#but its design has a bit too many details

[muffinrecord]

I've been pretty positive about Yuu so far, but watching her magical girl story... hmm.

Basically I like everything about Yuu, but man that serial killer bit is the only thing that really sticks out as an overt bad choice. Having Nagisa stand around and watch Yuu kill people is such a weird choice, it feels more like fanfic than actual canon. Like this doesn't feel like something that could happen in Magia Record-- or hell, even in Madoka Magica either.

For example, Sayaka has a scene on a train where some dudes are being sexist assholes and it's left up to the viewer to decide if she kills them or not. It doesn't go: Sayaka killed them and also they were calling out for help the entire time while Madoka watched you know?

That said, this is something I can see in a bunch of the spinoffs (Kazumi, Oriko, Suzune), but I think everyone agrees that the spinoffs are of dubious quality. I love me the spinoffs but they're a hot mess.

I dunno. It's one thing to know that Yuu is a serial killer, it's another thing to have a character watch her go around and kill people and not intervene in any way. Especially in a story that goes out of its way to not do that. Walpy hitting Kamihama is noted to have no causalities at all (which goes a little too far in the other direction imo but it is what it is), Suzune isn't able to kill anyone in Kamihama and is dealt with by kicking her out (and not killing her), the deaths in arc 2 are mostly accidental and have massive consequences, everyone is forgiven in the end-- this isn't a story that really has "watch someone kill people and do nothing" in it's cards, you know?

I actually liked Nagisa's Wish for a lot of things. For example, I like that Nagisa didn't think she could be a magical girl until she saw Yuu, because she assumed that magical girls had to be good people-- aka, Nagisa did not think she was good. But that's not because Nagisa is a bad person. Nagisa is just unloved, and since she's a young kid, she's internalized that to mean that something is wrong with her, not that something is wrong with her mom. It's heartbreaking to see her go from "I can't be a magical girl," to seeing Yuu the murderer, to then going "oh okay if she can be a magical girl then so can I." Like sweet pea, your mother not loving you is not the same as being a killer. You've done nothing wrong. You are not a bad person for having Feelings and Emotions about the neglect you are experiencing.

However the serial killer/organ seller bit just goes too far for me and it kind of overshadows a lot of the better ideas present in Nagisa's Wish. Like how can you focus on the interesting ideas about justice or self worth when there is a serial killer/organ stealer walking around.

I think that the best qualities of Yuu are her design and how creepy she is-- having her actually go all the way and be a serial killer/organ seller actually makes her less creepy in my opinion. Yada yada, less is more, leave it up to the viewer's imagination. If she was just off, if we just knew that something was wrong with her and that people are disappearing but it's not outright stated what she's doing... I dunno. That would make her a lot more scary to me. A lot of fear can be found in apprehension and outright telling all the details will fill in too many gaps.

Like, the things that we all like about Yuu would be her voice direction, her memory issues, the way her Live2D is designed to be slightly off kilter from everyone else, the gap between her attitude and the darkness she engages in, the weird weaponry she uses and how it changes the way she walks/moves-- all of this is effective because it is offputting and different, not because the narrative is telling us "hey she kills people and sells their organs."

Basically I really love Yuu, but I do have some criticisms for her character and I understand why some folks don't like her.

That said, it did lead to this fantastic line from Kyubey so like,

You take some, you lose some.

[1ightsen]

Maxie Infodump #1 - Little known character details from official media

I promised to post some of my maxie infodumps and headcannons, and I think I'll start it off with something simple. His official character bio that was hosted originally on the first release of ORAS (this will be ORAS Maxie focused)

here is a transcript for easy reading: "Maxie is the leader of Team Magma, the team seeking a world ideal for humanity. He pays attention to even the smallest of details, and is quite sensitive in some regards. He has a habit of describing situations in numerical terms. He possesses a cool-headed outlook, thinking that some sacrifices cannot be avoided if he is to achieve his goals." Okay, so first, after looking at the original japanese version of this page,

小さいことまで細かく気にする、神経質なところがあり、さまざまなことを数字を交えてあらわすのが口癖。 目的を果たすためなら、犠牲が出ても仕方ないと考える冷徹な思想の持ち主でもある。 The one word in here I wanted to be sure of was 'sensitive' since it can have many meanings, and the original japanese gives us some possibilities with:

Personally I think (being) highly strung is the most likely option here, but either way its an interesting character trait. And we all know he certainly builds up frustration and tension and explodes a bit like a volcano. Even if he does manage to correct himself afterwards.

~ ANYWAYS ~

Now that we have the bio, let's break it down a little and look at some fun examples of it in action! Maxie has a habit of describing situations in numerical terms. This typically comes out more when he is nervous or stressed. Here are some examples: Ill just take ORAS as an example here since this is already getting pretty long... In ORAS after fighting him at mt chimney, he lets you know in a specific numerical way, how much he fell behind:

And then again, when you battle with him and lose in the Battle Resort where he just has to let you know the situation in numerical terms by giving you the exact lose chance according to his own calculations of course:

"So the great Maxie has fallen, even when battling alongside your team... I shall commit this curious phenomenon to memory. It had less than a 1 percent probability of occurring, you know."

this culminates in a really interesting interaction between him and courtney after the delta episode. While It's pretty clear that Maxie cares for his team and especially his admins, he definitely struggles when faced with his crying admin, and being unsure of what to say, he settles with a numerical quantifier again.

He assesses the situation, and decides to comment on how MUCH courtney is crying. His "paying attention to even the smallest details" trait also ties into this habit of his, and is probably why he jumps to conclusions a little too early because of small things he's noticed. Accusing Tabitha of wanting his spot as leader, just because he disagreed with him is one of those situations.

Pokemon Masters EX has a lot of new scenes with Maxie, and I would love to talk all day about them, but I'll just pick out one here, and that's from the "A pasio Spectacle" event. In this event, Maxie overhears team break members simply say the word 'glasses' and instantly jumps to the conclusion that not only did they want to talk to him, but that they noticed his "magnificent mega glasses" and would like to hear a lecture on how they were scientifically made.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZmmaf9bhD8&t=144s here's a link to watch it, its worth it :D He certainly picks up on small details, but tends to miss the bigger picture sometimes, which is fun because I believe archie tends to do the opposite. Perhaps his mega glasses are actually designed to reflect this, because they work like horse blinders, and keep maxie looking straight ahead (trust me, I've made a pair of these, and you cannot see someone standing to your immediate side). Looking straight ahead is also relevant to his life goal, of ensuring the bright future of humanity, and as he says: "propel humanity to greater heights of progress and evolution." And that concludes my infodump regarding this one little bio that is no longer available without the wayback machine, and I just wanted to share it with any other Maxie fans out there :D Next I think I might tackle the bigger topic of how Archie and Maxie have so many fun contrasts in personality and more. and then maaayyybe I'll feel comfortable enough sharing my headcannons and theories. But only if people want more lol, I am not good at writing big posts :>

[melimelotus]

[theharlotofferelden]

Gonna need to put Mary Kirby + other long time staff being fired into perspective because this isn't a recent development. Bioware has been plagued with issues for well over a decade, and it's not just because of EA.

When Gaider decided to move on from Dragon Age in 2014, everyone thought it was just because he wanted to move onto a different project. He ended up leaving the company completely in 2016 after working on Anthem for a bit, and it was later reported that staff on the project had issues with his writing. He didn't mention why he left Bioware until very recently in a long twitter thread detailing that, while Bioware is a company known for its storytelling and characters, upper management went from valuing its writers to quietly resenting them, and feeling as though the writing were "holding the company back."

When they started working with Frostbite they encountered so many technical problems with it because it was specifically designed for FPS games. They were literally designing the tools they needed to work on both Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda while they were working on those games. Darrah (or perhaps Laidlaw, I forget which) even acknowledged when he was interviewed by Jason Schreier for Blood, Sweat, and Pixels, that this is a big industry no-no. But Bioware was put in a hard spot to either work with Frostbite or use the Eclipse engine that DAO was designed on (which I'm assuming would've required developing the engine and toolkit further to bring the graphics up to industry standards). So they ended up working with Frostbite which resulted in a fuckton of issues both for Dragon Age Inquisition and Mass Effect Andromeda, because the teams behind both projects had to design their own tools.

With the added stress of the toolkit also came the toxic work environment, departments that were perpetually understaffed, directors leaving and new writers coming in with different visions for the project, time mismanagement where they spent too much time on "high concept" gameplay, not having a clear vision for the game, resentments between studios, inexperience with coordinating video calls across multiple studios, the resultant mandatory crunch, etc. All of this is mentioned in this article about Mass Effect Andromeda's production cycle and this article about Anthem's.

Casey Hudson and Gérard Lehiany left Bioware in 2014 right in the middle of production on Andromeda (Casey rejoined the company as general manager in 2017, but left again in 2020). David Gaider left in 2016 in the middle of production on Anthem, as did Aaryn Flynn who left before the game was shipped in 2019. Mike Laidlaw left in 2017 and left production of Dragon Age Dreadwolf in Mark Darrah's hands, who left in the middle of its production in 2020. Matt Goldman (creative director for Dreadwolf) left the following year. Mac Walters (production director on Dreadwolf) who's been with the company for over 19 years left in January of this year. Are you seeing the pattern here?

I don't doubt that EA has influence over Bioware considering the recent layoffs appear related to the announcement back in March that EA would lay off 6% of its workforce. But it's clear there's something deeper that's going on at Bioware, and it's really not good.

When veteran senior staff are leaving one by one along with other long time staff, and it's been reported that the studio has a toxic work environment with management issues that make crunch necessary, there is something deeply wrong with the company and how things are being run. This is a sinking ship, and in all likelihood everyone is betting on keeping the company afloat with the success of Dragon Age Dreadwolf and/or the next Mass Effects game.

I want to say something more about how broadly the mainstream AAA video games industry is abusive and how incredibly fucked up their practices of layoffs have been normalized, but this is already pretty long. What I will say is that I'm not claiming this means DA4 or the next ME game is going to tank. It sure as fuck doesn't look good for it, but despite my grievances with Dragon Age, I do want the game to be successful and for Bioware to keep doing what they're doing.

And honestly, whether those games do well or not is really besides the point. Something is wrong at Bioware, whether it's the company itself or the fact it's owned by EA, and it can't be solved with mass layoffs. This is a cultural problem within the company itself, and it's very unlikely to be addressed considering how MEA failing seems to have done little to change how things are being run right now.

[sminiac]

Heyy can we get soul bf if not its okay i really live your intak,theo and keeho ver.

⋆ Haku Shota + Reader

💌 — Of course I can my sweets! Thank you sm <3!!!

Bf!Soul who buys you the silliest gifts whether he’s travelling or not, the type to see ads of utterly ridiculous items that would have no practical value to it and still put them into his cart without hesitation and giggles to himself when handing the package to you when it comes in, wouldn’t say a word even if you repeatedly ask him what it is, just sits and waits patiently for you to open it.

