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ifishouldvanish · 9 months

Text

Some Olrox Analysis & Headcanons

Have you seen this man? Now you have! 🥰

I have a lot of thoughts about Olrox Castlevania Nocturne and I'm dumping them here.

DISCLAIMER: We know so little about Olrox's past and I am but a humble stan looking at an expressionist painting and projecting my own deranged nonsense onto it. I'm fully prepared for 90% of this to get jossed in season 2, but for now I'm just letting the worms in my brain wiggle and send me beautiful visions of what could be 🥹

1. Olrox Was a Commoner and Does Not Respect Hierarchies

I've seen people point to his manner of speech and dress as evidence that he must come from a privileged background, but I think he displays too much contempt for the wealthy/nobility to have been one himself. I think these things are just symbols of power he has learned to use to his advantage.

Of course, there's everyone's favorite quote: "I prefer my blood blue." But he also demonstrates virtually no respect for authority or symbols/institutions of power in general:

He refuses the escort sent by the marquis when he arrives in France and insists on staying at the inn because he likes to "keep his ear to the ground". He would rather be around 'the people' than accept anything from the wealthy.

When Drolta is reminiscing about her glory days as a priestess, there's really not any nostalgia or sentimentality when he interrupts and says "and now those temples are half-buried in dust."

For as good as he is at presenting himself as a Gentleman of Status, he cannot bring himself to even pretend to enjoy himself at Erzsebet's lil debutante ball at the chateau.

When Erzsebet insists she is a goddess, his response is "Of course you are, sweetie 🙂"

His whole speech to Mizrak in the morning-after scene is basically a deconstruction of what power means, and how it is only a perceived vs tangible thing, a temporary position vs an immutable one:

"There are petty demon princelings you can haggle with and cheat. There are demon charlatans whose faces you can laugh in, spit in. There are demons who once were gods... And those who still are."

Foucault? In MY anime adaptation of a vampire video game?? It's more likely than u think 🤔

(continued under the cut bc this got long as hell)

2. Olrox was an Adult when Cortés Arrived

(I don't have a relevant screenshot for this point, so here's Olrox being pretty for no reason)

I've seen it float around some places that if we adhere to historical timelines to a 'T', it would make most sense for him to have been a child, but I'm of the opinion that it's more useful to take what the text itself gives us and fill the gaps with bits and pieces of the actual history where it's convenient. At the end of the day, this is a work of fiction/fantasy. So what does the text tell us?

He lived a long time as human and vampire

As of 1783, he'd been a vampire for approximately 250 years

Now, if we want to take this 250 figure literally, that would put the year of his turning at 1533. But I think we can give ourselves +/-15 years leeway because 250 is just the kind of rounded, even number one would use in natural speech in place of "267" or some shit like that. It's just how believable dialogue is written. So what lies in this +/-15 year window? The invasion by the Spanish, 1519-1521.

Now, he tells Mizrak: "Long ago, when I was still human, I watched men wade ashore from ships..."

I think this is another case of how important dialogue is. Because if he was a boy at the time, this line would likely have been written as "Long ago, when I was just a boy..." or something like "One of my earliest memories is of..." instead. "Still human" implies not only was he a human, but that he had been human for quite some time already. That the events he's describing fall in the stretch of time leading up to "still human" no longer being true.

tl;dr: the Spanish arrival and him becoming a vampire happened within a few years of each other, and if turned vampires stop aging, then he would have had to have been an adult at the time.

3. Olrox Became A Vampire Willingly

I assume that vampirism is something that was introduced to the Mexica by the Spanish in the same way it was introduced to Haiti by the French, in Annette's case.

However, rather than vampires creating spawn left and right, the persistent lore (in the show at least) is that to be turned is to be accepted into the sort of elite in-group of vampire society. (Carmilla questioning why Lisa was never turned, the Count never turning slaves, etc). Vampires feed on humans, they don't view them as potential spawn to have in thrall or whatever.

The Spanish weren't going around giving natives The Bite, because vampirism is power. So what I think, is that Olrox recognized that power, and decided to take it for himself. Rather than being the passive 'recipient' of the 'gift' of vampirism, he pried it from some Spanish vampire's cold, undead hands. (i.e., he drank their blood)

Do I have any proof of this? No. It's just what the worms in my brain are telling me 🤷 But!!

Do I think it would be a sexy little inversion of the way Erzsebet drank a god's blood to obtain her power? Yes.

Do I think it would be thematically very appropriate for a morally grey character who seems to have a very... Interesting relationship with power (individual power vs institutional powers, the subverting of power, the weaponization of symbols of power, etc)?? Oh absolutely fuck yes!!1!

[sickos.jpg]

4. Olrox Was a Priest, But Not Like That.

Priesthood in the Mexica empire was largely dominated by the nobility, whose children would be sent to the calmecec to learn how to read and write, speak the noble dialect, perform rituals, etc. But if the circumstances were right, the children of commoners could also get in!

Olrox says he's never been much of a believer, but he's highly intelligent and incredibly good at reading people. Even if he was never a man of faith, the priesthood was still a powerful institution where one could climb the ranks and earn influence over the nobility. No doubt someone as sharp and charismatic as Olrox would be able to take advantage of the opportunity to get a good education and maybe try to undermine the system from within/play a bit of political games while he was at it.

Also... Olrox's weapon of choice is the dagger. Obviously a dagger is an appropriate weapon for a character who's kind of rogue-ish, but also consider: Aztec warriors used a lot of weapons in combat: clubs, spears, arrows, axes—but an obsidian dagger? That's something that would have been used by a priest during rituals.

5. Olrox is a Bitch™ Who Knows Just What to Say to Get Under People's Skin

A common myth is that the Mexica welcomed Cortés at first because they thought he was Quetzalcoatl. But this is a misreading of the way Mexica social conventions/the noble dialect worked, which was kinda ~passive aggressive in a way, such that the more loftily and overly politely you spoke with someone, the more you were actually telling them to go eat shit and die. I think Olrox's dialogue demonstrates this beautifully in the scene where he meets Erzsebet:

"Taker of Souls, Vampire Lioness, She Who Mauls, The Messiah of--" / "Yes, charmed to meet you 😒"

"Her magnificence has heard much about you." / "Flattered. For a god to have heard of me. 🥱"

"I am a goddess!" / "...Of course 🙂"

His words are receptive, respectful, docile, even... but his tone and delivery are completely the opposite. Compare this with the way he speaks with Richter and (in later interactions) Mizrak—which is more informal, open, confrontational. He's more direct with them because he actually respects them.

As far as reading and getting under people's skin with pinpoint precision, I present the following interactions:

When he catches the marquis' severed head in the catacombs, he reads him (and potentially also Drolta) like a book: "This one? He was just an opportunist, following the messiah because she's powerful. But there are those who love her [looks to Drolta]. So I'm told."

When Drolta gives him a verbal slap on the wrist for feeding on the wealthy, he says "mY Ap0LoGiEs, I didn't realize how invested you are in keeping the mortals happy." - To which Drolta goes on to grumble about how their alliance with some of the mortals disgusts her.

When Erzsebet is waxing poetic about how everyone will see her beauty and worship her, he has the balls to—without missing a beat—say "PaRd0n mEe, but you mean to do this through an alliance with a man who will never worship you? 🫢" right to her fcuuckin face mgod I love him so much (this is the point where she whips out the big guns and yells "I am a goddess!!" while threateningly flashing her orb of darkness btw. Like she did NOT like that)

6. Olrox Has an 'Eye for an Eye' View of Justice

A prevalent theme in Aztec religion is the idea that like... ain't nothin' in this world for free. Sacrifices to the gods weren't symbolic gestures of devotion, but an act of paying the gods back for providing humanity with the means to survive.

The idea that everything has a price pervades the dialogue he has with Mizrak in the morning-after scene:

"What was the cost? Who pays it? Just him? Or all of you? Will you? Which demon will claim his price when all this is done?"

And it's also present in the very first scene where we are introduced to Olrox:

"You see, your mama took someone from me I loved, just as much as you loved her. So, she had to die."

What's interesting about this scene is also how... calm he is the whole time—before the fight, after the fight. Yes, he's motivated by the murder of the man he loved, but he brings zero of that passion to this confrontation. It's just an execution, something inevitable that must be done.

That he's fine with confronting a terrified Richter immediately afterwards to explain what just happened (and is completely unapologetic about it) is also telling. It suggests that Olrox views this kind of thing as just 'the way of the world'—a hard truth that Richter will be better off for having learned sooner rather than later.

I think this also helps explain why, years later, Olrox seems to treat Richter with a little more.... Familiarity than we might consider appropriate. He approaches Richter in the catacombs like he's just an old acquaintance, as though Richter should have no reason to be terrified of him. When Drolta mentions the incident later, he seems kind of lightly amused by it. Then, when he drops off the book, he's visibly/audibly frustrated that Richter starts gearing up for a fight. To Olrox, the whole "killed your mom" thing is water under the bridge, nothing personal.

7. Olrox is a Vampire of Prominence in The New World

Obviously, he has to be kind of a big deal to give a Belmont a run for their money. But let's go deeper into the IMPLICATIONS!!

"In 250 years, do you know how many vampire hunters have promised to slice me in two?"

"Her magnificence has heard much about you."

"You will be her guide into America."

He's enough of a big deal that countless hunters have promised to kill him. Enough of a big deal that Erzsebet has not only heard of him, but sees him as a valuable ally who knows enough about America to guide her as she builds her empire across it.

Olrox wasn't just a powerful vampire who got entangled with the politics of colonial Massachusetts and happened to cross paths with a Belmont. He's presumably had a hand in matters across the continent. Erzsebet refers to the colonists as "American upstarts" but for her, this is a conflict between humans vs vampires. The American colonists aren't allies or even rivals to her—because they're not vampires. They're just more pesky humans to be dealt with. (Also??? 'Protestant Vampires' as a concept is just hilarious to me, I'm so sorry)

So.

What the worms in my brain are telling me is—And this is Big!! This is a Steaming Hot Take!!!

(...seriously, tin foil hat tier headcanon incoming)

Olrox has established a network of indigenous vampires who are resisting the colonial threat. He's been turning them (or at least select individuals who are into it), and thereby redistributing the power he took from the Spanish colonizers to wield against the British colonizers.

(Look I have 0.01% faith in this actually being canon or anything. I just think it would be cool as fuck.)

Anyway.

Thanks for coming 2 my Ted talk or whatever. 😘

#Olrox #castlevania #castlevania nocturne

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prettyinpwn · 1 month

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Hello, hello!

I just wanna know more of your headcanons about Jheselbraum, I really like her (even she doesn't appear so much)

And, more specifically, what relationship do you think she have with the Axolotl? Personally, I think she have a totally devotation for Axolotl and will do everything for him.

Yay, I'd love to share my Jheselbraum headcanons! Thank you for asking. :D I'll split them into "likely, based on other factors/evidence" and "fanfic level headcanons without evidence". I'll put them under a cut since I've got a lot.

Evidence based/likely headcanons:

We know for sure she is a former Henchmaniac and knew Bill personally, and The Book of Bill's scratched out text by her entry seems like it might imply she helped discover/pass along the the portal technology to Bill (that he then used to try to manipulate humans into building). I'm not 100% sure she invented it, but she's definitely a smart cookie for being able to understand it, at the very least. Plus, you know, knowing how to do cranial surgery on Ford to implant the metal plate probably takes a lot of skill and smarts, too. So I feel like she is very scientific minded, intelligent, and analytical due to these factors. She's like an alien Ford, perhaps why they got along so well when they met; Ford - being at his IQ level - might have felt like he'd finally found someone he could relate to, as genius level people tend to feel alienated. Especially if he found out she was behind the portal tech; his respect level for her would go waaaaay up. Like most people would go blank faced at Ford's jokes (like that one in The Book of Bill he tries to say to the waitress and she's just weirded out), but Jheselbraum gets him. Also, you know, extra eyes, extra fingers, isolated, both have a negative history with Bill... they might have a lot in common. Which is why I feel like JheselFord is an underrated very positive ship, but oh well.

She had a major falling out with Bill and will do anything to mess with his plans and help anyone who he tries to deceive, hence her title "unswerving". I think their falling out was likely over the portal design, where she wanted it used for good, whereas Bill was like, "Hey, let's destroy a dimension with this.", and Jheselbraum realized then she'd been used, just like Bill used everyone else he's ever known. So she tried to escape him and he probably pulled the same tactics on her he pulled on Ford. I feel like that's why she wanted to help Ford those thirty years he was gone, and why she helps the other Henchmaniacs escape Bill after the events of the show (and they end up in, go figure, reality).

So because Jhes knows that reality exists - as that's where she sent the Henchmaniacs - I feel like she has a very, very vast knowledge on the Multiverse and how it works. I think this is a combination of her intelligence plus her connection to the Axolotl.

I'm pretty sure though that she's religiously devoted to the Axolotl, too, given the way she has his depiction all over her mountain shrine/temple that Ford visits in Dimension 52 (also, Ford literally calls it a shrine, which implies a holy place). So she's sort of like a mix between a scientist and a monk/oracle of sorts. There are a lot of Greek allusions in Ford's story (comparing himself to Icarus, calling Bill his "muse" like how Homer calls upon muses in The Odyssey to inspire him to write, Odysseus himself was lost away from home for twenty years sort of like Ford's thirty years, etc), and so I almost think she functions like the Oracle of Delphi did, but instead of Apollo, she's an Oracle for the Axolotl. She speaks of the future and speaks for the Axolotl to mortals, and the Axolotl is described as the "opposite of Bill", so that means just another reason to oppose Bill if her god does.

