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douglysium · 1 year ago

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Episode 8 TMP Quick Thoughts

Housekeeping and Prologue

Hello, this is Douglysium and you might not know me as that guy who wrote over 100 pages of analysis on the Eye (which can be read on Tumblr here (https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/735599414228484097/the-relationships-between-the-dread-powers-the) or Google Docs here (The Relationships Between the Dread Powers: The Eye- Knowledge is Fear and Ignorance is Bliss)) or as that guy who wrote an article on the Extinction (which can be read on Tumblr here(https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/717929126195003392/what-would-avatars-of-the-extinction-be-like-a) and Google Docs here(What would Avatars of the Extinction be like?: A TMA Speculation)). Suffice to say I might be a bit of a TMA fan. Also, spoilers for TMP up until episode 8. You can read my ramblings on the last episode here (TMP Quick Thoughts 7).

However, Protocol offers a very unique opportunity and experience for me because I didn’t actually get into TMA until after it was over and I binged all of it. So this is my first time experiencing something even remotely similar to what the original TMA fans probably experienced when waiting for each episode week by week and slowly having to put everything together with the limited information they had. So I decided to throw my hat into the ring since this might be my only chance to do something similar. However, I’m working on some longer form TMA content so I can’t spend as much time on these articles giving a bunch of super detailed thoughts. I will try to keep these short and that inevitably might mean some could have questions about why I think or predict certain things and in those cases I would probably recommend you read at least some of the two articles I mentioned above to get a better idea of where I’m coming from. This also means I won’t be giving you a play-by-play of every single thing that happens in the episode so I encourage you to listen to or read them yourselves and feel free to comment if you feel something is important.

These reviews are probably going to end up focusing mostly on the Entities and their manifestations as they are what I have thought about the most and spent the most time interpreting and there’s been a lot of… interesting theories floating around about how the Entities are manifesting that I want to go over.

Finally, I’m just going to say it right now, spoiler warning for all of The Magnus Archives. I know that Jon and co said one could start with Protocol and be fine, and while that’s probably true, media like this tends to be made in conversation with or take into consideration what came before it in the irl chronology in order to connect them. While I’m sure you could skip The Magnus Archives, I don't really see the point of skipping over it when we are already getting characters from TMA showing up in TMP in Protocol. So to me it’s pretty clear that if we want to understand the full picture of TMP and all the things it is trying to say then we can’t just try to pretend TMA doesn’t exist or scrub it away. Just because you could understand what’s happening without the context in broad strokes doesn’t mean you're getting all the nuances.

These articles are meant to be quick and short so sorry if there’s typos and if I don’t address every possible question or possibility. I don’t want to repeat myself too much in this series outside of the prologue so be sure to skim some of my other articles.

Episode 8 “Running on Empty”

This time we dive directly into a statement that NORRIS is giving which means the intro is a bit faster than usual. This statement takes the form of a paper being submitted by Terrance Stevens to Joseph Peterson. In the end Terrance is stuck with a failing grade but the teacher left a note of “see me” and in the assignment itself Terrance does try to explain the late submission and extenuating circumstances. Which seem to be acknowledged by the teacher with “Extenuating circumstances: Serious Medical Condition, Trauma, Miscellaneous.”

Terrance decided to do their assignment on “Forton’s Brutal Liminality, a case study of architecturally induced psychological stressors as a result of prolonged exposure to liminal spaces in the Brutalist mode as exhibited by Forton Service Station.” They elaborate with “This paper will present a comprehensive analysis of Forton Services as a key site of study for the intersection between Brutalism and Liminal space design with a secondary focus on the psychological stresses such sites can cause.”

Later in the statement Terrance gives us the definitions of Brutalism and Liminal that they are working with (which is extremely helpful because upon looking it up I got 3-4 common definitions for Liminal). “Brutalism, originating from the French 'béton brut' - raw concrete, is an architectural movement that focuses on utilitarian purpose. This often results in exposed raw materials, stark forms, repetitive geometric shapes and monolithic structures. This can often lead endusers to feel overwhelmed or oppressed. (Zumthor, P. 2006)”. “'Liminal' spaces, derived from the Latin 'limen', meaning 'threshold' are transitional spaces normally inhabited for short periods. They have been shown to have marked effects upon the psychology of those exposed to them and long-term exposure has been found to illicit anxiety responses (Augé, M. 1995), (Bachelard, G. 1994) and feelings of the uncanny (Trigg, D. 2012).” In case the second definition is a bit confusing, what Terrance is referring to when they say “transitional spaces normally inhabited for short periods” are things like hallways. Places that exist almost entirely for people to pass through from one area to another.

Terrance’s report seems extremely focused on architecture and the psychological effects they can have. Within TMA Smirke’s architecture could actually interact with and influence the Entities in various ways and they were noted to have a higher likelihood of hauntings and supernatural events occurring within them being reported than other buildings do. Plus, the Entities themselves can manifest as physical places. This is seen with not just the Domains but also how people can be physically thrown into the Entities (for example, someone can physically enter The Buried or Lonely. Various people have been taken by the Entities to other unknown locations and there’s a non-zero chance that at least some of these people ended up within Entities so their fear could be fed on). Terrance also says “My hypothesis is that that Forton services, as a site of intersection between these two psychologically significant elements can be considered a site of what I have termed “Brutal Liminalism” and this is why it has a profound effect upon those exposed to it in the long term as testified by my own experiences. Specifically, it creates an effect of absence despite presence, an “architectural hunger" of a sort.”

I also have to wonder if architecture will be as important in TMP as it was in TMA and if so how? Did this universe’s Smirke somehow meet the Entities or is some of the architecture in TMP just coincidentally reacting with the Entities? Maybe it has nothing to do with Smirke and someone else has connected the dots in regards to architecture and the supernatural?

Terrance goes on to explain that areas such as Forton were originally conceived as locations one would actually stay at for prolonged periods of time but the increasing popularity of cars and similar vehicles along with the overdevelopment of the road infrastructure in the UK led to Forton becoming a place people merely pass through overtime. A liminal space if you will. Basically Forton went from being sort of like a metaphorical “room” one would actually stay in to a “hallway” that people just pass through. This also meant that more people would be traveling through Forton and “This increase in travelers, far beyond older design parameters, has led to an ephemeral flux of people transitioning through service stations at all hours, leaving only trash in their wake. Not only this, there are perceived time distortions associated with such spaces exacerbated by the deliberate absence of clocks (to encourage longer stays) and 24 hour opening times with rolling opening, closing, cleaning and restocking routines.” In case you aren’t aware, ephemeral means “lasting for a very short time.” So among other things, Terrance is saying that there is a spike of people in Forton but they are not permanent or consistent residents. It’s a bunch of people flowing in and out of it constantly.

“I propose that because these spaces are devoid of persistent humanity and consistent time perception, they have thus become dislocated from humanity’s shared mindscape and there are unique health risks to people who are over-exposed to this phenomenon. In essence, I believe the “architectural hunger” of a space that resents its own transitional nature can be dangerous and I have a unique personal insight into this phenomenon.” The term “humanity’s shared mindscape” gives me pause but I suppose the Entities could be considered a shared mindscape? They are explicitly born from and maintained by the collective fear of animals, and while this can be the fear of any animal it is noted that most of the Entities tend to lean towards feeding off of humans specifically, with the exception of The Hunt and The Flesh, because their fears tends to be more “nuanced.” So you could describe most of the Entities as mindscapes that tend to revolve around humans even if not completely. Not to mention, that despite the Entities being very metaphysical in many ways you can still physically enter them, and they do like to mold themselves out of specific fears in order to best terrify the person within them. So they are kind of like mindscapes born of fear.

It’s also interesting that Terrance says “architectural hunger.” The term hunger seems to be appearing a lot which has led to much speculation. I’m still a bit on the fence about this but even in TMA there were at least some references to hunger. How Entities and Avatars gathered fear was often portrayed using food metaphors. If an Avatar could not gather enough fear over a period of time they would “starve” and feel extremely weak if not die for example. When Jude Perry is describing how being an Avatar works to Jon she says “Feed it, fearlessly and without hesitation, or it will feed on you.” In MAG 200, when describing how the Entities came to be, we get “But fear was here and true and was itself, and it hungered. It wished to know more. It wished to feel more. It wished to be more.”, “And something else began to happen. Some minds did not simply recoil from them and feed them. Some seemed almost to call them, to court them, to hunger for them in return.”, and “And with this newfound power came greed. The hunger for more, the unformed, unfocused, but impossibly huge desire to exist. To join the minds that gave them shape and purpose, and finally drink their fill ‘til they were one and the same. They had no concept of how, or when, or even why, but they needed it. They needed it.” So the Entities have always sort of been described as “hungering” or “feeding” in my opinion even if it’s being pushed more now.

Terrance details how they took a job as a janitor at Forton Services after a divorce and it “cost me the majority of my friendships. The ensuing stress episode led me to quit my job as a deputy fiduciary services administrator. I thus applied and successfully interviewed for a low stress Janitor role despite my overqualifications. At the same time I successfully applied for the Architecture Program at Lancashire University as a mature, 51 year old student.” The fact that this seems to take place recently after a divorce and that the divorce led to the loss of many of Forton’s relationships could point to themes of The Lonely. It wouldn’t be the first time someone got dragged into The Lonely after a relationship goes sour (as seen in MAG 150 (Cul-De-Sac)).

Terrance says that they believe Forton to be “an ideal example of “Brutal Liminalism” given its status as both a popular motorway service station and a landmark of brutalist architecture.” and they specifically note the tower as being the primary reason for this place being an ideal example of brutalist architecture. The tower is noted as being closed to the public despite being listed in 2012. I wonder if this tower specifically has something going on with it. Maybe the architecture is similar to Smirke’s or there is some other type of architecture that could elicit increased supernatural reactions and / or maybe even encourage different manifestations. It wouldn’t be completely unreasonable to assume that there is potentially more than one way to build something that reacts strongly with the Entities, even if such an idea is unfounded at this point.

Terrance describes the site by saying “The site is seventeen point seven acres featuring an eastern picnic site and facilities on both sides of the M6 motorway with seating for 700 people, 101 toilets and 403 parking spaces. The top of the tower once held a fine dining restaurant with a roof-level sun terrace both of which featured unmatched panoramic views of the surrounding rural countryside on all sides.” While the tower used to be open at one point, Terrance explains “Unfortunately, the effects of Brutal Liminality soon took effect with a 1978 government review describing the site as “a soulless fairground” and the restaurant became a trucking lounge before being closed to the public in 1989. No-one has eaten there in decades. There were later failed attempts to repurpose the space but in 2017, the two pentagonal lifts in the center of

the Tower shaft were replaced leaving the higher floors derelict and inaccessible. The tower still stands overlooking the surrounding countryside, the only access via the Brutally Liminal Forton Services below, but the entrance is sealed and this is perhaps for the best.”

But while Terrance was unable to enter the tower itself they claim to have started undergoing “a psychological shift” nevertheless. They describe this supposed shift as “subtle,” so much so that they didn’t even originally notice it and assumed there to be a more rational explanation. “Put simply, there were less and less people every night. At first, I assumed it was some seasonal change I hadn’t accounted for but every day it grew more pronounced until finally, one night, I realized that I had not seen a single person.” Terrance says that this is impossible and they even went to verify their log. They would go on to check the parking lot but didn’t see a single car. Once again, this parallels a lot of the themes and manifestations of The Lonely for obvious reasons tied to being isolated both physically and emotionally. Terrance then notices something in the parking lot. Something that they describe as “...streaks of light lingering in the air. There was a nebulous haze across the entire car park, a mélange of muted colors punctuated with more vivid reds, whites and yellows but even more curiously I realized it primarily hovered above the asphalt. The Greenery and walkways were mostly clear. The effect was curiously familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. I have since been unable to determine if this effect was psychological, physiological, or atmospheric in nature but I maintain that the phenomena was accompanied by a disquieting sense of absence. Of hunger.” Once again, a reference to hunger.

While most of the statement up until this point has been pretty heavy on potentially Lonely themes, this leans a bit more Spiral-like with the kind of strange lights being seen. Terrance does also describe the lights being seen as chaotic. Despite this it’s not like all The Lonely type stuff suddenly stops. Terrance says that they managed to make out details “...in those long, waving, iridescent strips” and they “...could trace denser routes through the chaos leading through the main doors to the facilities and as I watched a memory of my ex-wife’s photography leapt unbidden to mind, my favorite shot that she’d given me on our seventh anniversary: “A study of traffic.” So what could be happening here is that an Entity is attempting to remind Terrance of their ex-wife as well as some of the pictures she had taken in an attempt to amplify certain emotions or feelings (such as loneliness). Terrance even goes on to say “That’s when I realized why this all felt so familiar. Timelapse. If I could have walked into that photo, this must be what it would have felt like. It would have been beautiful if it weren’t so unsettling.” So Terrance might have literally walked into a place modeled after a photo taken by their ex-wife. Additionally, when they were married Terrance would have had way more friends. So this memory could also call back to a time when they felt less alone this heightening there current feelings of isolation.

The haze’s connection to the asphalt is probably due to the fact that the picture Terrance’s wife had taken was “A study of traffic.” So highlighting the asphalt would help remind Terrance of the photo due to streets, sidewalks, cars and all that. However, you could also make an argument for themes relating to The Extinction if you were so inclined. In MAG 134, “Time of Revelation,” Adelard Dekker says this in regards to his theory about the Power “But now the fear is not of a rapture or a revelation. It is of catastrophic change. Mankind will warp the world so much it kills us all, and leaves only a thousand years of plastic behind. Technology will strip us of what it means to be human, and leave us something alien and cold. We will press a button that in a moment will destroy everything we have ever been. Animals are witnessing the end of their entire species within a single generation.” So you card argue that highlighting concrete as opposed to potentially more naturalistic landmarks like greenery could point to urbanization and a less natural future. Terrance does also mention in his theory that a major factor as to why the architecture has become a negative force is because overtime Forton has changed to a more liminalist space due to urbanization and an increase on the reliance of cars (which can also be tied to some fears that The Extinction might often correspond to (such as climate change and being rendered obsolete)).

However, you could still make a very solid argument for the influence of something like The Spiral as Terrance also says “In retrospect I was clearly having some kind of severe hallucinatory episode brought on by long-term exposure to the space.” So there is a potential awareness and fear that Terrance might be mistaken or their senses are wrong. Terrance feels like they should try to avoid the glowing mist and even feel the instinct to hide “ to find somewhere, anywhere that I might be free of that overwhelming miasma sloshing back and forth within the foyer threatening to wash me away with it.” (A foyer means “an entrance hall or other open area in a building used by the public, especially a hotel or theater.”) While it’s not impossible that another Entity might be manifesting as mist or fog I think it’s interesting Terrance notes the presence of glowing mist since we know that Entities such as The Lonely tend to manifest as it a lot. This is probably to heighten the sense of isolation because of the fact that fog and mist not only obscure vision but also tend to muffle sound. These qualities can make it harder to tell if there are others around you, which might make you feel alone. Fog and mist can also be associated with melancholy. It could also make it potentially ironic that Terrance’s first instinct is to hide and thus potentially further isolate himself.

However, rather ironically, there are ways fog and mist could hypothetically relate to The Spiral. Some other definitions of fog include “something that obscures and confuses a situation or someone's thought processes” and “bewilder or puzzle (someone).” Both of which could point to the idea of fog or mist manifesting as a metaphor made literal in order to confuse someone.

Terrance also refers to the mist as a miasma. A word that can mean “a highly unpleasant or unhealthy smell or vapor” or “an oppressive or unpleasant atmosphere which surrounds or emanates from something.” I would assume that the second definition is more applicable here even if the mist could smell terrible. Terrance starts trying to get out of dodge by moving away from the main entrance and “away from the densest areas of the kaleidoscope in the hopes of finding somewhere less overwhelmingly saturated.” A strange kaleidoscope of colors could once again point to The Spiral.

Things get a bit weirder when Terrance says “And that was when I saw the woman. She was tall, young, and thin, almost to the point of malnourishment, dressed similarly to a stewardess with a tightly fitting blue waistcoat buttoned over a sensible looking grey skirt. She was beaming, holding open the door to the lift and inviting me inside. There was a small brass badge on her waistcoat, but instead of a name it simply read “You are here”.” The sight of this woman causes Terrance to hesitate and “before I could consider her strangeness a particularly high tide of color swept down the corridor toward me. I panicked, and before I realized what I was doing I had darted inside the lift and slammed the close-door button.” It quickly becomes apparent that Terrance is in the elevator with the woman as they say “Thank you!” and “She didn’t seem to notice and instead continued to smile warmly at me as she reached across and pushed the button for the penultimate floor marked “Restaurant”. A button I knew was disabled. The lift started to climb.”

I wonder if the colors Terrance was running from are a metaphorical representation of their past. Maybe if the colors caught them they would have found themselves trapped in a world modelled after their wife’s phot of the past. We also know that The Lonely has manifested as weird colors. In MAG 186 (Quiet) Martin’s Domain is mentioned as being monochrome in color. So I wonder if the vibrant colors chasing Terrance would mean everything else outside of it seems more drab and less colorful in comparison? Then again there’s still argument for The Spiral with the dizzying array of colors.

As Terrance catches his breath the woman says ““Good Evening!” She exclaimed, “It’s my pleasure to welcome you! You are here! Stay awhile!”” Terrance tries to ask her some questions but she says nothing with a wide grin on her face. Eventually the doors Terrance are leaning on open and he tumbles into the tower. To which the woman only responds with “Stay awhile!” before the doors close. Terrance had actually seen the locked tower stairway, after being shown it by Molly on their first day, and the tower shouldn’t have anything in the room Terrance is in “apart from damp and broken furniture. At least, there shouldn’t have been.” Despite this impossibility, in front of Terrance now lay “...a restaurant, spotless and bright with retro 60s décor and the sweet smell of frying pork drifting towards me from the central kitchen. Chairs and tables lined the outside wall, each of which sported a large window which would have granted an impressive view of the landscape below if they weren’t all blacked out. This didn’t seem to concern the diners however, who were perfectly content eating whilst chatting amiably with one another.” This sight actually gives Terrance a moment of relief “...for as strange as the situation was, at least there were people. I was no longer trapped in that bizarre, solitary, aurora limbo downstairs. The feeling faded though, when I heard what they were saying, or rather what they weren’t saying.”

The seemingly starving woman was strange, but I think there are some things in this restaurant that could once again point to The Lonely. As I’ve mentioned before The Lonely has manifested as people before, most notably a faceless crown in MAG 48 (Lost in the Crowd). The Lonely has also manifested as languages that sound vaguely familiar but upon closer inspection sound like gibberish. In MAG 150 (Cul-de-Sac) we get “My hand drifted down and brushed the plastic remote control. Almost on instinct, I picked it up and turned the TV on. A cooking show. A woman I almost recognized fussing over a turkey. She was talking, or at least it sounded like she was, the cadence and the sounds were so much like English that it took me almost a full minute to realize that she wasn’t actually saying words.” I assume this is meant to emphasize a feeling of isolation and disconnect. The idea that you cannot understand others and others cannot understand you. Even if you aren’t alone physically you are alone in your experiences and people cannot relate to you while you have trouble relating to them.

I think it’s also interesting that Terrance feels a moment of relief upon seeing other people. This may seem weird for something like The Lonely to do but in reality it wouldn’t be any different than say The End extending someone’s life. Entities such as The Lonely aren’t the embodiment of loneliness but a manifestation of the FEAR of it. Sometimes the Entities seem prone to give someone some sort of “protection” or “benefit” either temporarily or permanently that might seem to run counter to what the Powers crave at first but in reality it’s the Entity trying to harvest as much fear as possible by trying to give someone something and then threaten to (or actually) take it away. The End’s behavior in TMA makes a lot more sense when you remember that it isn’t literally death but the fear of it, and the longer certain people are alive the more they can fear losing their life. What I’m trying to get across is that just because Terrance feels a moment of relief that doesn’t mean that the feeling of loneliness isn’t a massive factor or aspect here. When Terrance describes their relief they even say “bizarre, solitary, aurora limbo downstairs.” Emphazing that one of the most concerning aspects of what was happening downstairs was the “solitary” part of it. Of course, it might be too early to say that’s exactly what’s going on here so let's keep looking through the statement.

“Looking around, the restaurant was near capacity with only one free table but when I tried to listen to any one conversation it was just… noise. A muffled murmur that sounded like speech but held no information. Their mouths were moving but all I could make out was a meaningless garble, just the impression of speech, nothing more.” Once again, more Lonely-esque gibberish. You could also argue The Spiral with how Terrance thinks he can understand what they are saying but upon listening he can’t or The Stranger in how he doesn’t know what they are saying or who they are. However, I would point out that it has become clear that this fake speech has seemingly caused a distancing effect with Terrance that’s making it harder for him to relate and connect to them as people. He even goes on to say “Similarly, as I looked closer at the diners themselves, I noticed oddly repeating elements to them. Three women were wearing the same blood-red heels. Two men, the same blue coats and worse, there were even recurring features iterating on different faces: the same green eyes on two women, identical moustaches on three men. These were as much an impression of people as the sound was an impression of speech. And they were all so horribly thin.” In essence, these aren’t people Terrance can talk to or connect with. You could also point to some themes of The Stranger since it is an Entity that loves to manifest as fake people or odd seemingly nonsensical and uncanny behaviors.

