#but i guess they weren't planning on having her as a recurring character at this point so pressure's off

[minetowalkonglass]

ooh in 11x11 and then 11x13 they want to build the DeanAmara thing soo badly with Mildred's conversation and the shifter turning into Amara's silhouette but it's so difficult to buy into any of it :/ for ME at least

[underground-boss-clay]

Awright, let’s get this over with.

Welp, PR Department’s been tellin’ me this would help boost the public’s opinion of the company, so might as well get this over with.

Name’s Clay, founder and CEO of the Driftveil Mining Company in Unova, as well as Gym Leader a' Driftveil City. Pronouns are he/him, since that’s gotta be put up there. Card is below.

The company’s PR Department has been sayin’ that makin’ an account on this Rotomblr thing would “make the company more open to input” and make me ‘n particular, as the head a’ said company, “more approachable.” No idea what that’s got to do with anythin’, but I ain’t one ta look a Mudsdale in the mouth. Won’t be postin’ a whole lot, maybe just big moments as they come along. I ain’t as big on this social media stuff as, say, Burgh or Elesa (no offense to either of ‘em, they’re just better at this than ‘n old-timer).

((OOC under the cut))

((Overall unreality warning for the blog))

Welp, I asked and you guys answered. So here we are.

Mod's name is Lyra, age 29, She/they, and will be following from @batscrem since this is a side-blog. Anything that is out-of-character/OOC will be tagged as such and either under a cut or be in double parentheses ((like this)). In-character will be tagged “Here’s the Dirt” (get it, cuz Ground types, hahaha what am I doing).

Don't have anything big in particular planned for this guy so far, so I guess this is what some people would call a "low stakes" blog? There will be a lot of canon, but also some headcanons here and there to fill in spaces. The Pokemon lore has a lot of gaps after all, which makes it super flexible.

Pelipper Mail is OPEN!

7.29.23 Update: Just making it super clear in case people don't immediately understand, I have NO INTENTIONS of joining high stakes plots. I'm here to have fun, not get super into the drama.

11.03.23 Update: Realized that some things need explaining.

Clay is the main muse of the blog, but there are two recurring OCs that pop up now and then. They came about organically and weren't planned from the start, hence why I didn't bring them up until now.

Mildred

Mildred is Clay's PR agent and the one who brought up the idea of a blog in the first place. She'll pop up now and then to give her two cents. Her posts will be under "Mildred from PR."

Sigmund

Sigmund is Clay's son, who's been out of Unova for twelve years. Why? It's complicated, but there were issues that spiraled out of control when he was 12 and he ran away. His posts will be under "Sig Erden."

And then there's a special third other who occasionally pops up under the tag "Mister Mayor." Who is he, well that one I think is more fun for people to find out on their own ;)

01.06.24 Update: Made a quick little post regarding what Indigo Disk changes/doesn't change. So for those who want to interact from a Lacey blog, yeah. That's there.

03.08.24 Update: So uh, thought this went without saying, but no God-modding. That is making changes to my muse, or having my muse do things, without my consent.

[panelshowsource]

it's actually been leaked for some time, although — and not to sound whiny — any time i've posted it or just talked about it i've gotten 10+ anonymous messages telling me i'm the devil and ruining the establishment of taskmaster with my irresponsible gossiping. so i didn't post about it and deleted any of the asks/convo about the new cast, even though ofc everyone has had tonsss of thoughts about it 😅

anyways would have laid down my whole life betting john robins (one of THE most obvious future tm contestants, being such a good friend of alex's!) and joanne mcnally would be on so i feel very vindicated — and excited! — in that regard! we're gonna have a great time :)

someone sent an anon asking about people i'd bet — not who i want, but who i'd bet — would be on the show so i'll think more about that and post later this week! the series will def have more seasons so i'll try and get some guesses in heh

OMG ME TOO her name is mabel! she's sooooooo cute ≧◡≦

hello anon!! actually you don't need me for this, it was recently posted on tv_bunny :)

enjoy!

she's great! she reminds me a lot of roisin, in that when she's not doing her semi-pre-written joke material, she's supremely good at hanging, bantering, fitting in with the vibe. i really appreciate that when it comes to panel shows particularly! but i can't say i've seen much of her standup

