#the plot doesn't NEED to make sense

[21st-century-minutiae]

Metal Gear was a late twentieth, early twenty-first century video game series. The games were generally about the folly of an exaggerated military industrial complex, and the role of soldiers and mercenaries in said world. The plots were ridiculous, ever escalating, and full of ludicrous twists and reveals, but every character in the story' always took every matter with utmost seriousness. This resulted in either a great bit of comedy for players, or excitement, depending on how close they were to the source material.

Shadow Moses Island was the setting for the first Metal Gear Solid game. It was a nuclear weapons test facility that was taken over by terrorists, requiring the protagonist, Solid Snake, to infiltrate to take them down before they could unleash a weapon of mass destruction: the nuclear powered and nuclear armed giant robot "Metal Gear."

As a stealth action game, Metal Gear Solid required the player as Snake to sneak through the island. Most famously (and humorously), Snake would hide inside nondescript cardboard boxes to avoid enemy attention. Despite being ludicrous, in the game, it was extremely effective and was treated as a serious infiltration tactic, appropriate to the humor of the video game series. From then on, Metal Gear as a series, and Solid Snake specifically, were associated with cardboard boxes. The above image is a reference to such, casting a cat hiding in a box to Snake infiltrating Shadow Moses Island. The "hnng" in this case represents radio static, which was a common feature in Metal Gear Solid dialogue as Snake communicated with his mission support team.

Hnnnng. Colonel. I’ve infiltrated Shadow Moses.

[rikan-oo]

I had trouble finding the right words to describe what exactly I like in SY and SJ until now

So, my favorite Shen dynamics:

Alternatively:

[vanlegion]

[tavina-writes]

I'm not exactly sure how I want to phrase this yet, but I think a lot of the utterly weird takes I see sometimes float by me on our cursed blue hellsite (esp when it comes to mdzscql fandom) is coming from a refusal to meet the genre where it's at.

Like, why are we trying to interrogate classism in MDZS society, MDZS is a romance, the societal worldbuilding is just enough to support some general big ideas and the provide context for the romance. We can't get ANY kind of read on general classim/sexism/anything else from. this source material. if you think you can get granular when your sample size of characters from various social and gender strata are so small and we don't know how the vast majority of people in here live you are making stuff up.

Like, meet the story where it's at: it's a romance novel.

[winterlogysblog]

4KOTA FANFIC

Title: Couldn't possibly know the feeling

Summary: After Lancelot's disappearance King had a small chat with Ban

Note: Very Short. I wrote this just now and it's unedited so there will be grammar mistakes.

---

It's been weeks after Lancelot's disappearance and Ban never stopped, he never gave up on his search for his son. He would drown himself in alcohol just to forget the guilt and painful ache in his chest. Elaine is growing more concerned as days go by so she asks his brother to pay them a visit. Ban and King may look like they don't get along but they do care about each other, they're all friends after all.

King accepted and once he got there Ban immediately invited him over for a drink, clearly already drunk off his ass. King sighed and took a seat next to him as Ban clumsily poured him a drink.

“I’d be careful if I were you, you might actually die from alcohol poisoning, and you can die now, you’re mortal.” King said.

“I know.” Ban grumbled.

“Elaine is extremely worried about you and we are too.” King took a sip from his drink.

Ban tsked. “Just shut up and drink.”

King sighs, “Listen, I know it's tough but you have to put some faith in Lancelot. For such a young boy he’s quite capable, besides Jericho's with him right, surely she wouldn't let anything harm him.”

“Easy for you to say.” Band growled under his breath.

“What was that?”

“I said It's easy for you to say!!!” Ban shouted, slamming his mug on the table.

“It's not like it's your kid that went missing!!!”

King's eyes widened and for a moment and a pained laugh escaped his mouth.

“You couldn't possibly know the feeling of losing your child!!! So don't come here and tell me this shit!!”

King lowered his head and taking a deep breath he stood up from his seat.

“You're right, I’m sorry Ban.”

He chuckled. “I'm supposed to comfort you as Elaine said but it seems like I did the opposite, I’ll be going back now.”

Ban noticed there's a sudden change in King's demeanour but he couldn't quite pinpoint what it is. He's too drunk and angry to care anyway.

