#they're important to the plot and making them is essential to making more lore things but im not good at character design so ive be stallin

[theokusgallery]

Your AU is still worming its way through my brain and tearing it into pieces. Send help (there is no cure)

I am SO sorry

[geraldthellama]

Bowuigi Corpse Bride AU Lore Post

So I said I would probably make this and while I thought about making this into a fanfic and making ya'll read that, I decided that I need to commit to the other three (two and a half?) Mario fanfic ideas I have. So if anyone wants to make a full blown fic or whatever with this AU, feel free (but tag me ofc because I've got to see it).

(This will not be short, just a quick warning that this is a commitment).

This AU is very loosely based off the actual movie. Instead of them being in the underworld, they're just in a haunted house that Boo lost to Bowser in a game of poker, and instead of being a corpse (as the name suggests), Luigi is just a slightly annoying boo. Him and Polterpup are the only ones that inhabit the mansion, and, with the house completely abandoned, it's probably going to stay that way.

In this world, ghosts only stay after some massive traumatic death. Problem is, Luigi has no recollection of how he died, he just knows he hit his head and a little while later awoke, a ghost that's unable to be seen, heard, and is completely alone as a newly-deceased. Aside from the yipping ghost dog at his feet (Luigi has always been afraid of both ghosts and dogs).

As a ghost, Luigi originally spawns (spawns?) into this world with little ghostly abilities. Living beings can't see or hear him and he doesn't have the power to manipulate objects or people in any way. He is essentially a specter, watching the lives of other people for years until, eventually, it's abandoned, and the Peasley family mansion (one of many, that is) is gambled away to King Boo.

But, King Boos already got his own slew of creepy haunted mansions, and, frankly, this one is haunted by a ghost he can't stand. A ghost that hasn't been able to speak to someone for around a decade. A chatty ghost that hasn't been able to speak to someone for over a decade. He's not exactly torn up about parting with it.

Bowser, the poor thing, is on attempt...

Attempt... 2 hundred... something.

(at least 4 proposals a year, for around 20 years... that's...)

Let's just say, Peach does and has not wanted Bowser for a long ass time, and it really doesn't help his self esteem that he's still being thwarted by a plumber that's old enough to be his dad and uses a cane. He really can't understand what Peach sees in him, especially considering she still looks like a youthful 20/30-something into her 60s. Frankly, it's unfair. He's got money, kids (some really awesome ones too), power, looks (he thinks so at least), and isn't 3 pudding cups away from dementia.

What he hasn't got, until right now at least, is an awesome mansion, specially built for human(oid) creatures. Maybe she just didn't like gothic castle architecture? Maybe, as Boo suggests, he just has to get her scared enough to fall into his arms for safety. He's got this all planned out.

Boo did not specify that the "ghostly inhabitants" of this mansion were a hyperactive ghost dog and naive plumber. He didn't think it was important information at the time.

So, when Bowser is plotting and practice-proposes (does he really need more practice?) to the striking blue eyes of a, surprisingly, human painting, the last thing he expects is to be met with a ghoulish grin.

Barely ghoulish, because, god, the thing is bright. The smile and the bio-(bio?)-luminescent energy it's attached to. For a ghost who's wearing bloodied bandages and has been dead for 30 lonely years, he's surprisingly optimistic.

"Really?! And you're not even a boo!" :D

He's very optimistic, in fact, because he's willing to believe that this complete stranger might just be his ticket out of this wall-papered purgatory. He died meeting up with his forbidden love, after all, so it must be a sign. He does not hesitate to shove that ring on his finger, even if his new fiance looks hesitant (he might be naive enough to go with it, but he's not blind). He's convinced the two will make it work.

Luigi is... very tired of looking at the same things everyday. Now, he can attach to his new fiance, who's only slightly hesitant to engage with him, (and is not bad looking at all, in Luigi's opinion). Together, the two can actually have a life together. Luigi was only 25 when he died, and he was far too shy then to do any adventuring. The most rebellious thing the man had ever done was sneak out.

Man, look where that ended him.

For Luigi, this is his opportunity to live the life he wasted was robbed of.

And the guys got kids! How awesome is that?

Bowser is not liking the new pets at his side. One never stops yipping and yapping and one is a dog. Luigi is... fine. From a distance. The problem is that they physically can't get any. As long as Luigi is attached to him, consider them hand cuffed. This stupid, green boo is crimping his style, and any game he had with Peach is virtually ruined when he's got his "fiance" clinging to his side like he's the best thing since breathing air.

At least Luigi appreciates his kids. The ghost obviously has some taste (of course he does, he chose him for pete's sake), and Junior and the rest seem to like the ghoul enough... Even if Junior isn't completely sure that Luigi is a ghoul. Both Luigi and Junior agree that boos are scary.

Maybe, after some hard self-reflection (with Luigi close and present, of course), and some growing emotional intimacy and openness, Bowser begins to kind of, perhaps tolerate Luigi. Just a little. Just enough to find his stupid quirks endearing and just enough to start to think that maybe he's always been too good for Peach, anyway. Maybe he should be with someone who appreciates him and loves his family. It's not like her and Mario had ever had kids in their relationship, and her not wanting kids is kind of a deal breaker.

Bowser's newfound attention on Luigi is driving everyone else nuts, though. Boos barely seen the man since his unfortunate run in with the green leach and no one else at their poker table is any good. At this rate, Boos not even satisfied winning Peasley's riches off him anymore. Occasionally, a guy just wants to lose, y'know? Boo hates only one thing more than Peasley whining about the consequences of his gambling addiction, and that's boredom. He misses when the Koopa King spent all his time plotting against the old-ass plumber. At least then he showed his face at their meetings.

And when Boo finally brings up his grievances, because he deserves to rant, Peasley seems... nervous. Boo loves nervousness.

"There's a... human boo... in the mansion I gave you..?"

"One, you didn't give it to me, you lost, fair and square. Two, yeah, and he's just about the chattiest thing I've ever met. All dressed up in a white suit, the pretentious-"

At that, Peasley turns about as pale as a ghost. Well, if that were possible, considering he's a legume. Suddenly, he's got some important things he has to do somewhere else.

This poker table is looking weak.

When Peasley asks Bowser to meet at the mansion, Bowser warns he can't come alone. It's a stretch to get the green ghost to go back with him, and as much as Bowser wants to tell him "you're coming with me, whether you like it or not", he can't bring himself to say it. Instead, he convinces Luigi that it's a quick stay. Essentially, a welfare visit on the old house and a quick meeting with an old friend. Luigi's narrowly convinced.

Stepping back onto that porch brings back a lot of old memories for the human. Few of them anything good in retrospect.

But he does want to see his painting again. He always did cherish that painting. He's sure Bowser will too, right?

Is that painting a good memory for Bowser? He wonders.

It was all those years ago that a young Peasley gifted him that painting. Like him, he had been optimistic and in love. Even if his rich, snobby parents weren't a fan of the human, they had an entire life ahead of them. Peasley had made him a beautiful painting. It was the one part of the house Luigi felt was his. A good memory.

He never expected to be greeted by the same image he had all those years ago. Peasley, now older, stood in front of the painting. His face now wasn't proud or love-struck or whatever expression he had had then (Luigi can barely remember Peasley's face until just now), he looked somber. It was a rare occasion that Luigi wasn't green, and his teal glow seemed to throw Bowser off.

And divert Peasley's attention away from the miserable painting and over to the ghost, who was nervously twiddling his thumbs with a sympathetic look in his eyes.

It's not long before Bowser realizes that this meeting was never about him, and he feels more awkward than anything else...

Except that Polterpup has been on edge since the moment he saw the bean (now) king. Has he ever seen the dog not wag it's tail at someone?

Immediately, the older man apologizes. Things were never meant to end up how they did. He tried his best to help when he could.

Luigi's not angry, how could he be? Luigi's fall was an accident.

Peasley says he didn't know Luigi had stuck around, and if he had, he thinks he would have done things differently. He would have at least had the place cleaned instead of just letting it rot.

