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warden-melli · 5 months ago

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I feel like Melli became a warden at a young age, which is why he sees Lord Electrode so highly(at least more highly than the others). I also feels like that he flirts with the merchants to get free stuff and Adaman has to pull him away and apologize for his actions and Melli's like "I was trying to get free stuff, it all so expensive!" Melli would most definitely be the type to strut around in a new outfit, especially around the village/clan.

I wrote this at two in the morning, so, sorry if this is hard to read. Melli has fully took over my mind and he's my favorite character of all time, I just wan to rant about him 24/7.

Ahhh thank you so much for sharing your headcanons with me! As both a fellow night owl and Melli fan I fully understand the late night urge to talk about the best warden ⏑ ̫⏑

I also see Melli taking the job at a young age. He does seem especially dedicated to his Lord, even among other wardens. We know in canon that his goal in life is to help Adaman become a great leader, and taking care of Electrode, and speaking highly of his lord does seem to be one of Melli’s ways of helping him reach that goal, but I also agree that a lot of his fondness could very well come from having spent a lot of time with lord Electrode. It feels natural that he would might have had the job for a while. I personally have a headcanon that Melli took over the warden position after lord Electrode’s previous warden, Melli’s uncle, unexpectedly passed away. That he was already in training to take over the job when he was older, but had no choice but to step up after his uncle died, even though he may not have quite felt ready. As a result I see him having an element of imposter syndrome about his appointment to the position, hiding his insecurities with his overconfident persona. This often manifests in him bragging about how powerful and magnificent his lord is, and about how great a warden he must be to be able to care for such an impressive Pokemon.

I actually have a similar headcanon about Melli being a bit of a flirt, but I think we differ a bit when it comes to his motives. I also feel like he’d be a huge flirt, but I also think that he’d do it more by accident, often not even noticing that that was how others were interpreting the interaction. We know in canon that Melli is actually an extremely shy person under his overconfident facade, so even though he’s learned to talk highly of himself outwardly, I personally find it unlikely that he would intentionally flirt in most circumstances. I more see his overconfidence being misinterpreted as flirting, y’know? Like in this particular situation he may approach a merchant, and start talking about himself in a way that most may interpret as trying to flirt with them, but in actuality he’s telling them about how great he is because he believes his accomplishments, and title as warden is more than enough reason to be given a discount. His image is incredibly important to him, so even in circumstances where flirting may not be sincere, or for is for personal gain, I think the perceived hit to his ego and persona that would come along with being rejected would be too high a personal risk to take. Regardless of Melli’s intentions though, I could absolutely see everyone else interpreting the interaction that way anyways, and I completely agree that Adaman would pull him away and apologise lol. Throughout the entirety of PLA Melli seems entirely oblivious of how others truly interpret his behaviour, so I think either way he’d be confused as to why he was being scolded lol

I half agree with your last headcanon. In canon Melli is actually a very shy person, but If he thought it would make him or his clan look good I could absolutely see him showing off a new outfit, but I’m not too sure with his hidden shyness that he would be very confident outside of that context. This is all personal opinion though, and your interpretation is not only valid, but is super interesting to me, especially as I believe thats how Melli would want others to interpret him. As a person who is genuinely charismatic and confident

It’s after 6am here for me (and I haven’t slept 🙃), so ditto you’ll forgive me if I’ve misinterpreted anything, or if this is hard to read lol. Melli is my all time favourite character too, so I absolutely loved hearing about your headcanons and comparing them! I’m always more than happy to talk about Melli, so if you (or anyone else) ever gets that itch to talk about him, or just pokemon in general, I’m more than happy to listen!

#Melli #Warden Melli #pokemon legends arceus #pokemon #melli pokemon #pokemon melli #ask melli

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renstears · 2 years ago

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Nightbringer theories (Obey Me; SPOILERS!)

Alrighty so I decided to play Nightbringer after being scared of it for the past few weeks; so far, I have some questions and theories in mind. I’m still on Lesson 8 so I’m not sure if most of my theories here are gonna be right or just straight up wrong.

Questions & Theories:

- Since Solomon came with us to the past (or more like came to the past to come aid for our ass), wouldn’t there be a chance the Solomon from THAT timeline/past meet the present Solomon we know of? Wouldn’t this create a whole time paradox….?

- Lilith’s body got disappeared by Diavolo so that she can get reincarnated as a human; would there be a chance we get to see her reincarnated form at least if we don’t see her angel form? Also, reminder that Lucifer is the only brother who knows she got reincarnated, so most likely the other 6 brothers will have a huge fucking melt down like last time in the previous Obey Me game.

- When the game first started, we hear Solomon narrating a bit about Barbatos and this human Barbatos went to. Solomon used they/them pronouns for the human, at first, I thought it might be us/MC—but then it occurred to me, why would the devs only now reveal our/MC’s appearance and the timeline that Barbatos met this human must’ve been a very very long time. Either 1. They used they/them pronouns for the human to keep their identity hidden until revealed later on 2. The human is either one of our ancestors/related to Lilith’s reincarnated form or 3. This human might be a Biblical figure from the Bible; if you go to the official Obey Me Instagram; they illustrated Barbatos controlling a puppet that looks like a king (some speculated the king is David as he is the father of Solomon).

- In another illustration made by the official Obey Me cast on Instagram, it shows Diavolo gesturing to a red apple. Either this is indicating he was the one that lured Eve to eat the apple and regretted that decision which is the reason why he decided to improve his behaviors later in life.

- Man when I heard Raphael’s voice during Asmo’s arc I thought it was Adam, but nvm, it wasn’t. We may see Adam in the story though, like I mentioned in one of my previous posts, Adam was Lilith’s ex husband, so I don’t doubt that the devs would add an element of it to the story.

- There isn’t much information about Barbatos in demonology and from mythologies, but it's ironic that from said mythologies, Barbatos has the ability to reconcile arguments between friends/rulers but he seems to have this heavy dislike towards Solomon and refuses to speak about it. I seriously wonder what Solomon did bc this man fucking forgot what he even did to the butler.

- While I was doing research on Barbatos, I stumbled upon this (credits to Myths and Folklore wiki editors!) according to the The Infernal Dictionary (a book of demonology). This is stated about Barbatos:

"Barbatos, great and powerful demon, count-duke in the underworld, a type of Robin Hood; he is shown in the form of an archer or a hunter; He is found in forests. Four kings sound the horn in front of him. He's acquired the knowledge to divine the speaking of birds, the roar of bulls, dogs barking and screaming various animals. He knows the locations of buried treasures, say magicians. He reconciles quarreled friends. This demon, who was once of the order of Virtues of Heaven or that of dominions, is reduced today to commanding thirty hellish legions. He knows the past and the future."

I personally don't think in the game, Barbatos is an angel (or maybe he is an angel but man's disappeared for so long everyone forgot him and my guy turned into a demon afterwards/hj). It'll be interesting to see his lore and how the devs wrote his backstory. In mythologies, he's illustrated looking like Robin Hood, so maybe Barbatos (in the game) went to the human to give them justice??? Take my theories with a pinch of salt.

And that's all I can think of, I'll make more theories as I continue playing in my free time.

#barbatos obey me #obey me #obey me theory #obey me shall we date #obey me nightbringer #obey me nightbringer theory #obey me solomon #obey me lucifer #obey me diavolo #obey me lilith #obey me rant #a game theory #not me trying to research about Barbatos and Solomon from mythologies on Google just to find out why Barbatos hates Solomon #Barbatos ate and left no crumbs when he insulted Solomon tho—

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elektra121 · 1 year ago

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Dear Yuletide Writer 2023...

It’s this time of the Year again...

Dear secret Santa,

this year I wish for world peace more than ever! If for some reason you can’t deliver, I’d be delighted about a sweet little story, too! ;)

Things I really like to read (about):

Happy endings. Period. It may be old-fashioned, I don’t care. It’s christmas, after all. J Name dropping, historical events dropping (is this even a word that exists?). Slash, especially femslash. Historical accuracy – or, at least not blatant inaccurancy. People who are good at heart. People who are interesting/special (in whatever way). People who manage to be good at heart and interesting/special (in whatever way) at the same time. (Why do so often the baddies end up being the only interesting people)? The sea. The seasons. Wordplay and banter. Colours and clothing. Nature. Wittiness. Little moments. The weather. Characters that have deep respect for each other. Characters that are competent at things (but not to a nearly-impossible, „genius“ degree). Characters that are open-minded.

Things I don’t mind at all:

Religion in general and christianity in special. POV/ first person narrator. Consensual Sex (in whatever form). Rainbows.

Things I don’t like to read (about):

Sad endings. No, not even if they’re called „bittersweet“. Graphic violence. Injustice. Bashing of religion. Non-con. Characters dying. Slapstick. Parents who don’t love their children. Friendships or relationships that come apart.

