#or maybe at its most basic it’s just : they have to die because otherwise we will

[apocryphics]

“means to an end” / “ends justify the means” doesn’t apply when you don’t believe that the end is more important than the means. been thinking about the western obsession w teleology & how the worship of a great ‘ending’ can, at its most innocent be merely something like the predilection towards & desire for things like the Disney Happy Ending but what this leads to (i fear) is a rather perverse cultural & psychological belief that tacitly allows genocide, capitalism, exploitation, etc. (think pragmatism, liberalism, current u.s. policy philosophies, etc.) — if ‘the end’ or ‘ends’ are all that matter — fundamentally we are devaluing life. we matter because we end but the point is to dwell in the means as faithfully as possible, whatever that means / looks like to each of us. but as we all know — to release the hold on the end is to release power and control; it’s leaving yourself (or whatever entity, political or otherwise) to the whims of life, and life is fundamentally random and capricious. so even this I think is rooted in a primal fear of the unknown & man’s desire for certainty. but that will always evade us. and the desire for more of it leads to moral dissolution, which we see so much today…

[alpaca-clouds]

What "Communism never works" misses

Okay, let me keep up the topic for the week and let me talk about one thing that will undoubtedly be thrown at anyone, who says something along the lines of: "Welp, the system is failing us. Maybe we should try communism." And that is: "Communism never works. It has never worked before!"

As someone, who had that argument thrown at them so many times before, I already know that for the most part it is useless to talk to someone who comes up with that argument. Because, well... here is the thing. The argument basically is a result of what amounts to brainwashing. The person will usually not know what communism is or how and why it has failed before. They will not know anything about communist parties or countries. And they usually do not want to know.

Usually they do not know, that communism was never tried before. Yes, several countries have tried to establish communism, but never got further than socialism. Nor do they know exactly, what the difference between all those different communist ideas are. And of course they do not know anything about the history of the USA (and other western countries) doing their best to suppress communism by any means necessary.

Which is the first thing that everyone, who uses the argument, misses. Basically...

If communism can never work, why does the USA try everything to stop anyone trying to establish it?

If it cannot work and will never work, they would not need to worry about it. It will just develop and then fail. Easy. No need to stage a coup d'etat against a democratically elected government. No need to snuggle up to fascist dictators. Just let the thing run its course and then maybe send some help, once communism has self-destroyed. Something that they say is inevitable.

But obviously they don't. So: Why?

It cannot be about saving some sort of democracy, because otherwise they would not help undemocratic forces to take over the country and allow them to hold it.

But there is another thing that the argument misses. And even bigger thing. Another question:

But does capitalism work?

Which is the thing that kinda gets left out of the discussion. Because even if we assume that communism could not work (doubtable)... There is the fact that capitalism does not work. Otherwise fascism would not again and again be established from capitalism. Otherwise capitalism would not have destroyed the planet. Otherwise capitalism would not kill millions of people per year.

See, people will always go big about the entire "Black book of communism" thing and eat it up, even though the book has so many issues in what it counts as "death from communism" - and that is even without going in the entire "communism was never established" thing. But even if we took the numbers at face-value... According to the book, communism has killed 100 million people.

Well, guess what. That is about the same number of people that capitalism kills in a decade. And while the black book of communism counts all those people killed by politics not necessarily linked to communism... Those 10 million dying of capitalism each year die of capitalism. They die because they have not money for medicine, they need to survive. They die, because they starve, while so much food is thrown away. They die of exposure to the elements, because they cannot afford a home. They die from the fallout of climate change.

So, yeah. First of all: Let's try out communism, before we argue that it cannot work.

But also: Realize, that capitalism does not work. Because it doesn't.

[writing-for-life]

”But He Loved, He Should Have Been Forgiven”

About Free Will, Responsibility and Agency: Lucifer and Dream as Foils

Did I finally jump on the Lucidream bandwagon? No, don’t panic (or be eternally disappointed 🤣), because that quote is actually from “Murder Mysteries”, a short story that also exists in comic form (drawn by P. Craig Russell). And while it isn’t officially part of the Sandman Universe (or even DC), I always saw it as somewhat of a blueprint of how NG (re)imagined Lucifer’s Fall. There is enough in Lucifer’s characterisation in the Sandman that makes it quite plausible as a sort of backstory, especially since it was written when the Sandman was still in full swing. But more about that later…

I’ve long wanted to write a meta about Lucifer and Dream as narrative foils, and since I’ve finally started clearing out my drafts, this was a good one to do right now because we are currently discussing “A Hope in Hell” in our community (join us!). Although I have to admit that this one is rather about what transpires when Lucifer decides to abandon their realm in Season of Mists...

When Lucifer learns of Dream's impending return to Hell to finally release Nada, it solidifies their own resolve to leave (I use they/them pronouns because of the show although comics!Lucifer is male presenting apart from the plumbing and also referred to as he/him). By the time Dream arrives, Hell is nearly deserted, with Lucifer basically expelling its last inhabitants. Lucifer tells Dream they rebelled long ago, and that they are not willing to “pay for that one action” anymore. And the most profound truth they share with Dream is the nature of ultimate freedom—the freedom to leave. This is also brought up many issues later, when Lucifer says to Delirium, "I told him, you know. I told him years ago… I told him that I owed him much for having given me the impetus to go. I told him there was always freedom, even the ultimate freedom. The freedom to leave. You don't have to stay anywhere forever.”

And that’s just… ouch. Not just because it so clearly shows that Morpheus also could have left had he just chosen to (then again, he wouldn’t be Morpheus if he had, and even more “then again”: he did in certain ways), but also because we generally see Lucifer as an antagonistic force. But here, they express something akin to gratefulness. And maybe even a hint of regret that Morpheus didn’t also choose the same way. They feel almost sorry for him (my guess is they actually do, and I can never forget their face at The Wake). But what do you do if even freedom feels like a cage?

All of this ties in neatly with the crucial truth about Hell Lucifer reveals: People are there because they choose to be (and that Hell doesn’t need to be a physical place: We can make our own—any place, even in our own minds).

...this is where you wanted to be.

Lucifer explains to Dream:

"Why do they blame me for all their little failings? They use my name as if I spend my entire day sitting on their shoulders, forcing them to commit acts they would otherwise find repulsive. 'The Devil made me do it.' I have never made one of them do anything. Never. They live their own tiny lives. I do not live their lives for them.”

He continues, “and then they die, and they come here (having transgressed against what they believed to be right), and expect us to fulfil their desire for pain and retribution. I don't make them come here. They talk of me going around and buying souls, like a fishwife come market day, never stopping to ask themselves why. I need no souls. And how can anyone own a soul? No.

They belong to themselves… they just hate to face up to it.”

Which brings me to one of the most important messages (one of many) of the Sandman: People must take responsibility (and in this particular case not only for their lives but also for their afterlives, which is also a recurring theme). Each person's soul is their own, and no one can take that away. Paradoxically (or maybe not), as Lucifer abandons their own responsibilities, they urge people to take responsibility for themselves: You can drop said responsibilities, with all that entails, as long as you also take responsibility for the fallout.

So what about the wider question of free will then?

Let’s look at Lucifer's rebellion and fall for that, because both raise a lot of questions. Dream tells Lucifer that he remembers them as passionate, and Lucifer responds, “I cared about so many things. I suppose that was why everything began to go wrong. You know… I still wonder how much of it He planned. How much of it He knew in advance. I thought I was rebelling. I thought I was defying His rule. No… I was merely fulfilling another tiny segment of His great and powerful plan.”

And this brings me right to NG’s short story “Murder Mysteries”, which isn’t really officially part of the Sandman Universe, but also… it totally is 🤣. In it, pre-fall Lucifer witnesses the destruction of an angel who killed another angel they loved. Raguel (the angel formerly tasked with said destruction who now walks on earth, coincidentally mentioned in the panel above as one who might also have rebelled) narrates, “‘That was not right. That was not just.’ Perhaps Saraquael was the first to love, but Lucifer was the first to shed tears."

Later, it is revealed that God orchestrated this situation to push Lucifer towards rebellion. God needed an adversary to run Hell and says, “Lucifer must brood on the unfairness of Saraquael's destruction. And that—amongst other things—will precipitate him into certain actions. Poor sweet Lucifer. His way will be the hardest of all my children; for there is a part he must play in the drama that is to come, and it is a grand role.”

Lucifer was basically set up by God, and this somewhat revisionist interpretation of their rebellion and fall opens up larger questions about free will, agency and destiny.

Because although Lucifer's actions were influenced by God, they still carried them out and are therefore fully responsible for them. And by choosing to abandon Hell, Lucifer was taking responsibility for their own life. They faced a choice: remain in Hell as a shadow of their former self, or move on and make peace.

This fragile peace is illustrated at the end of "A Season of Mists," when Lucifer and an old man are conversing on a beach. The old man, despite having lost everyone he loved, remarks that any God who can create such beautiful sunsets couldn't be all bad. After the man leaves, Lucifer admits (basically to God), “He's got a point. The sunsets are bloody marvelous, you old bastard. Satisfied?”

And in a way, even Lucifer comes to terms with their past once they take responsibility for it.

In a way, this mirrors Dream’s arc to a tee. One could certainly argue that he was set on his path by forces outwith his control: Whatever had to happen in cosmic terms was always bigger than Dream. The Fates also held a grudge against him and Orpheus, for more than one reason. Orpheus did make the Furies cry, and they never forgave him for that. Crucially though, he was also responsible for his own actions and carried them out. Only that Dream’s choice was ultimately a different one—or was it truly? Because what is the exact definition of “walking away”? He certainly did not abandon his realm like Lucifer because he ensured it was taken care of. There is no devil-may-care (no pun intended) attitude, because even when choosing death, Morpheus does care about his realm and the dreamers. Deeply.

It is the sole reason why the ending we get is the ending we get, and why we have Daniel as Dream in the end. And while Lucifer takes responsibility for their own life, Morpheus takes responsibility for his own death. But both Lucifer and Morpheus faced a choice: remain on their paths as shadows of their former selves, or move on and make peace. And both chose the latter.

And one takeaway for us, as the readers, might be that if we find ourselves in an intolerable situation, we can always walk away, even if the price may be high. This brings us back to the theme of freedom:

The price of freedom is taking responsibility for our lives, even if we haven't been fully in control of them. The freedom to walk away might not be the ultimate freedom, as Lucifer suggests, but it is significant.

Free will in the Sandman is a topic of debate, and I tangentially wrote about it before:

Destiny carries a book that contains everything that will happen to us, all there was, is and will be. Most of all though, it contains what must happen. One could say that in this universe, there is a strong element of predestination involved. However, complaining about a lack of free will and just pointing towards Destiny’s book also misses the point:

In the end, our lives are always our own (which is mentioned several times, directly or in a roundabout way: in Façade, in Song of Orpheus, in Brief Lives, in The Kindly Ones, in The Wake).

Your life and your death are your own

Some of us might have more to overcome than others, but the sooner we accept our unique challenges (which is not the same as being passive), the more we will focus on what we can change—or what we can meet with forgiveness and (self-)compassion.

