#spoilers under the cut for whatever its worth

[bogkeep]

sorry i'm still SSSS blogging today. i meant to draw but instead i reread adventure 2 and. hm

like, it starts out fun, you have characters interactions and dreamsharing and interesting locations and new outfits and hotakainen backstory!!!! that's the stuff i think fondly of when i think of adventure 2. it sets up for an emotional throughline for the hotakainens that would be so so tasty to follow and explore, especially considering what happened to tuuri in the last adventure!!!

but then... nah. when tuuribird shows up, something that should've had a BIG impact, especially on lalli - there's almost no reaction among any of the characters. it's just "oh okay." and like, i get that the whole deal with the finns is that they aren't very open about feelings but come on. come on!!!!!!

i think that is the point in the comic where things start to feel off for me. it SHOULD be exciting, you have connected all the characters and you're digging into the main plot and not just fighting small fry along the way, but........ ?????????

it's also around that time where minna starts working on the infamous bunny comic, and some of the author comments from that period of time made me wince. the whole ssss reading vibe gets Weird!! it's really hard for me to extract the experience of reading the Comic from the experience of witnessing its creator getting converted and baptized in frozen lakes and following a higher calling to create a comic whose message is frankly rather stupid!!! also i don't read the comment sections but clearly shit went down in some of them, maybe because minna said some awful stuff in her streams??? i don't know!!!!!! i don't really need to know!!!!

and then the comic just gets boring and drags on forever. look, the worldbuilding and the monsters are cool, and the art is always lovely, but the true joy of ssss for me has always been the characters. and then they don't really... do or say very much with each other for the rest of the story. like they're following the plot beats, but so much of the comic us just monster fights, beasts fighting each other, the plot HAPPENS but there's no emotion tied to it. the most egregious example is when lalli and onni have the spirits of tuuri and ensi with them, and they have a conversation - and we don't see ANY of that. it happens off screen. we get NOTHING. there's ZERO emotional reward. the characters are for all intents and purposes unchanged. there has been no arc or change in their dynamics. WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE!!!!!

it feels like the beats of the story were all planned out, but not fleshed out at all, and when minna got this far she no longer cared about these characters, or like telling this story served any purpose. the potential is there! it's easy to imagine another timeline where this story is rich in character interacton and growth. instead we get a hollow shallow shell of a comic. welp!

i so badly want to admire minna's decision to end the comic "properly", but i really feel like it might've been better to have just abandoned it when her priorities shifted. it's so sad to see the characters getting neglected like dolls in a dusty toybox. it really breaks my heart that she doesn't believe ssss has any value beyond "empty entertainment" when it meant so much to so many. SIGH

people who couldn't be bothered to finish reading adventure 2 are right actually. there's nothing there.

[wind-up-thancred]

bit of thancred character musing under the cut that im gonna try to approximate from a 6am discord rambling into something i can actually post. both SHB and EW spoilers included

i saw some folks talking on twt about how guilt seems to be a very important factor in his life and i agree. i think a lot of major parts of his character and arcs have been due to guilt over something he did (or didnt even really do, re: the whole goobue rampage situation). it's driven him to work his ass off after louisoix which lead to him getting possessed... but its probably also what motivated him to do better for ryne after being forced to look his fuckups directly in the eye instead of just wallowing about them. but i think, at the same time, he doesnt really seem to, like... actually be proud of himself for a lot of the stuff he's done in order to work off that guilt? the biggest giveaway for that being the line in endwalker on the ragnarok where he talks about his "good deeds" cynically and seems to insist that they were never really that impactful in the first place. that they'll just go to dust when he dies.

in shb, during the ahm areng segment, not only does he talk down on himself in general, but also puts down his attempts to help OG minfilia back in the pre-ARR days... when i'm pretty sure she never even blamed him for the goobue rampage in the first place.

it's all a little bit sad to me, tbh. i've seen some people reason that, because he was only able to escape poverty due to louisoix seeing potential in his thieving skills, he's essentially internalized the idea that he's only really worth keeping around by ANYONE if he's actively being productive, either helping others or trying to fix whatever fuckups he feels he's made. i think that would explain a lot of this

note the "few positive traits" line, which to me comes across as "i was only picked up out of childhood poverty because he thought my skills were useful." though i don't really know how much of that mentality he's managed to work past by post endwalker. he IS able to go off on his own, and mentions that he trusts the scions to keep themselves safe now... but as i ranted about before, the short story points out that he's only really content to rest briefly before he feels obligated again to seek out unrest to try and help, specifically mentioning minfilia again. also, a couple times during the story, notably post ARR after his possession, mid SHB after he's wounded in a fight with sineaters, and post SHB after he passes out due to the weakening soul-body bond, he seems to dislike even having to rest for medical reasons

it's a pretty interesting part of his character to me. idk if the writers specifically had his rigorous upbringing in mind when they wrote these parts of his character, but to me it would make a lot of sense as an explanation for why he's so averse to rest and why he carries so much guilt and why he's so passionate about keeping the folks around him safe. that's kinda been his whole reason for life since he was a kid-- using his skills for the benefit of others. to him, doing anything other than that would be a waste, it seems.

idk. funny guy makes my heart hurt. yes i had all these dialogue screencaps saved and on hand. yes i am a little insane. what of it

[quietblueriver]

They’re in my head again (always) so here’s some more Southern Gothic fluff. Once again very minor spoilers for last night’s ep but mostly just them being perfectly, disgustingly in love.

-

The bones on Laudna’s garland knock together overhead as Imogen ducks under her arm, laughing and stepping close again, squeezing Laudna’s fingers (gently, always gently) before standing on her toes to reciprocate the spin.

Laudna has to bend a little awkwardly to compensate for the height difference, a familiar crack of joints just audible over the music as she turns. She’s laughing when she comes back, smile haunting and bright, and Imogen pulls her close enough to press a kiss to her cheek before twirling her out again.

It’s not long before the deck fills, the rattle of bones a charming if entirely off-beat accompaniment to the music, and a few minutes later, Imogen feels the tap of a skeletal finger on her shoulder. She turns, keeping one hand on Laudna’s waist, to find one of the crewmen shifting from one bony foot to the other.

“Beggin’ your pardon, ma’am.” And Imogen knows that bones can’t blush, but she can almost see it anyway, nerves working themselves out through shifting hip bones and twitching phalanges, a clenching mandible. “Would you mind if I cut in?”

Flaming blue eyes dart to Laudna and Imogen smiles, feeling fond and strangely kin to the skeleton, grateful to be surrounded by souls who see Laudna a little more like she does, who can appreciate the particular beauty of a wilting flower that refuses to give up its spot in the sun.

She raises a brow at her girlfriend, who nods, rubbing a thumb over Imogen’s wrist at her waist.

“Not at all.” She presses another kiss to Laudna’s cheek, a little too close to her mouth to be friendly, and Laudna shakes her head fondly even as she blushes.

No need to worry, darling. I only have eyes for you.

Imogen winks, only the smallest bit embarrassed to have been called out. Can’t blame a girl for tryin’ to make things clear. She tucks a strand of Laudna’s hair behind her ear before stepping back and gesturing to the skeleton waiting patiently beside them.

“Y’all have fun.”

The skeleton dips his skull and moves closer to Laudna. Rather beautifully tattooed waves circle down his radii and ulna, which move hesitantly toward her hand and waist, and Imogen thinks that maybe Kyle isn’t the only sensitive soul on the Crimson Abyss. She hears an enthusiastic, “Hello, there! I’m Laudna,” and smiles as she steps out of the crowd for some quiet.

-

Laudna finds her leaned against the railing, staring into the fog. She braces her forearms next to Imogen’s, pressing their hips together as she says, “Platinum for your thoughts?”

At Imogen’s raised brow she grins and waves a hand, “They’re clearly worth more than a copper, darling, although we might have to come up with some sort of payment plan if you intend to collect. We could resurrect some of the old shows with Pâté and Sashimi, maybe? Or, I have a few craft project ideas…”

Imogen gives a cursory glance to the crowd near them and then puts a hand on Laudna’s jaw and turns her, leaning up for a kiss.

“You can have ‘em for free, darlin’.” Laudna leans down and kisses her again, lips cool and, thrillingly, a little bit familiar now. “You can have whatever you want from me.”

She means it as a tease, even if she’s absolutely serious, but Laudna’s face changes, brow furrowing as she traces her nails up Imogen’s cheek, brings her fingers down to rest against her nape.

“Yes,” she says, quieter. “About that.”

And Imogen knows, braces, waits. Laudna’s eyes, dark and appraising, meet hers. “Your soul is too precious to risk.” It’s definitive, the usual joyful rhythm of her words traded for a series of hard stops.

“So is yours.”

Laudna blinks. And Imogen understands that even now, even after…after, Laudna can’t quite believe what she means to them, what she means to Imogen, but if this is what helps her to understand, then Imogen is more than willing to give it.

“I…”

She waits patiently, but when Laudna seems unable to find her words, looking down at the railing of the ship and biting her lip, Imogen says, “I know she’s in there with you, and you know I support you doin’…whatever it is you want to do about that. It’s your mind and your body and your soul, Laud. I would never, ever try to take any choice away from you.”

She risks tilting Laudna’s chin up with her pointer finger, a gentle pressure that leads Laudna’s eyes back to hers.

“But I need you to understand how important you are to me. To us. I had to live without you once, and…” She clears her throat as a cry comes from the crowd behind them, the music changing and Chetney yelling something she can’t quite make out. Laudna presses closer to her.

“Imogen.”

She shakes her head and takes a deep breath. “I don’t intend on doin’ that again, unless you ask me to.” Laudna shakes her head vehemently, nearly dislodging her rock chisel, and Imogen smiles at her. “But even more than that, it’s…you bring so much good to the world, Laudna. You. As you.” She gestures at the garland and tilts her head back to the crowd. “You bring so much joy.”

“That’s kind of you, darling,” she murmurs, ducking her head again, “but joy isn’t power. I don’t have much of that, without her, but you…you do, Imogen. You’re important. Too important to risk.”

She doesn’t sigh, not out loud, but inside she wants to scream. She wants to give Laudna her soul, to dive into her and destroy the bitch who has spent so long torturing the best person Imogen has ever known.

“There is nothing too important to me to risk for you.” A disgruntled noise, but Imogen pushes on, determined. “Think of what you’d give me for me, Laud.” There’s a tiny drop of ichor at the corner of her eye when she looks up, and Imogen catches it with her thumb as it falls. “You have to know I’d give the same for you. You don’t have to understand why, but…you believe me, right?”

Laudna bites her lip again, and ichor wells there too, the skin split with the force of her incisor. It’ll heal, Imogen knows, but she has to stop herself from tutting, settles for freeing the lip with the same thumb already stained black. Laudna watches as Imogen sucks reflexively on her thumb before bringing it back to Laudna’s cheek.

