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mediocrewallflow3r · 1 year

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To Be Loved and Have Loved - (Nathan Prescott/ AFAB Reader) Pt. 1

Title: To be Loved and Have Loved

Part 1, Part 2

Pairing: Post-Storm Nathan Prescott/ Female Reader

Rating: Explicit- minors shoo!

Word Count: 1.7k

Content/Warnings: A continuation to @delopsia 's "To Build A Home", takes place directly after, Sloppy makeouts, Light Dom/sub, Good Nathan Prescott, Life is Strange Comic Lore, post-storm, Nathan ruining his Father's dining room out of spite, plus size! reader, Nathan being soft for only the reader, Aftercare, slight subspace, future Metallica References, Nathan Prescott Needs a Hug, Praise Kink, Safe Sane and Consensual, Fluff and Smut.

A/N: Hi there my lovelies! It’s been a long while. I’ve been away improving my art in college, trying to improve at writing, and becoming a part of the Tumblr community. This is a continuation of https://www.tumblr.com/delopsia/672519407059222528/to-build-a-home?source=share and will be posted in parts. Pre-writing and posting I reached out to Del and got permission to continue their lovely fic. I’m honored that I can post my writing in addition to theirs! Feedback is very appreciated and please go check out Del!

"Why do I get the feeling that you're planning something devious?" You chirp as the two of you begin walking to your car.

"How do you feel about joining me for a secret rendezvous in my father's precious dining room?".

"Why most definitely my good sir!" you gallantly respond, curtsying for dramatic effect.

"You're a fucking weirdo, you know that right?" Nathan says, shaking his head incredulously. Though, you can see the blush dusting his pale ears.

The stars above twinkle brightly in the suburban sky while you and Nathan pile into your car, excitement buzzing between the both of you.

After turning the ignition, Nathan's hand gently reaches over and squeezes your thigh. His nimble fingers toy with the tights almost bursting because of your larger thighs.

"What's that for, cowboy?".

You watch as his bright blue eyes meet yours, amusement painting his features.

Nathan adverts his gaze from the stars and meets your eyes. "Nothing in particular, nerd," Nathan smirks under your intense gaze.

Huffing, you pull out of the old church parking lot. You see in the corner of your eye Nathan waves to a few people. A smile graces your lips at the thought he considers some survivors worthy of a wave now.

Driving through the back roads of Arcadia Bay proves interesting, many broken limbs and scrap are still littering the road- hindering the ability of drivers. You try not to think about the families that may have not survived while you drive past crushed homes.

From what you've heard, Max and Chloe have found a place closer to the remnants of downtown Arcadia. According to Victoria, Max is even collaborating with her art gallery in New York. She mentioned something about Chloe working up to being a small-town mechanic. You try not to think about Mark Jefferson's ongoing trial.

"What're you thinkin' so hard about, little doe?" Nathan questions, gently. His thumb tugs and twists at your tights fervently.

"Our friends." You sigh.

"Pfftt- we have friends? Since when?".

"Since you got off your high horse and we started leaving our home more,".

Nathan tugs your tights in retaliation, snapping them back loudly for effect.

"Don't get bratty with me, Y/N, you know better,".

"That's ironic coming from you, Mr. 'The Prescott’s rule this town!'".

Nathan laughs, a real goofy laugh, his canine teeth shining bright in the moonlight.

He rolls down the windows, whooping and hollering, suddenly. Your eyes can't stray away from his strawberry-blonde hair swirling around in the breeze.

"Yeah, I'd fucking suppose so!" He shouts back over the loud wind.

Giggling quietly, your eyes catch a glance of the Prescott Manor gate between the dark trees causing you to pull into the long-winded driveway subsequently. The lights are off, as per usual. You allow yourself to enjoy the cold night air like the person beside you in the vehicle.

Hesitantly, you pull into the garage. The lights automatically turn on brightly, allowing you to see the drywall- that you know must cost more than your entire tuition. The old Nathan would have pretended not to see your shaking hands gripping the steering wheel tight, but this one can't and won't miss that shit.

Surprisingly, Nathan begins to lean over the center console, his hand moving from your thigh to gently squeeze your hand. In the corner of your eye, you see his normally death-worthy stare turn soft.

"You can relax baby, I don't care if you hit the drywall. I've done it before for fucks sake!".

"You noticed?".

"How could I have not? You're shaking like a goddamn leaf.".

You purse your lips, nodding. You know Nathan is right, but the one interaction you experienced with his father sits heavy in your mind. The anxious silence stretches whilst Nathan begins to gather your coats and other belongings from the back seat.

You hear the click of the passenger door opening and then Nathan speaking gently to you, "Let's go, weirdo.". On autopilot, you open the car door and begin walking towards the Manor doorsteps. Nathan, much further ahead of you, shifts through his keys looking for the correct one. After a few moments, you hear a quiet "a ha!" When he finds the right key.

Nathan pushes the door open with you wandering close behind him. He hits the main hallway light switch. Both of you take off your shoes in comfortable silence. You were taking much longer, the converse adorning your feet proving difficult to take off quickly.

Then, Nathan's sharp cupid bow is kissing your ear, and his rough hands gently squeeze your shoulders. "We don't have to do this tonight," he whispers into the dusted pink shell of your ear.

Oh God, but I want to.

Pushing your back firmer onto his chest, you respond bashfully, "I want this, I do, I'm just nervous.".

Nathan's hands wander, slipping under your sweater- caressing your stomach and happy trail. "Why're you nervous? It's just me,".

"I want things to be good for you,", I don't want you to leave me, remains heavy in your mind as you nervously chuckle out into the dusty Manor hallway.

Nathan's hands stop in their tracks. "Are you fucking serious?".

Unspoken words sour inside Nathans's mouth; "Do you know who I am? I've killed people. My hands shouldn't be touching your kind body. I've been with so many people, you shouldn't have second best as your first. I have to take medicine to be sane. I scream and shout at you regularly. You shouldn't trust me.".

Caressing his right-hand causes Nathan's eyes to droop warmly as he lets out a quiet, "humph".

"Ever since I've met you, I haven't wanted anybody else...", you continue, laying everything out on the table- literally.

"Then I s'pose we're on the same fuckin' page, baby. ", Nathan’s voice has got that deep, gravelly tone to it again, the tone that you remember with vivid detail, the tone he used that one Thursday morning before the storm.

Your shoulders fold inwards, warmth blooming inside your chest. Nathan's chest presses into your shoulder blades while freezing hands play with your belly button piercing, and his breath fans out across the baby hairs growing on your neck. He's everywhere but nowhere.

"To the dining room...?".

"Fuck yeah, doe-eyes.".

Efficiently, Nathan hauls you up into his lanky arms and quickly walks down the winding corridor. Abruptly, he turns to the left entering his family's large dining room. He pauses at the door briefly, allowing you to hit the light switch.

Almost immediately, the ridiculously large chandelier gracing the ceiling of the room lit up brightly. Nathan moved less than gracefully, sitting you down in a dining chair. He made quick work of the dusty table settings, quite obviously for decoration, by grasping the end of the tablecloth and yanking it off the table.

Before you could even register the loud noises of shattered glass, Nathan's soft lips were on yours. Nathan gently cradled your head, his other arm lifting you onto the wooden dining table. Soft groans settled in the back of his throat after hearing a small whimper from you.

Taking a breath, Nathan leaned forward on yours, his nose brushing gently on yours. “Easy, easy, baby,” he whispered, “It’s just me,”. Please don’t be scared of me , remains on the tip of his tongue. “I know,” you whispered back, understanding. A pause settled in the dining room, heavy gasps coming in and out of both of your lungs.

Nathan settles onto his forearms, lips brushing against yours but not entirely closing the gap, bony hips circling gently into yours. “I think I’m getting major Deja-vu right now, Nate,” you chuckled, brushing your fingers through his fiery hair.

“I don’t think this time’ll be the same,” Nathan chuckled, chin resting on the top of your sternum.

"Can I touch you?", you ask gently, hands itching to reach out and touch.

Nathan's eyes flick away from your face, his teeth beginning to chew on his lip anxiously. You feel a tremor run through his spine.

"Uh- yeah, you can touch me, just- um- tell me where before you do," Nathan stutters out, his eyes not meeting your hopeful ones.

"Okay," you whisper, smiling up at him.

Nathan's lips tug into a soft smile and his dimples show slightly despite his avoidance of eye contact.

"Can I touch uh- down there? " You nervously ask, peering up at Nathan's sharp features.

Way to fucking go Shakespeare.

Airy chuckles erupt from Nathan's lungs, his laughter shaking the both of you.

"Yes, babe, you can touch my dick, that's why we're fuckin’ here, to begin with,", he says in amusement, a smirk gracing his rose pout.

Your smile quickly shifts into a pathetic pout, and Nathan's face softens upon seeing the change in emotion. "Don't be upset baby, you're doing just what I asked," he coos at you, his fingers slightly pinching your cheek. That once faint, woodsy musk cologne invades your senses, his praise settling deep into your lower abdomen. Nathan's lips brush against yours and his tongue cheekily licks over your lips to the tip of your nose. An amused breath releases from Nathan’s lungs as you continue attempting to lock lips with him. Silently, your hand clenches up and hits Nathan’s shoulder in respite.

“Stop teasing me, you motherfucker,” you whimper out in frustration, your legs flailing underneath the weight of Nathan’s lithe body.

If he doesn’t fuck you six ways to Sunday soon, you’re going to be so pissed at him.

Nathan’s slick tongue trails over your collarbone up to the ridges of your neck slowly. His hands glide over the plush skin adorning your hips, and deep short breaths release from his nose loudly.

“I’ll tease you when I wanna’ tease you,” Nathan teases, his voice being muffled by the spot of your skin he’s worrying to death with his teeth.

In retaliation of some sort, your right hand begins drifting down towards the stiff bulge prominent in Nathan’s designer jeans. Your fingers sneak under the waistline quietly and begin brushing your hand over the curls adorning his happy trail. Nathan ever distracted with the large hickies that he’s painting your chest with, groans in surprise.

Your fingers brush over the tip of his cock gently, the girth taking you by surprise.

“When were you gonna’ tell me you were packing?”, you tease Nathan, loosely gripping his cock.

A soft, “Fuck,” comes out in a deep breath from Nathan while his fingers travel from your hips up to your plump tits.

“I didn’t plan on telling you, I planned on showing you,” he chuckles.

“Then fucking show me you tease!” you shout at him, almost playfully. Deep down you want him to snap, to let go.

Quickly Nathan’s hand gently slaps your thigh, re-establishing his commanding demeanor. He leans his face right in front of yours as his intense gaze bears down on you; “You’ll get what you want, you know that, so behave,” he hisses out.

#nathan prescott #life is strange #lis #max caulfield #chloe price #victoria chase #mark jefferson #fanfic #wallflower writes (✿◠‿◠#nathan prescott/reader #nathan prescott x reader

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inthelittlewood · 1 year

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I'm confused by Grian's motivations. During the Q&A you mentioned the boogeyman being what caused him to disagree with the Watchers which, sure. But that would mean he was fine with trapping people (many of whom being his friends) in death games to harvest negative emotions in the first place which seems contradictory to past statements and brings into question why he was in Third Life at all? I'm trying to figure out if you misspoke or if that was the intended meaning

Sounds like I misspoke probably. This is why I continually answer asks and doing the post season lore streams to hash things out is a good thing, as I'm no kind of trained or practiced author. I have some big narrative beats to hit but aside from that it's as improv as the Life series is to an extent. I'd have to be giga brain to have written all of this just after 3rd Life ended lol

The way I see it currently is Grian was taken on as a Watcher from EVO and at that time, the feeding on emotions was a normal activity. An even spread of good and bad emotions were drawn from, not overly impactful to the player.

As time passed the other Watchers began feeding more on negative emotions and in vastly larger quantities which began to take a toll. Not only were they causing small fragmentation of people's souls but they were stripping away emotions in such a rapid fashion that players lost the opportunity to practice things like forgiveness, empathy and recovery. So they lost out mentally as well as soulfully (is that a word? ha)

Grian was in 3rd Life as a player after he'd decided to part from the Watchers that inducted him. They'd run a few deathmatches already (no idea how many) and it didn't sit well with him the directions things were steering.

His goal so far has been to lighten the mood of these games to 'sour' the feast for the Watchers who at this point, will only accept negative emotions and if at all possible, help liberate the players once and for all.

It's a similar goal to the Listeners, but not exact, so there's been zero communication between the two so far. I think both Grian and the Listeners see each other's meddling as beneficial to the other. They're each making small progress as opposed to a stalemate if they faced the Watchers head on.

