#i'm glad people understand where they're lacking and steer clear

[markiafc]

entirely my own bias + eternal frustration at westernization, english hegemony, its always all about the west, etc. but god, mlc is very very explicit about being a buddhist story. it is thee primary idea the show is dedicating every breath to exploring. but nobody on tumblr dot com knows enough about buddhism to interact with the buddhist media. instead, everyone just copy-pastes black sails meta about escaping the narrative.

meanwhile the fandom on cnet makes buddhist references all the time, makes video essays about it, writes fics with titles after classic buddhist texts and buddhist motifs. like what are the people here even doing.

there's cultural difference and a language barrier. and then there's a show with lotus in the title, a protag named lotus, lotuses appearing in virtually every episode. nirvana allegories all over the place and the entirety of the protag's arc being a textbook buddhist journey. tons of other blatant on-screen references and even the main message of the story is borrowed straight out of buddhist scripture. and no one talks about it. i'm sympathetic but also can't help feeling like fans of the show don't actually understand the major points its making.

[yuvon-writes-letters]

Hey guys :)

Maybe I'm going chronological for one time, so I can sort my thoughts easier.

Yeah, Goldie's much mire active than I would've thought, too. But they did all those things to keep me alive and kind of save, since we still don't know who they are exactly working against. (I mean, we don't know who Goldie exactly is either, but you get my point)

Honestly, I am pretty sure the TSB timeline is continuing, at least if my theory that Goldie just set me back in an alternate timeline is true. In this case I feel sorry for TSB, though..Extremely sorry. He still was 'my' Jake back then, even though he acted weird in the end (maybe was manipulated by entities). I mean, if what he wrote was true he went with authorities. And in the end..this could've been his downfall.

And yeah, maybe I'm not exactly safe, but I just have to go back. If I go, and if I lose my job, I have some things to sort out. And Jake luckily agreed with me that clearing up my desk isn't the worst thing I can do before leaving. We're still thinking about a location, which I could luckily deside myself. Max agreed on that. Even though he still has some doubts. (I mean, of course...His cousin opened the door with bruises all over her face.) He did promise to not ask any questions until I feel ready, though. That gives myself and Jake some time to figure that out.

And also, Jake is right! We have three Jakes and three smart people. YUVON. And of course Goldie, like you said Yu :) And some information about the previous timeline. (And that was it with being chronological)

So yeah, like I said, Max and I'll go. And I also think we can be pretty certain now that the message came from Goldie not the MWAF (which is relieving). I saw the messages and they didn't make Jake the bad guy. I honestly just don't think I can quote them yet. (They're too good, but I probably start daydreaming if I do) But they talk about Jake being an important part of my life and my heart and Max protecting me when he cannot. My dear cousin jumped to conclusions when he saw my bruised face. About Max' phone...I'll probably throw it in a river or something if he brings it with him. I told him not to, also because of Jake (he's not only worried about the MWAF apparently...He didn't exactly say it out loud, but I think it's pretty obvious) but he loves this device.

And I emphasize with you about the being kidnapped thing, you'll manage it, I know it :) And if I need to jump dimensions and box some sense into your Crow-Crew xD

No but for real, you can do that. I know it :)

Jake, find a good point in time to talk to her. But do it :)

Otherwise, I still think the 'underlying desire' theory is a possibility! But, like always in the moment, we could be wrong.

As for my stasis, I really do not wish to talk to more people who think I've been kidnapped. And I am a bit scared that could somehow lead to either them or me being in more danger again. But for now we have to wait.

I for now will pack some important things and paper & pens xD I don't want to leave y'all behind :P

Liska🐾🔥

[A screenshot is glued to the back of the letter and the quick sentence "Jake wants to talk to Jake" is written above]

Hello Jake, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am not quite sure in which way Liska will handle giving you my message, but she promised me to not read it for now.

I don't know whether she told you before or not, but as far as I am concerned she realised I am not only worried about the MWAF chasing her.