“Laudna?”

Finally, she nods. “I believe you. Of course, I believe you.”

Imogen nods back at her, says softly, “Good. Then you know, when I said you could suck out some of my soul, I wasn’t offerin’ anythin’ that ain’t already yours.”

Laudna sucks in a breath and Imogen kisses her and kisses her until another cry rises from the crowd and they break apart, breathing slightly heavier.

It’s a lot, all of it. Too much, always too much, to have to carry, even if it is easier between them. But as the music strikes up again, another new tune, Imogen wants to take advantage of the chance to do something a little bit normal and dance with her girlfriend. And if it’s in the most abnormal of circumstances—on a ghost pirate ship with music blasting from their sentient robit friend while bone garland swings from above—then that’s okay. That’s perfectly them.

“And anyway, didn’t you say it was kinda hot? The thought of suckin’ out my soul?”

Laudna barks out a laugh and purples, hand moving to her own cheek.

“Imogen.”

She gives her best roguish grin and winks, grabbing Laudna’s hand.

“Dance with me?”

“Always.”

Their friends are in a circle when they return, Chetney throwing his body against the ground in a strange approximation of a worm as the others clap, and Laudna leans into Imogen as they settle between Orym and Ashton to watch, cheering him on.

[alexanderwales]

Movie Review: Upstream Color (2013)

I watched Primer when it came out on DVD. It's one of the few movies that, when I finished, I immediately watched a second time. I loved it. It was dense and opaque, and benefited greatly from a second watch, which made the whole thing slot together like a nice little puzzle. It was filmed on a razor-thin budget, with one of the main characters being a writer, director, producer, and editor. I immediately put Shane Carruth on my (then short) list of directors to watch.

So I've been meaning to watch Upstream Color, his second movie, for a full decade now. The reviews for it were never very good, and every Primer fan I knew of said that it was no Primer, and I guess I had other stuff going on for literally a dozen years. I keep a "to watch" movie list, which is usually 20-30 movies deep, and other stuff kept taking priority for one reason or another. I wanted to be in the right mood for it, that was definitely part of it. So I watch a movie every two or three days, something like 100 movies a year, and that means that since Upstream Color came out, I have watched more than a thousand movies instead of watching it.

Spoilers Follow

Let's start with the obvious: Upstream Color is no Primer.

I think that I could fit the story of Upstream Color into a single paragraph. It's not complicated. When we start any movie that my wife doesn't think she'll like, she goes to look up the synopsis and reviews and trivia and stuff, and she quoted me a review that said it was an "opaque mess", and ... I don't agree with that, but I can see where they're coming from.

Here's my plot synopsis:

A man (credited as "Thief") discovers some worms that can be used to induce a hypnotic state. He uses them to hypnotize a woman, Kris, and makes her give him her entire net worth while under hypnosis. When that's done, he leaves, and she writhes around under worm control until being summoned by some music by a different, unconnected man (credited as "Sampler"). The Sampler takes the worm out of her body, implants it into a pig, then releases her. She wakes up with no memory and her life is shattered. Later, she meets Jeff, who had the same thing happen to him, they fall in love, they have a psychic connection to these pigs, they gradually get more in touch with what happened to them, then they go kill the Sampler and rescue the psychic pigs.

I don't think that there's anything in there that anyone could be confused about. The movie spells everything out. There are one or two plot beats aside from that, but this is about it.

It's how the movie does this which is unusual. It's taking show, don't tell to its limits, almost never with dialogue that clarifies anything, and its scenes muddle into each other, with none of them feeling like they last more than a few seconds. There is essentially no grounding, even when it felt to me like there should be, and the movie doesn't ever really stop being a visual tone poem. I found this grating in the first five minutes, then got used to it, and eventually started to find it grating again. I guess my best point of comparison is Terrence Malick's Tree of Life, which I thought was more effective but also did grate on me a little bit.

When a moviemaker does something like this, particularly an auteur (or would-be arteur) like Shane Carruth, I always start by assuming that this is part of the point, that we're being fed the plot one way instead of another because it ties into whatever is going on thematically. And here ...

Where I thought it was most effective was the sequence when the baby pigs were being drowned, since we're almost required to have that whole thing be done with Kuleshov effect, cutting back and forth between the pigs and Kris and the pigs and Jeff. It's a nicely evocative little bit of cinema, even if I didn't think that it emotionally landed for me. Where it's less effective is when we really would have been better served by just having some straightforward exposition, or more standard filmmaking, but I guess if you're committing to the bit, you're really committing.

So what's the story about? What's the analogy, what's the theme?

Kris and Jeff are drawn together because of the psychic connection from the worms/pigs, but also (in my opinion) because they've both been victims of this horrible thing that's happened to them, their entire life having been torn down by some thief, then made to believe that they were somehow responsible. So they've got the psychic thing going on, yes, but they also have parallel traumas, and the same sort of gap in their lives. I think this what I'll call Thesis One, the shared bond of trauma.

Another major thing that struck me when watching the movie was that both our protagonists seem insane from the outside. They have this weird connection to each other that no one could understand (though they don't seem to have friends or family or anyone to talk to who could find it weird). They mix up their memories, and sometimes fight about that. They have bouts of irrationality, paranoia, anger, grief, with no explicable-to-them source. They feel like there's somewhere they're meant to be, but they try to follow that sense, and it leads them nowhere. To me, this immediately said "mental illness", so I'm going to call this Thesis Two, the terror of knowing that something isn't right with you, but having no idea what it is, having this internal feeling inside of you, patterns of behavior that make sense at the time. This movie is basically not shot like a horror movie in any way, and does not use the language of horror films, but I think it does share a lot thematically with the subgenre "mental illness horror" where the protagonist thinks they're crazy. That our two protagonists seem intensely codependent helps push that line.

Lastly, at least some of the movie is about personal identity and meaning, though I'm not sure that I would called that Thesis Three, mostly because I don't know what it's trying to say about personal identity. Clearly both Kris and Jeff are attempting to construct meaning in the wake of what's happened to them, and their identities bleed together with their overlapping memories, but this is just not fulfilled very much, and some of it is wrapped tightly in what I'd call the mental illness stuff.

Even if I'm reasonably confident in what literally happened in the film, and what it's about, there are a few things that don't really click for me.

In a normal film, I would expect that the sequence goes:

woman gets hypnotized and wormed

life is ruined

lots of strange thoughts and adventures with another man who is equally crazy

revelation that she's not crazy after all

revenge and catharsis

But in Upstream Color, the Thief and Sampler are implied to be operating entirely separate from each other. There's a little gap which can't entirely be closed through inference, but it's implied the Sampler incidentally pollutes the water with dead worm-pigs, the organism infects plants, those plants get (totally be coincidence?) taken up by exotic plant foragers, then bought by the Thief. So the Thief and Sampler apparently don't have any relationship with one another.

And yet, it's the Sampler, who removes the worms from people and puts them into pigs, that gets killed in the end. Yes, he was the one to kill the Kris-pig's piglets, but ... I don't really understand this narrative beat. Do they assume that he was the Thief? The Thief gets away with it, and all we see of him in the end is that he's sadly shaking his head because the magic worms are all gone.

I mean, yes, the Sampler is a creep who uses his psychic connection to peep on stranger's lives, and yes, most of these people (seem to be) victims of the Thief, and it's fucked up to not give them information or closure. But if the Sampler and Thief are unrelated, which seems likely to me, then it feels like the Sampler is taking bullets better meant for the Thief? Or is it just because he killed some piglets?

And what does that mean?

I am, moreover, confused about what the function of the Sampler is when compared to what the themes are. Does he tie in with the mental illness angle? No, not really. Does he tie in with shared bond of trauma? Only in that he's preventing people from getting closure, I guess. He's a voyeur, a failed artist, some of this ties to personal identity, but again, it doesn't feel like a strong thesis, it just feels kind of random, especially since we have virtually nothing to go on as far as the Sampler's motives or history. He seemed to me like he was mostly just an artist, with the sounds of nature as his primary art and the experiences of other people as his secondary "art".

I'm going to give my hot take on this movie now, which is that I would have liked it a lot better if it were more traditionally structured. The opening five or so minutes really made me think that I would have been better off leaving it on the to-watch list. The "piecing together the location of the Sampler and getting revenge" stuff was super rushed and kind of nonsensical, and offered no catharsis, only confusion.

Overall, I would say I didn't like the movie. I think it was trying too hard to be deep (for me this is a very high bar to clear), and didn't benefit from the experimental aspects, and would have been better if it at least had a stronger idea of what it was trying to say.

I will now go read some reviews, and maybe that will help something click for me. Hopefully I haven't missed anything major.

[voids-colourful-creations]

Pyrrhic Victory - A Kieran Fic

[Read on Ao3!]

Rated: G Pokemon Scarlet and Violet | The Teal Mask DLC Content Warnings: Self Deprication, Unhappy Ending. (the standard Kieran fare) Words: 1.1k

Pokemon Scarlet and Violet DLC Spoilers!

Summary: Kieran's won! After losing and losing and losing, he's not weak anymore, he beat you in battle and now Ogerpon will- will- Well. (An AU Where Kieran wins the final battle.)

---

When Glimmora falls, crystal shattering to pieces against the ground, Kieran feels a rush of emotions overtake him. It’s like a wave, washing over with the impact of the blow Dipplin had dealt.

Firstly, was shock. Secondly, a mixture of pride for Dipplin, and a new sort of pride in himself. It’s not like he wasn’t prideful full stop, of course he wanted to be better, be stronger, and it hurt to lose. That sense of pride. But self worth and pride are not equal measure, and he was sorely lacking in the former.

It was a deeper pride then, satisfaction that Kieran had done it. After watching himself and his team fall to pieces again and again, all he’d had to do was dig his heels in a little more and a little more and- well he’d done it. That was what mattered.

Next, excitement, eagerness, and it’s strange how foreign it feels to be this excited, to be this thrilled. He’s proved himself! He really was weak, but now, now he’d won and Ogerpon—

Kieran blinks.

Aoi kneels over their Glimmora, gently stroking it and whispering affirmation under her breath. Ogerpon runs over towards the pair, stumbling a bit as its wooden face wears concern.

Kieran reaches a hand out, feeling himself step forward without even thinking about it. Ogermon catches sight of this emotion, freezing as it faces him.

Finally, Ogerpon is looking at him . For the first time, Kieran feels like he’s really looking his idol in the face.

This isn’t right.

It doesn’t feel the way he wanted it to.

“O-O…” His mouth feels weak. It’s not supposed to be like this. “I-“

He chokes on his own words, on the weight of everything that had pushed him here. Standing before everything he’d admired, everything he’d loved, and all he can choke out is,

“But… I won.”

