#how am i supposed to tag for something that doesnt exist

[sunnydr0pp]

the... lemon demon power hour?

[cryptojuice]

take this with a grain of extremely drunk but at this point I'm my journey? now? I'm like literally the idealest person in the world and I think everyone else has something wrong with them

[gaylordscooter]

[A pile of carefully torn-out pages sit stacked neatly inside a drawer]

entry number 1

I've lost everything. my brother, my friends, my house, my universe. all of it is just gone now

to top things off, the last thing i was doing was running away from temmie. i thought they were my friend, but after they got the six human souls somehow, they went on a rampage and started killing the remaining monsters left and right.

the only reason i escaped was because this otherworldly being dragged me through a body of water and brought me somewhere else.

this being's name is ink, they're a skeleton like me—they even look like me.

It was explained to me that my universe shattered from "too many plot holes" and i didn't know what that meant! what do you mean my world has too many "plot holes" it's not like it's a STORY.

WELL APPARENTLY IT IS A STORY. AND I DONT LIKE THINKING ABOUT THAT FOR TOO LONG.

So anyway, alternate realities are in fact real and there's a whole multiverse. Cool. Awesome. I just want to go home and for everything to go back to normal

But apparently my universe is completely gone, it doesn't exist i'm the only thing that remains from it. while there are some universes that have parallel realities mine was the only one if it's kind.

COOL. AWESOME. I'M BEING NORMAL ABOUT THIS.

IM THE ONLY THING THAT REMAINS OF MY UNIVERSE. MY UNIVERSE DOESNT EVEN EXIST ANYMORE. WHERE AM I SUPPOSED TO GO. WHAT DO I EVEN DO? THIS "INK" PERSON IS WEIRD

When I was freaking out about my universe being GONE, he gave me this notebook and pencil to "calm down"

HOW IS THIS SUPPOSED TO CALM ME DOWN?! NOW I'M VENTING TO A NOTEBOOK WHILE HE STANDS THERE WATCHING ME FURIOUSLY WRITE!

entry number 2

It's been a day since my world was destroyed, I already miss my home. I've been missing my friends and brother.

At least Ink let me stick around. I've been staying at his place along with someone else named Dream, but I have yet to meet him since he's never here. It's comfy here, at least. I even have my own room (which looks suspiciously close to my old room actually. i think ink did that on purpose, maybe to cheer me up? i don't understand him).

Right now's around the time I'd study with Undyne, actually...well. at least i don't have to worry about getting into the royal science division.

Papyrus isn't around to read this. I feel bad that I've never told him this, but

I never really wanted to join the Royal Science Division. Even though I acted like it was my dream, it wasn't. I wanted to learn more about space.

but of course that's not possible when you live in the underground. (i guess that's not really a problem anymore? this doesn't make me happy)

and we've always been low on funds. the pay for it was too good to pass up. I've stolen so much just to keep us afloat. I was good at hiding that, though.

Too good. Maybe I should've told Papyrus once he was old enough. He never knew why I was kicked out...

How would I even tell him? There's so much I haven't, because I don't know how to word it.

"By the way, brother! Mom and dad didn't exactly like me 'trying to be someone who i'm not' and disowned me like i disowned my name! That's why we grew up in a scrapyard."

[there are various scribbles and dots here]

"You didn't have to follow me, y'know. you could've lived with them instead of stubbornly staying by my side it would've been easier"

no i wouldve missed him. even if it's selfish i'm glad he tagged along. he was always there for me

i wish i could say the same. I SHOULD be able to say the same but i CANT what poor excuse of a brother am i?

maybe. no. they'll never be right.

entry number 3

I met Dream for the first time. He's really. unique. I know he's dressed like someone straight out of an anime but I didn't expect him to ACT like someone straight out of an anime!

The way he talks, the way he moves. There's something uncanny about it, honestly. He also looks on the brightside like that's the only direction he can look. When he heard my universe was destroyed? Told me at least he's glad it's led to me meeting him and Ink??

Like No Offense To You Two But I Don't Think Losing My Entire Universe Was Worth Meeting You Two.

That's not to say I'm not glad to meet them! I am glad! Just not at the expense of my home and everyone I love!

wait when have i ever watched anime? where did i even learn what that means? it was one of my friends��or acquaintances that introduced me to it, surely. Why can't I remember?

I need to ask Ink something, maybe. hopefully he'll know.

entry number 4

so a consequence of my world shattering is that it's really easy to forget about it. because it doesn't exist.

after ink told me that, i can hardly remember anything about it.

it's like there's a big gap in my memory and all i remember is that i'm forgetting something.

like my scarf. i know there's a sentimental reason i wear it. there was something about it. something about the material it's made out of i think?

Entry number five

i had a brother his name is papyrus

i had a brother his name is papyrus

his name is papyrus. he's my younger brother

don't forget him. don't mistake him for the other papyruses in the multiverse.

he woreWhat did he wear? what was he Like? oh my god what was he like

papyrus. don't forget him. he isn't like the other papyruses in the multiverse don't use them as a point of reference don't let them replace whatever memories you have left of him.

"he isn't like the other papyrus's" HOW CAN I KNOW THAT FOR SURE? I DON'T REMEMBER WHAT HE WAS LIKE

entry number 6

The more I learn about the multiverse the more my memories of my universe are skewed. Also I learned (or, heh, remembered) I have memory issues in general on Top of the whole "universe not existing means it's hard to remember" thing.

So that's great

I was being a bit of a downer because of the revelation and Ink caught on so he asked me what was up. I decided to tell him, even though I thought he wouldn't really get it since he doesn't seem to be bothered by anything ever.

Oh man was I wrong. He completely understands

He also has memory issues. He told me he was soulless—which wow, I'm surprised he felt comfortable telling me—which really messes with your capacity for remembering things.

Even though he uses paint as a substitute for a soul, it doesn't fix his memory issues. So instead he writes stuff down on his scarf. He suggested I should do something similar, write down important things.

He told me that even if I can't necessarily hold information in my head for a long time, if I can hold it in my head long enough to write it down, that's enough.

It was reassuring.

entry number 7

Dear Papyrus,

I've seen a lot of different places in the past few days, places I wouldn't ever imagine seeing. Some of them are pretty, some of them are a mess. It's a bit hard to wrap my head around it, how small we are in comparison.

I already thought space was big, learning there were multiple universes made me feel even smaller. But even so, out of everything I've seen. I have yet to find a world like ours.

But if the universe is infinite, the amount of multiverses should be too, right? Another version of our universe, one that hasn't disappeared, has to be somewhere.

I'll look for it.

I'll find it.

I don't want to pretend to be talking to you through letters. I want to see you again. There's so much I have to tell you.

All the lies I've told you. I thought I was protecting you. I was really just saving myself the trouble of explaining everything.

i miss you, bro. i'm sorry i'm the one that made it and not you

entry number 8

i lived in a house with papyrus in snowland sity. i remember it was spelled like that specifically for the sake of alliteration, even though it'd still count as alliteration if it was spelled properly anyway.

i was an intern for the royal science division, papyrus was too but he wasn't all that serious about it. i was friends with the head of it, undyne.

she was real big into gundam anime and tried making those mechs a reality. i helped her with that so i have some experience in robotics and mechanical engineering.

she was able to build at least one functional robot, their name was blookbot. they were the underground's biggest music artist. i was a pretty big fan of their music

i went to college and got a degree in psychology. i was supposed to go to medical school, but, i either failed my classes or didn't make it in i think. or maybe i couldn't afford it.

there were a few humans that lived underground, under queen toriel's care. she had a polices about not killing humans which some monsters didn't agree with, including her own (now ex) husband who thought she was prioritizing humans above her own people. technically she was prioritizing humans, in a way, since we kinda need their souls to break the barrier—but hey all those humans fell down as kids im not gonna blame her for deciding against killing. and those humans specifically weren't to blame for us being trapped underground, it was unfair to fault them for it.

there was a group of monsters that did take action against these policies. the rebels, they called themselves. it was a straightforward name. they managed to kill some of the humans that's fallen down, specifically the ones that decided to leave the safety of queen toriel in favor of finding a way out.

while the amount of monsters that were apart of the rebels was pretty low, there's always been a threat of a civil war over the queen's policies. the main thing preventing it was that everyone was very much aware that a civil war could spell the end of monsterkind. so the monsters that disagreed with her policies kinda just, went deeper into the underground and were left to their own devices.

temmie was my friend. i thought. they were...a peculiar being. not quite human or monster, they were a sentient plush toy. they were very vocal about thinking queen toriel was dumb for not just killing every human that fell underground and that if she did, we'd have enough souls to break the barrier by now. but to my knowledge the rebels only have two souls in their possession and there's five that live with queen toriel. we'd be missing one

hah! i remembered all that! fuck you, multiverse!

hopefully this information is accurate. god

entry number 9

MY NAME IS NOT BLUE. ITS SANS HOW THE HELL DID I FORGET THAT???

Ever since my universe was destroyed Ink's been calling me "blue" like that's been my name my whole life and i ended up forgetting that it's NOT!

GASLIGHTING! ME!

Only reason i remembered was because someone called me sans while we went out to a different universe to eat.OH YEAH SPEAKING OF THIS UNIVERSE

It's SIMILAR to mine, not quite the same but it feels much more familiar than the other ones have so far

they're called "Underswap" universes, because some people "swap" roles and personalities with someone else.

Ink calls my universe "Botchedswap". not that flattering of a name but i suppose it makes sense now that ive seen underswap

so like. is my universe just a "botched" version of that universe?? or variant, that's what ink calls them

variants are universes that derive similar traits to the "main" universe they're based off of. so like, botchedswap is an underswap variant since it's based on it. BUT WHO IS BASING IT ON UNDERSWAP? WHAT EXACTLY DOES THAT MEAN? IS SOMEONE WRITING THIS? IT'S A STORY. THATS WHAT INK TOLD ME

i haven't really thought about how this is all a story after ink told me. i've kinda been avoiding it. it's like my mind automatically yanking my hand away from the stove, it's hard to think about it

i guess im sorta not supposed to know about that?? i mean. this is like some horrors beyond my comprehension probably. definitely, what the fuck do i mean probably?

so if this IS a story. i'm a character in it then? I'm probably a background character aren't i? i probably hardly even show up. who's the main character? would it be ink? oh then i probably wouldn't be a background character at that point.

