#yeah a lot of the other games in the series have repeated characters in the same roles

[seagullcharmer]

thinking abt totk and oot and how we, the audience, recognise rauru's name as the sage of light in oot, but in totk meet a new rauru, who was both the first king of hyrule, but also a sage of light. timeline-speaking, was the rauru of oot just coincidentally the sage of light and shared his name with the first one? or was it his fate, and his parents named him accordingly? or was he a history nerd who chose that name willingly? makes me wonder......

[dan-crimes]

Nuh uh uh *shakes my little finger* you will not get me Sonic franchise you will NOT get me invested into all this my dear buddy pal I've always enjoyed seeing you around but I will simply continue being a bystander just watching as it all goes by bcuz I know how it'll go if I actually get into all this

But also if I get bored I might get into it anyways it's mostly just a silly rule I put for myself cuz I know it would be a lot of work to catch up and I would prolly end up wanting to play some of the games if I got into the franchise but I'm not a gamer @ all so

[the-bar-sinister]

There's lots of gay subtext in Ace Attorney. 

But when looking specifically at subtext that might be intentionally put in the narrative by the creators with the intention that the character in question is actually gay, I think the main character with the most evidence behind this is actually Apollo Justice.

Our other main characters, Phoenix Wright and Athena Cykes both have obvious subtextually heteronormative romantic partners. To an adult, straight, culturally normative audience, Phoenix Wright and Maya Fey read normatively as an obvious romantic pairing. This is also the case for Athena Cykes and Simon Blackquill. In Great Ace Attorney the same can be said for Ryuunosuke and Susato. 

I repeat– to an adult, straight culturally normative audience, the romantic subtext between these characters is clear. If you showed these games to an American movie going public, that would be the obvious read by the audience.

Yes, each of these characters, Phoenix, Athena, and Ryuunosuke also have strong queer romantic subtext with another character. (Miles, Juniper, and Kazuma respectively).

However, that's not my point. It's not significant that each of the other three characters has homosexual relationship subtext.

It is significant that Apollo Justice does not have a character with whom he has heteronormative romantic subtext.

The closest thing Apollo Justice has to a "heteronormative romantic subtext" is Trucy Wright– whom we, the audience know is his sister.

And yes, you can make the argument that there is deliberate incestuous subtext between them– a kind of Luke/Leia style relationship with which the audience is teased by the narrative. Dhurke brings it up directly in Spirit of Justice.

However, this is still not a heterenormative subtext, because of its taboo nature. More taboo, culturally at this point, than homosexuality.

On top of the lack of heteronormative romantic subtext, Apollo also is on the receiving end some of the strongest and most overt of the homosexual subtext in the series.

There is of course the famous "meet cute" introduction between Apollo and Klavier– 

“I must say, I'm used to being inspected by the ladies... but this is the first time I've felt this way with another man.”

This is without question overt homosexual subtext.

However, there is another, even more subtextually clearly defined moment in Dual Destinies. Honestly, the subtext is all over Dual Destinies in the way Apollo reacts to Clay Terran's death (basically completely losing it) but there's one particular moment that deliberately draws your attention to the relationship in a queer way.

In one of the last cases of the game, everyone is delicately trying to explain to the judge that Aura Blackquill was in love with Metis Cykes (who was murdered) in a queer way. It's a big “they’re lesbians, harold” moment.

And then the conversation immediately turns to Apollo Justice and how he’s just had someone who was “important to him” murdered, too.

The narrative specifically draws you attention to the relationship that Aura and Metis had, and compares it to the relationship between Apollo and Clay.

You are specifically invited to speculate about what kind of important relationship Clay and Apollo had, and why Apollo has been affected so incredibly deeply.

So yeah. Between Clay, Klavier, and the lack of anything resembling a heteronormative romantic relationship for Apollo in the games, I think he has the strongest narrative evidence that he's actually being written deliberately as gay.

[seungsuki]

station cafe - romance between a soccer player and a webtoon artist (gn! reader)

warning: boring tbh (+ too many words)

note: wrote this during while my professor was yapping so hopefully it's okay

itoshi rin hated whenever his practice games were played for too long. he’d like to blame it on his teammates who couldn’t stop goofing around every minute. 

“last train for station 2 is leaving”, the loud speakers announced 

rin froze thinking he must have misheard the announcement but when it repeated again, his legs began moving without him even thinking. speed walking through the busy salespeople and students, he nearly made it to the train. he could see the gates of the train and he wanted to yell for it to not close but he didn’t. he stopped and slowed down as he watched the gates shut tight. 

the train had left for station 2

the last train 

he fished out for his phone to check the train schedule. he wasn’t too familiar with the train routes other than the one he usually took. lucky for rin, the next train for station 2 is set for 5 pm

“5 pm?”, rin mumbled to himself seeing that it was only 3:07 pm 

what was he supposed to do with all this freetime? he never gave himself that much time. he used every second to practise soccer and to be on top. to defeat his no good of an excuse brother and win the world cup. now what? it’s not like he had any friends nearby 

that’s how the younger itoshi wandered into a random cafe near the station. opening the door, he could smell the coffee bean aroma filling the room. he walked to the counter and was greeted by the cashier, who in his opinion, was overly energetic for no reason.

ordering his favourite tea and bread, rin settled at a seat beside the window of the cafe. there weren't a lot of people except for you, seated at the next table. while rin normally didn’t act like a busybody, he was curious as to what you were doing. he could see a lot of papers scattered around the table. they looked like… character designs? are you an avid fan of a series he’s never seen before?

he couldn’t help but notice how absorbed you were on your computer with a drawing tablet attached to it. oh so you’re marking papers? you did look rather young to be a teacher. well it was none of his business. he brushed away any lingering questions and silently enjoyed his tea. tuning into the latest soccer clip between bastard münchen and manshine city, rin booed both parties since he didn’t support any of them and took the time to criticise their play style 

he was watching the so-called ‘hat trick’ when a paper flew directly on his face, blocking the match. almost instantly, he heard a small worried yell and a hand reached to remove the paper that didn’t allow him to see anything. why did this remind him of a heavily scripted shojo manga? 

“i’m so so sorry! are you okay?”, a voice asked and rin looked up to see the you in front of him this time

“i’m fine”, rin replied short not wanting to engage in the conversation 

“they turned on the stand fan so my papers flew everywhere!”, you groaned 

that’s when rin looked away from his phone and looked up to you. or more specifically, the paper dancing loosely between your fingers. it definitely looked like a detailed study of a character. just how much of an avid fan are you? then again he couldn't say much himself as he was in his own obsession over soccer. seeing how hard he was staring at the paper, you moved it behind you, allowing your skirt to hide the paper 

“i’m a webtoon artist. i have a lot of papers because i came back from a small meeting”, you said taking a seat at the empty chair in front of him

“im [name]! i think i've seen you somewhere haven’t i?”, you asked going through the train of thoughts 

“i play soccer”, another short reply followed by a tsk 

“oh yeah!! aren’t you the captain for the eleven team against the national team? i watched your match on tv, you were pretty awesome”, you remembered 

even though rin didn’t want to engage in the one-sided conversation, he couldn’t help but hear more than the commentary of his discarded phone (which was turned off later on). 

itoshi rin picked up a new habit. after his everyday practice, he’d make his way to the cafe near the station. he would order his favourite tea and bread but this time, an extra iced chocolate for you. he sits in his usual seat beside the window and waits. not long he’d see the door open to see you enter. today was rather chilly so it made sense for you to wear your favourite red sweater with white stripes. scanning the room, your eyes lit up seeing a particular teal eyes locking contact with you. a comfortable walk accompanied with a small wave, you made it to your designated seat, in front of him. time would fly as the duo exchange conversations about random topics

rin never realised how he fell for you. maybe it’s the way his heart skips a beat when he sees you? or how he’s obviously less mean to you. in his eyes, you aren’t too bad. you definitely weren’t some lukewarm npc that took up his time. you was someone who he enjoyed talking too. the people around him (or more particularly his teammates) couldn’t help but wonder what made the striker less grumpy 

“someone’s in a good mood~”, a singsong shidou said slinging his arm around rin 

“right? leaving practice so soon? have a date planned?”, karasu joined in on the teasing 

“yeah i do” 

that one sentence froze the soccer players. itoshi rin going on.. date? sounded impossible to his teammates. they were dumbfounded at how rin even got a date. a familiar ringtone caught the attention of rin and he peeked his phone to see your text. he kept your ringtone different from the rest of his usual notifications. grabbing his duffle bag, itoshi rin left his obviously curious teammates to go see you at your usual spots

the cafe beside the station

© seungsuki 2024-25 -- do not repost, translate, alter, etc on any platform without permission. Any characters used in my work do not belong to me, they are created by their original creator

[thefandomexpert]

ok. i see u complaining about how long it takes to get to shb, how are you supposed to get your friends into the fucking WONDER that is shb when they have to get through all of The Other Stuff First

I used to have this problem with Homestuck, people who wanted to skip to the trolls, or pass on the intermissions. I will repeat what I said then now:

The later stuff is mind-blowingly good BECAUSE of the setup slog. which is also fun btw, you’re having trouble selling it because you keep saying it’s a slog. it’s good storytelling! yes even arr and sb (i didn’t say it was the best storytelling!! but i’ve seen way fuckin worse!!!). You need to spend 300 hours with the characters and to watch them grow gradually for a LOT of the little character moments to even register later on, and i’m not even talking about the ascian reveals. estinien is a completely different character. thancred’s deep-seated issues have been brewing subtly since 1.0. the socio-economic political climate of the universe is SO important and SO well set up by the arr random task/fetch quests (BABY INCONSEQUENTIAL QUESTS. YEAH THE STUPID ONES IN THE INTRO PRE-SASTASHA SEQUENCES WITH THE NPCS YOU DONT REMEMBER. THOSE.) and that info is integral to character decisions made in every expansion afterwords, and is built upon consistently. the consistent build-up of the lore is, in my opinion, almost entirely the reason ffxiv’s writing stands out against other games of the genre. and it’s BOLSTERED by the fact that it’s a live service game with a shit ton of expansions you HAVE to play through single file when you start fresh. narrative games are usually 15-20 hours. ffxiv is giving you 500+ in msq alone (won’t get into how much the optional and side quests support the storytelling as well).

It’s like one of those long-running book series. you can’t ask someone to read Just the last book of animorphs and expect them to understand the narrative implications of what’s happening, or to get attached to the characters enough to care. that attachment and understanding is built by spending time and reading the other 1500 books prior. shb should not be treated as a stand-alone. in fact it’d be a bad standalone. it’s good BECAUSE there’s 500+ hours of playtime required to get there.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

ik you mentioned interest in writing out how you'd prefer homestuck ended (though obviously time and money makes that impossible lol), and you touched on it in your big eridan essay at the end, but would you ever consider maybe a more detailed outline? i really enjoy your thoughts on the characters and the abandoned plotlines, i'd love to get a little more of an in depth look at how you wish it went down.

Yeah sure!

For those who aren't sure what the hell I'm talking 'bout, please check out my blog and the various essays I've been writing.

Some of it is contingent on stuff I kind of still need to reread so I'm really sorry to the alpha kid likers but I'm still not totally 100% sure where I want to take them. I'm also going to include quite a few personal preference ships; I'm not interested in arguing what other people should ship or about arguing about the course of action for my dumb fanfic in general. I also tend to discover the plot I want while I'm writing it, which I don't have the luxury of here, so... some of it is going to be kind of sloppy. I'm also a big troll stan so unfortunately the kids are a little bit neglected (sorry!!!!). That said.