Ogerpon stares at him for a moment, and Kieran stares back, trying to meet it’s eye. Looking deep into it, praying that something in it will connect with everything in him that’s held onto it for so long.

Ogerpon turns, and runs over to Glimmora’s side.

The next emotion to roll over Kieran is anger. He’d won! He’d finally won, he wasn’t weak anymore, he wasn’t—

Why did Aoi always win, even when they’d lost? Why did Kieran, no matter what he did, always lose?

Kieran takes a step forward, or tries to. His sneaker scuffs against the earth, kicking up dirt as he finds himself stopped. Carmine’s arm blocking him from moving forward.

He looks up at her, retort of some kind burning on his tongue.

“Quit it.” She spits down at him. Same as she always has, down on her weak little brother.

“But-“ Kieran tries, but Carmine cuts him off before he can even finish thinking about what he was going to say.

“I mean it, Kiki. It doesn’t want to go with you! Think about Ogerpon’s feelings.”

There’s a glare in her eyes and the growl in her voice, and it only makes Kieran angrier.

And how could she? When she knew how much this meant to him? What about his feelings? When had she ever cared about those? She was a liar, a bully.

“Whatever you say…” Kieran hisses under his breath. The anger in him burns like acid, hot and corrosive. It’s tearing him up inside, even as he spits it out.

" What did you say to me?!” Carmine growls back. Her grip tightens a bit, and Kieran tries to push forward, to no avail. In every way, as she always has, his sister overpowers him.

She doesn’t understand! She never has. If he just- if he- he can be better! He can be stronger and then it’ll like him! Someone will understand, he just- he…

He tries again to escape her grasp, push her away. Nothing.

But when Kieran meets his sister’s eyes for a split second, he sees a splinter more in her expression.

There’s anger, certainly there’s anger. How well worn and accustomed Kieran is to the rage in Carmine. But crystalized in that, there’s fear. Fear of Kieran.

And for one moment, a fraction of a second, Kieran thinks good .

Now you know what it's like.

And right after, it all shatters apart.

Shame is the last feeling that waves over Kieran, and it’s sticking and drippy, like Dipplin’s Syrup Bomb.

Maybe he was like Ogerpon, not the real one, not the pokemon, the child, softly chittering over Glimmora and Aoi. The one of legend, cast away and outcast, hated by everyone.

They did hate him, didn’t they?

Ogerpon certainly did, and Aoi must, if not before, they did now, and Carmine?

Sometimes Kieran thinks Carmine has hated him since he was born.

He should be angry; so hated and for what, but Kieran can’t find the spark in him to ignite that heat anymore. Burnt out, only ashes remain.

It’s just so, so cold.

Kieran’s hands drop limp at his side, and he can feel his limbs go weak. He feels unstable, on the brink of toppling over, right here in front of this so called Dreaded Den. He can’t. He can’t be here anymore.

What was left? If even his idol shunned him. Years of devotion to a legend, faith in it’s innocence despite all cries to the contrary. For what? For who? Everything ended up a wreck regardless. He was right , and it didn’t mean a thing.

Stunningly pathetic, how weak he was. Perhaps he could best Aoi in battle, but they were still ten times stronger than him in matters of the heart. Something about them, their affection, their hope, it outshone Kieran in every way. It drew Ogerpon in, Carmine in, even himself. But that light was blinding, hiding their deceit and mistrust from him.

And yet… they were still “kind” weren’t they? Filled with light, with love. Something Kieran could never be. He’d never stood a chance.

Kieran casts one last look up to Carmine, searching for something, anything to hold onto.

She’s not looking at him. Her gaze focuses on Ogerpon, Aoi, Glimmora.

“Carmine…”

She looks down to him, gritting her teeth.

“Kiki-“ And he knows what she’ll say before she finishes, “Go find someplace else to be.”

But it’s never hurt quite this bad before.

He drops down, ducking out of her grip. Clutching his hands to his chest to keep them from shaking, he takes a few steps back, just to make a bit of distance between them.

The motion stirs the attention of Aoi, Ogerpon. He can’t stand it, their eyes.

“I’m sorry.” He can’t look them in the eye, as the words slip out of his mouth. They taste like bile. “’m sorry.”

Kicking up dirt, Kieran runs away, trying to ignore the stinging pain of tears in the back of his throat. Too much; the broken wailing sound that comes from his mouth disgusts him even as he can't help but sob. It doesn't matter what he does. It doesn't matter if he wins. Even if he does, it'll only make things worse.

He's just too weak.

{Ending.}

[tamathestoryteller]

Inheriting dreams

I've been thinking a lot about a lot about Buggy's dream of being the Pirate King for a Buggy origin fic I am writing. Also I was watching @melonteee videos and I got my thinking cap turned on. This is basically my explination for how Luffy can become King of the Pirates and Buggy will still be able to fulfill his dream.

Many Egghead spoilers under the cut.

With the latest One Piece manga chapters it showed us the closest people to getting to the One Piece/ The major players for the final part of the story. Buggy, Blackbeard, Luffy, Shanks, Sabo, Koby, Figarland, Aokiji, Imu, Dragon, ?Mystery swordsman?, and Akainu.

It is made clear that whatever is on Laugh tale is going to be the thing that can turn the tide of battle between the Celestial Dragons and inheritors of Joyboy's will (pirates and revolutionaries). A battle that 99.9% of the world did not know was going on until Vegapunk whacks everyone over the head with a few chapters of exposition. (I think it is really only the top of the top or the celestial dragons)

And Vegapunk points the finger at the Roger Pirates, asking why didn't they tell anyone? Well, despite Vegapunk's ability to transmit a message to the entire world, no one else in the world could do that! We've assumed up until this point that Roger handed himself over to get executed to be flashy and go out with a bang, ultimately inspiring a new generation of pirates. But now I believe that Roger was probably used his notoriety and his last words at the execution to spread the message that the next generation needs to get their butt to Laugh tale. Because of how many people were there and there was no way for the military to suppress the message. The same thing happens when Whitebeard and Ace die, their will is passed on by word of mouth from all the people that were there and it re-ignites the message to go to Laugh tale.

Honestly, despite Marineford being devastating to read, the World Government ultimately lost the battle over all. Their impenetrable prison was completely put to shame, and they got majorly manipulated into doing Blackbeards dirty work. If the 5 elders were being strategic they would have never fought that war or announced to the world that Roger had a son (something that no one knew at that point).

Anyway... Back to Buggy, when Buggy finally admits at the Cross guild that he wants to be King of the Pirates, at first I thought it was a little sad. Because based on everything that One Piece is about, it feels like a certainty that Luffy is going to be the next pirate king. And that must mean that Buggy can give it his all but will ultimately fail... right?

Wrong. Because Buggy and Luffy's dreams are fundamentally different even though they are both inspired by the same person. Luffy's believes being Pirate King is the person who is the most free, according to what he says to Rayleigh in Sabaody. But Buggy's dream is ultimately to be respected and loved like Roger was. Which is why when he is a kid he things that Shanks is destined to carry on Roger's will for their generation. Buggy percieves that everyone respects Shanks in a way that he feels he could never achieve. So why even try? By the time we get to Chapter 1121, Buggy has a huge following of people who admire and adore him, but its not worth it to Buggy because he doesn't see himself as worthy of that admiration. Because mostly of how he got into that place was through a series of hilarious self- serving accidents and misinterpretations of what really happened. In actuality, he keeps "failing upwards" because of unintended but reasonable predictable consequences of his actions. ie. Buggy lets the prisoners out to cause a distraction because he is trying to cause as much chaos as possible to get himself out of Impel Down. The result is most of those prisoners getting out and being really grateful. Then he tries to placate Crocodile by advertising for the Cross Guild, but because he is so admired by his men that they assume he is the head of the new organization. And by the time he admits he wants to be King of the Pirates, he has inadvertently built himself up so much by "faking it until you make it" that he is able to strong arm Mihawk and Crocodile by telling the entire island that they are going after the one piece. It is no coincidence that this is a turning point for Buggy because he is courageous in his vulnerability and admitting to himself and the world what he really wants.

In One Piece, being brave isn't the absence of fear, in @melonteee's videos about Luffy and Liberty she reviews how Luffy hates cowards. At the very beginning of the series Luffy tells Koby, to his face, that Koby is gutless and worthless because he is not trying to get away from Alvida even though he has a legit dream. This sort of sets the stage for how the reader is supposed to view people in the story who don't go after their dreams. Because not going for your dreams is the true cowardice, not running away from battles because that is more for laughs. In that context it make total sense that Buggy is introduced as a villian. Because at the point he meets Luffy, he has been practically paralyzed by the death of Roger for 20 years. In Buggy's introduction (even though we didn't know it at the time), we were being introduced to one of the biggest themes of the show; you can't just stop living because you've experience loss. You don't give up on your dreams because they are hard. Keep pushing no matter what. Even though Roger (and Luffy/Shanks/Ace) get all this respect because he is adventurous and courageous, what we learn from Garp after Marineford, is that courageousness came from a place of vulnerability because Roger could never run from a fight when someone he loved needed to be protected. Buggy fundamental fear is that he is not worthy of respect; so admitting his real dream is a form of courage, and what is going to continue to catalyze him forward in the story. I think Buggy's dream can still come to fruition even if Luffy becomes King of Pirates, because to Luffy's dream is something big and world changing. All Buggy wants is to be just like his daddy >.<

[ta5tier]

isat thoughts, go

[this ask is actually an excuse to ramble about whatever thing you can't get someone else to prompt you to ramble about]

i just woke up so this probably wont be too coherent but here we go!

I, like many, discovered ISAT through @jelloapocalypse’s fantastic video on the game, and by that I mean I watched the first 5 minutes of the video and immediately stopped and played the game myself.

I already liked time loops as a literary device, especially in games (outer wilds rocks, 12 minutes is interesting despite the general quality, etc) but ISAT managed to get me interested in the story and its characters before even introducing time loops as a mechanic. (Y’ALL I WAS NOT PREPARED FOR ISABEAU TO JUST COME OUT SWINGING LIKE THAT! I clocked that motherfucker before the gang even left dormont, he isnt smooth.)

ANYWAY besides the great character writing, ISAT also managed to nail its genre parody right off the bat, the literal RPS combat is so funny, Mirabelle gives off such RPG protagonist vibes, and its a neat take on the genre to center the narrative around the “edgy”rogue (HA Scissors pun). Along with the fact that Siffrin is absolutely the right amount of mentally unstable, you have all the perfect ingredients for great genre deconstruction.

Spoilers Under the Cut So be WARNED

There are tons of people talking about the story beats further so i’m not gonna spend more time here reinventing the wheel, but something I will talk about is how the game leverages ludonarrative assonance, I.e. how the game reflects the experience of the player as a part of the story.

