#yoshi's writer arc

[yoshiintheweb]

yoshi yoshi yoshi i know i am late but Please i need a wolf Joel. or woth Joel. Joel of any kind in these desperate times

The Cursing || Wonders of The Hills

Accompanying (almost) Double Drabble under the cut.

The Great Fire of Village

He left the Village in flames. Chaos and screams of terror as the lives were burning before one's eyes were a perfect distraction. In the panic and rush of the fight with an element, anyone rarely paid attention to the actions of one Man. It was all he needed. Only one bag was putting weight onto his shoulder. With his loyal dog by his side he stood in the forest. It was chilling and empty. All sounds swollen by the cracking and yelling carried by the wind. A dead forest, on the day of his death. An only fitting farewell. 

Unknowingly for him, a Knight in armor black as obsidian and cape red as blood followed his trail. No good deed ever happened to those who desert the army of The Red King, and the Man wasn’t just a common knight either. Once an ally now looking with hostility he pursued the chase. The confrontation that followed was heated yet left both of them unharmed. The Man fleeing into the dark forest. The Knight turned back, bolting to help the villagers and to report the encounter to his beloved liege. 

Even if unharmed that night, the Man soon taste the wrath of the overruler of this land, as a curse was placed on his mortal spirit. One so cruel for a man who weeped for freedom, as his own body became a prison, as a Man changed into a Beast.

[pianokantzart]

Reading your most recent post on Movie!Bowser… it does make me quite curious as to how they’ll handle Bowser and Mario’s fighting dynamic in the hypothetical second Mario movie. In terms of physical strength, I mean. Game!Mario is quite capable of taking down Bowser in his original form(as in, can physically take Bowser down without power-ups) but Mario more or less needed the aid of the star power-up to do so. The movie versions of M&L are definitely closer to normal humans in terms of fighting prowess, so it makes me wonder if they’ll try having Mario, and Luigi by proxy, fight in hand-to-hand combat with no power-ups with Bowser at some point?

Maybe that could be a plot point in the second movie? Bowser worms his way out and starts whichever villainous plot his evil little heart desires, and Mario and Luigi start off a journey of sorts to find another star power-up, believing it crucial in obtaining victory? But, unable to find it, they’re more or less thrown into the fray with their wits and only limited power-ups in tow? And thus sustain a significant amount more of injuries without their invincibility from the star? (And perhaps the fabled green mushroom makes its debut that way…) The movies could have an interesting juxtaposition with the first movie bros being inexperienced + power-upped vs. second movie bros being more experienced + ….not-so-power-upped lol. They sort’ve have to earn their hero titles more(though moreso in the eyes of themselves only. Mostly everyone around them is already like ‘Duh. Your heroes with or without them.’ But, alas, character arcs! Potentially!) Sorry, I’m kinda word vomiting, but day by day I grow ever more curious how the second movie could play out….

One thing I like about The Super Mario Bros. Movie is that it's pretty much just an origin story. There is so much room to expand between where the movie left off and the full Mario lore as we know it today, and I for one am interested in the process of Mario and Luigi going from "Haha! We're heroes!" to "Oh f*ck, we're heroes," to "Okay... we're heroes... we can do this."

Like, how would they react to the idea of facing off against Bowser again without a power star to help them? How will their dynamic shake out when they're bouncing from one life-or-death situation to another? How will they balance their protectiveness toward each other with their moral obligations? Where will the new stakes take them? What new powerup/ally/enemy will they encounter? But back to what you're saying. If Mario and Luigi don't use powerups– even small ones– in the fight against Bowser, I predict a combination of the following tactics will be employed:

Reliance on dexterity. Bowser has them beat in terms of speed, strength, and resilience, but being a giant turtle monster he isn't nearly as agile as Mario and Luigi.

Using Bowser's emotions against him. It's his most glaring weakness, so while prodding at his ego is risky it could also make his movements more predictable.

Using their surroundings to their advantage instead of relying strictly on their own physical ability, which is a pretty common thing to do in Mario games (and video games in general.)

Leaning heavily on teamwork, not just with each other but with Peach, Toad, and probably Yoshi given the post-credits teaser.

And maybe a certain green and white mushroom will need to come into play at some point? We'll see. My biggest fear is that the writers will nerf Bowser a little so that he's easier to take on without the aid of the super star, but I really hope that doesn't happen. Speedy, strong, ruthless, unwavering, tactical, durable Bowser with a fire breath powerful enough to destroy civilizations is my favorite Bowser.

[this-world-of-beautiful-monsters]

violently smashing my two major fandoms with an F together as a form of procrastination

A question for the ages: WHICH Avatar character matches up with WHICH Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle one and WHY the fuck should anyone (besides me) care? We'll answer at least one of those questions for you tonight, dear viewers!!!!

First up

Neteyam - Leo

Eldest son, blue theme (like I could say this for all the Sullys, but shush), can do no wrong except when one of the siblings stubs a toe and then the Guilt, daddy's favorite solider who's also a huge dork (like we don't see a lot of evidence of this in canon for Neteyam but let me have this), Neteyam's Untimely End vs Leo getting treated as such a punching bag by each TMNT iteration that throwing him through a goddamn window is an established franchise staple by now.

Kiri - Donnie

A case can be made for April-Kiri parallels (particularly for psychic powers re 2012 April, my beloved, and dead mom syndrome) and also Karai-Kiri (for dead mom syndrome, how often I've mixed up their fucking names while writing), but Kiri-Donnie fits the siblings theme, so there. They're tech nerd-nature nerd solidarity, autistic Entities of unparalleled death and destruction, happy to destroy government property, younger siblings pretending to be above the Chaos while very much not, and in desperate need of a nap and a stiff drink.

Lo'ak - Raph

Rage issues. Daddy issues. Big brother issues. Relatively smol and Keenly aware of that fact. Adored by the (smart) fans, cursed by Eywa/God. Makes strong bonds with animal fwends and also collects traumatic experiences like magnets collect nails. 100% either in a fistfight or sobbing into his pillow rn. In a family living at the bottom of a fucking sewer and/or on the run from the government, still manages to feel like an odd one out. Someone needs to introduce Lo'ak to emo music, it would fuck him up so much /pos.

Tuk - Mikey

Youngest and most excitable sibling, heart of gold and jaws of steel. Optimism that remains in the face of innocence slowly being shaved away by Events. Hates being left out or left behind, committed to various Schemes and Plans with historically mixed outcomes. Has definitely either killed a man or will do so as soon as the opportunity presents itself.

Spider - Karai and April

Spider's kind of an unholy amalgamation of April's Token Human We've Shared Traumatic Experiences With journey and Karai's At Odds With Creepy Undead Father Figure And Complex Relationship With Less Creepy Father Figure (see below) arcs. Basically part of my ongoing psyops plans to Feminize That Boy (don't worry Karai-Kiri and April-Kiri parallels, I still love you). Also, Leorai/Apritello and Speteyam/Spiri (mix and match at will) have exciting interspecies and/or vaguely incestous vibes we should all strive for in our weird fanfics.

Jake - Splinter/Hamato Yoshi

Tired dads trying their best and just so happening to raise The Kids as soldiers-warriors along the way. Exciting and confusing relationships with the concept of this thing you call "death." Shameless species hoppers, even though Jake did it on purpose while TMNT writers in various iterations have to come up with increasingly more convoluted ways for it to happen to Yoshi against his will. Is not afraid of violence, especially when it comes to their homoerotically homicidal relationship with

Quaritch - Shredder

Big Bad of the story, or at least the one everybody pays attention to. The Bitch Who Refuses To Die. Unhealthy, possessive, genuinely quite creepy (/pos) obsession with sort-of-kid who ended up in his care through Unfortunate Means. Will destroy everything he remotely cares about and sit in the ashes with surprised Pichaku face before finding someone to blame. Refuses to let go of a fucking grudge, be it with aforementioned homoerotic-homicide buddy or various children.

Neytiri

Technically the best Neytiri parallel in terms of family relationships would be Tang Shen, Splinter's wife and the pseudo/actual (depending on the iteration) mother of his children. However, Tang Shen has an unfortunate history of being Dead Girled and Ghost-Momed in a way that puts her more in common with Grace or Tom Sully (rip). Still, Neytiri has a lot in common with the vengeful demon ghost version of Tang Shen that exists primarily in my head.

BONUS

Payakan - Casey Jones

Outcast from society, defender of the weak, wanted by the authorities. Combines genuinely passionate belief in justice/revenge with an equally genuine talent for wanton violence and destruction. Has an interspecies bromance with Lo'ak/Raph that puts Achilles and Patrocles to shame. Someone definitely needs to introduce Payakan to emo music, too, not to mention death metal--he'd start a band to put those Little Mermaid fuckers to shame.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Arguments? (you're all wrong btw) Only know me from one of these fandoms and have no idea what the hell I'm taking about? Hit me up in the reblogs!

[starrysnowdrop]

Patch 6.4 MSQ Reaction

Here are my first thoughts, opinions, and overall reactions to the 6.4 MSQ. Since I had a lot to say about Pandaemonium Anabaseios, those reactions were written in a separate post, HERE. Note that these are my personal thoughts, and not meant to be a critique on the MSQ story in any objective manner.

I’m in love with the opening scenes of the patch! The bonding with Zero over eating the spiciest ass curry imaginable was fantastic, and it spoke to me so personally, as my favorite food is Indian curry, and it’s something my mom and I have always loved eating together. So that’s probably way different from most people’s experience, but I took a ton of screenshots of this scene because it felt so personal for me.

Then we got the Estinien fan service scene and ohhhhhh boy, I was DYING laughing and giggling at it!! This is because I’m not an Estinien shipper myself, but I have some friends who are, and I knew that they would die of thirst. Then I got to thinking: WHY can’t we get a scene like THAT with Aymeric?? Throw us Aymeric shippers a bone, I beg of you Yoshi-P!!

Maybe the best part of that scene was Zero’s reaction… Ma’am please!! You are killing me over here!!

Then we got to go back to Labyrinthos briefly and I am just personally so excited for Hali to be coming home to Labyrinthos and Sharlayan soon, but alas, I had to play the patch on Yume, so it didn’t have the same feeling as it would be if it was Hali being there. Nonetheless the brief Sharlayan scenes were really good.

Fourchenault’s backside comments are going to spark a thousand smut fics, I just know it…

I’m so happy that Krile seems to be more in the spotlight going forward, as I love her and I’ve always felt that they’ve done her dirty by always having her stay behind. I’m glad that it looks like she’s going to get more love soon!

Also glad that Erenville made a cameo, as I find him to be a very cool character and like an Everyman. He gives a good perspective that kinda gets lost sometimes when the Scions are always talking with the leaders of nations and such.

The Aetherfont is very likely my new all time favorite dungeon in game. It’s absolutely gorgeous, the music was great as usual, and the fights were really fun! Once Hali gets there, I’m going to take a ton of gposes there!

The Thancred cameo was really nice, but my only beef is that he leaves immediately afterwards. WHY?!?! I’m so annoyed at that.

Probably my favorite part of the patch, storywise anyway, was the Garlemald section. I’m SO glad they are finally addressing how Garlemald and the Garlean people are going to rebuild and their future going forward. It was a nice touch, and I appreciate how Vrtra was able to come up with a great compromise and to let the Garleans have some dignity. Very good stuff in my opinion.

Then the Thirteenth Moon section was pretty much how I expected it would be. Meet the lopporrits and have a cute scene again, open portal, find Azdaja, fight Golbez, yadda yadda yadda.

I will say though, I loved the Golbez trial! The mechanics were challenging yet fun, and I actually enjoyed it very much. The gamer in me was pleased, regardless of the writer in me being just meh about it all.