Please. I mean it. Honestly. Even while mentioning all of the above, I had too many Yuletides getting stories about main characters dying (twice! because of time travel), mothers that despised her children, friends that took their farewells forever, characters seriously debating killing babies ... And no, however much some people would find this cool and edgy - I’m not one of them. I’m a hippie at heart! Please, please, love and peace and pancakes (in the end), even if only at Christmas. :)

---

Things I love about my fandoms - and some questions and plotbunnies to hopefully give you some ideas:

19 Century CE German writers:

Two years ago, while I was teaching about German Romanticism Writers I really became interested in them. They were such nerdy guys - all of them! And so much of their lives sound like they were taken from romantic novels themselves: dead parents, living at old castles or near a moor, being unhappily in love with each other, having dark secrets, dying of consumption ...

I absolutely like Annette von Droste-Hülshoff best! Because if you read about her in any literary history book (or even wikipedia), she seems like *the* most boring writer ever. Which couldn’t be further from the truth! Only that she very much valued her privacy... with burning letters, inventing tricks like little letters inside of letters, using ‘male’ speakers in her poems, self-censuring her writing to the point of being in danger of not getting across the message. Or, plaing demure Catholic noble lady, exploiting all the stereotypes - which, sadly, backfired into later generations taking them for truths.

So much about her is so worthy to be digged out: her being bilingual from childhood (since she was so small at birth, no one believed she would live, so she was given to a wet nurse who spoke French and called her Annette), her shortsightedness to the point of being legally blind (yet she wasn’t allowed to wear her glasses outside of the house because glasses are “ugly” and the sense of life, as we all know, for women is being pretty), her rap battle roast (well, isn’t “Stegreifreimen” more or less a kind of rap?) of the Brothers Grimm when she was only 15 (and, by the way, she may have been the one who told them Snow White and the Story of the Youth who went forth to learn what fear was), her being a badass natural scientist, trained singer and even composer (even if, to this day still, not a single note by her has ever been performed). Even if she suffered her whole life from bad migraines and other chronic illnesses (a food intolerance, maybe). Or that she was the only German writer who tried something like Catholic Enlightenment literature in her - which mostly got ignored like so many other texts by her. And speaking of “the only one” - besides Heinrich Heine (who, as a jew, had a very personal interest in it) she was the only Romantic writer who, in “Die Judenbuche” wrote against Anti-Semitism.

And of course, all the major queer vibes she gives with her many lady friends (Amalie Hassenpflug even got buried beside her and Adele Schopenhauer fumed with jealousy over a possible blooming relationship between Annette and Adele’s girlfriend, Sibylle Meertens-Schaaffhausen) and rededicated poems (”What do you mean, this poem is about my ‘lady’ friend?! I’m sorry...?! Of course, it is dedicated to my publisher! I really do not know what you’re insinuating here and I don’t think that thing is appropriate to discuss with a decent unmarried Catholic lady like myself.”). It seems crazy to think that even today, this is nearly never mentioned at all in articles or books about her. Because of cause, famous writers have to be gold standard hetero, each and every one, don’t they - and anyway, being queer was not yet invented? And surely, her not marrying was because her heart was broken after her family destroyed her relationship with her boyfriend in the “Jugendkatastrophe” - and of course she never tried her luck in love e v e r again after this. Sigh...

There is so much more I could mention... like, for example, her early (for lack of a better word) environmental awareness... yet, for now, lets free some plot bunnies, shall we?

I’d like to read about her childhood and youth. Some episodes that foreshadow things that will be important in her later life, maybe? Or what really happened in all of those holidays at the Haxthausen house in Bökendorf, with the Brothers Grimm whom she hated? What about her first ball where she got to know that ‘feminist’ writer Katharina Sibylla Schücking that she instantly was so fascinated with (the diary of Annette’s sister Jenny complains that Annette “nearly did not dance at all and only talked with that woman all night”)? Or write about her hiking in the moors, about how a normal day would have been for her. Or how some of her works came into existence. Or some censored (and uncensored) correspondance - (most of which, of cause, got destroyed by her family)?

I’d like for it to be at least a tiny little bit queer... would be such a waste if not! ;)

Das Fräulein von Rodenschild (Annette von Droste-Hülshoff)

Even if I have a lot to do with German literature professionally, I only came across this ballad relatively recently. And I love it!

It would lend itself nicely for a backup fandom, since it is only a ballad with not much (if any) context to it. You can read it here: https://www.droste-portal.lwl.org/de/werk/lyrik/ausgabe-1844/balladen/das-fraulein-von-rodenschild/

I have to say, however, that my headcanon derives from the self-censored earlier version in which she kisses the ghost. ;) Because I very much got the vibe the Fräulein von Rodenschild is a lesbian female ghost huntress in the Middle Ages (or, alternatively, in the Early Modern Era or the early 19th century). And I’d absolutely love for a story about such a woman!

Some ideas:

What is the emotional distress our hero is in in the first few lines? “Schwül” and “siedend(es) Blut” sounds very much like an unfulfilled desire, does it not? ;) What does the ghost want? Why is it there? Is it even a “real” ghost - or some psychological phenomenon? Does our heroine have experience in handling ghosts? Where from? What do the peasants think of her? How does she come to the idea to kiss the ghost? What happened to her hand? What is so very “toll”/”crazy” about her?

Feel absolutely free to merge the heroine of the poem with Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, who wrote it to impress Adele Schopenhauer - only to have her judge that “the FRäulein von Rodenschild” got punished to little!

The Sea-Wolf (Jack London)

Maybe my love of the sea may have been arisen partly from watching the German/French/Romanian mini TV series (1971) as a very young child.

If it so happens that you know it, too – I’d be delighted if you write in that canon, where both men know each other (or, at least, Van Weyden does) from their youth. I loved the soundtrack and the wonderful sailing ship and how Van Weyden fells in love with the sea, harsh and beautiful beyond compare, and becomes his true self even under cruel circumstances.

They both make for wonderful slash, don't you think? ;) But please no violence (opposed to story as a whole) or non-con. I don't care much how far they would go (write as much as you feel comfortable or what seems right for you) - instead more for the mutual, grundgingly admitted respect and appreciation that blooms into something more or finds ways to be expressed.

Maud is a very interesting addition to the equation – she makes them all a real triangle, because there is genuine interest and respect and a shared love for literature and not to forget a whole lot of UST between all of them. And Maud is such a great character! She doesn’t need to be the “strong” female to be strong in her own right. She is much more emancipated and feminist than a lot of “wonder women” out there.

So, I absolutely can picture some kind of threesome polyarmory – but it doesn’t have to be one, could also be like a POV from each of them. Or a couple that tentatively explores their interest in the third party? So many possibilities!

And while I’m absolutely aware that the book (and the mini series) goes very deep into philosophilcal and ethical questions about what friendship is or the nature vs. nurture debate and so on… I’d be absolutely happy with good old porn, too! :P

Prince Ahmed and the fairy Pari Banu (Arabian Nights)

This fairy-tale was something special to me when I was a child. I completely identified with the sorceress. How cool to be so competent that they send you as a spy to complete a dangerous mission? And what exciting and amazing mission to spy on a mighty fairy! Also, I didn’t quite understand the tingly feeling when I pictured myself as the sorceress amazed by all the glory of Pari Banu… until much, much later in life. 😉 Pari Banu, who is everything fairy(-tale)- like: has powers and riches seemingly without end, a brother who is a djinni, a kingdom (queendom?) made entirely out of women, that puts even princes in awe, a queen that seemingly can read minds and do magic, the ruler of animals and weather phenomena. Just… wow.

So please, give me a story about that sorceress and let’s just forget about her gruesome ending in the fairy-tale, will we? Surely that was some kind of mistake with the translation…

If you’re comfortable with it, make it Sorceress/Pari Banu, I would love to hear a story that somehow has them both together. I’m relatively sure that not only has the Sorceress any cause of being in awe with the Pari Banu, Pari Banu herself may also be quite delighted in a woman that is clever and cunning and not afraid of danger and may or may not know herself some kind of magic? There’s such a great backstory slumbering within… - don’t you think?

So, after all that rambling - I hope I could get you some ideas! May the muses be graceful! Have a happy Yuletide! :)

#yuletide #dear yuletide author #secret santa

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translationandbetrayals · 1 year ago

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Adventure Time: Making Filler Meaningful

For contractual reasons this post has to be anime related so to comply with that:

“Adventure time is a very anime inspired cartoon, even the creator has said some of his inspirations are My Neighbor Totoro and Akira” [https://www.awn.com/animationworld/time-some-adventure-pendleton-ward ].

*Also filler is a common problem in anime so that topic is related too.

With all of the above said i'm going to talk about my objective here; When I watched adventure time complete for the first time something that I loved about the series was that the ability to retcon things seamlessly, stuff that hadn’t a purpose before now have an in-lore reason to be, like the fact Finn uses a bunny hat was just a design choice for the character but later was established that humans used animal hats like those to protect their necks from vampires, or things like one of the most powerful characters that appeared (even recently in the sequel Fionna & Cake) is GOLBetty, whom you can trace the origin to al episode of season 1, where plot of that episode is just about how Finn becomes a giant foot and struggles in that form. The series always finds ways to take throwaway jokes from 3 seasons ago and converts them on useful lore pieces, making them some kind of “retroactive foreshadowing”, so I got the idea to make a little experiment, I'm going to watch some Adventure Time filler episodes and then i'm going to say why they are important, worth watching or at least how they are interesting in the context of the whole series.

