#since it was clearly logicality coded

[loganslowdown4]

Logan: Did you get the eggs like I asked?

Patton: Even better!

Logan: Wha-?

Patton: *reveals a live chicken* Her name is Fluffy!

Logan: No not- nO NOT AGAIN PATTON THE DOGS WILL EAT HER-

[maxdibert]

Sorry, but I don't buy the narrative that Helly is really Helena. I mean, what sense would it make for Helly to reveal who she really is? It seems logical that she would be completely reluctant to tell her colleagues that she is actually the heir to the company putting them through this hell and that, thanks to her outie, they are in that situation. It seems like it's already hard enough for her to accept it, let alone talk about it as casually as Mark talks about his outie life. I mean, really, Mark experiences the least traumatic moments regarding this, compared to the other three. His outie's mystery is directly tied to returning to severance, while the others have everything unresolved outside: Helly is the company's heir, Irving has been confronted with an emotionally devastating reality, and Dylan has a fully established life outside where his outie is married with kids. While the other three look outside because there are unresolved issues there, Mark looks inside because Casey is supposedly dead outside, meaning the answers surrounding that mystery lie within.

To me, Helly's attitude is completely coherent. Let’s not forget that Helly is still Helena, and Helena is still Helly. They may have gone their separate ways, but the origin is the same, the genetic character is the same, the sum of their variants and codes is the same, only cognitively they have developed differently. But the character, the primary drive, is inherent to development. Helena makes it clear to Helly that she is not a person, that she is just a substitute, an experiment, that she has no control. After knowing the truth, Helly decides to take control. If Helena controls from the outside, Helly will control from the inside, hence her saying they owe nothing to the outies and basically establishing sides. It’s the same thing Helena does, but because Helena and Helly are simply two sides of the same coin reflecting each other because they are literally the same person, just a "what if" each in a different position: Helena in power and Helly subjugated.

I mean, the plot of Helena infiltrating and pretending to be Helly seems interesting to me too, but I don't see it as clearly. I need more evidence of this because, honestly, no alarms went off for me in the first episode since Helly’s attitude didn’t seem strange to me at all. I don’t know. I could be wrong, I’m not ruling it out, eh.

[let-roman-bite-someone]

i know i've said this before but i'm so tired of people acting like Patton is the general embodiment of morality. as if he is the personification of the legal justice system and everything he does must be good and fair™.

folks, Patton is Thomas's morality. remember what Virgil said in the Q&A episode?

this applies to all of the sides. every single one of them.

Remus wouldn't be the same for everyone, different people have different types of intrusive thoughts. Logan wouldn't be the same for everyone, different people have had different levels of education, different forms of intelligence and different applications of logic.

but the funny thing is, i never see people criticize the other sides for being too representative of their title. they don't reprimand Virgil for making Thomas anxious because that's his job. they don't bash Roman for being a perfectionist. but for some reason, people expect Patton to be a saint who does no wrong.

it's emphasized so clearly in multiple episodes that the sides are the result of Thomas's upbringing specifically. Patton is simply the moral code that Thomas's parents and on a larger scale, society, had taught him.

“Patton was so accepting of Virgil but he couldn't accept Remus or Janus!”

yeah. because it's easier to deal with anxiety than it is to deal with intrusive thoughts. don't get me wrong, anxiety is definitely a serious issue. but Thomas's anxiety never went directly against his morals, if anything, Virgil's perspective aligned very much with Patton's. being anxious about say embarrassing yourself in public or not getting your work done in time is not as morally concerning as having thoughts about murdering your brother.

but Thomas, like many of us, grew up with no one to tell him what intrusive thoughts are or how to deal with them. when Patton was chastising Thomas for having these thoughts, that's just Thomas beating himself up over something he can't control.

the same goes for Janus. Patton had a hard time accepting Janus because Thomas had learned to always be selfless since when he was younger, and Janus was challenging that point of view. when Patton was pushing Thomas to be selfless, that's just Thomas pushing himself and feeling guilty at the thought of focusing on his own needs.

i feel like people think that Patton is actually Thomas's father figure or something. i understand if he reminds you of someone toxic in your life and it can be uncomfortable to watch. but while it's good to relate to the media you are consuming, it's also important to view things in context.

Patton is not a person, he's not an individual who has the freewill to do what he wants. he is only Thomas's morality and what his morals are heavily depends on what Thomas was taught and how he was raised.

Patton cannot control the morals that Thomas had learned. he can only try to implement them in Thomas's life and unless Thomas himself decides to unlearn some of the unhealthy ideals that he has internalized, Patton cannot go against his nature. he can only do what he has been programmed to do, with the knowledge that he has.

[wisteria-lodge]

Wait the wiki is bad? I use it all the time 😭 I thought the whole point is it's community-run so people should be able to fix any mistakes (and since it's a huge community that's been running for very long it seems quite robust and strict on verifying information) I do get that it has info from the videogames which most people don't regard as canon, though. But when it does it tends to note it as such, and they still consider the books/movies a higher "plane" of canon.

I love reading the wiki, but I do have to do a lot of follow up and sifting if I'm using it as reference. In tends to throw in the video games, JKR interviews, *actor* interviews, and Pottermore content, and sometimes it's organized and clearly marked, but a lot of times it isn't... and that has definitely slipped up my co-writer (whose knowledge of HP isn't as crazy as mine) a few times. Unless you already have a really solid grasp on everything, it's easy to get confused. Like here's someone who wrote into me, asking about a sentence in the Narcissa page that was 1) Poorly written 2) wrong.

The other problem with the wiki is that since it's community run, every page tends to be written by fans of that particular character. This is especially obvious with the villains. Like read through the Lucius Malfoy, or Severus Snape pages. There is so much there that's bending over backwards to give them a positive edit. There's a lot about Lucius' elegant dueling style (no source) and his skill with potions. Like the actual detail is 'Lucius Malfoy mentions having a potion collection in Book 2.' I don't want that extrapolated into 'Lucius Malfoy was a model student who got into the Slug Club because of his skill with potions.' Like let me write my own headcanons! It starts speculating that Lucius got Voldemort monologing on purpose in the graveyard to buy time for Harry!

Snape's page says that one of his skills is writing poetry. He wrote a rhyming logic puzzle in book one, which I would say is not the same thing. It also says he communicates with floriography, which is a reference to a fan theory about how the plants he lists in Book 1 are a coded message about Lily. Like *I* know that. But then the wiki just cites Book 1. That's not in Book 1.

This is actually so common that co-writer @niche-pastiche and I have an in-joke when we attribute any flattering/creative interpretation to Tom Saunders, Wasp Scientist.

Tom Saunders is a New Zealand biologist who named a species of wasp after Lucius Malfoy because:

"People see wasps as villains, as the 'bad guys.' But the truth is that the vast majority of wasp species are either neutral or beneficial, from a human standpoint. Just as Lucius Malfoy is pardoned after separating from Voldemort's allies, I'm asking people to pardon wasps in order to restore their reputation as interesting, important creatures."

Like I get that you like wasps, and Lucius Malfoy, I do too. But that's not info that's in the books.

(It is Pottermore stuff, but I honestly count Pottermore as tertiary canon at *best.* Like every once in a while it'll be a cool detail, but JKR is *not good* at worldbuilding, so most of the time, instead of explaining things... it just makes everything more confusing. And I think that all of this has the end result of accidentally gatekeeping newcomers who want to engage with the material. Like the person who sent that ask.)

[4str0nuts]

DEEP DIVE INTO HORROPEDIAS AUTISTIC CODING : A GIANT ANALYSIS THING

ALTERNATE TITLE IS WHY THE FANDOM SHOULD CHECK OUT HOW THEY TREAT AUTISTIC CHARACTERS

Disclaimer before I go in; i’m using the global translations and the english voice acting as I am on the global server lol. This may affect some things but hopefully not a lot! Also i’m using this video [https://youtu.be/ygAkz4L2AMo?si=elrUeXGompMKYXUJ] for my proof and will provide timestamps!

Horropedia is one of the most loved characters in Reverse:1999 (bc haha funny autistic guy) , yet I literally see no serious posts discussing his character or even going into his character— even at a basic level. I’ve kinda been off to the side observing how the fandom treats Horropedia and it makes me question if people actually like him or some alternate version of him. Yeah sure this is a problem in every fandom but I’m too attached to Horropedia and i’m going to make it everyone’s problem.

There's all sorts of mischaracterisations of him where his autism is reduced to him being an “asshole” and “uncaring”, or that he is some funny reddit meme sona when that’s the case at all! Every other character gets to have serious posts yet when it comes to a very blatant autistic coded character, suddenly no one knows how to act despite the fact the fandom (going off of the twitter fandom here) prides itself on neurodivergency; so I’m here to dump a ton of analysis on Horropedia using ingame sources as proof as well as my own knowledge (as someone who is autistic myself), whilst also debunking mischaracterisations of him. I’m also doing this as I don’t think people treat Horropedias autistic coding seriously, seeing it as silly and thus ignoring all of his character.

Jumping straight in, Horropedia is not an asshole and is actually quite a caring character, even if he doesn’t show it conventionally. To me, it’s quite obvious that he cannot understand people at an emotional level, and always relies on his logical way of thinking no matter the situation; for example, when he broke Blonneys camera, he clearly does not understand why she is mad/upset and instead tries to comfort her logically rather than emotionally. Even when Blonney is very much showing she is mad, Horropedia cannot process that and cannot understand until she actually explains it [Part 5 54:07-57:20]. I can see why people may see it as an asshole move since he tells her to be “reasonable” over the camera breaking, though it is clear that this is another one of his autistic traits as people with autism have a hard time connecting with others��� in an empathetic way(which can come off as being blunt and uncaring) yet no one seems to mention that. Despite this, he still offers her to buy her a new camera once Blonney vents out to Jessica, coming to terms with what he did and making it up to her. [Part 12 2:10:37]

Adding onto the last point, Horropedia shows concern and care multiple times throughout the story. Even if he is bad at comforting people, he still tries to acknowledge what is wrong in regards to the situation. I’m trying to keep this short as I don’t necessarily think this is due to his autism but a cool detail I found with the English voice acting is that his tone gets softer when he’s more genuine (it could be seen as masking but shrug. Not too sure on this one as I'm making this point to show he does care in his own way.) He constantly makes sure everyone is safe and goes out of his way to protect others [Part 4 51:08 , Part 6 1:16:18-1:16:39], which is a small detail I think people gloss over. It’s just nice seeing Horropedia care for others in his own way since I struggle with expressing affection / emotions like him.