Because the god she serves is the "opposite of Bill", well... to figure out what that means, let's establish what Bill represents: chaos, holding onto the past, nightmares, fire, lightning, disorder, etc. So the Axolotl I'd think represents order and balance, water (also because amphibian yanno), dreams, light, etc, those kinds of things. I also would argue healing, given that Jheselbraum knows how to heal Ford and perform surgery, and axolotls are well-known for their regenerative properties. Jhes' depiction in Journal 3 shows lots of bubbles behind her, so I picture a lot of water elements in her shrine's design. Like a dreamy, watery, light influenced place with Axolotl banners everywhere.

As for her personality based on all of the above, definitely intelligent, quiet, serious, but warm hearted and caring. She's like a nurse mixed with a scientist mixed with a monk.

Okay, now for my fanfic level headcanons with little to no evidence:

The fact that Ford ran into people that said 'praise the Axolotl' out in the Multiverse, that the Axolotl has an oracle like Jheselbraum who lives in a shrine, and his general power level, yeah... the Axolotl is like the Gravity Falls version of a god. So I'd like to think there's probably a Multiverse-wide religion around the Axolotl as a being that represents balance and dreams and healing and light. I think the Multiverse can be a very dark and chaotic place, hence why beings might want to believe in a deity that helps keep chaos at bay. Tying this in with the themes of Gravity Falls, I don't think the setting lends itself so much to evil vs. good struggles, but more chaos vs. order, which is represented en masse by the Axolotl (order and balance) vs. entities like Bill (chaos).

Oh boy, we're gettin' real fanfiction-ey here, but goddammit, I want there to be a whole order of servants to the Axolotl, and Jheselbraum being just one. How badass would that be? My headcanon is there are multiple servants. Some are just followers that create temples/shrines like clergyfolk across the Multiverse, and some are chosen actual servants, like a font for the Axolotl's power. I think Jheselbraum is a chosen servant, leading me to my next headcanon...

Bill tended to pick Henchmaniacs by their inability to fit in with their societies, and this is also why he targeted Ford, so extend that logic to Jheselbraum, well... she probably didn't fit in with her society. Either they tended to not like her scientific aptitude, or the opposite; overly scientific and didn't appreciate her ability to see the future. So she likely was an outcast. That means her race is either highly scientific or highly spiritual, and Jheselbraum (at least at her current age) represents what her culture couldn't achieve: a personality that balances the two. For some reason, I want to think she's the last of her race, but I'm not sure why. Maybe some sort of accident she didn't mean to cause, or maybe Bill orchestrated some chaos and it forced her to join him, and then later she realized he was part of the reason? I can just picture it now, her all pissed finding out he caused the destruction of her race, and Bill just shrugging and being like, "Those guys were backwards anyways, you didn't need them! I did you a favor, Jhes! I liberated you, just like I liberated myself from my own dimension." /cue holding a real bad grudge against Bill

I think Jheselbraum didn't find the Axolotl until after she left Bill, though. Maybe desperate to get away from him, she went to an Axolotl temple and he chose her as a servant there, much to her surprise. And since then, like you said, she's been utterly devoted to him for keeping her safe from Bill and giving her power to help others avoid him. And Bill won't touch her with a ten foot pole now, because Big Frilly doesn't like when you mess with his servants. Also, Bill's probably jealous she found a way to process her trauma and leave him behind; like family was Ford's cure for his trauma, faith was Jheselbraum's cure. Bill... hasn't found one, obviously. And it'd be a very, VERY cold day in hell before Bill bowed down to Big Frilly. That's probably another reason Bill hates the Axolotl: he "took" one of his Henchmaniacs and Bill is pissed that Jheselbraum is devoted to his enemy now.

I think she gets her visions of the future from dreams, due to the Axolotl's (at least, my headcanoned) connection to dreams. She's like an Edgar Cayce. Although there ain't no stinkin' way she doesn't also have a Tarot deck (or the Multiverse equivalent). Sure, I'm biased because I'm a huge Tarot nut, but I doubt she goes anywhere without a deck. And maybe she has an addiction to collecting them, totally not speaking from my own experience. I picture that while Ford was healing at her shrine, she often would mindlessly shuffle her decks, and the sound probably soothed him because his mother was a Tarot reader, so it reminded him of his childhood.

She drinks alien teas. Don't ask me why.

Apparently... she's green? For years we all headcanoned her as like... purple, blue, or white and pink like the Axolotl, but TBOB showed her as very earth-toned in her whole palette. Because of this, I tend to picture her species/culture as either mountain dwelling (hence why her shrine is on a mountaintop) or from a very verdant biome, like swamp, jungle, or forests in general.

I feel like she's very well-known throughout the Multiverse as like a folk hero or legend. Like not many people have found her or seen her or know her true name, but they do know of a famous Oracle of the Axolotl. I'm not saying she's like... a saint-level revered figure, but she's someone to try to find if you need help.

I feel like, as an extension of being a servant to a god of light and dreams, that also means a devotion to creativity, so I picture her as musical and artistic as well. Maybe playing an instrument from her home dimension (I picture a plucked instrument for some reason, going with the Greek/oracle theme let's just say it's a blend of a lyre and something else), as well as weaving tapestries (hence all the Axolotl banners in her shrine). This also extends to a focus on healing, hence how she helped Ford.

I think Ford would have struggled at first with her being an Oracle. He's Mr. Science, and his mother was a fortune teller, and although we never really hear his opinion on Caryn selling readings, Stan at least called her a "pathological liar". That, and when the fortune teller in Gravity Falls read his cards, Ford was adamant that they were a lie (yeah, because he was in that picture and didn't like it cough). So he has to wrestle with this person who understands him and his scientific brain and things like the portal, yet is something he - as a scientist - thinks is complete bunk. And then she just keeps knowing things she shouldn't and Ford just grumps and mutters as Jheselbraum is laughing away. She's like a puzzle he can't figure out. "How is she both so religious and scientific? How can she understand things like the portal if she believes in things so illogical, like Tarot readings and an amphibian god?" /Ford mad but also so damn curious he can't stop thinking about it.

As for what she looks like, I always liked this depiction of her form:

Credit to uberbee for the art. Horse-bug legs for the win.

So like this, but... teal-ish green with yellow eyes, and I think her robes probably are longer to the floor. I'm also not sure she has the frills like the Axolotl, given that my headcanon is that her species is terrestrial and not aquatic, but hey, maybe if there are a lot of swamps or bodies of water on her home world/dimension, they adapted to watery conditions?

So... yeah. Those are my gazillion headcanons about Jheselbraum (and the Axolotl, to an extent). Now I want to create a Jhes/Axolotl themed Tarot deck, man.

#gravity falls #jheselbraum #jheselbraum the unswerving #some slight Ford headcanons too #the axolotl #the book of bill #the book of bill spoilers

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rxttenfish · 4 months

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Asking because I’m extremely curious about this, how did MonProm’s writing get different over time? I remember you saying that the lore and characters feel different, and that it's missing sincere character interactions, too. I know almost nothing about the lore and I’ve only seen a few people mention the characters, so I’d be interested in a rundown of what aspects you think got worse in the series

I wouldn’t mind a very long response since I’m not that active in the fandom, I need to catch up on what happened

sorry for taking so long to answer this! i kinda waffled on it for a long bit, mainly because i started doubting myself again, and whether or not this was me simply overreacting or being tinted by nostalgia or simply being extremely picky and choosy in what i like (the last of which is true, i seldom get into fandoms at all for this reason and stay away from most popular media, but i wasn't sure if it applied here). i've posted about it already, but i'm in the middle of a psychotic episode where i can't feel a lot of pleasure to begin with + most things i do experience ending up solidly in the "very bad" category, so as you can imagine, i really didn't want to mislead and check that i was actually in objective reality.

as it is, this is also when a lot more screenshots started to be posted in the monster prom tag, and that helped me bridge the gap back into returning to the games themselves and feel like i was making a more accurate judgement. if you're one of those people who have been posting screenshots, i sincerely thank you, and i appreciated seeing you in the tag greatly.

for those not in the know — i've been in the monster prom fandom since it first released, prior to even the first additional ending to be added (the "Punch the sun" ending, and i recall the minor fandom drama that happened at that time due to it). my impression of monster prom is very much influenced by this, as what got me into the first game was the fact that the characters genuinely seemed to care for each other and were friends with each other (not merely tolerating each other's presences nor dressing it up, they sincerely thought of each other as friends and were open about that fact), on top of the wide variety of small details and statements that, if taken at face value, could create compounding complexity in the lives of each and every character and had wider implications for their lives.

no, they were not necessarily explored nor even necessarily "real", with so many conflicting events and statements, but i liked this too, because it meant a wider flexibility in what you could imagine, helping to create a more tailored experience for everyone who thought about these characters. this was what i liked about the early fandom too. what was baseline "canon" was so vague and minimal that you could have wildly different interpretations of the same characters' histories and relationships with each other. you would have radically different perspectives on what the world itself looked like, what it was like, that there wasn't really any wrong answers so long as their personalities remained the same. this is where you got the old headcanon of polly and liam being childhood friends who knew each other as humans, or that the world of monster prom was post-apocalypse where humanity itself had gone extinct or only existed in tiny pockets, or my personal headcanon that both monster and human society existed right next to each other and had minimal crossover for petty cultural reasons. this was also prior zoe-as-ro, and there were wildly different interpretations of zoe's personality, with most going for a far more disquieting creepy-cute than the deep nerd we got.

this is why you get stuff like the timeloop theory, where everyone is repeating the same weeks leading up to prom over and over, and are perhaps vaguely aware of it but broadly unconcerned. this is also why it felt like the joke that, the characters were still in high school but were all fully legal adults with most in their 20's, best landed, because it was absurd and strange and didn't quite make sense, but the world itself was inherently absurd and semi-malleable to begin with. realistically, i felt like everyone understood it was making fun of the trope of having adults play teenagers in american sitcoms and wildly casting outside the age range, but for more in-universe explanations it wasn't any different from the way that you would have a large, dramatic ending in which everything changed, but then you'd restart and everyone would be right back at the beginning with nothing different, or even having conflicting events in the same run. it was a dream-logic that fit with the tropes and, thus, diagetically made sense.

to be clear, i don't mind canon having a set, well, canon on which it refers back to itself. i don't mind expanding that or including more things which are set in stone. but there was a perceivable shift in how the games handled this over time, becoming a lot more... bitter, it felt, towards all of these different branching ideas and concepts that, yeah, the people making them knew wouldn't necessarily be "canon" because "canon" already liked to contradict itself so much. most people weren't even sold on any one idea, and there was a much greater sense of enjoying and appreciating all the varying ideas people would come up with even if you personally didn't share them. making the characters be out of character was the real crime, because then it didn't diagetically make sense in the same way, didn't wholly fit.

(again, this is not to say fanon didn't happen and characters weren't smoothed down into a simplified personality that fit these varying fan-interpretations instead of the game itself. certainly damien love/lust was just as bad as it had ever been, and everyone loved to mangle his character into a more stereotypical "bad boy with a heart of hold" all the time. but it certainly felt less set-in-stone about it than it does now, with any deviation from the norm being considered strange and odd and even broadly shunned from the wider fandom.)

all of this is setup for establishing what the writing, lore, and characters felt like in the earlier days. the characters were the strongest part, with their relationships to each other being equally as important. the lore played it fast and loose and was far less interested in setting anything in concrete because that wasn't the important part. the lore wasn't the important part, which was what made it all the more intoxicating to think about, all the more fun to play with.

montrip is easily the biggest offender when it comes to setting everything in all-or-nothing terms and demanding absolutism from the world. broadly i blame the hitchhiker conversations for the worst of it, but i think ultimately the way they handled the entire premise of the game is where this problem stems from. it's not really an exploration in the same sense that you might explore the first game, discovering different perspectives and different people with different relationships to each other. it's an exploration in the sense of a sequel that over-explains the monster, that takes the most boring option out of all those that were possible and floating around and settles on something that was blatant, obvious, typically rejected not because of how novel it is but how trite and par for the course it is in the rest of the genre.

yeah, okay. humans know nothing about monsters and there's a "monster dimension" that exists separately from the human dimension. there's no crossover between the two of them. of course there's a big grand-scale fight between the eldritch powers that zoe used to be a part of, from which not only are slayers the main organization against them, but also the merkingdom has some horse in this race too. it's an urge to make things so universal in explaining them, in revealing connecting threads which unite everything that's ever happened in here, that makes the worldbuilding and lore immediately much more boring than it ever was before.

and it didn't have to be this way! nothing in the first game contradicts any of this too explicitly (see the above, the first game loves to contradict itself), and i would even be happy if this was basically canon but never stated or confirmed to be the big overarching everything going on underneath it all. i believe you should probably know these things about any world that you create and have them in the back of your mind. the difference is that you can know these things and keep them in mind, even focusing on things where its very relevant, and still not reveal them. this is why you have lore bibles, after all. every horror writer knows exactly how their monster works and the full underlying reason for everything that happens, but that doesn't mean the audience will see it or possess this same information too, and leaving it intentionally obscure will make far better stories.

which, this is bad enough, but it wouldn't be the breaking point for me if this was all there was.

but the worst thing of all has to be the slow decay of the very same characters that sold me on this world, this lore, this game in the first place. monster prom is nothing without the characters in it. it's a dating sim, it has nothing but characters to get you to play, and liking these characters are the entire reason anyone would pick up monster prom in the first place.

and the first game pulls this off extremely well. it's all in the tagline: be your worst self. they are, indeed, all terrible people. yes, even that character that you just thought of right now. they all have points in the game where they commit atrocities, where they kill or hurt people, where they do inexcusable things that could not be ignored in a more serious setting.

but that's the point. i think there's something very powerful in creating a character who not only do you love and love their personality and the way they interact with the world, but who also are inapologetically terrible, and to have the humor and the charisma be so good that you don't get bogged down in the "this is awful". likewise, it never feels the urge to really go out of its way to justify what's going on. this is not to say theres no discussion of if someone "deserved it", but usually there's still the sense that the joke is on them, that this is still an extreme reaction specifically for comedy and not necessarily something that can be justified. you can have damien set leonard on fire and have it feel earned, without prompting the needed reaction of what it's actually like to watch someone burn to death.

