#now I get to add this post to the “possible future thieves” post haha

[p5x-theories]

Okay these actually ended up being a lot more interesting than expected when I grabbed them from the data- these are the text for the Phantom Thieves' names used on the page where you can view your teammates, equip stuff + upgrade them, etc. It's similar to the dialogue box names, but not quite the same; here's Cattle to demonstrate:

This is specifically the text used in the latter screenshot-type pages.

Which is to say, the names in the first image:

Futaba Sakura - Yukimi Fujikawa

Tomoko Noge - Goro Akechi

Kayo Tomiyama - Seiji Shiratori

Motoha Arai - [Leo's real name, which may be Reo Kamiyama]

Yusuke Kitagawa - Ryuji Sakamoto

[Mont's first name, which may be Kotone] Montagne - Riko Tanemura

The names in the second image, however... include a few new ones:

红莲

Shun Kanou - Makoto Niijima

JOKER - Yaoling Li

梅洛普 - Haru Okumura

Ann Takamaki - Kiyoshi Kurotani

Morgana - Ruferu (/Luffy) - 妈妈

I'll come back to the first and third ones in a moment- the one in the middle, next to Haru, is a Japanese name (possibly "Amane Umeraku", though there are a couple possible first name readings in particular) that I don't recognize from the beta anywhere, and it doesn't seem like it could be Polter or Enco from the snippets of their names we know, either (unless "Aran" or "Ikenami" isn't their real name, I suppose).

The first and third ones, however, are Chinese. Google translates the first one as "red lotus" (Hóng lián), and the third one as... "mother" (M��mā). So those are... interesting? If accurate?

I don't recall seeing this particular style of name text anywhere else in the second beta, so I'm assuming that means all three of these refer to future Phantom Thieves we don't know. But if anyone else knows they've seen this text pop up anywhere else, let me know!

[dollofdeath]

Like Thief, Like Cop: LupinPat Analysis + Speculation

Heyo, back at it again with more LupinPat analysis! Actually, I wanted to wait to write this up until after the May episodes aired since those seem like they’ll be focused on the Pats, but I was sick the other night and ended up writing most of this when I couldn’t sleep lol (albeit incoherently, thanks @ my twitter followers for putting up with me www)

(Just a note: the second half/speculation probably counts as a separate discussion but one thought lead to the other so I just decided to stick it with the analysis haha)

Without a doubt, the Lupins and Pats are foils of each other. Following the law of chromatic superiority, the teams are leaded by level-headed Kairi and hot-blooded Keiichiro; in the middle are Touma, the eldest of the Lupins with a cynical side, and Sakuya, the youngest of the Pats who is quite optimisic; last but not least, we have cheerful yet naive Umika and cool beauty Tsukasa.

Thieves versus cops -- it’s only natural that they oppose each other in every aspect. But if we look at the teams in a different way, we could also say that they are parallels of each other.

(continued under the read more; long post warning!)

Let’s take a look at the teams lined up

Following this, the orders of the teams are as such: 

Touma, Kairi, Umika

Tsukasa, Keiichiro, Sakuya

And like so, Touma and Umika act as Tsukasa’s and Sakuya’s parallels respectively, with Kairi and Keiichiro being both parallels and foils of each other. I’ve talked a little about this before like a month ago lol, but I’ll explain it more in depth now.

First up is Touma and Tsukasa. We don’t know the Pats’ ages as far as I know, but for the sake of this write-up I’ll be assuming they’re about the same as their actors’, making Tsukasa the eldest Patranger. That means age-wise, these two are the same in that they are the eldest of their teams. They are also the most mature, the least willing to deal with bullshit from their other members (Touma usually has something witty to say and Tsukasa’s sure got The Look™ down lol). Despite that, these two get worked up when it comes to something they’re invested in. For Touma, this is Aya, as demonstrated in Episode 3 where Touma acted rather impulsively and rashly in order to get the piece of the Lupin Collection back. In Tsukasa’s case, it’s her work as a detective, which we see her get pre~tty adamant about in Episode 8 as she tries to uncover the Lupins’ true identities.