Ex: Sometimes he even goes out of his way to buy you matching accessories, but sometimes it’s the most absurd looking thing you’ll ever see. Also yk how he has 2 custom rings of his dogs? He’d 100% get custom pieces for the two of you, the design pertaining to something that only you and him understand! Would also get a few pieces with your initials engraved in the back, another little secret only you’d know about.

Bf!Soul who doesn’t like messaging you when he’s away, he absolutely will when there’s no other option but he’d much rather hear your voice, and he makes sure to tell you too! “I just missed hearing you talk to me that’s why I called, it makes me feel better, you know?” He’d also send you little texts throughout the day to keep you updated on where he is, what he’s doing, but they’d never be in great detail, you’d look down randomly at your phone and there’s just: “Baby I ate a bug!!” and “Walked head first into a pole >ヮ< I’m okay I think”

Ex: He’d also frequently tell you “I miss you” but every time he’d explain why, and it would almost always be a different reason each time :,)

Bf!Soul who is such an affectionate person, hugs and kisses given to you for the smallest reasons, you open something for him? You’re suddenly being smothered in kisses, they’re so quick and gentle that before you know it he’s pulling away like he didn’t just leave you blinded and dizzy from his lips. Also the type to hug you unexpectedly, just slowly raises his arms leaving his chest open until you get the hint and pull yourself into him, the same with holding your hand, but instead he’d keep reaching, pulling, trying to dig his fingers to his designated spot between yours.

Bf!Soul who builds you the cutest, most aesthetic buildings you’ve ever seen in your shared Minecraft world, the amount of time and effort he’d put into making everything pretty for you is insane. Takes care of your cats, dogs, and other random plethora of animals when you’re offline, would also leave you random little signs with messages on them for you to find whenever you’re active again, sometimes they’re just silly nonsense, others you’ll find really cute ones of him just completely gushing over you.

Bf!Soul who I feel like is so “Guess what Y/n did?” To his members, a constant yapper about you, if you’ve done anything to your hair recently, that one makeup look you did, that outfit you wore, that thing you said, everything and anything he’s constantly connecting to you and then he just has to tell everyone!

Bf!Soul who lets you do anything you want to him, he’s just pure putty in your hands! You want to put his hair in cute pigtails again? He’s already finding a spot between your legs so you have easier access to his head. You want to see him in a certain outfit? He’s laying out all of his options for you to pick from, and he doesn’t complain even one bit throughout the process.

Ex: Small spontaneous photoshoots happen quite often with this, does so many poses for you, even refers to you as his ‘pretty photographer’ when crediting you in the caption of his posts for taking the pictures of him.

Bf!Soul who would request of you to send your favourite songs to him just so he can make a freestyle video for you :,)

Bf!Soul who I feel like puts an incredible amount of effort into conveying his love for you, he really appreciates someone who can even help him, whether that’s guiding him into the words he can’t seem to find or just simply being patient with him. Likes cuddling into you while you play with his hair as he rambles on and on about you, what you mean to him, how lucky he must be to have found someone so reactive to his energy that not a lot of people can match in the way he feels is genuine. When he has the time he really gets into the details about how he feels, the emotion behind it, I feel like he’d really like the deep, touching talks late at night where everything just pieces together right in front of his eyes thanks to your presence, your kind heart. He could talk to you for hours, things are just easy with you.

[nyuuronfly]

On Rain World lore and it's implementation within the game.

This is kindof a random ramble I went on in a Discord chat and just feel like sharing elsewhere. (also note this is all primarily in reference to the original game, Survivor's story.)

I honestly think too many miss the forest for the trees a bit with RW, in terms of how important the lore is, if that makes sense. I talked with somebody about first-time experiences with the game and they said they'd watched a number of lore explanation videos on YT before starting, because of some reason along the lines of "I didn't trust the game to deliver its own story properly." To me this is almost saddening to hear because I really feel that misses the point of why the game has it's lore to begin with.

To me, while playing, any tidbits i learned about history or other information contributed to a feeling like the world I was navigating had a very real history that saturated it, yet one that I would be unable to grasp fully. It is an illusory feeling of realness, given how it is experienced. The game is mechanically not designed to incentivize collecting many information pearls, especially when in the original game you can literally just drop them off a cliff and lose them forever. You get the feeling often like you are bound to never be able to get everything, nor would you even probably want to put in the effort, so the illusion actually stays stronger because of that. Your mind wanders speculating about every little detail, whether intention truly existed behind it or not, because it feels like it did. You learned that it might have. Maintaining that illusion while playing I think is the primary reason they were included, not actually the experience of "knowing" the history. Rain World in general seems to have a thematic fixation on the simple idea that individuals have limited perspectives. Joar Jakobsson has said that one of the core ideas behind Rain World was to recreate the life of a "rat in Manhattan." That is to say, a creature that understands how to find food, hide, and live in a complex man-made structure, that cannot understand it's structuring purpose or why it was built. The very core issue of the iterators, is that the solution to the "great problem" intrinsically has to lie with knowledge that could only be obtained from "the other side." They are corporeal beings trying to know something that pertains to something outside corporeal reality. Yet pursuit of knowledge is very important to creatures like ourselves. Collecting any individual pearl is mostly an exercise in doing a lot just for little bits of knowledge. There is a lot of understanding of just how significant wanting to know more is, even something unimportant, when you are left in the dark the way you are in the game. Most information pearls you deliver are literally completely useless to know about, but they feel personally important, especially in how finding them relates to your connection to the iterators. My primary motivation to find pearls in my first play was to spend more time with Moon. On a very real emotional level, Moon felt like my only friend in the world while I played. On a mechanical level, she does literally nothing. But Rain World manages to operate on a very emotional, even instinctual level with how it's designed. I wanted to be in her company and have something to give her. Because I am alone, and lost. So something along those lines is why I felt saddened to hear the sentiment like Rain World somehow "fails" to deliver it's "story." The purpose of the game is not to find pearls and hear about some grand narrative. At it's core, Rain World is a game that's design was inspired by nature, and it's use of history within the world relates to us as a player the way history relates to us as people. It is relayed through people reading from records created by parties with their own perspectives, and connects us abstractly to a sensation that there is more out there than our own lives. That is a feeling you have as a player, and ultimately the true story that Rain World tells is the memories you have playing it. What you did, saw, and felt. The same as how our story is that of our own lives. That is the purpose of the game.

[maddascanbe-blog]

Chloé Bourgeois, plus 1 bonus Zoé Lee-Bourgeois. I did a hard overhaul of Chloé's design and character. The yellow sweater and white pants were truly atrocious. I liked her concept design with the monochromatic outfit but for my redesign I gave her a deep blue jumpsuit, and a white jacket.

I knew I was going to have Lila as the primary antagonist for Marinette's civilian life. Meaning having Chloé as one too would be redundant. They seemed to understand that in canon as they started playing with the idea of giving her a character arc.

So how to make Chloé an antagonist without her being villainous? Why by making her Marinette's rival of course! And Chloé is like- really into their rivalry. She has a very "Only Marinette is worthy to best me" attitude about things. Which means its no fun if other people butt in.

Chloé does have a bit of a "I'm better than you" attitude, but most don't realize it's unintentional. She works hard to maintain both her fathers political favor and her many investments. But she doesn't lie to the people she respects, and is rather brutally honest about her opinions on her classmates. What she thinks is constructive criticism usually comes off as rude, but any compliment is 100% genuine.

There are few people who understand that, Adrien and Sabrina are two of them. Marinette is the other, over their years of knowing each other she slowly began to realize what Chloé's word meant. That changed her view of her rival, and the two now push each other to their best.

Alya does not understand how Chloé works and tends to get frustrated with the girl, and vice versa. However, the Rena Rouge and Queen Bee are best friends. Bonding over their love of super heroes and devotion to bringing villains to justice.

Now onto Zoé, I'll go into detail for her later. But the main thing you need to know is she's 9 years old, and her big sister loves her very much. Chloé will never forgive her mother for cheating on her dad, but the one thing Audrey did right is giving her the most wonderful baby sister to adore.

[lamaery]

Since the line art / sketches for these have been reblogged more often, than the reblog with the coloured version (and I like the coloured version), I dare to repost this one. So that it may be shared and seen more as well. At the danger of being repetitive... Have an additional Mr Spider :D

Now with colour and description (thank you @saintbleeding for that, I expanded on it a little bit) ------------------------ [ID: Two versions of a sketch page of characters from The Magnus Archives (the first is the sketches, the second has them rendered in full colour): Martin is pale and freckled with light blond hair and light violet glasses and is holding a thermos and cup, with text in the steam billowing from them reading “Let’s hope it’s not oolong”; Jon has a brown skin tone and dark wavy, grey-streaked hair coming down to his shoulders, He watches with a sad, wide-eyed, stare, His eyes are glowing in a bright, green and small eye symbols are forming around his head; Tim smiling and looking slyly to the side; a small, low-detail bust of Sasha with dark skin, round glasses and a large blob of dark her bound to the back of her head, behind a larger, more detailed bust of Not!Sasha looking over her shoulder (not by op: both of them are meant to be differing designs for Sasha, but the bigger sketch showing a young woman with a blond bob of hair could work for Not!Shasha quite well); Jon and Martin grinning smugly, Martin has a purple towel hanging over his shoulder, Jon is wearing a soft salmon colored hoodie, which is too large for him; Tim lounging on a wheely-chair and wearing an open Hawaiian shirt, holding a mug with a paper umbrella and smiling; Georgie is dark-skinned with short curly hair that has a red shade to it and freckles on her face. She is looking mistrustfully off-camera with an arm around Melanie, whose face is downturned. She has dark glasses concealing her eyes. The second image is a stylized, spidery figure consisting of a dark black, uneven blob for a body, a smaller black blob for a head, with almond shaped eyes scratched roughly and randomly across it, including a small bowtie at its non existent neck. Thin, scraggly, slightly hairy lines bent in many unnatural angles for the eight legs of the creature. A tiny hat adorned its head. It is with a splatter of bright red. End ID.]

[zorosbeau33]

Courting Gifts~ One Piece Omegaverse Headcanon Part 2!

Starring: Zoro and Law! x gender neutral reader Genre: Fluff, sfw AU: Omegaverse, Omega Reader Wc: 1480 TW: Mentions of battle All Characters here are legal age or older in my au~ Masterlist~ Part 1~

He gives laid-back alpha vibes. He kinda has to be in order to keep up with Luffy and stand up beside him as right hand.

He was super subtle, SUPER Subtle! He didn’t want anything to change, but at the same time he wanted you to know he’s there and he cares.

It's small things because he’s fine loving you without the return. Just stay healthy and safe for him thats all he wants…and to see your smile sometimes aimed his way

It started at first with small things, handing you a cold drink when it's a scorching day outside. 