Back to his way of thinking, it’s practically plastered everywhere that he thinks in a logical way and takes everything at face value no matter what, which is a trait associated with autism. At the very start of the very event, he even breaks down Vertins joke and still a conclusion was that she wasn’t the person he was looking for (knowing full well she was) [Part 1 11:06-11:50]. Horropedia also explains things at face value— in a basic and straightforward way no matter what it is, which is another example of not truly understanding things at an emotional level! [Part 9 1:42:45-1:43:09]This does not mean he does not consider the consequences of a situation, and Horropedia actively avoids situations where it poses a threat / harm to others. Mentioning this to point out how some people in the fandom treat him like he is stupid?— Despite how he is the basic definition of a nerd with references to it all over his character and voice lines! Yes, he could be seen as careless considering he goes to Green Lake just like that with no approval, but he certainly isn’t oblivious to dangers around him. Horropedia himself explains that he is into horror movies because of how illogical they are(stating how it is like a puzzle), not necessarily the fear of them; so it makes no sense for Horropedia to directly put himself or others in harm's way.

Still relating to his way of thinking, Horropedia uses his horror logic so he can understand situations around him. He directly links back to his special interest to understand things— and to an extent others— better, special interests are a trait exclusive to autistic people! By using his horror special interest, he can understand the world better from his perspective. I don't even need to get examples of this because throughout the Green Lake event he makes references and links to horror movies, basing predictions on what to do in order to survive in the stereotypical like scene of Green Lake. Horropedia is full of reasoning, and despite his “debatable manners” (thanks Sonetto),he is not always too absurd with his predictions. It baffles me that people treat Horropedia like he is some happy-go-lucky kid, running head first into danger; he takes the time to understand a given situation in a way he would understand before doing anything.

Another really obvious thing is that he can’t understand social cues, or the body languages of others at all. Essentially he cannot read the room. The whole “I know the rules of social courtesy” [Part 12 2:19:19] line doesn’t necessarily mean he understands social cues— rules are (usually) based in logic and reasoning, and not emotions. Social courtesy just means the rules of society (or the foundation in this case? eh), and Horropedia knows he HAS to abide by the rules or else he will be in trouble. Something seen as ‘basic’ and ‘simple’ to people considered ‘normal’ by society may be hard to grasp by people who do not benefit from society (autistic people). Horropedia understands the ‘logical reasoning’ of how someone acts but he can’t connect with or understand someone else’s emotional responses. Literally look at most of his interactions with the film crew and Blonney, Jessica even steps in at one point to stop him from making the fight between Jason and Blonney worse [Part 6 1:11:38]; and even then he tries to use logic to break down the situation. Horropedia can’t pick up on social cues for the life of him, including body language and tone.

Smaller point here but I have a feeling Horropedia’s tone is hard to understand to some of the characters. Tooth Fairy couldn’t tell if Horropedia was joking towards the end of the event , where he shows off his “sense of humour”. Nothing much to add here I just found that really interesting…

Ive rinsed out all the notes I’ve taken on Horropedias autistic coding so far…….. feel free to add on more….. I may have gotten some things wrong because I have been working on this for a few hours straight. Surprisingly I still have more to analyse outside of his autism so if people are interested let me know bc i’m desperate .

TLDR: horropedia is autistic thanks for reading.

[ao3cassandraic]

As far as they can

At the end of the Job minisode, Crowley inaugurates Their Side by proclaiming Aziraphale "an angel who goes along with Heaven... as far as he can," parallel to his own stated relationship with Hell.

Only it... doesn't actually work that way. Their exactlies are different exactlies.

Crowley defies and lies to Hell as often as he thinks he can get away with it. He never disabuses Downstairs of their misconceptions about his contributions to human atrocities. He cheerfully lies in his reports Downstairs, something Aziraphale briefly turns on his Baritone of Sarcastic Disapproval about in s1. Crowley even turns evil homeopathic in the latter part of the 20th century, likely in hopes that it will look good to head office while accomplishing essentially nothing. (This, of course, is another way he Crowleys himself, both with the London phone system and the M25.) After Eden, Crowley's default given an assignment from Hell is to see how he can subvert it.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, defies Her and Heaven as little as he possibly can. Sometimes, as with his sword giveaway, his compassion gets the better of his anxiety. Sometimes, as with Job's children in the destruction of the villa, he can try to stay within the letter of the law by leaving the defiance to Crowley.

His default, however, is "'m 'nangel. I can't dis- diso -- not do what 'm told." This comes out most often as respect for the Great/Divine Plan, which to him is sacrosanct. He sounds quite sincere in s1 when he says "Even if I wanted to help I couldn’t. I can’t interfere with the Divine Plan."

Aziraphale quite frequently Good Angels along by parroting Heaven's party line, whether it's "it'll all be rather lovely" or "I am good, you (I'm afraid) are evil" or droning on about evil containing the seeds of its own destruction, or condemning Elspeth's graverobbing as "wicked" (a stance he offers absolutely no reasoned support for, no logic, no "but She said," not a word -- that's very Heaven; most of Heaven's angels have the approximate brainpower of paramecia). Maestro Michael Sheen even has a particular voice cadence -- I think of it as Sententious Voice -- he uses when Aziraphale is thoughtlessly party-lining.

When the angel's conscience wars with his sense of Heaven's orthodoxy but (and this is an important but) he can't feasibly resist whatever's wrong, he offers strengthless party-line justifications he clearly doesn't agree with (as with the "rain bow" in Mesopotamia) or resorts to a Nuremberg defense: "I'm not consulted on policy decisions, Crowley!" Once or twice, he's even vocally aware of Heavenly hypocrisy: "Unless… [guns]'re in the right hands, where they give weight to a moral argument… I think." This isn't Sententious Voice. It's I-can't-disobey-and-I-hate-that voice.

But at base, the angel prefers obedience (not least because it's vastly safer), and he'd rather have someone else do his moral reasoning for him. Honestly? Pretty relatable. I know lots of people like this -- hell's bells, I've been this person, though I grew out of it somewhat -- and I daresay you do too. Moral reasoning is hard and often lonely (since it can be read as self-righteousness or even hypocrisy) and acting as it dictates can hurt. Nobody would need ethics codes if The Right Thing was also invariably The Convenient Thing.

Many GO fans find these Aziraphalean traits frustrating! Especially his repeated returns to parroting Heaven orthodoxy! Sometimes I do too! (Not least because I'm rather protective of my own integrity, and it's cost me quite a few times. I'm well-known in professional circles for picking up a rhetorical spear and tilting at the nearest iniquitous windmill. I often lose, but I sure do keep tilting. Every once in a blue moon I actually win one.)

The key, I think, to giving our angel a little grace on this (beyond honoring the gentle compassion that is pretty basic to his character) is noticing how often he can be induced to abandon an unconsidered Heavenish default stance. As irritating as his default is, and as consistently as he returns to it, it's not really that hard to talk him out of it. Crowley, of course, is tremendously good at knocking Aziraphale away from his default -- he's had to be. But Aziraphale even manages to talk himself away from his default once, in the form of the Ineffable Plan hairsplitting at the airbase!

I think the character-relevant point of the Resurrectionist minisode is making this breaking-the-Heavenish-default dynamic as clear as the contents of the pickled-herring barrel aren't. "That's lunatic!" Crowley exclaims, when Aziraphale Sententious Voicedly parrots Heaven's garbage about poverty providing extra opportunities for goodness. Aziraphale isn't quite ready to let go yet, replying "It's ineffable."

But Dalrymple (who, I think, parallels Heaven, perhaps even the Metatron -- there could be something decent there, but it's buried too deep under scorn and clueless privilege for any graverobber-of-souls to dig it out) manages to break Aziraphale's orthodoxy by explaining the child's tumor.

Once released from his orthodoxy, Aziraphale can't be trusted to handle moral reasoning well; his moral-reasoning ability is not-uncommonly (though not always) portrayed as vitiated. When he gives Elspeth the go-ahead to dig up more bodies, his excuses are just as vacuous as they were when he was convinced of her wickedness. He knows that he's crossed Heaven's line, too, and just as at Eden it's worrying him. That's why he has to talk to Crowley to nerve himself up to help Wee Morag... only he spends too much time talking, and it's too late.

But Crowley can then talk him into bankrolling Elspeth toward a better life. Aziraphale doesn't even put up any fight, both because he's compassionate and because Crowley is temporarily taking the place of Heaven (he's even Heaven-sized and staring down at them!) as the angel's moral compass.

S1 has an even worse example of Aziraphale's moral wavering, actually. Crowley yells "Shoot him, Aziraphale!" and Aziraphale sure does try to murder Adam. Again, he's adopting his morals from the nearest (and loudest) convenient source. Madame Tracy, thankfully, has enough of a moral backbone to save our angel from himself and Crowley.

(With my ersatz-ethicist hat on: this is a fight between utilitarianism and deontology. Crowley is the utilitarian, which is actually a bit of a departure for him, but he's admittedly desperate. Madame Tracy is the deontologist: One Doesn't Kill Children. Aziraphale is caught in the middle.)

I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason we start s3 with Aziraphale and Crowley separated is so that Aziraphale finally has to do his own moral reasoning, without Crowley's nudges. I don't think it'll be easy for him. It will absolutely be lonely. And it may well hurt.