The chef is also equally as weird and they are described as having “the same smile on his face below a fourth version of a bushy moustache and an identical “You are here” name tag on his chest. He gestured from his place behind the counter to the only open table:“Good Evening!” He cried, “You are here! We hope you stay awhile!”” So basically everyone here looks like a bunch of npc characters that had had the same handful of physical traits copied and pasted over and over. Terrance is taken aback by the chef’s reaction and catches himself as he instinctively steps back towards the table. They note that as this happens “...everybody in the room seemed to lean ever so slightly forward in anticipation.” Terrance also feels a breeze which in turn causes them to realize that the windows are not in fact blacked out but that “They weren’t even windows. They were gaping square holes and beyond them was nothing at all. Any one of the diners could reach out if they had a mind to and plunge their hand outwards into the dark, foreboding and utterly featureless void. There was nothing. Nothing above, nothing below, nothing at all. Nothing, save the tower and the restaurant.” Terrance says “My whole body recoiled from that awful absence, and I retreated backwards towards the lift. That was when the gentle murmur of nonspeech abruptly ceased to be replaced with a complete and utter silence.”

You could easily point to the void as resembling The Dark (and that’s a fair comparison) but you could also relate it to The Lonely. The idea of a black lifeless void in which you sit utterly alone sounds similar to how some would describe the cold empty vacuum of space. The Lukas family was involved in the creation of the Daedalus space station and messed around with fears relating to The Lonely and space by torturing some poor sap in TMA. In MAG 57 (Personal Space) we get two lines that I think could relate to this theme. “But still the fact remained that where the Earth should have been, there was empty, dark space. I must have watched for hours waiting to see the sun. We were definitely still moving, and from what I could tell we still seemed to be moving in some sort of orbit, but without a planet below I have no idea why we kept the same pattern. Regardless, the sun should have been visible sooner or later.” and “Each time I painstakingly entered it with as much precision as I still had within me, and each time the password field read out what I had apparently typed in:“No one is coming” and the door remained closed. And that was it. I was trapped alone in a tiny room floating in space deserted empty space.”

Everyone in the room continues to smile and the chef once again says “Stay awhile.” but it is clear to Terrance that this is no longer a request. The diners create an echoing effect by repeating the chef’s words over and over like a chorus. Okay, this is where things veer away from standard Lonely, Spiral, or Stranger manifestations as the people in the restaurant begin to grab Terrance and then “a man with that same moustache leant down towards my leg, opened his mouth, and bit into me. Pain shot through my body, but my thrashing was in vain as one of the women buried her teeth in my shoulder, and I could feel hot blood flowing down my back as whilst at the same time the chef took off one of my fingers, the bone barely slowing his chiseled jaw.” Sam screams from the pain “...but the sound withered draining out the windows into nothing.” I think it’s interesting to note this vacuum like effect. The Lonely is often connected to silence (since if there’s no one nearby things are more likely to be quiet. Think of an abandon city or town and how quiet that would be). Also, connecting to the space metaphor is the idea “no one can hear you scream.” Well, in this case it’s more the idea that no one is coming to help Terrance. He is completely on his own with no allies.

Thanks to a rush of adrenaline Terrance manages to fight his way out of the crowd of brittle and emaciated bodies and “The lift had disappeared as if it had never been. And beyond the windows was of course nothing. “You are here”, I thought bitterly. and so when faced with the prospect of being eaten alive, or leaping out one of those windows into pure oblivion, it was no choice at all. I jumped.”

So obviously, potentially some themes of The Flesh in relation to the fear of being eaten or consumed might have come out of left field and made whatever is going on here a bit more confusing and vague. However, there are still some themes of The Lonely here. It’s important to remember that The Lonely isn’t just the fear of being physically alone but also mentally alone. It’s possible to be surrounded by tons of people everyday but still feel alone due to disconnect or the idea that no one would care if you’re gone. In this way you could interpret the other peoples’ odd behavior as an attempt to alienate Terrance. The description of the restaurant also paints it as extremely superficial and shallow. The people can’t really be connected with and there’s nothing outside of the windows. The people Terrance finds comfort in for a brief moment quickly turn to consume him, seeing him not as a person that can be related to but as something to be used up. In a way, Terrance is sort of objectified. Which is an idea that both The Flesh and The Lonely could overlap in. The idea of being but a resource to be harvested like meat and something no one cares about because people only see someone as an object.

However, like always, you can very easily argue some other Entities (something that I can’t spend too much time on because this article is already long enough as it is and I would be repeating myself). You could argue The Spiral with the confusing imagery and appeal to madness or faulty senses, The Stranger loves to manifest as people acting odd and uncanny (such as Breekon and Hope’s as well as the Anatomy Students’ odd behavior). Potentially, the entire scene is just meant to be uncanny and the people unknown strangers speaking and unknown language that Terrance cannot relate to. Of coursem The Flesh loves using the imagery of people being consumed. You could also point to themes of The Slaughter with how people are attacking Terrance and the violence involved.

The plunge out the window is of course what leads to Terrance’s injuries and acts as an explanation for why they submitted their assignment late and they write off the experience as “stress-induced psychotic episode” which could once again point to The Spiral in terms of theming. Terrance once again mentions “hungry architecture” when they say “This experience is proof of the intense mental pressure that such Brutal Liminalism can have upon a person who is overexposed to such “hungry architecture”.”

I wonder if Terrance is on to something with the architecture. While there is a precedent for architecture being connected to the supernatural in TMA I have to wonder if Terrance is simply mistaken about the source because they don’t have the full picture. I mean Terrance wouldn’t know that the TMA universe exists and that’s where the Entities might come from. Even the average person in TMA wouldn’t necessarily correctly identify the architecture as having any sort of impact on the supernatural. The whole thing with the tower could be a manifestation tied specifically to Terrance’s perception or specific encounter. But there is always the chance Terrance is on to something, and there is a precedent for some of what they say. It could be that the tower’s architecture might have something to do with what’s happening (even if it’s not in the way Terrance thinks). However, Entities do manifest as places people walk into all the time even without specific architecture coaxing them, so it’s hard for me to say.

We cut to the CCTV in the breakroom and see Gwen and Alice interacting. Gwen expresses annoyance that Alice didn’t refill the kettle but Alice claims that there’s still a bit of water in the kettle even though Gwen says “There’s not even a third of a cup in there!” However, Gwen makes an extremely interesting comment here when she says “It’s bad enough that you deliberately try to find talkers and leave them running just to mess with me-” I don’t think Alice is evil, annoying, or as mean as some fans think she is but this would paint Gwen and Alice’s relationship as even more antagonistic. It’s also interesting that Alice is constantly telling Sam to ignore the statements (presumably because of the mental toll they can have on people) and then proceeds to leave them running for Gwen. It could be that Alice expects Gwen to ignore them but I wonder if the statements are actually getting to her. In MAG 102 (Nesting Instinct) Jon seems concerned when Martin mentions that he’s been reading multiple statements. When Jon asks him about it Martin says “B-B… Yeah. I mean, i-it wasn’t fun, but… I mean, if it, if it helps then I –” so there is a precedent for statements similar to the ones in the OIAR having a negative psychological effect on various people.

Also, something that I continue to rant about is how The Eye isn’t just the fear of being watched but also of watching. Of seeing too much. The Eye is noted in MAG 200 to have been born from the fear of one’s eyes “showing them too much” and we see other allusions to this like Jonah’s ability to shove information into the heads of other people like Melanie and Martin (forcing them to know things they don’t want to). I’m not saying Alice is a secret Eye Avatar just because this idea happens to parallel someone hearing something they don’t want to but rather that Alice might have a personality The Eye might like more than one would think at first blush. Also, the OIAR or the computers could be tied to The Eye but I’m not sure if it would mean the workers are in the same way that the Archivist and the assistants in the Archives in The Magnus Institute were tied to The Beholding. Teddy was seemingly able to leave this job while Jon, Tim, etc. couldn’t just leave theirs without a heavy price. There is no mention of Tim going blind or losing a finger or anything either.

So at the moment it does sort of seem like anyone can just leave the OIAR if they want to but maybe there’s a cost or condition we are not aware of. It might also depend on your status in the organization. Lower ranked people might be able to leave freely but people like Lena may be unable to. In TMA we know only the people working in the Archives were bound by the contract and presumably everyone working in all the other parts of the Institute could leave or quite whenever they wanted to (causing others to often see the Archives as weird).

Gwen and Alice also have a brief discussion about Gwen’s new position.

GWEN

“External Liaison”.

ALICE

“And of course, we both know what that means. Right? “

GWEN

“I assume I’m going to be managing a bunch of contractors.”

ALICE

“(Interested despite herself) Contractors for what?”

GWEN

“I’ll be receiving a more comprehensive overview “shortly”.”

It is interesting that the transcripts clarify Alice is “Interested despite herself” which might point to her being more curious or nosy about certain things than she lets on. The mention of contractors is interesting. I wonder if potentially certain groups aligned with various Entities have some sort of deal with the government. That still doesn’t narrow it down that much since it wouldn’t automatically explain why the government would be involved. Maybe they view certain monsters and Avatars as being like weapons in their back pocket or maybe they are just trying to appease them to curb the number of victims / collateral damage? The police force in TMA did make use of Hunters so maybe something similar could be going on with other Entities in this universe. I could totally see a shady government official attempting to use the power of The Eye to set up a spy network or something. However, the Entities still don’t seem like common knowledge in this universe, so even if that was true I doubt the government is just sending entire armies of Slaughter enhanced soldiers running around or something. These are still spitballs though and I’m not completely sold on the government trying to use the Fears as some sort of weapon or resource. I just think that somehow parts of the government are involved.

We get news from Alice that Colin has been put on mental health leave (probably due to the fight between him and Sam over Sam’s phone, which led to the phone’s untimely destruction). When told this news Gwen says “always said he was unbalanced.” but Alice is more suspicious of this news and says “You say a lot of things, mostly crap. I dunno... Feels like something’s going on here” (which isn’t completely unfounded since we know Alice has had this job for a while now). Alice says Sam and Celia went out together and makes a sex joke that Gwen seems disgusted by.

We cut to Sam’s phone and bare witness to Sam and Celia interacting with Gerry (Gerard) and Gertrude. These aren’t THE Gerard and Gertrude from TMA (they are both dead anyway) but instead parallel versions. So this is a coffee shop AU (not literally a coffee shop since they mention being in an apartment) of Gerard and Gertrude (good for them). They seem more well adjusted and happier and Gerry still paints in this universe. Although, it seems he has a lot more paintings. It could be that he just didn’t have as much time to paint in TMA or we just never saw the rest of the paintings TMA Gerard made. Gerry gives Sam and Celia a painting called “Camden Epiphany” as a gift. An epiphany can refer to a moment of sudden revelation or insight but it can also mean “a manifestation of a divine or supernatural being.” So I wonder if the painting foreshadows something. In MAG 4 (Page Turner) one of TMA Gerard’s paintings are described as “an eye. Very detailed, and at first I almost would have said almost photorealistic, but the more I looked at it, the more I saw the patterns and symmetries that formed into a single image, until I was so focused on them that I started to have difficulty seeing the eye itself. Written below it were three lines, in fine green calligraphy: “Grant us the sight that we may not know. Grant us the scent that we may not catch. Grant us the sound that we may not call.”” Something that seems to relate to The Eye. Gerry later mentions he was a part of the Institute’s “gifted kids programs” at some point and I wonder if this is because the kids in question were really smart or had other traits the Institute was interested in. It’s also possible that the answer is as simple as “all the kids had encounters with the supernatural previously.”

Gertrude seems as suspicious as ever and acts as Gerry’s grandma. I don’t know if she is his adopted grandma or biological one. If she’s his biological grandma this could recontextualize the relationship between their TMA counterparts depending on how 1-to-1 you think some of these relationships are (but I’m not sure I buy that she’s biologically related in this way to Gerard in TMA since that would mean either Mary or Eric are her secret child or something). Gertrude being an adoptive grandma or something is still possible since there’s no guarantee that Mary Keay was any nicer of a person in this universe (whether or not she was obsessed with the Entities). It could also be that Mary and Eric just died in some other manner due to some divergence in the timeline when compared to TMA.

The fact that Gertude is here also vastly decreases the chances that Gertrude is not the one who burned down the Institute in this universe. Whether she did or didn’t, a lot of things went differently otherwise she would probably be blind from breaking out of the Institute’s contract (and I feel like someone would have noted if she was blind). Not to mention all the timeline stuff going on right now, since the Institute burned down way earlier in this universe. Sam asks Gerry about the Magnus Institute and it seems to immediately change the atmosphere in the room.

SAM

“(cont.) I was on one of their gifted kids programs and -um- I got hold of a list of a few of the other kids and thought it might be nice if we could get in contact, swap stories and that.”

GERRY

“Yeah I barely remember any of it.”

Beat. GERTRUDE disapproves.

SAM

“Oh, so you were a candidate?”

GERRY

“Oh yeah but I was pretty young. I remember filling in a bunch of forms and questionnaires then some old men asking me questions about what books I liked to read, who did I look up to, that kind of thing. Then I left.”

SAM

“(Disappointed) That’s all?”

GERRY

“Yea, afraid so. Other than just sitting around with a bunch of other kids in a room that smelled like old books.”

There’s not much to go on here but it does vaguely point to why Sam might be trying to look into the Institute. He may have had some sort of supernatural encounter at this “gifted kids programs.” All the stuff about forms, questions, and old books could point to The Eye and prodding questions as well as information or even leitners but there isn’t a whole lot to go off of.

I admit, it is a bit funny seeing Gerry so much less depressed but Gertrude is as suspicious and snarky as ever. Sam thanks Celia for coming with him even though they’ve only known each other for a few weeks which makes me wonder if Celia has any ulterior motives Especially, if she recognized Jon’s voice from last episode, she might somehow be familiar with Gerard and Gertrude but that still doesn’t make a lot of sense to me at the moment. It could also just be that she tagged along because she’s also interested in The Magnus Institute.

Celia then asks for a sort of favor- “I’m trying to look into… Weird physics stuff: time travel, other dimensions, teleportation, all that good stuff. Freddy doesn’t really do searches, so could you keep an eye out and let me know if any come up in your cases?” If you read my last Quick Thoughts or even just listened to the last TMP episode you may have noticed that there’s actually a lot that could point to Celia having traveled from TMA using the gap in reality. If you want to hear more thoughts on that you can read the first part of the previous Quick Thoughts.

Celia mentions she is doing a favor for Georgie and her podcast. In TMA Georgie Barker ran a podcast called “What The Ghost?” Sam says he did some research on Celia which would imply that this favor is for this universe’s Georgie but I wonder if Celia is somehow trying to maintain contact with or travel back to the TMA universe. I also wonder if someone like Georgie even tried to send her after the Entities. In MAG 200 we get-

BASIRA

"Yeah okay, you’ve made your point. [sigh] Would just be nice to know for sure."

GEORGIE

"All we can do is hope."

Which could point to an interest in where the Entities have gone. Last article I mentioned that Celia could potentially be worshiping the Entities now, but I failed to consider that maybe she does still worship or look up to Georgie and / or Melanie and was either tasked with some mission or took it upon herself. This could also explain why she knows so much since someone like Georgie, Melanie or Basira could’ve just filled her in at some point after TMA or maybe someone tried to explain to Celia what was happening in the tunnels. This also could’ve been a mere accident or something else entirely. Maybe something even weirder is happening, like the Entities have jumped from more than one universe since we saw them in TMA so this Celia isn’t from the TMA universe (but that’s potentially a stretch with no information to go one).

Although, Celia’s comment about “Weird physics stuff: time travel, other dimensions, teleportation...” does potentially point to some of my original assertions that the Entities may not have immediately appeared in this universe within the same year / date they left the TMA universe because time can get a bit wibbly wobbly with interdimensional travel in the TMA multiverse. Not to mention that The Change also fucked with time, which could’ve thrown things off even more. Of course Sam saying “Uh, sounds a bit sci-fi compared to our usuals. What’s this for? You’re not doing research for that podcast you were on, are you?” seems like a jab at TMA and how the multiverse exists in relation to supernatural horrors of the podcast itself.

Conclusion

Overall, this episode is very weird. Even weirder than I remember when you start trying to sift for details and clues. The statement is weird and Celia is weird but I’m curious to see what happens next. What / who caused the Institute to burn down if not Gertrude and what does that mean for this universe? Also, what is the OIAR actually supposed to do? Are they merely reviewing supernatural encounters similar to the Institute or are they supposed to take a more active role?

#tmp #the magnus protocol #tma #the magnus archives #theory

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emetherapy · 7 months ago

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Introduction.

So… I guess we start with a little introductory post.

Who I am is not terribly important. What's important in this context is that I am someone who deals with quite a few phobias. Emetophobia is the worst offender that I currently still deal with. Heights, Spiders, to name a few, are additionals, but those aren't pertinent to this post and the purpose of this particular profile. I'm sure the name says plenty.

Why am I here? Well, frankly, the original reason was to ask @fav-emeto a question, since her YT-Channel got nulled recently, along with almost all her content. But I figured I may as well try to make some use of this, posting my own vomit stories and perhaps making some observation posts, for example. Still not sure on that second part, but I will consider it for when I have too much spare time.

I would class it as a high severity phobia, since any time I ended up sick, nauseous, or even vomiting when I was younger, it would be bad enough that my mind would just go blank and I'd look like a statue. Other, rarer cases, I'd be very panicky and shaky, which wouldn't help matters. Granted, it hasn't happened much in my life (latest occurence is like, what, back in 2012?) but I would in no means like to endure it at all, no matter the reason. Yes, it's a natural response when something doesn't go well with the eaten food, something else sneaks in, or some other illness can trigger it, but it inflicts pure terror on me whenever it happens to me, and still triggers a serious sense of disgust and flight when anyone near me ends up sick. Something that I knew back then that I had to try and fight or treat in some way. Much like my arachnophobia, attempts at treating it only made it mildly more… tolerable, I guess.

Some time ago, I decided to try watching vomiting videos. How original, I know, but I figured I'd try to see if it helps me cope better with it eventually, as other methods back then have failed. As expected, it still makes me wince and shiver, but it has gotten better over time, so there is some therapeutic effect to it all. I did stumble into the other side of the spectrum as well: whereas I'm terrified of vomiting and would do anything to avoid it, there are some who indulge it as they derive pleasure from it. I can't say the same, but the end result is the same. While there are many who use their fingers or other tools and force it, there are some who instead let it happen naturally, and those are, for me, much more relatable, as those experiences are the ones that I had. It's why some types are more therapeutic for me than others. Again, @fav-emeto and a few, now defunct sources, are the ones with the strongest effect on me personally, mostly to do with the POV shots. After all, what do we see when it happens to us?

I think that's enough for an intro, so I'll post additional(s) some other time. If you read all this, good job, you have decent attention span and/or interest lol

#emeto #emetophobia

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beauty-and-passion · 2 years ago

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Fanders Sides Season 3: The Asides

Hello dears,

after the introductory post about FSS3 and before starting with the actual episodes, I wanted to write a short post about the Asides too.

As you all know, recently Mr. Sanders moved a few episodes here and there: random stuff became part of the Asides, while ATHD, FWSA and WTIT became main series episodes. Why did it take him so long to realize they were following the plot more than other videos? No idea.

But even though Mr. Sanders seems to find it a bit difficult to distinguish between main series episodes and Asides, the fandom on the other hand seems to know pretty well what the difference is and your suggestions in the survey have been AMAZING.

This is why I wanted to write this post: to expand on some of your best ideas. But also to offer you this post as a starting point. If you have even more ideas/thoughts/concepts for other possible Asides episodes, feel free to add them with a message or a reblog. We can go on forever with great suggestions.

Once again, I applied the same three rules I talked about in the introductory post:

to write something in the real of human/editing possibilities

it should be an idea that can be developed in a 20-minute-long video

no ships

_______________________________

The promised rap battle

During Am I ORIGINAL?, Logan had the best rap battle of all time and in the end, he said Patton would be the next one he would “fight”.

So this Aside will be the match Logan wanted. He will crush Patton with great verses, amazing flow and sick burns.

Patton, on the other hand, won’t take any offense at all and reply with puns. Just. So. Many. Puns.

Will Logan still win? Will the puns be enough to defeat him? Will he start using the power of puns too? Will this battle turn into a huge battle of puns? Will Patton have fun regardless of the result?

You decide on the answers to all of these questions, except for the last one. Because we all know Patton would enjoy some quality time with Logan.

_______________________________

The very normal vlog

This episode is a very normal vlog in which Thomas talks about very normal stuff happening in his life and the Core Sides comments/offers suggestions as always.

So Logan says Thomas should've remembered that doing X thing wasn't great. Thomas replies that it was an infinitesimal mistake.

Patton compliments Thomas with a pun. Thomas replies with another pun.

Roman tells Thomas they should strive for greater things. Thomas says that they should start by improving their acting skills.