What I wasn’t expecting, however, was that this Void story arc would still continue into 6.5. To be perfectly honest, this has been my least favorite part of the entire MSQ, in the whole game. Yes, it has trumped everything else as the stuff I least care about. Outside of Zero being an awesome character and wanting Azdaja freed and brought home, I really could care less about everything else. It still feels like an anime filler arc, and though it has gotten a bit better, I’m still not sold. I just want to get to 7.0 like immediately. And if it has anything else to do with the Thirteenth, I might scream. I’m so sorry if anyone is liking this arc, but I just can’t get into it myself.

With all of that being said, I very much loved Pandaemonium way more, and that’s where my mind has been since I finished it yesterday. Therefore, that’s all I’ll say about the MSQ, and I have probably much more to say about Pandaemonium in my next post. Thank you all for reading, and feel free to tell me your thoughts about it all as well!!

[mooncalfe-art]

Hi, I remember you saying that there were story arc names starting from 101 but I don't think I ever saw what any of those were. It certainly would make article naming on the Wiki a lot easier if we just had "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #X (IDW)" redirect to (Storyarc part 1) as the main article. I saw that "Damage Done" was the name of the current arc in the Previews but they only start that from #142 and says it "continues". Is that the name of the arc starting from 140? Thank you for all of your hard work and I hope that your successor brings as much excitement to the brand as you have in your tenure as head writer :) Yoshi bless.

Hi Steven! I'd have to check my old script files but the main one I remember was the first arc was supposed to be "Life After Death" but somewhere along the line it got lost and the first trade became "From The Ashes" which I'm not crazy about. Life After Death did get used for the volume 2 trade, though. I eventually abandoned the arc titles after they kept not showing up in the issues. "Damage Done" is the first arc I've titled since I think 113-117 (Time After Time), and yeah it's 140-144. 145-150 is called "First, Last, Always."

[kranethios]

hm hm dawntrail thoughts

- love the idea of erenville becoming a major character, he was very charming in endwalker and i would be happy to get to know him better. sad to not see zero in the trailer tho, hope we're not done with her.

- i am so so so so 👀 about the new jobs. tell us the jobs yoshi-p.

- i am honestly not too hype about the plot. i trust ishikawa and the rest of the writers but like. shadowbringers and endwalker are two very enormous shoes that idk how they plan to fill. i'm more excited about new features, mechs, graphical updates, etc. than i am about the plot.

- re: plot also i can't stop thinking about how it feels like we're Done with the ancients and boy i do not really uhhhhhhhh want that. i know there's only so much of that story they can tell without it getting stale but if i could have a thousand expansions about azem and the convocation and everything i would be so into that i love them all so much and i also just really don't want elpis to become irrelevant? idk it does feel like they at least try to keep you going back to old areas in sidequests/role quests/etc so maybe i don't need to worry too much about that but it still does feel bad to have to let go of all of that.

- i guess now is the time for me to learn to tank properly because dps queue times are gonna be a bitch.

- g'raha tia manages to continue being the most adorable mf on the face of the earth huh.

- tell us!!! about!!!!! the jobs!!!!!!!!!!!!

- "you can equip glasses with hats now" they made this feature For Me

- where are the female hrothgar. show them to us. i know they're hiding in there somewhere. i hope they can kill me with their bare hands.

- one thing that gives me some hope is they have not shown us as many areas as they did when endwalker was announced, which, like. had some places that they had to be pretty secretive about because spoilers, so 👀 there are sure to be twists.

- they sure are sending us to fantasy south america. fingers crossed for cultural sensitivity and all that.

- idk my general mood is 'cautiously optimistic but seriously how are they going to follow up after two expansions of Apocalyptic Stakes With Story Arcs That Span Thousands Of Years.'

[kudosmyhero]

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (IDW) 25: City Fall - part 4

Read Date: April 03, 2023 Cover Date: August 2013 ● Writer: Kevin Eastman ◦ Bobby Curnow ◦ Tom Waltz ● Art: Mateus Santolouco ● Colorist: Ronda Pattison ● Letterer: Shawn Lee ◦ Tom B. Long ● Editor: Bobby Curnow ●

**HERE BE SPOILERS: Skip ahead to the fan art/podcast to avoid spoilers

Reactions As I Read: ● I am savoring this story arc… omg so good ● Leonardo can be terrifying ● Casey’s been in the hospital for a couple weeks at this point. he seems to be healing well, though ● I ship it

● oo… I wonder whose hand that is… ● Casey’s father bringing himself to a reckoning. ● that ink on his back is pretty epic. i’m sure there’s a backstory there ● hmm, the same dragon that was tattooed on Mr. Jones’ back is painted on the side of the house where Ol’ Hob is hiding out with… a lot of guns ● yay, Donatello and Michelangelo have tracked down Raphael finally ● oo, Mikey steppin’ up! ● Bebop and Rocksteady in mid-transformation! ● 👏👏👏👏

Synopsis: The issue begins approximately two weeks after the events of City Fall Part 3. Karai is leading a group of Foot Clan ninja in delivering a shipment of equipment, when they are attacked by the Savate. The Savate have come in greater numbers, and the Foot are about to be finished off when Leonardo shows up with more Foot ninja. The Foot dispose of all but one Savate ninja, letting him go free to relay a message to Victor, the leader of the Savate, that the Foot Clan will tolerate no disobedience from the other criminal organizations.

April is visiting Casey in the hospital and they are video-chatting with Donatello and Michelangelo on a laptop. Donatello tells them about how they've all been looking for Leonardo and how Raphael is taking it pretty rough. Don also tells them Master Splinter is out on a mission with Old Hob and Slash. After the video call, Casey expresses his displeasure with being confined to a hospital bed. April reminds him that it's the best place for him at the moment, and that she wishes Leo was found just as much as everyone else because she knows the pain of losing someone, as she thought she had lost Casey when the Shredder injured him. The two kiss.

Raphael is attempting to beat information on the Foot out of a low-life thug outside the Skara Brae (one of the thugs from the TMNT 2012 Annual). The thug doesn't have any real information to give him, but does tell him about two corrupt cops who are being paid off by the Foot and the Savate, among other criminal organizations.

Victor and some Savate ninja have just finished off a group of Foot ninja. Marcello, an enforcer for the Italian Mafia arrives in a car to take Victor to a meeting of all the crime family bosses. They are meeting to discuss the recent escalating conflict between the Foot Clan and all the other families. The head of the Mafia, Antonio, voices his displeasure at the Savate's violent approach to dealing with the Foot. Victor says they have it handled when Marcello speaks out, causing Victor to slay him, to emphasize his point.

Shredder is on the rooftop of one of the Foot's hideouts falconing while Kitsune gardens while Leonardo and Karai report in. Leonardo tells him that their plan to launch a surprise ambush on the Savate worked, using Karai and some Foot as bait. Karai voices her displeasure about being used as bait. Kitsune learns that this was Leonardo's idea and not the Shredder's and is upset. As Karai and Leonardo are dismissed, Leonardo has a flashback to his previous life in Japan, seeing his mother and Master Splinter in his previous life as Hamato Yoshi, showing that the brainwashing has not been completely effective. Because of this, Shredder has had to forbid Leonardo from using lethal force in battle, as it may snap him out of the mind control put on him by Kitsune. A Foot ninja arrives with a package from the Savate for Shredder, containing a severed Foot ninja hand and a note that reads "WAR". Shredder tells Kitsune to hurry up and strengthen her hold on Leonardo, so that he may be effectively used during the coming battles. As long as Splinter and the Turtles live, Leonardo's mind control will not be one hundred percent.

Arnold Jones is brooding in front of the bathroom mirror. He thinks back on overhearing Angel say that he deserved to be hurt in Casey's place. In a fit of rage, he breaks the bathroom mirror and rips off his shirt, revealing his Purple Dragon tattoo from his gangbanging days.

Splinter enters a house with a Purple Dragon gang sign on it. Inside is Hob, in a very well-stocked room of guns and ammunition. Splinter tells him that if Hob helps them resuce Leonardo, he will agree to Hob's proposal and team-up with him and Slash. Hob agrees, on the condition that Splinter help him with something beforehand.

Raphael has tracked down the two corrupt cops (also from the 2012 TMNT Annual). Raphael is about to start trying to beat more information out of them when Donatello and Michelangelo show up and tell him he's out of control. Raphael is about to attack Donatello for stopping him when Michelangelo tells him to knock it off. Raphael says he was trying so hard to find Leonardo because he blames the whole situation on himself. They decide that if they really want to find Leonardo, they need to start acting like the team he trained them to be.

Shredder stands on a rooftop with Leonardo, Karai, and Alopex, scoping out the Savate headquarters and planning their attack. Shredder and Leonardo will lead the first wave of attack, and Karai and Alopex will lead the second wave and act as a clean-up crew. As they board a helicopter back to the Foot's hideout, Alopex asks Karai if she's upset at being upstaged by Leonardo. Karai says the wise warrior never overestimates their importance, but also always has a back-up plan.

The final scene shows Bebop and Rocksteady in the midst of mutating into their warthog and rhinoceros hybrid forms.

(https://turtlepedia.fandom.com/wiki/City_Fall,_part_4)

Fan Art: Karai by Phil-G-Ramsay

Accompanying Podcast: ● Shellheads - episode 46

[voidsentprinces]

Damn shame, WoL died in 6.5 now we have to make a new character for Dawntrail to really start a new story all over again. Yoshi P and Writers take their arc ends super seriously.

[dearmomvn]

Dear Mom: My Letter to You - Dating Sim/Visual Novel

Dear Mom: My Letter to You is an upcoming yuri dating sim that explores how connections can help heal emotional wounds from loss.

Steam | itch.io

"Dear Mom: My Letter to You" is a yuri dating sim that offers a story-rich narrative, taking a slice-of-life approach to the genre to develop a more thorough understanding of character relationships. Play the role of Ayame Kawasaki, a spirited girl who has been reclusive for the past year, following a tragic and traumatic incident involving her late mother. Blaming herself for the event, she isolated herself from her loved ones. Today, she steps out to begin her life anew, repeating her second year at Yamada Hoshi High School. Embark on an emotional journey of loss, redemption, and the bonds that will blossom into meaningful connections, or even love.

Female Protagonist & 4 romanceable characters, each with their own unique personalities and story arcs!

Point-and-Click adventure where you can navigate to various areas of interest, take part in activities, and interact with characters!

Choices and Stats system that impact the events of the story!

Partial Voice Acting!

Colorful and expressive sprite art and animations!

Stunning environments with daytime/nighttime variations!

Lead Developer/Character Artist/UI Artist/Writer: Mangoku418

Lead Writers: Renkka, Jenna Oliver

CG Artist: RyThae

BG Artists: kjkjmulo, KeiraWorks, Ari Angga

Comic Panel Animator: Big Yoshi

Isometric Map Designer: Arctic Fox

Smartphone Template: ds-sans

Music Composers: Red Robotix, Ankit22

✨ Follow us on Social Media:

Twitter | Steam | itch.io | Discord | Kickstarter Updates

[dreamcatcherrs]

when you accidentally hurt yourself; mcyt x reader

dream:

it doesn't matter how small the wound is, even if it’s a scratch, clay will pick you up and carry you in a princess hold and onto a counter

probably has a whole first aid kit to help fix you up again, and does so with very gentle touches and small kisses

he was born for this moment

george:

laughs as he helps you onto your feet again, asking you if you're okay so it’s safe to keep laughing

throughout the day, though, he keeps asking you if you're still okay, and trails his fingers over your arm comfortingly whenever he sees you wince from the pain

sapnap:

cradles your face in his hands, squishing your cheeks together so much that you have to tell him that that’s actually more painful than the injury itself

he cleans up the place where you hurt yourself, kissing it better and then watching your favourite movie together

badboyhalo:

immediately rushes over to help you, checking every place on your body to make sure you aren't seriously hurt

treats you for an ice cream to make you feel better, and gives you a whole lecture about being more careful

technoblade:

as he’s helping you with cleaning up your cut, he proceeds to remind you of how ridiculously clumsy you are; “how did you even fall over nothing?”

you pout at him for the rest of the night to get some free cuddles out of him “but I’m hurt, techno :( you have to cuddle me now.”

what can he do but to give in?

wilbur soot:

“awww baby, what happened?”

coos at you a lot, and even though you barely even scraped your knee, he still acts like this is the worst injury you could ever get

cradles your face a lot, even though that’s far from where you hurt yourself💀

jschlatt:

when you land face first onto the ground, schlatt can't help but to laugh loudly at you

he comes to help you when you stand up and… actually look hurt. when he sees that, he takes it seriously immediately; “hey… no no, don’t cry.”

wipes your tears away with his thumb and kisses your forehead, but despite being soft in the moment, he definitely laughs about it later

corpse husband:

“oh no.” he only laughs a little… but then even more when you turn to shoot daggers at him with your eyes

picks you up and sits you on his lap, massaging the place where you hurt yourself since he knew you'd be getting bruises there in no time

offers to buy you your favourite snacks, and honestly, who can turn down that offer?

karl jacobs:

“AHHH what are you doing y/n?! are you trying to send yourself to the hospital?”

he panics so much, for no reason istg; “karl, I’m fine.” “maybe we should actually go to the hospital. just in case!” “honey, I just slammed the door onto my finger. that's all!”

he doesn't calm down before you're cuddled up in his arms

skeppy:

nearly catches you before you fall. well… nearly.