But I will watch for it, because it's how he will become his own angel, independent of Heaven and even of Crowley. And he must do that.

[paper-starz]

WELCOME HOME THEORY 2: The Theory Strikes Back

Good evening, gentlemen, gentleladies, and gentlethems,

Or Good night

Or even good morning,

Whenever you are, I humbly come to you all with another theory.

This time, its our favorite morally questionable sentient house, Home!

So strap in, buckle up, cause I have STUFF TO SAY.

THIS WILL BE VERY LONG AND IT WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE UPDATE!!

Alright, so to begin, what the HECK is going on with Home?

They are one of the most mysterious characters in Welcome Home, we don't know much if not anything at all. And what we do know... wellllll......

Yeah definitely not menacing at all.....

The only thing that we do know of Home is well… ^ This and the fact that it and Wally are sentient.

Ok, let’s backtrack. HOMES SENTIENT???

Yep! While it was implied in the first update that it was aware of us, this handy-dandy audio clip confirms that Home (like Wally) is aware of “You” (Whoever this “You” person may be. Either literally us or the Question Answerer).

Now, what exactly Home is saying is still up for debate. Some say that it’s “Help Me” while others say it’s “Hello”. (It’s incredibly hard to know what’s exactly dots and dashes with Homes banging) but one thing is for sure, Home is communicating with us.

“AHHHH HOW SCARY! THE CREEPY DEMON HOUSE IS GONNA KILL US” D:

And that’s where you’re wrong, dear viewer. While Home is clearly morally dubious and incredibly suspicious, like Wally, I don’t think it’s necessarily evil.

Take for instance this link right here. It’s an honestly cute lil audio of Wally singing to Home. But while that is adorable, it’s the ending that I really wanna focus on.

Wally: …Do you like it? Home: *Creaks* (it’s Morse code again! Spells out IDO) Wally: Thats good… I think…

Ok why did I bring this old little clip up? Oh ya know… no reason… OTHER THAN THE FACT THAT WALLY CAN’T UNDERSTAND HOME ANYMORE!!!

Ok, I know whatcha thinkin’ “Why not anymore?”

Take a listen at another audio clip, this time it’s a secret one!!

The clip is about Barnaby and Home having a conversation with one another! But if you listen real closely… Home is not speaking in Morse code! It’s their own lil Home language, still consisting of creaks and bangs… yet Barnaby doesn’t seem to have any trouble understanding Home.

So how come Wally can’t understand Home and yet Barnaby can?

It’s because Wally’s sentient now. He’s getting more real. More human. Cartoon logic does not apply to Wally anymore! To us, Home is speaking in gibberish! Since it’s gibberish to us, then it’s gibberish to Wally!

And Home knows that, so it does the next best thing and tries using another language to hopefully communicate better. Now that I’m listening to the first audio clip again (so-below), it makes sense why Home is “speaking” slowly. It’s not used to communicating that way. It’s hard to tell their dots from their dashes, their bangs from their creaks, and it’s pauses are sometimes too long and too short at the same time! In a weird way, Home kinda has an accent when speaking in Morse code.

It’s kinda sweet just how hard Home is trying to communicate with Wally and us. Makes ya forget that Home has a weird portal and a flesh heart inside of them.

“WAIT WHAT?!?” (<- That’s you)

Yeah, remember when I said the more sentient something gets the more “real” they get?

Yeah, it’s also been happening with Home too. Go on any doodle audio file, and you can hear assumably Home’s heart beating away. You can hear it very clearly in this audio right here! I doubt the Playfellow Workshop made Home with a literal BEATING heart, but hey, Home is where the heart is I guess…

And now, the portal thing.

“Since when did Welcome Home ever had a portal??”

Oh since the very beginning actually!

First updated “portal” picture

Many people (including yours truly) theorized that this swirly spiral was a portal to the real world. It seems that we have more evidence to support this theory too!

First updated portal (shown left) and second updated portal (shown right)

Hey…. Wait a second…. Is it just me or it the portal getting…. Bigger?

The first update it was small, even the black goo wasn’t as bad… on the second picture, the spiral is INCREDIBLY large, and now the goo is coating the trees.

Well, isn’t that ominous.

"But wait. If Home has a portal... where is this portal even going?"

Both portals have the same black goo surrounding it, the same white eye in the center and the same swirl.

It's going to the Restoration team. And look at where the portal is placed. It's on the ceiling. "As above"

and the one in Welcome Home is "So below"

So perhaps the portal in Home is on the floor... This CANNOT be a coincidence I swear!!

With weird goo covering everything. And like, thats not all!

If you compare the items that the Restoration team uploaded onto the site in the first update and on the second update, you'll notice that the items have grown significantly larger.

At first, it was just envelopes with paper crammed inside of it. As if the person was trying to cram in as much information as possible. It isn't neat.

About us page: All of the paper materials tucked away inside the envelopes we have received are usually crammed together and covered in paint and ink.

Now, in the second update, the items have grown larger.

These items are much larger than mail, and I believe it also has something to do with how much bigger the portal has gotten.

Pretty soon, we might have full-grown puppets jumping in. But now that begs the question... Why is Home doing this?

Well, I think it's because Home really wants to help Wally.

As you inspect the website, there's a bunch of evidence that Wally is growing increasingly desperate for some other kind of sentient connection. It's been growing so much that it starts to get worrying...

Let's go back to the conversation between Home and Barnaby, notice anything weird? Not really? Well, I noticed that every bug audio file was in the perspective of Wally. Here, Wally is just staring at his half-finished painting, even Barnaby comments on this and finds it odd that Wally stopped painting.

It looks to me that Wally was dissociating. There, but not really there. He's been disconnected from reality because it feels unreal to him.

And Home sees that. As soon as the conversation turns to Wally, Home goes dead silent. When Wally still does not respond, Home releases a series of quick creaks and bangs to try and get Wally's attention. It doesn't work. Once Barnaby says Wally's name, it snaps him out of his dissociative state.

And Home is worried about Wally.

It gives a whole new look to the infamous "so-below" image.

Home isn't looking at Wally, it's looking straight at us. Eyes shaking as Wally seems like he's begging. Home doesn't look malicious here, Home looks like it's begging us to do something to calm Wally down because it physically can't anymore.

Home and Wally don't have a lot, if not any facial expressions at all. And shaky eyes in cartoons are a good indicator that someone is scared.

And if Home (in this link) is saying "Help Me", then no wonder! Heck, even the freaking disk is shaking!

Home is reaching out to us for help because it can't comfort Wally anymore and I don't know about you but that is SAD.

Two puppets that recently gained sentience can't even get the comfort out of each other because they can't communicate anymore :(

So, all Home can do is wait and watch Wally.

And if help won't come to you, well, having a handy-dandy portal is very helpful!

You can go to the help instead.

[thebusytypewriter]

hello hello congrats on the followers!! for the event could i request a long kamukura x reader fic where he’s basically baby duck imprinted on reader? i imagine that after being locked in a cell and mistreated by hopes peak even an iota of basic human kindness has him clinging

YIPPEE I've been brainrotting about this one for AGES I'm so sorry for the wait anon!! I'm also sorry that you were probably expecting fluff with this and while there is some, uhhhh........... angstnohappyendOKAYENJOYBYE--

No, I’m not falling for you

So please have mercy on me

The night of the Tragedy—the first one—you were there. That was something Izuru Kamukura didn’t expect.

You weren’t exactly there, not in the classroom where it all went down; things would’ve been much different if you were. No, you were some Reserve Course student who’d found their way just outside of the Main Course gates past curfew.

In fact, it was well past that point, nearly midnight by then. Enoshima had yet to return from her place in the security office, Ikusaba likely with her. This left Kamukura alone outside to ponder what had just transpired.

The gruesome deaths of the thirteen Ultimate students replayed over and over within his perfect memory, everything from gunshot to impaling to chainsaw. He’d expected each and every one of them to turn away from Enoshima’s “motives,” since innocent lives logically outweighed petty hearsay, no matter how damaging it would be.

Such intense emotion on their faces when first attacks were made… He couldn’t understand it.

Wind whistled past his stony face as he strolled, the force tossing around his hair in every direction. Even if he had the capacity to care about it, he wouldn’t. There were far more pressing things to worry about.

The sound of rubber soles on stone alerted him to an approaching individual, so Kamukura swiftly moved behind one of the few trees lining the outer wall and watched.

You were far out of dress code for a Reserve Course student, but he figured that you didn’t care with it being after hours. A large hoodie covered you, engulfing your upper half in the softest fabric he’d ever seen, and your yoga pants were just as large and cozy-looking. The only thing that indicated you as part of the Reserve Course was the student ID faintly peeking out from under your collar.

He could see the bags under your eyes from his place a dozen feet away, and the slouch in your walk alerted his health-related talents of your likely insomnia.

“Hello?” you called out, almost timidly, not too soft to go unheard but not too loud to alert any remaining security. “I was just out for a walk when I, um, heard you. I know it’s late, I just want to make sure you’re okay. It’s not a good idea to leave Main Course grounds after dark, okay?”

Kamukura faintly wondered if you’d ever had a chance of being an Ultimate regarding empathy or safety. It would suit you.

“I go here,” you continued, “so don’t worry, I just want to help.”

His nail lightly scratched at the tree’s bark in contemplation. Two abnormal events in the same night… Perhaps he couldn’t let that go.

Letting his definitive steps announce his presence, Kamukura stepped out and into the dull light of the street lamps. He said nothing and simply blinked at you.

You inhaled sharply, clearly startled as you caught sight of him. There was only a brief moment of panic in your eyes before it switched over to concern, your gaze locking on something just below his own, slightly to his right. “Oh my god, are you okay?”

Ah. In the excitement of your arrival, he’d forgotten about the bullet graze wound across his cheek. He raised a hand and felt around the area, unsurprised to find it mostly still wet with blood. “And why would you be concerned about me? You’ll get nothing in return.”

“Nothing in…?” Your brow pinched further, now from both concern and confusion. “Dude, you’re bleeding. Like a lot. Like you might need stitches.”

