#theyd just kind of exist for most plot points

[totaleclipse573]

Redrew another old oc, some of you might actually remember her I think. A lot more satisfied with her new design, but I'm not sure if I'll incorporate her or her siblings back into oc universe yet 😭

[ecto-hazard]

ive never had an original thought process and i will continue not to, aka, Grey's TF2 BLU team clone theory post. This is a long one boys.

i was talking about this with some people yesterday but i really wish tf2 canonically acknowledged blu team more and i think everyone who likes tf2 agrees with me. In case you're one of my hfjone followers who are unaware of tf2's story, Ill just give you the basic overview cause the story is like scrambled around in a bunch of comics, videos, and updates so it might be kind of overwhelming but i do recommend trying.

THE BACKGROUND INFORMATION

There's like these two richass brothers fighting over ownership of a plot of land inherited from their father who gave it to both of them in hopes theyd learn to cooperate with each other. Like reasonable people, they decided to hold an all out war in the American southwest by hiring the world's most skilled mercenaries to fight their battles for them in hopes one of them would claim the land. They each own their own company, RED or BLU, and in the game you fight on one of these two teams usually with the objective of taking territory or intel. A key plot point, that neither the mercenaries or the two brothers are aware of, is that this whole war is being orchestrated to be in a perpetual stalemate by a woman known as the Administrator, so she's the one involved with managing the mercenaries and coordinating attacks so that nobody makes any substantial victories. The gist makes this sound like a more serious story than it is like theyre fighting over a plot of gravel its really dumb actually. And then there's robots and shit that happens later just dont worry about it for now. dont even worry about it

In the game you can play as one of 9 classes of mercenaries, shown above with the aforementioned brothers and also saxton hale (dont worry about him either). Youll notice that in this image its a mix of red and blu people, but these guys exist on both teams. When it comes to promotional material, you almost see them as red team, but the exact same classes exist on blu. And they look the same, and sound the same, and have the same weapons and stats.

Obviously from a gameplay standpoint, it makes sense for these guys to be identical, but they aren't just identical in the game. There's a ton of stuff in videos and comics where they just use the same designs or models, same voices, same personality, everything.

So that's where the popular Clone Theory comes from. Basically one or both of these teams are clones of the original mercenaries to keep the fight between teams fair, because as stated before, these guys are in an orchestrated stalemate.

Again, if youre unfamiliar with tf2, you may be wondering what these guys canon reactions are to the fact that they are fighting somebody who looks and acts exactly like them right? Like, there's a ton of comics and videos about them, so they probably noticed or something? well they FUCKING DONT. ITS NEVER BROUGHT UP.

MY FRUSTRATION WITH THE LACK OF BLUUUUU

i really want them to like. fucking acknowledge what the hell is going on there? like are they actually clones in canon? it would make sense but its never fucking talked about. like even if they didnt actually give a definitive answer, i wish at the very least they pointed out the fact that HEY. these guys we're paid to kill look just like us thats fuckign weird. granted like most of the team are idiots, but while someone like soldier might not question what's going on, i'd think someone like Sniper or Spy who's jobs involve keeping a close eye on the enemy team would probably notice right?????

to be fair also theyve like. never interacted with themselves in any media stuff? the closest we ever get to seeing a red and blu counterpart interact outside the actual game is in meet the spy but we'll get to that later. It's interesting that they either purposefully avoided having them interact or they just overlooked a chance for the funny. we never see what its like for the mercs when they originally get hired (maybe cause they were never hired at all!!!!!!!!!! THEYRE ALL CLOENSSSAAGHG) so we dont really get to gauge their reactions

well why focus on blu team? pretty much all the media is very red centric. the meet the team videos are all about their respective red members, and the proper comic series is about red team (or is it?). the only meaningful stuff we see from blu team is from the war update, meet the spy, and that one christmas comic where spy told a child to murder someone. why's it so red centric, you may ask? well its cause they look better in the promotional art dumbass. do you think people would buy the orange box with blue people on the cover? fuck no think about the color theory

of course its entirely plausible that the red and blu team only use the same character designs for simplicity sake. its possible in universe they are two different sets of people who just look the same to us for the sake of gameplay, but that seems a bit outside the style of storytelling, where everything is sort of ridiculous and literal. i feel like in writing they would commit to it, but they've just managed to write these guys so they never have to interact and acknowledge how weird it is

so i wanna explore what of blu team is actually acknowledged and see if we can reach some sort of conclusion about them? cause clone theory seems to be the most prevalent but what do we actually know that would support that? But before we can even get into that we have to talk about the unavoidable elephant in the room

IS RESPAWN EVEN FUCKING REAL??????

In tf2 you dont stay dead when you die unless youre playing like a specific gamemode that nobody plays. you respawn after a short period of time in a little room and then go back out to get killed again. this is like crazy magic shit so that probably wouldnt be canon right. except crazy magic shit is canon, but that doesnt mean people are getting brought back from the dead- no thats canon too. While nothing in the videos and comics explicitly states that the mercenaries that are getting killed are able to just pop back to life, its not out of the realm of (tf2) reality. Furthermore, certain voicelines that activate after killing the same person multiple times in the game indicate that the characters themselves are in fact killing the same people over and over again, and they do just come back to life. The reason this is even relevant is just cause like BLU team has all canonically died at least once, and the BLU Spy has died two different times at least, so if they can respawn it would make more sense

Since we're talking about voicelines, what do the voicelines tell us about BLU team? really not a lot. The voicelines are the same no matter which team youre on, which supports them being the same people, but again is probably a game mechanic thing. Now onto the videos.

We can sort of skim over most of the meet the team videos because Blu's central role in almost all of them is getting killed, but there's a couple meaningful interactions in some of them.

Meet the Soldier

There isn't a whole lot going on in this one, but I find it interesting that they made the choice to include the BLU soldier's head here, but mostly obscured. This could be an example of an instance where they purposefully chose to avoid showing these two guys at the same time, which couldve been easily avoided by not putting it there at all honestly. Also why does he have that many blu helmets

Meet the Spy

This is the most we ever see of blu team in the videos. Characterization is mainly featured with Blu Spy, Soldier, and Heavy. These characters share the same mannerisms and personality of their Red counterparts here for sure. Most interestingly, Spy also talks a lot about his Red counterpart here. It's pretty clear he seems to consider the two to be similar in terms of skill and threat, which would make sense if he suspected the Red Spy was one and the same.

The Scout here isnt the actual BLU Scout, so his behavior is a bit suspect. It'd make sense that Red Spy is behaving like the Blu Scout and that their behavior isnt actually meaningfully different from the Red Scout. Furthermore, he's the one who specifically draws the comparison between himself and the Blu Spy ("I've killed dozens of spies... like you!"). So it seems the feeling is mutual.

This video is interesting also cause it implicates that Red Spy is Blu Scout's father, while the comics implicates that he's the Red Scout's father. Like what is it? Is he both of their dads? Is Blu Spy anyone's dad? Do the scouts have separate moms? Are the moms also clones? if both scouts went to see their mom and would they end up meeting at the same place and freak out? See this is all interesting which is why i WISH THEY WOULD AT LEAST ACKNOWLEDGE THAT ITS STRA

Meet the Medic

Blu isn't really characterized here a whole lot. A minor joke that's in here is Blu Spy's head, which is a reference to the unused concept for mtm if you weren't aware. But that's just like a one second joke and we don't ever see him again except for that one taunt. Honestly i really shouldve just skipped talking about th WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT

That is about 5 million BLU Soldiers. This is i think the ONLY time we've ever seen multiples of a single class on the same team in tf2's story universe. This is perhaps the most damning evidence for the clone theory we're going to get.

However, this is pretty easy to write off as a production streamlining choice. They want to make a mountain of bodies to stand on, so it's probably easier to copy and paste the same model than take the time to get a good mix of classes in there, and I can respect not wanting to waste that much effort on a minor detail of what was probably their highest quality production at the time. They did take the time to give them different hats though, but that's not hard to do in sfm. But if this scene is literal I really wanna know what the fuck happened here. At least we know where all those helmets came from

War Update Comic

Speaking of BLU Soldier, this comic is all about him. We learn a lot about him in this comic, such as his name being Jane Doe, a trait he seems to share with the RED soldier

(though this panel comes from the mann co no more series and its possible that, at this point in the story, this IS the blu soldier for. reasons. we'll get to that)

He behaves in the irrational violent manner we're accustomed to for the red soldier, though there is an interesting detail that he lives alone in an apartment, as its later revealed that red soldier is roommates with a wizard (dont worry about it). in game voicelines being the same for both classes means that both red and blu soldiers claim to be his roommate but voicelines being the same doesnt really mean a whole lot

Loose Cannon

This is around the time TF2 decided to have lore. We learn that BLU engineer is contracted to keep the two Mann brothers alive so the war can go on perpetually, as his family have a history of doing this apparently. The fact that BLU Engineer is the one who's got this specialized role is actually something thats consistent later in the comic as he specifically is revealed to be personally aiding the administrator

As for Red similarities, well. Blu Engie here is referred to as Dell Conagher, and I don't know think the red engie ever is. However, they both have a cool robot arm known as the Gunslinger, an item that specifically the Blu engie got access to in this comic, not the red one.

either the red engineer has some sort of shared memory with blu, or he was given access to these files after the blu engineer built his own gunslinger so things could stay in a stalemate. there's more evidence for the former, but i would believe the latter too.

Meet the Director

The origin behind the meet the team videos is revealed to be "interviews" staged to keep an eye on the red team and also make a point of how stupid it was for them to agree to an interview in the first place. Blu is basically absent from these comics, but they are mentioned. They made the explicit choice to skip videos of them for whatever reason, hence why all the meet the team videos are red team focused. I dont know how much weight this comic holds though cause its just announcing the saxxys. rip.

A Smissmas Story

This Christmas special is the most blu the comics ever get. It's also pretty standalone though. So while the characters are all pretty in line with their red counterparts as far as personality, not much extends outside of this to really point any fingers. The main tie in to the main series is this courtroom scene where Soldier is acting as Scout's lawyer.

This, as it turns out, gets referenced far later in the main series where the Red Soldier wants to act as Red Scout's lawyer in a courtroom.

Well. okay. case closed then? These two different red guys remember this exact scene that occured with the blu guys as if it happened to them. Theyve got some weird shared experience thing going on right. Guess theyre clones???