Destiny and freedom as opposite sides of the coin matter far less than what we do with them…

[the-s1lly-corner]

Hello how are you :3? I was wondering if you could write E.J., Hoodie, and Masky with a s/o that has a lot of scars? (Toby too but platonic for him) I’m not sure how many people we can request so if it’s too many just Hoodie? I’m sorry if this makes you uncomfortable and thank you!

Various!Creepypastas w/ a scarred!reader

waaaah im so sorry for not seeing this sooner! i didnt recieve a notification for this ask!! really theres no limit to how many characters you can send in! i think my personal max varies from prompt to prompt!! mix of how they approach the concept of a scarred lover (friend in tobys case) with some hints of fluff! cause of scars will be vague as admittedly i didnt know if you meant general scars or SH! side note i hope this posts right! im writing this on my computer, im used to mobile!! + apologies for any weird wording or typos, im listening to music and im getting hyped!! not proof read we die like my spiderverse brainrot

Includes: Eyeless Jack, Hoodie, Masky and Platonic!Toby!

CWs: touch and go talk of potential past trauma, body image issues, vague mentions of SH(?) in EJs part + Toby's parts

admittedly admin doesnt know if its technically SH due to the nature and motiv but personally id still count it as such and tag it as such

Eyeless Jack;

he gets it, he really does. the basic run down of my hc/take on ej is that he wasnt always some flesh eating monster; just some dude who got caught up in some bad stuff

so naturally, he doesnt... really vibe well with the concept of eating human flesh, which can lead to a few... instances. from intentionally to accidentally harming himself while hes lost in his instincts

so hes no stranger to being a little roughed up around the edges

but hes a stranger to comforting; he'll likely approach it from a logical side before trying anything else. "you've been hurt," before going on a small tangent about the formation of scars. hes not the most... emotionally... good... available... person

so youre going to need to lay out the general basis for what you need for basic comfort, on days where your scars become an issue; be is needing comfort or a distraction. it may take him a while, but hell eventually start to pick up on cues and hints as your relationship develops

otherwise hes very neutral about them, again approaching them with a blunt view; seeing it as neither good nor bad. he doesnt draw attention to them, but he doesnt act like theyre gross

really just. vibing with it, doesnt make a huge deal of it since he feels he doesnt have any place to judge, nor does he feel its his business to pry for information

solid 6/10 imo, hell comfort you if you express that you need it but hell likely not go out of his way to do it

Hoodie;

Soft touches, he almost does it before he has your permission to touch you

naturally he has his own fair share of scars from various.. activities

really im still all jumbled up with how i wanna write him and masky; not sure if i want to make them like how they are in their MH source or lean into the proxy thing that was prominent in the early days of the fandom... lowkey leaning into the proxy thing for this post because im more... versed..? in that, but anyhow

hes more upfront and compassionate than eyeless jack, in fact hes probably the most caring out of the four in todays post... maybe thats because i read one (1) fic years back that changed my entire approach to his character but! yeah

subconsciously trails his hands on them when the two of you are holding one another; something gentle and intimate, not too obnoxious to make you self conscious, but not careful enough to go unnoticed

i view hoodie, and by extension brian if i end up considering him and tim fully seperate from their 'proxy' parts, as a very tactile person

true to the popular fanon interpretation, hoodie doesnt speak much. but that only makes him a better listener, so on days where things get hard, hell let you talk his ears off with anything thats bothering you. very rarely, hell speak up and offer some words of advice, most times hell inch closer to grasp you. though it does get awkward since most the time hes just. blankly staring at you silently without emoting or saying a word

overall? personally hes a 7/10 for me, i would rank him higher if he were more verbal, but thats just because admin has an easier time venting if its a two way convo; but overall hell make sure that your scars dont effect your worth

Masky;

very similarly to hoodie, masky also has his own set of scars for the same reasons

he probably starts pointing out his own scars to you and mumbles about where they came from if he knows their origins

this doesnt mean "oh hes invalidating your experiences and hes trying to make it about himself," but more so "hes showing that he really does get it and he doesnt mean to talk over you"

much like EJ he approaches scars with a very blunt and upfront mindset, but to a lesser extent. he admits that whatever led up to the tissue forming, it hurt. emotionally and physically, and hes not going to deny that simple fact. hell listen to you, have a conversation with you about it, and try to help you through whatever you may be currently going through regardless of if youre injury is relevant.

or at least, thats what hes trying to do.

hes still has his own personal issues regarding going about his own problems in a healthy manner but hey thats something for another post; maybe, if i remember

honestly this post doesnt have enough fluff imo, and i can kinda see masky doing this, but imagine he boops his mask against your scars in a mockery of a kiss (doesnt take off his mask often, in fact youll probably never ever see him without it on), i can see jack doing this too tbh

thoughts? 8/10, gets the bonus points for being less awkward to rant to imo, plus i think asides ej, i think i have a bias for masky for the simple fact i had the fattest crush on him when i was in middle school

Toby;

okay! this one is going to be interesting for one main reason! i actually havent touched tobys character in YEARS! so hes probably going to have the shorter list... obligatory i havent built any solid hcs for him past what was going on in the fandom in the 2010s, before toby briefly became a mild discomfort... but we're back in business baby!! (^^ dont feel bad for requesting for toby btw! hes no longer a discomfort, and if i didnt want to write for him i wouldnt be including him right here!!)

obviously we cant talk about his part without talking about his cheek. and other, similar hcs. while i dont think most of the self inflicted marks on his body were from a place of.. for lack of better words, darkness; it doesnt change the fact he still has them. i think a lot of them are from the fact he cant feel anything; accidental burns, gnawing through his cheek, digging his fingers deep into himself. really i could go into detail, but due to the aforementioned fact that my take on him isnt as developed as other characters + i really dont think its appropriate for this post (or really, anywhere on this account,), ill stop there

while he cant relate to the physical pain of what caused your scars, he can sympathize through your feelings. do you feel sorrow, or anger to whoever hurt you? hell be getting worked up right with you, because to him youre one of his closest friends

i feel like he doesnt talk much about his past, regarding his family. but hed tell you, and you can sure as hell bet that hell do his absolute damndest to grant you the same feeling of security.

hell probably touch and prod without truly meaning any harm, but thats because he can have problems with boundaries, but hell listen if you sit him down and tell him it makes you uncomfortable if it does

more so emotional than outwardly... supportive? idk the words, but hes very empathetic with you and tries to relate to you through emotion rather than feeling what you felt. honestly? kinda based for that, but maybe thats because i dont see feelings about this topic being touched on, usually its straight up about how the scar makes the person look or the physical trauma they had gone through, but idk, maybe thats just a me thing

he can be an asshole at times but hell usually backtrack and cool off somewhere else if you call him out on it imo

not sure if its because as im LITERALLY investigating his characteristics and interpretations as we speak, but i think im starting to relate to him so ER-OH!

anyways, i wish i could make his segment more... in tune with the characters above but its probably going to take me a while until im comfortable with how i portray this dude, which sucks because as a kid he was probably one of my favorites

i dont think im going to give toby a rating like the others; since i dont think i can accurate rate him due to the lack of proper concrete ideas outside of him being empathetic to your emotional pain since he cant relate on how much it hurt

im gonna end this here since im starting to sound like a broken record on tobys part so!

i hope you enjoyed this! characterization may be a little off but i blame that mostly on the fact that i kinda fell out of the loop in regards for writing for these guys (that damn spider movie! the brainrot threw me off my creepypasta grind!/j) but its good to be back writing for this fandom! it was a fun little brain exercise trying to figure out each character goes about this kind of thing without making them all the same!! with that being said, im going to go listen to an audio reading of tobys story so i can regrounded in his character and hopefully do him some justice in the future!

[girl4music]

I once heard the term “straightbaiting” in regards to ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’. As in, what we queer people get in another show where there’s queerbaiting. But with Xena it’s just with the opposite sex instead. And that’s accurate because the central relationship in ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ is Xena and Gabrielle. The show revolves around both of them as main characters and their love relationship - be it platonic or romantic.

Every other episode in the earlier seasons they would bring in a male love interest for either one of them (later in the show they would also get female love interests as well as male love interests; Gabrielle - Najara, Thalassa, Brunhilda. Xena - M’Lila, Lao Ma and, ugh, Akemi) but none of these love interests lasted. They would either die, leave or otherwise just never show up in the show again. They were either always temporary fill ins/stand bys until the other main character returned or used as a relationship conflict between Xena and Gabrielle, basically stating and showing how unnatural it was for either of them to have any sort of love relationship going on when it’s not with each other. And whenever this happens, the show itself feels shaky and off-kilter: unbalanced.

In a sense,… not straight. It feels not straight for it to be straight. It feels fake. It feels abnormal. Wrong. Exactly the way a queer person is supposed to feel when it’s queerbaiting in a primarily straight show. Straightbaiting in Xena feels like that to a straight person because Xena is genuinely a queer show and, therefore, in that show,… Queer is right. Queer is normal. Queer is real. And even with the female love interests - it still feels that way because, again, the central and most important relationship is X and G!

So ‘straightbaiting’ is absolutely the most accurate term to describe what the experience of ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ is rather than queerbaiting because it’s not Xena and Gabrielle that is the bait. It’s everyone else. And this is especially true with the male love interests. Except maybe Ares. But that’s a whole other topic altogether that takes understanding Rob Tapert’s mind, who is genuinely team X and G all the way but just has hang ups with X and A. I won’t go into it here.

But yes, it also boggles my mind something awful when anyone watching Xena today could call it queerbaiting. It’s honestly the entire opposite. You can’t watch episodes like ‘When Fates Collide’ and ‘Who’s Gurkhan’ and hell, even Season 2’s ‘The Quest’, without realizing that the creators are genuine with how they write Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship. It’s not a joke. It might have started out as one but pretty damn quickly they changed course and it became serious. So serious that almost every other relationship for Xena or Gabrielle feels like a joke. Feels like it is the bait that keeps straight people tuned into watching a queer show about queer characters the way straight characters acting queer are the bait for queer people to watch a straight show.

And I cannot put it anymore concisely than that. That IS ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’. It is a straightbaiting show. So much so that Lucy and Renee have laughs about it. These are two straight women taking the piss out of the show’s attempts to keep its straight audience. Laughing about how unnatural it all feels for Xena and Gabrielle to have “straight” love relationships, proving my point completely true without knowing it. And I’m emphatically saying this as a queer woman myself that headcanons Xena as bisexual. Still queer but not gay. It feels extremely wrong for Gabrielle to be doing this. But it doesn’t ever matter because it doesn’t ever last. What lasts is the central relationship. That of X & G.

So regardless whether the nature of Xena and Gabrielle’s relationship is platonic or romantic, the creators are purposefully telling and showing you all love interests or love relationships besides theirs fail in comparison. And that’s not a very “queerbait-y” thing to do, is it? That’s actually the opposite of queerbait.