“No. I’ll apply some disinfectant shortly, and it’ll heal just fine. You should be more concerned with your own safety, being out this late at night, instead of fussing over a stranger.”

“I-I’m not fussing,” you argued, cheeks now puffing out in your annoyance.

You reminded him of a chipmunk.

Cute.

Something in him halted at the thought before reassuring himself that it was simply fact. There were no opinions within him. You were being kind to him, that was all. It was… unfamiliar.

Unfamiliar, but not unwelcome.

“Oh!” Your voice pulled him from his thoughts. “How rude of me. I didn’t even introduce myself.” With a statement of your name—something he already knew from observing your student ID—you extended a hand while asking for his own.

In a handful of milliseconds, he considered what to tell you. He could tell you nothing and walk away, leaving you out of the insanity but leaving this odd new itch behind. He could tell you Kamukura, but there were far too many things attached to that name on Hope’s Peak campus. You were Reserve Course, not stupid. 

“Call me Izuru,” he stated. “For your safety, I’ll leave it at that.”

Your eyebrows shot up to your hairline. “Ah… okay? Nice to meet you then, Izuru.”

“You as well.”

“Aaaand your reason for being out here…?”

“Nightly walk.” It wasn’t necessarily a lie, but you didn’t need to know that. “I was in the process of returning to my quarters when you appeared. I am in no danger, I assure you.”

You nodded, hesitant but understanding. “Gotcha. Well… just be careful, okay? There are some real weirdos out here at night.”

The irony of your statement almost made him laugh. Almost. “I understand, thank you. Would you like an escort back to the Reserve Course dormitory?”

“Oh, uh, no thanks. Pepper spray’s got my back.”

“If you insist. Good night, then.” Kamukura gave the slightest of bows before turning to reenter the Main Course grounds and rendezvous with Enoshima. Your return of the phrase met his ears, but he continued on.

He tried not to feel your gaze boring into his back as he did so.

He tried not to look back when he heard your footsteps retreat.

Izuru Kamukura failed for the first and second time that night.

‘Cause it’s not romantic, I swear

I’m not gasping for air

After moving from one underground bunker to another, Kamukura quickly found himself to be once again bored out of his mind. The only thing that kept his attention, that lingered in his mind, was you.

He’d never seen your face among the rioters from newsfeed alone, leading him to the conclusion that you were abstaining from it all. You were safe, presumably. Given how kind you were to him when you met, he decided that you deserved it—the safety from Despair. Someone like you needed to be protected.

And yet, he still thought about what it would be like for you to stay in that bunker with him. Kamukura wasn’t alone there, of course not; among its occupants was Enoshima, Ikusaba, Mitarai, and the nurse that was dragged in—Tsumiki. Of these, Enoshima was the only one who engaged in conversation with him, as one-sided as it was, and as annoying as she was.

Despite himself, despite his programming, Kamukura missed you.

He knew that Enoshima had noticed his change of demeanor after that night. He knew that she’d look into what happened, badgering him until she inevitably gave up.

What he didn’t know was how invested she’d be in the situation.

In the midst of his purusing old documents within the bunker, he was met with the sound of Enoshima’s delighted hum growing closer… then farther. It was odd. There weren’t many rooms in the bunker, and there were even fewer rooms that Junko Enoshima herself would enter. If they were dirty, she sent Ikusaba in. If they were hazardous, she sent Tsumiki in.

So where was she going?

Damn it, his interest was piqued.

Cautiously and quietly, Kamukura followed the Ultimate Despair down a corridor he’d never seen her traverse before. She hummed the whole way, a slight bounce in her step, before stopping at a closed iron door. It had a small square window at head level, but that seemed to be the only way one could see in or out of the room. Enoshima slid the massive bar lock out of place and pushed her way inside, letting the door close behind her.

He stalked up to the solid barrier and peered through the window, careful not to let more of himself show than what was unavoidable. As Kamukura’s gaze settled on the pigtailed frame he’d watched enter, her voice met his ears.

“Just checkin’ on ya, sweetheart! Can’t have you dying on me just yet, right? You just got here!”

Then, a second voice followed hers, one that made his blood run cold.

“I-I think you’ve got the wrong person,” you stammered, teeth audibly clacking together in the cold concrete room. “I don’t know who you are, I don’t know why you brought me here, I haven’t done anything wrong—”

“Of course not, silly!” Enoshima strode forward in faux contemplation, manicured hands clasped behind her back. “Consider this a… witness care program. We take care of our witnesses!”

With the Despair’s movement, Kamukura was able to get a full view of you. You were still in your pajamas, just a tank top and fuzzy pants, implying that you’d been abducted either in your room or within the dorm in general. Your feet were bare and pale—borderline blue—against the gray floor. (He understood then why you were shivering.) From that angle, he was able to notice your hands wrenched behind your back as you sat by a pole, and he deduced that Enoshima—or maybe Ikusaba—had tied you to said pole to restrict movement. How cliche.

“Witness care?” You blinked, fluorescent light sparkling in your eyes. “So you’re protecting me then?”

“Well, aren’t you just a little ray of hope?” Enoshima reached out and pitched your cheek with enthusiasm. “Cutie pie! I could just eat you up!” Her grin dropped abruptly, and Kamukura saw a few little beads of blood spring up on your skin where she held you. “…And then I would immediately vomit. Your gross little rainbows and sparkles make me sick, y’hear me? What the hell does a god like Kamukura see in a worthless Reserve Course chump?”

Your brow furrowed. “I’m sorry, who’s… Kamukura? Like, the founder of Hope’s Peak?”

“No, silly,” she snorted. “Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome. The one you met a few days ago. What exactly did he say his name was?”

He watched your mouth open to answer, then slowly close as you appeared to connect the dots she’d presented. Your response came out quiet and disbelieving. “…Izuru.”

Enoshima’s free hand flew up in mocking celebration. “Give the kid a prize! This might come as a shock to you—who am I kidding, it so will—but the Izuru Kamukura you talked to is a lab experiment gone horrifically right. He’s a god among men, the Ultimate Hope. And that makes it all the more confusing as to why he’s chosen to latch onto you of all people. Kinda silly if you ask me.”

Much to his odd delight, all traces of fear left your face at the statement, and you snarled at her. “Well if you admire him so much, then why does it sound to me like you’re doubting his judgment? I’ll be sure to let him know when I see him next. Whose word will he believe—mine or yours?”

Enoshima’s hand ripped away as she recoiled. “Ugh! God, you’d get along really well with the know-it-all detective in my class. Keep holding your head up like that, and you’re ten times more likely to get smacked by a bat. It’s just statistics!”

The twitch of your brow betrayed your returning terror.

“Anyway,” she drew out, “I wouldn’t get comfy, m’kay? Even though you’re here as a present for my beloved Kamukura, I still have an agenda. Maybe look up the phrase ��take care of’ in the dictionary! Oh, wait, you can’t do that here. Hm! Your problem, not mine.”

Kamukura ducked out of the window just as Enoshima turned, forgoing the remainder of the conversation to preserve his assumed innocence. In his brisk return down the hallway, he felt an odd tingling sensation rising from the midst of his throat all the way to his skull. It reminded him of an ant colony, one that disturbed the neutrality within him.

He then noticed how tense his brow had been the entire time. How clenched his fists were. How much he itched to burst through the door and rescue your kind self from Despair incarnate.

Some Ultimate Psychologist within him ticked off some boxes and raised a finger to share the new discovery, but he ignored it.

He had to.

The Ultimate Hope did not get attached.

I want you to be here, but please don’t come near

‘Cause even though I’m pretty sure my head’s exploding

I’m not ready for hand holding

Kamukura was attached.

Within the couple of weeks between his discovery of your presence—when he was sure that Enoshima and Ikusaba weren’t in the bunker, and Mitarai and Tsumiki were stationed in the former’s workspace—he often found himself visiting you.

The first time he made an appearance and explained what he could, he’d been expecting your immediate response.

“So you’ll let me go?”

He shook his head. “As much as I am of the mind that you should be given your freedom, there is a strong chance Enoshima may just hunt you down again and kill you. A far from ideal outcome, wouldn’t you agree?”

You did, and he was relieved.

…What?

Ah, yes. That was the recurring problem around you; Kamukura found himself feeling things. At first, he was convinced that he could become desensitized by visiting you more. It only made things worse. He got to know you then, all your hobbies and quirks and everything that made you unique in his eyes.

Not to mention your kindness. God, all the harsh interactions with immoral scientist after immoral scientist made him realize how truly important you were.

You invaded all of his waking thoughts, and Kamukura expected that he was doing a good job at hiding it.

He was created to have perfect judgment.

It’s not love, I swear

“Oh, Kamukura darling! I have a surprise for you!”

He let himself sigh as he turned from his absentminded file browsing to meet Enoshima’s wide grin. “I have no interest in your presents.” Not to mention he already knew to whom she was referring.

The grin flipped on a dime to a childish pout. “You don’t have to be so mean about it! And here I thought you’d actually like this one.”

“If you’re going to pester me about this surprise regardless, then I suppose I have little choice. Get on with it.”

Enoshima immediately perked up again, much like a dog whose master said the word ‘treat’ aloud. (What a hellish dog the Ultimate Despair would make, Kamukura thought to himself. He’d have to tell you that one later.) “Okie dokie! You’re gonna love it.”

��Doubtful. I am incapable of love.”

Incapability, the Ultimate Dictionary part of him said, is another word for inability, which is the lack of ability to do something. Denial is an unwillingness to accept that something is true.

He stubbornly shoved the thought away and followed behind the bouncing girl.

Love clouds even the most objectively perfect judgment.

They continued on to a section of the bunker that Kamukura was slightly less familiar with, as it was usually occupied by the other inhabitants, and he wasn’t one to socialize with them. (He wasn’t one to socialize with Enoshima, either, but she forced it upon him.) At some time, he’d heard the sounds of panic and stress echoing from that same direction, but it was her business, not his. It appeared that it was about to be his business, though.