In the case of ISAT, this manifests as the growing boredom both the player and Siffrin experience as they continue through the loops. On my first few loops I took care to avoid skipping dialogue and made sure my party was leveled up enough to succeed at any of the fights they faced. I explored thoroughly and enjoyed the process of doing so and I only reset when the game asked it of me.

But as the game continued I found myself zoning out of more and more dialogue, skipping more and more fights, and resetting whenever it would save me time. And Siffrin was with me all the way through all of it, his internal monologue growing increasingly disinterested with the affairs of his party members and the dangers they were in.

Ironically, in a game so outside my lived experience I found myself mentally aligned with Siffrin in a way that's frankly a little concerning. (im ok im not in a time loop lol)

The magic of ISAT for me was in that alignment, of feeling a shared purpose with a character, and in the breaking of that alignment in the games later acts. One of my favorite moments in any story is when I realize I can no longer fully root for the main character. Siffrin's last loop was that moment for me and I loved it. Siffrin's final trek through the House is so awful to watch but also represents the logical conclusion of his decent. The witty commentary is gone, his family is gone, the muscle memory that he and I shared in navigating the house is no longer reliable. Its all no longer necessary.

In Siffrin's mind, whats left of them isn't worth saving. And then finally, agonizingly, they are saved. Despite his best efforts to self destruct, his family come for him and they're mad and they're scared but they do it anyway, even when the world is ending around them.

Anyway yeah i love this game so much Siffrin is Stars' most mentally unwell soldier and i love them and their stupid family so much.

[rorykillmore]

if you have been as intrigued as i am by oz perkins' LONGLEGS (2024), here is a very preliminary shot by shot breakdown of its teaser trailer! will we discover anything profound? probably not, but there are some spoilers and speculation/potential spoilers under the cut, so if you want to go in completely blind, be mindful

maika monroe herself in our opening shot, standing in front of her crime board. which seems to mostly feature a cipher (one of what appears to be several that this movie and its marketing are using).

are we to assume that something Bad is happening in this car? probably.

next shot is cut as though this little girl is reacting to whatever is happening outside. i was squinting at whatever is on her desk because i have a feeling it may be important (for reasons mentioned later) but it is difficult to tell.

someone (maika monroe?) is doing research on what appears to be demonology or something related to it. titles of the books are 'a guide to the nine circles of hell' and 'the dark lord's hand' (both books were presumably created for the movie as they don't come up in any searches). beneath the books are notebooks in which she seems to be attempting to decode that cipher (maybe the killer is leaving our protagonist coded hints)

this opening of the book is intercut with a shot i did not include (to save space/because i had little to say about it individually) of the investigators opening a door to a dark room (murder scene?), which is a cool thematic thing. it also precedes...

also this shot is more heavily featured in this teaser with a cipher that when translated reads "hail satan" (check out the decoding work this person has done). well! if we had any doubt that these killings have some kind of religious motivation.

this is the 'guide to the nine circles of hell' book, but i can't make out the text with any clarity. to the right, perhaps another decoding effort is happening -- but i actually think this is maika trying to figure something out about the victims here. the order in which they're going to die, maybe? their locations/how they are chosen? there's a list of people's names beside a field of numbers, and she's drawing a line through some of the numbers.

starting to notice something odd with the aspect ratio - pay attention to how it swaps between standard widescreen and this more voyeuristic type of shot (you also saw this earlier, in the winter shots of the car and the girl), and we'll see if there seems to be any logic to that.

our first look at nic cage! is it scenes involving him/related to him specifically which are shot differently? maybe to induce said voyeuristic quality surrounding him and his kills? regardless: he's busy in his little workshop here. there's a nic cage interview floating around that seems to indicate that his character kills via creating cursed dolls or puppets which drive families insane in a sinister-esque fashion, which would check out here

something wicked is afoot in this hardware store (?) (i can't actually tell what is being sold here)

in presumably the same store, we see an unknown figure offer this girl some kind of small figurine (???). possibly nic cage planting one of his dolls (this is also why i was paying attention to the other girl's desk in the earlier shots, to see if she had anything similar). does he work here? (worth noting however that this is shot in the regular widescreen aspect ratio)

maika is finished with her triangle recreation.... but perhaps she is not alone

few interesting things to note here. 1) woman is getting hit in the back with an axe (in her own home, seemingly not expecting it, lending credence to the killer's MO). her murderer (husband? unsure) appears to be covered in blood. 2) she bears a resemblance to this woman, from a promotional poster and the setting looks as though it's the same one from this teaser. (cipher reads: "stood upon the sand of the sea", referring to a quote from the book of revelation describing a HYDRA, hmm)

3) a change of aspect ratio again, which immediately intercuts with....

maika flinching backwards as though bearing witness to this. could be just some misleading trailer editing, but the implication here is that she is 'seeing' these murders take place somehow. actually, maybe THAT explains the change of aspect ratio? it happens when we're seeing her "visions"?

gonna cover these quicker shots a few at a time: a shadow stumbling/dragging itself through a house as though wounded (not sure if it's the axe-in-the-back woman, because the house looks a little more modern, plus - different aspect ratio), an eerie figure in the woods (feels strangely out of place), another shot of nic cage in his workshop(?) (again with the aspect ratio switch - so if we follow the theory that these are maika monroe's visions, she definitely has some kind of direct connection TO him and not just a voyeuristic connection to his victims).

a person (i initially thought a woman, but that could actually very well be nic cage with his long, scraggly hair) slamming their head into a desk. the shot has interrogation room vibes (to me) but is too bare bones to make out for sure. maika is either... watching/interviewing (that's a camera beside her?) or this is another intercut reaction shot implying their connection.

(i didn't capture it but these shots are also intercut with images of red, gurgling blood, which seems a bit more deliberate than just an edgy choice - if there is a ritualistic element to these murders, perhaps it has something to do with blood)

i think this is nic cage again, but why is he upside down? interesting. unless i AM wrong, they actually show him a lot more in this trailer than initially assumed.

we're in maika-vision (calling it that until further notice) here again, this time to look at some kind of demonic entity (the same one we saw in that earlier shot of the woods?). this calls into question the objectivity of this voyeurism-whatever-it-is, although... obviously this film does have very clear supernatural elements, so hell, maybe nic cage IS being instructed by a demon.

another very clear intercut between maika and nic cage. is that nic cage?! it REALLY does not look like him from this profile angle, but it is possible that they've done some prosthetic work on his face (which they have been very careful not to show in full quite yet - nor do i think they should, since he is such a well known guy. you don't want your audience getting comfortable with him in this role before they actually see him.)

but i digress: another moment where the editing is implying an important connection or parallel (maika seems to be losing it a little - which i would too if i could no longer separate my identity from a killer's and/or their victims)

going forward i would pay attention to how promotional material for this movie is edited In General because they are using it as a very deliberate communicative tool at least in this teaser!

another couple of notable shots. in the first one, a woman (a nun? she seems to be wearing a habit, similar to another woman we will see later) fires a rifle into what seems to be an already blood-splattered car. then (which i didn't include) we see Maika With A Gun (hi maika), and what appears to be a car chase.

in maika-vision again, a man who has seemingly just got done slaughtering all of his cows. probably safe to call an animal harm content warning for this one, pals

ah! that WAS nic cage in the car paralleled to maika -- look at how he's dressed here. yet again they are deliberately hiding his face (also note the background - it would seem that yes, he is working at some kind of paint/hardware store).

two more maika vision shots. the first is the woman we see featured in this poster. the second is a small child who is closing a door to avoid watching whatever they're looking at. neither is having a good day!

there is a targeted amount of religious violence here, which makes sense if our killer is demonically motivated

and last but not least, nic cage murdering a guy (gender neutral) (interesting though because i hadn't assumed him to be the hands-on type given his rather indirect MO).

anyway: that's the longlegs trailer! the most telling takeaway here, in my opinion, is: how much it does actually focus on this sort of duality between maika monroe and nicolas cage and some apparent connection between them. my instinct is that that's going to be the meat of the story (although there is clearly a deeper mythology to explore too -- the cipher, the demon, the nature of the kilings).

one more thing to note: this movie seems to take place over the span of several decades. the teaser posters/captions released by neon are dated by year and reflect as much, and if you're looking for it you can see the aesthetics shift around a bit in the trailer as well.

send me your theories/observations! eager to see if anyone puts some pieces together that i might have missed.

[hedgiwithapen]

alternate stargirl ending—pat really does die when he’s buried alive, and how that’s revealed to courtney?

(again, massive s3 spoilers for Stargirl)

Somewhere, distantly, Courtney thought that this had all started because of a bad photo in a locket. Justice for a grainy memory of a father who hadn’t even been real, not really. It had grown, quickly. It had been about Joey. It had been about Henry. It had been about saving the town, the country, the world. But this was what it was always going to be. The JSA--new, and shaken, but there-- versus Icicle. 

Cameron was a surprise. Courtney’s heart clenched. Starman stood behind him, behind Icicle, the Staff in hand. It still glowed, but dimmer. 

Icicle gave some carefully worded speech--about neutral ground, and his family. About setting aside differences. Like this whole thing had been some big misunderstanding over something as small as which was better, chicken or dumplings, and not decades worth of senseless murder. Courtney clenched her fists, wishing She had the staff, wishing she could blast him right in his smug, unrepentant face.  Did he think that just because she'd seen how hard the Crocks and Cindy had worked to be heroes that she'd just believe him when he lied? 

"Where's Pat?" she asked. 

Starman spoke. "Pat's gone, Courtney." 

She didn't drop. She wanted to. 

"Gone?" she repeated. Hoping she'd just misheard. 

"He came to see me, after Jordan and I settled things," he said, his tone unaffected. "I apologized and tried to convince him to join forces with both of us. He refused. He went into the woods alone, looking for the Ultra-Humanite."

Beth gave a tiny shake of her head. Courtney wasn't sure it was bright enough for anyone else to see it, but she knew Beth, by now.  The goggles had told her that Starman was lying. 

"--who killed him," Starman finished. 

Courtney felt Beth freeze beside her, heard the tiny gasp.  She couldn't believe it. But Beth did. Rick took one step left, a subtle raise of his shoulder, Yolanda mirroring it. 

Whatever you say goes, they telegraphed. We've got your back.

"If we're going to get any justice for Pat, we need to team up, Courtney," Jordan said, that same oilslick tone in his voice. 

Justice.  Courtney felt her blood run hot. Across the packed dirt, she saw the Staff flicker.

"Justice?" she repeated. "You--you're talking to me about Justice?"

"Courtney," Cameron said. "I'm so sorry." He took a step forward, and Jordan put out a hand to stop him. 