That's so weeeird. If i was a main character that'd mean a lot of people saw my every move! Horrible! Or i guess not, why should i care what the hypothetical audience thinks about me?

Geez, there is an audience, isn't there? Unless this story's private or something.

I'm writing something down right now and im in a story. That's pretty weird. What if I wrote a story then? That's a story in a story, would that make that story more fictional than me?

wow im a fictional character.

The dread's not really hitting. Is that because i'm unable to or because i actually don't care that much? Is the writer of the story controlling my every move. What does this say about my capacity for free will. What does this say about everyone who isn't "on-screen"?

WELL. GOING OFF THE IDEA THAT I AM NOT A MAIN CHARACTER. THAT MEANS IM NOT BEING WRITTEN ABOUT THEN. WHICH MEANS THE WORLD DOES CONTINUE ON EVEN WHEN THEY AREN'T IN THE STORY.

OK MAYBE THE DREAD IS HITTING. IS THE AUDIENCE LOOKING AT ME RIGHT NOW? CUT THAT OUT!

WOWZERS, I AM A FICTIONAL CHARACTER. ok what do i do with this information. this is weird. im not supposed to know this right? well, ink told me so i guess it's allowed???

quick write something to show i have free will. uhhh what was that saying. from uhhh that one human. rene descartes?? is that how you spell his name. there's an accent on there somewhere

cogito, ergo sum

yeaaahhh yeah. i leaned that phrase from my philosophy class. i dont fucking remember what that means, go me

entry number 10

Wowzers, it's been a second since i opened this thing up! Welp, I'm in a much better spot now. Kinda embarrassing reading back on these entries now.

These are pretty personal too. I don't really wanna continue writing entries like this, I was never big on diaries cus I hate reading back on them.

So I ripped these pages out! I can't just waste the rest of this journal, the paper's pretty good quality. plus it's a gift from ink technically

But I can't just toss these pages out so I'm putting them in my bedside drawer. I'll probably forget I did that so this is sorta like a time capsule, I suppose.

So if i have rediscovered these pages, Hi! Hello! Future, hopefully-even-more-well-adjusted-me! Probably shouldn't destroy these pages because they have important memories written down in them! Push past the cringe of seeing me in agony! Or rewrite some of the key stuff, i dunno.

If you are not Blue, Sans-from-Botchedswap The Skeleton,

FUCK OFFF!!!! BARK BARK BARK BARK!! STOP READING THISSSS IT'S EMBARRASSING COME OOON. or hi ink, i told you NOT TO SNOOP IN MY ROOM!!!

On the off-chance you are not from my plane of existence, uhhh I guess i can't stop you? And i guess i shouldn't care since i won't see your reaction nor can you tell anyone about this so. whatever. go at it, voyeur.

not the right word to use sorry. yeah no. wrong word. not what it means.

See this is why it sucks knowing there's an audience what if i say weird shit!?!? Ughhhh. probably shouldn't care about it, but alas, my feeble soul, i am sensitive that even the possibility of the hypothetical audience thinking im weird hurts me so

[tenaciouschronicler]

Feburary 14-16 2010 2025

(trigger warnings are for the tags. main content does not contain these)

I love john being a sarcastic little shit. He and carcinoGeneticist have a 'nice' little chat where a couple of things are revealed. Props to CG being self aware that hes: 1. probably a douche, and 2. didnt plan the trolling very well.

Apparently on their end, these trolls have been working backwards in the timeline for some reason. John very quickly clocks that these guys might have something to do with the game which makes him more alert which CG says happens a lot. Its interesting learning John is a very naturally gaurded person.

CG does confirm that he and the others are also playing SBURB just in a different session. I kind of wonder how SBURB decides what players join what session together? Is friendship some sort of prerequisite? What happenes if an entire group of friends Doesnt play the game? Say Jade didnt get Daves disks; would something go wrong only having 3/4 players?

Another trait of Johns we learn, which explains his convos with the other kids, is hes not very good at picking up subtleties. CG calls John dumb and John is rightly offended and further disbelieves that he and CG could be friends. But after CG clarifies:

CG: THE FACT THAT YOU ARE DUMB

CG: IS AN IMMUTABLE FACT I AM STATING FOR THE RECORD.

CG: IT DOES NOT MEAN ANIMOSITY IS WHAT IS TAKING PLACE HERE.

John realizes its supposed to be read as banter and responds in kind at the end of their chat:

EB: but i've got to go now and get on with my petty little quests.

EB: so talk to you in the future i guess.

EB: jerkface.

We get a quick moment with in the future where WV has calmed the situation and shared his spoils. 'You warm yourselves in the glow of this human emotion called friendship.'

Its a short moment but it further adds to the previous chat to show this is probably a turning point to John becoming friendlier to the trolls. It also refutes Johns own statement here:

CG: IT'S REALLY WEIRD.

CG: THIS HUMAN EMOTION YOU CALL FRIENDSHIP.

EB: friendship isn't an emotion fucknuts.

Ive never throught of it that way but yeah, friendship Is an emotion. Ill touch on this at the end.

We find ourselves with Dave as Jade works to set him up for entry while Dave watches and chats with Rose.

TT: So you mean to tell me she was able to connect with you in a timely fashion, without waiting until you were on the brink of annihilation?

[...]

TT: I've done nothing but wait for boys to play this game with me all day.

TT: First John lollygagging with the client, and then you with the server, downright filibustering my existence with unending fraternal melee.

TT: And yet a girl, one who didn't even own the game, was able to connect with you minutes after you connected with me.

I dont want to dunk on Rose but Im going to dunk on Rose. She very much operates with the mindset that everyone should be at the same level as her, not considering the nuances of peoples situations. It probably stems from her hyper independence but its a high standard she places eveyone on. She probably has a high opinion of Jade because these two essentially raised themselves but Dave was likely in a similar boat. The only reason he doesnt show these 'skills' is because of the tight timeframe he had to work under to save Rose.

Even so I think she does hold in high regard the easier affection Dave is able to display behind his irony. They talk briefly of John where we can read the undercurrent of worry Dave has.

TG: i should probably text him soon

TG: see whats up

TG: because

TG: i love him

TT: I know.

And Rose doesnt discount him saying so. Its a brief moment of vulnerability where both of their walls are down. If we had more acurrate timestamps I want to say that the next line of Daves probably came a minute or so later after he let himself process and then changed the subject to hide what he revealed.

All the while Jade is deploying machines and 'cleaning' up the apartment, bringing us out of the heavy atmosphere.

I do find it odd that Dave is starting with 2000 grist right off the bat. I wonder if these starting caps are affected by how many players are in the game or how advanced the first player is at the point where new player is set to start?

(Friendship as an emotion under the cut)

Alright. Time to go more in depth about my thoughts on the friendship thing. The first thing I thought of after the friendship as emotion thing was the Four Loves. I only had a rudimentary understanding of the concepts so I turned to the greatest source of knowledge, Wikipedia.

"The Four Loves is a 1960 book by C. S. Lewis which explores the nature of love from a Christian and philosophical perspective through thought experiments." In it, Lewis defines four types: Storge, Philia, Eros and Agape. Im only going to focus on Philia, or friend bond, here as I want to explore more on this in a seperate post. "Philia (Greek: φιλία) is the love between friends as close as siblings in strength and duration." The difference between these and the other forms of love is how Lewis describes it as the least natural but also a higher-level form as its a Choice. True, deep appreciation of another was something Lewis thought modern society lacked. Philia is very human in nature, and as such is subject to human faults like pride and cliques.

I argue that in this story the exploration of friendship and Philia will be pertinant to understanding the motivations of our characters and the strengthening or weakening of their bond. We already see how much each kid loves one another and, for however long theyve been talking, how deep they feel connection to each other. Its great commentary on how free, chosen connections with internet stangers is just as valuable and real as the ones formed face to face. Ive never had experience with this personally before in that regard. Even though I am an adult, my mom doesnt see the value in connections that arent IRL, always pushing me to talk to 'real' people rather than the ones online. Lewis would probably deem her one of those who has lost true understanding of the power of Philia.

I might find a copy of Lewis' book, its relatively short, but I am definitly gonna write some thoughts on all the Forms of Love weve seen so far so I guess look forward to that.

[softantlers]

Hi genuine question! I've seen some MelissaHat hate on your blog and was wondering how you feel about her dynamic to Shauna and then becoming a survivor in correlation to the shows core story because it's something I've been debating and don't see anyone else doing so.

While watching yj I've found myself looking at it with the lens of "what is the core story they're telling vs the fringe imagery?" We know this show has taken many many turns in its plot from the shows pitch to post pilot and now, for example van being the first to die, then to the first survivor to die, then to how she is now etc etc. If somone told me that the show was written as it was primarily planned to be with no regard to fandom reaction or input I'd say they're lying because it's pretty clear that the creators absolutely have changed some things up from their initial ideas as time goes on and seeing how the audience reacts. ( and that's not a bad thing! If they didn't make changes once they saw Livs amazing chemistry and scene presence then we wouldn't have our groovy butch jester )

But I've always read the show as the jackieshauna show, that's the main story line and core of it all. Shauna and jackie, Shauna is our main girl but only because jackie is our main girl etc etc, everything else while just as important and fun can be tossed and tumbled and scrapped for the betterment of the jackieshauna of it all. Our main 4 are Misty Nat Tai Shauna but their stories fall to the wayside in the face of jackieshauna. I feel like they've always had a set plan for them and what we are seeing as some odd choices are all due because those choices are in regards to the 2nd storylines ( Taivan, lotties story. Tais family doesnt impact the main storyline of jackieshauna so it gets less thought out and instead we get Jeff bingo )

So anytime I feel like the show is off I chalk it up to " yea they've got their main storyline and everything else is whatever vibes the smoke shesh the writing room had that day"

That brings me to Melissa, her role as jackies mirage and an important note in shaunas sexuality would make me think that this was always planned, that she's apart of the main story line and was from the beginning. But then we hear that they wrote up a new role entirely for Swank to play? And for such an important character to have like no lines till the season they apparently make her important for the adult timeline actress? It feels odd I can't figure out if she was just weirdly handled but was always intended to be a thing or if it really was just them needing a role for Swank.

