#like im extrapolating a lot here

[microwaving-tesilid-argente]

ok i might be talking complete nonsense here, but. the Strict Order as a metaphor for an author facing writer's block.

"the Strict Order abandoned the world," yeah if i wrote a sweet potato story where the main character just keeps suffering with no sign of resolution, i'd drop the story too (<- has actually done this with a tesilid fanfic orz)

"The world rejected the Strict Order's abandonment, so to keep the world going the Strict Order made Tesilid keep rewinding time." That's just like when you get stuck at a certain point in the plot and keep rewriting the events leading up to that moment to try to make it work. nods sagely i understand. i too make my OCs go through scenarios lots of times until we get it right. sometimes it takes months. sometimes it never works.

"The saintess only exists in timeline ~86," oh yes, the classic 'idk how to solve this problem so i'll introduce a new character' trick. i'm familiar

"okay but if time looping is the Strict Order rewriting the story, then why can Tesilid remember it" because the author already wrote those scenes and it'll be sad to throw them all out. and also it's a cool gimmick to have a regressor story. (<- has drastically changed the premise and worldbuilding of a story just to make an alternate timeline relevant before)

"what about ailette's existence--" same as muriel, where you insert a new character in hopes of solving a plot problem. except this time the characters write the plot themselves, because just this once you give priority to their character traits & goals rather than where you thought you wanted the plot to go. (tesilid has someone he can be himself around and who can do certain things on his behalf, instead of being fully constrained by his obligations. ailette gets insane buffs instead of being restricted by the world's difficulty.) therefore the chars now have more agency and are not only solving problems, but also taking the story in a direction you never would have thought of before. (whatever the hell tesilid and ailette are cooking rn, separately, which is surely going to result in interesting developments later on)

tldr; the strict order as a metaphor for an author who hit writer's block. their friend World Shaper inserts their OC Ailette in and their writing style is to let the characters run away with the plot. it works. world shaper and all their friends are co-writers working on the story together and reacting to it in real time.

[suckishima]

*bangs fists on table* haikyuu and food!!!!!!!! and how furudate uses it to illustrate the varying levels of drive different characters have!!!!

so, context (chp 213), this panel is hinata narrating as he's walking to the bus stop after day 2 of the first years training camp. he was told a few hours ago by washijo that he's not allowed to stay for meals or to sleep over, but since then he's been diligently watching the other players who were invited—he stays late after the regular hours of the camp for extra practice as a ball boy not a spiker/player. and the FIRST thing we see once he's done playing is four whole pages of how hungry he is and what should he do about it, and not just to literally feed his physical hunger but also in order to become a better player!!! food is muscle!!

all of that is so so good and makes me crazy but what i wanna talk about real quick is just this little panel. (1 i love that hinata is even thinking about whether tsukki is eating, he's probably half jealous wishing he could eat those wasted leftovers, and half actually worried whether he's eating) But mostly it's the "he'll leave stuff if nobody's watching to make sure he does [clean his plate]" line that i think is extra effective here

it's so small in comparison to the rest of hinata's hunger narration, but i love that furudate does take a moment to acknowledge that not all of the players are as hungry as hinata! and by using tsukki, someone who we know is less passionate and driven than a lot of the other characters—who earlier in this chapter refused to do extra practice, while hinata accepted it—as the example of someone who eats less, it just further emphasizes furudate's point that it isn't just physical hunger we're talking about here. hunger=desire, drive, passion

and then the bit about tsukki only finishing when someone's watching is a great piece of characterization and insight into his current volleyball mindset—tsukki doesn't like to eat a lot. tsukki only puts in the minimum effort necessary. tsukki will get away with less if no one is looking—in life and on the court. and none of this is new info either, hinata has been eating a ton since the beginning of the series and tsukki has been eating less (there's the scenes at tokyo camp of the third years trying to get him to eat more, or if you ever look his plate in any eating scene his portion is way smaller than everyone else's, despite him being a lot bigger than them) and furudate chooses now, when hinata is at the biggest developmental crossroads of his life to start to really start to shine a light on the theme!!

then of course hunger is contagious too and eventually during camp tsukki does stay for extra practice, he specifically invites hinata to practice with him, and even though tsukki questions himself, he does it anyway (chp 214)

and eventually, eventually, tsukki does start to get hungry too (chps 283 & 284, right to left)

it's not 'ugh i'm so tired i want to stop,' it's 'ugh im so tired, i wish i had enough to keep going' which isn't too far of a jump to him saying 'i like this, i want to keep going' !! which of course, he does admit to volleyball being fun the next day during the next match, thanks to everyone who helped him get there, including hinata and his contagious, never ending hunger

food is volleyball, volleyball is fun and volleyball is connection, connection is love

it was never just about food!!!!!!!!

