#its mostly based off official lore i think. not what their official lore says but how much official lore they have LOL

[bmpmp3]

when it comes to like, headcanons and lore and fanon with vocal synths I tend to play very fast and loose and switch stuff around a lot (because tbh thats what i do with everything i get really into LOL) but one thing that does kind of stay consistent for me is which synth characters I think are aware that they are vocal synthesizing software and which ones are not.

the crypton crew definitely know and embrace it, the dreamtonics letter people know but never talk about it, utauloids depend on individual stories but most from the past 10 years don't know (although someone like adachi rei definitely knows), other vocaloids like gumi kind of know, i think kiyoteru has no idea (blissfully being a teacher and a rockstar, unaware...) and i think kaai yuki has an inkling about it but doesn't care or understand because she's 8 and she has more important things to worry about (learning shapes and colours). i think the ah-software girls band mostly doesn't know (rikka kind of has an idea but shes in denial and ignores it, karin and chifuyu have no clue), frimomen obviously knows he's a software mascot born and raised, with the virvox guys i think mostly have no idea (ryuusei has been suspecting something and takehiro knows but wont talk about it explicitly because its scary), lola leon and miriam don't know and you can't tell them their brains will break theyre too old. all vocal synths are living in some kind of matrix simulation psychological horror. to me.

[alpaca-clouds]

The DnD Lore Problem - Accessibility and Characters (and how BG3 might not help)

You know what? I am gonna talk about DnD Lore and the accessibility of that lore. I talked about this exessively before. But to summarize that long blog very shortly:

Wizards of the Coasts currently makes the mistake of putting basically most DnD Lore behind a paywall, rather than offering official ressources. This leads to a lot of tables actually playing with their original worlds, rather than Toril/Faerûn, which in turn also means, that they are not spending money on official products. While my anti-capitalist ass things that the lore should be accessible just so that people can enjoy it, I also think that this inaccessibility actually costs WotC A LOT OF MONEY.

Today I want to talk about another aspect of this inaccessibility, that is kinda linked to some of the stuff I talked about before, but also is linked to the things WotC is currently not doing in terms of both Honor Among Thieves and Baldur's Gate 3. A thing, that also might not quite work with BG3, though.

See, the core problem of this inaccessibility is, that a) there is no official place where you can just get base information about the world and the timeline, b) this world has grown organically for about half a century, which lead to clutter, but also to the fact that things are at times showing their age.

I might actually make a post on the gods and religion in the world at some other point - but for now let me talk about something else: Extended universes and access points.

The Problem with Extended Universes

Okay, let's talk about how a lot of the big franchises for the longest time have told their meta stories - including DnD - and how it kinda struggles to find its audience. The extended universe.

I am frankly not entirely sure what franchise has started this. I am assuming it was Star Trek? But that is just a guess. But at some point in the 60s oder 70s someone had the idea that: "Hey, we could totally give the fans more to chew on by making official tie-in comics and novels!"

And that was how it worked for very long. Like a lot of the big franchises had at times around 10 novels and comics (if not more) releasing per year that would just explore other parts of the universe and allow the very engaged fans to... well, learn more about the world. Now, I am not going to talk about all the drama connected to the Star Wars stuff, but if you know, you know.

DnD did this too. (As did a lot of the big TTRPG systems, like Shadowrun and WoD as well.) Having a lot of tie in stuff - in the case of DnD mostly novels - that told more stories on the world and also established like some big player characters within the world. Elminster Aumar is probably one of the best examples here.

Those established some characters that play a big role within the world and also told just more stories of those big world changing events. In the recent DnD history that would be stuff like the Time of Troubles, the Spellplague and the Second Sundering.

Now, here we have one big issue. And one issue where I am not entirely certain where it arose from. But the fact is: In recent years, people invest way less into those kind of books. This is just a fact.

It is the reason why those big universes went from publishing like ten novels a year to often not more than three. We saw that in the failure of the extended Universe Disney tried to pull off for Pirates of the Caribbean (though I will still maintain that another big problem was that they barely marketed that at all - hi, everyone, who did not know there were extended universe novels for PotC). We also saw that with League of Legends, who really, really tried to tell a lot more stories with short stories and then also some novels set in Runeterra, before finally giving up, because most people didn't care.

In terms of Dungeons & Dragons I can totally see that a lot of people will also say: "I do not care what some other people's characters do within the world." Buuuuuut...

Stories actually can help you understand the world. Which brings me to...

The Elminster Problem

Okay, I do not know how to put this, but... If you look at the novels coming out for DnD literally half of them focus on either Elminster Aumar or Drizzt Do'Urden. Characters that have pretty much been around since the very beginning and. Look, I don't know how to put it but... It shows.

I am currently reading some of the newer novels and the fact is, that they do not really feel like fantasy books from the 2010s and 2020s. Because Elminster and Drizzt are very clearly characters originating in a very different time when stories were told very differently.

I mean, just look at Elminster. He is a wanna-be Gandalf character. He is from the early, early days of fantasy and... Look, I personally just really am unable to identify with a character like this.

And while Drizzt is a bit better as a character, but even he... How to put this delicately? They are both very much characters written by white cishet men for white cishet men. There, I said it.

I am noticing this a lot with reading Salvatore's books currently. Like, female characters are not overly sexualized, which is a plus. But they also very much exist most of the time in service to a man or at least in relation to a man. There is not a lot of female characters running around that have their own agency.

Which kinda leads to another thing. I actually saw this one brought up by one of those very cliché nerdy Youtube channels talking on DnD, who recognized the problem as well: There are basically two large groups of DnD players who barely intersect. One is the cliché nerds, the other is a largely queer and largely diverse group. And the youtube guy, who was very in the white cishet nerd group, suspected that actually the later group makes up more of the player base by now.

Buuuut... that is also the group who really do not get catered to by the canon lore so far. That was until 2023 with DnD:HAT and BG3 - both catering actually a lot to those groups.

Honor Among Thieves and the undermarketed books

Okay, here is the thing: Honor Among Thieves had two novelizations (one for young readers, one for older readers) and two tie-in novels. One featuring Edgin, Holga, Forge and Simon before the stuff with Sofina went down. And the other featuring Simon and Doric taking place at the time while Ed and Holga are in prison.

I am honest: I really, really liked the Ed and Holga novel. It was super cute and charming and really gives a better understanding of the characters.

But of course once again there is the thing: The books - just like the Pirates of the Caribbean books - were super undermarketed. Like, most people I know off do not even know that there were books released. Heck, even within the actual active fandom there are again and again people who will be surprised that those books exist.

And... I actually also think that the books waste one big ass opportunity, by not at all tying into the broader lore. They are super self-contained.

And that is actually just a waste. Because the place were Edgin lived in? Yeah, that place was super affected by the Second Sundering. Heck, that might have had to do something with his troubles.

Why is that an issue? Well, because... there was not a lot going on there that was inviting you to further interact with the world and learn more abotu what is happening. For once, again, because I think it is a super fun and interesting world. But also, because... WotC wants to make money and is so bad at it, that it really boggles my mind.

See, here is the thing: They could've used those characters - that really are fun and sympathetic characters - to create an accesspoint into that world.

Alright, so what about Baldur's Gate 3?

Which brings me to Baldur's Gate 3 and the thing that a lot of people have noticed: The other Baldur's Gate games - as well as some of the other games releasing around 2000 - had their own tie-in novels going into the characters, their background, but also what they were doing in the future.

Something that so far BG3 has not done, which some fans have already critized. Because a lot of people have actually gotten really invested into those characters. A lot of the kind of people especially who so far are underserved by a lot of the tie-in stuff: Queer and generally diverse audiences.

Like, I think there would be a lot of people, who totally would read a novel, about...

Astarion getting drawn into some sort of political intrigue in Baldur's Gate while serving Cazador

Karlach's time in Avernus

Some Adventure Wyll got dragged into while being the Blade of the Frontier.

Shadowheart going onto a mission for Shar (maybe together with Nocturne)

Whatever Gale was doing during the Second Sundering

Lae'zel's youth among the Githyanki

The Dark Urge and Gortash starting up the entire conspiracy

... whatever Halsin had been up to in his long live

Heck, people would eat that stuff up. And you could not only use it to worldbuild but also once more create some access into the world and what happened there. And they are kinda wasting a lot of potential by not bringing out those novels.

Of course, there is one big problem: BG3 makes it kinda hard to write about anything happening after the ending. Because as it is right now, someone is gonna be pissed if a novel set after the game does not go with the decision for a character they go for. Like, Ascended Astarion fans are gonna be pissed, if they go with Spawn Astarion - and the other way around. Same goes with every other character where you have those big decisions happening.

This is something they will have to tackle eventually if they plan on doing something with the characters in the future (no matter if we are talking Larian or WotC), but it is definitely an issue that just arises from the structure of the game.

Bonus of course is, that you just cannot define a canonical Tav. But without a Tav, you also gotta act as if the story of the game happened without a Tav, which still is not ideal. I am honestly not sure with how they are gonna deal with this on the long run.

Access via Characters

Alright, but what is the actual issue here?

Well, basically there are two hurdles to overcome for the accessibility of the lore. The first is the physical accessibility - aka, what I talked about in the last long blog post. The second meanwhile is more related to making the lore engaging. And that happens through characters.

It is for me what happened last year. I actually tried to engage with the lore as the movie came out - but only when BG3, that tied a lot more into the actual lore was released I actually found proper access to the lore. Because I had concrete things I could now look for because the game hinted at so much both through characters and major story events happening.

Here is the thing: If you just have the lore on its own, it is about as engaging as reading a history book. Sure, as your local history nerd I find reading history books fun, but most people really do not want to read a history book to engage with a hobby.

People will however engage with stories and characters that interest them. Which is where we get back to the thing I talked about at the beginning: Right now most canonical novels and stories still cater to an audience that is male, cishet, white and also, let's be frank, definitely over 30 years old. Leaving behind a lot of potential fans that theoretically make up a big part of the player-base, but actually do not engage a lot with the lore for this exact reason.

Look. DnD right now is fairly close to being an actual mainstream hobby, due to the recent proliferation of formerly nerdy stuff. And yet WotC is bleeding money, especially in regards of DnD.

If you ask me, sure... DnD should go into public domain. But it doesn't. And given that there are so many creative, skilled people working on this - no matter how dumb Hasbro is and how shitty of an employer they are - I actually do want them to succeed. I have really become engaged with this world now. And I think it is a pity that they clearly do not know how to market this stuff.

[mintytealfox]

Hi! I'm super new to IDV and keep seeing a lot of art (official and fan) with Fools Gold and Alice! I love it all, but I was wondering is there a canon or fanon reason for their connection, or is it just a ship that developed based on their personalities? :)

EEYYYYYY~ I would LOVE for nortalice to be canon but I will be shocked if they make any coupling canon outside of psychologist (Ada Mesmer) and patient (Emil) and if they throw in Geisha's husbando and AKA mostly those who were already coupled before the manor games~

But I personally think there is potential there~ the Da Capo game (the one they are concentrating on in the main story) heavily leans on the Greek Lore of Orpheus and Eurydice~ with the cast consisting of The confirmed roles are these two: Orpheus: Novelist Eurydice: Alice/Journalist then the potential roles are as follows: Hades: Norton/Prospector/Fool's Gold Persephone: Melly/Entomologist not sure where Frederick goes, he will probably throw a wrench into this entire thing LOL

EDIT: So technically Melly and Norton could fall for each other cause of Hades and Persephone (I wouldn't be opposed to that either honestly cause that ship is my second love LOL I don't necessarily see them as romantic but I wouldn't be upset if they got together cause of the hades and persephone thing. plus whenever they are in anything together they are constantly memeing on the other and trying to get ahead at the cost of the other loool so I think they meme on each other a little too much for things to get romantical lol but who knows they could prove me wrong one day)

BUT WE AREN'T HERE TALKING ABOUT NORTMELLY RIGHT NOW LOL right now is NORTALICE TIME LOL

but I love em cause of their personalities and I feel like they would balance each other pretty well~

for example, Alice with her OCD would be calmed by Norton's matter of fact and 'it will be fine just work hard' view on things. ((that is what helps me with my OCD anyways lol is someone I trust taking my hands and saying its fine) I have an entire post about hand movements and I went into how Norton's movements are quick and precises and deliberate and Alice would need that for grounding 👀 While Norton needs a gentle touch cause that would be so unfamiliar to him that it would make him stop in his tracks I think~)) ANYWAY OFF TOPIC

Then vice versa with Norton and his gloom view on the world and Alice comes in with optimism and cheery-ness lol. She will protect her lil grumpy people LOL

Alice 👇 Norton👇

So I guess to answer your question, its definitely on their personalities and completely based on potential~ The potential and nuance is there with what we know about them so far and there is the hope that Norton will turncoat in the story, with Melly convincing him to help her save Alice 👏👏 I just like adding the little bit of spice of 'you two get together and heal together okay' I feel like they would balance each other out well~

Norton needing that softness and Alice needing that wall to lean on. And I think they would work so well together~

I hope I somewhat answered your question, I feel like I was all over the place LOL my baaaad

also I have no idea why they keep having Alice looking so down bad for Fool's Gold 🤣🤣🤣🤣BUT I LOVE IT SO DARN MUUCCHH LOOOOL (and added to the fuel for this raging fire that is my love for Nortalice)👏👏👏🤌🤌🤌🤌💞💞💞but it has me LAUGHING at the fact that on hallucinogens drugs she STILL sees Norton as a knock out BABE -WHEEEZZEEE-

[fancyfade]

Ah thank you for answering my questions actually I am the same anon of a blended family that pointed out the reason why Damian consider Bruce “only” son because a lot of people at dc views the batkids as Bruce’s students or soldiers. Iirc there was a deleted thread of a editor that confirms that.

Not saying there isn’t official lore of the robins acknowledged each other as brothers. Isn’t just me or is their dynamics mainly just

1. The boring Batfamily events Dc love to do. Seriously anyone excited for them anymore

2. Or around Bruce

Not to say they deep bonds, is it just me off dc often make the Batfamily…idk extremely antagonistic to each other to the point their characters are better fleshed out away from the family vs together?

Maybe because how Bruce is written recently but man it’s rough.

I definitely do think that writers flip flop a lot on how they consider Bruce's kids, or they want to treat them as mostly soldiers for the angsty Bruce thing and to explain why they don't have to show Bruce being a dad on panel. Or more of different writers have different opinions, rather than flip-flopping.

WRT bonds... I think that they have some that are well-developed on page, and some that are just not. Most of the characters' dynamic with Bruce has gotten panel time, though inconsistently, so we know pretty much what it should be. We also have seen Dick with Tim and Dick with Damian. There are characters who are not antagonistic, but just don't have a ton of panel time devoted to them (Dick and Cass pre-the dark cass era). And Damian and Tim are no longer antagonistic to each other for the most part but also just. don't have any panel time showing them actually becoming close.

rather than being antagonistic to each other being the reason main batfam events are boring, I think it's b/c they honestly all fill pretty similar niches.

like think about No Man's Land. That was a pretty big batfam event, but we almost never have all of them on panel at once. When we see them in big groups, its often just when in Oracle's clock tower between missions, like saying hi to Cass when she just became Batgirl.

But like. We see Dick go off and do a mission alone in the jail. Some Babs and Dick defending base stuff. Dick and Tim work together in the tunnels for ratcatcher. Cass and Tim when Tim has to be evacuated out of Gotham. Cass and Jean Paul infiltrating that one manipulative guy's camp. In general the missions are pretty small in terms of actually number of people actively on them.

Ok so going back to:

trying to have every single batfam member in a mission just makes them boringer. You have "so and so is the smart one" "so and so is the angry one" "so and so is the nice one" etc... but like. They're all smart. They can all be angry. They can all be nice. they all fill the niche of "generally competent fighter with stealth skills and usually above-average computer and detective skills". IDK its like having a party of 6 rogues.

So in general what you have is you have to diminish characters in one way to make the other stand out more. Like Gates of Gotham, which has stuff I really do like, also had stuff I really don't like like Tim being the only one having ideas. Because Tim had to be "the smart one". And this isn't unique to Batfam! It happens in many team stuff. 1960s Teen Titans diminished everyone's brains to make Dick stand out more, JLA does the same for Bruce. Writing complex dynamics is hard so it's easy to just find 1 or 2 character traits and exaggerate those.

I think that's why Batfam members are better fleshed out in their solo titles - they get to be full characters. I think they may also get to be better fleshed out in team comics, but normally because they get the narrative focus instead of other characters and are treated as the "batman" of the team. Like I love NTT, but Dick is clearly Marv's writer's pet and he gets so much narrative focus.

... I am not sure if I actually answered your question, but those are my thoughts in general.

[wizisbored]

ah, would you look at that... a comment that was not in any way influenced by me tellying my friend i was looking for an excuse to lore dump.