[splatattackz]

and, springing off of my last post, heres a greater post talking about ramon and his relation with lying and secret-keeping - because, in my opinion, its a topic that needs to be known to better understand his character as secrets are a big part of his family.

ill place the talk under the cut so this post doesnt take too much space :)

"just [to] let u know, i trust u even in the dark"

ramon trusts fit. a ton. and theres nothing that could ever change that. he trusts what is kept secret is best kept this way. its why he wasnt as persistent to know about the contract, even if he knew there was lies and secrets at play that he hated. he trusted him. and that trust only grew when fit trusted him enough back to tell him a little bit of the family secret (the contract).

but, despite this trust, ramon also loves fit all too much. its why he gets so defensive when fit tells lies to him. ramon is a very observant boy. he knows a lot of things he shouldnt because of this. as fit once said, "the kids too damn smart for his own good". no lie leaves his detection because he can always tell the way people shift and change when theyre fibbing. but he doesnt push or prod on the matter usually. unless its fit. because he loves him too much. he needs to know whats going on with him. if he doesnt know, how can he help and protect him? its a reason he hates it when fit mutes, too. he always feels like fits keeping a secret from him when it happens.

i remember one time they were working on ground zero (i think it was the last time they worked on ground zero) and fit was fretting over his contract and ramon made a joke about how he acted like he would die if he didnt fullfill the contract. and fit laughed and said "no, ramon, i wont die." and then muted and said smth like "itll be much worse than death". and ramon noticed fit muted and got very upset. he basically threw a tantrum over it and wouldnt talk to fit until he told him what he was keeping secret. ramon said he was upset because the topic at hand (fit dying) and the fact he muted didn't spell anything good.

"if u tell me i [either] [lose] everything or u, i would choose [to keep] u"

something ramon said to show how much he cared for fit and how that care is why he was so upset. eventually fit did tell him and even told him more about what it meant if he didnt fullfill the contract - that if he failed, he would be trapped in the wastelands forever with no escape. and that this contract was his only chance at a semi-normal life.

but otherwise, ramons relation to lies and secret-keeping isnt negative. he has told lies and has kept secrets himself. hes no stranger to it. and he even keeps fit in check about the contract when he wants to tell other people things. i remember when fit found tazercraft in the prison he wanted to tell phil but ramon stopped him and told him some things are best kept secret. and, while this was mainly a very hrp response bc the admin wanted to let the duo solve the puzzles, he made a good point of if he trusts phil enough with this maybe he should tell him about the contract too. to which fit said "no, hes not ready to know about it yet". and, again, when ramon first built the satellite for the second attempt at contact, fit wanted to tell phil where he would be in case anything happened. and, again, ramon stopped him and reminded him if he wanted to do that then he'd have to tell phil everything. and the convo ended there.

(its no coincidence that fit told phil about the secret bedroom with ramon not around :] the baby boy cant keep him in check with that stuff now..)

ill stop the post here before we are here for hours but. i needed to talk about one of ramons most interesting aspects ajaja i hope you enjoyed the little ramble

[wu-sisyphus-gang]

9 Days of Lancaster: Oblivious

I was awake when Ruby opened the tent we shared. Whatever dream I was having slipped from me even as I tried to grab at it.

I said nothing, even as Ruby half crawled, and half crouched around the tent. I wanted nothing more than to go back and ignore my shift.

It was slightly uncomfortable, then, when Ruby ignorantly tried to nudge me awake.

“Jaune," she whispered. “Jaune, wake up.”

“My shift?” I murmured back. I felt as much as I heard her nod in the dark. “Alright.”

I blinked forcefully until I’d wrung all the sleep from my eyes and rose from my sleeping bag. I maneuvered past Ruby. I stretched, picked up my sword and added water to finish the process of waking up.

I waited in the dark while Ruby got comfortable and slunk back into her bed-bag. “It’s cold,” she moaned at a whine. I couldn’t completely stop myself from laughing. It was too cute. “I bet yours is warm.” She grabbed the edge of her covers and pulled them tight against her.

“Wear more layers.”

“Its not comfortable.”

“Put more covers on?”

I heard her move to ‘glare’ at me. It was like pitch a few feet from my eyes in the tent, though. “That’s not comfortable either.”

“Well what would make you comfortable?” I had to wonder. “This isn’t a hotel or Beacon. All you have here is me.”

“Ugh. You-I-“ I heard the sound of her rolling in her bag. “Ugh. Night, Jaune.”

“Rest easy, Rubes.”

Ah yes. Second to last shift.

It wasn’t so bad. When it became clear that the first and last shift were most desirable, followed by the second, it was intuitive that it was the shift for me.

Maybe it reminded me of myself.

I stepped out of the tent into the absurdly early morning. The fact of the matter was that taking a shift as a huntsman was sort of subjective. Ren’s sense of danger was good, so he didn’t have to pay a lot of attention during his shift. He barely even had to be awake.

Which meant even a huntsman as mediocre as I was could still feel danger while training.

I held the broadsword out in two hands. First, I practiced my basic movements while holding the broadsword - attempting a few amateurish swings until I got a feel for the weight of it. The weight was a lot further forward than I was used to. I swept the blade in a wide arc and brought it back to neutral as quickly as I could.

I couldn’t help but grimace.

I was slow enough that I was seriously going to have to stand here and practice bringing the weight back around. I brought the weapon back into neutral and swung it again.

I practiced two different cross slashes until my arms burned. I had sweat running down my brow as I tried to control the tool. The weight really was enormous. It had to be heavier than Cardin’s Mace, even, and when I’d first arrived at Beacon I’d thought that thing was ridiculous.

When I brought that up to Ruby she just scoffed. She just reminded me that the weapon was still shorter and lighter than many such swords that I’d seen huntsmen smaller than myself use.

I rested against it and wiped my forehead. I’d need a drink if I kept this up. I groaned. I left my water in the tent. If I needed a drink, I’d have to gamble waking Ruby up.

Not worth.

I brought the broadsword around, the shield clicked into place around my arm and I drew the longsword out. I felt the new weight and changed my grip along the very long handle. It was light and easy to control compared to the broadsword form. My burning wrist was more than enough to handle it. The shield was easy to swing and large enough to hit something fairly hard with. I crouched down as though avoiding gunfire and mimicked peaking around the shield and made several wide jabs with the sword.

My arms throbbed with the motion, but we can’t all be winners and I was pretty determined to get a feel for the new weight.

Because people I like could die otherwise.

Again.

Pyrrha taught me a few forms to run through. Wide brutal swings followed by quick diagonal cuts before defensive posturing and foot-work. It didn’t sound like much compared to a real fight or even a practice match. It also really wasn’t. It was good cardio and weights, however, and it was familiarity with my weapon.

I mimed parrying with the tall shield before a thrust and two waist length sideways cuts with the sword.

Blocking with the shield was easy. Well easier than the small wrist movements required to block with the sword. Especially with the broadsword form, the last thing I wanted to do was commit to a block with any unnecessary movement. It was all in the wrists, small rotations that covered me just enough, or long enough for the shield to come around with the ‘ittle bastard.

I panted for breath, taking a moment to wipe the sweat from my eyes again. I really needed a drink. I had no choice, really. I turned back towards camp.

Maybe Ren left some water out?

The thing about that was it was something I would do. Ren was careful and smart besides.

I blinked when I got near my tent, though the water was out in the cool night air. I glanced at the tent and listened for Ruby’s soft breaths.

She was there alright. I picked the water up and took a drink.

I must have brought it out with me.

I shrugged and carried back with me, kicking my way through the camp fire and cinders.

[paragonrobits]

so i've been annoyed now and again when i see big name v-tubers or whatever making fun on Transformers for being a toyetic series (which is deeply ironic when they're super into things like My Little Pony which is also a toyetic series) and get weirdly intense about saying its actually a garbage series for boring people that has no dimension outside of being a commercial, and they get super shocked when you tell them its one of the more convoluted series out there, with every single series almost invariably being a completely different setting and universe and timeline with no real connection to others, for the most part with a TON of lore and characterization and like

not a lot of people are into Transformers as intensely as, idk, people like me who get salty about Beast Wars not being respected

but i got to thinking and i realized something about Transformers that makes it stick out is, its basic premise is usually set around the point of no return, the complete cessation of hope for the protagonist's initial dreams:

their homeland is lost.

There's no going back to Cybertron; in most settings, Cybertron is not occupied territory, or a place they were driven away from. Sometimes that's the case, but not always. Its not a matter of beating the Decepticons and then you can finally go home and live in peace.

That's already gone. There is no hope for that, and there never was. Cybertron is dead. The planet is, more often than not, poisoned or drained of resources from the war, and can no longer support life. There's no going home because... that home is gone.

The war continues, but the Autobots generally have the motif of trying to restrain the Decepticon war machine from ravaging more worlds like they did to Cybertron. There's no real win condition besides a slim hope that MAYBE Megatron will see reason and just stop (which is unlikely) or that a marginally less deranged Decepticon will take office and be willing to accept peace talks even for a generation or two to just STOP killing everything for a while.

That's the best hope. Otherwise, it seems that the only peace is the peace of one side being wiped out, in a rather tragic sense rather than a 'we're the good guys so its okay if we wipe them all out' thing. Most series, when they acknowledge this, very strongly go with the Autobots don't want that. But it doesn't seem like there's a choice.

So this wraps around to the initial point here; people often don't respect this series because its goofy, and it is that. It's a series about transforming alien robots that turn into cars, military equipment and more silly, bizarre stuff; into airplane-dragons and scientifiaclly inaccurate robot dinosaurs and unusually large rats and whatever the heck the Transmetal 2 line and the Fuzors were. It's often bombastic, cheesy as hell, with a soundtrack codified by 80s glam rock and its perhaps best personified as 'GOD EXISTS, HE'S A GIANT ROBOT WHO TURNS INTO A ROBOT PLANET AND HE HAS AN EVIL SIBLING WHO IS BASICALLY ROBOT SATAN WHO TURNS INTO BIGGER EVIL PLANET'

But at the same time, even in the cheesiest series, when the war is still a thing, there's still a melancholy aspect to it. Robot God existed, and he was legitimately good and kind (if somewhat hands off), and he's probably dead. He was murdered by the ones he made; maybe bcause of the horrors of war draining resources until there's nothing left to keep anyone alive, or because the self centered despot in charge of the Bad Guy Team poisoned the planet with the hateful blood of the ungod of death and oblivion just for a tactical advantage, and now God's dead. The homeworld is dead with him.

The Autobots left home because there's nothing left to return to. And often, when there IS some hope of bringing life to Cybertron, the price is far too high for a mind to consider and still think you can be a hero of the story; it requires the mass death of an alien species, the subjugation of a planet, to let humanity die so the Transformers can prosper.

Optimus and the Autobots say no; no matter what. That is a price they can't even consider and still call themselves Autobots. If making a decision like that is the only way to save Primus, then Primus would rather them let him stay dead. And it goes on, in other ways; Optimus is often characterized as tremendously burned out of being the ultimate perfect heroic figure he's become to the fandom, carrying out through sheer grit and heroic spirit but keeping no hope for himself, and just coming off as so tired of the endless conflict, of seeing a former friend completely lost to his own ambition and becoming so much worse than everything he fought.