YOU FOOL WE HAVENT EVEN TALKED ABOUT MANN VS MACHINE

You remember those two brothers who are the whole conflict thing well they fucking Died. Turns out they had a secret eviler brother who killed them. "Oh what's his name grey?" uh. dont worry about it.

This event causes both the red team and blu team to have to work together in a new coop mode where they fight new brother's army of robots so he cant take over mann co, which is what the administrator and saxton hale (still dont worry about him) oversees.

(this video is so badass man)

So red team and blu team are mixed together now. That's fine though they're still color coded. ARE THEY????? ARE THEY??????

in mvm, all players wear red, and all evil robots are blue. It seems like they had plans to let people play as blu team against red robots cause red robot models exist but they didnt implement it.

This is consistent in the comics as well, where we in The Shadow Boxer see all Ms Pauling is planning only with the red team to fight the robot uprising.

See all red wait-

ive seen this image before. what the hell. lemme check back at the main page

WHAT THE FUCK WHYS THE HEAVY BLU IN THE THUMBNAIL

DID THEY. DID THEY ORIGINALLY MAKE THE COMIC WITH A MIX OF RED AND BLU AND THEN GO BACK AND MAKE THEM ALL RED? LIKE THE HEAVY WAS BLU IN THE ORIGINAL MVM UPDATE AS WELL, SO IT MAKES SENSE HE WAS BLU. IS HE. IS HE JUST WEARING A RED SHIRT NOW????

so whats this mean? it means that in the main story series, the red team we follow MIGHT NOT EVEN BE THE FUCKING ORIGINAL RED TEAM. they couldve all just put on red shirts to distinguish themselves better from the robots or something. there's just no way to be certain who's who anymore

well damnit grey guess thats theory over then BITCH YOU THOUGHT

GRAVE MATTERS

Grave matters is a comic released after the shadow boxers for that years halloween update. Despite this, it explicitly takes place after the two brothers are killed

These two guys become ghosts disputing who actually died first because all they can do is bicker. So they turn to a lawyer to actually figure things out. What lawyer you ask?

JANE MOTHERFUCKING DOE

they go to RED TEAMS SOLDIER, who is named Doe, who also claims to be a lawyer. this is EXPLICITLY before the teams can be mixed up, so this is the ACTUAL RED SOLDIER REMEMBERING SOMETHING THE BLU SOLDIER DID. I DID IT. I PROVED CLONE THEORY. ITS REAL. AHAHAHLDKGHDKLASHLGHKSLGGJ

well. honestly no i didnt. its highly likely clone theory is real if you take all this evidence as legitimate, but tf2 is kind of a bullshit game when it comes to how seriously it takes itself. there's contradictions about demo's upbringing, about whether or not medic actually had a license, shit like that. so its all suspect and thats okay. i dont blame them for not having a concrete plan for the story of a silly shooter game.

theres been good news for tf2 lately but i somehow doubt they're ever going to bring attention to this one specific thing i find interesting, and thats okay. there's plenty of fan made media that explores the blu team. Emesis Blue and Lil Pootis are amazing animations about them. You've also got fanfiction like Kith and Kin and You Need to Get a Head that specifically explore the angle of the tf2 teams being clones. And I think that's what makes tf2 special is the community that gets creative with it. Yeah it may be cool for valve to come out some day with the 7th chapter and the heavy update and the adult swim series, i know id be ecstatic. But we've got tons of people who can create all on their own and thats enough for me I think.

[smittyw]

i forgot my dailies so heres some of the au redesigns ive been up to 🚶‍➡️🏃‍➡️🤸 return of the funnies, new and improved!! moonstone, plume agate & tigers eye!!!

lots more lore i never dropped + fusions below the cut- but this post will get long hahaa

making the post pretty for you :-) ok?

their rundown is that plume and tiger crash land on earth and team up with an already stranded moony, hoping to get back with an impressive enough report to save them from trouble. when this starts to seem less and less of a possibility, they have to face their feelings about staying on earth, and whether itd be worth it to take desperate measures just to return to a status quo they were never cut out for to begin with. theyre more or less minor villains of the week who have their own rich inner lives completely offscreen so i can claim theyre canon compliant.

moony- got retconned to be a bit of a fool jingling miserably across the court, while blue diamond pondered whether this was a good enough use for a former espionage class of gem. shes busy mostly crying about other things tho. and moonstone is too. on the first pity mission away from home they decide to sit pretty and stall until blue forgets to ask for updates, maybe forever.

plume- leader of a squadron of tigers eyes grunts (theyre a scout class, expendable and fast close range idiots without the benefit of tankiness). she's outwardly very tough on them but hides a lot of fondness for only them to see. she also hides an independent streak that fuels her history buff posturing, and is getting dangerously close to acting on her fantasy of becoming the next rose quartz.

tiger- the weak link of the squadron whos had her ass saved plenty of times by plume before. to prove shes not dead weight, she throws herself at every problem expecting to fail a few times and break a few limbs before succeeding. shes grown neurotic & wary of attention, and is liable to just go looney tunes at the slightest opportunity. if freedom calls she wont hesitate to scamper.

& hey! fusions as promised! helps to know what theyre working with dynamics-wise:

pietersite (piet)- shes very serene on the surface level while masked and doesnt speak, but underneath it kind of a terror...due to the constant dual internal monologue that gets broadcast telepathically from her out of sync brain...at least tiger doesnt mind it. theyre not very stable as a fusion due to an inherent mismatch in how their component gems communicate. it takes time before they get a handle on their combined strengths, so they dont form often.

unakite (una)- shes the worst and i love her, and she loves herself more (until she doesnt, at which point she combusts to avoid dealing with it, and both parties forget what happened). shes the manifestation of a long term work friendship & is therefore her own right hand man. her first inclination is to plot, then to destroy, then applaud herself for it. she has illusions of grandeur to become a permafusion due to her remarkable stability while formed, but has too much of a one track mind to last forever. still, shes around a lot when the situation calls for it.

chrysoprase (chryssie)- hes a delight but also sucks ass at being helpful in most situations that require more than chilling smiling and having fun. hes pretty stable but prone to long spells of isolation, and spends all his time on confusing hobbies that burn him out big time. plume finds them really frustrating and it takes her ages to stop wishing theyd just stay apart, after realizing their existence is like necessary therapy to the goobers involved.

p.s. all three gems use she/her initially as gems do, and plume continues to throughout. moony is very taken with human culture and later puts in a lot of effort to be like them, so he adopts their concept of gender and prefers he/they instead. tiger mirrors whatever she finds interesting and doesnt really care, so all her fusions default to the other party's preference

p.p.s, all the little refs in the corners of the fusion pics are outdated so pls ignore the discrepancies

i think ive said my piece for now.. if u made it this far, big thanks & feel free to take the mic, im trying to be less of a lore recluse !! this au does things to my brain.. id love to explain each of them and their little personal arcs in better detail soon, but plotty things can wait until i get the nerve to start doing comics again. CIAO!

[dogtoling]

do you think a colossal squid would exist in splatoon? id imagine theyd definitely be a lot smaller but still noticeably taller/bigger than other inkfish

(I got carried away so for answers to the ACTUAL QUESTION, skip to paragraph 5.)

Given how many other "repeat species" there are in Splatoon (for example many different types of crab, and separate species of jellyfish and anemone that are similar in physique but still distinct species, and now different species of Octoling) i definitely see them in the realm of possibility. This opening segment isn't really relevant to the ask, but I got too caught up in the "do you think (x) would exist" concept, so now i feel the need to evaluate what makes a species "likely" to exist in the Splatoon world. There's some animals that wouldn't exist on account of being extinct (Including marine mammals unless they randomly decide to do a plot point with a hidden dolphin society like they did with Mr Grizz). Different Octoling and Inkling species seemed pretty unlikely before because there wasn't much canon evidence that it COULD be a thing, but now there is, so it's a whole new ball park.

Generally, with how much variety there has been and continuously is in terms of species coming up in band art, even "unlikely" species that don't make sense as anthropomorphic creatures just kinda are there, which means the whole "would this and this exist" conversation is kind of pointless now in my opinion? For example anemones, urchins and worst of all, CORALS and seaweed. None of those really make sense as Guys but they evolved, so at this point if a sea creature exists, it can be a Guy. It can be a bunch of other things, too, as we know there's bug-like flying scallops and split evolution within very similar species is present. And like a major species in the game are sentient, severed limbs of another species, which btw would be great to get an actual canon origin explanation on that is STRAIGHTFORWARD and explains how Octarians are created.

There's some semi-aquatic and questionable sea creatures that don't really fit the "aquatic creature" niche that might still exist, like frogs or reptiles in general, which i DON'T think would fit at all as anthropomorphic. But this is more on a basis of thematic fitting and tropes from the game. If an animal is even a little bit terrestrial and not deliberately known to humans as something aquatic, it would probably be unchanged for the most part. Birds are a very good example of this as there's technically no reason they couldn't have evolved (before someone brings up the crystals and ocean pollution causing rapid evolution, those would've travelled up to the birds through the food chain) but it feels much more natural for them to still be animals.

The same in my head goes for something like crocodiles or turtles, which can be sea creatures, but they're not **really** sea creatures and I feel making them anthropomorphic wouldn't feel very Splatoon. Those are creatures you often seen anthropomorphized in general furry media, and Splatoon is a pretty specific type of setting where the creatures are largely unconventional and bizarre fully aquatic Things. This isn't related to the topic at all anymore and I don't know if it's just me, but it's how I feel about it. And for the record, if they did decide to include an anthro saltwater crocodile in a future game, i WOULD NOT COMPLAIN because crocodilians are my second favorite animals, but I WOULD think it's very odd. TL;DR i think crocodiles evolving to be a guy would be really strange because it's kinda on the same page as a Mallard or Swan having evolved. (They're both semi-aquatic vertebrates.)

(PARAGRAPH 5) Now the actual topic at hand. I COULD see colossal squid existing in Splatoon! if you read the rest of this ask it pretty much explains why at this point I think it's pretty rare for an animal to fall into the "definitely not" category. I imagine they would be much like you said in the ask, definitely NOTICEABLY larger than other inkfish, but waaaayyyy smaller proportionally than even their real-life counterparts. I made a post on a few squid sizes earlier this year and I can't be bothered to find it right now but I listed Giant Squid on that one and with them being in the same general size class, I imagine they would be very similar functionally too - not inkfish that could really participate in turf wars because they absolutely would not have the agility, but they would have ridiculous muscle mass and be able to wrangle pretty much anything with their tentacles.