(cw - kidnapping, trafficking)

so, lydia in the new centaur railway au. i'm not sure yet where she grew up, but it was with her parents. emily got sick when she was 12-13. the family had to travel to see a particular human doctor they believed could help, and the only accomodation charles could find in town was a stable. lydia was scared and wanted to be with her mother, and though there wasn't room for charles to stay with her there was enough space for a foal, and charles thought she'd be more comfortable there than in a stable, and the stable owner wasnt particularly keen on having a child staying there anyway. so the night emily died, lydia was with her.

lydia was woken up before dawn by the doctor and told the mare she was sleeping beside is dead. and then, before she can even begin to process that, he tells her that he already told her dad and he's so broken-hearted that he can't look after her anymore. being young and distraught and in shock, she believes him. In the early hours of the morning another human man comes to pick her up, telling her he's going to find her a safe space to stay, and takes her to the train station.

when charles comes back later that morning, and after the initial shock of being told emily is gone, he of course asks where lydia is. the doctor acts innocent and worried. "I thought she was with you?! Oh dear lord, have you lost track of the poor little thing?"

lydia is travelling with the man for a few days, eventually getting off the train and riding out to more unconnected little towns. Or at least, he rides. Lydia plods along after his horse. Eventually, they find the maitlands, who currently im thinking are fellow centaurs. he feeds them the same lie lydia was told and asks them if they could possibly find it in their hearts to take the poor little girl in while he arranges something more official.

she's with them for a few years. they quickly get attatched to her. they play with her, they teach her, they save up to buy her a camera for her birthday. she's devestated by the loss of her parents, of course, but with them she's as happy as she could be. the man who brought her to them or an associate of his checks in every so often, mostly via post and occasionally in person, but most days he doesn't cross their minds once.

a little while after her sixteenth birthday (a generally accepted working age for taurs, but not a particularly pleasant one) the man returns. he says they've found a permenant home for lydia and she needs to come with him. the maitlands are devestated of course, practically beg him to let her stay, it's only two years until she turns 18 after all. but the man insists, and they have to pack her a bag and say goodbye.

lydia doesnt want to leave them, of course, but the maitlands try to put on a brave face for her and tell her its okay, and the man seems like someone you wouldn't want to cross, so she does what he says. on the way to the nearest town with a rail connection she considers running, but that would leave her out in the desert alone and she knows she wouldn't make it. she considers slipping away again at the station, but she's ushered onto the train before she can think any more about it.

she finds herself shut in a train car transporting a few horses, and is basically treated as one of them for the whole long journey. she doesn't see the man who brought her on board and nobody will answer her questions. eventually they get to the town thats the base of operations for the railway construction, shes shoed and her hair and tail are trimmed and potentially shes branded as property of the railway company because that might be significant later, and around this time when she's reflecting on how she came to be in this situation she realises that of course her dad didnt just suddenly not want her, she was kidnapped and then put on hold until she was old enough to be useful.

beetlejuice arrives a day or two after her, and before they so much as know each others names they're hitched to the cart and sent on their way down the tracks.

[doom-nerdo-666]

Hypotheticals if Doom was always a "story focused" series or had a greater universe

(From D2's manual and also because i like adding images just for filler's sake)

These are just a bunch of random hypotheticls about an alternate timeline where story mattered a bit more in Doom.

A lot of them might be stretches or even wrong to some degree, but i tend to overthink Doom and come to contradictive conclusions anyway.

Maybe some of Tom Hall's ideas could be accepted or even lead to something more.

We could have had the Marathon thing of there being texts you had to read.

We probably wouldn't have plagiarism like the Caco's design or most music.

Levels could be less abstract.

"Doomguy" would have an official name and not rely on a fanmade nickname.

Final Doom and RPG wouldn't exist for not being canon or even being mechanically different (RPG specifically, since FD is just D2 megawads).

D64 may not exist because of its different art style and being made by a different dev (So a classic Doom 3 could have been to D2 what D2 is to D1).

Doom in general could have retained the classic art style and even stuff like Eternal's "classic" looks would be closer and more faithfull.

If there were more Doom games, maybe even Quake and Heretic would be Doom games and lose what made them stand out as new IP's.

D3 wouldn't exist because of its differences from the old games or at least be closer to them, whether they'd please fans or disappoint them.

Ideas from 2016/Eternal such as the Sentinels and Urdak would be seen as being too deviating from the traditional Doom premise.

The Doomslayer may not exist because of his influence from the fanbase and outside factors.

Doom wouldn't have a huge modding scene, either because the series' setting could have been "expanded enough" that fan creativity wouldn't be that huge or in case id gets restrictive over the setting that they don't even care about fanmade levels or designs inspired by the setting.

We wouldn't have movies and books that changed the setting heavily.

The "Blazkowicz family/idverse" stuff would be taken seriously beyond easter eggs and small crossovers or stuff in obscure content.

Some of these are exaggerations, but it can also say something about how people perceive the setting of Doom besides mentiong a quote by John Carmack (One that he later disagreed a bit on and got attention mostly because of DidYouKnowGaming).

Because i like to think there's two ways to look at the world of Doom:

The "soft" way is seeing it as a concept that can be done in a lot of ways, justifying later games looking/playing/feeling differently, "non canon" stuff and even the creativity in the fanbase; Worst case scenario is some ideas people don't like such as a movie/novels changing the demons to aliens.

The "hard" way is taking the little existing story (Ingame texts, manuals etc) and the abstract levels/textures/sprites/assets too seriously, whether it means looking at how id made them, expanding the setting through fanmade assets/mods or even getting picky over what couldn't work, hence some restrictions; You still have to realize that some lore contradicts itself, levels will always be obscure and Doomguy's armor has inconsistencies etc.

Since Doom's main "focus" of its existence is the innovation and gameplay, that might've resulted on the setting and its presentation being "unfinished", so different interpretations in both the series and fanbase seem like a given.

But i also see benefits from that and how it affects its staying power: Doom is not just a painting in a museum, it's also a brush and canvas.

It also comes to mind when i see people disagree with Eternal's story and even if id themselves are having second thoughts.

The solution is just to see the modern Doom lore as just an experimental thing and not "the definitive" lore; Like i'd still allow a Doom 6 based off this version of the setting but also have it coexist alongside a Doom game doing its own thing.

There are a lot of franchises that are affected negatively by bad stories or decisions because their stories always had a big role, so i think Doom can be an exception because of how messy and unimportant the story always was.

It's not just some players that ignore the story, the series itself did that too if you think about it.

Just have some game do an idea differently and try to be cool, i guess.

[aceoftwos]

this is absolutely fascinating. hope you don’t object to me jumping in but i was classpecting (also assigning lunar sway and planets to) the traffic players so there’s obviously some crossover. hopefully it’s okay to share what i’ve come up with! (i was mostly using the extended zodiac test and my own knowledge and also the homestuck wiki, as well as the old @classpector tumblr for reference. gonna try to track down all the reasoning for who goes where.)

analysis under the readmore bc this got. long.

keep in mind that i was trying to build a functional session and was actively trying to not double up on classes/aspects, as well as only having so many player slots available, so some may not be a perfect fit.

• BdoubleO100, Heir of Blood

feel like this one is kind of obvious. if you look at the way bdubs portrays himself, in any of the seasons (that i’ve seen) of either hermitcraft or the traffic series, he’s heavily influenced by the people around him—moulding himself to be the perfect mayoral campaign manager, or the loving husband in double life, or... whatever the fuck his official role was for king ren. and, of course, he’s influencing them in turn.

Land of Castles and Clockwork (LOCAC), for obvious reason.

• Etho, Mage of Space

hear me out—they both make a lot of sense separate from each other. if you look at what the extended zodiac says about space players: they tend to play the waiting game, they’re innovators. and as for the class, well... that, of course, is a little more complicated. it a little bit boiled down to a gut feeling that it was right?

Land of Slabs and Frogs (LOSAF), also for obvious reasons. the frogs were required which is probs good bc i’m not sure what i’d put there otherwise.

• GoodTimeWithScar, Sylph of Breath

classpecting scar, my beloathed. he went through like six different classpects before i finally settled on this one. the aspect stayed fairly consistent. it’s about freedom and charisma and sort of just, living like there are no rules. scar invites everyone to play along, let loose, allow yourself to be scammed out of those diamond boots. as for sylphs, they specialize in healing. just being in his company offers you more freedom. one of us is on red but we want to keep being friends? sure, no rules against it! (there are literal rules against it, scar.) he bends the rules easy as breathing for himself and anyone else in his company, restoring what freedom the rules have stripped away.

Land of Sand and Wheels (LOSAW), is... well. sand as a representation of this whole thing he’s got going on with grian. bc hoo boy, those two can’t seem to get away from each other. and wheels for his travelling salesman gig, for his wheelchair, for the idea of moving forward and progressing.

• Grian, Lord of Void

this was heavily based around both watcher lore and grian’s role as both creator and admin for the series. an example that a friend suggested was from limlife, how the mansion was reset in the second session but grian kept denying that it was ever destroyed to begin with.

Land of Sight and Sand (LOSAS), once again goes back to the watcher lore and also the whole inescapable thing with scar.

• impulseSV, Thief of Mind

no one can deny that impulse is an innovator, the type to think and think then think some more. @classpector suggests a thief of mind wouldn’t be very creative, but i disagree. redstone at its core is tweaking designs. changing the designs of others to make it more efficient for current circumstances, to make it fit better within a build, or just using it as a baseline to go completely off the rails—which i think fits impulse quite nicely.

Land of Stone and Automatons (LOSAA), is a play on the dwarf thing he’s got going on in s9 and the classic redstone need to automate.

• PearlescentMoon, Rogue of Doom

pearl was actually the first person to get a definite classpect. purely bc of the proposed idea that the rogue of doom would be a trash collector. given her role as the cleaning lady of s9, well, the choice was basically made for me.

Land of Soup and Megaflora (LOSAM), need i say more?

• Tango, Knight of Rage

yes, i gave the guy commonly depicted with literal fire for hair the rage aspect. i get it. but this wasn’t a choice made lightly. knights are active players, who often use their aspect as a weapon of choice. think back to last life and his reaction to bdubs’ boogeyman kill, double life and the immediate reaction to the ranch being set on fire. both time he reacted immediately and the intended consequences for the actions taken against him were incredibly harsh. in the traffic series, rage has often been the catalyst for tango’s choices. this, and the extended zodiac’s take on rage players being the bringers of chaos, calling them volatile and unpredictable (see: rancher’s revenge). but yeah. also the fire hair thing.

Land of Horns and Heat (LOHAH), bc i’m an absolute sucker for his friendship with jimmy. i am desperate for more interactions. and the heat thing is obvious.

• ZombieCleo, Witch of Life

do i even have to explain this, given we came to the same conclusion? yes? all right. she’s known for her armor stand work, literally breathing life into wood and leather. she bends her aspect to her will, creating the appearance of life with  limbs that move despite being very clearly dead. also it’s just hilarious.

Land of Mannequins and String (LOMAS), is again obvious. but god i want to see this planet. i can only imagine it looking incredibly vibrant and full of life and then as you get closer you have to fight your way thru the spiderweb of strings being used to keep everything in place.

and the non-hermits for anyone interested...

• bigbst4tz2, Maid of Mind

other than scar, bigb was the absolute worst to try and figure out. part of that is he’s not often paired with players i watch (other than the short amount of time he was with cleo in last life and grian in double life) and also. he just strikes me as very quiet, often in a supporting role. he got assigned the last class that i needed to fill out the rotation, unfortunately.

Land of Static and Oleander (LOSAO), was maybe an odd choice. we have oleander, also known as nerium, which is a plant that’s quite pretty—but poisonous. it commonly signifies the complicated nature of relationships, calling back to last life and double life. as to static, well. his name. obviously. but that’s also just how i see him. he’s hard to pin down.

• InTheLittleWood, Seer of Time

this was decided during limlife. the time aspect felt a little on the nose, but y’know. it’s also quite impacted by martyn’s lore and the idea of listeners being able to eavesdrop on different parts of the timeline. but he’s another player i haven’t had the opportunity to study in depth so, this may be entirely wrong.

Land of Trees and Shadows (LOTAS), bc of the whole woods theme and the shadows as a callback to last life. this is another planet with imagery that makes me go insane. there’s been some lengthy discussions.

• Smajor1995, Prince of Light

interestingly, the same classpect you originally assigned tango. we all know scott’s got the star symbolism going on which clearly ties into light. he’s also just lucky and seems very good at manipulating the odds—aside from the very first game, he’s consistently finished top three. it’s insanity. the prince bit was partially based on his character in empires s1 and also just... vibes.

Land of Diamonds and Frost (LODAF), bc of scott’s association with the cold after empires s1 and diamonds bc i thought it’d be funny given that diamonds are incredibly important in minecraft and functionally useless in sburb. also diamonds are prisms, which create rainbows, ties into empires s2.

• Smallishbeans, Bard of Heart

yes, this is an odd one. if you so much as glance at what the extended zodiac has to say about heart players, it was pretty obvious where joel was going to end up. i struggled with his class for a while before finally arriving at bard. joel’s always hiding behind loud and boisterous emotions, stomping down anything real. he plays the role and does it well. the only time i can recall seeing him anywhere close to genuine is when he spoke to afk!grian in limlife and even there he was posturing a bit.

Land of Quartz and Viscera (LOQAV), bc of quartz being one of his main exports in empires s2 and bc joel loves murder. also just thought the image of gore juxtaposed against pure white quartz was striking.

• SolidarityGaming, Page of Hope

i’ve been met with significant opposition for this one, as well as numerous suggestions to slap a doom label on him. let me tell you why that doesn’t work. it comes down to the canary in a coal mine shtick. that and if you scroll to the very bottom to read the extended zodiac’s take on doom players, it absolutely does not fit jimmy in the fucking slightest. he’s extremely positive—always determined not to go out first, despite what seems inevitable. he draws people in with his personality (and the opportunity to make fun of him but let’s not get into that) and charisma, tho it’s a very different sort from scar’s. and, of course, when jimmy meets his eventual and inevitable end the entire server usually descends into immediate chaos—you might say it’s because all hope has died.

Land of Coal Mines and Horns (LOCMAH), is. uh. yeah. pretty sure you know why. coal mines for canary reasons and horns for tango reasons.

Alright yeah we doin this

An incomplete list of current headcanons for Homestuck Classpects of Hermits (a work in progress)

(Updated on Feb 9 after the war’s end made me realize a few things)

Joe has been throwing around big Rogue energy the last few weeks. Living in other people’s bases/borrowed spaces around the server, weaponizing stuff that’s frankly not weaponry, casually trying to bend the rules to pass over the moat, sneaking fans onto the server, creating a diss track in a matter of hours and “including” his teammates into it… all from a pacifist standpoint, mind you. I’m currently saying Rogue of Space. Edit: No no no I’m a goddamn fool. Wow. Joe is a Heart player. So I’m going with Rogue of Heart, though this revelation also has me reevaluating the Rogue part a little.

Doc has long obviously been a Doom player - the rules are his plaything. I’m going with Thief of Doom specifically. He has duplicated countless items over the seasons, he will manipulate the truth for his own purposes, and honestly just? Oh we’re gonna casually make a precision creeper cannon, oh and btw we’re gonna shoot ourselves in on llamas while we’re at it.

Grian I haven’t been watching for anywhere near as long so I’m having a hard time pinning down his class (my instincts say Heir, but he’s so ready to cause chaos I can see Bard or Prince), but his aspect for me comes down to Breath or Hope. He got almost the entire rest of the server to play along on three of his games by now simply by saying okay these are happening everyone :D c’mon let’s goooo! For being the diving force behind most the season right now, I dub him an Heir of Hope.

Tango is a Light player - his luck is too extraordinary (how many times has he said “I could use __” and gotten it?), he knows too much, he is happy to use that information for crazy shit. Plus last season he put a giant nether base into the overworld and this season he’s holding up a lake with a force field. I’d previously written him down as Prince of Light, but he’s softened out so other arguments could be made.

Xisuma is a Mage, keeping things organized and level. I had him down as a Space player when I made my original list last season, but part of that was a joke about his volcano. Having multiple “hims” all logged in on the LPMT server to AFK for different things and keep things in line felt more Time player though, and he isn’t someone I’d consider myself an “expert” on, so I’ll write him as “Mage of Time” with a large-ish question mark beside it.

I’ve always enjoyed the joke of Life player Cleo - after all, she’s a zombie! But this season she’s brought in the armor stands, which have a life of their own… Plus she was very, very, very determined to win that Phantom hunt. Between those, and a bit of bias via her long-running Sims series, as of right now I have her as a Witch of Life.

Cub as Lord of Void and Scar as Muse of Breath. I know, I know, pulling out Lord and Muse are fighting words, but explain to me how the heck else they get as much done as they do. Was particularly motivated by last season - Cub creating the Cub Hub, Scar managing 18,000 miles flown, and the sheer scale of their projects. Cub basically magics things into existence (or out of existence - the absurd win on the Phantom Hunt, getting bored and just finishing digging the nether hub), while Scar is the root of all inspiration on that server and so beloved his cat’s now in the game. Doubles as fun because Void and Breath fit Vex Magic both thematically and color-wise.

Rendog is a Page. I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules, he just is, you know it in your souls, and you know he would be proud of the dang outfit. I unfortunately don’t quite know what kind of Page though - currently my notes say Page of Heart.

Zedaph is a Bard of Life. I thought Page for him initially, too Wormman jokes but the man has to find the most difficult way to do everything and thrives on bases that blend into their surroundings. Also at one point he killed himself repeatedly to opera music just to troll people, so…

Stress’s is already suggested by her name - she’s a Maid of Rage. It makes more sense when you remember Rage is about emotions in general, rather than just actual rage, and see that her content, more than anyone else’s, feels ruled by her emotions in both release schedule and actual content. All of her singing, all of her typing out her accent, all of her actually expressing her frustrations but treating them as just part of life, all fit with that.

From here we start getting into people I’m only clear enough on to have one or the other written down for:

False is a Knight. She has a strong sense of duty and of preserving her self-image. She also can fight like nobody’s business.

Mumbo is a Time player. I thought Space at first as a joke about all his storage systems, but I’ve started to see those as a tool to balance how organized (and scant) his time is. More than any other hermit, he is a creature of habit/routine.

Impulse, as the other ideas guy, feels to me like a Mind player.

I think of Iskall as a Seer, but that may just be because of the imagery of his diamond eye.

Bdubs isn’t really around anymore, but while he was I had him down as a Blood player for his role within the NHO.

Everyone else I either can’t get a good enough read on despite watching them, or don’t watch enough of their content, to really pin anything down. Is Wels actually a Knight? I just don’t know, but I feel like no. Is anyone on this server a Sylph? Who the hell is the Space player so we can finally get a successful session? I just don’t know!

But of course all of these are just my thoughts/headcanons, based on my observations and brief talk with a couple friends about it, so they are completely open to debate/interpretation/argument/expansion.

