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gasgasdaily · 27 days ago

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We've been talking about the 80s, 90s, the height of racing, the lows of racing, the technological marvels of modern engineering and the fails of it. How companies rise and fall but today, we're gonna talking about something that revolutionized the motoring world, something that's iconic that drove two contrasting ideologies during different periods of time and also, we're going back in time, WAY back and that's the topic, "The Birth of a Revolution: The Volkswagen Beetle".

Pic from top to bottom, left to right in zigzag pattern: The creator and designer of the concept and the eventual starter of Porsche, Ferdinand Porsche -> Porsche and his creation, the Beetle -> The original form of the Beetle which had no rear windows at all -> Hitler addressing the crowd at the 1938 Nuremberg Rally whilst unveiling the car -> Post-war 1950s Type 1 production model of the Beetle

Post-WWI Germany was in total shambles as the economy tanked hard due to the Versailles Treaty sucking all resources out of Germany plus the collapse of Wall Street in 1928 kicking in the Great Depression turned the whole economics of Germany into turmoil and the Weimar Republic was doing a shoddy work of rebuilding it. When Hitler officially took power from the Weimar Republic by force, he managed to stabilize the economy by whatever means and by 1934, he drastically changed Germany's financial situation by withhelding supplies towards the reparations payment for the Versailles Treaty and he opened up tons of new factories to re-promote industrialization and thus, a reformed Germany began and this time, under the Nazi Party.

In 1933, to facilitate the movement of goods up and down the country and with future military plans in sight, Hitler set up a transportation ministry and from there, he started the project to set up a national highway across the country which would eventually become what's now known as the "Autobahn" but back then, it's known as the "Reichsautobahn". Subsequently, he would also set up the Verband de Automobilindustrie which was basically a ministry to control and dictate what the vehicle manufacturers in Germany could and couldn't do. In 1934, with the autobahn done, Hitler needed to prove a point. Cars back then was only for the elites and the extremely rich but to prove that Germany has the capacity and to show off how industrialized they were, he devised a plan in 1934 to produce a car that everyone can own and drive as free as they want across the German countryside and on the autobahn. Thus, he gave the orders to spread the contracts out to German car designers and Ferdinand Porsche was one of the few that picked the contract up.

Ferdinand Porsche at that time was a destitute car designer who despite having great works under his name with multiple big companies of its time from Daimler to Wanderer, he was on hard times like many during the Great Depression and the designing firm that he had set up was also hanging on a thread. When the contract landed on his desk in 1934, it was a saving move. He quickly got to work by pulling his firm staff for assistance and with aides like Karl Rabe, Erwin Komenda and Josef Kales helping him, the designed the car rather quickly due to the specifications set.

Hitler's specification was rather simple. It has to be a car that can fit 5 people, 4+driver comfortably and the engine has to be air-cooled as mechanics were sparse back than thus having an engine that doesn't require tons of maintenance was the key to a successful "people's carrier" (Hence the name "Volkswagen"). The team got to work and by the tailend of October 1935, they already had two working prototypes being the V1 and V2. V1 was a sedan and V2 was a cabriolet to test the car's features and also to see which one would work better. The selected version was scaled to the V3 which was released approx half a year later in July 1936 and 3 V3s were made. Two was sent to the Reich Chancellery for Nazi party officials to critique and view the prototype project which many had actually given pretty good reviews upon what they saw and the remaining one was sent to Hitler for his personal review and he too liked what he saw. The V3s would then go thru vigorous testing across various terrains across Germany and would travel up and down the country without any significant damages for over 50,000km/31,000 miles. This made Hitler very happy and thus he greenlit the program and passed it to Daimler-Benz to create some actual production models for extra testing. Daimler-Benz did just that and by April 1937 would produce 30 W30s (The then-production code) for extra testing and unsurprisingly, the car performed well again and this time the cars in total did over a million km marked at over 2.9mil km/1.8mil miles and again, without any major issues. Daimler-Benz would tweak the design abit more with Porsche's help and decided to put a split-window at the rear to aid rear visibility as the W38 which would be the benchmark for the actual production car.

Hitler would then order the split of the company for the "Volkswagan" project to have its own facility in Wolfsburg where it can focus more on producing the "car for the people". He also found out that due to the simplicity of the design that Porsche had made, it made adapting the core support to become a military vehicle rather easy thus he too wanted Volkswagen to focus on that thus, the new factory. However, it was all a pipedream as just as the car was going thru it's full production in 1939 once the plant had finished, the Germans declared war on Poland which in return kicked the nation into full war with other nations resulting in WWII kicking off. Now with WWII in motion, the need for a civilian vehicle was on the back foot as military vehicles were needed more thus Volkswagen, despite being set up as a civilian vehicle production facility switched towards making military vehicles. Plus raw materials into making war supplies was the most vital importance, civilian vehicle production was tossed even further thus for a period of time, the "Beetle" project was canned and didn't get revived till war ended in 1945. When the British seized the plant, they found on the log that 210 "KdF-Wagen" (The actual production name of the car which meant "Strength thru joy wagon") was actually made and might have been given to Nazi party officials in the early 1940s and they too found parts strewn all around and thus, they quickly restarted the factory and by 1946 had produced over 1,700 remaining cars from the spare parts leftover and gifted it to various post-war services in the occupied parts of Germany like the postal services and even occupying forces officers.

