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funnycreatortimetravel · 3 months

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Small rant about Sans' character that no one is ever going to read and is probably kind of inaccurate, but I'm going to scream into the void nonetheless because why the hell not and I'm kind of bored.

I feel like the concept of Sans as a whole has been so utterly gutted by the fandom and not in the way you'd think. Not because of the AUs which are all so oddly Sans-focused (but at least we have Underverse which is actually pretty good) but in the sense of the people who claim to "actually understand Sans canonically" and "try to stay as canon as possible" while also equally missing the point sort of. Hence, why we have this long and overplayed image I'm sure everyone has seen a billion times:

If I could lay some groundwork down, Undertale came out in 2015, nearly a decade ago. The internet was a different time and place then and fandom creativity reached new peaks that no one had ever seen before, and as a result, a lot of Undertale was exaggerated, changed, cut up, and then put back together. Why? Because in all honesty, Undertale was a really simple game with a simple premise. Sure there were bits and pieces scattered throughout, parts like who Gaster was, who Chara was when they were alive, who Sans is in general; all the typical fandom theory shenanigans we've come to expect in the recent years. And in that excitement, Sans became the staple of Undertale pretty much, or at least everything it represented. This macabre, yet adorably misleading game with funny moments and interesting think pieces that people are still speculating about. That's pretty much the basis of Sans. So I get why Sans became the quintessential poster child for such a subversively ambitious game. I get why, then, people try to showcase Sans as this badass God character who knows and remembers all of resets and cries over Papyrus and is just an edge lord in general. It doesn't mean it's accurate in the slightest, but I get the idea of it nonetheless. In the absence of content, and there's a lot of it in Undertale, (I mean, it took me 4 hours to 100% it in the Pacifist and Neutral Routes, and 5 hours to beat Genocide, including the times it took me to beat Undyne because she thoroughly kicked my ass and Sans as well) the fans filled those gaps with what they saw fit and what they saw fit was so wide and diverse that the gap overflowed and the game pretty much became unrecognizable.

And I (except for the truly questionable and gross stuff, you know what I'm talking about) love the fandom for that, I truly do. Just the sheer number of comics, spin-off games, AUs, art, and fanfiction that answered every question I had and more was and is impressive, but even so, there's only so much that can be done with the context Undertale provides us before the content gets...stale. Hence my point on why Sans' character was so exaggerated is because Undertale as a whole had been exaggerated and oversaturated and overplayed and generally...not what the game or Sans was originally. But that was peak 2016-2019, though, a few years ago. And the interpretations and eras, like everything, have changed.

Now back to my actual point. It's now 2024. The fandom has noticeably slowed down. All of the AUs and theories and fanfictions that were popular have either been forgotten about over the years, randomly rediscovered or still ongoing, or just abandoned entirely. The game has been pretty much combed through until every file has been cracked, every document leaked, and every secret discovered. It's like a picked over turkey at this point and a lot of the old creators have indeed left behind the game in pursuit of newer things, which is understandable. It's not the center of attention it once was and in that wake, we don't really have a lot of the same pillars in the Undertale community that we used to. And in this transformed community, we have the left over children, now young adults and teenagers, to pick up the pieces. And in that, Sans' character, as well as Undertale itself, has again, been reformed.

That was a lot of words. But I hope I at least set the center stage. My issue, pretty much, is that the leftover fans deem themselves as "above the cringe" the old fandom left behind, which, is fair enough. And in doing so, a lot of the foundation of the 2016-2019 Undertale fandom was kind of overwritten. No, now Sans is no longer this edgy, overpowered God figure ready to right the wrongs of the player, no, now he's this apathetic guy who doesn't care about anyone, including himself, and is only powerful because he cheated. And to be fair, I see some merit in this interpretation. Sans is in fact, a pretty morally ambiguous guy. He doesn't even attempt to stop the player during the genocide route until there's nothing left. He threatens the player on the pacifist route even when we pose no threat. He makes so many allusions about himself not caring about anything. So I get it. Everyone is tired of everything Sans-related. I was too at one point. But in trying to counteract this fanon interpretation of Sans, I feel like this new one is also semi-inaccurate. This new interpretation of Sans is meant to be seen as "mature" and "not cringe" when in fact, Undertale is and always will be sort of cringe. And that's OK! That's why I and others love the game so much, because it's not afraid of being anything other than what it is and what it claimed to be. It had a story in mind that it wanted to tell and it did so unabashedly. The need to separate Undertale and Sans itself from the cringe is so pointless and almost a little juvenile. And imo, even ruins the character of Sans himself.

Sans does care about Papyrus, so so so much. He reads him bedtime stories. He plays along with his illusions of grandeur. He calls out the player when he's killed, despite Sans having to remain objective as a judge. I feel like Sans not intervening in Papyrus' death isn't because he doesn't care, it's because his entire job is to act as a judge and in a position where he's mostly neutral. He knows the player has powers to redo and undo things, so thus, he gives us room to make those choices, for better or worse. He's like, the anti-toriel. He refuses to hold your hand. He tells YOU to make the right choice, and by you, I mean the player. And in that sense, I feel like that's not something a completely apathetic guy would do. Someone like that wouldn't even see the point of choices, of having an option. Someone like that wouldn't care about getting out of bed in the morning, getting several jobs, or telling a person with higher power to just engage with your brother.

Like come on, don't say he doesn't put effort into anything, like he went out of his way to make sure Pap's Holiday party went perfect. He's constantly going above and beyond for his brother.

Sans has emotions and they're so complex and so well-written, but I feel like this counter-cringe culture of the fandom wants him to be this guy who's either too depressed or too lazy to engage with others, or someone who would simply shrug off the death of loved ones when we have proof that Sans does indeed try hard for Papyrus in the ending where everyone dies but his brother. It's an "oh shit" sort of moment when he realizes that Papyrus is the only person he has left and thus, he puts in the effort to be better for him. It's not that he doesn't care or see the point, he's just kind of numb at this point. If Papyrus dies in the neutral routes, you don't see Sans again until the judgment hall and he'll call you a dirty brother killer and tell you to go to hell. That's something someone who at least cares a little would do. He's not above insulting the player and he's not above getting pissed. I've never really seen him as a, "well that's that then," character when it comes to Papyrus dying, for me, it's always been, "I'm angry, but I can maintain my composure and still do what I have to do."

Even in the genocide routes, Sans wants to give up and do nothing. He wants to let himself die without much thought. But he knows that he has to stand between you and oblivion. It's another, "Oh shit" moment, but in the opposite way. He knows he's gonna die. But he still has hope. Not necessarily that you'll be a good person, but that you can try another way and make better choices. He embodies the same mentality Papyrus did at the beginning of the run, believing there's a better chance for another future where everyone can be happy.

Sans isn't a nihilist, not all the way. There's still a chance, still a part of him that has hope for everything, regardless of the route. And should the Pacifist route be completed, you'll see that he's genuinely happy. He DOES care, or at least he's beginning to know that caring about things is ok and healthy even.

Ex 1: If you go to Sans' lab after completing a True Pacifist Route, you get this bit of dialog:

Ex 2: Sans and Papyrus talking about a Christmas party they had on the Newsletter of the 5th Anniversary of Undertale.

The strongest, yet most complex example of this that we see is that he upholds his promise with Toriel and will continue to do so until the genocide route at the very end because he wants to at least give us, the player, a chance. And even if it was a cop-out for being lazy, I believe that Sans legitimately believes there's a chance for us to turn around and be a better person, or at the very least, make better choices. We know that Sans is a person who doesn't like making promises at all, and even though he said that his threatening to kill Frisk is a joke, had he not made that promise to Toriel, I can't 100% say that he still wouldn't intervened in the genocide and neutral routes.

And if you think about it, Sans upholding that promise just makes me question him even more. Like, even if you kill his brother, so long as you don't kill everyone, he won't kill you just because of that. He sticks to his promise and his morals so much, even if it costs him everything because well, what type of judge would he be if he didn't stick to his moral code?

"If you have some special power, don't you think it's your responsibility to do the right thing?"

And by that logic, if he made a promise with someone, don't you think he'd feel he'd have the responsibility to uphold it?

We also know that he makes an effort to give us updates on the Underground after we leave in the neutral routes because he still wants us to know, at least, the consequences of our actions, so it's not like he's just lazily letting us get away with anything with do (even if he does physically.) He still holds our actions above our heads. He still keeps his promise. He still knows that we can make a better outcome. And if that doesn't say anything about him, I don't know what does.

Even in the neutral route endings where things are objectively going terribly for the monsters with Frisk killing Asgore and taking the souls to leave the barrier, Sans still never gives up. Sans, of all people.

And sure, Sans isn't a saint, not by a long shot, but he does have some moral weight in the long run, and by playing the part of a judge, he has a certain level of disattachment that's necessary when it comes to doing his job. Nowadays, I don't see the "fanon" sans that everyone loves to rag on, the one that's overly emotional and jarringly out of character, more so, I see everyone ragging on that interpretation, and then coming up with an equally inaccurate interpretation of Sans just not giving a shit and letting Frisk get away with everything just because he's "not emotional and only wants to be lazy, blah, blah, blah, nihilism, existentialism, it's more canonically accurate, unlike that CRINGE FANON SANS!" /or being a total unserious prankster with no other personality traits, and that's equally as jarring for me.

So in conclusion, I feel like "Fanon" Sans, the one where he's breaking down and sobbing over Papyrus and holding his scarf is just as inaccurate as the "more canon one" where he's apathetic and simply just not caring about his death, or at the very best, says "it is what it is." Sans is a character whose emotions aren't apparent, but he still does care in his weird philosophical way. He loves Papyrus and genuinely thinks he's cool. He's a jokester character who loves a good laugh and being laid back. He doesn't like putting in effort, but he will if he has to. He wants the player to make good choices, so he generally tries to stay out of the way to give us that freedom. Not because he knows we're gonna kill Papyrus, but because he knows we have greater power and wants us to use it to do the morally right thing. He isn't above doing morally grey things either, like threatening to kill Frisk in case they pose a threat to monster kind, but I believe even then, his hesitation to just accept a human in the underground is somewhat understandable given the oppressive tension between humans and monsters. Additionally, he does put in effort when it comes to caring about monsters other than Papyrus, Toriel, and even Alphys and Asgore, he cares about them all: (it's implied that he feeds the amalgamates in Alphy's old lab as proven by the same dog food we see in the lab being in Sans' house and Alphys even calls him a good guy because he helps her in the aborted genocide route ending, him telling jokes to Toriel and genuinely trying to bring some joy in her life even though she's a stranger and doesn't have an obligation to, even staying with her in the Ruins after she's dethroned in the Queen Undyne ending, him acting as the judge before Asgore and even being in such an important position requires you to have a solid sense of morality and conviction, his respect for Undyne as a warrior/leader depending on the ending and in the Undertale Newsletter, he makes an effort to score a goal for his team in Hocky, and Undyne of all people seems proud of him, and pretty much everything that has to do with Papyrus he's at the very least involved or interested in.)

