#it doesn’t go with the pose really rather the characters backstory

[moochio7]

Playing around w styles and working on anatomy 👍👍

[waxwing-cedrorum]

My tav returns as the subject of my pose practice and silly doodles.

I need to come up with a different name for him so that he isn’t just using my name. But for now he can keep Cedar lmao.

Some backstory is under the cut because bg3 really doesn’t go into main character backstory (totally understandable) so I’m making up my own.

Cedar was a student at a monk monastery after being found as a child. The Monastery was a very harsh home and did not foster much of a familial environment for him. Their training was grueling and they believed more in punishment as a means of motivation rather than any form of kindness or comradery.

He spent most early days hiding from training and reading stories of adventurers and daydreaming of seeing the world himself someday. This unfortunately lead to many punishments over his lifetime there and the scars remain from that along his back and arms. Many years pass with him training under their rules while constantly making escape attempts. As the repercussions for his escape attempts became more and more extreme though he slowly began to give up. His training continued and he slowly grew more and more viscous in his fighting and training just to stay alive.

In what he believes were his early 20’s he finally realized the monastery was hiding many darker secrets than he ever knew. Learning that most of the “lost children” brought to the monastery were not actually lost but stolen was the last straw. He began trying to escape again and eventually when they were about to find a more permanent solution to his disobedience he managed to break free. It was not pretty and not a clean break and he has been on the run ever since. He spent most of his time living in the wilds and staying far away from most civilization due to his fears of being dragged back. He held onto his kindness, fighting tooth and nail to still believe he should be kind, but due to his lack of experience in social communication he struggles a lot with coming off sincere and getting people to believe him. This tends to lead to him winding up in fights he would much rather dodge. And once a fight starts his years of training tend to take over and he will fight to the death if needed.

This was his life for a couple years until one day a strange ship appeared out of the sky and he found himself trapped in a pod without a single clue what the hell he had gotten himself into.

[voiceofsword]

NIKI'S NEW FS IS SO CUTEE!!?!?! not at all what i was expecting it to be, he looks like he's about to go on a little adventure i love it 🥰 what are your thoughts? Any insights 👀👀

YESS oh my god ok. i wrote a little analysis after the fact even tho we cant really see a lot of his outfit properly? so a lot of this might just be straight up Wrong when the card actually drops — i apologize in advance if it just sounds like im waxing poetic!!!!!

putting it here for ease of viewing!!

ok, here’s some of my thoughts on niki fs2 and how up until now, it’s been theorized that fs2 is how the characters perceive themselves, rather than how the audience perceives them.

niki himself seems like he would choose the safe option. he’s someone that wants nothing more than a peaceful life but his development has shown that he’s becoming more welcoming to the idea of getting outside of that comfort zone, of allowing himself more luxuries, of allowing himself to want rather than just what he needs. i think the obvious direct comparison that can be drawn is where he’s standing — in fs1, he’s standing indoors, in a kitchen, which also suits him, obviously, that’s his home. but in fs2 he’s outside, presumably in a greenhouse of sorts?

there’s not really any way of knowing until the full card illust comes out, but i think the point to be made here lies in the freedom this implies: kitchen is comfortable, niki’s safe space, one where he knows he’s good, and doesn’t pose a burden to other people. being outside, in a greenhouse, suggests two things: one being that if he’s breaking out of the one space where he feels most at peace, it’s on his own terms. that he’s more adventurous, that he’s okay with feeling vulnerable, that he’s no longer scared but excited to face the world. 

two is a bit more complicated and takes a bit of looking at his outfit and the props around him.

there’s a bottle of cumin on the right side, and presumably allspice falling in front of him — both native from outside of japan (west asia/middle east and central america/caribbean respectively).

niki’s backstory reveals that his parents left him following a series of scandals (ive talked about this extensively and if you follow me atp im assuming you know), and to this day it’s assumed that they’re still traveling around the world discovering new ingredients. and we also know for a fact that niki himself has taken up that mantle as part of his idol career, traveling around for cooking variety shows — im not going to say this is some grand overarching gesture resembling niki forgiving his parents because i dont think there’s ever been any point where niki has held outstanding contempt for their choices. however i do think it symbolizes something for the idol world and how niki once again manages to be a sort of ‘glue’ that holds these two worlds together, similarly to his role in crazyb: while there was a period where the idol industry and culinary industry crashed in entertainment, niki is responsible for patching those relations up, not through any over-calculating strategy, but rather, through being himself, through his passion for cooking, and newfound love for being an idol — it was never about any grudges with him, only growth!!

he doesnt want to become his parents, but not out of hatred, because he’s someone different! he wants to explore the world and spread his love for food, not out of fear of staying somewhere that might hurt him, but because he has the strength to! because he has people to support him on his journey, not a lack thereof! 

and then moving on to the bulk of his outfit, most of it being revealing with very baggy bits hanging off, i’ve seen some people mention it looks kind of..messy? which isnt entirely incorrect but i think it’s nice, bc it almost feels like the baggier clothes are hanging off of him, being “peeled off” and revealing more of himself. inhibitions are being set aside, he no longer wishes to make himself smaller, no longer wishes to hide who he is in fear of inconveniencing others, and i think the more haphazard state of his outfit represents that awkward stage fairly well — transitioning from that insecure kid left behind by his parents to someone who is full of love for what he does and wants to share it with his newfound friends, family, and fans. also the little bottom part of the waistwrap has yummy written on it. please note his eager, happy expression and raised hand like he’s ready to take on the world !! i already mentioned in another post how i think it looks like an rpg outfit and i really mean it ^_^

AND COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO ANY SYMBOLISM..HIS HAIR'S LONGER? or it looks longer.. maybe he'll get his ponytail pushed back rather than on his shoulder? how could you get more gorgeous.. oh my god. please. save me

 niki shiina i love you

[jtl07]

So first I just want to preface that these little rewrites are more just ways for me to understand what it is that irked me personally and also an exercise in writing in general. Not trying to bash anything or anyone, just want to pose a different pov. So if y'all have other thoughts or anything, super open to discussing!

But yeah, episode 6. The thing is, I can see what they’re trying to do here, that they’re trying to show Ava that there’s hope in community, that healing is possible even in the most traumatic of experiences. But for me, I finished that episode feeling disappointed that Ava was being painted as selfish, that other people have it just as bad or worse than her.

The angle that I would have loved is, instead of folks being defensive and trying to get Ava to act a certain way, is to have folks actually try to connect with her. And not in a “let me talk at Ava and dump my backstory to her” sort of way - but actually give Ava opportunity to process what’s going on. (I feel like that’s why she turns to Jillian in e7, to help her get answers to the questions that no one seems to be giving her).

So for this rewrite / alternate take on episode 6 I’m going to ponder adding more opportunity for connection between Ava and other characters, while adding more subtext and “action” (not necessarily fight scenes but having characters being active rather than just static dialogue scenes).

Alright so that said, let’s start episode 6 with Ava dealing with what happened with Lilith (I feel like outside of the funeral in e7, not much attention was given to that event???) - as in, she’s in shock, going through that first town, maybe phases into some kind of locked room and finally breaks down.

Let’s have Mary find her but unable to physically reach her, hearing her in pain and having a moment of sympathy. She doesn’t push but does tell Ava about the village, that it’s safe there, that she’ll be going there and she’s welcome to join.

And since Mary’s still hurt, have her slowly walking, stopping in that cave, alone, but have a moment to also be emotional - over Lilith, over Shannon, over everything - and then in the midst of that, have Ava appear. And maybe Mary stumbles when she instinctively gets into a defensive stance and we still have Ava do her impressive first aid bit. And that could lead us into Mary and Ava connecting, because now they’ve both extended olive branches in a way - Mary not pushing earlier and Ava helping just now - but instead of the whole “you’re not the only one with problems” kind of thing, we could make it about grief and things that are out of our control. They could still talk about finding purpose, finding family, but maybe we could layer onto that a moment where there’s acknowledgement that finding those things doesn’t mean you can’t still be angry (because gosh, both of them - so many of the characters, really - hold so much anger, and rightfully so), that it doesn’t mean everything is fixed; but it helps.

Now the main village/town place - when I watched through the first time, to me, it felt like a sort of introductory/training level that you see in video games where you can try out your abilities in a relatively safe, controlled environment. But this felt weird to me because we’re already halfway through the season…??

So what if instead of this, let's fall back again on connection. Let's lean on the chef dude, have Mary and Ava really get close to him and the restaurant - and then have him be the one that gets possessed. This becomes something new for Ava, because she hasn’t dealt with a wraith in someone she actually knows and cares about, and she hasn’t worked with someone else collaboratively before - plus I just want to have Ava actually learning from someone. Like, during the fight, Mary still gets exasperated but also is teaching Ava and both of them trying not to hurt the dude too much but also having to get the wraith out, and maybe Ava has one of her out of the box but brilliant ideas that drops the dude and ends things and Mary does the “huh, that wasn’t bad” face at her lol

We can still end the episode with Mary leaving Ava behind, but maybe Ava talks to chef dude one more time, maybe have him in the restaurant, patched up but still helping with service. And Ava’s like, wtf are you doing, and the dude says something like, sometimes things happen that we can’t control, can’t understand, can only move forward and do better than we did yesterday. And maybe he says something like, have faith, and Ava can understand the sentiment but doesn’t buy it. Not when she has seen all the pain and death all this causes.

Then idk, maybe there’s a magazine or a tv clip of Jillian and we see a shift in Ava, where it’s like, if she can’t stop all this, she’s at least going to try to understand it (personally, I wasn’t at all expecting Ava to show up at Arq-Tech in e7 so maybe this helps give a sort of through line between episodes).

Yeah, idk, still lots to think about with this episode, and episode 7 as well (mostly about Mother Superion and the rest of the OCS). Lmk if y'all have thoughts, corrections, etc - otherwise, finally going to properly watch e8!

[togethernow]

Rhythmtober Day 31 prompt - Free Space

Well here's the rest of the vocaloid squad! Featuring Ann as Len, Kouhai as Kaito, Senpai as Meiko, Pitcher as Rin, and Reporter as Miku!!

Oh yeah the backstory if you guys want it

“You want US to dress up for Halloween?”

Our usual gang of 4 were in a booth in the cafe, looking at Reporter’s laptop. She had just brought up a rather… interesting proposal to them. 

“Yup! We basically did ALLLL the typical friend group activities, except for dressing up for Halloween for some reason!”

“And you want us to dress up as these… anime things?” Kouhai confusingly looked at the screen.

“I think that’s called cosplay, and I don’t want to partake in something as cringe as that ever.” Pitcher huffed. 

“Well, it’s not really cosplay if you aren’t dressing up to go to a con or something.” Reporter switched to the next slide, showing those 6 “anime things” again, but in different poses. “Plus, they’re not even from an anime! They’re called vocaloids and they’re more like different voices that people use to sing their songs.”

Senpai sat there silently, head presumably full of thoughts. Meanwhile, Pitcher was messing around with the laptop. “I mean, I recognize this girl,” she moved the cursor in circles around the girl with the light blue twintails. “But who the fuck is this???” She moved the cursor around another girl with short blonde hair.

