#is this for like. meta lore reasons. or is it just a really weird way to calculate that for no reason. i cannot tell.

[bayleaf-2]

*takes off glasses and pinches bridge of my nose* god hpw much vivi lore have i posted here again

[korattata]

...i dont think i've ever seen a game calculate your play time by what the date/time is since the last save.

I fixed my system clock in the middle of playing bc i forgot i had been outbreak resetting in pokemon & it displayed my play time as -17 hours

So i tested and yeah. Putting it back a whole year did this lol.

[shikai-the-storyteller]

Is that really JuanaFlippa?

Based on everything we know right now, the answer is "no"

What's more likely is that this is a Binary Monster pretending to be JuanaFlippa.

On a meta level, we know the admins of dead QSMP Eggs said they won't reprise their roles, but it's no fun to base lore analysis on meta alone, so here's a lore explanation for my reasoning:

First, and perhaps the most obvious explaination: JuanaFlippa never had cracks in her shell. She died long before the event where all the Eggs got kidnapped and were returned with cracked shells, yet this "JuanaFlippa" had cracks. What's interesting to note here is that during the Election Dinner when the fake Chayanne and Tallulah tried to trick Phil, he immediately pointed out that they didn't have cracks in their shell while the real Chayanne and Tallulah did. Perhaps the imposter was trying to overcompensate for their previous mistake by adding cracks to JuanaFlippa's shell not realizing that she never had them in the first place.

The reason why I specifically say this is a Binary Monster is because of the signs she left:

We've already seen the Binary Monster(s) try to replicate regular non-binary writing before when Etoiles encountered the fake Dapper and fake Tallulah (the book he showed Forever pictured below):

"My Dapper me na name" —> "My name is Dapper"

We know the Codes are constantly evolving and learning, so naturally their writing is getting better too (though we can clearly see 1s and 0s and other errors in "Flippa's" signs despite this).

But what's the Code's motivation in doing this?

In the past, we saw the Code(s) mimic Eggs because they wanted to attack and kill Presidential candidates— but that's a pretty recent development. Remember: before the elections, they were attacking the Eggs (though they also attacked Maximus and Cellbit at one point). The motivations of the Binary Monster(s) has always been unclear, and there's a lot of potential roads we could go down while theorizing, but in the interest of keeping this as relevant to the current discussion as possible, I'll focus on just one:

We have strong evidence to believe that the Binary Monster didn't want Islanders to stay on the island. It kept attacking the Eggs and leaving behind signs that said "Last Warning," strongly implying that it was trying to chase them away.

HOWEVER: shortly before the elections, QSMPGlobal tweeted an image of the Binary Monster above the Federation building.

[ Note: I thought I had this photo saved, but I didn't. I've been scrolling through their media tab for 5 minutes and Twitter crashed, so I'll have to add this photo later. It’s very late and I am so so tired. ]

This is the first time the Federation acknowledged the existence of the Binary Monster, and afterward, it said Islanders wouldn't need to worry about it attacking them. Why would the Federation suddenly acknowledge this physical embodiment of a mistake, an error, on their (supposedly) perfect Island?

The answer? The Federation took control of the Binary Monster. Why else would they suddenly deem it "not a threat"?

We could clearly see the Binary Monster deteriorating over time during the election arc. It looked shabbier and shabbier as time went on during the election arc. Something was clearly wrong with it (perhaps whatever the Federation was doing to control it hurt the Code in some way? Maybe the Federation experimented on it and made their own Binary Monsters?) But I digress-

The next time we see the Binary Monster after the Election ends is on Tazercraft's recent stream this week. Not only does it have a new upgrade (the strange OP sword Cellbit + Etoiles saw records of), it also ignores Richarlyson and opts to take a swing at Pac and Mike instead.

Now here's where things get really weird.

Earlier this week, we also saw the Binary Monster on Etoiles' stream. It didn't attack him, and instead leads him to a sharestone, which teleported him to a portal. He's given this image, then is kicked from the QSMP with the message: "The Nether Awaits."

So what does this have to do with JuanaFlippa?

...Well, that's the question, isn't it?

This is where things start getting murkier. I want to draw our attention to two specific things Flippa said before she left:

"It's not safe out there for me."

"Please keep this a secret."

The Binary Monster has already proven time and time again it's a force to be reckoned with. Why would it need to hide? Is it so that it can get closer to Charlie? (And if so, why? To mimic him? To get information?) I think a likelier answer is that the Binary Monster is trying to hide from the Federation itself.

Perhaps whatever the Federation did to shackle it— whether they experimented on it or copied it or whatever— left it damaged and weak. Or perhaps it isn't damaged at all; it just needs to lay low and needs someone else to do its dirty work for it (like sending Etoiles on a quest to find that strange shield in the Nether).

Unfortunately, a lot of this amounts to speculation because we simply don't have enough information yet. (It's also very very very late for me, so this analysis is purely driven by sleep-deprived madness and love for QSMP lore and JuanaFlippa).

Whatever's going on, we need to be very careful and think carefully about this being's motivations. Like Cellbit said: "Eyes always open."

Anyways, feel free to share your thoughts in the tags or comments or whatever, it's always fun hearing what people think of my analysis posts. You can find other analysis posts in my QSMP Info and QSMP talk tag.

[joleneghoul]

Everyone wants the jacket lore do not be silent

Okay obviously this is going to be me rambling on about my own headcanons but also the tiny canon reasons I have these headcanons.

Okay first I'll start off by saying the jacket I personally Always draw Rip in and the one from my design used to belong to Booster during Boosters (short lived) College days.

That being said, It's a jacket that's very...dated and old for the future, so I believe it was from a thrift shop before Booster owned it (so while being in a similar style to futuristic bomber jackets, it lacks that neon bright color scheme that seems to of been popular for Boosters generation.)

Here is just an example of Rip side-by-side to Michelle (who's outfit is based on her introduction in Issue 15 of BG vol 1- post Booster leaving, and post her mothers death). again, that 80s-escque big shouldered, large collar/lapel was in, but the colors are muted and off. I like to think about future fashion trends a lot, how staying on trend in the present is something Booster clearly cares about, how that probably wasn't as much of a possibility in his own past (the future).

Rip's design is based on a theoretical future fashion while having more earthy muted elements- augh its a whole meta thing I got going on in my head. Earth tones instead of neon primary colors, Silver/chrome accents instead of Gold, etc etc.

But anyway when it comes to canon I find it fun that in this arc of Vol 1 we get to see multiple reactions to Jack and Rip's clothing. They get the obvious "those are dated clothes" comments but nothing to say they are insanely out of place. They even use the excuse that they are just college students working on a play-their outfits are similar to something a student department would scrounge up at a minimal cost but still seeming off and inaccurate to the time frame they're trying to portray.

(now that's also because all historical documents of the past during this time were destroyed but- ykno. I like to imagine there's multiple reasons why people weren't like "NEVER SEEN CLOTHES LIKE THAT BEFORE!".)

It's clear to me that even in this arc, Rip's jacket is important enough to him that he makes Jack sell HIS jacket instead of his own. Now, Rip's a selfish guy and all especially at this time in his characters history, but with the meta context that Booster is Rip's father, and this arc being about Booster wanted for treason- the idea of Rip running around in his fathers old star quarterbacks jacket (while modded with red accents) just is fun to me. Not to mention even within this arc Rip is weirdly avoidant of anyone seeing him and looks EXTREMELY like a slightly younger Booster despite men in this series explicitly looking very different from each other.

aka: I think it would just add to the weird cycles that surround Rip's non-linear life.

Now I am someone who is Really into design elements that tell story, aka why I like drawing Rip's hands covered in scars because he wears improper gloves as someone who works with his hands, and why i like adding patches and scuffs to the leather jacket when I make it more detailed. It's old, It's older than Rip, It is something he cares a lot about because it's a piece of home and something that was his dads that he gets to have with him most of the time. I don't think Rip would ever call himself sentimental- i think these are things he holds onto nonetheless (similar to him literally clinging to the old family heirloom clock despite it being broken throughout time masters.) He is a character who cares so intensely but wont say it out loud, you have to show these things in the tiny details or what he surrounds himself with.

