#why not both at this point it'll be an interesting narrative

[schneiderenjoyer]

Help...save me...it won't leave my head...

[sharonccrter]

I saw this really interesting video, which talked about my two biggest gripes with challengers' discourse. Which are that everyone keeps saying Art is the heart of this movie, and secondly, the insistence that Patrick doesn't love Tashi, only Art. The creator pushes back against these two narratives, and I wholeheartedly agree. Patrick is arguably the heart of this movie.

Two of the most important scenes in the movie are the churro scene and the scene between p/t out in the storm, and they both centre around Patrick.

The entire movie is about passion and purpose in life, and Patrick is the passion.

I mean, a lot of people assume Patrick didn't really have feelings for Tashi, but the only person who says that is Art. Who is vying for Tashi and is his biggest competitor. The reason I empathise with Patrick is that he is genuine and loving to Art; he does love him. However, we are shown no evidence to suggest that Patrick is this shitty boyfriend, apart from what Art says when he's trying to get into Tashi's head because his jealous. We find out that they're talking every week while he's on tour (normal relationship shit). It's Art who insinuates that Patrick is cheating while on tour. The only person in this movie who says Patrick doesn't love Tashi is Art, and it's obviously very intentional.

I think the reason both Tashi and Art push Patrick out of their lives is because he forces them to comfort parts of themselves they are not yet comfortable with. I mean, it's obvious why Tashi would react that way to Patrick; she's just lost the most important thing in her life. However, I think it's tragic from Patrick's point of view as well. I mean, what did Patrick really do? He got into a fight with his girlfriend because she hurt his feelings.

And no, he's hurt was not about Art. The fight made him feel unimportant, which made him feel like she didn't actually care about him. And that's where Art comes in, because who was going around telling Patrick Tashi didn't give a shit? You bet ya. Art. Art absolutely got into his head. And even if he clocked it, in that moment, he still allowed it to get to him because he was emotional and upset. And because he was too hurt to support her, he was thrown out of Tashi and Art's lives.

And here's the thing, Patrick never saw Tashi as an idea. He saw her as a real person, unlike Art kinda did. Patrick wasn't going to let Tashi treat him like shit just because she was special. And, tbh, if Tashi hadn't gotten injured, I think it's something she would have eventually been grateful for. But instead, she got hurt; she pushed Patrick away, and Art slid into his place, telling her that she could be his entire world and the star. That's not healthy, and sorry to stay a little manipulative.

And let's talk about Art. Patrick and him were literally fire and ice. They always had this underlying desire. They were perfect opposites. Let's face it: Art could never replicate what he had on the court (and off) with anyone else. But instead of confronting his feelings, he took the first chance he had to get Patrick out of his life.

The girl I was watching said it perfectly, "Art and Tashi allowed themselves to find consolation prizes in each other and allowed them to run from parts of themselves they didn't want to comfort and in turn enable each other's worst habits."

Art tries to become a tennis superstar so Tashi can live through him, and Tashi gives him a family so he can finally be confident in who he is. But is there any passion? I don't know; I think at some point, it drained; nothing about what I saw on screen apart from their initial get-together screams passion.

Cue Patrick walking back into their life and showing them how they can feel. Art was always going to let Tashi live through him, but that was never going to be satisfying for her. Tashi needs to find a way to create an identity for herself, separate from him. And I believe it'll be the only way she'll live a satisfying life. That's why they need Patrick: to make them realise that and to help them rediscover their passion.

I think people think that Art is the heart because Patrick admits to being a piece of shit. But the truth is, they're all dicks; Patrick was just the only one who was willing to admit it.

[chaos0pikachu]

Film Making? In My BL? - The Sign ep01 Edition

So, if we're doing this we're doing this, so buckle in baby.

I'm gonna focus how the opening scene below, uses two narrative devices and one film technique to build out the scene as a whole: in media res, misdirection, and the long take.

Okay so to begin, we have to start at the beginning, or well, the middle lmao

In Media Res

I saw a post in the tag that said something to the effect of how The Sign starting with no context and providing no information at the beginning was strange, with the implication it was bad writing. I disagree, fundamentally, because The Sign is using a very common literary device called 'In Media Res'. And in my opinion, uses this device very well.

If you're familiar with basic storytelling terms I ain't telling you anything new, but for folks who may not know, in media res is a latin term that means "in the midst of things" and lots of stories - both prose, comics, and film - use this device.

The most famous is The Iliad by Homer, which if you've ever read - and you should it's glorious also it'll give some context to Song of Achilles - you know it drops you full-on no context into the middle of things. The beginning will differ in verbiage depending on the translation you pick up, this free version starts with:

THE CONTENTION OF ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON. In the war of Troy, the Greeks having sacked some of the neighboring towns, and taken from thence two beautiful captives, Chryseis and Briseis, allotted the first to Agamemnon, and the last to Achilles.

Right off the bat the story drops four character names and the setting with no real context. Who are all these people? Why is there a war? Well, keep reading to find out! It also starts the story with an action aka an argument - nay A CONTENTION!! Achilles and Agamemnon are such bratty bitches lol

Other (more mainstream) examples include:

The Dark Knight

Lost

28 Days Later

Mission Impossible (pick one)

Fight Club

Full Metal Alchemist (both)

MDZS

Inception

And, The Sign.

"In contrast to linear storytelling, which starts at the beginning and moves sequentially, in medias res is a nonlinear approach that can make stories more dynamic and immersive.

It's a technique that challenges the audience to make sense of the narrative puzzle, often revealing essential information about the characters and their motivations gradually." (source)

What's described above is exactly how The Sign, starts it's story, in the middle of things, specifically to create a puzzle for the audience to figure out gradually. If you watch the above scene, what's happening?

We get a (well done) overshot of an island (establishing setting), we see a group of soldiers (establishing the characters we'll be following) we see them doing military things (okay these are their skills, and they're on some sort of mission), their drone spots a group of people inside and a character says the dialogue "Listen up, you only have 15 minutes" (this establishes stakes, okay there's a time limit to this mission) "Team A will rescue the hostage" (okay now we know what the mission is and informs these characters are on a rescue mission).

Who is speaking here? We don't know yet, but a safe assertion would be this character, since they are the first character who speaks on screen, will be important.

And we'd be right because it's Phaya speaking, one of our main protagonists as well soon find out.

All this happens within the first minute; the show provides an interesting set-up. It deals out information in tidbits - setting, characters we'll be following, situation set-up, stakes - but not enough information for the audience not to ask questions.

I want to iterate that at this point, the goal isn't to "care" about the characters yet, so much as create an intriguing set-up based in action that will showcase various information about the tone, setting, and skills of the piece that will engage the audience. To make the audience ask questions, to engage with them.

When you open up on MDZS the protagonist, Wei Wuxian is dead and we have no context for this. Everyone is just in the middle of celebrating his death and we, the readers, do not care that he's dead or why he died. The story could have started in a more linear way, with him arriving at Cloud Recesses arguably the beginning of his journey, but would that have been as interesting? As engaging?

I like how this article breaks down the why of starting your story in media res is a powerful and often used device:

This is what The Sign is doing in this opening part. Starting the action of the series off with action and creating that immediate engagement. The scene also ends with a plot twist which connects to that final point about information control.

This isn't a technique I've seen often used in BL because BL is a sub-genre of romance and most romances are told in chronological order, rather than non-linearly - there are, of course non-linear romances, but most mainstream romances, and by extension most BL aren't told in this way - BL shows don't often have actual physical action. A majority, especially in Thailand, are grounded, closer to slice-of-life, coming-of-age, and comedy dramas - though we are starting to see a change in that trend.

So starting in the middle of things, like chepa the middle of what? Two dudes walking~ to Engineering class?

The goal of this opening scene is to pull in the audience, make them wonder and ask questions: "who are these characters? will they rescue the hostages? who are the bad guys? who is this character who's having visions?" and so on and so forth. It's a way to engage in the audience without having to slow down the narrative with a ton of exposition, or build up stakes slowly, rather it grabs the audience immediately and sets them in the middle of the tension asking them to engage with what's happening.

The Long Take

You've probably heard about "the long take" but to break it down, a long take is one continuous take without any edits/cuts. The film 1917 was famously filmed to "look" like one long take. One of the most cited and well known long takes is from Children of Men by Alfonso Cuarón:

Now if you watch this movie you can tell why there isn't a lot of BL long takes because, god damn, they built a new type of car just to get that one scene. [read here for more on long takes]

So, The Sign. It's long take starts at about 2:08, following Phaya - again, we the audience don't know this is Phaya BUT since the camera is spending specific time with him we assume he is An Important Character and he is! Set up and payoff! Funny how that works - and ends at around 4:27.

