#the contradictions make these games so much fun to discuss

[astrathechinchilla]

For the lurker slavery thing, I think it was implied that Gol and Maia created them so after they were defeated they were lost and leaderless. Just left on their own to survive with precurians (borrowing your word) hating them. So of course they retreat into caves and dark spaces, slowly building their own culture while precurians slowly grow in fear of them upon stumbling into these budding civilizations because 'what if they're regrouping and planning to invade us again' and eventually tensions grow until the precurians, already paranoid because of a war with the metal heads, invade them to eliminate a potential threat of a two front war. They still see them as not much else than beasts and now defeating what was essentially a culture of refugees and seeing how easy it was, someone gets the idea of putting them to work. So now any settlement found gets raided for more slaves. Only now.in constant contact with the lurkers and some lurkers slowly learning precurian languages do a select few precurians start to see beyond prejudice of them being conquered beasts and seeing the culture lurkers developed and really they are sapient creatures like them and maybe this whole slavery thing is kinda fucked up.

Welp that got longer than I thought it would. Hope you don't mind the headcannon

You do not know how fast I clicked to answer this

Neat headcanon

I don’t really know if that first fact of Gol and Maia creating the Lurkers is really a definite truth or falsity in the actual canon, but it is one way to view them that I believe is valid. I don’t personally go with it, since the origins of their people aren’t really the big issue that I have with the way Jak & Daxter writes them, so I’m not going to really talk about that in all honesty (also it may not have been all Lurkers that served under those two, but they are the only ones that are shown so you are right to assume that).

Even if this isn’t how I would frame the situation, that being a majority of Precurians having a long standing hatred for Lurkers that lasted up until now, it is a valid approach to writing this.

However, you also have to consider when the enslavement began. If it was happening long before the Baron came into power, then you have to also consider Damas and the Mar family line who ruled before him as actively participating in the crime of slavery.

However, if it happened after Praxis became the ruler of Haven, I don’t think it would be hatred alone that was the cause of the Baron to so quickly commit a crime such as this. I think it would stem from a very different crime, betrayal.

You must consider the timeline you made before putting in these kinds of details.

This is what @sonicringnoise means you guys, DON’T DO WHAT I’M DOING IF YOU LIKE YOUR BRAIN.

If you don’t want to talk about the contradicting time line and lose your sanity, turn away now. Otherwise, buckle up cause I’m about to spit some facts that are important when you consider this specific plot hole.

———

Now when it comes to the details of the timeline, it’s all over the place. So many details do not make sense when considering certain character’s ages, specifically Mar’s(the kid), and contradict each other.

Everyone out there, how long do you think the Baron has been in power? With how a lot of the story is framed, it makes it seem like decades, but in reality I believe it hasn’t been that long. Why do I think that? It’s the combination of Mar’s age, Veger kidnapping him then losing him, and Damas being banished.

Now, look at Mar.

When we put his height into consideration, along with the way he walks, I believe he’s around 3-4 years old at the max. Some believe he’s around 5-6, but I believe he’s younger than that solely because of the comment older Samos makes at the end of Jak 2.

Younger children like that generally don’t remember much from that age, and though Jak says he does remember ‘the light’, that’s the only thing he seems to remember.

When we consider this, it’s right to presume that Mar’s kidnapping had, at the very least, taken place 3-4-ish years before the events of Jak 2, and along with that Damas’s banishment.

Damas most likely lost his son in Haven City after Praxis betrayed him, separating him from his son upon being imprisoned, and he then was later banished. That’s why he sent Sig into the city as a spy, to find his son.

At the very least, Mar had to have been an infant at the beginning of Praxis’s reign, only a couple a months old at best, so it was easy for Veger to take him. However, he couldn’t hold onto the child for long, because he ‘lost him to the Underground’.

Therefore, the max amount of time Praxis has been in power should be about 4 years. Granted, this number can change increase depending on if you think Mar was kidnapped in Spargus or Haven, but for what was presented to us in the games, it’s most likely the latter being the actual canon cause they don’t specify.

However, when you make this the exact number of years Praxis has been in power, certain details don’t make sense and contradict these facts. The major one is actually a part of the physical world design- and I’m not talking about the map itself. I’m talking about an important detail.

I’m referring to the Baron’s statue in Haven City.

Now, with how the statue crumbles, along with the crunchy sound affects after it’s hit with the laser/light/whatever that was, people would assume that the statue is made of stone or a material along those lines, right? Wrong.

If you look closely, the inside of the statue’s head it’s shown to be hollow on the inside. And notice anything else? The color looks akin to the shade of the Statue of Liberty(probably another thing inspired by GTA- I don’t know if any of the games at the time take place in New York City, but this is all speculation)

However, why I bring up the specifics of the material being used to make this statue is important, because if this was made the same way the Statue of Liberty was made, it would have taken 9 YEARS TO FINISH(give or take).

This completely contradicts all of the information I previously presented, so in my fic I changed the statue from being a completely finished structure to being at the beginning of its construction.

Now, everyone must be thinking, what does this all have to do with the slavery of the Lurkers? It’s exactly what I pointed out at the beginning of the rant- You must consider the timeline you made before putting in these kinds of details.

If you have Lurkers that have only been enslaved after Baron Praxis was put into power, that means if we consider the fact that it would only be at a max 4 years, it’s most likely not bigotry being the primary reason he did so.

If it were to have been longer than that, you’ll then have to consider the fact that Damas may have participated in such a inhumane practice along with the entirety of his bloodline, possibly even Mar himself.

However, if it’s the former like how I personally believe, it most likely happened this way-

The Lurkers and Precurians did have conflicts in the past because of the aftermath of Gol and Maia, but they soon came to an understanding with each other after these fights. This could either be because-

They saw that they were more alike than they realized via experiencing each other’s cultures and people realizing the fighting wasn’t worth it, or-

They found respect in each other when a common enemy, The Metal Heads, appeared. They then realized fighting amongst themselves was going to kill them, so they made a truce that grew into a strong bond between their factions.

It could be both of these reasons in varied combinations, or it could’ve been neither. Either way, they reconciled somehow. Therefore, it was most likely not hatred and bigotry being the sole factor of their future enslavement at the hands of the Baron’s rule.

The Lurkers must have been aligned with Haven in the fight against the MetalHeads, but the Baron broke that alliance when he enslaved a large portion of the Lurker people, betraying their trust. Why? Most likely because they would’ve retaliated when Damas was banished from the kingdom and are fiercely loyal to people they consider friends. He doesn’t want to lose his new founded position, so he attacks first, and enslaves the Lurkers that didn’t escape him.

I only came to these conclusions solely based on the time frame I grasped from the given information the game presents. You can all come to different conclusions depending on which facts you think are the best to go with, even changing key facts like where and when Mar was born and all that stuff.

However, you must still consider the implications that your headcanons/alternate universes have, and take extra care to iron out any contradictions caused by such details. I do it everyday with my work, and I urge you all to do the same.

———

Nobody else has sent an ask like this before so if you want to send me more, please do so. That goes for everyone else out there as well 🤗.

[lookingforhappy]

The Birth Locations/Suitcase Reveal Sucks

before you read please don't take this too seriously, I don't have a problem with people who enjoy this reveal I just wish more people would consider/analyse this as I feel like it's very half-assed and not at all well thought out

I know I've written something like this before and i'm sorry to write this again, but I think my arguments have developed and I want to explain better why I hate this decision.

I am referring to this set of posters for season 3

as the stickers on the suitcases were revealed to be their birth locations by Jeff King (executive producer and director) on instagram

the actual answer to his question is "lila's sticker" but semantics/specifics who cares (me)

why I distrust the theory/trivia as a whole

something I think should be considered here is that this is the only confirmation of this piece of trivia.

another example of TUA trivia that has been confirmed by the creators is the statement by Blackman (god ik just ignore that part for now, that isnt the point of the post & he's still a/the creator) on a reddit AMA that Grace helped the siblings choose their names based on their birth countries

however, these are both poorly researched/prepared pieces of trivia because they blatantly contradict each other

Luther's birthplace is Sweden, but Luther isn't a Swedish name, nor was is popular in either 1989 when he was born or 2002 when he was first seen using his name.

Diego is always a fairly popular name in Spanish speaking countries like Mexico but it's hardly high on the list (only statistic I can find is ranked at 31.)

Allison is neither a South African name nor is it listed as it's top names.

Klaus is Germanic (kinda fits the theme) but as far as I can see Klaus is not a biblical name which is much more typical of the Amish. Klaus is also not listed amongst the top Amish names that I've seen.

Five obviously is an outlier here.

Ben is clearly not Korean, and while I have had fun discussing the roots of his name with others (Jae-min becoming Benjamin, and Bin becoming Ben) I don't think that there's any way that the creators will acknowledge this. Ben has origins in Hebrew and is not at all popular in Korea.

Vanya (the applicable name, as Viktor wasn't yet revealed) is a male name in Russia. it's female in other countries like Bulgaria, but not Russia. It's a nickname/evolution of the name Ivan. Vanya is also not a popular name in Russia, but Ivan does seem to be. And I seriously doubt that they're going to reveal that Viktor originally named himself Ivan while he was identifying as female and then decided to change his name anyway?

which is to say, the word of the creator cannot always be trusted/believed, because that's not necessarily what will be reflected in canon or by the other creators.

there is quite a history in fandom of creators not understanding the themes/plotholes of their own creations, so i'm a little stunned at how quickly everyone integrated this into their canon without a second thought.

i have arugments as to why these locations are bad choices for the characters, but first lets take a look at what i believe these stickers were meant to represent

Placing down a read more because this became huge.

what the other stickers reference/mean

it's no secret that i think the stickers were hints to the events (related to each character's arc) of season 3.

but before i get to that let's breakdown the rest of the stickers and their meanings:

all of the umbrella's have an umbrella sticker. Lila is the only one who doesn't (so if we're playing the "who is the odd one out" game then it still falls as Lila because she is the only one without the umbrella sticker)

Luther

Luther dies in Hotel Obsidian, and never makes it physically inside Oblivion or has any part in powering it - so his sticker has the colours/design of Obsidian.

Diego

Diego is one of/the first to discover Hotel Oblivion, so he has the Oblivion colours and logo.

Allison

Allison is involved in Reginald's plot to use Oblivion to reset thte universe, so gets Oblivion's logo instead of Obsidian.

Klaus

Klaus was the one to know and direct them to Hotel Obsidian, so he has that logo.

Five

Five's revelation that he was the Founder of the Commission, and the impact of that discovery, links him to the Commission more so than either hotel.

Viktor

viktor has the hotel Obsidian logo because he has very little impact on anything to do with Oblivion and is one of the votes that decides to remain and die in Obsidian.

Lila

Lila has the Commission because she was raised in the Commission, not the Umbrella Academy.

Lila has the Obsidian logo in opposition to Diego's Oblivion logo as she chooses the opposite of Diego (I personally believe they should have swapped these two but..)

why the birth locations are more likely/appropriate as hints for the events of season 3

Luther - Stockholm, Sweden

This is probably my strongest argument: He is made fun of for having "Stockholm Syndrome" within the show

found: Season 3, episode 3, minute 13.