Gently tying your hair up for you with a hair tye thats the color of his haramaki/or slipping a beanie over your head in that color if your hair is short to take care of you in cold weather

Offering you to try his precious Sake, yes you alone have that privilege 

You want sword fighting lessons? He offers them quietly one night while the others are busy. He is barely suppressing the purrs as he gets to hold you, adjust your grip and teach you the motions by holding you within his very muscled arms.

Quality time is huge for him, that's his way of spoiling you

He gets you a cute dangly earring in his shades of green, maybe a tassel, maybe a teardrop on a thin chain, maybe a carved jade flower whatever it is. He spent weeks searching for it as he wanted to ensure it’d be something you’d like

There are the other things though. A pair of his gloves on a winter island end up in your possession. 

You have so many of his shirts when did this start? You don’t know but he always has a tiny smirky smile when he sees you wear one.

If he happens upon a snack he think you’d like he buys it while lost. Gives it to you like its nothing but his ears are red. “Here for you.” And then tries to walk away. He doesn’t want or need you to say thank you, he actually gets a bit (very) flustered and tries to leave quickly if you do try to thank him and gets defensive and pouty if you try to tease him about it 

The bookmark you had looked at in the store when you were getting him unlost? Suddenly appears in your book on a bench in the Thousand Sunny with his scent lingering all around

Zoro isn’t into extravagant things, especially not presents. He just doesn’t see the point (unless you want a sword that he is gungho for). He does buy you any nesting things if you say you need them.

Personally however he would prefer to be your nest. He loves taking naps so to have you biscuit his chest and the blanket he’d scented for you, while you both take a well deserved rest? He is all for this, both before and after you get together. Warning though you will always have at least one of his arms wrapped around you. Even in his sleep he’s watchful when it comes to you, ready to draw a sword and protect you

He has a small book that he has sketched some drawings of your face with painstaking detail. 

Once he’s over you knowing about his top secret hobby, he would be honored and flustered to design you a tattoo if you wanted. It's in his traditional style very Japanese traditional painting style but he’d work so hard on it for you.

Is a sucker for anything with your scent. He doesn’t mind wether you smell of him too much. But he is always secretly longing to have your touch, your taste, your scent burned into his soul. It makes him miss you less, and it keeps him calm.

Would be the crew member to bring home a little kitten for you if you were ever down (he had to beg Nami for permission, and promised to clean up after it). Just one, only ever the one kitten. But he makes sure its taken care of best he can to his knowledge including getting Chopper to check its health over before he gifts the sweet and goofy thing to you.

The kitten like him has a scar and recalling how gentle you were with him he decides out of all the lucious cats, this scrappy little kitten would be the perfect first child for you both to raise.

Not super attached to it at first. Honestly he often gets frustrated while ship breaking the kitten but over time and with your help to learn how to understand its actions. He is almost as protective over that fluff ball as he is you.

Heres a secret follow the cat and you’ll find Zoro, any island any time follow the cat. It knows how to find him everytime

Zoro courting gifts may not be numerous but each of them had meaning and its clear to anyone just how much thought he puts into each one

THIS MAN RIGHT HERE-He’s an alpha, a broody secretly unsure alpha

Absolutely finds the concept of courting gifts to be blown out of proportion. Why are they spending thousands (or in Do Flamingos case Billions) of Berry’s on gifts that have little practical use.

He’s to methodical and detached sometimes for his own good. So his first few gifts to you may have actually been from Bepo/Schachi/Penguin…And boy was he mad.

After they explained they couldnt stand watching him pine without acting on it, and that he was disrespecting you as an alpha and as a Super Nova by not taking care of your courting needs at least. Law relents 

His gifts are never tacky, or wasteful though he is drawing a firm line from the start, the submarine is not a hoarding zone and he’s going to keep it that way and take care of you at the same time.

The first few gifts that are actually from him he hands to you himself “You need these for your nest ya?” 

Law put hours, upon hours of research into the best pillows to use for an omega nest. He wanted to ensure they’d support you properly and not cause any muscle or bone strain. Silly but endearing 

The blankets are thick fluffy and super soft, yes they have the Jolly Roger on it, or are the same pattern as his hat, but it is because he internally wants to lay a little bit of his claim on you even in a place he feels he can’t go (until you invite him, he respects your nest as sacred and has protected it from others even before this. No Penguin pranks allowed to your nest)

He is not hug on giving you his clothes, mainly because he feels he is working hard to supply you with nice clothes to wear and he can scent those (and you in the process) so why do you need his things?

This does not apply and goes right out the window when he’s feeling possessive.

He’s jealous by nature and hugely distrustful. Someone’s flirting with you? Suddenly his jacket is wrapped around your shoulder and he is GLARING. Or during soft cuddle times with him and Bepo he puts his jacket/blanket/hat on you and holds you close to his heart. Yes he likes to pretend you moved into him, but he does pull you in 

Other “practical gifts” are any book he thinks you’d enjoy. Literature (even to his own chagrin fantasy) is never a waste…not of Berries and not of space on the ship. 

He makes space on his bookshelf for you to have your own row, even if you are not a big reader it's just one of the ways he makes space for you in his life to show you he’s ready for you to be in it even more

If he wants to be a brat (of course it's to piss off Cap’n Kidd) he would then buy you flashy presents. Not too many just enough to tell the other Supernova to fuck off and that he knows you better because while they are baubles they still have practical use! And they are things you instantly love! He’s so smug about your happiness and just the biggest broody tsundere alpha mate. 

If you ever did want something not practical but didn’t ask him because you know his rule, he might relent on his decision if he is there at the time you see it. The look of longing on your face and how you are respecting his wishes and self-set guidelines…he might just buy it to surprise you. 

Leaving it on the pillow beside you when he gets up in the morning to go to work. He can't help it, he loves you 

[c4n1d43cup1d]

Some hogcanons. notes (me rambling) under the cut

So silver was the reason i wanted to make this in the first place despite him looking the most on model (not entirely obviously, but i don't have many hcs for him). Mostly i wanted to draw his height compared to the other hedgehogs since him being freakishly tall despite being younger than sonic and shadow is funny. I saw someone say hes probably the most conventionally attractive hedgehog and i think that's true, hes a pretty boy and his fur/quills are really sleek and well maintained. The fluff on his chest is less spikey and more fluffy looking plus i put some fluff in his ears as well. I think his paws and nails are black and he doesn't wear eyeliner his lashes are just really long and hes got black markings on his eyes. Coming back to this after writing Amy's desc but i think hes genderqueer in some way idk maybe bigender i need to study him under a microscope some more every character i touch becomes transgender

Sonic has a few more added details, i like giving him a little nick in his ear and top surgery scars because that hog is trans. I haven't really seen many people give him stylized top surgery scars surprisingly, i tried to make his look kind of lightning bolty because uh something about him being fast. idk man. i think i imagined its similar to what itd look like for him to run in a zigzag? whatever i think it looks cool. I think his claws are kind of uneven and he doesn't really care too much about how they look especially since he just has them under gloves most of the time

Amy is fat because i said so, also i gave her wavier quills and heart markings everywhere. Her ears might look a little strange since it like implies her skin is making that heart shape but i imagine thats her fur spiking into the point. Her nails are painted the same red that shadows markings and stuff are mostly because i think them being besties is cute like. i see shadamy as a queer platonic relationship. Theyve always been my favorites im going to to make them as close as i want. Anyway, i think she and sonic are tied for having the shortest ears, and hers are the rounest (might make them even rounder the next time i draw her) also not entirely related to her design but i think shes transfem and genderfluid.

Shadow my son. im taking custody from black doom and gerald. anyway, i have the most headcanons for him because he is my absolute favorite guy ever he rots my brain. I think he and Amy are the same height, his rocket shoes are like platform/heels and so when he has them on he looks like Sonic's height or maybe a teeny tiny bit taller. I give his quills extra little spikes for no reason other than i think its cute, i could bullshit that its a black arms thing but idrc. What are black arms things though are his eyes and claws, his scelera is a more yellow compared to everyone elses (jaundiced as my friend put it. thanks endy) and i didn't draw it but his pupils are slits. Claws are long but are even longer when all the way out (retractable) his gloves are thick enough that he doesn't pierce them but he probably has a few spare pairs. Also not pictured but black arms related: his teeth are fucking razors, larger than the other hedgehogs and also serrated because i think thats cool. his tail is the longest out of all of them though i think it used to be longer but was lopped off in the name of science and never properly grew back. also his inhibitor rings are connected to a sort of device that does the task of being a proper gateway between his internal energy and the rings themselves, i didn't draw them but essentially its like a smaller ring that is embedded into his wrists i think. also hes trans but in a sort of alien way, i think the black arms can do the clownfish genderswap thing and shadow has it to a somewhat lesser degree its like an internal tshot i guess idfk

ok yeah thats all if u made it to the end thanks for reading the ramblings of a mad man

[tubatwo]

words left behind - choi soobin

summary: a series of forgotten ‘I love you's becomes too much for soobin, leaving him in a state of worry

pairing: gn reader x choi soobin

genre: fluff/slight angst; 1.6k words

the words “I love you” were always exchanged between you and soobin. they were more than mere words. they were a symphony of shared affection. a daily tradition that had permanently made its way into your lives. it didn’t matter who was around or where you were, you never once forgot to exchange those three sweet words.

but lately, life had its own plans in mind, and with millions of responsibilities and burdens on your shoulders, there were a few times when you had forgotten to say the words back to soobin.

a few times too many. 

“dammit, i’m gonna be late!” you exclaim, rushing to kick off the covers that were half of the reason for your warmth all night.

the other half, your boyfriend, was currently rubbing his eyes in confusion at your behavior. “what’s going on?” he asks softly.

 “my stupid phone died during the middle of the night so my alarm didn’t go off,” you huff loudly as you strip out of your pajamas, running around the room like a headless chicken, “i’m supposed to present the financial report today and now I don’t even have time to grab breakfast or coffee and I work til late and I ju–”

your words are cut off by soobin, who has now made his way out of your shared bed to hold you in his arms. “hey hey, shhh, it’s alright..” he reassures you, “how about you shower while I make you coffee and a quick bite to eat?” and if that wasn’t enough to make you fall for him all over again, he wasn’t finished. “and text me when you’re finishing up so I can order your dinner, okay?” he leaves you with a kiss on your forehead. 

you have to remind yourself that you don’t have time to cry in his arms and ramble about how unbelievably lucky you are, so you leave him with kisses all over his face before turning to your tasks, hoping that it would be enough to convey your love. “thank you so much, baby!” 

after getting ready and grabbing all of your things, you quickly make your way to the entrance of your apartment. “i’m off now!”