Virgil reminds Thomas that trying new things can be challenging and he can fail. Thomas says that it won't be as bad as Virgil's make-up.

Virgil is caught off guard by this, but before he can comment, Thomas ends the episode and sends them all away. Only after the Sides disappeared, he said goodbye to his viewers and turned off the camera, only then he reveal himself as Janus.

Janus stretches, snaps his fingers and says he's still the best liar of all time, before leaving.

The episode ends with Thomas, who is still sleeping in his bed. He suddenly jolts up: "Oh my gosh", he yells, "I need to do a video!”

Bam, start intro.

_______________________________

The troll

An April fools episode titled “Am I the ASSHOLE???” and the whole video is over dramatic and makes fun of tropes, also is poorly shot.

This is the original post of @dillydallydove from which this person took the idea. And it's hilarious, I love it.

_______________________________

The most serious argument ever

A prequel episode set when Virgil was still one of the Dark Sides and centered on an argument they have.

You can choose whatever topic you want, but it should be the stupidest argument ever. And the dark boys should all act as if it’s the most important topic in the world, nothing is more important than this topic and nothing is more important than proving the others are ALL wrong.

Follows shenanigans, Janus pretending to mediate only to say something and add more fuel to the chaos, Virgil trying to prove his point with extra convoluted thoughts, Remus throwing stuff around only to add more chaos, Orange sending death threats.

Bonus points if they manage to set something on fire without matches.

_______________________________

Grocery shopping

Thomas going grocery shopping with his Sides.

Logan is in charge: he wants to put just healthy food in the cart.

Patton begs Logan for at least one single pack of cookies ("Thomas needs them, as a treat!").

Roman checks for the most aesthetically pleasing packages and the ones with the most promises, no matter how far-fetched they are ("Logan, this shampoo will make Thomas' hair fluent and shiny! And this cereal mix will make him taller! We must buy them!").

Virgil disappears for entire minutes, then comes back with a full emergency kit, a new alarm system, pepper spray and a blanket. When Logan asks him why, he replies that the safety stuff it's necessary, while the blanket is for him because it will help him stay calm, once Thomas starts handling this stuff.

Remus runs all over the grocery store, then comes back with different stuff: the first time with the biggest zucchini and carrots he can find, then with sticks and poles. Then, with all the different brands of condoms he can find. Then with lubricants. He says Thomas needs them and drops everything in the cart.

Janus pretends to help Logan, but also sneaks stuff behind other stuff: shorter boxes behind taller ones, chocolate chips under a bag of vegetables and so on. When Logan finds out, Janus picks a bottle of wine and puts it on the conveyor belt. Logan sighs and lets everything go.

Thomas, who went to the grocery store to buy one bag of apples, comes back home with a bag of carrots, a bag of zucchini, 2 boxes of cookies, 3 new shampoos, a pack of condoms, a new emergency kit, two cereal boxes, a blanket and a bottle of wine. And no apples.

_______________________________

The game night

The episode has the structure of a game show, in which every Side has to answer questions about the other Sides, in order to win an amazing prize.

Logan tries to use his intuition, but it doesn't always work.

Patton replies with kind, good, nice answers and everyone feels bad about telling him he's wrong, so he somehow wins.

Roman has no idea, so he drops the first thing that pops into his mind and fails miserably.

Virgil mumbles something, then says he doesn't know/it's stupid/he doesn't want to reply. Somehow, ends up second after Patton.

Janus straight out lies about everything and somehow he's right. But everyone refuses to acknowledge he's right.

Remus throws the most sexual ideas and argues about who has the longest dick. Somehow, he ends up being just one step above Roman. No one understands how, Roman first.

In the end, the amazing price was the last piece of pizza.

_______________________________

The "Sides' daily schedule" series

This can be a series of seven videos, in which every Side takes his time to tell us what they do during a normal day of their life.

Logan shows a perfectly organized schedule, down to the second. His routine includes cleaning, organizing, planning, working, writing, reading and a relaxing hobby: chemical reactions.

Remus sneaks in to be his lab assistant. The video ends up with them blowing up something.

Patton's schedule is more relaxed, made of sunshine, happiness, hours spent remembering the past, sad hours, more sad hours - but then Patton gets better, he gets out of his room and meets his friends. And plans a nice time for all of them.

The evening ends with Logan emptying a whole fire extinguisher on the barbecue, because somehow Patton set it on fire.

Roman starts his day by being his most marvelous self, removes his night-time beauty mask, makes his daycare routine, strikes poses, talks about how great he is, goes around slaying monsters and dueling... all in the morning. Then, he sits and the desk and works non-stop for 20 hours straight. Then, he gets up still with his marvelous self, says he has not been “very productive” and goes on a trip to slay more monsters and flirt with beautiful men in distress.

In the end, Remus has to stop him from working even more, by hitting him on the head. He throws Roman on his bed, throws the sheets on him but, before leaving, he never forgets to carefully put on Roman his night-time beauty mask.

Remus' video alternates between him starting to say something, to huge censored parts. Around half of the video, he loudly protests, because he's censored, even when he doesn't say anything sexual. His day includes pissing out Roman, messing with Logan's chemical stuff, obediently sitting and listening to Janus reading him a book, throwing stuff in a volcano, jumping in a river with piranha and 20 different sexual positions all censored.

Virgil's video shows him doing something peacefully, only to suddenly stop, look directly at the viewers and ask them questions. Like: he's peacefully knitting, then he stops, lifts his head and asks: did you turn the stove off? Is it still off? Or is it on? Is your house burning down? Will it burn down before you go to bed? Will you die in your bed?

The questions stop, to show us more of Virgil’s day and his different ways to relax. Some are heavy blankets and knitting, others are push-ups, running like a madman for hours, sleeping like a log, watching horror movies and doing make-up while listening to emo/rock music.

Janus' schedule is weird. The scene before he's walking, then it abruptly cuts to him knitting, then to him halfway into an explanation of a specific part of a book, to him explaining what he will eat. It looks like a series of scenes randomly put together.

Only in the end, we will find out he did it on purpose, because he has no intention of telling what he actually does. So he tells the viewers to have fun with what they have (which is basically nothing), while putting on a beauty mask, a glass of wine in his hand and relaxes into a bathtub.

_______________________________

The "Dressing like each other" series

This can easily end up in another series of videos, in which every Side raids the closet of one Side and they all dress up like him.

Logan's closet should include tons of shirts and lab coats, so they would all dress up like teachers or lab technicians. Roman hates it, Remus loves to dress as a mad scientist.

Patton's closet should include bright colors, funny hats, animal prints everywhere. Either they would dress up as animal lovers or as stereotypical fathers from the 50s. Janus searches everywhere for something that's not bright-colored. In the end, he fights Virgil for the only two gray clothes.

Roman's closet should include rich, embroidered dresses with beautiful details on every piece of fabric. They would end up dressed as members of the court or royalty, with matching, fabulous makeup. Virgil complains and calls it "extra and preppy", only to end up being fabulous.

Virgil's closet should include black, emo, laced dresses for everyone. Also, guyliner and leather/laced matching accessories. Roman complains and calls it "dark and gloomy", only to end up being fabulous.

Janus' closet should include black and yellow dresses, fancy hats, polished shoes and fancy accessories like golden pocket watches, handkerchiefs with embroidered initials and so on. Logan appreciates the formality, Roman the nice details. Virgil calls it "even more extra" and ends up being quite fabulous. (Janus refuses to acknowledge it)

Remus' closet should include the most insane, batshit stuff, possibly put together in the weirdest way. They could end up dressed entirely in fishnet clothes, rainbow clothes, silly costumes or the most baroque, heavy costume ever known to mankind. Also, a shit ton of accessories, wigs, makeup and everything you can think of. Somehow, Janus is the only one who manages to find a coordinated set.

_______________________________

And now, it's up to you!

Do you have more ideas for the Asides? Share them! The weirdest, the strangest, the better! :D

( Support me on Ko-fi )

_______________________________

TAGLIST:

@royalprinceroman @reesiereads @mudpuddlenl @allmycrushesaredead @aquatedia @whatishappeningrightnow @effortiswhatmatters @atlasistryingherbest @bella-in-a-bag @doydoune @forever-third-wheeling @mishanthropist @payte @mcang3l @geekyapollokid @hypnossanders @idontreallyknow24 @imcrushedbyarainbowoffical @patton-cake @hereissananxiousmess @purplebronzeandblue @cynicalandsarcastic @empressserelene @dubstepbranch @lost-in-thought-20 @andtheyreonfire

@riseofthewerewolf @frog-candy-bee @bosspotato01 @rosesandlove44 @sololad @chewy-rubies @groaaaaan @croftergamer @thedevilseyes @arya-skywalker @csi-baker-street-babes @queen-of-all-things-snuggly

@virgildarknessdementiaravenway @mishanthropist @dracayd-universe @unknown-artworks @lonelyfangirl453 @starlightnyx @stubbornness-and-spite @averykedavra @iloveeverytjing123 @bookedforevermore @joyrose-fandomer @anachronismes @mihaela-tbg @igonnatalknothing

@thatoneloudowl @grayson-22 @softangryfuckingdepressed @theotherella @boopypastaissalty @nevenastark @varthandiveturinn @floofyconfusednerd @nothing-worth-mentioning @mikalya12 @roses-bubbles @cuter-on-the-inside @coldbookworm @snixxxsmythe @alexowlndra @fadingbagelbananapatrol @our-bloody-mari666 @riverraysong @sanity-whosshe-neverheardofher @charmingcritter @analogical-mess @emphasis-on-the-oopsie @selfdestructivecat @yangwalkerao3 @paytonthefrog

#sanders sides #fanders sides season 3 #FSS3 #virgil sanders #remus sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #janus sanders #thomas sanders #orange side

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jq37 · 4 years ago

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The Report Card – Fantasy High: The Seven Ep 1

Meet the Maidens

It is back to school baby, both for D20 and, funnily enough, myself as well (something I hope will give me more time to get the recaps out in a timely manner fingers crossed).

As I’m sure you all know if you’re reading this, this season of D20 takes place in the world of Fantasy High but with a focus on Aguefort’s OTHER most badass adventuring party who we’ve so far only seen on the sidelines, the Seven Maidens! You’ll recall, they’re made up of the seven girls who were captured by Penelope and co. to fulfill the prophecy that would let Kalvaxus rule the world freshman year. And, in fact, we start with a flashback to freshman year so let’s just jump right in.

We find our seven soon-to-be heroines chained in the Red Waste in front of what we know and they will shortly learn in Kalvaxus’ lair--a crucial part of the prophecy that was the subject of season 1. The structure of this episode is sort of like 2 rounds of introductions--first here with the maidens meeting each other for the first time and then again at home with their families a la the first episode of Freshman Year so I’ll be glossing over certain things that we’ll get to later in their second intros.

Anyway, the first two to wake up are Danielle (aka Yelle: half-elf, druid) and Zelda (satyr, barbarian as we know). Zelda is her usual, adorably nervous self in contrast to Yelle who is no less sweet but in a super chill, granola girl, fuck the system kind of way. We actually learn that Penelope had her on board with the plan for a hot second when she thought it was just “overthrow the government” but didn’t know about the “install a just as bad if not worse evil dragon overlord” part.

Ostentatia (dwarf, cleric) wakes up next and is, as Izzy--her player--describes her “Jersey Trash.”, all blinged up with jewelry that she secretly made herself and didn’t buy. She wakes up pissed and ready to bodyslam Aelwyn which are both extremely valid emotions as much as I love Aelwyn. By the way, all of the girls recognize each other as girls who go to their school but none of them are really friends though they very quickly start throwing the label around because that’s what you do when you wake up chained with 6 other people in front of a dragon’s lair in a place called the Red Waste.

Katja (half-orc, fighter) wakes up and immediately cares about nothing more than the status of her beloved horse, Cinnamon and declares that if Cinnamon dies, she’ll die. This is a fantasy world so Ostentatia and Danielle are a little concerned that might literally be true via a soul bond or something but it’s more that Katja just really, really loves that horse. Danielle tries to cast a spell to locate the horse but can’t get the somatic components quite right with her hands manacled.

They all get into a discussion about the fact that everyone for a fact knows they’re all virgins now (you know, the real issue here) and what exactly counts as “virginity” for the purposes of this prophecy (like, does second or third base count or only traditional home runs using the baseball analogy) when Penny wakes up and is, just so excited to be here gang! Penny (halfling, rogue), who is one of the girls who has been kidnapped the longest, is adorably and honestly a bit concerningly exuberant to be surrounded by all these new friends, totally disregarding the fact that they are clearly in some deep shit. Zelda mentions that Riz, her old babysitee, knows they’re kidnapped and is trying to help and she lights up.

Next up is Sam (water genasi, sorc/bard) who immediately starts thrashing to get out of her chains and, when she can’t get free, is devastated by the fact that her ex betrayed her (!?) Finally Antiope (human fighter/ranger) wakes up all out of sorts having started her growth spurt while in the crystal and also having needed to pee right before she went in which becomes a problem all over herself (which Sam helpfully cantrips away).

With all of them awake, the stones they’re chained to light up and some of Kalvaxus’ minions (the ones who tied them up) show up to do minion speechifying. Yelle does a horrifying Animorph style morph into a waterbear (a tardigrade if you wanna get all Bio 101) to get out of her bonds but then Sam who has a serious one track mind re: getting out of here (Correct) and has exactly zero patience for these guys casts Tidal Wave and just knocks them off the cliff. Yelle frees Ostentatia who frees everyone else with Animate Object on their chains. Hands free, Yelle also casts Locate Animal and tells a very pleased Katja that Cinnamon is doing a full Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron down the highway searching for her.

The girls decide to explore the cave which has recently had most of its treasure moved (it’s currently in the gym for the Prompocolypse fight which is currently happening). Penny and Sam (who are in insanely different emotional places) find all these broken mirrors which Sam takes as a cue that they need to GTFO (which is what she was already doing) and Penny thinks would make a great material for friendship bracelet making which she starts doing as Sam physically pulls her away. Sam hears someone doing post-cry sniffles and is like, “Not today Satan,” still trying to leave. However, Penny sees that there is one mirror left and, inside, sees a ethereal looking human with flowing, preternatural, black hair who senses their presence and asks if Penny is someone named Anima. She asks for their names though she declines to give hers (hmm, feels very fae) and the girls give the fake names of Kelly and Cecelia which the figure says she will guard and not misuse. The figure says she is looking for her sisters (who she says when Penny asks are at Aguefort which...hmmmmm) and, all of a sudden, Sam and Penny are having a bad feeling about those mirror shards.

They ask her a question about the mirror and she gets really aggro when it’s referred to as “her” mirror as she would very much like to be out of it. The woman really wants to get out and says she can give them lots of power if they help. Sam pulls out her compact Mirror of the Past (magic item that does basically what you’d expect--shows you info from something’s past though in a cryptic way usually) to try and get some info on this thing and just barely avoids losing her mind in the process because this thing is ancient. Like eons old. She also learns the woman’s name (or maybe title): The Ending of Things (will be calling her Ending for now).

Yikes!

Right around now the other girls come in and can see at the angle they’re looking at her at the woman in the mirror is Not Really A Person and Antiope points at her and reflexively casts a ranger sense spell to try and clock its weaknesses and stuff but Ending grabs the spell energy like a lasso and tries to drag her into the mirror. She does however find out that she’s stacked with hella resistances (total immunity to necrotic damage and non-maj weapons, resistance to most elemental damage, and more).

Sam briefly considers using Lightning Lure to pull Antiope back before deciding on a much less ouchy Counterspell. Unfortunately, it’s not strong enough and now she’s being pulled in by her spell energy too. Yelle casts Erupting Earth which has some pros and cons.

Pros: Antiope and Sam are saved! Yay!

Cons: The mirror breaks and whatever was in it is fully freed. Not yay!

Shortly after (but not before Penny gives everyone their new friendship bracelets), someone calls into the cave looking for them--it’s Fig’s mom, Sandra-Lynn (with new art)! She’s happy and impressed that everyone is OK (also, Katja and Sam both have little lines that foreshadow their ~parental issues~ for the season--Katja being very moved by the simple act of Sandra-Lynn showing up for them and Sam saying that in her experience moms can be very evil).

As they all leave the cave, they all do checks and get some info:

Ostentatia: The mirror was kinda like a palimpsest (the crystals they were trapped in) and whatever this thing is is ancient and powerful.

Yelle: Gets the above info and the fact that when the thing left it wasn’t quite a bad vibe, just the vibe that something big and important is at play.

Penny: On an Arcana check she knows that what Danielle did 100% saved Antiope and Sam’s lives from whatever and wherever was on the either side of the mirror but the contact marked them in some way.

Katja: With History she sees some Primordial writing which is the writing of elementals (one of the things Ending has resistances to which might be relevant; also Sam reads Primordial but doesn’t get to read what it says)

Antiope: She knows that she and Sam are connected to Ending now somehow but it’s a two way connection which means they can also use it to their advantage.

Ostentatia casts Mending on the mirror shards which I think was to reconstruct the mirror but what it actually does is someone link their friendship bracelets. Cute!

And, with that, we cut to the present a year and a half later (which is Jr or Sr year for everyone).

We hop from kid to kid as they get ready to head in to school and get glimpses into their homes lives! Let’s do a quick rundown for each girl:

Antiope Jones

We see that Antiope is the youngest of five in what is essentially a military family full of basically every kind of fighter (she says she basically lives in a “Crossfit box”). There’s an 8 year gap between her and her sister Corsica who is the second youngest so her parents are kind of already living like empty nesters. When she comes downstairs she is promptly handed a protein smoothie and told two pieces of info: (1) from Corsica she learns that she overheard at school --where she teaches--that Aguefort needs to talk to her for some reason but she won’t say why which annoys the crap out of Antiope and (2) her parents lined up an internship for her at the Ministry of Adventure. She and her mom verbally spar a bit about them being all up in her life and how stressed she is and how she likes what she has going now with the Seven but her mom wins ofc because she’s a Mom and also a master tactician with a deft hand for loving mom guilt. On the way to school her bros (who include a gunslinger and an eldritch knight cause they run the whole gamut of fighter classes) Facetime her like, “Yikes Ant, heard about what happened with Mom, this is why you don’t fight her lmao.”

Sam Nightingale

This is a heavy one so strap in.

We check in with Sam who isn’t at her own family’s home but at Penelope’s family home which is off the bat eyebrow raising. It’s an upper middle class house and, on the way down, she has to pass Penelope’s bedroom which is conspicuously empty. Downstairs she’s greeted by Penelope’s human mom Rebecca who she learns is moving out soon because her elf husband is both cheating on her while away in Falinel and starting the divorce process. Sam clearly sees Penelope’s mom as a surrogate mom (for reasons we’ll learn in a second) and goes full ride or die assuring her that her ass is better than the ass of the woman he’s cheating with and offering to help burn his stuff even though drowning is more her specialty (she’s so cool). She also is a little stricken at the thought of Rebecca leaving her in the house alone but Rebecca says she can come with if she wants, she just didn’t want to disrupt her school life.

She also tells Rebecca that her bio-mom called recently which immediately sets Sam off. Through the convo we learn a couple of things:

Sam used to be an actor it seems.

And it seems like she was kicked out of the house after she transitioned or something similar which is why she lives with the Everpetals.

Now that it’s more “fashionable” to to be trans (her mom’s words, not mine) she wants Sam to talk to her so they can get her back in the game.

Sam is having none of that and tells Rebecca to just delete her mom’s number. Then they have a cathartic session of burning her cheating husband’s shit before Sam leaves in Sebastian--her sentient, seafoam blue, self-driving car with a very hot male voice which I am extremely jealous of. She picks up Zelda on the way to school and they commiserate a little and have a heart to heart about adults and change and how much Zelda wants to body slam Sam’s mom.

Penny Luckstone

Penny’s house is a whirlwind of activity and her harried parents get her and her 19 young siblings ready for school (no wonder she’s such a good babysitter). We see where Penny gets her type-A ness from as her mom and dad both have this cheerful but overworked energy of “EVERYTHING IS FINE” like that Good Place sign. Her mom spares a second to tell her that she recently got a letter for The Society of Shadows which is like a super secret rogue college (which her parents assume is legit even though they haven’t heard of it cause they’re Mumple people and also, if you've heard of a rogue school, how good could it really be?) Penny is excited except that it would mean she’d have to move and leave her party. Her mom is like “hey it’s a full ride and there are 20 of you guys so just take that into consideration but it’s ultimately your decision” before she dashes away to get to work because it is always Go Go Go with the Luckstones. She texts Sam for a ride and Sam swings by to grab her. This is not plot relevant but she has a booster seat in the back of Sebastian with her name carved into it and it’s important to me that you know that.