Enoshima led him into an offshoot of the main hallway, her deranged humming increasing as they moved. It was never a good sign when she was so pleased.

The distorted music he’d listened to her perfect met his ears, laced with the edited screams of Ultimate students. Why was she playing the Despair-inducing video? Was there a “guest” he wasn’t aware of?

…Wait.

There would be.

If he wasn’t already aware of them.

“You’ve been so pressed over the battle of Hope and Despair, and I wanted to help you along—” Enoshima pushed a door open, and the sounds became clearer— “so you get to see Despair in action!”

A dim concrete room greeted the two of them, bathed only in the flashing lights and red glow of her video. In the center, a single chair sat askew with what appeared to be leather straps dangling from its arms and legs. The quick inspection with his Ultimate Analyst talent revealed a lack of tears in the leather outside of the usual signs of torture—fraying and scuffing. The occupant didn’t escape their containment, but they were released.

Speaking of, Kamukura’s gaze fell upon a figure settled on the floor, head pressed against their knees. It was reminiscent of a traditional Japanese deep bow—zarei, that is—but they were tense, shaking. Their hands dug into their hair and pulled against their scalp in this panicked manner, and that wasn’t even the part that set him off.

This figure, the victim of Junko Enoshima’s Despair-inducing video, was you.

“Turn it off.”

“Eh?”

His fist closed around Enoshima’s throat and tugged her close in an instant, dragging a garbled noise of surprise from her. “Turn the video off, or I will do it myself.”

Her eyes were wide at this new display, one he himself was quite unsure about, and she burst out in startled laughter. “Woooow! Okay, Mr. Assertive! It’s done the job anyway. This was mostly just for theatrics and funsies, to give a little pizzazz to your present—Hey, are you even listening?”

Kamukura was not. Oh, how he thought about bashing in her head at that moment. It would be quick and effortless on his part, ultimately ridding the world of her sick plan. But Enoshima wasn’t his priority; he was already crossing the floor toward your crumpled form, an uncharacteristically-loud heartbeat pounding in his ears. Odds of your being unharmed were slim, to say the least, and only dropping every second you didn’t move, but he called upon his Ultimate Luck to combat them.

Pristine black dress pants rubbed against the concrete as he settled on his knees next to you. Kamukura’s hand hovered over your back while he debated on the best course of action. What would he do if you were lost? Could he bring himself to hand you over to Enoshima, or would he go directly against her to repair a broken mind? Was it even possible for him to do such a thing?

Might still be in shock, he reminded himself. It was entirely possible that Enoshima had been bluffing. You were fine.

You had to be.

He let his hand run over your spine once. Twice. You remained, head pressed to your knees, though you shuddered at the touch.

Just ahead, the Despair-inducing video clicked off. Finally. He shot a glare at Enoshima and, by virtue of her sudden appearance, Ikusaba. Additionally, Tsumiki appeared to be peeking in from the doorway, and her twisted smile did nothing to calm his anxieties.

…Anxieties? The Ultimate Psychologist in his head once again raised a finger to say I told you so, but he ignored it.

Kamukura called for you, quietly at first. When he received no answer, he tried again, louder.

Something finally spilled from your lips, unintelligible and hushed. He wondered for a moment if what he felt at the sound was hope, but it quickly snapped away as your garbled noises continued and then transitioned into an objectively worse sound.

You were laughing.

No, you were crying.

It was both. You were hysterical.

Finally, finally, you sat up, and the “no signal” screen previously playing that maddening video kept your face under an eerie red light. The color illuminated the teartracks down your cheeks, and his heart clenched. Your gaze met his, and it sank.

Those kind eyes, the ones that made him feel warm, feel anything… were hazy and unfocused. The smile that set off the butterflies in his stomach, however few they were, twisted with insanity.

Tainted.

She’d broken you.

You. The one good thing in this spiraling world.

Kamukura cupped your cheek as you giggled something about his expression. He didn’t care to listen. He ran through the possible ways of repairing your mind and found that the list was both shorter and less possible than he’d initially thought. Human beings are fragile creatures, he reminded himself. You can’t hold one too tightly, or else it’ll hurt more when they break.

Perhaps this wasn’t what Enoshima had meant by seeing her work in action, but it got the point across.

His tears fell alongside yours.

It might be closer to Despair . . .

[ckret2]

Hi! Love your bill fic<3

I'm sorry if you answered this already, but Would Bill be able to open gates, because I would think he could just think of them as 'pieces of fence that open', but again that's like loosely what doors are. So could Bill think normal doors(like doorknob swinging doors) as something like 'pieces of wall that open', 'gates of wood' or 'weird vertical roof lids', would that work or would trying to make a definition for the concept of doors not work?

Also I don't quite know if this is a spoiler, but does Bill's native language/text only require two different colours or do the colour change the meaning of the text?

Gates are definitely a kind of door, and—much like how the spell includes windows—gates clearly perform an identical enough function to doors that the spell probably internally specifies "and yes this category of object is obviously a door."

Yes, if Bill can convince himself that doors aren't [object in the internal mental category of what we perceive as doors], he could open one. Stating "a door isn't a door" is insufficient; it requires believing in your heart that this thing isn't conceptually a door. But looking at a door without mentally understanding it as a door is like trying to focus your attention on a written word without reading the word. Bill "lie until you can't remember what's a truth and what's a lie" Cipher has a bigger advantage at that than most humans, but even for him it's difficult. He's only able to use the "roof lids" trick when he's unconscious and can apply Dream Logic to the situation, doing something similar with door-doors would be even harder.

Here's my post about his native language! tl;dr the colors are irrelevant, there just have to be two, a "lighter" one and a "darker" one.

With the release of TBOB, I've decided his written language comes in two forms: a fancier "high" script and an easier "low" script. The color code used in TBOB is the "high" script, and it's fancier because you need to switch between at least* 26 different colors to write it, meaning it'd be a pain to write out by hand. The "low" script only needs two colors, Light and Dark, so it's a lot easier to write by hand.

(*"At least" because I'm assuming that Bill's language isn't actually literally English except it's written in colors, what we see in the book is just an approximation of how his language looks but his actual language would have its own words/letters/etc that don't match the Latin alphabet.)

The low script takes up a lot more space (since it could take 3 dots/dashes to write a letter that could've been represented by a single dot in high script), so it's only for handwriting; for printed documents (like books & newspapers), formal documents (like contracts), and digital documents (anything on a computer or typed & printed from a computer), the high script is used since it's easy to type out. The high script is probably hell for colorblind shapes.

[weirdmarioenemies]

I am going to like totally finally finish ranking the Mario galaxies today. Stop Me.

Thank you for you're patience. We can talk about the top 5 galaxies now

I'm not gonna bother with any prelude, you've waited for this for like years now I know you want the Goods so here you go!

5. Blue Grass Galaxy

Tier: S+ Debut: Super Mario Galaxy 2

Blue Grass Galaxy is quite possibly the most elusive galaxy in the series. It was shown off briefly in the first ever Super Mario Galaxy 2 trailer, but when the game came out, it seemed like it was nowhere to be seen... Not even datamining could find it!

But as it turned out, we just weren't looking hard enough, because if you manage to grab every Green Star as Mario in a single sitting in under two hours without losing a single life, and then beat the Perfect Run, also without losing a single life, you unlock... A series of Red Stars for each Galaxy! And once you collect all of those in under an hour as Luigi without losing any lives, once again followed by another perfect Perfect Run, you unlock a bonus Hungry Luma on the World Map, who needs to be fed 9999 Star Bits on all three save files (so have fun speedrunning the green and red stars again!) before finally transforming into the Blue Grass Galaxy.

Of course, because the files for the Blue Grass Galaxy weren't included in the game, you'd need to download it by using a special, randomly-generated code on the Wii Shop Channel, but once you finally did, you could finally play the Blue Grass Galaxy to your heart's content. I know it might seem like quite the grind to get here, but man, every second you spend in the Blue Grass Galaxy is so immaculate, it makes the whole grind worth it. I almost don't have the words to describe how good it is, you'd really need to experience it for yourself! Sadly, you can't anymore, ever since the Wii Shop Channel shut down... Ah well. You really had to be there, I guess. I know some people were disappointed by it just reusing the Puzzle Plank Galaxy music, but I love that music so much that I don't mind.

My only gripe with the galaxy, and the main reason it only landed in the #5 spot, is because of the name. They called it the "Blue Grass" Galaxy, but that grass is very clearly green. This might seem like a pretty petty reason to put it so low, but when you get up that high, the small things can make a big difference, you know? If they called it the "Green Grass Galaxy" or the "Blue Sky Galaxy," I could easily imagine it getting the #1 spot, but respectable effort nonetheless, and a worthy reward for Super Players.

4. Wet-Dry World

Tier: SS Game: Super Mario 64

I know what you may be thinking. "What could Wet-Dry World be doing on a list of Super Mario Galaxies?" Well, it's a World in a 3D Mario platformer where you can collect Power Stars. Need I say more? And ever since Throwback Galaxy confirmed Whomp's Fortress is a Galaxy, it's easy to extend this logic to the rest of Super Mario 64. So Wet-Dry World gets to make the top 5 also.

I mean, how would it not? It's a galaxy with a cool and unique gimmick! The idea of the height you enter at deciding the water level when you enter in is super cool, and I love all the ways they tie this gimmick into the galaxy's different missions. And while this might seem like a small thing to a lot of people, as a mod of Weird Mario Enemies, I can't help myself: I will ALWAYS love a galaxy that includes such memorable enemies as Chuckya and Skeeter! So Cool!

Even in a time before Super Mario Galaxy, they managed to get the "otherworldly" feeling of this location down pat! I mean, there's the fact the skybox is distinctively underwater, even when you're on dry land, there's the fact the way you adjust the water level is via these abstract crystals, there's the whole abandoned underwater city, giving hints as to long-gone civilizations and possible Wet-Dry World Lore, this galaxy has it all! I know some people say it has a Negative Emotional Aura, but those people just don't know the meaning of good atmosphere.