(Please debate me. I am that kind of person. I want to think more about these!)

[familyagrestefanblog]

Ml Meta analysis: Adriens current absents, season 4 structure and theory on whats to come

Here I am back again with my endless rambling.

I'm just as worried for our cat son as everyone else (maybe even more) which is why I tried figuring out for my own sanity why he is so absent currently.

Upfront I wanna warn yall that I wrote this post in one rush this night and therefore had no time to do alot of editing. So things can probably get a bit more messy than usual but I tried to write it clearly, while writing 2 other ml essays as well. This is the one drawback of having so many episodes in such a short time, I have no time to write my posts x3 I had another theory planned for before Optigami airs but I don't think I can manage before tomorrow.

But let's not waste any more time. Grab a snack and here we go:

It's 2am right now but I think I just realized why Adrien/Chat Noir is being sidelined so much recently.

Sure, yes, it'll come into play in the very obviously set up Ladynoir drama later on but what I wanna talk about now is more the structure of how s4 is most likely written in terms of both Marinettes and Adriens side of the story. And then deep dive a little on why I think so.

You see season 4 is now reaping what has been built up from s1-s3, but this also includes that you have to take the time now to properly recreate the new possibilities out of the loose pieces of the broken status quo.

Seriously, season 4 has to handle and reinvent ALOT. The show got now officially announced to have 7 seasons, which is exactly the amount of seasons Astruc said they have story for. I couldnt find the official tweet from Thomas himself but I one from another source:

And now look take a look at the possible shows structure:

- s1-s3 was the first status quo and built up everything so now they can pay off after pay off while...

-... S4 is now the transitional season where the old status quo gets left behind as we work towards the new one.

-I have nothing to proof this of course, but in the same sense it would now make sense that s5-s7 where/are planned to play out under the final status quo. If I'm not wrong at first the show was under contract for 5 seasons, which would mean that after the transitional season 4 there was only 1 season of the final status quo for sure. Still, done right it could have been worth the wait. But this isn't where Miraculous will end. The show actually got the 7 seasons the creator wanted and THIS is how I think the long term plan makes the most sense. Nothing all too complicated but still hella effective in its execution.

But now back to our two main characters, because Marinettes and Adriens development are the two aspects that will raise the show to the intense heights of the s5-s7 status quo.

From s1-s3 Marinette was the active player but she was hardly involved with the actual PLOT of the show, since most of the plot and backstory of the show lies directly with the Agreste family. She only started to get her own plot when she literally created a new one by getting involved with the miraculous lore, because the closest Marinette got to the Agreste plot was "The collector".

Adrien in the other hand was always literally right in the middle of the plot but he wasn't enough of an active player to bring us further either.

Season 4 is now going to add the missing parts for both of them and as the very beginning of the season showed us: there are going to do it SEPERATLY.

This is why "Truth" and "Lies" have been structured the way they are (One Marinette-centric the other Adrien-centric). Yes, Marinette and Adrien are meant to end their story victoriously together, but they are simply not the people they have to be to become such a powerful team. Certain aspects of their journey they have to do... basically disconnected from the other one. The "Miracle Queen" endcard shows it quite nicely as well where they are heading now: away from each other.

Obviously the season started with Marinette growing into her new guardian status including everything miraculous related, since she is the main lead and because the new ways the episodes can now utilize everything Miraculous need to be established first before we deep dive into the messed up Agreste mystery.

So while I totally agree that it is annoying to get so little Adrien/Chat Noir content currently I also understand the practicality behind it. As I said, before s4 Marinette was the active main character who mostly didn't really have her own plot. So now adding her plot aspect and have her ACTIVELY figure everything needed out means that right now Marinette/Ladybug is the active focus main character who is solving a huge part of her s4 character arc. That simply drowns out Adrien as the currently still mostly-inactive secondary main character who, yes, may be right in the middle of the shows emotional + villain plot/lore/backstory, but that side of the story simply isn't in focus at the moment.

And I gotta say, I'm kinda glad they're doing it this way. Because I'm gonna be honest, when the season starts giving us Adrien/family Agreste episodes like "Lies" and "The collector" (in this case "Gabriel Agreste" for example) again, I don't want the narrative to be forced to spend time with something guardian lore based just because they didn't took their time to do it earlier.

So, as we see on the s4 episode raster "Gabriel Agreste" is episode 9. Honestly, I expect most of it (especially the ones near the beginning, so ep. 5 included) til that episode to be Marinette based the way everything else til now did (besides Lies obviously and Guilt trip didn't hardcore focus on Marinette/Ladybug either and that's because it's after "Gabriel Agreste") in the spirit of "Truth". It's just the needed set up from Marinettes side of the story and I can live with that.

Because we actually saw the change after "Gabriel Agreste" already in "Guilt trip".

I don't know why some people pretend like Chat almost cataclysming himself after hearing how guilt-eaten Nino is for Adriens sake isn't a huge indicator that the episodes afterwards will not only acknowledge but also DEAL with Adriens/Chats situation and problems. Remember, we are talking about CHAT NOIR here not Adrien Agreste. The show has always portrayed and acknowledged ADRIENS issues very straight forward and with the proper seriousness (especially when it comes to his family), whereas Chat Noir was often mostly used for comedic purposes with some exceptions of his problems being properly delt with (since Marinette/Ladybug was mostly oblivious to them, since Adrien keeps them hidden so well). But now in "Guilt trip" LADYBUG was confronted head-on with just how much negativity Chat has inside and how quickly and extremely he drowns in it.

Sure, correct, the episode also has his negativity "washed away" rather quickly by Ladybug opening up to him on how important he is to her

But this is in character for both of them as "Lies" very clearly showed us that the way BOTH OF THEM behave here is where the problem lies. There Ladybug was freaked out after Chat threw his life away once again but quickly accepted Chats very direct avoidance of the confrontation, since he seemed to be alright to her.

Something I also find noteworthy here is that Ladybugs dialog is "Seriously, you need to stop doing this to me!", which is.... a VERY Marinette-centric way of acknowledging the problem.

It completely shifts the issue away from Adriens extremely alarming self-harmful/suicidal tendencies and instead only calls out how it affects Marinette (whose feelings here are definitely valid, don't get me wrong!). It showcases perfectly how unaware Marinette still is of her partners inner tumult at that point and also parallels how Marinette called Adriens life "perfect" at the beginning of the episode (This is no shade towards Marinette, in general the entirety of "Lies" is about showing us just how harmful Adriens Chat Noir persona actually IS to him so these two moments of her being oblivious to Adriens and Chats immense problems very much fits into that episodes narrative and sets up what's about to come. I still have an entire essay in the making for "Lies" but, guys, it's just getting longer and longer. I suck xD).

So the fact that an episode after "Gabriel Agreste" brings this scenario back, just a little different but ALOT more revealing of Adriens immense problems to his partner, is VERY telling. Besides other things it tells us that this happens at the beginning of the arc that deals with (at least) Chats issues since Ladybug is still way too quickly too ready to accept her partner as "completely fine" again just because Chat makes it seem that way (while some negativity increasing guilt bubbles still to stick to him.).

And yet, others have already pointed it out that Ladybug IS noticing what Chat wanted to do and reacted accordingly...

she just didn't speak of it the way it is because it overwhelmed her, which calls back to Ladybugs "You have to stop doing this to me!" dialog.( For a great breakdown of her dialog HERE is a link to @flightfoot​ post)

In "Lies" Marinette was way too stressed by her new guardian role to even consider Chats side of it and therefore only spoke of her own, but in "Guilt trip" she's already past that stressful arc. So here she is immediately able to recognize Chats suicidal action for what it is, come to his (much needed) aid and lift her partners spirit the best she can by emotionally opening up to him (which is something we KNOW is incredibly hart for Marinette).

The difference between her reaction in "Lies" and in "Guilt trip" shows that Marinette has her guardian role already mostly handled and is now mentally able to be there for others again, so the extremely Marinette-centric "Truth"-like episodes are mostly passed. Now the episodes can bring Adrien/Chat Noir more into the game again and even shift to "Lies" - like episodes because MARINETTE can pay more attention to him again and isn't faced with something new, important and overwhelming Miraculous related every step she takes.

And THAT is extremely fair from a narrative standpoint.

---

I really need to stop elaborating so much on these posts because I'm only NOW actually getting to the point of where Adriens journey will disconnect for a while from Ladybugs. Sorry guys.

Okay, to understand where I'm going with this I will have to quickly explain how I always saw Chat Noirs place in the Ladybug+Chat Noir vs Hawkmoth war ever since s1.

Because here is the thing: Adrien wasn't able to truly leave the battle field ONCE since the origins. Marinette was completely out of Hawkmoths and Gabriels reach once she detransformed, which balances out her basically being the personification of the good sides force. And Gabriel literally decided whenever or not the battle is even ACTIVE right now! Besides that he is in complete control of his own actions and environment, which gives him all the necessary time, safety and downtime he needs to act as the personification of the evil sides force.

Marinette and Gabriel always knew when they were safe and off the battle field, but ADRIEN never had that and it left him LITERALLY right in the middle of both Ladybugs and Hawkmoths sides.

You see, because before Adrien became Chat Noir he basically was part of Hawkmoths side just by default. He was born into this family, that's his father and lost mother and everything he knows. Adrien didn't/doesn't even have to KNOW that he is part of Hawkmoths side, he's his son at some level he just IS! And I'm not saying this as anything negative, Adrien coming from Hawkmoths side is literally the reason why he became Chat Noir!

Because whereas Gabriel is having the time of his damn life as evil terrorist, created out of tragic and sinister circumstances, ADRIEN on the other hand couldn't handle his families environment and very same circumstances anymore and accepted the role as Paris' hero to escape his heritage for a while.

Keywords being: a WHILE.

Something unique about Adrien I always loved is the fact that he is the villains abused, isolated and overworked SON, who becomes a hero to escape his depressing life and YET it was never Adriens intention to LEAVE IT. Adrien merely wanted to use his time as Chat Noir to let of some steam and breath freely while doing some hero work so he can go back into his civilian life and try to one day successfully ment his broken family. He couldn't handle the current situation anymore but he still always saw worth in his family/father. I have SO MUCH respect for that!

But him not intending to leave his family and instead regaining strength as Chat Noir to continue to hold onto it came with the downside of him not being able to fully become part of the good sides people/force either. Hence why Adriens/Chats place always felt so lost in comparison to Ladybugs and Hawkmoths clear positions. He's caught in between their extremes trying to balance out BOTH at the same time. What an impossible task!

So he couldn't put in the same focus as Ladybug into being the good sides force because he is literally burned out from his civilian life on Hawkmoths evil side. But he also couldn't be involved as an ACTIVE member of his fathers evil force, because he chose to find refuge in his friends and as a hero on Ladybugs side.

Adrien unknowingly is part of BOTH the shows two extreme moral sides of good and evil and this season we will see Adrien/Chat Noir grow into his own within BOTH sides as well.

Because he simply couldn't have done so right away in s1. Now after 3 seasons Chat Noir is more than solidly established as one of Paris Heros and his time with Ladybug, the other heros and his normal friends helped him greatly to find his place on the good side. "Lies" set this up as Chat Noirs arcs starting point that now he has to stop connecting "being heroic" strictly with following Ladybug (as Marinette is the STAND IN personification for the good side, she's still a flawed human being like everyone else and not the ultimate force of perfect and good. Big difference.) just as he has to start looking past his fathers sympathetic moments/qualities to see that Hawkmoth isn't a 100%, inhumane monster just because he is the stand-in personification of evil in their fight, but the man he calls Father and still needs to be taken down. (I talked about this in more detail on THIS post)

Adrien has to seperat himself from Ladybugs path and focus on his family and I believe it'll start with the much dreaded (but expected) Ladynoir fight.

Funnily enough, what I'm talking about was actually already set up in "Frozer" I just didn't remember that for a bit. In "Frozer" we saw Ladynoir having a fight which caused Chat Noir to go his own way in the episodes battle.

I always found it interesting that the episode didn't had Chats decision, to not follow Ladybugs lead here, turn out to be a huge mistake. Almost every other show would have done so but now I think I understand. This episode and s2 in general SET UP the s4 conflict, s3 LEAD UP to it and now s4 DELIVERS it.

So what happened in "Frozer" is a direct parallel to what about to go down:

Ladynoirs fight will cause Chat Noir to not simply  follow Ladybugs side anymore the way he used to, but note, he DOESN'T leave the good side AND they make up again in the end after Chat saves Ladybug from the akuma. He just does things on his own because he isn't on great terms with her for a while. "Frozer" showed Chats decision to not only NOT be a mistake but also a necessary part of defeating the akuma, just the way it'll be in s4. Damn, Adrien breaking away from Ladybugs side, the way she (unintentionally tho) did at the beginning of the season, to focus more on himself and his family will be the game changing factor, when Adrien will have his completing arc where he goes from "not active character within the villain/backstory plot" to "ACTIVE character within the villain/backstory plot".

And we already saw with Marinette how many fast breakthroughs we get through these completing arcs. Which is also a reason for why Adriens/ Chats arc comes later in the season, because BUDDY. Once Adrien starts to actively uncover his families mystery and fathers secrets Gabriel is SCREWED! Adrien will gain the needed inside knowledge that complements Marinettes Miraculous power; and reunited they can take on whatever the hell kind of scale the Agrestes plan actually is.

So how to end this post? My biggest intention was to raise hope for everybody (myself included lol) who is right now very concerned and upset about how side-lined our boy is at the moment. But I prefer doing so in a way that actually works with canons context instead of sugarcoating what I don't like. And Adriens/Chats current position I definitely do NOT like but accepting it as realistic outcome from s1-s3 and set up for the escalation for both Ladynoir and his home situation gives it the proper purpose and pay off (narrative and character wise) that it SHOULD have.

Basically, the endcards of "Truth" and "Lies" show it perfectly.

It looks like ShadowMoth is turning a blind eye towards Adrien/Chat Noir because of Ladybugs new guardian status and "greater importance". But Gabriels tunnel vision on Ladybug will leave him vulnerable to his own sons secret actions against him and Gabriel won't see it coming until its already too late.

[shihalyfie]

Hi :) If it's not too much trouble, could you please share your take on why they'd continue the Adventure brand after tri. was such a flop? (and a tangent: what does "dark history" even mean?). We got Kizuna, the reboot, and a 02 movie. Logically, it doesn't really make sense they'd keep investing in it.

This is a thorny topic, and I'd like to reiterate that although I've ended up making more posts related to this series and the discourse surrounding it recently (probably because it's even more on the mind now that another movie is on the horizon and a lot of people are apprehensive for various reasons), I do not want this blog to be making a brand out of being critical of this series. I’m writing this here and in public because I figured that there is a certain degree I need to clarify what I mean about audience reception/climate and how it might impact current or future works, and I’m admittedly also more than a little upset that I occasionally see Western fanbase criticisms of the series getting dismissed by people claiming that the only people mad about it are dramamongering or ignorant Westerners (which could not be further from the truth). However, this is mainly to address this and to answer your question, and is not intended to try and change anyone's existing opinion or impression of the series as much as it's me trying to explain (from my own personal reading of the situation) what practically went down with critical reception in real life; no more, no less.

The short summary of the matter is:

The series was a moderate financial success (albeit with some caveats; see the long version for details) and definitely outstripped a lot of prior attempts to revive the franchise;

However, the overall Japanese fanbase-side critical backlash from tri. was extremely and viciously negative to the point where even acknowledging the series too much could easily result in controversy;

Kizuna’s production and the PR surrounding it very obviously have this in mind with a lot of apparent “damage control” elements.

The long version is below.

Note that while I try to be diligent about citing my sources so people understand that I’m not just making things up wholesale, I’m deliberately refraining from linking certain things here this time, both because some of the things mentioned have some pretty crude things written there -- it’s not something I feel comfortable directing people to regardless of what language it’s in -- and because I don’t want to recklessly link things on social media and cause anyone to go after or harass the people involved. For the links that have been provided, please still be warned that some of them don’t really link to particularly pleasant things.

I am not writing the following information to suggest that anyone should agree or disagree with the sentiments being described. I know people tend to take "a lot of people like/hate this" as a signal of implication "it is correct to like/hate this" when it's not (and I especially dislike the idea of implying that Japanese fanbase opinions are the only correct ones). There's a reason I focus on "critical reception being this way" (because it influences marketing decisions and future direction) rather than how much this should impact one's personal feelings; this is coming from myself as someone who is shamelessly proud of liking many things that had bad critical reception, were financial failures, or are disliked by many. As I point out near the end, the situation also does seem to be changing for the better in more recent years as well.

Also, to be clear, I'm a single person who's observing everything best I can from my end, I have no affiliations with staff nor do I claim to, and as much as I'm capable of reading Japanese and thus reading a lot of people's impressions, I'm ultimately still another “outsider” looking in. These are my impressions from my observation of fan communal spaces, following artists and reading comments on social media and art posting websites, and results from social media searches. In the end, I know as much as anyone else about what happened, so this is just my two cents based on all of my personal observations.

A fanbase is a fanbase regardless of what part of the world you're from. There are people who love it and are shameless about saying so. There are people who have mixed feelings or at least aren't on extreme ends of the spectrum (as always, the loudest ones are always the most visible, but it's not always easy to claim they're the predominant percentage of the fanbase). That happens everywhere, and I still find that on every end I've seen. However, if I'm talking about my impressions and everything I’ve encountered, I will say that the overall Japanese reaction to tri. comes off as significantly more violently negative on average than the Western one, which is unusual because often it's the other way around. (I personally feel less so because the opinions are that fundamentally different and more so because we're honestly kind of loud and in-your-face people; otherwise, humans are mostly the same everywhere, and more often than not people feel roughly the same about everything if they’re given the same information to work with.)