(So Peasley abandon the mansion? The perfectly good mansion for no reason, leaving Luigi alone.)

And, of course, Peasley's sorry for not telling Mario or his parents about what happened to him.

(HUH?)

He insisted that he waited for hours with Luigi, hoping he'd recover with enough gauze. The man told him it was a lost cause. If he could have saved him, he would have.

Hours?

"I was unconscious for hours?"

It came out as barely a whisper.

"I stayed almost the entire night. As long as I could."

Bowser didn't know boos could turn so many colors, especially that quickly. Bowser didn't think Luigi even had it in him to be anything less than smiley, especially completely enraged.

Luigi had never been more angry in his life (death).

Even Peasley's insistence that "You don't understand what they'd have done to me if they'd known I went against their wishes!" fell on deaf ears.

When Luigi's aura finally finished raving, Peasley had backed away from the now red ghost. Again, Luigi recognized the position they were in;

One of them backing up, away from the painting and towards the basement stairs. How could Peasley forget that door never closed all the way? It had only been the exact thing that killed Luigi 30 years ago. The exact thing that, of course, Peasley hadn't fixed.

Luigi swears he didn't push him, even in that state. Bowser believes him, only because the still angry and unaware Luigi yelled angrily down the stairs: "You better not die here, because I'll make your death hell!"

If they both hadn't just watched Peasley fucking die, Bowser would have kinda been into it.

It took Luigi a second to realize that even if his own fall had been an unlucky hit, Peasley wasn't 25 anymore. And he wasn't responding. His red hue didn't last long, especially when Polterpup no longer seems threatened (and Bowser notices that the bean king no longer seems to be breathing).

"What did I do?"

Bowser suggests fleeing the crime scene, which normally isn't his move, but he'd rather not be tied to the murder of a fellow royal. Luigi shakes his head.

This is his fault. And as angry as he still is at Peasley, he can't flee what he's done. Not in a right conscience. Not like what Peasley did to him. Luigi suffered enough sitting in that mansion alone for 30 years, and, as much as revenge tastes sweet, a small part of him still cares. Had he lived, Peasley and him would have had a life after all.

But he hadn't lived, did he.

Bowser can't remember a time ever seeing Luigi's color look quite as dull as it did then.

Playing with his engagement ring, Luigi thinks back on the part of the man he loved. Peasley never did buy him the ring, like he had hoped. Luigi remembers getting himself all excited over the possibility of a scenic proposal as they walked through the flower garden of the mansion. He had gifted him a painting. Which was almost as good.

He couldn't even count how many times he had stood and looked at that painting, thinking:

Was it worth it?

An apprehensive smile comes onto his face. A nostalgic smile. A somber one.

Doesn't really matter, does it? He'd never know if it was worth it in the end. This was how it ended up. Luigi had always believed that fate is what had brought him and Peasley together, considering everything else had lined them up for failure. Fate was what brought him here. What kept him here.

Who is he to drag down others?

He returns Bowser's ring.

"I'm sorry."

Bowser never deserved to have him weigh him down.

"I wasted my life chasing after a family I never got, and then spent my death doing the exact same thing."

Bowser awkwardly matches Luigi's bitter laugh.

"I lived my life, be it a short one, but you deserve to live yours."

Luigi pats the ring on his hand.

"I hope she likes it." He smiles. He means it. Peach sounds wonderful.

Tears prick Bowser's eyes, and all because...

He never did tell Luigi about him and Peach, did he? He can't help but laugh. Tears streaming down his face kinda laugh. The laugh you only get once a year kind of laugh.

"You spent, what? Maybe five non-consecutive years chasing after a family? Try twenty!"

Luigi's eyebrow goes up. This is supposed to be a super emotional goodbye and this goobers laughing? On about his conquest to marry Peach (who, apparently, is already married) and make his picturesque life. Luigi can't help but laugh, because it's so stupid that Bowser's laughing about this right now.

"Her and her stupid, human, mustachioed husband Mario have been kicking my ass for decades. I promise you, boo, you weren't ever getting in the way of anything."

Mario?!

"Mario?" (!)

"You heard of him?"

The excitement in Luigi's eyes (and aura) is obvious.

"My brother's name is Mario!"

With a look of determination, Bowser promises he'll tell Luigi the story of all his and Mario's exploits if he does him two favors.

Leaves this, frankly, ugly and decrepit mansion with him. Because this story needs atmosphere.

Puts the ring back on his finger. Because how else is everybody going to know they're engaged?

Luigi gives a grin.

He looks down the stairs. What about doing his due-diligence?

"I promise you, boo, if fate brought you and Peasley together, and pushed you down those stairs, and brought us together, and then pushed him down the stairs, fate is on your side."

Luigi's lips are still pursed.

"And it's almost sunrise," Bowser points out.

"So?"

"Well, we've waited almost all night, seems like a fair amount of time to me. It's obviously a lost cause."

At that, Luigi begins laughing. Not quite Bowser's guttural, teary laugh, but certainly a cackle. Enough to turn his aura back to a vibrant green, just like before. Enough to make him hunch over and take some (not really) much needed gulps of air.

When the laughing dies down to a hurt giggle, Bowser assures him that:

"You didn't kill him, Weeg."

No. I guess he didn't, did he?

Looking down the stairs one last time, (his death completely bloodless, the lucky bastard), Luigi's brows furrow for a second and he twiddles his thumbs.

If Luigi's learned one thing from being a condemned ghost, it's that you should take every chance you get.

The bottom of the stairs don't look so intimidating now.

"I...

I forgive you."

Maybe that is all Peasley deserves.

Luigi deserves to have another chance. And maybe Peasley does too, maybe he'll find one in the next lucky winner of poker. Someones gotta replace his spot at the table.

Bowser shares that he certainly deserves a mother to his children, and he's already got a quality candidate who's proved he's got what it takes. ("One who cooks, cleans, can't call in sick, die, and is pretty good looking! I hit the jackpot!")

Maybe, at the very least, Luigi deserves to see his brother one last time.

And maybe a few more times after that, for good measure.

Anyways so the original plan was just to have either Luigi and Bowser straight up immediately abandon the crime scene (not really crime scene) or have Luigi sit in the mansion forever and live out a miserable existence.

But I couldn't do that to my boys now could I. (But Peasley still gets abandoned because screw Peasley I hate that little bean man /j).

This wasn't meant to turn out in the format it did but, y'know, it did. Just know this isn't brief but also isn't comprehensive. I might (big emphasis on might) make a shorter headcanon post on this, but we'll see.

I hope you enjoyed. And sorry for the length, I am not known and will never be known for being concise.

[thefirstknife]

Could the Qugu be the Vex? Or their creators? The lore page today heavily focuses on their shared consciousness and the transmission of data through time, two things associated with the Vex. The Qugu specifically had memory transferring mangroves and the 'data trees' we encounter in Breach Executable are essentially the same (I think 'mangroves' might be actually used at some point). Finally, the Qugu link their fleets by wearing a psychic crown and all the shots of the Conductor from the trailer and art show her wearing a crown.

I think there will be some connection between the Qugu and the current story in some way, since we got the page for finishing Act I and I believe it should be somehow relevant. It's possible that it's not, but I feel like it should be in some way.

Is it going to be relevant like this, I don't know. For now, I don't think so, mostly because so far everything we've known about the Vex implies they are far older than anything else, especially the stuff we know about the Forge Star. The Vex are unfathomably old and the analysis about Volantis doesn't seem to be in any way incorrect. The Vex were one of the first living beings in the universe, inhabiting one of the first stars. As of now, I don't think there's a reason to doubt that, though obviously there could be new information in the future.

Obviously when there's shenanigans with time, so you could feasibly make a link in any way you want, but it doesn't feel that way to me, mostly because in that case, the Qugu would have it too.

The Qugu, however, knew of Darkness, and were using its psychic/consciousness aspects normally as a part of their civilisation. This comes from the Veil and that neatly makes the link between Maya (who is presumed to be the Conductor unless some incredible plot twist happens) and them and the Vex. It's also important to note that so far we've repeatedly had some strange connection between the Veil and Vex-based prediction technology (like the OXA and FWC Device), reiterated in TFS as well. As Ghost says, we don't know what the connection is here, but it's likely there's something going on.