Katja Cleaver

Next up is Katja who lives in a Richie Rich style mansion and comes from very old money as she is descended from one of the first adventurers in Solace. She is in the barn with Cinnamon and the bugbear farrier they have employed (her name is Gertrude and a farrier is someone who does horseshoes). She eats the same breakfast as Cinnamon (hot dry oats and berries baybee) wo she loves so so dearly. Cinnamon is a magical horse--basically like a Find Steed spell that’s on all the time. She’s modeled the horse in her fave book series--the Babysitter’s Horse of course. Lockwood, the staff’s hobgoblin butler, is also there and they get a fantasy Zoom call from Katja’s dad who is in the middle of the insane 20th level adventurer stuff which he says might make him miss her graduation. She is extremely disappointed but just barely hides it from her dad (who seems to really care despite his not being around). She can’t hide it from the staff or Cinnamon however and Cinnamon offers to give her a ride to school via the scenic route.

Note: We also learn two sad facts about Katja from the conversation with her dad.

Her mother is Disney Princess dead* and

She wears one half of a friendship necklace and it seems like she’s waiting for someone to give the other half to. It’s implied earlier that the way Penelope got her was by promising to be her best friend. Sad!

*Edit: Well, she’s gone and we’ll leave it at that until next recap.

Ostentatia Wallace

Ostentatia wakes up and goes downstairs to have a very high energy in both directions interaction with her very fantasy-Italian mom and grandma. Her grandma is concerned her beard isn’t coming in--not knowing she shaves it on purpose which her mom is like, “Listen it’s fine but don’t tell grandma it’ll kill her.” She clocks very quickly that her dad isn’t there and his mithril working tools are gone. Her mom tries to play it off but she knows she’s being lied to and her mom relents. Her dad is at a meeting with the other workers of the shut down mithril factory and negotiations have ceased. It looks like he’s gonna be long term out of work. That explains where her dad is but not why the tools are missing. She decides to go do some investigating on her own and ambushes her dad in his car where, with the inaugural nat 20 of the season, she realizes he pawned his tools to get her 5 revivify diamonds. She's upset by this and he’s upset that she’s, in his eyes, questioning his ability to take care of his family. She’s like, alright, you did a thing for me, I’ll do a thing for you and she casts Animate Object to make his stuff steal itself back in a sequence that involves an animated crowbar using another crowbar which is just wild.

Danielle Barkstock

I’m gonna be real, Danielle’s life is exactly how you assume it is based on Who She Is As A Person so this one will be real short. Eco-friendly off the grid geodesic yurt. One super chill peace and love elf sorc mom and one rough and tough human ranger mom. She also knows and helps the Cubbies with their anarchist machinations because yeah, duh. She gets some messages from school on her crystal--one being a message from the principal saying that she and the rest of her party have first period off to meet with him and the other being a newsletter from the school showing, among other things, a photo of the Druid class doing a project but she’s not in it for some reason. She texts one of the other druids to see if she can figure out why she wasn’t invited but fully gets left on read. Brutal. Of course, she hasn’t messaged that person in 6-8 months so maybe that’s why.

Anyway, with that, all seven of our maidens make it to school and are all exuberant to see each other in a very teen girl way before getting to the principal’s office and learning that their party will be broken up at the year!

Bad!

Superlatives

I wanted to do something a little different for these recaps than the Bad Kid ones so instead of Honor Roll/Detention we are doing Superlatives and the inaugural one goes to...

Sam: Most Like To Survive a Horror Movie

Man she woke up chained in a ritual magic circle and she was Ready To Go Immediately. You will not catch this girl doing horror movie victim BS like exploring the spooky house or giving the creepy obvious ghost the time of day. She is hyper-competent and her goal is making it out alive and dragging her friends with her. Love her.

Random Thoughts

The season immediately starts with a bang or I should say a bing with Izzy trying to say “bling bang” and accidentally saying, “bling bing” and immediately getting roasted by everyone. I love the authentic girl group vibes (which include everyone clowning on her then immediately hyping up Zelda to the max after being way more awkward).

Handshake meme with Danielle and Moonshine from Naddpod. Also, Cinnamon and Horse from Centaurworld.

I love that Rekha and Erika just straight up were like, “Our characters are Asian”. Like obviously, make your characters Asian coded in your fantasy world--all my D&D characters are black like me--but it’s funny that they completely disregarded the, “There’s no Asia in this world so I guess they’re this world’s equivalent to--” Nah just, “I’m a half-elf and I’m Asian.” You love to see it.

I absolutely LOVE the choices the cast made to flesh out their characters based on the little info Brennan had about them, none moreso than rich horse girl Katja. Rekha is a genius.

“I only want one thing and he’s working” KATJAAAAAAA

Man if I was in that flashback I would have been wilding out so much with my flashback plot armor.

I appreciate that the first thing that Aabria has Antiope do is extremely uncool. I love it when players aren’t concerned about just being cool and on point all the time. Sometimes (read: often) that’s the less interesting choice.

But on the exact opposite side, she’s a ranger and an arcane archer which I think is extremely cool. Lmao also I didn’t mention in the recap but she HATES dragons now which, understandable. I’m guessing they're her favored enemy.

I can’t wait to see another group of kids interact w/ madman Aguefort.

Also, as a known Aelwyn-stan, I am very excited for the possibility of the Seven interacting with her cause as much as I love her they are under no obligation to acknowledge her redemption arc and I would love to see them throw hands.

I love the Greek myth naming scheme of Antiope’s extremely cool family as with her on the spot nickname “L-Cab” short for long caboose since she’s the youngest by a mile.

Also this is out of character not in character but Sephie is an extremely cool nickname for Persephone.

I wonder why Brennan didn’t let Sam read the Primordial in the cave. He just glossed right past her saying that she speaks it and she didn’t push it. Would it have solved his entire plot in the span of a flashback or was he just keeping things moving?

Sidenote, if I was married to an elf man and worried about aging like Rebecca, I would simply become a druid (or a monk or up my wizard levels so I could learn True Polymorph or Wish or something).

I wonder what the deal with Ending is. She seemed relatively sincere in the mirror but that doesn’t mean anything. She could be sincere and also Very Bad News.

There is an offhand comment by Brennan about how the dwarf forge god gives spells but doesn’t talk to his followers which I think means that Ostentatia is gonna be getting a direct god call soon enough.

Also she mentions that her dad is doing some criminal activity on the side which seems like a Problem for later. Honestly all of the kids have some pretty rich parent drama happening which should be interesting to see explored.

No nat 1s this ep and 1 nat 20 as I mention from Ostentatia.

#dimension 20 #fantasy high #the seven #fantasy high spoilers #dimension 20 spoilers

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lgcmanager · 3 years ago

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MODELING MISSION 012

SCHEDULE TYPE: TRIMESTER ( PART 1 OUT OF 1 ) SCHEDULE RESTRICTIONS: Cannot be paired with another trimester schedule, unless stated otherwise. for reference as to whether your muse is eligible for this event, please click over HERE.

( important note: this will be the first and only part for the model mission! the next part after this will be the year end ceremonies so that will be posted after this mission’s deadline has passed. )

on OCTOBER 10, HEO AECHA has summoned all the CURRENT MODELS, new and old, late in the morning. a smile rests on her face as she greets each of the artists that have come into the room. “ah, new faces! how good it is to see you all!” she notes before shutting the door after the last person has entered. “for our newcomer, i am the head manager of LGC AGENCY, which means i oversee all of you as well as some of our other talents, like our actors. sadly, since i have so many of you to look after, i probably won’t be seeing you all that frequently, but we have NAM JINHO and CHOI INYOUNG to take care of all of you. JINHO will be taking care of the boys while INYOUNG will be taking care of the girls. i noted this last time and i’ll note it again. this arrangement may very well change in the future, but for now, we’ve kept it as is. now, oh, dear me, we have a lot to cover and i’ve already wasted too much time on this intro.”

DORMS

“all of you have been given the option to stay in the dorms or find your own places. those of you confirmed to stay will be able to move into your new dorms starting from today. otherwise, for those of you who have chosen to stay in your own place, you will need to pack up and leave your current dorms starting from today as well. however, i always give the same warning. just because you aren’t under our watch 24/7 anymore does not mean that you can go crazy. if we hear of any inappropriate behavior, you will be immediately brought back to the dorms. please keep all that in mind when you make your decisions,” she looks at the trainees sternly. she is very serious about this point and has zero tolerance for rule breaking.

SNS

“unlike many of the other paths, you models do need a presence on sns. don’t go flaunting about it now to your other colleagues. not everyone is so lucky. so with that said, you are all permitted to have a PUBLIC INDIVIDUAL INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT. but!” she pauses and gives a hard stare at the trainees once more, “your sns account is a privilege, and if you fail to abide by the rules or cause trouble, your account will immediately be terminated.”

DEBUT CONTRACT

“alright, next topic. your contracts. there are new legal matters to cover now that you’re under lgc agency so please take a look to see the new terms and conditions. please sign and return the contract to me as soon as possible. doesn’t have to be now. i do advise that you try to read through it.” ( please note that contracts your modeling debut is right at the corner which means new legal grounds to cover. you will all be handed a that will need to be signed and returned as soon as possible. i’ll let you read over them on your own.”

( this is just an ic note, there is no need to submit this ooc )

FANSITE ( OPEN EVENT 6 )

for the ones that have joined the path, they will be eligible to participate in OPEN EVENT 6, where they can post content for the fansites! more information about this can be found over HERE.

WEEKLY MODEL

“thanks to lgc style’s rising popularity, all of you have been invited to a special year end show called ‘weekly model’! i’m sure many of you have heard of the show ‘weekly idol’ and to celebrate the end of the year, they’ve decided to create specials for it and this one in particular is tailored for the models, specifically all of you. some of your fans want to get to know you better so we thought this would be a fun opportunity to showcase more of your personality in front of the camera.” AECHA explains the show’s concept with a beaming smile on her face.

like mentioned above, WEEKLY MODEL will have similar segments to that of WEEKLY IDOL. the first few minutes will be spent giving a quick introduction to the hosts, SUPER JUNIOR’s EUNHYUK and HWANG KWANGHEE. after that, it will segue to the first segment which is a random dance battle. in this segment, the staff members will play a variety of songs and at least ONE model must dance to the said song ( they can dance to it exactly like the original choreography and/or add their own twist to it ). for every song ( they last about 1 minute each and longer if there are multiple models dancing ), the staff members and host will decide which model was the best based on their personal preference. whoever receives the highest score in this round gets a chance to use the WEEKLY MODEL voucher where they can request a food truck for whatever event the winner is participating in ( however this only applies to any events that happen in korea ). for everyone’s reference, here is the exact order of the songs that were played:

U-GO-GIRL – BLAZING

ROCKING – TEEN TOP

GASHINA – SUNMI

LIKEY – TWICE

LUCIFER – DBSD

WHAT’S HAPPENING – B1A4

SCENTIST - HARU

ROLLIN’ – BRAVE GIRLS

DR. BEBE - PENTAGON

HOW YOU LIKE THAT – FABULA

for the second segment, it’s the ‘profile verification’, where the models will comment on their profile cards with the host to verify or prove the info before them. with this segment, all of the models will be asked beforehand to prepare at least ONE special talent that will be showcased during the show. the talent must be one that can be done in the filming studio!

as for the third and last segment, all of the models will be playing the ’99 seconds relay challenge’ where they must say a korean tongue twister without any mistakes. each model will be given one tongue twister and they must say it correctly in one turn before it is the next model’s turn. if one of the models gets it wrong, they have to start from the very beginning. in between some of the words, each individual is given a cue to do something cute. so if MODEL A is saying a tongue twister, midway through the sentence, they might be given a task to do one variation of the heart gesture. if all of the models say the tongue twisters and follow their instructions correctly in one turn, the staff will pay for their foods and drinks ( that they will have after the show ). the model team only has 3 chances of completing it before it is considered a fail.

due to how much time will be spent filming this special, the episodes will be aired on DECEMBER 14 and DECEMBER 21.

ACTING AUDITION

“later this month, there will be auditions for an upcoming drama that will be released next year. while this is mostly pertaining to the actors, we’d like to extend the invitation to the models in case any of you are interested in acting. for JINYOUNG and JISOO, since both of you are a part of newsies, you will be exempted from this opportunity.”

for this specific opportunity, most of the models will be only allowed to audition for either the SUPPORTING or GUEST roles due to their commitments. in the case of JINSEO and SANGHYUN ( and anyone else who qualifies for the NOTORIETY TIERS by the time the drama details are announced ), you will not be able to do the NOTORIETY TIERS for JANUARY and MARCH. the next time you can do it will be MAY ( and due to both of their previous acting experiences, JINSEO and SANGHYUN can audition for MAIN or LEAD role if they choose to do so ).

the info below is what would have happened on the day of the audition:

when the muse arrives at the audition, one of the judges from the panel ( the director, producer, and writer of the drama ) will be given a scenario where they are being blackmailed by a friend. the other individual tells them that if they don’t follow their demands ( which is to backstab someone that is close to the muse and break their trust ), they will tell everyone about this deep dark secret. will they follow the request so that their secret won’t be revealed or will they go against it and let the secret be known to everyone?

( important note: in the points form, there is a section that says “ROLE”. for that, please look through THIS POST discussing the type of roles and choose one that is applicable to your muse! and as a reminder, if you plan to include or discuss any topics that might be sensitive to others for the audition, please add a trigger warning so that other people will be aware of it! also, feel free to expand further with the hypothetical scenario if it helps you with writing the acting scene since we want an idea of the type of character the muse is portraying and how they would handle a situation like this. )

MODEL BRANDS

“the staff and i have reviewed through your proposals and we’re happy to say that we’ve approved all of the pitches you have given to us! since we’ve completed the basics about the brand as a whole, the next step will be the advertising aspect of it.” AECHA explains what the subsidiary’s plans are for them.

for JISOO, JINYOUNG, TAIYOU, and AHYEON, this is your chance to create your own modeling casting call! similar to what SANGHYUN and JINSEO have done in the past, you will need to fill out the following form and submit it to lgcmanager by OCTOBER 22, 2022 at 11:59PM EDT. this is to give the admin team a bit more time to review through the form!

MUSE NAME ∙ YOUR BRAND - name of the brand: - type of product: - what will they be releasing for this upcoming collection: ( ex. one rose gold unisex watch and one gold watch. you can include the names associated with the product if you want to. ) - which store(s) they can be found: - five keywords: ( this can describe either the product(s) that they will be launching or the brand itself ) - concept of the cf: ( please be detailed as possible. the more detailed you are, the better it is for us to get a better idea of who you are looking for and if there are any aspects of the cf that need to be modified/tailored. if you have specific characters in mind in relation to the product [ ex. elysium having the gods/goddesses and the perfumes that it corresponds with ] do include it in here as well. if there are any aspects that need clarification or missing, the admin team might ask additional questions! ) - other: ( if you have important notes such as gender or age restrictions, make sure to write it here. in terms of models, the maximum that is allowed for the cf is four! )

as for JINSEO and SANGHYUN, since this is a collaboration project between the two they will be given a chance to create two cfs ( one for elysium and one for timebox ). the form below is similar to the one above, but confirm beforehand that the general theme for both of the brands is consistent. once you are done filling out the form, please send it to lgcmanager so that the admin team can review through the details.

MUSE NAME ∙ COLLABORATION PROJECT - name of the brand: - what will they be releasing for this upcoming collection: ( ex. one rose gold unisex watch and one gold watch. you can include the names associated with the product if you want to. ) - five keywords: ( this can describe either the product(s) that they will be launching or the brand itself ) - concept of the cf: ( please be detailed as possible. the more detailed you are, the better it is for us to get a better idea of who you are looking for and if there are any aspects of the cf that need to be modified/tailored. if you have specific characters in mind in relation to the product [ ex. elysium having the gods/goddesses and the perfumes that it corresponds with ] do include it in here as well. if there are any aspects that need clarification or missing, the admin team might ask additional questions! ) - other: ( if you have important notes such as gender or age restrictions, make sure to write it here. in terms of models, the maximum that is allowed for the cf is four! )

YOUTUBE CHANNEL

AECHA explains to the team the next task, “as many of you take on various projects, we’ve decided to give you the option to open your own youtube channel. with your channel, people can get to know you on a more personal level.”

more information about this can be found in this POST.

LGC CAFÉ PERFORMANCES

for this trimester ( Q4 2022 ), all of the models will be eligible to participate in it! you can find out the details over HERE.

REQUIREMENTS

make sure to use the hashtag lgc:modelingmission for weekly model and lgc:castingcall010 for the acting audition. you have until NOVEMBER 19, 2022 11:59 EST, to complete the following requirements

WEEKLY MODEL: write a 4 replies (minimum 8 lines) thread with another model about anything pertaining to the show for +8 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE ANYWHERE and +4 NOTORIETY !

SPECIAL TALENT: write a 300+ word solo about the talent the muse showcases on weekly model for +6 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE ANYWHERE and +3 NOTORIETY !

AUDITION: write a 300+ words solo about the audition for +5 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE ANYWHERE and +3 NOTORIETY !

to validate your skill points and collect your notoriety points, please submit the following form ONCE on the points blog before NOVEMBER 19, 2022 11:59 EST.

MUSE NAME ∙ MODELING MISSION 012 - WEEKLY MODEL: +8 ( skill points distribution ), +4 notoriety [ LINK ] - SPECIAL TALENT: +6 ( skill points distribution ), +3 notoriety [ LINK ] - AUDITION: +5 ( skill points distribution ), +3 notoriety [ LINK ] - ROLE: [ please list the role that your muse auditioned for: main, lead, supporting, guest ]

#lgc:q42022 #lgc:event #lgc:modelmission

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harpersplay · 4 years ago

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The first or second day after I set up this tumblr, I wrote out a tagging policy. One of my points is: I don’t use anti- tags unless posting outright hate. Criticism is not hate. We are all adults here.

I mention this because I've been watching the conversations about tagging in the Good Girls fandom (and fandoms, more broadly) - the most recent one here - and I have thoughts.

Before I start, I want to say that I am going to be explicit. I've seen people complain about being insulted by vague posts or tags (is sub-tumblring a thing like subtweeting?) so I'm going to use specific examples. I do not know these people personally. There isn't any bitterness or ill will. All I know is from what they post or the limited interactions I've had with them. Also everything I will link to is publicly available content as of the time of this post.

To try to keep this somewhat organized, I'm going to address 2 major areas: (1) Tagging etiquette, rules, standards, expectations (2) How insisting on tagging anything not completely positive as anti- stifles certain voices

Despite what some might say, there is no universal fandom tagging standard. For this fandom specifically, there's not even an agreed upon expectation for spoiler tags. You get to set the tagging rules for your own tumblr. Even if your only rule is that you don't tag. And then other people get to decide if they'll engage with you if your tagging rules bother them.

From the posts I referenced at the beginning:

@jade-marie: Does everyone have to tag content that isn’t singing Beth‘s/the show’s praises or are we allowed to make valid criticisms? Are we allowed to say that we didn’t enjoy an episode?

@foxmagpie: What is considered "anti" is a subjective concept, you're right, but I feel like the people who I have seen talk about how the negativity is affecting them have clarified that they do not consider criticisms of the show's handling of serious topics such as race (representation or fetishization) or sexuality to be under the umbrella of "anti." They are important topics and valid criticisms, full stop. There's no argument there. Those criticisms exist in order to push the showrunners to do better.

As you can see both people use the word "valid," but who gets to decide what is valid? And that's the problem with making fandom-wide rules for tagging. Who gets to make them? Who gets to define what is discussion? Criticism? Hate?

So, to bring this back to my intro. Here is what an example of my policy, which I think is reasonable, would look like:

Anti: Annie is a dumb slut with ugly fucking eyebrows. (this is an actual sentiment I've seen multiple times in various different places, btw)

Character Tag: Discussions of Annie's failures as a parent. Analysing why Annie, who clearly loves her child, would bring strangers into their home and create a potentially dangerous situation for that child.

The character/show/episode tag is for talking about that character/show/episode. That does not mean exclusively positive things. And if you cannot handle merely scrolling by something that isn't positive in the way you choose to define it (I think criticism is positive because it allows deeper interaction with a text), then maybe you should not be on the Internet. I'm not trying to be snarky. If seeing even the slightest negative thing upsets you or ruins your day, you need to take a step back, breathe, talk to a friend or therapist, and figure out why you are having such a strong reaction. Truly, this is not snark. I know that I have personally found that digging into why something I come across online or in media prompts a certain reaction is actually a really good way to get to deeper issues. I don't think anyone should feel awful or suffer about fandom. But I also think that ultimately you are responsible for your fandom experience. And you cannot and should not expect people to make allowances for your particular needs and wants.

Now to what I consider the more important point: how insisting there is one proper way to tag, especially when that way requires *all* criticism to be tagged anti-, stifles certain voices. Those being the voices of BIPOC fans.

Again, from the conversation linked at the beginning:

@foxmagpie: People search tags to find things that they like. In that sense, if the fandom starts an anti-tag, that also benefits the people who want to complain. It means they can find each other and anti-content easier, find people who feel the same.

I disagree with the first point. I search tags to find things I am interested in and I don't think I'm some extreme outlier about that usage. As for the rest of the comment, @jade-marie addresses why that's a problem: “A lot of this criticism is coming from POC viewers. So the second they have to start tagging their posts as “anti-Beth” so everyone can blacklist them, they no longer have a voice.”