Luther, obviously spends all of his character development/moments with the Sparrows and Sloane - being kidnapped by them and developing "Stockholm Syndrome" for Sloane (romantic) and for the Sparrows as a whole (platonic/idealism/escapism)

Luther's mother's newpaper cutting also mentions 911 being called, but 911 is not the emergency number of Sweden, 112 is. Argentina, Canada, Dominican Republic, Jordan, Mexico, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, the Philippines, Sint Maarten, the United States, and Uruguay use 911 but not Sweden.

If Monica wasn't in Sweden at the time of Luther's birth, then Stockholm is hardly his birth location.

throughout the seasons we get a few instances of Diego, Ben and Viktor speaking their native languages, hinting that the 7 were all taught their mother's languages (with Allison at least likely learning all 7)

But if Luther is Swedish, why didn't he or Diego know what Oga For Oga meant if that's Luther's mother's language? and why was Five the only person who seemed to understand Swedish when he's not the Swede of the family? Why did Diego not at least recognise his brother's supposed second language? Or Luther for that matter?

Luther was a part of the Academy for 23+ years, longer than anyone, yet Reginald (who expects the best of his children) didn't bother enforcing this as a part of his education? his number one had a worse education than his number 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7?

Diego - Mexico

Diego apparently doesn't even get the luxury of a city, place or region. But I can confirm that his mother's newspaper cutting states that he was born in a "small town in Northern Mexico".

However, Diego's sticker could instead be a reference to the Aztecs or Mayans - his sticker has mayan/aztec pyramids on it, I believe maybe Chichen Itza specifically?? Ancient civilisations that were very advanced for their time, and that are somewhat frequently involved in alien conspiracies.

Diego is one the one to open Oblivion when he removes the harpoon, and is the first to enter it and confront the Guardians.

Oblivion is an Ancient building/place built by an Ancient civilisation of what is assumed to be aliens, and Reginald (confirmed alien) is the one to have directed them into Oblivion at first as well.

Allison - Cape Town, South Africa

Nelson Mandela is pretty famous for his part in the anti-apartheid (segregation) movement, helping to end segregation in South Africa. He was jailed in a Cape Town prison for attempting to sabotage the pro-segregation government, and then later his office as president was located in Cape Town.

an easy connection to make with Allison's arc in season 2, and the significance of it in her arc in season 3, with her dealing with PTSD, grief over Ray, and feeling alienated by her family who didn't have the same experience as her in the 60s.

Allson's mother has nothing connecting her to South Africa outside of this, as far as I'm aware.

Klaus - Pennsylvania, USA

This one I will concede is about his birth location. But in this case, it's also heavily related to his season 3 arc, as he is the driving force of the mothers plotline and literally travels to Pennsylvania.

PA is a strong and relevant hint for his s3 arc.

Five - Dublin, Ireland

Five could be connected to Ireland in multiple ways.

(there is a link between Five and JFK, "the 1st Irish American President" but I can't see the link to s3 here so honorary mention only).

A link that I understand is a somewhat touchy topic for any Irish citizens is the stereotype of drunkeness in Ireland. While there have been studies to prove that Ireland doesn't drink more than other countries such as England, it remains a well-known stereotype and the Irish people are statistically more prone to alcohol dependency/addiction.

There is also the phrase "make it Irish" which means to put alcohol in a drink, one of the more popular drinks to do this to is coffee. Which brings us back to Five - he is known for his love of coffee and for getting spectacularly drunk.

season 3 in particular features his drinking addiction in it's full glory. it's also plot relevant as his drunkness causes the murder mystery setup of the final episodes.

(also, while it's not great to have Ireland be the hint to alcohol, it's also not great to have Five, the alcoholic of the series, be the Irish representation)

Another interpretation could be the root of the name "Dublin" meaning "black pool". It was likely derived from the River Poddle which would have been stained black with peat. This could be a hint towards Five's elusive role as the Founder, as his life so far has been stained with childhood abuse, the apocalypse and his foray as an assassin, making the reveal of the Founder a shock.

One other interpretation is the Irish vs. English. Five is perhaps the most skeptical of Reginald throughout season 3, moreso than even Luther or Diego. While England has enraged many countries, Ireland is one of the most well known for it's dislike of the English, and has a lengthy history of war and altercations with England. So Five's sticker may be a hint for his re-ignited distrust of Reginald. It also works well as a predictor for Five and Lila's (English) bathroom fight.

Five's mother's newpaper cutting has several contradictions to the Ireland, Dublin location. First and foremost being that she is cited as being from both a "small seaside community" and from "county clark".

There is no County Clark in Ireland, but there is a County Clare and a County Cork. However, County Clare is on the opposite side of Ireland to Dublin and County Cork is even farther away,

Dublin, as the Capital City, is also not a "small seaside community" by any stretch of the imagination.

And the Irish police would likely not be referred to as "provincial" but instead be called Gardaí or The Garda Síochána.

Viktor - Moscow, Russia

Moscow is seen in season 1, episode 1 very briefly as Reginald arrives to adopt Viktor. You can see both the Spasskaya Tower and St Basil's Cathedral. Viktor also speaks Russian, something that none of his siblings have demonstrated.

However, this is not actually Viktor's birthplace (if we believe that the props have canon information, as most argue that Diego is definately from Mexico due to his cutting stating his mother was in Northern Mexico, etc) as according to his book Viktor was born in "small town off the Southern coast of Russia".

Moscow is nowhere near the coast and is not exactly southern either, nor is it a small town. And while this isn't exaclty specified that the "small town" he visits is the place he was born, it wouldn't make much sense if it wasn't, as Viktor was able to track his mother down via newspaper articles about his birth.

Moscow could mean a lot of things for Viktor's arc:

it could be a reference to s1, ep1 but instead of his exact birth location, it could simply hint to his mother's country and toward Harlan's involvement in the mothers' deaths - and the long reach of his powers from America to Russia.

It could also be a hint to Viktor's significance as a much more involved and aware plot driver this season as Moscow is the politcal centre of Russia as its capital city.

It might also hint at his disconnect from his family (not being a part of the Academy and not understanding the hard decisions and necessary teamwork that come with it) causing tensions, as while Moscow is the political capital, Saint Petersburg is considered the cultural capital.

Plus Moscow's history as the capital works well as a parallel to his journey with his powers, and works as a hint to Viktor developing his powers with Harlan because Moscow also briefly lost its status as the capital to Saint Petersburg, possibly a parallel to Viktor, the most powerful of the Umbrellas, losing his powers to Reginald's drugs. Moscow was later restored as the capital, paralleling Viktor's regaining of his powers.

Lila - Berlin

Lila is nice and simple, she was considered the outlier by Jeff King anyway as her suitcase doesn't match her confirmed birth place (London), and instead is a pretty obvious hint to her time in West Berlin, Germany, with Trudy and Stan.

why i dislike the chosen locations as the birth locations

in general I think it's silly to choose almost all capital cities: Dublin, Moscow, Cape Town, Stockholm, Seoul..

I know these are populous places but there must have been some variation? (aside from Klaus, who has plot armour for this point due to his Amish origins, and Diego, who is the only non-capital city purely because he wasn't given the dignity of a named city/town/village)

it's also lazy writing (and i believe somewhat racist?) to have every sibling come from the country/continent you'd expect?

the latino is mexican

the black woman is african

the asian man is asian

the blonde haired/blue eyed man is scandinavian

even Klaus, Five and Viktor are all white men from predominantly white countries.

at least try to subvert expectations?

to an extent i understand that they were trying to incorporate the actors ethnicities with Justin having korean roots, and David being raised in mexico. But the only irish thing about Aidan is his surname, and Emmy has no known connection to South Africa. I'm also pretty sure Tom isn't swedish at all and Elliot isn't russian.

it's lazy, poorly planned and honestly highly questionable writing at best

[the-somwthing]

Welcome to my little meta analysis essay called

Why do we misremember Flower Husbands as being “nicer” than it was?

Disclaimer: I’m not here to talk about whether or not FH is “toxic” or anything like that. It’s just a fact that many old fans rewatching FH POV and new fans who are watching it for the first time after seeing fan content tend to be surprised at how they actually behaved in the series compared to how everyone remembered them being back in the day. This will NOT go over whether or not I think FH is unhealthy or whatever and instead just discuss why I believe this phenomenon has happened.

So, if I try to make this a fancy well written essay, I’ll be here all day, so I’ll just get to the point. 3rd Life came out during the DSMP era of mcyt. MCRP has been around for ages, but the DSMP style of RP (which I’ll be calling “smp rp”) was pretty much popularized by DSMP, mostly towards the end of 2020. For reference, 3rd Life started early 2021, so there’s about a half a year between these two events, and DSMP kept going for years so 3rd Life was absolutely happening during the golden era of DSMP.

But what does DSMP have to do with this? Well, it sort of created this idea of “lore” and only specific things being “canon”. You can make fun of me for the way I worded that, but you know what I mean, DSMP was weird about that stuff. I don’t really blame them as it was kind of a new style of RP they accidentally spawned, but still, it was a confusing time for SMPs.

3rd Life was actually less like DSMP and more like the modern SMP RPs, where there’s no (known, lol) scripted events and the fandom itself deciphers what is or isn’t “canon” rather than it being told to them, with mostly everything being considered canon. HOWEVER, I do believe that DSMP’s style did still affect the fandom, specifically with the topic of this essay, Flower Husbands.

But why would it only really affect Flower Husbands? Now we get into a rough topic: shipping discourse. Back in those days, shipping in the mcyt fandom was heavily frowned upon. Moreso than it is today (I know it’s still around, but it was a lot worse the earlier we go lol). I’ve even seen old relics of ppl saying flower husbands should only be portrayed as platonic cuz it’s wrong to ship them, despite their team name literally being husbands. But more importantly, for A LOT of people, flower husbands was the One Ship people felt “allowed” to ship, BECAUSE it was canon. So they would allow FH and shun every other ship.

My point isn’t actually that, with it being the only “acceptable” ship everyone tried to make it more wholesome, though I suppose that could be a contributor. But my ACTUAL point is where all the things I laid out finally close in on each other:

Ships were a Dangerous territory in mcyt fandom, and ships being “canon” was something a lot of people weren’t prepared to deal with. People don’t want to get too close to RPF territory, but back in the day their ideas of c! vs cc! wasn’t as great, so they default to the DSMP Rule of “if it’s stated to be roleplay, then it’s canon to the characters, if not, it’s noncanon and just the CCs hanging out”.

You see where I’m going with this? When trying to follow this rule for a character relationship where they don’t explicitly state what is or isn’t RP, they hear “we’re married” and instantly mark that as canon to the characters since it clearly isn’t true to the CCs, and tend to block out anything else, otherwise you’re risking it not actually being true to the characters. Especially when it’s things like Scott saying something mean about Jimmy; that directly contradicts the “these characters are in love” thing, so it must not be canon, right?

But wouldn’t people still remember that these things happened, or did they actually straight up not process any of it? My answer to that is: of course everyone was paying attention, but with the context that it’s the CCs playing a video game, all of the teasing and other behavior seems WAY less serious. It just looks like average friends playing a hunger games smp together. And as I explained earlier, the fandom was ONLY processing this as a CC thing, so Scott’s treatment of Jimmy never stood out because that’s just how it is playing games.