Moving onto Umika and Sakuya, the youngest of their teams. In a way, both of them act as the morale of their teams -- Umika is the heart of the Lupins, playing peacemaker between Kairi and Touma; Sakuya is certainly the most optimistic of the Pats, even if sometimes this exasperates Tsukasa and Keiichiro LOL These two have also felt bad about their aspirations at one point (Umika being bullied about her fashion sense, Sakuya under-performing during cadet training) but were encouraged by someone else. They’re also the most open-minded of their teams, with both seeing the other team as not an enemy, but as a potential ally within the show’s first few episodes. And just generally, these two seem to have the most fun, I guess, despite their jobs haha (Umika excited to meet Ema Goldini or see some celebrities at the studio, Sakuya being waaaay too into the PR film)

Admittedly Kairi and Keiichiro act more as foils than parallels, but maybe we’ll see more similarities as the story unfolds. Nonetheless, we can already see a few similarities! I think this is most apparent in Episode 5, where their resolves clash. That sounds contradictory to the point, but these two have a lot of passion behind their resolves and are willing to go far for it -- it’s just that their resolves are in opposition, which plays up the foil angle. I’m dipping into headcanon territory here and even stretching a bit haha, but I also think they both have a pride that’s been humbled to an extent. We see it clearly with Keiichiro during Episodes 5 and 6, where he initially takes his loss very hard but then remembers he mustn’t misuse his authority as the police. Kairi’s pride, on the other hand, stems from his inferiority complex with Shori and we can see that he didn’t take his own losses very well with how much he pushes Shori away, that he hates how he can’t compare to Shori. I think the Kairi we see now has been humbled by the loss of his brother, that he realized that his pride and resentment shouldn’t have gotten in the way of his relationship with Shori. Again, I’m stretching but hopefully the show offers more on their dynamic haha

(Also just a fun note, the teams literally mirror each other when lined up!

The Lupins are lined up tallest to shortest while the Pats are lined up shortest to tallest. This is Quality Casting)

Back on topic now lol, here comes the speculation. The thought I had that leads to the second part of this write-up? "The Pats are like the Lupins, except they're not fixated on the past." 

Here's a line from the OP as translated by Over-Time: “So they can reclaim their frozen time, they’ll spin the dial.” This line is accompanied by these visuals

Naturally, we think of the Lupins' lost loved ones when it comes to this line, but I think this can be applied to the Lupins themselves as well. The Lupins want to bring back their loved ones so badly, they drop everything in order to accomplish their goal. They are frozen in time -- they are not moving on from their past. Of course, there is nothing wrong with their resolve; it’s only instinct to want to bring someone you’ve lost back, but the circumstances in which they’ve become the Lupinrangers are very sketchy. We see the Lupins consider using Zamigo as a backup plan in case things with Kogure don’t work out, but they haven’t really questioned the whole situation. Or perhaps they have, but their wish to get their loved ones back trumps their doubt. In either case, they’re blinded by their desires and are not capable of moving on.

It sounds kinda harsh, telling the Lupins to just move on, doesn’t it haha. I truly want them to reunite with their loved ones as much as everyone else, but how often do these plots actually work out? Usually dead/lost loved ones are used as motivation for the characters or the arc focuses on them learning how to move on; those who don’t expect their loved ones to return and actually make the effort to move on are sometimes rewarded with their loved ones coming back, but it’s certainly not easy (I’d list specific examples from SS/KR, but I don’t want to accidentally spoil someone ;;). Even if the Lupins are able to get their loved ones back, it won’t be as straightforward as they believe it to be.

Digressing a little, but it’ll make sense in a bit (hopefully lol). Here’s a stanza from Chase You Up! Patranger, the Pats’ side of the OP, as translated on the Power Rangers Wiki: “Anticipate their warning, unveil the truth / And teach them what ‘it’s impossible’ means.”

At face value, this most likely refers to the police taking in the thieves and possibly reforming them. But I think we can look at this on a more personal level as well.

As far as we know, the Pats don’t have such a tragic backstory as the Lupins, or if they do, they’re not letting it get to them in the same manner as the Lupins. In contrast to the past-oriented Lupins, the Pats are more present-focused, if not future-focused. What we’ve seen of the Pats, they are capable of taking what comes at them and using it to move forward (Keiichiro’s pride, Sakuya’s training days... aaand here’s to hoping for a meaningful focus for Tsukasa ehe). I think it’s possible that, as the relationship between the Lupins and Pats develop, the Pats will help the Lupins move on -- or at least, look at the bigger picture and realize there’s more going on than what they think.