“That’s Rin, and I think you’ll really fit her!” Reporter replied gleefully. 

“Her goofy 10 year old lookin ahh???”

“Yeah! You guys have a similar hairstyle and a snappy, go-getter attitude!”

“Does this also have to do with how similar in height they are?” Senpai finally quipped. 

“YOU- SH-SHUT IT!!” 

“Oh, maybe that’s why I also thought of Pitcher when I saw her.” Kouhai added, much to Pitcher’s chagrin. This made him laugh a bit as Pitcher made a fist towards him.

Senpai herself giggled, then pointed to another character. “What about her?” She hovered the cursor over to a girl in red with short brown hair.

“Oh, that’s Meiko. She’s the mom of the group and has a really cool voice!”

“Hmm…” Senpai put her hand up to her chin. “I can see her being really easy going and down to hang out just about any time. She looks like she would give really good advice too- Why is everyone staring at me?”

Everyone then turned to look at each other, slowly nodding. The nodding got faster, and eventually culminated into a slew of “Ayyy’s” and “yeah’s” from the other three. 

“I guess this makes me Meiko then.” She smiled softly. 

“Then that makes Kouhai Kaito!” Reporter pointed to the blue haired man so everyone knew who she was talking about. 

“Wait, why? He doesn’t really look like me…” “Cause you’re our boy!” Pitcher playfully pinched him on the cheek. 

“W-Wait! There’s another boy there too! I-I think…? I mean, I heard of anime people’s genders being really hard to tell, so…” 

“Yeah, Len’s also a guy. But I think Kaito suits you better! He’s a pretty carefree dude!”

“W-Well, if you say so. You know, you’re pretty good at assigning people anime characters to dress up as, Reporter.” 

Reporter chuckled a bit. “Awww, really? I just go off vibes to be honest.”

“Hmmm… Then who are you going to dress up as?” Senpai asked.

Reporter winked and copied the pose that the blue haired girl was making. “I’m gonna be Miku! I already got a costume of her at home!”

The gang went silent for a second, and everyone’s eyes eventually went over to Pitcher, who was looking out the window, trying to look like she didn’t care. 

“What.” She stated adamantly when she noticed everyone looking.

“Everyone else already chose their outfits, Pitcher. Who are you gonna be?” 

Pitcher was slightly taken aback by this but not surprised Senpai asked that. Her hand waved down as she said, “Nah, you guys got this. I don’t wanna be…” Her eyes drifted over to Reporter and Kouhai, whose eyes resembled those of a certain creature that went “Yippee!”. “Well… fine then. I’m NOT wearing the bow though. That just looks stupid.”

“Yay!” Reporter lifted her hands in the air. “Yay!” Kouhai mimicked her as Barista came over with his sandwich. Barista then proceeded to throw his hands in the air as well. 

“Hold on.” Pitcher leaned over closer to the laptop. “There’s only 4 of us and there’s 6 of them. Who’s gonna be the pink lady and this kid right here?”

“Oh, you’re right!” Reporter clapped her hands together. “We can’t have a Rin without a Len!”

“I’ll be your Len, Pitcher.” Ann Glerr leaned it’s head across the separator from the booth behind them. 

“GAH-” This caused Pitcher to jump back into Reporter’s arms. “Bro, did ya just listen to our conversation this whole time?!” 

“Well, yeah.” She popped another fry into her mouth and continued. “Anyways, can I join you guys?”

“S-Sure…” Kouhai looked at the rest of the group to see if they would let it join. 

“I don’t see why not.”

“Of course!”

“Why are you my Len… But if everyone else says ok, then sure.”

Reporter pumped her fists in the air again, excited that her idea was going to work.

"Now all we need is a Luka!"

–-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Diary,

Today was quite hectic. This year, I indulged in some childhood dreams of mine and dressed up as one of my inspirations, Megurine Luka. I thought this day would be like usual, going out and taking pictures, but I happened to spot them.

They happened to have the same idea as me and dressed up as the rest of the vocaloids. My instincts kicked in and I quickly went to a spot where they couldn't see me. I noticed that Ann was holding a bucket of candy, meaning that they were going to parade around the neighborhood.

My mind went to making plans on how to avoid them. Don't want them accusing me of copying them, of course.

As I avoided them, I couldn't help but feel a little twinge in my heart telling me to join them. Of course I didn't, I had a reputation to uphold, as you know. But it's weird...

If I went up to them, what would've they said?

[definitelynotasupervillain13]

Here are the current characters of Candyland Conquest, a DND campaign that I’m doing a little comic for! We’ve got two more players who are supposed to come in later (hopefully next session, but man adulting is hard), but I don’t actually know what their characters are, so I can’t draw them.

The premise of the campaign goes like this: In 2005, three human friends unknowingly jump into a magic lake portal, sending them to a fantasy land embroiled in war and imperialism. They get scooped up by a band of pirates/revolutionaries, and now must figure out how to stop the Sucrosian (candy) empire from taking over the world.

Now, onto the characters!

James Lee Coltmanner-Bishop (Colt Bishop): My dude! Colt is one of the humans that falls into the magical land! He’s spiritually an old southern cowboy, which lends itself pretty good to his class as an artillerist artificer. He does, however, only have an intelligence of 7, meaning he’s often relying on his skills rather than his lack of book smarts. Colt learns things by doing; he works with guns so much that it’s almost like breathing, but put him with a paper test and he’s lost. I tried to base this aspect of Colt around the way that a lot of people out in the boonies where I live are really skilled mechanics and laborers, but how that often doesn’t translate into what others may perceive as intelligence. Colt doesn’t really have a backstory, since the DM told me that it was essentially pointless for the humans to have one, so all I have for it is that Colt is just a typical friendly cowboy with really bitter divorced parents. Colt got minor ocean magic when he arrived in the new world.

Colt is also the only artificer in a party which is otherwise entirely composed of rogues.

Rayvn (Rayvn-with-a-y): This character is also one of the three humans! She is an assassin rouge assassin with a talent for fencing, and is also very French. Rayvn actually has a backstory, being trained as an assassin all of her life. She was sent to America and is currently posing as a foreign exchange student, living with Colt and his dad. Somehow, she managed to genuinely befriend the other two humans, possibly in spite of them knowing her assassin nature (we haven’t really figured out if Colt and Terry know yet.) Rayvn gained minor frost magic upon arriving into the new world.

Expect to see a lot of flirting between Rayvn and Kookie.

Terrence (Terry/Terrence Crewsence): Terrence is the last of the three human characters, and was also given his general background by the DM who was tired of waiting for his eternally late player to quick build a character. Terrence is an aspiring sports journalist. He is a thief rouge, because he always has to sneak around to get his sports scoops. Terrence is the closest thing to sane that the group is going to get, and is the only one who reacts like a normal person to all of the weird crap that the party gets into. Terrence also doesn’t really have a backstory, other than being friends with the other two humans. He gained minor puppet magic when arriving in the new world.

Captain Kookie: A pirate from either the 13th, 14th, or 15th century (they keep changing it, I’m so confused) who wound up in the magical world for so long that they’ve mutated to become one of the candy people. On paper, Kookie is a wood elf, but just because her player didn’t want to homebrew a race. Kookie is one of the main players in the revolution, and is an arcane trickster rouge. She has some dramatic backstory involving the Sucrosian empire and the overthrow of its previous king, but we don’t actually know that backstory yet. Kookie is a conniving, self serving character, yet she at least has a soft enough heart to let the three humans into her crew. That might just be because the rest of her crew (sans Frysta) is incompetent, though.

Frysta: The single most serious member of the party, who you should not expect to see consistently since her player is constantly out of town. Frysta is an ice person (This player actually did home brew a race: the Frostians) who is fighting to keep her homeland out of Sucrosia’s grasp. Despite being a self proclaimed illegal arms dealer and thief rouge, Frysta claims to have strong moral obligations and is quick to interrogate others for being suspicious. It is unknown how much Frysta and Kookie actually like each other, likely being shoved together as the only two competent members of the revolution outside of the higher ups. Frysta tries to act like the group mom, but is failing miserably.

[mauesartetc]

What's ur opinion about Vaggie's redesign/outfit change? I personally like this one better than the pilot one, mainly 'cos the colours suits more with hell and if you really pay close attention to detail you can see that her hair resembles moth's wings. I'd love to hear/read ur opinion of her.

I knew this was comin'. Y'all knew this was comin'. Let's do it!

First, some positives: Her hair does resemble moth wings, indicating that her design is, in fact, inspired by moths. We didn’t really get that in the original. Also, her outfit looks like something a hotel employee might wear to work, and the red matches Charlie’s new outfit as well. Eliminating the stripes from her socks was another good choice, as it makes things easier on the animators.

Here’s something I don’t understand, however:

What’s the purpose of giving both Vaggie and Angel Dust identical chokers, as well as the same scalloped shapes on their outfits (specifically at the edges of Vaggie’s sleeves and Angel’s pink gloves)? Typically when character designs feature the same types of shapes or accessories, there’s some sort of meaning behind it, which I go into more detail about here. 

An uninitiated person might get the impression that these two characters are symbolically linked based on their clothing choices. The scallops and chokers might be part of the uniform for workers in the hotel, but Angel is a boarder, not an employee. They might represent the characters’ history as sex workers (that’s still part of Vaggie’s backstory, right?), but that would only hold water if other sex workers in Hell wore the same items.

To me, this looks like Viv Medrano trading one problem for another. She previously had the issue of giving bow ties to tons of characters for no explained reason, and now she has the issue of similar chokers and scallops for no explained reason. Her attachment to aesthetics rather than meaning has caused both problems. Maybe I’ll be generous here and acknowledge the possibility that there is some symbolism in these choices we just can’t see yet, but Viv’s history of doing this doesn’t inspire optimism.

Also, the tweet featuring Vaggie’s new design referred to her as the “protector” of the hotel. So like... Security? Her pose and expression here make her look like a fighter you wouldn’t want to mess with, but I question how well-suited her fashion choices are to the task. Someone could easily grab her long hair and ribbons in a scuffle, and I’m not sure how much mobility that tight skirt would allow. 

Just for kicks, I Googled “women’s security guard uniform” to see how many of the results included skirts. It’s about as many as you’d expect. Once again, Viv sacrifices practicality for aesthetics, thinking more about what she finds pleasing to look at than the character’s needs. You’d think Vaggie of all people would have more sense. 

Anyway, I whipped up some sketches of how a shorter, more manageable hairstyle might look. The hair’s out of the way, it’s still shaped like moth wings, and there aren’t any ribbons to deal with. Viv seems to think hair and outfits can only be fashionable or functional, and that’s simply not true.

I’m also not sure why a character who died in 2014 is in the crow’s nest of a ship that looks to be from the 1800s or so. What’s the connection there? Guess we’ll have to wait and see.

