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gerard5d · 2 months

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remembered some of my host design thoughts from 2020 just gonna straight up copy and paste them some grammar mistakes don't mind that too much

host design progress/thoughts/etc/etc

schmitty - when i listened to his (scared) tmp2 voicelines i imagined him (and did like 2 doodles) as a humanoid red quip. whether or not that's because me and my friends memed said quip a lot and i began assoisating the quip with schmitty might...idk be up in the air lol.

anyways i basically made him a human verison of the red quip and my human verison for him came later

cookie masterson - i think i listened to his F U easter eggs? and then boom. cookie, made his tie a ...cookie tie bc of his name lol

REDACTED - i think i listened to the tmp1 " voice reveals "? i forgot, man it's only been two months. anyways i know i based their look soley on something said on their tumblr page, " based raised in the woods ". and i made their " not shadowy " form not too long after

to quote myself: " well hes a serial killer or something right " . oh and i believe i made his shirt purple bc that color is sometimes associated with evil! woo. as for my first take on his Totally normal man in society he did not seem like a guy that could play off being a Totally normal man in society. he had fricking pink eye and was bleeding from his mouth and looked really sickly

todd - ah the funny internet man! my first design for him ..funky hair. i know i went through like 3 hairstyles for him and whether or not i wanted to give him shorts.

the 3 things that stayed through out all the designs are: shades, fire tie/fire on the pants and green crocs. now that i think about it his clothes are weird lol..

nate - soley based on his F U easter egg. " i'm pretty (fricking) expensive. " i also wanted to use a different head shape.

from my first sketch of him, nothing has really changed except for the stripes on his tie

guy towers - oh fgod my first reference drawing of him, the colors and design are pretty much the same now except i changed his shoes a bit and give him a short ponytail

idk hes the sports guy and sports people wear visors...yea

oh my gosh i think i gave guy a ponytail bc of some " au doodle/ the whereabouts of the ydkj hosts "

binjpipe - oh uhhhhhh ,is pink , hair shapes a b, she is the only character with a eye color (i guess bc i didnt really bother giving eye colors to any of my hosts)

my design for it has not changed, the onyl thing i added recently was circuits on her hands! bc . idk circuits are cool

schmitty but human - ohhey i found it, i imagined in his ydkj days hes just...pretty tired. hence gray hairs! and i know the tie i very loosely based on Funny Faster Funnier or wahtever it is

dr ro (hc name: dr.rangsey) - short science girl! idk i think the phrase " lab safety is mint colored! " fits her and thats something i thought about..and her colors are based on her game

again her design did not change much i think i just made the labcoat look better

hfelicia - ohhh i remember really wanting to make a design for her . i was like I GOTTA DO THIS.. and tentacles were a requirement. and a eyeball in her hair

one sketch i have is her with eyes on her arms which i believe i did put in, in her monster form . ok i just found when i got around to linearting and coloring, i realized her outfit was too similar to the mother in her game so i changed it (and ngl i was thinking of maid outfit kinda) i looked up vintage clothes and gave her something from that, and red shoes lol

guesspionage host (hc name: abigail s) - oh!! i doodled him on paper first, my final design is pretty different my gosh

my next sketch for him then has boots and a different head shape , uhh yea, eventually i made the shoes Not fricking big and i gave him some cool glove thing with...circuits! bc to quote on my reference page " epic shocking prank ". ngl that was mostly bc of gandra dee in dt17 bc she has nanobots or whatever on her hand and its pretty cool and i thought this host would be the kind to get stuff like that

and could be used for self defense i think? shocking hurts and its like ..opposite of binjpipes' kinda. his are on the palm while hers are on the opposite of the palm (??i dont know my human terms)

dandelion - design hasnt changed much either! and i hc him to be schmitty's brother so i uhh yea made them look similar somewhat. BUT MAN THE SHOES IN HIS FIRST DESIGN............not great. i added a bit more to his suit..jumpsuit? in my latest design for him! swaggy

buzz lippman - when i first heard him there were 2 things i know were needed - a tophat and yellow glasses

my first design for him isnt different from his latest deisgn, i jsut gave him a blue tie. blue as to tie into nate bc theyre cousins and i gave nate a yellow tie os yea

dixie - aww my first sketch for her was cute, i wanted something flowy, i made her somewhat angelic! and her dress has clouds ..and the thing around his waist and her cape are supposed to represent the millions of words made up! (vaguely bc no way am i gonna write words there) oh and the cape is kinda uhh like her wings persay!

civic doodle hostress and old man - AHHA my first doodle of old man was just a stick figure bc thats how hes shown in the ride. and i gave them both stick figure forms bc why not? EHAj i wasnt sure what colors to give to them at first so i used ms paint colors, AND OLD MANS BEARD WAS MADE OUT OF POMPOMS..God haa i didnt give him a beard at first when i finalized both of their designs

gene - referenced from his ingame look in sti, thought hed be a office guy so yep! and his pants have pixels similar to todd's sleeves , bc they are kinda a duo right

helen - awhhg she looks pretty anger in her first sketch and latest design...i thought of her color being green at first and man her skin color was more sickly

otherwise her hair style and form havent really changed. ohh there was a short time where i thought she was the ceo of binjpipe ..glad i didnt continue on with that thought, anyways stan helen bc she has to deal with 5 men sending each other to the bottom constantly </3 , or did so in teh ride

dot! - ah! my first digital sketch of her, really the two things that changed were her hairstyle and her pants. hairstyle is a thing thats stumped me several times lol, ooh her colors changed a bit too

ahh i wanted to give her a tuxedo shirt at first but i didnt 😔

bob - hairstyle REALLY stumped me with this one . and for my first digital sketch i quote myself " honestly keep seeing bob as bald " , then i saw the tvtropes page where it says he implies he has 80s hair or something and i was like " shit "

bidiots host (hc name: quant) - not much here, i based his suit on one i saw on a show we were watching in one of my classes. idk why i gave him a red gem thing tho, why not i guess!

dode - i know i looked up reference images for short hair! her design has changed p much the same the most ive changed were her colors

eventually i drew her ingame look :P

word spud host - literally a cardboard cutout, i think it was seriously inspired by box from inanimate insanity / a humanization of box that was a cutout cardboard and i thought it was nice

as for a serious design for them? maybe,

Ok um i guess the canvases are down here it goes august 2020 -> september 2020 -> started in 2021 minor edits here and then so this is most recent one 2023 -> december 2023

#mine #jackbox

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mach-speed-spin · 3 years

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Character design analysis: Kai Hiwatari

I’m starting this thing where I analyze character Beyblade designs and how they changed over the seasons. I’m starting with an original series character because Burst is ongoing and characters can return in future seasons (I will do also mfb since it ended)

We start with his season 1 design. From a fashion standpoint, it makes no sense. In the context of Beyblade, it fits right in. Beyblade takes suspension of disbelief and tells you to either roll with it, or just laugh at the ridiculousness of it. Kai’s design is arguably the strangest of the main cast (possibly second to Ray, but that’s debatable)

Working our way from the top down, he has 2 hair colors, bluish grey at the front and dark blue at the back. It’s styled in what I can only describe as half the quintessential shonen hair. The front is improbably spiky and is pretty long. But look at the back

It’s long, but it’s not spiky in the slightest save for it coming together at the back into something which probably has a name, I just don’t know it. Kai manages to give off “rebel” vibes, for lack of a better term, while also looking stylish. That hairstyle needs a lot of effort to keep

Moving on to his facepaint. It’s 4 blue traingles. They change slightly each season but here it looks like someone drew a triangle on a flat surface and it didn’t translate perfectly to the curved surface of a human face. The 2 top triangles are bigger and point horizontally. The bottom 2 are smaller and point diagonally. I don’t know why they were included in Kai’s design to be honest. If they wanted to give him something that made him stand out they could’ve just used the gloves or scarf. Having both plus the facepaint feels a little overblown but again, Beyblade doesn’t half ass anything

Down to his scarf. It’s most iconic appearances were in G-Revolution. Here only one end sticks out, instead of 2 like in G-Rev. It also shows no sign of being weighted. I’ll get more into it when I get to his V-Force and G-Rev designs

That sleeveless top looks terrible. It looks uncofortable and it’s a crime againts fashion. It’s also not something particularly notable about Kai. Really it’s just there so we can see his muscular arms

Speaking of his arms, look at his gloves. My favorite part of his original design, he never uses them after this season. They are implied to be weighted, but are definitely not as heavy as his scarf on G-Rev (more on that later). I love them, and they work with Kai, but Dranzer has minimal red (even though the bit-beast is all red. Go figure). They probably got rid of them because it didn’t match the aesthetic of his bey

His belt buckle looks kinda cool, but it’s not that remarkable

His pants are unreasonably baggy. I get that you’re a beyblade thief but no need to be able to carry 70+ pounds of plastic. Other than that, nothing notable

His shoes feel like a last minute addition as well. I can’t tell what they were going for, and they aren’t good, but you don’t notice that unless you specifically pay attention to his shoes (which are never the focus of any shot)

Kai in V-Force keeps the hairstyle (some slight changes but that’s due to the new animation studio)

His facepaint now consists of 4 traingles all pointing diagonally, instead of 2 poitning horizontally. Again, probably just the studio change

His scarf is gone but looks like he’s wearing a turtleneck? What? This decision genuinely baffled me. The scarf may have had its best moments in G-Rev, but it was still iconic in 2000. Almost as much as his gloves and you wouldn’t remo- oh wait

His top now has these things that go around his arm. I don’t know what they are called but I’m sure others pull off the look better than Kai does here. They kinda look like wings but giving characters wing designs would be executed better in G-Rev

The rest of his top is tight, but better than in season 1 (again, not a major part of his design)

He replaced his solid gloves for arm warmers. I would make fun of this if not for the fact that I want those arm warmers for myself. The red gloves looked better on Kai but those arm warmers would look better on me

He changed his belt buckle, but it’s not too different

Baggy pants now have these weird red parts. I don’t know how they attach

His shoes look normal now

The lack of scarf and weighted gloves is obvious. This means Kai was not wearing weights in V-Force (unless those pants are carrying rocks). Kai also seemed weaker in battles during V-Force and he was much thinner. I don’t know if this was intentional but in-universe it’s likely the consequences of the Russian arc from season 1

This doesn’t seem like much other than Kai in formal attire since he’s not training nor battling, but I still found some things in it

First the tie. It’s not very tidy. Considering Kai’s design implied he cares about his appearance this seems strange. But considering his mental state at the beginning of V-Force it’s not surprising

Second, and most importantly, he wears a single earring on his left ear. He doesn’t wear any earrings in his regular design, no matter the season. This implies that Kai only wears an earring when he’s presenting formally. Why?

Also is that eyeliner?

Kai in G-Revolution is more similar to himself in season 1 than in V-Force. His hair is longer but still kept in the same style

He has eyeliner. I don’t know why but I kinda like it

Look at his facepaint. The triangles are slightly crooked. I guess they were meant to look like bird claws a bit. It’s not bad, just strange when you’re used to straight triangles

His scarf now has both ends sticking out. It’s also weighted. Considering it cracked concrete by being cropped when Kai had his arm extended horizontally, I need someone to do math and tell me how heavy that scarf is.

He has a shirt and a jacket instead of that top he used before. Finally Kai gets sleeves. It’s a cool jacket that looks badass without looking like he was trying too hard

He wears normal (or at least normal in-universe) fingerless gloves.

His belt buckle looks like someone overlayed his season 1 and V-Force buckles into one. Small detail, but considering it’s the final season, it’s nice

Kai wearing kinda baggy pants instead of super baggy pants. I never though I’d see the day

His shoes would be normal if not for the fact that they have these red belts (are they belts?) holding the pants to them. Like all of Kai’s shoes, it’s a minor part of his design that doesn’t really stand out

Overall, Kai’s G-Revolution design is very toned down compared to previous ones. Except for the scarf not being in V-Force, the more iconic parts of it stayed consistent (hair and facepaint). He’s also buff as hell in G-Rev

Kai at the end of the series can be seen wearing this. I couldn’t get a full-body picture but he’s wearing a long coat (reminds me of the Matrix). It’s probably to hide all his wounds. Not much can be said about it other than it looks cool

#beyblade #character design analysis #kai hiwatari #beyblade overanalysis

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es05l2k5sl · 4 years

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I'll never understand why WB had to redesign the Batcast for the new Bat adventures. Some characters took getting used to. But as for the villains, I'm roasting they asses cus they're ugly. Can't change my mind.

These Oswalds together look like 2 different people bruh. But we're here to talk about new Oswald. This Wimpy x Olive Oyl fusion snoody looking ass bitch. I'd like his outfit if it didn't have that lazy drawned bow tie looking like 2 triangles glued together & those fake ass MJ gloves. Also when tf did he have 10 fingers in dis universe? Also fuck that hair. Rocking a balding Mullet like ponytail before. Now it's just a boring cut down. Got dat snooty ass bitch look on face like his bird shit don't be stinking. I'll rock tf out u. Lookin like a whole ass Looney character or sum mf from the 30s.

Wot da fuck dey got Selena wearing here? Sis looking like a whole ass alien. Kid vs Kat looking ass bish. And her skin white af too? Did sis fall in some damn Joker acid too? Sis whole lower face is white as shit! Dat shit paler than crack. Like sis got the white slapped outta her and she just turned whiter. Das probably what happened. Her ass probably got on my mans Bruce last nerves one night and got da shit backslapped out her ass.

So my dude Matthew got turned a different color pal & got his neck privileges revoked? Lazy af but not the worst revamp.

You kno that meme: "upgrade, upgrade, FUCK GO BACK!"? Dis pre much sums up Jonathan here. My mans jus looks so dirty here. Looking straight outta da trash bin. Like literally dirty. Nasty ass teeth probably got dat hot ass breath blowing thru them bitches. Das a real fear toxin right there. Long ass black as shit dirty ass hair. Tryna copy off my girl from the ring w dat shit. Need to take dat dirty ass wig and mask and Amish hat tf off my dude. It is not rocking you. Dat whole worn out trashy ass outfit ain't working for you either hoe. You need to take yo ass a bath bitch cus your arms looking brown and ashy as a bitch. You can not even THINK about borrowing anything from me w yo dirty creepy stalker lookin ass. If you don't put down that damn stick like yo ass need help walking and shit I oughtta bitch ya ass with the shit fo going around dressed like dis. Take that damn rope off your neck bitch fo I do something Bruce won't do.

Bruh, you can not go up to my face and tell me these niggas are the same person in the same mofucking universe! Jervis What da fuck did they DO TO YOU MY N**GA?? N**ga looking like a damn leprechaun with special needs and shit. Rocking all dat dookie green swag but you got no swag anymore my dude. It's shit like you clothes and yo breath! Yo shits wasn't perfect and white before but them hoes looking hella worse now. What you get drinking all that damn tea my n**ga. Ol Tiny ass n**ga. Like wot. HOW?! HOW TF DID YO ASS SHRINK??? LIKE SOMEBODY TOSSED YOU ASS IN A LAUNDRY DRYER AND PROBABLY FORGOT TO TAKE YO STUPID ASS OUT. PROBABLY WHY YO HAIR WHITE AND SMALL AS SHIT YA UGLY ASS LUCKY CHARMS LOOKING ASS CRACK FEENY. If you don't hop yo ass back under a rainbow with dem skinny ass broken heel lookin ass tap dancing shoes.

Victor, bruh, they dem did yo ass so dirty in the new adventures. I ain't gonna lie that new suit kinda ok. But you looking like a whole skeleton and shit. Lookin like a young Palpatine & shit. Ol Frisky dingo looking ass! Need to put those goggles back on. The least yo (spoiler) 2003 Baxter Stockman ass can do now.

Yo ass probably looking mad as shit cus ya can't jack it no more n**ga. Dats all gon now. Long with yo unloyal ass wife. How tf she gon bounce on you after everything you did for her? After all the years and bull you had to put up with & she leave yo cold ass for another nibba? Fuck DCAU Nora. Just fuck her.

Scarface lookin like a damn Fanboy & Chum Chum character & his boy over here lookin like Chode. Next.

UUUUUUUUUUGGGHHHHHGG.

Just. UAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHH. Bruh I will never understand who tf thought this shit was a good idea?! Like who the fuck, was drawing dis nigga. Drew DIS Sus af shit. LOOKED at dis shit. And said to deyself: "Yeah dats da Riddler aight". HELL TO THE NAH DAT AIN'T NO DAMN DAS A (dick) FIDDLER! HE LOOKIN SUS AS FUCK NOW WITH THEM TIGHT AS GREEN SPANDEX AND THAT DARK AS HELL EYELINER. Looking like gay Christmas elf! Looking like a gay ass ballay dancer with them Spider Gwen ballerina shoes. You can't dance for shit nigga! Yo shit is SOOO DAMN TIGHT like I can get a good sight and shape picture of yo "Question mark" I'm telling y'all. sSSSUUUSSSSSSS. Looking like a bigasss lima bean. Skinny ass Jack skeleton moFucka. Like. They did my boy Eddy so freakin dirty with this. My mans had class, style, a nice look, HAIR. Now he. Whateverthelivingfuckdisbaldasspeterpanlookinmofuckasupposestobe. And i hate how that's how he did be lookin in almost every new Batverse when why tho? Nigg(m)a look stupid as hell. How tf he expect to be tooken seriously dressed and lookin like dis ? If I saw dis fucker in real life and he threatens me, imma laugh at his ass and beat him with his cane. Get ya Richard from Allen Gregory looking ass away from me. I can't!

Bruh it don't look that much but they did my mans Harvey dirty too. LOOK AT MY MANS FACE. good half i mean. Yall nigs kno. THESE MUHFUCKERS STRIPPED HIM OF HIS PRETTYNESS! Man. Dis version of Harvey was a pretty muhfucka. You can't deny dat shit

Even when he became Two-Face he still got dat 1 side of pretty. And that deep af panty soaking voice to go along w it. He dat half and half package.