Despite the outlook of the car, the occupying British instantly disliked the car and even mocked it as "unbefitting of a motor vehicle" and can't grasp the concept. Despite that, the Volkswagonwerk would continue going and was even at one point nearly wiped out as the Americans were ready to knock the factory down due to the reports from the British but Herbert Hoover, the 31st POTUS helped sway the votes on not to knock down these factories and instead keep the status quo to keep Germany united once again. After that scare, Volkswagenwerk also saw a new management coming in to take over the reins from the distrusting British and also with Ferdinand Porsche leaving to focus more on his own company, Porsche. An engineer, Heinrich Nordhoff was asked to take over the company by the British in 1948 and from then on, he revitalized the factory. He expanded the company and pushed for more production of the vehicle and also expand Wolfsburg as it's now the homestate of the factory workers and the company itself.

By 1955, Volkswagen was already producing its 1 million Beetle and the company was even projected to build at least 700,000 units per annum, something that wasn't heard of in the auto industry then and that made Volkswagen a household name not only in West Germany but soon, the whole of Europe. Volkswagen would see the Type 1 Beetle being made as the standard of the company since the end of WWII and along the way, a Type 2 was made but shares about the same components basically albeit subtle changes. The recipe is the same as the original pre-war concept that they're all air-cooled and rear-engine RWD config. What was true about their adaptability to become many things was true as VW not only turned the Beetle into "a Beetle", it became many other products with the base of the car being practically the same like the Volkswagen Kombi van being one of them. The other would be the kit car companies like Manx who would take Beetle chassis and engine, stick a fibreglass tub onto the frame, stick big wheels on it and sell them as dune buggies. Not only was the car versatile for multiple platforms, it was also easy to make thus Volkswagen would later on sell their manufacturing licenses out to other nations like Mexico, Malaysia, Brazil, Venezuela and Finland being the few but most important foreign builders of the Beetle was Mexico and Venezuela.

Volkswagen itself would see production numbers slowly tethering off in the 60s and 70s signaling the time for a change of a newer product which they did in Germany itself with the introduction of the Golf. However, not so much in foreign markets as the Beetle continued to thrive. As mentioned above, Volkswagen was built in Mexico, Venezuela and even Brazil which made these cars a household favorite in these lower income nation as they are cheap to buy, easy to work on and reliable. Mexicans loved it soo much that they even nicknamed the car, "Vocho" What was even more ironic was that when the West German Volkswagen had already stopped production of the Beetle by the end of the 70s, the South American plants didn't and same goes to the Mexican ones where they were still producing the Beetle and even selling them back towards Europe in the 80s for customers who wanted them. The American Volkswagen entities would then produce the Beetle deep into the 90s and Mexico itself didn't stop production of the original Beetle till the arrival of the new Beetle in 2003.

Also, remember when I said how the Beetle shaped a whole time period and changed two contrasting ideologies? Yup.. Welcome to the hippie 60s but let's swing off for abit 1st. When Porsche left Volkswagen, he took his design concept of the Beetle with him and with him basically being the one that filed for the patent of the car, no one disputed him in Germany alone thus his cars would soon resemble the Beetle from then on but keeping the story short, let's head back to the 60s.

1960s saw the height of global tension with the Cold War being super warm with the Cuban Missile Crisis and for the Americans themselves, the Vietnam War. Counter-war sentiments ran high throughout the late 1960s to the early 1970s as people were against a foreign war that didn't help them and also forcing people thru conscripts to fight a war that they shouldn't even be involved in and these counter-movement soon gained a name, "hippie". These hippies would often roam the whole of the US thru protests after protests across states and what they needed was a car and the perfect car for them was one that's reliable, easy to maintain, comfy enough to drive, not American (As they figured that dumping money to American car companies would = funding the war which, in a weird way, is true) and the car that fits their bill was the Beetle. Thus, many hippies started buying Beetles to prove their point of being rebels of the system and not paying huge prices for large cars just to fund the war machine. What was ironic about it was that they're doing the counters of what the Nazi regime was doing in the 1940s which was pretty funny regardless. Despite the irony, the Beetle did shape a whole period as these hippies would often paint their car in outlandish and psychedelic paint and thus it became an iconic scene that if you talk about the Beetle, it's automatically accustomed to the period and would automatically label one's driver as a "hippie".

In total, Volkswagen across all it's production line from Germany to Mexico would produce over 21.5 million units from 1938-2003 making it not only the most produced motor vehicle in history and also one of the longest, non-breaking production lines ever in history with the Mexico line starting in the early 50s, without break, till 2003.