“are you okay???”

lets you lean all of your wait on him when you walk home, and will even carry you if he has to

fundy:

starts peaking frantically in dutch, which really only makes you roll your eyes

“will you stop speaking dutch already, it’s not like I’m dying.”

despite your attitude, he still helps you with checking where you hurt yourself, tenderly pressing onto it

quackity:

“AHAHAHAH Y/N WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”

laughs for an eternity while he helps you up, ignoring the way you're looking at him as he goes to check where you hurt yourself

speaks to you in spanish to make you forgive him for laughing, cause he knows you love when he does that

punz:

sits you down on a chair and pulls one out to sit in front of you, looking all sweet and ready to take care of you...

and then he pulls up your shirt slightly, just to tease you, resulting in you slapping his shoulder, causing him to laugh; “oh, this wasn't where you hurt yourself?”

… you had hurt your leg -_- he knew exactly what he was doing

awesamdude:

tells you to lean your head back and lay down, while he rushes out to the bathroom to get a roll of toilet paper for your nose bleed

as he stuffs your nose with the toilet paper only moments later, he lectures you not to do that again

“only you could get a nose bleed from opening a pickle jar!”

slimecicle:

watches as you miserably fail to walk on your foot after falling, and bends down, ready for you to jump onto him

gives you a piggy back ride home with no issue (we all know he’s on his  BUFF SLIMECICLE arc) and gives you a nice foot and leg rub

eret:

tilts your face up, so he can study your face very closely for any scratches, knowing you'll be a blushing mess from it

manages to hide his smirk a little when telling you that you look fine, letting his hand linger before walking away from you, going back to what he was doing before

foolish:

“oh my god, baby, are you okay?”

giggles at the whole incident to make you feel less awkward about it, patting your head as he sits you down

gestures for you to give him your hand and rubs smooth circles over your knuckles 

jack manifold:

pulls you into his arms in a hug, stroking your hair comfortingly and sits you down after you damaged your head

“on the bright side, you won't have any less brain cells than before!”

he ends up getting more hurt than you did once you’re done with him😠

tommy:

points and laughs at you, and if in public, he pretends like he doesn't know you, doing the “we irritating” move

obviously he comes over to help you once he’s laughed it off, going soft for you when seeing that you're bleeding

“oh nooo, y/n🥺” tells  you to pog through the pain

tubbo:

uhh I’m pretty sure this man watches grey’s anatomy daily, so he’d be spitting some facts, even unneeded, in your face

oh, you hit your head? he’ll be checking if your pupils are dilated to see if you might have a brain bleed, even though you literally only fell out of bed

ranboo:

when you slammed your head into the cabinet door when looking for some flour, ranboo quickly comes over to you and coos at you like you're a baby

“ohhh what did you do :(?”

cradles your head in his arms and let’s you rest against his chest for a while to soothe the pain

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[tarajenkins]

Please no more Square, I am at my (character) limit lmao

"The Light will not be denied!" 

I really do still wonder how anyone who played through ShB could reach the conclusion that a child with no Blessing Of Light ever stood a chance against the will of a Lightwarden. And not just any child--a child the Ascians intended to use as a doorstop to prevent the First from being destroyed before the Rejoining could happen, a child whose own trusted parental figure was willing to gaslight and manipulate them for the sake of their own power. A child whose behavior would absolutely need to fit a certain mold to achieve their ends. 

The Light corruption of a Sin Eater is confirmed by Halric's arc to be a lot like Tempering. Repeatedly Tempering someone, like Loonh Gah's mother in the Amalj'aa questchain, destroys their sanity. Emet-Selch's own dialogue up there confirms that the Warden essences in the WoL would not only drive them to madness, but violence. Vauthry had the essence of a Lightwarden forced into him before he was even born, and he had no higher power to protect him. 

Selch puts it plainly: the corruption of a Lightwarden is absolute in time, even for the WoL. I have yet to hear a good reason why Vauthry’s corruption would have been the sole exception to this rule. The “half Sin Eater” bit is brought up sometimes, but that is just buying into the lies his father told. Vauthry was already an entirely Hume infant. He was never “half” anything. He was already complete. He was corrupted. Tempered, according to Halric’s arc--blaming him for not fighting it is like blaming Thancred for the Waking Sands. It’s not a thing anyone can fight.

There’s also Yoshi-P asking players to ask themselves if Vauthry was really a friend of the Sin Eaters, or was he being controlled by someone.

(On a side note, I could have sworn it was stated the Ascians can't handle Light well, or at all? How did Emet-Selch even do that in the first place? Bad Writing(tm) \o/)

Silence Is Golden:

In a world where everyone rightfully fears Sin Eaters, a world where Eulmorans had fought them and died to them for decades, where those corrupted by fallen Sin Eaters have to be put to death before turning themselves--how would the mayor of Eulmore even explain his son's "gift"? Explain his son having a second, Sin Eater face in his chest? Explain that he allowed his child to be corrupted by a rando in a cloak, with no input from his wife? How did he keep her silent? Besides Square not bothering to give her dialogue, of course.

(Also, there was at least one other Minifilia in Vauthry's lifetime. The Minis all fought for Eulmore, as per Moren's book. How did they miss the Lightwarden now residing in Mr. Mayor's child? Did Hydaelyn know?)

It's such poor writing on Square's part to have left the disturbing Echo of how Emet-Selch “made” Vauthry as a footnote, and even moreso to have Wrenden claim in the hilariously contradictory patch 5.1 that Vauthry's father was the "good old days" of Eulmore. A man that would agree to let that be done to his own wife and child, a man who vocalized such disregard for his own peoples' lives, that was the good old days, really? The mayor who had "unrest" and detractors "stirring up the citizenry"? THAT mayor?

This is how far the writers were willing to go to dehumanize a fat man who had absolutely no consent or control in his “destiny”. And, speaking of dehumanizing--

--Square couldn't be arsed to treat Vauthry's mother like a character and not a convenient and silent womb, so we have no idea what happened to her. (My money is still on the Obscenity theory.) But since Vauthry only mentioned "Father", it sounds like the mayor raised him alone. 

What did Former Mayor do when his son had challenging questions about his father’s plans for him, or when the child balked at the answers given? How did he explain whatever happened to his wife? Just how much did "Father" have to manipulate that child's world to maintain the lies?

It’s strongly implied Former Mayor kept his son in a state of isolation where neither his word nor the Ascians' will could be questioned until the child was thoroughly brainwashed to believe, and there would be no questions then. Whether intended by Square or not, Vauthry does display many signs of an adult who suffered extreme isolation as a child. 

An entire childhood, with his likely only trusted source of knowledge and solace being someone who was grooming him for a power grab--and all the while, he can’t escape the presence of a creature inside him that drives mortals mad.

One of “Father’s” directives stands out in particular between the lines during ShB, though we don’t know how it came about originally:

Don’t tell anyone what you really are.

Even though Vauthry was given a good reason “why he was born as man and sin eater both", it still leaves the impression he was born because Sin Eaters are bad, and Vauthry needed to stop them from doing bad things--plus hush, don’t tell, people would find his existence bad if they knew the truth of it. Kids ask questions. Kids wonder. Feeling like an outsider hurts, let alone an outsider made of the same stuff that everyone fears. If Sin Eaters are monsters, then what was he? 

The fact Vauthry asked his father why was he born that way in the first place indicates the child instinctively felt there was something wrong.

The in-game dialogues appear to back this up. Although Vauthry's "heritage" was supposed to be this amazing thing, the true nature of it was instead lied about and kept hidden his entire life. Seems unusual for a guy supposedly convinced that he is “perfection”, doesn’t it? The fact that Eulmorans never once referred to Vauthry as "half Sin Eater" or a "God" during twenty years of his rule, the fact he only mentioned it himself before the Warden was about to claim him entirely; all well and good his father obviously invented some lie to placate the masses (“born with miraculous and convenient power” was all it took), but how did maintaining that lie, hiding who he really was, read to Vauthry all those years? 

During ShB, he still seemed to keep to the isolation he likely always knew. He never left that room. The citizens came to him when they wanted something, but it was never implied or shown he sought social contact on his own. Nothing was scaled to him, utensils, glasses, plates, etc.--as though he refused to single himself out as different from everyone else.

He called the Lightwarden’s awakening a “trial” to be embraced during Crown Of The Immaculate. Odd that someone supposedly convinced of his godhood would ever think he needed testing--but it makes perfect sense in the context of someone who always felt they needed to prove that they were worthwhile.  

He was proud of his power to protect his people, and proud of the paradise he built for them, but he didn’t want Alphinaud to paint a picture of him, he wanted a painting of the city. There were zero paintings or other monuments to himself in Eulmore. Lot of people in the fanbase speak of him being vain, yet he seemed to not want to be seen unless he had to be--almost as though, even toward the end, even through all the bluster, he still read being “half Sin Eater” as wrong.

With that in mind, there didn’t seem to be much evidence to even tell Vauthry he was born because he was wanted. He was born because his ability was needed. If not for his father’s ambition, however sweetly that may have been disguised, then to defend Eulmore against the monsters he was a part of. His ability was needed, not even him specifically--and the Eulmorans, with all their wishes and dreams to be fulfilled, could easily enforce the belief on the child that who he was didn’t matter, what he may want did not matter, only what he could do for others mattered. And what he did for them wouldn’t matter if they knew the truth of him. What a terrible, conditional ”love”. It could explain why he was so cynical about human nature. (Even though his predictions about human nature in the face of a dying world 110% came to pass in the Black Rose timeline. 6_9 gg G’raha) 

Yet despite all this, Vauthry needed to be convinced he was doing good for the shattered world. He needed to be convinced what he was doing was right, despite having power enough to not care. If Amaurot was Utopia, then Eulmore reminded me very much of Ursula K. LeGuin’s Omelas--a paradise, at the cost of one child’s eternal suffering. 

Food For Thought (and Bad Writing(tm)):

A lot of people have a boner for the cannibalism implications of meol despite the bad math behind it, but fucking meol, how does it work? 

Sin eating historically was to cleanse one who has passed on of their earthly sins that they may find peace in the afterlife--this was done in different ways by different people, but one of the best known methods was ritualistically baking the sins of the dead into bread or cakes and consuming it. Yoshi-P has even said he thought of meol as a sweet bread. Quest text from the Unfulfilled Forager in Gate Town further backs up that meol is not meat-based:

(By the way, nothing was keeping this man from hunting a shit-ton of meat that was literally within walking distance.)

It suggests Vauthry could have been taught that by eating the sins of the world, a.k.a. Sin Eaters, a.k.a. meol (which in the Japanese version, was something he was apparently afraid of doing?) --he was saving someone’s soul. 

“And for thy peace I pawn my own soul. Amen.”

