#just know that this starter is entirely based on that meta

[entropy-game-dev]

Phylogenesia Automatorum Post-game Devlog #4: Content & Balance

In the final stretch of development, I had finished implementing all the various systems and now it was time to make content to fill it all out!

If you haven't tried the game out yet (it has a web version now!) please do if you want to discover the different plants and their behaviours for yourself. You can also rate it here if you have an itch.io account, otherwise read on!

So at this point in development I had 4 plants I was happy with:

Conway Grass: Default/standard plant that needs a critical mass to thrive based on the Game of Life ruleset

Nullberry: A sporadic plant that has a small chance to pop out of nothingness, and disappear just as quickly

Creeping Mold: A hardy plant that can easily take over the field but generates low amounts of life/death points

Overhedge: A plant that rarely dies or propogates, but generates a fixed amount of points when or if it does.

Starting with the Overhedge was very difficult but doable with some luck, and all other 3 plants were about average difficulty. At this stage, I needed the other plants in the game, so I could see what sort of points should be generated on average (irrespective of plant).

And thus, the other plants I conceptualised were:

Crossthatch: A plant with a very limited spawn/sustain range such that it only grows in lines or diagonals.

Dynamite Tree: A plant with more "explosive" growth style compared to Conway Grass, more permissive in spawn range, but with only a chance to spawn more trees, and a high chance to die each turn.

Shrunk Violet: Supposedly a "shy" plant that spawns a bunch at simulation start, then the entire mass shrinks away, layer by layer. The middle of the clump does not die due to the high min/max sustain range.

Shocklily: A plant with similar characteristics to the Dynamite Tree that would spawn and perish unpredictably. Where this plant differed, however, is that it can randomly persist and spawn over ticks.

Paradise Bird: The second M:tG reference (the first was Creeping Mold). With the way I tuned the birds' spawn and instant death chance, you get a really nice pattern where (sometimes) you will see a flock of birds migrating across the field.

0range: The story of the 0range goes something like this: "I need an orange plant to fill out my rainbow of plants, and it needs to be a pun. Oh I know, I will replace the "O" (letter) with a "0" (number), and turn all of its stats to 0 :)".

On the first few playtests, the meta was choosing a plant with a low spawn minimum, and fishing for an upgrade that reduces the minimum spawn to 0. This in effect makes the plant like a Nullberry, allowing it to spawn on any unoccupied tiles, BUT, unlike the Nullberry, most other plants have a 100% chance to spawn. Thus, every turn, all empty cells would be filled with plants, and on the next would immediately die off, only to repeat the cycle. While this was cool, I decided that you could only get to a spawn min of 0 on a critical upgrade roll.

The second problem was that the the shrinking violets were incredibly oppressive late game. In the early game they wouldn't generate enough life/death points to be worth choosing as a starter, but whenever you had an established field, they would choke the life out of all the cells except the very border, and would not leave. Lucinius and I eventually determined that the violets needed to die off randomly, and I also reduced their sustain max from 8 to 7, such that a completely surrounded violet would die off. They are still, by far, the most unbalanced plant, but they aren't run ending now at least.

The third problem was that some plants were just way too weak and variable in how they generate points. Lucinius had the great idea of giving players 5 free restarts (instead of 1 like I had originally programmed), and this not only served to smooth out early-game point gain but also give me a metric by which I was going to balance the game!

Within 5 runs, all un-upgraded plants should be able to generate AT LEAST 5 death points (enough for the first plant upgrade), and at most 14 death points (enough for the first two plant upgrades. Of course, these were just rough guidelines on average, and some plants will be stronger starters than others. However, as I have set it to ensure Conway Grass always appears on the starter plant roll (and the 0range never appears), one can always have a playable game.

It was still quite easy to get to a state where the points generation vastly outpaced the costs of the upgrades, but this was a more fundamental issue that, if I tried to address it by tweaking numbers, would result in an absolutely brutal early game that would be no fun to play, and promote only a single type of strategy. I'd prefer the game to be more lenient, as it lets people try out different starter plants, and different sorts of builds, without worrying too much about their turn count.

I did end up adding way more stats to the end screen so that if people wanted to compete for lowest amount of runs/mutations, or highest points they could do so, without making the game unfun for those (basically everyone) who wanted to play casually!

And that's it for the last part of the post-game devlog, thank you so much for reading (and for playing)! Stay tuned for the post-mortem! I have lots I want to discuss regarding what went right, what went wrong, and future directions for the game!

[mamasplat]

What's the thought process behind Calem and Doublade? Definitely not against it at all but I do wanna know why you associate them so heavily

I have a few reasons, I’ll simplify first and explain later.

———

Not vibing with Clefable

THE LOREEEEE

Fanart depictions

———

Calem’s final team in game consists of: Meowstick, Absol, Clefable, Altaria, [one of the gen1 eevee evolutions], and his starter.

My True Calem team run consisted of: Meowstic, Absol, Doublade, Honchkrow, Vaporeon, Greninja.

I only swapped out two, and those two are the final additions to his team: Clefable and Altaria.

There is multiple reasons why I ended up not connecting with Clefable and Altaria, primarily because they only come in at the end and don’t get much in way of screen time to tell me what type of bond Calem forms with them.

They are last minute team additions that don’t carry a meaning, we watched the rest of his team grow with him. These two just show up-

Ultimately this makes me find them as unfitting for the personality Rival Calem displays, seeming more like Rival Serena picks than anything else. So, I made a team switch. And in order to make a team switch i need to decipher the one thing that truly matters from an outside view:

———

The aesthetics

———

Not like- actual aesthetics- metaphorical aesthetics. I’m not gonna pull out a Doublade moodboard-

Doublade is a pokemon that is best characterized by it’s strategy, see the shield dex entry,

The two swords employ a strategy of rapidly alternating between offense and defense to bring down their prey.

Calem prides himself in strategy, in pokemon masters he is a Tech user in his base pairing, a Support in his Neo champion, and a Tech again with his EX roll.

All these pairs have a common ground, status effects, field control, and ability. All things that make a strategist.

He isn’t going fist first, he doesn’t battle with an immature mindset of damage first think later, he thinks about counter play, he tries to predict, and he tries to prevent.

It’s only natural knowing he is the son of two veteran trainers who taught him everything going off what Shauna says.

And with his losing streak to Serena, I’d say he probably thinks too hard. He puts too much thought into doing the most that he gets countered by her doing the least. He reverses the psychology too many times and ultimately loses because he made himself vulnerable.

So a sword based in strategy only seems fitting for a young man who puts his entire future in being a strong trainer.

———

It’s also a meta pick- or its final evolution is at least. the honedge line is known to be strong.

If ash and pikachu taught me anything: choosing to not evolve your pokemon and winning with its pre-evolved form is proof of a proper bond between trainer and pokemon.

Dusk stones are hard to find and Calem should prioritize region travel with fly over battle, especially during the crisis with Team Flare when he never knows when he needs to up and leave to help his neighbor save the world. Using the stone on his Murkrow rather than his Doublade.

———

Calem already has a strong link to supernatural types in my mind, Absol being dark, Meowstic being psychic, it’s something I wanted to turn into a theme. A pattern I wanted to form and then follow.

Not to mention his friendship in pasio to ghost type specialist Acerola, the sheer amount of links to the supernatural region wide with an entire town being known as otherworldly, and the fandom association to hex maniacs which ultimately becomes so common that it wiggles into our subconscious-

-which might also very well be a reason i chose Doublade for Calem.

I’ve seen so much art of Calem with members of the Honedge line, it only felt natural.

———

Doublade is in the shape of an X, Calem is associated to pokemon X specifically, and in the manga Calem’s counterpart is named X.

That’s it.

[dr-lizortecho]

Movie Meme 🎥

post seven comfort movies and tag seven people

I was tagged by @faiataka <3

Homeward Bound: the ultimate film! as in I sob everytime when Sassy goes down the waterfall and Shadow comforts Chance, everytime Chance tries to get Shadow to believe he can climb out of the mud pit and everytime Shadow’s boy gives up hope. It’s the movie of all movies tbh

Pride and Prejudice (2005): I’ve been watching this one since I was seven, I have the entire thing painfully engraved on my psyche, and nothing beats “what excellent boiled potatoes” as a conversation starter

Clueless: idk, 90s films and fashion are pretty cool

Frozen/Frozen 2: they mean so much to me, and also like I’m a sucker for a good sibling arc

The Mark of Zorro (1940): another one I’ve been watching since I was very little, before I knew batman I knew this version of Zorro (and then the black and white show! My fav Diego by far)

Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe: it’s just so perfect and the Pevensie’s and symbolism are all well constructed, I love the way they formatted Narnia and of course just based on me writing not one but two biblical symbolism metas on rnm you guys probably know it’s a half special interest

The Nightmare Before Christmas: the vibes! Also, the style is beautiful and just the soundtrack really

no pressure tags @ajna-eye-cogitations @thesquidkid @pleasantfanartist @beautifulcheat @ladynox @maeglinthebold @first-kanaphan

[thefledglingdm]

tsukishima meta..... 2!!

so a little bit ago i went off in this post about tsukishima and why i think he is the way he is and how his horrendous attitude during the show is a sign of his horrendous self-esteem and his fear of caring too much. and now i want to talk about how that feeds into the infamous but iconic running gag/character beat of “shut up yamaguchi”/”sorry, tsukki!”

this post got super long, so everything is below the cut!!! a lot of what i say in this post is based on the previous one, so def read that first. 

at first this whole interaction and dynamic bugged me. how could someone as sweet and hardworking as yamaguchi stay friends with standoffish, mean, lazy tsukishima? tadashi deserves better!

and then i thought about it more. how we know the behavior we see of kei throughout the first few seasons of haikyuu is unusual for him. how kei gradually grows more and more sullen, moody, and withdrawn throughout the first and second seasons. how yamaguchi is concerned and worried for him.

we know tsukishima’s self-esteem sucks. it’s bad. we see that established in how he thinks about himself and volleyball. but i think we truly see how low he’s sunk in his interactions with yamaguchi. that’s where we realize what an internal wreck he’s become.

so to start, we know tsukishima isn’t just walking around telling yamaguchi to shut up every time he talks. we see plenty of examples of that.

or

and there are other examples! they’re friends!!!! equally snide and kinda little shits. tsukishima is definitely the meaner of the two, but yamaguchi is down with that. he plays along. tsukishima isn’t telling him to shut up all the time. so when does that start? and how?

at the start of the season, he’s moody and a little dismissive, sure. i’m not saying this is a good character trait, or that he’s not a bit of a jerk. he’s 15.

but as time goes by, we start to see the rise of the “shut up, yamaguchi”/”sorry, tsukki” interaction as it plays out time and again. and i started to realize that tsukishima doesn’t just say that whenever he wants to.

or

or

or

tsukishima doesn’t tell yamaguchi to shut up willy-nilly. he says it specifically whenever yamaguchi is saying something nice about him. whenever yamaguchi is proud of him, is excited for him, is sticking up for him, is happy to see him and spend time with him. it’s a fascinating verbal expression of his own low self-esteem.

don’t be happy for me, tsukishima is telling yamaguchi when he tells him to shut up. don’t be proud of me. don’t encourage me or cheer me on. i don’t matter. i’m not a good player. i’m nothing special. i’m not, i’m not, i’m not.

i had a lot of thoughts about the tsukishima/yamaguchi fight scene the first time i watched it. i thought it was abrupt and kind of out-of-character. but on my second watch, i realized it was actually a confrontation a long time coming.

like. please watch the full scene again because the build-up is fascinating. screenshots will have to suffice.

that little “and” is what really did it for yamaguchi, i think. the final straw.

that? that is the face of a man and a friend who has had just about enough of this. which is why he really lets tsukishima have it.

and again here

i think it’s really telling that this fight isn’t yamaguchi calling tsukishima a massive tool after he’s been a snide, mean little prick for the entire series up to that point. which, frankly, i think he would have the right to do a little, since he has not been fun to be friends with lately. but yamaguchi doesn’t do that. he doesn’t call tsukishima out beyond calling him lame a few times.

he calls tsukishima tall. he says he has brains. he has instinct. he is a good player, naturally gifted in mind and body, and he could be so much better if he let himself try. if he opened himself up to caring, to the possibility of being hurt.

yamaguchi screams because he won’t let tsukishima tell him to shut up. he shakes him so he will listen and maybe have some sense knocked into him. he grasps onto tsukishima and when he knows there is nowhere for him to run, no way to deflect, no way to tell him to shut up, he tells him:

you are incredible. you are gifted. you are capable. i believe in you. you are worth the effort. this is worth the effort. i care about you.

and you are going to listen to me. 

and that is what breaks tsukishima of this funk. that is what convinces him to get off his ass and try. to do something. it’s by no means a smooth, linear process. but it’s yamaguchi’s words that finally break this pattern and give tsukishima a path forward.

