#this is entirely from my perspective of the sun saga so please please please tell me if theres something to be added or changed.

[mini-games]

-BEGINNING LORE/SUN SAGA-

In the beginning, most everyone lived in Item’s (@item-shoppe) basement, eventually escaping one way or another to Nefarious’s (@nefarious-exclam) tower or to set up their own place.

I, Mini, came along through anon. An anon (a different one) had supposedly been quoting the lyrics to a song, but none of us knew the song and took it seriously. So we killed the sun. How? Well Nef tried (and failed) to shoot it with a water gun, and one of his gimmick posts was shrinking someone down to the size of an ant. So, if they’re able to do both of those things, I figured “Why can’t he do both on the sun?”

I sent in an ask, on anon (before I had become a gimmick blog. I was wanting to be one at this point but didn’t know what my gimmick would be) telling him to shrink the sun down to the size of an ant and shoot it with a water gun. It worked, the sun was extinguished, and it all went dark in the universe. And cold.

After figuring out what gimmick I wanted to be, I quickly made a profile picture for the blog and made the blog itself, now being able to interact with everything easily. The first interaction I had was with Vance (@advancement-made), and they asked me why I would do that. I didn’t think it would actually work, but it did and I have been advised to not underestimate Nef again. I was also forgiven.

Meanwhile, the Ice People had come out of the ice caves (looking at you, @solidwater05. I know what you did. /silly) and were attacking Nefarious, trying to get him to become an Ice Person as well. Nefarious uses a lot of mana during this period of time, trying to fight them off. Also Vance and Glitches (@glitches-and-bugs) can glow, we found out.

Boss (@bossfight-messages) ends up making a deal with the Ice People, telling them that they’ll be an Ice Person if they are given blankets. This deal was never completed, however, as Boss never turned into an Ice Person. Guess it’s too late for that now, though.

In the meantime, Vance and I forged a plan to relight the sun by making a large bonfire and throwing the sun in it, since Nef still had the sun in their hands. Small fires went out pretty quickly, but we figured a large bonfire would take a while to go out. Vance ended up leaving to get some wood, whilst I left to get something to light the wood with. I found some matches, before the Ice People found me.

The Ice People tried convincing me to join them, eventually telling me about how they are lonely and just want a friend. I ended up breaking, and they infected me, turning me into an Ice Person with them.

Before I could do anything as an Ice Person (infecting others, hiding away in the Ice Caves, etc.), the sun returned to the sky, having been re-lit. Normally, I would’ve melted since I was ice, but it was night-time. So I still had time.

Status (@status-updates) ended up watching as everyone panicked about me being an Ice Person, as he sat on a thawing machine. Nefarious ended up making a bargain with Status for the thawing machine, and when Status agreed on the price, he took 50 extra gold from Nefarious for renting the thawing machine. Nef used the thawing machine on me, thawing away the ice. I was back to normal, and everything was right and good in Exclamania once more. Well, except for Nef. Especially since he was angry at Status for swindling them.

Nef also gave me one of his cloaks, since I was still quite cold after having been frozen for about an hour. They also revealed that he knew the Ice People once. This seems to be a pretty big part of both Nefarious and Select (@character-selecton) lore.

If anyone else has anything to add to the Beginning Lore/Sun Saga lore, feel free to add to it!

If needed, I can also post a plaintext version. If you need a plaintext version, just ask and I can post it!

[permian-tropos]

Ok, my issue with TLJ is the cynical-ness of it. It's written in a way that pokes fun of SW. Like, "all of this is so silly, isn't it. Wink, wink." I don't like how it took the focus off Rey. Ahch-To was filmed from Luke's POV most of the time. I'm not saying TLJ is a bad movie bc it's not! I just felt like I'd been slapped in the face w the fanboy-ness (the ego-ness) of it all. I know you'll break my whole argument down, but maybe I need that.

Can’t help but feel like I’m some kind of TLJ s&m dominatrix now like “this movie made you feel bad and you should be grateful” lmao 

TL;DR: As I experienced it, the movie is actually super sappy and in love with the sincerity of Star Wars just like TFA but taking its own route to convey it. instead of TFA, it’s framed to first appeal to and then sway the minds of an imagined cynical audience, and that audience might actually be 12 year olds and if so, that’s as it should be.

A point about the cynical-ness – it’s interesting you’re talking about the poking fun at SW, since the other way people have called it cynical would be in its depiction of failures and loss. To that, I would argue that it only seems especially dark because the end of the story hasn’t come yet. Which… the movie actually addresses in its story, the “hope is like the sun” line is kind of nudging the audience like “hey the heroes are in a bad spot but they’ll win in the end, don’t forget that”. 

