#speedrun tactics lol

[figs-oliomedley]

Jay blowing the ninja's cover in Season 7 was actually a time save thanks to Samurai X launching Borg up to The Apparatus. The real run-ender was Borg making the password thirteen-hundred digits (WHY DIDN'T HE JUST MAKE IT PI)

He'd have the perfect excuse to type in the code and even then, there's no way Krux and Acronix know the first 7 digits of P I (they might not even know what Pi is).

[cashmere-caveman]

hello everyone :) inspired by this post by @burrowingregg, please enjoy my thoughts on "what if crozier fucking dies and little becomes captain"

if he dies before sir john

one of two outcomes. sir john either doubles down ("we have to find the nwp for francis!"/"well now that the haters are gone its time to have Real Men Solve This Like Champs") or he goes hm. maybe this is a sign and actually this is a dire situation. perhaps we should pack it in men

i dont rlly have any thoughts on this except i am rlly curious what this would do to fitzy. does he ramp up the charming pretender routine now that he's the uncontested no1 son and crozier cleary didnt know what he was talking about or would this be an early wakeup call and jumpstart the fury beach convo w blanky?

if he dies pre ep4 (tuunbaq)

the lashing would not turn out this way bc little wouldnt have hickey punished as a boy -> less men would berth on erebus

mutiny later maybe? definitely different

(is this a good moment to squeeze in some solittle bc they have to cooperate to keep all the men in check.)

definitely better communication within terror command bc the lieutenants will know little is going to hear them out i think and since little sucks at asserting authority hed have to rely on them more than crozier did

weird tension between jopson and little i think. is it sexual. is it antagonistic. actually maybe i could see jopson joining a mutiny in a crozier dead scenario hmmm…. heres how hickeyjopson can still win !!1!!!!!

if he doesnt survive the withdrawal

jopson.exe stopped working

maybe i could see jopson joining a mutiny in a crozier dead scenario hmmm…. heres how hickeyjopson can still win !!1!!!!! (1).docx

joplittle coworkers to enemies speedrun. i think jopson would grieve so fucking much but then go Ah! We compartmentalise this emotion! Nothing easier than that :) and then hed be so fucking passive agressive as the new captains steward without even realising bc WHY does little walk around alive and hale when little was the one who got crozier the alcohol that killed him how is that fair (jopson is Not at a point where he is willing to confront the fact that he himself was just as much an enabler as little, if not more so)

also sidenote but he wouldnt shave little since that actually never was in a stewards job description in the first place lol no homoerotic blade to throat interaction for you, sir!!

i do think little and fitzjames would work well together! they did a good job on coordinating the carnivale and fitzjames is not someone who lashes out a lot, which is good bc little does not deal well w getting screamed at

i think blanky would become elemental. w crozier dead and (assuming carnivale still happens) mcdonald gone hes the last brit who speaks inuktitut fluent enough to communicate w silna Plus hes one of the v few remaining high ranking arctic veterans

(what would change in a scenario like this if my good friend and upcoming romance novel love interest graham gore - who was an arctic veteran and even competent and charismatic - was still around? food for thought)

what would hickey do? the object of his obsession is out of the picture so he cant get revenge for getting whipped, he still wants to go to his tropical vacation and i think w crozier dead he would switch to survival mode 3000 (he is always already in survival mode to begin with, but i mean the point at which he switches from playing defense to offense) sooner. if the captains dead theyre fucked for real whats holding him back? hickey voice in fact what is holding anyone back? men, we need to confront the situation!

i really think this might be where thomas "shouldve been a news reporter" jopson would shine. that nosy bitch knows about Everything going on, and in a situation like this where every information must be handled in a v tactical way so as to Manage The Situation i think there would be a great deal of avenues of action open to someone in a position like his. especially, i think, bc to me a great deal, if not to say the entirety of jopsons optimism and endurance and focus is simply build on this vast foundation of trust he has in crozier and w crozier gone, what happens to all of that? there are a few ways this could play out imo

a) he instead reorients himself toward the next Authority Figure, which in this case would probably be Fitzjames. I do think it is unlikely, simply bc due to crozier dying during withdrawal the fences would not yet have mended entirely and jopson Will Hold A Grudge. it wont be little, for previously mentioned reasons, even though i dont think jopson would be able to realise that himself. he does not have a lot of interactions w the other lieutenants up until then (not counting serving dinner etc) and since iirc they had not been called into the Sobriety Meeting i dont quite know about how much he would trust them. so unless sth drastically changes during the walkout the options would be fitzjames or little and i personally vote no on both

b) he would retreat into himself and simply Wait. wait for what? u ask. well :) he would wait. and then, maybe one day he might even React. but for now, he would Wait, and Pay Attention

c) i realize this is quite a shrewder reading of jopson than what dave k has said of how he sees him but as i said earlier to me a lot of jopsons "goodness" hinges on crozier providing him w the trust he needs to unfold these qualities. and w that gone, i think that leaves him as someone v smart, in a position where he has access to a lot of information, and also in a state of absolutely crushed hopes and reopened trauma. and that certainly does put you in a state of mind doesnt it?? atp his trust in the remaining leadership might be v fragile and he would certainly wonder how any of this would go on. so hed either implode and fucking idk. wither. (which, for the record, i think he would Not do) Or! he would decide that alright. no one left to handle this but himself so time to take matters into his own hands! youve shot smaller hawks than this tommy its time to get out of here! which, again, is where i think a possible hickey alliance, maybe via billy, might take place. if jopson and hickey would team up for a mutiny they would definitely constantly be daydreaming of killing each other <3 not to be me but i would read the fuck out of a hickeyjopson mutiny vs a solittefitz alliance. give me intrigue! give me bastardry! give me some fucking losers dishing it out in the canadian arctic over the worlds worst buffet options!

this is not necessarily a full point on its own but more of an addendum: i genuinely think jopson has it in him to pull a dundy. aka i think he v much does strike me as someone who would stage a quiet not so much mutiny but a quiet usurpation of power through simple calculated ruthlessness. which! speaking of usurpation!

option d) jopson decides that hes the only competent bitch left and the only way to ensure everyones survival is to go full grima wormtongue and become the puppet master advisor to littles captain. little would actually let this happen and might even welcome it. we know this guy is genetically engineered to follow orders. dont say i never did anything for joplittle enjoyers!!!

crozier dies during the walkout at any point:

i dont really have anything big for this. it would be bad but depending on what has happened at that point (how scurvy ridden is fitzjames? is jopson a lieutenant yet? has hickey killed irving already?) it might not change too much tbh

if he gets shot during morfins suicide it would be disastrous i think but it might actually make the men come closer together again maybe? if little becomes captain then and there maybe the mutiny might get prevented or at least postponed bc little would let the marines get their armed patrol and thus they might not be as resentful/mistrusting toward command. ofc little As A Captain trusting tozer and getting fucking bamboozled by him if the mutiny still happened would be an even worse look lmfao. that is if morfin shot him. if it was however a Marine who shot crozier…… well. i think thered be an execution first thing at daybreak! and any and all weapons would be under lock and key w extra attention to the point that i think not even armitage would hand them out. plus lbr it wouldve been tozer in this scenario w the killing shot so! armitage without tozer…. does that poor lad even know how to exist when he is not in sols orbit. how would hickey exploit this….. (also extremely evil version is jopson shooting crozier which is so evil that we do not consider it. goodbye)

if crozier dies pre tuunbaq attack id be curious if the (attempted) hanging would still happen. i personally think it would, simply bc hickey would definitely try to start some shit and fitzjames would be wary enough to order a post mortem on irving plus jopson would definitely catch that rat. maybe he would actually hang, even, but that depends on whether little as his captain or fitzjames as the overall expedition commander would give the little speech beforehand. if it's fitzy, either him or hickey in his response would run out of time before the tuunbaq shows up and hickey would escape, but if it's little theres a real chance he would shortly state some dry facts let hickey speak for two sentences of last words maximum and then get it over with. and now That would be a fascinating scenario to explore. crozier gone, hickey gone, camp in ruins, dozens of men dead, fitzscurvy left in charge. would there be a second mutiny? des voeux, perhaps? or billy himself (he was also an architect of this!!! he went to burn the fucking maps!!! billy was not regular rat who marrydivorcemarried the evil rat he was evil rat no2!!! simply a less flashy (fleshy….. hah) flavour!!!) just quietly absconding w a bunch of men into the fog? what would tozer do, if he had survived and hickey hadn't?

last minute death scenarios

anything w crozier dead before hickey could capture him would not change much i think. maybe hickey would deflate some upon the news but hed still capture goodsir and still die as a wannabe new god. i think the real tragedy would be if little was left as the only captain after fitzjames' death. that man was Not made to carry such a burden and dundy would smell the blood in the water and ursurp him early i think, which ironically might lead to a scenario where there could be a sliver of hope for survival for the healthier parts of the crew

if crozier died during the capture bc hartnell didnt take the bullet hickey would fucking kill whoever fired that shot (i do not remember who it was. golding? was it golding? i fucking hate that guy i can easily belive it was golding) and i think hartnell and little and whoever else was there would either escalate the situation into a shootout to avoid the mutineers taking croziers body for food (lbr hickey would love to eat that old man) and die right then right there or maybe get themselves captured bc everything is just pointless now (unlikely outcome imo the tension would be too high) OR theyd somehow get the fuck out of there, organize a party of men to take the mutineers and have a final showdown (unless dundy intervened and ursurped ofc) which means: tuunbaq survives!!! yay :D good ending for silna :) she has not lost the tuunbaq so maybe even no exile <33

if crozier just died during the final tuunbaq fight: no changes at all

which concludes my thoughts! this turned out way longer than i expected and honestly did not focus on little v much but it was super interesting to consider all these scenarios so thank u burrowingregg for giving me the idea to begin with :) i would also be super curious to hear everyone elses thoughts on this so please do chime in!!