(also, that scene with yamaguchi yelling at tsukishima takes place right after we see the moon covered by clouds. and since “moon” in Japanese is “tsuki,” we see all the running analogies of him and the moon, and having yamaguchi run up on tsukishima to scream the sense back into him when the moon is covered....  and then it came back out after yamaguchi said his piece.... poetic cinema. the animators of this show were geniuses.)

and it’s once tsukishima has had the sense screamed back into him that we see his self esteem start to improve. he learns to take a freaking compliment, for starters:

(feat. hinata rolling on the floor screaming, which was such a good character moment.)

and he, in turn, can finally support yamaguchi.

it’s a long and difficult journey. but together, they forge a path forward - as people, as friends - and continue to bring out the best in each other.

(screenshots are pulled from here and here.)

[the-black-bulls]

Hello! Original "William is classist" anon here! 😀 It's not just because his squad is strictly noble (though Luck is a good example that he did have other options). It's also that he continuously failed to address the classist bullying toward Yuno in his squad and showed consistent disregard for human life in such a way that disproportionately affects the lower classes.

On bullying: William is the captain and sets the example, but his entire squad was cruel toward Yuno except for Mimosa, a new recruit. William may have been a commoner, but he embraced nobility and its classism wholeheartedly, and this is portrayed in the people that he surrounds himself with.

As for the disregard for human life. Aiding in Patri's plan will hurt the lower class more than the royals, who have greater means of defending themselves. Also allowing Patri to blame all of humanity for crimes of the royals is majorly classist. We know for a fact that William has the knowledge to know that Patri's hatred of ALL humans is completely unjustified when only the ones in power hurt the elves. In addition, he made Langris, who is as unhinged as Luck (if not worse when it comes to killing civilians) the vice captain, which puts even more commoners and such at risk. At that point, it's not just that he's politely ignorant. He's making a series of choices that show his true colors.

It may not be that he's consciously thinking "I'm better than them," but his actions speak louder than his words: and as for words, he is the biggest liar in the series.

Oh finally you showed yourself, “William is Classist” Anon. Do you know how many replies and asks I got because of you? 🤨 (jk)

OK to be perfectly honest I’m not well familiar with William’s character and the only source I take is the manga. I don’t see the anime as a reliable source with character because most of the time it changes things or adds things that don't work with the original source. So I’ll be only talking about myself and my own interpretation of his character based on my personal reading, this will get long and excuse me to use your ask for this half-assed William meta but I have to get this off my chest.

Fair warning: long meta.

For starter William may not be a straight up bad person, but he’s still not a good person. He’s also not a good captain but we will talk about this later. William is a kind and likeable man by nature and he has a tragic backstory, so I can see why people may sympathize with him. However I’ve always seen him as straight up selfish and ignorant and hypocritical person who’s more flawed than you’d think and I love this about his character because humans aren’t perfect.

William only cares about two people, Julius and Patri. He becomes captain for Julius, his dreams is Julius’ dream, he wants to redeem himself for Julius first and foremost. He cares about Patri too, probably even more. He cherry-picks the magic knights with elfin souls for Patri, he commits treason and genocide and other awful crimes for Patri, and he keeps himself silent for years despite Patri’s clear danger (I mean he literally leads a terrorist group) to the kingdom because Patri always comes first. He cares only about two people and is only loyal to two people. For this reason he did not make any move until he found himself between two options, the best of which was bitter, so he gave up his responsibility and asked them to solve the matter, with his concern being only directed toward Patri and Julius, not the kingdom or his squad.

This makes him very selfish and ignorant and hypocritical in the sense that his priorities lie with his personal desires. He protects the kingdom while secretly helping terrorists, he leads the best squad and they idolize him but he doesn’t seem to keep an eye on them or is straight up being ignorant, “as long as this doesn’t harm our reputation it’s ok but don’t do it again" is the reaction I expect from William upon learning that Langris tried to kill civilians, and he doesn’t get any close dynamic with them or with his fellow captains. William also knew that he was doing a big mistake but didn’t stop, and it’s not that he “now” regrets his action, William always regretted his actions and saw them as sins since the very beginning, but again never stopped. He’s flawed to his core and I don’t get how people can see him any other way. This is why he’s one of the most interesting character in the series because I can see where he comes from.

Now all of this will make up for a great character, right. Well, nope. Unfortunately the story narrative failed to address his actions. He got little to no consequences. He didn’t even have to talk or show remorse, his inner thoughts were directed for Patri and Julius with no regard to the kingdom, and then when it’s the moment of his judgement Julius did all the talking and took some responsibility of William’s actions (sorry but why?) then gave him a second chance, then William cried and it was over and we moved to other things and, to quote my reaction when I read that part, What The Hell. This moment killed my interest in both William & Julius. There were so much that should be explored, like the captain reactions, the GD reactions, William’s inner thoughts because even if he’s a flawed person he isn’t a monster and I’m sure he has things to say and think about after the black bulls mess in the trial and y’know the kingdom getting destroyed--- *sighs*

Now back to the main topic, should all of this make William a classist person or not? It’s up to how you see his character. I see him as neither, or both depending on the situation. He’s so messed up with little focus so I can’t make up my mind on this topic. I think the “canon” wants you to see him as not, but his actions give you a different impression, so I don’t know. Man, he reminds me of Nozel, and I’m not fan of Nozel, but that’s a topic for another day.

OK this will be my last comment on this topic this is a black bulls blog damnit ask me stuff about them plz (jk lol), y’all are welcome to share your opinions through asks or reblogs but please spare me from the replies drama 😅

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

bella/esme?

Oooh, interesting but very tough question. I mean, given my track record, it's obvious my answer's going to be "I don't see it" except... in this case I kind of do.

Just not in the way you expect, or in a way that the internet will say will count.

So, What's the Problem on Esme's End? I don't read Esme as attracted to women. Though, I'll admit, it's also very hard to get a firm grasp on Esme in general. She's a very strange person, who could very well be attracted to women, but like the number of licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, the world will never truly know.

Esme is content to be Esme, mother to Edward, wife to Carlisle, sort of mother of the rest of those Cullen kids. If she found herself attracted to a woman, I don't think she'd even realize it, it'd be such a non-concept to her.

Where does that fit into Esme's surreal haze of an existence?

So, even if Esme likes women, even if she likes Bella specifically, I doubt it will ever even occur to her what's happening. She just stares at Bella and thinks how wonderful it is that Edward found such a charming girl.

In other words, that's right, there would be absolutely no difference from what we see in canon.

Otherwise, as usual, canon gets in the way. Esme and Carlisle have extreme issues, but neither realizes they have extreme issues. Esme at the start of Twilight and throughout the series is happily married to Carlisle and will remain so until something very unpleasant and unforeseen happens.

That something may have to do with Bella, but it's not Bella existing in the first place nor is it her having a relationship with Edward. Point being, Bella's a non-option for Esme at any point in the canon series.

And if Esme was single... I don't think she ever would be. I think, given the state she was in when Carlisle turned her, Carlisle not having married her (especially after Edward made Esme's feelings clear) would have destroyed her. And pining after Carlisle was a defining part of her life and may have had a very large hand in her ending up in that Morgue in the first place (Esme keeps saying no to suitors until... Charles comes along).

An Esme who never wanted to marry Carlisle would be a very different person and may very well have not ended up a Cullen at all.

If Esme decided she wasn't that into Carlisle... Well, this is a place for heretical meta so I'll go ahead and say it, she'd probably end up with Edward. And it'd be weird. Really, really, weird. Weirder than what those two do already.

POINT BEING, given that Esme bases her entire persona, for decades, around this Stepford housewife ideal, Esme is not staying single. Certainly not still single by 2005. And if she is then she probably left to go live with the Denali and is having an absolutely miserable time.

And even if we get past all of this, somehow, then Edward likely still shows interest in Bella. If he does, even if Esme is single and realizes her own feelings, Bella's immediately off the table. It's a non-starter, Edward deserves all the happiness in the world and Esme will gladly give that up.

Esme would never go for Bella as a romantic partner.

What's the Problem on Bella's End?

Bella has 0 interest in Esme as a person.

Esme is Mama Vampire, she's very sweet, the sweetest person Bella has ever met and a woman she imprints on as "mom", but that's it. They never spend time together, Bella never shows any interest in spending time with her, and beyond Esme being "mom" Bella could not care less.

Bella has at least one very deep conversation with pretty much every other Cullen: Carlisle at her birthday party, Jasper when he confesses his sordid history, Rosalie when she explains why she treats Bella the way she does and her own history.

The only other person that doesn't hit that quota is Emmett. And he, to Bella, is also a non-concept. He's funny older brother.

Bella won't go out of her way to make friends with Esme, to do anything with Esme, or even listen to Esme's opinions. She just does not care.

Also damning, of the people Bella's attracted to, which includes both men and women, Esme is not on that list. Bella's noticeably attracted to Rosalie, Alice (after they form an emotional connection), Edward, and Carlisle.

Esme's pretty and a vampire, she has oddly soft features for a vampire, but Bella has no remarks beyond that. She doesn't spend much time looking at Esme.

If Esme was the only vampire around, the first one Bella met, and had some interest in Bella then Bella might go for it, because vampire, but it's unlikely even an Esme wandering alone would show that interest.

But Didn't You Say This Was Kind of Canon?! So, the thing is, per the end of Breaking Dawn, Bella's left the planet in a very similar way to Esme.

She has a small cabin where she lives with her nuclear family within a family. Her hybrid daughter sleeps in one room, she has tepid sex with Edward in the other. She reads her alien daughter her favorite books like Wuthering Heights, somehow believing Renesmee follows all of this even when she undoubtedly asks "What's an England?"

Bella prances through the trees in beautiful clothes when she hunts, screaming, "I AM BEAUTIFUL!"

Bella went through a horrifically traumatizing experience, untold amounts of stress, and suddenly gets everything she thinks she ever wanted.

Just as this didn't seem to be good for Esme, it doesn't look good for Bella.

So why do I bring this up? Because I can see Esme and Bella being weird Stepford Mom/Wives together.

They bake cookies for Renesmee that Renesmee can't eat. They take "first day of school pictures" of Renesmee every time she goes to school. Every. Single. Day. Bella gives Renesmee the world's worst rendition of the sex talk as well as vaguely feminist pep talks that are completely out of context. Esme and Bella discuss the joys of motherhood, Esme talking about raising Edward, Bella discussing how she's raising Renesmee and kids just grow up so fast.

They bond beautifully over this shared experience. It's a deep emotional bond between them that the other Cullens can't understand. Bella remarks how close they are and she never realized how difficult Esme's job was before Renesmee.

They get really weird.

But they don't have sex, have no romantic notions towards the other at all, and are simply Mother together.

[autisticshadowthehedgehog]

Team Chaotix found out how to Time-Travel and are (probably?) using their powers for good

[I.D.: Screenshot of Shadow the Hedgehog, the cutscene before “Mad Matrix.” Shadow approaches Team Chaotix, standing in front of Eggman’s computer. Vector says “Well, we need your help to hack into [Eggman’s] computer... and don’t ask why!” End I.D.] 

What a title, huh? Let me complicate this more by explaining this is going to deal near exclusively with the 2005 game Shadow the Hedgehog and Chaotix’s role in it. 

My thesis statement for this is as thus: In Shadow the Hedgehog, all endings are actually technically canon; the universe was reset back at the end of them all until the True Ending was reached, and the universe was reset by none other than Team Chaotix. 

Is this theory going to make at least two insane reaches? Yes. Is it a crack theory? uuuuuuuuh depends on how people react to it 

So, let’s get into the logistics of how and why I think this went down.

Part One: What was Team Chaotix’s Mission?

Team Chaotix appears very briefly in ShTH; Charmy is on a solo mission on “Prison Island,” the whole team seems to be in “Mad Matrix” with Vector in  “Cosmic Fall”, and they appear briefly aboard the ARK at the end of the game. (Which... I don’t think they left? Were they up there when Shadow isolated himself inside? Is that why he wasn’t gone for long, did he get sick of their shit and pilot them back to the planet--) 

The point is, from the few appearances of the team in the game, we know that they are on a mission, one so secret/confidential that no team members tell anyone what it is- even Charmy, who has the impulse control of a kid left alone in a room with a million buttons. 