“good luck, I love you!” soobin yells from the room, except instead of hearing those words in return he’s met with the sound of a door slamming shut. 

the weekend meant that there was finally some time for rest and relaxation between you and soobin. no work nagging at you and no clock dictating your day. it was a clean slate, meant just for the two of you.  

surprisingly, instead of staying in like usual, you decided to plan a small picnic at a park nearby. 

“hurry, before the sun sets without us!” you exclaim, excitedly running towards your designated spot under the tree. your picnic basket was filled with various types of your favorite foods: gimbap, dumplings, bread, and ramen in heated mugs. you even had plans to get bingsu once you were finished. 

you and soobin sat down and immediately started digging in, updating each other on the details of your week. when time is your enemy and a constant reminder of harsh deadlines, you don’t always have time to fully explain the details of your day. however, during times like this, you had all the time in the world. 

“and then my boss said I gave the best presentation, can you believe it?” soobin smiles at your enthusiasm, proudly letting both of his dimples show. “of course I believe it, my baby is the best.” his lips meet your cheeks as his arms wrap tighter around you. after finishing up all of the food, you cuddled up together against the tree. 

“I wanna thank you for being so patient with me this week.” you utter softly.

 “hm? what do you mean?” soobin asks, a bit taken aback from the sudden gratitude. 

“i’ve been so busy this week and you’ve just been an absolute angel,” you explain, “I can’t thank you enough for everything you do to help me, soobin.”

you feel soobin smile against your neck before he places soft kisses on your skin. “if I can help alleviate some of your stress then it’s no problem. you always do the same for me..”

you turn your body slightly to look your boyfriend in the eyes, the both of you grinning ear to ear before pressing your lips together. the world around you faded into a blur, leaving only the warmth of his touch, the sounds of your heartbeats, and the taste of his kiss, which tasted a lot like the honey bread he had just finished.

“I love you, baby.” soobin confesses after breaking the kiss, his sudden confession making your heart swell. 

as soon as you open your mouth to respond, you feel a sudden cold splash on your forehead. “I– ah!” you look up only to feel another splash, then another, then another. 

it was raining. 

“oh god, soob, it’s raining! let’s hurry back!”  you stand up quickly to pack away any trash that was leftover from your meal. you look over to see your boyfriend staring at the ground with an unrecognizable emotion on his face. his eyebrows slightly furrowed, and you could see his fists starting to bunch up the blanket underneath him. 

“soob?” you repeat yourself. 

suddenly he snaps out of whatever state he was in and stands up, grabbing the blanket and folding it into a smaller square. while you carried the basket, he used the blanket as an umbrella to keep you two from getting wet. 

at this point, all bingsu plans were cancelled, and the silence in the car led you to believing that he was really looking forward to it. 

“hey, maybe we can get bingsu tomorrow?” you suggest, trying your best to lighten the mood. 

“okay, sure.” he says dryly. 

something had shifted. he didn’t glance at you once and didn’t even bother holding your hand with his free one. you thought that maybe he was trying to pay extra attention to the road since it was raining, so you didn’t question it anymore. 

later that night, things had started to go back to normal. it seemed like soobin has snapped out of whatever mood he was in before and was mostly back to talking normally. however, he still had a bit of hesitation with his words.

you lie in bed as he finishes his skincare routine, eyes barely hanging on as exhaustion takes over your body. you’re half asleep when he finishes, a sleepy smile on your face as he crawls into bed next to you. 

“today was really fun..” soobin murmurs quietly. you hum in agreement as sleep begins to take over your body more and more. 

“night baby, I love you.” soobin confesses. 

he felt stupid after multiple attempts of trying to hear you say it back. he didn’t understand what was going on, I mean, things seemed to be going okay? you still hugged and kissed him as if nothing was wrong. so why was he hurting so much? 

each time, it pricked at his heart, a tiny bit of insecurity growing with every missed "I love you." he began to wonder if this was the beginning of you slowly distancing yourself from him. 

and you, half-dreaming already, hum once again in response, your mind already halfway between dreams and reality.

“please say it back..” soobin whispers, his voice cracking and eyes beginning to tear up.

the vulnerability and emotion in his voice immediately breaks you out of whatever dream you were having. you turn to look at him and the sight of a tear streaming down his face was stronger than any alarm could possibly be.

wide awake now, you reach out to cup his cheek. “i’m here, honey, i’m so sorry,” you whisper. a mix of insecurity and embarrassment washes over soobin’s face, and he can’t help but to ask quietly:

“do you still love me?”

it’s almost as if you could hear your own heartbreak at the words. all you could feel was guilt and hurt due to the doubt you had unintentionally given to the person you loved most. “yes, of course baby,” you begin, “I love you so much, I promise I love you with all of my heart.”

soobin immediately shows a relieved smile, happiness consuming his entire body after finally hearing the words he was desperately missing this week. 

“i’m sorry, i’m a bit embarrassed now..” soobin wipes some of the stray tears on his cheek before letting out a sad chuckle. “I know it probably wasn’t intentional but you haven't been saying it back and I got in my head..”

you shake your head as you wrap your arms around him, face buried in his neck as your hands rub gentle circles on his back. “no, I should be the one apologizing,” you state firmly, “I am so so sorry for leaving you hanging and taking advantage of your love.”

before soobin could even interrupt you to deny your words, you were already sitting up. “you know how much those words mean to me, and i’m sorry I let the craziness of the world take them away.”

“truthfully, you’re the reason why I was able to get through this week. even though you didn’t necessarily hear it from me, your love is what anchored me and gave me strength. but.. I don’t want to make it a bad habit. because you deserve to hear those words more than anything. you deserve to feel the certainty of my love.”

soobin’s smile blossoms into one of pure affection, his fingers caressing your cheek with a gentle tenderness as he leans in to meet you in a kiss. a kiss that conveyed everything you two wanted to say to each other at that moment.

i’m sorry

it’s okay

I love you

I love you too

[crow-n-tell]

HELLO AND WELCOOOOME TO!

What kind of jellyfish is sun?

I got some requests about getting a lil layout of what jellyfish types I combined to get him the way I did for moon in this post. It’s not as fun and detailed as moons because, let’s face it: jellyfish are pretty straight forward but!! Here

Phacellophora Camtschatica

aka The Fried Egg Jellyfish.

This is the biggest and most obvious part of Sunny’s design, he‘s an egg boy and I love him for it. But also there’s an interesting bit about the relationship between fried egg jellyfish and larval crabs. See these lil baby crabs?

Yeah so they climb inside fried egg jellyfish and just. RIDE AROUND IN THEIR BELL? Consequences be damned lil dudes chillin in there getting a ride. Which makes this the second time I’ve seen other animals use jellyfish as transportation. Baby octopus, baby crabs, with sun’s size it’s safe to say reader could probably do the same.

Though maybe reader wouldn’t want to do that because the whole reason larval crabs are chilling in their bell is also because jellyfish, while not capable of being infected by parasites cause they… they don’t have the bits that help parasites do the meat suit piloting… are carriers of parasites! They just walk around with em chilling in there. Larval crabs love monchin on em.

Next up is!!

Chrysaora Fuscesscens

aka

Honestly pacific sea nettles don't have many interesting facts about them. What can I say? they are very very long - talking 15 feet long. Other than that there isn't much else to say, I wish I could list something insane off like, OH THEY’VE GOT LAZER EYES. Nope. These guys float around looking like beautiful undersea mushrooms and they need no special skills to do that.

Uh. Yeah it’s not a jellyfish. This specially has to do with Sunny’s electric ability. Maybe you were thinking, oh so he’s like electric eels? (Which actually aren’t eels! They are a type of knife fish) no no, I am a perfectionist! I aim for accuracy and I also aim for the fun of science. While jellyfish cannot actually 🎵 shock you like a electric eel 🎶, jellyfish can SORT OF generate electricity.

Via a green gooey substance in the bells of jellyfish, scientists have discovered that by exposing it to ultraviolet light it produces electrons. Layman's terms? SOLAR POWERED GOO. While jellyfish have not harnessed the solar goo, scientists have actually found a way of using it to make a new form of green electricity!

So while Sun isn't electric the way an electric eel is, he still has a way of using electricity to make him a pretty powerful lil taser. Enough to put something smaller than him in a cardiac arrest, and give something his size or bigger a good reason to scamper off.

SOLAR POWERED SUN!

Which leads to my finishing notes.

While sun uses his zapper stuff quite a bit, he does have a regular sting too. While relatively less lethal than his zapping for bigger creatures, it does function as a paralytic! For smaller creatures it’s Uh…. Its a lil more dangerous. Good thing neoprene is sting proof haha.

And I had something else…

I recently posted a magma with Sunny sleeping.

This is based around the jellyfish that scientist found out sleep, Cassiopeia.

They are usually just chilling like that, bell down. Looking at them like this it really makes you think about how closely related they are to sea anemones huh? Lil freaks.

Sometime soon I’ll post a eclipse version of this, which I’m excited about because I love sharks SO MUCH.

[lisa-russell]

Another point I will stick onto my GreyScale Agent 4 Hijacked Security System Avatar Conspiracy Board.

EDIT: Saw the new info. A copy of Four is Still...in a loose sense Four, like have you seen the Lesser Four Copies? The way they all pose and how the last one is just pulled down in the Grey Ooze cause they weren't focusing on 8...It's like the main Copy has all of the Ogs agents skills and drive. Yet pieces of Fours funky personality from in-game cannon got carried over by the portion of Said Soul being drawn in to form a pallette!

Click or tap images tah read and zoom in...So yah gonna tell me non of this has any real correlation or claim? *jabs finger at the images below.*

EDIT: I WAS RIGHT!, so what if The Parallel Cannon is said to be just a copy surronded by lesser copies. Order still had to capture a fraction of Fours Soul and than Copy a template or construct of Four, in the process of also Greyscaling those copies and reprograming them into a Security Force for its own use!

Meanwhile the Original Soul Fragment was WAS USED, to form a Pallete.

So...yah. Its maybe not the full 4 BUT it's also still technically 4 to a degree!

EDIT: Hmph. So I was pretty clam close to the lore!)

I am like 71% convinced that it is Agent 4. Despite. What. The. Game and Off the hook reacts to. Theirs faaaar to much evidence to not considered or convenience, me otherwise!

Another interesting detail is the very boss name itself...

And than these little tid bits below...theres far too much stuff HINTING AT 4...like we all know how Nintendo loooooves tah hide der lore.

EDIT: JUST LIKE THE JELLOTONS FOURS COPY WAS REPROGRAMED AND RECONSRRUCTED INTO A ROLE ONLY ORDER WOULD WANT.

And from dat ominoius statement Baby Order left on 4s Soul Weapon Pallete, I point to this other little fact.

Overlorder...so many little hints at the corrupted A.I twists what was going to be 4s job, or rather reaaaaally likes that idea.

And just inking goes for 4.