It would be patronizing but… this movie is meant to be seen by 12 year olds as well as adults so maybe it’s okay that it’s kinda blunt about some things? Star Wars actually draws in a much younger audience than I think other PG-13 level movies do. Hiding all the messages in subtext isn’t fair to them so I think people get tripped up with TLJ thinking that it’s not saying exactly what it seems to be saying, and just communicating that message on a myriad of levels.

Like as someone who has written so many metas about TLJ – a lot of my analysis boils down to “I don’t think the movie is hiding its message very much, it’s kind of all right there, but there’s also a lot of extra layers enhancing it”. 

When the movie goes, “this is so silly, isn’t it?” (and also it doesn’t do that nearly as much as I’ve seen in some franchises) I sort of imagine what a 12 year old, having grown up in this cynical age of deconstruction of sincerity, and also being right at that age where you might look at your younger childhood loves and think “so silly”, would take from it. I don’t see them being so hurt or offended. They aren’t nostalgic for the OT yet. Their nostalgia fodder is being formed as these movies are coming out. Actually I remember being 12 and being oversensitive to people bashing sincerity – because all my peers were 100% in love with cynicism and I was well uhhh neurodivergent and at a different stage of emotional development.

Older people have a very different relationship to their childhood, often longing for the simplicity of it, or cherishing the joys. But you have to have some distance to really see that. Many movies for a pre-teen or young teen audience are about reminding them not to be too cynical, while showing an understanding of their sense of cynicism. They’re about telling kids “hey I get it but don’t rush into adulthood too fast”.

The Last Jedi concludes on sincerity, really bluntly. Rose saving Finn is about rejecting the nihilism of “the only way to prove you care about a cause is to die for it” – this isn’t true, and it’s why Holdo’s sacrifice isn’t the same. Holdo is deliberately trying to save the fleet, but the First Order, when you think about it, has cornered the Resistance on Crait whether they blast open the doors right away or besiege them for days. Finn’s sacrifice would actually just delay the inevitable and that’s not worth dying for. And “saving what we love” is this deeply sincere message.

Poe getting to save the Resistance by noticing the vulptices are leading them towards the exit is super sincere, that’s so freaking corny, it’s unreal. Cute animal friends save the day. 

Rey and Finn’s reunion is CORN HEAVEN it’s literally every run-into-your-beloved’s-arms scene (actually my first association with it is how the movie Madagascar parodies that trope with the zebra and the lion whose names I am not going to bother to remember). Rey lifting all those rocks is sincere, Luke mocks her earlier for claiming the Force is about that but guess what? It is about that! And it looks awesome and it saves everyone’s lives. Leia telling Rey “we have everything we need” is optimistic. It’s saying they’re not going to wallow in their losses. They will keep moving forward, they will take strength from failure, not despair.

Luke starts off the film thinking heroism is meaningless. He ends the film doing exactly what he said would be absurd – walking out with a laser sword and facing down the First Order. He starts off filmed with this shroud of overcast shadow around him, and ends with his face illuminated by nostalgic callback to the twin suns of Tatooine. Yoda even encourages him to remember his youthful dreams and desire for adventure – stop being such a cynic, Young Skywalker, I know you’re still that boy who stares at the horizon. 

And of course, the entire last scene with the slave kids is painfully adoring of Star Wars and its importance to kids. It’s wretchedly corny. I’ve said it elsewhere but the slope of the floor, leading up to a field of stars, actually parallels the slope of the opening crawl. That’s how meta the cinematography went. It went there, it poked that fourth wall. The movie ends with a promise that any little child who loves Star Wars is as special as the saga’s heroes, and that’s actually the most sappy thing in the Whole Entire Saga. 

So the movie basically argues with a hypothetically cynical audience. And if it feels weird, like it’s assuming you’re cynical (which is insulting because no, you unironically adore Star Wars, thank u v much)… I suppose maybe give the movie a fair shake and remember its most important audience is 12 year olds, who have all their little quirks and emotional hangups. No matter what this movie means to you, it will never ever compare to the place it will hold in the hearts of its preteen audience. That’s how Star Wars is supposed to be.

I have no idea the consensus on this film from 12 year olds but I really hope they don’t get overwhelmed by 20-somethings pressuring them to hate it.

Side note on “Ahch-To was filmed from Luke’s POV” – I’m pretty sure it’s the opposite?? people ran into this before where they thought the movie was siding with Kylo and showing his POV when he’s never the POV. Do people just have it backwards? Please okay I feel weird breaking something so simple down but…. the character that is being stared at a lot by the camera is the Object. The character who you presume to be doing the staring is the Subject and POV. Rey is the subject and Luke is the object. Rey is the subject and Kylo is the object.

The fact that the two leading white men of the movie are almost always Object is, I think, actually a point of confusion, because that’s not how it ever is, but it’s how it is in TLJ. They’re not being favored over Rey, we’re seeing her perception of them, so she’s even closer to the audience than they are. Except for the Luke and Yoda scene, nearly everything from Ahch-To is from Rey’s perspective. She seems invisible because she’s actually omnipresent. It is highly unfamiliar to have a woman seem invisible for that reason, but this is a thing I’m super confident about. 