Those cracks in the control and armour for The Watchers heightened this past season with the soul channeling of Cleo/Pearl and is why Grian's aura was disrupted and he ended up in a vacant state (during the afk episode)

Does that make sense?

I'll definitely contradict myself at times but it's why I do lore dumps publicly so people can fact check me. This is all just for fun, so keep prodding me y'all :)

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tadahoni · 7 months

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A House in Nebraska

movie! Mike Schmidt x f! reader

part one

synopsis: After the events of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, Mike decides it's time for a change. Whether that means just a visit to Nebraska or fully uprooting him and Abby to move back home could possibly be a decision that rests in your hands.

warnings: (kinda?) angst, fluff, childhood friends to lovers trope, mentions of loss, emotional vulnerability, not FNAF lore accurate, not proof-read

A/N: omg hey guys, I know I haven't written in eons, but I just went through a major depressive episode, and Ethel Cain has been helping me a lot through it. So when the Five Nights at Freddy's movie came out and a whole Nebraska plot point was introduced, I just. (╯°□°)╯( ┻━┻. So enjoy! I might continue with more chapters if y'all enjoy it :3

It was hard for Mike, to return back to the little town after so many years. He wasn’t sure if he was ready, but when would he be? After learning about what really happened to Garrett and getting back on his feet after the whole pizzeria incident, he wanted a fresh start. Besides, he wanted to make sure Abby was safe. He was older and smarter, and definitely more aware, so if he was going to do anything in Nebraska, it was making sure that he didn’t make the same mistake with her that he did so many years ago.

It wasn’t official. Of course, Mike couldn’t uproot their entire lives and cause another stressful event after the duo had just endured one of the most traumatic times of their lives. But after getting closure on his brother’s disappearance and working on himself in therapy (per Vanessa’s recommendation), Mike felt ready to visit the old town he grew up in. Whether he moved here or not was still up in the air.

The old diner he used to frequent as a kid was still intact, and since Abby had been begging for a hot dog since their arrival, Mike thought it was time to make a pit stop for lunch.

Upon entering the rinky-dink diner, the familiar bell jingled above him and the two were seated by a middle-aged woman. She set two menus on the table, and she talked about whatever specials the diner had that day. Her raspy smoker’s voice became mere background noise as Mike scanned the restaurant, the memories flooding in. He remembered celebrating a friend’s birthday in the corner by the exit, and a family dinner in another booth by the bathroom. It was all bittersweet, maybe a bit too much. Overwhelmed, he contemplated getting the order to go so he could book it out as fast as possible until his eyes landed on you.

Everything in this town was still a blur to Mike, so he wasn’t sure if it was a figment of his imagination or if he actually saw you. The diner’s old uniform suited you really well, considering how aged it was. Your hair was pulled in the messy sock bun that the other waitresses sported as well, and Mike would have brushed your presence off as something we were imagining if it weren’t for the way your eyebrows furrowed at the cash register; the same way they did when you were both young, when you would concentrate on your homework or a video game you were both playing.

Mike was brought out of his trance as the woman seating him and Abby coughed up a lung, then spoke “Y/n will be with you shortly.”

The feeling of enchantment that Mike was feeling suddenly turned to pure terror. He was fine looking at you from afar and wondering if it was you behind that counter. But now he knew it was, in fact, you. And he was going to talk to you.

Mike felt guilty- he hadn’t contacted you in over ten years. You probably didn’t even know about Abby. He couldn’t do anything about it now- the raspy-voiced woman had already made her way over to you, nodding towards the table and walking away. He barely had time to prepare as your gaze met his.

It was like a bomb went off in his chest the way Mike’s heart started pounding. You didn’t seem to recognize him immediately, but there was definitely a twinge of recognition behind your eyes.

As you approached, Mike was sure that digging his head in his menu was the best course of action. However, upon peeking over the top of it, he realized that he had forgotten one crucial detail:

Abby was smart, and judging by the way she was staring at her older brother, she had absolutely figured out that something was wrong.

Before Mike could even mouth anything to the 10-year-old, you had already approached the table.

“Welcome to The Red Brick Diner, can I take your-”

“Mike was looking at you. Do you know him?”

Dammit, Abby. After casting a warning glance at his smug-faced little sister, Mike peered over the menu at you.

This time he was absolutely sure it was you. Despite being several years older, he could still see the youth in your eyes and the same curve in your lips when you smiled.

“Mike Schmidt?” you greeted him warmly, your smile curling to its full potential. “I thought that was you! I haven’t heard from you in years!”

Nervous energy coursed through Mike’s body, and he was almost certain he forgot to breathe. Here he was, sitting right in front of his childhood best friend, someone he hadn’t spoken to in a decade, and he had no idea how to even say hello. But he managed.

“Yeah, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?” He chuckled, a weak smile making its way to his mouth. A little sneaker kicked his shin, and he jumped before glaring at the offender.

“Right. This is my little sister, Abby. Abby, this is (y/n), she was really good friends with me and.. Yeah.”

Everyone knew what happened to Garrett, it wasn’t a big town by any means. But everyone knew better than to bring it up, and Mike was relieved when you brushed off his slip of the tongue and held out your hand to shake Abby’s hand.

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Abby,” you beamed, and all of a sudden the confidence Abby had just moments before to completely freak Mike out was gone and she shyly reciprocated. You turned back to Mike and pulled out the notepad from your apron, clicking the pen that was already in your hand. “Here, I’ll take your orders and give them to the chef, then I can come back and we can catch up,” you spoke before pausing and looking back up at Mike. “...if that’s okay with you?”

Now, Mike already knew the answer to this question was “yes.” However, with the influx of emotions and memories that had plagued his brain, his thoughts were muddled, and the simple task of speaking was now ten times harder. “Uh… yea! Yes, that’s gr- good! That’s great! Yea.. I’d like that.”

You smiled and took the order, and before you left the table to put in orders, Mike was met with another shin kick. Abby looked at him, miming a scribble on the table. Wondering where her sudden shyness came from, Mike looked at you once more. “Do you happen to have a kids' menu? Like one of the stupid sheets with the crayons?” “They’re not stupid Mike!”

You laughed out loud at the sibling back-and-forth, and Mike felt his heart leap at the familiarity of the sound.

“We do, I’ll bring one back with me when I come back,” you replied, writing one more thing down on her notepad before making her way back to the kitchen.

Mike, watching you leave, took a deep breath. He didn’t know what to expect, and he certainly was worried whether this would affect his decision to move here. But he had to do one thing before his mind was filled with thoughts of you.

“Ow! Mike!”

“Don’t dish it if you can’t take it, Abs.”

#mike schimdt x reader #mike schmidt x fem!reader #five nights at freddy's #fnaf #fnaf movie #five nights at freddy's movie #mike schmidt #josh hutcherson

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crystallizedday · 10 months

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DISCLAIMER: THIS INFORMATION FOR THE DOAI CD AU IS OUTDATED. I WILL POST AN UPDATED VERSION EVENTUALLY

When I feel like it

& can properly flesh shit out

You’ll see it eventually.

FUCK YEAH!!

WRITING HEADCANONS FOR HORRIFYING MAN-EATING MONSTERS!! LETS GOOOOOO!!

I got this idea cause I knew I’d clutter up the og DOAI CD AU post if I just added all these goofy ahh headcanons into THAT post, so here we are.

Anyway uhhhh

Let’s go.

General shit:

• All six Veldigun go by their canon pronouns that have been confirmed in a recent Pastra stream. Clyde goes by it/its, Winfrey goes by they/them; Klaus goes by he/him, Jack goes by they/them, Simon goes by he/him, & Flock goes by it/its

• Veldiguns CAN eat actual foods, but they don’t gain anything from it. They’re void creatures, so that shit just gets obliterated from reality the moment it gets consumed. They do so just cause they enjoy the taste of whatever they eat… MOSTLY Clyde & Winfrey. The other four don’t really do that nearly as often, if at all.

• Mind consumption works like… reading through a book. You skim through it, you get a general rough idea of the entire thing, shit like that. The Veldigun don’t ever LET the minds of others warp them unless they ALLOW them to, i.e. gaining a certain impression upon skimming through the memories of a person they just consumed.

• All Veldigun actually look SO MUCH more grotesque & animalistic than they appear to humans most of the time. Their more cutesy cartoon appearance is just a result of them causing hallucinations, which is almost always unconsciously done by them.

• A Veldigun’s touch is only lethal if they WISH it to be so. It is a manual tactic that they can control, just as long as they aren’t accidentally spooked or something.

• Veldigun still sleep, just a lil less frequently than humans do. Some Veldigun definitely sleep more than others, but this is more so based on some of them choosing to continue hunting & shit instead of sleeping rather than it being for a specific biological reason.

• Yes. Clyde & Winfrey are canonically a ✨thing✨ in this AU & have been for quite a while by the time Winfrey got captured. They are very much gay & in love & you cannot stop me.

• The overall timeline for the series is a LOT more spread out than it was in the old DOAI lore. For instance…

- Clyde Lankmann, the first human Clyde the Veldigun consumed, was the man who started the Lankmann Foundation & died during the late 1800s. He wasn’t the first to die though as a “good friend” of his, William Winfrey, was tricked into walking right into one of the Veldigun’s clutches by Lankmann himself to be rid of the bothersome musician.

- Simon Lankmann died in the early 1900s after he cut ties with the Lankmann family altogether & started a family on a rather secluded farm (the whole family later being consumed by Simon the Veldigun).

-Klaus Kruger was a young man who died in the mid 1900s. The Krugers & Lankmanns were actually part of the same family tree at this point, with Klaus finding interest in the Lankmann family business. This interest led to them stumbling across Jack Walker, an incredibly impressionable boy who Klaus used as his puppet the second he laid eyes on the poor guy. The two would get up to all sorts of trouble regarding drugs & even murdering a few people, with Klaus in particular genuinely showing a sense of excitement over their wrongdoings.

- “Vincent” Lankmann is the most RECENT Lankmann to date in the timeline. He is around 50 years old when the AU takes place (aka the late 1990s) & is looking to find out how to kill a Veldigun so he can do the one thing his many predecessors before him could not: outsmart them.

Clyde:

• Clyde prefers to munch on fruits or fruit-flavored shit. Lemons are its favorite by far.

• Alternatively, Clyde HATES anything that even REMOTELY smells like garlic & onions, much like actual cats & lizards. Having them on hand won’t save a victim from Clyde, but it’ll at least force it to get crafty with catching you off guard or getting rid of that PUTRID smell first.

• It’s often seen having a rather bouncy & giddy personality, but this is because this is just what the lil goofball’s like around Winfrey or when indulging in its hobbies. Bro’s a lil shit around other people, ESPECIALLY ones that it doesn’t particularly like. It sort of acts rather emotionless or awkward around people it doesn’t know (who are not prey) by default.

• Despite that fact, Clyde has a LIL bit of an ego that tends to show from time to time, especially over its own crafts & actions. Because of this, it is a LOT more susceptible to getting embarrassed or self defensive than its partner, & will often hold quite a few grudges, sometimes for even the smallest of things.

• Clyde uses a lot of its free time to learn certain skills such as sewing & baking. Why? For Winfrey. Clyde was the one to make Winfrey’s outfit after all, & it quite enjoys making outfits for the both of them now that it’s gotten into the habit of doing so. As much as Clyde loves getting into a ton of different hobbies to keep itself doing shit constantly, they’re MOST of the time going to have something to do with Winfrey. Call Clyde a malewife & I will send the horde to fetch your soul for me WIWOWKWOWKDOOSKFKEEKKR

• It may be… not great at singing, but it still loves singing along with Winfrey whenever it can. Winfrey finds it adorable.

• Ever since it stole that one onesie from Grimmso’s & rescued Winfrey, it’s developed quite the interest for dressing up. Sure, not everything fits perfectly, but it enjoys trying on different outfits just for the heck of it.

• Since a lot of human clothes can already fit Clyde already, most of its outfit-making work is focused solely on Winfrey, making them into a bit of a fashion model for the lil guy. Winfrey may not always agree with whatever Clyde makes, but they both enjoy the process of it nonetheless since Clyde finds it really fun & Winfrey finds it incredibly adorable.

• Clyde is a crafty lil genius that often flexes its intelligence via petty means, such as overly elaborate pranks (that are often aimed at Klaus).

• Clyde despises Klaus due to Klaus just overall being a jerk towards everyone & despises Simon due to how much of a doormat it perceives the guy as.

• Despite being on the run from the entire continent, Clyde still likes to find certain cool places for it & Winfrey to hang out & have some fun at, such as abandoned or empty amusement parks, malls, all that jazz.

