#possibly her one character trait that actually makes sense and is consistent

[thewertsearch]

Ask Comp 28/12

Anonymous asked: In the same vein as the Seer of Light/Witch of Space fakeout in the human session: do you think any of the trolls seem to not fit their assigned classpects, to reject it and imitate another, or to trade classes or aspects with another troll?

It's hard to tell if a given character fits their Title, when I don't know what each Title is supposed to symbolize.

Eridan, for example, didn't originally seem to evoke Hope. When I realized his 'hope' was essentially romantic delusion, it started to make a little more sense - but I have no idea if that's actually compatible with the Aspect's true meaning. We've only seen one Hope Player, so we don't know which aspects (lol) of his story are Hope-themed, and which are just Eridan being Eridan.

@relaxxattack asked: COMPLETELY unexpected coming from me (lol); but i doubt scratch, omniscient as he is, completely misunderstands slick’s motivations. i read it that perhaps slick’s emotional investment really is preventing him from killing snowman, despite all his lip service otherwise. i mean why else would scratch resort to auspisticism, the role made for breaking apart inconvenient pitch couples? plus all the brawler-like violence and threats of death— it really seems like he does need to force slick to cooperate and kill her

I kind of like that, actually. It would be pretty fun if Slick, of all people, managed to ruin Scratch's plans - and by having a heart, to boot!

@manorinthewoods asked: Proposal for the future: Whenever a flashback occurs, you take a guess as to whether or not it is a Dream Bubble. ~LOSS (14/12/24)

Yeah, I might actually give this a shot. I feel like I could do a pretty decent job of discerning whether a flashback is a Bubble, just based on whether the characters involved are currently unconscious or dead - although I can clearly still be fooled.

Anonymous asked: If Terezi hadn't been convinced beforehand (by Gamzee somehow?!) that Vriska was killing at random and absolutely had to go, I couldn't help but imagine at the time that Terezi COULD have saved Vriska if she tried, proving luck doesn't matter… by pulling a Harvey Dent and swapping her coin for a clean double-sided scratchless one just before flipping it, which her luck-stealing couldn't possibly make land scratched. It even would have proved to Vriska that she can't account for everything.

That would be pretty crafty, and I really like her hypothetical style - but honestly, I think Vriska was too far gone to be talked down. The fact that she stole that coin's luck in every timeline makes me think it was probably impossible to make her stay.

@caliquill asked: early in the liveblog you identified a Strider Ramble as a stress ramble. so it delights me that you have finally seen a TRUE Strider Stress Ramble. everything comes full circle.

Oh, true! Man, that's a deep cut.

I should have known, really. It's a pretty consistent character trait for Dave to get less ironic as he gets stressed - we already saw that at play in Davesprite's timeline.

@martinkhall asked: A lot of people seem to miss that he found his quest bed. Reading through his posts again this time I find myself wondering between his "dear departed family" and his imps being described as "sportitive rascals" if he prototyped a dead son. That sounds like a phrase that could descibe a young boy.

Aw man, that's heartbreakingly plausible. If we don't see Fedorafreak's story concluded in-universe, I will absolutely be looking for good Fedorafics when I'm done with the comic.

@bellcarved asked: you know, with the mention of a server player, i'm now imagining somebody else watching through the build menu and sending fedorafreak messages during this whole thing. "ff, i have the code for a bottle of water, and it only costs one unit of build grist. stop drinking your urine and generally treating this like a wilderness survival show, you are going to die. ff please respond."

Our man chose 'freak' as his handle for a reason. <3

@morganwick asked: Note that when Fedorafreak combines his pants with his shirt, it produces a "useless, excessively tall pant". This was after Pantskat had already become a meme.

It's so funny that this one wonky panel became so much of a meme. You just know that if Homestuck was ten years younger, it would have turned into an Among Us joke.

Anonymous asked: I think at one point Hussie said that fedorafreak's title would be the "gent of piss" but it's rather likely that they were just being silly. I also think that the title of a hope player would befit fedorafreak :) @marinerofthestars asked: for some incomprehensible reason hussie did in fact give us canon/‘canon’ fedorafreak lore on his formspring. he has the Title Gent of Piss and his server player (who survived at least long enough to get him into the medium) is 2busy4this (iirc they don’t actually appear elsewhere in the comic. guess hussie was. too busy for them) @morganwick asked: I believe Hussie has said that Fedorafreak's title is Gent of Piss. @skelekingfeddy asked: according to hussie fedorafreaks classpect is the Gent of Piss

Disrespecting our king! I have to assume that was a joke, because FedoraFreak deserves so much better than the Piss Aspect. I like Gent, though.

I was going to say I hoped that 2busy4this was able to enter the session - but really, that just means they'll die by Tumor, rather than meteor.

@morganwick asked: It was actually Fedorafreak's appearance on page 2918 that arguably made him a meme with the fandom.

It's been fun checking in with our king as we progress through the comic. I assume his memetic status is due to drinking his own urine - hence, the 'Gent of Piss' title that Hussie apparently saddled him with.

@clueless-rarito asked: Damn when I first read it didn't really sink in how fucked up the whole derse suicide mission situation was and how heartbreaking their whole conversation about it was. It's really the kind of thing you get a lot more from seeing someone else react to it

It's so twisted, isn't it? These poor children just want to protect each other, but each of them is convinced that the only way to do so is to die. Homestuck is so fucked sometimes.

@morganwick asked: Not to be too alarmist or presumptuous, but: did you not have anything to say about pages 3918-3920, or did your post(s) on those pages get eaten or otherwise lost?

Honestly, I just didn't have any commentary about them. They really just continued to depict the gradual return of John's memories, which I'd already talked about.

Sometimes I simply don't have that much to say about a given panel, even when the current arc is as exposition-heavy as this one. They can't all be mini-essays, y'know?

@wickedsick asked: Do you think Ghost John x Davesprite would count as…. Doomed yaoi?

Ayyyyyy!

@suroboro asked: So what you're saying is… that Terezi has gone Blind with Rage? (0;

Ayyyyyyyyyy!

Anonymous asked: after you finish homestuck you should 100% check out tumblr user meraki-sunset's crow strider au - it's wildly spoilery but i think as a davesprite lover you will enjoy it

Ah, yes, I'm pretty sure I know about this one! I've also been sent some of the artist's (non-spoilery) art, which looks absolutely gorgeous. It's definitely on the list!

Anonymous asked: This whole section is one of my favorite parts of Homestuck. All the conversations are so genuine and emotional, quiet and intimate, building anticipation but also savoring the moments they have before the end… ough. I gotta say, though it's probably the aspect I've understood the least since my classpecting phase, you really do strike me as Life oriented with a lot of the things you say :P

I still really llke the idea of being a Life Player - partially because I tend to gravitate towards healing, regeneration and resurrection abilities in games. I love getting tanky as fuck in Terraria, for example.

@manorinthewoods submitted: You know who, specifically, could have prevented Perfect Jack if she'd listened to her Denizen? Vriska. Vriska made the Choice that caused Bec Noir, unwittingly. If she hadn't, and if Denizen Choices truly do allow you to alter your own fate, then Jack never would have entered the troll session. Of course, whatever choice Vriska made to ensure Bec Noir's creation must have been earlier than the Veil. Potentially even in the presession! But if she just hadn't been Vriska, then… ~LOSS (19/12/24)

Wait, does it have to be earlier than the Veil? I don't think Vriska should even know about the kids' session until the game has already ended. Did I misapprehend some aspect of that plotline?

@krixwell asked: Worth considering in light of these revelations about Denizens and Typheus in particular: the parcel pyxis system, which fairly consistently takes things where they need to be. If Typheus controls the Breeze on LoWaS, he's basically the local mailman.

Heh, I like that. Perhaps that's why the Breeze will 'carry you to where need to go' - because it's being controlled by a postman, and a postman knows the destination of every package they handle.

@ramdomartkid asked: What do you think about the theory of the kids being homeschooled? As mensioned before, John never talks ab other ppl that aren't hs characters, (and aren't his neighbors) but he also never mentions why he's not at school at the beginning (or a b-day party with classmates) Same goes 4 Dave but Bro doesn't rl have that much motivation to put Dave in school in the first place. Less time for training. Rose…idk same as John And then Jade bc it's canon But that's just a theory…a webcomic theory (sorry if there are errors in grammar, english isnt my native language)

16:13 is fairly late in the afternoon, so John might have just returned from a day at school. I do think the homeschooling theory has merit, though - particularly with Dave, for the reasons you've already stated.

And yeah, Jade sort of had to be homeschooled if she was going to have any formal education at all. It would have ended pretty early, though. :(

@corporalotherbear asked:

LMAO

I feel like an identical exchange has occurred between Rose and Mom Lalonde.

@necrowyrm asked: In the past I thought of you as "thew" due to those being the letters I typed into Tumblr to search you. Recently, Tumblr has demanded an additional letter, so you are now "Thewe" (pronounced completely differently)

From thoo to thooie. It feels like I'm going through a Pokemon evolution!

Anonymous asked: You know that dream Dave talked about? Someone decided to illustrate it and GOODDAMN did they cook!

God damn, you were not kidding. This is such a macabre interpretation of the description he gave, and I love it.

@skelekingfeddy asked: ok im finally continuing with this quadrant ask series lol. i do think theres a side of propaganda to the quadrant system, despite what ive said about it. because even though its based around biological/evolutionary impulses…so is humanity’s concept of heteronormativity. the quadrants are a rather rigid, inflexible system, which is enforced by threat of DEATH. im willing to bet that, for example, certain trolls may feel only red attraction, or only black attraction, or only concupiscent attraction, or only conciliatory attraction, or zero quadrant-based attraction at all, or feel attraction completely outside of the quadrant system. the taboo against polyamory in one quadrant, like you’ve said several times already, is another flaw with the system. the quadrants system is predicated upon biology, sure, but so is cis/heteronormativity. i dunno, this is just my analysis of the quadrants xp idk if hussie was actually thinking about any of this when he was writing hs haha……

I pretty much agree with your take on quadrant propaganda.

In my opinion, any rigid framework of relationships - be it ours, Alternia's, or another - will inevitably fail to describe the full spectrum of possible relationship dynamics. Not every human is straight, gay or bi, and not every troll wants hearts, spades, clubs and diamonds.

Anonymous asked: wanna uh, put in my input on that kismessitude thread someone else sent to you. i disagree for a lot of spoilery reasons but mostly i just want to point out some things regarding a few specific assertions "jack and the queen's romance is tragic and meant to be compared to mom and dad, and the tragedy is unrelated to their romance" yes, mom and dad getting killed by jack noir is like, completely unrelated to their romance. they were literally just vibing and they got murked, would have been the same if it was a platonic hang out and they werent flirting at all. i buy that. we can't really compare that to jack noir and the queen, though, since jack kills the queen over the harlequin costuming. jacks and black queens are constantly attacking each other (over their several incarnations at this point i think they've lost like, 3 limbs between them and an eye. and of course jack killed her too in their like, third scene together). i just don't know how we're supposed to take that as 1. tragic given that a lot of the time it's played for slapstick comedy or "lol look at how much they hate each other" or 2. unrelated from their pitch romance. the dynamic of their pitch romance is them tormenting each other and in one case it ends with jack murdering the black queen. that's not equivalent to dad & mom. also, a few other points: i don't know how we're supposed to take the tavros & vriska stuff, because while they are definitely toxic, they seem to be pursuing each other in the RED quadrant, not in pitch… and it feels like the standards for toxicity are different there. also, something really important: eridan doesn't say anything about 'kismessitudes ending in death' in that conversation on page 2343. he says "CA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched to CA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps". the only mention of death here is in terms of COLLATERAL damage, not of them killing each other. eridan talks about killing all landdwellers (but not his friends, because theyre not like other girls i mean lowbloods! man the writing was on the wall with him). not about killing vriska. and this tracks way more with what alternia is like, for me personally- they don't care what two individuals do to each other, but when it begins to interfere with empire on a larger scale, then they would like a mechanism to break it up. ultimately, quadrants are something that WILL come up again in homestuck (spoilers, but i feel like that's obvious, lol. you have another what, 5000 pages?), so you'll get to form your own opinion on it. i just felt really baffled about the arguments because they… felt like they were missing contexts or taking leaps, so i thought i would weigh in. no hate to the other commentator! homestuck quadrant discussion is fun to me.

Interesting thoughts here, in response to a submission about quadrants from earlier in the year.

I don't think I'd ever personally call Jack/Black Queen 'tragic' - but I wouldn't use them as a model for troll kismessitude either way. They're a different species, so they're going to have different standards.

As for Vriska/Tavros…. to be honest, I don't think you could really quadrant them in a way that makes sense. Vriska hated Tavros too much for hearts, but didn't respect him enough for spades. As for Tavros, I don't think he's ever wanted anything to do with Vriska.

Anonymous asked: You might have noticed the unique Strife artstyle in this section of the story. These sprites were created by the art team for a Strife flash that never came to fruition. Now that you've seen the content that was made in place of that flash, I believe it's not a spoiler to send Hussie's commentary on his original plans. What are your thoughts on this alternate path and do you prefer the way the story was ultimately presented? What do you feel about his discussion of pros and cons? (1/2)

Sadly, I don't think we received the second half of this submission. I have been enjoying the artstyle of the recent arc - and if you resubmit Hussie's commentary on it, I'd love to take a look!

Anonymous asked: What mystical powers would the Dave of Guy title give a player? What insane abilities would the class of 'Dave' and the aspect of 'Guy' have?. ~DJ

David means beloved, and Guy is the name of a famous revolutionary.