To add onto this, I’ve seen some people speculate that the Pats may even fill in the hole left behind by the Lupins’ loved ones (like Keiichiro becoming a big brother of sorts to Kairi, Touma and Tsukasa becoming lovers, Sakuya and Umika becoming friends). While I wouldn’t exactly want the Pats to “replace” the Lupins’ lost loves (after all, no one is replaceable), I think the Pats will play a big part in the Lupins’ development.

“What ‘it’s impossible’ means”... 

“It’s impossible” could mean that there’s no way for the Lupins to bring back their loved ones and the Pats will help them deal with it, or “It’s impossible” in the sense that “impossible” is just another obstacle to overcome and the Pats will help them through it. No matter what, I can see the Pats becoming good friends with the Lupins and supporting them in their resolve.

TL;DR If we’re talking about the way they’re lined up, the Lupins and Pats act as parallels. These parallels show how the motivations differentiate the Lupins and the Pats -- the Lupins being blinded by their desire to bring their loved ones back (the past) whereas the Pats are focused on their jobs (the present/future). It’s possible the Pats will help the Lupins move on from their pasts, or at least look at the bigger picture.

I suppose this all stems from an observation I made, that it seems like the Lupins are mostly backstory but we know little of them besides what has happened in their past (like... does Kairi still play basketball?? How's Umika's designing going?? I guess Touma still enjoys being a chef??) whereas we know who the Pats are but not why they are the way they are. We’re still early in the show’s run, so hopefully by the finale we’ll have equal amounts of backstory and characterization on both ends haha

Anyways, I don’t really expect any of this to come true LOL I just like to look deeply into things and play with ideas, but I think it’s at least something to think about hehe 

Thank you guys for reading!! ( ´ ▽ ` )ﾉ

[resbang-bookclub]

AMA Transcript: Pell Grant Matrimony

This weekend, @marshofsleep, @sojustifiable (known as Amanda on Discord), @adorabbey and @tilliquoi braved yesterday's Discordacolypse in order to chat about their 2016 Resbang, Pell Grant Matrimony! Here's some of what went down:

Q: Please, give us a rundown of how this was conceived.

sleepmarshes:

sleepmarshes: It's almost been an entire year. We've lived with this sin for 11 months. Right, so, like, there was that tumblr post going around about how a bro realized he could help another bro out since gay marriage became legal, and they could get a green card. So my thought was, of course, this is Soul and (somebody).

Amanda: I believe this was the tweet marsh referenced when she first described the initial idea to me before we were collabing on it:

sleepmarshes: So, the setup would be Maka meets Soul and of course they hit it off because this is why we came here. But it turns out Soul is married.

sleepmarshes: Then we decided B* would be the best choice. He would be ultra gung ho about PDA. THEN, Amanda started signing up for financial aid, and she was like hey, what if we do it like this instead of green card? And then BAM, COLLEGE AU. Then it became a game of how many tropes, cliches, and memes we could pile in.

Amanda: And then when I was signing up for financial aid I also saw this post and was like hey alternate motivation: http://zhuy-doodles.tumblr.com/post/144803762284. How we ended up collabing and doing it for real was that I was talking to marsh about how I wasn't sure if I was going to do resbang or not, and that if i was, I wanted to do something silly. And she was like, hey you should do that thing I told you about. And I was like I can't do that, it's your thing. And she was like oh we can collab and then we made a blood pact.

sleepmarshes: Now we are borg.

Adorabear: Amanda, marsh, and I did a minecraft FRAND ritual. Very legit.

Q: How did the collab work?

sleepmarshes: At the time, I was busy with house building stuff and other things, so I knew I wasn't going to be able to help a whole lot.

Amanda: I imagine it works differently for different people but ours was a Process. When we discussed collabing we pretty much decided I would do the bulk of the writing while marsh would act as helicopter mom with plotting and everything.

sleepmarshes: HELICOPTER MOM omg. It me.