Generally when it comes to Turf Wars, there's probably a very clear-cut upper size limit for different inkfish species when it comes to their abilities. Basically, the smaller an inkfish is the more agile it is, the faster it's able to move and change forms, and those are very important skills in ink battles, of course including lighter inkfish being able to climb walls very fast. On the other hand, the smaller an inkfish is the easier it is to splat. So where a smaller inkfish is typically more nimble, a large squid like a Humboldt squid can produce way more ink faster, cross more distance faster, scale terrain like it's nothing and most importantly take more hits before getting splatted. Realistically with a bunch of different species sizes smacked in a match together (and also realistically there'd be size brackets in some instances), there absolutely would not be a universal "3 Splattershot droplets splat you"-rule.

Where something like Giant squid and Colossal squid would fall on this scale? I don't think they could do Turf Wars at all, even if they on-average teetered somewhere around the 2,5 meter mark. I have to assume the bigger a squid is, the longer it takes them to change forms, and a giant inkfish taking 5 seconds to fully change forms if not more just doesn't really work in a fast-paced battle. They would probably very likely be way too heavy to Super Jump, especially giant squid with their TINY fins. Basically these deep-sea squid would be large and intimidating, but they're much slower paced than the average inkfish. I imagine they would also be pretty solitary by nature, generally speaking.

(And if we go out on a limb and assume *most* of Inkopolis and Splatsville is Inkling-scaled, like it tends to be in game, they would also not be a common sight in the city because they don't fit in any of the buildings. Seriously have you guys looked at the scale of the architecture? The "accessible" escalator to the train station in Inkopolis Plaza can fit like one Inkling at a time and I don't even think Marigold would fit on that.)

[corvuscorona]

officially reached the part of zestiria where things have begun to minute-to-minute Make No Sense. there remains an overarching feeling of intrigue; I continually wonder what Big Facts will later be revealed + how much sense they will force all these Smaller Nonsense Moments to make.

Interesting (!):

the latest No-Sense Event (after the wind trial. have any of you guys played this game? you should play it; i'm not spoiling shit.) put forth a Very Specific Themes Concept that the game hasn't really gotten into at all until now! DOES it immediately strike me as something that's gonna boil down to the perennial Tales favorite "if you exist you have the right to live your life"? ya. WILL it execute this with anywhere near the clarity of purpose of abyss, or with as much nuance as berseria? ABSOLUTELY NOT, I DON'T THINK.

there's a recurring Thing with this game, where. especially having played berseria already! it's STUNNINGLY clear that the Stage of the Writing Process they made it to for zestiria's story is, like. "alpha edits," pretty much. they gathered up all the Themes Characters and Facts they wanted to use and they dumped them on a big table and kinda organized them loosely into like, "here's what the story is pretty much like." + then after that they SUPER ran out of time.

the moment-to-moment character writing (which can be done at like a fully A+ level on-the-fly as long as the characters are coherent + the writer is practiced at it!) is above average in a major way and there are a million beautiful glimmering pieces of what COULD serve as useful and interesting Elements of a larger plot. but so far it looks like they stopped there without using most of those / iterating on what they already had!

(apparently this game was made with the 20th anniversary of Tales in mind as a release deadline? btwn that and how hard they went with overhauling the combat system, it makes a Lot Of Sense that 1. it is kind of a beautiful mess and 2. berseria, which iterated on stuff it introduced, is Way more polished.)

overall this game feels like a. toybox made with some questionable design choices but a lot of elements that make it catch your eye&brain? that's FULL of toys i extremely want to and will play with, but they ARE very much just kind of dumped in there w/ not a whole lot of regard for. organization. kind of a nicely-contained pile of a game. still probably The funniest video game i have ever played. localization & voice direction are excellent; rose is in a league of her own re: characterization-by-manner-of-speaking (THEY LET HER BE SO CASUAL.... SHE TALKS LIKE PEOPLE; I LOVE HER) & they put allllll their Cringe Points into 1 character for containment purposes (tidy!).

the stuff it tried to do w/ the arenas for fights being 1-to-1 with the environment you walk around in actually fucks severely (+ has led to many cherished Comedy Moments, such as "3 elephants stuck in a doorway getting hit by my sword at once") and i wish theyd tried to solve it by making the CAMERA work with it, instead of by hollowing out the overworld environments so there wouldn't be chokepoints to get stuck on anymore (berseria), bc the environment design is ALSO probably the best i've seen in a tales game?

just. not even "rough around the edges" as in "there's good in here but sometimes it Hurts me" but something more like "box of unpolished rocks i love to rattle around and open and pick up and enjoy but if you're expecting 'presentable collection on a shelf' or whatever you will not find it here"..... i like this game!!!

[patheticcreation]

pmd au. i learned how to do readmores yay!

okay you (you my partner i am speaking to you rn sushi) would be a venipede. reason being i associated you with scolipede the longest, poison is a very youcore secondary typing, venipede feels like a 'starterish' pokemon (like how the mystery dungeon games have some options that arent starters sometimes, like shinx, vulpix, skitty, riolu, etc). also because i think itd be the cutest in art. id be a litwick I GUESSSS because its my fave forever. this is under the assumption we never evolve btw i never evolve my mystery dungeon duo. you'd wear your little exploration scarf as a bow like those stupid isopod pictures because venipede looks like a fucking thumb and i dont think anyone would be able to wrap a scarf normally around that thang. also youd like that wouldnt you. you'd be the designated 'partner' pokemon in the way that pmd partners all have adhd and also were always pokemon, born in the pokemon world etc. id take the protagonist role being a former human and whatever but i feel like this would be a pmd plotline where the the partner is the more lore-relevant one (like psmd). like i am just some random human dude who came here on Accident you're the one who has insane plot twists and the audience would cry over. our pmd au would have somehow even More gay tension than the canon ones do your little guy would have the most obvious crush on mine ever. i know humans in the pmd world is a divisive topic and i recently kind of realized humans are like straight up a thing in the pmd world; not a myth or a legend or extinct or anything like that but just straight up existing in the same world. assumedly with trainer culture like the main series games but it's really hard to tell considering nobody in the pmd series Ever mentions that kind of stuff which is probably why it took me until explorers to realize humans DO live in the same world. so because this is an au and i wanna have fun fuck you it takes place in a 'humans have been talked about but are not There, aka extinct/a myth/undiscovered' and my litwick guy specifically is from our earth, aka where the pokemon series is fiction. so with how much of a nerd about it i am they'd try and get a leg up in the world with all their knowledge but fail miserably because theory cant be equated to hands on practice or w/e and your little venipede guy would have to help. except for the first bit at least they'd have some kind of gay dynamic where my little rb-litwick would think hes sooo much better than your bug guy because he came from a world where bug types sucked in a fictional meta. gay little remarks like 'i could fry you right there where you stand bug boy' the inherent homoeroticism of a type advantage etc etc. i don't know what their inevitable rescue/expedition team name would be but considering your naming conventions and the fact I've named my teams: Team Hungry (dx) Team Bad Guys (explorers) Team Losers (gates) and Team gay gang (super) <- that replay was a few years ago and if i had to choose a team name for that game now itd probably be team wimp or weenie or whatever the schoolyard bullies call the prota/partner duo to fit in with the naming conventions of my other games' playthroughs) it probably wouldnt be too serious. theyd do the pmd thing where they move in together instantly at the start of the game. at the halfway point they'd start sleeping in the same bed because of one of their nightmares or whatever from whatever big bad is tormenting them in the plot. if it was a pmd game and had gameplay style like explorers instead of 'sentry duty' occasionally they'd have essentially date nights where you could get character development that would twist the knife further when one of them has to leave at the end of the game. i will add more when i think of more. god this post is so hard to read. god im gay. fuck. fuck. also welcome to my new tag 'funny silly gay faggot au' for specifically my gay lorebuilding shit

[smileymoth]

venting 👍.

I desperately yearn to create a story that is in depth and has a start a culmination and an end, i have the ability to create really in depth characters, i can plan out their entire lives, but because most characters who i create are just boring people whose lives aren't interesting they don't really get those types of stories. I can write autobiographies of my ocs and one shots of them going out or something, but i lack the brain for actually worthy storylines. It makes me miserable. I just want to create something that would be worth it, that would have depth instead of being just a pretty picture to look at. I get a lot of validation and praise but because im so self critical and nothing i ever do is special enough ill never really accept any of it. I just kind of feel like a fraud with everything i do. Nothing i do is interesting enough, nothing is new enough, nothing is worth the time. I dont really see value in what i do i guess because it has no capital value. I dont know hwy ive based my worth around if i could make it into a career. I guess its because i really dont want to get a normal job, i think it would kill me. But i also know that im not enough to ever achieve what i dream. Im so worried about the ending i dont even know the plot or whatever that flatsound song title was. Literally me. I try create but then i get stuck because its not good enough, and i quit. Becuase i cant figure it out perfectly. Because theres no point in finishing somrthing that has no value. Especially when it comes to writing/comics. I shouldve gone to study estonian fr fr what am i doing in the media dep when i cant even put together a coherent story or make a compelling poster . im kind of just a fraud and a lot of wasted potential because my ego gets in the way of existing because i cant take criticism without falling apart at the seams aproximarely 4 months later because ive sown it into my brain wrinkes by thinking about it on the daily . Its all my own fault but i dont think i can change it. I just need to accept it at one point and become a regular person who works an office job. At least id have regular income. I dont know. I want to drop out but i wont because then ill have no purpose in life. Ill enjoy feeling like i have something to live for while it lasts before it becomes a blur of getting a job (if theyd even hire me ever considering i have no working experience beside freelance and being a hotel room cleaner for 2 months) going to work going home going to sleep waking up going to work etc etc etc like every normal adult . I just wish i didnt get so depressed thinking about being alive but what can you do . Im not skilled enough to become a designer, i have no networking for it, and i hate marketing.