Rey is POV, as she should be of course, and actually she is more POV than in The Force Awakens because Finn gets that role a lot more and he gets that role when he’s with her. We’re probably actually used to Rey-as-Object despite thinking of her as the protagonist because she’s framed like that in TFA. I’m extremely pleased that Episode 9 will have Finn and Rey in an adventure together, but it wasn’t even that bad to have them apart for one movie because it let us get to know Rey on her own terms. 

I could honestly go through the whole sequel trilogy and break down who is POV in what scene and make some kind of infographic lmao would I actually be that extra TM??? who knows

[insanescriptist]

So, what do you and Umei think is the main distinction between Sky and Earth Flames? And any ideas about how they came to be? Though they're source may differ depending on which fanfic'vsrse it's from, so for clarity I'm mostly asking about Black Sky and Xanxus' Adventures in Parenthood Piracy.

Well, there are differences between Black Sky and XAiPP; lots of Izzy’s wild theorizations of Flames first appear in XAiPP and were further refined over the next few years with Umei as Black Sky progressed. Izzy kinda needs to rework sections of XAiPP but Izzy would need some time to do it in and Izzy is generally pressed enough because work is always short-handed don’t ask which is good for Izzy’s paycheck but less so for Izzy’s stress levels and free-time. Please don’t ask about the customers, please don’t.

Now then, canonically Flames are Genetic. So how Flames came to be is Genetic.

Which means that having Earth Flames are Sky Flames is by genetics. But you can also test for Flames by some method that’s never explained beyond the ‘learning to spark Ring,’ or ‘obvious unique personality trait.’ The latter of which Izzy now considers less reliable; socialization, background and culture all matter, okay? Anon, please pester me again about updating my Flame Lore.

More to the point, there’s this rather giant plot hole called the Future Arc. Where Flames are a lot more common knowledge and studied. To the point that the wavelengths for the different Flames can be harnessed individually to power Boxes.

If I were a megolomanic, determined to re-write reality, then I’d want some unique troubleshooters being enforcers ie Earth Flames. That Byakuran didn’t -and man, what a missed foreshadow opportunity was that- means Byakuran either didn’t bother with them or had killed the Simon off. And also possible is that Verde and the other two scientist/engineers of the Box Weapon Trio never encountered Earth Flames despite lots of testing. And this is if you play the Future Arc/Saga straight as ‘true as depicted’ and not as something else.

Which either means that Earth Flames are ridiculously rare or that people don’t understand that they exist as separate Flames from the Sky Spectrum. Which is very plausible and likely to have happened in canon until the Simon came out and beat their faces in with evidence otherwise.

Izzy offers two pieces of evidence for Mafia Unawares

1. Wrath Flames

2. Fuuta’s manipulation of gravity

Now, there are only two people with Wrath Flames in KHR; as said before, you’re pretty much born with what you got because genetics are a bitch that way. Those two are Ricardo and Xanxus. Now we don’t actually know how Ricardo and Giotto are related but clearly Ricardo takes after the other side of the family since he’s not blond or Giotto hit the recessive lottery. We also don’t know how Xanxus is related to anybody outside of his mother but we do know he has red eyes.

You know who else ALL have red eyes? The Simon. Wrath Flames being a combination of Sky and a specific Earth Flame makes sense. Also Izzy would like to see more Xanxus and Simon interaction in the ‘how the hell are we related’ and obviously the ‘you can’t help who you’re related to’ and ‘who the fuck fathered such a bastard like you?’ Because Enma’s parents were murdered in Italy, so there was likely to be someone that Daemon helped into the grave that probably fathered Xanxus.

Not Storm, not Swamp but that unnamed Flame that Yamamoto’s fellow baseballer uses that gouges and almost kills Yamamoto? Yeah, that one. The one without a name, officially.

Disintegration at its base is separating molecular bonds by adding energy; basically, setting it on fire. Those sort of gouges in the locker room in both living and nonliving objects without a physical direction to create all of them?

…

Yeah, that’s not Disintegration but it is a whole lot cleaner and faster than Disintegration and also of a much wider area; that old hunter’s adage of one shot, they got it, two shots they’re putting it out of its misery and three shots is them hitting air? That locker room was a mess and it was quick; the mess would have been far worse if Yamamoto had fought back and a lot more spread out if he tried to run. Yamamoto got hit with the Flame-equivilant of buckshot. Buckshot that rips holes in people and things like the magic-bullet it is.

Still, most people in the mafia go ‘you have to be born with it,’ or ‘it’s a special mix of Flames.’ Which yes, it is, but probably not Storm Flames. It’d leave different marks. Compare Xanxus vaporizing a classroom in an instant to how a Storm’s Flames have to ‘eat’ through things.