As a plot, it tends to be significantly broader in scope than the sort of stuff I see these v-tubers and reactors that I dislike really get into. I've seen people dismiss Transformers out of hand and just go 'lol how am I supposed to relate to robots even if they're gay' and its like, I see you relating to demons; that's not any more realistic than robots even if you gave them cutesy little horns or something. But that's still making it about YOU, about pretending they're actually you or something.

This isn't a series about projecting really hard onto a character and erasing their personalities so you can imagine you're the main character, this is a series ROOTED in character and bizarre tones and a surprisingly somber aspect at times. Even G1, the least serious of its interpretations, still had surprisingly brutal and gruesome deaths for a good portion of the cast, and did the unexpected; showing its robot characters as having been made by others and rose up to free themselves, and being treated as heroes for it. And then, those same creators show up later, prompting Rodimus to state: "We Transformers have seen the face of our creators... and it is the face of an enemy."

This is a series that REALLY goes all out on investment in characters, specifically. Makes me wonder if the people who dismiss it just aren't that invested in characters, or don't really get the concept of continuity specific stuff. Or that they dismiss it because they don't think sapient robots are relatable, which is a minor thing in the grand scheme of things. (Again, if you're constantly depicting your online persona as some kind of fictious creature, or a demon or something, mocking sapient robots as being worth having interest in is just splitting hairs.)

There's one episode in G1 that ends in a pyrric victory; a lake with a powerful resource is discovered, the Decepticons attack and the Autobots fight them off, but in the destruction, the entire natural area is completely obliterated, leaving a smoking ruin. The episode ends on a somber note, and nature-loving Beachcomber ends the episode looking at the ruin as he bitterly says "We won."

and in a lot of ways, that kind of feels like a summation of the series at its more somber.

[hanzajesthanza]

Heyyy u seem to know everything abt the witcher and I wondered if u have some Witcher inspiring tatt ideas? Maybe ppl here like to know too.

I never had a tatt but i want to and i had some things in mind; the witcher wolf, or 'what is destined cannot be avoided' or a sword or, the Quen sign or; i know this will be from the show... but i love 'never lost, always found' its like a reminder that theres always hope, and we have the inner strength to keep pushing and growing. But its from the show and that also reminds me of the stupid changes they made and that henry left (hes the best. I know some in these community think otherwise but my friend knows him and I know the truth abt him & that he is awesome)

Do u know some other ideas?

long and complicated answer ahead, maybe not explicitly helpful as a list of ideas, but more advice-oriented

tattoos are veeery personal, so first of all, you should get something that feels good and resonates with you. i can’t say what might fit best, because only you can decide.

i also don’t have any tattoos myself, so it’s a bit of the blind leading the blind here, but i have strong opinions on the subject nonetheless. it should be something you will want, or at least be OK with, having on your body forever. i admit to it without beating that i am one of “those people” that believe tattoos should be meaningful. tattoos as fun self-expression, to my knowledge, are a relatively modern and western idea, and throughout most of history they have mostly either been used for deep cultural, spiritual, or ritual practices, or for ones of subjugation, like tattooing slaves or prisoners. maybe my problem is that i’ve seen more tattoos in textbooks than i have on people.

but, meaningful, not necessarily “deep.” it can be something important to you but to no one else. most of all, it should generate net positive feelings, because whenever you look down, at yourself, or in the mirror while naked, you’ll see it.

this is also why i have mixed feelings about fandom tattoos. some can be really meaningful, others tacky, but the worst are kinds whose meaning changed over time because of events outside of your control. think of all the people who had harry potter tattoos solely because they liked their favorite childhood book series, and then jk rowling started being a (more of an overt; nor saying she wasn’t before) transmisogynistic freak.

fandom is POP CULTURE, which means that its meaning is always changing and constantly being redefined. to afix something fandom-related which is permanent, you just have to be comfortable taking that gamble.

basically, you have to be “ride-or-die.”

personally, i love the witcher books, but i probably won’t get a tattoo related them for a while.

firstly, because i like my my natural skin, secondly, because i fear pain, thirdly, because there are too many aforementioned unknowns, and fourthly… to quote dandelion: “and, but, this is the fourth… we have no money.”

to illustrate how personal of a decision this is, i’ll share my own list. my list is this, if any of these things happen, i will start to seriously consider a witcher tattoo:

i accomplish something worthy and memorable for the fandom

i go to poland

sapkowski dies

i get a girlfriend and she wants to get matching roses

but that’s me. for you, you have to ask yourself why you’re getting it, what or who you want to honor, how will it make you feel…

i might recommend a swallow, which is an obvious witcher motif, but, by its association with ciri, symbolizes hope and rebirth, as you were interested in. and the quote “something ends, something begins” has always been my favorite related to resilience and new beginnings.

[leofrith]

A Critique of ACV: The Last Chapter (SPOILERS!)

I wanted to hold off on sharing my thoughts about the new content until I’d given The Last Chapter time to breathe, because I was honestly hoping that maybe if I gave it some time, I wouldn’t dislike it so much. But the more I think about it, the more I find things to dislike about it. Which is why what started out as a quick write-up of my thoughts immediately after playing The Last Chapter has now spiraled into this very long critique that got so long I needed to add subheadings to break it up. 

Sorryyyyy. 

I’m basically spoiling everything from The Last Chapter here, along with Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla and parts of its expansions. I also briefly mention a few other Assassin’s Creed games, mainly Odyssey and one of its DLCs. My point being, if you don’t want to know anything then please look away now. Or don’t. But I know I would have appreciated a warning before diving into this mess. 💀

As a disclaimer: this essay is not meant to be an attack, nor is it meant to place blame squarely at the feet of Darby Mcdevitt, or any of the other writers or developers involved with the game. There are so many moving parts in a game as expansive and with as much add-on content as Valhalla, and I can only guess what happened behind the scenes that brought us to this point. I don’t know who wrote what, who made what creative decisions, and I therefore don’t feel comfortable placing blame on anyone in particular. I have never worked for Ubisoft and I can therefore only speculate about their internal culture based on what has been leaked from the company over the years. Furthermore, this is not an invitation to personally attack anyone involved in the development of this game on Twitter or wherever else. This is purely an attempt on my part to articulate why me and so many other fans of Valhalla and of Eivor feel so profoundly emotionally betrayed by this ending, as well as outline some factors that I believe contributed to the way the game was mishandled. 

So. I think I had already accepted when the trailer released back in September that something like this was going to happen. I had already done my mourning for the fact that Eivor would never get the send-off she deserved, which is why I think I’m a lot less upset than I would have been otherwise… but that doesn't make this suck any less. The Last Chapter was completely underwhelming, it was emotionally unsatisfying, it completely butchered Eivor's character, it felt incomplete, and rushed, and it felt more like a teaser for Mirage than anything close to the conclusion Eivor’s story deserved.

The (Character) Assassination of Eivor Varinsdottir

When we first meet Eivor as an adult, she is overconfident, brash, and she has just gotten in over her head and gotten both herself and her crew captured by the enemy. She is in the 17th year of a quest for revenge she has been in pursuit of since she was nine years old. She has spent more than half of her life hunting Kjotve, the man who stole her parents, her clan, and her childhood from her, and is fully prepared to die if need be to kill him. She is an orphan who was taken in by the Raven Clan after the slaughter of her own people, and she considers these people to be her new family. Her love for her family and community are central to Eivor’s character right from the beginning. While she learns and grows past some of her flaws throughout the game, her love for her community and her loyalty to them is what sticks with her. 

Eivor also starts the game carrying an immense amount of shame for how her father died, laying down his axe in the hope that the rest of his clan would be spared, only for he and most of his people to be slaughtered anyway. Through her time spent acting as a leader to the Raven Clan–first as a warrior and later as their Jarlskona–Eivor finally understands by the end of the game why Varin did what he did, because she realizes that she would make the exact same choice to protect her people. Eivor, too, would choose to die in “dishonor” if it offered even the smallest chance to save her loved ones. 

Eivor is the reincarnation of Odin; she carries his memories and his thoughts, unbeknownst to her. She has visions and prophetic dreams and hears his voice in her head, but spends much of the game not understanding the meaning of it all. The part of her that is Odin pushes her toward chasing personal glory, toward the pursuit of knowledge, toward selfishness. But she chooses to abandon all that in favor of the people she loves, even as Odin rages and screams insults into her ear and calls her a coward–the one thing she has always been most fearful of becoming. Odin is a representation of everything she has been told to value in life, and she is (literally) pulled in the opposite direction by Sigurd, Randvi, Hytham, Valka, Gunnar, Soma… everything else. 

Eivor never truly seems to grasp the meaning of her connection to Odin, Sigurd’s connection to Tyr, Basim’s connection to Loki, or anything about the sages or the Isu at all. Not in the base game or in any of the DLCs. She never really acknowledges it explicitly until The Last Chapter. 

Put a pin in that.

Family and community are central to Eivor’s character. Loyalty is central to Eivor’s character. Honor is central to Eivor’s character. That’s why it makes absolutely no sense for Eivor to drop everything, seemingly out of nowhere, to go back to Vinland alone and live out the rest of her days learning from Odin, the part of her that she explicitly rejected at the end of the main game. And it certainly doesn’t justify Eivor deciding to leave Ravensthorpe in the middle of the night without a farewell, regardless of who she supposedly said goodbye to offscreen. It doesn’t justify her completely sudden and out of character decision to walk away from her clan, her family without a true goodbye. Eivor spends the entire base game acting as Jarl in Sigurd’s stead in everything but title, because Sigurd has all but completely abandoned the clan in order to chase his own ambitions, only for Eivor to supposedly do the very same thing? No. It’s completely incongruent with her character and actively contradicts facts that were established in the main game.

There are so many other inconsistencies, including the fact that I highly doubt Valka–the same Valka who we saw warn Eivor against digging too deeply in her visions in the intro to The Forgotten Saga–would simply accept Eivor departing for another continent to delve deeper into her visions. But the way they miswrote Eivor’s character was particularly glaring. There could have been a version of the last chapter in which Eivor's motivations actually made sense, but that version needed so much more evidence for it to be believable. Reading between the lines is one thing, but expecting players to accept the conclusions you’re feeding them without planting any seeds beforehand is just lazy writing. [insert “HE WOULDN’T FUCKING SAY THAT” meme]

The RPG structure is the root of all evil (I know just… hear me out on this)

I think applying an RPG structure to Assassin’s Creed was a mistake, and have thought so for a while, but not really for the reason you’re probably thinking of. The “but we’re reliving another person’s memories in the animus, so how can it possibly make sense to allow us to make choices that affect the narrative?” reason. My criticism of the addition of choices is mainly this: I think that by trying to “expand” the story by adding RPG elements and dialogue options, they instead ended up severely limiting themselves. Because the problem with adding dialogue options to Assassin’s Creed is they can never take those choices to their conclusion. They can never truly have consequences.