With me breaking out of this stasis I am sure that my followers aren't that far behind. And I know you can't do anything from where you are, but cross checking way to protect her doesn't seem to bad to me. Especially since we are similar but still fairly different from each other. At least it seems like that from what I have read.

For my part, I recently improved and updated Nym-OS which allows me access to Liskas whereabouts. If Yuvon should read this, she knows and agrees to it.

Still I am yet stuck on one little detail: I am trying to help Nym-OS in counterattacking. So, even though I am sure you already knoe this yourself, Nym-OS gets the ability to access location of the people attacking Liskas phone. I am almost done with that, so we are able to see a bit easier if and where people are that could be a danger.

Do you have any other ideas for ways I could help? Or even improve what I am doing momentarily. I wouldn't normally ask this since I know and trust my skills, but I think that this is fairly different from a 'normal situation'.

~ Jake

Lis,

Um. I don't know if you've seen the newest person to send in a letter, but we now have an issue.

Jessy, if you're reading this, I was sort of trying to avoid talking about this right away but I'm sort of trapped in a weird place, and Jake's here too because I'm a dumbass. I did not, so you know, let him read your letter or my reply. I figured you wouldn't want that. Sorry for dancing around the issue earlier :/ But at least you can get a good sample of the complete insanity we go through on the regular now!

Yeah... you're getting thrown into the deep end right now, aren't you. Sorry. There's no way to ease into this. You should probably either stop reading these entirely or start reading the letters from the beginning, so this will all at least make some sense. The first letter should start with the words "To whoever reads this," just so you know you get the right one.

Back to you, Lis. Yeah, I feel pretty bad for TSB Jake too. I honestly can't imagine being in his position right now.

Alright. So, you can choose the place. Great! There's way less chance of you being caught that way...

Tragedies just seem to be happening to all us Duskwood detectives, recently, don't they? Rai is chronically overworked and barely has time to sleep, I'm stuck in this hellhole and I've been forgotten by most everyone, you were shot, and poor Matt died and... well.

I never knew him, but I feel really bad for him :(

You could give Max half the truth. Tell him you have a stalker, and he's starting to get physical. Jake has been trying to help you get away from the asshole. It's not even a lie, just... not the full truth. Because. You know. The whole truth is completely fucking insane.

Writing to Jessy just put into perspective how insane everything is, I think. Gimme a sec.

Oh, fuck. My Jessy just texted me. Great timing.

Jeez that whole thing with me leaving myself out was just a joke XD If I knew you and Jake would take it so seriously, I'd never have said anything. I'll steer clear from now on.

Yeah, okay, definitely Goldie. That makes way more sense. I don't think you have to be quite so drastic as destroying the phone. Just get him to leave it at home for the trip.

Ahaha, thanks. I don't think that's necessary, though. Actually, seeing future!Jessy's perspective has caused a bit of a paradigm shift. I think I might need to reconsider what all to tell and not to tell the Crow Crew. I just sort of default to keeping things secret, now, but you've seen how well that worked for me with you and Rai, and with Jake.

Again, you probably should wait for them to contact you first, but you WILL need to talk to them when that happens. What you say to them and what you don't is up to you.

Pack a couple different pens XD We're all a bit long-winded.

That's all from me :)

(The handwriting changes to Jake's.) Hallo, Lis.

Yuvon refuses to tell me what precisely she means about Jessica. Was she somehow contacted by an alternate version of Jessica? If so, how?

I am glad it was Goldie who contacted Max. Yuvon's suggestion for an excuse seems a good one, as there are far less things to remember that way. You simply need to oversimplify everything.

I do not, unfortunately, entirely believe that Yuvon was joking when she made that comment, based on previous comments and her ongoing guilt. I can't understand sometimes why she feels the need to lie so much. It is difficult for me to read people, much less her.