[clockworklozenges]

So, a good five or so years back, I played in one of the best worst DnD games I have ever been in. The DM had bought the Libris Mortis book, which, if you were unaware, was a 3.5 splatbook adding in a lot of undead stuff, including some monsters and undead player races and stuff. Wanting to try it out, me and my gaming group decided to play things from it, our then DM deciding to run a completely homebrewed session. This proved to be a...

Terrible Idea™

(for the uninitiated, never homebrew something you do not fully understand unless it's just cosmetic. If you want to make all elves worship the god of garlic bread, Ultimo-Metatron-Omega, go ahead, but unless you know how the game works, don't make mechanical changes). So we all picked stuff from the books-one player played a skeleton Sorcerer who in life was a tribal shaman, but an attempt at healing went wrong, turning him undead as his life energy was replaced with negative energy, explaining why most of his spells were necromancy and suchlike.

Another player played Krug, an antipaladin in very spiky full plate. He was a zombie made by a necromancer of a paladin who was fighting him, but his allies killed his would-be master before he could assert control, and not wanting to just off him, his allies just...yeeted his body into a portal and hoped it'd re-kill him. It did not kill him hard enough. It did, however, explain his stats which...oof. He had already got debuffs to some stats due to being a zombie, and rolled abysmally. Fortunately for the player, he played mostly to socialise, so didn't much care.

I played... Count Nox Feratu, the Campire. As in, a vampire with a very camp German accent, which I did not break for the whole time I was playing him. To the point where "ach, nein, I haf bin heet! Heal me, meine freunde!" was par for the course. My overly camp vamp was a wizard, but due to level adjustment was a bit of a shoddy one. For backstory, he'd been ousted from his clan for ineptitude, and had sworn revenge. I was going for a swordmage build but never got there. All his spells were utility or just necromancy spells.

Our last player played...sigh...Damien Bloodmoon, cleric of Nerull, God of murder and undeath. He was one of the clerics from the book's murder Domain, meaning that he got buffs to damage. He was a vicious arse both in character and out of it, and was so dripping with edge compared to the paladin with the same IQ as a horse after its trip to the glue factory, the shaman who thought killing fixed people and the Campire that if you gave him a pat on the back you'd have finely diced your hand into a red mist. Not going too outlandish with his backstory of wanting to dominate the world as his undead thralls, Damien F***ing Bloodmoon had only taken spells which either charmed live people, dealt negative energy damage or messed with ability drain and suchlike, which he used with aplomb on townsfolk on our way to our objective. He was also, importantly, playing an elf of some sort, I forget which kind. Meaning that of the party, only one was alive.

So, just as an aside, for those of you that haven't played 3.5e DnD or have only played 5e, in Libris Mortis, undeath was gone over in detail, and had a litany of pros and cons. For one thing, undead had only the HP they had-folks like Damien F***ing Bloodmoon could be 'dying', and had some time to be stabilised before meeting the reckoning of Papa John and dying proper. Undead did not, it was just how much you had and if you ran out, poof, you're dust, bones and fertiliser again. You were also harmed by positive energy, so healing spells hurt you, as did potions of healing. However, undead were kind of hardy - poison immunity, some had resistance to non-magical melee damage, stuff that drained your ability scores and levels didn't work on them, some crits wouldn't do extra damage, and the best part- negative energy healed undead. Meaning all the spells our party had which damaged others like the living Damien Bloodmoon were curative ones for us. Keep this in mind.

So, we began our quest, learning of a necromancer a nearby town was plagued by. After using our skills (to whit: Damien Bloodmoon charming and drawing the life force out of random villagers and the only potion seller in the town whilst we went shopping. Krug got a snazzy hat, which we put on top of his helmet, and we chatted to townsfolk as I looked alive enough to pass as human and the shaman had a fake beard and toupee that people were too awkward to point out was fake so went along with it) we learn that the necromancer has a base of operations in the cemetery. "Oh ja, zo original, dahlink. Ve vill need to educate zis guy on vhat is chic and vhat is just shabby!"

So we head there and the nightmare begins. Damien Leads the charge, using all of his knowledge to deduce that the shambling horde moving towards us were stronger-than-your-average-bear undead, and he was right. These were powerful armoured zombie mages of some sort, casting ability draining spells, negative energy ray spells and even having auras of negative energy that dealt damage on a failed Fortitude save. Even their punch and quarterstaves did negative energy damage as well as the usual bludgeoning or unarmed. However...only one of us was really in danger and the DM's face fell when the squishy casters walked up and began shanking their super-special homebrew zombie wizards, being healed by the damage of their attacks as we cut them down.

Like I said, one of the benefits of undeath is that negative energy actually heals you. So the strikes of the magic staves and punches that hit us did some basic damage. Which was then immediately healed by the negative energy their weapon strikes and spells were doing.

However, you'll recall that Damien Bloodmoon was an elf. And not dead. Being a Cleric of a death god doesn't mean that you have the abilities of an undead. That meant that even with the DM being merciful, by the end of the first fight he was covered in blood, mud and withered away to just above half his original strength and constitution. More were patrolling, so we had to run. But that posed a problem.

Remember Krug had heavy armour? And recall his awful stats? He in fact, hadn't got enough strength to wear the armour he'd been given for backstory. He didn't, according to the DM, have enough to remove his own armour. And we attempted to, but also failed our checks according to the DM. And Damien Bloodmoon refused to help, simply blaming Krug and his player. Krug's player thought it was hilarious, and Krug only had enough Intelligence and Wisdom to say his own name, so saw no problem. And Krug, Nox Feratu and Shaman realised that there really...wasn't a problem.

For us, at least.

We slogged through three combats dragging Krug and wading through the mud with him. His speed was so slow that for every step he took, we took about ten. The DM was confused and infuriated that his encounters weren't working, but refused to change them. So we had fun role-playing. Or at least three of us did.

Damien Bloodmoon refused to roleplay, and none of his ranged spells could affect the zombie mages. When he went into melee, he came out wounded as all hell. He went down twice, and it was only the healing supplies of the shaman that saved him.

All the while, he was... Let's say not best pleased. Damien Bloodmoon was getting increasingly wounded, exasperated and longing for the sweet embrace of death as reprieve from the humiliation. His player was getting increasingly redder and rage-filled as time passed. Each fight ended with our characters stronger than ever and his a bloody pulp on the floor, with poor in-character knowledge (and terrible rolls) preventing him from realising why.

Eventually, we reached the final boss, pausing only to paint Krug's armour in contact poison just in case, and to find a stick to help the now-partially-crippled Damien Bloodmoon, cleric of death and murder, walk after being beaten up by angry zombie wizards for hours. And it had, indeed, been hours. Among us, only Damien had a bonus to strength, and we had two swords, a mace and a staff between the four of us. Meaning it was re-death by a thousand cuts for the enemy and a slog and a half for us.

We reach the necromancer and, having taken so long due to dragging the oblivious Krug with us, his big ritual is complete- he raises a fist-sized black onyx egg aloft, crackles with arcane power and causes the bones around him to coalesce into one massive creature - an undead, giant-sized rust monster, radiating an Aura of pure negative energy. Krug opened his arms wide, eager for the metal-eating monster cockroach to free him from his poison-painted metal prison. It ignores him as he's still very far away. Me and the others have our weapons and armour devoured.

Our DM was very much a stickler for note-taking. So because Damien Bloodmoon hadn't written 'clothes' on his sheet, his armour being eaten by the monster left him naked and afraid.

It became clear that the DM had done another f***y-wucky. See, the Aura of negative energy healed me and the Sorcerer by more than its other attacks did. So whilst Damien Bloodmoon was naked, soaked in mud and bleeding to death almost crushed to a pulp in the fetal position, rocking backwards and forwards as his player seethed with hatred, the Shaman and the Campire set about beating the thing to death with our bear hands and a stick.

The session ended once we killed the necromancer, or rather when Krug walked up to him, closed his arms and just crushed the noodle-armed bad guy to death with the weight of his ridiculous armour and poisoned him with its paintwork.

We never revisited the game afterwards. We were told later on that the DM wanted us to use the non-undead races. But at no point had he said as much, even when we asked him about our characters and the restrictions on them. We also learned a valuable lesson. DM for the players who are there, not the ones who you have an idealised mental image of. Tailor your game, otherwise you'll get a sitcom featuring a camp nosferatu, a shaman with no healing, a paladin who could barely move and a Cleric of murder who was ironically the only one at risk of actually dying.

[felikatze]

give me the a brainworms i am deeply invested in this man

(0) (2) (3) (4)

okay first of all you asked for this. second of all if i am a little off track from the game that is explained by me just building thoughts like building blocks without looking back. third i was supposed to be studying for an exam but this counts as practice right? it's character analysis anyway lmao.

buckle the fuck up, my dearest anon, because I have sub headings.

1. A as the Player Character

Let me begin with why I am obsessed with this horrid little guy in the first place: he's a silent protagonist. I am always obsessed with protagonists. It's a law of nature. I love taking hollow characters and dissecting them for scraps. It's a long standing practice of mine.

Being a silent protagonist, A, as X, does not have a set personality. However, there are patterns. Firstly, as any semi-silent protagonist, A is a reactive character. He does not start incidents, he only responds to situations, presented by the Sephirah, as they arise. He does not actively seek out new information, merely going about the routine of expanding departments, but expresses curiosity when information is presented to him.

I'm aware fandom likes to characterize X and A differently, likely because they are initially presented as different characters. I, on the other hand, would like to pose the theory that they are more similar than expected.

I believe that A is also a reactive character, rather than active. Despite the fandom wiki describing him as stubborn, the goal A pursues with such fervor, the completion of the Seed of Light, is not actually a goal he set for himself. Carmen is the one who set this goal for him by leaving him her legacy.

Throughout the backstory we get relating to the Cogito Project, A is Carmen's assistant, whereas Carmen is the driving researcher. This is how many of the City's inhabitants seem to be; going with the flow of goals set for them by superiors. Yes I will get into his attachment to Carmen later.

The above is not to say A isn't stubborn. Once he has accepted a goal as his own, he will pursue it at all costs, as is obvious from any and all flashbacks leading to horrible deaths. But the point isn't his pursuit of the goal, but where that goal comes from. Even Lobcorp itself supports this, despite what Hokma may say; A as X follows the "simple" task of managing the Corp's day to day activities, and executes any mission given to him by the Sephirah. He outranks them, and doesn't actually need to do their missions, but does so anyway. Players are driven by the reward offered by those missions, of course, and A might be the same in that regard. Nonetheless, at no point in gameplay do you do anything somebody else hasn't told you to.

The overarching narrative of the Script would be the most obvious example. Every single person in the game follows the script, whether they know it or not.

Lastly on this note, a phrase we hear attributed to A, "Machines must behave as machines." Now, Angela may be attached to this phrase because it bears significance to herself as a machine, and informs most of A's unjust treatmeant of her. However, what if it doesn't just apply to machines? The phrase reads as such, "Everyone must act according to their own role."

2. A, Carmen, and the disease of the mind

So, A will at any cost pursue goals Carmen set for him. Question is, why? The obvious answer would be saying he's in love with her, which like, true. But also, how did Carmen come to be so precious to him?

