#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

[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.

[logarithmicpanda]

My silly pet peeve is people using the term "filler" with no actual understanding of the original concept, which was an anime thing. Specifically, a filler episode is NOT a character centric episode, it's an episode that does not adapt the original material (usually because it's waiting for more of the original material to come out without interrupting the show's diffusion) but comes up with its own content. As such, it cannot meaningfully affect the plot OR the character development, because it needs to insert seamlessly between two arcs of canon content. By definition, it cannot do anything really interesting lol. Character centric episodes are not filler content. They're an important part of the overarching narrative (at least if your content is decently good lol)

[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.

[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,,,,,

[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.

[furbygoblinxiv]

Ok now to be annoying about a completely different flavor of Zelda: That cartoon from the 80s that has aged so poorly I take psychic damage every time I watch it (which has been multiple times (I have problems)). A few months ago when rewatching and being sick of the Link's personality from the show (his best feature is how funny the "Well excuuuuse me, princess" line is) I was like "I wish the quiet kid from the games/art was here instead" and accidentally thought too hard and made an au/rewrite of the cartoon lmao.

Anyways Zelda cartoon au where cryptid boy Link saves the post apocalyptic Hyrule of loz 1 and chills in the castle with cartoon Zelda to defend the triforce pieces that they have while trying to find the last piece before Ganon can find it, stumbling across the sleeping loz 2 Zelda along the way lol. Hijinks ensue as he teaches Zelda the brawns to back up her girlboss and he gets an adventure buddy because its dangerous to go alone and Zelda with her boomerang and crossbow goes hard. I think a monster of the week style plot works for the earlier Zelda games, but an overarching plot could coexist with that since that is kinda how games work lol.

As per usual here are a bunch of slapdash barely related sketches of my ideas with my expanded thoughts below bc I think it'd be fun to share:

I look at the official art of Link being a quiet determined little dude with a backpack of tools and wish that that was represented more. Like look at him! What a guy! Imagine giving a quiet puzzle solving 14 year old a sword, lethal magical weapons, and a wasteland to explore! I would love a show about that! In terms of other characters, swap out that annoying fairy character, put in a Navi clone, at least Navi didn't have a crush on Link🤮. Ganon can stay the same so long as he was always a demon pig and was never a Gerudo man because unlike Nintendo, I do not want to imply that the only prominent man of color in the series has only one big braincell thats just screaming "EVIL" on loop. But! Keep Zelda the same, I love her so much in the cartoon, she's obnoxious in a slay girlboss way, maximum vibes. By virtue of not having a paper thin plot, most other characters that were fine get fixed by proxy.

I think plot wise? It takes place a few years after the first game. Initially, Link saved the royal family and they started rebuilding that area of Hyrule, and Link traveled around to help people. One day, Ganon's minions start making attacks on the castle to steal the triforce pieces back to revive him fully, and a Zelda who greatly admires Links steps up to defend the place. Eventually, Zelda requests Link return to help defend the castle while they search for the mysterious hidden third triforce piece in order to combine the full thing and wish for peace in Hyrule. Link agrees and the hyjinks begin.

IIRC the og Link backstory was that he was the son of the hyrulean queen and the elf king or smth? In the manga? I didn't want him to be hylian royalty but I wanted to keep that cryptid vibe, hence why I have him related instead to the great fairy and the kokiri. He just leaves the forest/cave one day with literally nothing to go save Hyrule, what a chad. I think it'd be funny if people describe Zelda as feral due to how boisterous and headstrong she is, especially out on the field, but Link is the quiet version of wild that you don't notice at first. She is openly intelligent and snarky in comparison to "says 3 lines a day, bombs first and asks questions later, explore under every rock and bush" forest kid Link.

