#writing an essay i will never be graded on

[gnomey22]

The Scythe Cutscene: A Failtopia Analysis

At the end of Failtopia Season 2, the final boss (Hank the Demon Lord, also known as Lee) is defeated in two ways - first, a frying pan to the head from Mar, in regular gameplay, and second, a scythe torn through him by C!Failboat, in a custom cutscene.

There’s an argument to be made that C!Fail should not have been the one to get the final blow on Hank, and a good argument too. He was the protagonist of Season 1, who wasn’t especially competent and only really succeeded for plot reasons, and because he got carried. Mar was the protagonist of Season 2, going through the final stages of his redemption arc after being the final boss of Season 1 three years prior. He was defeated with a frying pan to the head then, and defeats his ultimate foe (who takes on the exact same form he did) through the exact same method… only for Hank to revitalise himself after the hit, and get killed by C!Fail’s magic scythe he never uses.

It’s easy to see how Mar got cheated out of his thematic victory, for the sake of C!Fail-centric bullshit. Hank was Mar’s ultimate enemy, given that Mar possessed him for years on end in Season 1, only for him to turn around and pull the same shit on a close ‘friend’ of Mar’s, but his motivations were presented as hatred towards Failboat (the real one) for doing a terrible job of managing the world of Miitopia. A reasonable motivation, ignoring the lack of explanation for how he found out about all that, but it feels a little cheap knowing that his motivation could’ve simply been revenge against Mar for Season 1.

That’s a good argument, but my overanalysing brain came to a different conclusion about these events. Firstly, the finale.

I think it was the perfect conclusion to C!Fail’s character arc. He was largely unhelpful for the entirety of Season 1, despite being the protagonist, because he didn’t put the effort in, and had no leadership skills. These flaws are explored and worked upon in Season 2, where he’s relinquished his leadership position to Mar, and actually puts the effort in to become an indispensable teammate.

In Season 1, the final blow on Mar was not dealt by C!Fail. It was dealt by Smuk, using a frying pan to the head, assisting C!Fail’s attack. He wasn’t competent enough to finish the job without his team, but because he’s the team leader, the burden to take credit falls on him. Mar, on the other hand, has always worked in tandem with his team to dish out hits on the enemies, especially as he cries over their falls. This is a huge step up from feeling so empty inside that he literally killed himself, he’s learning to express his personality.

Therefore, the final blows on Hank are dealt as follows: Mar avenges a fallen teammate by delivering a tearful final blow on Hank, perfectly mirroring the one he himself was given three years prior, completing his redemption arc. Then, C!Fail steps up to the plate to finish the job, using the weapon at his disposal he’s been wilfully ignoring this whole time, completing his arc of learning to be a competent fighter. Mar takes the credit afterwards, because he’s earned it, but C!Fail is the one who talks to the Great Sage and helps to heal Hank, because the single good thing he did in Season 1 was help to heal Mar. He’s still the same optimistic dumbass, but he’s become experienced, and worked in tandem with the team to win this, he wasn’t just carried.

As for Hank’s motivations, he attacked the unnamed Dark Curse for seemingly no reason, unless you consider the fact that he was possessed by a Dark Curse for all those years of suffering. He does, in fact, hold a grudge against Mar, he just has other, bigger priorities. Do with that information what you will.

My point is, there’s a lot of thematic significance to be found in C!Fail dealing the ‘final blow’ with the Scythe, and it’s much easier to find it if you don’t call it the ‘final blow’, singular. Hank wouldn’t’ve needed to revitalise himself if Mar hadn’t killed him the first time. There were two ‘final blows’, dealt by Mar and C!Fail respectively.

All we need now is for C!Fail to be left the fuck alone for Season 3, I cannot stress enough that he doesn’t need any more plot relevance.

[echodrops]

I'm just procrastinating work by thinking about the distressing decline of critical thinking and media literacy, but the take "Writing dark content allows people to heal from their own negative experiences," while true enough, also feels like it is missing a critical dimension:

Fiction needs victims because empathy is a learned skill.

Through sympathizing with the plights of fictional characters, upon whom we can safely project ourselves, we learn to identify with the suffering of others in the real world as well, even those with whom we do not share similarities.

Fiction's central function is the recognition and resolution of conflict, an absolutely vital real life skill that requires the ability to resonate with the challenges of those outside our Self.

Our stories need suffering so the real world can have less of it.

[hearts401]

thinking abt my universe's school system and deciding to draw them working on an essay

[jils-things]

this feels too soon to say because its still not well over a month that i started uni but like...

im quite happy by how things are going now- it doesn't feel all too restrained unlike my past school years. and apart from that, i feel a lot more independent being able to travel miles away from my home which has been my biggest anxiety as i got older. just the fear of getting lost spooks me a whole lot! even if i'm travelling through a planned route, going all by myself is probably the bravest thing i did this year and i say this as an introvert who doesn't go out all too often

[pepperdee]

oh my god i actually have. a pdf of my diploma. i didn't fuck it up. i actually have a degree

[earl-grey-crow]

.

[choking-on-roses]

My goal was to grade 10 papers today. I really really reeeeaaaallyyyyy didn't want to and had to fight tooth and nail through the executive dysfunction. I clawed my way through at a pace of one essay per hour. I hated it, but I did it!

It's not even the fact that I reached my goal that made me happy (it was arbitrary). It's the fact that I'm even capable of getting through difficult things I don't want to do at all. I have been working on my self-discipline and focus for years and I'm very proud of myself for how far I've come.

