's worth loving, is doing something dangerous to him

[h-didanart]

Oh that's my favorite ship

jack-o-moon x bloodmoon!

Oh, it is?

That’s cool, good for you!

I used to ship it, but I kinda stopped after getting the ‘aroace Bloodmoon headcanon’. Still have a bunch of drawings of them tho

…

Do you want them? I have no use for them anymore

There’s both animatronic and human versions ‘cuz of course there is (also I suck at drawing kisses)

[a-cloud-for-dreams]

If people could hate on Lane and Lou, they could do the same to Devi too. I wonder why if the MC weren't like Vicky/Agatha/Laia personality-wise, why some fans would hate them? Saying Lou is too masculine and Lane is b-word. I'm replaying PSI and HSR back-to-back just to make sure I didn't miss anything because I thought they have feelings?? They just don't tend to show it?

You're right anon! Everyone has the equal potential to hate on any of the MCs, which makes it clearer when certain MCs are hated more than the others because it implies there's a collective underlying aspect of their character that fans view as unlikable. Of course, the answer is just plain misogyny but here is my guess as to what's going on internally.

Two main things (that definitely go hand in hand) I've noticed people want from a female MC is for them to be nice (very vague I know but just an overarching word including selflessness, caring for others, vulnerable with their emotions, etc.) and feminine. They can't be too much of either of those things or they're deemed too weak (that's a whole other discussion). The MCs have to be layered and complicated but to them, if they do not include the two aforementioned traits somewhere than they are "unlikable" or "too masculine."

Vicky, Agatha, and Laia can be described as feminine MCs (based on their wardrobe and how they're described in their books) who are known for being kind and putting others before themselves (Agatha can be more morally gray from what I've heard but y'know). Lane can be described as feminine (serving cunt in Siberia like a queen 💅🏽) but the reader doesn't have access to her emotions like they do with other female MCs even though that's an intentional part of how she's written??! My guess is that because society expects women to act a certain way, when women or female characters in this case deviate from the norm, it's seen as ~unsettling~ or unpredictable. And some fans don't like that.

Lou unfortunately has the more obvious answer. I will be honest and say I know less about PSI than I wish but based on those other confessions I read, people think she's "masculine" because she's more of a tomboy and because she has traits most people associate as masculine (assertive, ambitious, not depending on another man, less emotional/more rational). On the surface, she doesn't fit into the traits I mentioned earlier and ig fans don't like that and ignore the rest of her character 😭😭 Maybe they're the reason why one of the endings makes Lou have a kid, like a last-ditch effort to "compensate" for how drastically different she already was in comparison to other female MCs idk.

Going back to the first thing you mentioned. Devi is both feminine and is clearly written as someone with noble intentions who cares about the fate of other people. Sure, she might have been somewhat reckless when younger, but we can see where she's coming from given her backstory (something we don't have with Lane and something people ignore for Lou because wawawa she's not talking about her feelings all the time as if there aren't bigger things happening in the plot).

I do want to conclude by saying you're not sexist just because you don't like a certain female character and you're not exempted from being sexist just because you like a female character. That's surface level talk and gets us nowhere. I'm just saying that if you notice you inexplicably dislike a female character(s), I implore you to dig deeper to find out the why.

TDLR: you didn't miss anything when rereading those books (I can speak for HSR more than for PSI) people just don't like female characters they can't fit into a box. Also, if you made it this far, ilysm <33

[synthshenanigans]

I'm curious as to peoples idea for what he'd do for the next power hour so

[These all being popular ideas or ppl he's mentioned]

This was all just a ploy to get you to read my info dump theory on the concept of a Chonny Jash Power Hour loser HAHAHA

Im joking tho. Not about my CJPH theory, that is very much real but I'm not forcing you to read it lol

However if you're curious, my inane rambles are further down :}

[Long Rant Post Below]

Okay so I'm gonna start with the basic idea I got it from; that being Nerd. Nerd already foreshadowed the THDPH & the WWPH [Even down to the last song for each of them] Not only that, but he references the stuff hes done in the past as well with a break/pause inbetween.