Let us return to the comparison, "This is how many of the City's inhabitants seem to be." We don't really know why exactly most characters joined Carmen, excluding mainly Daniel and Benjamin. But this does not mean we can't have theories.

Carmen's ideal was curing the "disease of the mind." What is the disease? Complete hopelessness. The inability to form aspirations and dreams, to think of a better future. A is a very reactive character who does not set goals for himself. Therefore, I personally conclude, that initially, Carmen's ideology resonated with him because he could identify with the disease.

This is the point where I start rewatching Lobcorp story clips. Dear god.

So, by briefly binging day 27 onward, I've come up with lines that very much support this lil theory of mine:

First, from Carmen, a description of the disease, "People lock away their own potential."

Second, a line from Angela, after the memory synchronization, "You've locked yourself in this prison without bars."

Carmen describes A as humble, and Benjamin thinks he is warm. If I suppose A was one of the diseased initially, Carmen would be the catalyst for this change. Carmen was someone with big aspirations, with plans to heal what is wrong with the City, and it gave him hope. He was one of the diseased, but through time with Carmen, with that relentless optimistic spirit, he may have been cured, for a time. It's not a stretch to say that she was his light.

But lor shows us what happens when the seed of light sprouts wrong, doesn't it? It distorts. A grasped hope for the first time and then it is ruthlessly crushed. Carmen was everything. Yes, A is described as a jack-of-all-trades, as a genius in all pursuits he puts his mind to, but what does that matter in the face of someone who can unite people? Who can give them hope of a better world? Who can inspire them to actually use the talents they have?

And what kind of pressure is it to put the legacy of a messiah in the hands of the diseased?

3. A and the Perception Filter: A is weak to White damage

No, I am serious about that. He's extremely weak mentally. Obviously death of a loved one is a changing experience for absolutely anybody, but Carmen's death destroyed him.

Not only did he refuse to confide this grief to anyone and bottled it up, now everybody looked to him to lead the project, but he just isn't Carmen. He isn't an ambitious person, he doesn't have the same optimism, he can't bring people together, but people expected him to, and he failed. Hard.

While he was without a doubt talented in science, he was also just an average guy.

After her death, A grew to hate humans. He lost trust in them. He refused to confide in anyone, and be confided in by anyone. Thus, the team fell apart.

In both lobcorp and lor, we get interesting tidbits about precations taken to protect the manager.

Firstly, Lobcorp's perception filter. The cartoony art-style of the game is a result of the game being in first person. Through the eyes of the manager, everything is cartoony!

This is a measure undertaken to specifically protect the manager's psyche. Angela tells us that, before it was deployed, the manager would frequently go insane, one notable incident including the manager trying to hang himself. When we first hear this, the previous managers and X are still separate in our minds. However, they're all A! A went insane multiple times without it.

This is understandable, considering that employees also frequently go insane and try to kill both themselves and others. But they're there in action, confronting the Abnormalities directly. Just watching them made the manager go mad. They could not handle the responsibility for the employees' deaths.

In lor, Angela explains why she picked the Rabbit Team from R Corp as their main contractor instead of any other team. One team was simply too big for L Corp's narrow hallways, and the other team... dealt in psychic damage. It was simply too big of a risk for the manager. But the manager is always secure behind the cameras. Would that teams methods just be that brutal visually, or would their attacks have reached the manager?

Combined with his immense grief at all of his friends and coworkers dying in part because of him, A cannot bear to look at death.

4. A's greatest flaw: Avoidance

A common thread during Core Meltdown flashbacks: A refuses to look at suffering. He just can't. Whether it be looking away from Elijah writhing on the floor or hanging up on Daniel's panicked report of death.

This is actually the thing Angela takes the biggest issue with, and what hurt her most. A would never look at her, acknowledge her, and she did not understand why. But I think A did not refuse to look at her out of maliciousness. Rather, it was out of grief over Carmen. He could not look at her without being reminded of what he lost.

Angela's creation came about because A wanted someone to guide him, someone like Carmen. He threw himself into the project to the point it made Benjamin happy that A was passionate about anything again. But as soon as the project he distracted himself with is complete, he is filled with regret. Carmen cannot be replicated, and he breaks again.

Furthermore, tying this back to my first point about A being a reactive person, we see Angela take charge over A. She's the one recruiting employees and leading the business. It was likely a relief for him to be able to step down from the leading position.

But avoiding it made everything worse. He did not act when he saw Elijah's unchecked ambition, he did not act beyond a simple check at Gabriel's decay, he gave Giovanni the same hope he clung to to no avail, et cetera et cetera.

Avoiding his problems is making them worse and sending everything down the drain (including his psyche), so he deals with it the only way he knows how, avoiding them more!

Biggest example of A's big avoidance problem as his psyche crumbles: the memory wipe. A, in perhaps his one singular moment of acknowledging his emotions, recognizes that he is incapable of fulfilling the Script in his current state. His grief is just too much.

By erasing his own memory, he could start fresh without his grief, because he might've really killed himself otherwise. His suffering became bigger and bigger, and he coped by avoiding it.

The memory wipe allowed him to distangle his problems. Through his interactions with the Sephirah (which I will not individually detail for the sake of my sanity and because I dumped all this on a friend on discord already), he can deal with and actually process his issues one at a time.

As the motto describes, only by facing the fear can he build the future. Only by finally facing his grief and acknowleding it, seeing that the past cannot be changed and he has no choice to move forward, can he actually do so.

5. The Sephirah as ghosts

Lobotomy Corporation feels like a ghost story. I've touched upon this in my previous A post.

As you reach the Corp's lower levels, there are less Sephirah. First there are four. They act like normal employees, and do not breach into the story's underbelly until you reach their core supressions and the facade breaks. Second, counting Tiphereth as one, there are three. They still go about their duties, but they know what they are. Third, there are two, and the facade is gone. They know what they are, and they will tell you about the sins of the past.

And finally, you reach Keter, and there is only one.

This gradual decay of the facade is what really gets to me. I said that by interacting with the Sephirah, A deals with his issues one by one, but that's what the Sephirah are, in this case. Representations.

The people the Sephirah used to be are dead, and the Sephirah are their ghosts. The core supression involve putting these ghosts to rest. Doesn't it match the progression of a typical ghost story? Find the ghost, find what they used to be, and help them move on.

So, if everyone is a ghost, then A is alone.

But, behind the scenes, the Sephirah are still there. They are still people, and they have changed for the better, too. As always, A simply does not look.

(Does he even see the good others see in him? Does he look away from praise, too? Did he even realize Benjamin's admiration for him? Will we ever know?)

6. A's end.

A's progression of moving on would be fine and dandy if it did not end as thus: A does kill himself.

A sees himself beyond the point of no return. Everyone is dead. He is alone. Carmen is never coming back. He can't call it quits now, or else everything has been in vain. (Even if the last days show us a part of him wants to just quit, so badly.)

So, there's only one thing left to do: follow the Script to its ending. Fulfill Carmen's legacy at all costs. Death as the ultimate release.

This is the point where I admit I do not like the death as release trope. But the game does a good enough job as presenting it as the only option A had, or the only option he saw himself as having.

However, I've mentioned it before, I'll mention it again: A was not alone. Death was his release, but he left wreckage. In order to end his own suffering, he inflicted the same pain he went through on others.

Throughout the game, he moves on and pushes through. The ending shows that in reality... he didn't.

At least in lor the characters stick together and help each other heal.

This has been most of my thoughts on A, amounting to my longest analysis post ever, having taken me approximately two and a half hours to complete, and clocking in at 2337 words including up to this paragraph.

Thank you anon for giving me the incentive to verbalize all of this, so I can finally be at ease having inflicted my thoughts on everybody else.

[willidleaway]

OK, let’s talk about Deltarune Chapter 2. Right off the bat two things:

Toby Fox could have been charging 20 USD for this or asked people to pre-purchase the remaining chapters to play Chapter 2, and I’m frankly very surprised (if delighted) that he didn’t.

Soundtrack’s bopping. If you don’t feel like playing two free chapters of a game, which by themselves will give you nine hours of a brilliant time in an absolutely insane world filled with mad characters that all still manages to hold together somehow, I can still recommend giving the OST a listen and then a buy if you are so inclined.

And with that and the spoiler-free lead image out of the way, let’s actually (largely incoherently) talk about Deltarune Chapter 2 below the Read More line. Spoilers galore, including for a bonus enemy ...

OK, so this guy is still a card:

But some non-positive observations to begin with: the Castle Town is nice to look at but maybe a bit uninteresting for the moment, since it’s a completely separate Dark World from the main underworld of Chapter 2. It seems perhaps like a decent hub world for people who haven’t replayed the previous chapter and need some refreshers, especially with the dojo challenges. But some of the other mechanics associated with the Castle Town like recruiting, fusing items, and so forth are as yet unclear. But perhaps it hints at more interaction between chapters through the Castle Town.

And that’s all the non-positive observations I have about Deltarune Chapter 2. It’s not even a negative observation, just taking note of potential seeds being planted for the remainder of the game.

Now. Now now now now now.

I don’t know how Toby Fox manages to continue coming up with such a diverse array of antagonists all so ridiculous and insane in their own special way, but he continues to outdo himself. And not only is Queen insane but so is literally everything that happens in Cyber City and then in Queen’s Mansion, like the layers of truces across Queen and her quasi-willing peons:

and indeed, ye Triumphant Returne of Rouxls Kaard, absolute card:

But the madcap side of things doesn’t mean there isn’t real attention to fleshing out everything introduced in Chapter 1, in tandem on both the narrative side and the gameplay side. As far as the latter, we can (finally) get party members other than Kris to undertake at least basic standard non-magical actions on their own that don’t cost Tension Points, which is very much welcome. But at the same time managing TP well is even more important than before. A lot of careful grazing makes certain fights a great deal easier, in a way that I didn’t really notice for most of Chapter 1 (with the possible exception of Jevil, who I still haven’t successfully pacified). The attacks are correspondingly far denser and often don’t leave too much margin for error, but as someone with minimal hand-eye coordination I still had a reasonable time completing Chapter 2.

Well, except for one particular enemy.

oh god this fight used up every single recovery item I had

Spamton NEO is an interesting enemy, arguably more so than Jevil, and I’m not just saying that because I managed to spare Spamton but still haven’t had any success with Jevil. For one, finding the pieces of the key for Jevil’s cell is straightforward, whereas finding the Empty Disk for Spamton is itself a nightmarish dodge-fest. But more importantly, you actively have to seek Jevil out in Chapter 1, whereas your first encounter with Spamton is actually mandatory as part of the main story and then you optionally follow up on Spamton’s lead later to be able to face off against his NEO form.

Perhaps relevant to the forced nature of Spamton’s introduction is his relevance to Deltarune as a whole despite his bonus boss status. Compared to Jevil’s dialogue, Spamton’s babblings seem far more directly tied to the central themes of Deltarune around choice or agency, or rather a lack thereof (in stark contrast to Undertale’s general ethos). Jevil mostly just wants to wreak mischief and chaos; Spamton is fuelled by a need for freedom, to no longer be a puppet of ... something. And facing him in this way obviously clearly affects Kris, whose own free will is in real question ...