Here are my ground rules:

-Im just going to watch episodes from season 1 to have a reasonable scope

-I'm going to watch it on Netflix because it's easier for me at the moment, it shouldn’t affect anything but sometimes the platform uses different season orders (I think it uses production order instead of release order) so maybe some episodes are out of order or have different numeration from what you can find in other places, just refer to the episode name in that case.

-To define whats filler and what isn’t I’m using this community curated list [https://gist.github.com/CharlieScarver/ef5d6f43a7c3b63ec1cc4dbce66f5579] I'm going to watch every S1 episode that's it’s not mentioned here, so I'm not watching the episodes marked as “interesting filler” (but the fact that category exists kinda proves my point already)

-I'm going to comment what I think it's valuable from the episode based on my own memory of the series and then I'm going to use the Wiki to see if I can provide some additional detail.

-Im not going to explain the plot of the episode, just the things I think are interesting.

-Im assuming you know the main characters.

Last considerations: There are going to be spoilers of course and also I know filler in cartoons and filler in anime are different, cause anime seasons are shorter and more story driven while cartoons like adventure time just exists for a while before they become episodic. I think I had to acknowledge that, maybe it's a little weird to call the first episode filler, but I don't think it changes any of my points.

Episode 1, Slumber Party Panic: The first scene explains a lot of the world doing very little; there are candy people, there is a kingdom, and the princess is very intelligent and does science, now she is trying to revive people (they become zombies). Basically establishes we are looking at a weird mix of medieval/fantasy society and some touches of science fiction, also zombies are a recurrent thing during the series and they are a good representation of the apocalyptic themes that are also present.

The episode also shows us the personality of the Princes Bubblegum (PB), where she lies when she thinks is better for their citizens, Finn realizes that PB maybe isn't the best person in the world very late in the series but we see that from the first episode.

As a bonus Jake and Lady Rainicorn aren't a couple yet, but they are a little flirty. After Finn sends them to play seven minutes in heaven they are quite happy together.

Episode 4, The Jiggler: I think the whole point of this episode was to make a musical episode, this is the first time we see Finn sing, but it is a constant and a staple of the series later, also (this is going to be the BIGGEST SPOILER POSSIBLE HERE for almost no reason) literally on the last episode the biggest villain is defeated with everyone singing a song, so music shouldn’t be underestimated.

Episode 6, Tree Trunks: She appeared as a background character before but this is the debut episode of Tree Trunks, she is a very beloved character and has so much importance in the story that I can't mention all of the things she has made, but just as an example she becomes the adoptive mother of the baby reincarnation of the Lich, one of the most evil and powerful villains of the series. This is just the perfect episode to learn about her.

As an additional, a direct quote from the Wiki: “At the beginning of the episode Finn makes the statement of “I’d catch a shooting star and travel to outer space and fight space monsters,” when asked by Tree Trunks what he would do if he could do anything. This is heavily reminiscent of the events of the episode “The Comet” in season 6, episode 4.”

This is a throwaway line that literally foreshadows the season 6 finale.

Episode 11, Wizard: We already have seen some magical things, but here we see some rules of the magic system of the world, the most important thing is that apparently anyone can learn how to do magic or at least you can be very easily bestowed magic, in one side that means that magic users in general aren’t a threat just because they know magic, but in the other hand it means anyone can be a powerful wizard even if no one expects it.

To be honest I didn’t remember this episode that much, but it's very fun and I has my favorite example of “Retroactive Foreshadowing”, because for some of context Finn losing his arm its written in his destiny (one of his pasts lives had her arm taken away, Farmworld Finn has a mechanical prosthesis and when Finn goes to pillow world his arm is replaced to) so I dont think its a coincidence that Finn casts a spell called “Vorpal Hand” that transforms his arm into a sword just like the Grass Sword does in the future (*The Grass Sword arc eventually converges into the Akira reference lol).

Episode 13, City of Thieves: For this episode I don't think the is much to connect to the future but its really good, but also I think you could do a parallel with the final episode, where Finn is in a situation where it seems impossible to move forward without making some morally dubious thing but he still tries cause he is really pure of heart.

Episode 14, Witch Garden: The most important thing here is the first time we are told that Jake got his powers from somewhere else and it's not normal for dogs like him to be magical. Here we are told Jake got the powers from magical mud, but later on the series we discover the powers come from Jake’s alien ascendance.

Episode 17, When Wedding Bells Thaw: Not the first, but one of the first appearances of Ice King, a full episode dedicated to him and even thought he brainwashed a princess in this episode, this is the first time we see a friendly approach from Ice King to Finn and Jake, hanging out, talking about his insecurities, even being nervous about the wedding he arranged, this is the first glance of humanity behind Ice King’s persona and perhaps there is more than just an incompetent villain. By now I’m so accustomed to the Simon version of Ice King that seen him in this form makes me a little sad, in this episode there's a glance of hope

Episode 19, The Duke: I have to admit this episode is kinda mid, but it shows to us the relation PB has with other kingdoms. Even though here PB hates the Duke, he is seen as an ally to her in the final episode of the series.

Also in this episode appears one of the two recurrent Squirrel secondary characters, which is a little weird thing to say even for adventure time, but whatever. I’d have to nickles…

Episode 20, Donny: This the first episode where BMO talks, and they is the best character so that's a pretty good reason to watch it, but this is also the second minor mention of the Cosmic Owl, stating for the first time its connection with destiny and it works very well to establish him as a know creature of the world before the episode where he is an important plot point, that makes the world more believable in my opinion.

Here the Why-wolves use the word “Egress” which is a little recurrent joke of the series.

Episode 22, Dungeon: This episode centers on the relation of Finn & Jake as adventurers, it explores how Finn could survive a dungeon without Jake, here that is just an idea and has to be with Finn’s pride more than anything, but in the future Jake is going to die before Finn and how he confronts the world without his best friend its a genuine concern that's explored many times; in the main series, in the distant lands spin-off and even in Fiona & Cake

-Oscar Garrido

#essay

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talonflamee · 2 years ago

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POV: Volo character analysis but you’re only 6 hours into PLA

making good progress in pokemon legends!!! just defeated kleavor (what the HELL is kleavor btw, i’ve never seen that thing before in my life) and i’m having SO much more fun with it than before! rly glad about that cuz it was just sitting & collecting metaphorical dust lmao. i still have my qualms, but i definitely see the appeal now!

i’d like to talk a little about Volo. well, as much as i can from my current point in the game.

full disclaimer, i haven’t even gotten close to beating PLA and i won’t for probably another 40 hours, but i do know what ultimately happens with Volo. my thoughts here could honestly be totally incomprehensible or may change as i continue playing. but i just think he’s neat :)

so i don’t think Volo is like…... evil? don’t get me wrong, he absolutely fucked up and there are no excuses for what he does. but i see a lot of people in the fandom make him out to be this irredeemable horrible awful murderous twisted cycle path and i just. don’t agree with that.

i think people prioritize vilifying him solely to further angst with a certain pair of twins rather than focusing on the nuance that’s embedded into his character. i don’t want to skrunkli-fy him either, but i think it’s important to recognize that he’s kinda just Some Guy. he’s not a cult-leader, he’s not a mob boss, he doesn’t have people who follow or look up to him much (as far as i know); he’s just some dude who works in retail, and he has realistic, human flaws that result in self-destructive behavior that ultimately harms everyone around him. he strikes me as someone with a boatload of (likely religious) trauma and a desperate, insatiable desire to comprehend some kind of higher being. i hope to expand on this particular train of thought later

this brings me to one of my favorite narratives in pokemon. he has Three!!! pokemon that evolve through high friendship. compared to ghetsis, with a hydreigon that was forced to evolve before level 64, holds a life orb, and absolutely obliterates with frustration with the highest amount of damage possible—it absolutely hates ghetsis. but togekiss, lucario, and roserade can only be obtained when they adore their trainers, this cannot be forced.

and, interestingly, this is lucario’s pokedex entry in shield

Volo also has a genuine interest in archeology and history and he wants to share it with people! this guy can infodump like a champ, i really respect that !

so my opinion can certainly change, but these are a few reasons why i don’t think he’s irredeemable. i don’t like how complex characters are always reduced to all or nothing values in fandom spaces. there’s so much more to these characters than 100% evil or 100% good.

this is not helped by the fact that PLA just. doesn’t seem finished? which is completely understandable considering the amount of crunch these artists and writers had to deal with. but it’s still unfinished. most characters don’t have closure or even any development at all. i’m hoping on dlc at some point but. augh

soooo yea das it lol. i hope to write some actual characters studies and analyses for this guy the more i play!! this was just to get my thoughts down, i’ll probably revisit and add to it down the line!