My words don't have a lot of merit. I'm simply saying how I interpret things. But as a big sister, I see Sans as a good big brother who's not too involved, but also deeply cares about his younger brother and his friends. I get that stoicism and being "logical" and "cold" is the new trend and whatnot with all these edits of badass characters and longing for a time when everything was less...emotional, but in doing that, it shuts a lot of discussion about Sans as a person and his complex emotions as a whole. I feel like it's too difficult and kind of silly to chalk him up as either one or the other. I feel like there's a nice middle ground between the "cringe" fanon sans and the "cool, apathetic" canon sans that a lot of fans either go one or the other on. Anyway, that's about it for my rant. It's kind of nonsensical and a little hard to follow, but I hope I was able to get my thoughts across nonetheless.

I guess it was a big rant after all. Oh well. It is what it is.

#sans #undertale sans #undertale #deltarune #papyrus undertale #sans character discussion #undertale deltarune

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jacksgreysays · 18 days

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Extremely late, completely unnecessary opinion of the Watcher situation, (2024-04-24)

So this is a relatively belated post — several days after the initial “Goodbye Youtube” and one day after the “An Update” videos — and surely by this point there are more interesting/insightful op-eds (both in written form and video form, especially penguinz0’s fairly objective POV as, essentially, a YouTube expert) but there is something about the Watcher situation that made my brain itch. Thus, I wanted to write about it in order to make sense of it all as well as get into a philosophy that seems to be haunting me in recent years and which I think applies greatly here.

This may seem completely out of left field considering 1) definitely not fanfiction and 2) about Watcher Entertainment, a YouTube channel which—as far as this tumblr is concerned—I’ve not engaged with whatsoever, but I don’t know where else I would put this, and weirdly enough I think the general tumblr response to this whole predicament is maybe the… if not objective… then at least, most thoughtful?—or, perhaps, least immediately reactive?—amongst the various social media platforms, that I think some people might appreciate this anyway.

In terms of my relevant background: I majored in Management Science (which is just a fancy way of saying Economics + Business + Accounting because they are, weirdly enough, separate things) and minored in Film Studies in school, I am currently working in the stage tech industry (which, I know, is obviously different from film/video industry), and I like to think I am a fan/consumer of a wide variety of independent creators, some of whom I am lucky enough to be able to afford being a patron/subscriber. I won’t go into all of them—because it is a lot—but there are four in particular whose business models I want to analyze in comparison to Watcher’s admitted blunder:

A) RocketJump (known for Video Game High School and Anime Crimes Division; the core group which turned into the podcast Story Break, then became Dungeons and Daddies) B) Dropout (formerly College Humor, we’ll get into their discography later) C) Drawfee (previously an offshoot of College Humor, now fully independent) D) Corridor Digital (used to be mostly behind the scenes of how VFX studios work, have since become a mostly original content creator)

I will say, right off the bat, I am a patron of Drawfee as well as Dungeons and Daddies, and I am a subscriber to Dropout. I am not subscribed to Corridor Digital’s streamer, which I will get into why later. I understand that being able to sustain those two patronages and one subscription is a luxury that not everyone can afford and so my point of view is already skewed by being such a person who could theoretically afford another streaming service if I so chose. I also acknowledge that many fans of Watcher are not in similarly financially secure places as I am and that regardless of the business model, any monetization that comes from fans would have been a rough ask. However, I wanted to go into this essay in a way that accepts Watcher’s statement—that they needed more funding—in relatively good faith rather than assuming the worst (although that is another point I’ll get into later, largely related to the philosophy I brought up earlier.)

All four of the above listed content creators started or, at least, hit their stride on YouTube:

RocketJump and College Humor were, if not household names, then the digital equivalent of it in the “early days of YouTube.” They were part of the wave of content creators that made YouTube seem less like a bunch of eccentrics with cameras making videos on the side and more like a viable way to support yourself/your team with the art you create.

RocketJump’s Video Game High School went from short (less than 10 minutes) minimal location episodes in season one, to 30 minute plus episodes with full on fight scenes and car explosions by season three thanks to a Monster Energy brand deal. They also had two seasons of Anime Crimes Division, a literal TV quality show, thanks to a Crunchy Roll sponsorship. Unfortunately, RocketJump shut down not long after (their videos are still up on YouTube but they obviously don’t add anything new) but the core creative team behind that have been involved in several projects outside of YouTube (Dimension 404 on Hulu being one of the biggest ones so far) including the podcast Story Break (part of the Maximum Fun network) and now the independent podcast Dungeons and Daddies, the episodes of the main campaigns which are free with ads or, for patrons, ad-less along with additional mini-campaigns and other benefits.

I will say, during RocketJump’s decline, they did try their best to keep going. The partnerships with Monster Energy and Crunchy Roll were the big swings to get the funding to make those TV quality shows they wanted. I believe they lucked out with those brands in particular, or, at least, those brands didn’t seem to inhibit the creative process or ask too much of them that it felt like “selling out” but I also don’t have insight into why they didn’t pursue this model of, essentially, very weird but interesting season long commercials. Maybe they just couldn't find the right brands or maybe they did feel like it was too stifling. Regardless, before they shut down completely, they did also downsize—moving out of the actual city of Los Angeles over to Buena Park. Which is in Los Angeles county, and basically counts as LA still, but is way cheaper than literal Hollywood real estate. (I should have added to my relevant background that I’m born and raised LA county, and have relatives and friends in the film/movie industry, so trust me when I say literal Hollywood/city of Los Angeles is so overrated and unnecessarily expensive. There is a reason why LA traffic is the worst and it’s because everyone is commuting INTO the city. Respectfully and with affection, no one should live there. No one’s start up should be located there.) Obviously the downsizing didn’t necessarily work for RocketJump, but they also didn’t have multiple successful revenue streams the way that Watcher currently does.

In contrast, College Humor was acquired by InterActiveCorp and was turned into CH Media which was three pronged: College Humor, Drawfee, and Dorkly. In 2018 they made Dropout, which had exclusive content separate from their YouTube videos which involved all three prongs. Then some financial shenanigans happened early 2020—IAC withdrew their funding—and there were a bunch of layoffs right before the pandemic which extremely sucked. It has been stated by multiple people involved that it was basically a miracle that Dropout survived through all of that, but there were definitely some sacrifices along the way to make that happen. Currently, Dropout seems to be thriving with mostly exclusive content with the occasional “first episode of a season” posted to YouTube, OR if Dimension 20 is doing a “sequel season” in an already established campaign they will put the entirety of the previous season on YouTube.

IAC withdrawing their funding did put CH Media in a bind. They had to layoff a lot of people right before pandemic and, understandably, a lot of trauma was had. There were also weird issues with who controlled certain IPs/brands/digital assets (I mostly come at this from a Drawfee POV, it took several years for them to own the Drawga series and be allowed to host all of the episodes on their YouTube, and there was also something about the sound file for their opening animation?) but mainly the difference is what kind of content they generate. Originally Dropout had multiple scripted shows with high budgets and pretty cool effects/animations/stunts (Troopers, Kingpin Katie, Gods of Food, Ultramechatron Team Go!, Cartoon Hell, and WTF 101) whereas now almost all of their shows are variations of improv comedians being put into different scenarios or given different prompts. I’m not just talking about Game Changer and Make Some Noise, because Dimension 20 and Um, Actually also technically fall under that description as well. Which is not to say that these shows are worse than the scripted shows—I subscribe to Dropout, so clearly I’m a fan of their current shows—and the budgets for them have since increased to resemble, if not match, those early shows, but it is a noticeable shift in their content creation strategy as a response to the lack of IAC funding. And I will say: Dropout releases at least three videos a week if not more and at least two of those are long form at 30 minutes plus (Dimension 20 being the longest, of course.)

So, these first two business models are not really the most applicable to Watcher Entertainment considering their origin was to get away from Buzzfeed—they’re probably not keen to be partnered with or purchased by a larger company—but there are some aspects to both that I believe are valuable in at least showing the strategy in how these former YouTube creators could successfully extract themselves from YouTube or how they still utilize YouTube even if it is not their main hosting platform or revenue stream.

Then there is Drawfee and Corridor Digital, both of whom are currently—if not primarily—on YouTube, whose situations are more comparable to what I believe are Watcher’s goals.

Drawfee had to rebuild themselves like a phoenix from the ashes of the CH Media layoff during the beginning/worst of the pandemic. Side note: I’m happy that Nathan (one of the four main artists of the current Drawfee team) at least has forgiven(? or let bygones be bygones) Dropout enough to be on an episode of Game Changer (although I will say that this happened after Drawga was “returned” to Drawfee, and after Dropout officially split from College Humor as a brand.) All that being said, Drawfee was a team of four artists plus their editor who wanted to stick together but basically had all of their support system taken away from them. They took a bit of a break to assess their goals and options, announced a patreon with several tiers with great perks, and stuck to their upload schedule. In addition to two videos a week, they also stream on Twitch weekly, have a patron only stream once a month, and a draw class (for one of the higher tiers) once month. After asking their patrons on the relevant tiers if they were okay with it, they began releasing the patron only stream and the draw class to the general public for free after a month. The patreon perks also include things like merch discount codes, high quality PNGs of the final rendered art, access to the draw class with live interaction/critique, and a commission from the artist of your choice. The only “ads” they run are for their own patreon and merch store and, even then, they’re usually at the end of the videos with a credit scroll of the patron names during their exit banter.