[This is what I mean]

The first three being all stuff he already did. BDG with Pocket, Tally Hall with Vol.1 & then Cage by Tim Minchin being the start the power hours.

The next two being the power hours he would do after this song [Memento Mori & Charlie's Inferno-Will Wood & That Handsome Devil]. But those are the only songs he would reference in Nerd, leaving no more clues as to what the last one would be. The only thing left in it is the video game references & Stairway to Heaven in the ending. [Which oddly enough also fit the pattern in a way. StH being about dying and the afterlife like Memento Mori & Chonny's Inferno and the video game references being all covers he made on his old channel]

While the VG refs could be a hint at a Videogame or Toby Fox Power Hour, I think at most, if its a clue at all, hinting at the next thing he does is recovering old songs.

----

Next, a couple of his songs reference his past stuff. Fine, I'm Fine has a good amount of lines that vaguely refer back to songs from the before [heres a post that goes more into it that's pretty cool!!]. And more importantly Dear Machine references Pocket, Dream (Outro from Calamity) & wings of wax. Pocket being later used in Nerd & the mention of Icarus coming back in Art. Not only that, but the voice in the very end Thermodynamic Lawyer is the exact same [if not very close to] voice filter/effect he uses in Dear Machine. Even down to the British accent he does in it. [Tho it is fairly normal for a music artist to reference their older songs in their music so it could be nothing]

Speaking of Dear Machine tho, quick thing to add about it is that it shows he not against covering his own songs. While yea technically its just a different version of Ode of the Cog, DM,HtC in a way counts as a cover of OotC. Same goes for bargaining/compromise & The Ballad of Dr. Jekyll.

----

Another idea with a CJPH is that in the CJFS discord theres a "Question of the Day" Channel. Where, as the name says, a Mod or Helper will ask a CJ related question & everyone can give their idea/imput on it. For Day 100, as a special fun lil thing, they asked Chonny if he wanted to give a question for that day. His question being:

And yes he does say that he doesnt plan on doing anything like that in future [if he even were to do it]. I fully believe he wasn't lying there & honestly I never saw him redoing any song ever until I had the idea of a CJPH [aside from stuff like Spring and a Storm & Storm and a Spring obviously]. But this is the best idea I could ever see him doing that. Also that question was from early August so a fair amount of time has passed. Whether thats enough time to equal "at least in the near future at all" I have no clue, but it is a thought.

----

One of my last points [that I remember atm lol] is on how he would end the power hours. Cos like, while yea he does whatever he wants & doesn't rlly follow what anyone says or asks [which I 100% agree with & is completely valid btw], I'd imagine he'd still want to end the PHs with a bang. Which is why I originally didnt think the recent one would be Will Wood.

He's stated a couple of time that hes one of his favorite artist & he definitely knows that a huge chunk of his fan base listen to WW as well. So why not end with that? Why not end with one of the most requested artist people wanted him to cover? Why wouldn't he end with a power hour of the artist that was his #1 on his Spotify Wrapped? What else could he do after that? Well maybe he'd go with his #2 artist? WHICH IS JUST HIMSELF BBYYYY

Plus, the name Power Hour already comes from this:

So it's very likely he's had himself play multiple times in a row & had a "Chonny Jash Power Hour".

Of course theories are just theories so there's always the chance I'm wrong & just insane. And again he does whatever he wants whenever he wants so who knows what it'll be. I just think id be an interesting idea for him to do.

As for how a Chonny Jash Power Hour would look? Maybe each song being a cover of a song from a past album or single? I'd imagine one from the before. & Covered in Discontent [maybe Gothic Whore?]. Like remake Pocket since its been referenced so much, tho that's still just a BDG cover so who knows. the before. would be interesting just to see how his perspective has changed since he originally wrote those songs. Gothic Whore he already has 2 songs that have a story version & a him version so I can see him doing another.