Who would have thought that a car that was supposed to be made in peace time would be mired due to the person who idealized the vehicle and would revolutionize culture in such a big way and from a dinky little passenger vehicle would spawn soo many things from commercial vehicles to literal war vehicles and later on sports cars? No one else could do it but.. The Beetle did. Herbie says hi.

#volkswagen #volkswagen beetle #volkswagen bug #history #cars #classic cars #germany #mexico

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bestworstcase · 1 year ago

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"There is no victory in strength."

"And Yang was strength."

I wonder if this is some "subtle" foreshadowing for something later?

oh i have some THOUGHTS about this

first: see this post regarding salem's V1 monologue. the key point to keep in mind for this discussion is that she begins by naming several qualities of mankind—strength, wisdom, resourcefulness, passion, and ingenuity—so her concluding statement implies its own inverse:

"mankind was strong, wise, and resourceful, but he was born into an unforgiving world […] in time, man's passion, resourcefulness, and ingenuity led them to the tools that would help even the odds […] but take heed: there will be no victory in strength," i.e. "victory lies in these other four qualities."

so what does this have to do with yang?

in V2: yang gets slapped by the paladin prototype, and when blake calls out to her in a panic, ruby stops her: "don't worry! with each hit she gets stronger, and she uses that energy to fight back. that's what makes her special."

in V3: after her disqualification from the tournament, qrow passes on raven's message to yang ("she saved you once, but you shouldn't expect that kindness again") after she tells him she saw her mom ("i- i was in a lot of trouble, took a pretty hard hit"), then follows up with "you're a tough egg, kiddo; shouldn't let this tournament thing get you down."

in V4: tai tells yang that she, like raven, "act[s] like the easiest way to tackle an obstacle is through it: that strength is all that matters in a fight," which he implies is the fatal flaw of raven's that "tore our team apart and […] did a real number on our family," even though "raven was great in so many ways: her strength, her ambition, her dedication."

in V5: blake describes yang to sun as "[the embodiment of] strength."

also in V5: yang confronts raven in the vault under haven academy and, when raven calls herself strong, snaps back: "oh, shut up! you don't know the first thing about strength! you turn your back on people, you run away when things get hard, you put others in harms way instead of yourself! you might be powerful, but you're not strong."

in V6: blake reassures yang by telling her "adam's strong, but his real power comes from control."

also in V6: adam taunts yang: "moment of truth, yang! do you think you're faster than you were at beacon? …heh. me neither," and after catching his weapon she retorts, "i may not be faster, but i'm smarter." (<- put a pin in this one, it's important.)

in V8: yang falls, blake fails to catch her, and it's the hit she can't come back from—it doesn't make her stronger, it just plunges her into the void to her apparent death.

in V9: when they catch up with yang, she's performing strength ("i said i wasn't done with you yet!") but in reality she's exhausted, barely able to stand. later, blake describes her like this: "you're an extraordinary person. you're always the first to lighten a situation; you act bravely when you're afraid; you do what you say."

ok.

there are a few threads to unwind here.

first let's unpin what adam says to yang during their final duel: "do you think you're faster than you were at beacon?" not "stronger." not "tougher." faster.

ruby tells blake that strength is what makes yang special. qrow tells yang she's too tough to let one "slip-up" bring her down. her father thinks she relies too much on her strength. before their reunion, blake sees yang as the living personification of strength.

but just as a younger blake was wrong about adam being "justice" or "passion," she's wrong about yang being "strength," and adam is actually—ironically enough—the first character besides yang herself to notice that strength is not what yang is about. he taunts her for not being fast enough.

speed. agility. not just in the sense that yang is a very nimble combatant, but she's emotionally agile—look at how she handles herself and her feelings during fraught confrontations with blake in V2 or raven in V5. she's a self-described thrill-seeker, but she also worries about being too rootless. her biggest setbacks all come from rushing—and her big wins all come from outmaneuvering her opponents, whether physically or emotionally. she's strong, but strength is not what she is.

keeping that in mind, the second thread to follow is the difference between strength and power. yang tells raven "you might be powerful, but you're not strong." blake tells yang that adam is "strong, but his real power comes from control," from getting into people's heads and making them feel small. when ruby and tai and blake talk about yang's strength (and when blake talks about adam being strong), they mean raw physical strength—but that's not what yang means when she talks about strength. in yang's terms, raw physical strength is just power. her semblance makes her powerful; it doesn't make her strong.

yang defines strength as the choice to put others ahead of oneself, even and especially when it's hard.

in the ever after, blake says that yang uplifts others (always the first to lighten a situation), that she's brave, that she has integrity. between V5 and V9, after reconciling with yang and going through the harrowing experience of of fighting adam with her, blake sees the vulnerability behind the brave mask yang puts on for her loved ones. her perception of yang at beacon was colored both by her adam trauma and by the way ruby saw yang as invulnerable, unshakable. since then she's come to see yang as she truly is: caring, brave, and honest. she sees and loves the kind of strength that yang values.

