#I have many thoughts on the character who barely has any voicelines

[1nterspace-2]

Peter ‘Parker’ Yang! RIP to a real one <3

[nightclimes]

fic writer meme: 3, 4, 31, 35! or any question that you like if these don't spark interest

thank you for the questions! tbh I may answer more on my journal at some point, they're all very good 🤔

3. Is there a trope you wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole?

there's probably a lot. the only one I can actively think of is miscommunication - I want characters to resolve and trust and say what they're thinking, and a premise based on not communicating properly does not interest me at all. many others are circumstantial or fair game, depending what a story needs: but it never needs this imo, lol.

4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?

There's a few I have as backburner ideas and some that I'm purposefully kindling, but none that are really at a point I can talk about... that and I'm not thinking about them in big detail with posting rarepair fics/working on Ashe site/PEM flare and almost no sleep all week, brain is too small.

31. Do you take liberties with canon or are you very strict about your fic being canon compliant?

I'm generally compliant. Sometimes I'll write something that's a "what if" or a divergence of a particular event, but I like to write something that seamlessly slots into an established timeline and that readers can picture as actually happening. I want it to make sense within canon confines.

However that's for stuff like, FFXIV. Overwatch barely has a narrative in the first place: it's a mess, it's scattered all over the place in tie-in media and things are constantly being retconned or adjusted when previously mentioned events are fully explored, but it's a fascinating blueprint to work with. I like working with established settings and fleshing the characters out for myself. But I base all of what I do on their behaviours in-source, be it voicelines with others and their reactions to things. I'm just building on what's already there.

The biggest compliment to me is when people say they can hear the characters voice. Or when later canon proves a prior read as correct.

35. Would you ever kill off a canon character?

I have, but it wasn't permanent :')

This is an interesting question because I once wrote a prequel novel for a series where one of the characters dies at a specified point - that would be my ending. However, this was not a choice I made for myself, but one made for me. The only time I've ever written a non-canon death for a character is for Ashe during Bloodstains... and that's because it was thematically appropriate and, being an AU seeped in magic and destiny and fate, I could fairytale fake-out it and do thematic soul-searching and self-acceptance with it. And resolve it through true love's kiss, obviously.

I've also written an AU where the wol dies instead of (redacted) during HW, but that's like? A very specific circumstance. See above about divergence: it is not what I would consider "canon". I would be reluctant to remove any canonically named character forever, even in something long form, and even when writing about an assassin and an outlaw who would do these things and Ashe vocalises she wants Cassidy dead (she doesn't mean it, though).

...although I do have one idea for if that did happen, so never say never. Again though it's not what I would consider my own series' canon and deliberately a what-if. Like a thought exercise. I've also thought at length about what Ashe or Amelie would do if they lost the other, but that's mostly idle musing; I'd probably never actually write it because it would ultimately upset me too much.

tl;dr no. but yes if it's strictly a divergence or in a very specific context.

[sovpologist]

ok finally went ahead and caught up with the season and here are my thoughts!

hmmm... i like the season's concept but not the execution sadly. it feels bad to have an entire season where the central question is "how do you be more than a weapon" and the answer to that question is "kill yourself to save others" i guess????? rasputin didnt really get the chance to live as more than a weapon and ended his life AS a weapon but its okay and "growth" because he's being a weapon... for people he cares about this time? idk, i'm not one of those people who are like "you don't owe anyone anything" because i think helping other people is a beautiful thing to do and i love destiny's focus on community, but i feel like rasputin's ending was more about denying him community if that makes sense... he never really got the chance to experience humanity and be human unless you count his recouped felwinter memories

i feel like there were so many interesting routes we could have gone with a fully mobile and "human" rasputin that i guess the writers were just not interested in exploring... im not a rasputin loremaster so if there was precedence for rasputin being inseparable from his warsats please lmk but it genuinely felt like it came from nowhere that rasputin HAD to die to shut down the warsats. until now they had been treated as something completely separate from him (they were able to operate remotely even when he was shut down for god's sake, although you can argue gameplay elements don't equal canon)

even when ana says "there has to be another way" rasputin's response seems to indicate that it doesn't even matter because somehow someday someone will eventually get hold of the warsats and use them for harm so he might as well just die now, which again is like.... such an unhealthy and negatively self-sacrificing mindset!!!!! it is genuinely really sad to play through all the seasonal missions at once and do a speedrun of rasputin going from confident to completely depressed and questioning his purpose in life if he can't be a weapon and use force to overpower his enemies, and then to have that arc just NEVER be resolved bc he immediately decides he needs to die for the good of others. it was just a completely unsatisfying arc

there are a billion other ways the writers could have sufficiently nerfed rasputin so to not have to deal with an overpowered war god of a character who can call in an airstrike anywhere at any time and can hack every computer in existence simultaneously (listen, i get it, it would be hard to write around that) and i have to believe the destiny writers aren't stupid so i guess they genuinely just really thought rasputin had to die, probably because they wanted something "big" and "shocking" going into lightfall. and i get the meta reason is that this "chapter" of destiny is wrapping up and we have to get rid of some dangling characters and plot threads but idk i don't think that should stop me from being able to critique HOW they decide to shed characters. have rasputin lose access to his warsats and databases and decide he wants to fuck off to felwinters peak to do some soul searching if you really just dont want to have to deal with writing him into lightfall and final shape!

it just feels like such a waste as a character and i'm not even a huge rasputin fan. what really frustrates me is the wasted potential. you barely actually get to meet the "real" rasputin and he's gone, which is why the whole "emotional death scene" fell very flat for me. the ending cinematic was very gorgeous, no doubt about it, but it wasn't as emotionally moving to me as it was to others and i assume thats because i didn't play d1 so i wasn't waiting seven years for this character to actually show up as anything other than ominous backwards disembodied russian voicelines

but i dont want to be totally negative, there were a lot of small character moments i really liked. the bray sisters stuff was great and i loved mara and osiris' conversation, it was nice to see the game acknowledge that they're friends. oh and i genuinely liked rasputin's poetry! submit this man's work to the poetry foundation! it was also nice to see the mid season operation missions get changed up a little too, they felt fun and unique, and seraph station was sooooo fun! i feel like the gameplay elements of this season were great; i just didn't love the direction they took the story in the end

[yostresswritinggirl]

@butterfly-mochi​ Rewrote this freaking thing thrice because it keeps getting deleted wth tumblr agjvahkfajkvk- I enjoyed writing it a lot tho and since I’m too weak to the characters I ended up writing for all of them (except for Sucrose, im sorry bb huhu, I ran out of brain power). This is my first time writing for so many of them in one go so please excuse me for any mistakes or blandness ywy thank you for letting me write for my baby Ganyu too hhhhh

Universe Reversal 2

Genshin Impact Character Reader and Modern Players with Zhongli, Childe & Ganyu (how they simp for you) (event masterlist / Part 1 / Part 3)

Zhongli the F2P

The most relatable out of the bunch because this man is still broke and can only rely on the primogems he can farm. And he had a LOT. The one thing he doesn’t have a lot on, however, is his luck.

So how did he manage to pull you?: Well after exhausting all his primogem on your banner with nothing but weapons and other characters, he has lost his resolve. But by some weird luck, there was a character bug that was fixed and in his email was the almighty consolation primogem. Enough for ONE pull. And by the Gods he FINALLY got you.

He’d nonchalantly post his screenshot of pulling you using a single acquaint fate in his friend group without any words and everyone else just loses their shit. “You got them in one pull?!” “Yeah” A riot.

This was partnered with the fact that not only is Zhongli an F2P player, but also barely has any five star characters.

He looks calm and apathetic over the news, but behind the screen he’s exhausted and relieved, silently livid.

He has no primogems left to squeeze for a constellation so you’re instead pampered with the best weapon suitable for you (because that’s all he keeps getting).

Zhongles spends most of his time farming for materials to quickly level you up, unlocking all your stories and voiceline, but he fucked up on your build (his artifacts are messy).

He follows communities, forums and videos regarding your character to know all the things he needs to perfect your build. You can barely make a dent against normal mobs, so he knew he was doing something VERY wrong.

Is the type of person to keep refreshing the page for new content, very updated.

Ask him a question about your character and he’s gonna bring you the word vomit that is his research. He’s not gonna stop- probably accidentally developed a copypasta for you.

Also follows your VA in both Tiktok and Twitter to indulge in every bit of content. He also has that screenshot of his pull saved and locked.

On his birthday, a friend of his gifted him a chibi plushie of you and he has treasured it ever since, treating and handling it like its a figurine.

“It is merely pure luck and grace from the gacha gods that I got this character, and I will make sure that they know I am very grateful for this fortune.”

Favorite Voiceline: Birthday Message

Childe The Whaler

This lucky wealthy bastard with no remorse for his money whales for EVERY character. He’s making a collection, which is to get all the characters, especially the five stars. So when your banner finally popped up, he’s gonna square up and trigger a whole ass meteor shower.