( still feeling slighted if it turns out that they really did kill Simone off to payroll swank lol )

(sidebar: the way i've spent all saturday drinking copious amounts of coffee, listening to gay ass music on the couch, and media analyse-ing on my phone lmfao. let's get it!)

yeah, so i have a hard time talking about this tbh because i feel the room tend to shut down when i do & that's never a good feeling, especially since it's something that's making me feel uncomfortable with the show about? but i'll tag this & put a read more so the people who don't wanna see it can happily ignore me lol.

first thing, i just want to say that i don't hate melissa (in the teen timeline, idk about adult timeline yet but looking bad). she is kind of a loser but that's like her whole character. i do actually enjoy her dynamic with gen & have been playing with that some.

so, my thought is that i actually don't think the writers intended for shaunajackie to be the principle sapphic ship of the show. i know the show is about shauna generally & she's the main character bc for whatever reason the writers are quite invested in exploring the savagery that could conceivably exist within a white soccer mom. that's fine, you know, go off. but yeah, i am really not sure it was supposed to be sapphic, i think that's more to do with sophie and ella's gay ass chemistry lol.

i don't think the writers banked on the fans sidelining taivan and imminently shipping shaunajackie. like i am just convinced that taivan was supposed to be the solo queer ship with ben as an additional character (how most shows have this kind of quota where rep is restrained) & then when the show got massive attention and a huge queer following, they were like "oh?"

the reason i don't think shauna was always meant to be queer is a couple things but one example is that they could have easily introduced melissa from the beginning and even put her in the position of adam. tbh that writing would have been so much more fluid. if they were already considering adam/javi, then wouldn't it make much more sense to use melissa for that role? honestly, if they had done that, the writing would have ate!!

also wouldn't it make sense for tai to bring it up when shauna and her are reflecting on relationships? like sorry if you were fucking a girl in the woods and your lesbian friend was listening to you talk about your failing marriage, no way she isn't gonna suggest maybe your ass is gay.

so all of that. what becomes frustrating for me on this is that i feel like the writers saw the popularity of shaunajackie & decided to cash in on white sapphics for season 3. regardless of whether they meant to do this, they did. i tend to agree with everyone who is suggesting that mari could have been shauna's love interest to much more interesting effect while giving the role to someone who has already been with the show instead of (ostensibly) relegating her to being yet another dead poc character.

there is an interview with liv and jasmin where they are clearly joking but they say something like "i thought we were the gay ones." maybe it's not that serious but it breaks my heart a bit. like i just don't think the fandom gave them their flowers likely because of embedded racism or an insidious preference for white fems.

anyways, it's not that these ships have to be in competition with each other EXCEPT when fuckshit like what happened with lottie happens. it truly feels like the writers didn't know what to do with her & cast her aside so that they could have a melissa/shauna unhinged fuck fest in the adult timeline. like whatever if they want to do that, but it just feels like it was at the expense of the most interesting character in the show--a character people really resonated with both in terms of mental health & in terms of representation. we NEVER see representation like lottie in television, like i could seriously gaf about melanie kissing a girl in the adult timeline. it's just such a disappointment.

the last episode was particularly ridiculous to me. like wdym the police don't investigate a suicide without a body? wdym melissa sent her the DAT tape and thought nothing would happen? like JFC what was that writing??? like you could never convince me this was an endgame since the beginning.

and invariably, you have to ask yourself who are the writers catering to when they write stuff like this? it's not their mixed race and poc viewership who saw the value in a character like lottie. it is certainly not the sapphics in interracial relationships who are prolly gonna have to watch van die so that shaunahat can move forward as the primary sapphic ship in s4. like again, these things shouldn't be in competition but the writers are making them so by disposing of incredible dynamics and characters.

this is just my take, but it's a general frustration i have had with the show going forward. it doesn't mean i'll stop watching or stop having fun with the characters i enjoy, but generally, i am a lil meh about how unwilling people are to talk about this. i think it's the case where if you don't feel impacted bc this is the rep you want & you don't feel the same lack as other people, then you're just less likely to care.

[lithominium]

Ughhh hahah im ahving a “nobody under 40 really expects anything good to happen ever again” moment right now going “climate change has completely ruined seasons as we know them, not the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused by sea level rise and (un)natural disasters caused by global warming” and “every single product in the entire world is designed to break down in a year at the most and every year it gets worse, including housing”

Its not like yoi can go buy a good that actually functions, because All goods are like this. Tools are godawful now. You buy a brand new sandblaster from a reputable company and it literally sucks shit. You buy a modern reissue of music equipment and its shoddily built and doesnt work right or something. Houses being built in the modern era are thrown up in a week and collapse with people inside a week later. Video games come out and are half baked and dont change when people ask

The consumers dont have power anymore, they havent for Years.

Every time i look at politics (USA because im unfortunately usamerican, but ive seen some godawful shit in other countries too) i go “well he cant nearly be as bad as the last guy” but somehow they always one up each other for being more genocidal and more awful. On both ends of the spectrum. It used to be 3 years ago “do i wanna vote for the awful person or the awful person who actively wants to kill me” but now its literally just. “Person who wants to kill me or person who wants to kill me.” And every single worthless politician in existence is doing the same thing. If i voted for someone who didnt want to kill me, so few people would end up voting for them, that the people who DO want to kill me would win anyways. My old college town banned public homosexuality. Tennessee of course. Worthless ass state.

I dont doomscroll, i know how ungodly unhealthy it is to scroll through tags showing off how bad everything is. But its inescapable. I go to funny youtube videos and see wade dankpods complaining about how all tools suck while he tries to rebuild a car. I scroll through my dashboard which is supposed to be memes and fandom content and its “this us democrat just said ‘yaknow i really think its great that israel is finally killing all those subhuman palistinians” and what the hell am i supposed to do about that??

I just need. Some semblance of hope. Anything just to tell me it will be alright. Tell me theres a reason for me to not steal a plane and fly it into a god damn mountain so my final moments will be doing the one thing i really love.

[limelocked]

im trying to like make the new dash usable and just... it dont

heres the main things im having trouble with in no particular order

there needs to be extra padding on top of the site, it feels claustrophobic without the buffer of the previous Top Dash

ad-free, domain, and store dont all need to have separate icons, just incorporate domain and ad-free into the store

settings are always the furthest down, idk if this is a rule but it feels very intuitive, same as account being at the top or at the bottom never in the middle

the icons are too small and more notably the text makes it very cluttered! you can have text for the store but other than the store and activity feed* the icons are generally the same as other sites and dont need explanations

*the activity feed also dont need text because its a tactile tab, as soon as notifications become a thing you have to worry about then you will click on the tab

the simple create a post button should be where the rest of the activity is, hiding it in the corner will do no good to anyone

this is a me specific problem but i have tumblr opened in a minimized window so i can use two tabs on the same screen and it feels crushing to be encapsulated on all sides by Stuff, let us navigate recommended blogs and the radar in the explore tab instead, it feels like that is where theyre supposed to be rather than on the main dash

personally i would love if search went back to the left hand side and maybe the sidebar thats replacing top bar went to the right side but those are minor issues

heres some other changes that i think would be good for the site in general

in the explore tab; dont default to Today, default to For You if you want to drive engagement, or trending, @staffs choice

rename Staffs Picks in the explore tab to Radar since they seem to be the same thing, staff doesnt have a great image so it might get more use in it if the dash name is used

like solitarelee said; it would be amazing to have custom dashs for different blog content, having a tab specifically for content from your followed tags is nice but having separate dashes can really be expanded on (and if you want to consider the option then this could be monetized as in you get 3-5 free custom dashes and then you pay per added dashboard, this should however be brought up to the users first because if the number is too low staff and automattic will simply be seen as evil)

PLEASE rename Manage to Labs or something, its much cooler and is more indicative of what you're getting from the tab as manage usually comes with Manage Settings, adding a beaker icon to the sidebar for labs content could even be a good idea to get people interested in it

i am begging on my hands and knees for staff to have a public dev log, please look at how the minecraft community eats up the mojang patch notes and understand that this would be good here too. warn us about upcoming changes like the dashboard update and treat us as costumers rather than shareholders, we dont want to solve an ARG to understand what you're going to do with our primary social site, we want to be told straight up whats happening so we can continue to make informed decisions about what we want to do with the site

something im surprised hasnt been done is tumblr adding an optional tutorial on how to use the site upon account creation, maybe it exists, maybe it doesnt, it should be optional and also the no tags warning should be able to be toggled in settings

[baldachinsbrainrot]

Thank you! I wanted to make a post about this but didnt know how to put it into words.

This! Exactly!

Theres nothing wrong with wanting to share facts, comics and ideas from DC canon and hoping people will enjoy it along with you.

Theres nothing wrong with hoping people will add facts or characters with their writing. Its how you present it thats important.

I am not going to repeat what Dis said, they already made very great points about what is going on, so why not add what you can do if you still want to help people know more canon!

Instead of trying to change what already is, targeting writers or artists on what they have already made, try and make new content. If people like it, people will pick it up! Its happened so many times before with the demon twins, summonings and Danny adoption fics.

Now of course not everyone is a writer, not everyone knows or wants to write fics and not everyone can do art, so there are other ways to share these facts or characters:

Make prompts

People love prompts. It allows them to think about what could happen in this situation. Add canon facts or situations, people will pick up on it and start writing things about it

Write snippits

You dont have to make full on stories, just write a bit about a situation and how the characters would act in those.

Make posts talking about "what if?"

An amazing way to talk about characterisation and canon events is by mentioning a situation and analysing how they act (though of course doesnt have to be in depth, just something like "so and so happened, what effect did it have on the character?".). Maybe put what you just mentioned in perspective with another situation! Either canon or something for the crossover so people can apply it!

Support the fics that write what you want!