This becomes important when A lot of the paranoia he faces in time masters revolves around the triggers he experienced WHILE seeing the place his dad grew up in, what created it, how these family cycles started.

I think in a way to mirror his growth through the end of this, realizing there's things he can't change but he can change himself and how he treats others- look towards bettering his own future than fearing the lack of control he has in the (non-linear) past- I like to add the sunflower to the back of the jacket post this arc. this Arc has a lot of differences in my head with the addition of so much new lore/canon since the 90s and my own headcanons (time gardens- hence flower/bug/plant imagery so often in my shit), but still the theme remains the same really.

While Rip is a character i many times in my art associate with Daffodils ( a flower representing rebirth and such) and sunflowers are flower i associate with the likes of Wave & Booster I do think the meaning behind them of new opportunities through others and happiness is something that would both honor the history of the jacket while making it his own.

LASTLY 4th person who "owns" the jacket, and this is shown in my art a few times, is Jeff (occasionally) because I think that's the only person Rip would trust with it when he outgrows the jacket (bc I do think as Rip gets older he fills out more and its moreso a piece for someone a bit lankier). It smells old and reminds them of when they were younger. ugh. I just find the idea of sharing clothing with significant others/partners really fun ok? sap for it.

anyways sorry if this makes no sense its just one of those things i think about a lot and only i do bc its something i made up lol!!

AKA 1 stupid jacket means a lot to a few weird time travelers.

[sotogalmo]

5 — 6:05

New OC that I've lightly talked about! Her name is Eeta! (funny enough, I was gonna go with Eve but @alien-til-i-stage can have that name👍)

She works at AREPH, with Eddy ( @lookatmysillies / @bluemoonscape )! She knows of Sebastian thru them!

Eeta is a very very motherly woman, in her early 30s (31)! She is heavily inspired by Toriel from Undertale, Eve Zeveda(Moonlit) and Meta Salmholfer from Evillious Chronicles. She's in fact so motherly that it can be said that she might've been an actual mother!

Silver and Blaze are from the fact that she looks regal with the many patterns her uniform has and the collar she wears, but has lived through- quite a lot yet still looks on the bright side and her talent- Toriel's & Blaze's fire powers! is witchery stuff(which is just magic tricks that can be done at circuses).

Irina Clockworker from Evillious Chronicles for lore reasons

Amy Rose just because, :3. She's a silly woman, and she can beat people up. I love her. She loves romance. Is a MASSIVE girl kisser y'all. Damsel in distress but remove 'in distress' and add 'fighter'. Damsel fighter- she fights. Yeah

She has taken an undercover job, and has gotten inside of ANAKT Garden to find reasons to save the pet humans she has been tasked to save. Her undercover name, the name she signed with is 'Margaritari' (pearl in Latin!) or just 'Ma' for a short and easy way.

It might not be visible that much, but she has a star on her forehead! I was also gonna go with a scales look on her collar but I didn't and so I added weird circles on it since it's a personalized shock collar (the aliens know she's a part of AREPH and I don't really like the idea of saving humans and such, and with Eeta coming in and saving them with reasons it's even harder to make more stars, so- yeah)

[the-letterbox-archives]

what is the letterbox archives?

nobody’s really asked me that question. then again, there’s nobody here but me, so who’s there to ask? it’s a weird question, though. i couldn’t give you an easy answer. besides, i’ve been combing through documents all night, and the night before that, and the night before that! it’s becoming more and more clear to me that i won’t discover every story here anytime soon. but i’m not quitting, either. i’m just… very tired.

================================================

ridiculously meta post, hence the red, bear with me here. kinda weird to talk like this, without the pretence of a character (this will be one of the only times i will be speaking like this, don’t worry). i wanted to do a little rant about the style of this blog, i guess? partially inspired by me considering doing a small revamp so everything’s more aesthetically connected. because of this, i wanted to say some posts will be altered slightly, but not in any way that changes the content of the posts. it won’t be much, maybe updating blog pics and changing some text on certain posts to better reflect letters as a character and distance my own identity more from it all. however most of it will stay the same, referencing me as an author letting little elements of letters slip through (as a general rule if i talk about the writing as if i'm the writer, not a reader, then it's me, whereas if i refer to a document as a reader or reference the archives, then it's letters). even though this blog is somewhat severed from reality, it’s still me behind the curtain, so nothing huge will change.

onto the reason i crafted my writeblr presence like this; i didn’t want to broadcast anything of my real identity, and i wanted more substance to my online presence beyond just my writing, so i attached this ‘archival’ aesthetic to it. that’s the basic preface, but i’ve got a lot more information.

the central idea behind the letterbox archives gimmick is that all my creative works (technically not mine lore-wise, but i did write everything here) have been stored in this ever-expansive abandoned archives, and someone is bent on reading all of it. this is the meta way to explain the little quips from my online presence, letters, about the state of the archives, and also kind of justify the existence of my works, if that makes sense. in canon, it’s his ‘discovery’ of these documents that elicit the posting of these stories, though he’s not actively posting the stuff he finds (it’s a little less clear whether letters is keeping a ledger of stories, or if the posts are just her thoughts, or something else entirely – i don’t even know why it’s like this). my unreleased works are functionally the stories letters hasn’t found yet, therefore cannot be documented yet – basically representative of my endless wips haha.

speaking of letters, let’s talk about them. literally speaking, they’re my online identity, but in a more character-driven way. assume that every post i make that isn’t this one, the contents of a story, or something to that effect, was thought of, written, or spoken by letters (which means that it is letters that’s fangirling/shitposting about my characters/stories, in universe). most details of letters’ existence are ambiguous, and meant to stay that way. gender, age, ethnicity, sexuality, etc., have no impact on letters’ personality or existence, so he doesn’t have any. i have certain things made clear on my blog, mostly in the description, such as ‘young writers,’ and ‘queer writers,’ but this moreso reflects on me than letters. letters is just a concept, they don’t have many labels in that way.

in relation to the archives, letters is the lone occupant who is always sifting through stories and trying to unravel / understand / catagorise / etc., all of the documents for unknown reasons. whether or not she’s trapped in the archives or is here by choice is entirely ambiguous. but they seem to enjoy it there, hell, they unofficially renamed it ‘the letterbox archives,’ after themselves.

none of this affects my writing in an impactful way, so if you don’t give a shit about the lore of the archives, that’s fine by me, because it’s quite inconsequential to the grand scheme of my work. i just wanted to put all my thoughts and methodology about this blog down and make it known what i’m doing. to anyone who’s trudged through all this text, you’re great. thank you so much for indulging me, your support, vocal or inconspicuous, means the world to me. you’re giving a weird new writer a shot at sharing their stuff, and that support is absolutely priceless. thank you, all of you. i think that’s all i wanted to say, have fun exploring the archives!

================================================

damn. must’ve passed out again. that’s alright, there’s never a dull moment in the archives! a lot to do, and an… indeterminate amount of time to do it in. thanks for dropping by, i appreciate the company! and if you wanna stay a bit longer, the archives always has a story to share.

[encrucijada]

PÍA RAMBLES #8

you might have seen this post or this wip intro. i'm here to talk about this book because i think it's really cool @teddywriting and i wrote almost 40k words by simply playing dolls with our ocs.

