#I think it started out very unique but the narrative settled into something a little more - generic isn’t maybe the right word but

[aroaessidhe]

2023 reads / storygraph

Ink Blood Sister Scribe

adult low fantasy

follows two sisters who grew up guarding a collection of magical and dangerous books, keeping them safe from a shadowy organisation

one is on the run across the world, staying one step ahead of the magic that killed her mother, but after deciding to stay longer at the Antarctic research base with her girlfriend quickly discovers that even there is not far enough away from the people tracking her

and the other is at home, the sole protector of the books, desperate to find out their secrets

plus a young man who’s lived his life within the Library used for his talent of writing the books

Latine & Jewish MCs, bi MCs

[songoftrillium]

Hey, so I'm reading your Hearthbound Supplement, and I wanted to ask why the Fianna were such unified enemies of theirs. From what I can tell, (this is more something that just bugged me) Fianna are one of the tribes with a stronger, healthier relationship to their Kinfolk (inasmuch as any tribe broadly has a good relationship with their Kinfolk) (though I have been known to miss Implications from time to time). Plus, it seems like the younger Fianna have a much kinder view of the Crinos Born, so I'd think they'd be heavily split along generational lines on whether the Hearthborn are enemies or not

Now, granted, my knowledge of WtA is only deep in certain areas, so this might just be me not having gotten to certain books yet, and the Finna really are Like That.

(Or it could be my draw to the whole keeper of history and knowledge, craftsmen, and tendency to adhere to the "Canon is a box of scraps in a cave and I'm Tony stark baby" approach)

Thank you for reaching out! I'm glad you asked, and I have hoped someone would ask me about this. I'm gonna give a wordy answer that addresses your concern and elucidates how I analyzed all the tribes to draw my conclusions.

I want to preface my answer by voicing my fondness for the tribe. At the top of it all, I completely agree that their biggest strengths are their existence as master artisans and storytellers. These aspects are absolutely worth holding onto and even expanding upon. I also appreciate their Celtic origins, but I wish it encompassed all Celts, not just the Irish. That veers a bit off-topic from your question, though.

My depiction of them as the primary antagonist of the Hearthbound stems from both their treatment of the crinos-born, as well as the objectification of their Kinfolk. In the book I call them crinos-born, but in WtE the writing team and I settled on Warborn as the title of choice, so I'll be using that term from here on out.

Different editions were never meant to supersede each other, but rather, build on one another to depict a continuous meta reflecting the evolution of Garou Society in response to their developing war against the Wyrm. For example, the Storytellers handbooks from 2nd edition, revised, and the companion all offer unique tools with very little overlap.

While more experienced people versed in the literature like you and I can read between the lines and handpick the bits we like most, it ignores that the flaws inherent to the tribes are intentional and meant to be confronted by players at the table. To that end, I conducted my research behind my writing with consideration paid to the narrative voices depicting each book, the Garou within them sharing their subjective knowledge, and use that to coalesce a perspective behind my group. When I started writing Hearthbound, I decided to form my conclusions based on three narrative perspectives:

The way a tribe's leadership wants other tribes to view them, their kinfolk, and their warborn.

The way the kinfolk within that tribe feel like they're being treated.

The way the warborn within that tribe feel like they're being treated.

Hearthbound makes a more naked depiction of these problems specifically to confront them, though I admit I should have taken more of an effort to make it clear that these depictions are reflecting the worst aspects of these tribes, rather than the whole of them. These problems represent the worst outliers from each tribe, and are not meant to entirely replace these tribes. When it comes to systemic oppression, it's not always the laws and customs that cause the problems. Still, there are those who hide behind the veneer of hierarchy to abuse those customs in a way that they seldom face repercussions for it, and the Hearthbound are those repercussions. This is a reflection of other forms of systemic oppression, like laws alleged to be 'tough on crime', which on the surface looks great, but glosses over the way those crimes unfairly target marginalized groups and keep them from rising to prominence.

I draw my conclusions on each of the tribe stances from three sources:

Kinfolk: A Breed Apart offering a depiction of Kinfolk the way the tribes represent them, or rather, the way they want other tribes to see them. It does hold many positive depictions on the relations between Garou and Kinfolk.

Kinfolk: Unsung Heroes, in contrast, represents a perspective from Kinfolk that is a little less flattering and is more closely representing the perspective of the Kinfolk themselves (and is taken as such.)

Guardians of the Caerns has a chapter dedicated entirely to the Warborn, and lends their perspective on what it was like growing up in a Sept of a particular tribe. This represents the sentiment of what it's like being a Warborn from any one tribe, opposed to the way these tribes want to be seen.

To answer your question in short, yes, the worst of the Fianna really are that way. They are more likely to outright kill a Warborn and their parents than to accept them, and those Warborn who do exist within their tribes seldom hold rank, are often hidden from view, and subject to rather terrible abuses by their fellow tribemates.

Contrast that with the blatant and plainworded phrasing in the tribe description of them trending towards violence:

Combine that with their lackadaisical ways of speaking of their own families in Guardians of the Caerns, pg. 94:

Merryck's comments: It's not without a certain sense of irony that the Fianna, self-avowed masters and mistresses of passion and abandon among the werewolves, despise the [Warborn]. They believe that physical deformity shows a malevolence in the spirit as well. But at the same time, they're really into having wild, raucus parties, orgies if you ask my opinion. The Fianna dismiss any potential risk with this kind of activity their answer to slowing those driving passions is "find a Kinfolk to slake your lust." How practical. Don't kid yourself; there are many [Warborn] running around with red hair and green eyes, both in their tribe and outside it.

When you combine multiple sources and add a human perspective wrt consent, it starts to paint an incredibly unflattering canonical picture of the tribe, and a narratively compelling one, to boot.

For others reading this, below is a link to my supplement in question OP is referencing, if anyone wants to take a look!

[itsmissing]

Hi, you said we were allowed to ask random questions, so I wanted to get your take on this if it is ok. I have followed you for years at this point, and your creations are incredible! They inspire me so. I recall some time ago posting a.... reskin? Revamp? Of one of your DnD characters? I know most of your characters are not dnd nor should people use them in their own games, but if I am reading this correctly it means you yourself play or have at least played TTRPGs in the past. So, since you are welcoming questions, I thought it fair to ask an insanely creative person like you.

So I am in many DnD games right now, and most of them are very RP heavy. I find I can articulate myself well digitally when I can edit what I'm saying to make myself look thoughtful and knowledgeable. But when I RP verbally in the moment - particularly characters that have different thought patterns than I do- I flounder and words become difficult.

Suffice to say- how do you approach RP from a creator's stand point? Creating many different characters and making them unique from yourself but still compelling and competent? What is your thought process to RP?

If you do not feel comfortable answering this ask and that is perfectly fine- I realize this is coming out of left field but you did say you were bored and wanted asks, so I thought this line of questions was fair game. Regardless, I do wish to share how insanely creative and incredible I find your works. If you do not mind more questions in the future, I would love to ask a bit more of your inspirations and thought processes towards how you approach art, but instead I'll settle on my odd ask and hope I am not egregiously overstepping.

thanks for the question! bit of a long answer so i'll put it under a Read More.

i've actually played a couple of campaigns of dnd and blades in the dark (tho they were all over discord calls, and none of them ever concluded naturally), and i totally understand where you're coming from! tho i'll be honest, i haven't played ttrpgs in general in a good long while. i definitely had frustrations in my first ever couple of sessions of dnd (using a character i lovingly designed from scratch), and i think a lot of those pain points stemmed from me trying to force a narrative journey i already had in my head, pre-planned, that i imagined during the design phase for that character. but at the end of the day, dnd is improv, and if you're not used to that, your character's going to end up a little different than how you imagined, and that's ok! a session is always going to be a collaborative roleplaying space, where the party's stories as a group and as individuals are crafted gradually, over time, and some of the ideas you had for your character at the start-- their backstory, their personality, the way they talk and think-- are going to be constantly workshopped into something different, naturally, over the course of a campaign as you get more comfortable. i also find it's a lot easier to rp when you stop trying to inhabit The Exact Character That You Made With Love, and instead try to rp with their essence in mind instead. the most important thing for me when roleplaying is to understand the basics of my character-- whether they're nice or mean, outspoken or reserved, polite or straightforward, etc-- more than anything else. more practical, actionable advice is that it helps to ask yourself questions in your off time and try to answer them as best as you can, out loud and in-character. interview yourself as your character! what's their favorite fruit?

thanks for the question, and also the kind words about my art! i had typed a lot more than this out but i felt like it was mostly incoherent rambling. this might still qualify as that, actually. hope this helps in any way!

[alexsfictionaddiction]

Alex Recommends: June Books

What an eventful month it has been! From family parties to house hunting, June has been full of future planning and more than our fair share of stressing about it.

We've had some pretty hot days where I've wanted to do nothing but sit in a cool room and read. However, I've had far too much work to do to relax. The dissertation research is slowly coming together now and I'm actually quite excited about the data collection part. Obviously I'm super anxious about it all too and worried about how I'll juggle it alongside the new job.

Speaking of which, I am just a few days into my librarian career. Everyone is really friendly and helpful so far and it seems like a great place to work. There's so much to learn and it will probably be a while before I'm confident in all parts of it but it's getting off to a good start.

As it's Pride month, this month's recommendations are themed accordingly. There's a really great selection here, full of inspiring, adorable and unique stories that I know you'll love. June is a month for celebrating our true selves and love in all its forms, so I hope you take some of that beautiful spirit from these books.

-Love, Alex x

FICTION: The Fiancée Farce by Alexandria Bellefleur.

Tansy is dedicated to her family's bookstore and has little time for romance but her family keep asking about her love life. So, she invents a beautiful girlfriend called Gemma, inspired by the woman on the cover of the romance novels that Tansy loves. Imagine Tansy's shock when the real life Gemma shows up at a family wedding. Gemma van Dalen is the heir to her family's publishing company but in order to inherit, she needs to marry. When Tansy's aunt reveals plans for selling the bookstore, Tansy realises that she needs a large injection of cash to keep hold of it. That's something that Gemma can help with. Let the marriage of convenience commence! I'm not sure I've read a contemporary marriage of convenience romance before but it certainly gave it a slightly different flavour than the love stories I'm used to. Perhaps it's because regency romance is where I've mostly encountered farces and relationships like this before but I couldn't get away from that historical vibe, despite it being very much a contemporary novel. There are some real high stakes involved in the narrative and some serious villains that I loved to hate. On the flip side, there is also a cast of loveable queer side characters who I would love to meet again.

NON-FICTION: A Trans Man Walks Into A Gay Bar by Harry Nicholas.

When his long-term relationship with a woman ended, Harry realised that he was in fact, a single gay, trans man. Would the gay community accept him? What would he learn in his next foray into dating while stepping into the light of his true self? This moving, coming-of-age memoir celebrates self-exploration and the embracing of a new culture that can come with that. Harry is very honest and open, as he discusses the realities of being a gay, trans man. There's a scene in a pharmacy where he is denied the morning after pill because 'the girl has to come in herself' that I think illustrates the ignorance and lack of education about what trans people go through. The book is so real and informative without being preachy, which is a fantastic feat. A must read for Pride season!

MIDDLE-GRADE: Away With Words by Sophie Cameron.

Gala and her dad have moved from their home in Spain to Scotland to live with her dad's boyfriend Ryan. Gala never wanted to leave her friends or school behind and she's struggling to settle into her new life. Then she meets Natalie, a shy girl with selective mutism. Like Gala, Natalie collects other people's words but Natalie uses them to write beautiful poems. As their friendship blossoms, Gala and Natalie begin to write positive poems for their classmates. However, someone else is leaving much nastier poems and Gala and Natalie are the prime suspects. Can they find out who is really behind them? Away With Words is a beautiful, gripping story about the power and wonder of words and language. It's about feeling alone and isolated in a place that you don't understand but finding your own comfort and strength within it. I loved the mystery aspect so much and the gorgeous idea that words are physical things. I also loved the ambiguity around whether the words really contain the colours and feelings that the girls associate with them or whether this is just how they see them. A truly unique, imaginative tale that champions outsiders alongside some stunning, magical imagery.

YA: Girls Like Girls by Hayley Kiyoko.

After the death of her mother, Coley and her father move to Oregon. That's where she meets Sonya and her friends. Although she and Sonya have an instant connection, Coley is afraid that a romance would end just like every other love she's ever had. Sonya has never had a girlfriend before, so is Coley really who she wants? It's not until they both accept their feelings and open up to each other that they can find their true happiness. This book is set in the mid 00s and as someone who was this age at that time, I can attest to the fact that the teen experience depicted here was very recognisable. It's a very heady, intense ride that tackles internalised homophobia, grief and the differences between toxic and healthy friendships. Despite its intensity, it's a clean romance, making it ideal for all tastes and age groups.

FANTASY: Bored Gay Werewolf by Tony Santorella.