• There’s just something about collecting tiny lil trinkets & gizmos & other various Doo dads that delights Clyde. If it’s small & pretty, it’s most definitely going to grab the lil guy’s attention. Captain Quackers the rubber duck was one of these things of course, but Clyde has collected SO MANY other colorful & cute lil things in the past, some of which it has to leave behind since its collection will often get too much to move from place to place.

• Clyde is extremely intelligent when it comes to strategy & crafting… but lacks a bit of emotional & social awareness that makes it hard for the poor thing to empathize with anyone it is not super close to (aka if they’re not Winfrey) as well as properly understanding & handling its own emotions, which is one of the few things Winfrey has a leg up on it with.

• It ADORES rambling on about all sorts of topics they have a fascination with, especially regarding their knack for crafting. Even so, it’s only ever comfortable info-dumping to Winfrey.

I feel like giving y’all a cute nugget of info about the CD AU.

Winfrey:

• Winfrey has a HUGE sweet tooth & enjoys sugary things & baked goods. They can’t choose a favorite, but some of their favorite foods & drinks are cookies, chocolate candy bars, toffee, cupcakes, and hot chocolate. Overall, they prefer bite-sized treats rather than full-blown desserts, but they’ll take what they can get.

• Their spice tolerance is… well, horrible. Even smelling it makes them wanna gag. Unlike Clyde, having something spicy on hand will MOST LIKELY actually save you since Winfrey is nowhere near as crafty & clever like Clyde is. You could probably chase the big guy around with a chili pepper if you feel daring, but I personally wouldn’t recommend it… not just cause you’ll most likely die regardless, but also because that’s cruel & you shouldn’t be scaring poor Winnie like that. How fuckin DARE you??

• Despite being a bit of a dimwit, they ADORE music, especially orchestral or classical music. If they hear a famous century old song play in one way or another, you BET your ass Winfrey’s gonna identify that shit INSTANTLY. This stays even after being traumatized by Lankmann, which is something Clyde both finds adorable & is relieved by.

• Winfrey also admires more complex and intricate outfits, & would be THRILLED to wear something quite dapper if it wasn’t for the fact that… well… they’re fuckin HUGE. Clyde still tries its best to make the big guy look as nice as it possibly can though, & that’s good enough for Winfrey. JWOWKSKWKDKEKEO

• Winfrey’s mouth wasn’t ALWAYS closed like that. The only reason it’s currently a blank slate by default is because Winfrey did that to themselves back when Lankmann had JUST captured them & started interrogating them regarding Clyde’s whereabouts. Beeg guy thought they could give Lankmann the permanent silent treatment, but it didn’t turn out so well for them JAOWDKWOFKWOOD

• Even though they no longer have the bouncy personality they used to, they still get excited & bubbly every now & again, particularly when they & Clyde find a fun place to mess around in or when they get to talk about music… just in general KWOWMDOWKDK

• Winfrey is a lot more open to being social than Clyde, particularly due to their old fascination with humans & their culture. Even after what happened at the asylum, they don’t find it hard at all to empathize with others, sometimes even to an excessive degree. Even so, they are definitely more so a listener rather than a speaker & will rarely ever initiate the conversation.

• They can easily tear open their mouth to speak without feeling an ounce of pain. They can do this due to how their skin isn’t ENTIRELY solid & is still very much composed of classic veldigoop. This goopiness is mainly apparent for the skin that covers their mouth while the rest of the body is decently solid & hard to tear. This is also why Winfrey’s face-skin can easily and flawlessly reconnect after Winfrey is done talking: that shit can just mold back together into one solid piece like putting two chunks of slime together.

• Winfrey enjoys hearing Clyde ramble, no matter the topic at hand. Rarely do they ever understand a lick of what Clyde’s talking about, but they just like hearing Clyde so passionate & excited about something. That & its nerdy rambles are just adorable to listen to IWNWOWKWOWNEOWM

Didn’t know which of the two’s lil categories to put this in, so uh…

I’m putting this as it’s own separate point.

Whenever they can, Clyde & Winfrey like to hop on a train to get around.

Something about trains strangely comforts Clyde, & it almost ALWAYS falls asleep as soon as the two can find their way into a fairly empty & unattended train car to crash in.

Winfrey really enjoys the view they get to see on a moving train, especially during sunset.

Klaus:

• He & Jack actually spend a lot of time in America rather than Canada like the rest of the Veldigun.

• Klaus’ methods for murdering his victims (solo) often has to do with them either luring or simply picking children off the streets. He may enjoy using Jack to finish the job, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they ALWAYS have Jack do it.

• Klaus is ALL business, meaning he & Jack don’t do ANY of the cutesy fun shit that Clyde & Winfrey do. Hell, Klaus finds that shit repulsive. All Klaus & Jack do is kill & try not to get hunted down by the entire continent by moving from place to place CONSTANTLY.

• Despite him being all business… come on, that rat bastard’s definitely tried a cigar at least ONCE at some point. LOOK at them.

Jack:

• Jack sees themselves as just Klaus’ sidekick rather than his equal, obviously thanks to Klaus himself. Because of this, they have VERY little self worth & feels that abandoning Klaus for whatever reason would leave Jack with nothing.

• They never openly admit or display their own opinions on ANYTHING, ALWAYS agreeing with what Klaus says, even if they internally don’t agree in the slightest.

• Jack is actually jealous of Clyde & Winfrey with how strong their relationship is. Klaus may hate the two for being mushy & annoying, but Jack hates them because they can’t stand seeing the two doing much better & being far happier than Jack is.

• For killing, they are usually (in their box form) carefully placed in specific situations where Klaus knows there won’t be any unnecessary witnesses that they can’t catch. Once they’re confident their victim(a) are close enough that they can’t get away, Jack springs into action, preferring to chomp down on the victim’s skull or one of their limbs to incapacitate them so Klaus can come in & either watch them slowly pass or finish the job himself.

• Jack is NOT sadistic like Klaus is, but does not mind killing either because they just see it as a norm at this point. Like… yeah, they’re bummed they can’t eat what they hunt half the time, but it’s just how life do be, so they just roll with it.

• Jack can imitate a plethora of noises, particularly more industrial & mechanical sounding noises such as radio static or *metal pipe sound effect* JWOWKDOWKDOEFK

• They do not eat real food too often, but when they do, they prefer pizza. Doesn’t matter what’s on it.

Simon:

• Even though he never really talk when on his own or with the Flock, he CAN talk. He even happily welcomes any visitors that stop by if they ever catch on that he’s alive.

• Since be chooses to stay at the same farm that Simon Lankmann lived, he doesn’t get much word on what’s happening with the other Veldigun or… just anything in general unless he’s directly told shit by someone else.

• He can sympathize with pretty much ALL the other Veldigun (some more than others… Klaus being at the very bottom of that list for good reason) & do not resent them for continuing to consume the minds of people. He’ll still try to persuade them otherwise, but he’s still pretty accepting of all of them (except for Klaus). He definitely feels bad for Jack the most, always encouraging the big guy to come visit more often but Jack rarely ever takes the deal, fearing what Klaus would do if he ever found out about it.

• He enjoys the taste of corn, which he likes to share with the Flock as well… who will just down the whole ear. Overall, Simon loves any kind of edible vegetation.

• Only VERY FEW have seen what he looks like UNDER the cloth… & you, the reader, are not one of em, so I’m not describing what they look like to you. >:))))))))))

The Flock

• It’s not the brightest, but it can recognize a friendly face from a threat & will act accordingly. For instance, if it knows you’re a friend, it is GOING to demand pets. It’s inevitable. If you are an asshole doing asshole things, it’s going to peck at your head until you fuckin beat it.

• It enjoys eating corn, but it untimately prefers slices of bread. Why? Cause in the off chance that it gets spotted & acts cute enough, there’s gonna be some poor saps who feed it bread every now & again & give the big guy attention, & the Flock LOVES that. It loves receiving bread from kind strangers who don’t know any better. Popcorn also suffices.

• It has the ability to mimic noises like Jack can, but instead of anything industrial, it’s particularly animal noises as well as SOME human phrases, even if it doesn’t actually mean the phrases it sometimes says. So yes, you CAN teach the Flock to say “Fuck”, but Simon isn’t going to be too happy about it. NWIWKDOWOKDM

Lankmann

•

• Linda didn’t NEED to die. He could’ve just let Clyde be contained & gotten all the information he needed to kill these things for good. But he didn’t. Someone was getting too close to the truth, someone he couldn’t just make “disappear”. He needed a way to cover his tracks & be rid of the evidence. It just so happened that Clyde came at QUITE the opportune time. Linda wasn’t that talented of a doctor anyway. No one was going to miss her.

Zamn.

Anyway, I might update this if I think of more headcanons to add in the future, but this is all for now! Thanks for reading!

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ghostradiodylan · 4 months

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Hey I’m the anon that sent in the ask about Nick getting his leg cut off! Thank you for answering it and I’m glad you think it’s an interesting idea!

I wanted to expand on it a little if that’s okay….

Who do you think would end up doing it? Maybe one of the counselors in the poolroom with him would ask Dylan about his hand being gone and then suggest the idea for Nick?

Or maybe, sometime during the night after Abi shoots him and he runs away, Nick is back in human form. He’s just sitting there, thinking, then he remembers Dylan’s hand being gone and puts two and two together. He ends up finding something sharp in the woods (like a machete or some razor wire) and cutting the leg off himself. Maybe there would have to be some QTEs the player has to catch in order for him to do it right. Maybe in this scenario, his survival is dependent on Jacob or Emma. If Jacob and/or Emma are alive and/or uninfected, one of them will find him and help him back to the main camp house where he can take refuge in the storm shelter with Abi and/or Emma. If neither of them are alive, however, he would be alone in the woods and bleed out, making another possible death for him.

In either scenario, there could also be a cute scene with Nick and Emma in the storm shelter where he apologizes to her and they reconcile.

Sorry for rambling! I just think this would be a cool alternative idea for Nick so he is shown more in the game!

Hey anon, sorry for taking so long to get to this (and to my other asks, I swear I will answer them all eventually!)

Here’s part 1 of this ask

Adding what @fullmoonhijinks said in a reblog here too to keep it all in the conversation:

"I suddenly super need to know if the lycanthrope is more curse or more infection. Like, it operates a bit as both, obviously, but is it like venom? We know people have different tolerances for it, some take longer to change - is that a constitution thing? Jacob does take the longest time to change, but Nick is one of the shortest. Emma takes a different amount of time depending if she was bitten by Max or Caleb, so are different werewolves different levels of toxic? Is it about the location of the bite? Does it travel via the bloodstream or the lymphatic system? Would a tourniquet or pressure immobilisation bandaging help stave it off? In Australia we're taught how to treat snake bites in infants school, if Nick had insisted on that kind of first aid would he have made it long enough for Laura to explain and for a choice about amputation to be made? Would they have believed Laura's story without seeing Nick transform?

Juicy, juicy alternate realities..."

So I think this is super relevant to anon's question as far as: how soon do we need to cut to stop the spread, and how do we know where to cut to stop the spread?

My instinct is that even by the time Dylan suggests amputation for Nick, it would already be too late (not that anyone is going for it anyway), but I don't know that for sure. We see the black branching up Dylan's arm pretty quickly after he gets bitten, but cutting off his hand still takes care of it, so it's like the physical bite itself is somehow continuing to spread the infection for some unknown amount of time.

So, yeah, no idea how much time we'd have to do it. You definitely wouldn't want to risk doing it too late and ending up limbless AND infected, unless you're pretty darn sure that transforming would cause the limb to grow back. I don't know that I think entire limbs would grow back, I tend to hc that the amputation wound would heal if you were infected, but that's it. But, as with many parts of the lore in this game, it's unclear! We don't see if Laura's eye is actually just badly damaged or if that's a truly empty socket, it's just a dark void in her face.

Anyway, Nick cutting his own leg off with razor wire would be metal as fuck, but I can't imagine him actually doing that!

Part of me wants to say Abi should have to be the one to cut Nick's leg off so we get couples maiming each other symmetry with Dylan and Ryan, but I don't think she'd be able to do it, she's so mild-mannered and I hc her as not being good with blood at all. She does manage to shoot Nick with a shotgun if you choose that though, so maybe I'm not giving her enough credit!

You know who probably would be willing to do it, though? Jacob. Jacob might actually be impulsive enough to cut Nick's leg off with a hacksaw or something if he's around at the right time.

We were just talking in the Discord about needing a 'stop the bleeding' qte for Dylan, something like that would be fun for Nick too. Go find a tourniquet! (I love the possibility of a tourniquet actually slowing the infection too, even without amputating, that's such a good thought!)

