#maintagging because this is . so much

[cha1cedony]

Being both aroace and a huge nerd, it irks me a little that 99% of the asexual and/or aroace headcanons I see (and not aroallo headcanons interestingly, which could be its own post but I digress) are about characters who spend all their time working/studying/etc…. scientists, academics, introverts, shut-ins, even. I assume the common reasoning is that these characters only care about their work and don’t have time for things like relationships and sex. But like. You know that’s not what asexuality is… right 😀

Obviously it’s fine to headcanon these types of characters as ace, but I just always wonder about allo fans’ reasoning for it and what it implies about their opinions of asexual people. When the ONLY characters you can think of as ace are just nerdy, quiet/socially awkward characters with no other canon implications that they’d be ace, to me it just sounds like you think people are asexual because they can’t attract sexual partners? Or because they don’t have time for relationships??

Anyway it just annoys me a little that this is the VAST majority of the ace representation I see, both in canon and fandom. I’m an aroace academic, but I’m not aroace because I don’t have time for people or because I’m shy or awkward or lonely or whatever. I’m aroace because I’m aroace lol

Tl;dr, asexual/aroace people aren’t all innocent nerdy introverts (and aroallos aren’t all extroverts with a long history of one night stands, btw). Let ace characters be loud and stupid. Or try headcanoning a loud and stupid character as ace (you can do it, I promise)

[lunarrolls]

i want to know what parts of the reunion everyone’s most excited for. personally i want prism grimpoppy, 20 intelligence scribe wizard, to have to listen to fresh cut grass, 8 intelligence robot, explain their flat earth render distance theory

[maraschinotopped]

i remembered that nothing is stopping me from making as many deviantart-style stamps as i want. so obviously i dropped everything i was doing and started making them. these have no practical use to anybody but they were fun to make so thats basically all that matters!!

part 2

[jestersking]

the reason why robin killed off chivalry was because she couldn't allow a man who isn't mentally or physically abusive to fitz to exist

[2hoothoots]

(photographer voice) "okay, now let's do one where canon events play out slightly differently and everyone ends up in a significantly worse place because of it"

here's an au of an au because i have issues watched the genghis khan music video one too many times. lore dump + crops/bonus art below

Due to an unfortunate combination of chance factors, Razputin Aquato arrives at Whispering Rock one day late.

He finds the camp a ghost town. The campers are stumbling around, brainless; the counsellors, nowhere to be found. Ford doesn’t know what to make of this kid showing up out of nowhere – but he’s got promise, and with Sasha and Milla out of action, he’s their best hope. He gives Raz a crash course in what he needs to know, and sends him out across the lake.

Raz pulls through, against all odds. But he never gets the starstruck meeting with his heroes Sasha and Milla that he’d been hoping for; never gets to bond with Lili, or any of the other campers. It’s a harrowing and lonely experience for him, but one that ties a burning knot of resolve in his chest. If he works hard, he can be a Psychonaut just like he dreamed. He can save people.

When the alert comes through from Headquarters that Grand Head Zanotto has been captured, Sasha and Milla scramble the jet with Lili on board. They don’t bring Raz along – Ford’s account of his accomplishments is impressive, but without seeing him in action themselves, neither agent is convinced to bring him along on the mission. Sasha invites him to next year’s session of the camp – after all, he clearly has promise, and the Psychonauts are always interested in nurturing young minds.

Raz returns to camp next year with something to prove. He throws himself into his studies with a single-minded dedication, sparing little time to interact with any of the other campers. This time, he’ll show them. He’ll show them all.

Sasha, Milla and Lili are unable to locate Truman in the Rhombus of Ruin. It ultimately takes a week to locate the Grand Head, following an anonymous tip-off (later found to have been planted by Nick). It takes six months for the ruse to be uncovered. Ultimately, Nick is unsuccessful in finding any clues to Maligula’s whereabouts. Lucrecia will pass a few years later, surrounded by a family that has no idea who she really is. Ford never remembers the truth, and when Razputin is fourteen, he takes the secret to his grave.

Truman’s brain spends almost seven months in a box, under poor conditions with insufficient oxygen. When it’s finally returned to his body, he’s not the same man he used to be. He quietly steps down as Grand Head of the organisation, and spends years of his retirement in intensive therapy.

Lili is heartbroken. Her faith in the Psychonauts is shattered. She never returns to Whispering Rock again. Over the years, she becomes more and more withdrawn; isolated from her peers, estranged from her mother, and struggling with her relationship with a father who on bad days can’t even remember her name. The bitterness grows day by day, blooming within her chest.

She’s sixteen the first time she's forced to turn her powers against another person. Even in his current state, her father has enemies – old foes the Psychonauts can’t (or won’t) protect him from. There’s a raid on her house, late at night. It’s only by chance that she’s still awake. She breaks two of the assailants’ bodies, and when she twists her hand, the plants in her father's greenhouse writhe under her command and rip the third one to pieces. It’s the last time that house ever feels like a home to her. She cuts ties with the Psychonauts entirely, and never looks back; the next time they hear of her, it's under a completely different name.