It would be fun though if "rushes into danger" Zelda resonated more with the triforce of power and "solves dungeon puzzles for funsies" Link with the triforce of wisdom, then they both resonated with the triforce of courage upon finding it. idk tho lol

I also think two different young Zeldas coexisting with each other after one awoke from a cursed slumber would be really funny. Like that's gotta be so awkward, especially if one has the fighter girlboss slay up to 11 and the other just woke up from a coma to her family gone and her kingdom destroyed and just kinda wants to read books and drink tea in peace. Imagine being the same age or older than your great (great?) aunt. Or imagine if the old lady Impa nursemaid to Zelda 1 Zelda was the young Impa nursemaid to the Zelda 2 Zelda. Wild.

If I wasn't incapable of remembering to finish writing wips I'd write that series lol. Alas, this is all I can pull for now.

I'd love to call this propaganda to go watch the show but maybe don't because its yikes. This is moreso propaganda for someone to make a Zelda cartoon show instead of the movie that I sense Nintendo is plotting to make. Also, if you've read this far, I should mention I also will probably be posting art from some of my actual long term Zelda aus beyond just expanding on the cartoon, though I may continue to do that if my train of thought continues on these tracks.

[byoldervine]

Short-Term Intentions - Why Is This Character Here?

A lot of the time our characters, especially non-POV characters, can feel rather flat and like they’re only in a scene for the purpose of furthering the plot rather than being their own person. One way to approach this would be short-term intentions and long-term motivations

Most writers know to give every character a long-term motivation to wish to achieve within the overarching story or at least some day in the future, but even in just ordinary scenes your characters should all have their own short-term intentions that they’re looking to accomplish by the end of the scene, and sometimes there can be multiple short-term intentions they have

So what would one of these short-term intentions look like? Well let’s say that Character A broke Character B’s favourite cup; Character A doesn’t want Character B finding out, so their intention is to not get in trouble and keep themself from getting suspected. Character B, on the other hand, secretly knows that Character A broke their cup and is just trying to get them to confess on their own terms, so their intention would be to get Character A to admit it without letting on that they already know they did it

Character A could act on their intention by playing dumb, getting defensive, feigning being upset at being accused, trying to leave, making up a lie to varying success, etc. Character B could act on their intention by repeatedly asking questions that prompt further elaborate lies to be created, acting sad to try and guilt a confession, acting super mad to scare a confession, pretending they don’t care, blaming an innocent third party, etc

It becomes so much easier to write a character when you know what they want out of this scene or interaction, even just on an inconsequential filler scale

[kimberlyeab]

Undertale Yellow - Thoughts

Do you ever touch a piece of media and it hits you so hard that you just decide to drop all your artistic responsibilities for a day and write something to get your thoughts down into a single coherent place.

Well, uh… let’s talk about Undertale Yellow.

Please avoid if you intend to play and do not want spoilers as this delves heavily into topics laid down in the pacifist route. Also please note this contains content warnings for child death, so don’t touch if that ain’t your cup of tea. Like all Youtubers would say, please play the game before you read this, because this experience is best enjoyed in its original form.

The first issue i am struck with before getting too deep into this topic is that this is a fan project. While i, as a fan creator, enjoy feedback on my work; even if it is a little biting at times, i don’t know the pulse of the team in this regard. After all, this had no price tag and was purely a labour of love with seven hard years of development behind it.

i also don’t know how the development of this project was handled and if it was a collaborative effort from start to finish or different teams worked on different sections with an overarching goal. All i have is my own experience of modding for Hearts of Iron IV where my efforts were focused on singular nations and not overarching plots. If different sections were handled by different teams, please don’t take a critique or praise of any singular section as a slight against your work, it was all fantastic just some areas were more fantastic than others.

i enjoyed the mod, immensely, it stuck with me to the point that i had to come here and discuss it for what seems to be close to 2000 words. This project is something truly special, not only in terms of a fan game, but as a piece of media in general. It managed to make me feel that sense of magic I felt two years ago when i first played Undertale. And i can’t think of a higher praise than saying that.

The sprite work was amazing. The battles were fun and just the right amount of challenging… except Axis… fuck Axis. The music was a genuine banger to the point where i even liked some of the songs better than some of Toby’s work (i’m looking at you, the person who composed A Mother’s Love, that Hopes and Dreams drop ruined me emotionally for the rest of the run and i hold you and the writing team responsible for that).

