#main cast; the jokes; and the structure of the lore.

[cerberling]

i don't wanna respond to the post i saw calling homestuck a good story about stories because they clearly enjoy it and it'd be rude to rip it to pieces on their post, but man, no.

it's a bad story from a storytelling perspective. it's not redeemed into a good 'story about stories' simply because of a metanarrative or themes about media / the type of media it is.

'the characters are meant to be real people, you need to view them through the lens of real people'. no, it's a story, at a base level they're characters. applying standard character analysis is appropriate because this isn't real life, and it is a story. if the end of the character's participation in the story is badly written/plotted out, this will predictably sour the reader's experience of the character, and will make the story worse. there are exceptions to this for specificially-nuanced media, but homestuck is not one of those exceptions.

homestuck is a story written by an author that hates it, who throws away whatever they want without care when they get bored of it or when it inconveniences their plot. Hussie just gives up on so many concepts. Terezi might as well have no denizen. Nepeta's planet is a throw-away joke because it makes a funny acronym, and has no further significance. there's character death, but then that's gotten rid of too many interesting characters so now they're brought back into the story, and we need to introduce double-death to have some semblance of stakes for them. we can't have Vriska actually die, no she needs to survive the black hole which has been (albeit only briefly) built up as the ultimate death, so that we can keep her around.

like come on. tell me how Equius lost his horn without giving a 'ooh it could be anything' copout. (not to shit on pesterquest but c'mon. even if they hadn't sat on the fence, answering after the story is a major copout. that's JKR levels of bad exposition. same for canonising June Egbert over a fucking toblerone.) tell me what Mituna's great sacrifice was. look me in the eyes and tell me Hussie didn't throw away all possible importance of the 10 unimportant alpha trolls to take a dig at tumblr.

what about the plot of the ending itself? what happened to the curse of immortality that HIC had? how was muse!Calliope's magic meant to work? did Hussie just want to finish his story, with no regard for cohesion or closure?

how do you excuse the literal retcon? this (amongst other things) is atrocious storytelling, it doesn't get a pass because of homestuck's special media format or its metanarrative. the worldbuilding gaps don't get a pass because of the interesting structure of the lore.

in my opinion, homestuck is alright and has a bad overall story, but as a bad 'story about stories', it is a good cautionary tale of why authors should make sure not to introduce core concepts that they'll get bored of later.

[siblingshuffle]

Rockrtober Day 3: Virus

TW: graphic imagery (kinda…? Like allegorical blood.)

I would’ve kept this one’s scene as a script but I feel like it loses its impact without anything to make it into a story.

“Yeah!!” Bass cheered, spinning in his chair as Piano cleared the final obstacles in the stage. Refocusing, he kicked up his feet on the desk and announced, “You’re in the clear! Now, your next opponent is right up ahea—"

Bass’s ventilation backfired directly into the mic, which he quickly muted. When he finally managed to stop, he groaned, optics unfocused as he deactivated Screen Share.

-…Bass?- Piano’s monotonous voice almost sounded concerned over the comms. -Are you operational?-

But Bass didn’t answer. If he were human, he undoubtably would’ve gone pale at the sight of his hand. How had his ventilation backfired with enough force to rupture a fuel line?

-…I am returning to Light Labs if I do not receive an answer within seven seconds.-

That snapped Bass out of it. Immediately, he scrambled to unmute himself. “Uh, nothing to worry about, Pi! Just… that Proto-Dweeb wandered over to the computer. Don’t worry about it!”

The Wily twins didn’t have the Light twins’ ability to sense one another’s emotions, but Bass could’ve sworn he felt Piano’s doubt. He held his breath, waiting for her to say something.

-…You are…certain that you are unharmed?-

Bass released the breath he’d been holding. “I’m fine, idiot. Go kick ***! I’ll keep the First Draft away from the computer.”

-Understood.-

—————

LORE: Ive had a cold since Oct 1 so this is fitting lol. Anyway, during the Roboenza outbreak, the main cast of robotic protagonists ends up dropping like flies. You know, for dramatic tension and stuff. So, here’s the order in which characters fall ill.

Tempo. She got the virus first out of everyone in the main cast. Blues stopped by to see if she could hang out, only for Dr. LaLinde to reveal that she had a virus. Despite this, Blues still wanted to hang out (they both thought it was more like a computer virus than an illness, and joked about how she would make sure not to send him any downloadable content). Her symptoms worsened throughout the visit and into the next few days.

Blues. At first, he mistook his Roboenza symptoms for core-problems symptoms. He woke up feeling more tired than usual, but he doesn’t get a consistent flow of energy usually. He probably just didn’t charge well… Then, he starts feeling all warm. Oh well, maybe he’s doing a little too much & that’s why he’s overheating. But then his vision gets all grainy, and his sunglasses won’t help. Maybe he’s just malfunctioning…? Finally he ended up telling Dr. Light that he wasn’t feeling too good, at which point he collapsed and kicked off the start of the game.

Bass. This one takes place in the early-to-mid-game time period. After Wily ran off to Light Labs, Bass took over Mission Control there and Piano joined Roll and Rock in their objective. When Bass started showing symptoms, he insisted on just handling them himself… That is, until he overheated and was pulled away from the console.

Roll. This follows the same general structure as her sacrifice in the original. She gets sick while at Light Labs, and Blues (a little less lucid) gives the prototype medicine to her. (Bonus: I’m thinking he says a line about it being “his turn to make a sacrifice for her”).

Rock. While he and Roll infiltrate Wily’s castle, he collapses. Roll ends up half-carrying her twin until she can find a good spot to set him down. There’s no more medicine, so Rock is sent to Light Labs to rest. He shows up at the final battle anyway to block Wily’s escape route

Piano. Piano gets sick while infiltrating the castle from the other side. However, she’s built pretty sturdy and it feeds her ego a bit when she ends up fighting pretty well even with her symptoms.

And Rhythm might not even get sick lol

I kinda imagine Dr. LaLinde hearing about Blues getting sick after hanging out with Tempo all day & being like “Rhythm, I’m sorry, I need to keep you out of proximity with your sister”

[maxwell-grant]

Hello! While speaking with my friend about a concept for a silly little vampire story a question naturally arose; "Why do vampires, of all monsters, lend themselves so well towards humor?"

Hope you have a wonderfully spooky October!

Well hope you have a wonderful October as well!

Honestly I think all monsters lend themselves to humor in ways that haven't been fully tapped into, but I think vampires have that extra edge mainly because the main things that define them (needs to feed on others for sustenance, can't go out in the sunlight, immortal but can be killed in specific ways) are Rules. Rules and structure and consistency are things that you need to build a set-up, because you can't have a punchline without a set-up. Other monsters are more loosely defined, or have only a couple of rules that can usually be ignored, but you can't ignore the basic specifics of vampirism the same way. You can have a werewolf who doesn't turn on a full moon or due to weird birth circumstances related to the number 7, but you need to address the feeding aspect, or you don't have a vampire.

And the counterpoint to that is that vampires, while obviously they have aesthetic signifiers and tropes and Dracula-isms that people go to in defining them, are nowhere near as bound to their aesthetic traits as other kinds of monsters, so you can make anything and everything a vampire so long as you establish that parasitic aspect and the rules. If want to make your characters specific kinds of monsters you generally have to include the aesthetic signifiers that define them: Frankensteins generally need to be some kind of stitched-up corpse and/or giant, mummies need to have the wrappings or the lore, zombies need to cadaverous undead, werewolves need to be some kind of horrible animal (not necessarilly a wolf - Brazilian werewolves are commonly said to be more akin to pigs and boars, for example), but vampires?

If it's a parasitic monster that needs to feed on something otherwise it dies, and that something isn't just regular food, pretty much anything you do with them is fair game. The more out there you go with it, usually the better.

And because they're among the most popular unambiguous kind of monster (skeletons, witches, ghosts and aliens are there still but all sorta morphed into their own things overtime, vampires you still find at the forefront of every Halloween pack), everyone is familiar with what those rules are on the baseline, which means you have a much, much easier time doing jokes about the specifics of vampires than with any other kind of monster, and so it becomes more necessary to focus on specifics of the vampire's personality to make them stand out. Generally speaking, a Frankenstein is a type of character, a werewolf is half of a character when not in frenzied bloodlust, a ghost can be one or several characters, a zombie used to be a character, but a vampire needs to be a character, if you're not doing a Dracula pastiche (and even then) you can't bank on the shorthand as easily. It's a very competitive field.

Everybody knows the specifics of how vampires work, and so you get to play them straight or subvert them for comedy, and even make up new kinds of vampires out of twisting the premise around. A lot of what makes Colin Robinson from What We Do In The Shadows so funny is that, placed opposite a cast of fairly traditional vampires as somehow the most mundane personality as well as the weirdest freak among them, they can and do just constantly make up new shit about the way his existence and powers and biology works and get away with it, and constantly set you up for surprises more so than with the others. And they even still kinda do that for the others. All vampire media needs to place it's characters across a spectrum of possibilities.

Doesn't show up in mirrors, can't cross running water, needs to be invited into places, needs to stop and count marbles, needs to sleep in coffins, needs ancestral soil within said coffins to sleep in, etc. Needs to feed their blood to victims to reproduce, or actually doesn't need to do that. Can go centuries without a sip, or needs to kill a person every day to not die, or can just feed on cattle / the color red / other fluids. Can walk in the sun but weakened, can walk in the sun unbothered, can walk in the sun with careful skincare routines made from human sweat, instantly desintegrates if they play the desert level in a videogame, and so on.

Once you get past the baseline, you actually can get a lot more out of just piling up both weird new powers you never have to explain, as well as bullshit rules and specifics atop each other, because that's just how Vampire Lore works, and naturally each and everyone of those can be squeezed for comedy as well as horror. It's that old adage about how horror is comedy without the punchline and both need a dramatic investment into the set-up of how it works, before it can be torn down dramatically or comedically.

To be clear, I think this is something you can and should do more or less with all kinds of monster characters, but the thing is that, most of the others you do need you to go the extra mile and define them, what defines them, what if any are the rules and standards and limitations they live with. With ghosts and mummies and bugbears you do need to tug a bit at the concept and ask questions and walk your audience through some of those questions to get somewhere more than surface/aesthetic-based gags with them, where as with vampires, you can kinda skip a lot of that and just get to work pulling comedy out of the basic set-up and then subverting that.

Because yes, vampires live by codes and structures and rules, but there's also nothing we like more than telling those to get stuffed so we can do whatever we want. You need something to rebel against in order to rebel at all.

[oasis-nadrama]

The Cerulean Motley Crew / Alabaster crossover: a conclusion

Here we are! The end of an era, and the beginning of a new one. The largest crossover in the history of MSPFA, part 1: concluded.

Chever and Govani running away from a Daybreaker in Alabaster

I first came to Phoenix "Cerulean Snake" 25th May 2023 with a simple proposition: "Hey! What if I drew a special cameo with Chever in Alabaster, 20-30 panels maybe?". I admired The Cerulean Motley Crew and was very interested to honour Phoenix's work in this special way. As two neurodivergent nonbinary people with progressive sensibilities, a love for dick jokes, and a quest for passion in art, we got along fabulously, and the plan quickly developed into something more ambitious.

Pearl-Eye and the Naturalist Shaduenna hunting Apocalizards in The Cerulean Motley Crew

We finally set on a TRIPLE CROSSOVER. There would be a full set of scenes featuring Chever and Govani in Alabaster, drawn by me, as well as two shorter sets of scenes featuring Sectra and other members of the Alabaster cast in The Cerulean Motley Crew and its scifi Victorian horror sequel, drawn by Phoenix. Those would not be simple cameos: Phoenix's characters would impact the fate of the Alabaster characters and vice versa, while reverberating important themes of both stories. In terms of worldbuilding, since both Phoenix and me took larger lore consistency seriously, it would also mean our interpretations of the Homestuck universe would merge.

After a lot of discussions, we defined the C.H.A.O.S. setting, a specific, while canon-compliant, way to explore Paradox Space, and more particularly the many ages of the Alternian empire. We talked about xenobiology, technology, culture and time-travel issues. This was huge work.

More important even was to structure the intersecting parts right. We exchanged and revised designs over and over again. Since the TCMC sequel, set at the same time as Hivebent and Alabaster, would focus on special, mutant strains of Rainbow Drinkers, we started working on original ideas for vampires, ending up with the Daybreaker concepts. Phoenix was open to new ideas, and I was uninterested in making classical, Dracula style vampire, I wanted a radical monster design. We worked much on the creature in order to define its various stages of development.

Early research for the Daybreaker

Phoenix's final design for the body of the Daybreaker, final stage

The many transformations of the Daybreaker

Daybreakers on the move in Alabaster

We also worked on environment design, vehicle design, and I produced Guardian sprites for Phoenix's characters, since unlike Vamuin's team, they are middle-aged adults, and destined to assume a protective role for the young woman during the crossover.

The Rotulbuggy, a reconfigurable, all-terrain vehicle fated to go through countless stages of destruction and reparation

The brewery lab in Kandiza City, only glimpsed at in Alabaster, will play an integral role in the action of the TCMC sequel

Chever and Govani appear as Guardian sprites in Sectra's perspective

A fundamental part of the approach was for the crossover to serve the story, rather than for the story to serve the crossover. Both Alabaster and TCMC were to remain autonomous narrations, tales you could follow WITHOUT looking at the other one. There are elements which escape you if you only read one or the other, but nothing vital. We didn't want to force our readers to read each other's story, or for them to be some kind of hollow advertising. You can limit yourself to one of these stories. You will just get A LOT of extra kicks if you read both!

Reference sheet for Hivebent-era Chever and Govani, drawn by Phoenix

Reference sheet for Dolcea, Sectra's Ancestor, drawn by yours truly

As some readers know, I'm a relatively rigid writer. The main structure for Alabaster: The Doomed Session is ready since 2010, and when coming back to the adventure, I had every intent to follow it. That is still the plan. I had to do some calibrations for the detail of scenes and themes, though, and the TCMC crossover fit right in. In fact, the 2011-2013 chapters of Alabaster ALREADY contained a special arc for Sectra, her unseen visit to Kandiza City, which I used as solid ground to anchor the crossover. Sectra DOES come through various trials in Kandiza, and I decided it would be the theater of her initial encounter with Chever and Govani.

You do not see the Kandiza scenes in Alabaster. You merely get a glimpse of it. I set a four-panels flashback in my Chapter 5 as a hook for these sequences, which would then be featured fully in Phoenix's work. The flashback also prepares the field for Chever and Govani's appearance later in the same chapter. And then it was just a matter of writing these scenes in cooperation with Phoenix, and to draw them. For every drawing, every revision of the dialogue, I checked with Phoenix. We kept modifying and refining concepts along the way.