Oh yes, it seems now we’re really getting into the real core of Deltarune’s story, with all of the lore about the Roaring and more talk of the Knight leading up to this ending. But are Kris and the Knight one and the same? Or is Kris a puppet of the Knight? Or ... is it even the other way around? (No idea if that makes any sense but it sounds like a cool thing to throw out there.)

And another thing: this staticky smile ...

I would guess that’s Chapter 3′s boss once we actually go through this new Dark World, but why does this static remind me of the static you see behind Spamton’s glasses in some of his creepier shop dialogue? Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but there’s certainly an embarrassment of riches to over-analyse, even around Chapter 2′s bonus boss.

And I haven’t even talked about every other character being amazing. Susie of course continues to undergo really positive development, but Noelle seems to get the bulk of the attention honestly—we not only get her to finally interact with Susie, but we also learn more about her past as well her family, both about her lost sister (strongly implied to be named December) and her mother. The latter we get not only through more dialogue with her father Rudy but also in an implicit sense through her interactions with Queen, which may well mirror her fractious relationship with an overbearing mother.

Ralsei’s characterisation doesn’t try to expand as much, instead continuing to detail what’s already been planted throughout Chapter 1—his rule of the Castle Town, his awareness of the danger posed by the potential dark/light imbalance, and so forth—but nothing quite as revelatory as with Noelle. It doesn’t mean I can’t try my best to ship Kris with Ralsei though ...

Anyway, fluffy boys and mean girls aside, it’s also nice to see characters like Berdly—who seemed like a completely incidental one-note gag character in Chapter 1—get fleshed out with reasonably compelling (although obviously insane) motivation and backstory, and one wonders which other characters may get this sort of treatment in future.

Speaking of other characters as well, how cute and/or cool are all of the new enemies and enemy-adjacent characters???

Part of me suspects Tasque Manager in particular is actually carefully engineered to break the Internet. But my favourite is Swatch, who gives off weirdly Tuxedo Mask-esque vibes to me:

And an additional bit of speculation: I strongly suspect we’ll see some persistent things across the chapters that aren’t necessarily linear in progression. When I brought Spamton’s shadow crystal to Seam, they basically chided me for not having Jevil’s crystal (for god’s sake Seam it’s not for lack of trying), but then said this:

Is it possible that the game’s keeping track of certain global things outside of any of your individual saves, and some of these certain global things might not just have to do with optional bonuses ... ? Is it possible that some of these certain global things may enable cross-chapter nonlinear gameplay to accompany all of the other Castle Town mechanics introduced in Chapter 2?

Or do I just not want to replay all of Chapter 2 if I manage to pacify Jevil?

Time will tell. How much time?

Only time will tell on that front too, I guess.

Overall: Chapter 2 of Deltarune is another spectacular episode in Toby Fox fleshing out this unbelievable yet somehow credible world in his madcap way, and you can bet I will be watching for future chapters with great interest.

PS: I finished Chapter 2 of Deltarune to have a good time and I’m honestly feeling so attacked right now—

look expiration dates are important okay

[star-scrambled]

Wait, you would be upset if it doesn't turn out Knuckles is the last echdna? I get that's different from canon, but so is Movie!Sonic in a lot of ways.

yeah maybe a little pissed LMFAO 😭 it depends how they’d go about it but honestly with the proposed ideas of those fake leaks, combined with how them actually showing up in this movie for more than two seconds with speaking roles would be STRANGLING that budget of theirs...you gotta be honest, it sounds like they’d be creating the most unnecessary changes and problems for themselves that would create a worse product and story anyway. I think if that were to happen, it would be WAY different from those fabricated concepts and honestly probably still really strong?? My belief is they’d find some sort of compromise. Maybe other echidna are out there, but for whatever reason they aren’t really in contact with Knuckles, and are still otherwise just a concept that exists. I don’t really want them to stay relevant in any present story, honestly. Flesh em out through flashbacks n whatever but otherwise they’re overstaying their visit and them interacting directly with Knuckles COMPLETELY takes away from the fact that he is supposed to be an unsocialized loner, the exact traits that lead him to falling for Robotnik’s tricks.

But, it’s honestly hard to talk about that hypothetical situation, since...I believe we are getting a really source-material faithful Knuckles with 100 percent certainty by this point. Jeff Fowler, amongst others, has made their vision clear for what they want to do with the character, and I’m pretty sure it would be impossible to carry that out and not have him being the last of his kind at the VERY forefront of your mind when getting started with the conceptualization process.

And yes, I’m aware Movie! Sonic is very different, but like...did Sonic really have that fleshed out of a main backstory or character anyway upon his debut? All that was needed was to go from Point A to Point B, creating an origin story for this Sonic and Robotnik. It’s the fact that in order to give Sonic a more multi-faceted personality with big emotional motivations FOR that backstory and journey...they had to dig a little deeper for how to do that. Knuckles has a lot more canon history and backstory behind him, from his late tribe to his connection to the Master Emerald, even including how he befriended Sonic. They wouldn’t need to do as much ground-up work for him if they knew they already had some solid and iconic material to work with for him, it’s practical. Why change a character backstory and motivation that’s already is so easy to carry out and sympathize with?

That’s not to say I want Knuckles to be COMPLETELY 100% accurate and unchanged from his 90s self, though, which I don’t think I express enough :O

If the clan is gone, would Knuckles know more about them and how that went down? It appears he wasn’t in the vicinity of this movie’s Master Emerald altar when he encountered Robotnik, so where was he? What’s his association with the Master Emerald? If it’s guarded and hidden away, and he knows how to access it, what has he been doing otherwise? If he doesn’t need Sonic’s power, but it’s his destiny to destroy him, what does that say about why he’s taking on Sonic? Does he know about his tribe’s actions, such as killing Longclaw or going after Sonic? What does he think of them? Is Angel Island a thing in this universe? What planet, island, or location would he live on otherwise? The same island Sonic grew up on? Will he be able to glide? Cause god I hope not I’d rather it be retconned if they can’t make it look good why even bother HAHA 😭 and then of course you have his charged-up electric-y powers too!

Movie!Knuckles already poses so many questions and new concepts that I welcome with open arms! Heck, there’s some things I could understand maybe not having the time or reason to address (like his gliding...maybe his whole thing with setting off traps n stuff in S3&K too? could be maybe touched on when in the labyrinth ruins but otherwise he’s literally on an unfamiliar location for majority of the film lol), and I’m totally okay with that! For the sake of this movie universe being its own separate thing from all other Sonic media, I genuinely love all the changes brought to the interpretations of these stories through the lense of the new rules, logic, and lore put into place (without it we wouldn’t be getting Sonic/Knuckles warrior family drama which IS SO COOL). I just have enough faith to know that those who work on this know the grounds they’re traversing in terms of which pre-established concepts they can switch up and which they can alter slightly to fit this new world, but not so much that it throws non-fans AND super fans for a loop.

None of this made sense probably and was more needlessly complicated than necessary, but TLDR: I don’t know anyone who’d want Knuckles’ backstory to be changed to what the reddit posts entailed?? honestly if they hit anything but That Stuff i will not complain whatsoever 👍

[cappymightwrite]

What do you think is the big memory lapse that GRRM is preparing for Sansa in the future ?

With the “unreliable narrator” thing, I think it can apply to numerous characters tbh, not strictly in relation to Sansa. I really like the theory that Tyrion is suppressing his involvement in Tysha’s disappearance/possible murder, for instance. I think that is super interesting and fits with the dark path we are heading with him as a character — @agentrouka-blog has talked about this theory here. 

I’ve also read within Jonsa circles that maybe there’s a pre-canon (emphasis on innocent) kiss memory edit, but the thing to remember with the editing of memories is that they are usually tied to moments of trauma. So, I’m not entirely convinced by that, but I’m not opposed to the pre-canon crush theory, as long as it’s something that was never consciously acknowledged. I could see it being — and have played around with this in fic — an Oh, shit moment, of puzzle pieces finally fitting together. 

When it comes to traumatic relationships/dynamics, however, I feel like you can actually see Jon try to memory edit his perception of Ygritte:

How could he explain Ygritte to them? She's warm and smart and funny and she can kiss a man or slit his throat. "She's with Styr, but she's not...she's young, only a girl, in truth, wild, but she..." She killed an old man for building a fire. His tongue felt thick and clumsy. The milk of the poppy was clouding his wits. "I broke my vows with her. I never meant to, but..." It was wrong. Wrong to love her, wrong to leave her... – ASOS, Jon VI

There's quite a bit of back and forth here. Three instances, to be exact, with the first two giving the rose-tinted positive first, then the damning truth: (1) She was warm, smart, funny, romantic BUT she could be violent and agressive too, (2) She was young, only a girl — innocent, in a way? — and wild, BUT she literally murdered a defenseless old man who posed them no harm. The final back and forth flips this pattern, presenting the damning truth twice, but then switching back to a romanticising of events: (3) It was wrong to break his vows with her, it was wrong to love a killer, BUT she made him believe she loved him (the unloved bastard) and he *loved* her. He doesn’t completely erase the traumatic truth — that she’s a cold-hearted killer, and actually coerced him into sex, though the latter is more deeply buried — but he gives it a good go!

With Sansa, however, I’m not sure GRRM is preparing her for another big memory lapse/memory edit, because that would mean she’s going to experience/or has experienced another traumatic event and BITCH I’m tired. I’m weary George. I’ve been through enough, Sansa has been through enough. Plus, I don’t think GRRM has ever actually said that there will be another mismemory. Instead, what he has said regarding the Unkiss is that:

You will see, in A STORM OF SWORDS and later volumes, that Sansa remembers the Hound kissing her the night he came to her bedroom... but if you look at the scene, he never does. That will eventually mean something, but just now it's a subtle touch, something most of the readers may not even pick up on. [source]

I kind of interpret that to mean that she will realise that he never kissed her, maybe she might even go as far as to acknowledge that he was actually planning to r*pe her that night, that actually no amount of tragic backstory can excuse that. This realisation could be quite painful, frightening even, but it is only one that she can confront once she feels truly safe, IMO. So, I personally don’t think because she’s misremembered the Unkiss that she’s going to misremember something again, rather I feel like she is going REMEMBER. 

With that in mind, I think this remembering could play an important role in her arc of disillusionment + enlightenment. It could well help her to recognise and appreciate true love and caring when she finds it. Because with real affection and caring there are no excuses to be made, no allowances or conditions. No changing of yourself, no making yourself lesser to prop up someone else’s damaged ego. There is no need to romanticise certain moments because it is real and there is no trauma to misremember because you are safe with them and they would never hurt you. They truly love you. A selfless, giving love. *cough* I’m talking about Jon Snow, this true love is with Jon Snow *cough* 

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

Hey, do you have anymore thoughts on Membrane's parents? I know we only got a brief glimpse of them, but they're so interesting yet there's so little fan content about them. That, or I'm looking in the wrong place haha.

Ps. If I am looking in the wrong tags or place could you please direct me to the right ones?