(yes i will be using screencaps of before sunrise, 1995 for any and all subsequent updates regarding this project thank you very much)

what's weird about this book in particular is that, despite maripaz and theo taking up way too much space in my brain, it's also incredibly hard to talk about them?? i know every single detail about them down to what they might order to eat at a mcdonald's, and yet i feel no one outside from teddy and i really knows these characters. their lore is weird and a bit convoluted and explaining it feels like i'm trying to explain the plot of a television show with like 18 seasons of character development you just had to be there to witness to understand even a fraction of it.

but first some basics about the actual book

title: babylon boy (book 1 of the home habitat duology)

genre: literary fiction

category: i say adult because there will be no censoring of topics but in this first installment our protagonists are around eighteen years old. you might consider that ya but i wouldn't

a small summary: having independently run away from home for their own reasons, theo and maripaz meet while homeless on the streets and form an alliance of convenience to survive. while theo vehemently denies the drug addiction he’s nursing, maripaz tries to deal with the way both want and revulsion seem to exist in her at the same time. falling in love is probably the easiest thing they do.

teddy and i are co-authoring, as in we both write the words. they will be primarily working on theo's chapters and i will be primarily working on maripaz's chapters but we'll both be involved in fully crafting this story.

talking about your book is hard when all that happens in it is character work so even whether someone gets sick at one point feels like a spoiler you want people to be surprised by.

we created mari and theo in 2020 on a whim. i can't even remember what prompted it exactly. we wanted a new pair of characters to play with and we decided to make two assholes to bicker and be mean to each other. this iteration saw three reincarnations before we put the characters on the shelf and almost resigned ourselves to them being a miss... if not for one important detail... i really, really believed they should have kissed. this first version of them would eventually be known as the homeless au.

looking back it's Wild thinking about how different mari and theo used to be. we moved onto new aus to play around with, landing on a superhero-type beat that became their new canon for a while. we had fantasy and sci-fi and musicians and hadestown and the raven cycle (that last one did so much for us it's insane). every new thing we tried shaped them more and more until they were unrecognisable from their original versions. one day i really want to go through their threads from start to finish and look at that change in real time.

there was a new thesis to their characters and it was no longer "what if two awful guys with issues were forced together and tried to bite each other's heads off". instead we were looking at two characters that through every new incarnation became more sincere and gentle. they had meta-narrative character development.

(every new au also gave us more characters to populate the world including but not limited to theo's twin sister, maripaz's seven siblings, alex, philip, a whole lot of parental figures, a quirky cast of friends... but i'll talk about them some other time)

then i did it again. in the 2.0 version of the homeless au there was one scene i loved beyond words where an argument between our two protagonists resulted in maripaz punching theo right on the mouth. when she tried to swing a second time he stopped her hand and warned her that if she wanted to hit him he would hit back. they fought and the scene ended. i said to teddy: they should have kissed. we laughed and imagined how homeless au would go now that their characters had changed so much. we started thinking about it more and more until we were moving the pieces of their cinematic universe around to fit this new idea... and suddenly we had plot for a book that would revamp that original homeless au... and a sequel too! (but more on that second one another time)

teddy started a rp thread of what came right after the opening scene of babylon boy, where theo and maripaz would shoplift and he would steal the angel necklace she wore (<- this is important)... and we just kept going... and going. we'd already had a few keys scenes to work towards, one those being that punching scene that started it all, as well as the ending. teddy added two new scenes we began calling the halo scene and the church scene, and we moved something we called the pool scene into this book from another au. we just had to fill in the blanks... fill in the blanks we did.

these right here are the names i gave each individual thread of the roleplay-ification of babylon boy. their purpose is not so much to be chapter titles but to make specific scenes easy to find for future reference. though obviously i had to be a bit artistic about it.

i don't know if babylon boy will have chapter titles, and if they will have some sort of theme going on (usually i like just putting two words together to create some imagery). "angel face" is probably what i would title chapter 1, but i also hesitate on that decision because i think i would like to save angel for later.

these threads are less of a draft and more the skeleton of a draft, that's why i called it a draft 0. its purpose is to give teddy and i direction and reading through them i already know how i want to shift the timeline and how i'd rewrite some of the scenes to make them a lot better, but it did give us a great cause and effect look of things. the way teddy and i approach our roleplay threads is more loose than what i do with @on-the-river-lethe (with whom i'm currently roleplaying draft 1 of our book lupine trail and also a giant hunger games au). fluffy and i write responses between 1k-4k words, they are basically chapters. teddy and i instead do a quick call and response, mostly focused on dialogue, we build on top of each other and neither of us really knows where a thread will go when we start.

there are no actual non-roleplay words written for babylon boy thus far. teddy is in charge of chapter 1 as we open with theo's pov but we are both busy or focused on other things. right now we're enjoying the playing around stage of the process (which i don't see going away even once we start seriously writing, i know for a fact we'll probably do various roleplay-type passes to babylon boy).

you've probably noticed the christian imagery is rampant here. it happened kind of by accident and the already mentioned halo scene is entirely to blame for it. like i said, teddy and i have this very "yes, and," approach to storytelling together where we kinda build on top of what the other puts down. teddy gave me the description of one (1) scene where theo sees a halo of light around maripaz's head and i decided "well, this is now i thing that is here to stay". church scene really brought it all together and there is a scene in book 2 adeptly nicknamed the angel scene that is kind of the culmination of this.

the imagery is almost exclusive to theo's pov as mari is more the subject of the imagery than the one pushing it forward. teddy and i will be doing our most to fill this book with visuals: characters lined with stained glass windows, lights shaped like hearts, signs and graffiti that say meaningful stuff.

babylon boy, as the title suggests, is more theo's book. both he and maripaz have meaningful arcs but theo's is really at the core of it, mari takes centre stage in book 2 (titled gossamer girl). i think i talked about this somewhere before but the titles just kind of... happened. gossamer was relevant for that superhero au and it's just a word i really adore so i wanted to use it on the title. you can't go wrong with alliteration so gossamer girl it is. and because i love when books in a series match i had to do something with boy. like gossamer i adore babylon for some reason, and so we got babylon boy. i wasn't sure about that one because while gossamer girl made sense with the theme, what did "babylon boy" even mean, exactly? teddy came in clutch and analysed the title for me. they connected it to theo's drug addiction and now i can't think of any two titles that are more perfect for this series.

like i said, there are no actual words written for this book so sadly i cannot share any excerpts. but i will share

Festival was very much the result of teddy and i having just watched before sunrise, 1995

we watched before sunrise, 1995 because the mannerisms of the two leads reek of maripaz and theo

"until a miracle happens" became a recurring thing said in the draft and it wrecked me

Our Fears is probably my favourite thread both thematically and visually. followed closely by Church Angels, though that one is mostly visually

The Pool is the longest thread with about 90 responses and all of it is beautiful. i would probably consider it the companion to Our Fears

"mutual pining they're both just idiots"

the closing image is probably my favourite one of the book

the core themes are very much trust, love, and communal help. we've got such an array of npcs who simply... help. i love the human race.

i'll probably do another update before we start properly writing talking about maripaz and theo as characters specifically. a bit of a crash course on who they are, really.

anyway. i'm giving you a golden star if you read all of that ⭐ do ask me or teddy about this story!! we'd be happy to talk about it. or even just about the characters.

cheers, pía

[zehecatl]

happy steam sale to all, here’s a 'little’ rec list for (primarily) indie games that, in my opinion, isn’t as popular as they deserve to be!

Ghostwire: Tokyo -60% the only triple a game you’ll see on this list, and my own all time personal favourite. if you like anime, japanese history and folklore, and bromance, you will very likely love this game. it also lets you explore Tokyo and pet the dogs! and cats! literally perfect game!!

Iconoclasts -70% i have been shilling this game, at every major steam sale, for pretty much four-five years. before Ghostwire, it was my all time favourite video game. it was in development, by one person, for around eight years. it is still, in my opinion, one of the most gorgeous pieces of pixel art in the whole damn medium. just. please check it out i beg

Angels of Death -40% rpgmaker game that absolutely excels at being a character driven story. it also got an anime adaptation? which i’ve actually never seen?? but if you grew up playing horror rpgmaker games, please do yourself a favour, and check this out. and if you didn’t- check it out anyway! it’s not super scary or anything, with a more psychological horror focus

Owlboy -65% tiny owl boy does his very best and will worm his way into your heart and then crush it because life is maybe a bit too cruel to him. also you can fly! did i mention you can fly??

Pony Island + The Hex -80% did you adore Inscryption? did you like the meta element? then oh boy, should you check out Daniel Mullins’ two former games! they’re good! probably has the same vibe as Inscryption! could not tell you i still have not played that thing! but these are both very good, and absolutely worth every cent

Underhero -70% it’s a bit rough around the edges, but man, this game has so much love put into it, and i think it deserves way more love than it got

My Friend Pedro -75% the action is definitely the high point here, but i have a personal soft spot for the lil’ bit of lore we do get. like, there is something there, and i want to dig my fingers in. also wacky banana is funny

Sayonara Wild Hearts -40% queer girls on motorcycles? in my rhythm game?? it’s more likely than you think!! (also, if you suck at rhythm games: me too, this is still worth picking up)

MO:Astray -50% the fact that seemingly no one on tumblr has played this... despite the fact that it feels like it’d be a right shoe in... criminal. there is a little CREACHUR! LOOK AT IT. IT IS A SLIME!!