Amanda: So we plotted together and marsh would be like hey I know this is a joke but we need actual character motivation and shiz and then I started cranking out words. And then marsh trailed behind me, editing and making parts funnier and more coherent and filling in the scenes I was really struggling with.

sleepmarshes: She trucked right on man, just huge chunks. Well, I also kept throwing stupid ideas at you.

Q: Who came up with my daughter snappy, and also, how do you feed an alligator on student budget?

sleepmarshes: We don't talk about the budget.

Amanda: So once upon a time, I sent marsh this meme:

sleepmarshes: How DID that happen? This is clearly America.

Amanda: Just as a joke, I was like haha look at this meme and she was like fake gay fic??

sleepmarshes: I don't remember this but I believe it 100%.

Amanda: And I was like, not my intention, but okay, I can roll with it, they have an alligator now. Gained through some vague but nefarious means.

sleepmarshes: Snappy*Star. I think we decided [she was] smuggled from Disney World? I regret not making the epilogue about [Black*Star's] TV show.

Amanda: Yeah there were some interesting epilogue plans for when Snappy got too big to keep in an apartment. Black*Star was gonna have a TV show with Snappy I think on exotic pet care or maybe like, exercising with your pet. Just picture like, 3 years from the end of the fic, Soul and Maka are hanging out and turn on the TV to see the two of them.

Q for the artists: What inspired your arting decisions?

Adorabear: So I knew I'd do drinks, and wanted to do nail art (after getting a lot of encouragment from the resbang discord). I did some trial runs of the nail art shortly after the Resbang matchmaking.

Q: What inspired Queen Wes?

Amanda: Queen Wes appeared out of nowhere when I was writing the last 15k in three days and was in a delirious state of confusion.

Q: How did you two like collabing? Did it work well?

Amanda: I had a blast and think the collabing probably went better than either of us could've expected.

sleepmarshes: Oh yeah def. I've been terrfied to collab for years.

Amanda: Like, it ended up being even more collaborative with merging our writing styles so we just got this monster of laughs out of it. Tbh I was surprised that marsh even suggested collabing cuz I didn't think she did collabs.

sleepmarshes: I DON'T do collabs, but I get along with you so well I figured well, if anything'll work, it'll probably be this. Actually, Amanda did a lot of work on the timeline.

Amanda: More like I did a lot of work harrassing Marsh about the timeline because I need things to be linear.

sleepmarshes: Yeah I'm definitely not that.

Amanda: Let me pull up some parts of the outline for posterity. These are the kinds of notes Marsh makes in the outline:

These are the kinds of notes I make which are about 5% more coherent:

Q: Why Harvar with Wes? I think it was hilarious.

sleepmarshes: Uhhh well we knew we wanted Wes to hit on DTK. Why DID we hook him up with Harv? Just because Harv has put up with his shit for so long and won't leave him?

Amanda: We hooked him up with Harv because you love Harv and love shipping everyone with everyone else.

sleepmarshes: Ok this is probably true.

Amanda: Other random add in about shipping cuz I forgot we had another pm chatlog and found where we were discussing possible ships and I have this quote from marsh's shipping habits:

sleepmarshes: Can confirm, this is my hobby.

Q: Was there a line or joke or meme that made either of you legit laugh out loud when you realized it fit/it ended up in there?

sleepmarshes: Probably every meme we came into contact with?

Adorabear: Amanda and Marsh are basically the people on the date shoving all the breadsticks in their purse, but the breadsticks are memes. And their purse is overflowing, and they're going into the Olive Garden kitchen to get more breadstick memes.

Amanda: I think there was a lot of coming up with ridiculous lines and then having the other be like "wtf is wrong with you that's hilarious."

sleepmarshes: Yes, exactly that. As for drummer DTK....

Amanda: That was another last minute thing. We knew he was a math metal head but then I was like lol what if he shows up as a guest in the music festival?

sleepmarshes: ROFL when you said that I thought well man, if you wanna write it go for it. And then when I caught up to it for edits even I was surprised. I was like FUCK YEA.

Q: Did you guys have a playlist?

sleepmarshes: I didn't have a fic-specific one, personally. I think I was mostly listening to the Macabre Records mix and maybe a Sufjan Stevens album.