It's fair to say that Brian is struggling with adulthood. He spends his days working a regular restaurant job alongside his friends Nik and Darby and his nights browsing Grindr and hiding his monthly transitions into a werewolf. Then charismatic fellow werewolf, Tyler headhunts Brian to be a part of a new movement aimed at taming the werewolf's wild instincts. However, something sinister appears to be lurking underneath it all. Bored Gay Werewolf follows a likeable, relatable and thoroughly flawed protagonist with a very snarky voice and sense of humour. The book touches on gay prejudices and assumptions but it is predominantly a criticism of capitalism and how it brings out the worst in people. There is a lovely twist at the end that sets it up to be a new queer, paranormal series that I'm really excited about. I can't wait to see what's next for these characters!

[omar-rudeberg]

Young Royals Parallels #2 - Wilhelm x Simon Intimacy (Colour Theory)

welcome to a series where I analyse the living daylights out of this show

Watching YR for the first time I noticed that the end of episode 4 intimacy scene stood out to me in a Very Real way, but I had no clue why until a couple more watches through. I’ve realised that the colouring of this scene in particular is a stark contrast to every other time we see a moment of intimacy between Wilhelm and Simon throughout the entire series. Thus this post discussing Wilhelm x Simon intimacy colour theory (both specifically relating to the uniqueness of the episode 4 scene but also some general themes & narrative devices) was born. Stay with me – 

The Scene in Question – “I like you too.” (photo post here)

Basically, this scene is bursting with blue / grey / lilac undertones, in quite a neutral or washed out fashion, which is a complete contrast to the warm and saturated golds / browns / neutrals / greens we’re used to in this show. I have so many thoughts I’m going to list them for easy reading:

The scene is I think meant to be some sort of early light? (Swedish people correct me if I’m wrong but no way does night look like that where I live + August is awake & dressed). We can see first light through the window, which can symbolise newness & revitalisation – think Pride & Prejudice (2005). However, the colouring of the scene imitates low visibility, like you’ve just woken up. This immediately gives a sort of gloomy atmosphere to the scene, which along with the fresh start symbology is a very complex set-up in itself. Also, due to the natural light we can see Wille’s walls as the pale sea foam blue they are, a contrast to when we see him in this room with his golden lamps on or the red LED strip – saying this is natural, this is real, this is without filters or artificiality.

In the very first shot we have of Simon, our view of Wille is literally blocked by the unfocussed desk chair in the lower right of the camera’s vision. This technique of the camera ‘hiding’ behind objects which disrupts our view of the action in the scene is repeated a LOT in these few minutes. We have the camera hiding behind the chair, behind the little cupboard by the door, behind their hands, behind Simon’s pillow, behind Simon’s hair. This is all foreshadowing the actual Issue created by this scene of August’s camera phone hiding behind the curtains, and gives a very real sense that this is a private moment we’re creeping on. This, along with the handheld camera technique, could be why some of us find it so hard rewatching this scene, it’s created to feel like something we have no right to see.

Everything is blue (his pills, his hands, his jeans) – but seriously, eye spy something BLUE. The walls, the carpet, the chair looks dark blue / black, look at the sheets AND the pillows AND the blankets on the bed. Simon’s wearing blue jeans, he’s wearing a blue shirt underneath the purple hoodie, think that’s blue stripes on his socks. They’re both wearing blue boxers. Then we have outside, look at the shot of the outside of the dorm wall, as well as the pale blue of the sky. And the infamous curtains are, in fact, blue (my high school english teacher would be so proud I’m discussing blue curtains). Blue can represent a number of wonderful things: expansiveness, depth of emotion, tranquility, silence & integrity. On the flip side though, blue is definitely associated with sadness (sometimes anxiety, depression), tears, aloofness, loneliness, a hunger or lack of fulfilment. Almost like we’re… witnessing a wonderful moment of vulnerability that is later to become a universal cause of anxiety and ultimately lead to distraught loneliness.

Now as I said, this colouring is a complete contrast to the scene colouring we are used to seeing surrounding Simon, and also Wilhelm once he settles into Hillerska – colouring that is bright / golden / sun drenched / green, alive & growing / royal & esteemed. And this is particularly noticeable when we discuss the warm cinematography in the kisses and intimate scenes (I know there’s a lot that falls under the intimacy umbrella but I’ve kept it to the main ones because this post is already going to be >1000 words long). 

Quick colour theory – Yellow is a colour that has first and foremost depicted the sun and its energy, being optimism, joy, happiness and growing friendship. Orange/burnt umber is the colour of harmony, creativity, sexuality, passion & expression. Where natural sienna/gold represents love, wisdom & harmony alongside the obvious wealth. There is always a flipside, and these shades can at times portray ideas such as jealousy, betrayal & illness – everything has its complexities.

I’ve done a snapshot analysis of selected intimacy scenes below:

“I’m not… sorry. I’m not...” (photo post here)

The first (visible (debate this in your own time)) kiss we see is warm and a little sneaky-sneaky. We have the two characters in the foreground silhouetted against a golden halo of light – we see their lips touch for the first time closing a heady glowing gap. Saccharine sweet! Nervous and awkward! The shadowed faces show this is something no one else knows about, a bit of a secret. The golden colour is eerily similar to that of the large school sign that appeared to compound Wille’s anxiety surrounding his attraction to Simon though, so there’s your ~complexity.

“Tack, Malin.” (photo post here)

The morning after, if you will, is just joy in its purest form. The honeymoon phase. We have both boys being brought back into life and into joy by the sunshine pouring in over the top of them. Shadows are kept to a minimum, because there’s no use for them. Everything’s out in the open now: “I like you, and that is not fake” & “I like you too”. There’s laughter, they’re literally glowing, there’s no clothing, no boundaries between them. Notice it’s either the lighting or they’ve actually changed the fitted sheet from blue to cream, and the blue blankets and pillows are gone (this attention to detail astounds me). There’s a beautiful shot with lens flare over Simon’s face where this superimposition tells us that for Wilhelm, Simon is his sunshine, his ray of light and life-giver. In contrast to the end of episode 4, we have steady, direct camera angles here; we’re over the top of them, we’re over Wilhelm’s shoulder a lot, because we’re no longer watching from the other side of the room. In fact, there’s no one watching at all. They’re safe here.

“The water is cold today!” (photo post here)

Small transitional scene, but as tiktok edits have shown this is one of their few kisses so let’s talk about it. The walk through the trees could so easily have been in a completely green atmosphere, or through the buildings or the town, but it wasn’t. Instead, we’ve got Simon and Wilhelm under a veil of gilded leaves in autumnal tones, the furrowing branches literally pointing towards the centre of the frame, highlighting the significance of their newfound ‘whatever-this-is’-ship while at the same time hiding them from prying eyes. I love this shot so much, it’s the warm and fuzzies of young love personified. Their sunlit faces by the lake are so full of compassion and just a little teasing – mirroring the sparkling lake. (Bonus colour theory: the blue stripes on Simon’s lil beanie harken back to the contrasting deep blue tones of the football field / end of episode 4 scene in Wilhelm’s room.)

“Does that turn you on?” (photo post here)

AKA the infamous fishes scene! Let’s talk. Before Wilhelm even enters the house we have this golden imagery, we see him waiting at the door, enveloped by the three warm lamps lit in the Eriksson’s dining room. This welcoming, nurturing lighting continues through the entirety of the scene. There’s this shot of Wilhelm following Simon into his room that I love, where Wilhelm is this dark silhouette walking through the blackened doorway into Simon’s golden glowing private escape, showing he’s actively choosing lightness, Simon’s literally leading him out of the dark. He can be safe being himself here and he wants (needs) that desperately. We’re then introduced to the fishies! Blink and you miss it but the fish tank close ups have the same colour distribution as “The water is cold today!” scene, a fun little parallel. The rest of the scene is just dimly-lit closeness; closeness in ambient lighting with no shadows cast. Where in “Tack, Malin” the boys were both needing loud and proud reassurance that the other was still in this, that the bright light of day changed nothing, this muted atmosphere shows that this isn’t for show here. It’s for them. Fun fact: the video game Simon turns on generally displays brown-tinged scenes as well. One last comment on how the camera moves and shifts with the pair through these last few seconds, unlike the first few kisses, denoting the development and growth occurring between them, the give and take.

“I just didn’t want to lose you.” (photo post here)

All my talk of Wilhelm and Simon bathed in gold is epitomised in this scene, it honestly still takes my breath away. Everywhere we look there are the beigey, ochre, sienna golden colours we’ve come to associate with radiant happiness for these two, if a little more shrouded than in the earlier episode 5 scenes. We see the two boys in white, standing (what feels like oceans) apart in this room that looks like the centre of a roaring fire (burn the witches?), until they clear the air and crash together like waves. When they embrace, their clothes blend in with each other and with the four walls in the same nurturing glow, showing not only their connection with each other but noting the significance their relationship and this communication will have in the fabric of the overarching story-world. We get a shot of their two faces silhouetted in a similar way to episode 2, with a kiss stolen in golden light. The age old idiom ‘out of the frying pan and into the fire’ comes to mind, though, when you also consider August’s scenes intercut with this moment. The kicker for me is when you realise the way they have tied in August’s scenes so brilliantly here, with the curtains behind August at the computer mirroring the exact same shades/tones of Wilhelm and Simon’s classroom. You can extrapolate the parallels from there: the window, the curtains, the phone, the embrace, the vulnerable moment in the recording which August is going to share with the world juxtaposed with the similarly vulnerable, achingly sweet moment happening concurrently. But this moment feels wrong; it has had its cathartic potential stripped away because we know what’s coming, and it ain’t good.

“We haven’t done anything wrong.” (photo post here)

To explain my thoughts on this scene you have to know that, as much as Simon as a character is complex enough to earn the title of deuteragonist, when telling Wilhelm’s story (as the series does) the Simon character can also act to symbolise various elements of Wilhelm’s emotional journey. In this scene I believe a large part of this is colour theory. I’ve waxed on about all of the BLUE in “I like you too.”. But look at this scene. We have the blue floor & walls of the changeroom, Wille’s wearing entirely blue clothing, Simon’s got blue jeans on, even the glow of the fluorescent exit sign is a shade of blue. These boys (and Wilhelm specifically) are exhausted, terrified, at the end of their tether and feel so isolated and alone. But look at Simon, he’s back in his orange Looney Tunes tee and beige button-up. His school bag has always been golden. In this scene Simon symbolises hope; he is the only thing with the potential to drag Wilhelm out of his grey-blue fog and back into the warm embrace of Before. The last shot with Simon stroking Wilhelm’s hair has Simon’s golden warmth in a halo around Wilhelm, almost like a guardian aura. The opposite of breathtaking; it’s giving Wilhelm back his breath. (Bonus: Spot the literal red flag in the background, warning us that though the communication here is outstanding and may win the battle, there’s no way in hell it’ll be this easy to win the war.)

“Thank you for not leaving me alone with this." (photo post here)

Not too much to say here, except that their embrace before Wilhelm leaves (their last kiss) is in the same colour profile as their first in episode 2. Wille’s couple of lamps are back on in his room bathing them in a soft glow, he’s towering over Simon, they’re both shadowed, lips meeting for a moment in front of sunset tones. Notice how – keeping the same colour associations as in “We haven’t done anything wrong.” where Wilhelm is a bit of a blue-hued debby downer and Simon’s a little angel in shades of gold – Simon’s in a yellow button up with blue check of some sort. In their last hug, Wilhelm is holding Simon so tight, and Simon looks almost constricted in the blue check, like he’s in too deep and caught in the fishnet of Wilhelm’s decision, where either way he’s fighting for his life tonight. (Bonus colour theory: Pretty sure Wilhelm always texts in orangey yellow, though other characters’ text colours change. Boom.)

“I’m sorry. I love you.” (photo post here)

Just a quick one, look at Simon absolutely smothered by Wilhelm’s blue coat / scarf (Wilhelm’s terrible sadness) here. This is not a balanced meeting, a relationship-expanding conversation, a passionate embrace. This is a love you goodbye.

So to try to cohesively wrap up this ridiculously long post, as far as Wilhelm x Simon intimacy scenes are concerned, gold = good things & blue = bad things and if you were wondering why the episode 4 scene stands out to you? That’s because it’s supposed to.

tl;dr —

(photo post here)

[thimbil]

Having some thoughts about the references and inspirations used for the Bad Batch’s designs.

So Boba Fett is my absolute favorite character and Temeura Morrison was perfect casting. I went to see the 2008 TCW movie in theaters because I was so excited to see him again, even if he was animated. You can imagine my disappointment. Whoever was on screen was not Temeura Morrison. You could sort of see a resemblance if you squinted and didn’t think too hard about it. They replaced Temeura with Racially Ambiguous G.I. Joe. If I didn’t know better and someone told me the animated clones are space Italians from the moon of New Jersey I would buy it. One Million Brothers Pizzeria and Italian Bistro. Not that there’s something wrong with being space Italian, I just don’t think it’s the right choice for the Fetts. The design got slightly improved by season 7 but it still bugs the hell out of me.

I did eventually get into the show later and (of course) got invested in the clones. Unfortunately, they were largely sidelined by the Jedi storylines. Out of the two new main characters created for TCW, Ahsoka definitely got more development and focus than Rex. When they announced The Bad Batch, I was excited to see a show specifically devoted to the clones… at least that’s what it said on the tin. We have all seen what lurks beneath those stylish helmets.

Jango Fett, you are NOT the father.

So who is?