Of course, with their appearances, we can figure out some elements of their mission, and it becomes quite clear that their mission has something to do with the Space Colony ARK. 

Charmy’s solo mission, for starters, in “Prison Island.” Charmy is there to collect five discs from GUN, discs that I don’t believe the player ever finds out the contents of. 

[I.D.: Three screenshots from Shadow the Hedgehog, of Charmy’s dialogue in the “Prison Island” stage. He says, “Heeey, Shadow! I gotta ask you something! Vector told me that he wants to find five top secret discks... but, like... what’s a top secret disk?” End i.D.]

As the Hero Route of Prison Island immediately transitions to “Mad Matrix”, the implication is the GUN discs have something to do with hacking into Eggman’s computer. 

Oh, yeah, the team needed to hack into the files of Eggman’s computer, with Espio having to gather data himself. Again, what they were looking for is never revealed, but Vector insists that it’s urgent. 

[I.D.: Screenshots from the beginning of the “Mad Matrix” cutscene. Espio is sitting at a computer, attempting to hack. Vector says, “Are you done yet? At this rate, the entire day will be wasted.” Espio turns and says, “Hey, back off! Data retrieval isn’t exactly my specialty.” End i.D.]

Vector attempts to locate the ARK’s computer room, again for no stated reason. 

[I.D.: Vector at the beginning of the “Cosmic Fall” route. He says to Shadow, “We’ve got to make it to the computer room before this place collapses!” End I.D.]

Upon it being found in the True Ending, Team Chaotix once again hack inside the computer. After Gerald’s video begins playing, we don’t see them again. 

So, to recap: they are all gathering information from GUN- which was pretty much the only organization with any information on the colony- and Eggman, a member of the Robotnik family; with the fact they were later on the ARK and stealing GUN documents, it’s likely they were looking for information on Gerald on Eggman’s computer. 

So, while we don’t have the explicit mission, we can clarify that it definitely has something to do with the ARK. An important question, though, which might be able to clarify their entire mission, is who is their client? 

Part Two: Who Sent Team Chaotix on this mission?

Team Chaotix’s missions are almost exclusively client-based, and even if we say that they don’t have one, there has to be something that tipped them off that they needed to get to the ARK. 

The client themself is a bit of a mystery- it can’t be any non-chaotix main character, as literally nobody seems wise to what they’re up to. And considering Charmy was, uh, pretty much literally stealing GUN files, we can safely assume they’re not working for GUN. 

But their client had to be someone who knew there was important information on the ARK, which was pretty much unknown to everyone before SA2, and afterwards, even if we assume the ARK incident is common knowledge, there has to be something specific the Chaotix were sent after. 

And something important. 

In case you haven’t played ShTH, during the entire game, the world is being attacked by demon aliens intent on murdering and eating everything on the planet while also setting it on fire. You’d think that Chaotix would want to deal with that above a relatively unimportant mission. So whatever they were doing was more important than fighting/hiding from/investigating the apocalyptic monsters attacking them. 

What would be important than the, as I said, apocalyptic demon monsters? 

Potentially... a way to stop them. 

[I.D.: Screenshots from a cutscene in the Last Story. Team Chaotix are attempting to hack into the ARK’s computer. Vector says, “Espio, we need you to focus, cuz if we don’t hurry all the data we recovered will be lost.” End I.D.]

So. You know how in every one of my metas there’s a part where I leap off the deep end? 

Let me just say this outright. 

What if the one who sent them on their mission... was none other than Gerald Robotnik?

So, here’s my mission statement. 

Gerald Robotnik, sensing that something bad was going to happen on the ARK, made his video message for Shadow. We know this because of, you know, the content of the message. 

After the ARK massacre, Gerald obviously cracked, but left behind some hint of the video’s existence, or a hint of a way to defeat the Black Arms that nobody picked up cause nobody knew they existed except the people on the ARK. Who, you know, GUN massacred. Thanks GUN. 

What the hint exactly was I’m not sure-- in Sonic X he wrote a shitton of stuff on the walls of his prison island jail cell, maybe he left something there. [Something to note-- Sonic X begun airing before production of ShTH, and it second and third seasons, the ones featuring Shadow, would probably be being made while ShTH was in production.] 

[I.D.: Screenshots from Sonic X of Gerald Robotnik’s prison island cell, which has multiple scientific notes scribbled across the walls. End I.D.]

We already know the Chaotix know of Prison Island and can get there from Charmy’s appearance in his route, so them being there and seeing something left behind isn’t impossible. 

So this hint was discovered by the Chaotix, who pieced together that this ARK message would give the information needed to defeat the Black Arms-- I believe they knew that there was a message specifically, as they seem unsurprised and happy when the message appears at the end of the game, meaning it was among the things they were looking for, if not the only thing. They also figured out that the only one who could defeat said Black Arms was Shadow. Hence why they’re not only hacking into the computers of two Robotniks, but they, in different timelines, accompany and assist Shadow in his little angst party missions. 

[I.D.: Screenshots from the end of the “Cosmic Fall” Hero Route. As Shadow walks away, depressed that he’s what he considers a failed experiment, Vector says, “Hey... don’t go there... yet! Things may not be what they seem. You could be...” End I.D.]

But then why wouldn’t they tell Shadow what they were up to? Sure, he has amnesia, so you can’t just say “your granddad might have a secret way to kill the demon aliens,” but you could say “we think there’s a message for you.” So why didn’t they? 

Because, my dear friends, they only have twenty-four hours, and it takes quite a while to explain and prove time travel to an amnesiac hedgehog. 

Part Three: What Route leads to the True Ending? The Time Travel One 

Here’s where we get into crack. 

Let’s put everything together and then go into Connie’s HellBrainMode™

The Chaotix’s mission is so secret that either they didn’t dare tell Charmy, or the ADHD 6yo understood that he had to shut up for once (and I say that with love) and thus not a single one of them dares reveal it. 

The Mission definitely pertains to the ARK, Black Arms, Robotnik Family, and Shadow. 

The Chaotix vaguely knew of the message that was needed to defeat the aliens, and so they were attempting to hack Robotnik computers to find it. 

For some reason, they don’t even tell Shadow what’s up, even though due to their penchant for traveling with him and protecting him, they likely are aware he’s a bit important at the moment. 

...so why does Shadow the Hedgehog have so many endings anyway? 

On that last point... ShTH has an insane amount of routes, but really only eleven endings, with #11 being the final, canon ending. But all the endings are plausible routes, no matter how goddamn dark they can get. It seems the only thing that separates the endings is Shadow’s choices; whether he remains neutral, assists the Black Arms, or fights for Earth. Of course, the true ending involves him fighting for Earth, his friends, and Maria’s final wish, but the path he takes over the day of the Black Arms invasion needs to lead him there. 

Does that mean he must follow a Hero route to reach that? By the time he gathers all the chaos emeralds, he can’t be in the depths of despair or convinced he’s an android, etc.; he’s definitely not in one of the endings where Eggman or Sonic die, seeing as they help him out in the True Ending. So if Eggman and Sonic are alive and Shadow’s not literally losing all hope in everything, we have to assume neither a Dark nor Neutral route was taken, as Dark tends to end with dead Sonic and Neutral tends to end with Dead Eggman. 

Something interesting-- several Hero Routes involve helping the Chaotix. Gathering the discs for Charmy, helping Espio collect necessary data, helping Vector find the infamous computer room... Of course, most Hero Routes involve helping your friends when you see them, but the Chaotix specifically are looking for GUN/Ark/Robotnik/BlackArms information. While they will not share this information with Shadow, helping them puts him on the Hero Route, aka closer to the True Ending. 

But which ending leads to the true ending? None of them, and yet all of them. 

None of them end in the place where the true ending begins-- Shadow alone with the Chaos Emeralds, ready to discover the truth about his past, and about to be ambushed by an uninjured Black Doom while his friends are about to burst in to try and save him, having apparently discovered more about what’s happening. 

Hero endings end with Shadow defeating Black Doom earlier, Neutral ends with depressed Shadow and dead Eggman, Dark ends with angry Shadow and dead Sonic. So a whole nother timeline was taken. Then what was the point of the first ten? 

Well, through the first ten, you do learn certain information, don’t you? So who’s to say someone else going through the first ten endings wouldn’t learn something as well? If someone could, say, reset the day to the beginning every time Shadow has an angst moment and fails to save the world, and then use what they learned the last time in order to try and steer Shadow on a better path... 

And in the True Ending, when Shadow and his friends are attacked by Black Doom, Shadow hears voices in his head-- voices from several different routes. Almost as if something in his mind clicks, something that feeds every route into him to make a final decision. 

[I.D.: Gif from the Last Story of Shadow the Hedgehog; Shadow is on the ground, and voices are heard, represented here by captions, which read, in order: “I will avenge those whose blood has been spilled!” “Did I... die?” “That’s why you were created...” and “Please help me, Shadow.” End I.D.] 

So what route leads to the last ending? All of them. All of them, so that the information gathered... gets the Chaotix on the ARK. To get the message out to Shadow. 

Part Four: The Timeline of the Chaotix Time Travel 

Every route begins with the same cutscene-- the beginning of the day, as the Black Arms invade... as their comet gets close enough to reach the planet. Let’s say, hmm, Gerald, for example, realized something might go horribly wrong when the Black Arms showed up if Shadow was traumatized and confused, and tried to make some kind of safeguard. The safeguard ended up being a reset button,* but it relied on the position of the Black Arms’ comet-- so thus, you can only reset to the beginning of its approach. The beginning of the day. And only the one(s) pressing the button remembers the reset, that could be an issue. 

*Note: we’re using “reset button” as a general term, obviously it doesn’t have to be a literal button. 

The Chaotix break into the remains of Prison Island sometime before the Black Arms attack; perhaps they sensed something was up, perhaps they noticed some weird stuff was going on, who knows. But they get in there, and find Gerald’s notes, and figure out some important stuff-- the Black Arms are invading, there’s a way to stop them on the ARK, and... oh, what’s this, this thing that the GUN scientists could never figure out how to use but hid away in case they figured it out one day. It’s a comet reset button? 

Oh, comet, like the one right overhead-- oops. 

The Chaotix are unable to stop the comet from arriving in the first place. So Vector puts together all the pieces-- “ultimate lifeform,” fifty-year timeskiip, whatever hints Gerald left-- and figures out that, likely, Gerald knew about the Black Arms, how to stop them, and that his ultimate lifeform, Shadow, is the key to saving the planet. 

He sends Charmy to retrieve discs from GUN involving the ARK and Gerald on Prison Island, and then sets Espio to hacking into Eggman’s systems. Once they’ve got the info they need, they hop on a spaceship and race to the ARK. Thing is... each of these steps could go wrong in any way. Charmy doesn’t find the discs, Espio can’t reach the data, Vector can’t find the computer room, they fail to reach the ARK, or, above all, Shadow shows up and fucks up their shit. 

Thankfully, the Chaotix have the day reset. Every time the planet starts to go to shit, Vector resets. Shadow just killed Sonic? Reset it, now, before those demons crash into Earth. Omega just texted Rouge to tell her that Shadow is convinced he’s destined to lead a robot uprising? Reset. Shadow is depressed thinking he’s a failed experiment that never should have been created and thus literally falls into such a state he can’t or won’t fight the Black Arms? Gotta reset that shit. They reset at least ten times, each time gaining more information and figuring out what they have to do. Charmy gets Shadow’s help in one route, then in the next timeline repeat remembers the locations. Espio knows how to break into Eggman’s computer. Vector figures out where they need to go. They figure out where the Chaos Emeralds are and where and when to get them to Shadow. 

The eleventh and final reset begins, and Chaotix informs the Sonic Squad that the Black Arms need the Chaos Emeralds to destroy the planet and that they need to go keep an eye on Shadow. Somehow they get Eggman onboard-- idk they probably just namedropped Gerald and he listened to whatever they had to say. Once they’re sent off, they rush to the ARK. 

Shadow, in the Last Route, has gathered the Chaos Emeralds off the ARK, somewhere on the below planet. Everyone else is on Earth, including Sonic, Black Doom, Eggman... 

Everyone but the Chaotix. 

The Chaotix, who continue working on this Big Case even after the Black Comet has descended through Earth’s atmosphere and the Black Arms are killing everyone on the planet. 