So the changes would take place directly after GAME OVER, which is personally the point at which I think the truncation/turning on the fanbase really starts - ships start to get turbo-sped at that point. I'm not even saying I dislike JohnRoxy or JohnRezi, but they just feel oddly rushed the way they're handled in the comic itself. IMO, anyway.

There's not too much I would rearrange during this interstitial segment; I think it's important for Jade to have the experience of loneliness, for Terezi to kick off the retcons by only feeling comfortable fixing her own mistakes. Moreover, there's no reason why other characters can't use her mind beacon abilities to ask John to rearrange the timeline, though their attempts, because they aren't backed by Seer of Mind abilities, are a lot sloppier and come with a lot more unforseen consequences.

But something I would change is that Roxy's deal with Nyx is not to just kind of... sit back and chill in non-space while John does all the work; instead, like Rose in Davesprite's timeline, Nyx puts her to sleep, and when the timeline ceases to be, GameOver!Roxy's memories get transferred to Past!Roxy via her dreamself (which wakes up early), fulfilling a "stealing from void for others" aspect of her abilities, and leads to some important interactions later on down the line.

Also, this timeline's ARquiussprite and Gamzee's corpse (heretofore referred to as (ARquiussprite) and (Gamzee)) need to come along for the ride somehow. Maybe they fall through the sky after LOLAR crashes into LOFAF.

This kicks off a series of retcons, as each troll that gets brought back successively asks for another troll/set of trolls to be brought back. This absolutely RIDDLES Act 5 with password pages, can't go two steps without running into a password page, there are password pages within password pages (which IMO is very funny and very Homestuck).

Meanwhile, a couple other plots are running concurrently - the GameOver!crew (heretofore referred to as (Name)) are now in the dream bubbles, completing their character arcs and preparing to defeat LE. Because time and space are weird in the Furthest Ring, every successive meteor trip that occurs as a result of John's retcons is the first time from the point of view of the meteor, but is a repeating event from the point of view of the people in the bubbles - eg those dead god tier Eridan and Feferi wind up healing the Mayor like seven times from their perspective.

(Aradia) is fluttering her ASS off to make sure everyone is in the right "place" at the right "time" for this, lmfao.

Roxy gaining future memories also means that the Alpha kids get to complete their arcs in a way they weren't able to prior to Game Over. Because what John's retcons are doing are functionally whiting out and redrawing the past, the Alpha kids are also only seeing a single linear timeline.

One last arc, which is running concurrent to the retconned!trolls and their new meteor trips, is that bringing back each successive character allows them ALL to grow a little more. So it is NOT like they bring back Vriska, and now everyone's problem are fixed and everything is fine; Vriska's still kind of awful, but she gets better after Tavros gets brought back and they have to character develop alongside each other, and same when Aradia and Sollux get brought back, so on and so on. Because it's about BEING FRIENDS and BEING A TEAM. They're all still having interpersonal problems right up until ALL of them get brought back.

But as a side effect of this and the questing done by the GameOver!crew, the Dancestors get more fully utilized as foils, and get their problems addressed. As the retcon!team goes through their character development, they start to tear the Dancestors apart, because the Dancestors represent shitty parents who force their kids to clean up after their messes, and refuting them works both literally and symbolically as rejecting their irresponsible way of being in lieu of responsibility, accountability, empathy, and compassion.

So here's the series of retcons, and the absolute bullshit that accompanies each decision:

Terezi asks John to save Vriska, and prevent herself from getting too spades with Gamzee, as these are her two greatest regrets.

Pretty much just what her canon iteration asked for; I don't see any problems with the actions she asks John to do for her.

HOWEVER, we'd get more than just a montage of Vriska's time on the meteor, because in this version of events, we're taking our time and letting plot points breathe. Neither does she magically fix everything just by being around when she's very much herself still going thru it by the time the Meteor trip pops off. In any case, she brings with her some new complications:

Karkat still winds up having to play moirail and keep Gamzee calm. This still ends up breaking down by the halfway point of the comic, because they're kind of just not good for each other, but Karkat's personal shitty relationships are going to become A Theme, so it's important to make note of it here.

Vriska and Terezi don't fully make up on this iteration of the trip, since from Terezi's point of view, she was still actively about to kill Vriska before John intervened; however, we get more hints, now that they have to spend three years together, that not only does Vriska really miss Terezi (which is pretty well-established, given how she can't seem to leave Terezi alone), but Terezi actually misses Vriska, too - she's just really bad at separating her own feelings and desires from her instinctive grasp of karma and justice, a very Mind player-type problem to have.

At least with Vriska around, Terezi's able to nip her Gamzee habit in the bud, but this kind of leads to Gamzee feeling worse and more alone.

Something Really Messy happens between Vriska, Rose, and Kanaya when Rose starts her drinking habit, and it's pretty toxic for all involved, and Karkat is kind of stuck playing auspice. Vriska already expresses not liking Rose much and develops some flushed feelings for Kanaya after being watching her murder Eridan, so "It's Really Messy" is kind of all I can say on the matter. The girls are fightiiinnnnggggg

Dave and Terezi get close again, but given the weirdo vibes he notices between her and Vriska, and the fact that he's really not down with quadrants (YET.), means they still end up not getting together.

Sorry DaveKat likers but I am not one. They do not ever get together, so if you are hoping for that, I am sorry and you don't have to keep reading if you don't want to, it's OK.

On a note about Vriska and Terezi - personally, I do think their moirallegiance is endgame; Vriska clearly misses her terribly, constantly trying to bug her into making the Scourge Sisters a Thing again, and she even expresses feeling really bad about the Team Charge Debacle to Terezi explicitly, before directly foreshadowing how awful Terezi will feel after killing Vriska:

AG: Cause even though you got all these highfalutin morals and fancy reserv8tions, you know as well as me that a killer is a killer is a killer! AG: There 8n't no ch8nging your ways for good, and one d8y you're going to flail that silly l8ttle cane of yours and not find n8thin to 8ump into, and fall f8ce first into the shit ag8in. AG: And you're going to do something t8rri8le to some8ody and wish you could t8ke it 8ack 8ut you c8n't!!!!!!!! AG: And then you'll work hard to win 8ack their trust, and you'll try and try and tr8, and you'll see how hard it is! AG: You'll seeeeeeee!

We know that she starts using 8's where they don't make sense phonetically when she gets really agitated, so it's pretty safe to say that she's displaying genuine emotional distress here. When combined with the way she tells John about feeling absolutely horri8le about killing Tavros, it's pretty clear she's genuine about feeling really bad about the Team Charge debacle, and sincere about wanting to somehow make amends and get back into Terezi's good graces, at times trying rivalry, at times trying to prove that she's trying to fix her mistakes.

Terezi also vehemently denies them having a kismesistude and directly mirrors Vriska's hesitance about all the murder:

GC: W3 4R3 SUPPOS3D TO R3V3L 1N BLOODSH3D 4S W3 GROW UP GC: 4ND SH3 S33MS TO B3 3MBR4C1NG H3R R1T3 OF P4SS4G3 W1TH R3CKL3SS 4B4NDON, 4S 1 WOULD 3XP3CT GC: GR4BB1NG TH3 BULL BY TH3 HORNS, SO TO SP34K GC: 1TS 4 L1TTL3 1NT1M1D4T1NG GC: B3C4US3 1M NOT SUR3 1F 1M R34DY FOR TH4T

AG: On my world, I would 8e completely vindic8ed for killing him! He is far lower on the hemospectrum than me. He managed to disrespect me time and time again, 8ut I kept letting him live! In fact, the amount of slack I cut him would 8e considered scandalous 8y those in my class. AG: I had every reason to kill him. And yet... AG: I feel 8ad a8out it like a lame weak fudge8lood, just like he was. AG: And the fact that I feel 8ad is why I'm sort of freaking out right now!

They're basically two toxic girls who CANNOT be honest with their real feelings, and wind up hurting each other. They need therapy badly, but given the fact that they also mirror each other positively - Terezi feels grateful to Vriska for blinding her, and Vriska mentions she ought to thank Terezi for killing her, which set her up on a date with the dead John Terezi also killed - I think they have a lot of potential to be genuinely kind to each other once they work through their individual issues.

Anyway. We're keeping the Roxy stuff under wraps for now - last we saw of her, she went to go see her denizen, and her planet exploded, and John was really bummed about it. HOWEVER, we are going to check in with our GameOver!crew, although only lightly for now:

Meenah and (Vriska) have fully disappeared, and (Tavros), (Nepeta), and (Feferi) are looking for them because they've got the FUCKING TREASURE???

Everyone else from the Game Over timeline has landed in the afterlife, to varying degrees.

Shortly after entering the afterlife, (Eridan) fucked off somewhere to be alone. Last anyone heard from him was (ghost!Sollux) and him being Erisolsprite, but neither (ghost!Sollux) nor (alive!Sollux) have seen him since Erisolsprite died in Game Over.

(Karkat) is also brooding off on his own, feeling really shitty and sorry for himself. He's always felt personally responsible for everything going wrong for his team, and now that his team is basically entirely dead, he feels extra shitty.

Mostly just setting up that these guys are still relevant to the story, despite now being (irrelevant).

That brings us to the second retcon. Vriska obviously had great regrets about killing Tavros, both pre- and post-retcon, so she asks for his death to be prevented.

Tavros is back.

Vriska's requested fix is a very simple one - after all, Karkat makes mention about how Vriska's always had a competitive streak with Terezi, admiring/being jealous of her ability to manipul8 people; I think an ultimate culmination of that is her insisting that insisting to John that he do a retcon to stop her from killing Tavros - which, as covered above, she regrets greatly - but to do a much sloppier job of it, simply having John pop into [S] Wake and knock Tavros the fuck out.

Vriska herself doesn't believe this will have any unintended side effects, because her opinion of Tavros is still really low despite her genuine desire to make amends, and she's wrong.

Tavros's stay on the meteor has a major effect on Gamzee. I'm not entirely sure how it would pan out exactly, but I think Gamzee would step in between Dave and Tavros, into a situation none of them are happy with. This starts Tavros on a path of realizing that his inability to stand up for himself not only hurts him, but people he cares about (Gamzee, whom he ghosted).

Vriska is mostly uninterested in Tavros now, as the moment has kind of passed, and Terezi keeps getting on her ass about going after him (which brings the two of them closer).

Previous Messy romantic situations are still active. Karkat is going thru it.

Dave feels bad about tormenting Tavros but he kind of can't help himself, especially because Tavros keeps going up to him for some reason. The fact that he gets trapped in an auspice with Tavros and Gamzee kind of reinforces that he does NOT vibe with troll quadrants. Dave becomes MORE xenophobic.

On a note regarding Gamzee and Tavros: while I generally try to avoid relying on Hussie's commentary too much, as he likes to play his cards close to his chest, his note about Gamzee in the Act 5 book is actually significant enough to me to include:

The best explanation for why Gamzee says he's scared of Vriska, in my opinion, is this: he's flat-out lying. It's a good way for him to maintain his cover as 'Soft Gamzee.' It also provides some ammunition for those who, against all sense of good taste and judgment, want to continue to believe and assert that Gamzee is a decent guy with sensitive emotions and vulnerabilities before he undergoes his Muderstuck awakening. He was none of those things, ever.

Hussie likes to play coy, and you can't really trust anything he says after Act 6 because he's fed up with the fandom, but I think this comment comes early enough, and is made assertively enough, that it can be taken at face value. I know that "Soft Gamzee" is actually extremely popular in the fandom, so this may be controversial, but I do think there's more evidence for him being kind of nasty and manipulative than not, and having that always be a part of him brings more cohesiveness to his character. For example, he seems to have a pale crush on Karkat, trying to assert that Karkat is his best friend and changing the topic when Sollux gets brought up and he recognizes Karkat is closer to Sollux than him, and if you read his first log with Terezi as if he's hiding being nasty under a soft veneer, then his comments do read as pretty passive-aggressive.