Based on interviews with Filoni, it sounds like the Bad Batch was a George Lucas idea. And like all his ideas, it’s super derivative. The original trilogy directly lifted elements from sci fi serials, westerns, and samurai movies, more specifically Kurosawa films like The Hidden Fortress. For The Bad Batch character designs, the influence is obviously American action and adventure movies.

Now let’s get specific. Bad Batch, who’s your daddy?

Hunter

Sylvester Stallone as Rambo in First Blood 1982. That bandana has become an integral part of the iconic action hero look. You see a character wearing one and it’s a visual shorthand for either “this character is a tough guy” like Billy played by Sonny Landham in Predator 1987, or “this character thinks he is/wants to be a tough guy” like Brand played by Josh Brolin in The Goonies 1985 or Edward Frog played by Corey Feldman in The Lost Boys 1987.

Hunter’s model is closest to the original clone base. If you look closely you will see the eyebrows are straighter with a much lower angle to the arch. His nose is also not the same shape as a standard clone like Rex, including a narrower bridge. It’s certainly not Temeura Morrison’s nose. Remember what I said about space Italians? It didn’t take much to push the existing clone design to resemble an specific Italian man instead of a specific Māori man. The 23&Me came back, and Hunter inherited more than the bandana from Sylvester.

Crosshair

The long narrow nose, the sharp cheekbones, the scowl. That’s no clone, that’s just animated Clint Eastwood. Not even Young and Hot Clint Eastwood from Rawhide 1959-1965. With that hair, I’m talking Gran Torino 2008. The man of few words schtick and family friendly toothpick in lieu of cigar are pure Eastwood as The Man With No Name from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns A Fist Full of Dollars 1964, For a Few Dollars More 1965, and The Good the Bad and the Ugly 1966.

In a way, this is full circle because the actor Jeremy Bulloch took inspiration from Clint Eastwood for his performance as Boba Fett in ESB.

Wrecker

In an interview Filoni lists the Hulk as an (obvious) inspiration for Wrecker. Ever seen the old Hulk tv show from 1978? Well take a look at the actor who played him, Lou Ferrigno. Would you look at that. Even has his papa’s nose.

You could make the argument that Wrecker was influenced by The Rock, an appropriately buff ‘n bald Polynesian (Samoan, not Maori) man. But look at him next his Fast and Furious costar Vin Diesel and tell me which one resembles Wrecker’s character model more.

Tech

Tech is a little trickier for me to place. If he has a more direct inspiration it must be something I haven’t seen. That said, his hairline is very Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard 1988. His quippiness and large glasses remind me of Shane Black as Hawkins from Predator 1987. In terms of his face, he looks a but like the result of McClane and Hawkins deciding to settle down and start a family. Although, Tech’s biggest contributors are probably just everyone on TV Trope’s list for Smart People Wear Glasses.

And finally,

Echo

Oh Echo. Considering he wasn’t created for the Bad Batch, he probably wasn’t based on a particular character or movie. But if I had to guess, his situation and appearance remind me a lot of Alex Murphy played by Peter Weller in Robocop 1987. However, Robocop explored the Man or Machine Identity Crisis with more nuance, depth, and dignity. Yikes.

The exact tropes and references used in The Bad Batch have been done successfully with characters who aren’t even human. Gizmo from Gremlins 2: The New Batch 1990 had a brief stint with the Rambo bandana. I could have picked any number of characters for Defining Feature Is Glasses but here is the most cursed version of Simon of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Suffer as I have. Marc Antony with his beloved Pussyfoot from Looney Tunes has the same tough guy with a soft center vibe as Wrecker and his Lula (also a kind of cat). Hell, in the same show we have Cad Bane sharing Cowboy Clint Eastwood with Crosshair. I actually think Bane makes a better Eastwood which is wild considering Crosshair has Eastwood’s entire face and Bane is blue.

So we’ve established you don’t need your characters to look exactly like their inspirations to match their vibe. So why go through the trouble and cost of creating completely new character designs instead of recycling and altering assets they already had on hand? Just slap on a bandana, toothpick, goggles, and make Wrecker bigger than the others while he does a Hulk pose and you’re done. Based on the general reaction to Howzer it would have been a low effort slam dunk crowd pleaser.

But they didn’t do that.

So here’s the thing. I like the tropes used in The Bad Batch. I am a fan of action adventure movies from the 80s-90s, the sillier the better. I am part of the Bad Batch’s target audience. Considering what I know about Disney and Lucasfilm, I went in with low expectations. I genuinely don’t hate the idea of seeing references to these actors and media in The Bad Batch. I don’t think basing these characters on tropes was a bad idea. If anything it’s a solid starting point for building the characters.

The trouble is nothing got built on the foundation. The plot is directionless, the pacing is wacky, and the characters have nearly no emotional depth or defining character arcs. They just sort of exist without reacting much while the story happens around them. But I can excuse all of that. You don’t stay a fan of Star Wars as long as I have not being able to cherrypick and fill in the gaps. This show has a deeper issue that shouldn’t be ignored.

Why do the animated clones bear at best only a passing resemblance to their live action actor? In interviews, Filoni wouldn’t shut up but the technological advancements in the animation for season 7. So if they are updating things, why not try to make the clones a closer match to their source material? Why did they have to look like completely different people in The Bad Batch to be “unique”? Looking like Temeura Morrison would have no bearing on their special abilities and TCW proved you can have identical looking characters and still have them be distinct. In fact, that’s a powerful theme and the source of tragedy for the clones’ narrative overall.

Here’s Filoni’s early concept art of Crosshair, Wrecker, Tech, and Hunter. (Interesting but irrelevant: Wrecker seems to have a cog tattoo similar to Jesse’s instead of a scar. Wouldn’t it have been funny if they kept that so when they met in season 7 one if them could say something like “Hey we’re twins!” That’s a little clone humor. Just for you guys 😘)

None of these drawings look like the clones in TCW, much less Temeura Morrison. Let’s be generous. Maybe Filoni struggles with drawing a real person’s likeness, as many people do. But he had to hand this off to other artists down the line whose job specifically involves making a stylized character resemble their actor. Yet the final designs missed the mark almost as much as this initial concept. Starting to seem as if the clones looking more like Temeura Morrison was never even on the table. It wasn’t a lack of creativity, skill or technical limitations on the part of the creative team. I don’t think there is an innocent explanation. They went out of their way to make the final product exactly how we got it.

This goes beyond homage. They could have made the same pop culture references and character tropes without completely stripping Temeura Morrison from the role he originated. It was a very purposeful choice to replace him with more immediately familiar actors from established franchises and films. It wouldn’t shock me if Filoni, Lucas, and anyone else calling the shots didn’t even think hard or care enough about the decision to immediately recognize a problem. And I don’t think they believed anyone else would either. At least no one whose opinion they cared about. Those faces are comfortingly familiar and proven bankable. They are what we’re all used to seeing after all. They’re white.

Lack of imagination, bad intentions, or simple ignorance doesn’t really matter in the end. The result is the same. Call it what it is. They replaced a man of color with a bunch of white guys. That’s by the book garden variety run of the mill whitewashing. There’s no debate worth having about it. For a fanbase that loves to nitpick things like whether or not it’s in character for Han to shoot first or Jeans Guy in the Mandalorian, we sure are quick to find excuses for clones who look nothing like their template. Why is that? If you don’t see the problem, congratulations. Your ass is showing. Pull your jeans up.

[interact-if]

Final day of interviews! Last but not the least... the talented Aalaa!! :chinhands:

Aalaa, author of Thrill Seeker

Religious Diversity Month Featured Author

Upon coming back to the family home from college, you find the corpse of your mother mutilated almost beyond recognition. Apart from the terrible scene, there is seemingly no evidence found by the police and no suspects are brought up.

The lack of answers is driving you crazy, and so you set out to find out who has killed your mother yourself. This job will be difficult– there will be friends that can help you along the way, but some of them have darkness that runs through them bone deep, and to trust the wrong person can be deadly.Still, if you can find it in yourself to trust them… or to simply look past your own judgement– you might be able to romance them, as well.

There is corruption all around you– make sure you know who to trust. Make sure you can trust yourself.

Will you be led into corruption, yourself?

Thrill Seeker Demo | Read more [here]

Tags: horror, mystery

(INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE CUT!)

Q1: Tell us a bit about your project! 

My project is Thrill Seeker, a modern horror/mystery game. You play as a normal, albeit burnt out student that has just come back from college to have a small holiday with their mother, but then finds that she has been brutally murdered. When you call the cops, their investigation is unsatisfactory and they find nothing. At the funeral, you are united with some people who may be able to help you-- but the corruption runs deep, and you don’t know who you can trust. Indeed, right now, even you aren’t trustworthy. 

The story explores how you take your fate into your own hands and make all the wrong decisions. The line between black and white fades, and all you can do is stare at the puddle of gray in front of you. You decide your own morals, you decide what becomes right or wrong.

Q2: Why did you settle for interactive fiction? What drew you to this format? 

There are a few reasons I gravitated towards interactive fiction. One could be that I’ve always been interested in writing. I’ve been making small video games since I was very young, and so I’ve tried a bunch of different forms of game making. Mostly, I’ve stuck to 2D, but it was getting kind of boring, and I was stumped for ideas. When I found interactive fiction, I was just blown away, and I knew I wanted to change the way I made games. 

I think I love it so much because it feels like a new life. Every new character, every choice, it’s like writing your life again. Maybe one could call it escapism, but I feel like it’s more about the thrill of the choice. There’s something about taking control of the narrative that is very exciting, not only as a consumer, but as a creator, too. I love the feeling of both knowing what’s coming next, but knowing that it’s something I designed, a fate I created. It’s better than any other format of game in it’s uniqueness.

Q3: How have your identity and beliefs influenced your work? 

I think my identity has rubbed off in every single aspect of my writing. I'm most used to writing fantasy, mostly for the fact that’s what I’ve been raised with. I find themes in my writing that I can see in the stories my mother read to me as a child. I am welcoming to others like I have been taught. 

Anything I didn’t have then, I do now. The representation I didn’t see in the stories of my childhood, I now write them myself. I hid my personality when I was younger, but now I represent it, and I put a little of myself into every word I write, every character I create, every scene I draw out. I have the opportunity to do what I want and to show the aspects of myself that I haven’t always gotten the opportunity to, and I think that’s the biggest way my identity has changed my work-- it has given me strength and the bravery to continue what I love.

Q4: What aspects would you like to be more explored or represented in media involving your religion? 

When looking at media representation, there is almost none for muslims, and all of the ones that exist are typically stereotypical and demeaning. I also see them always kind of having a bad relationship with their family and parents, something that they try to ‘break away’ from. And it almost feels like they have a blueprint for the ‘regular muslim’-- but there are so many different types of muslims, and they can’t fit under one bubble. I would like more muslims of colour (other than the usual pale brown), more muslims in fields that aren’t science related, and more muslims who are secure in themselves and their relationships. I want to see muslims be treated with respect and kindness, just like anyone else. 

Q5: What are you most excited about sharing related to your project? 

I'm looking forward to establishing the different ways that the main character interacts with the ROs. I see in many interactive fiction stories the ROs are kind of separate-- they don’t influence the RO a lot. However, I want to write a story where your personality actually changes with your RO. Maybe they make you more deranged. Maybe they make you more calm. It’s really up to the character, and I think it’ll be very interesting to write about the point where control starts to fall into someone else’s hands.

Q6: A tiny bit unrelated, but, what's your favorite religious holiday? 

My favorite holiday, by far, is Eid. I look forward to it all year. It’s a time that I get to share with my loved ones, a time that I can really be closer to them. It gives us all a break from hardships and allows us to celebrate! All aspects of Eid are wonderful-- the colors, the clothes, the food… the list goes on. Eid is a time of brightness and giving, like a rainbow christmas! Eid is a day that makes me feel that I can unapologetically be myself, and I wear my culture and personality like a badge of honor. It makes me feel human, the kind of humanity where you realize you are one in a web of extraordinary beings who are just intricately designed as you are, the kind of people that are just as worth celebrating as you are. It reminds me to love. 

Q7: Any other thoughts or advice you'd like to give to fellow authors or readers? 

To my fellow authors, I would say to find a community that supports you. It doesn’t just have to be writers-- just someone that can help motivate you. I myself like to rely on my family to encourage me to keep going, as well as a few other talented writers that inspire me to keep working on improving. Having someone as an example and having someone to encourage you is priceless, and so you should definitely look for a community that supports you. 

To my readers, thank you so, so much for coming along this journey with me. You are a community I can rely on, and your support is what keeps me going. I was in a bit of a rough patch before writing this story, but now that I’ve started I’ve gotten so much encouragement and I’ve been a lot happier. Thank you so much for everything, and I hope you enjoy the development of the game!

[astaroth1357]

Unpacking the Angel Event (Through My Own Perspective)

Okay so uh… this was a very uncomfortable seat the Devs have offered us today and like all things that give me moral uncomfiness, I HAVE to analyze it. Blame the ethics classes. A full disclaimer, this is not spoiler-free and is pretty much entirely just me unpacking my own feelings here. What may bother or not bother me could really affect you and there is nothing wrong with that. You are entitled to your own perspective. This is just me trying to walk through all the stuff in this event that just… rubbed me the wrong way. So let's get to it.