Trying to tell a linear story with a non-linear structure like this doesn’t work, or at the very least, it hasn’t worked in Assassin’s Creed thus far. Odyssey came closer, I think, because it had multiple distinct outcomes and player choices actually had an affect on the trajectory of the plot (Mostly. Hi, Legacy of the First Blade. I’m coming for you in a minute.). Odyssey's multiple endings present a different problem entirely in the context of Assassin’s Creed because despite the input of choice, there is still a canon version of the story and a canon ending. It leaves those players that arrived at a different outcome feeling alienated, and like their choices were incorrect or simply didn't matter. 

But in Valhalla, all roads lead to more or less the same destination and most decisions have no impact on the trajectory of the story. The problem that arises from this is that players will make their choices and expect some sort of payoff, as they should. But they won’t really get it. As per Darby McDevitt, for example, Sigurd always goes back to Norway at some point, regardless of whether a player ends up with the “good” or the “bad” ending. Sigurd returning to Norway is a fixed point and the timeline will always course correct, so to speak, to reach that end. 

(Thank you @/vikingnerd793 for the screenshot!)

Everyone gets more or less the same version of The Last Chapter, with the siblings’ interactions only varying slightly after the “bad” ending to reflect the fact that Eivor and Sigurd haven’t seen each other in a while. But even with the tiny variations in dialogue that exist, a few changed lines in a scene that doesn't last any longer than two minutes still fail to make Eivor and Sigurd's supposed off-screen reconciliation feel even remotely earned. Ubisoft wanted to offer “choice” while not following through with emotional payoff for those choices because they only wanted a single ending. Even if a player ends the main game with Sigurd deciding to stay in Norway as a result of Eivor’s “betrayal,” the consequences of that to their relationship are never truly explored.

Having only one ending with no variations in an RPG means that they couldn’t address any of the plot points that could have been affected by player choices. Interpersonal conflicts are watered down or only vaguely referenced. They couldn’t truly address the state of Eivor and Sigurd’s relationship because that would depend on what endgame the player reached. They couldn’t give Randvi an actual goodbye because some people didn’t romance her and therefore it might feel “forced” to those people, despite her being a major character. Vili–despite apparently being Eivor’s best friend–can’t appear because for some people, he’s busy being the Jarl of Snotinghamscire. There is no true emotional follow through for any of the choices made throughout the game. The end result is a goodbye tour consisting of Aelfred, Guthrum, and Harald, three people who Eivor has little to no emotional attachment to, but whose roles in the game are fixed no matter what choices the player makes, which means they’re safe to use. To be clear, Hytham’s role in the narrative is also fixed, but the reason I separate him from the other three is because he is actually emotionally significant to Eivor. His goodbye, unlike the other three, feels earned. 

To be clear, I don’t place the blame entirely on the writers for this because, as I’ve said, they were given a franchise that revolves around linear stories, told to put dialogue options into it, and make sure all those choices still lead to the same conclusion. As an extension of that, they brought back people who worked on the base game two years after its release to tie up loose ends that should have been dealt with years ago. I wouldn't be surprised if those same creators have all since moved on from this story and its characters, both creatively and emotionally. It's been two years. Even longer than that since they actually worked on the game. I wouldn't fault them for not having the same enthusiasm they once did. But the end result is a last chapter that feels almost completely devoid of emotion, and ties up absolutely none of the loose ends that most people would expect from a permanent “goodbye.” It fails to reach the emotional highs and lows that a conclusion with two years of build up should have. 

Which now brings me to Randvi. 

Oh, Randvi, now and forever shackled to her map table. 

I know this will be a hard pill to swallow for a lot of people, but I always suspected that they would never actually follow through on making Randvi and Eivor's relationship canon despite the fact that it is indisputably the most fleshed out romance in the game. They are hinted at right from the beginning, in the form of Randvi’s clear dissatisfaction with her marriage to Sigurd and in Eivor’s lingering gazes. It is the only romance option in the game that has any effect on one of Eivor’s core internal conflicts: remaining loyal to her brother. “The wind calls [her] back to Randvi” after almost every single regional arc, whether players choose to pursue a romance or not.

But Darby McDevitt Official Headcanon or no, I never thought Ubisoft would "force" another romance after the backlash from Odyssey's Legacy of the First Blade (I told you I’d come back to it). I truly believe the company will and has happily suffered criticism from the Queer community for forcing a relationship on gamers who played Kassandra as a lesbian. Kassandra who, prior to the DLC, also never shows any interest in starting a family, or becoming a mother, or “continuing the family line”, as would become Ubisoft’s flimsy correction to the storyline after the criticisms started rolling in. But I highly doubt they would be okay with alienating the bigots who seem to form the loudest portion of their player base. That would be too much of a risk to their bottom line. 

To me, the romance plotline in Legacy of the First Blade was the inevitable result of Ubisoft wanting to tell a linear story with a non-linear structure. I think they did so without thinking through the implications of letting players choose their character's sexuality, only to then backtrack on it later because they needed Kassandra to have a baby. And what they seemed to take away from that was only that all forced romance is bad, without grasping the nuance of why that particular forced romance was so bad. This isn’t to say there should be any forced romance at all but that it should have served as a lesson of why one shouldn’t make a game with so much emphasis on player choice, only to take that choice away and even retroactively nullify those choices when it suits the needs of the plot. But that wasn't Ubisoft's takeaway. So in Valhalla, they pulled back. They made all player choices matter just a little bit less.

Eivor and Randvi’s relationship is inarguably handled with more care than any of the other romances in the game. It is inextricable from the narrative, whether it is a romantic relationship or a friendship. But despite any amount of blatantly obvious subtext that exists, Valhalla is still an RPG and the creators cannot confirm or deny any of the choices as correct or incorrect. And because they have to cater to all possible endings, they cannot address Eivor and Randvi’s relationship in any capacity because it might be misconstrued as being forced. Despite every overt piece of evidence that exists, Valhalla is still technically an RPG and at the end of the day, plenty of people did not choose Randvi. No amount of narrative director headcanons or heavy subtext will change the fact that Randvi is a seemingly meaningless choice in a sea of meaningless choices, and has now remained so permanently.

Ubisoft just really sucks as a company, actually

Everything that I am about to say in this section (and honestly, most of the next one as well) is conjecture because again, I don't know how certain creative decisions were reached behind the scenes. This isn't just about Randvi, or about Eivor's sexuality. It’s also about Ubisoft’s long and storied history of internal misconduct and suppression of marginalized voices. It's about Ubisoft's history of employee abuse in general. It's about the fact that Ubisoft suddenly decided to let players choose their gender, but only once they finally got around to making mainline titles starring women. Syndicate’s Jacob and Evie share the role of protagonist, and would have also shared equal screen time if Evie’s role hadn’t been significantly minimized throughout production in favour of her brother. Aya was originally meant to replace Bayek as the main playable character early on in Origins, but was later reduced to a side character who is only playable in a few missions throughout the game. Aya, the founder of the Hidden Ones. The order that would later evolve into the Assassins. The order that is the namesake of the entire franchise, just to be clear. Odyssey was originally conceived as Kassandra’s game, before the developers were made to allow players the choice to play as Alexios. Every female protagonist in the franchise thus far has been minimized in some way, and Eivor is unfortunately no different. 

Assassin's Creed is a huge enough brand at this point that they could have easily released Odyssey with only Kassandra, and Valhalla with only Eivor. But instead of taking a "risk" and doing just that, they added the male options to cater to a small but vocal minority of misogynistic piss babies who don't want women to exist in their video games, period. At least, certainly not as fully realized characters with personalities and thoughts and feelings of their own. That would require acknowledging women as people, rather than as identical playthings that mostly exist as a social stealth mechanic for them to hide behind when they need a cover. 

It’s especially funny because it was such a futile effort. That very same group of people was never not going to complain about Assassin’s Creed going “woke” for having female protagonists, even if they were optional. Those people were going to complain no matter what, and they absolutely have as evidenced by the fact that they've been having a conniption on Twitter for the past few months now that Eivor is suddenly getting even half of the attention from the marketing team that Havi has gotten for two years. The comments section on every official social media post featuring Eivor is a sea of people complaining about how “female” Eivor being canon makes no sense, how her voice sucks, how she is just the result of Ubisoft pandering to a “woke” demographic. The “fan” response could not be more blatantly misogynistic. What’s more, Ubisoft bases the trajectory of their games at least partially on fan responses. It’s a toxic feedback loop of them making creative decisions built on sexism and the fans responding in turn. 

Ubisoft deciding to implement gender choice as a mechanic didn't happen because they suddenly had a change of heart after happily ignoring their female players for years. It happened because they got busted for the "women don't sell" comments and the company's history of burying sexual assault allegations, and because they finally caught on to the fact that catering to gamers that aren't cishet men might actually be profitable. And it wasn't for lack of trying from the devs within the company because again, Origins was originally conceived as being Aya's game, Evie and Jacob were at the very least supposed to have equal screen time when development on Syndicate was in the early stages, Elise's role in Unity was also reduced... you get the idea.

Letting people choose to play as a woman or letting people choose to play as a Queer person is great. But it's an obvious cop out when your company also has a history of suppressing those very same voices, has done next to nothing to remedy the toxic company culture that encourages that behaviour in the first place, and when you've been dragging your feet as a developer about making your games even just a bit more inclusive for years. It’s an empty gesture when those female characters need to be watered down just enough for their male counterparts to make some amount of sense in the story, and when the marketing for the game hides them away like some kind of shameful secret. 

Suddenly making games starring female protagonists because you’ve realized that it might be profitable, while also making it optional anyway, isn’t exactly the win for representation they seem to think it is. Especially when the marketing favours the non-canon, male protagonists so totally that most people would assume Eivor and Kassandra are skins of their male counterparts. Because heaven forbid the poor baby boys have their escapist fantasy shaken if they have to play as a woman who’s better at getting girls than they are. Making your representation optional makes your representation look half-assed and while I absolutely adore Eivor and Kassandra, I mourn what they could have been if their stories were allowed to be fully theirs. 

Perhaps I’m being overly harsh and Ubisoft simply decided to implement gender choice in Valhalla in good faith. I honestly wouldn’t care if I thought it had, or if AC games had always allowed players to choose their gender. But considering the company’s history, and considering the game’s marketing, I somehow doubt that. Especially when, in their first game featuring a canon male protagonist since before AC pivoted to RPGs, they are not giving players the option to choose their gender. 

Hi Basim. 

Now don’t get me wrong. I obviously understand why Mirage doesn’t allow players to choose their gender; Basim is a pre-existing character, and it really wouldn’t make sense. But it is so transparent that they are willing to jump through narrative hoops to explain why Alexios is playable as the Eagle Bearer, but the same thing can’t be done for Basim. I suppose the importance of coming up with convoluted reasons as to why your protagonist’s gender is so easily changeable fades away when you’re not trying to replace a woman. 

But what’s this? By God it’s–it’s Mirage with a steel chair!