I used to think id die before 40 and tjen that slowly left because damn 40 is sooo young but now im back where i dont think ill make it past that age. So ive probably already wasted all my potential and chances of ever becoming anything. I just dont see the point of being alive really. And i also dont understand why ive been spiralling again. Nothing is wrong. But everytime i think about creating something i just get the desperate need to hurt myself because itll never be anything up to standard. And its all my own fault. Yay. I think i deserve to be miserable st this point because im not even attempting to get better. Im just alive for no reason. Im kind of dead already to myself . I ❤️ self punishment over menial things that nobody else cares about. Worst part im aware how stupid and overdramatic i sound, but i also cant help but believe it all to be true because why wouldnt it be. It makes so much sense to me

[randombubblegum]

SYD HAVE U FINISHED TUA3 YET BC I NEED SOMEONE TO SCREAM ABOUT IT WITH

YES I DID i stayed up all night by accident watching it….. under a cut for spoilers

I WAS NOTTTTTT PLEASED WITH HOW THE DRIVING PLOT OF THIS SEASON WAS 2 STRAIGHT ROMANCES???? NEITHER OF WHICH WAS GOOD????? bro how did we go from 2 gay romances last season that drove character development to LUTHER MEETS AND FUCKS RANDOM GIRL IMMEDIATELY and DIEGO AND LILA ARE BACK ON THEIR BULLSHIT AND ALSO BAD FOR EITHER OTHER …….. anyway.

everyone this season was kind of a stupid asshole? EXCEPT klaus viktor and five of course. god they are such good characters and i love them so much. i was wondering for so long how theyd ~bend reality~ to fit viktor being a dude into the new timeline but he was just like “im…viktor now” and all his siblings were like “k cool whatever” LMAOAOJDLAJSLS it was SOOO funny…. loved that. very real sibling interaction.

also i love klaus soooo much im glad we got to see more of him and his backstory and even some character development… and his powers!!! MY BOY. i also love five and tho aiden gallager is super annoying in real life my GOD does he play that character well. i LOVE five. old man in body of 13yo just never gets old hes sooo good i just wish we got SO MUCH MORE about his plot????? like it was wayyy more interesting than anything else going on??

honestly tho the whole last seasons driving plot being about the Commission and the intricacies and laws of time travel and how it intersects with the umbrella academys stories was SOOO GOOD…. and then this seasons main plot points were. luther wants to bone and then marry the enemy family girl. diegos still doing his weird toxic ass thing with lila who lies to him about having his child???? and allison goes full evil because she thinks her daughter not existing is like the most trauma anyones ever faced :| girl shut the HELL up. i felt rly let down by the plot in this it sucked honestly. and how did we go from 2 amazing moving queer relationships to ZERO while i had to sit through tropey straight bullshit. ugh. did yall forget to run this script by gerard or what lmao

i did generally like the ben plotline tho, like i rly didnt see it coming that he was gonna be a huge asshole??? i kinda wanted more of OUR ben who i loved tho :( but they rly made it work in the latter half of his plotline i think. like i didnt buy his whole deal but they finally gave him motives and emotions by the end and that was GOOD. really liked how that rounded out. the other sparrows were literally nothing tho like bye rip i guess????

overall i did enjoy watching this season and felt pulled in but got the plot was SOOOO lackluster compared to seasons 1 and 2. bleh. viktor klaus and five are my SPECIAL LITTLE BOYSSSS and i love them tho

[gayspock]

uhh star trek tng ramble here!!

there's some episodes of tng where i wish they would either do away with the b plot or at least have it be more cohesive (in terms of theme) with the main thread. like, just make it tighter, yknow? and its not always necessary of course- plenty of episodes where its fine and well, or the existence of an opposing plot works to its strength!

but yeah, there's just some episodes where if they just focussed wholly on the main plot it would be more effective.

and thats for some specific reasons sometimes. like, take the Inner Light: i think that episode works because there's very little cutting away. helps with the immersion. (tbh i dont think they should have even included the short cutaways or made them more abstract- but thats just my opinion. whatever not the point). you need to be lost with picard in this life he's found himself in, or else it doesnt work, yknow? and not only that, but... obviously this ep is A LOT and it rlly does need the time to fully develop itself. so its rlly good that they didnt have a b plot here.

meanwhile ive just watched Thine Own Self and i just... MAN, i wish they'd approached it like that!!! fuck, man. i do love the deanna plotline in this episode. i seriously do - and i dont wanna do away with it. i just think it should have been in another ep, bc i just feel like... i would have preferred that more immersive feel with data's story here.

and i really loved it, and in general would have wanted more screentime dedicated to it anyway. which i feel like is the more common reason why i kinda wish they'd be more thoughtful abt what b plots they put where. like- for example, there was a brief mention of data realising he did not have preference for things, but i really wish they'd have focussed a little more on data himself realising he wasnt quite human? obviously there's, like, the more obvious stuff everyone else can realise: his strength, his appearance, etc... but like i would have loved to see him really have to realise oh, shit, im not a person yknow himself in terms of his own thoughts and "lack of emotion" and stuff...

and i cant think of any more examples, but i know theres been a few times where i just feel like its been to the main plots detriment for them to keep cutting away. like it just feels like an excuse to cut tension and idk- it feels kind of lazily done, like that? and in the end its kinda just making me resent whatever we keep cutting to... like omg, like i said with Thine Own Self: i love deanna's story here, but i feel like i cant fully enjoy it when i keep wanting to go back to wtf is going on with data, yknow?

and like i also said before. if they have to have a b-plot, i wish it'd be sth more... themeatically relevant? i cant think of anything in particular, i just know that there's been some eps where i just wish theyd been more cohesive when they went back and forth (i wish i took note more).

ironically, an ep (or the two eps) where i wish they did juggle plots more was Birthright. like i wish theyd done data and worf's storylines concurrently rather than have part 1 for data and part 2 for worf, yknow what i mean? but maybe thats where we're getting more into preference- because i do think that's my own thing with the klingon storylines (which i wont get back into, omg) and why they dont always work for me, and me wanting that broken up more than anything and yeah yeah yeah.... and also idk if it would necessary NECESSARILY work with tng anyways. at least not in the tng style but that could work with sth more modern maybe. but now im being vague and silly

anyways end of weird ramble. i really did like thine own self though! ive actually rlly liked quite a few eps lately. idk i thought s7 was kind of a meh season by most ppl's opinion??? or at least i thought i heard that somewhere- and i asumed it would be, but ive been rlly liking it... oh well omg. maybe thats me asfoiapgjsdod

[axemetaphor]

im definitely not ripping off my friend by making a list of au ideas i have no siree //gonna slap this under a readmore cause i. well i say a lot. all of the time. i tried so hard to format this Good but tumblr fucked me up i am so sorry

so first-off i know i already have one WIP AU (Auckland) on ao3 so i wont talk about That one cause like. spoilers. i actualyl have it like 80% created so its likely gonna truly get finished for once and i dont wanna ruin shit

the other one ive posted about is something me and ben (catgirlrepublic) have worked on together its not at all close to done or anything but it's. a fun little crossover. Between jdate and my fuckinuhm. Original characters story “Untitled Villains Project”. the sketches of the comic version ive started is actually my pinned post 👉👈 its like the first chunk of the story, i think half of part 1? yea.

Tldr john fucking Somehow is able t oget into contact with a certain curious scientist from another reality who’d just love to study the Soy Sauce, most certainly not for her own nefarious purposes

John and Dave meet up with the scientist, her name is Boss, and her lab assistant, Toxic, and after a bit of a preliminary Vibe Check where john determines her trustworthy (which Dave doesnt agree with,) the two agree to be taken to the world UVP is set in. from there they stay in Boss’s lab (big old fucking abandoned military lab). John and Toxic are fast friends due to mutual love-of-chaos. John n Dave get to fuckin, camp out on an air mattress.

The day after they arrive, the two get split up, not exactly intentionally; big plot points of UVP are liek. Fueled by Boss sending Toxic to go fetch her “research materials,” which are usually important artifacts

Fuckin side note i guess i have to explain my dumb bullshit: Boss’s, uh, field of expertise so to speak is actually fckin, basically the scientific study of magic and superpowers n shit like that. This shit’s all real in that world. Toxic’s got fuckin superpowers, so do 4 other main characters, whatever. It’s got a bit to do with spirituality, iss Boss’s hypothesis. So she has Toxic fetch important artifacts that might have “energies” to them. The thing is actually way more fuckin complictated than that, this is just Boss’s initial hypothesis.

Motherfucking anyways. So Boss gives Toxic a job to do, and John get excited about how Cool that sounds, and ends up going with Toxic, leaving Boss and Dave alone. Neither is thrilled about this. But Dave and Boss get to have a bit of conversation (while Toxic and John are off bonding and having a good time) and come to a… mutual grudging understanding of some kind. They still dont like each other though lmao

Theres gonna be deeper shit going on but we havent sorted it out yet/tbh havent like Written For It in a while but i still like thinking about it a lot lol

Also pretty sure our endgame is john and dave steal toxic and bring them back with em lmao boss is kind of not nice and toxic would most certainly be better off in Undisclosed. Actually theyd fucking love it. Theyd become a local cryptid im sure. Undisclosed’s mothman is a teleporting spike baby.

I have. Another crossover AU that i might. Post something about for halloween? Maybe? If i have it finished?

Crosses over into, you guessed it, another one of my original-character projects. God, am i vain or something?

I promise this is just because i think blue and dave should get to team up to beat up some monsters

Quick briefing on my fuckinuh. Original character story, this one doesnt have a name (yet? Idk lol my work never actually goes anywhere sso who gives a shit). It centers around two grim reapers, Red (26, bi woman) and Blue (22, aroace agender asshole). In this reality or whatever, grim reapers function kind of like low-level office workers. They get told who’s going to die + when by some middle-management types, and upper management only involve themselves when punishment needs to be doled out. These Higher-Ups can be seen as analogous to Korrok; they’re decidedly not human, never were, and fucking terrifyingly powerful. Additionally, grim reapers are sort of .. designed to be “background noise” people. In reality theyre supernatural beings and, uh, look Real Fuckin Weird (the whole deal has a neon aesthetic im terrible at drawing uwu) but most humans just perceive them like extras in a movie. A body’s there but the camera’s not focused on it.

To the narrative: the shit starts when Red n Blue get relocated to Undisclosed. Relocation is something that just happens every now and then to reapers; they usually work in teams, but they get split up into different cities to avoid any strong bonds forming (a counter-union strategy from the Higher-Ups).

Red, Blue, John and Dave end up running into each other for the first time in a McDonalds where John n Dave are getting some 4am “hey, we just survived another horrific monster fight” celebration burgers. John and Dave are the only two people who can see how… strange Red and Blue are. Nobody else notices.

