#i remembered i technically have 2 self inserts for this game (one of which actually has a speaking line in there) and uh

[ttomeposting]

hey remember the situation with kirb and zetto in the webseries? just asking. for no reason in particular. : ]

[storiesofsung]

Obey Me Rewrite - the Passion Project

Note: spoilers below the cut

I’ve always been in love with the game obey me and been super passionate about it as a long time fan however the game itself is kind of lacking.

Obviously it does what it does well, it’s a dating simulator about demons from hell but what I mean is it lacks potential.

I love the characters and their relationships with each other and the overall concept, that is what made me fall in love with it in the first place however I do have my own issues with the game not as a dating simulation but as a story.

To give you more context:

Characterization

- characters are given great potential with interesting backstories and fun personalities however the direction the game takes them completely wastes any sort of progression as interesting 3 dimensional characters

Example: Satan - he is shown to show personal struggle with a sort of inferiority complex with the way he was brought into this world (or hell) by people only viewing him as an extension of Lucifer and only as wrath, not as an individual living being. He works hard to create a name for himself and he prides himself on wisdom. He has a strong character and one of the best self restraint in terms of anger I dare say (he did attack mc but honestly from the way he was acting in Nightbringer it is progression) plus he is calm and collected and obviously by now a respected demon. Though he knowledgeable in itself, he still has issues to work with, one being working out his difficulties with Lucifer, (maybe) coming to terms with the way he was born and the trauma he went through when Lilith fell (he technically felt Lucifer’s pain). Instead as the series progressed we only saw him a soft cat boy, cmon 😀.

There are much more examples of this in fact all of them have such wasted potential, I’m not going to go in depth (unless someone asks me to hehe) but a very notable mention I would also like to make is

Example 2: MC - I’m not going to comment on how they are dull or has no personality because actually they can be very sassy depending on which options you choose. Also the mc is supposed to just be a self insert so I understand that enough. Anyways what I would like to give note to is the fact that mc forgave belphie right away after he I don’t know KILLED US? Or should I say, more accurately, the game forced us to forgive him so we would have the belphie lovey dovey options (no hate to belphie stans I’m just saying). What I mean to say is that we shouldn’t have not forgiven him you know, honestly it’s more of pacing. We COULD have forgiven him and actually that would be interesting development and a look into their backstory as angels, however there was no real progression towards forgiveness or us even being remotely scared of him (I may be wrong on this but I remember belphie and mc becoming besties real quick with no hard feelings) like the snappy mc incorrect quotes I think would actually fit well into the story as well as proper talk and real progression towards forgiveness.

2. Concepts and storylines

This is slightly less of an issue but I do take slight to the way the game handles storylines. Season 1 was the best (in my opinion) because it was less of “uwu mc marry me” content and more of demons being demons.

Alright so this really bugged me but I don’t like how MC is a a descendant of Lilith, like I know the brothers and Lilith are not blood related and are honestly more found family and that MC and Lilith and so far related (in terms of how many generations were between them) that they barely share dna I believe (in terms of physical dna and all that good stuff not the angelic powers) but I’ve always found it kind of gross but I guess that’s just a me problem…

I’m going to take the next part of my issues with concepts and storyline as general as possible but it’s really long but… hell doesn’t feel like hell, or should I say devildom doesn’t sound like hell

There is technology in other depictions of hell (like Hazbin hotel) but that’s done better because it’s not so emphasized (I know DDD is part of the game but I think they drive the technology bit overboard) it’s a lot less subtle and hell just feels like an abridged human world with slight magic involved.

The demons don’t even act like demons or look like demons, as hot as their demon forms are they look like emo teenagers that just discovered hot topic like girl bye 😭. They don’t act remotely demonic like sometimes, and everything just seems like a cosplay is the best way I can describe it. I know it’s 12+ and not 18+ but I really enjoy the more gorey fanfic versions of obey me concepts because that feels like hell, it brings out emotions in me of shocked scared and surprised which is what Dre me into the game in the first place, not a bunch of boys going to play dress up and harass the MC.

I have much more problems with the game( I still love so obviously I’m gonna play it) but this is more of a rant and I just played Nightbringer so I hope there is more lore that resolves some of my issues but yeah!

I’m not that skilled of a writer or anything but I would really like to try and rewrite obey me as a kind of “real hell” as a passion project, obviouslt no characters, or anything trademarked belong to me this is more of for fun. Again I’m not that experienced so if anyone would like to give me tips on how to write or would lousy like to chat about obey me, about this rant and other issues or just obey me in general feel free to dm me I’m always looking for more obey me stuff hehe but yeah, or actually honestly I just want your opinion on this.

I know it’s not that deep it’s a game about horny demons but it still means a lot to me and I hope you guys understand where I’m coming from. Thank you.

[hazely-sims]

Get to Know Me - Sims Edition

I was tagged by @papermint-airplane and @petrolstationflowers! Thank youuuu 🧡

What’s your favorite Sims death?

I generally don't allow my sims to die of anything but old age, but I would like to try out all the different deaths and ghosts at some point. The haunting curse ghost looks especially cool.

Alpha CC or MaxisMatch?

A mix of both? I tend to use Maxis-type clothes and furniture with textured patterns. I like most of my stuff to be fairly gameplay-friendly as well and it bothers me when there's clipping with sims animations so I don't use too many alpha clothes.

Do you cheat your sims weight?

Not generally, but I find that most EA sims are just very skinny? I had the pregnancy weight-gain mod installed, but the results were so extreme that I removed it and cheated the weight myself.

Do you move objects?

I mainly use it for storytelling, but is it even possible to play this game without using move objects sometimes?

Favorite Mod?

What an impossible question! If I had to choose one mod I can't live without, it'd be NRaas MasterController, but in terms of gameplay mods, I'm really enjoying adding new recipes and harvestables to my game these days. That's a lot of different mods together, so maybe I'm cheating a bit with that answer, haha.

First Expansion/Game Pack/Stuff Pack?

The first sims game I was ever able to successfully install was Sims 2 and I think it was a "Deluxe" package that came with Nightlife? I don't remember what my first pack was for Sims 3. Maybe Late Night as well?

Do you pronounce live mode like aLIVE or LIVing

It's an adjective, isn't it? Like 'alive.' Listen, I get that it's probably supposed to be the other one, since they have some weird theme of using verbs as adjectives. But 'live' is already an adjective, so no-one is going to say it that way.

Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made?

How can I choose just one?? I do obviously love Rose a lot. She's adorable.

Have you made a simself?

Oh yes. Honestly I'm shocked so many of you don't. I automatically insert myself into every fantasy hahaha I am very self-absorbed.

Which is your favorite EA hair color?

I don't even really remember which ones there are as defaults in Sims 3? I don't particularly love any of them.

Favorite EA hair?

Hmmm I enjoy the long male hair from Supernatural, especially on beardy men. And I also really like the 'modern braids' female hair from the store.

Favorite life stage?

Like most people, it's YA, sorry.

Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay?

Definitely gameplay. I am trying to be a bit better at building, but it's such a slog.

Are you a CC creator?

I have dabbled, so I suppose, technically yes.

Do you have any Simblr friends or a Sim Squad?

I don't know about a 'squad' but I'm pretty sure I have friends. I don't discord or anything, so if we're commenting on each other's posts, then I consider us friends? Hopefully that's okay lol

Do you have any sims merch?

No, is that like a thing?

Do you have a YouTube for sims?

No, I have no interest in trying to play the game in a way that's entertaining for other people. I do that the rest of the day; sims time is just for me.

How has your “Sims style” changed throughout your years of playing?

I've put a lot more effort into aesthetics recently. Setting things up takes more time but I get a lot more enjoyment out of the game once it's done.

What’s your origin id?

I guess I probably have made one at some point but I have no idea what it is and I don't think I've ever used it. It's also just as likely that I actually don't have one.

Who’s your favorite CC creator?

So many impossible questions 😭 There's no way I can choose only one, but these days I'm always eagerly anticipating posts from @nightospheresims, @sim-songs, and @nectar-cellar.

How long have you had simblr?

It's complicated, haha! I had a simblr way back in... 2011-2012-ish? It was a messy time on simblr and in my life so I was never really able to develop a healthy relationship with it and I eventually deleted my blog after being inactive for a long time. Then after continuing my legacy story just for myself at a snail's pace for about a decade, I decided it was time to share with y'all again, and I opened this blog in October 2021.

How do you edit your pictures?

Reshade is first, and if a shot is taken outdoors and it's for a gameplay post, then sometimes that's it. If it's a bit darker than I'd like, I might apply all or part of this action using Photopea. Sometimes even more than once if it's really dark.

If it's a storytelling shot, I'll then also do manual debanding by selecting an area, copying it to a new layer, applying a gaussian blur, and then erasing around the edges to clean it up. It's tedious but also relaxing? And very satisfying in the end.

What expansion/ gamepack is your favorite?

Sims 3 has so many bangers but I love Ambitions a lot even though it's a glitchy mess sometimes. It's just so much fun.

I am never totally sure who's done this but I'll tag @pudding-parade, @echoweaver, @oasislandingresident and @frostedshore. No pressure of course! 🧡

[umbracirrus]

20 Questions for Writers

Tagged by the lovely @thequeenofthewinter to answer some questions, and I will leave an open tag to anyone who wants to answer to feel free to say that I tagged them 💛

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I have three, at present - I have posted many a fic to AO3 over the years, but with my current account, just three.

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

70,506 at present

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Elder Scrolls at present, though only have Skyrim posted at present - hoping to get something for Oblivion posted soon though! I've also recently dabbled in writing some things for BG3, and also Stardew Valley (though I don't think that any of them will be posted unless I find myself very satisfied with how they end up). Historically, I've delved into and posted Fire Emblem (primarily Awakening/Fates/Three Houses because they were the main games I had played), and even further back (back when I first started writing fanfic when I was about 12/13! I just realised I've been writing fanfic for half my life writing that out!) Pokemon.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

As I only have three fics posted on AO3, I can only do them, but in order: 1. The Perfect Storm (it's my main and longest fic to date, so unsurprising) with 117 kudos 2. Purity (a Vilkas/Dragonborn oneshot) with 17 kudos 3. Seeking the Sun (prequel to The Perfect Storm which I started on after it!) with a mere 2 kudos.

5. Do you respond to comments?

Where I can string together a coherent thought, and if I remember (and I am terrible at remembering!) I try to!! But I do read every single one, even if I don't remember to respond.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Now, as I haven't finished any fics (as of yet) beyond a few oneshots, I will have to base my answer on some plans for the few fics which I have planned out, and I believe that the story with my Hero of Kvatch Aelia is most likely to have the angstiest ending. She throws away her entire support network, including friends and family, to wallow in her misery and grief in the Shivering Isles, descending into madness, because all she wants to do is bring Martin back.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I really want it to be The Perfect Storm! I haven't planned out the ending for it yet, but I want it to be happy. However, I shall delight in stirring the pot and make Elyse and Balgruuf work for that happy ending, you hear? 😂

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not really? The closest thing to that which I got was being told that my writing was 'too dramatic'... Shame that I love writing me some drama. Dramatics can be taken from my cold, dead hands.

9. Do you write smut?

Yeah, though I don't think that I've posted any of it yet.... I still need to actually finish the smut which I was writing for my birthday. My birthday which was over a month ago. Ooops.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Nope. I just don't really like them. It's something I've always got to filter out when reading fics.... The closest I'd get to writing a crossover is, say, references to stuff from Oblivion in a Skyrim fic? But would that technically even be a crossover, if they're both Elder Scrolls? Though they are separate games....

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Again, no, not that I know of...

13. Have you ever co-written a fic?

Does it count if I tried co-writing a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon fic with a self-insert shiny Eevee with a ff.net friend when I was like 13 that we never posted???? If not, no!