And the story, gosh the story was just a real treat.

The mod in general is a bit slow to start, i’ll be honest, i did enjoy the tease at the beginning with Toriel and i think it was genius to cut us off from her entirely at that point. To me, a Undertale mod doing the ruins is like a Batman movie watching Bruce’s parents get gunned down. So, getting something refreshing here was a great foot forward.  Actually, I think that the fact that this mod does not use the OG cast as a crutch is an all-around strong point that i really appreciate and helps set it aside as its own independent thing, different from Undertale. Even though I did find myself craving at least a cameo at times.

On my first day of playing, i witnessed everything that the ruins and Snowdin had to offer. i enjoyed Dalv and Martlet immensely. As I went into the start of the Wild East, I was having a lot of fun. Yet, something felt off, something wasn’t quite sparking the magic i felt with Undertale. So, I left off my first session in the Oasis, having beaten the third boss. All in all, an enjoyable time but not quite clicking.

i couldn’t describe why the game felt off up to this point. Until i watched a friend stream xeyre own first run of the game.

Xey said something during it which made me realize what the issue with these first three areas was. They felt safe, they felt fangamey. These were fun experiences with great atmosphere and enemies but Dlav and Martlet (up to that point) were not characters who grabbed me and made me feel as invested in them as say Toriel, Sans, Papyrus, and Undyne (all characters we would’ve met at a similar point in OG Undertale). Sure, they were nice, and were immensely fun, but i didn’t feel that drive to get to know them better and care about their greater story. These were not the characters of ask blogs and video essays.

At this point, i went to bed, content to get back to it tomorrow but still very much feeling like “this is a fangame.”

Then i woke up…

And let me telling you about Starlo and the town on the edge of the Wild East.

This is where Undertale Yellow grabbed me, this is where the story became something special. This wonderful cast of six unique characters who left me wanting to consume every piece of dialog they had available. These six characters managed to crackle to life that little fanfiction voice in the back of my brain. It was these characters that planted the seed of this sprawling text i am currently writing.

Starlo, himself, is a wonderful character, very fun, very well written, just a treat to experience and spend time with. His missions were comedic gold to a degree where I was cackling in VC because of how good they were. And the fights, oh jeez, the two fights in that area are where the mod really showed off what it could do when it came to combining fun gameplay, great music, and just top tier sprite work that helped give these characters so much substance and life.

And it was also in this section where i started to get invested in the characters. This is where the fangame vibes withered away and gave birth to that same experience i had playing Undertale for that very first time.

It was hinted at with Starlo, a monster putting on a façade to hide from the cold reality of being a member of a broken species living in an equally broken land. His reasoning is so tragic, yet through the tragedy, he is just trying to distract people and bring them whatever joy he can manage. His methods are faulty but his goal is good.

And Ceroba is just amazing, as well, hinting at something darker in the narrative, weaving her story into OG Undertale by experiencing loss to the same experiments that would haunt Alphys. She is something familiar, a mother in pain like Toriel, but also someone who didn’t let that pain keep her in hiding. She uses that pain to try and help this world. And it plays on me so well, making me genuinely ache as my mind idly wonders which amalgamation in the lab was once this monster’s little girl. I wanted to know her story and experience it.

Then the game was all high points from here.

The adventure in the Steamworks where we see the remains of a shattered legacy and the pain that Ceroba goes through when she realizes that her husband was never respected in life. It resonates as we learn how much he just wanted to help Monsterkind and his legacy was just thrown away and left to rot. It made me hate Asgore.

And then comes the plot twist, the moment the shoe drop, as we approach Hotlands and Starlo confronts us. He knows Ceroba’s secret and is there to keep us safe. I had never been so invested in finding out what any of this meant, craving to know what could possibly bring these two into conflict with one another after being so close just two sections prior.