In reality, there would be a point Mr. Mayor would not know how to feed the Warden forced on his child. Humes don't have a natural method of feeding on "living aether", yet the Warden would not reach its full potency without it. Making meol could either involve an instinctive act on the Warden’s part, or it was taught--and that seems very much beyond his father’s area of expertise, OR Vauthry himself, so I’d almost wonder if the Ascians had a part in it.  But like mixing medicine in a favorite food, theoretically, the aether provided by meol would slowly build up. And as the Warden grew in power, it would need more, and more. It would explain that final “powerup” before Mt. Gulg.

Provided Sin Eaters have any living aether left. They never explained that bit. Sin Eaters have no bones, no blood, no meat, nothing but Light. We saw enough of them dissipate into the air, including in cutscenes. Even Tesleen, very recently turned, faded. There is nothing else to them but Light...and there should be nothing left but that “blank perfection”, the Eater would have ate the rest? So where is the “living aether” they require to survive?

Fresh-sliced sneater wing, empty as the plotholes of this arc.

I could buy him turning people into Eaters directly, but then what was the point of the bread?

That’s right folks, meol still doesn't make sense, surprise! Also: so many people in one city allegedly being "disappeared" over twenty years, from a stagnant population, to “feed” everyone every day--yet no panic, not so much as a hushed whisper about it? Eulmore is supposed to be the safest place anywhere -- no idea how it could gain that reputation with that theory. Square wrote Eulmore like it existed in a vacuum, no one knowing no one. The lack of depth is still jarring, three playthroughs later. Only one unreliable narrator of an NPC (Thoarich) even hinted this theory, to boot. 

Side note I thought was strange: you never see any of the normal food in Vauthry’s chamber actually eaten, it’s all untouched. I wonder if the Warden somehow eventually affected his ability to tolerate the food a Hume would normally eat.

That said, his “mind control” of the populace was laughably ineffective, so I wonder what even was the point of feeding them meol. Perhaps it was again the Lightwarden instinct to create more of its own kind. Nothing else seems to fit. “Oh no, this Eulmoran is staggering randomly around, muttering about Vauthry! How can we survive this onslaught?” Yyyyeah no, lol. Alphinaud confirmed the Eulmorans were acting of their own free will until that final showdown, so the mind control seemed to be a panic move--I wonder if it was even took conscious effort at that point, or just another instinctive SOS from the Warden. Given his father’s trouble with the smallfolk, I have to wonder if it was Former Mayor’s idea, if there was a real reason behind it. Not a reason that would make good sense, but nothing in this arc does make good sense, so.

The thing is, meol was an optional dish. No one was forced to eat it. So Vauthry must not have been relying on controlling or turning anyone.

But despite the fact meol defies their own game logic, Square really did seem to relish hinting at the dehumanizing, Austin Powers “haha fat guy eats people” trope anyway, and seriously. They could do better than that--I hoped they’d BE better than that. But here we are, the company that is supposed to go so hard against harassment takes an easy target and encourages a very specific negative response to it. This is the reason I believe Eulmore was such an inconsistent arc--they almost entirely depended on Vauthry’s appearance to carry the weak narrative, explaining very lttle of his actual motivations because that would ruin their weak-ass “gotcha” that he was the Lightwarden of Kholusia. Of course he’d be evil, just look at him! Right guys? Look! He’s fat! 

Just as they used nothing but thicc’qotes in the trailer to try establishing the evils in Eulmore. Thicc’qotes eating fresh fruit whilst having pleasant conversation is the root of it all in Square’s eye; not a noblewoman who tried to have her maidservant murdered, not the nobleman who pushed his bodyguard over the rails, or even that asshole on the balcony laughing about splitting someone’s head like a melon. No, fatness is the real wickedness. Square was full of shit for this one and it shows when looked at with even a little critical thought. I don’t know what I expected of someone who requested a human “Jabba The Hutt” to be the last-minute midboss, someone who looked at a heavier Lakshmi and said “that’s not cute”, or a jackass who told a cosplayer they needed to lose weight onstage at FanFest 2014.

Even more disappointing? All these questions here, all these inconsistencies? For the majority of the playerbase, “he’s fat” was good enough. The Ascians get a million thoughtful theories. One of their victims? The playerbase thinks he manifested from the womb as you see him in game. They don’t stop to think of what it implied, to be born corrupted and groomed as a tool not only for Ascians, but his own father. They avoid the fact the fandom darling directly violated a woman and child’s bodily autonomy even as they insist on Vauthry taking absolute 100% responsibility for everything he was made specifically to do. And there’s just one difference between him and literally every other villain in this game, aside from the fact he had no choice. Yeah. As much as some players hate to hear it, if Vauthry had swapped models with the fandom darling, we wouldn’t be hearing justifications for mass murder/dictatorships/skeevy noncon. We would definitely be hearing how Vauthry was used, though--and how tragic his story is.

Some players bring up Dulia-Chai as though she somehow counters all the bodyshaming bullshit elsewhere. It doesn’t. She was still in place along with all the other thicc’qotes as Square’s fucked-up shorthand for excess and indolence. I had to learn she kept books for the Stoneworks in optional dialogue. Maybe if she didn’t talk about cakes and such so much, but I mean, that’s what fat people do, right? 

So if you’re laughing at fat men, we fat women know you’re actually laughing at us, too. Git gud or stop embarrassing yourselves.

“Tyranny”, aka you keep using that word, I don’t think it means what you think it means:

Whatever the Ascians did to make sure Vauthry’s "Ascension" was a time-release event, the "madness and fury" clearly had taken him when we met him in Shadowbringers. Punishments for those having broken the laws of the city changed from exile into vicious death sentences. Suddenly the God talk, where not even Alphinaud had heard that. It really makes a case that Vauthry was slowly declining into madness the longer he was exposed to the Warden--in fact, Thancred sort of confirms it, during the trailer: “This town certainly has changed, but not at all for the better.” He was only on The First for five years. 

Vauthry likely had no introspective dialogues because much of who he actually had been was already gone, and the player is left with his remaining drive to do “good” and “justify your existence” wrapped around the instincts of a Lightwarden.

Yet a lot of things remain that really contradict the "bones of the poor" narrative the writers were trying to push about the city, and many times I felt a real disconnect between what our party was saying and what Eulmore was actually doing. A lot of it implies that, despite the Warden utterly subverting Vauthry as per the hard rules of Tempering, there was benevolence at work, once. The Minstreling Wanderer said that he could not say whether Vauthry was wicked in his youth, and I take this as a sign he was not. 

First off, let’s just get this out of the way: The Crystarium also expected you to work for the city in some form if you were expecting to stay there.

”Layabouts”: a people who were the main line of defense against the Sin Eaters for all The First for eighty years, until the futility of it, and all the loss, broke their spirits entirely. Just another sample of how Square intended Eulmore be shown as fat=lazy, despite their own lore--until Square was lazy themselves and didn’t finish the thicc’qote models so Eulmore would be exclusively fat bodies as shown in the trailer. 

The narrative often fudged with writer omnipotence regarding the protagonists, pressing to cast Eulmore in a negative light because they’d given up hope, even though loss is so important in excusing the Ascians’ actions. Our party had the WoL, whom they knew not only had a good chance of defeating Lightwardens, but G’raha seemed to know the WoL could contain them. Your average native inhabitant of the First would not be far off the mark feeling hopeless about the world, though, because they didn’t know about these extraordinary circumstances. Most of their oceans were lost in the Flood, and that in itself, realistically, is a death sentence. It’s all well and good G’raha was so perky and hopeful, and all well and good the game contrived a convenient deus ex machina to fix the issue (they never really addressed the issue anyway), but none of the locals could know any of this. I can see why Eulmore would think the Scions were full of shit, because for 80 years after the Flood, Eulmore tried to stop the Sin Eaters and could not. Honestly, I expected more sympathy for the Eulmorans, because they had been the front line for so long and lost so much. But lol fatties amirite?

Now, Square tried to dabble in many other Enlightened Social Commentaries with Eulmore, but immediately contradicted themselves so many times I was constantly asking myself why Alphinaud was being so goddamn extra dramatic. Gate Town/The Derelicts:

Not at Eulmore’s hand, Alphinaud honey, you can’t solo farms or communities. The people who remained behind were borked over by the ones who left. What are you even trying to say here, Square, help me out. Generosity--”largesse”-- is bad? Abandoning what you have, all others  be damned, for something you were never given a promise of receiving....good? Sympathetic? Seriously, what is your point here, Square? How does this equal Eulmore being malicious? How does this not make the bulk of Gate Town hopefuls a bunch of dipshits? Wright is in sight from Gate Town, but no one ever thought going there might be better?

If Square meant for Eulmore to seem a prison for the “poor”, they did a shitty job of that, considering: 1) A big point about Gate Town was that the people staying there left viable homes, farms, and communities for a chance at getting in, a chance that was never guaranteed by anyone, and they refused any alternatives Alphinaud offered them, plus

2) No one was keeping anyone from leaving if they wanted to. No guards, no masked vigilantes, no rando singing Hotel California in your ear.

So ruthless a prison, there were not only invisible guards holding you against your will, there was an Amarokeep waiting in the Derelicts to whisk you away for 70 gil so you can pretend to make a daring escape, straight to the freebie Amaro that will take you to The Crystarium. Tell your friends! Tell Alphinaud! He will literally buy anything this expac.

- “Young Kai-Shirr” getting into Eulmore was never a “matter of life or death”, and I can’t tell if that was Alphinaud being pretentious again or the writing was just that bad. Kai-Shirr was offered work at the Crystarium and he refused it, “it has to be Eulmore”. How is that on anyone but him? (Plus why does no one ever question Kai-Shirr’s complete lack of caring for why Alphinaud wanted in, if that was true? Was Kai-Shirr then not dooming Alph to “death” instead when he robbed him? That’s not very cash money of him.)  

This isn’t “life or death” either.

Neither is this.

Nnnno. 

Considering Stilltide reported they have fish for all, and Wright’s trouble was not enough people, this is not only not “life or death”, but fucking creepy. Hopefully this better illustrates my confusion of what we were being told vs. what we were being shown in Gate Town/The Derelicts.  d( ᐖ )

- The citizens In Gate Town/The Derelicts were not at the mercy of a "contest" to be let in. It was shown to be literally a help wanted board with jesters, and the “contest” was “do you have this certain skill someone is looking to hire”. I guess the Crystarium will hire a fishmonger to do the work of a chirurgeon or something? 

The jongleurs were otherwise just "rule of cool", I guess--although the significant look the Red gave us, followed soon after by Emet-Selch’s lurking outside the Offer, made me wonder if they were not acting as monitors on Vauthry for the Ascians. 

- There was at least one person in the Derelicts from the Crystarium, looking to make a quick gil on the extravagant “refuse” of the city, and several locals were doing the same. I guess those “layabouts” inside the city had their uses after all, Katliss.

- Meol was not the only food given to those outside the city. Produce and such that was not “pretty” enough for the fussy free citizenry was distributed to those camping the outskirts. 

I’d have expected a “tyrant” to let that produce rot. Catty in Stilltide confirmed there was enough fish for everyone living there, and Zia-Bostt above seems to back that up. Game in the field was also aplenty even in terms of map mechanics--this was not some form of forced famine to hold the smallfolk in a state of dependence. Eulmore was still paying the villages for produce. 

So much for the exploitation of big, bad Eulmore! 

Again, Alphinaud himself bemoaned how the people were there of their own choice, and how they refused any and all alternatives he presented them with. The people in Gate Town wanted to wait for Eulmore, they left their own homes and farms freely for Eulmore, screwing over their neighbors in the process--and that is not Vauthry’s fault, that is on them? 