Therefore, I believe the Dave of Guy would be 'beloved' by the very concept of disagreement, revolution and rebellion. In other words, the Aspect would always favor them, causing situations involving it to resolve in their favor.

If they argued against you, they'd win. If they fought against an institution, that institution would crumble. As long as they were fighting against some status quo, fate would smile on them.

Anonymous asked: If stuff about voice actors blows your mind, Casey Mongillo and Kira Buckland both got their start voicing Karkat and Vriska respectively in Youtube animations. Also "The idea of a work of fiction that subverts or wholly rejects the notion of ‘canon’ is pretty interesting, and on an academic level, it would be kind of cool to analyze it." Have you heard of this little show called Doctor Who? Because "there is no canon" is the position of the brand. I can elaborate on why if you're interested.

Oh, interesting! I was actually thinking about Doctor Who while answering that ask, because the idea of a story that stopped caring about its own lore was an unwelcome reminder of Moffat's era on the show.

I'd be really interested in hearing your thoughts on Doctor Who re: canon discourse, if you're willing to send!

Anonymous asked: i think you should talk about moffat

I was very tempted to compile a full essay summarizing my thoughts on Moffat, but I don't really have the time right now. Rest assured, some day I will absolutely go off on the Moffat era of Doctor Who - and let's not even talk about Sherlock.

@manorinthewoods asked: You may not be able to imagine Nepeta and Eridan being pals, but all the Erinep shippers certainly could. ~LOSS (15/12/24)

Please tell me their ship name is catfish.

@bladekindeyewear submitted: Now that the clock has “landed” on Just for Vriska, I wanted to talk a bit about how a WHILE back you pointed out Terezi’s coin flip as a crucial moment of morality… to me at the time, I believed that if any moment doomed her to a Just death, it was Vriska’s actions around that coin flip, that it was more important than just a narrative performance: Terezi was begging Vriska to leave even a SHRED OF CHANCE in the hands of the trolls to have her stay instead of leave, to give the other trolls even the last of a gambler’s luck of a collective say in whether or not she pursued this course of action that endangered them, and she stole it. Made it a constant across all timelines. I think that’s what crossed the last line of moral ambiguity, that she would not allow her friends a shred of agency over how reality unfolded… except to kill her. I felt THAT is what forced it to be Just, and that injustice is indeed perhaps a matter of trampling over the rights of others.

Perhaps, perhaps.

Mind you, I don't know if it's necessarily always a good or heroic thing to allow a Sburb Player full agency over their actions, nor is it necessarily a bad thing to restrict them, in certain cases.

If Eridan, for example, had been allowed to live his truth on the Veil, no lowblood would have made it out of there alive - and I wouldn't necessarily bet on the highbloods' survival, either. Kanaya was absolutely in the right when she cleaved his agency into two roughly equal pieces.

Vriska was definitely in the wrong when she rigged the coin, but I don't think it was because she didn't allow her friends agency - it was because she was going to get everyone killed. If Vriska had rigged a game against, say, Gamzee, and stopped his rampage as a result, she'd absolutely be doing something heroic, no matter now much she was trampling on his agency to do so.

@manorinthewoods asked: I am rereading my favorite HS fanfic, Like One Sundered Star, to research for Slurb (Sally Sburb), and I have determined that it may be viable liveblogging material, at least towards the second half. Unfortunately, it's image-poor, incredibly long, has a slow and almost a bit weak beginning, is less blog-dense, and also requires a different fanfic to be read first if you want to understand what happened at the start. ~LOSS (14/12/24)

That's the one that's as long as Worm, right? I'm definitely not saying no, but I also think I'd need a lot more free time to do it.

Plus, the lack of images, I think, would throw me off. That said, I did consider liveblogging Worm itself, back when I was reading it. I do think I could liveblog an entirely text-based story, but I'd probably have to rethink my approach.

@securitycapecreature asked: John kissed rose to save her live, same with jade kissing dave, karkats shipping chart is coming true before our very eyes

For a bisexual alien, his shipping is awfully straight, isn't it? I still think Rose/Jade makes much more sense than Rose/John.

@elkian asked: Game rec for Sally: I think you'd enjoy In Stars And Time, a tragicomic timeloop game. There's a handful of Homestuck references (including in the SASASAP artbook) and the humor+gameplay concepts are reminiscent of Undertale but it stands on its own. I'd actually strongly rec playing Start Again: A Prologue first, it's about 2-ish hours and sets the stage for ISAT. Both are really funny which I didn't expect from glancing at the promos so putting that there

I saw that one trending on Tumblr recently, and I'm a sucker for time travel stories. It's on the list!

Anonymous asked: Theres been fun discussion of the way homestuck uses the word play in meta gaming sense but noone's mentioned the word act yet have they? That's not a game word, that's an THEATER word. entire narrative of Homestuck is structured like a play script: it's separated into acts, narration is stage direction, all the dialogue is PLAYER DIALOGUE bc all the characters are actors playing their roles. and if you fuck up your role you get kicked out and REPLACED. exiles arent just npcs theyre STAGEHANDS

Ooh, I like these musings. It reminds me of how the Locked Tomb short story The Unwanted Guest plays with the idea of theatre as a metaphor. Taz Muir's Homestuck phase strikes again!

@bladekindeyewear asked: As we edge ever closer toward this Act’s inevitable conclusion, you asked if for a theory recap we could compile some of the DISPROVEN theories for you— and I’m sure we’ll find a good few to run by you for fun. Though the original Homestuck forums and threads are irrecoverable so much has been lost. But one of the things troubling me is this: Homestuck’s mysteries can be DEEP, leaving much implied. What about theories we formed at the time that were NEVER fully confirmed, might still be important, and which we shouldn’t even be implying to you whether there was any more evidence later because THAT would be a spoiler in and of itself? I think that’s what’s been getting me to hound you the most about opportunities to suggest more theories about stuff from past pages and thoughts we had SOLELY based on evidence we had AT THE TIME or earlier, because sometimes there may be shit amasses circumstantial evidence so many layers deep without EVER being confirmed, because as Andrew liked to put it, “Homestuck is a story that is also a puzzle”. And this onion has some deep effin’ layers we wouldn’t have even THOUGHT we might have reached without working together for years rereading this beast. If you’re still going about it solo, I thought at the end of this act you could use some of the keys we THOUGHT we found DURING this past act that we believed were finally unlocking deeper layers to squeeze twice as much juice or more out of every page.

See, the main problem here is that if a theory was never confirmed, then knowing about it sort of implicitly spoils parts of the comic. The more I know about what won't happen, the closer I get to knowing what will happen.

Therefore, I'm going to say 'not until much later on'. The kind of meta you're talking about would be absolutely fascinating to me, but I think it'd change my perception of the comic too much while I'm still liveblogging.

Anonymous asked: Jade on the page 3946 looks like those weird worms (worm on a string) :D

It's time to come off the string, Jadesprite. Release your true power!

Anonymous asked: You probably have a hundred of these by now, but at some point, those mini-side-story banners get hover-over Alt Text, so keep an eye out for that. Anonymous asked: don't forget to look at the top panels in this section :) rockernator2 asked: Don't know if anyone else has told you this, but there is (or is going to be) alt text on the upper pictures. Anonymous asked: make sure you keep an eye on what's happening at the top of the page! Anonymous asked: You've probably gotten at least one mention of this already, but if you haven't noticed it, it's worthwhile to look at the "banner" at the top of the page starting on page 3797. @bananonbinary asked: psst in true doc scratch fashion, the top panels actually have some alt-text if you hover the mouse over them. he's gotta make you work for it. @bananonbinary asked: oh dang oh shoot oh no thats not for a little bit yet i misremembered rip sorry Cat

[probably good to know early so you can watch out for it - C]

Noted! I just took a look back through the entire Scratch Sequence, and there's been no alt-text thus far. I have been worried about missing stuff in this sequence, given that there's so much going on.

@elkian asked: The Mendicant's Mauler Monologue took me the fuck OUT xD @metroid-fusion asked: hey sally the mailbox description joke was really really funny. youre good at homestuck

Something that is both normal to want, and possible to achieve!

I think PM herself would approve, too. She loves choosing violence.

Anonymous asked: "At some point, I'll have to check if any other lands feature musical symbolism." You mean like that giant record turntable thing in LoHaC? :P @sanctferum asked: "At some point, I’ll have to check if any other Lands feature musical symbolism." I don't remember if there's anything like that on LOFAF other than like, frog croaking (and what a musical genre that is! their albums are already sold out on whatever remains of Prospit, I'm sure), but boy does LOHAC not only have a giant CD, but one that's also the session's scratch construct. Dave's destiny must be to drop the sickest mixtape of all time, while trapping the pimp within his crib like it is hot. @wickedsick asked: "At some point, I'll have to check if any other Lands feature musical symbolism."

Yeah, it's definitely a possibility. (in all seriousness, Dave manipulates the stock market through time travel the way a DJ manipulates and mixes songs (represented through vinyls)?)

fucking LOL. This is what I get for liveblogging at 2am, I guess!

@garnetduodecim asked: Technically what doomed the time line wasn’t John dying, it was Dave prototyping Lil’Cal @bladekindeyewear asked: Doomed John said if he hadn't gone to see his Denizen, Dave(sprite) wouldn't go back and fix things so they could exist… but Dave THOUGHT John's death was why he needed to rewind. So what "doomed" the timeline before John even reached his denizen? One frightening possible answer: CALSPRITE. A prototyped Lil Cal wouldn't have been sent to Alternia in the wallet to be the base for Doc Scratch and guide their universe's creation. LIL CAL'S temporal necessity may have killed the timeline!

The order of events isn't entirely clear here, but you're right - Cal might very well have been prototyped before John flew through that Gate.

Future Dave immediately prevented both events when he travelled back, so it's impossible to say for sure - but I like this theory. That damn puppet is just... inescapable.

@pineapple-temporarily-moving asked: jsyk, you seem to have misinterpreted the line about trolls' eyes changing color when they grow up! only their irises change from gray to their blood color, their sclera do stay orange. mindfang is, indeed, old Anonymous asked: Trolls' /irises/ fill in with their blood pigment as they get older, not the orange part. Mindfang probably had blue eyes, we just don't generally get to see characters' irises. @abysswarlock asked: The eye color thing Vriska was saying was that the grey irises fill in with the troll’s blood pigment color, similar to how the kids iris colors match the color they type in @elkian asked: I always read Vriska's "fill in as we age" thing refer to the irises mentioned previously, but it's kind of just interpreted however. And Homestuck has so much symbolism and stylistic choices that it's not really clear lmao. @skelekingfeddy asked: im pretty sure the ‘eyes filling in with their blood color’ refers to their irises not their whole eyes

So no red-eyed Karkat?

0/10. Literally unreadable.

@krixwell asked: You mentioned in the ask compilation you just posted that the Aspects might operate on a meta level as well as a physical. You've already covered Void, but what do you make of the other Aspects through this lens? @heliotropopause asked: "Maybe Aspects can work on a meta level, as well as a literal one. Like, perhaps Void is the aspect of author uncertainty, […]" the meta level is honestly the most interesting aspect to aspects to me, and i'd love to see you have a go at it; there's definitely some analysis to be done there. @ariamaki asked: "Maybe Aspects can work on a meta level" AN IMPORTANT LESSON WAS LEARNED THIS DAY. I would love to hear your (current) thoughts as to what this would mean when expanded out to the other Aspects, because this is something I think about a lot.

So, this is a type of meta interpretation that I do like analyzing - but to be honest, I don't have many other meta interpretations for specific Aspects. Not yet, anyway.

That said, Sburb is essentially a story that forces itself on its Players, so it would be kind of cool if the Titles were part of that forced story, in some abstract way. I have started to wonder if Time and Space might represent plot and setting, respectively - but so far, that's only a half-baked idea. I'll definitely be returning to this idea in the future, when we've seen a little more of the other Aspects.

@galaxa-13 asked: "GT: my feathers are all ruffled, and i can no longer tell my ass apart from a big orange earth vegetable!" The joke here is "I can't tell my ass from [blank]" which is a pretty common saying when you're frustrated and confused. So John is basically saying "Oh yeah, you sure trolled me good! Because that's clearly what you're doing, trolling me. I am so ruffled!" Anonymous asked: For your information, an orange is not a "big orange earth VEGETABLE". Now, try and use your deductive skills to figure out what orange vegetable is being talked about. ~DJ

I know it was referencing a pumpkin, but I've honestly never heard that saying before. Perhaps it's a lot more popular in the US - or perhaps I'm just one of today's lucky 10'000.

Anonymous asked: Based on what you like about the comic (the same stuff I like) I doubt you would like any of the homestuck sequel/continuation stuff other than [one thing]. There's not much technical stuff, and I personally was really put off by the content of the sequels. I know some people like them but homestuck and it's sequels are very different types of stories. Anonymous asked: Regarding the epilogues (and Beyond Canon) to me, they feel like an interesting story - not necessarily things I would think the characters “would ‘actually’do”, but the themes about growing up, young adulthood, and friendships really resonated with me. A lot of the talk about “canonness” went over my head until it was pointed out to me, and I think that enhanced my enjoyment of it - I related to the story being told, and sort of regarded it as less what I thought would “really” happen and more an interesting idea telling me deep truths about myself. @manorinthewoods asked: To chime in on my view of the Epilogues - honestly, I think they are not particularly good, and until James Roach takes over 2 it's not particularly good either. I don't know whether I'd be sure in saying that reading them detracts from Homestuck, but I think I'd be comfortable saying that they are a continuation of what I feel to be a slow downward swing in quality after Act 5 - and an understandable one, given how Hussie must have been going through the mother of all burnout. ~LOSS (10/12/24)

Sounds about right. We had a bit of a chat about this on the Discord, and came to the conclusion that the tie-ins are probably going to be less appealing to me than the comic proper.