"You did this," Courtney said, eyes still fixed on Jordan. "You murdered the Crocks. You murdered Joey. What did you do to Pat?"

"I didn't do anything," Jordan said. "Courtney, I've already--"

"It was Starman." Beth's tiny whisper broke through the blood pounding in Courtney's ears. "Dirt under his nails. Bu--burst calluses from--a shovel--" her voice cracked. 

Courtney stared. "You killed Pat," she said, cutting off Icicle. "You said you were his friend. and you killed him. You've been with Icicle this whole time." 

Neither of them denied it.  Courtney held out her hand, even as she watched Cameron take a step back. 

"Dad? You said--"

"I said what I had to," Icicle said. "I did what I had to. We both did. It was for You. It was for a better world."

"Liar!" Courtney burst out.

The Staff, in Starman's--in the Thing pretending, because Starman would never--hand, exploded with light as Courtney held out one hand, singular in purpose.

It tore away from him, streaking to her hand like the meteor that had once ended the world. The warmth of it fit perfectly in her grip, two flames becoming a bonfire. 

If Icicle and his parents, if the Killer, realized what was about to happen, they didn't have time to do anything about it. Courtney screamed. The October air crystalized, a perfect moment where the dark divided in two, split by golden fire.

Icicle's feeble wall of ice didn't even melt, sizzling into the air with the intensity of the Staff. Courtney could feel its grief as keenly as her own, all of the rage, all of the hurt pouring through her and it. The power that channeled through her matched her scream, held only barely back by three hands on her shoulders. 

Pat wouldn't want her to kill.  Pat wouldn't want them to kill. She wanted to kill, wanted to erase any trace of them. The fire fought her slim control. She bore it back, held it back, tears blinding her as much as the light When the gout of yellow light finally broke, along with her voice, she did not drop, supported by Rick, Yolanda, Beth. Cameron. 

This had started as justice for an unknown father. It ended with justice for her Dad.

[bratgoatswiss]

Apologies for length, have to save the cut for spoilers.

I FINISHED VEILGUARD!

I have. So many thoughts and emotions about it and I'm still processing but I just wanted to counter some of the vitriol I'm seeing from people who are doing the Fandom thing with what I hope are reasonable, normal thoughts. Ha. Haha. Anyway. Mostly spoiler free but there's one small thing and one BIG thing that is that I'll put under the read more.

There was a lot to like about this game. The combat was fun and I think upon a 2nd playthrough it'll be even better. Some of it could get repetitive but its not a big gripe.

The characters were very endearing and felt well fleshed out as people and I enjoyed spending time with them. Most of the side quests were related to your companions in some way and I thought that was clever. Some were more interesting than others.

The writing has been contentious and I can see why. It can get cheesy and predictable in places, but overall I thought it was very similar to DA2. I enjoyed it and thought it reflected some realistic responses to what was happening around you. If you're here for gritty edgelord shit 24/7 go play Dark Souls you weirdo.

I can only speak for the Lucanis romance cause I love an angsty man, but it was perhaps, underpadded. It was slow and sweet and I did like it very much but I could have used some...more you know? I didn't even get to see my own tits and that's tragic.

Solas. I did not romance the egg in DAI. I do not like the egg. I liked how I got to handle the egg. So much. I've seen the Lavellan romance scenes and if there's any uproar from the Sollavellans (one l or 2?) it's because they didn't let you see the 2 of them fuck nasty in high definition for an hour. It's Rooks story now. You're fine. Go write fanfiction.

The lore. Hoo boy. Honestly they really did put everything in a blender and fished out what they liked. Everything is made up and the points don't matter. I don't LOVE that they retconned so much of what was in Origins. Zevran and the Crows especially seems really odd. I THINK the idea is that it's been like 20-30ish years since all that and stuff has changed or information was wrong or inaccurate or whatever? But that seems lazy. I wish they'd addressed it more with SOMETHING. But also there's 3 games worth of lore, not to mention comics and novels and like. I get it. But consistency guys. Add more codex entries or something. This is my biggest gripe. It did not impact my enjoyment too much. I loved what was added.

Spoilers below

That ending was so ABRUPT?! At least with DAI you got a ending party and final scene with your LI but here you get some end cards and voice over? I would have accepted that if we were getting DLC but this?? This is insane! Bioware I am begging on my knees to give us at least a "well we did it!" scene. The ending was epic but the ENDING was a disappointment.

Now. The suicide mission. I spent [redacted] number of hours investing blood, sweat, and tears of friendship into these 7 assholes and there is NO way to save 1 of them?? And you have to choose between Harding and Davrin??? Just those 2?? There should be a way to save them! Don't give me the no matter what crap! I don't want CONSEQUENCES I want FRIENDSHIP. If you could do it in ME2 you should be able to do it here. Also. Can we not have it be 50/50 heroic sacrifice with a black man? Like. I know you can technically choose but like why make it an option. It just feels weird.

So yeah. Initial thoughts and feelings. Overall good with some stuff I really disliked. I will be normal about this eventually.

I'll probably regret sending this out into the world when the sollavellens find me. Oh well.

[deathgamegirl]

Indigo Children, Autism Spectrum Disorder, and Akane Kurashiki: An Analysis

many people interpret the character akane kurashiki from the zero escape games as autistic, a sentiment i fully agree with. however, i haven't seen much active discussion or analysis on the how and why of this interpretation— which i want to change, since it's a far deeper connection than just coincidental coding. uchikoshi may or may not have set out to create an autistic character, but he did certainly create one that has its roots in misunderstandings of neurodivergency.

just to preface, this analysis was written by an autistic individual, so it will come from an insider's perspective. under the cut, there will be major spoilers for each game in the zero escape franchise, as well as brief implications of real world ableism, though nothing graphic is detailed.

now that the intro's out of the way, let's talk about the pseudoscientific concept of indigo children.

the long and short of indigo children is as follows: some special children are born with indigo auras, which signify a number of unusual or even supernatural traits in the child, such as telepathy or supernatural empathy. according to the original coiner of the term, the number of these indigo children has been steadily rising since the last 1960's.

traits that indigo children reportedly have include the following:

high empathy, innate curiosity, and a strong will

are perceived by those around them as being "strange" or "unusual"

have a clear idea of what their purpose in life is and feel entitled or deserving

an inherently accurate intuition

resistance to rigid authorial structures and control from outsiders

a subconscious spiritual strength (though this doesn't necessarily apply to religion or faith)

obviously, these listed traits are nowhere near specific enough to supplement an actual diagnosis for autism. those who believe in the concept and parent a supposed "indigo child" often forego a proper diagnosis, as they believe that autism spectrum disorder is an inherently bad condition (which, to be clear, autism is not bad in any way). however, we can make connections from indigo children to the DSM-5's criteria for autism spectrum disorder.

the most obvious example being the perception of being "strange" or "unusual"— we can easily connect that to social deficits in individuals with ASD.

the resistance to authority and control and feeling entitled most closely matches with an insistence on sameness and their own repetitions.

the innate curiosity and intuition comes into play with special interests and how autistic individuals perceive the world around them.

i want to next list out the non-behavioral evidence that akane was most certainly based on the concept of indigo children.

akane has indigo as a prominent color in her 999 design. notably, her eyes and dress are both shades of indigo, leaning towards lavender.

as an ESPer, akane has telepathic abilities (such as the ability to SHIFT as well as use telepathy by accessing the morphogenetic field).

in ZTD, it's mentioned that the number of ESPers has been on the rise recently in-universe in response to the oncoming radical-6 outbreak.

it's also worth noting that zero escape in general delves into a lot of pseudoscientific concepts throughout the series for narrative purposes.

with everything i've just laid out in mind, i want to make the connection that akane kurashiki, who is based on the indigo children, is autistic, by listing her behaviors over the course of the series that match up with the DSM-5 criteria for ASD.

persistent deficits in social communication and social interaction across multiple contexts (social-emotional reciprocity, nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction, developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships)

social-emotional reciprocity: akane has been shown to talk over others about whatever's on her mind at the time (in particular, this relates to her special interests, elaborated on below).

nonverbal communicative behaviors used for social interaction: there are multiple instances in 999 in particular where she doesn't understand the tone of voice that another character is using, often for comedic purposes. (in particular, the "i might get wet" scene comes to mind.)

developing, maintaining, and understanding relationships: akane has been mentioned in her childhood to have been friendless at school, save for junpei. in the interim between 999 and ZTD, she primarily worked alone. in ZTD's C-END 1, she forgoes her relationship with junpei to make the AB project a success.

restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities (from the list, i specifically reference insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior, and highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus)

insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior: akane is very set in her ways, and insistent on doing things her way (particularly with regards to the AB project). in a way, her "I will achieve the best possible timeline no matter the cost to myself or anyone else" also reminds me of this.

highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus: all of the conversations about psuedoscience, quantum mechanics, and conspiracy theories in 999 contribute to this. it's also evident in the way that she's fixated on rabbits throughout the series.

there's a reason why so many of the autistic individuals i've seen play the zero escape games resonate and adore akane so much- it's because she's a genuine, authentic portrayal of the autistic experience, even if it's never stated outright. she's a flawed, yet idealistic character, with one foot in objective reality and the other in her own perfect world. she is human in the way that so many autistic people are, and i think that's incredible. i hope that we can get more characters like akane in many other works.

if you're curious, i used this wikipedia article as a source for the information about indigo children, and this autism and health article as a source for the DSM-5 criteria for autism spectrum disorder.

[sith-shenanigans]

An Exchange of Burdens (Pt. 1)

A Fallen London ficlet, in which Amias makes an arrangement. Heart’s Desire spoilers below the cut.

Divider may be found here.

It’s evening in false-summer, the gaslights burning low outside, on the day you first die.

It’s difficult not to be nervous. You considered having a drink, but the thought made you nauseous. The settee in your apartment feels too soft, too springy, to the point that it’s awkward to sit on the edge. Your fingers tap out a rhythm on one of the armrests—a half-remembered beat from an opera that seared through your mind even as you conducted it. It comes to you in moments of tension, now, when you’re about to fling yourself into the unknown. Even the echo has a sort of power, rattling around in your brain.

You’ve gotten on, since you got here, with the more inhuman of London’s denizens. Devils are fascinating, charming; even the one across from you, in her utterly un-charming way. They wear humanity like clothing—as impeccable as their suits and gowns, but still just a cover, and you don’t carry on conversations with somebody’s fashionable non-Polythremic hat. They delight in things humans wouldn’t, often in ways that humans would hate to have turned on them. Animosity is sometimes a game, as much as affection.