We or those who have read Marina's Dev Dairies know the rather horrifying and painfully traumatize process of being Sanitized.

And I point out GreyScaling sounds pretty similar no?

The memverse was made to REVERSE IT, or at least help bring life back to those poor empty husks. Yah, they legit said Husks.

I'm thinking Overlorder took dat Data and used it to form the Greyscaling process, taking advantage of the Glitch or Security Risk in the memverse and sucked up A Soul Fragment of Agent 4s portion via the Shellphone -to form the Copy Amalgamation of Parallel Cannon.

Ironically creating a Security System Avatar.

For its own purpose.

And may I point out, in my run after defeating Marina...it was them who I encountered next as if my 8 had activated the Avatar by excuting some form of alarm system built into the spire. And I recall that Marina made the whole thing to be repeatable, helping 8 or any Sanitized Octo regain their memories--yet when yah defeat dah boss, she reacts if she had never designed or even put in a template for that boss...unlike the other two. Which would explain dah new info e got on Order capturing and copying 4s Agent Skillset and Biodata for its own foul use!

-------(Edit: The famistu interview duddddes.)

A MUCH clearer new info about 4...

See dah part where der made out of sludge?

GREY FAMILIAR LOOKING SLUDGE. Grey Oooze...apparently capable of not only erasing memories and the conscious self, but also copying the Soul Fragments of captured victims when installed or pasted into it, thus creating an Artificial and rather freaky constructs or Avatars for Order to use...

A copy they maybe...but it still had to come from the Original Agent 4.

And I don't think Four would have willingly allowed the Corrupted Order A.i to use their biodata and skillsets for such a dark purpose.

IF yah think about it dis way, they had a fragment of der soul torn from themselves, thus becoming a victim and vulnerable to Greyscaling. THAN that Fragment was, forcibly copied without OGs Fours permission and most likely put through some kind of Greyscaling process, it's body and much like the Jellotons, was reconstructed and copied again tah be used as a weapon...

THAN that remaining OG Soul Fragment as turned into 4s favorite weapon...

Like hers how the describe Fours personality and traits directly from in-game lore:

"Agent 4 is described as a silent squid who goes with the flow even in raging waters, and values freedom and flexibility. They also "blast through any situation with ease." Agent 4 did not initially know who the Squid Sisters were, but later came to respect them after their journey in Octo Canyon. Agent 4, as seen in promo pictures and art, has a diligent work ethic, a lot of confidence, and is extremely free-spirited. Compared to Agent 3, they are shown to be more easygoing and relaxed, yet slightly upbeat in their mannerisms and are constantly depicted as smiling in official art."- Inkipedia

Now try and imagine how having a fragment of their soul captured would effect such a sunshine ray of an Agent... and I could see why Order made a moldable copy of Four. Four would rebel with all der might against Order, like Corrupted Order sounds like their worst nightmare...

And that is my thoughts on dah whole Agent 4 Thang.

[evilwickedme]

hey it’s me from the Batman posts! (the one that left the tags abt wanting to get into Batman but having no clue where to start)

If its not too much trouble, I’d love any advice on where to start with Batman or Batfam(?) stuff, I saw someone suggest reading the Batman: Wayne Family Adventures thing on webtoon as an intro to the characters so I’ve been doing that, but I’ve got no clue about any of the official comics or shows/movies/etc. I’ve never read a comic series before so everything is super new to me.

I know different series(?)/versions(?) can be wildly different bc of different writers and stuff, I definitely trust your taste on what would be good / enjoyable bc the posts you’ve been reblogging are like 90% of whats gotten me interested in the first place

Thank you, and absolutely no rush!!

Hey I am legit SO happy that you sent me this ask this is literally my favorite thing to do!!!!

So to start with I do actually agree that wfa is a good starting point but for a different reason than I feel most people would recommend it. The thing about wfa is that it has a consistent design for every character, is humorous, touches not only on the main batfamily members but also many extended members, other noteworthy people in Gotham, and the batfamily's cast of friends and teammates as well. This means that while its approach to characterization is incredibly fanon-y, it's a good basis for how to continue. You read wfa, and you know that Dick is the first robin, wears ridiculous costumes, was batman for a bit, is nightwing, part of the teen titans... this isn't a lot, but it's just enough to orient yourself before jumping into some of the most convoluted art ever created, aka the comic world.

Another tip I'm gonna give you is to let yourself be confused. I think the people who end up sticking with comics are people who are aware that if they pick up a comic it's very likely the writers and artists have read and worked on comics that you haven't read yet or even heard of, so you're always going to be missing something. That's fine. If something is really important to the plot, it gets explained; if it's not, it's windowdressing. Often there'll be little boxes saying what comic and issue they're referencing, so if you find it interesting you can just go read it - otherwise, if it's not there, you can google it, or go to any comic fan and ask "hey do you know what this is about?" and if they know, they will answer. There is nothing a comic fan wants more than to explain how to get into their favorite character/s, trust me.

Anyway this has been a very wordy intro but here are some potential starting points for the batfamily!

Bruce Wayne

You know who he is. Pick up an issue of Batman or Detective Comics and he's there. Pick up an issue of any other DC comic and there's like a 30% chance he's there too.

Batman: The Long Halloween

Noir style, investigative, early in batman's career, two face's origin story

It has a sequel-ish story called Batman: Dark Victory that's almost as good

Batman: Hush

Batman: Year One

Frankly there's not going to be much information in this comic you don't already know, but also, it's a classic, so might as well

Batman: A Death in the Family & Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying (crossover with the new teen titans)

First story is Jason's death, second is Tim's introduction and arguably the start of the batfamily being a family

Tim drags Dick back into the fray in ALPOD. It's just sort of the kind of thing he does

Do NOT confuse A Death in the Family with Death OF the Family, which is a much newer story, and Not Good

Batman: Under the Red Hood

Jason's villain arc! More details below

Batman himself isn't actually my favorite but you know he's got some decent stuff since he's, uh, the main character. DC doesn't have a multiverse the way Marvel does - and getting into that would be a whole separate ask - but their elseworlds are stories about the characters in different situations. Some ones I've heard good things about include Gotham by Gaslight, Dark Knights of Steel, Batman: Last Knight on Earth, and I keep meaning to get into Batman: White Knight, which is a whole other universe on its own. I've been trying to get into more modern batman stuff and unfortunately I just haven't clicked with anything.

Dick Grayson

Guy has been in a lot of things. If you read a random Batman comics from before 1980, there's a good chance he'll be there.

Teen Titans and The New Teen Titans and Titans (1980s-2000s)

I haven't read enough of these to say much of anything, but he's a founding member of the TT

Nightwing

His post-Robin superhero identity. At first only present in NTT and occasional Batman comics, but eventually he gets his own miniseries in the early 90s, followed by an ongoing. Recently-ish started reading them and they're angsty and very 90s in a lot of ways but I'm enjoying it

Modern Nightwing titles also exist. For sure.

Batman & Robin by Morrison

In one of DC's ten million crises, Bruce "dies", and after a short story called Battle for the Cowl, Dick ends up becoming Batman. Damian is his Robin. It's an interesting time for batman comics, although not necessarily the best writing that Dick has ever gotten.

Batman: The Dark Mirror

Also a great story for the Gordons. Bruce is back from the dead, but Dick is still Batman in Gotham. This was my first even Batman comic and it's really good.

Obviously there's other stories, such as Grayson, where he becomes a super spy for a bit. There's a million and a half reading lists for Dick out there as he's a massively popular character and he's one of the characters DC is pushing the most right now. As with all the rest of these, these are good entry points; from there I trust you to find your way

Barbara Gordon

The original Batgirl, sort of (nobody really brings up bette kane unless they're pointing out that babs wasn't the original Batgirl, she's just not important). She appears sporadically in silver and bronze age batman comics and detective comics, but she quits being Batgirl shortly before being raped and shot in the spine by the joker in Batman: the Killing Joke, which I purposefully did not put on my rec list.

Birds of Prey

Babs-as-Oracle at her best.

Batman: The Dark Mirror

Babs' long lost brother comes back to town. It's fucked up.

I've been reliably told to stay away from her Batgirl runs - most people who are a fan of the character don't like that they retconned Oracle away and it's mostly not very well written. There's a comic called batgirls that lasted about a year that included her, and it's okay.

Jason Todd (my beloved)

MY MAN

Batman: Second Chances

Collected edition of Jason as Robin, so much fun. Extremely silly at times since it's the 80s.

Batman: A Death in the Family

For obvious reasons.

Then he's just sort of dead for 17 years. He shows up in heaven in a Green Arrow issue and is occasionally brought up or shown as a hallucination, but that's about it.

Batman: Under the Red Hood

There's a new crime lord in town and he's so smart and talented and hot omg I wonder who he is!!!!

The collected edition also comes with the annual that reveals how he came back to life

Task Force Z

This shouldn't be as good as it is.

Jason gets recruited to work with a team of undead villains

Jason gets called a hot a bunch of times, and is shirtless a lot. This doesn't matter but you know, like, yeah it does.

For Robin!Jason there's also Batman: The Cult - which I finally got my hands on recently but haven't read yet. For Red Hood!Jason there's lots of stuff, but most of it isn't very good or is actively bad. Most people will tell you to stay away from Red Hood and the Outlaws, and they're right, although the 2016 run is better. Most people will tell you to read Batman & Red Hood: Cheer, and they're wrong, it's ass.

Tim Drake

Frankly this boy has no flops. Or very close to it.

Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying

Tim figured out who Batman and Robin are at AGE NINE. Respect.

After this he appears in various Batman and detective comics issues, I haven't read any of these.

Robin

The first Robin to get his own ongoing! Like with Nightwing, it started with a miniseries (a few of them, actually) and got turned into a long running series from there. Lasted like 200 issues, too.

Tim FUCKS.

Not Steph's first appearance, but most of her appearances pre-2009 are in this series.

Young Justice 1998

It's insane in all the best ways. Cars have sex on panel. They play baseball to save the world on an alien planet. A power of friendship speech prevents the end of the world. In the first issue, a woman develops breasts so big she falls on her face.

This team eventually breaks apart and Tim along with 3 other teen heroes nicknamed the core four (Superboy, Impulse, & Wonder Girl II) become part of Teen Titans 2003, which I haven't read and is also a bit of a flop era fashion wise for everyone anyway. I do have the volume of TT03 where they meet the versions of themselves from the future and I plan on reading that soon-ish.

In the mid 2000s basically everyone Tim loves dies. Steph died in 2004 ish after a very short stint as Robin. Tim's mom dies, then his dad is murdered, and it's unclear what happened to his step mom, but she was in Bludhaven, which had an atomic bomb dropped on it. Impulse becomes kid flash becomes the flash becomes murdered, and superboy gets killed while saving the world. Steph does turn out to not be dead after all and Impulse and Superboy come back from the dead eventually but by God he's having a tough year BEFORE Bruce "dies".

