#I'm sorry about this being so long...

[3456boidone]

in love with your sonic ocs. theyre specific to the underground universe yeah? what are their names? what are their stories? and whats their relationship with each other like?

I'm so happy you like them!! :D Now for the answers

What are their names?

Currently I'm trying to figure it out, but I do know what I want for the names; Artemis, Diana, Callisto,Phoebe and Selene.

I'm leaning towards naming the Daughter, Artemis and the Mom, Selene. So I'll be calling them that for the rest of this post. Unsure if this will stuck for the rest.

What's their relationship with eachother like?

Their relationship is the rebellious teen and the worried parent.

Artemis would run out into the woods as kid and find a monster of sorts to slay and get the honor of their people. And Selene would look all over for her. Then when Artemis would get home she would be scolded by Selene, as punishment as making her worry, Artemis would have to help out with chores.

When Artemis got older (in her teen years) Selene let her help with making gov decisions. Artemis and Selene's idea of a perfect city are very veryyyy different.

Selene thinks that peace, advising technology, making trades with other cities, and making big changes to tradition is important and makes a perfect city. Artemis on the other hand, wants to honor tradition, and making things stay the same is far more important that anything else. She also wants to be the most feared empress in all of mobus. Artemis is pretty much the embodiment of old roman ideas and values, while Selene is has similar ideas to Roman Scholars. This of course causes fights, but that doesn't mean they don't get along. In fact they have a pretty good relationship. Selene loves helping Artemis train for Olympics, and Artemis lives for helping out mom govern the city. They both respect one another, even though their points of view clash.

But also because of their very different view the people of Mobupinchu start picking sides, I'll get into it bet more in detail later.

Are they specific to the sonic underground universe?

Not really. Mobupinchu is from Sonic underground, but this is like an alternate version of the universe. The universe is like the Saturday AM Cartoon, where princess Sally leads the Freedom fighters.

Mobupinchu it's self is old destroyed Roman city.

It's people praised the moon, and the sun. They city has Greek and Roman architecture. All over the city there are morning glory flowers and symbols of the sun and moon.

They also have many stories, myths, and legends, most where the current mobains don't know is they're true or not, the current mobains have come to agree that most aren't true.

One of their myths is that there's a temple that holds a fruit that can cure everything from any sickness. (This one is important)

Moon represents nature, the hunt, the Olympics , and women. While the Sun represents civilization, medicine and sickness, and men.

The people speak the normal mobus language and Latin.

They live in a Matriarchy, where it also rules like a Monarchy. (They have only had one emperor ever, and he was okay he really didn't do much.) Artemis and Selene are the rulers, making Selene the Empress and Artemis is the Princess. They also have a court system for those convicted of crimes. The person convicted doesn't have to go to trial if they can prove their honor in a quest, but typically not done because it's basically a death sentence, and it's only occasionally done by people who really really want (and typically are) innocent.

But basically everyone else likes Selene and they kinda like Artemis, but they all think if Selene is ever poisoned or killed, Artemis probably did it.

What is their story?

Remember how I mentioned that the people start picking sides on how the city should be governed? Well, there are small group who basically made a cult about Artemis without her knowing. The cult hates Selene, and want her gone.

Well, one day Selene gets poisoned, she doesn't die she just becomes very ill. And everyone thinks it was Artemis, in reality it was one of the cult members. So Artemis is put in trail, of course the cult starts freaking out and causing riots, (remember that myth, told you it was important) and Artemis says she'll go to the temple and get the cure and bring it back to cure her mother.

Artemis then goes on her quest, with a few guards who are fully convinced she did poison Selene, so they hatch a plan to leave her out the wild and come back to Mobupinchu, where they'll tell everyone she got punished by the gods.

So they leave her out in the middle of the Forest, with no food, no water, only her claymore and her armor. In a few months she finally finds the temple, and makes her way inside and gets trapped inside, but no one knew that the time in temple worked differently than the outside world, so while she felt like she had only been in the temple for a few months, she was in there a few years.

While in that time Mobupinchu gets over thrown by robotnik, and everyone in the city becomes robotized, including Selene.

Artemis finally breaks free from the temple, with the fruit in hand, and runs back to Mobupinchu,(the thing about the temple, is that it also mabe her immortal, now this doesn't mean she can't die, she just can't die from natural causes, like a cold or the flu.) but only to see that everyone is gone. And when she learns of the robots, this fuels her hate for technology, but because she has no one else she becomes a nomad, and wonders around Mobius.