The final content update for Valhalla feels like a teaser for Mirage. Full stop. If you think I'm being too harsh or unfair, then that's your prerogative. But in The Last Chapter, in the long-awaited conclusion to Eivor’s story, we don't even get to play as Eivor. The entire questline (if it can even be considered that much) consists almost entirely of cutscenes, which we view through Basim's perspective while Eivor is relegated to a side character. It’s a collection of Eivor’s memories that are supposedly filtered by emotional intensity, as Basim puts it. Grief, longing, sadness: all emotions that I fail to see being presented in the memories they gave us, at least for the most part. For the first time in Valhalla, we are voyeurs to Eivor’s memories rather than experiencing her life through her own eyes. The role of the animus user in past Assassin’s Creed games has always been pretty unobtrusive, but The Last Chapter constantly reminds us that Basim is there and watching. "Animus magic," as Basim calls it, was less of a necessity to the plot and felt a lot more like Ubisoft's marketing department gone awry. 

I'm thinking about what Basim says at the end of the base game, when he is in the modern day and speaking to Eivor's remains. When he says, "I can take from you anything I want... your memories, your skills, your secrets. They're all mine." It's so ironic because he really stole Eivor's ending right out from under her, and I would have to laugh if it didn’t suck so much. It's all I could think about while I was watching Basim flippantly scrub through some of Eivor's most "emotional" memories which for some reason include… saying goodbye to Guthrum, a character we spend very little time with in the grand scheme of things, and who Eivor has next to no emotional attachment to. I understand the desire to tie up loose ends in terms of the historical events that were happening around this time, and they absolutely should have done all that because Assassin’s Creed has always been, in part, an exploration of history. But it should not have happened at the cost of providing closure for characters who were such significant figures in Eivor’s life.

I thought the Roshan quest was fun and I loved her and Eivor’s dynamic, even if we only got a small glimpse of it. But it was development time that could have been spent on wrapping up Eivor’s narrative instead of making another timeline agnostic add-on stealth mission in a game that has always had notoriously janky stealth mechanics. I look forward to seeing more of Roshan in Mirage and can now rest easy knowing that she is going to survive to the end of that game (although I cannot fathom why they decided to spoil that so early on). But they used what was apparently very limited time to give us a quest, very clearly a nod to Mirage, that does more to promote their next AAA title than serve the narrative of Valhalla.

Using the ending of a game to lead into the next is fine and is to be expected. But that transition should not come at the cost of a resolution for the story you're leaving behind. And really, it seems there was far more thought put into Basim and William Miles' first meeting than how Eivor came to the decision to leave for Vinland. 

I think Basim is an incredibly rich, complex character, and it will be interesting to see what direction they take his prequel. But as someone who has actually been really excited for Mirage, the way they've dealt with this transition between games has left me feeling so conflicted, not least of all because of how quickly Ubisoft dropped the ball on Valhalla as soon as Mirage was announced. I’m not sure I’ll be able to look at everything we will be gaining with Basim in the next game without also feeling bitter about everything we lost with Eivor. It’s not terribly surprising, since Ubisoft has never treated Eivor’s character with any amount of respect; not in the marketing, and not in most of the post-launch content that has come out in the past year. 

The post-launch that launched absolutely nothing

Darby has now said that The Last Chapter is meant as more of a direct follow up to the epilogue of the main campaign, to be played right after Gunnar's wedding. This is why they didn't feel the need to show a goodbye between Eivor and her people; the wedding functions as a sufficient goodbye to the Raven Clan.

But even if that was even remotely satisfying, it doesn't explain when Eivor came to accept her role as a sage, a role that she has yet to understand by the end of the base game, even if she is perhaps beginning to question it at the very least. It doesn't explain why it was never truly addressed in any of the some 100 plus hours of content that have been released for this game since then. It doesn't explain why Eivor and Randvi might finally pursue a relationship, only for Eivor to suddenly pick up and leave for Vinland, alone and permanently. It doesn’t explain why Eivor would leave for distant shores without saying goodbye to Ljufvina, or Vili, or Stowe and Erke, or Broder, or Oswald and Valdis, or Swanburrow, or any of the many other people whose relationships Eivor cherishes throughout the game. 

If anything, The Last Chapter being played immediately after Gunnar's wedding and the rest of the Hamtunscire epilogue makes it even more important for Eivor to say goodbye to her people, because that whole arc only cements Eivor’s devotion to her people, as well as how much her “encounters” with Odin have shaken her faith. Even then, that doesn't even touch on when or why she came to the decision to leave in the first place. 

Due to a “play anytime” approach that Ubisoft–for reasons I cannot even begin to fathom–decided to take with all the post-launch content for this game, all DLCs for Valhalla are exactly that: they can be played at any time. They go to great pains to avoid spoiling story points from the base game, they rarely make references to events from the base game and, perhaps most critically here, they don’t build on any of the plotlines of the base game. 

Remember that pin we stuck in Odin earlier? Hi. He's back.

None of the DLCs released in post-launch–from Wrath of the Druids to The Siege of Paris, to smaller, free additions such as the River Raids–touch on Eivor’s connection to Odin or her understanding of it, or any of the other potential threads left behind by the base game. Other more mythologically inclined entries like the Mastery Challenges, Dawn of Ragnarok, and The Forgotten Saga scratch the surface of it, but never dig deep enough for Eivor to put two and two together. Even in the Odyssey crossover with Kassandra, who has intimate knowledge of the Isu and their artifacts, Eivor remains completely clueless about her role as a sage despite it being the perfect opportunity for her to learn more. 

At no point is Eivor shown to make any wild revelations about her Isu heritage that could justify her decision to leave. There is a gaping hole in the narrative where that development should be, and therefore the jump from “everything else” to “I’m older now, and I want to learn from the god who lives in my head,” is unearned and comes from completely out of nowhere. The DLCs could have remedied this easily by giving us deeper insight into how Eivor interprets her visions, specifically how she interprets her relationship to Odin. They could have dug into how and when she comes to terms with that connection, and the same could be said for how she comes to know about all the other sages, including Harald, who Eivor and Sigurd suddenly seem to know about being the reincarnation of Freyr despite not seeing him in more than a decade and never mentioning it before. But they can’t, because the DLCs are playable at any time, and therefore cannot discuss things the player may not yet understand.

The brevity of this DLC was especially jarring, even as someone who went into this with low expectations. Because after two years worth of updates, including some sizable free ones, I thought that surely Eivor’s conclusion would be considered important enough to receive the time and attention it deserved. After all, Kassandra got her own surprise ending in the form of the Crossover Stories, announced completely out of nowhere two years after the last DLC for Odyssey was released. After all the time and effort and love that clearly went into that crossover, it seemed reasonable enough that the ending for Valhalla, a game that was still being supported, would have the same amount of effort put into it, if not more. Instead we got a barely there wrap-up that lasts maybe 45 minutes at most, if you’re being generous, and fails spectacularly at offering the catharsis that should be a no-brainer in a story where the main character’s death has been a mystery to be unraveled, right from the beginning. 

Eivor is dead. She has been dead for centuries, buried across an ocean from everyone and everything she knew in life. The how and why of Eivor’s burial site is a question that follows us through her entire journey and throughout the entire game. One that was never resolved… until now, with some vague notion about leaving everything she has worked for and everyone she holds dear behind in an attempt to find herself, all with the help of an entity with whom her relationship has been tenuous at best. Eivor decides to banish the part of her that is Odin because she doesn’t like that part of herself. That second soul, the part of her that values personal glory above all else. Even in The Last Chapter, she describes Odin’s memories as “malicious.” So why backtrack so completely? 

I have no idea.

It’s possible the developers weren’t given enough time to give this final chapter the breathing room it needed to make sense. It’s possible they had lost enthusiasm, and just wanted to rip the band-aid off and get this thing over with. It’s possible Ubisoft wanted to cobble together the scraps of a potentially satisfying ending so they could say they did it, before turning all of their attention to their next title. As it stands, I wish they had just left Valhalla alone, with an open ending, instead of providing a non-answer that feels like an afterthought. An incomplete conclusion to a story and a cast of characters that many of us still care so much about, but Ubisoft seemingly gave up on long ago. 

Eivor deserved better. 

The Raven Clan deserved better. 

Valhalla deserved better. 

We, the fans, deserved better.

If you actually read this far then there is a good chance that you also need therapy

This whole affair really reminds me of the last time I felt this profoundly disappointed by a piece of media I loved. It reminds me of how I felt after watching the second season finale of The Mandalorian, when it hit me that the whole season had just been a series of various cameos and fan service moments that only made sense to the plot at a stretch. It hit me that I had just spent the previous eight weeks watching the show runners completely sideline their main characters–Din Djarin and Grogu–and lose the plot in favour of promoting future Star Wars projects. When it seemed like all the good writing in the show previously had been entirely accidental. But the major difference between The Mandalorian and the ending of Valhalla is that I knew there would be another season of The Mandalorian to potentially patch things up and pick up on some of the plot threads that were dropped. For Valhalla, this is it. There is no more content upcoming that will patch this up and, in hindsight, there are plenty of other things added to this game in post launch that I think would have also made me feel the same way I feel right now if I knew they were the last piece of content we’d ever see. 

Am I overthinking this? Perhaps. Am I being melodramatic? Probably. But to me, this ending for Eivor feels like yet another perfect example of what happens when corporate interests are allowed to dictate creative decisions. 

I say all this as someone who has and will continue to defend a lot of Valhalla’s faults, because if writing this whole thing has done anything, it has served to remind me how good the core narrative of the base game really is. It has depth, it has heart, and I hope that other people who enjoyed it as much as I did–and are as disappointed by The Last Chapter as I am–are able to reconcile the beauty of Eivor’s character arc in the main game with the way it was seemingly undone in The Last Chapter. 

I’m trying my very best to not let this ending retroactively take away all the joy I’ve found in this game for the past year. And in spite of how negative this critique has been, writing it has actually really helped me do just that. Because in writing this critique, I was also looking back on Valhalla’s narrative, its highs and lows, its major plot points, and I was re-watching clips. A speed run of Eivor’s greatest hits, if you will. 

I was reminded of why I connected so strongly with Eivor in the first place. I was reminded of her strength, her kindheartedness, her love of children, her wit, the poetry of her dialogue, her sense of duty. I was reminded of her rage, her single mindedness, her sense of loyalty that is often to her own detriment when she offers it to those who don’t deserve it. I was reminded of her character arc from someone who spends so much of her life on a single minded quest for revenge, to someone who becomes a beloved leader to her people. 

I was reminded of the Valhalla sequence at the end of the game, a sequence that still makes me cry just as much now as it did the first time I played it, if not more. When Eivor, who has spent most of her life feeling nothing but resentment and shame toward her dead father, finally learns to understand why he did what he did. When she understands why he laid down his axe, the very same axe she holds now, in the futile hope that his daughter, his wife, and the rest of his people would be spared, only for most of his people to be slaughtered anyway. When Eivor has finally realized, through years of acting as a leader to her people, why Varin did what he did, even in opposition to everything she has ever been taught to value. When she has grown enough to realize that she too would make the exact same choice her father did, her cowardly father, because she too would die in dishonour if it offered even the slightest chance to save her loved ones. When Eivor, who has spent her life trying to justify her existence by being useful, finally accepts that her parents died because they loved her and not because she didn't do enough. When Eivor is holding the very same axe now that her father held then and the High One himself is offering her wisdom and glory and power and she, like her father before her, drops her axe and turns her back and chooses love instead.