Lots to chew on about infections and amputations, for sure!

#the quarry #hello beautiful anon #chewing on lore #brainrot with bunny #cut it off cut it off cut it off

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seandwalsh · 1 year

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If it’s not too much to ask, could you provide a rundown of Mario and Peach’s relationship throughout the history of the games — any developer insights and supporting material included if applicable? Their interactions have never failed to make me smile; I feel like every moment between them, no matter how simple, elevate my enjoyment of the games.

Do you have a favorite moment? For me, I think the ending of the first Paper Mario is my definitive Mario and Peach moment. Everything from the music to the scenery to how innocent it plays out perfectly encapsulates their relationship.

While other series, like Splatoon or The Legend of Zelda tend to have a greater focus on their worldbuilding and backstory, I think Mario’s greatest strength when it comes to its lore is its rich characters and how their relationships come together. You don’t follow the same main cast in The Legend of Zelda for more than a game or two at a time. With Mario, well - he’s always the same Mario. He’s familiar, and his personality is so strong that he continues to be the Mario we know, no matter the medium. It seems that Mario’s current primary developers, Yoshiaki Koizumi and Kenta Motokura, feel the same way:

"No matter what worlds he takes on, Mario remains Mario. Maybe this is strange but I find that fact very comforting,"

[Source: Yoshiaki Koizumi, Director and Producer of the Super Mario series, CNN Business, September 2020]

“…you can take Mario, or a Mario franchise character, and put them in pretty much any situation and it makes it okay. […] Mario carries it off.”

[Source: Kenta Motokura, Designer and Director of the Super Mario series, GameInformer, June 2017]

“Mario himself is a very strong character, so wherever he is he is strong enough to stand alone and be a good character. And even if he's next to a dinosaur, he's Mario!”

[Source: Kenta Motokura, Designer and Director of the Super Mario series, Metro, June 2017]

That’s not to say that Mario doesn’t have quite in-depth worldbuilding and backstory as well, but I think these characters are greatly understood by the people who work with them while largely being overlooked, misunderstood or written off by fans.

This is why relationships, like the one shared between Mario and Peach, can be such a highlight for players.

Mario and Peach, while not explicitly dating, are absolutely smitten with each other.

In fact, it seems that Mario instantly fell in love with Peach the moment he saw her, when she kissed him in Super Mario Bros.. Mario was so in love with Princess Peach that, according to the team behind Donkey Kong (Game Boy), it’s what caused Mario to break up with Pauline:

“Apparently the land of mushrooms is somehow in the vicinity of Donkey Kong's stomping ground that appears at the end [of Donkey Kong (Game Boy)]. Around that point, he meets Peach, and probably starts to have a change of heart [about Pauline] (laughs).”

[Source: Shigeru Miyamoto, Producer of Donkey Kong (Game Boy), Game Boy Donkey Kong Wonder Life Special - APE Inc. Official Nintendo Guide, June 1994]

“After that, Mario became famous, so Pauline must have gotten dumped (laughs).”

[Source: Masayuki Kameyama, Director of Donkey Kong (Game Boy), Game Boy Donkey Kong Wonder Life Special - APE Inc. Official Nintendo Guide, June 1994]

Paper Mario in its entirety is certainly a great example of Mario and Peach’s relationship. While the ending where they watch the fireworks is a highlight, the intro also showcases her attempts to spend time with Mario, eagerly awaiting him in the upper parts of the castle and wanting him to accompany her to the balcony.

“Oh! By the way, Princess Peach has been waiting for you.”

[Source: A Green Toad Girl, Staff of Princess Peach’s Castle, Non-player Character in Paper Mario (Nintendo 64), February 2001]

“I think Princess Peach has been looking forward to seeing you since this morning, Mario. She's been restless... hee hee hee... How cute...”

[Source: A Pink Toad Girl, Staff of Princess Peach’s Castle, Non-player Character in Paper Mario (Nintendo 64), February 2001]

“Oh, Mario! You came to the party to see me! You're so sweet! Thank you!♥ I was just resting a bit. It gets tiring, greeting all those guests out there! Nobody will bother us here. Shall we relax and chat, just the two of us? It was a lovely day today, so I'm sure it's comfortable out on the balcony right now. Would you accompany me, Mario?”

[Source: Princess Peach, Ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom, Non-player Character in Paper Mario (Nintendo 64), February 2001]

She gets worried about him while she’s kidnapped:

“I wonder what Mario is doing right now... I wonder if he's hurt... I'm so worried about him!”

[Source: Princess Peach, Ruler of the Mushroom Kingdom, Non-player Character in Paper Mario (Nintendo 64), February 2001]

Later on, we even learn that Princess Peach keeps a photo of Mario beside her bed, which she reacts to with a heart emoticon:

“A photo of Mario.♥”

She even gets embarrassed about it when Twink points it out.

Generally, the game makes an effort to highlight Mario and Peach’s love for each other beyond most other games in the series:

“Do you know of a place called Shooting Star Summit? It's near this castle. It's such a romantic place... It's definitely the best place for a date. Trust me. Maybe you ought to, you know, ask the princess to go there...”

[Source: A Toad, Resident of the Mushroom Kingdom, Non-player Character in Paper Mario (Nintendo 64), February 2001]

“Does Princess Peach have a special man in her life? She's such a lovely lady... Whoever she loves must be very special indeed...”

[Source: A Green Toad, Resident of the Mushroom Kingdom, Non-player Character in Paper Mario (Nintendo 64), February 2001]

Princess Peach has a very specific view of love, which she has actually expressed before in-game:

“Love... How do I explain? Love tells you when you want to be with a person forever. It makes you feel happy just to see that person happy, smiling...having fun. When you love someone, you will do anything to help when he or she is in trouble.”

[Source: Princess Peach, Princess of the Mushroom Kingdom, Playable Character in Paper Mario: the Thousand Year Door, October 2004]

It’s pretty clear that when she says this, she’s thinking about Mario, between his obvious outwardly happy nature or his willingness to do anything to help her when she’s in trouble. This is reflected in Peach’s own actions in Super Princess Peach, when she saves Mario from Bowser’s clutches. It’s clear from her actions across various games that Peach would do anything to help Mario, and she’s comforted by him even in times of peril.

From taking Mario on a romantic vacation in Super Mario Sunshine, to talking about how caring he is with her paper counterpart, to her team name with him being “Cutest Couple” in Mario Party 5 and Mario Party 6, it’s clear that these two have a strong, devoted and loving relationship with one-another.

But when it comes to my personal favorite moment between them, I feel that my answer is quite a controversial one.

My favourite moment between Mario and Peach is the ending of Super Mario Odyssey.

Now, now. Put your pitchforks away. The main issue with this is that people tend to completely misinterpret the meaning behind this ending, and while I’m not going to go into too much detail here, I think it’s important to understand the intended themes of Super Mario Odyssey.

“[Super Mario Odyssey] is a journey following Mario to save Princess Peach, one of his most [beloved], so we wanted to make this an epic journey.”

[Source: Kenta Motokura, Director of Super Mario Odyssey, Vice, June 2017]

“Mario and Peach's relationship has been a big part of the games for a long [time], and in this game we're getting deeper into it!”

[Source: Kenta Motokura, Director of Super Mario Odyssey, GQ, October 2017]

“I've always thought that Mario carries a bit of a torch for Peach. I think that's true even back in the 2D Mario games. If not, he wouldn't be wasting his time rescuing her over and over again. [As for if Peach feels the same way,] The heart of a woman is a mystery.”

[Source: Yoshiaki Koizumi, Producer of Super Mario Odyssey, GameInformer, June 2017]

It’s clear that Super Mario Odyssey’s story exists to highlight the intricacies of the relationship between Peach and Mario in ways that hadn’t been explored previously. This is why the ending of Super Mario Odyssey is so excellent to me.

“The ending of Super Mario Odyssey is the culmination of an adventure both magnificent and personal. An upbeat song plays in the background while the scene unfolds: the joy of being reunited with someone you've missed, the slight embarrassment that comes with thinking of the one you love, Mario and Bowser's open honesty, and Peach's independence. Through the theme of marriage - which had never been addressed in the series before we see another side of Mario, Peach, and Bowser. The relationship between the three looks like it'll continue for years to come. The odyssey they've embarked on is far from over!”

[Source: Kenta Motokura, Director of Super Mario Odyssey, The Art of Super Mario Odyssey, September 2018]

Mario finally makes his feelings known to Peach, through a proposal, but he does so in the worst possible way. Peach refuses to marry Mario because he was acting immaturely. Mario cannot handle losing control of a bad situation and often makes rash decisions. While the latter is sometimes a positive trait for him, in this instance it’s a flaw which caused him to fight Bowser for Peach’s hand. You can hear Mario grunting while attempting to push Bowser out of the way and get Peach to accept him.

This is not the Mario that Peach knows. It is not the Mario that she loves. Peach had just been kidnapped from her home, dragged around the world and almost forcefully married to a man she’s romantically repulsed by. She was rescued by the man she loves in the nick of time who was finally about to make his move and propose to her, before Bowser barged back in and ruined the moment, and Mario started acting irrationally. She was fed up, and rightfully so.

So she turns down Mario’s proposal, and leaves. Peach does not turn down Mario’s proposal because she doesn’t love him - it’s abundantly clear that she loves him very much - she turns him down because it was the wrong place, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons.

However, her love for the Mario she knows still rings true. Their relationship is so strong that even after all of that, they quickly recover, as is illuminated through Peach’s forgiveness. She takes a breath and calls out to Mario, inviting him to come home with her. It’s a showcase of the love they share for one-another, one more potent than we’ve seen before anywhere else. A truly well-crafted study of these characters and the intricacies of their interwoven lives.

#super mario #princess peach #mario lore #paper mario #super mario odyssey

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tonedeafkunst · 7 months

Text

assorted helluva boss sentiments

I knew it from the moment asmodeus appeared on screen. I felt it in my soul, I could see the heart eyes. I wonder how it ever felt to be a doubter because I was never one

2. While I do enjoy Fizzarozzie as much as the next guy I do hope the series continues to be about IMP instead of shifting focus every season? or at least concluding some type of arc for Millie and Moxxie? It feels weird that we haven't seen them in the last two episodes.

3. Speaking of weird things that don't fit. Musical numbers. 4 in one episode is way too much if they're going to be full-length musical numbers. Fizz's song should've been cut after the first verse -like the distraction one- and it should have been way less pop. Get fucking weird with the songs please I dare you. ALSO TOM CARDY. MORE TOM CARDY ALWAYS PLEASE THANK YOU

4. speaking of things that stop tempo to a halt and are way too based on the internet's love for the trope rather than the actual quality: Stolitz. not the ship in itself but the conflict it's going to endure in the next episodes. Please. for the love of god. "Oops" was without a doubt one of the best episodes in the series by virtue of the fact the characters TALK AND COMMUNICATE TO ONE ANOTHER. and as Oops shows, this doesn't mean having less conflict or interesting stuff happen! You can have Stolitz without getting this played-out fanfic Will-they-Won't-they bullshit and still make it interesting! I'd usually trust the writers cause Helluva Boss is one of the best-written series I've ever seen, flat out, but Stolas' backstory episode makes me weary. PLEASE have them communicate, Blitzo's problems aren't going to be carried away by it all because he's the protagonist and the story centers around HIM, having Stolitz be an arc of personal growth rather than the end point of said arc will make it MORE engaging

5. silly things interruptions. The Major Sin Design Debacle was obviously bad faith bullshit, and I enjoy every one of the Deadly Sins' designs, but I especially enjoy their theming. Lust isn't tied to any particular negative environment because this show, rightfully, doesn't want to depict lust as a sinful thing in the first place lmfao. Beelzebub as a party queen completely incapable of holding back is good, Sloth being depicted as hospital land is fun and I hope they expand the joke further, Wrath being a fiery and desolate land is appropriate. Greed is fun as a design and I find it very apt that a group of animators would depict the sin of avarice as being into entertainment and the merchandising of said entertainment and the people behind it. I do wonder why he's an insect? maybe there's some catholic lore behind it I don't remember but considering they (rightfully) are only kind of inspired by it as Beelzebub shows I would have preferred to see Mammon as a bit more parasite-like. Also, did I miss something. WHy is he Australian. he should definitely be British. though if you apply that logic I guess everyone should be British in hell

6. and last but not least... why oh why, if your show wants to focus on inter-character relationships (and it clearly does and it's the correct choice in every kind of storytelling) would you ever bring in class warfare and make the anticapitalist the asshole. Striker might want to kill our fave bird bottom but he's right. "ooooh but he works for Stella he's part of the system" hey the fact S2 stripped her of all her nuance doesn't excuse making Striker's cause into a joke as well. I just pray the writers KNOW what they're doing (and if Stolas' Harvest Moon Festival characterization is still canon, then they should be aware of what they're writing) and... I don't know if I'd prefer they ignore the entire theme by closing it off with a joke or at least give a satisfying ending of """compromise"""" to the entire system in hell. Considering how every romantic relationship between an imp and an overlord has been shown to either be incredibly positive or at least healing, and how the only negative relationships we're shown are -by nature of the show- character-focused and don't really touch on the systematic oppression of imps, I don't trust SpindleHorse will ever actually give space to the Imp Socialist Revoluton, which is a damn shame.