this is what sets the prank masterz ending apart from the rest of the game, and really establishes it as the first real "bad ending". because nothing that you do or happens in the prank masterz ending is any different from anything else that happens in any other run. you summon evil beings from other dimensions as a throwaway gag on how visiting one location raises your stats. you kill other people and damn them to terrible fates. you watch as body horror happens. the only difference is that, in the prank masterz ending, the laugh track doesn't play.

the rest of the game and the writing echoes this philosophy, this careful interplay of tropes that keeps everything tongue in cheek and yet sincere enough to make sure emotional beats still land when they're needed. the characters feel true to themselves and their own emotions, even when the world is extreme and excessive, when everything else runs on comedy logic.

this is also what i noticed failing first as time went on.

like i said, fanon has always existed and there's always been very specific ideas as to what characters are like in the same way fanon always flattens down characters into the same tropes over and over. scott is stupid and innocent and doesn't know what sex is. damien is violent and hot and too cool for anyone else. miranda is the idiot girl character. repeat over and over and over until you get sick of it.

but it's been an issue as time has crept on that canon has started to approach fanon and began to merge with it. now, scott is so innocent that he can't even curse. polly starts being mean to her friends and saying things that would be very hurtful to hear. the merkingdom isn't really super evil and fucked up, it's just miranda that's like that. they become simpler, easier to digest, streamlined for social media posts and mass-sharing. they become less and less subversions of existing tropes and moreso just another example of them, something else to add to the collection, not their own individual stories.

even further from this, what more complex traits they had are now stated and not shown. polly is stated to be smart and clever in a way that her party girl persona doesn't imply and to be sincerely rather down to earth with the people she cares about, but we seldom ever see this anymore unless its the game specifically trying to make a point about it, in which case it won't let her do anything that implies cleverness and moreso will just outline it in the narration. vera is stated to care for people in a very genuine and heartfelt way, but seldom will get a chance to do so, and every opportunity for her to do so to their faces is missed while she will just outright state it later. it does not feel consistent, it does not feel like any of these are intended reads of their actions. it feels like the devs have something they want to do but no idea on how to actually do so. and forget it if you want these traits to manifest in small ways that show up in unrelated moments and scenes.

the dialogue becomes harder and harder to tell between each speaker, if you are just looking at what's said and not at the pictures attached to it. the characters' distinct voices have been eroded away, so that they speak more and more like each other, relaying the same terms and ideas in the same words. perspective becomes a suggestion, instead of a must.

this is something that started back in monster camp too, as all of the endings in that game felt ultimately the same as every other ending. it's very hard to place or define the full reason why, why there feels like there's no emotional stakes nor investment, why everything feels moreso like selecting different coats of paint and trying to find all the different ending pictures rather than being interested in exploring the characters as characters.

stranger yet, the series that started with the tagline of "be your worst self" has experienced a kind of... softening, for lack of a better word? what i mentioned about being able to handle the balance between terrible people who do terrible things and the light tone of the game starts to change, as abruptly the same characters who were down with violent murder in the first game start to lose their nerve, acting more and more on more typical morality. it's one of those things that feels like it's starting to damage the tone, as abruptly it's not as absurd as it used to be, demands less suspension of disbelief which could buffer and support the rest of the setting on it. there's even a part in one of the endings in montrip which involves current-polly and current-scott looking back on their monprom selves and reacting in horror at how violent and careless their pranks are, in a way that fundamentally felt like it was undercutting and disparaging all the things that felt fun and made monprom what it was.

which is odd, really, because more and more i feel like the characters in these games like each other less and less. the friendships and genuine enjoyment of each others company that brought me to this game in the first place has gone. now they don't mention each other as much, don't care for each other's feelings and reactions as much, aren't as willing to support each other. they are more and more found on their own, relied on their own, seem to seek out contact and interaction with their own friends less and less. it feels like they're all separating out into their own worlds, but also feels like they wouldn't willingly want to interact with each other if they weren't already forced together by some other outside contrivance.

if anything, i'd compare it to every other dating sim out there, where you, the player, are the most important person in these characters' lives, and they only feel ambivalent or antagonistic towards every other character. which, again, is not why i picked up monster prom or why i liked it so much in the first place.

and it's because of this that it feels like the current state of the series has to focus on its increasingly weak worldbuilding and lore, trying to form a more serious foundation without character relationships being so tightly bound together, without the characters themselves being more developed and rich, without an aspect of absurd humor to rely on.

more and more i've noticed monprom has to rely on referencing other series to make itself funny and create humor, which, again, it's always done. it was just easier to ignore back then, if you didn't know what was being referenced, because there was always more going on in the exact same scene to bolster it and give context clues as to the setup and punchline at play. it feels like the current games are much more dependent on you knowing pop culture references in order to have any fun with it, and i'm someone who, again, is very picky in what i like or what i'll seek out. i'm not interested in a stream of references about other things that i would much rather be doing than playing through a game that feels like it hates that i like it at all, when i could, again, just be engaging with the thing that takes itself seriously and knows what it wants.

#all the care guide says is 'biomass'#monster prom #asks #vanillabeenflower #this is. so long i am so sorry.#and its still not my entire thoughts because i have so many thoughts #this is an unedited ramble tbh and im very sorry for that #i have more complaints like #how fucking snide and condescending the narration is to its own characters #which it already had but gets even worse in the later games #which is why despite loving aaravi i dont want to play moncamp at all #where a character says they like something or feel something and the narration has to be so. sarcastic about it?#like how i mentioned about how it feels like how its looking down on them as people #instead of whats probably the intended read which is #more jokingly calling them dumb in an affectionate way like how you might do with friends #and ofc theres the whole miranda rant #i hate what theyve done with the merkingdom and i HATE adrien as a concept i wont lie #just. cool. this female character is too stupid to count as a lore character. we obviously need a MALE character to fill in instead #we cant just have miranda talk about this or center any of the other female characters #and how they feel about this and whats going on for them #no we need to make up a new man to talk to instead #im. im still really bitter about it i wont lie.#like i said i could go on and get way more specific about it #i just feel like any and all emotional weight to this has died and the characters are more and more obviously actors on a stage #for your own self gratification rather than their own people living their own lives #this is so bitter and i really shouldnt put this in the main tag #i am so sorry everyone who will see my rant. but my peace must be made.#dont worry im already asking myself if im just making all this shit up myself #what if some of us liked that the characters were so mean to the player and had no qualms about aggressively rejecting us #because it gave some illusion of them being able to make their own choices and decisions in what they wanted

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cookinguptales · 6 months

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Okay so now that I've had some time to digest and think about Late Night with the Devil, some thoughts.

Sorry in advance, this got really, REALLY long as I rambled about all-male secret societies, who and what was possessing whom throughout this movie, literal and metaphorical hauntings, how fame and fortune tempt us all to give up our humanity, and uh. Family youtubers.

I really enjoyed the film, but I do have to wonder, to start with, if other people will get all the allusions...? I didn't think about it until later when I was reading confused posts by other viewers, but I guess the film does kind of predicate on a lot of somewhat arcane knowledge. Like you can understand what's going on without it, but I do think you get a lot more enjoyment out of it if you have a good working understanding of, like, the Satanic Panic of the 70s, the parapsychology/esper craze, James Randi's whole thing, Anton LaVey, Waco, late night hosts like Johnny Carson, and of course the Bohemian Grove.

The Bohemian Grove is kind of... like, obviously a lot of the people making up conspiracy theories about that recently are alt-right assholes (see: Alex Jones), but it is very much a real thing. It's kind of a modern Masonic situation, imo, where you get these big groups of rich, influential men together and they do silly, juvenile vaguely pagan frat boy shit. It's edgelord stuff. But because they are secretive and they are powerful, people come up with all of these conspiracy theories about them.

(I mean lbr that's kind of the history of the occult in general, isn't it? lmao. People ask me if I was afraid when I was studying secret societies and occultism and it's like -- no, these were by and large just rich assholes fighting over headcanons about rituals that they made up based off of deeply faulty scholarship. But I digress.)

The fact of the matter, though, is even if the actual rituals and stuff are kind of silly, the main focus is really rich, powerful men meeting up with other rich, powerful men and networking like crazy. It does keep the rich rich, the powerful powerful, and political resources focused on men. Like the Masons, women aren't allowed in the Bohemian Grove -- and women in politics have bitterly criticized the way that they're being excluded from this kind of networking.

(God, it's so fratty. It's so fucking fratty.)

So in that respect, it is kind of something to be feared.

And... I do think you see that aspect of it reflected in Late Night with the Devil. The consolidation of power, the networking with shitty people, and the way that women are "sacrificed."

[massive spoilers for the entire film to follow!]

I do think I want to see this movie again to firm up some of my ideas, because I suspect that there are a lot of details that I missed the first time I watched this. (And I really should have watched the open captioned version of this; I couldn't understand a lot of what the demon was saying, rip.) But here are some initial thoughts.

The heart of this, obviously, is the demonic presence at the Grove and the way that men go there to sell their soul for power. In a very literal sense, that's what's happening in this film and it's what happened to Jack Delroy. He made a deal with a demon for fame, and that demon ended up taking everything from him to achieve that.

But... metaphorically speaking, it seems clear that Jack Delroy was very willing to make human sacrifices in his day-to-day life. He may have literally (and I think accidentally) sacrificed his wife's life to a demon at the Grove, but he very consciously and willingly sacrificed her for fame when she was alive, too. I mean... imagine having a spouse who is actively dying of cancer and making her make an appearance on your show two weeks before she passes. For ratings. Imagine how much it must have physically taxed her. Imagine how difficult it must have been for them both emotionally. It even could have hastened her death. But he was still willing to do all that for views. He sacrificed his wife, his home life, and his overall privacy for views.

(Family youtubers, anyone? 🙃)

He's also willing to sacrifice his girlfriend, his crew, his audience, and a little girl for ratings. Gus, his voice of reason. He was willing to humiliate him onstage and wouldn't let him go home when he was scared. His audience, whose trauma he was entirely willing to capitalize on through Christou's act. His gf, who I'd argue was probably using Lilly as well, was totally thrown to the wolves when he realized it'd make good television.

Like -- yes, there were supernatural forces at play. Supernatural forces claimed these lives. But Jack sure as shit wasn't being very careful with them, and these supernatural sacrifices always, always mirrored his mundane ones.

(I mean... he performed a human sacrifice of a little girl on national television while in a hallucination about using the sacrificial dagger on his dying wife. It wasn't subtle. lmao)

Moreover, the producers of the show were also very willing to put people in harm's way and capitalize on tragedy for ratings. So... there's a really unsubtle message here about fame and capitalism and the way it tempts you to sacrifice your humanity to get ahead.

(MAYBE LIKE UNDERMINING YOUR ARTISTIC INTEGRITY BY USING AI INSTEAD OF HIRING ARTISTS, IDK)

I'd in fact argue that pretty much everyone who got on that stage that night sacrificed their humanity a bit for fame, with the possible exception of Gus. Gus was the voice of reason, but I mean... he was still there. Maybe a message about how once you get in, you can't get out. :(

But yeah, Jack's obvious, but also Christou, who was willing to use people's trauma for fame. June, who was willing to use a little girl's incredible trauma to advertise for her new book. Carmichael, who got off on humiliating people just to make himself seem smart.

Like... they all started with a kernel of something good (wanting to help the grieving, wanting to help traumatized children, wanting to stop charlatans) but in the end, show biz turned all those urges into the most amoral, selfish, and cruel versions of themselves.

And all of those people crumbled when they were confronted with something real.

(Side note, our theater was in hysterics when Carmichael tried to offer the demon the check. lmao)

Truthfully, it felt like all of them had made their own individual deals with the devil years ago. Halloween 1977 was just the devil finally coming to take his due.

That's the main message of the movie, I think, but there are still some smaller details I want to talk about.

The Grove itself was an obvious allusion to the Bohemian Grove, which is a secret society of powerful men who meet amongst the redwoods in Northern California. Their mascot has always been an owl, which is why you repeatedly see the owl motif throughout the movie. (Happy Owl-ween, the owl mask, etc.)

Abrasax makes sense as a demon to choose (the strong historical associations with magic and demonology, the reoccurrences in many world religions (and occult groups), the role in Gnosticism, etc.) but there seem to be vibes of Stolas, an owl deity who communicates arcane knowledge to humans in exchange for their souls, as well. I noticed a lot of little allusions to Abrasax throughout the film even before Lilly started manifesting, like the movie being shown after the show being about Abrasax.

Lilly... She was rescued from a cult that seems to be a hybrid of Anton LaVey's Church of Satan and the Branch Davidians who died during a siege by the US government in Waco, TX. (Like the cultists in the movie, their compound caught fire when they were being raided. IRL, it's unclear whether the fire was started as a suicide cult situation or if it was started by the actions of the government as they tried to flush people out.) In this cult, girls were sacrificed at age 13, and all who witnessed that sacrifice would fall under the control of Abrasax.

So... she was rescued at age 10. Three years have passed. So she is now 13, the age at which these girls were sacrificed. She was due, in other words. Who and what was possessing her... that's the question, I guess. Demons, historically speaking, were known to speak foreign languages, speak in the voice of other humans, have psychic knowledge their hosts shouldn't know, etc. So she did exhibit symptoms like that.

I think... there are a couple of options here. There's Abrasax specifically, there's June's theory that she was possessed by a minor demon, and there's Minnie. Or a combination of the three.

It's pretty clear that Minnie's presence is felt throughout the whole taping. You can see her reflection various times throughout the movie, she manifested through Christou, and obviously you see her in the tape playback.