[crystalclear365]

How did I get to this point?

So, I finally caved in and made an AO3 account. I don't regret anything.

Basically, one day, just randomly at night, I thought an interesting thought to myself:

"What if there was an AU where Bass and Mega Man were friends?"

And that's what happened. After some pondering and encouragement, I decided to make it happen. And for the past few weeks, I've been speedrunning chapters like crazy. I currently have a backlog of ten chapters, and I plan on posting them twice a week. Starting Monday of next week, they'll be uploaded on Mondays and Fridays until I either run out of chapters in the backlog or I get cooked (if I get busy). Or when the fic ends. Whichever comes first.

And after doing the math, this backlog will last me five weeks, or a little over one month, which is just enough time for me to add more chapters to it and also focus more on school, which (should be) is my top priority.

Now that I gave the backstory, it's actually time for me to tell you what this is about, because this was the main reason why I'm making this post, lol

In this AU, Dr. Wily tries out a familiar tactic to defeat Mega Man by having Bass pretend to be friends with him (so that he can kill him in the end. Yikes.) And Bass ends up actually wanting to be friends with Mega Man and y'know, not kill him maybe (just maybe...). And along the way, he becomes friends with Roll, Proto Man, and Kalinka, and they all form a friend group together. :)

Sounds all nice and wholesome, right?

Anyway, this fic is supposed to be more of a laid-back approach compared to the canon series. It's not too heavy on any fighting (besides arguing) and violence. However, it does go deep into angst and stuff, but there's plenty of wholesome moments.

And also Bass might be just a tad bit depressed in this

Anyways! I hope this piqued your interest and that you might stick around for the whole thing. Thanks for reading this post. :)

Have a good day! 💙

[chenswire]

Now that you said it I’m really curious about the foods in swummer files and voice lines now😳 not knowing Chinese is a pain sometimes.

copypasting this following paragraph from a writeup i did for a friend so it might sound a little more deranged than usual

in swummer's profile archive 4 they say the LGD officers will sometimes secretly(🤨) compare the difference between chen and swire's leadership styles in private; when following chen you have to yolo speedrun with her and will need half a day to recover from it while following swire requires you to multitask but in a controlled and not chaotic way and everything is very clearcut etc etc everyone generally agrees that they both 'seem to have 8 heads each, if i were in their shoes i would have been a goner after the first day' and it ends with rat king and wei two lungmen boomers drinking tea talking about the two of them too i was like ???? telenovela moment??? well not as crazy as the archive also saying that chen's desk was vacant (read: untouched and not taken over) for 2 years before swire tidied it up and put all the stuff into a box (read: not throwing them away) and labeling chen's (full) name on it (very normal about this meaningless detail)

Voice lines time

Talk 3

咳……检查了一下最近的行动��录，看得出这几年来，罗德岛的战术也更专业了，不错不错……哈？作为曾经的训练顾问看看任务记录不是很正常吗？我才没有偷看陈的资料！ Ahem...! I just checked your recent operation records, and it seems like Rhodes Island's tactics have significantly improved (lit: even more professional) in the past few years, not bad at all… HAH? Isn't it completely normal (CNT: Is there a problem) for a former instructor to be interested in this sort of thing? I-I didn't sneak a peek at Chen's data!

Talk after promotion 1

当上局长也没什么大不了的，无非是任务重了点、操心的事多了点，更能理解陈了点……啊，再强调一遍，我是接管近卫局，不是接陈的班！就算她现在回来，也是要叫我“长官”的！ Becoming the (department) Chief isn't that big of a deal. It's just that my work and responsibilities have increased by a little bit, and I can also understand Chen a little more... Ah! I'll say this again, I'm not taking over her position, but the entire LGD! So even if she comes back now, she'll have to call me Chief!

I like how she uses the same syntax? for all three, but I couldn't figure out how to word the [(noun) (verb) 少少] pattern succinctly in english AND keep the nuances lol skill issue... repeating 'a little bit more' thrice just sounds so wordy yea but anyway

the first two is 重 (heavier so a increase in both amount and importance) and 多 (more) but CNT has the last verb as 深(deeper) and also instead of 操心 its 烦 which is more like 'bother' than 'worry' aren't nuances great yippee

in her JP dub she says あのバカ龍 on the last chen mention while CN/CNT just uses the equivalent of 'her' instead of 仆街龍 but understandable because the word is a little strong lmao but im taking the nuance of her using 而家返嚟 as opposed to 現在回來 as a W regardless (something like come home vs go back)

this line is also referenced in a 123 rhodes comic strip

she does call her 仆街龍 in her module when talking to Hoshiguma though i'm tell you

别看那个了， 快帮我分分礼物。这是给你的冲浪板，这是给臭老鼠的火山泥面膜，这是给扑街龙的唱片——等她回来自己拿吧，还有给老魏的水果罐头…… Stop looking at that thing already and help me sort out my souvenirs. This surfboard is for you, this lava mud mask is for that cau lau syu, this album is for that puuk gai lung—she can take this herself when she comes back, and there's the canned fruit for old Wei...

>>>>>>>>>>等她回来自己拿吧 a more literal TL would be like '(you can kinda fit a I'll/we'll in here..???Let's) wait for her to come back here to take it herself'

this and the box thing from her profile the 'waiting for her wife to return from the war' vibes is off the charts tehe still hoping we get an actual voiced Puuk Gai Lung (swire edition) one day though (looks at global)

[empressawesomecoolness]

Doctor Who: The Ultimate Speedrun Marathon - 1996 TV Movie

Ok, I was warned this one was basically locked behind endless streaming paywalls or was otherwise just lost media. I was a little discouraged, so I was ready to just crack on with Series 1, but then I found the whole damn thing on YouTube. Lucky!

General Thoughts

Paul McGann was a ton of fun as the 8th Doctor! He was obviously having a ton of fun in the role, which I’m sure he must have been a fan of. He’s since retuned to the role in cameo appearances and such years later, so his infectious love of the material is apparent. I’m not sure if he was aware that his tenure as the Doctor would be relatively short, but he really makes the most of it. I also love his look! It’s a fun missing link from the campier looks of the OG Doctors into the more modern/tactical looks of the modern Doctors. I also liked the detail that his clothes were basically just a Halloween costume he stole after he woke up from his regeneration. Really clever.

Speaking of his regeneration, it was fun to see Sylvester McCoy return for an extended cameo as the 7th Doctor. I haven’t seen his Seasons yet, but I was familiar with him from The Hobbit and Sense8, so I really just like him as an actor. He’s also evidently having a lot to fun here, despite only about 20 minutes of screen time. As a newer fan, I’d say this is a great introduction to the fun of the Doctor’s personality and purpose in the modern era, as well as carrying the torch from the OGs.

I was really surprised by the setting being 1999 San Francisco, considering this is a pretty famously Anglo-centric show. It must have been a fun breath of fresh air at the time for fans, but I also enjoyed it as a new fan. It had a fun ‘90s neo-noir vibe to it that ‘90s England or some fictional future realm maybe couldn’t have gotten cross just right. (Also, idk if this is canonically the Doctor’s first visit to America, but I just found it funny that as soon as he steps out of the TARDIS onto American soil for the first time, he gets shot.)

Moving onto the Doctor’s companion this time around, we’ve got Daphne Ashbrook as Dr. Grace Holloway. She’s smart and resourceful and overall just really cool. An underrated companion, in my opinion. Her introduction in this movie is probably one of my favorite things about the franchise so far! She’s first referred to in the story as “Amazing Grace” by a fellow surgeon, followed by her having to rush into the 7th Doctor’s surgery straight from an opera house, all while still wearing her gown. Iconic.

Her relationship with the Doctor and her chemistry with Paul McGann is a ton of fun. They’re (for the most part) intellectually matched, so it’s fun to see the Doctor have a literal Dr to bounce off of. I do wish she had accepted the supernatural sci-fi truth of it all a bit sooner, cuz her having to come to terms with that takes up a good chunk of the runtime, but once she’s in the thick of it, she’s able to carry her weight. Also, idk if this is correct so feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but Grace and the 8th Doctor appear to be the only Doctor/companion pair that are romantic with one another. idk how this aspect is liked among the fans, but I personally didn’t mind it. They’re quite cute together, so you really root for them.