For comparison, Psions also have the ability to share consciousness and speak psychically and share in "metaconcerts" that join minds of many individuals, even those that don't have psionic abilities. As in, this isn't just a Vex thing; rather it seems to be a Darkness thing. The Vex are also a little bit different in that they're just a species that functions this way, rather than being a species utilising a specific ability.

But again, any of that could possibly change going forward, and the further expansion on the Qugu lore is incredibly fascinating and begs the question: why were we given this information now? I think there will be something connecting the current plot to them and there's always a chance of some big new reveal, but for now I wouldn't overthink it too much in that direction.

My first thought was that the "ally" Maya spoke about might be a Qugu consciousness lingering somewhere from which Maya learned more about the Darkness as a source of consciousness, and possibly more about the Veil and how to use its latent powers on the Vex. Not needing to be in proximity to the Veil to use the Darkness to control consciousness or speak to people across time and space would be useful to her. This is just my initial thoughts, it could be totally off the mark, and we'll have to know a lot more to understand it better.

[chocomd]

ATLA Live Action Final Thoughts

So I'll start by saying that I went into this show with zero expectations (including the expectation for it to be any good at all) and focused more on questions like: How is the acting? Does the writing make sense? Is the story decent? Do we have emotional scenes?

I didn't care about sticking to the og ATLA's ships, lore, or any of the details really. Even changes to the characters were fine with me. But the most important question of all is: Does it work?

The answer:

No.

There are lots of well thought out NATLA critical reviews out there, so I'll try to keep this short. NATLA tweaked a lot of things, tried take elements of the og and make them subversive, changed the themes, completely nerfed Katara, watered down almost everyone else...and I could go on and on. But essentially, NATLA was a "remix" that stayed too close to the original in that the changes they made felt like empty imitations and clumsy efforts to improve on the og. They really should have created a completely different story while keeping maybe a handful of elements of the og. And even if they changed core traits of the characters, that would be fine. It just has to work...and it didn't.

So some main points:

The acting was terrible to ok for the most part. Overall stiff and stilted with almost nonexistent chemistry. Sokka, Jet, Ozai, and June (😍) were the standout actors. Katara had one facial expression and one tone of voice 95% of the time.

Ships I actually enjoyed: Sukka, turnip Jetara, sokka x hahn (hakka? sahn?) and ZUKAANG

The writing often contradicted itself and there was very little emotional resonance or depth. So many lines and moments felt unearned, or simply didn't make sense.

Telling. SO MUCH TELLING. The constant exposition killed so much in this show. I groaned almost every time an actor opened their mouth.

Katara. Why was she in this story again?

The only time the show felt fresh and interesting was the spirit world segment with visions and flashbacks in episode 5...the one time they took ideas from og ATLA and truly remixed them and it was actually decent to good.

The Blue Spirit episode (ep 6) was amazing (relatively speaking lol), and I think it's because Bryke co-wrote this episode AND it was pretty faithful to the og AND the Pohuai Stronghold fight was incredible AND the Zukaang was even more deliciously Zukaang.

The overall plot did not feel cohesive and felt like a disjointed imitation of og ATLA.

Even if I wasn't familiar with the og, I would not have enjoyed this show because it's not good or interesting TV. One person I was watching with (who didn't see the og) left the room because "this is so bad" and "the acting is really stilted."

In the end, I'm not surprised by any of this. Animated stories usually suffer when they're translated into live action, because animation typically has much more emotional and dramatic range. And while og ATLA isn't perfect, it very nearly is because even its imperfections still manage to work in the bigger scheme of the story. Adaptations of og ATLA are pretty much doomed to fail, unless they completely rewrite the ATLA story (and I do mean completely).

Do I regret watching NATLA? That's a hard question to answer. There's no way I was watching this on my own, so I got to enjoy the unhinged company of my friends. If nothing else, watching NATLA made me want more og ATLA and sucked me back into ATLA fandom again.

[masquayla-the-splendid]

How Splatoon makes a controversial Fnaf theory work better in their universe, and other parallels. (Really.)

[Side Order spoilers]

I beat Side Order in 3 hours on my 3rd try at 3am. No I am not joking. I used a slosher. I currently have 9 lockers yet to open, so if anything important comes up, I will update.

I couldn't help but notice the parallels right at the beginning, freeing Marina from Order's control. I went neuron activation, VANESSA.

But then they started talking more about Octo Expansion lore, which made me get all giddy, because 14 y/o me had the biggest fascination with the Sanitized Octolings, and how Commander Tartar built up his scheme to the point we encounter him.

They referred something or other about the color chips/pallettes as "souls" which caught my attention. They're like broken soul pieces? Alright. We already know a comically large kitchen utensil blends octopuses into life goop. What exactly happens to the ones that look like this?

Why are you green?

Marina's logs read:

So okay. I, personally, despise Molten MCI. I think it takes away of a ton of character's individuality, and makes more things confusing, all to explain some old man's rambling in a non-canon ending.

It works for Splatoon's case, because we already had no information about any of the octolings before Sanitization. (Aside from Acht.) We didn’t have time to make that up for ourselves, because we never knew about any of this beforehand, like how we filled in the gaps with underwritten characters for fnaf.

However I'll keep reading and see what else can line up here.

This is leaning into TFC territory. So for less Splatoon knowledgeable readers, Marina is trying to take, essentially what is the Freddy amalgam in TFC, and trying to deconstruct it with each animatronic having everything from their respective endoskeletons. That's best way I can explain it. (For a reader more knowledgeable with Steven Universe, she's trying to fix the forced fusions like Yellow.)

Except the difference here is that the products of Kamabo are, well, orderly, and not animalistic.

The logs that sold it for me:

So in fnaf speak: From a Molten MCI perspective, (blech,) melting down the infused metal, transferring it into data, and putting that data gloop into playable avatars in an arcade game where they can choose the bits of remnant that belong to them, putting themselves back together.

However, with my neuron activation Order=Mimic, that would mean Mimic MCI, but WAIT COME BACK. IT DOESNT HAVE TO BE.

I have yet to get the rest of the lore bits, but as far as I know, Order, (I'm not calling him Smollusk,) is an AI with the generalized ideals Kamabo has programming into the Sanitized Octolings. (I swear he's just leftovers of Tartar. I know it in my heart.) Mimic copies everything it sees, and learns incredibly fast. It learned the tragedies and rumors of Fazbear Ent, and according to Tiger Rock, he's running most of the Pizza Plex, which makes profits of said tragedies he's learned. Did Mimic orchestrate everything? No. He probably has no understanding of anything he's doing, he just does it because that's all he knows. The company started it.

Basically,

Kamabo Co.= Sleazy NewGen Fazbear Ent.

Order=Mimic.

How ever this ends, I'm using as evidence for how I predict the SteelWool plot to resolve/hj

Conc1usion: Marina and Henry should meet up. Well maybe not, if Marina wants permanent results.

I find it telling that with a plot so similar to a Fnaf theory that I hate, I actually really like this idea. And I think it's because it's not Fnaf. It's almost the exact same concept, but it makes much more sense and flows better in Splatoon's world. Probably because it was intentionally written that way, and is supposed to be shamelessly absurd and scifi. I like that I'm able to enjoy a concept I hate.

Analogy: Chocolate is good. I like when a pre existing food item I enjoy has an added chocolate exterior. Like strawberries. Sometimes, there are instances where that is not the case, like bacon. It exsists, and you either love it or hate it. I like both base consumables, and I like the additive, but it works better for one than the other.

Literal speak: I like the scifi horror concept of brainwashing with the actual person person being trapped or lost in a specific state, while their body is just another puppet for the main antagonist, and it takes some Cyber Chase shenanigans to free everyone. That's a rad concept. I just like it better when it's applied to a world that is planned for that kind of take, rather than to a world I already enjoyed, but scrambled to cut itself to fit that shape because it almost fit. It works better for a wacky scifi dystopia, not a campy paranormal horror.