Now HE LOOK LIKE DIS

WHOEVER TF DID DIS NEED DEY ASS WHOOPED! SQUARE TF UP NOW. NIGGA LOOKS LIKE EYEBROWLESS VERSION OF DOC FROM SECRET SATURDAYS. FAT ASS BLOCK NOSE MUH FUCKA. His eye looks like traingle with a Nike logo on top of it. Lookin like a poorly drawn Dwayne The Rock Johnson. And ya other half ain't lookin that good either. Dat 1 eyebrow putting Helga Pataki to shame! I mean the shit didn't look good before but it was somewhat tamed, now the shit looking like full grownass caterpillar. And that lip black as hell. Kno that side dirty as fuuhck!

I don't even know what tf I'm sposed to say about DIS except (kinky..)

Angelica pickles looking ass. Bigass blonde captain coconut looking ass hairstyle. Looking like a blonde creepy ass Wednesday Adams. Dem black as fuck Kim possible lips. She actually looking like a family guy character with that bigass head and small body. I SWEAR she ded looking like one of Stewie's ex's right now my dude! Got tiny ass flat ass guitar chip shoes. Looks like sis wearing fucking Zippers as shoes. Sis got that "i got something planned fo yo ass" smile. Sis look like she plotting something or did some evil shit already.

. . .

Bros I'm sorry but I'm just as confused as you like. I can't find a single thing different about Harley. Like literally nothing. Her makeup at night be looking blue sometimes, looking like a fakeass Livewire, but nah. They didn't even touch homegirl. Why tf is Harley the only character that stayed the same?????! Niggas was playing favorites. They had plans for that ass since day one. They was probs like: "Aye y'all. DO NOT TOUCH HARLEY. SHE STAYS THE SAME!" "why?" "JUST LISTEN TO ME BITCH!" "Wha bout her mans?" "Oh hell yeah fuck his shit up!" ...sigh.. Yep. It's that time...

UaaaaaaAAAAAAAHHH what else is dere to be said about dis ugly ass nigga? Dis nigga look like Yakko Warner & Freakazoid's love child! Dis nigga look like a random Tiny toons or Animaniac character! With that dookie green shirt and flower. You and Riddler's gay ass both matching them Dexter's laboratory Gloves. Why tf yo eyes eyes black as fuck tho?! How tf does one do that to theyself?! Yo ass probably snorted some shit and ya shits expanded and that's prolly yo pupils with ya cracked out ass. Nigga don't even look like a clown no more. Hell Jared Leto Joker atleast had the lipstick down. Dis nigga got dem ashy ass lips hanging out. Nigga think he owning too. Nigga you don't own shit! Broke as hell now. And yo design broke too. Joker? Man more like Broker. Got dat fairly odd parents hair. Got that Cosmo and Wanda in one. Like bitch if you don't. Just like Riddler i can not take yo animaniac looking ass serious. You do not scare me bitch! Bye!

Now see dis? DIS is Aight! A lot more fitting and & faithful to the character. No over the fucking top redesign, you can actually tell it's the same damn character as before, a little bit of swag for personality

So that's the tea. Ivy & Croc are the only good rogue redesigns in the whole series, evBody else ugly as shit.

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star-duck · 4 years

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The Case Files of Jeweler Richard - Book 7 Mini Summary

This won't be as extensive as my book 6 chapter 4 summary since Book 7 is the start of a multi-novel saga, so a lot of things that happens here could mean completely different things by the end of the saga. At this point I wouldn't know, but I want to note down details that can potentially be big later on. As usual, let me know if I get anything wrong!

Seigi begins his internship in Sri Lanka after failing the second part of the entrance test to be a civil servant. His parents gave him their blessing since they're already familiar with Richard, the guy who offered him the position. Richard supposedly is currently working in Ginza as usual. Shaul visits Seigi from time to time.

One day Seigi receives an email titled "Help Richard" in english, containing a ticket to a 6-day cruise ship trip that starts in Florida. The event is held by Gargantua group, a high-end jewellery company. The sender's name is "Jeffrey", but Seigi has doubts if this is the real Jeffrey. He tries to contact (the real) Jeffrey, but receives no reply. He also contacts Shaul who basically just tells him to do whatever he wants, so Seigi decides to go on the trip.

When he first gets on the cruise, he meets a guy who glares at him really badly. It leaves an impression, and Seigi wonders why this guy even recognizes Seigi, but he shrugs it off. Seigi then receives a call by Richard, he freaks out because he's both happy but also unable to tell Richard that he's also on board the same ship as Richard. Seigi doesn't want to disappoint Richard, so during his internship he's never called Richard... at all. During the call, Seigi walks around the ship, finds Richard on the deck, and surprises him from behind. Richard is extremely shocked and then his expression goes dark. He won't tell Seigi why though.

The two chat together, Richard absolutely refuses to tell Seigi about anything that's happening. The main event for them is a jewellery show event, where the group showcases all their new releases and more in this 100 year anniversary cruise. Richard initially asks Seigi to just not come at all and stay locked in in his room, but eventually gives in and lets Seigi go to the show under one condition: if anything happens to Richard, don't save him.

The next day, the jewellery show happens, and after viewing all the high-end showcases, Seigi goes to the buffet area. While eating, he's greeted by the director of Gargantua group, Amen Carlsbrook (アメン・カールスブルック). He asks Seigi to "share a bit of what's on Seigi's plate, because he wants to know Seigi's taste". Seigi confusedly gives him some of his sandwich, Amen happily takes a bite, laughs and walks away.

After a while, Seigi sees Amen.... holding Richard by his waist and touches him inappropriately. Seigi gets extremely angry, notices that everyone else in the room pretends to not see what happens, and gets angrier. He knows he can't create a mess here and risks Richard getting hurt, so he slowly walks closer until his eyes meet Richard's. They communicate through eye contact for awhile until Seigi yells "there's a dolphin!" that creates a minor ruckus among people in the room trying to look through the window. Seigi then dashes out with Richard who manages to get free from Amen's hands, and they run to an outdoor area.

(This whole scene is actually pretty amazing, with all the little eye contact exchanges and stuff, i hope someone can translate it later)

Richard explains that Amen is a very very very distant relative of his, and he's always had an eye on "pretty things" including Richard. Amen initially sent the cruise invitation to both Richard and Seigi, two people in a room. Richard can't reject the invitation, but he also don't think he should bring Seigi, so he decided to go alone. Jeffrey calls Richard, explains that the email Seigi received wasn't from him, and tells Richard of how Amen and his second-in-command Malnuit Patel (マルヌイ・パテール) are on bad terms. Oh by the way, Richard arranged so that both boys have separate rooms (unlike what the invitation stated), he says he prefers to have his own room. lol.

Suddenly some guards appear, starts body searching Seigi, and finds out that he has a miniature of a jewellery show item in his pocket. They accuse him of stealing and brings him to the security room. There, a security staff basically talks him down and expects him to confess. He resists and Richard defends him, and then Amen walks into the room.

Amen says that errors like that happen, and he's willing to forgive it and accepts that it's his company's fault so long as he gets to spend the night drinking champagne with Richard. Seigi figures that he's being framed just to give Amen the opportunity to do this to Richard, and instead demands the security staff to check the security camera and prove his innocence properly. The group decide to just do that, so Amen, security staffs, and Richard stay to check the cameras, while Seigi is asked to leave the room.

Another security guard is assigned to Seigi. A chinese guy with brown two-block hairstyle, looks youthful like a k-pop idol (or so Seigi said), slightly shorter than Seigi, and speaks Japanese. His name is Vincent Rai, but he asks to be called Vince-san. Vince lets Seigi wander around so long as he doesn't try to contact people from outside the ship, so Seigi decides to check around the show again.

Vincent is cooperative with Seigi, even supplying Seigi with new information. What Seigi gathers so far is that Gargantua group is in the middle of M&A deal. Initially the plan was to work with a Chinese company, but suddenly Amen changed his mind and picked an American company. This angered his second-in-command, Patel, and there are rumors that Patel is trying to steal Gargantua group's designs by 3D scanning items displayed in the show. To nobody's surprise, Amen is known as a moody, sexual harasser, power harasser, etc etc.

It gets late and the two goes back to the security room. Seigi sees Amen trying to offer Richard cakes, a lot of items and untouched sweets scattered around in the room (I assume it's Amen trying to woo Richard), and a chessboard. Richard is simultaneously playing chess with Amen, rejecting his advances, and checking the security cameras. Amen is stuck in his turn in chess so Richard tells him to think about his move overnight. Seigi thinks what he does is like a modern day Scheherazade.

The security camera checking isn't done, but they put it on hold for the day and will continue tomorrow. Everyone goes back to their rooms except Seigi, who's staying there overnight.

The next day, Richard, security staffs, and Amen come back. Amen brings in the chessboard and flowers. ew. Anyway Seigi decides he wants to catch Patel 3D scanning the jewelleries in action, so he visits the showing area again. He really catches him, but Patel runs away to the ship's casino area. (Excuse me I have no knowledge of casino so if I get anything wrong pls do tell) He sits in a poker table where he can just never get up until he runs out of chips. Seigi decides to join the same table.

Slowly Seigi thinks he screws up, but suddenly Richard appears and asks the dealer to join Seigi as a team of two. Dealer says yes, and Richard leans close to Seigi's right, right hand on the table and left hand gripping the stool Seigi sits on. Seigi can't bring himself to look at Richard in that really close distance so he talks to Richard while still looking forward.

Every other player gives up until there's only Patel and Seigi-Richard left. Our boys win, and Patel reveals that the rumor about him stealing jewellery designs is started by Amen. He says that he's tired of Amen's actions so he decides to do just that. Amen appears and let his guards apprehend Patel, and they walk away.

Later that day, Amen tells Seigi that the item he was accused of stealing is a fake, the real item just fell into some corner during the show, and that Seigi's completely innocent. Seigi knows that's an absolute bullshit and he really really want to punch the guy but decides to just smile and thank Amen.

Richard and Seigi eats in the restaurant buffet, then Vincent comes to greet them. It's revealed that Vincent is Richard's ex-assistant back in Hong Kong. Apparently they don't have a very good relationship, though Richard thinks highly of Vincent. Vincent brings Seigi to an outdoor area, leaving Richard behind, and starts to tell Seigi... a lot of interesting things.

First of all, Vincent tells Seigi that he should stop liking Richard, because that's probably better for Seigi's sake. He also warns him to stop the internship and go back to Japan since he suspects that Shaul uses him as a "dog collar" to Richard's "dog", meaning that Shaul really only wants something to prevent Richard from quitting his company since his family feud is over and he can safely go home. Not to mention, as the son of a noble, he doesn't need to work a day in his life if he wants to.

Vincent also says some very vague things about how Richard's sheer genius and kindness isn't something everyone can ever achieve, and it's pointless to hope to be like that, so it's not worth trying. Seigi replies that while half the reason he's in Sri Lanka is because he admires Richard, the other half is because he wants to get away from Tokyo for a bit after the deadbeat dad stalking incident. He thinks that's why his parents are so supportive of him. Seigi also doesn't intend to drop his dream of being a civil servant.

Vincent gives Seigi a contact number, under the condition that he shouldn't let Richard know. As Seigi is confused, Vincent walks away, passes by Richard who's walking towards Seigi. Richard then tells Seigi how much he values Vincent back in Hong Kong.

Finally it's the end of the cruise trip, and as our two boys are leaving, Amen greets Richard and tries to hug him. Seigi forcefully pushes himself in between the two, so Amen awkwardly ends up hugging Seigi.

Back in Sri Lanka, Seigi hears news about Amen being accused of sexual harassment, and the victims are bringing a lawyer from England. Because of this, M&A deal is temporarily stopped. He wishes the victims well.

While cooking wattalapan, Seigi receives a call from Richard. After small talks, Seigi tells Richard in english how much he wants Richard to be here with him and eat his home cooked food. Richard only replies with silence, and the chat continues. Suddenly, surprise, Richard... really is here, in Sri Lanka. Seigi is extremely happy and they both sit and eat wattalapan and royal milk tea.

Richard then informs that the reason why Seigi's personal information, email, and passport are leaked is because of Jeffrey's ex-secretary. Richard thinks Jeffrey messed up real bad. Richard also shows Seigi a video mail containing a little white girl talking in Japanese. Her name is Octavia, and she was a student of Richard and his ex-fiancee, Deborah Sahin. She says that Richard has made people (she treasures) suffer, so him and his two brother-cousins are going to pay for that. Then she pulls out a video call screen with Vincent in it.

Vincent starts with the same advice to Seigi, telling him it's better to go back to Japan. He then confesses that he was the one who put the stolen item into Seigi's pocket during the show, because his superior (one of the security staff) made him do it. Richard should've known this while checking the cameras, but Vincent says that he's not gonna ask why he protected him then, saying that Richard "never changes, such a good, lonely man".

Jeffrey apparently gets a similar mail, but in his version, the mail said thanks to his ex-secretary (presumably for leaking Seigi's information). Richard and Seigi goes back to small talks, and as Seigi refills the tea, he's thinking about how the kitchen in this house has enough cutleries and stuff for a house party. He dreams that one day he can hold a party with Richard's family, his own family and friends in Japan, and probably new people he meets in Sri Lanka.

Random trivia:

-Richard says that years ago, women in some high end parties were smitten by his looks enough that they held champagne drinking competition over it.

-Richard refers to Jeffrey as "Good-for-nothing talking wallet" again when he talks to Seigi.

-It's absolutely disgusting but Amen calls Richard with his childhood nickname, Ricky. To hear it from anyone but his close cousins and co send chills to my spine.

-Vincent got married while still in college. He's currently 26 years old, studying in America. He practices jeet kune do. Seigi suspects he likes anime and manga and that's why he can speak Japanese, but Vincent doesn't answer this question.

-Seigi goes to a net cafe during his "arrest" to look for more info regarding the group. During that, Vincent plays real time battle games until his eyes turn red....

-Half of Seigi aka Iggy's blog is about cooking. He blogs his wattalapan cooking trial too.

#the case files of jeweler richard #jeweler richard #nakata seigi #richard ranashinha dvorpian #spoilers #translation

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fizzingwizard · 4 years

Text

I fell asleep as soon as I got home and didn’t get to write about Kizuna. xP So belatedly, here are my thoughts.

Warning: Spoilers for Digimon: Kizuna Last Evolution

So to start with, some context: I had a bad day at work. Not gonna go into details, but it was the sort of thing to put you out of the mood for seeing a movie, even one that’s a childhood treasure. I almost didn’t go.

In addition, because of what happened at work, I had to stay an extra hour, which meant I missed the first 25 minutes of the movie. I’m not sure how much story I actually missed - probably there was 10 min or so of trailers - but it’s possible I missed some framing. Usually the cute, fun, get-to-know-the-character moments happen in those beginning scenes, and I didn’t get to see those. When I walked in, Taichi and Yamato were having a meal together and talking about how their lives were all changing, but the Digimon stayed the same. So that’s where I’m starting from.

One more thing - I haven’t read the Kizuna novel. It sounds like if you did, you already know everything that happens. (Possibly reading the novel is more interesting than seeing the movie.) Sorry if I’m surprised by things y’all already knew!

For those who don’t like reading my long-winded posts:

Kizuna is what I would have expected from a Digimon sequel before Tri came out. That is, it’s predictable.

The art is quite good, except when it’s not.

There’s not enough of characters who aren’t named Taichi or Yamato.

Yamato is extremely COOL.

Koushirou has some good moments.

Tri is actually still canon, which I didn’t know - Meiko appears briefly in Kizuna.

It was fun to see the 02 kids, but they didn’t do anything special, although they did more than some Adventure kids.

It ends with the partner Digimon disappearing ‘forever,’ but also with Taichi putting in I think his thesis in politics specifically between the human world and the digital world. So everything seems geared to reach the 02 ending, where we know they were with their partners. So I guess at least we can headcanon that they find a way to reunite :/

OK so.

The art is really nice in this movie. Very smooth, very anime movie-like. I preferred Uki Atsuya’s designs and it did feel a little weird to go back to a more wide-eyed, innocent style now that the kids are older, but it was so lovely that I didn’t mind. Tri really lacked smoothness in the animation, so this was refreshing.

There are some times where the animations falters or some error happens - at least twice I noticed characters’ mouths moving without them saying anything, and there’s a scene where Taichi gets blown back by Eosmon’s attack and when he sits up his, um, backside is quite pronounced, like on-the-cover-of-Playboy-pronounced x’D Who knew Taichi was so thicc?

I liked in the beginning when they fly through cyberspace to take on Eosmon and it’s just like the cyberspace in Our War Game and Diablomon Strikes Back. The beginning was a bit promising. Omegamon is called on to help but his evolution breaks down, and fortunately Menoa knows all about why. There were some strong emotional moments when Taichi seizes the chance to help with a Digimon situation, and even stronger when they find out their partner Digimon are going to leave when they become adults and commit to a path (since apparently becoming an adult means you no longer have the endless possibilities of childhood). Digivolving speeds up the process.

Taichi and Yamato react very strongly. Other Chosen don’t seem in danger yet, but it’s only a matter of time. Takeru breathes a sigh of relief when he checks his digivice and realizes there’s no countdown, but Yamato’s and Taichi’s digivices are glowing with a countdown clock. Yamato screams and runs off to do anything he can to stop this. Taichi tries to deny it, but then Gennai appears in his apartment (which I think he cannot afford because we never see him turn on the lights :P) and tells him it’s all true and there’s nothing we can do about it. Then it’s bye-bye Gennai.

Oh, but before Gennai shows up Taichi is showing Agumon his apartment, and Agumon immediately finds his porn stash. I mean, that’s what you get for having magazines and DVDs instead of just using the Internet, Taichi, you moron. Teehee.

So Menoa and Imura convince the Adventure kids to “help” them, saying they’re trying to save the Chosen’s trapped consciousness. Yamato immediately figured out something’s not right, but pegs Imura as the likely suspect. However, he’s suspicious of Menoa too. Remember in Tri, when he sneaks after Nishijima and Himkawa, and gets them to talk? This is that only More. He lurks in stairwells, he goes without sleep, he researches online databases, he gets the 02 kids looking up details on Menoa, he follows Imura to some secret hideout covered in the typical secret agent decor of Papers Pinned To Walls With Illegible Writing.