The Costumes

So. Let's start at the beginning. Diavolo apparently had the bright idea to put everybody in magical costumes of their angel forms (or something like it in Satan's case). This is… problematic.

The reason the brothers lost their angel forms was because they fell after the Celestial War… who's greatest causality (in their eyes) was their sister, Lilith. So one could imagine that their memories as angels aren't particularly happy ones… By this point in the "continuity" (this is Post-Attic, more on that later), they would have known that Lilith didn't actually die which may soften something like this a little. I dunno, I'm not one of them and trauma is uniquely personal to the individual, but the bigger issue is that Diavolo thought this was a good idea to start with to which I say! - I'm not at all surprised by that. Hear me out.

Diavolo is heavily implied to have had a huge ass crush on Angel Lucifer. He's also uh… probably a little sheltered (as sheltered as the royalty of Hell can be) and probably not used to think of his subjects' feelings on the things he does before he just does them. This is fairly evident in other events where he'll order the brothers to do XYZ task even if they want no part in it. It doesn't surprise me at all that Diavolo would want to see them (Lucifer) as angels again and not take into account how that could affect them. I don't think that'd be malice on his part, just shortsightedness, and he likely would have apologized if any of the brothers expressed an emotional problem with it to him directly.

Do they have problems? Yes. But since the event kind of wipes them of their true selves, that's better discussed elsewhere. Moving on.

The Bangles 

Holy fuck, how do we even approach this? So Simeon, in conjunction with Michael (probably, at this point I have to wonder if he's telling the truth about this) gives the brothers jewelry, presumably to wear to the party, that would… I'm not even sure. Curb their impulses? Force them to be mannered? The important thing is he did not tell them about that little detail before they put the bangles on…

This is… also problematic. First, we can try to establish Simeon's intentions versus what actually happened: 

The bangles were (likely) intended to be removable. It was the mixing of the magic that locked them in place so we can assume he didn't mean this to be a permanent change.

The magic on the bangles was probably amplified by the angel costumes. What this means is though we can assume that Simeon never intended them to become quite so… different, we'll never know just how much influence he was actually trying to put on them. It could have been anything from suppressing their sins to full blown force you to say please/thank you. We'll just never get to know now… 

I won't be the first person to liken this to mind control (nor the last) because… that's kind of how it turned out. Even worse still, it would have been completely involuntary on the brothers' part. Simeon DID NOT tell them what the bangles were going to do. Now, he claims later that he would have eventually, but we don't get to know when that would have been. I presume at some time after the party, because like. These are our boys. They're not going to consent to wearing something like that, they're just not.

This poses all kinds of questions and problems ranging from issues of consent to anatomy and even the worth of good deeds done out of obligation vs. free will and… I mean quite literally when I say Jesus Christ, Simeon, what the hell?!

I could write a completely different post debating whether or not what Simeon did actually had any moral merit but I won't because it'd be very dry and boring. I think the most interesting thing to take away here is that Simeon thought it was okay to do like, at all, and with approval from Michael (maybe) no less… That reflects something on angel society that I doubt will get explored but I need to ponder farther…

This section is all kinds of sticky so we need to move on.

The Development(?)

First off, to new players, don't worry this probably isn't canon (at least to the main story continuity). The Brothers should be back to normal in the new chapters and this won't have a long term effect on anything (aside from maybe a tie in to the next event ala Beach event-> Games). That's how Obey Me has always treated their events it seems and I sure hope they stick to it now. But, these are still the same characters going through a unique situation and that can offer some insight so… Let's discuss.

I mentioned earlier that the brothers had problems with this… Unfortunately, I think we only get to see Lucifer and Satan's thoughts in any detail because everyone else is too far gone by the time we reach them… Lucifer can pretty much be summed up as troubled and unhappy because (you know) not a lot of great memories as an angel. I presume that his wounded pride after the fall may also contribute. 

Satan is… more complex. I’m honestly more bothered by his change than anyone else’s because even he expresses how weird this is for him... (We get confirmation that he never in fact had an angel form, btw). Poor baby is going through a full on identity crisis and there’s a certain part of his mind that he’s not even allowed to use right now... Anger. The Avatar of Wrath, born from Wrath, can’t get angry and… Something about that just bothers me at a deeper level, not even I can express properly…

Everyone else is too far gone once we reach them. Their personalities are completely different and they can’t even acknowledge that’s the case. They think that they’ve turned a new leaf but we know that’s not the reality, that leaf was very much turned for them and it doesn’t make anything feel any better…

This may be my own opinion, but part of me thinks that this portion (and only this portion right here) was actually what the Devs were going for. They wanted us to be uncomfortable by all of this for like, story reasons. It’s a narrative trick. Think of the phrase “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.” I think they were trying to use the absence of the brothers’ usual flaws and traits as a weird way of celebrating them. Kind of like saying, “We could have given you guys these perfect brothers, but they’re not perfect and we know that’s why you like them. Look at these perfect guys, doesn’t it feel wrong?” The answer is, yes. It does feel wrong. And under other circumstances, it would be affirming like they’d be intending, “I don’t want this emotionally-open non-otaku, give me Levi dammit!” But when you add this intended discomfort with the already sketchy way we got here it just makes it all the worse… 

And absolutely NONE of this is helped by...

The… End?

I think the thing I hate about this event the most (actually legitimately hate) is how it ends. In that it doesn’t. It kind of just… abruptly stops right after Lucifer starts coming to himself again. Though I suspect that’s because they’re putting incentive into getting the event cards, this in NO WAY does the narrative any favors.

Most people are not going to get those cards. Even with Lonely Devil as an option, it’s a huge time/resource commitment to get there. Because of that, the majority of people are not going to get to see the aftermath of what happened. We don’t get to see how the brothers feel about what happened. We don’t get to see if they do, in fact, come to and if they have any takeaways from the experience or if they’re utterly disgusted by it. The player character doesn’t even get the option to comfort them after something that was probably terribly traumatic. It. Just. Ends.

What that means is all of that discomfort that we had just lingers… There’s no resolution or pay off. It just… stays… This is the worst possible thing they could have done. If you want your audience to feel uncomfortable, that’s one thing, but unless you’re telling like, a psychological thriller you gotta settle them back down again! Deep moral conflict is not a turn on!!!

Personally, I don’t hate that this thing exists. I don’t. The part of me that majored in Philosophy loves analyzing media like this so I can’t say that I didn’t get anything out of it. I don’t think all media should play it safe, it’s okay to leave the audience with no good answers or a feeling of unease, but you really got to be self-aware of it. The biggest flaw of this event, in my opinion, is that it rarely comes across as self-aware of its own horror. You get a very brief glimpse of it from Solomon when he comments on how creepy things are, but Simeon’s happy. Diavolo’s happy. And though he’s a little uneasy, Luke’s pretty content, too. Add that to the abrupt ending and we never get to know if ANY of them realize how awful of a thing this was to do to the brothers... It makes it all come off as an endorsement of mind controlling your friends into better people and (to me) that feels really, really wrong.

So in conclusion… I dunno. If the next event isn’t something along the lines of “Angelic Demons Part 2: Fixing What We Fucked Up!” then I think they really botched this one guys… I hope somebody was taking notes.

[preemshots]

johnny + the nomads lore

alright, i know this is a screenshots blog but i'm going to go ahead and start dropping some juicy lore tidbits as i dig them up. part of what i'm doing outside of just photo diarying is shard hunting, and BOY is there a lot the game likes to hide in those little shards for idiots like me who like to read so we can write unnecessarily accurate fanfiction! 

full disclosure, i know jack shit about the TTRPG/cyberpunk 2020 rulebook except what i read in the wikis. 

so here’s my lore roundup so far of everything i know about johnny joining the nomads

we know johnny likes to narrate v’s quest objectives. here’s the first mention where he says it himself: 

during the voodoo boys quest "transmission" there's a shard in the maglev tunnels beside the ice bath, presumably from brigitte's research into johnny in the first place:

okay, so the timeline is this: johnny joins the nomads after trying and failing to rescue alt. johnny hides out in the badlands for some years. then he and rogue come back to night city and nuke arasaka tower help alt escape the arasaka subnet by uploading liberator to their network once and for all.

this ultimately makes sense. in alt’s flashback, we meet santiago, who is a nomad/connected to nomads, joins rogue and johnny when they're trying to get alt back, and eventually becomes the leader of the aldecaldos. 

part of santiago’s TTRPG lore is that he, johnny, and rogue have to lay low in the badlands with nomads after they storm arasaka headquarters (i am aware the game takes many liberties with the original lore so who knows the full accuracy of anything from the original rulebooks)

ENDING spoilers: in the rogue+johnny storming AHQ ending, it's revealed that rogue has a son while they're prepping for the job. if you eavesdrop on her calling him while you're at the afterlife, you hear her tell her son to (paraphrasing here) "pull over and look at the stars", which immediately made my brain go to: nomad, badlands, santiago = dad? maybe. (santiago also canonically has a son according to the TTRPG lore)

this immediately reminded me of another interesting shard that i believe you can find in multiple locations around night city: “"what REALLY happened in arasaka tower?“

i love this dang shard. at first i thought it was just a cute conspiracy with some juicy gossip (and i love how 99% of the shards that mention johnny in this game are reminding us that he's not a real rebel, he's a poser) but it brings some interesting shit together

one: it tells us where johnny got his hands on the nukes! he and the nomads jumped a militech convoy and jacked some bombs! 

which is never directly explained, even as saburo arasaka is interrogating him shortly before using soulkiller. very nice of johnny to protect his homies like that. 

...or maybe he didn’t. saburo emphasizes that the dead don’t lie like the living do, and we don’t know what exactly arasaka did to johnny’s construct in mikoshi. 

it also explains why the obvious media narrative is that militech nuked arasaka, a nice neat political bow to the end of the fourth corpo wars, which is an entire section of the TTRPG lore that makes my eyes cross when i read it. 

it also makes the star/nomads ending extremely interesting, because i originally believed it was the ending where V’s journey deviates the most from rewalking johnny’s path... which also has weird implications if the johnny’s nomad era is being kept from v. 

(this also leads into my belief that the star ending/the devil ending are narratively two sides of the same coin, but that’s a WHOLE ANOTHER POST for another day.)

TWO, just straight up the fact that they turned the raid where they actually obtained the nukes into an action flick BD that pretty much ANYONE could watch. who the hell was doing that?? 

well, who else other than the guy who johnny (optionally) punched the shit out of for filming alt's death: thompson, media guy, and according to rogue, “bad luck”. because you know, recording your crimes is straight up evidence that can be used against you.

during the alt flashback we meet thompson, and just after that in cyberspace before meeting alt, johnny tells v that he has no idea what happened to him and that they never worked together again. 

oh, johnny, you lying bastard man

this is blatantly untrue, and if V even had two braincells and better memory than a goldfish they'd know this--in the first flashback sequence where johnny and rogue nuke arasaka tower, thompson is on the comms as they ride the AV towards AHQ, questioning their plans and use of violence. 

which leaves me with some questions, like where the fuck is thompson, why does johnny keep lying about this, why doesn't johnny say almost anything about how you interact with the aldecaldo clan nonstop throughout the game when he himself may have been a member of the family for some time?? is he continuing to protect the nomad clan that saved his ass? we know that a lot of his flashbacks are unreliable at best, that johnny changes shit up as desired when presenting V with his memories.

in 2077, you can also find that there’s a remake of “badlands raid” in the shard “new release braindances” that is pretty much everywhere. that shard doesn’t add much, but does mention something along the lines of “many people don’t know the ending of the original” which probably means johnny punched thompson out for filming again, or something. 

my running theories: rogue ditched santiago and the aldecaldos with johnny and thompson to nuke arasaka tower, and when johnny died she was stuck looking for (heavily implied by johnny here:) corpo sellout ways to survive.

adam smasher obviously has something to do with this since johnny/rogue's vendetta against the guy isn't entirely clear beyond the smokescreen of "he killed johnny and he sucks". i have done 0 research into this though i'm tired of typing okay

i obviously cannot be certain i have found everything related to this in the game as i’m not even done with this playthrough where i’m trying to pay attention, but i hope this is fun for someone else to dig into. 

enjoy, fellow silverhand freaks

EDIT: additional findings

ALRIGHT I HAVE DONE MORE DIGGING AND I AM BACK WITH MORE NOMAD/JOHNNY FINDINGS. these ones are kind of a bummer but VERY interesting.

there’s a shard called “excerpts from a history of the nomads by bb pires” that goes into detail about how nomads came to be

there’s an interesting quote in it: It's hard to imagine a group less inclined to wandering than farmers, but in fact they were the ones who sparked the age of nomads. Natural catastrophes, crops ravaged by bioplagues, armed conflicts and martial law allowing corporations to speculate and privatize land - all this forced them into a life on the road.

when you ask johnny why he wants to take down arasaka, he begins by referencing this himself!!

it’s a little awkward to imagine a nomad V doesn’t also know what he’s referencing, but hey, V is the fool because we are as players and that’s only one life path... so sure.

johnny also has unique dialogue during this scene about a nomad origin V, telling them that he’s been trying to understand how V thinks, and came to the conclusion that “their family was a crutch” and essentially made them stupid because they always had a safety net (lmao johnny calling v privileged basically)

BUT this also may reference why johnny would find it confusing as hell that V doesn’t immediately share the views he does when nomads, in terms of values, seem to be more aligned with johnny than V is. but once again V is the fool for a reason and this is all my own speculation so YOU KNOW.