Conclu2ion: Some things are best left for other stories.

Oh and both franchises have a known history of bangin soundtrack.

[accirax]

initial thoughts on DCAS episode 10

wait, Gabby actually said "baddie"? i thought she said "buddy." Ellie is a bad bitch send tweet

given everything that happened in this episode, i honestly forgot this happened. i'm sure it'll come back to be important at some point, though. putting this here to try to help keep it in my mind.

Gabby and Ellie are literally the cutest, my goodness. i thought their ship was okay in S1 (i didn't really understand why Ellie would like Gabby, and to some extent i still don't), but DCAS has made me love them. they just care about and revere each other so much........

god, he's literally the worst (/hj /pos)

does Yul actually care about/need the money? i thought he was only on the show for the publicity. i want to know the Yul lore so bad...

what does Gabby think this alliance is meant to accomplish, exactly...? actually, i take back my confusion. Yul literally tried to poison Aiden in S2. there's a precedent for her believing that the alliance would commit actual crimes.

i cannot believe that Yul canonically knows what Tumblr is. hi Yul

this made me cackle. i'm glad every time that Aiden gets to be more sassy and hotheaded again, especially when it's behind someone's back like this. that rashness is what prevents him from being the super vanilla character that people like to make fun of him for being, and what causes him to do interesting things in the narrative.

honestly, this was way more understated than i expected. and, possibly than it should've been...? like, Jake. Tom literally lied to you just to avoid you. this is actually (in my opinion) something you could be justifiably pissed about.

HE'S SO PANICKED AT THE THOUGHT OF BEING EJECTED FROM THE GAME. HE CARES A LOT ABOUT PLAYING. I WANT TO KNOW THE YUL LORE SO BADDDDDDD

this can't actually be the end of Emily's character, right? right?

i'm glad this scene exists because it makes way more sense that there would still be some hostility between these two after the events of S1. they need time to cook before they can become besties for real :)

Gabby, respecter of girlfriends everywhere

honestly, i thought that she was going to straight up shoot Yul (with paint) after this. it would've been deserved.

...RIGHT???

...how? other than figure, those two look pretty much nothing alike. also, hilarious unforced error given the result of this episode. imagine if this slip up winds up essentially costing Tom the win.

is it just me, or was there more swearing than normal this episode? not super important, but it was noticeable.

this is a really valid argument. why did this count? whatever.

KING!!!!!!! see, i was right to bring up how Alec is great at challenges.

he's an Fi lead (MBTI reference)

KING PART 2!!!!!!!! i love Alec

again, i like seeing this side of Aiden. while i wouldn't say he's as petty as Jake, he's still petty enough to continue the feud instead of trying to be the bigger person. he's got depth!

ABSOLUTELY the best strategic move for the villains. i'm very happy with this elimination, although, i was never a huge Ashley fan. my heart goes out to those who are.

not only that, but the disventure is over too.

Jake is truly going to be 100% alone in this game, now, and entirely due to his own doings. very excited to see how he proceeds from here.

this is a winner's cut moment, ngl.

what did the writers mean by this

aaaaand, that's the episode! i enjoyed this one. it reminded me of the good ol' S1 days, where i got to watch Fiore and Alec absolutely trample all of the heroes with their superior strategy. (i stan the villains, if that wasn't obvious by this point.) i'm well aware that those days can't last forever, but that just makes me even more inclined to revel in them while they're still here.

i do still hope that one of Jake, Tom, and Aiden gets eliminated soon, though. this episode specifically i don't think was an instance of plot armor-- like i said, i think Ashley was by far the most sensible boot given the situation-- but the longer all three of them stay in, the more it does feel like the writers playing favorites than how the game would genuinely shake out.

i'm quite curious as to what the next trailer will show us. are we headed towards another hero boot, or will the villains start beefing already? will the inevitable trevek conversation happen next episode? and is Emily really gone???? i hope not :,( see you next week!

[comicaurora]

With Dainix as a Red Lantern, what Corps do you think the rest of the cast would be a part of if any?

I could answer this with my thoughts, but I think it's more interesting to put this out as a discussion question. And it gives me an excuse to talk about wacky DC lore!

For those who don't know, the general gist of the lantern corps is that they are intergalactic organizations that harness the power of "the emotional electromagnetic spectrum", meaning every emotion has a color and if you have enough of that emotion and a corresponding lantern ring you can get powers from it. It started, obviously, with the Green Lanterns, and was Care-Bear'd out from there. The colors and their corresponding Vibes are:

Red - Rage. Red lanterns are pissed off all the time and are almost always evil. In the comics they're a lot more hardcore, like "straight-up blood magic" hardcore, but in cartoon adaptations they're basically just glowy and mad. Green Lantern: The Animated Series introduced a heroic red lantern, Razer, who serves as the good guy's edgy, grumpy lancer with a heart of gold. Basically all the others are jerks.

Orange - Greed. There is only one Orange Lantern at a time because they're too greedy to let anyone else share the power. That's basically their whole deal. More of a gimmick villain than anything. Apparently comes in lego form.

Yellow - Fear. The oldest of the bad-guy lantern corps. Unlike most of the Lanterns, it's less important that a Yellow Lantern feel fear than that they cause fear, which is totally cheating. The problem is these guys fight the Green Lanterns, whose whole deal is they don't respond to fear, which means they're kinda doomed from the outset. The absolute funniest thing to ever happen with a Yellow Lantern ring was this:

Green - Will. Not an emotion, but they came first so they're allowed to break the theme. Green Lanterns are powered from sheer heroic willpower, which is why they are basically always good guys. They have the ability to use their lantern rings to construct anything they can imagine, but they're all boring motherfuckers who make boxing gloves or guns, which is why the best Green Lantern is Kyle Rayner, an artist.

Blue - Hope. These guys have the power to bolster nearby Green Lanterns, which makes sense - easier to hold onto willpower when you have hope backing you up. Depending on the story they can also nerf nearby bad-guy lanterns. The Flash has been one of these, but surprisingly Superman has not, which feels like a huge oversight.

Indigo - Compassion. Pretty small and niche, mostly just introduced as a plot device in the Blackest Night storyline. Their actual tangible ability lets them mirror the abilities other Lanterns, which is a cool way to make compassion a unique power. Unfortunately their lore is basically "they are all sociopaths incapable of feeling emotion without their lantern rings, which are used to 'cure' them, and this is fine. also they are 'tribal' and wear body paint and fight with sticks. this came out in 2010." that aside, cool concept I guess??

Violet - Love. The "star sapphires" can channel the power of love and decided to make that everyone's problem. Oscillate between being good guys and villains of the week depending on how much that writer hates Hal Jordan's girlfriend. They were the Token All-Lady Lanterns for a while until they were recently confirmed to be co-ed, they had just been operating on the assumption that only women are capable of Real Love while men must be Mistrusted or Controlled With It, because despite being an intergalactic civilization composed of thousands of different alien species and cultures, apparently '60s earth gender essentialism was receiving the Emotion-Reading Power Ring Seal Of Approval for millennia. Whenever Wonder Woman gets a lantern ring it's one of these.

Black - Death. Also not an emotion, but whatever. These guys are smart, mean zombies. As they got more powerful in the Blackest Night super-zombie apocalypse story, any superhero who had ever died and been brought back became a Black Lantern, which is totally cheating considering what franchise this is.

White - Life. ALSO not an emotion, but the vibe of these guys is that they're like all the other lanterns combined into their truest, purest form, in the same way that white light is a mix of every color. Almost like the concept of trying to draw hard delineations between human emotions is a losing battle! I think you're only allowed to use this one if you're in the last 95% of your limited run and the bad guy really needs to die already.

Ultraviolet - Being A Huge Bummer. I guess someone decided the lantern corps needed ninjas. Representing "invisible light," aka most light, their emotion is "all negative emotion", which is somehow distinct from rage, fear and greed. What I like most about DC comics is how none of the writers agree with each other about literally anything.

[allthoseotherworlds]

Just for the record, not all people who dislike the bigeneration thing also dislike the timeless children or the idea of pre-Hartnel Doctors.