Back to DSMP, I’m not active in that fandom anymore but I’ll see snippets sometimes, and I’ve seen the claim that beeduo was actually boring in canon and the fandom was the one that made it interesting. I feel like this is exactly what happened with FH. Nobody was actually expecting anyone to go hard into romantic roleplay, so the fans just take whichever pair says they’re getting married and fill in the blanks themselves. And that was normal back then, it wasn’t fans making stuff up for no reason, it was kind of expected of us.

So yeah, I personally believe that this whole confusion about FH is a result of its time. Whether you want to finally look at the actual substance of the relationship rather than following weird rules about what is or isn’t “canon”, or you believe that since FH was from a time where romantic RP was confusing and weird it would make the most sense to take into account the time period it came from and ignore the less appealing bits in favor of the fanon, I don’t really care honestly. But man isn’t this an interesting situation.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Well, this is the best bit of gossip to ever appear on the Elis James and John Robins radio show:

This, of course, goes along with the story that Nish Kumar told on The Bugle of the same football game:

A game that took place when John Oliver was back in Britain briefly at the end of 2017, during which time he appeared on The Russell Howard Hour and apparently played football, but did not stop to do any Bugle episodes, which is fine, I mean it's absolutely fine, we can't all be Hollywood.

Hollywood. Despite the fact that I once made an image listing some coincidental superficial similarities,

I find it quite difficult to picture John Robins and John Oliver existing in the same place. They're wildly different. But if you asked me what I thought would happen if they ever were in the same place, I'd probably guess it would involve a lot of John Robins repeatedly calling him Hollywood.

I can't post that audio clip of Nish Kumar discussing that game on The Bugle without also posting the compilation I made of the evolution of Nish Kumar becoming the British John Oliver, because it's quite adorable:

Anyway, going back to that original clip from the radio show, I also enjoyed Producer Vin hearing comedian football mentioned and immediately asking about Andy Zaltzman. There wasn't any context from before or explanation from after that clip to explain why he'd asked, it sounds like Vin just likes Andy was impressed that they play football with him sometimes. Which is pretty cool. I think Vin's mentioned before that he's a cricket fan, and I am aware that Andy Zaltzman is weirdly, legitimately big among cricket fans, since he does so much cricket commentary and collation of stats. I'm hoping I'm right in remembering that I've heard Vin mention being into cricket, as otherwise that's just an assumption I'm making based on his race. But I think he's mentioned it.

I quite like Producer Vin at this point. Earlier in the radio show, I was a bit disappointed by how their back-and-forth with the producers seemed a lot less fun than what I'm used to, on The Bugle where Producer Chris (and Tom before him) is a beloved figure on the show. At some point I worked out that it's a bit of a different relationship, an independent podcast vs a live radio show. The radio producers are actually accountable to the station to make sure the comedians are saying things that will be good for listenership, so there were more interruptions that were genuine rebukes for going too far off on rants that would be inaccessible to a casual listener, whereas on a show that's a podcast first, you know that everyone has tuned in because they like Andy Zaltzman's inaccessible rants. I've never heard Chris Skinner try to curtail any of Andy's pun runs, for any reason besides to preserve his own psychological stability.

Having said that, after the first 100 episodes or so they settle into a rhythm, interactions with producers got a lot more natural and more fun. I'm at episode 200 now and Producer Vin has only recently started speaking up at times during the chat to hold them to account, not for boring radio standards but for contradicting stuff they've said before, which can be pretty funny at times. I like him. I think he's more naturally funny than the previous producer. Knowing he apparently approves of Andy Zaltzman, for whatever reason, makes me like him more.

Oh, and I also recently heard an episode in which Harry Potter came up, and John Robins said he's a Gryffindor, and I have not identified anyone's Hogwarts House for about fifteen years, but the years I spent doing so instantly came back to me and I looked at my phone and said "absolutely the fuck not, 100% Ravenclaw, few cases are this clear cut." And then a few weeks later they were on with Producer Vin and John referenced the recent episode in which he'd called himself a Gryffindor, and Vin immediately said that was one of the episodes when he was absent, which he knows because if he'd been there he would never have let him get away with that claim, he'd have interrupted to say no, 100% Ravenclaw. And I looked at my phone and said thank you. I like this guy.

This post has covered a fair bit of ground. The original point was supposed to be that I would pay good money to see Old John Oliver and New John Oliver tackle each other over a football. Sorry that I got onto Harry Potter. Fuck JK Rowling but I like Producer Vin.

[arcadiabaytornado]

what are the things you like and the things you dislike about before the storm? please feel free to elaborate as much as you want, i love your essays

Oh this is a fun question! I'll do top five things I like and dislike since the game is a bit of a mixed bag for me! The things I like I love, but the things I don't like really stick out.

Things I Like:

A: Amberprice was my favorite thing to come out of the game. I love the electric dynamic between Rachel and Chloe that was present from the moment they met. It's a great representation of a whirlwind teenage romance and they play really well of each others personalities.

B: As someone who loves analyzing media Rachel is a great character. She has so many nuances and I feel like she's one of those characters five people could interpret in five different ways. She's very complex and I really love her personality. She's the star of every scene she's in. As she should be.

C: Some of the standalone scenes are the best of the franchise in my opinion. Rachel burning down the tree while wind swirls around her, the play that comes off as a proposal, the excitement of discussing leaving their small town and Rachel sealing her promise with a kiss, the dream scenes with William. All of those scenes stand out very vividly to me because of how much I enjoyed them.

More Undercut

D: I liked doing graffiti more than taking photos! I liked the choice about what type of graffiti would you wanted to do like either drawing devil horns on Nathan or a halo on Rachel.

E: I really liked the portrayal of young Chloe! She's jaded and cold, but a lot of her rougher edges haven't come into play yet. Which makes sense as David isn't living with them full time and she hasn't lost Rachel at this point. I think her depression is also written really well. It's never stated outright, but all you have to do is read her journal entries to see her mental health struggles. It's a good confirmation of what we already knew in the first game but wasn't focused on much.

Things I Dislike:

A: I hated everything with Damon so much. It takes a slice of life story and tries to turn it into this a drug dealer conflict which I was not a fan of seeing. Especially because Before The Storm could have had plenty of main conflicts that didn't need him at all. For example, show why Rachel and Chloe never left Arcadia. Was it their parents intervention? Lack of money? Chloe's truck hardly working? One of the girls being unable to commit? All of the above? I find that more interesting then anything with Damon.

B: Rachel is barely in Episode 3. Rachel is the entire draw of the game so why she was regulated to damsel in distress stuck in a hospital bed while Chloe goes to rescue her kidnapped Mother I don't know. I feel like the intention was to show how far Chloe would go for Rachel...but doesn't she already prove that in the first game?

C: Everything with David doesn't really make sense. Before The Storm is a prequal, so why can the game end with David and Chloe on decent circumstances if we've seen how that falls apart in the next game? Like...what happened? It leaves more questions then answers that I don't feel like a prequel should bring up. Personally I think it would've been better for their relationship to degrade during the game so we can draw a conclusion on how things got so bad,

D: No power system. One of my favorite things about Life Is Strange and True Colors is getting to use the powers. I know Chloe couldn't have powers because that would contradict a LOT with the first game, but all I'm saying is Rachel would be a cool protagonist and also she's implied to have some kind of wind and/or fire power.

E: I hated everything they did with Rachel's parents. During the first game the big reason that Rachel and Chloe never left Arcadia Bay is because they didn't have the money to leave. But apparently Rachel's parents are rich? And her Father is so crazily overprotective he kidnaps a women who only wanted to talk to her daughters? But he doesn't care when Rachel goes missing in the first game? Plot holes aside, I also just didn't like James as a person nor did I find him interesting. Which really kills a character for me. So I didn't love him being such a big part of episode 3.

[fraeuleintaka]

Little Thief

This is the 46th post in the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection Countdown: 35 days left until release!

Today's topic: Little Thief or crime scene re-creation!

One thing I like about Kay as an assistant (and also one of the reasons why she's my favourite "obligatory teenage girl" sidekick in the series) is that she has her very own new gameplay mechanic that only she provides: Little Thief.

Investigations does a great job of introducing it since it's not just a random thing she has but comes from her connection to the Yatagarasu and ends up being directly plot-important because she puts it on the line in the battle against the main antagonist to bait them into staying longer. Apart from that, it's also just a really neat mechanic.

With Little Thief Kay can re-create entire environments in a holographic fashion from the data she puts in. These holograms not only look fancy but can also be examined like your usual crime scene so it's essentially a way for Miles to investigate locations and situations he doesn't have normal access to (e.g. the crime scene immediately after the murder took place). The game isn't always the most exact when it comes to what kind of information Kay should logically be able to input but for the most part it works really well with the lack of information or possibly false information creating contradictions in the re-creation that lead to completely new conclusions. Investigations 1 shows this off especially well, in one case the fact that you work with a re-creation instead of the real crime scene (as a certain someone BOUGHT IT to prevent you from investigating) leads to several missing pieces that you have to deduce from the limited information you have.

Investigations 2 adds a new feature to Little Thief where you can examine scenes at different points in time (e.g. directly before and after the murder). It's a lot of fun and has some great opportunities for finding contradictions and gathering more information. A neat way to keep the mechanic fresh and interesting that also serves the plot really well. In general, Little Thief is used really well, in situations where it makes sense and feels necessary and not just for the sake of having such a gameplay segment. With how long these segments usually are (an entire investigation phase) it also feels appropriate that they're not in every single case, so that it doesn't become stale and the times you do have them stand out more. I especially like the way the mechanic is used in the final case of Investigations 2 as you examine a crime scene from 15 years ago at a location that literally doesn't exist anymore! That's so cool!

One last thing I want to mention is how much I love everybody's reactions to seeing a re-creation from Little Thief for the first time. They're usually a mixture of shock and awe and so fun to watch. It makes sense as Little Thief is pretty high-tech compared to most of what we see in the series and someone not used to it would definitely be shocked to see an entire gigantic green hologram appear around them. These reactions aren't in your face or have much time spent on them (good because it would be annoying to have to discuss its validity every single time Kay uses it), they're a nice background detail most of the time and I love to see the progression of characters' reactions when they get more used to it. Like Shi-Long, initially being sceptical and not trusting it but using your conclusions from it against you when necessary to reluctantly impressed when he sees the full scale of what it's capable of and can attest to it being used for good to genuinely finding it useful and appreciating it to barely reacting because he's used to it and has other stuff to think about. I love it.

[cto10121]

Choose violence ask game: 1, 9, 10, and 22 for "Romeo and Juliet"

1. the character everyone gets wrong

Hmm, good question. My first impulse is to say R&J themselves, Romeo in particular, as their (actually complicated) personalities and characters get frequently misinterpreted. But as I’ve already discussed this frequently in my blog, I’ll opt for an unconventional answer: Mercutio himself.