MORE IMPORTANTLY, at the end of chippin’ in, when you ask johnny what he meant by letting down his friends... santiago is named directly

i thought this was interesting since the only glimpse of their relationship that we get is seeing johnny meeting santiago via the alt flashback for the first time.

so now it’s obvious that while johnny and rogue were with the nomads their friendship developed, and johnny went on to disappoint santiago in some way by being his normal dickhead self

but HOW? how did he disappoint santiago? is santiago even still alive?? did smasher kill santiago and is this why rogue mentions during chippin’ in that she wants smasher to “settle a score” moreso than avenge johnny??

the only additional hints i have are from this shard, which you can find at the aldecaldos camp: “nomads at ground zero”

i’m just gonna transcribe here and bold for emphasis:

It was no secret that Night Corp offered generous pay and, in some cases, free cyberware and biomonitor upgrades to anyone willing to help clean up the crater of radioactive rubble at AHQ ground zero. Some firsthand accounts recall the incessant ticking of Geiger counters, like the loud buzz of cicadas in summer. In retrospect, we can only guess how many "crater cleaners" lost their lives to radiation sickness shortly thereafter. Both the city government and Night Corp have claimed casualties were kept to a minimum, while providing no official statistics to substantiate the claim. That being said, they have never been under pressure to release such figures. After all, most rescue, engineering, and rubble cleanup teams were not local Night Citizens, but nomads. Surprised you didn't know? Don't be. It is a fact many history courses tend to overlook. The city employed hundreds of nomad mercenaries, primarily from clans in Aldecaldo nation. These nomads were hungry for gainful work and the city needed experts who were not only experienced but brave enough to knowingly put their lives on the line - all so Arasaka could one day erect another tower in its place. But history is not without its sense of irony. These nomads, who so deliberately live outside our so-called "system," came to its very rescue. Not for the first time. And not for the last.

a main theme we find in this game is the idea that the system of corps and exploitation cannot be stopped by grandiose rebellious gestures--no amount of samurai songs, assassinating mayors, or even planting nukes in towers will change things. yet johnny, his friends and mercs at atlantis in the 2020s, including rogue, chose to rebel any way they could, thinking it better than not. johnny criticizes her lack of rebellious spirit CONSTANTLY in 2077.

but ultimately, johnny, trapped in mikoshi, didn’t get to see the outcome of what detonating the AHQ nukes did to night city’s fragile ecosystem. rogue, however, did--and likely watched their former allies, the aldecaldos, be forced to take dangerous work at AHQ’s ground zero (from lack of other opportunities as detailed in this shard), then die from radiation sickness throughout the following decades, all as a result of what she and johnny did to try and fight the system. and she also watched all the former mercenaries of atlantis be hunted down by arasaka.

so rogue sees firsthand what the cost of rebellion is and johnny doesn’t. and nomads, considered the most free of any of the factions we encounter in the game, are the cost.

[chainofclovers]

Ted Lasso 2x1 thoughts

Running out of time to capture my thoughts on 2x1 specifically before 2x2 airs, so here's a mess of things I thought about in response to the season 2 premiere. (Heavily informed by conversations w/my wife and some friends and family both within and without the fandom, discord conversations, things I've read on tumblr, reviews in the press, and, yes, my own little brain when it's alone.)

I really liked it (actually, I loved it)

Because a lot of people--myself included--binged s1 in a single go, I think a lot of people came away from that (beautiful almost perfect) season of TV with a sense that it was just this continuous five-hour explosion of feelings-y goodness with a very clear thesis statement: Make The Audience Happy. But obviously there's a lot of complicated stuff being set up within those five hours of TV, with intentional dividing lines and transitions between the episodes. I know some people watched 2x1 and felt frustrated because it didn't "feel like Ted Lasso" but I didn't feel that way. What I did feel, by contrasting 2x1 with all of s1, is that the atmosphere in s1 wasn't so much an audience-centric feel-good make-em-laugh kind of thing so much as a reflection of the gradual feeling of settling into home as Ted finds his place in Richmond and at AFC Richmond and in letting go of things (marriage) for the first time, and Rebecca, who's majority owner of the damn club but doesn't have a place within it, goes on a parallel community-locating journey. So the intensely warm, comfortable, feelings-y viewing experience is really just a reflection of what it was feeling like for pretty much every character with the exception of Rupert and Bex to carve out a more comfortable, honest, warm place for themselves.

But the challenges of relegation, the specters of the past, the longing any character (any human) has for more, and the mental health issues that come along for the ride meant that 2x1 needed to feel uncomfortable. They create that atmosphere by riddling 2x1 with so many jokes and references that it feels chaotic, overstuffed. The football season isn't going horribly, but it's WEIRD, and everyone is uncomfortable, and Ted doesn't know how to deal with the discomfort within himself so he's relying on the things he knows: references, anecdotes, strung-together wisdom. He clearly plans the Hank-the-dog speech in advance of the press conference, and the tongue-in-cheek "wow, this is so profound" expressions on the journalists' faces are hilarious to me because it's like we're watching them react to a man who's about to lose it and is in the final moments of being able to control the narrative about his team before someone from the outside will have to come in.

I'm obsessed with a tag @ratherembarrassing put on a TL reblog: "This is a show of soliloquies." I loved Ted's manufactured yet thematically necessary speech. I loved that Rebecca basically blacks out at a coffeeshop and tells John all about the messages (harmful or at least profoundly still-in-progress) she's been processing about intimacy and safety. [Side note: it's so perfect that she's still afraid to feel safe. It's like, "If I feel safe, what am I missing about the situation that's going to come back to hurt me?" OOOOF.] I feel like these moments where characters kind of speechify and the audience matters but the audience also does not matter just reflect the overall atmospheric stuff the show does. Like, it's more important to make us feel how it feels than to construct a moment of hyper-realistic dialogue. I get why it can be jarring but I'm into it.

The dog. Welp. A dog died right away. The special effects looked weird. I love dogs, I'm not a monster, but I was also just...not emotionally torn up about Earl at all. It's a catalyst. It's a very quick way to kind of bloop the entire world of Ted Lasso into a skewed and uncomfortable place where these characters absolutely need to reside until they can figure out how to attend to their own mental health and healing with the same focus and compassion they apply to their friendships with other people.

I'm obsessed with how much everything is going to HURT. Like, Ted walked in and Rebecca said she wished he was Keeley and then she didn't start eating the biscuits right away?!?

The biscuits are such an emotional crutch in s1 and SO MUCH of Rebecca's headspace is taken up with destroying something Ted is starting to love, destroying Ted, but also being there for him and feeling seen by him in a truly unique way, so I kind of love the psychic shift here, where all this emotional stuff has happened between them but to move forward they're going to have to learn some new conversational skills. Like girl talk.

The nail polish. I love everyone. I love the nail polish. I love that Ted was late to practice because of it. I love how much he wants other people to need him because it's so clear that he got his feelings hurt like 30 times in 2x1 and doesn't even fully realize it.

I love Dr. Sharon Fieldstone. I love that everyone but Ted very clearly understands the value of having a sports psychologist around. I love that her introduction is not about having to sell the players on the fact that they should talk to someone, but rather about Ted's discomfort over his own leadership abilities and the conflict this could create. It's so good. I'm so excited about it.

Beard and Ted in the pub! All people are different people! Ahhhhhh! Thank God For Beard (TGFB). TGFB is probably going to be my personal motto while watching this season of adorable and emotionally wrenching and ambitious television.

OK, I feel better now that I have this chaotic list out of my brain and onto tumblr. Should that make me feel better? I do not know. I do know that I'll probably try to do this for every episode because watching it week by week is going to drive me insane and I would really like to have some kind of record of the distinct-to-episodes yet cumulative viewing experience before I'm able to take in the full season (and the full series so far) as a whole.

[cruelfeline]

I’ve been thinking about various aspects of SPoP, as I am wont to do, and as often happens, I’ve settled on trying to figure out why I feel a certain way. Namely regarding why I, personally, am able to feel so much more compassion towards Hordak rather than towards the Princesses. After all, the Princesses are the ones being wronged throughout this show, aren’t they? Their lands are being invaded. They’re the ones having to fight to maintain their way of life. They’re losing ground because of Hordak’s war.

So... why do I find it hard to care about them? Why are their experiences in this conflict just sort of... well, meaningless to me?

And why, instead, do my tender emotional responses strongly favor Hordak, despite his serious role in starting a terrible war?

Well! As per usual, I’m going to try to talk my way through it. 

(and, as per usual, your mileage may vary!)

Let’s start with the Princesses. They range from children to young adults. Seem like reasonably nice girls, despite various flaws. They clearly did not ask for a war, had no hand in starting it, and are clearly on the side of good, seeking to protect innocents and simply return to a peaceful way of life.

They appear perfectly designed to garner sympathy and connection... yet I feel so little for them. I feel little because, despite the show telling me that they’re fighting for their lives, and for their home, despite them being the apparent underdogs in their battle against the Horde, I feel like their lives remain relatively stable. Pleasant. Even enjoyable. 

Essentially, I feel like despite everything, they do not truly suffer. Not in a way that is consistent or touching. 

The arcs the Princesses go through either deal largely with matters unrelated to the war and subsequently involve less arduous difficulties, or are handled in such a way that any real pain is quickly resolved and loses its impact.

Frosta and Perfuma represent the former. Both are parentless rulers of their kingdoms, but there is no real confirmation that their parents were killed by the Horde, and they themselves seem largely unperturbed by parental loss. They maintain control of their kingdoms throughout the series. Frosta never loses the Kingdom of Snows, while Perfuma, though in brief danger of losing Plumeria due to damage to the Heart Blossom, ends up... well, defeating the Horde with a band of untrained hippies. So while they fight in the war against Hordak, they never really suffer any significant, confirmed personal losses because of it.

In fact, the Plumerian conflict is... kind of played for laughs.

The other aspects of their arcs have largely to do with friendship matters, or self-belief, and are also dealt with quickly and with little fanfare. Frosta learns how to make friends. Perfuma learns how to play with cacti. Afterwards, Frosta spends the remainder of the story essentially being a violence-happy little kid; amusing, yes, but not particularly tugging at my heartstrings. Perfuma likewise settles into “sympathetic friend” and, though she’s involved in Scorpia’s story at the end, also does little to invoke any sort of significant emotion. 

we’re just going to skirt around the whole “leashing Entrapta” thing, as it’s not relevant to this discussion

(Spinnerella and Netossa barely even register to me, given their very bare-bones roles in the first four seasons and standard “chipped loved one” narrative (that everyone experiences) in the fifth.) 

So, let’s move on to Glimmer and Mermista.

Glimmer and Mermista are arguably the two Princesses who actually lose unique things in the war and suffer because of those losses. And yet, because of the way the show is written, even their pain is dulled in such a way that it just does not facilitate me forming any sort of consistent, compassionate bond with them.

Mermista is the only Princess to actually lose a kingdom. In Hordak’s most visible evil act, Salineas is burned and beflagged, leading to Mermista deeply mourning the loss of her home, her culture, her peop- oh. Hm.

She takes it oddly well, doesn’t she? Apparently, ice cream in a bathtub is how deposed rulers deal with the loss of their entire country nowadays. 

And once she’s done with her moment of moping, she’s back in the fight, fueled by Sea Hawk’s shenanigans and her own power ballad (and Bright Moon’s lack of ice cream). There is no extended mourning for her people, no real depth to the loss she has supposedly suffered. There’s not even a real sense of it: we never see the people of Salineas, never know them, never get to feel anything for them. And with them being all but theoretical, the show appears to have no issue quickly forgetting them: Mermista never negotiates on their behalf, or visits refugees, or... anything. She might use Salineas in her future battle cries and as an excuse for increased recklessness, but that homage is the extent of emotion that we see.

Kingdom gone, bathtub ice cream finished, she goes on living life as if little has happened. And, because of her royal connections, she doesn’t even experience a decrease in quality of life: she continues to live in luxurious comfort despite an apparently raging war.

Because of how the writing handles Salineas, and her character in general, I never feel connected to how Mermista feels. Whatever pain she experiences is there and gone in a few scenes, quickly dealt with so the story can continue. There is no exploration, no nuance, nothing to really make me appreciate any sort of depth to her experience. And so I feel little, if anything, for her plight.

Glimmer, then, is the last chance the show has to make me feel something for the Alliance Princesses’ suffering during this war, and while season four nearly does it, the series again ends up falling short. 

Glimmer loses her mother. The actual sacrifice is emotional... though that emotion, admittedly, comes mainly from Adora. Glimmer’s pain comes through at the beginning of season four, when she is clearly in mourning all while needing to take Angella’s place as queen. Afterwards, season four does a fairly good job of making the loss meaningful: Glimmer becomes more and more willing to commit dark acts due to a mixture of grief and desperation. It works well, and out of all of the Princesses, I feel for her the most... until season five comes along and pretty much erases Angella from character consciousness.