As fun as it is to watch Yamato be all Men In Black, shouldn’t it... be... Ken? X’D Or are there many secret agents in space?

When Imura confronts Yamato, Hikari and Takeru have been taken prisoner. Somehow. They’re tied to chairs and Koushirou gets sent a message from Hikari’s phone saying in many different languages “Which one will be next?” So Taichi and Yamato hurry to the scene. At this point, Mimi has already had her consciousness abducted, and we now find out Jou’s KO’d too off screen.

Yamato sees Imura sitting on the stairs holding a gun. He lifts the gun and says “Takeru is already -” and I as like OMG THEY KILLED TAKERU!? but the gun is just... for show x’D Takeru has had his consciousness trapped. So has Hikari. Yamato makes good with Imura and they realize they need to go after Menoa, that she’s the one behind it all. Uh, too late though, because Menoa’s already moved against Koushirou, I think because she wants his information on Chosen Children around the world, and traps his consciousness as well. But not before Koushirou is able to track the location of Eosmon and leave the coordinates in a message for Taichi.

I don’t like Menoa. First of all, she’s a foreigner who likes to insert random English words where they’re not needed, and her accent is one of the worst I’ve ever heard x’D If you’re gonna cast someone who can’t speak a language as a speaker of that language, how about not have them actually speak it? But also, she’s not interesting. She had a Digimon partner - surprise! - who was a butterfly - surprise! - and who disappeared when she entered the path to adulthood - surprise! - and who she’s been grieving for ever since, so her big master plan is to somehow trap the consciousness of all Chosen Children around the world in another dimension where they can live inside their memories and never have to grow up. (The Digimon too.) She refers to it as her “Neverland.” None of this interests me. Yawn.

She is able to trap all the Adventure kids except Taichi, Yamato, and Sora. But don’t get excited about Sora not being trapped - Sora has decided not to fight anymore, and she sticks her decision the whole movie long. Sora is almost completely absent.

So now almost all the Adventure Chosen have been abducted and most of them didn’t even get to do anything, unless they were all being super awesome in those first ten-fifteen minutes that I missed. The 02 kids do not get trapped and when Eosmon copies start raining down around the world, they run around trying to stop them. Daisuke is adorable. Pretty much just what you’d expect. Iori is Iori. Miyako is her exuberant self. Ken is forgettable X’D I’m so sorry, Ken. Someone give him a hairstyle. My problem with the 02 kids is because, as much as it sucked that they never turned up after their inauspicious start in Tri, having them around isn’t really improving anything. Nostalgia, sure. But they’re too busy doing research and fighting to have those nice character moments we’d like to see. They do the shonen anime thing of Stating the Obvious and Promising to Unite As One and that’s it for their dialogue. They’re polite and take turns letting each other say the predictable line. At least we know Stingmon still calls his partner “Ken-chan.” <3

Taichi and Yamato use Koushirou’s coordinates to go after Menoa in her world. But not before Yamato reacts with irrational strength when Taichi suggests they save their trapped friends. Because saving them means digivolving, which means the process of losing their partners forever will speed up. “Taichi!! Are you okay with that??” Taichi’s like, “Um... no, but people are trapped and need to be rescued.” And Yamato’s like “Oh right.”

So they go and are attacked by Adventure-age versions of their trapped friends and also random Digimon. There’s quite a lot of blood?? Someone, I think Yamato, has a freaking Drimogemeon attacking him. He doesn’t get gored though lmao. Eosmon has a billion copies and they’re around the world going for Chosen Children. They bring out Omegamon and he gets his leg chopped off, whee. But both Digimon are physically intact when the evolution is broken.

Menoa is completely mentally unstable and fuses with Eosmon to become their “goddess.” Taichi sticks his hand out zombie-like under the pile of Digimon attacking him and yells at his Adventure-age friends “We must move on!” (ie, grow up). He is able to crawl to Hikari and blow her whistle with a huge breath.

This snaps everyone out of it. At this point I think “Okay! Big battle all together!” But nope. It’s still just Taichi and Yamato, who get new evolutions that look like Thundercats, and go after Menoa. While some song plays making it difficult to hear dialogue, they defeat Eosmon which makes the copies around the world disappear, and then they find Menoa trapped within her own memories of her partner, Morphomon, and rescue her as well. Menoa’s last scene is being handcuffed by Imura.

Then Taichi and Yamato go out separately with their partners and have a last conversation with them as the countdown clock is about to expire. Yamato plays his harmonica. Agumon tries to ply Taichi for food. We get Agumon’s vantage point looking up at Taichi and it’s like “wow you’re huge now.” Agumon and Gabumon both ask their partners what they’ll do tomorrow. Just as Taichi and Yamato think of an answer, they look and their partners are gone. Taichi and Yamato do some pretty impressive sobbing. Then we see them some time later hurrying on with their lives under symbolic cherry blossoms. The end!

The credits show scenes of the Chosen living their adult lives, the younger ones still with their partners, the older without. It ends with a peek at Taichi’s thesis, representing step one towards becoming a diplomat between the human and digital worlds. Like I said before, since we know they still have their partners in the 02 epilogue, it’s strange to me that they kept everything the same except that. So let’s headcanon that they’ll meet again o.O I guess

So if you read this far, you probably got the vibe that I wasn’t super impressed by Kizuna. But it’s not a bad movie. Tri pretty much spoiled me. I get that there are people who really don’t like Tri for various reasons, but to be honest, I think that even if you dislike it, you have to acknowledge what a gift it was. Six movies that gave every character something to do and mostly avoided the predictable stuff, not entirely, but much better than would be expected from an anime movie. Tri did so many interesting things. It’s got its flaws, a couple big ones, but I can never get past how it built everything up and what it resulted in.

But Tri’s number one strength comes from having six movies to tell the story. Kizuna has just one. If Tri had been condensed into a single movie - say we meet Meiko, the infection happens, she’s the origin, before the partners lose their memories Meiko asks the kids to kill Meicoomon, Daigo dies saving Taichi and then Taichi kills Meicoomon, the end - Idk if I would have liked that. It wouldn’t have gotten the build up it needed. I wouldn’t have learned to love Meiko. Stories need pacing, they need development, and more of each the more characters there are. Tri had the time to give us that.

I wasn’t expecting Kizuna to be like Tri - both the art style and all the info about it said otherwise - so I have to say that all in all, Kizuna is the movie I originally would have expected a Digimon sequel to be. It’s got That Plot that every fan read or wrote on fanfiction.net back in the day, where the kids lose their partners as a result of becoming an adult. I always hated that plotline because it was so predictable. If everyone can think of it, how can you call it creative?

But it is quite Japanese in a way, the appreciation for “the transience of things,” what they call 物の哀れ. Sora’s final ikebana display includes what I assume were cherry blossoms rising above a field of colorful flowers. Cherry blossoms represent this ephemerality in Japanese culture because of their short flowering time and how their appearance marks the beginning of spring. So in that way it’s all very striking and real. But I just personally don’t like it and never have. Also I think that for me, because I was so moved by Kokuhaku, there wasn’t much chance for this plot to have the same effect: Kokuhaku simply did it better.

I do think Kizuna is appreciable on its own and that if Tri weren’t a thing I’d have liked it better. I am not sure if I’m gonna go see it again. I might! I got a Koushirou clear file for going this week. (... The postcards we got for going to Tri were way better, though xP) So could at least go and collect more maybe.

But Kizuna has a big downside, which is that it’s just as obsessed with Taichi and Yamato as Tri was, but it’s even more felt due to the time constraints. At least with Tri, we got to see everyone do something at some point. In Kizuna, they don’t even try. Mimi, Jou, and Hikari are barely around and get their consciousness trapped early on. Takeru at least gets to join the initial fight with Eosmon, but I think that’s due to wanting to give a nod to Our War Game and maybe just because fans like Angemon. Then Takeru’s gone. Koushirou gets to be his brainiac self, I don’t really have a complaint about his treatment, except in the final battle where he’s just there. And Sora simply isn’t around period. Tri didn’t have the 02 kids, ok, that’s too bad... Kizuna has them but they’re boring and most of the Adventure cast doesn’t get to do much either. Is this really better, guys?

When you’ve got a cast this big, I don’t think you can do things the typical way. I’m an X-men fan, I should know. Lol.

That’s it for Kizuna! I’m still happy it exists, and have to admit that I might have had a slightly more positive take if I hadn’t been in such a bad mood from my day, so I hope that on a second viewing, whether I go to the theaters or wait to find it online, I will find more bits to appreciate.

#kizunaspoilers #digimon kizuna #digimon last evolution kizuna #digimon #kizuna

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ssj4 · 5 years

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Sorry to bother you, but I keep seeing posts about a future Goten AU and I keep getting really curious! However, when I try to find links to anything about it I end up at some abandoned URLs.

SECOND TIME TRYING TO ANSWER THIS CAUSE MY IDIOT ASS FORGOT I HAD ONE TYPED OUT AND CLOSED EVERYTHING :)

some disclaimers im getting most of this from an old draft i had written about the au, i havent watched the specific scenes in dbz and dbs that these are based on in well over 2+ years so i dont remember the timeline of events that well so im sorry if some of it just straight up doesnt make sense lol

this whole thing did start out as an excuse to replace the romantic scenes with mai in dbs with goten actually so the truten themes are pretty significant but that aside future goten is a very good boy with a much different personality and outlook on things… much like how future trunks is compared to his main timeline counterpart :3c the whole thing was developed by me and my gf together and we never rly posted too much about it and the broken links you did end up finding were probably from like the one or two times we did but here u go im glad u asked

I HOPE THE READ MORE LINK WORKS ON MOBILE IF NOT IM SORRY

the big change is it starts out with chi chi getting pregnant before goku dies of heart disease or whatever in the android saga instead of the cell saga, so even after he dies in that timeline she still has their 2nd son and he grows up in the future timeline with trunks.

when they were kids (like 10-15) goten was stronger than trunks just bc gohan and chi chi were there to teach him just a little bit. trunks and goten sparred a lot though so he was able to keep up but never really passed him. (that part isnt really important but i figured it was a nice detail that made sense)

thats when history of trunks comes into play, and they both get really serious about gohan training them. the scene in the movie where gohan knocks trunks out before flying off and getting killed is the same except now he just knocks out 2 kids instead of 1 i guess.

i feel i gotta add that this au was created when the future trunks arc in dbs was airing, and mai was introduced as his love interest, and honestly in my opinion the scenes were written really well but i just wasnt digging the fact that before she was granted a younger appearance she was already middle aged, like she was old enough to be his mom if that makes sense. so it really isnt a dig on mai at all cause i love her and id die for her its just the romantic plot that i didnt like. so when that was airing i thought “WELL what if that was someone else”

she’s still with them though in this timeline and she still has her younger appearance!

the future timeline is still progressing the same as it did in canon, the androids still wrecked the place and no one was strong enough to do much about it so trunks is still set up with a time machine to meet with the other timeline. goten stays back and does his best to protect everyone while hes gone just in case

some stuff happens in between here but skip ahead to trunks coming back from the trip after the cell games i guess! lots of stuff happened obviously like trunks literally dying, spending years in the time chamber with his dad, meeting a whole gaggle of clowns that he’d only heard stories about, seeing gohan as a preteen. hes got a lot of stuff to share!!! now hes back and he can take care of the androids + cell + and goten can catch up and lifes pretty good over there! 😇

during the rebuilding period goten would spend a lot of time with chi-chi and ox-king and still slept over there occasionally which she really appreciated, and he invited trunks and bulma over there with him frequently.

despite this he wasnt present when she died as no one really expected goku black to wipe out the landscape so far from the city, but she and ox-king died along with more than half of the population. (ugh god im so sorry queen i love you😓)

as i said before mai is still here and she’s still the leader of the resistance!

events of future bulmas death is the same as well as mai originally intending to go with trunks when they meet up together in an abandoned building. goten is already there as the three of them rest up a bit and start making their way to capsule corp. goten was planning on staying behind anyways but he wanted to see the two of them off. when goku black interrupts them as they arrive, trunks and goten encourage mai to escape, seeing as she only has a gun and everyone already knows bullets arent gonna work.

this scene is the same as it was in canon, where trunks tries to rush black but gets beaten quickly. mai trying to buy him time to let him escape is replaced with goten actually fighting him and taking a hit for trunks but getting knocked out as mai did. trunks under extreme stress from already losing his mom today assumes hes dead instantly, (he has dumb bitch disease, he didnt even check for a pulse in canon!🤔) and fires a masenko to escape into capsule on his own

after trunks pops back in time and black is focused on searching for him, mai sneaks back in to retrieve goten (even though they told her to leave she really just ducked behind some rubble and stayed close, because she wasnt just gonna leave them!)

she takes him back to an underground bunker with other members of earths resistance and when he wakes up she tells him that trunks made it to the time machine and that hes presumably in the other timeline now.

idk if yall remember it well but i rewatched some of the episodes just for this, and trunks in the main timeline believing goten was killed and mai is alone and he wont be able to get back is so sad. and when he spent that day with gohan and his family and cried thinking about how if black hadn’t have shown up, he couldve had a family too… he doesnt deserve to be this sad 😥

skip to when he’s finally able to get back home with goku and vegeta with him and they make their way to the bunker where he sees mai and goten together! the scene in canon where he rushes over and starts spilling his heart out is the same, with him telling goten he thought he died

they get a really sweet hug moment here when theyre both happy to see the other is still safe and it gives both goku and vegeta some Food For Thought, because goku actually didnt know there was a goten in this timeline, and he doesnt really recognize him at first. vegeta has the idea in his head that this is probably goten.

goten never really had any sort of real attachment to his dad. it makes sense hes never met him, hes only ever really heard about him through others, (his mom, his brother, trunks, and probably bulma has mentioned him as well) so he definitely knows OF him its just that, he doesnt know him. so when he sees the real goku standing there for once a lot of thoughts run though his mind, like, “that looks A LOT like goku black!” “thats definitely my old hairstyle” and “holy shit is that my dad?” but the first thing he actually says out loud is “Holy shit its goku orange” and vegeta really almost loses it because cause any doubt in his mind about this kid being related to kakarot just went right out the window cause only someone related to him would say that

and as you probably know a lot happens after that with them all finding a way to defeat zamasu but i dont want to include all of the rest when you can probably just interpret which scenes were changed

ANYWAYS now instead of trunks surviving the apocalypse its trunks and goten surviving the apocalypse. thats why its not a really super romantic deal like Who has time for dates when goku black Might possibly be hiding in this abandoned olive garden?? so theyre just very close and privately affectionate

the ending where trunks and mai get to live in a new world with their counterparts is the same except gotens there with them of course, dbs left their ending pretty open

so that takes care of the story changes, heres some additional details and information on gotens character in this au!

heres his design, drawn by my girlfriend @ssj2 uwu !!

he kept his natural hairstyle for a while, but i think he changed it sometime during the rebuilding period after the androids and just let it grow out a bunch. up until then he kept his natural style purely to honor the guy he’s heard so fondly of even if it brought him a lot of mixed feelings when people said he looks just like him. a really distinct feature about his new hairstyle is that the spikes look like horns and i love that a lot !!

and the shawl he wears was the same one chi chi wore

some personality traits for future goten is that he has a habit of bottling up his negative emotions and has trouble taking care of himself, as hes always more focused on the well being of his loved ones. he can be mischievous and cocky but hes not overconfident (or he hasnt been since gohans death) however in some situations he can be charismatic and assertive which works really well imowhen their timeline is erased and theyre temporarily in the main timeline, goten gets to meet a bunch of people like gohan and his family, chi chi, and even his counterpart

sorry if this post was messy i wasnt really sure how i wanted to make it look and im kinda bad at dumping information out so if any of its confusing just redirect me to it and ill try again gdjfksjdgsfk 😭❤

hmmm anyways thank u for reading!! its an au we made years ago and we love a lot and i hope u do too! be nice pls!! and send asks about it if you’d like cause its fun to think about!

#future goten au #goten #trunks #truten #i GUESS. im shy #long post #made an edit cause i rewatched the android saga a few days ago and i forgot trunks fucking died lol #tumblr stop deleting my tags challenge

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calamitaswrath · 6 years

Text

Okay, so in the past I’ve already made posts about my ideas for a Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Abridged series as well as my ideas for an AU in which Lora gets resurrected, but I think it’s about time that I get to the big thing: How I would rewrite the main game’s story/what I’d change around. I should point out, some of these ideas aren’t really that refined yet, and I don’t have that many ideas to give some characters that deserve more spotlight the attention they need, but regardless.

Everything’s under the read more, because this obviously gets long.

Torna - The Golden Country, Malos after that and a bit about Pyra

First things first, I’d keep the story of Torna - The Golden Country pretty much the same, with the exception of one thing in regards to the ending. Namely, rather than simply falling into the Cloud Sea being damaged, Malos is forced into a “repressed form”, similar to what Pyra is to Mythra. For this repressed form, it’d be a water element Blade going by the name of “Hydros”, to continue the trend of Malos’ element mirroring that of Pyra. This would also make it a bit more believable that Jin would join up with him, which I felt was rather iffy in the base game, since, y’know, Malos is responsible for a lot of shit that happened to him?? On a more general note, this would also make it more believable that Malos would be able to lay low for 500 years, because everybody just forgetting about the Aegis that caused the death of several titans feels just a bit too convenient. In terms of ideas on his design, the concept I have in my mind is that Hydros’ hairstyle is essentially what Malos’ hair would look if it got really wet, and was a dark shade of blue, to really drive home the point of him being water-elemental. Additionally, since he is a “broken” form of Malos, a could have an immediately obvious physical disability, such as missing an eye, hand or arm. This last point is something that I’d also apply to Pyra, since her design was supposed convey that she was an incomplete person. But since this is XBC2 we’re talking about here, it only really conveyed that Saigo and the entire development was way too horny. So it should go without saying, but most of the female character would be wearing more sensible clothing, with Pyra and Mythra in particular going fully armoured in a style similar to Malos.