[humanmorph]

I still think about “Another Word for Righteousness” by boo_cool_robot btw. Like its just up there. The Divine Scrupulosity is making me sooooooo. Like what do you meannnn thats MY brand of mental illness in the form of a divine software program that lives in a man’s brain/the suitcase he carries around. Good lird

It’s so sick that theyre listed as synonyms truly but like I get it. I got there. It’s incredible really.

righteous (adjective) 1: acting in accord with divine or moral law : free from guilt or sin 2: a: morally right or justifiable     b: arising from an outraged sense of justice or morality

(+ from the fatt. wiki article for Rightenousness: “[...] a deep commitment to others in the broad sense, but in the narrow sense is willing to do whatever it takes for that commitment, [...]”)

scrupulous (adjective) 1: having moral integrity: acting in strict regard for what is considered right or proper

And like. The way that scrupulosity too makes you intensively care about others and to do right by them but in a way that puts yourself down while holding yourself to this high standard that righteousness just brings from itself...

It’s Ibex and Righteousness putting themselves Above... They know what’s best. What has to be done. And then Orth and Scrupulosity

But then again, Scrupulosity never likes its Candidates to be too comfortable.

-

Orth closes his eyes. “The first thing in any situation that Scrupulosity finds the flaws in is me. I don’t think meanness can scare me anymore.”

And how this makes Orth easier to manipulate like I’m going to screammmm. The way he numbs to it it is internalized and also what’s so so good here is that it is really truly exhausting to feel like this. And Orth is Oh so miserable and susceptible to someone complimenting him or trusting him even if he KNOWS it can’t be true.

“Meaning no offense to you of course. Dogs are wonderful. People trust dogs.”

“None taken,” Orth assures him. It would be nice to be trusted.

^ So good to meeeee because when you constantly have to be on guard that extends to yourself too and how you think other people perceive of you. Orth mentioning multiple times he Expects people to be put off or not trust him. Augh !

ALSO Orth making a point to separate himself from Scrupulosity (specifally to put himself down too. “Not my specialty. Scrupulosity’s.“). BUT at the end when

Scrupulosity says, You can’t trust him.

Scrupulosity says, You can’t trust yourself.

“I know,”Orth says aloud. He’s always known that.

Attar Rose looks down at him and smiles.

                  sorry i lost it for a moment. Because it Is a part of him it’s in thereeee. Maybe it’s always been.

anyways. good fic good fic

[sanstropfremir]

hii i love reading your kpop asks it makes some things click in my head!! idk if you know them that well but do you have any opinions on verivery's dancing? i feel their dance line is pretty strong in the realm of idol dancers/choreo goes 😊 like for me there's something about hoyoung's dancing that's so pleasing to watch lol idk if it's his body control or lines but i think he balances out the rigid nature of idol choreo really nicely without losing the sharpness of the dance

hello! i am somewhat familiar with verivery although i don't follow them that closely. they do have a very strong performance line, although that isn't really enough nowadays to be a group's signature anymore. verivery falls into the same trap that a lot of fourth gen boy groups do, and that is that they haven't quite found a thing that makes stand out from the glut of other fourth gen bgs of the 7+ member variety. i think they're maybe getting a bit closer to establishing something with their cbs this year, which i've found to be the most compelling work they've done (other than photo from rtk), but obviously it depends on if they keep up that theme or not as they carry forward.

i do think hoyoung is one of their stronger dancers; he has pretty good control, but personally i don't think verivery's choreo generally is that interesting to me, so i don't usually have a particular draw to watching them.

