#and with no effort to try and reach people outside his already existing fanbase

[releaseholiday]

.

[yoitscro]

I still haven’t watched the video...BUT.

While I’m still of the belief that Sarah Z probably shouldn’t have posted some “rise and fall” video on Homestuck --which uses the traction of 4/13, a positive day for a fandom that likes to eat itself, to give attention some to criticisms involving speculative allegations-- , I’ve seen more anger from people that I frankly don’t trust being upset about it being a “hit” video to tear down WP, and jumping the gun to the point of threatening legal action, versus actually seeing casual watchers talking about the discourse; more so about nostalgia and “ah, homestuck exists still”.

I assume the paranoid jump on the video is because of casual watcher’s potential reactions? But there’s, also, more reactions toward the team’s response versus what the team + team friends were presumably worried about...so like. I guess the fire being fueled is ironically only being fueled because it’s being blown out of proportion, and thereby brought to peoples attention through *that*.

Sarah’s video is not 100% right. There are false facts from what I’ve seen briefly of. I personally don’t think that a person who’s read Homestuck but has only existed in the fandom space primarily during certain years has the same, fair perspective as a current homestuck that’s been aware of the environment going on, especially on Homestuck Twitter. Instead of things being made in 10 days, apparently, and there not being any effort to reach out to anyone on the team before presenting information, I would’ve just, you know, not done that. At least give it a shot, you literally lose nothing but avoid many things later.

The team has also faced blatant threats and harassment, which isn’t the same as other queer or poc people criticizing how homestuck handles content in their own space, but it exists. There’s certainly a reasonable, human reaction that I get, which come from the anxiety of being put on the spot by a something-thousand subscribed youtuber while you’re trying to figure things out in the background as things have been quiet, right after the turbulent year of 2020. I’ve actually been really frustrated that people haven’t considered that and that these reactions are coming out of nowhere. There is a trauma to consider since this is not the white guy taking the brute of stuff despite people using Hussie’s name as a synonym for the team.

There’s also the fact that Gio was apparently not asked to be used in the video beforehand? At least that’s what I’ve heard, which if true was an oversight, given how one may want to ask “hey, i’m making a video on your articles which could absolutely put you in the center of this since I’m using your online identity; let me get your permission at least.”

That said, based on audience reaction, and how it’s been the opposite of what a handful of people associated with officialized content expected, which is the reason things are being targeted right now, I feel like this is an...overreaction. 

Again, I haven’t watched the video. But the video existing with the whispered points it’s brought up is the reason that things exploded yesterday. I’ve seen more dislikes of Sarah’s video from a loud minority who, 1. are people who refuse to ever criticize the issues with Homestuck for actual years, and 2. people who have watched 20 minutes of it and heard what they wanted to hear, versus seeing the criticism acknowledged by everyone else, outside of an acknowledged comment before moving on. The reaction is what’s giving it the most attention, actually.

Apparently in the video she mentions how she’s not trying to enable any harassment, states that somethings presented are just speculation, and doesn’t namedrop anyone specific?

That seems like a cliche way to act like someone can’t ever respond to stuff like this, but that’s usually saved for smaller followed beef on tumblr or twitter. Not a company or it’s contracted IP.

I’ve seen the people say it wasn’t that bad and have honed in on WP + acquaintance reactions versus what was said in the video. It was just something that was posted on a day where so much other 4/13 stuff was going on, which could’ve been given attention instead of one person’s video, which was apparently 2 hours long, and was already being venomously hated before one would’ve been able to watch it in full? (The idea of the anger coming from those who haven’t watched the video is...not surprising. There have been people put on blast for HS opinions for just a sentence.)

The kickstarter update’s response could’ve been posted itself, versus all the stuff prior and after it (the supposed legal action), but I honestly think that it shouldn’t have taken a breadtuber’s threat on Homestuck’s reputation for fans who ACTUALLY engage with it to have communication with what’s been going on, which we’ve been asking for for years. There’s a trust that needs to be rebuilt on both sides, be it from entitlement, elitism, or bullying, and this did not help.

I don’t like that Hussie only speaks up when a boiling point is reached, and people who work on his team are beyond gone or dealing with the fallout with how he’s neglected his IP and the fans that’ve somehow stayed to support it; crowd control and community management is important, and every other indie creator or small team on the internet who thinks ahead has been getting this. And I honestly hope that anyone who is legit having a terrible time producing HS content considers whether or not they should continue to stick around, for their own mental health.

If by a week from now we’re talking about the reaction of the video and the video itself is potentially long out of people’s mind well. That’s the point of this rant.

and on the other side, quoting a friend:

Sarah z's video didn't need to be released on a day of celebration for a healing fanbase and that video regressed that and caused the official team to have fucking public panic attacks.

Not a great 4/13, tbh.

[dailytomlinson]

When reflecting on music’s most influential artists, critics tend to use statistics to measure their legacy—whether it’s a band reaching #1 on the charts, multiple sold-out tours, or albums that represent a generation. Those types of accolades and praise are for bands that, typically, exist within rock with a predominantly sizeable male fanbase, like The Rolling Stones or The Beatles. For English-Irish boyband One Direction, who actually broke one of The Beatles biggest achievements by having five Top 10 debut tracks on the Hot 100 compared to The Beatles’ four, have sold out multiple tours and delivered five albums five years in a row, they have not been regarded as much of an influential force in the music industry as they should be.

Today—on July 23rd 2020—the band celebrates ten years since they first became a band, even if five years of that time was during a prolonged indefinite hiatus while each of the members pursued solo ventures. A decade marks ten years of One Direction and, for the fans, ten years of an impactful legacy the band, both together and apart, has had on their lives.

After being thrown together on The X-Factor back in July 2010, the band did more in five years than most bands do in their entire careers; they released five albums and sold more than 6.49 million copies in just America alone, filmed one concert documentary and one tour film, completed multiple world tours, and pursued philanthropic ventures. All of those things didn’t come without a price, though. Zayn Malik left the band in 2014 due to his mental health suffering. The band toured consistently every year with hardly ever having any personal time off, and add in an album release a year, they were extremely overworked.

There’s a belief boy bands have an expiry date, and it’s likely their management felt they needed to get as much out of the band while they believed they were still relevant. It’s likely that fans would’ve stuck around if the members took time between their albums and tours. In 2015, when the hiatus began, people wondered if One Direction really could ever come back and, if they did, would fans still really care about them?

“One Direction was one of the biggest and most successful bands,” said @TheHarryNews, a Twitter fan update account. “They achieved amazing things in the five years they were together, despite being overworked by putting out albums and touring every year, which isn’t normal.”

One specific thread that ties together every fans’ thoughts when they reflect on why they decided to become fans of the boys in the first place is the carefree and loving rapport the band has with one another. We’ve all seen The X Factor video diaries, laughed over their banter during interviews, and watched every live performance they did to look out for cute interactions between our favourite members. In their own unique way, One Direction helped defy traits typically associated with toxic masculinity; they didn’t shy away from their affection for one another and made that known in interviews and concerts. Their friendship set them apart, made them more real, and through them, we made friendships of our own.

When someone seeks out new friends, they go to where they feel safest: the communities of people who love the same things as they do. Social media not only propelled the band to international audiences, but it also helped many fans meet the people they now call their lifelong friends. “They have impacted my life in ways I never thought a ‘boyband’ could,” said Lauren, a fan from Buffalo, NY. “They gave me the best friends I could ever ask for, helped me when I was lost and thought I had no one. They ultimately helped me find myself.”

Social media did more than just help us make friends. It was also a major catalyst for the band’s success, and a large part is due to update accounts on Twitter that were created by fans, for fans. Fan-created update accounts would document every single movement and moment made by the band’s five members, whether it was live-streaming a concert or updating fans on the band’s whereabouts. For @With1DNews, a UK/Canada-based update account, it’s a labour of true love for the band that “glued them together” in the first place. “We found each other through our 1D fan accounts on Twitter,” they said. “We started talking about the boys, then our lives, and quickly became great friends.”

Even though they started the account after the hiatus already began, they still felt like fans needed One Direction news. “We had noticed there weren’t really any active 1D update accounts left and we knew a lot of fellow 1D fans were still interested in seeing news about the boys’ careers and lives. It was also because we missed seeing 1D together and hearing about them together. We thought, why not create this space that connects them even if they’re now all going their own way.”

Update accounts take as much time, effort, and energy as an unpaid second job; it requires those who run them to schedule themselves accordingly to cover certain times of each day to ensure their fellow fans get updated in a timely manner, and they do as much fact-checking and researching that any other traditional news outlet does.

Even if some critics might not consider One Direction an influential force in the music industry, the impact they continue to have on their fans is what has set them apart from every other musical act. In a scene in One Direction’s concert documentary, This Is Us, a fan breathlessly states “I know they love me, even if they don’t know me.” This type of parasocial relationship to a band is something not many understand; it’s a sense of intimacy that doesn’t require either party to actually deeply know one another on a personal level but is still as meaningful and significant as actual relationships.

A connection with the band is even more prevalent for Amy, a Los Angeles based writer and mum of two, because of the impact the band has had on her family is something that isn’t tangible but has been detrimental to her children’s development. “I have a child with physical and neurological disabilities who, prior to One Direction, was completely non-verbal and really struggling to find motivation and happiness amongst all the doctors and therapy appointments,” stated Amy. “They have done more for her development, including indirectly teaching her to speak and sing, than any therapy she’s ever done. Up until we found the boys, everything was trial and error; trying to find what makes sense to her and would, in turn, make the world make sense to her. Who knew the key would be a ‘silly’ boy band?”

Many fans have expressed that the band is their happy place – the only positive light in their life when things got tough. For so many, the band came at a time when they desperately needed something to help them through difficult situations whether that be pressure from school, jobs, peers, or life in general. Watching the ‘Best Song Ever’ music video, or a funny interview felt like a cure to smile and laugh after a long day. “They were what we turned to when we felt overwhelmed in our own lives. Now, we’re adults, and they still bring us as much happiness as they did when we were younger,” says @With1DNews.

Not only that, but the band has also helped fans gain more confidence in themselves. By helping create a space and community for them, fans who may have felt lonely, different, or struggled to find a place they belonged had somewhere to go now. They made friends who accepted them, endless content that felt like a burst of serotonin, and a band of boys who told them through lyrics how great and valuable they are, songs like ‘Through the Dark’, ‘Diana’, and ‘Little Things’. Through the band, One Direction fans created their own safe space to work out and navigate their own identity; a space that is free from outside shame where they could be whoever they wanted to be because the people they loved the most accepted them for exactly who they are.