I'm going to default to a 'liveblog-lite' format for them, but reserve the right to do a deeper dive if I'm enjoying myself enough to warrant it!

Anonymous asked: In order to make 'Hostess' fit 8 letters, you'd have to use a typing quirk like Mindfang did with the Expatri8. As an example, the Condesce could have named her )(ostess, assuming that all ancestors share their typing quirks with their descendants. ~DJ Anonymous asked: If the main source for the Hostess' life is Mindfang, then yeah she'd probably have an 8 letter title. Otherwise, her title can be whatever number of letters you want. People do like sticking to the 8 letter rule for OCs, but compare - do real humans not often have given names with a different number of letters than 4, and surnames with a different number of letters than 6 or 7? Almost makes you question if all trolls really have 6/6 names.

Plus, the idea that Homestuck humans all have 6/7 letter surnames is a little weak anyway.

Four-letter first names might be a rule, but is a '6/7 letter surname' hypothesis really that much more likely than the hypothesis that there is no rule, and our four surnames are just between six and seven letters long by random chance?

@armchair-factotum asked: "Like, how does Rose’s chalk relate to bringing life back to her oceans? Did Hussie have different Quest in mind for her, back then?" Well, high concentrations of chalk in soil and water raises the pH, which might make it dificult for some plants and animals to live in? The "sand" on her island was all white and potentially made of chalk after all Anonymous asked: To elaborate on how the grist types/WV's items relate to the land quests: Oil is clogging the pipes that are integral to the salamanders' culture, preventing the Breeze from freely blowing through and delivering things, and the clouds trapping the fireflies are either smog from the oil or would normally be kept dispersed by the Breeze. Most of Rose's basic grist types (chalk, lime, marble) are forms of calcium carbonate, which is mostly formed through biological processes in the ocean, particularly through the accumulation of the shells of dead sea creatures like mollusks, corals, and foraminifera; chalk is formed from the skeletons of millions of dead plankton, and other forms of limestone also often contains fossils. Her beaches are the bleached bones of what once swam in the seas. Amber and rust are gumming up the gears of Dave's land, and the winter of Jade's land is implicitly a nuclear one. Last one is kind of ironically resolved by igniting a volcano, given sufficiently powerful eruptions can in theory create a similar winter effect. Not directly relevant, but I invite everyone to look up Verneshots, fun concept related to volcanoes and meteors. I feel like in the alternate Homestuck where the land quests are more explored, Hussie might have worked those in. Even less directly relevant, the term Siberian Trap(s) refers to both a volcanic event and a chess opening, which again I think could have been a fun Battlefield element in a story more focused on Sburb mechanics. @galaxa-13 asked: Rose's chalk related to her quest of bringing life to the ocean in that it was chalk that poisoned the water to begin with. By killing enemies and collecting the chalk grist as loot she was removing the poison.

I really like the implication that the chalk the Imps were dropping actually came from LOLAR's soil - almost like the Underlings themselves were born out of the ground.

And fuck, LOFAF's a nuclear winter! That's so good!

Anonymous asked: just want to take the time to HIGHLY recommend Homestuck Made This World ("a podcast about the critical analysis and contextualization of homestuck") its done by 2 media studies guys and its really great! they end up talking about doc scratch as one of an ongoing series of author figures, starting with the narrator of the comic (obvious), then dave (literally has a conversation that is an edited version of one of hussies chatlogs), bro (shares hussies interests + some anecdotal stuff related to smuppets (listen to the pod)), then hussie the self insert (an escalation of the narrator), and now doc scratch… (spoiler it keeps hapening) Anonymous asked: If you're into podcasts and people discussing Homestuck, you should at some point check out Homestuck Made this World. A podcast by two literature PHDs, one a long time Homestuck fan and one who's never read it before, discussing the comic a couple hundred pages at a time! They have a lot of great discussions, and the longtime fan also provides a lot of context for what was going on in the fandom at the time the pages originally posted.

Noted! I might listen along to it when I finally get around to rereading Homestuck. That's what I did with We've Got Worm.

Anonymous asked: i dont think anyones mentioned yet that the "hiding in an attic from bullies with a scary-ass wolf head" is also a never-ending story reference. Specifically in that thats literally the entire meta narrative the book was built around that the movie left out. the "puking on bullies" thing is also only in the movie and not in the book. Hussie Knows his references. @pages-in-movies asked: Congrats on hitting the milestone of being introduced to the main pillars of Homestuck: Jungian shadow, Gnosticism, The Never-ending Story, and the quote "nothing new under the sun"

At some point, I'm going to need to host a NeverEnding Story movie night. That, or Con Air.

[botanphal]

THE VIVIBELLA BIBLE IS HERE AND IT’S QUEER

ENJOY

PREFACE

so you’re probably wondering. What is this weird sapphic tirade of 3K words? Well, this “note bible” was originally something I was going to keep for myself but figured others may want to see it too. This document is similar to a character bible, hence the name, except it’s more of a deep dive into two particular characters, strung out like notes. Please keep in mind that this document does not go into every idea I’ve had about these two but is more or less the basic ideas for the sake of consistency. This goes over canon and non-canon information which are separated so you know what’s true vs my own interpretations, though depending on which version of this post you’re reading, you may notice that there’s only canon information—which is more or less to let you have your own ideas from their purely canon-selves without the inspiration of my own non-canon ideas—the cut version of this document is also considerably smaller (1.7K). If you’re not on the canon cut version, then obviously the previous statement can be ignored. Regardless, I hope you have fun reading!

BOTANPHAL/PALIN’S VIVIBELLA BIBLE

LINKS

Just some links to their actual profiles for ease of access, as well as quotes and their theme music

Goombella:

https://www.mariowiki.com/Goombella

https://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_Goombella_quotes

https://youtu.be/1EmkKFaT7V4?si=erWshNwVBU5sfbo_

Vivian:

https://www.mariowiki.com/Vivian

https://www.mariowiki.com/List_of_Paper_Mario:_The_Thousand-Year_Door_quotes_by_character_(S–Z)

https://youtu.be/6WubRL1mPlQ?si=cY_tWs5TwyKZsr39

ESTABLISHING THE IDIOTS

let’s get down the gist of these sillies!

Goombella:

A junior at the university of Goom majoring in Archeology and seems to also consider herself a historian

- sassy, genuinely seems like she’d bite people’s fingers off sometimes

- nerd (but would backfire if you called her that given the note above)

- confident (of course, there are moments where she loses this but most of the time she seems rather self-actualized about things)

- kind, but does tend to poke fun at others (I can’t believe she called Koops cringe)

- curious

- knowledgeable (though she does make her mistakes regarding things like being fooled by Doopliss)

- excitable (after reading her dialogue over and over she uses a LOT of exclamation points. Girl calm down)

- kind of a hot head at times and jealous type, especially with how Ms. Mowz goes after Mario (Goombella definitely had a crush on him as well) and snaps back a lot though this could just be related to her mentioned sass

- this isn’t so much a character trait but she says “totally” a lot as well as “oh my gosh” which this one may be a catchphrase

Non-canon interpretations:

- has ADHD, needs meds or she loses her mind and becomes scrambled (top of the line “gifted” kid)

- possibly has a fear of heights given her comments at Hooktail’s castle making her nervous

- most Goombas seem to have two prominent fangs so I assume she’s missing one

- half Australian and half Maltese (has slightly an Australian accent but mostly sounds American)

- intersex, given Goombas are based off of mushrooms (and also chestnuts but I digress) and mushrooms are intersex, took estrogen to appear more feminine and identifies as a woman (this still applies to her gijinka, just that her species of demi-human is also all intersex)

- futch (femme/butch, will wear either or-or dress equal)

- has a lot of (unsuccessful) relationship experience which adds to her anxiety about her feelings for Vivian, specifically having dated three other people

- Full name is (Goom)Bellami Alessia Bones (Goom is a family title and not actually required to say, though she prefers to be called Bella than Bellami)

- 21 years old (while she has no confirmed age her being in her early 20s makes the most sense given she’s a Junior at university)

- has an earthy/dirt yet flowery scent

- has a cut on her right eyebrow

- loves savory flavors but occasionally enjoys spicy and sweet (Goombas have a main diet of meat so she tends to eat a lot of that)

- executive dysfunction sometimes causes her to not clean herself, but if someone complains then she will (she tends to carry around a perfume bottle)

- pansexual (possibly a coping lesbian)

- (gijinka) is missing the majority of her right forearm though she has a prosthetic for it (was born like that) and is missing almost all of her left arm aside for the shoulder (incidental)

- swears fairly often

Vivian:

Youngest of the three shadow sirens/sisters with the ability to use fire magic

- shy/somewhat reserved (opens up more later on, still shy but less reserved)

- cutesy (how the fuck did she speak with a heart symbol in one of her quotes)

- graceful

- polite

- sweet/kind (there should be no mistake to how far Vivian’s forgiveness goes considering she’s willing to forgive her own family that abused her for years—Vivian disowning them is not something Vivian herself would do)

- empathetic/sympathetic (I think about her random glitz pit dialogue a lot and how she worries if her and Mario did a bit too much on the enemies. But also she sometimes says “NO MERCY” she’s so silly)

- curious (moreso about most things being new to her due to being sheltered by her sisters for so long)

- submissive, though gains some confidence later on (this is just my own take but I feel like it’d take her longer than it does in-game to be more confident given the severity and length of abuse she experienced)

- struggles with an inferiority complex (this is actually a canon thing and made mention of) at the hands of her sisters abuse

- says “gee whiz” a lot, might be a catchphrase

- tends to stutter when nervous (possibly easy to fluster, especially considering she likely has not received a lot of compliments in her life)

Non-canon interpretations:

- possibly has athazagoraphobia (the fear of being forgotten) or just has general struggles with the concept

- given her trauma (mental/emotional abuse, unsure if there’s ever been physical though in one of the translations of the game Beldam apparently starved her, neglect from Marilyn), she probably would struggle with depression, anxiety and PTSD

- dysphoric, obviously feels better about herself the further into her transitioning (something about Vivian makes me feel like she’d struggle with dysphoria—it’s already a lesser discussed topic among fictional transwomen and given Vivian’s upbringing I think it’d make sense that she particularly has this and would make mention of it)

- she’s autistic and I can’t exactly explain why but someday I will (this very well could be projection uhhh. Anyway she probably doesn’t even know she has it or what it is, has had struggles to learn magic as the ways her sisters were trying to teach her weren’t working for her)

- demisexual-biromantic (I feel like it just makes sense for her to be this way given how she warms up to Mario and the same would apply to Goombella)

- has a beautiful singing voice partially learned from vocal training herself, however she is also called a shadow siren

- a piece of the Shadow Queen, her future

- has no exact ethnicity hc aside for being black as a gijinka, she’s something else entirely and can speak all languages (including sign language and braille) but mainly speaks English and Latin (if she were to be an actual human she’d be Eritrean and Sammarinese)

- femme (specifically loves to wear flowy things like dresses and skirts, the most “masculine” thing she’d wear is a suit)

- Has no full name, simply known as Vivian (if her and Goombella were to marry then she’d be Vivian Bones :flushed:)

- 20 years old

- has a smoldering lavender scent

- (gijinka) actually lost one of her legs while learning to veil, simply conjured up a convincing new one that she can freely remove

- can swear, refuses to do so (she’s too nice and polite the silly thing)

- is a pure-magical being so she requires frequent mana consumption to live, fire flowers are her favorite thing to use for this

- unaffected by fire and heat, can touch it without pain, body temperature is always high, only sweats when she’s sick, it’s very unusual for her to feel cold

- loves sweet, spicy and hot flavored things

- very clean, loves to shower or bathe (sometimes very atmospheric about it with hot water and candles)

- I like to think that she becomes a bookworm and wants to learn more about magic, but also reads up on psychology after the things she’s been put through

- shadow’s eyes are extremely sensitive to light, their hats have magical properties that keep them safe and shadow over them, without it she can only open her eyes in complete pitch-darkness, otherwise she keeps them closed (their gloves also work as buffers for their magic to make spells less intense, they’re sorta limiters in a way, Vivian especially has to wear them due to having fire powers and well… fire is commonly seen as destruction more than life)

- left handed, can use right okay

- knows how to cauterize wounds using her magic

- during new moons her appearance changes to more resemble the Shadow Queen, gaining more shades of purple and little stars speckling all over her, as well as having her eyes always shown

HOW THE FUCK DID WE GET HERE?

vivibella stems from Goombella’s tattle dialogue during the first battle with the three shadow sirens as shown:

note that this dialogue varies from the original GameCube version of the game compared to the Switch remake above:

unfortunate how the dialogue was nerfed compared to the original, making her seem jealous rather than having some kind of sapphic awakening but now I think of it as she’s deflecting what she’s feeling

DYNAMICS

- has a sort of opposites attract kinda thing going on, Goombella being the more open and expressive one while Vivian is the shy and reserved one

- enemies to friends to lovers

- love triangle (for the fact they both had a crush on Mario at one point but Goombella never seemed to be bothered by Vivian’s feelings for him unlike how she’s felt about the other women pining after him, she probably respects Vivian’s feelings for him given what he meant to her)

- the studier (Goombella) and one to be studied (Vivian) idk if there’s an actual name for this dynamic but I went into this concept a bit in this tweet:

- yapper x listener (I don’t think I have to explain who is who)