How he pulled you: Money. His luck with this games are actually not the best so he always compensates with money, he got you halfway through the first failed pity, almost giving him a heart attack that he might actually break the bank just to get you.

And then he pulls more to raise your constellation lol.

The first thing he does is look over your character info and read through it all; constellation infos, your base stats, artifact compatibility.

At the end when he’s maximized everything, he would then focus on playing around with your character *coughs climbing noises coughs*

He thought you’d just be another part of his collection but playing with your character was very enjoyable and in-line with his playstyle- oops 100 screenshots with the Kamera-

Any and all merchandise that he fancies would be his, and he’s definitely flexing it to the other sweetie nerds who call themselves simps. He’s fighting for the simping title, and he’s currently neck and neck with this fanartist in Pixiv.

Speaking of that fanartist, he definitely commissioned an expensive and detailed portrait of you, full rights and everything. No one else was allowed to use it but him.

Was also the first one with the audacity to call out your VA to create an account on Tiktok to create more content with your voice. He was successful.

His obssession also comes in the form of self-indulgent contents, and had been keeping track of the ship wars happening. During conventions, he cosplays as the character shipped with you the most (or the character he thinks should end up with you).

Silently scrutinizing those who cosplay you, only ever taking pictures with/of the best looking one, sorry haha

Definitely flaunts that you are his waifu/husbando and will fight for best girl/best boy during debates or polls. Has mobilized the community to vote for you once. He’s very persuasive.

“Hm? Why I’m just the best collector in the game, and I am more than happy to let everyone know that I am their number one fan haha, everyone who claims otherwise is definitely wrong!”

Favorite Voiceline: More About (Y/N) I-IV, (Y/N)’s Hobbies...

Ganyu the Employed

Ganyu, our dearest overworker, is one of the players in the older stage who actually has a job but still plays Genshin for their past times. The gorgeous sceneries and the music is her main focus in playing the game, not much of a try-hard but still decent in the combat mechanics.

How she pulled you: You came home within 50 pulls! And you appeared again after another 10 pull! Ganyu was so SHOOKT and so distressed because oh goodness, what does she do? She doesn’t know anything much about you!

Will rewatch your three trailers to try and understand your skills better, ended up saving the soundtracks from them because that was such a nice trailer music! Tnbee gains a new follower!

Ganyu will take a while before she can properly play or build you up because she’s so busy with work, she only ever plays when she feels fully done with her work.

During her break she plays with your character while multi-tasking on eating, earphones plugged in and sight on the phone as she farms materials and artifacts for you.

The moment she gets more help from her player friends tho, holy shit, you just ended up being so OP. She had so many good artifacts and weapons for you because she didn’t know what they were for before.

She loves how you’re so easy to use and can easily solo the enemies and even the boss fights. A huge breather, because now Ganyu can cheese the battles that takes a while, to give her more time to focus on the storyline and lores.

Since Ganyu plays for the story and aesthetic, she’ll find you almost always in her team. Still very proud of her pull, she makes the best screenshots of your fights or in the best angle through exploration.

Treasures you so much she starts talking to her phone- “Ah, no, please don’t fall.” “There’s violetgrass up there, let’s try and get it”

Blushes everytime you produce a sound when climbing, doesn’t change you anyways tho

Hums to your trailer music while working, and if permitted, would have the song on repeat while she buries herself in work. She finds it really refreshing and the time she spends in work miraculously flies by fast when she gets lost in the sound.

At one point, when she was given a day-off or if the convention was on her free time, she attends to look for cosplayers of you and take a picture. No one rejects her because she’s so adorable and cute when asking shyly.

Had brought a decent amount of merchandise, preferably the functional/practical ones like a phone cover, mug or keychain. Also has an earphones clamp with your little chibi self as the holder.

When asked, she would shyly announce that she likes your character the most.

“Their character theme and music really soothes me during work, it feels nice to have them, and I have not once regretted ever pulling for them. They are the best.”

Favorite Voicelines: Good Night/Afternoon..., About Us, Something To Share..., Interesting Things...

so enjoyable...

@moaa @zelos-simp @legionqueensav @dandelion-dreams @snackgod @rxsalinee

[ellitx]

Twig | Albedo x Reader

the final act of TWMA part 1 part 2 

can be stand-alone

disclaimer: this is written before v1.2 so my interpretation of albedo’s story and lore is not accurate. these are just my assumptions and understanding that i based on each characters’ voicelines about him

word count: 3.4k

            Something felt odd. What in the world happened…?

            The male awoke from an unfamiliar scent that drifted through his nose. Likewise, he has woken up from a restless sleep due to the rough waves, to glimpse at the glowing and radiant sun peaking above the horizon out of the window. It extended its vivid light across the deep blue sky. 

            Its dazzling and inviting rays flowed through the window providing warmth to his body. Slowly the fatigue of the endless dreams was seeped out of him as the warm light trickled into replacing his unrest— it eased his body.

            His mind meandered aimlessly into nothingness, continuously staring at the beige wall painted around the room.

            He is aware when he is forgetting when there is something close yet hidden, yet he cannot at that moment fathom what it could be. It’s as if he was following a bread crumb trail and it ends, so he stopped. 

            It gives him ideas as to what is missing from his brain because if one always got stopped when traveling, you would know that there are blocks in your way preventing you from continuing any further— even if he has no clue to as what they are. 

            A peal of melodic laughter that is mirthful and playful then reached his ears, stopping him from his dreaming. Albedo turned his head to the source of the voice and saw a girl— that was around his age— chuckling as she held a tray in her hands.

            “You’re finally awake.” She brought down the platter on the table next to him and poured a cup of tea. His visage frowned and tightly gripped the blanket that was tucked to him. 

            Why did he felt that she was mocking him? He doesn’t know why but for some reason it did irk him. He forgot about his memories. He doesn’t have the slightest clue as to where he was and why he was here.

            “Here.” She gave him the cup and patiently waited for him to take it. So this is where the foreign scent was coming from. He thought to himself.

             The smell was fragrant but had a tinge of spiciness in it. It made his nose crinkled but accepted it nonetheless— quite hesitant, as the girl observed. Taking a small sip of the tea, it surprised him that it tasted sweet. It was quite unexpected because of the tangy fragrance it gave off.

            “You look so lost.”

            The laugh came from her like a newly sprung leak— sheepish at first, stopping and starting. She wasn’t done yet though, he could tell from the way she turned her head and half-bit her lip. From deep inside her chest came a great shaking motion and her muscle face grew tight.

            His eyebrows arched as he put down the cup on the tray, waiting. In moments this female’s laugh was more like a burst water main arching into the brilliant summer sky, soaking everyone around her with unrestrained gales that deliberated her to nonstop giggles and picked face picture of glee.

            Albedo wanted to stay straight-faced and walk out the room— she was, after all, laughing “at him”, not “with him”. But before he could stop himself, his poker mouth twitched upwards, and was smiling despite himself.

             Nevertheless, he didn’t hate it.

—

             On the next day, she was already bombarding him with questions. 

            “Hey, hey, what was that thing you just did? That was my sister’s research she’s been working hard for and you’ve already solved it?!” [Eye color] optics sparkled in awe and admiration as [Name] gazed at him from her side.

            He peered into her eyes and nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders, continuing to read the texts of the book she gave him. “It was a minor mistake she had done. I’ve read some pieces of information about that topic and was not expecting I would stumble upon it.”

            She puckered her lips and pouted as she snatched the codex from his hands. His answer was so vague! It didn’t really satisfy her curiosity about this outlander. “Hey!” 

            The female raised her arms, preventing him from reaching it. “I won’t give this back to you until you tell me the whole story!” Albedo’s brows folded in confusion and struggled to grab it. “That is the whole story.”

            Her cheeks puffed and watched him yanked the book from her. It was disappointing, to say the least how he easily took it. 

            Sighing countless times already made him question himself why this girl still insists on staying by his side. It’s not like he didn’t like it nor does he like it, it just raised him so many questions about what happened yesterday.

            Why would the Knights took him in considering how [Name] just effortlessly helped him out of nowhere. Not to mention how he barely knows a single thing about Mondstadt. It made him indignant how he can’t remember even the slightest thing.

            He doesn’t blame anyone for it. It’s no one’s fault that he lost his memories.

            Just thinking about this bizarre occurrence that just magically appeared out of nowhere made his head ached. Though the tug on his arm caught his attention and looked at the young teen in puzzlement as they started to march off to archon knows where.

            “Maybe I should tell Grandmaster Varka about this…” She softly muttered to herself. He caught her words perfectly and so further press a question to pique his interest. “Tell about what?”

            Both of them slowed down and paused in their tracks, stopping midway near the fountain area. [Name] chuckled and winked at him playfully. 