Elaine rushed in just in time to see King leave the room.

“I heard shouting. It didn't go well, did it?”

“No.” King shook his head. “I just made him mad, sorry about that.”

“Big brother… What happened?” Elaine spoke softly as she flew closer to King.

“Why are you crying?” Elaine asked as she wiped down the tears that were falling from his eyes.

“Big Brother.” Elaine’s hands tremble as her hands go down to his shoulders. “Please... Say something, or at least let me read your heart."

Elaine took a moment and she gasped upon hearing everything.

King painfully laughed. “Looks like I can't hide this from you anymore can't I."

“Hey! Stop it!! This is no laughing matter.”

“Elaine, it's alright.” King smiled. “It's already been 10 years, there's no way I can find him now. I even accepted the worst, still I can't help but hope.”

Elaine's vision started to get blurry as tears started pooling from her eyes. “Why didn't you say anything?”

“I couldn't possibly disturb you, everyone is busy with their own lives.”

“But what about now, I asked you and everyone for help.”

“This is different.”

“How is this different?”

“The kids are much bigger now, they can handle themselves. Granted they're still children but… you know what I mean.”

With a sigh, King stepped forward. “I’ll be leaving now. If you want I can drop by again. I’ll probably bring Sixtus with me. He seems to enjoy hanging around with Ban."

Just as King left and flew away, Ban stepped outside of the room and asked. “What did you two talk about?”

Elaine turned around to meet her husband in the eyes. “Hey Ban, did you know why Harlequin changed Galehaut’s name to Mertyl?”

[rookflower]

ok yeah I finished the graphic novel and while I agree there's some pacing issues in here (starting around once they go to fight brokenstar) honestly they did such a fantastic job with what they had. I think basically all of my issues are with the original series or the inevitable pains of adaptation/presumed series mandates and limited page count

[thenotoriousscuttlecliff]

I would think that the heroes encountering Barrow-wights that is no way relevant to the overall plot is something Tolkien would approve of since that's exactly what he did in Fellowship. Can't help but notice that those who go on the most about lore breaking are the ones who know nothing about the lore. They also seem to think because they sound the same lore is like law and must followed without question.

[mildcicada]

[camgoloud]

one small detail that stood out to me about this latest episode that i haven’t seen anyone else talking about yet is that when the commentators are calling colin “inspiring” and the “man of the match,” they are celebrating him not for actually scoring the goals himself, but for providing the crucial assists to make both of them happen. and i really love that because for me it’s the absolute perfect wrap to his character arc across all three seasons!

like, we know that colin’s job on this team has never been to score goals. in fact i’m pretty sure we’ve never heard about a single goal that he has scored. colin is and always has been a team player, not a star—and we’ve seen that crop up over and over. notably, we’ve seen the fact that he’s not entirely at peace with that crop up over and over: see the way he was affected by nate’s entire holidy-inn-painting monologue, being benched to make room for zava, etc.—like, this is the thing he’s sensitive about! this is where all of his insecurities come from!

but at the SAME TIME it’s also tied very intimately with all his struggles re: hiding his sexuality— “colin’s a chameleon,” etc. it’s fascinating because there’s SO much tension there between colin 1. feeling bad about the fact that he never stands out on the pitch the way some of his teammates do, because of who he is on the team, and 2. feeling like he CAN’T stand out, ever, because of Who He Is As A Person. etc. it’s like. he’s filling this role in the background. he’s afraid he’s not doing it well enough. he’s afraid that what and who he is isn’t good enough and isn’t worthy of recognition. he wishes he were someone different. trying to be someone different in the locker room is clearly making him so unhappy and stressed out. it is All Connected and my thoughts have been doing laps around it at an ever-increasing rate since i watched episode 2.07 ‘headspace’ if not before!

and all of this is why it’s so incredible to me that in the end, colin’s big moment comes from making assists and not goals! because on the one hand i understand the fandom desire for the colin post-coming out glowup that we all knew was coming—to see him, like, ~prove everybody wrong about him~ and inspire people by suddenly becoming a standout player and scoring goals left and right, even though that never used to be his role on the team before. and don’t get me wrong, i was 100% on board that train, and would have loved it for him if that was how it went down in the end, also. i think he should get to score here and there! as a treat! especially now that richmond are playing total football and there’s been so much emphasis placed on how it’s not just jamie/dani/occasionally sam who are making all the goals anymore!