Backstory for Rex, Tora and Vandham

Another thing that I’d change before the actual events of the game’s story would, of course, be the background of Rex. One of the biggest issues with canon Rex is that he has (with the exception of Azurda) no relationship with any of the characters of the main cast before the start of the game. This makes him feel extremely disconnected from all the events of the plot, and just makes it seem like he has no personal connection to anything. Therefore, I’d have it so that he didn’t grow up in Fonsett village, or even the Leftherian Archipelago. Since his Leftherian heritage is a plot point, that aspect of him is kept. However, rather than Rex’ parents suddenly showing up and dying with an infant Rex in Fonsett is changed to them doing the same thing in Torigoth. The person that his parents entrust him to is then also not just some NPC who has exactly one (1) scene of importance, it’d be a character with an actual role in the story - Vandham. This adoption would be taking place before Mor Ardain conquered Gormott, with Vandham’s presence on the titan being justified by him and some of his mercenaries being hired by Gormottian officials to help protect the people of Gormott in the increasing tensions with Mor Ardain and Uraya, which would be rather lengthy mission that’d allow Vandham to stay around long enough to actually raise Rex. Also, since Rex and Vandham are already in Torigoth? Vandham also takes in Tora after his father and grandfather disappear. Since the main game was rather vague about the point in time at which this actually happened, I’ll say that this happened when Rex was still a young child, meaning that him and Tora grew up together. Another thing that then happens while Rex and Tora are growing up is that Mor Ardain conquers Gormott, which would eventually lead to Vandham returning to Uraya because he needs to finally return to Garfont, leaving Rex and Tora in the care of Azurda. . . .Which I’ll just flat out say, this is a point that I have yet to work out some more for myself. Vandham just leaving Rex and Tora is rather irresponsible, and Azurda comes out of nowhere. But really, I currently have no real ideas on how to justify Azurda leaving Fonsett and getting to know Rex, except for maybe him having travelled along with Rex’ parents, and sticking around out of a sense of having failed them. Either way, the important part here is: Rex considers Torigoth to be his home, and having witnessed Mor Ardain conquering it and Gormott leaves him with a personal grudge against Mor Ardain, that he eventually needs to overcome, by the time of the main story he still spends most of his time out in the Cloud Sea with Azurda, salvaging. That, and Vandham is his dad.

Now, for the actual main story: Prologue

The opening scene remains unchanged, since it is a good enough introduction to the setting. However, the trip to Goldmouth is, all things considered, really just unnecessarily padding things out, and introducing things and concepts that don’t really matter that much. And even from a gameplay perspective, the mechanics introduced there could’ve just as well been shown off at Torigoth. So instead, let’s say that rather than returning to Goldmouth right away, Rex and Azurda stay in the Cloud Sea til nightfall, at which point they’re surprised by a storm - the very same that in canon happens before the Torna discover the sunken ship. Accordingly, Rex and Azurda come across the Torna and their party, and, realizing that Rex staying on Azurda would be pretty dangerous, have him come aboard. Jin, Malos (who I’ll keep referring to by this name instead of Hydros as I’ve called the sealed form he’d be in at that point, because it’s more convenient) and Nia are introduced much like they are in canon, and upon noticing Rex’ eyes, they recruit him for their expedition. As a small side note, Rex would here be able to open Addam’s seals because he explicitly is a descendant of Addam, which however wouldn’t be that big of a deal. Over the course of 500 years, it shouldn’t be too unbelievable that Addam’s line has spread out, so that there’s more than just one of his descendants running around. From here on, much of the prologue chapter would play out the same: The ship is found, raised, Pyra is found, Jin stabs Rex, Rex becomes Pyra’s Driver, over-the-top anime battle, Azurda escapes with Rex, Pyra, Nia and Dromarch. Of course, Nia’s initial bond with Rex is a bit weaker because they don’t share that little heart-to-heart on the ship’s lookout, but that shouldn’t affect Nia’s actions when seeing Jin stab Rex. On to the next chapter.

Gormott

The party still crash-lands in Gormott as in the base game, and gather around as they do there as well, complete with Azurda being forced to regress into his young form. However, dynamics and interactions are shifted around: Rex and Pyra actually use the moment to get to know each other a bit, because, y’know, they only really had the scene in the Dream-Elysium before that. Towards Nia, Rex is a bit more wary, since she was a partner of the guy that killed him, and her (and Dromarch) insisting that they don’t want anything to do with that sort of thing. Regardless, Rex can still trust them enough so that they travel together. In terms of Rex’ initial relationship with Pyra, they have some starting difficulties, which are also going to take some time to resolve. While Rex is willing to help Pyra get on her way towards Elysium, he sees no point in travelling there himself, figuring that it is no place for him, and that he’d rather stay with the people he considers family. He also considers using Pyra’s power to drive Mor Ardain out of Gormott, which she obviously shuts down immediately, seeing as she was born of Mythra’s fear of her own power. So since they can’t really send Pyra off to Elysium from their current position, and since Azurda still got them to Gormott, Rex figures that they best head to his home, so that they can properly weigh their options, and maybe contact Vandham about getting some help. The arrival in Gormott happens much as it does in canon, with the big exception of course being that Rex considers the place home, and isn’t too happy to see the recruitment for the Ardainian military going on. Regardless, the confrontation with the soldiers and Brighid still happens, Nia is captured, and Rex, Pyra and Azurda get away. Instead of blindly running away however, Rex leads them more directly towards his and Tora’s home, banking on Tora noticing what’s going on, and helping them out, which of course is what happens. Now, for Tora, one general thing right of the bat: The maid fetish thing is gone. Entirely. Doesn’t happen. If anything, he considers Poppi is daughter regardless of her form, which can be the replacement comic relief, since he’s still a child himself. As for Poppi’s further designs: Rather than “big tiddy anime maid” and “sexy robot woman”, they can instead be based off Nopon myths about creatures like bird people and dino beasts. Now, upon meeting Tora, Rex has a lot of catching up to do, which culminates in Tora chewing him out for going out to experience all this cool shit, while he was stuck at home looking after the house and doing some hopeless tinkering on Poppi. With that out of the way, the party comes to the conclusion that they can’t just leave Nia behind, and, as in canon, they get to rescuing here, complete with finishing Poppi first. While the canonical reason for Poppi not being complete was that Tora simply couldn’t afford the parts, this reasoning doesn’t really work as well with him living with both Rex and Vandham. So instead, the reason why Poppi isn’t functional yet is because, well, getting a functional AI with the exact powers and functions of a Blade isn’t exactly easy. Tora simply hadn’t been able to figure it out until Rex left for the trip where he would wind up finding Pyra. With this done, the party heads onto the Ardainian warship, where the rescue of Nia happens as it does in canon, up to and including the battle with Mòrag, which they just barely escape, leading to them fleeing Torigoth. In a departure from canon however, Rex isn’t too happy about having to flee Torigoth, and Tora isn’t too happy, either. This has been their home for most of their lives, and now they have to run away from it because they’re wanted - and Rex in particular feels like ever since he met Pyra, they’ve only ever been chased around. He does kind of blame her for this, both on the other hand, since she has saved his life, he’s of course still going to help. Tora, in contrast, is not as bothered as Rex is, because he sees this as a big opportunity to get out in the world and search for his father and grandfather, especially since he finally completed Poppi. In regards to Nia however, Rex is now more willing to trust her, since she does owe him for saving her. Keeping things more similar to canon, Tora still suggests that they head on over to his uncle on the other side of the titan, so that they can get a ship to head off towards the World Tree.

Lora getting resurrected

At this point however, I’d finally introduce a more major departure from canon, in using my premise for an AU in which Lora is resurrected. So instead of just fully typing that out again, I’ll just shortly summarize things. For a more detailed version, I refer back to the original post I linked up at the top. -The Torna organization has already tracked Pyra and the others down to Gormott, and has landed with the Monoceros around the area where Tora’s uncle lives -The party just barely manages to avoid all of the Torna minus Patroka as they head further onto the titan to search for them -Realizing that they’ve got an opportunity, the party decides to enter the ship and sabotage its engine, to make it easier for them to escape -While roaming around the ship, they come across the room where Jin keeps Lora’s body along with a Core Crystal (Haze’s) -They unfreeze Lora’s body, and Nia, noticing that this is a person that is only very “recently” dead and well-preserved, resurrects her while no is looking (like Niall in canon) -It works, Lora lives again, has amnesia (as in, she has no idea about her identity other than her name), but still (re-)resonates with Haze’s Core Crystal and joins the party -The party sabotages the engine and leaves the ship, but not without encountering, fighting and defeating Patroka -With this done, the party visits Umon, who gives them a titan ship to escape on -On their initial trip towards the World Tree, Lora and Haze get to properly know the party, who they are, and what they’re doing, with her coming very close to remembering something when the topic of discussion is on Pyra, but not quite getting there; Pyra and Azurda keep quiet because they need to figure out how to deal with this; Lora ultimately resolves to travel with the party in the hopes of uncovering who she is that way and because she feels like she owes them -Meanwhile, in the Torna organization, Jin, upon learning what happened, orders Patroka to keep quiet about what happened because he wants to figure out himself what to do about this; he’s especially not trusting Hydros (whose true identity as Malos he doesn’t know) out of a hunch -Unrelated to the premise of Lora being resurrected, at some point around this time, Rex drops the question of why Pyra wants to go to Elysium, anyway, which she dodges for the time being.

Uraya, Vandham, Minoth and Mythra

The party getting attacked by Artifice Ophion and swallowed by Uraya then happens as in canon, just as the events up to and including the encounter with Vandham. This encounter then is of course far different, since Vandham actually has a backstory with Rex, Tora and Azurda. And while he is surprised but overjoyed to see his “sons”, he still fights them, because he wants to test out just how good they are as Drivers now. After the battle, they all head over to Garfont, where there is a lot of catching up to do, especially in regards to Vandham being filled in about Pyra, Nia and Lora. On account of Rex and Tora’s relation to Vandham, the rest of the party also gladly heads to Garfont. For Rex and Tora, this’d also be the first time that they’re seeing it for themselves, which would cheer Rex in particular up a great deal. Most of the events in Garfont would still largely play out the same, only with the party also trying to figure out if anyone there has any clues as to who Lora is. Pyra and Azurda would still keep quiet about this, because, well, a lot of shit went down, and they’re not sure how to really tell her about this. Either way, the party, now with Vandham and Roc, decide to seek out Cole/Minoth, after fighting and defeating Akhos. The encounter with Zeke and Pandoria is then exactly the same. The only thing I’d ever change about that is them being acknowledged as a very legitimate threat to the party. Then, in Fonsa Myma, after watching the play about Addam, Lora gets her first flash of resurging memories, which let her remember that she was a knight of Torna who knew Addam, but not much beyond those basic things. When meeting Cole/Minoth however, things quickly turn into a four-way reunion. Minoth is not too terribly shocked to see Pyra and Azurda again, but Lora is another story entirely. In his surprise, he blurts out some things that Pyra and Azurda specifically kept to themselves, such as it having been 500 years, and just what happened to Torna, and what they thought had happened to Lora. Overwhelmed with everything she’s learning/remembering, Lora steps out for a while, with only Haze by her side. The others leave her be, because there really is a lot that she’s going through now. With Lora away for the time being, the events that lead to the confrontation at Olethro Ruins happen, Pyra realizes that this Hydros is beyond any doubt Malos, and the battle against him and Akhos goes as badly as it does in canon. One thing to note however, is that with Haze being a party member, Obrona takes her place in Indol, due to their similar powers. The spot as Akhos’ Blade could therefore be filled by a rare Blade that canonically has strong powers, because Obrona’s specific powers honestly don’t matter that much to this scene. So the initial battle against Malos and Akhos is lost, and Vandham dies, which is the point when Lora, having learned what’s going on, returns and gives everyone a second wind, just as Mythra also reawakens. Malos and Akhos are forced to retreat, and the party is safe, for now.

Aftermath

But for the aftermath, there is a lot to unpack. First off, with Mythra absolutely wrecking half the platform they were fighting on, Vandham’s body fell down into the Cloud Sea. Since Rex and Tora are absolutely devastated by his, they spend an unreasonable amount of time at the place, with Rex trying everything he can to retrieve Vandham’s body from the Cloud Sea, and Tora doing everything he can to help him. This is despite them both knowing that it’s pointless, since not only Uraya is constantly moving, but also because of currents in the Cloud Sea. They ultimately don’t even have Roc’s Core Crystal, because he fell down into the Cloud Sea with Vandham. Lora meanwhile has another painful returning memory after seeing Mythra, namely how the Tornan titan was killed and sank into the Cloud Sea. With enough of her memory having returned, Lora can finally have a proper talk with Mythra, Azurda and Minoth about the past, and what happened at the meantime, but she still does not remember Jin. The others also only fill her in on some basics, that she had a Blade other than Haze, but don’t specify - because really, how do you have the kind of situation where you tell her that the most important person in her life is now the leader of a terrorist organization, and most likely did some pretty disturbing things to you? One question that however starts to come up during all this, is how Lora is alive after all this. Pyra/Mythra accordingly has some thoughts about that, and about Nia, but only really tells Nia that if she wants to talk about anything, she’s there for her. With all this emotional bagagge adressed, the party gets ready to move on, although Rex and Tora are very reluctant about this. They do however move on nonetheless, with Rex in particular being more resolved now, because he figures that Vandham definitely wouldn’t have wanted him to be all half-hearted about helping Pyra/Mythra. As in canon, Minoth tells them that their best shot at figuring out how to get to the World Tree is to seek out Amalthus, making Indol their next target.

Everything from Goldmouth to Mor Ardain, Leftheria, Indol, Temperentia and Tantal

The party then moves on to Goldmouth to get on their way to Indol, making it the first time the place is visited. The filler story about Roc’s Core Crystal is cut for obvious reasons, and instead, there could be a bit of an interlude where Bana wishes to see the Aegis, which would also give him an opportunity to act a bit ominously when he sees Tora and Poppi, for a bit of foreshadowing for the next chapter. With this done, the party moves on to Mor Ardain.

. . .And now I gotta be honest, I don’t have much in the way of specific ideas on how to change things around for the events/story parts mentioned in the headline here, so I’ll simply make note of a few stray thoughts.

Rex is not particularly thrilled about having to go to Mor Ardain, but after seeing the situation of the titan and allying with Mòrag, he’s starting to come around on his grudge towards them.

The party does actually meat Niall face-to-face (which I think didn’t happen in canon), during which Lora regains her memories of Hugo, Aegaeon and Brighid, leading to some confusion for her.

The artificial Blades that Tatazo was forced to build for Bana are not maids. Cut that shit out.

During the encounter with Patroka and Mikhail at the end of the Old Factory, Lora does not recognize or remember Mikhail, but he very much recognizes her, which takes him extremely off-guard since Jin didn’t tell him about it.

The trip through Leftheria and Fonsett village is also the first time that Rex actually gets to visit the place that his parents came from, making the entire thing very interesting to him personally. Lora and Mythra likewise have a personal interest in the village, since it was founded by Addam, and a good deal of its population is directly descendet from him.

Meeting Amalthus leaves both Mythra and Lora extremely wary. While neither of them really know that he’s personally responsible for attacking the survivors of Torna, between him still being alive, Malos’ Driver and just generally giving off a bad vibe, they have more than enough reason to distrust him.

Zeke has a personal interest in Lora, because in Tantal there actually exist some records of her, about how she was a knight of Torna and everything. Plus, she knew Addam.

Now, the first major confrontation with Jin. . . I’ll admit, thinking of ways how this could play out with Lora there is tricky. Before I even get to this, I’m going to address Jin’s own personal goals, since him just joining up with Malos of all people to basically carry out Amalthus’ will really just comes of as a huge leap in logic to me. I would handle it so that Jin has two basic goals: First, destroying Indol and the entire world order it has created, and second, meeting and confronting the Architect about the state of the world, and the nature of Blades and titans. He’s not explicitly aware that Hydros is Malos for the longest time of them staying together (which, considering the timeline, could’ve been several centuries), but he does eventually find out during the events of the game, and grows more wary of him, while not changing his behaviour towards him. Jin’s reasoning for this is that in all the time he has known this sealed Malos, he hasn’t really noticed any of Malos’ genocidal and destructive tendencies. On Malos’ side, things are kept similar to canon in the regard that he basically views Jin as a surrogate Driver, while however still retaining his personality and ambitions. Due to his sealed form, he is more “docile”, but he still seeks to return to his previous form, which is just another reason why he wants to get his hands on Pyra/Mythra: He needs the data of her Core Crystal to reconstruct his own.

So, the confrontation with Jin. Obviously, meeting him first-hand would return a large chunk of Lora’s memories to her, potentially up to and including her death, and Jin becoming a Flesh Eater (I say potentially here because having these memories would definitely turn her against Indol right away, and while that’d be interesting, it’d be a bit difficult to account for writing-wise). Despite Lora being the entire reason behind Jin’s motivation however, he nonetheless opposes her along with the rest of the party, albeit reluctantly. As in canon, he pursues his goals knowing full well that Lora does not approve of them, with the exception here just being that, well, less idiotically genocidal. As far as the rest of the party is concerned in this encounter, Rex'd be a bit scared seeing as this is the guy that killed him, Mythra'd be even more confused as to why Jin went down this path, Nia’d more questionening just how much of his kindness towards her was real, and Zeke could very well be dropping the reveal that Jin was once the strongest Blade in all of Torna. This would only leave Tora and Mòrag with no personal connection in this fight, and. . . honestly, thinking of one for Tora to have is a bit tricky. The only thing that could still work would be if Soozoo’s disappearance could be worked into the plot more, with him being kept by the Torna organization. As for Mórag, she really doesn’t need a personal connection of any kind to Jin, and could instead point how regardless of how he was or what he did in the past, what he’s doing right now is pretty damn shitty and they had better stop him. Regardless, Jin is fought, defeated, and escapes after killing Obrona, who’s taking Haze’s place in the story, since Haze is Lora’s Blade again.