John unintentionally pisses Blue off, leading to Blue whacking him upside the head with a dildo bat. They all four get kicked out of McDonald’s. Dave and Red both are less than thrilled

Blue and John end up resolving their differences, somehow. Red and Dave briefly bond over their dumbass best friends being, well, dumbasses. They all part ways amicably.

somehow-or-other (idk yet) they end up running into each other a few more times, and eventually john invites them over to his place, and the four (plus Amy now!) get to know each other a little better

while there, Blue gets a text about some guy who's gonna die and John offers to drive them to where that's gonna go down. they take him up on the offer and get to have a bit of one-on-one conversation

after that ordeal though Blue has had Enough of people and bails, leaving John to head home alone

theres a sort of mirror-development going on with the five of em. Red, John, and Amy would all like everyone to get along, though theyre a bit tentative about it (John moreso than the other two, actually, jsut cause. well Red n Blue could still be Sauce Monsters). Dave and Blue on the other hand do Not like people enough for this shit, and Dave's not unconvinced theyre Sauce Monsters. he will not trust them until proven he should

the story's kinda nebulous but i got an idea for some Shit going down that involves both Sauce Monsters and also the Higher-Ups to have some fuckin absolute chaos go down.

Oops! All Trans

Everybody is transgender. Everyone

Ive actually workshopped this one both with ben (catgirlrepublic) and ghost (ghost-wannabe) lmao its a fun lil concept ive had from the get-go cause i mean. What’s an internet tran gonna do other than hit all their favourite media with the Everyone’s Trans beam

Dave transitioned post-high school and faked his death for it. People go missing in Undisclosed all the damned time, after all. He moved to the next city over, transitioned fully, then came back as a completely new man. Yes i know this doesnt exactly fit with the “everyone knows David from high school” thing alright, hush.

Anytime anyone brings up John’s old best friend (pre-transition Dave) John throws an entire fit like an overdramatic grieving widow. Full-on sobbing “why would you bring her up?! I miss her so much—” to the point that people just stop bringing up because Jesus Christ That Sure Is Uncomfortable KJHGFDS.

This is a scheme he and Dave came up with prior to Dave leaving, though Dave hadnt exactly anticipated John putting on this much of a performance about it— but it’s stopped Dave from ever having tto hear his deadname again, so hey.

Amy transitioned sometime in middle school/early high school. Her family was super supportive and loved her a ton and most people just know her as Amy. she was super shy her whole life really so. Yeah. people just dont think to bring it up lmao also i Feel Like big jim would absolutely wallop anyone who gave her trouble of any kind

John’s nonbinary (genderfluid specifically) and not exactly Interested in transitioning ? like hes fine with how he is. mostly.

he came out to Dave in high school but hes not out to anyone else exactly. Maybe his bandmates. Probably any other trans person in Undisclosed knows, too, cause theyre safe to tell lmao. Johns mostly a “he/him out of convenience” kinda nb who’s cool with any pronouns but does prefer they/them most. Dave and Amy use they/them when the trio are alone

Also this is a totally self-indulgent caveat that i think would be great, Dave’s actually agender but because he's transmasc and transitioned when he thought there were really only two options, and being Boy at least felt less weird than being Girl, he just kind of assumed he was a dude. It’s only through a lot of (like fucking years and years hes probably in his 30s/40s when he puts 2 and 2 together on this one) talks about gender with John that he realizes he actually feels like No Gender. Masc aesthetic with none gender.

I Just Think It’d Be Neat Is All Okay

Also Amy came out to Dave about being trans early on in them seeing each other and his response was to get very nervous before blurting out “me too” and then just being too embarrassed to talk about it for the rest of the day. Hes got a lot of hangups on talking about it actually it takes years for him to get comfortable in that

by contrast when Amy comes out to John about it his response is to yell “EYYY ME TOO” and give her a big ol hug lmao

I think itd be neatt if Amy ran a like. Transfem help/advice blog on tumblr. Kind of helped-with by John who can give her transfem nb insight for certain asks. I also just think that would be neat.

Cowboy AU - i put this one last cause its got drawings to it actually. Theyll be at the bottom

Basically just. Hey you ever watched a western. I think they look neat

This is another one me n ben have come up with lol

The soy sauce and all that shit still exist, im not sure where korrok fits in yet but ill figure it out

Theres no real like solid narrative yet ? but heres the barebones of everybody’s arcs.

John

Johns an absolute troublemaker, Of Course. Hes wanted in several towns for absolutely stupid shit. Hes a loner who shows up, causes chaos, gets drunk, does some drugs, runs away if people get too mad at him

He definitely had the same kind of deal with the soy sauce as in canon— he was at some kind of party, somebody offered it, he took it cause why the fuck wouldnt he, now he can see monsters and shit

Hes kind of a mooch also. Like. dont let him stay in your barn man he’ll never fucking leave and drink all your booze.

He runs into Dave when they happen to just, cross paths in the same town. the bullshit John stirs up ends up involving Dave in a way that makes it seem like it's his fault too, and they both get run out of town

after that he just tags along after Dave. hes decided this guy's Cool he wants to stick around. Dave is pissed at first, but not enough to shoot him or anything, and eventually, John grows on him

Dave

Dave also is a loner but unlike John hes simply so fucking awkward and bad with people. He doesnt feel like he belongs anywhere so he just travels

He’s the stereotypical Lone Ranger tbh. He wanders from town to town, solving their problems, though hed deny its out of any moral obligation (it kinda is, a little bit, tbh. He does like feeling useful). He shows up, fixes things, leaves. He's kind of a legend but most people think he's hiding something dark. other people jsut know him as that guy who farted real loud in the middle of the saloon and promptly skipped town out of sheer embarrassment. you know how it goes with Dave

He ends up involved with the Soy Sauce when a snake (not Actually a snake,) bites him. The snake’s more like the wig-monsters, really. Anyway, it injects him with the soy sauce, he fucking trips balls in the middle of the desert, he can see monsters now

He runs into John and shit goes tits-up, as said, but they become traveling buddies after that. he'd never say so, but he's glad for the company, actually. it's nice. hes not used to companionship but he feels a strange kind of easiness hanging out with John....

not sure how the Monster Dave concept will like fit in to this reality but like. trust me i want it in here. I'll Figure It Out.

Amy

Amy’s been living in a town John and Dave end up passing through and she is very curious about these two new Handsome Strangers who claim to fight monsters and just kinda. Persistently tags along til they let her join for real

Her family’s all dead, unfortunately, just like in canon, and she’s been living alone for a few years before meeting John n Dave. she had nothing left in that town to stay for, she'd been fantasizing about escaping on wild adventures for a long time and this felt a little like a dream come true. (Dave still gives her a spiel about how Difficult it is, but really, her fantasies were pretty grounded-in-reality already. i jsut think thats how she is, yknow?)

Shes the first person to react to the whole “we see monsters” shit with a kind of “oh, okay. neat” kind of response lmao

John and Dave fix whatever the fuck is up with her town (maybe that’s where the Korrok shit can fit, who knows) and Amy ends up being integral to that. After, she insists they take her with them because “they need her now” and Dave just cant really say no. John too is very much "the more the merrier!" and hes actually glad to have another person along he loves people lmao

At the start she has long hair but after she joins them she chops it short with a knife for convenience

also she still is an amputee. justt. idk. it was a wagon/stagecoach accident rather than a car accident lmao. just to clarify since i hadnt mentioned it, i wouldnt rob her of her ghost hand or yknow. all of the significance to her character that Missing A Hand has. although also now im going to have to research what was used as painkillers way-back-when, but im betting shes still got, like, her pain pills, they probably had those, maybe i wouldnt have to try too hard there. old timey medicine could be WACK though,

Shitload

Yeah hes in tthis shit mostly cause i liked designing his cowboy self lmao

Hes a kid (like 16, 17, technically i think in those days that was more Young Man than Kid but whatever. Hes Young i mean.) who got possessed by the Worms out in the desert and, by his family’s perception, just went missing!

Hes also a wanderer, but he ended up at the same town john and dave met in, at that same time, and starts following them after, already aware of who/what they are.

He keeps his face covered 24/7. actually he covers a Majority of his self for reasons. kinda want him to be a slightly more horrifying Worm Entity rather than human idk,

I kinda dont have much for this boy yet sorry Shitload

images !

with some editing notes for me cause im doing a very specific aesthetic with this lmao. i might change some lil details/colours though ...... idk

im also kinda 🤔 about shitload's colour palette. i want things assoicated w the sauce to be black'n'red predominantly but i think his palette might mirror dave's too closely. also im working on a korrok design i jsut am too busy to draw it now

[smalltragedy]

* ryan destiny, cis woman + she/her | you know kira blake, right? they’re twenty four, and they’ve lived in irving for, like, ever? well, their spotify wrapped says they listened to babooshka by kate bush like, a million times this year, which makes sense ‘cause they’ve got that whole lazily stretched out in a ray of light, daisy shaped irises and daisy chain braids, performing an intricate dance to move the ocean's waves thing going on. i just checked and their birthday is october 31st, so they’re a scorpio, which is unsurprising, all things considered. ( james, 22, est, they/them )

hllo ive hd kira in my head fr a bit bt i also know ntohing abt her! this is me winging it even though i hv no right to <3 this is my third character maybe whose birthday is in honor of ella n coincidentally 2/3 of them r in this rp. yea im messy smirks sexily.