(And when I say my theater YELLED. lmao)

The question is, though... Is it really Minnie? And if it is, what does she want? Has she been haunting Jack all along? Is she there because, as it's the first Halloween after her death, it's her last chance to deal with her unfinished business? Did the demon allow her to manifest? Or was the whole thing an illusion created by the demon all along?

(I'd like to note here that, historically speaking, there was a theory that ghosts aren't actually real. They're actually demons masquerading as the spirits of departed loved ones, and they want you to summon them and listen to them so they can tempt you away from God. You can read this in the writings of a lot of the ancient Christian theologians. Or you could have talked to my grandmother, who also told me this when I was a kid! :') But she's dead now so I guess you'd have to do a summoning and find out for yourself.)

All that said... I come down between two current theories. I'd have to watch it again to firm up my ideas.

The first theory is that she's been trapped on earth for the past year, but because it's Halloween, she can haunt them. They mention at the beginning of the film that Halloween is a recent spirit's last chance to take care of unfinished business. So this could have been the case with Minnie. That said... what exactly was her unfinished business? Was she trying to protect Jack and the others? Or hurt them? Was she angry, or was she just, as Christou said, sad? Was her "an unmarried man wearing a wedding ring" referring to the way that Jack was grieving her and still wearing his ring, or the way that he wasn't much of a husband to her when she was alive?

The second theory is that, when she was sacrificed to Abrasax, she became a part of that legion. She was, like Lilly and the other little girls, essentially raised to be sacrificed, and once she was, she joined everyone else who is under the control of the deity. It's still hard to sense whether she was trying to help or hurt throughout the broadcast, but it explains her presence (she came with Lilly, not Jack) and how she was used during Jack's hallucinations to ultimately get him to perform the sacrifice on Lilly, thus bringing all audience members (both in the studio and at home) under Abrasax's control.

Either way, Minnie, in this film, is literal ghost haunting the stage -- but also a metaphorical one. The ghost of all of Jack's past misdeeds and the humanity he's sacrificed to get ahead. She's guilt and she's shame and she's desperate grief, and I guess it's no wonder that the negativity surrounding her was enough to kill Christou when he touched it.

I do think it's fascinating that all of the women in this movie are, in a very real and physical sense, sacrificed for the aspirations of men. (The little girls are sacrificed, Minnie died of a mysterious cancer, June dies because Jack pushed for her to stay, etc.) But metaphorically speaking that seems to be the case as well. They're constantly expected to put their own comfort and safety aside for the men in their lives, and their own aspirations are consumed by the men's.

Like I said, it feels very telling that women aren't allowed at the Grove. Women are constantly being denied power in this movie (or are only allowed power when it's in service to a male costar/deity) and it's largely because they just don't have the connections that the men do. The deals were made while they weren't in the room, essentially.

I'm not sure if that was a conscious choice being made, but it does seem to dovetail nicely with the strong, strong sexism and male privilege present in real-life secret societies of powerful men that disallow women. Like June only getting to shill for her book because Jack let her, women are only allowed at the real-life Bohemian Grove in very limited areas -- and only as a male member's guest.

Um... back to Lilly, though. What the hell is possessing her? She speaks as Minnie a few times, but that could be because Minnie is a part of their legion or just because she's trying to freak out Jack. Demons are known to lie using the voices of loved ones. Minnie's presence could have been influencing her, but I definitely don't think that's all that was in there.

The question, really, seems to arise from what June said about Lilly changing like a week ago and how she started talking about Jack nonstop. At least one presence in Lilly seems to be the same deity that Jack spoke to in the Grove when he was making his deal with the devil (so to speak) because it mentioned that encounter. But is that the only one in there? Is it the same deity that's always been in there? Or did it come to her only a week ago as a way to get to Jack and complete their contract? ("It is done.")

Lilly refers to her demon as Mr. Wriggles (which feels like an Exorcist allusion) and it seems like she has a pretty good lid on it. And when that demon is brought out of her by June, it seems confused and frightened. But Lilly is pretty clearly possessed the entire rest of the broadcast, so really the two options are that she was faking the entire time just to fuck with them (entirely possible) or there were two different deities, perhaps the original (lesser) one put in her in the cult and Abrasax(?) newly arrived to claim Jack and his audience.

It's fascinating watching her, because you can see her slip in and out of a possessed state several times when people aren't paying attention to her (jerking, spacing out, etc.) but it's hard to tell whether that's different presences coming in and out of control, her "talking" to what's inside her, etc. Again, this is a thing I think would benefit from multiple viewings. I'm really not sure if the Grove creature is new to her body or if it's been there all along biding its time, and it's only changing its behavior now because it wanted to be on tv.

While her recently changed behavior seems to lean towards the former, I am sort of stuck on the detail that Jack said early on, that he read June's book and couldn't stop thinking about it. That could just be normal fascination (and he did end up having an affair with her) but it could also be demonic intervention. That would indicate that the demon was manipulating him into putting Lilly on TV long before a week ago.

What is not really up for debate is that the presence inside Lilly now is one that has connections to Jack through the Grove and promised him fame. Lilly (before she was visibly possessed) alludes to this promise by telling Jack that he'll be very famous after tonight. And once the ritual starts, she is seen taking electrical energy from the set and cameras. She is literally getting her power from the audience viewing the sacrifice. (It's very Ringu.) And after Jack stabs Lilly, the studio audience, audience at home, and presumably real-life audience watching this movie, are all put under Abrasax's control.

("Hail Abrasax" is seen multiple times throughout the film, which might also imply that the documentarians themselves are trying to spread this contagion after watching the video.)

Uh... a few more small things.

Carmichael Haig is obviously James Randi. Like Houdini before him, Randi was also a stage magician who dedicated his life to exposing "supernatural" charlatans. He did indeed offer a huge sum of money to whoever could prove him wrong. Carmichael even looked like James Randi. (Though I'd point out that "Haig" is the name of the man who constructed the owl statue at the real-life Bohemian Grove!) I suppose it makes sense that he'd be such an asshole in a world where demonic possession does actually exist.

The one thing I'd say is... it's hard to say whether this was a case of the filmmakers not thinking through implications or if this really was a nasty joke, but Randi was, IRL, gay. He came out late in life and got married to a man shortly before he died. So the implication that Carmichael, in the movie, wanted to join the Grove largely because he was perverted is... iffy. Carmichael was never stated to be gay in the movie (that I noticed) and it's hard to suss out whether the orgies he was talking about were relating to the all-male membership of the Grove (i.e. a gay orgy) or the women that these powerful men had hanging all over them (i.e. a... less gay orgy) and I do think which they were implying has major implications for what they were saying about a man who was, IRL, gay.

Like... if the implication was that he must've been willing to hurt people in order to have wild sex because he's gay, that's uh! Not great! But if the creators didn't realize that aspect of Randi's life (it was less publicized because, as I mentioned, it happened later in his life) then they might have just been pushing on that trope of powerful men using women.

Really, really hard to say.

Next, Christou. Christou... it's hard to say whether the man was psychic at all. It's clear that he was doing a lot of fake-ass cold reading beforehand (though I do want to go back through it and see if there really was any allusion to a Peter- character involving the skeleton) and was using interviews to find grieving audience members. (Two practices that James Randi talked about a lot IRL.) But he also did have a very real experience when he sensed Minnie and, while overwhelmed, didn't seem particularly shocked by it.

If I had to guess, I think that Christou does have some psychic powers (which is why I want to investigate the Peter thing) but can't control them well and is easily overwhelmed by real phenomena. He plays things up for the cameras (I noticed his accent slipped when he had his real experience, lmao) but I wouldn't be surprised if, like everyone else on stage, there's a kernel of something real in him.

Finally... that fucking skeleton! I want to do an entire watch through just to examine that guy. He was in the flashbacks about the Grove, so I think it's likely that he might've been a member of that. He also is the only one who refuses to take off his mask, which seems to relate to the dialogue at the beginning of the film about wearing a mask to protect yourself from spirits during Halloween. I think he's definitely in on what's going on, to some extent, but it's hard to figure out exactly in what capacity. Was it a Grove member, or maybe a cult member? A follower of Abraxas? Was it actually the personification of Death?

Hard! To! Say!

Like I said, I really do want to rewatch this movie to pay more attention to small details I might've missed in the theater. I'm also looking forward to seeing it with subtitles. It wasn't a perfect movie, but it was intriguing and original enough that I really enjoyed it and want to watch it again to puzzle through it. Really, the one big mark against it was the brief use of AI, which is just -- god, it's infuriating.

It's such a small part, so it would have been so easy to not do. (Apparently it wasn't even IN the first festival showing.) But it kind of pollutes the whole movie, especially when such a large message is not fucking over real people in the quest for success in the media landscape.

Plus, it just kind of looked like shit.

I know it's probably a lost cause, but I would be thrilled if they hired a real artist and redid those images for the Shudder release. It would be so easy to fix, and it would make the movie a lot better. Those commercial breaks were so funny and if they had better interstitials (that didn't make you feel icky just looking at them) then it would boost an already great film.

I just. I don't even know why they did it in the first place. I'm guessing, based on the fact that they weren't in the original screenings, that they were pressed for time to finish things...? But come on, surely you can find some artist who can do something quick for you. It wasn't even a moving image.

So uh... yeah, I guess that's where I'm at. It was an interesting (if slightly hokey) movie pulling together a lot of threads to make something cool and mysterious, I liked a lot of the acting (particularly Jack Delroy's) and set design, I wanna chat with people about it -- but I can't really in good conscience fully recommend it because of the AI thing. It's just such a disgrace to artistic integrity. Here's hoping they hire a real fucking artist.

#this got really long sorry lmao #really though more than anything this just made me feel like #damn why did I stop coming out to the bourse and east #like yeah they're a little further than the PFS center and the amc but not by much #I felt so nostalgic there #I gotta get back into seeing weird indie movies I miss it #late night with the devil

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koolaidoverliving · 4 months

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oookay, first AU headcanon post let's go—

CANDY POP, NATHAN AND JASON

these are simple! i've split it up into general headcanons and headcanons for the individual characters. i love them very much so enjoy!!! :D

GENERAL

The three of them have known each other for a good ten years. Nathan met Jason first. They lived relatively close to each other—Nathan being located in a small flat and Jason owning a mixed-use workshop down the street.

They weren't friends at first. Of course not. Nathan's a social recluse and Jason's... Well. Jason is Jason.

They became friends through Candy Pop! Candy Pop, hearing about Jason's abilities, decided he'd be the perfect person to fix his hammer. And he was right!

They are a chaotic trio for sure. Nathan and Candy Pop pull heinous pranks on Jason while Candy Pop and Jason have a Tom-n-Jerry rivalry. Other than that, they enjoy lovely chats together over tea.

There were also a bunch of stray cats in the area which Nathan and Jason took turns taking care of.

Also—Candy Pop and Nathan made fun of Jason's British accent so much that they developed a slight accent themselves. Jason laughs at them whenever he catches it.

These three are not proxies, nor do they associate themselves with Slenderman. Nathan and Jason are affected by the Slender Sickness, yes, but they despise the man.

Candy Pop especially hates Slenderman. You're telling me he just got rid of Night Terrors and now there's another annoying demon fucking up his best friends' lives?

They all have (undiagnosed) autism, though Nathan has ADHD too!

CANDY POP

"Teehee, watch me juggle!"

He/Him, Bisexual Male

500 years old mentally, July 12th (Jason made up the birthday for him)

I do headcanon him to be transgender! Because he's a shapeshifter, he's able to change his anatomy at will. But it takes up a lot of energy, and so he'll mostly stay in his biological form.

No longer fused with Night Terrors. He was able to seal Night Terrors after 3000+ years... but the object he was sealed into was Candy Pop's own heart.

Candy's soul is corrupted by the demon. He's unpredictable and has extreme mood swings. Sometimes he's evil, sometimes he's good.

He craves souls, which is troubling because Candy, at the very core, doesn't like harming innocent people—especially not humans.

He invented April Fools' day to commemorate his late girlfriend... Guess her name.

Huge history nerd.

Speaks in Shakespearean/Old English. Reads and writes so much it's ridiculous. He finds humans and their literature to be fascinating.

Childish. Loves drawing, colouring, collecting shiny things, playing music, and showing off. Only eats candies, sweets and raw cabbage.

He sets up traps outside of Jason's flat and is always trying to whack him with his hammer. They're like frenemies with benefits or something.

Is an overbearing father. Constantly overwhelms Ciara with affection. Ciara finds him to be annoying (as does everyone), but a sweet guy nonetheless.

After Nathan got married to Ciara, Candy Pop took the liberty of tricking Jason into signing marriage papers so he could "match with his bestie".

Their only guests were Nathan (he was the guest, ring bearer, priest and flower boy) and a random homeless man (it was The Puppeteer).

... Let's just say Jason's hair stayed white for a week till they got a divorce.

NATHAN THE NOBODY

"How do I politely tell someone to fuck off and die—"

He/They, Pansexual Male

32 years old, October 29th

Transgender! He transitioned at a young age—maybe around twelve? Not sure. His peers were accepting of him and he promised Crystal she could still braid his hair.

He wants to be a tall goth bitch, but he's 5'6 which Ciara, Candy Pop and Jason keep making fun of. Thankfully, he has his platform boots that make him 5'8.

After Crystal's death, Nathan was more... reserved, anxious—he developed anger issues and struggled with depression. The three C's pushed him to get out of his shell, but he had to work on himself a lot to get to where he is today.

Crystal, as a ghost, stays in Nathan's right eye, making it purple.

Married to Ciara Heloise.

Because of this, Candy LOVES calling Nathan his son. Annoys the living shit out of them. "O, my beautiful son!" "Stahp! I'm not your son!"

He thinks Candy Pop's rivalry with Jason is hilarious which is why he never intervenes.