Admittedly, they only have MAYBE eight employees—that’s including their video editor(s?) and their discord mod(s?)—with the main four artists doubling/tripling up duties as additional video editors, CFO, and marketing/merch leads. It’s a very streamlined crew and their production costs are not very high since it’s mostly screen recording of their drawings with their audio recording overlayed onto that footage. Although the video editors do sometimes have clever cuts to relevant images depending on their vamping. Sometimes they will have a guest artist but, again, since it’s screen and audio recordings, there’s no travel/housing costs. So, very minimal expenses due to low production costs and small crew but, again, their only revenue source is the patreon/merch, they don’t do outside ads and they very rarely do live shows.

Corridor Digital is, I think, the most applicable to what Watcher would ideally do, which I suppose is somewhat ironic for this essay in particular considering they’re the only one of the four that I don’t financially support. They have two YouTube channels: their main one being where they show the “final product” videos, but I believe their Corridor Crew channel which started primarily as behind the scenes type of videos is where most of their views come from. Especially their React series (VFX artists, Stuntmen, and Animators React etc.) On Corridor Crew they usually upload two videos a week — one which is a React and the other which goes into fun projects/challenges (involving VFX or not) or using VFX to explain scientific concepts — as well as the first episodes of their exclusive content on their streamer. Also behind that paywall are longer and ad-less versions of the videos on YouTube. They also have merch. All of them have merch, I don’t know why I’m stating that. They don’t have a patreon as far as I know, but I also don’t know if their subscription to their website comes with similar perks like discounted merch or something similar.

Anyway, their studio seems to be about 15 to 20 people — not all of them are VFX artists, of course. I believe they have higher equipment costs than Watcher since, understandably, Corridor has to be on the cutting edge of video editing technology. They do occasionally travel for shoots, but it doesn’t require big teams, and that’s only when the local locations available to them don’t match the requirements for the “final product” videos. Otherwise most of their videos are set in the studio or in the alleyway outside their studio in Los Angeles (the city itself, not just the greater county, though they are in a rougher and thus probably cheaper part of Los Angeles). I personally don’t subscribe to their website primarily because their exclusive shows don’t appeal to me—either they’re too technical or a little too dry; to be fair, most of them are VFX artists first before they are performers—and I don’t particularly feel the need to see the extended cuts of the videos uploaded on YouTube. Also I sometimes get a little bummed out by their lack of diversity.

All of this to say, from these four different business models, a bespoke Frankenstein business model for Watcher could be cobbled together. But also, even with that bespoke Frankenstein, there are some changes that Watcher would have to make: primarily their upload schedule. As of right now, I think they do MAYBE one video a week if not, perhaps, one video every TWO weeks. If they want a monthly subscription model, their rate of content generation would ideally be higher to double/quadruple their current upload rate. Obviously they want to create videos with higher production value, but at that rate of generation, something’s got to give: supplement their TV quality shows with either a behind the scenes type series or an increase of “we get four episodes out of Shane and Ryan get increasingly drunk in someone’s backyard” or something similar. Leaning into shows like Worth A Shot (the first season in which Ricky Wang makes cocktails based on a random ingredient, the second season threw in some competitive aspects which I didn’t really find necessary) or the Beatdown which has relatively low production costs (no travel, one location, maybe two cameras at most therefore smaller crew requirements) but a higher polished look. Otherwise, for a separate streaming subscription service, 2-4 videos a month is not going to cut it.

As of right now they probably can’t back out of the separate streaming subscription service because those set ups usually require some level of contract/paying for servers for the website and whatever is hosting their videos for a set amount of time. However, what really strikes me is that I literally didn’t know they had a patreon until I scrolled through the comments of the first Goodbye Youtube video. Maybe it’s been linked "tactfully" in the descriptions of videos, but considering they claim to be lacking in funds, the fact that they weren’t plugging their patreon at the end of every video is not just strange, but also irresponsible considering they do have 25 employees that they don’t want to layoff.

Additionally, I understand artists needing to be in a space that promotes creativity, but there are cheaper places that must be comparable that aren’t in literal Hollywood. It’s an unnecessary expense. On top of that, other people have already brought up that it was fairly crass to introduce this paywall, attributing it to the increased production costs, when the next planned “new series” is a reboot of an old Buzzfeed series in which people travel and eat expensive food. I’m not even talking about the personal expenses of Steven, Shane, and Ryan; what kind of car they drive or the cost of their wedding venue doesn’t matter on a business model basis.

But getting back to the patreon: again, I literally didn’t know they had one. I’m looking over their tiers— they have $5, $10, $25, and $100 — and for the most part they seem okay, although I think they have more to offer that wouldn’t necessarily cost them more. Ie, something that has baffled me for a while: the fact they don’t sell the mp3s of the Puppet History songs; they already exist and it doesn’t cost them anything additional because they don’t need to put it on physical media. Or maybe they do and they’re not marketing it similarly to how they weren’t overtly marketing their patreon?

And, okay, maybe they didn’t want to seem desperate — in the early days of Dropout and independent Drawfee, they both were very blatant in getting people to subscribe/join their patreon. As they should be. Desperation maybe doesn’t look cool and sexy, but it is earnest in a way that conveys equal effort that fans who can afford it would want to see. The fact that we weren’t getting rotating ten second clips of Steven, Shane, and Ryan asking people to join the patreon at the end of every video — even if its the same clip every three videos — is wild. And yes, the $25 tier includes a shoutout every 3 months on Watcher Weekly+ (which I don't quite understand what that is,) but the fact that they weren’t doing a quick post movie credits scroll of all the patreon names is, again, wild. Once you have that initial list, it’s not too difficult to add any new names that join and put that title overlay on top of, again, those nonexistent ten second clips of the three.

As others have already stated, it seems like an extreme mismanagement of their existing successful revenue streams, if they are actually struggling to pay all of their employees. Which goes into the philosophy part of this essay: don’t assume malice when it might just be incompetence. It’s something that I have to remind myself of often because I do get paranoid about people’s intentions sometimes and I have to check myself. Am I being overly suspicious of what might be just an honest mistake? Am I assigning ill will to an action just because it inconvenienced me?

Yes, of course, a lot of this situation could be misconstrued as straight up greed. But, also, Watcher is a relatively young company, helmed by three people who certainly don’t have experience running their own company:

They like to travel. They like to bring a full crew around with them. They’re renting out a shiny office in the heart of Hollywood where everyone knows is where real show biz happens. They’re adding more employees to the team because surely more people means better. And they want better productions values because the prettier the videos the more people will like them right?

It’s naive. It’s a level of inexperience combined with giving responsibility to officers whose main priority is to entertain. And if that means entertaining themselves and their staff, then they might not know the difference. It’s the kind of mistake that first time managers make—trying to prioritize fun over getting the job done. Prioritizing making friends with their employees rather than making sure the work the employees put in is equal to (or greater than) what you spend on them whether that is in paycheck or bringing them to cool locations for fun shoots. It’s a mistake anyone can make, it's just unfortunate that they made this mistake in front of millions of people. It doesn’t necessarily mean it’s solely a greed induced cash grab.

But then comes the catch-22 of the philosophy—is it worse to assume incompetence than it is to assume malice? Or, in this case, greed. Especially for the heads of a company that holds the livelihoods of 25 employees in their hands. At what point does it not matter if it’s incompetence or greed if the end result is the same?

Is it better to think that Watcher knew about the various other business models of independent creators and just ignored the efforts put into achieving those successes or is it better to think that they didn’t know and just stumbled into one of the worst moves they could have done. Again, other people have mentioned that Great Mythical Morning—which Watcher has had multiple collaborations with—has managed to make the YouTube subscription/tier system work to the point that they can sustain themselves as well as spinoff channels. Is it incompetence or greed that led to Watcher thinking they could bypass that completely in less time and with less content?

I’ve been at this mess of an essay for several hours when I should have been asleep. Ultimately I want to say, regardless of incompetence or greed… yes, Steven is CEO and yes he is ultimately the one who makes the final call but it is disheartening to see the pointed vitriol at Steven specifically and the infantilizing of Shane and Ryan in comparison. Either they’re all silly uwu boys who are messing around not knowing how to run a company, or they’re all complicit in a crass cash grab in an extremely busted economy.

I think what’s most frustrating to me in all this is that there were so many other channels and creators who have literally walked this path before them and, again, whether through incompetence or greed or arrogance, for them to just ignore it… It’s not betrayal because I don’t know them and so there’s no relationship to betray, it’s just so inefficient and convoluted that I don’t understand. Or, no, even if it was greed, it’s an incompetent greed because at least pure greed would have been pushing that patreon every second they could. Their ratio of YouTube subscribers to patreon members is less than 1% and I bet that’s because a lot of their audience, like me, literally didn’t know they had a patreon. I probably would have become a patreon member of theirs had I known earlier, ESPECIALLY if it included access to those Puppet History songs. Drawfee has half as many YouTube subscribers and nearly double the patreon members as Watcher. I’m just baffled, is all, and maybe by this point sleep deprived.

Anyway. That’s my extremely late, completely unnecessary opinion of this situation.

Edit (several hours later after some sleep): I forgot to mention, because they did walk this back almost immediately, even before their "An Update" video, but I believe the original plan was to put EVERYTHING behind that paywall and pull their content from YouTube entirely. Which is, again, extremely baffling, because if ALL of their content is behind a paywall, how would they possibly gain new fans? Even if all of their current fans were able and willing to pay for their separate subscription streaming service, how would a brand new person even stumble on their content enough to want to subscribe if there wasn't a significant amount of "proof of value" free content on YouTube? Again, extremely baffling, and a level of incompetence that overshadows a "cunning" greed. But, like I said earlier, they did walk this decision back almost immediately. If I've misunderstood this and that was never their plan, please let me know, I don't want to be spreading misinformation in a situation that is already so convoluted.

#jacksgreyson #writing #nonfiction #essay #watcher #op-ed #youtube #drawfee #corridor digital #dropout #rocketjump #dungeons and daddies

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originalwinnercheesecake · 20 days

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Bluey's episode "Surprise" and a discussion on the surprise

One of the first things I did when I woke up this morning was watch the Bluey episode "Surprise". I had three thoughts for most of it 1.) Yeah two kids and two different games is gonna get chaotic. 2.) I feel sorry for Bandit. All my man wanted to do was watch the race. Poor guy will definitely wake up tomorrow covered in bruises. 3.) This feels like a generic episode... why air it after "The Sign"? Like what makes it the better season finale. Then I got to the end.