Jujuju's prophecy, an important plot point in Alabaster, a vision appearing in TCMC

Now the Alabaster: The Doomed Session part of the project is concluded. It took next to 5 months, amounting to 165 exclusive panels, but we did it. A page of Sectra's story is turned, and Chever and Govani leave the story in their repaired buggy.

Huge thanks to Phoenix! It's been a blast working with you, my friend. And… it will be a blast again! For if TCMC in Alabaster is done, Alabaster in TCMC is approaching; in fact, Phoenix's work already contains the hook to some crossover elements, again, a flashback announcing future appearances. I can't say more, for it's up to Phoenix to tell this part of the records.

For now, I'll get back to Alabaster proper. Stay tuned, huge scene incoming!

Oasis Nadrama

[justrandomselfships]

So, with your Obey Me! posting, I finally broke down and played the game. It's--confusing but also fun!

BUT

I HATE how the game is trying to purposefully pushing Mammon on me. Like--he's such a dick and I have 0 interest in him. Leviathan is on thin ice (I see him more as a friend). I like Satan as a friend, (never thought I would ever say that lol) and Solomon came on REALLY strong during our text conversations, so hard pass for me.

I would like to get your opinion on this since you've played the game longer than I have.

@askthelovenest

IF WE'RE TALKING ABOUT OBEY ME 1: OKAY SO: first off Mammon simply won't get off you there is a shit ton of moments with him (<- *laughs in good for me bad for you*) but other 6 brothers get quite a lot of screen time too (I'd say that it's like this with time Mammon> Lucifer> Leviathan> Beelzebub> Satan> Asmo> Belphegor) and then the rest of the cast doesn't get like almost any romance until lesson 40/60 in OM1 if I remember it right, ALthOugH Solomon gets some background love from start to finish. So for the other cast I'd say that screentime looks like this Solomon> Simeon> Luke> Diavolo> Barbatos

Second: I thought the same at the beggining of the game, the characters REALLY are the kind that just grow on you overtime (I USED TO BE LEVIATHAN HATER AND HE'S MY PLATONIC F/O NOW FOR EXAMPLE)

Third: post lesson 20 everyone is in love with you, but in game there are like...? maybe 2 moments where you get to CHOOSE who you spend time with. So 90% of the content with a potential F/O is in devilgram (so you need to get lucky and get the cards :/ BUT the Devilgrams are like FAR better than main story when it comes to romantic scenes, heck even platonic scenes are better). So at one point the lessons will just be filled with kiss/reject options and then just have some odd tropes just to drop deep lore bombs. It's a mess really.

I'm not even going to talk a lot about Thirteen, Raphael and Mephisto cuz they are basically a fucking joke of a filler characters imo. Nothing good gets done with them. Thirteen is basically "I hate Beel and Solomon. And I like traps so don't mess with me" 90% of the time she speaks, Mephisto has A LOT of potential but in the end he ends up getting the same treatement as Satan, but worse (and Satan does get poorly treated EVEN THOUGH HIS THEMES ARE SUPER COOL). Only Raphael was used in any way to do something interesting, but it was only interesting cuz it had to do with Simeon and he didn't really do that much.

IF WE'RE TALKING ABOUT OBEY ME 2 (nightbringer):

I still need to motivate myself to even play it, didn't get even past lesson 1. From what I know it's just a hard reset and everything gets repeated. BUT I DON'T KNOW IF THAT'S 100% THE TRUTH SINCE LIKE I SAID I DIDN'T GET PAST LESSON 1.

So basically, Obey me has a shit structure as a dating sim. But I am here more for the characters and the community! This game is very silly post lesson 20. AnD also anime is just full of goofy shit, I think it's very funny but you should play the game a bit more to understand a few jokes in it.

[syncopation53]

@leviaquinn except the Witness does talk to her and does tempt her as it did for Crow and Zavala, we just don’t see anything of it in-game. The armor sets from the raid all mention their reactions to what they see, with the class item having the lore tab of how the Witness seeks to tempt them with its definition of “salvation” (that it can bend and warp endlessly to suit its purpose). There’s nothing shown as of yet to suggest that this lore isn’t about what the Witness shows Crow or Zavala in the campaign. The lines on the Warlock set, Promised Victory, tell us of Ikora in what I assume is her beating Shaxx in the Crucible (“Shaxx is there. Gun in my hand, hot to the touch,” “we win. I win. One more round, just one more round”) and the bond details how the Witness connects that memory to its argument that the final shape is an eternal victory and not the eternal cycle of death and rebirth that Guardians are so used to in service to the Traveler. Ikora even calls her “greatest fear” reliving that moment, and how the Witness basically chastises her for believing the final shape is ���a death sentence” is likely connected to her seeing that snapshot play out through the Witness’ crystalline dioramas and its promises of eternity through showing this memory in particular.

And imo there’s really no reason you could give me about why working our way down to the tree in pursuit of her being broken up by the Witness talking about the final shape as “triumph that does not wane” (that line does go hard I’ll give the Witness that) and Ikora’s rejection of it in turn wouldn’t be more interesting and engaging than just not doing that. I would have loved to see the temptations Ikora has and her reaction to having such placed front and center by the Witness for everyone there to see, or how she could use that to her own advantage, picking apart the Witness’ own words and finding the minuscule holes in its logic in service of her own hypothesis for what the final shape means to it and how we can fight back not just physically, but mentally as well and give the proceeding cutscene more personal weight for us and the one narrating it. I would love to see even just a glimpse into her thought process in that way, doubly so if that means we’d get more insight to her relationship with her Ghost Ophiuchus along the way like we get with literally everyone else, but of course Bungie just hates me and all other Ikora enjoyers specifically. (/s)

This is a jokey-joke shitpost but also me expressing frustration about how the campaign is structured so that Crow mentions Ikora is missing, we find her ship, we find her, we have a cutscene about the final shape, she talks in the after-mission campsite scene, and then we’re moving on to Zavala. I’m frustrated that one of the main characters on the cover image for The Final Shape, one-third of the Vanguard fireteam, who has also been with us since the very beginning like Cayde and Zavala have, feels like she’s being unceremoniously pushed aside to focus on other things in the narrative that’s billed as the grand finale to the saga that began with all three of them and will end with all three of them together again for one last ride. More important things that the writers actually care about. I get splitting focus between multiple characters and their storylines, I get it, some characters are just going to warrant more screentime than others by virtue of having an ensemble cast, but when one of those characters is one you promised to spotlight in the campaign itself and not just a lore card, I can’t help but begin to question your priorities, especially when that character is also a woman of color.

I’m far from the first and I won’t be the last to talk about this problem Destiny’s developed fairly recently of having… difficulties in centering female characters in storylines that could easily be made around them with the sheer amount of women in the cast who all have varied and interesting relationships to other women, or even just storylines that they’re in when there’s some guy for the story to obsess over right beside them instead. I’m not even immune to perpetuating this type of “casual” misogyny myself. But when you’re writing virtually anything with any number of female characters above 0 (and even then you can question yourself on why there are no female characters to begin with), you have to be careful and watch out for pitfalls involving writing them as no more than an obligation to check a Woman in Scene quota or eye candy or companion piece that doesn’t take up too much space lest the male characters have a little bit less focus for a moment. And all of that goes double for any female character who’s also a minority. I’m just one person raised in a society that’s absolutely soaked to the bone in misogyny, racism, and the confluence of both towards Black women in misogynoir, especially in media. Bungie, Inc. is an entire company making a AAA video game that reasonably should 1) know better, and 2) have editors to catch this sort of thing in its infancy and offer ways to restructure or reframe things like the suggestions I offered above to just balance out the scales just a little bit.

It’s not that they are incapable. Vanilla Destiny, The Dark Below, House of Wolves, the Eris parts of The Taken King, Red War, Warmind, post-campaign Forsaken, Season of Arrivals, Beyond Light, Season of the Chosen, Season of the Lost, The Witch Queen, one-third of Season of the Haunted, Season of the Seraph, Season of the Deep, Season of the Witch, and Season of the Wish prove that they, materially, can. A more probable explanation is that they just didn’t care to double-check themselves, no one spoke up about it in the planning stages, and/or higher-ups had a certain expectation for this expansion that had to be met at the cost of ideas from people who really did want to give every Vanguard member appropriate screentime. No one cared enough to question why or how or even if the most prominent female character of color in Destiny was being sidelined to focus on her male counterparts in lieu of deepening our understanding of her character further. No one cared enough to question if just having Ikora be there during the campaign might not be enough to satisfyingly conclude her character at the end of the Light and Darkness Saga. No one cared. Nothing was questioned. And so nothing was done.

And that’s just so frustrating to deal with from our end interacting with the final product.

So no Witness temptation Ikora mission?

[balillee]

why 'there's no lore going on' right now in the dream smp - The Misfits Analogy

Fans of television, especially British television, will probably be familiar with an early 2010's show called Misfits. The show ran for five seasons spanning 2009 to 2013 - while the first two seasons (the first moreso than the second) are regarded more as cult classics, the latter half of the show completely falls in writing and production quality due to one significant change - the cast.

Seasons one and two of Misfits was centred around the original misfits gang - Nathan Young (portrayed by Robert Sheehan), Kelly Bailey (portrayed by Lauren Socha), Simon Bellamy (portrayed by Iwan Rheon), Alisha Daniels (portrayed by Antonia Thomas) and Curtis Donovan (portrayed by Nathan Stewart-Jarrett).

The show was good for two different factors from my perspective -

The intersection of superpowered television and interpersonal conflicts that broke the norm for stereotypes.

How the cast reflected modern British society.

In summary, the show followed a group of five young offenders at a community service centre. Not too interesting - but give them relatability, realism and explore their character development and their existing stereotypes/tropes through the use of superpowers? Genius.

Nathan was most definitely the fan favourite character of the show - he was outgoing, annoying, larger than life in a lot of ways and in all senses, he was a skeevy asshole who would insult characters at every turn. He was very much the class clown of the show and any British viewer could probably see someone they remember from school in Nathan, except Nathan was lovable and you could sympathise with him because you could see him struggling primarily at home and with his family.

Spoilers for the show - Nathan's power was immortality and the ability to resurrect himself from death. This power wasn't explicit immediately either to Nathan or to the audience unlike all of the other young offenders, and it reflected his 'nothing can hurt me ' attitude. Nathan was a character who could take any comment and brush it off like it was nothing, and he in the physical sense could take being thrown off a roof, impaled and practically buried alive and be sitting in his own coffin with his iPod all fine and dandy.

Kelly was also another standout example - her character reflected the stereotype of a chavvy girl, 'council house and violent' - loudmouthed, not very smart, questionable fashion choices and a bit abrasive. The only difference is that the show knew they had to subvert that stereotype - instead, Kelly was smart in her own way and she was empathic -> her superpower was the ability to hear other people's thoughts, and later, she became superintelligent and when her character left the show she decided to move to Uganda use her newfound rocket-scientist level intelligence for good. She was still loudmouthed and definitely chavvy, but she was also a whole human person who cared about other people and who was definitely intelligent.

If I kept going, I'd be lamenting about how season one's cast well reflected and subverted stereotypes and expectations using their superpowers, but I'd be here all day and that's really not the point I'm trying to make.

By the end of season 2, Robert Sheehan, as the standout performance from the show, decides to move on to greener pastures (which,, I don't blame him, being stuck on E4 would have been a nightmare for his career and look where he is now? He's a fan favourite as Klaus in TUA now!) - thus, Nathan is written out of the show in a post- season 2 special in which he gets locked up in prison in America.

This was the first character to get written out of the show.

In season 3, we lose Kelly who moves to Uganda with Seth to defuse landmines, and Simon and Alisha are both killed, and the only remaining member of the original ASBO five is Curtis.

Season 4 rolls around, and we pretty much have an entirely new Misfits cast - Curtis, and then we have Rudy (who had been present since season 3), and then we have new additions Jess, Finn and Abbey.

Let me tell you that by this point in the show, all of the fans had lost interest.

Not only had the two biggest fan favourites, Nathan and Kelly, left the show, but you now have to replace four out of the five original cast members with new ones that don't function the same way the originals did. What type of person is someone with X-ray vision trying to represent? You could argue that maybe Jess is good at figuring people out, but I don't really remember this being explored that much in the show. And the difference between this reflecting a minor personality trait is that the original cast didn't do that - in dumbed down terms, Alisha was a 'sket' who had the power to make people horny for her, oftentimes against her wishes, through skin-to-skin contact. That's much more impactful and there's a lot more to explore there.

Episode 7 of Season 4 of Misfits is the clearest indicator of the departure of the original show's intentions and explains perfectly why it didn't work the way it used to.

For the entirety of the season, Jess had been crushing on a guy called Alex from a bar she frequented (who later went on to replace Curtis as the fifth Misfits member in season 5, go figures) who, as far as we had seen, not at all reciprocated those feelings nor was there any indication of him wanting to.

In episode 7, we figure out why.

Jess, using her x-ray vision, finds out that Alex's penis was stolen by a trans man.

I'll be honest, when I first heard it, I thought it was a joke.

The show went from having a diverse cast, not only in terms of having two black characters in it's main cast, but also in it's diversity of character tropes that they aimed to subvert - to then having a mainly white cast in a show that actively perpetuates harmful stereotypes about trans people being dangerous.

Now, and I want to preface this, I don't think that the Dream SMP is malicious in the same way that the writing of that episode of Misfits is. I don't think the SMP is malicious at all. What I want to highlight is how the change in cast directly mirrored when the audience dropoff was and when the show itself started to go south in terms of quality, production and what they wanted to achieve.

For the sake of my argument, there is currently three seasons of the dream smp. The start of the server up until the end of the initial disc war is the prologue, season one encompasses Wilbur's L'Manberg and the Pogtopia arc, ending on November 16th, season 2 starts November 17th and ends January 20th (the disc war finale) and season 3 spans from January 21st to the present day.

Most of the fans of the Dream SMP can tell you that the primary story of the server is centred around quite a few certain characters who viewers started watching to see more of. I'm guilty of this myself - I primarily watch the SMP for Tommy's story, and I also stick around for Wilbur, Tubbo, Ranboo and a little bit for Phil, Techno and Jack Manifold. Those were the people I was invested in and those are the stories I like to follow. Not to discredit or to downplay the work or the stories of other characters, but I can imagine that there are a few people who watch the SMP primarily for a close few perspectives/storylines, and following some storylines over others just because you're not interested in them is completely fine and there's nothing wrong with that at all.