This is not something I can say lightly, and thus would not say if I didn’t really get this impression, but...we're talking "casually looking up movie reviews for Kizuna have an overwhelming amount of people casually citing any acknowledgment of tri. elements as a negative element", or the fact that even communal wikis for "general" fandoms like Pixiv and Aniwota don't tend to hold back in being vicious about it (as of this writing, Pixiv's wiki refuses to consider it in the same timeline as Adventure, accusing it of being "a series that claims to be a sequel set three years after 02 but is in fact something different"). Again, there are people who openly enjoy it and actively advocate for it (and Pixiv even warns people to not lord over others about it condescendingly because of the fact that such people do exist), and this is also more of a reflection of “the hardcore fanbase on the Internet” and not necessarily the mainstream (after all, there are quite a few other Digimon works where the critical reception varies very heavily between the two). Nevertheless, the take-home is that the reputation is overall negative among the Internet fanbase to the point that this is the kind of sentiment you run into without trying all that hard.

I think, generally speaking, if we're just talking about why a lot of people resent the series, the reasons aren't that different from those on the Western side. However, that issue of "dark history" (黒歴史): there's a certain degree of demand from the more violently negative side of the fanbase that's, in a sense, asking official to treat it as a disgrace and never acknowledge it ever again, hence why Kizuna doing so much as borrowing things from it rather than rejecting it outright is still sometimes treated like it’s committing a sin. So it's somewhat close in spirit to a retcon movement, which is unusual because no other Digimon series gets this (not even 02; that was definitely a thing on the Western end, but while I'm sure there are people who hate it that much on their end too, I've never really seen it gain enough momentum for anyone to take it seriously). If anyone ever tells you that Japanese fanbases are nice to everything, either they don't know Japanese, are being willfully ignorant, or are lying to you, because there is such thing as drama in those areas, and in my experience, I've seen things get really nasty when things are sufficiently pushed over the edge, and if a fanbase wants to have drama, it will have drama. This happens to be one of those times.

(If you think this is extreme, please know that I also think so too, so I hope you really understand that me describing this sentiment does not mean I am personally endorsing it. Also, let me reiterate that the loudest section of the fanbase is not necessarily the predominant one; after all, as someone who’s been watching reactions to 02 over the years, I myself can attest that its hatedom has historically made it sound more despised than it actually is in practice.)

My impression is that the primary core sentiment behind why the series so much as existing and being validated is considered such an offense (rather than, say, just saying "wow, that writing was bad" and moving on) is heavily tied to the release circumstances the series came out in during 2015-2018, and the idea that "this series disrespected Adventure, and also disrespected the fanbase.” (I mean, really, regardless of what part of the world you’re from, sequels and adaptations tend to be held to a higher bar of expectation than standalone works, because they’re expected to do them justice.) A list of complaints I’ve come across a lot while reading through the above:

The Japanese fanbase is pretty good at recordkeeping when it comes to Adventure universe lore, partially because they got a lot of extra materials that weren’t localized, but also partially because adherence to it seems to generally be more Serious Business to them than it is elsewhere. For instance, “according to Adventure episode 45, ‘the one who wishes for stability’ (Homeostasis) only started choosing children in 1995, and therefore there can be no Chosen Children before 1995” is taken with such gravity that this, not anything to do with evolutions or timeline issues, is the main reason Hurricane Touchdown’s canonicity was disputed in that arena (because Wallace implies that he met his partners before 1995). It’s a huge reason the question of Kizuna also potentially not complying to lore came to the forefront, because tri. so flagrantly contradicts it so much that this issue became very high on the evaluation checklist. In practice, Kizuna actually goes against Adventure/02 very little, so the reason tri. in particular comes under fire for this is that it does it so blatantly there were theories as early as Part 1 that this series must take place in a parallel universe or something, and as soon as it became clear it didn’t, the resulting sentiment was “wow, you seriously thought nobody would notice?” (thus “disrespecting the audience”).

A lot of the characterization incongruity is extremely obvious when you’re following only the Japanese version, partially because it didn’t have certain localization-induced characterization changes (you are significantly less likely to notice a disparity with Mimi if you’re working off the American English dub where they actually did make her likely to step on others’ toes and be condescending, whereas in Japanese the disparity is jarring and hard to miss) and partially due to some things lost in translation (Mimi improperly using rough language on elders is much easier to spot as incongruity if you’re familiar with the language). Because it’s so difficult to miss, and honestly feels like a lot of strange writing decisions you’d make only if you really had no concept of what on earth happened in the original series, it only contributes to the idea that they were handling Adventure carelessly and disrespectfully without paying attention to what the series was even about (that, or worse, they didn’t care).

02 is generally well-liked there! It’s controversial no matter where you go, but as I said earlier, there was no way a retcon movement would have ever been taken seriously, and the predominant sentiment is that, even if you’re not a huge fan of it, its place in canon (even the epilogue) should be respected. So not only flagrantly going against 02-introduced lore but also doing that to a certain quartet is seen as malicious, and you don’t have as much of the converse discourse celebrating murdering the 02 quartet (yeah, that’s a thing that happened here) or accusing people with complaints of “just being salty because they like 02″ as nearly as much of a factor; I did see it happen, or at least dismissals akin to “well it’s Adventure targeted anyway,” but they were much less frequent. The issue with the 02 quartet is usually the first major one brought up, and there’s a lot of complaints even among those who don’t care for 02 as much that the way they went about it was inhumane and hypocritical, especially when killing Imperialdramon is fine but killing Meicoomon is a sin. Also, again, “you seriously think nobody will see a problem with how this doesn’t make sense?”

I think even those who are fans of the series generally agree with this, but part of the reason the actual real-life time this series went on is an important factor is that the PR campaign for this series was godawful. Nine months of clicking on an egg on a website pretending like audience participation meant something when in actuality it was blatantly obvious it was just a smokescreen to reveal info whenever they were ready? This resulted in a chain effect where even more innocuous/defensible things were viewed in a suspicious or negative light (for instance, "the scam of selling the fake Kaiser's goggles knowing Ken fans would buy it only to reveal that it's not him anyway"), and a bunch of progressively out-of-touch-with-the-fanbase statements and poor choices led to more sentiment “yeah, you’re just insulting the fanbase at this point,” and a general erosion of trust in official overall.

On top of that, the choice of release format to have it spread out as six movies over three years seems to have exacerbated the backlash to get much worse than it would have been otherwise, especially since one of the major grievances with the series is that how it basically strung people along, building up more and more unanswered questions before it became apparent it was never going to answer them anyway. So when you’re getting that frustrated feeling over three whole years, it feels like three years of prolonged torture, and it becomes much harder to forgive for the fallout than if you’d just marathoned the entire thing at once.

For those who are really into the Digimon (i.e. species) lore and null canon, while I’m not particularly well-versed in that side of the fanbase, it seems tri. fell afoul of them too for having inaccurately portrayed (at one point, mislabeled) special attacks and poorly done battle choreography, along with the treatment of Digimon in general (infantilized Digimon characterization, general lack of Digimon characters in general, very flippant treatment of the Digital World in Parts 3-5). If you say you’re going to “reboot” the Digital World and not address the entire can of worms that comes with basically damaging an entire civilization of Digimon, as you can imagine, a lot of people who actually really care about that are going to be pissed, and the emerging sentiment is “you’re billing this as a Digimon work, but you don’t even care about the monsters that make up this franchise.”

The director does not have a very positive reputation among those who know his work (beyond just Digimon), and in general there was a lot of suspicion around the fact they decided to get a guy whose career has primarily been built on harem and fanservice anime to direct a sequel to a children’s series. Add to that a ton of increasingly unnerving statements about how he intended to make the series “mature” in comparison to its predecessor (basically, an implication that Adventure and 02 were happy happy joy series where nothing bad ever happened) and descriptions of Adventure that implied a very, very poor grasp of anything that happened in it: inaccurate descriptions of their characters, poor awareness of 02′s place in the narrative, outright saying in Febri that he saw the Digimon as like perpetual kindergartners even after evolving, and generally such a flippant attitude that it drove home the idea that the director of an Adventure sequel had no respect for Adventure, made this series just to maliciously dunk on it for supposedly being immature, and has such a poor grasp of what it even was that it’s possible he may not have seen it in the first place (or if he did, clearly skimmed it to the extent he understood it poorly to pretty disturbing levels). As of this writing, Aniwota Wiki directly cites him as a major reason for the backlash.

In general, consensus seems to be that the most positively received aspect of the series (story-wise) was Part 3 (mostly its ending, but some are more amenable to the Takeru and Patamon drama), and the worst vitriol goes towards Parts 2 (for the blatantly contradictory portrayal of Mimi and Jou and the hypocritical killing of Imperialdramon) and 4 (basically the “point of no return” where even more optimistic people started getting really turned off). This is also what I suspect is behind the numbers on the infamous DigiPoll (although the percentage difference is admittedly low enough to fall within margin of error). However, there was suspicion about the series even from Part 1, with one prominent fanartist openly stating that it felt more like meeting a ton of new people than it did reuniting with anyone they knew.

So with all of that on the table: how did this affect official? The thing is that when I say “violently negative”, I mean that also entailed spamming official with said violently negative social media comments. While this is speculation, I am fairly certain that official must have realized how bad this was getting as early as between Parts 4 and 5, because that’s where a lot of really suspicious things started happening behind the scenes; while I imagine the anime series itself was now too far in to really do anything about it, one of the most visible producers suddenly vanished from the producer lineup and was replaced by Kinoshita Yousuke, who ended up being the only member of tri. staff shared with Kizuna (and, in general, the fact that not a single member of staff otherwise was retained kind of says a lot). Once the series ended in 2018 and the franchise slowly moved into Kizuna-related things, you might notice that tri.-branded merch production almost entirely screeched to a halt and official has been very touchy about acknowledging it too deeply; it’s not that they don’t, but it’s kind of an awfully low amount for what you’d think would be warranted for a series that’s supposed to be a full entry in the big-name Adventure brand.

The reason is, simply, that if they do acknowledge it too much, people will get pissed at them. That’s presumably why the tri. stage play (made during that interim period between Parts 4 and 5 and even branded with the title itself) and Kizuna are really hesitant to be too aggressive about tri. references; it’s not necessarily that official wants to blot it out of history like the most extreme opinions would like them to, but even being too enthusiastic about affirming it will also get them backlash, especially if the things they affirm are contradictory to Adventure or 02. And considering even the small references they did put in still got them criticism for “affirming” tri. too much, you can easily see that the backlash would have been much harder if they’d attempted more than that; staying as close as possible to Adventure and 02 and trying to deal with tri. elements only when they’re comparatively inoffensive was pretty much the “safe” thing to do in this scenario (especially since fully denying tri. would most certainly upset the people who did like the series, and if you have to ask me, I personally think this would have been a pretty crude thing to have done right after the series had just finished). Even interviews taken after the fact often involve quickly disclaiming involvement with the series, or, if they have to bring up something about it, discussing the less controversial aspects like the art (while the character designs were still controversial, it’s at least at the point where some fanartists will still be willing to make use of them even if they dislike the series, albeit often with prominent disclaimers) or the more well-received parts of Part 3; Kizuna was very conspicuously marketed as a standalone movie, even if it shared the point of “the Adventure kids, but older” that tri. had.

(Incidentally, the tri. stage play has generally been met with a good reputation and was received well even among people who were upset with the anime, so it was well-understood that they had no relation. In fact, said stage play is probably even better received than Kizuna, although that’s not too surprising given the controversial territory Kizuna goes into, making the stage play feel very play-it-safe in comparison.)

So, if we’re going to talk about Kizuna in particular: tri. was, to some degree, a moderate financial success, in the sense that it made quite a bit of money and did a lot to raise awareness of the Digimon brand still continuing...however, if you actually look at the sales figures for tri., they go down every movie; part of it was probably because of the progressively higher “hurdle” to get into a series midway, but consider that Gundam Unicorn (a movie series which tri.’s format was often compared to) had its sales go up per movie thanks to word of mouth and hype. So while tri. does seem to have gotten enough money to help sustain the franchise at first, the trade-off was an extremely livid fanbase that had shattered faith in the brand and in official, and so while continuing the Adventure brand might still be profitable, there was no way they were going to get away with continuing to do this lest everything eventually crash and burn.

Hence, if you look at the way Kizuna was produced and advertised, you can see a lot of it is blatantly geared at addressing a lot of the woes aimed at tri.: instead of the staff that had virtually no affiliation with Toei, the main members of staff announced were either from the original series (Seki and Yamatoya) or openly childhood fans, the 02 quartet was made into a huge advertising point as a dramatic DigiFes reveal (and character profies that tie into the 02 epilogue careers prominently part of the advertising from day one), and they even seemed to acknowledge the burnout on the original Adventure group by advertising it so heavily as “the last adventure of Taichi and his friends”, so you can see that there’s a huge sentiment of “damage control” with it. How successful that was...is debatable, since opinions have been all over the board; quite a few people were naturally so livid at what happened with tri. that Kizuna was just opening more of the wound, but there were also people who liked it much better and were willing to acknowledge it (with varying levels of enthusiasm, some simply saying “it was thankfully okay,” and some outright loving it), and there was a general sentiment even among those who disliked both that they at least understood what Kizuna was going for and that it didn’t feel as inherently disrespectful. (Of course, there are people who loved tri. and hated Kizuna, and there are people who loved both, too.)

Moreover, Kizuna actually has a slightly different target audience from tri.; there’s a pretty big difference between an OVA and a theatrical movie, and, quite simply, Kizuna was made under the assumption that a lot of people watching it may not have even seen tri. in the first place. An average of 11% of the country watched Adventure and 02, but the number of people who watched tri. is much smaller, in part due to the fact that its “theater” screenings were only very limited screenings compared to Kizuna being shown in theaters in Japan and worldwide, and in part due to the fact that watching six parts over three years is a pretty huge commitment for someone who may barely remember Digimon as anything beyond a show they watched as a kid, and may be liable to just fall off partway through because they simply just forgot. (Which also probably wasn’t helped by the infamously negative reputation, something that definitely wouldn’t encourage someone already on the fence.) And that’s yet another reason Kizuna couldn’t make too many concrete tri. references; being a theatrical movie, it needs to have as wide appeal as possible, and couldn’t risk locking out an audience that had a very high likelihood of not having seen it, much less to the end -- it may have somewhat been informed by tri.’s moderate financial success and precedent, but it ultimately was made for the original Adventure and 02 audience more than anything else.

I would say that, generally, while Kizuna is “controversial” for sure, reception towards the movie seems to be more positive than negative, it won over a large chunk of people who were burned out by tri., and it clearly seems to have been received well enough that it’s still being cashed in on a year after its release. The sheer existence of the upcoming 02-based movie is also probably a sign of Kizuna’s financial and critical success; Kinoshita confirmed at DigiFes 2020 that nothing was in production at the time, and stated shortly after the movie’s announcement that work on it had just started. So the decision to make it seems to have been made after eyeing Kizuna’s reception, and, moreover, the movie was initially advertised from the get-go with Kizuna’s director and writer (Taguchi and Yamatoya), meaning those two have curried enough goodwill from the fanbase that this can be used to promote the movie. (If not, you would think that having and advertising Seki would be the bigger priority.) While this is my own sentiment, I am personally doubtful official would have even considered 02 something remotely profitable enough on its own to cash in on if it weren’t for this entire sequence of events of 02′s snubbing in tri. revealing how much of a fanbase it had (especially with the sheer degree of “suspicious overcompensation” Kizuna had with its copious use of the 02 quartet and it tagging a remix of the first 02 ED on the Hanareteitemo single, followed by the drama CD and character songs), followed by Kizuna having success in advertising with them so heavily. Given all of the events between 2015 and now, it’s a bit ironic to see that 02 has now become basically the last resort to be able to continue anything in the original Adventure universe without getting too many people upset at them about it.

The bright side coming out of all of this is that, while it’s still a bit early to tell, now that we’re three years out from tri. finishing up and with Kizuna in the game, it seems there’s a possibility for things improving around tri.’s reception as well. Since a lot of the worst heated points of backlash against it have a very “you had to have been there” element (related to the PR, release schedule, and staff comments), those coming in “late” don’t have as much reason to be as pissed at it; I’ve seen at least one case of a fanartist getting back into the franchise because of Kizuna hype, watching tri. to catch up, casually criticizing it on Twitter, and moving on with their life, presumably because marathoning the whole thing being generally aware of what’ll happen in it and knowing Kizuna is coming after anyway gives you a lot less reason to be angry to the point of holding an outright grudge. Basically, even if you don’t like it, it’s much easier to actually go “yeah, didn’t like that,” not worry too much about it, and move on. Likewise, I personally get the impression that official has been starting to get a little more confident about digging up elements related to it. Unfortunately, a fairly recent tweet promoting the series getting put on streaming services still got quite a few angry comments implying that they should be deleting the scourge from the Internet instead, so there’s still a long way to go, but hopefully the following years will see things improve further...

In regards to the reboot, I -- and I think a lot of people will agree with me -- have a bit of a hard time reading what exact audience it’s trying to appeal to; we have a few hints from official that they want parents to watch it with their children, and that it may have been a necessary ploy in order to secure their original timeslot. So basically, the Adventure branding gets parents who grew up with the original series to be interested in it and to show it to their kids, and convinces Fuji TV that it might be profitable. But as most people have figured by now, the series has a completely different philosophy and writing style -- I mean, the interview itself functionally admits it’s here to be more action-oriented and to have its own identity -- and the target audience is more the kids than anything else. As for the Internet fanbase of veterans, most people have been critical of its character writing and pacing, but other than a few stragglers who are still really pissed, it hasn’t attracted all that much vitriol, probably because in the end it’s an alternate universe, it doesn’t have any obligation to adhere to anything from the original even if it uses the branding, and it’s clearly still doing its job of being a kids’ show for kids who never saw the original series nor 02, so an attempt to call it “disrespectful” to the original doesn’t have much to stand on. A good number of people who are bored of it decided it wasn’t interesting to them and dropped it without incident, while other people are generally just enjoying it for being fun, and the huge amount of Digimon franchise fanservice with underrepresented Digimon and high fidelity to null canon lore is really pleasing the side of the fanbase that’s into that (I mean, Digimon World Golemon is really deep in), so at the very least, there’s not a lot to be super-upset about.