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Honestly... I think it might be the fic based around Elyse's parents, Ingja and Edwyn, which I've only posted the first chapter to here on Tumblr. I know their story - it's all very firmly in my head, and is set to be referred to across Seeking the Sun and The Perfect Storm, but I simply don't think that I would be able to finish it... Plus I like keeping Edwyn's fate very vague. Though Ingja dies, because Elyse will meet her in Sovngarde when she goes to fight Alduin, what happens to Edwyn I've left ambiguous, hence why I don't think I would be able to finish it. He simply leaves one day and after sending Elyse a handful of letters he disappears. It gives me opportunity to maybe bring him in at some point down the line in The Perfect Storm... I kinda want to write a scenario where Balgruuf meets Edwyn now. Damn.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'd like to say dialogue. I don't like putting dialogue into a fic unless I can mentally hear the line in the character's voice, if that makes any sense? If I can't hear it, or can't imagine a character saying it, I won't include it. But in addition to that, a lot of my scene-building and whatnot comes from using dialogue as a baseline. Obviously there are times where that isn't the case, but I do love writing little conversations to push a scene along.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I do believe that just as it is a strength, dialogue is also a weakness! Sometimes, I find myself over-relying on dialogue simply to 'fill space'. Where something like non-verbal communication, or environmental descriptions or even a change of scene would fit better, I'll just throw in some dialogue in the same way that I add cheese to meals - in overabundance! In addition, I would say that finding a way to bridge scenes together is another weakness of mine. I can have a chapter mostly complete, but without that one last bridging moment - often simply a sentence or paragraph or two which can join two scenes together - I simply cannot bring myself into completing it.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue on another language in a fic?

Now, in terms of reading it, I find it really cool as long as some sort of way to translate it is available! In that vein, I do sometimes use some of the dragon language in my fics - mostly when a dragonborn is communicating with Paarthurnax or Odahviing - and I'll have a full list of translations to include in the end notes. On that note, I swear that I have https://www.thuum.org/ open in a separate tab almost constantly when I'm writing just in case!!! I've always found that most useful when trying to include the dragon language.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

That'd probably have to be for Pokemon Ranger Guardian Signs, though none of those fics were ever typed up (I think???). I still remember excitedly pulling the odd page from school exercise books to staple together whilst scavenging for pens to write me some more Pokemon Ranger fanfic.......

20. Favourite fic you've written?

The Perfect Storm, absolutely. Though I do sometimes think of going back to work on/improve some of my earlier chapters in the fic, in particular surrounding Elyse's experience in Windhelm because I'm not as in love with that as I once was. My love for Balgruuf (and Elyse, and the two of them together!) fuels my love, favouritism, and bias towards the fic.

[lamarckianenterprises]

Sucks to be Me But I'm built Different Now

My work got accepted in a Litmag (technically a Zine, CoinOperated Press to be precise) for the first time today, and outside of being thoroughly excited to announce that my humble flier will be included in their next Zine, Dungeons and Dragons Part 2. (Learn more about it on the following link)

I just want to say that looking back, I think a lot of my opinions about my own creative work is based off of like, no one really praising me for my writing. Like I didn't keep writing because people said that I was doing great or good or was talented or whatever, I kept writing because I wanted to get to that point, in spite of the lack of praise not because of it.

Hell, my mother was basically radio silent on my writing after noting that my very first work, the weird fugue state nanowrimo novel that's lost to the sands of time was, and I'm quoting here, "At least he has good grammar." Admittedly I kinda avoided showing her stuff after that, but still.

Outside of her and my even less present father there was my brother who was barely present in my teenage years, and so I basically had jack all for validation outside of an RPing community I immediately antagonized by being an attention seeking edgy teenager who fired out a self insert the GM immediately recognized somehow.

So while it gave me an easy way to keep writing and a sense of community which genuinely helped me practice and learn the craft among other things, it also meant that I didn't really get praise? Or when I did it was from someone close enough to me personally that my brain could immediately dismiss them and their opinions as being invalid as they are tainted by other people's impressions of me as a person.

I think the one bit of praise I registered as genuine was when people said they had fun in the complete mess of a Shadowrun world plot I ran in that RP which is really just a high I've been chasing ever since with every tabletop game I have ever run.

And I couldn't rely on internal validation either because I spent literal years thinking that I was somehow getting worse over time because for some fucking reason I measured that shit based off of output as in the amount of words and paragraphs written down on (virtual) paper as opposed to like, actual quality.

And how hard it was to write, which uhhh, honestly writing has never really gotten easier for me, like I am far more aware of what constitutes 'good' writing now, but it's not like the actual process has gotten much easier, and honestly as the years went on I ended up constraining my own creativity more in vague pursuit of 'better, more respectable and praiseworthy writing'.

Which meant that on top of the tyranny of time eating away at my ability to remember how difficult it was to write in the first place, I had a growing list of hangups and fears that meant that I could always refer back to some past paragraphs I think are real zingers and go, "Damn, where did I go wrong? How am I worse than I use to be?" while ignoring the veritable sea of word vomit, every little thing I did to piss other people off, and the fact that I unironically just naturally obtained more responsibilities as I grew up and obtained a job that slowly crushed my will to live that just made it harder to sit down and write LMAO.

Now I'd love to say that I've thrown of all of my chains, learned to write the proper way, and focused my life entirely towards mastering the craft without interruptions, or that this one acceptance has fulfilled my lifelong desire for validation from a complete stranger once and for all.

Really all I have to say about all this is what you read at the top, "man it sucks to be me but I'm built different," I am in more ways than one no longer the same man who started writing just to have something to do in November, nor am I the man who sat down and chose to make himself when told to make absolutely anything he could want to be.

But then again I am the woman who started whooping and whollering and going, "OLE OLE OLE" and praising God after reading this so like, maybe I'm not that different after all.

[nyuudoupee]

So what are your top headcanons on Keira? Like I know a lot of people give her crap because of what happened in Jak 2 and how ND basically just nerfed her character in J3 only to make her more relevant in Jak X.

Número uno, I WILL return to this eventually because I'm not entirely done yet with the entire JND franchise and everything I am thinking about will probably become more solidified when I finish up 2-X. Número dos, when it comes to the "female character who often gets shafted by the narrative in a playstation game" category of character (kyrie devil may cry 4, kairi kingdom hearts), I will basically go right to their defense no matter what, so chances are I'll stick by Keira's side despite the character nerfing.

That being said, I do have some ideas....

Based on what I've played so far of Jak 2 + all of Jak 1, Keira was probably the most well set for acclimating to a 300+ year timeskip. She's a freakin mechanic and is skilled with her hands, so of course she picks up building as a job once she gets time skipped, and racing as well because that's popular at the time. I have a feeling if time shenanigans permit Keira was also the person who created the original prototype for the zoomers used in JND2 before the timeskip (kind of like how Elsie Bray/the Exo Stranger from Destiny 2 made the sparrow/bike prototypes in that game). She can fix and mod cars and probably is the one who modified Jak's main car in jak X to be a one seater instead of 2. She also has an interest in precursor tech and knows how some of that works, so hypothetically speaking she could pilot a mecha/gundam if she wanted to or incorporate it into her work. If the JND games didn't go the way that they did sequel wise, I think Keira would have definitely become a sage, but probably not the Green sage because she doesn't fall into the traditional "the party healer is a girl" trope (just like her dad) and is more of a technical person. My brain says blue eco.

Character dynamics wise... I don't know yet, but Keira might've been entirely by herself for 2 years out there in Haven working on the time machine zoomer thang alongside the racing gigs she did (not including the people Krew might've sent to her or Erol showing up to hit on her), which might've worn away at her spunk/made her more solitary by virtue of being by herself but she stays optimistic anyway. I do feel like she would be friends with Tess considering she's kind of "normal" and level headed compared to her old group (jak, dax, samos). Ashelin might intimidate her or awaken her bisexuality I dont make the rules, but also remember that I haven't beaten all the games and don't know if they actually all interact at least once in game. If they don't, that means more stuff for me to write!!!

Keira and Daxter would probably work together willingly, even though Dax annoys her. All I'm saying is if Keira had found out even earlier before the 2 year skip that Jak was being held captive in the palace, she would've inverse The Escapists that shit alongside Dax and try and break Jak out of there. She does know where the maintenance elevators are in the area, so a full blown heist doesn't seem too outlandish. She's still got spunk to her even after 2 years with none of her friends/loved ones around her, so she can banter for longer with Daxter if they got the time. Out of the original Sandover trio, she's the middle ground between Dax and Jak and their mediator. She isn't above duct taping Dax to the wall if anything gets too out of hand though

This part is gonna sound a little self-indulgent, but this is my house . Keira and Jak literally share interests so of course they're gonna be interested in eachother. Honestly I think Keira's the one wearing the pants between them, not because Jak doesn't take the initiative with her, but because he respects her and doesn't see a need to step in/insert himself into what she does. Same goes with Keira, there's mutual respect and they help each other out, but she is more outgoing than Jak is and can set him in the right direction if anything bad happens. She might not entirely understand what happened to Jak during those 2 years he was MIA, but she still tries to make sure he's OK/be a support system for him. Also they're bi4bi I again do not make the rules.

Everyone and their mother doesn't consider The L*st Frontier canon or that it ever happened but it's also where the heaviest redesign Keira has ever had comes from. I think it's actually kinda cute. Maybe the shirt she's wearing is an old shirt of Jak's, considering he was also an avid blue collared shirt wearer. IDK that's also very self indulgent for me LMAO

Last thing, there's no way that after a long time or working with heavy machinery and power tools that Keira isn't at least a little bit muscular. Just toned a liiiiiittle bit. Like she has her tummy and arms out, you can probably see some muscle definition through there, same with her back.

That should be everything... thank you for letting me run my mouth and I hope tumblr lets me post this LOL. Keira art will happen again soon i Swear

[fenrir-wolf-of-gotham]

1, 2, and 3 of the Proship Mutual ask game!

Thanks for the ask!

1. Ok so, for me, proshipping was an inevitability. I first started shipping characters before I even knew what shipping was. My first ship was when I was 7 and watching Ben 10.

I distinctly remember watching the episode where Ben gets a crush on Kai, Kai treats him like shit, and Gwen says, “you can’t talk to my cousin like that! Only I can talk to my cousin like that!” and little young me just thought, that’s not how cousins talk about each other. This is not a platonic familial relationship that I’m watching. But I didn’t know that I shipped them, I just knew that their interactions felt like two characters who definitely liked each other pretending not to because they didn’t want to admit it to themselves (now I’m a massive Bwen shipper). Then I was completely anti-shipping (not an anti shipper mind you, I was against the practice of shipping) but then I got a Tumblr account and watched Invader Zim and saw Zim and Gaz.

I then made this meme:

Which I think speaks for itself.

I was never really an anti. I think I just found the proship community immediately after I started shipping because I was into all these niche "problematic" ships, see: Barbara Gordon x Bruce Wayne, Ahsoka Tano x Anakin Skywalker, Azula x Zuko, etc (it also didn't hurt that I actually came to like the cringe I felt from seeing a squicky ship I didn't like. That's how I started shipping Anisoka).

2. I'm actually not sure what exactly got me into Selfshipping. My memories on that are much foggier than my memories on my inevitable ascension into proshipping. I think from what I can remember that I saw Cass in Wayne Family Adventures and immediately thought, "oh she is the cutest most handsome woman I have ever seen," then I started shipping Jason and Cass because I didn't know that much about Cass and felt like Jason Todd was the character I most related to. At some point that fell by the wayside and I started hating Cass because "the Batfamily is getting too big. I wish they had kept it with just Bruce, Barbara, Dick, Jason, and Tim!" but then I grew out of that as I started to learn more about Cass. I think by this point I was aware that people shipped themselves with characters instead of using canon proxies (you were one of the people who made me realize this was a thing btw so thanks for that) which, I mean, I knew people did that but I wasn't aware of all the terminology and substance behind it beyond just the stereotype of young writers making self insert fanfiction to kiss their favorite character. So I started selfshipping with Cassandra Cain privately but not as intensely as I do now. Then I started seeing StephCass stuff all the time in her tag and got upset about that but I came up with the solution of making Cass, Steph, and myself a polycule. Then I made this blog and, as I learned about Steph, I fell in love with her too.

So that's my selfshipping biography. Never been happier with my F/Os.

3. Cass is my oldest F/O but if you want to get technical, she's not the first character I ever considered myself to have a connection with.

Ok so now we have to talk about the longest writing project I never wrote down.

It was this massive story that featured all my favorite stuff that I wrote in my head from when I was 7 to when I was 17. It was a decade of stories I never wrote down and I had a self insert which I shipped other characters with.

The first character I shipped him with was Sunset Shimmer from MLP: Equestria High (her human form for the record). Then I shipped him with Abigail from Stardew Valley, there was a Gardevoir in there at one point, and I think there was 1 more but I don't think anyone would recognize her as a character.

Then it got a bit sad. Ironically this was during the happiest time of my life but the character himself had evolved to the point he was no longer a self insert.

If anyone wants me to, I will gladly go into depth on this story. @andreamland already knows what's up with this overly long word vomit of moderately embarrassing cringe that will take approximately 7 paragraphs minimum but, to quote Brennan Lee Mulligan, "there is no corner of my heart that i won't turn over for 5 points," with the 5 points in this case being friendship points with mutuals.