If you support people for for example including canon or writing the character you love or using the characterisation you like. When you leave positive comments, kudos or happy tags on these posts, people will feel more motivated to continue doing it! Happiness and support not only make for a nicer environment, they also motivate people!

There are many ways you can try and teach people about the canon that you love. The most important thing is how you act on it. Love and support gets you much further than annoyance and anger, no matter how annoyed or angry you are. If you act angry, people will defend themselves. If you act annoyed people will defend themselves. Its a natural response.

So please, please, please do not go after already existing works. People have written what they have written and they still write what they like. Additionally it is incredibly rude to for example comment "add this" to a work, finished or not. You would not want somebody bashing you because you like chocolate on your strawberries!

Also please dont bash people for writing OOC, like Dis has said: this is fandom, fandom is supposed to be fun. Different people enjoy stuff in different ways and you cant change that.

You might be completely done with people saying this, but it is true: the back and block button are there for a reason, if something is not to your taste, click away and/or block. You are responsible for what you see, ignoring what you dont like and interacting with what you do really is the way to go.

I hope this can help provide both a nicer environment and help people share what they want to share. We are still one community and share a space, so lets keep this fandom as free and fun as it already is!

DPxDC Negativity

Hey this is just a friendly reminder that I'm going to put in the plainest terms that I can.

If you are telling people how they should and should not participate in fandom you are GATEKEEPING

If you are telling people that they need to read more comics before writing fanfic you are GATEKEEPING

If you are telling people that they need to do more research into canon in any form, whether that be reading wikis, reading comics, watching shows, whatever you are GATEKEEPING

If you are telling people that what they are writing is not canon compliant and therefore not a valid way to participate in fandom you are GATEKEEPING

Fandom is supposed to be fun

Fanfiction is supposed to be fun

We are not writing these stories for anyone but ourselves. And to tell someone that they are participating in fandom wrong is GATEKEEPING

There are plenty of fanfics in the DC only sphere and the DP sphere that are so far away from canon it's unreal and that's totally okay!

People are allowed to enjoy fandom in however the hell they please. If that means they are writing a crap ton of Batfam/Danny Phantom content and not very much Justice League/DP content, that's totally okay.

If someone read the Wayne Family Adventures Webtoon and decided that they want to write Danny being adopted into a loving and crazy Batfamily that is totally one hundred percent fine.

If someone wants to write Danny with abusive and neglectful parents guess what? they can.

If they want to write Vlad as being a nurturing and loving godfather to Danny, they can.

What I'm trying to explain to you all is that it's okay to write things that are not canon compliant. It's okay to write things that are so far away from canon it's not even recognizable--I mean have you even read a fantasy au or a no capes au? That's basically just slapping a characters name and face to an OC. And guess what? THAT'S OKAY.

It's also okay to want to see more people interact with the canon lore, to want to share resources and tell people about your special interests. But the moment you start doing it and it makes people feel bad-- even if that is not your intention you are GATEKEEPING.

Gatekeeping is defined as the activity of controlling, and usually limiting, general access to something.

By you telling others what they should and should not write, you are being a gatekeeper.

I get it, you want to share lore, you want to show that you know all these cool things about DC. You want more than just batfam and DP content. That's totally valid and really cool.

Do it yourself.

Don't take someone else's joy away simply because it's not what you want to see. They aren't writing it for you, they're writing it for themselves. You're just a lucky person who gets to see the beautiful works that they are putting time and effort into.

When I joined DPxDC I knew absolute shit about DC. Over the last year, I've read over 400 issues of the Batman comics, read all of the Red Robin series, and a smattering of random other comics with plans to read others. But when I started writing? I knew jackshit. My knowledge came from the Teen Titans cartoon, the Batman animated series, and vague memories of watching the Justice League animated series as a kid.

And if Dis from a year ago saw this gatekeeping shit, they would have never started writing for the fandom because they would have been too scared to be told they were doing it wrong.

Now? I'm writing DC only fics based off of what I learned in the comics and it's a lot of fun.

But I did that because I wanted to, I was starting to get more and more interested in DC and I wanted to know more. And I had access to pay for DC Infinite so that I could get access to the comics. Not everyone has that luxury.

Not everyone has the luxury of being able to read them from free sites either. Maybe they have to use a public computer that doesn't have ad blockers. Maybe their local libraries don't have access to the comics. You don't know what their situation is.

Maybe you're being well intentioned. Maybe you're just wanting to share your wealth of knowledge with the fandom. But remember, if just one person is getting hurt by your statements, that means you're no longer being helpful. You're being harmful. You're scaring off a new fan who was super insanely excited to start sharing their headcanons.

You're making people feel unwelcome. And that's not fucking cool.

Fandom is supposed to be a welcoming space for everyone, it's supposed to uplift and bring joy. Not make people feel bad for not knowing enough, or for feeling too anxious to even begin figuring out where in the 75 year history of DC they should start reading.

I know that's what kept me from reading the comics for a long time. it was just too overwhelming. It still is overwhelming for me and thats with having friends telling me where to start and what comics are best to read.

Before I end this super hella long rant I want to remind you of one last thing.

You don't know what someone has read or researched before writing their fic. You don't know just how much they know about that character or universe. For all you know, they may have read, watched, consumed every single piece of DC media in existence. But they may still interpret it different than you did and that does not mean that their Bruce Wayne is OOC because it doesn't align with how you interpret Bruce Wayne. it just means that they view his character differently than you do.

And that's such a beautiful fucking thing don't you think? That a single character, a single universe, a single fucking line can be interpreted hundreds of different ways by hundreds of different people and it's still valid.

It's what makes fandom so freaking cool in the first place.

Like one day someone woke up and they were watching Danny Phantom and they thought hm, what if I had Danny Fenton go to Gotham one day and hang out with the bats? And next thing you know, now we have thousands upon thousands of different fanfics, fan art and HCs, all because of it. All because someone had that one idea and shared it and others saw it, interpreted it their own way, and decided to create even more.

And now we're here! And this fandom is beautiful and thriving. There are so many amazing and lovely people in this fandom. There are so many discords to talk about fandom, there's so many events, a DPxDC Bang is the works, a DPxDC fanzine is in the works.

That's so fucking cool and we should be celebrating that! Not making others feel bad for not knowing as much as others.

[diamond-sword]

God forgive me I'm assigning Homestuck classpects to all the characters from comeblockhome

[kinki-cami]

This post is supposed to be buried deep why tf are people finding it??????

To be fair reblogging it isnt helping but still

Also i know what hdg is supposed to represent: kink, disability, yadda yadda (not trying to be rude just saying etc in the manner of how im trying verbally sound while saying this) and yknow im disabled too not to an extreme but yknow t1d (fuckin sucks ass) then adhd autism which also fuckin sucks but the worst part is infatilization just like "oh you cant do that here lemme do it for you" when yes the fuck i can then they get pissed whn i do it myself, or saying "you know how to do it, everyone does" and then doing it completely wrong and them getting upset. And also with the kink part being "yeah this is cnc thing (with emphasis on the nc)" like yeah i fuckin know but thats not what im tryna get at

Pretty much all the foundation stories (that ive read)/ and a lot of the short stories, especially read on here written by people more knowledgeable about the source are about people who, sometimes drafted sometimes volunteered get florted regardless of if they want it or not and pretty much just, yknow give them some or more of a lobotomy (not that much as they are still usually pretty smart just enough to get a lot of specific thoughts removed) and one of the phrases i hear constantly on hdg tags is "they are inevitable" often (i assume) implying that probably everyone will be domesticated and the thing with that is, assuming that getting drafted to join the terran resistance is inevitable as well, considering that will guarentee you getting domesticated i just like couldnt? Yknow what i mean, its implyed in the extra chapters of the original that a lot of the affini are pretty similar in their goals of any terran in the war will be domesticated, and like im sorry but literally 1 i fuckin couldnt like if it was possible i wouldnt mind being friends with one but every story inevitably ends with the mc being domesticated whether they wanted it or not and pretty much removed of any and all personal choice, which dont get me wrong, with a schedule i could thrive, maybe but i would hate the loss of self expression and 2 fuck i lost my train of thought typing things Fuck. Oh wait. And if they story starts with some independent being pretty good at independance it pretty much comes down to the affini wanting that person as their floret bad enough that they force it upon them which. Like. I wouldnt mind being kidnapped, but only if i was in a place where i hated it and had no escape like usually its with xenodrugs but its also with biorythyms just like "yeahhh if you wanna be an independent but i want you to not be, too fuckin bad you will be my floret" and its just like yeah but i wanna just be able to exist without the harrassment and programming that, whether someone says "ah thats not programming" no if you give someone something to do then make them feel good, you are training that response meaning that pretty much any/everything with xenodrugs that make you happy is just programming and i realize now im just rambling bc i forgot what i was fucking gonna say and am struggling to remember

What im trying to say is if i WERE to live in hdg i would pretty much have to isolate myself so hard that i wouldnt get any interference from either side of the war because one is very much "yeah either way yoy WILL eventually get domesticated" and the other side is just "fuck you" and like i really could just be on my own and if i wasnt harrassed COULD probably just be pretty good on my own for at least a year

But yeah i know this all goes against the whole thing of hdg but like i couldnt fathom having zero control over my life. Which is what i currently have, so if i were to it would pretty much just be worse to my current actual situation where instead of just being isolated, i would be isolated (with only exceptions allowed BY the affini... which literally doesnt change my current situation), drugged to feel good about the situation and then have my personality suppressed which is literally like my creativity is literally my entire personality so having all my decisions made for me would pretty much already kill me so whats the point

Also id like to note that while writing the inital post i was suppressing suicidal thoughts so yknow wasnt thinking straight either anyway going to make this even harder to find and i havent fully researched hdg due to being too depressed to even really get out of my bes the past few days besides like on Saturdays to hopefully go out

Yknow im split again on whether or not i would want the affini to exist

Because honestly, truely, if i could literally just have basically star trek with pretty much infinite ethical food, slay but also if it was just like me and my like 8 neighbors (making 10 total people) i wouldnt mind, like just nature and chilling

Cause lets be honest, if you were sad in any way shape or form, even if its simply "i want to go take a 5 hour walk in a real forest" the affini would probably just be like "oh petal dont be sad" and inject you with (i can never remember the class names but i know what they do so) what is essential dopamine/serotonin, and youre pretty much removed of any individuality which. Suuucks. Especially for someone like myself who pretty much never had an opportunity to fully express myself.