[sexygaywizard]

I wrote 2500 fucking words today and I'm gonna go buy myself a BORGER as a treat

[andytheoverthinker]

Can someone please tell me the world won't end if i don't get into university please i need the reassurance

[girlitfeelsgood]

I'm so nervous about writing an essay for the first time in two years. What if I do horribly 💀

[gnomey22]

Canon evidence for EriBo (Failtopia)

"EriBo is a bad ship because it will never be canon!"

Counterpoint: Daniel Failboat is obviously fine with the ship, and there is quite a lot of canon material pointing towards the possibility of it. Such as...

Erica is the only member of the party to find out that Bo is a ghost before S2E18, and she finds out through Bo's own admission.

Among the piles upon piles of compliments and exclamations Erica responds with, is "You're wonderful! How have we never talked before?" I think that first part is a lot to say to someone you only just talked to, considering this very scene shows how Erica uses the word 'wonderful', and the whole line is talking up Bo herself, rather than the mere fact that she's a ghost.

Bo's big development in S2E18 involves Daniel Failboat going into her character menu and altering her Mii itself, giving her a smile. This is something he also considered doing just after the garden scene with Erica, because it clearly meant that much for Bo. He even went into the menu before clicking off of it, so it wasn't just a passing thought.

Erica specifically says "I love it!" in response to Bo's development, which is certainly a strong word to use, especially for someone as usually cold as her.

The very first time Erica sees Bo get hurt in her new form, she immediately rushes to her side to comfort her, before immediately killing every single enemy they were faced with in one attack. Daniel Failboat's platonic explanation for this is, quite frankly, bullshit, and it's never brought up again, so I'd say there isn't one.

Erica and Bo have one of the more insane in-game-relationship-level-to-canon-relationship-level ratio in the entire series, only making it to Level 6 within the game, but canonically, they're most likely on a similar level as Erica and Chi. In case you couldn't tell, that means a noticeably higher number.

My reasoning for that previous statement relates to the party organisation for the final fight against Lee. That being, everyone being sorted onto the same team as someone they're strongly connected to. Shrimp fights alongside her found family, Lee has to fight against all of his worst nightmares, and Erica fights alongside the people she actually likes, that being Chi and Bo. All of these reasons technically go both ways, such as Shrimp being Orion and Bill's found family, and Lee being half the party's worst nightmare. Meaning that Erica was Bo's ideal teammate for the final fight.

I cannot stress enough how many times Daniel Failboat has interacted with EriBo fanart. He's obviously seen a lot of it, he's liked a lot of it, and he's featured a lot of it on his stream countdowns. If he had an issue with the ship, most of what I just said would probably not be the case, or he would've said something about it.

This isn't to say that ships have to have canon evidence to be good, because that obviously isn't true, I just think that using a cringe argument against a ship it literally doesn't work against is stupid, such as saying "EriBo sucks, it can't be canon!" when not only does that not affect the quality of the ship, but they clearly haven't paid enough attention to canon.

[violentdevotion]

Hi. Op of the college post. I wanted to extend my apology for your friend's death (i actually made the post in memory of a friend who also died) and to ask what major you were in? An essay on hauntology sounds intriguing, id be curious to know more. Well, sorry if this is random and sudden, your tags just jumped out to me in the notifications as the most interesting thing someone left on that post. I hope you have a lovely day!

thank you for your thoughts. i want to extend the same to you, i feel losing a friend so young at such an already tumultuous time in your life is one of the most difficult things to go through, but we did it 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻����🏻👍🏻

i studied english literature at uni. the class i wrote the essay on was contemporary world literature and the prompt was 'discuss the importance of grief or loss in contemp world lit and I chose the books Autumn by Ali Smith and Alfred and Emily by Doris Lessing (which if you haven't read already id really recommend). i think the conclusion sums up what my thesis was better than i can now 2 years after writing it

In conclusion, grief and loss within these texts are tied to nostalgia, of either objects, memory, or people. However, this grief disrupts the memory and the linear narrative, and as such time bleeds into eachother. Events from the past cannot be remembered without knowing what is to come, whereas idealisations of the future must be rooted in something from history, the consequence of which is that ‘the futuristic now connoted a settled set of concepts, affects, and associations.’ (Fisher, 2012, p.16). Difficulties arise however when these concepts and associations are established in a history of violence and loss. This exchange expresses the continuous feeling of grief, as characters are repeatedly acknowledging and ‘burying’ what ‘haunts’ them while unable to live in a future without what they have already buried. Evidently, like a leaf ‘so stuck that when it eventually peels away, it's leafshape left behind, shadow of the leaf, will last on the pavement till next spring.’ (Smith p. 259) Contemporary World Literature must constantly acknowledge the past and present while looking to the future, forcing all three to exist concurrently.

dont worry about it being random, i made the joke that the post was made in a lab for me when its actually two people coincidentally relating over similar life experiences. i hope you have a lovely day also :))))

[autism-swagger]

Getting ready for the next stage of my life has made me realize that me being really depressed on and off for years is really fucking up my college opportunities. Crazy how that works haha (<- in immense agony)

[gaytobymeres]

it doesn't seem to matter how much effort i put into assignments i never improve my grade :/

[dumbassacademia]

Thoughout my youth I got a lot of shit from adults (esp my Former English Teacher Mom) (those are a different breed than regular moms) about how often I said “like”.

Most of them comforted themselves by saying I’d stop doing it as much as I got older and eventually I’d laugh at myself for it just like they did

Instead now when I catch myself doing it whether verbally or in writing I can stop myself and go “Wait, is that necessary? No? Well, it conveys the tone/meaning/vibe I’m trying to get across better than I can say without it. It stays”

Which I think is pretty cool and sexy of me and also reminds me of the time in high school we had to read an article about proper comma usage and then write a response about what we learned from it and I said this

(Comment was my teacher’s response)