[ultimateinferno]

When the students I tutor consider me trustworthy enough to confide deeply personal issues in me and my self-actualization as "just as a guy" starts to fall apart:

[northern-passage]

is it weird/wrong of me to always play a lesbian character as a man? like no mater what if game i always try and be female, the man mc i just can fit into as a man myself. i dont think its anything to do with wanting to be a woman (but if i was reborn and able to chose how i looked and what gender i would be i would pick to be a woman) im just a bit confused becuse i have seen people say that im basiclly sexuallising lesbians and its very wrong of me to do that. im just lost becuse it dont want to sexualise that but i just feel more comfrotble being a woman in the game becuse it feels like im able to express myself more/be more emotinal, but if im a man ingame it jusr feels wrong of me to do any of that, like im not soppused to.

well... it doesn't really sound like you're sexualizing anyone. what you've described here doesn't really seem to have anything to do with sex in that way at all. it sounds like you just feel more comfortable playing as a woman and there's nothing wrong with that.

there are definitely some games that do write their male and female mcs differently & force them into a very strict gender role (ie man is always big, strong, stoic & masculine whereas woman is always small, dainty, emotional & feminine) and i can definitely understand that it can be uncomfortable being forced into that little box. as a butch lesbian myself i often don't like playing as a stereotypical "submissive feminine woman" & will sometimes choose to play as a man instead to avoid it.

there is absolutely nothing wrong with playing games or exploring characters that are different from you. in fact i think it's very important to learn about other people's experiences. my other game, blood choke, has a lesbian mc but i have no issue with other people playing it; in fact i encourage it!

and now, to be clear, i absolutely am just a random stranger on the internet and there is no way i can extrapolate anything about you and nor do i want to assume anything. but i really really urge you to maybe do some reflecting about why you may feel this way. maybe you are just uncomfortable with being confined to specific gender roles and that's absolutely fair on its own. we live in a patriarchal society that puts a lot of pressure on both women and men to be a certain way. you can express yourself and be emotional as a man, regardless of what society says, if that's what you want. and you can play games as a woman if that makes it easier for you to do that.

but you also just admitted to me that you feel more comfortable playing as a woman in self-insert games because you feel like you can better express yourself as a woman, and that if you had the chance, you would purposefully choose to be a woman in real life.

i feel like i have to let you know that you can actually be a woman in real life, right now, if that is what you really want instead.

at the end of the day i can't tell you what it is that you want nor can i really give you "permission" to do something. maybe none of this really applies to you at all-- again, i'm just a random person on the internet. i don't know you. but based on what you just told me i think it would be worth it for you to sit in these feelings and really think about them and what they may mean. maybe it means nothing. or.... maybe you learn something new about yourself.

either way, just know that what you're doing-- playing as a woman/lesbian-- is fine. especially if it is something that brings you comfort & allows you to express yourself in a way that you feel you normally can't.

much love to you anon 🫶

[lemuel-apologist]

like, i've tried expressing this to (health) professionals before, but it's true that, if you're participating in the criminal justice system, you aren't "allowed" to be mentally ill. that goes for defendants especially. like, obviously, you are, kinda, in a clinical sense (as long as it's in the bounds of what they can deem sympathetic, or treat, or imprison, or defend, or impeach, whatever the fuck else), but you're... not... supposed to have symptoms of it, if you catch my drift? im bouncing off of joy's point here. it goes for interrogation, and it goes for the stand.

you're not allowed to be anxious; you're not allowed to be fidgety; you're not allowed to be anything. and god forbid you display symptoms of something worse than anxiety, right? (quote-unquote worse.)

i come from a family of very fidgety people. but, like-- fidgeting like that is very often seen as a sign of untrustworthiness. and you're not supposed to bring anything up to the stand with you other than your notes and anything meant to assist in presenting your evidence, as allowed by policy and law (depending on where you are, etc etc etc WHATEV).

im the kind of person who has to prepare to be on the stand to testify about scientific principles. if im an expert witness, my opinion is exclusionary, and i have exculpatory evidence, but the jury deems me untrustworthy because of my body language, my entire testimony is worthless. extrapolate this to the defendant. you've already been deemed guilty during interrogation because of your body language (because you're fidgety and anxious, and that was enough to push it further). if that continues on the stand, there are absolutely deleterious effects.

like, im on the stand for the sake of science. my aunt, my stepdad-- they're not on the stand for science, they're up there to defend themselves.

it's a pileup of really small social stigmas from people who think they've cracked a code on how people are. but most "body language analysis" is really just kind of bullshit. a lot of the behavioral analysis stuff they use is very "yeah, kinda, but no, because you're making a super broad generalization and applying it incorrectly," and then they stick their fingers in their ears and do something counterproductive that leads to further recidivism. but WHATEVER, WHAT DO I KNOW, I DIDN'T TAKE PSYCH.