            “You’ll see.”

            Albedo hummed and looked fixedly on the back of her head as they continued to walk silently. 

              There was a delicious moment where his face washed blank with confusion, like his brain cogs couldn’t turn fast enough to take in the information from his wide eyes. It made [Name] stifle a laugh at the expression he was currently showing to all the members of Ordo Favonius.

            Every muscle of the male’s body just froze before he looked away from them to the girl who stood beside him. A grin crept up onto her face, it soon stretched out from one side to the other showing every single tooth.

            Surprise isn’t an emotion he’d ever taken well. He could tell himself he was at loss for words. He guessed he found himself dumb, in a sense that made his lexeme stopped flowing. Stopped because she has shown him a new direction he never anticipated for a moment.

            Every member knows she had saved him— saved him from what though? That he did not know, he never asked her about it nor did she even tell him what happened to him. He just let it be.

            Receiving the news that he’ll be a member of the Knights, to have the position as the Chief Alchemist, really made him bewildered and surprised.

            “Isn’t this happening too fast?” He questioned whilst quirking a brow.

            “Hm? What do you mean?” [Name] tipped her head as her eyes stared at his own turquoise ones.

            “Why is everyone easily agreeing to it? I’ve only been here for a day and just assisted your sister in translating. I appreciate the thought that the Grandmaster here is giving me the position of Chief Alchemist but I can't help but question why.”

            She glanced at him, her mouth pursed but slightly open and loose. Her eyes are fixed as if she’s looking at something a yard behind his head. He called her name to garner her attention.

            She blinks, refocused. “Albedo, it’s actually been five days. Lisa talked to everyone about how genius you are.”

            Now it was his turn to owlishly blink. Five days? Does time really move that fast?

            Well, he did hear the saying that time flies fast when you’re having fun. He never noticed about it and now that the idea battered him, it continued to linger inside his head.

             What happened yesterday, what happened today, everything still feels the same. Even if the fragment of memories within him seemed to etiolate. His hands clawed his chest, feeling the unusual warmth from it and throughout his body.

            Everything has been important to him and will be important to him.

            He knows that these distant memories seem so far and vague but are significant to him.

            He doesn’t understand the reason why, but he shouldn’t forget.

             At least that’s how he thinks things should be.

  —

             The sound of the ticking grandfather clock echoed throughout the silent room. It sounded so monotonous and lifeless inside. The tall and antiquated object stood there as the gateway for old-man time, the golden pendulum making its steady way back and forth.

            The silence was so eerie, though none minded at all as two teenagers were fast asleep, still remaining inside their dreams. 

            An aroma Albedo has gotten used to woke him up. It’s the smell of the herbs and various flowers that have mixed together giving off a sweet and minty scent. He opened his eyes and stayed like that for a few minutes.

            The alchemist tiredly glanced down to see the papers are now messed and scattered all over the table. Heaving a sigh as he raked his fingers through his hair, his aqua optics went on to the female’s sleeping body that rested on his lab’s bed.

            She still hasn't woken up.

            He stood up from his seat and quietly approached her unconscious form to check on her condition. [Name]’s features were much softer in sleep, the lines that usually creased her brow replaced by youthful appearance giving off a child-like look. 

            She looked peaceful, he thought to himself.

            He pulled up the blanket over her shoulders and turned around to continue making remedies for her once she’s awake. 

            The Knights of Favonius were worried sick about her, especially her sister, Lisa. They were hoping and praying to the Seven she’ll wake up from her coma. They all miss her presence, days of not seeing her wandering around also worried the townsfolk of Mond.

            She has been cooped up inside his room while Sucrose and Noelle assisted him in taking care of her. 

            The morning dusk is about to arrive and Albedo has to continue doing his research nonstop. He does so wished to see her [eye color] orbs finally open after the incident. It hurt him to know [Name] has been like this that he did not even realize until the Acting Grandmaster and her sister told him about it.

            He stared at the small plant that was placed on the windowsill. Its leaves started to fall off from its branches as it slowly started to wilt in the darkness. He grabbed the small twig and observed the faintest of light it gives off.

            Would it hurt to say that it reminded him of her? 

            [Name] is someone that has to be taken care of carefully. After all, when she saw what he had written about her condition, she didn’t want to believe it. He wanted to say that her “friend” was just a fragment of her imagination without affecting her mental state.

            He hovered his hand over the small branch, watching it bloom before his eyes with ease. He placed it back in the vase and returned to the table. If only he could easily return her back just like how he did with the plant.

            Return her from his arms again instead of that bard.

            He let out a bitter laugh at that thought. This was his fault. Why would she come back running to him if he did not even once give her his time? When they’ve finally met again for so long, she was avoiding his eyes.

            It hurt him, he won’t lie about that. Her welcome to him was just a simple nod and that’s it. No hugs, no welcomes, not even a small smile was given to him.

            If he did stop his research and at least spend time with her, will everything change?

            Albedo shook his head as the answer to himself. Even if it is, why would he still continue hoping and thinking about these things? Sometimes his formulation of the rationale of real-life situations irked him. 

            This isn’t alchemy, genius.

            His self-feud stopped when he saw her fingers moved the slightest from his peripheral vision. His heart fluttered and gave him a bit of hope if the archons had finally heard their wishes. 

            When her eyelids flickered open, the sight was not what he was expecting. 

                      A lone tear trickled down her cheek. Her lips quivered and continued to look at the distance. Out of complete silence, her soft cries arose. He’d never seen [Name] sat like that, so deflated. Her loose shoulders shook, her hands hanging low, making no attempt to conceal or even wipe her own tears.

            All of these emotions coming to him at once hurt him.

             His head throbbed and let the feeling of guilt crush him.

  —

             The giggle rolled around the room like a child’s spinning top, vibrant and heartwarming as it moved around the people in its chaotic ways. It came in its fits and bursts— loud to soft to nothing at all and back to loud again. 

            It was as if there was an invisible feather at [Name]’s nape brushing softly; she squirmed and raised her shoulders to block Barbara from tickling her neck. The laughter built up inside her like so much water behind a dam, making her shoulders and her belly hurt.

            She cried when Klee jumped onto her body and joined in with the deaconess. Their carefree and playful tittering reached Albedo’s ears when he entered the room. Their eyes darted towards him as their laughs died down.

            The Spark Knight ran towards him and hugged his legs, overjoyed in seeing the alchemist here. He knelt down to her height and patted her head as a smile slowly crept up to his face.

            [Name]’s laugh caught his attention again, though he did not dare to look at the two females. As much as he tried to focus on listening to Klee’s words, he cannot help but listen to the former’s gentle hilarity. 

             For some reason, it made his chest wrenched every time he listens to it. He wondered why that is when it’s something he remembers all the time. 

  --

             He recalled the day he got his Vision. It appeared out of thin air on his desk and she was the first one to point it out. It surprised [Name] why he had gotten Geo instead of Dendro. She watched him fiddle the trinket in his hands as he continued to analyze it. 

            He didn’t really mind whichever Vision he got. As long as he can continue doing his research then it’s fine with him.

            He didn’t know why he found himself laughing so hard, but all of a sudden, he couldn’t stop. His breath came in quick gasps between his unstoppable tittering. Tears gathered in the corner of his eyes, threatening to spill over.

            She was confused about why he was laughing all of a sudden worrying her. He waved his hand dismissively and pointed out the expression that was currently painted on her face. Her face reddened and slapped his back jokingly.

            After their short playful bickering, the Chief Alchemist plucked a small branch from a plant and hand it over to her. 

            “Visions are gifts given to us by the Gods. Think of it like this sprig, there are many possibilities which among the elements they’ll receive yet no one knows what they’ll end up with until they’ve received it.”

            She furrowed her brows as her brain cogs continue to process what he meant. It finally dawned on her what he meant and hummed. “But not everyone can receive Visions, though.” She remarked.

            “Exactly. They may not bear fruits or maybe yet, one day it’ll come to them.”

            “That’s not what I meant.”

            “Then what is it?”

            [Name] sighed and rested her chin on her palm. “Not everyone is blessed by the Seven.” The male was still and quiet. 

            “Well, I’m no god. I may not know how they give out Visions but it sure is something remarkable, isn’t it?” Her eyes lightened up and nodded vigorously.

            “Right?! Wouldn’t it be better if they just give it to everyone?” Albedo laughed and admired her own exclamation. 

            “Perhaps.” 

            It surprised the female teen that he just suddenly grabbed her hand unnoticed. He observed how small her hands are compared to his. He placed the twig on her palm and with a simple motion of his wrist, the branches started to grow as small leaves then sprouted from it.

            It occurred to her just how amazing Albedo is. She raised the small branch in the air and examine the faintest glow of the leaves it emitted. She gasped and stared with wide eyes as isotoma flowers started to bloom from the ends.

            “W-was that suppose to happen?” She turned her head to him and pushed her arms forward to show the herb to him.