And also I'm getting kind of tired of people saying that complaining about the implications of the bigeneration for the fifteenth Doctor means you didn't properly appreciate Ncuti Gatwa's performance.

Ncuti's performance was great! I am not saying that he didn't do a good job, he was very striking and had great energy and as far as I can tell everybody I've seen has been able to recognize that and be excited about it!

I also am in what I think maybe the minority in that I really liked the Timeless children stuff. I thought it was interesting and enjoyed it.

My complaint about the bigeneration stuff is specifically that they need to make it clearer that the 15th Doctor is *the Doctor*, the original Doctor, the same one who has been through every regeneration so far.

I am aware there are a few lines in the special that can be interpreted in that way - doing rehab out of order, and so on.

But it isn't clear enough for me to trust that this is specifically their intention, and it does matter to me whether or not they're the same person. Maybe it shouldn't, maybe I'm pedantic and nitpicky and care too much about the details, but nevertheless it is important to me.

I think maybe a relevant thing here is that a lot of people discuss regeneration and the different Doctors as though they're all different people who are loosely connected by shared memories?

Whereas I tend to see them as the same person, consistent through each regeneration even though appearance changes and surface level personality traits get reshuffled a little. Every personality trait that any Doctor displays is one they all have, just in different quantities and displayed in different ways. To me they're all still the same person, just like I'm the same person now as I was 5 years ago, even though I look different and interact with people differently - my core identity, personality, and values haven't really changed that much.

So it matters to me whether or not be bigeneration is just a time travel thing, where 14 and 15 are fundamentally the same person and 15 is just brought back in time sort of,

Or whether the original Doctor was essentially killed and replaced with two copies,

Or whether one or the other of the two is the original and the other is a copy.

I *know* this doesn't need to matter, but it still feels important to me. It's the kind of existential crisis that shows up in these sorts of stories a lot for a reason- even though there may not be a practical difference, it's still something that feels important at least to some people.

And I just hope that the writers understand that this is something that's important to people, even if they don't explicitly address it.

Anyway, I just wanted to say all of this because I feel like I've seen an increasing number of people complain about other people disliking the bigeneration stuff with the assumption that they dislike it for a reasons that are not the reasons that I have.

To summarize: I like Ncuti Gatwa, I think he's doing a great job and would like to see more, I intend to watch his stuff and support him in the role. I'm not against weird backstory changing plot things in Doctor Who and I liked the timeless children. My issue with the bigeneration is pedantic lore related existential crisis stuff and the implications thereof. I'm aware this is a very nitpicky autistic thing to care about, but I am a nitpicky autistic, so (shrug emoji)

[lunarsilkscreen]

Valve Series Timeline

Somebody asked me why I don't do a post about all the connections between half-life and portal and all the back story there. The theory being that a lot of other theorists don't get it right.

And they weren't wrong. The problem with most theorists is that they stop at a surface level, where I go real deep into the lore and pick out all sorts of details and connections. Sometimes even to a degree that isn't fully supported by on game detail.

But here's the thing with the half-life series. And valve games in general;

The story and background lore is already plotted out to a near dizzying degree. There is rarely a loose end between games.

Me doing a segment on half-life and portal would just be connected end to end on a path already laid out by valve. It would be incredibly boring. I would have suspected that's why other theorists don't do it. But I'm beginning to think it's just that people don't think about things to the degree I do.

Note I said: "To the Degree I do" not better, not worse. Just not the same way. But probably because I'm more of a completionist.

Anyway to prove my point, I'll simply point out the first Half-Life multiplayer expansion (Developed by Gearbox Studios): Half-Life: Decay

The bonus mission follows a couple of vortigaunts: R-4913 and X-8973. In the game, both share the same character model. I heavily suspect that only R4 was actually modelled, it being a kind of throwaway bonus mission, and the fact that valve only has "R-4913" written in an air duct along with "Code Green". The game Half-Life: Uplink does the same, only referencing R-4913 and *not* X-8973

Now. Let's look at Portal 2's Multiplayer Heros: Atlas and Peabody. Compare ATLAS and R4913 visually. They have the same basic body type. You could boil this down to a simple throwback. But Valve doesn't do things half-baked. Except for a third game. This is intentional on the devs part. All the way down to how they're "just a couple of random a*, but vitally important grunts"

The vortigaunts are sent on a viral suicide mission by the Nihilanth. GlaDOS is a Nihilistic artificial intelligence who sends the same two on a suicide mission, which is vitally important for her plans.

These two are essentially Seal Team 6.

To take things a step further if your rearrange the letters in ATLAS, LAATS, matches up with a kind of l33t-speak interpretation, which was appropriate for the year that Half-Life came out. And Valve and Gearbox being full of a bunch of dumb Internet nerds, makes this incredibly far-fetched interpretation, not so far-fetched. (Considering Ls and Rs is still a thing we do to this day thanks to all the languages that roll them together.)

The same for PEA-BODY or X-8973. I don't know how X converts to P yet... But given enough time and effort I could learn..but it'll probably be easier to ask gearbox themselves.

The implications of this are important; it means that both Vortigaunts and Humans (specifically: dying people [or wounded warriors]) were placed into AI like Caroline into GlaDOS.

This is the exact reason why some test subjects didn't have to sign a waiver whenever you see those waivers lying around.

And, if I'm not mistaken: Why Chell was uploaded in the first place...

[shalpilot]

Hello! It's been a while since I asked you something

So, i'm not really into ffxiv stuff (like, plot, game itself, etc) but I'm extremely curious about your oc Kiril. Due to this i came up with some questions (they're so basic, because i need to know at least something to ask a proper question)

1. Can we get a lil' bit of Kiril's backstory (other than running away from home). As far as i understood, he ran away with his sister/friend Yesui and something bad happened to her. So, maybe now you can give some extra details on their runaway and her death (if it was death, obviously)?

2. What about Kiril's parents? I didn't get the thing about forehead scales (maybe, it's described in ffxiv wiki or smth, idk) and who were they? Some sort of a ruler? Just soldiers?

3. Not really important but how do you pronounce Kiril and Yesui's names (full, of course)?

So, I'm glad to write again and being eager to wait for your new answers

Probably, if it doesn't bother you, i'd ask more questions in future about Kiril

edit: question one ain’t canon anymore LOLOLOL. yesui still dies in coerthas but it’s related 2 the herectics now. idk how bc I like. just stared heavensward but. we will see.

1) I actually rolled Kiril’s last name and ended up getting one of the tribes with canon lore which is GREAT for me bc it helped me mold his backstory more. I’m not at the part where I actually get to learn about ‘em in-game cuz i only started playing like a month ago but to boil down what I know, the Dotharl tribe believes in reincarnation & as a whole the Xaela- pausing. Kiril is an Au Ra (race), a Xaela Au Ra (black scales; nomadic), and a Dotharl (tribe). hope that makes sense lol. anyways as a whole the Xaela are pretty unwelcoming to outsiders and even Xaela from other tribes. Every year they have a Naadam which is battle where the victor “claims dominion” over the Azim Steppe (homeland) for the year. The Dotharl emphasize not fearing death and not being a fucking pussy

all of that is setup LOL. Anyways, Kiril was born shortly after the death of a notable warrior (also named Kiriltugh) and so he was set on the path of becoming a warrior since essentially day one. thing is, he a.) hated it and b.) was shit at it. he struggled to pick up even the most basic parts of fighting and suffered a lot of berating due to it. at the same time, an older girl in the tribe was making strides and becoming a veritable golden child in the eyes of the adults. that was Yesui! she was incredibly strong for her age and seemed to have a natural gift for battle. but very importantly, she was also understanding of Kiril’s struggles & helped train him even after plenty of other people had declared him a lost cause. eventually though, despite her best efforts (and Kiril’s improvements! turns out a mentor who doesn’t yell at you is a lot more effective) Kiril made up his mind to just. leave. when he told Yesui about his plan, she insisted on coming with him. even with Kiril protesting (you’re doing fine here; don’t ruin your life by coming along!) she wasn’t going to let a 10 year-old leave on his own.