Spoilers below the line

Adult Bluey. She looks great! I am not gonna lie though she maybe looks a little to young. Someone said she was older now because she has grey in her fur. Maybe I am just bad at guessing dog ages but I thought that was just texture to show her fur had gotten longer/thicker over time. I would have honestly believed that she was 18 and visiting home for the first time after going away to college.; particularly since Chili says Bingo is still at home. Then i remembered Bingo is hinted to have an intrest in the medical field/want to be a doctor, so maybe she stays at home longer to save money while working on her degree. But there is one thing to hint Bluey must actually be in her mid to late 20's at this point....

Her little child. Again I am not the best guess of the characters ages... I am going to guess this kid is around 5 based on them only being about a head smaller than Bluey was when she was 7 and played this trick on Bandit (also I just do not think you give a ball shooter to a toddler. Imagine Muffin with one).

The main topic surrounding this little pup right now seems to be who is the father. I understand the shippers want to know, But I am an adult viewer who really does not have that much interest in ships in a children's show. And there are other things I think people should be asking. First do we think this is Bluey's son or her daughter. They look a lot like Bluey, but also a lot different from her. Plus this show is pretty good at not necessarily making all the girls look exactly like their moms: both Bluey and Socks resemble their fathers and Bingo looks as much like her aunt as she does her mom. Other than that the dogs do not wear cloths and we do not hear a name or voice to help us guess. So really they could be either.

That drives me to my next point. I really want this pup to have a name. I definetly believe that Bluey's child would have a name that starts with "B" to carry on the little tradition from her childhood house. Since we do not know if they are a boy or a girl I have decided to christian them by the gender neutral animal name: "Bean". "Beanie" and "Little Bean" are affectionate names family members will call them. Their favorite breakfast food is biscuits with jelly, because then they will be asked "Jelly Bean?" which makes them laugh so hard they almost roll off their chair

Edit

here is a picture of Bluey's child ("Bean") , that I took off the official wiki, without the toy gear.

They have less jet black fur and more purple/dark blue than it originally looked like they did when they were wearing the toy. Personally I think they look like a blue/grey version of Brandy. Genetics are fun. It is much harder to say looking at this picture if they are a Blue Heeler/Border Collie mix or a Blue Heeler/ Black lab mix. Wiki says this is on purpose as both mixed breed dogs can look fairly alike and that the pup has traits that could come from either Bluey's friend Mackenzie or her Friend Jean Luc. So you heard it here. The creators intentionally left the breed/father of this pup ambiguous, and you are not wrong for believing either one of them is Bluey's husband/ the father.

#Bluey #Bluey heeler #Bandit Heeler #Bluey Surprise #Bingo Heeler #chili Heeler #Bluey Surprise spoilers #Heeler family #Bluey's future child #Grandpa Bandit #Mackenzie Border Collie #Bluey Jean-Luc

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issillage · 9 months

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Dark! Morax — “Drowned in waters of cruelty.”

Drowned in the water of cruelty, Morax emerged victorious from the war of the Archons, but it cost you the life of your Goddess, whose body turned into dust. Blind pride or obedience to a new Deity?

The sun was rising above the dusty curtain of the Guili Plins — illuminating the sickly pale clouds with a yellowish light, looking more like a haze of poisonous fog. Morax showed the face of boundless destruction, his blows did not miss; during the War of the Archons that turned heaven and earth, he showed no mercy, even if it was an old friend.

Your Goddess Guizhong, an old friend of Morax, is endowed with knowledge and graciousness, but lacked the physical might, for which she forfeited her existence. From the beautiful and gentle Goddess, there is only sand left, that you are trying to collect in anxiety, but the golden crystals of dust pass through your fingers and get wet from your tears. This is a tribute to the loss of your deity.

“Which is to be expected. Fragile and weak as a speck of dust, just like your Goddess.”

Morax, the demonic God of rocks, towered over you, looked like you sitting on the sand in this chaos — in the flames of war, slurping grief. In that mythical era, the face of the Lord of the Stone was motionless, like an icy rock, on which no trace of emotion could be seen. Was his heart made of stone as well?

“So answer me, mortal.”

The Lord of stones stretched out his hand to your chin and forced you to lift your face up, lightly pressing on the delicate skin. You didn't know what to feel now; grief from the loss of your goddess, fear because of the numerous lifeless bodies around you, or hatred for the culprit of deaths that incinerates you with a look of amber eyes?

“Will you die for your goddess because of blind loyalty, or will you be more useful to make me think about keeping you alive?”

His gaze slid over your body, devoured, tasted and caused trembling. Behind the handsome face of a man, there was nothing human, so many centuries lived, but a complete lack of pity. Morax smeared your lower lip with his thumb and pulled it down slightly — watching as your eyes, swollen from tears, look at him with hatred and horror.

"Indeed. I understand why Guizhong kept you by her side." - he nodded, sharpening you with his gaze like a jeweler making a necklace from a precious stone. "Your eyes full of tears are incredibly beautiful, little one. It's like you were born to suffer."

You are on your knees in front of him and this causes not the right thoughts in the head of the Deity. If humans are the children of God, then Morax is probably a terrible father and a sinful creator.

"Wouldn't it be sad to take the life of such a pretty face?"

The desire and lust of mortals is a part that they have adopted from their Gods. Sins is also a divine origin — and Morax is the root of this very peccancy.

(Mom I’m sorry, I have a special place in my heart for pre-Zhongli😩)

#genshin impact #18+ only #y/n #fanfic #genshin x reader #genshin x you #morax #zhongli #genshin fanfic #genshin smut

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lady-elora · 5 months

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Those who've been reading my blog for a long time know that I ship not only sylki but also sherlolly. And do you know what just amazes me about sylki shipers in compare with sherlollians?

Their unpleasantly striking instability. Their willingness to be instantly disappointed right as the canon doesn't give them exactly what they want.

Hey, people! Open your eyes and look at us sherlollians!

We shiped our pairing for all time, always, no matter what. We continued to ship it even when there was almost no hope for it, even when the characters interacted very little in the season, even when one of them got engaged!

Were we upset? Oh, yes!

Did we whine or nag? Absolutely NOT!!!

We continued writing fanfiction, drawing arts, editing videos and making gifsets, despite of all, no matter what happened in the canon! We produced tons of creativity, because we really LOVED and BELIEVED in our pairing!

And you know what?

One day, when there was almost no hope left, our pairing DID become a canon. And all our hard work, all our long 7 years of waiting were finally rewarded.

I still don't know if this was the original idea of the series or if our activity and our love ultimately influenced the decision of the show creators. But I prefer to think that our dedication to sherlolly pairing is the reason.

So now I'm asking you sylkies: why did so many of you give up your faith and love for pairing so easily? Why did you start whining and nagging instead of writing, drawing and editing fix-its? What happened, really? Where are your damn brilliant works helping to cope with the season's finale bitterness?

Now I see a lot of frustration and annoyance in my Tumbler feed. And I really don't understand why YOU sylkies are being stopped by something that has never stopped us sherlollians.

More faith, love and creativity, guys! And one day our inner fire and expectations will definitely be rewarded.

#loki #sylvie #sylki #lovie #loki x sylvie #lovedaggers #loki series #marvel #pro sylki #sherlock #sherlock bbc #molly hooper #sherlolly

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wereh0gz · 2 months

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Hello, I’m one of the contestants of the AU Sonic Smackdown, @delightrolls, the creator of the Sonic Thunderstorm AU. I was trying to decide who to vote for between you and @eloaholiveira, but the decision is proving to be difficult. Would you kindly tell me more about your Old Man Sonic AU? Anything and everything you feel comfortable sharing about your outstanding story! And if you want some more specific questions I would like to ask:

Why has Eggman Nega returned to Sonic’s Dimension?

How did Eggman Nega learn that Sonic is immortal?

If Eggman Nega is present, is Eggman also present and if so, what does he do?

Where and how does your Sonic respawn?

What is Omega like in this AU? Has he managed to destroy all Eggman robots? If so, what is he doing now?

What is Chip like in this AU? If Chip is present, is Dark Gaia as well?

How did Sonic, Tails, and Shadow handle the deaths of their other friends?

Was Tails born as a Kitsune or did something make him like that? If some made him like that what happened? If he was born like that, are there other Kitsune?

Can Tails still fly despite the greater number of tails?

And one just out of curiosity, what would happen if your Sonic were to be killed while all the Chaos Energy in his body has been neutralized? Would he find a different way to come back or would he actually die? I ask because after my Sonic, Duality, gets corrupted by the End in Sonic Frontiers they gain the ability Chaos Cancel from the End’s Absence Energy which allows them to neutralize all Chaos Energy in a certain range though that energy will eventually come back. Could my Sonic theoretically kill your Sonic?

Thank you for your time and regardless of whether you win or lose I think your story is outstanding :)

OH WOW THAT'S A LOT OF QUESTIONS

I'd be happy to answer them all for you :]

(Answers under the cut bc this got really long lol)

1. Why has Eggman Nega returned to Sonic's dimension?

From my understanding, Nega has some conflicting lore about his origins, so in this AU he's actually just Eggman's descendent from Silver's future and not from another dimension entirely.

2. How did Eggman Nega learn that Sonic is immortal?

It actually took a while to figure out, since Sonic keeps to himself a lot more than he used to, and he's really slippery and hard to capture or kill. He wasn't even sure if that old blue hedgehog getting in his way was actually Sonic for a pretty long time.

He did kill him once, though. Managed to stab him through the head with one of his mechs in a fight, basically lobotomized him. You see that scar under his floppy ear? Yeah.

Shadow, Omega, Silver, and Tails got Nega to retreat, but he was sure Sonic was gone for good. Turns out he was wrong, as Sonic came back months later to foil his plans for world domination again, quieter and much, much angrier than before.

This leads to Nega looking into his past in as much detail as possible, as well as trying to capture Sonic and study him to find some way to get rid of him for good. And that one death would not be the last caused by him.

3. If Eggman Nega is present, is Eggman also present and if so, what does he do?

Eggman is long dead by this point, as this AU takes place 200 in the future from when most Sonic games take place. Can't do much when you're six feet under lol.