[Sidenote I love that the take ends, not with a cut but a transition. Which I'll cover in another post but in the land of Thai BLs which favor cuts so damn much transitions were so refreshing to see]

During this long take, we establish that these characters are competent at what they do. We understand that they're military trained, in both hand-to-hand combat and firearms. We also get these two mid-close ups, which signifies these will be Important Characters:

And they are, the first shot is of Phaya, Khem and Thongthai and the second is Tharn and Yai.

This also sets-up the character dynamics; Yai and Tharn are already close and know each other so they are drawn to each other while on the mission, while Khem and Thongthai have a pre-established relationship but are still supporting behind Phaya.

This type of shot also allows for the audience to better see and follow the fighting that's happening on screen. Filming fight scenes are their own beast, and while there's no one school of thought on how a film scene "should" be filmed, there are techniques that that place some fight scenes above others.

The first video showcases some techniques on how to film a fight scene, while the second one at the 8min mark talks about the long take in John Woo's classic action film Hard Boiled.

This long take in Hard Boiled really showcases why long takes are so powerful in filming a fight scene specifically. They pull the audience further into the action and create a palpable energy that just works better than a scene with lots of quick cuts.

There's a reason one of the biggest criticisms of Mortal Kombat (2021) was that all the fights were edited to pieces while John Wick (2014) was a refreshing jolt to the industry.

The Sign takes a page out of John Woo's book, and places the characters, and the physicality of the scene front and center, pulling the audience along with the camera in one long shot.

Long takes are hard, I can't really emphasize this enough, if you watched that video on Children of Men you can see all the intricate work that went into scenes that amounted to maybe 5mins of actual film time. Likewise this long take in The Sign is only about 2mins of actual time in the show BUT it's effective, it's engaging, its ambitious.

Which is why, I gotta give The Sign it's roses because of that ambition. Long takes are a lot of hard work, time, effort, blocking, rehearsals, on top of incorporating the fight chorography that's a lot and it looks good.

Now is this the best~~~ long take I've ever seen? lol no god but it's well done and ambitious especially for the sub-genre of BL.

Misdirection

Misdirection has more in common with in media res than the long take as it's a literary device and not a filming technique.

From Gotham Writers:

"In fiction misdirection can be either external or internal. That is, the author can be using the story as a frame to misdirect the reader, or a character in the story may be misdirecting one or more of the other characters. Or, of course, both." (source)

Misdirection is often used in thrillers or mystery narratives, Hitchcock used misdirection a lot in his films.

In Psycho the audience is lured to believe that Marion, the character the film opens with, builds up, and essentially sets up as our protagonist, is in fact our protagonist. She's not, she's murdered and her sister, Lila, is the actual protagonist of the movie. Sorry if this is a spoiler for an almost 70 year old film lmao

Misdirection is often used to set-up plot twists down the line. A good misdirection will leave clues for the audience when they watch back and go, "oh! I can't believe I missed that!"

In film The Sixth Sense is a good example of this, where the plot twist at the end doesn't weaken the film once you know it but rather, it enhances the film itself on a rewatch. Another good example of misdirection in film are both Knives Out and Glass Onion, where Rian Johnson will set up a non-linear story and then slowly unravel the information for the audience.

Take the scene where Marta, in Knives Out, finds Fran's body and hears Fran say "it was you" at least to audience ears. Then stands up looming above Fran's body. The scene cuts, and the audience is led to believe Marta has let Fran die to protect herself (since we the audience also have been led to believe Fran is dead) only to find out later that Marta didn't let Fran die, she is alive, and she knew Ransom was the killer.

The Sign uses misdirection in a much more simple way. It sets up an expectation: Phaya is going to die, upping the stakes from "must save hostages" to "must save a comrade" aka the character we, the audience, have been following for the last 11 minutes. It sets two characters, Chart and Phaya, as opposing against each other, for reasons we don't know - is Chart one of the villains? Why is he trying to kill Phaya? etc - and the audience is led to believe this is a life or death situation.

Then, plot twist. The reveal happens that this was all a training exercise, and there was never any "real" danger whilst also keeping the audience on their toes. And like in The Iliad, now we have context for the mission, and then the story is able to step back and explain.

It's not like, the best~~~ use of misdirection but there was a purpose to it. It sets up an expectation, and subverts that expectation of the audience - but in a good way not a Game of Thrones way. While also pulling the audience into the show by starting in the middle of the action rather than slowing down the story with exposition or giving their hand away to much that this was a training exercise.

If you knew it was a training exercise, suddenly the stakes feel less intense because none of the characters are in any real danger, but not knowing that, withholding that information until it's relevant, ups the stakes of the scene.

The opening scene of The Sign imparts a lot of information without using a lot of dialogue and I find that impressive. We learn which characters will be relevant to the story - Phaya, Tharn, Yai, Khem, Thongthai and now we know, Chart is also important - that they are skilled combat fighters, knowledgeable in firearms, there's a fantasy element to the story via Tharn's visions, they're on an island which the setting for right now, and the tone and aesthetic of the show itself.

It's actually a fun scene to rewatch again with more context because I appreciated it even more. Which is just good film making.

I didn't talk much about the camera work - needless to say it's notable and fun - but maybe I'll save that for the next post. What other shows or scenes would be fun to breakdown? Drop me a line but heads up I don't actually watch a ton of shows so idk if I've seen xyz show lmao

Later chepies ✌️✌️

Other posts in the series:

Aspect Ratio in Love for Love's Sake | Cinematography in My BL - Our Skyy2 vs kinnporsche, 2gether vs semantic error, 1000 Stars vs The Sign | How The Sign Uses CGI

[like these posts? drop me a couple pennies on ko-fi]

[flonautilus]

Thinking about the way vox positions his brand and his own image -- his company stands for perfection, for innovation, for trustworthiness and progress; how hard he probably works to maintain a respectable image while wangling Val's whims. This is a man who, in a hell that respects pure brute power over anything else, created an empire based in consumer trust and playing on the human instinct to follow the herd, don't fall behind, keep up.

We know that alastor made a name for himself by almost deliberately playing a provocateur, upturning the status quo, framing himself as an unpredictable threat, and it's fairly consistent in behaviour patterns as well -- Alastor relishes in disturbing other people's sense of comfort; he turns to fear and intimidation as his first weapon.

Both of them use reputation as a tool but in completely opposite ways, and even in their personal relationships as well (another interesting point -- Alastor is much more genuine with people he does consider friends, like Mimzy and Rosie, but Vox never seems to fully let down his persona even with Velvette and Valentino? He has that big fake smile on with Velvette in ep2, and with Val he drops the smile but still plays the charming, reasonable, logical business partner -- at least until Valentino gets under his skin by mentioning Alastor. There's technically ep8 but I'm almost certain that's an exceptional case?) And both of them know very well how to play to their audiences

Well there isn't really a conclusion here but I find it really funny that in one season we're sorta already seen both of them break their own image to an extent? Vox obviously showing a total lack of composure on live tv, but also, Alastor's loss to Adam. Like I've seen some people say it's not a big deal because Adam is so strong, but the problem is that Alastor's reputation relied on the mystery of his power ("no one knows where he came from; he just started toppling overlords one day, and not small ones either"), and losing to Adam puts a definite upper limit to his power.

Basically he went from unknowable eldritch monster to like, powerful overlord sinner, but still a sinner.

Thoughts about recent leaks under the cut

You know what else is interesting? Vox's biggest asset is not his personal power (though it's almost certainly not small either) but rather the trust the people of hell invests in his brand. It makes me think that actually the primary conflict of season 2 will not be a physical battle (Adam) but a battle over the narrative. And who's the people of hell going to trust more, the overlord that's been providing them with technology and protection(?) for decades, or the princess of hell who's not here visible in public eye for ages, and heaven, who's been trying to kill them since who knows when? (obviously charlie stopped the exterminations which is a big plus on her record but that wasn't exactly a show of redemptive power was it? The strength to resist and unite yes but also the power of having hell's big daddy on your side)

And okay I'm not super sure still what vox is planning to do with hypnotizing the whole of hell, but I wager rather than any aggressive action (not his style) it'll have to do with convincing people that they really are irredeemable, that hell is the status quo and come on, do you really think those angels believe in redemption? Do you really think you can be redeemed after everything you've done? Pentious was an exception; he wasn't all that bad to begin with, and you don't think the princess' silly hotel can actually help you, do you?