In the middle of the forest she find the freedom fighters, she wants to join but they use technology, but they do let her stay. After a while of just living there she eventually starts to understand technology and how it can be used for good, but she only trusts the technology that Sally uses, so she joins them in their fight against robotnik.

Sorry about this being so long.. I had a lot to say lol...

[chalkrub]

new guy alert!! she's a lindwyrm who pilots an old suit of armour and has caused many legends of evil ghost knights staggering down the road at night. in reality she's not a ghost, she's a nasty little man who wants to sell you illicit substances and talk about her insane and sordid past

[egophiliac]

bring your son to work day

[aquanutart]

I was talking and I mentioned that I have my old Game Boy and original Pokemon cartridge. I said, "I think they still work."

I was told, "The internal batteries on the Game Boy cartridges have run out. They're all dead."

"Oh," I said, trying not to show how crestfallen I was. I felt like I was losing nerd cred for not knowing that, although I never kept up with that type of info anyway. I'm here for the fantasy and imaginative aspects of games, and tend not to follow the competitive or technical details.

I tried not to feel anything as I went home. If they were real animals, I reminded myself, I would have had to say goodbye long ago.

But like so many other people, Pokemon was my childhood. It was all I thought about and dreamed about, and the closest thing I could imagine to heartbreak was the knowledge that they weren't real. I spent nearly all my time writing longhand self-insert Pokemon fanfiction--far more than I spent actually playing the game. My Pokemon were with me in my imagination wherever I went. I started playing Pokemon Blue when I was 5, and the last time I had played it was probably when I was 9 or 10. I remembered I had turned it on again one more time after that, not to play it, but to look at my childhood Pokemon.

It was during high school, after a move overseas that completely upended my life, and I was struggling with the crushing blow of being taken away from everything I knew and trying to make sense of anything (least of all adolescence) in another language. All I wanted was to go back to childhood and have everything go back to how it was before.

Seeing my Pokemon, just as I'd left them, had comforted me. I had looked at their stats pages, taken photos of them with my digital camera (that I don't even know if I still have), and then turned it off without doing anything.

That was probably 9 or 10 years after the games came out. It had been a long time since then. I had long since taken the AA batteries out of my Game Boy Color and left it untouched. I didn't even have AA batteries anymore.

It had worked then. But now it had been 27 years... I thought about not trying to turn my cartridge back on. As long as I didn't turn it on, I could believe my Pokemon were still there, the way I remembered them.

On my day off, which happened to be Pokemon Day, I googled and read that some people on forums and Reddit were still able to play their original Pokemon games.

Then... it was possible. I went out to buy toothpaste. At the store, I asked where I could find AA batteries.

It was a big thing for me to be able to go to the store and buy things myself. When I moved at age 13, I felt like something went wrong with growing up. It was difficult to follow what people were saying, and people didn't always understand what I said either. I had been introverted even in English, but now I had enough negative experiences that I became afraid and stopped trying to talk to people altogether.

I threw myself into video games and reliving childhood memories. The internet was where I could communicate in my first language and understand. I lived online and didn't interact with the real world. On the internet I felt like I was understood and could find people who shared my interests the way I did, but in the real world it always felt like I could get hurt if anyone knew me.

I realize now that I could have had a better experience overseas if I'd known how to adapt and socialize, but this was not something I knew even in English, and trying to learn in another language made it ten times harder. I'm sorry now for missing out on interactions that I know I could have had, but I just didn't know how. I wouldn't know how until I learned, and it took me a long time to learn.

I grew up online, in the company of others who had trouble fitting in with the real world, even in their own language. Those experiences shaped me, and the friendships I've made and support I've received online are invaluable to me. The internet gave me a way to live, and through it I learned how to interact with others. But in many ways, for many years, it felt like my life was put on hold and I stopped growing up.

Several years ago I moved back, to not far from where I was born, and I was able to work for the first time. I began to interact with people and feel like I had a place in the real world.

After shutting myself away for so many years, every little step I made out in the world felt terrifying. But every little thing I did on my own made me feel like I was living for the first time.

Even something as little as going to the store and buying a pack of batteries.

I was directed to a shelf at the end of an aisle, and found myself looking at a rack of lithium AA batteries. Did they not sell the old kind anymore?

I walked around to the other side and was relieved to find the familiar black and brown Duracell batteries I'd known from my childhood. I felt more confident about putting in a battery that looked the same as I remembered. The smallest pack they sold was an 8-pack for $12.99. I really didn't need 8 batteries. I didn't have any other devices that used them.

I thought, what if I turn it on and it doesn't work and I'll have wasted $12.99?