third thread: the really crucial piece is what kind of strength is salem referring to?

and the answer is that she's talking about power, explicitly in contrast to what she sees as humanity's true strengths: wisdom, resourcefulness, passion, ingenuity, and hope. in V1, salem credits hope as the reason mankind was not wiped out (again) by the grimm and names "passion, resourcefulness, and ingenuity" as the qualities that allowed them to find a way to survive against the odds. then, "nature's wrath in hand, man lit their way through the darkness, and in the shadow's absence came strength, civilization, and most importantly, life."

in this story salem tells about the beginning of the world, strength is one of the fruits of mankind's triumph, something that could only develop after the darkness had been beaten and pushed back. when she gives her warning—"there will be no victory in strength"—she names "your guardians" and "your monuments" explicitly.

to be precise, she is talking about the maidens ("a guardian is a symbol of comfort"), amity coliseum("it was decided that the tournament would need a stage equal in greatness to that of its competitors. amity coliseum was the culmination of four kingdom's efforts: a technological marvel and a shining symbol of harmony, capable of making the journey to all the kingdoms of remnant"—but note that menagerie is excluded from the vytal festival), and atlas ("the people of mantle needed a sign of a brighter future, and that sign was atlas; a city in the clouds is as bright as it gets").

those things represent ozpin's definition of strength: technological marvels, shining symbols of harmony and comfort, a girl who is "strong, caring, and intelligent" enough to make the people feel safe. and of course outside of these soliloquies, the word salem uses is power—and she warns cinder, twice, in no uncertain terms that power will not make her strong: "it is because of the maiden's power. […] your newfound strength brings with it a crippling weakness" and "you will have the power i promised you, but remember that it comes with a cost."

now back to yang: she and salem share this mindset, this clear delineation between true strength and mere power. salem tries to impress it upon cinder; yang's power blinds her family to her true strength, which blake learns to see clearly as they become partners, and she is placed in juxtaposition with adam, raven, and cinder—all of whom are powerful but not strong.

and, like salem, the way yang is perceived (that her power is what makes her special, and she thinks physical strength is all that matters in a fight) does not align with how yang sees herself or what she values: yang takes pride in being able to face her fears, speak the truth, put others before herself, and outwit her foes; she likes that blake has never been intimidated by her, and she admires blake's dedication and willingness to forgive.

salem values wisdom, i.e. experiential knowledge—yang tells her past self that her losses and failures "more than anything are what have shaped me into who i am, showed me how i need to grow." salem values passion—yang is passionate in everything she does and likewise admires the passion she sees in blake. "you know what matters to you." salem values resourcefulness and ingenuity—yang revels in outsmarting people who underestimate her, as they often do, and flat out tells adam that she may not be faster than him, but she is smarter, then throws his weapon to bait him into running right into blake's punch.

yang values courage—salem fomented rebellion against the fucking gods and vowed to keep fighting even after they crushed her like an ant, and rewards cinder for defying her, and disdains lionheart for being a coward. yang values honesty—salem explodes when people lie to her and loathes ozma for his deceit. yang values compassion—salem built her whole rebellion on the premise that no one else should have to suffer as she did. yang values cleverness—salem cultivates spies and meticulously prepares to stack the deck in her favor before making a move.

"the ability to derive strength from hope is undoubtedly mankind's greatest asset," says salem. "even the smallest spark of hope is enough to ignite change."

"look, blind optimism isn't great, but no optimism means we've already lost; we need hope. we need to take risks," says yang.

aside from blake, all of team rwby repeat salem in some way: weiss is the girl who frees herself from her tower, ruby the idealist who sees how broken the world is and takes it upon herself to fix it, inspiring the world to strive with her. (blake repeats ozma: the warrior who fights for justice, but her journey is the inverse of his: her ideals are corrupted by adam's spite in the beginning and she leaves him behind in pursuit of true justice.) but yang is salem's heart.

(<- the reversal in how blake sees yang before/after they reunite at haven and defeat adam together is a fractal-ozlem thing, by the way: the inflection point occurs in 6.5 when yang opens up about her flashbacks and blake sees her hands shaking. the maiden's tears restore her prince's sight—yang allows blake to see how scared she is, and blake recognizes how badly yang needs blake to be there for her, to stay.)

WHICH IS HYSTERICAL BECAUSE,

"all this endless death, because something bad happened to you once upon a time? no one gets a fairytale ending! everything i've lost, every person i've lost, is because of you!"

yang is being deliberately provocative here. her intention is to redirect salem's boiling fury from oscar to herself, to protect oscar. she is trying to piss salem off, and while she succeeds in distracting salem from oscar, she completely fails to make salem angry—instead, salem calms down.

why?

the anger and scorn yang throws in salem's face here are completely genuine, but as i said before, yang's emotional agility—her control over her emotions—is unparalleled. she does not "lose her temper" (and on the rare occasion she snaps without meaning to, she reins it in lightning fast). she lets it out. so in this scene, yang makes a calculated choice to yell at salem. to get angry.

now, we've seen her do this once before—and by "this" i mean specifically the choice to get mad enough to verbally explode at somebody—and that was during her last confrontation with raven.