In the event that Lora regained the memories of her death, the following burial of Obrona and return trip to Indol could be used to get the full party to be more wary of Indol, and only rely on Amalthus as much as they have to. Before the party moves on to their next target in Tantal, Rex could address some personal parting words to Amalthus, about how he as Malos’ Driver should take more responsibility of his actions, which does actually get to Amalthus. . . but not exactly in the way that Rex’d hope.

Small note: The filler story bit about Bana’s return and Niall’s temporary death is cut. It’s entirely unnecessary, and direct foreshadowing of Nia’s Blade powers was already done by her resurrecting Lora. And hell, as I’m typing this out, I don’t even remember at which exact point this all took place.

All the story events in Tantal can essentially play out the same, with the exception of the climactic confrontation with the Torna organization at the end. For one thing, Jin’s anime power bullshit of being faster than light and controlling all particles is just. . . it’s absolutely stupid. I don’t have any specific ideas on how this could be changed, but it’s just better if it’s not there. Maybe all of the Torna could simply have the superior teamwork? Something like that. The other thing that’d need changing is Jin’s choice of words for breaking Rex. In canon, it was something about “Ummm do you even really pay attention to what Pyra wants??? I think not!!! Checkmate!!!”. Here, it could instead be something about any real personal ambition, only helps Pyra/Mythra out of obligation, and how Jin can tell that even now, Rex would rather be at home. Rex’ defense would of course be that this is a personal thing to him as well, since he wants to get back at Malos for killing Vandham, to which Jin asks the ever important question “And then what”. So, long story short, Pyra/Mythra is taken, Rex is broken, and Lora tries and fails once again to get Jin to explain why the hell he’s doing any of this.

Spirit Cruciple Elpys and Morytha

However, rather than snapping back to normal right away after getting a bit of talk from the other party members, Rex remains unwilling to get back into action. He does travel with the party back to Leftheria, and open up the Spirit Cruciple Elpys, but instead choses to remain behind in Fonsett. After some internal back-and-forth among the party, Nia decides to stay behind with him to still change his mind. Tora doing the same/taking Nia’s place is briefly considered, but the party figures that with the area’s Blade-hindering atmosphere, it’s best to have Tora and Poppi with them. So while the party advances deeper and deeper, cutscenes would keep cutting back to Nia and Rex, with Nia herself opening up to him and revealing her backstory to him, which in turn would lead to Rex opening up more to her as well. The rest of the party would meanwhile go through similar story beats as in canon, with Zeke talking about him being a Blade Eater, while additionally, Lora could tell the others about her time with Addam and Mythra. The battle with Addam’s phantom-things would then play out at least comparable to canon - the party gets backed into a corner, until a big twist happens, which in this case would be Rex and Nia dropping in to help them, with Nia being already in her Blade form, as a conclusion to her time spend with Rex. (Side note: I very much don’t care about any potential pairings for any of the characters, so this should not be taken as this being changed around to make room for a Rex/Nia pairing) With Pneuma’s sword then, both Rex and Lora have a little chat with this spirit-Addam, with Rex being told more or less what he was told in canon, and him wishing Lora that she finds in this time what she couldn’t 500 years ago. After all these events, party then has some obligatory talks back in Fonsett: Nia confirms to Lora that she brought her back to life, Nia apologizes that she could do nothing for Vandham (though that’s nothing that Rex or Tora blame her for), and everyone’s still not sure what to do next. Rex would be willing to just chase right after the Torna organization, but everyone else just heavily discourages him from that, considering how well last time went. This is when a message from Amalthus would reach them, stating that he has taken Rex’ words to heart, that he will personally take care of things, and that they will meet him at the Cliffs of Morytha. This does of course raise some red flags for Lora, but right now, the party simply doesn’t have any better options, and so they do just that.

Over at the Cliffs of Morytha, they then find Amalthus along with a contingent of Indolese troops, who ask them to go on ahead, with Amalthus following the party after some preparations that he still has to make. Again, with not much of a choice, the comply. The initial battle with Malos would here be cut, and instead the only real battle would be with both Jin and Malos right at the end. However, rather than being finished with reconstructing his Core Crystal before the party even gets there, Malos is still busy “downloading” while they fight. But then, when Malos is finished, and he can finally return to his actual normal form from his Hydros form, Amalthus shows up. He’s not here to fight Malos. Instead, for probably the first time, him and Malos properly synergize as Driver and Blade, and announce their plans to head to Elysium together - without Jin, the party or the Torna. An obligatory over-the-top anime battle happens, during which Mythra reawakens, and begins to start using her true power - but without becoming Pneuma just yet. In the end, the battle destroys the platform, and the party, along with Jin, falls to Morytha, while Amalthus and Malos get ready to cross over to the World Tree, which does however take some time.

Down in Morytha, rather than the overly Rex-and-Jin focussed story bit from canon, I’d instead propose a situation similar to how the party in XBC1 is split up after they fall off Galahad Fortress and down onto the Fallen Arm. As in, everyone gets their moment in the spotlight, showcasing their own character growth, current motivations, and so on. For Rex’ own part of this, he’d start out alone, find himself under attack from the mutated zombies, and then find a Core Crystal just in time to save himself - Roc’s Core Crystal. For Lora’s “episode” in this, she’d be the one to end up with Jin around the corpse of the Tornan titan, and it would lead to him finally properly talking to her, and ultimately joining her - and by proxy, the party.

Finale

Now, for events that could happen while everyone climbs to World Tree. . . I’ll admit, I don’t have much in the way of ideas. The big battle between the titans and Torna organization could still happen, but with the different scenario here, I’m not sure if it would still work. Rather than that, what could happen is that Malos uses his newly reawakened Aegis powers to send his mechs to attack the titans, causing destruction similar to what is shown in the very last cutscenes before the canonical final boss, with all the various characters the party has come across shown defending themselves. The members of the Torna organization - that is, Akhos, Patroka and Mikhail - wouldn’t even necessarily have to die while the party climbs the World Tree. Instead, they could at one point just hold off Indolese troops.

Now, for the actual big, final moments: The reveal of Elysium works as it is in canon, so there’s nothing to change here. The dream sequence where all the party members turn against Rex would still take place. But instead of Pyra and Mythra being the ones that finish things off, it would instead be an appearance by ghostly Vandham, who question Rex about his growth, ambition, goals, and whether he really stands behind everything he does. Simply put, Vandham’s last goodbye to his “sons”, since Tora would also join in on that talk after a while. The meeting with Klaus would be similar, but not quite the same: Amalthus and Malos would also be present during the big exposition, which would end with Klaus basically telling everyone that he has no right to make any more decisions for the world, and that they should decide between them who’s in the right. The final battle would then be as follows: Amalthus with his ridicilous amount of Blade Eater powers as Malos’ Driver, with Malos himself assuming a full-power form as Logos - essentially, a counterpart Pneuma. For a later phase, the battle would then be against Artifice Aion.

The various ending cutscenes could then stay mostly the same. However, Pyra and Mythra are not resurrected as two seperate entities, and are instead either just Mythra, or just Pneuma. And last, but certainly not least: While some parting words from Klaus along the lines of “Live in a world with no need for gods, titans or Blades” are heard, all currently inactive Core Crystals all awaken, and all Blades simultaneously lose their Core Crystals, making them actual living beings that don’t have any need for a Driver to live.

And. . . yeah, that’s all I got. Obviously there’s still plenty of room for improvement here, especialyl in regards to the development of characters other than Rex and Lora, or the state and politics of the world, and how the conflict between Uraya and Mor Ardain could be adressed. But more than anything, I just want to get these ideas out there first.

#xenoblade #xenoblade chronicles 2 #xbc2 #xenoblade 2 #long post #like not actually a long post #but definitely very fucking long after the read more #. . .should I tag this as xbc2 critical? I'm really not sure #someone send me a message in case I should

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summysparklesprocket · 6 years

Text

Character Sheet: Summy

Character Chart

Character’s Full Name: Summy Sparklesprocket

Reason or Meaning of Name: Honestly it was something that I used from Sumffin, which is the non-RP character IGN. Was a joke between my irl brother and I.

Character’s Nickname/Alias: Sums

Reason for Nickname/Alias: Bennas just shortened her name to Sums on occasion, but for the most part she’s just Summy. ( @theodorebennas )

Birth Date: May 10th

Physical appearance

Age: 52

How old does he/she appear: Upper 20′s Lower 30′s

Weight: 30 pounds. (Gnomes are light)

Height: 2′6″

Body build: Petite

Shape of face: Round

Eye color: Light Blue

Glasses or contacts: Neither

Skin tone: Pale

Distinguishing marks: Lots of scars. Some of them have been healed away, and some are being hidden with illusion magic and make-up. They are there though. One that is always visible when her shirt is off is a scar right on her belly from a crossbolt. It an X shaped scar caused by when they were removing it.

Predominant features: Her eyes and hair match and she tries to color coordinate her clothing on occasion with it.

Hair color: Light Blue, same as her eyes.

Type of hair: Wavey and long, outside of the pony-tail it’s probably about to her butt, maybe a bit longer.

Hairstyle: Pony-tail. It’s always in a pony-tail except when she’s in her apartment.

Voice: High and squeaky.

Overall Attractiveness: For a gnome, if she didn’t exercise more than a normal mage about average or slightly above average. Since she does work out a lot between tinkering and military, above average.

Physical Disabilities: None. Despite all her injuries, she actually hasn’t gained any physical disabilities yet.

Usual Fashion of Dress: Casual clothing or robes. She doesn’t really care about what she wears, but the gnome who designs her robes goes all out. (I’ll forget, but the one who designs them is @integrabrenagh‘s gnome. Yes. For those who know her, Faye is a tailor, and a damn good one.)

Favorite Outfit: Black pants that are similar to yoga pants, skin tight and really don’t hide anything, but are super comfortable and a light blue vest she doesn’t wear in public anymore because she had a lot of creeps hit on her. (I lost the vest is the real reason. I’ll find it again one day)

Jewelry or Accessories: She doesn’t wear too much jewelry. She may wear a random ring or some earings on occasion, but she hasn’t cared too much about it aside from one she’ll quietly wear cause it looks pretty.

Personality

Good Personality Traits: She’s intelligent, and sociable. Unlike the mun on occasion, she’s not afraid to go up to and start talking to people randomly despite having never met them. She also doesn’t have shame, so she’s not afraid to ask normally embarressing questions, or make lewd jokes in public. On the other hand, she tries to be aware of her surroundings and what she’s doing. Including if someone is getting more embarressed and angry than what she meant.

Bad Personality Traits: She can occasionally take things too far. Whether that’s someone getting embarressed or angry or whatever, she can take jokes too far without noticing. On the other hand, despite what she shows outwardly, she really doesn’t trust herself a lot and when she gets in private she overthinks. She’s constantly worried that she’ll go back to how she was in the past and will get mean and rude and hurt people.

Mood Character is Most Often In: At the moment happy.

Sense of Humor: Lewd humor, puns, and physical humor. She makes all kinds of jokes.

Character’s Greatest Joy In Life: Making her friends and loved ones laugh.

Character’s Greatest Fear: Causing her friends and loved ones pain.

What single event would most throw this character’s life into complete turmoil? Her being the reason a friend of loved one was killed or caused immense emotional, mental, or physical pain. I’m unsure if she could forgive herself.

Character Is Most at Ease When: She’s tinkering, or either at the Bennas estate Summerfast (I think) or with Pin and/or Leon. ( @darbiebot @mremaknu )

Most Ill at Ease When: Those who she cares about are upset with her for legitimate reasons.

Enraged When: People ignore her, think she’s dumb, or is invalid or similar things. Also short jokes. Those who are closest to her can make short jokes, but the list is super short.

Depressed or Sad When: She thinks she messed up, or when her brain goes back to her past or certain events in the past. Slight PTSD kinda thing.

Life Philosophy: “No need to be so serious all the time. Gotta let go and have fun.” There really isn’t a specific philosophy, but this is the closest one she’s got.

If Granted One Wish, It Would Be: World peace. Okay not really. I honestly don’t know, because she doesn’t know. The closest thing is she wishes she could fix some mistakes in the past, but she doesn’t know how things would change if she could. So she has no idea.

Character’s Soft Spot: Julliette and Theodore Bennas, and Pin.

Is This Soft Spot Obvious to Others? I don’t think so. She doesn’t worry about them because they’re all able to take care of themselves.

Greatest Strength: Her intellect/creativity, and her ability to talk and be friends with anyone.

Greatest Vulnerability or Weakness: She questions herself a lot more than she lets on. She just hides it by being confident in civilian settings. She has trouble trusting herself in more serious matters, but she knows how to hide it.

Biggest Regret: Letting herself become corrupt without noticing.

Minor Regret: Unsure of this one at the moment.

Biggest Accomplishment: Becoming as knowledgeable at tinkering as she has. Mastering frost and fire magic as much as she has.

Minor Accomplishment: Getting to the rank of Major in the Military.

Past failures he/she would be embarrassed to have people know about: She still occasionally has spells blow up in her face because she’ll screw up, or she’ll just mess up the spell and nothing will happen. Most of the time her fellow soldiers will not notice, but it’s still embarressing.

Character’s Darkest Secret: She’s tortured innocent people to death and insanity.

Does Anyone Else Know? Her superiors in the Vanguard. And two people who were there when it was happening. Outside of those people. Nope.

Goals

Drives and Motivations: Try to distract herself and forget what was explained above and a few other things.

Immediate Goals: Figure out Azerite uses. Hope the Alliance doesn’t go to war with the Horde, but she knows it’s gonna happen.

Long Term Goals: Currently she doesn’t really have one aside from spend time with friends and loved ones cause of the upcoming war. She’ll be trying to get people to stop the pointless war when it starts.

How the character plans to accomplish these goals: Magic, talking to people, condemning those who are war hungry through whatever means possible.

How Other Characters Will Be Affected: Some will die (NPC’s), some will be annoyed/angry with her, some will be better off.

Past

Hometown: Gnomeregan

Type of Childhood: Abusive. Educated. Fleeing

Pets: None.

First Memory: Something sad involving her parents being assholes

Most Important Childhood Memory: Tied between a particularly brutal night that ended with her fleeing into the night, and when she discovered she had a knack for the arcane.

Childhood Hero: The Guardians of Tirisfal. Medivh, before him Aegwynn.

Dream Job: Where she is right now she’s happy with. She eventually wants to do a job involving tinkering, but she’s in no rush for it.

Education: PH.D

Religion: None.

Finances: As a child, her parents were middle class, but she tried to avoid them and did her own thing. So she was poor for awhile, but then joined the Kirin Tor.

Present

Current Location: Stormwind or Elwynn most of the time

Currently Living With: She has an apartment in Stormwind, a permanent room at the Bennas Estate of Summerfast (I think that’s the name), and likely could stay at her girlfriend’s place whenever she wanted.

Pets: An Owl-kitten that she hasn’t named yet

Religion: None

Occupation: Military. Tinker.

Finances: Lower part of Upper Class

Family

Siblings: A Brother

Relationship With Them: Good

Spouse: Pin Peppercog (girlfriend, not married)

Relationship With Them: Really good.

Children: none.

Relationship With Them: none

Other Important Family Members: none

Favorites

Color: Light Blue

Least Favorite Color: None

Music: Hard Rock/Metal

Food: Steak.

Literature: Everything.

Form of Entertainment: Spending time with Pin and Leon, tinkering, hanging out at the Bennas estate.

Expressions: Laughter, or annoyance if they’re annoyed at her shenanigans

Mode of Transportation: Fidget spinner mage disc or Portal.

Most Prized Possession: The Owl Kitten.

Habits

Hobbies: Tinkering.

Plays a musical instrument? Nope

Plays a sport? Nope

How he would spend a rainy day? Magical research, tinkering, reading whatever, walk around in the rain and not care.

Spending Habits: About average. She doesn’t need a lot that she doesn’t already have access to.

Smokes: Occasionally.

Drinks: Rarely

Other Drugs: Rarely

What does he/she do too much of? Annoying people. Working, whether it be military based, tinkering, or research.

What does he/she do too little of? Sleep. Eat when she’s focused on a certain project or work (she forgets).

Extremely Skilled At: The arcane, tinkering, reading (girl can read at some stupid speeds), research.

Extremely Unskilled At: Cooking. Taking care of herself in the normal sense.

Nervous Tics: Slight eye squint, looking around more often.

Usual Body Posture: Standing straight.

Mannerisms: Happy, smiling (at least when most people see her)

Peculiarities: Darting eyes. Constantly on alert.

Traits

Optimist or Pessimist? Mix of the two.

Introvert or Extrovert? Extrovert

Daredevil or Cautious? Daredevil

Logical or Emotional? Logical

Disorderly and Messy or Methodical and Neat? Methodical and Neat most of the time, but when she tunnels on something she can get messy.

Prefers Working or Relaxing? Working

Confident or Unsure of Himself? Both. Depends on a few things.

Animal lover? Yeah.

Self-perception

How She Feels About Herself: Outwardly appears confident, inwardly doesn’t trust herself.

One Word Character Would Use To Describe Themselves: Smart

Paragraph Description on How They’d Describe Themselves: “A little gnome who knows the arcane and can tinker well. A gnome who knows how to gather information and how to mislead people. I’m not that good at this.”

What does the character consider his/her best personality trait? Her intellect and creativity.

What does the character consider his/her worst personality trait? Her recklessness.

What does the character consider his/her best physical characteristic? Her behind. She works hard on it.

What does the character consider his/her worst physical characteristic? Her stumpy legs.

How does the character think others perceive him/her? Logically, she knows most people like her. Emotionally, she occasionally thinks that everyone hates her despite knowing it’s not true.

What would the character most like to change about himself/herself? More trust in herself.

Relationships with others

Opinion of Other People in General: Mixed opinion of people in general.