And that’s when we go to Ceroba’s home. That’s where we experience the empty abode that used to house a family. It’s where we learn how this tormented world of captivity that broke them, one by one, killing father, daughter, and yes, even the mother. It’s where we learn about Chujin, a figure of mythos, this mod’s Asgore in a way. A man who knew that escaping the Underground wasn’t the end goal unless Monsterkind could assert itself and prove that it had a right to exist upon the surface. This moment was so compelling, asking questions that fans have had for years and answering them in a way that felt downright satisfying.

And it put a fire in my breast going forward. i feel bad for the individuals who wrote dialog for optional areas after this reveal because i was a woman on a mission at this point. There was no endearing encounter, no fun moment that would distract me from finally finishing this with Ceroba.

And as we reach New Home and face the enemy, a mother who has lost everything, with our friends by our side, that’s when we play the best boss fight, I’ve had the privilege of enjoying in a very long time. It was the right amount of difficult with perfect music, amazing phases and forms, and a wonderful use of the yellow soul to its full capacity. It was long and slogged out, fought tooth and fucking nail, all while the music perfectly weaves together Ceroba’s struggle with the adventure we’ve been on and also a little nostalgia just to remind you what’s at stake. i have slept and i still remember her piano bits combined with those little western twangs, bringing together two childhood friends before dropping Hopes and Dreams just to show you how epic it is. It is… HOLY SHIT… it is something.

And with every phase we see a little more of what this monster lost. We watch her husband wither away, we see her risk her daughter and fail, and we see every last thing this obsession has cost her. And we know that this is a family broken by a collective scar left upon a whole species. We know that humanity is at fault, subjecting a whole race to torment for something that’s generations old. This family is just one of many who our species has wronged, just one trauma on a whole ledger.

And as we finally dispatch her and feel victorious, the reality of the situation slowly settles in.

This is a prologue… we know how this ends.

Asgore has five souls right now. Yet, by the events of Undertale, he has six.

i knew on a logical level that this would happen but the mod still managed to destroy me with the reality. As our friends try and figure out a way to keep us safe, we, the Spirit of Justice, a child with a pure heart, know that we can’t let this slide. We saw what humanities punishment has done to this species and we know that we can help them.

So, Clover sacrifices their Soul. And its at this moment that i started bawling like a child, watching their friends bargain with them, then plead, then seeing them slowly come to terms with it. And the game slowly ends from there, watching our hero make this sacrifice and then send away their friends so they don’t have to see them die. It’s just us, alone, knowing that we did the right thing and it cost us everything. It’s beautiful and tragic, the perfect ending that still chokes me up thinking about it.

And it pays off as the credits role and we get an epilogue that shows all the monsters we’ve touched and made their lives better.

It was special.

This was the special that i felt after Undertale.

And like Undertale, i will never touch it again (unless i speedrun it). The story was completed and the sacrifice was beautiful. It would be wrong of me to erase the deeds that i’ve done to better these lives. i don’t want to erase their happy ending just to tinker around and extract every ounce of life from this game.

So uh, yeah, sorry to the people who worked on geno-run. i’m sure you did a great job but i can’t bring myself to hurt these characters.

All-in-all, sitting there in a VC, bawling at 3:30 in the morning, i knew this was unique and I knew that i wanted to share my thoughts with the fandom and maybe even the developers if they get around to reading this.

Dear devs, if you read this, you created something out of this world, thank you.

Sincerely, thank you.

Would I recommend this mod?

Let me tell you what I said after the credits rolled.

“Fuck this mod.”

Err… text kind of loses the translation of those words being spoken through the warble of a tear-stricken voice that was fresh from sobbing for ten minutes straight.

So, uh…

Yeah, it was alright!

Hey, y'all should join my Discord! It's multifandom and queer as fuck (Please be 18+ though).

Visit my website to see where else you can find my work, follow my socials, or support me!