            He bobbed his head and took out a pot filled with soil. He used his elemental skill on it and a cecilia shaped flower appeared. Instead of the usual vibrant white, it almost looked too rigid and rocky.

            [Name] poked it and it really was sturdy. He asked her if she can use her own elemental skill, to which she responded with a yes. She twirled her hand and he can feel the air starting to get cold.

            Small snowflakes started to form and dropped down on the pot. Once the snow made contact with the rocky flower, it formed into a crystal and bloomed into a refreshing and spirited cecilia.

            It felt like a real flower instead of the stony one they just saw. The alchemist plucked it and carefully tucked it to her ear, adoring how well it donned her appearance and perfectly captured her delicacy.

             Cecilias really does suit her.

             That day, the day he only showed it to her. It’s the memoir he cherished the most. It’s the only special memory he couldn’t forget.

            He understood why. He keeps thinking of her.

            All these mnemonics with [Name] are important to him and are everything to him.

            And on that day, he believed she wouldn’t leave.

 —

             A smell of a nostalgic sweet breeze wafted in him. The winds kissed his skin making him wish to go back to sleep, yet the sound of familiar laughter was what made him want to open his eyes.

            He recognized those sweet mirths. It’s so close to him that he can feel the figure’s shakiness. The tree’s shadow helped him not to be blinded by the rays of the sun and the gales that caressed his skin were so calming, but his focus was purely glued to a smile.

            Her smile.

            He still waited for the day when he can show the small beauties of life to someone, but there are no fools like him in this vast world. Perhaps they exist, yet they must be distant, enjoying the same sky with other eyes yet the same thought. 

            The whistling of the birds that awaken their sleep in the trees, letting his perception be painted with white, yellow, and blue. It battered him that he was currently laying on her lap.

            So shall it stay put, a smile eternally stained upon her lips. Her joy, her love, her laughter, her cheer. All will reach the ears of those who have forgotten the warmth of such harmonies.

            Emotions came to his mind like the waves meeting the land. They come to him, soaking his entire being and helped him to understand his entire self better. He felt wet hot tears filled up his eyes.

            But this was no tears of grief. 

            It was tears of joy that he has finally heard her laugh once again. Much closer than before. The distance with them has now shortened. Is this the archons saying they’ll give him another chance?

            If it is, he’s very thankful to the Celestia and to the Seven. He was so happy that all he can do is cry and let the tears continuously fall down his cheeks. The tears stained his face but he didn’t care if it did.

            Albedo was just so ecstatic he finally got to reunite with her. He can finally hold her in his arms and apologize for the mistake he has done to her. He missed her so much that he can’t bear the pain anymore of how distant they are.

             And so he promised himself he won’t ever forget her.

 this oneshot is based on this song   

[sheriff-caitlyn]

I started this blog in 2014, as the first Caitlyn on tumblr, and obviously I’ve been through a lot of retcons and changes myself, not only adapting to Riot’s own public retcons (from the minor, like her aesthetics, to the major, like the removal of the Institute of War as an integral part of their lore) but also to my own. That’s the thing about playing a character as complex as this, is that you learn more as you go. In your interactions with others and the creation of backstory, history, and other bits of worldbuilding to better understand the world you’re in, a character goes from a handful of images and some in-game voicelines to a fully-fledged person with a complex narrative. Sometimes things change, and that’s fine. But there are some changes which... aren’t. 

For all the fingerprints I’ve put on her, she is still not my character. But I care. Sunk-cost fallacy, maybe, but I care about this character I have been involved in and I care about the direction she has been taken. So, without further ado, I’d like to delve into:

The Recent Caitlyn Update In Piltover’s New Context or, We Gotta Fetishise Police Violence, I Mean, Look At Her, She’s So Hot

Back in August 2015, I went, ‘Oh No, they’re going to try to turn Piltover into Gotham City, aren’t they?’, and lo and behold, suddenly we have Poison Ivy now. But I will get back to that, later. In this particular thread, I noted that many of the characters in Piltover seemed destined for a revamp that would rob them of what originally drew us to them in the first place, and that Piltover seemed destined for a rework that would wash out much of their character. Piltover and Zaun were always meant to be polar opposites, but suddenly we were seeing glimpses of Piltover being ‘not as good as everyone thinks’, which hinted that Piltover and Zaun were destined not to be polar opposites in the future, but indistinguishable from each other. It worried me that the only thing telling these two fascinating cities apart would be the sunlight.

So, when we have so much potential for a clash between Zaun and Piltover, between ‘Science No Matter The Cost’ and ‘We Must Advance The World With Care’, why change Piltover to some murky middleground, turning peace and security into wartime capitalism? A world where the people are shitty, where weapons and profit come first, and the only ones making a stand are the ones who are so embittered they have nothing better to do?

Because it has to be ‘interesting’. We’re going to lose bits that we like, that we’re familiar with. And that’s why I’m concerned.

This was before Piltover and Zaun were squished together in an ugly - and utterly ham-fisted - method of showing How Complex The Future Is. There’s layers, guys! Literal layers to this one single city! That means it’s deep! But when I say ‘bits that we like, that we’re familiar with’, I’m not clinging to a fanon interpretation. I’m saying the things that drew us to the world and to the characters to begin with. I could adapt from Caitlyn turning from brown-haired and brown-eyed to black-haired and blue-eyed, because even through I had been doing art, at that point, the change gave me an opportunity to express and discover more about her character (her eye colour being influenced by her mother’s magic, for one). But some of the more stark changes - to family, to job, to personality, to the city of Piltover itself - these result in a character changing completely. I was worried that the cool detective who literally made the world a better place would be chopped and changed into something unrecognisable. I even expounded on my concerns in November 2016, where I could see some of the ways the writers at Rito might make adjustments in the direction of their lore updates.

All this to say, I’ve been working on her for a while, and I was bracing for some bad news. This? This is kind of the worst.

Caitlyn has always been the Sheriff of Piltover, an authority figure, a representative of the law and order that Piltover is famous for. Piltover’s peace and financial prosperity has been directly linked to Caitlyn’s concerted effort to eradicate crime (not criminals, crime! Which, as I have mentioned particularly in this post from 2014, means she upended and reformed the justice system, from the legal process to the prisons to how people are treated as citizens). The city is safe, people have greater access to personal wealth and development, classism is erased, society is flourishing. Zaun, as Piltover’s polar opposite, is a corporate nightmare, with ‘do as thou wilt’, private bodyguards for the rich and powerful while the poor scramble to survive in a system that barely treats them as human. Vi, as a Zaunite, brings a lot of her ‘violence as a problem-solver’ methodology to Piltover’s law-enforcement, though she seems to have no intention of returning to Zaun and seems to have bonded with Caitlyn (‘teamwork!’) to Get Shit Done. And, apparently, there is still shit that needs to be done, though nowhere near as much as there had been in the Bad Old Days.

Vi was, at the time, the awkward-grit-teeth-grin-ha-ha-um-yeah representation of police violence. ‘Resist arrest’, she cries gleefully, as she beats people and breaks down buildings, and we are supposed to go ‘ha, isn’t that funny’ with varying degrees of sincerity. Of course Piltover is going to have problems: anywhere that has wealth and stability is going to be targeted by the envious and the needy. Peace needs to be protected. The problem lies in how that protection is enacted.

So now we have the recent Legends of Runeterra update to Caitlyn, an update which looked at the context of Piltover needing protection, as well as the modern context of Riot’s California location in the Years of Our Lord 2020-2021, and then decided ‘you know what we need? Police violence, everyone loves police violence’.

MAN I thought the stripper-cop skins were bad but here we go!

Her Yordle Snap-Traps (which I envisioned as from the Yordle Military, rather than a racially-profiling weapon as, y’know, they work on human-and-larger-sized people as well) have now been replaced by electroshock grenades, the intent gone from incapacitation and observation to outright paralysis and destruction. Her net-short is now apparently electro-conductive (admittedly, I have had one (1) single RP where that happened, but it came at both a cost to Caitlyn and to her weapon’s efficiency as a result, a last-resort against a dangerous opponent). Caitlyn’s cards in LoR take her from being a detective coordinating ideas and people and putting together a case to a SWAT team leader. This might be the biggest problem in working for a non-combat-oriented character in a MOBA, or in any fighting game: the game needs to find rationalisations for all of their characters being there, being combatants, being able to kill (even if, as Riot says, the lore is separate from the game). We have monsters and soldiers and ancient powers who of course they know how to spill blood and relish in doing so. But pacifists, like Karma or Bard? Explorers like Ezreal? And a sheriff, a peacekeeper, a law-keeper, someone mindful of responsibility and the importance of saving every life possible, like Caitlyn? They’re stripped of that depth and complexity in-game, but there was always the lore that backed them up. But they’ve done away with that completely. Caitlyn was never special operations. She was never military. But now she is, because she had to be changed to fit better into a fighting game. They had to make her violent, and as a result, they have undermined not only everything about the character that made her interesting to begin with - turning her now into a representative of police brutality, but with long hair, pouty lips, and a thigh gap - but they’re also re-writing the context of Piltover. It was bad enough to squish Piltover and Zaun together. But now, Caitlyn’s update is proof that Piltover has gone from a steampunk utopia to a violent, oppressive and cynical post-industrial world. The depiction of Caitlyn as a SWAT team leader (complete with special-forces beret, because hat! Caitlyn wears a hat! Nevermind the fact that she’s no longer wearing a distinctive tophat but instead a symbol of extreme state-sponsored force!) shows us that Piltover’s ‘army’ is not designed as a defence against outsiders, but as an offensive force against their own people. Caitlyn is supposed to be the representation of how peace and order is maintained in one of the largest factions in League of Legends, and if her method of maintaining order is straight-up police violence against their own citizens, then it’s not really peace and order. It’s authoritarianism at best, and facism at worst.