They travel together for an undecided amount of time- left vague so I can update it when i get to later expansions (heehee) until they eventually end up in Coerthas, a snowy region. To my understanding this is pretty fucking far away so I think they must’ve argued their way into an adventuring party or several to make it all that way. they didn’t exactly have a plan; it was just “keep going until we feel like it.”

(a realm reborn spoilers until the next question.)

in Coerthas, things take a pretty sharp nosedive for the two of them and they end up alone and very, very lost. their adventuring party was attacked by a beast tribe and the materials they were carrying were ran off with. They manage to find a cave which offers them a small amount of shelter. Yesui leaves Kiril there while she goes to look for any kind of settlement they might be able to hole up in. she’s gone for ages. and when she comes back, excitedly promising Kiril she’s found someplace safe, she seems… off. she’s holding his hand a little too tight, moving a little too fast. she assures Kiril that where they’re going is safe, warm, and “beautiful”, but the storm raging around them only seems to be getting worse.

…i’m gonna get a little more technical from here because i want to make the rest of this into a comic rather than writing it out.

what’s happened to Yesui is she’s become enthralled by a primal god. Garuda, the resident primal of the region, is in the process of being summoned by the same beast tribe that attacked them, with the items they were transporting (large quantities of crystals). the more followers a primal accrues, the more powerful they become, and something in the region has caught her attention.

Kiril.

so, using Yesui as means to draw him to her, she means to take control of him as well. unbeknownst to either of them, Kiril is under the protection of Hydaelyn, a different (benevolent) goddess who grants Kiril immunity to the thrall of primals. in shielding him, She also ends up shattering the crystals being used in the ritual, causing it to fail. in the ensuing chaos, Kiril escapes with Yesui and manages to find an actual settlement. he begs for help for him and his closest friend- who has remained enthralled even after the disruption of the ritual.

the thing about those who become enthralled is that there is no helping them. what’s more, every follower is another source of strength for a primal.

she cannot be allowed to live.

despite his desperate pleas, despite his promises that she’ll never hurt anyone, Yesui is put to death.

he is far, far from home, and he’s never been more alone in his life.

….then some stuff happens and he becomes an adventurer. i don’t wanna fill in everything just yet, haha.

2.) His mom is a goldsmith and his dad’s a hunter! His mom’s forehead scales are just a trait female Au Ra have. men don’t tend to have as many/any scales there.

3.) Key-rill-too (full name is Kiriltugh) and Yesui is like. yeh-sooey. kinda :?

Kiril doesn’t tend to go by his full name because he feels he hasn’t earned it. this is more so a thing before he saved the entire realm; now it’s more of an affectionate nickname from friends.

[oblexoidbriar]

Metal Madness AU Lore dump

it’s just essentially a bunch of what-ifs smooshed together (i’m just describing what an AU is haha) coupled with a bad ending premise.

For those that don’t want spoilers- long story short, Bunk Bed Junction became the big bad after some events and now they rule the city (or what remains of the city) and they’re all edgy and stuff.

I hc that all genres of music can become “corrupted” or used for evil, EDM or Rock or any musician can be corrupted regardless.

In my headcanoned NSR, magic/power can be harnessed in two ways- Natural abilities (the stuff that people just kinda have from birth) and magic harnessed through creative passion (music, art, all the stuff with creativity involved). For music, you need three components: Passion, Fan Power, and well, how well the music is. The better the music, the more powerful it is. Genre is somewhat of a factor as well (mainly minor tweaks like “oh well rock is more on attack than for example, lo-fi which is defensive and support”).

But a musician can be corrupted when they harness Hatred, and Fear. Twisting their abilities to hurt others around them and even themselves unintentionally at points. While it does make their music more powerful by a lot, it comes at very very high prices. It changes them as a person. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, after all.  

Though now I think Madness wouldn’t be a good term for what May and Zuke are experiencing, more of a corruption- but Metal Corruption wouldn’t sound as good as Metal Madness. So in this AU, Madness = Corruption. Not Insanity or any pretty awful “ooh i’m goin insane n evil” tropes like that as this corruption is more of an entity possessing them and the duo succumbing and listening to this entity as their personalities and beliefs are being affected supernaturally. There are auditory and visual hallucinations induced by this entity to further coerce them into making bad decisions and further losing themselves.

By the way, please let me know if I’m writing anything not very good from a different standpoint/perspective, I want to write a story that involves corruption and making bad decisions as this is a bad ending, but I want to avoid things such as the Insanity trope or villainizing people who experience such things like hallucinations! I'm open to taking suggestions for a new name and for how better to write this AU while keeping all the important plot points and some of the vibe. I'm researching things as best I can so it can be enjoyed by everyone. Of course I know I can't please everyone, but constructive criticism will still help me out in the long run!

Now for the premise/lore that is full of SPOILERS!

After Tatiana was defeated, Mayday learned the truth: That the person making the shots against all the indie artists in Vinyl City is actually her idol- Kul Fyra. But instead of a funny gag we get in game, Mayday is overcome with rage and attacks Tatiana, forcing her to flee- with the legendary guitar. (that'll be a special thing we'll talk about later)

So Kliff and Tatiana don't get to have their little spat in front of May and Zuke, which means May and Zuke don't realize that Kliff has just been using them this entire time. They take their rightful place as Queen and King of Vinyl City.

They're..not very good at the whole running a city thing just yet, but they're at least trying at this point in time. The stress is kind of getting to them so they're relying on Kliff more to ease the load which means they're a lot more dependent on him.

But, of course, as Tatiana predicted, EDM supporters, plus NSR Charters did fight back to claim back the city. And when Tatiana mentioned that Bunk Bed Junction wouldn't stand a chance when they're at a level playing field, oh boy does she mean it. Imagine having to juggle all the charters in one fight.

Kliff, in what he'd call a "moment of genius", recommended B2J to..switch up the genre. With Metal, which would be easy to transition to considering B2J's genre of Rock, and it gives them a significant power boost.

It all went fine at first, the music just giving them an advantage, and they beat the charters one by one like before. But..when it came to Tatiana, Mayday was immediately getting corrupted due to her hatred and feelings of betrayal. Tatiana was defeated, again, but was injured greatly.

The win certainly changed Vinyl City, and Bunk Bed Junction..as now, Mayday had other plans. She was gonna allow EDM to keep on thriving, but..she decided, if they're just gonna make another uprising, why not give them a taste of their own medicine? She banned EDM entirely.

While ruling the city from there on afterwards, the duo began to slowly get corrupted, even kicking out Kliff from Vinyl City after an argument over power distribution. They ruled the city however they pleased, and their sense of justice twisted. They still had good intentions, and believed they were "helping" the city but did more bad than good.

And that's where the story leaves off~ Current day of the duo still ruling, but who knows? Things might change.

[sxfik]

Omg dud you finally get around to reading witchshadow?? What are your all over thoughts??

omg hello!! and yes i did! i actually ended up rereading the whole series because it's been literally seven years (saying that outloud makes it so much more real wtf). it took me a while bc my god are those books a l o t to get through for me now.

i mean idk if i need to preface this since you were literally there but like... i was one of like the 10 people that was active about this series on here when it started back in the 2016-2017 era. like i love this series, and to this day i've kept the username and all the stuff i wrote for it, so just like idk a disclaimer: im not here to hate or anything, just truly mourning something i really loved.

overall thoughts: witchshadow was so disappointing. like resoundingly disappointing. there was so many things i had issues with, and idk if i even have enough time and words to describe it. i feel like this whole series suffered from having too many complex plot points and too many characters introduced five books into a six book series. not to mention the amount of lore and words that is dropped into the books with little to no explanation of what they mean and what they indicated in this world? like how is it book five and i still don't understand what a domna truly is?

i feel like the complexity balance was really held well up until witchshadow, when it literally just got so confusing that none of the characters felt like themselves? also the weird timeline for this book did not help. like jesus christ this book is complex as it is, how are you making it harder for us??