Does the character hide his/her true opinions and emotions from others? Yup.

Person Character Most Hates: At the moment she doesn’t really hate anyone that much. The person that it’s like to develop into is Percival Thalsian.

Best friend(s): Theodore Bennas, Julliette Bennas, Josamin Ravenscäl

Love interest(s): Pin Peppercog

Person Character (Would) Go to For Advice: Theodore Bennas most likely.

Person Character Feels Responsible For: No one at the moment cause those who she would she knows that they can take care of themselves, so she doesn’t bother.

Person Character Feels Awkward Around: It’s uncommon that she feels awkward.

Person Character Openly Admires: Integra Brenagh

Person Character Secretly Admires: Leon Ambroce

Tagged by: @thalsianiii

Tagging: @theodorebennas, @juliette-bennas, @pinpep, @mremaknu, @wardennerd, @malien-moonray, @ithaerielbrenagh, @risrielthron, @kat-hawke, @murkeyglglgl, @vordasblackspire, @wraithclaw

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squirenonny · 6 years

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Clone Shiro Theory in Season 5

Okay, so this mess was inspired by talking with several people on Tumblr and discord about the Clone Shiro Theory in the wake of Season 5, as well as seeing posts in the fandom tags. And...I’ve noticed some common themes in arguments against this theory.

Please note that this is not meant to be a direct rebuttal to anyone, more... working out for myself why I’m so convinced that Shiro is a clone because I’ve got all these nebulous thoughts running around in my head and I need to organize them somehow. So feel free to read, respond, reblog, ect, but also feel free to ignore this completely if Clone Shiro isn’t your thing.

Season 5 spoilers and a very long post under the cut.

I’m going to break this down into three parts:

I. Why a clone and not something else (mind control, magical spyware, ect)

II. Why I won’t accept anything but clones at this point without crying foul

III. Clone Shiro vs Galra Keith

I. Why a clone?

I think at this point there’s no way to deny that something happened to Shiro in Operation Kuron. We’ve seen Haggar spying through him, the headaches are a recurring theme, and his behavior has changed to the point that he’s going behind his team’s back and lashing out at the team in ways he hasn’t before.

With most of the proof, you can make several arguments. Haggar’s mind-controlling him directly, but he still is Shiro. Haggar’s spyware is giving him headaches that’s making him more testy than usual, but he’s still acting under his own free will. Ect. But I think there is enough evidence to give the clone theory specifically an edge over other explanations.

Shiro’s hair grew roughly a foot during his captivity between seasons 2 and 3. There’s no clear answer on how long this was, but it seems like a fairly short time period. At the start of the season, Keith is still raw over Shiro’s disappearance, and though they’ve done a few missions without Shiro, they haven’t run up against anything that required Voltron. Which... considering how often they form Voltron both before and after this period, suggest to me that we’re talking a time frame of weeks at the longest. Then episodes 1-3 happen in pretty quick succession, with the lion switch and Keith immediately charging off, almost out of spite. We pick up with Shiro a day or two before episode 3 (which is where Shiro finds Voltron and then loses them.) He spends another week chasing them before Keith and Black find him. All told, this is probably in the realm of one month since his disappearance, maybe two. For reference, human hair grows on average half an inch per month. Shiro is shown to have significantly more hair growth in this time frame than anyone else gets in the entire series--even people who have been prisoners for extended amounts of time. Matt and Sam each get maybe a few inches, and Shiro’s hair was kept short during his stint in the Arena. This tells me that Shiro’s hair growth for The Journey is not an artist’s exaggeration to show that he’s had it rough. If it is, then it’s sloppy, and the animators on this show are typically pretty attentive to detail. If this is intentional, I can only conclude that Shiro has been in captivity for far longer than the timeline allows and/or the clone was grown in a short time and the accelerated growth also affected his hair.

Calling attention to the difference between Shiro(s1-2) and Shiro(s3+). These, I’ll admit, are more suspicious than damning, but they’re worth mentioning. The animators made a deliberate decision to give Shiro a new look after his return. We’ve seen people in different outfits, and Allura has a few different hairstyles (up, down, mice poofs), but no one has changed their “default” outfit like Shiro has, only their armor or other special outfits (pajamas, swimsuits, ect), and no one has gotten a new haircut, except Pidge (in backstory, as a plot point) and Sam and Matt (compare to Shiro on the Kerberos mission vs post-escape in s1.) They want you to be able to tell the difference between Shiro 1 and Shiro 2. At the same time, they call attention to this change by having Shiro comment about his “weird headache.” The writers also made a point of having the Galra refer to Shiro differently in the context of Operation Kuron (Subject Y0XT39 vs Prisoner 117-9875.) From a writing standpoint, this is a strange choice--not necessarily significant, but likely so because both designations are mentioned in passing and without context, so tossing both out there without reason is more confusing than world-building. And in-universe, it tells us that the people in charge of Operation Kuron couldn’t or didn’t want to refer to prisoners by their already-assigned number. Possibly this is for internal organization--i.e. if not all subjects were prisoners or if they had completely random prisoner numbers. But if it is clones, they would need new ways to identify them, since they’d all have the same prisoner ID. Again, not proof, but suspicious.

Shiro appeared in the Voltron bond. And it seems as though the Shiro with the team didn’t. Not just his head is fuzzy about it. He wasn’t there. Did you notice how Shiro-in-the-bond was translucent, only seen from a distance, and almost completely lacking in detail in the head area? Maybe to obscure the fact that he has his old haircut (both from us and from Lance)? Did you notice that he didn’t appear with everyone else, and how desperate he was to communicate with his team? There are two Shiros. The only question is whether the distinction is physical (clones) or mental (mind control with the real Shiro’s mind completely suppressed by Haggar’s persona)

Following up on this point, Shiro himself is questioning things. If this was a case of mind control, of Haggar taking over Shiro’s body, there is no way she would allow her puppet to question his own identity. If she has direct control, she certainly wouldn’t mention it to Lance, and if the real Shiro is still in there waiting to take his body back, she absolutely would put safeguards in to make sure her controlled personality stays in place.

And of course, the single biggest argument in favor of Clone Shiro: Operation Kuron = literally, “Operation Clone.” This can’t be a coincidence. It can’t. With everyone working on the show (how many of whom are anime fans and have at least a rudimentary familiarity with Japanese pronunciation?), and with Lauren Montgomery having talked about how Laith is a much better ship name for Keith and Lance, because Laith means Lion, I do not believe that they accidentally chose a name for this major plot point that means “clone” in Japanese (which is either Shiro’s native language or at least connected to his heritage.) I also don’t believe that it was chosen as a red herring to make us think this is all about clones when it really isn’t, because the target audience (which is, what 8-12 year olds?) will not pick up on that hint. It fails as a distraction for the core demographic, which makes me think it’s far more likely that it was meant as an easter egg and the writers didn’t necessarily intend for people to pick up on it. It’s like... This post about English name symbolism in FMA. It’s a clever nod to character traits for people who are in the know, but then you give that same name to an English speaker and it’s almost laughably on the nose. For people who don’t speak Japanese (most of Voltron’s audience) and don’t have social media to point it out (unfortunately, comparatively little of the fanbase), “Operation Kuron” is a subtle nod. In a novel, where people likely won’t engage with the fandom until they’re finished, it would work. Hell, for people not actively engaged in fandom, it works. The problem is that we’ve had months upon months and the power of the internet, so now everyone knows that JK Rowling named her werewolf Wolfy McWolfenstein the Galra named their secret clone project Project Clone. That isn’t bad writing. It’s perfectly fine writing tossed to the wolves of a global fandom that loves to theorize.

(Also, I was curious, so I checked, and “Operation Kuron” is called the same thing in the Japanese dub, so lol if it’s not clones, Dreamworks is going to have some explaining to do.)

II. Why having the answer be “Not Clones” at this point would be bad writing

Okay, see, this is way more subjective than part I, which was already pretty subjective. But here’s the thing. Dreamworks has set up Clone Shiro, almost blatantly so. I can forgive the fact that this twist is obvious to the Tumblr fandom, at least, because (a) the show is for kids, so the foreshadowing has to be a little bit more obvious, and (b) you cannot judge subtlety based on thousands of people working together to figure things out. Most of the fandom figured out Galra Keith before season 2 dropped. Some people hated it, but then, some people were incredibly resistant to the Clone Shiro Theory--still are. It feels like everyone and their grandmother figured these twists out way in advance, but if you took away the part where we all screamed about it and laid out our arguments? If you somehow reached out to the viewers who aren’t involved in fandom? I’ll bet you good money that a lot fewer of them have picked up on the hints. (And if they have, they aren’t nearly as certain about it.)

But if we get to season 6 and suddenly find out Shiro has been Shiro all along, just with magic in his head letting Haggar watch him? I’m going to be disappointed, because that resolution is almost guaranteed to leave plot holes. How did Shiro get recaptured/how did he disappear from the Black Lion in the first place? Why did his hair grow so fast? What’s with the change in behavior (I’m not talking about the snappishness and arguing with Keith and Lance, I’m talking about directly undermining the very teamwork he’s been the single biggest proponent of from the start by going behind the team’s back again and again)? Why didn’t Black accept him at first? Why did he have to prove himself to her again, after they’d been more closely bonded than anyone? Why was the project named Operation Kuron? Why did Shiro see another, hollow-looking, him on the exam table in that flashback? Why hasn’t he used the bayard yet?

The show might explicitly answer some of these, but I think we all know by now that it won’t slow the pace long enough to explain all of them. The clone theory explains or implies answers to almost all of these (especially if you couple it with “the original Shiro is stuck in the astral plane” or some such.)

So, no. Clone Shiro isn’t a twist at this point. Maybe it’s just me, because I’m usually pretty good at picking up on foreshadowing and figure out most twists ahead of time, especially if I’m given time to ruminate. But I’m fine with not having big, shocking reveals. Something doesn’t have to be a surprise to be interesting. I don’t have to feel like I was clever for figuring it out. I can’t wait for season 6 because I’m desperate to know that both my sons (Shiro and Ryou) are going to be okay--because I think, at least, that the Shiro with the team right now is not being set up as a villain. He may become a martyr, but he’s meant to be sympathetic, regardless of where he came from.

In the end, I don’t mind that the Clone Shiro Theory seems obvious, because the foreshadowing is aimed at kids and the adult fandom is bound to pick up on those hints faster. And clones explain everything so well that I honestly don’t think any other answer would make for a satisfying conclusion to the Kuron arc.

III. Clone Shiro vs Galra Keith

Okay, now this is interesting, because these are the two main theories that the fandom swarmed. One turned out to be true, and I honestly think the other will be proven right in June.

Also interesting is that, in terms of episode count, they both are paced about the same. It’s just that the Galra Keith plot happened over the course of 1.5 full seasons, while the Operation Kuron plot is going on 3.5 half seasons. Same number of episodes, but more spread out and with more breaks in between. Galra Keith was dropped into a single seven-month gap with a growing fandom and then confirmed immediately with the next batch of episodes. Operation Kuron was introduced in August, fans jumped on it, season 4 dropped, the fandom was split on it (because, admittedly, s4 didn’t add anything to the argument that couldn’t be explained by trauma and/or mounting pressure on Shiro), fans wrote a shitton of Ryou hcs/fic and drew a lot of Ryou art, season 5 dropped, with major new developments but no confirmation, and now we’ve got another break. At the earliest, it will be confirmed or debunked in June, a full ten months after it was first hinted, and with three season breaks for people to theorize, create fanworks, and otherwise dig into Camp Clone.

Can you imagine if the first two seasons had been done like that? (Note: I know I’m fudging the midpoint of season 1 a little bit, but bear with me here. I want to do a thought experiment.)

Season 1: We get hints of Keith’s knife and the major red flag of Keith opening doors that have been implied to be species-locked, so Hunk has to use a Galra arm to get past one door in the same episode Keith uses Galra tech with no problems. There’s also the word of god that says Keith is an orphan, so speculation runs wild. The fandom is split, with a small but vocal group on Team Galra, a vocal opposition, and a whole bunch of people on Team “Can’t we just wait and see what the writers have in mind, guys? We don’t have to fight!”

Season “2″: Little movement on Galra Keith Theory specifically, and both sides have arguments for what little we do get. Are those purple patches the effect of Galra heritage or is that supposed to tell us Quintessence does freaky things? Does Zarkon’s, “You fight like a Galra soldier,” mean anything (and is there a comma there/does that change the meaning? I can only imagine the comma drama if that had been one of the only new points for debate after three months.) The only major development is explicit confirmation of the species lock on Galra tech. All this is exacerbated by growing concerns in the autistic fanbase who worry that Team Galra Keith is starting to twist the legitimate autistic traits to support their own theory. (Believe me, I was there, and I was scared of Galra Keith for a good long while because of this.) The debate starts to turn bitter.

Season “3″: Ulaz shows up, we see Keith’s knife, we have Keith worrying that Zarkon “imprinted” on him, and though nothing comes of that, it still says something that the writers are even willing to acknowledge the theory. The season ends with no clear answer, but by now most of the fandom is on Team Galra. There’s been fic. There’s been art. There are headcanons and metas galore. The evidence is all laid out, and there’s really no denying it at this point. Some people are angry about it, and lots of people are hoping for Altean Keith or something, just because it would still be a surprise.

Season “4″: The Galra Keith reveal happens in episode one or two, and literally no one is shocked. Some people are angry, everyone is pissed that there wasn’t more fallout after four seasons of buildup. But we all knew it was coming.

Think, in contrast, how the Clone Shiro Theory might have gone if we hadn’t switched to half seasons. (In a hypothetical world where the theory is true, and it’s getting revealed next season.)

Season 3 now covers everything through Naxzela. Operation Kuron is huge in fandom discussion, but it’s partially overshadowed by everything else that happened--Keith joining the Blade, Lotor’s offer of talks, Keith’s near sacrifice, Matt’s return... Fewer people are as adamant about the clone theory because we’ve already seen Shiro back in the Black Lion and fighting alongside the team. There are lingering doubts, and people still lay out all their arguments, but it’s less splitting hairs and more the broad range we saw with Galra Keith, from adamant arguments on either side to a broad, casual fanbase in the middle who doesn’t know if it’s gonna happen and honestly couldn’t care less but sure as hell likes to play around with the idea. Like with Galra Keith, there is some evidence that’s either straight-up confirmation or lazy writing (Keith opening doors vs kuron meaning clone) but for the most part people are still uncertain.

Season “4″ drops and hits us all hard with new evidence. People are getting behind the Clone Shiro Theory in earnest now, but somewhere near the end of the season it’s confirmed, forestalling another round of theorizing. Lots of people are caught off-guard, lots of people are edge-of-their-seats “Holy crap, is that actually true??” The major, irrefutable pieces of evidence (Ulaz, Keith’s knife, his nightmares vs Shiro lying to the team, Haggar’s spying, Shiro calling out to Lance in the bond) are immediately followed up by confirmation.

Can you see how the spacing of the episodes drastically changes the perception of the theory? In all honesty, Galra Keith and Clone Shiro feel extraordinarily similar in terms of pacing, evidence, and alternate explanations--it’s just that Keith’s story happened much quicker, in fandom time. I can’t fault the writers for that. I just think half seasons were a bad idea, especially when the show was clearly written with full seasons in mind.

TL;DR Version:

There’s enough evidence that specifically points to clones that I’m 99% convinced that Shiro is a clone at this point. That last 1% is reserved for skepticism because, while I don’t believe the writers could provide me with a different explanation that fits as well as clones, they might try in the name of pulling one over on the viewers.

Galra Keith and Clone Shiro are set up in a very similar manner, and the latter suffers primarily from half season releases and a fandom who knows what tricks to look for.

The fact that the show is geared at a younger audience and so isn’t going to be super subtle is not a mark against it, but unfortunately if you’re active in the fandom, there’s a good chance you’re going to see a solid argument re: upcoming plot twists that spoils the surprise.

#voltron #voltron season 5 #operation kuron #shiro #kuron #voltron meta #voltron spoilers #season 5 spoilers

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austinpanda · 6 years

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Letters to Dad, last September edition

3 September 2017

Dear Dad--

Happy day before Labor Day. Not much going on this weekend, except that it's a three-day weekend, which is nice. Zach needs to change his car battery, and he's a bit intimidated by that, on account of never having done it before, and because we lack a socket wrench. Hopefully we can get the old battery off just with some pliers and then it's just a matter of coming up with some (fake! credit card!) money to get the replacement. I am attempting to encourage him to believe this is not a difficult task, and he need not be made nervous by it. It's only slightly more difficult than changing your windshield wipers, and slightly easier than changing a tire. We'll get it done.

With all the people who were affected by Hurricane Harvey, I was expecting last week at work to be a lot busier and more depressing than usual, because of people calling to report their vehicles under water. Was not so! Over the course of last week, I only set up about eight or ten flood claims. Boy, those were some unhappy people. Most of them took it in stride, though, either because they're insured (just a few) or because they lost lots more than their car, rendering the flooded car less of an issue (also a few), or because they're genuinely good in a crisis (very few, but they're the nice ones to talk to because they're not sobbing.) I had no idea until now how prone Houston is to flooding because of ancient, poorly-thought-out drainage infrastructure that just wasn't designed to remove that much water from the streets that quickly.

It caused everyone in Austin to make a run on their gas station! It's been quite a sight to see here. There wasn't a shortage of gas yet, but everyone thought there would be, so everyone made lines at the gas pumps and got as much as they could, and guess what? Now we have a gas shortage, not because of Hurricane Harvey, but because of the storm of stupid that gripped Austin in the days afterward. I found this out just after I filled my tank up, by the way. I was able to fill up, but others visiting the same gas station had to be turned away because they ran out of gas. Then I started noticing lines at all the gas stations. Crazy. Unnecessarily crazy.

One of my local movie theaters is showing Close Encounters of the Third Kind! They're doing this because the movie is now officially 40 years old (oh my god) and it's been remastered and re-released. This was my favorite movie throughout childhood, up until I went to college and changed it to Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), where it stayed, until No Country for Old Men came out, and that became my favorite, and remains so to this day.