Now dont get me wrong i LOVE identity death BUT i wouldnt wanna be erased, instead id rather just be trapped into a paradise of my own making in my mind. Like. I can look at whats happening to my body, buuutttt for the most part i just get to experience things i wanted to but never had the opportunity to, hell, {in the ben sharpiro talks about banning luigi from ssbu meme voice} lets say, hyypothetically, luigi grabs you- kidding! No lets say this scenario did happen, if the affini in charge of me pretty much told my replacement if any trauma was effecting that paradise to tell them and theyd deal with it, that would be even better bc i think i do have trauma considering every fictional character I've ever made that i would use another character that represented me to talk to, ""my"" ""friends"" (the fictional characters) always resent ""me"" (the character that represents me) in some way always using an annoyed tone

So yknow if i were to just exist as essentially a repressed thing in the back of my mind but i have my own little world i get to interact with back there while physical me is completely otherwise braindead from the affini, then i wouldnt mind, but yeah as it stands, uhh yeah i dont like 24/7 bdsm relationships, i want there to be a seperation between sexual me and normal me, especially since there already is a massive divide in that form, only really noticeable in private vs public and edged vs finished

And otherwise if i was in the hdg world and didnt have that option, you know the moment i was left alone after being captured by an affini and they didnt say that theyd do that, id be dead on the floor, probably crying as i die bc i wouldnt know a very good way to die, bc presumably humanity would have found a cure to diabetes by then, i mean considering it might happen by 2026 uhh i could also just inject myself with a lethal amount of insulin and go peacefully although probably panicked, otherwise, assuming theres no non oxygen, non carbon dioxide gas on the ship, yeah i would probably die a pretty painful yet pretty fast death, crying the whole way there bc fuck if i have to chose to basically watch myself lose myself, death, or trapped in my own mind but i dont know i am i would take option 3... unless thats unavailable, then i would take option 2

Now would they try to keep me alive? Yeah probably but then again you cant really recover a stab to the heart, neck, and lungs, or a hanging, or insulin with about 20 minutes of wait time so yknow

Idfk why im talking about this im depressed as FUCK right now but I'm also being real about if i was in that situation because... yeahhhhh but yeah uhh this is definitely a combo of saying "hey heres my solution!" And "fuck i have horrible thoughts i dont want in my head right now i dont know how to get them out without fucking doing something l Iike fucking finding sone way to cut myself, drink alcohol, or literally have enough fucking energy to get up, which i dont have that energy right now sooo yeah uhh fucking no ones going to read this haha its WAYYYYY too late so like 95% of people who follow me arent online and like , lets be real who the fuck is going to like a post about "oh if i was given the chance to remove all ambitions i had in life to just live in pleasure or do that but its all fake OR kill myself, i would kill myself" like. Thats fucked up. And also now that i think about it its like that comic about the time traveler who goes to the future and is given a choice to continue on her journey or experience eternal pleasure as you hallucinate the things you love and are constantly injected with dopamine and she never leaves and it shows basically everyone doing the same thing sooo uhhh yeah good luck finding THIS post sherlock, i doubt even BATMAN could find this post

[austronauts]

I'm curious as to how you got mitched. Was it gradual or did you just wake up one day with an all consuming urge to gently cradle this hamster of a man in your palms and deposit him into your pocket

oh it was not gradual at all let me tell you. it descended upon me faster than the leafs concede 2-0 leads. it descended upon me SO SWIFTLY i'm still reeling and trying to understand WHAT HAPPENED and how this little twink got me SO BAD.

so, the chronology of events and the Epic Tale of The Fall of Troy (me) to The Twink was as follows:

me happily existing as a pens fan who - after a long hiatus of not following hockey closely - just started getting back into the penguins because a casual conversation with my friends about hockey awakened my dormant penguins sicko memories and instincts like mount vesuvius erupting all over pompeii and herculaneum

me happily joining hockey tumblr and frolicking around in the pensblr fandom. i'd seen a couple of leafs games and knew that "that kid marner" was really good and played VERY pretty hockey but I honestly did not think about him at all! he was just some tiktoker lookin ass dude and i was busy tending to my geriatric birds (although i will say - as i started watching more and more hockey, leafs immediately endeared themselves to me for reasons i can't quite articulate. they just had good vibes. the contrast between the INCREDIBLE hypnotizingly beautiful hockey they played + the utterly boneheaded indefensibly bad mistakes and losses to bottom feeder teams? relatable queens!)

and then one day i found "jack campbell cat dad" content on here and became intrigued by auston matthews' massive mountainous body and jawline and looked up toronto maple leafs content on youtube. THIS, DEAR READER, WAS MY FIRST FATAL MISTAKE. you see - the toronto maple leafs' social media team HANDS DOWN makes the best content, because they FUNDAMENTALLY realize hockey teams and kpop groups are the same thing, especially when it comes to gaining new fans.

ANYWAY, i still remember the EXACT video that made me go - "my god, what is this silly little twink all about. why does he have eyelashes like that. i would like to both squash him into a viscous glittery paste i rub on my eyelids like eyeshadow AND cradle him in my fannypack while feeding him little nuts and pieces of asiago cheese." IT WAS THIS VIDEO - tHE LEAFS CALLING EACH OTHER OUT . THE INFAMOUS VIDEO WHERE MITCH DOESNT KNOW HOW TO SAY ENCYCLOPEDIA. i love a dumb little boy!

MY SECOND FATAL MISTAKE was dragging a fellow friend into hockey with me because im incapable of obsessing over something by myself. i always need to get someone else into it too. SO. I started showing my friend leafs content and SHE was like "have u noticed that this little fruit won't stop talking about auston matthews every chance he gets" (EXHIBIT A: THIS VIDEO where mitch mentions how good auston looks in EVERYTHING every 20 seconds. baby girl, enough. ENOUGH. just say you're dickmatized and go)

and then alas. ALAS. my third and final fatal mistake was going down the mitch marner tag on tumblr and unfortunately being exposed to all the ways in which! he is just! AN IDIOT MANIC PIXIE DREAM TWINK with 2 braincells (one of which is a sour skittle), daddy issues and tragic lore, and irresponsibly long eyelashes who loves physically glomming onto every teammate like a baby koalabear, adopting himself into older teammates' families as their part-time son and part-time dog, wearing terrible outfits and dancing in them, generally being a needy sweetheart that loves to chirp his teammates (poorly) but loves gassing them up even more, drawing smiley faces on his gloves to remind himself that hockey is supposed to be fun (this detail kills me every day), and making weird little faces on the bench because he has the zoomies? god, i am not your strongest soldier! i was not BUILT to be able to resist little sugary sweet morsels like this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! if MATTHEW MARTIN, one of nhl's TOP LEADERS IN HITS, caved into mitchell marner heart body and soul....what the fuck am I supposed to do? not give him the love and headpats and neck scritches he wants? not root for his little happiness and well-being? i'm an idiot but not a MONSTER

anyway, that's why i am here typing up this monstrous screed on all the ways in which i was personally victimized by mitchell marner i guess.

okay wait i WILL add one thing - so long before i was a hockey fan i was a soccer fan, and have always always loved undersized creative playmakers who can seemingly weave magic from thin air while effortlessly eluding opponents as if they're made from pixie dust themselves. i have no doubt if mitch grew up in a country where soccer was THE sport, he would be a world class playmaking midfielder right now. and in that sense i do think my adoption of mitch marner as my little hamster was inevitable tbh.

[insertdisc5]

Hi!! I wanted to ask, in celebration of Deltarune CH. 2, do you have any updated thoughts and head canons about the game?? Like, y'know, similar to a previous ask about Kris in your Deltarune tag? Thanks!

thoughts on kris part 2 i guess???? (part 1 from ch1 here lol)

spoilers for deltarune like woah. this wont be kris focused just random thoughts on everything. thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk

not that many thoughts for this chapter tbh! EDIT LOL: this was a lie i have a lot of thoughts

-just in general i feel like the player isn't the only one controlling kris... like yes the player forced kris to do what happened in the snowgrave route but AT THE SAME TIME idk it feels like there's someone else too. just because of the terrifying voice i suppose. and also the jerky movement kris does every time they get their soul out? unless there's another reason for it... maybe getting your soul out means you walk weird lol

-BUT ALSO i feel like kris is 100% in control when they create fountains. idk it just makes sense kris would create them. to create another world, a better world, A WORLD WHERE THEIR BROTHER IS HERE PERHAPS? i do wonder why they get their soul out then though. i'm all for it sweetie! do whatever! i support you!

-(i am and will be playing deltarune with only kris' best interests in mind. i will not hurt anyone unless kris wants me to. dont worry my little meow meow im on your side! talk to me! no? okay ill stay under the sink its fine)

-speaking of asriel. SUMMER VACATION COLLEGE WHEN? SUMMER VACATION COLLEGE WHEN? SUMMER (starts crying) V-VACATION COLLEGE WHEN

-kris misses their brother so much it's so sad. if you make kris steal 5$ from asriel they take it "reluctantly"? talking to asriel online so often even alphys knows?? the google search?? GOING INTO ASRIEL'S GOOGLE SEARCH ROOM WITH THEIR EYES CLOSED BECAUSE THEY'RE CONVINCED THEY ALREADY KNOW WHATS IN THERE? THAT ONE IS LESS OF A MISSING THING BUT IM LIKE OH MY GOD

-the city walk with susie at the end makes it clear to me that kris really values susie's friendship... kris even sits with her if you spend long enough near the lake like aaaaah ;_;

-and even in snowgrave you spend your last acts with the final boss calling for your friends like YES there's a way bigger creepy aspect to this (kris as more of a Leader who Commands and commands their subjects to come) but still :'0 (and then noelle answers oh my god noelle im so sorry for the trauma)

-berdly. listen. listen. listen. liste

-berdly sucks but [berdly hurts his arm in the battle against queen if you don't save him because he doesnt want to hurt you] [berdly realizing smg's wrong in snowgrave and immediately taking steps to save noelle] berdly is my little crumb nugget. i will protect him.