I HIGHLY doubt he'd do anything related to Vol.1 as its his completely separate thing & he doesn't rlly wanna touch any song that's TH/HMS related until whenever he feels like starting Vol.2 [which is valid lol]. If anything I could maybe see like TWWAY, Special or maybe Greener? Or go a different route with the og I'm Gonna Win or like a more outta the box one with like Just a Friend [only cos be did a 20 second "cover" of it in Mucka Blucka]. Again, I do not see him touching anything Vol.1 related but still something to entertain ig? [4th TME cover; The Chonny Electric when/j]

Tho maybe he'd just remake songs that he he fully made [like the before. or Gothic Whore], since those are more of actual Chonny Jash songs rather than the others just being covers. Would be very cool to maybe see a remake of some of his Majora's Mask song tho [no this isn't me coping over HEAL not being on spotify shush]. Or maybe he'd do songs from his old stuff like Don't Take it Personally? [also not me coping over wanting that song on Spotify too]

Idk these are just my thoughts on the idea of a CJPH [or even a Can of Soup Power Hour/j]. Either way I am gonna say idc what he'd do, BDG or Streetlight Manifesto are my other guesses, but anything he makes is always rll good & fun so I'll be interested to see whatever it is.

But ya know considering I typed all this out in the span of an hour & a half I kinda hope im not wrong PFFT

[write-it-motherfuckers]

Sorry for the lack of prompts or reblogs today Darlings, Bunny had a seizure of some kind this morning and though she's behaving normally now, I really don't want to leave anything up to chance given her already fragile health. Luckily the vet clinic that I usually take them to, had a cancelation today, and were kind enough to slot me in. Unfortunately that means I don't have very long to get to the train station to catch the right train, and as such wont have the time to prepare anything.

I apologise again, and thank you for your patience and understanding. I hope you're all doing well Darling ones 🖤

[leelreallylikespersona]

Jose's connected to Yaldabaoth somehow and here's why I think so. Because I think about this occasionally and it's fun

I haven't played P5R in years so it's totally possible I'm missing stuff/misremembering things oops. I'm gonna try and keep things brief

Appearances

Yaldabaoth has somewhat-vague bird imagery. Okay yeah it's feathers because he's an angel, but also his face markings make it look like he has a beak. He's a bird.

Jose's "hair" looks like an egg shell. Birds hatch from eggs. I rest my case.

The more serious connection though... Yaldabaoth is very mechanical and robotic, a quick look at Jose and it's obvious that he isn't human either. His "hair" looks metal, or at the very least isn't real hair. His ears too (and maybe his nose but it may just be shading) look like they're a separate piece attached to his head. These two have similar colour schemes too, mostly silver/white with some gold. Even the placement of their colours is similar? Most of Yaldy's body is bright silver, with darker metal underneath. Jose is wearing a white coat with dark grey under that. Yaldabaoth has gold around his neck, Jose has his gold-ish goggles around his neck.

Mementos

Jose never leaves Mementos, so it's reasonable to assume that he was born there. It can be argued that Yaldabaoth was either also born there, or his creation lead to Mementos also being created, either interpretation works. It can be assumed, then, that Yaldy can manipulate Mementos however he pleases. Jose can do the same, but on a much smaller scale. This is odd, why can Jose manipulate the palace of the masses??? If he was related to the very treasure of Mementos, then it would make sense.

This is were my memory is foggy, but during the third semester, I'm fairly certain Jose is upset by new Mementos. It seems like he prefers Yaldy's Mementos, and now that he's not around, it upsets him. This is probably a huge stretch, but I'll explain later why I think it's Yaldabaoth's absence that's upsetting to Jose.

Personalities

Obviously these two are really really different. Yaldabaoth is malicious and controlling, while Jose is very sweet and is very curious about humans. Yaldabaoth is controlling because it's what humanity yearns for. Humanity unconsciously caused Yaldy to manifest, now he is his own entity who, even though he says he is only doing what humanity wants, he could probably do whatever he wanted. He has free will, he can speak, think, etc. So that brings me to the question:

What is Jose?

I think it's super fun to take all of this and interpret Jose as being a part of Yaldabaoth that is much much nicer. His own curiosities and intrigue of humanity manifesting into a small robotic child who's in awe of mankind. Jose appears more human than Yaldabaoth because of his desire to learn more about them. Jose doesn't like new Mementos because part of him is gone, the area is now unfamiliar and hostile towards him.