[unlimitedtrees]

the earliest build i have from my very first game, 'Mr. Waffle Lover'

wat da freak ... im about to make Three posts in a row ?? impossible... so Hi. in case u havent seen my Last Big Post, one of my first projects was a game called 'Mr. Waffle Lover'. it started in early 2014 until late 2017 and it went through Tons of wildly different iterations. and also, if u read da last post youd know i lost nearly All of those builds of the game.

Despite losing like, 3 years of my own history, ive managed to find a few builds from multiple iterations of my game, with this one being the earliest iteration i have. this is the Third iteration of the game's development.. and there isnt a whole lot to say about it. it is a Very Basic, Very Primitive platformer made by an 11 year old. this build in particular has only Two levels . i Think more were made at some point, but it's hard to remember. at one point, i made a ""mobile version demo"" of the game for the tablet i had at the time (the game did not work on it), and thats the version u see in the video i posted. For Some Reason, i decided to strip any other level that may have existed in the game and just made it a demo even though i was the Only Person who could play the game.. so i dont have much from this iteration. i Do have an Earlier build that i put on github, but there isnt a whole lot of differences to this demo version.

Anyways, i think, for the rest of this post, imma go a little in depth about the Origins of this game and what it was actually Supposed to be .. click the Read Me thingy if u Dare !!!

So, it all started in 2013 . i was a Bored little creature who liked to draw things and was Deep into Minecraft for the Xbox 360. and one day i created a little comic with a character called 'Mr. Waffle Lover'.. And He Looked Like This:

That's Right , my very first OC is Just a skin from one of the minecraft xbox 360 edition skin packs. this was the skin i played as a lot back then, and 'Mr. Waffle Lover' was my self insert in the comic. why is he called 'Mr. Waffle Lover' you may ask? because i liked to eat waffles a lot. that became his main character trait. Eventually, when the game became A Thing, i would slowly change his design from just a copy of a minecraft skin, first giving him heterochromia and Gloves which spawned TNT, then later giving him a yellow shirt to match with his love for waffles, and then i just make him a Girl (but That is a story for Another Day . .. )

Anyways , on my birthday in 2014 i got a windows 8 laptop, and then in october i learned about construct 2 and decided i Needed to make a video game. ever since i was a fetus ive always wanted to make a video game,, with one of the earliest ideas for a game i remember having is when i was like 5 and wanted to make 'New Sonic the Hedgehog Wii' (a copy of New Super Mario Bros. Wii but featuring multiple colored Sonics).

ANYWAYS , one of the first video games i ever made was Mr. Waffle Lover......... Well Actually, Technically that is not true, as a few months before i tried using some Random in-browser game program that i dont remember the name of to make something called the 'Egg Game'... but it never went anywhere beyond me putting a stock Egg image into the program and then giving up.

my initial inspiration for making a game about the Mr. Waffle Lover character was when i played a game called 'Ms. Splosion Man' on the xbox 360. i thought the game play was interesting but i got stuck at one of the puzzles so i was like 'I Want to make this game but Better and with MY character !'. And So, i thought of the idea of Waffle Lover having Gloves that spawn TNT that he uses to jump high like in Ms. Splosion Man....... but i never got to actually implement it until the 'mid 2015' build that i posted earlier... and i removed it entirely afterwards and just made the game a Basic 2D Platformer for awhile.

so yea. this game was supposed to be just a simple 2d platformer featuring my sort of self insert OC based off a minecraft skin. there wasnt really much to it conceptually... just wanted to make a video game! that's all my ideas were at the time.. the only "Story" this game has is 'Waffle Lover gets his Waffles stolen by some Scientist People and he needs to Stop Them !!!!'. the game eventually got some sort of story over time... but for now all u need to know is that this game is A Game that I Wanted To Make. it doesnt get purer than that.

with the first iteration of my game being my first game Ever, i had No Idea how to do things. all of the small sprites were stretched out to fit the HD screen resolution, making everything blurry. the gameplay was Very Basic and the levels were simple. the HUD didnt even stay centered on the screen... instead it used the 'pin behavior' to be pinned on the player object (which did not work and the HUD would move around the object). And the worst aspect of it was that i did Not know how to make layouts in construct 2 use other event sheets or Objects from other layouts..... meaning every layout (meaning every level) uses Completely Different programming And objects .... Not Only That , but i only had the Trial version of construct 2 at that time.... so i could only use 100 'events'... meaning i could only put So Much code in the game before i reached the limit (and with every level using its own separate events for everything, i ran out of events Pretty Quickly and couldnt make any more levels.

I So Desperately Wish i could show that first iteration of the game with you. it was Very Weird and Bad but it was so Lovely. to say the least.. it was quite the learning experience ! I can Vividly remember me making the very first layout in the game,, with it just being the Waffle Lover sprite moving around a white background and a bunch of badly placed collision objects. it was a Sight to Behold . But Sadly... when i decided to completely redo the game, i deleted the whole project file for it, and its pretty much Lost forever now. the only remains are some random sprites from it i still have... other than that there Was a trailer i made for it once and i Think i released a demo for it once... but both of those are Long gone now.

anyways. for the second iteration of the game i decided to make it an ""HD"" version of the game, using higher resolution sprites and a 3d animated version of Waffle Lover.... However this 3d version is Actually just a minecraft skin of him made in Mine-imator, an Old 3D animating software Exclusively made for making minecraft animations. So , the game had a bunch of bad tilesets and a badly animated prerendered sprite of a minecraft skin for its player character. i dont remember much from that point of the game's development other than it did not last very long and it looked Funny. i dont even think it got past one level... as i struggled with making high resolution art (i only had ms paint and construct 2's built in image editor, so, yea). i Think everything from that era of the game's development is Gone, HOWEVER i THINK i might have the files for the Mine-imator animations Somewhere... maybe. i Think i saw the files on my old laptop for some mine-imator project but i was unable to open them and i dont know if i saved them anywhere so. Idk.

and now, this leads us to the Third iteration of the game... which is the one i showed in this post. as you can see in the video, i finally figured out how to make pixel art look not blurry. i also figured out how to make different layouts use the same event sheets. i even figured out how to make a HUD... incredible ! other than all of that, there's not much to say about it. it's just not as silly looking as the earlier iterations were... and its not really Fun to play. its not even all that janky.. its just basic. i worked on it for awhile, but then i gave up on it and moved onto the mid 2015 iteration.. and the rest of the game's history is a story for Another Time..

if there's anything i can say about this old game.. it's that you can Definitely see how much ive grown since then. whoever is reading this, i Really hope this is not your first introduction to my work.... cus my stuff nowadays is Insane compared to this... a lot has happened in the like, 8 years since ive started game development. and i have so much stories i want to share,,, i hope i can keep sharing those stories with you. oh and also, if you Really have never heard of my work before... um.... Play UNITRES Dreams on Newgrounds dot com. LOL!!!!!!

That is All i want to talk about for today i think. I Think. hope my posts are comprehensible to u ! Oh , And Before i forget , the build of the game in the video i posted is in the ProjectWaffle google doc archive ... and the Earliest Build i have is on github. check it out If U Wish !

[come-on-shitty-boys]

//fatherhood headcannons//

Characters: Kuroo Tetsurou / Bokuto Koutarou / Daishou Suguru

Warnings: none 

Word Count: 1.7K (~550 a piece)

Notes: don’t come for me and my self-indulgence. Also >:C if you’re of age and living in the United States, go fucking vote.  i am not asking. 

Kuroo Tetsurou

He goes into this whole fatherhood thing with complete and utter confidence.  Kuroo Tetsurou is convinced that he doesn’t need to have a single parenting book.  How hard can it be?

It’s all just making sure his kid doesn’t die, right? R I G H T?

He tries really hard to understand all of your discomforts during the pregnancy, but wowowow he’s bad at it.  You were complaining that your feet were sore and he just looked at you weird.  You had just gotten out of bed?  How did your feet already hurt?  Your back hurts? How? You’re laying down?

He recognizes that you’re in discomfort and he, of course, doesn’t look past that.  He’s going to do whatever he needs to do to ensure your comfort, but he just struggles to comprehend it.

I promise that Kuroo was so calm and cool and collected throughout the entire pregnancy and honestly, even during delivery, he was there to tell you how great you were doing, holding your hand, letting you crush his fingers in your tight grip.  He would pat your head and occasionally give you little kisses on your temple.

But when the nurse asks if he wants to hold his new little girl and places her in his arms, oh he’s crying.  He doesn’t even realize that he’s crying until he feels the tears stream down his cheeks.

It was in the following weeks that he realized just how hard this whole parenting thing would be.  Sleep?  Kuroo didn’t know her.  The baby religiously started crying every night at 2:27 a.m. and it would take nearly an hour to get her to fall back asleep.  By the time that hour passed, he was already back to being wide awake and would just lay in bed, unable to fall back asleep for hours.  

The first time he ever had to change a diaper, he had to pull up a YouTube video to figure it out, but he’s not about to tell you that.  

He has no idea how to dad, but Kuroo ends up being a really incredible father.  While he may be lacking in the basic skills like knowing the correct formula temperature or how to properly hold his daughter, he makes up for it with his constant companionship.  

You’ve walked in on him in the nursery so many times.  He’s really not even doing anything.  He’s just leaning against the crib, running his fingers across his little girl’s skin, still not believing that this is real and that that little baby is his, something that he helped create.  Oh, it just makes him so soft to think about.   He talks real quietly to her, telling her about his day, like she has any idea what he’s saying, but he still smiles so wide when she looks at him.

His little girl is his entire world and I just know that he’s an incredibly protective father.  He knows that the world is a scary place and he wants his daughter to be able to grow up having the best life possible, even if it is difficult.

Bokuto Koutarou

It was an accident.  It was 100% an accident.  But, the absolute joy that lit up his features when you told him your happy news, well, you don’t think you had ever seen him smile so wide.  He had picked you up to spin you around and covered your face in kisses.  Bokuto had set you down and immediately squatted down to place a kiss on your non-existent baby bump, telling his little baby how excited he was to be their papa.

Bokuto does prepare, well, at least a little. He owns one book, but he has read it cover to cover.  When he was reading through it, he would stop at something that he found particularly interesting and show it to you.

He didn’t really know how best to take care of you, but he tried his best!  He would rub your shoulders or feet when you asked.  He would make dinner after practice.  He is absolutely running to the store in the middle of the night because you had a sudden craving for Cheetos and vanilla ice cream.  Bokuto thought it was best not to ask what the hell you were doing when you proceeded to dip the Cheetos in the ice cream.

Bokuto forces you on walks.  He read in that one pregnancy book that walks can help induce labor, so in the time leading up to the due date, Bokuto was taking you on strolls around the block multiple times a day.  

But, he gets really busy with MSBY ;-; like. . . a lot.  He wants to be there every step of the way, but he just can’t.  Even after the baby was born, it seemed like there was rarely a day off for him to just spend with you and the baby.

Nothing hurt more than seeing the video of his little boy taking his first steps, knowing that he wasn’t even there to see it for himself because he was stuck on a bus in another city for a game.

This boy B R A G S about his kid all the time.  Sakusa might just beat his ass if he has to hear Bokuto coo about his son one more time.  

Games that happen at home are Bokuto’s favorites because he knows that whenever he looks up into the stands, you’ll be there, the baby in your arms, a tiny black knit hat with gold detailing pulled over his head.  It always made his heart so warm and he seemed to always be on top of his game just so he could secure a win quicker.  He just wanted to rush to you and cradle his little one in his arms.

He likes to toss his little bean up into the air, but he has absolutely bonked his son’s head on the ceiling and then proceeded to fail to catch him because he was so in shock that he just hit his son’s head on the ceiling.  Insert one (1) bokuto koutarou suddenly regretting every life decision that he has ever made.  

Surprisingly, he’s a really good parent?  He understands the balance between being caring and supportive, but also having a firm hand on discipline.  He isn’t much for punishments, because he’s going to feel bad, but he won’t hesitate to sit his son down and have a talk if he needs to.  

God Bokuto is such a good dad please i’m so soft i just know that he would sob his eyes out the minute the baby is on its way

Daishou Suguru

please i don’t even want children, but i would make an exception for daishou suguru

Suguru is so?? stupidly?? prepared?? 