Ah, I talked a little bit about Membrane’s parents here during my first ramblings of the quarterly and I did talk a little about that headcanon here but I might as well repeat it again. 

Like I do find it interesting, the idea that his parents are scientists. Like Membrane tried following in his parents’ footsteps and unintentionally put that pressure onto Dib as he grew up... but for me personally, there’s just a lot of reasons this doesn’t make sense.

Like Why is adult Professor Membrane the brand and face of Membrane Labs and Membrane Enterprises when it was apparently a company he inherited from his parents? Of course, it could be that Membrane did make Membrane Labs himself and his parents were just scientists and Membrane Labs wasn’t really founded, but that makes less sense.

I always kinda viewed Membrane as someone who appreciated the value and effort of hard work ethic and built everything from the ground up with his bare hands and became the World Famous Man of Science all his own and it was his Legacy. Kinda like Scroodge McDuck and his fortune. Making Membrane inherit a company from his parents kinda loses a bit for me for him as a character. 

Why did his Parents give him socks for Christmas and claim it was from Santa? They know what Uranium238 is. I’m certain of that. It could have been a Christmas Story situation like “you’ll shoot your eye out kid” but Santa is the one who gives their kids the “cool gifts” I thought every parents knew that. It’s just one of those unspoken rules...... but like... to give him socks...

Like were they really that cruel? It’s kinda hard to say...  But it does kinda paint a bad image that they did have 100% the capabilities to give him what he wanted for Christmas... and they never bothered to explain to Membrane WHY he was given socks. 

LIKE LOOK, THESE TWO FUCKS LEAVE MEMBRANE IN THE DARK FOR YEARS ABOUT THE TRUTH OF SANTA CLAUS JUST CAUSE THEY DON’T WANT TO ADMIT THEY FUCKED UP, EVEN WHEN HE PROBABLY WENT TO FAR:

I can only assume that these two science parents are dead, just from how Membrane regards them when he holds that photoframe...(and the fact that we never see them) but honestly, they were probably still around when he was a teenager and still dedicating a portion of his life to destroying santa...

I know Membrane is as thick-headed and stubborn as Dib, so maybe they tried to explain it to him, and Membrane didn’t listen, or his parents suck at explaining things... but like.... come on...  it’s your direct responsibility for unleashing this childhood santa trauma/rage....  You owe it to Membrane to be direct with him... 

But then again, Dib never listens when his Dad tries to explain what he thinks about Aliens, Cause Membrane doesn’t Not believe in aliens. He in fact says so in the show.

So perhaps they were and he just didn’t listen... there’s that...

Why is this family so obsessed with seeking the truth, but don’t listen to anyone’s opinions who are different from their own.... sigh this family.

But in any point, they could have at least said why they can’t give him Uranium238... but if they do, it’s off-screen and no further context is provided to the audience... 

It just makes sense for me that either Membrane’s family is poor, or they didn’t know what Uranium238 is... Making his Parents be scientists as well just throws a whole bunch of questions about just.... everything about this situation. It really makes me ask:

“Did his parents not give it to him because it was dangerous?”

“Or did they give him socks cause they were that unaware of what their son wanted?”

“Did they just give him socks cause they were that cruel as Membrane didn’t want to believe?” 

“If so, why socks? Why not a rocket ship or a science playset or baking volcano kit or something?” 

It just raises a whole lot more questions.

A more simple explanation that gets rid of those questionable morale questions is that his Parents were poor from a humble upbringing and could only afford him socks for Christmas. It’s a more logical and simple explanation and it’s far more cleaner than having his parents be scientists in this. 

Another thing that bothers me is Membrane’s “childhood home” in general. Look at this place:

This huge place, with a giant rocket ship, dressed to the nines in Christmas decorations.

It also very clearly shows the interior. 

We see the living room couch, and multiple Christmas trees and this huge rocketship/missle thing front and center.

And if we compare it to Membrane’s childhood home in the Invader Zim episode this is supposed to be taking place in:

Now I know that the Invader Zim show has a darker color palate than the comics and even the Netflix movie, but I’m not talking about colors here...

A smaller tree that practically touches the ceiling, Fluorescent overhead lighting,  something that looks like a couch or a side table with noticeable stains on it... garland pinned to the walls with a lower ceiling... 

This looks NOTHING at all like how Membrane’s “childhood home” is like in the comics...

This is obviously not a wealthy home, or the home of a respected enterprise as shown in the comics. 

Now, I know this franchise has a thing for inconsistencies. Canon is basically non-canon. There is no continuity, and there is no continuous timeline of events... but to model Professor Membrane’s childhood home so vastly different from this brief flash in the show, that’s a pretty big one... 

So me and @paketdimensioncomic made a theory that can kind of coincide with our fics... 

We think that 

SUPER PERFECT SCIENTIST PARENTS.....  are what Membrane wishes his parents were probably like.

And that he lied to the press about his humble origins and upbringing. He didn’t want them to know that he grew up poor because it would be something constantly brought into question everytime he posed everything... He didn’t want his parents talked about in the media at all, especially if they were passed by the time he became successful. 

So... I think Membrane’s scientist parents are an elaborate lie. He told the press. I mean, He is a scientist, he always wanted to be a scientist, he is good at being a scientist and both of his parents were scientists...

I mean... He didn’t seem too concerned about the photo of his supposed parents.. he even threw it to the wall when his son called:

RIP parents.... he hardly knew you.

Do I think the Membrane Science Grandparents have a cool design and I want to see more fan content on them? Absolutely! Go nuts!

Do I think that Membrane’s parents being scientists makes little to no sense and was just kinda made for the sake of a dumb joke without giving too much thought about how it would lessen Membrane as a character if he were just leaching off his parent's success this whole time? And does it poke a lot of holes in the idea of why his parents gave him socks as santa at all? Absolutely.

I think it’s far more likely that Membrane built up this backstory of “I was always a scientist since birth” to the press and has more fake photoshopped photos around the house to show the press when the topic of his parents actually come up.

Basically, the fandom has been around for a long time you can do what you want with Membrane parent theories because as far as I’m concerned, I always appreciated the vibe of “Poor upbringing Membrane who learned the value of hard work and unintentionally became a workaholic because of it and really put too much value in work to the point he’s unintentionally neglectful towards his own offspring the same as his father was to him” 

Rather then.... “Science parents go brrr”

But again, just my headcanon.

And I always love people drawing the science parents. 

But @esthyradler‘s Farmer Membrane Parents are definitely my favorites. 

[thatgamefromthatad]

Seen these ads? (Obey Me! Review)

This is a visual novel/otome/gacha card RPG game with the same characters and themes as featured in the ads.

As stated in many of the ads this game centers around seven demon brother love interests (as well as some other potential love interests) although the game has a lot of plot elements other than just romance. Most of the ads that I’ve seen feature real art that appears in the game one way or another, and the ads tend to be focused more on the characters and theme in general rather than specific gameplay. Of the ads that do appear to show gameplay, most of the time it’s not really what you’ll see in the game but still follows fairly close to the actual game (for example, the “kiss, free, whip” ad on the top left doesn’t show real gameplay, but you can kiss or whip that character. But that specific art comes from a gacha card I believe and isn’t what you see when you do the kissing and whipping).

A few notes before I get into the full review:

I’m a lesbian, so I’m definitely not the target audience for this game, but I always try to be objective and open-minded when playing any game I’m not the target audience for (other examples I’ve reviewed in the past are Moments, which was also primarily targeted toward women who are attracted to men, Immortal Taoists, which involved a genre I had never heard of before and really had no interest in, Time Princess, which also wasn’t my favorite genre but was still a great game, and various Genius Inc. visual novels, which are targeted more toward high-school age boys as far as I can tell).

Speaking of lesbians, this game weirdly censors the word “lesbians” but not any other LGBTQ+ terms (that don’t include the word “sexual”) as far as I can tell; I decided it was enough of a one-off thing that it wouldn’t factor a huge amount in my overall review of the game, but I think it’s still something to take note of and not let off the hook since it definitely shows bias and can be offensive to players.

This game is rated 12+ on the Apple App Store, and I was pretty harsh on Crush Crush for being rated that way because I thought it crossed the line with some of its sexually suggestive content. I kept that in mind while playing this one, and personally I don’t think it crossed the line in the same way, at least not from what I’ve played so far; although it does have sexually suggestive content (most often when interacting with the character Asmodeus, who is literally known in the game as the “Avatar of Lust”), it’s much more occasional through tidbits of dialog as opposed to in Crush Crush where it involved a whole section of the game and was more interactive in nature. I would definitely still cringe at the thought of a 12-year-old reading some of this dialog, but I think it fits fairly within the App Store descriptors of “Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content and Nudity” and “Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes.”

Last note - there is a character in this game (Luke) who has the appearance and demeanor of a small child who you can interact with in a similar way to the other love interest characters, which concerned me for obvious reasons. I looked more into this, specifically reading into all of the different dialog options involving this character, and his responses never seem to be more than platonic, which is good. He still blushes when you give him gifts and stuff, which is kind of awkward, and it seems weird to throw a kid character into an otome game, but all considered I wouldn’t say the game is promoting anything inappropriate (unlike one of the Genius VNs that clearly involved relationships between an adult and minors).

Sorry I know that’s a lot of notes and disclaimers but I just wanted to that all out of the way as general concerns anyone might have trying this game or reading this review!

Without further ado, read my full review below:

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(I’m trying a new color-coding system to help highlight some of the main points of my review if you don’t want to read my entire essay word-for-word lol. Pink is a positive aspect of the game, red is a negative aspect/criticism and purple is not necessarily positive or negative but just something I wanted to highlight.)

😈 Is the game actually fun? Yes! Just in terms of production value, this game is top notch: the art and character designs are very appealing, the transitions between characters’ poses and facial expressions during VN scenes are actually animated (which looks much smoother and more natural than switching between still images), the voice acting is great (although the VN scenes aren’t fully voice acted, some parts like phone calls are and the characters say different phrases during scenes and battles as well)(Note: all the voice acting is Japanese), and the music is FANTASTIC and perfectly sets the vibe throughout the game.

The best parts of this game in my opinion are the different personalities of the characters and the overall plot; although some of the characters’ personalities can be a bit one-note at times (for example, one character’s entire personality that I’ve seen so far is that he likes to eat and is always hungry), the characters each have their own charm and play off each other well. I found myself getting invested in each of the characters’ desires and goals throughout the story, even the characters I didn’t particularly like. The story is also chock full of humor which is always fun, and the whole world and backstory built around this game (the “Devildom” setting and the idea of an exchange student program with angels, humans and demons) are also unique and impressive.

I really enjoyed the multiple modes of storytelling i.e. how the VN chapters are supplemented with text messages and phone calls from characters and an Instagram spoof with additional side stories to unlock. I know this isn’t a new thing in mobile games (even Gardenscapes and Homescapes do it to an extent lol) but add the compelling characters and overall production value on top and it’s a really enjoyable experience. Since the home screen of the game is set up like it’s your phone, with the different parts of the game represented as “apps,” the game kind of creates a feeling like you’re really living in this world with these characters where you can freely scroll through their Instagram feeds and check the messages you get from them on your own time. The shop where you can buy items and premium currency is called Akuzon (an Amazon spoof) and the place where all your gacha cards are is called “contacts,” which further adds to the immersive effect.