THAT ITALIAN GUY

Before we get into the meat of vivibella, it must be understood what Mario meant to these two. As it goes in TTYD, Mario for some reason is just a MAGNET for ladies and Goombella and Vivian are no exception to this, most of the female characters seem to express having a crush on him but let’s take a look at them individually:

Goombella particularly seems to fall under having a crush on him but she’s rather dismissive of it/acts like she doesn’t in a teasing way. She expresses jealousy whenever other female characters pursue him (think of Flurrie and Ms. Mowz, even speculates on Lady Bow post-game) but doesn’t with Vivian, likely due to the fact that Vivian doesn’t express her feelings for him around anyone (aside for the finale) considering during Chapter 4 it’s only her and Mario together when she kisses him—we don’t exactly know how Goombella would feel about Vivian’s feelings for Mario, but I think she’d probably be the most respectful to her given the things she’s been through and how Mario helped her open up and improve. During her letter to Mario at the end of the game, she talks about a “secret” which I imagine has to do with her crush on him, but she doesn’t follow through with it likely due to Mario’s pursuit of Peach

Vivian and Mario have a much deeper relationship compared to all the female characters that fall for him. Vivian definitely has a crush on him but also seems to actually be in love with him given the events that transpire; Mario helping her through her trauma and accepting her without question and also being a lending hand to someone in need despite his own troubles at the time of having lost his name, body and trusted companions. Even after realizing who he is and leaving given that he was her enemy at a certain point, she comes back upon realizing what he showed her and valued that over everything else as being the first person to EVER be kind to her. She turned her back on her family for him. During the final battle Vivian attempts to confess to him as well as during the end of the game when he’s leaving, but hesitates again due to the fact that she knows that he’d choose Peach and even thinks that the two would make a great couple. I’m sure it would be hard for Vivian to move on from him, he’s probably the first person she’s ever loved in such a way and again, he’s the first person to show her real kindness

THINKING TOO HARD

Goombella is obviously the one to crush first given her tattle dialogue, she may be kinda sassy about her feelings for her when teased by others but when she’s actually around Vivian she’s more reserved and anxious due to her shy and gentle nature, in some ways I feel like she may fear possibly scaring Vivian away by being too forward and is also afraid of the possible rejection as she’s aware of Vivian’s feelings for Mario despite him eventually not being in the picture (and of course possibly being unaware to the fact that Vivian is bi). Goombella’s probably very likely a girlfail and a fumbler when it comes to flirting but god if she isn’t confident about it and Vivian finds it endearing. I think it makes the most sense for her to confess later on as I’m sure she probably reaches some form of boiling point and just drops all her words out after being unable to hide it anymore (Vivian doesn’t like to assume things about others typically so that’s why I don’t see her confessing first instead)

Goombella falls first but I feel like Vivian would fall harder as the two of them grow closer, Vivian already experienced rejection from Mario so in some ways she probably wasn’t expecting to find successful love anytime soon nor in a more similar way to how Mario was with her. Of course, Goombella isn’t exactly like him at all but the kindness and patience is still there, albeit with some attitude which Vivian doesn’t mind. I think it would take a bit for Vivian to catch onto Goombella and her own feelings given her experience with Mario. This being her second experience with love, she’s definitely very inexperienced regarding all of it which is why she holds back. With my hc of Goombella having been through her own form of transition, a lot of comfort is to be found there for Vivian as they’re somewhat similar due to that. I don’t think Vivian really knows how to flirt but she’d give lots of compliments and do gestures, she’s also a girlfail but in a graceful way and tries not to show it, she’s kinda a secret dork (and I mean. With the fact she stutters when nervous. There isn't anyway this girl isn't also a girlfail of her own like come on now)

Regarding my own lore, I like to think that these two live together in Goombella’s Uni dorm after the events of TTYD. Vivian switches on Fridays to live with her sisters then back with Goombella the following Friday so on and so forth to help rebuild a healthy connection with them while with Goombella she explores herself given she’s been stuck with her sisters for so long. Their situation isn’t helped by the fact that they have to share a bed due to the limitations of Goombella’s Uni dorm size, though it is fancier as it’s more like an apartment with separate rooms, (basically consists of two small bedrooms, the other bedroom being her roommate’s, a living space and kitchen combo as well as a bathroom) still small though

Goombella tends to go to Flurrie for advice regarding her feelings for Vivian, while Vivian goes to Lady Bow after forming a friendship sometime after TTYD’s events. I also like to think that Flurrie and Lady Bow end up coming together to scheme about the two of them (neither are aware of this until they start dating)

Their relationship builds off of living together and Vivian learning about herself, Goombella there to guide her as someone who already knows her own life and the steps she took to get to where she’s at—the two spend a lot of time together obviously and Goombella strives to try and get something out of the two of them than just a friendship given her own growing feelings, even if it takes being more patient

Even on the weeks when Vivian’s living with her sisters Goombella tends to visit her and hang out, sometimes sleeping over as well. Vivian along the way starts to realize how Goombella’s care for her is much deeper than she originally thinks it is—in some ways Vivian already feels inspired by someone like her who is so confident and self assured, she could use someone like her to give her a nudge in the right direction

They probably even go out on adventures together which further strengthens their bond, which of course may stir up trouble and that leaves room for needing to rely on each other or help each other in such times of need (who doesn’t love some hurt and comfort mmmm)

CLOSING STATEMENT

Anyway, that’s really all I have though I have a feeling that even AFTER publishing this I’ll be still tweaking this until the day I die. I love these two very much if that uh….. Isn’t obvious at all. uh huh. I hope you gained some kind of enjoyment and understanding out of all this gay nonsense from these strange little sapphic creatures that have been rotting my brain for months :3

the canon version of this post will come out soon! This just took so long to do I’m going to explode rn

[pruneunfair]

"My feelings on" part 5. How to get my husband on my side and how it properly tackles abuse, eating disorders, and relationships.

Another super popular manhwa that I can understand why it's so beloved. The Borgias were actual people in history that inspired characters like the protagonist Ruby, and the title itself already feels different since the world of OI is all about being a perfect badass woman, funnily enough, HTGMHOMS does this better than most.

Rudbeckia/Ruby starts off with the behavior of the og fls that a lot of OI make fun of. She is surrounded by what appears to be loving family members and is already being prepped to be married of to Izek, she looks excited and ready to do whatever her family wants until her inner monolog reveals how she really feels about them especially her older brother Cezar. She hates almost all of them and her real reason for being excited for marriage is so she can get away from her abusive household and avoid death which shouldn't be hard since the transmigrator doesn't plan on poisoning her sister in law like og Ruby did. She's a master of hiding her feelings already which is attributed to her past life in a similarly abusive adoptive household.

Right off bat, Ruby is shown to be strong in the mental sense. Not only is she walking on eggshells she also suffers from an ED (likely bulimia), there a quite a few scenes where she's throwing up, refusing to eat a lot, or in later chapters, eating a lot more out of stress. Her family too is whole new level of psychological horror. They aren't cartoonist evil, for example Pope Borgia is usually kind to his daughter and treats her with respect until he feels like she's defying him, all of a sudden that kind caring nature is gone, then he becomes threatening, or her older brother Cezar who has been abusing her for years both physically and sexually, he keeps her in place through fear, intimidation, and attacking her on occasion which is only enhanced after he kills Rubys bird and feeds it to his turtle which gives Ruby a phobia of turtles. It's actually heartbreaking with how eerily realistic it is when these types of people are easily placed like normal family members in certain scenes, because that's often how abusive family members blend in, almost no one knows what they are really like and if you looked at a first glance without context, you'd think "Ah yes, that's just a brother next to his siblings." They're never truly gone, they just know how to hide their true colors so well.

This is why Ruby is so much stronger than a lot of people give her credit for, she's dealing with all of this at the same time and her only hope of respite is being as far as possible from her home country. It's easy to jump to the conclusion that Ruby is just a weak stereotypical protagonist everytime you see her pretend to fawn over Izeks presence but if you read further, you'd know that Ruby doesn't like it any better but she thinks she's doing what's right to avoid Izeks Wrath since she's the only one who knows what he is the one who kills the og Ruby in the novel.

Speaking of which, while Izek isn't my favorite ML ever, I still was shocked to find that I liked the typical cold nobleman persona on him. Unlike a lot of ML's Izek is allowed to be flawed and his negative traits and moments aren't brushed aside, they cause some issues like Ruby going out of her way to appear dainty and sweet so Izek won't kill her. He acknowledges how he has hurt her and grows from it and doesn't push her boundaries. It's possible for the cold Duke archetype to work but a lot of the time, the whole war hero past gets thrown to the side for baseless fan service or they're just unapologetically abusive. Izek however is in the in between. His cold and dangerous persona stays consistent but that doesn't make him one note and he gets to have geninue moments of care for those in his life rendering Izek to still be likeable.

Ive noticed that the narrative also makes sense instead of twisting itself for a stupid chance at a fan service plot. An example is Ellen and Freya.

An unfortunate sideffects from the fandom was on and off hatred of Ellen for considering what Freya had to say, taking her side or not even choosing a side at all. The readers know that Freya tried to get Ruby killed by tricking her into going into a monster infested forest or when she tried to frame Ruby for poisoning her, but does Ellen know that? Realistically she's not going to immediately turn her back on Freya since they were childhood friends along eith Izek but that doesn't mean she screams at Ruby either. Ellen does care about Ruby but she knew Freya longer than she knew Ruby. From her perspective, it' makes sense that Freya would be innocent.

But perhaps the best part about Ellen that makes her my favorite character is how she notices the little details on others. She's the first to find out that Ruby has an eating disorder and it's not out of nowhere either, Ellen and Izeks late mother also suffered from a eating disorder that Ellen witnessed more than once so it gives an explanation on how she can tell what Ruby is going through.

Side characters are treated just as well as the main cast too. From the other guards to the friendly monsters to minor antagonist and even the children are all given attention to be their own beings, it doesn't have to be a lot since most of what I mentioned are minor characters but then you got characters like Ivan who has a life outside of just being by Izeks side.

Out of all the side characters I gotta say the monsters are my favorites. It makes me wish there was a side story where Ruby successfully runs away forever and lives as a little witch with monster companions.

Of course like all media, HTGMHOMS has its flaws but I think I'll chill on this one since the flaws aren't large enough to ruin it and I want to stay positive on something I like for once.

Conclusion: This is a story that does such an amazing job with its commentary. Instead of just saying "Cezar abused Ruby in the past! Feel bad for her now!" For example, we are given actual flashbacks to respect the show don't tell rule. Other characters besides Ruby suffer from their own traumas and they get their own arcs on their hardships and how they recover from it, it handles eating disorders and trauma responses in a respectful way that has an actual effect on the plot. Most of all, it does all of this with the type of protagonist that has been deemed as "weak" before in the manhwa community. Ruby isn't a boss girl who is always successful and smart. She makes reckless decisions, she cries, she isn't always able to one-up her enemies like Freya. She's a human woman stuck in a world that's not her own but she still rises to the task at hand even with all her blunders. Ironically making her more feminist then many of the female leads before her.

[w0mped]

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, and this feels like the proper place to say:

Outside of art style and soundtrack, there’s no reason to watch Evangelion.

It wants to be so many things and fails at every single one.

Do you want a post apocalyptic show that delves into the major ramifications of 2 previous events and a possible third??? Evangelion’s not that. Half the time it forgets that the first or second impact even happened!!! They’re in a new version of Tokyo and so much is done to make everyone forget that their world has *RED OCEANS* and *MILLIONS OF CASUALTIES*. The apocalypse is ignored. I understand that some of that is themeing, yknow what do governments and people in power hide from us, but dude at some point it gets jarring when they have a whole episode about the red oceans and then they’re never seen again. The show doesn’t even tell you its lore. Subtext and context are definitely interesting ways to deliver information. Natural world building rocks, but there’s a difference between that and what Evangelion is. Evangelion has so many conversations that just kinda loop in on themselves and don’t help explain anything. I had to look at the wiki to understand anything that’s going on.

Do you want a cool mecha anime where they fight stuff and win the day? Evangelion’s not that. We get crumbs. Absolute morsels. Tiny bits and pieces of genuinely amazing fights. Again this isn’t an art rant the arts awesome The limitations on the Eva’s usage gives a reason behind it, but there’s a severe lack of mecha in this mecha anime. I understand that mecha anime do this where the mechs are a metaphor and all that. There’s merit to sneaking people into a drama by having cool explosions and robots, but the writing can’t carry the show. When they do fight, it’s ok…definitely not worth all the talking and philosophical bs. Philosophy is fine but it needs to be actually demonstrated. And will they explain the mechs at all? Not unless you mean WE PUT YOUR MOMS SOULS IN THE MECHS????? AND THATS WHY YOU CAN PILOT THEM???? I am willing to suspend my disbelief and engage with he story but that’s insane.

Do you want a character driven drama dealing with depression, anxiety and self improvement through hardship? Evangelion’s not that. 90% of the characters have no depth, and the ones that do aren’t that complicated. Shinji’s the most compelling and his journeys probably the best in the show….but Asuka and Rei are nothing… Asuka is the must stubbornly written character. I understand that the point is to show her immaturity and differences from Shinji, but that should not come at the expense of character depth. The fact that her and Shinji go through the same experiences and she doesn’t develop at all is frustrating. Rei, on the other hand, does nothing. She makes no active choices and is in a hospital bed more than she’s in the plot. So what if she’s a CLONE OF SHINJIS MOM?????? if she has no impact of the plot. If she died in the first episode, nothing would have changed. Kaowru is his own bag of worms but at least there’s a consistency. Misato, Kaji, and Ritsuko have their moments and actually offer a unique parallel to our current trio if you fully ignore Rei and Ritsuko but whatever. Will this ever be explored? A little? There’s some backstory about them but it’s extremely shallow imo. Kaji gets a decent amount of depth bc he talks about the plot with Shinji. He makes an effort to be a character. Penpen has more distinct character traits than the majority of the cast and that’s WILD.