Nathan loves his wife, cats, pineapples, goth aesthetics, and pranks. And even though he doesn't act it, he's fond of physical affections such as handholding and hugs. :)

ABSOLUTELY HATES BINGO. (inside joke)

He isn't a serial killer like the other pastas. He's an assassin that only kills for revenge, or to collect souls for Ciara.

Nathan has ZERO filter. He will tell you straight to your face that your shoes are ugly or you're annoying him.

He'll just say the most ABYSMAL. UNHINGED. DIABOLICAL. shit and move on like it's normal.

JASON THE TOYMAKER

"I can fix you—Okay. Why did my catch phrase have to turn into a joke?"

He/Him, Jasonsexual (Unlabelled) Male

Idfk how old he is, November 15th

He is not traditionally masculine. He likes doing his hair, skincare and eyeliner and he takes great pride in his fashion. However, he doesn't like when people call out his feminine traits. Insecure little guy.

His neglectful parents caused him to develop a huge inferiority complex that he masks with his annoying superiority complex.

When his parents died, he did not inherit anything. "I do not need my parents' filthy money when I am perfectly capable of making far richer." Yeah, he's got a high ego.

Workaholic. Will spend hours in his workshop without sleeping or eating. It's extremely self-destructive, but he doesn't care... Or at least, he tries not to. When he falls over due to the lack of nutrition, that's hard to deflect.

Sometimes, if he's really hungry but doesn't want to stop working, he'll eat wood and saw-dust.

The mansion kids love visiting his workshop and asking for toys. The girls are constantly asking for dolls while Ben forces him to play horror games.

Everyone keeps stealing his top-hat.

Jason only goes after women that have a close resemblance to Amelia. But if they don't meet Jason's standards? Doll time.

Loves tea, biscuits, his toy mice, seahorses, cats, and anything golden.

Whenever Candy Pop and Nathan make cookies, Jason steals them for his tea. "Oh! Would you look at that? Free biscuits—" "YOU. PUT THAT DOWN."

AHHHH AND THAT'S EVERYTHING!!! (kidding. i have so much more information about them but this post has gone on for too long)

let me know if i should make any more posts for them or other characters!!! :D

#creepypasta #creepypasta headcanon #creepypasta fandom #candy pop #nathan the nobody #nathan lux #jason the toymaker #jason meyer #ciara heloise #I LOVE THEM GUYS #my bff came up with most of jasons #i could go so much more in depth #but i need to shut up

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thedawningofthehour · 5 months

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JUSt needed to tell you that thinking about "Profile in Quicksilver" got me through the day 💕💕💕

I also love how you incorporate worldbuilding details seamlessly into the narrative without being overwhelming! I love reading Gale & Draxum talking! Do u have any religion/traditions/custom headcanons that didn't show up in the fic (yet)?

thank you so much for writing!!!

Thank you! I do try to avoid lore dumps, even if they can be interesting at times. Ideally, people won't realize they're being lore dumped on. It's like, in a dance when you transition to a different blocking, ideally the audience shouldn't even notice you're transitioning, it should just feel like part of the choreography.

And OH FUCKING BOY DO I. Thinking about the background of the Hidden City and the Yokai as a whole has been so much fun. Making it fit with the lore we see in the show and the actual history of New York City has been so much fun-like, it's not that there happens to be a giant monster city under NYC, NYC became NYC because there was a giant monster city already there. And that's why NYC is Like That. Why are all the dark armor pieces in New York? Because that's where most magic is now, magical beings were driven out from everywhere else.

As far as religion, I've been keeping them pretty secular? Mostly because that's just an aspect I don't feel really jives with TMNT. I have a scene later on where Leo and Mikey attend church with April and her parents, but it's more out of curiosity than any real desire to take up religion. They see it as more of a cool cultural thing that an actual system of beliefs. One of the main things I can remember right now is Leo bitching about the smell of incense.

In the background, I think of the Yokai as following a lot of pagan religions. These people haven't been directly colonized or conquered (or more accurately, were ethnically cleansed instead of being colonized or conquered) so Christianity and Islam are much less common. Probably the same with some other religions that spread due to conquest, but I'm not...entirely sure what those religions would be. (Hellenism? Zoroastrianism? Taoism? Do those fit? I'm singling out Abrahamic religions because those are the most common currently) Also Christianity and Islam are pretty young religions. I haven't made a definite timeline, but I'm leaning towards most Yokai communities being established more than 2000 years ago. Leo mentioned in the Christmas chapter that there were a lot of bright reds and lights down in the Hidden City-pretty much everyone has a winter solstice holiday, so officially they're celebrating the solstice instead of any one religious holiday, and everyone's kind of free to celebrate however they want. Not a lot goes down in December, actually. Schools have most of the month off, a lot of workplaces cut their hours or just straight shut up for a few weeks, most people are partying and spending time with family. It's basically like their summer vacation.

Oh! One thing I will probably work in at some point, but the last of the Yokai migrations happened during WW1. The few remaining exclaves in the human world (like the one in Chongqing, where Tigerclaw was living) basically went "fuck it" and packed up shop, even in places where there was no fighting. It was the nail that drove home that they couldn't exist alongside humans, that even if they weren't warring with the humans themselves they would still get roped into human conflicts, and eventually they would be killed off.

And the thing is, up until recently, the Hidden City was still rather closed off from the human world, despite living underneath NYC. You have to get government approval to go topside, so most people were living their entire lives underground without ever stepping foot in NYC proper. It was really with the invention of television and then the internet that bridged the gap from the Yokai's side, and both those things took a lot longer for the Yokai to adopt. So a lot of human stuff that happened from the 1910s to around 1970s-1980s era didn't get a lot of attention down there.

Like. They know WWII happened. Objectively. By that I mean they knew shit was going down, so the Heads pulled down just about everyone who worked up top and they all just bunkered down for several years until they realized the war was over. It was an annoyance for most of them, a period of time where they couldn't get certain products or had their business disrupted because somewhere in their chain was a guy who worked at a human company and he can't do that now. They were able to read about what happened afterwards and knew vaguely of all the genocides, but most of them didn't look into it very hard. Just more humans bent on killing each other, what else was new? Most of them will still refer to WW1 as 'The Great War.'

And I thought of this scene before October, and I feel like I probably shouldn't use it now due to how politically charged it is, but originally I wanted to include a scene where someone mentions Israel and Josh is really confused because the last time he was living aboveground that area was controlled by the Ottomans and was officially part of Syria. Maybe independent Jerusalem, but why would it be Israel? Bella has to pull him aside and explain. He knew about the Holocaust, but he had no knowledge of Mandatory Palestine or the Nakba. The entire time she's talking and his eyes are just bugging out.

On the plus side, India is no longer under British rule, so he was probably pretty happy to find that out?

I had like several other things I rambled about and deleted because they were going entirely off the rails, I might post those at another time. I've thought about this world way too much and I've written far too little down. (also sorry it took so long to respond! I knew I'd go crazy and wanted to get the chapter done first, and the chapter took longer than I expected lol)

#doth asks #i both love and hate info-dumping worldbuilding stuff like i feel like i'm just total stream of consciousness sometimes

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zenkindoflove · 4 months

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ACOTAR tag game 💕

Answer the questions below & tag whoever you want, or make it an open tag!!

Thank you @the-darkestminds!!! Your answers were so fun to read!

Who's your favourite ACOTAR character?

Lucien. He's always going to be #1. 🦊

Who's your least favourite character?

Azriel. I fluctuate between I can't be bothered and actively being a hater. Also the fandom's obsession with him has soured me further because I'm contrarian like that. I can't be helped. I got the ick early on and I'm afraid I'm likely not to come back from it.

Say something nice about your least favourite character.

God damn it. Um, he's pretty.

Who's your favourite High Lord? (If you picked one for your fav character, then who's your second fav!)

I love me some Tarquin. I love that he wants to tear down power structures and that he doesn't trust Rhys and Feyre (as he shouldn't).

Favourite MINOR character?

How minor is minor? Does Eris count? He's not minor in my heart. He feels more major than minor. If Eris doesn't count then I would say Jurian. I need more of that chaotic hottie.

Favourite ship? (Crackships included!)

Elucien is my OTP forever. ☀️🌷

Favourite court and why?

I think it's a mix between Day and Autumn since I think about those two the most. Day because there is so much mysterious magic going on there, with their powers, the libraries, and the Pegasuses. And Autumn because they have all the interesting intrigue, story, and the aesthetics and atmosphere is my FAVORITE. Sooooo.... I'm gonna go Autumn.

Make up a brand new court RIGHT NOW, NO PREP JUST VIBES.

Since there are the seasonal courts and the solar courts already, maybe there could be courts that can be different ecosystems (like desert, tundra, rainforest, etc). And I would do the Ocean Court so there can be mermaids, mermen, and mertheys. For no ulterior motives whatsoever.

What relationship would you have wanted to see more of in the books?

I need more with Lucien and Eris like I need air to breathe. Please oh please, SJM, give us that brotherly angst and love.

What's your unpopular opinion?

Let's be real. It's probably many of my opinions on Azriel. But since I already gave him a hard time. I would say probably that I'm firmly in camp Elain's book is next and that I disagree a lot with people who say "we just don't know enough about Elain" or "Elain has no development". I've made several posts about this, so I won't rehash it. But I think Elain is very well developed for her book and we've been through several life changing moments with her already. We might not "know" Elain in that she is more reserved and we haven't had her POV, but we know a lot about Elain, her history, her narrative conflicts, how other characters perceive her, and the direction that her story is generally going to take is pretty easy to visualize. Basically, I care about Elain. I pay attention to her. I see what Sarah has been doing and I'm ready and here for it. We know just as much if not more about her than most of the other side characters in this series.

What's your favourite headcanon/fan canon?

That Eris is GAY (or bisexual).

If you were swept away to Prythian, what's ONE thing you would want to do?

Fuck Lucien and if he won't have me the next available redheaded Vanserra. Preferably Eris. Oh, I'd also want to eat some food cause wtf does this faerie food taste like that makes human food taste like ass?

If you could have ONE faerie ability seen in the books, which would it be?

Healing I think would be the most useful.

No pressure tagging: @crazy-ache, @olenvasynyt, @ataraxiasflame, @teddyhoneybear, @lucienarcheron, @animezinglife , @starsreminisce

#acotar tag games

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intuitive-revelations · 10 months

Text

One major implication I don't think that episode really took the time to settle on is the implication that the Toymaker has already massively messed up the universe?

Toymaker: I came to this universe with such delight. And I played them all, Doctor. I toyed with supernovas, turned galaxies into spin tops. I gambled with God and made him a jack-in-the-box. Toymaker: I made a jigsaw out of your history... did you like it? Toymaker: The Master was dying and begged for his life with one final game, and when he lost, I sealed him for all eternity within my gold tooth.

And later:

Toymaker: Do you think a grand total of two can cause me to shiver when I've played against the Guardians of Time and Space and shrank them into voodoo dolls?

So to summarise:

It's implied the universe is now even more destroyed by the Toymaker's reality warping. Granted we don't know what the scale of this is, unlike the Flux, but it's possibly proportionally quite big considering how little of the universe is left already? That being said, he could have done this in history before the Flux, since it was a linear event, in which case this is far less of an issue.

That being said, it's likely this was reversed by the Toymaker being banished - so we're probably not going to see galaxy-sized spin-tops in the future. How many people died, and if they come back however, is less clear.

The Master (presumably dying after POTD), and the Black and White Guardians (at least - possibly the other 3 guardians too, excluding the Toymaker - though they're the main ones, and it's "order and chaos" specifically which are mentioned in the episode) have all gamed with the Toymaker and lost. The tooth!Master is at least left in our universe, and may possibly be secure with UNIT. The fate of the Guardians is a bit less clear, as is the implications for the balance of the universe.

But perhaps the biggest thing, and the one the episode actually took the time to give us a confused 14 reaction shot to:

The Toymaker has a made a 'jigsaw' out of the Doctor's history (or maybe history in general, although he does say 'your').

So what does that mean?

The hint is that the Doctor has already experienced whatever it is... so what was it that he caused with his interference?

To me there's perhaps three possible options:

The Star Beast - this would be an oddly minor thing to refer to, but arguably makes the most sense in the 'arc' of the specials. Perhaps he's referring to the Doctor encountering Beep the Meep for the first time again? ie. taken one jigsaw piece and exchanged its position in his timeline. For now this might be my headcanon regarding it, but would be really odd to be the intention, especially since we're already disregarding most of the other appearances of the Toymaker in the EU? It's also of course not the first time we've had an adaptation of an EU story in the main show without referencing the original (the no. 1 example being Human Nature - there are others like The Lodger and Dalek, but they're different enough that they can co-exist in a continuity with their source material).

The Timeless Child / Fugitive Doctor - RTD has said he's not going retcon the arc, but this arguably makes the most sense as a 'puzzle' being made out of the Doctor's history? Especially with regards to the Fugitive Doctor anyway, given there's the additional complications of her a) being the "Doctor", b) having a Police Box TARDIS, yet c) seemingly being from around the time of the Anchoring of the Thread.

The Toymaker's being time-wimey, it hasn't happened yet / it's nothing in particular - While it would be a bit confusing to contradict the one detail we got in the episode, this is always a possibility too. After all, there was a lot of sequel hooking all across these specials, so it might be something RTD will come back to, especially if we are going to be seeing more of the past Doctors in future series? Hopefully not by the biregeneration theory he gave about them all being split retroactively, because that is literally insane and doesn't even make the little sense the 14-15 one does....wtf.

So overall, what do I think?

Well I think I can be somewhat forgiving with the damage to the rest of the universe, just because it's implied that it might be reset, and the scale/lethality was never established. Plus like I said, there is some justification to the proportional issue not being too bad when combined with the Flux.