but i don’t know! especially after the events of the last few episodes, there’s something very special to me about getting to see a colin who, rather than becoming someone entirely new in the moments right after coming out, just feels free to become, and be at peace with, the best version of the same self he’s always been. he’s still a team player first and foremost, but now that he’s not as weighed down by the need to chameleon/hide/pretend to be someone he’s not, he’s so much better at it. and everyone sees this! he gets to be celebrated for his contributions within the role he’s always played! he (and everybody else!) finally recognizes the value that he adds to the team just by being himself—fully himself! it resolves all the tension and insecurity that we’ve seen him struggling with this whole time, on every level. and so this moment was genuinely the perfect ending for his journey in my opinion—i’m so so happy that we were tall enough to join him on the ride here, and so excited to see what he does going forward these last few episodes now that some of that pressure is off him <3

[nobodysdaydreams]

Giving a complicated tragic childhood backstory to your favorite character is all fun and games, until you realize you need to account for how old all the other adult characters would have been at the time and realize that scenes that would work perfectly if one character was twenty three and the other was fourteen stop working when you need other characters who are played by adult actors clearly younger than they are to be in college at the same time so your story beats line up thematically.

[morzowo]

so one character got to learn how to live again, how to reenter society after traumatizing event that will forever impact his life, got to heal and rebuild his relationship with his family even estranged father, reconnected with his old friends and was able to create reliable support system of people that also grew throughout this healing process and now can understand him more and be there for him, got to graduate and start his own business and now can even give inspirational speeches to help others

and the other one had to leave two closest people to him that were his only support after his family death bc 'friends' he had before weren't type of people worth reconnecting with, move out of his country abandoning everything he knew his whole life just to * checks notes * start a job he didn't really want and the main reason he needed higher pay was to establish financial stability for one of two people who he had to leave and that no longer wanted to be with him

okay yea okay sure both cases are about personal 'growth'

[agirlinthegalaxy]

It's been rolling around in my brain the last few days for some reason, but I still hate the family backstory reveals for Sophie and Eliot. I've seen some of the meta for it, but quite frankly, it still makes no sense. If it had been something actually thought of and intentional in the original, I think it could have been so fascinating. I mean, Sophie's willing abandonment of Astrid to contrast with Nate's loss of Sam or Eliot's adoption in contrast with Hardison's and Parker's? Could have been excellent! But they came out of nowhere in Redemption and don't work with these characters.

Sophie was still actively using the fucking alias that she met Astrid under! She met with someone from her past on the show! Like. Quite frankly, that one is unequivocally bullshit that they made up and threw in and pretended could fit with the established canon. (And I'm sorry, but the idea of Sophie abandoning Astrid and never telling Nate about her just... So much of Nate's trauma was rooted in the loss of Sam, and I think that introducing this element after he's gone and unable to respond to it taints Sophie and Nate's relationship in a way bc I'm not exactly sure how Nate would've responded to learning about this but I think that it's something he'd have needed to know. I don't know how to fully express my thoughts on that but yeah.)

As for Eliot, I don't like the adoption aspect literally at all. The way that he would interact with his family and the memory of his family would be different, and I think that it's flat out ridiculous to think that he'd have never mentioned it to the team in the original show, especially when dealing with the kid cases. (I also dislike the biracial adoption as its own element because if Eliot was actually raised by Black parents in the... idk what 80s/90s? That just. doesn't feel congruent with how they write Eliot interacting with PoC, not necessarily in a bad way, but babe, he's written like a white southern man raised in a specific kind of culture that does not jell with that. It also makes Eliot look... really bad that he was apparently raised with the knowledge of how fucked up the military was and his parents' history and made the choices that he did.) Like the show may not have explicitly stated it but the implication of that relationship was vastly fucking different throughout the original show.

Just. These were not backstories that were congruent with their depiction and characters in the original show, and they're also just moves that I don't particularly like or find interesting directions for those characters. There's also something to be said about how it was apparently unacceptable for a woman to not have kids or someone not reconciling with their biological family when that was something that the original show handled a lot better. Out of all the directions to take Sophie and Eliot's stories, that's just not really one that I think was a good idea.

