#in terms of overarching plot at least

[paleode-ology]

alrighty after today's tmagp ep i'm starting to think that it might be time for me to learn what happened in s5 of tma,,,,, I never listened to it and idk if I want to, i might just read the transcripts (faster) or summaries on the wiki (MUCH faster) but with all the name-dropping it's starting to seem like there's probably some relevant information that i'm missing out on atm

[sailorrhansol]

The Syndicates Collection

Collection Details: This collection contains individual fics with each member of SVT paired with a different reader that occur in the same universe/AU and timeline. Each story is a stand alone, but three of them do have a connected/overarching plot. You do not need to read all of them to understand what's going on, and all of the fics can be read as standalone one shots.

Rating: 18+ Minors are strictly prohibited from engaging in and reading this content. It contains explicit content and any minors discovered reading or engaging with this work will be blocked immediately.

Collection Warnings: Criminal behavior, morally gray characters, murder, depictions of violence and murder, general violence associated with mafia/criminal activity, recreational drug sale and use, depictions and mentions of death, recreational drinking and drug use - each individual fic will be heavily tagged and warned appropriately.

Main Masterlist | Tag List Request Form | Ask

CONNECTED WORKS

Baby | Omertà | Menagerie

FULL COLLECTION

Baby

↪ Soonyoung has been in your life for as long as you can remember. You haven’t spoken since your wedding to someone who isn’t him, but when you uncover your husband’s plans to turn against your family, you don’t know who else to call.  Read Full Fic → Here

Vengeance | Coming Friday, January 24

↪ You always knew you were different from a young age. The only person who has ever been able to understand you is Vernon. When things take a turn for the Choi Syndicate, your long-term relationship is put to the test. Read Teaser → Here

Til Death | Coming 2025

↪ Being the heir of a powerful family has it's benefits - you get to go to whatever parties you want, vacation places people only dream of, and meet all the powerful entities of the city. It also has it's struggles, like being forced to marry a man you don't know - except you do know Minghao, who was your one night stand only a week prior.

Cherry Sours | Coming 2025

↪ Nothing in your life ever comes easy. Not family, not money, and certainly not jobs to pay the endless stack of bills. The only thing easy are the smiles you give Chan when he comes into your convenient store the same time every Saturday to buy his cherry sours. And then one day he arrives late, and everything changes.

Street Demon | Coming 2025

↪ You've been street racing since you could reach the pedal of a car - it's the only thing you've ever been good at. When a rival decides they're tired of losing to you, Seungkwan steps in to show he's more than just a street racer.

Omertà | Coming 2025

↪ Omertà (n) /ˌōmerˈtä,ōˈmərdə/ - code of silence, honor, and conduct that emphasizes remaining silent when questioned by authorities or outsiders. Or Jeonghan makes sure you stay on top of paying off your father's debts by making you betray everyone you've ever known during a Syndicate war.

Kerosine | Coming 2025

↪ Jihoon knew growing up he would be expected to practice law like his mother, protecting the assets and the associates of the Choi Syndicate. He's had no problem doing that so far - until he gets you as a client.

Stitchuation | Coming 2025

↪ Working the late night shift at the ER in the dangerous part of town sucks. Finding out the two repeat patients you've been flirting with are roommates is worse.

Corrosive | Coming 2025

↪ Trying to unravel the Syndicates that run the city isn't what Seokmin ever dreamed he'd be doing. Turns out he's good at it. At least until he meets you and everything he knows about the city's criminal empires is turned on its head.

Gin & Tonic | Coming 2025

↪ There is little benefit to working the underground fighting ring that belongs to the Choi Syndicate besides good pay. Another one? Getting to watch Junhui in the cage most nights and serving him his gin and tonic after he wins.

Dead to Me | Coming 2025

↪ You and Joshua ended things on a terrible note and you haven't seen him since, doing your best to avoid him - that is until he comes to your untimely and most annoying rescue.

Menagerie | Coming 2025

↪ Choi Seungcheol has been struggling since he stepped into his father's role leading the family syndicate. Nothing has been easy, fighting a war against both known and unknown enemies. You're easy though, making all of his troubles float away. And then those troubles come knocking on your door.

Disclaimer: Disclaimer: All members of Seventeen are faces and name claims for stories. Any scenarios or representations of the people and places mentioned in works are not representative of real-life scenarios. Moreover, none of my works accurately reflect, represent or take a stance on the nuances of Korean culture, cities, people etc. Seventeen members are not Seventeen culturally, intellectually, physically, or representationally in my stories, and should be considered name and face stand-ins for made up characters.

[your-unfriendlyghost]

Some more Dally Mark & Tex au thoughts

just so y’all know I think of the dally mark and tex au as a sitcom, w/like a few vague overarching plots (like Bryon and Mark re-connecting, Dally learning to not hate being an older brother, Mason learning he’s allowed to be a kid, etc) but mainly just hijinks. Here’s a few more thoughts:

-Season one would focus on Dally and Mark learning to co-exist- Mark would be fifteen/sixteen-ish and Dally would be nineteen. They’d clash a lot in the first few episodes. Dally’s arc would be about learning to be more patient with Mark, and Mark’s arc would be about how he has to be a little more law-abiding or at least Dally-abiding if he wants to survive. -There’d be a season 1 episode where Mark implies that Dally’s gone soft, and so Dally gets a bit insecure and hides it by amping up his crimes until Mark genuinely gets stressed and has to stop him as like a role-reversal thing 😭

-There would also be an episode where Mark tries to fit in with the Curtis gang but just can't, and it’s both angsty and comedic. Like he tries to help at the DX with Pony and Stevepop, but just fucks things up, stuff like that.

-Season two would introduce Tex and Mason, and thus the fic Hail Mary begins. Just yk Mark’s also there lol.

-Cole Collins would be a reoccurring antagonist, because he thinks Dally is a terrible influence

-There’d be an episode where Dally and Mark have to leave to do something, and so they leave Tex and Mace at the Curtis’s place with Darry, Soda, and Ponyboy (if he’s not in college yet? Idk)

-There’d also be an episode where Dally and Tim Shepard compete over who has the better kid siblings- it’d be all overly-serious and Mason’s the only one who thinks it’s stupid

-There would be a running gag of Mark trying to mildly inconvenience Bryon- like leaving nails in his driveway or driving up and down his street really loudly at night or hiring Curly Shepard to steal his homework and whatever. And once Tex is added to the mix Mark just uses Tex as more ammo for bugging Bryon.

-By the end of season 3 Mark and Bryon are back on speaking terms but very hesitantly

-Season four would revolve around Pop McCormick coming back and hating Dally (it’s mutual) and Tex (now fourteen years old, it’s been three-ish years) realizing that Dally’s his brother not his cousin and Pop isn’t his dad and Tex is having a real crisis

-So the events of the book “Tex” sorta happen, and Dally, Mason, Mark, and Johnny all try to kill Lem

-The eventual finale would be Mason going off to college finally and everything working out okay

There’s so much that would happen in between all this stuff, obviously, but yk, this is what I have rn lol. Definitely gimme your thoughts/ ideas on it ‘cos I love this AU, man

[lastoneout]

Okay, honest question, who is Yotsuba?

OH HO HO ANON I AM ALL TOO HAPPY TO EXPLAIN :3

Yotsuba is a character from the greatest manga ever made, Yotsuba&!(or Yotsuba to! it translates weird, most fans just call it Yotsuba) which is a comedy slice-of-life manga about Yotsuba Koiwai, a five year old girl, and her very strange yet wholesome family and friends!

It's from the same mangaka who gave us Azumanga Daioh, though while that manga is told in a four-panel comic style and doesn't really have much of an overarching plot, Youtsuba is done in a traditional manga style and despite also being very episodic there is a bit of a throughline surrounding Youtsuba getting settled into the neighborhood she just moved to, growing up, and eventually, in the later chapters, getting ready to go to school for the first time. Also, there are storylines that take place over multiple chapters as well! Despite the fact that the manga has been releasing since 2003, the chapters are pretty sporadic and the comic has only really covered about one year of the character's lives, but it never really feels slow or aimless. It feels almost...timeless? I guess. It's really nice.