#pokemon #talking #pokemon legends arceus #volo #character analysis #<— hopefully will be using that tag in the future 😳

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spidersours · 3 years ago

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i’m really interested in writing a fic where like. before Akari/Rei appear through the time rift, Ingo and Melli are forced to cooperate with each other in one way or another and Ingo almost gets killed as a result of them not being able to get along while completing a dangerous task.

i’m gonna put this under read more bc it’s kinda long. but enemies to friends whump shenanigans ensue pretty much 👍

Maybe they’re tasked with dealing with a rampant alpha Pokémon that’s been harassing the Diamond or Pearl clan, entering the settlements and stealing things or attacking people. Since Melli and Ingo are arguably the most competent battlers in the area at the time and it would be stupid to send someone in alone to take on an alpha Pokémon, they’re sent in together by their respective commanders, much to their own displeasure.

My idea right now it’s an alpha Zoroark, who’s sneaking into settlements by pretending to be those that belong there, and stealing whatever it wants as well as viciously attacking those who become suspicious of them (especially if they’re discovered by whom they’re pretending to be).

They eventually track down the Zoroark after watching it enter and leave the settlement once again and are unfortunately caught tailing it to its own territory and they fight in the middle of the wilds. Since they’re caught terribly off guard and were never meant to confront the alpha Pokémon that night; only to observe it; they’re beaten down pretty easily and Ingo sustains plenty of injuries (potentially life threatening ones). Melli and Ingo’s attitudes towards each other, despite Melli being a lot more aggressive than Ingo is, doesn’t really help them in this encounter either, leading to said injuries. Perhaps Melli was acting arrogant or overconfident in the fight as well, and Ingo was injured as a result of saving him from an otherwise lethal attack.

I’m still contemplating whether or not the alpha Pokémon gets away or if they manage to catch it or take it down in that encounter somehow. I reckon if it gets away it gives them a chance to bond while Melli has to attempt to save Ingo from his life-threatening injuries sustained during the fight, as well as a second chance to beat the alpha Pokémon once they've both recovered enough. They’d be far enough from any settlement or camp at that point where Ingo would not be able to survive the cold and his injuries without immediate attention to said injuries before getting him there.

I gotta come up with a reason why these guys can’t call up their respective noble Pokémon to come help them immediately too; at least for a little while. Right now the biggest idea is to have Ingo’s celestica flute break during the encounter with the alpha Pokémon, which is easy enough to explain i think

In the future/current timeline of events in PLA, I think that Melli will definitely hold more respect or kindness towards Ingo, but still act the way that he does around him and others to kind of keep the status quo and keep him from being seen as softer towards anyone.

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adobe-outdesign · 3 years ago

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Say what do you think of basculin and it’s new evo?

Basculin is my fifth fave mon of all time so i’m eating good

I already did the male Basculegion over here when it was first shown. I never reviewed Basculin or the other forms however, so I'll do that now.

You know, I always liked Basculin. Don't get me wrong, it's not the most interesting Pokemon ever, but for a simple fish Pokemon it's pretty nicely designed. The black adds contrast and leads the eye down the body, the stripes add a pop of color, and the spots further accent the stripes.

Between the two, I prefer the red version. Blue's not bad, but the fins don't match the top one as well and the eye looks kind of funky.

The only nitpick I have with these guys is that I would've liked to see the stripes even more prominent; I feel like the red and black on the back stripe should've reversed, or the body spots could gain some color in the middle. It's the closest thing to a theme these guys have, so emphasizing it more would've helped. I also feel like the green could've been darker or less saturated in order to further make those stripes pop.

And yeah, that's the main issue with these guys: they're fine, but they're boring. The only thing going for them is that they have two different colors that fight each other, and that's just not enough to make them stand out. Which is what makes Basculegion so great; it takes a fairly underwhelming concept and puts a fresh twist on it.

I take one major issue with H. Basculin, and that's that it exists.

I just have never understood the purpose behind giving a Pokemon that really needs an evolution one but then tacking that evolution on to a regional variant, thus preventing the original Pokemon from evolving into it. Sometimes it's justified if the concept is too wildly different to fit, but in this case there's no reason Basculegion couldn't just evolve from regular Basculin. It's not like the regional adds anything to the line by being here. Don't get me wrong, any evolution is better than none, but it still feels self-defeating.

It might feel less so if the white-striped Basculin brought anything new to the table, but it's just... well, a regular Basculin but with white accents and a blend of both fin styles. Thrilling.

Also, why white for the color of all things? At least go for purple, as it's a combo of blue and red and thus would fit both evos.

Side note, according to the 'dex this thing is supposed to be gentle, yet it looks far more like it's going to chew off my hand than its more aggressive cousins.

Thankfully, Basculegion is well worth the useless regional. I went over my praise in the original review of the male, but this is such a fantastic concept, taking inspiration from salmon to give it a unique premise and a design that invokes ancient Japanese art. It's such a good design, and I love it to bits. Definitely one of my favorite PLA 'mons.

There's also been some tweaks made to the colors that reflect what I said for the original Basculin, with it now sporting a duller green and much more of the respective accent colors.

Between these two, I still prefer the red-striped, just because of the longer mustache/beard and fiercer expression. The colors also pop more--the blue stripe is so pale it almost looks like it's still white-striped, and personally I would've liked a more vibrant shade for it.

Speaking of forms, I was originally confused as to why the colors were suddenly gendered when they weren't before, but I think this is a nod to salmon. Not only do they die en mass during breeding season like H. Basculin, but the males become red during spawning season:

(these ones are both male but the females just look like the ocean-phase males)

While this is a nice in the sense that it adds a bit more purpose to the colors, I feel like this goes back to what i said about H. Basculin. I would've rather just had both forms be both genders than create a useless regional just to do the sexual dimorphism angel, you know?

So overall, the original Basculin is fine, but bland. While the Hisuian evolution suffers from a pointless regional instead of just evolving directly from the original, Basculegion itself is a fantastic design with a fantastic concept, and is definitely one of the highlights of PLA.

#basculin #basculegion #pokemon #pokemon legends arceus #pokemon reviews

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amor-immortalem · 2 years ago

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A fic about Cyrus and Mammon on the fourth Ring. You know, Mammon teaching his son about his job as the ruler of the greed ring.

A/N: This has been on my list of things to write for the longest time.

Cyrus has been back in the Devildom about a month. It was a wild month to say the least. From having to recount as much as he could from the last 15 years to his parents to placement tests to see just where exactly he fell in academics and whether he was ready to enroll in RAD to just the general everyday nonsense that goes on at home.

Not to mention, he’s still getting used to having three younger siblings- two of which he was sure hated his sudden intrusion into their lives. Well maybe it was just the one- Aurelius seemed pretty interested in him. But having this many new siblings at once makes Cyrus nervous. He walks on eggshells around them while he’s still trying to come into his role as the oldest. So it’s one afternoon, when Mammon is discussing his plans to finally get back down to the Fourth Layer to make a dent in the back log of souls he had to judge, that Cyrus asks to go with him.

Mammon’s surprised at first. He figured the 20-year-old wouldn’t be interested in learning the ropes of his title just yet.

“Why?” It comes out worse than what the demon means. “Not that I don’t mind bringin’ ya along, but I figured it’d be at least a few years before you took any interest in what I do in Hell.”

“I just thought…” Cyrus’ thought remains unfinished as he’s interrupted by the arrival of the twins who had come home from the dorm for the weekend.

“Hey, how was school?” The Avatar of Greed says as he watches the younger of the two open the fridge, fishing around for a water bottle.

“School? Yeah it was fine.” Aurelius shrugs, “Just a normal day.”

“And that’s why ya won’t look me in the eye? C’mon, ‘Relius, I know when you’re lyin’. “

“No… I plead the fifth.” Almost as quick as he arrived, the teen was off.

“That’s not even a thing down here- ah geez, he’s gone…”

“Does… does that happen often?” Cyrus shakes his head at the oddity of his brother’s behavior.

“Not with your brother…now your sister on the other hand, your mother or I always have something to deal with when it comes to her… anyway whatever that was, I can find out what he did later but back to what we were talkin’ about.”

“Right… um… Well I don’t exactly have a reason for wanting to go.”

“That’s fine…” Mammon shrugs, “we’re leaving tonight after Mom gets home and we have dinner. Now, I’m gonna go check on Mahlon ‘n see if he’s up from his nap yet.”

Cyrus only nods as he watches his father disappear up the stairs. He’s alone for all of five minutes before Azalea appears. It’s quiet between them while she sets up one of the game consoles.

“So… how was school?” Cyrus asks, trying to do anything to break the uncomfortable silence between them. Azalea doesn’t even spare him a glance as she pops the game disk in and turns the tv on. “Can I pla-“

“It’s a single-player game so no.” Her words, the first she’s ever said to him, are short and filled with irritation and a hint of bitterness.