And y'know what putting it this way it's suddenly clear to me why the vees are designed that way (because obviously they were planned to be one of the main villains way ahead of time) -- they represent respectively mass entertainment/social media/porn and drugs, all possible means of addiction and soft control and getting people to basically surrender to their own vices (more than hell already does of course) (gambling is another addictive means and I'm hopeful but sceptical that they'll explore it through husk)

But anyway. The Vees have much to lose if redemption succeeds (technically all the overlords do but eh). It's why I'm sorta hopeful that S2 and maybe S3 will feature a much more in-depth discussion of the topic of redemption? Who can be redeemed, what does redemption involve (beyond literally sacrificing yourself?), are there any limits to redemption?

Though putting it this way makes me think none of the vees aren't going to meet good endings ahshdd or at least they'll have to fall very very far to even get a chance at it bc why tf would you even consider redemption if so much of your power depends on people just giving into hopelessness and dependency? Not that any of them would ever want to be redeemed but...idk. and really that's a huge conflict in the show right? Charlie doesn't fundamentally understand why some people wouldn't want to be redeemed not just bc of addiction or other reasons, but the ones who benefit from the status quo (Alastor, vees, the overlords to some extent or another). And heck like Rosie and cannibal town helped stop the extermination but how much do they actually care for redemption vs getting a chance to eat angel meat? The show makes it pretty clear it's the latter. Charlie struggles to understand even Angel and it's why it's husk who gets through to him, cuz they can understand each other (but it doesn't mean Charlie's efforts are insignificant, they created the space for redemption in the first place)

And that's I think the central conflict of the show? That heaven (at least the side represented by Emilie) and Charlie believes everyone will to some extent want to be redeemed, it's just the lack of opportunities; Adam and lute and sera's side, who disdain and fear that if provided any opportunity, hell will always rise up and overturn heaven (ngl heaven and hell in Hazbin always reminded me of gated communities?); the vees who want hell under their control and in extension to convince that redemption is too far out of reach to bother; and maybe like Lilith too who I sorta suspect doesn't actually care for redemption as much as overturning heaven's authority? (But all we know of her is like a few minutes/seconds so like...)

Final thoughts but I was admittedly disappointed in the presentation of episode 6; for redemption to be worthwhile you need to show why heaven is so good, not just why hell really sucks, and imo the welcome to heaven song isn't really that convincing? It's a clever mirror to like a happy day in hell, but you can't just tell me everyone is happy every day in heaven and call it a day, like what's life actually like in heaven, rlly it just looks like a metropolitan city but in pastels?? Do people in heaven ever have personal conflicts; how are those settled; what does social life look like; happiness isn't just the lack of like addiction, poverty, pain, etc tho that goes a long way.

[asongoftearsandfandoms]

I notice that through all the discourse I find scrolling through the Tumblr tags about Alastor is that people don't really talk about what his character's point in the narrative is.

I can't remember the specific name of the character type, but I found a list of character types, and it's kind of an amalgamation of these: Doubter, rival, charmer, enigma, meddler, skeptic, pessimist, the shadow.

He's not trying to be an antagonist, and he's not quite a foil (well, maybe to Vox).

His role is to provide helpful opposition to his allies (especially the Morningstars).

It's like that friend that sees you're down and instead of trying to offer kind words, says "yeah, you're right. You suck, you're the worst, you never would have done a good job anyways. You were always going to fail. I mean, prove me wrong!" It switches your self-loathing and defeatedness to resolute determination.

Think about it. In the Pilot, he aids Charlie in making the hotel more desirable, but he openly tells her he thinks she's going to fail.

But think about when he shows up. Charlie has just suffered a huge public embarrassment and morale crush.

She's literally still sitting there moping when he knocks on the door.

He simultaneously declares his intent to assist her in this endeavor and starts trashing on sinners and how he thinks it'll never work. And look at the effect it has on Charlie:

She was nervous and somewhat uncertain before, but her stubbornness kicks in and she's motivated to prove him (and everyone else) wrong.

Let's look at another time he antagonized someone into doing better.

Lucifer shows up, depressed and unmotivated and having obviously been an absent father for a while. Alastor hones in on this, possibly before he even showed up (based on Charlie's hesitation and phone call with him).

It looks like jealousy on the surface, a pissing contest between two dominant males, but when has Alastor ever shown interest in being a father figure to Charlie before? Or expressed desire to be anything resembling family? But you know who does desperately want to be family to Charlie? Lucifer. Alastor immediately recognizes this is a sore point for Lucifer and needles those exact points, putting pressure on.

What does this do? Fires Lucifer up and makes him want to push back by actively taking back the role of being Charlie's father, and wanting to help Charlie with whatever he can give her, both materially with the hotel and emotionally as a father.

And look how proud this man looks. This isn't a face of jealousy or frustration that he lost against Lucifer, this is the pleased look of a job well done.

He knew exactly what he was doing. Lucifer wanted to reconnect with Charlie, but without that push from this tiny little Overload who thinks he's hot shit, who knows if he would have fought for her. The antagonizing pushed him from depressed passive longing to motivated actions.

Alastor's narrative role is helpful opposition to the protagonists, through providing doubt, being a rival, and posing as a meddler, skeptic, pessimist. He charms his way around, using connections and pure power to support the hotel. Why would he defend the hotel if he wanted it to fail? He could have just sat back and laughed. It's because even if he doesn't have an investment on seeing the ultimate goal of the hotel succeed, he does have some level of investment in seeing those inside get/do/be better.

[camcorderrevival]

to you, what's the difference between eleven/amy and twelve/clara? which one do you ship more and why? (i'm guessing the answer to the second is pretty obvious but i'm curious about your answer)

i think the biggest difference, beyond like narrative and theme, is that twelveclara gets more breathing room in the series. obviously youve got the relationship between clara and danny, and missy and twelve (and missy and clara to some extent), but twelveclara is very much given the centre stage. the viewer's attention is meant to be on them, the show is about them (for good reason). the other relationships function as ways to explore twelve and clara as separate characters, of course, but they also very much work emphasise the relationship between the two as well.

and like. elevenamy isnt some super niche relationship with no screentime or development. theyre the core of s5,6,7a just like twelveclara is the core s8&9. (and just like ninerose is the core s1, and tenmartha is the core of s3. whether you read them as romantic or platonic or whatever, the doctor & companion dynamics foster a kind of intimacy that keeps the show interesting and moving forward).

but you definitely more get the sense that, especially in s6, the dynamic is fighting for space with amyrory/elevenriver. the show gets stuck in a weird place where it is trying to convince the viewer that the satisfying conclusion for all of these characters is amyrory and elevenriver, but the story ends if amy really chooses rory in any meaningful way (and thats no good if youre trying to get two and bit series out of it). so youve got elevenamy which is the driving point of the narrative and somewhat more interesting/dynamic than amyrory, and amyrory which feels (to me) like a much more stuck, static point but the show really wants you to believe that its satisfying and interesting (without ever putting much effort into it, because that would detract too much from the core relationship). both relationships suffer from that weird balance that gets struck.

twelveclara does not face that same weirdness so the relationship gets more room to develop (or in their case devolve into a spiral of self-destruction and timeline altering) (yay).

beyond that difference in narrative space. i think both relationships deal with some similar themes (because they are the themes that haunt most of moffat's time as showrunner, and some of the episodes that he wrote for rtd). memory, stories, identity in the other.

but there are also quite different points. elevenamy takes on a more religious tone (especially in tgc + tgww). amy isnt doctorified to the same extent as clara, so the narrative surrounding identity in the other differs.

elevenamy basically imprint on each other as children and tie themselves around that point of connection, they cant help but deify each other (they r cathyheathcliff). doctorclara (because eleven's relevant in this for a little bit) are tied together by missy (fate. prophecy. your sometimes-ex who thinks you'd get on really well with this brunette woman whos got problems. insult/compliment??) and then progressively become more and more like each other till they have to be cosmically separated. and they want to be like each other because theyre obsessed with each other, of course, but also because they think that it'll give them more control over everything.

amy leaves the doctor because shes convinced he'll always leave her so she needs to stay with her safety blanket backup husband so she never ever has to be alone again (and she'll never ever be lonely little amelia pond again). clara leaves (not really) twelve because of the aforementioned cosmic separation.

amy puts the doctor in her childrens book. twelve puts clara in a song.

lastly, i will always bat for twelveclara whenever wherever. but theyre good. theyre well-written and they crash and burn so beautifully. there's not much to say. elevenamy is so interesting firstly because theyve lived in my brain forever im normal like that, secondly because the writing gets so awkward at points that there's hundreds and millions of things to say. so i love them very much sorry to twelveclara.