Not in terms of getting his personality wrong (although I’ve seen plenty of angrymacho!Mercutio, childish!Mercutio, and even woobie!Mercutio, curiously enough), but in terms of adaptations taking Mercutio’s POV and opinions and attitude as gospel. Mercutio is portrayed as a guy who not only talks shit but makes up shit as he goes along (re: Tybalt being a poseur duelist and Benvolio having a ~secret hotheaded side). You’re not supposed to take him seriously but enjoy his trash talk for what it is—premier trolling.

Instead adaptations and fanfics accept his POV unquestionably and even accept it as canon (Baz Lurhmann movie introducing him as the Prince of Cats, Benvolio getting portrayed as a macho asshole, etc.). And of course, that’s where most of the Romeo-is-effeminate clownery comes from, even though Mercutio himself doesn’t think this (only that he has gotten pussified by ~love) and canon blatantly contradicts this.

9. worst part of canon

Tough one. Shakespeare’s canon is almost flawless. I guess making Rosaline a Capulet could be considered a plot hole. He did it so that Romeo has the push he needs to go to the party…but technically he could have made Rosaline just a random invitee rather than a Capulet. And Capulet turned out to be very chill with non-Capulet invitees anyway. So yeah, I don’t mind adaptations that make Rosaline into a Montague or a non-related Capulet. This does show Shakespeare’s lack of fucks about the feud beautifully, though.

10. worst part of fanon

I don’t think that this counts as fanon, per se, but I once peeked at some (hopefully non-school mandated) fanfics in AO3 and got a strong whiff of not one, not two, but several Juliet-is-cool-BFFs-with-Bencutio-while-latter-constantly-makes-fun-of-whiny-woobie-Romeo. Oh, God, you guys are killing me. Also, the Macho Action Hero/Strong Female Character(tm) Juliet, but that is part-and-parcel with the overall clownery.

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

…People are still sleeping on Juliet’s likening Romeo to a little bird she’d like to tie in a silken thread to pluck around as she pleases and Romeo 110% replying with “I would I were your bird,” huh? You guys really do like your innocently chaste kawaii R&Js. Admit it, these kids are freaks!!!

Nah, just kidding. Well, this is not something everyone ignores as much as miss entirely…but there’s Romeo’s “Let’s talk” when he decides to stay with Juliet after all after their wedding night. The antis always whine about how R&J are just lustful fiends and they are not ~really in love, and this small, almost throwaway line completely disproves it. Romeo decides to stay and his first suggestion about what he and Juliet should do…is to talk. Because he likes talking to Juliet and most likely they did speak through some of the night. Because he clearly wants to know everything about Juliet. Because their love so far has been just that—words—so of course their default is to talk.

[jackienautism]

sort of going off my most recent post, copy and pasted something from my notes back in ? october. was inspired to write something due to this post i saw

i obv don’t search out content through tags as much as i used to (for this exact reason i’m abt to discuss) BUT LOL. FUCK. YES it’s very easy to notice that kaitlyn is the most “competent” of the counselor group. she’s smart enough to know what is and isn’t fucking stupid as hell. but even THEN. it bothers me so much when ppl label her as the “normal” one or the ONLY one “who sits and watches while everyone else does absurd crap.” BECAUSE… LOOK AT HOW THIS FREAK ACTS AND TALKS IN GAME… yeah it could easily be attributed to shitty writing, which is something i can def talk abt some other time but. SHES FAR FROM NORMAL…. and i mean this with so much love in my heart i promise, but if we played the same damn game it’s evident something is very wrong with her LOL. she’s not only the group’s damage control. she’s not only there to make sure they don’t lose their fucking heads. she does and says SO many effed up things BC ITS JUST HOW SHES CONDITIONED… and does that paint a depiction of someone who’s 100% Competent and Normal ? she dares emma what she dares bc she thinks it’s the “right” thing for abi, despite it VERY OBVIOUSLY upsetting her. she acts like a dick towards jacob abt emma breaking up with him, despite being apparently very close childhood friends?? she comforts emma after finding out her best friend fucking died by telling her that her death was quick. being blunt and mean as seen from kaitlyn isn’t what society sees as “normal,” unless i’m missing something goddamn huge!!!!! reducing her down to the only “regular” person there rids her of what already LITTLE nuance her character has! it’s not fair to her, and overall it’s just. it’s fucking insulting! because of COUUUURSE it’s the Token Asian Girl right? of course SHE gets to bear the title of Token Normal And Smart One Of The Friend Group😊😊 despite having several moments in canon that CONTRADICT THAT SENTIMENT! let kaitlyn be silly! let kaitlyn contribute to the chaos! just because she knows when to put a end to something doesn’t mean shes incapable of doing stupid and fun shit just cause!!!!!!!

basically. it’s fuckin weird that kaitlyn is given this specific title being the only woman of color. she’s literally just emily davis without the “unlikable” parts, meaning ppl are SUDDENLY gonna be much more willing + adamant to place this characterization upon her and reduce her down to it!

[writingbyricochet]

Writer Q&A Tag Game

Thank you so much @mthollowell-writes for the tag! I loved reading your answers and this was fun to fill out :)

1) What motivates you to write?

Mostly my mind cannot stop thinking of Situations. Whether they're for characters from my current TV/film hyperfixations or my own OCs, writing is the best way for me to get it out of my system and the artistic form I'm the best at.

2) A line/short snippet of your writing that you are most proud/happy of. If not maybe share a line of someone else's work you love (just please credit them)

From Where Paradise Died and Lived:

Sophie was just about draw her hand away, and perhaps he felt the pressure lessening, for then he brought his own hand up to cover hers, to keep her from moving it. He held her hand there, his fingers curling just barely under hers, not with any force but with a lightness she had just been administering to him. And underneath it, a reassurance that seemed to communicate he wanted something that quickened her heart. She knew if she proceeded here, she would be crossing a line she had thought she wouldn’t cross for a long time yet. She finally raised her gaze to meet his, and all sense escaped her—his eyes looked like the way she felt, all the encouragement she needed. A little bit scared, a little bit in love, she kissed him.

3) Which OC makes you smile every time you think/talk about them and what are they like?

Honestly, I haven't gotten to write a lot of him yet, but I have a soft spot for Fendley. He believes passionately in the Velitovan cause and wants to fight for its independence...but he's also the biggest homebody and hates being away from Merity. The two parts of his personality are just direct contradictions to each other, it makes me laugh.

4) What process of writing do you enjoy the most?

Character building: creating a backstory, personality, aesthetic, all that good stuff

5) What part of writing do you think you are the best at? (Yes stroke your own ego it's okay)

Describing inner turmoil? When I look at the passages I'm most proud of, they all have to do with an internal dialogue of some kind, usually in a situation with heightened tension or vulnerability where a character has a lot going on in their mind.

6) What is something in the writeblr community is most enjoyable?

Making friends with everyone! The support system is a huge motivator and definitely something that keeps me going.

7) A writing tool/device you use that helps you with writing? (It could be speech to text, a writing program etc)

Scrivener, my beloved. I was working in Evernote for way longer than I ever should have and was getting just so sick of it that I finally took the plunge to get Scrivener. Night and day comparison. There are so many great tools and functions and I love being able to have one document for a WIP and its outline, characters, worldbuilding, everything. It's definitely pricey up front, but in the long run worth it since it's just a one-time purchase. Highly recommend giving it a trial run to anyone interested.

8) A piece of worldbuilding that you like in your own story? (It could be the magic system, a particular place in the story, a law etc)

I really love the country of Velitova, especially the lands beyond the Idylwild. In-universe they're written off as being sort of rural, but the nature out there is so beautiful and pristine. Huge rolling hills, a huge lake surrounded by flowering trees, cliffs facing a wild ocean...yes.

9) What piece of advice would you say to encourage others to write if they are having a rough patch?

Stop writing: Whether it's a for a few days or a few months, taking a break from my WIPs and re-setting my mind whenever I am struggling is always the best solution.

Return to worldbuilding: I've seen a lot of people discuss how we get desensitized to the cool things in our WIPs after a while. Creating more cool things that will be new to me as well often makes my WIP exciting again.

Get outside: Traveling always inspires me, but I find even walking around your neighborhood can be so helpful! I especially walking among trees in the fall, that air of melancholy during that time of year just gets me.

10) Tag some people whose works you love/have been your biggest supporters

Love to @sugar-phoenix, @macabremoons, @orphicpoieses @awordchemist @moonlitinks (all of whom should take this as a gentle tag to answer the Q&A yourself!), and special shout out to my IRL best friend @canofpeaches who always goes feral whenever I send her a WPDL snippet (hope you did not combust reading the one above) <3

[aragarna]

Zorro or Good Omens

For the ask game my dear!

Hello there, my dear old Valley! :)

Sorry it's taken me so long to answer. I *will* answer with a gifset as the "make me choose" game is supposed to be, but that might take even more time because aaaah life. Anyway. So here is why it took me so long:

I actually had to think about that one super hard. It's such a difficult choice to make LOL probably because both shows have characters that resonate quite deeply with me, but regarding different parts of me.

Zorro: I really like the character of Diego, who dedicates his life to help others, is always very considerate and caring and is passionate about trying to make the world a better place. The definition of a Good Guy. I *wish* I had a tenth of his courage and he reminds me to look after others, when it's so easy to get caught up in our own life. So he's someone I understand and look up to.

I guess there's also the struggle to live up to the society's expectations, to his family's expectations, the inability to tell people who he really is. Not that I have a secret identity, but we all, to some degree, wear a mask, hide our true nature and try to live up to people's expectations.

Also the fencing. ;-)

Good Omens: For neither of them you specified which version, but for GO I'll specifically pick the TV show, as I think it resonates a bit more with me. Mostly because it expands Aziraphale and Crowley's characters, and their relationship. As a romantic asexual, I don't often feel represented in fictions. I do get love, I do understand love stories, but I don't get the sex part. Attraction, to me, doesn't translate in wanting to sleep with someone. And given that almost 100% of romances in fiction end in sex, well, there's always a part of those stories that remain foreing. But Aziraphale and Crowley, it's not like that. And I know lots of people do like to add a sex component to the story, but that bit of canon that angels and demons don't have sexual organs (unless they make an effort) is actually important to me. The way I read and feel Aziraphale and Crowley's attraction, it's not physical. They just enjoy each other company. They enjoy that feeling of being together, discussing together, seeing the world different through the other's eyes. They like the world better with the other in it. But they don't sleep together. It's been clearly said that after S1 they carved their own bit of a existence for themselves. They have their phone calls and dates, and Crowley comes to the bookshop, etc... So they *are* in a relationship. It's just not sexual (and I really hope Neil will keep it that way, cause it's important to me)

Also, there's the whole Good vs. Evil, more theological discussion that the show handles really well. I love how it's making fun of all the contradictions of the Bible and the Christian religion. But also how being Good in a complicated world is *hard*. Being Good sometimes requests courage and questioning one's own believes. And standing up to your boss.

And it's hilarious, when it's not heartbreaking. It's silly, in a very absurd British way.