TC: yOu KnOw HoW iT iS wItH fAmIlY. GC: NO, NOT R34LLY! GC: 4DURRRR DURR DURP TC: Oh YeAh... ... TC: I sPaCeD oUt, DiD yOu KnOw HoW bEaTuFuL tHe SoUnD oF tHe OcEaN iS? TC: hAvE yOu EvEr EvEn SeEn ThE oCeAn? TC: oR i MeAn SmElLeD iT... TC: SoRrY. GC: >:[

Maybe most damningly, his narration calls dealing with Eridan's genuine emotional distress "indulge emotional theatrics," an implication of his true feelings. Karkat and Eridan are heavily foreshadowed to be moirails, and Gamzee seems to have a pale crush on Karkat. What does Gamzee do in this conversation? He chases Eridan away from comforting Karkat - using the same excuse as he uses to avoid dealing with Vriska.

CA: put kar on TC: UuUuH, i cAn't rEaLlY ThInK AbOuT InTeRvEnInG, tHe bLaCk fRoWnInG MoThErFuCkEr kInDa sCaReS Me

Moreover, he does NOT seem to like Jack comforting Karkat instead, either.

THIS IS NOT TO SAY I DON'T THINK GAMZEE ALSO DESERVES A SHOT AT KINDNESS AND REDEMPTION. Gamzee is clearly a very troubled youth, between his absentee lusus, his indoctrination into a fundie doomsday cult, and his sopor usage. The fact that having his faith shattered by Dave makes him snap implies that, one, he was already unstable and teetering on the edge, and having his faith fucked with was the last straw, and two, that until he lost that last shred of hope, he was still pretending to be nicer than he was for a reason, and given that his LE worship doesn't start up until after the snappage, I think it can be extrapolated that that reason is that he genuinely wants to get along with his friends.

Given that Gamzee's issues largely stem from his neglectful lusus, it's not a stretch to say that Gamzee does not take well to abandonment and isolation. So here's kind of where Tavros comes in:

Gamzee mentions that he feels "So aT ChIlL WiTh yOu" while talking to Tavros, and Tavros reciprocates the friendship and also - interestingly - acknowledges Gamzee's religion, calling it beautiful even if he doesn't necessarily believe in it. I call it interesting because Karkat's inability to do so is explicitly one of the reasons their moirallegiance broke down. Moreover, in their first conversation together, Gamzee explicitly praises Tavros for his "gumption" for stealing his clown nose, when Tavros's avoidance of his problems is one of his biggest personal issues. So yeah, personally, I'm all for moirallegiance.

But Tavros started ghosting him after Gamzee offered to make out a little, another symptom of his avoidance issues. I'm sure that, even in this meteor trip, the fact that Gamzee killed Equius and Nepeta really scares him. In his conversation with Terezi, Terezi outright says "NO WOND3R V4NT4S C4NT ST4ND YOU"; Equius is constantly yelling at him; lots of people on their team seem to genuinely just sort of dislike him.

CG: MIRACLES ARE LIKE POOP STAINS ON GOD'S UNDERWEAR. TA: eheheh makiing fun of people2 reliigiion2 i2 the be2t thiing two do.

So having one of the few people he does really like also ghost him probably did... bad things to his mental health. Especially so when said person wound up dead. But now that he isn't dead, I think they have a shot - they just need to address their personal problems. Tavros with his avoidance, and Gamzee with his resentment toward the world, and reliance on substances and religion to take the edge off. In this meteor iteration, that doesn't quite happen - their toxic auspicetism succeeds in letting them air out their dirty laundry to the audience, but doesn't bring full reconciliation.

In any case, this meteor trip is fairly short, and uneventful from the dream bubbles side, although I do think Tavros should get a talking-to from (Tavros) about real self-esteem and self-worth.

Still, being back in contact with Tavros again, even if in kind of a messed-up way, does make Gamzee start to reconsider some of his past actions. This brings us to:

Gamzee Asks for Equius and Nepeta back.

Gamzee's not as nice as he lets on, but he does genuinely care about his teammates, and for the people he really cares about, like Karkat or Tavros, I think he's willing to stick his neck out. Bringing back Nepeta and Equius is more for Tavros than himself, really, because Tavros is scared of him for doing that, and he motherfuckin' misses Tavros, okay? John mostly agrees because he's kind of scared of Gamzee.

Some really fun stuff starts happening this go around.

The Gamzee-Tavros situation becomes resolved because this time, Equius steps in as an auspice between Tavros and Dave, and this auspicetism is COMPLETELY HEALTHY (with the bonus of being extremely funny, and what is the point of a Homestuck ship if it is not deeply funny).

Gamzee and Tavros are able to enter into a totally healthy moirallegiance once the auspicetism builds up Tavros's self-confidence, much to Karkat's relief.

Being stuck in the auspicetism makes Dave go crawling back to Terezi on his hands and knees. I'm sorry, Terezi. I'll do anything if you take me back. Just don't let me die as the guy stuck in a threesome with the two worst trolls. Dave has overcome his xenophobia.

Dave and Terezi becoming official does make Karkat sad, however, so when Nepeta finally works up the courage to confess to him, he accepts the offer to date her, thus fulfilling Jaspersprite's musing that she might only be able to date him after she dies.

They also break up. We're keeping up this trend of Karkat and his disastrous relationships. He's still involved in the Rose/Kanaya/Vriska drama, too.

With GamTav and Dave/Tavros/Equius cinched, Tavros and Vriska reach a sort of truce with each other. Not really friends, since they kind of still dislike each other, but Vriska would genuinely be glad to see Tavros getting more actually confident, and muster up the energy to genuinely apologize for almost killing him, so there's a sort of mutual respect there now. Vriska and Terezi are even closer because of this, but still not fully over their problems.

On the topic of the Dave/Tavros/Equius auspicetism: Dave still can't stop bothering Tavros, but the lewdness of it sets Equius off, so he feels like he has to intervene. Dave also can't stop himself from bothering Equius, which ALWAYS BACKFIRES, and since Tavros has a weird fondness/rivalry with Dave, he'd find it within himself to ask Equius to back off (which would work, because of Equius's... Equius). And every time Equius gets too overbearing toward Tavros, Dave feels COMPELLED to intervene, because he's like, my fucking god, you are the two worst trolls, why must weirdos fight. Dave desperately wants out, but he can't stop staring at these two.

And weirdly enough, it's beneficial for all of them. With two people to yell at him for being weird, Equius becomes less weird. With a rival in Dave and more contact with Equius, Tavros becomes more confident. And Dave has two people to rap against and feel good about his art with, something he more or less had to deal with alone during previous trips.

On the topic of Karkat and Nepeta, there are quite a few implications that they wouldn't necessarily work out. For citations, let me just link my Nepeta essay, where I go over what the comic says about their relationship from a storytelling perspective; here, I'll talk about their relationship from a more interpersonal perspective.

Karkat's signals are mixed as fuuuuuuck. While I don't necessarily think this will be an issue for Nepeta, as - as a Heart player - she's preternatually gifted at understanding motivations, the thing is... I think Nepeta can do better, and deserves better, a sentiment echoed by Jasprosesprite^2. She certainly deserves better than being second to Terezi, at the very least, even if she states she likes his outbursts.

And the thing is, Karkat is pretty explicit about saying that he doesn't return her feelings; in a world where they date, there's always going to be a sense that she's his second choice. And, just... my girl deserves better, okay? Moreover, while he respects her personhood, he's also pretty nasty to her when he DOES talk to her, implying he doesn't necessarily respect her choices. And also, she's actually really bad at shipping, so there will be this extremely weird tension of like... a hobbyist vs. a professional. I don't think Karkat would be able to stop himself from mocking some of her shipping choices if she ever opened up to him about that.

But I think them getting together is important for Nepeta, developmentally - I talk about this in my essay for her, but shipping is something I think she does need to outgrow, since it's kind of a replacement she's using for her loneliness. Moreover, I say in that essay that the issues she has in her moirallegiance with Equius warrant relationship counselling - and that's what Karkat is uniquely qualified to dispense, as the team's Blood player. Although they end up not working out, Nepeta would take several valuable lessons from this relationship - that she's kind of bad at shipping, that Equius is being kind of a shithead to her, and that she needs to start making friends with other people.

Now then. We're finally getting into some drama in the bubbles.

Please imagine for me Equius and Horuss talking, and Equius being aghast at the way Horuss is so derisive towards his matesprit and moirail. Now imagine him pulling a mic out of nowhere and rapping at him about how his problem is that he does not respect his partners. Now imagine Tavros and Dave joining in, also out of nowhere, with Tavros adding bars about how the hemospectrum is, not a good thing, he thinks. And Dave adding bars about how he does not have a fucking dog in this race. He's not even a troll. He doesn't understand their hemospectrum. Let him out of here. The fine fucking art of Alternian slam poetry. I think Horuss would start crying. So would I if three people including my grandkid started rapping at me.

Nepeta's uncanny emotional acumen leads to her wanting to befriend Damara, but being unable to speak her language.

GameOver!crew is up to something, IDK, probably showing (Tavros) inspiring people and rebuilding the ghost army, to tell a parallel story to Tavros becoming more genuinely self-confident.

We check in with the Alpha kids, too, who have some group therapy sessions led by Roxy.

Vriska and Tavros confront Rufioh together, a final culmination of their no-longer-enemiesship, and together, they steal Rufioh's ones. Like, Tavros starts speak1ng w1th ones, something he always had in him, and they also roast Rufioh so badly that he stops speaking in ones. But the way it's presented to the audience, Vriska outright just says that Tavros should steal his ones. And Tavros does. This carries over to successive retcons, as it's implied that Tavros just kind of starts naturally being more confident as healthy relationships are established sooner and sooner.

Anyway, a final note about Equius - his problems are mostly due to being sheltered. Although he is probably the most casteist highblood, he's not really that casteist, as what's really going on is just that he's got a BDSM kink. But because he's sheltered, he does not realize that it's a kink. And a fetishist who does not realize that they're a fetishist has more power than God.

His protectiveness of Nepeta does come from a good place; preventing her from playing FLARP was actually in her best interest, given what happens to people who play FLARP. But he's very much going overboard with it, likely an extension of his own lack of understanding of how much sheltering is good and how much becomes detrimental. What he really needs is for someone to point it out to him, which I think he gets via Nepeta or via Karkat, and then have a reaaaaally long think about it. He's genuinely a polite and helpful soul, who doesn't WANT to make people uncomfortable. The auspicetism is very good for him in this regard, as is his moirallegiance once Karkat talks him and Nepeta through their issues.

The point is, once he's forced to reckon with the fact that the degeneracy is coming from inside the house, I think he'd have a LOT of regrets about the way he treated Aradia. Which leads us to:

Whoops That Robot Thing Was Really Inappropriate Huh

Equius approaches John to ask him to make Past!Equius reconsider the Aradiabot Thing. John's getting kind of impatient with all these trolls who keep asking him to go back through time, but given that everyone seems a little happier each time, he can't help but agree.

So he goes back to the past, before Equius can give Aradia her robot body with the love chip in it, and something really fun gets to happen here: first of all, Equius's Void status makes him really hard to place, so John winds up missing by a bit, time-wise, so Aradia's already in the body. This is the first time that retconning!John and Aradia have been in the same place together, and when she meets him and finds out that he can time travel without causing paradoxes, she demands (with her Aradiabot deathmurderkill intensity) to be taken back in time to before she died.