I'm going to go ahead and make the mistake of tagging this because I'd really like to find other fans to discuss with but please. for the love of god. If you read this until the end and aren't able to recognise this criticism is born out of LOVE for this show and a desire for it to become even better than it is. do us both a favour and ignore me.

Mediocre bad shows don't elicit this type of reflection and engagement and if they do for you I urge you to stop letting media make you more miserable

#helluva boss

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destinygoldenstar · 4 months

Text

Just A Little Rewrite Of The Character Of Marinette Dupen-Chang/Ladybug (Part 1; Origins)

Hey y’all. So I never expected to come here.

I’m doing rewrites of characters as exercise cause why not? I always need to be writing otherwise my skill goes rusty.

I don’t have a wonderful history with this show. I remember watching season one as a kid, but I didn’t go beyond that because I got bored. I thought it was just a me thing and I was more attracted to serialized kids shows like Ninjago and the books of Sailor Moon. (Yes, that’s serialized.) As a kid I liked the books more than the 90s show and I think that’s a completely personal thing.

I think that’s just my personal preference, I tended to gravitate towards serialized shows a lot more and just have episodic shows as background noise.

But I posted before what drove me back in to this show. My GF’s sisters were a fan of the show, and the movie was coming out at the time. So I was forced to watch it with them and thought it was decent.

They hated Ninjago without even seeing it besides clips, and I liked that. We both saw these respective shows as childish junk without much intrigue and value. So I made a deal with them that I’d watch Miraculous if they watched Ninjago. They actually started to like Ninjago after seeing its compelling story unfold. They didn’t think it was serialized. As for me on the Miraculous show after seeing it Seasons 1-5, I expected that to be the case for me too…

What a surprise, I didn’t see the appeal and even got uncomfortable and upset at some points.

I would say why, but honestly, there’s so many YouTube videos online that pretty much say the same things as to why it didn’t work for me.

It’s too long, the villain suffers from the length and is a joke, the main character is a stalker, the secondary is a sidelined joke, they hate a teenage bully but give a middle aged terrorist a pass, messy lore, promotion of toxic behavior-etc. I’d just be repeating.

So instead of doing that, I got a cool idea that I got from one of the sisters. She asked “Well if you’re so much better than professional writers, how would you do it?”

I am NOT better. Keep that in mind. I’m just a scatterbrained person who likes to write and has personal preferences.

I do see the appeal with this show. Again, I was a Sailor Moon Stan as a kid, I liked Pretty Cure, magical girl properties are my special interest. So this show should’ve been a slam dunk for me. It has a very compelling IDEA of the secret identities putting a strain on a relationship between two leads, and the main villain being the father of one of them.

So… how would I bring forth the potential of this story? Well, there’s a lot more factors than you think. That’s why I’m going to only going to be focusing on one factor for now. (I’ll do Adrien/Cat Noir in another post)

I’ll see how this does, and depending on if people like it or hate it, I’ll continue and flesh out this rewrite idea.

So… love it or hate it, here you go.

The show’s theme introduces you to the idea of Marinette as a character:

“In the daytime, I’m Marinette. Just a normal girl with a normal life. But there’s something about me that no one knows yet, cause I’ve got a secret.”

Except, a more accurate description is ‘perfect girl with a perfect life’ because that’s how the story presents her a lot of the time. I can get behind being above average in privilege, but I can’t get behind none of her very blatant flaws being called out. This girl actually kinda scares me.

I wouldn’t mind it if her stalking-possessive nature was called out and a focal point for character development, but it’s not. I wouldn’t mind it if it was just placed in one bad episode, but it’s nearly EVERY episode.

I honestly don’t know if she’s better or worse than Total Drama’s Sierra…. Honestly I’d say Sierra’s worse cause she’s in a more sexual show, but I can definitely see arguments otherwise. (Y’all who know my blog, know I DESPISE Sierra as a character)

That, and Marinette’s essentially a ‘perfect person’ in the narrative and can do no wrong, to the point where she’s instantly a great Miraculous holder episode 1. It’s hard to relate to her, which I’m supposed to.

So I’m going to be rewriting her character to have a legit arc, and a likeable character.

Keep in mind that I am not here to ‘replace’ the original version. If you love the canon Marinette and the canon show, then by all means, love it. This is just an exercise and it’s not meant to be personal.

And uh, EDIT: This was originally gonna be one post, but… the essay got way too meaty and long, so I’m splitting it up into parts, parts being the significant points of growth Marinette has in this rewrite version. So… you guys like what I have so far, I’ll definitely continue this.

So, here’s my version of Marinette Dupen-Chang, AKA Ladybug.

Before I begin with Marinette, I have to address her status as Ladybug, and in order to do that I have to address the Miraculous, and in order to do that I have to address the power system, and in order to do that I have to change said rules.

In short, the original show is 130 Episodes long, not counting any specials. I feel like those can just be supplemental and I won’t be addressing them here. So many episodes are filler and this is ridiculous. It also hurts the threat of the villain when one story arc is THIS long.

So in this version, it’s NOT 5 Seasons of the Hawk Moth story arc.

Instead, it’s 2 Seasons.

How many episodes per season? I wrote all the episodes of seasons 1-3 on notes, cut out the episodes that were either filler or contained content I cut, or were just flat out offensive, and I STILL got a big number, so… I definitely plan it to change.

Yes there’d still be filler episodes with this logic, but it’s also not fast enough that the story feels like it’s going too fast, and personally, I don’t hate there being filler. So I can keep SOME.

But which episodes I’d keep in and which ones I’d cut out is a discussion for another day. If I mention an episode that means it’s not cut. That’s a given.

Basically, the Season 3 finale is now the season 1 finale. And the Season 5 finale is now the season 2 finale and the end of the story arc.

Cool?

Next, the lore regarding the Miraculous.

In the original show, there’s multiple Miraculous with different powers, and the Ladybug and the Cat Noir Miraculous are deemed the most powerful due to their abilities of creation and destruction respectively. And these Miraculous have been carried down from user to user since earth existed.

ALL of that is being carried over here. I have no problem with those rules.

But I am changing how the Miraculous work.

You can NOT swap users Willy Nilly. Whoever is linked to the Kwamii of a Miraculous is the ONLY one who can activate those powers. The only way to break that link is by using certain abilities that permanently cut that link. More on this later. (So NO Scarabella, no other ALT user, it’s just Marinette who can access it)

How does Hawk Moth plan to use the Ladybug and Cat Noir Miraculous to grant wishes with that logic? Miraculous’s powers can be released if they are broken, relieving their Kwamiis and ending the cycle of that Miraculous Hero forever. But if the powers are released, anyone can get their hands on it when they’re released, so you know, someone could use that to grant a wish of theirs.

I’m hesitant on this one, but regarding the ‘After you use a certain ability you only have five minutes left before you de-transform and have to replenish your Kwamii’. The rule itself is fine, it’s just broken constantly, especially in later seasons. Yeah in episode length it’s realistic but in universe some of these are definitely taking more than five minutes. So I WILL keep that rule but increase the time limit to TEN minutes. Not five.

In regards to the Ladybug Miraculous specifically. This one is important. The specific abilities themselves.

She has Lucky Charm, where she can summon a random item to aid her. Okay. Simple.

She has the ability to capture the Akumas. Okay. That’s pretty vital story-wise. Fine.

Then the titular Miraculous Ladybug…

Yeah fixing literally everything I removes consequences like property damage, people getting hurt or killed, etc.

So you’re probably thinking “Okay, this is where she cuts this power entirely so there’d be actual consequences”

Well… you’re actually wrong.

Yes, I didn’t remove this ability. But I DID change the rule for it.

Remember when I said the only way to break a Miraculous link is by using a certain ability that cuts the link permanently?

This is that for the Ladybug Miraculous.

You CAN use Miraculous Ladybug. And it DOES restore everything to its proper fixed state. (Physically.) EVERYTHING. All at once.

BUT, by doing this, the user resigns. Unable to use any power from the Ladybug Miraculous ever again. Any strength or power they got from the Miraculous is gone.

Once it’s explained to Marinette, and essentially the audience, it’s a stake of whether or not she should use that ability. Especially when there’s multiple consequences in battles that could be fixed. She could fix it. She could fix the world and resign and go back to her normal life. But when Hawk Moth would still be around, that’s not the right thing to do.

Why do I bring this up?

Well one it’s to keep in mind for some character choices. And two, it’s so I can reveal another big change on Master Fu. One that impacts Marinette’s character.

Master Fu is still the guardian of the Miraculous box. But he’s NOT the user of the Turtle Miraculous. He’s not a current Miraculous user at all.

Before Marinette, Master Fu was the previous user of the Ladybug Miraculous.

Yep.

First off, it’s my firm belief that all Miraculous are bound by no gender.

Second, the Ladybug Miraculous are basically one of the two most important, and considering the Cat Noir Miraculous Users hold the power of DESTRUCTION, why would the guardian of the box NOT be the Ladybugs?

Third, this establishes a connection between Marinette and Master Fu. But what exactly is that connection aside from “He used to have this power that he is now carrying down to her”?

That’s where we get into the Origins, where we’re starting discussions about certain key episodes.

Origins

The Origins episode begins not with an info dump narration, but with a little narration from our main character.

“In the daytime, I’m Marinette. Normal girl. Normal life. But there’s something about me no one knows yet, cause everything’s about to change for me.”

This is a younger version of Marinette. About 6-7 years old. She’s playing with her mom’s hat on the window seat of a bus.

She and her mom are on this bus moving to Paris France as Chinese Immigrants, as her mom is now engaged to a local baker that lives here.

Yes Marinette’s parents in the show weren’t married until just a few months after this flashback’s event. And this dad is adoptive and not biological. It’s not very huge on the story, maybe it could be discussed in a filler episode, but all it does is make Marinette not half Chinese, just Chinese.

If you’re gonna have your MC be non-white, have your MC be non-white. Especially if there’s the opportunity.

Anyway, the mom and daughter get off the bus and enter the city, and after some establishing shots on how grand Paris is (in fantasy land, anyway), the bus leaves, but Marinette’s mom realizes she misplaced their passports on the bus and runs after it to go get it back, telling Marinette to wait on the bench and play with the hat.

She does, wondering if she should put something in it as a pleasant surprise for mommy, and then…

Paris gets attacked.

In an almost dream-like state, black butterflies swarm the place, with people screaming and running. Some people not being fast enough and turning to stone once the butterflies make contact with them.

Think Chat Blanc, that’s kinda what it looks like.

Marinette watches it all stuck in place, unsure what to say or do.

That is until a voice demands the surviving citizens to go a certain direction.

That’s when the Ladybug appears in view, leaping in vision heroically and using their magic yo-yo to capture the dark butterflies. It re-directs them, but there’s too much for them to handle. They try, though.

We’ll learn, not here, but in a later episode, that this is Master Fu.

Marinette watches in awe of the ideal perfect looking hero handling the threat the best they can. All while they’re pleading to some ‘cat’ to stop this.

I’m gonna leave it at that here, but TLDR, this is to indicate that the previous Cat Noir (Not Adrien) is one of the villains causing this. Or at least working with the previous Hawk Moth. (Not Gabriel)

Anyway, this allows the Ladybug to take their guard down, and it results in him to direct the butterfly swarm the wrong way, leaving them to hit Marinette.

From there, her vision goes dark. But we know what happened to her.

We stay in her POV as we can’t see anything, but just hear the voice of the Ladybug.

“I’m sorry… it’s all my fault… but I’ll fix everything the only way I know how.”

We see a flash of red, and him decreeing,

“MIRACULOUS LADYBUG”

And just like that, red floods Marinette’s vision, and then starts to open up again to reveal Paris again.

Only, it’s perfectly normal, and back to the pretty state we originally saw it.

The Ladybug is nowhere to be found.

Marinette’s mom comes running to her daughter, grabbing her hand to take her away, terrified about what just happened.

Still, Marinette looks around for the hero that saved her. Confused. Curious. As an actual ladybug flies away in the sky.