[shroomtalker]

the potential c!sapnap has for lore

a majority of the dream smp fandom do want c!sapnap to have some sort of lore or have the potential of creating a foundation to set up for his character, yeah? well, he holds a much larger bucket of what i personally believe is a grand tie to a good handful of the main plot points occurring right now in this timeline. so in this post, i’ll mostly cover what could happen concerning c!sapnap and what his role in everything could mean for the future of the dream smp!

all of this is /dsmp and /rp!

__________________ ׂׂૢ་༘࿐

the fiancés

if you haven’t caught up with the lore right now, please know this is NOT spoiler free! 

as of right now according to the dream team wiki, c!sapnap has BOTH positive relationships with c!quackity and c!karl. however, after learning from c!quackity’s pov and his lore streams, he as resentment against both karl and sapnap for leaving him behind during the beginnings of kinoko kingdom. right now, we do not know the official reason as to why karl and sapnap excluded their fiancé from the build of their country (note: i might make a theory on this), although it is presented that quackity doesn’t like the mention of them. 

c!karl is going through his time travel situation with the other side being yet explored, along with the situation of his memory becoming worse through the duration of his travelling. c!quackity is going through his las nevadas arc, creating a casino in order to use the sin of gambling addiction to his advantage. with two of his fiancés going through tremendous (character developing) plotlines that are fated to cross paths, it is no question that c!sapnap will be caught in the crossfire of it. perhaps he’ll be forced to side with one or the other? face his true self which ends up fighting against the two? or will it all come down to something far worse?

tommy

it’s difficult to say if c!sapnap has the same respect or positive attitude towards c!tommy as time has changed, nevertheless their relationship is quite interesting. after the confrontation with mars and the teaming up on doomsday and THEN the disc confrontation (c!sapnap being among the many that stood up to protect c!tommy and c!tubbo), their relationship outcome has been positive. we all are very aware that c!tommy is the “main” character right now (i say main because i know a majority of people follow his pov). as wilbur is coming into play after being revived, c!dream still locked away in prison, and c!tommy having to pick a side, c!sapnap would in some regard have to consult c!tommy in one way or the other about the situation concerning c!dream.

ranboo

there isn’t much to base off of their relationship besides a couple of key points, but i still think it’s worth noting because of how much c!ranboo is playing a role as an important character. now, when sapnap visited c!dream in prison, dream gave sapnap a note with a smiley face on it, which was meant for ranboo. this triggered the enderwalk state, causing ranboo to flee quickly, only making c!sapnap confused. later, c!ranboo (still in his enderwalk) gave a message to sapnap in enderman, which only confused him more. 

i think this could really open a new door for sapnap to walk into which could further explore the relationship between c!ranboo and c!dream. we all know that sapnap is very close to dream, as he told him in pandora’s vault, 

“Dream if you try and break out early- you, you know that you only have one life left. Okay? And- you know, I don't think its gonna be Tommy, its not gonna be Techno, Dream. If you break out of this prison, its gonna be, its gonna be- me who takes your final life... and that's not because I have any resentment towards you or anything, it's because this is where you need to be, dude. You HAVE to stay here, okay?”

there is a lot to explore here with just c!ranboo, but as connected as he is to others (tommy, tubbo, philza), it could bring c!sapnap more ingrained within the lore.

badboyhalo

canonically, c!bbh is sapnap’s father. they both fought alongside each other during the battle of the lake, which strengthen their bond. however, it is unclear whether or not c!sapnap is aware with c!bbh’s corruption and connection toward the egg, which i could only assume will be showed throughout its course soon enough. c!sapnap doesn’t like the egg -- he’s made that very clear about wanting to kill said egg -- and bbh has protested this. 

with their relationship status being father and son, there is so much to build off of! i also really would like to see how c!sapnap would react to his own dad being corrupted by the red vines alongside punz, antfrost and ponk(?) who he seemingly has good relationships with.

dream

i don’t want to dedicate an entire paragraph to this of course since i know everyone is already familiar with their relationship, but i feel like there is so much that could truly be done to show their strong bond. i have a feeling we’ll be getting something from this as well which only makes me curious to see what’ll happen next!

there is a lot i could also cover, such as george, but i want to save that for an entire different post. i really do hope something will happen with how amazing c!sapnap’s character is, because there is so much potential there! he feels more as an anti-hero which could really be interesting to different storylines such as las nevadas, the prison arc, c!wilbur’s revival and of course, c!karl’s time traveling adventures.

[ronnytherandom]

I forgot to watch content all week so i wrote about games ive been playing

9/2/2021: The Truman Show

You should fear your fears but embrace them and use them to guide you into the unknown, to explore and experience what life has to offer. Fear stands between you and the fullest experience of life so you must pass through it to better yourself. Heed not the walls built about you and the chains made to hold you. Though the architects insist it will preserve your life, containment is anathema to life. Do not take in faith the benevolence of powers that be; instead trust those who would support and liberate you, guide you through fear and into life.

As best I can lay it out, I think this is the philosophy of the Truman show but there is so much more to read into it also. There is critique of systems of commodification and celebrity (i.e. capitalism) reducing human beings to a consumable good as well as encouragement to find and pursue your goals despite adversity and even sensibility which is also tied to the illusion of economic responsibility. You can’t put a camera inside a human head, you can never “know” them without being an active and intrinsic part of their life, but also there is need for reciprocation. If one half exists with ulterior motive then the entire relationship is rotten; sincere humanity is what creates real connections. Without such your world is fake. A world built around one person is a world where no one can truly live. All these actors have given up basically their entire lives for the sake of watching Truman have his life built around him by outside forces, have allowed themselves to be commodified and dehumanised for the good of one man, Christoph. The man at the top has delusions of grandeur and thinks only of his own bottom line, he cares not for his subjects but simply wants them to do as he tells them because it benefits him to commodify their lives and interactions. Even then he cannot stand to lose control and in seeking to demonstrate Truman’s “realness” he structures his life so thoroughly that eventually there’s no reality left, only a script and adverts. But the people watching still empathise with Truman because everyone in the working class understands what it is to be trapped because real life is our own Truman show and one day we must all pass through fear, step out of the dome and create a real life for ourselves outside of the system of commodification which consumes everyone’s life and removes all realness and sincerity and emotional catharsis from it.

I unreservedly love this film.

14/2/2021: Assorted Game Reviews

Horizon Zero Dawn (Unfinished due to technical issues, 45 hours inc. parts of Frozen Wilds): This game is really cool and really fun. I think it is defined by its incredible setting which somehow creates a fresh feeling post-apocalyptic environment. Said environment creates intriguing alt-future lore and some very interesting environments to explore. I love the machine designs (especially tallnecks!) and was very sad to hear one of their contributing artists passed away recently but I’m glad their work lives on in this visually stunning game. I’m a sucker for Ubisoft-style open world games simply because it tickles a certain kind of itch and somehow this non-Ubisoft game has outdone Ubisoft on their own formula, which is hilarious, but also good for me as running around this world exploring and clearing map markers is engaging fun. Not least because of the combat. I have a minor criticism here that the combat feels slightly awkward on mouse and keyboard, the arrows never seem to go where I’m aiming, but aside from that the experience of fighting is a grand one. Enemies never lose their threat and I love the weak spot system the game employs which makes every tool useful in niche circumstance and rewards curiosity. It specifically manages this in a way that I feel the Witcher series could learn from if it ever returns; by making head on assault less viable and encouraging tactical hunting. I do feel this system makes hunting robots so fun that by contrast hunting humans becomes a chore however, though I noted this improves in the dlc with the addition of humans with elemental weaknesses limited in number as they are. I cannot speak for the story in entirety but what I encountered was pretty good, though I feel as if it was only just really getting going at the point where I could not continue. I find Aloy to be a compelling and well portrayed protagonist and though I can guess about her origin and the ultimate end of the alt-future apocalypse I still want to see how it plays out on screen, so will return to this as soon as I’ve fixed it.

Rimworld (122 hours. Familiar with but do not own Royalty Expansion):

Rimworld is one of those super special games that I don’t think I have a single problem with. Fair warning it can be brutal and is heavily dependent on RNG but this allows it to create truly unique and interesting scenarios on a constant basis. In the wider perspective it could be described as formulaic, with regular cycles of managing the settlement between raids and random events, but the devils in the details. Colonist traits, health and skills dictate how you play and sometimes you’ll be forced to adapt as some colonists simply refuse to perform some tasks. The depth of health particularly amuses me, in that each little part of someone’s body is modelled in a way. If you’re in a firefight you may take a single bullet which grazes your finger and you’re fine. Alternately it could pierce your human leather cowboy hat, your skull and kill you instantly and the game will tell you exactly what happened. The risk/reward element is addictive enough, and that’s without accounting for just how cool it is to see your colony slowly expand. Establishing more and more options for crafting is fun and shows off the full range of different items in the game which is fucking extensive. Between clothing, weapons, armour, sculpture and drugs to name only a few you have the opportunity to create many varied production lines either for your colonists or to trade for money and there is a lot of fun to be had here as well as it is quite satisfying to see psychoid you have grown personally become the cocaine your colonists snort to help them stay awake on limited sleep. From an archaeologist’s perspective it is especially cool to look back over your base and see the hints of how and why structures were built and remember the history of your limitations and development through structure. I think the lore of the universe is really cool too, a very 40k-esque kind of place except with far less order, somehow. But the universe does an excellent job of feeling alive and moving constantly on both a planetary and interstellar level. You can fully believe that while you build wooden shacks to shield yourself from terrifyingly low temperatures there are simultaneously rich pieces of shit living it up on the glitterworld that’s one system over. The music does an excellent job of creating the wild west frontier atmosphere the game cultivates to great effect. Ultimately, for just being a grid with a series of different numbers attached, this game does a fantastic job of creating a compelling, brutal and very real colony management experience. I dont think I can properly put into words the grandness and scope of this one. I didnt even mention the modding scene, which is expansive and tailors to basically any need you could have. The Rim is a terrifying place but theres so much fun to be had.

Factorio (86 hours, mostly 1.1): Having completed a game of Factorio I can tell you reliably that this is one of the best games ever made, thoroughly addictive and fun. If you like numbers, logistics, TRAINS, its gonna be your thing. Not to mention its probably the only documented case of a game with no bugs (so far as official forums are concerned). Strictly speaking this games combat is not the most engrossing thing but good lord do you feel it when you acquire a flamethrower. The way each aspect of the game (production, research, logistics, combat, upgrades for everything therein) feeds into the next is a really well constructed balancing act such that you must experience the full game in order to complete it and I always appreciate this kind of design. I think its one of the best tenets of factory game design especially as its something present in Satisfactory too. Beyond all of this generalised good the game is also excellent in its intricacies, the architecture necessary to build a maximum efficiency base, the level of planning and organisation that can be employed is mind-blowing. Not to mention the mod community, factorion is already an extensive experience and some mad bastards have seen fit to complicate it further, hats off to them. This really is a great moment in gaming.

 Destiny 2 (198 hours, all expansions, played some post Forsaken release, mostly Season of Arrivals onwards, spent roughly £20 on microtransactions):

This is a very interesting and enjoyable experience, but I must say it can be a bit controversial at times. What its does particularly well is moment to moment gameplay and design in all aspects. The game is stunning; between environments, cosmetics, shaders ships and ghosts there’s a vast range of incredible things to see, all rooted in the “pseudo-magi-science” aesthetic it’s got going on. The class design is excellent and you really do feel like you embody this rampaging madman / agile gunman / space wizard archetype, whichever you choose to play. The abilities, especially supers, are very satisfying. Everything has heft and power behind it which can be felt in all aspects of design; sound and animation is top notch. Movement is cool, you can feel how fast you move both on foot and in vehicles and the navigation has a little fun subtlety depending on your class jump, even if you can bounce unpredictably occasionally. But for the love of god why is the wall kick in there? It has only ever served to push me from a ledge into a bottomless pit. You're looking to remove antiquated content? Start there. Some guns are not so good to shoot but there’s such a great range of guns that are fun its like complaining about one drop in an ocean; and enemies are fun to shoot at, each faction distinct in meaningful ways and presenting an effective challenge. Speaking of oceans, that’s one way to describe the lore. I haven’t dived too deep but it keeps going down forever and everything I’ve read is intriguing. As a former Elder Scrolls lore nut this is something I could definitely sink my teeth into, though its much more of a pulpy sci-fi vibe than a pure nonsense vibe. I do think the game has a bit of a loot problem, primarily in regards to the conflict between high stats and looking good. This should never be a conflict, and yes you can apply ornaments to any purple gear but that’s not enough when I spend the entire time grinding power levels and thus must change armour and weapons on a constant basis to progress. This game needs a true transmog system and if not that, rethink how gear power level works. Perhaps rather than earning new instances of gear you always possess a version of it and the loot you acquire in missions just upgrades your instance to your current overall power level? This would serve to do away with the current upgrade system which I think is a needless additional grind. Perhaps it could be retained in using enhancement cores to empower gear as present but necessitating a whole upgrade module to keep your favourite weapon on hand is kind of painful honestly. There is also at present the issue of sunsetting gear, mildly controversial to say the least. If it’s necessary to streamline the game and make it function moving forward so be it but surely loot pools should be adjusted so you can actually get useful loot from older locations? And why sunset personal instances of gear which can be acquired at the regular power level anyway? I had to throw away my favourite bow and hunt down a new version of the exact same weapon for… what reason? I do think destination navigation leaves a little to be desired also. I get that having a physical hub world is meaningful but Destiny does not have a very extroverted community; I can count the times someone noticed me in the tower on one hand. And its not even like there’s fun activities to be found in the same sense as say Deep Rock Galactic, which really does take advantage of its hub. Perhaps for players who simply want to go about their business all of the vendors could be set into a menu system where just clicking an icon takes you to their menu from anywhere in the system rather than, per se, having to go through an entire loading screen (Which takes you to orbit and back) to reach a location which serves simply as the front for four menus. These are established player problems. As a dedicated PvE player I can say that this game is immensely fun in combat and growing in power does feel really good. It’s something I recommend getting into, there’s just some very large creases that need ironing which the Bungie should really take the time to address rather than pushing out new in game content every three months.

[onslaughtsixdotcom]

Scaling Up Dragon Heist

Around April or May of 2019, I started to run Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, one of the official WotC 5e hardcovers. I’m still not done with it, although that is largely the fault of COVID and my own extensions to the campaign. 

I think Dragon Heist is one of the better 5e modules by WotC. I think it’s got a strong playground for the characters, and Waterdeep has 30+ years of publication history to draw on. The release of the module also heralded in a HUGE amount of third party extension content, including the famous Alexandrian Remix. I hadn’t heard of this before I started running my campaign and having ideas about how to do it, so it didn’t influence me--although I’m sure we came to a lot of similar conclusions and ideas, based on common perceptions of what the actual flaws are of the module.

Still, despite those flaws, I think they help the module rather than hinder it. It gives the DM a shitload of room to improvise and draw in the margins, rather than some other 5e adventures which feel like they can’t be fucked with in the least.

Here’s the kicker: I started my adventure at level 4. We had a pre-existing party that I had run through the classic N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God. (Fun fact: A map that I drew is the 3rd Google Images result for that. Woah.)

The party spent a few real-world weeks traveling across about 7 days of overland travel where I ran some drop in one shots; including Mike Krahulik’s Dusk (a Twilight parody) and a really fun 2 hour diversion where the players saw an ancient blue dragon take off the roof of a church during a wedding. Then they arrived in my city: Dawnharbour.

I don’t run the Forgotten Realms. I find it not to my taste. Most of the names suck. The lore is invariably boring or weird, and not the fun kind of weird. I was going to run Dragon Heist, and I was going to put it in my own city. I gave the players some justification previously for why they would want to go there: The cleric’s sister had been kidnapped by the Cult of the Reptile God and turned into a Yuanti; a snake person. The bard had stolen a golden statue of the Reptile God and wanted to melt it down and plate his violin with it. I told the cleric that they would need a high level magic user and someone in Dawnharbour could probably help them; ditto the bard needing a highly skilled magical blacksmith. The third player didn’t really care where they went since he was on the run from his home country. So, off to Dawnharbour. They reached level 4 when they got to the city.

I won’t bore you with the rest of the details of my city or everything I changed for the campaign. Instead, I’ll talk up some hard and fast ways to make the adventure work for a higher level party. Most of them revolve around the encounters. I’m assuming the party will start around level 4 or 5.

Chapter 1

The book opens with the players in the Yawning Portal, a famous tavern with a big ass well to a megadungeon underneath. (More on this later.) They’re hanging out doing whatever when a troll and some stirges pop out of the well. The book says that the players get attacked by the stirges while the owner of the bar, a typical Forgotten Realms 15th level Fighter running a fucking bar for a living deals with the troll.

A troll is CR 5. They can handle a troll. If they can’t, you have a bigger problem.

Next up the book leads them to a Zhentarim warehouse. When they get there it’s abandoned and there are (ugh) 3 Kenku. Kenku are like tengu if they sucked. They’re bird people who can only speak in mimickry, like parrots. They can only repeat words they’ve heard before. This is stupid as fuck (especially when a player wants to be one) but more importantly, they are incredibly weak. I think the kenku are just hanging out or they got captured by the Zhentarim who left them there after they bail or something like that. Whatever.

I put the Zhentarim there instead. I put like 20 Zhentarim. I used the Spy statblock; they don’t have a lot of CR and at level 4 or 5, the players are real slice and dicey about killing them. They can basically carve through two of these dudes in a turn. It was *really* fun to just have the players mow down these mooks. They used the 2nd floor to their advantage, casting Grease on the stairs and creating a bottleneck and then picking them off with ranged attacks and spells. I think I might have given the Zhents 1hp and treated them as minions (see 4e). 