The “dating” part of the game is pretty cute although I haven’t gotten super far so I’m not sure of the full scope of the romantic interactions. From what I can tell, in addition to the dialog, blushy faces and bedroom eyes you get from characters when you give them gifts and touch different parts of their body (above the belt lol), when you raise your intimacy level with them you get additional phone calls and messages from them (I haven’t played a lot of otome games but I think that’s how a lot of them go). I wasn’t that invested in this part of the game but I think there’s some strategy that goes with using the right combination of gifts and touches to maximize intimacy boosts and get certain dialog, which adds a whole other aspect of gameplay in addition to the main game. I also noticed that occasionally your choices throughout the VN chapters will give you a small intimacy boost with a certain character; I kind of wish this was even more integrated since most of the time I felt like no matter what I chose it didn’t make any difference in my relationship with characters. Also, I don’t think there’s a way to “officially” date a specific character, it’s more about raising the intimacy level to earn more interactions but it doesn’t actually affect the main plot.

As far as the main mode of progressing through the game, which is winning “dance battles” with teams from your gacha collection, this part of the game has its own positive qualities such as the cute chibi forms of the characters that appear on screen and the fact that some of the special attacks show a little anime clip of the character (of course it’s less exciting when you see the same clip every battle but I still thought it was a nice touch). I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t a rhythm aspect as the “dance battle” name would imply, and your main interaction during the battle itself is basically just tapping hearts that pop up and tapping the characters when their attacks are ready, but you also have the option to skip that whole interactive sequence and just get a result based on your team’s stats, so there’s not much to complain about there (especially since the battles are sort of a side note compared to the storytelling aspect of the game despite being the main element of RPG-based gameplay that allows you to progress). If you are interested in the RPG aspects, there’s plenty of that to work with (building teams, balancing attributes, managing resources/rewards to level up cards and progress through skill trees of sorts, all that good stuff) although you’re limited to an extent by how difficult it is to get a lot of gacha draws without paying real money. It’s even harder to be able to focus on both strategy and character relationships while playing for free when the same scarce currency is used for both gacha draws and gifts.

👿 Is this a free game or a “free game”? Despite what I just said, I would still consider it a free game - you can gradually save up some of premium currency the game gives out through tasks in order to pay for more gacha draws and other items, and as far as I can tell you can access the main story and the other parts of the game without hitting a paywall. I only got to the fourth chapter so far though so don’t take this assessment as gospel. Like with a lot of other freemium games you might feel pressured to pay (especially when you run out of gifts to give your lover boys, which was the biggest downer for me, or if you’re obsessed with wanting to collect a lot of cards or get a specific card) but since you don’t actually need to pay to progress I still consider it free.

There’s also an energy system where you hit a wall and have to wait if you run out, but I never ran out because of the huge amount of energy the game dumps on you when you first start, and it seems like there are a bunch of other ways to get extra energy as well. There also aren’t pop-up or watch-to-earn ads in this game that I saw.

💀 Features

Main visual novel scenes and storyline (the visual novel scenes come between dance battle stages and there are a few short side routes that branch off but still one main route as far as I can tell, I don’t think your dialog choices really make a different except for in how the characters react to you immediately afterward. Still the main storyline in itself is fun to follow and it’s fun to get different reactions out of the characters based on what you say)

Dance battles (I’m not fully knowledgeable about the minutia of the RPG system at play here but in general the outcome of the battle will depend on the level, rank and attributes of your cards compared against the difficulty and attributes of the stage you’re playing. There also “memory cards” that can be assigned to support your team and expendable temporary boosters called “glow sticks” that boost your stats for one battle. During the battle itself you tap hearts that appear to earn extra points and you can tap your characters when their power is charged up to “attack” your opponent and use special skills. There are guides online that go deeper into stats and strategies and such if you’re interested. Different stages have different rewards for completion and you can quick complete levels you’ve already beaten to mine resources you need)

Gacha mechanic and cards (the gacha area of this game is called “Nightmare” and there are a few different pools along with event pools each with their own odds and sets of cards you can get. For the default pools you get free draws periodically and I believe you get one free draw for each event pool IIRC. You also get a bunch of vouchers for draws when you first start the game which got me handful of SSRs and a couple URs to build a couple of solid teams right off the bat. In addition to drawing directly from gacha pools you can get some cards by collecting card pieces as rewards from stages and events until you have enough to get the actual card. Each card has its own set of stats/attributes, can be leveled up and has a skill tree of sorts that can be progressed through with resources mined through beating stages, although it’s more of an attribute tree than a skill tree since most of the branches just add points onto one of your card’s attributes. Some cards, the rarer ones, have special skills that can be used in battle)

One-on-one characters interactions and intimacy i.e. the “dating” part (there are two ways this occurs: 1) you can set a specific character to your home screen that allows you to enter into an interaction with them, with a refresh period in between interactions 2) the main way, which is through “surprise guests” after dance battles. These surprise guests show up frequently but not always, and they’re always one of the three team members you used in battle, selected randomly. For each one-on-one interaction you can do three actions - either give a gift, touch the character or ignore the character. Sometimes the character will also offer you a high five which counts as an action if you oblige. Different characters have different favorite gifts and touching different parts of the body can get a different reaction depending on the character and your level of intimacy I believe. Your intimacy level with a character increases depending on the combination of actions you perform, and sometimes the character also gives you gifts back like more energy or resources. There are guides for this online as well)

Text messages and phone calls (text messages are the main mode of storytelling outside of the main VN scenes - you get messages from characters or multiple characters in group chats that you respond to with preset messages or stickers similar to how you make choices during the VN parts. Some of the text messages correspond with the main plot as you progress, ex. A character texts you to be in a certain place at a certain time and next VN scene is of you two meeting at that place. I think other text messages also come up when you reach certain intimacy levels with characters. There are certain group messages that you don’t respond to where you’re basically spying on a group chat among characters and just get to see what everyone’s saying. In addition to written messages and emoji stickers characters will also sometimes send pictures. Phone calls are fully voice-acted dialog you have with another character and they seem to pop up when you reach certain intimacy levels - I’ve only gotten ones so far with the two characters I have the highest intimacy with)

Instagram spoof/“Devilgram” (Devilgram is an in-game photo sharing social media app similar to Instagram and the photos on there correspond to gacha cards. When you acquire the gacha card that corresponds to a Devilgram post you unlock a side story, but you also need keys to unlock further scenes from that story, which can be gradually earned through completing tasks and such)

To Do tasks (completing tasks on your To Do is the main way to earn premium currency in the game along with other rewards and resources. There are daily tasks, overall tasks and tasks specific to each character. Examples of tasks are completing a certain stage or number of stages, beating a stage using a team that includes a certain character or reaching a certain intimacy level with a character. There are also beginner missions when you start the game that I think stay available until you complete all of them)

Events (there are sometimes side story events called “pop quizzes” and gacha events that are available for a limited time, or sometimes an event has both a corresponding pop quiz and gacha pool. The pop quizzes are separate chapters with their own dance battles and VN scenes, and the battles will come with reward points that you can spend on different prizes. Sometimes there are unique cards you can only get from an event. Other minor types of events include log-in bonus events and events where you can get special types of gifts for your love interests. There’s also a feature where you can “time-travel” back to old events at some cost but I haven’t explored this much)

Jobs (you can assign characters to passively complete jobs that earn you a small amount of non-premium currency over time and also increases your intimacy with the assigned characters by a small amount)

Customization (you can unlock avatars of different characters to use for your profile and set the name you want characters to refer to you by throughout the game. You can also change the outfit of your homescreen character, change the homescreen wallpaper and change the homescreen background music by making purchases in the Akuzon shop or acquiring certain gacha cards)

⚖️ Ad Honesty Rating: 4/5 (just from the ads I’ve seen, especially the ones that appear to be running currently, there don’t seem to be blatantly fake ads and the ads show real art and do well conveying the theme and characters in the game. However some of the ads are misleading about the actual mechanics of gameplay and may also lead you to believe there are actual romance routes with the characters which is not really the case)

⭐️ Overall Rating: 5/5 (I definitely didn’t want to give this game a great rating just because it’s super popular on Tumblr but I can definitely see why it’s so popular. There are lots of things to do, the characters are very lovable, it’s funny, the art is great, the music is great and the lore and overall vibe are compelling and unique. It’s a high-quality game with a good story and I’ll probably keep playing it)

▶️ Ad Example:

▶️ Gameplay Examples:

Dance Battles

Surprise Guest

If you got through this review bless your heart ❤️ Special thanks to @human-watching-ads-from-devildom which is where I was able to view some of the ads since I was having trouble finding them elsewhere online and viewing some of them on the Facebook ad library.

Follow me for more reviews of those free mobile games you’re always getting ads for! Thanks for reading! 🥳

[qqueenofhades]

The photo set you reblogged of Yusuf and Niccolo helping throughout time just filled me with so many happy feels and it made me realize that it seems so common in media with immortal couples that they take breaks from each other and reconnect after a few decades. Which is a great trope but seeing these two that seems to have been attached at the hip since the day they met just fills me with all the heart eyes.

(I haven't read your fanfics for them yet. I know I'm a bad fan but if it helps I havent been able to read anything since all this started but while writing this ask I got the feeling that all this rambling I spewed out is a big theme)

Hush. Bad fan nothing. We all are coping with this stupid, awful year in different ways, some of us by escaping into fandom and some of us being unable to engage with it and some of us doing both or anything else. You certainly don’t owe me or anyone any obligation to interact with our content, fic or otherwise. So just to have that there on the top. You’re good, hun. :)

ANYWAY, thank you for giving me a chance to meta a bit on the boys and their relationship and to have a window into what my brain looks like pretty much 24/7 these days. (I blame them.) I keep thinking about all the ways this couple is depicted in the TOG film and how lovely it was and how unusual it is for me to have an OTP where I actually love them in canon and don’t need to violently disavow it in order to create AU fan content with just the characters. (See: Timeless, Game of Thrones, pretty much any show I’ve hyperfixated on at some point.) I love AUs anyway, because that’s the way my brain works, but the fact that I can also enjoy canon just as much is rare for me and for a lot of us. I saw a post somewhere remarking on how the fanfic for Joe/Nicky isn’t fixing anything, which is usually the point of transformative fanworks: we take something that canon atrociously fucked up and fix it. But in this case, all our interpretations are based on actually appreciating the way they’re presented in canon and wanting to enjoy that and uphold it, and that -- especially with a couple like this one -- is shocking??

Like. Despite my historian gripes about the occasionally incongruous details for their graphic-novel backstories (which are the only things I HAVE fixed in my fics), I’m just... deeply appreciative of the care which everyone, writers and actors and all else, put into depicting Joe and Nicky and their relationship. And god YES, one of the things I love the absolute MOST is that they’re a loving, faithful, committed, happy married queer couple over centuries, and that seems to be the case for as long as they’ve known each other/ever since they got together. (See Booker’s “you and Nicky always had each other.”) These fools can’t sleep apart from each other even when they’re stuck on a freight train in the middle of nowhere, they flirt like teenagers at dinnertime and even when they’re strapped to gurneys in a mad-scientist laboratory, they make out to enrage bad guys and also because they’re just still that goddamn into each other after all this time.