Rubbery Men are difficult to understand, even now, but you’ve tried valiantly to cross the gulfs of language and mindset to make connections. Clay Men are at once very simple and very complex; they sometimes strike you as the overlap between person and action, infused with purpose from the moment of birth. Or, if not, left Unfinished in the dark.

The less said about the Masters—whatever they are, under those robes—and whatever you think about them, the better. You know they’re trapped here. You know that they can get drunk on music, and that they’re captivatingly ungainly when they dance. You suspect they have more than a human number of limbs.

That aria, its soaring immolation, is the closest you have been to being something else. You find yourself remembering it in moments where you’re small or afraid.

Virginia’s animosity is no game at all, except in the ways that it is; poison-sweet, or just poisonous. She’s been knocked out for now, but the Marvellous doesn’t stop. If she kills you for good, she makes two more enemies: Pages and the Manager, incensed that they’ll be unable to go on with the next rounds. She knows she can’t afford that. You know some part of her is tempted, just to prove that you aren’t so clever after all.

But you—you’re not really worth what a Master will do when it’s denied. You know that, too. It’s exhilarating. The song thrums in your skull. This unnecessary risk; this total certainty.

You smile. “Pleasure to see you again,” you say. Soft, calm, in control. You are not on the verge of vibrating out of your skin. “I’d offer you a snifter of brandy”—muscaria, of course—“but I’d hate for you to think I was putting off the moment.” You would love to put off the moment. You could hang in nauseating freefall forever. You’re also a bit concerned she would force you to drink it, which would be a perfectly decent way to die if it didn’t smell precisely and entirely vile. Go to the place you’ve been avoiding, yes, but you’d rather not go there humiliated and reeking like a field of fermented, poisonous mushrooms.

On the table between you is an array of implements, set out on black cloth. They glint or gleam as appropriate; the vial of poison has been guaranteed non-permanently-fatal. It’s laced with something that should make pain easy to forget. All the blades have been sharpened to fine edges—no rusty, blunted gutter-blades for you, after all the time you’ve spent trying to get away from them. You probably take a few too many shortcuts through back alleys in Spite, but that’s no reason to disrespect your own efforts.

Perhaps Virginia would have preferred something more painful. She smiles too, half-lidding her vicious hot-brass eyes, and folds the cloth back over the tableau. “Thank you, my dear,” she says, “but I shan’t be needing those.” She stands, stepping around the table in nearly the same dangerous motion, and you have half a breath to contemplate what she’s about to do before she’s on you.

At your feet, a tigress drowses. A criminal, caught consorting with Fingerkings. With every favor you scraped together during the Coilheart Games, you managed to convince the Court of the Wakeful Eye to let you carry out her sentence—which you already have, when you forced in the poison that slows her breath. Now you fist your fingers into her fur as Virginia’s press into your throat. Your pulse is a glass drum. In a moment, you fancy, it will turn to light.

Her grip tightens. Instinctively, you try to draw in a breath. You can’t. Something—some survival instinct—is screaming. Virginia is still smiling.

You can’t help but struggle. But she holds you down and sends you off.

[Previous / Next]

[russetfoxfur]

I would like your thoughts on ISAT please and thank you

AAAAAAAA

im going through this in bullet points based on what pops up in my mind so i might jump from act to act. under cut for Major Spoilers

- color palette. stunning awe-inspiring astounding and the fact that its even acknowledged in-game (and then WONDERFULLY subverted by the scarlet of the world ending!!). i remember seeing isat fanart on the dash and i was like 'why are all these in monochrome' but it makes sense i literally cannot imagine siff with color

- i pronounced pretty much every name wrong (according to the wiki at least). what do you mean bonnie's name is pronounced like THAT. well except odile i called her odie on purpose

- headcanoning that siffrin is from sky children of the light. hes got the cloak hes got the connection to the stars hes got the evil unswayable king. one could argue that sky is also a timeloop game (albeit one without much focus on it) due to eden reruns. the isle could be the isle of dawn. also both skykid and siffrin start with s let me have this

- on the topic of crossovers: narrator (tsp) and loop would absolutely be worsties. you cannot convince me otherwise. they Hate each other's guts and constantly piss the other off

- and on the topic of loop somewhat: GOD that boss battle. loop's eye cracking red.... loop looping..... LOOP USING THE SAME ATTACK AS SIFF........ and then siff winning and sparing them because they helped them get so far in the first place. TWO HATS...... so much dialogue becomes recontextualized its insane

- also THE DAGGER. i was sort of pissed off at loop throughout basically the whole game so when the dagger came up i jumped at the chance to tell loop to fuck right off with what they think and don't think is good for siff but then....... god the game treats suicide with as much gravity as it's worth it was genuinely so jarring to see the game contort loop in order to grant my wish (....HOLY SHIT) just seeing loop go all white-eyed and narrator-voiced.... and then the tree glitches into a warped version because thats loops tree and you just contorted loop......aaaaaaaaa. i did almost try to do One death with it just to see what it was like but loop's begging through narrator-voice was just.... it reminded me so much of narry's (tsp) begging in the zending and i was like "nope not using the dagger not at all"

- one major crit of the game is how hard it pushes familial ideals. i really dislike familial dynamics (thank you mcyt) and the fact that everyone was shafted so hard into very specific roles just bugs me. i do prefer it without the hard shafting but i'd rather them all be queerplatonic at best. come on guys platonic bonds are fantastic please please please stop making this a traditional family when i said i liked found family i did not mean literal family. more deep meaningful platonic bonds in the world please. also just based off how mcyt treats the clockers and stuff do i want to know how people treat isa x sif (whatever its called)

- another crit is the save system. this ones more minor but i wish you could save from any point in the game instead of just those little lights. just a small inconvenience.

- but back to positives im just going to dedicate a whole bullet point to specifically the bonnie-murder-and-subsequent-jumpscare. ill be honest i DID spoil myself for this one but i am glad i did it because even with the warning i was jumpscared by it actually happening. just... you try reasoning with the king because okay maybe this is a really extreme reaction and he can be reasoned with and then you can stop looping but the king isnt going to change if he wanted to change he wouldve done it earlier and then he forces siff to watch as the kid--the kid they gave their eye for, the kid they keep giving their half-immortal life for--is slowly and painfully crushed to death in front of their eyes. that is when you realize the king CANNOT be reasoned with. i saw a youtube comment that was like 'the reason bonnie goes blackout is because siff is actively flashback-ing to that moment and actively redacting all the gore out as it goes' and it has NOT left my head let me tell you. just... the way it shows siff's sanity slippage, and the way that exact blackout is then used in act 5 as an eerie callback..... god it makes me ILL. including the fact that the loop i got that on was one where the daydreamer dis-remembered their sibling AND the change god's statue had a different face and i was like 'siffrin is So Fine You Guys'

- also the change god. both the statue (love how its face changes at random, i only saw two during my playthrough but theres a whole bunch on the wiki) and the little quest thing. thats the ONLY OTHER TIME we see white-eyed loop through the whole game which. Well. also i think its cute how they talk with kaomojis with mira. best god ever would absolutely dedicate my life to that guy as well

- SPEAKING OF! best aroace rep ever mira love of my life /p she is ALSO a doubtful anxious "chosen one" who will murder to save her friends and loves them all so very dearly and also has a roommate who makes bombs. shes the best i love her i think she deserves to rip the king to shreds with her teeth

- ok so to preface this i was actually reliant on a map for my playthrough because like three times i accidentally looped to floor three when i was trying to see the library and i could Not take it anymore. but act 5 messing up the whole house is evil. took me like half an hour just to figure out how to get to a star crest because i kept ending up in the infirmary and getting stuck. i know im just experiencing the intended effect but like still. siff next time you have a mental breakdown due to the depression and insanity caused by being trapped in a timeloop without anyone else to speak with excepting an immoral god whose only goal is to piss you off as much as possible.... could you PLEASE remember the house better

- but on that topic.... god siff "the lost one" rin's crafts are very telling of their mental state. the fact that all the puns are gone from the attack names.... no more jackpot points because theres no one else to do jackpots with.... and then all three attack skills having no cooldown while the buff and the heal both do....... (that one in particular is making me have thoughts. it hurts more to heal and get better than to keep lashing out at any desperate hope you've got for breaking out without addressing your own issues.) i love the crafts in general because of the very personalized nature of the names but act 5's crafts and also the "just attack" craft are like. Siffrin Is So Fine You Guys Teehee

- my first impression of bonnie was "young and angry. yeah that's a pretty accurate descriptor of them siff." my current impression of bonnie is "how the fuck are they so good at cooking"

- i accidentally began act 5 before i finished a sidequest...... to be fair it was the sidequest w/ the chateau castle comics but like.... still. i was so close i literally just had to go back to that guy with the knowledge of that final issue. additionally the ghosts quest. i was trying to do a whole run of the castle (grindy purposes) and i got both ghosts on the first two floors before not getting the one on the third floor. it was evil it was so evil. damn you rng

- i love that one lesbian jeweller in dormont. actually i love the casual queer rep in general. mira's whole quest is about coming out as aroace in a world that Very Much does Not want that to happen. isa is probably trans. 40% of the main cast is non-binary. the lesbian jeweller. apparently mira's roommate has a crush on the head housemaiden but to be quite frankly honest the only thing i remember about claude is their name and that they build bombs. bomb-building lesbians ftw i guess

- ....okay yeah i did fall for the pineapple slices. In My Defense i was immersing myself in siff when i fell for it and i was Not Thinking about loop i was thinking "oh my god i love pineapple lets project my love of pineapple onto this traumatized punmaster". barked a laugh aloud when they said it was good. spicy :3

- also i did accidentally spoil myself for the ending but... somehow i arrived at the conclusion that the king was actually siff from before and that siff's climax would be defeating the king and then taking his place when the party tried to leave. thank GOD it wasn't that (i would've rioted) i love what we actually got much better.

- king shouldve died for realsies. you do NOT just murder bonnie like that and then send siff into a panic attack and expect to get off with a sympathetic ending let me beat his ass up

- i literally cried at the ending. let me just say i do not cry at video games easily but like..... siffrin's loved. he's spent the entire game desperate for any scrap of attention, slowly spiralling as the loops keep happening and everything keeps falling out of his hands, convincing himself hes a disgusting manipulative bastard who cant even see properly.... and then when they realize that that's why he was an asshole to him, because he's been hearing the same rote lines over and over and he hasn't been telling anybody.... and then they forgive him. they don't forget--siffrin did hurt people, justified or not --but he's not an awful person for wanting to be loved, for wanting to have something to hold onto. he's terrified of being alone so much so that he inadvertently traps himself in a timeloop because he can't stand the thought of them parting ways. and it's not his fault. he can be forgiven. they still love him.

- (you know, while i was playing, i saw the universe belief and my mind immediately jumped to "and the universe says i love you because you are love". call me obsessed with mcyt, but it feels a little like it fits in isat, i think.)