Piltover was different from every other nation in Runeterra because it didn’t have a military. It had defenders, and it had a powerful economy, and it had a democratic political system. But the Piltover update retconned Caitlyn’s hard work. The gangs were back - though now they’re big powerful families like Clan Ferros - and Caitlyn has been de-aged so that she’s still new to the force, that she hasn’t even had her chance to change anything. Her importance to Piltover is minimised... and why is Vi even there? (Oh boy I guess you’re going to have to watch Arcane to find out! Coming to a Netflix near you soon!) With a younger Caitlyn in a violent society, she has no choice but to be violent herself... even if that undermines everything previously established about Piltover and about Caitlyn. This update has made Piltover just as ugly and oppressive as Demacia, Noxus, and Zaun. It’s just another army equipped to do violence, but now that violence is turned inwards. This isn’t protection, it’s control. It’s fear. It’s oppression. Caitlyn is no longer a peacekeeper. She’s a monster. Chopped and changed, as I feared, into something completely unrecognisable from how she began in a world that no longer looks like what it had been... or should be.

It’s hard to tell what came first, the change to Piltover or the change to Caitlyn. Either way, the changes are inextricably linked. Caitlyn was integral to Piltover’s modern state, and Piltover is integral to Caitlyn as a character. Her (original) drive was to make the city and all its people better; Piltover was a utopia because of the effort of Caitlyn, and of people like her, people who wanted a better world. This new iteration of Piltover - full of fear and violence and hypocricy, layered over Zaun in such a way that makes ham-fisted commentary about the wealth/class divide - undermines the value of the individual. It removes agency. It removes hope, which had been integral to Piltover. Piltover is no longer the CIty of Progress... it’s the City of ‘you better be rich and pretty if you want to progress’. And Caitlyn is no longer a force for good or a representative of responsibility, because those things don’t exist in Piltover anymore. Legends of Runeterra has turned Caitlyn into a bitch, someone to hate. She has a marked lack of respect for people, as demonstrated in her new character traits of ‘casually-racist’ (her lines to Veigar), ‘condescending’ (her lines to Viktor), with some added pride in her violence (’here’s my calling card *shoots gun*’ and ‘I aim to win and my aim is excellent’). She is a representative of her city, and she is a terrible person now. Piltover is terrible. Piltover is ugly. 

But Caitlyn avoids that last part. And she’ll get away with it, because she’s a hot twenty-something.

In 2015, I drew Caitlyn-as-Swain, as an AU for what might have been. The overwhelming response at the time was ‘aaa she’s so hot I’d follow that leader of Noxus’, prompting a good friend Swain RPer to comment that Swain - who was, at the time, the withered man in green and gold who needed a cane - was just as smart as Caitlyn if not more so, a proven capable leader, but when it comes down to it, sex-appeal will always trump characterisation and storytelling, and that’s disheartening for someone who puts so much work into stories, to context, to something deeper than ‘Just another MOBA’. And here I am, in 2021, looking at how Caitlyn has been stripped of her fascinating and complex characterisation while maintaining her long legs, long hair, and corsetted figure. Now, I do appreciate the fact they’ve given her a better costume than miniskirt and boobtube. She deserves so much better. I even commissioned back in 2015 for a Better Look for Caitlyn; Tom aka FaerieFountain went on to make her new look canon. But she’s supposed to be a detective. She’s supposed to be careful and methodical and mindful of her status and power. Instead, she’s been made gleefully violent, leaving a lot of depth behind in order to become just Hot Cop With Gun. (As an aside, was anyone else uncomfortable with Caitlyn’s high-school skin? Especially when the writer actually tweeted ‘step on me’? Hello? Ma’am? That is a high school student, that is a CHILD you are talking about? But Caitlyn is hot so it’s fine! Sexualise a child! it’s fine, she’s hot, it’s fine!) Almost everyone who has contacted me about Caitlyn’s LoR cards has been excited to see her. Good! She’s a great character! Or, she was. But the enthusiasm about her is tied to how she’s so violent, how she uses her power to abuse those who don’t conform. But she looks great, smoking hot, you know? And when she’s smoking hot, her dangerous and abusive behaviour and attitude are completely excused. An update to a character needs to take into account characterisation as well as the visuals. Her update, sadly, has focused on the all-too-prevalent problem of the viciousness of state-sponsored violence, rather than the complexity of detective work, of puzzle solving and intellectualism, but because she looks hot and speaks in that British accent, no-one’s going to care. Hot ladies can get away with so much, because legs and pouty lips, but I guess she’s also a cop or whatever.

And, as a momentary aside, why is an eco-terrorist suddenly Caitlyn’s longtime foe? It makes zero sense for Piltover and for Caitlyn that someone who plant-based powers is her biggest rival and the city’s biggest threat. Zero sense, until you take into account that Piltover has been stripped of its character and made into something more aligned with modern authoritarianism than the hopeful vibes of steampunk. Environmentalism? Not on my watch! Deploy the police (the good guys!) to silence the protesters (who are obviously the bad guys becase they’re protesting)! Because Piltover and Zaun are one city now, and therefore indistinguishable, we have a fucking Poison Ivy character causing enough trouble in Piltover to warrant entire fucking SWAT teams opening fire within the city limits and around peoples’ homes! Not Zaun, which is the environmental nightmare, but Piltover! With its fresh air and open skies! Yes, that’s a great place for an eco-terrorist to blame and/or try to fix! The whole thing is honestly so backwards! Like they’ve decided to make a cool character in the form of Corina and just shove her into the story, rather than finding a place in the narrative that suits her. The idea that Corina is C makes no sense. Caitlyn vs C is supposed to be Sherlock versus Moriarty, Ganimard versus Lupin, ACME versus Carmen Sandiego, world’s greatest detective against the world’s greatest thief. It focused on the intellectual battle, the need for self-improvement, and - most importantly! - that this was a fight that didn’t result in gunfire or people being put in bodybags. But we can’t have that in our fighting game! We can’t have people thinking, because that’s not the kind of game we have, it’s left-click-shoot out here on the Rift or in the cards. So now we have a woman with plant powers bombing Piltover, and a policewoman kicking down doors and opening fire. And she’s right there, in Caitlyn’s new splash art, within reaching distance of the sheriff!

She’s right there! In hot pink with a flower in her fucking hair! And Caitlyn doesn’t even notice? Looks like one of my major gripes about Caitlyn being updated - Incompetence - is rearing its ugly head. She cannot even see someone not five feet from her. Oooh, look out, Piltover, no-one can figure out why this single eco-terrorist is causing problems for years, but Caitlyn will figure it out! With her gun! Because she’s a cop with a gun, and cops with guns never cause more problems than they solve, right?

Look... I know. I know she’s not my character. I know that everything I’ve done is fan-interpretation. But I’ve worked for so long and hard and done so much research, and things I’ve done have even been seen by - and used by! - the company itself (not just in the ‘oh what a coincidence’ sense, either, I know my link on Hextech as a form of magic made it to several of the writers, some of whom later contacted me). I might be too jaded by all the disappointment to take it personally anymore, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t still happen. We know Riot Games could be and should be better. So many people in this community - and people who have since moved on - put so much love and effort into the characters and the world, building up from scraps and guesswork and extrapolation. It wasn’t our world, but we enjoyed playing in it. We enjoyed struggling in it, because it pushed us to be thoughtful, creative, to be engaged and interested. Critical Theory doesn’t have to be negative... but this recent update to Caitlyn’s character and to Piltover as a whole is... it’s a step backwards. They’ve gone for the ‘ooh isn’t this gritty and dark’ approach, and swept away so much of what made the original so interesting, creative, engaging to begin with. They’d rather have controversy than people genuinely enjoying the thing that they’re opening their wallet for. 