Now for the villain. I know nothing of the Master so far, aside from the obvious that he’s an evil Time Lord who can also regenerate, albeit not as successfully, since the conflict of the movie is the Master trying to steal the Doctor’s lives after he uses up his own. I thought he was cool enough, and as a horror fan, his wormy-possession form reminded me a lot of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday. I assume he’ll return as a big bad later on, but he’s a little one note here. He gets the job done, and Eric Roberts is obviously having a lot of fun chewing the evil scenery.

Favorite Moments

The Doctor’s little “these shoes fit perfectly!” was cute lol

Just one look at my blog will show anyone that I’m a massive Frankenstein fan, so the parallels drawn between the monster’s reanimation to the Doctor’s regeneration was super cool. Paul McGann also plays it really big! His “Who am I?!” dramatic moment after he comes back to life is classic monster-movie cool. Very Boris Karloff of him.

The one hospital orderly reacting to the 7th Doctor’s body disappearing by saying “You think he got up and went to a better HOSPITAL???” was so fucking funny oh my god

The look of the TARDIS’ interior appears to be carried over from how it looked for the 7th Doctor, but it fits the 8th Doctor so well. It’s like a gothic mansion, which just clicks so well with 8’s overall vibe.

The setting being at the direct turn of the millennium into Y2K was genius! It was sooo sooo cool I loved it

Paul McGann and Daphne Ashbrook are sexy as hell I need them so bad

Overall, Doctor Who 1996 is a fun and stylish entry! Highly recommend for those who haven’t seen it yet.

Now, that’s it for the 8th Doctor for the time being. Onto the modern era show, starting with Christopher Eccleston taking the reigns as #9.

[bwobgames]

If I double click on this frame of the going to the mansion cutscene, the game decides to die, and by that I mean it crashes, I feel like there's a chance this could be cause of the laptop I'm using though, so if this can't be recreated I'll just blame it as that

Also when starting a new game, only the default file names show up (ie, file 1, file 2, ect)! And it will last til you either restart the game or enter a different file, I was trying to speed run and investigate this when I discovered the crash lol

Ah yes, the anti speedrun tactic.

Jk I know of this glitch just haven't fixed it, i can probably find out what it's problem is if I fuck around and find out

The filename thing is strange. I'm assuming even without the name you still go to the desired save file. This is really odd bc the name for the save files are in a completely separate file from the saving dara, so it's weird that it resets.

Still, good find!

[mugmegan]

Chainsaw Man is speedrunning social commentary I swear to fucking hell. Fujimoto is likely critisizing the crazies in japan but crazies are the same anywhere in the world that this chapter could be read as critisizm for my country too (and I certainly dont live in japan either).

Weird sexual relations for "the greater good", batshit insane conspiracies, irrational hatred of america ("its all america's evil plan" is a common scare tactic of many MANY conspiracy theorists. Its used in my country too. I swear I heard a theory similar to the one in the chapter once. I cannot count the number of times some crazy guys on the news unironically said that phrase too. Word. For. Word. Imagining America as an evil mastermind pulling strings is funny for me but its real for news hosts and paranoid conservatives lol)

Miri said they overthrew a cult but they just made a new one on top of it djfifhfkf

This chapter hit me hard for how goddamn real and relevant it was (even though the story takes place IN THE 90'S!), I still feel the annoyance from actually having to face and think about those issues irl.

[lyriumrain]

I'm not gonna reblog the post cause there's already a bunch of people giving different responses, and I don't feel like getting caught up in that sorry lol

But there's this impression that every youtuber does this because they get 'more money' or that it's basically a clickbait tactic. Poorly made (aka bloated nonsense where they repeat themselves over and over to inflate video length) videos with a million ads shoved in? Yeah those are scummy and annoying. But that's not the extent of the long video format.

This impression annoys me because there's dozens of reasons why a video might be very long as opposed to short. And most of the time it purely comes down to what the subject is.

Sometimes it's just not worth releasing a video in many parts when the research and filming and editing is all done. Why risk the massive drop-off in views that regularly happens with video series?A creator is better off releasing everything they have at once, and trusting that people know how to pause a video and come back to it later if they can't watch it all in one sitting.

The creators who understand this will usually use youtube's built-in chapter feature so you can easily see the sections of the video and stop/start where you want to. (And if you're on desktop you can right click on a video and copy/paste into your bookmarks the video url for the time you have paused it at, negating the need to remember where you were up to.)

In other instances there's literally no point in breaking it up. For example: VODs of streams, or speedrunning videos (some of those, ironically, get very long lol), or compilation videos. That last one in particular is how I've found some youtubers - they have made a video series in the past and when it's done they decide to release the whole series as one video.

I'm gonna stop now, but basically people who are put off by a 'huge time sink' aren't the audience long form creators are appealing to. And for what it's worth, I have a lot of respect for both options (series vs one long video) because there's pros and cons to both! Series will always have the risk of view drop-off/waning interest, and long videos will always put some people off right from the get-go.

[ageless-aislynn]

Of all the things I really should've been doing today, trying to get my full game time down on Halo: Reach's Easy difficulty was not one of them. Yet...

Under 2 hours, woo! *fistpump* And Heroic is now under 4 hours. Getting Legendary under 3 for the achievement

is still not looking promising but hey. I'm just glad to be able to play again to work on it! I decided to try to really get the hang of some of the speedrun tactics I've seen used to get that achievement by practicing them on Easy first, just to sorta build the muscle memory of what I need to do when I've got a lot more enemies firing at me at LOT faster. 😲

Welp, my work here is done for the night, lol. 😉😂 Love you, frens, hope you're doing well!💖

[qsupremacy]

Behold, my Star Trek ocs at this moment:

Wardog—

human, arguably a mutant or human subspecies. Female. A criminal later turned warlord/crime lord from what is basically Mad Max But A Whole Planet. Basically one of the original colony ships got thrown via Sudden Wormhole to somewhere nearer to the rough neutral zone area and also back in time. By the time we meet their descendants they’ve basically gone full on lord of the flies and done a human history (but worse) speedrun. So they’re all irradiated and fucked up on so many levels. It’s literally just mad max fury road out here. Wardog was the daughter of one of the bigger warlords but daughters suck so he sold her as a child to a interstellar crime lord for some tech/materials they didn’t have. This is the start of her anti-villain arc where she learns how to dominate evil using evil’s own tactics. Meets and befriends Kovar when they’re around 12. She named herself Wardog btw. It’s bc she bites people and loves to be aggro. (humans have some of the most toxic bites on earth and this remains true in space and she 1000% is coldly calculating working with that fact) Ends up with a prosthetic arm and legs. Loves explosives (yes these two things are related). Has gold plated fangs and shit because she's an evil person who bites people and loves ~Drama~. Eventually deposes her father and becomes the dominate political power on mad max planet. Over the years becomes a major political and criminal figure in the out the badlands where things aren't super solidified between any of the various powers. She's Junkrat from Overwatch. She's a small, dog themed, Warlord Mad Max Junkrat in space. Who's one of the biggest political forces in the the interstellar badlands.

Kovar—

“that’s not a very fem vulcan name” — she’s the Vulcan equivalent of a girl named Dylan (the name itself is still subject to change atm but the vibes are not). She was traveling with her parents at 6 when there was a Tragic Accident and the ship crashed. She was one of the few survivors and was picked up by scavengers who basically traded her around bc a traumatized vulcan child sounds great until you have to actually wrangle them and their x2.5 physical strength and now they don’t seem as profitable. Ended up in a poor city on the edge of Federation space homeless and running wild with other kids at about 8. Accidentally kills another child in a petty kid's argument which horrifies her and she starts to try and basically reinvent Surak’s bullshit for herself. Gets taken in by a cybernetics guy who takes care of her and educates her. Meets Wardog after this point and they get on like a house on fire. Crushes Wardog's arm when they're 12 bc the town they're living in is made of scrap metal and gum and one day the building they're in explodes a lil and sends Kovar into a PTSD episode. Wardog offers Kovar her arm and she grinds that fucker into a pulp as Wardog guides her out of the wreckage. It's like, their Big Friendship Moment lol. And yes. She did do so much damage to Wardog's left arm that the cybernetics guy has to amputate it and give her a robot arm. Is very Not Vulcan. Has met vulcans since she was stranded and talked to them and read some surak in her quest to get her shit under control but isn't really sold on it. Eats meat, engages in hyperviolence but also reads a lot and engages in all kinds of emotional control and psych shit to regulate herself. Is very insecure and struggling still with the grief of losing her parents and the life she used to have. Tends to be on the quiet end, very observational, really just in a constant state of Actively Reigning It In which can come off as stoicism but no…. it's white knuckled vibelessness. desperately needs a therapist and to reconsider who she's imprinted like, her entire identity on. Basically, functions as Wardogs second and her straight man tho she also kind of a comedy legend tbh. Has Snowball/Crystal vibes from the hunt.

