#my initial thought was some kind of sci fi thing

[shokogast]

brian david gilbert rehka shankar ally beardsley alex song-xia izzy roland zac oyama table. i don't know what they'd do this is just a personal dream for me specifically

[bonny-kookoo]

Jungkook

𝐈𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐥 [Teaser]

In which Jungkook really only went to earth to take home his new pet- but ends up leaving with a lot more than that.

Tags/Warnings: Alien!Jungkook, Human!Reader, Ocean theme, very wet planet, bioluminescence, sci-fi, Romance, strangers to lovers, God this ended up WAY softer and fluffier than I thought it would, Fluff, Kook is tall and buff but sometimes fails to realize that, a pet shark named Custard, another pet shark named Noodle, more TBA

Length: unknown yet, teaser is ~700 words

-> Masterlist

A/N: a silly idea I had because of fellow fish enthusiast @euphoricfilter

━━━━━━━━━━.~°🩵°~.━━━━━━━━━━━

“I’m pretty sure they’ll get along great.” Jungkook smiles. “Of course I’ll have to slowly familiarize the two- but Custard is very sweet, she’s just sometimes a bit moody.” He explains to you, who watches the other shark in the tank with him as he’s being fed by a caretaker.

“I heard they’re a.. popular pet.” You mention, and Jungkook nods.

“Yeah! I initially wanted a lemon shark first, but then things changed, and I got custard first.” He shrugs. “Which I think might have been a good thing, considering that lemon sharks are said to get jealous easily if not properly socialized. It’s easier to introduce them to an already established shark than have them first and get them comfortable with a new one.” The alien explains, watching his new pet swim around.

“You know a lot about them.” You say, and he chuckles a bit bashful.

“I uh- not really. I just.. wanted to know what I’d be getting myself into. A pet is a big responsibility. “ He explains to you, and you nod.

“I swam with lemon sharks before.” You mention. “they’re pretty cute, but.. a bit chaotic sometimes.” You giggle, remembering the time, and how overwhelmed you’d gotten as the sharks had began playfully fighting over attention of you and the other divers.

“So you’re a good swimmer?” He asks curiously, standing next to you in front of the gigantic tank that holds his chosen pet inside, the young shark swimming around for now, while he’s being prepared for the newer conditions soon to become his permanent home.

“..decent.” You laugh a bit uneasy. “I.. nowhere near, you know, your skills.” You say, and he laughs.

“Oh that’s- like comparing clams with mussels. It’s not the same- just looks similar. Like us!” He shrugs off. “I think you’re under-selling yourself. And even if you’re not a good swimmer- I could teach you!” He offers, making you look up from where you stand near the glass.

"I'm just.. still a bit scared." You admit. "You know, after all that happened. I don't think I could just.. forget that and just.." you sigh, and he gently bumps your shoulder.

"Hey.. no one's asking you to." He tells you. "It just might be a good chance to face your fears? And I'll always be right at your side. I have an underwater license after all!" He proudly reminds you, and you can't help but laugh.

“You really seem like you really want me to visit your planet.” You tease, though he clearly doesn’t take it as a joke- nodding with almost cute enthusiasm.

“Of course! You said you always wanted to- so why not do it while visiting a friend?” He proposes. “it’s safer than just going alone. You could get lost, or even hurt.” He tells you. “and you’d miss out on.. you know, the spots only locals know.” Jungkook says, before he looks as Noodle swims closer again to inspect something floating around.

“I mean, you’re right..” you mumble, watching the shark move around. “…but I don’t know. I don’t think I could.. really.. I’m still just human.” You tell him, and he nods.

“I’m aware.” He responds. “and my planet has already made many adjustments to accommodate humans in many areas. You seem to forget that my kind has been.. mixing with humans for a long time by now. “ He chuckles. “means we had to evolve too, and change some of our architecture and stuff to adapt to those changes.” He says.

He’s right. And, in a way, he’s a living example of that change- with his honestly surprisingly human appearance, minus the height difference, and the hardly visible stripes of his skin.

“so, if you’d like, I’d happily house you for your vacation on my planet.” He grins. “and we can see just how well you swim.” He teases, leaning down a bit towards you before you both leave the large hall containing the tank for his new pet-

And you feel like this won’t just be a vacation at all, considering that he’s made it clear that he’s found interest in you past just simply being friends.

And in a way, you don’t mind that one bit.

[vind3miat0r]

project meridian finale thoughts

yap session warning‼️ also spoilers‼️

kinda sad that it was all a dream bc the concept of it was actually really interesting in and of itself. i also liked PM bc it was a sci-fi storyline amidst all of the modern fantasy and contemporary stories on the channel. not to mention, we know more about the dream versions of every character than we do the waking world versions (also i liked having an android listener :3)

but at the same time, this is (technically speaking) the first new listener we've gotten in over a year. and theyre empowered AND latent!! the first latent character on the channel in four years!!

i have no doubt that Erik is going to make a followup to Project Meridian where we follow waking world!Asset's journey of processing their trauma and learning their powers. Erik isnt the kind of guy who would just drop an hour long audio full of perspective-altering lore and be like "yeah youre never getting these characters again lol." im certain that we're gonna learn more about James, Anton, and Marc too in said followup, and maybe even some new characters will be introduced

also the fucking PARALLEL of Marc being the one who was initially in control of the dream and being the one who was pulling the strings and Marcus having been the one to input the obsession code that gave him power AUGH ERIK WHEN I FUCKING CATCH YOUUUUU

wrapping this up with some confirmed things:

— Asset/Dreamer is a Latent Dreamwalker

— Marc (Marcus) is also a Dreamwalker

— James confirmed to be humanborn (imp!James was humanborn)

— Anton confirmed to be a Wolf Shifter (fool!Anton was a wolf shifter)

— the entirety of PM takes place in Asset's mind, while Asset's body was in McKinley (a cornerstone city im assuming is in a state near California)

— implied that Quinn attacked Asset and their sister shortly before he was caught and locked up

— that means this takes place around May/June of 2023

— this subsequently means that Asset is NOT Darlin's unempowered friend (and if i see anyone say they are i will lose my mind) (remember ANTON was the one who saved Asset and their sister, NOT Darlin)

— something about the state of the Meridian being on the news and Asset having read theories about it (state of Meridian made public? possible connection to the Hush + Doc, Carpe Deus, and/or Sovereign State storylines?)

i do have a LOT more to say about this, but my brain isnt braining and i want to listen to the audio again to make sure i didnt miss anything, so this is all ill say for now :)

[connorsnothereeither]

were there any specific styles/cultures you took inspiration from when designing the telchin clothing styles?

Honestly the tricky answer is: a lot-

Initially, it was very much just like “okay does this shape and colour palette and design look cool? Sick” and just throwing thoughts at a wall.

When it came to defining those broader shapes/colours and adding things like specific cuts, details, patterns, etc, I sort of worked backwards to grab inspirations.

Ulysses initial/main outfit is honestly quite Medieval, European (but notably Norse/Scandinavian in its cut/style), albeit with a ridiculously plunging neckline for some reason lol-

(it was even a bit early on that every time one of the cast drew Ulysses, we’d make his neckline just a little bit sluttier)

HOWEVER the details on the collar and sleeves are directly lifted from ancient Greco-Roman designs, specifically influenced by the “Greek Key” or “Greek Meander” pattern which can be seen in pottery, jewellery and architecture all over the ancient Mediterranean!

Specific to Ulysses, his clothing has currently reached a fairly fairytale-esque “fantasy” stage, drawing a lot of early Renaissance and pirate-style influences with his little poet-shirt and sash, since he’s been on the Overworld so much, and is slowly growing to become a part of that culture and world, and I really wanted to show that in his clothing changes.

Honestly, a lot of the broader telchin clothing when I have sketched it up is very Greco-Roman, at least in the way I tend to depict it (that is my field of expertise, given my degree haha) but there’s honestly a lot of broader Mediterranean ties in as well. The army and their armour is designed to be very Ancient Macedonian, and a lot of the more casual clothing skew very Ancient Egyptian.

Canonically the Telchin clothing style also definitely develops rapidly over the course of the war with the drowned, mostly for practicality sake more than fashion (loose flowing fabrics aren’t doing anyone much good escaping the undead), leading to an almost 1950s/60s American aesthetic? Of course still mingled with the Greco-Roman patterns. Especially in the way the scientists are presented in lore/my art, they always had a very retro-60’s almost sci-fi scientist aesthetic. If I was to give it a fancy/proper-sounding name I think “Wartime-Americana Retro-Classicism” would be more or less it, potentially lmao-

(You can even sort of see similar shapes and patterns in that first reference image to Ulysses eventual design!)

There was of course always a flair of Victorian-Mad-Scientist too, because I have a bit of a brand and I can’t help myself. And given the blurring of science, alchemy and magic in Fable I think it definitely fits.