The Messenger -75% i legit thought this game was way more popular than it, apparently, is, which i think just speaks volume of my opinion on it. it’s genuinely right up there with Shovel Knight as iconic retro throwbacks- plus! the devs are making THE most gorgeous indie rpgs, apparently set in the same universe. so that is another reason to check it out

This Strange Realm of Mine -90% an extremely weird little game that will likely not be for everyone, or even most people, but that i really liked. considering the price, i don’t really think there’s much to lose on buying this little gem

Darkside Detective -70% funny point & click game with very shipable protagonists! there’s also a ‘second season’ that i have not played (yet), but is very likely absolutely worth getting

Haiku, the Robot -33% it is, rather obviously, not as good as Hollow Knight, but if you’re suffering from ‘waiting for Silksong’, perhaps this little gem will tide you over

Transiruby -30% another small metroidvania! has really pretty pixel art, and is just a fun little time

Flynn, Son of Crimson -50% not what it was promised, but it’s a fun platformer with gorgeous pixel art, and a dog. it’s a good time, and isn’t that what we all want :]

Yomawari: Midnight Shadows -70% a cute horror game, with excellent enemy designs, and a whole town to explore. also the story is so good. i am still absolutely enamoured with this title. this is, technically, the 2nd in a series, but you can play the games standalone, and while i’m sure the 1st is just as good, i’ve only played this one. because priorities (also keep in mind!! that this is a horror game!!! i’d recommend looking up some trigger warnings, because, uh. horror game!)

A Short Hike -35% just an extremely cozy and fun little game. exploring every inch of this island was just such a good time, i still think extremely fondly of this title

Webbed -30% i am gently laying an hand on the shoulder of every bug enthusiastic on this website. you play as a spider. who is trying to get back her boyfriend from a bird. and there’s a really fun swinging mechanic. do you really need anything more?

Garden Story -60% i am once again shocked this game isn’t more popular. what do you mean a cozy adventure game with community restoration, foraging, and some fun combat with a grape protagonist isn’t one of the biggest sellers in cozy gaming spheres. there’s a frog. you can put on different hats. what else do you want!!

Donut County -70% funny little game about making holes and being a chaotic racoon. i have an extremely soft spot for the characters in this, i could not explain it <3

also Oxenfree is not on sale, but it’s cheap, and the sequel is dropping very soon! and you should absolutely check it out! because it’s really REALLY good!!

[starflungwaddledee]

Lemme know if I'm asking too many questions, but now I'm curious, you mentioned Starstruck's friends liking her unique traits in the answer-train, and now I really wanna know: who's into her massive error-code magical signature? Is it...

Is it Kirby?

i love to answer questions (especially about starstruck at the moment bc i've been really into working on her lore lately) so there's never too many!! sometimes i get very hopeful that i'll draw art and it causes some delays, but i do always always love to get them!!

this bit of info:

what she currently wishes she could lose is her weird magical signature, and perhaps even her non-standard appearance; though i think her friends have probably grown to like one or both of these, and might miss them if they were gone. (this would mean a lot to her to hear).

was actually not any kind of hint at anything more significant (unlike a lot of my answers), it's just the folks around her being good friends and just good people in general!

like... the way she looks (different) the way she acts (different) and the way her magical signature feels (different) are all things that make her her. she is scared of them, because they're different. but her friends like her the way she is, so they like those traits too; if she did successfully change them they'd genuinely miss the traits of her that they've come to love*.

bandee is the one who has the biggest uncontrollable reaction to her magical signature, due to being a waddle dee (meta knight, dedede and kirby notice it but aren't as violently squicked by it) but he pushes past it and over time he starts to notice/be bothered by it much less. she does also pick up signature mimicry fairly quickly, so she can 'fake' a different signature if it really was bothering him, though this is sometimes as jarring as her original one if she picks a strong one.

but... you are right, kirby loves that she can do that!

he finds it a little similar to himself; kirby's magic is understandably more flexible than most, though not in the way starstruck's is. he's incredibly magically sensitive so he can hear her magic voice easily, and for him when she tries on different ones it's like doing an impersonation-- he finds it really entertaining and rather enjoys it! often she'll try out new ones on him to see what he thinks.

i don't bring him up enough in her lore, but magolor also actively likes her weird signature; for different reasons.

he finds it fascinating, but without the overbearing aura of 'is that a threat' that meta knight always exudes. he's assisting with trying to puzzle it out with them, but he was one of the first to make her feel like it was a cool and unique ability that she just happened to have, and something that someone could enjoy rather than be scared of.

*want to put a footnote here that this is framed in a positive light. this is not something about her she wants to change for herself (ie; dysphoria) and a change her friends should accept/support rather than 'missing the old her'. her 'weird traits' are something she only feels pressured to change by societal rules and expectations. her friends would support her of course but most importantly: she shouldn't feel she HAS to change just for being a little different. and they love her and think she's perfect as she is.

[mittensmorgul]

okay, i think at least one of my thoughts on this episode is beginning to congeal into something... Gabriel

and I’m gonna call him Gabriel for the sake of expediency, because I do think that’s who it is. let me explain.

first off, they name checked Tall Tales in a bit of throwaway dialogue. but I heard it. (i’ll rewatch tomorrow when it’s on the cw app and get the exact quote, but it was just weird enough as dialogue that it felt deliberately inserted there)

then there’s what we DO know about Gabriel’s timeline, mostly from things he himself said in canon. in 5.08:

You don't know anything about my family. I love my father, my brothers. Love them. But watching them turn on each other? Tear at each other's throats? I couldn't bear it! Okay? So I left. And now it's happening all over again.

I always believed he was referencing the ORIGINAL fight between Michael and Lucifer here, when Luci ended up crammed in the cage. That’s what he ran from. At the beginning of Humanity on Earth. And he’d been playing Loki for... look let’s call it at least thousands of years. And Loki? in 13.20:

GABRIEL: Oh, well… We were. A few thousand epochs ago, I was out for a hike in the fjords. Came across Loki bound in a cave, snake dripping venom into his eye. Ugh. Apparently, he had some spat with his pops. Anyhoo, I freed him. Saved his life. Then my real brothers started going at it. I wanted out. Loki owed me one, so… he helped me ditch Gabriel and become him. DEAN: So then you took on his whole… trickster vibe. SAM: What did Loki do while you were impersonating him? GABRIEL: Oh. Well, he had his own family drama to worry about. It was in his best interest to go off the grid for a while. DEAN: But you saw him in Monte Carlo. GABRIEL: Well, I needed someplace to hide. He'd already helped me the once.

So both of them were out and about. even if they were both staying off grid as it were. And I always assumed that Loki only came back out after he heard of Gabriel’s “outing” and “death”-- and Odin’s actual death-- in 5.19.

But circling back around to the Tall Tales reference... it took me a while to see how it could be Gabriel. He had two modes: hoist the deserving upon their own petard, and teach people he actually finds interesting lessons they need to learn. And weirdly... this turned out to be the latter. And it feels even more like an Important Lesson that needed to be learned with Chuck literally sitting in the backup band. Even if that was just supposed to be some random musical group, you know? In a meta way, that’s still Chuck.

(and the role even fit’s Chuck’s known history, thanks Robbie... playing all sorts of music clubs, just having relationships, etc., but that’s all really beside the point to this)

Gabriel... was playing pretty much the same game he did on Sam and Dean way back in 2.15. Like... exactly the game he’s always played on them right up until they finally caught him in 5.08.

Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always.

And that feels like the EXACT reason he would’ve taken an interest in Sam and Dean’s parents, too.

But also in all the episodes of spn that dealt with Trickster lore, and actual Loki lore, there was never a mention of a mirror. Or of being able to kill any of them with a shiny blade covered in blood and whatever spell they did. It was always a special stake. And Gabriel actually did eventually kill Loki... with a special wooden sword. Not a shiny blade.