I think I had the police show up after they were all dead; someone heard the commotion and called the cops. I think I also put an NPC there; I shuffled around a bunch of the NPCs the module uses. (They got their quest to save Volo from Bigby in the Yawning Portal; instead of finding Volo here, I think they found my equivalent of Renaer Neverremember.) There was a day’s break between this and them going into the sewers in the next part.

The sewer introduces the Xanathar’s minions. I believe a Duergar is actually there and I took this as a sign--I made most of Xanathar’s mooks Duergar, and then decided--this dude is a Beholder and he has a Mindflayer for a lieutenant. The Xanathar’s forces should ALL be classic D&D dungeon monsters, like rust monsters and umber hulks and ropers. This gives you a wide variety of weird shit you can throw at your players at different CR levels, and the idea of a gangster Beholder who thinks hiring a bunch of umber hulks to go shake down a local deli is fucking hilarious. But, it doesn’t make them any less dangerous. Throw some umber hulks or something in this lair. Go nuts--the weirder, the better. Xanathar’s crew should have no qualm about hanging out with a gibbering mouther or a carrion crawler.

Chapter 2

Chapter 2 is the least developed chapter in the book. It also revolved around a bunch of Forgotten Realms faction nonsense that I wanted nothing to do with. I used this time instead to formally introduce the Xanathar, the Cassalanters and Jarlaxle. After they foiled his plans to rig a goldfish competition (think a dog show but for fish), the Xanathar became convinced the players worked for the Zhentarim and invited them to have a sit down about their intentions; if they worked for the Zhents he wanted to formally declare war. The players hated the Zhents--they killed an NPC they liked back during N1, partially to set this all up. Xanny was cool with that.

The Cassalanters were a way to introduce a new player. They call up the Blackstaff to say, hey we have a magic item, can you send a guy here to deliver it? (Magic item possession is illegal on the streets in my setting, but if someone important hires you to transport it, then you can do it. This makes being a courier a very lucrative job; lots of people are just carrying around other people’s stuff for a living.) They almost immediately knock out the new player sent to pick up the item, and replace him with their dofflegagher. The idea was that the dofflegagher player would then infiltrate the Blackstaff’s organization.

Blackstaff is no dumbass and hired a random dude off the street--my new player. Then, Blackstaff hired the rest of the party to go rescue him--mostly as a ruse to snuff out the Cassalanters and get evidence that they were shitty.

When they encountered the Cassalanters, I used a Cambion; one of their servants turned into him. This guy slowly became a recurring lieutenant; he was basically the Goldar for the Cassalanter’s Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa. At the time, I hadn’t read any lore for Cambions; I’m not particularly concerned with monster lore the way the guys who make the game write it. I literally thumbed through my deck of monsters, saw this winged devil horn dude, and said, “Right on, he looks like he’ll work.” A Cambion is CR5, more than suitable for the encounters the party will have with him over the next few levels. The Fiendish Charm ability is fun and can really fuck with the players; I ruled, of course, that anyone under its affect would obviously be free if the Cambion was killed. Even after it was killed, he just kept on coming back, because he’s from Hell and killing him on this plane doesn’t really do anything.

As the players continue to face the Cassalanters, a go-to seems to be spined devils. This is fine but not very powerful for a level 4, 5, 6 party. Therefore I suggest supplanting it with barbed devils. They’re CR5. Adding one or two of those to an encounter with spined devils can make this a real fun encounter that isn’t too horribly overwhelming, especially if at least one of your martial characters has a magic weapon (which they fucking should; they’re level 5!)

IMO you can also introduce Jarlaxle in this chapter; a fun way is through his Zardoz Zord persona. It could simply be that Jarlaxle knows Volo (or any other NPC the players know) and wants to invite them to a free meal to get to know them. In my game, Jarlaxle operates openly as himself (I found it would just complicate things if he was someone else) and invited the players to his yacht shortly after they met the Xanathar, to formally tell them all about the Vault of Dragons, the Stone, and how everyone they have met in the city is after it.

Chapter 3

I am not the biggest fan of this part of the module. I think nimblewrights and similar creatures are really dumb and don’t fit my D&D world. A lot of the stuff in this chapter is investigation stuff, and you can play that out however you like. It doesn’t drastically need scaling up, though you may have to account for something like Zone of Truth that they might not normally have access to. It also helps if you do the opposite of the book, and make the police a bunch of shitheads who don’t care about the city--this way the players are actually motivated to help. I’ve seen a LOT of posts that open with “the fireball happened and my players shrugged and said they would let the police handle it.” Horrible! The police should either be incompetent, apathetic, or (best case) both. They don’t care who did this and if they did, they wouldn’t be able to catch them. Now it’s completely on the players.

IMO it also helps if you do the leg work to make the NPC someone they actually care about. In the book it’s an NPC they’ve never met but they have a mutual acquaintance through--it would be nice if they get invited to a dinner with this NPC or something similar prior to this. Or, change it to be any NPC they like who you don’t mind killing. Hell, they’re level 5 or 6 at this point--if they got a cleric, they can even cast Revivify and wake the dude up. They could even cast Speak With Dead and immediately find out who blew him up or what he was doing here!

Moving on, there’s the Gralland Villa. I retooled the name to actually sound like a good name; sue me. 

The book has a bunch of Zhents hanging out here. A simple way to make this dramatic and hard is to pull the trigger and make the players fight their way in. The stone is right here at the villa and they need to steal it. Sounds simple enough.

Things got complicated for my party when a recurring NPC appeared. She was an ex girlfriend of the bard in our party; they were both Tieflings. She now worked for the Zhentarim and was basically their second in command. And she was here to steal the stone, come Hell or high water. The bard, still in love with her, was perfectly content to let her steal it and even cover her getaway. The rest of the players, not so much, but when the chaos was ensuing and she was literally running past them with the stone in hand, made the decision that it was smarter to try and help her escape and then figure out how to get the stone from her later, than try and get it from her now.

This led literally directly to chapter 4.

Chapter 4

By now it’s obvious: I used all 4 bad guys.

I ran through the chapter and picked the coolest maps and best encounter ideas, including the rooftop chase, the theater, the sewer and the courthouse. I weaved them together carefully, and all the changes I had made to the groups paid off when they entered the theater, chased by barbed devils and our Cambion friend, only to have an Umber Hulk with the Xanathar’s logo painted on his face crash through the stage, flanked by two Duergar. Add in some Drow gunslingers and it was a fucking party.

(the large hexagon is where somebody cast Darkness; the big scuffed circle is a grody spot on my grid tiles. I still need new ones...)

The courthouse had a great scene where the Cassalanter dofflegagher impersonated the chief of police, interrogating the players for the code word to activate the stone (I added one; who cares?) until the real chief of police showed up! The players had to do an entire encounter with this guy while handcuffed; thank god for verbal only spells, right? 

From here the stone ended up with the players, and then it ended up with Jarlaxle who they are working for. Jarlaxle attuned to it and told them the Vault of Dragons is inside Undermountain; 3, 5 levels deep? Who knows? And it requires 3 keys: The Crown of Asmodeus, the Ring of Winter, and the Robe of the Archmagi.

I gave these 3 magic items to the Cassalanters, the Xanathar and Manshoon. This is a pretty common hack and it means the lairs in the book actually get used. I made up one of the magic items (Crown of Asmodeus) and stole another from a module I don’t intend to run as written (the Ring of Winter is, I believe, in either Tomb of Annihilation or Storm King’s Thunder). They’re fun!

So the rest of the campaign has been the players bouncing between going deep into Undermountain, the megadungeon underneath the Yawning Portal, and going to the 3 different villain factions to steal their shit. 

The villain lairs are NOT statted for level 5 players AT ALL. The players have no hope of actually killing ANY of the villains at level 5; to fight the Xanathar is a pure TPK at level 5. But at level 8, like where my players are now? One of them died and then got Revivified; the others all survived or made their saves when they were hit by death or disintegration. (In the spirit of the Xanathar, I rolled every eye beam randomly, rerolling if I had used that ray in the last round.) That’s about the best you can hope for with a Beholder IMO! 

The rest of the lairs you can mostly run as-is. Any very low CR mooks, basically anything lower than 1 or 2 CR, I would probably replace with a higher CR variant. We’ve already discussed what you can replace them with above, and if you’ve made it this far into the module, you should have a pretty good sense of what your players can handle.

[paragonrobits]

a friend asked me to give a shot at doing an entry in this tier list they linked me to, of the video games inducted into the World Video Game Hall of Fame since 2015, and I opted to give it a shot!

My rankings are generally biased towards games I personally enjoy playing, though I will give some commentary on their historic relevance:

S-Rank

Super Mario Bros: The game that repopularized video games in the US, that arguably began the entire platforming video game genre and all its imitators and spin-offs, that spawned a new generation of video games after the Atari Crash in the US, and still a DAMN FUN game in its own right! I simply had to put this at the top ranking. After the disillusionment caused by Atari’s failures, this game brought home consoles back in a big way to the US. 

World of Warcraft: Now, I’m not much for MMORPGs. Nevertheless, I’ve followed the lore and general information in the Warcraft setting for years now, and a couple years back, my brother asked me to play it with him. I had a ton of fun, honestly! Playing a goblin mage, I believe. WoW is notable for being THE MMORPG, and still going strong. Admittedly, nowadays many games do what it does better, and the time when it was dominant as THE single game to play is past, but it was still an enjoyable experience and I really have to like how sincere the game is about its aesthetics and campy vibe. Given that the entire setting is reputedly a reskin of a Warhammer Fantasy Battle video game that went south, it’s cheery and colorful, morally gray tone is... an interesting complication in its history. (Also, HORDE. I STAN THE HORDE VERY HARD.)

The Sims: A bit of history; I did not play this game as enthusiastically as a kid as my sister and mom did. We ALL spammed the hell out of the Rosebud cheat, though; not until recent times did I actually wind up playing the game properly, when the most recent iteration of the series was free for a while. My mom didn’t care to play the game, she just liked building houses. In any case, while my attention drifted from the game now and then, I always am fascinated by the actual gameplay of caring for your simulated humans, and the way you don’t actually control them directly. This sort of hands off experience is actually a bit similar to the ‘dungeon simulator’ genre, and while the game is notorious for enabling cruelty (something I never saw the appeal of!), it’s a surprisingly wholesome experience, and it can’t be understated how unique this gameplay was at the time.

Legend of Zelda: It’s actually rather interesting how different OG Zelda is from modern games. Not just the top down perspective (which DOES pop up, now and then); the game is non-linear and allows you to go to any dungeon at any point, completing the game at your leisure, and the story is extremely barebones compared to what we may be used to. It’s quite a far cry from the linear gameplay of gradually collecting tools and working through plots that the games are known for. Breath of the Wild is, in fact, a return to form rather than an upheaval of the formula. I’ll also admit that I have a lot of affection for the gameplay of this one, as well as Link To The Past.

Donkey Kong: When you’re talking old school, as far as what you might call the modern generation of games goes (which is to say, the games that resurged after the Atari Crash), it’s hard to go wrong with Donkey Kong. It’s certainly notable for being a weird stage in Mario’s character and something that is generally ignored; it’s just strange thinking that at one point he was supposed to be abusive towards a pet ape that went in an innocent, well-meaning rampage! Personally this one kind of breaks a mold for my S-class rankings because while I like this one fine, I don’t like it THAT much; i mostly played it in the DK 64 game, and found it very difficult and that’s stuck with me. Still, I place it here for its momentous position in placing Nintendo on the map, with the influence and revolutionary technologies and gaming mechanics they would introduce, to this very day.

Pokemon Red/Blue: Hoo boy. HOO BOY it is honestly something of an oversight that I didn't immediately shove this beauty straight to the front of the S-line because good god I love this game. It's been years and years, long since I was but a whee Johnny playing a strange new game for the first time just because there was a cool turtle creature on the cover (because I was super into turtles back then), and I still love this game. Even with the improvements made to the formula since then (getting rid of HMs, the fixes and new types introduced since) there's still something lovable about this game, even as something as basic as the official artwork that just tugs my heartstrings. This game is highly notable for being an RPG that popularized the monster collecting/befriending gameplay (so far as I know), and as an autistic person, i really appreciate knowing the whole thing grew out of an autistic man's bug collection hobby from when he was a child. Pokemon is an absolute juggernaut of a media influence, and THIS is where it all began. It's first stage evolution, you might say. And not like a Magikarp or anything. This one's more like one of the starters... appropriately enough. Final Fantasy 7: This is probably a bit of a controversial take, but FF7 was not actually one of my favorite Final Fantasy entries back in the day. I never played much more of it than the beginning missions, as my cousin owned the machine in question, and I moved out before i could play it much. Final Fantasy 3 (in the US; it's more generally referred to as 6 now) was my favorite for a long, long time, and that game pioneered many of the traits that would be associated with 7: the epic story, the complex ensemble cast, though 7 really expanded on that basic idea, and previous games were hardly shabby in that regard. 9 is my favorite of the pre-10 era, with its extreme shake ups to the mechanics of the game. No; what makes 7 stand out is that it was a shift towards making Final Fantasy a constantly shifting, unique franchise where every entry was its own thing; it introduced 3D graphics with a fun and cartoony style mixed with a story that wouldn't be out of place in a cyberpunk story, and heralds Squaresoft (as it was called at the time) splitting off from Nintendo, with its censorship policies, and doing its own thing with Sony, with a great deal more freedom to write as they pleased. The party design also stands out, which each character having their own unique function in the party while the Materia concept allows a degree of modular skills to be installed, customizing them in ways that, in my opinion, the best entries in the franchise (on a gameplay level) would revisit. Colossal Cave Adventure: I'll be honest; I never played this game, and I don't believe it's particularly familiar to me at all. However, I chose it for this vaunted spot in S-rank because games of this nature, of text-based prompt and responses, are some of the most interesting things imaginable! Games like AI Dungeon are similar in some respects, and its impressive to think just how dang old this game is, and yet it managed to pull off basically being it's own DM. It has an interesting history; created by a man who worked on the precursor to the Internet, the game was made to connect with his daughter and was inspired by recent entries into Dungeons And Dragons, and later expanded upon by other programmers. It's notable that while Zork is the sort of game that would probably involve more immediate recognition (I actually mistook it for Zork at first, from the screenshot), this game was the first of its kind, and that always deserve some recognition. Minecraft: I absolutely LOVE Minecraft, and it's rightfully one of the most popular games, if not THE most popular game, of the last couple of decades, and it's interesting to think just how unconventional it is; the game is, effectively, a LEGO simulator, and as someone who honestly always wanted tons of LEGO sets as a kid but could never afford them consistently, there's something genuinely very appealing about Minecraft's basic set up. It's open approach and lack of a goal, just gameplay mechanics that encourage you to build and do as you please, makes for a very relaxing and unusual mentality not often seen in games until this point; it doesn't even have a storyline, it simply gives you a world to play around in. Of note, Minecraft's entry seems to have relevance towards video games becoming a cultural touchstone; Minecraft's visual aesthetic leans towards both blocky LEGOs and retro graphics, and certainly proves that games don't need to strive for hyper realistic graphics to be appealing. ----- A RANK Doom: I genuinely like Doom, a lot! I still have memories of replaying this game frequently, long before Doom 2016 and Eternal were glimmers; it's just genuinely very fun to play. That said, I feel that there's other games that are a bit more historically notable and while i like this game, not quite as much as other entries. But it cant be understated that this was THE first person shooter, and more to the point, was fundamental towards game design as we know it. Of note, it pioneered the idea of a game engine, which has had tremendous impact down the road in terms of making a flexible baseline system that latergames were programmed around. Additionally, the first three episodes being free, with the additional ones being purchased as part of the full game, this was, I think, the first demonstration of a demo. Back then, we called this shareware; a game which was free but had full features locked off, but otherwise you could play it however much you wanted. There's a REASON Doom winds up on more systems than Skyrim! Ultimately, while it's not one of my favorite games, it's impact on the business of gaming and the functions of game design cannot be overstated. Pac-Man: This game, is THE game that made video games a phenomenon and its worth thinking about that and how video games as a modern institituion can be drawn, however broadly, from Pac-Man's commercial success. I should note that while I've played this game extensively, it's not something I'm particularly good at; there's a LOT going on here and its a bit much for me to handle. That's probably a strength; there's a reason people had to fake their accomplishments and falsified high scores. It's worth noting that Pac-Man is a unique thing in that it has been rereleased many times over, and every generation has found it enjoyable and fun, unlike other games that set trends only to be lost out in the end. (Goldeneye, for instance!) The Oregon Trail: Like many other people I assume, I first played this game as something available on school computers. Purportedly made as an educational game to teach students about history, this game may be notable for, among other things, being an entry point towards the idea of resource management in video games (as well as being hellishly difficult, by the standards then, but that DOES illustrate a point, does it not?). It's also the oldest, most continuously available game ever made, even now being ported to smartphones, or so I hear! It seems to be a very early example of edutainment games, and a genuinely great one at that. It probably helps that a selling point is that it doesn't really mince around with its subject matter; anyone who's played this game knows that total party kill is the default assumption, as it was in life. Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat: I place these two together as I feel that they form a duo of sorts, and defined fighting games of my childhood and modern gaming experience; name a fighting game, from Injustice to something as deliberately different as Smash Bros, and it has SOME relation to these games, even if its in terms of doing something completely different. These games set a mold for fighting games! Among other things, both games feature iconic characters as a selling point, and to this day fighting games make their mark based on how signature their characters are. Mortal Kombat is of course an incredibly violent game (though very tame, by modern standards), and its fatalities and depicitons of violence sparked thought and arguments on what video games ought to be allowed to depict, for better or for worse. It's not implausible to suggest that the overly strict restrictions on what video games could depict go back to Mortal Kombat's fatalities, specifically (since there's far worse games predating it, though too graphically primitive to be obvious). Street Fighter, conversely, strikes me as having more characterization and depth, especially as far as fighting systems go; I find it hard to be interested in many fighting games now, if they don't offer as much depth as the likes of Street Fighter 2. Street Fighter stands out for innovating multiplayer play, initially in the arcade, and its not implausible to say that the likes of Smash Bros is a descendant of sorts of the specific mentality Street Fighter brought to the table. Consider also that it is STILL a mainstay in the remaining arcades and cabinets in service today! Tomb Raider: This is a game i legit liked back in the day, and there's some part of me that's sad that the platforming, puzzle solving and focus on exploration has not really made it back into the modern Tomb Raider series, last I checked. There's probably something interesting in that Lara Croft represents a bit of an intermediate period between platforming mascots and modern Edgy Protagonists; you know the ones. Balding white dudes with vague dad vibes, but this is not a slight on Lara; she definitely has a ton of personality, even just at a cover glance. This game had a strong focus on exploration, and that's honestly something I really like. Super Mario Kart: I'm going to be controversial here; complaints about the Blue Shell are kinda overrated. It's not that different from, say, a red shell hitting you from behind when you're close to the finish line. But, jokes and old 90s memes aside, this game has some interesting status in that it started the idea of making spin-off games in dramatically different contexts; Crash Team Racing and Sonic Drift, for example, are listened as similar games. On a franchise level, this began the trend of Mario becoming a truly flexible character who could do pretty much whatever was required of him, not just the original platforming games, and its possible his imitators never quite learned the same lesson. Though one wonders what Miyamoto might have thought if he'd known how many thinkpieces he would spawn with 'why does mario go-karting with Bowser when they're enemies?'. For my part, I favor the idea that the other games are in-universe fictions they're actors on and this is their actual dynamic, or that Mario is a relaxed dude who doesn't mind playing kart games with his foe. (I mean, he's not Ridley. Bowser's easy enough to get along with.) Animal Crossing: Again, I have to emphasize that I've never actually played this game, at least on a consistent basis (and by that, I mean I MIGHT have played it on the Gamecube, once, in the early 2000s), and have to speak from what I've seen of what it sparked. And I really do like the way it really codified the sub-genre of relaxed, open-ended games where the player is free to do as they like, without much stress or fear, which is something I think more games could stand to do. On my personal list of features that my ideal video game would have, Animal Crossing would definitely offer a few ideas. I am reminded of farming simulators, such as Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley; while they are different beasts entirely, there's a familiar sense of non-combat relaxation that's pleasant to see. Spacewar!: This machine is GODDAMN old, and like an old fogey predating modern humans, it deserves our respect. It's so old, it predates Pong. Supposedly created as part of predictative Cold War models, with an emphasis on emulating sci fi dogfights, producing a game that soon proved popular, for over a decade remainign the most popular game on computer systems, and a clumsy foray into arcade gaming (that didn't pan out, unfortunately) led to the creation of Pong by its creator, which is another story all its own! And Pong is directly responsible for the idea of the video game itself; this game launched the entire video game industry as we understand it! No small feat, indeed. ----