Anyway, the manga is legit one of the most wholesome, funny, heartwarming things I have ever read. Kiyohiko Azuma is a fucking MASTER of comedy(you may have seen screencaps from a Sailor Moon fan comic he made going around on tumblr in which Jupiter accidentally sends Venus shooting across a pool that made me laugh so hard I cried) and he balances it well with lots of slow moments with GORGEOUS artwork where you can really take in the scenery and all of it is seeped in a wonderful nostalgia for childhood that legit makes me super emotional.

I don't think the manga has ever really taken off in terms of popularity, at least not to the degree that it deserves imo, which is likely in part due to the creator being firm about it never getting an anime adaptation and the sporadic release schedule, but it's far from unknown. There's been an official(I think??) score released and plenty of figurines and merch. It's also birthed a lot of memes, and it def has the same issue as One Piece where if you read it and love it you will turn into a walking billboard and try to drag your friends and family in with you. It's just THAT good!

You may have seen art of or people cosplaying Danbo, a "robot" made of old cardboard boxes that Yotsuba adores (Totally a real robot btw, def doesn't have a middle schooler shoved inside there, that would be silly wdym /s)

And this pose from the back of one of the manga volumes featuring Yotsuba, her father, and their extremely tall friend Jumbo has been redrawn with other characters like 500000 billion times

And you've also probably seen this going around tumblr before (that's Fūka she's my favorite cringe fail daughter I would literally die for her).

Also, I would be doing a disservice if I didn't mention Yanda, who is a friend of Yotsuba's dad and also Yotsuba's nemesis. He's a loser who constantly gets dunked on by a toddler it's fucking hilarious.

But yeah it really is just like, a manga that feels like a hug, or a warm blanket or something, it's so comforting and funny and fantastic, I find myself re-reading it any time life gets to be too hard just bcs it's that good at distracting me and reminding me that live is worth living.

And also given that it's literally my favorite manga, I saved up a bunch of screencaps to use as reaction images after a read one time, and thus now it's my own little joke that if you send me anon hate I'm just gonna send you back a picture of this cutie

Bcs come on how can you be angry when you're looking at this???

Anyway here's some screencaps of the main supporting cast bcs I love all of them so much <3

YOU WILL READ YOTSUBA I AM NO LONGER ASKING

[cerastes]

You know, I was just thinking, there's this game I like, I've talked about this one both on and off stream, it's Luminous Arc 2. It's one of those Way of the Samurai 4 games that are garbage games that did some things REALLY well but are still very much not good games overall, but that I LOVE. You know how much I love Way of the Samurai 4. I also love Luminous Arc 2, it's not a good game, it's a game that merits 0 playthroughs, and yet I gave it 2 full playthroughs.

With WotS4, I can explain to you what parts of it are genius hidden in an ocean of shit, but I can't with Luminous Arc 2, I've not done the mental homework on that one, so I did this weekend, and...

Luminous Arc 2 executes the Nanoha-style Magical Girl formula very very well.

Now, you may have heard that Nanoha is a mecha show but instead of mecha, there's magical girls. And that assessment is absolutely 100% correct. Luminous Arc 2 somehow distills the purely Magical Girl elements from Nanoha's mecha-magical girl execution and pulls them off REALLY well.

Allow me to elaborate.

Nanoha nails down the Good Fight Scene. Not just in fight choreography, but also, in essence of what a good fight scene aims to accomplish for an overarching narrative as an element in the bigger scheme that you can't just skip. Think about Code Geass for a moment: Is Code Geass a mecha show? It sure has mecha, but it's not a mecha show. You could replace the mecha in Code Geass with tanks and helicopters and nothing would change. In fact, at least one adaption of Code Geass does exactly this. Code Geass is a great show but it's not mecha in its themes and execution. Code Geass is a not mecha show with mecha. Nanoha is a mecha show without mecha. You can't remove the fights from Nanoha without it not being Nanoha anymore, and in each fight, we learn more about the characters, the characters learn more about each other, and even if any given fight does not move the plot forward, it does move the character arcs forward, on top of being fun to watch.

And Nanoha accomplishes this by making the same characters fight each other a bunch. Symphogear also does this. Each fight between the same characters feels different each time, because they are growing in terms of motivations and themes.

Luminous Arc 2 does the same with each of its big arcs. In the optional sidequests, you often just fight some mooks and a stronger, sometimes recolored version of a generic monster. The main story stages of the game, though? You are always fighting someone important or a consequence of someone's important's actions. Initially, you fight an ice witch named Fatima and her cat familiar and companion Josie a bunch. As the plot advances, your rogue's gallery keeps expanding, from the bandit Karen and her gang, who initially seem to be disconnected to the overall plot and is more of a Team Rocket deal, to actual lore powerhouses like Master Matthias and others who I shall omit for brevity. Luminous Arc 2 has three big arcs, and each of these have an evolving cast of reoccurring bosses that you fight for plot reasons, and you get to know each other a lot more with each fight, shedding light on their motivations, and them shedding light, in turn, on the motivations of your own side, which are actually not immediately discernible to you in their entirety.

And this is all really good! You get used to their signature moves, their animations, the way they usually structure their units, a bunch of really cool little things.

And maybe this game is sounding good to you, but make no mistake, it's a pretty fucking mediocre SRPG that you can play with your brain turned off. No cohesion, very little unit identity, incredibly self-indulgent first and everything else a distant second, it's NOT a good game... But what it did good, it really knocked it out of the park.

In terms of getting to know your enemy, their motivations, and how they in turn get to know and let you know more about you... Luminous Arc 2 does it better than most. Which is hilarious because this game sucks in every other department. It's not a good game. I did two full playthroughs and I would do a third.

[yukirayu]

You've mentioned disliking bad translations no matter whetter official or fan-made, and gave the example of Mink in the DMMD fanpatch. Can you elaborate? Did he get the Madarame treatment?

Yes, that's true. And it doesn't even have to be bad in terms of adding too many cuss words or country-specific slang or changing POV or anything else. All in all, the DMMD fan patch did follow the original narration viewpoint (since it's always been in first person) both in the first game and in the sequel. And yes, there are some slang and cursing in those too (like referring to Clear's pockets as Mary Poppins) but it's still kept to a manageable level that while I noticed it, it never truly bothered me.

Though back when Tumblr was still big, as I got into DMMD, it came to my attention as I checked tags and posts of other DMMD fans that the fanmade patch - which I am grateful to one way or another for getting me into the VN - really and I mean really had it out for Mink.

One thing is definitely certain, Mink's route in the first game is definitely not the easiest to swallow (like Madarame's) and his ending in the fandisc sequel does address the why behind that. Whether fans like or dislike him at the end of that is for them to decide.

But the fan patch team loathed Mink enough that they considered leaving him out of the translations entirely. When they eventually decided to include him, they basically had him talk very rudely (when he is to the point and forthright, but there's a difference between that and him spewing harsh and condescending insults), alter the narration (which again, is from Aoba's POV) to make the whole story sound like a classic case of Stockholm Syndrome (which let me stress, is nothing of the sort and is already its own can of worms) - both of which they ramped up to eleven in the sequel, where the two are meant to clear the air between them and find closure about what happened and then truly get together afterwards - all so that the fans can view him with the same disdain that they have of him.

It all boils down to "I see the plot/characters this way, and I will let that view affect how I word the text so that I can influence the readers/players to think similarly of it". Which what the fan patch team did with Mink, and in a way, also what the localization did with Slow Damage, since now Towa gets characterized as what others have called an "edgy gooner" when that's missing the point of his story entirely (which is also part of the overarching plot). While that could still have happened even with a good translation that was released from the beginning, since fandoms like to reduce characters to a meme/joke, for better or worse.

Back to Mink, there are a few other posts here on Tumblr (I doubt it is all of them) that point out how his route was tampered with on purpose, and I'll just share those links here for your reference: Link 1 | Link 2 | Link 3. Someone even attempted to retranslate Mink's route in the first game (alas, it never got completed, but it does manage to cover at least half of his route).