Hurricane Florence left my husband and I homeless a while. You do not fucking pass up sure shelter and work and food to wait instead for a nebulous chance at Hollywood or Las Vegas--and if you do, that’s all your own tomfoolery, that’s not “injustice”, no BONES OF THE POOR required. It’s common sense, Square, goddamn lol 

The Free Citizenry:

- The rich would not be permitted into the city if they did not give up their wealth  for the benefit of all living there. This was a condition for the rich only. There is zero indication those funds were being put into Vauthry's pocket; it ran the city, and both free and bonded enjoyed the results (there seemed far more bonded residents in Eulmore than free, to boot.). There's a policy that would never fly in at least two allied citystates, lol.

It raises the question, if Wrenden and Former Mayor were so damn equitable, how were there even rich to begin with? There’s an old noble in Vauthry’s Eulmore who apparently does not know how to tie his shoes without a servant--a.k.a., the idle rich existed before Vauthry even came into power. The dialogue of Vauthry’s father also made it seem that these were systems in place long before he his son was even born -- except Vauthry’s system did not allow their hoarding of wealth, and distributed it instead to the benefit of everyone in the city. It was also a system that was so satisfactory, both free and bonded citizens became loudly dissatisfied after he was gone. 

- The rich were the only ones guaranteed “Ascension”, and if you want to call that a perk I’m going to assume it’s because the entire system relied on their dosh--technically, they already did their “work” for the city. (”Buying a stairway to Heaven”, as it were.) So much for those "bones of the poor", Alph. Statistically, if bones built Eulmore, it was the bones of the rich.

Until Gaia, Ascension was only mentioned twice, but again, no real context was given. (jfc Square, we shouldn't have to buy an overpriced lorebook for this.) First time was the Weeping Warbler chain. Going by the quest dialogue, it sounded very much like something offered as mercy to terminal illness or otherwise impending death, as the Warbler's creepy patron lamented how he almost wished he could hasten his own to join her (btw, the right answer to that poor girl's fear that she'd be a burden more than a treasure was "YOU ARE MORE THAN YOUR VOICE”,  asshole. >:| ). Players at the time were legit “oh that poor old man, she’s like his daughter :CCCCC” Ahahaha oh my sweet summer children

Either way, "Ascension” was definitely implied to be entirely voluntary. It was implied there were even rules and conditions to be granted it. And Vauthry did not seem to push anyone towards the idea, it was just there. (If it was for terminal illness, though, consider the following: Thoarich seemed confident the Warbler would live, but may lose her voice. If you have to be terminal to be Ascended, ironically Vauthry may have refused her patron's request.) The second mention was from Vauthry himself, for his “trial” when the Lightwarden awakened--so he certainly, tragically, believed what he claimed it was.  The Bonded Residents:

- Even at his worst, there is no indication that the free citizens were encouraged by Vauthry to abuse their workers; in fact, the Amiable Maiden and her Ardent Attendant implied heavily that appreciation and respect for one's bonded was the ideal that was pushed by Eulmore, that "love for one's fellow man". 

At no time were the bonded residents “slaves” (a new accusation from Twitter). They were “bonded” to the patrons who hired them by a work contract, and they sought those jobs willingly. No one kept them from leaving Gate Town, only kept them from getting in without a work arrangement--again, a prerequisite the Crystarium also had according to Katliss. The bonded residents were paid, and apparently paid well. 

As the WoL, we were also bonded to the Chais, and were able to come and go later. It was like the writers knew they needed to sit the fence so the free citizens would be redeemable enough to help with the immersion-breaking giant Talos plot later, and so never pushed Eulmore to the evils they talked about but never showed--leaving behind the most disconnected, self-sabotaging arc I’ve ever seen from this MMO.

An evil slaveowner at work.

Alphinaud rewarded for being an agreeable yet melodramatic young boy.

- The bonded we met who fled Eulmore had fled their patrons, not Vauthry himself--even the Warbler thought Vauthry a “great man”. No one in Eulmore feared him.

- Tristol’s “grave sin” to be patronless and penniless was contradicted by Fathana, whose patron had died some time ago, and yet she remained in the city without one to help new workers--because her patron had been so kind to her. The clerk whom you first speak to upon entering Eulmore even says that if you are “fired” or otherwise lose your patronage, you can try to find another patron to remain in the city or work as a general laborer like Fathana until, presumably, you do find another patron. Or maybe you don’t even need a patron, and you are allowed to stay as your own boss at that point, she certainly was.

Since the Chais helped us leave the city, I’m not at all sure why they didn’t do the same for Tristol, especially if Vauthry’s violence was a well-known thing. It’s almost like violence from Vauthry wasn’t expected, and they’d never think that would happen. I mean, some recent time ago, Vauthry only exiled thieves from Eulmore.

(Hell, Square may have even fudged Tristol’s punishment, implying Vauthry had ordered him tossed off the balustrade of The Offer. Vauthry’s balcony appears to be the one directly above The Path To Glory, right above the gates into Eulmore. There doesn’t seem to be ocean nearby at any realistic distance or angle from that balcony. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

- Laws that we saw in effect were for the benefit of patrons and bonded citizens alike. There was nothing to suggest those laws were unreasonable, either. The punishment became fuck no unreasonable (though as I pointed out earlier, the punishments seemed to ramp up in violence the longer the warden was part of him, from exile to a literal pound of flesh, much like Titania went from a benevolent ruler to Jumpscare Prime). But fraud being a crime is sort of expected anywhere, and creeps at the Beehive should not touch dancers unless dancers consent, lest they get the bouncer. ( another strangely thoughtful law for a “tyrant”. )

- The bonded residents inside seemed much happier with their lot than Alphinaud’s dramatic assessment, which was also confusing as hell. 

-  Entire families were allowed to enter if one member was hired. Alphinaud was able to drag us along with a minimum of fuss as his “assistant”. Vauthry’s definition of how one “gives” to Eulmore was not based solely on traditional work.

- Bonded residents were not afraid at all to speak of bending rules for perfect strangers when offering drinks to us, so Vauthry wasn't out prowling for blood 24/7 like an Inquisitor trying to fill their heretic quota. Not only was Dulia-Chai not afraid to go calm him down at the height of his rage, Chai-Nuzz didn't freak out at the idea she'd do it. Nuzz. Wasn’t nervous. Yeah, let that one sink in 9_6

The only time Vauthry acted seemed to be when an issue was brought forward directly to him. Otherwise, it seemed like standard Lightwarden behavior: stasis, until presented with a real and immediate threat to itself, which in Vauthry’s case was a threat to the order of his city, or the ones killing Lightwardens.

For allegedly being aggressive against Kholusia's neighbors, Vauthry seemed to have taken the Crystarium's refusal of his offer to lead them back in the day really well, as in, he did jack shit in retaliation and accepted it. In fact, he was so warlike, Emet-Selch was surprised Vauthry would move that army, even for a very clear threat against fulfilling the false destiny Emet-Selch forced on him. 

While on the subject of aggression, the people in Amity have dialogue indicating they feared Vauthry would send the army after them--which he obviously never did, in all 20 years of his reign.  

- “No one leaves” except hey whoa there hi, Lue-Reeq, who comes and goes as he pleases. Plus that bonded resident who came to Wright looking for ale. Plus us, also bonded residents, because Dulia-Chai once again had nothing to fear from Vauthry.

Also anyone who was exiled previously. For supposedly wanting to keep people inside Eulmore, Vauthry sure was terrible at doing it lmao

GCBTW: I'd really love to see Square and Alphinaud be similarly vocal and insistent with the actual horrors our own Allied city-states commit without the corruption of a Lightwarden in play. The selective outrage/pearl-clutching is really immersion-breaking.

Ishgard: “Highborn” genuinely exploiting the “lowborn” every other sidequest to this day. Genocide of the Au Ra. At least two FATEs, one job quest, one lorebook entry, and one dungeon indicate Ishgard has fucking disgusting levels of rape carried out by figures of authority. Rent is being charged for people from the Brume--the homeless, destitute people in the Brume--to live in the Firmament, but they can arrange payment plans! And this was all talked about while one of them was shivering in the cold nearby. What, can't the highborn be arsed to share what they have? Eulmore is the height of wickedness because they couldn't cram an island full of people into one tower, but Ishgard's our pal even though they can't manage to make space in their mansions for one small area of one city. My God, Vauthry had FOOD in his chamber, shame!--but that's okay, Aymeric, you rock that extravagant dinner spread in the dating sim cutscene. Maybe the Brume can fight over the Ishgardian Muffin crumbs.

(Yes, I know, Vauthry had more food than that in his chamber. He’s also approaching fifteen-plus feet tall. Proportionally, the food in his chamber would be the equivalent of you or me living on cocktail peanuts and thimbles of water. Once more, Square was so fixated on fatphobia they didn’t do the fucking math.)

Doma: “Hey yeah look guys I know child trafficking is bad but let’s just smile and nod at this guy who did it to Yotsuyu and give him a different post, okay? Okay. Remember to be polite. We will never speak of this again.”

“Let me laugh about your beliefs and call them bullshit while I angle you into a war that isn’t even yours, Xaela tribes.” Gridania: Lets people straight up die if the “elements” tell them it’s okay. Exiling a child for stealing a bag of flower seeds is normal and totally not at all fucked up. Open and accepted racism against the Duskwights with no sign of Kan-E-Senna saying fucking stop that shit.

Ul’dah: Human trafficking. Child trafficking. Human lab rats. Using prisoners for blood sports. The Syndicate living it up in finery, giving exactly nothing to people living in the streets. Notoriously corrupt Brass Blades. More implications of fucking disgusting levels of rape. Turning away the Doman refugees when they literally had nowhere else to go and nothing left. We smiled and nodded when Godbert said people mustn’t be given charity, they must work for their own good.

Limsa Lominsa: Fucks over the “beast tribes” at every opportunity, then complains they summon Primals.

But remember, folks, it was Vauthry’s Eulmore that was the real evil we had to desperately move against. Not the newer, capitalist Eulmore that didn’t feed two guys from Wright because they couldn’t afford it, shoosh those “bones of the poor” don’t count. The writers tried to retcon a lot in 5.1, it seemed--suddenly, it was implied people were forced to leave villages, conscripted, etc. Except the people were still there to tell us otherwise in 5.0, and there was still no sign of any Eulmoran forces keeping them in Gate Town. We went from Alphinaud demanding the free citizens take responsibility for what they’d done in Eulmore to posthumously blaming Vauthry’s “bad influence” for everything up to and including a noblewoman’s attempted murder of her maidservant, because the noblewoman’s husband was creeping on the girl. 

Which leads us to another of my biggest peeves--all the while, despite “the truth” being so important when it came to Emet-Selch, the sins of Vauthry’s father and the suffering his wife and child endured because of Emet-Selch’s direct hand are left unspoken. We smile and nod silently to Eulmorans and then offer them up Vauthry and his “bad influence” as an excuse for their own misdeeds. I’ve never felt less a “hero” in this game as I did then. Yet Emet-Selch, who committed this atrocity on a child, was called a HERO because fandom darling, while the child is vilified and thoroughly dehumanized.

It’s really telling how much blind condemnation the fanbase dealt to Vauthry for reasons that were completely inaccurate, while the fandom darling of this expansion was 100% the founder of not one, but two civilizations based on domination, the most recent being a nation whose canon creed is  "No lands must remain beyond our grasp. Go forth. Conquer. Rule.", a nation whose people have a habit of calling all the “lesser races” they conscript “savages”. Fandom Darling was also hype af for Black Rose and called it worthy of his bloodline! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

It’s really telling that the fanbase will randomly accuse Vauthry of being a sexual predator with Sin Eaters based on exactly zero evidence (but a lot of projection on their part), while the fandom darling 100% canonly used the actual Solus zos Galvus’ enthralled body to sire a child with Galvus’ unwitting wife, and going by the dialogue--

--he’s done that before. No wonder consent was no big deal when he made that offer to Former Mayor. But this was played for sympathy because fandom darling and what do you know, the fandom bought it.