In season one, there was always things going on with my favourite characters. Tommy was always getting himself into spots of trouble and making up different schemes to get people to come visit L'Manberg as a tourist attraction, or getting people to support the rebellion, and this was interspersed with the heavier, plot-driven moments such as Wilbur's mental breakdown, the festival, the pit fight and the season 1 finale. This got me invested in him as a character because he had been there for quite a while and we'd seen him develop and grow into the character we now see in season 3.

In the back half of season 1 came Techno, who really shook things up and threw a spanner in the works and provided a totally different perspective - unlike Dream he didn't hate L'Manberg because he couldn't control it, and unlike Wilbur he didn't have a personal connection to it and he didn't know it's history. Techno initially hated L'Manberg because it was a government he knew nothing about (and still knows nothing about even today), and because violence and destruction is kind of his thing.

We had a well balanced cast of characters - not too many - that we could follow and who all had varying perspectives, experiences and personalities. We had clearly defined groups of individuals with different morals: you had the people on the side of Manberg, the people in Pogtopia who wanted Manberg blown up, the people in Pogtopia who didn't want Manberg blown up, and on the side to compliment it all you also had the Badlands, comprised of three longstanding members of the server,,,, and then Antfrost who was kidnapped by Tommy that one time. It was all wrapped up nicely in a neat little bow and there was structure to it all. There was one plot that went in one direction, and despite the many perspectives, it all ended up in the same spot and the story ended. There was a conclusion.

In season 2, the two primary additions to the 'cast' were Phil and Ranboo, whose characters complimented the existing story well. Phil functioned mostly as a successor to Wilbur alongside Ghostbur by exploring well the departure of Wilbur as a character in that moment, and he also functioned well as a companion to Techno's character. Ranboo, on the other hand, had a pretty good complimentary solo story that could be followed alongside the main plot, however his story wasn't too distant from the main story to the point where he was completely removed from it - he had direct involvement in different events such as the exile conflict, his connection to Dream as the main antagonist of the season and his involvement in blowing up the community house.

Season 2 starts with a focus on two different spaces - it breaks up a longstanding duo and the storyline diverges into two halves: Logstedshire and New L'Manberg, and you have Techno's short 'retirement' arc working decently to compliment it and also to set the tone for his character going forward in that season. In Logstedshire we see the aftermath of Tommy being exiled from L'Manberg by Dream - we see him endure what is (in canon) at least a month of isolation and physical and psychological abuse and it culminates on December 15th when Tommy rescues himself, jumps from the tower and goes to hide in Techno's house (which acts as a good precursor to his involvement in Techno's storyline in that season). On the other side, we follow Tubbo in L'Manberg dealing with Presidency - he talks a lot and gets 'friendly' with Dream, he prepares to run against Ranboo in the coming election cycle (primarily because he doesn't want to be President) and we see his interactions with the power-hungrier Quackity who all too often takes the reigns and this culminates in the creation of the Butcher Army, and following the Butcher Army's attack on December 16th, once again, we have two clearly defined sides:

One one side, we have Tubbo, Quackity and Fundy who represent L'Manberg, and on the other we have Tommy (who is unaware of the Butcher Army's attack), Phil and Techno, and more in the middle we have Ghostbur and Ranboo.

Season 2's finale format is a clear departure for the format of November 16th, but it's not a poor choice - I think, especially considering the story that they were telling, it worked perfectly. On November 16th, pretty much everyone was streaming their perspective of the event; at the time, there were even compilations of everyone's reactions to Wilbur blowing up L'Manberg. On January 20th, however, we only had two perspectives - Tubbo and Tommy.

I'll say it now, while Season 2 was definitely Clingyduo's season, it didn't focus solely on them. There was also a big focus on Techno as a character, whose arc came to an end a little earlier on Doomsday, and there was also a focus on Ranboo a lot as a solo character, and he streamed a little later on January 20th with what I refer to as the 'epilogue', where there was also a shift in his character to expect moving forward.

Why season 2's finale worked is because it was centralised around only three characters, only two of which we ever see the perspectives of, and it was the finale of the longest running storyline of the entire narrative - the disc war. Two boys who were on their last life, making their last stand at the one man who pulled the strings to make their lives miserable - those two perspectives only, and it worked. We didn't have compilations of everyone reacting to the things happening around them which worked for season 1, instead, we focused on these two characters whose turn it was to get the focus, and we had iconic and moving moments. We had the two boys walking down the prime path saying what they could only assume might have been their last goodbyes to the people that still had a shred of care for them, we had the two sailing to where they would face off against Dream for their final stand and finally talking about their feelings a little and dreading the implication that if they were both to die, nobody would live to tell their stories, we had Tommy choosing his best friend over his discs time and time again, and we had Punz - Dream's last confidant - standing against Dream and bringing everyone with him and sending him to prison, now on his last life too.

Everything about it was perfect. The more focused ending worked for the ending of season 2 because it was their time to have their climax moment - and it wasn't some spectacular display of explosions or violence like in Wilbur's finale on November 16th, where the ramifications hit everyone and we got to see it, nor was it a show of violence and almost oppressive dominance like Techno's finale was on Doomsday, where we saw everyone's breakdown and how the people contributing to the destruction of L'Manberg, no matter how righteous they thought they were, did not care to understand how much they were hurting and destroying the lives of the country's citizens. On January 20th, Tommy and Tubbo went into it thinking they were going to die, they got their asses handed to them despite how hard they tried, and they had their behinds saved by Tommy's preparative thinking by people who weren't there to save them more than they were there to get rid of Dream.

Season 3 suffers a lot from a lack of focus, awful pacing and really poor timing.

Seasons 1 and 2 occurred during the brunt of the coronavirus pandemic, where everyone was stuck at home and had more time to stream because it was their primary form of content and because it was the best way to communicate with their friends. Thus, the pacing of those seasons was extremely steady and things were always happening.

Now, lockdown restrictions have eased quite a bit, and creators can branch out a lot more and can meet with each other in real life and can do vlog-style content. Therefore, they don't stream as much, and the focus of the Dream SMP story has shifted more towards newer or sideplot characters. If you enjoy those characters, that's fine, but when they take the focus away from the characters and the storylines the majority are expecting, a lot of people won't try to keep up with it and from their perspective there'll be a massive lull in narrative content.

What I'm saying, is that Tommy streaming for thirteen days in a row in July 2021 is a fucking pipe dream. It happened in December because the story was consistent and the pacing was steady and he had the time and the want to be there. Now, Tommy's off making his vlogs and hanging out with his friends and thus he can't stream as much as he used to. He's sort of suffering from the Robert Sheehan problem, isn't he? Tommy is still involved with the Dream SMP and his story is definitely continuing, and his narrative in season 3 is really starting to pick up with the newer developments, it's just that he doesn't have as much time to play the role anymore because he isn't streaming as much.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing - it's obviously making him happy that his content is changing and I'm fully supportive of that.

So when all of these meetups are happening and we don't have as much content from the main characters that we follow anymore, what happens?

Well, the fans get a little itchy. This fandom, especially. They might throw out a comment or a tweet asking when they're going to stream on the SMP, or if they really don't understand why the Dream SMP is good, they'll ask when the next 'lore stream' is, and they'll lament a little about how the content and the story has slowed, especially in contrast to the fast pacing of season 2 which only lasted a little over two months with much more story going on than in season 3 despite it having been going on for triple the time. What they'll get in response is that the Dream SMP is still going on and that lore is still happening.

On all accounts, these statements aren't incorrect. Lore still is happening.

But when you've been following lovable characters for two seasons, setting up their struggles and then switching the focus onto newer or 'sideplot' characters that you haven't really followed before, there's going to be a bit of moaning about it on twitter dot com.

The SMP now suffers from having too many characters, too many unfocused narratives, and poor pacing/ditched or unfinished storylines from the characters we used to follow and love while we're being told to love other characters instead.

I never really cared too much about the egg subplot, I'll be honest. I was a little interested in the involvement of Sam, Puffy and Ponk, but other than that, I wasn't really too invested. It very much tried to replicate the 'you should have paid me more' moment from January 20th at the Red Banquet, and it really didn't hit as hard because most of the characters there were either ones that didn't belong there at all (like Niki, Fundy, HBomb, and Purpled), weren't that involved with the plotline and felt out of place with the established characters in that storyline (Techno, Quackity and Ranboo), or were new characters that were difficult to get on board with because they hadn't really had too much of a story beforehand (Hannah and Foolish), or in the case of Antfrost, characters with no known motivation to be there other than that being the storyline they're currently in. Not to discredit those involved or their characters, but the Red Banquet really tried to replicate what the disc finale did with it's focused perspectives and it's Punz moment, and it failed.

Now, following the egg subplot's finale, I'm meant to focus on Las Nevadas, Snowchester and the Syndicate.

Las Nevadas is the most consistent storyline, however it's biggest problem is that it is filled with new characters or ones that are barely there. Despite how long he's been on the server, Purpled really is a new character if only because he's only really become a character recently - Foolish is still considered new, Slimecicle is new, Fundy rarely streams on the SMP. The only consistent longstanding and heavily involved characters that are a part of Las Nevadas are Quackity and Sam, and even their streams are infrequent, with a lot of Sam's perspective not even focusing on Las Nevadas but instead the prison.

Snowchester's plot is very much dying, dead and in the water. She's suffering. We haven't seen Michael in over a month, a nuke is still missing, Jack Manifold is dubiously a citizen and Tubbo doesn't even think he has a character on the SMP. It breaks my heart.

The Syndicate suffer from a lack of existence. The four characters really aren't a friend group in canon - all of the stuff about them hanging out all the time and them basically being a book club is all fanon. They've hung out as a four all of twice, the first time they ever got together they celebrated someone's death and then basically invaded Snowchester to give themselves a reason not to destroy it, terrifying Tubbo in the process. The second time was because it was Techno's birthday.

Now, Techno is in prison, and the only reason Phil hasn't read the will to progress the story is likely because of difficult scheduling with other server members, which is written off in canon as Phil not wanting to accept the possibility of Techno potentially dying.

Literally reading the will and having the Syndicate figure out that Techno's in prison with Dream will solve all of season 3's formatting issues and have the story back on track.

Currently, we don't really have two clearly defined sides the way we always had. We were meant to root for L'Manberg against the Dream Team, we were meant to root for Pogtopia against Manberg, and in season 2 we had a lot more moral ambiguity and room for side switching between the forces of Dream, Techno and Phil against L'Manberg, and then we rooted for Clingyduo against Dream.

I can predict that if the will is read, here's how a good conflict can arise.

Two clearly defined different sides - Las Nevadas on the side of Pandora's Vault, and the Syndicate (currently consisting of Phil, Ranboo and Niki), and you have compromises to make. If the side of the Prison wins, Techno and Dream stay in Pandora's Vault without a proper trial and being treated inhumanely, and there's also the threat of the rest of the Syndicate also being imprisoned. If the side of the Syndicate wins, the prison is taken out and Techno and Dream are no longer being treated inhumanely - problem is that Dream's out, and he's very much dangerous because despite what c!Dream apologists will tell you, he's not docile and he's not going to have a healing arc with Techno because he doesn't think he's done anything wrong and Techno can't tell him that he's done anything wrong (because Techno is the most wilfully ignorant character who gets to be political it's INSANE) - he'll go right back to the evil, abusive bastard he was, obsessed with Tommy, probably worse now that he can easily get Wilbur to do anything he wants and more vindictive against Quackity. Plus, if the Syndicate take down Las Nevadas they'll hold the most power on the server systematically and the so-called anarchists will ironically be the top dogs of the server.

Then towards the middle you'll probably end up having Wilbur, Benchtrio and Jack Manifold - Tubbo and Jack would prefer Techno and Dream staying in prison, except Tubbo's really not on the greatest terms with Q at the minute (because Q's paranoid and making conflict with parties that would have otherwise helped him out and thought they were friends), whereas Tommy would be stuck between wanting Techno out but needing to either keep Dream in or kill him, and Wilbur will be having to pick between aiding Dream's escape from prison or staying with Tommy, because he can't have both. Ranboo will probably be having the same problem as Tommy, except he's on the side of the Syndicate and will have to pick between the Syndicate or keeping Dream imprisoned.

Season 3 is salvageable, it really is. You can fix the poor pacing and you can fix the lack of focus with literally one revelation from fucking Philza M|necraft. But as it stands now, season 3 suffers from a similar situation as Misfits - almost replacing the cast of characters we've followed for the longest time with a new one in a format completely different to the original seasons.

[lucemferto]

Okay, the Inbetween-sections continue to be the best parts of Tales from the SMP. At this point, I think it would be best if the entire episode was pre-recorded, to be honest.

The ending to the “main”-plotline was a little limp - I expected a little bit more lore, but I liked the campy atmosphere overall. Schlatt is just always a delight.

But, yeah, most of the failings of this episode was really just because the cast was just so unruly. Like I’m not talking about them making jokes, but just not at all engaging with the storyline and just wasting so much time.

At this point a prerecorded, more structured main plot might be for the best, because these parts always drag so much (with the exception of the Wild West, they had a pretty good pace going there).

I also wish, the actual plots would be more heavily tied to the lore - like the Lost City of Mizu and the Masquerade.

As for the Inbetween - it’s sketchy as hell, but I think everyone already expected that. Karl Jacobs, I see your Castle Oblivion inspiration, and I respect it.

What’s with the Dream SMP and making smileys so unnerving - first “:)” and now “:]”.

Very excited as to how this will tie into future developments. But at this point the Inbetween-storyline needs to pick up the pace, otherwise it runs the risk of dragging.

[rachelbethhines]

Tangled Salt Marathon - The Lost Treasure of Herz Der Sonne

So now we get to what is, in my opinion, the best episode in season three. However, it’s still season three, so that’s damning with faint praise. 

Summary: Rapunzel tasks the kingdom with refurbishing the throne room. While breaking down a wall, they find a map to the Lost Treasure of Herz Der Sonne and Rapunzel decides to set up a race to the location. The teams, which consist of twos, are only allowed to look at the map briefly before the start of the race. However, Rapunzel's partner, Feldspar, brings a copy of the map with him and he warns her that the treasure is cursed. 

Why Are You Just Getting to This Now? 

It’s literally been months since you defeated the Saporians. Edmund had to have time to travel all this way to Corona and you’ve rebuilt an entire village since then. We’re talking at bare minimum three months or more. 

Who just leaves a gapping hole inside their home for three months? Where did you conduct the government’s important business during that time? Is there any other structural damage to the castle or the town outside from previous battles that you’ve just left unattended? I understand that rebuilding Old Corona is important but those villagers have been evacuated and living elsewhere for a year and a half now since Queen for a Day. It wasn’t a priority, but this is. 