Red Robin 2009

After Bruce "dies" and Dick becomes Batman, Dick makes Damian his Robin and nobody believes Tim that Bruce is still alive, so he steals the Red Robin costume and goes on a mission to save his dad!

Not a comic to read first because it's so uncharacteristic of Tim as a person, but definitely something to read as soon as possible, because it's ridiculously good.

After flashpoint/n52 Tim doesn't have his own ongoing for a while, but he does come out as bisexual in an early issue of Batman Urban Legends (2021) and he got his own ongoing called Tim Drake: Robin in 2022 which was ugly AF and yet cancelled far too soon. There's a Young Justice run from 2019 I haven't read yet.

Stephanie Brown

For her I would go to Google, bc I haven't gone down the rabbithole enough for her yet. I know her first appearance was in a batman comic where she became spoiler to spoil her dad's plans - her dad being a third rate villain called the cluemaster - and she almost kills him, so good for her. Afterwards she appears every once in a while in various comics, most notably in Robin, where she and Tim as Robin start dating despite him knowing her identity but not the other way around.

Robin 60s (I don't remember the exact issues)

Steph gives birth and gives her baby up for adoption

Robin 126-128

Steph becomes Robin when Tim quits for his still-alive-but-not-for-long dad.

War Games

Steph does a fucky wucky and accidentally starts a gang war which gets her killed

There's another Robin arc where she comes back and it turns out she was never dead, Leslie (the family doctor) simply faked her death and sent her to Africa to recover

Batgirl 2009

Her first and only solo ongoing, but it's really good

She also appears a lot in Cass's Batgirl ongoings, and occasionally shows up in yj98. Her most recent series in Batgirls, which isn't very good but her interactions with Cass are very gay, and we've all been shipping it for 20 years at this point, so frankly it's long overdue. Unlikely to become canon tho, unfortunately.

Cassandra Cain

She doesn't use a lot of words, so neither will I. Probably.

No Man's Land

Frankly I am terrified to read this, it's so many goddamn issues, but this is her first appearance. I have one "volume" and it's as big as the fucking Bible.

Batgirl 2000

She's the first Batgirl to get an ongoing. The one from 2008 I've been reliably told isn't very good. She's absolutely terrifying in the 2000 one, I approve.

Outsiders 2016

Supposed to also be good for Duke content. I think at this point she's going by Orphan? Idk she's had a lot of names.

Idk I prefer Black Bat

Spirit World

Mini series that recently ended. Soooooo good. Alyssa Wong is a top contender for favorite modern writer.

She's mostly a background character. Bc DC is both sexist AND racist. She was also in batgirls.

Damian Wayne

Frankly he's my least favorite of the batkids, but that's not his fault, he's been a victim of a lot of really racist writing.

Batman: Son of the Demon

Somehow both his origin AND an elseworlds that doesn't count. Not required reading, but Bruce and Talia are madly in love in this.

Batman by Grant Morrison

After UTRH and before Dick was forced to become Batman Morrison reintroduced Talia's son, who in this version was a rape baby bc apparently brutalia weren't in love and Talia drugged Bruce. Fucking fine, I guess.

His character growth during his time as robin is sweet tho.

Robin 2021

His only solo ongoing, pretty good

Super Sons

He had two team up comics with then fellow child Jon Kent, son of superman, and it was fucking adorable. Then they aged up Jon to 17, so they're still friends, but Jon has his own shit going on.

Duke Thomas

He's REALLY new, and I haven't read any of it, I'm sorry.

Robin War

Batman and the Signal - I finally got my hands on the first issue of this last week!

The Outsiders 2016

Frankly they should capitalize on the Duke & Cass friendship/siblingship more often.

Alfred Pennyworth

I haven't read it, but there's a series called Pennyworth about his days as a spy for the crown. Supposed to be pretty good.

Kate Kane

The Jewish lesbian batwoman of our dreams

Batwoman: Elegy

Her introduction

Also, it's written by Greg Rucka, and if he can do one thing, it's write sapphic women. I'm not even joking.

Get the newer edition that has both of her original Rucka stories

Batwoman ongoings

She's had a couple, they're both supposed to be pretty solid, I've only read a few issues here and there

Batman in other media

Animated: I'm currently watching Batman the Animated Series for the first time and it seems to really get Bruce as a character, even if Robin will be there one episode and his existence will be a plot hole in the next. The Justice League animated series has also been fun so far. Teen Titans have gotten a number of animated adaptations all of which have pretty strong followings. There's an animated show called "Young Justice" which is a Teen Titans show and I refuse to watch it (it has a very devout following, but all that means is that the Young Justice - All Media Types tag on ao3 is just the same as Young Justice Cartoon and I have to filter heavily when looking for yj98 fics). Lego Batman is a REALLY fun film, and I think it turned into a whole franchise.

Live action TV: I have watched the first season of both Titans and Gotham, but both of those were before I was into the batfamily as a concept. My impression of Titans is overall negative and my impression of Gotham is overall positive.

Live action movies: There are so many Goddamn Batman movies. I like the Dark Knight Trilogy, but even calling it "based on" the Dark Knight comic trilogy is giving it a lil more credit than it deserves. The Batman 2022 is massively popular with the comic fandom for a reason - I'm not a big fan of it, but I did enjoy laughing at the movie so at least there's that. Batfleck sucks. I haven't seen anything else, up to and including the Joker movie. Oh, and Birds of Prey was really good, but that's not Cass.

Video games: The Arkham trilogy is well loved and I have indeed just bought it, but I haven't gotten to it because I'm currently working on Gotham Knights and uh. Okay so listen. This game is a lot of fun and I will be finishing it. But it's like. Got a massively antisemitic plot point. I can't even say I don't recommend it, I'm genuinely enjoying the game a lot. But I've never seen anybody bring this up, and it's bugging me.

ANYWAY I'm sure I've missed a LOT but this is introductory so you know I'm giving myself grace. There's characters I completely skipped and I'm sure mega fans of characters I haven't read much of will be offended that I said such and such about them but you know it's only been about a year and a half since I started reading dc comics and I'm still figuring it all out. And I probably will still be figuring it out for the next decade. To me that's actually part of the fun of it.

[niftukkun]

New from RECAP Weekly!!! An Exclusive Interview from Hermitopia's Emperor?!?

for the third week of @shepscapades ’s hermitcraft character design event, i offer grian as an empires smp member!

ok so first off, that head. thats just p03 from inscryption. but grian. it fits! but also! go play inscryption go go its on sale Right Now (until june 30) go play it its so good then go watch this video afterwards join my fandom please please please join us

ok back to hermpires! so i originally was gonna take an empire from s2 and just insert grian into it, but while browsing through the esmp s2 wiki i came across/remembered hermitopia and my brain went yep! this one. so i thought a bit about what grian would do if he was an empires smp member and how hermitopia would happen, and i think grian would crash the economy on purpose. i mean it almost already happened when the hermitpires crossover happened so i dont think im too far off. i think grian originally exported something simple, like maybe sugarcanes or mud, something easy to farm yknow, but then i dunno got bored or something so he made a couple more farms. then kept making more farms. then the hermitopia we all know and love happened!

actually maybe hermitopia isnt grians first empire. i think grian has a separate empire but decided to invite his friends to help him make some farms and then it just kept going. then hermitopia happened. i like the collaboration aspect of hermitopia so i think thats how that happens. hermitopia isnt necessarily grian's but its under his command so it gets called his. (isnt there a word for this? was it vassalage? i think its vassalage)

with that in mind i went with a robot-y grian because grumbot and a snazzy cool suit because business man (sidenote im looking over my pre art notes and one of them is just capitalism man and. yeah! not wrong). i gave him more steampunk-y wings than the usual feathery ones cause that fit better. i gave him a crown not really sure why but it fits since without it the design was more Just A Guy but with it he's more Emperor yknow. the buttons have a g on it because he would and an (attempted) gold trim cause that looked nice and fancy. originally he was gonna have four wings cause fun fact four wings is part of my base grian design but four wings kind of crowded the drawing so i didnt include them (sad) and i also didnt include the tail hes supposed to have because i couldnt find a good way to add it in with the pose. but in my heart he has both four wings and a tail

now why magazine style artwork? i 'unno. i thought itd look cool. and it does!! it looks SO cool!!! im so proud of it. recap magazine!! because of course im gonna make a hermitcraft recap reference are you kidding me recap is practically already a magazine reporting what gossip is happening on the hermitcraft server on any given week. its very specifically volume 9 issue 34 because thats when the crossover happened season 9 week 34 babey we love little esoteric details hell yeah!! i looked up how magazine covers work and its supposed to be like, main article big and smaller supporting side articles just kinda floating around so i did that!! and i made them funney references because of course i did! local bard catches scurvy because you cannot convince me that oli orionsound would not catch scurvy he would. does god is gay is a reference to that does bruno mars is gay nonsense article that makes me laugh everytime specifically in reference about mr smallish bean because he. has so many children. and none of them as far as i know from the lady server members theyre all lovechilds from gay lovers its hysterical and hilarious. quit your job join our sun cult is about the dawn empire because thatse the vibe that empire gives me and i think its funny. also!! thats hermitopia!! in the background!! i got the image off of the empires smp wiki and just Biggen'd it and it makes a bomb ass background hell yeah ^-^!!

also version with no text here lookit it!!

[fragmentedblade]

Can you expand more on Ratio's philosophical influences? You seem super knowledgeable!

I've been sitting on this for some time because I didn't know what prompted this message and thus I didn't know what to answer and how. I guess it may be the comment I wrote about him having a socratic but also a sophist air?

There are a lot of details in Ratio's overall design that point towards philosophical references. I want to draw attention to the fact that since this is a vague message on anon I don't really know what to focus on or what could I skip because it's information already known, so what I'm going to say is a very brief summary of many ideas, which of course makes such ideas but the shadow of an echo of themselves, so faint they almost become untrue. I fervently advise to look more deeply into any of this if something catches anyone's interest. And I also want to point out that the problem of knowing a little bit of something, even its existence, is that seeing turns to seeking, and an excess of seeing is also a blindness; what I mean by this is that I'm not sure how much of what I am going to say was intentional by the developers/writers and how much is just me suffering the blindness of seeing too much haha

However, I also want to clarify that I do think many of the things I’m going to say are present even if perhaps not intended by the writers/designers. This is due to the fact that Ratio’s main influence is platonism, and platonism is everywhere in western philosophy and in general western culture; once you see it you cannot unsee it. So perhaps I am reading too much or making correlations between things in his design that were not meant to be linked, giving a depth to the character that is probably incidental, but that I would say nonetheless exists because it pertains to a certain philosophical tradition in which the elements stem from each other. I hope this will become clearer in its development if it isn’t right now. 