So, why the deviation in lore? I know we’ve been asking this throughout The Winchesters, but this feels really important here, as well as having a potential explanation immediately to hand: that Gabriel set up all of it. He just wanted to play up close and personal with the Winchesters, maybe pass off a little lesson if he could. But also, regardless, it’s another nod to an angel in the series, and those are really beginning to pile up without actually showing us a real angel. And I’m entirely bemused by that on its own.

[hezuart]

Now that all Chapters for The Sounds of Nightmares have come out, what do you think of it, the characters, the new lore it has given the series & how has this changed some of your views on the characters & world?

It's a cute story, an alternate take on the overall series, but I don't consider it canon to the LN series. The lore from the podcast suggests that real children from the real world are teleported to this strange scary place in their dreams like an Alice in Wonderland situation, which explains their nightmares or why they seem to "wake up" because they are "teleporting" in or something. But that's not the case for the video game series. The game series is a time loop. Characters "wake up" from a "nightmare" because they are receiving premonitions of their death or a future event. (That also might explain why the Lady has a portrait of Six. Because she's dreamed of her own demise at the hands of that child.) (It's also suggested that the adults' grotesque appearances are due to the Tower's influence in the city, and any weird faces they have are actually masks built by the Doctor to cover their dignity.)

I'm also a little confused with the ending, where Noone/Ruth wants to leave, she wants to go to this place because she doesn't have her "water sickness" or "tumor" anymore, but like... the amount of suffering and horror she has been subjected to in that world in comparison to what little Otto has put her through I don't think is something that can even remotely be compared. It's implied the Ferryman manipulated her to lure her to that world, but it's a poor manipulation on his part. The fact that she went along with it is also silly to me. She is a child, but a smart one for her age. She witnessed kids being tortured and killed in the Nowhere. I think Otto being mean to you and plugging you into an annoying machine that gives you headaches is a way better deal here. (Though Otto implied to have drugged her is messed up) The Ferryman was a scrapped character from LN1 who would take children from the mainland and deliver them to the Maw, insinuating he was hired by the Lady. Instead, now he's a Ferryman to overall dimensions who transfers children there for unknown reasons. (It's maybe implied there are several different dimensions in the "nowhere" too.) It's also hinted that Otto's sister Sisi wore a yellow raincoat, which many would mistake for Six (on top of her name), but Six didn't get a raincoat until later, leaving Five/Girl in the Raincoat to be nominated for being his actual sister. But this world also implies that children only teleport there when they are sleeping, so typically they'd be wearing pajama attire when they enter the Nowhere. Long story short, I think this whole "yellow raincoat" thing with Sisi is just an easter egg they threw in there without thinking about it; because either way, a tie-in to an already-known character doesn't make sense. Noone/Ruth also claimed that the Nomes were creatures that "belonged in that world" but that's not true, as in canon, Nomes originate from presumably one source: the Lady, who turns children into Nomes to presumably steal their youth from them. In the podcast, that would mean the Nomes were children converted to be part of the world, but truly they don't originate from it like Noone implies. Little Nightmares is a series about the supernatural. A horror meta-commentary on corruption and greed. The Podcast coming in and being all "Actually it's just Alice in Wonderland" instead of it being its own natural, strange world just doesn't sit right with me. So really overall, I don't see it changing my mind on how LN works. I don't know if this will tie into LN3, but the developers are different so you can consider it a new canon if they do change things that don't match up.

[doubleddenden]

I had been going over various fan theories regarding ZA, and one I thought was totally dumb was the reintroduction of Ultra Wormholes. In Kalos.

I thought they were stupid, much like how I thought certain poketubers for thinking Kalos went to war with Alola, Kanto, Galar, Sinnoh, Hisui, and Paldea.

But, the longer I entertained the thought, the more I found ideas to actually give weight to UWs in Lumiose. Now granted, I don't think it's past a 30% chance of happening, but Game Freak keeps doing weird shit lately and the weather here keeps turning to storms at 4% chance of sprinkles, so let's just... let's just provide some support beams and pretend to be devil's advocate for a bit, just because I find the idea fun for a thought process.

Again, I'm not 100% committed to the idea, but I will entertain the bit to see how it could work.

DD's theory corner under the cut

Now first, we would need to ask "why" UWs in Kalos to begin with. Stretch your arms, stretch your hammies, we're gonna reach a bit while we do some mental gymnastics.

So

Why?

Lore theory: we're gonna need some way to isekai some poor Gen Alpha iPad teen to- presumably- Lumiose City 200ish years ago during the same time frame that Legends Arceus happened- irl, during the time period Japan colonized modern Hokaido and roughly the same Era the infamous Paris Rennovation came about (there's lots of videos and theories going over how this might be the case, pick your poison- Logstin went over the theory in a pretty digestable video).

So why not the same method as LA? While there's nothing saying Lumiose can't have Space Time Distortions like Hisui, you do have to remember that in the events of LA, all of that happens because Giratina started messing around with reality and pissing off Dialga and Palkia so that Giratina could get revenge on Arceus for sealing it away long ago. That was the method in which Ingo got transported to the past without memories, somehow traversing modern day New York to Hokkaido wilderness 200 years ago. Arceus sends the player back through the distortion above Mt Coronet as well, and we literally fall out of the sky according to witnesses.

So again, why not? Giratina and Arceus are busy in Hisui having their feud at this time- lore wise anyway.

However, the REAL reason I find this difficult is because that's a Gen 4 heavy premise involving the creation and maintenance of the fabric of time and space itself- Kalos is Gen 6, not really about those two.

So what other options are left?

1. Hoopah- in ORAS, Hoopah is highly implied to be why we're able to come into contact with so many random legendary Pokemon due to its rings connecting 2 spaces- the problem with this, I find, is that we don't really have evidence to say it could involve time travel- certainly explains getting a Sinnoh Legendary while in Hoenn, but not how someone could go back or forward in time.

2. Time Machine- as of SV and Indigo Disk (and as of late may/early june 2024), we now have time travel as a viable plot device, and seemingly space doesn't seem to be much of an issue since we Boot Strapped the book that would make the professor go crazy and create it to begin with. The issue here is that it seems to only be in places connected to the same Crystals of Area Zero, like the Crystal Pool, and that was just a temporary happenstance caused by Terapagos itself on a whim.

I won't completely dismiss this possibility- after all, we have a number of scientists that abandoned the professor after he went nuts and could have easily built another time machine in Kalos or something- however, the issue here becomes both lore and meta conflicting.

A. The time machine requires a TON of power to maintain, that's why it was built in Area Zero to begin with. The Crystals grow like crazy there and can easily power it for as long as the professor willed it- and mind you, we turned it off. That's not saying it can't be turned back on, but I doubt we could use the same one for Lumiose. Why?

B. Think back to Legends Arceus in relation to SwSh. The one connection to Galar we had was Laventon and a bit of industrial revolution tech. In fact, there's no Galar related Gen 8 Pokemon there and no discernable connection to Dynamax energy either (although the "bigger Pokemon" bit is recycled by Alphas, which lets face it, SwSh recycled that from Totems of Alola- of which Alphas are kinda those but Different tm). In other words, even though Paldea IS next door, if we look at it from a meta development perspective, it's most likely that- at most- we'll have a similarity and not exact mirrored causation.

To play 2nd Devil's Advocate, sure, they could theoretically power a time machine with modern day Infinity Energy- but you have to think that the professor could have turned towards that if it was a sustainable power source instead of the Crystals.

All of this being said, I won't completely dismiss another time machine of some kind. A wise man once said "shit happens, my dude."

3. Ultra Wormholes

Now that we're finished entertaining the second devil, we're back to the first I started with. UWs- Ultra Wormholes going forward- aren't strictly an Alolan thing. Yes, they are strongly associated with Alola, but as of Crown Tundra we have proof that they can and have appeared elsewhere and can even merge with other phenomenon like dynamax energy, paving way for Dynamax Adventures and its legendary bargain sale and even dumping our own Cosmog on us.