“Oh… okay. Well how about-“

“No- you’ll fuck up my progress. Don’t ya have better things ta do instead of botherin’ me?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” the freckled half-demon growls, “Didn’t Dad just agree to take ya with him to the Fourth Layer? You can go pack or some shit like that…”

Cyrus is quiet as he studies her body language. Over the past month since his return, he’s heard of the reputation his little sister has and Cyrus isn’t trying to get her to take a few swings at him so he backs off.

The tension only grows between them as Mammon returns with a half-asleep Mahlon in his arms.

“Okay, since your brother’s now avoidin’ me for whatever reason, what do y’all want for dinner?”

“We haven’t had stir-fry in a while…” Azalea says as she pauses the game. “Why not that?”

“You good with that, Cy? Or do you have something else in mind?”

“No, I’m fine with it,” Cyrus shrugs as he fiddles with the dyed ends of his hair while Mammon takes a seat on the couch after getting a sippy cup full of juice for the youngest.

“When’s Mum coming home?” Azalea asks, seemingly out of nowhere. “5?”

“6, I think. Might be 5:30. Why?” The demon quirks an eyebrow as she shrugs, “You that eager to get to the Fourth Layer?”

“Oh, no I was just asking. I wasn’t planning on going with you guys anyway…”

“I think you should,” Cyrus offers, immediately wishing he hadn’t. “If you usually go-“

“And be bored the whole weekend? Yeah, hard pass.”

“What’s that s’pposed to mean?” Mammon asks as he blocks Mahlon from grabbing at his sister’s hair, “You love going to the Fourth Layer…”

“Yeah but like what am I gonna do? Antagonize sinners for the whole weekend? It’s not like I’m gonna be judging souls anyway so there’s no point in goin’…”

Mammon opens his mouth to say something but can’t come up with a response. She does have a point- now that he’s not training her to take over the role of Avatar of Greed, she really would only be down there for a weekend vacation of sorts.

Azalea just goes back to her video games as they all sit in silence.

・・・〆・・・

Cyrus is up in his room packing a weekend bag to take with him while dinner is being made. He doesn’t know what he should take- not that he has to decide between a mountain of clothes to begin with but is it hot in the Fourth Layer or is it unbearably cold? Should he take clothes to accommodate for his wings that he has in his demon form?

A knock on his bedroom door distracts him as Aurelius lets him know dinner is done and then the he’s disappearing down the stairs. The packing can wait, Cyrus decides as he follows his brother down the stairs where their mother is setting the table.

“There you are.” she smiles, “You’ve been so quiet up in your room, I almost thought you’d gone out to the aviary with your father to help feed the crows… Dinner’s just about done so go ahead and grab yourselves something to drink while I bring everything out to the table.”

The boys nod as Arella turns to Azalea.

“Could you get your brother in his high chair for me, Azalea?”

“Yeah sure…” Azlea rolls off the couch, setting her controller down and grabbing Mahlon from his playpen by the back of his shirt and setting the toddler up in his high chair.

“You should be more gentle with him,” Cyrus says as he sits down at his usual spot at the dinner table. The female half-demon only rolls her eyes at him.

・・・〆・・・

“Dinner was great, Babe.” Mammon and Cyrus are helping Arella clear away the dinner dishes.

“Thanks but considering that you’re the one who started it for me, I don’t think I should be taking the credit.” The human hums, “You and Azalea are leaving tonight for the weekend, right?”

“Actually, it’s just me ‘n Cyrus this time,” this gains a curious look from the human, “‘Zay didn’t wanna go.”

“That’s out of character for her… wonder what the issue is…”

The boys both shrug as they dry and put away dishes.

“If she doesn’t wanna go, she doesn’t have to.” Mammon hums. “There we go- all finished. Did you get everything packed that ya wanna take with you, Cyrus.”

“Actually… about that…” the 20-year-old starts, “I didn’t know what to pack… I didn’t want to be distracted because I was too hot or too cold.”

“You just pack whatever you feel comfortable in- there’s not much difference in climate between the layers of Hell and the Devildom so really anything’s game.” The demon explains.

“Oh… okay that narrows it down…”

“If I can make a suggestion, bring things that’re gonna accommodate for your wings- the glamour magic that comes so easily for us isn’t going to be available to you so you’ll be stuck in your demon form until we leave.”

Cyrus nods at that. He hadn’t been in his demon form since he was a young child- he’d just never needed it. It secretly worries him that he’ll lose control of himself and go on some form of rampage.

Seeing his son’s worry, Mammon places a hand on the half-demon’s shoulder.

“Hey, ya don’t have to go if you don’t think you’re ready. I know it’s a lot considerin’ you haven’t had any training in controlling your demonic powers like your siblings have.”

“No I want to go. I’m going to have to step into the role at some point, right so why not just dive in?”

Mammon doesn’t look convinced but he decides to trust his son. “Alright, if you’re that dead set on it… just remember, if anything happens, I’ll be right there to reign ya in.” He watches as the half-demon nods. “Alright go get packin’. I’m gonna check in with your sister to make sure she absolutely doesn’t wanna go with us.” He leaves Arella and Cyrus alone as he back tracks out if the kitchen.

“Do you think I’m diving into it too fast, Mom?” Cyrus turns his lapis-like gaze on Arella.

“A little bit,” she nods, “but if you’ve got your mind set to it I’m sure you’ll do just fine. Just… don’t feel you need to master everything all at once, okay? Your father spent centuries figuring out a way to do his job efficiently. You can afford yourself the same kindness.”

The 20-year-old nods as she walks off, her words having taken away a bit of the anxiety.

・・・〆・・・

“So this is the Fourth Layer?” Cyrus asks as he looks around from the balcony he and Mammon are standing on. “Not what I was expecting…”

“Yeah, I bet. Considering you just ended up spending the last 15 years of your life up in the human realm, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that you probably heard things like every level of Hell is made up of fire and brimstone ‘n all that dramatic shit the humans like to make up…”

“And they’re not?”

“Eh, that’s debatable… it’s appearance really depends on your belief system and what type of sin you committed.” Mammon shrugs. “We’re really more about rehabilitation than ‘punishment’ nowadays anyway thanks to Diavolo gettin’ it in his head that since the Celestial Realm offers the chance for reincarnation that we should too. The lower a human soul gets though… well, it ain’t pretty, I’ll tell ya that much.”

“So how do you judge a soul if you’re not going to give it a punishment?”

“Oh no we still give punishments out to those whose deserve them. I have a three-tier system that I use personally- there’re some souls that will never be rehabilitated because they’re just going to repeat their past mistakes. That’s tier three.”

“And the other two?” Cyrus asks as Mammon motions to the city below them.

“This whole city consists of tier one souls- in their time among the living, these were people who indulged in Greed due to factors in their lives that were uncontrollable. Think people who stole to provide for their families. People who hoarded resources thanks to famine or general scarcity of a resource they needed to survive. Tier two souls are sinners who indulged in Greed because it was the easy way out. Instead of struggling, they chose to just take what they needed as opposed to earning it.”

Cyrus nods as he listens to the explanation his father is giving. “How will I know what the right course of action is?”

“That’s a good question- the best answer I can give you right now is that after enough practice you’ll just kinda know. Not the most helpful, I know.”

“So it’s basically trial and error until I figure it out?”

“That’s how I did it…” the demon chuckled, “Image being a fallen angel- the former virtue of Charity. When I first started this, all of my punishments were too lenient, too soft because I had no idea what I was doin’.”

Cyrus nods at that as he looks off to the north, spying a huge mountain range along the horizon. “What’s that?”

“The mountains? It’s a mine. Almost every single gem in the Devildom comes from the mines here in the Fourth Layer. Under normal circumstances, it would kill me to give ‘em up but I gotta have something for the sinners to do and if I kept everything single gemstone mined from that mountain range for myself, I wouldn’t have space for anything else so might as well earn some money off ‘em.”

“That makes sense,” Cyrus nods. “So what’s next?”

・・・〆・・・

After Mammon had taken the time to show Cyrus around, they arrive in the throne room. The white-haired half-demon just takes a moment to take in the room surrounding him.

The architecture of the room looked like something straight out of ancient Greece or Rome, the floor was made out of a black stone with golden runes unlike any he’d ever seen etched into it, golden fire that never let off any smoke burned and crackled along the walls and in the middle, sat the large golden throne encrusted with gems of all types.

He watches as his father takes a seat on the throne and with a snap of his fingers, the entire room is suddenly filled with the souls of the damned. There had to be at least 200 of them in here.

“Are we seriously going to be able to get through all of these today?” Cyrus asks as he makes his way through the souls, “How many souls are even in here?”

“Anywhere from two to three hundred. And yeah as long we don’t get any runners, I should be able to get through ‘em all in a couple hours at least…” Mammon nods as his son comes to stand beside him. “You’re just watchin’ for right now…Things’ll be easier if I just show you the bulk of what I do and then give ya the chance to ask questions after everything is all said ‘n done.”

・・・〆・・・

And Cyrus does have questions as the night goes on but he doesn’t ask them. They’re all stupid questions that should be common sense to him. He feels like he can’t do this- like he’s bitten off more than he can chew.

“Cyrus…? Yo, you in there, kiddo?”

“H-huh?”