John's retcon powers explicitly ignore the usual rules of paradox space - he describes it as a "fresh start". Given that Breath is associated with choices and freedom, his retcon powers are kind of the ultimate culmination of his abilities as a breath player. Although doomed timelines can and will still result from paradoxes caused by players when John isn't there, anything he directly interferes with is totally a-okay.

So all Aradiabot asks him for is passage back in time, in order to sanction her interference in the past. After she dismisses him, she still more or less has to adhere to events in the original timeline, for two reasons - the first being that she doesn't want to risk a new doomed timeline, and the second so she can keep the timeline predictable.

So even though she's basically asked for passage to the time period before SGRUB, it's basically outright stated that the progression of events has to be more or less the same, up until the point where John's other retcons take place. So here are the cascading effects of Aradiabot preventing her own death:

Aradiabot takes Aradia's place in the Team Charge debacle, being blown up/"killed" (as a sprite) by Sollux's eye beams, so that she can take Aradia's place as Doc Scratch/the Handmaiden's servant and "carry out" their orders.

Meanwhile, Aradia seeks refuge with Equius, whose void powers keep her hidden from Doc Scratch's omnipotence.

Because Sollux never actually killed Aradia, and Aradia communicates with him via Equius's account, Sollux is less depressed and self-loathing. He no longer predicts a future where all of them die and he has to be blinded. It's left deliberately vague whether this future comes to pass because he's less pessimistic, so his Mage powers are calling a happier future into being, or if his future changed, so his Mage powers are prophesying something new.

Nepeta starts regaining memories of alternate timelines and past retcons, as an extension of her Rogue of Heart powers. This includes the relationship counselling she received from Karkat.

Between Nepeta and Aradia yelling at him, Equius's character development starts sooner, so he's squared away for future events, and ends up not making the creepy Aradiabot, making a non-creepy one instead.

Aradia and Equius do not strike up a relationship, and become uneasy enemies/friends.

Aradia secretly god tiers well in advance of Jack's arrival, and meets him at Derse rather than awakening on her crypt there.

Aradia and Sollux continue a loving matespritship, leading to Sollux settling into a moirallegiance with Feferi. He's devastated when she dies, which still happens along with the rest of Eridan's freakout; Aradiabot doesn't intervene because she's needed for:

Aradiabot winds up being the one to sacrifice herself piloting the meteor, allowing Sollux to stay with the rest of the team when he meets up with Aradia, (Aradia), and (Sollux) at the Green Sun. Aradiabot winds up with the GameOver!crew.

With the 1337 hackers back in commission, Sollux and Roxy are able to establish a server connection with each other, allowing them to communicate during the 3-year meteor trip.

Aradia involves herself in the Rose/Kanaya/Vriska Mess, and I kind of can't decide what I like better - a vascillatory pitch/flush threeway between Rose, Kanaya, and Vriska, now that Vriska's near the end of her character development, with Aradia serving as a stabilizing force as Kanaya's on-again off-again moirail, or Aradia stepping in as an auspice. Either way, it's out of Karkat's hands.

This has a knock-on effect of finally giving Vriska the chance to fully make amends with Aradia, which winds up cinching the Vriska/Terezi moirallegiance. The scourge sisters are back baybee. And between a healthy moirallegiance for Terezi and a healthy moirallegiance for Gamzee, I think pitch Terezi/Gamzee could work as a healthy ship this time around. I'm not married to it, but they did always seem to hate each other well before SGRUB.

Nepeta has LEARNED HER LESSON regarding dating Karkat, so that does not happen.

Karkat now has no quadrants. He winds up desperately throwing himself at Sadstuck Sollux to try and help him get over his breakup. It's not a good look. Sadkat. He also takes up talking to the alpha kids for emotional support, which puts them off, too. Still gives really good relationship advice. He's clearly one of the more unstable members of the retcon!crew at this point.

We're light on the dream bubble drama this time around because of how MUCH is happening for the retcon!crew, but there's going to be a reference in there of Nepeta learning East Beforan.

SO. NOTES TIME.

Aradia expresses outright that she hated the feeling that she was set up and that she wishes someone would have stopped her from being so reckless. And although she seems to find some satisfaction in being the stewardess of the afterlife, there's clearly some resentment there that she's been forced into that role, as she expresses that what she's really looking forward to is watching it all break apart. There's also kind of an orphaned plot thread where Aradia is spending a lot of time in the afterlife putting knowledge together, which never really directly pays off except to the audience, and I think a really good way to bring that back in would be for her to be communing with (Aradia) in the dream bubbles in order to make sure the timeline flows as smoothly as possible.

As for Aradia/Kanaya - they're actually really good friends, and Aradia expresses that she's flattered that Kanaya wants to talk to her so much. There is a tone here that matches the way Vriska thinks about Kanaya when Kanaya is still ostensibly Vriska's moirail, and Kanaya herself admits to being attracted to people who are reckless. In fact...

AA: i just wish AA: back when i was behaving recklessly AA: i had s0me0ne t0 tell me t0 st0p listening AA: even if i ended up ign0ring their advice AA: it w0uld have been nice

GA: It Must Be A Certain Madness Im Afflicted By GA: To Orbit Those More Reckless And Dangerous Than I And More Daring For It GA: I Guess I Want To Help Them But They Never Can Be Helped It Seems

So I'm just kind of saying... Aradia and Kanaya moirallegiance... is not entirely unfounded. And a moirail stabilizes a troll's other relationships; if we have a moirail for Kanaya and a moirail for Vriska, then the Mess that is whatever's going on with Kanaya, Vriska, and Rose would probably resolve itself, I think. Either way, Rose is surrounded by SUCH a girl's night of emotional support to help her with sobriety now.

As for whatever's going on between her and Equius, I tend to believe the comic when it tells me relationships don't work out, and Aradia expresses regret for kissing him during the Ministrife. I think they could be good vitriolic frenemies, though.

Okay, onto Sollux.

In the same panel where Eridan and Karkat are implied to be "hatched for each other" pale-wise, Feferi and Sollux are foreshadowed in the same way:

They also spend a LOT OF TIME curled up in a pile together talking about their feelings, which we don't see with matesprits, but we DO see with moirails. Nepeta and Equius do the same thing, and they are kind of THE moirails. So I think Sollux and Feferi were always meant to be pale, but because Aradia died, Sollux wound up taking Feferi on as a matesprit instead. Between EriFef, SolFef, and GamTav, people getting flushed and pale feelings entangled is like, a Running Thing, so it's not really surprising to me.

Now, here's the thing. We already know that Sollux likes to cope with a rebound, since he went flushed with Feferi after Aradiabot exploded and was presumed dead. And Karkat cares very fucking much about Sollux, to the point where Gamzee speculates that he's actually Karkat's best friend, and Karkat even calls him that (although Karkat also kind of just calls anyone his best friend, lol).

CG: GAMZEE WAS MY VERY GOOD FRIEND, WHO WAS THIS GOOFY LOVEABLE BULLSHIT CLOWN UNTIL HE WENT PSYCHO AND KILLED SOME PEOPLE. I LIKED HIM A LOT. CG: I DON'T KNOW, I GUESS MY BEST FRIEND IS REALLY JUST THE GUY WHO I HAPPEN TO BE FEELING MOST SENTIMENTAL TO AT THE MOMENT, IS THAT A FUCKING CRIME.

This crab's got so much love in him. In any case, I mostly just want to keep sticking Karkat in these extremely unhealthy relationships for a while. It makes it sweeter when he finally winds up with Eridan LIKE HE WAS ALWAYS MEANT TO... but yeah.

Cross-session communication is also entirely possible, as Sollux set up chat clients between the trolls and the kids in the first place, and even without that, Kanaya found Rose's old GameFAQs on a server in the Furthest Ring. With both Sollux and Roxy on the case, there's no way they can't somehow establish communications way sooner.

Regarding Nepeta regaining her memories, let me once more point you towards the Nepeta essay. She's on track to become the one who attains Ultimate Selfhood, and comforts people like Jade and John about not really knowing their friends or being lonely.

But yeah, obviously Sollux asks for Feferi to be brought back.

F-EF-ERI!!!! 38D

Mostly Sollux just asks to be prevented from provoking Eridan so harshly. Eridan still winds up blowing up the matriorb, and thus, still getting killed by Kanaya in retribution, but this means that Eridan is now the only member of the team left dead.

PITCH FEFNEP. PITCH FEFNEP. PITCH FEFNEP

Pitch FefNep leads to Feferi letting slip something casteist where Sollux can hear; he doesn't personally care because he's heard much worse, but puts them on a break while she sorts herself out. They get back together after that.

Karkat alone :'( he's mostly just talking to the alpha kids at this point, trying to hide from all the happy fucking relationships happening all around him.

If the last retcon was really heavy on the retcon!crew, then this one is much more about what's happening in the bubbles. We get most of our dancestor development this go around. Do not read if you like the dancestors! I go very in-depth about how most of them are horrible people on purpose here, so their arcs are mostly about them being pulled up on their abject awfulness.

Nepeta, who has learned East Beforan, is able to talk to Damara and have an earnest heart-to-heart with her about how awfully she was treated. They hug and cry. Damara, finally validated, gives everyone a big middle finger.

Feferi heals Mituna's brain injury, because literally why the FUCK has nobody else done that. Now once more in control of his faculties, he breaks up with Latula, pissed off that she took advantage of him all those eons to boost her own ego. He also gives everyone a big middle finger. Damara steals her skateboard and high fives Mituna.

Porrim's basically the only dancestor who grew as a person so I think she mostly escapes unscathed.

Latula gets chased around by Sollux and Aradia, who basically just bully her for being bad at games. This is a date to them.

Gamzee completely refutes Kurloz, with his newfound clarity about the real miracle being friendship and the real dark carnival being the world he and his friends will build, not that LE noise.

In a double team between Terezi and Rose, Meulin gets eviscerated for the way her own Issues have made her ships deliberately awful, that she could have simply Not, and she has a bit of a breakdown.

As Feferi is grappling with her privilege and internalized casteism, Cronus wanders up to try and hit on her, and she goes "oh my god... when people look at me, are you what they see? A friendless loser that nobody likes? A total waste of seawater who's only pretending to be cool with the lower castes? A totally fake poser? 38(" Cronus just goes "..." and starts crying and Feferi ends the convo oblivious to that, just going "wow... thanks for talking with me! really gave me a lot to think about" imagine how funny it would be -

Karkat finds and talks to (Eridan), where he fully admits to missing the guy. His mopiness is so extreme that (Eridan) takes issue with it and punches him, before basically yelling at him to get his shit together. Karkat then yells at HIM for him to get HIS shit together, and they both leave, intent on getting their shit together.

We also get an update on Vriska and Meenah at this point, where Meenah is starting to seem more into how they totally ditched their responsibilities than Vriska is.

So the thing with this update is that most of the trolls have sorted their shit out; even Karkat has had a lot of introspection about how he really just fucking loves his friends and should have been more honest about it, not worried so much about appearing weak or lame. With the double Aradias in play to kind of handwave that the timeline will be stable because they're ensuring all loops get completed and all necessary conversations happen, and with everyone's successful relationships on display, we can kind of truncate the next leg of the journey:

Karkat Fixes Everything

Karkat is the Friendship Troll. Karkat is the Romance Troll. Karkat is the Bonds troll. He is their team's Blood player, and as the Blood player, he's been shown to deeply love all of his fucking friends - yes, even the assholes. Maybe even especially them.