It’s a shame Tumblr only lets me upload 10 images per post on mobile because I have A BUNCH of reference images for all of these stages of the Ulysses/broader telchin clothing design lol, but sadly I can’t include them here :(

But I hope this was somewhat useful/interesting!! I’ve had so much fun coming up with this kind of stuff over the course of Fable s3 for the telchin and I’m very grateful to Ocie and Metta for kind of just letting me go ham on a bunch of aspects like this lol-

[samthetrekkie]

for having watched this movie at least twice before (albeit several years ago), I recalled surprisingly little of the plot. and so did my dad, who had once watched this with me! I used to think this was my favorite tos movie and I think the reason was bc this movie needs the smallest tos context. like it's objectively a - not super inventive - but thrilling and interesting plot. I also only now realized how much this movie made parallels to the end of the cold war and overall had some really good dialogue, which, let's be honest, not all of tos has.

but I think the reason it's not my favorite tos movie anymore, is bc I now do have the context and for a star trek movie, it was pretty weak when it comes to the characters. and tos is especially character-driven (to the point were the same 2-3 characters are protagonists in each episode). and I find that really interesting bc I do like all of the tos crew, but I also need that kirk/spock relationship thrown into my face again and again. and there was very little of that this time (not nothing though) and each character had kind of important roles to play. I don't want to say this is the only tos movie that operated like that, but I do notice it more in this one as I used to think this was the best movie.

anyway, there were still a few things I liked about the character portrayal in this. kirk and spock seemed to have some bigger issues prior to this as kirk seemed to be pissed off and distant with spock the whole time. and you can't tell me this was just bc of the assignment with the klingons. kirk felt like spock had personally attacked him with this assignment and spock seemed really confused, probably thinking he had given kirk an interesting last mission. so in my headcanon, their seem to have separated at this point :( but later on I really enjoyed how unusually angry spock got when he found out valeris was the one responsible for getting kirk convicted and had ultimately put his life in danger. there was a certain level of guilt in there too, as spock had been the one to get them into this mission in the first place. and kirk having pretty much forgiven spock in rura penthe of all places, was really surprised to see spock's behavior and even felt bad for it, so it seems. he was not even initiating the kiss with iman's character! (also very interesting alien concept, similar to changelings, when it comes to gender.) in general he seemed almost never interested in any of the women in the movies, which I have mentioned before, but I love as it fits right into my headcanon :) but mccoy's "what is it with you" after the kiss was still amazing as it summed up the entirety of kirk's obsessive womanizing behavior in tos. generally, mccoy had the best one-liners ever in this. and he was by far not the most prejudiced one in this movie. and he was actually really nice to spock the entire time and seemed relatively tame in general. do we see a little character change caused by the last movie…? I still don't see mccoy and kirk being a thing, but mccoy and spock on the other hand…

I won't take this any further and rather conclude my tos walkthrough for good now (even though some of the characters appear in other series and movies again). I thought it was really interesting to see the changes the decades made on sci fi and to watch it with a person who actually lived through those decades.

I have to say tos really is up there now in the star trek ranking for me, maybe even above tng. (but we'll watch that next, so this view might change very soon.) spock (as played by nimoy) is certainly one of my top 3 star trek characters and I think that says a lot for a show that was written in the 60s. (the other one is seven and I have no idea who the third one is, but... we got all the autistic-coded ones up there, don't we.)

I'm so glad we have so much to go when it comes to star trek, though! even if it'll take us several years, now that I've counted it… (there is some shows and movies I will skip, though.)

[fereldanwench]

👀 please share your thoughts on the emp threads and especially goro’s vanity I’d love to know more

Happy to oblige!!!

So for those who don't know, EMP threading in the Cyberpunk world is a type of cyberware that appeared towards the end of the Red Decades/Time of the Red, likely in the late 2040s. It was believed at the time that it could protect its wearer against electromagnetic interference from more intense cybernetics (like weapon augmentations and the like) and radiation. However, that was never scientifically confirmed, and in my opinion, it was probably some sci-fi woo-woo marketing bullshit.

It's cataloged as fashionware in the TTPRG, which means that it doesn't really increase the risk for cyberpsychosis and other negative side effects the way the real shit does. It's basically just about aesthetics and typically has little functional purpose.

I believe it was Goro's writer, Philip Weber, who confirmed on one Pawel's Twitch streams in fall 2021 that the markings on Goro's face are EMP threads and not "proper" cyberware. (I don't feel like tracking down the link right this second, but when I have a little more time I can verify and/or amend the exact source in the comments. I do know that Goro definitely has EMP threading.)

Goro's exact age has never been confirmed--We've just been told he's at least 45 years old in 2077, although I personally always felt like that was too young. My initial guess was early to mid-60s, and then I bumped my headcanon down to 55ish to find a happy medium between the two. Regardless, he's likely somewhere between his late teens to late 20s when EMP threading is gaining popularity, and I feel like this sort of new trendy cyberware probably has much greater appeal to young adults who are really finding their personal style and identity and whatnot.

So I've always had two different but not necessarily conflicting thoughts about Goro's EMP threading:

He got them for practical purposes, thinking they would enhance his abilities and make him an even better little super soldier for Arasaka-sama. Or maybe Arasaka even made their soldiers get them at one point, buying into the idea that they did have a functional purpose.

He got them because he just wanted to look cool. 😎 And I mean, he does still have them, even after presumably something traumatic damaged a part of the threading (that scar, to me, looks like it happened after the threading was implanted given how perfectly it lines up against the remaining thread), so I think there's some conscious fashion/style decision here. I don't see them as being something he'd have a hard time getting removed if he really wanted to.

And like I said: these don't even necessarily have to conflict. Maybe he got them on his own because he thought they'd be functional AND looked cool. 😎

As for Goro's youthful vanity--I really don't have any hard evidence or anything to back up this headcanon, it's just kind of one of those Vibes™️ type things based on the very little he shares about his life before Arasaka.

He does mention that he and his peers always made it a point to wash before the Arasaka transports would roll through Chiba, and I could see him really leaning in hard to having impeccable hygiene, which could also extend to style, to try to distance himself from his streetkid beginnings. Between the bullying we see with David in the Arasaka academy in Edgerunners and real-life stories my husband has shared from his time in a military academy, I imagine Goro was probably surrounded by some real fuckin' assholes who would love to take him down for anything they possibly could, so it would be not just a matter of pride, but self-preservation.

Goro also mentioned that he lacked discipline before Arasaka, and I think he was probably a fuckin' handful when he was younger. I just really love the idea of him being a vain, arrogant pain in the ass in his teens and early 20s and having a major humbling moment in the field, like losing fellow soldiers due to his over-confidence. (Side note: his time as a soldier is probably the era of his life I want to know the most about--He has that line about Saburo understanding what it was like, and I feel like if Goro can identify with someone who served in WWII that he's probably seen some shit.)

So yeah! There's probably other shit I left out, but this is basically the gist of my Goro's EMP Threading as a Symbol of Vanity thesis, lmao

[emberglowfox]

okay a few people have asked now abt steelheart redux so i will do my best to give an overview the maelstrom of vague thoughts it consists of at the moment

basically, steelheart is the oc story i've been posting a shitton of on and off for the past while. steelheart redux refers specifically to its latest iteration, which is completely (mostly) sci-fi and mech driven as opposed to the standard dragon rider story it was before.

it focuses primarily on these guys!

arthur is a human, while zarian is a DRACO, specifically a v1, which i will elaborate on below the readmore bc this is a little long haha

the setup for the story is essentially this:

the DRACOs (version 1, aka v1s) are big draconic mechs that are basically the equivalent of a super high-tech fighter jet with some other bells and whistles, the most notable being that they're pretty much human powered. but to be efficiently powered long-term, they have to be (or have part of them, really) permanently fused to a human host (or any living creature, technically, but humans are what they're like. made for).

despite all that, stuff surrounding their creation goes pretty well for a while, until the v1s mysteriously 'wake up'-- as in, suddenly attain self-aware consciousness, and start talking to their hosts (known as pilots) who understandably take this pretty badly. it's like if the fighter jet you've been flying around and are also kind of biologically fused to suddenly grew a brain and started asking about your day. things get even worse when the company producing the v1s attempts to like. undo this by forcing out an update patch, which has the unintended effect of corrupting the (previously entirely benevolent, just curious) v1s and turning them into crazed murder machines. stuff is bad for a while.

the ACTUAL story takes place 15 years after this, when stuff still isn't amazing but has mostly evened out. the company responsible for the v1s collapsed in the initial chaos, but from its ashes came a new company, Defenex, which has been producing DRACO v2s. they're the sleeker, badder cousins to the v1, made for the sole purpose of protecting towns from and hunting down remaining v1s. they're also, very critically, Not Mysteriously Self-Aware like the v1s are (or. were?) which is good.

the plot follows arthur steele, a fifteen year old boy living in one of the surviving cities, who through a series of accidents comes to be permanently fused to a (mysteriously un-murderous but distinctly unhappy) v1 calling himself Zarian. at first, his goal is to get Zarian removed from his back so they can go their separate ways and he can go back to his unremarkable, relatively safe life. unfortunately, this does not go according to plan. at all. but in the process, they start learning more about the mysterious origins of the DRACO incident and asking questions some people REALLY don't want answered. along the way, they make a few friends, come to actually like each other, and accidentally develop a reputation as Public Enemy #1, Definitely Evil, Kill On Sight. oops.

and that's the gist! i know... a lot of what happens, within that window, but most stuff isn't like nailed down clearly or in order yet, because i've discovered that while i am good with coming up with originally story ideas, actually plotting one from start to finish, coherently and satisfactorily, does NOT come naturally to me at all.

but, at the very least, it has become a fun brain playground and happiness generator, because i am veeery attached to these guys. moreso than i ever have gotten about my own ocs in my whole life tbh

:)

[dalekofchaos]

Things I would change about Life Is Strange True Colors

So after multiple replays of True Colors, I've finally come up with a list of changes.