That is the version of Eivor I will remember. Not the hastily cobbled together ghost of her that we saw in The Last Chapter.

[frostyreturns]

Nobody needs help commiting suicide. That’s a complete fantasy made up by the state to manipulate your emotions so you’ll grant them unilateral rights to kill basically whoever they want. It’s very easy to kill yourself if you really want to do it, the problem is most people don’t actually want to do it, we all kind of have this self preservation instinct that we have to fight with tooth and nail in order to do it. This is farming out that instinct to someone who doesn’t have it and doesn’t care about you...meaning people who would not have otherwise killed themselves will soon be dead because at their lowest and most vulnerable point they will be convinced to put that life and death decision in the hands of someone who not only doesn’t have that self preservation instinct on your behald but is being actively told that it’s merciful to end you. Fucking evil. It’s not hard to pick up a gun and the oldest and feeblest most disease ridden patient in the world can swallow a pill on their own. Which is where the fucking hypocrisy never ends, we’ll not let suffering patients take whatever pain killing drugs they want because it’s dangerous and they might get addicted but we will just kill them so they don’t feel pain that’s fine. How about we just let people take what drugs they fucking want, maybe fewer will want to die because they’ll have some fucking pain relief, and if they decide to take enough to kill them then that’s their business. Nobody needs a fucking dr death.

 It’s already tremendously difficult to route out murderers in the medical profession this would make it impossible. Some of history most prolific and heinous serial killers were doctors or nurses because it’s so hard to prove certain things are murder in a place where it’s normal for people to die all day every day. So they want to add to this system a defense where all they have to say is that the person requested it, and then its their word against a dead persons. How many fucking people are going to be murdered because loved ones are not allowed in hospitals to advocate for people because of the coof. Nobody there to say no what the fuck are you doing they don’t want to be fucking killed you pyschopaths.

A system with numerous incentives to want to murder you even if you take out the top down depopulation ideology they look at you as a collection of organs that could keep several other people alive. Why keep this one single person alive that nobody seems to give a shit about when I have 3 important people waiting for a liver a kidney and a heart transplant...really if I kill this guy and harvest his organs I’m a hero, that’s democracy right, 3 against 1? Needs of the many vs the needs of the few so fuck em. Or how about just the healthcare costs of keeping you alive? The strain and stress of patient load and overworked health workers. This is who you want to have that kind of life and death power, someone who benefits in every concievable way if you die? 

Increase palliative care and admit terminal patients sooner, deregulate painkilling drugs and increase patient access to painkillers. These are the first steps if what you actually want is to decrease suffering but it’s not so they skipped all of these steps and went straight to just let me fucking kill them. It’s not about death with dignity, it’s not about poor suffering grandmas who are going to die anyway. It’s about wanting the power to murder more easily and to encourage more people to kill themselves. 

I mean look at the people in Canada being recommended suicide by their fucking doctors these are not sick cancer patients in too much pain to pick up a gun to blow their heads off, these are depressed 18 year olds being pumped full of drugs that do nothing for them and then when that doesn’t work are told hey just kill yourself. Thanks doc you first.

[marxistcomedy]

it’s not just that like . work feels bad or whatever that Gives Us Mental Illness . for more and more of us especially the underlying material relatons of the system we live under makes it impossible to be still and feel safe . if your material security is at risk it is an impossible task! there’s always something to fucking worry about , some problem that will rear its head the second we try to take a breath stop for a moment . the conditions of our work have us trained to respond to stillness and inaction with pressure and fear . we have to keep moving , or , like sharks , we’ll die (or our managers will yell at us)

beyond that , the locust of our social lives — our productive lives — is alienating . we do not do what we want to do , what makes us feel good , what allows us to be still and feel safe . we’re with more other people more consistently than we’ve been since we were children , but there’s no room for socialization or play . for those who do work that prioritizes socialization , it’s competitive and needs to be highly managed , it isn’t “time off” . as a result we experience an acute absence of pleasure , so we need to seek it out elsewhere in other ways

and basically everyone feels like this . those who don’t are either a Different Type (Class) of Person or it’s Coming For Them — or both , or their neurosis comes from different material factors . either way , it’s all about trying to experience pleasure and escape its absence . security is a foregone conclusion — though theatre of it has been forced into serviceable substitution (hand in hand with the kind of fearmongering that brings it to emotionally satisfying extremes — waterboard yourself with true crime podcasts until you feel stark relief at the sight of a cop on your street or the thrill of profiling someone on nextdoor)

i remain a faithful marxist so i don’t think that feudal/pre-feudal experiences of neurodiversity or whatever are like . better . maybe for some of us , probably for me , but that doesn’t make up for all of the people that would’ve just died otherwise . i’m sure it might make you feel better to imagine your mental illness putting you in a position of spiritual significance . i don’t think being the person lucky enough to be seen as a prophet or soothsayer is worth the risk of being too much of a freak for your community to accommodate you , or for it going on long enough to be abandoned

what i mean , and what i think other marxists mean when they say your experience of mental illness is related to your material conditions and experience isn’t that it would all disappear if you didn’t have to go to work . it’s that your experience of the world and how you relate to others would be changed if the underlying mechanisms and motivations were different

we know that during the london bombings there were a number of people suffering from debilitating , life-limiting mental illness were able to do work and significantly contribute to humanitarian and rescue efforts . this is not because work “fixed” them . as a marxist i would credit it to a person’s ability to recognize whether or not something is worth them doing , and caring for one another (when we are not actively punished for doing so) feels worthwhile to most .

if we weren’t alienated by market forces , if we could effectively communicate and coordinate our actions towards universally pleasurable and desirable ends (minimal work , maximal connection and recreation) , if we were able to do so together — some people who are mentally ill or disabled now would not be in a way that is disruptive or prohibitive to their enjoyment of life . to redirect work and labour towards pleasurable life would also mean valuing and prizing the kind of reproductive labour that would allow people who would still be disabled under such circumstances to experience fuller pleasure and connection in their own lives

when we talk about material relations in this way and how they direct our lives , it’s important not to think of it as some kind of brain parasite that makes us all fundamentally broken in some way . it’s an ever-shifting matrix of complex incentives that direct us towards certain ends that reify that system . it’s not personal or individual or even that specific , it’s you feeling the material pressures of that system as you experience and struggle against the restraints that exist around you . different systems with different restraints will incentivize you to feel and act in different ways

[dbphantom]

So I rewatched ep1 and 2 of Trigun Stampede with my friend and it got us thinking about the upcoming plot/structure of the show, namely if we get a season 2 what's gonna be the catalyst for it

AKA we have a very specific wishlist for this show and watch it be thrown out the window when episode 3 airs lmao

Spoilers under the cut

No, seriously, those virus explodey things are a total wildcard. Anything could happen! It's so exciting! But here's our take (big thank you to @moscovus for being a great friend and nerding out with me tn):

We were talking mostly about the map and the structure of the world, and because July is still around and hasn't happened yet, if The Destruction will happen during the show. Mainly because it feels like the map will start showcasing the party's adventure across it as the season goes on, and we can't help but notice July is placed perfectly on the right across from our party's starting place, with an orphanage smack dab in the middle. Plus there's a landmark with its name cut off on the far left which seems... Sus. That or the version of the show we watched was just ever so slightly zoomed in. Either or.

So the main theory is that the season 1 finale will be the events of July and Vash will get his iconique 60 bil bounty at the end of s1 because of Knives, leaving season 2 (+??) to cover the already written events of the story. Basically s1 is going to be introducing characters (a little out of order from what we're used to, but still), getting us used to the world/story, and then setting up/paying off with the July incident. So maybe that will be when the whole plant/angel arm reveal to the audience happens in this iteration (or maybe that will be a mid season finale type deal). Then the rest of the main story events will play out in s2 (+?????).

We're thinking changes mean Roberto + Meryl will be in July when the destruction happens and most importantly Roberto will die (or otherwise be written out) as the end of his character arc. My friend suggested his arc being him becoming less jaded as they follow Vash around and learn about Love and Peace. Specifically, we think Roberto will die so that in season 2 (if we get a s2, that's the HINGE) Meryl will get a second partner in Milly because We Want Her Back

Also in general we've come to the agreement that even if Wolfwood is introduced immediately [aka next episode] if he dies this season it's going to feel like an any% wolfwood dies speedrun with how fast everything seems to be progressing. That plus how young he looks, we're thinking maybe we will get a timeskip (kinda like the 5th moon incident timeskip) after the s1 finale (again, hypothetically/hopefully the destruction of July) and we'll actually get to see him change designs bc of the super fast metabolism stuff. AKA this is our plea: bring his tits back.

Also, if July happens during the season finale, then Knives will need time to incubate and heal. What better time to do that than during a between-seasons timeskip.

Anyway. Yeah. Wishlist:

Season 2 pls we love this so much already and we want MORE

July is the season 1 finale

slow

Roberto dies/is written out and is replaced with Milly after he gets satisfying character development

Bring back Vash's 60 billion. 6 million sounds SO WRONG

Wolfwood doesn't die until post season 1

Short timeskip after season 1 into season 2 to set the stage for the 'main' manga plot

If July happens and Knives has to regen after getting blasted/bested then a timeskip would make sense right

Hhhh

Feral plant Vash please we love the feathery baby limbed body horror and cg is the perfect medium for this scene to finally be animated

Elendira

Please

Don't fuck her up please

That's it

Okay actually that's a lie we also wanna see Tessla, Domina, and Chronica animated

But not the truck scene please

Realistically we know our wishlist probably isn't happening given we got a trailer with all the gung ho guns fighting already and what looks like Knives going all-out and they probably wouldn't have animated s2 stuff for a season 1 trailer but man we can hope right? Like maybe they'll just introduce them all before July and Knives is just throwing a temper tantrum like he often does 🥺 I mean he's still gotta make the plant collective and the ark so so so maybe he hasn't started yet despite physically stealing all the plants so far 😭 like if July is the s1 finale then there can still be a big flashy fight and everything, he will just regen after during the timeskip between s1 and s2 like he does in the manga 😭😭 <- is not coping great, clearly

Also, just for the record, it's been a couple months since I've last consumed the manga and the og anime, so forgive me for any inconsistencies or incorrect info, my memory isn't the greatest. I only have room for borderlands lore in here

Odds are, they're probably not following the manga's story, or changed it so significantly that none of this speculation actually matters. We will see!! After all these virus injector explodey things are totally new, so who knows where tf they're taking us next. We certainly don't. We're just having fun with it.

Just as an overall thing, this is us assuming season 1 is going to be 12 episodes. If it's 24, then maybe July will be the mid-season finale and 13+ will be after a timeskip.