Despite the safety found in those spaces, others have given those fans different descriptions: Hysterical. Rabid. Extra. ‘Screamers.’ Those are just a few of the many words that have been used to describe female fans of boy bands, both past and present. Although these words carry negative connotations, they imply something more powerful than any naysayer could understand or try to define: the sheer force that comes with unashamedly loving something so deeply, you don’t really care about anyone else’s opinions.

Young female fans are the most supportive, passionate fanbase an artist can have, yet they are the most trivialized and ridiculed both within and outside of the music industry. At the start of their career, music’s most beloved band The Beatles was a boy band that catapulted into fame because of, not despite, their female fans. It wasn’t until male fans noticed the band’s progression into an experimental sound when they decided to embrace the band and deem them worthy of their support after they began playing ‘real’ music.

Even if there are major similarities between The Beatles and One Direction, the latter is still regarded by many to be a manufactured pop boy band with a ‘teenybopper’ fanbase. The members of the band have consistently embraced and validated their predominantly female fanbase; Harry Styles has been consistently vocal about this matter, going so far as to say “Teenage-girl fans — they don’t lie. If they like you, they’re there. They don’t act ‘too cool.’ They like you, and they tell you.”

In ‘Girl Almighty’, the fifth track on their fourth album, Four, the band addressed the way their fans have been misjudged and labelled ‘crazy’ because of their passion and not only applauded them for their dedication and love, but bowed down to them as well; “Let’s have another toast to the girl almighty […] I get down on my knees for you.” Not only has One Direction always known who helped them get to where they are today, but they’ve also never shied away from declaring their respect for them, constantly validating their fans’ feelings.

For One Direction’s fans, a decade of the band’s formation represents ten years of a legacy that will continue on, even if the band never formally get back together. For Amy, it doesn’t really matter if they got their start on a TV talent show because it’s the fans that made them and set the band apart from every other boyband. “What we all created together feels so untouchable in regards to boy bands of the past and ones to come. I think people will look back in awe and see what we see; we’ve been so incredibly lucky to have witnessed the magic of One Direction.”

They might not be aware of it, but One Direction was incredible at predicting what was to come in their own music; “Who’s gonna be the first to say goodbye?” / “But it’s not the end, I’ll see your face again” / “We had some good times, didn’t we? We wore our hearts out on our sleeve” / “We could be the greatest team that the world has ever seen.” In ‘Best Song Ever’, a song that ordinary listeners would not exactly consider overly sentimental or profound, there is one lyric that will always stand out for the fans to represent One Direction’s legacy perfectly: “I hope you’ll remember how we danced.” Ten years later, we haven’t forgotten.

[theangrypokemaniac]

I've been on Tumblr ten months now, and this blog has existed for nine of them. During that time I have noticed something.

The majority of the posts I've come across have been by and for the S&M scene, as is to be expected.

The second-most frequent are Indigo League, which I don't think is bad going considering it was broadcast before most Tumblerries were born.

Third-most popular I would say is Sinnoh, probably for being the introduction for many here.

After that I've seen bits on Johto, a smattering of Orange League (unsurprising given it's briefness) and maybe a single item on Hoenn.

No one likes that then? Is it Max? Go on, it is.

What I find odd is that, in all that period, I haven't seen anything on Unova or Kalos. No fan art, no screen shots, nothing.

I'm sure someone can point to a bounty of pieces I've overlooked, all done within the last year, but if so, they're well-hidden, as none of the people I follow have shown any interest in re-blogging them.

If you have done any, you must admit the amount has depleted considerably.

Why is this? Is it of no interest anymore?

This in itself validates my own opinion. Had I been here when Unova and Kalos were broadcast, I presume over half of the posts I'd see would've been devoted to them. If I then spoke harshly of either, that would not have been well-received.

However, if dropped, both by the audience and writers as soon as the latest generation arrives, wasn't I right to not be impressed?

If cast aside by those who claimed to worship them, were they really of any worth at all?

Well the same fate has now befallen Alola. I make no secret of how much I despise it, and can not grasp its appeal for anyone.

I don't know how Pokémon even has a fanbase anymore, given that it's ugly, boring and repetitive.

Prior to the arrival of the S.S., I suspected that Alola material would drop, vanishing altogether once a year's worth came to a close, and so it has proved to be.

It's gone from making up roughly 60% - 70% of dashboard posts to about 10% - 20%, in only a few months. Is it that bad then?

It can't be explained as excitement for the new, not with the amount of coverage Kanto gets, and even that isn't motivated by reminiscence, given the average age of the current viewer.

Why are you still posting about something that old? It reminds me of my wasted youth, but what's your excuse?

Why, when the writers want to wallow in nostalgia, do they hark back to Kanto, which no modern fan can remember?

Is no one looking with misty-eyed fondness at Iris and Cilan? Why not?

Or is that an admission that it was so appallingly bad even the writers recognised it, that's why it's been so hastily forgotten?

You could watch Pokémon from the beginning to the close Sinnoh, skip the next two eras, starting again with Alola, and you would never know there'd been a between.

Unova is described as a 'soft reset', with regards to its inverted nature. The arrogance of those writers is staggering:

• Trying to erase all that'd gone before, supplanted by their half-arsed efforts.

• Redesigning everyone with Fish Eye and flat profiles.

• Resetting Ash as not even knowing the basics.

• Warping Team Rocket's established personalities into disgusting, soulless lizard people robbed of all charm and charisma.

• Only new Pokémon existing.

• Catches kept with Juniper not Professor Oak etc.

The irony is that Unova Pokémon are copies of the first 151, so whilst deliberately ignoring the past, they can't resist imitating it, thanks to their own woeful inadequacy. I suppose they hoped if they didn't notice, we wouldn't either.

They then undermined their own decision by stuffing everything available into the third run, as a blatant effort to win back the crowd, including:

• Reverting to Team Rocket's actual motto, not that embarrassingly pretentious codswallop.

Too bloody lazy to make it rhyme now!

Notice they opted not for the Sinnoh one, although more recent. It was straight back to the beginning.

• Look at these hundreds of Pokémon we suddenly remembered!

Just before Giovanni's mid-life crisis, Ash spotted a Rattata, but it having been so isolated from the outside world, his brain fell to mush at the concept, and pronounced it 'retarda'.

Idiots are so easy to please!

• Charizard! Genwunners love Charizard! Give 'em Charizard and they'll forget everything else we've done! Let's condense his entire story arc into one episode of meaningless retelling!

So, Charizard was there to bait the first wave, and yet we had the plot we know repeated to us anyway?

Don't refer to the past and everyone will think it's brand-new!

It makes no sense. How could this be done with the hope of drawing in old fans, and yet filling up an episode with it as plotline isn't an issue, when the intended targets know it's been done before?

• Butterfree! Genwunners loved Butterfree leaving! Let's condense his entire story arc into one episode of meaningless rehash!

Why would they remain when finding the same thing again, absent of feeling and subtlety, not to mention upon discovering the damage done elsewhere?

Recent incomers, who might assume it's a fresh idea, have no emotional connection with Butterfree, so who is it meant to please?

Why is Mewtwo a woman?

• Mewtwo! Genwunners love Mewtwo! Let's copy its background for Genesect rather than be creative! Look, it's Mewtwo! Watch it!!!

Erm... It's not the same Mewtwo...

It's not the same Mewtwo?

You believe the way to an original fan's heart is to lie to them, and in the process smash a fundamental principle of canon that there can only be one Mewtwo?

The writers get a deserved excoriation round these parts, because someone has to, as what part of that film suggested the current crop give the tiniest toss about what matters to you and me?

I'm glad Unova is labelled 'the Dork Age' as every series since its dawn has been atrocious.

Hoenn and Sinnoh held massive flaws, but they're masterpieces compared to what followed. At least they felt like Pokémon, albeit a watery interpretation.

Unova has to be truly lowly for the dunces responsible to recognise it, and neither Kalos or Alola have been as cut off from their predecessors.

I don't believe that's a sign of contrition, more a matter of necessity. Thanks to the same personal limitations there just weren't enough new Pokémon in either era to make such insularity possible. Even between the two it'd be a scrape.

Except whilst previously invented Pokémon designs may be involved, there's no sign of actual familiar characters.

Ash took his original team to Johto, and even in Hoenn and Sinnoh, where local catches took precedent, older Pokémon were still referenced and came back for the League, but that stopped with Unova.

It's evil influence strikes again!

Despite flimsy nods to the past, which can't be avoided, each generation is now a world unto itself, to the point that individual episodes live by their own canon, a feeble web of strands unrelated to anything else.

Why is it considered 'retro' enough to say, have Forms of Kanto Pokémon, for which we're expected to be so grateful, when there's no mention of Ash's earlier squad?

Remember Tauros? And Kingler? And Muk?

Remember Bayleef? And Noctowl? And Heracross?

Remember Corphish? And Torkoal? And Swellow?

Remember Buizel? And Gible? And Torterra?

They don't. As far as I can tell none of them exist anymore, and maybe aren't meant to ever have done.

Same as Gary, Cassidy and Butch, Jessibelle, Tracey, and so on. Until they do, and don't again. Whatever is convenient to today's storyline.

My typical attitude is that the first series is the best thing ever, and it's all been downhill from there, with Unova and all that came after reaching incredible depths of tedium. I don't suppose you like that, but the ephemeral tendencies displayed on Tumblr hardly help change my opinion.

At some low ebb I'll get round to watching Galar, which I'm confident I'll hate as much as the last few generations, based on what I've already seen and heard.

There's little point doing otherwise. Why bother getting involved with the 'plot' or characters if, when it's over, they'll never be spoken of again?

What incentive is there for me to even force myself to like Galar when, once the ninth generation (Pokémon Keenan and Kel) emerges on the distant horizon, those who've sung its praises for three or four years and scoffed at criticism, will drop it without a backwards glance?

Yet talk about the Indigo League is ever present, somewhat proving its superiority. Attachment to it is a subconscious acknowledgement of the dearth of quality in the modern mentality, but which no one can bring themselves to admit.

[lilaclily00]

The Party That Went From Haunted to Worse: A Summerween Tale

Danny hates his life sometimes. And ghost portals. And his little sister. It’s a mistake going anywhere with her.

-_-_-_

I thought this was going to just... never see the light of day like most of my WIPs, but AU!Ghost August (Day 11: Crossover) gave me the drive to actually continue, finish, and post this monstrosity. Thanks for the excuse to put this out to the world!

This is the original post for the OC, and here’s the link to this story on AO3.

There's some Zalgo Text in here, so at the end I’ll have the... translations? Is that the right word? It looks better in AO3, though. :(

Thank you for helping me with this, @goinggoblin!!!