My other LIS changes

LIS

LIS:BTS

LIS 2

First change would be the logo. This was the original logo and game menu. Just keep the True Colors logo and keep the record in the title and it's perfect.

Compare that to the bland logo we got, it really works better

To help make the game longer, I would've added a prologue chapter where it's about Alex's final days in Helping Hands. We get to interact with Alex's friend Chelsea, see what happened between Alex and Mari, see the reason why Alex wants to keep her power bottled up and tries to get away from strong emotions, get the call from Gabe and end with that final session with Dr Lynn.

In general, I feel like there should've been more consequences to Alex's powers. All we get is Alex beating the shit out of Mac and taking Charlotte's anger away from her turns Charlotte into a husk of a person, and Alex pisses Steph off and of course not telling Eleanor the truth causes her to turn against you. The trailers showed Alex has the tendency to be consumed by powerful emotions and Alex constantly talked about her power like it was a curse. There should've been more build up to Alex learning to control her empathy. High Empathy leading to good choices and good ending while low empathy leads to her friends turning on Alex.

I initially thought there would be more drama like helping Charlotte forgive Ethan. Her pain towards Ethan feels understandable when your loved one's death is indirectly caused by someone who's also dearest most.

Whether Riley and Mac continue their relationship or not, it doesn't feel if there's any impact in it.

Apparently there was SUPPOSED to be consequence for taking away Pike's fear.

"if Alex took Pike’s fear away, when she was down in the mines (apparently in this draft she wouldn’t have been shot by Jed but instead would have found an entrance to the mine another way) Pike would become this “weird emotionless serial killer” and would start chasing Alex around in the mines in order to protect Diane. If it isn’t clear to you by now, the game seemed to have a much darker tone than what we ended up getting in the final game. I’ll leave it up to you to decide if that’s a good thing or not."

Honestly more consequences to Alex's powers depending on our high or low empathy should've happened in general.

I feel like more time should've been spent with Steph and Ryan. To me neither of these relationships are believable. The difference between Alex's relationship with Steph and Max's relationship with Chloe is that we spent a good chunk of the game with Chloe.

And as little time as Max gets with Warren, there is at least some substance with those scenes Max has with Warren. Warren starts up the plot of the game by getting the flashdrive, Warren helps Max against Nathan, Warren offers Max to take mind off things by asking her out on a date, Max can help Warren with his science experiment, Warren helps Max make a bomb, Warren saves Max and Chloe from Nathan, Warren takes the picture that helps Max get back and Warren is supportive no matter what choice Max makes.

Yes Ryan helps Alex in the record store, patches up Gabe, helps find Ethan and we have Ryan dealing with his grief and sorrow of losing Gabe. But that's it. Everything else is obligatory detective work or talking about trails and birds. Ryan is boring.

What we know of Warren

He's a geek like Max

He's into sci-fi, horror and a lot of obscure media

He loves science

He's helpful

a kind and sensitive nature

very shy and insecure and struggles to express and deal with his feelings, so he tries to hide that underneath humor and bad jokes

He's dealt with bullying in the background "knows how to be invisible"

He will ride or die for his friends

What we know of Ryan

He loves Gabe and his friends

He loves his dad to a fault and has good memories of his mother

He protects people

He loves birds n trails

*Cricket chirps*

I'm about to compare screen time between Chloe and Steph. I replayed both games and I counted up all the scenes in their respective games where the player is forced to have an extensive dialogue with them, this discounts optional conversations and interactions that are made of a single choice. I am counting the bare minimum number of times each game forces the player to somewhat meaningfully interact with them. Let's start with Chloe.

The truck scene

The scene talking about Rachel

The conversation after Max attempts to fix her camera, Chloe gives Max William's old camera and they reconnect

The Lighthouse conversation

Reconnecting at the diner

Funtime at American Rust

Train track walk n talk

The Chaos Theory talk in Chloe's truck

"Scary Punk Ghost"/Blackwell Ninjas

Pool

The aftermath of finding out about Rachel

Alternative reality Chloe at the beach

Alternate reality at Chloe's home

Returning to Chloe via Warren's picture

There are a total of 14 meaningful scenes with Chloe not counting optional interactions

With Steph.

Black Lantern conversation

Foosball

The LARP

The investigation after the festival

4 meaningful scenes. That's it. There's just a total lack of content regarding our two romantic options in True Colors, now sure the number of times we interact with a character doesn't necessarily dictate how much we grow to like or sympathize with said character, but it's glaring just how few meaningful interactions are had with Steph or Ryan.

Also, really? Steph and Ryan are really willing to run away with Alex so quickly in the amount of time they've known her? "I wanna spend the rest of my life with you" you knew each other for an entire month, calm down.

And I feel like there could've been more time and substance in regards to Steph & Ryan if the game were longer and were developed as an episodic game in terms of being developed like LIS 1 & 2 were. I felt like they just got all the superficial aspects of a young adult relationship, slapped it all together and called it a day. So yeah more time with Steph and Ryan is definitely needed.

In regards to the Jed & Mr Chen Twist. I felt like it was unnecessary.

Jed as a pawn for Typhon works. The whole Mr Chen being one of the miners left behind and emotion guiding Alex was so contrived and convoluted. Also it changed from Typhon to being an evil and soulless corporation to Jed being the guilty party and I strongly hate the notion of changing the perceived big bad to a lame twist from someone you trust. In LIS 1 it was Nathan and his father as the perceived villains but what a twist! It was Jefferson all along! Now it was Jed. Stop. Doing. That!

And boooy don't get me started on how impractical Alex surviving being shot and thrown down a mine shaft is.

Like if Alex can survive all that, Chloe can survive Nathan's gunshot in the bathroom.

So an easy fix would be Jed and Alex going down the mine together and Jed shooting Alex and leaving her for dead.

Just keep to the "Jed doing "Typhon's work for the devil" Add a subplot that Typhon was responsible for the death of Ann Lucan via lead poisoning or some other heinous crime. Jed and Pike were working together to bring them down. But the mining & Gabe's accidents happened. Typhon gave Jed a choice. Either he goes down with them or he gives him and Ryan a chance to live. He's a puppet, but he's being blackmailed into doing Typhon's dirty work instead of being the only guilty party of being judged. Like Pike, you should've been able to turn Jed up against Typhon in the end despite what he did to us. Honestly instead of Jed, Alex's judgement should've been reserved for Diana's boss Lena.

However, the bit I mentioned about Pike being turned into an emotionless serial killer, What we can do is have Pike purposefully screw up his and Jed's investigation and when the mine accident happened, Pike made everything go away and Typhon gave Jed the deal. Pike takes Jed's place as the hands-on villain, where he was always on Diane's side (because ACAB), and Alex thinks she's taking his fear of Diane, but in actuality, she takes his fear of everything coming to light, so that's what sparks him to take Alex to the mines, then chase her through them to try and kill her. Lena the big bad. Diane was a reluctant party and now Pike just doesn't care and wants to kill Alex to save Diane. Also because ACAB

As for the endings. This reddit post sums up what could've been.

After finishing True Colors for the first time, it felt wonderful. But after I finish the game for the second time, I don't bother to play it again as the outcome is pretty much the same. True Colors' endings don't affect me much emotionally compared to LIS1 & LIS2 endings.

Whether you choose to forgive or condemn Jed, he just broke down into tears in similar way. Unlike LIS2, you can spare Lisbeth's life and let her witness her downfall or have your revenge by killing her; you can spare the vigilantes by breaking them out of custody or let them remain locked or even killed them.

Outside LIS franchise, there're other games (e.g Bioshock 1 & 2, Dishonored 1 & 2, etc) that also gave different endings based on how the players play. Kind merciful gameplay -> optimistic endings; Harsh brutal gameplay -> darker twisted endings.

In LIS2, you can actually transform Daniel into a law-abiding citizen or a career criminal based on your morality choices. Your treatment towards your little brother will also affect the brotherhood.

Tell Me Why is another worthy mention because it's a choice-based game developed by DONTNOD. Despite it's not a LIS game, it's still able to capture similar energy with LIS1 and your choices do matter. Since the game focuses on twin siblings reunited after many years of separation, good choices will strengthen their bond; bad choices will strain their relationships -> their conversations become less compassionate but more awkward.

Since True Colors is about empathy, they should give us different endings depend on how Alex treat people around her in Haven Springs.

High Empathy rewards happier endings like we have in game. Every council members sided with Alex for showing kindness to them. Empathy also increased by forgiving Jed, calming Mac down that earn his respect, helping other people in Haven (e.g a guy who lost his dog, telling two people that they were in love with each other, etc). In the end, Alex would use her power to help people in need, also being kind, merciful and show forgiveness.

The worst ending is nobody believed Alex in the final confrontation, Jed & Typhon got away and Alex was forced to leave Haven and go back to foster care. Harsh reality, some bad people do get away (e.g Chad & Mike in LIS2 EP4; if you chose to hit Hank & steal the camping gear, Hank would be labelled as a 'local hero' in the newspaper in LIS2 EP2). Low empathy would cause Alex abuse her powers to manipulate others, make others look worse like how Alex chose not to calm Mac down.