The Wardog and Kovar two man shit show are TOS era characters. They meet the crew after Kirk and Spock (minimum idk how much is too much for the context rn) are abducted on a mission and dumped into a reserve for a hunt of the deadliest game — civilization-making apex predator species. Wardog and Kovar are also "prey" but they signed up bc of some convoluted thing were they're more points and win money if they kill the hunters. When they realize there's feds in the game they're like "oh fuck" bc that's just ASKING for the cops to come and ruin their wild west bullshit. They basically just do their original plan while protecting the Enterprise folks. It's a very unpleasant and wild ass nature hike.

Somehow it devolves into Wardog and Kovar moving on to the second part of their bullshit plan where they basically do the whole plot of mad max fury road complete with fucking car based chase scenes because fuck it it's star trek we can do that. The Enterprise crew keep getting stuck talking about like, morals and the prime directive and shit about it all — also it's just a BONKERS time for them bc they just found out mankind has irradiated dystopian space australian cousins in the space boonies. This is when Wardog becomes roadhog president. Kovar and Spock remain in communication after because you know he's like "i gotta talk some sense into this person seek help get a new career c'mon dude".

Officially putting the rest under the cut bc we're already getting Stupid Long lol

Ri.n.a Sa.wa.ya.ma IN SPACE (she's new i don't have a name for her yet okay) —

A singer who's a contemporary of Amanda and Sarek and actually becomes quite friendly with them via Work Stuff. Her family is actually descended from an augment (I'm considering Khan but also that feels too "related to all the main characters" yk?) and they've kept that under wraps for ages. Meets some vulcan musicians bc of her semi-friendship with Amanda and Sarek which comes up later. Is in an abusive marriage with a guy she also as a son with. One of the vulcan musician guys figure it out and beats the ever loving shit out of this dude and Sarek has to keep this shit out of the papers and from imploding diplomatic relations. WAS gonna hurl this dude into the fucking sun for being so undisciplined and illogical but when the dude's like "that fucko was BeAtInG hEr YoU gOoN" Sarek's like "yeah okay okay I see your point now fair enough." Part of solving the fall out of the whole thing is that she and her son move to Vulcan and live with her musician buddies and vibe and do music. Eventually gets into the kind of unhinged hypersexual and absorbing relationship only performers can get into with the vulcan dude who ALSO has a failed marriage and a son and beat her ex-husband. They have to be separated eventually bc even for human standards they're just Way Too Fucking Much. It's so fucking messy dude it's so unhinged AND THEY BOTH HAVE KIDS WHO HAVE TO LIVE WITH THIS. She's one of the few human artists who have made a foothold on vulcan — likely because she's just very experimental and technically proficient (also she has a song that's just human behavior by bjork). But eventually she decides to stop preforming for vulcan crowds all together and moves to a federation colony planet. Basically the ratios of "people who're here to enjoy music/art" and "people who want to engage in some kind of perverse voyeurism/superiority thing regarding her expression of emotion" had flipped over the years and finally reached the point where she couldn't take it anymore. There's a lot of exploring the realms of like "sharing vs exploitation", artist rights, the artist-audience dynamic etc with her. Somewhere in all this she had a kid with the vulcan musician guy which makes her moving much more complicated lol rip still does it anyway. She and her first son are kidnapped by people wanting to examine and test the dna of augment descendants and see what they can do with it which does in fact make them augments bc ofc… ofc… Amanda is worried bc she hasn't heard from her in an unusual amount of time so Sarek quietly asks for people to investigate blah blah she's found and she and her son only get to go home to their normal lives bc someone has pity for them and flat out fucking lies that the experiments had been unsuccessful. Years later a vulcan journalist who grew up listening to her during her heyday on Vulcan does an interview with her where she admits to all the issues and why she stopped preforming for majority vulcan audiences and left the planet which sparks a lot of very interesting conversations in the Federation and on Vulcan about relations and cultural stuff etc etc. does a lil acoustic performance for the journalist bc they're so nice. Eventually does go back to Vulcan and do a show there which is a nice lil bow on the whole thing.

Okay here we start with the TNG era ocs and I'll preface by saying that I basically built a whole new fucking civilization/faction/thing for first Rally and then The Rest which I'm still building out. They basically deserve their own post or more. But basically it's in the Delta Quadrant, and the borgs might be an offshoot. Basically it's the Imperium of Man from Warhammer 40k mixed with Battle Angel Alita (movieverse) lore and vibes. This massive honkin' empire that basically built it's army in a lab (which is where the borg potentially come in as like, cyborg testing Gone Wrong and then breaching containment) and it only got worse when it started to tear itself apart.

The whole Imperium eventually split down the middle in a Greed War Thing since it was a capitalist hellhole to begin with which is when the cyborg clone army shit goes hyperdrive. Rally Point and her siblings (read: what's now 60% of the ex-imperium's population) are clones which are converted into cyborgs of various makes and models for Enhanced War Abilities. Eventually all of the "Creator Class" (the people who originally made all the clones and such) were killed off and the "Progenitor Class" (Rally and her siblings, aka the oldest functional units) took over as the driving political and military leadership forces. All the protectorate (name of the cyborg clone race specifically tho also just kinda what they call the military even tho it also has orgs (organics) in it) are linked via a hivemind not too unlike the Borg but it's less all consuming as each one still has their own personality. It's almost like a shared subconscious or how people think twins are and is more similar to how the Geth are portrayed in Mass Effect than the Borg. It's like the internet but in your brain and only for you and your billions of siblings to meme and coordinate airstrikes.

By the time we meet them in TNG, Rally alone is like 400 years old and they're mopping up the final floating city of the enemy faction and officially ending the war and turning their attention back out into the galaxy after like a 5 century or more long civil war and trying to decide what their next step is and how do they rebuild their civilization when literally the ONLY thing ANY of them know is war and the majority of the org pop are living in century ships and half the planets they control are unlivable from the war.

None of the Protectorate have real names, they all have serial numbers and self/community given nicknames. They can all automatically tell each other apart bc of the hivemind/neural net so they're not disadvantaged by how ever model line has the exact same face and build.

Rally Point —

Visually think Alita. Small, agile with little useful tricky things built right into her. the only "skin" on her is from about the clavicle up and it's synth skin. literally the only wetworks (organic matter) in her is her brain and even that's full or wires and nano tech and Science Shit. She's like 95% metal. She and all the clones who make up the same model line as her have the same face and body specs. She's basically a light infantry model who was picked out in the lab training and testing phase for potential leadership capacity as a child and was trained for that along with everything else. Eventually did rise thru the ranks and is now revered, almost worshiped as a mystical figure in the Ex-Imperium with her siblings due to her age and position as one of the oldest units alive. Along with being an infantry leader she's also the Face of the Progenitor Class as she's the Least Weird Looking and has the most charisma and is generally a curious and empathetic person.

Makes a deal with Q when he's starting his campaign of "put the Enterprise in a bottle and shake it for sport". Her people needed guidance and direction on where to go next. Q offered to help her find that so long as he got to slingshot her around the galaxy for his amusement and she promised to make chaotic as shit when she got there so he could having something to watch. She agreed bc hey free ride and the whole nature of this shit would automatically make chaos once people realized where she was from and all that. So he fucking YEETED her right into the path of the Enterprise. She was picked up and the story was that she was some poor person who was used as a lab rat in some unethical cybernetics experiments on a colony that was under attack but she made a point to never actually let anyone see the extent or hyper advanced quality of her cybernetics.

Eventually comes to bond with Data and then Geordi the most of everyone but is overall a very pleasant person and tries to be helpful when she can without blowing her cover. For a while there she just wants to watch and observe and get a feel for human and the Federation and what they're all about before she exposes her own people to any potential risks. Eventually can't hold up the lie anymore and admits to essentially being a secret official of an unknown government acting as the shittiest and most secretive diplomat ever. (Also she downloaded like, the whole Enterprise database into her brain and relayed it over to the Protectorate, hilariously less for the war shit and more for the library level shit)

Stays on the Enterprise bc that's less boring than sitting in rooms all day talking about stuff and an important part of this whole trip was to SEE STUFF and LEARN THINGS because the tech and culture of Rally's people is so uneven. Like they can rip holes in reality to Go Faster and make nano tech self repairing cyberbodies but they don't really know anything about terraforming outside of the theoreticals. Some shit still uses combustion engines. But also their flagship is so big the Enterprise could fit comfortably in a hanger. it's a fucking MESS. So an important part of all this for her is to SEE other civilizations in action and learn how they do it.

Her name is because that's what she is, she's the Rallying Point for the whole Ex-Imperium as the face and the heart of the Progenitor Class who instigated the coup that killed off the last of the Creator Class and took the arc ship they were building for the top 5% of Imperium society to survive on and made them the century ships that saved the 95% of the remaining population of orgs. She's both very old, experienced and Tired™ but also totally inexperienced and unequipped for so much of life. Just seeing like, a healthy forest in the holodeck had her walking out and into the nearest utility closet for a full on meltdown. Genuinely loves and cares for Data and sees him as part of her people and offers him citizenship with them when his civil rights are threatened. Only one she tells about her specs or lets repair her when she needs the help bc of Synth Solidarity.