I agree with that assessment. Some of the sentiment behind anti- tagging feels like it is intended to allow white people to happily keep their blinders on about the issues raised by POC. Because having to confront those issues will make their fandom experience unpleasant. But, you know what? Those issues make life unpleasant for some of us. We don't get to turn it off. We don't get to escape. And, honestly, that is why I don't anti- tag criticism. I want people to see it. I do. Most Western media - shit, most of the Western world - is constructed for the comfort of white people. I refuse to participate in upholding that construction. I've reblogged many many posts that address navigating fandom as a BIPOC. I have to say asking people to use anti- tags feels like being policed. Because it feels like I'm not allowed to say what I want to say unless I say it in a certain way. There are lots of issues with the show and people should be made aware of them.

And now I'm going to use a very specific example of a POC voice (mine!) trying to navigate this fandom: Boland Bubbles and it's gross cultural appropriation (PLEASE re-read my 3rd paragraph before continuing. This is explicit for the sake of clarity, not to start shit). I did not yet have a tumblr when I sent this anon ask because that tumblr had shown a willingness to engage in discussions like this before: “The theme of the Grand Opening of Boland Bubbles, and please let it just be just for the grand opening and not the permanent decor, is cultural appropriation. The fact that no one is talking about it is upsetting. For anyone curious, there is plenty of material ranging from scholarly journal articles to blog posts about the especially insidious nature of this appropriation given the U.S.'s colonial and imperialist relationship with Hawaiʻi.”

In her reply, she said, "I also think the best way to see a conversation you want to see is to start it!"

And that's true. But my point was that I had not seen (up to that point on IG, Twitter, or Tumblr) anyone talking about it. Why is that important?

In the conversation linked at the beginning, she says: “Scrolling past is an option, of course it is. But the reason that’s so difficult right now is that we’re in a live season and there is an abundance of posts happening at key moments—during a new episode, when trailers drop, or when promo photos are released. Scrolling past isn’t quite an option when it’s 90% of my feed, which is again why I personally expressed that I might disengage.”

So, a trailer drops. A trailer featuring blatant cultural appropriation. I go to Tumblr to look thru the tag and what do I see? Post after post after post about how pretty Beth looks with the flower behind her ear. And the gifs and the edits. People had time to process the trailer and no one saw anything wrong with it. So I said something. Because my fandom experience was being unable to scroll past 100% of the tag ignoring something very serious. And then another anon brought up Beth's comment about cultural appropriation in 2x10. Really? In that same scene Beth says that Africa - the entire continent - didn't have gluten issues, which is beyond ignorant.

(not so quick aside: No, Beth does not have to be perfect. No, Beth can make shitty comments & choices just like dumb male characters have done since the invention of the dramatic arts. No one is saying that. Or rather, no one that I've seen and engaged with says that. But even a criticism about Boland Bubbles turns into a defence of Beth. Why? Why the instinctive need to make sure every possible criticism related to Beth is countered? Why especially when Beth's glaring white feminism is a problem for a lot of the BIPOC audience.)

Ok, then the episode airs and I express my dismay about the cultural appropriation of the "One Night in Bangkok" event. It got 4 notes. I guess people weren't interested in the discussion after all. But an anon brings it up with @pynkhues. And she makes a distinction between Boland Bubbles and the event, which allows for Beth to be seen in a positive way. I responded to her post with why they were both cultural appropriation. And, despite her and some other anons previously saying that discussions about cultural appropration were something they would welcome, crickets. And it's hard not to think that's because my criticism is centered on Beth. Maybe not? Again, that's just what it feels like when any Beth criticism is met with claims of misogyny. There is nothing remotely misogynistic in either post I made.

So how does this fit into anti- tagging? My posts were ignored even though they were in the general show tag. Now imagine I had tagged my very valid criticism as anti-. Then people wouldn't even had needed to scroll by to ignore it. And what does that say to me as a POC fan? That my concerns don't matter. That is a distinctly unpleasant fandom experience.

For a good intro about racism in fandoms, please check out this tumblr: @fandomshatepeopleofcolor

#nbc good girls #good girls nbc #fandom #tagging #media criticism

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maskved · 4 years ago

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hello, besties ! this is ami (she/her) and i’m probably late with this intro ! first i’m sorry for mass-liking every post but i’m already in love with all your lovely muses. also i must confess that i’ve only read the first book ( years ago ) and watched the show because i have an attention span of - 10 seconds. but at least i’m a soc hoe, so we can scream about that ... please ... !!! so if i get anything wrong pls let me know or you can also not let me know and i’ll continue being embarrassing 😔. anyway, if you are interested in some juicy plotting pls LIKE this post or message me ( if you want to plot on discord we can also do that 💖). I’M EXCITED.

PINTEREST . discor*d six of hoes🔪#7888 // YEVA

[ viktoriya zobova ], an [ twenty six ] year old grisha in the little palace. she is a [ tailor ] and are known in the little palace as the [ viscerotonic ]. they are known to be [ resilient ] and [ elusive ] and vaguely resemble [ kristine froseth ].

death tw

- viktoriya zobova ( however, prefers to be called vika because every time one calls her by her full name she might as well be in trouble ) had never been more than average. born to average parents ( although grisha their powers pale compared to others ) into an average family and of course as the middle child, vika strived for more than simply being overlooked.

- truth to be told, she dreaded to be tested. to her it seemed like the final reminder that she was nothing special, average, merely an extra to someone other’s story. she even wished, she wouldn’t be a grisha, fearing that like her parents she’d belong to the lower ranks. however, if she turned out to be a simple human without any power, at least she’d be special within her family or could even try to make a story up that she was adopted or something ( i hate her -- ).

- however, the moment she found out about being able to alter people’s appearances with her ability *atla vc* everything changed -

- truth to be told she knew she was considered to be lower rank among others but what really fueled her arrogance and the sudden feeling of self importance was her knowing that she possessed a rare ability. she didn’t care others treating her badly for her rank because “hey i can alter appearances and that is lit ( she probably didn’t say it that way - )

- ALSO ( here comes the moment i throw in my found family trope bcs i’m a soc hoe and this actually plays a big role in her story ) she’d found comfort in the friends she met.

- (lemme add my childhood friends trope bcs why not ) as vika was never close to her parents ( to be fair her being taken away for the training at such a young age did not really gave her the time to really bond with her family ) her little group of friends became her second family. they called themselves “blood is thicker water” ( gang ???) bcs 1) vika really thought the saying was blood is thicker water and not blood is thicker than water 2) they thought they were incredibly funny.

- they were pretty much known as troublemakers, especially with vika being a tailor it was easy to sometimes shift the blame on others. truth to be told, it only caused vika to be more frivolous. all the fun they had blinded her judgment and she viewed her ability as harmless.

- well, lets say vika becoming more reckless did not end up being the best character development (lmao). as usual , everything started out as a harmless joke. her friend asked her to change his appearance. however, this time they wanted her to change their whole face. not just the colour of their hair or eyes. vika was reluctant at first, she’d never done it before but in the end she agreed to it and much to her surprise she succeeded. she even bragged about it and told her friends ( of the bloody “blood is thicker water” gang (???) ) .

- to cut a long story short, their friend ended up dying because of it. i have two versions for their death ( i haven’t decided on it yet *clown emoji*)

1) the person they changed their appearance into apparantly was involed in some shady stuff and had some pretty morally questionable people around him. they thought vika’s friends was that person they were looking for (bcs of the changed appearance) and killed them for some reason.

2) vika’s friend was supposed to be part of some mission they didn’t want to go to, thus changed their appearance to escape from it. however, ended up having to do another mission and ended up being killed.

RIP nameless but vital character to vika’s bio

- vika pretty much blamed herself for it and maybe her friends of their friend group as well. this incident also ‘humbled’ vika and now instead of being proud of it she hates it.

- right now, she doesn’t really know what to do with her future. she has this ‘oh so grand’ plan that one day she might be able to change her appearance (permanently) and then leave the little palace and live under a new name and lead a life where she wouldn’t need to use her abilities anymore.

personality ( i’m trying to keep it short i swear, i’m just adding a bunch of sentence here bcs i’m throwing all my ideas into this paragraph)

- she’s known to be pretty social. she loves to talk and honestly doesn’t know when to shut up. she can’t deal with silence because it forces her to think about things she doesn’t want to think about. although, her tongue is sharp and trouble seems to follow her, she also loves to dance around the issue, pushing her feelings away and replacing it with a witty joke instead. as if everyone does it the same way, as if everyone is supposed to understand.

headcanons

- although she was tempted to change her own appearance many times. she never did because she is a coward and doesn’t trust her skills as much others might think she does.

- she views her ability as a form of art, perhaps that is also the reason she used to love to paint. honestly, she was never really good at it. average and above average with practice. her friend ( the dead one lmao ) used to paint with her whenever they could sneak away but with them gone, she doesn’t see a point in it anymore.

- she secretly envies the other grisha’s who can use their ability to fight. recently, she’d find herself trying to practice some punches so she doesn’t feel that useless in case of a dangerous situation. she also sucks at that so she’s probably in need of a training patner aka someone who is willing to train her or she has annoyed that much that they were willing to help her out ( wc ???)

- being personally trained by the darkling, one might assume that she’s loyal or even thankful towards the darkling. however, contrary is the case and she wouldn’t even grant him a dust particle of her trust. she doesn’t believe that he has the best interest of anyone in his heart and if she could, she’d probably spread rumors about him and telling others that he has some serious case of stanky breath.

wanted connections ( just some ideas, which can be changed ofc ! or some wcs can be connected )

(0/3) “blood is thicker water” friend group : they pretty much grew up together. the death of their friend ( the friend needs a name - i swear...) caused tension within the group. while, one might have blamed vika for their death the other doesn’t and just wants them to be how they used to be. nevertheless, no one can deny that nothing was what it used to be). (( honestly these are just some ideas and we can plot wtv sddm )

training partner ( can be more than one ): connection mentioned in the hcs ! they help her a little out to become physically fit and level up her combat skills of -10. maybe they want something in return for it. help her out bcs they’re just nice or bcs vika annoyed the heck out of them etc.

person vika changed their friend’s appearance into: honestly we can do wtv with it. i just thought it’d be fun to play with the idea and having the person running around when they actually “died” and everyone belieed them to be dead until they found out that it was vika’s friend. might be angsty bcs it might remind vika of their friend.

angsty exes: listen, i love some angsty shit and i love to blame vika for all the problems. they might have dated before the whole dead friend fiasco happened. although, viktoriya acted as if she was fine after the incident ( which she wasn’t ),it only made muse a realize that vika and them weren’t as close as they believed and how much vika tied to hide from them. BUT tbh anything would work i love a good angsty ex connection djddnd

random idea but i just liked the thought that this person once went to vika for some enhancing stuff. however, this day vika was not really herself, distracted, head in the clouds. so she accidenally might have gotten rid of some important scar or something.

enemies : lbr, vika might prbly be the type who has some enemies. she has no filter and might has stepped on someone toes because of it. (Also maybe gimme some enemies to lovers trope , adding this here quietly to not expose myself as a hoe for that trope )

HONESTLY GIVE ME EVERYTHING, gimme angst, fluff, tropes !!??? more friends, unusual friends, shippy stuff, platonic stuff, family connections djdsd GIMME

#this got super long sddsn i'm sorry #she's super dumb thats her story just being dump #also i'm not ignoring my ims i will answer them asap !!!#ravkahq:intro #not me having to reedit the edit bcs i misspelled her surname *clown emoji*

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flipflap-flipflap · 4 years ago

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[Alright take-two on this damn post. First one got eaten by post editor right as I was ready to post. You see how long this is? Save to drafts, kids.]

I’m here to shove a manga on you: Ookami Shounen Wa Kyou Mo Uso O Kasaneru (The Boy Who Cried Wolf Also Told a Lie Today). It’s a gender bending romance. Despite how awful that probably sounds, it’s actually really fucking good and I do not say that lightly.

(No spoilers, this is all in the first chapter) A high school boy insecure about his intimidating face, Itsuki, has fallen for a shy loner girl, Tokujira, who does not seem specifically phased by his naturally scary face. So he takes a risk and confesses, but she turns him down brutally. Itsuki goes to his sister to lament his insecurities about his face, which he (more or less correctly) attributes as why he can’t make connections. To give him a new perspective on his appearance, his sister (trans btw) gives him a makeover while he’s sleeping and then kicks him to the curb of her salon - fully crossdressed. On his way home, Itsuki (♀) ends up bumping into Tokujira, and she mistakes him for a boyish girl. Under this misunderstanding, she asks "her” for a favor...

She has androphobia, and she has it bad. So much so she can’t even look at men without snapping violently or becoming physically ill. And Itsuki (♀) is just boyish enough to trigger her, but not enough to lock her down. So she asks for “her” help, to see if she can desensitize herself to her phobia. Itsuki’s in a bind for a couple obvious reasons, not the least being the guilt of deceiving Tokujira. But nonetheless, he genuinely wants to help her. So, he decides to continue crossdressing, diving into a lie that he soon finds he has no easy exit from.

I really recommend this manga. I cannot say that enough times. It is phenomenal, shattering tropes left and right in fun and interesting ways. Do yourself a favor and give this manga a try.

Personal feelings and meta analysis below the cut. It’s, uh, ungodly long, and will get very spoilery. But I will flag spoilers. And there will be pretty pictures?

(Also, no, I did not go into this planning to compare a manga about crossdressing to the abolitionist writings of Frederick Douglass, but reality deserves to be a bit absurd sometimes.)

Before you think I’m getting spoilery, with the intro I gave or anything I don’t mark as spoilers, I’m really not. Everything outside of spoilers is right on the package at the start. It sounds like I’m spoiling late-game stuff, right? That’s something that was really fantastic to me: this manga doesn’t spoon feed you. There’s no arcs of pure silent angst, even at the lowest point in the story. These kids are smart, they think and intuit on the spot, and they share what they’re feeling with each other like good friends do. Like that next panel down there with Itsuki introspecting about his confidence level while crossdressing? That’s from the first chapter! These kids are smart. And god damn that is so nice to see.

There was a lot I liked about this manga, but at the top is how compelling the protagonist and his internal conflict are. Right from the first chapter he’s already wracked with guilt about what he’s about to do: deceive this girl by pretending to be a safe space. But Tokujira told Itsuki (♀) she hopes to one day be able to fall in love, and Itsuki wants to ensure she can have that - even if it’s not him that gets to confess to her. He’s fully aware of exactly how fucked up what he’s doing is, and is appropriately beating himself up over it in a really realistic way. But although the guilt never fades, it slowly gains company in happiness. He enjoys this new, fragile life he has constructed around the two precious new friends he's made as a girl.

It was probably easy to gloss over in the synopsis, but arguably the biggest part of Itsuki (♂)’s conflict is his complex about his face. He looks dangerous, and because of that he is afraid to even lift his head or smile in front of others. But as Itsuki (♀), he smiles and laughs without fear. It becomes immediately clear to him on the first day that he's a more confident person while crossdressing. Happier in a way he can't be as a man.

Botan is easily my favorite character in the series. She’s introduced early on, as Tokujira’s first and only friend before Itsuki (♀). At the start she’s a dangerous third wheel, a serious threat to Itsuki’s ability to keep up his lie. And though the situation is (thankfully) defused rather quickly, she becomes a massive source of internal conflict for Itsuki. Nonetheless, she becomes a dear friend for both Itsuki ♂ and ♀. She’s just so...*chef’s kiss*

^This face is the repository of all my love and affection.

Mark my words, this is the first and I assume last time I will ever say this: love triangle good. You know it’s inevitable in a romance genre piece, but this manga approaches the trope in a new and compelling way. [Spoiler] Needless to say, it’s between Itsuki, Tokujira, and Botan. But...there’s two Itsukis involved, ♂ and ♀, and in the center of it all is this lie. His lie stops being about him: it's about not hurting these two girls he cares so much about. [/Spoiler]

On a more personal note, I saw so much of myself in Itsuki’s older sister, Ibuki. She runs a salon, catering especially to crossdressers and transwomen. She’s a self-described “Youthling”, an alien from the planet Youth, obsessed with observing the exciting and turbulent lives of the youths of earth. For more or less for the same reasons most of us do: transpeople don’t tend to get the youths we want, if we allow ourselves to experience youth at all. So it’s nice to be able to enjoy it vicariously, through this younger generation that is able to more fearlessly pursue the lives we couldn't.

^Incidentally, one of my favorite interactions in the manga.

Despite getting Itsuki into this crossdressing mess, she’s someone he can always return to and confide in, and get good, helpful advice from. Her whole philosophy is to give young people agency to explore their identities and find themselves, and though she tells Itsuki the road he's taking is dangerous as soon as she learns what he's doing, she'll always support him however she can.

That, I feel, is what separates her from other, more creepy/pedophilic enabler types, like Sawako from K-On! or Lucoa from Dragon Maid. It’s a refreshingly honest and respectful portrayal of a quirky adult just trying to be a good older sister.

The last thing I want to say, and I’m not going to even mark this as a spoiler because of course it’s going to happen and if you can’t predict that then you’re not my problem, is that Itsuki of course eventually has to drop his lie. All I’ll say about it is that it is probably going to live in my head for years. Everything about it, the lead up, the execution, the fallout, and the recovery, are all so masterfully crafted for maximum emotional impact.

That’s all I want to say exclusively about my personal feelings. On to analysis. There will be a lot more contextual spoilers here that, even without reading the parts I’ve specially blocked off will probably leak through. Read at your own risk, but I would recommend revisiting after you have finished the manga.

One thing I really want to talk about is language. That’s right, I’m going to compare a crossdressing manga to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, the autobiography of a freed slave turned abolitionist. Douglass talks about a concept that has remained imprinted on my mind ever since I first read it: how and why slaves struggled to comprehend the concept of freedom. This wasn’t anything to do with fear or “racial inferiority” like pro-slavers would argue, but rather with a lack of vocabulary. They have all of these feelings and things they know to be true, but lack the words to make meaningful sense of them. For Douglass specifically, his life completely changed when he learned the word “abolition.” It was like a floodgate burst, as he was suddenly able to put meaning to feeling, create context from chaos.

And that’s right, we see that happen in a big way, with Tokujira. This should be an obvious development, but as it happens late in the manga I will mark it [Spoiler]. As Tokujira and Itsuki (♀) practice things like talking, eye contact, holding hands, etc., Tokujira naturally starts to fall for Itsuki (♀). But she doesn’t understand that. An important part of her character is that, growing up, she focused on expanding her vocabulary as much as humanly possible in the hopes of being able to better articulate herself. So words are very important to her. It’s not until she sees a work of lesbian fiction on display that she finally realizes that’s the word she’s looking for. The floodgate bursts, and all of her emotions suddenly make sense. She realizes she loves Itsuki (♀). [/Spoiler]

And I think that is a vital and underexplored concept when discussing LGBT youth, especially in countries where even knowledge of these concepts is taboo. The reason so many LGBT youth struggle with their identities, especially trans youth, is because we do not have the vocabulary to conceptualize our feelings. I am always excited to see this concept play out, especially in this context. It’s such an important thing that needs to be addressed more broadly.

Moving on, I want to talk about historical context of the genre as it relates to what the author did here. Notably, I want to talk about a specific trope rampant in Japanese queer fiction, specifically early lesbian fiction: the idea that queerdom is a meaningless, youthful phase that children will naturally and inevitably grow out of. It’s problematic for obvious reasons.

[HELLA HELLA SPOILERS] My kneejerk reaction to the ending of this manga was that the author fell into this trope. In the end, Itsuki comes to the conclusion that he does not need to crossdress. So again, kneejerk. But...it really wasn’t like that. He never had any dysphoria; crossdressing was always just a necessity of his circumstance. Nonetheless he learned to analyze and value his experience crossdressing as a woman, and because of that grew as a man. And as part of his journey to understand his identity we, through him, see why some people crossdress. Along with his example, we see why his sister, a bona fide post-op transsexual, has made it a permanent change to her life. Likewise, we see Miyama, who crossdresses purely for the gender euphoria, but has no (stated) interest in going all the way. These are all presented as valid and meaningful. [/Spoiler]

Crossdressing, and gender nonconformity in general, is portrayed not as some one-dimensional fetish like cultural taboo would depict it to be, but rather a meaningful exercise for exploring and critically analyzing your own identity. For some, yes, it’s a phase, but an importantly transformative one when done right. While for others, it is a gateway to a new way of experiencing and enjoying life. Or, it’s fun just for the pragmatic reasons...

I honestly cannot recommend this manga enough. Tragically, I cannot imagine it ever getting an official english translation, so you’ll have to settle for a scanlation like the one I linked in the title up top (and here, again). It’s a really good translation, though the site is predictably sketchy. Warning for lots of NSFW ads.

Read it, and then come talk to me about it!!! There is basically zero fan community and I need to fangirl with someone!

#long post #and I mean REALLY long post #Ookami Shounen Wa Kyou Mo Uso O Kasaneru #The Boy Who Cried Wolf Also Told a Lie Today #the boy who cried wolf tells a lie today also #analysis

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actualbird · 5 years ago

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nobody asked but here are my personal top five pat gill videos | a 2.1k word long post where i rank and review pat gill’s videos for just way too long.