B RANKED Sonic The Hedgehog: I must state that I DO like this game, though not as much as later entires like Sonic 3 and Knuckles, or the Sonic Adventure series; the fast paced action seems a bit hobbled by the traps and need to be careful of surroundings, which would seem to run counter towards the whole idea of GOTTA GO FAST, y'know? But the game presents an interesting viewpoint on the nature of mascot gaming; created specifically, so it is said, as a rival to Mario, Sonic was designed as a mascot with attitude, and inspired a host of imitators; he's probably the only one to escape the 90s more or less intact, and this may have something to say about his flexibility, star power, and also the fact that he's a pretty mild character, all things considered. This game certainly has its place in gaming history, giving an important place in the console wars of yesteryear. Believe me, I was a kid in the 90s, Sonic was a HUGE deal. Space Invaders: This game is noted to have catapulted games into prominence by making them household, something outside of arcades, and it shows! An interesting detail of note is that supposedly, the Space Invaders were meant to all move at high speed, but this was either too hard to play against, or too costly on the processor; it was found that by making them speed up as they were defeated, it created an interesting set of challenge. You have to appreciate game history like that. In general, its success prompted Japanese companies to join the market, which would eventually produce what I imagine was a thriving, competitive market that would eventually get us Nintendo and it's own gamechangers down the road. Grant Theft Auto 3: I'm going to be honest with you. I don't much care for this sort of game. The Saints Row series, with its fundamental wackiness, is the kind of game I really DO like if I'm going for something like this, and GTA sort of leaning towards the 'cruel for fun and profit' gameplay is really unappealing for me. However, I'd be remiss if I didn't address this game, and what seems to come up is two things: the game's sheer freedom in its open world (which certainly pushed the bar for games of that nature, and has made it a byword for gamers screwing around in a game just to see what ridiculous things they could or couldn't do) and the infamous reputation from the mature aspects of the game. Personally, I'm not much for this game's take on maturity (if I wanted to discuss a game of that nature, I'd suggest, say, Spec Ops: The Line) but I really do appreciate what this game and its series did for the open world genre, and the sheer possibilities presented for letting you do what you wanted. King's Quest: I've never played this game, but I am a HUGE fan of the point and click genre (also known generally as the adventure game genre) that it spawned; without this game, there's no Monkey Island, no Sam and Max, no The Dig or Full Throttle, or Gabriel Knight. This game was similar to previous text-based games, with a text parser to input commands, but with the distinction of a graphical interface to move their character around, which would be the seed of later games such as the SCUMM engine of Monkey Island and other Lucasarts games (which, to me, ARE Adventure Gaming). The puzzles, comedic sensibilities, and interface innovations originated with this game, and codified those later adventure games i love so much. Starcraft: This is another one those list of 'games I should have already played by now'. I'm not much of an RTS person, barring forays with games such as Impossible Creatures, Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War, and more strange entries such as Brutal Legend, and I contend that the combat aspects of 4X games like Civilization DO count on some level; the specifics of troop movement and unit strengths/weaknesses are a bit beyond me, when you get to more complex stuff. Starcraft, reading between the lines, really introduced the idea of multiplayer culture especially for RTS, pioneered the Battle(dot)net system (which I mostly recall from Diablo, if I'm being honest!) as well as the idea of relative strengths and powers for individual factions so that they became characters in their own right. It's still a very popular online game, and that says SOMETHING. Also, I tend to use zerg rushes, so I would probably play Zerg. Probably. (There is much speculation on whether or not, like Warcraft being a failed Warhammer Fantasy game, if the same holds true for Starcraft and Warhammer 40k. I lean on the side of 'probably not'; the differences are too notable. The Zerg and Tyranids have some similarties, but that's probably because they're based on the same broad hive mind evil insect aggressor trope, and they have enough differences from there to be very distinct from one another. It's not like how OG Warcraft's orcs were very obviously warhammer orcs with less football hooliganism.) Bejeweled: This is a firm case of a game that I don't play, but I really have to respect its influence on gaming as a whole. Apparently it started as a match three-type game with a simplistic formula that proved wildly popular (perhaps making a point that simpler can be more effective, in game mechanics), with a truly explosive record of downloads; over 500 million, it seems. Thus its fair to say that this game set the precedent for casual games, which have become THE market. Regardless of your feelings on that genre, this one was a real game changer. (Pun intended, absolutely.) ----

C RANK Pong: "By most measures of popular impact, Pong launched the video game industry." This line alone saws it all, I think. It wasn't the first video game, but it was one of the more early ones, and its the one that really made video games and consoles successful, gaining widespread attention from the mainstream audience, as well as getting Atari recognition (for better or for worse, but perhaps that was just a development of being on top, so to speak; maye the console wars at least kept the big three honest). It also started the arcade revolution of games, and this humble game is essentially responsible for the entire state of video games as a concept, as we know it today. Halo: No disrespect to Halo, but it's just a game series I've never quite been able to get into. Those games are very hit and miss for me; games like Call of Duty, Battlefield, Gears of War and everything like that are just... hard for me to get into. It takes something specific like Borderlands or the Besthesda Fallout series, or something else, for me to get hooked, and Halo just doesn't do it for me! Nevertheless, I would be QUITE remiss if I simply dismissed it, and there's reasons for it to be inducted into the hall of fame barely three years into the hall of fame making inductees. Firstly, it was Microsoft's big entry into the console wars, and it must be said this was a MASSIVE upset and a completely unprecedented shift in the assumptions of the console wars back then; NO ONE expected microsoft to actually do this, let alone redefine gaming out of Sony and Nintendo's favor like that. At the time, PCs dominated FPS games, and Halo showed that consoles could do it just fine. It must also be said that it has a very intricate and complex system of lore, backstory and material that was quite distinctive for a new setting back in the day, and while I've seen people object to it's gameplay, I suspect that its with the benefit of hindsight; Halo offered an extremely unusual degree of freedom in achieving the goals set out for you. (Cortana also didn't deserve getting her name slapped onto that search assistant that eats up all your RAM.) Where In The World Is Carmen San Diego: Surprisignly enough, based on the article, this game was NOT an adaptation, but the source material of this character. This is where the fancy, mystery lady in the red coat started! Evidently this game was originally an edutainment game with a cops and robbers theme, and inspired by Colossal Cave Adventure from higher up on the list, and one must appreciate the effort that went into it. This one is ranked low, mostly because it didn't seem TOO notable to me. Honestly I'm surprised this is where Carmen Sandiego started. (And that she doesn't get enough credit as an iconic theatrical villain who won't go a step too far, but that's another rant.) -

D LIST

Here we are. The D LIST. The bottom of the sorting pile; the lowest of them all, the... well, the ones that I honestly don't necessarily dislike, but couldn't place higher for reasons of notability, personal interest, or perceived impact on the history of gaming. John Madden Football: Sports games, as a whole, really do NOT do it for me. I don't like real like sports at ALL (with, as a kid, a brief interest in boxing and that was just because they had gloves like Knuckles from Sonic the Hedgehog) so its hard for me to say that I find the history of this one all that compelling. Even so, there's some interesting elements in how this game was a sequel to a previous failed attempt, with a bold new attempt at a more arcade-style action game with a more dramatic take on the players, who would in turn be rated in different skill sets. The Madden series is STILL going so... it worked out pretty well, I'd say. (FUCKIN EA WAS BEHIND THIS ONE??? wow, EA is older than I thought.) Microsoft Flight Simulator: It's honestly a bit painful sorting this one so low, since I had many happy times as a wee Johnny playing this game back in the old days. I mean the OLD, old days. This was like, the days when Usenet was the preferred way for people to talk online. (Not me, though. I didn't talk to people, then. I was even less social than I am now, which is saying something!) All the same, I suppose that it was important to not crowd too many entries in a specific folder, and statistically, something had to keep getting knocked down, and in the end, I couldn't honestly say I still enjoyed this one enough to place it higher. Still, credit must be given where it is due; this game stands out for being an early foray into simulator gaming, showing a realistic depiction of actual flight. It has apparently been updated and rereleased many times since, which is impressive! Tetris: I like puzzles. So it might be surprising to hear this seminal game ranked so low; firstly, I like different KINDS of puzzles (like weird ones where you have to fling your sense of logic to the moon and back, or make use of gaming mechanics) and honestly this game is kind of stressful for me. You gotta keep an eye on a lot of different things flying around all at once, and constantly move things around, and that kind of attention and quick thinking does NOT come easily to me. All the same, I really have to admire how it was born from it's creator's pleasure in solving mathematical puzzles about sorting shapes into boxes, in a manner strangely remniscient of Satoshi's bug collecting that became Pokemon. Certainly the game's simplicity has proven a universally appealing thing, and may say something about the value of keeping it simple. Microsoft Solitaire: This game apparently became pay-to-get some time ago in recent computer generations, and let me tell, you, it was genuinely depressing to find that out. I remember younger decades, from the 90s and on, when this game was a regular and free feature in Windows computers fir MANY years. You got a computer, this game was on here. I was a kid, and i remember watching my mom play this game and makign the cards go WHOOP WHOPP all over the place and marveling, because I couldn't ever do the same thing. (A related note: I am terrible at this game. Go figure!) Of note, this game was massively widespread, and just EVERYWHERE, and I think everyone who ever played a computer back in those days instantly remembers it in some way. It was just... ubiquitous. Centipede: Oh, ol' Centipede. I don't mean to be mean to you. But between the likes of Pokemon and Super Mario Bros, even the arcade Donkey Kong, someone had to keep dropping down the leaderboard that is this tierlist, and unfortunately, there were other games that felt higher up than you. All the same, you're a very good game, and honestly, I like you more than some other games ranked higher for reasons of relevance to gaming history. Certainly more than anything else in D-listing. The colorful and appealing palette is noteworthy. That trackball controller! Amazing! (More games should use trackballs. They're fun and easy to use.) At the very least, Order of the Stick did a joke with you once, and that's better than anything I can do for you. All the same, you're a cool game.

[trashcatsnark]

What’s your opinion on Kerry being available to only male V when it’s mentioned in-game that he’s bi (correct me if I’m wrong, I have terrible memory)?? I feel like they should’ve had bi romance options if they were able to implement both gay and straight ones.

Oh anon, oooooh anon. I love you dearly, but you intentionally or not might as well have thrown lit dynamite in my ask box. This discourse has been such a strange beast within this fandom and I have definitely shared some vague thoughts about it before. I’m putting everything under a read more, to help stave off some....harassment or putting it in people’s lives who may not want it. 

 I still remember I was frankly heartbroken and upset when I first learned Kery wasn’t romanceable by female V when the game first officially came out, but before I played it; River and Panam weren’t even really known about, cause they weren’t talked about much in the promo material,  plus Kerry was shown in romance scenes with what looked to be female V. So, if you go back far enough you’ll find me in December cope posting and being the saddest and angriest of beans, because other than Johnny who I knew was likely off the table. He was one of the only characters I wanted to potentially romance. Now, I’m further away from it, have  processed my feelings regarding it and am more rational I believe regarding the issue. 

But, that being said, a large issue of this sort of discourse is that; no matter what anyone says, someone somwhere is upset. I’ve been insulted, blocked, accused of fetishizing gay men, and so much over my opinion regarding this matter. I’m still currently debating if I even wanna tag this, cause the issue almost always brings negativity to my blog and to me. I have very little interest in being berated for this, so we’ll see how I feel after I finish typing this all out. I’m going to try to go through all my issues, my points, my troubles and feelings about the matter. But, at the end of the day, it is merely my opinion. If someone disagrees, fine, just don’t attack people or berate them over pixels in a video game. Just dont. That’s all I ask. Okay, so I’m gonna divide this into talking points and whatever, now. 

Firstly, Kerry is bisexual. Point blank, period. I’ve seen folks try to argue that his wife was like comphet, which if you dont know means that sometimes exclusively homosexual people will try to force themselves into heterosexual relationships because society has conditioned them to believe they have to be straight. While, I’m not negating the fact that this happens, as a bisexual/pansexual (I use the terms interchangeably to define my experience and feelings)  person I’ve struggled with it when making sense of my attraction to women. It genuinely is something that happens. This is not the case for Kerry; he doesn’t ever hide his attraction to men, between TTRPG lore and the video game he has had two wives , and he is stated by game developers and TTRPG creator to be bisexual.He is bisexual. Getting that out there, saying other wise, in my opinion is a level of bi erasure. That being said, I do still have my grievances with how the game chose to handle his bisexuality and bisexuality as whole, also imo, the game generally doesn’t seem...to treat players who are attracted to men well… 

But before I get into that, I wanna make clear, I feel like Cyberpunk 2077 should have had more romance options for every orientation. If you’re not going to create a player-sexual style of romance; ie where every romanceable character is attracted to the player regardless and wish to focus on each character having their own predetermined sexuality; only have one character for each sexuality is kind of bullshit. If you’re a lesbian player and you’re not into Judy, you get nothing, except a fuck around with Meredith (who I will get to later). You’re a straight woman, but not into River, shit out of luck. You’re a gay man who’s not into Kerry, sucks to suck bud. You’re a straight man who’s not into Panam (kind dont get how you wouldn’t be but who am i to judge), well, you can fuck Meredith… so woooo. Oh also, if you’re not attracted to women, you will still be forced to watch in first person pov a sex scene with Alt and if you want Johnny to like you, you gotta date a girl. Also, all the male love interests will be sidelined mostly…. Hooray… But I digress, either go in with all romance options bi/pan/player sexual, or give more options for romance. Cause now you have the issue of people not getting the partner they hoped for and not liking their only option. Now, you got people trying to make the Judy  bi, which is lesbian erasure and lesbophobic, along with people saying Kerry isn’t bi and can’t be with women which is bi erasure and biphobic. Whereas, if you had just gone in from the get go with either more options or a player-sexual romance system; we wouldn’t be here, CDPR. 

Okay, so next thing, now that I’ve addressed my issues with the entire romance system and that yes, Kerry is bi. Should Kerry have been able to be romanced as female V? Yes and no. Which sounds vague, but I’m going somewhere. With the current set up of it; Kerry being romanceable to a female V would have unfairly given female players an additional love interest over male players. Female V would have the option of Judy, River, or Kerry. And Male V’s would have the option of Kerry or Panam. That’s not fair. I get that, inherently. CDPR painted themselves into a corner, by only letting there be two romances for “each” gender, one for “each” sexuality, and then using a canonically bi character for one of them. They played themselves, they were either gonna have to give an unfair amount of love interest to one side of their gender system or make a bi character who will only pursue one gender. So, they went for the latter. 