Dogen Boole never returns to Whispering Rock either. He’s thoroughly traumatized by the events at camp, and his parents refuse to send him back the following year. With nobody to help him learn to control or harness his powers, his episodes steadily become worse as he gets older. Although reluctant, his family is eventually forced to reach out to the Psychonauts to help. Compton is still a nervous recluse, and nobody else in the organisation is quite sure how to handle Dogen’s powers. He spends his teenage years in and out of psychoisolation, and is subjected to more and more intense experimentation in the name of “treatment”. Nothing works. In the end, all he has to show for it are the scars.

His helmet is the only thing he can rely on to stop him mulching the cranium of anyone in a fifty-foot radius. There’s no place for him in “normal” society. Just like Lili, he’s driven to become a villain by a combination of circumstances, trauma, and a bitter feeling of hurt and betrayal towards the Psychonauts.

Raz enters the intern program at thirteen, and quickly graduates to the rank of Junior Agent. The Psychonauts he finds waiting for him is undergoing a marked transition from the organization it used to be. Upon Ford’s passing, the only member of the old guard still around is Otto. Hollis is a Grand Head forced to prioritize efficiency in order to keep the Psychonauts afloat after numerous losses and funding cuts.

Raz enters a passionate, determined boy, remarkably talented but who struggles to connect with his peers. When he gets his promotion at eighteen, he’s the most decorated junior agent the organization has ever seen. At twenty-six, he’s in the prime of his career, honed by years of training into an efficient, meticulous, ruthless Psychonaut.

He’s the perfect agent. As far as he’s concerned, that’s all he needs to be.

under-the-cut bonus, here's some tighter crops on the art, and also a couple extra bits and pieces:

dogen's helmet seals up like a pillbug most of the time, to stop his powers from leaking out when he gets stressed. i couldn't find a way to work it into the art while still making clear that Hey It's Ya Boy, but i think it's a neat visual. the extra pic of lili was gonna be a mugshot - at first i was planning to composit her art into, like, a dossier/file, but i couldn't make it work in the end

[leadandblood]

I can't help it, the show's just funnier through the lense of "terror lieuts including jopson are all crozier's kids"

[gammija]

genuinely, it's so funny to me when jon.elias shippers hate j.mart for the specifically stated reason that "martin isnt good for jon". Yes, the guy with realistic flaws and traits that occasionally create conflicts with Jons own flaws and traits is bad for him, so jmart is toxic. Jon deserves someone who treats him right.

In fact, you know who's good for Jon? The person who effectively used him as a puppet, made a plan centered on scarring him for life 13 times and executed it without remorse, then used his body to end the world, an experience so horrifying that Jon would rather literally kill everyone on earth than risk someone else feeling it too. Now that's a guy Jon deserves!

[betweenlands]

look i hate LLMs as much as the next person but can we please stop acting like a totally easy and feasible replacement would be installing a mod that just exists out of thin air and comes with a custom written set of quests and NPC dialogue branches.

that is not how writing works. that is not how writing dialogue for games works. i have literally written NPC dialogue for a minecraft map before and six short, unpolished, janky monologues with no branching whatsoever took me two weeks to finish. frankly i would rather have the LLM stank than put a bunch of under/unpaid writers or actors into crunch mode for a relatively minor aspect of an otherwise great server.

[gwensy]

everyones dead & everythings haunted Maybe me most of all

[monotone-artist]

[id in alt]

wanted to try doodling him in the normal canon way

[typenonsense]

very interesting to me that the seasons in which skizz was the most violent and the most successful as a killer were the two seasons in which he was a follower, not a leader

SHIT i was writing a lot about this in the tags but I had too many so ill write it here. disclaimer it’s not v succinct it’s just a lot of thoughts haha

FASCINATING to me. Like, I don’t think he’s a bad leader. I think he’s charismatic and confident and he always has the group’s best interests in heart and mind so he can (usually. see last life) support his friends and work with them as a unit. But as a leader he has to watch himself and not make any reckless decisions. Everyone is depending on him.

But in 3rd life where he follows Ren as a leader and in wild life where they didn’t really have a leader (if you say they did it would be Grian) he didn’t have that pressure on him. His job was to stay alive and follow orders, serving his team however he can. He still supports them, but in these situations where they don’t rely on him he has more freedom to show his devotion, and in a death game? The best way to help your team is through killing for them. He also worries about his life less because it’s less integral to the team’s survival.

There’s also specifics on the reasons why he couldn’t kill in the seasons where he was a leader:

The thing with last life is that when he turned red he (as all reds did) had to leave. He was forcibly separated from his team. He couldn’t lead them anymore and there wasn’t really any way he could support them, especially with the mental disconnect of very suddenly being alone or with someone who was an enemy just yesterday. It doesn’t compute for someone as loyal as him. I don’t think there was a way in which he could just get over that and kill, especially since his priority still lay with protecting them and he continued wanting to lead them (see the BEST hair AUGHHHH).