Square “both sided” actual authoritarian characters--actual colonizers, actual mass murderers of entire worlds, actual skeevy-ass characters who don’t care about consent because “not really alive”--called it “heroic”, even (the latter was called “moral relativism”, and it’s genuinely unnerving how many players pushed that as absolution or relatable)--but throughout the course of the main expansion and two subsequent patches,Square went all-in that the fat guy who had his agency and sanity stolen from him in utero to be used as a tool of destruction was the real tyrant. We the player were encouraged to buddy up with E-S while we were never once given the option to wonder if something was terribly amiss with Vauthry, if he may need help. They didn’t even spare us a “jfc that poor man, the Eaters got to him” when he blindly twisted his neck 180 to neither see nor hear us. He was still “evil” because reasons, a.k.a., he was fat.

TL;DR, the playerbase: 

I remain unconvinced the Ancients were not clever enough to suspect summoning the “Will Of The Star” may have an effect on their own wills, as their wishes for Zodiark carried an unspoken need for the Elder Primal to be granted control to achieve its end. Emet-Selch stated that Tempering was to be “expected”, even “natural”, though his appearance towards the end of 5.3 seems to contradict Tempering: has there ever been another instance that a Tempered being was able to act directly against the best interests of the primal that holds them in thrall? Elidibus sure couldn’t. 

Disclaimer: I actually have no issue with liking the Ascians, be it shipping, writing, art, porn mods, whatever. But if you come into my yard with nothing but shit talk for Vauthry on reblogs of my art, yet have all the praise for the one who made him, you’re going to hear in my personal space about why you’re a hypocrite. Often. With receipts.

The End.

First off, it’s popular in the fandom to say the Lightwarden was Vauthry’s real body because it’s just so damn inconvenient to the dating sim mentality that the fat guy was the default. Thing is:

That is Innocence’s head and its wings inside Vauthry’s split-open back during the pre-phase two “transformation”. Between that and the second face that appeared to cave in most of Vauthry’s chest (on the heart side, interestingly enough), the face whose eyes opened and glowed upon the Warden’s “awakening”:

It doesn’t look at all like it was a “transformation”.  It looks like the Lightwarden emerged and absorbed what was left of its host’s physical form while still retaining Vauthry’s broken mind.  (Notice the nose, much longer than Vauthry’s actual nose, eye spacing, the bit of smile. That second face was the Warden.)

Before his death, Vauthry did not say "well dang, the Ascians promised I would be all-powerful so I could be evil! Curse them for cheating me!"

He said "Father told me...that I am hope. That I am righteousness. That I am...a god... That is why I was born...as man and sin eater both...I kept the people safe!"

Those lines make no sense if Vauthry interpreted Father’s manipulations as "haha I'm a spoiled evil brat I can do what I want". A spoiled evil brat wouldn't need to be convinced what they were doing was GOOD, would they? Why would that even have been a thing, wouldn't they just not care? He had the power to not give a shit. Instead, he would see his peoples’ “dreams fulfilled, their wishes granted.” EDIT - Canon as of 5.3 appears to support this analysis! \o/ 

Spoken at the end by G’raha Tia on the subject of enduring hope, and additionally supported by the Minstreling Wander, who told us in the Immaculate EX unlock he could not say if Vauthry was wicked in his youth. ”Vindicate his existence”. Vauthry was never in this for the evil selfish lulz. He believed he needed to prove the “half Sin Eater” heritage forced on him did not make him a monster, that it was good, that he was good, and he did it by doing everything he was gaslighted to believe was good by his father--until the Warden finally broke him entirely. To the people who debated so strongly he was just evil because reasons, or refused to hold other characters to the same standards of damnation they set for him because reasons, hope your shoe tastes good. Your reasons were always really clear, btw.

This remains the story of a child who needed a hero that never came, and players choose to discard it, like the free citizens snub produce, because Vauthry isn’t pretty enough for them. A fat character’s stolen life simply isn’t worth the effort of contemplation because the one who made him makes players horny on main.

What happened to this character, with just the little information the game gave us, was straight-up abuse. Yet too many in the fanbase thought no further than juvenile fat jokes (so cool) or unquestioning contempt for a character who was clearly in a state of mental breakdown (unless it was the fandom darling, he’s allowed, even if it destroys worlds) --while Square readily had their characters ace detective enough to detect his weight, but not his unnatural height, his pointed ears, his fogged over eyes, his bendy-straw neck, his second freaking face. Oh, and he can control Sin Eaters. Wait, you mean the Lightwarden was in him the whole time!? Seems legit gais, what an unexpected turn of events! 

ᐠ( ᐛ )ᐟ

[yoshiintheweb]

Empires SMP settlements as Archeological sites according to me, your local archeology student.

Over all notes.

-According to Sausage (his first episode), Empires 2 is set over a 1000 years after Empires 1. So all of my headcanons will be based mostly on early medieval period knows also as The Viking Age in terms of preservation - real life equivalent of "over a 1000 years ago".

-Archeological findings are very depending on the place they are in, and the type of settlements.

-That being said, I assume that most of empires from season 1 would be considered a city state, similar to poleis of ancient Greece.

-On that note, even if it's not active part of Minecraft itself, i will make a series of headcanons including: Pottery bc pottery is one of the most common findings, graveyards if needed, the characteristics of the biomes that are not part of Minecraft and probably something more that i forgot

-I assume that the water level after the drain get to normal in the years that follows, bc if we assume that Empires has similar climate to our owns, it would go up over that 1000+ years anyways.

The Cod Empire

- it would be by now a bunch of stakes sticking from the bottom of the shore, bc it was mostly made out of wood and wood will not survive this long if left on free air for long.

-Everything made out of stone will hold, turn into ruins over time. Looking at the area that once was The Cod Empire you can see a rock structure, a ruin that once was used as a Church of some sorts maybe meeting hall? Maybe both, noe one knows for sure.

-It was on swamp tho, and if there was peat bog anywhere everything that goes in it, will survive that amount of time, longer even, wood, maybe fabrics, it's perfect condition to preserve dead bodies too, we are talking skin, hair and organs intact way. Tho it's not always the case, and bones are a different story bc peat is pretty acidity which is not good for them.

-There might be a bit of a chance that some buildings survived if it was swollen by the swamp (peat bog again, it's just that good shit). It will not look pretty but the shape will hold (probably).

-Archeological dig in Cod Empire would take years if not a decade+. It's not bc how big Cod Empire was, but how many thing was preserved by the peat bog. And the peat bog is still a peat bog so it's difficult to work with.

-I imagine Pottery from Cod Empires as handmade. Very simple, thick, wonky probably a bit asymmetrical. It might be just plain but it also might be decorated with cuts and print of various things (ropes and shit probably). There's also a lot of dishes made out of wood, in shapes and decoration that looks the same.

-Fun fact, if Minecraft had butter, it would survive too. Peak bog, everybody.

-Bc of it's location, Cod Empire might be the best preserved empire from them all. Gods bless the peak bog in it's wet, sticky and no oxygen policy glory.

It might get part two idk if i will jave the mental power to do so tho

[sophfandoms53]

If you don't mind: what's your opinion on Leonardo from tmnt? :3

Absolutely love him.

Leo is actually my second favorite turtle (Mikey being the first, I think that’s been made clear lmao) regardless of the series, whether it’s 2003, 2012 or Rise, Leo has always been a well written and interesting character.

I’ve joked around in the past about how 2012 shoved Leo and his character arc in our faces, but in reality I thoroughly enjoyed Leo’s arc in 2012 and it’s the easiest one to decipher as it’s actually very well written.

I could get into a deeper discussion about how 2012 dealt with Mikey, Raph and Donnie’s arc when compared to Leo’s but that would make this response even longer and I might keep that for another time, however I will briefly summarize that Raph and Donnie’s arcs suffered severely in the main 4 seasons and were basically brushed aside in season 5, minus that one episode Donnie had in the Kavaxas arc, while Mikey’s feeling inadequate to his brothers arc swiftly concluded in different ways after Into Dimension X and The Croaking and the writers started doing different things with him that better suited his character, Meet Mondo Gecko and Bat in The Belfry being big examples. All of season 5 honestly can be summed up with “Mikey is a total boss” because he just owns every single episode in that season even if he isn’t the focus, When Worlds Collide is essentially meant to be a Raph focus episode but the biggest moments in that two parter are whenever Mikey is on screen.

This is where we circle back to Leo and his arc as Mikey even takes attention away from him in the final part of the Kavaxas arc, which is an arc centered around Leo officially coming to terms with his role as the new Sensei and father figure to his family. After the Kavaxas arc, Leo’s character is finished, there’s no where else for him to grow beside minor personality tweaks which was hinted at in the Usagi arc.

In the main four seasons Leo’s arc can be split into two parts, seasons 1-2 has him dealing with the sacrifices and burden that comes with being the leader while seasons 3-4 has him accept his role as the leader and his character becomes about having trust both with himself and with his team as in these two seasons Leo tends to go off alone on a mission instead of talking with his family and it’s something that is handled very well.

One of my favorite episodes in the series is Attack of The MegaShredder specifically because it puts Leo in a place of understanding that his brothers [Mikey in this case] will always be there for him when he needs them the most and this arc comes to nice closed in Broken Foot where he constantly tells Karai that they need his brothers if they want to continue doing what they’re doing.

This type of characterization for Leo happened in the 2003 series as well. Most notably after the battle in the season 3 finale with Shredder that leaves the entire team wounded and Leo with a massive scar on the back of his shell, Leo takes this loss extremely personally and violently to the point he loses his sense of self. He’s angry at himself for losing, for letting his brothers and his Sensei get hurt.

But what 2003 did was not have Leo realize he was angry with himself and made it appear to be he was angry with his brother’s for not getting the job done. Even yelling at them for treating their missions against the foot as a game. This even extends to how Leo trained in season 4, he did to the point he tired himself and his brother’s out because he felt what he and his brother’s knew wasn’t good enough.

In the episode Grudge Match it opens up with Leo aggressively training his brother’s on a rooftop and he only stops his training when Splinter calls him out about it saying they need to discuss his attitude and take on training soon until they notice Mikey has been slacking off training recently. So Leo offers to train Mikey for his upcoming Battle Nexus rematch as Mikey has become incredibly cocky over his win and Leo knowing his brother needs to be taken down a peg, gives us this amazing scene of dialogue between the two,

“I brought you up here to clear your mind, Mikey. Focus on what's important.”

“Like going home?”

“No, like pushing yourself beyond your limits to a place where there are no limits; to be so focused, so ready that nothing and no one will ever catch you off guard again.”

“Um, we still talkin' about me here?”

“In this life, we only have each other. If one of us goes down, we all go down, so focus.”

The subtext is obvious, after the fight with Shredder, this is clearly how Leo takes on other fights in season 4 and why he becomes so frustrated with his brother’s constant dismissal of it. Despite this piece of advice giving Mikey what he needed to win the match fairly, it still doesn’t change the fact this is a very dangerous way to think and Leo being the leader to think this way makes it more glaring on how far Leo has lost himself in this state of self hatred.

Another interesting thing to note is how whenever Donnie and Raph complain about Leo’s attitude, it’s Mikey who comes to his eldest brother’s defense and understands the burden Leo has his shoulders, and this wasn’t done by accident.

It is only after Leo harms Splinter during training does he come to realize how bad this violent attitude of his is affecting everyone around him. Leo is then sent off on a 2 month journey of self-reflection in Japan where Yoshi’s old masters helps him realize that Leo has become his own monster, or as the show does it, he has become his own Shredder.

Leo comes to the realization that he has stop blaming himself for what happened and move forward, he’s been holding onto the past for too long to the point he became a barrel of anger and self-destruction and he had to be the one to fix it. He had to destroy his own demons, himself. And this arc concludes very well.

Now in Rise it’s a little bit difficult to analyze the characters as there isn’t much development, not a bad thing at all, but Rise has gone out of its way to give each of the brother’s depth and it’s very interesting.