Angella’s death essentially plays no role in season five. Glimmer does not appear to think back to it. While it drives her actions during season four, it appears to have been all but forgotten now, a particularly glaring shift when Catra, the one who is practically responsible, joins the group without it coming up at all. Glimmer’s other parental loss, Micah, likewise becomes meaningless not because of questionable writing choices, but because he simply never died.

Glimmer’s other problem, her rift with Bow and Adora, is repaired within an episode and never spoken of again. That... falls quite flat for me. 

And so, by the end of the series, Glimmer fails to maintain a believable level of distress and thus doesn’t invoke any real emotion in me. The one thing that really mattered, that really hurt her? Suddenly irrelevant in the name of Catra’s redemption. Hm.

And while these are the specific character examples that come to mind, the general situation the Princesses find themselves also fails to carry much weight in my mind. They are in the middle of a war, yet they continue to live in luxury. Skirmishes carry a sense of light-heartedness and sometimes seem almost fun. Battle plans are developed via a game of DnD. There is just no consistent sense of urgency or severity, no believable sense of emotional depth to convey to me that these characters are in truly dire straits. Yes, there are moments... but these moments are so brief, and carry such questionable lasting impact, that they don’t connect with me the way that they should. And as a result, the plight of the Princesses just feels hollow to me. 

I just... I just find myself unable to care about them because, when all is said and done, I don’t feel like they are truly in danger of real harm, or that they are realistically affected by their losses. It all just feels so shallow to me.

Now, let’s pivot and look at Hordak. Hordak, whom I still cry over on the daily. Hordak, who has owned my heart for over a year now. Hordak, who invokes in me all of the emotions. 

What is the difference between Hordak and the Princesses, other than the glaring fact that he is the instigator of the Etherian war and thus a bad, bad man? What makes him snap my heartstrings in half, while the Princesses barely manage a gentle tug?

The answer is that Hordak legitimately suffers. Terribly. Consistently. Throughout the entire series. While the Princesses experience brief moments of distress that the show quickly sweeps under the rug in favor of witty banter and friendship problems, Hordak is the direct opposite: he experiences only the occasional breath of happiness while otherwise drowning in a constant sea of bitterness, fear, pain, and deep unhappiness.  

From the moment we meet him, Hordak is stern and humorless and angry, and while this initially appears to be a side effect of him being a Standard Ultimate Villain Who Never Smiles, we quickly learn that it is due to his struggle. Hordak is constantly struggling against his physical defect, battling an illness that causes him not only significant health problems, but incredible shame. He is likewise constantly struggling to earn the respect and validation and nonexistent love of his god-brother. His sour demeanor, with all of its anger and dourness, originates in the fact that, throughout the overwhelming majority of the series, he is gravely unhappy. He is in ever-present distress, both physical and emotional. 

And as the series goes on, does that distress lessen? No. No, instead, he is rejected by his brother, thoroughly humiliated, and brutally “reset” back into his life as an actual cult slave. Rather than having his difficulties minimized like so many Princesses do, he finds himself in ever-worsening circumstances, graduating from (supposed) “disgraced, disabled military veteran” to “enslaved cultist desperate to be loved by his loveless master.”

Any moments of happiness are not only relatively brief, they are taken away as quickly as the Princesses’ moments of difficulty are. Hordak experiences love and friendship for the first time with Entrapta, only to swiftly lose her to Catra’s lies and spiraling madness. He finally begins to win the Etherian War (which is bad, yes, I know), only to realize that his victories stem from Catra’s betrayal before the whole affair culminates in Prime’s nauseating violation of his personhood.

It does not stop. Physically, mentally, or emotionally: not until his triumph over Prime in the season five finale does Hordak stop hurting, and even that is marred by Prime taking control of his body in a final act of nightmarish control before, bless him, Hordak is freed and able to begin his recovery.

In addition to being a series constant, Hordak’s pain is conveyed. It is dramatically shown through facial expressions, through body language, through phenomenal voice work, through scenes that clearly depict real anguish. 

The purification ritual is one of them; what other character do we hear scream like that, over and over, due to such terrible agony? His reunion with Prime is another; I will never forget how deeply I could sense his fear, how watching him tremble and beg instilled within me a sort of breathless panic because the scene actually made me want to instinctively protect him... but I could not because, y’know: cartoon. 

Hordak’s suffering is not only ever-present, it is varied and developed and communicated to the viewer in ways that result in it making a lasting impression. It is never minimized. It is never ignored. It is painful and horrifying with little reprieve, and it has a deep, life-altering effect on him.

That, friends and neighbors, is why I think I find myself feeling so much more compassion towards Hordak than I do towards the Princesses, despite his less-enticing place on the moral spectrum. Hordak is in pain. Consistently, meaningfully. He suffers, and the story takes it with every ounce of seriousness it can muster.

The Princesses, on the other hand, either experience little hurt or, when they do suffer, do so briefly before the narrative shoves it aside in favor of Catradora other things. As a result, they fail to make the same impression. They fail to garner my compassion because, in the end, they just don’t seem to really need it.

Whereas Hordak does.

[hopeymchope]

Parascientific Escape: The sci-fi “escape room” visual novel-style series nobody talks about

I can’t help thinking that Parascientific Escape would probably have an active fandom somewhere on the Internet if it wasn’t TRAPPED ON THE 3DS ESHOP.

I mean, it’s an escape room-centric visual novel-style sci-fi Japanese game that is clearly inspired by Zero Escape and very anime in its style. There are endearing characters, including optimal waifus/husbandos, plus a gradual buildup of an interesting fictional world full of political intrigue, its own countries, its own companies, and of course... psychic powers. Because you can’t have a trilogy of Japanese visual novel-style games featuring escape room puzzles without mental powers, now can you?

But as I said... they’re trapped as download-only titles for the 3DS. That’s fucking brutal. 

Even so, there’s a pretty big 3DS/2DS user base still in existence. It’s not like they’ve never been translated or something, so at least we have the capability to play them. So if you look into them, what are you getting?

A basic overview: Parascientific Escape is a trilogy of anime-style games about solving escape room mysteries and tracking down evildoers via the use of psychic powers (obvious Zero Escape influences). There’s an overarching plot about a mysterious mastermind who believes it’s time for the recently emerged psychics of the world to take their place as the next evolution of humanity and get their own nation (obvious X-Men influences).

They don’t work very well as standalone stories; each story relies on information from the last one, culminating in a game that stars the protagonists of both parts 1 and 2 together as they finally unravel the motivations behind the events of the whole series and face off with the people behind everything. In addition, the escape room puzzles start out pretty easy in the first game build to be pretty frustratingly obtuse by the tail end of the third. And on top of all that, each game taken on its own only contains about 3-4 escape rooms. So when you bundle all three together, that’s when it all works as a single satisfying package. 

Don’t worry about burning a lot of cash to play the whole series, however. The three games are $5.00 US each on the 3DS eShop and are usually on sale for $2.50 each these days. I got the entire trilogy for $7.50 US!

So let’s break down the gameplay and setup in a little more detail. Don’t worry; I won’t give any spoilers that go beyond the first five minutes of any game in the series. The twists and turns are part of the fun here.

The first game is Parascientific Escape: Cruise in the Distant Seas. You play as  Hitomi Akeneno, a high school girl (because of course she’s a high-schooler) with the dual abilities of mild telekinesis and a type of clairvoyance that lets her peer past barriers or into the insides of objects. She finds herself trapped on a sinking cruise ship where some mastermind keeps systematically locking her into isolated sections while she’s trying desperately to escape. 

I really liked how you could look inside of an object with clairvoyance and then use her telekinesis to manipulate the various switches and levers within, gradually pulling some object you need out from within a maze. I also thought it was clever how the solution to a new escape roomight require you to backtrack to a previous escape room to investigate some object or area that wasn’t relevant to that previous room’s original puzzle. 

(One of the things I found most fascinating about this one is the ethical debate raised by Hitomi’s friend Chisono regarding how Hitomi got herself involved in all this. Chisono offers a perspective that is extremely unusual to see in most fiction. You can even say it’s pretty cold, but it’s not without having some merit to it. I don’t want to say too much about what I’m talking about, though; it’s better left as a surprise.)

The second title, Parascientific Escape: Gear Detective, almost seems standalone at first. You play as Kyosuke Ayana, a private detective and actual adult (!) who is 22 years old. A young woman shows up at his office and asks to hire him for protection. See, there’s a serial killer on the loose, and she believes she’s the next target.

We are swiftly told that Kyosuke was once in an accident that necessitated the replacement of his left arm and right eye. He volunteered to be a guinea pig for some very special prosthetics that granted him artificial psychic powers. As such, he now has “chronokinesis” — to the power to look back in time. However, he can only look back for five days, and he only has limited ability to move or manipulate the things he sees in the past. 

Naturally, Kyosuke’s investigation winds up trapping him within some escape rooms that require use of his unique abilities to solve. Some of the hints at the proper timestamps or exactly where you should be looking when you peer into the past are a little vague, though, which can cause momentary frustration. Because I like to always be making forward progress, I actually preferred Hitomi’s telekinesis/clairvoyance powers from the first game. Still, Hitomi had some pretty basic puzzles in her rooms. I can’t deny that these puzzles took more thought.

Outside of the escape rooms,  everything is undeniably a huge improvement. The first game presented strictly linear segments of storytelling between the rooms, but this one is more of an adventure game. You can choose where you go, select from a limited menu of things to do when you get there, and do all of it in any order you like. There’s usually a correct sequence order to progressing the story, but it’s typically pretty clear what the next step is, so it’s not like you’re just flailing about and trying a bunch of locations blindly. Besides, there’s no way to get stuck, so don’t stress it. There are even a lot of actions you can take that have no impact on story progression at all — they’re just there to generate additional dialogue that further develops the characters. 

The tradeoff is that you actually get fewer escape rooms overall. The first game had four, but the second only contains three. This is also the first game in the series to introduce multiple endings; you get a number of dialogue choices throughout, and unfortunately, it’s far too easy to trigger the “bad” ending. There are guides online to help you trigger the Gold Star “true” ending, however. Just hit up GameFAQs. You might want to use the guide on your first playthrough, because I can say from experience that it’s annoying to have to replay all the dialogue sections just to make the correct choices. (Luckily, you can skip over any irrelevant sections of each chapter — including the escape room puzzles.) 

In spite of my above whining, the second one is probably my single favorite story in the Parascientific trilogy. It’s a lot of fun.

The final game in the trilogy is Parascientific Escape: Crossing at the Farthest Horizon. Mysterious characters who were plotting offscreen for the previous two games are finally given faces, locations that were talked about extensively in both are finally visited, and the two protagonists of the first couple games finally meet and team up. It’s absolutely a culmination of what they set up in the first two.

The narrative jumps around from the perspectives of many different characters, but the most time is undoubtedly spent with Hitomi and Kyosuke. Sadly, there is no gameplay usage of Hitomi’s powers this time; the escape rooms are all done with Kyosuke, and they are more devious now than ever before. Personally, I found the next-to-last one to be incredibly obtuse and frustrating. I ultimately had to consult a video playthrough on YouTube for that. (The YouTuber in question didn’t seem to have the same issues figuring things out that I did. So I guess your mileage may vary.)

The “adventure game” segments make a return here as well, although they’ve also become a bit tougher to figure out. There are a couple of times when you might find yourself wandering the various location options, clicking on every possible action to try and progress. Luckily, there aren’t so many default options that you’re left flailing for very long. Even the longest period of clueless wandering lasted me a maximum of 15 minutes.

Once again, you have to make the correct dialogue choices if you want a positive ending. And once again, GameFAQs is your friend and co-pilot.

Ultimately, even the gated endings and occasional puzzle frustrations did little to curb my enthusiasm. I really had fun with these characters and their stories, I greatly enjoyed the majority of the escape rooms, and I was pretty satisfied with how it all wrapped up. The character designs/artwork get better and better as the series goes on. The selection of music tracks may be the same throughout the whole series, but I really dug on them, so I can’t complain. Do I have any other misgivings? Well, just one; the English localization is pretty sloppy. There are a pretty large number of typos, and the dialogue can sound stilted and awkward at times due to being a direct translation. It’s actually at its worst at the start of the first game. Luckily, after about 30 minutes of playtime, it settles in and finds its voice.

Seriously, they should really figure out a way to re-package these games for another system that doesn’t use the the dual-screen setup. Put all three of them together, and it’d easily be satisfying as a full retail release!

But for now, if you have a 3DS/2DS, they’re only $7.50 in total most of the time (and $15.00 at the worst). Do you like adventure game-style mysteries and visual novel-esque progression and, of course, escape rooms? You should give these a shot! And I hope these devs get to make games with bigger budgets and better localizations in the future.

[the-music-maniac]

I got sucked back into Ever After High, so hoo boy get ready for a long ass analysis about a ship

Did I mean to get sucked into Rapple? Uh, no. Fuck no. I usually make it a point not to sell my entire soul to small fandoms because the inevitable lack of fics will just break my heart. But here we are.