[racmune]

@tf2shipswag

propaganda for the sniper/spy/sniper versus scout/fried chicken lady/pauling war!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEYRE A CRACK SHIP TO *YOU*. TO ME THEYRE SO MUCH MORE. ALLOW ME TO INDULGE MYSELF. THIS IS HEADCANON HEAVY BC THE FRIED CHICKEN LADY LITERALLY ONLY SAID ONE THING IN THE ENTIREITY OF CANON BUT WHO GIVES A RATS ASS!

theyre such a qpr no one even understands. beyond scout n the fried chicken lady's initial sexual encounter i like to imagine theyve become good friends. perhaps she was from boston as well and her and scout bonded over that, along with a shared sense of humor and laid back attitude. they hang out together and watch tv, get pizza and make out, talk about their childhoods etc. I JUST THINK ITD BE FUN OK.

her and miss pauling have their meetcute at a barbeque during the fourth of july. the fried chicken lady was invited to come along by scout and is just chilling and grabbing some extra meatballs for her plate. miss pauling initially notices her for being a pretty woman but as they talk and the night goes on they bond from both believing in keeping things practical. shes also a lot less uptight than miss pauling however, which leads to a lot of playful teasing (from scout too LOL)

i think scout and the fried chicken lady enable a lot of each other's worse habits and so miss pauling has to deal with two different messy bitches LMAO. also another headcanon i have for their dynamic as an entire unit is that miss pauling will be up late doing paperwork in her home office and they'll be sleeping on her bed, and when she's finally done she goes in and snuggles with them.

im just gonna leave out my thoughts about scout n miss paulings dynamic for the time being cause if i did id be here forever but i did already make a post on my headcanons which you can find here.

ANYWAY THEYRE SO FWB CODED. THEYRE SO QPR CODED. IM SO DELULU COCO BANANAS CODED. IM SO EXTRAPOLATING A CHARACTER FROM A 4 SECOND CUTAWAY GAG CODED. K THANKS FOR READING BYE.

oh also miss pauling and the fried chicken lady's ship name is "lady and the tramp" i dont make the rules

[hyperfixated-chaos]

"Caleb and Hunter parallels" this and "Caleb and Hunter parallels" that--everyone needs to shut the FUCK up and think about Caleb and Luz parallels okay??

THEY HAVE SO MUCH IN COMMON. Caleb and Luz are both from the human realm but they weren't happy there. They both felt confined like they didn't fit in/belong there, so they ran off to the Boiling Isles (and were led by a Clawthorne) to escape that life. They're both curious souls who wanted to learn about a new world, and got a witch gf, palisman, and a new life there. They each had one (1) family member who they cared for back in the human realm but ultimately decided to hide their Boiling Isles adventures from. Aforementioned family member was hurt and betrayed when they found out the truth.

And then there's their differences. Caleb's environment was more religiously oppressive and Philip was much less understanding than Camila. Not only did he not want to work on their relationship, but he would rather Caleb die than be a witch sympathiser. Whereas Camila actually supports Luz. Luz also finds a way to balance her human and demon realm lives.

If you use Luz as a blueprint, you can extrapolate a lot about Caleb and the possible friendships and found family, and the arc he went through to feel comfortable there. You can also see where their stories would differ, with Caleb being suspicious and nervous where Luz was more enthusiastic and reckless. AND THE POSSIBLE LUMITY/CALYN PARALLELS IM ASDJFKJSDLFAS

Caleb is the original Luz, whose story ended in tragedy. Luz is his successor, whose story came full circle and got the happy ending they both deserved. (And she kicked his murderer's ass, which I'm sure he approves of)

THERE'S SO MUCH HERE GUYS WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS. PLEASE THEY LIVE IN MY HEAD RENT FREE SOMEONE TALK TO ME ABOUT THEM IM AJKLDFJA

[meruz]

i feel weird posting video on tumblr it just doesnt really seem like the platform for it like when im using this website i dont really watch videos... i look at gifs and niche memes.... but ive been making a lot of videos for tiktok/instagram so idk. heres one you can see more here

ANYWAYS process for this piece . also before I started recording anything i did most of the lineart between assignments on my work computer so i put some screenshots of that below the cut.

lately ive been drawing whatever bg perspective/lines makes sense for a pose and then positioning the angle/composition/"camera" after.

original sketch i started with + bg I extrapolated around it. i did this for a bunch of my life is strange 2 fanart also.

final framing. kinda makes me feel like a photographer. or 3d modeller. I guess its makes dutch angles especially easier. theyre kind of difficult for me to do without drawing the normal un-dutched perspective first so i rarely plan out a dutch angle from the beginning. downside is that i ed up cropping out a lot of the drawing but.. thats why ive been doing it after the lines phase as opposed to after colors LOL.