“I asked if ya had any last questions since we’re done for the night… Are you alright? You were all spaced out.”

“Y-yeah, I’m fine. And no I don’t have any questions- everything seemed pretty self-explanatory…” it just now dawns on Cyrus that he hadn’t been paying attention for the past two-and-a-half hours they’d been doing this.

Mammon seems unconvinced. “Y’know you can ask me anything, right? No matter how stupid you might think it is, it could be valuable information for you.”

“Right…” he takes a deep breath. “Dad, I don’t think I can do this… not now or… ever… wouldn’t Azalea be a better choice than me?”

The demon considers his words. “If I’m being honest, yeah, you’re sister would be the better choice… but she can’t do it- I’ve tried to train her but she lacks the ability to pass judgement on sinners. And she always will unless something happens to you. Believe me, Cy, I’d never ask you to step into this role if there were any other option considering everything that happened to you.”

“So I have to do this,” the 20-year-old frowns.

“Yeah, but the upside to this whole situation- you have literal centuries to get comfortable as the next Avatar of Greed… If yer worried about not gettin’ the hang of things immediately, don’t sweat it. Now, I don’t know about you but I’m ready for bed. We’ll start again in the morning, alright?”

“Alright.” The half-demon doesn’t know why, but his father’s encouraging words have lifted the overwhelming feeling of self doubt that had settled in his stomach. As the pair part ways for the evening, Cyrus is hopeful that he can actually live up to his birthright.

・・・〆・・・

The morning comes quicker than expected- Cyrus isn’t sure if it was just due to not being used to sleeping in his demon form or the fact that the sky here always seemed to remain the same shade of sea-green no matter the time of day but he’d had a horrible night’s sleep.

Rising from the plush bedding, the half-demon stretches- his wings doing a little flutter as he yawns.

“Just take it one day at a time, Cyrus…” he tells himself as he gets dressed, “One day it’ll all click.”

・・・〆・・・

After breakfast, Cyrus and Mammon are back to judging souls.

“Ready, I’m gonna teach you how to summon the souls of the damned. Yesterday, ya saw me do it with just a snap of my fingers but there’s actually an incantation for it.”

This catches the half-demon’s attention. That was one less thing he could check off his list of things to worry about.

“So it goes like this: those who once walked with the living, thee who have fallen from grace. I summon you now. Come, face your transgressions. Obey me, for I am the Avatar of Greed. Think ya got all that, Kiddo?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Great, cuz you’re gonna be summoning the souls today.”

“What? What if I mess up?” The overwhelming nervousness is back again.

“The worst you could do is summon like one soul. You’ll be fine, Bud.”

Summoning one soul was not the worst Cyrus could do. In fact, if the 20-year-old had to make a list of the worst he could do, summoning a full coop of demonic chickens into the throne room would sit nicely at the top of that list.

What led him to summoning an entire coop of demonic poultry one may ask? A mix of nervousness and biting his tongue is what lead to the floor of his father’s throne room being covered in loose feathers and angry birds.

Mammon was quick to send them back to where ever they’d been summoned from with a snap of his fingers.

“So… turns out I was wrong…” He says while also trying so hard not to laugh.

“You’re laughing?! I almost got eaten alive by demonic chickens and you’re laughing at me?!” Cyrus flushes a deep red from embarrassment.

“Calm down, I ain’t laughin’ at ya… more like… I was laughing at the situation.” The demon tries to defend himself, “This just means we have to work on your summoning skills so that we don’t get anymore killer poultry in here.”

“Yeah… I’m not doing anything else though. I’ll watch you for the rest of the day but I’m not trying my hand at anything else.”

“Yeah… I’d uh… I’d say that’s fair…”

・・・〆・・・

The rest of the weekend goes smoothly, with the Avatar of Greed getting his eldest child more comfortable in the role little by little. The next opportunity he had, Mammon would definitely focus in more on summoning souls into the throne room and having Cyrus actually access the moments in the soul’s life where their sins were committed. Those were his two biggest area of concern with the half-demon.

“So how do you feel about it now that you’ve had a chance to actually experience some of the responsibilities that come with our title?”

“I’m still kind of iffy on whether or not I’ll be any good at this…” Cyrus admits, “but it’s like you said: I have a while to get adjusted to it… just knowing that makes me feel better.”

“That’s good. And now that our weekend’s essentially over, there’s one last thing we gotta make it through.”

“And that would be?”

“A meeting with your Uncles. We always meet at the beginning of each week just to touch base- see if anything weird has been happenin’ or if there’s been an overall abnormal influx of souls for the events going on in the mortal realm…”

“How long does that usually take?”

“An hour maybe two if no fights break out or Uncle Asmo doesn’t hog all the time talking about himself… if you wanna go home early though we can go. Uncle Lucifer can just track me down later in the week.”

Cyrus thinks about it for a few moments. He’s tired from not sleeping comfortably and he really just wants to get home where his glamour magic will immediately kick in and he can stop carrying his wings around- the muscles in his back are killing him.

“I want to go home… I feel like this weekend was pretty eventful…”

“It definitely was… Alright, let’s get out of here.”

・・・〆・・・

End

A/N sorry if the ending is abrupt. i couldn’t figure out a way to end it. Thanks for reading!

#obey me kids #obey me next gen #obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me swd #obey me! shall we date?#obey me mammon #om! mammon #obey me oc #arella #cyrus #azalea #aurelius #mammon fluff

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maxwell-grant · 3 years ago

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Jumping off from my previous question/suggestion, might I please ask if there are any superheroes you think would make fine Pulp Villains and any Supervillains you think would make convincing Pulp Heroes?

I'm gonna go ahead and remark that I'd personally suggest to anyone who's trying to create pulp characters inspired by superheroes (which would be probably about 90% of you who may want to do that sort of thing) to flip the script around a little. As in, don't try to create pulp analogues to the Justice League/Avengers upfront, but play around with some of the lesser-known icons and filter those through your idea of what “pulp” means (which is gonna be quite different than my own or anyone else’s).

I’m not gonna really mention characters I’ve already talked about before like Vandal Savage or Namor, instead I’ll pick new ones and see what can be highlighted about them.

Regarding “Superheroes who could make fine/convincing Pulp Villains”, even though he’s a character I've read basically nothing on, Martian Manhunter definitely leaped out to me as an obvious option. He’s a Sci-Fi Superman who takes the first half of the name to an extreme that borders on comical, except he’s not a square-jawed white man, he’s a 1.000 year old green alien from Mars with shapeshifting powers who can look as monstrous as the artist desires. He’s the product of an advanced civilization and genetic modification, and on top of the Flying Brick powerset and shapeshifting, he also has incredibly powerful and extensive telepathic abilities, he can become invisible, phaze through matter, use telekinesis and other weird abilities. A lot of pulp stories closer to sci-fi were based around the idea of taking one of these abilities and extrapolating horrific consequences for them, and J’onn has those by the dozens. He also has an extremely mundane weakness that would allow him to be beaten by Macready with a blowtorch if that’s where the story ended.

He was also a law enforcement officer from Mars who became a police detective and it’s even right there in his name, and again, I have never read anything he’s in (I should probably pick the Orlando mini), I know he’s for all intents and purposes a generally nice man who tends to job a lot in crossovers and cartoons, but the idea of taking all those great vast and horrifying alien powers, combining all of them into a single character who also happens to be the last survivor of a doomed planet (and one who actually lived through it’s collapse), and then making that character a former cop trying to resume his work on Earth?

That is a Pulp Supervillain begging to happen, and a particularly horrifying one at that. And hey, speaking of The Thing-

Now, Plastic Man’s potential for horror has already been explored quite a bit in some of the darker DC continuities like Injustice and DCeased, and it’s quite funny seeing a lot of these turn Plastic Man into The Thing because there were quite a handful of Wold Newton pages that ran with the idea that Macready from the original story was Doc Savage, and that the secret chemicals that Eel O’Brian was hit by that gave him his powers were actually samples of The Thing contained in one of Savage’s labs. Regardless, the idea of a former street crook suddenly gaining bizarre shapeshifting abilities that allow him to reign terror on his gangster associates could make for a great premise as a pulp crime story that veers into horror as the gangsters gradually figure out what is Eel O’Brian’s deal, and then the story can take a more tragic turn.

The thing about Jack Cole’s Plastic Man that modern takes on the character neglect is that, while Plas was a lively roguish anti-hero (arguably the first of it’s kind in comics), he’s still for intents and purposes “the straight man” (HA, right, Plastic Man being “straight”). He’s the relatively sane hero who plays off Woozy’s wackier misadventures and the imaginative madness that Jack Cole paints his adventures with, and it makes for an interesting contrast considering Plastic Man is already a weird character, having to ramp up the strangeness of the world around him so that he still remains the sane man. There are ways to twist this into something quite horrifying, even tragic for Plastic Man as he either struggles to maintain coherency, or embraces the shifting chaos the world’s spiraling into for better or worse (and definitely for the worse towards those on the receiving end of his vengeance, or even his humor).