Needless to say, it got bad enough that many have suggested reading the alternate fan translation of the sequel (which was made before the fan patch came out) instead, since it isn't prejudiced against Mink. Now I do wish to make it clear here that the point about what happened with Mink's route isn't about having the characters like/dislike Mink, but about the importance of not letting one's bias affect the text, something that can be ignored in both fanmade and official translations.

Ah, I almost forgot, but yeah. In a way, Madarame got a similar treatment. Madarame talks bluntly and casually as well, but the Japanese text doesn't have him cuss every sentence or every other sentence. And whatever crudeness is in the text in other routes, it definitely is a lot more magnified in Madarame's route. And all even that aside, there's also one context that was notably changed in the very opening his route.

Like in that last sentence. From the original, you'd think that he's denying that he's acting for the sake of revenge and dismisses that as pathetic. Though the patched version implies that he does seem intent on revenge (even if he doesn't say it to Towa or denies it to Toono's face when Toono asks if that's what he's been doing) and that it isn't pathetic to do. Of course, this is just one example. And it doesn't change that even with a professional translation, Madarame's route is still also the bleakest and the one that's most tough-as-nails, but context always matters.

If anything, a good way of showing how the patch and the localization differ would be to record both versions from beginning to end and play them side by side.

[jinxedshapeshifter]

The really interesting thing about TGAA to me and how people treat it as a result is that it's quite historically accurate. Like obviously there are aspects of it that are played with in terms of historical accuracy (Sholmes and Iris's tech for example), but for the most part it feels pretty accurate to the turn of the 20th century in terms of how society was.

The reason this even occurred to me is because I'm playing The Adventure of the Clouded Kokoro, and when Ryunosuke mentions the domestic dispute between Joan and John, Patricia says "I can't even imagine being so horrid to the one you love." And that, there, had me like "domestic abuse like what Joan inflicted on John was probably normalized at this point in history" and I think the lack of much response regarding that specifically from anyone except Pat and I believe Ryunosuke shows that pretty well (and even then I think Pat comes off as a bit of a hypocrite for even saying "I can't imagine being so horrid to the one you love" but I digress).

Like The Great Ace Attorney very much uses multiple historically accurate attitudes — not just racism — to tell its story. It utilizes classism (to the point the overarching plot hinges on it), it utilizes the fact that in Victorian England domestic abuse was viewed as socially acceptable (in fact, based on a little research, I'd say how it's portrayed is incredibly accurate to Victorian attitudes irl), even Sholmes's attitude towards Ms. Garrideb (which, to be completely clear, is based on her behavior and not her weight, at least not consciously, but let's pretend he was consciously referring to her weight for a minute) is emblematic of the time period in which The Great Ace Attorney takes place.

The Great Ace Attorney is a story told about a Japanese man studying in Victorian England, and it's historically accurate about it. That's not to say you can't be uncomfortable in regards to certain parts of TGAA, but I also think understanding the historical context behind the game and how that drives the story is incredibly important. The racism, classism, domestic abuse, what can easily be taken as fatphobia/fat shaming (but I genuinely don't think is meant to be read that way); they're all perfectly in line with The Great Ace Attorney taking place in Victorian England. Those were normal in Victorian society and not looked down on like they are now. Looking at The Great Ace Attorney through that lens explains a lot about how the game is written, actually.

It turns a lot of the dialogue into a "This happened during this time period in England, but that doesn't mean the game's writers endorse it" and the game even critiques it, via dialogue from Susato and Ryunosuke (and occasionally other characters). I think we are very much meant to like characters like Sholmes and van Zieks, but we're also forced to acknowledge that they live in Victorian England and what isn't acceptable now is acceptable to them, because they live in Victorian England and for the story Capcom wanted to tell, it would've been dishonest to ignore what English society was like back then.

Really interesting to experience culture shock related to time period vicariously through a video game, I think.

[halliescomut]

The Boy Next World Official Trailer

Official trailer is out. I'm very excited to see where things go. It's clear some changes were made from the novel, which is exciting, because that gives an opportunity to kind of experience it with new eyes.

Official release is January 5th on MMY's YouTube as well as uncut on iQiYi.

I'm going to talk about novel to series changes that seem to be happening, so HEAVY spoilers below.

I'm going to assume if you're here, you at least watched the trailer all the way through, and I'm VERY intrigued at the choice of twist. I've seen comparisons to Two World and Vice Versa, but I didn't finish Vice Versa, so I can't speak for that in particular. To be honest, my first thought was A Christmas Carol, which is probably a little bit because of the time of year. Either way if we're doing a switch into the parallel worlds or alternate futures actually being real, I like that change SO MUCH.

The twist in the novel was so wildly problematic, to a degree where it certainly wouldn't get a pass in this day and age. And TBNW is one of Mame's older novels, so updating it for what fan/societal expectations are today is a really smart move on her part. I do wonder if she'll be updating the novel once the series is done, since she is changing a major plot point.

I'm going to talk about some other points in the novel, but I don't want to kind of repeat myself with explanations, so go check out this post where I kind of run through the things I hope to see in the series: link

To start, we see from the cast list that Ozone (or Zone) is present, being played by "Vino" Chavid Pevec. I was concerned that this character might get cut from the story, as with "colder" characters, I think having a sibling helps to give a human side to them, especially as a love interest is just getting to know them. We don't see much in the way of the side story that revolves around Cir and Zone's family, which while not a massive part of the novel, does speak to some of his motivations there, but with the changes being made, maybe it's not necessary. IDK. In the end, I can't really determine if it's a good move or not until we series the series and what was actually included.

I did make a point though that if they chose to include Cir's history and abuse at the hands of his mother I would hope they go for discussion only, versus casting a young actor to portray it, so if they've kind of removed that story, I don't think I'll be disappointed.

Wim and Jin are clearly present and we see confirmation that they will be the second couple for the series. I'm not sure how much of their characters will stay the same as the novel, as Phu and his friend group are a bit eccentric and silly, and I kinda hope we don't lose that. Going off the costuming for Jin it doesn't seem like it, so I'm hopeful.

The one of the bigger overarching points in the story is Phu actually dealing with his grief over his father passing, and we don't see much in the trailer for me to know if that's included in the series, but some of the story points in the novel really added depth to Phu's character, so I do think it would be a shame to minimize it or cut it altogether. One thing it does look like they've kept, which I'm very certain will break my heart, is Phu falling for Cir, and coming to terms with the fact that he's 'stolen' alternate world Phu's love and pushing for Cir to try and get back. In the novel, we see Phu as quite silly and a bit full of bravado, but he's also quite soft. His understanding of how much he's come to love Cir in such as short time and then considering how much more alternate world Phu would have loved him, considering they had years together is so beautiful and so sad, and handled with what I'll admit is a surprising level of subtlety that we don't often see from Mame. It's an all-around very complex situation with a lot of complex emotions, and I think it gives an opportunity for Noeul specifically to really show some range in the role.

I will say though, watching the trailer, I'm struck by the beauty of some of the shots. Like truly beautiful, so I definitely want to mention the director Mame is working with here, Thanpisit Jiradechakul. I know a lot of ppl assume that Mame directs all of her shows, and while she is heavily involved, I would say works as a co-director, she's only solo-directed Wedding Plan, and I'll be honest, you can tell the difference. I did try and look to see what other projects Thanpisit has worked on, and it looks like this is his first series. He's got commercials and some other smaller projects on his vimeo, but nothing of this scale. He is the credited editor and director for the Love in the Air music video though, so he has history with Mame, Boss, and Noeul.

Also, since I feel like it must be mentioned, yes of course the chemistry between Boss and Noeul is chemistry-ing... no one is surprised.

[inbarfink]

In regards to Silias Mann, I'm not comprehensively versed in tf2 lore. But in this comic, zephaniah tells Elizabeth to care for his son, which she asks "don't you mean sons?". He clarifies only one brother will be the champion and the other one basically forgotten in a grave outside. So if he considers himself an only son, that tracks with the Mann family's fratricide tradition. Silas might be his brother, who lost.