The Chaotix, who are trying to hack into Gerald’s computer, looking for something important. 

The Chaotix, who show absolutely no surprise or concern when Gerald’s message appears, implying that this could be what they were looking for. 

The Chaotix, who are not seen again after the message is played. 

Because their work is done. 

Shadow’s choices lead him to make the right decision, but that final push he needs to defeat Black Doom is Gerald and Maria’s message. And once it’s played, he saves the goddamn world. 

And then is stuck on the ARK with the Chaotix until the next game. Oops. 

[tf2workbench]

The robots won’t know what hit them

Mann vs. Machine, TF2′s horde-based game mode, can be both fiendishly hard and a whole lot of fun. With powerful upgrades available, most classes can take on new dimensions and support their team even more effectively.

That being said, MvM has a very strictly defined meta. What do I mean by that?

Well, the “metagame” is basically the popular consensus of what items/strategies/classes are best to use - and, by extension, which are not good. It’s called the “metagame” because it’s dependent on the mechanics of the game itself, but is basically formed by people thinking about and discussing how to play it.

Regular, player-on-player TF2 is designed so that all weapons and classes, ideally, have a place in the meta. There’s rarely a clear “best” loadout. MvM, however, is not designed at all like PvP gameplay; for starters, there’s a lot more enemies than there are players. This naturally means that some classes, and a lot of their weapons, fall by the wayside.

The Upgrade Station is one way of working to bring these classes/weapons back into the fold, allowing players to have fun in many different ways. For example, the Gas Passer can be upgraded to explode upon ignition, giving it serious damage output that the original weapon doesn’t have.

With this post, I intend to go over some of the least-used weapons (not classes; that’s another post entirely) in MvM, then propose potential upgrades that might give them some relevance. I say might; balance in MvM, especially given the unique upgrade system, is tricky at best without playtesting, and many of these will likely end up underpowered. I do want to give them variety, though, and at least let them have their own niche. Enjoy!

Direct Hit

The Direct Hit, as a weapon for precision assassinations, does pretty poorly against a horde of robots. You can get Rocket Specialist, which marginally increases its blast radius, but that’s not incredibly helpful next to the other launchers. With that in mind, I want to propose an upgrade: +1 shot restored on kill $200 Three levels

In addition, I want to cheapen the “+25% damage” upgrade from $400 to $300 for this specific weapon, and allow the Direct Hit to get the fourth level (it can currently only get three). This gives it a noticeable edge on low-cash missions and stops it from losing out to a fully-boosted stock rocket.

Axtinguisher The Pyro doesn’t really have a preferred melee weapon in MvM; it’s usually the Homewrecker or Powerjack. The Axtinguisher tends to see even less action because it’s a precise tool, not suited for a bunch of mechanical menaces. But what if... +2 seconds of critboost on kill $350 Two levels

So far only available to the Spy and Demoman, I think this would work wonders with the Axtinguisher. Note that the critboost is for all weapons, allowing you to roast robots with a critical flamethrower.

Tomislav In MvM, the Heavy assumes the role of a mobile sentry, plopping himself down and shooting until he’s dead or out of bullets. The Tomislav is distinctly unsuited to this role, since you rarely need to spin up and the fire rate penalty reduces DPS. A big change is in order. +15% movement speed while firing $300 Two levels

If you’re willing to pay for it (especially given upgrades like Rage and Destroy Projectiles), you can become much more mobile, able to avoid danger and reposition without stopping your onslaught of bullets. You can’t match the raw damage of the Brass Beast, but you have a certain amount of flexibility that it lacks. I do wonder: is this worth it? DPS tends to be everything in MvM, and many Heavies may never have to move anyway.

Short Circuit Due to the increased fire rate and shield, plus how easy giant robots are to hit, the Wrangler reigns supreme in MvM. But the Short Circuit deserves a chance too - it’s the only gamemode where shutting down enemy projectiles doesn’t make anyone angry, after all. For that purpose: -10 metal cost $150 Three levels

Allowing you to work wonders against, say, giant spamming Demomen. It does end up being a bit situational, though, since it has next-to-no utility against bullet-users. It might also prove too powerful in some situations, letting your sentry take down bosses like Major Crits while remaining virtually unscratched. Maybe I should just leave this one alone...

These are pretty big changes, and I acknowledge that they probably fall all over the spectrum of under- or over-powered. In honesty, this post is more for entertainment than anything; it would take much, much more work than I’m putting in here to make all weapons viable in MvM. Heck, it’s hard enough in the base game.

Doesn’t mean I won’t try, though. Did you enjoy this? What thoughts do you have about upgrades? Do you even play MvM?

[akechicrimes]

loki appreciation agenda continues because i am speculating on the reasons why goro can change outfits. this is a super speculation-heavy post on goro’s outfit-changing abilities based on theories that loki was created through experimentation to force goro to awaken a second persona, and i don’t think i can necessarily “prove” anything in this post, but the lore on how personas work surprisingly checks out so it’s plausible if nothing else.

anyway, i think goro has two different outfits because he awakened to his “first” persona, twice.

explanation under cut:

(FIRST of all, i know there’s doylist explanations for why certain characters get new outfits and others don’t. this is a watsonian explanation because i have goro akechi brainworms and i cannot stop thinking about my boy.)

the basic premise is that your outfit is something you get when you have the will to rebel. outfits manifest when you’re in a palace that sees you as an enemy, thus activating your rebellious spirit to tell them to suck a dick.

that rebellious spirit comes from a moment of resolve: knowing that you don’t want to die, knowing what it is that you fight for, and knowing whose ass you want to beat. usually, then the character manifests a mask, hears the voice of their persona inside them, and they rip it off.

the will of rebellion also typically triggers a character awakening to their first persona. i’m going to call it the starter persona.

insofar as i can tell, a starter persona is a very specific type of persona that comes from a very specific type of phenomenon:

the manifestation of your resolve/will of rebellion

the persona you get when you awaken to your persona-using abilities for the first time

the first form of your persona

a persona that is unique to you and your soul

theoretically a persona that comes from within you, rather than an external source (e.g. shadow negotiations or the velvet room)

a persona gained under extreme duress marking a drastic resolve in oneself

a starter persona is not:

an evolved edition of your starter persona due to a moderate change in yourself (second-tier/third-tier awakening)

a new persona gained through capturing a shadow (akira’s new personas)

a new persona gained through fusing pre-existing personas (velvet room)

when a second-tier persona occurs, or a new persona is gained through shadow capture or fusing, a new outfit is not gained, because outfits come with the starter persona only.

so my theory is that robin hood and loki are both “starter” personas, even though loki was gained ostensibly way, way after goro had awakened to his general ability to summon personas. loki is not a persona that was gained through shadow negotiations or the velvet room, and loki is not an evolved form of robin hood, since robin hood and loki coexist and first-tier personas disappear when they turn into second-tier personas. 

loki is basically as if goro underwent his first awakening, but a second time, and that’s why there’s a separate outfit for him, in the same way that all the phantom thieves get an outfit when they awaken for the first time.

and now i’m going to go into way too much detail about how starter personas are a very hyper-specific phenomenon that are different from the wild card ability to gain multiple personas and are also different from second-tier awakenings:

CASE ONE: wild cards

wild cards demonstrate very well that starter personas are unique in that they’re created from within a persona user, whereas other personas that wild cards can wield must come from outside sources. and even for wild cards who have six jillion personas, they really only have one starter persona (and in akira’s case, one accompanying outfit). 

i think it’s alright to assume there’s something unique about arsene in relation to akira, in the same way that izanagi is unique to souji or orpheus is unique to minato. every other persona that these wild cards get have to be gotten from either capturing shadows in the wild, or from fusing captured shadows in the velvet room. they’re personas that are found from outside of the wild card, and then taken in to become one of the wild card’s masks.

by contrast, arsene, izanagi, and orpheus seem to come from “within” the wild cards, in the same way that any non-wildcard undergoes an awakening to pull a persona from inside themselves. arsene, izanagi, and orpheus aren’t gained through capturing a pre-existing shadow or fusing pre-existing shadows. so even though akira and other wild cards can wield multiple personas, all of them only have one starter persona.

i’d theorize that, although wild cards have the ability to wield many different masks, the other personas are more like impermanent additions to the general ability to wield multiple personas, which comes with the starter persona. (arsene and izanagi in particular seems really stick around even when you fuse him away, especially since arsene comes back in a second-tier awakening as satanael and izanagi as izanagi-no-okami.)

(NOW THAT I’VE SAID THAT, according to persona lore, all personas come from the sea of the soul! i did not forget. when i’m making the distinction between a persona that comes from “within” a persona user and a persona that has to be found externally, i mean that all shadows/personas ultimately come from the vast sea of the soul/collective unconscious that connects all human beings, but these personas get obtained through different ways: starter personas seem to be summoned from the sea of the soul entirely internally, whereas other shadows have to be summoned from the sea of the soul from either finding them in palaces, mementos, or the velvet room.)

akira, obviously, does not get a new outfit every time he gets a new persona, although that would have been cool as fuck. the outfit happens only when the starter persona is awakened--the persona from within akira, rather than a persona he acquired from the outside.

CASE TWO: general persona users and second tier awakenings

normal persona users don’t have the ability to find external shadows and make them into their own persona. normal persona users have only their starter persona which they got from within themselves, in the same way arsene is unique to akira, and are born from a moment of internal resolve. their personas are all “internal affairs,” so to speak.

normal persona users also have the option of a second-tier awakening, though. second-tier awakenings involve only the starter persona, a new resolve in the character, and again seem to be a persona that comes from “within.” so it seems a bit like the persona user has “awakened” a second time. it’s certainly an entirely internal event, requiring no additional personas obtained from palaces, mementos, or the velvet room.

but the second-tier persona is not an entirely new starter persona. second-tier personas are just their pre-existing already-awakened starter personas changing into a slightly different persona with the same abilities. second-tier personas inherit all the stats and abilities from the first as well, a bit as if it’s just the starter persona in a different form. so although the phantom thieves “awaken” a second time, it’s not so much an awakening so much as it is just an evolution of a pre-existing persona.

this makes sense in terms of the “personas manifest as a will/resolve to rebel” logic, too. it’s not necessarily that they manifested an entirely new resolve to rebel; their pre-existing resolve to rebel just evolved, changed, or was reaffirmed.

there’s also a visual cue for this: awakening a starter persona is a whole fucking deal involving a stressful situation, thinking you’re going to die, usually having to face some asshole in your life who abused you, hearing voices, screaming, manifesting your mask and ripping your face off. second-tier awakenings don’t involve this lmao. god could you imagine if it did. it’d actually be so funny tbh

second-tier awakenings, also, seem to be a phenomenon specific to “starter” personas, or personas obtained from within. you wouldn’t see a persona that akira got from a shadow negotiation evolve in the same way that arsene evolves into satanael, or carmen evolves into hecate, or izanagi evolves into izanagi-no-okami. you could argue that “high pixie” is a second-tier of “pixie,” but there’s no way to make pixie have new resolve and evolve into high pixie like a pokemon; pixie would have to be fused with some other persona to create high pixie. personas obtained through external means have to be fused with other personas, or absorb the life force of other personas through executions. 

anyway, to get back to the point about goro’s two-outfit deal, second-tier awakenings also don’t get you new outfits. which makes sense if we assume that outfits come with obtaining a starter persona, since second-tier awakenings are just your starter persona evolving and is not actually an event in which you obtain an entirely new starter persona.

CASE THREE: haru and sumire

weird fact i forgot until i wrote this meta!! but both haru and sumire are cases of people who got their outfits and a “semi-awakening” to their personas, that then led to a period of not quite being able to actually summon their persona. so, from what we can understand, their will to rebel is there, just not solidified enough to manifest a persona.

morgana, our resident lore expert, tells us that when haru has her outfit but not her persona, milady is more or less there already, just confused due to conflicted feelings about haru’s father, and therefore can’t fully take shape. so she can sort of summon milady, but just not in an effective way that can deal battle damage.

personally i think this is just the atlus writers creating a reason to have haru in the palace in cute clothes without having her go through an awakening, so that she could awaken later for full dramatic effect. but since morgana went to such lengths to explain the mechanics of it and tell us that milady is technically already there, it’s a really interesting case study that demonstrates outfits are not something that are specific to having a starter persona, but doesn’t guarantee that that persona can be summoned.

the same thing happens to sumire: she gets her outfit sometime in october, and for some reason can use cendrillon up until she remembers that she’s sumire and not kasumi. then she winds up in a state like haru’s, where she has an outfit, has the will to rebel, and technically even has cendrillon, but she just can’t summon cendrillon. then she has to go through the whole song and dance of ripping her face off to awaken to cendrillon (which might be kasumi’s soul depending on the interpretation of the scene). and of course, from there her starter persona can have a second-tier and third-tier awakening to vanadis and ella.

but it looks like the same case as haru, ultimately: she technically had cendrillon, but wasn’t able to use it or manifest it because her resolve was jank as fuck with all her identity issues.