Everyone pretty much likes her and thinks she's Pleasant But A Lil Quirky until like, the Borg and Dominion wars happen then they realize she's UNHINGED and from a race of WARBOTS who PLAY PRAYER MUSIC WHILE THEY BOMB PEOPLE.

God this is a horrific amount of writing thankfully THE REST OF THE PROGENITOR CLASS IS STILL WILDLY UNDERDEVELOPED.

Steady —

He's 12ft tall and looks like your average huge guy robot space marine. like he's a fucking transformer with a human head okay? He's in charge of the heavy infantry and the other more human resources focused guy along with RP. where she tends to get VERY emotional he's a lot better keeping a cool head.

Doc —

Your standard medical geared mechanical guy vibe with like, an eye with comical amounts of magnifier options next ot it and arms that can produce needles and scalpels or transform into medical tools n shit. The one in charge of all the cloning and genetic engineering and keep people all the orgs alive and doing the math and shit.

RND —

Name is a shortening of Research And Development. Basically Doc but for the metal bits and all the other tech in the ex-Imperium and has a similar look but for a mechanic. Spearheads the advancement of the tech for the protectorates body upgrades and puts out surveys and shit to find out what features and tweaks people want etc.

Admiral —

He's in charge of the ships. I got Nothing atm.

Admin—

In charge of recordkeeping, maintaince, all the like beaucractics of keeping this shit show together. Is a fucking sadomasochistic horny MURDER CLOWN LIBRARIAN who WILL KILL YOU if you get too close to the stacks. EASILY the most evil of the whole Progenitor Class but he's also the only one who wants to fuck around with organizing the paperwork so he's too powerful to get rid of. Based on Harlequins from Warhammer 40k.

I have literally one more more general oc atm but I'm not gonna talk about them rn this is already TOO FUCKING LONG and i'm TIRED OF FIGHTING W/ TUMBLR TO POST THIS SHIT.

[sysig]

Pick and choose

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 325: Deku VS the Outside of U.A. ~Conclusion~

Previously on BnHA: Ochako was all “dear bloodthirsty mob, this kid you see standing before you has fought harder than anyone and put his life on the line to protect you all, so please chill the fuck out, jesus christ. like, putting aside that he’s humanity’s best hope and so it’s very much in your best interests to let him rest and recover someplace safe so that he can keep fighting for us, are y’all seriously going to turn away an injured and exhausted child in front of his sobbing mother?? seriously?? come on now.” I’m paraphrasing here but that’s basically how it went down. Anyway so then the mob was all, “...” and Deku collapsed to his knees in tears, and Gigantic Fox Lady and Kouta ran over to give him a hug but then the chapter ended.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “FINE, YOU CAN HUG HIM”, which, was that so hard?? The U.A. Clown Mob is all “come to think of it, we’ve kind of been taking the heroes for granted this entire time, maybe we should be less passive in the future. anyway so Deku if it’s not too much to ask, can you please save everyone and fix everything.” Deku is all “I sure can, and by the way I forgive you for swarming around all menacingly two minutes ago and trying to deny me basic shelter and stuff.” Ectoplasm is all, “hey Todogang get a load of this. [walks in a circle].” Hawks is all, “that’s literally the greatest thing I’ve ever seen.” Rat Principal is all, “anyway so that’s what your students did today, hope you’re enjoying your new *~*ROBOT LEG*~*, Aizawa.” Aizawa is all “[lots of exposition about Kurogiri and for some reason, Toga, while being all brooding and sexy].” All Might is all “[standing here right outside of U.A. doing absolutely nothing and being foreboding AF]” and that immediately sucked away all of the warm fuzzy feelings from the hugs, goddammit.

each new week has become a waiting game of “when will Deku finally get to take a bath so people will actually be willing to go near him and give him the hugs he deserves.” the stakes have never been so compelling. I’ve almost forgotten about AFO entirely

lmaoooooo

me: for the love of god will someone please give Deku a hug before I die of old age

Mineta: YOU GOT IT!! --

Iida: [SWIFTLY CUTS HIM OFF] NOT YOU

fucking losing it at Mineta’s crying face. he really wanted to hug him. I legit feel bad but this is also the funniest thing I have seen all week, omg

somehow Kouta, who last week was only a hand’s breadth away from touching Deku’s head, is now twenty miles away from him in this new chapter

can I make a Loki reference here. is this recap a good place to insert a joke about someone using a TVA time-rewinding device to fuck with my poor boy Kouta over here. well anyway there it is

AND NOW HE’S BACK ALL OF A SUDDEN OMG

(ETA: since when is he “niichan” omg?? can’t handle this cuteness.)

BUT THEY’RE STILL NOT HUGGING HIM FFFFKFFFFF. WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO. WHO DO I HAVE TO BRIBE AND/OR BLACKMAIL

OH NO KOUTA IS CRYING THAT’S IT I’M DONE FOR

“when I heard that lady I knew that I had to go, but then stop again within inches of actually touching you because you smell like week-old rotten onions.” listen Kouta, I’m not saying I don’t get it, but you all can’t keep doing this to me. it’s the way you guys keep teasing it. like, if you’re gonna hug him, hug him. don’t just stand there with your arms held rigidly out in front of you like a molded action figure

OH MY GOSH BUT HE SAID THE THING

KOUTA SWOOPING IN AT THE LAST MINUTE TO TAKE ALL THE CREDIT FOR FIXING DEKU LIKE THAT ONE KID IN THE GROUP PROJECT WHO DOES ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT STILL TAGS HIS NAME ONTO THE REPORT ANYWAY, WHAT A KNAVE

GASP

(  ´͈ ᗨ `͈ )

SHE PICKED HIM UP LIKE A LITTLE BABY OMG?? she just leaned right over and lifted this child like he was a small animal. like a lil baby futon that she was about to hang up to dry. oh my god

-- HEY WHAT

(: well that’s extremely fucked up. though sadly not too surprising given what we just saw these past couple chapters

incidentally, I hope that anyone who was legitimately defending the civilians’ perspective earlier takes note here of how quickly that line of thinking -- “we’re just trying to keep our families safe” and all that-- can lead to straight up bigotry. if you’re willing to deny a child shelter and protection simply because he’s not YOUR child, and because you’ve decided based on Internet rumors (no real-world parallels there, I’m sure) that he might present a threat, it’s really not that much further of a leap to discriminating against entire groups of people simply because you perceive those groups as being dangerous. I’m sure the people who turned Gigantic Fox Lady away also told themselves afterwards that they did it to protect their families. “better safe than sorry.” “she’ll be fine, someone will take her in, but as for us, we can’t afford to take that risk.” people can come up with all kinds of justifications for treating other people as less than human, and the really scary thing about it is how fucking easy it is

one last quick side note, which is that Horikoshi does a great job here of showing how scapegoating works, given that AFO is the one who’s really to blame and who presents the actual threat, and yet Deku is the one who ultimately winds up being the target of the mob’s fear and outrage despite him being as much of a victim as they are. gotta love that irony, which unfortunately plays out far too often in the real world as well.

anyway I’ll get off my soapbox now, sorry about that. let us continue

YES, FINALLY OH MY GOD!!!!

AND THAT’S THE STORY OF HOW GIGANTIC FOX LADY BECAME THE GREATEST HERO. PACK IT ALL UP, WE’RE DONE HERE KIDS

holy shit. the real MVP right there. thanks for getting it done champ

jesus christ I have had it up to here with these people

literally the bar is set so low at this point that I’ll go ahead and take it. helping him because it offers them a tactical advantage is at least one step up from not helping him at all

“WHY NOT SHIKETSU” MOTHERFUCKER I SWEAR TO GOD

-- thank you!!

okay this one guy with the antennae hair is having himself a character development speedrun here

-- okay, but this part?? fucking this part, right here??

can we repeat that again?? the part where this guy acknowledges that the problems of hero society were caused not just by said heroes, but also by said society?? the part where he acknowledges that they treated the heroes like celebrities who were putting on a show for them?? the part where he acknowledges that when push came to shove, the vast majority of those heroes, when faced with a situation that offered no reward, were nonetheless willing to put their lives on the line to protect the very same people who then turned around and blamed them rather than thanking them?? are the civilians of BnHA even allowed to have actual deep thoughts about this stuff. holy shit

bro!!