UWs can mimic the effects of TSDs- Time Space Distortions, taking us to different universes, dimensions, planets, and perhaps times. Remember how in Ultra SM we saw an apocalyptic Hau'oli City ravaged by Guzzlord? Remember how we could go visit alternative worlds where humans, Pokemon, and Ultra Beasts could live and thrive peacefully? Granted, we and the Ultra Recon Squad needed box legendaries to do it under controlled methods, but control isn't entirely necessary in this scenario of time traveling.

Fallers- if you don't remember the term, that's a term used to describe someone who fell from a different dimension and lost their memories of who they were- we could say Ingo became one from the TSD, Looker as well for some unknown reason in the AU ORAS takes place in-perhaps tied to Hoopah's rings. The term Faller, however, stems from the original SM and was used to describe Annabel- former Hoenn Battle Tower Frontier Brain in Emerald who lost all of her memories and came back as the chief of Interpol (or in Ultra, as Looker's new partner basically).

If we remember too, there might be another method to control these given how Rainbow Rocket formed from universes where the bosses succeeded.

Continuing on, you might ask why UWs in Lumiose in this particular case?

From here on, this will be conjecture, theorizing, guessing, and referencing old rumors. I did say I didn't 100% buy it, we're just giving this idea legs to stand on.

So to begin with, let's reference an old rumor that a few may have heard before- full disclosure, it came from a 4chan post that claimed to be a dev talking about scrapped ideas and content originally planned for XY- this was recent as of... a couple or more years ago, maybe. There's not much solid proof it's true in any regard, but the details mentioned do make it a curious read that I'd say might have a chance of at least partially being true, given how game development and Game Freak tend to work.

To summarize what I remember: basically during XY's development plan, there was a wildly different story planned at the time compared to the rather generic adventure we had. Basically, aliens were supposedly invading Kalos and Team Flare was part of it- supposedly this is why Xerosic and Vallerie look so strange. They were ALIENS. Fairy Types also came from space in this regard, as did Mega Evolution with the stones originally being part of the space ship. Sycamore and Lysander were also planned to be sort of a split mind 2in1 villain as well, and the XYZ legends look so different compared to other legendary Pokemon because they were also aliens of some kind. Also, Olympia's space-themed psychic type gym was apparently a remnant of this idea- she was originally supposed to play a much larger role in the story.

This idea was ultimately canned- too ambitious for the time limits they had. However, elements of the idea were supposedly reworked into ORAS and Alola following. You can sort of see where this is going with Ultra Recon Squad, Lusamine going kinda crazy as Mother Beast, Z Crystals being from Necrozma from another dimension, etc.

That's another thing- Alola took Kalos's Z. Not just the Z in Z Crystal, but Z as in Zygarde's additional formes, I think even his cave if memory serves. It also took Ash Greninja and the other Gen 6 megas and primals that Kalos didn't get to see. In that sense, it could be fair to say Kalos could use UWs in this sense.

Hisui dipped it's hands in a lot of other Gen pockets- Gen 2's signature Apricorns that were exclusive to Johto and never found in Sinnoh, Gens 5, 6, and 7 Pokemon and forms including Sylveon and Alolan Vulpix despite not appearing in the DP remakes, even regional variants and even ancestors from the Pearl Clan and Galaxy Expedition team to other regional characters. If we look at this, we can safely say Legends Games don't have to strictly abide by what the original region introduced and can borrow elements introduced later. So in this case, and looking at Crown Tundra again, we can say it's not off the table.

Getting back to Z- if you've read another theory of mine where I talked about how Z-A could be read either as "Zee-Ay" or "Zed-Ay" depending on your dialect, and maybe "Zeta" depending on your pronunciation, and how Z is how Zeta is represented in Greek (remember Alpha, Omega, and Delta were used before), there's something else neat to it: Zeta is the 6th letter of the Greek Alphabet- like gen 6, but has a numeric value of 7. Like... Gen 7, with UWs.

Now lets continue with another theory I posited a few posts ago: The A in Z-A. Xerneas, Yveltal, and Zygarde- XYZ- are a trio that represent a 3 dimensional view on a grid- important for the first 3d main line game. X is left and right, Y is up and down, and Z is sort of the 3 dimensional area that goes through both- 3 dimensions. So where does A come in? I had theorized A would be another legendary- much like Enamorus in Legends Arceus was introduced, but A in this case would serve a bigger and actual role here. The XYZ trio are based on various creatures of Norse mythos, including the deer that feed on Yggdrasil and provide life- Xerneas being both the deer and the trees; Yveltal being the hawk or eagle that rests atop the world tree, and Zygarde being based on the Nidhogg. A could be Ratatosk- a gossipy squirrel that kept trying to start shit between the eagle? I think? and Nidhogg. A in this case serving as a foil to Zygarde, since it's probably that Xerneas and Yveltal will still be asleep by this period. That's all the short end of my theory.

So now how does A fit into this? If we take into account that XYZ are the 3d plain, then A must be something beyond that. A 4th dimension, something beyond standard 3 dimensions- and what are Ultra Wormholes if not another gateway to other dimensions? With Ultra Space being the 4th, if we look at it a certain way?

In this scenario, A would be something from beyond Earth to some capacity, giving Zygarde agency in this story to defend the planet. Remember, we're only going to be in Lumiose, supposedly, so a localized danger from another world could pose significant threat. It could just be a monster of the week, it could just be alternative forms of Xerneas and Yveltal, it could be many things from beyond.

Actually, now that I think about it, Legends Arceus took Regional Variants to the next level by introducing them to a past region AND giving them to starters- maybe A in this case is not Ratatosk, but perhaps a Convergent Legendary from another universe or planet- an Anti-Zygarde, since we just got convergents in SV.

I had more rambling, but a small interruption came up as I was typing this and I lost my trail of thought by the time I came back.

I think I'll close this off for now. I'm still not 100% convinced of UW's in Lumiose, but I'm not opposed to the idea either. After building it up, I think there's plenty of ways to make this actually work, but I think I won't commit fully to this piece unless they show signs of it happening in a trailer or something. I'm open to many ideas, including the idea that this Lumiose we visit isn't actually real, but virtual- or perhaps there's an underground portion we haven't seen- but that's a different idea for another day.

thank you for reading this far, hope this entertained you for a bit

[minecraft-sideblog-tm]

(this ended up being a very long post where I ramble about some lore in my solo world lol)

I added this right after bamboo wood was first added and I went around finding places I could add it to builds. Still lowkey one of my favorite little details in a build like Idk it just looks really nice to me lol

(don't mind the mumbo jumbo video playing in the top corner lol) I also don't think I ever posted the bamboo farm/ancient plant room I added to the underground plant lab a while back. So here's that!

Oh!! And I also don't remember if I ever posted the condemned sculk lab I made either! Actually I might have posted about it, but I don't think I really went into detail and it's been a while anyway lol, so here's that too.

This is really rambly, so- *inhales*

It's connected to a little hallway in the secret nether lab.

The lore is like this person already had a secret lab to study nether plants and whatnot without the villagers knowing. (Like, the nether is public knowledge and avoided due to how dangerous it is, so they wanted to keep the extensive study a secret as to not freak out the villagers)

((the only reason it's "public knowledge" is a meta thing because I already have a very obvious nether portal room and couldn't fit that into the secret lab lore unless it was like Oh yeahh that place? so risky and SO dangerous, and we never go there......unless? 👀 lmao))

While exploring far away they discover sculk deep underground. It's vaguely plant-like, or at least it unsettlingly seems like it's alive, and their Whole Thing is studying plants so they decided to take samples to study.

The sculk must be as ancient as the city, obviously causing the city's decay. And while it was clearly still spreading through the ruins it was doing so VERY slowly. At least, that was the assumption based on how little of the city had been covered in the seemingly hundreds or thousands of years since it must have abandoned.

Foreshadowing is a literay device used to-

Back at home, they decide to add a small room to the existing secret lab. They connect it to a small hallway off the main hallway, rather than building directly off the main hallway, because they were afraid the heat from the nether plant grow rooms might be too much and inhibit the growth of the sculk. Putting a bit of distance between the heat source and the sculk lab might promote better growth and therefore better research!