3. SNES Mario Circuit 3

Tier: Good Debut: Super Mario Kart

For the #3 slot, it should only make sense that it's a place with "3" in the name. I know lots of you were probably expecting SNES Bowser Castle 3 to end up here, but it's just hard for me to ignore SNES Mario Circuit 3's legacy. I mean, it's been in five different games for crying out loud! It's hard for a course to show up in five games if it's not really good, right?

SNES Mario Circuit 3 may seem like a really basic course at a glance, what with it being completely flat and everything. Not a lot of bells and whistles in this one, that's for sure. But a better look at it reveals it to be a surprisingly technical track, with some tight turns that require good brake drifting to take optimally, and a bevy of off-road shortcuts that reward players for good item usage. While lots of courses get by thanks to their flashy gimmicks and setpieces, SNES Mario Circuit 3 cements itself as a fan-favorite as a pure test of players' skill. I mean, again, I have to assume it's a fan-favorite if it's in five games.

I also need to give a shoutout to SNES Mario Circuit 3's Atmosphere. The course has hardly changed at all since its original incarnation on the SNES, making it like, totally retro, and the staircases and flagpoles representing the original Super Mario Bros. only help to cement that identity. It also gives the course a very unique, almost liminal sort of feeling. The yellow sky is also an interesting touch. Is it merely set at sunset, or is it a biting commentary on how 30 years of go-karting have caused enough pollution to change the color of the sky? I'll let you be the judge.

Either way, it makes sense why this course has cemented itself as such a fan-favorite, and manages to always get picked in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe online lobbies. It's just that Good!

2. Milky Way Galaxy

Tier: X Game: Real

i live here hi!!!!!! :D

1. Sling Pod Galaxy

Tier: The "S" is for "Slingpodgalaxy" Game: Super Mario Galaxy

It's always the ones you least expect who win in the end... I may have ranked it dead last when I started this series, but by using the momentum of the Sling Pods, it managed to slingshot itself allllll the way to the top! Bet you didn't see this one coming! But really, it should be obvious. This galaxy is an incredible test of timing and precision, offering a good challenge for skilled players, and with an aesthetic reminiscent of the beautiful Space Junk Galaxy, it ends up winning me over in more ways than one!

There's no question that as soon as you have enough Star Bits saved up to reach Sling Pod Galaxy that you should make a mad dash to the Fountain and shove them all into that Hungry Luma's mouth, because the Sling Pod Galaxy is an experience you'll never forget! And since it's a great place to farm Star Bits too, it practically pays for itself! Bonus!

Wow! What a wild ride that was !!!! hopefully we all learned something at the end.

i'll post the real top 5 some other time i'm sorry

[twst-hottest-takes]

Am I the only one that thinks the character names in TWST aren't the greatest, and some of them outright suck? While some are perfectly fine like Azul, Rook and Malleus' full names to name a few, but some of the others...?

Why is there a character named "Deuce"? That seems too "on the nose" for a card suit character.

Leona sounds more like a nickname. It's not regal enough to suit a prince. While I know Leona's surname is some sort of pun that only makes sense in Japanese, Leona should have a Swahili last name. One, because it has always been tradition to use Swahili names for the characters in any The Lion King properties. Two, he's a fucking prince of an East African-coded nation, wouldn't he logically have a Swahili surname?

Ruggie isn't a real name. It sounds like a nickname, but it isn't, so it's fucking bizarre.

"Viper" seems more like a name that was forced onto Jamil's family by the Asims to sound deeming. It sounds fake. Wouldn't his real surname be something else?

Vil means "vile" or "horrible" in Portuguese and other languages. Who the fuck in their right mind would name their own child that? Wouldn't that more likely be a nickname, and his actual one be something else? It seems very out of character for Eric to give him such a name. While I heard it could be a spelling of "Ville", I still don't buy it. Because if that was the case, why not spell it like that? I think it's more likely that she was making an ill thought out pun with it. (Vil, villain? Get it?)

The explanation for Kalim's surname is hilariously inaccurate in both versions and genuinely makes it sound like he knows nothing about his own culture. (TLDR, it should be "ibn al-Asim" if we're going off of the canon explanation)

Why isn't Lilia spelt like "Lillia"?

Fellow Honest sounds awkward. Shouldn't it be Honest Fellow? Even that sounds like a stage name than his actual one!

Rollo seems stupid and lazy. It's just one letter off from the character he's based on. Plus, it's the name of a popular chocolate bar brand in a lot of countries, so why call him that

These aren't even half of my complaints in regards to this!

Granted, I'm knocking her too much for this. It's pretty common for Japanese content creators to have a hard time coming up with "western" names for characters like it's hard for some western writers to do the reverse. While, sure, she seems to enjoy making "punny" names, some of them work while others don't. I'm giving some leeway, since this is a fantasy story where people tend to make names up. But it's something I really stuck out to me over time with this game.

I think it's time to talk about what we would consider to be "good" naming conventions.

Also I'll defend the card soldiers' names to my dying breath. I like playing cards and I like how on the nose it is. (Literally, Ace of Hearts, Two of Spades, Three of Clubs, Four of Diamonds. . .lol, how do all these guys end up in school at the same time, and do they get made fun of for it?)

You're right that this is actually a pretty common thing to do when it comes to making up "foreign" names, so I don't know what you would expect from a game like this. As much as I think "Jack Howl" is a Monster High level name for a wolf-man, I don't know how you're supposed to improve on that when the idea is pretty clearly "describe the characters with their name" is idea here. They do it with Japanese characters too in a lot of Shonen series.

In the end my expectations are on the floor when it comes to Japan naming foreign characters, so I guess it just doesn't bother me as much. But here's an idea:

Reblog or comment whose name you would change, what you would change it to and why. Let's try to keep it positive though.

Thank you for your take.

[kenomacreature]

THE MAGIC CIRCLE, or "WTF is Darkness, anyway?"

Part Three

A comprehensive, themes-first take on what Deltarune is "really about"

The Gaster of it all

The foremost trouble with Gaster is that there just isn’t very much to work with. We know so little about the guy that we couldn’t even figure out if a certain Valentine’s Day letter was or wasn’t from him. And since we know such little concrete information about Gaster, some might argue that trying to conjecture one’s way towards grand conclusions about him is a fool’s errand. Luckily (or unluckily) for you, dear reader, a fool is exactly what I am.

All joking aside, I do actually want to try my best to be cautious in this section. Since Gaster is someone who exists just as much outside the text as he does within it, any theory involving him risks mixing evidence with unsubstantiated fanon interpretations. For this reason, I will try to specifically list every premise that I need to come to my conclusion, so we can be on the lookout, together, for any pesky leaps in logic. Make up your own mind on whether these are all within the bounds of reason, or whether there’s something here that you can’t accept or find implausible. 

Premise 1: We can use information about Gaster in Undertale to inform our understanding of Gaster in Deltarune. Given that every known character that exists across both Undertale and Deltarune share not only similar personalities but also broadly similar circumstances, it seems like a safe assumption that the same applies to Gaster.

Premise 2: The information the Gaster followers give us can be trusted. This is to say that Gaster was the former royal scientist, that he was shattered across time and space, and that he exists at some higher level where he can “listen in” or watch during gameplay despite not physically being present. If we don’t trust the information of the Gaster followers, there's barely any discussion to be had, as these are some of the only sources of information we have about him. We don’t have any reason to distrust their claims, so they can be taken on faith for now.

Premise 3: Entry 17 was written by Gaster. The room displaying Entry 17 is literally named room_gaster in the files of the game.

Premise 4: The subject of Entry 17 is the substance of Darkness, as seen in Deltarune. Gaster literally refers to the subject of his experimentation as “Darkness”.  

Premise 5: Gaster is the mysterious person talking to us during the opening of Deltarune. There are numerous allusions to Gaster during this opening scene, such as the track which plays during it being titled ANOTHER HIM, a reference to an Undertale file tied to Gaster. The person speaking also shares Gaster’s exact manner of speech and verbal tics, minus the Wingdings font.

Premise 6: Deltarune Gaster exists in a similar state to his Undertale counterpart. The Gaster who speaks with us in Deltarune is a disembodied voice who is somehow able to communicate with us, the player, and seems to exist diegetically as part of the menus. A reasonable explanation for this would be him also being shattered across time and space and occupying a higher plane of "reality".  

Premise 7: Gaster’s experimenting with Darkness is what led to him being shattered across time and space and existing in this higher state. What else could the relevance of Entry 17 possibly be? The fact that you need to manipulate time and space to even access the room displaying it seems to point clearly towards this conclusion. As discussed earlier, Dark Worlds seem to behave strangely when it comes to time and space as well.

Premise 8: Darkness is a metaphysical substance that somehow dictates the nature of Undertale and Deltarune's worlds. If Darkness caused Gaster to become a disembodied being able to exist within the menus and code of the game, then this must surely mean that Darkness is tied to the very fabric of reality that makes up the worlds of Undertale and Deltarune.

With all of our premises established, I can now make what might, devoid of context, seem like an insane claim, but which follows quite naturally from the premises outlined here.

Conclusion: The Light World is actually a Dark World

Okay, what does that even mean?

Well, think about how in Chapter 2, Queen planned on making a Dark World inside a Dark World. What if she’s already inside a Dark World inside a Dark World? If sufficient manipulation of Darkness can shatter one’s embodiment in time and space, placing oneself on a higher or deeper plane of reality, then what that seems to point to is that Darkness simply is the substance that makes up the reality of Deltarune and Undertale. And if that’s the case, it means that the Light World is essentially just a very big Dark World.