4. Where and how does you Sonic respawn?

He doesn't really *respawn* so to speak, he regenerates from whatever is left of his body after dying. I guess you could call it respawning if he's reduced to atoms, as he would technically have to come back from nothing, but that (thankfully) has never happened.

Whenever he dies, he's usually taken to one of Tails' workshops by Shadow so that Tails can oversee his regeneration/recovery. He's built machines that help speed up the regeneration process using Chaos Energy. They're like special beds that blast him with high amounts of energy until he can come back to life and recover from his injuries on his own.

He can regenerate without the machines if needed, but it takes a lot longer and he doesn't like it. He hates the feeling of a "restless death", as he calls it, and would rather come back as fast as possible even if he wakes up scarred and in pain.

5. What is Omega like in this AU? Has he managed to destroy all Eggman robots? If so, what is he doing now?

Omega is pretty similar to how he is in canon. Still very much the rage-filled lover of extreme violence and destruction we all know and love, but he's ever so slightly more open to showing affection to his friends now (even calls them his friends outright sometimes!)

He's destroyed as many of Eggman robots as he possibly could, which, as far as he's aware, is all of them, so he's satisfied on that front. However, he does have the newfound goal of destroying all of Eggman *Nega's* robots, too, ensuring Eggman's legacy is wiped out completely. So he joins Shadow and Silver in fighting Nega whenever he can.

Achieving this new goal gets progressively more difficult as his body becomes harder and harder to repair, though, but he won't give up until his job is done (or until he finally kicks the bucket).

6. What is Chip like in this AU? If Chip is present, is Dark Gaia as well?

Chip actually comes in later on in whatever semblance of a cohesive story I have in my head, after Nega's properly defeated. They'd basically be the focus of the second major arc in this story.

They actually fused with Dark Gaia after their premature release from the planet's core, seeking to embrace each other and end the cycle they were a part of, reforming into "True Gaia". After some time, their seal eventually weakened again, which led to parts of them escaping back into the surface and forming a new physical body.

He struggles a lot with his identity and guilt as both Light and Dark Gaia's identities and memories suddenly merged into one. It's hard to tell where Chip ends and Dark Gaia begins. He's still kind and curious, like he was when Sonic first met him years ago, but he can also be prone to mood swings and even act animalistic and feral sometimes. The most notable change, though, is that he is very sleepy all the time.

It would travel the world with Sonic and Tails to energy "hotspots" scattered around the planet in order to absorb the parts of it still sealed inside the core, all while helping Sonic connect with the current world in the process.

7. How did Sonic, Tails, and Shadow handle the deaths of their other friends?

Shadow had time to come to terms with the fact that he would outlive his friends. He'd known he was immortal for much longer than Sonic or Tails, so he could at least try to prepare for it long before it happened. Of course, it still hurt when they eventually passed away, but he continues to move forward.

He looks back at the times they shared fondly and keeps their memory alive in a series of journals he's written.

Tails didn't have as much time to prepare himself like Shadow did, but he handled it alright. He misses them a lot, but he lives on because it's what they would've wanted. He often regrets not having spent more time with them, though.

He keeps a database of all the information (both public and private) he could possibly have about them, including biographies, images, videos, even things like chat logs in a cloud network he created to ensure they'd never be forgotten.

Sonic... didn't take it so well. It's like he never really processed that he would outlive his friends at all. He never thought about it, never *wanted* to think about it, despite the fact that he learned of his immortality well before that time came. So when it eventually happened, and he had to watch his friends eventually die one after another, it hit him *hard*.

He isolated himself and started hoarding anything and everything that reminded him of them, from gifts he was given years ago to pictures that had begun to fade. He avoided facing that grief head on for as long as he could, but he eventually began to forget what they were like, and was forced to move on.

He still grieves them, but now it feels like he's grieving phantoms instead of actual people. He hates it.

8. Was Tails born as a Kitsune or did something make him like that? If something made him like that what happened? If he was born like that, are there other Kitsune?

He was born a kitsune! There are others like him, but they're extremely rare and only really heard of in legends, so he's the only one we would actually see in this AU.

9. Can Tails still fly despite the greater number of tails?

Yes! He can fly without having to spin his tails now, too, but still does it out of habit.

10. What would happen if your Sonic were to be killed while all the Chaos Energy in his body has been neutralized? Would he find a different way to come back or would he actually die?

Sonic cannot truly die unless his soul is destroyed, which is nigh impossible as the forces of Chaos themselves forbid that from happening.

Neutralizing the Chaos Energy inside him would temporarily halt his regeneration, though, so he wouldn't be able to heal at all as long as the neutralization effect is active. Since that effect is temporary and his soul is (I assume) still intact, he will eventually come back.

Thanks for asking about my AU!! I love thinking abt him and The Horrors he's gone through <3

#asks #old man sonic au #au sonic smackdown #ask to tag #for some of the darker stuff touched upon here. dunno if it needs trigger warnings or not since i didn't go into too much detail. but yeah

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lottiecrabie · 10 months

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the significance of galatea in ‘galatea, take one’

the song and the concept of galatea was an important metaphor throughout galatea, take one — pretty obviously as it is part of its title — and i really needed to talk about it. i decided to pour my thoughts out and send this bottle into the wild. i hope it finds you.

reader starts the fic as galatea, very obviously and even hinted on later. she’s just come out of this relationship with a painter who, at least in her point of view, saw her as ‘unfinished’ and aimed to ‘complete’ her. these feelings have left her reeling at the idea of being a muse and the material consequences of an artist-object relationship. there’s this initial reticence about matty because she doesn’t want to fall into this same dynamic again.

she starts the writing of this song with a clear objective. the first verse describes the beating, electric love between pygmalion and galatea, keeping a purposeful nebulous understanding of who exactly is the speaker. later, the song reveals it’s galatea, leaving us wondering if the mentioned ‘love’ is really this pure if, in the end, she’s literally made for this man.

but as she writes more and more songs about matty, she finds herself blurring her position as galatea. falling in love with matty and finding inspiration from him, reader is acutely aware that she’s placing him in the position of muse. now, there’s a fear that she’s romanticizing him, making him like her very own statue.

the galatea song, always being worked and reworked, changes because of it. the speaker becomes convoluted— it’s unclear if the point of view is of pygmalion or galatea, just as it’s increasingly clear to the readers how delusional she is getting in contrast. though there seems to be genuine care and feelings between the two, she makes them grander, wishes him to be better. she’ll twist his words until they sound like she wants them to, reflecting the sculptor of her story.

the more she wants him, the more the song changes. it’s briefly a love song— some desperate attempt to force feelings onto matty. ‘galatea loves pygmalion’ is a very comforting thought when you’re the sculptor. there is a certain sense of aphrodite breathing life into galatea to these new lyrics. in practically saying ‘matty loves me’, she’s essentially trying to make it magically true because she wrote it down. however, matty calls her out on it and she quickly goes back to her original meaning.

the song ends in this confused state, though leaning further into pygmalion. as a lyric uses ‘she’, it gives us an idea that it is him telling the story. she even borrows lines she wrote about matty for the song, making it clearly about him on a certain level. her friend does mention being unsure who the speaker is, which shows us that the nebulous point of view remains. still, by the end of its creation, the song and speaker has completely shifted. it is why she affirms ‘galatea’ would not have been the same without matty: this change would have never happened.

in parallel, by the end of the story, she also realizes how much she romanticized and made matty up in her mind, and has to come to terms with the fact that she is the creator of their relationship. this grandiose summer romance was mostly lived in her head. his marble crumbles to the ground and he’s left just like her at the end of her past relationship: bloody and bruised.

she is the muse and the creator, she is the object and the artist. she is the victim and the perpetuator.

#i could go on about this fic forever!!!#her seeing that statue and being distraught because it reminds her of how she was hurt being a muse #and then asking matty what he sees and it’s the same thing as her Implying to her that he is also being made a muse #one of my favorite scenes #lottiecrabie director’s cut #galatea take one #crabie

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kaddyssammlung · 6 months

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Vessel knows the difference between God and "The Gods"

At least that is how I like to see it. So bear with me. I just wrote a lot.

Since it keeps coming up. To me there is a difference between a real God or God or the source of all beings and “the Gods”.

“Will we remain stuck in the throat of Gods?”

Not me Vessel. But let me explain.

The “Gods” shaped our world from a very invisible place. And because we don't see them, discuss them or know about them, we tend to look at everything that's taking place right now as a result of humanity. Or even worse as a result of where humanity went wrong instead being able to see the greater picture. Certain god-like beings began to reject the real God (source of all beings).

They said we don't ever want to go home because we perceive that we can be more than God!!!. Could they have a war with God? Could they confront God? No, they could not confront God. They couldn't be confrontational because they would lose. They could only be separated from God . So in separation they began to get a sense of superiority. They thought to themselves: “ We can create our own world”. But that was a big conundrum because they have lost their ability to create because they were separated from God.

What they did instead was to use us humans. They use our ability to create because they have lost theirs.

How do they use us? In easy words: they mix the truth with some lies. In order for a lie to be believable, there must be some kind of intermingling, interweaving of the truth.

They created stories about themselves, which is why there's so much conflicting information within many religions and religious texts. If you look through the Bible you will notice that there is a place where God is a very loving one.

And then in other places God is fire and brimstone and there is a God to be feared, which doesn't really correlate, well at least not for me. For many people it's difficult to bring all of these ideas together. Or to connect them to the same person.

Because it's not the same person, because there are aspects of original God-source-creator consciousness in them, in all of religious texts. But there were things changed and left out and so on.

To me personally a real God (source of all beings) let's you know that you are divine and equal to them 🙏

So those “Gods” made us believe that we are powerless beings and we act as such.

We keep creating more fear and negativity because we don't know that we are able to do the opposite. We have forgotten or were made forgotten.

Idk. That's just my personal opinion and also things that I have been observing. I understand that this not resonate with everyone. Maybe, maybe that is what Vessel means. To me this makes the most sense. But again, just my opinion. Learning stuff like this has helped me a lot. I really do believe in something like a source of all beings as I like to call it; but I always struggled with any type of religion.