(wait — can i digress for a second — roisin is one of the ONLY recurring catsdown contestants who actually brings in sensible mascots that have the purpose of helping her/bringing her luck, and her presentations of them are always so hilarious and she deserves more credit for that)

+ not important but i really like her voice

thank you for sending her well wishes <3

i appreciate the message and you weren't the only person to say this, but i think some people are only part-way informed as to her journey reclaiming her name. her intention was never to scrap the nickname shappi or stop people from calling her that; it was 1) to reconcile her experience growing up in the uk with her name and how that led to her committing to shappi as a teen, and 2) to be published, credited, and billed as shaparak in professional capacities. she has clarified many times, including here and here, that it is totally acceptable to call her shappi; people on tv & radio still call her shappi after formal introductions, like in the new wilty when everyone calls her shappi throughout the entire episode; her social media handles are still shappi; and so on. she's shaparak, but that doesn't mean she "no longer goes by shappi". there is some confusion here i think some people are taking her journey, which was lovely to follow, as rejecting shappi — but that isn't the case.

i already updated her tag to 'shaparak khorsandi' a while ago and would definitely credit her full name where necessary, but socially, colloquially, like in the quick text post i made asking people to give shappi some love, there is no disrespect in calling her that! of course, plenty of people are credited by one name and are regularly called another/a nickname, like olivia colman who is actually called sarah by her family and colly by most everyone else. she seems really happy with having done her book and her recent show under her full name, and it's been beautiful to see her come around to love shaparak as much as she has loved shappi :')

btw for anyone who doesn't know, shaparak means butterfly in farsi!

hahahahaha that is hilarious

long story short is just that keith lemon is a disreputable character (and i mean character literally, he's not real, he's played by leigh francis!) who spends a lot of his energy shouting and oogling over boobies etc

i think it's fair to say hating on white supremacists does bring us all together 😅

i'm sorry i haven't seen it! but ugh tamsin greig is one of my longest-time crushes fr i actually think the friendship between her and stephen mangan is one of my roman empires. i have a list of scripted tv rewatches i plan to do this year — the thick of it, peep show, and so on, some of my faves ever — and green wing is def on the list so maybe i'll add friday night dinner!

—————

PANEL SHOW WATCH LINKS / NON-PANEL SHOW WATCH LINKS FAQ / TAGS / ASK

[niteshade925]

Speculations

I’m gonna make some guesses here, see if I turn out to be right when Mihoyo finally release Act.??? and Khaenri’ah

(SPOILERS BELOW)

Been thinking about the Genshin story trailer (the one titled “Travail”, dubbed in Japanese by Kaiba-kun Kenjiro Tsuda) in what little free time I had, and had a thought just now:

There are a few visual motifs that keep popping up throughout Genshin, I will list the ones I’ve noticed and some examples of each:

Four point star:

top of game’s logo

oculus location markings on the map

statues of the seven

Kaeya’s pupils and clothing

Dainsleif’s pupils and clothing

the Unknown Kiana God’s pupils and clothing

design of Traveler (both of them)

design of Paimon

Celtic knots:

walls of dungeons and abyss spiral

design of Unknown God

design of Dainsleif

Petal-shapes:

Paimon’s clothes

base of every Statue of the Seven

pillars in game’s intro loading screen

Stars, space, constellations, galaxies:

design of Paimon

design of Unknown God

design of Dainsleif

There are other "regional" visual motifs we can see so far, and these are the bird/feather/wings motifs in Mondstadt, and the square/diamond shapes we find throughout Liyue (also featured prominently as a design element for both the dragon and Zhongli...hmm......). These show that visual motifs do indeed connect places, characters, items, etc...so how are the archons, Dainsleif, Kaeya, the Unknown God, Paimon, and the Twins connected?

At the beginning of the game, the Traveler was talking to Paimon, telling Paimon what he/she remembers about how he/she came to be in Teyvat, and that it was a long time ago, 500 years to be exact. Paimon had apparently taught the Traveler/you many things shortly before the journey began, and was the one who suggested seeking out the seven archons in order to find your twin brother/sister's whereabouts. Incredibly, Paimon also has the ability to time travel into the future, but not the past.