ANTENNAE HAIR GUY SHOVING KOUTA AND GIGANTIC FOX LADY OUT OF THE WAY TO SLAP HIS NAME ONTO THE END CREDITS AS EXECUTIVE PRODUCER. CONGRATULATIONS SON YOU FIGURED OUT THE CORE PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTION AT THE VERY HEART OF THE MANGA. WAY TO GO BUD

meanwhile, on today’s episode of “one more chapter to go till the big volume cliffhanger, how else can I drag things out let’s see”

it’s a panel. of people’s feet. just a bunch of normal feet. with sneakers and shit

this All Might shirt guy is getting more screentime in this arc than 90% of the class 1-A kids

I guess I’m supposed to feel sorry for this dude now that he’s all “if we let you stay here do you promise to somehow magically fix every single problem that we are now currently facing?” those are some ridiculously exacting standards my dude. come on now

KACCHAN SIGHTING

thank fuck I’m not the only one who’s thoroughly unimpressed by absolutely all of this lol. I feel better now. meanwhile Iida and Kouda and Kiri are ready to run over there and hug them all. you guys are way too forgiving. damn you and your pure hearts

anyway so Deku’s like “yeah, definitely”

(ETA: almost forgot to comment on the “I’m no longer alone” part – he basically corrects the guy and says “sorry, but you’ll need to direct that question towards all of us, not just me, because moving forward we’re a team.” good stuff.)

you know what though, all joking aside... fuck yeah. because perfect victory, right. the strongest guys don’t settle for anything less. so I guess Deku has pretty exacting standards himself

also can you all just take a look at this fucking kid who’s got so much light in his eyes now that I’m gonna need eclipse goggles. hot damn. “you’re welcome” says All Might Shirt Guy as he is frantically interviewed by several local news networks asking him how he daringly managed to save Deku all by himself. “well I guess I’ve just never been the kind of guy who can sit back and let a bunch of rabble-rousers blame a little kid for all of humanity’s problems. someone had to step in and take action, you know?”

oH MY GOD THE SCENE IS FINALLY ENDING

don’t let the door hit you on your way out All Might Shirt Guy

but meanwhile, sudden Tododrama action??

oh shit

there are honestly so many ways in which Ochako’s very moving speech could have wildly backfired that I genuinely have no clue where this is headed lol. how exciting!!

so now Horikoshi is once again stalling for time with random filler panels, but this one is 10x better than the shoes lol omg

(1) was Ectoplasm’s jacket always this oversized. (2) did you guys know that if you go back to chapter 319 you can see that Horikoshi gave us a sneak peak at Enji’s Sad Detective disguise and I in fact made a joke about it in the 319 recap not realizing it was actually the stone cold truth. (3) did Shouto deliberately speed up out of impatience because Hawks was walking so fucking slow and he couldn’t take it any longer. (4) and what, I ask you, is up with these dramatic speedlines. so many mysteries here. what a masterpiece

everyone is acting all shocked about something ahh what’s going on

wait what

what the heck. did they just loop around behind everyone. what was the point of that lol. “anyway, so this is what they look like from the back” well okay, thanks for that Ectoplasm

(ETA: so it seems like they were actually hanging out someplace else away from the crowd this whole time, I guess? here I thought they had more faith in Enji’s disguise. I guess Shouto and Hawks don’t particularly want to attract this crowd’s attention themselves right now either, though.)

I am so fucking confused lmao

speaking of All Might WHERE THE FUCK IS HE lol. but yes, good, OFA brings everyone together, and Hawks is very deeply moved about this out of the blue all of a sudden. you know how it is

aw heck yeah now this is another filler panel I can get behind

Mineta really wants that hug, good lord. I genuinely love this actually. Mineta if you could just stay little and cute and keep crying about how much you love your classmates in a non-gross way for the rest of the series I would be so appreciative. you’re doing great

IIDA IS HOLDING DEKU’S HAND THIS IS NOT A DRILL. ONE TIME WASN’T ENOUGH FOR MY MAN HE’S ADDICTED NOW

what did I tell you. Kiri wants to get all of the mob’s autographs now. Kiri you’re a peach

Shouji having a conversation with another mutant type is a very nice touch! we really need to get to his backstory soon. I feel like that casual remark from GFL earlier was kind of hinting at more to come

is this the first time we’ve ever seen the Yaoyorictionary in action?? never forget that Viz tried to call it the “Yaoyorozu Reference Book” because they hate fun

last but not least, KAMIBAKU IS BACK ON THE MENU, FUCK YEAH. Kaminari trying to spice things up and introduce a little bit of controversy by smacking Kacchan on the back of the head for god knows what. I will be deeply disappointed after this if I can’t find at least one person unironically declaring that KamiBaku is now toxic and abusive

lfkdlWLWK TODODRAMA??

oh my god. Shouto’s face. Enji’s face. the back to “oyaji” again. the blunt, not-taking-no-for-an-answer, “I don’t know how much louder the universe can scream at you that doing things alone is not it, so hopefully you got the point” directness of it. fffdlkslj I’m so ready for this Horikoshi please don’t fuck it up my expectations are so high

HOLY FUCK

I SCROLLED DOWN AND HE WAS ALL “( ❛‿❛)” AND I JUST WASN’T FUCKING EXPECTING THAT OKAY. JESUS CHRIST. GIVE ME A SEC

lol okay moment over and now Enji’s pulling his hat down all dramatically like a world-weary Cowboy

OH MY GOD WERE YOU FACETIMING??

AHHHHHHHHH

(ETA: not to put Iida down or anything, but it’s kind of strange that Aizawa is all “the class rep sure did great” when Ochako is the one that was giving that whole big speech for like twenty minutes just now lol.)

(ETA 2: “thank god Iida stepped in just in the nick of time to keep Mineta from hugging Deku.” sorry Mineta I really do like you lately but it’s still low-hanging fruit lol.)

HE LOOKS SO SAD??! HE LOOKS LIKE HEARTBREAK ITSELF??! I AM BESOUGHT WITH THE URGE TO REACH INTO MY SCREEN AND PULL HIM INTO THE SAFETY OF MY ARMS??? MY GOD, AND I THOUGHT DEKU NEEDED HUGS

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH okay I was gonna just hold down the letter H for a full minute and count it out loud but within about ten seconds I realized I needed to chill lol

-- but then again NO, I DON’T NEED TO CHILL, I HAVE ZERO CHILL, ACTUALLY, BECAUSE IT’S AIZAWA WITH A ROBOT LEG AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

COMPLETE WITH ROBOT TOES FOR THAT EXTRA TOUCH OF AUTHENTICITY!! I LIKE HOW HORIKOSHI PUT ALL THIS EXTRA “!!!” EMPHASIS AROUND IT IN CASE WE COULD SOMEHOW POSSIBLY FAIL TO TAKE NOTICE. “REMEMBER, EVERYONE?” SAYS HORIKOSHI HELPFULLY. “REMEMBER THAT TIME AIZAWA CHOPPED OFF HIS OWN LEG?” oh wow now that you mention it we somehow forgot all about that. like who do you take us for

OH NO NOT THE SAD BOYFRIEND ANGST THAT I WAS SECRETLY LOOKING FORWARD TO WITH GLEE

well at least he’s not M.I.A. or back with the villains again like I thought he might be. still, that’s gotta be brutal to know your friend is in there somewhere, but to not be able to reach him again no matter how hard you try. that’s the kind of angst that pays off in final battles just when you most expect it. such is my hope, at any rate

what’s this now??

trying to decide if this is Horikoshi’s way of saying don’t worry about that, or his way of saying definitely worry about that lol

anyway so Aizawa is out here being all irresponsibly handsome once again. when is someone going to do something about him

here for Sexy Robot Leg Eyepatch Aizawa clenching his fists and making speeches about revenge. pretty sure we’re all here for that

WELL, WELL, WELL

IT’S ABOUT FUCKING TIME

I’M VERY GLAD YOU’RE ALIVE AND SEEMINGLY WELL, THOUGH!

BUT WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK THOUGH, ALL MIGHT

ffff. bracing myself for that cliffhanger next week. you’d better not touch one hair on this man’s head Horikoshi. I’m watching you 

[morelsupports]

im intrigued by the way moralizing certain social statures in conservative ideology serves as a way to relieve anxiety. two examples are fatphobia and classism and this specific way they operate that says, essentially, if you are fat it is your fault, if you are poor it is your fault. by making these things a personal failing they obscure the truth, which is anyone can become fat, anyone can become homeless.

people who are not yet fat or poor don’t have to fear becoming that way in conservative ideology because they must be doing something right. they have to ignore things like fat people who exercise and eat healthy, they have to say “well, they must be doing something else wrong”, because if they are healthy but fat then they could become fat without having some sort of “moral failing”. same way they decide homeless people must all be addicts or bad with money, because otherwise they could become poor or homeless completely at random, and that is, obviously, terrifying.

fat people who lose weight and become thin are often the most fatphobic because they believe everyone is capable of becoming thin. similarly, poor people (or people who pretend they used to be poor lol) who become wealthy or well-off think everyone could use their advice, have survivorship bias. meanwhile these things are actually… really really fucking hard and depend heavily on luck. but if we focus on those success stories we can decide that a “failure” is really their own fault, and we don’t have to contemplate that we might not be able to get out of that situation ourselves.