Because Rise doesn’t have Leo as the leader one can be mistaken that this Leo wouldn’t have the same struggles or insecurities as his other incarnations but this has proven to be false as Rise Leo still has the same insecurity of his brother’s not respecting him as part of the team or just seeing him as a screwup. Leo has shown he needs a reassurance he’s doing the right thing and that his brother’s look at him in a positive light.

A lot of people have a fundamental misunderstanding of Leo’s role as the leader and just look at it as that instead of realizing how much pressure and stress Leo puts on himself regardless because he wants to be the very best him that he can be.

Lmao this got incredibly long, apologies for ranting.

This was a very long convoluted way of me saying, I love Leo a lot and his character is very very 3-dimensional and needs more appreciation than just “he’s only the leader”.

[tangshcn]

Ninja turtle characters and how likely they are to get an arc

Raph

He's DEFINITELY going to get a decent handful of episodes focused solely on his inner turmoil but a fully realized arc is a bit more of a gamble

A solid 7/10.

Donnie

Maybe??? Depends on what aspect of his given personality they plan on focusing on in whatever incarnation he's in.

A good 5/10 chance tbh

Leo

Absolute bastard single handedly monopolizes the season long/series long arc market and gets to decapitate the big bad. Show off. Leave some for the rest you greedy greedy, traumatized bastard

100/10

Mikey

😔/10

April

They'll try that's for sure

6/10

Splinter

Post-2010s? Yeah. But more likely if he's also Hamato Yoshi

6/10

Casey

From what I've seen, if Hun's involved somehow the writers are more likely to give him a shot at one.

Give. The Casey content to me right now. I am speaking directly into your ear

3.5/10

Shredder

Not an arc but likely a backstory that implies he already went through one that didn't necessarily make him better

?/10

Karai

If she shows up for more than a handful scenes, she's absolutely getting ye olde moral crisis arc

7/10

Tang Shen

[catatonicengineers]

A Defense of Cait Sith

Plushie Princess Saga:

A Hundred Ways to Put the WRO Back Together

A Hundred Ways to Wreck Shinra HQ

Reeve’s Adventures in Babysitting and World Saving:

And Take a Stand at Shinra

While There’s Still Time

On Plushies and Oppenheimer:

A Defense of Cait Sith

~

“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent.” - J. Robert Oppenheimer

I was eight-years-old when I played Final Fantasy VII for the first time, exactly one year after its release. Like many 90’s gamers, FFVII was a turning point into the world of RPG’s from which I’ve yet to recover. Kids today will never understand the coming of age that occurred somewhere between Yoshi’s Island and grappling with the ethos of Avalanche blowing Sector 1’s reactor sky high. It’s no surprise that my 3rdgrade brain found an essence of familiarity to cling to amid the existential dread and ecoterrorism that was the greatest game ever made.

Cait Sith was the cute, cuddly party member that validated my love of cats and ignited my adoration for moogles. I would relentlessly make room for him in my party, despite his terrible combat stats, and hurl endless Phoenix Downs every time he fell.

He was quirky, he fought with a megaphone, his limit breaks were oddly sparse compared to the rest of the cast, and his home base of Gold Saucer looked like a unicorn threw up all over a casino. What’s not to love?

According to recent Reddit threads, Youtube comments, and rage bloggers, apparently a lot.

The advent of the long awaited FFVII remake rightfully caused a massive revival of the excitement first felt by long time fans of the franchise. The release date has been confirmed for March 3, 2020 – two days before my 30thbirthday. Not gonna lie; feels like the universe aligned to bless the official passing of my youth with this nostalgia bomb.

It’s with this love of all things FFVII in mind that I’d like to formally pose a defense of the game’s most hated character.

Cait Sith/Reeve, this one’s for you.

The Laughter

We first meet the lively, dancing robo-moogle and cat combo in Gold Saucer and we’re not quite sure if this strange entity should count as one party member or two. Either way, he joins your crew as the quintessential comic relief with nary a backstory in sight. That’s right; you are now the proud owner of Cait Sith. A “fortune teller” by trade, Cait Sith’s motivations remain as murky as your party’s future.

At first glance, it’s easy to pass Cait Sith off as a filler character, the cute one added for giggles. The one the writers never bothered to flesh out because, let’s face it, that moogle is mostly fluff anyway. The “most useless character” title isn’t entirely unjustified.

If this was where Cait Sith’s story ended.

I still remember the day my older brother announced that he’d read ahead in the player’s guide (this used to be a thing, kids) and discovered Cait Sith was a Shinra spy. I’m pretty sure I went through all the stages of grief before settling on denial and assuming he was playing a joke on me. Surely, my favorite slot machine loving companion couldn’t be a traitor.

Enter Reeve Tuesti, the man behind the moogle. He’s the head of Urban Development at Shinra Electric Power Company. He wears a signature blue suit to work everyday. He hates board meetings. He’s not fond of his coworkers. Like Tifa, he’s an introvert. And he’s the guy who engineered the Mako reactors.

If Hojo is Dr. Frankenstein, Reeve is Oppenheimer. The tragedy of the monsters we create is always greater when it’s a monster we loved. Where the other Shinra execs are motivated by greed, power, and a desire to play God, Reeve is the only Shinra higher up we encounter with genuine empathy and a sense of advocacy for the people. It’s easy to assume that Mako reactors would improve lives, but as Marlene so eloquently asks, “isn’t that because we were taking away from the planet’s life?”

When faced with the guilt of a design gone horribly wrong, those in authority have two choices; own the guilt or double down. And Reeve doubles down.

I’ve never been a fan of the way modern RPG’s have everything clearly spelled out and spoon fed to the gamer. The reason we don’t need further backstory for Reeve is because his character arc is already apparent if we do a bit of digging. I was surprised to learn that the common conjecture behind the exact mechanics of Cait Sith involved him being a remote controlled, autonomous but non-sentient robot. Given that assumption, it’s fair to say that Cait Sith is a worthless character who lacks emotion or consequence.

One opinion I’ve seen trending is why not simply make Reeve join the party, sans the giant stuffed animal? After all, we’d get to see how he grapples with his role in Shinra and eventual betrayal of Avalanche.

Two words; cognitive dissonance. You have to question what kind of 35-year-old executive creates a plushie cat proxy to begin with. See I’ve never thought of Reeve and Cait Sith as separate. The gritty psychological mechanics that are Reeve have always been there, plush or human. Reeve has developed an alter that’s effectively a form of escape. The assertion that Cait Sith lacks consequence isn’t false – a robot carries out its duty, incapable of harboring guilt, blame, or moral repercussion. That’s a pretty darn good way to remain detached enough to stab your party members in the back!

Cait Sith is also an outlet for everything Reeve’s repressed executive life lacks. As Cait Sith, he’s silly and carefree, though not completely unfamiliar. Glimpses of Cait Sith’s witty quips are echoed in Reeve’s mock nicknames for his colleagues – “Kyahaha” and “Gyahaha” respectively. When life is tough to take, we laugh so we don’t scream.

Plus, the idea of Reeve controlling Cait Sith in real time, much like an MMORPG avatar, is just plain hilarious. I’ve always imagined him as the kind of guy who rolls up to his 9-5 office job, pops open a spreadsheet to look busy, and boots up Cait Sith in the other tab. He’s the OG Aggretsuko, the guy making Jim Halpert faces at the camera every Shinra board meeting.

And I get you, Reeve. Really, I do.

The Tears

Cait Sith’s sacrifice was a cop out for killing off a real character. Why didn’t Reeve just die instead of the plushie?

First of all, how dare you.

Second, not all deaths need be literal.

A pervading theme throughout FFVII is the concept of identity. Are we born into an existence we have no control over or can we choose who we are day by day? It’s easy to want to be someone else, the First Class Soldier who sweeps in, keeps his promise, and saves the girl. Our reality is often less of a fairy tale and riddled with our own failures.

By the time the party reaches The Temple of the Ancients, the line where Cait Sith ends and Reeve begins is blurring. Reeve speaks more often as “himself” through the plushie and the nuances in their speech and mannerism are blending. It’s no accident that this shift happens as Reeve becomes more at ease around Avalanche, ultimately switching sides.

I’ve heard a lot of criticism on the seeming lack of motivation to Reeve’s redemption. If we examine the cognitive dissonance theory that governs his character, the switch is far less sudden.

Cait Sith’s death is necessitated by Reeve’s accountability. The innocent plushie alter isn’t working anymore. It’s not enough to keep him from recognizing the horrors he’s been complicit to. Sacrificing this part of himself is the ultimate acknowledgment of culpability. It’s arguably a more important death than if Reeve actually martyred himself. Like Cloud, he no longer needs to be “someone else” and has started down the path of doing what only he, and not Cait Sith, can; stopping Shinra.

There will be more wonderful, fluffy moogle-cat plushies, but the need to disassociate completely is gone. He’ll confront whatever comes without a crutch – or in this case a teddy bear. Reeve reminisces that the original doll was “special” and we end with Cait Sith reminding him(self) not to forget this.

The Silence

In 1953, J. Robert Oppenheimer was denied all security clearance and effectively blacklisted by the McCarthy administration for his strong opposition to nuclear warfare.

Sometimes we find ourselves in a place we never hoped or expected to be in, surrounded by people we despise, and convinced the world is going straight to heck. We can either get out of dodge or stay.

If Reeve had indeed sacrificed himself rather than Cait Sith, this would simply have been yet another escape. He stays. He works. He gets Marlene and Elmyra out of Midgar. He spies on Shinra. He finally tells Gyahaha to stick it. He goes on to head the WRO and never stops advocating for the people.

Reeve’s not a fighter. He can barely get by with a handgun in Dirge of Cerberus and Cait Sith’s megaphone is no Masamune. Despite this, he takes a big risk by being the only insider on the team. We’re pretty sure Shinra doesn’t share Reeve’s opposition to capital punishment either.

Maybe this is why I’ve always loved Cait Sith/Reeve. I’m intrigued to see if Square Enix will add any further insight into our favorite plush moogle-cat-spy, but if they don’t, that’s alright too. Cait Sith is still a pretty solid character. After my brother spoiled one of the game’s major plot twists for me, I ended up reading the player’s guide for myself. And he was right. But he was also wrong. I recall marching proudly into the living room to declare that while yes, Cait Sith was a traitor, he was also a hero.

So fight your fight. Fail and fall. Hurl some Phoenix Downs and get right back up again.

[calliecat93]

Red vs Blue RTX 2019 Panel Masterpost

As many of you know, due to RT being unable to sign on a streaming partner, they couldn’t stream RTX. We weren’t sure if the RvB panel would be recorded or not, and so far no word on their end… but there is good news! Someone at the panel went and recorded it themselves, so we are able to see it! And as such, as I did last year, I can do a masterpost for it! Now they didn’t really reveal any major news, which is expected since the season just wrapped up a month ago. But some cool stuff did come up! So let's talk about it!

Panelists: Miles Luna (showrunner/writer/director for Chorus, co-writer for SIngularity, voice of Felix) Jason Weight (head writer for SIngularity)  Josh Ornelas (co-director) Austin Clark (co-director) Greg Slagel (show producer)  Matt Hullum (CEO of RT, executive producer, voice of Sarge, Doc/O’Malley, and Wyoming) Burnie Burns (series creator and the original showrunner/writer/director, CCO of RT, executive producer, voice of Church and Lopez)

“I’m Burnie Burns, and my character is dead.” Starting on a happy note clearly!

For questions this year, they had people submit them on Twitter with the hashtag #rtxrvb that Burnie will read off throughout the panel.

Jason found being handed the reigns of finishing the current arc super intense, but he was happy since after becoming attached to certain characters when acting as an assistant writer for S16, eh got to treat them how he wanted to treat them! He especially wanted to spoil Donut throughout this season. Miles felt the same way about Tucker when doing Chorus.

One moment that Jason beings up that stuck out to him is in S5, when the Reds see Kai nude… but Donut was more concerned about how the Blue Base had better lighting than they did. It felt like there was depth there that he wanted to look into.

There had been concerns from Miles and some of the others about if Donut could pull off being the lead… and clearly, the answer is that he absolutely can!