Ratio has an Apollonian air. At first that and his mask made me wonder if he was going to be linked to the Mourning Actors, who alongside the Masked Fools for now remind me a lot of the Nietzschean Apollonian and Dyonisian dichotomy. This was conjecture on my side so I won't go on about this on this ask.

Ratio retains however the Apollo air. When I saw his splash art he reminded me instantly of the Belvedere Apollo, down to the strap under his chest like the sculpture has the quiver's strap. His sixth eidolon too recalls that sculpture, since it seems to be a mix of the pose in Michelangelo's David with the cloth in the Belvedere Apollo. Among other things, Apollo is a god linked to truth, medicine, archery and divination. The owl seems to be a reference to Athena, though. 

Ratio also has the laurel or bay branch on his head, which is one of Apollo's traits. Laurel on someone's head became linked to victory as well as academic and artistic merit (I know in Italy people still use it when graduating, for instance; I mean, that's where the word comes from). The fact that he has half of it is most likely due to an aesthetic choice, especially given how the character designs are pointedly asymmetric in this game; however, I think it works well with how, no matter how much he achieves and how hard he tries, Ratio is never gazed upon by Nous nor accepted by the Genius Society with the frustration, bitterness and questioning that brings both himself and others.

This last point, being ignored by something akin to a divinity, works also with his Apollonian air, I'd say. Given his Apollo look, his snake-like pupils made me think instantly of Delphi. Delphi was where a temple to Apollo was (linked to a mythological snake, and snakes thus became associated with Apollo in imagery), and it was famous for its prophecies. Socrates (the master of Plato and main figure in his dialogues) is said to have started the habit of questioning he is mostly famous for because a friend of his went to the temple in Delphi and was told by the Oracle that the wisest man in Athens was Socrates. Socrates was perplexed by this because he knew nothing, and started posing questions to supposedly erudite people about the matters about which they were experts, only to come out of that feeling unsatisfied with the answers. Thus, Socrates thought the Oracle may be right after all, but he was only the wisest man because he at least knew that he knew nothing. 

This works very well with Ratio because Socrates starts the journey by being distinguished among his peers, gazed upon, by a god (Apollo was supposed to possess the Pythia, or at the very least the prophetic power came from him), while Ratio never gets that recognition, and seems resigned to that already ("If this day I have not gained the recognition of Nous, it stands to reason that I never will at any point in the future" and "One day, I received a letter from the Interastral Peace Corporation (...). I could tell the solemnity of the invitation, so I excitedly passed it on to Mr. Ratio. Yet, he said nothing. I could sense his heavy silence even through the headgear. He then politely asked me to leave. The moment I closed the door, I heard a grim sigh followed by a self-deprecating laughter... Perhaps he realized he would never be accepted into the Genius Society..."). The mix of arrogance and humbleness, although enhanced in Ratio in a comical degree, is already somewhat present I would argue in the way Socrates talks in Plato's dialogues. Arrogance was also a trait Heraclitus, the author of the line cited in the name of his banner (“Panta rhei”), was famous to have.

So Ratio takes the position at the IPC. The Intelligentsia Guild is "often seen as a vendor of knowledge", and is looked down upon by the Genius Society. This is where I think the philosopher/sophist dichotomy comes in. Sophists were teachers, and were paid. They also were known to use rhetoric to convince (I would say there's a reference to this in one of Ratio's daily messages). In the political landscape of Athens, they were very useful for young men interested in politics. Some sophists became quite rich and famous. Usually philosophers, who didn't receive any money and did everything for the "love of knowledge" itself, looked down on them. At least in the texts of Plato that's often the case, although some sophists are portrayed under a better light even there; btw many of the things I've been saying come from Plato, but since this is an intricate subject on its own that isn’t directly pertinent to the ask I won't dwell on it right now.

Education in ancient Greece consisted of both intellectual and physical training. Intellectual education included music, poetry, mathematics, astronomy,... Physical fitness was held as something very important in a young man's curriculum as well. I think this is where the fanservicey choice of making Ratio so fit and pretty comes from. And I say “pretty” because beauty too is an important concept for Plato, and ancient Greece in general. It is also part of what linked the need of a young man to develop himself both intellectually and physically. Beauty is linked to harmony and order, both on an individual basis and cosmologically, often in some philosophical trends to a mathematical level; pythagoreanism has a lot of this.

Indeed I think pythagoreanism has to do somewhat with Ratio's design, considering his link to mathematics and geometry, and given his name ("Ratio" made me think of the golden ratio and in general pythagorean ratios even before it made me think of "reason" tbh), but in general the main philosophical reference in Ratio seems to be Plato, who was influenced greatly by pythagoreanism; this is one of the perhaps unintended indirect yet present links I mentioned at the beginning.

Platonism is very present in many ways in Ratio. It's noticeable even in his visual design, with how buff and handsome he is, arguably the references to Apollo and Athena, the geometry imagery, and even the sculptures he creates with his technique, but the influence is seen throughout his entire character, story, dialogue lines,... Part IV of Ratio’s character story, the way he talks with Roseth and what he says, has in my opinion an echo of platonic dialogues, as does his line “To spread knowledge, we must first make people realize their folly” recall Socrates. In the Trailblaze mission the main character had to argue for their innocence, which to me brought to mind the Apology of Socrates. On the other hand, the way this was done was very reminiscent of the socratic method, both in the discussion and counterargument mechanic of the game as, and especially so, in the use of memory. The main character had already the knowledge they seeked, yet they had forgotten about it, and had to retrieve it through memory guided by the intense questioning of Ratio; this, if applied to the research of a more essential knowledge instead of circumstantial, is the core of Socrates' maieutics. Maieutics is "midwifery". Socrates called by that word his method because he thought he was helping give birth to truths or knowledge that were already present in people's minds, if forgotten. It's what Ratio's skill, "intellectual midwifery", references. 

The fact that Socrates' method, the "intellectual midwifery" to put it in in HSR terms, works in platonic philosophy is because it is taken that there are eternal truths, something Ratio believes as well (“The beauty of truth is that it never changes, even when no one understands it. Well, that's true for me, at least”). This has to do with what is called the theory of Forms or the theory of Ideas. The world that we see is but the shadow of that other conceptual abstract world, of which we have but forgotten memories and that we can access only with the mind's eye. Our soul once saw/was part of that other world, which is why it can remember it. Plato was influenced by the pythagorean view of a sort of journey or reincarnation of the soul after dying, to put it some way. This is also extensive, it has to do with orphism, is at the core of a lot of philosophical and theological western traditions, and thus I will say only this, even though it feels very close-to-fake simplistic haha. To summarise, there’s the other abstract perfect world of which everything in this world participates from and is but the shadow of (everything beautiful participates on the Idea of Beauty, eternal and inextinguishable, but it’s never as perfect as that Idea, only but its echo). The idea that the world is but the shadow of the other world is present in Ratio's English line when he is ko-ed, "Mere flesh…" (in Chinese, though, if I’ve understood correctly he says “«Mediocre»… hah”, which is very different if still lore-heavy). This of course implies a strong ontological dualism. 

In this sense it is extremely interesting to me that Ratio’s banner is named “Panta rhei”, because Heraclitus is the epitome of the defender that all things were in constant change yet all things are One, the process of “becoming”, the constant struggle, at the core itself of reality (this too is harmony). He was pointedly monist, and is often contrasted to Parmenides, who spoke of eternal unchanging truths and beings. Both are cornerstones in the development of western philosophy and influenced Plato, but the choice calls my attention. In the Japanese wiki the line was linked/took to the buddhist concept of impermanence; while not necessarily related to that, this wiki suggestion made me wonder whether the choice of making “Panta rhei” the name of Ratio’s banner was done to further enhance another aspect of the many parallels between him and Ruan Mei, who also talks about life as something seemingly diverse and changing, hopes to obtain permanence, and talks about a something that transcends the multiple faces of life and that unifies them all (“Life is countless and varied in form. I firmly believe in that. Its beauty is like a myriad of flowers, and I want to pluck the one that never wilts”; “I wish to discover "the true essence of life," something that all individuals possess unknowingly, whether it is the materialism of their existence or an unknown entity beyond corporeal realms”; “The core of all existence is unity”). Even beyond that, in the context of everything else Ratio has going on, the mention of Heraclitus brings very intriguing food for thought to the table; yet I think this may be another instance of things that are, yet were most likely not meant by the writers.

Moving on, I’ll give a quick comment on the more explicit philosophical references we can find in Ratio’s traces, attacks and voicelines, and will dwell a bit only when I think they work well with the subjects and concepts I already commented Ratio plays with, otherwise this response will be eternal.

Summation (trace): in Chinese this is more clearly linked to the inductive reasoning, which in context it is obvious this is what this trace references; I don’t know why they chose to translate it this way. It is a method of reasoning that comes from the observation of particularities to generalisation, hence “summation”. It works well with Ratio causing more damage per debuff, and with the references to empiricism in Ratio’s attacks. The consequences in inductive reasoning are not truly ensured by the premises (the typical example is how you can’t ensure that all ravens are black by as many black ravens as you observe). 

Inference (trace): this baffled me because again it is more clear in Chinese that this is referencing deductive reasoning, but every language translates “inference”, whereas in the “deduction” trace the characters are exactly the same as the ones in the Chinese wiki for “inference”, but every language translates “deduction”. I don’t know what’s happening here, I wish I knew Chinese and found this less confusing, but at least both words are present in his traces. Deductive reasoning is the one that goes from premises to conclusion. It is heavily linked to logic and it doesn’t necessarily require empiric knowledge.

Deduction (trace): this is what is called “inference” apparently in Chinese (if someone knows about this I would love to know what is happening in Chinese in these two traces). Inferences are, well, the process of reaching conclusions. It can be either through deduction or induction (or abduction, some would argue, but that’s another can of worms).

Mind is might (basic attack): in latin this is “scientia potentia est”, and while at this point the line is very detached from its context, initially it was linked to Bacon and Hobbes. I honestly think this is just a very convenient name for an attack of a character following a philosophy/sciences/knowledge thematic.

Intellectual midwifery (skill): Socrates, and platonism. I talked about this before.

Syllogistic paradox (ultimate): Syllogistic paradoxes were one of my favourite things when I was studying. Syllogisms are a form of logic reasoning, which consist of two premises and one conclusion. Though the premises may be true, and though the reasoning may be sensible, at times contradictory or illogical conclusions may be reached. This is a syllogistic paradox. Why this happens is because of a myriad of reasons, like the differences between natural and logical language, or the development of theories (the paradoxes in set theory are among my favourite things ever). I personally like to draw a strong distinction between paradoxes and contradictions. Anyway, I have a lot to say about this haha In general, this is what the name of the ultimate is referencing. It works well with Ratio’s traces. It also goes well with some of the other subjects present in his characterisation, like platonism, Descartes and such; there are a lot of paradoxes that arise from many of the theories that play with such topics. I think reading Alice in Wonderland’s apparent madness through the lenses of logic makes us see that most of those incongruences are actually pretty logical; many of them iirc are syllogistic paradoxes. Carroll was a logician. I mention this because this, as well as many other ideas present in Ratio, work extremely well with Penacony.