Foreshadowing is a literary devic-

.....

*ahem*

Anyway, turns out they were very, very wrong. The sculk is MUCH newer than the cities, only overtaking them long after they fell to ruin and, therefore, grows much faster than expected. Maybe even accelerated by the fresher air this high up (this lab is around Y-level 41), and the high heat from the nearby grow rooms.

The lab is quickly overtaken and subsequently sealed off (there are three doors with glass walls between the hall and the room itself). While the assumption is that no one else will ever find any of this secret lab, the sculk seems so dangerous that they had to put a warning on the hall. Should someone ever discover the lab, it wouldn't be right to let them unknowingly walk into the sculk.

(that part was inspired by me watching a video that mentioned scientists having to think about how to label stuff like nuclear waste in such a way to convey the danger of opening it to people potentially FAR in the future when our languages may be long dead or certain icons might have entirely different/unknown meanings and I can't even remember the video now but oh my god that's just so fascinating and terrifying to me, *inhales* ANYWAY back to minecraft)

Tried to use armor trims to make a weird hazmat-esque suit. I feel like it looks a little silly, but I like the concept so I kept it. Also since the compass over the door is always spinning I like to imagine it's some sort of Geiger counter for sculk

Combo of empty chiseled bookshelves and placing normal ones around until I found the spots with neutral/empty texture variations in the texture pack I use to make it feel quickly abandoned.

Then I tried to make the room feel unfinished too. Like maybe they'd just barely gotten it built and created a seemingly safe containment area for the sculk first thing so they could observe it. Sculk starts to spread outside of the containment, they try and fail to stop it from doing so, and they take their notes and seal off the room before it's finished.

I also wanted it to seem like the sculk was degrading the floor, causing it to sink. Maybe sculk just thrives further down so it's naturally growing that direction, maybe it's vaguely sentient and purposefully trying to bury itself deeper, maybe the floor material is just weaker and/or closer to where it broke out of the containment so it's just the most affected. You decide!

They've done there best to not let any of the dangerous research slip to the villagers they live with, as to not worry them when the situation is definitely totally contained. However, one day a path above ground collapses and reveals a small pond with a....strange ecosystem. They aren't sure the villagers will believe it's just algae if they ever see it....

it was entirely unintentional but this pond is actually almost directly above the blue nether plant room, so that's neat! Also this pond was naturally here, and I had decorated it like this (minus the sculk) and added a broken path long before building the nether lab or before sculk was in the game. Then much later I had the idea for a condemned sculk lab and thought oh hey! New pond lore!

The original weird pond lore was that every time I harvested potatoes I'd throw the poisonous ones in there, so eventually the water just Did Things. And I still like that idea because it's silly so maybe it's just a mix of both now lol

Anyway that's enough rambling about my solo minecraft lore because I've been rotating it in my head for months and just needed someone else to know. If you read this long I hope you enjoyed it and also thanks lol

[sapphire-weapon]

I just wanted to say that as a person in their early 20s who only just got into resident evil after re8, it was so fun finding your blog and scrolling through all the little blurbs you’ve got. fandom elders always have the best resources and lore and make spaces a million times better, so thank u for mentioning all the little game details and fandom notes that would’ve been forgotten or missed otherwise to newcomers!!

on another note, i wanted to ask if you had any amusing/chaotic tidbits relating to the re fandom in its earlier days, whether it be speculations of scenes or character directions or interactions that people were so sure were going to happen in later re games that absolutely did not happen, fics that were really influential, insane fanwar stories, memes that used to be rlly prolific and now don’t really come up, etc. it’s something i love to discover about fandoms because it rlly is a “you had to be there,” type of information that people don’t document the way they would with canon developments that you can easily find on wikipages

Anon... I'm gonna fucking cry. 😭 This is exactly what I wanted this blog to become once I realized I was falling back into RE hell. Anything that I can do to make this canon more accessible to new people, I want to do it. I think I've said this before, but I literally cannot imagine what it must be like getting into this series this late in the game, because RE is terrifyingly huge and abstract and very old by video game standards.

As for the second part of your ask... Man, I have so many stories. I won't tell all of them, because if I try to, it'll be weeks before I can post this LMAO so let me just break this up into sections and I'll tell whatever the first stories that pop into my head are.

FAN THEORIES

So, historically, RE fandom was never big on fan theories. Fan theories and meta were something that Silent Hill people did, not so much RE people.

BUT there is one that refuses to die, and I have seen people scream about it as recently as Revelations 2.

People are convinced that Steve Burnside is going to come back. This drum has been getting banged ever since the original Code Veronica released in 2000, and even though it has literally never been hinted at at any point in the 23 years since then that Capcom even remembers that that was a possible thing that was set up, the fandom is still waiting for it to happen.

And it's all because Wesker stole his body and fucked off with it and was a complete asshole about it when he did it. That's it, that's the whole reason.

But then that also ties into the fact that there are still people who are convinced that Wesker didn't actually die in RE5 and that he's gonna come back any day now, guys, really -- and that's just a whole level of death denial I've never seen before. Dude got hit with two rocket launchers in the middle of an active volcano. YOU LITERALLY DO NOT GET MORE DEAD THAN THAT.

INFLUENTIAL FICS

Surprisingly, none. RE didn't have an "I Know What's Beneath the Snow Fields" or a "Walk This World." There were influential authors, though. I won't name them because I have no idea where they are now or if they're still around, but. I will say that there was one very influential fic writer in Cleon fandom who utilized literally so many headcanons in her fics that her characters were utterly unrecognizable. Some of the headcanons blatantly contradicted canon, even. But her writing style and her prose were so, so, so fucking good that it didn't matter. For a while, Cleon fandom almost became like a cult around her fics -- and, as someone who only dabbled in Cleon because my friends shipped it, but I had no personal stake in the ship myself -- it was really, really weird to watch this go down.

INSANE FAN WAR STORIES

I was going to go off on a huge thing about the Aeon vs Cleon wars, but seeing as how they're still fucking happening for some god forsaken dumbass reason, I decided not to.

So, we'll forget that. And while this isn't a war story, exactly, I do need to give a special shoutout to the Wesker wives of old.

If you are at all familiar with the stories of old school Final Fantasy VII fandom of girls who convinced themselves that they married Sephiroth on the astral plane -- guess what. RE fandom had those girls, too, and we called them Wesker wives.

There was one really prominent one on LiveJournal back in the day who used to get art commissioned of her and Wesker together, and she would post pictures of herself "in uniform" for him, and like. Would legitimately write as though she was actually married to the fictional character Albert Wesker. She'd answer questions from people and shit.

And she was really, really pretty, so everyone was just kind of stunned by this, because this girl very clearly took care of herself and worked out and knew how to do her hair and makeup -- she always looked really good -- and it was just like... how did someone like you fall so far off the reality wagon?

And then it slowly started to come out that she maybe had some nazi ideology behind her and kept referring to Wesker has her Aryan king or someshit, and that was about the point where my Jewish ass backed away from that whole trainwreck and stopped paying attention to it, so I don't actually know how this story ends.

MEMES

So, uh. If you've been on the fandom side of the internet long enough, you'll at least have heard of the "it's over 9000" meme, even if you're not into Dragon Ball or ever seen an episode of it in your life.

Well, the same guy who started that meme also left his mark on RE fandom, too. The whole "Jill sandwich" thing was always a meme in its own right, but "Hope this is not Chris's blood" was added onto it thanks to this video. So, "Hope this is not Chris's blood" was a big, big meme in the late aughts that I really don't see around anymore. It was used as a sort of... shitpost response to a shitpost, if that makes sense? Like, your friend sends you some obviously stupid bullcrap or a dumb meme and you just respond back "hope this is not chris's blood."

This cap from Code Veronica was a huge meme for a long time, too, and I DO NOT FUCKING KNOW WHY

And then.

There was this masterpiece. Do not watch this with other people in the room unless your willingness to let others bear witness to your own cringe is very high. It's also NSFW. And, actually, this video might be the single oldest meme in RE fandom history. The YT link I provided here is not the original source of it. It was some stupid fan edit that was making its rounds on Kazaa, and I'm not joking. I want to say this edit is no younger than OG RE2 (so 1998).