This was the first time that Josh and Austin were put into full-blown director positions for an entire season. Austin, in particular, went from an assistant machinimator to a main machinmator, to a machinima director within a few years (he began at S14). They both found it scary, especially with how much power they now had, but having the direction from Jason’s writing greatly helped.

Miles brings up how usually the writer and director for RvB are the same people, this being the first regular season where that wasn’t the case. As such, Jason had to wait like everyone else to see the final product, but he was very pleased with the results. He mentions the scene in Episode 9 with Wash and Carolina as an example of how much he loved the direction done with the episodes.

They talk about some of the things that you can and can’t do in machinima and how certain Halo titles have certain quirks that make filming more difficult than it at first looks. For example, in Halo 4 they always raised their guns when moving and they had to figure out how to work with that.

One thing that Jason wishes that the characters could do would be to sit or lay down, which is impossible to do within machinima. Burnie talks about how there were certain verbs that they couldn't use, like ‘sit’, and one thing that he wished that they could do was to point at things instead of having to say ‘look over in that direction’.

Question: what’s it like to take over RvB and pick up form different storylines. Burnie talks about how he likes that with the show, there are certain points where they tell a complete story. So if you want to top after Blood Gulch or Freelancer or whatever, there is a point where the story complete’s itself, and you can jump off. Though there is quite a bit of a back catalog for those who have to pick it up next…

Jason, unlike others, had to jump on during an in-progress story. As such, he didn’t make many new characters due to the size of the cast already and the need to wrap up Joe’s story. 

Early on, Miles, Jason, and Joe worked on planning the season out and figuring out the time travel stuff. Due to a slightly slimmer done, they couldn’t go as hard with animation as last time, so there was a lot of discussion on what could and couldn’t be done. It is why they decided to go back through the older Halo iterations since going form say Halo 2 to 4 would make it more visually striking.

Miles recounts one point when planning where Jason and Joe were arguing over how they wanted a certain moment to go. Miles had to step in and remind them that it was a paradox, so they were both right and wrong so they needed to just pick something. In general, figuring out timelines and recounting where every character was and what they were doing was very difficult and stressful and while it was fun, no one wants to do it ever again.

They dubbed the paradox timeline where Wash was and wasn’t shot ‘Schrodinger’s Asshole’ They had to label the timeline in order to figure out where everyone kept going, and Greg, as the producer, had to keep track of it.

Jason tells the story behind Wash’s “Goddamnit!” moment. That episode was written by Miles, who was trying to figure out how Wash would get the info that he needed during the Freelancer shenanigans. Jason asked, “why doesn't he just go to a time period where he and Carolina are already friends and get it there?”. Cue Miles screaming the Wash way!

There was a lot of figuring things out. For example, Jason originally had Locus shooting/killing mooks during the S15 scene… until after it got to machinima, Josh pointed out that Locus didn’t kill anymore at that point. So they went with him shooting people in the kneecaps!

One of the scenes that Austin found difficult was in Episode 9 during the shootout in Halo 4. Austin had never done machinima in Halo 4, so that was a bit of a learning curve. Miles talks about the original S11 version of that scene and he had to constantly change the set for three weeks due to various things getting broken and destroyed during the fight. When writing for Episode 9, he just went ‘Josh, Austin please forgive me’

Miles talks about Greg’s role as a producer and how big of a relief it was to have him scheduling things and keeping them on track, especially during the more stressful days where he’d suggest doing some less intense scenes of characters just talking. There were a lot of times where Greg had to tell them that they couldn’t do a certain thing and they had to go and come up with something again, but it was ultimately necessary to have had happen.

There were a LOT of times where Jason wrote something that they really liked… and then had to tell him that they couldn't do it, especially due to the budget and the schedule. It was hard, but Jason was very happy with how things came out in the end. And there were times where they were able to make it work, like having black holes.

Another question from the audience was if Locus’ Sword Quest would mean that he’d get an alien baby. Miles, in his opinion, thought that Crunchbite was just super fucked up and a big fat liar. Burnie is all for Locus having a baby, however. Greg even brings up the alien pregnancy poster shown in the finale, so it can’t be that rare, right?

As far as if Locus would be a good parent, Miles says maybe and ‘he needs therapy’.

Regarding the changes done to Chrovos, Jason (like the rest of us) saw Kalirama and got excited about a female villain, so when that ultimately petered out he came up with Lady Chrovos. How he cast Lee Eddy is that he saw her at the Camp Camp panel the previous year and really wanted to give her a role somehow.

He described Chrovos in the notes as a ‘predatory Glenn Close crossed with Maria from The Sound of Music’. There were also many takes done of Lee’s voice since, due to her expositing a lot, they wanted to make her fun to listen to so that it wouldn’t be boring. The directors eventually brought Jason in to direct via Skype (Jaosn liked int he UK) in order to get the performance that they were looking for, and luckily Lee nailed it.

Jason tended to put a lot of British slang in his scrips, and they had to be cut because no one knew any of them meant.

There were a lot of questions about RvB’s future and where it’s going next. This leads to Burnie asking the panel about how they feel about Halo Infinite and having to switch to that. He talks about his experience with switching engines since it happened several times during his run, such as thinking that they went to Halo 2 too early due to doing it because it was newly released and wanting to go ahead and rush into it. They learned their lesson when switching to Halo 3.

When it came to learning to fit the story into a new engine, Burnie would load whatever iteration he was going to be working with, wonder through Blood Gulch, and look at stuff to figure out what was there and how they can and can't work with things within the limitations that they had.

As for Halo Infinite, Burnie’s looking forward to seeing what can do within it. Miles is super happy to see the classic armor return due to it being much more simplistic. Greg jokes about how they just did a time travel arc, and Halo just so happened to go back to the more retro look. Coincidence?!

Everyone, including the audience, agree that Halo 3 is the one they liked working in best.

Another audience question is what the crew thinks that Caboose’s Starter Pokemon would be.Miles says Miltank due to Caboose misunderstanding what the Pokemon would look like cause… well, ‘tank’. Burnie says Yoshi. Wrong series Burnie! Someone also says Mr. Mine cause then Caboose could play Charades all day.

On the topic of Pokemon, Burnie talks about video game movies like Detective Pikachu, and movies more inspired by video games like the Resident Evil series. RvB has been around during the era where it looked like a video game movie was going to be a blockbuster… and those failed. But now there seems to be some kind of footing forming for video game films that aren't quite like the game, but still works like RvB is for Halo.

Going back to S17, there was a point where they considered re-using old footage from previous seasons to make the workload easier, but aside from a few shots in montages, that didn’t work. Everything had to be re-shot, re-recorded, and they had to get back all the original voices that weren’t on the show anymore for a job they did years ago. A big reason why is because of how the quality has evolved much higher quality things look now, so putting together old Halo footage with new would have been very noticeable.

Speaking of things evolving, Miles talks about how he feels that all the characters, in some form, have changed a lot over the years. Characters like Caboose are nothing like they were in the beginning. They actually did talk for quite a while about if they should have past!Caboose sounds more like he did then or just stick with the current voice. They kept it the same since Sarge had a similar case where the voice sounded nothing like now (cue everyone staring at Matt) but they didn’t change it there, so they didn’t do it for Caboose.

On that though, when everyone turns to look at him, Matt (who had been quiet throughout at this point) reveals that he wanted to do a little game. He often gets asked about Sarge quotes, but he can never remember them. So he wrote down a whole bunch, and so whenever anyone talks to him/asks him something for the rest of the panel, he’ll respond with a random Sarge quote (in this case, he does the Angelina Jolie lines from the Internet vs Real Life PSA). It is absolutely glorious. If you watch the video for any reason, do it for this!

Back on the topic of character evolution though, Miles got obsessed with the idea of Freelancer essentially being like high school when writing the Wash episode and liked the idea of having a character confront who and where they were then and recognizing who you are now.

Speaking of Wash, Jason talks about his and Carolina’s relationship as well as about Wash’s disability. To him, he found it weird how a show about war very rarely had the cast get hurt and how they’re usually killed off instead ( Jason: “Or they’ll die temporarily and come back, like Donut” Miles: “And Church, and Lopez…” Burnie: Lopez had so many lines this season). So he likes this new avenue with Wash.

Burnie, after pointing out how he’s been doing Lopez for so long after it was just supposed to be a dumb joke and he STILL hasn’t learned any Spanish, brings up having to record early Church again, who was very shouty. At this point, Burnie cannot do that for very long before he gives out. I guess that might explain why he sounded somewhat off. Miles has similar problems with other roles, only being able to do David in Camp Camp for so long due to the energy levels and he can no longer use his early!Jaune voice due to his vocal cords no longer being able to hit that range.

The directors threw in some Easter Eggs during the black hole, such as Genkins golf ball form when he knocked one into a black hole in S6. Which… guess I’ll have to rewatch cause I didn’t notice any Easter Eggs at all, but apparently a lot of others did.

They announce some new merch coming up. This includes some new shirts for the Grif Collection line, some shirts like that one released on RT’s Anniversary), and a second wave for the RvB Rivals line.

They also aired the RvB17 Blooper Reel… but due to copyright, this was cut from the video. Apparently, there was some kind of montage of Caboose saying ‘hello’ though. Still, gotta wait for the DVD for that one.

The last few minutes are more audience questions. One is about asking if the machinima team will do anything with the PC version of the Master Chief Collection. Austin says that, if there’s mod support, there could be the possibility of mashing up some of the Halo games. Burnie also talks about Theater Mode and how much of a relief it was to have added to the console versions, so with it coming to all iterations, this is very beneficial to them.

They also talk about how whenever there’s a big Halo-related announcement, they get a lot of questions. Like if they’ll switch to PC after the recent announcement about the Master Chief Collection… while they were already in the middle of filming S17. Whether they will or not they don’t know since they need to look it over first and figure out all the quirks and limitations of the game mechanics first.

Burnie: Does Sarge know any Caboose lines? 

Matt (as Sarge): Quiet Bluetard.”

Question about crossing over RvB with any other RT show. The popular answer is Camp Camp due to their comedic tones. Miles does change his answer to Day 5 just to see how they'd survive without sleep and jokes about how Grif would give in and be a goner within 30 seconds. Other shows thrown out are On the Spot and The Chip Show. Burnie brings up how there’s this in-universe show in Lazer Team and he’d like to see them appear on that.

There was a question about if there would ever be an RvB movie. Burnie asks the audience if they would be interested after this many years, and there is a LOOOOT of cheering. Burnie and Matt have very ominous looks throughout. No answer on if it would ever happen or not, but maybe one day.

“What was your favorite running gag in S17, and why was it shooting Donut?” Give the guy who asked that a medal.

So there was some kind of cut there, so moving on…

Miles talks about (I think) bringing back characters like O’Malley and Kai at the end of Chorus as a way to say goodbye to them. But after Joe and Jason came in, they decided to use those characters more. They especially grew to love Kai, Jason especially due to her filthy humor and absolutely owning it.

They talk about how Tucker and Kai seem similar due to their sexually charged humor… but they are quite different. Tucker’s is essentially a front that he uses to hide his insecurities and build himself up. Kai knows who she is, owns who she is, and you can either accept her or get the Hell out of her way. 

Someone asks for them to recap RvB. Matt takes care of that with the following Sarge quote: “A priest, rabbi, and Grif walk into a bar… and then I kill ‘em!”. Best. Recap. EVER. 

The final question is if they’d ever consider making RvB, or any other machinima series, outside of Halo. They talk about one they did long ago called Panics, which they didn’t continue due to split from the company, and since they have to license the video game footage to do machinima, they couldn’t do more. 

As for RvB switching, that is unlikely to happen since it’s so ingrained into Halo now.

They have considered other machinima shows in the past. Miles would like to do one with Apex Legends… but since it has stuff like lip flaps and all, it wouldn’t work. Austin would like to do something with Call of Duty.

The panel ends with Miles asking the crew in the audience to stand up and everyone gives them applause.