SO BASICALLY: 

what i’m getting at is that the outfits come from awakening to a starter persona only. 

a starter persona is, as shown above, a hyper-specific phenomenon in which you pull a persona out of your soul, as opposed to capturing an external shadow and adding it to your pre-existing persona abilities, or transforming your pre-existing persona into a new one. awakening your "first” persona is a thing that happens only when you dig up all the weird sediment from your soul when you think you’re going to die, generally. starter personas come from a moment of internal resolution, and the resulting persona seems to be unique to that person and the circumstances of the persona’s awakening.

really, it’s such a theatrical ordeal, too. like i mentioned before, starter personas get obtained through this WHOLE fucking ritual involving stress, hearing the voice of your persona inside you, manifesting your mask, ripping your face off, manifesting your outfit, etc, etc. (i think it’s fairly important to note that ripping the mask off is the first instance of the larger outfit showing up, too; the mask itself, the outfit, and the starter persona seem to come hand in hand.)

we already know that loki is not a second-tier awakening of robin hood, because robin hood co-exists with loki. we also know that loki is not a persona gained through shadow negotiation or fusion, because external personas that are gained through those methods don’t come with an outfit.

so it really looks like goro just manifested the internal will to rebel, and the accompanying new outfit and entirely new persona, twice.

this, actually, fits really well with the medical experimentation thing, since starter personas, the will to rebel, and the outfit seem to come from stressful situations, where the persona user, in an attempt to not die, pulls a new persona out of their soul from no external source. if the featherman game is implying what i think it is, shido’s scientists and maybe wakaba were trying to force a persona out of goro with stress and trauma, in the same way that you’d manifest a persona for the first time. these scientists were not handing him shadows to turn into personas, like how the wild card is intended to be used. these scientists were not trying to transform robin hood into a new form, like how a second-tier awakening is supposed to work. they were inducing the same conditions that you’d need to awaken a persona for the first time.

it also makes sense from an in-universe perspective, because i’m assuming that, since goro and these cognitive psientists didn’t know jack shit about the metaverse at the time, goro just told them what he knew about persona awakenings: he awoke to robin hood under duress, he reached into his soul, found robin hood there, did a bunch of yelling, pulled off his face, BAM. robin hood. so the scientists said, well, if you wanna see a phenomenon a second time, you might as well recreate the conditions from the first time, right? make him pull off his face again and see what happens.

that would explain how loki is unique to him, in the same way that arsene is unique to akira, or any of the other personas are unique to their phantom thieves. it would explain why there’s an accompanying outfit to go with loki as well--it’s literally an entirely different “first” awakening, as if he manifested the ability to summon a persona twice, rather than just adding on new personas to his pre-existing ability. and it also explains how he has two unique personas that are separate from each other.

it also explains why he never seems to, say, use robin hood while in the black mask outfit, and why he never uses loki while in the white crow outfit. it’s not a cosmetic choice; the outfit is tied to the persona he’s using at the time. the outfit is tied to the separate awakening, and the separate “first” persona that was generated from that awakening. (EDIT: goro does actually use loki very briefly while still in the white crow outfit during his boss battle, although presumably loki is not “fully” summoned because loki is blacked out/colored strangely/vaguely see-through.)

(meanwhile, hereward doesn’t get a new outfit to match him because he’s a tiered transformation awakening. a pre-existing power gets transformed. hereward even existing is also good evidence that robin hood and loki are “starter” personas rather than personas gained through external means, since shadows obtained through mementos/palaces/velvet room don’t get tiered evolutions.)

which is a really interesting bastardization of the wild card ability, if that’s actually what happened. because he’s a wild card with the ability to wield multiple personas, he was able to awaken for the “first” time twice and wield two different personas, but in an extremely corrupted way, not at all the way that wild card abilities are intended to be used.

and i know that this is all just speculation at this point, but it does make hereward look a little bit like goro managed to finally fuse together the two “corrupted” halves of his wild card ability into a singular, whole persona. something or other--growth can only occur when thesis and antithesis synthesize? ...something like that.

anyway i’ve never felt so much like matpat in my life.

[soyouareandrewdobson]

The biggest post yet: Analyzing a multipage story

Before I begin, I like to thank every follower so far and the ones who helped me over the course of the last weeks to build this tumblr up. This is for you and in a way the first test run for future, hopefully more elaborate reviews of Dobson’s comics. Hope you enjoy it and learn something.

Without further ado, ladys, gentlemen and the colorful rianbow inbetween, I present the unpublished “So you are a cartoonist?” story about the King of Queens trying to become a comic artist

Okay, this is not quite right. What is going to happen is as followed:

A few years ago Dobson released via his patreon the unpublished sketches of a multipage comic story about the struggles of a webcomic artist by the name of Kevin James, with no relation to the famous comedian who as of recently is also playing a neo nazi in a supposedly pretty damn good home invasion movie.

What I want to do is now go through this comic and point out some of the flaws in the writing/progression, okay? Cause honestly, this is not going to be the worst thing Dobson ever published. But it unfortunately has more than a few little hiccups that show Dobson’s flaws when it comes to creating a story.

So off to the next pages

Now as you can see, it is pretty obvious that the story is heading into a direction where Kevin seems to be a down on his luck creator. Having to work at the blandest named Burger Joint since Good Burger, with discount Doctor Wily as his manager and getting pretty little money into his account. Seriously, only 206 $ plus? I don’t know much about minimum wage in the states, but are you really getting that little even after taxes have been accounted for? Or is it likely Kevin is pretty deep into the reds and his deposit was even putting it into the plus again. If so… yaiks.

And now we are getting into the pages where a few slight problems may show up, depending on your own interpretation of things.

 See, in my opinion it is obvious that we are meant to feel sorry for Kevin, cause he lost his minimum wage job now for simply being late. Something that can happen to all of us. And yeah, losing your job when you have not really much in the bank, that sucks. So I would wish for the character to get at least a new job soon. However, we also need to acknowledge that the manager is not in the wrong here. After all, Kevin supposedly has shown up late for work for some time and his excuse that he was late because he had to work on his comic is not reasonable. For a lack of a better word, making this comic is just his hobby, not his job. His job is to make burgers and sell them, because the manager of the burger joint is paying him for that. So excuse me if my sympathy is not that much with him

Not really much to say here. I just want to point out two things: One, the countdown that showed up also in previous pages and goes further down the longer we get into the story, two that it actually may be a good thing that Dobson has not drawn the copy shop employee in more detail. Cause one thing I came to realize over time with Dobson is, that often times his sketches have more of a softness to them than the final product, where e.g. faces are more harsher and frankly, uglier than they need to be, in addition to being a bit oversaturated thanks to the colors. And with Dobson’s tendency to make also angry faces genuinely spiteful, I wonder if the copy shop owner would have come off in the final product as more “strawman mean” than necessary. Cause it is very obvious that “poor Kevin” seems to suffer from the indifferences of his environment.

 One month since he was fired and one more month till we are in the present and he loses his electricity cause he has not paid his bills. And this is where I slightly start to lose my sympathy with the character. Again, it is obvious that the story wants us to feel bad for Kevin because he is down on his luck although all he wants to do is just create his comic.

But at the same time, only halfway through the comic I have to ask, how much of his shitty situation is not just him doing nothing against it?

I mean, he has obvious money issues, he can’t pay the electricity bill and he has been fired a month ago. Shouldn’t he at this point not have attempted yet to get a replacement job? Or ask for unemployment support? Do commission work for fans in exchange for money?

I am just saying, his woes become a bit less relatable if he does not really attempt to at least try and fix the situation.

And unfortunately, this development continues still

 Gesh, this comic is really old when Kevin still owns a flip phone…

Also, I need to give his mom credit. 500$ send to her son so that he can pay his debts off and live well enough for a few days. Sorry, but 500$ is actually enough for me to live for a month and pay my groceries and major bills if I am careful enough. Lets hope Kevin is the same and that he looks out for a job

 … nope, he does not look for a job. Two weeks after he got the money he still does not have a job to support himself and assure he has a roof over his head. In fact, he likely loses more money than he necessarily needs to by going to a diner.

Look, unlike other characters created by Dobson, I really do not hate Kevin. Primarily because he does not show any of the despicable or idiotic traits other characters by him do. But Kevin is not doing anything to improve his situation, period. And that is not really how you should write “down on their luck” characters, cause that doesn’t really make them sympathetic. The sympathy a reader gives those characters stems primarily from the fact, that though they really try their best, fate is not working into their favor for different reasons beyond their control. But here the problem is, that Kevin has to a certain degree control over his situation. He can decide what he wants to do with the money, he can decide to either do or not do anything to improve his situation at least slightly. And he doesn’t do anything.  

Dear lord, Kevin is essentially Dobson when it comes to the laters overall situation and how he does little to improve anything when he is stuck.

Then there is also the entire thing about the waitress calling Kevin’s work amazing. For starters, I kinda doubt that that in our modern day society and work environment her acting like that in front of a customer, even if the customer does not mind, would fly with her employer. After all, professionalism and all that. Next, her praise feels shallow. The typical cardboard speech praise checkmark lines you can give to any piece of work, that don’t really mean anything if you do not elaborate on what it really is you find amazing about the characters in terms of personality or what it is about the story that hits home (e.g. can you realte to the characters, are you genuinely thinking the story is funny etc)

In fact, what even is Kevin’s comic?

 I get that his work is not the center stage of this story, but think about it: we are supposed to think that Kevin is talented and that he needs his lucky break. But would his work even justify success and admiration? All we know is that the comic features a character called Kat (not really an original name) who for a lack of a better word and based on the sketch outline may just be the bastard offspring of Bubsy and Talus from Alex ze Pirate. And that is it. For all I know, and taking for shit and giggles a made up meta narrative into account, his work may actually be on the same level as Alex ze Pirate itself. And if that is the case, let me just fill out an application as janitor for Kevin right now. If he is lucky he can make around 1000 dollars a month soon.

 This right here is actually a prime example of a common problem in Dobson’s longer story: Him breaking the old rule of “show, don’t tell”. The narrative tells us e.g. via the words of the waitress and the fact he has fans, that Kevin is a good cartoonist. But we do not see it for ourselves. And I am not suggesting here Dobson should draw 20 additional pages of Kevin’s creations and comics, because that would be freaking overkill. But imagine if this comic started off with the first page being part of a a very fantastic fight scene or story. Something rich in color and characters. Only for it to be revealed in the next page to be actually NOT the story we are supposed to read, but something Kevin creates right now. By doing so Dobson could not only show for the actual main story that Kevin is justified in having success, Dobson could have also shown for himself how he can be imaginative. How he can toy with tropes and expectations, while also creating something “new” out of nowhere just for fun. But that is not what we got. And all we have now are four more pages.

 Again, ONE MORE WEEK passed and he still did not get a job. And in fact, he is also overdue on his rent and wants to ask his mother AGAIN for money.

Dude… I am all out of sympathy. Sell your freaking kidney for all I care, offer your landlord oral sex or that you are going to do work around the house for him, just try to do something except beg mother to help you out again. Especially as she has already send you 500 dollar. What have you done with that money anyway? Did most of it get spend on your electric bill? If so, how huge was it? And did you fail to pay rent for a couple of months now that even your landlord is having enough? I ask the later in part because I genuinely do not know how fast a landlord can vacate you in the US. See, where I live you can get vacated too when you don’t pay up, but most landlords are by law forced to at least let you stay for a few more weeks till you either find a way to pay up or another place to live. Forceful removal of a tenant can mostly only happen if the person causes severe damage to the apartment or is facing criminal charges.

 So NOW you are looking for a job. Good luck getting 700 dollars in three days though. I can’t imagine that even if you get hired, that anyone will pay up that amount of money upfront to help you. Again, do you have no other options, Kevin? Also, for how long was that sign up there? How often have you gone by that diner? Also dear lord, the waitress really is not the smartest if she thinks being a webcomic artist pays all the bills

 So if the manager has already found someone, even if it was “just” now, why was the “now hiring” sign even still in the window? And he assumes there are even more bills? Kevin… do you have a genuine problem when it comes to handling finances? Would you do better, if you only get an allowance? Just one more page. And with it my biggest complains

And so our comic ends with all the build up of how down on his luck Kevin is, being essentially pointless, because at the end of the day he is still lucky and all his problems get resolved not by his own doing but by deus ex machina.