Anyway, couldn't really afford it, but we went to see it yesterday. The movie has aged pretty well, I think, except for the clothing and hairstyles. And technology has changed quite a bit, and also UFO believers are a thrust a bit further toward the crazy pile than they used to be. Spielberg made the movie because he thought that there must be some truth in all the UFO sightings. Nowadays it seems we still can't get proof of one, despite the fact that virtually every person in the country is now carrying a camera (in their cell phone) that can also shoot video. I asked Zach, who wasn't born until 13 years after the movie came out, what it was like for him to watch it. He said it seemed like an old movie, with a bunch of people running around in 70s clothes. This was not the best reaction I could have hoped for, but having just rewatched the movie, it does, in fact, feature LOTS of people running around in 70s clothes. There's some other bits too, with space ships and a weird-looking mountain, but perhaps that's less noticeable now to a young person. "Space ships? In Close Encounters? I don't remember that. I just remember how fat their neckties were and how wide the shirt collars were and how big and silly everyone's hair looked, compared to now."

Oh, my plan to amass an army of trained murder hummingirds is proceeding. I now get hummingbird visits at my feeders every few minutes, and I've taken lots of pictures and short videos of these visits. I've learned a few things! We're getting more than one kind of hummingbird. And I'm noticing a lot of hummingbirds stop by to feed at the feeder, only to be chased away by a different hummingbird. So I think I've managed to begin a turf war among the wee bastards. And this makes sense, because everything I've read about them indicates that they're vicious, territorial little assholes, just like the state bird of our fair state, the mockingbird. So if one sees an enemy hummingbird from the wrong gang feeding at the feeder, they set upon the usurper and drive them away. Some of the hummers showing up now have irridescent throats. I've been photographing them! (which is probably my true purpose behing doing this) and got a couple of good pics yesterday. I'll include 'em.

I can't help but notice that football has started, and the month after this one is October. I can't express how joyful this makes me! I'm a lot more comfortable in my life when I'm more comfortable in my skin, if that makes sense, and I'm most comfortable in my skin when the weather and the brutal sunshine aren't conspiring to kill me. A big part of my subconscious begins to relax around October of every year, as my favorite time of year begins.

Hope you're well. Have a great week!

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damian-fluffy-doge · 7 years

Photo

Okay so, I been pretty much doing changes and story develop in the AU the past months, So I am leaving pictures according to the text, i still have places to fill, and gotta talk about ghost mark and power matt but I will update it soon

Also my friend skitlesthehusky (From Da) Help me rewrite some parts or make it sound fluent so, a big thanks ;;;

Also, this AU was created back in mid january, having a pic of navy tom posted ^-^

The basic thing about this Au is that Tom is the member that leaves to follow his dreams elsewhere, being these seven years (or perhaps much less) in which the others keep having adventures, sometimes without realizing it as usual.

Tom does not belong to the army, but to the navy because he enjoys being near the sea. The army used to bring bitter memories of when he went to war with the rest of his friends (Moving Targets), which was not a good experience for him

Not to be confused with Matt's World, although the idea is similar, Swapworld was created 4 months before this and already had designed the leader of the navy.

Tord (Weeaboo)

Tord retains his taste for anime, occasionally hentai, sometimes it may seem like he is just hermit; leaving his room just to grab a snack and watch television, or just sleeping at the couch.

He is an occasional smoker, sometimes when stressed.

He has notorious eye bags, sometimes he may be in a bad mood and just yell.

Usually it is the one that speaks less because he thinks that he could say something unnecessary.

The colors of his clothes are dull to match his personality.

Sometimes he does things without thinking twice, as out of reflex or curiosity.

Sometimes he screws up and is usually reproached by Matt, Edd instead trying to advise him not to do it again, in a somewhat calmer way.

He has basic knowledge with weapons and survival, having a short training in the military base (Moving Target) but of course, he is not an expert in that.

He can become somewhat perverted but discreetly.

He prefers dogs rather than cats alike from Edd and Tom

After the incident with the laser beam,he was forced to use eye drops to prevent an uncertain fate in his eyes.

Appearance

A red dull hoodie, almost gray, torn and rather neglected pants, light gray sneakers. Underneath the hoodie he usually wears shirts with have something to do with anime or bands or words with demotivations that somehow make him feel more comfortable.

Monster tord

Its appearance is more of a cherry color, between purple and red in its majority, is a ball of fur practically and with an eye of a living green color, has crooked horns and some of hair on the head in the form of tufts, as if it were a messy hairstyle.

Half monster Tord

It is the middle stage of the transformation, in which Tord maintains a human form for the most part, but has horns and a tail, just as his hands begin to resemble other creature, his brown eyes change to neon green and his teeth are now sharp fangs, as he has fluffy ears.

Why does this happen?

It is not very clear why he become a monster Tord, or half way, but it is speculated that when he reaches high levels of stress or anger, as a start of a rage.

How does he get along with the others?

Tom

Tom occasionally complain to him because he would be always his room, or taking every opportunity he had to take his magazines, being slightly taller this was very effective to annoy him.

He was judged for smoking on occasion, even if Tom sometimes took too many drinks and ended up wasted.

In an environment like (The End), Tord develops a lot of mistrust because Tom made the attempt to be kinder to the redhead. He was suspecting he was up to something, but not so destructive.

According to him, he got rid of the threat using a sword-- of course the idea of exterminating a friend who at some point was close to him was pretty difficult to process, affecting his self-esteem but overcoming it with the support of his friends.

Edd

Edd is usually busy keeping his clothes and hair to utter perfection, so when Tord needs to talk to someone is not always the best option. Of course he can be sympathetic, if he feels that the matter is serious.

Matt is the one who listens the most when he needs to tell someone something, of course, if he wants to tell him a summary of his favorite anime. He may start falling asleep, but he makes the effort. Does that count?

Matt (Fanta Boy)

Usually the leader of the group and the one who is more optimistic. even if his solutions do not result in victory, he has the potential to guide the others.

He has an obsession with fanta, which can get out of control in some cases, but it’s nothing serious... Or is it?

He is also the kind of friend who is there when you need him. He’s the type who gives you emotional support, though sometimes he may become sarcastic, and can think of himself before others depending on the occasion; which is very strange. It usually happens when he has a bad day.

Appearance:

Matt wears an almost pink sweater with a green overcoat, dark pants and green sneakers.

He has freckles on his face, which at times he does not like.

Edd (Watermelon)

Edd may be somewhat a bit of a knucklehead in some situations, otherwise, most of the time he isn’t. He is simply tolerant of everything that happens around him. He worries about his hair more than anything, wanting to make sure that it is perfect and in order.

He is often distracted very easily and is not that well of a listener. He likes fair (or carnival) toys like Matt, so they have something in common. However, he doesn’t collect them.

Appearance

A lime green hoodie with white suspenders, topped with a pink overcoat. (He looks like a watermelon by the colors)

Tom (The Harpoon Boy)

Fun facts:

He is terrified of bears because reminds him (or triggers) bad memories of his childhood (except Tomee bear).

He likes cats and if you hurt any in his presence, you are in big trouble. (Pussy protector.)

By not having Susan nearby for a long time, he developed the habit of having a harpoon near him to which he put bandages, pretending it to be Susan, and named it Harpay. It may not be a name, but sounds like the word ‘harpoon’.

His favorite (alcoholic) drink is Smirnoff, and it is often exceeded when he is under a lot of stress.

He has a notorious British accent. Sometimes he may act somewhat arrogant with people he doesn’t get along with.

By the time he was away from home, he focused more on his plans and ideals. His goal is to get rid of Christmas, and for that he has to force people to do as he pleases. (Force me daddy.)

Why does he want to get rid of christmas?

Well first of all, I wanted to clarify that since in the series; usually it was not said why Tom had so much hatred towards christmas. So I wanted to add something to Navy Tom You see, in the series, this incident occurred while they were still children. A bear shot Tom's father, who was a pineapple.

It was Matt's fault, who innocently gave the bear a gun. Now, Tom felt a type of bitterness toward Matt for a while and had to be persuaded by his friends to stop acting as he didn't exist or avoiding him. After all, for a child, that would be a tremendous trauma, right? But he was not able to hate one of his closest friends. They were children after all, and they are not so aware of what is wishing death to someone. Well, according to me, Tom was able to enjoy Christmas with his parents, you know, gifts and candy. Which little boy doesn't like that? But ever since he lost his father, things were not the same. Even if he was a child, he was aware that something was missing. Something very important. Over time, he began to turn into a problematic child at some point in his childhood. He even left aside Tomee bear so nobody would see him as a wimpy kid. In his adolescent stage and forward, he didn't want to know anything about Christmas. It brought bad memories and feelings that he preferred to forget. That is why it would seem like a silly reason for many. Why would anyone want to destroy something as beautiful as christmas? The time you spend with family or friends having fun? Sounds cliché with the whole "if I can't be happy, no one will be.". But after all, Tom can become very selfish and think of himself before others.

After leaving his friends to form part of the Navy, he began to develop a more mature personality.

The man also knows how to handle weapons, but he still prefers to bring only a razor with him. He has a small platoon in which he is in charge of. Though, he considers the members of his team mostly as friends; especially Bing (Chris Bingbong), who is the one who seems to enjoy the most in planning attacks or designing weapons, as well as altering them to make them more powerful, according to him.

Bing

It is the one that has more experience with inventing weapons or improving them for a greater destruction, not all his projects are victorious so more than once the base was almost shattered by this guy, he likes coffee, sometimes in excess

Larry

It is the one who seems to have less tolerance for the nonsense that happens at times, sometimes giving his negative opinion, he is usually ignored so sometimes he no longer bother to say anything about a problem

Hellucard

It is the knucklehead of tom’s team, he always finds the way to get hurt with something, or be in a tremendous danger and mysteriously leave unharmed

Usually very optimistic and cheerful despite the situation, sometimes his nonsense cheers up the others

Billy (Fun Dead Kid)

This little boy was picked up by Tom after the zombie apocalypse.

After Tord handed him the gun and left him to his fate, Tom attacked the zombies before they could hurt him, the team looked for people who were looking for his son but there were no signs, assuming they had become zombies and that he was alone, they let him stay at the base, they don’t send him to war, of course but they still train him in a more friendly and gentle way

At first Billy was like any child, wanted to play, followed the other adults to see what they were doing, and asked a lot of questions, but then became a little more serious, his nickname later on would be sniper

He looks up to Tom and wants to be just like him, and he is happy to be at the naval base, it's like a family

Childhood Facts

Tom

Tom was actually a good boy and a crybaby before losing his father

The one who made fun of him was Tord, they didn’t get along most of the time, but you know, kids.

Tom loved to make paper boats and let them float around a puddle or anywhere, usually he didn’t wear shoes because he liked to climb trees and feel that he was in charge of everything when he was at the top

he also used to get scratches because of the little care he had while playing he was also very attached to tomee bear but hid it around tord because he would provoke him saying it was for babies

he used to wear clothes with designs of boats or things related to sailors, and a overall, always had some band aid somewhere

Tord

Tord was the one who guided the group when they were young, always brought shirts with designs of animes or cartoons along with shorts, or ripped jeans, was more attached to Matt back then.

his Norwegian accent was more noticeable which made him feel important, he always carried his water gun to annoy tom or any child who dared bother his friends

After tom lost his father, he completely changed, he stopped being a little jerk with tom and began to treat him better, which tom no longer accepted,feeling a slight grudge for everything he had done

Matt

He was the artist of the group, and he loved to share his knowledge with the other kids, along with Edd they idealised crazy things to draw, since edd is the one who taught him how to draw, of course Matt then learned new things on his own

He used to wear shirts with long sleeves, which hung from his hands, usually purple, violet or pink

When tom lost his father, he didn’t understand at first what he had done, because according to him, he found a gun lying at the grass and there was a bear that demanded him to give it back, he thought he did the right thing

was beside tom during all of the recover process, even if tom despised his friendship, it took almost a year, with the help of the others so that tom finally accepted him again

He felt terrible about what happened and tried to compensate it. even till now he sometimes feels guilt is consuming him

Edd

He is the funny one of the group, he didn’t care so much about his appearance back then, he only focused on having fun with his friends, he used to jump in puddles along with tom, water or mud, it didn’t matter, or pretend he was cowboys with tord, but what he liked the most was to draw along with matt

After the incident with the bear the group almost disintegrated, reason why he, along with tord insisted that it was only an accident and that they should hang out again

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dryades-angeli · 6 years

Text

Why I think that Ajisai is completly bullshit

Since I have a Deviantart account that deals with the female part of Chikushodo and I wanted to do something after years in this regard, I began to take a little interest in Chikushoda's history. The last thing I knew was that she did not have one and that's why I started to develop something about it. I was accordingly frustrated when I found Ajisai.

Because I am a manga reader and did not completely follow the anime, this fillerepisode or these fillerepisodes apparently went through the rags. If the character had been great, it would not have frustrated me so much, but I really do not like anything about her.

Let's start with the design: You can see here how the corpse is carried away. Am I mistaken or are the strands of hair not flat and turned inwards? And is not the hair color clearly brown?

Maybe I'm wrong, because the light looks relatively reddish, but in this picture you can see it again.

Brown, red, but not a colorful violet, blueviolet to be exect.

So why the heck they chance the Haircolor in their own Anime? Most of all, at the beginning of the episode, her hair does not look that way, but rather reddish-brown or lilac-brown for my sake.

Here it is at least a bit like the original. Although the hue is really very reddish and thus encapsulates itself from the original. But here I like Ajisai reasonably. But why did they make this out of it?

Completely different hair color, the color of the outfit they have changed. It looks like this person does not have a breast. Even at Sakura you can still see a rounding.

And the question is, why are the hairs the way they are? the long hair stands miles away and the upper hair is flat on the head. Why? - I ask myself. Even the Hairstyle in the Manga don´t look like that.

If they tried to imitate this hairstyle, they did it pretty badly. Then they should have stayed with the hairstyle in the anime. So it's just confusing. The middle strands of hair between pony and lateral strands of hair have completely omitted, too.

What I still wonder how old Ajisai was when she died. As I said, I have not seen the episode, except for small clips from Youtube. During the Chu-Nin qualifying exams, she looked very young and as a body of Pain's rather mature. The Wiki article said that she died before she could become Chu-Nin.

If she was the same age as Tenten, she was only 15 years old and that's what she looks like. Chikushodo looks more like a woman. I think she was at least 18 years old, if not older. The Chu-Nin selection exam is held twice a year. Either she died in the half-year waiting period, but then Pain has a damn good cooling system or she was so bad that she could never have been Chu-Nin. But then I wonder why Konan trusts her with a spy task.

Let's get to the facts: It was said, that she´s a Ninja from Ame-Gakure and that he get an orden from Konan to look after Jinjurikis and extraordinary Shinobi. Also, the Wikia says she seems to share Pain's views. Wuestion: Why is she wearing as his follower, no crossed-out headband? As far as I know, everyone on Pain's side has a crossed-out headband. Surely there would have been problems with entering other villages, but I do not quite understand the meaning behind the order. When Neji and Co. became Chu-Nin, Naruto traveled with Jiraya. And why was it important to find extraordinary Shinobi? Of course, Konan does not know that the Jinjuriki is not even in the village. But it did not really add anything to the story's content, other than portray Ajisai's loyality to Pain. And now I wonder why? I mean, the other body pains were not loyal servants either, but some shinobi. And why does Konan entrust a layman with such a task? First of all, how did Akatsuki identify the Jinjuriki of the other villages? Do not Zetsu or other Akatsuki for spining activities actually exist? This scene makes no sense in my eyes.

The other thing I just do not like ... Jiraya has recognized in the bodies of Pains any Shinobi he once met. Sure, Team Guy and Pain narrowly missed each other, but the corpses of the other paths will surely be left over, they could have been identified and this scene never actually happened (clarifies me if it's different). And if she was a participant in the Chu-Nin eligibility tests, Konoha would certainly have been able to identify her. Although I have to say that you made good use of this time gap between the team meeting and the relocation. In general, I did not like Chikushodo to meet our heroes, but that's a matter of course.

#ajisai #chikushoso #pain #path #animal

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agameoftangledwebs-blog · 7 years

Text

#9 Turn the Page

For the Kaldorei, time didn't have the same meaning as it did for the lesser races, but even they had to obey the same day and night cycle the world was ruled by. Under the earth and surrounded by stone time blurs together and becomes next to meaningless. It wasn't until a year had passed that Saeros makes his was back to Elru's gilded prison, the stone of the door drawing back with a rumbling grind. As always, he surveyed the room first before looking for its occupant if he was able.