The beauty of this hypothesis is that it makes perfect sense thematically. Deltarune and Undertale are fictional worlds where, like in the Dark Worlds, certain characters are aware of their own nature as fictional beings – characters like Gaster. And really, Gaster is exactly like the secret bosses in that he’s not free even in his own confrontation with his lack of freedom. Like how the Will of the Fountain guided Jevil and Spamton towards their reckoning with their nature as Darkners, the Will of Toby Fox guided Gaster towards a reckoning with his own nature as a fictional character. This is why Gaster, and possibly Dess, exist diegetically within the code of the game. Here in our world, the code is what forms the existence of Deltarune (the program). But once you immerse yourself in Deltarune (the fictional world), crossing its Fountain (so to speak) via your suspension of disbelief, the code becomes representative of something else – the “Depths”, a deeper layer within the cosmological fabric of Darkness.

Armed with a basic understanding of Deltarune’s cosmology, we are prepared to tackle the question of who and what the Angel is.

The Angel is in their Heaven, all is right with the world

Let me pose you a question. If Darkness represents fiction, what does Light represent? Because Light is an established concept in Deltarune. It’s not mentioned quite as much as Darkness, but it’s right there in the name of the “Light World” and “Lightners”. Darkners talk about the light inside Kris’s soul, which also makes an appearance in the lyrics of Don’t Forget.

So, what is Light? Well, if you’re on board with the conclusion that Darkness represents fiction, I think there is no choice but to accept that Light, as its opposite, represents reality. Or, at least reality in relation to fiction.

Deltarune seems to operate on a certain hierarchy of command. There are Darkners, who, as Ralsei is eager to remind us, are subservient to Lightners. But Lightners themselves seem to be subservient to an even higher force, one that shines more radiantly… A figure that is, funnily enough, shrouded in darkness. Their Heaven is only briefly mentioned at the end of Ralsei’s prophecy. They’re worshipped as a monotheistic God in the organized religion of Light World’s Hometown. And Spamton yearns to confront them, hoping it will allow him to cut his strings. In fact, Spamton seems to think they’re already present and addresses them directly in dialogue, asking if they’re watching.

This hierarchy of command maps out perfectly to the metatextual layers of Deltarune. Darkners are fictional beings within the fictional world of Deltarune and so occupy the lowest level of this hierarchy, worshipping their creators, the Lightners. Notice that “Lightners” is plural – Darkners don’t just worship the individual creator of their Fountain, they worship Lightners in general because it’s only through them, collectively, that they can exist. And who are the creators of the Lightners? Well, it’s us, right? We’re the beings one rung up the ladder. We’re the ones who “give their existence meaning”. Granted, Lightners worship an individual being, the Angel, instead of a category of beings. I think this is fairly easy to explain, though.

The world of Deltarune is made in service of the player. It is for the player’s sake that the game is designed as it is. Even if Toby Fox operates in a sort of demiurgic role of actually having to construct the game and the narrative for us, it is ultimately we who are the God of this world. We, the player, are the Angel.

I can already hear the question forming in your mind: “But what about Noelle? Isn’t she the Angel?” I mean, she does literally compare herself to one. And an Addison calls her one. And Spamton calls her one. And she's associated with snow angels. And the doll her and Dess create looks like an angel. And her Dark World attire is very angelic too. Is there any possible explanation for this other than Noelle being the Angel?

Noelle is certainly associated with angelic imagery and language, as all the examples above indicate. But take note that whenever she’s associated with angels, it’s in the lower case, referring to angels abstractly. Not once is she directly associated with the capital-A Angel. What seems clear to me is that Noelle is a special Lightner, with a special connection to the Angel, which is to say a special connection with us. This is made clear in the Weird Route, where we can use Noelle to “break” the game, bypass certain restrictions, disregard what’s “supposed” to happen and forge a new path, in a twisted reflection of Noelle’s own interest in video game glitches and creepypastas.

But really, when you think about it, Noelle being the actual Angel is kind of an incoherent notion in the first place. Even beyond the thematic significance of Light, we know what the Angel is, broadly speaking. It is a watchful deity existing above the Lightners and Darkners – this much is clear from how both Lightners refer to them, and from how Darkners like Spamton do. There is simply no explanation for how Spamton could be referring to Noelle when he talks about the Angel.

If you’re already convinced that she’s the Angel, this dialogue might mislead you into thinking Spamton is referring to Noelle. But on further inspection it’s quite obvious from context that Spamton is referring to the one who’s actually looking for the ring – us, the player. Immediately proceeding this dialogue, he asks us (the player - or Kris, who we're controlling) to pay for the ring. It plainly does not make sense for the dialogue to be addressed to Noelle.

Likewise, you’d have to jump through a lot of hoops to interpret this as anything other than Spamton directly addressing the Angel’s Heaven, which he believes is observing his current actions (as opposed to many Noelle Angel theories which speculate that the Angel's Heaven will be not a literal, but abstract concept corresponding to a future Dark World, or even the Roaring itself, at any rate caused by Noelle). But this naturally leads us to the question of what exactly the Angel’s Heaven is.

From what Spamton says, and from its description in the prophecy, it seems that the Angel’s Heaven refers to an actual, tangible location or plane of existence. Given that, I think it makes intuitive sense that the Angel’s Heaven is simply our world – the world above the Light World, the Even Lighter World so to speak, the home of angels and divine light. This is how Heaven can be “watching”, as Spamton says.

Banishing the Angel’s Heaven – the goal of the prophecy – would thus mean, well, sealing away the real world and severing the connection that was established at the beginning of the game, which is just a more complicated way of saying that it refers to ending the game. As explained earlier, Deltarune is itself a sort of Dark Fountain, a constructed world filled with characters prepackaged in certain contexts that we’re meant to enjoy and bring meaning and resolution to. The primary difference seems to be that within the story of Deltarune, this “Fountain” (if you will) was opened from the inside, by none other than Gaster, our gracious host, and must thus be banished from the inside as well, by the Delta Warriors of Legend.

I believe that this is the ending that Toby has teased, the conclusion that he dreamed of nearly 14 years ago. As the boundaries between the player and the game gradually break down, so will the boundaries between the Light and Dark Worlds within the game's diegesis, culminating in the Roaring, which I fully expect to be represented through overt meta-awareness and glitch aesthetics, similar to Undertale’s endings. What else would an apocalypse look like within the metaphysics of a video game program, after all, but a fatal exception error? The Roaring is the edge of the shadow, where reality and dream meet. And to bring an end to the Roaring, that connection must be severed.

In conclusion…

Deltarune’s narrative, like Undertale before it, is highly concentrated on a metatextual exploration of fiction and the impact it can have on people’s lives. The crucial difference is that where this was mostly relegated to subtext in Undertale, Deltarune is overtly grappling with these ideas through its plot. Not only with the metaphorically loaded nature of the Dark Worlds which serve as the backdrops to the adventures of our characters, but also with the player character themselves, their outright awareness and rejection of the player controlling them, and the ways in which those complicated feelings manifest in the Dark Worlds generated from their Will.

In this way, Deltarune is not only interested in exploring the impact of fiction on the lives of its creators but also the impact of reality on fictional constructs, which in turn reflects our own real world struggles to make sense of our place in an incomprehensible world which may or may not be created by a higher being.

A proper understanding of the thematic preoccupations of a text can open up new avenues of speculation and focus one’s sight on the things that truly matter the most. In this essay, I offered answers to some of the most pressing questions in the community, such as the identity of the Knight, the mechanics of Dark Worlds, the nature of the Secret Bosses, the identity of the Angel, and the significance of their Heaven, but I think more important than any answers to those mysteries in themselves is how they connect and tie into the central themes of the narrative.

By no means do I expect all of my conclusions to be completely correct, having less than a third of the full game to work with, but I do at least think they’re in line with the established themes it's been exploring, and well supported by the textual evidence we’ve been provided with so far. I’m eager to hear my ideas picked apart and criticized, and even more eager to get my hands on Chapter 3 and 4 – even if it ends up invalidating every conclusion I put forth here. Ultimately our theories should not exist for the sake of establishing or perpetuating arbitrary divisions, or to further our own profile as independent theorists, but to attain a better understanding of the narrative we’re being presented with. To that end, I can only hope I was successful.

[ilikekidsshows]

Gotta love the irony of Miraculous claiming "All it takes for evil to win is for good to do nothing" and then turning around and say "If you dont like us teaching countless of harmful messages to children so Marinette can be the ever-victim girboss ruler of the universe, then fuck you. You're wrong, you're an awful women hater (even if your a woman. That's the only reason you could take an issue with the story, you hate women) and if you want to watch this show in peace, you have to kneel and surrender your moral code to what WE tell you is right (for Marinette)"

Miraculous, I thought I was SUPPOSED to think for myself and speak up when I see injustice and people being harmed for someone's ego? Why did you lie to me when I was a kid? Marinette doesnt care for justice, she's self-righteous and now always puts herself first. If looking away benefits her, she'll always do it and only sobs little "sowwys" when things go bad, but then mostly only really cares about making sure SHE gets out of it best as possible. Sure, she's doing her best, but clearly much more the best FOR HERSELF then anyone else. Since s4 she stopped caring for justice once she isnt the one getting the most out of it.

She was upset that saying "I forgive you" to Alya at the end of Strike Back didnt make Alya put her life and loved ones on the line just so Marinette can continue having Rena Rouge. Just wanted her to keep the Miraculous, expecting that Alya too agrees that Marinette's feelings were all that mattered in Hawkmoth knowing Rena's identity. She "forgives" her, so Alya may risk and loose everything now. Poor Marinette, Alya didnt agree that Mari's forgiveness was all that mattered :'(

She never tried giving her friends or teachers real reasons to believe her about Lila, she just wanted them to believe her whim and punish and bully the new girl bc Marinette said so. Sure doesnt sound like Marinette dislikes abuse of power and bullying, she just wants to be the one to decide who "deserves" it.