This caused so much nihilism. But then I started to understand and see the bigger picutre and could reconnect. Idk. Maybe it was something like that for Vessel also?!

And also: I don't judge anyone for their religious beliefs. It's just not for me. That's all.

I am so sorry for so, so many words all at once.

#finding meaning #spirituality #spiritual awakening #spiritualgrowth #sleep token lyrics #sleep token lore #sleep token #sleep token worship

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margridarnauds · 15 days

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what makes bres such a special boy to you

I mean, you know better than almost anyone how long he's been following me, how long I've been following him. I've been to this man's grave site, like. Within the next year, I intend to have visited this man's fortress, or what's left of it. I've crossed oceans for him, multiple times. I've argued for him, consistently, advocated for him, and, if nothing else, I can say that, if people think I'm obsessed or one-note, they HAVE had to think about him. He has changed my life and he's continued to change my life, and the way I understand him now isn't the way I first understood him when I was 14, which won't be how I understand him when I'm 40. In some ways, you could say that he and I have grown up together.

And...there's a lot to draw me to him. As a character, he's fascinating, because from the evidence we have, the villainous depiction of him in Cath Maige Tuired, his main text, is a recent development -- it SEEMS most likely that he was a prominent literary figure who was viewed positively, but because the author of CMT wanted to make a political point, he was made into an anti-king character, a villain to represent the ultimate degradation of the social order. Even there, he's isn't what you'd expect from a tyrant figure -- he isn't BLOODTHIRSTY. An entitled brat, yes, but not bloodthirsty. Not sexually predatory.

When I first started working with him, I pictured him as this kind of seductive, bad boy character. His goal was to act as this figure of temptation for a (now cut) OC of mine. But the problem was that, the more I looked into him, the more it didn't work. But I kept working with him, kept fiddling with him, looking into more texts, and I think that it finally set in for me when I was 16, and I had just cut off contact with my father. And I was...I wasn't a wreck -- after the initial crying fit was over, I was more angry than anything else, as I recall, but I was a little lost. Like, here was this image of a family that I'd had in my head, this image of a relationship with my father that I'd never have, and it was gone.

And I was rereading Cath Maige Tuired, and I distinctly remember reading Bres seeing his own father for the first time, after his father essentially asks him why the fuck he's bothering to go to him in Lochlann, doesn't he have a kingdom of his own, and thinking about Bres' response: "I have a question then: what advice do you have for me?"

And I remember reading it, for the first time, not as something snarky, not as him being stupid, but him being lost. This young man, possibly no more than 25, visiting his father for the first time, probably having all these preconceptions about this man, and his response to him is "Why are you here? What are you doing here? Why are you invading my life?" Scholarship is overwhelmingly sympathetic to Elatha in this scene; it thinks that Bres is the unworthy son of a great father. I read it and I see a creation looking at its creator and going "do you have anything useful to give me? You created me, why?" Bres is a Frankenstein story, he's created by Elatha, had this name put on him by Elatha, and then summarily abandoned to his fate.

And as I got older, as I developed myself a little bit more, as I learned that Celtic Studies was a FIELD, I remember reading John Carey's Myth and Mythography in Cath Maige Tuired, where he made the argument that Bres was originally a positive figure but also pointed out that Bres fulfills an ungodly number of traits associated with the Irish HERO. It was also...interesting to me, the more work I did, how often that women come up in Bres' life, how the women of the tribe support him in the kingship, how his mother is his closest relationship in the text, and that hit me VERY hard in the "raised by a single parent." (I've also done a lot of thinking about how he's queered by that connection to the women, how it's a way of showing that he doesn't live up to the standards of masculinity in medieval Ireland, because Bres was ALWAYS for the girls and the gays.) That was what spurred me onto my undergrad, where I did a lot of work on Bres' fall from literary grace, where I also developed the idea for my MA thesis. I think it's easy, when looking at this grand, heroic texts to focus on the hero -- because we want to BE like the hero, don't we? The hero exemplifies society, exemplifies those neat little categories. We want to be effortlessly skilled, or charismatic, or beautiful, but what happens when, for whatever reason, you fail? What happens when you're Salieri and not Mozart? And CMT is a text that is BIG on parallels -- there are so many ways that Lugh, Bres, and Nuada parallel and contrast one another, they're built up deliberately as foils to one another. So, I understand why Lugh is more popular, but I'm more interested in Bres because I think he's the more realistic, the more human of the two of them. He's a man who isn't a monster, who isn't portrayed in the text as a monster, but he isn't enough, even when he tries, and possibly never could be, and who ends up becoming the Tuatha Dé's own rabid dog, turning against his masters. It's great to like Lugh, to admire Lugh (even though he IS murderous in other texts), but how many of us are more like Bres than Lugh, at the end of the day?

I also dealt more, during my undergrad, with OTHER texts where he shows up, often more positively. His relationship with Sreng in the First Battle was really interesting to me, seeing Bres develop this positive relationship with someone else from another tribe, seeing him genuinely experience friendship, even if it's for a little while, even if it's bittersweet because they have to fight one another. There's the reference in his death tale to him dying "without successful progeny" -- he outlived his children, and we see his son die in CMT "in his father's presence" -- Bres literally watched his son die in front of him due to an order *either he or the rest of the Fomorian leadership gave* and he is STILL dehumanized in depictions of him, with some adaptations even having him coldly have Ruadán die at his feet.

And then, as I was rereading CMT in the Old Irish a couple of years ago, I made the realization that he is actually described as a "mac" -- a boy. He's this symbol of corruption and failure but he's also neurodivergent and a minor a *child* -- whose fault is it more? The child for ruling poorly, or the adults who put him in that situation in the first place? By the time he takes revenge, sure, he's an adult, he's responsible for everything he does, but he starts this out as a potentially seven year old boy king, where no one wanted him in that position because he was replacing a very popular king suddenly.

So. He haunts me. I think he always will. I don't see a time when I'll ever stop being haunted by him. Like, I've entwined my life around his and...I'm kind of okay with that. I do a lot more than just him, but I also think that he's the first association people usually have with me, and...that's okay. That's a kind of immortality too, isn't it? To tie yourself that tightly to something that's lasted for a thousand years? I'm very happy to chase him for another few decades, though who knows if I'll ever fully understand him, because I think, in order to do that, I'd have to understand myself, every single part of my soul, as well as fully understanding the souls of the various scribes in medieval Ireland who wrote down these stories, and that's an impossible task.

In other words, "this thing of darkness, I acknowledge mine."

#bres mac elathan #long post

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asexual-but · 2 years

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Worship Styles

Diluc- The Renewed

Posted on my birthday, because Diluc is my favorite<3

Warnings: cult behavior, obsessive thoughts, religion

Gender Neutral. I will always use "The Divine One," "The Original," and "The Creator" as terms for the reader along with They/Them pronouns unless specified otherwise by a requester

I've mentioned before that Diluc is very devoted to you

Even after all he's been through, he hangs his head every morning and night to offer prayer to you

When he was young he would wake up, open his window and proudly wish you a good morning as he watched the world awaken

Young Diluc would also tell you about his day before bed, speaking excitedly to the night sky, his face would flush every time a maid or his father caught him

But... When his father died, when he and Kaeya... Fell out... He didn't know what to do

What was left for him now? Diluc had always known what he wanted to be, what he wanted to do but

With teary eyes he turned to the night sky again

Is Father with you? Had you known all Kaeya hid? What was your plan for him?

Where were you?

Diluc's wandering had him staying in... Well... Less than wonderful conditions.... Still, every night he prayed

Finally returning to Mondstadt, steeling his resolve and taking on his responsibilities... He held a small carving of you close

The Traveler appears, he knows you're using them as a vessel, knows right away

He's kind to them, he awaits the day you take him as a vessel, Diluc can't understand why you'd take Kaeya first, but he can wait. Perhaps it is because Kaeya has strayed from the path you set out for him

And when you descend, Diluc meets you with kindness in his eyes, devotion in his heart

And a bottle of his favorite grape juice in hand

He had always told Father that he'd love to bring you one

#genshin impact sagau #genshin x reader #sagau #diluc x reader #diluc x gender neutral reader #diluc headcanons #diluc ragnivindr x reader #diluc x you #sagau diluc

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flameunquenched · 3 months

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okay so i've decided i have some concerns regarding netflix's adaption of avatar: the last airbender (which for the sake of my poor fingers, i'm shortening to natla). i will admit that i may have been taken in by the beautiful trailers and i can further admit that the actual cinematics do look fantastic. i love the costuming, the cgi of the elements themselves, and the animals. but...the more i hear about the overall storyline of natla, the more concerned i become.

first, the removal of sokka's sexism shows that the showrunners simply fail to understand his characterization and the innate flaws that make him a character to root for as he grows and changes. sokka grew up the only real man in his tribe because his father and the other men left to fight in the war against the fire nation. not only that, but we can see based on the northern water tribe that there is a sort of innate sexism therein entirely with women being relegated to healing duties when they could bend and men as warriors. and honestly, when you really view it through the correct lens, it makes sense.

but removing that deprives sokka of a great piece of his character arc. not only does his sexism eventually become broken by his sister, but he learns from the kyoshi warriors new ways to fight and comes to respect them not only as 'girls' but also as seasoned, accomplished warriors. my concern is that the removal of his innate sexism is not only going to do a disservice to the character but also to the viewer themselves by sanitizing a story that, frankly, can get quite dark when you think about it.

second, what really worries me is the change to avatar aang. i read an article where they decided to remove the random stops here and there and instead basically have the gaang go immediately to the north pole to begin learning waterbending which...that's not really staying true to aang's character, in my opinion. the article i read basically says that aang learns about the fire nation, goes 'well, let's get to the north pole asap' and off they go. but that does a disservice to aang's character as well. a key point of aang's entire arc is that he does not want to be the avatar. he never wanted to be. it was a title forced onto his shoulders and a mantle he never desired to wear.

by removing those random stops throughout the earth kingdom - and eventually, i assume, the fire nation given that they REMOVED THE FUCKING COMET WHAT THE ACTUAL FU--okay, no, ran, breathe. stay on topic. woosah. - then they are also taking away the chance of the audience to see how severe the war, colonization, and oppression has become throughout the world thanks to the fire nation. not only does this offer the potential sanitization of the fire nation's hundred-year-long war for total conquest and dominion, but it also takes away key parts of the storyline, depending on how much of the early plot lines they scrub.

it is key for aang to see those things. he needs to see the forest that the fire nation burned and help to soothe the angered spirit (which i will say i think we are getting, thankfully). he needs to see the fact that the fire nation is in so many towns and cities throughout the earth kingdom. there may be no war in ba sing se but the rest of the earth kingdom has been feeling the effects of the war with the fire nation for a century now.

i'm not touching the removal of sozin's comet in this post. like. nope. not doing it.

basically, i am concerned. i am beginning to see why the original creators decided to leave over differences and i am really worried that netflix does not understand how to adapt atla and the importance it has with so many of us, myself included, who grew up with it and adore it so. i rewatch atla at least twice a year, often far more than that, and while i desperately want to see a live action version, the "it's a remix, not a cover" line concerns me. and sure, it doesn't need to be a word-for-word, shot-for-shot cover, but i feel like the scrubbing of the two above issues has already broken the heart of the storyline and the hearts of its fans.

i dunno. maybe i'm wrong and need to trust the process and wait. but i've been badly burned by a live action atla before and i don't wanna go through that again.