Right around the tail end of April, 2020, I fell into the rabbit hole of my current obsession; Polygon Dot Com Video Content. As a consequence of this was being introduced to the phenomenon of Pat Gill. A dire consequence of that consequence was me slowly, deeply, irrevocably, finding myself attracted to this marionette of a man. So, I enjoy his content and I think he’s hot and that combined with the fact that some of my friends bully me over that latter fact has inspired me to do this: rank my personal favorite Pat Gill videos in a post that’s entirely too long.

Before I get straight into the rankings, I need to explain my process.

First, I needed to narrow my scope. Polygon has a lot of videos. Polygon has a lot of videos with Pat Gill in them. If I didn’t narrow my scope, I would either go bonkers yonkers or have a list that would be kilometric in length and thus miss the entire point of ranking altogether. So, for my sanity, I am excluding any videos that are a part of a Polygon video series. This means no Overboard, no Gill and Gilbert, no Video Game Theatre, etc. If I included these, I would cry. I do not want to cry over Polygon Dot Com Video Producer Pat Gill.

Second, I need a criteria. If I just ranked videos with no system, I would find myself endlessly rearranging my list based on whatever thought comes out on top in my mind at the given moment. I am a disorganized person, so I need rules. I have decided that I will rank Pat Gill videos using the EEEH criteria.

Entertainment. Do I smile, watching the video? Do I chortle? Am I filled with the embarrassing urge to show this video to my sister and derive glee from her laughing at the exact same moment I laughed? Entertainment is key.

Education. Did I come out of this video knowing something I originally did not know? More importantly, was I engaged in the learning process? I come from a family of teachers, so I have high standards when it comes to education. If I am to learn, I must learn well.

Exaltation. This is a bit of an oddball criteria, but it is important to me. The word “exalted” is defined as “elevated in rank, character, or status.” This criteria refers to how good it is at exalting, elevating, pulling me out of a depressive episode. That is to say I’ve been in a depressive episode for the past month and whether or not the video made me stop crying and brush my teeth is essential. Polygon video content has been integral to my serotonin production lately, and thus the video’s ability of acting as an audiovisual antidepressant for me factors into the rankings.

[BONUS POINTS] Hotness. How Hot Is Pat Gill In It? I felt bad, morally, ranking videos based on how good looking I thought Pat Gill was in it---because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and all that, and people don’t exist to be beautiful, they just are, and I agree---so I’m relegating this criteria as a bonus point. Standard is 0, because he’s always hot in my mind, but he gets plus points if he is exemplary in the hotness department.

The maximum score for each of these criteria is 5 points, making the perfect score a 15, but because of the bonus points, a 20 is, hypothetically, possible.

With that out of the way, let me dive right into it.

5. The fastest interview ever with Ben Schwartz from Sonic the Hedgehog

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Entertainment: 5 Education: 2 Exaltation: 2 Hotness: +2 Total Score: 11

Pat Gill is a good interviewer, he’s engaging and fun and keeps the interview interesting, but this interview is particularly special because it seems that, and let me quote Youtube user AudreyN who left a comment on this video stating “ben schwartz consumed all seven chaos emeralds prior to this interview.” Pat Gill and Ben Schwartz’s dynamic is amazing, and by “dynamic” I do mean “Ben Schwartz absolutely just fucking dunking on Pat Gill for 14 entire minutes.” and it is glorious.

For Entertainment this scores a solid 5. Quite honestly the funniest interview I’ve ever watched in my entire life. Just the sheer beauty in the exchange [Pat] “You would use Sonic’s power to gaslight me?” [Ben] “Just you.” In terms of Education, I guess I did learn a bunch of things about the Sonic movie that I didn’t know before, but the avenue by which it was portrayed in was not exactly the most engaging, more like I was absorbing it via watching two experts discuss on a webinar. I would have given just 1 point to Education but I made it 2 because of the wonderful knowledge that Pat Gill can draw a pretty good Sonic in a few seconds. When it comes to Exaltation, I must admit that while this video got quite a few laughs out of me, it didn’t make me want to get out of bed and take a shower.

BONUS: Pat is +2 hot in it. His short hair makes him look very handsome. He’s a spiffy boy, in this video. Very, very good.

4. Pat Will Not Tweet at Nintendo This Week Because He is Resting at Home — PLEASE RETWEET, Episode 12

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Entertainment: 5 Education: 0 Exaltation: 5 Hotness: +1 Total Score: 11

I know I’m breaking a rule I set for myself a few paragraphs earlier by including an episode of Please Retweet, which counts as a video series, but this is my post and I can do whatever I want. More importantly, this video is so fucking funny to me, it feels like it would be a crime not to put it in this list.

Solid 5 out of 5 for entertainment. Pat Gill, alone in his apartment, drinking six cans of what I think is beer silently while the intro music plays. That scene in itself should win an Oscar. Sadly, a solid 0 for Education, because I learn nothing in this video except for the fact that Pat Gill is the type of person to put out a coaster and then just completely not use it. I quantify things as educational if I can maybe answer a trivia question with them, and unfortunately, this fact does not pass that test. In terms of Exaltation, seeing Pat Gill lie down on the floor next to his cat made me get out of bed to do the same with my dog, and with myself thusly out of my bed cocoon of sadness, I was able to actually complete tasks on the day I watched this video. Perfect 5.

BONUS: Pat is +1 hot in this because there’s something very beautiful about him being a little bit miserable. However, I do miss his beard when I watch this video. It is one of my favorite things about him, and it is not present here.

3. Pat and Simone Play Human: Fall Flat

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Entertainment: 5 Education: 1 Exaltation: 5 Hotness: 0 Total Score: 11

I very much enjoy Polygon’s gameplay streams. I often play them in the background while I’m doing other stuff like doodling or origami, but this stream is special. It is special because of the moment at 24:00 when Pat Gill, in game, swings a stereo into a glass window, shattering it, while saying, “Actually, y’know what? Let’s talk about trauma.” and then proceeds to tell a horrible and embarrassing story from his childhood where he had to do a rap about Ancient Egypt.

5 points for Entertainment. This is partly because of Pat’s tragic childhood story about the Egypt Rap (and, segue just to point out 33:22 the incredible moment where you can hear Pat’s feral panic when Simone finds the lyrics to the Egypt Rap) but also because Pat and Simone just talking to each other is so deeply entertaining to me in a very comfy way. I’m starved for human interaction, in this quarantime, okay. Let me enjoy listening to other people have conversations while playing video games. Education scores a 1 because, again, nothing in this video will let me answer a trivia question, however it does get 1 point and not a 0 because the Egypt Rap’s lyrics are in the comments and I did end up learning stuff about Ancient Egypt that I didn’t know. A perfect 5 for Exaltation because this video showed me that talking about trauma can actually be cathartic, given that you’re trashing a video game living room at the same time, and I think that message of not bottling up your experiences really helped me, in these trying times.

BONUS: Pat Gill is not visible for the entirety of this episode, so he scores the standard 0. I’m sure he was hot. We just couldn’t see him.

2. Why Bloodborne and Muppets are the same thing

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Entertainment: 4 Education: 4 Exaltation: 3 Hotness: +2 Total Score: 12

Ah yes, one of Pat’s “x is y because of z” videos. He’s made a number of these and they’re all very good but this one is my favorite among them and earns a spot on this list because 1) I think puppets are cool and 2) I fucking love monsters.

This video scores a 4 on Entertainment, just shy of perfect, because as funny as it is, it also gives me the vibe like I am being lectured by a professor who’s just a little bit off the shits. And we all know that lectures are supposed to be taken seriously. Which brings us to Education, which also scores a 4. I learned a lot in this video! Watching Pat Gill explain to me that children’s puppets and these horrifying viddy game monsters use the same character principles in different ways is not only very educational but is also explained in a streamline and easy to understand manner that I WISH some of the shitty professors at my old university could emulate. As for Exaltation, while this video did give me enough energy to have a meal, I did eventually end up back in bed for the night at 8pm crying myself to sleep, thinking “I’m like the slime scholar. Used to be a scholar. Now they’re slime.”

BONUS: Pat Gill is +2 hot here. He’s rockin that basic ass monochromatic aesthetic and I love his look dearly.

1. Preparing for Big Boy Season in Red Dead Redemption 2

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Entertainment: 5 Education: 3 Exaltation: 5 Hotness: +3 Total Score: 16

Here we are. My favorite non video series Pat Gill video. The video where Pat Gill tries to make Red Dead Redemption 2 protagonist, Arthur Morgan, large.

Perfect fucking 5 for Entertainment, which I’m sure many may find odd. Afterall, this video is told in a serious investigative tone reminiscent of Vox’s videos on current issues. But that’s the glory of it. The complete and utter ‘playing it straight and serious’ for a ridiculous issue in a video game. It is high tier comedy in a subtle, understated way that sings to my comedy loving heart in a melody so lovely, so wonderful, that it urged me to give this video 5 points for Entertainment. It scores 3 on Education, because I have never played Red Dead Redemption 2, nor will I ever, but now I know things about it. The information was also relayed to me in a very interesting style, via something like a crime procedural, and thus it was engaging for me to absorb all this new knowledge. Exaltation scores a perfect 5 because of this video’s beautiful end about existential smallness. No joke, but hearing Pat Gill say “Our bigness isn’t measured in pounds, but in the impact we have on the people with whom we shared the world.” deadass made me want to talk to my friends again after conversationally isolating myself for 3 days. Preparing for Big Boy Season has a special place in my heart. And there it will stay.

BONUS: Pat Gill is not visible for most of the video but he does appear for like 15 seconds in the middle of it, and guess what. He’s hot. +3 hotness. Good beardage, good hair, all in all, good Pat Gill.

So there you have it. My five favorite Pat Gill videos. If you read this whole thing, holy shit. You’re welcome, I guess.

#this is what im using my degree in creative writing for i guess #polygon #pat gill #pat gill thirst jail #patrick gill #nobody asked but

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glimmerglanger · 5 years ago

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AUgust - Oh, Worm (p1)

Written for AUgust (Day 2: College). So, I saw that “College” was my prompt for the day and, uh, I may have recalled the “Oh,Worm” verse and anyway, here we are. Obikin, intro to sugar daddies. (Sugar Daddy 101?)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The thing was, Obi-Wan tried to take down the profile that he had - allegedly - made the night before as soon as he realized what had happened. He really had. He’d scrambled to pull his phone out from the time Bant asked him if he’d had any hits yet on his profile.

That had been before he’d even seen the photos on the app; he definitely hadn’t managed to take a picture of himself at that angle, no matter what Bant said, or how innocent she tried to look with her huge eyes.

He’d absently thrown something at her, whatever was within reach on the desk. It would later turn out to be his notes for a paper he’d been working on for nearly two months, but that was neither here nor there. She’d ignored the scattered paper and said, “Obi-Wan, wait, listen, did you even look to see if anyone swiped on you?”

“No one’s going to swipe on me,” he snapped back, glaring down at his phone screen and feeling his teeth click shut even as a blush spread up his cheeks.

“Well?” she asked, her tone soothing. “What’ve you got?”

Obi-Wan stared at his phone, feeling something like horror and something like shamed embarrassment making a home in his chest. “A date,” he said, carefully, “I suppose. Tonight. If I want it.”

The app that Bant had so kindly signed him up for was not a dating service, precisely. Or, rather, it was, Obi-Wan supposed. It was just a dating service that allowed for, well. The exchange of goods or services.

“I’m a biology professor,” Obi-Wan complained, later, as Bant was going through his closet. “I have my PhD. Now you want me to - to sell my body.”

“It’s more renting it,” Bant said, absently, ignoring Obi-Wan’s goran of misery and the thonk of his head against the wall. She poked her head out of the closet. “Oh, stop it. It’s not like that. You’re just going to offer some… companionship. It’s all perfectly above board. You don’t actually have to…” She made a complicated motion with her hands, which brought a flush of red to his ears.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Obi-Wan said, crossing his arms. He had an afternoon lecture in less than two hours. He couldn’t just keep standing in his room, trying to find clothing appropriate to…. What he was possibly going to do.

“You did last night,” Bant said. “You agreed with me. Come on, Obi-Wan. This may be the only way to get funding for your study on platyhelminthes.” Obi-Wan cast her a baleful look. The state of their department’s finances was a constant source of dread, one he didn’t particularly want to consider.

She only raised an eyebrow at him, her recently shaved head all pink from the sun she’d gotten as she pointed at him. “Now, come on, tell me some more about your sugar daddy.”

Obi-Wan groaned. “Please,” he said, “don’t call him that.”

Bant shrugged, turning back to his closet. “I’m just calling him what he is. What did you say his name was? Skywalker?”

Anakin Skywalker had… requested that Obi-Wan accompany him out to some kind of gala. According to some quick online snooping, Skywalker was some kind of extreme sports junkie; apparently he flew very fast planes and had made a name by designing a proprietary type of fuel injector and….

In all honesty, Obi-Wan barely remembered to change his car’s oil on time. He got lost in the technical jargon and set aside the computer. Apparently, the fuel injector had become very popular. Skywalker had made a small fortune off of it and then made that fortune bigger by redesigning some kind of flight controls.

All of that had led to some kind of awards dinner. One that, apparently, Skywalker had been unable to find a date to on his own.

And so he had, well, not quite hired Obi-Wan. Just… retained his services. With the understanding that, in return, Obi-Wan might get some sort of, well, financial compensation.

“What if someone in the department finds out?” Obi-Wan asked, sitting on the edge of his bed and staring at the floor. Bant had laid out clothes that she insisted brought out his eyes. Based on the pictures she’d posted, he rather doubted that Skywalker was interested in his eyes. They hadn’t really been the focus of her selected shots.

“That you went on a date?” Bant asked, absently twirling around in his little desk chair. Obi-Wan glared at her. “You’re allowed to do that. Tenure track doesn’t prevent dating.”

“No.” He scowled. “What if they find out I’m a… a… what did you call it?”

“A sugar baby,” she said, breezily, and he winced. She shrugged. “I don’t see why they would.”

“Wonderful,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Excellent. I’ll just get ready then, shall I?”

Obi-Wan still had nice evening wear. He’d not had much opportunity to wear it, but it fit well enough, after he put Bant’s less-than-helpful selections away. He tugged the sleeves straight, hoped that he wasn’t expected to dress in some other fashion - the messages he’d gotten from Skywalker had said it was a black-tie event - and did what he could with his hair.

And then he waited, having serious regrets about giving Skywalker his address. Skywalker had thought it important that they show up at the gala together, and Obi-Wan had been off his balance enough to agree, but, really, giving some man he met through an app his address had been…. Well.

Not one of his prouder moments. He sighed and adjusted his cufflinks. It had been, really, longer than he liked to think about since he’d been on a date. He was teaching more classes than he liked, and so many of them were full of freshmen - he didn’t remember some many people wanting to take Intro to Bio when he was going through school - and his current research was--

Someone knocked at his door. Probably Skywalker. He hoped it was Skywalker, if Quinlan had decided to stop by, the evening promised to get more awkward. He straightened his tie, blew out a breath, and headed for the door.

He opened it without hesitating, refusing to allow himself to pause. A tall man stood on the other side. It took Obi-Wan a moment to recognize Skywalker from his pictures online. He looked different with his hair combed back, wearing a suit instead of pilot’s gear. He was… stunningly attractive, moreso in person, somehow, than he’d looked in his pictures.

A hot tinge of worry, of knowledge that he was about to get in far, far over his head, spread through Obi-Wan’s gut.

Skywalker stared back at him, blinking rapidly and looking Obi-Wan up and down. Obi-Wan wondered, vaguely, if he was meeting expectations. A part of him - a quite large part, really - hoped that Skywalker would simply realize he’d made a mistake, turn around, and leave. Instead, he stared.

Obi-Wan cleared his throat and said, “Well, hello. You must be, well. Do I call you Anakin?”

Skywalker looked up to meet his eyes, dragging his attention away from whatever had snagged it somewhere lower down. “Yes,” he said, and cleared his throat, flashing Obi-Wan a smile. “And you must be Obi-Wan. Ready?”

Obi-Wan considered. He could still, he supposed, say no and turn around, strip off his suit and go to review the results of his last round of testing on his specimens, but-- But he’d promised Bant he’d at least give the entire… arrangement a try.

The department, it seemed, needed him.

“Yes,” he said, pulling the door shut at his back and stepping forward. Skywalker really was a bold one, putting a hand on Obi-Wan’s back as they walked down the path to the driveway. Obi-Wan shivered down his spine and swallowed. He’d always enjoyed a fancy gala, anyway.

#AU_gust_2020 #obikin #my writing #college au #oh worm #the sugar daddy au i guess #day 2

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sanstropfremir · 4 years ago

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I absolutely LOVED reading your kingdom review. You gave me such an insight in things I never even considered, especially since our rankings are so different from each other. The Boyz was my favorite, the narrative was about RTK. How they felt bad for having to compete against their friends but eventually the groups only lifted each other up and it helped TBZ grow into the group they are now through the hardships and mental dilemma, falling into the next challenge right after they reached the top. It should have been more obvious though, I agree, it wasn't really visible for anyone who didn't know. I was wondering how you felt about the dancing in general? my reason for not ranking BTOB high was lack of choreo (and Peniel's verse), same goes for SF9. Mostly because I don't feel the hype when watching, it doesn't keep my focus on the stage. As a baby-performer myself, my goal is to make the viewer curious about what's next. is that the wrong way to look at it? that's what I've always been told, building the tension up and down to create focus. would love to hear your feedback on that! thank you so much for sharing, we need more reviews of people who actually know what they're talking about.

i'm glad that you got some insight from it! like i answered in the previous ask im here to hopefully bring some more depth and understanding for people that care and are curious!

you unintentionally proved my point about tbz’s performance: that is way too complicated! even the most talented solo dancers i can think of would have trouble distilling that down to something readable in 100 seconds, much less a group of like, a dozen people! the introductory stages are meant to show us the character of the group and their abilities in the most concise way possible, it's not the stage to do deep philosophical and emotional introspection. for a full stage? absolutely, go hog wild! but for this stage it was too ambitious and ultimately was ineffective to anyone that isn't a fan of them specifically.

by dancing in general do you mean like, every group? i put most of my opinions on the dancing where i had them in each of the individual rankings but honestly? unless there is something that really stands out positively or negatively, a lot of ‘average’ kpop dance looks the same to me. i know it’s not, obviously, and if pressed i probably could do a more serious breakdown, but dance is only one element of performance. it has equal weight with all the others in my mind, and therefore i notice when it is either

very good

does something unique

very bad, or

interferes with another element

which is the same as how i evaluate every element, if that makes sense.

hmmmm. i thought about this a lot in the shower and turns out i had more opinions that i expected so i'll put them under a cut.

firstly, i don't think lack of choreo should be penalized or considered an ‘incomplete’ performance. at the end of the day, these are bands, and a part of their brand/product they sell is the music. complex choreo does not need to be attached to that to make it a successful performance. also, btob did have choreo. any movement on stage is technically choreography. but this terminology can cause confusion so usually non-dance choreo is referred to as ‘blocking.’ but they also did include the song’s original point choreo at 1.41. the blocking in their performance was well thought out and suited the arrangement, by placing spatial emphasis on each part of the song that needed it. obviously it comes down to personal taste if the performance is ultimately ‘successful,’ because all art is subjective, but just because something isn't as visually complex as something else doesn’t mean it doesn't have the same level of thought. think of it like this: one is a super clean-lined post-post-modern grey/white living room, and the other is a kitsch goth basement. both share interior design principles and have obvious care put into the space, but they are vastly different styles that appeal to different tastes.

part of the job of production designer/AD is to decide what gets emphasis. a question you're always asking yourself is ‘is this important to the story that we’re trying to tell?’ and btob/their AD made a very smart choice with their introductory stage because it says a lot about them and their abilities in a short amount of time. that stage said ‘our foundation is strong, we have the training and experience and confidence to be up here and not rely on visual tricks.’ because they know they physically cannot do the things the 4th gen groups can; they're a decade older and they only have four members, it's just not feasible. something you learn with experience is the power that specific and pointed emphasis holds, which segues into my answer to your last question. i don't necessarily think that ‘building hype’ is the wrong way to perform something, but i do think it is a flawed way to approach creating a performance.

i think that ‘hype’ is flawed concept at its core, and one that focuses on the idea that there’s always being something more, something next, beyond the work itself. now there’s nothing wrong with playing with tension within the internal structure of a piece, that's exactly how constructing a narrative happens. however, the flaws come once we extrapolate beyond the boundaries of that individual work. the idea of ‘whats next’ implies that you have to constantly be promoting, have a sequel coming, building hype etc so people will keep engaged with your work. which is deeply capitalistic in nature and operates on the assumption that art exists purely as a product to be sold. and in order to keep selling you need to keep making a bigger and better and more spectacular product. and this is not the case at all. marketability is not the essence of art, it merely a factor of creating it under this insufferable system. kpop in particular suffers from this because the industry is specifically fabricated to produce capitol. we can have discussions all day about idols and their artistic integrity but at the end of that day, they are all cogs working with a system that was specifically made up by essentially one person to be culturally exported and to just print buckets of money. so in following that train of thought, there is a constant attitude of bigger and better because shock value (whether positive or negative) gets social media attention and therefore it sells. and it has become exponentially easier (and also seemingly required) to make things that are bigger and better than ever before. i remember being blown away by the projection floor at the sochi 2014 olympics because something of that scale and complexity would never have been possible without literally having the funding of the olympics. now that technology is easily accessible to anyone with an amazon account and the time to learn how isadora works. in comparison, it took 2400 YEARS for just the job of a ‘theatre designer’ to be even become a job at all.