Also this episode has to come after The Return of the King and Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf because Red, Angry, and Hamuel exist. It can’t just be slotted in somewhere else in order for it to make more sense. The writers genuinely planned for Rapunzel to be this disorganized and didn’t think to give a logical reason as to why. 

Also Why Are You Conscripting Regular Citizens Instead of Hiring Professional Contractors?

Unlike Old Corona, which is a full on community that would require multiple building projects going on simultaneously and therefore could use volunteers, this is a single government building. It’s Rapunzel’s job as leader to make sure that that building is kept maintained and up to code. It’s her responsibility not the regular average citizen’s who has their own jobs to do and zero experience with construction.  

Rapunzel is literally forcing these people to be slave labor for her under the pretense of ‘community’. She’s taking their time away from their own busy lives, forcing them to work a dangerous job, and not compensating them for that time, effort, and risk. And no, they’re not just volunteers at this point; because as acting queen, no one can safely say no to her nor can they just leave even when they’re clearly annoyed and fed up at having to do the work.  

Lastly they’re untrained. They lack the skills and tools to this job. You need an architect, you need a safety inspector, you need actual carpenters and masonries ... maybe even an interior decorator... The point is you need trained professionals and part of being an administrator is using government funding to hire these people in order to make sure the work gets done safely and efficiently and create jobs and keep money circulating through the economy.       

Rapunzel may not mean any harm. She might just be oblivious and untrained herself. But this is terrible leadership and the show never points that out. It never has her learn how to be a better a ruler so by the end of the series you don't feel she’s earned that title of Queen and you fear for the kingdom’s continued existence.   

So Why Is This Here?

Why would there be a Saporian map to a king of Corona’s tomb hidden in the wall? What’s the story behind this? 

Yes we know his wife was Saporian, but that doesn’t explain anything. Why would she need a map on the wall to her own husband’s resting place; assuming he didn’t out live her himself. Why would said map be carved into the wall of Corona’s castle and not written on a scroll? Why is it in Saporian when they don't speak that language in Corona? 

Like I could come up with explanations and create this whole backstory for Herz Der Sonne and the first Saporian/Coronian War, but at this point I’d just be doing the work of the writers for them. They’re the ones who introduced this lore and had it inform plot points and character motivation; and then failed to explain any of it to the audience and adequately have it all connect back together in a way that makes sense. 

The Moment When You Realize This Whole Episode Exists Because Zachary Levi Enjoys Doing an Ed Wynn Impersonation 

Ok time to explain some behind the scenes Info.

This is Ed Wynn. 

As you can tell from the gif above, he’s famous for voicing the Mad Hatter in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. He’s also done a whole bunch of other stuff and was well known even before working with Disney, but the Mad Hatter is his most well remembered role today. 

Many actors, particularly voice actors, like to do impressions of him because he has such a distinctive voice. Including Eugene’s VA, Zachery Levi.  

Now I don’t know if the character of Feldspar was created specifically because the creators were inspired by Zachery Levi’s impression, or if they had this character already planned out and just casted him in the role since he could do it and it’d save them money. Either scenario is plausible and not unheard of in animation. But the long and short of it is, as a shoemaker, Feldspar is intended to be a parody of the Mad Hatter. That is why the character exists. 

Now as I said, this isn’t unusual for animated tv shows. Quite often you get main cast members to voice secondary and/or one off characters because it’s convenient, efficient, and doable when working with audio recordings. Also quite often voice actors will do impressions of other famous people to flesh out these background characters. It’s also not out of left field for these secondary characters to get an episode of focus if they’ve been around for awhile and keep popping up in the story. 

What is unusual, however, is to focus on said character in the final season when there are a bunch of other more important characters with unresolved arcs that need the screen time more. It’s an incredibly odd decision to highlight Feldspar here when we still got Varian readjusting back into society, Red and Angry settling into their new home, and Edmund running around off screen. And while some of these character feature in the episode, they’re just there for the jokes not for any development. 

What’s a “Sap Pond” and How Does That Even Work?

Ok its a fantasy world, I get it. But the franchise does try to have a distinction between the magical and the mundane. Or at least pretends to try and have a distinction. There’s to my knowledge no such thing as a ‘sap pond’, and if such a thing does exist I doubt it’s an actual deep pit full of tree sap as shown here. 

If you want characters to still be surprised by out of the ordinary occurrences and have the supernatural world be separate from the regular world; then you need to have the mundane world grounded in our known reality. Nature needs to function as real world nature would. If something exists in your world that doesn't in ours, then you need to either explain it or have the characters responded appropriately to it. 

But You’re a Prince Now?

Look, I’ll buy that season one Eugene didn’t have unlimited access to the royal treasury as he and Rapunzel were still new to their roles and their relationship. But it’s been over two years since the movie ended. 

Since then Eugene and Rapunzel have lived together, shared finances together, and currently are co-acting rulers of the kingdom. He’s also a bonified prince in of itself on top of being practically married to princess/queen. 

Yeah I said it. Part of what makes season three so frustrating is that Rapunzel and Eugene are functionally married at this point, they just haven’t gone through the ceremony yet, and there’s no stated reason for why they keep dragging things out.  

This is why we get out of place jokes like this that no longer reflect who Eugene is now as a person and feel like they belong back in season one or the even the movie itself. 

I can understand if he wanted to join in the competition because it’s fun, but he’s not poor. Neither he nor Rapunzel needs the treasure. I’m not sure even Lance needs it because as Eugene’s best friend/adopted brother he’s piratically nobility at this point as well. 

Royalty and the rich are not and never will be underdogs show. Stop trying to make them such. 

So Why Feldspar Again? 

This is such a half assed plot point. 

Remember Rapunzel literally pulled out a book earlier to translate the map.  Xavier not only knows the legends about the Saporians, but also keeps a book of magic lying around, and the Saporians are the only human people who have functioning magic in the show as part of their culture.    Varian spent a year living and working with the Saporian leader, and knows how to decipher ancient scrolls written in dead languages.  And said Saporians, are being currently held in the dungeons of the castle.  

But you’re telling me that only a random cobbler can read the warning clearly written on the map? 

They give some bullshit reason as to why Feldspar knows Sapoprian but it doesn’t matter. It’s a forced and contrived excuse to get the character involved in a plot he has no business being in. The story fails to justify the use him over the other more prominent characters who have closer ties to this particular subplot. 

And We’re Suppose to Believe That Herz Der Sonne Was a Good Guy?

Why would a benevolent king who supposedly brought peace to a warring land have a doomsday curse involving zombies? Why would said king be enshrined a tomb that’s not native to his culture? What even is the treasure and why be buried with it? 

There’s clearly more going on here regarding Corona’s past and the treatment of the Saporians as a people in their own right, but the show never does anything with it. Why introduce these complexities and world building if you’re not going to tell a story with them? Why have the Saporian subplot at all in a series already over stuffed with villains if you aren’t going to have them challenge your protagonist and have her grow into a more mature person? 

I’m not dunking on the series for being ambitious nor for having flavor text to help flesh out the world, but it so aggravating that there’s no follow through on the show’s set ups and narrative promises. If you’re not going to give the needed focus to something then just don’t put it in. Cause once it’s aired you’re committed to it and the audience is going to hold you to account. 

I haven’t seen plot mismanagement this bad since the 80s; back when cartoons had to battle network syndication, episode commissions instead of contracted seasons, and could be canceled at any time without prior notice. Now there’s still plenty of bad practices going on in the industry, especially as the move to streaming messes with things, but Tangled does not have the same excuses as say Johnny Quest, Dungeons and Dragons, or even Gargoyles did. 

How Do You Even Know That Would Work, Rapunzel?

No seriously, how does Rapunzel know that putting the treasure chest back on the pedestal will stop the cruse? That hasn’t been established yet by any known source of information. Heck no one knew what the curse actually entailed until it was activated. Except for Xavier who oh so conveniently didn’t say anything until the last moment. If anyone should have the knowledge to on how to end the curse it’s him. But nope we gotta make the Rapunzel the infallible hero who is always right for no logical reason.  

I don’t know how to explain this to you show, but perfect is boring. No one wants a flawless protagonist who can do it all 24/7 without any help whatsoever. And it becomes down right annoying to watch a hero who is clearly flawed still put upon a narrative pedestal as if they weren’t. 

So Why is Varian Suddenly Useless In This Fight?

This entire climax is about showcasing the ‘power of teamwork’ by having the characters use their various skills sets and work together to defeat the enemy. 

Except for Varian. 

He’s treated at best as a spectator to the unfolding events and at worst as a damsel in distress. 

Varian. You know the guy who is the series most competent and threating antagonist. Who brought an entire kingdom to it’s knees, twice. The only other character besides Rapunzel herself who could and does hold his own against other major antagonists, including super powered ones.  

If this was just a one off incident, I’d just shrug it away as him being a glass cannon; insanely overpowered when well prepared but easily out of his depth when not. But that’s not what’s happening here. 

Season three constantly nerfs Varian’s abilities, same as they did back in The Alchemist Returns, and there’s three reasons for this. 

The first is to try and stop him from overshadowing Rapunzel and Cassandra. The writers don’t want to give him any more story focus for fear of him being more popular the the two girls. Which is a ridiculous and petty reason to write a character OOC but there you go. 

The second is the on going issue of making Rapunzel needlessly the center of any and all solutions to every problem regardless of her level of involvement in the initial conflict. Yes, it’s her show, but she’s still not the whole world. Other people exist outside of her and it’s not fair to anybody when the writers ignore that simple fact.   

Last is the writers sacrificing established character for a joke. And as already pointed out, even in this very review, Varian’s not the only character to fall victim to this. It’s just bad writing. Yeah the joke might be funny in the moment but you run the risk of jarring you’re audience’s immersion. In a series like Tangled where you’re constantly asking the audience to suspend their disbelief, humor needs to be firmly rooted in the characters natural behaviors and must evolve to match any character development.   

Why not just have Varian throw a chimball or two, run out cause he wasn’t planning on fighting anybody that day, and then have the other characters rescue him? It’s not that hard to work in a joke while still being respectful of the characters.  

So What Does Anybody Learn From This Episode?

Yeah the other characters learn some vague lesson on teamwork and getting along or something, but they’re not the focus of the episode. What do Rapunzel and Feldspar learn? 

Unlike some people I don’t mind Feldspar’s existence. When’s he’s kept as a background character he works. In fact he’s one of the few townspeople who do work as intended, because he’s representative of the everyday citizen who’s often on the outside looking in on these fantastical events and therefore gives insight into what’s going on and the populous’ opinions on things without being a major player in anything. 

That's fine, needed even, and I don’t mind him getting a single focus episode to gain a greater insight into how this world works or even flesh out his character more, but that’s not what we got. Feldspar doesn’t grow as a character because of this episode. I, as the viewer watching, learn nothing about him nor his life that I didn’t already know. This resolution with him resolves nothing cause it’s a ending for a conflict that was never established beforehand.  

In fact what even was the main conflict of the story? Rapunzel being annoyed by Feldspar? Ok and..? Did she need to learn not to be annoyed by him? Was that a thing that needed to be addressed? Hasn’t Rapunzel already put up with annoying people before now? Was was this deficiency of character actually solved by this one interaction? Has she learned to be more appreciative, attentive, or open minded of others? 

If you tell me it’s Rapunzel’s show then I expect Rapunzel to actually learn shit! 

I expect the external conflicts to tie back into her interpersonal conflicts. If the external conflict does not do that than there better well be a another character who gets that focus instead without her hogging the limelight. 

This Dynamic Adds Nothing

They set up this friendship with Varian and Xavier and it doesn't go anywhere. It never comes back into play and we never see them interacting on screen together again. It also undermines a future plot point that’s coming up later. 

More over it doesn’t further either of their characters. 

Xavier is still an extraneous exposition fairy. Turning his flat characterization into a one note joke does not erase that fact. Giving him a kid to tell stories to doesn’t explain his place in the narrative or give him purpose to the story. We still don’t know why he has these connections to magic nor how he knows all the this lore, and he doesn’t push the plot forward. 

Meanwhile Varian maybe lonely but that doesn’t mean he needs yet another mentor figure in his life. We already have his father, who we barely see him interact with since coming back, and all his other ‘friends’ are way older then him already as well. Rapunzel’s the closest in age to him and she is constantly condescending to, well everybody, as she pretends to be more mature than she actually is. There’s no one in the story who Varian is on equal footing with, and no Angry and Red don't count as they’re far younger than him. 

I don’t know what this series has against teenagers but it showcases some very unhealthy depictions of them; ether by constantly infantilizing them, traumatizing them while subjecting them to parentification, or just flat out ignoring their existence all together. 

Teenagers exist and they need to be treated as teenagers. I don’t know how to put it more simply than that. Teens aren’t children. Teens aren’t adults. They’re teens. And when writing for them you need to understand that difference and acknowledge that they have a completely different phycological development and placement within society to anybody else. That’s why the category of adolescence exists separately from childhood and adulthood in the first place.   

So to tie things back to the first point. The concept of Xavier and Varian having a friendship is not a problem. But as with so many things on this show, it’s the surrounding context and lack of follow through where the issues arises. 

Varian needs a friend his age, who is his equal, more so than a mentor; if indeed Xavier is even intended to serve that function as he doesn’t do any real mentoring. This should have been an opportunity to bring Faith in and establish her better. In fact it’s reasons like this why she should have been a bigger character all along but we’ll get more into that as we get to her only ‘focus’ episode. 

Conclusion 

It’s fun seeing all the various character interactions and unique team ups. Also the humor does work. The jokes do land even if they do bulldoze through established canon. Plus seeing Rapunzel actually annoyed by shit going on around her is always entertaining as it humanizes her. If watched in isolation from the rest of season three, this is an enjoyable episode. But that’s it’s core problem. I shouldn’t have to find filler to keep me going in the last leg of the show. 

This was pretty short comparatively speaking with the rest of the ones I have to write for S3, but longer ones are going to come out more slowly just due to real life and time. As always though you’re support is helpful in keeping going, and if you feel like you can donate to my Ko-fi and leave a tip there. 

https://ko-fi.com/rachelbethhines

[bandit-o-s-usb]

ignore my typos i'm wearing my drawing gloves.

i;ve started watching another 'pre-crime' type anime. not fully the same but its interesting. I prefer the technojargon i've seen in ID:Invaded over what i've watched in Psycho-Pass. the latter being clearly built by a morose optimist world view or one of ironic suffering. while both shows tackle mental illness and specifically what drives a person to break and just 'kill' psycho-pass feels alot... more confused on how it wants to say what it wants to say.

psycho-pass shouts alot of platitudes in just the closed captions for the intro theme and its statement of rage contained in a cage ala a rat(essentially, the cage is more big brother than an actual cage) and it seems to maintain a pretty evident kay-fabe about the world's governing systems of a supposedly all knowing AI that can detect mental illness through magic brain particles(its sci-fi). I'm definitely interested but it hasn't surprised me outside of how graphic it seems to indulge itself in(but not even in realistic graphic gore and violence like Black Lagoon or something -- coincidentally a show that seems to say alot of similar ideas.)