"oh, shut up! you don't know the first thing about strength! you turn your back on people, you run away when things get hard, you put others in harm's way instead of yourself! you might be powerful, but you're not strong."

i think yang is not quite as in control of her feelings in this scene with raven, because the wounds are very personal and very raw, but nevertheless she is making a deliberate choice to let her anger come out because—again—she's trying to make raven mad. if raven decides she's leaving with the lamp, yang can't actually stop her. she knows that. she also knows raven isn't going to listen to an appeal to join them, so her only real option is to upset raven enough to make her abandon the lamp (and yang) (…again).

so that's what she does! yang asks questions and needles raven on her answers until raven starts to react emotionally ("i survived because i'm strong enough to do what others won't!"), and yang pounces on that. shut up, you don't know the first thing about strength. she goes right for the throat, attacks the thing at the center of all raven's rationalizations. and raven fucking shatters.

this is what yang tries to do to salem. "why do you keep coming back?" -> "why do YOU!?"—raven says "i'm strong," yang goes "shut up, that's bullshit, no you're not." salem says "why do you keep coming back," yang hears salem playing the victim and goes "shut up, that's bullshit, your suffering isn't special" because she guesses—based on what she's been told about salem, and what she just heard salem say to ozma—that salem has built her sense of self around victimhood in the same way that raven built hers around "being strong."

only. it doesn't work this time.

because salem is just like yang.

just like yang, salem prizes courage and conviction and abhors liars. she makes the same distinction between genuine strength and mere power, and values power not at all.

she also, just like yang, keeps her anger firmly in check. when salem yells and slams her hands down or flips a table to intimidate someone, or threatens cinder with the hound, or tortured oscar, that is a choice she is making to let her anger out. the one time salem actually loses her temper, she sends everyone else out of the room, waits for the door to close, makes what appears to be a herculean effort to hold it in (<- the air boils), and then explodes all the windows.

this tactic of yang's depends on her opponent not having her level of emotional control. but that isn't the only reason she completely fails to get a rise out of salem; look at salem's reaction:

<- "why do you keep coming back?"—this is genuine fury. teeth bared, crushing oscar's head with her nails digging in behind his ears.

<- "because something bad happened to you once upon a time?"—she's nonplussed. it's not even that salem's too in control of her anger for yang to provoke her, salem is legitimately thrown for a loop by this line of attack. yang misses the mark by such a wide margin that it knocks salem out of her anger altogether. she was seething about ozma sacrificing children for the god to whom he debases himself in blind obedience, why is this child yelling about fairytales. what.

it's telling, i think, that salem does not, in any way, dispute the premise that her own suffering does not justify the suffering she causes or that she is personally responsible for yang's losses. neither of those ideas challenge or threaten salem's self-identity, and in fact the only response she does make is to ask who she took from yang. (<- implicitly conceding that she is responsible for ruining yang's life, or at least that she might be.)

she and yang are Very Alike.

(this is also why yang has such pronounced paralleling with cinder. by the way. two halves of salem's psyche. fire as hope, fire as wrath.)

anyway

the point of yang vis-a-vis "there will be no victory in strength" is to clarify and articulate the distinction salem makes between power (which neither character values) and strength (which they do, and define as the sum of many virtues). both of them are positioned in counterpoint to ozpin, who trusted only in power and symbols of power (the maidens, amity, atlas), and ruby, who mistakes power for strength and is on a journey that puts both her power (silver eyes) and her strength (hope) to the test.

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ultrakill-confessions · 6 months ago

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Even if V3 will never be real, I feel like they'd be made for sustaining the world after humanity. Because they would be made after V2, or maybe a scrapped version of V2. Because we can maintain the peace and order of humanity, we also should maintain the environment and other things, however. But because humanity died and such V3 would be an unfinished prototype with bugs in their system. The incomplete sustainer. Also, because of their role, they wouldn't go to Hell. Instead, they'd be chained to earth, built into the facility they were manufactured in. They would also have 8 hands/arms instead of wings on their back since... they don't need the wings. They need the arms to reach out and care for multiple plants at once... and also 3 heads. Yes, it's because of cerberus(guard dog, not statue man) and maybe also lucifer(also has 3 heads).

> [✧]

#ultrakill confessions #ultrakill

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dangan-stuck · 7 months ago

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We're here, dammit. This is DanganStuck, and these are the V3 character casts!

SPOILER ALERT. This whole thing contains major spoilers for V3!

So, this all started when we found a dead body in the Lab…

Sorry, it’s an inside joke!

Hello, I guess? I don’t know what I’m doing, but here I am, telling you about the Danganronpa x Homestuck AU crossover.