LET’S GOOO

-_-_-_ (I don’t think there’s horizontal lines anymore? Yikes)

Dani—known as Ellie around here—handed over the last of the fake spider-webbing. “There you go, Mabel.”

Mabel cheerfully thanked her from the ladder rungs, then turned back to stick it to the wall. “Now time for the paper stuff!”

“Are you sure it's okay to just...” Danny gestured around at the incomplete decorations strung around the designated party room.

Mabel waved him off over her shoulder, tacking up a cutesy paper skeleton onto the wall with her other hand, then a sheet ghost next to it. “Of course! We invited you!”

Ellie nudged Danny—well, it was much too hard of an elbowing to be classified as a nudge by most people, but not for them. “Lighten up, bro. It's not very often you get to go to parties, right?”

“Yeah. I know.” He knew she didn't mean his popularity—the fact it didn't exist—but that he just didn't have the time or energy for it most of the time. He wouldn't have gone to anything like this if she hadn't dragged him along as an excuse to take a break from ghost hunting.

Back in junior year, she’d sent him letters and photos from one of her longest stops in her travels, a dinky town called Gravity Falls, Oregon. She became good friends with a pair of twins around her age there, and they all stayed in touch afterwards. The twins invited her to hang out plenty since then, but this was the first time she told Danny to come along.

He had a complicated relationship with Halloween, considering the Fright Knight incident and all the kids and even adults that had started dressing up as Phantom (to varying levels of success and cringe). However, he had to admit he was intrigued with the idea of Summerween, especially when it was so far from Amity Park that its ghosts and fanbase would be very unlikely to interfere.

 Even just thinking that, though, made him wonder if he just jinxed himself.

 “Mabel,” they heard her twin call from the residential part of the Mystery Shack, “there's something wrong with the wig!”

 Mabel shook her spiky, blue-haired head, hands on her red-uniformed hips. “No, there isn't! I would know!” She wagged her finger towards the visiting pair. “I'll go help him, so don't go anywhere!” She ran off, nearly tripping over her own costume.

 “They really like to play up the twin thing, huh?” Danny asked his little sister in the silence. Someone had to acknowledge that the party's hosts were dressing up as Thing 1 and Thing 2. (He wasn’t sure what kinds of friends he suspected Ellie would make, but these two were a surprise.)

“At least they don't feel the need to be a walking pun at every opportunity,” she retorted, flipping back her Batman cape dramatically.

“I always am a walking pun. This is my truest self!” Danny gestured to his own costume, a classic zombie attire with green skin and fake blood everywhere.

“Har har.”

He looked over at the little pile of “spooky” images waiting on the top of the ladder, and took his pick of a large paper spider. He glanced back to the doorway where the twins disappeared off to, and quickly floated up to tape it to the ceiling with a grin.

“How are you going to explain how you got that there?” she giggled as he hovered back at her side.

“I won’t,” he replied smugly, touching ground. Just in time, too, as both Dipper and Mabel reappeared, now with their outfits and hair matching.

Mabel chirped, “If you guys help me with these last touches, this place will be perfect just in time for the party!”

Dipper fiddled with his sleeves, giving her a crooked smile. “At your orders, Mabes.”

-_-_-_

Danny was surprised by how many people actually showed up to what he expected to be a relatively small affair. Dipper had informed him that he and his sister lived in California for most of the year; despite that, it seemed the pair were very popular in their second home, Gravity Falls. Mabel introduced him to several of her friends, shouting over the loud pop music booming out the speakers, and he didn’t remember a single name.

Da—Ellie, he kept forgetting to call her that—was familiar with quite a few people, too. She stuck close to her big brother, though, until he ordered her to hang out with her friends instead. He appreciated the sentiment, but he could handle being by himself at a party.

Right?

He tried to dance for a few songs, but it wasn’t feeling natural. He then went to the refreshment tables for a jack-o-lantern cupcake. Maybe he needed to try to socialize after all. Hm, that one redheaded girl Mabel introduced to him seemed cool. He scanned the area for her face—

Wait. 

His eyes narrowed, studying the long white hair halfway across the room. It wasn’t as glowy as usual, but he’d know that hair anywhere. He pocketed the cupcake wrapper and pushed his way through the crowd. Finally, his ghost sense said something as he crossed the dance floor.

"Hey, ghost girl!" he shouted over the music. Her head turned 180 like an owl, pigtails following slightly slower than physics demanded, then she calmly turned the rest of her body to him. Her ever-present blank, wide-eyed stare bored into him, and never strayed, as she easily swerved around the dancing kids toward him. He noticed that she made an effort of walking on the ground rather than floating.

"Hi, zombie," she replied, the slightest smile on her face showing she knew exactly who she was talking to. She was never really scared of him or angry at him. If anything, she seemed to like talking to him. He supposed it was because he was among the closest to her physical age in the Ghost Zone.

He was not going to be friendly, though, and showed it by crossing his arms at her. "What are you doing here?"

She clasped her hands behind her back. "I’d like to ask you that. You hardly ever leave your lair.”

Danny scrunched his eyebrows, then glanced around in case anyone heard her. “Do you mean Amity Park?”

“Yeah.”

He frowned warily. Considering their past interactions, it seemed like a genuinely curious question. She wasn’t the type to use his absence as a chance to cause chaos back home. (If only the other ghosts were the same way.) “I got invited to hang out here for the weekend. And I don’t think it counts as my lair.”

“I think it does,” she replied with the barest of shrugs, still staring at him, unblinking. “I’m here ‘cause a door opened up in the woods right by here," she added. "There was a flyer for this party taped up on a tree. It said there was gonna be cookies."

He scrunched his eyebrows. "You can't even eat human cookies." She finally blinked as that registered, and her gaze broke to look at the ground as she wilted under the weight of her disappointment. Drama queen. "And I know you're planning to scare the kids here, if you haven't already started. C'mon, let's go."

"What?" She flicked her eyes back up to him, igniting a small light in her irises, disrupting her otherwise unglowy appearance. Her entire face slowly, ever so slowly, began to twist clockwise on her head. "It's Summerween!"

He held up a hand; he knew exactly what she was going to argue. "I know it's like Halloween, but it's still the wrong date. We agreed on no mass hauntings outside of October 31st."

Her eyebrows just so slightly scrunched, about the closest she could get to looking angry. "This isn't a very big party."

He had to give her that; it was bigger than he expected, but still only a few dozen, which potentially wasn't enough to count as a mass of people. And everyone here was around their age, which was less worrying than her chasing down little kids just for a laugh. 

Her big, empty eyes were unsettling, yet they nearly pleaded with him. He couldn't stand when she did that. He rubbed the side of his face in defeat, forgetting for a second about his zombie makeup. "Oh, fine! Only in this party. And nothing too scary. Otherwise, you go right into the thermos."

"Sounds good to me," she chirped, mouth curled into a small smile by her ear instead of her chin.

"Oh, do you guys know each other?" Danny glanced over to see the hosts themselves come from behind him. He turned back, tapping his cheek at the ghost. She knew the signal, and covered her face to recover its natural orientation.

"Kind of," he told Dipper.

The ghost girl uncovered her face, and smiled shyly at the twins. "I'm Lily. Nice to meet you." Danny raised his eyebrows at her; this whole time, she had an actual name?

"I'm Mabel! Lily, I love your costume!" Mabel squealed, hands smushing her own face. "You're so cute and creepy and ah!"

"Yeah, you did a great job," Dipper added, quiet admiration on his face as he quickly studied her appearance. Danny guessed he was wondering why the wig and body paint looked so realistic. Mabel did a fantastic job with their own costumes, but it was hard to make poofy, blue wigs not look like wigs. "I'm Dipper, by the way."

"You should totally enter the costume contest!" Mabel added, hands hovering, as if itching to reach out and inspect Lily's dress. "It’s later tonight!"

"Oh, maybe I will," she said, eyes flickering between the twins. They fixed onto Dipper when he had looked back up to her face. After a few seconds of an impromptu staring contest, Dipper turned his eyes away, blinking and glancing at Danny, unsure of himself. 

Mabel seemed to not have noticed, as she continued rambling to Lily, who patiently listened, empty eyes directed back to Mabel and small smile held up.

"She takes Halloween——er, and Summerween costumes very seriously," Danny told Dipper. "Pretty sure she'll try to creep the crap out of everybody here."

"Well, seems like she's actually good at it," the boy admitted with an awkward chuckle. "But hey, that's what this holiday is for, right?"

-_-_-_

Lily was right there, right in plain sight, swaying to the music by herself, but Danny knew she wasn’t as innocent as she looked. Even now, she was beginning her haunting.

It was just little stuff. There were a few small spiders on the fake webs, real ones. The door opened automatically for newcomers. The jack-o-lantern cupcakes, once all smiling, now had one smiling evilly in the center of the platter while the rest wore a fearful frown. She was staring blankly at Dipper at every opportunity.

Danny had fetched his thermos soon after their conversation and clipped it to his belt. He tried to distract himself by talking to people, like the girl that turned out to be named Wendy, and bopping his head to the background beat. Nonetheless, he couldn’t help but keep his eye on her and her effects. Why did his problems from home have to follow him everywhere? Why did he have to jinx himself?

He felt his sister ram into his back. "Danny, I sensed a ghost!"

"Yeah, so did I. It’s the white-haired girl. I worked out a deal with her," he immediately replied, sigh heavy and beyond his years.

Da—Ellie slowly shifted into a suspicious frown. "Wait, what? What kind of deal?"

"She gets to haunt the party for the night, and will peacefully return to the Ghost Zone after." Danny wilted under her glare. "Look, sh-she's even less harmless than the Box Ghost. She's all about the scare factor, doesn't try to hurt anyone—well, maybe makes them lose their sleep if they can't handle horror movies, but still. If I don't compromise here, she'll go for much bigger plans later to spite me. I promise I know what I'm doing!"

"Since when have you known what you're doing?" She shook her head, surely knowing how very offended he was by her comment. "This just doesn't sound like you, bro."

He shrugged exaggeratedly. "She doesn't operate the same way as most ghosts."

“So that made it okay to let loose a prankster ghost on these people?”

“Well, geez, it sounds terrible if you put it like that.”

She shook her head at him again before turning away with a dramatic cape twirl. He suddenly realized she does that at him a lot.

-_-_-_

 Something was off.

 Dipper had made all the necessary precautions for a Summerween party he could think of. He had left anti-magic wards hidden around the house—not unicorn hair strong, but still effective against most of what could possibly threaten a gathering like this. He’d cleared out the trash cans so the gnomes would have no reason to stick around. He locked up Gompers in the attic (he never proved to be dangerous, but that goat was terrifying).