I mean, I've heard a few variants of the "Silas Mann is Zepheniah's brother who he 'disposed' of already and therefore refuses to acknowledge his existence' theory but they don't click right with me for two reasons:

Silas' only canonical not-Horsemann appearance is at the rightmost portion in the Mann Family Photograph

A photograph which is apparently a Real Physical Canonical Object as of "The Days Have Worn Away"

(We know/assume this is Silas because that rightmost part of the picture was first revealed during the Scream Fortress Horsemann update, when you press on Silas' name on the gravestone)

This picture depicts Silas as a living aged man (or Mann, as the case may be) during Zepheniah's twilight years (with the Administrator already in his service and the twins already adults). So Silas having been killed before the First Administrator Flashback Scene really doesn't make any sense as, like, a basic timeline thing.

(And if we're to assume that this is a ghostly apparition rather than a confirmation Silas was still alive during the mid 1800's... why would he appear so old? If he was Zepheniah's brother that he killed before even meeting the Administrator, he should be a young man?)

2. But more importantly....Sure, Zepheniah will only acknowledge the Mann who will dispose of his brother as his true son but... he does also acknowledge the existence of the 'unworthy' siblings his father and grandfather got rid of on their way to the top. They are not totally forgotten, at least as achievements of the 'True Heirs'

Zepheniah clearly sees the concept of killing your own sibling to farther yourself in life as an inherently noble one, something to brag about and remember. After all, that's why he says it's 'sad' that he was an only son. He wishes he had a sibling to kill as a way to prove himself.

So the idea that he did have a brother and that he had already 'disposed' of him by the time of this scene, and instead of bragging about it in legally non-incriminating terms he decided to outright wipe all traces of this event from living memory.... Well, to me that just feels flat-out Out of Character with the way Zepheniah is characterized in "The Days Have Worn Away"

And, well, something being OOC is a lot more damning to a theory than just lore/timeline inconsistencies in a story whose whole point is "The Lore and Overarching Plot were ultimately meaningless, what truly matters are the characters"

I thought about it for a bit, I think the only explanation that makes sense to me right now is that Silas Mann was not Zepheniah's brother, but instead a distant cousin. The surviving son or grandson of the one of the siblings of Ebenezer or Ezekiel (or maybe even related from someone farther up the family tree?). Since he's more distantly related, he had much less claim over the Mann fortune and Zepheniah might have not been initially aware of him and/or acknowledged him as a threat.... well, at least at first.

(Since he did get buried in the Traditional 'Loser' Mann style according to the Halloween Update and he is the Horseless Headless Horsemann I assume he did not die of natural causes and Zepheniah was probably to blame. It just happened later.)

[genericpuff]

Hi Puff! Idk if anyone has asked you this yet but what are your thoughts on the god of war game series? Are they actually more "accurate" about the greek mythology then LO? xD

oh lord, I'm def not a good person to ask about this question because I haven't played through all the original God of War games (though it makes me laugh to think about them because watching my oldest brother play the first game when I was like 7 years old was the first time I'd ever seen video game boobies LOL) but considering it's just a hack and slash game in which you brutally murder the gods... ima give it a big noooo on that one LOL it's about as accurate as LO in that it's more about spectacle and drama than it is about actually being accurate to the myths they're based on lmaoo

As for the Norse series of games, I actually HAVE played both God of War 2018 and Ragnarok and loved them both, though I'm not as well versed in Norse mythology so I also can't say if what they take from Norse myth is accurate. Obviously I know that Atreus/Loki has zero relation to fictional character Kratos from Greece and I have basic understanding of general concepts like Yggdrasil and the nine realms among other things like that, but the finer details regarding the stories of the characters themselves I'm not as brushed up on. Hella great storytelling though and I appreciate the lengths they went to to make it feel like a Norse-myth-inspired environment, even down to the vocabulary and terms used.

Just like with LO, you shouldn't be taking any of what God of War does or says at face value. If you like the games (or LO), use it as an opening hook to get more into the actual myths if they interest you. But definitely don't use them as any sort of credible source LOL

Now that I'm typing out my thoughts on this though, I think the biggest difference between GoW and LO (one that makes GoW far superior to it) is that the creators of GoW never once led their audience to believe that they were more than what they were, a hack and slash video game inspired by specific myths. What you see is what you get with GoW, but LO - and Rachel - constantly feel like they're actually trying to be taken seriously and that's what makes it all the worse when their storytelling is godawful and the amount of actual "myth" they have in the comic amounts to as much as a Family Guy cutaway gag. Just completely directionless and uninspired to the point you wonder why it's even an Greek myth retelling to begin with. At least GoW fully immerses itself in the myths their games are based on and has a shitload of fun with it, with LO it'll just source some copy pasted Princeton document or lazily tell some mythological metaphor that has nothing to do with the overarching plot so that it can remind you "hey this is a Greek myth retelling!" before getting back to its bland Keeping Up with the Kardashians romance. The mythological "inspiration" in LO feels more like tired lip service at this point rather than actual inspiration, which is really bitterly ironic considering Rachel used to tote around calling herself a "folklorist" and claiming that everyone else's knowledge of Greek myth compared to hers was "basic af".

TL ; DR: The biggest difference between GoW and LO in their retellings is humility IMO.

[infriga]

Some random Egghead meta about Vegapunk because he was on my brain today for some reason and I just wanna get it out of my head:

Honestly Vegapunk fascinates me as a character. I feel his existence as an individual gets overshadowed a lot by his existence as an important part of the overarching series/arc plot, but there's actually a lot of interesting things to think about regarding him as a person too.

One aspect that I probably think about the most is the mole plot regarding his satellites. Oda deliberately had him make several supposedly "negative" satellites, one being straight up Vegapunk's EVIL persona, and yet the one who truly turns out to be the traitor isn't Lilith, it's York. And sure, on the surface it's easy to say that it wouldn't be Lilith because that would be too obvious, but if Oda was just going to go for the surprise factor with this twist he would have had it be one of the more "positive" Satellites like Shakka (good) or Pythagoras (wisdom). In fact they were popular choices for theory crafters when the fandom was trying to predict who it would be. But he didn't go with that because the twist was based more on Vegapunk's actual character and actually makes a LOT of sense when we learn more about who he is as a person.

York is usually called Vegapunk's "greed" persona, but she's meant to represent more of a mix of greed, desire, avarice, hunger, appetite, even passion, etc, hence why her name is written in kanji as 欲 (yoku) which can mean all those things. With that understanding it's more understandable why her initial depiction comes across more like sloth and/or gluttony, after all her "job" is just to eat, sleep, and poop for Vegapunk, which may seem like a strange job for the "greedy" persona, but does fit the "appetite" or "hunger" aspect of the term yoku.

Obviously this comes with the benefit of hindsight but I actually kind of wish translators had translated her role to something more like desire or appetite instead of greed in most instances, since part of what makes the reveal a twist is that she really is more of an embodiment of "greed" as it's typically viewed despite appearing at first to be a less dangerous form of the concept. We're lead to believe that she's not as ambitious as she really is.

Ultimately I think the thing she represents is desire itself as a whole, unchecked by things like logic or wisdom or conscience. And knowing what we know now about Vegapunk's backstory, it makes sense why she would be the one to turn traitor, because Vegapunk's greatest weakness has always been his unchecked desire. I know some people might interpret it as being his naivety, but naivety on its own isn't a flaw or a weakness, someone can be naive and still make productive choices if they're smart and diligent and let their conscious and logic temper their first impulses. Naivety isn't always automatically a complete lack of wisdom or intelligence, it's a lack of experience, and that CAN be compensated for. Vegapunk didn't realize the extent of the government's cruelty, or the dangerous potential of his knowledge and technology in the wrong hands at the start because he hadn't yet experienced it first hand and he didn't try to compensate for that potential risk. If he'd tempered his desire for progress, for knowledge, for advancement, and exercised his intelligence and conscience, he likely would have realized the potential risks from the start and likely wouldn't have relied entirely on giving the government the benefit of the doubt because he would have prioritized being responsible with his abilities. He might have at the very least done more to gain leverage and have proper oversight over how his inventions would be used. This is something he eventually learned, as seen with stuff like his secret broadcast, but it came from hindsight after the damage was done, rather than from foresight.