Second-worst ending is low empathy with nobody believed Alex except Pike. Alex hard-exposed Jed & Typhon that they had to face their crimes in the end. The whole town resent Alex as they were still in denial how their local hero turned up to be a liar, miners losing their jobs in Haven.

Neutral ending is half of the town believed Alex. Jed & Typhon were exposed and the town initially was in denial but eventually accept it. Alex would use her powers to help good people, but manipulate others who are bad (I'll show you kindness if you're kind, I'll give you asshole treatment if you're being an asshole). Neutral may be achieved like Alex calmed Mac down, but condemned Jed.

What bugs me is there are absolutely no consequences for the actions you take in the game. In LiS 1&2, and BTS you can get people killed if you do the wrong thing, you can ruin lives and end relationships if you commit to the wrong choices. There is absolutely no consequences in this game in the end. No matter what you do it ends the exact same way and you get to choose your own happy ending it feels so unearned.

So yeah big things I would've changed.

Helping hands Prologue chapter

Episodes are longer lengths, episodically releases and more development for the game in general.

More negative consequences to Alex's powers

Actual development with Alex's relationship to Steph and Ryan

Keep Typhon as the villain with Jed as a blackmailed pawn

Actual consequences to our choices and endings

[sickness-health-all-that-shit]

thank you @callivich for sharing the idea of making fic dvd commentaries! I thought I'd give it a go 🥰 @shamelessdvdcommentary

Broken things

summary: When Lip brings home an advanced android in order to test it for the company he works for, Ian doesn't know what to make of him. MIK-940810, or Mickey, seems virtually indistinguishable from a human being, throwing Ian for a loop as he feels an undeniable connection to the android. Their relationship deepens when Ian finds out about something that Mickey has been keeping from Lip and the people who built him.

There’s a faint blue light shining from the place where Lip’s thumb rests for about two seconds. Ian’s expecting some kind of whirring noise, like when you turn a computer on, but there’s just silence.

And then suddenly the blue eyes come alive.

some stats: I started writing this about a year ago, as part of the latest shameless big bang and finished it around january this year. it's a multichapter of about 28k words divided into 8 chapters

What was the initial inspiration for your story?

probably something I was watching at the time. I love sci-fi! I think I would've had the initial idea in the spring of 2023 and then let it marinate for a while, until the big bang came a-knocking lol. I'm pretty sure it was always gonna be android!Mickey and human Ian, and when I remembered Lip's canon interest in robotics it all started slotting into place for me

If the story is written from a character’s POV, why did you choose this character?

like I said it was always gonna be android!Mickey and I really wanted to explore Ian trying to figure out what made him tick and questioning what makes us human in the first place

What was your favourite scene to write?

probably their initial conversation when Ian asks all sorts of questions that make his brain explode more and more, while Mickey sort of watches him spiral and just seems to have an obvious answer for everything lol. that and the scene where Mickey heavily flirts with an increasingly flustered Ian, that was a lot of fun

How did you come up with the title?

one of the main themes of the fic is the coming together of these two individuals who meet at a time when they both needed it because they were feeling broken, for different reasons. there's a parallel especially between Ian's relationship with his bipolar disorder and Mickey's feeling that he's malfuctioning as an android and that he'll be seen as a broken toy. in both cases it's because of heightened emotions compared to what's considered 'normal', but they heal each other throughout the fic and overcome that sense of brokenness together

Are there any little moments or references you hope readers will notice?

hopefully all the little references and parallels to canon! (things like Mickey's serial number for instance) I had a lot of fun with those, it was like winking at my fellow fans like 'get it? it's like in the show!' lol

Was there anything you struggled to write? If so, how did you overcome this?

I struggled a bit with the resolution of the main conflict/angst, especially explaining how Lip suddenly decides to help them in the end, after being a dick for most of the story lmao. hopefully it doesn't feel that sudden or rushed, but yeah. I still think about it at times lol

Favourite line in the story?

“Well, ask away, doc. You studyin’ human anatomy all day, right? Bet you’re curious as fuck to know all the ways they replicated that shit in this hot little android body o’ mine.” - like I said, I really enjoyed Mickey shamelessly flirting xD

Did the storyline change in any way as you wrote the story?

I just checked my original (handwritten) outline, and I think I had meant to make Ian catch on more to the fact that Mickey is a different type of android, even with Lip's reassurances, but I think in that version he ended up being suspicious in a way that didn't gel with his blossoming feelings for Mickey, and maybe as a result I made Ian a little bit more unsure of himself, which goes back to him feeling broken because he feels like he can't trust his brain too much. also when I was still gathering my ideas for the story I initially thought Mickey might turn out to have memories of a human Mickey Milkovich who had died, but I scrapped that because I wanted this Mickey to be the real Mickey, android or no

If you are writing a particular trope or genre, was it your first time writing this?

I'd definitely never written sci-fi or an android fic before! I might delve more into science fiction in the future though, who knows 😌

What are you most proud about in the story? (plot, characterisation, dialogue, twist/cliffhanger, etc)

overall plot and dialogue, probably. I'm really proud of how I developed my original idea, and some of the lines still make me laugh (or cry)

Are there any deleted scenes that didn’t make it to the final story?

going back to my original outline, I apparently had a whole chapter that never came to be? here's what I'd written down: "Lip's boss shows up at the house. Mickey needs to pretend to be a regular android despite his anger. Ian defends Mickey. The police gets called. They have to make a run for it." maybe this would have helped the resolution feel less rushed/anti-climactic but it also seemed to complicate things a bit too much for my taste, so it got scrapped

Would you ever write a sequel to this story?

I think the epilogue leaves things in a good enough place!

Were you nervous or excited to post this story?

both!! but more excited overall, I think. it's probably my favourite story I've written

Ask your followers to pick a snippet (no more than 500 words) and share your thoughts about it.

please!!!! I will love you forever <3

this was great, I highly recommend it to all writers 🥰

[wastedwastelandme]

People I'd Like to Know Better

Tagged by @wind-and-cloud it's so exciting getting these!

Last Song: "Transcendental Cha Cha Cha" by Tom Cardy

Favorite Color: I locked in to purple when I was 10 and my loyalty has never strayed

Last Book: Just opened the first book of The Murderbot Diaries after getting all 7 for christmas and I am very excited. I have been hungry for a new sci-fi series for a while and it's already so fun

Last Movie: After close to 5 years of just kinda having other interesting stuff to do, the release of the 3rd movie finally gave me enough drive to watch Sonic the Hedgehog (2020). I was watching with an absolute zero amount of experience with any Sonic properties and all my knowledge of the movie itself was that Jim Carrey Robotnik has some homoerotic thing with a henchman and Ben Schwartz voices Sonic, and then I watched it and ohmygosh he's just a kid. He's just an incredibly sweet incredibly hyperactive lonely kid who just wants to have fun in his small Earth town and make friends with the humans. Then his human friends fully literally adopt him and now he's their alien hedgehog son and they went and got all his toys from his cave and surprised him with a full attic bedroom and they got him a race car bed!! There were of course a fair share of by the numbers Insert-Joke-Here movie moments, but also the rest of the time it was just having such genuine giddy fun with the whole thing that I can't help but be swept up in it (also people weren't kidding Henchman Stone was truly absurdly gone on his doctor)

Last Show: Speaking of things I'm only getting into years later, WOW Ranking of Kings is a good show. It really committed to how multi-faceted people are just from being people, that they will do absolutely heinous things and lasting harm will be done on purpose and by accident for pride and ambition and greed and grief and fear and duty and ignorance, for their future and for their families and for themselves, and these people will regret and love and laugh and show amazing strength and humility. That kindness and cruelty exist simultaneously but believing in their kindness should always be the desired path. That there is a reason behind every act and that reason can at least be understandable even when it is still unforgiveable or you find the reason lacking, and despite that forgiveness is one's greatest strength nonetheless. That people deserve empathy just from existing as people. And when you have nothing else, just someone believing in you can be enough. This is just such a rich story that banks on your initial familiarity with character tropes to then fill them out in such deliciously beautiful ways

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: My father fights a losing battle against his adult daughter's cravings for sugar

Relationship Status: Steadily single I'd say

Last Thing I Googled: "Can hang dry clothes be put in the dryer anyway?" because I don't want to ruin some new clothes but I'm also fundamentally lazy

Current Obsession: So when I say that I spent the entirety of 2024 watching all of Lupin the 3rd what that means is that every single one of the 366 days of 2024 had me watching one episode/movie/special/ova because when I looked up how long the whole thing was when adding every individual episode/movie/special/ova together there was currently 366 pieces of media, and I thought it would be a fun project to do one every day of the year. And not only did it indeed turn out to be quite a bit of fun but when you do that every day for a whole year the interest doesn't just go away 10 days later so I'm still right in it and probably will be for a while

Looking Forward to: I'm gonna be a bridesmaid for the first time in a family wedding this year, and there's potentially a plan for a trip to Japan at some point in the future too

Tagging (non-mandatory participation): @forcebook @tina-rocket @itmightrain @ellelalee @not-a-princess-but-a-queen @jackthesnacc

[ravenwolfie97]

okay so initial thoughts on honkai star rail after i played like half of the tutorial bit this morning before work

first off, for the record, i have not played or heard much of anything about honkai impact 3rd and i have only played genshin impact pretty much since launch so my expectations were "genshin but sci-fi fantasy" but i can say that's not quite what i got (here’s a read more if you don’t care lol)