Skipping to secret life - his team was vulnerable when they turned red. They were well aware they were one of the weakest teams combat-wise and Tango could’ve died from a gust of wind. BigB was better off but he wasn’t much of a fighter either. I think Skizz, as the leader, saw he needed to protect his boys and keep them together. He couldn’t be reckless otherwise they’d die too. He just needed to help them survive.

Limited life is a very interesting season in this because I’d argue Skizz puts himself into a leader role more here than anywhere else and it’s also the season in which he has the most struggle with killing and he knows it.

His team are competent and they’re trying to eliminate their opposition and he wasn’t able to help much at all. It could be that BECAUSE his team is doing so well he’s focusing just on leading them but it really can’t be because he’s very obviously upset he’s not helping. If it is that it’d be more subconscious and would play into his vulnerability and inferiority complex I’d argue he has in liml, but that’s a different post lmao. So a very simplified version of it - he’s has an overall very bad time in liml and the only thing he gets right are his leadership and charisma (+ his duel with Bdubs iirc haha) so that psychological effect that that’s the only thing going well for him kinda continues and becomes realer.

In liml it’s less like his role as leader invites his poor combat performance and decreased penchant for violence like SL (and to an extent LL - I don’t think he’d be much better off if he were a follower - the ‘reds must leave’ situation was just overall bad for him haha), but the other way round - his misfortune and everything going wrong for him encourages him to take up the leader role.

[detective-piplup]

i am SO hyped for new world of steam. not even bc Layton’s back, but because i am literally dying to actually analyse and compare the differences between LS and NWOS of Luke calling for Layton’s help. level 5 you should give me the game early so i can be So Normal

[pekiacyunn]

[kmesons]

I'd like to do an analysis comparing The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals to a Community episode, but I can't decide whether I want to approach it from the perspective of Invasion of the Body Snatchers parodies (i.e., comparing and contrasting how TGWDLM and Regional Holiday Music - a Community episode that is essentially a whole-plot reference to the film - spoof certain aspects of IOTBS) or from the perspective of zombie apocalypse tropes (i.e., comparing TGWDLM and Epidemiology in terms of the "zombie apocalypse" genre), so. a poll it is

[kerizaret]

Hear me out because the tawny frogmouth and tsukasa tenma propaganda is something I need to share with the world. they're each other's spiritual animals.

Please tell me you see it. The vibes. The fluff. The >:DD. The absolute loudness you hear by just looking at the picture.

Bonus tenmas because they're inseparable. Two itty bitties

oh my god....

[vespertin-y]

Songs From A Dead World Pt. 1: Analyzing Scalene's Lullaby

We'll do the national anthem next time - let's start with the shorter one first!

Inputting the code JUST FIT IN will give you a video of a family playing Perfection. (If you never played Perfection as a child, good for you. You have to fit a bunch of shapes into their proper places while the Loudest Timer In The World whirrs at you, and if you fail to get them all in in time they explode violently outward with a BANG that makes babies cry. This thing is why I have anxiety now, goddamnit). The color code for the lullaby flashes quickly on screen, and at the end of the video a backwards message saying YOU KNOW WHAT YOU NEED is played.

...Yikes. We haven't even gotten to the translation yet and there's already Implications. Just let all those uncomfortable layers marinate in your brain while we get into the actual lyrics.

ROCKABYE BILLY, PLEASE DON'T YOU CRY

Obviously, this lullaby is based on the classic Rockabye Baby. Everybody knows that. What I haven't seen anyone mention is that they didn't just replace 'baby' with 'Billy' - 'please don't you cry' isn't the original opening lyric, either! I think that points to this being less a generic line and more an actual response to Bill being upset about something.

IT'S NOT YOUR FAULT YOU HAVE THAT STRANGE EYE

Well, I suppose now we know what he was upset about.

...PLEASE don't ever say something like this to a strange child, guys. Oh my god. It's clearly meant as comfort but. Jesus. If your kid is upset about being weird you tell them that it's alright; you do not tell them that they're not to blame, because the existence of fault implies their weirdness is inherently negative and that's going to do crazy things to their self esteem. (Unless it's Bill. Bill is fine! Source: Bill).

STAY SAFE WITH MOMMY, YOU'LL NEVER FALL

...But...

...But they can't...

...I mean I guess they could experience a similar feeling if a strong wind blew them South or something but why would they call it...

Okay. Two options. One, the more likely, is that Alex Hirsch just forgot how 2D works. Again. Two, much less likely and significantly more evil, is that Scalene never actually sung this and Bill is just trying to create a nicer reality again.

Either way, the narrative purpose is clearly a miserable irony - Bill did fall, reaching upwards for the stars, losing the middle ground of Euclydia, and plummeting downwards into Dimension 0. (Insert bit about Lucipher/The Fallen Angle here. You get it, you're smart).

AND WE'LL ALWAYS LOVE YOU, SHARP ANGLES AND ALL

Hey, that 'we' is probably our first mention of Euclid! Fun. Anyway, there's not really that much to dig into here. It's just sweet. Slightly haunting to wonder whether it's true, or if he got too 'sharp' for even his mom to love, though. (But mostly I'm just thinking about other fun shape-themed sayings and metaphors).