A lack of foresight can be an issue, but what really drove Vegapunk's actions was, again, his desires overriding his common sense. The government was his meal ticket to the things he wanted, and he reasoned it away by saying that the means would justify the ends, up until he had to witness what those horrible horrible means really were with his own eyes.

Vegapunk's satellites don't only represent things like good, evil, wisdom, violence, intelligence, and desire, they specifically represent those aspects of HIM, and for all his flaws Vegapunk is clearly not an evil man. So it makes sense that Lilith would not actually be all that evil. And he is not a particularly violent man, which is why Atlas is not actually particularly violent at least in terms of the One Piece universe. Heck, Nami is arguably more violent than her. But Vegapunk IS very greedy. Not in the classic "wants to be rich and powerful" sense, except in terms of how riches and power would help him reach his true goals. He's covetous, he has an appetite, he is driven by desire. It is as much a strength as it is a weakness, it's why he has made so much amazing technology, and why he looked into stuff like the void century despite the risks, but it's also why he chose the government as his benefactors over the revolutionary army, it's why he built so many dangerous things without thinking of the consequences of who might weild them or how they might be used to harm instead of help. He always needed more. He needed more money so he could fund more projects, he needed more projects so he could make more discoveries, he needed more discoveries so he could gain more knowledge, and so on and so on. This is of course represented quite aptly by his ever expanding brain, not unlike the common imagery of an ever expanding stomach that represents gluttony. He may have meant well with how he wanted to use the knowledge and discoveries and technology, but, well, you know what they say about good intentions.

As he grew older, eventually his experience overcame his naivety, his wisdom and good conscience overcame his desire, and he finally stopped seeking more above all else and started trying to mitigate the damages and make up for the consequences of his actions. But York? York doesn't have that wisdom or conscience, she's just the desire, unchecked. And Vegapunk's remaining naivety ended up aimed at himself, when he didn't recognize the danger of that aspect of himself.

So with this full picture in mind, it makes total sense why York was the turncoat, not someone like Lilith or Atlas, because Lilith is only as evil as Vegapunk is, and Atlas is only as violent as Vegapunk is, and unfortunately, York is just as hungry for more as Vegapunk is.

[sevengraces]

I love that throughout the series Murderbot is both:

- one of the most spiteful beings I’ve ever had the pleasure of being the narrator in a book I read,

- and also so immensely compassionate 24/7 towards its companions and acquaintances regardless of personal opinions

———

Like yes,

-it’s internal monologue through almost every fight is I wanna win and if I have to die to take down this fucker I will, it just doesn’t deserve to win 

-While also, addressing every single bot kind of entity with this level of respect, comradery, and attachment, regardless of so-called sentience or sapience. Even going through extra steps to protect Guarthin and free the comfortunit despite how harsh it behaves towards the both of them.

———

The only notable exceptions I can recall to this sort of inherent respect it has is with the other bot/human constructs (ie comfortunits/combatunits/occasionally other secunits), which I imagine is the self-loathing talking,,, and that is something that improves measurably throughout the series at least in regards to comfort and sec units- which does imply possible change in regard for combatunits !!!

———

Like I know, this is like the point of the book or whatever but there’s not like a lotta moments in which I go

“man murderbot, You just kind of disregarded the like personhood (for lack of a better term) of that being.”

because like, there are a lot of books, in which,, despite the overarching moral being something to the effect of

[treat people well,] or

[everyone deserves respect]

there’s almost always exceptions to that rule that are implied or stated within the text despite the inherent contradictions it makes to what the author is trying to teach you (think hp w the supposed moral being found family but the plot being utterly reliant on blood ties above all else)

It’s just ridiculously refreshing to read something and not have to watch the author backpedal on their thesis once they get to the world building,,,,,

[loosesodamarble]

A Black Clover Dating Sim

I’m going to imagine Black Clover as a dating sim/otome real quick.

The title of the dating sim would be “Black Clover: The Third Leaf” in reference to the third leaf of the clover being associated with love. (And yes, I know the title is confusing since it sounds like it could imply two previous games but shhhh!)

I could try coming up with an original plot for the story of the dating sim to follow that would allow for the player character to get lots of interaction with the various characters that I've chosen to be love interests for this dating sim concept. But I'm going to simply have the sim's plot follow Black Clover canon up to the Elf Reincarnation Arc. Although, I would make a few adjustments to certain story beats to maximize the time spent with the love interests.

On that note, I would like to say that when a player gets on a love interest’s route, the player insert would join the corresponding squad for that character.

If this dating sim were to follow dating sim convention, then there’d be four routes that are available and then a fifth, locked route (ugh, I don’t like locked routes but I’m going to go with what’s standard). Each route would have a variety of endings, some shorter bad ones that come in the middle of a route and at least two endings that reach the final chapter. I personally would create three endings: Bad, Normal, and Best (in a similar vein to Piofiore: Fated Memories).

For the unlocked routes, there would be: -Jack: I would have Jack’s route be the “introductory route” in terms of a route play order. The story with the least spoilers to the overarching story. Jack’s character and story would be pretty distant from the main plot. Though his route still is a necessary piece in the overall puzzle. -Nozel: His route would touch more on spoilers but still leave things pretty murky. In terms of play order, Nozel’s route can probably be interchangeable with Fuegoleon’s. He gets more involved with the story, considering his position as a royal giving him access to more resources/information and what happens to Fuegoleon. Speaking of! -Fuegoleon: Let me be clear, one of the biggest changes to the Black Clover canon that I’d make for the dating sim is keeping Fue out of a coma (although he could end up in a coma for a short bad end). Because it would really suck if the love interest of the route just wasn’t present for most of it. To keep Fue from spilling the beans though, he’d probably be under the effects of some kind of memory blocking spell or maybe he’s too shaken with PTSD that broaching the topic of the attack isn’t in the cards (and perhaps pressing him for answers too early into his route results in a bad end). As I said with Nozel, I’d make it possible to swap the two in order of play and still get roughly the same amount of story reveals. -Yami: Definitely the route to play right before unlocking the last route. Since the Black Bulls are the main characters of the Black Clover series, it makes sense that Yami's route would become a lot more involved and thus carry a lot more spoilers.

Finally, the locked route of the game goes to William. Since I'm having the dating sim's plot lead up to the Elf Reincarnation Arc, it makes sense for William to be the locked love interest. His connection to Patry, and his personal journey, is gonna be the big grand reveal. Most if not all of the story's secrets would be revealed in William's route.

But also like Piofiore, I’d like to include a sixth route, the Finale. It'd be where literally everything gets revealed and all loose ends are tied, without the route being romance oriented. (Although there is an option for romance even in Piofiore's Finale route.)

Now when it comes to completing routes to unlock William’s, most games require players to complete the best endings for all other love interests. Which I feel is a stupid slap to the face. It's unfair to demand that players get the best endings for all the other love interests, characters that players would’ve grown attached to and then say “and now your love for them and their happily ever afters are completely irrelevant because here’s the guy that the player insert is meant to be with.”

Anyways, “Black Clover: The Third Leaf” will actually follow the example set by Code Realize and Radiant Tale. In those games, getting even the Normal End will bring players a step closer to unlocking the final route. So players for the Black Clover dating sim can either complete the Normal or Best End for Jack, Nozel, Fuegoleon, and Yami in order to play William’s route. And getting William’s Normal or Best End then opens the Finale.

Though I am going to say that only getting the Bad Endings won’t help unlock William’s Route. (This isn’t Virche Evermore folks. Though even that's not a proper comparison since the Salvation/good Endings are locked until you fulfill certain requirements.)