I will speak to her eventually. Early tomorrow, perhaps, if nothing else rears its head. Yuvon looks tired, and I am also admittedly not at my peak. I sincerely hope she does not wake up as early as she does every single day. It may get somewhat taxing, what with the lack of coffee here.

I think that is all from me to you, Lis. If you would kindly find a way to send the next section to my counterpart without looking at it, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you :)

—Jake and Yuvon

Jake,

It is a pleasure to meet you as well, despite the unusual circumstances.

That our pursuers may be freed from the stasis is a logical conclusion. Seeing as the last known location I had on them in my universe was approximately five hundred miles from Duskwood, they will likely be some of the first to free themselves from the stasis. I do not believe I need to warn you that time is of the essence.

It seems as if I am a small distance ahead of you in the development of countermeasures, perhaps because I have had more linear time to develop them. If you are where I think you are at in the development, you likely have or will soon hit a bug you cannot pin down that makes the pinpointing mechanism simply refuse to work at all. Presuming your and my version of NYM-0S are similar enough, the issue should lie in the public bool set in line 132 of the third part of the targeting script, the script that decides what constitutes a target; you have it defaulted to "false" where it should default to "true".

As for additional countermeasures: I was attempting to work on a rudimentary automated system of pattern detection when I was brought here. Essentially, its function would be such that it would be able to triangulate using the locator features already installed to find a rough estimate of where their headquarters might be. However, I have not found any way thus far to eliminate outliers, and as such the feature is currently next to useless. I am no longer able to work on the code, but perhaps you will have more luck than I did.

That is all I can think of for the moment on that subject. However, I have an odd theory on what may be part of the reason we vary so. If you have a moment to spare, please answer me this:

When I was very young, back when Mother was still around, she took me to a doctor for odd behaviors. This included not looking people in the eyes, but there was a list. I was given a diagnosis; if you had the same experience, you should likely know which one.

Did you have this experience? If so, please prove it by stating what the diagnosis was.

Do not worry if you do not know what I am talking about; I would rather you did not guess. Simply state that you don't know. It will confirm my theory.

Good luck with your pursuers.

—Jake

(The letter tucks itself in the paper clip with the others.)

[bloody-britt26]

Britt's shiny team headcanons!

So... nobody asked for this, but I wanted to do it anyway since I'm happy to have completed my first shiny team for Sword and Shield.

Since I love my virtual monsters a lot, I wanted to give them some personalities and share them with you.

My team includes some pokémon that I've hatched in SwSh and shinies from previous games.

I'm currently working on making a shiny team for everyone of my favourite types, so a shiny fairy team, a shiny dragon team and a shiny poison team.

Anyways... meet my sparkly squad!

♡ Lucian

• You're never sure whether you want to pet him or punch him.

• Lucian has attitude, and he's not afraid to use it.

• He's the kind of pokémon who enjoys the company of a very small elite group of individuals, and the rest of the world is absolute garbage to him.

• On one hand, he can be extremely loyal to those he loves and will fight with all of his pretty boy might.

• On the other hand, if he finds someone to be unworthy of his time, he can be downright aggressive and rude to them.

• His facial expressions don't lie. If he finds someone disgusting, it'll show. A lot.

• Britt had a hard time fitting him in a team. She had to figure out a group of pokémon where Lucian tolerated at least 50% of them, all the while making sure that the selected group could handle him and his marvellous attitude.

• Lucian is kind of a player.

• He loves hanging out with female pokémon and is very smooth with them, but he doesn't care for hanging with the male pokémon.

• He steers clear of Red Death as Lucian has had to deal with a few Waterfalls to the face for being an annoyance.

• He doesn't mind Snuggles as the little ball of fluff is very oblivious to his surroundings.

• Lucian is mostly seen hanging out with Nully. Since Nully is genderless, Lucian doesn't see them as a potential mate or rival.

• Although, whether they're friends or not is up for debate.

• Even when he was a small Eevee, he had a superiority complex, but that doubled when he evolved into a Sylveon.