Do you want a show with an ending????? Evangelion’s NOT THAT. Both the End of Evangelion movie AND the original series ending and notoriously confusing. The ending of the original series was meant to evoke a sense of overcoming your fears and connecting with others. Is this demonstrated well?? No. They do a bunch of trippy stuff and have an actually really wholesome sequence where everyone is in a different more classic school anime, but forget that they have to…yknow…conclude the show in a satisfying manner. The last 2 episodes feel entirely separate from the main show. I know about the production problems but that doesn’t make up for this There’s no through line. The writers were just like “uh oh yeah this needs to end. Now it ends now it’s over done good bye” and tried do cram all the philosophy into the final 2 episodes. On the other hand…the movie is made out of spite. The entire end of Evangelion film is made to tell the audience to go fuck themselves. I’m not reading into anything that’s the creators words. It’s a kill fest that is just there for the sake of being sad. There’s no plot and no explanation of anything occurring in any way. Just “look everyone turn to orange Fanta or get shot :3”.

If you want a show with depth that cares about its viewers, watch Code Geas or Madoka Magica. Genuinely masterful in their execution and theming.

Edit: this came off as super harsh yall, my b. New to tumbr so I don’t know the etiquette. Evangelion has value in what it’s trying to portray but there are parts I felt dropped the ball. I’m glad people like it, it’s just not for me :)

[bluegekk0]

do you think life and death exist as higher beings in your au? also, is there any character you think doesn't truly appreciate the life they have?

I do think they're not completely safe from death, though in their case it's primarily other gods which can be a threat. Similarly, they can also create life, whether by natural means (especially if they have physical forms capable of it, for example Grimm being able to bear offspring), or through magic.

This is actually something I was thinking about recently, so forgive me for going slightly off topic. I like the idea that the capability of creating or manipulating life is something that links the known essences together. The nightmare essence is an obvious case looking at Grimm, he's trapped in his realm so he uses it to create his form using what can best be summed up as "magic genetics". He modifies and writes it as if it was a DNA sequence almost. And I think this sort of ability would also be possible with other essences. In fact, both him and The Radiance were created through similar means by their father, and The Radiance continued it by creating the Moth Tribe from her dream essence.

Then there is soul (which I also call the soul essence in my AU to keep it consistent), and I do like the idea of Vyrm also using this kind of spell when he reduced his form. It makes sense, he changed his anatomy with this kind of "magic genome modification" ability, and then passed the modified traits onto his children, as if they were completely replaced. At the same time, traits which did not change his anatomy, such as his leucism, were left unmodified, and assuming he still carries a gene for the normal wyrm coloration (brown), it means that some of his children may not be leucistic. Asta, for instance, has brown fur patterns which are meant to be the brown wyrm colors. Though in Vyrm's case, since he wasn't born a god, I think it makes sense that the spell would use so much energy that he wouldn't be really able to modify it again while he still used soul magic.

This also ties nicely into White Lady's ability to create plant life, which I imagine works somewhat similarly. Unlike Vyrm, she is also capable of doing so consistently, though I'm sure there's also a big difference between creating plant life and completely rewriting your body plan to be smaller and more manageable, so what Vyrm did was still very impressive.

This leaves void as the last one (I'm still undecided whether I want to consider lifeblood its own essence in the AU), but even then this still applies to some extent. Void is definitely a bit of an outlier compared to the other essences, so the ability does not work the same. Still, though, it is able to animate lifeless objects and even imitate living things and recreate a biological-esque form, such was the case with the vessels.

---

Sorry for the tangent, I hope it at least offers some kind of response. As for the second question, let me think. Perhaps Tiso? Let me explain. I think he's the type to take life for granted, he puts little effort into building relationships, making meaningful connections, or just doing something good with his life. Most of the time he appears in Dirtmouth to cause trouble and he always acts like a jerk. In a lot of ways he's like Zote but Zote was able to find a friend in Holly, and being accepted into the Vyrm family started to change his perception a little. Tiso doesn't have that, at least just yet. He's skilled at fighting, even if he did get cold feet at the colosseum and didn't fight. I haven't explored his character much yet but I do think he has the capability to really do something great and find satisfaction in his life, he just hasn't done anything in that direction yet and instead is just wasting it by being a nuisance.

I'm not sure if this is the right answer, I actually haven't thought about any of the characters from this angle (well, I did with Vyrm, but he very much appreciates the chance he was given so he wouldn't fit here). But hey, random Tiso mention I suppose hahah

[tamelee]

I think a lot of sakura hate is undeserved. Like ik she's said and done some things that were out of pocket, but then again so did almost everyone else and no one else gets scrutinized as much as her. I don't even like her and her fans are incredibly annoying, but I feel this much is true. I think she'd still be one of the most hated characters in all of anime if her undeserved hate went away, so it doesn't really make much of a difference. I feel like her hate is kinda like sasuke's, sometimes it feels like he gets hated on just for being sasuke bc ik some things he's done would've been swept under the rug if another, more popular character did it (eg when he killed some samurai) for sakura, there are lots of incel fanart memes dudebros made to make fun of her, so it seems like they hate her for just being a woman who rejected a loser man and likes a better man. It's no wonder her fans are so annoying, that's what happens when your fave character gets undeserved constant hate. My fave is sasuke and sometimes even I wanna do some petty annoying shit just to piss his haters off too lol. Also since she's a woman, there's definitely some misogyny at play when her character is being analyzed by men. Or even women with internalized misogyny. It's stupid to deny that, misogyny is the most normalized oppression everywhere. So many ppl don't even realize they're being misogynistic, that's how normal it is. Sure it's not always the case but ignoring it is just being dumb. Her fans using the misogyny card to actual genuine criticism is definitely stupid though. Like it's possible to not like a woman and not be misogynistic ofc. Also when they use that when sns fans ship sasuke with naruto instead of sakura, that's even dumber 😂 how is not shipping a woman with a man and instead shipping him with another man misogynistic in any way lol. But yeah, I'm definitely not on her fans side, or even a fan of her myself, but I can still acknowledge this

+ 2 Asks - long post:

When talking about critiquing characters and analyzing stories, it doesn't really matter who's doing the talking – whether they're fans, critics, or just people who love or don't love a particular show or character. We can't always figure out why (especially anonymous) people feel the way they do and how do we even discern the motivation or background of those who do so? —whether they're misogynistic, incels, dudebros, fans, or critics of whatever other stories, among other factors. In fact, in this case it’s pretty irrelevant? Or only relevant here because you brought it up.

Nevertheless, that doesn’t take away the fact that a significant portion of the 'Naruto' audience finds Sakura's character unlikable. She consistently is found at the center of conversations about the most disliked Anime characters. This is ultimately a reflection of storytelling, rather than solely an audience reaction. And that leads to a broader discussion about Kishimoto’s writing where many blame his lack of skill in writing when it comes to the portrayal of female characters. (Opinions may vary, so does mine.) Dismissing criticism by categorizing critics as incels or misogynists is oversimplifying it tbh because of course they harbor specific biases against a character like Sakura which in itself isn’t fair and would definitely make it ‘undeserved’. (I really wouldn’t use that term for a fictional character unless we talk about the story itself tbh.) You yourself say “not always the case...” So that doesn't mean Kishimoto's portrayal of Sakura or any other character, and the genuine criticism she receives for universally disliked traits, is any less valid. Many perceive her as selfish, and Kishimoto himself has used that specific term (and even worse) to describe her. So, you can’t deny that this foundation of her character exists. Her decisions and behavior make sense even if people preferred to see it differently. 

Though, when analyzing, it is important to keep the Shinobi world in mind, and only our own as reference. And that’s exactly why the hatred Sasuke gets is not the same.... :

The amount of hate/criticism has nothing to do with a comparison though. Sakura's actions are often deliberately misunderstood, twisted to fit certain narratives that are in her favor and even exaggerated to counteract the hate like the first ask said. On the other hand, Sasuke is generally misunderstood and is hated for it. Often not getting even a tiny bit of compassion because some people struggle to see beyond his exterior and just ride the Naruto-verse’s moral/value waves from the narrative. Where the entire point was that those ideals needed change. 

SAVE HIM!? Why is it always so actively ignored that Sakura tried to kill Sasuke twice but him defending himself or fighting back is ‘so incredibly evil’? This ‘resolve’ of hers becomes even more significant to Kishimoto’s message when we consider that she intentionally represents the same ideals that led to the genocide and with that- agreed to eliminate him without attempting to understand him even once. Repeating history in the meantime where, again, that change is necessary. And you start with trying to understand the other, something Naruto had to learn too and actively had to find that answer by himself. Never once did she actually listen to Sasuke when he tried to open up and instead twisted the few words he got out to make it about herself. Not only disregarding his (and Naruto’s) trauma but shitting on it, thinking he, of ALL people, would feel happy with her abandoning her family and friends for him and comparing her feeling lonely without Sasuke to his entire clan being murdered what forced him to grow up alone. I mean, hello? Kishimoto was saying something very loudly there and it’s nothing positive about Sakura and that certainly has nothing to do with a lack of writing skills, the opposite actually. Even if she was briefly a teammate, she rightfully became irrelevant to him, and her decision to get rid of the (in her and the world's eyes) “criminal” was entirely for her own sake because she couldn't bear to see her crush behave like one and deal with her irrelevance.  

She rejected everything Sasuke wanted, needed, and desired, including his central 'why' in the story. She reduced him to a moody handsome boiii with no goals of his own, one she neither could nor wanted to understand. She tried to insert herself into his goals without him giving her any reason to, and when unsuccessful, she wanted to discard them altogether thinking he was ‘too far gone’. Like Sasuke as a person as a whole was her ‘burden’ to bear simply because she wanted to be somewhat relevant. Even Kakashi said it :/ although he thought she did it all out of the kindness of her heart. (Ffs, Kakashi I like you, but no.) Now, please consider EVERYTHING and then think again why Sakura thought of Sasuke as a burden or why she felt burdened by him while lying about her trust in him to Sai? 👀

The importance of Sasuke having a goal is immense because he grapples with survivor's guilt. A goal provides a reason to keep going, a way to carry the pain and blame he places on himself. It allows him to be strategic and have a plan, which is the only source of hope that things may eventually improve. He rejected what Naruto stood for because he found it distracting and hard to trust at that point. OF COURSE he fought so fucking hard against it. No matter his feelings for Naruto, relying solely on effort like Naruto wasn't something he could do. Especially considering how his beloved brother had betrayed him in the worst possible way.

Now, here's a question for you: why would Sakura need to receive compassion or 'deserve' it when, as a character, she rarely demonstrated it herself, especially when it comes to the person she claims to like so much? And if anyone thinks that was out of love in any way, which it wasn't, then what does it all mean for Naruto????

If you genuinely believe there was any point in the story Sakura tried to save Sasuke for Sasuke’s sake then I hope you’re able to read the story again and question this very rigorously for yourself. Not just her actions, but what Kishimoto tried to actually show/tell and use them to measure how it stands against the bigger Themes also.  

Lastly: the whole point of needing to kill Naruto was BECAUSE he cared for him lol, read Sasuke's monologue again if it helps. That his bond with Naruto had too much of an impact on Sasuke. His one and only, his most important person/friend, only bond left that kept him from truly being alone, Naruto’s life in itself too much of a threat to his heart even when separated, blabla- should I go on? 🤔      

[tallysgreatestfan]

Can't believe I realize something new about Tally fourteen years after first reading the book, but thinking about how she basically abandons Shay for random guys she knows for much shorter who give her attention - first David and then Zane.

This is not actually shitty vain hetero girl trait thinking a guy she knew for one day is more important than her female best friend, and it is not actually just limited on David and Zane.

Listen. Perhaps Tallys most consistent character trait is that she is incredibly insecure, and that she wants to fit in at all cost.

It makes sense that she gives whoever gives her the most attention in a situation priority, because she feels that this will be limited and she is not worth this and they will move on the second she does anything wrong or does not prioritize them enough.

And it happens with Shay too. At the beginning of Uglies, where she suddenly doesn't care about Peris anymore, but also at the beginning of Specials, where she teams up with Shay to hunt down David - until she meets Zane again, and then Zane is priority again.

I can relate to Shay so much, though. This is just not a good situation to be in, and one of my favorite things about Uglies is how Scott Westerfeld takes this very real feeling weird codependent toxic girl friendship but in a context where it is exploited by a dystopian government.

And it becomes even more messy and painful through the bisexual undertones. Before the movie I wondered if that subtext was actually intentional; Scott has a number of sapphic books, including the one before the Uglies series, The Risen Empire, but having a canon sapphic romance in a teens book would not have been possible or at least very difficult in 2005. Now I think if it was intentional, he would have made it canon in the movie, which would have been such a better choice than playing up the m/f romances. But as a bisexual woman their pining and jealousy and simultaneously not really seeming to comprehend that they are in love with each other still is very relateable.

I also don't think that Tally is selfish. If she has the choice, she is actually very much capable of being very selfless, like sacrificing herself for a chance of saving Shay at the end of Uglies, or staying with Zane knowing she will be forced back into the system again, or flying back to Seatac trying to get Dr. Cable to back off knowing she will very likely either be killed or brainwashed in Specials.