- immediately i notice that the graphics fidelity is gorgeous, very sleek and clean - it startled me a bit but also made me happy that the lip flaps are synced to the english dub! it seemed to flow really well even with the expression changes. the dialogue system doesn't seem all too different from genshin or. any other system like that. but it's got a pretty nice polish on the transitions between different states - the animation in the cutscenes and battles are really good, clearly they had a real talented team working on them. the characters feel so bouncy and expressive and it is pretty darn satisfying - the UI and interactive language is pretty much exactly the same as genshin with a sci-fi coat of paint. that's not a bad thing necessarily but like. it's pretty obvious - so the way combat and elemental powers work is very different from genshin, which frankly i should have expected, given this is a turn-based rpg. and i shouldn't have too much trouble with it, since turn-based rpgs are kind of a staple in my game roster, but for some reason i had trouble connecting with it. obviously finishing the tutorial would help, but it didn't feel as intuitive as i expected elements are presented in more of a traditional jrpg type of way where there are clear weaknesses you can exploit on enemies if you attack with a certain element. idk if i fully mean this but i think it kind of ruins part of the fun of discovering an enemy's weakness when the game itself just. tells you what it is off the bat also the types are weird in that they have pretty static effects in terms of what they do, the variability in moves is probably also explained further in character profiles but i haven't found how to look at that yet bkjljl - i'm fascinated by the ideas of Quantum and Imaginary types. what does that even mean. how do those manifest - i think it was a bit of a bold move to start the game off with two random characters talking about the world as if things are normal and known, and then having them influence your player character into. being in the plot not that i didn't like kafka and silver wolf. in fact i love both of them a lot. but i also had no context and had no goddamn idea what was going on so i was thrown pretty off-guard first thing which isn't exactly the greatest first impression lol - why is she named March 7th. does anyone know. is there a joke lost in translation or is it because she's like a pseudo-mascot character or. what - speaking of march actually i really want to like her but so far her character reeks of "hi i'm a girl". her skill is called "The Power of Cuteness" and one of her abilities is called "Girl Power" and so far her personality is cute, kind, and kinda stupid. it's a bit much. but she's neat - i have no big opinions on dan heng except he's neat and people keep saying he's the kazuha of star rail bc windy maple leaf boys but they're wrong bc dan heng has a stabby not a slicey and he can only hit one person at a time while kazoo thrives on the multi-hit AoE damage - i do love that the MC's weapon is just. a future baseball bat. that they get to smack people really hard with. no element, just big smack - oh yeah hyv loves to queerbait i guess cuz that wasn't CPR honey the twitter crowd wasn't kidding - i can’t think of anything else rn cuz it’s past midnight but star rail is neat and i like the little train rabbit dog mascot it’s cute and i wanna get past the tutorial hkjbjk

[eattacheesepaw]

So, I have a question for all of you fellow MDtBH (My Dad the Bounty Hunter) fans. This involves major spoilers for Seasons 1 and 2.

Are Tim and Pam the same species?

Because as we know, they're both alien reptiles underneath their "human" skins. I'm debating whether they are the same species or they are different but similar. For one thing, Tim (or The Fixer) would frequently blink his real eyelids, which are obviously reptilian. It's also worth noting he has human eyelids he blinks as well, which are completely separate from the real ones. Pam, however, is never seen doing that. This may be because Pam has learned to control when she blinks her real eyelids with her human ones. They both have higher strength and resilience in comparison to humans.

As for their true forms...

Unfortunately, we never got to see what Tim looked like with all of his human skin off, so part of his face is all we see. When comparing what we have with Pam's true form, their eyes are similar, with Pam's pupils looking more like slits. Now, you could say Tim has a similar reptilian form to Pam because Pam is clearly able to shapeshift in some way that lets her fit inside her human skin. Though from what we see with Tim, aside from his skin and eyes, nothing is all that different from his human appearance. That may be, however, because he can't turn into his true full reptile form because he would need the human skin to be completely off.

So that answers the question of Tim and Pam being the same species of alien reptile. They are lizard-like aliens that can shapeshift themselves to fit inside skins to make them look human and unsuspecting.

But what if that's not the answer?

Then, there would be two more possibilities:

Tim and Pam are NOT the same exact species. While they share similar features between themselves, the simple answer would be that they are both reptile aliens, but different kinds. Tim is from a more anthro/human-like species of reptiles and Pam is from a more lizard-like species. This was my initial thought when I first completed both seasons before thinking about it more.

Tim and Pam ARE the same species BUT the differences are due to their sexes. This answer is basically my case of "having your cake and eating it too". We have seen many species in fantasy and sci-fi that have their differences between the males and females. We would more commonly see the males as more rugged or animal-like while the females take on a more human and conventionally attractive appearance. With Tim and Pam, this could be the other way around. It could be the females are the ones that are animal-like and the males are more human-like. This is an idea that I REALLY love, but it wouldn't surprise me if my main answer was the correct one.

So, those are my thoughts on this topic.

Am I thinking about this too much? Yes.

Do I care? XD Hell no!

That just shows how much I LOVE these characters! 💕

[max1461]

Ok, @mitigatedchaos, I'll respond to this in a new post.

I do not think there is evidence for the claim in your first comment. I am not an economist, but I have a friend who actually is an economist and who reads this blog, so hopefully he will see this and tell me what he thinks. Granted he works in mechanism design and not welfare econ or whatever this would be, but I think he is informed enough to tell me if this take has much currency.

My impression from him is that there's no reason, from the standpoint of economic theory, to think that e.g. massive income redistribution via taxation would (significantly?) hurt production. This is on the basis of the fact that his favored economic policy, which we have discussed at some length, is laissez-faire markets in conjunction with very high tax rates and direct redistribution on the basis of income, serving to approximately equalize everyone's wealth. This is supposed to retain the desirable properties of markets in terms of efficient distribution while counteracting their tendency to inequality (which, evidently, actually reduces their efficiency). He strongly favors this kind of direct cash redistribution over welfare schemes run by the state, e.g. government run housing initiatives and so on, again for reasons of efficiency in distribution.

That's what I recall from talking to him. I hope I've gotten the details right. Anyway, your claim is of exactly the type that I think he is very eager to rebut, so I'll wait to get his thoughts on this. I don't have the econ chops to address it myself, but suffice it to say that it does not line up with the impression I've gotten from those who do have econ chops.

As for your second comment, I... I'm never sure how to reply to these sorts of sci-fi opinions. I should probably contemplate a more thoughtful response. In the meantime: I hope that human genetic engineering for economic reasons never becomes a thing, even though I realize it probably will. I really do not think there is evidence for the claim that redistribution without genetic engineering will implode the economy.

[anghraine]

Hello! Sorry if this seems out of the blue and naive, but I have to ask: Do you write about P&P on an academic level and if so, is the fact that you write thoughtful near-academic content about it on social media detrimental to that? Basically I am trying to ask this:

Are you allowed to write academically about something after you wrote so much about it on social media? Especially since what you write about it isn’t, you know, “memes”, but textual analysis?

Again, sorry if this sounds weird and ignorant, but I also wrote extensively about my favorite novel on here and I also one day want to write about it on an academic level, but I don’t know if it is “allowed”, so to speak?

Sorry if this is a personal question. You can answer it in private if you want to or ignore it.

Hello! It's no problem.

I've written about P&P for grad school (both in my MA and PhD) and a bit in my dissertation, but much more about Mansfield Park. That's about all I've done with P&P academically. I've actually had more ... let's say, success as externally defined with early modern (Renaissance) stuff, which I also specialized in. So there's that.

But there's also the fact that my style and approach are quite different between academia and fandom. My Tumblr style is probably more academia-adjacent than is usual (partly for autism reasons, to be sure), but it's still comparatively casual for me and integrates fandom conventions far more than my academic work, so even when I talk about ideas that I initially was thinking through in Tumblr posts, I handle the discussion differently in an academic context and tend to advance it very differently.

So there's not much of a connection in terms of my colleagues and there isn't really anyone who's going to say, well, this basic point in the larger discussion was already made in a different context on anghraine dot tumblr dot com, you don't get to talk about it. I do avoid talking about ideas that strike me as really novel or really specific to me on social media, though.

That said, while I've maintained some separation between my Anghraine social media presence and my academic one, a lot of academics rely on social media to publicize their work and engage with other academics (for better and worse) outside the glacial pace of academic publishing.

I used to have a Twitter account for that (before the reign of Musk) and I'd just ramble on about academic stuff, including Austen, and it was usually in respect to Austen that I'd have really interesting conversations with considerably more advanced academics than me. People aren't going to want to share so much that full publications are meaningless, but they do often share enough to participate in academic discourses.

But another factor for me personally is that I actually try to avoid mixing full-throttle academic work and the works I love the most. People talk a lot about finding a way to commodify integrate what you love most into work and making it a kind of vocation, but for me, at least, that does not remotely work. It just drains the joy out of something I used to love.

I could have specialized in sci-fi/fantasy scholarship, for instance, and it would likely have been much easier in some ways, but it would also likely have soured me on SF/F (my great love otherwise). That was one of the main reasons I decided not to do it and instead went with things that interested me quite a bit, but not too much. So I tend to shy away from thoroughly mixing things that are extremely important and joyful for me with academia.

When it comes to stories I love, I kind of relate to them like a dragon with a hoard, you know? Nobody's going to take this from me! So a lot of the things I write about academically have rarely or never shown up in my fandom content because I maintain that bit of distance.