I think it was Marwan Kenzari who pointed out that there’s simply no way to truly state the depth of their knowledge and devotion and commitment to each other. They’re 950 years old. They have known each other since they were in their thirties; they’ve been husbands for literal centuries. There is no way anyone else in the world could possibly come close to replicating the kind of bond they have with each other, and neither of them have ever had any inclination to look, because why would they? Especially with the fact that queer couples in media, even otherwise sympathetically portrayed ones, often have Drama and Third Parties and Promiscuity and whatever else (because of the tiresome old canard that Gays Equal Hypersexualized!), and Joe and Nicky don’t need or want ANY of that. There’s no urge to make their relationship a cheap source of soap-opera conflict. It’s the rock and the center and the core of both of their lives, and everything they do stems from that.

There have been some great metas/comments on how neither Joe and Nicky are sexualized, they dress like stay-at-home dads during quarantine (Marwan Kenzari and Luca Marinelli are both objectively gorgeous men, and they’re out there looking like that, god bless), and the viewer is never invited to goggle at or fetishize their relationship. There are no leering or exploitative camera angles on anyone, and their expressions of love aren’t posed or intended to titillate the audience, they’re just solidly embodied and natural and lived in. It’s never bothered to be stated clunkily in dialogue that they’re a couple; we just see them exchanging looks and smiles in the early part of the film, and then we see them spooning on the train after the mission in Sudan, which confirms it.

At every turn, the narrative celebrates the kindness and love shared by the Immortal Family, the individual characters, and Joe and Nicky, especially and explicitly in queer form. The villains of the film are also defined by how they react negatively to that love. @viridianpanther​ had a great meta on how Keane as a villain is especially set up to menace Joe and Nicky as the narrative representation of toxic masculinity, aggressive heterosexuality, and the usual “Kill Your Gays” trope that we’ve all come to wearily expect. But instead, after that scene where Joe and Nicky fight Keane, Nicky is shot and comes back to life in Joe’s arms rather than dying permanently like we probably all momentarily expected, and then Joe gets to FUCKIN’ BREAK THE NECK of the guy who enacted that violence.... good GOD. The first time I watched it, I almost couldn’t believe it was happening. (This goes for the whole film, but especially that scene.) Like... when do we get that?? When do we EVER get that???

Obviously, there are so many stereotypes, whether visually or in behavior or character traits, that could have been assigned to a gay Italian character (excessively dramatic, effeminate, fashionable, etc) or a gay Arabic/Muslim character (explicitly announcing He’s Not Like Those Muslims, having to actively reject his heritage to make him more palatable to westerners, being tormented over being gay, etc) and Joe and Nicky subscribe to none of those. I get very emotional about Joe referring to Nicky as the moon when he is lost during the truck scene partly because it’s SUCH a common motif in Arabic love poetry. To call someone your “moon” is a beautiful way to say they’re the light of your life, and since the Islamic calendar is obviously lunar and the holidays, months, and observances, are set by the phases of the moon, this also has a deeper religious significance.

I don’t know for sure if they did that on purpose, but it it’s a lovely and subtle way of showing us how Joe clearly doesn’t have an issue with being both queer AND Muslim, and is able to draw on both facets of that identity in a way that a lesser narrative would have denied him. And that is just really wonderful. Yes, we’re seeing these characters when they’ve had centuries to settle into themselves, but there are plenty of writers who would have forced those conflicts artificially to the surface, rather than letting them be long in the past. It’s the same way when you watch a film set in the medieval era, it wants you to know that it Is Set In The Medieval Era. Cue the filth, misogyny, racism, violence, etc! Rather than it being a lived-in reality, it has to be jarringly drawn attention to, and I’m just so glad they didn’t do that with Joe and Nicky. And for them to have met in the crusades and fallen in love??! Come on. That’s just rude. Rude to me, personally.

Anyway, this was a rather long-winded and feelsy way of saying that these characters are constructed, acted, and written organically in such a way that you hate to even THINK of them being separated, and it’s not because they can’t function without each other, but because they are two halves of a whole. We also see that the characters themselves can’t stand being forced apart: Joe’s freakout in the truck scene when Nicky briefly won’t wake up, Nicky making sure to tell Joe that he’s glad he’s awake in the lab, the whole post-Keane fight scene that I talked about above, the way Nicky fights ferociously to get to Joe when Merrick’s stabbing him, etc. For that to be given to the queer couple, where the strength of their love and devotion is reinforced as one of the emotional goals of the story, and for that queer couple to be written in the way that Joe and Nicky are, both individually and as a unit, is just so very rare.

Because yes, there’s plenty of drama and angst and pain in their lives, but there’s none at all in their relationship, and that’s what fans keep telling TV writers the whole time: they WANT to see the couple confront things as a unit, rather than being kept on tenterhooks the whole time and forced to go through manufactured or artificial drama. It would feel especially wrong for Joe and Nicky, who have known and loved each other for 900 years. The fact that their respective actors also put so much care and love into them is very obvious, and makes me feel even luckier that they’re played by people who clearly get them and honor them and know what they’re doing.

Basically: of course Joe and Nicky have been with each other the whole time, and of course we’re all drowning in feelings over it, and I feel very blessed that this ship exists, and I very much need the sequel ASAP. Thanks.

[epicspheal]

Sonia Deserved Better

I’ve been thinking about Sonia’s arc and character in Sword and Shield and while I adore her character, after thinking about it, I feel she was also shafted in terms of development.

I’ll start with the good, Sonia has a very relatable backstory in being a young adult that has no idea what she wants to do with her life. And seeing her childhood friend Leon and her good friend Nessa go on to be successful household name also hits close to home in the age of social media when you can see people you grow up do great things while it seems like your own life is stalling. This setup I think I was really great and probably the best thing about her character. I can relate to her a lot as I’m sure many others can as well, it’s a backstory that makes people want to root for her character. She also actually does make a name for herself which is what she wanted in the end.

But that’s where in my opinon it ends as far as good things for Sonia in my opinion as the narrative tends to take away a lot from her in the story.

She doesn’t get to battle: Now there’s nothing wrong with having non-battlers in Pokemon be a part of the main narrative. But there is an issue when a narrative continuously makes a deal about Sonia being a former gym challenger and once-rival to the then unbeatable champion and not allow the player to battler her at least once. That information primes the player to expect a battle with her to see why she was Leon’s rival yet the fact that it never happens just ends up making this fact of her “telling rather than showing” (this is something that plagues many SwSh characters). She doesn’t have to have level 70+ Pokemon or anything, but her character would’ve benefitted greatly from this not to mention this could’ve helped Hop to in realizing just because you’re not the number one trainer in the region doesn’t mean your bad and that you can still have fun. What’s worse is that there has been evidence that she was supposed to be battleable based on datamined battle poses for her. 

She lacks agency in her goal: One thing that had bugged me is how in the end she only really starts her arc because she’s yelled at by her Grandma to do something because a couple of kids are starting their journey. Especially when if you talk to her again after her initial introduction in the Wedgehurst lab, you’ll know that Sonia herself has been feeling quite restless. Sonia’s overall arc would have in my opinion been a lot stronger if she herself had of decided to go out and do the research and not be yelled at by Magnolia (which realistically would’ve likely demoralized her rather than motivate her). We already know at this point in the story that there’s a lot to uncover about Dynamaxing, that Magnolia is old, and that Sonia is restless. Perfect moment to give Sonia a chance to say “You know what I want to prove to my gran that I can be her assistant so I’m going to finish up some loose threads on her research that I find interesting”

Her Flaw In Giving Up Too Easily is Never Exploited: Something that is brought up on Opal’s note is that Sonia has a tendency to give up too quickly. The type of person who instead of adapting to challenges, runs away. Again this is a flaw that lot of people can relate to. But this is never exploited to give Sonia meaningful character development. Unlike Bede who has a undying loyalty to Rose which backfires spectacularly and Hop who’s initial arrogance backfires spectacularly on him, Sonia being too quick to give up NEVER comes into play while she’s doing research which I call major BS on as a researcher myself.

I do research as a day job and let me tell you, research is hard. You make wrong hypotheses, your experiments flat out fail, you go weeks even months without making any headway. Everyone I know who has done research has had that moment where you want to quit even the most persistent of people. Sonia was not ever put in a position where her flaw comes to bite her in her butt. With the type of research she was doing in game, I could easily see a situation where she just doesn’t have leads for a long time making her discouraged (something that with the whole historical coverup thing would’ve fit easily). This could make her want to give up but she eventually finds her resolve to keep going because maybe her doing historical research rather than looking at the physics of Dynamax is more her thing, thus making her graduation into being a professor feel actually earned. Not only that it would show that she’s doing this research for herself and not just because her grandma asked her to.

Good Plot Points Go Nowhere: Sonia has three things that are mentioned in game that could’ve great aided her characters and others that is never expanded upon. The first is her soured Rivalry with Leon. It’s clear the Sonia/Leon rivalry is supposed to parallel the MC/Hop rivalry and show what could’ve happened if things went differently...except we never find out what happened that made it soured. It’s especially jarring when you consider that the first onscreen interaction between Leon and Sonia is kind of tense (again leading credence to the soured rivalry and friendship) but scenes afterwards gloss over it.  A cutscene or a bit of dialogue that explained it would’ve gone a long way in fleshing out Sonia’s backstory and also would’ve benefitted Leon’s character as well.

The second point is that she is under professor Magnolia’s shadow. It never really gets the attention it deserves which is a shame because this is a perfect way for her to bond with Hop who is also dealing with the same being in Leon’s shadow. This could’ve allowed the two to bond and give them both the chance to realize they don’t have to be exactly like their family members in order to be successful. 

The final point is the fact that when she was younger she wandered in the slumbering weald and came back “in a state”. Yet this is never brought up again. Considering that Sonia’s arc revolves around the history and mythology of Galar you would think this would be brought up again. This ties back to her lack of agency as her wanting to find out what happened during her time in the weald could’ve been added motivation for her to get out and travel herself, rather than have Magnolia yell at her to do something. Let her be motivated by her own experiences rather than being shoved out the door

So yeah that’s where Sonia’s arc just doesn’t do well for me. The sad part is I feel like the fixes are relatively simple. Just:

Give her a chance to battle to show why she was a trainer that could be Leon’s rival and earn Opal’s praise

Allow her more agency in choosing her direction rather than her being sent out by her grandma

Let her struggle with the research and her tendency to quit and let her find her resolve so she can show she’s not the same kid who gave up on her gym challenge

Explore her past rivalry with Leon, her dynamic with her grandmother and her experience in the weald to flesh out her character as well as other characters

All it would’ve taken were a maybe a couple of cutscenes or extra dialogue bits to really make her act the best that it could be.