But then when he went to take a break by a cobwebbed corner, he found real spiders on it. A lot of real spiders. The party lights, which were supposed to change color every few seconds, got stuck on red when he passed by them. The doors creaked open ominously when anyone came near them. He went to pour out some fruit punch, and the dispenser screamed when he pressed on it.

Every time he noticed one of these things, he glanced around him and immediately found that ghost girl staring straight at him.

Dipper ran to check the nearest ward, but it was still intact. However, there was something written next to it on the wall, in red.

You think you can keep me out?

Well, that wasn’t good.

The only suspect so far was the girl—Lily, right? Perhaps she wasn’t just dressed up as a ghost after all. But she looked too solid to be a ghost, though he hadn’t seen anyone actually try to touch her yet, and these things that were happening just didn’t have the same MO as the ghosts described in the Journals or those he faced in the past. But what other kinds of supernatural creatures could do things like this? Which ones would?

Mabel poked his shoulder, startling him enough that he bumped against the wall. She didn’t laugh, however, her attention focused on his wig. Eyes narrowed, she slowly said, “Dipper, is there blood in your hair?”

He ripped the wig off his head. Red liquid seeped out of its roots, matting down the poofed hair. He hesitantly touched a finger to it and sniffed. It smelled like copper.

Mabel pulled her own off, and found the same result. Face scrunched up in disgust, she tossed it to him and ran off to the bathroom. He could hear the door creak much louder than normal even from here.

Lily was staring at him, a blank smile on her face.

A part of him chastised himself for coming to conclusions too fast, but what other conclusion was there? And performing an exorcism, if it came to that, wouldn’t hurt something that wasn’t a ghost, right?

Clearly, what he needed to do next was talk to this girl, find out her motives before her little act became big. Just in case, though, he’d need to pull out that new silver mirror first.

-_-_-_

Amity Park and Gravity Falls were not very similar, but Danny realized there was something in common between their townsfolk: they were somewhat clueless. Not that he eavesdropped that much into the different conversations on the edges of the dance floor, but it seemed hardly anyone had noticed the odd tension in the air, the invisible slimy feeling on their skin of the supernatural hiding in their midst. Something coming.

Or, well, that that paper spider he stuck to the ceiling had grown several times its original size and crawled over one of the ceiling lights.

Ellie was consoling Mabel, who stood by the refreshments without her wig on. She glanced over to him a couple times just to glare.

He was trying to not keep his focus on Lily too much for his own sanity, but his eyes didn’t listen to his brain. They kept roaming the crowd to keep track of her. She looked like she wasn’t doing anything, but…

The eyes of the various wall decorations followed him wherever he went. Distant screaming could barely be heard over the music, if he tried to listen, but it came from nowhere. More spiders poured out of abandoned plastic cups. (She really liked that aesthetic, apparently.) 

He only caught her in the act once at the refreshments table: she studied one of the Halloween-colored M&M cookies in her hand and threw it into her mouth. After a second, she pulled it back out, staring at it like it was the cause of all her problems. She disintegrated the cookie she couldn’t eat. When she turned away, all the other cookies had turned into oatmeal raisin.

How evil.

“Hey, Danny?”

He blinked and turned to see Wendy. She quirked her eyebrow at him. “What’s got you making that constipated face?”

He blinked at her even harder and she laughed. He huffed, scratching at his hair. “There’s just weird stuff going on.”

“Oh, yeah,” she agreed, “this party’s totally haunted.”

“Actually—” He had enhanced hearing, and he still wasn’t sure he heard that right. “Yeah, it is. You noticed?”

“Well, it was kinda hard to ignore.” She nodded to herself. “I thought I heard creepy laughing coming from the bathroom and there was nobody there. ‘I’m here’ was written on the mirror in blood, though. Once I came back out, more stuff just kept popping up. There’s definitely a ghost.”

Danny frowned. “And… why aren’t you freaked out?”

“Well, same reason you aren’t. Dipper’s gonna take care of it.”

Alarm bells rang in his head, drowning out that distant screaming. “What do you mean ‘take care of it’?”

She tilted her head quizzically. “Don’t you already know him? This is totally Dipper’s thing, knowing about the supernatural and saving people from it. He already took down ghosts before. He’s probably getting everything ready for an exorcism or something right now.”

Exorcism. Exorcism. His skin crawled at that word. Ellie was friends with a kid that performed exorcisms in his spare time?

He remembered that Lily had been pulling that constant-stare thing on Dipper before. She had stopped at some point, which meant Dipper was out of sight, which meant maybe he really was planning something to get rid of her. Permanently.

Wendy said, “Hey, man, you okay?” just loud enough to bring him back out of his thoughts.

“Yeah, uh, just need to find Dipper,” he muttered, turning away and quickly searching the room for his face. Where was that kid, where was he, where was he—?

He hadn’t noticed that the music had slowly quieted down until Mabel was shouting by the DJ table. “Hey, everybody! We’re gonna start the costume contest in five minutes! Come over here if you wanna be in it!” The lights flickered for a couple seconds. “Oh, that’s new! We’ll get Soos to fix ‘em!”

Okay, there’s Mabel. Where there’s Mabel, there’s likely a Dipper. Or maybe an Ellie. He figured he should probably talk to her, too, even if she’ll give him that look again, wondering how she shared the exact same DNA with his doofus self.

-_-_-_

Mabel watched as the chatter grew louder with her hands on her hips. “There you go, Dipdop, I moved up the contest. The sacrifices I make to my carefully planned schedules for you!” She turned back to the playlist and rose the volume. The song sounded strangely distorted and screechy and demented, causing everyone to cover their ears. She quickly stopped the music. “But I guess you’re right that things are getting out of hand.”

Yes, he was. The freaky little instances seemed to have gotten worse in the few minutes he had spent grabbing the mirror and Journal 3 upstairs. The fastest way to find the ghost: have her come to him.

Grenda and Candy came running up in their matching “party animals” costumes, along with a couple other kids they barely knew. Danny rushed to the table, eyes wide and much more awake than any zombie had the right to be. Dipper opened his mouth, about to turn that into an actual joke, but Danny beat him.

“Do you know anything about ghosts?” The words practically tumbled out of Danny’s mouth.

Dipper raised his eyebrows. “Well, yeah.”

“And how to defeat them?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s your plan?”

Dipper considered Danny’s strangely serious face. Then, he said, “Make her come out, find out her motives and if there’s something we can do to make her leave. Trap her away if she doesn’t want to, and exorcise her as a last resort.”

Danny set his frown grimmer and grimmer as he spoke. The lights flickered. “I think you need to reconsider the severity of this haunting. I can’t let you—”

Click.

The lights all went out, and the room was an inkier black than it should’ve been on a warm summer Oregon night. Large objects screeched as they dragged across the floor, bumping into people. Dipper felt something crawl over his feet, heard the table in front of him slide away. Just over the random yelps and screams of the attendees, a dark laughter rang.

 They flicked back on. The tables, speakers, and party lights were all randomly located throughout the room. The attendees were stunned to silence, taking some seconds before their chatter began anew as they inspected their new surroundings.

 A girl with a white wig (it had to be her real hair) and painted blue skin (she didn’t have skin) slipped through the crowd, glancing between the three with that little smile gracing her face. “Can I join the costume contest?”

 Dipper couldn’t stop himself from setting a glare on her, gripping tighter the silver mirror behind his back. Mabel, who had more tact, plastered a grin on and said, “Of course! I invited you to do it, didn’t I?”

 Lily nodded and quietly took her place by Candy, who was not the only contestant staring at her warily. She ignored them all, eyes unfocused as she fiddled with one of her pigtails.

 Dipper glanced back over to Danny from the corner of his eye. “I think you don’t know what you’re talking about,” he told him quietly. “Just let me do my job.”

“Your job?” Danny hissed in return, far more offended than Dipper expected him to be. “Just let me talk to her—”

“What, do I look like I haven’t done this before?”

Danny tugged at his hair. “Listen to me! You need to change your plan!”

All the paper decorations promptly dropped from the walls, fluttering to the floor, except for the cutesy ghosts.

Mabel shouted over their quiet arguing, “Last call if you want to be in the contest!”

Ellie strode up, determination in her footsteps as she lined up beside Lily.

-_-_-_

Now that the music wasn’t playing, Danny could see people inspecting their surroundings a little more. Now that she wasn’t hidden among the crowd, Danny could see a few of those people second-guess Lily, watching her rock back and forth on her feet with a calculating eye. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. If there was anyone else here like Dipper...

He had to give up on talking sense into the kid because the contest was starting. Mabel was doing it by applause, and he couldn’t hear anything else over it.

Mabel wrote down on a notepad (though he had no clue what she’d be writing down), nodding thoughtfully to herself. “Looks like it’s between Count Dracula,” she shouted, gesturing with her pen to a kid in an elaborate vampire costume then to Lily, “and the ghost! One more vote decides the winner!”

The other contestants moved aside, but not too far. Ellie glanced over to Danny as she stepped back a couple feet. She was planning something, he knew it. With how mad she was at him, he had the distinct feeling he should be running for what remained of his life.

Dipper pulled Danny’s arm back as the applause rang again. When it stopped, he spoke in a dangerously low voice. “You said you knew her. You said she would try to scare everyone.”

Danny bit his lip for a second. “I did say something like that, huh?”

Quiet fury grew in Dipper’s eyes. “Well, fine. If you’re not going to do anything—” The rest was drowned out by the applause roaring up again, startled shouts mixed in as the lights flickered again, but Danny could guess, and his heart dropped to his stomach as Dipper turned away without giving him a chance to reply.

“Dracula wins!” Mabel announced, and a cheer rose up once again. “But the rest of you were great, too!”

Ellie stepped back up to Lily when the claps died back down. “Sorry you lost,” she said.