As such, it's vitally important for the last push - last leg of the journey - to belong to Karkat. Where would our Blood player be without his bonds? Well, we actually have the answer to that. It's knocked out and prevented from joining in any of the important boss battles. LAME!

So in the last retcon, Karkat hears from Nepeta about the retcons that have been happening, and he really starts digging through his own past. If every retcon so far has been each troll only feeling comfortable undoing their own personal mistakes, then what of the guy who feels personally responsible for everything, all the time, forever?

Look, I'm not saying that a shipping chart saves Homestuck, but... by the time this last retcon is through, every Alternian troll is alive and god tiered. And he is dating Eridan.

If you have any questions about him dating Eridan, please refer to the link above. That essay is nearly as long as this one. There's SO MUCH FUCKING FORESHADOWING.

I don't think the god tiering needs to be explained, because if we hear that Karkat basically made his past self a shipping chart, and we've seen everybody's character development as they've gone through this journey, and we have Aradias on timeline duty and Nepeta with memories of past retcons and her alternate selves, I think we can more or less gloss over exactly how they go about earning their wings while maintaining timeline integrity. The important thing is that Karkat is dating Eridan now.

Because that leads to the last few bits of dream bubble stuff, but before we get into that...

Miscellaneous Plot Things That Need To Happen But I Don't Know Where To Put Them

Yeah there's just some ideas that I have floating around that need to be placed somewhere but IDK exactly where, or exactly how they shake out.

Hal becomes a real boy. And by that I mean as part of their character development, Jake makes Hal "real" a la brain ghost Dirk, and then the rest of them have to scramble against the clock (Jake's ability to maintain Hal's realness) to god tier him and make his existence permanent. He's a Sylph of Mind, which allows him to negate Condy's mind control. And maybe a GCATboy?

(Tavros) becomes the new leader of the ghost army.

Davesprite winds up dead at some point in the bubbles and doesn't explain how he died, but he and (Dave) get to fight each other and hash out their Realness and Relevance issues, before facing their final boss fight as bros once more.

Jade and Nepeta get to talk, and Nepeta gives Jade the reassuring speech about Ultimate Selfhood and how she won't be lonely forever. Maybe it's flushed. Might leave it ambiguous.

Somebody needs to auspicetize Dirk and Jake holy shit. Dunno who. Maybe Karkat, but I kind of like him pitch with Dirk, so IDK really.

Dad needs to die. Sorry Dad. If I can find a way to kill off all of the sprites besides ARquiusprite, I will. It's explicitly stated that sprites are drawn to the battlefield during the Reckoning, presumably to die, as part of the coming-of-age themes - losing one's guardians. It's sad but it's gotta happen.

All the Godtier!Calliope stuff basically happens as-is.

Can you tell I need to do more research on the alpha kids...

Ok Back To Karkat And Eridan

I think I'm going to leave their moirallegiance fairly ambiguous, but when Eridan is brought back, he and Karkat are basically together all the time. Karkat's signals are mixed even on the best of days, so I don't know how easy it'll be to tell that these two assholes slinging death threats at each other are pale, but *I* will know, and that's what matters.

This leads to the last two dancestor takedowns:

Karkat and Eridan (mostly Eridan) round on Kankri. Eridan calls him SO MANY SLURS. The fact that Karkat not only condones this, but is DATING ERIDAN, kind of makes Kankri lose it a bit.

(Karkat) and (Eridan), who have reconciled in the bubbles, finally find (Vriska) and Meenah. (Karkat) gives the two of them the speech that retcon!Vriska gave (Vriska) in the comic's original ending, but this time around, (Vriska) actually agrees with him. This serves as a conclusion to (Karkat) and Meenah's arc, and causes Meenah to feel so bad that she walks back to the other dancestors in shame, as (Vriska) leaves with him with the treasure to finally fight LE.

When Meenah returns to the dancestors, the first one she finds is Aranea, who's really sad about her own little escapade, blaming herself for the way Game Over went. This prompts Meenah to go, no, it was probably my fault, shouldn't have let you run off like that. And this would, from all the sobbing dancestors, prompt a string of "no, I'm the reason we failed"s, eventually culminating in Meenah rallying them together to do one last good thing before everyone gets sucked into the black hole and go join the fight against LE. Everyone agrees.

(Gamzee) is revived by the life players and cursed with immortality, so he can go on to become LE and complete that time loop. He is immediately locked in the fridge. This is also why he can't fucking die no matter what you do to him.

This also leads us into the final boss fights.

VS. CONDY

The twelve trolls. The Condesce represents tyranny, the worst aspects of the trolls' old society, and as such, is most thematically taken down by them. While she did fuck up the alpha kids' lives, too, I just personally think it's so much more thematic and satisfying to watch her be beaten down by the trolls.

VS. THE THREE JACKS

The eight kids plus Hal plus Davesprite. With Bec Noir specifically, it's fucking PERSONAL, as this guy killed their parents. This is where Dave fulfils his destiny of killing an iteration of English with his sword, when he decapitates Jack English; the person in the middle of that sandwich is Davesprite, which is how he dies and winds up in the bubbles. The iteration of Jack that survives to date Ms. Paint is Spades Slick, as he's the most sympathetic out of all of them and didn't kill anybody's parents.

At some point during this fight, I like the idea that they get zapped away by Jack English, John zaps them to the Godtier!Caliborn fight where he gets sealed in the juju, and then we cut back to the fight with Jack English, where, inexplicably, they all zap right back in.

VS. THE FELT

The spares - ARquiussprite, (Gamzee) in the fridge (who has since been revived by the life players and blessed/cursed with eternal life so he can go on to fulfill his role in the timelines and become part of LE), Dad, and the other sprites (if any of them are left alive).

VS. LORD ENGLISH

The GameOver!crew, the ghost army, the dancestors (they have a Big Damn Heroes moment right near the end, buying Jake time to deploy the Weapon), Aradiabot, and Davesprite.

Jake fulfills his destiny to defeat the Lord of all Angels by being the one to deploy the weapon, which deposits the beta kids, who knock LE in to the black hole. They then zap out of there, collecting the alpha kids from after the Caliborn fight, and zap back to the fight with the Jacks.

This specific configuration of boss battles winds up leaving Lord English entirely up to dead characters, who are then implied to all eventually get sucked into the black hole - their memories to live on through the living characters via Ultimate Selfhood, which only Nepeta achieves on screen, but implies that they will all achieve eventually.

It's important to me that the GameOver!crew is the one leading the fight against Lord English, as they're the ones who were the most screwed over by LE and his machinations - manipulated into killing each other, used as servants of his will, dying ignobly in a doomed timeline filled with special stardust. Meanwhile, the retcon!kids and trolls prove what they've learned - about compassion, kindness, equality, and forgiveness - by beating the shit out of the Condesce, who represents the horrors of Alternia, and the Jacks, especially Bec Noir and Jack English - the latter of which is a shadow of what Lord English represents - immaturity, cruelty, hatred - and the former of which is a culmination of all the failures they committed to get to this point, a symptom of their universal cancer.

I wrote a little snippet of Aradia once, and I think I'll use that to end this essay:

(ARADIA): ok now that we are all done being stupid (ARADIA): im sure enough people here remember the plan that i dont need to explain it again (ARADIA): so instead i just wanted to say (ARADIA): leave your backs to us and face forward without fear (ARADIA): the dead and irrelevant will slay the demon of double death while you unmake the threats of the living (ARADIA): and personally i think it's very fitting that he will perish here as nothing more than a bad dream (ARADIA): this will be the last time we see each other (ARADIA): so on behalf of everyone that you are going to be leaving behind (ARADIA): live (ARADIA): and be happy!

[1moreff-creator]

Happy Birthday Teruko Tawaki!

It's the protag's turn for a birthday post! You know what that means! Small character analysis, fun facts and songs that remind me of her! Let's celebrate! Just make sure to bring out the fire extinguisher before lighting any candles... actually just keep the extinguisher handy in general :v

-Being the protagonist of the series, we actually know quite a lot about her backstory. Enough to know it's quite sad in general terms. This is because she appears to have supernaturally horrendous luck, which she claims affects her and those around her. She's mentioned several instances of highly unlikely, unlucky situations she gets into constantly. From washing machine explosions, vehicles crashing, theaters being "too flammable" for her, all the way to being stuck in a killing game where she gets betrayed, stabbed, her friends die, etc.

-She's an orphan who's never known her parents. She had a brother who was compassionate, but constantly hurt by her misfortune. That brother got adopted when Teruko was around five, and she's never seen him since.

-She doesn't have an ID, which meant she had to attend schools by stealing uniforms and infiltrating them. She then usually gets caught and repeats the process several times a year. She is also in a lot of medical debt as a result of her constant injuries. Given all of this, she actually prefers living trapped in the killing game, though obviously she'd rather not have people killing each other around her.

CW Suicide

-That said, it seems her luck prevents her from dying. She told Xander that she wouldn't die because she was the Ultimate Lucky Student, and it was implied she's unsuccessfully attempted suicide by hanging.

CW over

-This misfortune has led her to develop a tremendously pessimistic view of the world and her life, believing her fate can't be changed and resigning herself to her bad luck.

-This also extends to her relationships. She tried to be amicable at the beginning of the killing game, but after Xander stabbed her, she decided to stop trusting everyone else. She now carries around her unique weapon, a hunting knife, for self-defense. This is a pretty understandable reaction given everything she's gone through, but it will inevitably go wrong (prediction).

-Her numeral in the David MV is unlucky number 13 (XIII). Go to 1:22:20 on this video for an explanation!

-The secret quote on her page's source code is "It is an equal failing to trust everybody, and to trust no one at all." Probably something she'll say in the final trial, given that this is one of the main messages the series seems to be aiming for.

-The quote on Mai's page attached to Teruko is "Some years ago, she was searching for someone named ‘Teruko Tawaki.’"

...

-Yeah, Teruko's relationship with Mai is one of the most mysterious parts of this series. Given that quote, it's very possible they knew each other several years before the killing game, got separated, and reunited some time before the killing game. After all, Teruko does remember meeting with Mai in the CH 1 Ep 6 dream sequence. If you want to read some of my other opinions on Teruko and Mai, I'll recommend reading the related portion of this post.

-Though adding to that, Teruko and Mai seem to have matching phone charms :D

-There is a lot more to talk about with Teruko, but I'm done for the day :v

Fun facts!

-Her nationality is "legally in question", whatever that means.

-She's left-handed, the only lefty in the cast!

-In kanji, her name is spelt 田脇【た ・ わき】暁子【て る ・ こ】

-She has prosopagnosia, aka face blindness. And fun fact about me, I actually have this too! I may have learnt about it when Teruko was a bit too relatable in that one conversation-

-Her favorite color is red due to "association." Possibly because it's Mai's hair color. Her least favorite color is pitch black because it's unsettling.

-Her hair recently started turning grey, probably from stress. Wild.

-Her favorite ice cream flavor is red bean.

-Her sexuality is unlabeled.

-She smells of dirt, sawdust, and burnt smell.

-Straight from a Q&A, "Her fashion sense diverges from what she’d actually wear. Secretly she wants to wear girly, cute things, but is unable to afford that kind of thing. She likes skirts."

-She likes fresh food, food which can be prepared without endangering herself with knives and stoves.

-Her birthday, January 7th, lands on "distaff day", "I am a mentor day", "old rock day", "bobblehead day"... still don't know how these come about. I think my favorite for this day is "I'm not going to take it anymore day." That's hilariously in character for Teruko xD

Songs!