- but siffrin's loved. after 106 loops (in my case), a thousand dead ends and red herrings, failed kisses and intimacy cravings and teammate murders and cheeky gods and trauma, so much trauma.... after they've run themselves ragged trying to break themselves out and nearly crashed and burned..... siff's finally free.

[electronickingdomfox]

"Vulcan!" review

A novel by Kathleen Sky, from 1978. This one was bad, bad, BAD. I'd say it's the worst I've read so far, and I really hope it doesn't get any worse than this. The characters, in particular Spock and McCoy, are sometimes unrecognizable, the barebones plot barely makes any sense, and the (self-insert?) character is really unlikable. At least it's short, so through sheer masochism willpower, I got to read it in record time, to forget it as soon as possible.

Spoilers under the cut:

The Romulan border is shifting, since the magnetic fields that determine the Neutral Zone are being affected by ion storms. Soon, the system of the planet Arachnae will fall under Romulan territory. I mean, it will be rightfully Romulan, simply because of the shifting nature of borders as they're defined. Is Starfleet going to accept this, just as the Romulans would have to accept a natural expansion of the Federation, if it came to happen? Nah! Prime Directive be damned! They send the Enterprise to investigate if there's intelligent life in Arachnae that may be worth to keep in the Federation. (And if there is, then what? Do they start a war? On what basis? Whatever.)

In order to determine if the Arachnae inhabitants (some sort of giant ants) are intelligent or not, they need the help of Dr. Mary Sue Katalya Tremain. A biologist who is so, so brilliant, that Starfleet invented new medals just for her, and whose intelligence surpasses even Spock's. As soon as they learn she's coming aboard, Spock and McCoy start competing for her affection (yes, Spock too) by filling her cabin with gifts and flowers and whatnot. But when she beams aboard, it turns out that Dr. Tremain is actually an insufferable bigot who hates Vulcans, and can't even work with them. She's also a major crybaby that resorts to faking hysteria whenever she can't get her way. One has to wonder why Starfleet even allows such a person to be part of its ranks (well, maybe the fact that she's sleeping with a Commodore explains why). We don't see much of her legendary brilliance either, but we learn that she has big boobs. And yes, this book was written by a woman. Obnoxious as she is, she's still a Mary Sue. So everyone has to turn a blind eye to behaviors that would be otherwise unacceptable, and make sure the little princess is comfortable. After all, there must be some good reason for this woman's bigotry (there isn't, but whatever), since she's too wonderful to simply being an asshole. McCoy gets into full "I'm a lover, not a doctor" mode right after seeing her. And five minutes later, he's hitting hard on her, though he seems more of a lecherous creep, rather than a charming, southern gentleman. Ah, yes, he helps her unpack her things, which gives him a chance to paw the sexy lingerie inside the luggage (didn't you know? sexy lingerie is fundamental when going to explore a giant ant planet).

The first half of the book is just a really boring Freudian psychoanalysis of Tremain, only to determine again that, yes, she hates Vulcans, for some undisclosed reason. Meanwhile, McCoy can't decide whether he wants to be professional or horny. He switches back and forth more times than I cared to count. Two days later, he's fallen completely in love with this horrible person who mistreats one of his best friends. Anyway, Tremain friend-zones him soon, so he gets nothing but a little kiss on the forehead. Not that I felt bad about him; McCoy is an asshole in this book.

The second half of the novel gets a bit better, as Spock and Tremain beam down to the planet to meet the Arachneans. McCoy misses the beam down because he was busy chasing after some alien cat in the veterinary section. Yes, the horniness made him stupid or something. So when the giant ants attack the landing party, a lot of people die, and they don't even have a doctor. Kirk can't beam them up because Romulans have appeared to claim the planet, and he can't lower the shields. And that's what Kirk does for the rest of the novel: absolutely nothing. Meanwhile, Tremain and Spock have to work together in order to survive, so she's marginally more professional now. It's Spock's turn to be stupid, though, as he starts to make lewd comments about her, and spying her while she undresses. The reason being!? I don't know, something about proving she hates Vulcans (yeah, I knew that already).

In the end, Spock is attacked by the poisonous ants. And he mind-melds with one, to discover they're not, in fact, intelligent, so it's okay to leave the planet to the Romulans. The mind-meld, however, leaves him insane, and believing he's one of the ants. To restore his sanity, Tremain has to mind-meld with Spock, which is probably the best scene in the book. Then, while exploring her subconscious, it's finally revealed why she hates Vulcans so much. The reason is... she felt an unrequited love for her former Vulcan captain (gasp! I wasn't expecting something like that, no, not at all). Kirk finally decides to do something, and lowers the shields to beam them up, before Spock dies of poisoning, Romulans or not withstanding. He could have done so hours ago, though, before so many people died. Sigh...

Spirk Meter: 2/10*. Kirk stands firmly on Spock's side against Tremain's bigotry, and he's the only one who doesn't tolerate any of her bullshit, just like Chapel (you know, the two persons who love Spock the most). There's also a line about McCoy liking Spock, but not in the same way that Kirk likes him. Though, on the other hand, Kirk's very stubborn about following Starfleet's orders, even if it costs Spock his life, so I don't know... Characterization is hardly coherent.

There may be some Spones too. Tremain says that she can't really love McCoy, because she doesn't feel for him all the things that McCoy feels for Spock, which in her opinion, is love (she's quick to clarify it's not the same kind of love, but still...). McCoy also becomes quite hysterical when Spock's dying on the planet, while Kirk keeps calm. Apart from this, Tremain (who hates Vulcans because of an unrequited crush on one) functions as some sort of placeholder for McCoy himself. It's insisted upon how alike they are, and how they share the same hobbies. Spock calls her "Doctor" all the time, and his banter with her reminds a lot to that with McCoy. In fact, when Spock is being a perv towards Tremain to anger her, he compares his enjoyment of it to the one he gets from riling McCoy. It's rather telling how the author is taking everything from Spock and McCoy's dynamic, while using a woman substitute as a no-homo screen.

*A 10 in this scale is the most obvious spirk moments in TOS. Think of the back massage, "You make me believe in miracles", or "Amok Time" for example.

[shivunin]

Hiiii! For the rook and partner questions - how about 13 and 15?

Heyy thank you for asking!! c:

(Spoilers in the second question!)

(Rook romance questions)

13. What song(s) do you associate with them?

Thank you specifically for asking this question bc I love talking about music forever! My top two are:

"Am I another home you lost in the flood? Are you the thirst that I've been dying of? Are you the only living thing that I'll ever touch? Is this old religion, are we calling it love?"

--Calling it Love by Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

"Early each morning he searched for her til his feet became bloody and tired... the lock of grey hair that she gave to him stayed clutched in his fist through the night dead or alive she still yearned for him cus even in darkness there's light"

--57821 by Janelle Monae

15. What was the partner's reaction to Rook being imprisoned in the Fade? How did they cope? How did they react upon seeing Rook again?

I uhhh got a little too into this one and it's very stream of consciousness, so it is under the cut! (I'll probably refine all this when I actually write it out!)

The challenge here is summarizing a fic's worth of feelings briefly haha. Something like:

Lucanis has just watched Lace die and vanish entirely into a pit of blight, has just heard the death cries of a goddess. At last, this much is finished; not all, not wholly, but in part at least he has succeeded where he'd failed before.

He turns to find Rook (as he has in so many battles before, as he did when Razikale fell even sprinting through the ruins of Weisshaupt) and instead he finds...nothing.

Well, no. Nothing would be more telling. He finds her staff discarded on the stone life refuse, her orb gone dull, dagger dented beside it. Rook is not only gone, but disarmed, without her weapons when this place has demanded their use in every moment. Perhaps, for a moment he thinks that grief has caused this, that she has dropped everything and run after Lace. Spite knows first that this is wrong, keens the first warning that she is TAKEN, and it is then that Lucanis sees Solas in the split second before he vanishes again.

There is little time to think; he will not forgive himself for this later, but even so it is the truth. The wrath of a would-be god swings its mighty hammer down upon them too quickly to do anything at all. Even so, he and Spite are joined in this: they will get her back, whatever the cost, and will make the ones who took her away pay for every moment of her absence in blood. In this, he is determined.

(Why did he tell her to wait when she came to him? He could see the thoughts in her eyes, knew what she meant when she pressed the locket with its ribbon-bound lock of hair into his hands before the battle. Was this his one chance? Has he lost it already, this thing he did not think he would ever have for himself? All the words they have said to each other, but he never told her the most important things...and now she is gone.)

He copes, of course, by working himself into the ground. Every avenue to pursue, every clue or hint or place to search, he volunteers to seek himself while the other sleep or study or work on their plan B. Spite does him the favor of continuing this work, when possible, while Lucanis sleeps. When forced to stillness, he worries that last moment with her over and over in his hands along with the token she left him: what might he have told her? What could he have said instead of telling her to wait?

He tries, as much as he can, to believe that she has come through many horrors before and she will make it through this one, too.

When she comes back....augh. I can only imagine, as someone who lost his family at a young age, that there is a part of him that believes that someone who is gone in this way is gone forever, lost to him save cold marble sepulchers and flowers once a year.

So to lose her and to see her returned? I don't think he ever really let himself believe she was gone forever, but even so I think it was difficult to believe that she is back. And of course, once he has a moment to process this, he is determined to tell her all the things he could not say before. Having faced the loss of her, he won't waste this second chance.

[nilusanimationworld]

So....the KFP4 plot huh? WHEW! I really needed DAYS to process all this & uh...I think I’m finally ready to talk about it?

Also before I start saying anything please note that I may share few more EXTRA details. Where did I get the details? Welllll? I may have cheated & decided to spoil myself a bit to get more stuff out. Although I promise I’m not gonna share any images & go deep to spoil movie. To be honest I myself only managed to get like only 5% extra details. Also reason I had to spoil myself to dig this deep by talking with the person who got this stuff personally from CinemaCon is that I’ve seen a lot posts saying most of you all have GIVEN UP on the franchise after the plot news was out. Granted some of the plot is not making sense. I myself had to read like 100x to process all in. But giving up on the franchise? I still can’t do that. KFP has a special place in my heart. I’m not saying I’m here to rescue by giving you guys hope. Instead I’d highly suggest you all to keep the expectations low....LIKE REAL LOW! The higher we’re setting the bar the more disappointing results we’re gonna get. Some things so far I found does give us a little hope of light & some are well....meh?  