“Oh, it’s okay,” she replied amicably. “It wouldn’t really be fair if I won, anyway. I’m not a̙͈ ͖̩̠̬c̯͔̼t͚̮̗̙u̟͖͕a̻͙ ̼ll͙̙͎y̹ ̬͔̣̻̣w̠e̞̤ͅ ̪̖̦̤͍ͅ ̥ar͙͈i͈̳̰̜n̪̼̮ ͈ ̟̫͍̰͍ͅg̱ͅ ̟ ̦͇͓̻̹͇̼ ̝̯̦ ̹̬̟̱ ̭͈̠͇̟͖ ̗̤̯̮̭ a̬̯̰̦̞̪ͅ ̣̜͖ͅ ̬͚̪̫͎̰ c̫̗ ̜͕͕͇̤ ̤o ̥̮̺s̹̜͕͇t̬̘̮̼ ̗̞̥̣̖̼ ͇ ̣͓̹ u̹͖̙͙͇̠ ̼͉͓̰͙ ̝̯͍͙͍͓ ̭ ̤ ̖̠̠̙͖̮͕ ̜͔͔̮ ̖ ͚̤ͅ ̤ ̪̤̖͓̘͉ͅ ̭̳̜m̦̼̲̫ ̲̫͔̳̮͎ ̖̩̝̙̦͇ ̲̯̠͙̬ ̝ ̠͔̼͈͖ ̰̹ ̘͎̺̗ ̳̠̫̳̻̥ ̥͚̙͈̠͙ ̪̖͎̳̻ ͔͉̰͈̳ ̠ ͇̺̫ ͚̲̻̥͚͎̣ ̖̫̖̭ͅͅ ̩ ̩e͙͍͎̙̺̜.͇͍̩”

Lily’s hair and dress floated, revealing blobs of ectoplasm instead of legs. The lights went out, then returned in a dim, red hue. She was already up in the air, eyes glowing, face twisting. She raised her arms, and objects began to float at her command. Attendees screamed, almost loud enough to not hear the unsettling laughter coming from all sides. A couple of them tried to leave, but the door wouldn’t budge.

“Hey!” Dipper shouted as he ran to her. He was holding a… small mirror? “What do you want, ghost?”

She abruptly turned her head to him, face upside-down. Her voice had a demonic overtone as she replied, “T͍̝o̗͙ͅ ̥m͈a͕̲k̶̼͙̻e̼̟̼ ̳̱y̨o҉͎̹u͔͇̬͟ ̼s̹̙cr͉̦͇̮̭͇͡e̺͓͖̱̤̗a̪͙͓̩̮͟m͢.͎̮̳̱̬̯”

“Come on, there has to be something else,” he insisted, hand gripping the mirror harder. Danny inched his way; that mirror had to be a trap of some kind, and he wasn’t going to let Dipper use it—not when Danny didn’t know if he could get her back out of it.

“I know what you don’t want,” Ellie shouted, holding out a Fenton Thermos. Wait—Danny felt for the thermos on his belt. It was gone. She stole his thermos. How did he not notice until now?!

Lily stared her down, but she didn’t look scared. “Y̘o̺͎͖̱u̖̜̳̭̺ ̸̣̭̥̦͉̙̭s̝͢h̨o͙̞u̠͓̰̙͉l̡͉̠̗̣̥̗d̯̩̮̦̯͎̗’̨v̰̘̹͞e̙͉̘̦̱ ̶̙us̻̩̪͎̝̯e̯̱̜̬̮̝̫d͕͢ ì̟t̗̻̬̯͕̪͘ ̝͉w̹̤̫h̞̼̫̹̘̲͍͢e̖ņ̦̹̬̣̫̱ ̗̟̺y̵̬̤͖͓̖o̰̯̪̟̼̥u̟̩̰̙͢ ̝̖͕̗́h̪̰͝a̖͍̲͉͡d͕̹ ͙͖̬͉͟t̻̗̠͈̝h͚͚̜̖͎̕ͅe̼̰͍ ̰̲̪̥c͏̟̞̝͓̫h̗̤͚̲͔̼a̯͎̳͇͙̝͈n̦̥̜̹͘ͅc̳̭ȩ,” she answered, holding her hand out at Ellie. She began to float off the ground, yelping as she flailed her arms and legs in the air. She lost her grip on the thermos as she suddenly began to spasm, as if fighting off a—no, she couldn’t be.

She stilled, eyes closed, then opened them. They were glowing ecto-green. She was dull and slack-jawed, staring off at nothing.

Danny couldn’t help the dread trickling into his chest. She wasn’t really...?

He stepped towards her, and she... glanced down at him? Oh, she didn’t.

She winked.

She did.

Danny felt a thrill of anger run through him—how could his own clone decide to act possessed and make all of this worse? (When did those two even get to plan this?!) It was clearly working, with how all the partygoers stared at her in horror, looking like they were about to pass out. 

“A̛̫̙̮n͏y̗͇o̩̝͇̫n͖̜̬͇͖͖e̳ ̣̱̙̭͓e̤͚͉͉̮l̢̞̦̟s͎̱͍͍̩e̪̭͘ ͈͡w͖͚̩̹͉͢a͇͔̘ņ͎̟̣̫n͈͉̕a̷̟̝̯̬͚  ̭̱͉̟͔͘p̷̙̬̮̫̲͈̞̼͇̜͇̎̐͊ͨͅ  l̜͖̲̀̇̚  ̼ ̤̄ a͙̻̲̰͂̋ͦ̎͌̏ ̬̘͍ͯ͝   ̙͎͚̊̆̆ͨ̚ ̝̟̎͑͐ͬ́ỵ̶͉͉̳ͨͥ̌͋̓ͅ         ̖͉͓̙ͮ͌̑ͤ̽?̡͎̦̭̩̙̰͎”

Danny was about to dive for the thermos and suck both of them in (Ellie absolutely deserved it too, now), but he saw Dipper holding up the mirror and beginning a chant from a thick book. He had to take care of that first. He tackled the boy to the ground. The mirror slid away, unbroken, and both of them scrambled to get up and grab it first. Danny won, barely, and Dipper tackled him in return.

“Give me that!” Dipper growled, furiously trying to pull the mirror out of Danny’s hands.

Danny elbowed him away. “No, we need to use the thermos!”

“Why?!”

 “Because—” he grunted as Dipper kicked him surprisingly hard— “it’ll work better!”

“And why should I believe you? You don’t care about stopping her!”

 “I never said I didn’t!” Dipper paused his fighting. “I said to change your plan because she doesn’t deserve to be killed or trapped forever, and I already know that!” Danny pushed the other boy off of him and stood up, brushing himself off. “The longer we argue, the more she’ll make everyone pee their pants.”

 “Okay, fine, we’ll use your thermos thing,” Dipper grumbled as he pushed himself back to standing. He sobered as he saw food flying around and Ellie still floating there, gawking into space. “You better be right.”

 “Of course I am.” 

Danny sprinted for the thermos. He turned it on the second his hand touched it. Lily and Ellie apparently heard its mechanical whine, as they both glanced at him, Lily wide-eyed in a different way than usual.

“I̙̻̺’̩͍m͇͔͢ ͅṋ̰̮̦͎͡ͅo̞̤t̩̯̰̖̱͖͖ ͞f͚̜̙͢ǐ̭͉͓͈̅͗ͥͅn̝̯̻͎̣̰̱̅i̮̹͔̲ͨͥ̋̆̕s̓̽ͤ͑̋҉̜͈̱̪h̤͉̫̭͍̒͆̉̈̊̐e̵͈̣͖dͧ͏͎͍̻ ̖͙́̇̒͛ẅ̘̠̤̤̭̒̾͟ḭ̩͈̥̬̅ͪt̰͇̟̹͖͂ͪͪ͋͟ḩ̝̯̖̤͉ͬ́͌—”

He gave her an apologetic look as he pulled the lid off. She let out a chilling, unnatural scream as she was sucked in, the finale to her entire performance. 

Everything that had been floating crashed down, the lights flicked back to their usual white, and the laughing died off. Ellie fell to the floor, rubbing at her head and looking around as if dazed (that little liar).

“Are you okay?” Mabel cried as she ran to Ellie’s side, just as Dipper came up to him and asked, “Are you sure she can’t get out?”

“Yeah,” Danny replied, knocking his knuckles against it. “I’ll let her out in the Ghost Zone.”

“The Ghost Zone?”

He found himself explaining it halfmindedly, the rest of him focused on inspecting the party. It looked like everything really was back to normal, minus the rearranged room and food that fell to the floor.

“That’s amazing!” Dipper’s eyes sparkled, and Danny could finally see what Wendy meant about him wanting to know the supernatural, too. “I have so many questions!”

Danny suddenly suspected he’d be here a long time if those questions started now. “How about you write them down and I’ll tell you about it when the party’s over?”

He was surprised that Dipper agreed so easily, running off to grab Mabel’s pen. With that, he snuck out of the party, thermos in hand.

-_-_-_

Danny took the lid off again, watching as Lily reformed. She stretched her arms over her head with a sigh. He rubbed at his neck. “Sorry about trapping you, I didn’t really have a better choice.”

"That was still really fun!" She giggled, with the biggest smile Danny had ever witnessed her pulling. Her coloring shifted back to how she usually looked in the Ghost Zone, with purple hair, gray-black skin, and her dress bleached from black to bright white. She was officially out of her “scare-mode”, it seemed.

He huffed. "If you tone it down next time, and not include my sister in your schemes, I might not have to resort to it again.” He glanced around. “Well, time for you to go home. Is that portal still open?"

"Perhaps." Lily floated into the forest, and Danny warily followed. 

Only a few minutes passed before they came across a long rip in the air, carved out in front of one of the many trees, shining ecto green like a bleeding wound. One of its neighbor trees wore a sparkly Summerween party flyer.

"See you later, Phantom!” Lily chirped. “Oh, and let Mabel know her cookies were good!" She paused to wave, her grin lingering on her face turned counterclockwise, then flew through. 

Danny watched the portal until it closed; luckily, it only took a minute or two to stitch the fabric of reality back together, leaving no trace. Well, except for his nerves being fried for the night.

He was not looking forward to Ellie’s smug grin. 

It’s a mistake going anywhere with her.

-_-_-_

Zalgo Text:

"I'm not actually wearing a costume."

"To make you scream."

"You should've used it when you had the chance."

"Anyone else wanna play?"

"I'm not finished with—"

[itsclydebitches]

RWBY Recaps: Volume 6 “So That’s How It Is”

This is a re-posting from Nov. 17th, 2018 in an effort to get all my recaps fully on tumblr. Thanks! 

Real talk: that episode was 100% not what I wanted to see and honestly not what I thought we’d be getting after the tone of “The Lost Fable.” Yet here we are.

We start off with the gang having just finished Jinn’s vision, which surprised me a little bit. RT tends to delay gratification—Want to know how people will react to this plot point? If that person survived? Gotta wait a while longer!—so I was expecting to begin with the villains, if not push this confrontation an entire episode. Yet we kick things off with a voice over from Yang, highlighting the exact part of the story we knew she’d hyper-focus on:

Yang: “Salem can’t be killed. You all heard her too right?”