-Again by Crusher-P

-The Things I Deserve by Ghost & Pals

-God-ish by Pinocchio P

-The Medical Anomaly by RIProducer

-End-World Normopathy by Ghost & Pals

-Scapeg∞at by Ghost & Pals

-Chronic Wasting Disease by RIProducer

-Those Who Carried On by Ghost & Pals

And Happy Birthday! Well, that was fun. Now I have to deal with the meteorite which struck me midway through writing this post! Take care!

(to be clear the meteorite thing is a joke)

[argumate]

so I watched The Hunger Games and I thought it was pretty fun! I mean come on, it's fun, right? but obviously the actual hunger games part of the hunger games is the least interesting part I think; like it's a battle royale scenario where kids have to slaughter each other and that's very shocking and all but in terms of the structural role it plays in the movie -- and even more so the sequel movie -- it mostly just functions as a series of action set-pieces needed to space out the rest of the plot.

but yeah, fun! it had a lot of fun with the aesthetic, mixing up Rome and Cleopatra and Leni Riefenstahl and Frontier America and War On Terror and the names! so many silly names: Haymitch and Cinna and Caesar Flickerman and Peeeeta and President Snow and all the Roman names, Seneca Crane, very fun.

I think Jennifer Lawrence was great as Katniss: she was properly not genre savvy, impatient and irritated by the proceedings, preoccupied with her own issues, excellent at what she does and uninterested in what she doesn't, forced further out of her comfort zone by the need to socialise and be agreeable than by the need to kill or be killed.

Peeta was an excellent character too, very reserved, self-contained, strategic, and devoted to Katniss -- or was he? he was, right? surely--

the best scene in the movie for me was their time together in the cave, where they act out a cliched romantic moment that you would see repeated in dozens of similar films beat for beat, except its authenticity is completely undermined by the fact that they're in a reality TV show and trying to sell that romantic narrative to the inescapable audience -- and their lives depend on it working!

I think that was a wonderful moment, it adds layers of interpretation to the scene and the rest of the movie, and it's a great parallel to the dilemma that many young people face in less deadly circumstances: do I actually like this person or are they just there? are we being thrown together by a narrative that doesn't care for us as individuals, or do we actually have a meaningful relationship, or want one? am I in love or just horny? do I care about them or am I just being polite?

Rue was lovely, poor Rue.

how about that Cato dude huh, what an asshole he was; yet at the end he redeems himself as a character (he's still an asshole, but now he's an interesting asshole) by recognising that the game was never his to win, that he was typecast in the asshole role from the beginning, that he too was being exploited even as he exploited others, and (as they acknowledge in the sequel) the real enemy is the people running the game, not the other players.

[pretty-idol-hell]

Okay, so, here is my PriMagi debut story!!

I arrived at Prism Stone Tokyo more or less straight off the plane, a full day of travel and less than three hours sleep, a complete disaster lugging a big suitcase behind me. It was literally my first stop when I got off the train from Narita (well, after the conbini for a pizza bun).

Upon seeing someone on the PriMagi machine, I decided to get in line for PriPara instead. I hoped the PriMagi machine might be free by the time I was done and I was right! Yes! I really didn't want anyone lined up behind me while I was fumbling through it.

.........

As soon as I put the coins in a new person immediately lined up behind me (godammit).

It was basically an exact repeat of what happened to me during my PriPara debut!!! (Someone breathing down my neck as I clearly have noooo idea what I am doing. I mean... Took almost the full countdown to realize ITS A F*ING TOUCH SCREEN. Uuughgh.)

Also, first version Luna has pink highlights (as seen in the video) because I didn't know how to change it then.

Still, although embarrassing (I didn't even know how to scan the cards....) I guess it was kinda cool to debut at Tokyo Station Prism Stone! (Also reminiscent of my PriChan debut, which was at Prism Stone Nagoya.)

So after this, I checked into my hotel, showered and all that, and went out to find an arcade with more machines so I could work things out. And I did! A Taito station with like six or eight machines AND a recorder!!?! So I sat down, put in my money and realized.... I left my profile card back at the hotel....

So, I decided I would just play one game with Auru and then move on. But then this came out of the machine.

Naturally I wanted my character to wear it immediately.

I thought about just making another one but... in the end, I decided no. NO. You are not abandonding initial PriMagi Luna! She debuted at Tokyo Station Prism Stone!

So, I went all the way back to the hotel, all the way back to the arcade, fixed my highlights, learned how to scan cards...

And slowly began to work out the other mechanics of the game.

I also learned that this game gives out URs like candy haha ha... (maybe because it's ending?)

So, first impressions.

I definitely don't like that it costs 200 yen. (All the previous games cost 100.)

But, after playing it's kinda understandable?

I mean just LOOK at these cards. These are actual printed cards from the machine!? How does that work. It's like... ma... magic... (you got me there).

PriMagi also feels like a more umm immersive experience than the previous games? It's LONG. There are a lot of scenes you can skip past, but if you actually watch all of them I feel like it takes at least twice as long as an average game of PriPara.

The rhythm game is kinda random and doesn't flow nearly as well as the previous games. Touch this, now touch that, now touch this. Also, I keep forgetting to select the harder difficulty and the easier one is super boring. Also, I can't figure out the PriMagi equivalent of Cyalume Change (like I mean the button mashing)... my PriPara/PriChan technique hurts my knuckles on the diamond buttons, and my Idol Land technique on the screen is no good either.

And shopping for coords right in the middle of the song? Yeah. HATE IT. I can't imagine ever getting used to that. Even my friend who knows nothing about Pretty Series who was watching over my shoulder was like WTF it's forcing you to pay more? And I was like..... not exactly forcing me...... but............

But.

But the colors, the sounds, the characters. It's all very intoxicating and just designed to draw you in... for some reason 100 yen coins just keep falling out of my pockets... and into this game....

[contritecactite]

As ever, it takes the tiniest hint of encouragement (thanks @grimboigio ) to goad me into generating a wall of text. Well, actually, the wall was already there. Big big Hades II spoilers below in the form of messy half-baked notes I've been jotting down as I play. Some are just things that I got excited about, but there's a tiny sliver or two of theories and expectations.

I think we're headed for no happy ending, just acceptance—the battle is against Chronos, but it's really about *time* as a concept; for these gods, time really did take its toll and change the way mortals relate to them. Supergiant will never make another sequel for the same reason: things belong in their own time.

The lycaons *could* just be heralding Cerberus, but they somehow give me a sense of the trappings of Roman the Empire creeping in (in an intentional, storytelling way). Same with the emptiness of Ephyra and the hints of war in the mortal aspect. It feels like this is the fall of the cultures we now call "ancient Greece" as told through the eyes of the gods who get left behind or changed.

Apollo is giving me traitor vibes. He had a line about how we "have all the time in the world," and there's just something too carefree about him.

This feels like a lovely little patchwork quilt of Supergiant games. Homer is more reactive like the Bastion narrator. The music, the social bonding opportunities, and the inventory and lore screens feel a bit like Pyre. Some upgrade systems remind me of Transistor, and the mood reminds me very much of it as well. The writing and combat are still very Hades, and there are new aspects that speak of a team that has taken the time to understand what works, what doesn't, and what improvement and innovation should look like within their existing framework.

Echo's whole thing is fucking clever. Those gifts: Either repeats or diminishing returns—just like an echo. Holy fucking shit the way I vibrated when I met Echo the first time.

I love my randomly assigned college roommate who never goes to her classes and moves all my shit for no reason (Dora). If she were my actual roommate, I would feel a very different way about this.

Eris is perfect. I love her being mean-spirited mischief rather than brute force or accidental mischief; it feels like a unique character composition. She's awful. I can't stand her. She's perfect. She also reminds me of Spoiler from Pixie Tricks, a series I read as a kid (both in personality and, vaguely, design).

Nemesis and Artemis sound like they have a no-strings on-again off-again kind of thing going on and I love that for them. Also hope Charon and Hermes get to see each other again soon bc I'm rooting for them so hard.

I literally shrieked when taking out one of the sirens *actually impacted their contribution to the song*. I shouldn't have been surprised, but it was so much fun to hear it happen anyway. Very immersive! I'm also in love with Scylla. She reminds me very specifically of Ryan Stiles' Carol Channing impression and a little of Dolly Parton. Also. Her fucking hood. Jesus.

One of my favorite things about Hades is that there was nothing that an enemy or boss could do that you couldn't do through some combination of boons, weapons, and upgrades. The same seems to hold true here so far, and I just can't say enough how *cool* that is. The worst part of any combat-heavy game to me is the realization that the boss or even the cutscene of your character can do things that you, the player, can't initiate or control during a regular battle. Hades says "yeah, fuck that. It'll look different when you do it vs. when that sea serpent does it, but you can accomplish the same action/effect." Likewise, there's practically nothing your character can do that isn't also usable by at least one enemy. That keeps things balanced and combats the sense of "ah yes, you are the Most Special Chosen One" that's often inherent to RPGs. It gives the sense that skill matters a lot and makes me as a player feel skilled—I'm not visually doing anything that my enemies can't do, so... maybe I'm actually kinda good at this? (I am mediocre at best, but the game lets me *feel* skilled).

Additionally, just as in Hades, the enemies in an area are very informative about how upcoming bosses will behave. It rewards a player for paying attention and makes each enemy populating an area make *sense*.

After beating the sirens, ALL I wanted was for Melinoë to be able to have one single fan among the shades like Zagreus in the Theseus map. What I got was even *better*; the same type of interaction, but in a way that takes into account *her* task-focused, serious personality while still giving a little bit of levity. She is *done* with being here and ready for everyone to clear out, and that grumpy shade is not having it. He even makes a new little face! Love you, purple shade in the corner.

Oh, hey, charybdis, there you are

THE 2 IS IN *ROMAN* NUMERALS I'm having a moment

yeah that's it that's what I got. For now. My gaming buddy keeps falling asleep when I try to gush and talk through things, so Tumblr gets it instead.

[missbyng]

been meaning to ask for awhile now and now I feel brave enough to, can I hear about the fanverse incident

claps my hands together . so this might get long you’re just going to have to bear with me . some details may be foggy in my head because it’s been probably a year since ive cared or really paid much more attention than what my friends told me to it but this is , essentially , what i remember the most and what makes the fanverse a fucking disaster

so the fanverse predates the Republican donation stuff by about a year . when it was announced i think the games that stood out the most to people were the joy of creation , popgoes , candy’s , flumpty’s , and the fnaf 1 remaster ( that i’ll spend so much time on . there’s so much stuff on phisnom alone ) . TJOC and candy’s don’t really have a lot to say on them , because the creators are normal people ( ? ) who just wanted to make fnaf fan projects , and if they could make some money via assistance from Scott by means such as selling on steam and possible merchandise , of course they were gonna take it

i don’t wanna say that the cracks started to show when the creator of flumpty was outed as a pedophile and openly admitted to it and banned himself from any online space to go better himself or whatever , but i will say that you could probably guess things were only going to go downhill from there when Scott made no public statement . i guess if you’re a dick rider you can argue that fnaf has an audience of children who don’t really need to be hearing a lengthy statement from the series creator about how pedophilia is a bad thing because Obviously , but he Has made statements about that before . he cut ties with pinkypills ( supposedly ) because of her comics that portrayed william as a pedophile . this isn’t meant to come off as a defense of pinkypills because she’s a genuinely terrible person , but one would think that a real life human person grooming a minor and admitting to it would be worse than possibly having someone read a comic that would have others perceive your fictional character as a pedophile . moving on

popgoes is being developed by kane carter who’s his own brand of something . he has such a bad tendency of saying stupid shit on his Twitter and then when someone goes ‘hey man this sounds a little stupid’ he will bug out and post some heated rant before going nuclear and locking his account , rinse and repeat for however many years it’s been . <- that’s why i joke that i have beef with him . because he did that to me circa 2020 when i made a joke about his old sister location theory about it being an underground sex dungeon or something He just had to make sure i knew at 14 years old that he wasn’t serious ! and it was a product of lack of knowledge of the time or whatever . i don’t hold that against him btw i just think it’s objectively a little funny . i think in terms of fanverse reception popgoes is still held in a really high regard because it seems to be one of the only projects that’s still actually being fucking worked on . if kane carter wasn’t such a fucking bizarre guy on his Twitter im sure that he’d still have a crumb of good faith left to anyone other than the people who have been following him since he made popgoes as a one off thing and probably feel some sort of obligation to keep going