However, completing a Bad Ending will still earn the player something. The ability to chapter select for a character route. Chapter selection is a feature in dating sims where you can pick which chapter of a route you jump into and sometimes set an affection stat as well. The feature makes it easier to hunt down the shorter bad endings and get to the other long endings without having to replay the entire route. Some games only make chapter selecting available after getting a character’s Best End (glaring at you Collar x Malice) while others give players the chapter selection option even with a Bad or Normal End (Piofiore and Winter's Wish, props to you for that).

Also, some dating sims give their various endings neat little names (Virche Evermore and Variable Barricade come to mind for that). So I'm also going to name the various endings for the love interests of "The Third Leaf." (and give a brief idea of what it would involve).

Jack -Bad End: Ill Will Hunting (Jack and the player don’t trust each other enough and can’t work well together to fight the reincarnated elves, so they die in battle.) -Normal End: My Favorite Challenge (The player becomes Jack’s vice captain as they challenge each others’ strength, but nothing more happens.) -Best End: Absolutely Crazy For You (Jack and the player confess their feelings in the middle of the battle with the elves and begin dating afterwards.) 

Nozel -Bad End: Stripped of Wings (Nozel is distracted during the battle with the elves over his feelings for the player as well as the unresolved tension between him and Noelle. Unable to focus, he dies against Kivn.) -Normal End: A Captain’s Duty Above All (Nozel survives the night but pulls away from the player to stay focused on his job. It's implied in this ending that Noelle joins the Silver Eagles so there's some hope for her.) -Best End: Silver Star of Hope and Love (Nozel finds his resolve during the battle and survives. He makes cleaner amends with Noelle. Then, he confesses to the player and hesitantly starts a relationship.)

Fuegoleon -Bad End: A Dying Flame (Fuegoleon is unable to come to overcome his trauma. His broken spirit means Salamander doesn’t choose him and so the CLK is defeated during the Elf Reincarnation.) -Normal End: Lion’s Roar (Fuegoleon manages to earn Salamander’s presence but he still feels inadequate for the player.) -Best End: Love That Burns Bright (Fuegoleon protects the player with Salamanders power and confesses to the player. The player reassures him that he was always good enough, they were just waiting for him to remember that for himself.)

Yami -Bad End: Failure to Surpass (The player has trouble believing in themself and dies to protect Yami from the elves' attacks, thinking it's all they can do.) -Normal End: Three Cheers for the Black Bulls!!! (The Magic Knights successfully end the elf reincarnations and the Black Bulls are celebrated as heroes. Yami and the player decide to put more focus into the squad than a potential romance.) -Best End: Aishiteiru (The player fights side-by-side with Yami during the attack. Yami is glad to see their confidence and afterwards, confesses. They start dating and Yami shares a bit about Hino.)

William -Bad End: Blackened Dawn (William is completely lost when Patry activates the reincarnation spell for all elves. As the player futilely begs for William to come back, Patry kills them.) -Normal End: One Day We Might… (The elves are stopped and William is saved. William refuses to enter a relationship with the player until he redeems himself for his treachery against Clover Kingdom. He never does in this ending.) -Best End: A Kiss Under Yggdrasil’s Blooms (The player reassures William that they'll support him despite his betrayal. They begin dating despite William's self-doubt.)

.....

Now I know what some of you might be thinking, “Soda, what about your favorite devil host, Nacht? Why doesn’t he have a route in the Black Clover dating sim?”

Not to worry, lovely followers, I already have that covered. “Black Clover: The Third Leaf” gets itself a fandisc (read: sequel) where players get to play After Stories for the original five love interests, play through an extra story that totally happened during the original game’s timeline and doesn’t break continuity whatsoever (Code Realize and Collar x Malice’s fandiscs with the extra stories… oof), as well as romance new characters.

The fandisc title would be “Black Clover: Love, Luck, and Devils.”

"Love, Luck, and Devils" would have After Stories, epilogues to the original routes' Best Endings that give players a lot more fluffy moments with their man of choice and also present a new challenge for the couple's relationship.

Jack, Nozel, Fuegoleon, Yami, and William’s After Stories would provide plenty of fluff. But I also feel like there could be secondary After Stories that then move into the Spade Arc (RIP Yami and William for getting damsel-ed during the arc).

And then, of course, there's the alternate love interest routes which I will give to Patry (the guy honestly deserves it) and Nacht (see, he does get a route~).

Patry’s route would tell the events of the first game leading up to the Elf Reincarnation Arc, except the player character would be siding with the Eye of the Midnight Sun. There’d be minimal interactions with the original love interests but the player would get to see the Third Eye crew! Patry’s endings would be called: -Bad End: Leaves of Despair (Zagred, as in canon, turns Patry into a Dark Elf. When the player tries to stop him, he kills them. That despair makes it impossible for even Asta to save Patry afterwards.) -Normal End: A World Reborn (The elves are successfully reincarnated and Patry turns the player away since they’re still human. However, he does mourn the fact that he couldn't be with his beloved.) -Best End: Chase the Light, to a New Future (The elf reincarnation is stopped. Afterwards, Patry and the player confess their feelings. They vow to create the kind of world that Licht and Lumiere imagined, where elves and humans can live together.)

Nacht’s route removes the player from Clover Kingdom so they can instead join Nacht in his mission in Spade Kingdom. Nacht’s Shadow Magic could be used to transport the player between Spade and Clover so there can be some interactions with the rest of the BC cast. But the route would mainly be in Spade. Nacht’s route would also extend into Spade Arc for the big emotional climax. -Bad End: The Unforgiven (Nacht realizes he loves the player but due to his self-loathing, he accidentally tells the player that he wishes they’d never met [in the sense that he fears the fact that he fell in love after meeting them]. The player runs off and the two don’t see each other ever again, even during the battle for Spade.) -Normal End: Death and Atonement (During the battle in Spade, the player tries to help Nacht against the twin devils. To protect them, Nacht sacrifices himself and dies in the player’s arms.) -Best End: Love That Forgives All (When Nacht tries to sacrifice himself, the player stops him. After the battle, Nacht confesses his love for the player and feelings of inadequacy. They embrace him and says that they’ll love and forgive him no matter what.)

Maybe we can throw in a third game for this dating sim series (called “Black Clover: Romance Knights” [as a play on the Quartet Knights game]).

In this third game, players would get fluffy After Stories for Patry and Nacht’s routes. And I'd borrow a concept from Code Realize's second fandisc, Winterwide Miracles, called "triangle dates." It's a feature that simply allows players to see fluffy scenarios involving the player insert and two of the love interests. Why limit yourself to one pretty man, after all? There'd be triangle date scenarios involving all the love interests.

(Oh my gosh, the scenarios involving Fuegoleon and William or Patry would be so fucking awkward. I’m sorry, Fue. But you have to hang out with those two for the dating sim! Me personally, my favorite potential pair would be Nacht and Nozel.)

..........

And now to present the protagonist of this imaginary Black Clover dating sim series.

To be inclusive, there are two versions of the player insert.

A feminine presenting protagonist (default name: Heather):

And a masculine presenting protagonist (default name: Heath):

As is the standard for dating sims, the name for the player insert would be changeable.

Age: 25 Hometown: Aquaressa Magic Attribute: none (will explain in detail in a bit) Backstory: The protagonist washed up on the beach of a town called Aquaressa. They could only remember their name, how old they were (13 at the time), and recalled a poem that was taught to them. The protagonist was taken in by the local church and raised with the other children. Very quickly, people took notice of their odd magic which seemed to take no definitive form. They discovered an inclination towards healing magic despite the lack of an attribute. When they were fifteen, they received their grimoire like all other youth. As they trained their growing magic, they discovered their true potential (more on that later). At age nineteen, the protagonist was scouted by Julius Novachrono and given the chance to train under the nation's highest healer, Owen. Six years later, with battles against Spade and Diamond becoming fiercer, Julius asks the protagonist to formally join one of the Magic Knight squads to assist them more closely and actively on the battlefield. And that is where their story truly begins.