Caitlyn was a detective who focused on responsibility, intellectualism, and care. What she is now is not the same Caitlyn they started with, and expresses a set of values that I do not support. This blog will continue to be focusing on the old lore, on what Piltover has been and what it should be: a hopeful utopia, a place for people to grow and be responsible and thoughtful and mindful of their place on the world stage. It’s not going to be perfect, but there’s hope, and there’s people here who want the world, and everyone in it, to be better than it is. I hope you join me, no matter who you are.

[celestial-mari]

hi mar'i! is it okay if i ask you if you can rate every dickkory adaptations/incarnations throughout the years (NTT, Teen Titans Cartoon show, Teen Titans Go, DCAMU, Convergence, New Order, Kingdom Come, Injustice 2, Live Action) personally live action is my least favorite of all of them, and it has nothing to do with Anna or Brenton, it's the titans writers. They don't care about their relationship at all and i hate that they portrayed them as nothing but friends with benefits,it bothers me

Absolutely! I’d be happy to! I’ll go from least favorite to favorite 😃

#9 DCUTitans

I’m in complete agreement with you. My least favorite version of them is the live-action show. It has absolutely nothing to do with the actors bc I love them both, but the writing is just not there. My favorite thing about DickKory is how they communicate with each other. They talk about their problems and find solutions to them together. DCUTitans on the other hand has them barely speak to each other. I don’t necessarily mind that they started the relationship with a physical connection considering the comics did something similar (with a kiss instead), but then they just did absolutely nothing with it. Then again this show, in general, does nothing with its characters...Maybe it’ll get better, but I doubt it.

#8 Teen Titans Go

I get that this show is first and foremost a comedy, but I’m not really into the unrequited love thing. I find it hilarious since because of the batoffice, Kory is usually left pining over Dick in the comics but here it’s the other way around, but that doesn’t make it rank any higher on the list. It’s cute, mindless fun, but it’s not really DickKory

#7 Injustice 2 

Look, I’ll admit it, I’m an angst girl. I absolutely adore it when entertainment breaks me down to tears and sobs, but other than some voicelines and sad endings, DickKory barely exists here. Dick is dead the whole time and honestly this universe just saddens me for Kory. I’m only ranking it this high because whatever crumbs are there are accurate crumbs.

#6 Nightwing: The New Order

We are getting to the part of the list where I actually don’t have many complaints anymore. I enjoyed Nightwing New Order. Jake Grayson is a little underdeveloped, but it’s the only elseworld (other than Convergence) where DickKory actually end up together and happy in the end. I know liking this little book is a controversial opinion apparently, but I thought Dick had a great arc, and Kory was herself through and through. I guess my one complaint would be that I think Kory would have taken Jake with her, rather than leave without him, but it’s a dystopian elseworld so I don’t think it matters that much.

#5 Kingdom Come

I swear if Kory was alive in this universe this one could very well be my favorite. Kingdom Come is what DC should have become instead of all the N52 and Rebirth nonsense. Having characters progress and actually go through life-changing moments is important to and satisfying for readers. Mar’i Grayson is an incredible character who deserves to be in the main canon. She should be co-leading a Teen Titans team right now with Damian, Jon, Lian, and the other members of that generation of superheroes. Not to mention, that Kingdom Come also has my all-time favorite suit design for Koriand’r herself. If only Kory was still alive in this universe... 😢

#4 Teen Titans (2003)

As the first ship I ever had, Teen Titans’ RobStar will always have a special place in my heart. I love TTA! It’s a wonderful version of DickKory and of the Teen Titans, that captures the heart of the original comics while changing it just enough for a different, younger audience. This show even gave us some of the most iconic DickKory comic scenes.

#3 DCAMU

In this house, Apokolips War doesn’t exist. Instead, DickKory got married, had Mar’i and Jake, and lived a long, happy life of fighting crime, saving the world, and being domestic while doing it. Not only is this the best DickKory adaptation outside of comics, it’s also the best Kory adaptation outside of comics. 

#2 Convergence: New Teen Titans

It doesn’t get better than Convergence: New Teen Titans. Frankly, I’m tempted to rank it in first place. A universe where they actually get married, no strings attached? No major character death? The perfect Titans team (except for the exclusion of Raven)? Yeah this is the universe I want to read more of.

#1 New Teen Titans (1980)

And of course, I’m sure no one saw it coming, but my all-time favorite version of Dick Grayson and Koriand’r is and always will be the classic: New Teen Titans (1980). It’s perfect in almost every way. They communicate, they learn from each other, they grow to become better people. Had the wedding gone through like it was originally planned? I would not change a single thing about them. Sometimes, you just can’t recreate perfection.

[dappersheep]

Food Fantasy: An Analysis on what killed a Golden Goose (2/3)

Welcome back. Before we get started, disclaimers again! I do not own the game or its characters, nor do I claim to know the history and future of the game. What I am entitled to are the thoughts and opinions written within this post. You may or may not agree with the points spoken of here. This post also remains untagged from the main foofan tag. Only my followers will see this.

We are now on the second part, so let's go forward under the cut!

Elex

And here we have our beloved global publisher that most of seem to have Stockholm Syndrome for. Don't lie, at least half of us are still playing this damned game due to sunken cost fallacy, sunken time fallacy and the cute/hot jpegs.

In 2018, everything started out fine. Sure, maybe we had some translation mishaps here and there -coughwe'llgettothatwreckagelatercough- but overall, Elex was running the game fairly well. Rewards were on time, we had active social media and support, and a discord was set up!

Hint: Please note I use quite a bit of sarcasm in most everything I say.

And then somewhere along that road, things got derailed. And I mean it like, we're in the midst of a trainwreck in slow motion and we've only cleared the initial collision and still hurtling forward or backward into a steel wreckage ticking inferno.

Problems started cropping up as early as late 2018, just a few months after the game was launched in July.

⦁ Art contest mishaps. You know when you hold an art contest on Facebook out of all places with its shitty tagging system, you're bound to have entries lost to the void, people forced to register an FB account just to participate (seriously, who even has an FB account that isn't just there to appease family members?) and having to wrestle with figuring out how FB's tagging system works. Add to that the panel of judges happen to be Elex staff who don't have a good eye for good artwork (we actually had a kiddy figure drawing win over a well drawn one during the last contest!) and that they ALSO weren't very good at organizing such contests on FB... well, we had several grievances over that.

⦁ Region blocked FB announcements. Strangely enough, I stopped getting announcements around Father's Day of 2019 while everyone else outside of SEA kept getting updates. Turns out that someone on Elex's staff really didn't like SEA players or was just really bad at fixing the settings for the group and never bothered to revert it back. It didn't matter in the long run though, because...

⦁ Abandoned social media platforms. FooFan Twitter, FooFan Facebook... they all floated slowly into the void and was never heard from again. And this was before the 2020 pandemic.

⦁ Remember what I said about Discord? Yeah, apparently, they opened one up a little too early and the staff in charge of it knew zero about how to setup and mod a discord community, and didn't even have the manpower needed to mod the influx of members that came in! Suffice to say, they had to get help from top players and mods from the FB groups to come in and sort things out because someone kept pinging @ everyone every few seconds other than the usual chaos that comes from a server with no filters and people trying to turn the discord into Global Chat 2.0, minus Russian hours.

⦁ Also in line with the point about abandoned social media platforms, they've also mostly abandoned the discord too and only pop in once in a while to check the bug reports or lost accounts. You have a slightly better chance of response with the in-game support. Only slightly. And there's a running joke with several variations on the main discord that the Owner account of the discord server was manned by an intern-kun who never bothered to pass it on to the next unfortunate soul left to maintain this game.

⦁ Favoritism. Funtoy is also guilty of this but they don't publish the game for Global. If you're a top spender the likes of maxing out your cash rebates within the three months or so and you kept spending even beyond that, Elex could possibly invite you to a funky little club where your voice is more important than say... 99% of the playerbase. On top of that, if you keep spending, you could technically also ask for stuff like getting this frame over that frame, or well.... delay certain features from coming to Global for over a year. Now you can simp AND be heard! (Note: In 2021, it's possible that that club may be dead too, as all things shall be)

⦁ SJW Friendly. I don't know if Funtoy themselves have anything to also do with this particular decision... but it's saying something that after a certain little tiddy tantrum from the community side, Elex decided not to announce anything about a certain event's fate and when asked by it by other parties (not me) they either lie through their teeth, or beat around the bush with a non-answer.

⦁ Partial translations, mistranslations. Now, I understand that a lot of Chinese grammar and semantics are confusing to translate properly into several other languages, but you'd think Elex would have given their translators more context to the character or the mechanic to avoid such mistranslations that later set off gender debates or worded the skill/artifact description a little clearer. That is... unless Elex really is hands-off trying to get to know this IP from the start and only gave it the most bare minimum of English where they can cut costs for it, so people can understand it 'well enough' to throw money at an obviously not beta-read quality game.