[scoobydoodean]

hello! I've been reading your content and as someone who considers themselves a both Sam and Dean girl, it feels like a breath of fresh air. I feel like samgirls watering down Sam's bad traits are what makes him less enjoyable, because the brothers are supposed to be foils of each other (or at least I see them that way). Both of them have good and bad traits but Sam's bad traits are most dominant in him and Dean's good traits most dominant in him. I think that Sam is a creative way to make an unreliable narrator and defeats the "good Protagonist fights evil in an evil spooky world". Although Dean will always be my favorite out of the two, Sam's moral greyness is key to the story and by trying to make him a helpless victim than the sick little murder man he is, it's like...they are missing the point of the show. One of the main themes I've seen in the show is that nothing is as it seems, Dean looks like the rugged older brother who's got murder on his mind (especially when you read Kripke's original concept for him) but he's actually sweet and trying to save everyone. Sam looks like the cute younger brother who could do no wrong and is just an awkward nerd, but is capable of murdering people without remorse.

I also wanted to ask what your take would be if Sam was the older brother and Dean was the younger brother. A part of me wants to say that it'll just be the same plot but just switching the roles, but that doesn't sound right.

#sam and human sacrifice heheheh

@ your question—hmm… I suppose it depends on how much you believe nature vs nurture shapes people. I would say a lot about Sam’s character is defined by his status as the younger sibling in a childhood neglect situation and a lot about Dean’s character is defined by his status as an older sibling in a neglect situation. A lot of how Dean feels is shaped by the perception that he has control in situations where he has no control, starting from childhood parentification. A lot of how Sam feels is shaped by the perception that he has no control, originating from childhood where he was dragged from place to place without knowing why for much of his formative years, and was often very isolated and alone (i.e. when John took Dean with him on hunts (11.08), or sent Dean away for pissing him off (14.12)).

On the other hand, I also think the demon blood storyline still happening to Sam and not Dean might potentially have interesting effects on John’s treatment of them, if you believe that Sam being coddled a little more (ex: not being allowed to hunt until he was older) isn’t just a function of Sam being the baby of the family but is also due to a special concern associated with his connection to Azazel. This in turn makes the nurture aspect even more fuzzy.

I agree with you though I don't think it would be exactly the same story just switching roles. I think there are also some nature aspects to this like I think Dean's role in the narrative being To Care About People (#dean the narrative heart) is probably something that transcends his upbringing, though obviously we can connect aspects of his upbringing to that role. And you have the age old question of whether Sam's feelings about purity are truly a function of childhood neglect, or whether his belief that he isn't clean literally comes from the demon blood (though personally I'm team neglect).

[randomnameless]

It's still wild to me that people will go to bat for the nothing characters that are Randolph and Fleche as proof of Dimitri being bad; we know next to nothing about them, they have miniscule screentime, what little we do know of Randolph paints him as human scum who'd do horrific things if it meant a chance at a promotion, and Fleche illogically only ever holds a grudge against someone for killing her brother if that someone is AM!Dimitri, with her completely vanishing from the game in every other route.

Eh,

I'd say they play the same purpose than this random child in TS in Roland's story - at this point, both lords want vengeance, and they have to face someone who also wants (misdirected!) vengeance at them, smth smthg like war sucks because people die.

But it's completely wasted in FE16, because, as you said, Randy isn't a random or a civilian or a war orphan, he is a general leading an attack on refugees/civilians/randoms to gain more fame, and dies in the process.

Now, can we say Flèche's anger and death are ultimately directed at Randolph, who died for nothing and took his sister down with him in his quest for "muhrit" ? Or are we supposed to think that this scene is important because Dimitri, the Blue Lord, isn't supposed to fall as low as the Imperial Army - something he comes close to (apparently?) ?

And yet again, it completely fails.

Because for one Randolph - who also had a family and loved ones - we have 50 Waldos and Baldis, whose lives aren't given any fuck about.

We don't see a war prisoner, or an Adrestian civilian accusing Supreme Leader of having sent her/his wife/husband/daughter/son to death with a conquest they never asked and trying to off her.

Only Dimitri receives this backlash from - invaders who wanted to invade and suddenly remember they have loved ones so are very sad when their loved ones dies - Flèche, but not Claude nor Billy, as you rightfully pointed out.

And Supreme Leader never receives any backlash - or wake up call - from a real third party/civilian/casualty who could have done the exact same thing.

Emile mentions how, during her attack, the Holy Grounds near Garreg Mach were turned in a slaughterhouse, why don't we have any civilian who survived from that try to take a jab at Supreme Leader? Waldi's best friend? Baldo's mother? A war captive from Leicester/Faerghus or a conscripted Adrestian?

I laughed about it with friends earlier, and again with the teatime paralogue, but it truly feels as if only 1/3rd (since the church doesn't count) of the cast will face consequences for the war and suffers backlash from the constant fighting (they didn't even start!).

Whenever you have to deal with serious stuff in Fodlan, it'll be for the BL members.

The rest? Will sip tea, talk nonsense, try to solve "mysteries" and live as if nothing is happening in the background.

Just imagine how both deer routes could have been much more impactful and interesting - instead of being a recycled Billy route with a different infodump at the end - if Raphael's sister popped up to a War Council, asking Claude to stop coddling the Empire because their lands were invaded, her grandfather put to Aymr and her inn destroyed by the Imperial Army, or how Ignatz's older brother discovers how Adrestia is burning pieces of art and history and every material related to Leicester and Faerghus history because they want to push an "Adrestia Eternal" narrative. Heck, Claude could even discover more "lore" by picking a Leif route, sort of rescuing the people "handpicked" to become new Baldos and Waldis, discovering the secret of the artificial crest stones and maybe having an infiltration map where, lo, instead of receiving an info dump, they maybe witness Rhea being turned in a relic or used to "produce" artificial crest stones.

War BaD, but only when we can make the BL suffer for it, for the rest, it's just a bgm.

And even then, it can't be too critical of Supreme Leader, because she was made to sell alts in FE heroes or dubious Cipher Cards.

"Supreme Leader", "cute girls" and "I want to see how Faerghus and its knights will deal with the aftermath of the Tragedy while defending against the invading forces".

Tl; dr : Flèche and Randolph are named, which is a cheap way to make people care for them despite their role in the plot, but the demonic beasts and the civilians dying aren't mentionned nor talked about.

Hell, why do you think I gave names to the artificial demonic beasts? The game doesn't want you to think too much about them, but if I talk about Baldo and Waldi, maybe the fandom will?

[elfreek]

Birth of a Wish grew out of desire to reuse elements from an earlier project after i had scrapped them (A reluctant god/Fantasy Chemical Weapons). It started life as a Fabula Ulitma Concept that bounced between several systems (including Lancer) before ultimately ending up in Numenera.

I had been reading about historical perceptions of Kami in Shinto and alot of academic stuff on Shinto in general at the time and was fascinated by the synchronicity between it and Buddhism. I wanted to capture that heian period fantasy that seems to exist in the historical record while cutting it with my own sensibilities. This really came together and got moving a few weeks after the worst moment of my life; i invested a lot in as escapism and a way to distract myself while was going through it. I'm real attached in that way, I wish i had gotten to run it. Appologies for the bad editing and scattered sentence structures in the PDF. Deeper thoughts, story beats and art below under the cut

General Commentary

It was... alot of work trying to lay the ground work for alot of the mechanical stuff that existed within setting. (as i discovered what defines a kami isn't common knowledge and how you related to an unfamiliar audience is extremely difficult)

There was alot of really wonderful synergy with the elements i wanted to write about and preexisting ideas i had such as the Shinto concept of purity and how that relates to death vs the concept of spiritual Nerve Gas. I was leaning into to the thinning of the boundary between life and death and souls not only being real but a thing to be used and harness. As I was developing the backstory it sort of... drifted into a mythical retelling of a Super Robot Anime's plot, so much so that the conflict between high heaven and the planet and the god warriors are directly inspired by EVA in both mood, aesthetics and the fact that they are vulgar expressions of humanity. I really really liked the decay of this godly power into a lesser form as a motif. All the Kami within the world of Roshana/Sadogoma can be derived from the rotting and corrupted cadavers of a pair of twins (directly mirroring Izanagi/Izanami).