And we’re immediately back to where we were emotionally in episode two—which frankly drives me a little nuts. The entire purpose of getting glimpses of the team throughout the vision was to see their reactions to the events: Qrow lifting a hand towards Ozma, Ruby looking ill at Salem trying to kill herself, Blake and Weiss heartbroken over Salem’s grief, Yang horrified at what the gods were doing to them. On the one hand I agree that it’s incredibly realistic to have them lashing out like this. Put a bunch of teenagers through that much trauma, chuck a now fallible mentor at their feet, and they’ve got themselves a scapegoat they can’t resist. On the other hand, Team RWBY + co. has been portrayed as staggeringly better than this in the past, so it rings as at least a little false to me that they’d go this far. Not that they wouldn’t be angry, but that out of the six of them—including Oscar now—there’s not a glimmer of empathy alongside the anger. I understand entirely that we ended on the worst note possible (more manipulation by Jinn), but that doesn’t erase the fact that this is a) a large group of b) incredibly compassionate people who c) just spent 99% of that vision witnessing traumatizing events that weren’t Ozpin’s fault and feeling for him then. Bypassing one moment of sympathy for him or even hesitation at cutting him further feels less like realistic teenage fury and more like the writers deciding to ignore a large chunk of their characterization for the sake of drama.

Because what they witnessed aside, this is still Ozpin. He’s still the headmaster/friend they adored, still the man who taught them in Haven, still the huntsmen they fought beside in one of their worst battles to date. And here he is now after having his entire past ripped from him, back on his knees and crying. That’s an image that the protectors in them shouldn’t be able to brush aside so easily, especially when each of them has been through a piece of Ozpin's existence. Weiss knows what it’s like to have people more powerful than you pulling the strings. Yang understands anger that drives you to choices you’ll later regret. Blake has already fought against unimaginable odds (see: Oobleck’s lecture about how she wants to change the world but has no idea how to do it yet. That’s Ozpin). Ruby is familiar with being the eternal outsider—“I don’t want to be the bee’s knees! I just want to be a normal girl, with normal knees”—and Qrow, as he’ll mention in a moment, knows what it’s like to have nothing and no one. Ozpin was there for him then, but he won’t do the same for Ozpin now.

Let them have their anger, but let them act like themselves too.

Yang: “There was so much you hadn’t told us! How could you think that was okay?”

Yang in particular has a lot of displaced rage. She has since she was a kid and now Ozpin has become a very easy target to direct all that towards. Still, it doesn’t change how mind-numbingly frustrating it is to see these kids twisting every piece of information that comes their way. How could he think that was okay? Ozpin already gave you his answer. He said straight out that he doesn’t want to reveal all his secrets because the last two times he did that (Raven and Lionheart) he was betrayed and, presumably, that’s happened numerous times before. Yang insists that he can tell them his secrets. They’ll stand by him! But oh look, they wrenched the secrets from Ozpin forcibly and now they're not standing by him.

The girls are liars and hypocrites in this moment. Like I get it, they're also traumatized teenagers, but that doesn't change the fact that they're pulling the same shit Ozpin is currently getting all the flack for.  

I’ve mentioned before that there are a hundred reasons why Jinn’s answer to that question is complete BS. Even ignoring our audience-knowledge of how jinns tend to operate, we have the in-canon fact that she can’t answer anything about the future. Her answer regarding Salem's defeat is null and void in light of not knowing how the situation might change—how can she possibly say that Ozpin or another will never win? But even ignoring that too we have the additional fact that defeating Salem never was and never will be the true goal. Uniting humanity is. Keeping people safe from the grimm is. These are things everyone agreed to long before they even knew who Salem was. What? Did Team RWBY think they were going to wipe out the grimm in their lifetime? That they’d drive creatures to extinction that, as far as they know, have existed since the dawn of time? No. They were just planning to make the world a better place for as long as they could. They’d already agreed to a fight against an “impossible” to beat enemy. Fundamentally nothing has changed.

Yet Ozpin understands that suddenly learning that a Big Bad is immortal knocks a huge dent in everyone’s hope. He knows—largely from experience—that laying out the situation with no context or nuance (as Jinn did) will make people give up. And we already see it happening, not just in their reaction towards Ozpin, but in casual lines like Blake’s, “I just want to get this stupid relic to Atlas.” No doubt one of Ozpin’s greatest fears is that learning the truth will alienate people from fighting at all. It did for Raven. It did for Lionheart. And now it’s doing the same for the girls, with them acting like they just want to get the powerful relic out of their hands and then leave Ozpin to fight this war by himself. Though I don’t actually think the girls will give up (that would be a very different kind of story), that line is not reassuring right now and just re-emphasizes that Ozpin was right to be wary.

We also see it in Qrow’s exchange with Ozpin:

Qrow: “No one wanted me. I was cursed. I gave my life to you because you gave me a place in this world. I thought I was finally doing some good.”

Ozpin: “But you are—”

Qrow: “Meeting you was the worst luck of my life.”

No one is letting Ozpin finish. Yang demands to know why he kept his secrets and then cuts him off before he gets out more than an “I—”. They let him admit that he doesn’t have a plan, but no space to explain any context surrounding that statement. Here Ozpin tries to tell Qrow that he is doing good, he does have a place in this world, the existence of Salem does not suddenly negate everything else they’ve accomplished… but Qrow doesn’t let him get that far. At this point they’re not interested in listening to anything Ozpin has to say. This isn’t a conversation anymore, it’s an emotional witch hunt.

So is it any surprise that Ozpin eventually nopes out of there? Qrow has just punched him and, far more damaging, delivered that gut-wrenching line about how he’s the worst thing that ever happened to him. Again, context always matters. Two friends fighting and saying cruel things to one another? Not great, but survivable. Ozpin and Qrow aren’t just two friends though. Qrow is currently Ozpin’s only friend.

Let’s recap: His children are dead, his first host is dead, the original version of humanity that he knew? All dead. Who Ozma once was is gone, the gods he knew abandoned him, and the one remaining tie he has to his past is his genocidal ex-wife who’s hell-bent on killing him. Every host Ozpin has had since then has passed away or merged with him in some horrific amalgamation. His friends at Beacon are either out of reach or don’t know about his reincarnation trick and think he’s dead too. Raven sided with Salem over him. Lionheart, a friend for decades, sided with Salem over him. The children he’s traveling with are out for his blood, including the child he’s forced to share a body with. The one person he had left was Qrow… and Qrow just gave the biggest “fuck you” possible. Keep in mind the abuse coding from last episode and fill in the blanks of a couple thousand years. Then Ozpin told Salem the truth and was murdered along with his children. Now the truth comes out and he’s chucked into a tree and screamed at. Ozpin has been conditioned to expect nothing but violence when he bares himself emotionally… and people keep proving him right. He’s currently the lowest he's been in decades and there’s no one here to help pick him back up.

“Maybe you’re right," he says. Maybe I am the worst thing that’s ever happened to you all… so I’ll leave. As much as I’m able to, anyway.

The real kicker though? That’s just met with more anger. “That bastard!” Yang yells. “Tell him we’re not done yet!” Ozpin quite literally can’t do anything right in their eyes. Keep secrets to protect people? You’re evil. Spill secrets? You’re evil. Stick around to defend yourself? How dare you. Leave because you’re obviously not wanted? How dare you.

And you know what I just realized? At least one of the reasons why this arc feels so extreme to me? Because our characters are currently acting exactly like a large portion of the fanbase. For years RWBY viewers have demonized Ozpin and complained every time he came on screen, waiting for the day when the show would finally prove that he’s irredeemable trash. Except when that day came we actually learned that he’s a flawed, mortal man who was manipulated by a bunch of dick gods. Instead of acknowledging that hey, maybe we were wrong about his character, a huge portion of the fanbase has spent the last week grasping at straws in order to continue hating him. Ozpin has been sacrificing child soldiers to his war for millennia. (False). Ozpin has done nothing but lie to the cast since day one. (False). Ozpin raped Salem during his first reincarnation and was super abusive towards her. (False??)

Now we have this kind of mangled “justification” made canonical. Fans and characters alike are currently determined to make Ozpin their antagonist—no matter what.  

So Ozpin basically has a panic attack while still trying to give them what they supposedly want: a world where he’s not around to mess things up. Yet the girls’ hypocrisy is revealed once more. They despise every decision Ozpin makes… but still want him calling all the shots.

Weiss: “He just left us?”

Blake: “What are we going to do now?”

Newsflash, you can’t have it both ways. Lucky for them (since no one is willing to take on the responsibility that Ozpin has been shouldering) Maria steps up and announces that they need to put off this conversation until they’ve found someplace safe. Because grimm. Which is what they should have done in the first place and would have if Yang hadn’t thrown a temper tantrum. She starts yelling at Maria too—“Lady, I don’t know who you think you are”—which just further demonstrates how Yang is willing to take her anger out on anyone and anything that crosses her path. It’s not healthy. It’s certainly not fair to those around her and I really hope someone addresses this soon.

Maria: “I’m still coming to terms with the fact that this is Humanity’s second time around!”

You tell ‘em! Poor Maria was thrown into the deep end of the pool with no life preserver and she’s the only one managing to keep a level head. God bless this woman.

(Please don’t be evil, oh please don’t be evil.)

Maria: “If we don’t move we die and I’ll be damned if I’ve lived this long just to die out in the cold!”

And how long is that exactly? Long enough to have lived through the Great War? Inquiring minds want to know…

Ruby agrees though—beginning to segue back into her role as compassionate leader—and at her word everyone packs up the rest of their stuff and heads on out of that awful spot. Salt and burn the earth, girls. Leave it behind.

Except just when I think the emotional punches are through we get this horrible moment between Oscar and Qrow. Oscar tells Ruby, in an intimate moment of confidence, that he’s afraid he’s just going to be another life of Ozpin’s. Ruby immediately showed compassion again once Oscar switched back (reaching for him when he winced from the punch) and here she’s her old self again, reassuring him that no, he’ll always be his own person. That's the Ruby we love.

Then Qrow breezes by and denies it. “Don’t lie to him,” he says. “We’re better than that.”

Wow.

That was not okay. By any stretch of the imagination. Goddammit, Qrow, you’re the adult here and honestly I don’t give a damn how much you’re hurting right now, that doesn’t give you the right to take your anger out on an innocent kid. Oscar didn’t ask for this and the idea that he exists only to be Ozpin’s host is just blatantly untrue. You’re being cruel to him for cruelty’s sake which, I’d like to point out, we’ve yet to see Ozpin do. Despite all the trauma he’s suffered, he’s never taken his grief out on the children around him like that. He’s also never claimed to be above lying as Qrow just did. With the point being only that this group is making a LOT of mistakes right now while refusing to allow Ozpin his own.