⦁ No translations. Yes we do have certain parts of the game that are in Chinese since forever since xx patch. Some characters' voiceline texts are still in chinese, especially during the Pledge scenes. More recent artifacts are also in chinese with no announced translation in sight. And don't get me started on the Food Soul bios, or lack thereof.

⦁ Delayed events. Prime example? We had weeks of minor events/no events and still Elex managed to eff everything up for our second Anniversary in July 2020. We ended up getting the Croissant event in late August with barely any apologies and compensation for the delay... and this likely would have never arrived as 'early' as it did if people hadn't been railing about where our Anniversary event was. As it stands, we are several minor events behind CN, at least a year and a half's worth behind. I know Global had requested heavily for more spaced out events (to save resources, not that it actually worked with all the nerfed rewards we get) compared to CN but this is extremely ridiculous.

⦁ Delayed permanent features. Hm... Guild Wars, Sky Tower, Bar, that Wuchang Fish Showdown... several Quality of Life updates.... that new permanent pool update... Food Souls still missing their JP voice packs... Food Soul Bios... *slowly ticking off more than I have fingers and toes*

⦁ Customer Support is whack. You'd be lucky if you got someone who understood your problem/inquiry right off the bat AND did something about it efficiently. You'd be luckier if they answered you honestly if you were inquiring about event updates or other buggy features or reporting hackers.

⦁ The Great Turkey and Apple Incident of 2020. Well, if you were around for that little SNAFU during the Turkey re-run event, you'd know a percentage of people suddenly got logged out of their accounts and had a baller of a time trying to get their accounts back. You were especially unfortunate if you were playing on an iOS account because even if you did bind it (like a responsible player should be doing), you probably still wouldn't get it back in time to rank properly during Turkey. Some Android players also experienced this, but it wasn't as bad as what the iOS players experienced. And then there was the compensation mishap for that too.

⦁ Hacker-chan and not-so-uwu Hacker-teme. Hacker-chan is a meme. Hacker-chan was a harmless player who regularly topped in Top Showdown every week for a time to send a message to Elex just how easy it is to hack the game in certain rankings and invited Elex to ban them every time, just to test how competent Elex is. In the end, Elex has proven to be incompetent and also glaringly stupid about how their published game works. Hacker-teme is a collective of individuals over time who have cheated the game during important ranking events or in somewhat important permanent battles. If you tried to report a Hacker-teme with evidence to prove it -and trust me, people repeatedly have-, Elex would tell you that they're not cheating and/or lie through their teeth that they're 'investigating the case' and then not do anything about it and let them keep their event ranking and thus get the rewards while someone who actually worked hard/whaled hard to get the spot gets denied. In one case, they believe that if an account has rebate points and the player level is at least around level 80, then the hacker-teme is obviously playing the game fairly. Never mind that their units happened to have low to no artifact nodes opened, and not high in ascension.

And that is the end of the Elex saga. I'm aware there's likely more things about Elex that I've missed, but feel free to add on to this analysis post with your own thoughts.

The last part of this trilogy is probably what many of us are waiting for, for obvious reasons.

[measlyfurball13]

Pacific Rim: Into the Black fucking sucked.

It’s problem isn’t that it’s different from the first movie. Look, I LOVE the first movie, but I agree that more of the same might have been boring. I respect the writers for pushing the boundaries a little and making an original story with an original tone. . . If by original story you mean “make it Attack on Titan but worse” and if by original tone you mean “cheap shock value and needless edge that adds nothing”.

Full rant under the cut. Swear warning, whatever.

This series has so many interesting and creative ideas but they’re buried under loads of blundering edgelord tropes that have been done before in every other anime ever. Taylor the protagonist is a flavorless “older brother” trope. Mei is the tsundere badass who’s been traumatized by daddy. Boy (yes, that’s his name) is the mystical superpowered child. Oh, and he pulls this whole Attack on Titan thing and turns into a Kaiju.

You wanna know why this is a problem? Because holy fucking shit it’s a problem. Because it’s stupid. Because it’s magic handwavy bullshit. Pacific Rim, for all of it’s big robots and big monsters, grounds itself in reality by having consistent internal rules. Kaiju are monsters with some occasional cool unique abilities, but they’re all based in biology. Stuff like acid, extra limbs, flying. Even the EMP pulse ability from the first movie feels plausible, because electricity is used in a biological body in the form nerves. Another consistent rules is that Kaiju are big monsters. Big. Monsters. Big monsters who stay big, because they’re established as having so much mass and bulk and presence that they can’t get rid of because they’re biological creatures. The first movie establishes that they eat and breed and even defecate and have parasites. These rules make the Kaiju feel plausible. These rules allow us, the audience, to suspend our disbelief and immerse ourselves into the universe.

So why the fucking hell did the writers throw all that out the window, pull some magic bullshit out of their ass, and make a human that turns into a Kaiju? They don’t even show us the transformation sequence on screen. Flash of blue, and now the little human boy is a Kaiju. The problem is not that it’s unrealistic, the problem is that it doesn’t fit in with the Pacific Rim universe. It’s disjointed. It’s stupid. Any questions?

Now, where was I? Oh, right, characters. Haley, the younger sister, is. . . okay. She feels like the extroverted younger sister cheerleader trope, but then they also give her this character facet (it’s not an arc because it’s never really addressed) about murder guilt? And she also mothers a lot Boy? And she also makes really stupid decisions for the sake of the plot sometimes? Out of the main three cast members, she’s by far the most interesting and bearable, at least, but she doesn’t feel consistent at all. She also gets damseled a lot, too, which doesn’t add to her likeability or agency.  

Moving on, one of the two even remotely interesting characters was killed for shock value in episode five in the cheapest, most abrupt way possible, so I can’t talk about him very much, other than the fact that I’m still pissed that the writers thought killing him off was a good idea. Nothing narratively was gained by it; his death doesn’t even affect any character’s trajectory! He had so much more to give alive than he did dead. But that’s all I can say, since he is dead. The only other interesting character was the Jaeger AI who gets maybe all of 13 voicelines in the entire season and is barely, barely even a minor character. Nothing much else to say.

Remember the part where I mentioned that this show actually has wonderful creative ideas? I didn’t just say that for flavor, and that’s the most frustrating part of this all. The problem is just that there’s so many ideas, all at once, so in the end none of them end up shining. Here’s a shortened list of the great ideas- you could base an entire show around each one:

Interrogating someone with drift technology

Altering people’s memories through drift technology

Australia gets claimed by the Kaiju and survivors have to duke it out to survive with the remaining Jaeger technology with no help from the outside world

Training Jaegers and what Jaeger academy looked like

Jaegers having sentient AIs inside of them- and what happens when to the AI when a Jaeger takes damage or even loses a pilot? Is the drift in a Jaeger technically a three-way bond?

What happens when you drift too much, with too many people? Inheriting someone else’s memories or even skillsets?

(this one is probably my least favorite, but still has merit:) A Jaeger and Kaiju fusion. How utterly terrifying would that be?

These are all incredible. I probably would have adored Pacific Rim: Into the Black if (magic Kaiju kid notwithstanding) it had focused on maybe one or two of these ideas in its meager 140-minute runtime. However, Into the Black tries to tackle all of these amazing ideas at once along with about a dozen other shitty ideas that fall flat. As a result, nothing gets the time it deserves. Fascinating ideas are quickly glossed over, never to be mentioned again despite being extremely relevant to the plot, just so the show can truck through the next portion with the same lack of thought.

The season feels disjointed. Nothing builds on anything else, and plot points don’t lead into each other. Characters make stupid decisions, take meandering courses of action and are constantly changing their mind, or, most of the time, just stumbling upon their objectives by pure chance. The only throughline that even remotely delivers with proper buildup and payoff is the aforementioned magic Kaiju boy. The one competent plot arc they develop is the one that breaks the believability of the universe. Great.

Finally, to top it all off, I’m going to speedrun my more minor nitpicks with the general plot/continuity holes. Here goes:

Multiple breaches and breaches on land. If the Kaiju have been able to open breaches on land this whole time, then how in the everlasting fuck has humanity survived at all? I mean, really- why would Kaiju waste time coming from the oceans if they can just pop up wherever they please?

Mr. McRandom nobody protagonist decides on a whim to be the fourth person ever who solo pilots a Jaeger after piloting for maybe 3 days, tops, and then succeeds. The show explicitly references Raleigh and Pentacost as it does this, spitting in the face of their achievements by implying that anybody can do it, no big deal.

This show acknowledges that Pacific Rim: Uprising exists and builds a lot of its background conflict off that, which pisses me off because that movie sucks ass. Here was a chance for a fresh start and they wasted it.

The protagonists fuck up so constantly to the point where they should have lost their Jaeger several times over, yet it always survives, because (go figure!) this is a show about protagonists piloting Jaegers. The protagonists do nothing to solve their problems and do nothing to earn their clever escapes or sudden powerups, leaving everything tensionless and contrived.