I also thought we might already have batteries. I might be able to say, "Mom, do we have any batteries?" and she'd pull out two AAs from a drawer somewhere and I'd save my money.

But somehow I felt like part of what was important about this was being an adult and being able to buy my own batteries.

Yet... what if it just ended up making me sad? Was it better not to know?

I went to the checkout with just the toothpaste and stood hesitating at the edge of the checkout line.

If I didn't get the batteries now, and it turned out we didn't have any batteries, I wouldn't try it. I knew I would just put it off until even more time passed, and then... "Are you in line?" someone asked me.

"No," I said, and I turned around and went back to the shelf.

I bought the batteries.

At home, I took out my original Game Boy Color from the drawer where I left it, the one my dad had surprised me with when I was 5 years old and that I had brought overseas and back.

I put the batteries in and turned it on without a cartridge first to make sure the batteries were inserted correctly. The Game Boy logo scrolled across the screen and it made the familiar blinging Game Boy startup noise. I turned it off again, satisfied.

I took out my original Pokemon Blue cartridge, momentarily having to remember which way it went in, and slotted it in.

I turned it on, watched the whole Pokemon Blue intro out of nostalgia, and then pressed START.

My heart leaped for joy.

MY POKEMON!!!! MY POKEMON ARE ALIVE!!! 🥺🥺🥺

My original Pokemon, that were with me in 1998 when I was 5-6 years old, are still with me 27 years later. I want to cry!!! I love the old sprites, I'm SO happy to see them again 😭😭😭 the Pokemon look so little and cheerful at the same time, which I love 🥺🥺🥺 I know there are people with many more hours on their games, who have leveled all their Pokemon to 100. But these are my Pokemon who were with me through my childhood, and I spent many more hours making up stories about them than actually playing the game. I'm so happy to see them again 😭😭😭

All I want is to see my Pokemon. My other Pokemon are in boxes. Now, how do I get to the nearest PC? Where am I?

Oh... Oh. I have to confess something. When I was a kid, I was scared of the dark cave areas, and whenever I got to them, I stopped playing for a while. (I was stuck at Mt. Moon until I was like, 7.) So I never actually beat the game.

And here I am on Victory Road, with the team of Pokemon I was taking to the Elite Four, without an Escape Rope.

The only way for me to see my other Pokemon is... to finally make it through Victory Road, after 27 years?!

[snarkspawn]

I really enjoy playing through tnp again like hi it's been a while

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

MDZS Severance AU: Get me out of here.

[peace-hunter]

Hi, I was wondering if you could do a previous moment of B-127 in sub level 50 like a couple minutes before Orion Pax and D-16 arrived, acting emotional and wishing someone was there with him; then his thoughts while meeting Orion and D-16.

P.S. I love your art, it makes me happy. (:>)-->--<

erm. well. he's never gonna be bored again for sure (☞ﾟヮﾟ)☞

i'm really sorry i know this isn't really what you asked for but i couldn't get the idea out of my head and i just had to draw it out (/▽＼) i hope you still like it and i promise i'll try to do something more angsty later 〜(￣▽￣〜)

[vaguely-concerned]

can't believe garak went from 'hope you have fun following my little breadcrumb trail of maybe-truths doctor it builds character ;)' at the beginning of the show to '*sigh* fuck it here's the whole loaf. the entire fucked up bakery of my soul. if you somehow still wanna have sex with me after this you know where I am, yours in infinite longing etc.' in a stitch in time. has anyone ever been so pathetically horrifically enduringly down bad as garak is for julian (laudatory)

[14dayswithyou]

💖 Day 3.5 is now available! 💖

For the last couple of months, only Server Boosters had access to the 3.5 update... Buuuuut now it's available for everyone to play in the 14DWY Discord — and soon itch.io once I'm happy with the QA and state of the game — so please don't feel pressured to join unless you want to!!

The full devlog + even more screenshots are under the cut ^^

What's been added to the 3.5 version?

📺 Streamer Mode!

I've been told that it's difficult to stream and monetise age-restricted videos on YouTube and Twitch, so I added an option to remove the sexual content and strong language used in the demo.

Now y'all can invite Ren into your bed for cuddles without putting your streamer career on the line /silly /lh

This won't affect the 18+ rating or dark themes/elements of the game, however! Although Streamer Mode will prevent you from seeing any "gruesome" CGs in the future, most of the core elements of the game will still be tied to the choices and decisions you make. So you won't miss out on the overall experience by using streamer mode!!

⚙️ Custom Pronouns!