*Queue Opening*

Keeping a shot of the sky, we follow the ladybug down to the bakery home that the Dupen-Changs love in.

Their house is the same as in the original. (Anyone else want that bedroom?)

The ladybug flies to the window of Marinette’s room and we see a few shots of fashion concept art, almost all of them with red and black colors. There’s also a few kid drawings on the wall of Ladybug and different variations of what her hero looked like. (None of them are accurate)

This is a show don’t tell way of giving the audience a good indication of Marinette’s character and how this prologue impacted her. She’s not only looked up to this heroic figure, but was also inspiration to apply to her fashion designing profession.

(Yeah anyone remember she was a fashion designer? That’s actually one of the aspects of her original character I unironically liked. I miss the old days when girls can be girly. So yeah, that’s definitely being kept here.)

It’s early in the morning. But we see Marinette, now a fourteen year old student, getting ready for school in a quick (like ten second) easy to digest establishment.

You may notice my concept art for Marinette on this post and that I added an ALT outfit to her original civilian design. Well this is why, and this is where we see that.

She does everything to make the look PERFECT in this scene. Re-tying the shoe laces to be perfectly even, adjusting the jacket collar to be perfectly firm, and trying to put gel in her hair to hide the cowlicks from her OG and Ladybug design.

The point is clear, again show don’t tell, that Marinette is a perfectionist who values her appearance. Though not in the diva way like Chloe, more so she cares about how other people see her.

This is gonna be a constant for this version of her character. She cares a lot about finding what she deems as the best version of herself, and beats herself up when she fumbles at that or makes mistakes, mistakes that she makes A LOT. Because she’s only human. However, with her idealism of Ladybug, she’s non self aware that she’s deeming ‘the best Marinette’ as a completely different person.

(I’m going for a theme of self love here.)

She even went as far as having made a ladybug patterned hat to display for school today. Which she sheds nervousness about.

She gets called by her mom to breakfast, and in the frantic pursuit, Marinette says she’ll be right there, fixes her hair again, and runs down the stairs-

-Only to trip over them.

Yeah she’s still clumsy. I didn’t write that out.

Her mom asks if she’s okay, to which she gives the thumbs up, and from there we get a similarly framed breakfast scene from the original.

There’s some changes to context though: It’s NOT the first day back at school. It’s not the first day of school at all. No, it’s only the first day for Adrian, who is transferring this day.

But Marinette doesn’t know that, nor does she know who Adrian is right now. (Because Gabriel keeps his son locked away until the agreement to let Adrian go to school.) So in a post about rewriting Marinette, I’m not gonna touch on Adrian centric scenes.

No, instead in this scene Marinette is concerned about a student council meeting. Saying “I bet Chloe will shut down my ideas again.”

Yes. Marinette is a part of the student council. An addition here.

She’s not the president though. She’s the fundraising officer.

The student body president is Chloe Bourgeois. Other student council members include but not limited to: Sabrina, Kim, and Zoe Lee. (Yes Zoe Lee is here from the start. She’s not a half sister, she’s a full sister. A twin.)

So not only is Marinette a part of this council, but in said council she is surrounded by Chloe followers. To get an idea of how… unfortunately treated she is there, as well as everyone supporting Chloe and her calls over Marinette’s, or anyone else’s. Not because they like Chloe, but because she’s the daughter of the mayor and therefore intimidating. So nobody wants to get on her bad side.

It also paints Marinette in the light of ‘I can’t speak up for myself or say my opinion if I know what’s good for me.’

Anyway blah blah her mom tells her that the hat fundraiser for a local insect zoo is a good idea, Marinette knocks over the breakfast stuff and is ashamed, her dad making his first appearance gives her the macaroons as a bonus, and she happily leaves for school saying she loves them.

The parents are loving and supportive in the original and I have no problem with that.

We get her running to school, finding an old Master Fu nearly getting hit, and her saving him at the expense of the macaroons.

Here’s the only change to that scene: (Aside from the Fu scene before not being here in favor of that prologue) Fu is NOT trying to test anyone here. He’s just an old guy now, and without any Miraculous powers, age caught up to him. Instead during the save and the crashing of Macaroons, Marinette scuffles to save a few whole ones, and accidentally includes the Miraculous Box in that mix.

Yes I know the box in the original is bigger than a macaroon, in this version let’s pretend it’s much smaller to fit an accident like this realistically happening.

After she leaves, Fu realizes the earrings are gone, and he starts to panic a bit. He didn’t intend that to happen and is ready to go after her to get them back before she interacts with the power item. Only problem? He’s old and can’t get to her fast enough.

Just like in the original, Marinette goes to school and Chloe and Sabrina, in their introduction, kick Marinette out of her original desk to make way for Adrien. With of course the tweak that no one mentions first days, and another change that Alya is NOT in the same class as Marinette.

There’s a reason for this.

So instead of anyone defending Marinette, Marinette just takes it and moves on, sitting in the corner quietly. She doesn’t object, she doesn’t fight back, she just takes it.

From there we get Adrien transferring into their class for the first time. (Yes he actually shows up here.) And Marinette, at first, is more interested in fixing her hat, UNTIL the last name gets brought up by Chloe. To which she recognizes the name ‘Agreste’ as a famous fashion critic in Paris.

That knowledge makes her unwilling to approach the new guy, thinking he’s the same way and will critique her at every turn. After getting chastised for sitting at the wrong spot, she wants at least one period of a break from it.

After class, and after Ivan gets sent to the office for… I guess calling someone out for bullying you too loudly?? That’s gotta be the most brutally realistic this show will ever get. Marinette spends lunch focusing on fixing up her plans, and trips over again, ruining the macaroons left. At that point she decides to screw it and silently shun herself for failure.

But this is where Alya, from another class, comes up to help her out, recognizing her as the Fundraising Officer. Marinette is surprised that someone recognizes her and apologizes all over.

Alya was trying to find a student council member to help her pitch a campaign idea for a local insect zoo that she knows so she can send off her pet spider there for safety from her little sisters. (Yes Alya has a pet spider. My headcanon.)

Marinette, who already had plans, decides to add that to her paper to sell her point, and Alya gets to see her work. She loves the work, and also recognizes the Ladybug inspiration on her hat. She expresses that if Ladybug was still here, they’d be thrilled to see her looking out for the little ones.

Marinette says there’s no point as she’ll never be like that, but Alya uses her hero fanatic nature to pump her up and to stand up to Chloe to get her plan heard. Thus the start of their friendship as they introduce and hope to see each other more.

Two things: One, Marinette isn’t really friends with anybody in school up till this point. She’s not this overly popular figure that everyone worships. She’s just a regular girl who trips over her own feet, and is seen as the quiet girl in the corner in a crowd of cool kids.

Two, everyone knows Ladybug as the local superhero that whisked away years ago. Ladybug is famous in that sense, and kids especially talk about Ladybug like a perfect hero. All the more significant when a new person takes on the Miraculous.

Moving on with Marinette stuff, we have the student council meeting she attends. She’s in the back keeping to herself as, again, the rest of the council is Chloe and her followers. Yes Kim and Zoe Lee are her followers too, AT FIRST. It’s not just Sabrina.

As Chloe discusses the fundraiser plan for her mommy’s magazine plans, or whatever you want to say, (point here is that Chloe is someone who focuses on results SHE thinks will be beneficial. Not considering what those results do to others) she gets votes, well, she silently threatens them with a stare to vote on that idea, but remembering Alya’s words, Marinette decides to speak up.

She shares her idea that since she and Chloe are both fashionistas, especially Chloe, they can sell hats to fundraise not for magazines, but for the aid of an insect zoo in need of the support, to be a safe haven for those critters.

Only Zoey is fond of the idea, but she doesn’t get to say anything cause Chloe shoots down the others voices. Chloe shuts that idea down, saying it’s a terrible idea and “Who would EVER want to waste money on creepy crawling BEASTS?!” That fundraiser would fail.

Marinette tries to speak up that she knows how-

But Chloe shuts down all of it rather harshly, even going as far to ask if Marinette has the mayor’s support?

“No-“

“Then stay in your corner. Not every Ladybug wannabe has the essence.”

She flicks the hat off Marinette’s head, says that her stitching is rookie’s work, and proceeds to campaign HER idea. While everyone goes along.

While Marinette, again, takes it and moves on, hugging the hat tight the rest of the meeting.

I want to bring up that this is a show don’t tell explanation on why Marinette isn’t often targeted for Akumas, other than MC plot armor. She’s naturally a quiet pushover person at the start. She’s a perfectionist and that goes for unprofessional emotions. She doesn’t wear her emotions on her sleeve or allow herself to break when it’s not fit, so instead if she doesn’t get the results she wants, she keeps the fit and disappointment to herself as much as possible and moves on with her day. Not because she’s emotionless, not at all, she just can keep a level head better.

She’s not Jiang Kai Smith, she’s not an impulsive hot head. She CAN control her temper.

The next time we see Marinette is when Stonehart begins to attack, to which he goes rampaging around the school to look for Kim.

Because it’s implied the class we see in the original episode is the first period. There’s no way in hell Ivan would be dormant and just sit in the office the entire day till Kim left school. So instead he’s just attacking the school.

When the attack happens, all students are demanded to evacuate. You know, treating this like an actual serious emergency, until authorities arrive.

Marinette and Alya are in the same room when this happens, and Alya being Alya, decides to go after the monster and ignore orders. Marinette tries to go after her saying it’s too dangerous, but loses her when she breaks a corner. Stonehart’s damage on a wall cuts her off, and the girl is forced to hide in an alleyway alone. And rubble traps her there. (Not on her. Blocking the way out is what I mean.)

So you know that after this, Cat Noir is trying and failing to deal with it as we get Adrien getting his Miraculous, accepting the hero position right away, and going to have some fun.

Marinette has the last scene of the first part though, as she, in fear, is trying to calm herself down. Again that ‘she has a level head’ thing I talked about earlier. She decides to find a way out of her situation and rummages around her bag, to which she goes for the macaroon box…

And that’s where she finds the Miraculous Box.

Wondering what that’s doing here, she opens it up, it glows, and Tikki is revealed, waking up for the first time in years.

Marinette’s reaction is basically the same, freaking out and throwing whatever she has at the little bug mouse thing.

Tikki chastises the rude awakening. She’s been dormant for how long and THIS is the welcome back party she gets-

Only to realize it’s a scared girl that’s doing this, so she changes the attitude to calm her down.

In the original, Tikki is… super boring. Basically she’s just an exposition and lesson of the day dump, and the only personality she has outside of that is being nice. At least Plaag has personality.

Not this Tikki though. As this Tikki is… kind of arrogant.

She’s deemed one of the most powerful Kwamiis of one of the most powerful Miraculous ever. She’s had her fair share of users. And thus she has high expectations for all her users to be these perfect idealized heroes… and Marinette ain’t it. So naturally she’s nice, but she’s also strict with her ideals and prideful in her power and status and expects the best out of Marinette. (In short, she would NEVER deem Marinette ‘the best Ladybug ever’)

She has a bit of a character arc, so don’t think she’d be that unlikeable for very long. I just gave her a blatant flaw to make her more interesting.

Anyway, Tikki like in the original tries to calm Marinette down and pleads for her to help her. She doesn’t know why her previous master chose this girl as the new Ladybug, but fact of the matter is Marinette is the only one who can stop Stonehart.

Marinette starts listening at the mention of Ladybug. She could be Ladybug? She could be her hero?

Tikki, now that attention is granted, explains to Marinette her powers and how to capture the Akuma, and how to transform.

Marinette, without being ready, does, and transforms into Ladybug the first time.

To which her reaction is panicked screaming like in the movie.

Again, you seen my drawing on this post you see that I redid her Ladybug design.

The reason for this is simple: I just hate her design in the original show. Why is this minor wearing a body suit?!?!? On top of that it’s just a red body suit with black spots on it. I think you can do a lot more creative things with a superhero ladybug costume.

I will admit my redesign isn’t perfect. You can see a lot of my ‘magical girl stan go brrrr’. But I tried to keep the Ladybug motif as much as possible while also alluding to her Chinese heritage a bit. The gold around her black belt space is actually the yo yo string.

All I wanted to do with it was “NO minors are wearing body suits in this kids show! You can’t make me!”

Anyway, Part 2.

Marinette content is… at the same place we left her last episode.

Other than the setting of her being in an alleyway instead of her room, or an abandoned shop, this is literally just how the movie did it.

She finds the yo yo, gets yeeted outta there, gets swung to Notre Dame where the fight with Cat Noir and Stonehart was lured to.

And she crashes into Cat Noir. And they meet for the first time.