So it can be a bit complicated. I would say that I imagine publicizing some ideas makes them less likely to be published, but at other times, it's helpful in connecting with people and becoming part of academic discourse. It really depends, which is probably not very useful despite the length of this response. But there aren't many people who are in a position to allow or disallow me to write professionally about whatever I want and am professionally equipped to discuss.

[pilots-and-protons]

Since I am constantly seeing discourse about the subject (especially in regards to thoughts I've expressed in my fanfic), I want to explain my opinion on some things. But I'm going to ignore the crazy sci-fi and break it down into more a understandable context.

Imagine you have a co-worker. He's kind of a jerk and he's said some dumb shit, and you rightfully write him off for it. Unfortunately, your new friend is also his best friend, so the three of you kind of hang out sometimes. And you still work together. He's good at his job, but you think his personality leaves a lot to be desired. At best, you're acquaintances, at worst you're less-than-cordial colleagues.

Then you get into some trouble, are in a bad place, and he ends up unintentionally being on the receiving end of you spilling your guts about personal baggage. He can't relate exactly, but he makes sure you know that he sympathizes, and doesn't make fun of you or bring up how vulnerable you were. Your secret is safe with him, which seems counterintuitive to his character. He's actually rather nice throughout the whole incident. So okay, maybe your friend has a reason for liking this guy. After that you work together some more, the three of you, even collaborating on some big special project. You warm up to him (he's actually a lot nicer than he initially seemed, once he stops trying to pretend like he's hot shit).

You might even tentatively consider him a friend. Not a close friend, but a friend. You'll eat lunch together at work; he'd probably give you a ride if you needed one. But there's a difference between work friends and real friends. You've been treated pretty poorly by people in the past, and you're not just going to trust any random person for the really important stuff. Good friends, best friends would lend you their car. They'd bring you soup if you were sick, listen to your problems, keep your deepest secrets, take care of you - especially when you can't take care of yourself. He's also been watching you, trying to flirt and has subtly asked you out a couple times. You think this guy isn't so bad, but you don't trust him - not like that.

And then you're with some people at a gathering and suddenly, you've been drugged. Everything is hot and fuzzy and all you can think about is picking up someone and screwing their brains out. And there he is, your sort-of-a-friend. You spend the night throwing yourself at him - touching him, pushing him against the wall, practically trying to tear his clothes off. All you can think is why not? He's easy, he's got a reputation - and obviously you're not thinking clearly because of the drugs.

Except instead of hauling you off to some room, he pushes your hands away - says that you're sick, you need to go home. He calls you a cab, but when he sees the state you're in, he climbs in with you and tells the driver your address. You're trying to get into his lap, insisting that you want this, that whatever you've said before about his advances aren't true. You're so doped up and out of your mind, even you aren't sure if these are lies or the truth. And for a minute, he gives in when you kiss him - he's kissing you back. But he stops, despite your protests, despite the fact that things he's said have you sure that he wants what you're offering. Instead, he gets you home, makes sure you've got water and something for a hangover. He gets your shoes off so you're comfortable, but tucks you into bed fully-clothed. He calls your mutual friend to check up on you in the morning in case you're too sick and need help. Then he leaves.

How would that not change your perspective? This is someone you thought was only a surface level work friend, someone you weren't sure you could trust. Then he took care of you, kept you safe, made sure you were ok when you were vulnerable, and stopped you from doing something you'd regret. Suddenly this guy went from a "sure I'll spot you five bucks for a coffee" friend to, "let me hold you hair back and bring you tea while you're sick" friend.

That is how I see B'Elanna's view of Tom after "Blood Fever". I can't imagine a scenario like this that doesn't leave your perceptions of a person fundamentally changed - for the better. Yes, she was embarrassed, and yes it was a violating experience. But honestly, I would have thought that anger would be aimed more at Vorik (even if it wasn't his fault), because he's the one who forced all of this onto B'Elanna in the first place. And from what we know of B'Elanna's struggle with vulnerability, it makes more sense to me that her embarrassment would be aimed inward, because she tried to force herself on Tom and is constantly worried about the "Klingon" aspects of herself being "too much" for other people.

So yes, I stand by my headcanon that B'Elanna does have a "silver lining" takeaway from the whole fiasco - she sees Tom in a drastically different and better light, and appreciates what he did for her (for the latter, she even says as much at the end of the episode).

[nimrodinked]

A Tale of Two Triguns

Or, How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the PLANT

Hello out there. I recently finished up watching Trigun: Stampede with a friend, after having a rather viscerally negative reaction to the first episode. Well, I've come here after watching the whole show to say that it doesn't get much better. My ramblings below were meant to be sent to a friend initially... but I had so much to say I figured that a blogpost would be easier to share around my frothing rage. So if the prose starts rather garbled and stream-of-thought-like, I apologize, but bear with it to the end, or at least as long as you can stomach. So, the show is a mess as far as a timeline goes. Looking at it compared to the original, there are similar beats, but they don't line up right. And the show is trying to tell the Vash vs Knives story, but in a garbled way. To spoil it, the entire 12 episodes is a small timeline of events that happen in the original show. The problem is that aside from the overarching event, everything else is wrong. It could be trying to tell a prequel to the original, but if that's the case then they didn't do a good job because plenty of plot points from the original are in the prequel. Vash encounters a number of Gung Ho Guns that he would meet in the original show, not to mention meeting Meryl and Wolfwood, all before the event in the city of July. So, if it's intending to be a prequel, why does it just throw in a bunch of extraneous details?

Speaking of extraneous details, the new show has a cultish obsession with the lore of Vash the stampede. Not who he is or what he's done. In truth, Vash accomplishes very little in the realm of deeds, that aren't done off-screen or talked about as past heroic actions. But the show absolutely loves to talk about and involve the Sci-Fi parts of the original show in all facets of the new show, including adding special powers to Vash and Knives. Episode one has Vash save a PLANT that's going bad somehow. The nutty thing is that, despite the increased focus on PLANTs and Vash and Knives as weird offshoot PLANT entities, the new show explains very little when it matters. At one point near the end, a scientist man just asserts that the PLANTs are energy sources because they're conduits for accessing a higher plane of existence. Out of nowhere. He also "Explains" that Vash somehow has the ability to access that higher plane. This is only an explanation of why Vash's arm was consumed by a black hole in an earlier episode, it's never talked about as to why Vash has the power to do this while Knives, who is also an "independent plant" as they describe, cannot. This is one of many examples of the show treating PLANTs as some kind of common knowledge while really flippantly, if at all, discussing what they are and why they are around.

On the matter of not explaining, and to touch on the earlier issue of "temporal problems", the show has a nasty habit of progressing story beats off-camera, to an almost baffling degree. To give a few examples, Meryl and her partner (The infuriating exposition reporter "Robert De Niro") are marveling at vegetation in a biodome, and robert wants to go find a smoking area. The scene ends, the episode continues on. two scenes later, Meryl and Robert are in the middle of the PLANT storage facility, in….. somewhere. It's never shown how they got there, they simply appear. Hilariously, both characters don't know how they got there either, and since it's never addressed it's almost as if the storyboard itself shunted these two hapless side characters into the next exposition dump scene without them knowing. That's perhaps the most blatant example, but little fragments like that happen constantly. A character blows up, end scene. An episode later he's shown with bandages on him, so apparently he survived. In that same episode a child falls out of Meryl's grip in a static shot, then the shot ends. Come episode end, he's bandaged up and wounded somehow. It adds up to the show being a disorienting mess to watch at times, there's just too many blocks of missing time seemingly hacked out of the plot.

Oh, and the plot. The wonderful plot. So, this is already a spoiler talk, for both the new show and the original, but this is where I really burrow into those details so if you really don't want to be spoilered, stop here. The plot is a topsy-turvy mess that can't seem to muster up the brainpower to make sense of it's own details. The opening of episode one reminded me of the first star wars prequel. That's a great sign…. Anyhow, you meet the twins when they're young, at the Big Fall event where the entire Seeds project fails and crashes to earth due to Knives' meddling. How did he meddle? Guess. No I'm serious, the show simply states that Knives did it somehow, and apparently Vash "gave him the passcode" which makes him "an accomplice" which is it's own infuriating mischaracterization, but we'll get to that. So, Knives crashes all the space ships because "humans bad." After that, Vash runs away, and that's the last we see of (new) flashbacks for a while. They love to use the same flashbacks so the first few episodes have kid Knives saying "Vaaaaaaaaaaaaaaash~" in his silly voice, which is an amusing anchor point. Not amusing in a good way. Every flashback is a sore reminder of how awfully they're piloting the show.

Now right off the bat, the show has problems because it's trying to fit in references from the original show in a season that's half the size. Our first nostalgia story is Vash Vs the Nebraska Duo, which starts out much the same. Unfortunately it starts out under different circumstances that make it a more infuriating ride. In the original, Vash saves a diner from some small-time crooks, driving them out and receiving a free meal as a reward. However, upon realizing that he's Vash, the 60 billion Double Dollar outlaw, the town decides that they can turn in this relative stranger for a huge reward. The diner owner, who I believe is named Rosa like in the new show, says she feels sorry for doing it because he seems nice, but the town needs the money to survive. Antics ensue, because this is the og Trigun, and Vash is still his happy-go-lucky normal self. The Nebraksa Duo come in, hold the town hostage, and Vash swoops in to save the day, even after they all collectively tried to kill him. This warms the peoples hearts, how sweet etc etc. now, onto the new.