The Black and White Guardians implication is... interesting. We are gradually building up more and more of those 'Great Old One' / pre-universe elements in (New)NewWho, so there's a good chance this could come back in the future. It probably won't have immediate effects on the universe, as the Guardians seemed to be more concerned with specific dangers like the Key to Time. It could perhaps lead to more Eternals popping up across the universe, given the Guardians were the only force they really answered to. RTD I think is also quite aware of some of the Eternal-type lore too, since he played around with it quite a bit in those Series 1 articles talking about the Time War.

The Master's obviously coming back and as silly as this was, it does at least justify him being alive after POTD. It actually opens up the possibility of seeing Dhawan himself again too, which would be great! The nail-polished hand picking it up felt like a bit of a trolling moment, after how underwelming all the theories of who did it were when the End of Time came along. Someone pointed out that Kate actually has the same nail-polish, which would be interesting. Perhaps when we next see the Master, they'll be in UNIT captivity, Delgado style?

Finally, the jigsaw line, which is possibly the most interesting. Originally I was going to lean towards this being nothing / a vague setup for future past-Doctor stuff, since that seems to be the default, but now that I've laid it out... I think this could be a setup for more Fugitive!Doctor appearances. It makes the most sense from a story perspective anyway, given what the Toymaker said and some of the questions surrounding her not being answered, whether or not it's the direction the franchise would actually want to go.

After all, as controversial as the Timeless Child lore was, as far as I'm aware Jo Martin was pretty well recieved, and I'm sure RTD would love to look for opportunities to do more with her somehow. Whether he'd want something so continuity dependent from a showrunning perspective, however, is a bit more questionable.

#Doctor Who #The Giggle #The Toymaker #The Timeless Child #Martin!Doctor #Fugitive Doctor #The Master #Dhawan!Master #DW Meta #DW Spoilers #Doctor Who Spoilers #again I think this does kinda reinforce my complaint that we didn't get enough of the Toymaker messing with the outside universe #cause this was largely told not shown #can you imagine if we got scenes of him warping space #destroying galaxies #galactus style etc.?#maybe even a Dhawan cameo of him losing to the Toymaker?

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thedailydescent · 6 months

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Hey! I meant to send you an ask for the ask meme way earlier but the trailer dropped and i got completely derailed..

But here it is!

What is your favourite book genre and is there anything you would recommend? What is your favourite movie from your childhood? Do you have any unpopular IWTV opinions? Do you have any Season 2 theories you haven't seen anyone talk about? Do you have any Claudia headcanons specific to Paris? Do you think Claudia might be haunting Dubai? Are there any songs you think are very Claudia coded?

Here I am answering this ask 4-5 days later!

-What is your favourite book genre and is there anything you would recommend?

I tend to gravitate towards gothic horror and absurdist comedy (the two can often intertwine) For what I would recommend, it would depend on the person! Like, do you like something that involves romance? History? Leans more into the comedy aspect? Leans more into the horror aspect?

-What is your favourite movie from your childhood?

At 11 I got addicted to Titanic and became a huge Titanic nerd lol. It's funny because I actually thought it was a horror movie initially because I watched the second half first with a friend who just wanted to skip to the boat sinking (I had never watched a horror movie prior to this so watching the claustrophobic sinking room scenes and the multiple people dying in front of me traumatized me okay!!). I guess I'll go with Titanic since that's the one movie I still love today I'm not ashamed to admit :)

-Do you have any unpopular IWTV opinions?

Oh plenty. I've spoken about a lot of them but I guess I'll mention that the writers including what happened to Claudia in Episode 5 was not bad writing, but more just poorly set-up imo. I know a lot of people hated it when the episode came out, and threw accusations of exploitation and the writers adding it just for shock value, but I politely disagree with those takes even if I get where they're coming from.

(trigger warning for mentions of SA below)

Claudia in both the books and the show constantly suffers from a lack of autonomy. It is a huge aspect of her character. She is constantly touched and handled too freely, as if she were still a child, without her consent. Louis and Claudia's relationship gets very unhealthy as well, as a result of her creators designing an environment where she literally has no one else. Now that they have aged her up, this aspect is still present, but now the threats are different. Claudia in Season 1 is driven by freedom and romantic love, but has now reached a stage where any human she gets into a romantic relationship would either be a creepy relationship with teenage boys, or a creepy relationship with a pervert. So she then looks to finding love with other vampires. Then she finds out, like in the books, other vampires won't necessarily understand or respect her either. It's a depressing realization that makes her character even more tragic. I know people would have preferred her seeing her struggle on her own to the point of being driven home rather than having the assault take place, but because of Claudia's character development this season, and because the season was so tightly condensed, the plot they went with actually makes sense :( And in fact, Claudia was actually never driven home because of the assault. She was driven home when she realized what her purpose finally was, as she was feeling lost and like she didn't belong anywhere as a black teenage vampire for years ("I realized why they made me- to be Louis's sister). If she couldn't survive on her own, albeit with more struggles than other vampires would, she wouldn't have tried to leave in Episode 6 by herself with Louis's assurance she could get by alright.

The thing that also makes this non-exploitative and randomly placed to me is that they never show it, and explicitly emphasize that they will not be showing or revealing the details despite Daniel's pressing.

The thing I didn't like was how it was set up. Bruce, like Claudia, wants to find other vampires and form a gang, but when he has found Claudia, after a minute, without any warning, just instantly throws an etiquette book at her (?), gets angry, assaults her, then leaves? So was that just his goal his entire time? I get why people think it's a badly written plotline. It would have made much more sense if Bruce had been a creepy "Stanley from Silent Hill 3" type, who through stalking her across universities, leaves letters and weird gifts for her or something. Claudia would be initially intrigued, because, hello, other vampires exist after all! but soon becomes wigged out and starts ignoring his letters/mind messages to her. She would end up escaping him (or killing him), because he wouldn't leave her alone, and that experience might add to her desire to leave the country and face Lestat.

Do you have any Season 2 theories you haven't seen anyone talk about?

I actually don't see many people talking about Madeleine. I do have a theory that Madeleine parallels Claudia's human mother in a couple of ways. I have this headcanon that Claudia had a black father and a white mother (just going off on the fact that Bailey Bass is biracial, but you don't have to agree), and they were teenagers when they had her, so that's why her dad gave her to his family to take care of (I'm assuming Claudia's mother might have been disowned or ran off, or her family refused to raise her themselves). So Madeleine represents to Claudia her mother if she had lived, just like Madeleine sees Claudia as a daughter if she had lived. And because this is supposed to be a complicated relationship, as Claudia is the actual older one, probably still longing for romantic connection, and doesn't want to get stuck in another daughter role, the show might venture further than mother/daughter/friendship territory, because this is the AR universe so things will naturally get complicated. I totally get if others don't want them to go into that area though.

Do you have any Claudia headcanons specific to Paris?

I do feel like Paris is where Claudia has her own awakening, same as Louis. It's where she realizes she likes girls, as we see her in a vampire orgy scene with another woman. I also think Claudia is a bit of a stalker. She likes trailing Madeleine or other women, seeing the life she could have had if she had stayed human. She actually ironically shares that in common with Armand. I feel like Armand and Claudia will actually like each other at first, and see a lot of themselves in each other. But because Claudia can see trouble coming a million miles away, his act doesn't fool her for long like it does with Louis, so gradually tension starts to build. I feel like Armand in the show, unlike in the book, actually harbors some regret when it comes to killing Claudia.

Also Claudia sketching Madeleine when?

Another headcanon I have is that Claudia has to fight for scenes where she plays someone who isn't a child/doll (hence the red dress in that promotional poster/painting). She also wants to get involved in some of the playwrighting, which she does with Armand. She does this until she starts getting suspicious about him, and after she quits writing, she not coincidentally at all starts getting cast in babydoll roles again. Armand sucks!

Do you think Claudia might be haunting Dubai?

God I hope so I want her to be haunting Louis but especially Armand's ass. The reason Armand supposedly can be awake at any time is because he just can't sleep, what with Claudia constantly taunting and tormenting him!

Are there any songs you think are very Claudia coded?

-"Can't Catch Me Now" by Olivia Rodrigo- perfect for Claudia haunting Louis and Armand!

-"Daughter" by Beyonce

-"Brutal" by Olivia Rodrigo

-"Girls Just Want To Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper

-"I've Got To Be Me" by Sammy Davis Jr.

-"Teen Idle" by Marina

-"Antagonist" by Nova Twins

-"Beating Like A Hammer" by Metric

-"Mama, I'm A Big Girl Now" (Hairspray)

-"Eat Your Young" by Hozier- I hesitate to add this one because the song is supposedly based around the Irish "A Modest Proposal", now a similar concept taking place in modern times, but the music video just strikes me as very Claudia coded. In it, the child in the nuclear family is created to fulfill the parent's needs, and is subsequently put into a box and told to be a certain way. The parents are hungry in a demanding society that metaphorically starves them to the point that they'll take drastic measures to fulfill that hunger, even if it means exploiting and metaphorically consuming their own children. And who is that if not Claudia with regards to Louis and Lestat?

Thanks for the ask friend! And sorry it took so long to answer <3

#iwtv #interview with the vampire #vampterview #claudia #iwtv meta #ask games #tw sa mention

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roseamongroses · 1 year

Text

something about the history of spider-byte's name (and intial lack therefore of a last name) is calling to me. like even now that margo has a last name, ppl still don't recognize her civilian identity bc of how little screentime she had and the brevity of the comic appearance.

hmmmm ok i've marinated. idk much about tech so take the terms with a grain of salt and just focus on the emotional story. think i have some headcanons:

margo lives in a society where it's common to use virtual reality to escape/ experience life but margo is actually one of the more extreme cases of this escapism

she's friendly with others, something doesn't seem to be wrong, but her peersknow she's always connected to the vr/always online. they don't notice how little they know about her home life or about her, despite her being familiar with everyone else.

and this disconnect only becomes worst once she takes on the mask of spider-byte. helping people in the way she's always desired to be helped is fufilling, but it doesn't take long for margo to become lost in her online persona.

the longer she spends as spider-byte, the more the two worlds blur. and once she gains the ability to physically manifest her avatar, her spider abilities begin to transfer into her irl body

at first margo was excited about this change. she could finally be the hero she wanted to be inside and outside of her vr- headset, but she quickly discovers that her bodily automony is being manipulated.

sometimes her skin glitches, changing into a rainbow of colors without her say-so (she'd have to fake sick to avoid questions from her peers/parents) . sometimes when she splits her avatar her body doesn't immediately return and if it does it never feels the same. as if data is missing.

but most obvious is that her understanding of humanity--of herself changes. not in a cruel way, but she feels an alienation from human connection that she'd never experienced before. she saves the day, not because of her childhood desire to do good, to be saved and save others, but because it is her avatar. it is her purpose as spider-byte, not the dream of margo kess.

it's when margo catches herself refering to herself spider-byte, even when she was outside of vr relaxing that she begins to investagate further.

she begins to question her relationship with the cyber crime police department and how easily they accepted her" "vigilatism"/ eventually she tracks down conversations between the department and an unknown scientist/ leading cyber security company. i'm thinking of this being her "doc oc" connection, but im open to other villian parallels tbh

the thing is this "doc oc" knows that margo has been tracking them . they think its funny. they're facinated with their experiement and are very willing to play along with the investagation as long as they get to observe their subject.

the fact that margo got "bit" was part coincidence. the program/ bug was sent out to find a suitable host. someone isolated, someone online for long hours to properly conduct the experiement, someone who had the need to escape and become something more.

it could've been anyone. they were meant to be corrupted entirely by the program, only leaving behind a husk irl as they accepted their new reality. but margo was different her need to do good was so great that it redirected the prgrams goals entirely. allowing for her persona of a hero to infliratrate her real life and vice versua in a way "doc oc" had never seen before

doc oc at first wanted to let margo live as a hero . but her changing the bug--resisting its intended purpose intrigued them more. it wasn't enough to collect data on the experiement spider-byte anymore. now doc oc needed to break her. to rebuild her and understand what makes her so special

and this back and forth does mean margo loses a lot. some days she doesn't even remember her last name. but she's motivated now to reclaim her life, her heroism, and make sure no one else is taken advantaged ;like this again

#atsv #atsv hc #across the spiderverse #atsv spider-byte #spider-byte #spider byte #margo kess #atsv margo kess #spiderverse #headcanons #writing #long post

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gayelectro · 10 months

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Do you wanna talk about Aiden? I haven't seen anyone ship canon Iron Leaguers with OILs here before!

I would love to!

I know I've seen "OIL" thrown around before, but I'll be honest, I don't know what it means! Happy to hear that Aiden miiiight count as one?

Here he is!

(Art by @toxiccaves! The big ref sheet is here!)

I dunno if you wanted to hear more about his backstory or his history with Top Joy, so I'll give you a little sprinkle of all of it.

Basically, Aiden was custom commissioned for a furniture store. Mostly just as a huge flex to say "we can afford a mecha". It's a teensy bit advertising, but more than anything, Aiden is a retail worker and a pro mover. He can lift very heavy things with ease and he's really precise and careful. But the thing is, in the Iron Leaguer universe, retail bots are outrageously few and far between. By and large, it just makes more sense to hire humans, they're cheaper and don't run on oil.

So overall, Aiden is a very lonely guy and super isolated from other mecha. Plus, his job (where he works somewhere between 60 to 80 hours a week) is soul crushingly boring. So, like many people, he watches sports to escape. He quickly becomes attached to his local pro basketball team. Since their home court is so close, he ends up getting to go watch live games a lot! The court is the only place he feels connected to others, even though he only spectates.

The Dark Queens is my headcanon name for Top Joy's first basketball team. It just follows what we know of that country's naming convention for DARK Federation teams; "Dark [Noun Relating to Royalty]". And DQ just happens to be Aiden's local team. He was already pretty new to basketball in general when Top Joy joined as their Super Rookie. So naturally he becomes a bit of a super fan himself.