Amanda: I also didn't have any specific writing music, being a musician also I find music pretty distracting so the only music I can write to is if it blends together well and is really cohesive and doesn't have any distracting vocals. Hey, I was listening to Sufjan too. Carrie and Lowell.

sleepmarshes: SAME HAT oh I had uhhh. A Sun Came.

Amanda: And maybe some Seven Swans and some old Bon Iver and Iron and Wine sometimes. But basically I need a specific ambient music to write to as opposed to anything relevant.

sleepmarshes: There was a lot of dialogue in this fic, so I needed some chill stuff towards the end.

Q: Did you guys find any characters really challenging to write?

Amanda: I can't write DTK at all so I needed a lot of Marsh intervention in that camp.

sleepmarshes: DTK is uhhh very polite 'I care nothing about what you just said, let me do what i came here to do.' How happy do you expect goth burberry to be? Despite all that, he's got squishy innards [and] four smile muscles. I had Wes issues so his flamboyancy got a lot of help from Amanda.

Amanda: I turned Wes into a monster. Marsh did most of the bbq scene cuz I was quite stuck in the middle of it and wanted to keep steamrollering ahead.

sleepmarshes: We always knew Wes would be obnoxious but I was watching a lot of beauty gurus on YouTube at the time and like... stuff... happened.

Q: Does Tsubaki continue to be a badass pilates instructor after the story ends? Does B* continue to go to her classes? Q: DO THEY BECOME PARTNERS EVENTUALLY?

sleepmarshes: Maybe they can have a workout show together with Snappy the mascot.

Amanda: B* continues to be a big fan of her workout stuff and they're swolebuds.

Q: How goes Patti's Etsy?

sleepmarshes: She's always in business the more Snappy grows.

Amanda: I think we had another potential future ending in which Patti adopts Snappy and cares for her at a wildlife refuge when she gets too big. There were quite a few potential futures for the different people, especially as we were still playing shipping roulette.

Q: Is it really that easy to get divorced in America?

Amanda: Yes, at least as far as I'm aware. If it's not, then we're going with suspension of disbelief.

sleepmarshes: I mean, as long as both sides want it and no one raises a fuss, yeah no one cares.

Q: Why continue to call Kid 'Morty' instead of Kid?

sleepmarshes: Oh, man, idk, college AU with a guy named Death? I couldn't do it.

Amanda: Like, Kid isn't a name and if it's his stage name people wouldn't probably call him that all the time.

sleepmarshes: Bonus: Shinidaddy calling him Junior.

Amanda: Even with B* it's definitely a nickname, we just decided to go off the walls with his actual name. Like, what if instead of being Blake we call him something ridiculous?

Q: Does Blair ever give up the panty thieving?

sleepmarshes: Actually I had wanted that last sock Blair stole to actually belong to DTK, and he was going to find out at the festival, but I totally forgot. Disgruntled DTK with only one sock... chance missed.

Amanda: Just one of those things that slipped through the cracks in the last three days of screaming.

Q: How did Stein and Spirit move the car?

sleepmarshes: I don't know, I always figured Spirit just annoyed the heckie out of everyone in between parking spaces.

Amanda: I wanted to leave it ambiguous just to leave it like... how the fuck did they do that? Cuz they had to get the people to switch spots with them anyway, but then also had to get everyone to move to let them through too.

[a tilliquoi appears, there is much joy]

Same Q: What inspired your arting decisions?

tilliquoi: Hmmm well for Soul and Maka at the mailboxes, I liked it bc shark slippers and bc that was when they first met. And I drew Snappy and Wes just bc they're both fabulous and I couldnt resist.

Amanda: Both the showstealers of the fic.

Q: How did you make those pieces? What programs/materials did you use?

tilliquoi: They're all digital and done in photoshop. It's the only program i really use anymore.

Q: What made you go: Yes. That. This is the fic I want in the first place?

sleepmarshes: YEAH, I WANNA KNOW, TOO.