[blueskittlesart]

any thoughts on how once again zelda was robbed of her agency because her "father figure" didn't listen to her? even if rauru was kinder to her than her father. and that she had sonia who was patient and loving for a little while before she died (just like her mother). i know rauru apologizes for his hubris but still, i wish we saw zelda be upset about it. and even if zelda was such a big part of the quest she still literally sacrificed her humanity once again because of someone else's mistake- because rauru literally didn't listen to the girl from the future that warned you that shit was going to go down. o know nintendo just loves putting zelda inside crystals and stones but i wish we got something better. even if it was her decision to become a dragon... did she have any other choice? it really just feels like they robbed her of agency again just like botw and the games before

i've been trying to figure out how to answer this one. because there are two ways i could analyze this plot point, either from a writer's perspective or an in-story perspective, but neither of those lead to me fully agreeing with your interpretation? I think there's definitely something to be said about zelda consistently being pushed aside in these games, but. well. ok let's get into it ig

from a writer's perspective, I do honestly have quite a bit of sympathy for the zelda devs as they attempt to navigate the modern political landscape with these games. The cyclical lore, though canonized relatively recently, holds them to a standard of consistency in their games in terms of certain key elements. one of those key elements is that there has to be a princess, and that princess must somehow be the main macguffin of the game. The player must chase her, and the end goal of the game must be to reunite the player and the princess. In 1986 this was an incredibly easy sell. women didn't need to be characters. players were content with saving a 2-dimensional princess whose only purpose was to tell them "good job!" at the end. but as society advances, that princess becomes a much more difficult character to write while adhering to the established overarching canon. (as a side note: i don't necessarily believe that the writers SHOULD be held to the standards of that canon. I think deviating from it in certain areas would be a good change of pace. but i also recognize that deviations from the formula are widely hated by the loz playerbase and that they're trying to make money off these games, so we're working under the established rule that the formula must be at least loosely adhered to.) Modern fans want a princess who is a person, who has agency and makes decisions and struggles in the same way the hero does. but modern fans ALSO want a game that follows the established rules of the canon. so we need a princess who is a real character but who can ALSO serve as a macguffin within the narrative, something that is inherently somewhat objectifying.

the two games that i think do the best job writing a princess with agency are skyward sword and botw (based on your ask, our opinions differ there lol. hear me out) in both games, we have a framing event which seperates zelda and link, but in both games, that separation was ZELDA'S CHOICE. skyward sword zelda runs away from link out of fear of hurting him. botw zelda chooses to return to the castle alone to allow link the time he needs to heal. sksw kinda fumbled later on by having ghirahim kidnap her anyway, but. i said BEST not PERFECT. botw zelda I think is the better example because, with the context of the memories, she's arguably MORE of a character than link is. we see her struggles, her breakdowns, her imperfection, specifically we see her struggle with her lack of agency within the context of the game itself. when she steps in front of link in the final memory, and when she chooses to return to the castle, those are some of the first choices we see her make almost completely free of outside influence; a RECLAMATION of her agency (within the narrative) after years of having it stripped from her. from an objective viewer's standpoint, this writing decision still means she is absent from 90% of the game and that she has little control over her actions for the duration of the player's journey. however I think this is just about the best they could have done to create a princess with agency and a real character arc while still keeping the macguffin formula intact--you're not really SAVING zelda in botw. SHE is the one that is saving YOU; when you wake up on the plateau with no memories, too weak to fight bokoblins, let alone calamity ganon. the reason you are allowed to train and heal in early-game botw is because SHE is in the castle holding ganon back, protecting YOU. When you enter the final fight, you're not rescuing zelda, you're relieving her of her duty. taking over the work she's been doing for the past hundred years. in the final hour, you both work in tandem to defeat ganon. while this isn't a PERFECT example of a female character with agency and narrative weight, i think it's a pretty good one, especially in the context of save-the-princess games like loz.