Top Joy is sooooooooo happy to have such an enthusiastic fan, so he in turn makes an effort to get close to Aiden. After all, if Top Joy is gonna be the best Leaguer in the history of the league, he's gotta be good to his fans. They become fast friends. Both Aiden and Top Joy are inexperienced and desperate for attention, so they fit together like peanut butter and jelly. A puppy love blossoms between them. Fan meet and greets dissolve into romantic trysts after work. They're cute and giggly and sweet to each other.

But unfortunately, they feed into each other's worst habits and tendencies. Namely, Aiden is a people pleaser, thinks his opinions make him an expert at things, and jumps to put others on a huge pedestal. Which means that when Top Joy vents about his teammates being mean to him, Aiden calls his teammates jealous, because TJ is perfect and his way of playing is the most entertaining. And TJ will listen and take it to heart, mostly because it's exactly what he wants to hear.

Aaaaaaaand we all know that Top Joy's ball hogging and showboat-er-y eventually got him totally kicked off of the team. Because of how DARK handles things, Top Joy essentially just disappears one day. Aiden's boyfriend is gone without a trace and he slowly pieces together that most Dark Queens fans are glad that he's gone. This makes him further retreat back into his job.

But holy crap, the entire plot of Shippu! Iron Leaguer happens! Top Joy goes through a crazy amount of development and now he's got a soccer world championship under his belt?! The news is crazy enough and big enough to reach Aiden, even in his reclusive state. Aiden tried avoiding talking about his job as much as possible, so it would've been hard for Top Joy to find him, but thankfully it's pretty easy for Aiden to find TJ once he knows what team he's on!

They'd end up reconnecting really easily at that point. Aiden had been heartbroken that Top Joy left without so much as a word, but he genuinely believes him when he explains that it wasn't by choice. Plus, in the time they've been apart, Top Joy has grown a lot as a person. He's a lot more emotionally mature than he was. Sadly, Aiden was sort of frozen in place by the separation and self-isolation. So they probably wouldn't fall in love again, they're now in different life stages, but they would be the best of friends.

Plus, now Top Joy has lots of friends and would be eager to introduce everybody on Silver Castle to his first fan and first boyfriend. They'd love him and he'd get the chance to finally make some more connections, deeper connections, to other mecha. Hell, someone might even convince him to try playing a sport. If anyone could do it, it'll be Top Joy and Silver Castle.

Also this is his voice claim:

#Aiden #long post //#oc x canon #OIL #...?#this post is already OBNOXIOUSLY long so if you wanna know more like how the color scheme was thought about so much #or any other design and conceptual details... send another ask because I am a rambler by nature #fuck me I hope this doesn't end up on the main tags I forget how many filler tags you need nowadays #Top Joy #Shippu! Iron Leaguer #AidJoy

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mochinomnoms · 3 months

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i’m a sucker for these kind of ask games so i hope you don’t mind a bunch of emojis: 🙌 & 🦉& 🌠 & 🍎 & 🛌 & 👩‍🎓

Waaah so many! I see you so often in my inbox and in my notifs Im happy to answer all of these for you!

(ask game)

🙌What's a line or paragraph of yours that you're proud of?

I had to dig through some of my wips and stuff but I think my favorite are tied between two different lines I've written for RTU (aceyuu madoka au fic)

You think if he could, he'd drag God down from the spigot in which they drink their divinity and present it to you in a golden chalice. If just to do what he wants. He acts like he already has.

And

It’s light again, in the morning as the sun filters through the broken window, you poking him awake to get to class.

Ace has never been one to get sentimental, the idea of love is frightening, to be frank. But looking at you again, light curtaining your features, he was reminded why he did what he did.

The first is from the synopsis and the second from the original request I got the idea from! I'm very excited to officially start posting it as i have it's chapters just about mapped out!

🦉Is there another author that helped inspire you to write?

I don't think intentionally? I'm sure that I've picked up a bit of other's writing styles and got inspired here and there from multiple people, the only one I can think of I don't want to bother and tag them lol but I've reblogged their posts every so often. I know of one case with a-twistedheartslonging that I really want to write about the TWST museum post they had a while back because I know so much about museums yall

🌠What are your top three most commonly used tags on AO3?

Not sure actually, but I think for my own fics its usually humor or sexual content but I only post my long fics or requests on ao3 so I'm not sure if that's the best representation of my writing lol

🍎What's something you learned while researching for a fic?

I researched a lot about animal mating and stuff for that one headcanon post I did about non-humans in TWST and my search history was wild for a while.

🛌 What's a trope you haven't written, but want to?

I kinda want to write a soulmate au or something of that nature I'm such a sucker for those stories! It's the yearning that gets me, the yearning!!!

👩‍🎓 Do you have an 'official' creative writing background such as a degree or previous experience publishing?

I have 3 degrees (i made questionable decisions during my undergrad which is why i have multiple already lol) and published a paper, but nothing in the creative writing field since I'm in social sciences. I like writing but not sure if I could invest into it as a career lol

#mochi asks #rel124c41 #ask game #also!! mithrun!!!#i just finished the manga i have feels for mithrun my sweet darling

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al-hekima-madara-blog · 2 years

Text

Hashirama Senju birth chart (Headcanon)

The warm fire of konoha & his ashes

Considering that Hashirama is Madara's alter ego, there will be a lot of reference to my previous birth chart on Madara. If you haven't read it yet it's here. And also now that I know you have read Madara's one, I won't explain deeper like last time each sign I consider you clever enough to do your own research on google to further your knowledges

☉ Sun : Ego – Branding to the world

♑ Libra

Broadly what libra sun wants to reach is harmony. In their perfect worldview everyone is able to communicate and understand each other feeling by the power of love and blabla jutsu. And there is a the real world where it's doesn't work and that's why you need a capricorn friend (Madara) to keep you realistic.

Naruto, Hashirama are both libra and it's not a coincidence. Thanks to @lunyzare 's ask I've already talk in detail about his sun in Libra here . Actually the whole Naruto's serie is a libra anthem inside a scorpionic world. Shinobis are after all shadow warrior using occult power, living in a hidden village with a hokage at his head (shadow of the fire. It's a world between secret society and spying activities Masashi Kishimoto is himself a scorpio with strong libra energy. (Maybe it will be a good idea to do the author birth chart one day. Let me know in the comments if you would like to🤔)

As the MC's ancestor, Hashirama represents this search for an ideal of all people coming together to reach peace. But what people misunderstood is that Hashirama, as all air signs, is appealed by the concept of peace before understanding the reality of building peace. It took him to kill his best friend to realise the consequences of his decisions and the price of his dear village. It's as if before that, he stayed completely careless of all the issues around him.

Often when I think about his famous quote, it reminds me the french revolution. They dreamed to realise equality, freedom and the Human's right where all humans are equals... But before reaching this noble goals, the previous regime had to be slay by the guillotine who had been invented for this purpose of beheading quickly as many nobles as possible. This period is called The Terror in history. And if you wonders, yes France is a Libra country!

In the same fashion, the darkness times took over Konoha in the name of peace. Some people from the village preferably Uchiha needs to be sacrifice to realise Hashirama's dream. There lies the dark side of Libra. They are kings and queens of gaslighting. They are also very good at soft speeches, doublespeak, and politically correctness. By refusing to acknowledge any opinions contradicting their ideal of justice and harmony, it ends up creating a bloodshed to protect it.

Ascendant/Rising Sign : Social personality – Physical Body

♑Sagittarius

For the ascendant I thought about what people see of Hashirama the first time they met him mostly Suigetsu who's the most talkative :

God of Shinobi ( but it's mostly his legacy post mortem)

Bubbly

Full of enthusiasm

Goofy

Loud

Broad figure

someone capable of brief but memorable fit of anger

I don't know you, but when I read my list I see a sagittarius' description. Traditionally to differentiate each fire sign, I like to think of Aries as firecracker , Leo is a pyre , Sagittarius is the wildfire. Nobody knows where it starts but goes rapidly in a rampage and disappeared as mysteriously as it came. Sagittarius got this reputation of being bigger than life, authentic and sometimes clumsy, but loving party, free spirit, loving foreign people, and foreign land, foreign wisdom. Jupiter is the planet associate with Sagittarius. Zeus God of the Gods in greek mythology, the bridge is easy to do with our God of shinobi.

With this ascendant couple with Libra who is already a social sign, I can see why Hashirama's election was not debatable. He was naturally the popular guy while Madara in my description is a very stern double Capricorn who's intimidating unless you know him very well.

☾Moon : Emotion – Comfort zone

♋Pisces

One quality of Hashirama is that he can read people. He has this real emotional smartness. It doesn't mean that he can effectively communicate his feeling (that's mercure's business and that's Naruto legendary best quality) but you can't really lie to him. He's the only person who saw behind everyone facade. He saw behind the fortress of blunt who is Madara and said that he was a deeply sensitive person while everybody think he's the devil (ironically Madara will become exactly what people expect of him in the end). He also discovered first Madara's weakness and used it in his advantage years later.

He read also Sasuke and was the only one of the five kages who believed that answering Sasuke's questions was in the long-term more efficient than rushing into the battlefield.

He read Oroshimaru's mind. Which is the rare moment where our devilish snake didn't feel confident at all.

♂ Mars : Action - Desire

♌ Taurus

In the Narutoverse, fighting's style is the easiest way to guess their mars.

In the same way that Mars in leo was obvious for Madara. Mars in Taurus came to me without a second thought. If Madara as a warrior is the epitome of fire, you need a superior energy capable of blocking such powerful storm. And in all zodiac no one has more resistance than Taurus. Sure the impetuous mars planet is not at its fullest potential in this slow and venusian sign. But what it losts in speed, it gains in determination. A mars taurus is like a unbreakable wall. It's built to resist and when it starts moving at his own pace, nothing can stop it.

Mokuton as his signature is a mix of water and earth element, both consider as feminine traditionally. And in feminine concept there is the idea of being the receiver and the creator. If you study most of Hashirama's fight you can see that he uses mostly defensive jutsu, while Madara has a preference for offensive one. There is the wood dragon technique who absorbs Kyuubi's chakra, Myojinmon or God’s Gate who literally stop an enemi with Tori gate falling from the sky (again it contains someone else's energy rather than attacking). In the creative side : Kajukai Korin makes him grow a lively forest. Shin Susenju : is his most famous offensive jutsu. He can create a giant Buddha statue with a thousand hands. And it took him time to knead his chakra and passing into senjutsu mode but when it's done, nothing can stop him.

And cherry on the top : Leo and Taurus are both fix sign (stubborn and difficult to change) and in synastry Madara's mars in Leo will square Hashirama's mars in Taurus. A square is usually considered as an intense tension. And those two bananas are notorious for creating natural disasters and climate change every time they met on a battlefield.

♃ Jupiter : Infinite Expansion – House of wisdom

♌ Leo

Remember in the Madara birth chart I had both mars and jupiter conjunct in Leo. Hashirama being from the same generation it's most likely that Jupiter is in the same sign (it took about a year for jupiter to move from sign, while mars stay few months).

The duo Mars/Jupiter for Madara enhances the martial and fierce aspect of Leo. A Leo much more authoritarian and narcissistic. But Hashirama has got only Jupiter in Leo that would glorify the brightest side of Leo : generosity, bravery, optimism, luck, having children (his pride). In a way, it makes Hashirama even more popular and lovable. During the warring state era, Hashirama makes most of his dream comes true in his life time. Compared to his friend he got it all : He build his village, was acknowledged and respected by all, he kept his little brother alive, married a powerful kunoichi, controlled through his wife the most powerful of the nine bijuu, seems to have had a family life with his child/children and grandchildren (he spends time with Tsunade), he established a peace (it seems that the first shinobi war start after his death?), he elaborated and transmitted his will of fire, and formed a new generation who will continue his legacy after him. So he thought at his death that peace will prevailed after him and he had accomplished his goal.

☿ Mercure : Intellect – Communication

♑ Scorpio

When mercury is in scorpio, the mental goes more deeper. The intuition is precise like a laser. It can sometimes brought to the surface the darkest part of human's psychis.

Some would say that apart this moment above, Most of the time Hashirama isn't that dark. However, I believe in the same way that on a superficial level Madara is an intimidating character with a secret sensitive nature. Hashirama is for people that solar charismatic guy but underneath that facade, he is, just like all shinobis of his time... a warlord. He didn't reach the top level of his clan by just being cute and smiling. In the warring state era to prove you can lead, you need to show some extreme cold mind. And it's only Madara who's able to push Hashirama to "reveal his guts", to show his authentic self. First when Hashirama was ready to die to prove his good-will and during the valley of the End when he answered the question Madara asked few years ago in the Uchiha's shrine : If he had to chose between his brother/ friend or the village, he will sacrifice everyone for his village.

♀ Venus : Attraction – Seduction

♒Libra

What are Hashirama's desires? First of course is building his village with every clans cooperation. It still fit the Libra's ideal of perfect cooperation.

And what is the object of his desire ? Mito Uzumaki. Based on what she confessed to Kushina in her old days, she seems to have been loved by her husband and this love makes bearable her duty of jinshuuriki.

Mito was in her youth really beautiful, classically beautiful. She looks like a princess from older time. Knowing that Mito is also a taurus. It's an other sign where Venus (planet of love and beauty) is at its peak just like in Libra. I believe Hashirama's attraction to his wife was real.

♄ Saturn : Restriction – Time - Enlightenment

♐Sagittarius

Saturn in Sagittarius means also Saturn is close to his ascendant.