With that lovely piece of advice we turn to the villains… which frankly felt like some much needed breathing room after “The Lost Fable” and these last five minutes. The fact that the villains’ plot-line is taking place in the past means that nothing revealed to them is news to the audience. Cinder’s alive? We knew that. Ozpin reincarnated? Obviously knew that too. The focus is instead on how they react to this information… and it turns out the answer is “Pretty damn violently.”

Before that though we see Hazel, Emerald, and Mercury arriving back at Salem’s palace (the same one that she and Oz once lived in together). I’ve already come across jokes about how Hazel is now the dad of the group, and while obviously this is just meant as a silly acknowledgement of some really flimsy compassion we see from him, Emerald does look to Hazel when she gets off the ship, clearly seeking reassurance after Cinder’s (presumed) death.

Tyrian is waiting to greet them and he’s his usual, creepy self—minus half a tail. Really though, he seems to have recovered quickly from Salem’s wrath last volume. He taunts Emerald about Cinder and when she threatens him he just cuts himself on her blade. Not gonna lie, I love Tyrian more and more as the series goes on. He’s the wild card of the group and as such remains endlessly entertaining.

Mercury is supportive of Emerald, helping her calm down a bit in the face of Tyrian’s taunts, and really all of this is a nice contrast to what we’re getting with Team RWBY: the villains are supporting one another while our heroes tear each other down. Remember all those references to how Salem’s victory will be in dividing humanity? Yeeeaah.

She’s obviously displeased with the report. Hazel tries to take responsibility for the defeat and, uh, this happens:

Look familiar? I’m getting very worried about what that intro shot of Qrow and the grimm arms is going to mean.

So Hazel is tortured for a while until Emerald admits that it was Cinder’s fault they lost. It’s all some really horrible mind games on Salem’s part: ask for an answer and torture the guy who provides you with one, get Emerald to call out the one person she cares for, casually drop that this person still lives, intimidate Watts for questioning her. Tyrian is the wild card, yes, but we know now that his ramblings about his “Queen” aren’t so random after all. Salem is still playing the part of the God we saw in Jinn’s flashback and her followers treat her accordingly. They do as she says out of fear. It’s what Salem lays out in the trailer: they can have their own desires, but only if they don’t interfere with her own.

Hazel drops the bomb that, oh yeah, your ex also reincarnated already, which puts an interesting twist on Salem’s anger. Meaning, I wonder if she’ll be more forgiving of their failure now that she knows they were unexpectedly facing Ozpin in Haven. Regardless, she’s not happy about the news.

At all.

We leave her letting one hell of a draft in and return to the gang. Yang bitches about how the path hasn’t led anywhere and Maria asks if she really doesn’t have anything “better to do than harass a defenseless old lady?”

More real talk: does Yang have experiences that explain her current attitude? Hell yes. Does all this make for compelling characterization? Absolutely. But right now I don’t like her. Having a reason to be angry doesn’t excuse the harm you do when you direct that anger towards those who don’t deserve it. From her pointing her weapon at Qrow to harassing Maria, I don’t think Yang is acting like a very good person right now and I haven't enjoyed her time on screen. An understandable development? Again, yes, but that doesn’t change the fact that she’s acting like a brat and encouraging everyone else to do the same.

Of course, as soon as she challenges Maria the path leads them to a farmhouse. Not that Yang is ready to apologize for her attitude (another big difference between Ozpin’s mistakes and others’: he’s constantly apologizing for his). Weiss notes that the place looks deserted, but at least it’s better than staying out in the cold.

…Is it though? That farmhouse looks creepy as hell and I don’t trust it. To say nothing of the fact that we’ve got that sewer place from the intro right next door.

And that’s where we end up, the gang walking into this abandoned, potentially grimm-infested farm while they’re all pissed at each other and the gate squeaks ominously closed behind them. Oh yeah. I’m feeling real good about the next episode.

(Not.)

Other Details of Note

I’m intrigued by the fact that Jinn seems to have dissipated immediately after finishing her story, both because personality-wise she seems like the kind to stick around and gloat, and also because they’ve still got one question left. We saw Awful Facial Hair Oz ask his questions back-to-back, so unless Jinn streamlined things for convenience’s sake there doesn’t seem to be a wait period between each question… I don’t know. Narratively it makes sense (wanna clear Jinn out so there’s no distraction from the Ozpin bashing), but in-world the rules governing these relics seem a little murky.

So Salem knows Cinder is alive. I wonder if that’s connected to the grimm arm she gave her. If Salem has ties to Cinder that she hasn’t bothered to explain yet. Hmm. Wonder if she can control Cinder’s arm like she does the other grimm…

Salem also mentions the Sword of Destruction and intended to go after it before she heard that Ozpin had already reincarnated. Will that be the next relic on the list then?

With the exception of Ruby fighting the sewer grimm and everyone facing off against someone off screen, we’ve hit on most of the imagery from the trailer and intro already. I’ll be interested to see what the rest of the volume holds since it looks like that vast majority of that material is being kept carefully under-wraps.

Still looking forward to reconciliation. Still putting a lot of stock in that one image from the intro lol

[170212-spring]

@BigHitEnt stop ignoring I-ARMYs

I’m sure everyone’s seen it by now, ARMYs are angry at BigHit for the lack of translations for BTS content. BigHit has pushed their responsibility of providing content onto us, the fans, for far too long. Why are fan translators doing this much work? Why are they pulling BigHit’s weight? It has been SIX years since BTS debuted, the ARMY reaches well outside of South Korea, but BigHit still doesn’t provide I-ARMYs with the content we deserve.

Fan Translator Appreciation Day Should Be A Thing

First, before I get to ranting, let’s take a moment to appreciate all of the hard work and effort fan translators put into their work. As an international ARMY, I’m always left in the dark when BigHit posts content without translations. It’s because of fan translators not BigHit, that I can understand BTS content. These fans and their work are so admirable. They are more than translators; they are communicators, facilitators, and cultural mediators. Fan translation goes beyond simply knowing the Korean language. Translators must have a solid knowledge of sources and their cultures in order to accurately translate texts. Otherwise, sentences that are nuanced in the source language will lose meaning in the target language. Translators do more than translate language, they translate culture. For example, take this tweet by Namjoon: 

The ENTIRE thing is in Korean (not blaming Namjoon here). Without a fan translation in the comments, I never would have been able to understand his message. Trust me, I painstakingly typed the letter into Google Translate and got this:

Fan translators do much more than surface level translation. In this case, translators are allowing I-ARMYs to connect with BTS and Korean culture by providing them with clear translations. The purpose of fan translation is to share content with fans limited by language barriers; producing their own translations allows fan translators to include fans who would otherwise be excluded.

Without fan translations, I am unable to understand any BTS content (i.e. Bangtan Bombs); I can barely understand any interactions between members beyond physical cues. As the only producers of translations, it is (sadly) up to fan translators to help the fans who initiate the translation process. It’s very clear that translators are necessary to the fandom as they provide us with essential information that we I-ARMYs otherwise lack. I, along with many I-ARMYs, literally could not survive without fan translators. THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR HARD WORK!!!

@BigHitEnt Stop Playing Games

BigHit does not provide translations of its content outside of title tracks and music videos. If BigHit were to provide translations, there would be no need for fan translators to exist, period. Official translations require that BigHit to hire their own translators, which would cost them money. While spending money on translators is unlikely to make a dent in their bank account, BigHit does not need to spend money on translations when fans translators are already doing it for free.

Fan translators act as free laborers for BigHit. Before you attack me, hear me out. Free labor begins when fans embrace productive activities and are exploited for it. In this case, free labor begins when fan translators are exploited for their work; fan translation is beneficial for us I-ARMYs, but it takes heavy tolls on translators. I’m sure we’ve all seen at least one of our favorite translators leave over the years. Translators can spend from less than an hour to over four hours a week during peaks, such as when BTS has a comeback, with some translators even working twenty hours a week. Bangtan Subs’ motto is LITERALLY ‘We sub while you sleep’. Furthermore, a lot of translators are harassed by toxic ARMYs. This is especially true when they feel that their bias is being ignored:

ARMYs depend on fan-based translators because BigHit does not provide them with translations. It’s reasonable to say that some fans are not pushing BigHit to translate because they already get translations from other sources. Fan translators exist because consumers want more content. As an ARMY, the lack of translated content from BigHit leaves me unsatisfied. This desire for translations was created by a lack of content from the company, yet the fans are the ones who are working to fill this gap.

Not to mention, fan translators also promote BTS on social media. They are literally doing BigHit’s marketing for free. Internet users generally find BTS through translated content, not through BigHit’s official content. Many fans discovered BTS through YouTube, where translated content is often posted. In response to being asked why fan translators are needed, a fan argued:

‘The way to conquer the US market is NOT to sing in English but to have content available in English so fans can feel like they know the people in the group. BTS + ARMY are ONE and that's because of the translators. Translators are a HUGE reason BTS is so successful. We love our translators!!’

Translators are providing free advertisements for BigHit through their shared content because they are the only source of content for international audiences. Anyone who doesn’t understand Korean will have to discover them through unofficial fan translations.

Translators are pressured by fans and feel that they need to satisfy everyone. A lack of official translations from BigHit leads ARMYs to expect fan translators to fill in the gap left by the company. As a result, translators must work as free laborers as a result of consumer desire. 

#BigHitAddSubs

ON GOD BigHit better start giving us translations. We DESERVE translations. I used to be one of those fans who don’t ask for official translations because I believe BTS, at its roots, is a Korean group and does not need to change to suit I-ARMYs’ needs. However, I now think that BigHit has grown enough as a company to afford their own translators. I’m not alone in this thinking either, many ARMYs have agreed under #BigHitAddSubs. I-ARMYs make up a large portion of the fanbase as well as product sales, it is reasonable for us to argue for official translations when we are supporting BTS as much as Korean fans.

Moreover, let’s address the way BigHit has continued to rely on fan translators rather than produce their own official translations. I have discussed how fan translators’ large workload and responsibilities have negatively impacted their lives. Fan translators should not be responsible for translating official content, they are only doing it to help us I-ARMYs. The general population of fans has now acknowledged this and is trying to stop BigHit. 

      We are tired of being pushed aside by BigHit and are pushing for the translations that we have earned through our support of BTS. @BigHitEnt, please give us the content we deserve.

The life of a fan translator is both rewarding and exhausting. As cultural mediators within the fandom, translators open up cross-cultural conversations between BTS and I-ARMYs. They are facilitators for fans who would otherwise be lost in the dark created by language barriers.  While they are a great aid to the BTS fandom, some translators are also struggling to continue the fan practice. In order to improve this environment for translators, BigHit should take responsibility for the translation of its content.