Like the two of you decided that you wanted to have a baby and this man went to the bookstore and asked one of the workers which pregnancy books were the best.  The poor high school student had no idea

He took notes and was just constantly studying up on things.  You’d think he was back in university again with how much he poured himself over these books.  

While Daishou may have all of the technical stuff down like knowing the exact female reproductive anatomy and how it all works to produce the baby and he can definitely change a diaper with his eyes closed by now, but-

When the time came to put together a nursery- oh the boy was lost.  He had no idea what to do.  He’d never built a crib before.  He wasn’t really sure why he was expecting it to just unfold or magically form together when he took it out of the box, but now he was just sitting in the middle of the floor, surrounded by bits and pieces of a baby crib, pouring over the instructions, only to get more confused.

Please go sit with him in his time of need.  He’ll rest his head on your shoulder and rub tiny circles over your bump.  

Suguru probably jumped a foot in the air when he felt that itty bitty kick against his hand.  It took him by complete surprise and his eyes were as wide as saucers, but this really slow smile took over his face and you don’t think you had ever seen him so happy, a complete smiling and laughing mess.

He takes the best care of you b y e 

Morning sickness?  He’s right there to pull your hair away from your face and get you a glass of water.  

Too bad he spent all this time looking up information on the actual pregnancy and had no idea what to expect for actual childbirth.  Overnight bag?  He said, “How long does this take?”  He had no idea what to do during delivery.  His dumbass just stood there until you demanded that he give you his hand and definitely screamed when you nearly crushed his bones in an absolute death grip, nails digging painfully into the back of his hand, but who was he to object.  He wasn’t the one pushing a child out of his body.

Oh, did I say child?  Try children.  Suguru nearly fainted when the nurse said that there was “one more.”  He didn’t remember seeing a second little peanut on the ultrasound, but maybe he just forgot in the overwhelming panic of the moment?

He was so good all throughout the pregnancy, but the minute the kids are born?  It’s like he completely forgot everything that he read over the past nine months, but the softness in his eyes and the gentle smile on his lips the very first time he got to hold his kid?  It made it all worth it.  He didn’t know that it was possible to love someone so quickly, but he looked at the faces of his newborn children and he couldn’t have been happier.

Daishou has fallen asleep in the nursery chair more than once when he was up with the babies.  You’d get up to see what was taking so long, only to find him leaned back, his head lolled to the side, two tiny bundles held securely to his chest.

In conclusion.  I love daishou suguru and he would be a really good dad once he figured it all out

{Taglist: @moncymonce​ @nicka-nell​ @celosiiaa​ @kuronekomama​ @lovinnoya​ and @nekxrizawa​ @boosyboo9206​ bc you both got me thinking about them as d a d s and now i can’t get it out of my head onyx please take this as a bribe to receive the daishou suguru hip dermal edit you made i need it}

[yamayuandadu]

For the OC meme, Inanna and Ninshubur (hcs for each of them and also ship hcs)

Under the cut due to length!

Inanna: 1. my idea to reconcile the fact Ereshkigal is referred to as Inanna's "older sister" in Inanna's Descent with the fact multiple sources call Inanna the firstborn daughter of her parents is to make her actually firstborn but Ereshkigal is adopted and technically older than Inanna physically. 2. As you may I remember I find the weird politically motivated attempt at making Ninisina Inanna-like funny; I wanted to vaguely reference it in some way in my stories but all I ultimately came up with is that Ninisina (the surgeon goddess) is Inanna's best friend (she was also Inanna's first crush but politely declined and suggested to be friends instead) 3. since irl Inanna's father Nanna was sometimes treated as the king of gods in his own right but this belief was uncommon, in my version he's sort of like a frustrated nuveau riche who can't really figure out how to insert himself and his family into the top echelons of the pantheon, which mostly consist out of gods with extensive lists of equally grand ancestors, like Anu, Enlil or Nisaba (I actually found a unique Nisaba genealogy!). This is in part what's responsible for Inanna's disregard for authority. 4. she enjoys high stakes gambling. Can you gamble in the royal game of Ur? Not sure, but I hope people will enjoy this addition to the myth about Inanna obtaining her main temple. 5. much like in real myths, Inanna has a positive relationship with her twin brother Utu, even though they have very different goals in life and value system. 6. while this isn't exactly the case in the irl material my version of Inanna is bi but leans towards women 7. hence, in direct relation to 6, well attested associations with other love goddesses - Ishara and Nanaya - were actually relationships in my timeline. Neither worked particularly well, though. I won't skip Dumuzi either though, worry not - I actually really like some of the love poems. 8. her mood swings a lot; while i see inanna as the best "protagonist" of mesopotamian mythology, she has a couple of antagonistic roles too, or just myths where she comes across as careless or otherwise unsympathetic, and i didn't want to fully ignore that. The Gilgamesh venture and the descent narrative will be part of a particularly low period in her life, with the former event being what gets Ninshubur assigned to her by the divine assembly. 9. she has a bucket list of major gods she has yet to steal from; you may note there is no myth about Inanna stealing from Enlil, but luckily I found the perfect thing to present in such a role, so I will actually cover that 10. this is somewhat of a plot point but "Inanna" is her actual name, "Ishtar" is merely a title which she comes to share with other deities; there are multiple "Ishtars" in my setting but there is only one Inanna. Ninshubur: 1. The most literary translation of the name possible is "lady of Subartu," Subartu being the Sumerian term for lands inhabited by the Hurrians, so my version of Ninshubur is, so to speak, Hurrian rather than Mesopotamian by origin. Her precise origin won't be explained but I figured that making her a "foreigner" who was raised in a Mesopotamian environment is a half decent way to explain why no real source ever explained who her parents were. 2. Ninshubur grew up as a foundling in the household of Anu, raised by his elderly former sukkal Kakka, but due to lack of family connections didn't get particularly far there - or at the very least not as far as someone with this level of self discilpline and dedication would if they also had a prestigious genealogy. 3. Prior to meeting Inanna, Ninshubur was convinced she is incapable of forming personal attachments. The twist is naturally that she was just very deeply in the closet. 4. Since Ninshubur is outright described as "appeasing" or "calming" Inanna and since she was also sporadically associated with Nergal my rough idea is that in the beginning of her involvement in the story she'd be essentially the divine version of a probation officer. 5. While Ninshubur's standing in the pantheon is low,

she is tremendously popular with various low class minor deities like Lamma goddesses who see her as an aspirational example. I figured it would be a cute way to interpret her Lamma-related epithets. 6. Ninshubur was technically first in line to become Anu's sukkal, but was overshadowed by Papsukkal; in the beginning of the story she instead serves as an "universal" sukkal which in practice meant filling in for everyone everywhere without any of the benefits of being a sukkal. 7. prior to meeting Inanna Ninshubur essentially wore the equivalent of a not particularly new jumpsuit, though she actually does want to be more "glamorous" deep down so to speak (irl one of her temples was named s/t like "house fit for a true lady"). She just lacks the means. 8. she's shorter than Inanna, not /that/ much but noticeably so, much like how servant deities tend to be shorter than major gods on Mesopotamian seals. 9. her most prized possession is, at the end of the story, a staff she received from Inanna as a badge of her office; irl the staff was regarded as a sign that a sukkal acts in their master's name, and there are indications it was bestowed upon them in myths so I figured it's the best way to establish which of Ninshubur's roles is her "true" one in my setting. 10. she cuts her hair assymetrically. Relationship: 1. Ninshubur is the first person ever who confesses to Inanna rather than the other way around. It's going to be a plot point. 2. Ninshubur is secretly a huge enthusiast of Inanna's ostentious displays of wealth and status, because she believes that unlike many other upper level gods she actually earned it 3. Inanna praises Ninshubur in public a lot. This is based on the countless words of praise in myths and hymns involving them, obviously. 4. Ninshubur's dedication is an object of light envy from Inanna's various occasional collaborators (the aforementioned "other Ishtars" such as Elamite Pinikir). She is evidently inherently appealing to Inanna-adjacent demographics. 5. Inanna tells Ninshubur stories about her past amorous ventures but Ninshubur is often more invested in the distant locales (such as Ebla) and the worldbuilding than with the romance and what resulted from it. 6. Inanna on her own acts on impulse too much but Inanna+Ninshubur duo is a remedy to this problem which is going to be an in-universe explanation for why Inanna seems to be able to accomplish just about anything in myths which also star Ninshubur. 7. Ninshubur had a rather limited idea about romance and related matters when she started dating Inanna and had to learn a lot about it from her gf. I didn't entirely make this up, there are Inanna love poems where she instructs Dumuzi about related matters so I figured it's only fair to incorporate this information because I found it cute. 8. Ninshubur likes hickeys. 9. they'll probably get married formally at some point but won't be yet in the core story. it needs room for wacky adventures instead. 10. this isn't really a hc but as i already said i think that if they were male and greek this wouldn't be an obscure curiosity only I talk about frequently and the entire story truth to be told started out of the need to show Ninshubur and the tons of subtext she's prepackaged with to more people.

[rainbuckets8]

Settings in She-Ra

Today I will talk about setting and how She-Ra uses its settings to do some very cool things with its writing. I didn’t even notice all of these things until a recent rewatch because it’s so subtle and yet so brilliant at unconsciously making you notice things. TL;DR: The two major characters, Adora and Catra, are reflected in the show by a few major settings. And in this essay I will -

To understand settings in She-Ra, you need to understand that writing is rarely a cause-and-effect endeavor. Writing decisions and choices don’t just happen because something is the most likely to happen in the world of the story; things happen because the author writes them. So when something takes place in the Whispering Woods, it’s important to remember that was a deliberate decision for some event to happen there, not just because it’s a logical outcome. Following this, I will make a guess that She-Ra’s major settings are like an extended metaphor for the thoughts and feelings of its two major characters, Adora and Catra.

What tipped me off to this was a recent rewatch, when Adora and Catra confront each other at the end of Season 3. And it occurred to me just how often they confronted each other in the Whispering Woods. Seems odd, right? Another thing is that Adora goes on her own Hero’s Journey. The Hero goes into the Unknown, a supernatural place, and encounters challenges, only to grow past them and emerge a changed person, and returns to their life. Adora definitely changes; she literally transforms into She-Ra for the rest of the series, and She-Ra even changes again when Adora gets a new transformation.The Whispering Woods can certainly be defined as the Unknown, in a literal sense; even the princesses and native Etherians treat it with caution and confusion, because it’s so ancient and mystical. The Woods also exist as a boundary between the Horde and Brightmoon, a middle ground. If Adora’s journey begins in the Horde and ends in Brightmoon, she has to go through the Woods, the Unknown, in order to complete it. Adora’s journey is centered around her inner thoughts and feelings as much, or even more, as it is about winning a war. And these challenges to her thoughts and feelings usually take place in the Whispering Woods, which is a metaphor for her sense of self. Or else, they take place in First One’s ruins, which are in the Woods, and represent Adora going deeper into her thoughts.

No post of mine is complete without numerous examples, so let’s take it from the top. Adora and Catra leave the Horde, their home, to enter the Woods, and Adora encounters something strange and new there. Adora goes back, and Catra stays behind, metaphorically because Catra isn’t ready to start her own journey yet. Glimmer and Bow enter the ruins with Adora, and she slowly learns to let them into her life and they become her close friends. Adora gets to Brightmoon but enters the Woods again when she is unsure of what to do, and gets advice from Razz. (Which is really advice from herself: “You’re a smart girl. What do you think?”) When Adora next encounters a problem she can’t handle, healing Glimmer, she retreats to the Woods again in search of answers. She goes deeper and finds Catra in the ruins in Promise. After making the major decision to essentially cut Catra out of her life, to “let go,” the Woods end up destroyed in the process of the Battle of Brightmoon, much like how Adora’s own thoughts are conflicted.

The next major conflict in the Woods happens in the Season 3 finale, in the false world created by the portal. Adora confronts Catra yet again, not just once but twice, and firmly makes a decision: I can’t be friends with you anymore if you keep acting like this. We also get a nice look at Adora’s theme of destiny and how that relates to Glimmer and Bow leaving her alone, and Angella sacrificing herself when Adora initially believes that’s her destiny.

Our next major glimpse of the Woods comes from Mara, actually! Mara herself goes on a little brief journey, and learns new things from Razz in Hero, in where else? The Woods. Mara, being the She-Ra before Adora, as a predecessor figure, emphasizes that the Woods have some mystical connection to the mystical She-Ra - and the exposition for the audience doesn’t hurt here either. Season 4 ends with another major conflict between Adora and one of her parental figures, Light Hope. We go as deep as we’ve been yet into the First Ones’ ruins, and it ends with Adora rejecting the concept of her destiny.