Okay, this is not entirely accurate.

After all, Kevin DID create this comic. He wrote it, he drew it, he send the script to multiple publishers, he got rejected multiple times and now he is also going to finally get recognition for it all. You can say he worked to get his foot into the industry. The problem is, that none of that work is really shown in the story presented to us. We do not see him work on the script, potentially rewrite or fix up mistakes, get the impression that even with the bad situation he is in, he still wants at the very least this passion project to succeed. All we know is he worked on something and now because it is convenient for the story, his misfortune is going to end and he gets a happy end that is way too convenient for my taste.

Look, I know nothing about how publishers work. If someone reads this and has genuine experience in how publishers approach you if they are interested in your work and how much money you can really make through it, you are free to tell me what you know or have experienced directly or indirectly. Cause frankly, I find it hard to believe that any publisher would immediately do the thing Kevin now experiences here. First off, why would they not attempt to call him or get into a more convenient contact with him than the mail? Second, advanced payment? Shouldn’t you at least try to handle out basic deals before you send him a paycheck over?

I get it is supposed to be a happy end for Kevin here, but honestly, with the way how even if people are getting published, success may not be immediate or not to a degree Dobson actually hopes for. Sorry, but I am also just jaded enough as a person to know that even otherwise acclaimed work does take time to really hit a certain level of popularity. Luke Pearson e.g., wrote and drew the first volume of the comic series Hilda in 2010, just a few months after he finished college. The comic was a success and resulted in him publishing up to four more books till 2016. But only with his comic being adapted into a Netflix series in 2018 did he also get recognition outside of Great Britain, from which he is likely going to make enough money to have a comfortable life for the next couple of years. Mind you, I said comfortable, not “luxurious”. Cause this is actually one thing I fear with Dobson to a degree: That he thinks that being a successful comic creator equals also becoming stinking rich. Cause as far as I know, this is not really the case for many comic creators around the world. But I digress.

This post is not about the potential delusions of Dobson when it comes to how much of a fortune he could make through a successful publication, this post is about judging a SYAC story that got never published.

And frankly, the story of Kevin James… I don’t hate it. Honestly, I think there is potential for a decent, even longer story about a webcomic artist trying to get his big break. The problem is, this is not a story about the challenges Kevin faces in creating his comic. This is not the story about someone being determined to get his work out, even if he struggles in real life. This is not the story of someone facing and dealing with his real life struggles in a mature way, making the happy end all the more feel rightfully earned. This is a story where honestly there would be no drama at all (or at least less drama), if Kevin even attempted to do something halfway logical most other people in real life would do, if they found themselves in his situation (like looking for a job, trying to work commissions etc.) . And a drama where the dramatic event would not happen if some basic logic even a kid can think off would be applied, is at least for me not really a drama.

So yeah, it is not the worst thing by Dobson, but it is very flawed to say the least.

[found--family]

‘Supernatural’ season 15, episode 15 screener secrets: We’re ‘Highway to Heaven’-ing this bitch

[everything is from this Hypable article] 

This week on Supernatural, Amara returns and are angels solving people crimes now? Hypable previewed Supernatural season 15, episode 15 “Gimme Shelter,” so read on to find out more.

After a sweet and fun return to ease us back into the world of Supernatural last week, things are heating up pretty dramatically – I knew there wouldn’t be much more time for messing around.

“Gimme Shelter” sees Supernatural dip its feet into what the Winchesters currently believe is their big plan – eliminating Chuck by also taking down Amara, resulting in what they believe will be a cosmic-being-free balanced world. But first, they have to find her. Sam and Dean get a pretty good lead on her location, which results in a very interesting conversation between Amara and the boys – especially with her most favoritest Dean, of course.

Meanwhile, Castiel is persuaded into taking Jack to investigate a nearby case in Missouri – which all three adults suspect is probably the work of a human criminal – for the sake of humoring Jack and keeping him both busy and supervised. On the way home, they have a very interesting conversation of their own.

Spoiler Warning: This article contains generalized spoilers for Supernatural season 15 episode 15, “Gimme Shelter.” If you do not wish to be spoiled at all, do not read this article in advance of the airdate.

The official synopsis for Supernatural season 15, episode 15 reads:

MATT COHEN DIRECTS — Castiel (Misha Collins) and Jack (Alexander Calvert) work a case involving members of a local church. Meanwhile, Sam (Jared Padalecki) and Dean (Jensen Ackles) go off in search of Amara (guest star Emily Swallow). Matt Cohen directed the episode written by Davy Perez (#1515). Original airdate 10/15/2020.

If you want to know what to expect from this week’s Supernatural, here’s 10 teasers plus 15 single word clues from our advance viewing of Supernatural season 15, episode 15 “Gimme Shelter.”

‘Supernatural’ season 15, [10] episode 15 screener secrets 

1️⃣ During the filming of this episode (27 January – 5 February) Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles both spent much of the week at home with their families in Austin, a detail which was made clear on their and their wives’ public social media accounts – possibly the result of scheduled time off as they’ve mentioned occasionally requesting? The result is that the episode is weighted much more towards Cas, Jack and the murder investigation they’re chasing than towards Sam and Dean, but on the flip side, the Sam and Dean arc is more crucial to the long game of the show, so what it lacks in minutes, it makes up for in impact. 

2️⃣ However, the episode still begins and ends in a grounded family group way, at home in the Bunker – one of those “we know we should be doing this together but there are Reasons we have to split up” situations. This detail, in my opinion, really speaks to the motivation of the creative team towards honoring the four leads as parts of a whole – in earlier days, this kind of episode would have been two entirely non-touching threads. This one is, if not a tapestry, at very least a braid – tied up together at both ends, and intertwined in the middle.

3️⃣ You might have seen pictures or ominous trailer footage of Castiel and Jack digging a hole at the crossroads. We all know what that means! However, don’t worry. They simply want to talk – and the demon they summon has some really interesting – and dare I say positive? – news about the state of Hell under Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Rowena. Let’s just say the demon is actually pretty friendly… and extremely bored.

4️⃣ The two main guest stars on Cas and Jack’s side of the episode are both actors who have been briefly featured on the show before, in a couple of pretty famous episodes – one from season 2 and one from season 5. I don’t think there’s meant to be any meta or Easter Egg element to this, just the usual Vancouver casting industry cycle (see the ‘Weren’t You In Another Episode‘ reference page on the SuperWiki) but one of them is one of those cute “I appeared on Supernatural as a child and now I’m here as an adult” situations, and the other, well… the original character’s very name has become the stuff of Supernatural legend, and if I were in charge of this episode I would have put the actor in a particular piece of footwear and made sure we got a shot of it, just for kicks.

5️⃣ Castiel steps into a prayer circle when the church group members are meant to give a testimony – presumably of their journey so far and their relationship with faith. That’s what Cas chooses to share, at least – in a non-specific, humanized way – and fans of the character will be moved to hear the ways he verbalizes his own growth.

6️⃣ Speaking of growth, some of Dean’s is spelled out for him in the most miraculous way by Amara. After Sam and Dean meet up with her and have a conversation about Chuck that’s ultimately a bit of a non-starter, Dean returns to ask her another, more personal question. Her response gave me legitimate chills. It’s a very weighty mic drop and the combination of the level of impact and the level of clarity (it’s entirely airtight, no room for interpretation) feels like the culmination of all the self-actualization work the show has been doing on Dean in the last four years. (I wish I could tell you Sam got a big special moment like this in the episode, but he doesn’t. Amara’s return was always going to be Dean’s thing.) Amara’s speech to Dean… it doesn’t feel isolated, like the idea of it was invented just for this episode. It feels more like concrete evidence of what the show has been trying to prove for ages. And the funny thing is, Amara is the anti-Chuck, right, and all season, we’ve learned about the version of the story Chuck thinks is good, and we’ve been told to root against that. Chuck’s version of Supernatural isn’t how the writers really feel. But I think Amara’s might be. Dean has obviously struggled to see what she tells him, all in one piece, but here it is – this was the point, laid out on the table, from the entity behind the curtain – both onscreen and off. Amara knew what she was doing, and so did the writers. This was always, always the point.

7️⃣ Even before this massive scene, Amara’s return is just great. Emily Swallow does such an incredible job with this character – she really is the anti-Chuck even without the whole writer comparison. Swallow imbues this character with such an incredible peace and stillness in comparison to Chuck’s histrionics – this was true in the way she spoke and behaved even in season 11, but this Amara also feels kindness and patience and tolerance. She radiates power, even when she’s also slightly goofy. There’s no fight, there’s no antagonism, but the boys in her presence are like little fish in a vast ocean – they quickly realise they have no real control in this conversation. The way that we leave her indicates she’ll be back and has more to say or do, and what she shared during her reunion with Sam and Dean makes me really curious about the role she’s due to play in the show’s endgame.

8️⃣ I’m not very religious but I really like the version of a church group or ‘faith-based community,’ as they say, featured in “Gimme Shelter.” Supernatural has a shaky history in terms of how the show portrays people in-universe who believe. Sometimes they’re treated like a joke, or stupid, or dangerous, or hypocrites, but occasionally civilian acts of faith are shown as great and powerful things, even in a world where we know that what they believe in isn’t strictly accurate. That concept became an even bigger question mark for me when we got the reveal that Judeo-Christian God is not only absent, but our actual villain. However, this was a really nice look at why faith can still be a framework for a good way of life – loving thy neighbor – for some people, no matter the truth about Chuck. The episode also features a callback to writer Davy Perez’ very first Supernatural episode “American Nightmare” in terms of the way that some people have weaponized faith and religion to the detriment and harm of others or even themselves, but this factor does not negate the positive point mentioned above.

9️⃣ Supernatural alum and newly minted director Matt Cohen really got the full old-school Supernatural episode experience when it comes to leaning into the spooky horror element. The murderous case-of-the week featured in this episode is heavy and lingering on the gore and even contains a little bit of a jump scare, so view responsibly.

🔟 So, um, you know that line, in this week’s teaser trailer? The line that a lot of people are freaking out about because it seems to pertain to something important that we know about Cas’ fate that Dean and Sam aren’t aware of? Yeah, it is 100% absolutely not about that at all. It is about something super important, but it’s not that. It’s also the last line of the episode, but trust me – it’s not a cliffhanger and it’s not a red herring and it’s not a twist. The information is gleaned within the episode and you’ll know exactly what Cas is telling Dean about after seeing it – narratively, that’s the reason it isn’t in the episode, because the show clearly assumes you’ll get the picture and can skip a rehash of information. But what you were probably expecting – maybe even hoping for – it’s not that. You’re gonna have to hang on for that one.

Finally, have 15 random yet significant words from this week’s episode without any context whatsoever: Gaia, Ronald, mother, pierogies, cats, philosophy, target, blind, permission, lockdown, Kool-aid, buffet, gift, trial, choice.

‘Supernatural’ airs Thursday at 8/7c on The CW

[rainbowsky]

i read all your 2017 chat meta and i raise you what if in 2017 dd after chatting for a little while with gg said something like "hey we live in the same city, we should meet up" (as friends) and they did go a not-date, but dd went dressed like a punk which at the time gg wasn't much into and was "a slow starter" that did not know how to chat gg in person, so they never met again, and that's why they were so awkward when they met again

Every timeline - every single one - is based entirely on speculation. You might feel that whatever one you subscribe to is more well-substantiated, but that is an illusion. We are all basing our timelines on the same information. We just pull theories together based on what we feel is most believable.

I feel the ‘too scared to contact GG’ theory lacks credibility. It infantalizes DD and frames him as a borderline stalker. This does not reflect the DD I know. That theory also has some holes in it that are explained by the theory they connected on WeChat.

If you don’t believe in my timeline, that’s fine. There are plenty of others out there to choose from. Or you can simply come up with your own. But don’t come at my inbox and be a dick about it. Especially as an Anon.

[orionsangel86]

I was the one with the ask. I want to apologize. I didn't wanna come across as rude. I love your blog. It was an honest question, since I haven't seen any spoilers which indicate that Cas and Dean are gonna make up. Also I have only seen spoilers where they said that the conflicts goes on after ep 9. Last thing was that Jensen didn't mention Cas as a reason for Dean being sad. But I saw ppl saying that Dean is gonna be shedding tears over Cas. I'd like to know if there's any reference material.