• He's, thankfully, very supportive of his trainer and will always try to hang on even in the toughest of fights. He's constantly shaking off statuses and damage as to not worry Britt.

• He loves having Britt's attention and will demand head pats at all times.

• He's difficult to get through, but with a bit of patience, he's a good boy once you know the proper approach to his odd personality.

• The rest of the team respects him, but they know how to (and will) deal with his shit when things get too hectic.

♡ Shortcake

• Big girl, gentle girl.

• She looks threatening, but she's the softest dragon you'll ever meet.

• She's very shy and has a hard time mingling with other groups of pokémon, always being on the sidelines and watching others play.

• She wants to play too, but she's so timid, so she mostly stays by pokémon she knows or Britt.

• She likes playing with smaller pokémon better because she finds larger pokémon to be frightening.

• The exception is Red Death. He's big, but Shortcake seems to like him because he's pretty calm for a Gyarados.

• She plays ball with Snuggles the Wooloo quite often. Sometimes, Snuggles is the ball.

• Unlike most dragons, Shortcake loves sweet fruity dishes over spicy meat dishes.

• Very good girl. Will lay her head in Britt's lap to nap.

• Pat that head. She loves pats.

• She lacks elegance and is very clumsy. She trips over her own feet quite often.

• She's self-conscious, so please tell her she's adorable. We need to boost that confidence.

• She's very powerful in battle, packing moves like Outrage, Swords Dance, Earthquake and Poison Jab, but she's usually the last resort pokémon. She's aware of her strength, and she doesn't want to harm others.

• When she was an Axew, she had the habit of hiding behind Britt whenever strangers approached. She's a bit too big to do that anymore, but she still does it, even if you can plainly see the huge Haxorous behind Britt.

• It's cute, really.

♡ Nully

• Nully is very wary of others and still has a hard time trusting others.

• Unless another pokémon of the team comes up to them, they don't really talk to other pokémon.

• It's not because they don't like the others! They just prefer to keep to themself. They really do respect every other pokémon on the team and will absolutely defend them with their life.

• All other pokémon of the team treat them with respect and they have become the team leader, which is a title that Nully is rather fond of.

• Nully actually likes having a cutesy nickname over having a threatening name as they want to be seen as more than just a freaky fighting machine.

• They mainly run the Poison Disk. They know how much Britt loves Poison-types, and they wanted to make her happy. They ended up really liking the Poison Disk, however, due to how many resistances they have because of it.

• When Britt is running with her shiny team, Nully likes to stay out of their Poké Ball. They always want to be by her side and make sure that she is safe.

• Nully is extremely close to Britt. After all, she saved them and gave them a better life. They have a lot of respect, love and admiration for what she did for them.

• As a Type: Null, they were very difficult. They were always cowering in a corner in a very defensive posture and wouldn't hesitate to attack if Britt got to close.

• It took a lot of patience and empathy to reach out to them, but Nully is glad that she did.

• Nully genuinely gets upset when other trainers call them a freak. It's not their fault that they were created that way.

• It's okay. Britt will fistfight anyone who insults her baby.

• Britt doesn't want to play favourites, buuuuuut... Nully ♡

♡ Dumpling

• Dumpling is more elegant than you will ever be. Deal with it.

• Seriously, she never misses a beat in whatever she's doing. She's the complete opposite of her trainer where she's absolutely not clumsy and Britt is, well... Britt.

• She acts like she's too sophisticated to battle, but no one is fooled by that. Everyone knows that she enjoys a good ass-whoopin'.

• Dumpling enjoys high-quality food and is a very picky eater. She won't accept anything lower than a Copperajah Class dish.

• Dumpling has good taste in fashion and has a very strong opinion on Britt's fashion choices. She's often out of her Poké Ball whenever Britt is shopping for some help on choosing an outfit.

• Since Britt's fashion sense is... fairly lacking, Dumpling often blows a bit of snow/ice in her trainer's face to voice her disapproval whenever she judges that the chosen outfit is ugly and/or unfit for the occasion.