It only took me one entire year to get around to it, but you can finally choose your own preferred pronouns (or use a set of pronouns instead)... At the cost of being able to change them mid-game ^^;

Since the original pronoun screen wouldn't update until a new scene was displayed, I temporarily disabled the feature. But once I find a workaround, I'll bring it back!

💗 Choose how others perceive you!

You can now choose how the cast and narration perceive you! Originally, the narration was kept strictly gender-neutral (outside of pronouns and genitalia picked by the player), but this will soon change in future updates.

For more clarity: you don't get to choose the words specifically, but you can choose between masculine, feminine, and androgynous terms!

📋 Separate top and bottom genitalia!

You can now choose your tatas and pps separately! >:3

Alongside that, you can also choose your preferred body type!

I removed the "both" genitalia option because a few players still assumed it was an obscure version of "intersex". That wasn't my intention and I don't want to mislead anyone, so I took it out for now ^^;

I also didn't want to include a screenshot of the new genitalia choices in action (because it's NSFW), so y'all get the same character menu screen for the nth time instead lmao

📱 Relationship Screen Overhaul!

You can now change your own status for more immersion, and long-term Server Boosters will eventually be able to submit and use their own icon within the game as well!

Stalking finding your friends has now become easier by using "Buddy Maps"; a new app that allows you to see the location of all the cast members!

I want to offer players more incentive to check the relationship screen since they tend to miss the status updates, so hopefully this might help ;v;

It also says it "updates every few hours" so folks don't go overboard and check every 5 seconds to see where Ren is gdsghf (also keep in mind that he's a hacker lol)

🖤 Additional Scenes Update!

Day 2 received a brand new CG!!!!! Originally, I planned on only adding a few CGs sporadically throughout the game, but it didn't feel right to leave Day 2 so... empty... so I added a brand new CG to (hopefully) make things feel more balanced and natural!

If you decline Teo's offer on Day 3, Leon will now call and try to convince you to reconsider. However, players are still allowed to decline, and if they do, they'll reach a dead end.

After listening to feedback on itch, I changed some of the dialogue during Days 1-3 to make it seem more consistent! They're only small changes though, so it's honestly not worth looking for sdgjssga

🎶 Updated BGM and SFX!

I wanted to try out a different style of music to see if it fits the vibe of 14DWY more! The BGM features more acoustics to suit the "beachy" theme of Corland Bay, though I made a conscious effort to include piano elements as well to stay true to the original!!

I figured it'd be better to give players a live example before I make a poll (to see if they prefer the change or not) and publish it to Itch.

Some new SFX have also been added, though it's very minimal and honestly not that noticeable.

How to download and play the update?

(warning: clicking on the following links will open Discord!!) To download the Day 3.5 update, simply join the 14DWY Discord server, verify your age, and visit the "14dwy-updates" channel!

Alternatively, you can also wait until the update is publicly released on Itch to play it as well!! (It normally gets released shortly after a round of QA testing/getting feedback from the server, though I may release it earlier if I feel like it hehe ^^)

Enjoy!!

[dykephan]

phil is always pressing toys and random stuff to dan's face and dan either kisses it or bumps his head against it ughhh i know he gets little kisses all day long. whatever

[sgtpeppers]

That was... wonderful... to just hear it done for real, after... what? Four years of thinking about it? Wondering whether it would work, wondering if I'd written bits too fast, or too slow, or... to actually sort of... hear it done by real, professional people and the singers. It's... there isn't a word for it, actually.

Standing Stone, by Paul McCartney

Royal Albert Hall Performance (x)

Making Of Documentary (x)

Standing Stone is a 74 minute long classical piece of music, which Paul worked on for four years. It premiered at the Royal Albert Hall on 14 October 1997 with the London Symphony Orchestra and London Symphony Chorus, conducted by Lawrence Foster.

After his success with his first classical piece, The Liverpool Oratorio, Paul was commissioned to create some music to celebrate EMI's centenary. He came up with the idea of exploring "the way a Celtic man might have wondered about the origins of life and the mystery of human existence" and tied this in the with standing stones which to him symbolised something mystical and long lasting.

Photos by Linda McCartney, included on the album.

Paul wrote a poem to assist in getting the story he was trying to convey straight in his head, and it was printed in the booklet of the album. However, Paul wanted the music to work without the listener necessarily knowing the story, for the music to speak for itself, and so wanted to create a piece that "relies entirely on colours and effects drawn from orchestral and choral forces".

He also created two paintings to go alongside it:

I really recommend watching the documentary, Paul is absolutely delightful throughout the whole thing. It's the first time he'd used a computer and software to help him compose and he seems so excited to talk about it (and he has a Wallace & Gromit mouse mat!).