#netflix avatar #live action avatar #avatar the last airbender #atla #atla sokka #avatar aang #pers.text #i am just Concerned

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poisonheart · 9 months

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I think we need to have an honest discussion about shipping in the ILY fandom, especially as the story unveils relationship dynamics that go beyond platonic moving forward.

We cannot let the past repeat itself.

When the comic started, it was advertised as a romance by Webtoons, but Quimchee had always planned and proposed a mature drama. Around that time, they also began monetizing the platform so they asked her to change some of her dark ideas to fit the requirements advertisers might have pushed for initially.

It was an uncertain time with regards to what was or wasn't allowed.

[The comic was supposed to ramp up with those dark themes around the formal arc and it was going to places that would have been triggering to many readers.]

The editors pushed and sold the concept for a love triangle that was never intended because they probably believed this formula would attract more readers and it did.

Unfortunately, with it came all the bad things, too.

This strategy fostered hostility within the fan base and pressured Quimchee to create content to validate it.

Things got so heated in the fandom that we ended with harassment of not only readers but also of Quimchee—to the point that she understandably withdrew from engaging with the public.

[All while going through health issues and personal struggles, too.]

It was a very dark time in the ILY fandom and many people left the communities that had been built because of it. There were hiatuses, uncertainty, and a lot of things withheld from us due to Webtoons' abysmal communication on behalf of the series' they featured.

But the core problem was that unforgettable toxicity and ship war.

There were people who believed their desires were more important than the well being of a real person and that their vitriol was justified because things didn’t go their way.

They believed Quimchee deserved punishment for it.

There wasn't much outrage directed at Webtoons for their false advertisement or for pressuring her to tweak aspects of the story initially to fit their romance marketing agenda. Why?

Because what Webtoons wanted aligned with their desire and it was easier to pretend that Quimchee was a liar about her plot than admit they were misled by the platform, but most importantly, that their interpretation of the story was always flawed.

Quimchee was harassed constantly across multiple social media accounts and they justified their behavior with logic such as "if she created Character X first, then it means they're the lead" when she had constantly stated that there were three main leads in ILY who were equally important to the whole story.

To accept Quimchee's words would break down their arguments and defy the ideas they had created themselves.

They even believed she "sold herself out by not staying true" to a concept she had come up with in high school. They expected the loose and chaotic musings of a young girl to be the version of ILY we got despite her claims otherwise.

[What's funny is that their idea of what the original was is completely wrong and there is proof of it in all her old drawings and drafts.]

They simply refused to accept reality, substituted their own, and went on a campaign of hatred against her because of it.

Now we're here and the drama begins to show hints of romance through heavy, dark themes, and we're seeing that same deranged toxicity trying to make a comeback in the communities we have left.

Don't feed trolls. Don't give them what they want: attention.

To those who remain readers, I hope you can enjoy the story despite the romantic undertones. If you're unhappy, make fan works. If you're dissatisfied to the point you think harassing others and the creator is justified, then please check yourself and stop. Move on. There are a lot of stories waiting for you to enjoy.

To those who feel like they’ve “won” because of how the canon is playing out—stop it. You’re also part of the problem.

That useless “us vs them” mentality is what got us so far gone last time. That whole ‘we won’ or ‘we’re morally superior’ makes you just as problematic as the people who drove fans and Quimchee away years ago. Please check yourself and stop.

You’re not creating a healthy environment by being that way.

Finally, at the end of the day, everyone behind the computer screen is a person. You should never hurt real people, especially over fiction.

#i love yoo #i love you webtoons #non games

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drifting-pieces-blog-blog · 6 months

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Breaking down the comics: Doing good (Issue 34)

Moon Knight, Issue # 34: Primal Scream

Written by Tony Isabella and drawn by Bo Hampton.

And Bonus short: The Vault of Knight

Written by Tony Isabella and drawn by Richard Howell.

Let's stop for a second. Take a little comic history lesson tour.

This is not written by the usual Moon Knight team.

Let's get into a little Moench history here and why he left.

He did not really get along well with the then Marvel Chief editor James Shooter. Understandable. Here’s why:

James Shooter got his start writing for DC then moved to Marvel. During the 70s and 80s, Marvel was experiencing a huge boom in content and new titles (like Moon Knight!)

Further more, Stan Lee stepped away from monitoring comics to heading the animation works in LA right when Shooter became the cheif, leaving him fully in charge.

Many felt that Shooter ran the place like a dictator, but there had been a huge influx of missed deadlines and Shooter put a stop to that.

Despite keeping things running and overseeing a lot of new and important titles, he also alienated a LOT of long-time Marvel creators.

Many of the long-time creators, like Moench, left Marvel to join with DC, who had a new editor. (He got to write for Batman!)

NOTE: Shooter also enforced a policy forbidding the portrayal of Gay Characters in the Marvel Universe. In fact, the ONLY and first portrayal of a gay themed comic was of gay men attempting to rape Bruce Banner in the YMCA (which Shooter himself wrote), thus making Marvel to be widely considered Homophobic throughout Shooter's reign. (You should look into the history of LGBTQ+ in comics. It's a ride.)

I would like to point out that Moench's last issue during this time was about a reporter that was obsessed with making her deadlines and who wrote shitty pieces that were praised but awful and caused harm and eventual death in one character she wrote about. HMMMMM.

When did he leave? Sources say the end of 1982, but those that understand the publishing timeline will note comic publish dates don't match the date they reach the shelves.

So what is the official last Moon Knight Comic Moench worked on?

Let me put it this way... We aren't going to see Moench anymore for the 1980s run.

He DOES come back for a bit later on, but it's short lived for a couple of limited run editions.

(And this is all new knowledge for me, who thought he originally finished the 1980s run and now I'm looking at an earlier review I did out of order because I'm an idiot and realize I've made a grave mistake.... Oh joy.)

Farewell my sweet writer Doug Moench. Hats off to you.

Now! That out of the way, let’s take a look at the first step we truly take away from Mr. Moench.

For some reason, any time a guest writer sits in for early Moon Knight, they feel the need to over explain the character and introduce his past. Almost as if they were trying to explain who they are writing or getting a grasp on it for themselves.

This is also a special double large edition. Another cause for writers to try to over explain characters as Marvel expects a bigger issue to draw in new fans.

However, this is an odd story to push on the hopes of new fans.

Let’s get into it!

Yep. We open with a fast recap on who these characters are.

It leaves me wondering what happened when Moench left. Did he have a script written out? Did he have to give notice and they knew he was leaving and this writer was already on the backburner? Or was this done in a hurry to get a planned comic deadline out on time?

I would ALSO like to point out that when Bill left, he got a send off. Moench did not get a send off. He just disappears from the credits. It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

"He was born Marc Spector and Spector wasn't a very nice man...Not so much evil as callous...A mercenary whose concern was reserved solely for himself and his Bankbook.

That man could never have come to this deserted industrial wasteland on a mission made of equal parts mercy and vengeance."

I disagree. Marc would be all over vengeance in a deserted wasteland.

"Steven Grant could have. You've read about Grant... The committed millionaire about town...A pretty defendable guy as the upper crust goes. Still...

Grant couldn't have found this place without Jake Lockley. Jake is the eyes and ears of Grant and Spector...A cabbie whose heart pulses to the beat of the city."

Putting a bit on Steven, but he'd want to do good. But a gritty back alley is not really his style.

"Ready for the kicker? Spector, Grant, and Lockley are all the same man...A man you know better as..."

(A side note... We see Moon Knight running through a warehouse complaining it smells like a sewer. HE WOULD KNOW. And then he's startled by a cat. This is hilarious to me for so many reasons.)

And that leads us to the title page where a young man is leaking off the crates above to tackle Moon Knight.

"Frank? Hate to do this to a hopped-up kid, but the quicker I put him down...the less chance of his getting hurt! Though when I think of what he did to Gena..."

He tosses Frank across the warehouse.

Moon Knight again alludes to the damage this kid did to Gena's diner after getting high on some new 'junk'.

Moon Knight is about to call in to Frenchie to get the medics out to take care of the hopped-up kid when the kid takes off.

He isn't worried. The fight has been knocked out of him and the police shouldn't have an issue.

Now we head back to the diner where we find Jake having a cuppa wihth Gena and Crawley.

Crawley is talking about "The Raiders" which is a young men's social club (read 'Gang'). They are known to be brutal and even the police are afraid of them.

Gena mentions about how she never raised her boys to run in gangs. Out back, we see Frank leading a group of gang members up to the back door of the diner.

The gang busts in and attacks the patrons, demanding food.

Jake isn't about to lay down and let it slide.

He clocks one of the kids and worries about his friends.

"Gotta get over to Crawley and Gena fast! They're not used to this kind of action!"

Jake's heart is made of gold.

One of the kids jumps Jake, growling and snarling.

"A for effort, punko, but I've seen a real werewolf up close--And all you've got in common with him are lousy table manners!" And Jake flips the man off.

Frank jumps on Genna while Jake is preoccupied. He cries out that he's hungry and he bites into her arm.

Her cries distract Jake and someone bashes him on the back of the head, knocking him out.