Okay so the first thing I need to stress here as in all cases is this: PR is not showrunning. I know I know, we say it all the time. You can’t really rely on small soundbites from the actors taken from interviews and put into clickbait articles usually to satisfy a specific writers agenda depending on the article they are writing. 

The second thing to remember: People are going to hype up and sensationalise things on social media to gain attention, likes, notes, etc. You cannot rely on this information either.

What we actually know:

Misha said this: “Cas will return to the bunker and the boys. He’ll be sort of driven back into collaborating with them because we’re still confronting the big bad, which is God. But that tension between Cas and Dean will play out for some time, and we won’t really have a resolution to that. I think the audience, and frankly Cas, will finally understand what it is that’s upsetting Dean so much in episode 9. So we’re a ways off from that arc feeling like it’s resolved.”

This quote is from this article.

Then at DCCon the other weekend, the last question asked by Mel aka @/mishasdiary on Twitter, was basically to know if Dean and Cas patch things up and Jensen answered this:

“I will say this, there is an answer to your question in the show. It will be in episode 9 which we just finished. Let’s just say that Dean has a moment by himself, where he prays to Cas. That is a bit of a confession on why he feels the way he feels and why he treated Cas the way he treated him.”

You can see the answer here at about 58 minutes in (last question).

In your ask you sent me yesterday, you also referred to another article (link here) written with soundbites from Jensen. I believe you were referring to this:

"I think the state of his brother always worries Dean. That's who he fights for," Jensen Ackles told TV Guide. "When that support, that base strength in his life starts to waver and [he] starts to second guess himself, that will certainly affect Dean in a way of, 'I can't let him go down this road' or 'I need to figure out a way to help him out.' So it'll be a struggle, not against each other, but for each other. Sam is struggling to find a purpose and Dean is struggling to help Sam find purpose."

But this is standard talk from Jensen and it is also correct so I don’t see why anyone would read this and feel threatened about Dean’s relationship with Cas? Come on now, we aren’t like Bronly’s threatened by Cas’s mere presence. This is very true what Jensen is saying because the brothers are toxically codependent. But there is a true bond between them which has been poisoned over time. Yes Dean will be worried about Sam because Dean is always worried about Sam, but Sam is not part of the Dean and Cas break up narrative.

Jensen also had this to say which I thought was interesting:

[about Sam hypothetically dying] "That would have to be a bridge crossed when he came to it," Ackles said. "Right now, and for a long time, Sam's been the reason that Dean keeps fighting. If you take that away from him, then what does he have? Is there a will to keep going? I don't know how that would shape up from Dean's perspective. Maybe he finds something to fight for or maybe he finds somebody to fight with. Maybe he calls it quits."

So this is Jensen contemplating what life would be like for Dean without Sam, and he’s hardly saying “well if Sam died Dean would also want to die” because Jensen most likely knows that isn’t the case anymore. Bobo has been picking apart that particular arc ever since he wrote Red Meat. 

So anyway, brushing off Jensen’s interview aside as nothing even remotely alarming or concerning for DeanCas fans (because we do NOT see Sam as a threat to our ship), lets talk about the prayer. We got Jensen’s spoiler first, and given this was fresh in Jensen’s mind, only shortly after he filmed it, I reckon we can safely assume that what he has told us is at least somewhat accurate (though we cannot of course account for how this may be cut in the editing room).

Episode 9 is Bobo’s episode. Bobo is basically holding the mantle for the DeanCas emotional arc this season (and last season) so I fully expect this to be the next big turning point in Dean and Cas’s relationship. Jensen has confirmed that when Dean is alone, he prays to Cas.

This is already setting a super intimate scene. Dean rarely prays as it is. We haven’t seen him pray to Cas since season 9. The fact that he is alone and not with Sam also confirms the level of intimacy. We can assume that Dean sought privacy for this prayer.

Now, Jensen goes on to say that Dean will explain how he feels and why he treated Cas how he did. This is already sounding like a proper explanation and potentially an apology. We will learn the mystery of why Dean (in Misha’s words) has been acting like such a prick. I never had any doubt that they would eventually explain it. I trust Bobo has planned this all out and knows what he is doing. He likes exploring Dean’s emotional responses - anger comes from fear and worry. Dean is terrified. That is usually why he acts out. Bobo has previously confirmed this and it was even stated in the show itself in Bobo’s episode 14x09 via Kaia. I think that Dean’s treatment of Cas is based on fear. This is why we are so excited (when I say “we” here, I mean me and the general group of wonderful people I scream with daily about this dumb show aka a bunch of meta writers or at least meta literate people). So Jensen has confirmed that we will get a proper explanation of WHY he treated Cas and also HIS FEELINGS on the matter. 

The MOST interesting part of Jensen’s spoiler, is that he called the whole thing a CONFESSION. Dude. The last time Dean confessed to anything was in a church and it almost gave me a heart attack. Since that scene was the closest this show has ever come so far to Dean actually coming out of the fucking closet.

So not only is this an intimate prayer to Cas, an explanation of his bad treatment of Cas and an admittance of his feelings over the whole thing, its also a confession. 

Interesting choice of words Jensen. Confession to what exactly? Because this is starting to feel suspiciously like a very profound moment between our two boys. It’s clearly an important scene. 

Then Misha on top of this, has confirmed that Cas hears the prayer. Which yay for starters, and also think about how he explained the situation:

“But that tension between Cas and Dean will play out for some time, and we won’t really have a resolution to that. I think the audience, and frankly Cas, will finally understand what it is that’s upsetting Dean so much in episode 9. So we’re a ways off from that arc feeling like it’s resolved.”

You have to read this entire paragraph as one: 

The tension will play out for sometime but Cas and the audience will understand what the deal is in episode 9. So we are a way off from that arcs resolution.

When Misha was talking about the resolution being way off, he was talking about the time between now and episode 9. He confirms that it is at least somewhat resolved in episode 9. That’s what I interpret as being implied here anyway. 

This plus Jensen’s entire answer was to the question “when will Dean and Cas patch things up?” Jensen answered “episode 9″.

Like??? How are people misunderstanding this and blowing it so far out of proportion? Bitter people are so desperate to cling to their negativity that they are totally misinterpreting the information they are being given. It’s extremely frustrating.

Anyway, the one other gripe you had was about Dean’s prayer being about Sam or because he is worried about Sam. Okay except that has come out of absolutely nowhere other than bitters who are actually threatened by Sam which I find utterly ridiculous. So what if the prayer is triggered by Sam? Maybe Sam is in a perilous situation and Dean doesn’t know what to do so he prays. I mean, is that really so bad? Dean usually IS motivated by Sam, so it’s not exactly a huge deal. The main thing to focus on here is that the prayer will be about Dean and Cas and THEIR issues. It will resolve THAT ARC. The arc that doesn’t involve Sam. 

Honestly, I don’t think that Dean’s prayer will be triggered by Sam though. Because Sam has never been part of this particular arc that Bobo has been writing. I mean maybe its possible that the whole thing could be triggered by Sam yelling at Dean to sort out his shit with Cas because they are stronger together and Sam is fed up of being stuck in the middle in which case GREAT because I would LOVE to see more exasperated Sam telling his brother to talk to his estranged husband. 12x10 is one of my all time favourite episodes BECAUSE OF SAM.

But again, I don’t think that an intimate private prayer confession from Dean to Cas will have anything to do with Sam because quite frankly, I can’t see how to fit him in a way that makes sense outside of my own 12x10 repeat above. 

So please, stop panicking over things we don’t know. Stop making negative assumptions. Focus on the good stuff and enjoy what the show is giving us right now. I’m still riding the DeanCas break up scene high because that shit was romantic AF and no one can tell me otherwise. I’m still amazed that in this shows final season Dean and Cas’s emotional arc is getting pushed into the A plot. In all the years of watching this show this has only ever been the case once before and that was in 13x01-13x06. This is a huge deal. Enjoy it and stop letting negative Nancy’s drag you down.

[liquidstar]

if you can, can you tell us more about your next gen? i'm interested in them and i want to know more

Oh I would LOVE to anon :0

So far the general story obviously revolves around the next generation of characters with the main original cast playing a background supportive role, but I also feel like I could get pretty meta with that concept too. The entire main theme of the original story was the whole concept of “heirship” I’ve talked about before, the idea that people will always grow up with expectations to live up to (especially in regards to their parents/guardians), and in a story that’s literally a nextgen it’s SUCH a fitting topic to delve deeper into with a different spin on it.

Part of the story will be about taking away that heirship, about what happens when that expectation and in some cases ambition is removed entirely, but you can’t exactly forget about it either. It’s happening on a literal level with Amary and Rue getting rid of the ultimately harmful system that represented it (A hereditary monarchy, obvious metaphor there), and of course the thematic level where the characters may feel like their purpose has become void, and on a meta level because its a sequel story, it’s literally the heir to the original trying to stand on its own.

But that’s not really the main focus of the plot, actually another thing added to the story to make it stand apart from the original, something I added to make it seem like it actually IS a new generation and time has passed is that now they have this cool new thing called the internet, you may have heard of it. Things like texting and cell phones were a thing in the original but there was no such thing as a word wide web, and with it’s development obviously that means a lot of different ramifications for the world that can be explored (H.A. has Zoom meetings now I guess lmao).

The main one though is the concept of internet cult-mentality, on a literal level. The main antagonists for the original story actually were a basically cult, so having splintered followers of it on the internet once it gets developed is a pretty natural progression, including those who’d maybe want revenge (And choose to take it out on the original cast’s children). There’s a pretty blatant moral in there about being critical of groups like this on the internet as well as being careful on an individual level because (especially if you’re young) you could be groomed or conditioned into all kinds of dangerous situations or even beliefs.

The antagonists themselves though are different from the previous ones, they’re actually friends for starters and they’re generally a bit more… gimmicky so far, even a bit goofier, but the threat they possess isn’t any lesser nor are the gravity of their actions. There’s a lot of stuff I’m still figuring out about how I want the plot for this to go so I’m sure I’ll flesh them out more over time. I wanted to have a bit of fun with it though so I figured in the absence of the character who’s a stand-in for the devil, why not base these bitches off of the deadly sins? Including the two Pope Gregory got rid of just to add something different to it.

It’s not their entire character but their powers and/or personalities will reflect them in some way, it may be a bit more subtle than some other stuff though. Like I’m not going full FMA with this and just naming them what they’re based on, nor is it ever really explicitly stated either, but if it’s pointed out people will for sure notice. I also intend to have a character in the main cast (including the upperclassmen) rival one of the antagonists each that may possess the same flaw, and when they beat them it means they overcame it. IMPORTANT NOTE: I still intend to keep the story PG so the sin of lust isn’t depicted as sexual but rather as “obsessive love”, that’s right the new sin is yanderecore.