Finally, in Season 5, when Adora gets back to Etheria, she retreats from Prime to, where else, but the deepest part of the Whispering Woods. However, much like how Prime’s chips can take over a person’s thoughts, so too do the chipped people take over that camp, corrupting a safe haven for Adora. Shadow Weaver worms her way into the new camp in the Whispering Woods, and in the next episodes, Adora starts letting Shadow Weaver’s incorrect arguments about repressing her thoughts and feelings worm their way into her head. But then Adora goes as deep into the ruins as she’s ever been, the literal center of the planet. Glimmer and Bow turn back and trust Catra to go deeper, with Shadow Weaver. It’s in the tunnels where Adora rejects Shadow Weaver one last time, and Shadow Weaver dies, and Adora can start to get closure on that chapter in her life. And then Adora accepts her love for Catra. How cool is it that this place is called the Heart? Not just a heart, as in the center of Adora’s self, but a heart as in the symbol for feelings and wants. And how it’s both of those, suggesting that feelings and wants are the strongest and most central part of her mind and self. (If you’re familiar with my other ramblings, insert the “magic, especially She-Ra’s magic, is love” metaphor here.)

As an aside, the two parts of her mind, the First Ones and the natural Whispering Woods, can be read as an extension of this metaphor; she’s torn between two groups. While Adora is technically adopted, based on the themes of the show, this isn’t so much about literal feelings about adoption as it is “found family vs birth family.” So the First Ones don’t represent adoption in a negative light, as much as they represent some of our birth or immediate families. And how the family Adora found and chose, is so much better for her than the families that were chosen for her (either Light Hope as a representation of the First Ones, or Shadow Weaver as someone who takes her in).

Whew, ok. How about Catra? Catra’s self is reflected much like Adora’s. Catra’s major setting is the Fright Zone. She wins most of her major victories there. She defeats Shadow Weaver, and she defeats Hordak. But she also loses her friends. She stuns Entrapta. The two pivotal moments of Scorpia leaving her happen in the Horde: when she confirms she would destroy Emily, and Scorpia calls her a bad friend; and when she discovers the note Scorpia left behind. Double Trouble confronts her in the Fright Zone after she fights Hordak. Unlike Adora, the Fright Zone is portrayed as an unhealthy place.

Catra only starts her own journey when she enters her version of the Unknown. If Adora’s version is the Woods, then Catra’s supernatural place where she doesn’t feel at home is Horde Prime’s ship. She tries her games again, to make her way up the ranks, but it’s clear Prime isn’t falling for them. She confronts her inner thoughts and feelings: “Adora means something to you.” She sees what she’s always known deep down, in an irrefutable way: the Horde, and Prime, is super unhealthy. She makes her pivotal decision to change when she rescues Glimmer. And let’s talk about that, because there’s something super neat about Adora’s reflection of her deepest thoughts, the ruins, and Catra’s reflection of her deepest thoughts, the Velvet Glove. These are the only two places where there are diegetic flashbacks, and only for Catra and Adora. (Diegetic means “in the world of the story.” Characters can see or hear a diegetic thing. So background soundtracks are for the audience only, that is non-diegetic music; Sea Hawk’s shanties can be heard by the characters and the audience, that is diegetic music.) There is an explanation in the world for Adora’s: it’s tech, either by Light Hope, or a leftover. But there is absolutely no reason that Catra can see the exact same style of flashback aboard the Velvet Glove, in Corridors. Why only these two places, that just so happen to be the two places that reflect each of their deepest feelings? Speaking of Corridors, it’s an exceptional episode for all its imagery and it’s here that the setting reflects Catra the most. It’s here when Catra reaffirms her deepest fears. “All I do is hurt people. There’s no one left in the entire universe who cares about me.”

But she’s wrong! Because although Adora and Catra are each reflected in their settings, they are also deeply intertwined with each other. We see this in Save the Cat, when Adora goes into the Velvet Glove without even being able to turn into She-Ra, ready to make the worst tactical decision ever, of all time, to try and save Catra. We see this in Promise, when the two deeply confront each other about their innermost feelings, and the settings become intertwined: we’re in the ruins for Adora, and at the same time in a simulation of the Horde for Catra. We see this in the Woods in Season 3’s finale, when they confront each other yet again. We see this in the tunnels in Heart, Part 1 and Part 2, when Adora sees Catra in simulations and Catra makes her way into the deepest part of the Heart to save her. Think about the number of times they have been alone with just each other in any of these settings. Think about who gets to be in these settings with them, and how that usually or always reflects who has the most influence on these two as characters. (Remember Prime isn’t so much about who he is, as what kinds of thinking he represents.)

The settings in She-Ra not only reflect the two main characters visually, but also metaphorically. Adora is the Woods and the ruins. Catra is the Fright Zone and the Velvet Glove. The characters enter each other’s settings many times, and they argue and fight. But, throughout all that time, they’ve still held the other near to their heart. As Catra says to Adora: “I love you. I always have.”

[fordanoia]

Fic Writer Interview

I was tagged way way back by @endae​ (my beloved). Thank you for the tag!!!

How many works do you have on AO3?

19 (haha), I really gotta work on moving all my paranoid ford one shots over into a one shot series though. I have about 70 fic posts on here.

What’s your total word count on AO3

180,212. Half of which all comes from Gotham Falls which isn’t a surprise.

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Mainly just Gravity Falls. 

I wouldn’t really count the other stuff I’ve done because it’s only been 1 fic, and that was it really. R.ise of the Guardians, O.utlast:Whistleblower, S.anders Sides. N.aruto and D.eath Note if you wanna go way back.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. Even Stone Crumbles 2. I Think I Saw You 3. Gotham Falls 4. A Blinded Eye for a Blinded Eye 5. Please Come

I’m pretty happy ITISY is up there since that’s kind of my ‘best series work’, Blinded Eye too, that one’s been a lot of fun to write because it’s a ficlet series.

Kind of really thrown that the Even Stone Crumbles one shot is the hightest one though, dang people really just wanted to see Ford cry huh, I can accomodate that.

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Uh... rarely. 

Basically, it’s something where creators responding to me got me nervous so I didn’t generally do it as a creator myself until I found out some consider it polite to respond and since then I’ve been making an effort of doing it going forward. 

I’m not online that often nowadays though so... I haven’t done it much.

Wanna emphasize tho how much I THRIVE off of comments and that I appreciate them even if I didn’t reply to them. Genuinely I’ve made fics a higher priority bc a comment revitalized my passion for the fic.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Most of my paranoid one shots wind up with angsty endings where it’s implied that Ford just has to keep Living in it. 

I had one where he woke up and thought Bill had Killed A Person while he was possessing him, and it leaves off an unsettling note.

Do you write crossovers? If so, what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever written?

Rarely. I wouldn’t consider myself a crossover person, which is funny because I have one exception for that and it IS Gotham Falls (which is the stan twins from gf inside of gotham from b.atman the animated series).

For the sake of the question though imma include rp for wildest thing I’ve ever done which was rp as Chris McLean from total drama island and hosted a game of ‘rabbit doubt’ (which is an angsty rp game where 1 person is a killer and is killing the other characters until they’re the only one left or the group discovers who it is). Players included bill, some undertale characters, and etc.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No. Worst I’ve ever gotten was slightly rude stuff.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

‘Rarely’ really is the word of the day here. Some g.ravity falls and some vamp oc content.  

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope. 

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. Closest I’ve ever done has been rp. Remembered I co-wrote a fic with a friend when I was in middle school. Dual self-insert where the a.katsuki (from n.aruto) kidnapped us from our world and we wound up becoming ninjas.

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

hands down, B.illford. Manipulative and toxic is a ship dynamic I enjoy a lot.

Honorable second place B.lackice (J.ack Frost/P.itch Black) which i’ve been coming back to read fics for every long once in a while since 2013. Even if it’s only in spurts it is still technically the longest I’ve cared for a ship. (Surprisingly, I actually like this ship when Pitch genuinely reforms, kozmotis style)

(I don’t care about the vast majority of ships so not a hard competition here.)

What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Gotham F- lol no, I’m determined to not die until I finish that bad boy.

Dear Stan(ford). Unfortunately, an easy answer. I’ve never gone back to finish it really, and it’s the lowest on the totem poles out of all my wips.

There’s nothing wrong with it, and it’s got good legs, but I think the slice-of-life sort of pace makes this harder for me to write especially with it being an episodic set up which gives me nothing much to jump to between each letter. 

It’s a bit of a ‘as the mood strikes me’ but I always have something higher priority and I’m more invested in so the mood never strikes.

What are your writing strengths?

I’d like to think that once I’ve got a character down that I can do their dialogue really well and character interactions. Characterization in general.

Also tense scenes.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Fluff, casual conversations, new characters, fighting.

Whenever I try anything entirely light hearted I generally fall flat and it all comes out so stocky/woody.

New characters, if I don’t Know A Character Through and Have A True Feel for them, then I just flounder all over the place. I don’t know how to write if I don’t know what they’d be thinking and feeling past about how ANY person would think/feel.

Fighting - I mean hell, common weakness, same issue as fluff/slice-of-life I just feel like I’m pushing words. Half the time I can get in a groove with it, but other times it’s - arm hit wall, punch go to face but miss.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Yeah, more than fine. If the 2nd language becomes plot important then I think you should either include translation or mark the language as multilingual, but yeah nah.

I’m someone that has to know what it’s saying even if it’s not Plot Important so I prefer the translations regardless (if google translate won’t get the point across for me).

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

N.aruto. 

See above for mention of that self insert a.katsuki kidnapping fic.

We posted it on quizilla, and it’s a shame it’s gone because it was actually fun to read from what I remember.

What’s your favorite fic you’ve ever written?

.... That’s a hard decision. 

My baby is Gotham Falls, always has been. I’ve reached a difficult point on it though because I’m at a point where I’m bringing in mmm 6 new characters (B.atman villains) which I’m trying to bring in over the next 10 chapters PLUS it’s going to be with fight/action scenes probably every other chapter if not nearly every chapter - both of which are really hard for me to write. I adore it probably the most and it is easily the most I’ve worked on any fic, but it’s also my biggest challenge. (And it holds some of my oldest writing which as always can hurt to read when you’re better now, but NO way am i updating 60k of old work).

Then I love doing p.aranoid ford fics, they’re my favorite go to. Writing A Prime P.aranoid Ford fic that just flows out is one of my favorite things.

Alternatively - ITISY because it’s definitely my top 5 story concepts and one of my best executions of something wasn’t a one shot. 

I’m tagging @pinesbrosfalls, @fexalted, @novantinuum and whoever else may like to do this. Sorry if I double tagged and no pressure to do it of course.

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen X Rambles about Chapter 7

“I hope Episode 7 is focused on only 2 or three characters with little distraction... Amiya maybe finding out that Ch’en is slowly becoming Infected and helping her come to terms with that. Ch’en revealing her past to Amiya and the two connecting over losing so many close to them due to Oripathy. The two standing up to the political corruption of Lungmen, shoulder to shoulder, as women that refuse to see another life lost due to the indifference of a city’s politics.”

-Allen X, October 2nd, 2020, Rambling about Chapter 6

Man... I’m starting to believe it when they say Arknight’s story mode is longer than the Harry Potter series. Things are getting crazy in Chapter 7 and crazy-long to in terms of length. This chapter really had me on the edge of my seat as I read through it and as I played through because 7-16 and 7-18 were a bitch to get through that require some of the most precise timing I’ve seen in this game yet. That aside, I enjoyed a lot what I read and experienced.

And I wanted to talk about it a bit.

But first, as always, a synopsis.

Coming off the heels of Frostnova’s death and the realization of Wei Yenwu’s purging of the Lungmen slums, tensions are high and trust has been fractured between Rhodes Island and Lungmen. However, in the midst of Ch’en hot temper and Amiya’s cool head, Reunion is plans to send the Russian Ursusian   city of Chernobog on a collision course with Hong Kong Lungmen, giving Ursus a cause to make war against Lungmen and its great region of Tawain China Yen. However, through some rather amazing political maneuvering and passionate words by Wei Yenwu’s wife Fumizuki, Rhodes Island agrees to mobilize in order to save Lungmen, the Infected, and the beloved daughter of Lungmen, Ch’en. But beyond Chernobog lies Patriot, Reunions greatest commander next to Talulah herself, who’s rage toward his daughter’s death is only matched by his disciplined mind and even more disciplined soldiers. It’s a fight to the center of the Chernobog to save as many lives as possible, even at the cost of this great general’s life.