Now Fuuta’s manipulation of gravity is just a ‘quirk’ of him using his Ranking Powers, according to the manga. Which isn’t as accurate on Rainy Days, for some inexplicable reason. According the the manga.

Or it is, because for all that Earth is said to be ‘Gravity’ what it really is, is Playing with Magnetic Fields and Charges. Because as Magneto, magnet trains and rail guns prove, magnetic fields and charges can lift ‘objects.’ Especially if they’re conductive. And the human body is a conductor and people can ‘feel’ strong enough magnetic forces.

Now Fuuta ranks people, so he has to get that data from somewhere. Fuuta says it’s a ‘ranking planet’ but really, he’s a kid; he doesn’t know for sure and he can’t remember the data after a ranking if he doesn’t write it down. What’s more likely is that Fuuta is using Earth’s magnetic field to pass ‘data’ on to him, which is then processed in an Altered State of Mind and then organized into ‘ranks.’

Altered States of Mind effecting memories is a known thing. Basically it’s the ‘when you’re sober you don’t remember it but you do once you’re drunk again.’ Or high. Or sleep-deprived. Basically if it’s not your normal state, due to pain meds or whatever, you’re not going to be likely to remember it because your brain put it somewhere strange. But once you’re off your rocker again, brain remembers where it put it, because guess where it’s going to put new memories? Strange place again.

Now Fuuta’s ‘requirements’ for a Ranking are a little strange. He has to have met the person he’s ‘ranking’ to do them. Basically, Fuuta’s learning your own specific ‘magnetic aura’ to have something to compare to. And he can do so rapidly and accurately forever afters. No matter in terms of strength, wealth, intelligence or personality.

Fuuta’s a little scary like that, okay? Fuuta’s hacking the earth for all your files. Fuuta’s lack of accuracy when it rains is because the rain is washing out all those ions in the atmosphere; those same ions he’s using to transmit data around the world. It’s why Fuuta can even tell it’s raining when he’s in a windowless underground bunker. He basically gets hit with radio static and Lag.

As TYL!Fuuta goes out and about with Bianchi without a Flame Ring to protect himself with in a ‘future’ where even the lower-ranking ‘enemy officers’ have Boxes and Flames… it either says that Fuuta’s relying on Bianchi entirely for protection or that Fuuta has his own methods despite the lack of Ring and Box. Not that Fuuta ever fought, but it’d be interesting to see how he’d do so. Because not learning how is just Stupid, especially when the Vongola are being hunted down and you know it.

TL;DR - the mafia’s aware that some individuals have Odd Flames. They’re just not aware enough to both realize and weaponize it beyond an individual and personal basis ie X-guns Xanxus made for self compared to Bester’s roar of Box Animal made by Verde. So they don’t realize the Earth Spectrum exists except as Odd Flame/Quirk/some unexplained Flame Thing due to odd wavelength which varies between people anyway. This is XAiPP’s perspective because the wavelengths are there-ish, but the science is still shaky on the exact differences; mostly due to lack of study but also because rarity. Again, Byakuran didn’t use/bother with Earth Flames so is stupidly rare.

…

Which is something that is both canon and that Black Sky supports.

Black Sky however explains the difference.

You know that old elements diagram? The Greek one? Have a stylized one, from an image that Izzy picked from a google search.

Basically, Sky Flames are air-natured, and Earth Flames are earth-natured; hence the names because Sky sounds better than Air. Individual Flames can be found along this spectrum with a bit of common sense and thinking.

Izzy and Umei have discussed where exactly each would fall, but it’s pretty much common sense.

Like Storm is most Fire, Rain is most Water and Lightning is most Air. Sun and Sky fall on the Fire side while Mist and Cloud fall on the Water side. Or something to that effect; you can quibble on the placement on the Fire-side of Air and which is Most Air without much issue beyond someone’s say-so. Izzy’s just saying that Lightning is Most Air because one of the main theories of How to Make Lightning is that it’s oppositely charged particles in the air. Therefore is least ‘dense.’ Or why Lightning’s property of Hardness makes no sense as it is not physical itself but why it makes good sense in a shield so long as you don’t overload it.

On the Earth Side of things, Earth is Most Earth. Glacier, Swamp and Forest would be on the Water Side and Desert, officially unnamed Flame and Mountain on the Fire side.

Now, since this isn’t really a spoiler… a lot of magical enclaves have more Earth-spectrum individuals because genetics influence Flames. A smaller gene-pool means less of a chance of traits ie Earth Flames being bred out of said gene-pool.

Now Izzy is going to look over the chapter Umei just sent and go to bed. It’s like four am and Izzy has plans for once she gets up. Plans that do not involve work for once.