DEATH, GRIEF, DRUGS TW

mini playlist.

wuthering heights ;; kate bush / babooskha ;; kate bush / dreams ;; fleetwood mac / california dreamin’ ;; the mamas & the papas / lavender moon ;; haroula rose / time of the season ;; the zombies / after the storm ;; kali uchis / left hand free ;; alt-j / always forever ;; cults / wait a minute! ;; willow / your dog ;; soccer mommy.

statistics.

full name: kira blake

nickname(s): keely.

birthday: october 31st, 1996.

zodiac: scorpio sun, cancer moon, aquarius ascending. 

mbti & temperament: esfp & catalyst / sanguine. 

label: the ebullient.

sexuality: bisexual.

pinterest.

biography.

born to two original hippies which hs pretty much set up who kira is fr the rest of her life <3 the type of ppl who didnt like the boundaries of marriage n held off frm it fr as long as possible until theyd hd a spur of the moment elopement involving a celebrity impersonator at fannie’s <3 yea theyre lesbians lets go <3

nvr rly took things srsly until kira ws like 5 yrs old n then they were like ah gee ah fuck we probably shld probably settle settle. n they job hopped n worked many odd jobs until they found their footing in careers they liked n one of them probably does like. blown glass art. n the other prob fixes old computers n other ~vintage~ mementos of the past fr ppl.

they make a decent living n they live in delpinius heights n they try a few times fr another kid bt it nvr rly works out (raises an eyebrow. adopted siblings anyone?) n fr the most part kira as a child spends her time running around town and tugging on the hem of other’s shirts to ask them small favors (mostly to play a game with her)

often left unsupervised as a kid, bt not in the way tht her parents dnt care (bc her parents love her a lot a lot a lot like she is their world) bt in the way tht they simply raised her the way they were raised. running amuck all day n coming home jst in time fr dinner, front porch light always on, cat always waiting faithfully on their stoop.

pretty evident frm a young age tht kira’s mind saw things differently, in a different light - the world an array of light n mystery n sound n taste n sometimes those collided n created new experiences. prob hs some form of synsthesia bt dnt ask me which one yet. she’s a painting prodigy with an excellent understanding of color theory.

always ws known as a kind of like. rambunctious kid. a well meaning class clown who cld nt keep her mouth shut fr the life of her. grew up constantly with a yellow card beneath her name in school bt ws always well liked by her teachers n classmates alike.

jst a very bright child who did well naturally bt always ws turned more towards art.

feel like her parents very noticeably turned a cheek when she started smoking weed w the cool older kids when she ws 13. the type of person who wnts 2 b liked so bad she’d jump over a hurdle fr it. hs jumped over many hurdles n many fences n many other obstacles to be liked bt does it without breaking a sweat.

(edit: nw tht i think abt it hwevr i dnt think she does tht anymore i think while a bit of a mess atm she. likes herself. n doesnt rly want or need the approval of others anymore she jst does her own little thing. bt when she ws younger? she jst wnted 2 b friends w the entire world.)

nothing bad rly happened fr like. a good bit of her life. got into psychedelics at some point in high school n tht only heightened her artistic abilities. most of her high school art portfolio ws probably done while high bt <3 does it matter.

hd a high school sweetheart n they were pretty serious like. full on in love. a total believer of soulmates kira ws jst like. this is the one. there is nobody else i cn imagine my life with.

death tw

death tw

death tw.

death n grief tw // yea. sometime during their freshmen year of college. car incident. kira ws nvr the same though she’d like to pretend tht nothing’d ever happened. like theyd nvr existed. like she didnt plan out their entire lives together hiking thru hills n valleys n boating across various bodies of water n traveling together until they were old n wrinkly. end of death tw //

cld nt explain 2 u why kira hd bought a van n completely demolished it only to drain all of her savings remodeling it bt nw she lives in it by the beach. hd dreams of travelling the world bt cannot go long distances in a car without feeling sick. sees planes n feels envy. stopped painting fr a long time bt she’s started back up recently. took on surfing. told her parents tht it ws fine n tht she ws fine n theyre concerned bt shes always by the beach, her van rarely leaves. she’s trying her best bt its only been a few yrs n i think ppl cn sense tht shes jst nt the same cheerful girl as they once knew. end of grief tw //

anyways. tugs on my collar. tht’s kira! she lives on the beach n surfs everyday n is obsessed with daisies n is prob growing her own shrooms somewhere. 

personality & facts.

always been very emotional n a little dramatic. nt a drama queen bt is a little messy n does not hv like. many rational thoughts up in there. very cup full or cup empty.

regardless though she hs an. overall reputation fr jst being. enjoyable to be around. her her little moments bt shes also pretty like. laidback. in a way. KDSHFSDLKHGHFLKSD

prob bc she smokes a lot or is often <3 on a trip if u know wht i mean <3

god. got obsessed with the 60s n 70s aesthetic at some point n hs not gone back evr. big fan of psychedelic rock. is a prodigy painter bt her life dream outside of traveling ws always to own her own record label. hs nt happened yet, maybe will never happen? works at a record shop though n does hide the good vinyls tht she wants away frm the customers.

very cheerful n usually uplifting n she doesnt like to b negative around others bt smtms she cnt control it n smtms thinks tht ppl r out 2 get her jst out of. anxiety. hs long bouts where she’ll sit in a still sort of sadness n then shake out of it n hop back into conversation like nothing’s happened bt. its fine we’re fine kira is fine.

shes not gullible or naive bt wants to believe tht everybody hs a heart of gold even if its false. keeps giving ppl second chances bc she hs a savior complex n thinks she cn change ppl.

is very into zodiac n will judge u by ur chart. knows everybody in town’s natal chart. even newcomers. it’s a little scary hw quick she finds this information bt its very important to her.

kind of like. into spirituality bt i wont lie its very surface level n a little superficial. learning tarot cards bt cannot fr the life of her memorize the meanings so smtms she jst makes up things on the spot. hs so many crystals she will not stop buying them.

i think a part of her is desperately trying to cling onto tht like. think positive. self care. msg thts super prevalent online without addressing or actually helping any of her problems. it is her flaw </3

hates to admit when she needs help. wld rather do everything herself.

head is a little in the clouds n her parents r a little concerned fr her bc shes nt rly doing much rn bt like. she jst needs time i think. shes jst doing her little thing.

does not give up on ppl easily she absolutely hates dropping ppl frm her life even if she grows 2 resent them over time which is bad bc she is bad at hiding when she is upset at someone or when she doesnt like someone.

like shes jst passive aggressive abt it n does not properly communicate <3

bt this is rare i think ... negative feelings abt other ppl

self centered bt not selfish if tht makes sense. she will do things fr others without a problem n sometimes trips over herself 2 do it bt at the end of the day i think she cares abt herself the most.

hs only been in love once bt hs hd many infatuations n many like. admirations n very surface level feelings. her body is a temple n she loves 2 b worshipped.

prob does fkn. beach yoga. probably vegan bt also maybe breaks tht every once in a while. almost noncommittal its hard 2 distinguish between her being carefree, not taking care of herself, or jst hving commitment issues? flaky or not? who knows.

feels jst a bit too strongly bt tries to contain it. jst full of multitudes or smth. idk. icon <3

like. cares bt doesnt care. does thinks tht r purposely self destructive n then acts like shes like. cool girl monologue frm gone girl. bt does it while being like peace n luv on earth x

ok thts all i hv goodbye

wanted plots.

a pseudonym 2 fool ‘em... ;; jst hd this idea pop up bt i like the idea of kira going undercover 2 expose cheaters. whether she does this on her own accord or is personally requested by smbdy is up in the air. a plottable point. she h8s cheaters n is chaotic good she prob thinks shes the relationship vigilante testing the strengths of other’s relationships. once again she cld b. specifically going undercover fr smbdy 2 help them out. im sure she wldnt go 2 very. extensive srs measures like actually. sleeping w the assumed-cheaters bt once again. world is our oyster n i lov drama?

crystal visions ... ;; once again. shes super into crystals n astrology n she will base sm of her opinions of others on it. this is nt just abt her being judgmental of others bt also jst. catching her running around in the rain trying sooo hard 2 fkn. charge her crystals in the rainwater bc she forgot 2 charge them under the full moon the night b4. this is her giving wrong tarot readings. she hs no idea wht shes doing at any given time bt acts like she does know. acts like she knows the entire world. she gives crystals as gifts n will do ur natal chart for u bt will also pack her things n leave if ur a capricorn.

time of the season... ;; i dnt knw admittedly. this song’s abt being horny so perhaps? perhaps. kira isnt rly able to keep a grasp on long term relationships rn due to. factors in her life so she hops frm person 2 person often. smtms jst flings smtms its jst a relationship accidentally led on. shes noncommittal n a little flaky atm when she’s usually ride or die fr others. perhaps this is all in the name of some good fun! world? oyster. 

literally anything .dsfskhdkgs ;; god. shes so new i jst dnt know. childhood friends. current friends. friends shes hd frever. enemies n ex lovers n ppl shes constantly pushing away or scorned lovers or both or anything?? she pushed them out of the roller rink to make more room fr herself or maybe they did tht to her. perhaps theyre both constantly pursuing some sort of fkn. meaning in their lives tht they cnt quite grasp. mayb they go on an acid trip together. who knows. 

[popculturebuffet]

Animation Reviews: OK KO: Red Action to the Future

On to part 3 of Red Action 2 days because my schedule got nuts, and this one.. I was dragging my feet on beause I didn’t remember liking it nearly as much as the rest of the red action trilogy. Now while the same held for “Your Everyone’s Sidekick” I ended up liking that one.. this one... not so much. This one is however earlier in the season than it’s sisters in red action spotlighting: “Back in Red Action” was towards the end of season 1, while “Red Action 3: Grudgement Day” is literally the last episode before the finale arc, something i’d forgotten till today. This one is pretty early into season 2 and the why.. is really easy to figure out. For Season 2 Enid actually got a pretty intensive and long spotlight arc about her time at point prep, with rad and ko only showing up in a portion of it, so late in the season wouldn’t be fair as enid not only had the halloween episode then, but also just had a 7 episode arc basically to herself with Elodie as her co-star and rad and KO out of focus or even absent at times, so they likely did it early to prevent overloading the season with her. Granted they could’ve just had Red show up at school and done one episode there that wasn’t part of it’s overarching story, and still HINTED at the glorb doping arc while she was there, but they may also have not decided which one of the two they wanted Enid to end up with, and thus didn’t want to put her and elodie in the same space. I dunno. We’ll also be covering the POINT arc here eventually, but obviously there’s a lot of episodes to get to first, including the whole gar and carol backstory arc, before we get to that one.  And with that out of the way, let’s take a look at Red Action to the Future, under the cut. 