What's also interesting is how the rest of the team spoke about him. They all make a point that this was Paul's creation, and although David Matthews, John Harle, and Richard Rodney Bennet were brought in to assist with the composition, they all talk about Paul's talent, hard work, and the freshness of approach he brought. (The words 'benevolent dictator' may get used at some point, but they also speak of his kindness and generosity.)

It amazes me that someone with no formal music training could make a leap for pop/rock to classical. Composing for an entire 80 piece orchestra and 120 member choir is a completely different skillset to writing a song for the radio (and I'm not saying that's a lesser thing to be able to do, just different). The fact Paul was not only willing to take on the challenge and push himself, but created something so magical speaks to the sheer creative force that he is.

[beargregor]

wait i'm curious, what makes you say that gregor doesn't like everyone else (if i read that post right)? just curious since i've never seen anyone else say that

i don't necessarily think gregor dislikes everyone else at lcb but i do think that gregor is an incredibly petty person that isn't nearly as close to the rest of the sinners and even outright dislikes some of them cough cough rodya cough cough which a lot of people just Refuse to see because he's as much of a doormat as he is. there's several examples i could get into to try and prove my point however i'll just focus on what i personally think to be the biggest ones.

additionally, this is going to be kind of long, so i'm adding a read more. read more! read it. sorry for being so wordy. i have several diseases.

Pt1. gregor is the type to try and get along at least decently with everyone, especially if he gets a good first impression from them.

this is less a point in favor of gregor's distance w/ the rest of the sinners and more just a contributing factor to it. once again there's several examples i could point to here but i think the most in your face one happened in canto I with yuri, as several people have pointed out. even before gregor comes clean about growing attached to her as quickly as he did because she reminds him of his sister, we get this interaction.

i'll go ahead and make the disclaimer now that i don't necessarily think gregor is the most reliable of narrators, especially when it comes to his feelings and interactions with most people, but from the way he acts when the topic of yuri comes up (and the way we still see him act even all the way up to c7, nearly a whole year after yuri's death) i don't see reason to question his sentiment here. gregor immediately got that aya and yuri were close, potentially even taking note of their traded belts, and went out of his way to get something nice for yuri despite hardly knowing her.

i feel like a lot of people have forgotten as much, especially since it's been so long since c1, but gregor actually spent a good bit of season 1 doing the exact same thing with the other sinners! gregor reads a connection between him and ishmael pretty quickly despite getting off to a rocky start

mostly because gregor can tell that ishmael is pretty sardonic in a very similar way to him. there's been multiple instances where ishmael and gregor have essentially expressed the same sentiment at different moments, most notably gregor's little argument after ishmael got shot with a decay ampule in c4

and ishmael's response to pilot talking about self-sacrifice in c5

i could go ahead and pull up more examples, but in general pm has gone out of their way to show us that gregor and ishmael are pretty similar, so it makes sense for gregor to assume that they're friends, right?

this will be pushpin 1. keep note of this for Later.

ishmael's only the first sinner we see gregor trying to do this with in s1, we also see him try it out with heathcliff, sinclair, and ryoushuu

he's tried to get along with charon, being one of very few sinners that we've seen actually try to establish a connection with her at all

even rodya, despite my insistence that gregor doesn't like her nearly as much as the fandom thinks he does

all of these seem pretty fine and dandy, right? sure it frequently leans towards self-degradation, micromanaging, and commiseration, but gregor can at least be pretty chummy with most of the sinners, can't he?

Pt2. hell's chicken was more than just comic relief guys please

i'm fully aware that this is quite the hot take, but i think hell's chicken deserves a lot more credit for character writing than the fandom gives it. hell's chicken gave us foreshadowing for several events, such as the donqui bloodfiend reveal

heathcliff's distortion in c6 (as well as hong lu's highly speculated distortion at some point in the future)

and ryoushuu and sinclair's continued connection by making him the odd one out on her team

which, hey! that implies something about gregor's odd one out, don quixote, too, doesn't it? yes. yes it does. that's pushpin 2. keep note of that for later.

speaking of pushpins, hey! that's pushpin 1!

splitting into teams is one of the major events in hell's chicken, and most of the sinner's choices are either motivated by very little, backhanded, or motivated primarily by not wanting to be on the opposite leader's side. i didn't include all of the picks, just because i feel like including most of them already gets this across, but i think gregor took one major thing from this: most of the sinners, when push comes to shove, will only side with gregor when they refuse to or can't take his opponent's side.