An Addendum to 7-18

So between my venting about 7-18 when I talked about some fun Arknight’s lore a handful of people wanted to give me some advice on how to conquer that stage. Admittedly that venting was said out of anger and was much more acidic in tone than my usual essays and opinion pieces. I have since beaten that stage and I can give some of my thoughts on this advice. Some of it was helpful... some of it.

“AmIyA cAn TaNk PaTrIoT’s SpEaR tOsS!”

This is technically true and I was technically wrong. When Amiya’s S3 is active she gained increased Max HP and can in fact survive with a sliver of health. However, Amiya’s S3 takes quite a long time to charge even with her talent, and unless someone is actively blocking Patriot her can honestly spam his spear through for how long it takes Amiya to get prepped for her S3. This is more of an issue of Amiya’s balancing than with the game, but I’ll talk about that later.

“jUsT sTaLl PaTrIoT tO kEeP hIm FrOm UsInG tHe SpEaR tOsS!”

This would be pretty viable advice if Patriot didn’t one-shot my units. Yes, defenders like Cuora, Nian, Hoshigumi, and even tankier vanguards like Zima and Siege can tank at least one hit from Patriot without dying, meaning a squad of healers can just focus-fire on them while they do chip damage to Patriot and stall him out. However, Patriot’s phase 2 has him do constant damage to nearby units with his aura ability, so if he can get lucky enough, he take someone down to a sliver and let his poison damage finish off your staller before they get a chance to be healed. That strategy needs luck and some damn smart unit placement. Neither of which I honestly have.

“uSe SpEcTeR aNd DeBuFfErS!”

Again, this is also a pretty good strategy. Specter’s S2 makes her immortal for a limited time and pairing that with healers like Breeze and Celycon who reduce stun damage isn’t a bad idea. Characters that ignore or lower defense like Pramanix, Shamare, and Meteor are also good. This doesn’t work for me however since I only have Pram and the other debuffers are way too underleveled and not on my priority at the moment, and E2-ing units this late in the game just to take out one boss feels like madness.

“f12 CaN dOdGe ThE sPeAr ToSs!”

F12, W, Jessica, and FEater have a dodge chance. Their dodges are not guarantees. Yes, Patriot will target the ranged operator furthest from him and there are range tiles pretty close to his spawn point for that purpose. However, some of those operators have some pretty damn expensive DP costs and waste that on a chance to survive isn’t worth.And feeding Patriot ranged units that take over 30 seconds to redeploy is a waste of DP in general. And those either dodge chances aren’t viable. Them surviving isn’t a strategy, it’s a fluke, and you can’t depend on flukes in auto-deployment.

“Allen, you’re being kind of an asshole to what’s actually sound advice.”

Yes, I am. 

I don’t care. 

7-18 does things to a person, man. That stage breaks people. I lost sanity IRL just doing that stage or 20 times with a guide... dear lord this stage.

Anyway, moving on.

Story Notes

My, this story sure was thick, wasn’t it? It’s been while since I’ve been on a ride that wild. And this time around I don’t have any small issues to bring up. All the characters felt in character without breaking my suspension of disbelief. There weren’t multiple character arcs going on at once. And I even tolerated Kal’tsit berating the Doctor for reasons beyond his understand since she wasn’t discussing too many things that were above my head as the player.

No... I only have big issues. 

But before that, I wanted to hit on some actual important notes that were very good and smartly written.

Rosmontis and Child Soldiers

This was probably the biggest takeaway for me. I know the Arknights community likes to poke a lot of fun about the child soldier thing and how Kal’tsit is harboring slave children, but... man, it makes so much since now.

These kids aren’t just kids, they’re all infected people with some rather scary abilities. Popukar has a history of mental instability coupled with monstrous strength. Ifrit has powers she can just barely keep under control and could set Rhodes Island ablaze at any point. Frostleaf and GreyThroat are deeply traumatized from their past. The Ursus Self Government are full of kids with hatred, resentment, and fear of both the world and themselves. The list goes on, but the fact is that these kids all either have abilities that would be a danger to themselves and others if they aren’t trained, or have emotional hang-ups that might very well have them lash out at innocent people if not put on a leash. Wouldn’t it be better to at least give them some training and let them hack and blast away at the actual bad guys? Wouldn’t it be better to at least make them a weapon for some kind of greater good? And would anyone else really treat these broken, powerful children as anything but weapons and warriors anyway?

I know this is about chapter 7, but I remember in Children of Ursus Rosa asked Zima why she fought, and Zima casually answered that she just liked fighting. It’d be far better to have someone with that mindset working for an organization like Rhodes Island than ending up in Ursus’s fold and blindly hacking at something she shouldn’t. 

And I think it’s important to remind everyone that Amiya is the head of Rhodes Island and not Kal’tsit. She’s a big part of the organization, but it’s the bunny in charge. And the bunny that is herself close to a living nuke and is also has empathetic superpowers understands this probably better than anyone else, which is why she okays it. 

Patriot and Reunion

As much as I despise, and I do mean despise, how cagey this series can be with it’s portrayal of Reunion’s morality I can understand why a lot of its members can see the group as being just. Patriot is a warrior of such renown and praise, and Talulah has so much charisma and power that I can see the group overlooking characters like Mephisto and W when the other two do so much for their members and general people. The Guerillas under Patriot behave like soldiers. They don’t rampage, loot, pillage, or harm everyone in sight, only those that halt, stagnant, and harm the infect. Talulah has a charisma about her and attracts people, and seems to come from some sort of royal/noble line to match. And while Faust wasn’t mentioned much in this chapter, he was a soldier that started at the bottom, worked his way to the top, and made sure to play by rules that kept his moral high ground. Mephisto seems to be the only outliner here for some baffling reason.

But... there are some major issues with this story. I hint at them every time I talk about Arknights’ story, but I’ll go into depth here. And I’ll present these two issues I have in the form of a two question:

Who is the Doctor?

I don’t mean this the sense of the story, but what is his function as a character? Is he a self-insert for the player, or his own character to be explored and examined?

And either answer, to me, is wrong. 

The Doctor Isn’t a Self-Insert

It’s straight up impossible for the Doctor to be a self-insert character. Most self-inserts are blank enough to let us place our own personality onto them and the situations their in the choices they make are meant to be more or less choices we’d make or at least a general audience could make barring some specifics. Their personalities tend to be blank or at least bland to let us, the players, live through them and project our personalities onto them.

The Doctor isn’t this. 

There are too many moment where our choices are clearly pointing to one conclusion and most choices, though varied, give a clear idea that the Doctor is someone that care about the operators’ wellbeing deeply and hates seeing them used, abused, or manipulated. They are strategist and commander, but they have enough humanity to not see people as tools. They are passionate when they see other operators and especially Amiya in harms way and tries to come up with strategies to minimize lost and causalities. Awhile we, the player, feel the same in this regard the Doctor has dialogue that feels more conversational and toward specific directions than what a player would likely want and gives us some bits and piece about what they’re actually like. 

The Doctor hates Kal’tsit and wants little to do with her, only tolerating her presence as much as she is with the Doctor. The Doctor is a bit of a bleeding heart that doesn’t fully grasp that they are constantly in a warzone despite their strategic competency. The Doctor has an extremely weird diet and eating style, devouring live animals and ingesting foods that would probably need to be probably mixed and brewed before consumption. The Doctor still sees Amiya as a child despite her mature nature. 

The list goes on, but there’s enough there for me to say the Doctor is more like Hakuno Kishinami of the Fate/Extra series, a character that seems like a self-insert but has a number of traits and character tics that keep them from fulfill that role. However Fate/Extra, for all I have against it, makes Hakuno work by giving them their own internal thoughts outside of the player’s actions that explain their dialogue choices and actions outside of the player’s control. The Doctor doesn’t, so them being a self-insert feels really weak and irritating when the dots stop connecting.

But despite this...

The Doctor Isn’t Their Own Character

Too much of what the Doctor does is passive. For a clear as their personality is, at least to me, they don’t have much agency in the plot. Not enough for me to call them their own character at least. They commander the battlefield, but they don’t have a place on it. They don’t have much reason to interact with characters like Patriot and Talulah unless its on the metaphorical and literal chessboard we’re playing on. 

Every time the Doctor says something that advances the plot in some way I feel like it could be said by another character and work better. Amiya trying talk down Patriot and explain that Frostnova fought bravely did not need the Doctor’s interjections, especially when Patriot shoots them down in the same manner. In chapter 6, being trap with Frostnova would had worked much better with Amiya since that chapter was giving them parallels anyway. The only thing that really works is the Doctor trying to call out Kal’tsit for her treatment of Rosmontis as a soldier despite her age, as that’s only something that someone who didn’t have the full context could do. 

But... Jessica, Frostleaf, Frostnova, Melantha and several other Operators are young teenagers and even children. Specter and Lappland are clearly just as mentally damaged and still going into battles. The Doctor knows the kinds of people that fight for Rhodes Island, so isn’t this just another young fighter like Popukar and Suzuran? Hell, in chapter 6 we canonically had Beagle and Fang in a stage where they had to fight and tank Faust, why is the Doctor so surprised that someone like Rosmontis exist and works for Rhodes Island?

See? 

See how trying to give this character separation from being a self-insert and actively slot them in the active story does more harm than good? 

I think games like Girls Frontline and Honkai Impact 3rd do this better, where the player character is clearly more behind the scenes and is only a passing influence, if any.

But that leads me to my next question, which is...

Who is Amiya?

Amiya falls into the trope of being a cute anime girl with a mysterious past and dangerous powers. More accurately, she has a mysterious past and powers to the player, but everyone in Amiya’s inner circle seems to have a clue about it. I don’t mind this being a mystery, but... when our main character’s plot revolves around things the player doesn’t know, it’s curious at best, and infuriating at worse. 

Folks, I’m not someone that looks to theory-crafting. I’m not someone that reads every scrap of dialogue in this game to find out more about its lore. The lore, to me, is just fun and interesting. I honestly do not have the time and energy to spend on making theories and predictions that could be wrong and a waste of mental energy. However, with all this stuff about the King of Fiends just feels like a waste of time, or at least a last minute addition to something I could had been added properly in Chapter 8.

A lot of it feels like you had to know about the Darknight Memoir side story to really get a feel for what’s going on. The Sarkaz civil war, Theresa, W’s role back when Rhodes Island was Babel, a lot of things that don’t come up in the main storyline. Especially with that bombshell about the Doctor maybe killing Theresa. 

I don’t like it when a story expects me to have read the spinoff to understand the mainline story. This is why I don’t like the Dragon Age series and I’m really getting annoyed with Arknights right now.

This bombshell of the King of Fiends also kind of sours a bit of Amiya’s character as this young child who rose through the ranks of Rhodes Island as a charismatic leader being able to steel optimism with the reality of war to forge ahead as a proper leader through her abilities as both a commander and an empath. Instead it’s beginning to come across that her skills as a leader comes from something more supernatural, or at least something more forced than "small child is a good leader and can lead an army,” which is surprisingly more believable and nuanced given how seriously the series takes Amiya’s character. 

That said, I recognize this criticism is more my wish of what was rather than an issue of what is. I completely understand that essentially wishing for my own fanfic and limited fan theories to come true isn’t a sound criticism, but it's a criticism I have regardless.

But moving on, there’s one more issue that bugs me.

W’s Importance

I’ll keep this brief since I already discussed my bigger issues of the story and this is an admittedly small portion of the story:

W wasn’t utilized much in this story despite being a main feature of it in the promotional material. She has a pretty lengthy intro, disappears from the story for most of it, then reappears at the last bits of chapter 7 to make mean looks at Kal’tsit and the Doctor before being literally shoved offscreen again. I’ve already discussed my issues with the Doctor’s agency so I won’t bother here.

W’s banner should had been during Darknight Memoir, it just makes more sense given she was the feature character of it and her high physical damage would had been a goodsend among all the arts-resistant Sarkaz units of that series of chokepoint-heavy maps, similar to Weedy’s inclusion her is helpful as a lot of these maps could use a good pusher, especially 7-16.

Speaking of, Weedy, the other operator on this limited banner, has no presence in the story at all. Need I remind you in the last limited banner Aak and Hung at least had cameo-esque appearances in the Ancient Forge event. Weedy’s inclusion feels like an afterthought because they didn’t want the limited 6-Star to have a good chance to be pulled for the whales.