But she is incredibly self-centered. Not sure if neurotypicals even get the difference, but like... Well, neurotypicals instinctively know how their actions will influence those close to them, and instinctively think about these people. A lot of neurodivergent people, especially autistic people like me, are capable of this too - but it has to be a conscious choice. Which means that if we are stressed out or forget to do this for any other reason, we don't see how this will influence other people at first. Which got me labeled as selfish so often.

Tally does a lot of impulsive, bad, self-centered choices, mostly out of panic, but when these choices end up affecting everyone around her, she does understand that this was harmful and hates herself for it.

And yes, she is canonically neurodivergent (as is Shay, and Zane). Not sure if its intentional in Uglies, where it is rather subtle - her having barely any friends, being incredibly fixated on fitting in, the impulsiveness, the random weirdness (cat vomit sky, wolf howling over the wild water for no reason), having really bad social skills and a talent for ruining her relationships. But it is canon in Pretties, even if the eating disorder part is handled rather badly, and it is very explicitly canon in Specials, even aside from the equally bad self harm representation, though it is also shown that the Special surgery kind of played that up and molded it in a way that would make her more useful and compliant as a super soldier.

Together with this attention shifting behavior this is just not particularly likeable, but also she feels so human

[raayllum]

hi. i always see your analysis and theories in my dash and they're always so well thought and interesting and conecting a lot of things i personally would never think to conect but actually make so much sense when put like that

so hm, not to be weird online, but how does one learn to like interpret and understand what's going on on a piece of midia, yk, cause only consuming doesn't do it? Anyway

your edits are really nice

FIRST OFF this is soo nice omg thank you <333 also never worry about being weird online i'm always more unhinged, this is an unhinged space

which ironically is kind of the best way to get good at literary analysis tbh! I wrote a post about it here but that was more on how to organize thoughts / write meta > finding the things to write meta about (aka the "this feels gratuitous" draft is still in my drafts as we speak — might be time to clean it and some others up and post it).

In a lot of ways there tends to be like.... two main avenues for analysis? Which is an oversimplification but is making sense to me in the moment, and I'd specify the divide is

Treating characters like people (characterization, relationships) vs treating characters like tools (motifs, symbols, plot structure, dynamics).

Ideally, a narrative merges these two things so completely it's hard to separate, and I think TDP does an extaordinarily good job at it. I'll call this marriage Theme since its the main idea(s) of the Story/Narrative and everything should at its best be working together in service of the Theme if you want something cohesive.

I'll use Callum and Rayla as an example just cause I think they exemplify a Lot of how/why this all works and works as well as it does.

If I want to write about Callum and Rayla's internal psyches, i.e. where does Callum's temper or Rayla's gruffness come from? I'm going to look at them as people. They're going to have consistent triggers, responses, contradictory emotions or emotional reactions, etc. This is like the how you wrap a present, the colour and feel of the paper. Any character in a story can technically have any kind of personality, i.e. an assassin can be sweet and snarky (like Rayla) or stoic and rigid (Runaan). That's not all they are, of course, but the characters' personalities often times affect how and why we ship what we do, or have certain favourites, etc.

For example, Callum's primary Narrative Purpose is to be a human mage. He's there to explore the range of possibilities a human who wants/chases magic in the story can have, and we pretty closely follow his magical journey of feeling powerless, struggling and achieving primal magic, and guilt and desperation that drives him to dark magic. But absolutely none of this means that Callum needed to have a temper.

To see the way a character trait can be married to a motif (repeating symbol) let's look at Rayla. Rayla can be secretive — not telling people everything and being closed off about her emotions — and often leaves to try do things on her own, occasionally flat out disappearing. These are her personality traits (characterization), most of these psychological aspects come back to not feeling like she deserves help or not wanting to hurt people, thereby hurting her relationships. She's a person.

At the same time, these traits help us as the audience understand and grasp how the series treats the Moon and its arcanum. The Moon is a symbol, and it's all about changing faces, secrets, and illusions. We don't know whether the ideas for the Moon arcanum (which seem to be loosely taken from Tarot) or Rayla's personality came first, but it's clear that at some point they merged to reflect each other.

If I want to talk about Rayla as a person, I'll talk about how her personality/choices affect her relationships. If I want to talk about how she reflects her primal or how she choices affect the plot, I'll be talking more about structure. If I want to talk about how both of those things say, in a speculative meta about Callum connecting to the Moon arcanum as he understands Rayla (and himself) better, then I'd be talking about both simultaneously (theme).

But those are all like, examples of how you can break stuff down that you see. How do you go looking for stuff / know what to break down?

1) Pick a piece of media, ideally one you already feel very comfortable and familiar with. Book, show, whatever. This familiarity means you can focus less on the processing the plot and more about other elements of the story. Then watch or read the thing but try to pay attention to like, a few pre-chosen ideas or themes. It could be the theme of power, or — I'm thinking for something like ATLA - how the characters reflect their elements (Aang is evasive and avoidant, and air is light and breezy, etc).

For a TV show in particular, it can mean breaking things down scene by scene in an episode to see what the anchoring idea of it, i.e. 1x06 in TDP is all about Soren, Claudia, and Rayla keeping secrets. Soren and Claudia keep their secrets and isolate themselves, because isolationism in the series is usually Bad; Rayla shares her secret, because working through problems and letting people help you (being collaborative) is Good, etc. These messages are pretty consistent throughout the rest of the show as well.

If applicable, I'd recommend starting out with stories where you already know the ending and/or even better, the story itself is aware you know the ending from the beginning (i.e. in Titanic, you always know the ship is going to sink). This can help you pick up on dramatic irony (everyone emphasizing the ship won't sink) as well as setup (the movie making sure we know there's not enough boats, people making the boat go faster, the moment the ship hits the iceberg literally separating Jack and Rose from each other to set up what happens later, etc).

2) If you wanna learn how to analyze, to a certain degree you have to learn to shut down your feelings and biases. This doesn't mean that feelings can't affect how you analyze, or dictate what you want to analyze (I feel very positively towards TDP and therefore I want to deeply analyze it! same with Rayllum) but it does mean leaving "I want this thing so it has to happen" at the door — or vice versa.

The best example I can give is a hypothetical one. For example, it kind of doesn't matter if I — personally — think that Callum and Rayla have known each other that long to know each other well. (I don't, for the record, but bear with me.) In the Text of the Story, they know each other incredibly well, and more to the point, thematically, their senses of self are so incredibly intertwined that them affirming each other's senses of self is like... the only place we could be going. Rayla is "Rayla saves people," so by saving a possessed Callum she's saving herself, and if she goes to kill him, she's likewise metaphorically going to be killing herself (her own sense of identity), etc.

Or for a non-ship example, my real life feelings about monarchy don't matter. I don't like monarchy, I think most western monarchies are crap... and I'd be silly if I brought those feelings into TDP's discussion of monarchy, because they're using monarchy as a vessel to discuss things like power, responsibility, and growing up, particularly for Ezran and Janai (and how often do we see non-white monarchies in media anyway?). And if I want to engage with those themes, then I have to engage with TDP's discussion of monarchy.

It's kind of like how even if something in a story grosses you out or makes you uncomfortable, you have to be really damn sure that wasn't an Intentional writing choice on Purpose or a chance for self reflection before it's launched as a complaint.

Doing this kind of awareness and predictive work also means you'll get better at predicting where stories might be going and leaving ahead of time if something is going off the rails / not going your way (in a bad way).

3) Growing a list of common themes and symbols that stories tend to have. Birds = freedom, chains = entrapment and coercion, grief, identity (particularly in coming-of-age stories), etc. If you have a loose idea of what to look for, that means you can also start to look at the specifics of how stories use these themes/symbols. For example, Midsummer Night's Dream and Romeo and Juliet both feature a theme of love amongst forbidden lovers, but the first is a comedy (love conquers all, even if it makes people foolish) and the second is a tragedy (love is not always enough to conquer hate/violence/our worst impulses).

For example in TDP, although it was in the background in s1-s3, light and darkness has now become a very overt motif (repeated symbol) in both dialogue and imagery. Tracking what those things represent or how the show complicates their meaning (light isn't always good, etc) can help indicate where certain characters or plot beats are going.

This can also mean trying to notice consistent metaphors (i.e. dark magic is often consumed by the caster for spells / referenced with cannibalistic language; dark magic corruption is increasingly seen as spreading sickness/illness) and then being on the lookout for the next time(s) they show up. So much of media literacy / critical thinking is just being able to explain/figure out why you think what you think (with evidence) and it's always a skill that can be nurtured and improved

End of Blabbing

Very long winded but hopefully helpful, and always feel free to ask more questions and/or DM if you'd like! I always love talking about stuff like this and it's such a treat tbh <3

[3c1air]

[(Jeff the Killer: Info Sheet)]

Start: 07/09 — Finish: 07/09

Links: Overall Masterlist & Rules

DISCLAIMER!! Information from multiple sources to give an understanding profile on him - so some things may not be 100% accurate, however, I’m really trying to find “fact”.

|| NOTE: I’m making an Info Sheet on each character I write for so the reader knows what they need to know about the character.

——————————————————————————-

Title: Jeff the Killer

Real Name: Jeffery Woods

Aliases: Jeff, Jeffery the Killer, Joker Reject/Rip-off

Relatives:

Margaret (Deceased Mother)

Peter (Deceased Father)

Liu (Presumed Deceased Brother).

Occupation: Serial Killer.

Powers/Skills:

Hand-To-Hand Combat Prowess

Enhanced Senses

Athleticism

Inhuman Durability

Inhuman Stamina

Great Stealth

Status: Alive

Species: Human

Sex & Gender: Male & He/him

Hobbies:

Murdering people to satisfy his bloodlust

Stalking his victims

Goals:

End as many lives as possible (On-going)

Kill his parents (Succeeded) and his brother (on-going)

Kill Randy, Troy, and Keith (Succeeded)

Type of Pasta: Psychotic Serial Killer

Origin:

Jeff was a 13-year-old who moved to a new neighborhood with his brother, Liu, and their parents. On their first day of school, they were accosted by 3 bullies named Randy, Keith, & Troy, whom Jeff brutally beat up after they threatened them with knives. Liu took the blame for it and was arrested, sending Jeff into a deep depression. The bullies later attacked Jeff again at a party, and Jeff killed one of them, but not before getting covered in bleach and lit on fire by Keith. During this fight, Jeff's mind permanently snapped.

When Jeff woke up, he was at the hospital and his head was wrapped in bandages. When the bandages were taken off, it was revealed that his face had become disfigured and ghastly pale from the burns, with bright red lips and a leathery texture. Jeff said that he liked his face this way and laughed hysterically, but the doctor foolishly thought that this insanity was merely a side effect of the painkillers and let Jeff go home.

Later that night, Jeff's mother found him carving his face into a permanent smile so that he would no longer have to exert energy to smile, as he put it, and burning off his eyelids so he could always see his face. Jeff's mother went to her husband to tell him that their son had gone completely mad and needed to be killed, but Jeff caught them and stabbed them to death. This woke up Liu (who was recently released), with Jeff telling him as he was about to plunge the knife into his body, "Go to sleep".

Jeff then went on a serial killing rampage, killing those who refused to sleep at night, and as the story continued, Jeff renamed himself "Jeff the Killer".

Appearance:

Jeff has extremely pale skin and burnt off eyelids, giving him an even more ghostly appearance. Jeff later got his most distinctive trait, the Glasgow smile that he had carved into his face. His build is commonly described as thin, but with some lean muscle tone at the same time, and reaching a height of around 5'10" to 6'0". In various fan depictions, he's typically portrayed in his late teens or early twenties. His clothing normally consists of a pair of black dress pants with a white hoodie, like described in the story, which is sometimes stained with fresh and old blood from his victims.

Personality:

Before being burnt alive, he was a quiet and fairly antisocial teenager, not that people actually knew him very well. But shortly after the incident, he became torturous, aggressive, bloodthirsty, and violent, making him one of the most dangerous serial killers in his hometown. Jeff is widely known for luring his victims to an eternal slumber, using a kitchen knife and eerie but soft tone of voice. Even though he prefers to murder his victims with knives, he is more than willing to use any weapon when placed in a desperate situation. He is an extremely stealthy and mischievous individual, able to break into victims' houses almost always without getting himself caught in the act.

[(§¥§)]

[strunmah-mah]

Y'all ever noticed that in every single continuity Nubia get associated with a different Pantheon/God? It's really weird.

Pre-Crisis:

Nubia is Diana's twin who is kidnapped by Ares/Mars and raised to fight the Amazons. Kay first off: Diana's evil Black twin? Really? Glad that pretty much immediately revealed she was only evil cause mind control and once that was broken she was one of the god guys, but why'd you do it the first place DC? Pantheon: Greco-Roman, The tendency to treat the Greek and Roman names of Gods as interchangeable is something that annoys me, since there is over lap between the two but there's more nuance than that. But that's a personal annoyance that probably isn't going to go away anytime soon, so whatever. I am curious though, why is Ares/Mars always villain? Like obviously the answer is War Bad. But mythologically Ares is Hyppolyta's father. Wouldn't that be an interesting thing for DC to canonize.