like a) iseult. i felt like she was overshadowed in her own book, i wanted to know about her nomatsi heritage and literally so much about her like the other books did for the main characters, but this felt so disappointing. where was all the worldbuilding you set up for this moment? why did esme just get downgraded all of a sudden? and also just... she doesn't feel like she made any character improvement/her arc went backwards?

b) safi was just? stupid in this book? how did she have a negative character arc. like i know she's supposed to be reckless and making impulse and stupid plans, but her character felt reduced to just that. like first and second book safi: i knew why she was making these decisions, even if they backfired, but this just feels like a mockery of her character. and i love safi, and i wish she had a way better arc than she did, and got treated with the same book time as isuelt and aeduan.

and also god, the weird emperor/safi bs was so unbareable. she's literally like 18 in this book (i actually thought she was closer to 19/20 but whatever i guess she's 18 here). every scene with them was so werid and uncomfortable. (especially that weird one where she walks in while he has sex what the fuck was going on there) why was she desperate to have sex with what i assume to be like a 60 year old??? i had to force myself to read through these parts and not skip them

and god the hellbards. i loved them at first but im getting sick of them taking over the story. why are they so important that they essentially replace both merik and practically the whole main cast of characters. why are they mentioned at every turn? if they were this important, why didnt you introduce them sooner?

c) why does safi and iseult just not have any interaction. its literally been five books bro the seperation arc is enough (and yes i fully consider them separated) !! why have they had 0 character development together?? they're arguably the center of this series, and what started this whole chase, and yet we've gotten maybe one book and a half of them actually growing together. how is this gonna turn out for the final book when you have maybe 600 pages and 6 characters to get through?

d) where the fuck was merik. hes literally a main character how did he disappear??

e) the whole vivia/stix to vivia/vaness makes me. upset. i dont understand the decision to make them threadsisters when they were vivia was gay panicking about her 24/7 in windwitch. literally 0 buildup for something that feels like it came out of nowhere. why are they like siblings now, it feels so so so weird. i honestly have so much more to say about this and yet im still upset

now this might seem like such a hateful rant, and i promise it's not hate, it's just frustration at what seemed like such an excellent book series. and honestly, up until bloodwitch i was doing fine and then this book was just... so different to the rest of the series. i know susan was forced to combine the books into one, and so maybe that's why, but idk man, this felt so disappointing.

i love foreshadowing and worldbuilding when it's done right, and i think it was doing great until this book. a lot of stuff felt like plot twists out of nowhere, with no rhyme or reasoning to it. it just didn't feel like a witchlands book if you get what i feel. honestly, out of love and time for this series, i think i'll be reading the final book as well in the series, hoping things get fixed and we get to see characters that were beloved back again.

(p.s. how are you? its been so long!!)

[neerons]

You said that Kazuomi’s ultimate vacation is part of the main story but it’s under special stories? I guess you mean it’s essential to be read? What special stories of MK are a must read? Because they have a lot of LC ones and well it will take a long time for me to get through them all because of money. I guess what I want to say is that I want to prioritize the must read ones only for practicality sake. So which stories are these?

Hi!

My bad, I got mistaken and thought that it was a main story considering it did mention some important things related to the previous MS, and I genuinely thought it was time for a new MS for him. I should have doubled checked beforehand though sorry sorry!

I don't know what the next MS will be about, but I wouldn't say Ultimate Vacation is essential to read to understand what will happen in the next season, although it's definitely better if you do get to read it. You wouldn't miss out on important lore details particularly, but more on the characters' development in their relationship.

A lot of MK's special stories are linked to the MS and in this case, I guess you could say that altogether, they all form the MS. It's kind of hard to pinpoint exactly which special stories are to prioritize due to that, but I'd say that the special stories aren't required to understand the MS, so they're not really a must-read.

To simplify, main stories are required to understand special stories, but special stories aren't required to understand main stories. If you're looking to catch up to the main story only, you don't have to buy the special stories yet, you could even read them for free if they're LC and buy hearts later.

I also have to mention that I have been reading all stories from the moment they were released, so I have read a lot of them maybe 1 or 2 years ago, or even more. I don't remember everything that happens in them, so I can only help you with the ones where I remember what happens for the most part.

If you want to know the ones I think are more important to learn a bit more about him or about the development of the relationship, I recommend the following:

Salacious Christmas Kisses

Imitation Marriage

Crazed Kisses for My Darling

Ultimate Vacation

Not at all linked to any of the main stories but these ones are important to know more about their past back in college (you can choose to only read and buy hearts to use on Kazuomi's PoV and therefore will learn more about him):

Episode Zero: The Legendary Rebels Meet 1 & 2

Again, these special stories are definitely not required and won't bring you amazing plot twists, but they're awesome to read. Think of them more as bonuses to the MS.

If you ever need help with the amount of hearts you'll need for the stories, I'm sure you can find a few love choice guides out there, or I could help you and make them if you ever need it

Thank you for the ask, and happy reading to you ❤

[mostlyonthefloor]

Brotherband AU

If anyone saw my other post, I did say to expect a The Sea Beast brotherband au in about a week. This sort of combines that with a How To Train Your Dragon sort of vibe? I cannot write an AU outline of a manageable or accessible length so enjoy the essay I guess.

So Skandians are and have been for centuries at war with the Creatures. For simplicity I'm going to call them dragons since I basically imagine them as httyd-esque dragons

Skandians have forced them out to the deep sea and the far north, for the most part

Also I think they live mostly in cold climates, so countries further south don't have these problems

They're prone to attacking both settlements and boats, and so people (mostly Skandians) develop elaborate land- and boat-based ways to defend against them

In brotherband training, everything goes normally, the whole making a sail plan and forming the Herons and other stuff goes the same (perhaps it's a bit controversial to be called the Herons since flying things are generally associated with bad luck and death. Birds are a bad omen because they look a bit like dragons in silhouette)

There's definitely also dragon fighting stuff included in the brotherband training, the whole these creatures are bad, they're trying to attack us and kill us, we have to kill them first schtick

While sailing the Heron around, they has surprisingly few hostile encounters with dragons. In fact, they have a couple of harmless fly-bys that seem more out of curiosity than anything else. Hal makes the executive decision, during and after training, not to fire on them and they go away on their own (plot points: Hal thinks Differently to Most People and Dragons Are Not Automatically Hostile)

They figure out at some point that this is because the Heron, having a strange sail plan and beam of wood out the bottom and generally being small and looking nothing like most ships in the area, isn't recognised by the dragons as human ship and a threat

The Herons begin to wonder if dragons are so bad. Maybe they have some tentatively friendly interactions. I'm not sure man

Does Hal design the Mangler partly as a ranged defence from aerial attacks? Maybe

They go on their journey to try and recover the Andomal, they sink Zavac's ship, they get the Andomal back

It turns out, the Andomal is an egg that was stimulated to hatch by being submerged in water

So now they have this little orange baby dragon

And she's like important in some way so other dragons, including some the Herons recognise were hanging around them before, start hanging out in earnest now

They discover that dragons aren't so bad and they go home to spread the good news. Hooray.

They make friends with them and it's cute

Stig plays fetch with a dragon. Or does the dragon play fetch with him. Who knows

Edvin acquires a tiny little dragon who cuddles him for body heat at all time like a scarf

Secret lore that Hal probably figures out at some point:

I imagine the dragons as semi-aquatic - they fish for food in the shallows or deep sea, and while they can sleep in water, on land or while flying, they like to roost and raise young on land

Dragons were initially attacking because humans sought to drive them out of the cliffs and fishing grounds around Hallasholm, which were an important food source and habitat for them

This then escalated as humans sought to drive them essentially out of sight altogether and dragons just started attacking human ships on sight

So now Hal, who understands why this whole thing is happening, essentially has to explain to all of Hallasholm that actually the dragons that we've been fighting for centuries are not that bad and actually if we just let them fish around here and live in the cliffs they'd leave us alone

That goes about as well as you'd imagine

[multi-lefaiye]

hello hi please try and explain tribe twelve to me maybe? :3 I have never heard of it before and your rambles are always a delight

hello hi thank u for the ask!!!!! <3 and thank u for the support heehoo

time for another installment of Multi Tries To Explain Some Semi-Obscure Piece Of Media He Enjoys Or Feels Some Level Of Nostalgia For

to start, clarifying: i'm just here to talk about the characters and the story and i'm gonna avoid the creator himself as much as possible, b/c uhh i don't want to touch that with a ten foot pole, i just like the funky little fictional people and some of the concepts this series touched on.