The impetus for the four+one linages of species came from personal biases but the ones i wanted to point out in particular are the dregs and elves (which aren't mentioned directly) Elves first because it'll be quick, I wanted them to serve as an interest marker both for "oh fuck they're strong" as well as them being close to "divinity" which is derived from what "humans" looked like from the prior to the apocalypse as a little visual lore tidbit.

The dregs serve two purposes narratively, the first is to isolate the populations of the world by making sea travel extremely difficult thus limiting trade and other exchanges through open warfare with the chosen four. Secondary I wanted to show the primary divinities as maybe not so great, given that the dregs were the negative aspects of divinity filtered and abandoned by them. That kind of callousness and distain for the difference is an ugly thing to me and i wanted to bring it up but leave it to the player to draw their own conclusion.

The trio of divinities are pretty self explanatory except for 1) Managitu is a Kangaroo with two sets of ears and that Tsukimi isn't a product of the Brother Unit's rot. They are an alien probe that came to the planet after the war with High Heaven. Their roll is to observe and record. It's why there isn't a tribe of man modeled in their image. The early history of the trios rise to power is deliberately altered and obscured to hide Tsukimi's origin.

Plot Beats

The inital setup for the campaign was that the party was going to be part of a commercial expedition to open up a theocracy that had been silent for centuries to global trade. (haha geddit?) The first major thing to happen would be an attack of wraiths/ghouls and other undead fiends lead by a pair hulking armored figures during the parties ascent up the mountain with the goal being to trap them there and harvest their souls for an evil magus (we'll get to that).

Players would fight their way out with scattered survivors and end up at a village that would be warry of them but would open up to them after they deal with various problems for them which would double as showing the players that there's something wrong here and hint at the magus. From their they'd learn that the theocracy they were here for had suffered a catatrophic civil war that permanently scared the region. Eventually they'd link up with a shunned elven historian named Zelkova/Mizunara (depending on the draft) who turned into one 400 years ago during a academic visit to the mountain. She would serve as their guide and plot explainer/director for the over arcing narrative.

She would inform the players that there's an evil mage (Astra, never ended up having a setting appropriate name) with a vice grip on the region after helping plunge it into chaos. Astra would capture and sacrifice people from on and off mountain in a sick ritual to awaken a pre-apocalypse titan whom she and many others venerated as a new form of divinity, the same kind who's decomposition created the divinities. Following the plot the players would find out Astra is a spiritual scientist that is responsible for the soul killing chemical weapons that plague a lot of the region as well as committing atrocities in the name of awaking the titan through appeals to it's sense of mercy. The players would learn that Astra needs so many souls to not only power her magic but to serve as a spark to ignite the engine that powers the pre-apocalypse titan

Ultimately the party would sabotage Astra's efforts and defeat her. Ultimately before she could curse them with a spiteful death rattle that invoked her sunk cost fallacy of needing to kill so many for her own personal absolution the titan would wake and kill her in a gross display of it's own power. This New final boss would introduce itself as a nameless titan that was deemed unfit to serve it's original makers but was awoken by the honest pleas and appeals for salvation by Astra and her ilk. She had been awake during the civil war and saw that they did in her name, choosing to stay silent because the acts scared her. After meditating for so long she finally found her answer, accepting the calls for mercy and salvation of the people that placed their faith in her. Accepting her new mantle as an awakened being, she takes a feirce from made of fire called the Avatar of Mercy, announcing to the players that'll cleans the planet of suffering the only way she knows how. However she recognizes the hypocrisy, suffering she has caused and and the gulf of power between herself and the party. She offer the party a chance to fight her on fair terms, challenging the party to fight for their own future. Projecting her soul as a fire-y incarnation and absorbing what remains of Astra while the titan itself begins its ignition sequence.

If the players beat her, the sequence stops and the world is saved, if she wins or the players acquiesce to her ideology the world would be consumed in fire burning away the good, the evil and the in-between leaving only fertile ground for plants to take root.

That bad end is a leading for another idea I had but thats a story for another time.

Art Commentary

I did a lot stuff I was proud of from a design perspective for this project. I adore the way this landing page/title card turned out. It not only highlights the main antagonist and her motivations but also hinting at the bad end.

I did these three with the intentions of them being major NPCS in their own right, the right two being from the mountain and the leftmost being from a distant land. Personally I really think i did will capturing an overall aesthetic as well as demonstrating regionality in their clothing choices

Closing Thoughts

I am really attached to this world, not in the "i love the characters and places in it" sense but more in the fact that I find the subject matter fascinating and it was with me during the worst hours of my life. I really owe alot of my stability during that time to this world and the art i did for it. It's a shame it has to be put to bed like this but I'd rather burry it with full honors then have it fizzle on me because of circumstances beyond my control.

[jayteacups]

my stance on ships & shipping culture - a quick note

(please read before interacting!)

I'm seeing discourse in the AOT Tumblr niche ramp up once again (what would the AOT fandom be without harassment and discourse /s), so I want to put up this quick note to be linked in my pinned navigation post. Therefore, from now on, if someone sends an ask about ship discourse, it'll be clear whether or not they've read this post. Therefore that'll make it easier for me to see who respects my boundaries and who is and isn't worth my time.

This blog is primarily a Levi x Reader-insert/OC-insert/Self-ship blog. If you have a problem with this, save us both the time and energy, and just block me. If you harass me or anyone else who enjoys this type of harmless content, I will block you. This is not up for debate.

However, I am also a multi-shipper. You'll occasionally find that I reblog fanworks of Eruri, Levihan, Rivetra, Levifar etc, and that I tag all ship content so you can filter out the ones you may not like. I’m not a ‘proshipper’ though; for example, you won’t find any reblogs of fanworks involving a veteran character being with a recruit character in a romantic or sexual sense. However, I will never harass anybody for shipping a ship that I don't like, so I expect everyone from every corner of the fandom to return that same courtesy.

So please do not bring me into any ship discourse, I’m not interested in entertaining pointless debates over ships. I do not and never will condone harassment over people's opinions on fictional ships.

If somebody doesn't ship your OTP, or they ship something you personally do not like, that doesn't mean you have the moral high ground over them, and that certainly doesn't mean you can falsely accuse people of awful things or leave anonymous death threats in people's inboxes. Additionally, it's okay for your OTP to be fanon. The canon/fanon status of a ship doesn't make it better or worse than another ship. The sooner people accept this instead of twisting canon to suit a false narrative, the better. On that note, please don't send me long-winded, unsolicited asks about how a fanon pairing is 'actually canon if you read the subtext' whilst quoting 'facts' with no or incorrect sources. Let canon be canon and fanon be fanon. There's a difference, and a reason why they have separate labels. I'm not saying that you can't have a different interpretation of canon or the subtext, but I'm saying that not everybody will agree with you, and it doesn't automatically make your opinion the right or 'true' one.

I should also point out that the actions of a few bad apples is not representative of an entire ship community. For example, I have seen some people falsely assume the entire Eruri community are toxic based on the recent anons harassing Levi-centric blogs. This simply isn't true. The majority of shippers are very chill, but the toxic minority just happens to be the loudest. Let's not make assumptions about Eruri shippers or insult their OTP, because I have seen a few people do this in response to seeing the harassment, which I find incredibly hypocritical and unhelpful. Don't lose sight of the bigger picture - which is that we're all fans of the same thing and we all want to have fun in whatever way appeals to us.

Fandom is supposed to be fun, and I believe you should be focusing your energy on what you like rather than what you don't. Personally I think it's strange that these weirdo anons and harassers spend so much time and energy harassing people who don't ship their OTP, rather than using that time and energy to support creators who make fanworks of their OTP, or even creating some fanworks themselves. They care more about making other people miserable rather than fostering a positive community around their ships, and that is something I absolutely do not support or condone.

If you've read everything and have reached the end of this post, thank you for your time. If you fundamentally disagree with my stance, fine, but don't debate me on it. I've made it clear I won't change my mind on it, and you probably won't either, so I suggest you block me instead of starting a futile argument.

[herotome]

Hello Wudge!!! I know working on such a beautiful and ambitious project must be incredibly tiring. I also know how encouraging it can be to know that people enjoy what you put out there, so I'm here to express my appreciation for Herotome and all the work you have put into it already!