(good example of that last bit is the twitter thread that went around a bit ago where someone asked how you would get out of homelessness on your own. people were trying to lifehack or speedrun tactic escaping homelessness but they ran into obstacles constantly— can’t apply for jobs without an address, shelters have waiting lists and downsides, what if it’s hot or cold out?)

there is obviously a difference between these, in that besides fatphobia being fat is not bad for you, in a perfect world it would be just fine to be fat. on the other hand being poor or homeless is genuinely terrifying and i don’t exactly blame people for choosing delusion over facing the very real prospect that they could fail to afford enough to eat and have shelter, except that their delusion ends up hurting people who are blamed and punished for their poverty when they need food stamps, shelter, disability, etc. idk these are just some thoughts about the conservative mindset! a lack of empathy allows you the freedom from imagining another person’s pain!

[thespoonisvictory]

Please explain why Schlatt is the best character on the SMP.

(Alternatively, I would be really interested in hearing more about your dislike for Quackity's produced lore. Personally, I love it, so I'm really intrigued whenever someone says that they're not fond of it).

as much as I love schlatt, I think I'll answer the quackity question, because I've been meaning to.

first of all, I think I should clarify that I'm definitely biased, because my favorite streamers, outside of the dsmp universe, tend towards semi lore, or, at least, not whatever quackity's doing. I'm used to it, and people tend to not like change lol.

second of all, I really do like quackity's produced lore, but I don't like certain aspects of it, and find myself preferring semi lore in general. I don't think he should stop doing it so much as I think he should use it as an occasional technique rather than conveying near 100% of his story with it. big q is very talented and I commend him for taking such a bold approach, which I think pays off in some ways.

third, to me, semi lore is any lore that breaks the fourth wall in that it isn't trying to be something other than a minecraft stream, it's all in first person, and none of it is prerecorded. for example: most of wilbur's pogtopia streams are semi (or casual) lore to me, because he'll thank subs and joke with schlatt about getting techno a girlfriend, but it's still largely in canon.

anyway, in true jenny nicholson fashion, let's kick off with a numbered list.

1. this post, by patches, explains a bit of why the lore streams can get a bit disconcerting to me. the dsmp have always had a bit of charming awkwardness in their improv, because these are for the most part just Some Guys acting, and under the guise of a stream where it's just a Streamer Playing Minecraft, it fits. but the highly produced nature just- creates such a disparity between the quality of the cinematography and the acting that it's a little weird, y'know?

2. in some cases, semi lore allows for dread to be built in a unique way. during the exile arc, tommy would have lighthearted streamer jokes and bits, shout out subs, pretend like things were normal. he never acknowledges that his situation is messed up, that his condition is getting worse, that things are falling apart. it's a quiet, sinking, horror that creeps along over the course of weeks. it's important to the viewer that we are there every day to see the slow progress, to understand why tommy gets pushed so far down. besides the impracticality of 14 highly produced lore streams, you would lose a lot of the subtlety there.

the smp is such a unique medium in that the stream style itself is so telling. when tommy actively doesn't acknowledge what's happening, it makes the abuse that's occurring seem so much worse. when wilbur drops little hits about his depression or his plans in between lighthearted, ooc jokes, it lulls the audience into a false sense of security.

imagine a version of the 'forming las nevadas' story where quackity does it over the course of four nights. the slow realization of his manipulation tactics disguised by an unassuming stream format, because it's still quackity, joking around and laughing until he approaches the next person and he shifts into his 'persona'. when he finishes the conversation, we watch his face fall, his smile fade, as he walks back to an empty las nevadas. it would build hype, not to mention taking less work, and letting the audience see a bit more of quackity's humanity.

3. I mentioned it before, but it just straight up takes less time. I'm willing to wait, of course, but there's something to be said about the merits of pacing and being able to throw together a lore stream last minute. take, for example, tommy's death. it wouldn't have been nearly as impactful without the rushed, oddly somber flurry of livestreams that came after. jack didn't need a highly produced montage of him standing by tommy's grave as the seasons passed, of his planting flowers everyday. what turned out to be effective was just- him, walking around, coming to terms with his grief, completely silent for periods of time.

it was mourning. plain and simple, with no embellishment or evil villain music, shockingly earnest.

I don't think you could replicate that raw, undone feeling with a prerecorded, pre-produced, semi-movie. it feels like all of a sudden jack's pov was important enough that he had to stream, and there it was.

you could argue that this could be planned beforehand, but I think more often than not, that's a. not really feasible, and b. going to take away from the organic nature.

we all like candid shots, 'authentic' vlogs and influencers. to me, this is just one more extension of that rule.

4. under the same idea, you can make more. we spend more time with the streamers, and therefore the characters, and get to know their more human side. wilbur, for example, is deeply humanized by little things that you just couldn't really fit into a lore stream: his dynamic with niki, all his little moments of hesitation, his banter with tommy and his true love for l'manburg. who c!wilbur is is built up over hours and hours of comments and suggestions and one-off statements, and we just don't have time for that in quackity's lore. the transitions are snappy, filled with beautiful shots, but they don't allow for as much depth of character as that awkward little walk from place to place, that quiet monologue they do to themselves.

it's not impossible for you to do that, as with c!quackity and c!charlie serving as a 'morality pet', but at this risk of repeating myself endlessly, it's more earnest and organic in a sense.

5. last, I just really like multiple povs. one of my favorite bits from s1 is the fundy spy arc, because of how effectively multiple povs are used. streams where wilbur is deeply, deeply distraught over fundy's betrayal but thinks fundy doesn't care, while fundy is deeply, deeply distraught over wilbur's prior treatment of him but thinks he doesn't care. and you could watch both at the same time! quackity's pov isn't as personal when it uses third person, which is a bit sad because I think it's a unique aspect of livestreaming every perspective.

(I'm so sorry if this isn't coherent or makes any sense I'm very brain dead and tired from speedrunning three essays yesterday)

basically, I think quackity's lore style is good for big, grand events, occasionally. it's very cool to watch, definitely builds hype, and can make certain things easier, such as coordinating a bunch of people or doing special effects.

but for building a plot and establishing character dynamics, I really prefer semi/casual lore.

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep 14: So If You Put a Fraction Into a Duel Disk, the Card Explodes

We left on quite the cliffhanger last episode, so I’ll fill you in:

I did not get the haircut.

Like I seriously considered getting a Zigfried for a cool 3 or 4 minutes there, but then I decided to wait a couple of days and I basically forgot.

But, back to the arc finale, Seto has decided to walk, not run, to the Kaiba lab in order to fix the virus rapidly eating his entire company.

I just want to point out that Zigfried went through a LOT of work to get Seto Kiaba to go “uggggh” turn around, and pretend to calmly walk away. I’m used to Seto losing his nut kind of a lot and blowing things up but this season he’s like “be chill be chill be chill” so that the entire world doesn’t think he’s a spaz on TV.

And little aside about Seto’s design choices here, I fell down a hole of interior design videos, and can I just say: apparently these wood frame things on the wall are back in style? Good on you, 2002(3?) Seto Kaiba. Don’t think that current designers are painting them purple but...we’re halfway there to Yugioh fashion.

Meanwhile, Pharaoh decides to remind everyone that these stakes are hella low. The worst that happens is that Zigfried deletes the plane that Yugi needs to fly home...which would be an impressive virus.

Like it’s hard to tell if Yami even has a solid concept of “capitalism” and whether or not he cares about or understands the makeup of Seto’s company (which up till now has operated like a small country and not a business...which is a little more Pharaoh’s understanding. Either way...hard to tell if Yami would shed two tears for the loss of Kaiba corp.)

And, despite what I say in the caps, I feel like Leon and Zigfried are the first villains we’ve ever had that Yugi and Pharaoh didn’t unintentionally disclose that they are 2 people to. Zigfried and Leon are just...completely oblivious to how effed up Yugi’s bean is. They think that’s just a normal kid and lol no dudes...y’all got distracted by Seto Kabia but you have a literal Egyptian God just hovering around in the background and dating 3 people by accident.

Like when the show shelves the main storyline, it is very funny how it’s all “And we’re gonna put the Pharaoh crisis on hold--just put a pin in it. No one will notice this child is two nervous wrecks stitched together” and then Yugi and Yami just kinda hold it in and watch all patiently until it’s their turn to get off the bench.

(read more under the cut)

In the giant computer tower, Seto Kaiba shouts out a string of orders and numbers, admired the many sonar detector looking windows open on every monitor, and then sat down at his desk to like...check the firewall, I guess?

The virus is past the firewall. It’s um...it’s inside the firewall, pretty sure that was the point, but youknow, it’s a kid’s show so they’re just throwing out computer stuff that has no meaning to the writers of this show.

Mokuba thinks fondly of how Seto Kaiba has never screwed him over (which I mean...maybe not on purpose, ((except for that one time he did screw him over on purpose to get Gozaburo Kaiba to accidentally give Seto Kaiba the company, but you could say that was a grander scheme that he knew Mokuba would see through, which...)) but Seto certainly has screwed Mokuba over accidentally. At least once.)

And meanwhile, Yami fixes everything through card shenanigans.

So here’s the shenanigan this episode: I don’t go over cards here but this one requires a limited amount of explanation.