[jessaerys]

i love thinking about death note rammys like the L backstory one-shot tells us he was a little feral demon that required constant enrichment to keep him from mayhem and destruction and violence and at age like seven he asked for a computer (asked for it, allegedly nobody planted the idea in him. we dont even have time to unpack that) and then fucking. cracked the stock market and thats why the wammy, uh, foundation, is so wealthy

and then when that gets boring he becomes a detective because solving crimes was better enrichment. like it's about that deep. and listen im not an L specialist i'm sure a lot more depth can be read into his character idk. i just got here. but regardless that's the reason he gives watari which poses the questions --

why, then, would he need a successor? who built the L legend, and what was the purpose? was it watari? did he want legacy? generational wealth? power? glory? why not stick with one weirdo golden ticket orphan and call it a day ?

why were they running this unbelievably unethical indoctrination program where they psychologically tortured orphans for years into believing being L's successor was the height of human achievement and the only meaning to their lives?

L looms so large and transcendental and godlike over mello's and near's entire existence (and we can extrapolate other children at wammys) to the point that it costs them both their life. mello's dead, near has been devoured by the role of L. and he was just some guy. literally some guy they heard a lot of stories about. they were basically raised to have intense chronic second child syndrome

anyway i know the reason is because death note was written basically by the seat of ohba's pants and none of this was considered (my favourite tidbit of information is that mello wouldnt have died if the artist had told him he was fun to draw) but i'm gonna steal it and run with it and elevate the text because that's some the secret history julien + the greek class shit. this is how religions get invented

[rubenhopclap]

(hi, tumblr user ratgrinders here!)

actually, since i mentioned it briefly in the tags i wanted to ask you directly, whatre ur thoughts on ruben being the scapegoat of the group/the one whos unfairly picked on the most by jace and porter?

because jace has WAYY more of a presence in rubens life compared to the other rat grinders, like kipperlilly is seemingly handling the devils nectar/aelwyn transactions all on her own meanwhile jace is directing ruben every step of the way, dictating where he performs, being cc'ed on everything even something as relatively innocuous as a podcast. that reeks to me of "youre too incompetent for me to trust you to do this yourself so just do exactly what i say"

plus he has his uncle henry on campus being an obstruction to their whole plan which im sure has got to annoy the shit out of jace and porter, which i dont doubt they take out on ruben because no other rat grinder (that we know of) has been as much of an obstacle.

do you think when jace and porter play favorites and turn the rat grinders against eachother, theres constant "dont be like ruben" "at least youre not as bad as ruben"? and do you think the rat grinders started to believe it?

i am a sucker for this kind of thing. huge bias. i love it. and yeah i find it extremely plausible. i kinda want to do one of those huge "season so far" analysis posts, BUT the relevant short of it is, imo, Ruben is the only RG who was upfront deliberately antagonizing the Bad Kids.

(Mary Ann, Oisin and Ivy i would categorize as not upfront, and Kipperlilly and Buddy I would categorize as not deliberate. by which i mean i think they started every interaction with absolutely no intent to antagonize the bad kids. well the arena im not sure about lol. but we lack the info to know what the goals were still.)

his interactions with the BKs ended up being a lot less explosive than Kipperlilly's overall and Jace might not even have heard about them specifically, but i still extrapolate it to a sort of nonchalant lack or refusal of impulse control that fits well with that role.

and the thing about how tightly Jace is running his life! if nothing else being in that constant tight circle gives Jace a lot more opportunity to turn on him. like he sends generic messages telling all them "just cut it out" and then the RGs kind of are all trying to figure that out with each other (meaning Oisin and Ivy are Doing Their Best). but he's also talking directly specifically to Ruben. AND yeah.. i hadnt directly compared it in my head to the way that Kipperlilly is allowed to handle her own part of things. but it's a really good point!

i at times joke that he's a doofus (affectionate) bc of not picking up on Fig's Clark Kent ass "i missed the emergency? and showed up right after the hero disappeared?" nonsense, but like. to be fair to him. he exists in a world where Fig can do whatever she wants as long as it's funny.