I've been into visual novels for a couple of years now, and while I enjoy my occassional short and sweet dose of cheesy romance, most visual novels could never really satisfy my desire for a good narrative and a lot of time to get to know the love interests (As someone who really needs to know a person in order to get romantically involved with them, I've always found some love stories kind of rushed. That's just my preference tho). I know it's hard to develop a fully-fledged game, especially when you're an independent developer and mostly work for free, so I'm definitely not trying to undermine anyone's work!!!

However, this is why I was so stunned by how much Herotome's DEMO captivated me. Not even just the extended demo!!! The first time I came across this game was before the extended demo got released, and even then, I was so enamoured with the universe, the artstyle, the characters, the writing. EVERYTHING. I'm a bit ashamed to say I can be quite picky with my taste in visual novels, but Herotome literally ticked every single box for me. Visually appealing designs (both with the characters and with the UI!), a great mix of humour and sobriety, clear and skilled writing and awesome world building. All of this in A DEMO??? GOD DAMN, DUDE!

A literal demo unironically managed to put this visual novel among my absolute favourites simply because of how much work and care was put into it. I really hope it gains more attention even before it gets fully released, because you truly deserve the same level of support that games like Our Life (my #1 fav VN, can't wait for OL2) have. I know it'll probably be a while before Herotome gets released, but I'll try my best to wait patiently because I can't wait to see more of everyone! (especially Dart and Jade, I love them.)

I'm really sorry for the whole essay over here, but I just wanted to make my support clear!!! Unfortunately I don't have the possibility of financially supporting (yet) but I'm over here awaiting every update of this game with so much excitement you have no idea (⁠ᗒ⩊ᗕ ྀི) Good luck and stay healthy!

ksbfjsdb how did you know.. 😭😭😭 Thank you, sweet anon! No apology necessary, I love essays!!

Worldbuilding is a area where I've felt particularly lacking -- like, I make a point avoid thinking about it most of the time, so in the rare instances I actually do put in effort it feels like it's coming up short? Maybe not so much in the demos, but nowadays I'll be standing around thinking about how things work in the society of Rhineway and trying to plan out ideas of what's gonna come up in the routes and my brain will inevitably feels like television static by the end.

SO to be praised for worldbuilding gives me a bizarre yet flattered feeling (sort of like "I'm not sure I deserve this but I guess I've done something right"), thank you, and I'm continually touched that people enjoy the humor! I really try to put in a lot of throwaway jokes where it's like -- if you don't laugh, it's totally fine cuz it goes by pretty quick -- but it is nice to know I've made people laugh. Or at least have an sensible inward chuckle :')

It sounds like you're demisexual btw which - lol me too. 🤝 Eyyyy!

I'm not sure how to end this post so I'll just put in some preview of what I've been working on -

Lots of eyebrow dances.

[dankovskaya]

@gothham Sorry this is going to be so long cause I've been stewing on this for like 2 days Lmfao. Beware

I think most of the reasons people enjoy it so much are (on the surface at least) relatively divorced from the author's real world politics. The titans as an antagonistic force are just sort of existentially horrifying and cool. Giant insentient uncanny valley creatures with lifeless smiles that insatiably eat humans with no biological need to do so and move in very disarming and unpredictable ways and are almost impossible to face head-on. They're sort of a neutral and universally sympathetic enemy and the mystery of what the hell they even are and where they came from (as well as the many other interrelated mysteries) is the driving force of like 70% of the narrative. The 3d maneuver gear and boxcutter swords that are used to fight against them are very distinct and once again. Just cool. Everything follows very clearly defined rules and limitations and as a result the fights and military operations against titans feel very grounded and sometimes genuinely stressful? Pretty much everything they do suffers innumberable casualties due to the titans being so fundamentally overwhelming that no character ever really feels 100% safe so it can keep you on the edge of your seat, and the characters themselves are distinct and consistent and interesting for their differences I guess. Everything that I remembered being good and entertaining about it pretty much holds true.

But everything goes to shit essentially when the main cast finally achieves the long term goal of getting to Er*n's old house's basement, which holds his father's answers for most of the questions that have arisen over the course of the show in regards to the setting and the nature of the titans, and thus it stops being a story about the david and goliath survival and worth of humanity in the face of unknowable senselessly violent monsters and starts being about like, racial pride (in a universe where race is a biological reality) and protecting the motherland and the value of """freedom""" and other weird shit. Up until that point, I don't think it's that much better or worse than pretty much any other comparable shounen, and it's very easy to NOT see the warning signs for what's coming/be completely blindsided by where the story goes in the latter third, which is a big part of why I even wanted to rewatch the whole thing in the first place? Like, in my memories, the "twist" came basically out of nowhere and kind of ruined everything that was cool about the plot and the setting, but that was also when I was like 14 or 15, so maybe it's more obvious as an adult with more developed media literacy? But the crazy part is, while most of the like, ideological seeds are planted pretty early on and the overall themes/philosophy remain pretty consistent throughout, the fundamental change in what the story is about is so drastic and comprehensive that the entire fourth season almost feels like a completely different show all throughout. Like, characters that have been around from the beginning feel different, not because they are behaving much differently but because they've all been dropped into a brand new context that has very little to do with the one that most of the show takes place in. The world of a*t expands so suddenly and incomprehensibly that you can literally watch up until they get to that basement and consider that an open-ended conclusion of the narrative and it'll be both functionally correct and 100x more fulfilling than the actual end of the story ever could be. In my opinion.

What IS visible from before that point is kind of what you would expect, being military worship and like. Proto-nationalism. A lot of people seem to get kind of tricked into thinking the story is fundamentally anti-war anti-military and so on due to the constant senseless brutality and characters questioning the point of all the violence and the desire for it to End Forever and the way that some military personnel are portrayed but I think that's sort of silly. All the main sympathetic characters are in the military so it follows that a lot of the unsympathetic ones are too--the ones that are judged are lazy, self-serving, and lacking passion or any sense of duty, and the ones we root for are, to whatever degree, patriotic and honor-bound, which essentially excuses any actions they might deem necessary as, well, ultimately necessary. Up to and including a violent military coup, or knowingly sending child soldiers on suicide runs. This patriotism can come off as relatively innocuous or at least comprehensible when the only "enemy" are the literal senseless violence machines known as titans and thus what the military actually represents is The Fight for Freedom for the Remnants of Humanity. It poses an obvious problem when it turns out they aren't in fact the remnants of humanity, but in fact A Hated Racial Minority That Used To Rule The World For Thousands of Years.

The other thing that stands out to me is the overall pessimistic philosophy of the narrative which seems to be the real driving force and awareness of that is kind of the only thing that makes the direction that the story goes in and the way it ends remotely comprehensible. From the very beginning, violence and hatred are established as sort of the fundamental aspects of human nature. The removal of titans from the place of main antagonists is for the purpose of revealing that even without an obvious collective enemy, human beings will always blindly hate and murder each other. Even when sympathetic characters insist that there must be some way to solve things WITHOUT killing each other, the cycles of hatred and violence and revenge are always portrayed as inevitable. And even when there's uncertainty as to whether that is true, and even when there are examples of goodness and reconciliation and love and harmony and whatever, the violence always ultimately wins out, in spite of its pointlessness and ineffectiveness. When Er*n becomes a stupid ass doomer and genocidal martyr and is narratively elevated for doing so, none of his stupid bullshit accomplishes anything either? Even though there is love and beauty and friendship in the world, everything is ultimately pointless, and this is what everything devolves into and the insulting ass note that the story ends on. It is legitimately some edgy teenager humans are the real monsters we live in a society ass shit when it could have been. And all it ever needed to be was. An average and casually enjoyable post apocalyptic shounen with a relatively unique premise.

[venus-is-thinking]

Disventure Camp All Stars Power Ranking (Round 19 - Venus)

Recap: Finalists' Helpers

That was a really fun episode! Obviously some of @accirax and I's assumptions about who was going where were dependent on them, uh, getting to choose from all three of them, but we still got some info! Plus, with the trailer, you can see Jake's bench. So far, it looks like I succeeded on Miriam, Aiden, Tom, Lake, and Ashley.

I think the final helpers are some really interesting choices! Fiore helping Ally will bring back some of Ally's early season woes and force her to think about the journey she's gone along. James helping Jake, similarly, will call him back to the first fuck up of many this season, allowing Jake to show off how much he's changed. Yul helping Riya will help Riya see that if you're a self absorbed jackass, everyone will hate you!

Looking forward to the finale starting this Saturday. It'll be wild to eventually see the winner get crowned in real time.

Onto the list!

1: Jake

I am still dying on this hill. Or surviving, because Jake is even more likely to win now!