In Mondstadt you meet Venti who is actually Barbatos, the anemo archon. After falling victim to the Tsaritsa's plan to take other archons' gnoses, Barbatos told you that anyone who has a Vision can make it to the island in the sky and claim a throne as a god, and that these chosen people are called genshin/原神 (the name of the game), or "proto-gods".

You journey to Liyue Harbor on foot to meet the geo archon Morax, but instead you saw a giant corpse, or so it appears. Wandering around Liyue, you come across various monuments and books telling of an ancient war between many gods, the Archon War, which established the current 7 archons of Teyvat. The Archon War was brutal, bloody and just frickin long, but the gods involved weren't all in it for the power. Some were forced, others had irreconcilable differences.  Morax became the geo archon when he survived and emerged victorious in the region of Liyue.

And that is what we currently know about the nature of Archons.  They are mortals (not mutually exclusive with the concept of gods here) of Teyvat who emerged triumphant in the fight for the “thrones in the sky”.  As for the identity of the Unknown God, Dainsleif, the Traveler twins, and Paimon, I can only speculate, but there are some clues, albeit not very solid clues.  Yet.

The first one is the background of the official art for the Traveler twins and the background of the official art for Dainsleif:

Notice the background?  That is virtually the same symbol, just colored differently.

Then there are the Celtic knots.  Notice the ones on the design of Dainsleif.  Notice the ones on the Unknown God:

Then notice the trailing ribbon-like pieces of fabric on the back of the Unknown God.  Notice the trailing ribbons behind Lumine.  

And the cape of Dainsleif vs. the cape of Aether.

Compare the bangs of the Unknown God to the bangs of Lumine, then compare the bangs of Dainsleif to the bangs of Aether.

Remember the sea of flowers in the Travail trailer?  Compare that to the flowers in Lumine’s hair.  Consider how the narrator of the trailer--which in the JP dub is the same VA who’s going to voice Dainsleif--talked about making Aether fight him in order to prove that Aether is more worthy to rescue “her”, the same “her” who he remembers “loved those flowers”.

I’m going to make a guess here:

The Unknown God is (an older) Lumine, and Dainsleif is (an older) Aether.

I know there are many who thought the Unknown God was God Kiana from the Honkai series, but at this point I think it was more of a reference to the Honkai series than a plot point (to introduce players unfamiliar with Mihoyo’s games to the Honkai series).  For one, I believe someone from Mihoyo did an interview where they said that a larger-scaled game like Genshin was something they wanted to make when they made HI3, but they simply did not have the resources to do so, and now they can tell the story they’ve always wanted to tell.  If this is true, and I think it probably is, then the world of Teyvat bearing similarities to the world of Honkai Impact is pretty well-explained:  they stemmed from the same basic story ideas.  Are there any connections plot-wise?  Maybe, but I don’t think so.

But why would an older Lumine and an older Aether exist in the same time as the younger Lumine and Aether?  How can the same people experience the same time point twice, isn’t that some sort of paradox?

There’s no way to answer this question right now, but there are definitely some time-traveling shenanigans going on here.  I mean, look at Paimon.  Paimon has time manipulation powers that we can utilize in-game, but interestingly she (?) can only travel to the future and not to the past.  Add to that the recurring motif of cycles (”that throne in the sky is never reserved for you” and the mentions of “usurper”)............maybe the Unknown God and Dainsleif as they appear now are past incarnations of Lumine and Aether.  If so, this won’t be the first time Mihoyo toyed with the idea of reincarnation (see Dr. Mei & Raiden Mei, Himeko & Himeko, Sakura & Yae Sakura, etc etc etc).

It’s also unclear where the twins actually came from.  There are two possibilities as of now, Celestia (island in the sky) or Khaenri’ah.  The former is somewhat supported by the Gnostic Chorus teaser (”glorious kingdom established among the heavens”), while the latter is hinted at in the Travail story trailer (Dainslief is introduced in the section for Khaenri’ah).  Ad astra abyssoque.

Finally, some random stuff I’ve noticed.  Genshin contains a few references to Norse mythology.  Dainslief is the name of a sword from Norse mythology that cannot be sheathed unless it takes a life.  And the white tree that spread its roots throughout Teyvat mentioned in various places.....Yggdrasil anyone?