And I would negligent in my duties as a fandom historian if I did not introduce you to the glory that is Resident Evil 4 Days of Our Lives. I STILL QUOTE THIS SHIT, TO THIS DAY.

Like, this is me on plurk referencing this stupid fucking shit as I'm liveplurking my very first playthrough of RE4R:

There was a part of me that was honestly kind of upset when the two cops at the beginning of RE4make didn't actually say to Leon, "I hear no one listens to you. Is that true, Captain Cubscout?" because that is unironically the single greatest line of dialogue that was ever written to be said by any character to Leon Kennedy, and it was written by some fuckin college kids back in the mid aughts.

And that's all I can think of for right now.

Thank u for indulging my old person desire to ramble on about "BACK IN MY DAY........." I appreciate u.

ETA: ok like i know i said i was only gonna mention shit that i could think of at the time that i responded to the ask but there is one more meme that i would be remiss to not mention

[erstwhilesparrow]

haven't made a list of thoughts in a while. thought exorcism time:

i feel like i've told this story a billion times but when i started university i told myself, "okay, that was a fun little summer jaunt writing fic and all, but you gotta chill now and focus on school stuff," and then i just could not do it at all. i'd have a google doc open on my laptop to add a couple sentences to it in the ten minute break between classes. i'd walk around campus thinking about editing this or that sentence. my friend turned to me while we were hanging out yesterday and told me something to the effect of, "i like writing, but i don't think i need to write in the way that you need to write." sometimes i think about what i would do if i had to stop writing for any reason and then i have to sit down for a few minutes. saying this in text i feel like-- a joke character? like how the fuck am i a real person that exists in the world and is like this. it is nevertheless true that i am like this!

so if i were to attempt narrativizing mcsos, there's two directions we could go here. one is to look at what's been produced so far and make a story about that, the other is to consider "if i were asked what sort of plot beats might be fun and interesting to do on this server starting from our current point in time, what would i say?" and the looking back direction i think is just. it's a game. lean into the themes, you know? everything you do is a love letter to the world, and in some ways, the game is the practice run for the love letter you are writing with your life beyond the game. and i also am thinking about that post that's like "minecraft's natural generation feels like an invitation to build on top of it," to smooth out the rough edges and make it look ~more like the thing you are expecting? i like the idea of the universe taking these players and going, "okay, here, for this brief span, inhabit these breakable little bodies and help me build a world with a history. help me make a place that people have been." and it works with the Not Doing Lore because none of the players are strictly Playing Characters, but they have ideas about the sorts of people who would be In This Place. owen's skeletons in the jungle are, yes, literally a place he is living for now, but they are also making someone else's story and putting it into the world, even if we never meet or know about that someone else. pix's massive excavation is a story about people who could pull chunks of the world up into the sky, and this is what pix's story is, but it's also not about him -- he is building a history that didn't happen, or at least didn't happen to him-as-excavator. i think there are ways to tell this story that make it ring true to what the videos give us and still Make It A Story.

another bullet point for the other direction: when the first mcsos videos were posted and people kept making "no lore! ;)" jokes and all the SOS promo material seemed like it was about people in modern day clothes stranded out in a weird magical wilderness, i mentioned to a friend that it would be really fun if what happened was a story about building a world so well it eats you. "we're not doing lore," they say. "it's just a game and we're just going to play it as a game." and it is a game, for a while, and they really aren't trying to tell any story, and then things beyond their control start happening and they become increasingly trapped in this world and they're not telling a story here but a story is demanding to be told anyway. this can also be about the horrors of being a creator, probably.

i do think that in conversation with an empty room and a microphone isn't even nearly as good as some of the stuff that was inspired by it, but i also don't care at all because i'm so fucking pleased that that fic did almost exactly the thing i wanted it to. i get why people are not always on the "all fic is meta" train but this is the train i am on and there is not much more satisfying than knowing that i played in a role in a really really interesting and ongoing Conversation Via Fic. it doesn't matter that i maybe didn't say everything i could have with that fic; other people can and have and will fill in those gaps!! it rules!! it's so cool!! i like this fact a lot. forgive me being sentimental.

[all of the other thoughts that would go here have to be redacted because i'm STILL not done outsiders and i am saving those thoughts for after i'm done to avoid people spoiling things]

[invested-in-your-future]

What's so different that you'd need to rewrite everything? Can you share some of it ???

Hm I can paraphrase some of the lore changes, for example, because otherwise it would take (even more) walls of text otherwise.

For example:

My take on Mistral is that its a bit of a weird kingdom in that its actually more like multiple kingdoms mashed together (as a meta way to solve the eastern inspired stuff clashing with obviously greek stuff).

It's essentially three pretty different countries that were kind of forced to come together out of necessity (since I am running full on with the idea of the importance of the towers) or fall alone. So you have Haven at the center of it all as a sort of newer location that is officially "the central city" pushed by Ozpin's influence, but really beyond it's position and the way the communications array and academy being there ties the kingdom together, the three regions all have their own defacto (way older) capital cities, power structure, myths and beliefs. So you have a sort of an EU situation where on the surface you have unified interests, but behind the scenes different aspects of it are locked in a power struggle on where they want the whole "Kingdom" to go and which parts of the continent they see as "true" Mistral.

One unifying aspect between three regions is that they all share the same creation myth and thus believe that Continent of Anima is where civilization itself began. Each of regions has their "patron god", which is essentially deified aspect of the creation myth tied to their capital city. Given, its unknown how much of the actual myth is based in truth, because passage of time tends to distort some things and embelish others (especially with V3 already establishing Ozpin is not beyond making certain truths stay buried), but the folklore behind it is a unifying aspect nonetheless. You don't need gods to be "real" to use them in plot in a sensible way. Just legends and myths scattered in time.

You have three different regions with different influential people with their views, then you have WF subset that operates in Mistral and how they are taking advantage of the situation and on top of that you have other factions that see the shaken status quo as a chance to "make it right". And with the Fall of Beacon and the whole communication array becoming worthless (running off the WoR line about how if one tower falls, all stop working), those conflicts and interests slowly grow larger. For example, there would absolutely be those who would feel the outcome of "Great War" has "wronged" them and who have been trying to push laws to "rein Faunus in". Fall of Beacon would obviously be the proof that the faunus are to not be trusted for them and a way to build more political capital in the kingdom.

Likewise with communication deteriorating, it makes for an easy way to use distorted or false information for your benefit. For example, it would absolutely be in WF's benefit to try to paint Fall of Beacon as an attempt by Vale and Atlas to eradicate the Faunus and WF under Adam "valiantly fighting back". Likewise some would more likely find it favorable to paint Atlas as invaders who brutally betrayed their valuable ally, Kingdom of Vale and are coming for Mistral next.

The thing about a status quo is that while comfortable, it also sort of works like a leash. And once there's no status quo, a lot of aspects that worked together would see that as a green light to act on their interests.

And in that kind of mix and match of ideas, politics and worldviews, you'd have huntsmen and the kinds of roles they would have to take there, which ties into exploring just what it means to be a huntsman and whether the idolized view of "Being the Hero that Fights Monsters" always holds up.

So that's the kind of Kingdom of Mistral that's used as the setting.

You'd still have next arc after V3 go to Mistral and you'd still have some characters ending up there (but for different reasons, for example the reason JNRR are going there are to give back Pyrrha's mementos to her family (because NO you ain't using them to make you some new gear) and Blake is going there because she ain't going to some trip to Menagerie and is resolved to hit Adam where it hurts the most), but with no gods, no relics, no Salem's Evil Council of Evil and with a different lore and set up for the Kingdom, the outcomes and what happen there would have to be very different.

For one, it wouldn't be just a forest walk and the focus would be different (for one, Ruby having an actual story arc focus and Neo playing a role as Mistral would be kind of primarily Ruby and Yang's story). Some parts would still make sense (for example Nora and Ren backstory which was mostly nearly perfect in V4-proper still), but a lot would go pretty differently (can you believe Neptune actually plays a role in plot and has a character arc?!)

Which in turn has domino effect on how one would redo everything after too and it kind of snowballs into an avalanche of very different outcomes.