Post-Crisis:

Many centuries ago Nu'bia won a contest like Diana did and became the guardian of Doom's Doorway. She crossed over to the other side and was never seen again leaving many Amazons with the assumption she was dead. In truth she lived in Hell for centuries and even became the lover of the god, Ahura Mazda Sidenote: Why did they add an apostrophe to the middle of her name like that? Trying to make it sound more foreign or something? Religion: Zoroastrianism, is actually still an active religion. Impressive considering it's almost as old as Buddhism though the number of practitioners is significantly smaller. Honestly, points for not doing a big name mythology. Seeing as I had never even heard of this religion before I don't dare speak to the accuracy of Ahura Mazda in this comic. But still interesting someone chose this out of all the possible options

Rebirth/Infinite Frontier:

Nubia came out of the Well of Souls around the same time Diana was born. And the two were especially close because of that. Nubia was selected to to become the guardian of Doom's Doorway like her pre-crisis counterpart, but she never goes missing. Instead she eventually becomes the queen of all Amazons. After this she starts having memories of her past life before she came through the well of souls. Which is how it's revealed she used to be a Madagascar princess named, Zahavah, training to become the avatar of Skehmet. Honestly, wtf is this? Madagascar is is it's own country with it's own gods. There is absolutely no reason she would be worshiping a goddess from over 3000 miles to the north of her. This is just treating the entire continent of Africa like a monolith. And it's also annoying because there is an entire tribe of Egyptian Amazons who almost never get stories about the pantheon they are supposedly bound to.

Anyway, I know asking for consistency from DC is tall order especially with how minor of a character Nubia was until recently. I just think the constant pantheon shift is an odd detail to keep changing. Overall, it's a shame how underutilized Nubia is as a character. Especially since according to Wikipedia she's DC's first black female superhero. But how come in every major continuity they manage to make a decision that is not great? Evil Black twin is bad, but makes an unfortunate kind of sense, since it was the 70's. At least she showed some heroic traits while still mind controlled? Nu'bia is an odd little detail, but probably not that big of a deal? But damn if the Egypt/Madagascar thing does not annoy the hell out of me.

Seriously DC, why are you like this?

[insertsimblrhere]

Gameplay Mechanics The Sims Games through Tumblr

Gameplay Mechanics The Sims Games through Tumblr - As the gameplay mechanics of the McKays' Sims are unique in that they are based on prevalent societal conceptions of the material world, yet woven with a distinctive level of flexibility. As such, free will is a monumental part of the gameplay and creating storylines. The game is designed to be playful and flexible; however, the introduction of playful and flexible gameplay means that far-reaching mayhem over the story and the world is possible. The ability to custom-create characters, families, houses, workplaces, towns, and cities, not just in terms of looks and aesthetics but also in terms of a different underlying character creation, comes with an associated large portion of ill will. With the possibility to make choices, there exist the chances of making the wrong choice.

The software uses generative techniques to generate content and is to be experienced alone – many use the game to avoid real-world problems. But, at the same time, The Sims, as a user-generated content platform, promotes rather than challenges traditional stereotypes. The base game is described as a "sandbox" experience. When accessing a friend's game with no add-ons, using the base game, the Sims framework promotes a constructionist interpretation of the world; the vanilla game is described as being, in a sense, policy-producing in its promotion of "the traditional" through the systematization of types from biophysical, social, cultural, ethical, and moral codes, in order to enable a player to conceive in dynamic and consistent games.

Character Creation

Character creation in The Sims is both a very mechanical process and an often reflexive, creative act. Its players adapt a system of menus, sliders, mouth corners, size selectors, and opacity settings to give physical form to their virtual people. Personality is communicated in two methods: by either selecting traits from a list of adjectives and deciding in which order their texts affect their protagonists, or allowing the game to decide the personality from a palette of predetermined percentages. This work involves a cyclical process of adjustment, during which players constantly gesture with their avatars, cycle through all the game's camera settings, change the light, and adjust the visual equivalence to brighten the man's face anywhere. Players steer other aspects of the realization of their Sim's identity using a graphically simulated genetic recombination of two existing Sims. A cursory search also reveals a deeply involved form of creativity in the ways the community of Sims players creates and shares their characters. Sims custom creators share their Sims, often satisfying the TV show or movie style guidelines.

Both the creativity and the control of its material expression are essential to the experience of Sim creation. This process is underpinned by mechanical constraints in the game's architecture. Sliders and percentages that define the virtual body often do not tune individual Sim features in the way that a different game mechanic or external software might. Changing the body type is difficult because the game employs a genetic algorithm in its realization of Sim genetics, and not merely a recombination of physiognomies the player previously created. Consequently, Sims players tend to define the company that the player creates her real self by tampering with some of the game's character creation options, or through game changes and modifications independently created by the player community. Its players, then, describe the Sim related to their logic as a vector of social mechanics, expressing their inclination to build stories with which they have a powerful tool always at their disposal.

Building and Design

Building and Design. Building stuff isn’t actually what the game is about anyway: if the game can be about anything, it’s about building your house and controlling your weird little virtual people. But people use the game to build—and re-enact—lots of things. People build famous landmarks or cities, or recreate their favorite games, or a space marine deathmatch tournament. Then the game switches from being a tactful dig at consumer culture to being tactical. Instead of complaining about the cost of virtual furniture, it competes in the ‘expensive furniture’ Olympics by building more expensive furniture.

The game fosters this. It’s conceptually extremely pernicious and effective in encouraging you to spend your hard-earned money on a few new paintings and some shabby furniture, let me tell you. The game is focused on interior decoration mostly. With the graphics and the underpinning simplification of objects down into all equating to little more than a price, the game is more of an interior decorating game than a game about legitimate architecture. The ease of the platform kind of de-kings me from Creative Tyrant Status as well. If I want to live in an unassailably huge glass and steel box, I can do that in real life, but if I want to live in an old-timey place with carpet and fancy wallpaper, I’m pretty much going to have to get a high-powered job and acquire some taste first.

Life Simulation

The Sim series has always been a part of the niche genre in mainstream life simulation games. Unique to the game is its game-experience nature that does not revolve around competitions or time pressures but rather on simulating real-life experiences. Throughout the series, you grow emotions for your very 'sim,' the doll-like avatar inside the game, emulating life-like relationships and doing daily activities such as shopping and eating just to win a job promotion. The game series makes a dedicated Sims player believe it can actually reflect someone's personality. The player also shares that they use the popular daily tactic, the 100 Baby Challenge, aggressively in the game as a way to check on something they love and ensure the game is still functioning well. Running the challenge will not take up a lot of energy and can also cultivate the fun of elimination.

The appeal of the Sim series brings the 'slow life core' into the hearts of a broad range of cross-generational players. The player shares that even looking at Sims series content is relaxing. 'Just by looking at photos of other people's builds, you can feel how time just flies away.' They add that because the game also goes online, the challenges inside can transform into a 'story' for others to share the joy, and they will also receive more fun works from the community. Since the players of the Sims series can be classified as casual gamers, the response to the screenshots is a response to interactive play, which can satisfy the pleasure of gamers wanting to say, 'I was there... I was the one who composed this performance.' Media reports significant sales on the first day of release for the game and has surpassed the top-selling PC game in history. With grand sales in the US and European markets, it demonstrates that it is the main player at the same time and promotes the continuous development of the scenario expansion pack.

[iniziare]

Part... three of the podcast? Just as an addition/technical-preface to my previous post. As much as people say it, and how frequent I can joke about how she's a 'hermit', Ruan Mei isn't actually one. Yes, she isolates herself in this secret little corner of the universe that she's carved for herself as to focus on her research, but that doesn't mean that she's inherently indifferent to people in any way, or insists on avoiding them. If that were the case, she would never entertain or gather with the rest of the Genius Society— for as much as she initially believed she was forced to gather with them for the sake of the Simulated Universe for the Aeons, she still engages in them, while there is no true necessity for it. SU results could be obtained from a distance, we know this from her trailer, where she observes the Trailblazer and party going through it. And yet, she keeps going, and keeps canonically interacting— she may have no need to do so, but she chooses to do so, even if they may be far from her favorite interactions. Essentially, she dislikes dialogue that has no depth to it, or 'purpose', ergo she would have no fondness for small talk in any way. Here, the following voiceline is actually really rather fundamental to understanding what she seeks as to engage socially:

"The redundancy of words and the restrictions of verbal communication make for a lot of empty noise. It makes me sad..."

No day will ever pass that I won't talk into perpetuity about how Ruan Mei's character lay so firmly rooted in longing. The origins of her research lay nestled within it, it's her name, it's at the core of what she seeks in terms of social interaction— she longs for purpose, meaning, value (and no, not financially). But I digress, this post is about her on a social level. She would likely find herself caught in frustration if conversations are trivial in significance (and yes, of course there is a selfish element to this, but I think most humans fall into that), or are repetitive. This does, however, mean that when she finds individuals who surpass both of those traits, that she would seek them out more routinely. Stimuli, you see? And in that (and everything I've spoken about thus far), I see her desire for close connections, even if her views of the fundamentals of communication, to also create some barriers that could complicate those very interactions themselves. It's a complicated thing.

There's more that play into my firm belief that she isn't actually a social hermit of any kind, and arguably, possibly, the last of all the 'geniuses'. For instance:

Her tone/manner of speaking. This is something that remains in her voice consistently, which tells me that it isn't merely a matter of politeness, but also one of genuine enjoyment. The teases that I referenced in my previous post also play into this, she uses them as to gauge reactions, which is a way to not only learn about a person, but to gently steer a conversation instead of shutting it down altogether. Someone who is socially reclusive, or disinterested wouldn't bother.

An interest to make others comfortable. 'Hello. I hope I didn't startle you.' That's the first line she says to us after she touches us in that cutscene, which then, she's quick to explain. 'This is a work habit of mine — using touch to open my senses and letting the details of your biological existence flood into my brain helps me understand your construction as a living organism.' Yes, yes, it's followed up by Anti-Truth Serum, but that's another matter entirely. What I mean to say is, if she didn't care for people, she simply wouldn't make any effort to be pleasant in any way. She'd be curt, dismissive, but instead, she leans into warmth.

A willingness to indulge others. Though she is a researcher, she doesn't actually speak that much in any sort of overly technical jargon, or in any way that would truly leave people... alienated in conversation. She seems to adapt to her audience at least in some way. And in that, she seems to humor curiosity. If she were entirely emotionally detached, she'd have no patience of any kind for questions, instead she seems to welcome them (which she did quite a fair bit in When the Stars of Ingenuity Shine)

It's just, not only does her research take priority at every single turn, but it's simply that she's picky when it comes to people. She doesn't find them uninteresting, exactly, but more so... tiresome. If they can keep up with her, she's quite engaged. But if they talk of exceedingly trivial matters, she disengages, but because she's shy, or socially awkward, but simply that she has no patience, or time, to waste on insignificant conversing.

[twoheartsoneclara]

my main boy five.  oh my boy.

i’ll admit, i think they dropped the ball with his writing this season.  aidan’s still turning out an incredible performance, and added a lot of nuance to his characterization despite quite frankly working with pretty much nothing.  go off, king.

i don’t know what to make of him being the founder of the commission.  granted, the commission is literally so fucking nonsense at this point, but it feels like it erases a.  LOT.  of the tragedy of five’s character.  it could possibly be tragic in a different way, but with the writers not doing fucking anything with it this season, it’s difficult to tell.  

a big part of his conflicts over the past two seasons have had to do with the fact that he fucking despises the handler, that the handler is just the one who was next in line after reginald, who saw him as a tool and used him to carry out her dirty work.  the whole “i don’t belong anywhere thanks to you.  you made me a killer.”  “you were always a killer.  i just pointed you in a direction.” and “i saved you from a lifetime of being alone.  you owe me.”  and his “i do owe a debt.  but it’s not to you.” is a key scene.  if the handler is right, that he was always a killer, then a huge part of his moral complexity is wiped away.

a huge part of what makes five compelling as a character is the conflict that he has with not enjoying being a killer and being made into one and being good at it anyways.  one of his biggest themes as a character and his driving force that’s been consistent behind his motives is what would you do, how far would you go, to save the people that you love.  and another key part of that is that he is a weapon and a killer, yes, but he was made that way.  that’s a theme across the whole series and the whole hargreeves family.  the same thing with viktor - their stories clearly parallel each others’, especially in season 1 with leonard and reginald.

the downright horror that we felt at the commission having left him in the apocalypse specifically so they could use his desperation against him and so that they could manipulate him into doing what they wanted becomes so moot when we learn that.  what?  he’s the one who created the commission actually?

and logically, it doesn’t make any sense from what we know about five as a character for him to just lie down and give up, not five as he is now or old old five.  they had to nerf him to make the plot work.  if there had been a bigger timeskip, it might have made sense but he’s still fresh off of the end of season 2.  this is the same man who literally while actively dying managed to turn back time to save his family from dying.  the same one who murdered a boardroom of people to try and get his family home.  the whole storyline about him accepting destiny makes no fucking sense.  the commission said “the apocalypse has to happen” and he said “fuck this fuck you” and utterly refuses to accept the idea of destiny.

they definitely attempted to somewhat justify it with the whole “no life spent going mad” and being just tired by the whole thing which like justified my man.  it’s definitely kind of the fallout of trying to run himself ragged for the past month.  and you can tell that aidan was trying so hard to make it work with the acting choices that he brought to the table, so again, go off, king.  

but at the same time again it’s been a month.  sure, it’s the month from hell, and he so deserves to go apeshit about it, but that’s fucking nothing compared to the 45 years stuck in the apocalypse.  like yeah he’d probably have a breakdown about it (as is his right) but it’s another core trait of five’s is that he doesn’t give up.  literally all of the plot of the entire show hinges on the fact that he doesn’t give up.  stopping the 2019 apocalypse?  five’s the only one who has knowledge about it from the beginning and shows up to stop it, and that’s only possible because he spent 45 years surviving the apocalypse and taking the deal with the commission so he could return home to stop it and save his family.  ending up in the 60s?  only possible because five took him and his siblings back so that they could escape the currently impending apocalypse.  them not fucking dying in that barn and making it possible for them to get back to 2019?  only possible because he rewound time while dying himself and managed to save them.

i understand them making allison the large driving plot force this season and tbh i’m glad they did!!  homegirl completely deserved her chance to shine and emmy fucking gave it her all.  (caveat: they definitely also fucked up that deeply on some points but by and large yes, allison did deserve to go apeshit).  and i also understand somewhat understand making the conflict between her and viktor - their dynamic has been pretty important for viktor’s story (as the second-most important character to the plot overall), and they managed to do something...half-interesting with that.  but they completely had to nerf five’s character to make all of that possible, which is just lazy writing.

on a petty note, give five mr. pennycrumb for fucking real, you cowards.  