because of kpop’s fan culture it is especially prone to ‘hype’ behaviour. in general with the accessibility of the internet and social media, everything has turned into a competition, and who can generate the most buzz ‘wins’. but ultimately that has taken away the general public’s ability to recognize that you can enjoy something quietly and you can enjoy something slowly. that the enjoyment of something doesn’t need to be all exclamation marks and keysmashes and trending hashtags on twitter. there is value in a work engaging in an emotion within you that is not just excitement. most of the artists and companies that i consume the work of i don’t do so because their work makes me excited, i do so because i liked the experience of engaging with that work. several years ago i saw the eternal tides by legend lin dance theatre, which you can watch a really short clip of here. that is not slow motion, that is actually how slow the dancers are moving. and 90% of the show is performed like that. and its two hours long. and it was one of the most incredible performances i've ever seen. if i ever get the chance I will go see another one of their shows again, not because i care about how they can top that experience i had, but because i know they can produce that experience, and that is enough to make me want to seek them out again. the speed of the internet has also loosened the general public’s understanding of just exactly how long creating a performance work can take. the lead dancer in the eternal tides was with the company for eight years before she and the piece were ready enough to be performed. large scale operas, musicals, and plays often have a year or more of pre-production before they even get to rehearsal. smaller theatre companies workshop new pieces for years at a time. performance is hard and it takes time. you can eliminate some of that with sheer amounts of money and people, which is what the kpop industry has done, but it speeds up the cycle of consumption to a degree that is not sustainable, especially for companies and creators who do not have that kind of access. performers and performance makers often don't put enough trust in their audiences. if they like what they see, they will come back. they dont need to be constantly bombarded with content at all times.

now that i’ve said a bit about why i think hype is a flawed concept, let's bring it back to kingdom. sf9 did something very interesting with their stage in that they actively chose to limit their dance time. and this plays very well off the performance film stage that taeyang did a couple of weeks ago. taeyang is talented and confident (for good reason), and his solo was incredible. but when it came to the intro stage, instead of trying to one-up the solo stage, the group instead said ‘well people are going to be looking at us because taeyang is insanely talented, so let's show them that we ALL have the confidence and the attitude to be up here.’ no need for flashy theatrics, they had the foresight to do something that would make them stand out from the rest of the groups. even if i was just casually watching the stages without doing any analysis on them (like i did for rtk), i would still be able to distinguish them because they had the stones to stand around for half their stage time. now i recognize them and would like to see what else they can do. same principle as what btob and also what ikon did. there is a fine line between anticipation and hype that gets equated in media consumption nowadays, but the two are not the same.

i think the tldr on this is that you dont need to ‘build hype’ or ‘go all out’ to make an interesting work. just focus on telling the narrative that you want to tell, and the people that recognize that will come. i could have a lot more things to say about peoples shrinking attention spans and the constant stream of information that we consume on a daily basis that devalues the labour done by artists in the eyes of the public and promotes hustle culture that is burning out and damaging creators at a rate that is both exponential and frightening, but that’s probably for another time, because this is SO LONG

#kingdom #kpop questions #this was a very interesting ask thank you anon!#the consumption and production of art is fascinating and also as an artist it gives me a fucking headache #many thoughts head too full #i hope this provided you with some more insight anon #none of your opinions are wrong i just have different ones and thats ok! i love discussions like this #Anonymous #kpop analysis #text #general design questions #kingdom review responses #answers #kingdom asks

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ichika27 · 5 years ago

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Mairimashita! Iruma-kun ep 23

And we’re at the finale! I’d save the rest of the words for later.

Oh and they brought back the intro that I think they had in the first episode. They stopped doing the intro a few episodes ago so this was a surprise.

The first half is basically a slice-of-life set of scenes of Iruma waking up, going to school and studying. I didn’t take much photos for this except for a few below.

Aww! They’re really friends now I’m glad about that. I mean after all this time of Kerori getting mad at Iruma cause of misunderstandings, at least now they’re talking properly.

He’s also still playing demon dodgeball which is nice cause it’s one of the first things he really worked hard on and made him feel very accomplished. I’m happy he didn’t stop even after their game back then was over.

And he’s also still doing manga readings which would probably take forever. I mean have you seen the shelf? That thing’s got hundreds of volumes. How many filler chapters does it have?

Anyways, Ameri thinks the female rival in the story had a cool line ‘Everyone’s got a secret.’ which suddenly gave her an epiphany...

She’s so close! She’s really smart but she didn’t have it in her to ask Iruma directly if her hunch is right. Wonder what she’d think if she knew the truth though?

Iruma also got an epiphany later. This is the exact point of this entire episode and he just noticed lol.

He was really bothered by this cause it made him think of his stay here and what he should do now. It made his friends worry so Clara suggested they cook food for him to cheer him up!

Picture of these two doing their best! Sadly for Asmodeus, Clara’s cookbook is kinda... hard to understand? The instructions are very ‘Clara’-like haha. This resulted in an argument between the two.

Not that important but Clara insulted Asmodeus’ fashion sense to which he had to tell her the clothes are expensive and custom made. That said, I’ve never been able to ask but has thought about the question of ‘Why are the teachers letting him wear a custom outfit instead of the school uniform?’. I know his family is powerful and rich and all but I don’t think the rule-abiding and serious Kalego-sensei would permit this exemption unless there’s a reason. But I guess we’ll never know.

Sorry, Clara but I think that looks good on him.

Let the Shokugeki begin!!

lol a lot of people in the chat we’re making Food Wars jokes. These two couldn’t get to an agreement and decided to just cook separately and compete at which one Iruma would like best. (the cooking, of course, not the person cause Iruma loves them both hehe)

As expected, Clara’s is kinda out of the ordinary. She thinks there’s something missing so her mom tells her the best ingredient to add is ‘love’ (of course).

And so the Valac family gives us one last musical before the season ends!

Azz’s cooking is wonderful but he thinks it’s not good enough as he knew Clara would probably make something unexpected. Glad he’s not underestimating her despite the insults she told her earlier. Although all of those were probably the result of annoyance.

I-is the fish crying?! That makes me so uncomfortable. I don’t stare at the fishes eyes when buying some from the market cause of that.

It’s a good suggestion from the butler but Azz doesn’t like fishes it seems. it’s dirty apparently. He’s still gonna do it though... for Iruma-sama! He pokes the fish relentlessly and I dunno how he did it but he was able to make something.

Also, the yt chat made lots of jokes about the current virus cause of Azz’s face mask but I don’t know if I should say it so I’d just leave this here...

They pulled an all-nighter for this. Reminds me of when I was in school and we had to do a thesis instead. It was horrible. They did it though!

It looks the same lol. Azz went all out and really is trying to compete against Clara since he made his out-of-the-ordinary, too.

The fish is still crying by the way. It’s uncomfortable eating anything with a face and that thing is still crying. Ugh... I’m sorry fishy, it’s for Iruma-sama.

The fish looks sadder than the above photos. (;-;)

Oh, and Iruma figured out that the two dishes are better together due to both Azz and Clara feeding him at the same time.

Awwww~ they’re friends again and shared a fist bump! They did it and their cooking made Iruma happy which was their goal in the first place. Like the dishes that are better when combined, Iruma’s school life is better when he has these two together.

And so Iruma figures that he really likes it here and would make sure he gets to stay with his friends. The demon world isn’t so bad.

The ending theme this time is the school hymn. There were shots of some scenes in the episodes past and there were a few ones which is what some of the characters are currently doing. These ones above caught my eyes.

-It’s sad that the secret room is empty now. The stuff inside were probably confiscated after the batra party incident.

-Kiriwo-senpai!! It’s been a while since I saw him so this was nice. He doesn’t look too bad even though he’s locked up currently. Hope to see him again someday.

-They framed the photo they took at the festival. Aww! A family photo Iruma could be happy looking at.

And the last shot of the main trio together.

They’re also sitting in front of the large door with a ton of locks. I guess this is the end...

Wait-

What’s this? What’s this?! ‘Someday’, the narrator says...

Season 2 confirmed?? Please?!

I was actually hoping we got one more episode before the end but I guess this is the finale. it was so much fun and it was better than I expected when I decided to watch the series. I liked all the characters and the story wasn’t as complicated as other anime coming out lately but it was refreshing to see. As everyone else pointed out, this one felt as if it should’ve come out many years ago as it’s got the same feels as the anime series coming out back in the early 2000′s. Definitely felt like I was brought back to my childhood.

They never changed the OP and ED the entire season and both are so good and such bangers. I’d miss listening to them. Hope if they made another season (I hope they make another season!) that the new songs could be as good or are even better than these ones cause they already set the bar high.

I’d miss this show. I keep making these stupid commentary posts every week for fun and to let out my anime fangirling feelings for it and this is the last one. I’d miss making these every week. To all of you who actually read through all these from the very first Iruma-kun post I made up until this last one, thank you so much! I never thought anyone would read them much less enjoy them.

If another... no, when the next season comes out, I hope I can make these things again cause it was fun. So, let’s all see each other and Iruma and his friends again when that time comes?

#Mairimashita! Iruma-kun #welcome to demon school iruma-kun #anime #sana_post #i hope we see them again someday ~devi!#<3

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tev-the-random · 5 years ago

Text

A casual Sonic Forces rewrite + some headcanons, because why not

Part 1 – Infinite and Episode Shadow

Just a warning: none of the images used here belong to me! They all belong to SEGA – the game screenshots, the official art and the comic pages.

Next Part ->

I have yet to see the Sonic Movie, because the universe seems devoted on not letting me do so, for some reason. Being as desperate for Sonic content but as determined to not receive spoilers from the movie as I am, I decided to go for the next coolest thing: writing really long and random posts about a game that came out three years ago and no one cares about anymore.

This shall be fun!

(Update: as of posting this, I have finally watched the movie! But I don’t want to throw this away, so I’ll post it anyway. We can have a nice talk about the movie later.)

*“Fist Bump instrumental” intro plays*

*“This is Our World: a New Hero” plays in the background*

I’m the type of person to always try and see the best in every game, and Sonic Forces is no different. Despite its obvious flaws, I love this beautiful game! Mostly the concept of it is one of the coolest things I’ve seen this last decade, but the execution… lacks on a few things. I mostly just fill in the gaps with my imagination and enjoy it nevertheless, but, upon going through the tag and seeing that some of my concerns were shared by other people, I decided to try my hand at rewriting Sonic Forces juuust a tiny bit. Just for fun!

For this first part (and I have no idea how many parts we should have), I’d like to share some of my ideas about…

*Infinite’s Theme plays in the background as I try hard not to sing along*

Oh, my poor jackal boy, what do we do with you? Despite being so heavily promoted and having an undeniably awesome theme song, Infinite’s backstory and general development throughout the game came out as lacking, having the self-proclaimed edgelord become a laughingstock amongst most fans. Nevertheless, I still love Infinite, and it saddens me how much wasted potential he had; it’s like they were trying to write a really interesting character, but gave up halfway through.

So yeah, let’s talk about it. And let us begin with his origin story.

I believe you are all familiar with this scene:

I… I want to defend my boy here, I really do. But honestly, the way this was portrayed, it just sounded like he was throwing a childish tantrum. It seems as if his entire motive for becoming a villain was “Shadow beat him and called him weak”; dude, you’re not the only one: Shadow does this to basically everybody who’s ever crossed his way! We’re not given a reason as to why Infinite gets so bloody offended, nor are we given a reason why we should care.

So, how can we fix this? I think we should firstly focus less on “I’M NOT WEEEEAAAAK!!! URRAAAAGHH!!!” and more on:

It doesn’t need to be – and I don’t even think it can be – as sad of a situation as the Rivaille Squad in Shingeki No Kyojin or anything, but I believe that showing us that Infinite lost something important would already do wonders to his backstory.

The simplest way – that is, the way that doesn’t majorly change how things go, but does give the jackal a clearer motive – to do this would involve the ever so humble inclusion of two new cutscenes and one new in-game battle, plus a few tweaks to some already existing scenes.

Episode Shadow begins not with the usual reading introduction, but rather, with Shadow’s voice. “I was a couple of months before the Doctor took over the world. The first time I encountered him… I didn’t know what he would become.” Then we open with what used to be a couple of months prior (aka where they presented Infinite’s memory, aka where they screwed up), so we’ll go through things in a chronological order instead of having a flashback inside of a prequel, because that’s confusing AF.

Now, instead of starting the Mystic Jungle level immediately, we should get a small cutscene: Shadow gliding through the jungle, cool camera angles/lighting and all – maybe something similar to the opening scene of Episode Shadow in Sonic 06? –, on his way to invade Eggman’s base as a voice coming from the hedgehog’s communicator reminds him about his mission (yep, that’s some subtle exposition to the audience so we don’t think Shadow is there just because). My idea for said mission would be the simple task of retrieving a Chaos Emerald (yeah, remember those?) from Eggman. Nothing too serious; just another day, another emerald stolen like usual; we’ve seen this before, there’s no need for a long dialogue.

As the black-and-red blur crosses the screen, the camera pans to a group of people hiding above in the trees: Squad Jackal. Infinite is not among them. One of the jackals asks “where’ the boss?” to which another one replies that he’s on the other side of the base/talking to the Doctor/whatever and they have no time to waste; their mission is to take down the intruder and protect the base. We get something in the lines of “the boss is counting on us. Expect no mercy, show no weakness. Let’s go!” and the camera fades out as the squad drops from the trees and runs after Shadow.

I believe that having the phrase “show no weakness” – or any possible reference to “I’m not weak”, really – appear earlier as seemingly common and then have it become something the character gives a lot of importance to due to consequences and parallels sounds a bit more interesting than having Infinite’s inferiority complex come out of nowhere.

The Mystic Jungle level plays as usual, except the dialogue in the background doesn’t say that “the Defence Squad has already been completely annihilated”, but rather that “the Defence Squad is on the case. They’re the best mercenaries there are, Shadow won’t stand a chance!” because Doctor Eggman is naive like that.

Once we reach the end of the level there’s another change: a boss battle against Squad Jackal. You see, we don’t want to hear the squad was taken down like some sort of lazy exposition, because it feels incomplete; we want to participate, we want to be the protagonist and see with our own eyes just what is Infinite’s squad. This gives faces and voices to something that will become an important plot point instead of just telling us “yeah, this happened or whatever”. This could also play as some sort of sympathy point for Infinite, because we, while in control of Shadow, took down his squad; it makes the villain’s animosity towards Shadow and his general anger at least a bit more understandable.

The idea is that this battle should play as some sort of field fight – that is, differently than most boss battles in Sonic Forces, this is not a racing track where you attack your enemy while running, but rather a large secluded area, much like the one we get in the fight between the Custom Hero and the DeathEgg Robot –, where squad members would attack individually in different patterns before going for a group attack. The individual jackals would have both projectile (perhaps something like a wispon, knives or some Eggman invention to keep it family friendly enough?) and close-ranged attacks, while the group attack would consist of this mass of wild jackals changing at you, trying to run you over. The opportunity windows could be either the moment when the opponents switch or band together for the group attack.

(I don’t know, maybe some of you can think of better ways to fight the Jackal Squad? This is just a random idea! I’d like to hear different ones!)

Once the fight is over, we get another cutscene: Shadow stands among the fallen jackals – don’t worry, they’re… sleeping… yeah, there’s no visible blood, they’re not dead… except they’re totally dead – and looks around for a second or two. His expression is indecipherable, and he soon leaves without saying a word – one might say he feels bad for them, or maybe he doesn’t give a damn; we leave that open to interpretation. Not a moment passes and we get to see the leader of the squad arriving at the scene. The camera moves in a circle around him as he looks at his fallen comrades in shock. How did this happen? They were the strongest, how could his whole squad be dead? This is a rather touching moment, where Infinite sticks his sword (because in his origins comic he used to have a super cool red sword and I want to pretend we have a reason for it not existing in the game) to the ground; there’s a feeling of anger and vengeance going on as we get a closer look at the last standing jackal. He clenches his fists and faces the direction of Shadow. “Expect no mercy, show no weakness,” he says in an infuriated, strangled voice. He starts to run and the camera fades out.

(Look at his sword and his squad, man. I do wish we could have seen them in the game…)

When the camera fades in again, we get that exact same cutscene from the game. Blah blah, “destroyed my squad”, blah blah, “ultimate mercenary”, a legendary ass whooping and Infinite falls to the ground, weak, pathetic and defeated.

Now, I’d like to add just a few lines to their dialogue, because this:

Doesn’t really sound like Shadow to me. I mean, man: you beat this random guy to the ground, called him worthless and pathetic out of nowhere and then you just leave? I know Shadow is rather apathetic and he’s supposed to be savage and all, but this just felt kind of out of place…

So instead of going full rude mode, what Shadow actually says is:

‘You’re part of the Defence Squad, aren’t you? Why would a bunch of mercenaries work for the Doctor? What is he hiding?’

‘The doctor paid well enough to not have his secrets spilled,’ Infinite retorts while trying to get up. He’s too hurt to do much, but he’s still willing to fight. He looks at Shadow with fiery eyes as he continues, ‘My squad… you took them down like they were nothing… why wouldn’t someone as strong as you be a mercenary?’

‘Mercenary work is for the weak,’ the hedgehog states matter-of-factly. ‘I’ve sworn to protect, not to follow the dirty line of work you did.’

This blows Infinite’s mind and he simply stares at Shadow, dumbfounded. He murmurs, ‘weak? How dare you, I’m not… We’re not weak! We’re the squad o-’

‘Where’s the Chaos Emerald?’ The jackal’s statement is completely ignored. However, Infinite is having none of this, so tries to attack Shadow once again in a fit of rage, only for the hedgehog to give him a signature roundhouse kick free of charge.

(Image merely illustrative)

‘What a waste of my time,’ Edgelord Number 1 says, aware that he’s not getting any useful information from this. He steps closer and Edgelord Number 2 flinches, ‘here’s some advice: don’t show your face around me ever again, or else I will finish you.’

And with that, Shadow teleports away, leaving Infinite to his existential crisis. He wasn’t able to avenge his friends; he wasn’t able to protect the base; heck, he wasn’t even able to hold his title of ultimate mercenary! How useless of a leader was he? Were mercenaries truly weak? Everything they’ve done… was it all worthless? Show no weakness… what did it even mean? They were all defeated, and Infinite can’t shake the feeling that he’s to blame for it. Wasn’t he supposed to be the best?

‘What is this? I’m…’ He looks at his hands, which are trembling ‘I’m shaking? I flinched? I... We failed… How pathetic… All because…’

Infinite stops as if he’s just gotten a moment of clarity. He then gets up and starts walking inside Eggman’s base. ‘I’m not weak,’ he says in a decided, chilling whisper; it’s almost scary. The view is set at the entrance, right in front of the jackal so that he starts blocking the light from the outside as he slowly walks towards the camera - while saying in that scary voice, “No mercy, no weakness”.

(I can totally see Liam O’Brien delivering this line perfectly…)

Then the last expository narrating happens about the same, except that Shadow narrates it – giving continuity to the fact that he was the one who started narrating this episode for a reason I will talk about later –, so we change a few words to match his speech more; it’s all in the third person and very husky and brooding, but with a subtle note of dread (oh, if only Jason Griffith would voice it… No disrespect to Kirk Thornton, but he just doesn’t hit Shadow’s perfect voice like Jason did; for me, at least. His Orbot voice is fantastic, though).

Now, instead of having Infinite looking forward for a few seconds before he gets the Phantom Ruby out of nowhere and places it in his chest very anti-climatically, we’ll do something different: as soon as he puts on the mask, he starts walking away, and we change settings to a dimly lit room, where we see Infinite from behind, fitting the frame perfectly. Following the beat of the background music, the camera changes to a close shot of his masked face as he’s holding the Phantom Ruby, which is glowing, reflecting on his mask and giving us a beautifully red-lit scene; it’s possible to hear very low, indiscernible whispers coming from the jewel. We then hear a small, evil chuckle from the masked jackal – he already sounds rather different from the guy who stuck his sword to the ground in honour of his friends earlier. The screen goes black, the whole “I was… Reborn!” thing dramatically happens in Infinite’s echoing voice and the not-flashback is over.

(I know this last part was quite specific and oddly detailed, but I had the scenes very clear in my head I wanted to try conveying how intimidating it looked to me o3o)

Ok, now that that’s done, prepare yourselves for an intermission. And by that, I mean prepare yourselves for a long analytical commentary on what I just wrote.