SO tribe twelve is an older horror unfiction series on youtube--essentially, a series that operates under the idea that the story depicted Is Really Happening in an alternate reality, of sorts, but the story itself is still 100% fictional. if that makes sense. or, as one definition i read put it: unfiction pretends to be telling a real story, but it is still ultimately fiction--the audience just isn't TOLD that it's fiction.

(also i do have some thoughts on unfiction as a genre as a whole i might share at some point, but yeah they play with unreality in a very literal way.)

(putting the rest under the cut b/c this got long)

anyway tribe twelve is one of the older unfiction pieces, and it was pretty influential on the genre as a whole in my opinion. it's not the first, but it was on the scene early. it's also a big part of what's referred to as the slenderverse, i.e. media based around the slenderman creepypasta (think marble hornets).

actually marble hornets was a huge inspiration for tribe twelve, especially in the beginning lmao- it moved away from that influence more as the series progressed, but at first. it was obvious (and actually if i remember right, it was originally meant to just be a short parody of marble hornets, but then the creator decided to make it more original.)

tribe twelve centers around the protagonist, noah maxwell, as he unravels a big mystery in his family, starting with the mysterious death of his cousin milo. as the series progresses, noah catches the attention of a group known as the collective, who have been tormenting his family for many, many years.

the story is told via a series of what are essentially vlogs noah uploads that document his experiences as the collective begin following him and tormenting him. the unfiction element is that, in-universe, the channel is noah's and he is the one posting the videos. also should be noted that there's a twitter account and i think a blog that go with the videos and following along those helps you understand the story better as well. (there also was, funny enough, a vine account that had some lore lmao. remember when vine was a thing?)

there's ALSO a series of videos on the channel that are uploaded by the collective themselves, and those are kinda what the series is most known for. those episodes have a very distinct visual/editing style, even if they're usually just kinda Spooky without advancing the plot much (at least at first).

i also want to note, one thing that i think is kinda interesting is that the creator's identity as a jewish man was ultimately REALLY important to the storyline in many ways--the main characters are all jewish as well and this ties into the plot and the history of the collective in a way that i think is pretty neat. there's a lot more relating to that but i'm not sure if i feel personally equipped to type up a whole analysis of that aspect of the series, or even really to start a discussion about it.

as the series progresses, the timeline deliberately gets really fucky and confusing and honestly i'm not even fully sure what's going on in a lot of aspects. there are like three alternate timeline versions of noah running around as major characters that all have distinct personalities and it's Wild. i don't think all of them have names, but i still love firebrand. he's great <3

also the series was never finished and at this point isn't going to be </3 the creator has, afaik, abandoned the series entirely after Shit Happened and while i think he might've posted the plans for the rest of the storyline somewhere, the series itself is dead in the water.

ALL THIS TO SAY. i don't know how much sense any of this makes. i really enjoyed tribe twelve because it touches on really interesting themes, imo, about the nature of reality and destiny and the idea of fighting back against your own fate. i'm still a little feral over the concept the series presents about like... your future self intervening to save you from a terrible fate that befell them, in the process completely destroying the timeline and even reality itself.

ok yeah there's a lot i could say about this series and i don't really know where to go with this so uhhh just know. noah was the true first member of my collection of dark-haired horror men in distress that give me gender envy. i rewatched an episode of this series recently, and it was one where there's a shot of noah all sweaty and bloody and looking in the mirror and all i could think was "give me your gender."

[comicaurora]

hey red, I wanted you to know that Aurora is a huge inspiration for me and my webcomic that I'm working on, it's really incredible. On the flipside I got really into reading this blog and the worldbuilding that's in it yesterday and now I'm doing worldbuilding for the world of my comic that is very fun but frankly NOT important to the actual story. Any tips on cultural worldbuilding that both makes sense and also remains relevant to your story?

That's great to hear!

Worldbuilding is a delightfully inescapable vortex. It's like putting together a puzzle you're drawing yourself and also there aren't any edge pieces because the ride never stops. Essentially, you have to decide which approach is better for you personally: to build a world that serves the story, or to write a story that explores that world?

If you're building a world around the story, you basically just need to focus on worldbuilding the parts that engage with the story and making sure there's enough connective tissue that the cohesive whole kinda holds together. If you just need a setting for a really cool swordfight that advances the plot from point A to point B, you can worldbuild a towering ancient ruin or a floating sky-fortress or whatever to have the fight in without having to go too in-depth on who built it and why, but you also can go more in-depth with those things if you want to make the setting more than just "place where swordfight happens." Maybe the sky-fortress is a Laputa-style ancient superweapon or the ancient ruin was abandoned after being overrun by sentient skeletons or something. Maybe you decide that an ancient group you've already worldbuilt for other plot reasons was responsible for building this too, so you can loop in whatever lore you've already made for them. The possibilities are pretty close to endless, as is always the case with fiction you're writing yourself - in this approach, the challenge is mostly making sure that the disparate chunks of worldbuilding you're shaping around the plot actually fit together cleanly, rather than clashing or leaving plothole gaps between them. For this reason, it's good to have a base skeleton of Things You Know For Sure About The World so that there's consistency between worldbuilding chunks - fundamental principles of reality, magic systems, major historical events, stuff like that. They don't need to be super detailed, they just need to serve as anchor points to hold all the story-centric worldbuilding together.

This is why some people prefer the other approach - building the whole world and then writing a story to explore it. This is a favorite of sci-fi, spec-fic in general, magical otherworld stories and almost every TTRPG ever made, as the whole premise of those genres is "what would it be like if the world looked like this instead?" In these stories you can worldbuild to your heart's content with no regard for plot or characters, since the plot and characters will arise from the exploration of that world once you've got it fleshed out. This is a great idea if the world is probably the most interesting part of the story, and a less-than-great idea if you really want the plot and characters to shine as the stars of the show. Larry Niven, prolific hard-SF writer, took this approach almost exclusively and came up with some incredibly unique settings and alien races - my favorite being Ringworld, a book entirely about exploring an ancient alien megastructure rotating around a star. It has characters, but, like, barely. They're just a vehicle to explore the worldbuilding, and it is some very cool worldbuilding.

This approach is a good way to get a very cohesive world that fits together well, but it also runs the risk of getting away from you. Anchoring the worldbuilding into a linear plot or single region or relatively small cast of main characters lets you stay focused on what actually matters for the story you want to tell, rather than burning years or even decades building out the tiny fractalized details of what exactly this long-extinct civilization wore on their second-best festival days. Coherent large-scale worldbuilding is fantastic if you're designing an open-world game or setting - Breath of the Wild's worldbuilding is a standout example of this, as the entire map and the items/creatures in it paint a very beautifully detailed picture of this environment and what happened in it, from ancient ruins with several very visually distinct architectural styles, to a fireball-slinging wizzrobe hanging out in a burned-out village, to a massive tree that collapsed down the side of a hill, to a huge fuckoff hole carved through a whole-ass mountain, to the battlefield Link later finds out he died in being absolutely carpeted in an army of completely destroyed inert Guardians, cluing us in that whatever battle went down here was rather more crazy than what went down in the other battlefields we pass through, where only a few guardians are scattered around and some sneaky ones are actually still active. The world isn't just there to serve the linear narrative of the main questline, it's there to present the player with a very big picture and let them piece it together themselves.

For a game as freeform as Breath of the Wild, this is a great call. For a linear written narrative with only one plot, it's completely unnecessary. It's best to find what balance works well for you so you can stay focused on the point of the story without getting bogged down in the stuff that ultimately won't matter. Worldbuilding can also be super fun, though, so like - do whatever makes you happy, really.