Stares At You . and phisnom . phisnom is a special guy . he was the one who was assigned to remake fnaf 1 but make it Scarier or something . i feel it’s important to say that phisnom has gone on record saying that redesigns ( such as the ones in analog horror ) that just take the base design but make it grimy and ‘scarier’ are lazy and don’t actually add anything to their base design . i don’t inherently disagree with his take but seriously look at this

yeah man you’re really dodging the ‘making it scarier just because’ allegations with this one . i honestly think that aside from the joy of creation which is just like a really impressive fan game this was probably the second most hyped up one because it was being sold as a remake to the first and it was being funded by Scott’s money . objectively for the time it felt a little bit cool and i drew fan art for it ( which i still think is cute . i wish that phisnom didn’t suck so much fucking cock and balls so that i didn’t feel bad about looking at it but it’s whatever )

where the problems with phisnom reach a head is that he’s a cunt . like really just a cunt i don’t know how else to put it . there’s nothing wrong with someone wanting to have an audience of adults or whatever especially if the thought of having an audience of children makes you uncomfortable there is Nothing wrong with that , but when you sign on to make a remake of FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDYS you need to know what kind of fan base you’re signing up for .

phisnom’s twitter is 18+ , but he would get interactions from minors all the time . whether or not you blame the minors is up to you i guess but Again , when you’re posting about your five nights at Freddy’s project unless its just straight up porn it’s kind of absurd to think that everyone here is going to be a strong hearty adult . like let’s be so for real we all know the adults in the room aren’t funding your fan game .

what you probably heard is that after he played the ruin dlc he didn’t like it . since the dlc had just come out it had its recency bias and a kid replied to his tweet about it and then phisnom quote retweeted them and inadvertently sent his audience who aren’t stalking him for fnaf over to this child and send him gore and porn . obviously a person can’t control what their fan base does but when people were like ‘hey dude your community is sending a child gore and porn’ instead of making a tweet like ‘i don’t want you guys to do that’ he posted an ‘apology’ that just led back to a rick roll . obviously at this point he kind of just looks like an edgy child and people go to their lord and savior Scott Cawthon to get something done

by the way , i didn’t mention this yet , but this phisnom stuff happened in like July-august of last year , so it’s not like this was that long ago . that being said you also have to wonder Hey . where’s fnaf+ by now . because that was also the question that a lot of people ran back to . so you’re getting funded by both Scott cawthon and an audience of fans who are expecting a project that the creator himself managed to shit out in about a month , while you’ve been given three years to recreate some source material and you’re not done yet ? what’s taking so long ?

all of this combined into one melting pot led fnaf+ to getting canceled . go figure . scott never released his own statement on it because he’s off doing god knows but phisnom did , which basically said he’s done with fnaf and don’t ask about it or fnaf+ as a project anymore because he’s not completing it and he would like to do other project .

im sure there’s stuff i missed because of the aforementioned brain fog all the way at the start but yes . the fanverse is a fucking disaster . the joy of creation and candy’s are pretty good though

[look-how-they-massacred-them]

Preliminary Poll

Trucy Wright

Submission reason:

Trucy is everything to me in the 4th game (where she's introduced) and she's so layered and complex and FASCINATING while she plays the part of the assistant and sweet child of her (adopted) father Phoenix while also making sure things go the way she (and Phoenix) NEED them to, and has a lot of tragedy too... and then the 5th game just ignores that. They go hey! Here's Athena, a new character we're going to replace her with! (Who they also sideline by game 6) Like she's turned into JUST a silly magician with no depth and she only shows up to make jokes about her "magic panties" which is a gross joke that ADMITTEDLY started in the 4th game but wasn't THAT important. And the 5th game just repeats it over and over. And she gets GODDAMN KIDNAPPED in the 5th games but it's all offscreen and it's all to GET HER OUT OF THE PLOT like she's just being used as a tool??? She comes back into being important in the 6th game, but only temporarily. And it's all about her magic, which she inherited from her parents/grandfather and it gives her interesting moments but it doesn't even... examine the horrible system that her magic came from??? Which was a huge part of her personal tragedy in the 4th game but her feelings about were largely left unexplored??????? And they had the perfect opportunity to touch on it but they DIDN'T. And then the game ignores her for the rest of the game... again... and in the DLC she runs around attacking Athena with magic which is immensely uncomfortable and out of character and I just :( want my little girl who is sly and scheming but still cares deeply about people and has feelings she doesn't show about her family legacy BACK...

holy FUCKING bingle did she get the short end of the stick. okay so basically trucy was the best part of apollo justice ace attorney. she was devilishly clever, horrifically mature for her age in a deeply tragic way, silly to a fault, and overall delightful. she had what i would argue is the greatest dynamic in the entire series (with her brother apollo of course) and generally carried the game. there were other incredible parts but the soul wouldnt be there without trucy. and then. and then dual destinies happened. trucy was only PRESENT in two cases. one of them had a friend of hers accused of murder, she existed in the intro segment before the murder occurred, and then she just dropped off the face of the earth. which sucked. and then in the other one, she appeared as moral support for her dad (which could have been an inspired choice) and then got KIDNAPPED AND HELD HOSTAGE and they NEVER discuss it again. phoenix does not give two shits that his daughter is being held at gunpoint. apollo actively impedes the trial in spite of the fact that the last time he thought she was in danger he sobbed real tears when he found out she was okay. like what the hell. then she's basically only in one other case where shes the defendant and is handled... decently? ish? its not bad. BUT IT CERTAINLY ISNT ENOUGH. and then theres the flanderization. a big part of trucy's character is that she wears so many masks. she assumes the role of the ditzy girlie to hide her wicked sharp intelligence. she wears a smile even if she hurts so deeply inside from loneliness that can't quite ever be cured. and they hardly SCRATCH that shit. like yeah yeah theres the whole "gramarye creed to always smile" bullshit in the magical turnabout but honestly that kinda cheapens her tendency to hide her sadness. it was more compelling when it was out of a concern for those around her than when it was a following in her grandfathers footsteps thing. and her cutting wit and smarts? never seen again. she's never even OFFERED the chance to be smart. she does still get one little recurring bit to sell the apollo-trucy sibling agenda, which is a something, but it PALES in comparison to the characterizational masterwork that was ajaa (a bit exaggerated but i do truly adore that games characterization work). oh and you want some more? this ain't just hurting trucy. you can feel the life draining from the people around her because of this horseshit. apollo is never the same. like congratulations capcom you did one (1) thing that was cool with him in those two games that plays with his preestablished character and backstory and then nothing else. leaving for khura'in at the end of soj? LIES. VILE LIES. he would NEVER walk away from his sister, from the waa, and even from some dual destines developments like that (like come on, he found a new bestie in athena and also how's he gonna visit clay terran's grave. riddle me THAT). the idea of phoenix becoming a father in ajaa was excellent both in how he excelled and how he sucked. it was complicated and messy but did wonders. beanix was great and trucy was a big part of that. he loved his daughter so much. and do we see that at any point later? NO. WHY. ANSWER ME WHY YOU RAT FUCKS I DEMAND ANSWE-

they literally sidelined her so bad i will always be mad about it. like the games before her game (aa4) is considered a trilogy. so the format of the trilogy is that you play as phoenix wright and your assistant is maya fey. and you also get a lot of lore and backstory with maya -- you get to solve her sister's murder, you get to meet her cousin and aunt and the rest of her fucked up family... essentially she gets a lot of attention storywise and that makes her a deeply interesting character! now the format of aa4 is roughly the same, where you play as apollo justice and your assistant is trucy wright. and for the most part what this game tells us about trucy and her family and her past and her motivation and EVERYTHING is good. it's really good. they don't tell you everything, and not even she's told everything, so that makes for something good to be picked up for future games right? but then come aa5 they just completely sidelined her. she shows up for maybe half a case total (there are 5 cases in the game). and she's assistant to apollo right? and we do play as apollo for some cases of aa5. but nope he gets a completely different assistant (who i love but i just feel so conflicted about because i am deeply invested in the continuity or lackthereof of aa4). trucy is just treated as a side character or even a cameo in this game -- it's like they forgot she has a deeply complex backstory and personality!!!!!! and that i love her and i want to see her be more than a silly cameo character. aa6 is also just the same i hate it so much why is she a cameo slash recurring character!!!!!!! this is not what she deserves !!!!

they flattened her character in dual destinies and spirit of justice :^( this post explains it really well i think! https://www.reddit.com/r/AceAttorney/comments/o826d9/a_comprehensive_guide_to_what_trucy_isnt/

Propaganda:

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/aceattorney/images/7/7a/Trucy_Silly.gif/revision/latest?cb=20120901163119 she is the scrimbly supreme :^]

trucy get behind me i'll protect you from the horrors (the writers straight up forgetting about you and how compelling you are as an individual)

i burnt myself dry of propaganda with the explanation rant so i got nothin' for you, mate.

[p-receh]

Ooo wait are your thoughts on the two boboiboy movies?

Wah, Nice one!

I've had nostalgic memories when I rewatched movie 1. Particularly because it was the last entry I followed before I went on hiatus. ... 8 years ago I think?

Whereas I watched the second one during my marathon session this year.

Due to 'my messed-up order of watching' this series, I ended up knowing big spoilers about The movie 2 and I forced to give up my 'anti-spoiler' act before I watched it. Kinda of a bummer for the general view, but you know what? It made the scene more fascinating to watch!

"Oh this is Retak'ka? THE Retak'ka?"

"No wonder why Adudu is so into martial arts now."

"So that's how Ice got his bow eh?"

"Oh Fu-Yes! The debut of Fusion Elementals!!!!"

ehem.

From a general technical standpoint, they stepped up their game drastically. Of course, it's for movies after all. They went bold for expanding the areas, improving the graphics, increasing action scenes, and also adding more music as well.

At the same time, they also upgrade Boboiboy and Kokotiam gang's power so it's making it a 'bit' op for the sake of spectacle. It's not that bad in a negative way, I understand that because the enemies themselves were hella strong as shit. (the first one used a black hole and the second one used all-in-one power hunger fest that could also destroy the galaxy. Logically the earth's supposed to be gone by now :/).

I loved what they did to the lighting and hue for both movies. it's like watching smash bros ultimate but in the movies(weird reference I know but hope you get the idea :/)

The details! Holy- IT'S SO PRETTY~~~

ehem.

Both of them were also establishing the expansion power of elementals and what they can do about it. The first one was the fight with all elementals showcased and the second one was the alternative way of fighting by combining two elementals.

Alsoooo both finally managed to properly introduce the one and only .... Boboiboy Hatless! :D

I'd say they had a fair share of hiding it perfectly well. Cleverly teasing the audience to grasp 'Why the hell do they keep hiding his hair with that particular angle?' Because... If I'm not wrong, Boboiboy was one of the characters that falls in the same category with Upin&Ipin: limiting the haircut for animation efficiency during the first production.