It's possible that I'm looking wayyyy too far into the parallels, but it's a fun thought nonetheless! I don't think the person Jose talks about is Yaldabaoth (though that would be fun if it was), mostly because he describes him as being "harsh but nice". Yaldy's definitely harsh, but he isn't nice. At all. I don't see him having a soft spot for Jose either, if he knew of his presence he'd probably be really annoyed, but that's me speculating

I may have missed some things, or misremembered something entirely. Regardless, there are my thoughts, shout out to the maybe four other Yaldy fans, here are more of my crumbs for you

[thedrotter]

as a little treat i am sharing with you little Aya doodles I've done over the last few days to unwind ww just little expressions based on lines in-game because those are always fun to draw. nothing too special just biscuit

it's Aya because upon doing bizarrely throughout playthroughs of the game for still unspecified project purposes I've gained a soft spot for her she's my daughter now my mental tier list on my favorite characters is so confusing right now

[emblazons]

i’m about a month late to the ffvii rebirth fanfare but i saw your study/shot comparison for the ending while scrolling through some tags and was really curious to see if you had come up with any more conclusions since then! i just finished it a couple days ago and still reeling from it and have been enjoying hearing people’s thoughts about what the heck they think is going on. obvs cloud is not ok, but i’m still trying to decide just how much of what we’re seeing is due to his sanity going out the window and how much of it (if any) is aerith actually speaking to him and/or sephiroth messing with him. the way he tells the rest of the party to not look up at the sky though and none of them see what he sees, just clues them all in to the fact that he isn’t entirely all there anymore. a collective very concerned side-eye lol. somebody help him pls.

!!! oh friend, you're in a TON of luck: I actually started a few different commentaries on how I saw the ending on this weeks back, but didn't post them because I got distracted by other fandoms? I'm more than happy to share them though—not as developed as they could be, but some congealing of where my mind went upon finishing the game and rewatching the gameplay.

forewarning: FFVII ending spoilers + a long af post lmao

So I wrote this on my twitter (where I go to see things only on twt lol) the other day because of a bunch of concepts were clarified by the Ultimania + translators, which kinda sums up where my thoughts are:

Which...yeah. As I see it: as of the ending, Aerith is in fact dead in our current world (the one of the player narrative). How I see it, she's died in our primary timeline—though likely "alive" in the same way Zack is in some other timeline, in addition to her connection to every "universe" through the power of her connection to the planet as the last Cetra.

The white whispers (which represent Aerith/the will of the planet) as well as the “confluence of world” colors we see with Sephiroth are all around when Cloud supposedly “sees her alive" during the classic death scene—

—an indicator that the event itself was the "confluence" Sephiroth was trying to achieve, with Cloud experiencing several versions of it due to his own connection to Sephiroth/the lifestream/his fragmented mind. We see this both in what Sephiroth says around the event itself....and also the contrasting experiences of our party with what Cloud sees in the moment (+ through end of the game).

As I see it, Cloud’s consciousness by the end of FFVII:R-II is fully fractured; throughout both Remake & Rebirth he is already seeing visions affected by Sephiroth’s influence on the planet (the black whispers, the way hooded men and thin air turn into Sephiroth before his eyes)—and now, during the “confluence of emotions / worlds / reunion” mentioned (Aerith's death), Cloud’s already broken mind is slipping further into seeing “the middle space” of the worlds joined and prepared for destruction by Sephiroth in real time, rather than following the timeline of events in the world we play—a la the post that inspired your ask. :)

All that said: the reason he’s seeing Aerith (not just sensing her the way Red does in his own Lifestream connection) is because she’s a Cetra, and now (in death) the embodiment of the positive!Will of Gaia across worlds—so because of Cloud's connection to that "middle space" / ability to traverse different versions of reality because of his connection to Sephiroth, Cloud is interacting with her presence…despite it not being there for anyone else.

It’s also why he can see the sky split no one else can.