now, don't get me wrong, i'm fully aware that this is primarily intended to be comedic relief, but when gregor is being described as having his trust broken by ishmael or nearly crying because no one on his team properly sided with him for him, i feel like it's pretty fair to read into this.

something that i think is pretty important to remember in conjunction with this is that we know that gregor is the type to hold a grudge, both from his general attitude towards the G corp soldiers in c1 as well as his continued distaste for vergilius

even beyond the splitting into teams of hell's chicken, the sinners have given gregor plenty of reasons to feel bitter. i feel like this is something people have noticed but haven't really put a finger on, but it's kind of wild just how often the rest of the sinners make gregor the butt of the joke

and sure, we could argue that a fair few of these aren't really made with any ill intent. quite a bit of it could have been meant as harmless teasing, but with gregor being more sensitive than most, it coming from nearly all sides, and as often as it does? yeah, i think he's prone to taking it a bit personally.

Pt3. yes i do still think gregor was the third most important character in canto VII you guys gotta hear me out okay

of course, all of this leads up to the bit of the story i highlighted, doesn't it? c7? i totally get why people haven't really picked up on all the gregor things i did in it, seeing as they were mostly not *directly* said about him or by him.

personally, i think that gregor's distaste for talking about himself on any serious level and thus leading to him getting sort of "sidelined" narratively (which i take issue with that claim, but still. it's effective for getting what i mean across atm) is supposed to lead players to take a deeper look at the times gregor gets held up to other characters and compare and contrast what's being said about them by the matchup. as i showed earlier with his immediate latching onto ishmael, i think this is something gregor himself is at least partially aware of too.

so, that begs the question, who was gregor compared to in canto VII that makes me think it's one of the most critical pieces in understanding his character?

really, i'd like to avoid getting too lost in the analysis of this canto specifically, since i'd like to do a proper post about this later, but i figure i can bury the lede a little before doing it properly.

c7 features several characters being made to perform in sansón's play, acting out the relevant backstory for this segment of the plot. a lot of these characters have rather direct, degrading reasons for playing the roles they do.

outis, a character with an inflated ego who wants her journey to have a purpose, is made to play an aimlessly wandering villager with a single line.

hong lu and ryoushuu, two characters for whom families and the expectations placed upon them are likely going to play a major role, are made to play bloodfiends.

rodya, a character who resents her lot in life and is constantly shown to be eager to leave her destitution behind her and become someone special, is made to play a helpless villager that's too poor to even offer any money to the hero that saves her.

heathcliff, a character that has spent most of his life getting dehumanized by comparing him to beastly animals, is made to play a literal bear whose sole purpose in the plot is to get beat up and then quickly left by the wayside.

sinclair, a character that has two opposed parties essentially treating him as a macguffin to procure for their side, is made to play the character who was arguably the catalyst for this entire canto, not to mention playing a decently major role in ruina.

our star don quixote is made to play her father, the first kindred, but there's someone by their side the entire time, isn't there? don quixote's dear, steadfastly loyal companion. a character which don quixote has tasked themself with getting to come out of their shell?

hello again, pushpin 2.

gregor has been made to play our unreachable star, sancho. someone had to, of course. you can't really tell a story without it's main character, now can you?

now, i should once again give a disclaimer. i am not trying to say that i think adapting what happens to donqui/sancho in c7 to gregor is the road pm is going to take here, not only would that toe a bit past the line of foreshadowing, but it'd also just amount to rehashing that plotline again, which i don't think would make for a particularly exciting story.

what i DO think is that we can take a lot of the things that are said to either directly be the case for sancho and use them to inform how we see gregor.

and god, does playing sancho have some fucking implications for our favorite ossan archetype.

starting off, the earliest moment we get to see of sancho is quite literally her just waiting for death to take her in a pile of ashes.

which, i should remind everyone, is actually pretty damn close to what happens to gregor's literary counterpart at the end of the metamorphosis. gregor samsa experiences one final breaking point that pushes him over the edge and makes him decide to just wait for starvation to take him.

gregor and sancho both consider themselves to no longer be human, something which sancho goes out of her way to highlight repeatedly throughout the canto and gregor is quick to get defensive on her behalf for when outis starts really tearing into her

sancho spends quite a lot of this story denying herself the joys of community and friendship, despite knowing that, even with the rest of the sinners frequently making jokes at her expense and outright insulting her, they were things that she desperately craved.