We open with Red playfully helping KO stock the shelves with new Double Dipped Lazer chips since, as Enid points out, it’s rad’s day off. She can also fire things in her canons , which is neat. It’s also highly noticable that she and KO are now on good terms and the two seem to be friends. Which despite their last interaction really isn’t THAT weird surprisingly: K.O.’s a forgiving kid as long as your not an out and out supervillian, and even earlier this season he was worried about Lord Boxman disappearing despite hating the guy most of the time for good reason. And with her past behind her in the future, Red is likely inclined to be more the fun kind of cool instead of an edgelord asshole, and likely apologized off screen and as we’ll see next time, she genuinely regrets her actions. That being said I do feel we could’ve had an episode with red trying to be better, but I do get the show has a lot of ground to cover, so this was an easier thing to have happen off screen.  Anyways the three are palling around, with red and enid being couply while KO panics when ENid points out his newly beloved double dip lazer chips are probably a limited time thing... ko’s wimpering “no I love them” is so relatable it hurts. But before Red can figure out KO’s snack dillema Yellow Technique yells at red to come home and help, Enid is too worried abotu pressuring her to ask her to stay, and Yellow refuses to let KO and Enid come along for reasons.. and frankly I don’t get that even with possible damage to the timeline. Besides you know, the end of this episode, we also have the fact that you guys HAVE TIME TRAVEL. If they gain a year or two, they’ll still come back and fufill their places in the timeline and you can CONTROL THAT, so if they had to stay longer than a year or needed to be back for something specific, you could bring them back and have two incredibly powerful allies for your war. The x-men have had a good handful of members from the future and look how well that turned out. Some of the time I mean Bishop did turn evil for a while and the younger cable whose around stabbed the older one and rachel went into a coma and then the future but she’s back now.... okay maybe she has a point. 

Anyways Enid regrets her decision, Red comes back for a quick break, with years having now passed, Blue shows up to yell at her to come back which seems.. harsh. Like I know she’s like Killowog, a good person whose probably murder on recurits but seems nice off duty from waht we’ve seen and her happily saying hello to enid, which makes me want an episode where they actuallyv isted the hue troop instead of this SIGH. Anyways, Enid finds a stray time capsule and goes to be honest with red

So now in the post apocalypse, Enid finds Yellow, who got seperated from red as they fight a giant version of the robots they’ve been fighting, with Red showing up just in time. But as with all giant killer robot based future’s they’ve evolved so these things have shields and Enid suggests laaunching her. So red shoots her girlfriend out of her.

And they win.. but Red refuses to let enid stay and gets huffy with her before Enid can tell her the truth and Enid leaves in a huff. Now this scene.. I really liked, from the action sequences to the fact that we see how their similarities, what attracts them to each other, is also a roadblock to them having a proper relationship. Both are stubborn, put walls up , and are reluctant to be honest with their feelings, we’ve seen that with red in the last episode and Enid in the episodes mentioned last time. They both prefer to run from their feelings and while their both growing, as you’ll see when I cover more tom lucitor stuff, it’s not that easy to just “become” a better person and sometimes old habits flair up. 

Enid regrets how things went, KO regrets not learning about chips, and we get one final red visit.. from a much older Red. i’m Dubbing her Cable!Red because A) her timeline probably still exists, it’s just not the one our red is linked to anymore nor the one the plaza future we see would create. She and enid hug and Red explains that it turns out the robots were weak to organic maatter and given they were only shooting at them, they didn’t realize it and it STILL , as shown by the fact Red is grandma age now, took years to fix and she has things to get back to with space congress, war hero stuff and all that. Also just a small note but something I only noticed this time that the episode DOES deserve credit for in my book is Kali Hawk’s voice acting as Red. Noticably with each time we see her red’s voice gets deeper and by future red she sounds entirely grown up. It’s a subtle change most probably wouldn’t of cared about aside from on old red, but it’s a nice touch that really does help theemotional part of the episode. Enid is finally honest about how she felt, and sad about it but understands.. but is also understandably still broken up when Old Woman Red Action leaves.. only for present-day.. ish time travel tenses are weird to pop up behind them has a hug with enid and flirtly says “I never left. “  Turns out Future Red decided to say Screw Destiny and told her past self to stay, what enid felt likely, or got enid to admit it or whatever, and told her to stay and enjoy her youth. She can go back and be a war hero later if she wants. And my honest guest given the Hue Troop turn up fine later is rather than callously abandon her teammates, Red’s future self simply went there for them and , to prevent a decades long war from ravaging her future, pulled a Cable and told them how to defeat the robots YEARS before they got so powerful it’d take years to beat them, as well as probably having knowledge of where they came from, how to kill them all or make peace with them or whatever, and future weapons to help even things. IT’s not an unfair assumption given that besides missing out on a future with Enid, Future Red would also not want her friends to go through untold decades of pain and death and since she changed the timeline already, there was no sense in not going all in. Also the chip thing is resolved with KO finding out they WILL be discontinued.. but replaced with triple dip instead. KO”s delighted and enid and red happily share a moment, the future is now what htey make of it. THE END.  Final Thoughts: As I made plain i’m not a fan of this one.. but in re-watch I did find things to like about it. The time travel story device was used really well,though I would’ve liked them to have old red say she was going to back instead of me having to infer it and feel, given theyd on’t show up at all next time and only show up for a cameo in the finale that the Hue Troop was vastly underulitized and coudl’ve used their own ep, and for once the cancelation dosen’t excuse this as they had the second half of season 2 to do this AND never dealt with Red, who gave up a future war for her, dealing with enid going way for what’s clearly months and was expected to be years. It’s also not very funny , which is fine if the episodes more dramatic like TKO, but for a standard ep it really didn’t quite work. It was just more dull than it should’ve been: it had an intresting hook: red slowly loosing her youth due to a future war, and Enid loosing her because of it, and Red’s cable self deciding to fix that, but it was instead a standard poor commuincation kills plot but with future robot wars. IT’s the first OK KO episode here i’ve reviewed that’s not good and honestly one of the few they had that genuinely wasn’t, and even then it had some good ideas just a flawed execution. Thankfully next time, there’sd none of that as we instead look at one of teh series very BEST episodes. IT’s grudgment day, and until then later.. today hopefully. If not tommorow. 

[gothamdetected-a]

multiverse.

i know what you’re thinking. sim are you absolutely fucking insane, don’t even TRY to tackle this one. you’re right i am insane. and yes i am still going to try and tackle a meta about DC multiverses HOWEVER, to give myself on shred of sanity on this treacherous journey, i will say that this is mainly going to be about the multiverse from a bruce perspective. this ride is a batman focused train i’m afraid. also i want to state that this is by no means a perfect explanation – i’m a) trying to keep it simple and b) still am lost on parts of the timeline myself so. its what i can offer.

ok so, originally NCP, or the national comics publication (who will one day become DC), wrote their golden age heroes on an earth now designated as earth-2. in the 30s, just before the war, comic books absolutely exploded as a media format, and a bunch of companies all jumped the gun on creating superheroes. many of DCs most endearing and recognisable heroes were created all the way back then, however many of them also are not quite who you will recognise as the character today. hal jordan wasn’t green lantern, but was instead a man called alan scott, jay garrick was the flash instead of barry allen etc etc. don’t worry though! batman is still batman, and has been bruce wayne since 1939. earth-2 batman, as he will come to be known, is a bright kind of guy found on technicolour pages with a cute lil robin by his side – there is a reason for this. the war. literally NCP said we cant be sending out dark and gritty comics to people dying in trenches so time to make it colourful and faintly ridiculous, and bruce wayne is a surprisingly optimistic guy for a man who watched his parents be slaughtered in front of him.

of course, by the 60s, NCP (who are also sort of known as NPP and really known by your average joe as superman-dc, based on their most successful comic runs) had realised their timelines were getting a bit squiggly for their golden age heroes, and most of them had been replaced out by their silver age counterparts anyway. so between 1961 and 1963, NCP start creating another “earth”, officially designated earth-1, which would become their main planet for all kinds of superhero shenanigans. the justice society of america becomes the justice league of america, and when you think of batman, you’re probably thinking of earth-1 batman. at least pre crisis. and, once they get taste for building whole new earths, we also get earth-3 (1964), or “opposite world”, where the good guys are bad guys, and batman is owlman and instead of the jla we have the crime syndicate of america.  

so sim, what other earths did dc come up with? well, i literally refuse to list them all because it was a multiverse and they did not slow down, but the ones that are most important to me are earth-5 where the only hero to live on this planet is bruce wayne/batman, and earth-89 where lois marries bruce instead of clark ahAHAHHAA. but i can tell you that pre-crisis there are 91 designated earths, and basically it could have gone on forever. there was an earth-c minus, earth-124.1, an earth where everyone was reptiles, honestly it was a MESS. and therein lies the problem.

now i’ve just used the term “pre-crisis”. what’s that, sim? maybe you’re not very familiar with comics, or with the recent dctv version of said comics, and so i will endeavour to explain one of the most brain numbing storylines that spans DC. also known as a retcon. see all these earths with their own histories and heroes and well everything really was becoming very inconvenient and meant a lot of world jumping and who can interact with who and everything was getting like spaghetti because they couldn’t calm down on the earth-building. so DC (who are officially DC at this point, 1977 babeyy), specifically a guy called marv wolfman (coolest name ever) who was sick of so many earths, comes up with the bright idea that will later form into a comic run called crisis on infinite earths (1985-1986). it was a serious crossover event, really considered by many to be the first of its kind. it sold extremely well, boosting dc’s flagging sales against it’s biggest rival, marvel. and as for the plot, it’s a bit convoluted but essentially some bloke turns up and starts to destroy all these worlds, and it becomes a race between the heroes and villains as to who can save/conquer the remaining earths that are left. although there are crises before and after this specific run, pre-crisis basically always refers to this particular crisis event, as it really shaped DC for the next 30 years.

for a while the retcon does an okay job of keeping the number of earths low. there’s still some earths that are considered non-continuous floating around, but mainly there’s just earth-1, which is now a merger of the most important “earths” that existed pre-crisis, and a way for all of DCs heroes to now be in one place and interact with each other. other earths at this point include;

earth-23 (1986) – a small pocket dimension

earth-17 (1990) – we don’t talk about this. honestly spare yourself and. don’t look. its horrific.

earth-27 (1990) – a historically divergent planet with a hero actually called vegetable man.

earth-85 (1987) – a hodgepodge of post-crisis characters live here, chillin

earth-988 (1990) – superboy is the only hero in this universe

the antimatter universe – all of pre-crisis’ earth-3 villains, including owlman, get shoved here for later use when dc need a couple of villains to come back.