ID:invaded operates less on an all governing system of policing thought and mental illness and more of a newly founded preventative one. the Mizuhanome detects special particles that ride the air like if a soul(or ID... get it?) was something physical. it uses these trace killing intents from people who have already become serial killers, so its more focused on eliminating a rapid growing rate of killers. the Sybil System meanwhile seems to be an all encompassing fully invasive AI that manages all human's way of life.

ID feels like it's messaging is about good people being put in harrowing and tragic scenarios and maintaining their sense of self and justice in the face of other man made horrors. Psycho-pass on the other hand feels like normal people being pressed constantly on like a hydraulic press on the psyche being tested on how much they can break. It's also alot louder and more blatant in its characterization and how alot of the cast will just say what they feel and express their belief systems and the lore of the world like a script. for a cop anime it does 'not' revel in mystery for the viewer, and it makes everything abundantly clear from world structure to blaring deathflags for cyborg not-murder columbo.

it also feels genuinely just consigned on human nature in the sense that our Heroine is the one whos different(no joke? its alot like fucking the Divergent books) and will bring change to the world and its systems(shrugs) with the help of cool(but twisted!) and overly dedicated "should of been a playwright" partner who has an albino bishounen rival who he hates and must kill to assumedly avenge some woman the main character reminds him of.

Ultimately it feels like if ID Invaded is a Glass Half Empty show, that turns into a Half Full one, Psycho-pass is shaping up to be a 'There is no glass and you've just spilled juice on the fuckin counter mods help(etc)" that becomes a "oh dw i have my trusted protag the 'swiffer picker-upper with railgun magnum pistol'. It clearly has some very strong opinions about human morality and the whole thing sorta feels written in a way to express the hypothetical ends and extremes of their position on the terminal condition of human life.

still might be wrong, excited to find out.

[reaperkaneki]

and now for my opinions on the individual routes! this is gonna get long so bear with me.

i played through the initial routes in the order of riku (blue) -> amakusa (green) -> yosuga (purple) -> kuroba (black). you could probably swap yosuga and kuroba depending on preference, or even insert tokisada between the two as a breather since purple and black have fairly heavy themes.

again, the game is romance-heavy compared to past localized otome. the structure is like this: the first half of a route is dedicated to ‘how the characters fall for each other’, the second is dedicated to ‘who objects to this relationship and also what horrible little facet of the game’s broken caste-based society are we concentrating on today’. so, romance -> antagonism and lore.

i would for sure recommend doing riku first, since his route has the least amount of spoilers for the other routes. at the very least i would definitely not do yosugas route before his because that has some revelations on the antagonist of riku’s route. i went in expecting riku to be my least favorite, but he was super cute and i ended up liking him way more than anticipated. i want to bully him a little bit. again, great for a first route.

i’ll go ahead and say that i didn’t like tokisada’s route very much. he’s only seventeen, so younger than olympia by a year, so he’s very youthful and fun at first and i enjoyed the first half of his route. his character arc is fine in theory; unfortunately, he didn’t really do it for me. he has a lot of complexes that are relatable, and a lot of genuine flaws that make sense given his trauma, but his route seemed to drag on forever and i was constantly caught between going ‘okay, this is an unhealthy but understandable and realistic trauma behavior, i should give him the benefit of the doubt’ and ‘wait this is an otome and i am not a therapist, i want to grab this little twink by the shoulders and shake him’. oh, one surprising thing though: he has a lot of kisses. for the youngest member of the cast, who definitely has no prior experience, he sure does have a lot of service? which is immediately killed by the fact that he calls olympia onee-san aaaaaAAAAAAA NOT DURING THE SPICY SCENES ARE YOU KIDDING ME.

yosuga is more plot-heavy of a route than i expected. all of the routes have some aspect of ‘certain things happened in the past that were covered up for the sake of maintaining the status quo on the island’ but other than the final two, this one has the most flavor of ‘are you sure you want to know’? while the romance was barely there compared to, say, tokisada’s where he drags you on dates for the first half of the route, i think i liked the antagonist in his route the most—they’re complex and while most antagonists in this game have suffered under some aspect of the island’s caste system and strict societal obligations, i felt the most sympathy here.

i expected either kuroba or akaza, maybe even yosuga, to be my favorite when the game was announced solely based on character design and seiyuu, and was a little hesitant when kuroba was described as an older brother type character. then i played the game and basically spent the three routes i did first pining after him. yes, he’s reliable and good with kids, but he’s actually the flirty jokester type with a serious side, and in many of the routes he plays an excellent wingman. truly the brosiest of bros. now that i’ve got my biased opinion of kuroba out of the way, his actual route? i’ve got mixed feelings. on one hand, the date scenes are really fun. kuroba grappling with ethical concerns as a doctor was handled well imo. on the other, the relationship goes through a lot of ups and downs. there are some moments where i wanted to shake him (and olympia!) by the shoulders because they’re both very. hm. guys. seriously. and lastly but most unfortunately there’s some scenes that. well. heavy content warning. sexual violence. not great. it mostly pulls together in the end, albeit somewhat messily.

speaking of plot heavy, himuka’s route is revelation after revelation about the world they live in. which is why it’s locked. (i actually thought while playing it, “what could akaza’s route possibly reveal that himuka’s hasn’t?”) but since i’m trying to keep this mostly spoiler-free, i’ll talk abt himuka himself. i liked him! he’s cute. he gives me orlok piofiore vibes. he’s very intense and socially awkward, and definitely puts olympia up on a pedestal that she doesn’t want to be on. he has very little self esteem, does a thankless job, and is self sacrificing. in short, he’s very, very similar to olympia in some respects, and utterly foreign in others, which makes him a good parallel for her.

akaza is obviously the ‘main guy’. it’s very hard to discuss his route without spoiling anything. i’ll do my best. he’s known as the iron mask, a nickname kuroba gave him as a joke but it stuck. he’s so serious it almost borders on the comical. he’s aggressive in his pursuit of olympia because she tends to avoid his romantic advances out of…. stubbornness and spite; she had a bad first impression of him because he declared he would marry her out of obligation if she couldn’t find a husband and that pissed her off majorly. this would come off as skeevy and ymmv but i think it’s handled decently well because it’s clear very early on in even the common route that olympia understands that akaza is not a bad person, he’s actually a very good, reliable man who hates injustice. akaza is fairly gentlemanly despite being pushy abt getting her to give him a chance—he explicitly talks abt consent a few times and that he won’t touch or kiss her without her permission. he’s blank faced and monotone but a good cook and a romantic at heart. the rest of his route? without spoilers, again, it’s hard. his antagonist is a hit or miss i think. some people might dislike that they’re inconsistent and hard to understand, and i totally get that, but i liked that said character explicitly states that they’ve got conflicting desires and don’t understand it completely themself. it’s paradoxical and that seems in line with their characterization. WAIT HOLD ON ONE MORE THING: akaza takes off his glasses during date scenes which makes his route a 0/10 booooooo we hate you.

my ranking for the guys based on person preference: kuroba > akaza / riku / himuka > yosuga > tokisada

akaza’s design does it for me over riku and himuka’s, riku’s character is cuter than the other two, and himuka has a certain je ne sais quoi that made me like him more than expected. they’re in the same spot because my favorite of the three changes based on what mood i’m in lol

[well-shit-im-a-morosexual-now]

I'm here, queer, and I want a summary for the new lesson (whenever you get around to playing it of course)!

-35 Anon

NEW FIC + LESSON 44 SUMMARY 

Hii! I'm sorry this took like a week BUT as an apology/compensation I wrote a lil' something based off this lesson :D   ;

Familiar Strangers

Mammon gets a little more time with the strange angel his little brothers picked up and picks up a few things of his own.

ok ok so this lesson holy shit??? This is probably one of my favourite lessons!? It just gives so much and ahhh it was so good! It gives more angel backstory and lore, shows what got Levi into anime in the first place and answers the question I asked in the previous lesson summary; about why Mammon made a pact with MC in the first place when he said in lesson 43 that he wouldn't make a pact with a random human. And look i'm too excited to wait to reveal this in the end (plus with the way om lessons are structured there won't be a big reveal, just a gradual realisation) so im gonna reveal it here immediately.

LESSON 44 SPOILERS

MC once again fucked up the timeline :')

MC's the one who got Levi into anime in the first place. (but the only reason they got him into anime was cause they already knew he liked anime but he liked anime only because they got him into it and so on and so on, one whole horrid circle)

A time paradox was already in play at the very beginning of S1, meaning MC's first meeting with the brothers was never in S1 but instead thousand of years before the main storyline even began. Meaning MC was never a random human and holy shit???????

I'll talk more about MC and Mammon's pact after I summarise everything, as well as about their sins and their lives in the Celestial Realm Vs the Devildom cause everything is blowing my mind . Additionally, even though Mammon shares more or less equal screentime with his brothers in this lesson it adds a ton of character depth to him and i adore it.

Ok so the lesson starts with;

Mammon, Beel, Satan & MC bursting into Asmo's room. Mammon yelling about how he's gonna kill Asmo cause of the leak, only to find his room empty. They check his bathroom (which in my humble opinion is the first place they should have checked, but then again this is asmo so maybe they wanted to keep that as the worst case scenario option), MC says they should turn the water off immediately and mammon confirms that yeah if lucifer is actually still alive and finds out about this all of them will be murdered on the spot. They find Asmo passed out in the bathroom. MC uses the healing spell they learn back in s2 to take away some of his pain. All 3 brothers seem very worried and when Beel asks Asmo if he's okay, he says that he's not but that MC kissing him may make him better (my man's on his death bed and still tryna smash, an absolute icon). Mammon immediately tells Asmo to go die, and Beel says he shouldn't have worried about Asmo cause it was a waste of energy. and look that instant turnabout is peak comedy :'). Asmo calls them out on being assholes and that he does still feel dizzy and Satan says that if he's able to joke about he's fine. Asmo says that he still wants to sleep it off and that he wants MC with him. Satan once again proving that he's the best brother says that him and Mammon will go make soup, Beel will clean the bathroom and that MC can take Asmo to bed. Asmo gushes about how good Satan is and Satan blushes (a year ago this sentence would have been so messed up wtf happened). in bed MC ends up telling Asmo all about their day and Asmo gets sad about not being able to go to the cafe, MC complains about Simeon being a sadist who put them to work (or they can invite Asmo to come the next time) and Asmo says he's jealous that he wasn't there to see them all suffer. Asmo says that while he was asleep he had a dream that he was still an angel and that it's been so long since he's seen Michael who was stunningly beautiful and who was gushing about lucifer, and that he was glad he didn't run into raphael cause he scared him. MC falls asleep while Asmo talks.

MC is woken up in a bright forest by angel Asmo, who asks them what they were doing sleeping in a place like that and says he has never seen MC before. MC can ask him what he's doing dressed like an angel or can ask him if he's actually asmo. He basically says either i've always looked like this unless you're talking about my nails which i painted a different colour or duh obviously you know who i am, who doesn't. He then asks MC who they are. They can ask him if he has forgotten them or if he's kidding. He says either that if they'd met before he wouldn't have forgotten them or that he always means what he says even if people think he's kidding and then asks for their name. MC can ask if they are dreaming - Asmo takes it as them flirting with him/using a cheesy pickup line which he thinks is adorable - or they can ask where they are - the celestial realm. Asmo asks them if they work for Raphael cause Asmo had snuck into the human world to go to 'something called a party' which he had never been to before and that he'd had a lot of fun. But that raphael says 'it's a wicked and immoral thing'. He then asks MC what they think. MC gets to either say that it's up to him to decide or to agree with raphael. If you choose the first option Asmo is suprised, and then says that since it was so much fun it'd be a tragedy never to experience it again and that he thinks he should be allowed to have fun. Asmo had found MC while he was hiding from Raphael who was pissed about the party. Asmo goes to propose something to MC but gets cockblocked by Beel. Asmo asks beel if he could open the celestial realm gates, beel says no and then asks who the fuck MC is. Asmo introduces Beel as a cherubim and a guardian of the gates of the Celestial Realm. And says that Beel is a very famous angel, and that there's a rumour that lucifer recommended Beel to be promoted to seraphim. Beel says that lucifer hasn't mentioned it to him and that it's just a rumour. Beel asks MC if they are okay and if Asmo has tried anything on them cause Asmo hits on anything that moves. Asmo gets pissed and says that it's not that he'd happily sleep with anyone but that he cares about who they are and that he feels love towards everyone he meets. And that the reason everyone loves him so much is cause he loves everyone due to his ability to see the good in people. Beel changes the subject by telling MC they look hungry and offers them a few sweets he got from Michael. MC basically goes wtf why aren't you eating them. He says he's not hungry and that he has eaten too much recently and gained weight and is now on a diet. MC probably looks like they had a stroke cause Beel asks if they are okay. MC tells him that they like the fact that he eats a lot. Beel blushes before asking Asmo if that's a compliment and if he's supposed to thank MC. Asmo who's pissed off snaps at beel about MC and Beel flirting while ignoring him. Beel says he came here looking for belphie.

Beel proceeds to shake a tree until Belphie falls out... Belphie takes one look at MC and asks what the fuck a human is doing in the celestial realm (i forgot that this was back when he still liked humans and thought we were back to square one and he was about to start throwing hands). MC can say 'You think I lool like a human?' vs "Excuse me? What are YOU doing here?'. for the second option Belphie just says screw you I asked first. For the first he's confused that they are not, Asmo saves MC's ass either by telling Belphie to go get his eyes checked while Beel says MC's an angel. Belphie says he does detect angelic vibes from MC (Lilith's bloodline???) but also something humanlike. Asmo says Belphie probably senses that cause all he ever thinks about are humans and Belphie says it's cause humans are interesting and wishes he was born as a human. Asmo yells at Belphie not to say things like that cause if Raphael finds out they'd be in trouble. Beel asks what they are gonna do about their new lost angel and Asmo asks if they can keep MC. Belphie says no cause they're supposed to bring lost angels to Lucifer (how often do angels get lost????). MC gets to choose whether they want to go with Beel, Belphie or Asmo to find lucifer. I chose Beel cause he was anyway going back to Lucifer with Belphie (⚡⚡Efficiency🌟🌟) which is when belphie finds out lucifer's looking for him cause he skipped a meeting. '???' cuts in with a "Mmhm, I THOUGHT I heard some awfully familiar voices..." it turns out to be Mammon who's been looking for all of them (minus MC for a change and isn't that the weirdest thing to happen in all this).