Naruto in Boruto era doesn't actually like that day to day office job as hokage. He does it because it's his duty. I headcanon that it was exactly the same for Hashirama, he's too much of a dreamer, a social butterfly to just seat in an office and sign papers. Actually he first offered the job to Madara for a good reason : yes it will give him a new goal in life to protect the village but let's be honest : Capricorn thrives in responsibility and boring procedures. Yes they want to be an office manager and boss people around all day. They love being in charge and control a situation. If that wasn't for his popularity issue, Madara was really overqualified for the job as hokage. He's just like Tobirama, efficient, rational and over-organised. Imagine if he had put the same energy he put in the infinite tsukuyomi into Konoha? They will be the united state of five nation reaching Naruto Era. That's what you need to administrate and organise a village. But well the people wanted the pretty Hashirama the people got Hashirama… He did it because that's what is expected from him. It's what Saturn does in your life, restricting you to challenge you. Remember in Madara's chart I use the image of the tamed fire : The Judge and the stern spiritual leader. The severe aspect of Saturn in Sagittarius (house 12) is more pronounced in Madara because of his heavy capricorn chart. In Hashirama who is most Air and Fire, Saturn in Sagittarius in his first house will just restrict his freedom, his carefree attitude. He might have felt sometimes depressed and weight down by his responsibilities and the feeling he can't be authentically himself, people expect from him to embody the head of clan, the leader of Konoha, the "God of the Shinobi".

And there is no picture in the Manga where Hashirama is confined his office. He's often outside, on top of the cliff observing his village alone or with Madara. In the fillers you also see him walking around the village, talking with people. And also we know he gambles. Did he starts this bad habit to escape his office duty just like Tsunade did?

#Hashirama #Hashirama Senju #Hashirama headcanon #Hashirama birth chart #Madara #Madara Uchiha #birth chart #naruto meta #meta #astrology #fictional birth chart #naruto analysis #character analysis #astrology placements #astronomy #Al Hekima's analysis

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lawlietscaramels · 9 months

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L and Matsuda for 002?

-🎲

THANK YOU 🎲 ANON!!

How I feel about L: hhhhh sigh. hhh. sighhhshhshsiigggh. honestly? he's kind of like my favourite jumper. he's my number one comfort character ever and I came very close to crying in bed for days after he died. i am not 'typical about this man.

How I feel about Matsuda: he's such a cutie!! teehee!!! look at this silly fella who probably cuts his own hair!! giggling and kicking my feet cause he's funny and silly and would be a good friend doncha think?

All the people I ship romantically with L: Matsuda, Misa, Rie, other people's OCs (if they're shipped with him by their creator xD). Light deserves a mention because while I don't ship LawLight romantically I do think they're an iteration of the "red thread" trope because no matter what time, no matter what place, they'll write history together with a pen filled with their own blood in place of ink. that said I was genuinely surprised that so many people ship them just because I don't see it at all. I don't hate it, there's just nothing that clicks for me when looking at L and Light.

All the people I ship romantically with Matsuda: mostly just L, I've seen Matsu + Misa stuff but I think they'd be cuter friends.

My non-romantic OTP for L: Light 100%. You can't have one without the other. I can't explain all my thoughts about them without a whole post dedicated to it, but anyway, Light is my answer.

My non-romantic OTP for Matsuda: mentioned it above, Misa! They're two sillies and they're both :3 so they're besties and they've probably got matching friendship bracelets.

My unpopular opinion about L: he does eat normal food on a semi-regular basis. specifically, meat, usually I think steak. I hc him as anemic but also Watari wouldn't let L die or become malnourished and there's important things in food that you can't necessarily get in vitamins or tablets. and actually, as someone with anemia, I think L would actually have really strong cravings for rare or medium rare red meat when his iron is low and thus when he eats it he enjoys it.

My unpopular opinion about Matsuda: He's actually really smart, especially with humanities subjects. Just doesn't have great detective skills. A different career path may have been beneficial but he actually really believes in justice, probably more so than L and Light, and he actually QUESTIONS his own sense of justice which leads to more balance. he's such a great guy.

One thing I wish had happened with L in canon: he survived. and actually, I'd just really like to see him solve lots of cases. idk how many/if any he solved outside the anime but you know. a side series where he solves cases and explores the world and has tea parties with Watari would melt my heart.

One thing I wish had happened with Matsuda in canon: honestly I just wish we got to see more of him in general. I wish we got deeper into his character - into everyone's character, actually, they're all a little 2D and it's not just the animation - but yeah. more Matsu. how he works.

My L OTP: I'm not sure if I can pick one HAHAHHS I love all his relationships (well, my headcanons for them) from platonic to father and son to mentor and mentee to enemies together to lovers. yeah. I just like L LMAO but maybe Matsu. hm idk. I hear some people ship him with BB or Naomi and I wanna look into that.

My Matsuda OTP: lowkey L and Matsuda are one of my favourite ships. in Matsu's case I don't really ship him with anyone else so this is the only answer. some of you might have noticed that in my headcanons Matsuda plays Pokémon Go! and L is a Pokémon fan too... hmm... Also I like them cause they're both childish: like yeah L is always calling Matsuda stupid but does he call any other task force members stupid, even when they deserve it? no. arrogant child and silly child. even in non ship situations I think they're actually on similar wavelengths in a way.

My crossover ship for L: (platonic) Saiki K. you can't tell me they wouldn't be best friends come onnnn smnsndndm hehe

My crossover ship for Matsuda: I dunno actually...

A headcanon for L: if he has to wear shoes, he has to wear blue socks. not dark blue or navy, LIGHT, SATURATED BLUE. it's like neon ahhaha. there's little yellow flowers at the hem bits but his jeans cover them.

A headcanon for Matsuda: he doesn't like chips because they're too crunchy. he likes chips though. curly chips. YES I CALL BOTH TYPES CHIPS AND IT MAKES IT HARD TO DISCERN OVER TEXT SHSGYAYDH SORRY

#i read someone else's matsu and L hcs and i can't remember who but i think a little of that got into mine sorry #death note #l lawliet #lei chats #touta matsuda #ships #death note headcanons #lei's death note #lei's lawliet

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ckret2 · 1 year

Note

I’m a little curious in a previous post talking about flatland Bill says color wasn’t banned. Is color also something they can change like flatland, or are they born with it like skin? If they are born with it is does it also apply to the hierarchy, or is it just going to be based off of sides only? If they aren’t born with it, and it’s like clothing are there certain colors no one can be? Like how only important people could wear purple, so only circles can be purple? I watched a Flatland movie animation which I think is the right movie? I had no clue what was going in, but hope to get the book someday. Also since they have eyes at the edge of their bodies did they change it to the center when they left the 2nd dimension, or whatever happened. Is hugging with a line kind of awkward? I feel like it would be super easy to accidentally hug their face too. Sorry if this is a lot of questions I’m just very curious

(Before I say anything else, since you said you wanna get the book, I'm gonna drop this link on you!! Since Flatland is in the public domain, it's legally available for free through Project Gutenberg! And it's got the original illustrations too. Go forth and read Flatland. It's a fascinating little mix of geography lesson + sci-fi + social satire + cosmic horror. I haven't watched any of the movie adaptations yet, so idk how true they are to the book.)

I assume you're talking about this post! Now, this IS a work-in-progress fic, so some of my headcanons about Bill's backstory & home world are subject to change as I write and figure out what ideas would potentially work best. But so far my plans are thus:

In Bill's home dimension, shapes are naturally born with colors—the same way humans are born with different eye, skin, and hair colors; or (perhaps a more apt comparison to account for the wide variety), the way that a flower can potentially bloom with any color of the rainbow depending on its genes. And shapes CAN give themselves different colors, in the same way that humans can get tattoos or makeup.

Just like humans, changing their color could imply something about the person (for instance, in the same way that humans society makes different assumptions about somebody with purple lipstick and skeleton tattoos versus somebody wearing a full face of subtle natural-looking makeup), but in most places you're not gonna find any laws about what you can slap on your skin.

I've mentioned in another post that I choose to interpret Flatland as like Bill's home world, but not the same as Bill's home world—and in particular, it would be an absolutely terrible resource to learn about his world's society and politics. The original Flatland is a satire of Victorian-era beliefs about gender, disability, and social class, and it's great at being that; but I'm writing a fanfic in 2023 and I'm not interested in using Bill's backstory to comment on Victorian-era beliefs. I want to use Bill's backstory to comment on UFO cults, spiritual con artists, child celebrities, and gifted kid burnout. Those themes don't really call for society-wide anxiety over the physical markers of social status; the extreme dehumanization of the disabled; or a very rigid class system with limited opportunities for advancement. So I doubt I'll explore those elements in my version of Bill's home world.

So, yes—in Bill's world, a resourceful line could shade her ends to make herself look like a circle from the side. Exactly the same way that, in our world, a drag king could use makeup contouring to mimic a more "masculine" bone structure and eyeshadow to mimic beard stubble and then go to a drag show wearing a priest costume. In Flatland and in Victorian England, a line contoured like a circle/drag king in a priest costume would be outrageous and unacceptable. In Bill's world and in our 2023 society, the people who are offended by such a performance are on the losing side of history and screaming impotently as their influence dies, and you can go see a drag king priest and it's fine. You can even be a drag king priest. I believe in you. ✨

And since I'm having shapes be born different colors, I don't plan on having any association between specific colors and a hierarchical ranking. I'm not interested in recreating racism & colorism in fantasy math shape land.

Just to give you a sense of how much of Flatland's society I'm willing to throw out, I'm not even sold on whether I'm going to keep the triangle-to-circle shape hierarchy. If I do keep it, I'll be treating it the same way I'd treat other elements of Flatland's Victorian satire: like it might have been true ages ago but by Bill's time things have changed. Maybe there's still an informal hierarchy and you've still got a system in place that keeps the poor poor and the rich rich BUT it's much less formalized/codified than it was a few generations ago and there are more and more people who see these social forces as an unjust system—so for instance, maybe you still see more circles than triangles in politics because they come from families with old money that were already powerful a century ago, but if somebody unironically says "circles SHOULD be leaders because they're naturally morally and intellectually superior," it smacks of eugenics and nobody trusts that guy.

But I also might just... not keep the shape hierarchy and not keep the "each generation gets closer to a circle" worldbuilding at all. (I've already joked in another post about making Bill's dad a rhombus with no explanation just to confuse the people who have read Flatland.)

What's most likely, though, is that I just won't say anything for OR against the existence of a shape hierarchy, because it's just not something likely to come up based on the themes I'm writing about lmao.

Yes, I assume that (at least most of) the few shapes that survived from Bill's dimension eventually relocated their eyes "inside" their bodies, like he did, as part of adapting to live in 3D space. "Magic? Surgery? Divine intervention?" IDK—the exact mechanisms of how they did this body modding isn't a plot point I'm likely to explore. Bill made the change very quickly and immediately, because he WANTED to explore the third dimension and wanted a body that better accommodated that, and also because destroying his dimension came with a huge power boost and so he could just change himself like that. Guys like Kryptos or Hectorgon probably had to do it another slower way.

There might be other surviving shapes out there who didn't join Bill's crew, and some of them might still keep their eyes on their sides, so it's not a mandatory or universal change. But at least the shapes Bill still hangs out with apparently thought it was a good idea.

I feel like a human asking "is hugging with a line kind of awkward" is sort of like a snake asking "is hugging with humans awkward? Since they can't wrap each other up with their whole body? Like, that's gotta be limiting, right?" From a snake's perspective, humans hugging might be limited, but humans don't think so because we don't conceptualize hugging the same way that snakes do, and we invented the act of hugging in a way that's convenient to us; and from a human's perspective, hugging a line might be awkward, but shapes don't think so because getting your arm around a long flat surface is the normal way of hugging to them. They're just used to it. And also used to not squashing each other's faces. Unless it's a really tight hug.

Now, ALL OF THE ABOVE being said...

Most of this probably isn't gonna be directly explored in the fic! I can't think of any reason in the fic why I'd stop and talk about why shapes are colors (unless like Mabel asks or something lmao). But like, Kryptos is blue, and Bill is gold, and Bill's mother is the same color he is, and these things will probably get passing mentions in the fic, and so if you read that in a fic you can guess that the author probably headcanons "the shapes come in different colors" and "color might be hereditary, since mother & child are the same color" and "the characters don't talk about having had to paint/dye themselves or anything, so maybe they naturally come in those colors?" but like I'm not likely to talk about it directly! Same goes for most other aspects of Bill's home society that aren't directly relevant to the kind of story I'm trying to tell.

Which means: this post, outside of the fic, is what I'm currently thinking I'll do. But if I don't actually talk about this in fic, what I've said in this post is probably still true: but what's MORE TRUE and MORE IMPORTANT is "if I didn't bring it up in the fic itself, it's not something necessary for you to know to understand the fic." For example, if I don't bring up the Flatland shape hierarchy, then you're free to make whatever assumptions you want about whether one is/isn't there in the background: but not bringing up a hierarchy DOES mean that you're not supposed to interpret Bill's character/backstory on the assumption that a hierarchy had an important, measurable impact on his life. If it were important to the fic, it would be in the fic.

I've said in a few other posts that I don't want a single part of this Gravity Falls fic to require the audience to know any story except Gravity Falls. That applies to Flatland, too. You don't have to read it to understand what I'm doing with Bill's backstory. Any worldbuilding from Flatland that I want you to know, I'll bring up in the fic; and therefore any Flatland worldbuilding I don't reference in the fic isn't necessarily canon to the fic.

(That doesn't mean I won't still answer headcanon asks that aren't directly relevant! I love headcanon asks. It's just that I know that people will probably read my fic assuming "if the author doesn't explicitly mention X, then the way the fic handles X is probably exactly identical to Flatland and we should make assumptions based on that." I'm trying to prevent that! It's actually the opposite: if Flatland does X and I never mention X, that probably means it isn't the same in my fic.)

#anonymous #ask #about my writing #bill goldilocks cipher #headcanons

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