and for a while all is well. then comes DC elseworlds (1989). which. you know. i love. it gave me victorian batman. pirate batman. caveman batman. vampire batman. frankenstein batman. terrorist batman fighting against russian!superman. they even gave me marvel crossovers, with captain america meeting batman. it was a glorious time. technically elseworlds is not considered canon, ran outside of canon as a way for writers to explore those wacky kind of worlds lost to the crisis, which is dumb because some of the plot lines are both hilarious and incredible. but the numbers started to get ridiculous again. most elseworlds are named after the year that the plot takes place in, so we get earth-1889, earth-1938 etc, but even more of them just seem to have random designations. i think by the time they reached earth-5050 they sort of knew that theyd fucked up again. we’ve had zero hour, we’ve got hypertime and kingdom come, and besides, its been a while since they had a good crossover, so by the time 2005 rolls around its time for crisis pt 2 (because dc love to use the word crisis for crossovers) or as it’s officially known infinite crisis. infinite crisis has an even more confusing plot involving a bunch of slightly nuts versions of characters escaping a pocket dimension, earths being created and then merged, and a rogue ai which batman made and then has to destroy because his own creation becomes too powerful etc etc. the only good thing to come out of it was earth-0, or bizarro world, because bizarro & batzarro are my babies. don’t worry though, this new set of earths won’t last long either, as in 2008 DC conclude their trilogy of crises with final crisis that featured one of the most important events in batman’s history – darkseid “killing” him. yes the quotations are important. i’ll leave you to infer what they mean.

so 3 crises later and everything is still just as messy as they’ve ever been and there’s 60 years worth of comic history being tangled about, and marvel had already established a very successful reboot in 2000, and anything marvel do, we can do better, so DC do their first, full and proper reboot. unlike retcons before it, which is where they retroactively try to fix what people already know and simplify timelines & earths, this is like someone shaking the etch-a-sketch and starting fresh. back in infinite crisis an arbitrary number was assigned to how many “earths” there could be – 52. and so in 2011, DC go hey that’s neat and create what becomes known as the new- or nu-52. heroes are given shiny new backstories, everything is streamlined and wonderful, sales rise, DC has a clean slate to build off again.

ha.

yeah that doesn’t happen.

this reboot, also known as flashpoint, due to it being spawned from another big ol’ crossover of the same name, shows barry allen trapped in an alternate universe where everything is not quite right – his mother is alive, superman is nowhere to be found and he doesn’t have his powers. worst of all thomas wayne is batman. yeah, batman’s dad is batman. thanks DC, i hate it. reverse-flash has tried to change history and stop the jla from ever being formed – le gasp. barry goes to fix it, merges three universes together – earth-0, which isn’t a bizarro world but now the “main" earth, also called new earth or prime earth (DC), earth-13 (vertigo) and earth-50 (wildstorm), but also causes 10 years to be “lost” to these characters. there are now 52 brand spanking new earths, each sitting in their own universe as part of the multiverse. no one remembers anything except barry. even for a reboot and convergence of DC’s franchises, it’s messy as fuck. and it goes to shit very very quickly. people don’t really like n-52. DC have cancelled everything, certain characters such as cassandra cain-wayne are fucking ERASED from existence, no one likes the new costume designs, its an absolute shit show and the plots get very confusing very quickly.

so what do DC do?

they reboot again. sigh.

only 5 years after the mess of nu-52, they produce DC rebirth, a new relaunch of all their famous runs. brainiac does some magic and collects a bunch of worlds together and magically we’re all going to forget the last 5 years of comic hell. it is a reboot to retcon flashpoint as though that never happened. yes, DC are actually retconning their own reboots. talk about sweeping it under the carpet. technically “rebirth” only ran for a year as a promotional thing for the reboot, before joining with the larger, now-singular DC universe, however everyone still calls it rebirth because if we don’t give these things names it will get even more fucking confusing than it already is. rebirth also still has 52 universes making up the DC multiverse, just to make things even more simple and easy to understand (DC what is it with 52. why 52.) although lots of the earths in this multiverse have been re-designated – eg. pre-crisis earth-31 was home to an aged batman who fakes his death to go train a bunch of new vigilantes (the dark knight returns), and now 31 is an apocalyptic wasteland or some shite. a lot of these earths were re-designated during the flashpoint/nu-52 era, and even though rebirth was supposed to erase that, DC have decided never mind we’ll keep it. there’s also 7 mysteriously undesignated earths – ooh spooky, they definitely won’t feature in the next major crossover. also for a multiverse with 52 universes, they sure do have more than 52 : there’s the microverse, a bunch of universes collectively called “the sphere of the gods” where apokalips and like, literal heaven & hell exist, an innerverse???, dreamworld, limbo, DC are taking the piss they only said there were 52 earths but that means they can make as many other shitty dimensions and pocket-universes as they please apparently. don’t even get me started on the source wall. for the most part the writers just. don’t acknowledge this and stick to the main prime earth. for the most part. thanks for throwing thomas wayne as batman back into the mix, rebirth.

so that’s the last of it, right sim? eh, almost. it should have been the last of it, really. and then geoff johns couldn't keep his mouth shut and produced possibly the worst comic in recent history, if not ever, doomsday clock. now doomsday clock is a nightmare for an impossibly long list of reasons that i won’t get into here because this isn’t a rant about why i think doomsday clock is the worst thing to ever happen to dc (although that’s a catchy title i should use that some day) - no, the reason i bring up doomsday clock is because. oh my god even saying this makes me sad. doomsday clock proves that the pre-crisis universes still exist and are still out there. somewhere. canonically. sim why is that sad i thought you liked everything pre-52. it’s sad because it means at any point now, DC could bring them back, ruin their own legacy, make everything even more confusing than it already is. i love pre-52 stuff but you gotta leave it alone. currently doomsday clock has only established that these universes exist as a way to honour every era of superman, because DC didn’t want to completly erase some of the incredible work and storylines put into him as a character. fine, fair enough. but it does leave the possibility that they will try and return to them too. comic book writers love doing funky story lines like that. they think they need to write something that’s never been done before and instead of coming up with something actually unique, they just poke around in the multiverse WHICH IS HOW WE ENDED UP WITH THIS AS A PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE.

ahem.

hopefully this helped clarify some stuff for people, especially those folks who aren’t big comic fans/expereience dc through the DCEU or DCTV, when encountering rpers who say they base their characterisation off of, for example pre-n52/flashpoint comics, like myself.

oh, and thank you for coming to my ted sim talk.

[lu-vas]

“mauga isnt going to be hero 31″--a rebuttal (long post)

basically, youtubers have been arguing all month that mauga isnt gonna be the next hero at this point. i wanna say that its just because there’s nothing else to talk about regarding overwatch right now so youtubers are gonna keep speculating to create more content, but now they have a lot of people actually believing that mauga’s definitely not going to be the next hero. which makes no sense because we were all so sure of it when the short story came out and the silence on blizzard’s part doesn’t really have a reason to signify otherwise. so in an attempt to convince everyone that content creators are just overly speculating for views, and that mauga IS the next hero, im gonna break down the most common arguments i see from them

“blizzard has been silent since the short story and the hype for mauga is dying. if they really wanted him to be the next hero they would have kept the hype going until his release. he’ll probably be a hero next year.”

so you’re telling me the hype is more dead right now than it will be next year? we know that jeff basically confirmed him as a hero when he said that characters from the short story “may or may not become a bigger part of overwatch in the future”. if there’s any time to release him as a hero it would literally be right now. the hype for him will actually be dead in the future. he’s not one of the heroes that has a bigger and more prominent influence on the story that would keep hype for him going, like how doomfist was. he lies in a very specific area/relationship of the story that if they pushed his release back, he’ll definitely be forgotten about by everyone. with the type of character he is in mind, there’s no reason to release teasers for him in a short story if they don’t plan on making him the next hero. just to add to that, the next class that we’re due for is a tank. a shield tank specifically. i dont think theyd tease one at this time just to clown us and release someone else.

“they’d be focusing too much on a specific plotline/area/relationship of the story by releasing baptiste, then mauga. it’s not building on what we have/adding a lot of lore to the game”

you’re just saying that because this specific relationship/plotline isnt one youre that invested in. that doesn’t mean they won’t expand on it. for the first time since orisa/doomfist releases, there seems to be a flow in how theyre releasing heroes. also, “not building on what we have/adding a lot of lore to the game?”  not even mentioning that it’s developing the team of talon (which we had been interested in for a long time/wanted expanded on/literally ONLY had reaper & widow at one point & we wanted more talon members & now we’re getting them), that clearly isn’t a reason to not add a certain hero. ashe’s existence as a hero completely contradicts that statement, lul. next.

“right now, mauga has more lore than other heroes in the game who have been here since release, like zenyatta. it would be in blizzard’s best interest to develop the plots and heroes they have already by adding relevant characters who’ve been hinted at for a while”

just because that’s what should be done, doesn’t mean blizzard will do it. we’ve had completely irrelevant characters added who haven’t added anything substantial to the lore (again, ashe). you’re absolutely right in that they really need to expand on the heroes we’re invested in with no lore/motivations/anything, but based on last year’s shitty hero releases, that’s not a thing blizzard always does. so this can’t really be an argument against mauga. this is just you being frustrated.

“it might be like the orisa/doomfist releases where we were all so sure it was going to be doomfist, but it ended up being orisa who we didn’t know about but who lead to the release of doomfist. we’re going to get someone to lead up to mauga.”

mauga isnt a substantial enough character in overwatch’s story for someone to “lead up” to him. doomfist required that because he’s a significant character who is driving the story at this point. as far as im concerned, the person who lead up to mauga was baptiste.

“blizzard doesn’t add heroes we’ve already seen a design for”

...brigitte?

“baptiste got sprays of mauga. if mauga’s hero 31, he would be the one with sprays of himself, not somebody else”

this one is so funny haha like i guess its kind of odd but not really an argument? baptiste’s challenge was called “reunion” so they wanted to show the characters he reunited with. it was the theme of the event, it’s not super shocking. i am looking forward to playing baptiste & spraying pics of mauga in front of our friendly mauga tho it’s gunna be cute

and my favorite... “mauga might actually be that omnic dude at the end of storm rising. the explosion baptiste caused injured him enough that he had to go full cybernetic. so the omnic we saw is the next hero”

storm rising took place 6 years ago. the short story took place in present-day, 3 days after winston recalled the former overwatch members. this contradicts the timeline completely. if you’re going to be a content creator for overwatch, you could at least familiarize yourself with its basic story.

anyway, mauga’s the next hero and youtubers just wanna keep speculating for views. it’s whatever. my only concern is 

WHERE THE HELL IS HE!!!!!!!!!