-noelle. noelle. girlboss!

-like ooooh listen. hearing about the genocide path for undertale. made me go "that is SO COOL. i HAVE to experience it myself this is great. hehehe killing time" and like no regrets. i was fully enjoying the experience knowing i was an awful person. SNOWGRAVE THOUGH. i will never try this myself its too fucked up. casually grooming your childhood friend to murder people <3 and also acting like a weird stalker towards her <3 stockholm syndrome speedrun i will get all the info i can about this but i will never do this myself

-people remarking the kris/player>noelle relationship is similar to the relationship between player>chara in genocide path is like yes. chefs kiss. don't worry we just are making you stronger and everything will be fine "you made me kill my friend? and for what?" this is fine sweetie don't worry about it!!!!!!

-like the amount of details added to snowgrave, like if you equip noelle's watch she notices later? and her battle animations change as time goes on, she gets an ice shield and stops sighing in relief after battle? oh my god? oh my god.

-(berdly is not awake.) JUST KILL ME RIGHT HERE I HAVEN'T STOPPED THINKING ABOUT BERDLY NOT BEING AWAKE!!!!!

-also why didnt he turn into dust. so many possible reasons. is magic a thing in the normal world and perhaps no magic means no dust (theres graves). maybe he isnt dead. maybe hes braindead. maybe he'll come back. either way that boy is now in the closet big enough to put someone in

-also dess' name probably being december AND THATS WHY NOELLE LOST THE SPELLING BEE?!?!??! FUCK ME UP!!!!! JUST FUCK ME UP!!!!!!! OH MY GOD!!!!!!

-also so many good pixel art this chapter. too many? i didnt need pixel art of cardboard noelle falling on the statue. like thank you but please. please it hurts my game artist brain.

-the expressions in this chapter were also top notch. all the unsettling noelle expressions like (i fall over face first)

-i threw away the ball of junk (which i already tried in ch1) and this time the game was like "ARE YOU SURE BC THIS IS A BAD IDEA" and kris felt bitter :'( (it deletes all your items in the dark world)

-i uh fucked up and skipped the susie+noelle scene bc listen last time ralsei mentionned seeing what susie is doing we missed some PRIMO LORE. turns out it just makes you skip the scene and you dont get anything new. welp

-speaking of ralsei well you know. he exists. but im stuck on him going "i just wonder what being ralsei-like even is...?" ralsei my dude there's so much i could say about this. do you feel like you can't be ralsei-like because you feel like you have to be asriel-like

-but also that makes no sense bc susie hasnt even mentioned ralsei looks like asriel. and i cant imagine asriel being so meek. so WHAT GIVES

-ralsei as kris’ “i wish i was a monster just like my bro and family and i’d look like asriel but with red horns [THE HALLOWEEN COSTUME] and my name would be something cool like ralsei instead of a boring human name like kris and im sweet and cute because thats how i act with asriel because ASRIEL MADE ME” theory because that would be cute.

-ASRIEL GOING TO THE CHURCH TO CONFESS HIS "SINS" WHEN "SINS" AREN'T A THING IN THE ANGEL BELIEF LIKE I KNOW THIS INTERACTION WAS TREATED AS A JOKE BUT WHAT THE FUCK ASRIEL?

-kris definitely has a connection with the big red door in the city, judging by what the kids say they probably went there... i feel like this place's dark world will be the Final Dungeon you KNOW some shit happened there. also the sounds you hear when you go there is the phone dark world call's sound slowed down? AND AFTER SNOWGRAVE APPARENTLY YOU CANT HEAR IT ANYMORE? HUWAH?

-speaking of songs the songs were all so good, My Castle Town rules, the berdly snowgrave music is stuck in my head, flashback is uwah wuahah, Until Next Time is so good, AND ALSO A FRIEND NOTICED THE DARK WORLD CITY THEME IS JUST tHE SONG 74 (MOST NOTICEABLE WITH THE SNOWGRAVE VERSION)?????? WHAT DOES IT MEAN????? it might be just "hey its just reuse" BUT MR FOX YOU KNOW WE'RE GONNA READ INTO THIS IS NOELLE THE ONE SINGING IDK BRO!!!!!!!!!!

-asgore dreemurr fired from the force what happun!!!!! game theory is that asgore is related to dess' death/disappearance but eh who knows

-you start the chapter at lvl2 and get to lvl3 after the final boss, a friend mentioned this is probably because we destroyed a world and im :0

-to go back to kris it's still so interesting to figure out who they are based on how they act/people mention them. like kris shaking the ferris wheel car? yeah makes sense i can imagine a pranking kid do this. kris' dance? yeah thats a little silly but i can buy it. doing cool anime poses? well i dunno this doesnt line up PERFECTLY but sure. BUT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IN SNOWGRAVE... especially >proceed like that is such a weird thing that i can't imagine them doing, but i can't completely see the "player" doing either (compare with going to sans -which kris doesnt know- and going "SANS!" because of course the player would know sans), like THATS one of the reasons i feel like there's someone else in there. the weird robotic merciless actions. if im going super meta it feels like there'd be someone else like writing the choices into existence for us to pick you know? gaster probably? god i need to read more gaster theories i completely sidestepped the gaster shit bc i wasnt interested. anyway just spitballing

-(looks at big shot guy) please dont make him the next tumblr guy i beg you

-obligatory "queen was great" mention if only because this part made me laugh a little bit too hard

that was a lot. thank you for letting me talk

[haec-est-fides]

Omg thanks for listening to my random ramblings I am feeling so validated right now. To answer your tags I have only watched bits and pieces of Rome, mostly Octavian stuff. I enjoy watching /the/ Machiavellian paragon, I may actually sit down and watch it all one day. I am not going to lie, my main interest in ToA lies with the Olympian dynamics, although from what I've seen I will have to adjust some pre existing headcanons based off what I've read especially the Hermes bit at the end of ToN, which is so disappointing from what we've read about Mr. "cant give up on family" (yes I am a bit of an Hermes apologist. Was he a terrible father to Luke? Yes absolutely by mortal standards but he did care and he has bound by fate and you cant change fate without making things worse and he doesnt seem to have a problem with the unclaimed living in his cabin unlike idk Hera would probably so as far as Olympians go he is not the worse. Not good but not the worse and damn is he an intersting character to think about.) Also something I noticed while reading through your blog is Nero said souls escape all the time from the Underworld? Which is super stupid. What kind of leaky ship is Hades, who so far has been portrayed as one of the most responsible and serious gods running down there. And it directly contradicts all of the myths that show how hard and impossible it is to escape- I just really hate that detail it feels like Rick makes all of these throwaway lines and doesnt think about how it affects the canon at large. The closest thing I can think of to justify this is Melinoe from the sword of hades story where she is supposed to take souls who didnt receive proper burial rites and terrify mortals on the surface in myth but that is not what it sounded like. Octavian is the hero of his own story and it is so tragic like from his pov he is totally in the right. Some random amnesiac son of Neptune rolles up to town and is elected praetor over you a vet in a respected position entirely devoted to the camp after one week where he mostly wasnt even in camp and showing no administrative skills and he wasnt even leader of the quest that was Frank. And then he brings a literal warship of your historical enemies, who attack your city and then dip. Yeah, he is totally justified in declaring war. And then he dies and is hailed as the hero he thought of himself in life. Rick I am begging for some depth to Octavian to show how he is an anti hero or well intentioned extremist. The manipulated by gaea angle later on was lazy and if anything makes him more sympathetic rather than him doing it all of his own will and most likely revisionist by Apollo. I also noticed how you dont seem to like the seven and nico and reyna could you expand on that? Is it the carte blanche on killing? Because I never really thought about it but, Michael Yew was Percy's fault huh? I dont remember if he ever told them to evacuate the bridge before he brought it down, which would muddy the waters, but either way it was a reckless disregard of lives, especially his for all intents and purposes subordinates as he is basically the commander of this army. I understand that these are middle grade books, which is why I try not to hold all of these thoughts against Rick too much but I cant help but think of what ifs. Especially since he brings these topics up and then brushes them under the rug, like the demigods on the Andromeda. They are fighting a war, and there will be casualties, demigod on demigod killings. Obviously he is not going to delve into the ethics of child soldiers killing each other directly but he still brings it up. And the whole Bryce thing went well beyond self defense. And yeah I get that this whole series requires serious suspense of disbelief, but that is easier with the Mist/deliberately hiding from mortals. But three immortal roman emperors with the largest company ever and fingers in every mortal pie have been able to hide for centuries? I didnt realize I had this many thoughts on the series huh. Sorry for the word vomit.

Sorry for taking longer to get back to this ask than the last ones!

I cannot recommend HBO's Rome enough. I've watched it so many times! While it does of course have its issues, it's really fun in a political intrigue way imo. I think I keep going back to it because Octavian / Augustus "wins" in the end, the show being focused on the establishment of the empire, and that's not an ending I see a lot in media?

Riordan definitely wrote a lot of "throwaway" lines without thinking about the consequences for the broader world he was creating. Octavian is sort of that same concept -- a throwaway line -- but a whole character, seeing how little he was explored and, more, how little his role in the world seemed to affect anything else.

Hm, I suppose I don't like the Seven, Nico, Reyna, etc. But honestly? It's almost wholly personal, and I will admit that. I definitely respect them as people, for what they've accomplished and been through, but,,,I doubt I'd get along with them, largely because they don't seem to even try to understand Octavian / the Roman viewpoint. Even the "Romans" -- Reyna, Jason, Frank, Hazel -- are explicitly juxtaposed with traditional Romanness at large, and that's written as a "good" thing. I probably actively dislike Nico the most, as well as Michael Kahale, because of the roles they played in Octavian's death. Nico plays a big protagonist role in ToA too, so,,,I consider him my enemy on narrative grounds.

Regarding the way death is so,,,casual? Not addressed very well, if at all? Yeah, it's sometimes hard to swallow. The Andromeda explosion and Octavian's death are great examples, but it comes up in ToA as well and makes me angry every time.