Cogito, ergo sum (talent): this is a line by Descartes, a rationalist. This too is something that fits Penacony incredibly well. Descartes starts doubting knowledge, ends up questioning pretty much everything, establishes inspired by mathematics and logic a method of acquiring the truth, and in the research of true knowledge he starts doubting everything with a methodical doubt to be able to tell what knowledge stands after being hit by doubt, and why, and try to reconstruct knowledge from there. Ratio’s lines about “seeking answers with a negative hypothesis in mind”, “When one is immersed in academic research, scepticism comes more naturally than belief” or “Pursuit tinged with negativity is still pursuit, and it is capable of leading us to the right conclusion” reminded me of Descartes’ method. One of the steps in the process is doubting one’s own existence, but since I (pardon the “I”, but the first person is very important in Descartes) doubt, then I think, and since I think, then I exist; cogito, ergo sum. This is closely related to platonism in some senses, and while Descartes’ philosophy comes in part from a criticism of scholasticism, it still has ties to it, but Descartes was a massive breakthrough in the history of Philosophy. I also won't dwell on this, but this is fascinating imo haha 

Anyway, Descartes’ doubt about the existence of reality, of the world, is heavily linked to dreams, because in dreams we believe things are real but are not, so equally we could be at every moment in a dream and not be aware of that; only the existence of oneself is clear of this doubt (Zhuangzi’s text about the butterfly plays with this too; I comment this because butterflies have appeared in Penacony and the Zhuangzi’s text seems to play in an interesting way with the concept of “I”, taking it a different route than Descartes, which is a very intriguing idea but I don’t know much of Chinese philosophy at all). The concept of simulated realities, Matrix-like settings and such, all are strongly linked to this conception of Descartes, even though similar things existed previously (such as Plato’s allegory of the cave), and this works very well with Penacony again. Obviously, Descartes’ theory is strongly dualist, and it’s even established a body-mind dualism. The idea of the ghost in the shell also comes in great part from Descartes. Descartes’ view of the body was not too unlike that of a machine. 

This was in a time in which clockwork and automatons were quickly advancing and fascinating people. Physic theories started to look (even more) like clockwork, with the universe as clockwork and god as a watchmaker that put it into place and then let it run its perfect course, needing or not (depending on the theory) adjustments from the watchmaker from time to time. I said before that harmony was linked to both the cosmos and the body, with the body in part being a reflection of the cosmos, and even linked to it by the harmony of the spheres. This new way of approaching the cosmological and human issues and developing Physics still has echoes of that. Newton, who is referenced in one of Ratio’s idle animations, is one of the epitomes of this concept of the universe as clockwork. Again, I don’t know how much they’ll do with these ideas nor even if they were written on purpose, but it all works so well with Penacony it would be a pity if they did nothing with this.

Another thing I want to note about Descartes is that besides mentally detaching himself from everything while doubting in his deconstruction and construction of knowledge, seeking undoubtable truths, he famously did so physically as well for some time when he first started thinking about the matters in his Discourse on the Method one night: “having no diverting company and fortunately also no cares or emotional turmoil to trouble me”, while he “spent the whole day shut up in a small room heated by a stove, in which I could converse with my own thoughts at leisure”. This reminded me a lot of Ratio’s head and how he uses it: “with the headpiece on, isolated from my five senses, i can think without interference”, “he put on a headgear to keep away all external distractions and completely focus on thinking? Who else in the world could manage that?”.

Mold of idolatry (technique): this links mainly again to the theory of Forms of Plato, with that representation of something else that is what is real. The name of the technique and what it does works well also with the idea of idolatry, especially of idolatry of false gods, idols or even falsehood in general, and how Ratio criticises people’s blind infatuation with geniuses. It also reminds me of Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophise with a Hammer. Among other things, Nietzsche heavily criticises platonism and platonic philosophy, and mostly all western philosophers (he has kind words for Heraclitus, for instance). 

Wiseman’s folly (ultimate’s effect): the idea that knowledge or beholding the truth brings to something similar to madness or ends up leading to foolishness is a very common one. Many of the Ancient Greece philosophers were said to have been extravagant. Diogenes the Cynic and Heraclitus were two such examples. Democritus was said to have plucked out his own eyes. Empedocles is said to have killed himself in a volcano. There’s Nietzsche, Georg Cantor, Kurt Gödel. It is the idea of the wise ending up being very much like the fool, but also the idea of the wise ending up losing sight of basic truths I believe, in that alienation from the world.

Know thyself (eidolon): this is what was inscribed in the temple of Apollo in Delphi I spoke of before. This is linked to Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato and platonism, of course. I think when it comes to Ratio that’s it, really. But this maxime has had a lot of implications and interpretations in different contexts and at different times. It could be seen as just a salutation, recommending temperance, the idea of knowing oneself and one’s limitations as key to succeed when approaching subjects or problems, the first step of getting to know anything at all, humans and the world being closely linked and even reflection of god so studying one helps studying the other, etc.

Vincit Omnia Veritas (eidolon): the translator says this means “eternal truth” in Chinese, which would play way better with the philosophical ideas and concepts present in Ratio while still playing with his name, “Veritas”. I won’t dwell on this because I’ve already talked about the link between eternal truths and Ratio a lot, and besides I can’t even confirm this is the true meaning because I don’t know Chinese.

Eidolon “The divine is in the details” seems to be a reference to a Chinese idiom that comes from a book. I don’t know if it has greater significance, but if anyone knows I am all ears. The other eidolons obviously work with Ratio, but I don’t see obvious philosophical influences so I’m skipping them.

Esse est percipi (ultimate line): “To be is to be perceived”. This is a line by Berkeley and linked to his philosophy. He criticises both dualism and materialism. The core idea is that the world’s existence is entirely dependent on the mind, that things don’t exist unless they are perceived and thought. His justification for one’s own existence seems to come from this perception, as Descartes’ came from thinking: “I do nevertheless know that I, who am a spirit or thinking substance, exist as certainly as I know my ideas exist”. Parmenides has a similar idea in his poem. I don’t think this was intended to be read too much into when it comes to Ratio, but I think it fits nicely with the other topics he has going on, and the dichotomy they often entail. It also works well with Ratio’s plaster head, with how he says “I don't have to set eyes on stupid people. Of course, they don't want to see me either”, with how he uses it to go unnoticed or unrecognised in both Herta’s Space Station and Penacony, and I think it could be overread or taken to more exaggerated levels in a juicy manner reading this under the notion of nothingness, mediocrity and being disregarded by Nous. 

One of the listed researched achievements of Ratio is in the field of epistemology. Epistemology is the field that studies knowledge. Although studied in particular at times, it is of course often linked to ontological conceptions; all the philosophical theories I’ve stated carry with them epistemological implications as well as ontological. In one of Ratio’s character stories there’s a mention to epistemic logic which is, speaking broadly, a logical approach to the analysis of knowledge. 

Another one of his listed achievements is in natural theology, which is the study of god through reason and logic instead of things such as transcendental experiences or revelations. This is very common in philosophy in general. It often has to do as well with the world as a harmonious whole, god as watchmaker/the universe as clockwork, and teleology. I will mention Newton and Darwin here because Newton is referenced in Ratio’s idle animation, and Darwin because he broke up with the teleological tradition when it came to the world. Ratio’s work is named Aeons: A Natural Phenomenon, and the title and its description, how its “Aeon non-theism”, makes it seem to me like he wrote of Aeons as if they were just another form of life or something that pertains to nature itself and not detached from it, which although very different from Darwin’s ideas did remind me of how he dismissed teleology in nature. This also clearly links, in my opinion, to Ruan Mei.

Other than that I also want to note Ratio’s final speech to Screwllum about inspiring doubt and scepticism when it comes to established ideas and geniuses. It reminded me of Socrates, how he was said to have “perverted” youth inspiring all that questioning among other things. It reminded me of Nietzsche, how he fervently encouraged individuals to use critical thinking, question dogmas and preconceived ideas they could have, and come up with their own conclusions that does not mean necessarily negating absolutely everything they held true before the questioning (this exchange between Screwllum and Ratio: “Screwllum:  «You wish to uproot the researchers' blind worship of geniuses».  Dr. Ratio: «I am only laying out my questions».”). It also pointedly reminded me of Kant's “Sapere aude!”, “Dare to know!”,  and his text What Is Enlightenment?, in which among other things Kant talks about the lack of courage, not of intellect, of people to think for themselves, how humanity lives in a constant immaturity or adolescence of the mind, and urges them to get out of that state, to dare to know. Kant was greatly influenced by rationalism but said to have awaken from the rationalist slumber thanks to empiricism; the plays on rationalism and empiricism, deduction and induction, and the presence of idealism in the rest of Ratio’s writing as well as this fervent push for people to snap out of their lack of criticism and dare to think for themselves are what made me think of Kant here.

There’s more things to talk about Ratio, like his view on mediocrity and geniuses, and how that view is constructed and described in traces through fragments in his lore, the character stories, snippets of conversations; how he seems to be so similar in character and drive to geniuses, but never accepted as one, and how he is regarded as very different and eccentric by “normal” people, even in the Guild. In short, how he is detached from both the “normal” people and geniuses, like suspended between both states without being either completely, and how it makes so much sense in this context that he tries to breach the rift between both. I couldn’t help but mention this, to avoid forgetting this aspect of his characterisation in the future, but I won’t dwell on this because it isn’t really directly linked to any philosophical influence that I can think of.

I think this is it. Hopefully I didn’t forget anything important. And I’m sorry it is so long, but I really tried to summarise. As I said, I may well be reading too much into some of these things, but I also think that since Ratio plays with many of the core authors and concepts in the history of western philosophy, some things I expect were not intended by the writers still are present somewhat, because mentioning this or that thing alongside this or that other thing ends up having implications if you know a bit of the context. 

I hope this was clear enough. However, I can try to explain myself better or further if I wasn’t. Philosophy may look unapproachable and dry at times at first, but it really isn't, it just needs one to get accustomed to some basic terminology, and it becomes fascinating and beautiful, and lifechanging haha. I would love it if Ratio is making people get a little bit more invested or interested in it, or open to explore it. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is a good place to check the main ideas, texts and authors that may spike someone’s interest if anyone wants to read further about anything I've said or compare sources, but tbh I think even Wikipedia can be useful with getting a first feel of some basic ideas to know what to look for.  And although I am not an authority or the most trustworthy source at all, I will help as best as I can if someone reading this has any further question. I recommend reading the texts firsthand though, with historical context in mind and footnotes perhaps if possible, and making one's own mind about everything.