and, while this is getting into my "outis is a red herring meant to distract us from gregor's eventual betrayal" theorizing, i also think it's worth noting for this discussion that sancho's fellow kindreds, her family, all seem to be under the impression that she dislikes them and ultimately her departure was an act of betrayal

and that, despite gregor being one of LCB's resident mood makers and attempted conflict de-escalators, one of the sinners that's most prone to making appeals to the bonds they've all forged together, only him and faust remained silent during everyone's speech

so yeah, i think there's quite a lot of little details and hints building up to the reveal that gregor's not quite as fond of everyone as he presents himself to be. i do think a lot of this ultimately comes down to gregor getting in the way of his own happiness, similarly to donqui, particularly because he's been frequently portrayed as something of a self fulfilling prophecy, especially by giving him as many christ allegories as they have by way of priest and garden of thorns. gregor is convinced that the rest of the sinners don't like him because he's not convinced anyone could like him, so he convinces himself that he hates them because why should he care if someone that he hates hates him too?

a lot of this ultimately ties back to my personal interpretation of what happens in the metamorphosis as well as my own theories regarding all the times gregor has made weird callbacks and references to lobcorp and ruina, but yeah. i think about this guy and his deeper characterization a fairly normal amount, i think.

to end this off i'll highlight one of my favorite little "gregor is fucking seething and trying so hard to keep it cool" moments, in the credits CG for c7 we see rodya teasing him by drawing a little horse on his window and actively pointing and laughing at it, which gregor really doesn't seem all too pleased about.

i personally think this ties into the other cruel part of sansón forcing gregor to play rocinante, which is the more literal "he's actually just straight up playing rocinante" side of things. gregor was quite literally made to play something less than human, less than even animal really, as he was reduced to nothing more than the shoes don quixote wore as she got to play the leading role. sansón directly makes jokes about gregor being nothing more than shoes in the play twice, which adds to this reading, i think.

this, imo, really plays into the adaptation of the metamorphosis! i've seen a lot of readings for the book that posit that, despite being the protagonist, gregor samsa can't really be considered the main character due to nearly everything he experiences in it being used to further his family's character development at his expense, which i think fits nicely with limbus gregor seemingly having the most said about him through indirect means by holding him up to other characters. also it's rodya carelessly making fun of His Big Major Insecurities™ again like she did in c1 which i always find fun. rodya i love you but god you're the worst.

[lightnersdream-archive]

i've been thinking about exactly why people portraying one of the other crew members successfully killing Jimmy as a "for what you did to Anya" kind of thing rubs me the wrong way a bit and it's because like..... this is just another form of taking agency away from Anya, in a way. it's kind of framing her as some meek, shivery woman-thing who's entirely at the mercy of the men around her, either to hurt her or save her.

(i understand these are mostly for wish fulfillment on the audience's behalf because everyone would like to see Jimmy pay for his crimes. whether or not this is the intention of the person writing it isn't really relevant, characterization happens with or without intent. i feel like it misses the point by portraying it as an 'ideal ending'.)

because... Anya is a capable person. she takes things into her own hands when she can. it was partially(?) her idea to get into the cargo,

(before he interrupts her.. remember when she interrupted Curly in the dead pixel segment?)

it was her idea to get the code scanner from the cockpit,

it was her idea to get the medication from behind the foam.

(the chance to do these things herself is not given to her.)

she'd been keeping Curly alive for months in a critical state somehow, her psych evaluations at the start are only so useless because Jimmy refuses to take it/her seriously and Curly is obviously biased when he puts it into his own hands. he's known him a long time, like he said. "I'll just put good for that one."

there's not a lot of material to work with because of how the game is framed, but it's there. we are working with two very biased perspectives and neither one lends Anya what she deserves

there's significant changes in how she speaks post- and pre- crash, and depending on who she happens to be talking to. i recommend re-reading her dialogue, because the difference is drastic

she acts the way she does around Jimmy because he has tangibly done horrible things to her, is actively hostile, and physically could not escape him by any means. she can't take away Curly's agency herself, in my eyes. you have to remember that Especially in the post-crash segments of the game, it's entirely from Jimmy's POV, and he obviously does not (and has never) thought very highly of her or treated her with a shred of respect

i've seen a general idea that she can't bear to hurt other people for any reason, but that doesn't really track to me. this is the real point of the post by the way

it seems based on the parts where she says she struggles to give Curly medication. "It just hurts him so much, I can't stand the noise." "It makes me nauseous."