Now, onto the flipside, regarding Supervillains that could become Pulp Heroes -

Normally I’d not mention the Batman villains here, because I already have a lot to talk about in regards to them as is, they comprise some of my favorite comic characters, but I pretty much have to make an exception for Two-Face in this topic, as not only a pretty obvious option but one with even case studies to prove it, as not only do we have The Black Bat, a 1930s costumed pulp hero with an identical origin story and several other conceptual overlaps with Batman, as well as The Whisperer, a young hotshot police commissioner who dresses up as a disfigured vigilante to kill criminals without consequence (and who’s somehow less of a maniacal asshole in his secret identity than in his regular one), but it turns out that there actually was a 1910s pulp hero called The Two-Faced Man:

Crewe was created by “Varick Vanardy,” the pseudonym of Frederic van Rensselaer Dey (Nick Carter, Doctor Quartz), and appeared in three short stories and two novels and short story collections from 1914 to 1919, beginning with “That Man Crew” (The Cavalier, Jan. 24, 1914).

Crewe is “The Two-Faced Man.”

He is in his forties and has gray hair and a “sharply cut and handsome profile—until one caught a view of the other side of his face and saw the almost hideous blemish that nearly covered it, and which graduated in corrugated irregularity from a delicate pink to repulsive purple.”

Crewe is two-faced in another way. Crewe is a saloon owner in below Washington Square. But he has another identity: Birge Moreau, portraitist and socialite hanger-on. Crewe uses both his identities to solve crimes as an amateur detective.

The only person to know about both of Crewe’s identities is a police inspector who is also Crewe’s friend and who Crewe helps in pressing cases - The Encyclopedia of Pulp Heores by Jess Nevins

And speaking of obvious picks for Supervillains turned Pulp Heroes,

Assuming I even need to make a case for Kraven the Hunter other than just presenting this cropped panel from Squirrel Girl and in particular the art painted on the Kra-Van, or even just telling you to read Squirrel Girl and it’s take on “The Unhuntable Sergei” (I had no idea most of the people saying “Kraven’s arc in Squirrel Girl is as good if not better than Kraven’s Last Hunt” weren’t actually joking in the slightest and I speak as someone who has Kraven among their absolute favorite Marvel characters, it had no right being that good), I’m going to quote the brilliant Rogue’s Review from The Mindless Ones that lays down in painstaking detail why Kraven could make a killer protagonist in that horrifically over-the-top pulp fashion

One thing that strikes me writing this, is how well Kraven could hold his own comic. There’s always room for a book spotlighting a ruthless, hardcore, gentleman bastard, and Kraven’s raison d’etre makes him supremely versatile, so well suited to any genre, any environment. It’s odd that more writers haven’t jumped on the fact that in a universe where off-world travel is possible – indeed, common – a hunter like Kraven would have a field day.

I can just imagine the opening scene – herds of weird cthuloid bat creatures grazing in the gloomy green nitrogen fields, bathed in lethal, bone splintering fog, when, suddenly, LIGHT! from above and an unholy bellowing: “CTHGRGN fthgrgnARAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHGN!”

They look up in fear and then they start to run – ploughing into and over each other, tentacles flailing, as from the space-ship’s docking bay Kraven silently plummets, barely dressed for the cold, a glowing knife smothered in elder signs jammed between his teeth.

You should have seen him one night previous, sipping alien tokay around the Captain’s table with the other guests, discussing the morning’s hunt; and the way he insulted the Skrull dignitary by forgetting himself and accidentally sporting his favourite piece of formal wear: his boiling unstable dinner-jacket of many colours, fashioned from the hide of one of the Ambassador’s super kinsmen.

Whoops!

Midway through Kraven explaining how the best way to irreparably damage a symbiote is to wait until its bonded with you and then seriously maim yourself, the Skrull decided it might be a good idea to simmer down, while his beautiful Inhuman lover hung on every word.

The deeper I get into this the more convinced I am that the MU’s hunter-killer extraordinaire wouldn’t limit himself to bloody planet Earth. And neither would he limit himself to this dimension, or universe or timeline. The guy’d be just as at home leaping, sword raised, onto the back of a T-Rex in the Savage Land, as he would be ploughing through werewolves in the graveyards of Arkham or tracking a howling Demon across Mephistopheles’ realm.

He’d work perfectly in all these environments because he has a damn good reason to be casting a bloody swathe through them: wherever there’s big game, you’ll find Kraven.

The next choice I guess is an oddball, but not that much of an oddball if you know already what is my main frame of reference towards Marvel

I don’t think people appreciate enough that the main reason Shuma-Gorath has anything resembling a fanbase has nothing whatsoever to do with the comics he was in, but entirely because, when Capcom designers had a list of Marvel characters to pick from to work on Marvel Super Heroes, they took a look at the diet Cthulhu and went “gimme THAT one”, and then went all-in in giving the alien squid monster a funky personality along with a great stage and music and animations and all that great fighting game character stuff, and now he’s maybe the most popular Dr Strange villain along with Dormammu and Mordo, despite having ZERO film appearences or major showings in comic sagas.

Capcom's designers redefined Shuma-Gorath from a nebulous cosmic evil into a comically smug cartoon bastard who can rant about devouring all dimensions and souls horrifically while also cracking poses and zingers like “How do you expect to win a fight with only two arms?” and having dinners with Dhalsim or hosting Japanese game shows in his endings, and it kills me that none of this ever made it’s way into any depictions of the character outside of MvC.

So that’s kinda what I’d go with. I’d take Capcom’s Shuma-Gorath, depower him a bit obviously from his canonical power, and run with the premise of his MvC3 ending where he decides that, well, if he's the unlikely savior of this pathetic planet and these wretched human dogs like him so much, and he’s clearly having a much better time here among them than he ever had drifting among the stars cealessly consuming life, then maybe he can take a break from all that eldritch business and keep up hosting the Super Monster Awesome Hour and maybe fight whatever PITIFUL villains think can take HIS planet. I mean, he’ll probably still end up destroying the planet by the end, but why not give this hero business a try?

Just until he gets his full powers back of course.

I mean you can’t deny he DOES look pretty good in that bowtie, surely The Great Shuma-Gorath wouldn’t be so unmerciful as to deny these vile wastes of flesh something good to look at in their brief and miserable lives.

#replies tag #marvel comics #marvel #dc comics #dc #pulp heroes #pulp villains #martian manhunter #plastic man #kraven the hunter #two-face #shuma-gorath #marvel vs capcom

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barbiegirldream · 3 years ago

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if you actually want a discussion really quick— i’m seeing a lot of frankly inflammatory accusations that people who don’t enjoy the canonization of that theory just want c!tommy to “look cool” and are salty whinebabies about how their fave didn’t win or whatever. i actually really enjoy most of your discussions around c!dream and read thru and agree with a lot of them, but this type of aggression is really prevalent in dteamblr and it makes people not want to talk to y’all. most of the criticism on my dash that i’ve seen is how the theory doesn’t really hold up from a narrative point of view instead of a character one—c!punz being loyal to c!dream is imo pretty interesting and there would be a reason why c!dream would want to make people convinced he’s changed. but from my understanding is that after exile and doomsday and nov 16th, dream and the “antagonist” group or w/e just kept getting what they wanted, which creates less intrigue around these characters. with c!dream constantly 20 steps ahead and everything falling into his plans all the time, he’s less compelling, and his relationship with the server is less compelling. (from what i’ve seen people say) it feels less like a chess match where there’s a possibility dream might not win. the themes of tommy’s arc is arguably about how it’s ok to be attached to material things and love things, and that you shouldn’t be blamed for people using those attachments against you. dream genuinely getting thwarted by punz and the rest of the server—a consequence for cutting off all of His attachments and pushing away that love—ties in perfectly to those themes and i think a lot of people are pretty disappointed about losing those things. so it’s not about c!tommy not being a special uwu baby and it’s more nuanced than that imo, and i think it’s kind of disingenuous and rude to imply that’s all people are complaining about. cheers tho.

I mean meeting rude with rude is childish true but people spent so long getting attacked for no reason over a pretty well supported theory I see where the aggression comes from. And Dteamblr Ooh boy there is a reason for our aggression and it’s mainly wanting to be left alone by people who spread lies about cc!Dream lol. And tbh the people I’ve seen complain about the stages disc confrontation are upset because of c!Tommy

Now to say you get bored of the bad guys winning I mean is perfectly fair. I think it’s the most interesting way to run a story. Because the strongest players are playing the bad guys meaning it’s hard to stop them. Almost impossible in most cases. So impossible it would only make sense the strongest of the strong pretended to fail right?

But again if you’re a c!Tommy fan it’s probably annoying to see him lose all the time but it’s such a realistic story in a way.

There is so big motivational speech that makes him stronger than anyone else. Nothing he can do to stop the people around him from taking from him. He’s not going to get some super power up inner wisdom and be able to beat Dream in a pvp fight. C!Sapnap even if he could out fight c!Dream in a fight he can’t out smart him.