[cburambles]

Lazard's motivation or "Unattainable dreams are the best kind"

Brainstorming & theorizing on the Shinra scions is my favorite hobby.

Something I've noticed is that the Lazard's friend NPC doesn't even seem to know whether that "friend who used to say he was the of president Shinra" is still alive or not. Which makes me wonder if he changed identity. Lazard Deusericus may be not be his real name because he couldn't have his father finds out immediately who he was until the right moment.

We know Lazard was mostly out for personnal revenge as it is hinted by NPCs that his mother not only was rumored being Shinra sr's lover, it also seems that it was pretty much something out of a fairy tale story as one female NPCs suggest it seemed something out of a dream, making you wonder if there was more than sex but an actual romance going on between the two when you compare with the way he treated his other lovers like Evan's mother, as he attempted to keep those relationships more discreet & gave hush money to them.

It makes me wonder if Shinra sr may have broken off their relationship to marry Rufus's mother, who may have likely been a strong political match, which could have been devastating for Lazard's mother, enough that he needed to seek revenge for her.

( Another thing that needs to be noted is that Shinra sr has a consistent taste in women as it is explained in TKAA & Lazard is really likely to be his eldest illegitimate child, which makes me wonder if he could have been selecting his secretaries via their physical attributes, looking to have sex with people who may have actually looked like Lazard's mother.

I think it's also narratively interesting how Rufus among his brother, is the one who actually looks more like his mother while Lazard & Evan seems to share more traits with their father. Something about Shinra sr's genes being more apparent with the sons of women he may have actually desired at one point+ his narcisstic side & all of that)

This mail intrigue me.

One thing I've noticed is that Kunsel is often on point when assessing certain situation, characters, motivations and in his speculations in his other mails & it's likely the case here as well.

I have this theory that like this NPC says, that Lazard joined Shinra out of revenge. Shinra sr saw that he was competent & slowed him down by giving him an high position & power, which gave Lazard some hope that he might potentially become his successor as he actually had more executive power & more official achievements than his legitimate son Rufus, whom was also building a rep for being rebellious & callous while Lazard is the amiable one who plan succesful strategies in Wutaï & get to order around the great Sephiroth.

Feeling some parental recognition (not in warm affection but more in " you're doing a good job which show that you are not only a good tool but possibly what I always wanted for a son & oh I kinda miss your mother too" ) could have also felt good to him as well & he was maybe hoping he could support financially the children of slums ( while ironically being complicit in destroying families by helping out with the war in Wutaï)

Then it got confirmed that Rufus was still on the track to become VP & it enrages Lazard, who goes back on his revenge quest as Shinra scions are egocentric like that (hence the "ill blood" mail which was as much abt him as for Rufus, Genesis, Sephiroth & Angeal) & find out about the whole Hollander & project G when Genesis infection happens & start degrading. So he decide to use them as pawns in his own war until he get stabbed in the back by them ( which echoes Rufus getting betrayed by Avalanche in BC while he is on his own quest to get rid of his father)

What gives more credence to this theory is that CCR is filled with characters whose motivation are tied to feel a sense of recognition by getting on the same level, wanting the attention or surpass a figure.

Genesis wanted to surpass Sephiroth which caused his admiration & friendship for him to turn into a rivalry as he always hogged Shinra & Midgar's attention, Zack's admiration for Sephiroth, the hero get soured as he would steal his thunder in the media for the operations that they participated together. And Cloud wanted to be on the same level of Sephiroth because he was hoping it would make him look strong & give him some recognition, in particular Tifa's.

Need for recognition & abandonment issues is also something shared by two of his known brothers: In CoS, Rufus start to understand he wanted his father's recognition & feared the fact that he might attempt to " replace" him as a child if he didn't prove himself worthy of the Shinra throne. Evan has abandonment issues due to his mother's suddendly disappearing & it lead him to be reckless out of fear Kyrie & her friends may reject him for not looking like he would belong in their group, to the point he get insecure upon seeing Rufus.

Those are things that drive them so it wouldn't be surprising if it also ended up being a motivating factor to Lazard as he was working his way up in to Shinra, making his revenge quest a bit more difficult to execute as he is getting the approval of Shinra sr.

Lazard getting the attention of his father he may have craved deep down, after getting some achievement that would prove that he had it in him to be the VP then have his father turn-around & still pick Rufus, which causes him to go back in track in his revenge quest isn't far-fetched.

Untainnable dreams may have become a strong motivator to him at one point & I think his famous quote was also a warning to Zack, that the highest power in society choose its represents, whether you work hard for it or not.

It makes the last Banora scene even more charged, as yes Lazard, may have not gained the recognition of his father or the VP seat or succeed in his revenge but he learned to let go of his hate due to Angeal's influence but got to help & save people who will then contribute into saving the world, becoming one of the brief, silent heroes of this world, which isn't unlike his two half-brothers who also have the similar traits & roles to play.

tl; dr: Lazard may have started working Shinra out of revenge against his father abandonning his mother, got derailed as he discovered he liked getting some paternal recognition & the possibility that he could become VP then went back on track when Rufus got the VP chair, which gives more significance to the "untainable dreams are the best kind" quote.

[linkspooky]

Hi, love your metas, glad you picked up Choujin. What do you think about Azuma's darker side? He seems to really enjoy violence, but he also has some Jesus symbolism, like being on born Christmas and reborn as choujin under Mary statue. What can it mean, considering nietzschean influences you mentioned in your last meta?

The use of Christian symbolism in association with Azama is probably building up to a subversion. Nietzsche attacked the Christian religion, as represented by churches and institutions, for what he called its "transvaluation" of healthy instinctive values. Transvaluation consists of the process by which one can view the meaning of a concept or ideology from a "higher" concept. The idea that god gives life meaning or morality is against the idea that its humans who create those things.

In a narrative that's challenging its characters to grow in a Nietzschean way and reject institutions or ideals given from other people, aligning a character with Christianity has a negative connotation.

Azama's dark and violent side comes from the fact that he is so righteous. The narration when Azama is awakening as a Choujin says as much. His worldview is associated with violence, knives, guns, a knight in armor. He remarks that warplanes flying by are "cool". The next panel is tanks climbing over desert hills. Azama's ideas of nobility and heroism are tied up in violence because that's what appears in is imagination. The narration even says he had a knack for fighting, but lacked something important.

Nietzsche also states that unlike the Ubermensch, who embraces life, Jesus denied reality in favor of his "kingdom of God." Jesus refusal to defend himself and subsequent death ended up with his separation from life. If the Choujin is the ultimate self-realized being, then the christ figure has completely smothered himself and all reasons for living and lost his connection to life.

Azama's violent side also results from the fact he has completely smothered himself and his own desires. He has repressed himself for years to appear more ideal in front of Tokio and play his hero. He believes repressing that violent side of his is a virtue in itself. The result of Azama's repression and sense of self sacrifice is also always death. Azama makes the decision to try to rescue Tokio alone, he dies, comes back from the dead just like christ's martyrdom but he doesn't come back right. The narration says he lacks something monumentally important. His response to the possibility he might lose control of his powers again is to ask Tokio to kill him.

If Nietzsche's philosophy and ideology is becoming self-actualized and connected to lie, then Azama being so close to death and so willing to die for a cause is a negative trait. His martyrdom is not being praised her but condemned. His desire to suppress or even kill himself for some righteous virtue just ends up with Azama as a person being unstable and unhealthy.

To further connect this to Nietzschian sybolism, in the previous post I discussed at great length the way the Lion appears in the metamorphoses and the meaning as a wild animal capable of finding the strength to create its own meaning. Azama at the beginning of the story is associated with the lion several times, the king of predators while Tokio is the vulture who picks up the scraps.

However, a hyena shows up to Azuma several times before he awakens his power. A talking hyena that only he seems to be able to see. This seems to be a weird and off-color piece of symbolism.

However, when he encounters the hyena again after his power awakens the meaning becomes clear. When he finds the hyena again it is lying dead on the beach, being picked apart by scavenger birds.

He beats them away and cries over the dead animal. A bit of an overreaction. Maybe, Azuma is just that much of an animal lover (JK). Azuma overreacts to the hyena being picked apart by scavenging birds because he is the hyena. He has just been defeated by the vulture, Tokio for the first time and it's crushed his self esteem. When Azuma's choujin abilities activate he no longer is able to swim. The hyena dies at the beach.

Azuma begins the story associated with the Lion, the king of the predators while Tokio is the buzzard who steals from his prey. However, the animal that appears in front of Azuma is a hyena, another animal that's famous for being a scavenger.

Azuma appears as a lion, but he's really the hyena, he's just as dependent on Tokio as Tokio is of him. The hyena just goes to show Azuma is a character of dualism. He appears to already be the self-made man at the beginning of the story, but he's in his own way a scavenger depending on someone else in order to live. At this point neither Azuma nor Tokio are able to live up to the Nietzschean ideal.

[petorahs]

pq2 thoughts after finishing it!:

i think. it is a g. game. it is a persona game i will admit!

no but srs i think its good if youve never played a persona game which i assume is why its on 3ds only. it really does feel like discount persona with all of the last three cast thrown in? and some of the gameplay improvements (this game's gameplay aged better than fes and p2's LMAOO) i guess its a compromise to reach fans who've never actually played the main games cause they dont own a playstation console or something.

at the same time it makes no sense for "new fans" to play because you need at least some background knowledge of the prev characters and plot to care.

in my case i knew everything abt p3 and p5, only osmosis knowledge of the plot of p4 so i ended up using the p4 cast the least in my playthrough :( so theres that. not worth playing if u dont care abt the other casts imo

...so we agree the characters are the selling point here, its advertised as a mega crossover and whatever but. people complaining that theyre "watered down" to base traits or even traits they didnt have in the first place are Right LOL except for a scant few characters who get a lot of expansion. but for the most part none of them are themselves (like yusuke... 😔.... akihiko.... aki not as bad as yusuke but they have the same writing problem)

no one expects the characters to rly individually shine when theres so many ofc, the game even pokes fun at the "limited screen time" joke but like. what else is there to this? 🤔 well

character interactions! those were good. everyone expected detective princes meetup to be really great but i loved the other pairs like haru and mitsuru (heirs with distant dads...), and the PQ OC girl with futaba :] (introvert friends!!)(theyre like sucrose and collei in this year's windblume if you go there)

speaking of akechi though. yea he's part of the list of characters that surprisingly did not get butchered and in fact expanded upon in this game. aside from akechi it's P3 FeMC.

others i liked were P5 MC (his dialogue choices are SO out there), shinjiro aragaki, ken amada, yukiko amagi maybe yosuke hanamura and P4MC but their personalities just stayed the same instead of getting possible new insight?

i liked velvet room guys too theyre goated frfr! yes including marie. even i was surprised (probably cause akechi gets to poke fun at her and the twins hdjdhdhd)(cute)

i cant put P3 male MC anywhere cause i will always be biased towards him 😔🫰 (he was great btw)

but the crow character expansion in particular intrigued me and leads me to accept this game as canon like some ATLUS USA reps intended. akechi: stripped away of his obligations is a cunning, introspective and overall respectable young man and the game showcased all of his core traits well. he purposefully isolates himself from the main group and gets called out on it, consistently is the one that makes the most sense in discussions, gets various little moe moments... he honestly seems like he doesnt know what to make of all this forced bonding with strangers but he cant help to indulge anyway. 😭 he's vocal in discussions about their plans but a passive :) face in the background during fun moments until he's addressed or curious. the way he furthers the narrative along like they wouldnt get as far as they did without him i feel. but between all of that he was the main character to me.

the end scene where he seems regretful that he has to leave and go back to his revenge plot.... hurts. because for all intents and purposes we just saw akechi if he didnt have all that baggage and was just allowed to exist as himself. a smart guy with a whole life ahead of him. but he didnt choose that.

😔

oh god that emoji is huge but anyway. FeMC!! ^_^ the problems of toxic positivity being addressed in her arc was great. they really tried to give her as much love as possible without being too happy (persona games tend to make their characters suffer anyway to even things out) and it was great! her writing reminds me of kasumire's mental illness but with less romance tease pandering.

ah yes and the obligatory Persona side game OC... hikari and nagi. honestly wished they didnt exist as much as i liked hikari's thing 😔 it got old and outright cringe man im sorry like surely the devs could come up with something better than this?? way to not explain enlil and mess with the in-universe power scaling too LMAO. 2/10 is being generous!

anyway its a fairly short game in persona standards so i cant really say it's time wasted when i got so many character interaction crumbs..... i guess i lucked out by liking the characters that i do instead of ones that kinda got shafted in this. (except for aki but 😔 i just kinda accepted his blown out of proportions awkwardness outside of P3)

it's..... a 6/10 from me overall! music and velvet room attendants + nanako cameo DLC carried