The storybeats are the same, with Vash saving the town… but here the ship leaves port, drifting away from believable into wishy-washy emotional gobbledeegook. So, episode one Vash saves the town from July police officers there to arrest him. The officer, for no real reason other than to show off a big flashy budget, fires a cluster missile into the air that breaks apart and will scatter all over town with bombs, destroying probably the entire area, PLANT included. Vash saves the day, though he does so in the rather ludicrous method of throwing a rock at a cluster of missiles wide enough to saturate the town with shrapnel, then shooting the rock so that it spreads and somehow air-explodes the whole cluster missile payload. Again, it seems to just want to be flashy, and having any sort of sense or logic isn't a concern. So, Vash is the hero of the town, and they all celebrate. Now, before I say this next story beat, Rosa, the tavern owner now, explains that, in addition to him just now saving the town, Vash also came by sometime in the past to save their plant. So that's twice he's saved the entire town out of pure charity. So, they decided to hold him up for ransom. The given reason is…. the same, they need the money to survive. What? No, seriously, what? They don't explain anything, Rosa just says she's a mom and has children and needs to feed her kids. So they're going to cash in 60 billion double dollars… for groceries. They can't be using the money to fix the PLANT, because Vash fixed it already, for free. And if the power structure around it was failing and they had to make repairs Vash couldn't do, then… why not say it? They don't, they just do it because this is the "town tries to ransom vash" episode. Antics ensue, although much more toned down (in tone, not in wacky spastic animation) antics this time around.

More differences come as the Nebraska duo show up, and instead of Vash escaping the town, they catch him, and the Nebraska duo decide to just steal him and take the bounty. A short lived and lame chase sequence happens, and then the duo is defeated. They immediately return to town and decide that they'll just steal the PLANT instead, marking the beginning of the new show's obsession with the hitherto mysterious space-age power source. They take the PLANT to the top of a long hallway, presumably to attach it to a crane because it's quite large. This also serves as an ultra-obvious setpiece for a confrontation. A confrontation is had, and in contrast to Vash using his gun and bullets to beat the Nebraska's without even really wounding them, this Vash just hops around like a 3d jumping bean before finally drawing to counter the Nebraska father's gunshot. Yes. He shoots the bullet head-on with his bullet. That's…. Alright for those that haven't watched, the original trigun had Vash pulling some really incredible stunts with guns and gun avoiding. The closest I can reckon to this feat of improbable "accuracy" is the water thief episode. To make my point simply, Vash is able to dodge someone's bullets fired at him from close range. The one firing realizes that he's able to read the trajectory of the bullets whizzing by by carefully watching the gun in his hand and how he aims it. That's far-fetched, sure, but it at least makes some semblance of sense for Vash to have learned over the many years of getting shot at. And while the explanation of "bullet trajectory" isn't entirely accurate, at close range and with proper spacing, Vash could make enough room to dodge where the bullet could go. Because gun's aren't laser-accurate, but the body can be flexible enough to give it the extra space to whizz by.

Now, going back to that gun's aren't laser-accurate point, Nebraska Sr. fires what looks like a standard handgun (I'm not going to go super nerdy because I'm not a gun nut, but I understand enough to go through this) at Vash, and Vash fires back with a .22 revolver. From what I can tell, he draws while Nebraska is firing, and is able to hit the bullet dead-center before it travels too far from the gun. That's… I barely know why I'm focusing on this one dumb shot among a million other issues I have, but It's not so much an issue of "a normal person couldn't do that" and more an issue of a level of superhuman not only required of the person, but the gun they're firing. And considering Vash is shooting just a regular revolver… sure, it's a nitpick, but it's one drop in the pan of this nonsensical stew I'm trying to chew through. Let's move on.

So, after that "gunfight", the beam the Nebraska's are on begins to fall. Sr makes a run for it, but Jr grabs the big PLANT because it's valuable. He almost makes it, making sure the PLANT gets to safety first which seals his fate of falling. Thankfully, he's got extending rope-arms like in the original, so he's able to grapple upwards, but his arm is slipping. Vash naturally grabs it, and Nebraska Sr is about to as well, when Rosa comes in again to bravely shoot at him for taking their livelihood. She's going to gun him down, the villainous scientiest… but he has a son and he loves him! It's about family, that's what makes it so powerful, truly words to live by. After that the story goes off on it's own strange and strained beat, which leads me into my next point.

Characters. Vash, centrally, is barely given anything to do in the new show. He's mostly relegated to moping around, and trying not to use his gun at all, except for a bizarre scene where he's beating up thugs with it as a makeshift tonfa. Not to say that Vash was a powerhouse of awesome might in the original show, but he was a much more active protagonist that got a lot more work to do. Almost half of the total runtime are small stories about Vash's character, his past, and the kind of person he is. Just looking for clips I was able to find 4 different episodes where Vash is either helping to save people, or trying to talk someone down from the ledge of killing someone else. Compared to the almost saccharine sweet message most often played in the new show. Vash just wants to help everyone and save them. It's the same message… but it's barely portrayed outside of him directly saying it. Adding into this teeth-cracking sweetness is the bizarre character choice to make him a character with a guilty conscience.

So, as far as I can reckon (because again, they do not show the backstory of the Big Fall, it just happens and Knives talks about how Vash was part of it), Vash feels guilty because of the just-mentioned help that he offered Knives. This "help" equates to him knowing a passcode that Knives doesn't, when the twins are snooping around ships records in the specimen storage room. They find a supposed third independent child, and pulling up their file also happens to release them from the floor, in what probably should be a horrific scene. It is on it's own, but that traumatic event is never talked about or discussed, only vaguely alluded to in the future. The event in full is a series of glass containers that house the third child, or what remains of it. It's rather gruesomely torn to pieces, and the bio-signs read out that it's still alive even in it's flayed state. This is, in what appears to be a theme, never expounded upon. Who was the third child? No idea. Maybe it's the same child shown later on in the show, although the scientist that created him certainly didn't make it sound like his creation was stolen from the body. Maybe I need a supplementary brochure to understand the deep lore that this show insists on bringing up, only to drop like so much trash soon after. Getting back to the passcode, however.

Apparently Vash knows the master passcode. Somehow. Not explained. Him using it to access the third child documents apparently was enough for Knives to memorize the password. Or he copy-pasted it? Again, it isn't explained, but it's the only "password" shown in the show so I have to just assume that's it. If that is the case, Vash having a guilty conscience makes no real sense, because even if he gave his brother the password, he did it in a completely unrelated outing that they both thought was innocent snooping. Sure, it certainly turned out to be a horrific event (that they never bring up again) but that's a flimsy foundation for his guilt. It could be that he's motivated by the desire to stop his brother's plans as he states in a later backstory section, which would make more sense at least, but once more, that resolution is brought on by his foster caretakers discovering the black box that recorded Knives telling Vash that he helped him by giving the password. He has no other stated reason for wishing to atone, so once more I must assume that his desire stems from the guilt of helping Knives. Helping knives in an unrelated scenario when neither of them knew better. I understand that emotions like guilt are strong and often irrational in real life… but when the foundation of your narrative is built on the sci-fi equivalent of a rom-com misunderstanding, the story will suffer for it.

And oh, does the lack of character not stop with Vash. Knives has argueably come out much worse in the hack job. He's been boiled down from his old self, remade into a strange and cartoonish brooding villain that is almost never, ever, not playing a piano. The man who systematically tracked down the blood-relative of Rem Saverem, killing him before Vash got there entirely to break his brother. Who then forces him to activate his angel arm and scour July from the map (yes, the city of july in the og was a past event if you recall my earlier ramblings) and is still angry and hurt when Vash aims his PLANT-mutated death-cannon at him. Because Knives is a deeply disturbed individual with a central idea that humanity is a waste of space, but he does love his brother. NuKnives maybe loves his brother, it's unclear and not well explained because he, like many other characters, is obsessed with PLANTs. His only real stated reason for wanting to kill the humans is when he's shown to be reading a history book, and he comments on how humans never change, and always have wars. Which is sophistry, to the highest order. He is a child so it's not as if that's an unreasonable take-away from an alien's perspective, but once more, the narrative suffers from weak motivations like that, regardless of how "realistic" they might be. Knives' motivation is also skewed off-kilter, as instead of living on a new world with his beloved brother, he now wants to create a new generation of stable, independent PLANTs that will survive and thrive in the new world. Again, not inherently terrible, but it's confused, muddled, barely explained until the ending where everything is dumped all at once. In fact, Knives and Vash's relationship can be shown by looking at each respective ending.