ADDITIONALLY:

The Aerith we see fight alongside Cloud in the final battle and the one we see walking around everyone as Cid fixes the plane…that’s the spirit of her person (think the Aerith of Advent Children). Aerith didn’t live this game—her spirit can communicate because of Sephiroth's successful confluence, though she’s ALSO "alive" in the same way Zack and Biggs are to us: aka she died in the world she was in but still exists in others, which Sephiroth confirms/explains both when Aerith pulls Cloud into another “doomed” world—

when he’s trying to manipulate Cloud in the Lifestream—

and when you’re fighting Sephiroth alongside Aerith in the void during the final battle (after she’s died).

Even so, Aerith “living on” as the last Cetra/the spirit of the planet + someone with access to multiple worlds through the "reunion" means she’s now as able to infiltrate Cloud's ongoing visions as Sephiroth is...and is likely trying to keep him even somewhat present despite his clearly fractured mind.

I think that’s implied repeatedly by through the hollow Holy Materia (implying both Aerith is no longer “there,” but still present + that cloud himself is now hollow)—

—and why/how the Black Materia (Sephiroth) is still manipulating him and very much driving his fractured thoughts, visions and actions.

As for the rest of the party: it's because no one but his “vessel-connected-to-Sephiroth” self (+ now dead-but-living-on-in-the-Lifestream Aerith) has any idea what he learned about worlds in the Lifestream that what’s happening to Cloud is lost on everyone (and why they look painfully concerned), and also why spirit!Aerith repeatedly gives him reminders to 1) not listen to Sephiroth and 2) focus on finding himself again.

All that said: because Cloud’s actual self is already slipping away from our present game TL by the second half of the game, it will have to be retrieved and rearranged—which we know will happen in game 3 (assuming you know the original FF7 plot where Tifa rearranges him in the Lifesteam) but that has to be changed from “Cloud finds out about Zack and finally cracks" because Cloud already knows about Zack in some capacity by the middle of Rebirth.

I personally think this sets us up for a really interesting resolution in that Tifa is going to probably have spirit!Aerith’s help putting Cloud back together in the Lifestream in game 3—and that she will likely play a bigger part in helping Cloud “find himself” in his own world again because it’s been made more apparent that she’s a full consciousness in the Lifestream/able to affect multiple worlds now because of Sephiroth completing the first step in his plan. That's more just hopeful on my part going into the next game than something rooted in analysis though.

But yes! those are my thoughts! I hope this gives you (more than a little) something. Feel free to ask if something isn’t clear though lol this was like 4 different half-done drafts combined 😂 Regardless, ty so much for the ask / giving me a reason to post them!

[torgawl]

i'm seeing people commenting on this new toji art as if it symbolises gege placed toji in heaven even after everything he did and i know it's mostly a joke but i feel like this is actually an interesting thing to talk about. as we all know, jujutsu kaisen is a heavily buddhist inspired story. having in account all the situations gege has made use of this element, which i will add here:

(the first two are illustrations for chapters 89 and 90 of the manga, before gojo and kenjaku died, and the latter for chapter 180)

i think it's safe to say halos aren't used within the manga to be associated with the christian connotation (except for hana, even though her holiness and the one she serves also aren't traditionally christian by context clues we had so far). halos in buddhist art are actually used to depict enlightened beings, which correlates a lot more to toji than whatever christian symbol ever could. however, i don't think it's clear if gege has used halos in jjk with this specific meaning in mind. so far only gojo, kenjaku/geto and rika have been drawn with halos over their heads, as shown above, despite not being the only dead characters. additionally, all their halos are drawn different, taking shape of things relevant to them (gojo has the infinity sign; rika has a flower crown which can be associated with marriage; and, kenjaku has two halos, one within the other, possibly symbolising him residing inside geto). this could relate to toji as he's the only one with a simple halo, and also the only one within those four that is deprived of cursed energy. in my view, this new toji illustration doesn't mean gege sees him as a saintly figure or someone who would go to heaven - that's also why gojo and nanami are shown their own versions of the afterlife at the brink of death - but, most likely, that gege depicts him as a character that has reached an unparalleled understanding of his own existence and transcended death.