Adorabear: For me, I was looking for things that I knew I could make drinks for and uh, yeah, it looked fun af, and I like silly af shit.

tilliquoi: Well, last year I was an artist for another Marsh fic, coincidentally, and that one was a lot more serious. It was amazing but this year I wanted to go for something fun and ridiculous as a change of pace. When I read the summary for Pell Grant I was just thinking that I'd probably end up laughing the whole time, so I was like "that one. thats the fic I gotta art for."

sleepmarshes: When your claim came in I laughed SO HARD.

tilliquoi: Yeah it was pretty funny finding out you were one of the authors.

sleepmarshes: She had no idea I was involved.

Amanda: Marsh messaged me like "lol guess who claimed us" but wouldn't tell me until it was official.

Adorabear: Amanda and I were talking about my list, and she was in my Google doc watching me make my pics, watching me eliminate stuff.

Amanda: I was screaming inside because I couldn't let her know it was me.

sleepmarshes: We were both dying.

Adorabear: The joys of anon claiming, I guess.

Q: What are you guys' next projects?

Amanda: Uhhhh I should probably finish Strangers... but I've been focusing more on writing music lately and taking a break from fic, and then I have a couple back burner fics that I won't go into cuz I haven't decided if they'll be for a Resbang or not. Potential original fantasy story also, but I think working on more music is really gonna be the focus while I'm finishing school.

sleepmarshes: Strangers hype. I'm working on Quantum Entanglement, and intend on finishing Lodestar. Probably no Resbang ficcing for me this year, because I want to finish some fics and work on an original novel.

Adorabear: I'm not going to Reverb this year, but I think I'll Resbang art next year.

Q: Did you all ever have to reign each other in? Like were there moments you had to go whoa whoa whoa too much, too far, time to say when?

sleepmarshes: Uhm I think we were just a cycle of enabling, tbh.

Amanda: Confirmed: no reigning in nonsense, only enabling more and more batshit insanity.

Q: Anything not make the cut?

sleepmarshes: I think stuff that didn't make the cut were things we ran out of time for, since a large part of it was written in the last three days. Like I wanted Wes to have an obsession with cinnabon. I think there was more bean warfare.

Q: How did everyone, writers and artists, feel like they grew/changed/learned during the resbang season?

sleepmarshes: I think overall I learned there are more ways of collaborating in writing than I had thought. Like, I thought there was only some way with magical hand holding sentence by sentence and somehow no one committed murder. But like, we just delegated roles, she did the bulk of it, I did invasive betaing, and we talked in discord a lot about junk.

Amanda: I think my growth was just it being the first time I ever wrote that much in a short period of time. Like the last three days were crazy, but I didn't have any problems micromanaging cuz I was fine with just being like "yolo just make this better", for a murder free experience.

sleepmarshes: I was so worried at first about hurting your writing feelings. But then you were like JUST EDIT IT DON'T SUGGEST 200 THINGS.

Amanda: I don't have any writing feelings. JUST FIX IT MARSH MAKE IT BETTER. I'M WRITING AS FAST AS POSSIBLE WITHOUT THINKING ABOUT ANYTHING I KNOW QUALITY IS SPOTTY.

sleepmarshes: After that it was just prancing through a field of yolo.

Amanda: I think both our collaboration and our friendship was helped severely by the fact that I don't have control issues or take anything personally, so invasive betaing was no sweat.

tilliquoi: I think if I learned anything or grew from this, it was in experimenting with coloring styles, particularly with that Wes drawing. That was pretty far out of my comfort zone in terms of how I usually color, but it made me a LOT less afraid to use excessive colors in places I wouldnt normally.

sleepmarshes: I had Wes open on all three monitors while I was editing. This is what it's like to have Wes on every channel:

Adorabear: I think for me, it was just a lot of confidence building in terms of my artwork, because I have been really nervous [about whether] my authors are going to like what I do, or [whether] they'll think I've done enough. I'm just a worrier.

sleepmarshes: Did you get ultra fast at cross stitch? Because that's certainly what it looked like.

Adorabear: I think I just motored through that one. I guess I have gotten faster. But I was like, in beast mode for that one. I am very pleased with it, though.

sleepmarshes: I love it.

Adorabear: Anyway, I think I feel more confident that the things I make are ~enough.~

sleepmarshes: THREE CHEERS FOR THE FAKE GAY FIC TEAM.

---

Thanks to all of our creators for stoppin' by!! Stay tuned for more transcripts!