Now, some people feel thats fine, because Kerry having a gender preference is fine and its okay for bi people to lean a certain way in regards to gender and its okay for them to not be attracted to people. And that is true. I am a bisexual woman who leans a little more towards men, I get that. However, I have only been given one reason for Kerry’s preference for male V over female V. And it was by a developer of the game who stated that Kerry pursues Male V and not Female V because Male V reminds him more of Johnny… And I hate that. I personally, hate it so deeply, because to me it does a complete disservice to Kerry and V’s relationship and Kerry’s arc. Because even with female V you see him being preoccupied with Johnny and V’s connection to Johnny, then you see him move past that. So, to then state, its still a deciding factor in him romancing V is so wrong to me. Like why???? Why would you do that to people who like Kerry??? Why would you put that in their heads, that Kerry on some level, subconsciously or not, was thinking about Johnny when he decides to romance V. Cause that’s not in the game, in the game you get the vibe he’s moving on past Johnny, like he’s growing, developing, genuinely likes V. But that stupid tweet, just radiates rancid vibes, whyyy???  

And then, outside of that nasty tweet, I have to ask what other reason is there for why he prefers male V over fem V.  They’re...the same characters essentially, just with different pronouns and body type. They also can look like whatever you want; they’re completely customizable. So, Its based off of what the game associates with  gender characteristics and nothing else, meaning, his attraction is rooted solely in their gender and he turns down fem V by virtue of them being a woman and nothing else. Which, yeah, bisexual/pansexual people have preferences but when that preference completely excludes a gender based on nothing but gender…. Uhh????? See my issue???? 

And I’ve seen people saying, well, its better than CDPR playing into slutty will date anybody bisexual stereotypes. But, the thing is...THEY STILL DO THAT which is what drives me up the god damn wall; they managed to do slutty bi stereotypes and I don’t even get kiss the boy, which again, I get the need for fairness but wow, just wow. And lemme explain. 

Meredith is the only character, other than joytoys, whom you can have sex with regardless of gender, body type, etc. She is the only character who shows that she is attracted to V on some level regardless of gender. 

She is a one night stand. Her sex animations are the same as joytoys. She treated like a promiscuous love phobic woman.  And having characters like that is fine, my own V is promiscuous and love phobic. But, we can acknowledge that in a video game by a AAA game company having the only character who is at least physically attracted to the player no matter what, be nothing but sex fodder...isn’t great bi representation, right? 

Oh, and Kerry himself still is a promiscuous bisexual man, he just won’t romance female V because apparently, according to a dev, they don’t remind him of Johnny enough. AND THATS THE DEVS WORDS, NOT MINE, I HATE THAT. Like, Kerry is shown to have people’s lingerie around his house. He’s stated by Johnny to be someone who fucks around. He gets a blowjob from a man in a stairwell. 

The two most blatantly canonically bi character in this game are promiscuous; one wont romance V at all and just wants sex, the other will only romance a male V because at worse, he’s comparing them mentally subconsciously to his dead friend and at best….because….reasons…. Literally, from what I understand for Kerry to romance V, they have to have the “male” body type and “male” voice. Meaning, fem V could literally by all appearances look like masc V, body type wise, but because she uses female pronouns and has a feminine sounding voice...no… the stars say no… 

In my honest opinion, it is bad bisexual representation and a not so well thought out romance system for a game. 

But, that being said, I literally never romance anyone, because I’m a Johnny simp. So, the fuck do I know.

oh god do i tag this.... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[duhragonball]

Cult Classic

I had a really exhausting week, so I’m going to try to chill out by writing this thing about cults that’s been bouncing around in my head since... oh, like January 6th?   For some reason?     But it’s also about my insanely long OC fanfic slash vanity project slash concept album.  Join me, won’t you?

Okay, so back in... geez 2018?   Has it been that long?   Around October 2018 I started working out the details for the big climax of the “1000 years ago” section of my fanfic.  From the start I had this idea that the Legendary Super Saiyan would be locked into a death struggle with pretty much the entire Saiyan population, led by a Saiyan King who just can’t handle being upstaged.   But I had to figure out a lot of details to make that actually work.   What I finally ended up with was the Jindan Cult. 

Why a cult?  Because I wanted my King character to be the main villain, but also be physically weaker, but also he needed to be powerful enough to challenge the heroine. I came up with all these different ways to beef up his power level without making him a Super Saiyan himself, but ultimately I wanted him to have an army of Siayans at his back.   That led me to consider some sort of magic elixir that would make them all stronger, but especially the king, since he’s ultimately in this for himself.  At first, I considered having him mind-control all of his goons, but I spent the mind control nickel in earlier arcs, and I’ll have to use it again later, because Towa and Demigra use it.   Then I thought of drug addiction, which is sort of like mind control but not literal brainwashing or anything like that.  And that led me to the cult concept.  

One major inspiration for me was the real-life cult called “NXIVM”, which made the news back in 2018 when their leaders started getting arrested, including “Smallville” star Allison Mack.   Every time I read about it, it felt like something from a movie, but it was real.   I guess the celebrity angle made it more bizarre to me, because it’s sort of like “Hey, this isn’t just some group of randos; someone you’ve heard of is in this thing.”   Not that I ever paid much attention to “Smallville”, but you get the idea.  She didn’t just join NXIVM, she eventually became one of the top recruiters.   Some of the character arcs in my fic were my own attempt to understand how a person goes from Point A to Point B. 

The big plot hole, though, in my mind, was that I came up with this whole master plan for the bad guys, but it involved sending wave after wave of Saiyan cultists to die in pointless, unwinnable battles against Luffa.    I couldn’t have them win much, because if they beat her, they’d just kill her, and the story would be over.    It struck me as fishy that these Saiyans would sign up for a war where the casualty rate is 100%, but I tried to lampshade it as best I could.   “Yeah, all those other chumps couldn’t beat Luffa, but I’ll pull it off because I’m special!”   It still seemed a bit unlikely.  

But then 2020 happened, and I guess the main thing I learned from that year was that people will accept almost anything in order to believe a comfortable lie.  The joke I’ve seen on the internet is that we need to retire the expression “avoid it like the plague”, because it turns out a lot of people don’t actually avoid plagues very well at all.   The horrifying thing about COVID-19 is how easily people will accept the climbing death tolls.   “Oh, well this person was already in bad health, so they would have died eventually anyway.”   I don’t want to get too political here, but I’m pretty sure a lot of the anti-mask, coronavirus-is-a-hoax crowd are the same people who made up tall tales about “death panels” in Obamacare.    “They’re gonna euthanize your grandma!” they would say, but now they say your grandma is acceptable losses if it means reopening bars and restaurants.

Actually, I do mean to get political, because holy fuck, Qanon stormed the Capitol Building.    Look, if you don’t believe Joe Biden won the election, I don’t know what to tell you, except please get far away from me, right now.  If you’re not familiar with Qanon, a few years ago some guy on an image board posted a bunch of cryptic messages and claimed to be an important government figure who would know about important things.    People started “deciphering” his “clues” and when he stopped posting new ones they started inventing their own “clues” and interpreting them any way that suited them.    This led to an overarching narrative that Donald Trump was actually part of this massive sting operation to arrest hundreds, maybe thousands of left-wing politicians, celebrities, and whoever else.    Any day now, he was supposed to have Hilary Clinton arrested, and also JFK Junior would somehow show up and help him, even though he’s been dead for 22 years.  Every day, these Qanon guys would add on more bizarre lore to their “theories”, and every day none of their predictions would come true.  Then Trump lost the election, which put them in a bind, because their whole mythology is based on the idea of him saving the world as POTUS, and now he wasn’t even going to be POTUS for much longer.  

I’m pretty sure this had a lot to do with the lies about election fraud.    Trump himself refused to accept defeat, and his supporters didn’t want to accept it either, so they all told each other that it wasn’t real, and they believed each other so much that they dug in their heels.   But then they’d take this stuff to court and the judge would be like “Uh, what evidence do you have of mass voter fraud?” and they would just be like “lol nvm!”  I mean, if there was proof for any of this, why would they not want a judge to see it?   But for Qanon, it was more than just being sore losers.    They needed all their whackamaroo predictions to come true, and Trump losing re-election would upset the applecart.  

So then they started telling themselves that they could win this thing through the boring certification process.   I think it was like, December 14 when all the states had to certify their results.   So they held out hope that nothing was over until then.    Then they pinned their hopes on the Electoral College, and that there would be enough faithless electors to hand Trump the victory, in spite of the voters.   I found this one amusing, since I used to see tumblr suggesting the same thing back in 2016, when they were still trying to come up with ways for Bernie Sanders to win.  

Then they decided Mike Pence could fix everything, because on Jan 6, Congress would officially count the Electoral Votes and formally declare the winner, and Mike Pence would step in and overrule the whole thing, because the Vice-President oversees that process.    Except he just oversees it, he can’t legally change the outcome, especially on a whim.    And then the riot at the Capitol happened, and I’m pretty sure all these Qanon types thought it would mark the beginning of a nationwide uprising, with all seventy-odd million Trump voters going apeshit, but it... didn’t work out that way.  

Then they convinced themselves that everything was building to January 20, because the innauguration was actually a clever trap, and once Joe Biden took the oath of office, he could then be arrested for treason, so you see, they had to make it look like Trump lost the election, because it was the only way to fool Joe Biden into incriminating himself... or... something.   But Jan 20 came and went, so the latest fallback position I heard was that there’s a double-secret REAL inauguration day, and it’s in March, and the January 20 one isn’t legitimate, even though Trump was inaugurated on January 20, 2016, but whatever.    That, or the guy we see in the White House now is actually Trump disguised as Joe Biden, or a Joe Biden android or something.   

I think I sort of understood that Qanon is a cult, but I didn’t really put the pieces together until the events of January unfolded.    Pre-November, it just seemed like a conspiracy theory, without any real timetables or prophecies, like Flat Earth.    But once the end of the Trump Administration was in sight, it really started to look like all the doomsday cults I’ve heard about over the years.  The predicted events wind up failing to come true, and they invent new predictions to explain away the old ones.   It’s not about the veracity of the claims as much as the claims themselves.    People want to believe there’s this whole elaborate explanation for everything.    They wanted to believe that Trump was this hypercompetent superheroic messiah, because the alternative is to face the uncertain reality: that he had no idea what he was doing, and real people were going to suffer for it.  

I think I sort of worked that idea into my fictional cult, but I backed into it.   NXIVM was a sex cult, not a doomsday cult, or an elaborate conspiracy theory, so I was mostly fixated on all the depraved things the cult could do to its members.   But they all share the same lure: a belief system that promises to make everything fit. I’m not sure what the hook was for NXIVM, but Allison Mack didn’t go in thinking about how much fun sex trafficking would be.   That came later, after she was convinced that NXIVM had all the answers, and one of those answers involved sex crimes, apparently.   In the same vein, Qanon attempted to explain mass arrests and executions by claiming that Hilary Clinton eats babies or something.   “Well, I don’t want babies to get eaten, so I guess breaking into the Capitol building seems like a reasonable course of action.”  

Weighed against real life, a bunch of Saiyans accepting a 100% casualty rate doesn’t seem so outrageous.   It also helps that sometimes the leaders of these groups can buy into their own hype, and think they’re infallible when they’re really not.    This week, I started reading the Darth Plagueis novel again, and I’ve seen the Sith from Star Wars referred to as a cult, but I never gave it a lot of thought until I noticed that Plagueis buys into the whole Dark Side of the Force thing a little too hard.   At times, he’ll wax philosophical about how the Jedi are the real bad guys when you think about it, and he’s not just saying that to be manipulative.   He honestly believes that the Sith can save the galaxy from decline, which is stupid and hypocritical, because they’re the ones causing all the decline.    I always got the impression that Darth Sidious understood that it was all about accumulating power as an end unto itself, and any high-minded talk of necessary evil was just to keep the rubes in line.    Rise of Skywalker plays into that idea nicely.   He somehow survived Episode VI, but he let the Empire collapse, because if he can’t rule it, he doesn’t want it to exist at all.   But he’s still playing himself, because he thinks he can win by following the same failed ideology that got all the previous Sith Lords killed.   

That’s pretty much all I have to say about it right now.    I need to move on to other topics, because Towa’s not doing a cult thing, so my fic is moving in a different direction.   But I feel better for getting this out of my head.

[seven-oomen]

Love and Monsters Lore/Meta/Headcanons

Spoilers ahead!!!! I feel like I shouldn’t have to say it but obviously this will have spoilers for the movie.

Okay so strap in kiddos because I have spend my entire day rewatching the film, writing down all the little lines I could find and I think I’ve build a pretty decent understanding of its lore despite not having much information to fall back onto from other sources. (I don’t think it’s an easily accessible movie and there’s no wikis or whatever yet.)

Alright so here we go:

Part 1: The apocalypse

The apocalypse in this universe started 7 years before the story starts. An asteroid called Agatha 616 was headed for Earth. And in response Earth send up a bunch of chemical bombs to break up the asteroid.

It worked, a little too well. And those chemicals came back down on Earth and mutated all Cold-blooded animals. (Insects, fish, arachnids, reptiles, amphibians) From what we can tell, that’s all the chemicals affected. Warm blooded animals like Mammals and Birds  don’t seem to be affected. But the source material isn’t very definitive on this.

In the opening story Joel talks about how 95% of humanity basically got eaten to death by the mutated creatures. Even Clyde alludes to humanity being unaffected by referring to a line said by the governments/scientists at the time; “We’re the lucky ones, or so they said.”

To me that makes sense, insects in particular are so vast and so well adapted that if they ever got to the size of a truck, they would dominate pretty much all other species around them. That might also explain why we don’t see many mammals or birds around. I’ve been looking, haven’t found them just yet. Aside from Gertie the cow and Boy the dog.

One of the places were the apocalypse seems to have kicked off is in Fairfield, California. Clyde calls it ‘basically ground zero’ and is amazed that Joel (and Aimee by extension) even made it out of there. Although a part of that may be because I believe the whole “cast” is from the area between Sacramento California and San Fransicsco. I have my reasons for that, which I will explain in headcanons.

Another, based on a news clip in the beginning might be Washington DC and I think it slowly escalated from there, going Global in a matter of days. I think the highest concentration of humanity fell first (cities), which would make sense as more humans generally also means a lot of insects and other scavengers. Conflict would be high in these areas and a lot of people would die at once.

Joel also talks about how the military and the ‘big ones’ basically cancelled each other out and died out after another. Which again makes sense to me, you’d want the most dangerous creatures to be taken out first. A cockroach the size of a tank is definitely a priority. Although how one would kill a cockroach that size is also very questionable, considering what they can survive.

I think humanity held out for several months before they were forced into hiding by the mutated creatures and the news articles that seem to be around throughout the world and in the beginning seem to suggest that as well.

Part 2: Joel’s Journey

Now I am not an American and a lot of places have names that I know nothing about. So I had to Google it, rehear it and figure it out. But Joel’s journey takes him to Jenner Beach, we know based on a sign post that he passes Fulton and is headed off towards Sonoma Coast State Park. Based on those signs I have a made a trajectory of about 85 miles and approximately located Joel’s colony.

I’ve also circled Fairfield here to indicate where he started out. Now as I said, this is guess work based on what the movie gave me from the sign post.

Sonoma Coast state Park (30 miles), Fulton (6 Miles)

And from what the characters in the movie have been saying; Jenner Beach. So yeah, it’s guess work and I might be a couple of miles off, but I like to think this gives a good perspective.

7 days seems to sort of check out though, considering the terrain is rough and hilly/mountainy, you’d constantly have to hide, and you’d need to sleep/forage. But you’d be walking pretty slow still. I think you could make the journey in 5-6 days as well on foot.

Part 3: Clyde and Minnow’s Journey

Now these two are far more difficult to figure out because we don’t know much about them. Wikipedia indicates Clyde is a survival expert, so that’s the official title that I went with as well. He says he had a son named Elliott and that he was in a colony with Elliot, Minnow, and Minnow’s dad. Minnow also indicates that their colony was in a subway station. They were mostly headed North.

I think the most likely candidates for their ‘home base’ were Sacremento, but then why did they cross Joel’s path and didn’t head for Yosemite/ Mt. Whitney if they wanted to go to the mountains?

Or another likely candidate was Richmond. Which is what I went with. This is more headcanony though. Only because they mentioned going to the North as opposed to going East, towards Mt. Whitney. Maybe Sacremento and it’s valley are a no-go zone? That would sense, large open spaces are probably where larger creatures reside.

Part 4: Headcanons

Okay this last section is purely headcanon material and not at based on facts. So please don’t shoot me. (Yes, you may copy the headcanons if you like, I don’t mind.)

Clyde is a survival expert, hunter, and doomsday prepper in the city. He used to lead rich tourist/people onto expeditions into the wilderness of California.

His son Elliott was a State Ranger in one of the local wildlife parks/reservations. He was also very gay,

Clyde is a simple but open minded man who loved his son/family. He really didn’t care his son was gay and supported him.

They lived just outside of Richmond.

Their neighbors was an Indian Transman (as in his ancestors were from India). This was Minnow’s father.

Minnow was one when the Apocalypse hit. (This is somewhat canon actually.)

Her father carried her and gave birth to her, getting a hysterectomy a few months after.

Her father was also a great archer and used to teach people how to use a bow and arrow. He was also a great horseback rider.

When the apocalypse hit they tried to sit it out in Clyde’s shelter but due to circumstance were forced to leave and eventually ended up in a colony in Richmond. Which operated from a subway station. 

Elliott and Minnow’s father fell in love and paired up, raising Minnow together. Clyde became her grandfather figure.

They stayed there for about 4-5 years until an attack decimated the colony, including Minnow’s father and Elliott.

Clyde and Minnow have been surviving out on there own ever since and were slowly traveling up North until they found Joel in a Sandgobblers hole.

Part 5: Creatures

We know the following about the categories of creatures:

Insects: Have terrible peripheral vision

Lizards: Can’t climb for shit

Amphibians: Like to hide and lure in their prey

Sandgobblers: Bad asses, find prey by sound and vibration, their queen is bad news and has a fin.

You can tell if a creature is kind by looking into its eyes.

Bouldersnails are friendly, sensitive, but can crush your ass in a heartbeat.

-

And that’s what I have so far. Feel free to reblog and add to it if you’ve found more or want to enter a counter to some of the things I’ve found.