I’m developing this project (?) with [ @happy6machine , @julia-bunncat ] and with the help of some other cool guys as a support team. Lots of headcanon material has accumulated, and progress in the development of the au has simply... stalled, and I thought I’d try to share it >_< because I haven’t seen anyone else doing something like this so extensively!

I’ll start with V3 (my current fandom fixation) and castes, I guess!! The choice for some characters was pretty obvious and straightforward (ex: olive cast for Ryoma and Tenko, purple for Kokichi, indigo for Gonta and etc.), others were more unusual options (violet for Kaito, whaat?), but I swear I have an explanation behind them :Ъ

But first, I’d like to make a small remark: We hadn’t set a specific lore for the whole thing. Sometimes we experimented with transforming characters into trolls during gameplay to see how it would work, leaving the game plot, killings, interactions and so on untouched. Other times, we made up certain plot snippets and events as if they all lived on Alternia. Occasionally, we’ve stayed in the session area (which we’ll discuss further), prescribing classpects, castes, quadrants, and so forth—all these options were considered.

Now back to the castes, let's go in order:

• Himiko is the weakest, slowest, and laziest member of the V3 cast. She isn't very bright, or at least she's too caught up in fantasies. She's also, well, red. I didn't see the point in making up something special for her, so I just put her in the rust caste. It also makes the dynamic between her and some of the other characters very intriguing, which I'll discuss later. Her desire to perform tricks can be interpreted as 'service/entertainment for the people', literally a jester for the public, which suits the lower castes. But what are the tricks? Well, rust and psychic powers, right? :D So Himiko has psychic powers, though not very powerful ones... And still calls it magic, of course.

• Kaede was a… difficult case. OK, my excuse: I wanted to include a representative of every caste (except Fuchsia) at least once, and Kaede got caught in the hot seat. But she's bronze for more than just that reason! There's a joke that I'll tell you about some other time, because I want to hold its punch for a while. As it is, we're hooked on the scene in the first chapter where Kaede immediately falls on her knees in front of Miu (instinct of subordination??). Also, the music is associated with birds, and all animals are associated with the bronze caste. Of course, Kaede is extremely... feisty and enthusiastic for such a caste, but luckily she has many highblood friends—including Kaito, who stood up for her in-game, and if they were trolls, it would work perfectly ;)

• /heavy sigh/ Keebo.

I originally drew this art [link] when my friends and I were just starting to get through V3, and I just liked the sort of black dynamic between the three of them. I didn't think much about the castes at the time, but ironically they haven't changed.

There are some problems with Keebo, because he's obviously a robot, and I want to keep him as a robot in this AU. The most realistic option is that Keebo is a prototype for a new kind of drone to be used on spaceships. After all, he is an advanced AI imitating a troll, so it makes sense to give him some blood color. Gold blood is often associated with the "trolls are used as batteries on ships” theme, and Keebo was literally created to maintain ships. It's... a bit of a stretch, really, but that's all we have for now. I think the lore will be expanded upon in the future.

• Korekiyo. Giving him gold blood was sort of a joke at first, playing on the fact that Korekiyo, like Sollux, has a point that grants him duality—his sister. However, as we fleshed out the lore, the choice felt increasingly fitting. I'll be writing separate posts, probably more than one, to outline his lore because, folks, this is FIRE. I never particularly liked Kork in the game, but now- hell, I LOVE him. Have pity on the poor boi; he's suffered a lot.

• Ryoma and Tenko. Since they both get the olive caste on the same principle, I will combine them. Guys, It's literally a catboy and a catgirl; what other questions could there be?

Okay, technically, Tenko also receives olive blood because she is combative and strong, which are characteristics of this caste. She generally looks like a cat herself ([EN] we’re referring to her fangs and headband with ears in the beta design, her collar with the bell and some of her facial expressions on the sprites), and her temper matches her caste. I'm not sure how to adapt her hatred of men to Homestuck... yet. Maybe she'll hate highbloods instead? That's something to think about.

Ryoma, for his part, with his whole cat theme (his Lusus is a cat, of course), the resemblance of cat ears on his hat, and his tendency to stare into space—he's a good fit too. And despite his small size, he is quite strong.

• Maki. And that's where the problems and doubts begin to unfold. We were deciding whether to make her olive or maybe jade, given her backstory. After all, she disguises herself as a caretaker in canon, and you wouldn't expect a girl from an orphanage to turn out to be a professional assassin. On the other hand, you might expect that from an olive caste troll. Actually, there are indeed olive assassins. But several factors convinced me to give her this particular caste:

- Maki herself is like a wild cat. Her killer stare, mouth shape, quick reactions, strength, agility, grace.

- raising jade trolls as ''assassins'' sounds not only ideologically dubious (after all, the jade caste has a special place in troll society), but also illogical. Jade's killing instinct is probably suppressed, otherwise there would be complete bloodbath in the brooding caves, they wouldn't get along with each other, they wouldn't be able to take care of wigglers.

- yeah, we've sort of canonised Maki being raised by a group of trolls to be an assassin. And raising an olive for that purpose is a perfectly reasonable idea, given their natural abilities.