So, there, this is what went all through my head. because of the difference in popularity, I feel like Zorro is more personal. Everyone loves GO. It's all over the internet. There's like a new fic every 20 min or something (actual stats I've seen floating around). So for some reason, it makes me feel depossessed of it. While the Zorro fandom is me and 5 people, 3 of which prefer the 1990 show. But on the other hand, Zorro is an old thing (1919!), and it says a rather "classic" story (he's the spiritual father of all the superheroes, after all), while GO is much more unique and modern. It's an important piece of fiction.

[maxwell-grant]

Asking because apparently he has a crossover with the Shadow and the Spider : do you have any thought on Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt ?

(Spoilers for, all of the Peter Cannon stories basically)

While there’s been a lot of discussion around the Gillen/Wijngaard 2019 mini and it is, easily, the best comic made with the character and one I’d heartily recommend to everyone, I’m instead gonna be talking more here about Peter Cannon the character, who turned out to be a much more fascinating rabbit hole of information to dive into than I’d expected. Much like his stolen costume implies, Cannon is a character of dualities and contradictions.

Peter Cannon is actually owned by the estates of Pete Morisi, his original creator. In other words, it's a creator-owned superhero from an era which tended to have the rights consumed by the corporate bodies. When you compare and contrast to Watchmen's eventual fate, that's a fun one for me to think about - Kieron Gillen

He is not just another Charlton survivor drastically altered and fragmented by the Watchmen cataclysm: he is this epistolary composite of several different characters and ideas in conversation with each other, characters whose legal rights and defining traits are all over the place and still kind of building up on each other even now. He is, simultaneously, more fragmented than his Charlton brothers, and yet the only one who’s been able to remain consistent over the decades. Peter’s roots go back further than theirs, even though he is currently exiled from the universe they’ve been relocated to, a state of affairs that in some ways makes it so that he is, at once, more trapped under Watchmen’s shadow, as well as more free from it.

He's like a weird game of telephone that started in the crudest beginnings of the Golden Age superheroics, and with at least one touchstone every couple of decades all the way until today (he got a new series announced this year even), with different characters all inspired by each other and ripping off each other to various degrees existing separately across 80+ years, each belonging to different rights holders and universes, oscilating wildly in popularity, influence, and just how much they have in common with each othe, but still telling a long-running story as if they were one and the same, which they are and aren’t.

We have the original sources (and ensuing riffs or public-domain usages of said sources), the creation of knock-off created due to licensing issues who’d become an established character in his own right, different attempts at remixing the source ingredients ultimately creating knock-off of a knock-off, the badboy knock-off of the original knock-off who’d catch on with the times and go on to be massively popular, and then things would break down as said knock-offs start to congeal together in fragmented mirror freakshows of each other that have to exist together and who knows what’ll happen from there.

Or, I guess to try and put it more simply,

-cough-

Cannon’s even had more than a couple of separate “universes” and superhero casts built around him, by virtue of the fact that his comics cannot have access to the actual Charlton supporting cast, so they have to fill in for stand-ins, and because he’s under that pulp/public domain zone, his comic runs don’t really have any continuity with each other, except they kind of do, because they are all building up on each other even if just thematically. The Cannon Canon is rather limited, and every writer who tackles the character has had to go back and dig into the prior runs to find.

Peter Cannon being several entities in one isn’t even just a facet of their turbulent publishing history, it’s an aspect that’s actually made it’s way into their stories proper. The 90s DC run established that Peter is the reincarnation of the monastery’s greatest hero Varja (a misspelling of vajra, a divine weapon/tool which symbolizes the properties of a thunderbolt). The 2012 run took a plot point from the classic run that was Peter’s manifesting a life-like dragon illusion to scare a villain into retreating (and how that ended up foretelling Ozymandias’ whole “world peace through giant squid attack” plan), and made the storyline about how Peter Cannon-Thunderbolt and The Dragon, the world-conquering threat he called upon to defeat and enact a benign version of Veidt’s plan, were one and the same. And the 2019 run had Peter’s development born from encounters with two separate versions of himself: Thunderbolt, the Ozymandias stand-in who’s been repeating alien genocides across worlds for 30 years in the hopes of it eventually working, and Pete Cannon, a professor who lives a fulfilling human life in a world without superheroes.

Peter Cannon is Bill Everett’s Amazing-Man using Daredevil’s costume and setting (said Daredevil would go on to appear again and again Death-Defying Devil and any number of different names the character’s appeared under because his original name is taken and his characterization can be anything). Peter Cannon is Thunderbolt. He is The Dragon. He is Iron Fist, who is another rich white blonde masked adventurer/vigilante/martial artist rework of Everett’s Amazing-Man. He is Adrian Veidt, who is Ozymandias. He is Thunderbolt from another world, who is Peter Cannon as well as Ozymandias and Dr Manhattan. He is Pete Cannon. He will probably be something else in the near future as well, as a response to the world around him.

His original 60s stories capitalized on the increasing interest in martial arts and martial arts philosophies, the perpetual Western fascination with buddhism and Tibet and love of orientalist tropes that had taken on, shall we say more benign forms, compared to the early 1910s or 1930s, with Peter Cannon being both the ultimate White Savior, as well as someone who wants nothing whatsoever to do with said “whiteness” and the world outside of the monastery, and that being such an inescapable aspect of his entire backstory and make-up, that it forces writers into a dilemma as to how they deal with it, and thus, find ways to make it workable. His 90s run was heavily focused on post-Cold War politics, Peter’s PTSD as well as reworking him into a better, more compassionate hero as a response to Ozymandias as well as working with the idea that Peter would eventually go on to join the DCU, which didn’t happen. The 2012 series takes a broader focus on disarmament and recontextualizing the character, and the 2019 series is pointedly about a lot of things and many of them have to do with Watchmen and the broader superhero genre, but also where Peter stands in said genre and world, what is it that this character speaks to or about.

What fascinates me is how utterly reluctant Peter Cannon is to get involved. He mostly wants to chill with his best mate, Tabu. Stories are often about the push and pull between Peter Cannon (who wants to just study the ancient scrolls and be left alone) and Tabu (who wants him to go and be the Superhero Thunderbolt.) This happens again and again through the run, almost to the point of comedy. It's rare that you see a superhero who needs as much pushing to do something.

He’s like a more responsible early Peter Parker. Actually, he’s like if Peter Parker had better ethics and morals. And with Tabu it’s like Uncle Ben never died.

The push and pull between Peter Cannon the man and Thunderbolt the hero is the interesting weird part of it. We're led to someone who's Sherlock-Holmes smart, with a similar distance, but has nothing but contempt for the world's mainstream civilizations. Why be a superhero when this is the world he's protecting? At the same time he doesn't - as Ozymandias did in Watchmen - fall into the trick of believing just because he knows more he gets to tear it all down.

It’s to some degree close to the trope of the white savior, but rather than someone like, say, Iron Fist, the interesting thing is Peter Cannon literally has not earned it. He’s not the best or anything else. He didn’t choose his path. He knows he’s not worthy. He’s an apex human, but he’s an apex human because of this other civilization that is better than we are.

If you ask 99 out of 100 superhero comic fans to tell you something about Peter Cannon, they’ll say inspiration for Ozymandias. You can’t avoid that. As a device to talk about influence and how comics change, with Peter Cannon you cannot avoid the ghost of Ozymandias.

But it has to be bigger than that - Kieron Gillen on Thunderbolt

I find it interesting also how Peter’s personality contrasts with what he is, what makes him more interesting than the typical white savior. He didn’t find a magical monastery amidst general globetrotting, he wasn’t rescued and taught magic martial arts and decided to use them to go and fight crime, he quite literally had no choice in the matter. He was born in the monastery (or taken there as a 6-month old baby), his parents died due to a plague he just barely survived, and he was raised by monks for 20 years and decreed to be The Chosen One (whether by the sheer improbability of his arrival and survival there, or as a gesture of honor toward his parents), and then instructed to return home and help others in his native land, a land he had no memory or fondness or any attachment for.

He grew up in a fantasy land of great knowledge and compassion and magic that was constantly targeted by a rotten and corrupt outside world trying to destroy and plunder it it, and then he was ordered as an adult to go live in that rotten and corrupt world and fix it because it’s where he comes from, having superheroism thrust upon him by no choice of his own. The rest of the world looks at him with awe and wonder and fear because he’s a Great Man capable of impossible things, things that to him are basic and banal and things he hasn’t really mastered as much as he could or should. At the same time he complains about the world outside home, he’s also driven to prove himself, to live up to his calling as The Chosen One, and it sucks. Being The Chosen One sucks for him, sucks in general, and it’s what he is. I think there’s a lot of potential to a superhero take on The Chosen One that fully explores just how awful that trope is and how disastrous it could be to said hero (Griffith from Berserk is one example of that)

It’s an interesting position he’s coming from as to why he’s a reluctant hero, why he’s so removed from his call. Even before Ozymandias, there's an aspect of Peter Cannon's core concept that makes him feel indeed like he's being more forced into heroism than anything and that, under different circumstances, it wouldn’t take much to push him into villain territory to begin with. Which is why his runs are so preoccupied with Cannon’s humanity, Cannon’s connections to the people around him, and Tabu specifically, that make him human. It’s where this impossible superhuman genius Great Man with the world on his shoulders, trying to navigate an impossible position with catastrophic room for error, with such proven potential for darkness, gets to breathe easy and find help, remember that saving the world is never a one-person job and that he is not alone.

I love how this is consistently where all three of his last major runs have ended on, in the 90s with his growing humanity and friendship with Tabu, in the 2012 mini where Tabu and the Charlton stand-ins come to save him at the end, and in the 2019 mini where he is forced to acknowledge his own failings, his own self-described lack of personhood and the consequences of a genius far removed from humanity making decisions for it, so that he might overcome them and grow into a better man and friend, and that’s how we end with this,

some 60 or 80+ years of storytelling for this character, and the other characters he’s been, somehow forming a remarkably coherent character arc through it all and a promising future, or at least, the potential for one. Not that this was necessary for reading said run or getting to this moment, but going through the entirety of the Peter Cannon Canon before rereading the 2019 mini definitely gave me much needed context for the character, and also reaffirmed that this kiss, this development of Peter and Tabu’s dynamic? This was a long time coming. Come what may, I’m terribly interested in what else will come out of this strange and fascinating amalgam of comics history (so long as it doesn’t have a certain raccoon man’s name attached to it) and what the future holds for Peter Cannon and whatever else he may be next.

[aewinning]

Fontaine/4.x+ Predictions

I'm throwing some big bold Fontaine/4.x predictions out so I can reference this in a year and find out just how right or wrong I was. Under a cut because it's a wall of text and b/c it involves obscure lore not everybody's read.

(No leaks involved. If you've seen leaks that confirm or contradict any of this, please don't send them to me or discuss them in replies. As you can see, the lore theorycrafting is half of the fun for me!)

Yes, this is the tip of the iceberg on my lore theories. No, this is not a comprehensive prediction of the entire Fontaine plot, just bits of it I feel are foreshadowed. Yes, I'm citing a lot of shit so that when I go back through this a year from now I can see why I thought what I thought.

I think about Genshin lore too much, this truly is live footage of me every time a single new crumb of information is divulged.

Massive wall of text incoming b/c I can't stop rambling once you start me up on Genshin lore.