C!Ranboo collected wealth and c!Tubbo weapons. C!Quackity tried to force and pressure c!Purpled because he knew he needed raw fighting strength on his side.

Like this is a story of might makes right very similar to well the real world. The bigger and stronger you are the harder you fall but the harder you are to topple.

C!Tommy can’t beat next to anyone in a fight. And if he trips and falls someone like c!George will be there to steal his things and laugh in his face and he’ll need someone’s help to get his things back.

Your attachements are a weakness to be exploited c!Dream showed that immediately after leaving prison by finding out what people were attached to. Like the point of the story is c!Tommy is not ever going to be the biggest or the strongest. His discs didn’t mean victory it meant something for c!Dream to hold over him. L’Manberg was a place he could blow to bedrock and watch people scramble like rats for fun.

I think what so many people struggle with about the DSMP is it’s a place where the little guy doesn’t win. Where the underdog if they get anywhere can so easily have a boot placed back on their neck. And maybe that’s where so much discourse comes from. Because your protagonist wins but in the DSMP that doesn’t happen because there isn’t actually a protagonist. Everyone in the main character of their own story.

The DSMP is a hard world to live in. A cruel one where you need to be strong or have strong friends.

#discourse #long post #sally talks lore

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neon-moon-beam · 3 years ago

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As much fun as I’m having with Legends: Arceus, I can’t help but notice past a certain point it feels very small? and I feel like major storylines don’t conclude in a way that’s satisfying, if you can consider them to have concluded at all. I feel like this is really the biggest flaw in an otherwise great game, so I thought I’d post my opinions about it, as well as some speculation about why that might be. Under a cut for spoilers.

Please note I haven’t caught Giratina or Arceus yet. I do know some of what happens but have not seen them for myself to analyze visuals, dialogue, etc.

Also I’m not interested in debating, headcanons, etc. You’re free to disagree with my opinions but I don’t want to argue over things. Please respect this.

When I first started playing, the world seemed pretty big. I tend to take my time with games and try to see everything, even things like alternate dialogue, etc. Every area seemed huge and I was finding more and more places within them I hadn’t been...until I’d been everywhere and got Braviary. There aren’t many points you can fast travel to; usually just two base camps, an arena, and then if there’s a settlement. Things feel bigger with Basculegion and Sneasler, as there’s areas you can’t reach by walking. But then once I got Braviary that was it. And now that I’ve seen pretty much everything I think, and am grinding to complete the Pokedex, it just feels small. Of course Hisui is much bigger than other regions and definitely more open world (think of how small and closed Galar actually is), but besides Braviary, going back to Jubilife to change locations made it feel small and got old fast for me too. I’m hoping in the next Legends title, as well as Gen 9 onwards we can just go anywhere at any time, once certain requirements are met. And at least they did work returning to Jubilife each time into the story (Hisui is still very much wilderness and it’s not easy to just go from one place to another, you need to report what location you’re setting off to each time in case something happens, etc).

As far as storylines go, obviously I want to see Ingo go home, and there are other issues too, but let’s talk about him first.

For all the focus and attention on Ingo’s backstory in PLA, it never concludes. At all. He just goes to the training grounds and starts setting up a battle facility. He wasn’t at the Harmony Festival for some reason, yet it’s never addressed. We can assume Cogita wasn’t there because she’s a recluse and ~mysterious~ and honestly, I think there’s something going on there we’re not being told or really shown and I’d like to know more (I have a few ideas). But just about every other major NPC was there (including Volo) and every warden that isn’t Ingo. The fact that we’re told nothing about how he got to Hisui or if he goes home is bothering everyone who’s a fan of Submas, has come to like him in PLA, or just wants more from this game. His story arc leaves us hanging. He has vague memories, including more regarding his use of train terms and point and call after being rematched, but what of them? Where is this leading us? The lack of conclusion and the fact that Ingo looks so miserable while we know who he actually is but are unable to help him makes his story unsatisfying, and in a way, makes the player feel helpless.

Then there’s the player character’s arc. Dawn/Lucas catches Arceus and then...nothing? Arceus never tells them they can go home when they’re ready, nothing. Which I understand from a game point of view in that they already rolled the credits after the player catches Dialga and Palkia, but we could have gotten another “Thanks for Adventuring!” image of them going home or something so we know it happens, even though we can boot the game right back up and start obliterating Parases with Judgement. Dawn/Lucas’ fate is currently up in the air, and like with Ingo, we know they have people to return to (their mom, Barry, Dawn or Lucas depending on who you’re playing as, Prof. Rowan, their original team…). While we can assume Arceus will put them back since we see them send them back in time at the start of the game, the lack of confirmation is frustrating.

Then the Daybreak mission added in the most recent content update has quite a few plot holes.

We never find out why there are massive mass outbreaks, often of Pokemon that don’t live in the areas the outbreaks happen in (other than they tend to happen in the same spots space-time distortions happen)

Why the massive mass outbreaks happen in rainstorms (or snow in the Alabaster Icelands)

Why Munchlax knows where these happen and why it can inform the player what Pokemon are in the outbreaks if it’s given 5 Aguav berries

How the Aguav berries showed up when they were not found in Hisui previously and can only be obtained by defeating Pokemon in an outbreak

And then the big one; at one point Mai asks you to meet her in a cave and bring her 10 mushroom cakes but won’t say too much as to why. She then takes her time arriving, with the implication that the player has waited all day for her, then asks to be left alone with the cakes and that she’ll inform you later if her plan “worked”. Lian then meets the player, saying Mai is waiting for them in Jubilife. As the player has literally just left Mai AND the cave is within sight of them and Lian, there’s no way they’ve just missed Mai, and no way she could have simply returned to Jubilife as she doesn’t have a way to fast-travel. When talking to Mai in Jubilife, she mentions that Irida also had something happen where she thought Mai asked her to spread some grain, and that a Pokemon may be masquerading as Mai. That, combined with the first outbreak being Zorua and one imitates Munchlax, seems to suggest the Mai who asked for the mushroom cakes and met us in the cave was possibly a Zoroark, with a Zorua being Muchlax. This is never addressed again and the mission ends without any confirmation that this is what happened, or why.

I thought at one point a Zorua had replaced the Munchlax altogether sooner than the mushroom cakes incident. I also thought that perhaps Arceus was acting through the Munchlax given how it just “knew” things and had been taking off in the direction of outbreaks initially (much how the starters took off and alerted Laventon that the player had arrived in Hisui). I even thought that before the end of the mission, I’d have to fight the Zoroark and Zorua that had impersonated them. But nope. Adaman and Irida showed up, concluded that there’s some things we just don’t understand yet, and we all watched the sunrise.

In some ways it feels like this game just doesn’t know how to conclude, which is especially a problem when people have characters they’re invested in, even if it’s just the player character. BDSP was released in such a state that it was literally unfinished (you have to download content the first time you boot it up or else you’ll have placeholders), and as of the time I write this, it’s still very unpolished and begging for a DLC to salvage the postgame. PLA is polished and a great game, but it’s also begging for a DLC. It’s not clear to me personally whether they intended for a DLC and ended up leaving out a lot of end-of-game content they just felt were better suited for one, or if since DLCs are so common now and often have “true endings” included, they saved it for that. The biggest issue I would have is buying the game itself, and then being forced to either buy the ending or play an incomplete game. DLCs aren’t bad, but I hate that it’s becoming more common to buy a game and then have the developers add the finale later with a separate price tag. I’m not saying that’s what’s happening here, but for comparison, SwSh felt completed before the DLCs; those added some postgame stories, new areas, and Pokemon. PLA doesn’t feel complete at all, and even after catching Arceus, Akari/Rei shows up the next day saying there’s more things to do…but right now aside from optional missions left incomplete, optional battle facility things, or hunting for shinies or Alphas (you get a Shiny Charm after catching Arceus), there isn’t. So is that a hint at a DLC being planned, or is it just some dialogue in case you haven’t done literally everything there is to do? Or perhaps…wishful thinking on Akari/Rei’s part that Dawn/Lucas won’t leave?

We may not even get a DLC for Legends: Arceus, either. While the plot holes and storylines that just don’t feel satisfying seem to be pointing to one, ultimately the choice is up to the developers. Gen 9 will likely be released for the holiday season, so probably sometime this November. I hope we get a DLC before then that hopefully gives people peace of mind, or they release the DLC for the holidays. I hope they do not just move into Gen 9 and leave everyone hanging. Another alternative is we find out what happened with Hisui in Gen 9. One of the trailers shows a Hisuian Zoroark. There’s a chance we may be told that Hisuian variants are no longer found in Sinnoh but do exist in other regions, or we might find out through something even as simple as NPC dialogue that Dawn/Lucas somehow turned up with Hisuian variants in the present day (or however many years ago there are between the intro of PLA and Gen 9) and started a breeding program, and then hear something elsewhere about an intact Battle Subway in Unova with Ingo AND Emmet running it. That wouldn’t be as rewarding as seeing them actually go home, but if the developers don’t want to show us or don’t think a DLC is worth it, there isn’t much we can do.

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