as for totk, you put a lot of emphasis on rauru not believing zelda and taking action immediately, which, again, from an objective standpoint, i understand. but even when we're writing characters with social implications in mind, those character's actions still need to... make sense. Rauru was a king ruling over what he believed to be a perfectly peaceful kingdom. zelda literally fell out of the sky, landed in front of him, claimed to be his long-lost granddaughter, and then told him that some random ruler of a fringe faction in the desert was going to murder him and he had to get the jump on it by killing him first. the ruler which this girl is trying to convince rauru to wage an unprompted war on has the power to disguise himself as other people. no one in their right mind would immediately take the girl at her word. war is not something any leader should jump into without proper research and consideration, and to rauru's credit, he DIDN'T ever outright dismiss zelda. he believed her when she said she was from the future, he allowed her to work with him and he took her warnings as seriously as he could without any further proof. but he could not wage an unprompted war on ganondorf. that's just genuinely not practical, especially for a king who values peace among his people as much as rauru seems to. as soon as ganondorf DID attack, giving rauru confirmation that zelda's accounts of the future were real, he began making preparations to confront him. remember that zelda didn't KNOW that rauru and sonia were going to be casualties of the war--she didn't make the connection between rauru's arm in the future and rauru the king until AFTER sonia's death, when rauru made the decision to attack ganondorf directly. I think the imprisoning war and the casualties of it were less an issue of zelda being denied agency and more an issue of no one, including zelda, having full context for the events as they were unfolding. if zelda had KNOWN that sonia and rauru were going to die from the beginning and was still unable to prevent it that would be a different issue, but she didn't. none of them did.

I think another thing worth pointing out with rauru and his death irt zelda is that rauru is clearly written specifically as a foil to rhoam. this is evident in how he treats both zelda and link, with a constant kindness and understanding which is clearly opposite to rhoam's dismissiveness and disappointment. consider rhoam's death and the circumstances surrounding it. He died because, in zelda's eyes, she was unable to do her duty; the one thing he constantly berated her for. Rhoam's death solidified zelda's belief that she was a failure, a belief which she KNEW rhoam held as well. his death was doubly traumatic to her because she knew he died believing it was her fault. Now contrast that to the circumstances surrounding rauru's death. Rauru CHOSE to die despite zelda's warnings, because he wanted zelda and his kingdom to live. rauru's death was not agency-stripping for zelda; in fact, it functioned almost as an admission that he believed her capable of continuing to live in his place. With him gone, the fate of the kingdom fell to her and the sages. he KNEW that he would die and still went into that battle confidently, trusting zelda to make the right decisions once he was gone. where rhoam believed zelda incapable of doing ANYTHING without link, rauru trusted zelda COMPLETELY with the fate of his kingdom. several details in totk confirm that when rauru died there was no plan for zelda to draconify, that all happened after rauru was gone. it was HER plan, the plan which rauru trusted her to come up with once he was gone. and I think it's also worth noting that zelda's sacrifice with the draconification parallels rauru's!! Rauru gives up his life trusting the sages and his people to be able to continue his work in his place. Zelda gives up her physical form trusting link and the sages in the future to be able to figure out what to do and find her. these games in general have this recurring theme but totk specifically is all about love and trust and reliance on others. zelda relies on link, link relies on zelda, they both rely on the champions and the sages and rauru and sonia and they all rely each other. reliance on others isn't lack of agency, it's a constant choice they make, and that choice is the thing which allows them to triumph.

The draconification itself is something i view similarly to zelda's sacrifice in botw--a choice she makes which, symbolically & within the confines of the narrative, is a demonstration of her reclaimed agency and places her at the center of the narrative, but which ALSO removes her from much of the player's experience and robs her of any overt presence or decisionmaking within the gameplay. again, I think this is a solution to the macguffin-with-agency dilemma, and it's probably one of the better solutions they could have come up with. Would I have liked to see a game where zelda is more present within the actual gameplay? yes, but I also understand that at this point the writers aren't quite willing to deviate that much from their formula. the alternative within the confines of this story would be to let zelda DIE in the past, removing her from gameplay ENTIRELY, which is an infinitely worse option in my opinion. draconification allowed her to be present, centered the narrative around her, and allowed the writers to reiterate the game's theme of trust and teamwork when she assists the player in the final battle, which i think was a REALLY great choice, narratively speaking.