The theories:

Fontaine fucks up and Celestia gets involved

My big pet theory that I've been nursing for over a year now, ever since we started hearing from bit NPCs in minor events about Fontaine's energy problems, is that I think Celestia is either going to drop a nail on Fontaine or at the very least finally become relevant to the main plot in a big way by sending someone to intervene with Fontaine's technology and the mockery Focalors is making of the judicial process. (They might not care enough to intervene in the average judicial process, but she's literally the capital-letters God of Justice, and it's supposed to be her ideal. If she's abandoned it, they might not be happy.) They're also hovering over what we can assume to be the location of Fontaine, which is not a good sign.

This theory was strengthened when reading Rene's Investigation Notes in the Khvarena of Good and Evil questline, which indicate that Fontaine has done research on Khaenri'ah's use of abyssal power as an energy source, which was warned against by some of Khaenri'ah's own people but ignored (to disastrous outcome). There are a lot of parallels being set up between Khaenri'ah and Fontaine in those notes and with all the mention of sinners in the Final Feast trailer narration, and I'm not sure they bode well for Fontaine.

It's possible that the energy generator machine that Persikov and the other Fatui were working on as far back as 2.8's Golden Apple Archipelago were meant to help them gain a foothold in Fontaine; after all, solve the desperate nation's energy problems, and you suddenly hold a lot of power in the nation and can even hold their energy source ransom until your demands are met. I wouldn't be surprised if "the Fatui control Fontaine's energy future and use it as leverage" is a plot point.

(Although back in the day I thought it would be Pantalone behind that plot, not Arlecchino, because economic and political manipulation seemed his style and we hadn't heard anything much about Arlecchino yet. Hell, Arlecchino had been mentioned like once in-game then, in Inazuma's "The Very Special Fortune Slip" hidden questline, and was still referred to as male at that point.)

2. Neuvillette is unjustly imprisoned by Furina; Charlotte figures it out

I think Neuvillette is going to be imprisoned by Furina (who's pretty obviously the hydro archon Focalors), foreshadowed by the bars going over his face but not Clorinde's when they're walking in the sewers in the trailer. This will likely be either Furina framing him for something (foreshadowed by her burning what seems to be evidence while complaining about the lack of plot twists and entertainment, while he's literally 'framed' by the burning photo) OR a political imprisonment because they have an ideological clash.

Neuvillette seems to actually want justice, Furina seems to want a show. She seems very pouty and childish; if he tries to discipline her or remind her of the true meaning of justice, she could very well order him arrested and turn it into a grand trial to feed her lust for entertainment. And it could certainly be a combination framing/political imprisonment as well. Very French Reign of Terror style.

Charlotte may figure this whole situation out; in the trailer she's investigating photos with a puzzled look on her face as if she sees something wrong with them, and in the TCG event she offered to let us take out an ad in the paper if we ever needed it, in exchange for our assistance during the event. Now, the pictures were of Navia, not Neuvillette, so this may be an unrelated plot, but surely she's going to help us sleuth up the truth of something with foreshadowing like that.

Neuvillette is also...something. His eyes resemble Khaenri'ahn eyes, he's got the Kleelike pointy ears, and his cool blue hair streaks are certainly interesting. Oceanids can mimic other creatures so he could be an Oceanid (and given that they were spies of the previous archon that would set him up nicely for opposition to Furina). He could be Klee's species. He could be a Khaenri'ahn.

Whatever he is, he's NOT standard modern Teyvat human, and he's NOT the previous hydro archon despite the hair streaks because we know from the Khvarena of Good and Evil questline and Vourukasha's Glow artifact set that the previous archon died and was anchored beneath the Harvisptokm in the form of the giant Gaokerena lotus to purify abyssal influence in the region.

Neuvillette, I've got my eye on you. (Both eyes. While twirling my hair and kicking my feet.)

1b+2b. Neuvillette replaces Furina as hydro archon

I fully understand this is an unlikely scenario so it's not as firmly a prediction as much as a "this would be interesting," but if Celestia brings judgment on Fontaine it is possible that the hydro archon slot opens up, either because they repossess Furina's gnosis and find a new archon, or because they straight-up kill her (can you fucking imagine the shock from the community if they kill an archon off? but they'd still get to sell two separate units as archons, it'd be a win/win for them).

If this happens the logical choice for a replacement would be Chief Justice Neuvillette, especially if he was in opposition to the behavior that put her on Celestia's shitlist. I can see it now: Celestia repossesses the gnosis, gives it to him, he says thank you, the Celestians fuck off to be mysterious again, and he turns right around and hands it to the Fatui in exchange for getting the hell out of Fontaine. (Or for some other reason.)

I highly doubt they'll go this route, but I would love to see it. Not only would it even out the archon gender ratio a bit, but it would answer the question of how a change of archonhood takes place, which we still haven't seen since Morax hasn't been replaced as geo archon yet. And I think it's a question we deserve to have answered before the end of the game. If not here, then perhaps in Natlan (see point 7 below).

3. Lyney, Lynette, Freminet, and Arlecchino

This is a pretty common/obvious theory but I agree that the siblings are all likely working for Arlecchino, likely unwillingly. She runs the House of the Hearth which takes in (and sometimes causes) orphans and trains them for the Fatui; we've seen several NPCs that came from them before and many of them consider each other brothers and sisters.

I don't think Lyney and Lynette are related to Freminet by blood; I think they consider him a sibling due to being raised together. The resemblance between Lyney and Lynette is clearer, especially with the twin names, but names can be changed, so I don't even treat it as confirmed that those two are blood related until proven otherwise, especially since Lynette has cat features and Lyney doesn't.

Both Lynette and Freminet seem to have robotic features, and we know that Fontaine has robots and Snezhnaya has the technology for segments, plus we've seen Albedo as a homunculus and Scara as a puppet, so artificial humans are very much within the realm of possibility for Teyvat. Lynette is said to have rather mechanical behavior, and Freminet's constellation is literally 'Automaton.' So I think it's likely enough that one or both of them aren't flesh and blood humans.

To take that a step further, I think it's possible that Lynette died at some point, and the current Lynette is a mechanical replacement OR a robotic body being inhabited by her soul (Alphonse from Full Metal Alchemist style). Lyney may have had to pledge loyalty to Arlecchino and the Fatui in order to rescue or recreate his sister through these means, OR it's possible they were already in the House of the Hearth and Dottore or somebody else damaged the original Lynette while experimenting with her.

Dark. And quite the fun twist if it's true, tbh.

4. Navia and Clorinde

Navia gives off a 'gentleman thief' vibe to me but lady version, and Clorinde shoots directly at her in the trailer, indicating she's playing the role of the detective or law enforcement officer tracking her down. I don't have coherent thoughts here on a lore front really, I'm just really excited for the possibility of gentlewoman thief rivals to lovers/enemies with benefits lesbians.

Clorinde's outfit looks a bit historical Navy inspired to me, so maybe she's a member of the Navy, but I'm not really sure why she'd be chasing criminals if that's the case.

5. Wriothesley, Sigewinne, and the Tower of London

I don't have a solid opinion on whether Wriothesley is blind or not as possibly hinted at by his fumbling for the cup, but I think it'd be cool if he was! People point to him looking at papers or at Sigewinne as evidence that he's not, but 'blind' as a term does not always mean complete lack of sight, for one, and if we assume he's a vision user as a seemingly playable character then there could be alternative methods he reads things with, such as using elemental sight to read ink with crushed-up elemental rocks in it or something.

He seems rather military, and Fontaine seems to have a strong military presence in general with some of the Melusine giving off a British bobby (police) vibe visually. I wouldn't be surprised if we get a structure reminiscent of the Tower of London, potentially where Wriothesley works and Neuvillette gets held when imprisoned.

No solid thoughts about Sigewinne yet other than I'm guessing she's going to be a healer or support, since she's little and cute and taking care of someone in the trailer. I assume she's a Melusine.

6. Chenyu Vale and Qiaoying Village (and Yilong Port?)

They're coming. I can feel it in my bones that at last we will go to the long-awaited Baizhu homeland. Why? There have been multiple sources indicating that they're placed between Liyue and Fontaine, likely between Fontaine and Qingce Village. I think 4.4 should be Lantern Rite judging from the usual calendar, and that would be a prime time for it to pop up - the main Fontaine story should be over at that point, and we'll be back in Liyue anyways. It will also be the Year of the Dragon, which might mean time for some juicy Zhongli or Liyue lore. Though they might move Chenyu Vale elsewhere in the 4.x schedule if needed.

This region will likely utilize Fontaine's diving mechanics. Legends about the region in weapon and artifact lore discuss powerful sunken jade artifacts in the rivers and lakes of the region, which would make a storyline revolving around finding them the perfect excuse to introduce the diving mechanics to a non-Fontaine region. Given the name and the lore, it's very possible that Baizhu's signature weapon Jadefall's Splendor is one of those pieces of jade, reclaimed.

For that and multiple other reasons, I believe Baizhu will be relevant to the main storyline here. Not only does he have a personal vested interest in finding interesting and powerful old artifacts or knowledge that might aid in his search for immortality, but Changsheng is intimately connected to the region lorewise. The Echoes of an Offering artifact set doesn't mention Changsheng by name, but it does discuss an adeptus named "Herblord" in Chenyu Vale and tell her story, and Changsheng is referred to as an "Herblord" in Baizhu's story cutscene. There's no reason to refer to them both with such a specific unusual term unless they're one and the same.

(I also have a theory that the other woman in the artifact lore is Madame Ping. The other woman is referred to as a fish adeptus, and Madame Ping's younger self in cutscenes has fish motifs and a fishtail silhouette, so I believe she's likely a koi as her adeptus form. I am highly tempted to write a Changsheng/Madame Ping fic because y'all there is something incredibly wlw happening in that artifact lore. I am also not going to be surprised if Madame Ping's younger form becomes playable in conjunction with Chenyu Vale story.)

7. Natlan

As a final far future prediction: In Natlan, Capitano will likely challenge the pyro archon for her gnosis and possibly even replace her. We know he's headed to Natlan and also "has the courage to challenge gods as an ordinary mortal" from Varka's Weinlesefest letter, and if Pierro is simply the "Director" of the Fatui as labeled in the Winter Night's Lazzo description and not a numbered harbinger, Capitano may occupy slot #1, which would be in line with his name as the Captain. We've been told by Nahida that the top three harbingers rival gods in terms of power, and I feel like if any god would answer a martial challenge with their gnosis on the line it would be the God of War, especially if the challenger was backed by another archon. I TRULY hope we see a fight between them.

(I also wanna see someone guillotined in Fontaine to fit the vibe but I highly doubt that will happen in Genshin. I think Signora was the most violent death we'll get onscreen.)

Anyways I hope someone found this titillating or educational and we can all look back at this and laugh at how wrong I was a year from now, but occasionally my farfetched theories do work out, such as when I looked a the Echoes of an Offering set lore on its release a full YEAR before Baizhu's release and excitedly vibrated to a friend about how it HAD to be related to him or Changsheng.