rewatching the bus scene, and remembering that she rolled a nat 20 for the entire scene, and he is therefore quite a bit limited in how badly this can go for her.... he's pretty on the ball. he does not let her run away with the conversation. and in a very natural way, also not dropping that this is a girl he wants to be reasonably pleasant with. ( though at one point Brennan almost drops out of the character voice, seemingly because it's blended so closely with just him pressing Emily on her shenanigans.) i think he could probably handle more independence! at least on that basis

and yeahhh ugh Henry. i dont know how quickly he picked up on something going on, and how much he's been pressing before the scene we saw. i dont think he'd just give up after though. and it cant be a comfortable position

[yonpote]

I have a confession. i only just recently converted to the phan side because english is my second language and dnp are so damn confusing sometimes. because of all their emphasis on not wanting to share their private life and I think phil said he wouldn’t want us to know if he had a partner in one of his q and as? I just kind of went with that and was like “yeah they’re not dating!!” despite the proof in the opposite direction. that’s also why I get a little upset when people claim that those that think dnp are not in a relationship are homophobic bc honestly I don’t think that’s the case. I think some people are just confused about what the hell they’re talking about lmao

okay. there's a lot here i'm gonna go thru this step by step.

- heres both the clips of dnp's separate statements on privacy wrt their relationship. neither of them say that they are not dating but rather they want to keep the particulars of their relationship to themselves. these were posted in 2019 and 2021 respectively.

- dan did a bunch of interviews and podcasts from 2020-2023. in a couple of them, he extrapolated further upon his and phil's relationship, saying things like "best friends, enemies, husbands, partners in crime, who the fuck knows," "4000 year old tortoises watching the sunset" and the classic, "so youre just a normal gay couple?" "basically yeah."

- there's a difference between acknowledging things that they have said publicly and further prying into the details of their life.

- it's understandable that not everyone's heard about these interviews! and esp if english isnt your first language, it can definitely be difficult to read in between the lines, which dan and phil understand that some fans have done ("we know you know" at the end of a newsletter.) so the homophobia thing wasnt against you or people who just havent had full context

- i am talking about people who do know all of the context and still frame them as EXCLUSIVELY best friends or queerplatonic.

they ARE best friends! it's not INCORRECT to call them best friends! but some people then get upset when others are like yeah they're husbands and married and dating and in a relationship and love each other on the basis of "breaching privacy." when it's like, HOPEFULLY no one is stalking their family members, trying to figure out their address, harassing or spamming them etc. we're going off the basis of the things they have said publicly and more importantly RECENTLY. not when they were in the closet.

i hope this makes sense and i hope it doesnt sound like im coming after you! and like i said its understandable for people who havent had the full context, but at the same time if youre someone who's just watching their recent videos, the vibes are just clear to me.

[infectedpaul]

i thought about how pauls one . real reoccuring character arc/theme other than the unsaid (said and just completely treated as normal and casual and not Terrifying and really said) depression and complete need to strip himself of humanity is Emma Perkins. shes got a lot going on lots of stuff you can write and expand on with emma and her relationships, coworkers, in laws shes trying to build a real connection with, a career and Waaacky employee/sidekick, the very confusing relationship with hidgens and thats all before i even SAID jane perkins's name!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! plus all the shit that comes with THAT youve got like 18 years with an unseen family that all we know mustve Sucked shit and are DEAD NOW APPARENTLY! and youve also got a lot of lore relevance to extrapolate from the perkins having ties to the hatchetmen/the republican family i dont fucking remember their names im stoned and the founders of hatchetfield ???? theres SO MANY SITUATIONS IN STORE.

outside of all the hcs, get out of here with that uncle au stuff (dont i think its cute but fortalking abt. Canon here) go through that list and compare it with pauls. Coworkers. check , id also say theres a bit of a special connection there with bill its in like. Really small print but Something Happened there . and I GUESS ALSO MELISSA SO THERES. TWO but like as for jumping off points for pauls character and explorations of relationships and shit. Thats it ! Thats LITERALLY it aside from.. The person he ACTIVELY goes out of his way to spend time with more than literally other person he sees . he refuses every call to action cause hed rather spend his 15 minute break seeing this Onee girl at a coffee shop

aND THATS IT!!! tgwdlm? paul denies . again every call to action, including the ones sent by. GOD. time and time again but its all to come back to this girl. so much so, that even death wont stop his singing smiling corpse from holding her again. how abt forever and always? dude he straight up says he never had . any PURPOSE before her. and like maybe this is from this specific. Perspective of this paul, the 23rd in line and aware of his making and artificiality. felt he did not have a REAL purpose in life until her, but also considering that these pauls are made of a paul who has ALREADY met emma. its safe to say those . would have to be pre baked in but have bloomed into its own kind of love, the one paul perkins has for emma matthews . but. still. even in their little cameos theyre always . together. i say this especially because emma has had a full episode and timeline never specifiying that these two have even Met yet and still carries it well, but the closest pauls had to having a . Story without emma is like his cameos in honey queen?