[myjollyfroggyfriend]

KIDNAP doesn't know its genre and it's very frustrating

[cconfusedkat]

Ok so I have no idea why I am so inconsistent with the very own au I am hyper fixated on so I just . stare at my screen with dread and ? GIRL MAKE UP YOUR MIND ITS NOT THAT COMPLICATED ???????

[vectorisheree]

What do you think of AM, from I have no mouth and I must scream? Since you seem to like edgar, which is a complete opposite from AM (I have a huge obsession on ihnmaims I apologize) :,)

Hello!!! I love AM!!!! I have no mouth and i must scream actually introduced me to a bunch of new media and characters that i love like Edgar from electric dreams, hall 9000 from space odyssey and Wheatley from portal 2 (I'm a sucker for companion ai, it was heartbreaking when I found out the voice for Subnautica below zero's PDA was different from the original, Al ANs pretty cool, not really an ai but close enough, I haven't really played enough below zero to get too attached).

Never apologise for talking about what you love!!!!!!

(Shoving the rest of my response under a cut ^^)

(Don't know where to put this because I knew about them before I read IHNMAIMS but I'm a big fan of vintage 8's Oracle / Prophet! If you like Hall 9000 you might like them too! Vintage 8 has a bunch of smaller stories / args that are all a part of the same connected universe! The Oracle is in the Tangi virus (set up)-> The oracle (actually in it) -> Sinkhole) (there is a 'lore' summary / 'analysis' video on the Tangi Virus and Oracle but you'll have to watch Sinkhole on your own ^^) But enough of them ouuuugh AM is such a neat character oml like the body horror aspect of the entire earth being covered by him, his wires, his organs. To have the last members of humanity swallowed inside of his belly is so ouuggggh. I think living dungeons / buildings in general as a concept is so so cool and goes unbelievable hard. Fear and hunger also does that too and my god oml funger lore goes so hard. 'This house has people in it' does that as well I believe(?) though it's been a while since I last watched it AM's Ego, ID and Super ego from the game are really really interesting and I've never really seen anything like it, its an absolute shame they were never expanded on and are treated more like a fetch quest then anything else. AM's mindscape in general is so so pretty, I absolutely adore the mix of 'gory' imagry through the brain like terrain mixed with wire and computer components. The background work and landscapes in IHMNAIMS's game and comic in general are so gorgeous in such a bleak way. So gritty and visceral without a speck of blood in sight (usually) I think it's really cool that AM's always voiced by Harlan Ellison and his mannerisms and speech patterns especially in the games come off as him spiralling deeper and deeper with hard to understand sentance stucture, general unprompted rambling and random shifts in accent and tone. His voice alone is busting with personality, it's incredible The abrahamic imagery of AM appearing as a burning bush to Ted is pretty interesting since it can come off as either AM seeing himself as god over the remaining humans (because AM is able to warp people's view on reality) or doubling down on Ted's views on AM as an oppressive god-like figure through a in your face metaphor. AM's he/him pronouns could also factor into the comparison as the abrahamic god is technically genderless but is referred to with masculine terms (if I'm remembering that right) but it's a bit of a stretch lol (he also sends locusts to Ted to punish him which may also be a abrahamic reference, probably not but the idea is pretty cool) A big part of AM's character is how random and confusing I feel like AM comes off as quite childish at times as well though forcing Nimdok have the name 'Nimdok' because he finds how strange it sounds to be funny and giggling whenever the character yk It's really unique the AM's character is analysed in the short story. It's done so well that it doesn't feel patronising to the reader while elegantly capturing what makes AM AM. It really makes almost everything that I, or anyone else that tries to analyse him, redundant which is so so cool omg Actually, while I'm here I'll shove up a couple of doodle sheets, there are so many drawings of mine that will never see the light of day because I don't have the time to draw them all digitally. Working on a on and off DCA portal au so those designs are pretty rough rn (the character with the bangs and horns is my sona, I really need to make a ref sheet for him kasdkjas

(I drew these using a red pen but it's edited to be black because it was hard to see. I also forgot what everyone looked like aslkdkasdl)

[sysig]

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