I'm low key distressingly neutral about the canon/popular ships for Ever After High. Namely Dexter x Raven and Apple x Darling. I have absolutely nothing against them, cause they’re both really adorable. I don’t know if appling is canon actually but it is strongly hinted at, and while I’m ecstatic that there’s some form of lgbt rep (however small), and that Dexter isn’t sadboi anymore cause he’s with Raven, I’ve always just liked Apple x Raven way more.

I guess I’m posting this cause I want to analyze why I like Rapple specifically? This isn’t meant to attack either of these ships or shippers in any way btw! This is just my personal opinion, I just felt the need to mention dexter x raven and apple x darling cause they are (for the most part) canon. :))

Tbh i really didn't mean to make such a gigantic analysis about this, but I got carried away lmao.

1. Rapple has a lot of narrative tension and weight:

I feel like rapple has more narrative weight as a ship then most I’ve seen in the Ever After High fandom. These two characters are undeniably the focal point of the story, and while all characters in the show have backstories and well developed characterizations, Raven and Apple are the "leaders" and the main main characters.

Raven with Apple could make for a really a complex and interesting storyline. After all,  Ever After High is ALL about breaking free of your pre-determined destiny, it would be the perfect twist in the story for Apple to fall for Raven and vice versa. There's so much more to write with that kind of turn in the story; the growth of a relationship, character development, the backlash they might recieve from a hero and villain together, fighting what everyone else tells them they should be. Honestly if we're gonna go there, it kind of mirrors what lgbt people have to go through on the daily. In my eyes, appling and dexter x raven (I'm sorrryyy I don't know the proper ship name) pales a bit in comparison, just in the amount of weight they carry (not that it HAS to have narrative weight to be a good cute ship of course).

Darling for Apple is also unconventional and a plot twist, cause it no longer follows the stereotypical hetero-normative fairy-tale, and I absolutely ADORE Darling as a character, but in the end she is still a Charming. Apple is still pre-destined to fall for a Charming, she's still following what her destiny tells her she should be, and while that's good on one hand, cause Apple wants to follow her destiny, I feel like when she pulled Raven back from the brink in Wonderland, she realized that destiny is not so set in concrete and what matters more is the people behind those destinies. I think Rapple would really drive in that point; destiny or no destiny that’s not what matters. So while appling does have some narrative tension as well, it doesn’t make me gleefully go “oh my god FUCK, you wonderful DISASTERS, now you’ve gone and done it. Now you've fucking stepped in it. AMAZING.”, y’know? Dexter and Raven is the exact opposite.  Destiny-wise it's pretty unique and frowned upon, but again, heterosexual romance (not that I expect all the characters to be lgbt, that's not what I'm saying) so it also doesn't hold as much weight as Rapple. I'm greedy ok? I want both. I want aspects of both. Maybe I'm just a shit-stirrer though lmao, maybe I just need a ship that fucking destroys all expectations and fucks shit up in the process XDD. It's possible *shrugs*

2. The amount of growth they go through together.

So it's pretty undeniable that Apple at the beginning is....um. Selfish, if we're gonna go with mild language. Kind of a bitch if we're gonna go with stronger language. She doesn't give a shit that Raven will have a horrible life if she follows her destiny, all she cares about is her part of the story and her happy ending. But the thing is, Apple doesn't stay like that. She becomes Raven's roommate and friend, and when it really came down to it, during the Wonderland part of the story, even though Apple is the one who gives Raven the book, she doesn't push and shows her support in thinking that Raven is too good to become the evil queen. And then when Raven was almost lost, Apple is the one who pulled her back and told her to choose who she wants to be. She let go of her need for Raven to be evil and saw her as her own person; someone she cares about deeply. Raven on the other hand starts off unsure and kind of insecure. She was still figuring herself out, and trying to resist what everyone is trying to tell her; that she has to be evil. I feel like through her personal growth and Apple's influence she starts to be more settled, confident. And Apple's support before and after she signed her storybook in wonderland definitely helped. This mutual growth actually brings me to my next point:

3. Rapple has a very strong basis for a relationship

So there's a definite reason why I love the concept of enemies to friends to lovers SO MUCH, and despite what people say, no it's not just because of UST (i mean that's a bonus but far from the only reason). What I care about is again, the mutual GROWTH.

What enemies to lovers does (healthy enemies to lovers btw, rivalries and stuff, not abusive shit) is force the two people to confront the worst parts of each other first and foremost. Meeting someone for the purpose of dating/because you like them means you'll put up a fake, mellower version of yourself to impress them, but there's none of that if you start off hating each other. Clashing is also often because of some underlying issue or sometimes because of a weakness in character; there's numerous reasons, pettiness, unhappiness, jealousy, anger, but it's never because everything is perfect. This means that, in order for these two characters who dislike each other to end up together in any capacity, they have to grow as people first, become better versions of themselves, and in the process they help each other achieve that. They also have to learn each other and let go of whatever was nagging them and compromise. It takes work and I love that, so much more than just a kiss to fall in love, or love at first sight or any of that fairytale stuff. Because that’s exactly it, relationships take work. It takes people repeatedly choosing to stay and work things out, and compromising, and that’s, in pure essence, exactly what you’re doing in enemies to lovers. Not only that, but it means they willingly choose the other person despite their setbacks, because god knows they're not the easiest option, means they see the worst in each other and want each other anyways.

Raven and Apple already have that set up in Ever After High, the only difference is, canonically, they're only friends (which honestly is just as good, not everything needs to be romance but this is a shipping analysis, so, I’m gonna stay on brand here). They disagree with each other, and they annoy each other, and they fight sometimes and they're still best friends despite it all. They really truly know each other, and that I feel like is such a strong basis for a relationship. Other than Maddie, I don't think Raven truly is as close to anyone else as she is to Apple, and the same goes in reverse. They even live together. *leans forward creepily* oh my god they were roommates.

I don't know, I just feel like, with other Raven and Apple ships, there's always a hint of potential for a relationship that the show and books never really explored or developed extensively, while Rapple already has these solid af steel foundations that could be built on and made into something amazing.

4. We know the most about Apple and Raven respectively

This is a rather minor detail, and more about me personally, but I'm the kind of person that has to really know a lot about characters in order to ship them. I also have to like both characters but I feel like that's kind of a given for shipping. If I know very little about the characters involved I lose interest. I know the most about Raven and Apple, we follow them closely throughout the series, and in the books, we see things from their viewpoints. In contrast, I just don't know as much about Darling or about Dexter.

5. I just find them cute as shit tbh

This is pretty self explanatory, they're just plain adorable. Something about them makes my heart go squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Oof this turned out WAYYY longer than I intended it to be, but anyways, stan rapple- or don’t y’know, stan appling or dexter x raven, or whatever other ships, stan ALL the other ships, ship anything and everything you want, be happy. I’ve been writing this ever since I finished my physio midterm and got this analysis idea that wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone so now my eyeballs feel like they’re about to fall out of my head, I’m gonna go pass out now, peace.

[old-daemon-farts]

Daemonism Survey

I wanted to see if I could summarize my experience. I know I have long winded thoughts on many of these subjects. Figured others may enjoy reading my answers. Survey found at the bottom.

What is a dæmon to you? The subconscious speaking through inner monologues.

What makes a dæmon, a dæmon? A daemon provides a positive change in their person while also intrinsically being a part of who they are and their identity. You cannot have one without the other. I feel this being needs to be tied to the subconscious (or soul) and will use our inner monologue to communicate.

I am of the belief many different beings can play the role of a daemon. Tulpa, alters, other headmates, and spirits can match these qualifications. "Daemon" has always felt more like a job title or other very personal labels like pronouns or familial titles like "daughter" or "father". I think daemons can stem from too many things and how they connect within the mind to say for sure what is and is not a daemon.

What does dæmonism mean to you? Daemonism is cultivating our inner-self to be a companion who supports us, and in doing so we are learning how to support ourselves.

What is the purpose of dæmonism? To provide a healthy mindset. Can be focused on mental health or cognitive thinking. A healthy mindset for one may be self-improvement; for another it may be companionship and self-compassion; or perhaps they just need someone to help recall information. What daemonism is varies from person to person but to me the base line is you get into daemonism seeking something you feel is going to improve something about your life.

What is/are your dæmon(s) like? What is your dæmon's personality like? What are their likes and dislikes? This is the space for anything you want to share about how your dæmon behaves, thinks and feels! Thats a lot to put. So I will place what may make them different from other daemons. They are very self-focused on me. No matter their personality its always focused around what is best for me. What needs to be done for me. Their world revolves around me and they do not question nor hate it.

How did you meet your dæmon(s)? Inspired by His Dark Materials. Finished the 3rd book, tried to see my daemon, he laughed and the rest is history. I thought we were the only human/daemon pair at the time.

What is/are your dæmon(s)? Dæmons can be many things; a gateway to the subconscious, a personification of your conscience, the other half of your internal dialogue, a spiritual entity, or many other things besides. What is the nature of your dæmon? They are me. They are how I connect to my inner self/subconscious. At the moment they are a gateway rather than the full personification of my subconscious. Please see the answer for "how they are connected to me" for more examples.

What is/are your dæmon's gender(s), and how do they relate to and differ from your own? Mostly female. I use to think my daemons gender was my opposite, then I though I was the outcome of their genders, then I thought their gender supported my own. Now I think it just is another outcome of what my brain needed to be happy and healthy, and while my daemons genders never change future daemons may be influenced by the same factors.

How autonomous is/are your dæmon(s)? How independent and free-thinking is your dæmon; how much do they rely on you in order to exist and function? Autonomy is an illusion. Myself and my daemons will always be influenced by my subconscious and factors surrounding us. Their identities rely on my focus but who they are at the core and how they function is thoughtless. I can personify my heart and it can grow independent but as soon as I stop talking to my heart it doesn't stop beating. It just returns to what it was prior and continues its constant task of keeping the body going without needing any thought on the matter.

How is/are your dæmon(s) connected to you? Subconscious, inner monologues, and even intrusive thoughts. Anima/animus. ID/Ego/Super Ego/ Shadow, split-brain ... Basically if there is a term for connecting with any inner part of yourself or piece of our mind my daemons encompass or build upon that.

How do your dæmon(s) differ from you? They are very goal oriented and driven involving my life and health.

What are the similarities between you and your dæmon(s)? They reflect key parts of myself (good, bad, and desired). We all like and dislike similar things, look for similar things in life and friendship, share taste in fashion, food, and entertainment. Only time things vary are when my daemons reflect an extreme. Like Tess who loves physical activity. I'm not a fan of exercise or sports but I wish I was and so does my body and mind. So her favorite activities are not mine by choice but I know on a subconscious level I need to enjoy these more. There is always a connection so there will always be similarities.

How have your dæmon(s) changed since you first met them? They have changed as much as myself, as they grow the very same as I do effected by my surroundings and experiences. Cayde started just as childlike as myself and grew into an adult. My more recent daemons started based around emotions or specific traits and then grew to be far more complex. This is the nature of living, remaining static is nearly impossible.

Can your dæmon(s) front? Fronting: taking primary control of the physical body. I believe with practice they can but since they have very strong opinions about fronting will refrain from doing so. We have co-fronted to allow my daemon to speak louder and to use "mind-over-matter" to stop pain. But during co-fronting there is no physical control. It is only causing a shift in where my daemon lies on my consciousness.

What are your dæmon form(s)? They have many. Both animal and human.

What do your dæmon form(s) mean to you? Some represent who I am on a subconscious level, a deeply analyzed level, and a more surface level.

How did you find your dæmon form(s)? Some through created systems, others through daemon's choice, and one picked completely out of my or my daemon's control.

What do your dæmon form(s) say about your personality, if anything? One describes my behavior and how I interact with others. The other portrays how I am seen and my narrative in life.

How does your dæmon feel about their form(s)? They love all of them and the more meaning behind a form the prouder they are taking it.

What does it mean for a dæmon's form to be settled? Represents who I (or they) are for a set moment in time. Finding and being content with who we are and our identity.

What kind of forms has your dæmon taken in the past? A variety, mostly animals.

How did your dæmon(s) get their name(s)? Chosen together or they picked one they liked.

What do your dæmon(s) names mean to you? Not much. One of my daemons shares my name which is pretty cool but there is little meaning behind everyone's name.

Has your dæmon's name ever changed? If so, feel free to elaborate! Yes! My first daemon has gone through 3 name changed. First one didn't fit right, second lasted years but he got tired of seeing other people with it, so now he's on his third.

How did you first learn about dæmonism? I learned about daemons through His Dark Materials and daemonism through The Daemon Page.

What motivated you to try dæmonism? Loved the companionship daemons gave in the books

Has your experience of dæmonism changed since you first discovered it? If so, how? I take it far more seriously now as a tool for mental health and self-awareness. I just wanted a unique friend that was a talking animal in the beginning.  

How do your dæmon(s) affect and influence your everyday life? Hm, its so hard to say after living over half my life with one. But I'd say they influence my day just by helping me process everything?

How has dæmonism helped you? My daemons have taught me self-love, self-worth, pride, and acceptance.

What does the dæmian community mean to you? They are my home. Sometimes you leave home, and sometimes family upsets you, but you still feel drawn back no matter where you wander. The community is a family I have chosen and I will always feel a part of.

The survey this came from can be found here “ Daemon Survey “. If you are interested in sharing your thoughts please consider completing it, I know the creator would greatly appreciate it.