I don't really see them wanting to give either Fiore or Yul the support money, so that's a point against Ally and Riya. I've already been "Jake is the winner" pilled for a while, so if he's gonna win, he can't go down as we go from final 3 to final 2.

I really do think the James selection is also to let Jake correct the major wrong this season he still hasn't. Like, he's made up with Aiden, he's working on making up with Ally, he and Tom are set up to work things out, and even Ellie was in support of TomJake endgame in the losers' motel. James was very much portrayed as the one person on the benches who still hasn't forgiven Jake, which gives Jake a great opportunity to prove why he deserves to win.

Also, Jake is totally gonna have to succeed at climbing something. I recently rewatched all of DCAS and he struggles with climbing things SO many times. Maybe James can help another twink overcome his fear of heights in the finale or something.

(Also, I think James is going to give Ally the 100k in support money.)

2: Ally

Ally is my pick for the other person in the final 2, but it's definitely possible that Jake and Riya could be final 2. Still, I think there's a lot of merit to the idea of a Jake vs. Ally final 2.

Ally and Jake were told by Connor to work together to make sure Riya doesn't win. I think that's most narratively satisfiable by having the two of them both outrank Riya and finally take her out of the competition.

There's also the fact that Kristal said that the new helpers are here for the first part of the finale. I definitely don't think it's a coincidence that we heard from both Hunter and Tom just how much it would mean to them to help out their love interests in the finale. I'm expecting that, when we hit final 2, the contestants will get to choose who they want to help them from their bench. Jake chooses Tom and Ally chooses Hunter. That also means that both of them will have had a helper from both Season 1 and Season 2, which is a nice bonus.

I also don't think Ally is going to win, for whatever it's worth. I'll save that mostly for next week, but I think Ally's arc will be more meaningful if she ends with acceptance that she didn't win the game and that people might not have seen her strategy pay off. She needs to just be happy with having people who love and care about her.

3: Riya

Speaking of people who need to not-win and instead understand that people love and care about them...

As I said earlier, I think it makes way too much sense for Riya to go down from a combo of Jake and Ally taking her down. I also have no idea who she'd choose for the second stage, nor why they would have highlighted Tom and Hunter if either of them WEREN'T going to get a chance to help out.

I think Riya's best bet is if the two part finale doesn't have the third placer go out significantly before the second placer. That's definitely possible, considering in the previews of the thumbnails we saw all three finalists dressed up in gladiatorial armor, which implies they're all still in the challenge as of the second part of the finale. It's possible it's just a Season 2 style finale where the first episode cuts off before the third placer is properly eliminated, though.

It is kinda weird that she has the disadvantage if she's gonna lose, because it seems predictable, but... eh.

Either way, though, I'd be shocked if Riya won. In Season 2, I actually thought she had a shot if the moral was going to be "congrats, you won at any cost. Now what?" However, I don't think that makes sense this season. Riya has already realized that she's lost her social relationships, and as of now, she's still continuing forward. Rewarding her for that doesn't make sense.

I don't really know what ending the writers imagine for Riya. If they wanted her to get fully redeemed by the end, I think she needed to be taken out of the game before the finale. But, I suppose I'll see what they have in store for her sometime soon! After all, there's only... two episodes left of the season... (insert screaming)

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Thoughts on Joker as an optional boss in P3R

.........................................snrk.

Wow....just....wooooow wowowowowowowooooow. Wow. Woof. Omg. Wow.

"Silly salt incoming?" Yes but in a "At this point I'm not even fucking surprised. Just wow!" type of salt

"Are you mad cause it's Joker/P5 related?" I mean like...yes and no?

"No?" I'm not inherently against him being an optional boss. I'm all for past characters coming back. Is it a biiiiit annoying it seems to be ONLY P5 related? Yeah. But like, that's because it seems to ONLY be P5. If it was P5 IN ADDITION to something else, I really wouldn't bat an eye. Like how I didn't for P3/4MCs in P5R (Sad they drew the line at those two only, but....hey. At least we got SOMETHING)

"Then what's the yes?" Besides weird timeline bullshit, which I'm sure they'll have an explanation (or at this rate I hope so). It's just....

I find it funny.......how the devs want to hide behind.... "keeping the original spirit alive" or some bullshit like that. As a means to tell certain fans why we can't have certain things in this game.

I mean, should I be surprised? They removed key features of the original game despite saying that. Yet still tried to hide behind that narrative. "Oh no it's more like Vanilla P3!....except for the FES stuff WE want still.....oh, and using a lot of P3P's stuff too-" I mean.....still funny they wanna hide behind that narrative. All that considered.

Sorry, that was a side tangent. Joker fight only now. Ok.

I find it funny they wanna hide behind that narrative....and then put Joker, a P5 character, THAT WASN'T IN THE ORIGINAL GAME, into the DLC. Just....huh. Interesting.

Just....didn't think to, you know, put a different character in the game? A legacy one. Maybe P1MC? With the whole Tartarus shared scenario and Nyx scenario? No?

Or maybe Tatsuya/Maya? I mean, P2 and P3 have a lot of overlapping parallels. Greek theme, dual MCs, sun and moon themes to name a few. Orpheus in some mythos being Apollo's child.... A real passing of the torch vibe when it comes to P2 going to P3 tbh.

Oh! Or you know, having them face Labby or Sho! They had them as DLC in P3D, plus it would've been PERFECT! We could've had all 3 P3 themed robo girls in ONE GAME! :D Plus they already have working models for them! They'd just need to update them.

Or......you know. They could've gone with the obvious one? Esp if timeline/space bullshit isn't an issue. One that would've been both a narrative AND mythos driven gut punch. They could've gone with FeMC! :D

"Oh but we can't have her in the game, it'll take up too much time and mone-" It's one model for a boss fight. (ʘ‿ʘ) One. Model. We don't even need to account for her Personas because they already have models. Just one model, for a boss fight, with certain animations tied to that. "But money" oh noooooo a company has to make one model with certain animations for a fight and not a whole story mode? Whatever shall they do? Where will they get the time and money to do one model with fight animations? :( :( :( :( :( (/sarcasm)

"But would fans really like-" Yes. We are asking for crumbs. Literally the bare minimum they could've done.

I'm starting to think that they are allergic to her. Cause why else are they dodging her like Neo dodges bullets? TT0TT

"You ok Silly?" Yeah I'm fine. I'm annoyed. Not even pissed. Just....."yeah this is what I expected" and moved on. But I had a feeling I should make a post about it so I came back. >_> Literally took me a few hours to realize the bs after seeing it drop kjaskfdl My first reaction was "yeah sounds about right" THEN after a few hours I was like "wait a minute....." jklsadjfkal

If anything, the need for Atlus to hire a new PR manager for BOTH Jpn and West is just becoming more apparent. I mean they've needed it for years now but ooof please someone save them. save me TT0TT

Tldr; I don't care Joker is in the game because it's P5/Joker. I'm not against him being in the game. I'm just FOR other things ALSO being in the game. And I find it weird they draw the line at other things but then choose Joker???? So weird. :/

[exeggcute]

your blog is cool and youre the only person on tumblr i really follow on tech stuff. is the transition to manifest v3 really worth all the hubbub?

first of all thank you! and second of all, lol. to be honest I haven't had a major eye on the v2 > v3 transition but you may be unsurprised to learn that I'm not taking hard sides here and am both slightly suspicious of the changeover and also less than convinced by some of the "this is the worst shit ever" blowback. not to suck google's dick either (unless any recruiters are reading this...?) (jk my least favorite person on r/technicalwriting works at google so unless you can guarantee that I will not come into contact with that man, it's gonna be a hard no) but to some extent I think this is one of those things where google, as the de facto governing entity for how internet browsers are designed[1] is, for better or worse, in the seat to steer the ship right now and inevitably has to make design choices that will shape the future of (how people will access) the web.[2]

[1] insert comment about firefox here but considering firefox is almost singlehandedly bankrolled by google it works out the same in the end. hence my perpetual dislike of the way-oversimplified "maverick underdog mozilla singlehandedly holding the line again google" narrative... go tell me where the money is coming from!!!