(I have theories past this point in the game too but they mostly rely on esoteric Gnostic text parallels more than in-game foreshadowing/content so I'm less confident in them.)

[molluskmirage]

going to talk about some personal qualms about role play in general with Minecraft as the backdrop. If thats not your jam, you understandably disagree or have your own opinions, well, this discussion is for me to organize my own thoughts on it so you can either disregard this post entirely or view it as a spectacle for your own gain, or whatever the case… I shall dive in now.

Qsmp is my first heavy role play server and I have to say in general I really despise role play. However in trying to state what I dislike theres a lot of things to it, somethings that are technically role-play that I do enjoy verses that which I dont.

there is what I will call ‘natural roleplay’ that occurs in a natural sense. Characters aren’t necessarily ‘really’ in the situation but they play into it by the feed back or for the fun of it. This is something that happens in real life, it particularly happens in areas of high stress as a playful way to navigate or center people in a chaotic world. An example of this (there are many examples in the life series but im going to choose for this ) the clockers from limited life. Now they weren’t really a ‘family’ but they played into being a family because it was funny because it bonded them while dealing with the high stress parameters of the server. Which leads me to my next set of role play which I adore which I'm going to call ‘elements’.

Now elements are any set of rules/mechanics that is what gaming is. There are stakes, ways to win and lose and actions and reactions can seamlessly flow into natural role play. Theres a genuineness to it as you play that your outcome is determined by your merit, skill, wit, charisma, luck, your agency. Because it is so genuine life itself sets the stage on wether you are smart or ignorant, abled or disabled, skilled or unskilled. Life sets the ‘uncontrollables’ while you the player navigate the stage props that are ‘elements’ decided by the host.

Those two example’s of role play are what I can enjoy now for role play I really cant stomach. Now I was an actor for 2 decades before falling ill, I can very much enjoy scripted work however ‘scripted role play’ is my absolute beloathed. For me it falls into the uncanny valley of storytelling and I just hate it. If there is the parameters of everything being a dream I can do it, but with out that statement my pleasure in said material plummets to the ground. Reason being is that the content is rife with contradictions and stakes that are set to whoever's controlling the stories whimsy which can completely assassinate characters to fit to these ideals. I think in part I really hate this because I have a language disability that while making language difficult for me I became hyper attuned to things like lying. There are pitches and inflections that come about from lying and not lying and very very few people can act appropriately when they need to for the story they are weaving which is unsettling for me to many degrees. And very often I know the ‘twist’ the creator has set up too far in advance. There is also the issue for me that when in choosing options for yourself its too absurd degrees because the ‘sky’ is the limit, however thats not really the case because most people write the same story over and over, either being a cartoonish hero or cartoonish villain that’s reminiscent of playing pretend with 4 year olds (and then my laser shoots you, ah! But I survive because I have a nuclear blaster and I shoot you-etc.)

all that to say I find it boring and tired. Now completely confined scripted works means that the author has set stakes for the characters and they can act and react accordingly (results depending upon an author’s skill varies) but characters tend to make sense and because no person is behind each character individually characters are free to be flawed without it being silly and free to consequences without it trying to be stopped because the difference between a play and role play is that people in a play are trying to tell A story while role-players are each telling Their story. With so many tellers it can become the adage ‘too many cooks in the kitchen’ for me.

so thats the general outline of what Id like to discuss now for the applied principles in regards to the qsmp itself.

I have stayed enjoying as long as I have for the qsmp because there are a lot of elements and natural rp within it, which is and has been expertly crafted by Quackity himself. The eggs are an example of elements (they are vulnerable having two lives and if they die they are cast out from the series) and natural role play (we’ll use charlie here as he is the most extreme in his rp) while Charlie may act reckless for a fun gimmick of natural role play because the elements are real the effects from losing a character from his behavior, his actions leads his character to handle grief and remorse. while he does do this as a ‘character’ there are genuine feelings that he allows to lead his natural role play, ‘going to kill all the other eggs’ in grief while would be extreme behavior for real life and is a larger then life sort of sentiment it is still a real sentiment. This behavior can be exhibited time and time again for humans in the ‘if I cant have happiness neither can you’.

now it is certainly risky setting up an element in which you both need to care for and can lose a player because while the highs of those elements are incredible the lows are extreme and you end up losing more then the players that died to elements, you lose all that were attached to them as the emotions are too strong and too real to navigate for most individuals. The brilliance of the eggs though is that there simplicity and needs are understandable across language barriers and because they act as children they also provide access for language learners to start their journey as well, as players that interact with them will speak more simply and delicately giving nursery rhymes and explaining concepts that allow for beginner language learners an easier introduction to the language. There is a lot of reason and success in the qsmp that’s absolutely brilliant full stop.

For the things that make me cringe or fall apart are the more ‘scripted rp’ aspects. I think q!quackity suffers from this most acutely. I really wish quackity had set himself up as a villain/more admin character from the jump. He as a creator knows too much and its hard to watch him play ignorant and angsty when he feels so detached and displaced story wise. My biggest problems with the server are the overall mechanics and world building. I think there is a solid interesting story there but it can only be accessed when the heavens deem it so and respectfully it sucks so much to me.

‘find luffy’ ‘find the eggs’ the admins playing those characters aren’t physically on the server there is no way to find them, which we the audience, and the content creators know but how can they act out as they would ‘naturally’ when there goal is physically unattainable, you cant, which then when mixing the fandom into it they extrapolate and make strange character dives ‘no ones looking for quackity’ ‘no ones looking for roier’ there’s literally nothing players can do to find them so of course theyre not looking but suddenly it’s angst and ‘these poor characters no one cares from them’, like I said uncanny valley of storytelling I don’t like.

I did understand right from the get go this would be an issue as the set up of being trapped on the island, being the minecraft server itself, was a very peculiar plot device as it serves basically the opposite of what you would want for your players. ‘You cant leave the island!’ Uh what if they dont log in? Theyve escaped, there free! had there been an actual island in game that if they tried to escape from there could be consequences ( while perhaps difficult to dm/manage (though you could make some cool commands/effects that could do a lot for you) I think story wise this narrative could have been soo much more compelling and not just players having to willingly submit themselves to torture while saying they dont want the torture and to be free for the plots sake.

just putting this out here too but Ive hated Dapper’s kidnappings so much. He is probably hands down my favorite character and the amount of character assainations they have had to jump through for ✨plot✨🙄. I can understand the motivation for kidnapping Dapper as his Father is highly contested and Dapper is a vulnerable point for Bad but I really need characters to put in the effort like Charlie did. that was entertaining and intense and every character involved got a great dramatic story. Any other time when he’s been ‘magically’ obtained it feels like a filler episode to me and my eyesroll into the back of my skull.

another point about scripted rp is that the further it goes the more effort put in and the less time you play because it would mess up story continuity and in general just because a pile of angst plots, I just dont find appealing, and I know the creators put in a lot of work (that deserves praise) and there are very clearly people that really appreciate that content and absolutely great for them, happy their getting content they enjoy but for me it’s lackluster.

to the point of ‘well if you dont like it then dont watch’ as stated there are plenty of things I like about qsmp but also I try to watch things I don’t understand and don’t enjoy at times as research to learn what others enjoy and see in it to further my own understanding and compassion. I may never like it fully but if I can understand why others do I can better support and encourage there interests and I very much like that, people are great and its nice to share thoughts and feelings. because I do have what I feel is more outsider/anti? views in general on this subject then most of the fandom Ive felt the need to compile some thoughts from my perspective of it, now done I think I’ll go back to hibernating until a next thought.

[vasito-de-leche]

also, also —

I wrote out so many quotes 'cause your language is beautiful and you manipulate it to express complicated figures with simple words so easily is breathtaking. SO I took many quotes and one seriously got on my mind

"would you forgive him just as readily if he were to kill someone in front of you?" I feel like I'd need you elaborate on that one. The thought looks curious as an idea for a situation but at the same time I understand how easily forgiving reader would be borderline ignoring severance of the situation(maybe??? Im still not sure how this works since we got fans already knowing he unalives ppl easily in the first place + the whole setting does collocate with high death rate so...) and on the other hand, abandoning him is just gameover. So I thought the closest to actually getting through this situation without being too unrealistic would be two options

First one is probably classical "y/n already knew it before and them getting close to FMN was with that fact taken into account" and the second one is (mourning the loss of life then) turning to him to adress the issue and try to figure some other ways to "win" without killing anybody(paralyze potion??? More mind games? idk). As if it's _our_ problem and not just his. tldr: jokes on him we are not getting off of that ship.

sorry for this getting too big. you've awakened a dog and it's rabid

NEVER APOLOGIZE FOR SHARING YOUR THOUGHTS, I LOVE LOVE LOVE DISCUSSING THINGS IN-DEPTH WITH PEOPLE! this is us right now, we're sitting and talking about FMN's unstable mental health together and we're holding hands and we're having fun

when I wrote that oneshot, I wanted to keep everything as vague as possible when it came to the reader - this includes their involvement with FMN's and how they tackle the ticking bomb that is his personality and moral compass!

the only thing regarding the reader that I wanted to come across is that the reader cares about him to some degree - the depths of those feelings are pretty much up to you and how you feel about FMN

the SECOND thing I wanted to come across is the fact that FMN lives in his own head, so everything HE perceives about the reader is either projection or wishful thinking, like. you CANNOT take him at face value because everything he thinks and says is a contradiction. he's obsessed with you but both denies it and revels in it, he spends so much time observing you but also misses INCREDIBLY OBVIOUS things about you. he loves you and he hates you. etc etc.

so when FMN starts thinking all that shit about how would you react if he were to kill someone in front of you, that's all intrusive thoughts. they make no sense and are fueled by impulse and things he doesn't actually want to engage in (but might, just because he's one hair away from constantly ruining his own life in one way or another, FMN is self-destructive above all else)

the message underneath is that he simply just wants to keep being awful and irredeemable because he wants to show you that he's ugly inside and outside because he's STILL pretending to be a smooth and very hinged person. it wasn't meant to establish that the reader NEVER saw him kill or commit any other atrocities, or that they're willingly blind or anything else - again, those aspects are left vague for whoever reads this to fill in the blanks AND FMN cannot be trusted in here, especially when reading his POV

ultimately, I can't start elaborating on how the reader would react if they saw FMN kill people fireworks style after this oneshot - because YOU are the reader, I don't control your thoughts or perception. in this oneshot, the character of the "reader" lacks any sort of backstory, motivations, or any solid info to even start thinking if they'd forgive FMN or abandon him or whatever, if that makes sense. I didn't establish if they're an arcanist or human, if they're mixed or infected, if they're willingly siding with Manus or are blind to FMN's affiliations with them, etc. it's all up to you in the end! you get to pick how you'd react in the aftermath!

if we were talking about more specifics like, "how about a reader who rejects the foundation and believes in manus?" or "can you write about a human reader caught up in the crossfire?". those things I can deffo work with because there's context for me to start from

hope this made sense, and ty for the asks!! always a treat to see more FMN fans <3

[koolkat9]

🔥🎤

get-to-know-you-better hetalia ask game! version 2.0

🔥give us a hetalia hot take!

Hmm...Let's see...