[literalite]

17, 25, 38, 39, 40 for suniko 🥲😭 WAAAAAAAAA

17. who made the first move? what was it?

depends what we're quantifying as a first move 😳 if its first wilful physical contact its niko- after they have their first kind of fight i guess (sunny's fault, he overstepped trying to be funny and endes up more hurtful💀) which snowballed somewhat into sunny drunkenly admitting his own perspective on his past i suppose. niko gives him a big hug and its the first time they r like touching each other on purpose

if we're going with an action thats something other than pure friendly intention, it'd be sunny kind of just... hm giving niko things while he's unaware? tucks him in when he's passed out too exhausted to do it on his own and stuff, gives him a better blanket instead of the probable sensory nightmare that arctis just leaves to niko and his engine room cot.

technically the reason they start talking at all is sunny kind of marks niko in his head as The One He Wants (carnally) on this specific mission because he'd die of boredom otherwise 💀 but it becomes a lot more than just that for either of them without sunny realising so i'm not counting that

25. who said i love you first? how did it go?

niko says i love you first! like a month into their like. more official thing where they are like more 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨 rather than just dancing around each other after years of slowburn it's not planned. hes kind of just holding sunny from behind like in the airt... kiss on back of head... i love you. it just kind of slips out- oh he absolutely means it but sometimes when the truth is just that undeniable there's not really a way for it to just say unsaid. i think sunny after hearing it just like. pauses. turns to look at him. actually lost for words (which. rare occurance bcos this mf does not shut up 😭) starts tearing up a lil bit maybe? its the truth for him too he just never really expected he'd be i guess worthy enough to hear it reciprocated. but he knows. holy shit i love you too... anyways they probs kiss for a bit after this LMAO

38. what do they love most about each other?

not answered previously here

39. who worries and who calms?

tbh in this world i feel like it's reasonable to say they do a fair amount of both over their own things... theres never a person who freaks out over things "more" bcos theyve both been thru their own personal hells and are in some ways still going thru it so they're kind of just like. there for each other in equal measure i believe

40. do they have any jealous tendencies over each other?

for niko? "any" jealous tendencies lets try "all" instead... not in the sense that hes controlling or anything because he isn't but hes pretty verbal about it when he's feeling that way. little twinges and moments of Ugh he's more protective than outright jealous we think- he's not like a freak 😭 he's not stopping sunny from hanging out with friends and other people they live in whats basically a giant flying dorm its always full of people. it stems a lot from him just continually losing people he cares for over and over... but he is def jealous and sunny loves it tbh

sunny (i'm going by crew sunny because imposter sunny is kind of undeveloped) is sort of. not as jealous as niko but still . yeah i think idk 😭 gets worser if provoked honestly and he gets irritated when other people take up all of niko's time... miloš and ashe i like you guys so much. leave engines now before that changes 😊 the more comfortable with monopolising niko's attention he gets the more like confident he is with it. if that makes sense

[lowtaxsa]

Dinosaur Adventure Land: The Eighth Wonder of the Bullshit-Ass World

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, prepare yourselves for a steaming pile of insanity called Dinosaur Adventure Land. Yours truly, the ever-suffering Lowtax, personally ventured into this godforsaken hellhole, and I'm here to tell you – whatever you do, don't go to this place. It's like if the Twilight Zone and an acid trip had an illegitimate baby. And that baby was dropped on its head. Repeatedly. Oh, did I mention it also had a serious gas problem?

Picture a place where science is a dirty word, and a charlatan named Kent "I Swear I'm Not a Fraud" Hovind is the ringleader. A place where dinosaurs and humans walked hand-in-hand just 6,000 years ago, and where facts are treated like unwanted stepchildren. This is Dinosaur Adventure Land, folks, and it's where your brain cells go to die. Oh, and the cherry on top? You might just lose your faith in humanity too. Which is still a better fate than losing your car keys in this nightmarish labyrinth.

Armed with a flask of whiskey and a dark sense of humor, I wandered through this dumpster fire of a park, asking the poor, brainwashed staff things like, "So, when do the velociraptors come out and eat the children?" and "Where's the exhibit that shows how the Flintstones domesticated dinosaurs?" Their hollow eyes and quivering lips betrayed their misery. It was like talking to a cult member who realized they made a huge mistake, but can't quite figure out how to escape. They'd probably have better luck escaping a black hole at this point.

And the zipline? Oh, you'll love this travesty. It's like strapping yourself to a death wish and praying the rickety contraption holds together long enough to deliver you to sweet, sweet oblivion. Safety? Who needs that when you've got Kent Hovind's seal of approval? Plus, nothing says "fun for the whole family" like a near-death experience. Just don't expect the zipline to be equipped with actual safety features, because that's about as likely as finding a needle in a haystack – a needle that also happens to be a giant, fire-breathing dinosaur.

My incessant mockery eventually got me booted from the park, but not before I shouted, "You can't handle the truth! The Earth is round! Dinosaurs didn't play hopscotch with Adam and Eve!" Good riddance, I say. I left with a newfound appreciation for the phrase "blessed are the ignorant, for they know not what they do." But, hey, at least I left with all my limbs intact.

But wait, there's more! As if this abomination of a park couldn't get any more repulsive, recent news exposed some pretty dark stuff involving one of the park's frequent visitors and volunteers, Chris Jones. Turns out park management was warned about his interactions with children but seemingly turned a blind eye. Kent, you colossal moron – with all the crazy going on in your park, you couldn't even keep an eye on this guy? It's almost as if Kent Hovind's Ph.D. in "Christian Education" didn't cover basic human decency. Or maybe it did, and he just used the diploma to pick his teeth.

So, let me make this abundantly clear: Dinosaur Adventure Land is a festering cesspool of lunacy, a place where ignorance is celebrated with a fervor that would make even the most jaded cynic weep. Kent Hovind, the master of this madhouse, has managed to combine dinosaurs, biblical literalism, and idiocy into a single, fantastical, and utterly reprehensible experience. It's the kind of place that makes you wonder if humanity is worth saving. Or if we should just throw in the towel and let the dinosaurs take over – at least they'd probably do a better job at running the place.

Do not – I repeat, DO NOT – ever visit this wretched hive of stupidity. In fact, run the other way, as fast as you can. And if you see Kent Hovind, don't give him applause, sarcastic or otherwise. Just give him a wide berth, because anyone who could create such a monument to ignorance deserves to be left alone with the fruits of his delusions. If you're ever tempted to visit this train wreck of a theme park, just remember: life is too short to waste on something so absurdly ridiculous. Instead, take that time and money and invest in a good book, a stiff drink, or therapy – anything but Dinosaur Adventure Land. Or, alternatively, you could just set your money on fire – it'd be a more productive use of your time.

In conclusion, Dinosaur Adventure Land is an insult to human intelligence, a theme park designed to cater to those who have forsaken critical thinking in favor of fantastical nonsense. This is not just a park – it's a testament to the terrifying power of willful ignorance. And if you value your sanity, stay far, far away. Because the only thing scarier than the idea of dinosaurs walking with humans 6,000 years ago is the fact that there are people out there who actually believe it. So, save yourself a headache – or a hundred – and steer clear of this disaster of a destination. Trust me, you'd be better off trying to teach a T-Rex how to knit.

And finally, a word of advice: if you ever find yourself in the vicinity of Dinosaur Adventure Land, just keep driving. And maybe say a little prayer for the lost souls who wander its twisted paths, searching for meaning in a world that has left them behind. Because, in the end, isn't that what we all really need? A little compassion for our fellow man, even if they've strayed far from the path of reason. Just make sure to keep a safe distance – after all, stupidity can be contagious. And you wouldn't want to catch whatever horrific disease causes people to believe in this garbage, now would you?

[giuilily]

"But I'm not gonna complain if it gives us the possibility of getting her back in Part 3 lol" <- agree haha I was totally ready to accept her death (tbh i did not even consider that she wouldn't die this time until people were speculating about it before rebirth's release loll) but I am happy that we may get her back and also intrigued to see how they try to tie all of this together...

I think my overall feelings on Rebirth in general will depend a lot on how game 3 ends up going. Remake I feel can stand on its own a bit better since it is so contained. But truly why did we literally fight destiny at the end of Remake if things are just going to end up the same lol what was the point of all this! It also feels quite a downer to be like well you actually cannot change fate sorry lmao nice try though.

Something that concerns me with the defying fate/destiny thing is 1. Biggs dies anyway despite being saved 2. Zack ends up facing a firing squad no matter what (when he goes looking for hojo or when he goes after Biggs, although ofc in that case he chooses to throw himself into the void instead which i suppose could be seen as a change lol) so it's like... their fate is repeating itself in these different worlds, can it be changed? (I'm still confused as to the big rainbow flash on the Biggs path when Zack chooses to go to Hojo, does that mean theres a universe where Biggs goes to the reactor and Zack doesn't follow him so Biggs.. lives in that one?)

"I'm gonna hold the devs to that since no one asked them to add in new themes to an almost 30 yo game lol." <- lmfao for real. One of my biggest concerns about this whole thing was that they were going to waaay over complicate it (looking at you kingdom hearts) and I am reserving full judgement until things are complete but I def have not had my worries assuaged yet lol

Oh yes! I forgot we saw a chihuahua/spitz plush during the date. So the terrier-verse is still around but im pretty sure Zack is no longer alive in it lol unless he got sent back there again since it is the most relevant other universe. I wonder if Aerith and Cloud will ever wake up there... (maybe Saved Aerith will wake up there? if that did not create a New stamp-verse).

I agree with you on Rebirth. I did enjoy it gameplay-wise (except the moogles they can go to hell lol) and the battle system should definitely become a staple in future numbered FFs, but narrative-wise, because it's the middle part of game, there were a lot of new set-ups along with the OG story beats that we're still waiting for the pay offs in part 3, and I think they need to make it good, otherwise, if they did all of that in Rebirth and it's just gonna be the same as OG, then they just dangled Aerith's fate for suspense and marketing and nothing else. That would be pretty disrespecftul for both the character and the fans tbh.

Hmmm... I think Biggs's situation is kinda tricky in both Pug and Terrier verse because he sorta put himself in a situation where he's tempting fate. I'm kind of leaning on him dying in Terrier too since he's already at the Mako reactor already, but maybe Zack not being there to distract him puts him less at risk of getting caught by Shinra?

Biggs' death and Zack getting pulled in situations that mirror his OG death kinda reminded me of Final Destination, but I hope Nojima wasn't watching those movies while writing the Re Trilogy lol.

I think as long as they keep on putting themselves in those situations, serving their OG purpose in the narrative and facing exactly what got them killed the first time, they're basically tempting fate to finish its job. Idk how this will all play out or how they can avoid it if they need to take action.

And I'm sure Aerith will wake up in Terrier, but I'm worried about Sephiroth hunting her down in every world she's in. Cloud might find himself waking up there as well after he falls into a coma in the main world, and probably will have dreams of the place like in Rebirth, but I'm unsure if they'll wake up at the same time or not. Ngl, I would LOVE it if we form a party with him, Aerith and Zack. The potential awkward conversations would be SO funny lol.

Honestly the new worlds are so fascinating to me because the writers aren't constrained to OG in those parts. I know they'll all eventually merge, but I can't wait to see how they'll handle them and how the game will conclude!