Anyway, I believe those are all the big issues I had with this story, so...

In the Future

As I always tend to say, I don’t like the idea of trying to fix something that has already been made and has already passed. It’s too late to change the past, but I see nothing wrong with asking for things to happen in the future as a way of giving feedback. 

To that end, I still have hope that Chapter 8 will have a focus on Amiya and Ch’en tackling Talulah together. From my understanding of some spoilers this is more or less what is going to happen. I also hope that we’ll have a more detailed idea on this whole King of Fiends thing is about. As much as I personally don’t care for it, it’s already be discussed in the story so I at least hope we get the full idea on what’s going on with that plotline. 

I also hope the Doctor either plays less a role or becomes their own character outright away from any player influence. Us speaking through a character that already has a personality feels weird to me and I’d rather not have it at all.

Anyway, that’s it for me folks. Next time... maybe I’ll talk about anime or something, who knows.

[gascon-en-exil]

Bottom Ten Three Houses Characters

I decided after a while that I couldn’t fulfill an anon request to do a top 10 list for the whole series, because it would overlap too much with ones I’ve already done - lord privilege is a thing that exists, and I’ve ranked those before - and because it’s really difficult to compare so many characters (~600 if we’re being thorough) across so many different games.  Instead I decided to go negative with it, although around 2/3rds of these ought to be totally uncontroversial at least in my corner of the fandom. Starting from the one I dislike least:

(Dis)honorable Mention: Anna, for putting in such a lackluster showing that she doesn’t deserve a spot on this list despite technically being in the playable cast. It’s not only the lack of supports, although that hurts, but also how obvious it is that the writers have no new material for her. Anna’s gimmick worked fined when she was an NPC and perhaps for the space of a single game as a playable character, and Fates originated the meta idea of making her paid DLC so you have to shell out real money to use her, but that’s the extent of her here too. As a unit she’s far from spectacular, and her paralogue isn’t even good for much but a ton of (mostly mediocre) drops and a tiny bit of context for that Pallardó guy from non-CF Chapter 13. Here’s a revolutionary idea: for the next original FE it might be good to have Anna back to being only a wacky dimension-hopping NPC shopkeeper.

#10 Constance - It pains me that she’s on this list, more than anyone else by far. I really wanted to like Constance, and at first glance she’s right up my alley as a haughty impoverished aristocrat coping awkwardly with her diminished status. I like the dark flier class she’s built around, and her default personality is an even louder pre-timeskip Ferdinand whom you know I love. However, it’s that “default personality” bit that sours me on her, because she’s got two of them. What could have been an interesting take on Constance’s struggles with identity and self-esteem in the wake of her family’s disgrace is presented in such an over-the-top comedic manner that it’s impossible to take her very seriously. It’s more reminiscent of FE13′s Noire than anything, and at least she has the excuse of a mother who performed dark magic experiments on her and fractured her psyche. Constance also supports Jeritza and yet somehow they do no more than lightly allude to their personality issues which is as much a missed opportunity as you can get with such a terrible character (see below), opting instead to try softening Jeritza with his fondness for roses. Lovely.

#9 Leonie - Fandom exaggerates her Jeralt fixation, although it does pop up at the worst times (see: her Byleth support right after his death). As I’m not very concerned with Byleth’s nonexistent feelings though this placement more comes down to general indifference. Leonie feels completely disconnected from the rest of the Deer, and although she’s a supposed reflection of the house’s more egalitarian bent there’s nothing connecting her to the politics or larger culture of the Alliance until you learn about her student loan debt. She really is best understood as a Jeralt fangirl first and foremost, which is why perhaps the most surprising thing about her is when reality comes knocking in her endings and it turns out she picked up her mentor’s vices as well. Jeralt himself would be even further down this list were he playable, but as he isn’t I’ll have to settle for side-eyeing all of his adoring fans. Which brings me to....

#8 Alois - Remember that dating sim Dream Daddy that people were talking about a few years ago? The one that willfully misunderstands what the term “daddy” means in gay male spaces to write fluffy dad joke-laden romances intended for a presumably not-gay audience? Alois is the spirit of that game personified as an FE character, which is not something I ever would have thought to know that I didn’t want. He’s got some funny lines here and there, but that’s the most you can say about him when otherwise he’s just passable midgame filler (of a unit type each house including the Wolves already has one of) standing in Jeralt’s imitation Greil shadow. I don’t even mind the platonic S support all that much because it’s still only Byleth, but it occurs to me that just about the only thing that would have made Alois memorable would be if his S support was romantic but he remained married to his wife. I can’t think of a time when this series has allowed the player to indulge in adultery, so even if it had been limited to an option for f!Byleth it would have been a fascinating option.

#7 Cyril - This isn’t about his devotion to Rhea, which is fully understandable given his circumstances. Nor is it about his performance as a unit which in my experience at least is actually rather good for a Donnel/Mozu-style villager archetype. No, what gets me is that he’s a self-righteous workaholic which makes for quite the grating personality trait. I understand that he finds meaning in his work and that he’s got some entertaining supports calling other characters to task for their terrible work ethics or ignorance of the lives of commoners (VW should have really dug more into his back-and-forth with Claude), but the lectures on not interrupting him or telling Byleth to get back to work are as tiresome as they are frequent. It’s petty I know, but one can only hope he grows out of it eventually. At least he doesn’t wear a pot on his head....

#6 Mercedes - Like Constance, she’s the type of character I wanted to like from the start. She’s pious pseudo-Catholic clergy, with a quirky thing with ghosts and some quiet lesbianism with her BFF that I can take or leave but that I know some people really enjoy (and also she’s bi-for-Byleth, but no one talks about that). Unfortunately as I touched on when talking about Marianne in my Top 10 characters list, Mercedes’s appealing points are sharply contrasted against her more annoying ones. The breathy voice acting I can mostly get used to, but her backstory is unnecessarily convoluted - three families and two flavors of evil adoptive father - and as is also true of Constance her association with Jeritza drags her down a fair bit. To this day I still have no idea what we’re meant to make of the Lamine siblings’ dynamic, but Mercedes’s eagerness to overlook her brother’s crimes and unrepentant bloodlust so she can coo over what a sweet boy he is deep down say some pretty odd things about her personal moral code. Maybe it was implied all along with the paranormal fascination that she’s not as orthodox as she appears to be, but the dissonance is real especially in CF where she gets a support line with Jeritza that tries to woobify him and affirms how much she loves him...and meanwhile in monastery exploration she’s wringing her hands over how much she hates the idea of fighting Faerghus and the church. There’s no through line here, and as justification for characters siding with Edelgard go this one is pretty flimsy.

#5 Gilbert - Similar to Cyril, I don’t dislike Gilbert for the reasons that most of the fandom does. Yes, he’s a crappy father, but as I’m pretty indifferent to Annette and to father-child bonding in general I can appreciate the fresh spin he places on the archetype of the devoted knight. In short, he’s a knight who wasn’t devoted and ran away from his duty, and his arc in AM is all about making up for his past failures both to his family and to his liege. This is an angle to knighthood FE doesn’t delve into often, and it makes him an explicit foil of Dedue as explored in their supports. The reason that Gilbert is on this list though in fact has more to do with that opposition, because I am painfully aware that had AM not killed off Dedue by default in service of self-insert romance Gilbert would not have had to be scripted as Dedue’s replacement both as a unit and as a retainer figure. It’s not his “fault” of course, insofar as one can ever blame fictional characters for the actions of their writers, but whenever I’m running AM and have to take those randomized supply run quests from Gilbert instead of the route’s actual retainer I’m reminded of how we were robbed of power couple Dimidue (in AM anyway - CF of all routes delivers on this point). Gilbert could have been father of the year to Annette and freely given Byleth his (grand)daddy dick and it still wouldn’t overwrite the fundamental problem that Byleth screwed over all three AM-exclusive characters in different ways. As to that, well...look at #1.

#4 Raphael - It’s hard to describe just how much wasted potential there is to this guy. Along with Ignatz and Leonie he could have illustrated the greater social mobility of the Alliance and the increased opportunities non-nobles enjoy there, but all three are mostly side characters. He’s repeatedly positive in the face of tragedy and remains motivated by his love for his remaining family, but 90% of his dialogue revolves around either eating or training to the point that he’s arguably the closest FE16 comes to gimmick character writing (something almost every FE is guilty of, but that has come under heavy scrutiny in recent years because of how much Awakening and Fates used it). He has a sweet friendship with Ignatz with even a bit of chemistry that sits in good company with the kind of simply affability he has with almost everyone he supports, but they have a no homo ending involving one of the game’s eternally offscreen characters. He supports Dimitri, but the bara content is thin on the ground and their line stands out as easily the least substantial of the house leaders’ cross-house supports. Even as a unit he’s lackluster, in the same repetitive category as Alois with nothing that makes him really stand out from the other axe-and-brawling guys. Highest HP growth in the game...whee. I’ve seen arguments that Raphael’s simplicity is the source of his charm, and while I can sort of see that he feels like he belongs in a game like the GBA or Tellius titles where characters have a much smaller amount of overall content to their name. In a game like Three Houses the sheer torrent of lines about food and training wear thin quickly.

#3 Bernadetta - see #8 here. To sum up, she’s annoying, her sex appeal falls flat with me and is frankly just kind of confusing, it bugs me that a significant portion of the Ferdibert fandom headcanons her as Hubert’s bestie when the man clearly does not do besties, and the most positive thing I can think to say about is that based on her habit of befriending known murderers among other things she might be a bit of a sociopath. That’s not very flattering, but at least it’s somewhat interesting. Oh yeah, and Edelgard setting her on fire at the Gronder rematch is good for a meme although I suppose that isn’t technically attributable to Bernadetta.

#2 Jeritza - Jeritza sucks. Everyone, apart from the small number of fans into Bylitza for some reason, is aware that he sucks. He’s a bloodthirsty serial killer we’re meant to like because he killed his father to protect his sister and also because he likes ice cream and kittens...and because he’s clearly mentally ill in some way and Edelgard is weaponizing his illness for her war which means all the murder is okay, I guess. Jeritza is like FE7 Karel if he was somewhat important to the plot and that instead of a redemption arc between games he got Karla and some other characters swearing that he’s really sweet deep down and also he can romance the male self-insert - yay. I love the line of thinking sometimes espoused in anti circles that M/M Bylitza is the only non-Problematic™ Byleth ship because he’s their only gay romantic S rank partner who’s not one of their students, a loli, or Rhea who is obviously the most evil character in the game. As I’ve mentioned above Jeritza also makes other characters he supports worse by association, although he’s not quite as bad in that regard as #1. Do I even need to bring up the painfully affected voice acting? It’s ironic that the vocal director for the English localization turns in unquestionably the worst performance among the named cast, and I have to assume he picked the role for himself solely because he sounds like an imposing Death Knight and not because his voice is at all suited to the troubled twunk underneath the armor. Just about the only thing that would have salvaged Jeritza for me would be if he and Hubert got to have an epic competition to determine once and for all which of them is more evil. Hubert would wipe the floor with this poser.

#1 Byleth - see here at the bottom. They fail as a self-insert, they fail to be a properly realized character even more than previous Avatars, they damage other characterizations and arcs all over the place, and Three Houses overall would have been vastly improved if they didn’t exist or at least weren’t the PoV character. In that previous post I listed just two reasons why I still prefer Byleth to Robin as an Avatar, one being that their significance to the plot is set up before the game even begins and the other being that their lack of a voice makes f!Byleth a less obtrusive presence when it came time for me to have her S rank all the guys to fill out the support log...not enough to where I could treat her as a self-insert, but any amount helps. I do however have to add a third small bit of praise for Byleth, in that they apparently drive antis up the wall for the most asinine of reasons which is always entertaining to witness. I recall when this game’s school setting was first revealed that everyone in the fandom nodded their heads and made the easy prediction that there would be teacher/student sex because that’s just how FE rolls, but somehow still there’s outrage over it. Even so, Byleth is horrible by every significant parameter, and it’s a shame we’ll only be able to imagine what FE16 would have been like had the developers not felt the need to write the whole thing around an Avatar.

[elaphaemourra]

30 Questions Tag Game

Got tagged by @outcastcommander :DDDDD Thank!!!!!

Rules: Answer 30 questions and tag 5 blogs you are contractually obligated to know better. HI I’M ACTUALLY REALLY SHY SO I’M NOT DOING THAT LOL I’m just gonna say, if u wanna do Intro and see this, go for it, and also bonus if u r Friend, absolutely feel free and also say i tagged u bc Yes Friendship.