like the narrative is SO fucking uninterested in paul matthews if hes not serving a purpose to emmas plot . in a utilitarian sense , there is no paul without paulkins.

yknow the barbie quote? yeah

[onemillionfurries]

not for nothing, but around 2021 the CEO of the studio behind palworld was tweeting about ai generated pokemon designs, and how he “can almost not tell the difference,” referencing that exact article, actually. I do not think every single design was ai generated or that any ai references were used from start to finish with no human touch, but the CEO is very openly interested in ai technology and its applications in game development! I don’t think its a stretch to guess it may have been used somewhere in the pipeline. and as someone who also messed around with fakemon generators when the tech was still a bit novel, some of the designs do have that ai stink to them, even from around that time.

yeah i chose that article specifically bc i knew that the CEO had referenced it in a tweet. I WANTED to get into it in the post, but it was also 9am and I hadn't gotten a wink of sheep that night (... bc i was up all night playing palworld WHOOPS--) (im writing this off a 2 hour nap so pls forgive me if it's incomprehensible)

I remember the whole "palworld used ai to gen its monsters" narrative literally started because someone qrt'd someone pointing out that CEO's tweet and extrapolated that because the CEO spoke positively on AI generated pokemon, then the game MUST have AI generated monster designs which... wasn't what the original tweet was saying at all. but unfortunately nuance and reason is like poison to twitter so the speculation spiraled from there. (not like tumblr is much better. but I at least have the space to explain myself here, however poorly that may be :P)

And like, the unfortunate thing is that nearly /every/ CEO is interested in AI. their whole job is to make money, not art. some are just louder about it than others. with the insane crunch that the pokemon developers go through, I wouldn't be surprised if AI is also used in those games somewhere in the pipeline, whether that's in the past or a future release.

Let's also not forget when the pokemon company international was interested in hiring simeone with knowledge in NFT/web3 technology. if we're automatically assuming that open interest in something means that it's implemented, or that it will be at some point, then we better get to boycotting pokemon now!

I wanna be clear that I'm not defending the use of AI art in game development. it may very well be that AI /was/ used somewhere in the Palworld pipeline. I just don't want people to be asserting something as true with little to no actual evidence. ever since I got "called out" by an ex-friend of mine for some heinous shit that i quite literally never did, I've been a lot more diligent in figuring out if something people are freaking out about on social media IS actually true, or if it was a mountain made out of a molehill, as it tends to be 99% of the time.

(btw I'm curious as to what pals you think have that AI stink to them? im generally trying to avoid spoilers for later game pals bc i wanna discover them on my own, but if you wanna send a list or something that I can look up when im further in the game I'd be interested.)

[voiceofsword]

hiii can i ask you about cannibal niki?? what ya think bout him?? (in theory, where Niki's parents were the ones who 'ate fish' in the cult of Shinkai!!) and if ya open to request can i see a lil rinniki kiss?? on cheeks or something like dat just a smol doodle🤲 (AND SORRY ABOUT MY ENG IDK HOW TO WRITE😭)

hello anon! putting this behind a readmore again bc it might be a little long (it is) but i assure you the doodle is at the end of the post! sorry if i sound at all hostile during any parts of this post i tried to look back and change the wording for a lot of things, but like that other long ass rinne post i made it's smth i feel very strongly about! 🙇

i’m gonna keep it real with you, i’m not particularly fond of that headcanon! i feel like i’ve mentioned it before, and i respect anyone who likes it, but i see it as sort of edginess with no concrete basis besides gags and a crucial main story scene (that i think disproves it), therefore i don’t rly like talking about it or discussing it. i’ll go on to explain where i think the origin for this headcanon lies, bc while i do think it’s something that can be extrapolated from the story, it’s not necessarily the “truth” behind niki’s parents, or him being a cannibal, or anything like that.

in the main story chapters 136-140 eichi goes on to explain crazy:b’s weak points: if worse comes to worst, alkaloid can use these points against them to take them down. in 139 specifically, eichi says that niki himself is hard to exploit — but they can use his father’s infamy to their favor. niki’s father was a famous chef known for his cooking tv programs. he had a period of popularity which was quickly ended when rumors were spread about him using human meat during one of his shows, and thus he was sworn to never be on tv again. 