And Cat Noir we dont need to explain, I'll do it anyway. Marinette is nothing but selfish when it comes to Cat to a level that honestly were impressive if it wasnt so horrible in a kids show. I have never seen such an awful and selfish leader and partner who then has herself nothing but rewarded for not giving a shit beyond the barest minimum and being a toxic to outright abusive hypocrite as long as she says "I'm sowwy, I'm just so blameless and correct :'( and you're wrong and need to do better and take care of me for unfairly making me feel NOT like a Queen :'( Oh no! I'm so awful! But, like, only in the really flawless way where you have to do all the effort or else I'll get upsette"

That's no hero, no role model, no loving partner both romantic and platonic, and sure no ruler of the universe.

Dont tell children to care about Justice and then punish them for doing so.

---

Yeah, the reason I say that the writing feels like Miraculous writers are punishing people for disagreeing or liking non-Marinette characters too much is specifically because of how utterly everything about the show and its actual, established moral code falls apart as soon as your suspension of disbelief is broken by one of the many, many, many, many breakdowns of its internal logic. This show is agonizing to watch when you aren't part of the segment of the audience the writers’ priorities cater to. When you aren’t excusing and forgiving everything the writers mess up, watching the show feels like a punishment.

Because, yeah, it’s about caring about the wrong thing. Caring about justice, when the writer’s want you to care only about Marinette’s personal justice. Caring about consistency when the only consistent thing is how far the writers are willing to bend things to excuse Marinette. Caring about any character besides Marinette, when the writers only care about Marinette. Caring about seeing a cute wholesome romance, when the only romance is the most toxic depiction of soulmates possibly ever seen.

There’s so much you have to ignore to just enjoy this show anymore, and it would be ridiculous if it wasn’t so depressing. And, because this show refused to conclude any of its arcs before it decided to turn them all into nightmare versions of the show you thought you were watching, going back to watch those old episodes also makes you feel like there’s this inky doom hanging over all the characters and their arcs. It's like peering behind the veil; you’ve seen something you shouldn't have and the normal doesn't feel normal anymore.

[saintsenara]

oooo as an unhinged ship, if it hasn’t come up before, hermione x regulus. (meaning book hermione and book regulus, not their fanon equivalents who we may safely assume can slip right into “good girl gone bad x unreasonably hot wealthy man” without trouble, and need no further consideration. idc about them. i like losers). what we know about regulus is minimal, but we can imagine for the sake of the bit that if he somehow survived, he just might have a little interest in SPEW, and canonically, hermione does go for a youngest son with fluctuating self esteem. regulus also loves making pinterest boards for his passions (which include domestic terrorism but all the same), while hermione is known to color code and decorate her study schedules. i’m curious to know your thoughts 👀 both crack-wise and more genuinely, as i love your analyses of how characters with severe divides could — or could not — reconcile their differences and overcome the obstacles.

(their biggest obstacle, of course, is harry, who bursts in on them at least three times a day to demand hermione explain why she went for the clearly less good looking brother. men are always like “i’m fighting demons” and the demons are unexplored bisexuality.)

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

while describing hermione's type as "youngest son with fluctuating self esteem" is apposite, regulus strikes me as someone as someone whose self esteem is sufficiently bulletproof that his issue is with a world which - as he sees it - doesn't respect how special and extraordinary he is, rather than feeling overlooked because he believes himself to be less special and less loved than those around him.

[hence signing his camp little note with his initials, assuming reading it will snatch voldemort's wig off and throw it across the room, when what actually happens is the dark lord doesn't even notice he's missing and undoubtedly thinks his name is reginald.]

would he enjoy being constantly nagged by hermione [which is how she expresses to those she loves that she loves them]? eh... i doubt it. although i am compelled by the crack potential of regulus joining spew for a quiet life, and helping the missus glitter-glue posters. the couple that crafts together stays together.

but what i actually think would be most interesting about these two - as i've also said in reference to shipping hermione with bellatrix - is that they have a couple of shared traits which could mesh very interestingly: an enormous capacity for loyalty and a slightly naive, slightly childlike tendency towards seeing what they want to see.

i've said this before, but hermione's astonishing loyalty is one of her most impressive traits - and contributes, in fact, far more to her role in the series than her intelligence. but it comes with the flip-side that she also - since her loyalty is directly intertwined with her inflexibility, which is her most fundamental trait, in both positive [she's resilient, logical, etc.] and negative [she's argumentative, narrow-minded, etc.] ways - has a slightly hagrid-ish tendency towards blind faith.

her inflexibility - especially the difficulty she has with considering multiple viewpoints - also contributes to her naivety. i do think it's striking, given the fanon tendency - gleaned from the films, which massively overplay this - for her to be portrayed as orders of magnitude more mature than harry and ron that she is, in many ways, the most child-like of the trio: harry begins deathly hallows by throwing away most of his school trunk, hermione takes her schoolbooks on the run as comfort items; hermione believes that she's overthrowing the institution of slavery at hogwarts because the hats she knits vanish overnight; the item left to her in dumbledore's will is a book of fairy stories; etc.

both of these - loyalty and naivety, with the positive and negative things each of them brings - is also the regulus special. he sacrifices his life in an act of absolutely breathtaking loyalty to kreacher - which is directly caused by the humiliation he feels over his blind faith in voldemort being revealed to be misguided, and, specifically, is caused by the realisation that his initial view of voldemort as someone who wanted to bump off all the mudbloods and let pureblood families rule as oligarchs over a society which was, otherwise, fundamentally unchanged in terms of social structure etc. was extraordinarily naive. the dark lord wants to live forever, and he doesn't give a fuck who gets hurt on the way.

i do think there could be something quite compelling about the two of them either having to untangle their fairly rigid approaches to life - and how much of a knock that might be to their self esteem. i also think there's something to be said for each of them seeing in the other what they want to see, and being completely unwilling to do otherwise.

you are correct to note that harry would be gagged.

[racefortheironthrone]

How do you feel about revolutionary era cyclops? Both in premise and execution?

A fascinating premise fatally undermined in execution by contradictory editorial and writing choices.

To start with, Revolutionary Cyclops was a completely logical extension of where Cyclops’ character arc had been going ever since Utopia and AvX and the Phoenix Five. All his life, Scott Summers had been Charles Xavier’s perfect soldier - not his favorite student or his most trusted student, by the one that Xavier could count on to put the mission above himself no matter the cost. And for many decades, that’s who Cyclops was, to the point where it destroyed his first marriage and caused his second to founder under the weight of his repression and trauma. But after the Decimation, Scott had to move past that, to take up the mantle of independent leadership for mutantkind - something he pursued with unflinching pragmatism and ruthlessness, before it culminated in the ultimate Oedipal rebellion. So having completely severed himself from the legacy of Charles Xavier and his dream, Cyclops had to find a new purpose, a new direction for his life, and he found it in revolutionary politics. I think that’s a quite compelling arc.

Where I think the execution got messed up was that editorial clearly wanted to portray him as being in the wrong, another well-intentioned extremist in the vein of Magneto (who not coincidentally was increasingly loyal to and admiring of Cyclops as time went on), but Brian Michael Bendis never quite agreed. We would keep reading stuff about how Scott was going too far, that his ends couldn’t justify his means, and so on - but when it came to actually showing on the page what he was doing, it wasn’t anything more extreme than the X-Men had done in their “outlaw” era, and arguably much less morally questionable than the stuff he did when he was running Utopia and was coded more consistently as heroic. (This reached its peak of ridiculousness in the post-Bendis era with Death of X and IvX, where turned out that the thing that had convinced the world Cyclops was “worse than Hitler” was to make a big psychic projection of his head and destroy one of the Terrigen Mist clouds that were threatening to wipe out mutantkind.)

[weeb-polls-with-pip]

Autistic Anime Boys Side A Round 1 Match 12

Propaganda:

Ishimaru -

"His title is "Super High School Level Hall Monitor" or "Ultimate Moral Compass" (depending on which translation we are going with). He was literally scouted by Hope's Peak Academy because he is very best at being the best boy. He is so hell bent on being the best student possible, that when the killing game starts his first concerned with not being able to attend classes. He's so hard working that he struggles to socialize with his peers (which is very relatable). When he tries to step in as the class leader, everyone else ignores him (which is also relatable). He naturally talks loud and doesn't seem aware of how strongly he comes off when talking to others. But even when he is scolding someone for their misbehavior, he does so because he wants to bring out the best in them. Kiyotaka puts 300% into everything he does on principal (and because he feels like it is his duty to restore his family's name). Many of his Free Time events center around him trying to figure out the "logic" in what other people do (such as why they would spend time playing video games/watching TV or why Makoto wears his jacket when it is against the school's dress code). Ishimaru Kiyotaka is easily one of the most autistic-coded characters in the Danganronpa series."

Nanami -

"One of the secret society of people with magic powers who destroy cursed spirits. Mentors the teen protagonist for a bit.

In this introductory episode, he says, "I don't praise or disparage anyone. I adhere to facts and judge in that basis. That's who I am. There was a time when I mistakenly believed society operated the same way."

and he's been clearly autistic ever since, routinely stating things such as "I hate abstract questions that leave interpretation up to others."

He's the Ex-Salaryman Jujutsu Sorcerer! Among a cast of shonen characters, he is the only guy who ever worked a normal job and he is so tired.

Ex-salaryman? Why didn't he become a Jujutsu Sorcerer from the start? "I studied at Jujutsu School, and one thing I learned… is that Jujutsu Sorcerers are shit! Then I worked at your typical company and one thing I learned… is that work is shit! If both are equally shit, I'll take the one I'm more suited to. That's the only reason I came back."

He always buys the same bread from the bakery, to the point where the bakery employee remarks upon it.

When he was still working for a Company, he tells the bakery employee:

"My job is to take money from the wealthy and make those people even more wealthy. That's pretty much all it is. Frankly, no one would mind if I was gone. People who wanted to eat bread would mind if their bakery was gone. Yet for some reason, my job, which exists outside that natural human cycle, pays better. When you think about it logically, it makes no sense."

He's great, he's the only Regular Dude in a world of Shonen Characters, and he is autistic. What more could you want?"