On waking up, Jake immediately asks how Gena is. He finds Gena loading up into an ambulance.

"His name is Frank... So much for my perfect record. Find him before the police do, Jake."

"I...Understand. I'll make sure the boy isn't harmed."

"You don't understand! I want that ungrateful little maggot harmed! I want him harmed so badly he won't ever be able to walk upright again! I treated that boy like family! He treated me like today's hot lunch special! Get him for me, Jake! Bring me his stinkin' head on a platter!"

Jake's pretty irked about Gena getting hurt, but...

"But that's not what Moon Knight stands for, is it? I'm the agent of vengeance, not vengeance itself."

That’s an interesting thought for Jake to have. Jake who so often slips out to let the others handle the Moon Knight mission. He trusts that they can handle things. But what is the difference between being an agent of vengeance and vengeance itself? Perhaps, looking to another comic is where we see that line and the difference between Moon Knight and the Punisher.

He sets out to find Frank and his gang. He hopes having Frank brought in will help Gena.

"Because I never want to look into the eyes of someone I care for and see so much hatred and despair there. I've seen it too many times before... Within myself."

So this issue I’m just going to be crying over Jake the whole time. Okay. Good to know.

Back at the diner, Gena is out of the hospital and facing her fears.

Moon Knight is searching the hideout of the Raiders. He fllows the smell till he comes across a delirious woman with some sort of chemical burn blotches all over her.

Looking around, he realizes, Steven Grant has been here before. An old factory he had been trying to save to create jobs has fallen into ruin.

The factory is left to rot and all the chemicals inside are left there as well.

He radios to Frenchie to make sure medical is on standby. These kids have been living in the toxic waste too long.

He asks if the police got anything out of Frank when they grabbed him.

Yeah... they didn't get him. He got away.

And he's still looking for food from Gena.

Back at the diner, we see Gena trying to clean up on her own.

She is skittish as she cleans but tries to tell herself that no one's coming for her.

"Besides, I'm not gonna let anybody or anything chase me away from what's mine!"

And that's when Frank breaks back into Genas’.

Moon Knight finds one of the kids conscious enough to talk. Alcaide, their leader, didn't let them leave the hideout. He found drums full of a top secret toxic waste that drove people wild and crazy.

Moon Knight recalls that Grant had learned that the factory used to work for the government.

"Grant saw that in their public records. But the Spector part of me can't help but wonder if they didn't also do some more discreet research for the feds."

Bingo bango. He finds the drums, filled with "Primal Project" chemicals.

Oh! time for a Marc Spector flashback!

"Spector was working for the feds at the time, escorting a man named Wenzel through a south American jungle..."

They were heading to meet up with a professor in Manaus (that’s in Brazil!) to shut down the Primal Project.

"It was supposed to slow a man's thinking process...Make him docile...Easy to handle. Something went wrong." Wenzel talks about the project.

Marc stops them in their tracks. He hears something stalking them from the trees above.

A creature leaps at them and Marc fires his gun.

The beast is hit and lays dead. Deformed and animalistic.

Marc asks if this is the work of the professor they're heading to see.

"Spector...That IS the professor."

They reach the campsite to find men dead across the site and more creatures running around.

They are attacked adn have to fend off the beasts. They ended up blowing up the site to get rid of the beasts and the remaining chemicals.

Apparently not all the chemical was destroyed.

Now, Alcaide, the gang leader, approaches, fully a beast now.

Back in the diner, Gena fights for her life.

The cops have arrived at the factory and the paramedics are working on the gang.

Moon Knight still battles the crazed beast and so does Gena.

The next day, Jake stops in to see Gena.

Most of the kids will make a recovery and their lawyers claim they were unter the influence of the Primal toxin.

Gena is still shaken deeply.

"I trusted Frank like he was one of my own, Jake...And every time I come in here all the pain comes back. Maybe it wasn't all his fault, but nobody forced him to join that gang. And is it right that I can't walk into my own diner without getting sick?"

Jake tries to comfort her. Or perhaps, he reaches out to her in a way that he wishes he could with himself and with Marc. Because he knows that it does eat them up. It eats Marc up every day. He isn’t sure if it will ever stop eating them up.

"No. But you're too good a lady to let this eat you up forever."

"Yeah... I'll work it out."

Poor Gena.

She shoos them away. She needs to lock up for the night.

This story is beautiful. This one time special guest writer, Tony Isabella and artist Bo Hampton really did a beautiful job here.

They manage to keep the usual Moon Knight pace and story feel. We have Jake trying to protect his people. We have Gena facing a kid she helped to raise up, despite him not being her own, joining a violent gang and hurting her, we have Governmental neglect to clean up their mess and doing experimental biochemical weapons on unsuspecting people (a thing that really did happen in ‘Nam), we have economic failure for the factory that lead to the failure to clean up the toxic chemicals, and then we go back to Gena who is now facing trauma.

No one in this story won. No one goes home feeling good about the day. They just have to pick themselves up again and move on. And they shouldn’t have to. Yet here they are, facing it all alone.

This moves us to the short story afterwards. "The Vault of Knight."

This is a weird one. Stranger still is that the short is written by the same person who wrote the main line. That’s pretty rare. Usually the short is done as a commission to be filler or bonus issues.

Weirder still is the way it’s presented. A commentary on the main storyline! I've seen it done before. It's sort of like the Watcher to the audience.

We have a strange looking character that addresses the audience. He's dressed like a baseball catcher with a Cubs cap on. Fitting.

He calls himself "The Score-Keeper".

And this... Let me tell you....

"Aloha, Adventure-addicts! Was twenty-four pages of gratuitous Do-Gooding enough for you...Or does your Hero-Habit demand even more of (yawn) Moon Knight's exciting escapades? I'm your sinister statistician, The Score-Keeper, and what I wanna know is...

What is this Turkey in his cowled skivvies accomplishing? Does he really make a difference? Let's add it up. You can't lie to a Scorecard!"

Interesting. A common question that pops up in Moon Knight comics.

"Take last story for example. Sure he put ONE gang of teen terrors out of commission, but what's he doing about the rest of the anti-social adolescents in this city?"

We see Moon Knight on a stakeout, waiting where someone's been hitting the same place for a week.

The someone is two punks that dress up like werewolves and rob the shops in the area. In fact, they've hit five places in the past week alone!

They hit a store where an old man cowers in fear....Until Moon Knight swoops in and knocks the thugs out.

"You...You're that Moon Mensch fella! And you came into MY shop to save me from those Gonifs."

"It's sort of my job." Moon Knight pauses.

"Nu? To you, it's maybe a job. To me, if my store gets robbed, maybe I don't eat that night. So I thank you a lot, you and your job."

"Friend, it was a mechaieh."

Oh boy oh boy oh boy you have no idea how happy I am to hear Moon Knight say THAT.

Back to the score-keeper, he's not impressed. "Why can't these heroes ever save Bloomingdales?"

And the score-keeper starts talking about Gena and the previous issue.

"What about Gena? One of Moon Knight's own team and he couldn't prevent what happened to her in this issue's other story. I don't think she's over it yet."

We see Gena's boys Ray and Ricky head into the diner.

"What did you want to talk to us about?"

"I...I was talkin' to your uncle Rollie today, the one with the big restaurant out in Houston and he...Well, he kinda offered...I mean..."

Score-Keeper scoffs.

"Way to go M.K. While you're brushin' up on your Yiddish, one of your closest friends is bookin' this urban paradise. Maybe we should ask the rest of your little outfit what they think of you..."

And this cracks me up because we get Frenchie, Marlene, and Crawley. Each one speaks of a different altar. And Frenchie is just SO pissy about it and so protective of Marc... He calls him his friend. Marc could always count on Frenchie back in the day.

I’m…Not going to get into the “Faces of Eve” thing. It’s… A lot. But it was the big DID story and eventual movie that came out around this time that somewhat inspired a loose input into the creation of Moon Knight having DID.

"You ask me, you care more about these guys than you care about Moon Knight."

A misnomer. These people are what makes Moon Knight and keeps him going. In his adventures, helping him, and even when he fails them, they stay with him.

Score guy jabs at it, noting that Moon Knight hasn't protected any of them.

Frenchie's girlfriend, Marlene's brother, Crawley's son...

He moves on to Detective Flint.

Flint waits for him in a back alley.

"Something happened --Didn't want you to read about it in the papers first. That Alaide kid you brought in was found dead in his cell an hour ago."

"Yeah, that would've ruined my Breakfast all right."

(Honestly, Jake is the one that reads the morning paper and eats breakfast. Jake would have been upset.)

"Wasn't anybody's fault, guy. You know how crazed the kid was --He strangled himself before anyone could get to him."

"That supposed to make me feel better?"

"No...This is. It's the room number of the officer that was injured that night."

Moon Knight pays the officer a visit. The officer is surprised to see him, thinking that he might not come.

"Flint tells me that storage drum busted three ribs. I'm sorry. Maybe if I'd moved a little faster..."

"It's all part of the job. But I don't have to tell you that...

You know, I figure you're pretty much a regular guy under that mask. Weird clothes, but no special 'powers'. I'll be honest... This job scares me a lot, like all the time. I was shaking when I went into that warehouse."

Sometimes he doesn't see the good he does.

Sometimes all he can see is the pain he leaves behind. Blaming himself for the pain of his friends.

Maybe he doesn't really understand why this Daniels is thankful for him. But maybe in this moment he thinks it might be worth it. It might be why he is still trying.

Back to Score-Keeper. It's time to add up the score.

"Is Moon Knight doing any good or is he just swinging against the wind?"

He looks at the results and seems surprised. Ripping up the scorecard, he tells us to figure it out for ourselves and leaves.

A weird story, but I'm not mad at it. It ties into the main story line, shows the aftermath of what happened, and still shows their friends standing by them.

It also lets Moon Knight take a moment to feel appreciated.

And it does ask a question that Moon Knight has asked time and time again. “Am I doing good?”

Is he causing the harm or is he just shouldering the blame because of his past traumas? The question remains over the years as things become more and more broken for them, and the answer has always been there. It’s just that sometimes it’s hard for them to see it… or accept it.

#Moon Knight #Moon Knight comics #Analyzing the comics #Marc Spector #Steven Grant #Jake Lockley #Pleasantly surprised

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