*”This is Our World: Phase 2″ plays in the background*

(Who is Shadow working for again? I don’t even know, man…)

Shadow isn’t just the guy who called Infinite pathetic. He’s the guy who killed Infinite’s squad (his friends) without any apparent remorse – and to be hypocrite as to say he’d sworn to protect when he just did something like this (yeah, Infinite doesn’t know any context of Shadow’s life, so of course he doesn’t understand what he meant); the guy who ruined everything he had going with his new job as leader of the Defence Squad; the guy who put him several levels under what he thought he was; the guy who questioned his entire way of living and the guy who put him under a lingering threat; “don’t show your face around me ever again” feels more intimidating now. Not only that, but, despite how Infinite might hate Shadow, he recognizes him as strong, admirable even – “why wouldn’t someone as strong as you be a mercenary?” Remember that Infinite himself is a mercenary; to actually acknowledge someone would be good at something you’re good at, specially someone you don’t like, has to be a sign of admiration, albeit a frustrating one. All of this puts a lot more of weight on how Infinite thinks of Shadow and why being stronger than the hedgehog is so important to him.

I made it so that “expect no mercy, show no weakness” is something like the Jackal Squad’s motto, their philosophy. I like to think it means that they should never count on someone’s mercy, for their enemies won’t spare them; they should always go into battle aware that they might actually be fighting for their lives. At the same time, they should always stand their ground and never let anyone think they can take advantage of a squad member. This is what the jackals live for. But seeing as Infinite’s world has just been shattered and he failed hard on everything, he revises his mentality. “No mercy, no weakness” is what he’s going for now, as he wants to be above everyone, he wants to effectively be the strongest and for people to know that; he will be the one who doesn’t spare others, and he won’t be weak at all. Never again would a failure cost him that much, for never again would he fail.

To have Infinite place the Phantom Ruby on his own chest in Episode Shadow contradicts the opening scene of the main campaign. Remember the episode is a prequel to Sonic Forces’ main game, so it shouldn’t be completely detached from it; things must make sense when put together. As the main game begins by showing us Infinite inside of a tube in Eggman’s lab, we can assume one of two things: he’s either a robot/biological experiment created entirely by the scientist, or he’s a guy who’s been experimented on, thus Eggman was the one who placed the Phantom Ruby on him. With this in mind, it wouldn’t make sense to show us Infinite doing something if you’re going to tell us that he couldn’t have possibly done it on his own. But to have him hold the ruby as someone who deeply desires its powers and who listens to its ominous whispering? Not only does it line better with the aforementioned scene, but it also makes Infinite seem more prone to the ruby’s power (instead of just… you know, “random angry dude”).

As this intermission has gone on long enough, I’ll only make a brief commentary on the Phantom Ruby: I like the idea of the ruby being somewhat alive and exerting influence over Infinite. Now, I won’t say it’s the kind of influence where it justifies his horrible behaviour or the awful things he did. It’s less “mind-control” and more “that best friend who always encourages you and never calls you out on your bullshit”. Its grooming Infinite’s ego and just nudging him to keep making bad decisions, to keep shutting himself in this new reality where he’s all powerful and above everyone else. So it’s the jackal’s pride, spite and grief, along with Eggman’s overall encouragement and the Phantom Ruby’s influence all put together that, in a general sense, make Infinite what he is. (I can go into more detail about this idea once I make a Part 2.)

Mission Accomplished: “angry bitchy boy turned edgy, OP and unimpressed” changed his status to “tragic boy turned edgy, bitter and extremely power-hungry”.

Intermission’s over, let’s get back to the story!

With Infinite’s backstory slightly redone (or rather, shown under a different light), I could stop right here. But I don’t want to, oh no! I say we take this a few steps further and just finish Episode Shadow! Yeah, I told you this was going to be a long post.

*”Battle with Infinite: Second Bout” plays in the background*

Ok, now we cut to a few months later, where Episode Shadow would originally begin. Rouge comments that Omega was on recon mission in that “unknown base of operations that seems to be totally outside the chain of command for Eggman’s army” (whatever that is supposed to mean) when he spotted an unidentified masked person with strange energy readings and an unknown battle ID. Omega reported a “large scale troop” and… that’s it, he just stopped talking. Rouge then talks about that “new weapon” Eggman was supposedly developing and sends Shadow to the base to investigate along with Omega. She makes a remark about how they should get the entire Team Dark together for this (“It should be fun”), but Shadow dismisses the idea, saying that he’s enough on his own. “Omega said the same thing. You two go together like chilli and hot dogs.”

We can keep this at the whole “dialogue on screen” thing. I don’t really mind and it sure spares the budget.

The City stage plays as usual, except the dialogue in the background changes a bit, because Team Dark bickering (or just talking in general, I love this team so much) is my jam.

‘E-123 Omega here. Extermination proceeding without incident. No problems to report.’

‘Omega!’ Rouge exclaims, ‘Why have you stopped responding earlier? We- wait, extermination? This is supposed to be a recon mission, what are you doing?!’

‘I was spotted. Priorities conflicted; therefore I decided to eliminate the enemy altogether. New Mission Objective: Defeat Eggman.’

‘But you can’t go making a scene like that!’

‘See, this is what happens when you send the giant killer robot for this kind of op,’ Shadow sasses. And I’ll imagine Jason’s voice for this too, thank you.

‘I have several reports of recon missions where you retaliated, Shadow.’

‘I might have to join you boys soon enough. I turn my back for five seconds and this happens…’ Rouge comments in a tired voice.

Omega is ready to start robotically recounting the reports of failed recon missions where Shadow retaliated, but he is suddenly cut by static and the vague sound of the Phantom Ruby. Rouge tries to contact him again and we get small bits of his original lines here – “All sensors offline”, “Casualty report”, “Unidentified system intrusion. Emergency withdrawal!” and “I am E-123 Omega, the most powerf-sjfpstswq”, that stuff – before his communication is completely cut. Shadow asks something like “what’s going on?”, but his communication with Rouge is cut as well. We play whatever’s left of the level in silence (except for the sweet background music).

(Oh yeah, this happened or whatever…)

Now, I know the next scene is a screen dialogue again, and I know I just said I don’t mind it, but watching this:

… Is so bloody uncomfortable. This feels dumb. This is so dumb. I feel like they robbed us an epic scene in exchange of some awkward reading with absolutely no context. What the hell is “!” supposed to mean?! What did Infinite do?! If I wanted to imagine the action scenes all on my own, I’d spend my time daydreaming! What, did they not know what to do here so they just threw in some random lines to fill the gap between this and the next level?!

… Sorry, I got a little carried away. This simple scene frustrates me a lot by not existing. So yeah, we’re throwing in a cutscene.

(I just noticed how salty this post is getting. This was not my intention at all, I still love this game, oh dear…)

Shadow reaches the edge of the city and encounters a dark silhouette hovering just above the flames that cover the ground; there’s debris scattered everywhere. The figure has its back turned, and the world seems to glitch ever so slightly around them.

‘The world’s most powerful robot is no more a challenge than crabmeat. Even the Doctor’s most daring designs can’t compete with my power… It is without peer,’ the figure chuckles to themselves.

Shadow starts approaching silently, analysing the situation. Despite this being Omega’s location, he can’t see the robot.

‘Wonder how easy it would be to end this entire planet. Don’t you…’

Suddenly, the voice speaks close to the hedgehog’s ear:

‘…Shadow?’

He turns around to see that the unknown person has appeared behind him, which throws him off. The hedgehog takes several steps back and puts himself in a fighting stance.

It’s hard to see past the jackal’s mask, but he seems amused as he looks down on Shadow. Twistedly so.

‘How wonderful to see that our not-so-tall, dark and brooding guest has arrived. I’ve been waiting for you, Shadow~’

‘Tell me what you did to Omega. Now,’ the agent demands.

‘Oh, come now, Shadow. Our long-awaited reunion and still you spout such nonsense.’ Infinite floats down to stand a few meters away from his enemy.

‘I don’t know you,’ Shadow states. The masked jackal tilts his head, but doesn’t say anything, so he asks again, ‘what have you done to Omega?’

‘Only what is ought to be done when someone stands in your way. Weaklings like E-123 Omega are of no consequence, don’t you agree?’

‘The only thing of no consequence is that big mouth of yours.’

Shadow launches himself at Infinite, who easily avoids his attack. The jackal starts laughing manically.

‘Ah, I suppose you would think so,’ he states. ‘After all, it’s not so funny to be the one losing the battle, is it? I am Infinite. You say you do not know me, and yet I remember you so very well… I’ve lost all I was, I’ve become what I am because of you. Savour that thought as I return the favour.’

Guess what happens? That’s right, we get another boss battle! I think it’s only fair that Infinite gets to have his rematch with Shadow. Besides, it establishes a comparison with the “old” Infinite and how much stronger he’s now – from Shadow’s perspective, that is.

I have no idea how this battle would play out. Maybe something similar to his second battle in the main story (no, don’t worry: we’ll talk about the exceeding amount of Infinite battles in the next part), with the 2D layout. Let’s say Infinite is surrounded with his Red Cubes of Doom while he’s not attacking, so you can’t touch him. Maybe he makes the fire glitch and get closer to you at some point. Maybe he makes clones and you have to defeat each of them to get to the real guy, I don’t know! Tag your ideas, I’d love to see them! ^^

Anyway, once the battle’s over and Shadow “wins” (because Infinite is not defeated, he’s just done with this fight), the jackal might say something in the lines of “I suppose I’ve let this duel go on for long enough. I have other matters to attend to, Shadow the Hedgehog.”

We get back to the cutscene and Infinite is glitching a bit, quickly recomposing himself, laughing. Shadow is panting.

‘What’s the matter, Shadow? Can’t take down a measly jackal anymore?’ The masked one says sarcastically. ‘It seems like I’ve overestimated your strength. You’re no fit to be a mercenary at all.’

There’s a beat and Shadow realises what this is about. He looks at Infinite, frowning. ‘It’s you… Defence Squad Jackal…’

Infinite stares at the hedgehog. He doesn’t seem to be as amused anymore. His golden eye’s glowing under his mask, and so is the Phantom Ruby on his chest. A tense background music plays as Infinite answers dryly:

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve spared you, but now you’re going too far. It’s time to finish this! Chaos Spear!’

The spears of light simply go through Infinite as if they didn’t exist. Shadow goes for a spin dash/homing attack/kick to the face or whatever you can think of, but the masked villain glitches out of the way with ease and lands an almost perfect copy of Shadow’s roundhouse kick.

The hedgehog glides across the floor, almost falling over. Infinite scoffs.

‘This new “me” has limitless power. I have no mercy; no weakness! I am the true ultimate force that will tear this world apart, and what may have worked to bring me down before…’ the jackal starts floating again; thousands of red cubes start dancing around him and, as he raises a hand, they all group in the sky not far above them. ‘… No longer does.’

(Why yes, this is a reference to Mephiles the Dark and that time he destroyed the Sceptre of Darkness!)

Infinite throws his “Take THIS!” and Shadow does the “!” – which is him frantically trying to get out of the way as the thousands cubes of doom come crashing down on him.

The screen goes black.

Scene ends.

The Virtual Reality level should play as usual from there. I don’t even want to change the background dialogue, because I really like it: it’s confusing, it’s weird, it’s unsettling and it slaps Shadow in the face in a way that we rarely see. I love it! (Although, I do think the gameplay should have a tiny little bit more of 3D parts. We love Green Hill, but we also love the freedom to move on more than two directions when playing as the Ultimate Life Form. But it’s cool)

After that, we could get another cutscene (we’re full of cutscenes, huh? Well, this is a hypothetical rewriting with a hypothetical budget. Also, Episode Shadow is more of an exposition episode anyway). In this cutscene, we would start with some shots of different known locations: Green Hill, Chemical Plant, Crisis City, Mystic Jungle, Kingdom Valley, Babylon Garden, you name it! And all of these places are somewhat “corrupted”; they’re glitching out, full of those red cubes, and there’s just this ominous atmosphere in them, as if they’re abandoned, desolated despite looking roughly the same as ever. We then see a black-and-red blur cross the screen, and a short narration takes place:

“I’ve been here for longer than I can remember. This… alternate reality, this fake world. There seems to be no escape. Rouge and Omega talk to me occasionally…”

We see Shadow leaning against a wall. His communicator plays only white noise, then Rouge’s voice comes in; it’s strangely echoed as it calls out to him. Shadow throws the device far away and sighs.

“… They’re fake too. No matter where I go, no matter how much I run…”

Shadow is skating through Pumpkin Hill or something, when the world suddenly starts to glitch out massively; we hear the Phantom Ruby’s noise and suddenly, we’re on the ARK.

“It’s like this place was made to torture me. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case.”

‘I’ve moved on from this a long time ago,’ Shadow says to the void of the Universe as we hear gunshots in the distance. He’s not being completely truthful. ‘Putting me through this scenario dozens of times changes nothing. Don’t you have anything more creative at this point?’

There’s silence, except for the shouts in the Space Colony. A voice calls out to Shadow, and he promptly ignores it, albeit with a pained look in his eyes. He’s visibly tired, almost hopeless, if one could ever describe Shadow the Hedgehog that way.

He sighs.

‘Alright, how do I get out of this one?”

We then get a start of a short level in the ARK. Don’t worry, it’s not one of those hellish mazes that usually haunt every ARK level there ever was; this is more straight forward, with doors closing all around you so that you know where you shouldn’t go, and some G.U.N. robots trying to kill you, simple thing.

The catch happens when you’re halfway through the level: as you’re crossing a long corridor, the game begins to “crash” – in the sense of you losing control of the character, the visuals beginning to glitch and the soundtrack going weird, all in a way that makes the soul leave the body of the player for a terrifying four seconds of “HOLY SHIT, I BROKE THE GAME”. But nope, you didn’t break the game: the Phantom Ruby is trolling you. We soon find that out as the signature noise plays and the glitching effect on screen disperses to show a new scenario: Mystic Jungle. The real Mystic Jungle. Congratulations: you get to play in a totally different zone for the rest of the level.

‘My head…’ Shadow murmurs to himself. ‘That was too quick; this can’t be right, it- ugh, why is it so bright here? Where are all the red things? This place seems too normal… is it… am I back in the real world?!’

We then finish the level, get our nice score and head to the last scene of the episode.

Shadow is going through the jungle, taking in everything that isn’t an illusion. He passes by a red sword stuck to the ground and leans against a tree, still a little out of it, still struggling to believe that anything is real anymore. The hedgehog then takes his communicator – surprisingly intact; hadn’t he thrown that away? – and tries to make contact. There is static for a moment, when suddenly…

‘Shadow? Oh my- Shadow, is that you?!’

He’s startled for a moment, but so relieved to hear Rouge’s normal voice again.

‘It’s me, Rouge. What’s the situation? Where’s Omega?’

‘Omega? We lost contact with him months ago; the Resistance says he must have been shut down after the Doctor took over!’

Shadow raises both his non-existing eyebrows in surprise, barely holding a gasp. He then frowns.

‘Shut down? Resistance? What do you mean “the Doctor took over”? What the heck happened?’

‘What happened? What happened?! I should be the one asking you that! You’ve been offline for six months! Everyone keeps saying you’re working with Eggman and Infinite, and I couldn’t contact you or Omega, I thought… I thought we’d lost you for good…’

‘Nonsense,’ Shadow states. We start hearing voices in the distance, and the hedgehog starts looking around while still talking ‘I’ll tell you the details later, it’s long story. What’s the current situation?’

‘Shadow…’

The (Tired) Ultimate Life Form spots something from behind the trees. Still in hiding, he looks closer only to see the Custom Hero holding the prototype Phantom Ruby they just found and talking to Tails and… Classic Sonic, much to Shadow’s confusion.

‘… We’re at war.’

Shadow takes a moment to process what’s just been said. He doesn’t even pay attention to what Rouge says next (neither do we, as the background music starts getting louder than the bat’s voice). He still watches the avatar, Tails and Classic Sonic as they leave; he focuses on the Phantom Ruby.

‘Meet me in the City. I’ve got a lot to tell you,’ Shadow says.

And with that, he leaves, the scene fades out and Episode Shadow is over!

*”The Light of Hope: Menu Version” plays in the background*

Now, a few more analytical notes before we close this ridiculously gigantic thing:

The immediate reason why we have Shadow being stuck in the Virtual Reality for six months is to indicate to us why he doesn’t show up earlier in the main game. It’s not like he was being useless this whole time and just decided to show up whenever it was most Ex-Machina of him; much like Sonic, he was trapped by the enemy. A mental trap that put Shadow on survivor mode for months without any way of communicating with anybody; with twisted versions of his friends trying to get to him and remind him that, hey, they’re still out there, probably in high danger; with these illusions mocking him, reminding him of painful memories, isolating him in familiar places… I say: if you want to emotionally hit a character, hit them hard. And this experience is bound to leave Shadow with some emotional scar, alright.

(Ever heard of conveniently coming out of nowhere?)

Shadow is bound to lose his sense of reality and sometimes it should be hard for him to acknowledge that this is the real world. I hope I can showcase some of his reactions in the later parts of this o3o

The Virtual Reality isn’t all glitchy by mistake. No, no: Infinite is perfectly capable of making a “perfect copy” of the real world, but he doesn’t want to. He wants Shadow to know this is a fake world and to know that he’s completely trapped in it while his real friends and allies are out there doing who-knows-what in a world run by the enemy. He wants to throw Shadow off-balance as much as he can, because he’s spiteful and doesn’t just leave the hedgehog to the side without a second glance.

In the game, Infinite says that they didn’t really have time to tune his power yet, so we can tell putting Shadow in the Virtual Reality was more of a practice of sorts. But man, I think this is too much of a cool concept, so I’ll say Infinite did put his power to the test before all of this; because Eggman, sir: you don’t simply throw your super-secret, amazing, unparalleled weapon in the battlefield without testing it first. This is something that can be inferred, it doesn’t need to be directly told, it just- I’m telling you this right now, ok?

I know Shadow is supposedly “over” this conflict with what happened in the ARK and it probably feels over-used to add it in again, but… it’s a thing the games haven’t tackled in such a long time, I feel like this would be a nice call-back. Besides, Infinite would want to know what would bring distress to Shadow; what happened in the ARK isn’t exactly a secret, especially if he’s working with Eggman. And Shadow can be as “over it” as he wants: it’s still a scar that will never truly leave him. Even if he watches it happen dozens of times, it’s still at least a little bit of an emotional rollercoaster.

ALTHOUGH! I also think this ARK level could be easily replaced with some other random level if you want to argue that Forces happens in Mobius or something, where Gerald and Maria and G.U.N. maybe never existed and whatnot.

What brought Shadow back, you ask? Well, it probably has to do with a certain someone spontaneously activating a Phantom Ruby. Maybe the avatar was thinking of Shadow and how it’d be nice to have him on their side again? Maybe they were thinking of undoing Infinite’s evil deeds? Maybe the raw power of the Phantom Ruby prototype being suddenly activated by the Custom Hero just crashed something another Phantom Ruby user did, like magnetic waves interfering with each other? Who knows?

I also find it important to show the Custom Hero here not only to show that there’s a connection between Shadow’s sudden freedom and their actions, but also to establish the tiniest amount of early familiarity between Shadow and the original character. Then maybe (maybe) I’ll give them a bit more of interaction in the main game, because it’d be nice to have a cool interaction with Shadow; and as endearing as his smile after the avatar does their thing with the sun of destruction is, it feels like it comes out of nowhere, if you think about it…

(I mean... Does he even know who we are?)

Infinite’s sword stuck to the ground goes completely over Shadow’s head, as he has no idea what that is or who it belonged to or what it means. It’s really just there for the viewer to reminisce the beginning of the episode and have a slight existential crisis.

When playing the main campaign, we get some pretty convenient information from Shadow once he finally shows up. Episode Shadow should give us a sense of how he knows those things. Want it or not, he did spend a long time studying the Phantom Ruby’s power far more closely than anybody else – well, maybe Sonic spent almost as much time as Shadow in a similar state, but that’s something to cover in another part.

The fact that Shadow is the one narrating this entire episode is supposed to allude to him telling Rouge exactly what happened during those six months he was gone. But if you want to read it as him talking to himself in the Virtual Reality as he slowly descends into madness, then be my guest!

I don’t know if it’s noticeable, but I’ve tried to tune Infinite’s cheesiness down a bit. I don’t think I can rid him of it entirely – after all, he is somewhat of a pompous, edgy, over-the-top character in general; he’s a full-on drama queen 24/7 and the only character cheesier than him is Sonic. Now, what we do with Infinite is to at least give a base to what he says. Also, I wanted him to sound a bit more like he lets the power get to his head. Oh well, I surely hope we’ll be tackling more of Infinite in the future!

Episode Shadow is extremely short, even for a DLC. I mean, it’s about only 20 minutes long – even less, if you’re good at it! With the addition of the cutscenes, the small changes, the boss fights against Squad Jackal and Infinite, and the added levels, the episode shouldn’t get overwhelmingly longer, but longer enough for it to feel more satisfying!

And with that, we’re done! I hope you enjoyed this massive thing. Despite me really liking Sonic Forces, I do think a few things could be improved. It’s not like it will happen, but rewriting is a lot of fun!

And why, no: I don’t take myself seriously.

#Sonic Forces #Episode Shadow #Sonic the Hedgehog #Infinite #Shadow #Rewrite #Headcanon #Character Analysis #Word count: why do I even bother?#phew that was a lot #I'm so tired

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