[kordeliiius]

Hello there, im Supra (using the B.O.T account because im a dumbass don't mind me). I see you are a fellow City Of Metronome fan, have any headcanons or something?

OMG HI thanks for reaching out to me, yes I have tons of stuff on my mind that I'd be happy to get out >:D

I've seen people discuss possibility that the city exists somewhere within the LN universe because of how similar they feel. I realize that the metrognome cameos were most likely intended as harmless Easter eggs, but then again I believe everything in LN is intentional. One person I know went as far to say Six is actually from Metronome, since she's often said to be "different" or "doesn't belong."

CoM could also follow a certain thematic trend revolving around senses set up by the LN games; Pale City represents sight, the Maw represents taste, and Metronome of course represents sound

The souls that are used to power scouts are uncannily similar to shadow children, in the sense that they're fuzzy black incorporeal creatures that wear white masks, so I'm using that to support my idea that shadows are people's souls

I have a tendency to assign real-world parallels to the locations and cultures within Tarsier's games, so if I were pinpoint Metronome on a real world map it'd be somewhere on the coast bordering Russia and Manchuria. And I'm making this inference based on not just the faces of the people who live there, but also the apparent intersections of culture and language you can see throughout the city. Going off of that, Ten is Manchu and New is Kazakh

I have absolutely ZERO DOUBT that Ten and New were basically beta Mono and Six; one kid with some supernatural ability meets another kid who prefers to fight bare-handed and they form a rebel tag team

I read in a recent article that one of the main factors that prevented the project from going forward was the devs' struggle to make the sound mechanics fun and easy to use, so I hatched the idea to just abandon that mechanic and use something that's already prevalent, like photography. It's kind of a twisted idea because the corp is already using this technology to control their slaves, but I like the idea of the rebels using a loophole to their advantage to take the corp down. Plus now that photo modes are a thing in games that'd be a dope addition, assuming you don't let Ten get caught with cold hard evidence of his whereabouts ;^^ (if you try to take a photo of New she either runs and hides or tries to rip it out of your hands)

I haven't seen any mention of this one unnamed character other than on my own blog, so I'm gonna take a sec to go off abt them again. (for reference I'm talking abt the guy in the top right image, lmk if this link doesnt work) As far as I know this is the only image of this character to exist somewhat publicly but it gave me all I needed to make up a whole backstory lmaooooo First of all I'm pinpointing them as Runaway's parallel because it’d be super awesome if three core characters got resurrected as playable characters in LN. But when it comes to their actual narrative, im getting the image of a spy antagonist who's in league with the corporation and they've been sent to track down the main duo. Make that more tragic by adding the implication that they were friends with New once and are now staying with the enemy for revenge purposes

Ok now this one is real wildboy stuff, because it's not exactly based on any official material, but rather on something that appears to be fanmade. For awhile I couldn't tell who the ghost girl on this mockup cover was supposed to be, because she sorta looks like New, but I remember seeing a face like neither on them on the archived official site; it's a weird case of the Mandela effect but regardless of intention I am running with a number of ideas about this character, because who knows how big the original planned cast was The idea I have rn is that in life, this girl was childhood friends with New and the spy kid, but their huge falling-out was triggered by some sort of accident that not only killed this girl but cost the spy half their limbs. They then of course directed their anger at New, who came out almost totally unscathed. This ghost is only visible to whoever she shows herself to, and sometimes appears in front of Ten to assist him in certain tasks

Lastly it’s worth mentioning that while I can't ever see the protags being romantically involved (and i'm doing everything in my power to avoid certain tropes that were prevalent back then), I can't not see them as partners in crime either??? I say heteroplatonicism deserves more time to shine

so yea that should be everything I've written down both on and off the platform, if u read it all thanks a ton 👌

[kareofbears]

persona 5 strikers thoughts and feelings

This is going to be a long post. Like, the type of post you’d only really have time to read when you’re trying to sleep but you’re not ready to be unconscious yet so you’re just looking for something to do to spend your time with minimal effort. 

So in 2018, a masterpiece was born into the world: Into the Spider-verse was released and it was amazing—it’s honestly the best spiderman movie we have without a doubt, and it’ll be very far into the future before Spider-verse is beaten as the best spiderman movie. Them’s the facts. Then in 2019, Spider-man: Far From Home was dropped. It’s a great movie! Great characters, great continuation of who these characters are and works fantastic as a continuation of a story. It’s really hard trying to take the torch of a previous movie (or in Marvel’s case, juggling twenty something movies) and come up with a new movie that both works on its own, as well as being the next step in this series of films. Thus, with that idea in mind, I think it’s kind of unfair to judge into the spiderverse and far from home, because these are two movies with two completely different objectives in mind. 

Okay, so this is still a persona 5 strikers post, I promise, but the idea is the same: Persona 5 could basically do whatever it wanted—new story, new characters, new everything, and it’s just plain old awesome. However, Persona 5 strikers did not have that sort of freedom. It was bound to the original game, and it had its own rules and stuff it had to keep intact, characters they had to work with, and on top of that, it had to justify its existence as a sequel (lets pretend money doesnt exist lmfao). 

SO, the big question is: did it do that? Did it justify its existence? 

And my answer: holy fuck did it ever do that

I came into this game knowing the extreme bare minimum. I knew there was someone named Sophia, and i knew there was roadtrip, and i knew there were Personas. That’s my knowledge of it before i played it on the Switch.  I should also clarify like, early on, that i was not expecting anything from this game. At all. I was the world’s biggest cynic of this game—if you scroll down my p5s tag far enough, youll just see me complaining about a game that hasn’t even come out yet. I was fully expecting to have this be a Waifu show, and any male character that isn’t Akira to just be shoved aside like some kind of nerd in a high school hallway, and i have never been more pleased to be wrong. In fact, i actually owe it an apology, because of how fucking rude i was for no reason!!! Because this game deserves everything to be honest. 

Persona 5 strikers is, frankly, insane. Insane in the sense that it got to pull shit off that just would never have existed in the original game, because the original game is scared. It had to be as impressive as possible and garner as much attention as possible. Strikers does not have that problem—every single person who bought that game does not need to be convinced that persona 5 is a good game. They already played it. That means Atlus can just fuck around and have a good time, and man did they have a good time. There’s still scenes that still shock me if i think about it too hard, because i’m used to atlus having to follow this sort of rule set when it comes to persona 5 (or any of the main games im assuming, but i havent played them.) And on top of that, there’s still shit that’s Atlus Trademarked Branded in a good way. The style of story of story telling, and revealing the mystery that is so integral to what p5 is, is still there. 

So, to make this even a little bit comprehensible, i will make a list! 

First of all, What is this game?

In short, this game is an OVA of an anime. It’s bonus side content that has one thing in mind: to showcase these lovable characters more by putting them in fun situations. That’s it, and it is just phenomenal. That was the main point of, i’d say, like forty hours of the game. It’s just fun times with fun characters. 

But to get deeper of what i think is happening, or what they were thinking during the development, is that this is a second opportunity. Persona 5 (as we all know) had a lot of problems, and we were not quiet about those problems. We yelled it all out, made posts, made complaints on every social media platform ever. And Atlus heard all of them, and Strikers is a way to mitigate those mistakes. Aside from being a fun OVA, Strikers also works to be a deeper exploration of these characters—more specifically, the characters that did not receive much in the original game. Creating this sequel is having the ability to redo what they felt (or to be more specific, we felt) in the original game while adding new ones. I will get to that in a second.  

The format of the game 

Absolutely brilliant to throw them on a road trip. P5V already forced us to experience Shibuya for 200+ hours, and im so glad that they didn’t do that again. Going from town to town, making us experience these new places alongside our favorite characters is so good, and it just makes sense. It’s fun, it’s lighthearted, and it’s actually shockingly good. But one thing i do want to talk about early on is the way the story unfolds and the villains that they use, and what they do with it because it’s very interesting. 

So as we explore japan and stuff, we encounter jails, and with those jails comes an antagonist. This antagonist works to be a parallel to one of our characters. That character will find it in their hearts to feel bad for the antagonist, because the antagonist could have been them had the original game not happen. At first I thought all of the thieves were gonna get an antagonist, and i was really hyped for the ryuji one. And then came to hour forty of the game where i realized “yeah that’s not gonna happen. There’s just not enough time.” And i was right, and the game ended. But i am not salty at all, honestly, because the people who got a direct antagonist were: Ann, Yusuke, and Haru. (we wont count zen and sophie). 

Is there a trend??? Yes. these are all characters in the original game that have received the worst treatment by atlus. The three of them are basically cast aside the minute they finished their original arc, and its horrible! BUT that’s why this is the path that atlus chose for them—to give them more depth, and screentime, and a way to show their inner self. That isn’t to say that the ones who aren’t those three (makoto, futaba, mona, akira, ryuji) didn’t get anything. Futaba still has her thing at the end with ichinose, and she was very prevalent and animated during the rest of the game. Mona and Akira have to be a focal points, that’s just the nature of the game. The other two though, I will talk about in depth in a second.  

Makoto

Y’all i poke fun at shumako fans sometimes cause its kind of easy and fun, but i honestly love makoto. In my very first playthrough of p5 (my first ever jrpg game, first persona game, i had no idea what i was doing), i had only maxed out two characters: ryuji and makoto. And i know she had a lot of screentime and love in the original game which is great, but i truly felt like she was dissed in this game. Her only roles were

A driver

Someone to tell them “we don’t have a choice. Let’s keep going and see where this takes us.” (seriously, if you replay this game, you will see how much she does this)

Idk, i just wish she had more to do, especially compared to how much love they gave the other characters. 

But let’s talk about some of the new characters! 

Zenkichi

Damn you atlus. Damn you and your insistence at bringing in cop characters. I was fully on board with hating zenkichi, i was fucking ready for it. I was convinced that there was nothing they could do convince to like zenkichi. I was immune to their copaganda. 