So when his hat does let off, It is always an impeccable scene to watch. That trick never fails to amaze me. (like Professor Layton's hat case :3)

Now I wonder how much screen time his hat is off for the movie 3? I'm sure it takes a lot more than the previous one since his 3rd tier is pure hat off(and dyed hair).

If I want to say from my opinion. Movie 1 has its standout over Movie 2 and vice versa. Both have ups & downs yet they are equivalent to each other. For instance: the timing to add their theme song was a bit out of place in movie 1 so the latter fixed that, whereas the Fang and Ying banter in their language was lacking in movie 2 when the former had this iconic scene (sound on recommend) :]

Oh speaking of Music, my god their theme songs are epi~~~c

I remember how hyped I was when one of my fav local band, D'masiv, created a credits song for Movie 1 AND Galaxy season 1. But heck all movie themes in order are wholesome af!!! 'Masih Disini' - 'Dibawah Langit yang Sama' - 'Fire & Water' are in my repeat playlist recently. So overwhelming that I actually cried? The montage during Fire & Water played was not a sad moment but heck I cried because it's soo touching for no reason.

Oh yeah, I forgot it's a family movie so they have rights to not make any deaths scene. I can understand why yet I'm still disappointed.

I cried. HARD when I saw Tok Kasa collapsed. It portrayed emphatically well and worked for new characters that was introduced a bit short.

Then, not long after that, we got this

(I guess they didn't want to do another httyd 2 moment. It's too painful for kids to watch)

So... There's my review. Honestly I don't know what goes on for movie 3. It could be anything after season 2. But if I may guess...

It's between father and son now...

[veraynes-blog]

Fave Shows tag game

Rules: List 5 favourite shows (in no particular order) and answer questions accordingly.

Doctor Who

Good Omens

Life on Mars

Blackpool

The Thick of It

@johnsimms thank you for tagging me, this one was super fun to think about!

(Nobody look at me about the fact there are maybe 3 individual actors stretched across those 5 shows, I am. Aware. 😶)

~

1. Who is your favourite character in 2?

I feel slightly like I’ll get lynched for picking a favourite, but - Crowley. Hands down. Not just for the DT factor, although I’m sure it contributes. I just really love everything about how his character is presented in the TV show, from all his performative showing off to the very obvious insecurities and nerves he’s trying to cover up at any given moment, I think he’s lovely. I want to wrap him in a blanket and give him tea. Which is very Aziraphale-coded of me.

2. Who is your least favourite character in 1?

Uhh… that’s a vast sea of characters you’re asking me to pick from. I can’t pick villains, cuz let’s face it my very favourite is the most villain. If I restrict myself to main companions, I guess… Yaz? I know that will be an unpopular opinion, I just don’t think she was super compelling as a character, and her relationship with the Doctor felt very anticlimactic to me, so as a companion she just fell flat for me.

3. What’s your favourite episode of 4?

I’m trying to pick… Either episode 2, because of the scene where Carlisle and Natalie go on the date in the drag club (because, unironically, I remember getting actual butterflies at how romantic I thought it was), or the final episode 6,  watching Carlisle throw caution to the wind and fully come into his own as utter manipulative bastard to get what he wants. Actually, yeah, that one.

4. What is your favourite season of 5?

Because I tend to watch them all in one big chunk, I’m struggling to remember what even happens in separate seasons. I really liked Hugh in it, so either Season 1 or 2.

5. What’s your favourite relationship in 3?

Sam and Gene. Easy one! 😄 I don’t even care if it’s platonic or romantic, I think they had amazing chemistry that clashed against each other constantly and made it so compelling to watch. I love that they very genuinely irritate the life out of each other and just as reluctantly like each other.

6. Who is your anti relationship in 2?

Think I’m going to have to steal an answer here, but Newt and Anathema because I also don’t like the ‘prophesy said so I guess’ foundation of it. It didn’t bother me massively as a pairing, I just wasn’t very interested in it.

7. How long have you watched 1?

Casually since I was 15 and it started coming out again in 2005. I’ve watched every new series with my mum, but only joined the fandom (got obsessive) around 2019.

8. How did you become interested in 3?

John Simm. That’s the whole answer. My joining the Doctor Who fandom led to TenSimm shipping, and from there stalking the filmography of both David Tennant and John Simm as truly excellent actors. I watched a lot of shows I’d missed out on previously from them both during the downtime of the pandemic, Life on Mars was an enduring favourite.

9. Who is your favourite actor in 4?

I mean… does it even need stating since DT is a lead in 3 of my 5 picks? Definitely David Tennant (although Blackpool sold me on David Morrissey as a great actor as well, he’d be a close second).

10. Which show do you prefer 1, 2 or 5?

Difficult. In terms of raw numbers, I’ve rewatched TTOI more than any of them, I used to play the four seasons on literal repeat for days. Good Omens makes me giddier than anything I’ve ever watched. But in terms of longevity of interest, I’d have to say DW.

11. Which show have you seen more episodes of 1 or 3?

That feels a very unfair comparison given Doctor Who is as long-running as it is, but yeah easily Doctor Who. 😅

12. If you could be anyone from 4, who would you be?

I guess Natalie?? Swept off her feet by a dreamy looking guy absolutely set on breaking law and morals to be with her? Yeah I’d be okay with that. 👀

13. How would you kill off your favourite character in 5?

Well, that’s Malcolm, so I guess shady political assassination? Something that generates conspiracy theories and memoirs and newspaper thinkpieces for years afterwards. It’s what he would have wanted. ✌️😔

14. Would a 3/4 crossover work?

Yes. Oh my god yes. 😶 Can you imagine?? People start breaking into song and Sam is convinced he’s off his coma meds again. Carlisle fully willing to out-shade Gene. The clash of Manchester and Scottish slang. DT and John Simm working together again, the chemistry.

Quick, somebody please slap together a fanvid or a fanfic or a headcanon or something, I am possessed by this idea. 🤯

15. Pair two characters in 1 that would make an unlikely, but strangely okay couple.

I’m gonna be basic and still think about the Doctor/Master pairing, but if we’re talking unusual iterations of it… Spymaster and Ten just absolutely outdoing each other in the needy olympics would be fascinating. Thirteen and Missy is a close second. Missy would so appreciate Thirteen’s barely-contained feral vibes. She’d wanna keep her on a leash, it’d be great.

16. Overall, which show has the better cast, 3 or 5?

Ooooh that’s so difficult. I love TTOI for the insane improv skills of Capaldi and the rest of the cast, but in terms of raw chemistry it’s gotta be LoM.

Tagging @linz33y @countessrivers @imdoingawesome @roxannepolice @tardis-ghost-blog @ten-nan-th-doctor @mothmanyeetus @best-enemies @bluebird-appreciator and really anyone else who wants to have a go! A lot of the questions are super fun to answer 😊

[peetapiepita]

In your opinion, please rate thg movie series with 1-5 scale.

(1 = I hate it, 3=neutral, 5 = I love it.)

1.The Hunger Games :

Things that you like :

Things that you don't like :

2.Cathing Fire :

Things that you like :

Things that you don't like :

3.Mockingjay part 1 :

Things that you like :

Things that you don't like :

4.Mockingjay part 2 :

Things that you like :

Things that you don't like :

Thank you 😊

@curiousnonny

The Hunger Games: 1

Things that you like: The casting except for Liam Hemsworth and Willow Shields. They can't act, but Willow at least looked the part so I can look past her shortcomings mostly. Liam just looked like he wanted to take a shit 99% of his screentime and he had A LOT of unnecessary screentime.

Things that you don't like: Said a part of that in the first section. (Oops, I obviously hate this movie.) Yeah, I hate almost everything Gary Ross changed from the book, especially with Peeta's character and Everlark's story. I don't know why he bothered picking someone suitable for Peeta just to botch his character completely.

2. Catching Fire: 5

Things that you like: The arena scenes. The design, the cinematography, and the switch of ratios, chef's kiss. You're missing out if you didn't see Catching Fire in Imax because let me tell you, that's one hell of an experience. I saw it in Imax for 4 times, I think? I would've gone to more screenings if I didn't live on campus and had difficulty getting to the theaters.

Things that you don't like: Again, cutting off so many important Everlark scenes! Why! Why in hell can't we just have the roof scene????? It still pisses me off so many years later. I can't get over it.

3. Mockingjay part 1: 3

Things that you like: the one scene after Peeta is rescued is done very well. Josh's acting, chef's kiss.

Things that you don't like: glorifying Gale while all the other characters lose screen time. I've talked about this in another post so I don't have the energy to repeat it.

4. Mockingjay part 2: 3

Things that you like: The epilogue and the tunnel scenes. Pretty well done.

Things that you don't like: glossing over Katniss' trauma and deleting Peeta's family and friends altogether! Delly didn't deserve this! Delly is an awesome character and so so so refreshing. We were robbed for real.

[touyubesposts]

Can I ask for your opinion on people comparing sanders sides to iris/Jacksepticeye’s egos when it comes to the wait time and how the stories have been handled? I’ve seen some discussion on people comparing both from that angle, and would be curious to know if you have any thoughts on that.

Btw I understand if you choose to ignore this ask since it does involve criticism stuff. Just would like to get perspective on this from someone who knows both a lot better (I am not super familiar with jse myself but I have been in the tss fandom for a while).

Hope you have a good day regardless!

Thank you, I hope you have a good day as well!

And yeah, I’ll talk about this a bit. As long as this is coming from a view to discuss and think reasonably and rationally and not a view of pure, burning, blind rage just cause. (Also, this is going to be long because I have a lot to say)

Personally, I have no problem with the wait from either creator. I can consume other forms of media for the time being. I enjoy their content greatly, and I dabble in artworks and fanfictions while I wait, but I’m not reliant. And it's not like these people are creating nothing. They still have other stuff for us to enjoy. Like Jack’s gaming content or Thomas’s shorts or videos with Sleep or the star signs or the planets. Hell, Thomas is working on a video for Picani right now!

Also, people don’t realize that these things take a long time. They both have to go to places, set up equipment, record multiple takes, and repeat since both of them deal with multiple characters. And then the whole thing has to be spliced together and edited to make a coherent story. And of course, Thomas is going to take longer because he’s doing more. Yes, Jack has to add glitchy effects to his editing, but Thomas is literally making music for us to consume and enjoy. Do you know how long it takes to make music? That adds more writing, more editing, background music production, and more recording on top of the stuff he already has to do.

And both come from small teams of people with a lot of things to do, so it's going to be expected when things take a while to come out.

The stories, on the other hand, I find a weird thing to compare (if they are being compared, I haven’t seen anything since I blocked the tag.) They are completely different genres after all. Thomas’s series is supposed to be more feel-good mental health help, with a hint of drama. (That, naturally, is gonna take more research.) Jack is making an analog horror. Things are going to be different. Also, Jack is just starting his series! He had to pause production because of COVID and just finished his video with Chase that he wanted to finish in 2019! We shouldn’t compare apples to oranges, but we definitely shouldn’t compare when one of the fruit isn’t even ripe yet.

Lastly, I find it weird to compare these people at all. Why? Because they’re people. It's like not going to college and then your mom going “Your brother went to college, you know.” We shouldn’t compare Thomas to Sean because Thomas isn’t Sean. People go at things at their own pace. People have their own personal struggles to deal with. And these people are people, not a content farm for you to throw your rotten tomatoes at whenever you feel.

And I’m not saying you have to like these people, I just think other factors go into both series that people don’t consider. Like personal struggles or where they live. (Not to get political, but Florida is kinda a shithole right now. Stay safe if you live in that part ❤️)

But yeah, sorry if this was long, these are my feelings on the matter.

(Also, if you want to compare, Markiplier made a movie, so 🤷 /j)