- the idea for the jade caste came from the fact that children are attracted to Maki. However, Maki gets surprised by this fact every time. She calls it silly, paradoxical, and strange. Well, it wouldn't be strange at all if wigglers were attracted to a jade blood troll; that's natural. But the fact that they are attracted to an olive one should come as a surprise, even to Maki herself.

• Kirumi. Wasn’t overthinking it. The caste is given to her at the same time because of the method of exclusion (others don't really fit) and because of her calmness, composure, and desire to care for others. Kirumi can also be very, very dangerous, just like the jades in canon ;)

• Rantaro. Anybody ordered male jade? I love them personally, despite knowing they're very rare. Well, that choice is pretty obvious: Rantaro is filled with the desire to care for and protect his younger siblings. Where else could he end up but in the jade caste? He's also just a handsome guy with the cutest face, and he's GREEN, dammit! I made my choice immediately. And there's already a story about him! It's small, but we're definitely going to expand it.

• Shuichi. Do I have to explain anything??? Well, in case someone doesn't know, teal caste and detective work are two sides of the same (hee hee) coin, there was simply no other way.

• Angie. Blue caste. Uuuh, yeah, the elimination method again, I suppose? At first, I considered gold blood to maintain the original palette, but Angie has a blue caste psycho vibe to me. Damn, she's brainwashed half the class at some point! What else could it be but minor mind control? Also, Angie is quite bossy, feels at ease, and has the markings of a dominant personality (oh, the Love Hotel scene...). Blue caste suits her.

• Tsumugi. So, okay, given all her statements about her being "plain" and "nonexistent," it would seem that she should have been given low blood. But listen to this: she BULLIES MIU!

...okay, this might not be entirely obvious, but Tsumugi often makes all sorts of sarcastic comments about the other characters, most of which you can only notice if you replay V3 with knowledge of the plot. Her tweaks towards Miu are more noticeable, though, and considering that Miu herself is an indigo blood, it goes down well. Tsumugi is high-blooded enough to tease the indigo troll, saying things like, "Hey, why is it that as soon as someone starts talking back to you, you immediately turn into such a wimp?" She's also high-blooded enough to ignore Kaede when she tries to talk to her at the beginning of the game. Her blue caste might be the reason the killing game worked out at all, considering how many mistakes Tsumugi made. Who knows, maybe she also created Flashback Lights with her psychic powers...

And... eh. I confess. I wanted to keep her in blue colors, in addition to all the above reasons, so I didn't really consider any other castes.

• Miu. Indigo caste, wow! Well, considering her behavior and the fact that no one had ever punched her through the entire game, it’s CLEARLY obvious. Only a high-blooded troll, a really high-blooded troll, could afford to be so rude to those much lower down. The funny thing is that she targeted low and mid-bloods more often: Kaede, Shuichi, sometimes Himiko, Korekiyo, and Keebo. She didn’t bother, or almost didn’t, with Gonta, Kaito, and even COOPERATED with Kokichi—as if she had to, as if she were afraid of crossing the paths of those above her in caste. Also, Miu said she liked it when Kaede and Shuichi knelt before her...

You might ask—why not purple caste? Still, Miu’s strange behavior is a bit like that of a purple-blooded schizo, isn't it? Well... Firstly, there's nothing to suggest that Miu belongs to this weird purple cult. Secondly, Miu’s odd behavior when someone insults her gives us an interesting, almost Equius-like, God forgive me, “I'm superior to you, but I want to obey; it's SO WRONG but so arousing” conflict.

• Gonta. There was no reason to even try. I did have a stray thought, due to Gonta's nature and his connection to bugs, to place him in the bronze caste, but...no. Given his immense power and his lack of insanity like that of the purple-blooded trolls, you can't put him anywhere other than the indigo caste. Plus, he's from a noble family himself. And this ALSO creates a cool dynamic and adds interesting lore aspects to Homestuck!Gonta that I like VERY much and will definitely cover in other posts!!!!

• Kokichi. Oooh reeeally, who'd have thought? Of course he's purple-blooded! It's not that simple, though. Kokichi is definitely not a crazy purple cultist like most members of the purple caste. We are going to be talking about that separately, and believe me, I will give this guy a lot of lore, because I freaking love him. There isn't much else to say–no other blood color suits him better.

• AND HERE WE ARE: VIOLET-BLOODED KAITO, WAT???? Okay, let me explain!

1. I have a headcanon that violet-bloods are not as obsessed with the hemospectrum as land trolls. This is due to the fact that they are mostly isolated, living in the sea. In that environment, there are only fuchsia caste above them, and no one below them Occasionally, rare purple-bloods get caught on the shores, but EVEN then, their status isn't significantly lower. They don't live in a society where lower-bloods are constantly stigmatized and killed for no reason. They simply don't have any possibilities to "grow" those oppressive, rigid attitudes. Eridan shows this well: no matter how much he talks about hating land dwellers, he always interacts with other trolls on almost equal footing—for example, by hitting on everyone and asking Karkat for advice.