[inkwatch-blog]

Twilight Princess: A Game Stuck in Time

(AN: The following is an unproduced script for a proposed video series called BKLG (pronounced Backlog), which I unfortunately had to put on hold for the time being. It has been slightly modified to read as an article, but the writing below is perhaps a bit more conversational than it otherwise would be.)

Allow me a bold statement upfront: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess would not exist as it does today without a demo reel shown at Nintendo’s defunct trade show Spaceworld. At Spaceworld 2000, a demo reel for the upcoming Gamecube was shown to attendees to represent the graphical power of Nintendo’s new console. Twelve seconds of an unannounced Zelda game were shown and the fanbase lost it’s collective mind. IGN wrote a five paragraph essay about the clip, writing, “There's far too much detail to believe that Nintendo would scrap the models and make new ones. So, we think it's safe to say the new Link will look a lot like this. Overall, we're very happy with his new immaculate hero look.” Right.

IGN might’ve lost their minds, but behind the scenes, director Eiji Aonuma wasn’t pleased; in fact, he actually hated the design. A decade later, he told IGN it wasn’t the game he wanted to make at all. To him, it wasn’t Zelda.

So a year later, at Spaceworld 2001, Nintendo announced The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. The internet revolted. This wasn’t their Zelda, they said. This was Cel-da. This was kid stuff. Where was their mature, grounded take on the series? I do wonder if that sounds like any other fanbase out there today.

Wind Waker was released in North America in 2003 to critical praise. Wikipedia has it listed on twenty-three separate Best Of lists. The HD re-release on the Wii U only gained the game further acclaim. The visuals have stood the test of the time, aging far better than similar games released around the same era.

But all of that didn’t matter. To fans, the cartoonish visuals meant the game was meant for children. As a follow up to Ocarina, its sales were disappointing, selling less than half of what the first 3D Zelda had sold. Nintendo directly attributed this slump to the reaction of fans in North America after the graphics were first shown in 2001. So, despite accidentally announcing in 2004 that an upcoming GameCube Zelda game had the working title of The Wind Waker 2, Aonuma became concerned that the game wouldn’t sell well in North America. After the game was announced at E3 2004, Shigeru Miyamoto told IGN that the art style of the new Zelda adventure was created to fulfill that customer demand created six years before Twilight Princess was even released.

So why spend a massive amount of time detailing the history of a decade old game? Because in a lot of ways, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and its HD remake, feel beholden to the demand of its fan base in a way not a lot of Zelda games are. Despite the preceding two games in the series, Wind Waker and Majora’s Mask, featuring spectacularly different play styles, Twilight Princess feels like a reimagining of 1998’s Ocarina of Time, and while this doesn’t make Twilight Princess a bad game by any means, it certainly makes it feel more derivative than any adventure game starring the Hero of Time deserves to feel.

So, in the honor of Zelda, let’s divide this into two needlessly convoluted timelines. There’s also one where I die while writing this, and it never comes out, so if you’re reading this now, please assume you aren’t in this timeline.

One.

Twilight Princess is a good game doing weird things.

Yeah, really, it is. All the fun of Zelda, right there, baked into it. It’s got some dark, goofy undertones and the game is weird as hell. The wolf segments are mostly fun, especially once you gain the freedom to turn into a wolf whenever you please. The characters are all really memorable in a way that I think is underplayed when people talk about Zelda. The Snow Yeti couple who are secretly possessed. Zant is a weird Twilight villain who is being played by Ganondorf. Colin’s storyline of overcoming the bullying and taunting of the rest of his friends makes him my favorite of the four children by far. And Midna is the best - the best - Zelda assistant ever. That’s a really low bar to clear, sorry Navi and Fi, and Tatl. Y’all can buzz off, because Midna has you beat for days. She is excellent, and never really a bother, even when she tells you something you already know.

The swordfighting in this game, particularly when fighting the Darknuts throughout the last chunk of the game, feels spectacular. I’m assuming this is less true with waggle controls on the Wii, but playing through the HD remake felt pretty spectacular. Some of the dungeon design is the best in the series - Snowpeak, for all its flaws and played out ice block puzzles, is perfectly built, and the Temple of Time’s reversal after the miniboss felt really refreshing. It also, and I cannot overstate this enough, had my favorite minigame in all of Zelda: snowboarding.

That’s not to say Twilight Princess is a perfect game. There’s plenty to nitpick - the puzzles don’t feel like puzzles! Why are half of the puzzles just shooting objects on a wall with an item! Why aren’t there more snowboarding levels! Why do half the items have almost no use outside the dungeon! Why aren’t there more snowboarding levels! Why can’t I ride the Spinner everywhere! Why aren’t there more snowboarding levels!

So instead of nitpicking on small things like, why aren’t there more snowboarding levels, let me go ahead and lay out the biggest flaw in this game, the one that everyone probably saw coming before you even clicked on this article: the opening.

Here’s how the opening tutorial for 1992’s The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past plays out: There’s a short cutscene before you gain control of Link. You leave bed and you grab the Lamp from the nearby chest. The guards don’t let you into the castle, so you head around to the right and you move a bush to let yourself into the dungeon of the castle. Your uncle, who has been defeated, gives you a sword and shield. Then you begin your journey through the first dungeon of the game, Hyrule Castle.

Cool. Easy. Done. Now here’s the opening tutorial for Twilight Princess: You talk to Rusl, you watch a cutscene, you run to the Ordon Spring, you talk to Ilia, you get Epona, you run through Ordon, you get to the ranch, you herd some goats in what is one of my least favorite mini-games in all of Zelda, you run back to Ordon, you talk to the kids, you talk to Uli, who can’t give you the fishing rod because she lost her cradle, then you talk to Jaggle, you summon a hawk, you shoot the hawk at a monkey, you bring the cradle back to Uli, and you get the fishing rod. From there, you go fishing, you catch a fish for the cat, you watch the cat run around town and back into the shop, where you can now get a free bottle. If you haven’t already, you run around collecting rupees until you reach the magical number of 30, in which you buy the slingshot and you show the children that you’ve bought it. Now you can re-enter your house and, would you look at that, the sword is there. The kids teach you how to use a sword. Then the kids chase a monkey into the woods. So, you summon Epona, you get the lantern, and you enter the North Faron woods on your quest to find Talo. You make your way through the woods in what is sort of similar to a dungeon, you free Talo and the monkey using your sword, and Rusl thanks you for saving Talo. Then you herd more goats - 20 this time, thanks Fado. Ilia claims that you hurt Epona or something, and she steals your horse. She’s also locked you out of the spring where she’s hidden Epona, so you sneak into the spring in a crawlspace, which triggers a cutscene, and boom, you’re a wolf stuck in prison.Technically, the wolf section is also a bit of a tutorial, but I think the point’s been made.

The opening of this game is terrible. It slows progress in the game down to a crawl right when the game should be trying to get you to sink yourself in. It takes hours to complete, and even longer if you haven’t played the game before and don’t know what you’re doing. And, in some ways, it’s indicative of a larger problem in the more modern era of Zelda games - not trusting the player to figure the game out on their own.

A quick note on the other divisive aspect of this game: tear collecting. I won’t comment much on it because it’s been talked to death and, to me, the tutorial is far more problematic in terms of game structure, but the tears fetch quest isn’t a whole lot of fun. At best, it’s inoffensive; at worst, it’s boring and yet another way to get players to put the controller down before the game reaches its second half. The HD remaster fixes the quest somewhat, lowering the required tear count from 16 to 12. It’s still cumbersome, but ending 25 percent sooner helps alleviate the negative feeling each section leaves on the player.

Two.

Twilight Princess is a good game unable to move beyond its past and its fanbase.

Majora’s Mask was released to critical acclaim, but it sold about half of Ocarina’s numbers two years earlier. Perhaps, Nintendo probably thought at the time, this had to do not with the quality of the game or what the fanbase wanted, but the required usage of the Expansion Pak and the impending launch of the GameCube.

As mentioned earlier, it was Wind Waker’s sales that scared the creative team into redirecting their efforts from a sequel to Wind Waker to an entirely new game with a new, more realistic design.

But Wind Waker’s struggles didn’t just change the art design of the new game. It ensured that the next Zelda game would be more like Ocarina of Time than both Wind Waker and Majora’s Mask, a direct sequel, ever would.

And they did it. Twilight Princess, more than any other game in the series, plays like a reimagining of a former game, in this case, Ocarina of Time. Especially in the first half of the game, both play out in incredibly similar ways, from your humble beginnings in a small village to your travels to Hyrule Castle, to the similarly themed opening dungeons, to your new companion following you around, offering advice. Majora’s Mask was a game that took chances, shook the Zelda formula up in ways no one had seen since Zelda II. Wind Waker stayed more true to the classic Zelda road, while still thinking up new ideas, from its presentation to its high seas setting. Twilight Princess is a good, safe game, seemingly designed to make sure that everyone who owned a copy of Ocarina of Time and had seen the Spaceworld 2000 demo would no longer feel disappointed about the cartoon stylings of Wind Waker.

And it worked. That feeling of nostalgia for Ocarina, combined with the success of the Wii, ensured the game would become the best-selling title in Zelda’s history, assuming you don’t include the 3DS remake of Ocarina into Ocarina’s N64 sales.

Of course, unlike Ocarina, nostalgia for Twilight Princess hasn’t fared quite as well. The game received an HD remaster in 2016, both as a 30th anniversary celebration of the series and as a pseudo-apology from Nintendo for delaying Breath of the Wild to 2017 in order to simultaneously release on the Wii U and the Switch. The HD remaster of Twilight Princess sold a little more than a million copies globally, a similar number to 2015’s forgotten spin-off, TriForce Heroes.

It took nearly another decade to get Nintendo to take more chances on changing up the Zelda formula. Ignoring the portable titles for a moment, 2011’s Twilight Princess follow up, Skyward Sword, was critically acclaimed at launch, but has, for the most part, been largely forgotten about in the five-plus years since its release. Skyward Sword often appears near the bottom of best-Zelda lists, and often doesn’t appear at all when the list is limited to ten games. That game has similar flaws to Twilight Princess, with a drawn out opening section and frustrating collect-a-thons like the music note section late into the game.

All of this is to say, I think we’re about to entire a new era of Zelda, or at least, a return to classic, pre-Ocarina of Time adventuring. Next week’s Breath of the Wild promises an open world with plenty to explore. The opening of the game seems to draw from the original and from Link to the Past far more than from Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword. What we’re looking at isn’t the end of Zelda, but the first of a new chapter.