So that’s the general idea for the story as of right now, like I said a lot of things are still developing and some may change down the line! But this is still just an outline of ideas so If you have more specific questions or want me to elaborate on something or talk about a specific character PLEASE feel free to ask!! I love answering stuff like this, and I’d love to talk about it more but I feel I’ve rambled enough :p thanks anon

[codematurgy]

you could definitely say that what follows next is a quarentine diary of sorts, but i’m writing it up here because it relates to theme making in some ways; additionally, i just want to write something positive in the middle of this!

stay safe, of course - if your finantial conditions, likely because of the government of your country and/or your employer being criminals, aren’t good enough for you to stop working, i can’t say i’m exactly praying for you because i don’t have that practice, but i do hope you’ll be fine. this moment shows us how capitalists are willing to treat the working class. mandatory class struggle aside:

for starters shout out to tumblr because i love the new dashboard ok. i’m using the cybernetic palette and i really wish it was available on the app too. of course, my love of it isn’t related to the colors alone - i always thought the dashboard looked a bit messy in structure, so building it again from zero was a fantastic decision. love that i can see the words for image or avatar while the images are loading as well; they really took care of accessibility here, which was already an ongoing process with stuff like page order or focus, etc.

i just wanted to write that shoutout because i’ve seen a lot of people complain about it - mostly because xkit stopped working - while ignoring that the folks at xkit did explain how they’re helping the tumblr developers directly, and in turn their work at rewriting xkit would be even smoother. i don’t think people actually give tumblr developers credit where is due, and i’ve been fascinated with their work ever since i found out about official blogs such as @javascript or @engineering. it also clarified a few problems i’ve had when dealing with the mechanics of reblogs, even if some bits of it still drive me nuts! in a sense, thinking about theme making for tumblr has become more gratifying when you get to understand just what you’re doing. anyway, moving on.

i haven’t really done a lot of “theme making” for the past weeks - i did do a bunch of bug fixes to the npf photosets plugin, but nothing related to designing or creating and so on. it doesn’t mean that creating was completely lost to me, though i did channel it to something entirely different: movie reviews.

yeah. that sounds pretentious, i know.

i’m not a big fan of cash grab movies(read: pretty much most of recent disney work, and anything that feels similarly souless), but i never found the strength to watch the ones that are new and more popular around here; namely, stuff from a24. which is not to say those are bad! i’ve watched my share and they are really good - i’m absolutely enamored with the vvitch, for example. however, i’ve realized that i want to discover new worlds, and not all of them too serious neither constantly bombarding my tumblr dashboard or twitter timeline. people have been doing movies for such a long time and i keep wondering, how many incredible gems i’m missing on solely because i can’t be bothered to look back?

thanks to that, i’m watching movies i never thought i would watch. and more importantly, i’m writing about them - about the things that make them this single, incredible work. much like being in a show’s fandom, i guess, and writing such long metas on it, except i get to write shorter essays because i’m not getting an entire season, ahaha. i had never watched an art film up until now, i think, and although it wasn’t my favorite format from this first experience, it was nice and i’m actually willing to try it again.

one great takeaway from this experience, besides how awesome film-making is, relates to my creations here. a fascinating thing about movies is when their envisioners work to have this coherent, complete piece of work filled with all it needs to be solid, instead of letting these loose threads. this is not in a plot sense strictly, but for so many aspects like choosing to add something to costume, set, or prop design; the choice of a weird but so incredibly telling original score; a photography that goes beyond having a pretty centralized shot and adds weight to every shot... wow, that stuff is unreal, and it is so full of purpose!

this feeling of completeness is one i think i have been working on gradually, but still could do better. i have this terrible process in which i barely have a full sketch for a theme - i just think that i want this one thing and build the whole theme around that detail live on the code instead of actually planning it. i believe that, likely because of this, it feels like my themes are just this tiny design in the middle of a blank website. Chamamento, SETE and Ágora feel like outliers in that sense, even though the process was still chaotic, solely because at one point i actually sat myself down and i said “i want this”.

hopefully, i can take this knowledge with me on the next themes coming around! i don’t know when they will come, but i do have an idea for post styling and another one for a “complete” layout - i’ll try not to merge those in my weird process so it’s not too much information, though. there’s one theme in the works for a while too, which is based on the one i mentioned working on as i first mentioned Temporal, but it’s been reworked into an entirely different beast which i’m quite happy with; mostly because there is no pixel based post size! in fact, i’m considering not having typical post sizes for all next themes, choosing a more typical blog approach. it sounds weird but so far it looks really cool, although probably not as much if you’re doing graphics with set sizes... well, graphic makers were never my demographic to begin with.

and well, on an entirely different note: i keep forgetting that when you have a theme uploaded to tumblr, you can check active installs. actually seeing people using your themes, when before the only way you could see it was by hoping whoever reblogged or liked it had in fact installed it, is so exciting!!! it actually confirms that the people using my themes, or at least using Temporal, are often just your average blogger sharing memes, fanart and talking about the latest podcast - you know the one. it’s a pleasure to be making themes for y’all!

[cantfoolajoker]

s.e.e.s. as dnd classes

after my last post on the thieves, i have now returned to talk more about using dnd classes and subclasses as character study opportunities with the focus now being on sees (plus hamuko bc she counts)

since the post is lengthy, its going under the read more

so, for starters, minato/makoto is a shadow magic sorcerer. sorcerers are based on the idea that rather than learned arcana or given magic, you inherently have it inside you and can produce said affects with your sheer force of will, or your charisma. shadow magic sorcerers are linked specifically to the shadowfell, which is the negative energy to the feywilds positive energy, and sorcerers uniquely display quirks depending on their lineage; two i’d propose for minato/makoto would be “when you asleep, you don’t appear to breathe (but you still do to survive)” and “always cold to the touch”, since they seem the most fitting in my opinion for him. they get things such as strength of the grave, which says that on a successful saving throw on an otherwise fatal hit, you’ll drop to just 1 hp due to your constant state of being between life and death, and you also get the umbral form at 18th level, which allows you to change your form to a shadowy state that is resistant to all damage except for force and radiant that also allows you to move through other objects or creatures (man does that remind you of a certain battle a bit). 

in comparison, minako/hamuko is a totem barbarian in my full honest opinion. the reason i say this is because one of her defining traits is her hot headedness and impulsiveness to jump into situations, making her a prime candidate for barbarian due to their rage state and ability to tank hits. they get martial weapons, allowing her to pick up some weapon similar enough to a naginata, and the main aspect of the class is the ability to pick a totem spirit, which provides buffs depending on which animal you pick for your totem. personally, i throw my vote in for the wolf totem because it functions as a leader with the ability to land advantage melee hits on any creature hostile to you, the ability to track certain enemies and move at a stealthier natural pace, and the ability to just knock a large or smaller enemy prone when you hit them with a melee attack, all of which benefits minako/hamuko very nicely and lines up with her fighting style in both p3p and pq2.

alright so i know yukari uses a bow and arrows, and i know ranger exists, but also rangers are kinda bad in dnd overall and also yukari isn’t really a scout in any way. luckily dnd has an answer to this in the form of arcane archer fighter. arcane archers fuse magic into their archery methods in order to protect and deliver damage, mixing both yukari’s magic usage with her weapon of choice. they get the ability to literally redirect their arrows once shot to new targets and second wind, which lets them regain hp as a bonus action once per short or long rest. arcane archers essentially get an arrow type for like every school of magic, which makes up for the fact this would mean yukari has lost most of her healing spells since arcane archer fighters focus on dps more than they do support, though its not like ranger wouldve made up for that anyway.

so since junpei wants to be the leader so badly, i decided a champion fighter was gonna be the best bet for him, both because in a meta sense it is usually the First Pick newcomers do due to its simplicity of hit and hit more, but also because the class focuses on dps and raw physical power pushed to perfection, which junpei does end up getting when he learns to use a bat rather than a sword with the way he swings. this class and subclass is super straightforward: you get More damage to do the more you try to hit, and you get a higher chance of critical hits along with a more flexible fighting style and the ability to regain hit points with the survivor feat. they also get remarkable athlete, which lets them use half their proficiency bonus for any checks made while using one of their physical stats (so strength, dexterity, and constitution, all of which junpei def has) to have a greater chance at passing said checks.

akihiko's a monk. i literally don’t know what anyone expected. he’s a way of the open hand monk. open hand monks generally focus on debuffing enemies, which is akihiko’s staple in the party next to his all around good stats, which monks possess too in form of natural armor, increased movement speed, and having a hit die for throwing punches rather than dishing out 1 point of damage per hit, which increases as they get stronger. they can also heal themselves which akihiko has with his dia and diarama spells, but that isn’t the focus of it as much as it’s just a neat add on. overall, the guy’s a boxer and needs to dish out punches and monk does literally exactly that.

so i made a joke with a friend about how mitsuru keeps using marin karin because the ai of p3 is bad, and that led into the idea that mitsuru is a college of swords bard. while bards can be very stereotypically flirty, it’s just based on the fact their casting stat is charisma, so really any charismatic character can be a bard, which mitsuru does have with her formal way of speaking and her way of holding herself to establish authority. swords bard use, if you couldn’t guess, swords to fight, typically finesse weapons that they use dex for to fight, which with mitsuru’s weapon being a rapier, an actual finesse weapon in dnd, it’s an elegant weapon pick for an elegant class. they also get jack of all trades so they’re good at pretty much everything, which reflects the sort of type of person mitsuru reflects herself to be, and as a big joke, they get countercharm which allows them to perform and their allies get advantage when someone attempts to charm them. yeah. anyway mitsuru’s a bard. next.

for fuuka, i took more inspiration from her persona and how it encloses around her while she does her work to come up with an abjuration wizard. the school of abjuration specializes in protection and banishment spells, with outsiders believing it to be a specialization in denial and negation but truly being about ending harm and protecting the weak, which represent fuuka’s character and her bullying arc well. this class is mostly just what it says on the tin; they specialize in closing portals and rifts to other worlds, performing exorcisms, and securing locations that are too important to allowed equally magical wandering eyes and ears from engaging with. it’s also a high intelligence based class, which fits fuuka well. since she’s also a wizard, which gets virtually no hp and also no armor, so she needs to be protected, which everyone should want to protect her lmao.

aigis, for one, is a warforged in terms of races in dnd since they’re the robot race that only act on the goal they are given, But that’s just a side point to the main point of classes, which way of the kensei monk is definitely her. kensei monks train so extensively with their weapons that they become an extension of themselves, with aigis’s without a doubt being firearms due to her robotic nature already making them a literal extension of herself. they’re speedy and precise, both of which fit aigis and her programming to be the best combat unit, as kensei focus almost exclusively on dps output and the ability to just deal as much damage in one hit. unerring accuracy is also a feat kensei monks get, which allows them to reroll any attack they miss and again, really hones in on the combat robot thing aigis has going on.

now i know some of you probably went ‘are they gonna class assign koromaru’ and let me tell you i’m not going to cause 1 you wouldn’t be able to play him anyway in the theoretical sense, but also he’s usually seen as a companion to either ken or shinjiro, so he fits more as a companion animal that you see some classes get like rangers or druids. usually these animals survive as long as their owners lifespan and get extra health and sometimes magic so koromaru is a-okay in fighting still.

now for someone who i’m very excited to talk about: ken. being hellbent on revenge is actually a class in dnd! it’s called the vengeance paladin, which is a paladin whose oath revolves around singlehandedly bringing “evildoers” to justice, though what this justice is would be defined by the individual paladin’s definition of morality and their own vendetta. even in their basic description, oath of vengeance defines anyone who takes it as someone who sees their purity not being as important as the concept of delivering justice where justice is due, which fits not only ken’s theme as the justice arcana, but overall his entire relationship with shinjiro (which. oh boy paladin shinjiro and paladin ken parallels?). paladins get martial weapons which means ken gets his lance he uses, and on their spell list they get hunter’s mark, letting them mark targets to deal more damage. one another thing i want to bring attention to is their 7th level class feature, relentless avenger, which essentially makes it so any enemy that provokes an attack of opportunity can’t truly escape because the vengeance paladin can immediately take half their movement speed to follow after said enemy as apart of their reaction, which i think pretty easily describes the october 4th scene if you know what i mean.

and finally i’m saving the best for last cause i wanna talk about shinjiro. picture this: shinjiro’s a big tanky knight meant to service the people and protect them but a stray spell one day kills an innocent woman and suddenly he’s failed the one thing he swore his life to. giving up his oath, shinjiro turns into an oathbreaker paladin, a paladin who in someway shape or form has broken their sacred oath and now walks a darker path. now oathbreakers, while being stereotypically written as “evil”, don’t have to be evil themselves; being an oathbreaker pretty much is what it says on the tin, with them having failed to fulfill their oath’s rules in some way shape or form. breaking his own moral code and also abandoning his affiliation with sees pretty much solidifies shinjiro as an oathbreaker with him not necessarily being a bad person cause we all know he’s not. oathbreakers get things such as channel divinity: dreadful aspect, which lets them channel their anger into an intense magical intimidation, and paladins themselves are the only class to get the find steed spell, which fits castor’s horse riding-ness. they also get martial weapons and heavy armor, making shinjiro a big tank with an even bigger axe just like he likes to be. as a bonus thing, shinjiro Definitely has the tavern brawler feat (which gives unarmed strikes a hit die rather than a flat 1 damage) so he can wrestle with akihiko

BONUS: chidori’s a life cleric. her entire fountain of life or whatever the thing her persona does right next to her white gothic lolita aesthetic fit her as a life cleric. Or she could be a grave cleric with an atypical aesthetic, but then again, theres been pastel goth grave clerics before too.

BONUS x2: my friend and i had 2 ideas for ryoji while throwing ideas for this whole list around: death cleric, which is yknow, pretty straight forward..... OR deathlock great old one. deathlocks are specifically enemy warlocks that have been brought back from the dead by their patron because they believe that the warlocks job hasnt been done yet, and well, nyx i think counts as a great old one patron.