Regarding the protagonist's magic. Like Ladros, the protagonist doesn't have an attribute. However, this is because they have the ability to manipulate raw mana and using it to manifest whatever magical phenomena they desire. This means they can essentially use any attribute. For the protagonist, they find it easiest to turn mana into energy meant for Healing Magic. Turning raw mana into a specific attribute is taxing and takes a great deal of studying to pull off in the first place. They mainly use raw energy blasts but, at the start of the dating sim's events, can manifest the base four magic attributes (wind, water, earth, fire).

When the protagonist chooses a love interest, they will eventually learn how to manifest another element. -Cloud Magic with Jack -Lava Magic with Nozel -Snow Magic with Fuegoleon -Lightning Magic with Yami -Crystal Magic with William -Shadow Magic with Patry -Light Magic with Nacht (I would've made it so the protagonist learns the same attribute as the LI, but that complicated things with Fuegoleon. So instead of his being the only route where the protagonist doesn't learn to use his element, I decided that all the routes would have the protagonist learn a contrasting/complementary attribute instead.)

Other trivia about the protagonist -Essentially blind without their glasses. (I really wanted to protagonist to have glasses since I've personally never encountered an otome mc with glasses and have seen very few example of love interests with glasses.) -Their grimoire's cover is a cloudy grey and white gradient with a stark white border around the edges. -The protagonist has a four-leaf grimoire. However, with a special grimoire cover, they hide it since they know they're odd enough already without being a four-leaf. -Their palate is durable to extreme flavors. They're also a strong drinker. -The poem that the protagonist remembers goes as follows: Divine spirit, born asleep. Learn what you desire to keep. Once they tears are bittersweet, Then shall the self be complete. They initially mistake it as a sign of divine origins but eventually figure out that it's merely a poem about the value of life and learning to take all its joys and sorrows.

[total-drama-brainrot]

How would p! Noah act in area 52/51? Would you give him his ability to hack into anything?

I think that's Canon idk. Or would he just scare the crap out of everything (aliens included)

Well, Noah's hacking ability is canonical, even if it's only really established in his Island biography and later on in Dramarama (I believe?). Since p!Noah is meant to mimic canon Noah for the most part, I don't see why he wouldn't have the same hacking abilities.

Not that I think they'd be much good in Area 51/52, since most of the challenge itself is pretty much just a game of hide-and-seek meets "find the needle in the haystack". Of course, he could always use his technological prowess to prevent the deployment of the guards, but it wouldn't really be in character of p!Noah to deprive himself of something as exciting as being chased by armed forces.

He could always hack his way into Owen's Jokerisation chamber, but again it wouldn't really impact the competition much, since Owen's whole deal for this episode doesn't really have much sway on the plot itself

As for what he'd do during the episode?

Well, I think I'd need to establish how Greece's Pieces plays out first before stating anything concrete here, but at this point in the timeline p!Noah has been outed to the rest of his castmates as less sane than they had assumed (my means of snapping Ezekiel's arms like twigs, and menacingly playing around with a knife, among other things). They'd still be fairly hesitant to be around him, and Noah would be free to act more overtly antagonistic/crazy now that his façade is in shambles. (Perhaps too antagonistically crazy, since a lot of his instability is also just an act.)

There's not really much you could change about the episode's beginning, at least nothing substantial; p!Noah would probably find a lot of amusement in Duncan getting laser fried and Tyler electrocuting himself on the fence, but otherwise wouldn't have much reason to act out against his team. Unless he's feeling particularly daring at that moment, and decides to forego the rock tossing to instead dodge the lasers all the way to the warehouse entrance, but again this isn't a substantial change in terms of the overarching plot of the episode.

When the teams are inside of the warehouse, there's a little more room to play with character shenanigans.

Because they're looking for Alien Artifacts. Trinkets and gizmos supposedly dangerous enough to warrent a whole branch of governmental force dedicated to studying them. That's exciting - of course Noah's going to want to mess with them.

Of course, his main priority initially is getting Owen back from his time-out chamber. But that's laughably easy for him, given his hacking abilities and general technology savviness. But as soon as he's got his chubby buddy back? You know your boys are messing around with every artifact they can find, to Alejandro's ire.

Maybe he and Owen are the ones who initially encounter the floating aliens? Maybe the two of them walk into the scene of Tyler and Alejandro "dealing" with them, and Noah siezes the oppertunity to smush the alien face huggers into paste (with the added benefit of hitting both Tyler and Alejandro around the face with a metal pole, or something).

Or maybe the face huggers can smell the crazy ebbing off of him from a mile away, and fly away as fast as they can before Noah can even get to the scene.

Either way, whatever artifact Team CIRRRRH manages to get their hands on wouldn't last long enough to win them the challenge; either Tyler would follow his canonical counterparts footsteps and somehow break it, or Owen and Noah would inadvertantly sabotage their team whilst messing around with their chosen artifact.

Noah absolutely pockets a few alien-tech weapons from inside the warehouse though.

When they finally get back onto the jet, Noah scuttles off to some hidden corner of the cargo bay and begins reverse engineering the artifacts he stole borrowed from Area 51, if only just to abate his ceaseless boredom. Regretably, he's more of a software guy than a hardware guy, and he mostly ends up with a pile of useless alien scraps.

(Potential here to have him enlist Cody, who's canonically a bit of an engineer, to help him tinker with the artifacts? I think Cody would risk his luck with sometimes-crazy Noah if it meants getting away from always-crazy Sierra.)

[folklauerate]

I’ll say something else while I’m here-one of my biggest issues with Bridgerton s2 was the lack of cohesiveness. Jesus Christ no one is upset with characters making unlikable decisions and if you want a wedding for the sake of drama, Shondaland, have a fucking wedding, but make it earned! And on top of that, the wedding episode had the fucking audacity to be boring as shit! Just all trodding on and operating off of the assumption the viewer would be aghast and would sit through nearly an hour of boring yawn snooze because there were “stakes” and it seemed like the main pair might not get together. Like for fuck’s sake have as much drama as you like but at least make it well written! Instead the wedding episode is a dirge and not because it’s a reflection of some character’s mental state or any seemingly deep reason, no; it’s like they decided there would be a wedding and shrugged when it came to getting the character’s there. It doesn’t count as good writing if you’ve spent the past months/years trying to wrap your head around or write fic around the reasons why x decision by y characters make sense to fill in gaps that shouldn’t be there in the first place and that’s all this fandom has done.

People’s issue with side plots taking up too much time isn’t really that they take up too much time-it’s that none of them follow a set of overarching themes of the season and feed into them or a main storyline in a significant way, giving the illusion to the viewer that they’re completely separate from the romance at the core and therefore taking away from it, as opposed to everything being harmonious.

On top of that, the characterizations are so fucking varied and there’s a large tonal shift between s1 and s2 in terms of the way the Bridgersibs interact with one another. Siblings can fight and be rude and whatever to one another but for them to turn into completely different people out of nowhere is so ??

And on the topic of characterizations-WHERE WAS KATE’S??? Anthony gets 28363938 motivations for why he is the way he is and then is honestly left floundering with all of them, until you’re honestly a bit ?? as to why he can’t marry for love, and then you get Kate who is just… There. Why can’t she marry for love? Why is she hellbent against marrying? Why is she prioritizing her family’s finances and Mary/Edwina above herself? What conversations did she have with her father before he died to make her this way or was she always like this? What were their lives like in India? I could keep going! At least in the book you get some half hearted “I’m too ugly and old to get a match” reason but in the show no one is going to fucking believe Simone Ashley is too ugly or old to get whatever lord she wants 😭✋ and THEN???? To top it all off-Kate and Anthony don’t have a single meaningful discussion around an entire eight episodes!!!!! Not one!!!!!!!!! What fucking growth happens between them fucking and the coma and then their fucking dance to have them propose? If the actors themselves had to invent all these so called secret conversations their characters had in between everything to make things make sense, I really don’t think that’s a hallmark of good writing. They rush that happy ending in there at the end and it feels like they forgot they had to end the fucking show with these two characters together and they just said “fuck it let them kiss” and that’s what we got. WHAT CONVERSATION OF SUBSTANCE DID THEY HAVE. And what fucking argument can you make that it’s okay that it didn’t happen on screen??) NONE!!! It’s TV! It’s a VISUAL FORMAT??? Oh my god.