Long before Saeros makes it to the room he can feel it, that low but steady frequency of arcane use, as if numerous basic rituals and channelings were occurring all at once. Long before Saeros even opens the stone doors he can hear it. The incessant scribbling and shuffling of paper, barely audible except to the most trained. If it were just a single sheaf being worked on even he wouldn’t notice, but the hum of it seemed to indicate that there was a lot more at work than it would seem. Upon seeing the room, that conception would very sorely be an understatement. The room that Saeros left Elru behind in isn’t even there. In its place is layers upon layers of paper, of different shades, serving as cover for the floors, walls and ceiling. The room wasn’t covered haphazardly, but rather it’s all integrated and held together so seamlessly one would have to squint to notice it isn’t just one single covering. The paper wasn’t blank, either. Seams, designs and details are drawn in giving the place the facsimile of an actual furbished room with wallpaper, architecture, even flooring, covering even the doorways to the other actual rooms. And fake doorways that don’t seem to go anywhere, creating what amount to open closet spaces. One thing that doesn’t quite fit in is a huge black ink splotch with cracks around it on one wall, about the size of a decent window. Above from the ceiling where the light would be, shadows are cast as a slowly rotating, spinning and crackling contraption of hard folded paper circles and shapes. The form is composed of slightly uneven rods likely meant to be straight, oval gears probably meant to be circular, and scribbled numbers that indicate that the whole contraption is a mechanical clock. It even ticks. It’s a pretty ingenious paper clock creation if not for the fact that each second was a little over two and a half seconds long, with every ninth second four seconds long as the mechanism whirred and struggled as if confused. There is a long table, made of paper. Chairs, made of paper. Even a planter and plant both made of paper and green ink. However, the general room format, as it is at the moment, seems to be that of a laboratory. Most of a wall has been converted to a periodic table of elements, with room for hypothetical substances as well. Formulae, some finished some not, cover a lot of space around that side of the room, filling open sheets of paper and journal books. Actual vials, beakers and bottles lay strewn here and there, some used for storage, but most of them seemingly discarded. Broken useless ones, as Saeros sees at the moment, are being collected and discarded by arms. Of sorts. There are a number of these arms, and they are the source of all the paper shuffling sounds as they move. Elongated, thin, multi-jointed and multi-fingered at the hands, these paper arms were nothing less than very dedicated and demented origami, pivoting and turning about from hard-points here and there in the room, acting as if extensions of the room itself. A few of them draw in incomplete designs to the room, designs that occasionally change midway. A few work to keep furniture and furnishings neat and tidy. Three of said paper arms, differing from the others in that these incorporate long broken splinters of wood, spawn from the elf Saeros is here to visit. Elru sits hunched over at her lab desk, sitting in a paper chair, dressed in a slim form fitting robe, slippers and hair ties. She’s kept clean and presentable, very immaculately so, though she’s thinner now, a touch more haggard, and with deep dark bags under her wide eyes that barely blink. Her legs are tucked tight together, and her arms are wrapped defensively around her torso, though every so often she raises a trembling hand to nibble on a biscuit. Though she herself was doing very little, she wasn’t inactive. Seemingly extending right out from her back through the dress, her own three personal arms were hard at work. Two of them were scribbling, editing and working on whatever project was her current focus, while the third filled in a journal page by page, each hand working just as precisely but a lot more faster than her own handwriting. One arm pauses in its work to gently scratch an itch just below her scalp, her own two arms staying right where they are. She hasn’t noticed Saeros’ arrival.

As there was so much to take in Saeros takes a lengthy space of time examining all he could see before moving forward. His steps are careful but the stride that went along with them confident though potentially destructive. Most of the man's power lay in subtlety and with each step a form of invisible 'pulse' went out from his feet. Should any of Elru's magic be laid upon the floor or in the air directly in his path it would find itself dispelled if the first or disrupted with the latter. He kept an eye on her for now but was more interested in what her isolation had driven her to create. It wasn't every day one was able to witness madness firsthand, after all.

The paper coverings would lose some of their luster and the furniture not appear quite as stable upon him making close contact but otherwise all remains intact for the most part. There is magic in the air, certainly. Low frequency, but utterly pervasive. It would even just start to gradually return in the spaces Saeros would leave. The arms, it's not certain if they are autonomous or act as one, come near at the approach of the outsider in inquiry, stretching or unfolding to be able to reach Saeros from their hard-points, but once one of them comes a little too near and starts to lose form, the rest shy away and keep a distance. The "hurt" arm withdraws to press close against its wall, where small vaguely insectoid five legged origami creatures literally unfold out and from the wall to repair the damaged arm. Saeros' disruption seems to cause visible agitation in Elru as she trembles a bit and her arms, real and fake, become more tense, but she remains focused on her work. As if responding to her sudden stress, something occurs. Back where that gaping black ink hole is, tearing and unfolding from the cracks and edges of the hole, comes a thin gangly paper elf, almost full sized, as if coming out of the hole. The figure makes it only three feet from the ink hole until with a sharp twang sharp appendages like spider legs, also paper, unfold and spring into action, curling in to skewer the paper elf, who leaks purple ink as it slumps. The arms and small paper creatures immediately get to work to cleaning the mess. Elru's stress is immediately released and she sits hunched as normal. Elru's work is broad, covering things like expanding the use and efficiency of constructs, a very long and prolific list of what appears to be drugs judging by the mostly complete chemical compounds scribbled, continuation of her time and space manipulation from before she had arrived, biological manipulation and replication, the feasibility of artificial souls, permanent mana storage, the list goes on and on of things practical to esoteric, but none of it complete and almost all theoretical. Whether from madness or lack of focus is unclear. What Elru is most intently focused on however, is the groundwork and creation of a physical fluid substance. Odorless, tasteless, near but not quite the same consistency as water, and seemingly serving no purpose. However, the point is apparently not in what it does, but how long it lasts. Elru's work on this substance seems to be going toward increasing its degradation rate and half life higher, and higher, as if creating a chemical that would not break down.

Saeros comes to a stop before crossing in front of the void that was the black ink hole along one wall. His tone was firm but certainly no shout, "Elru."

Elru doesn't respond at first, as if ignoring or not hearing him. But five seconds later she does pause, her paper extendable arms pausing with, as she lifts her head up with a creased brow, though still not quite looking at him. Her voice is a little hoarse, clearly from lack of practice, but she still has a grasp of words. "Kir-Moldir." Abruptly she stands up, dropping her biscuit, which immediately gets caught midair by one of her arms coming out of her back and set on the table. "You've been arriving with increasing frequency, Kir-Moldir. Shit, I'm not done here. This place is a mess, I'm a mess, I didn't want him to come so soon to see what I did with the extra space. But I've stayed, made no attempt to escape. Kept invaders out, as he instructed. Shit, I'm a mess, too. Don't keep him waiting, Elru, go greet him. Right, right." She mutters quickly and as if he were not right there, and while she does her biological arms are rubbing down her dress while her three arms coming out her back quickly undo, work, and redo her hair ties and hairstyle with a speed and nimbleness not normal to hands, and not a single strand of hair is left out of place. Swiftly she steps to the nearest false doorway, stepping into the space of seemingly pointless nothing. But, the moment she does the whole room abruptly changes and shifts. Every sheet, crease and line of paper flipping and folding like an entire library of books flapping its pages all at once, creating an actual breeze in the room. Labwork, arms and furniture tucking and folding out of sight, the entire paper room re-configures into a paper facsimile of the main room that the room was originally supposed to be, complete with the furniture. The space around Saeros, however, did not move, leaving some room configurations struggling. This all took only a handful of seconds, and once nearly done Elru merely turns around and steps out, her three arms folding and tucking away against her back, muttering all the while before she stands before Saeros and raising her eyes to him with a quiet, "Welcome back. Forgive my tardiness- "she pauses, brow furrowing a touch, but face otherwise kept neutral, if failing to hide the fact that she felt something was very different.

A difference she'd likely hear in tone before registering the content of his words. He was clearly amused, "I have been visiting you often?"

If anything the amusement made her flinch slightly, her folded up paper arms flexing and unfurling to hang more loosely behind her as she wraps her actual arms around her torso again in that guarded nervous stance. "Well... I think it's often. Not that I mind the visits, even with the open communication."

"And what have we been talking about in these visits?" Despite her nervousness Saeros doesn't do anything more threatening aside from stand in place and speak.

She hangs her head a bit but keeps her eyes towards him. "About my health. Questions of my sanity. My health. Ever since those people," she speaks the term tersely while glancing at a black ink hole, a returning feature to this paper room as well, "managed to find ways in. I asked if I could work and update the defensive runes of the room, but you kept telling me no. So I've been defending myself. I'd hand you reports of such." And as she mentions such one of her extendable paper arms would reach over to retrieve a thin journal from atop a paper dresser, the same arm and hand flipping the book open. "No less than seventeen attempts by intruders. Curiously, they never try the front door."

"What sort of intruders?" He asks curiously.

"All manner of elves, from Shen'dralar mages to plain low lives. I don't understand the diversity, but what else could they be after if not my life and my future. They all die. Though my self-defense is somewhat without grace, and I am still full of so many questions. But you said they needed to die immediately."

He thinks that over for a moment before he motions her closer with a one-handed gesture. "Come here, Elru. Come stand in front of me."

She steps forward, more like a shuffle, but she straightens her stance and raises her hand to look at him more properly. She stops at a couple meters in front of him and waits.

Saeros pointedly eyes the distance between them. "That's not what I asked for."

"Apologies." She immediately closes the distance to stand directly in front of him by only a foot of distance, but once she nears him and his latent anti-magic her extra arms immediately go limp and hang draped to the floor, making her immediately break into a silent, anguished expression as her physical hands wring together rapidly. Her rate of breathing increasing. From the way one would look at her, one would think she'd just lost actual limbs.

Saeros takes a moment to loosen and strip the gilded leather gauntlets from his hands and tuck them into his belt before lifting both for Elru's head. The touch was warm, firm, and very much real as he cupped her face and tilted it up to get a better look at what he held in a way that -wasn't- reminiscent of surveying property. No words were immediately forthcoming.

Her face was very cold, and a touch more bony than a year ago. She freezes up at the contact, still looking frightened and hurt with rapid breathing and dilated pupils, but the warmth of his hands and their very real touch seemed to incrementally calm her down the longer they hold her face. After she's mostly calmed she opens her lips as if to say something but then holds her tongue. Her hands no longer quite wring together so much.

"I am no trick of the mind nor-" He pauses for an unsubtle glance around the room. "-a creation of your loneliness." A moment's given for that to sink in, if it does, before he goes on. "Is there anything left here or is it all paper?"

"Wh-What do you mean?" Though she glances around with her eyes as well with uncertainty, looking around, and again, and again, as if Saeros' very presence and touch created confusion in her now, though more like a touch of reality. It's as if Elru were seeing the room, and her creation, for the first time, though she responds to his question. "Bedroom... bathroom.. some furniture... some pieces of furniture... None of the novels, I got so sick of them, fed them to my war room... I, war room..."

"There was a couch. Find it for me." His touch on her face loosens but doesn't leave entirely if she moved to comply with his demand.

"Couch.... Yes, couch, that thing.." She turns her head a bit, taking a step back away from him but not quite leaving his reach. The room comes alive and with some shuffling and flipping of pages upon pages of paper the couch eventually gets dragged out, but it's not nearly as immersive or as seamless as before, appearing more broken and alien as the real furniture intrudes on the false room.

Saeros allows his hands to drop as he eyes the furniture with an obvious eye to its durability. He moves over towards it and tests it first with a booted foot and his weight behind it. Should it hold up he trusts his body to sit on it and draws her over with another gesture. "Sit with me however you find it most comfortable."

Though the floor was paper it surprisingly help up very well under the weight of the couch and Saeros, at the very least indicating numerous layers of the stuff. Curling her false arms around her almost like a cradle she sits on the cushion adjacent to him, looking to him.

There was no obvious hurry in the way the silence is allowed to be drawn out in what Elru might remember as a 'companionable' quiet. "Do you know how long you've been here?"

"Of course I do, I've been here..." What started as a confident response became another moment of confusion and uncertainty. "It's... it's been... I need to consult my timepiece to count the years."

"Feel free to do so."

Elru looks up and at the ceiling the ill made and mismatched clock unfolded out of the ceiling, bringing that uneven ticking to the room. Elru eyes the numbers, gears and rods with quiet muttering and recounts, "Eleven years and two months. ... This clock is supposed to be in the lab." She frowns.

"Its been one year since I've seen you last."

Gently, if bordering on disrespectful, she replies, "Nonsense, there was no way I spent a mere year in this place. I couldn't have done all I did in a year." She pauses. She looks to him uncertainly and nervously, "And it was much less than a year since I saw you last, wasn't it?"

He simply repeats, "I left you here one month alone after initially taking you from Idril and when you asked me to put you upon the rack. Between then and today it has been one year and a hand-span of hours since I've visited you."

She wrings and picks at her false arms wrapped around her, which themselves are made of sterner stuff than the standard paper-craft around them, incorporating more solid supports from whatever piece of minor furniture got broken down. Her face switches and mixes between confusion, anger and doubt, and the strain of trying to remember things.

For as long as it takes--Saeros waits.

It takes some time, but Elru does get there, though not without some resistance. The very room itself seems to shift and react in a agitated manner but eventually all Elru can do is sit with her hands folded in her lap, eyes closed and face impassive with lingering touches of despair. The paper room seems to feel much less lively, missing much luster, though her three false arms have wrapped themselves around her defensively by this point.

"What would you have me do?" He inquires.

Her brow furrows a moment, though it isn't clear if it was because of her struggling to pick one response, or to muster any response at all. Eventually she replies with a quiet and clinical, "If it is alright, I would like your hand on her face again. For just a moment."

Lips quirk up but smooth just as suddenly into a passive line. "Her?" Saeros shifts on the couch, changing the angle at which he sat to something more at ease and nearly reclining. He reaches out with a long arm, waiting for her hand to be placed in his own.

It takes a bit for her to notice the hand, but when she does she settles her own hand into his before glancing over at him neutrally.

With a firm tug he draws her over towards him at a speed she wouldn't be too rushed to adapt to. In the end its certainly more than a hand on her face but Saeros fits her back to the front of him in utter laze. He was a contrast to the dry coldness of the world Elru had created for herself and despite the fact that he was armored, as well as armed, heat eases through the leather well enough to seep into her. Thankfully, or perhaps not, he goes no further than that in allowing her a closeness she'd been denied here entirely.

Despite how nervous or uneasy she felt for a multitude of reasons, or how alarmed she was, or how much despair lingered in her, she welcomed the warmth. She'd been cold too long. Her stiff posture and back incrementally relax. Never completely relaxes, but just enough to appreciate the warmth, and the gesture. Closing her eyes she settles like that for however long it was allowed, until she was told otherwise. Her false arms dig into her back a bit but she seems to pay them no mind. However she does quietly let out, without thought, "It still hurts."

He seemed in no hurry to remove her. "The tear?"

She gives a slight nod.

"It wouldn't be a consequence if it was over quickly, if at all."

"This is a true statement." She shifts a bit and stares up at her strange misshapen clock on the ceiling for a time.

Still he remains. Nothing more forthcoming aside from the steady rise and fall of his chest, the beating heart beneath, and the idle manner in which Elru could sense Saeros's magic edging around them through that connection.

She lays there on him quietly, idly feeling Saeros' magic, comparing the feeling from him to the feeling from the tear inside her, though she doesn't comment on it, nor does she try to touch or manipulate it. Eventually she'll ask, "When do you next leave?"

"That's not the question you should be asking."

"When do I leave? Assuming one day I get to leave." Though her anxiety seems to rise just a touch at the prospect of leaving. Not from a desire to remain inside, but it may have to do with her clear paranoia given how indiscriminately she'd killed her "invaders."

"A dangerous question. Chose another." His tone was idle.

She shifts her head and thinks a moment. "In turn, what would you have me do?"

"Explain this world you created to me."

"As I knew then, or as I know now?" She tilts her head a bit. "Or do you ask how I, literally, created it."

"The former."

She takes a breath while reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "It hurt so much, but I did not want my magic to stagnate. So I regularly practiced testing my limits. One day I managed to conjure permanent paper and ink, and simply kept conjuring it, with the intention to write and keep records. Anything that wasn't those novels. Conjuring the paper and ink was easy, easier than food and water. I wrote notes, theories, ideas, experiments, thoughts, and doodles. I grew bored. But the writing, the paper, I thought it kept my mind sharp. At the very least it was a distraction from the pain."

"And did it?"

She takes a moment to think long and hard. "I don't know. In some ways it did. The freedom of thought. Made me ambitious, of a sorts. Made me pursue ideas and theories I didn't think of before. But that freedom of thought was detrimental as well, as I now see. Lost sight of boundaries, of goals. Made me forget that I only have so much space, so much freedom. Once I thought I was under attack, I suppose that's where all this.. came to be." She waves a thin hand around her paper world. "Once I thought, once my mind thought I had real outlet, my work just, took a life of its own. Sharp in some ways. Dull to the broad picture." Glancing to the walls she exhales through her nose. "It's still all just one room."

"I'm still curious as to how I fit into all this."

It takes her a while to answer this one. "I thought you spoke to me. It hurt, but it was you in a way. I could feel you doing, whatever it was you have been doing, through your magic. The pain, insufferable as it was at times, was my only consistent companion. In the ways it would motivate me it could even be considered a partner. In time, I think I identified it with you yourself."

"I'll take that you not cringing back when you caught sight of me to be a good sign."

She's quiet for a while before speaking simply. "Welcome or unwelcome is irrelevant. You are security."

"Mmn." He hums, "An appropriate way to see it I suppose."

She massages her eyelids with fingertips from a hand. "I'm tired." As well she should be. Low maintenance her little world may have been, it still required allocation of a steady constant of focus and mana.

"Then let it go and rest."

And with that given permission to rest she almost immediately drifts to sleep, and the world around her promptly begins to crumble, literally. Like large, lazy confetti shreds and pieces of paper drift and fall from the ceilings and walls, the floor crumbling as the couch sinks further into the ground, revealing that at some point Elru had undone the wooden paneling entirely. A few lingering creations, an arm and some five legged creatures, even try to flee the destruction before they too crumble apart. The clock breaks apart into its crafted pieces, but barely causing notice should they touch Elru or Saeros. False walls, false doorways, even that black ink hole goes away. Eventually all that remains is what was real. Worn doorways to a rarely used bedroom and bathroom, ruined floors, ruined furniture, conjured bits like her meager lab equipment and a few metal pieces, makeshift shoddy runes carved into the suite wall foundations meant to constantly restore and replenish paper and ink, and just tons of base paper, used and unused.

Saeros watches all this with a keen, knowing eye before he settles in without so much as a shift. This did appear to be his first experience with madness but perhaps even something well-known to him. One could never tell. Even so, he sets his gaze on the far wall and looks into a distance only he could see with the constant sway of energy searching back and forth--the only clue that gave lie to his utter stillness.

Elru would sleep unless heavily disturbed, practically blanketed by the remains of the paper world. Her three arms, no longer quite attached to her, still remain the most intact creations as they hold up under their own craft and engineering though they are inanimate paper and wood and nothing more at the moment.

#world of warcraft #roleplay #highborne #moon guard

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