Asmo scolds Mammon for scaring him and tells him not to appear outta thin air like that (that's such a 'Lucifer Trait' tho that i don't think we've seen from Mammon before?) - Mammon says he'll do what he wants. He then asks if MC is Asmo's 'newest plaything'. Asmo says no but can you imagine tho😍 After Belphie and Beel introduce MC as a lost angel, Mammon sounds oddly skeptical and says he's never heard of an "MC" before. Beel introduces Mammon as a throne who acts as Lucifer's assistant. He says that Mammon can be trusted cause outta all the thrones he's Lucifer's most trusted. Asmo says that Mammon used to be a troublemaker and that Michael hadn't known what to do with him but that he's grown into someone who, more than anyone else in the Celestial Realm, can do anything he puts his mind in to. Mammon says he doesn't like the way Asmo introduced him and Belphie says it's true though cause they all thought Mammon was just a step away from being cast out (fdshgfwdygds explains why Lucifer worries so much over Mammon in the present cause he's gone back to being a troublemaker). MC can ask about 1.) the being cast out thing - Mammon says the others are exaggerating even though things have changed. 2.) being a throne - blushing Mammon says that he was an archangel and that Lucifer recommended him as a throne. 3.)question him about being able to do anything - he snaps at them for looking disbelieving and says he's talented.  Belphie says mammon used to be awful and ngl these made me laugh - mammon brought back pigeon feathers from the human world and tried to sell them to the lower rank angels by telling them they were Raphael's feathers, he also ordered around the army of angels for fun and said he was playing angel chess. Mammon says they were just innocent pranks and were no big deal and MC ever the enabler agrees with him. Mammon says it seems like MC's actually got some sense and says he likes them and that they're cool. Mammon then stutters and asks MC why they're staring at him 'like that' and imagine the amount of shit going through MC's head at seeing Mammon like this? From all the brothers he's arguably the one they're closest with (even if it's not in a romantic sense) so seeing him in a world where he's respected by his brothers and has this kinda calm confidence that he doesn't have as a demon, imagining what must have happened between then and the present for things to change the way they have, finding out he's still a troublemaker, still wholly Mammon, and just has to squash down those urges here, remembering all the times the more responsible side of him came out as a demon and getting to see a version of himself where that side is more prominent. Seeing him so easily say that he likes them without any of the protests he had as a demon. Realising that Mammon's more 'tsundere' characteristics are all a defense mechanism to protect himself from opening up and being hurt and that in the present after realising they genuinely care about him he starts dropping them. realising that as both an angel and a demon he took a look at them and thought 'this one, i like.' Just!??? Ah. :). Anyway back to the chapter- He starts blushing and tells them to stop staring. Belphie asks Mammon if he wants to be like Lucifer, blushing Mammon asks so what if he does. Belphie says that's never gonna happen so he should give up while he's ahead (made me wanna punch him) and that Mammon is not Lucifer and is instead Mammon and that he can't become something he's not (made me wanna hug him). Mammon tells Belphie to shut up and asks why he cares anyway and that with enough time one day he might do it and that he doesn't care what belphie says and that they should just watch him. and isn't it sad that Mammon will never get that time, and yeah it's a good thing that now as a demon he's just being Mammon without trying to be lucifer but he was never given the time to figure that out for himself and it explains all the issues/complexes Mammon has regarding Lucifer and shit imagine losing MC to the man he respects and loves but who he will always see himself as second best to and who he was always trying to reach, the man he believed he could have become until the fall and until he gave up and let his sin and his more real self takeover?? Since Mammon never had the time to realise that it's better to be yourself than someone else if MC ends up choosing Lucifer he'll always have that 'what if' in the back of his head and that shit hurts dude. MC can then say something about them all really loving Lucifer, Mammon blushes and stutters and said that nobody said anything about loving lucifer. Beel, Belphie and Asmo all say they love Luicfer (but not his lectures). Mammon growls and says he hates them and Asmo calls him out on being really obvious about loving lucifer as well, Mammon blushing says he doesn't. Or they can tell Mammon they're rooting for him. He's suprised and then stutters and blushes and asks if they really will. Then still blushing and stuttering he tells MC to stop staring at him like that again. MC's such a pining idiot i can't handle it.  Beel changes the subject and asks why Mammon was looking for them. Lucifer had sent Mammon to find the twins cause Beel never returned with Belphie. He also tells Asmo that Raphael was walking around with his spear looking for him. He then calls them to head to the Celestial Palace. Asmo says that if the Seraphim find out about MC it'll make things worse and who knows what they'll do to all of them. They decide they should hide MC someplace.

Inside the palace Mammon yells at MC to stop looking at everything with wide eyes (did this happen before? when he was showing them around the devildom during the first lesson? I can't remember but my love for parallels is praying it did) cause they're already sticking out by being a bunch of high ranking angels gathered together. Asmo tells Mammon he needs to be nicer. He says that there's no reason to worry cause Lucifer and the others are on the higher floors. Belphie says that this makes it the perfect spot to hide when they wanna skip work. MC says that even angels need a break sometimes. Asmo says the seraphim are bossy and never cut them any slack. Beel asks MC if they are close to any other angels. If MC says Luke no one knows who that is cause the baby hasn't been born yet🥺. If MC says Simeon, Belphie's surprised and Beel says that outta all the Seraphim Simeon's the most easygoing. AND holy shit??? During the last lesson Simeon said he was an archangel which means that he was demoted at some point?????? And considering how close he was with Lucifer and possibly the others as well,,,,,,,,,,could it be possible that he was demoted after the fall? That though he didn't come with them he helped them escape in someway? or looked aside while they escaped? or knew about Lilith and her human? Or knew Lucifer was becoming more disillusioned? Belphie says it's not that Simeon's easygoing but rather that the others are too intense. Mammon asks if they should hand MC over to Simeon and Asmo says another Seraphim would spot them before they reached him. They stop outside their secret room aka the slacking off room. When the door is opened MC and possibly Beel get drenched in water while Belphie, Asmo and possibly Mammon manage to jump away. "???" says that to get entry they need to say the secret phrase.

belphie asks if they really need a secret phrase and levi says they never know when the seraphim will show up, mammon says that if they do show up a secret phrase wouldn't stop them from coming inside. Levi says whatever and asks who MC is. Asmo scolds him for the way he worded the question but still introduces MC. Levi suspects that MC is one of Michael's agents who was sent to verify that levi is 'as much of an useless waste of space as I seem to be'. MC snaps 'That's not true!' and Levi is startled and blushes. And Mammon, holy shit Mammon says what in my humble opinion is one of the funniest lines in the series,: "That's right, Levi. It's not true. I mean, just look at MC's face... See that absentminded stare... like there's nothin' going on upstairs? Does that look like the face of one of Michael's agents? I don't think so." WHY did he have to come for MC so hard!???? this came literally outta nowhere and it made me laugh so hard??? Worst of all? it made me realise a horrid horrid truth; Mammon considers himself a morosexual I'm in tears???? Levi says it's better to be absentminded than to be a waste of space. Belphie says that Levi commanded Lotan and the army of angels in the war against the demons and was basically their general. Beel says that now that the Celestial Realm is at peace Levi feels like he has no purpose. Asmo says that someone from the younger generation took over the Devildom which is why the war ended, though Mammon says the transition isn't official yet. Levi tells them to shut up and Mammon tells him that sitting around being grumpy wouldn't do anything and that he should at least enjoy them being at peace. Levi says that he doesn't wanna hear that crap from Mammon cause Mammon being Lucifer's favourite means he can be an airhead and still have his future secured, while levi would be a dead weight, a leach and a burden to the entire realm without a war to fight (and i mean a lot of what levi said is pretty messed up but Mammon did get promoted from a warrior to Lucifer's right hand possibly after the war was over? while Levi's still a general in a realm at peace). When mammon gets pissed off at Levi's comment the others say that considering this isn't the first time that levi got into one of these moods mammon should just ignore him. Levi immediately latches onto that and says that they shouldn't interact with an useless bore of an angel like him cause it's just a waste of time. MC suggests that Levi find something else he can be passionate about and he says that there's nothing else for him. MC can recommend either anime or manga.  since he doesn't know what these are MC then explains it to him in detail. he's interested but doesn't think a boring angel like him could actually get interested in anything like that (oh baby...). Belphie and Asmo are surprised that MC seems to know so much about the human culture when even Belphie doesn't know this much. '???' voice finds them and says it's interesting how much free time they seem to have. Kinda sad to find out that Levi got into anime cause he needed something to make him feel less useless in the aftermath of a war...

The brothers all freak out about being found by lucifer, who yells at Mammon for not bringing the twins to him and at Beel for not bringing Belphie and then at Belphie for oversleeping and missing the meeting and at Asmo, who he says should take care of the situation before he finds himself at 'the pointy end of Raphael's spear. do you think the Seraphim have divisions that they each head? Lucifer doesn't seem inclined to punish Asmo for breaking the rules like he would have in the Devildom and rather lets Raphael take care of it. Mammon trained under Michael before he met Lucifer - so when he was an archangel. And now as an archangel Simeon works for Michael. It's implied previously in this lesson that Lucifer had other thrones working for him. So? Lucifer then asks who MC is. MC says 'I know you' which makes Lucifer's affection meter go up but he says duh obviously you know me, everyone does (and I mean this in the most affectionate way possible but like what a fucking asshole). Asmo introduces MC as a lost angel and says they were planning to find Lucifer. Lucifer asks if they decided to hide MC cause they were scared the other seraphim would find out and this brings up so many questions - How mean exactly are the other seraphim? We know that the brothers are scared of Lucifer but comparatively Asmo's terrified of Raphael and Mammon of Michael. What exactly would the others do to a lost angel? Ik they said simeon was the most easygoing but is it possible Lucifer's the nicest? I mean he did adopt 6 oddball angels, he seems to be trying to help them rise through the ranks, he seems to deal with lost angels regularly, he knows about their slacking off room and hasn't told the others (to be fair tho if anyone needs a slacking off room it's lucifer), they trusted him not to get mad about their room and about the weird 'angel' they found... Mammon changes the subject by asking Lucifer if he was supposed to be heading down to the devildom, when Levi asks why he'd go there, Lucifer says the price is asking to meet with him. Lucifer's says he doesn't like going but that it's his job and that he doesn't have a choice. with the free 50 pulls I got the devilgram about this first meeting and holy shit?? Lucifer was such a bitch and Diavolo STILL took one look at him decided 'damn I'm gonna love this man'?????????? Also the prejudice the angels have against the demons is just??? Lucifer was surprised that education was a thing in the devildom????? The fact that diavolo wanted not just peace but to build a bridge between the three realms and lucifer didn't believe him cause 1.) ew demons are evil but more importantly 2.) 'if that was possible why hasn't my father tried to achieve that?' - just them showing lucifer slowly starting to question everything he was brought up with and his father who looked up to and practically hero-worshipped?? The symbolism of Lucifer finding the devildom clothes he was provided with more comfortable than his angel's armour? Lucifer warming up to diavolo in the end and i dunno guys it was such a good devilgram. i also got the devilgram where lucifer gets jealous of Barbatos, sulks about it, then whines to MC and finally tries to bake cookies for Diavolo... it's not significant to anything i just needed to say that out loud. Back to the main storyline; MC can ask him whether he doesn't like demons or whether he doesn't want to go the devildom. his answer to both is basically 'ew of course not'. He then tells MC he'll ask Michael to help them. MC tells him to have fun with Diavolo and to be friendly. Lucifer is shocked cause it almost sounds like MC knows Diavolo, and he says they're odd cause he feels like even though he just met them it doesn't really feel like that. Asmo agrees and says when he talks to MC it feels like he's talking to someone very dear to him. Mammon's surprised it's not just him who feels that. Belphie says it's a mysterious feeling and Beel says maybe they've all met somewhere before. Levi says maybe MC reminds them of someone they know. Belphie says: "Hey, wait a second. Does MC remind you of Li-" He's cut off by the whole screen going white and '???' saying 'oh dear, what a mess...'

The voice laments about how often Solomon messes shit up, and asks how he could possibly create food that has odd effects on both humans and demons, and that it can't even be classified as food anymore and should be considered a magic potion. They say that Solomon doing these kinda shit without even realising is the worst part. The voice says that MC's consciousness was sent to the past through their dreams cause of Solomon's cooking and that solomon had created an immortality elixir by accident too once. the voice says that despite being a decent human with a good head on his shoulders Solomon can sometimes be more troublesome than the demons cause despite the way he acts he doesn't actually understand his own power. The voice says they'll send MC back home and that they'll forget everything that happened but the effect they had on the brothers as angels will carry on to the future and that in order to ensure the effect doesn't have negative consequences someday the voice will keep an eye on MC from now on. And that the voice will have to think about Simeon as well. They say goodbye until they meet MC again. MC wakes up next to a sleeping Asmo in his bed. When Beel tells them they're finally done cleaning up the bathroom MC tells him they had a wack dream but that they can't remember what it was, Beel says maybe it's something they're better off forgetting. There's a locked chapter that i can't open :')

The lessons over but I've got notes so hear me out!

1. ) The paradox of Mammon and MC's pact- in the previous lesson Mammon said he doesn't make pacts with random humans except as far as we knew then MC was a random human when he made the pact with them. Mammon being the fastest of the brothers also means he could have easily gotten Goldie back without making the pact. This lesson reveals that MC was never a random human and that they'd met thousands of years prior to their 'first meeting' and though neither Mammon nor MC would have remembered that meeting the effect of it would have still carried on. The effect of MC supporting Mammon's schemes and his dreams, the effect of him being flustered by them, of them staring at him in a way that made him blush, of him deciding he liked them, of him feeling like he already knew them and being able to comfortably tease them. And it's probably all of this that led Mammon to make a pact with them. Except MC was stared at him and supported him as an angel cause they already knew him and cared about him as an angel cause they had a pact together and were friends. tldr; the only reason Mammon made a pact with MC was cause they were familiar to him, the only reason they were familiar to him was cause they were nice to him when he was angel, and the only reason they were nice to him as an angel was cause they already had a pact with him and were friends and so on and so on.