ALSO PLEASE NOTE IF YOU DONT WANT TO GET SPOILED I’D HIGHLY SUGGEST YOU TO STAY AWAY FROM REDDIT & TWITTER FOR A WHILE! ESPECIALLY DO NOT USE THE KUNG FU PANDA 4 HASHTAG ON TWITTER 

|| SPOILERS UNDER CUT || 

So first let’s just start with the villain herself. The Chameleon. Turns Kate Mckinnon is voicing the villain & her design so far is actually not bad? So far it actually looks good. Only way I could describe her looks is that she’s giving me a bit Shen mixed with bit of Viper vibes. Elegance is the only word I can describe her. Since its only a storyboard image sadly. Its not even a concept art image. 

As for her abilities/powers! Ooooh I hate Dreamworks here for baiting us saying this Chameleon can ‘summon’ the old villains. I know they’re doing this for keeping this a surprise or something idk but whatever the CinemaCon fans saw are completely different from the whole summoning idea. Apparently turns out she IS THE ONE HERSELF who can turn into TAI LUNG, SHEN & KAI. SHE’S A SHAPESHIFTER! Which is no surprise since she is a Chameleon & they’re known for changing colors. So I really don’t see the point why Dreamworks made movie news blogs & reports saying & using the word “SUMMON” which is completely different from “Shapeshifting”? Another thing this is gonna disappoint a lot of Tia Lung, Shen & Kai fans because i’ve seen a lot over excited fans who are waiting for a rematch Especially a Po vs Tai Lung. I’m so sorry guys but these guys are not coming back. They originals are dead DEAD!

She’s also gonna shift into one of Po’s biggest challenger yet too. I’m not mentioning this one this is worth saving it for the movie or the trailer. I hope they save this surprise of the MOVIE ONLY

So far for me the villain actually does sound & look promising. Whoever came up with Chameleon shapeshifting idea is actually pretty darn smart. My only concern is that she doesn’t become one of jokester type villains since its Kate Mckinnon who’s voicing. So yeah...that’s the villain info

Now for the fox character Chen?Zhen?Zhan?Chan? LMAO y’all have no idea how many different spellings I had to come across to get this character info! The funny part is people are even changing the fox’s gender in some articles which is really weird because its Awkwafina who is gonna voice her. So far we only know that she’s gonna be shown as a thief first? And later as Po’s student? Her design? No idea. For now. 

Judging by Awkwafina’s past animated characters like Sisu & Ms Tarantula I’m assuming the character might be some playful, sneaky, childish, cunning type of a fox character since the fox is gonna be introduced first as thief? idk this is just my thoughts? Bonus if she turns out to be some annoying teenager or young adult who would try to get on Po’s nerves during their adventure.Kinda to give Po taste of his own medicine & realize how difficult it is for Shifu & Tigress who has to deal with Po’s shenanigans. 

Also I won’t be surprised if the Fox too has some very similar backstory like Po or Tigress. I’m really getting a feeling the story is gonna be about misunderstood fox who most likely could be either an orphan or abandon by family/villagers or something

Okay so now comes the plot. We all know that Po is gonna get promoted to higher master position & he has to find new Dragon Warrior...yaddy-yaddy-yadda!  Apparently their gonna show Po finding Chen/Zhen/Zhan/Chan (SOMEONE PLEASE CONFIRM WHAT’S HER REAL SPELLING!) in the museum where Po is....patrolling? (i’ll be honest this info is a little confusing because I really don’t see why Po of all people is patrolling at the museum especially since now he’s in a bigger position....like why?) So after he finds her & catches her & stuff & she tells about Chameleon & later go on this adventure (Oop! Dragon Knight plot?) to city where the Chameleon resides & here comes the typical Mike Mitchell writing. Take a wild guess what the city is gonna filled with? We had got Wolves for the Gongmen City right? Now what could be MORE DANGEROUS THAN WOLVES? Hmmmmm? Well.....

LADIES & GENTLEMEN! WE’RE GONNA GET CUTE EVIL BUNNIES! WHEW....LET. THAT. SINK. IN 

This really reminds me of one episode in LoA where Po had to deal with his past bully which was also a BUNNY! Funny part of that episode was that even Tigress had hard time believing Po couldn’t fight his bully bunny enemy & constantly reminded Po how tiny the bunny is which pissed & offended Mantis off. Anyways back to the main topic.

Now I’m not gonna sugar coat this one. The plot STILL very much does sound very off & very animated series level of writing. Also the person has confirmed this movie is gonna have more of comedy BUT (here’s the hopeful part or at least I’m hoping) the thing is all this info is just like 10 or 20% of the plot. There could be chances that we could still get some emotional stuff since Dreamworks is known for hiding & saving the emotional stuff strictly only for the movie. Remember Puss In Boots? The trailer gives us more of action & the idea of the plot meanwhile the scenes like Puss feeling guilty about not attending his own wedding, the anxiety scene, Goldie’s wish scene & Perrito’s back story all this was saved for the movie. So yeah I am still keeping 5% hope we do get some heavy stuff especially if this movie really does turn out to be the FINAL CHAPTER. Who knows that those storyboards were only the main stuff just to give idea & furious five too MIGHT be there during the adventure but their all split up or something? Idk man I’m just saying.

Where is Shifu? Furious Five? Po’s dads? The Other Pandas? OKAY....uh...so far uh....sadly I’ve no freaking idea where the hell are Po’s dads or the pandas? I’m just gonna assume all the pandas have settled down in Valley of Peace & living regular lives. Po’s dads I’m assuming running the restaurant? There’s sadly no info on this one. Although I really wished his dads would’ve played important role in this one since its gonna be lot difficult for Po to take in his new position & to pass his Dragon Warrior title. 

As for Shifu & the Five. We are gonna get them but we’re told they’re NOT gonna be part of the adventure or what so far the storyboards was shown at Cinema Con din’t have much of them. I am still like 3% hopeful for this one since the guy mentioned these were only the boards which were shown there could be chances the changes can be made. But if the movie really is only focusing on Po, the fox & the Chameleon than I’m assuming we might get very few cut scenes of Furious Five & Shifu. Back & forth scenes like they did in KFP3. Either that or the Furious Five are having some other separate mission & hence that’s why Po decides to go solo with the fox. 

THIS IS WHY!!! THIS IS WHY WE NEED A WHOLE SEPARATE FURIOUS FIVE SPIN OFF MOVIE

Now for the big question; Why isn’t Po giving his Dragon Warrior title to any from the Furious Five? Especially to Tigress?! OH BOY! When I came across the articles saying Po is gonna have to find new Dragon Warrior replacement my mind too immediately went on Tigress! HECK! EVEN MY MOM SAID THIS! Also I had the whole KFP1 movie flashed in front of my eyes Especially the scene of Tai Lung screaming at Shifu telling him about how he filled Tai Lung's head with Dragon Warrior dreams & trained him hard till his bones cracked & Shifu & The Furious Five being sour & bitter towards Po in beginning...I understand now...I FREAKING UNDERSTAND THE PAIN THEY WERE GOING THROUGH TO PROCESS THE FACT THAT THEY ALL TRAINED THE HELL OUT OF THEMSELVES FOR THIS DAMN TITLE EVEN GOING TO EXTEND THE GET THEIR BONES CRACKED & END UP GETTING NOTHING & instead some random noodle folk panda fell from the sky with no whatsoever kung fu skills gets the title...YUP I UNDERSTAND THE RAGE NOW. AND THIS SHIT IS HAPPENING ALL OVER AGAIN I SWEAR TO GOD THIS DRAGON WARRIOR TITLE IS SUCH A FREAKING CURSE!! GODDAMN OOGWAY!!

BUT...BUT...Here's the thing what we also see is that Five...ESPECIALLY TIGRESS never had that desperate goal for Dragon Warrior title in the first place. We all know at this point well aware that Tigress only wanted to get the Dragon Warrior title is because she wanted to make Shifu proud but after seeing Shifu finally being more compassionate and the older playful self again thanks to Po. Tigress doesn't hold that grudge or jealousy anymore towards Po. Which same goes for the five since they were already warming up towards Po before Shifu & Tigress.  

I know most of us & myself deep down all wanted Tigress to get the title since she has gone through hell the most right from her Bao Gu days but Tigress has made it very much clear that she's moved on from the whole wanting Dragon Warrior title and she's become her own warrior

Now in Tai Lung's case. Even though Tai Lung says he did all that training to make Shifu proud but it was clear that Tai Lung was already blinded & thirsty for the Dragon Warrior power the most (Thanks to Shifu). Heck! Shifu himself admits this that his pride blinded him so badly he turned Tai Lung into a monster.

So yeah I know right now we're all disappointed that Po isn't giving his title to any of the furious five but to some random fox (who is a thief...wow..nice choice Po) but let's not forget that's how even Po's story started & we'll just have to wait & watch to see Po taking Shifu's role as master & trains this fox character. 

Also I’ll make a separate post on how Chen?Zhen?Zhan?Chan? (I SERIOUSLY STILL HAVE NO IDEA WHAT HER REAL SPELLING IS) on how she could earn the Dragon Warrior title. That’s not gonna be a spoiler post that is just gonna be an analyzing post or how I can see it happening

And lastly can we trust Mike Mitchell?...OOOOOH BOY! Judging by his past projects I would say it’s a little concerning but lets not forget even Joel Crawford had made some not so very successful projects in the past as well & years later Puss In Boots 2 became one of his best & successful projects yet. I’m not so concern of Mike my main concern is what exactly happen to Jennifer Yuh Nelson for not being part of this so sudden? I remember in interview she had mentioned if she really decided to make all 6 chapters like Jeffrey Katzenberg suggested she really wanted to make a complete beautiful necklace franchise for Po’s journey! Heck to be honest the third movie itself WAS ENOUGH AS A PERFECT END TO THE CHAPTER! It really did give us a perfect trilogy I honestly don’t know why or what made them to give us fourth. This whole retiring thing & passing on torch has been a very common plot trend in most animated/anime/comic medias lately. Anyways. Too late now. Lets see how this chapter turns out.

So....uh..yeah I guess that's it? I tried my best to keep this post with some positive stuff just to you know...lighten up? The thing is we can't say much anything right now because the movie is still in beginning/mid (storyboarding) stage. Its still too early. Changes still can happen hence we cant say much yet. Jack himself mentions that its too early for the trailer. So yeah its very common at times last moments some ideas could have changes.

Only word of advice to the pandom I'm gonna give is be a little more patient. I myself needed DAYS to process & break it down. If we have waited this long we just going to have to wait a little longer. My guess on getting the first teaser we could most likely get it in... August or September (this year)? I'm calculating according to how we got Puss In Boots trailer. The trailer was released in June & the movie was released in December.

We just gonna have to play the waiting game a little long & PRAY!! LOTS & LOTS OF PRAYERS (& INNER PEACE) THIS MOVIE DOESN'T RUIN THE FRANCHISE!! That is all for now. Feel free to share your thoughts or can private DM me!