At the end of the original show, the climatic battle is between two brothers with opposing ideals that can't reconcile them with each other. They have a gunfight with each using one of the guns the Knives made for them to have. While Knives gains the upper hand, Vash hears the voice of Wolfwood, and uses his gun to regain control of the fight, and win. It's simple, it's really fun to re-watch, and can even be a little symbolic, with wolfwood's cross representing Vash's connection to human beings as a whole, that burden to them turning into a blessing that helps him win. Contrasted to the end of NuGun, which is an obnoxious orchestral-blaring city battle where Vash zips around on his magical devil wing while Knives follows and blasts away with magical PLANT-conjured knives. Of course shortly before this epic big big bigly battle, there was an episode where exposition and nonsense was shovelled down the viewers face as Knives unveils his master plan to turn Vash into a tree which will simultaneously engulf the world to kill all the humans, and forcibly impregnate all of the PLANTs he's collected to birth new independent PLANTs which he will imbue with souls by going to the higher dimension and tapping into the consciousness there, using his brother which he turned into a tree as the portal to go through, after erasing his memories, because apparently in order to turn into a portal tree person you have to have no attachments or memories. Vash turns the tables after his memory is wiped of Rem, by remembering a song that she taught to him (off-screen). Now, Rem's song is a motif in the original show, but from what I can tell with an untrained ear, the little melody Vash is singing isn't that, just some song he was taught. So, Rem Saverem, a character that has had less on-screen impact to Vash than his adoptive caretakers on the crashed ship, is the magic spark that re-awakens his memories. That would make sense… if you've seen the original show, and know the background of just how much Rem meant to Vash. Here… it's just a copout really. Now, If all of that sounds like nonsense, you're correct. If you think there should be more explanation, well you're also right, but the show has no answers for you. At once too much and too little explaining happens so that a slew of new pieces of information are cast to the wind, without a single string to ground them to actual NuGun-established reality. Vash is still saved by his connection to humanity, but keeping with the new show's theme, he is captured and loses all his memories over the course of 2 and a half episodes, before finally mustering up some main character gumption to fight back. It doesn't hit nearly as hard. Frankly it misses the mark of a hit at all.

To finish off this confusing mess of a story, Knives dies trying to reach a mcguffin cube, because Vash is able to "condense the gate energy into a tesseract" that will still open the gateway to the higher dimension…. which, I suppose is still bad? Honestly I don't know why it's still bad, obviously Knives doesn't have pure intentions and wants to kill humans, but as was shown, his actions already resulted in a bunch of pregnant PLANTs. If they don't get souls from the higher dimension will they… just become normal PLANTs? Search me. Vash wants to get rid of the cube because Knives wants it and will eventually do bad things with it. Okay… alright, there's such a deluge of nonsense at this point that I barely registered that initially, but okay. So, in what I'm sure was cool to see for those still invested in the show, Vash unleashes his Devil arm. Looking back at the clips from the og, Vash had the angel arm, and Knives the devil. It was a simple characterization, and as shown in the finally fight, the arm isn't connected to the person; it's connected to Knives gun's. But Knives didn't make guns in this show, so now Vash can summon the power of the devil arm with his newfound power of anti-creation…. or whatever (look he sprouts a black devil wing and flies around while holding a cube made of gate portal energy that he also made and condensed apparently by accident, or maybe on purpose. There isn't time for explaining, it's time for BIG BIG BIG ACTION SETPIECES!!!!) Vash uses his devil arm and wing to fly up into space to blast away all the tesseract energy, but Knives won't let him. So, Vash blasts, and Knives, rather than go around the massive beam, puts himself directly in it's line so he can get melted down in slow motion. I feel my stomach churn as I write that sentence because it sounds like a cinema-sins nitpick. It kind of is, but it's also another ridiculous bit of contrivance that Knives can't bring himself to pull out of the death beam stream and grab the cube from it's completely exposed side-hole, so I'm touching on it. Vash kills Knives, even if accidentally, and Knives' last words to his brother, are "Nai is dead, you killed him." I am baffled, on the verge of hiring a private eye to research just what the hell that even means. I don't know where Knives feels this big betrayal happens, since he's literally using his brother as a frozen in time gateway to achieve his perfect world, with no promise that he'll ever unturn him from tree back to brother. But he's still sad about it? Suddenly? After all of this? Because he has shown not a lick of remorse or sadness towards his brother ever since they parted ways after the Big Fall? I'm rocked to my core at how nonsense this line is. Anyhow, that's how the story proper ends, which moves us, blessedly, onto my final point.

Everyone knows Marvel properties. Everyone knows the Marvel movies. And at this point, many of you probably know about the more recent movies and how they have an audience clap-pause for when something you recognize comes on-screen. Famously used in the third spiderman movie, where Toby Maquire comes on-screen to dead silence for just a bit to allow the marvel fans time to clap and holler in the theatre. Thank the lord above there are no such egregious references in Trigun, but there are an insulting amount of "remember the old property?" moments. To name a few, obviously there are the members of the gung-ho guns that Vash fights in this new show, including Zazie the beast, who has been turned from tragic esper child who can control massive sandworms, to strange native-dressed child that can still control worms… but might also be a worm? She bursts into literaly swarms of flying little glow-bugs when shot at, but they don't explain that. Go figure. She's just made of worms now. There's Legato, who is a reference for old fans, not a character. He appears in 2, maybe 3 episodes back to back to meddle with Wolfwood, then fades away without even a face reveal. Maybe that's for the planned second season. I say that these are all references, not characters in the new show done differently, because they really don't have a lick of substance behind them, beyond the most forgettable of the og gung-ho guns who has been turned into a roided-up bane out to kill Vash. He also serves as the "wolfwood murders a child" catalyst, although again, there is almost nothing done about that issue, and Wolfwood continues to hang out with Vash after it's over (Seriously, stakes in this show are so low they're nearly subterranean). Beyond that there are bits of a large robot that looks like the Nine-Lives gun from the og. Cute. The most offensive nostalgia and sequel bait combined references are saved for the last minutes of the final episode, however.

Meryl pays her respects to the annoying exposition reporter Robert De Niro at the wrecked city of July. A voice comes over her radio, telling her that if she doesn't stop slacking, she'll be sent over to the insurance agency (she was an insurance agent in the og, which is a funnier occupation and makes more sense, as she and her partner are following Vash because he's a walking liability.) The voice also tells her that she's been assigned a new partner, a woman by the name of Millie Thompson. Yes, stun-gun Millie, one of the more jovial and light-hearted members of the original cast. She was an amazonian woman with a minigun that fired "stun-rounds" which seemed to consist of metal bars that would whack into people's chest and stop them in their tracks. Possibly also break ribs, but Millie isn't known for being smart, yet she's a wonderful part of the cast that adds to the initial levity. She's also Wolfwood's implied romantic partner, though they do only share a single scene together. The scene is adorable though, I would look up Trigun Pregnant scene to find it. I know that sounds like a bit, but that's the youtube title of it. Anyhow, after that stomach-churning force-feeding of 'member berries, the scene changes to a familiar face, telling Vash that he'll be okay and get over his "amnesia" soon, calling him Eriks in a reference to the mini-plot where he went underground under the same name in a fit of manic depression. It's unclear whether he actually has memory loss now, since the July incident did cause him to lose his memory. But really, with the amount of faith I have in the show's writing for this season, an eventual season two will probably botch that plotline over 3 episodes.

So… that's it. That's the entire thing, I've been expelling the bile built up in my neck after watching his sad trainwreck for quite some time, so if you're still reading then I both applaud and thank you for being interested. I truly didn't wish to hate on a show, but it's because Trigun is such a beloved property for me that this new rendition being made sloppy and shoddy gets to me so much. It's a confused mess that's riddled with a baffling number of cliches, bad writing, over/under explanation, an obsession with a sci-fi aesthetic, and a desperate attempt to have flashy animation that is a poor, slipping mask for the rest of the trainwreck. I mean… the animation did (mostly) look quite good. Having 3d models affords a great deal more general movement and crazy action on a tighter budget. They seemed a bit too Gung-ho (hah, reference) with the movement though, as some scenes of just talking featured quite a bit of bouncy wobbling model flailing, which just looks off-putting. The animation team clearly cared and tried their best to get creative, and there's a fun amount of camera swings and reels for the few actual fights the show has. Who knows, the friend I watched this with said a season two was already confirmed. I was appalled at the ending of Dragon's Blood season 2, and then 3 had me in tears. Maybe they'll be able to scrape and salvage this flaming pile, and get their nonsense together for a season two, as that will probably be a re-telling of the original story, considering this first season ends with what was a past event in the og, and ends with setup for Millie. But…. Oh dear god, but…. The season also ends with a shot of Earth, and a radio broadcast as a few personnel confirm that the SEEDS project fired a signal, and Zazie the plot-exposition Beast warns Meryl… for some reason, that humans will be coming. I am not even going to ask why the sentient pile of bugs that looks like a child knows that. I'm just not. I can't imagine that MORE sci fi, more bigger blastier actionier flailing, and more over-explaining concepts will benefit this show, and I don't have much hope that their "humans are coming to the desert planet" plotline will be anything but disappointing.

But hey! I like to remain positive, so at least the original show is still there. I have the Blu-Ray box set of it, I might just dig it out to watch once more! I mean, what's stopping me from re-living the amazing show from my youth? And for that matter, what's stopping you? There's plenty of ways to get a hold of it either online or physically, and I promise you that the original Trigun is at the least a better-written show than the new trashfire. It might be antiquated, I'm aware that not everything ages gracefully… and I'm also aware that some people just don't know what good media is. Pearls before swine and all that. But I won't judge! Honest. So give the original a watch. And hey, you could try the new show, if you really wanted. I don't think it will hold up, but…. Well, again, some people don't know what good media is. Any way you slice it, again, thanks for listening to the longest ramble I've had in a good long while. I hope it gave you something to chew on, or something to chuckle at. I'll see you next time.