you see, it’d be perfectly reasonable to assume niki’s father is a cannibal if eichi said this in all seriousness. however, taking context into account and how during this and the previous chapters eichi is going out of his way to make crazyb sound as bad as he feasibly can, it shows that this is their last resort and that the smear campaign needs to WORK. ES needs to make crazy:b look as bad as possible to make them give up. also eichi is kind of known for making his speech grandiose and generally making things sound more severe than they actually are, this is enstars 101. and even so, eichi himself softens the claim immediately afterwards, saying that these accusations were made at a time when tv stations were trying to get the idol industry back on its feet — they made that up, because they wanted to make sure there was no competition on the same network! and he follows that up with saying “yeah lol that’s pretty normal in this industry”. 

i won’t make any mention of the shinkai cult here because there rly is no ties except for…the cannibalism, i think? i also feel like what kanata talks about in meteor impact addresses something that may or may not have happened a long, long time ago, and at a very dire time rather than something reoccurring — and i doubt niki’s parents were even alive. i havent seen this spoken about anywhere else so im not sure where you’re coming from, sorry anon :( 

that aside, niki also seems to be at least somewhat aware of what happened, and the ramifications it had on his own life. you have to understand, niki’s parents left the country when these allegations started popping up, and niki’s been on his own since then — niki’s not stupid. if his parents didn’t tell him, he pieced it together himself. he knows what happened, and generally makes light of the situation and having to live on his own because that’s just how he is; these events have helped shape how niki is, on a fundamental level. but all of that aside, he more than anyone knows that his father would never do something like that, that all of it is baseless lies made to hurt him:

when i say these things shaped him, i mean that the incident has made him feel like, regardless of whether the allegations are true or not, his father caused a lot of trouble to many people. niki idolized his father — and seeing this happen to him, niki is left to think that he, too, is bound to cause people problems, both bc of this, and his constitution. he makes it a point to be like i don’t want to be like my father, again, not because of the cannibalism, but because the whole ordeal had very lasting repercussions on niki, on their family, perhaps even for any chef that might’ve pursued a similar career path to his father. i find it hard to believe that it was a one and done type thing; tabloid news and everything. he probably had his name run through the mud. 

niki consciously tries to not make trouble, he laughs off his insecurities, he tries not to take up too much space, even now. gotta keep his image clean but it's also like. obviously hes not really going out of his way to expose himself and be in the culinary world more than he needs to. he carries the weight of knowing his family name is taboo so that just kind of bleeds onto how he perceives himself and what he does — that coupled with his condition makes him feel like he deserves the bare minimum. bc of these things happening, i can also imagine his parents drilled the idea into his head before they left — to not cause trouble for others if it’s the last thing he does. kind of on the nose, niki does mention during one of the flashbacks that his father told him human meat is the one thing he must absolutely never do. which is like. well, yeah

also (tapping mic) part of the reason rinne causes so much trouble for him is because he wants niki to see that it’s ok to cause trouble for him back — that if niki goes out of his way to do stuff for him, even if begrudgingly, rinne can pay him back in kind. one of rinne’s main drives is that he wants to be able to dismantle this idea niki has in his head that he’s less deserving of good things because of his past, and his body. i’d even go as far to say that it’s an integral part of their relationship and both of their characters. um anyways

people are allowed to think or portray him however they want, of course, but i think saying that his father is a cannibal and thus niki is a cannibal too feels like completely dismissing parts of his character for the sake of making this otherwise “wholesome” person be more 'edgy' and perhaps aligning more to their tastes. i can’t police how people perceive him but i think a lot of where this stems from is wanting to have a character to project specific aesthetics onto, latching onto small bits of his story and lines without really looking at the full picture. 

niki tries so hard to be someone who can move past these allegations and still struggles with thinking that he can do what he likes lest he be like his father, so, idk. i personally don’t like to engage w/ or see these interpretations. to each their own!

also as to why niki makes jokes about eating people and it’s somewhat a recurring gag with him: well personally i think he’s just a little weird. it’s done in a cutesy playful way like "omg u smell so good i could eat you right up!" and its more like... a compliment. (esp coming from him w his rly good sense of smell and taste) yeah its joking abt eating ppl but not joking abt cannibalism itself its all theoretical eating. (have u never joked about wanting to eat someone up…or wanting to bite ppl.. i think it’s kind of like that. it’s just that they juice him for the bit)

also to thank you for your patience. here’s the doodle ♡