2. ) They have so much freedom in the Devildom holy shit??? They went from having a council of scary vaguely sadistic control freaks to just one. They can do whatever they want without any real consequences while in the Celestial Realm a party was seen as something evil? None of them have any real duties in the devildom while they were so busy in the celestial realm they needed a secret room to slack off

3. ) the seraphim seem so much more controlling than diavolo? I mean the man takes any excuse to throw a party and is currently whining about not being allowed to go the human world. While in the celestial realm just talking about wanting to be human is a punishable offence. And yeah sure you could say that I'm comparing the past celestial realm vs the current devildom and that the current celestial realm has probably eased up a lot EXCEPT 01.) in the devilgram with Lucifer's and Diavolo's first meeting Diavolo seems exactly the same as he currently is. 02.) Luke - who is a fairly new angel- 's attitude when he first arrives in the devildom is scarily similar to Lucifer's attitude in the devilgram where he first meets Diavolo 03.) the angel event proves that the Celestial Realm still has a set view on what angels should be like and that the brothers never fit this view

4.) Forming of their sins - the brothers were definitely the odd ones out in the celestial realm even if they were pretty famous and they all had less intense versions of their sins even back then. MC who knows them for only their sins, reinforced them when they were angels which probably led to them embracing these sins more, which would have helped with their fall and with fully developing their sins

5. ) I feel like we might actually get to see michael???? They've been dragging and teasing about finally meeting him for so long.

Pls come talk to me about this lesson! I'm desperate rn i need to hear more thoughts and theories!

[jcmorrigan]

How was your element of harmony fic gonna end?

OOH NOW THIS ONE HAS BEEN SUCH A WHILE THAT THIS ACTUALLY SOUNDS FUN TO TALK ABOUT

Context for those unaware: EoH was one of my many attempts at a multicrossover. A predecessor to TBTC. It was my goal at being an EVERYTHING CROSSOVER and taking forever to highlight every little thing that could be explored in the canon of each work used. And I was in a difficult relationship with KH at the time, even though it was obviously a KH derivative, so I didn't want to actually use Sora and co. as the main cast. MLPFIM was a comfort show for me, and I was already used to the br0n135 using the Mane Six in crossovers with everything you could imagine, so I was like, hey, let's do this, Mane Six are now multi-world travelers and Discord is assembling every villain ever to stand in their way. (KH then ended up in the mythos anyway!) This is also where I was playing the infamous Twilight Sparkle/Mozenrath ship that is now very very dead.

To explain exactly what all was going on with the lore and politics of it to make this last bit make sense would take too long, so from there, please just...roll with it. I'm about to detail you THE FINALE ARC

The original idea was actually, at some point, to begin work on the Finale Arc when most of the main players were introduced. Then go back in time and keep editing the middle of the story to go on indefinitely. A bad business plan for many reasons, first of all being that I didn't even get to introduce the players that would've made it possible to begin the arc. That's how long I took to explore EVERY FRICKIN THING.

Over the course of the story, Discord has been interfering on every crossover world you can imagine, to the point of sometimes altering their canons into "fix fic." The story is aware of this. It's kinda like in the Loki series (of which I've only watched episode 1) where there's a "sacred timeline" and Discord's crossover actions are deliberate attempts by him to break it. We learn at some point that paradoxes and timeline changes are what broke the Age of Fairy Tales into the KH worlds we know today. So Discord rounds up his Old Ones (the Lovecraftian monstrosities that are more powerful than gods) and they all band together to strike at all the cracks he's put in the structure of the multiverse, and it all just falls APART. Worlds are destroyed, time has no meaning, suddenly everything is shards floating in void. The main players survive, mostly. Countless civilians die. Some named characters are given tragic deaths.

I've actually written one little snippet from this arc because I wanted to. It details two particular characters, who at the time were side villains I enjoyed and was just digging the vibe of, going down defending a stronghold from the creatures of Darkness (oni, yokai, Heartless, Grimm) that emerged from the void when everything broke. By the way do you want to take a guess who these characters IT WAS ARCHIBALD SNATCHER AND ROMAN TORCHWICK. GOD, THAT SHOULD'VE BEEN THE SIGN RIGHT THEN AND THERE THAT THEY WERE WHO I WANTED TO BE WRITING ABOUT FULL-TIME

But! I had a friend who'd lent me the book "Haroun and the Sea of Stories," and I was REALLY into that book's whole concept of "all stories in existence are threatened to end." So I lifted Khattam-Shud, a personification of The End (and I have since heard is also a political caricature), as the ACTUAL final boss. Discord wanted to blow up the multiverse because of the CHAOS that would ensue! KS, however, wanted to end EVERYTHING. (If I were doing this today, he'd just flat-out be Ansem, Seeker of Darkness instead.) Discord would realize he'd been played as KS makes a bid to line up one more cataclysm that will reduce everything to dust.

Heroes and villains alike, Discord included, find each other across the wastelands and amass into one last survivors' army led by the Mane Six. They approach the final field standing between them and KS and they charge. KS unleashes Dark creatures (Echthroi, as I had it) to gun them down. Pretty much everyone dies in this battle except the Mane Six themselves. (Which should give you a hint as to how this REALLY ends, but let's keep going.) The Mane Six fight their way to KS (and I'm REALLY gonna date myself here - the final line of defense before him was gonna be Paige the freaking Notebook from DHMIS as a personification of creative control). He shatters the Elements and then un-exists the Mane Six, but they don't die.

Instead, they end up in a sort of...white realm, inspired by the development rooms in The Stanley Parable (I was into even weirder fandoms back then than I am now apparently?). At one point it was gonna be "inside the author's laptop" and they could see doors to other timelines (i.e. crossover fanfics my friends were doing). They can also see all the files here for all the worlds they visited on their way and all the friends they made. Y'know, everything that's now DEAD.

The memories of everyone and everything they loved, however, allows them to forge one (1) new Element stone. This is...wait for it...THE ELEMENT OF HARMONY. Its surface shimmers with a rainbow of all colors! But wait! When it's flipped over, there's another side to the same gem, with colors dissonantly swirled around in an ugly way. Our heroines realize that the Element of Harmony also serves a dual purpose as the Element of Chaos, since you can't have one without the other!

The Mane Six find a way back to KS' battlefield, where he's about to finally UN-EXIST EVERYTHING. Twilight gets to say the one and only "FUCK" she's allowed to say in the whole story (I really...want to use this same joke on Mozenrath in TBTC...I know I've said he curses inaudibly to keep him IC but just imagine in the finale arc he gets the one and only FUCK he's ever allowed in his life). The six huddle around their Element of Harmony and activate its magic, casting a rainbow aura that begins to heal the broken multiverse. KS then tells them there's no way that will ever work because he and the other Old Ones caused so many paradoxes that it'll fall back apart again. To build a multiverse that's stable under these conditions would make no sense. And Twilight goes "WHAT FUN IS THERE IN MAKING SENSE" and flips the Element over to the Chaos side! Now the Chaos energy basically...fixes all the plot holes and physical impossibilities of the multiverse, allowing it to rebuild everything that had broken without a single issue!

Discord petrifies Khattam-Shud and it was fairly badass but I can't remember exactly what one-liner I gave him to end it.

Lights up on a rebuilt multiverse. Everyone's alive again and nothing's broken! YAY! And everyone in the survivor army (though they're not "survivors" anymore since EVERYONE is alive again) has come to Equestria to give the Mane Six a celebration for saving literally everything! AND THEY'RE ALL PONIES OR OTHERWISE MAGICAL CREATURES BECAUSE OF MY RULES OF FORM CHANGING IN THAT FIC. HAHAHAHAHA IT WAS A VERY COMICAL MENTAL IMAGE AND STILL IS.

The Six get their ships (Twilight/Mozenrath, Pinkie Pie/Megavolt, Fluttershy/Sakuya from Okami, Rarity/Stork, Rainbow Dash/I would really rather not say this one because it was taboo in a way I don't wanna touch again, Applejack/I don't even know anymore because it was gonna be Emma Swan and then it wasn't and then I just got confused). And everyone just has a good time.

The Six then take off in the ship again for THE ADVENTURE CONTINUING, EVEN THOUGH AFTER THIS I WOULD JUST GO WRITE ETERNAL ADVENTURE LEADING UP TO THIS MOMENT

Also I heard the song "We Come Running" by Youngblood Hawke on the radio once and I was like "This would go great over a credits sequence" so I used it for a while as my inspo for a KH-style "credits montage" where you see each of the most major worlds and the factions that live on them, and an early concept for the WHAM ARMY was one of these factions and this cracks me up so much because they graduated from a shot in the KH montage to WE ARE THE PROTAGS OF THE NEXT FIC

And that's pretty much it!

[earthstellar]

INTERVIEW: Transformers lore and characters as discussed with my 74 year old mother

Backstory: I talk about fandom stuff a lot with my mom (she’s one of the original Star Trek fangirls so she knows her fandom shit lmao) and recently I’ve been discussing Transformers with her. 

Me and my mom are very open with each other, and we have some interesting fandom conversations. 

Here are some lines from a recent call with her that I thought might be interesting, regarding Transformers stuff and especially some interesting elderly person perspective on Ratchet. There’s also some talk of the theology in Transformers lore, including Drift and Spectralism, and a bunch of other stuff too.

All conversations transcribed from a recent Skype call, with my mom’s permission.

M is my mom, Me is just me-- So that you can tell who’s talking, lol. When other real people are mentioned, their names are redacted and replaced with an X for privacy. 

Getting Started:

Me: Okay, there are a lot of younger fans for Transformers who might be interested in this kind of discussion, but I don’t see a lot of these conversations saved and shared anywhere, so if you don't mind I want to share some of your reactions to learning about Transformers stuff. 

M: That’s okay, very professional of you to ask! The internet is a job now, I guess. I’m being interviewed, fancy. 

On Ratchet’s Age/Health and older people in media:

Me: Ratchet’s the medic, he’s an old guy. Older than a lot of the other bots. In the comics (MTMTE/LL) he has a chronic illness and he eventually passes away from either that or complications related to it, although we don’t see it happen on the page. It made everyone sad; He’s a fan favourite. 

M: I know how that feels, getting old and dying! I had years of thyroid symptoms before they had to take it out, I had endometriosis and they told me I couldn't have you, it’s an unsure thing. Now I’ve had skin cancers removed, I have too much potassium in my blood, I have fibromyalgia. I never expected to live this long. 

Everyone is really just guessing at health stuff. It’s ironic that the doctor couldn’t diagnose himself, but I think he probably knew what was wrong and couldn't bring himself to accept it. Old people might accept that we can’t do some things any more but we tend to be depressed about it. Nobody really copes with it very well, you know X had a stroke and now she’s aphasic, can’t speak anymore, can’t read anymore, and she used to be a nurse. She’s older than I am, but it’s sad. She’s so smart and clever, and we’re just old. It’s what happens. 

I bet Ratchet was scared. As a doctor, he’d know what can happen when you get old and decrepit. I think he was in denial, a lot of old guys seem to be like that. 

Me: He was the medical lead on their ship, the Lost Light. I think you’re right and he wanted to be functional for as long as possible; He wants to be helpful and his job is his life. It would be hard for him; He struggles with retirement in the comics. 

M: Sounds about right. I’m old as hell and I still work! Although that’s mostly because we all need money to live, and not so much because anybody wants to have a job at this age, but still. If he liked his job, he wouldn’t want to be pushed out. I loved working at the park; When I had to quit, it was devastating, but I didn’t really have a choice. 

By the way, the audiobooks you sent me for X have really made her happy, she can read again, sort of! So thanks for that.

Me: I’m glad the audiobooks I sent you helped!

M: They have, you’re a life saver! 

Me: I’m just glad they’re useful for her! 

I think it’s interesting that his age is a part of his character in terms of personality and story arc; Do you enjoy seeing older characters in media that reflect the realities of age and being old, even when it’s difficult or possibly depressing? 

M: Yes! There aren’t a lot of old characters, and the ones that are out there are mostly just joke characters or you never see them too often. I think the creators must think that old people don’t watch TV or anything, but the reason we don’t tune in is because everything is all about young people, and that can be hard. Watching people run around when you can’t anymore can be painful for those of us who have lost that ability now that we’re elderly, or watching kid-focused stuff can make us miss our families. 

It would be nice to see old characters that are included and are competent. 

Me: Representation is important. 

M: Yes. 

On Religion in Transformers: 

Me: So, you work in a church. Just pointing it out so readers know where we’re coming from on this. 

M: Yep, Episcopalian on the beach here, a small church. Services are mostly online due to COVID so I’ve lost hours on Friday, unfortunately... But I’m not complaining. 

Me: And we both like the more spiritual lore type of content, it’s some good shit. 

M: Always love seeing ancient Gods in space! 

Me: So, there’s another old guy character, Alpha Trion, who’s a kind of sage-like mentor to Optimus Prime. 

M: Optimus! He’s the truck! Everyone knows him, he’s the main guy. 

Me: Yep! So Alpha Trion is an archivist, and when Optimus Prime was younger, depending on what version of the story we look at, he also used to be an archivist. 

M: Librarian truck! 

Me: Yes! 

M: I love it. You worked at a library for a little bit. 

Me: That work placement was the best, loved it. But Alpha Trion, depending on which version of the lore we look at, is hinted to be one of the formative deity-entities on their home planet, Cybertron. 

M: Cybertroooooon. Haha! Good robot planet name. I’m into this so far, very cool.

Me: It is! And Alpha Trion is sort of the living memory of the early days of their planet and civilisation, but nobody knows. Everyone just thinks he’s a kind of cryptic weird old guy. 

M: Relatable. I like this concept.

Me: It’s pretty good. So generally, things vary a lot from version to version of the story, but there are usually a handful of beings, early Transformers, who make up the character of their ancient lore. These are called the Primes, named after Primus, who pretty much always is depicted as their main God. Like Zeus, or Odin. 

M: Very cool. Optimus is a Prime! 

Me: Right! In a few versions of the story, he is the final Prime essentially reincarnated. The Thirteenth Prime. 

M: That’s very cool. 

Me: And in some other stories, Prime is mostly purely a title that has political connotations as well; It gets into a sort of weird Divine Right kind of area to help underscore some of the problems in their planetary political structure that led to the conflict that eventually became their civil war. 

M: That sucks, but unfortunately, also relatable. It’s very real world, especially right now. It’s interesting how Transformers is so incredibly in depth; I never would have guessed from the cartoon ads that were on TV when you were little. 

Me: Yeah, they seem to hide a lot of the lore, which is a shame. The comics are more adult than most of the TV shows, I think you’d like them. 

M: Sounds like it. I love the spiritual robot stuff. 