• However, Dumpling and Britt are very close and share a strong girl's bond. Their bond can rival the one that Britt and Nully have.

• After all, Britt raised Dumpling from an egg, so she's practically a mother to Dumpling.

• Speaking of which, she gets along very well with Nully. She's one of the few pokémon that Nully will voluntarily speak to.

• She's often seen perched on Britt's head or on Nully's back.

• When she was a baby Snom, she used to tuck herself in Britt's pockets, but she's obviously too big for that anymore. That's why she goes for Britt's head instead, which is fine as she weighs nothing.

• She's a night owl and will often wander about at night when everyone is sleeping.

• If Britt is travelling at night, she'll follow along outside of her Poké Ball to enjoy the nighttime with her trainer.

• She's very fond of music, especially soft piano tunes.

• It doesn't come as much of a surprise that she loves a good singing voice, her cry is very melodic.

• If she was human, she'd most likely sing like an angel.

♡ Red Death

• Don't let his name fool you, he's very calm and very difficult to annoy. It really takes a lot to phase him.

• Well, unless you're battling against him, of course.

• Unlike Britt's other Gyarados (Wrath), he's very obedient and easy to control.

• Red Death and Wrath do not get along. At all. Their personalities are much too different.

• Wrath sees Red Death as a rival that he needs to dethrone, while Red Death sees Wrath as a childish brute.

• He's much more mature and wiser than a good portion of Britt's pokémon.

• He's often meditating or practicing his Dragon Dances in a lake.

• 100% has a crush on Shortcake.

• He's extremely protective of the shy dragon. He's constantly staring at her or playing with her.

• They always look so happy to be in each other's company.

• They're probably secretly together.

• He doesn't hate Lucian, but RD's patience is always on thin ice when it comes to the arrogant Sylveon.

• He's usually the one to put Lucian back in his place. A few Waterfalls never hurt anyone, right?

• Right?

• Since Gyarados are notorious for being violent, people are usually very wary around him.

• He doesn't understand why. He's calm and clearly not displaying any form of anger, so what's the issue?

• He doesn't notice that his face is naturally contorted into an expression of pure fury.

• It's okay, those who are close to him know better.

• He's a good boy who will give you piggyback rides along bodies of water and genuinely enjoys playing in the water with his trainer.

• Sometimes, he'll use his tail to splash Britt, forgetting that he's 6.5 meters long and absolutely sends her flying across the water.

• It's all in good fun though. No offence taken or harm done.

♡ Snuggles

• The baby of the group.

• Everyone loves Snuggles.

• It's impossible to dislike Snuggles.

• It's illegal to dislike him.

• Even Lucian likes him.

• Snuggles is very oblivious to his surroundings and will bump into everything whenever he's rolling around.

• He only has one brain cell that pings around his head like a windows screen saver.

• He's cute, so it's forgivable.

• He's pure and untainted by the ugliness of the world. The team wants to keep him innocent.

• He has never shown interest in evolving, so he's an overpowered level 100 ball of fluffy destruction.

• He actually loves to battle and thinks that they are very fun!

• Britt loves to use him in battle to add salt to the stinging wound of defeat.

• Not many people can keep their pride intact after being yeeted to the next century by a dopey-looking Wooloo.

• Leon still has nightmares about Snuggles.

• Loves to cuddle his trainer at night to keep her warm.

• He really is the best blanket.

• He needs to be brushed at least twice a day. Gotta keep that wool nice and shiny!

• He wears a soothe bell around his neck outside of battle but has an eviolite during battles. Bulky and friendly ball of floof!

• Don't you dare insult him!

• It's not that you'll hurt his feelings, insults fly way over his head.

• But you'll personally offend an angry short stack of a trainer, a sea serpent, a dragon, a frozen moth, a man-made fighting machine and a pretty boy.

• Snuggles is loved. Very much.