I told myself I wouldn’t rant about this, just redirect people to walle’s thoughts on this, which is (in her own words) how she sat shiva for the fucking wreck of what Bridgerton s2 is. Walle if you don’t know wrote a thousand cuts and s2 was the nail in the coffin for her. It was so so so bad. It went against such basic principles of storytelling. The writing was so abhorrent. It was insane. And to defend it feels more insane it feels like you’ve been taken hostage by this damn show and you’re writing thinkpieces on tumblr and twitter to make it make sense!

What grates me is that it really could’ve been good. The juice was there. The actors are amazing. The production team is clearly so so dedicated and hard working. IT WAS ALL THERE. Honestly the way the show was marketed in the trailer feels completely different from how it came out and I have to think there was some fuckshit going on behind the scenes given the large tonal shift during/after ep 4 and CVD’s hasty and odd departure.

[glitteringcrab]

I've seen this technology before

...Have we... really considered the implications of this?

The first possibility is that the creators of Rick and Morty kinda made certain things up as they went along (which makes sense) and this was simply Evil Morty's introduction: he's clever, he's ruthless, he can perform mind control. Cool. Spooky.

The second possibility, if Evil Morty's whole arc is planned from the very beginning and he's always been intended to be an overarching villain/antihero (honestly, it feels this way) is that in some point in the past there was either (at least one) Villain Of The Week (let's call him Random Puppetmaster Villain) or a Rick (let's call him Puppetmaster Rick) who would puppeteer people to promote his own agenda.

The Citadel Ricks examining Evil Rick had evidently no clue who could have been puppeteering Evil Rick. This can be read in two ways:

A) Random Puppetmaster Villain/Puppetmaster Rick is still at large, never been caught. The Citadel Ricks have no idea where to even begin looking. Evil Morty would likely know who it is.

I feel like this theory has some basis plot-wise, given that with Rick Prime dead and the Intergalactic Federation gone we're sorta running out of overarching villains.

B) Random Puppetmaster Villain/Puppetmaster Rick is dead, his villain lair destroyed, all his mooks defeated. The Citadel Ricks are like "wtf, what's this up now?" as all possible leads are long gone. They have no idea who could possibly be using the same technology now.

This theory has some basis if we consider the fact that Evil Morty does not appear particularly scared--just angry. His motivation to leave was because he was sick of being trapped with Ricks, not because he was worried a past enemy might hunt him down. I guess one possibility doesn't rule out the other (you can be scared and angry at the same time) but Evil Morty seems to be the living incarnation of the toxicity of the Rick-Morty dynamic; nudging that on the side with a generic being-a-victim-to-a-villain backstory feels very disappointing.

I guess in theory both possibilities could be true; Puppetmaster might have been defeated, Evil Morty might, along everyone else, think the dude (or dudette) is dead, but that person could have escaped.

There is also the possibility that Puppetmaster and Evil Morty parted in good-ish terms with each other, so one has no reason to fear the other.

C) Evil Rick was the Puppetmaster. I feel this is unlikely, same as I feel it is unlikely that Evil Rick was ever physically abusive with Evil Morty, despite Evil Morty's reaction to his yells. If he was in habit of hitting Evil Morty (or worse), I doubt Evil Morty would have worked up the courage to get in his face over something as mundane as a shitty (literally lol) adventure. (Other Ricks might have been though, which would explain Evil Morty's reaction).

IN ANY CASE

Evil Morty had the... good fortune (?) to interact with this person in the past. In the same way Morty Prime is used to disarming neutrino bombs drunkenly assembled by Rick C-137, Evil Morty was experienced enough to successfully perform brain surgery on Evil Rick. This is supported by Evil Morty's large range of brain-related abilities, and I'm not referring to the manipulation:

1. Performing brain surgery on at least two Ricks. It wasn't a one-time thing. He did it with Evil Rick, and he did it again when he was running for president:

Look at the Rick in the picture: he doesn't have the eye bags nor mouth scar that Evil Rick had, and Evil Morty is wearing his Candidate Suit.

It's unclear if Evil Morty set his assistant up for a failed assassination attempt to gain votes through sympathy, or if someone had really been keeping tabs of him... But whichever is true, I can totally see any people in the know being afraid to speak up: any of the Ricks accompanying Evil Morty might in reality be puppeteered by Evil Morty. Some of the guards that shot the District Ricks might have been Evil Morty. The Ricks that approved of him participating in the campaign run might have been Evil Morty. Good luck speaking to anyone; you risk basically confessing to Evil Morty.

2. Scanning Rick C-137's entire brain (when he finished this in the Citadel, he did it with no visible apparatus, I might add).

3. Scanning dead Ricks' entire brains. You'd think that the death would deteriorate the memories, but nope. Evil Morty was good to go.

4. Being able to instantly scan another person's brain and find out what they're planning:

5. Creating small devices that can instantly hijack robotic brains and enslave them to his own will:

6. Downloading specific data from another person more-or-less on the spot:

I mean, that wasn't even Evil Morty's tablet! He threw it away after he was done, and it seems that he had hastily wrecked Rick Prime's control room to hook him up with some cables so he could get what he wants.

(Interesting that he didn't bother downloading Rick Prime's insta-healing ability though; one with think that it'd be quite a catch, but Evil Morty apparently does not want to be able to live forever)

I mean, we've seen the Galactic Federation going into a lot of trouble to get Rick C-137's interdimensional travel secret, and those weird little dudes that specialized on simulations going to equally lot of trouble just to get Rick C-137's concentrated dark matter recipe.

They'd all wish they had the same abilities Evil Morty has, it'd all be over in a jiffy.

SO.

What I'm concluding when taking all the above into consideration is that Evil Morty was at some point paired with a Rick who specialized in brain control. Evil Morty got to observe the surgeries, assist in the surgeries...

...and have a surgery done to him.

Because he might be able to perform brain surgery on an incapacitated Rick, but I doubt he'd be able to do it to himself in his bedroom.

He had no trouble hooking his own cables with the eyepatch, even though the cables were sticking out of his freaking eye. He knew how to connect them. He knew how to make the eyepatch work. He knew what he was doing. This was all familiar to him.

And given that once he became fed up with Evil Rick he acted with no hesitation, it's clear that he had already considered this technique as a possible way out, and up to then had been simply deciding against it.

Now.

Best case scenario. BEST CASE:

Evil Morty was simply one of the Puppetmaster's experiments. (No hard feelings.) After all, Evil Morty had no transmitter in his skull. He had to hook up one externally. This means that Puppetmaster never considered him a partner; Evil Morty was never given free reign to puppet others. He was one of the people being puppeteered.

It's unclear whether Evil Morty has a receiver of his own still stuck somewhere in his brain (I mean, if Puppetmaster's transmitter is destroyed, I guess that Evil Morty would stop receiving orders and he'd be free) although even if that's the case, I'm sure once he became president and got access to more superior tech he'd make sure to fix this possible contingency.

The cables sticking out of his freaking eye kinda point out to Puppetmaster connecting Evil Morty to a machine while immobile (especially if Evil Morty was the initial experiment, needed updates, maintenance, etc) or having him wear a mook mask or helmet of some sort. Those cables are not really easy to use otherwise. Or maybe there was a receiver once in his skull, was later removed (e.g. once Puppetmaster was defeated) but the cables hooking up the removed receiver to his brain have remained.

Worst case scenario:

Evil Morty was not simply an experiment, but one of the people regularly puppeteered. Theoretically possible, although given that Ricks don't think highly of Mortys, and that Mortys usually do what they're told (a clone Morty with nowhere else to go even more so), I'm not really sure what kind of things Puppetmaster thought Evil Morty would be useful for and thought that the best way to get obeyed was literal brain control.

In any case, this wasn't just "a body modification" nor "just an implant", in the same way that Morty Prime can turn into a boat or breathe in space. This is a lot, A LOT more intrusive.

In conclusion:

Possible villain still at large.

Someone hug Evil Morty ASAP.