And then i ended up loving him, which makes me sad a little bit. I didn’t realize how desperate i was to have an adult who has a persona. Someone who wants the world to change just as much as they do, while still having that aspect of them that makes them adult. Like??? As someone who is technically an adult, its a breath of fresh air. An adult. Who fights. For justice. Using a persona. And god i love akane so much, and her obsession with the thieves (that scene is probably in my top ten fave scenes of the game). Also what i loved about zenkichi is that he fucking hates the cops!! He hates the system of the cops!! And thats why i actually really started to love him!! Because i thought it was atlus saying that the systematic problem of the police cannot be solved by one person, and zenkichi threw away his badge. I actually cried at that part!! 

But then he became a cop again, and i was just :/ but as a character, i really love him to bits and would love to do a study on him, or at least use him as an outside pov. But! i absolutely love his persona, since im a les miserables fan hehe

Sophia 

she’s probably my favorite new aspect of the game. I was ready to not like her—again, i just suck like that, lmfao—and when i saw her, i was scared that she was just another waifu. I mean, she was very cute after all. But then as the game went on, i thought she was a little too cute. And even further into the game, i finally slapped myself in the face and realized oh my god shes not a waifu. Shes a sister. 

That blew my mind, im ngl to you. A female character that isn’t supposed to be romanced? By jove, what a miracle! 

And she…is an amazing character. Im sorry, i just love her so much. I love her so much that she  probably ranks as my fifth or sixth favorite character which is surprising even to me. Everything about her is delightful and invigorating. She’s funny??? Her comedic timing is amazing, and she has such chemistry with the rest of the team. She’s actually useful to the plot, and while her character design is a little too on the nose for me in terms of cuteness (i mean, good god she’s wearing oversized sweater to show how cute and tiny she is, and her hair has literal hearts in it), she is absolutely lovable. 

But what i actually really wanna gush about for a second is sophia at the last stage of the game. You get the idea, i dont really like to get excited over things, so at this point i figured that there was nothing this game could do to shock me. 

And then sophia had a persona awakening. 

Like. holy fuck did i yell. I didnt realize what was happening until the music had already kicked in. and its just so fucking smart!!! Sophia??? The ai?? With no heart?? gOT A PERSONA???? AWAKENING??? BECAUSE SHE LEARNED WHAT THE HEART IS AND THE PASSION THAT YOU NEED IN ORDER TO GET A PERSONA??? I started crying honestly, because it was just so smart. And looking back on it now, its obvious!! Of course it would lead to this, it only made sense that the culmination of her character arc leads to her getting a persona, nothing else would have been as good. Also, her voice actor is just amazing?? When she was talking to ichinose at the end, i actually got incredibly emotional because of the line reads. Its just so spot on and it really captures the essence of sophia.

Muah. five stars Atlus. You got me. 

Ryuji <3!!!!

Oh man. Oh boy. Okay. so where do i start. 

Yall know i love him. Hes probably my favorite fictional male character of all time, and he is the one i was the absolute most cynical about in this game. I was expecting literally nothing. Nothing. Like. nothing. I thought he was just gonna keep being used as a joke, or a gag, and he’s gonna be super horny all the time for the other girls and it was gonna make me mad and there was gonna be some insane homophobic/queerphobic jokes in every other scene and i know i was being unfair, but i cant help it. 

And then i played the first two hours of the game, and i cried the entire time. Because ryuji has never been better than he is in this game. Its crazy. 

The ryuji in persona 5 strikers is who ryuji should have been/how he should have been treated this entire time. From the actual funny jokes (for example, the gold bar joke + his reaction to it in the beginning of the game), defending his female friends instead of being the one people need to defend from (natsume arc), and the fact that he was the one to be there with morgana and akira in the very beginning of the game. Its such a small thing that they didnt even need to do, but it was such an integral part of the original game for me, that i just was convinced that nothing like this was going to happen. But then it happened. Its just small stuff like that that could have been overlooked but it wasn’t because this game? Persona 5 strikers? Fucking loves ryuji. 

The actual respect they gave this boy is insane and i wasn't ready for it. Like, they gave the shujin trio lunch, they gave the little charm of the katana when they were in natsume’s jail, and, in my opinion this is the second-best thing that they could have given ryuji is sophia. Ryuji and sophia are the pinnacle of a brother & sister bonding relationship in the game that isn’t akira & futaba. And its really prevalent too?? Small stuff from the beginning of the game (pulling her out of a jail, calling her shorty), but then you have the iconic “shut the fuck up” scene, and that scene was so well characterized and written and voice acted, that somehow him saying “fuck” was the least exciting part of that scene to me. Ryuji is an older brother to her, like its undoubtable, and its only further cemented at the end of the game where Ryuji helps out ichinose because he knows how much sophia cares about her. This game. Love ryuji. And i love. This game. 

You know what else i love? Akiryu. 

Guys. i was fully prepared to starve in terms of akiryu. But theres just. So much of it. I wont get too deep into it, because i think this aspect of the game for me still needs marinate a little bit. Like, what was that last shot when EMMA died and Ryuji walked to approach Akira so they could relish in their victory together?? And the smile from both of them??? What the fuck. That was amazing. Also Joker being saved by Ryuji when he was about to fall from the cliff to save sophia??? WHAT. The LEADER AND HIS RIGHT HAND MAN? WHAT. anyway. If theres anything i want to keep for myself in my own brain, its the akiryu aspect of this game, so i wont talk too much about that part of things (instead, itll probably manifest in fic lmfaooo). 

Sure, there’s tidbits of stuff i dont like that they gave ryuji: sexualizing ann in that one cut scene and making him touch the jails even though it hurts, and i recognize those and frown at them, but for the most part, i am blown away with how they treated him.

Basically, Ryuji has never been better. From the opening of the game with him being the first text message and the one to sling his arm around akira, to the very last cut scene where it was ryuji wordlessly leaving because he’s so confident that they would never be separated for long, this game adores Ryuji and i am so so happy to say that.

The Royal aspect of things

Yeah, i had to talk about this, but itll be a short thing i just wanted to point out. Because the last part of this game...is persona 5 royal. Which is curious. Like taking reality and giving that power to someone else so you dont have to experience suffering anymore? And even like, the final section just looked a lot like the top half of maruki’s palace?? And whats even crazier is that we had a boss fight with sophia, just like how we had a boss fight with sumire? Royal and Strikers have like, the same thesis statement. It’s kind of uncanny.It’s interesting, it’s like atlus came up with these two ideas, and then just decided they liked both of them so much that they just did it twice. I don’t mind though—actually, in terms of how the last Palace/Jails go, i probably like them both about equally. 

Though i did love the final battle in this one more than i did in royal. Splitting into teams?? Thats cool as fuck, and really innovative and i didnt see it coming. It also kicked my ass. A lot. 

Now for the last stretch: the small stuff!

The music — bomb as fuck. In my heart, Daredevil is ranked the same as Rivers. Axe to grind is also amazing, but Daredevil owns me

Akechi — i really debated whether or not to talk about him, but i figured a bullet point should be enough. Im really shocked that he wasnt in this at all. Like not even a name drop. If this is an OVA, and the point of the game is to please the fans, and akechi is arguably the fan favorite character, i was really ready for something. But there was nothing, except for the pancake hallway if that even counts as a reference. Thats it. Thats all i wanted to say about him.

The humour — FUCKING HILARIOUS im convinced that in my fifty hour playtime, five of that is dedicated to me laughing and unable to continue the game 

Akira — so much personality! His lines of dialogue are crazy sometimes (like. Whats up with him saying Ryuji has ‘nice abs’ when they were in bath? Im crazy and even i dont know what the fuck that could mean) 

Battle system — oh my god i almost forgot to talk about this. I love it! I kind of miss the turn based aspect just because i found it very comforting for some reason, but this hack and slash style of gameplay is so invigorating because i do feel like it justifies shit like the baton pass and huge attacks.  This battle system fully encompases how the Phantom Thieves are supposed to fight, you know what i mean?

Anyway, thats my thoughts on strikers. Loved it. Amazing. 9.3/10, wouldve been higher but Konoe’s Jail almost bored me to death. Also im a monster and i didnt do any requests that isn’t a fun one, teehee. As if i play persona 5 for the persona aspect of things.

[princessofmerc]

I think people are maybe jealous of how strong and united Alex fans are. I just saw the comment section on the DTM instagram page and yes I see a lot of Alex fans and it might be annoying (???) but I love how supportive we are of him. And I know the dudebro’s on toxic ass twitter are confused of how popular Alex actually is. They really thought he had no fans lol. Our boy is a celeb with a million followers on Instagram and also brought a lot of followes to DTM (their insta page grew with 2k new followes in TWO DAYSSSS) ✨✨✨✨✨✨✨

Oh and I’m not not going to stop tagging or supporting Alex. Nope nope nope. No one says this about other drivers lol why always Alex. Ain’t no wayyyyyyyyy. I just feel like 2021 is a good year for Alex. He is so much more happy and has a lot of great deals. The RB demotion could be a set up for something better, who knows.

Sorry for my rant btw. I was just a bit annoyed about people nagging about Alex. He’s finally happy again (at least to me he looks happy) so why not celebrate that.

Honestly I understand being annoyed of being flooded with content by a driver you dont necessarily like or dont care about. I have those moments too and I've said it before: this is part of why the blacklist exists. We're on tumblr where you can actually filter what you want to see/dont want to see. Use that feature no ones gonna bash you for blacklisting Alex (and no one will know if u dont tell anyone anyways).

And ofcourse the dudebros are confused. They dont understand the concept of a man who seems to try to be kind to others. They're not used to it. They just see what happened at red bull and how he has been bashed in commentaries and in the press and they just dont.... ask themselves if people like paul di resta, martin brindle or ralf schumacher could actually just be toxic assholes...

I mean we still have a huge amount of nico rosberg, jenson button and other drivers who aren't in the sport anymore. At least not actively. We tag pietro, hulk and other reserve/drivera with f1 why should we stop? I did the maths if alex doesnt drive in the dtm races when f1 races are on the same day hell only miss like four races. that's more than Pietro and jack drove for last year and we still tagged them f1 so I dont see an issue with tagging alex. He currently is a dtm driver. If we cant tag him with dtm and f1 where are we supposed to put the posts?

Also no worries my inbox is always open for rants and I will(as you can see) answer with a rant. And yes I am also very happy that alex seems happy.