So every round the golden castle deletes half of Yugi’s cards. So he was like...I’ll just draw down to one card. They can’t delete half a card...so that means the card must delete one of the two cards on the field which means it must delete itself.

...which is like the closest Yugioh will probably ever get to abusing a glitch to do a speedrunning tactic like GDQ.

Anyway, like I stated in the title: there are no fractions allowed in Yugioh. If you do that to your priceless one-of-a-kind card you got from winning one of Pegasus’ murder tournies, it will irreparably bust the card.

I’m sure at least one of you will correct me with the proper way to insert a fraction into your duel disk. Cuz like...as I say multiple times so we never forget, I barely pay attention to this card game and I’m just flying by the seat of my pants.

I want to say Seto and Mokuba were in the hacker chairs for like...3 minutes maybe before they realized “oh...Yugi fixed it...” and walked the half a mile back to the duel arena.

and also, as I’m looking at Seto’s glasses here, I just realized...all of Kaiba’s team wears sunglasses all the time. Inside, outside, night, or day...

They haven’t outright said this...but what if those aren’t sunglasses?

Is Roland and that other Roland wearing fancy cyber glasses? They are, right? Because they wear them indoors?

Damn, they can’t take a piss without being on call with Kaiba Corp, can they?

Now the problem is...Yugi played all of his cards (he has two in front of him face down, but none in his deck) and after milling himself, this means he’s now basically a sitting duck for Leon to take the title of “King of Games.”

Leon insists that he defend whatever scraps are left of his card honor and not duel a person who is carrying no cards and Yugi was like “COME AT ME BRO THIS IS THE ONLY WAY I KNOW I’M ALIVE.”

He didn’t even have to do a horror on Leon, he just...played cards good? I skipped it, I’ll be honest, but overall Leon’s card honor was...saved? Maybe? I mean he also go destroyed when his competitor had not a single card in his duel disk so...

...Leon will have to work on his card honor off screen because he’s pretty well humiliated at this point.

But stumbling onto the playing field like he’s half dazed/daydrunk, Zigfried is like “You forgot I already won, bastards!”

Which is when we find out that Zigfried’s “delete all” virus failed to press “enter” and deleted basically nothing. Just like when my Mom attempts to send something in Gmail but doesn’t press “Send” and tells me that Google is down and broken.

Sorry my bro has informed me that he ALSO has had to help my Mother locate the “Send” button and I just...I know she absolutely did that but I’m in denial that this Riddle of the Sphinx has happened to her multiple times.

Honestly, the pep talk we get from Leon at the end to cheer up his bro was a whole lot of “we will pick ourselves up and we’ll do better next time. Together.” and sure you can translate that as “we’ll be honest next time” or you can translate that as “next time we will be not nearly as obvious about inserting a virus into their computer until it is done doing the job, bro.”

Just like Dartz, we didn’t really get a whole lot of retribution or closure when it comes to Zigfried. But, unlike Dartz, Zigfried didn’t do too much murder, so I guess this is fine. He tried to cheat in a card game...

...and I guess tried to delete Kaiba Corp but youknow...

...people let him have that. The police saw the ticket of “this man tried to delete Kaiba Corp” and they just...didn’t arrest him. The judge saw that ticket and didn’t put out a warrant. They just let Zigfried have this, almost like “better luck next time, ya?”

And then Roland clocked out for the day and went home, thus ending this arc.

Look at all these characters, most of which we never saw duel even one card.

We also got one shot of Mai for some reason although she was not in this arc.

AAAHHHH. Every time I’m like “the show is done screwing geography” we get another freakin geography spook!

But we went back to California in order to get a scene of these guys in an airport to get a flight to Japan...

which means Rex and Weevil just...were they shipped home by the Kaibas? Because way to ditch getting arrested by the American Government, hot damn. They are...literally terrorists who destroyed a Caltrain in a plot to kill everyone in the world so like...really surprised Rex and Weevil are in public...but maybe all the FBI were dead at the time so they just didn’t know?

Meanwhile, Duke has to go back to Death Valley and call a tow truck for his car, RIP.

I sure hope he got PTO during this stunt and isn’t going home to a pink slip.

I’m not sure of Dukes life or anything going on with Duke. I’m sure the thing about Serenity is him joking because we have all forgotten about that girl by this point...but also...is Duke...still living in the Tenderloin? The crime rate is very, very high and the ground isn’t solid, so it will liquefy if there’s an Earthquake, but it is one of the few places in the Bay Area that doesn’t light on fire every year. He has that going for him.

I just really hope Duke moves out of the Tenderloin one of these days, he needs a better life.

Meanwhile, Rebecca does one last crime.

This is like a post-epidemic reaction to a hug, but in 2002(3?).

I don’t think I’ll miss Rebecca too much. Wanted to like her more, but she was under-utilized, like most of the characters on Yugioh. Not even just talking girl characters here--most characters on Yugioh are super under-utilized, just Tristan Wallflowers doing nothing, but also being selectively OP as hell about very specific things they never, ever need to do.

Speaking of the devil:

Yugi...just saved his entire company...

But Mokuba is just has to make sure to make it seem like they owed Mokuba and not the other way around. Just in case.

So off they go on this massive plane. It’s probably more to do with the length of the trip as to why the plane is so big but also...

This plane is overcompensating.

But before we analyze that, lets close the book on Seto Kaiba’s very short therapy arc. Overall, it was a nice distraction, but I can see why people call it a filler arc, as it really doesn’t affect...anything going on in the major plotlines, which makes me think it could have been a movie or a game or something. But overall, it’s not bad, it’s just not what you’d expect if you were a Western audience.

Like I’m preaching to the choir, but typically, Western stories are entirely plot focused, and so our arcs always give or take away from that plot. But in a Eastern story arc, it may instead be character focused, where the climax is a character evolving or coming to some sort of cathartic realization, which this arc was, in a big way. We still had some plot, because this is a Shonen, but overall it was about characters, and specifically whether or not Leon and his bro would reconcile or change--which they did.

We did get to see a little more growth on Seto in that he...didn’t go bonkers and hallucinate during a card game. It’s been a while since we’ve had him not do that. Seto was very chill this arc, which makes sense, it was a very chill slice of life arc for everyone involved.

So, next we move on to the next one, which bro has informed me...is

still not Bakura.

According to Bro, the next arc didn’t even air in the Japanese version of the show? Like he’s got a lot of spicy Yugioh headcanons so he could be wrong (He did tell me that he thought that Zigfried was Seto Kaiba’s ex boyfriend when he saw this as a kid which...that sure is a way to interpret this arc, and it probably wasn’t just my little brother who went down that thought tube there...)

(Bro Note: To be fair, I didn’t watch much of this arc as a kid.)

But he says the next arc was originally a movie. But they released it in the States as episodes to be part of S5, just to put more episodes in there. Which, if he’s correct, makes it seem like we’re getting like the Mulan 2 experience kind of shoved in between this arc and the next

But um..

according to bro it has virtually no card games.

.......

I’m so used to only capping 10 minutes an episode, what?

Anyway, until then, here’s the link to read the rest of these from the start in chrono order:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

I’m kinda itching to do a Season Zero, it’s been a hot minute--so those take a little longer to do, especially since I need to go to a different site I haven’t...checked out yet...I’ll be back...eventually? I just know that at some point in Season Zero they fight it out with yo-yo’s and I want to see it.

[canescm]

MHGU : pierce VS Ahtal-Ka

//me helping friend farm Ahtal-Ka (lol)

since i made that short comic, i might as well just make a guide, since y’know why not? it’s kinda already well-known, but there wasn’t any other written guide out there (at least i can’t find one)

(oh, but if anyone wants to see it in action, just look up any speedrun against Ahtal-Ka for any range weapons)

What is this tactic : using pierce against Ahtal-Ka’s mech form, any range weapon works, just use pierce.

Why you use this tactic :

save time by not having to get on the mech’s back

pierce guns OP in this game... we all know it.

How to do this tactic :

Phase 2 (1st time Mech form)

move to the mech’s left side, shoot the cocoon from there (can start once the mech is out of ground, don’t have to wait for Ahtal-Ka to get in)

once the 1st cocoon destroyed, move to between head and front legs, shoot the 2nd cocoon from there, keep damaging ‘til phase ends.

Phase 4 (2nd time Mech form)

shoot any leg to make the mech kneel down (since 1st cocoon is in the middle of the back, out of reach.)

stand around between head and front legs, shoot 1st cocoon from there

once 1st one destroyed, continue to the 2nd one just like in previous phase.

that’s it, easy and fast. 

some other tips :

any of Ahtal-Ka’s dragonator attacks can be interrupt with flash. (i only flash the 3 spinning dragonators one since it’s hard to dodge)

speaking of; technically blademaster weapon also can damage the cocoon while the mech is being pull out, if you reach it. (example : [this GS speedrun] 1:05-1:32 and 3:00-3:20 (it’s an amazing speedrun.))

if anyone has any questions or wants to share more tips, etc., please feel free to add to this post!

have fun! :) happy hunting