And their introduction to each other is… literally just the movie again. Seriously the movie did real good with this part. And, you know, the show could’ve used some more France landmarks than just the tower.

The only differences here that it’s Stonehart instead of the gargoyle. Which you can easily rewrite that design to be a stone gargoyle, it’s stone, it’s in the name. And Cat Noir had a plan to lure it here as a trap, that he was really confident about, but it fails. (He did become a superhero today after all)

Same chase from the movie just with that logic. Honestly this movie sequence did a really good job with setting up the two personalities of the heroes and keeping the lighthearted humorous tone of the show, while also being tense enough to keep interest.

But there really aren’t any citizens making watermelon jokes, cause most of them know Ladybug as a concept already. I can see Adrien, being shut out from the outside and all of that, making watermelon jokes and not knowing, but everyone else? Nah.

Not even the spot vision needs to be changed, as that’s just how Marinette thinks. It’s not part of her power, it’s just her. And I love seeing that thought process.

Same results too; They lure Stonehart in gargoyle form to a train station, Cat Noir gets his foot stuck, Ladybug saves him, and the train proceeds to run over the creature and destroy it.

Yes I know that’s not how Stonehart works in the show. I don’t care. This is beginner’s boss, let it be beginners boss. Regular rock monster. Not too complicated.

I know the magical girl formula well enough.

Anyway, there’s only one change here: This is NOT the end of Stonehart. As like in the show, the Akuma gets away to Ladybug’s neglect. Because she��s more worried if Cat Noir is okay.

The reason I use this sequence instead of the one in the show is because the origins episodes are supposed to be a two parter. As in two episodes tell one complete story. In the original though you have two instances of Marinette not being confident in her ability to be Ladybug, getting confidence to take on the role, fighting the villain, and winning. And then they just repeat the same thing again the next episode! Like what?!?! You don’t need her to have TWO instances of her learning the lesson!

So it’s just one of those instances here.

After they THINK the fight is said and done, Ladybug helps out Cat Noir as they both realize they’re surrounded by reporters and cops asking them questions.

Alya is one of them, asking if they’re the new Ladybug and Cat Noir.

To which Ladybug answers no. She’s not. In fact, she was thinking about handing that role to someone else, so… bye.

And she throws the yo yo and chickens out.

She goes to a… balcony? Bathroom? Closet? Somewhere that’s private. And de-transforms. Tikki congratulates the first fight, but Marinette isn’t too pleased with how that turned out. Tikki however assured her that it’s going to work out. They’ll get her in shape.

Marinette is about to leave, but then she sees in her view the multiple stone gargoyles around the city. All frozen.

Tikki asks if she captured the Akuma, to which Marinette realizes the mistake, and immediately starts beating herself up about it, saying over and over again that she can’t do this, she creates disasters for everyone, nobody like that could be Ladybug. Ever.

And Tikki doesn’t try to object, and simply states that if Ivan gets Akumatized again, this army comes to life.

To that, and realizing that the boy could be in danger, Marinette decides to go find him and help him. She may not be cut out for Ladybug, but she can’t just do nothing towards someone hurting.

She goes to a small hospital to find Ivan, and she asks a doctor how he’s doing. She says he’s not injured or sick at all, just distraught. He’s going to be okay.

Ivan is in a chair looking exactly that way. After a soft knock to let him know she’s here, Marinette tries to ask him personally what happened. He tries to be tense and say it’s of no business of some acquaintance like her, but she kindly insists, promising to not tell anyone any of it.

Not that she had anyone she was close to she could tell-but-whatever. You get it.

Still, Ivan refuses to speak. So instead Marinette goes to the crumbled paper, revealing that he was crushing on another girl in their class. Once she reads it aloud, Ivan says that Kim is always picking on him and taking advantage of his own feelings and he’s just sick of it.

Marinette, from her own experience, though without context here, says that she understands. “I get what you mean.”

This is vague enough to be taken into either context. Either she’s talking about Chloe, or Kim and her backstory with him from the original show, that… didn’t get cut entirely to your surprise.

Marinette says she’s no Cupid, but her advice is to at least try to get to know Mylene better. Maybe this could turn into a real thing one day.

Ivan is hesitant, saying he’s still mad at Kim, to which Marinette says “Then by all means, be mad at Kim. Just don’t let that possess your every waking thought is all.”

See I personally don’t like the message that ‘it’s better if everyone just stays happy’. You know me and my character, that’s not how I roll. So instead the message is ‘Control your negative emotions best you can. But when you have to feel them it’s okay to feel them, and the ones that take advantage of those feelings are the real bad guys.’

Ivan decides to call the school to see if she’s around, and Marinette decides to leave to give him privacy. What’s next on her mind is how to break the link between her and Tikki so she can hand off the Miraculous to someone else.

And as she wonders this, she bumps into Adrien, who also came to check on the Akuma victim. She tells him that Ivan’s fine and just needs privacy for now, then asks a little coldly what he’s doing here anyway.

Adrien says he was just… curious how he was doing. That’s all.

It’s awkward after that, as Marinette asks if he’s friends with Chloe. To which Adrien gets his line “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

Marinette tells him she doesn’t need another mental beating today and tries to brush him off, thinking he’s all on board for Chloe’s plans. Adrien tries to say something but is interrupted by Nathalie showing up and needing to talk to him.

Alya finds Marinette outside to gush about the footage she got of the ‘new ladybug’ that’s showed up, and this is basically the “What if Ladybug isn’t cut out to be a hero even though everyone thinks she is?” talk. It’s important because the way Alya describes Ladybug in this scene is what Marinette wants to be seen as, so it’s something she can take to heart.

That’s when Ivan gets Akumatized again and the Stonehart comes back. Though MyLene didn’t even show up or answer, that’s why he’s upset. So instead he goes after and captures Kim… and Chloe. Cause she’s a jerk.

It’s the same as in the show with Cat Noir taking action and failing, as he can’t capture Akumas, and Alya gets caught in the crossfire for Marinette to witness.

And well, because the last talk Marinette had before the fight was Alya’s impression of her, and in this version not too long ago, it’s more fresh in hers, and the viewers mind, and hits harder.

(They’re well done shots. I will give the producers that.)

During Marinette witnessing the peril, we also get some flashes of the incident in the prologue. As this is the same spot that happened, and is now replaying in her head.

She’s familiar with peril like this. She knows the fear that comes with it. But Ladybug was there to save her and everything else when it first happened.

And now it’s her turn.

She has to be that Ladybug to protect these people that need it.

So she puts on the earrings again and confirms to Tikki that she is, indeed, the new Ladybug.

It’s the same fight as in the show, not anything to change there, up until the Hawk Moth speech thing, as in this rewrites context this is actually the first time we get introduced to Hawk Moth.

And Ladybug swearing to stop him is a little more impactful here, as she recognizes the dark butterflies.

She captures the butterflies, leaving all that’s left to save Ivan… and hesitantly, Kim. Ladybug, predicting the Akuma is in the other clenched… claw? Thing? Idk. From an observation in the previous match, makes the plan to figure out how to open the fist.

Details of that plan is… not in my script, cause you can creative no matter what. But just know it doesn’t involve anyone ‘growing closer’ in this scenario.

They get it, both boys fall, Ladybug and Cat Noir save them, she captures the Akuma, the day is saved. Only change is that Ladybug doesn’t use Miraculous Ladybug, for obvious reasons, as the other stone beasts disintegrate with the Akuma, and just become rock rubble around people.

We can do a character centric episode on why MyLene wouldn’t show up to stuff like this. Maybe something regarding her family.

After the fight, Ladybug assures Ivan she personally will not blame him for this. That was Hawk Moth. Not him. Ivan is still disappointed he won’t get the chance to tell MyLene, but she tells him “Well, you see her in school, right? There’s multiple chances to speak up. Just… do it. Even if she says no, it’s worth it.”

Keeping that message in mind for herself, she’s already on her original desk the next day, watching a broadcast that the news reporter is explaining about the heroic return of a new Ladybug and Cat Noir. She also mentions the footage is from a minor that goes by the name Alya, who in an interview says she’s starting a blog to post footage of the presence of Ladybug and maybe play the detective and figure out her secret identity.

Chloe sees Marinette back in her original seat and demands that she gets lost. Only this time, Marinette stands up for herself, and tells Chloe to get lost. After a snarl, the blonde gives up.

Ms Bustier tells the class that they’re doing Chloe’s fundraising idea by majority vote, and Marinette sheds disappointment. Adrien notices.

Then we get the rain scene.

Adrien says hi, but Marinette isn’t in a mood to talk. So he decides to bring up a fact that he voted for her idea.

That gets her interest.

Adrien explains how he knows they don’t know each other very well, and knows that people have their opinions about him… but he’ll be the first to say his, that he respects people with a good heart. Hopefully that convinces someone that he really is trying.

And he’s rich, so… he can help her help that shelter anyway. And he offers her his umbrella. It’s the same scene from there, with Marinette developing her crush, making him laugh, and being all awkward while she watches Adrien leave.

The last scene of the origins episodes is of Marinette (and Adrien) having a letter appear behind them out of nowhere. Unsure how and what to expect, they read the letter. Which tells them both:

“Meet me at *the massage spa’s address* at Dawn tomorrow. Come transformed. We have a lot to talk about.”

“- Ladybug from 2000”

I think you know who that letter is from.

So you know what I’m going for with Marinette throughout the rest of the show, is giving her an actual character arc. An arc involving a theme of ‘self love’. You love someone, but if you’re gonna love someone, you gotta love yourself. And Marinette clearly doesn’t seem to think too highly of herself unless she’s Ladybug. That’s because she’s basically pretending to be someone else, someone she saw in her youth as a perfect figure, and what the public views her as. With all the responsibilities that come with her new role, she clings to the image of Ladybug, rather than Marinette herself.

With the nature of Akumatized victims being a focal point, and Marinette being one of the two main characters, there can be some cases where Marinette interacts with or even befriends some of her classmates or other townies that we’re just acquaintances with her before. All while she uses the Ladybug idea in her head as the reason why she succeeds. Not realizing that in the best cases, it’s all just her. Just Marinette.

Her crush on Adrien is also important, as unlike in the original, I want her to actually talk to him, maybe awkwardly cause she’s still a kid, but still talk to him and get to know him. If Adrien loves her, then that must mean she’s worth it. But they can’t click and become a couple because Marinette cannot love herself. For one reason or another that becomes apparent and her pretending to be another drives the boy away from a love angle.

Marinette is also a little more flawed, and are flaws that actually get called out in some episodes. This is apparent with the new Tikki dynamic, clashing with Marinette’s more humble nature. She’s a pushover in her normal Marinette self and unable to say no to anything. When she tries to go do what she wants it leads to recklessness you expect from any teenager. She also has trouble trusting some people, due to her backstory with Kim, which yes is kept, but one, there’s some edits to it, and two, this episode is gonna be moved to a Season 1 episode so it’s blatant it’s not an excuse but rather used as a base for lessons Marinette has to learn. And you know, explaining her actions not justifying them.

The idea that something like that can be viewed as PTSD and excuse for bad behavior in the writers eyes is honestly disgusting.

What was that Terrible Writing Advice quote?

“Why use trauma to explain behavior when you can use trauma to excuse behavior?”

Not this Marinette though. Maybe through her inability to speak up or confront a crush, there can be a few episodes, not every episode, where she does certain tactics. But here’s the thing: Unlike in the show, these will be viewed as BAD things to do. Ones she gets CAUGHT doing and is disciplined as such. One she needs to apologize for and learn a lesson that there’s much better ways to interact than being an obsessive psycho.

And definitely by season two, this stalker behavior is non existent. Because she would’ve learned the lesson already.

And you know, she isn’t gonna be the focal point of every single episodes, as I definitely want some to be Adrien centric, and even centric on other side characters.

Don’t think Adrien is neglected, he’s an entirely different topic as I didn’t mention his bits in these origins. Because his issues are different from hers.

Anyway I’ll try to get the next post of some other episodes that are Marinette centric in my eyes, if you guys like this version. Or not, you know, best be honest. That’s cool too.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous au #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug and chat noir #tales of ladybug and cat noir #ladybug #rewrites #rewrite #character analysis #character designs #character redesign

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ecargmura · 1 year

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Hirogaru Sky! Precure Episode 8 Review: The Orange Bird

A two-parter? Wow! I’m actually pumped up for what happens next episode with all the tension that happened towards the end. This episode also gives us a lot of information about Skyland with the introduction of the new character and also gives answers to some questions I had in previous episodes!