[mircallablue]

So, in the wake of BeauJesters seeming passing, I’m going to take a moment to be more than a little self-indulgent and explain why I love these characters and their unique dynamic so goddamn much, as well as why I’m so disheartened by the way the show seems to be taking them. Warning: essay ahead lol. This is just a rambly rant that I’m writing because it’s cathartic to vent a little bit of frustration, and I love these characters so much. (and I love the entire cast, every goddamn one, and every other character in the show too. This is about love, not hate). 

So, for a few brief and wonderful episodes in this campaign, I actually believed that I was being told a love story about falling in love with your best friend, and figuring out your sexuality, while also unlearning all of the untrue lessons that the world taught you about love while you were growing up, and in so doing, finding value in yourself. Which, for me personally, is just super relatable. Like, that ticks every damn box I have lol, which partly explains why I love BeauJester so much, and I know a lot of B/J shippers feel the same. I’ve shipped B/J from super early on, but I never in a million years really believed it would happen, for a lot of reasons. Mostly homophobia, biphobia and heteronormativity. But I enjoyed their dynamic nonetheless, even though I thought (and was often TOLD by other shippers) that it didn’t stand a chance in hell of happening. 

So you can imagine how VALIDATING it was when Marisha, both in character and out of game, confirmed that Beau had very significant romantic feelings for Jester. All of the crumbs we’d collected over the course of the campaign were finally coming together and all of the gaslighters who told us we were delusional suddenly had to acknowledge that there was something there. And once it had been acknowledged, it was OBVIOUS. Omg it was so obvious and I loved every second of it. It was so undeniable for the next few episodes, and in hindsight, that there was something building there between them, there was potential. There was definitely a connection between these two characters. And for a few weeks, it was great. 

Then Liam - out of character - mentions that Caleb is in love with Jester. And it is immediately, fandom wide, treated with more respect than Marisha and Beau. 

I know a lot of people get very very angry when this is brought up, but it is just the ugly, unfortunate reality that a lot of people in this fandom treat Jester like a manic pixie dream girl. Even the people who do not consciously believe her to be that (and I don’t think there are many that genuinely believe it), are perfectly fine /treating her/ like one, as long as it serves one of the straight men that they love so much, usually Caleb. And this is where the heteronormativity comes in. Because even though it was an out-of-game confession with no bearing on canon, Calebs feelings immediately took precedence over Beaus in terms of the fandom narrative. 

I personally have never liked the way Liam handles romance in game. He did pretty much the exact same thing in campaign 1 as well, where his sad boy pines after the happy girl from afar until he’s uncontrollably in love with her, and then with no warning he drops it like a bomb. He just happened to drop it out of game this time. The main reason I don’t like this style of romance is because of how (unintentionally) manipulative it is. You see it in bad romcoms all the time. The guy makes a public declaration of love that pressures the girl into reciprocating or looking like the bad guy. But the main reason I don’t like /this particular/ declaration is the timing. 

Liam - who has always said he likes things to come out in game - inexplicably decides out of game reveal something as major as Caleb being in love with Jester, right after Marisha IN GAME took steps towards Beau and Jester being together. And it completely changed the narrative. Suddenly it was “top table top table”, and that's if Beaus feelings ever got mentioned at all. It was not at all helped by the fact that a lot of cast members (sam) still pushed Fjorester HARD, even with Jester telling Nott to stop, which must have sucked for Marisha/Beau. But even as recently as episode 99, Beau was still flirting with Jester, and there were definite hints at Jester maybe having unacknowledged feelings for Beau.

Then the hiatus happened. When we return, Beau is throwing herself at Yasha, and there’s not even a song for Jester on her playlist.  And then Travis reveals (also out of game, like Liam) that Fjord has feelings for Jester (in a playlist heavily curated by known fjorester, Dani Carr). And even /that/ is treated with more weight by some fans than Beaus in canon confession. And Yasha is having all of these super convenient dreams where Zuala tells her its ok to move on, and Beau and Jester are barely speaking. And now Beau is calling Yasha her GIRLFRIEND? WHAT??? Did I miss 20 secret episodes that aired during hiatus or something???? Beau and Yasha have still, in 107 episodes, only had ONE meaningful conversation and yet their relationship is being treated as deep and inevitable. Sure, you can read into their other interactions if you want. But as a queer person, I am sick to death of my love needing to be represented as subtext.

And so it has become pretty clear that the cast has decided out of game to go in a different direction. And of course they are well within their right to do that. But I just can’t help feeling incredibly disheartened, and again, more than a little bit gas-lighted. It really does seem as if Beaus' feelings for Jester have just been scrubbed from canon - as if they never even happened. All, seemingly, to make way for a typical happy-girl-sad-guy relationship with either Fjord or Caleb, and a typical pair-the-spares barely-any-depth relationship between the two out lesbians because its easy.

For the entirety of campaign 2, BeauJester has been treated as one thing - inconvenient. Inconvenient by the fans, who prefer other ships and have treated BeauJesters terribly, and now it seems, inconvenient by the cast, who have seemingly discarded it and scrubbed it from canon. 

And one thing that really upsets me is the amount of genuine viciousness and vitriol coming from (some) BeauYasha shippers. I really wish BeauYasha was something I could get on board with, I do. And a lot of people who are sending me hate seem to assume I don’t want them to end up together. But I would be fine with that. But as it stands, they’ve literally only had one real conversation in 107 episodes, and they’re calling each other girlfriend? While literally having not spoken about anything like that? While one of those characters is supposed to have canon romantic feelings for another woman? Imagine that situation with any other characters and it would be comical.

I swear, the queer ladies in this fandom have been done dirty. All of us. Imagine if, in campaign one, Grog and Keyleth, in episode 107, started calling each other boyfriend/girlfriend in the middle of a battle. (I picked those two because they probably had the fewest moments together of any VM pairing). That’s pretty much what happened here, and we’re supposed to like it - be grateful, even - because it’s wlw rep? And I swear, the number of times I’ve been called lesbophobic in the last month is absurd - all because I’m not comfortable with a canon lesbians canon feelings being swept under the rug. All because I want wlw relationships to be allowed to have the same depth and growth as the straight ones. Yes, even if that relationship is B/Y. We should not settle for less. Imagine if they had done this with any other character's canon feelings for another. People would be angry.

And I know there are going to be a lot of people saying “It’s their game, they can do what they like”. 

True. I never said otherwise. But it is also a show. It is a product. They sell merch. It is something that they have taken the time and the steps to make sure that we care about. And this is what that looks like. 

I know what happened here isn’t technically queerbaiting, but damn if it doesn’t cut the same.

[cyberfairyblog]

Why Jillian Sucks

Hi, welcome to Odyssey Mystery Hour! I'm your host @gritsandbrits and today I'll be talking about a hot topic in the AIO fandom! Wanna know the tea? Keep on reading!

In the weeks I started getting back into the radio series, the newer episodes have started to irk me, mostly because of one of the more annoying additions: Jillian. Marshall. 😬😬😬

Even though I ship Jason with my self insert OC this not going to be about her. There's a lot of reasons why I do NOT like the idea of Jillian x Jason becoming a canon thing on the show. I hope to describe these feelings as best I can.

Who is Jillian you might ask?

Well to put it simply, Jillian is what happens when a Soccer Mom and a TikTok boyfriend mate and spawn an unholy baby and name them Rachel Berry. Out of the aspects of Nu!Odyssey I dislike, Jillian is the one thing I truly despise. Thankfully I've met fans who share the exact sentiment! 😁😒

Double-N Annoying, Double-O Nincompoop

Making her debut in 2018, Jillian is described as lively and upbeat, if a little high strung and immature; the perfect recipe for Kid Appeal! Before she moved to Odyssey she lived in different cities and worked nineteen jobs before becoming roommates with Connie and her sister Jules.

Now this is actually a fairly interesting set up: a new character struggling to find purpose only to discover it in a quaint small town. But as it turns out her going through that many jobs seems to be more than just struggling to find purpose.

When I first saw her design my thought immediately went to the smarmy classmates I went to school with.

We're introduced with this iconic line: "Hi!! I'm Jillian Marshall, double-L Jillian, double-L Marshall! It's so nice to meet you!"

With that one sentence I knew I was about to die.

The following episode has Jillian bumbling through every job interview much to Connie's duress after which she conveniently ending up working at Triple J Antiques...the same place Jason works!

A little backstory on Jason: he is the adult son of John Whittaker, one of the show's main character, and a bit of an Ensemble Darkhorse. He was introduced as a secret agent meant to bring action and intrigue into the show. He was set up as a charismatic and reckless sort of guy clashing with the calmer Jack Allen. After the Green Ring Conspiracy Saga, Jason officially retired from James Bonding and settled down to work at the Allen's antique shop.

Given his immense popularity there's understandable concern for how he is written and who he gets paired up with. So what does that have to do with Jillian.

Well, the idea of Jillian working at the same exact place as Odyssey's resident bachelor and calling him cute raises a few eyebrows.

"B-but Grits all she did was call him cute! You're reaching too far into this!"

Am I? Look I know this wouldn't be much of a big deal too but that is a subtle tactic the writers threw in to get the cogs turning for Jillison. Jason is clearly uninterested and even implied to dislike her. Jillian bemoans this but Connie reassures her that that's not the case. But hey at least she called him cute so OF COURSE she's going to end up being his love interest!

To me removing a character's core trait to justify a romance means you do NOT know how to actually write a compelling romance. It's trite, it's forced and painful to listen to.

It's also obvious she's a replacement for Bernard, given they have similar personalities and her brief stint on TV (which she also failed at lol). But whereas Bernard was actually endearing, Jillian seems more of a cliche womanchild with zero self awareness and tact. No actual depth, just a personality that is incredibly dumbed down and even insulting. Seriously they made her the dumb blond stereotype in an era where we should've moved on from that! 🤦

Did I mention she goes to church?

Yep she's gonna be one of those Christians.

Literally Loveless, Literally!

Oddly enough the narrative frames this as a rivals to lovers thing, where Jason is both the charismatic friendly guy and the super uninterested Straight Man. The constant twisting the turning makes him go OOC. See we know he's fit better as the former because that goes in line with his canon personality. But when they make him the latter he just comes off as unnecessarily mean. This is turns frames Jillian as someone we should pity: "Oh the attractive male doesn't like me because I went into his office without permission!!"

Wouldn't it make more sense for Jillian to be the one uninterested in a romance since her focus in to find a job/better purpose and romance might distract her? That would make a fun subplot...IF SHE WASN'T OBNOXIOUS!

A pattern I noticed and several fans pointed out: Jason's previous love interests were consistent in that they were strong minded women who challenged him in different ways. Their personalities bounced off creating a fun dynamic that was entertaining to see. Even though they didn't end up with him, you can still see and hear and feel their chemistry which is my goal for Jason x OC. Tasha doesn't make Jason OOC & they had a bittersweet arc, so their interactions were organic. Monica only made him OOC because she was a villain actively manipulating him. So again that worked in terms of story and led to Monica's redemption if my memory serves.

However, Jillian's dynamic is not that fun to listen to. You can feel her annoying Jason through the airwaves. She's strong but only in the sense of feeling something hard underneath your back laying on the bed and realizing that's just your earbud. She's vibrant yes but what else? She doesn't have any unique traits to contrast Jason, and any attempt at a contrast would mean making him act out of character. Adding her bumbling clumsiness and annoying voice, Jason would get tired of her very quickly. He's the type to go for people to have intelligent conversations with, not make him lose braincells. She could very well bring out the worse in him, it'll be an unhealthy relationship.

Here's a tidbit worth mentioning: the VA for Jillian actually auditioned with Jason's VA Townsend Coleman. Now that is big ass red flag right there! No hate towards the actress, just throwing that out there. There's also a facebook page dedicated to Jillison. Typical FB stupidity ramped up to eleven, or AIO fans who see something in Jillian; or at least THINk they see something worthwhile in her.

It doesn't help the writers keep insisting that these two go well together. The audience knows they do not work well as a pair but the narrative keeps insisting they are anyways. I recall an episode that had them pretend to be married while undercover and it was bad. Like REALLY humiliating to see Jason put in that position. He also told her to shut up much to my joy because she could NOT stop being irritating for five minutes. Alas the show still tries to justify Jillian being the Perfect Woman for Jason when she's anything but. And not even endearingly imperfect.

Follow Up

These tags I wrote on one of the AIO posts describes how I feel about Villain Marshall and the Jillison coupling as a whole. It just wouldn't work because Jason needs someone that can actually CHALLENGE him, have their own personality that can bounce off his (without being forced), and most importantly DOESN'T AGGRAVATE THE FANDOM!!

I have not met a single person anywhere that say they like Jillian. It's a different story apparently on the Club App - they like her for reasons I'm too cowardly to find out. But no, she sucks as a character. She makes a annoying friend, and is not a good addition to the show, much less a good love interest.

The only good thing she brought us are the nicknames we gave her 😌

That's all for now thank you for tuning into the Odyssey Mystery Hour. Next week I'll be talking a bit more about my OC Vanessa and her role in the world of Odyssey! Goodbye and make sure to lock your doors to prevent Jillian from coming in!!