it's not really the same thing as, say, hurting someone in self defense

this sounds like she did want the gun itself. this never felt worded like someone who would refuse to, at very least, threaten Jimmy with a gun, with violence. if she had been given the agency to make that decision on her own. she wasn't though

she still tries to reclaim some of it even as she's denied it

by the end she's still trying to keep that gun out of his hands

i think some people overly soften her, for similar reasons the game itself is trying to comment on. she's not a tender victim who couldn't cause pain to another out of the softness of her soul, she's a person who's had every last bit of agency ripped from her repeatedly until she couldn't take it anymore. that's the point. that's why framing her that way, "needing" someone to save her, is odd to me

she didn't need Curly to save her, she needed him to take responsibility

she didn't want to escalate things, but she's not an idiot. self defense was absolutely on her mind

but who knows im just saying shit *smiles serenely*

[ruporas]

feast (ID in alt)

[cook-a-little-chicken]

Sorry About My Nan

That was an intense longform. And I have some thoughts:

Firstly, umm... can they not carry chairs normally? Both of them dragging it slowly like that made me laugh. Anyway-

The entire thing was amazing but especially those first few scenes. Such good acting from the get-go! Was this the longest it took for them to establish a storyline in a longform? It felt very "this is the last time I'm doing this" 😂

Luke breaking Sam and AJ with his truly realistic characterisation and "I just feel shattered, you know?" was brilliant

By my count, this is the third time AJ tells Sam to be quiet: "sorry when I fish, I like silence", "silence when hoop", "I just need like- just a bit of- quiet"

"You've got so many teeth." What is it with Tom and teeth? ("hey, I've got everything you've got, but I've also got several more teeth")

Aww Tom trying so hard not to laugh at Luke's "Have you given her adrenaline?"

Sam and AJ simultaneously pointing and saying "that/this way" to the bathroom somehow makes me laugh. Cos they're stressed out and there's this farmhand joyfully looking for his sheep. And Luke making himself laugh at his own sheep vs farmhand interaction is cute

Aahh Tom's facial expressions throughout were incredible!

"Not one seat each." I see Tom's enjoying inconveniencing the others

Not the subtitles calling Sam out on the "numchucks" 😂

Luke was lying face first on the floor for almost 6 minutes. I was initially wondering how Luke didn't break as a corpse, but you can see his body moving as he silently (and sometimes audibly) laughs. It's really cute and he laughs a lot throughout it's kinda funny

Tom was so good as the German stage person (Emcee?) with the incredible physical performance and expressions! Him and Krampus were so similar but so different, I'm in awe

The almost perfect symmetry of Sam and AJ laughing at Tom's "meine little liebchen" 😂

Sam shouting "numchucks numchucks numchucks" as he hits AJ with them is the funniest thing ever. Worse, I'd say, than the "bang bang bang" he called Luke out on in All Eyes on Nigel

AJ's delivery of "I recently found out that my nana is like a cult leader for people in Germany. And that, umm, is so weird" is absolutely stellar. And Luke's movements and smiles as Julie/Lucy were so subtly eerie from the beginning it was wonderful

They managed to stop the "stag"s perfectly, what great intuition!

Tom's "eh!" and shirt throw 😂 I was surprised he had a shirt on at the end

I can't explain it, and it was probably unintentional, but the wedding scene felt like it was still part of the fake scenario tests. Like stepping out almost from behind a curtain to "out there" together, hand-in-hand, and then immediately reaching the altar instead of the bride having the traditional long walk? Then Sam's speech about the mic amplifying which almost sounds like something you'd imagine in a dream or in your head, followed immediately by "I do" when they weren't even asked the question?

They're going to Bergheim straight after, meaning Ethel's successfully indoctrinated them both into her cult. And AJ's best friend isn't there. Was that cos Sam kept questioning Ethel and her methods? Was he banished from the cult? What's happened to him? If it was a normal wedding, you'd expect him to be there. Especially cos they keep reiterating that they're "best friend"s

I'm sure it's supposed to be a happy story but it feels more horror/psychological thriller to me, where the characters think they've reached their happy ending but in reality they're trapped now

[gretagator]

Okay did anyone else notice that there's a little instrumental arrangement of The Winner Takes It All playing in the background of that scene from Better Call Saul 04x06. I have been thinking about this constantly for like 3 years and I've never seen anybody talk about it I need to get this out of my system...

That + the exit sign being there throughout pretty much the entire scene just hanging there above Jimmy. Chuck is practically omnipresent in that scene without even being there. Absolute cinema (also Jimmy's seemingly more emotional reaction to Mrs. Strauss' death is probably supposed to mirror all the repressed and unspoken grief he feels for Chuck that's just lingering deep down. So much to say about this scene. The horrors)