2. Kaito has strong leadership skills and a desire to guide, mentor, and support others. He stands up for Kaede, takes Shuichi under his wing, and protects Maki. This demonstrates the attitude of a strong leader willing to take responsibility. It seems very reasonable for an intelligent, thoughtful violet who knows that he is in a position of authority and must be relied upon. He can't afford to appear weak. No wonder he hasn't told anyone about his illness...

3. He conquered the sea... AND CAME TO LAND!!! All these stories about Kaito in Homestuck could become TRUE if he really is a troll with access to EVERYTHING. Fight a pirate king? Hell yeah! And he WANTS to go into space! Maybe not to enslave worlds, but to get off the planet and pilot a ship—why not? He has nothing to fear, unlike many other trolls, as he'd literally be in charge, with only the Empress above him. But back to his travels: tired of his life at sea, Kaito could just go and explore the land, and nothing can stop him. No other troll but a sea troll could afford to do that (although land trolls shouldn't go to sea).

4. Kaito is daring. And combative. He is pretty much the only one in the class who has no problem expressing his displeasure to Kokichi (a purple blood!) regularly and hitting him. Kaito is generally capable of aggression (I shudder to think how Shuichi must have felt when he was punched—minus another protagonist?) and emotion, which is also characteristic of the highblood. Even when he tries to stop Kokichi at the end, he's probably the only one who can do so after Gonta and Miu was killed.

5. COLOUR SCHEME. Let's just leave him with a beautiful violet. Especially as a highblood, he has every right to dress up. Even a star coat :з

Aaand yeah that's it! It has been a bit of a journey, hasn't it? Gosh, I'm really embarrassed. If you made it to the end, I love you guys so much!!!! I hope you enjoyed it!!! I'll develop this thread if there's minimal feedback and people are interested. And, uh, if you have any questions or anything, go for it. Questions help develop this whole thing.

TRANSLATION PREPARED BY MY FAVORITE WONDERFUL FRIENDS SUNSHINES I LOVE YOU WITHOUT YOU THIS WOULD NOT BE POSSIBLE THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU <33333

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ultimateplaylistmaker · 4 months ago

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How is Kokichi hyperintelligent? /genq

This is a really hard question to answer not because he's not but because it's really hard to not just, gesture at everything he does because there's just SO MUCH, but here's some of the one's off the top of my head

He can make workable blueprints, we know this because Maki found the bugvac blueprints in his giant stack of decoy blueprints which Miu was able to fully follow and make a fully working prototype, and as someone who has taken a few welding classes, that is NOT easy to do While we have no confirmation if he also made the electrobomb or electrohammer blueprints, Maki and Shuichi both speculate it's very possible he could have

2. He constantly is collecting evidence even from other cases and storing it away, showing a sense of foresight and awareness, which is also shown in his giant fucking whiteboard in his room which if you look up close to it shows a decent amount of work into actually predicting things and keeping theories together

3. He's constantly pointing out things in the class trial that other people skim over, while he's not always correct, he's extremely aware of everything going on around them, even being the person to call out Kirumi for trying to guilt trip them into trying to die in her place after getting voted or to cause a commotion for her to slip out in which Kirumi confirms as her plan after being called out, while I do give Kaito some credit for speaking up first about not doing that, his was less of a "kirumi is trying to manipulate us" and more "don't feel bad for not dying for someone else, life's to be lived, suicide bad"

4. He manages? to tie??? rock paper scissors???? a hundred times in a row???????? How did he do that

5. He wrote the Trial 5 Script, which while Kaito did have to improvise, is still stupidly fucking big and way too fucking detailed when did you make this sir because I'm not sure I believe you wrote all this in the bathroom

If we include stuff outside the main game,

in the bonus boardgame mode, he's one of the if not the only person to realize that Junko and Mukuro are different people

2. calls Celeste by a real name something she would have NEVER EVER EVER told him so he'd have to dig up on his own which CANNOT be easy (also I love how her face right after just screams that she's going to try and kill him in his sleep for it)

3. He's so good at keeping his secret organization secret, it's at a point where not even Komaeda can dig into it, which despite your thoughts on his talent and it's reliability we do know DICE exists in some form and thus could theoretically be discovered, so the fact Komaeda who could give you ALL the details on people like Fuyuhiko the Ultimate Yakuza is unable to find information is notable

All together Kokichi shows a rather high intelligence, whether or not it's on levels such as Junko or Izuru is a bit shaky but he can at very least on some level keep up with them (i didnt include the kokichi izuru events because they never had a specific moment around his intelligence but izuru actively fleeing from kokichi lives rent free in my brain) His problem isn't his intelligence, or even his emotional awareness though that isn't as strong, his main problems revolve around trust and paranoia along with the fact for the v3 game, well, truth is, the game was rigged from the start.

#ndrv3 #goodbye despair #anon chaos #trigger happy havoc #ultiamte talent development plan #meta

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