Me: In the comics, there is a religious practice called Spectralism that you might really like. They see auras by filtering different light wave bandwidths through their optics in order to detect mood, and all the colours have meanings assigned to them. They change their paint colours in accordance with those colour meanings as well, on some occasions. Meditation is part of the practice. One of the transformers, Drift, had at least one vision; It’s hinted there might be more to Spectralism, but we don’t see all that much of it in any further detail, unfortunately. They also believe in Primus as a deity. 

M: It’s a shame they don’t elaborate more on it. It sounds very cool, like the stuff we were doing in the sixties and seventies. I bet Drift has some black light posters in his room, we had tons of them. Loved the velvet ones. 

Me: He does have an altar, I think. Or a least a prayer area, it’s mentioned he meditates fairly frequently, from what I remember. 

M: (Starts singing Smoke on the Water by Deep Purple) That was the best, put some tunes on... Good driving music, too! 

On Femme Transformers and Sexism in Sci-Fi: 

Me: So there are some lady Transformers, too! 

M: Ooh! 

Me: There’s Arcee, who is the pink one you probably remember from the ads or the cartoons, and in the comics she’s officially transgender. 

M: Excellent! Trans-formers. Good. 

Me: Yes! And there’s not just her, there’s Nautica and Velocity in the comics as well, plus Elita-One... (I showed her pictures of each.) 

M: I like Velocity. I love the teal, the Thunderbird on the back is excellent. 

Me: I like Velocity, too. 

M: Elita has the head cones, not sure how I feel about that. She’s also pink, it’s hard to keep track of them all. I like Arcee, she has the Princess Leia hair helmet! 

Me: I figured you’d like that. It’s pretty good. 

M: I like Arcee and Velocity the best so far. 

Me: There’s quite a few female or femme transformers now. There didn't used to be, and there were some mistakes made here and there, but nowadays there’s a much wider cast. 

M: That’s good, I’m surprised, but in a good way. There were never women main characters in sci-fi stuff when I was a kid, it’s why Star Trek was such a big deal, and even then, it wasn’t all that great. There was Uhura, Nurse Chapel, but there were a lot of weird episodes...

Me: I love the Romulan Commander, though. 

M: She was the best! Wished we got to see her more. 

Me: Me too. But in Transformers, they’re doing a good job with the female coded characters, as least as far as I’ve seen.

M: That’s good to know. I’m glad that exists for girls who want to play Transformers, too. It always seemed like such a macho thing, the way they advertised it. 

Me: Yeah, that’s still a problem to some degree, but I remember it being way more aggressively worse in the 80s/90s. 

M: It was worse in the 50s when I was a kid! Cooking sets were the girl toy. They made Star Trek for boys, but when all the girls ended up being the main demographic that watched it, they cancelled it. It was Lucy from I Love Lucy who brought it back, I remember you told me that! 

Me: Yep!

M: I’m glad little girls have Arcee. And little boys. They’re robots, they don’t have gender! 

Me: Exactly! 

--

If this kind of interview/conversation excerpt type thing is interesting to anyone, we’re happy to keep doing it! 

Give me questions or things to ask my mom, she’s happy to give you some “old lady perspective”, lmao. ❤️ 

[minecraftsz]

I mean, I get why the characters are so lacking! Tales from the SMP as a whole doesn't have deep and interesting characters because they're ultimately plot devices and side characters for Karl. We rarely tune in for the story. We tune in for our favorite content creators and how they'll play their parts and for the ending. For Karl's snippet of lore.

The tales started out as a fun way to ease tension from the main lore and give us interesting filler episodes. They evolved into a way to house Karl's lore while trying to keep the fun episodic filler we need.

Some criticism is absolutely necessary. Karl has done two murder mystery episodes with different settings. Kinda boring. Quackity. oh GOD Quackity. He doesn't fit the tone of these new tales and can't seem to reel himself in. Lost City of Mizu? I hated Quckity in that. Karl kept trying to move things along and Quackity would run off or start a bit that dragged on for too long. When he died the pacing of the story speed up to a normal pace that became more interesting! My biggest issue with tales will always be Quackity.

Sorry for this long rant but I think that TSMP gets a lot of unwarranted criticism for its characters and I'm tired of people wanting more deep characters when that's not what TSMP is for.

i get what youre saying but like thats kind of the reason i dont like it very much! characters existing just to be plot devices and side characters is kind of boring :p im not really a huge fan of the cast karl usually has on and i think its formula just isnt very interesting? the pressure to come up with new characters to play IMO makes all the jokes and bits everyone does fall a little flatter than normal. like if youre tuning in for the ccs isnt it better if theyre playing interesting characters? that gives them a lot more to work with!

i also think that tftsmp existing just to flesh out karls character in the actual dsmp is a little.. i dont know i feel like a better way to do that would be to have more frequent character interactions on the server itself. like the way tales and the dsmp are set up kind of makes for 2 different karls. theres silent cinematic in-between karl and then theres the actual character karl acts as which is basically just the guy in a setting. the character he actually rp’s as is very very different from the character he plays in the in between segments, which i find kind of jarring. theres just such a tonal disconnect between tales and the IB :(

i guess my main issue is that tales is sort of placed as Character Development which makes it stand out a little more when the characters actually played within it are lackluster. i agree that the point is to just entertain and be funny but i think its structure kind of gets in the way of that. ive made a post abt it before i think but like basically its just trying to do too many things at once and they all get in each others way :(

either way though i just dont enjoy tales very much thats kind of it. like i do have structural complaints but even if it was Very Good i still dont think i would like watching it :p so take all this with a grain of salt lol

[seyaryminamoto]

(1/2) What if the reason Bryke left was because Netflix wanted to give Azula a redemption arc? Or maybe somebody wanted to change the first scene of the show so that Katara wasn't with Sokka when he went fishing and so Aang wasn't unfrozen until years later... *whistles innocently* And they realized this route would allow them to make a longer series, meaning more content, meaning more profit. Jokes aside, I realize both of these options are 99% not the reason Bryke left, but imagine if...

(2/2) they were? Like, how funny would that be? Well, the latter possibility would be sort of funny, while the former would be somewhat depressing actually. Anyway, I'm surprised how many people are complaining about Bryke's departure. From what I've seen, people primarily shit on them and any praise in regards to ATLA goes to other writers/artists. I already didn't have any high expectations out of the live-action version, but this latest development didn't really worsen them much.

x’D not wrong about the second option being hilarious, though I’d hope I’d have heard something about it, if just out of sheer decency by Netflix to contact the cruel mind behind not sending Sokka fishing with Katara... (?)

Anyways, Bryke’s involvement in ATLA’s writing is often up-played by casual viewers, and downplayed by hardcore fans. There’s no sure way to know how much work they did on ATLA’s writing, seeing as there’s a fair amount of reports that suggest Aaron Ehasz, imposed on Bryke by Nickelodeon, reeled the story into what it became. I’ve even seen people claiming Bryke’s original ending would have featured Aang leaving Katara and Sokka behind while flying off to find more airbenders after the show ended. Not half as feel-good an ending as the show’s, right? Then there’s also reports that male!Toph was going to be in a love triangle with Katara and Aang... adding Zuko to the mix, as he often was added by extra ATLA content, Katara was likely to have three possible love interests, if Bryke had gone forward with this? Considering how Korra outright had three different love interests in ALL the members of her gang, this doesn’t sound like that outlandish a claim, whether there’s real sources for it or not. If they were willing to do it with Korra, I’d believe they’d have done it with Katara.

Ehasz is indeed credited for female!Toph and Azula, in the art book (I think) Bryke are outright featured saying Ehasz is the main artificer behind Azula being who she was, rather than Zuko’s older brother (Bryke’s original concept for her character). With this in mind, when Ehasz comes out and claims that, in a hypothetical book 4, he would have redeemed Azula to also finish Zuko’s personal character arc, and then Bryke show up claiming there NEVER was a book 4 possibility, you get a clearer understanding of where Bryke are likely standing in regards of Azula’s redemption :’) if that’s what Netflix wanted (... though I question they’d have pitched it since the get-go), it’d be no surprise that Bryke wouldn’t hear of it.

There’s no denying Bryke had interesting ideas, and that they worked to build a pretty complex world, but we cannot know how much of that world was solely their doing, and how much of it was also created by the input of the larger team of writers involved in ATLA’s original show. LOK, on the other hand, features a clusterfuck of worldbuilding that doesn’t always make sense, including no shortage of retcons (not only of pre-existing lore, LOK even retcons itself up to three times regarding explaining why and who decided to keep Korra in a compound for most her formative years), terribly written romance (whenever it’s written), poor storytelling decisions that outright derrailed their show and even turned their protagonist into the B-plot for the bulk of the final season... and what a coincidence that this time Bryke had no one breathing down their necks telling them what to do: they had a lot more creative freedom in LOK than in ATLA. There was no Nickelodeon imposed Head Writer, and they didn’t bring Ehasz back of their own volition. Whether because Ehasz isn’t that great to work with or because Bryke simply didn’t want anyone else to poke their noses into THEIR story, Bryke didn’t want any supervision over LOK. And as many loud fans as LOK may have, LOK’s storytelling quality simply doesn’t measure up to ATLA’s, and I refuse to blame Nickelodeon for that when all evidence indicates Bryke had no idea what they wanted for Korra in the first place.

What I’m saying is... Bryke do seem to benefit from having someone else reeling in their ideas, probably providing genuine structure, making them seriously reason with WHERE they’re taking the story. This, going by ATLA’s much clearer structure, is something I’m willing to believe Ehasz offered, and something Bryke lacked, by their own volition, in LOK. It’s also something they lack in the comics, seeing as, up to date, they haven’t done anything in them that really lives up to their potential, as far as I know. “The comics don’t have any direction and aren’t advancing their world’s story” has become a far more frequent complaint with each newly announced and released comic volume, whether by supportive or antagonistic fans. Why might that be...?

It’s possible, of course, that Netflix’s team simply isn’t the kind of team Bryke can work with positively. Maybe they’re too stiff, maybe they’re not that creative, maybe they’re unable to compromise and it’s not all on Bryke?

But with the precedent Bryke has set (ATLA, with supervision, manages quality storytelling, despite its many flaws, whereas LOK, without it, is a storytelling failure), I wouldn’t be surprised that they were outright unwililng to compromise their own ideas after experiencing the full freedom of working on LOK without anyone telling them what to do, and that upon finding they wouldn’t have that same freedom this time, they quit. 

Does this mean the show will automatically be better or worse? Eh... beats me, frankly. There’s no denying Bryke did endeavor to develop a large, unique world with the Avatarverse, but as much as the fandom believes otherwise, what made the Avatar world unique wasn’t merely that it wasn’t “white”. This particular qualm by the fandom feels really narrowminded to me, and I’m not saying this because I believe there should be white people in Avatar, hell no: what I do mean is that ATLA had an Asian setting, but the narrative frequently imposed western values on it. They recreated many elements of Asian cultures, but morally? ATLA couldn’t be more western. Is that a good or a bad thing? Beats me. But there’s a lot of occidental influence in ATLA’s narrative, even more of it in LOK, and that somehow doesn’t bother people nearly as much as it bothers them that the liveaction cast isn’t western in the least. Yes, it’s true, the cast shouldn’t be western: but there are many regards in which the original ATLA could pioneer a better understanding of many Asian cultures, and it doesn’t. Even something as complex as the Fire Nation’s cultural practices (no, I don’t mean the genocide and supermacy, I mean everything else) is outright blasted by the show’s western moralism from the get-go rather than seen as what a different culture values (already offered a few thoughts about this on this other ask).

Therefore, in terms of casting, which seems the main concern of the bulk of the fandom, I highly doubt Netflix will be willing to repeat the same mistake M. Night’s fiasco committed. They can’t be that stupid. They’ve done a lot of big diversity efforts in the past, whether insincere or not, in many regards, so I seriously doubt they need Bryke sitting in the casting booth repeating “NO WHITE ACTORS! NO WHITE ACTORS!” to the top of their lungs to remind Netflix's executives that this just can’t happen. Seriously, if that’s what their input for the show was supposed to be about, Netflix was better off saving up the money of hiring those two as main consultants or executives and using that coin to pay the likely lousy salaries of the non-white actors they’ll surely hire :’) I doubt, seriously, that Bryke’s problem had anything to do with white casting. If Netflix entered this deal and didn’t do their homework first, then they’re basically dooming themselves since day one and the show would suck with or without Bryke’s involvement. This is not impossible, but really stupid, and an absolutely failed business venture to jump into.

In the end, I don’t know what that liveaction will shape up into. I don’t exactly care much either, which is why I didn’t really debate this subject before answering this ask... I’m pretty detached from canon these days, as things stand. I can’t even bring myself up to reading the plot of the Kyoshi novels, no matter if people keep telling me they’re ~actually good!~, let alone will I want to rewatch ATLA in liveaction when I’ve become increasingly infuriated by liveaction remakes with each new one Disney releases :’) from the moment it was announced, I knew this remake wouldn’t be for me. It’s not likely they’ll do anything with it that I’ll really want to see, or that they’ll change things in a way that resolves my frequent complaints about the show’s storytelling mishaps. Therefore, I’d always meant to leave it be and let everyone else enjoy it...

... And Bryke’s absence from the project doesn’t really change my mind on that front. At this point, crediting them for the entire success of ATLA is incredibly naïve, especially seeing how none of their later projects have even come close to ATLA’s level of storytelling quality. Likewise, it’d be naïve to assume Netflix is guaranteed to do better without Bryke’s “meddling”. If anything, without Bryke’s likely persistence that the show be kept close to its roots, Netflix is bound to fall into its frequent, known tendencies of pandering to certain crowds at the cost of quality storytelling because Hollywood overused and bad tropes are where success is at! They’ll likely flatten characters, turn them into edgy, non-humorous versions of themselves, not unlike in M. Night’s film, and then everyone will hate the show anyways for offering such dull and simplistic characterization compared to the original :’)

In short... there’s no winning scenario. There really isn’t. I assumed there wouldn’t be one anyhow, from the get-go, at least for myself? But now that Bryke are out, the fandom is divided in about four factions: 

The ones who will watch and support the liveaction no matter what.

The ones who think it will suck balls because Bryke aren’t in it.

The ones who think it will be an improvement because Bryke aren’t in it.

The ones who won’t watch it no matter what.

Me... I’ve been in camp #4 from the start. Bryke being part of this project didn’t reassure me, neither does their absence... and I’m still as convinced this show won’t be my thing today as I was when it was first announced. So... *shrug* we live and let die. I mean, first of all we have to wait and see if the show’s production will even survive the pandemic first, so we can worry about how bad or good it will be if Bryke’s departure + COVID-19 didn’t destroy it altogether already :’D