The villain has no motivation at all and is so cartoonishly evil it’s a miracle that he has any minions that are willing to follow him instead of ditching him the first chance they get.

The protagonists sometimes just kinda forget their goal and wander around until they miraculously stumble upon something that just so happens to connect to it.

A lot of edgy, horrifying, traumatizing shit happens, and it doesn’t seem to ever affect the characters in any meaningful way outside of maybe 1 or 2 throwaway lines after the fact?

The show takes place in Australia but only gives asshole characters an Australian accent. What?

So that’s it. Bad characters. Universe-breaking concept. Needless, meaningless edge. Contrived plot. Rushed to all hell. Pacific Rim: Into the Black is capital “b” Bad. I love this franchise and I want to support it, but I can’t advocate that anyone give this show their time.

[asuccessfulbusinessman]

This is my Gundam Build Divers OC-

Alright, I’ve already jokingly made an OC- Leo Greatfang, who pilots a straight build Leo and knows the 48 Killer Moves- Finishing Move 01, Finishing Move 02... etc. They’re all wrestling moves, if you still haven’t caught the referen-

Anyway, Gundam Build Divers episode 23 had a really bad fight scene between two mooks and Riku, where Riku loses his full armor to a surprise attack, gets called selfish, curb stomps the mooks, and then cries- implicitly promising he won’t destroy GBN, and explicitly promising to save Sarah. And I thought... how could we make that better, without changing anything else about the show? I mean, it is an isolated mook fightscene, so this is one area we can change without affecting anything else. Also, my muse is telling me to write, and I want to write about mobile suits.

Well, the easy answer is, make the fight more animated- with less “stills,” less beams. But that would add to the cost of production, so let's presume they’re saving their budget, and assume any fight scene we do make can’t be that well animated. A better answer would be, have the Tequila Gundam we saw in, like, episode 4 show up and have the pilot go “can’t let you do that kid...” This allows Riku to curbstomp an enemy he had troubles fighting at the start of the show, showing his growth, and allows the Tequila Gundam pilot to show that he too cares about GBN- which makes sense considering how much he worked to rank up.

But, that’s still fairly shallow. The ideal fightscene would have an opponent who really truly cares about GBN, but who isn’t too hamfisted about it. So let me introduce my Gundam Build Divers OC-

Daryl Lorenz. Well, not the real Daryl Lorenz, but rather, someone with his face. We only ever see him from the chest up, and he doesn’t wear the Zeon uniform. Thanks to the Colasour easter egg, this doesn’t interfere with the narrative at all, especially for kids who probably have not watched Gundam Thunderbolt. Anyone who has watched Thunderbolt can connect Rommel’s line about “some people can only walk in GBN” if they think about it hard enough, but as this is already simply a reference, it becomes a “Eureka!” moment for discovering it, and not hamfisted characterization/moralization.

Anyway, let’s handle the fight scene. Daryl doesn’t speak all that much, no “you’re being selfish” to undermine his point. And we only see his face when he gives a battle cry near the end of the fight. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Daryl pilots a Zudah painted Orange and Yellow. You could call it the “living dead” Zudah, as the Zudah is likely an MS that would be used by the living dead squadron, but if I had to give it a name it would be the Pheonix Zudah. All the standard armaments of the Zudah, plus it appears to have two Vulcans coming from the chest. More on that later.

If there’s anything Star Wars Episode 7 taught me anything, it’s that mooks who defy being cannon fodder are cool. And so, Daryl gets Riku’s attention by shouting “You!” at him, before landing on the ground with a thud and throwing his ranged weapons aside. He pulls out a HEAT Hawk, and assumes a stance. One-on-one baby. Not only is this cool to me, a melee freak, it implicitly gives Riku a choice- to try and run past a mobile suit with no ranged options, or to fight him. Logically, if he wants to “win,” he would try to avoid getting bogged down. However, that would go against the whole reason to have a force battle- to let the Gunpla decide things. And so, Riku fights. And by that I mean, lands and draws a beam saber before we cut to a different scene.

Now, as an aside, I said this scene wouldn’t change anything else about the show, but if the creators planned all this out ahead of time- you’d see the brightly painted Pheonix Zudah in the background as part of the big Coalition Battle against the Break Decal users that happened earlier in the series. This would cement Daryl’s passion in the “You!” he shouts, as he had seen the wings of light firsthand. It also adds a layer of perceived betrayal. That is, if you sifted through the series with a fine-toothed comb.

Back to Riku’s scene- a still where Riku and Daryl are having a beam saber-HEAT hawk clash, and Riku is able to keep Daryl at bay. So, after Daryl jumps back, we see the Zudah freeze (gotta save that animation budget) in a “DBZ powerup stance,” and then the afterburners kick in- the Zudah engine roaring.

Now, Riku doesn’t know much about the more obscure mobile suits, that’s Yuuki’s domain; but he is smart/intuitive enough to recognize when someone is about to go all out. We hear his thoughts (because he’ll likely vocalize it), as contemplates whether to use TRANS-AM to counter, but decides against it, as using it too soon would make winning the force battle impossible. However, while he’s contemplating, we see the Zudah swing his arm back, flipping out the blade on top of the shield, and charging straight at Riku. Ideally, we’d see a still of the Zudah flying straight ahead, with the legs “obscured” by the body- more on that later, the shield blade lodging itself into the 00 Sky’s full armor, and then a cut to Riku’s cockpit.

Now, we know there is one technique the Zudah can use in GBN that would be too prohibitively expensive to use in Gunpla Duel. That is, the nature of the Zudah to self-destruct due to the engine. This choice of mobile suit, then, furthers Daryl’s characterization two-fold. He is grateful to GBN, because it’s the only place where the Zudah can realize its true potential, so he is willing to use his mobile suit to the fullest and sacrifice it to protect GBN. This is in stark contrast to Riku, who would refuse to use TRANS-AM if it “hurt” the mobile suit- and still wears a scar in memoriam of the 00-Diver.

Speaking of Riku, he’s a smart lad. Intuitively, he knows that trading 1-for-1 in this situation effectively makes it his loss. He‘s realized, or at the very least, can assume Daryl’s plan is to self-destruct and jettisons the full armor, allowing him to escape the blast zone as it goes off. Riku starts to apologize, but then we see Vulcan fire dispersing the smoke cloud. 

Meet the Raptor, the lower half of the Pheonix Zudah. It’s basically a cockpit with legs. And, of course, those two chest Vulcans we mentioned earlier. That’s right, we using Bawoo technology with this custom! Except, the Bawoo had the legs be the automated part, and gave the legs a hilariously stupid name. Anyway, the cockpit does a minor transformation, folding out forward to look less like a brick on legs and more like a wingless bird. If you want a reference to visualize this, look up MechAssault’s Corvus (not, ironically enough, MechAssault’s Raptor). Anyway, the cockpit now is glass, or at least see-through, and we (and Riku) see Daryl’s face as the smoke clears. 

Another scene switch. When we come back, we see 00-Sky shrugging off Vulcan fire like it’s nothing. You see, a big problem I have with the Coalition Volunteers is that they often aren’t characterized (recall that Rommel’s men are cut down without so much as a voiceline earlier in the episode) and when they are, they come off as cocky, so sure they’re going to win. As much as it pains me to say, Riku is a top pilot of GBN, and many of these Volunteers should be desperate in fighting to stop him. And so, we see Daryl’s desperate fighting spirit, using a walker whose only armaments are a desperation weapon that, in many Gundam series, can barely even scratch a Gundam. This is also where we hear, and see (because we’re zooming into a cockpit view to save animation budget), Daryl giving a battle cry. Because he doesn’t just have the Vulcans.

He has his legs. That’s right, after some fancy footwork used to avoid fire while charging, Daryl goes for a running kick- hell make it a running kick combo. If you haven’t guessed, I really like “walker”-esque mechs, and love it when mobile suits actually run instead of just flying 24/7. 

“But Businessman,” you may be asking, “how can your characterization be so grossly hamfisted? Isn’t this taking the whole ‘only walk in GBN’ thing a bit too far?”

You are like little baby, listen to this.

How, do you think, is Riku going to win this battle? Is it with a beam saber? With a rifle? Or with the sky leg guards, and a “shoot” kick that sends the Raptor flying? Obviously, the last one says something, but I am not entirely clear about what it says. I think this one might be something left up to individual interpretation. Anyway, now we can have Riku crying, now that he’s earned those tears after seeing someone go all out to stop him, even if he does not over analyze the fight as much as I have.

Now, while I may have called the original fight scene bad, it wasn’t really that bad- too many people seem to love to hate Build Divers- I just wanted to see if I could make it better.

Or, at the very least, premiere my own completely original character Baryl and his cool as heck ace custom that I wish I could make-