In any case, I don't think it's right to say that zelda was completely robbed of her agency in botw and totk. Agency doesn't always mean that she's unburdened and constantly present, it means she's given the freedom to make her own choices and that her choices are realistically written with HER in mind, not just the male characters around her, and I think botw/totk do a pretty good job of writing her and her choices realistically and with nuance.

[crehador]

translation issues aside, the story of reverse 1999 is really surprisingly good for a gacha. i'm vibing with the characters and setting, and the STRUCTURE of the currently released chapters is just downright excellent

major spoilers for chapters 1 through 4 below the cut

introducing us to the world through regulus was such a good call for chapter one, it's all new to her just like it's all new to the player. we get a chance to learn through her eyes

another reason this works so well imo is it paints vertin, in regulus's eyes, as this hyper-competent character with her own agenda and agency (only to reveal bit by bit that she's in a much more difficult position than it may seem at first, and in so many ways is still just a hurt kid trying to right the wrongs she's seen in this world, desperate not to lose more people)

then we move on to chapter 2, where we see schneider's tragedy unfold and meet some major players like arcana. schneider's story even on its own is pretty damn good, but the way vertin acts and reacts in chapter 2 is full of perfect little hints to what kind of past trauma might have shaped her

THEN CHAPTER 3. THE TRAUMA. i loved schneider's story, but i think this is where we really dive into the meat of the overarching plot. and it is such a perfect dive

like after the events of chapter 2, it does more or less make sense that vertin is being treated for Something. right away chapter 3 gives off a bit of a foreboding feeling because vertin's in the hands of the foundation now, which we as a player knows she doesn't trust, and it's deliberately made ambiguous what she's being treated for and exactly when she'll be released

but at this point, to me at least, it still seemed... possible that she really was just being treated for damage from chapter 2

THEN THE HORRORS UNFOLD vertin's past is shown to us throughout this chapter, and bit by bit it dawns that the foundation is capable of much more heinous acts than we already expected. when we meet the ring and isabella, a feeling of dread sets in right away. because they're clearly important to vertin, but where are they in the present? it's not hard to figure out she lost them (which adds so much dimension to her reactions to everything with schneider)

when the escape plan is coming together, with those side looks at what constantine is scheming, the inevitable dread gets heavier and heavier. like even knowing exactly what would happen, that the kids would be deliberately funneled into the storm just so vertin would see them die and feel responsible because it was her plan that led them there... seeing it actually happen was still a major gut punch, very effective

vertin's naivete in this past is such a haunting thing to see as well, there are moments where the text even shines a light on "will they realize this is going TOO smoothly for them?" and no! no they do not!! because they are 12-year-old kids who haven't lost all hope in the world!!!

seeing these grand scenes unfold with chess (and later go) on the screen was visually very cool as well, imo. might feel a bit gimmicky but it's a gimmick i enjoyed

anyway so then we get to chapter 4, and by then the sense of dread surrounding the foundation has fully set in. so it's almost unsurprising (yet still HORRIFYING) when you realize holy shit the foundation is keeping vertin hostage in a medically induced coma!! treatment for trauma my ass!!!

i feel like chapter 4 was the perfect place to end this arc as well, it was like an extended prologue. a lot of the tension/excitement for me came from the realization that vertin doesn't yet have a place to belong, it's not like "manus bad, foundation good" and that's that

looking at it through the lense of arknights, it would be like if doctor didn't have rhodes island at the start. all these factions around vertin, with their own agendas, and she doesn't have her own "home" yet

we get there, at the end of chapter 4. but of course it's not perfect, the terms of her operating her own team are very conditional, and there are loads of unanswered questions for the future

but it's a nice little set-up for future events, for vertin building this team (family) of arcanists who have some measure of freedom. the tension is still there, the foundation is still scheming, and some new mysterious organization is getting ready to enter the chat...?

all in all just, imo, an excellently structured story so far. it's a shame the translation detracts so much from it, i do think some powerful moments suffered from that. but the actual story is really quite strong, and vertin and her circle are all quite captivating to me so far