Well I've been hearing on Tumblr and Twitter debates about Arthur's character. The whole Seme/Dominant/Masculine Arthur vs. Uke/Submissive/Feminine Arthur. Both sides are throwing out that the other is wrong and that canon supports them. And I actually find it kind of funny that both claim that canon supports them and not the other?

But that's the thing about Arthur, and why I love him. He's a walking contradiction. So both interpretations can be present in him depending on what aspects of his character you want to focus on. He can really be molded any way you want. And for as much as I complain about 2012 fanon Arthur, reading some of the old manga strips, there was some basis for a blushy, overly tsundere Arthur interpretation. (though the whole depiction of him being a blushing virgin with no experience will still never make sense to me since he's been called the erotic ambassador even in some of the old stuff).

Personally I like mixing the two characterizations, I prefer writing Arthur dominant, but I think he has a guilty pleasure of being in the submissive role. But he's got some trauma and societal pressure that makes him repress those submissive wants. A try and true switch deep down, but with some insecurity issues around subbing but will sub if enough trust has been built between him and his parnter(s). I tend to make him present more masculine, but not against donning a dress in the right circumstances, such as teasing his lover/embracing a lover's kink. Even just for the fun of it because I love to think Arthur and Fran dabbled in drag in their teens. And I actually really hate the indicators uke/seme though I know it's common for yaoi and bl and rather use top and bottom and sub and dom, but still, depending on the scenario, pairing, and what I want Arthur to be in the mood for, Arthur switches.

What I'm getting at is that I don't think anyone is actually "wrong." Because Arthur is one of those characters you can really make an argument for almost any characterization depending on which traits in him you most relate to. You may not like a characterization, but I wouldn't say that they're "wrong" seriously.

But I get it, because I'm guilty of it too. It's very tempting to complain about a characterization you don't like. That's why I try to limit it to private discords or preface discussions by saying "This is my personal opinion/interpretation." But hey! It's the internet, and I can't dictate how you act. As long as you aren't calling anyone stupid or insulting them because of this it's not really causing harm.

I shall end on a positive note. Why fight about characterization when both can exist together and we can make uke England and seme England kiss?

Actually lowkey kind of nervous posting this because I have two mutuals on opposite sides of this debate who have been posting about it. I'm sorry guys, love you even if we don't regularly talk

🎤 what's your favourite character song?

Gosh how dare you make me choose! Almost all of Arthur's character songs. But if I had to choose one I'd say his newest one "Fantasic Wonderland"

[petal-monster]

Dogfighting for Justice

entirely 2 serious thoughts on the animal games (this was originally written in early 2021)

>> Read on Neocities <<

---

With the recent release of Pokemon: Legends Arceus, as well as the Diamond & Pearl remakes from a few months back, Pokemon has been at the centre of an awful lot of discussion lately — most of it centred around the troubled development cycles of each new release, the controversial reception of recent entries, and more notably whether or not Legends is the "breath of fresh air" the series needs. However, I've been thinking about Pokemon lately for an entirely different reason. I recently watched a friend finish up her first playthrough of a gamecube game that came out almost twenty years ago, and as far Pokemon goes its been surprisingly thought provoking. There's really no way of beating around the bush: Pokemon's mechanics have always been at odds with its own themes. Its easy to point at the way the games essentially ask you to dogfight with intelligent creatures while preaching about friendship, but I'm more interested in the way this dissonance is built into the series's most fundamental systems.

Pokemon is a series of collectathon video games designed for merchandising. The in-universe expression of this conceit is the Pokedex: a device for documenting the wildlife of the world. Each game opens with a regional professor asking you to help them discover a whole new set of 60-150 Pokemon that "have never been seen before!". This has never quite meshed with fighting the same beasts for sport, and neither conceit is really in tune with the nominal goal of making lasting friendships with these seemingly sentient creatures. Pokemon never reconciles that contradiction. In fact, the deeper you get into the games the more dramatic that tension becomes: if you want to be the very best like no one ever was, that probably entails getting involved in a competitive scene which by design asks you to engage in a prolonged eugenics program as you carefully assemble a perfect team of genetically engineered warriors. While the series did eventually introduce ways to take your random assortment of best buddies to a ready-for-competitive level, its significantly less accessible than just breeding a new set of so-called 'friends'.

There's a fun recurring conversation in the competitive scene: more casual players will bemoan the metagame, snarkily referencing Karen's message from Gold and Silver about winning "with your favourites". I find this immensely funny: I'm not sure the intended meaning of that message was 'you should breed the perfect Furret'.

That said, while the mainline games might not deliver on the promise of the original anime, the spinoffs have done a much better job by zeroing in on specific elements of the franchise. Pokemon Snap contextualizes the collectathon with photography, Pokemon Ranger has humans and Pokemon work together to mutually beneficial ends, and Pokemon Mystery Dungeon in particular has always stood out as the game that really gets the friendship angle right. In an article for fanbyte titled "Pokemon Mystery Dungeon is a Pokemon Game Actually About Friendship" Ben Sledge writes:

"Pokemon is built around promises of friendship and cooperation, but the only games that truly embody this benevolent spirit are the Mystery Dungeon series. The core premise of helping and rescuing other Pokemon is a perspective that, in the main series games, is often lost amongst the constant battles and grinding, and by characterizing Pokemon as sentient and motivated, Mystery Dungeon explores our relationship with Pokemon in a way that no other games can achieve."

This brings me back to that Gamecube game I watched my friend play, a game that I think manages to at least partly get at the same ideas — even while working within the context of the main series mechanics.

If you haven't played Pokemon Colosseum before, the initial setup distinguishes it from the rest of the franchise immediately. You are a member of a villainous group of Pokemon snatching thieves. The game kicks off with you going rogue, taking the machine the gang uses to steal Pokemon for yourself and heading to the one place in the region you can buy Pokeballs. This suggests from the outset that our protagonist does not have good intentions in the slightest. However, before they can act on those intentions, we inadvertently thwart an in-progress kidnapping, rescuing a girl who has the unique ability to perceive a strange phenomena that's making certain Pokemon turn violent and aggressive. It isn't long before it becomes apparent that this is the work of 'Cipher', a much larger criminal organization horrifically modifying, then distributing these (now violent) 'Shadow Pokemon' to trainers throughout the region. Our unlikely duo end up working together to put a stop to their scheme.

The bulk of Colosseum pits the player against other trainers as normal, but in a twist you capture the Shadow Pokemon they own. Unlike in the main series of games there are no wild Pokemon in Colosseum's Orre region, meaning you end up with a surprisingly limited pool of creatures to pick from. There's no "winning with your favourites" here, no carefully engineering that perfect IV Furret with egg moves. You have to take what's available. In that respect Colosseum is wildly distinct from the main series of games: you have limited resources for team building, meaning you're inevitably forced to use Pokemon you aren't as familiar with and likely develop bonds with them as a consequence.

These bonds are what Colosseum is all about. Shadow Pokemon come with one attack that harms themselves, and the only way to cure their affliction is by taking them into your party and fighting alongside them. In essence Colosseum is a game about taking abused animals, teaching them to trust again, and then working together with them to rescue other creatures from the same fate. While this theme is still somwhat undercut by the broader context of a game where you engage in random fights for money and experience, you can at least rationalize the need for strength and resources as part of the fight for the greater good.

All this is further underscored by Colosseum's surprisingly gritty setting. Unlike the fluffier regions of the main series Pokemon games, Orre is a distinctly harsh and largely barren desert where people make their homes in whatever small pockets of respite they can find. As you soon discover, a good chunk of the region isn't just run down: its actively controlled by the villainous organization you're fighting against. Cipher isn't just creating and distributing Shadow Pokemon, they're the only real industry this region seems to have. The most opulent location in Orre is the Realgam Tower, the centrepiece of Cipher's master plan to distribute their weaponized Pokemon to the world at large by showing their value by televising fights in the colosseum. When you finally defeat the front facing and comically villainous leader of the team, you discover he was only ever a cover for Cipher's true mastermind: the sweet mayor who presides over Phenac City — the one other place in Orre that seems to have any real investment in it.

Its worth remembering that the first place you visit in Colosseum is a run down bar built into a derailed train car: the single place left in the region that still sells Pokeballs. This is immediately juxtaposed against Phenac's radiant oasis, which is presented to the player right before the dilapidated Pyrite Town. Pyrite is overrun with criminal activity, and the only opportunity anyone has is the Pokemon Colosseum that Cipher is using to hand out Shadow Pokemon. Furthermore, Pyrite is literally built on top of another city called The Under: an even more improvished pit of misery which has entirely devolved into fanatical worship of a celebrity idol. This idol, it turns out, is one of the admins of Cipher. Miror B, another admin, runs the local gangs in Pyrite, and the game later reveals that even Team Snagem (the group the player character breaks away from at the start of the game), is supplying Cipher with stolen Pokemon to experiment on.

It would be silly to suggest that Pokemon Colosseum is making any interesting points about the impact of corporate exploitation on improvished regions, but its depiction of a villainous organization actively investing in places with no infastructure to further its own agenda at least warrants some acknowledgment — especially since Colosseum was taking an interest in these themes years before the mainline Pokemon games began to gesture at similar ideas. It's this harsh tone that helps sell Colosseum's presentation. While it still exists within the framework of a series ultimately designed around collecting and battling cool monsters, Colosseum manages to give a little weight to those actions in a way the mainline entries have tried (and largely failed) to for years.

Sadly, Colosseum is a footnote in Pokemon history. Many of the things that made it interesting were also targets of popular criticism, and it was succeeded by a sequel that was "bigger and better" but which as a result misses the point. Gone is the implied redemption arc for a former criminal who uses his talents for good in a corrupt world. Also gone is the much more restrained roster of available Pokemon. The story of Colosseum's sequel Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness gestures at being more bombastic but renders its villains in a far less interesting way. In Colosseum Cipher operate by integrating into the systems that run the world; in the sequel they have a literal evil lair on a supervillain island. Despite all this, Gale of Darkness at least retains the thematic heart of Colosseum, which is more than can be said for the one other time Shadow Pokemon have come back...

In July 2019 Pokemon GO (of all games!) decided to bring back Shadow Pokemon for the first time in 14 years. Instead of tying purification to the pre-existing Buddy system present in GO — the most obvious and thematically poignant approach — developer Niantic simply made it an in-game purchase. This is (somehow) the least of the problems with Pokemon GO's take on shadows. As it lacked meaningful incentives, the playerbase largely ignored Go's shadow system. A consequent update in 2020 made Shadow Pokemon substantially stronger than regular Pokemon, gamifying the mechanic at Colosseum's thematic heart in the single most tone deaf way possible. Two years on Niantic is now introducing 'Apex' Shadow Pokemon: stronger versions of existing shadows that are locked behind a real money paywall.

I don't know how anyone at Niantic looked at Pokemon Colosseum then decided they wanted to be Cipher. Whatever the case, so long as we're all writing erudite thinkpieces about video games for children, I think the case of Shadow Pokemon potently exemplifies a thematic contradiction at the heart of recent Pokemon games: the anti-corporate themes these products gesture at are being sold to you by the world's highest-grossing media franchise.