[2] also I know the W3C is the actual governing entity for internet protocol design and has influenced browser design on a more abstract level but that's still a degree of separation away and tbh I'm not super familiar with W3C drama. although I can only assume there's drama lol.

and google being google has both real and imagined interests in shaping the web by virtue of their other business ventures (e.g. but not exclusively e.g., advertising) and so I think some amount of blowback is gonna be inevitable when they propose Big Fundamental Changes. which, like, I'm the last person who's gonna say "no we should definitely drop our defenses and approach this without an ounce of skepticism" lol so I think the knee-jerk Uh Oh impulse is totally fair and maybe even warranted. but after the initial jerk I also think it's worth hearing shit out and, you know, on the face of it I can see why the changes outlined in the v3 manifest bring positive changes to the table. security and performance and shit. but security and performance are relatively boring selling points, and when google has earned a poor public reputation thanks to the other shit they've pulled I think it's understandable that even well-meaning changes will be met with general suspicion.

buuuut I still get irritated by the verging-on-clickbait headlines where literally every change about v3 is framed as "google is finally killing ad blockers" and then you read the article and ad blockers aren't mentioned directly a single time. like it'll literally just be about v3 lol. arguably I'm just being naive/willfully ignorant because of course it's all really about ad blockers since google is an advertising business and the other benefits are a smokescreen and blah blah blah but I do kinda feel like that borders on conspiratorial thinking, especially since ad blockers will work in v3, albeit differently, and google is actively working with/taking feedback from extension developers (including ad block extension developers). a lot of it genuinely just seems like "major version change will require significant technical work to implement, more at 11".

who knows though, I could eat my words :shrug:

kind of related but I was always kind of surprised by the amount of pushback against the web integrity API thing because I read the proposal behind it and it seemed pretty well-intentioned to me. granted there were some fair/serious concerns that even the proposal pointed out and a lot unanswered implementation details (and tbf it was a proposal/WIP) but I got Why they were proposing it, invalid traffic being the bogeyman it is. and like I am not a cryptography guy in the slightest but as I understand it the WEI was basically just an SSL certificate in reverse?

a lot of it makes me think about the web3 article from a few years back where a guy talked about designing an NFT that looked cool on various storefronts but looked like a poop emoji in your actual wallet after you bought it, which, in the process of trying to google it to link here, led me to this substack post where someone summarized it as "NFTs are centralized and no one cares." which is pretty much exactly what I was getting at (and why I thought about it in this context) with how even ostensibly open protocols can devolve into walled gardens built around those protocols with bonus features tacked on, if the protocols themselves don't offer those features out the gates (and enough people want them). idk. food for thought I guess. I really am just rambling here though so let me humble myself by reminding us all that I have a B.A. in english and love to speculate lolol. not an expert!

[progmanx]

I'm gonna lay all of this out right now so it is on the record, and I probably should have done this last week when I actually saw that Ch115 of Black Lagoon was out (and that apparently all of the previously untranslated ones had been translated officially on Viz in like March??? Is the series ending or are they just doing this for everything?) but hear me out:

Majeur is Yukio's older sister.

Okay. I'll explain. I know, "just because they are both from Japan doesn't mean they're related!" and I agree. This would not have crossed my mind if not for the GIANT KABUKI TATTOO on her upper body.

We're gonna circle back to this. Keep it in your brain. Also, I can't believe it but Rei Hiroe actually crafted a scenario where swimsuits were entirely necessary to the story.

That is not a joke. We're gonna get there. Need to set some things up for you.

Majeur apparently had a younger sister according to her former comrades, and the previous Auriculaire (the blonde that kept screaming Majeur was a lesbian) was someone she was so protective of she is still not okay about her death in "L'homme Sombre".

I do not have Vol 12 digitally, so trust me on this one.

I must've read 114 and 115 about fifteen times at this point because I kept finding little things that are so damned interesting (that's a different discussion but no surprise I love it) and at first I'm thinking "well this is the calm before the storm" because that's a no brainer. The comparisons between Revy and Majeur, and the little jokes about "it'll be confusing if one of us dies because we both have tattoos, are Asian women, and you want to ALSO have two guns?" and just a ton of other small and large things would, in any other story, be giant death flags for Revy.

I don't think that's where we're going. I think it's somewhere WAY more interesting considering we already know Majeur's #1 priority is survival and has no real loyalty to Balalaika.

Because all of these little pieces (the diving, teaching her to tie the rope, how the city works; basically everything she ever taught Rock and a few things she learned from Rock...) start to add up about Revy's growth as a person, and how many callbacks and connections are being made to the entirety of the story, combined with Revy breaking up a barfight before it starts between Majeur and Eda (holy shit???) and it paints a picture that is screaming right in our face.

Classic Hitchcock suspense. The bomb under the dinner table that the guests don't know about, but we do. We don't know when it will go off. Only that it will.

Gonna hit you with some stuff.

I don't think it is an accident that Revy's "dream" is wanting people to shoot her in the face and not the back, because she sure as hell lives by it.

I don't think it is an accident that Revy explicitly mentions she has been to Japan in front of Majeur and recognizes the word kabuki (remember!!!) I don't think it is an accident that Majeur is about to say her name at the end of 113 and Rock stops her, trying to be a "cool guy" because on the one hand he is correct, you can be someone else.

Start over. He did. Revy did. Dutch totally did. Balalaika did. Feng did. On the other hand, narratively, what is the one name that exists for a Japanese person to have that would carry any significance?

The one name that the only two people in existence would hear and have a visceral reaction to, as they are the only ones who know what actually happened?

Washimine.

Yukio Washimine.

It gets better, though. Remember that kabuki tattoo? I could go into what each one represents, and they're pretty neat, but more importantly...

He's quoting the play "Sukeroku". Listen, you don't do this TWICE. You don't show us this super specific thing TWICE and not have it be a giant neon sign. This is no damned accident, and it makes sense.

Jane came back. Roberta came back. Why not Tokyo? Throw in Takenaka (this would be INSANE and I am so here for it) and you've got the full set.

Majeur asking about honor when she's taken hostage by Rock, Revy, and Shenua and Rock's response being "That's a mafia thing" suddenly has quite a bit more weight to it.

We know the Washimine group were without a proper leader for a long time, which is what lead to their desperation in calling in Hotel Moscow to deal with the Kosa Kai. A teensy bit of conjecture, but "things happened" is probably about "my dad, the Yakuza boss, was murdered and I fled the country"

Why did Yukio stay behind? Could be that they're half-sisters. Same dad, different moms. Could be a lot of things.

Yukio took up the mantle, Chaka got his hands chopped off, Balalaika holds Rock at gunpoint in a parking garage, etc. We know that story; it's absolutely amazing and needs no reiteration even this many years later.

What does this mean? Why does this matter? Well, Majeur and Ginji both went up against Balalaika and Revy. The latter is dead because he had a reason to live; he wasn't focused on survival.

Majeur? She lost her Yukio. The first time was literal. The second time was in Nigeria. She stopped trying to go after Balalaika and Revy because there wasn't any point to it. She had no one to protect. No one to fight for.

And there's one more thing...

Yeah, man. I think this is essentially Yukio back from hell itself to take revenge on Balalaika. Revy's just the one who shot Ginji. She isn't responsible for the complete eradication of the Washimine group, and she has been trying to help Majeur because she obviously sees way too much of who she used to be in her.

Rock helped Garcia with Roberta, and they told him to fuck off...and rightfully so. It got dark. What dragged him out of the funk? Helping himself, Feng, in a way that was far less destructive and much more productive. What I imagine some have forgotten is that Revy also had an expy (this whole series is just parallel and intersecting character arcs and foils with the strangers who come to down I love it so so much) that told her to fuck off just as much, if not much more effectively and painfully: Fabiola.

Fabiola never needed her help. She just thought she did. Majeur actually does benefit from Revy's advice because, shockingly enough, she isn't filled with nearly as much hate or bitterness as she used to be.

Feng and Majeur were basically the 'second chances' for Rock and Revy respectively, after "The Dance of Death". Take it back further, and this whole thing really could have been trying to make up for how things went down in Tokyo, as Yukio and Ginji were far more explicit and direct foils than Roberta, Garcia, and Fabiola ever were.

And this isn't even getting into the Balalaika side of things. That's a whole other conversation. God, I love this series so damned much!

Revy making a bet with Balalaika with Majeur as the---oh, shit, right, I don't have Vol 12 digitally, but you just have to trust me that Hiroe did bring the "people are like dice" concept again, but it was REVY who did it. It was when they're driving Majeur after she starts talking, and Revy responds with something like "Why do you care? You already threw your dice."

Majeur has direct access to Balalaika at some point in the future. She has the perfect ticking time bomb of a motive to want her dead, and Revy's gamble might make Majeur too well connected and too skilled to be stopped before it is way too late.

No idea how this will pan out, but I fucking love this series.