Name/nickname: Elaphae,  Ela is most common (and great!! i love it fjdklajs), some people on the swtor art server called me ‘inquis’ a couple times ljfdklas.  

Gender: Nonbinary :DDD

Star sign: Virgo-Libra cusp :3

Height: 5’4 WOOP i am Short

Birthday: September 21

Time: 12:48 pm >:3

Favorite bands: Green Day, Volbeat, The Longest Johns, Alestorm… a lot more.  I’m a nerd lol.

Favorite solo artists: uh h hhhhh  o-O  there are Many.  Aurelio Voltaire is pretty solid lol.  Good for the heart.  Also, I can’t listen to too much of his stuff bc it gives me a Crisis, but Bo Burnham.  Shit’s a Bop.

Song stuck in my head: The theme for the uruk-hai from lotr lol

Last movie: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Last show: fjdklasj i don’t watch tv lol, i can’t make my brain sit still for it.  Gotta be Interactive.

When did I create this blog: uh, shit, when WAS that?? WOW 2014.  3 more years and I’ll have spent a decade on tumblr.  Which is WILD.

What do I post: things that make me happy ;v;  mostly star wars and dragon age, and Assorted Random Shit i think jfdlkfjd.  I don’t actually know what  my blog makeup is but it Sure Is Something.

Last thing googled: ‘the song from lord of the rings when saruman shows off the uruk-hai’ lmfaoooo, i couldn’t remember the name of it so i went looking.

Other blogs: HOO BUDDY okiedoke:  @haospart (art blog), @swtorcompanionsgoofin (swtor blog), @lyriumdisaster (dragon age blog, which i’ll get back to once i’m done on the swtor end of this bioware pingpong table of interests, and then i’ll be hopping BACK to swtor bc it IS a pingpong table), i have studyblr that I Never Fuckin Use and have only posted on in the past 2 years to go ‘what the fuck why do u people keep following me’ bc I LITERALLY HAVE NOT TOUCHED IT IN LIKE 2 YEARS why does it keep gaining followers, and then a few like, ‘no don’t look me i’m Embarassed’ repositories jfdklsjaf.

Do I get asks: Very rarely, but yes!! Lmfao usually when i go ‘GIVE ASK PLS I LOVE ASK’ and people are reminded that i am, in fact, a very friendly marshmallow who does not mind interaction and also Definitely Craves people asking questions about my stuff fjdla.

Why I chose my url: This is kind of a convoluted thing, but like, the easy version is that it’s the name of my trooper on the leviathan server (now called Aea out of the game bc they were supposed to be my self-insert but then they escaped into the woods and developed a storyline for themself).  The LONG thing is that I have an oc named Regia Elaphae, who I modeled after pnigophobia, the fear of choking or being smothered, and I made her snake-themed.  Rex is the latin word for king--for king snakes--which i swapped to regina and then took out the n bc ‘Regina’ didn’t fit her, and Elaphe is the genus for rat snakes, but i found two ways of spelling it so i spelled it Elaphae, and when I got into swtor I decided to use Elaphae in reference to myself.  I replaced my old url with this one after i started playing that trooper of the same name, bc my old one was :I .  I was into hetalia in middle school, and homestuck, and when I got on tumblr that followed me into my url.  I’m not into hetalia anymore, or anime at all, and homestuck fell off my radar into the ‘i’ll go “hey i know that” if i see it, but i’m not in the fandom anymore’ pile.  For the longest time my blog description was ‘it’s been 5 years and i still haven’t changed my url’, but it was time for change fjdklasfaj.  It’s better this way.  

Following: 953 (it was over 1300 but i did some clearing out of my follow list a month or so ago lol, mostly of people who haven’t been online in 6 years)

Followers: 616

Average hours of sleep: 7 and a half hours, if i want to be Functional

Lucky number: 19 :D  I love 19, it’s always been my lucky number, always will be.

Instruments: I don’t play much, but I can sing and also I can play beladi on the doumbek.

What am I wearing:  Fox onesie lol.  I wear basically nothing else at this point in my life.

Dream job: i mean, ideally i could just Not and vibe fjdkla.  But i mean like, i guess something working with my hands.  I’m in college to get a degree in french, and my next step after that is to go to trade school, to get smth that’ll make me money so i can keep doing Nerd Junk and also learning bc i like, actually really like school lol.

Dream trip: I want to go back to Rennes.  I miss it.  It was awesome, and, hilariously, I miss being able to get a burger that isn’t Drowning in its own grease.  America doesn’t know how to do healthy burger that tastes good.  Europe knows what’s up tho. I also miss being able to like, have just a pitcher of room temperature water next to a cute little glass and have it not be weird.  The cups are too big in america, i drink so much less water bc it’s just too daunting.  I’m dehydrated constantly.  Also i miss the METRO.  I loved the metro, loved nyooming along in the trains, wandering around the central part of the city, it was cool.

Favorite food: Eel!!  Eel’s tasty as fuck.  I love it.

Nationality: American

Favorite song: o-o uhhhhhhhhhhh, i have no idea lol.  I listen to so much random shit.  lol according to my spotify 2020 rewind it’s Starlight Brigade, from TWRP and Dan Avidan.

Last book read: i have got ZERO clue what the last book i read was.  I mean, technically it was a textbook for my myth, magic, and folk religion class, but like, blegh.  Nah.  Not fun.  I think before that I started reading Metro 2033???  I have a copy in french, and am flipping between that and trying to fckn get through au revoir là-haut.

Top three fictional universes I’d like to live in:  

1. swtorrrrrrr, i wanna be a space wizard [slap slap slap on the metaphorical counter] give me space magic

2. Pellinor, y’all it’s medieval and magic and COOL and i’m a big nerd for that.  (these books are so good ;v;)  Also they got wine that makes cramps and headaches go away and magic baths, so like, fuck yes give me that sweet sweet painkiller juice.  It’s magic babey.

3. Thedas, bc dragon age, and like, when things Aren’t all fucked sideways to hell, there are just like, People.  Going about their days.  It’s great.  Also MORE MAGIC  Science is all fucked up in my vicinity, so like, how much can i fuck up the magic o3o

tl;dr on that fictional universes thing, i really want to be a wizard apparently fjdklasj.

[arizonaconservativegal]

Hi, I was wondering if you could explain to a non-American what is happening/has happened with this whole impeachment stuff? I’ve tried looking through new reports, but they’re all heavily left-wing biased.

Ah heck, I really haven't been following it because there is zero chance they are going to remove the president but I'll do my best. Also I apologize if this is over explained but I'm not sure if it's the process you're confused about or the details of this specific case so I'm going to try to explain both.

Alright so Congress is made up of two bodies of elected officials, the House of Representatives and the Senate. The president is entirely separate from Congress, but the two oversee each other. Impeachment is one of Congress's options for handling a president who has violated his oath of office and it functions a little like a criminal trial.

The House of Representatives investigates and determines if there is enough evidence to suggest there might have been a crime (kind of like how a grand jury would decide if a case would move to an actual trial). They hold investigative hearings and call witnesses to help them determine if a crime has been committed and if so, what that crime was. This has been going on for several weeks now and if you hear the term "impeachment inquiry," this is what it refers to.

The House then draws up the Articles of Impeachment, which you can think of as an indictment in a criminal trial. They lay out all of the charges the president is facing and a simple majority (50% plus one) must approve each of them. This vote happened last week.

In this case, Trump is facing charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Allegedly, he abused his power by threatening to withhold aid from Ukraine if they did not investigate a political rival (Joe Biden) and he may have obstructed Congress by instructing his staff not to comply with Congressional subpoenas.

If I can insert my own commentary here, these charges are excuses rather than reasons for impeachment. House Democrats have been looking for anything they can possibly use against Trump since before he was even inaugurated. This whole thing is flimsy at best and a mockery of our constitution with unconsidered consequences at worst.

Once the House votes to approve the Articles of Impeachment, the president is officially considered "impeached" but not yet removed from office. The paperwork is sent over to the Senate where the president will stand trial and it is up to the Senate to determine if the president should be convicted and "sentenced" to removal from office. This requires a two-thirds majority vote of the Senate. I should note that although this functions like a criminal trial, it is not technically a true criminal trial so if the president is convicted, he could still face actual criminal charges and potential jail time later on after he has been removed from office.

The hang up right now is that the House of Representatives is controlled by the Democrats who hate the president, but the Senate is controlled by the Republicans who are generally more fond of the president because he is also a Republican. The House has voted to approve the Articles of Impeachment, but they are currently refusing to deliver the documents to the Senate because the president's allies there are not likely to convict him.

I have to be honest, I have no idea if the House Democrats will be able to avoid delivering those papers to the Senate and I'm not really clear on what happens if the Senate never officially receives them. As far as I know, this has never happened before. I'm actually more interested in how that piece of the fight plays out than anything else so far.

But if the Senate trial does get started, Mitch McConnell (as the head of the majority party in the Senate) gets to decide what happens next. And if there is one thing you should know about Mitch McConnell it is that he is one devious son of a bitch and he knows every single Senate rule backwards and forwards and isn't afraid to exploit them especially if he feels the Democrats have already been playing unfairly. I have to say I respect and fear him immensely for it.

So basically there are two options for McConnell once he receives the paperwork:

#1: he can table it in favor of working on more pressing matters and the entire thing stalls. No hearings are held, no votes are taken, no one is removed from office. Trump is still technically impeached but who cares because nothing ever comes of it (at least until the Democrats take control of the Senate but let's be honest, if they manage that in 2020, Trump's done for anyway)

Or #2: he can proceed to trial. I think he will pick this route. There are very few rules in a Senate impeachment trial. McConnell gets to call any witness he likes, bar anyone from testifying that he wants (which is something the Democrats already did on the House side so you can bet McConnell feels this is a completely fair strategy at this point), ask any questions he wants, and drag the whole thing out as long as he pleases. Sure, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court gets to preside over the whole circus, but that guy is a Republican too so I wouldn't count on him to be much help to the Democrats.

Now the thing to remember here is that Democrats currently have 5 presidential candidates who are members of the Senate, plus Joe Biden who is very much at the center of all the allegations against Trump. So McConnell can tie up every single one of these people in months and months of hearings during election season, meaning they can't be out on the campaign trail. In fact, federal law prohibits them from doing any campaign activities while on the premises. No fundraising calls, no strategy meetings with staff, no checking email even. Nothing. They can grandstand as much as McConnell lets them during the trial, but it's not like C-SPAN is a popular channel these days. Every hour he has these guys in a hearing is an hour that is completely wasted for them during the most critical point in their campaign.

But there is something else here. Joe Biden is looking at least as guilty as Donald Trump in all of this. There is not a single thing to prohibit McConnell from calling ol' Joe and even Hunter Biden to testify. Defying his subpoena would be Obstruction of Congress (the very same thing Trump is charged with). If they do respond to a subpoena and testify, any crime they implicate themselves in would be fair game for a criminal trial. They would have little choice but to plead the fifth (constitutional protection against self-incrimination) and how do you think that would look to American voters? "Uh sorry, I can't answer that because it will make me look really guilty..."

If this thing ever came to a vote in the Senate (and that is a big if), a two-thirds majority would be required to convinct and remove the president from office. Two-thirds of the Senate is 67 Senators out of 100. There is no separate vote to acquit. If the vote to convinct fails to get the necessary 67 votes, the president is automatically considered acquitted and gets to stay in office.

The current Senate is made up of 45 Democrats, 53 Republicans and 2 Independents (although I think one of those two is Bernie Sanders who is running for president as a Democrat). Even if Democrats managed to pull a couple of Republican votes to their side, they wouldn't come close to that magic number of 67.

But just for fun, let's pretend this is Democrat Fantasy World and they do get 67 votes. What happens next? The US Constitution says that the president is then removed from office and the vice president takes his place. Which means Mike Pence would be the president. Mike Pence, the only person Democrats fear more than Trump because he is far more conservative and actually knows how to get things done in government. By the way, it's late enough in Trump's term that Pence could serve out the remaining few months of this term, run for the seat in 2020, and then run for re-election again in 2024 (constitution technically says a president may serve 10 years, this would put him at about 9). Do you hear that sound? That is the sound of me laughing until my sides hurt because if this happens, Democrats will have no one to blame but themselves.

Oh and if they want to impeach Pence too? The entire process starts over. Good luck guys.

TL;DR: Congress got tired of actually doing its job and decided to waste a lot of time and resources on a dog and pony show. Nothing is actually going to come of it.