One particular question I had was back in Episode 3 about the Skystones. This episode shows that storms causes cracks in rifts which causes a portal to Skyland to be accidentally opened. When it does open, things from Skyland fall into Earth like Skystones. I think this makes absolute sense now as storms always come and go and if Yoyo has been on Earth for the past fifty years or so, it makes sense that Skystones can accumulate as much as they can here. This is a brilliant detail!

The mystery of the orange bird is finally unveiled! The bird is part of a bird tribe in Skyland called Puni Bird Tribe. They are bird folk that traded their flight to become humans. In this bird’s case, he can change into a human boy named Tsubasa. He came to Sorashido City by accident one year before Sora did because of an accident during his attempt to fly. He’s a character who’s fascinated with the idea of flying because he’s a bird that can’t fly. He has been staying with Yoyo for the past year in order to study aerodynamics and use the knowledge to teach himself how to fly.

Tsubasa is a rather sweet character in general. He means no harm at all. I think he has the potential to be my favorite character in this anime, but having one particular favorite is hard since Sora and Mashiro are already likable. I’m just anticipating the epicness of Cure Wing’s debut. I just pray that his transformation scene is better than Cure Prism’s. Also, I know for a fact that Cure Wing is the first main male Precure in the franchise, so it will also be a historical event for the franchise. Hearing Ayumu Murase’s voice makes me happy because he has such a nice voice.

Princess Ellee gets some development too! She’s growing up fast! She’s already trying to walk step by step. She’s also eating baby foods and not just milk now. However, the fact that she commands the sling to come to her and is rushing towards where the Precures are makes me worried. She’s definitely going to get captured by Kabaton at this rate! Despite this, I know that Ellee has been plot device, but seeing her have a bit more focus here makes me wonder if she’s going to have a more important role other than being the mascot and plot device. I wonder if something big will happen once all four Cures come together.

Sora reveals that birds in Skyland talk and that humans and birds coexist harmoniously there. It makes sense as the messenger bird in the first episode was talking to Sora in the beginning. The fact that birds are important beings in the world itself is also interesting world building. Mashiro is going to freak out if she goes to Skyland.

Also, Sora was a little annoying in this episode, but it makes sense as she’s dedicated to protecting Ellee. Though, the way she was barking at him was funny. I do like how the animosity she had towards Tsubasa immediately fades as she learns about his dream of flight. She’s someone who has a broad dream of her own, so it would be weird if she continued hating him even after learning about his dream.

Kabaton is actually being a menace for once with his Drone Ranborg actually being threatening. I’m actually on edge on what’s going to happen next. It does make me wonder if this will be Kabaton’s last stand and he’ll get replaced with a new villain or if he’ll still be the recurring villain throughout the rest of the show.

Because this is a Skylander focused episode, Mashiro doesn’t get much screen time. Hopefully, she’ll get some next episode. Ageha makes an appearance too! I think dedicating this episode to Yoyo, Tsubasa, Ellee and Sora makes absolute sense because we need to build on Skyland lore too. I can’t wait for next week!

#precure #hirogaru sky precure #review #anime #anime review #sora harewataru #cure sky #mashiro nijigaoka #cure prism #yoyo nijigaoka #princess ellee #Tsubasa yuunagi #ageha hijiri #kabaton

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hoenn-hakase · 2 months

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what was the TPP moment that gave you the most writing fuel? one that still rly sticks in ur head. (feel free to ramble)

Gosh, that's both super hard and super easy to answer! Twitch Plays Pokemon has had SOOOO many memorable moments that immediately come to mind that have captured my imagination or turned into a major part of my lore, there's just too many to name. However, there's a lot of moments that mean so much to me but I haven't written anything (or at least not published it) about those moments. I think I have fics either plotted out in my head or partially written for just about every single Randomized Run we've done because rattling the formula always brings out some of the coolest concepts and creativity within the community. Like I have an entire backstory and character arc for Lorekeeper James from Randomized Alpha Sapphire, which a lot of people fell in love with this random Bug Catcher suddenly getting boss music. Or when Trevor in Randomized Y turned out to be the Flare Admin we had to fight at the Poke Ball Factory, but then we had a crash and my heart just breaks thinking about the scene afterward where we went "back in time" to before all the kids met up at the park. And now Trevor, Calem, and Venus all awkwardly trying to pretend nothing happened while staring each other down with the utmost scrutiny as each wonders if the other two is aware of what happened. But don't worry, all this causes him to have a bit of a breakdown and soul searching before turning against Team Flare to go rescue Abomasnow. Or even as recently as Randomized Violet+ and how I've been a bit obsessed with Terra and her misadventures for the last few months and her showing up again as the host for Super Gauntlet Ruby is not helping that. Heck, Randomized Platinum was probably the biggest world building run for my lore it's one of the three establishment fics I've had partially started that I feel needs to be either written or fully explained to point to why the Haji TPP Verse is the way it is! And hhhnnngggg.... so much more...

Of course there's also a difference between the lore to come out of things (which I've written for after being inspired by other authors or artists in the community) and the onscreen moments that seemed to change everything. And while I have a lot of runs I love, a few I can point to as "THIS still hits hard" are things like my very first fanfic I posted to the TPP subreddit was in the aftermath of Leech King's death. I remember being at work, plotting out an entire series that would follow Abe and the others trying to get to the bottom of who had her murdered and why, having Alakazam and Venomoth that joined around the same time being hired detectives, and ICU coming into her own as the heir to the throne and whatnot, but it didn't get very far and even looking back was pretty bad writing. I did eventually get around to writing the post game like I wanted with my Much Ado About Blue series so that's definitely continued to be a wealth of writing fuel. Heck, when I started my Connections series, the inspiration was from Faba kicking our ass eight ways to Sunday in Waning Moon and the feeling there was probably a personal connection there. But I literally only planned for like seven chapters if even that because I didn't expect myself to start novelizing the run as a way to lead up to that moment. Originally the plan was to skip between certain cutscenes to establish lore on Quips. (My doc is still simply labeled "Hau" even though the story has grown since then.) But for moments? I mostly do angst and dramas anyway, but one piece I'm rather proud of and STILL upset about is my short for the ending of Pyrite. Ugh, the bitterness and how everyone and their dog had an opinion on the ending of that run and poor Eeyup getting dropped after we finished instead of getting some kind of proper send off or victory lap. Or on the note of Evan and Azure, this spur of the moment piece that's kind of hinted at. I love when I'm archiving runs and something comes up like a Glitch or crash, or something so unexpected I just INSTANTLY get the idea and need to write a short for it.

But I must say when I read this question, the first thing that came to mind was my novel for Blazed Glazed. Holy crap, this Run changed a lot of things for me. For one, being an original ROM hack means there's an entire world that has been a fountain of writing fuel for me I intend to get back to eventually. Who are these original characters? What is their story? How does Tunod work? How does it connect to other games it made a guest appearance in? Team Fusion showed up in RW2 meaning there's a whole history there with these guys. I made special edits of the Team leaders. It's kind of insane because I had written stuff for other runs before, obviously, but this was like all consuming on my brain. And you know what started it off? ...I started watching the VODs because it seemed like there wasn't much talk about it for me to know what was happening. We got our starter, met with THE INVENTOR, met Blake (our NPC partner for the long haul) and suddenly there was a Glitch. I was already intrigued by the opening, but when the Inventor was supposed to follow and instead became frozen and uninteractable, my mind started running. I paused my viewing and started writing. It's by far the longest series I've written and what made it so fascinating in a way was writing as I watched meant there are several points I didn't know where the story was going. So I may plan on something, but then it didn't turn out that way so how do I rework the script to account for the unexpected character appearances? Freezes? Glitches? How about a random detour to find specific teammates? And don't get me wrong, like most games, the actual plot can seem vague or even silly in the writing sometimes, but then that makes it fun to try to flesh out what the deeper reasoning could be for why something is happening? And then tying it into the larger TPP universe has just been... ahh~ <3

Anyway, this has gotten really long but I hope that answers your question. I'm sorry this kind of turned into one big shameless plug. Dang I've written a lot, but I love this fandom so much. I can't even ;w;

#twitch plays pokemon #haji babble #questions #This was such an interesting dive through memory lane for me #thank you

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amphiptere-art · 5 months

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Okay so. Sort of going over all the factions and different needed areas of knowledge of bloodborne. Do remember this is going off of memory and half watching some lore videos. I'm not going to update this, as I am a sporadic fan. But if you see something that needs to be corrected, just comment or reblog with a correction.

Byrgenwerth.

Was a collection of scholars that found the old blood. Their leader was a little too afraid to use the blood on himself. Other scholars disagreed with their leader and stole the blood/took the blood to use for their own devices.

Byrgenwerth splits into the church and the vile bloods.

The church

was a faction that used The blood as a sort of miracle medicine. This started to cause problems though. Mostly with beasts. So the church split.

What is the old blood?

The old blood is basically the blood of a great one. It's not exactly clear how it works, but it definitely heals with the risk of turning somebody mad by their beastel instinct.

What is a great one?

The great one are basically a pile of entities that ascended to the nightmare realm. Some are left behind, and it is suggested that some of these ones that were left behind were harvested for their blood. Otherwise old one should be considered as some sort of mortal-ish gods. They live in the nightmare realm, that kind of acts as a sort of parallel plane. Most humans want to become great ones because they're sort of immortal.

So the church split into 4-ish categories.

The healing Church.

This was the basic front of the church. This is the one that mostly used blood for healing. Believing that maybe they could become similar to the great ones through consuming it. Unfortunately this also caused the beast scourge.

The choir.

While the healing Church part, was mostly about trying to ascend through drinking the blood. The choir was more focused on continuing the work at byrgenwerth with experiments. Experimenting on people and twisting them in hopes of evolution.

The school of Mensis.

This focused on other means than physical ones for evolution. Instead they looked for ways to commune with the old ones or ascend alongside them. They are the only faction that was actually successful in their task. They did separate though at some point from the church. Assumingly ascending after they separated from the church.

The last category that the church split off into was the workshop, or-

The hunters.

The hunters split multiple times. So I'm going to talk about them separately.

The first order of hunters were a part of the workshop, but we're also separate on some levels. When the beast scourge first appeared, The hunters were set out to cleanse the beasts so that the people would not know of the scourge. Basically hiding the problems with the blood. Eventually though the beast scourge was found, and the original clan of hunters were outcast as the church made a new one.

The new order of hunters had two factions in them.

The white cloak and the black cloak.

The black cloak was unapologetic "cleansers". Much like the hunters before they would go out and hunt, but instead they would also hunt people who had not yet transformed into beasts. Technically if a black cloak hunter thought you were infected, They were going to kill you even if you were sane.

The white cloaks were more so focused on experimenting/observing the beasts. They apparently would rip the beast hood from their hearts. Studying the beasts and all they were. Angels of death I guess.

I am unsure if I should call this a part of the Hunter faction. But the executioners were another faction made purposely to kill the vile bloods. They had a short run were they basically ran around killing every vile blood that they come across.

Now for the last group that sort of split from byrgenwerth.

The vile bloods.

The vile bloods didn't really split, but instead stole. Taking a different kind of old blood to their city. The church believe this blood was tainted. Plus I guess they didn't want anyone else having blood. They live in a completely different town.

Which leads to the poor town of Yharnam.

The town of Yharnam is where everything happened. These are the people who believed in the church. Who were unfortunately cast into madness by the Church. Many of them are the beasts that wander around. Some are still alive.

The last thing I think I should probably explain is the beasts.

The beasts or anyone who drink in the old blood too much. They are often referred to as drunk with it. As apparently the blood works similar to alcohol. These people often had their bodies twist into more animal like forms. The old blood of the vile bloods shifts them a little differently. Looking more like grotesque humans then grotesque animals.

#bloodborne

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spiritelectric3 · 10 months

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My Journey Through Homestuck Act 2 (Part 3)

This is the third and final part of the Act 2 response in My Journey Through Homestuck. After this, I will try to write up further thoughts on Act 1 and Act 2, though you may see some repeats of ideas from these segments.

This post will go from page 002420 to 002659

-First, I want to acknowledge the level of thought this series has jumped to before continuing. While this is definitely not the extent to which Homestuck will reach by any means, Act 2 has made sure to take us through the next wall blocking us from understanding the work's ideas. It is, in a way, shifting our own cognitive experience to match that of the work, or in other words, it's indoctrinating us.

-Oh I hate having a thought, but needing to wait for confirmation

-Just because a conversation would realistically take place between two 13 year olds DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN PUT IT IN HOMESTUCK

-I will say that I probably know enough about poetry to say that comparing Rose's poetry style to Dickinson is just barely not apt (by which I mean that it does not align with what I have been told about Dickinson by poetry authorities, and am using that knowledge to make myself seem smart for obtaining arbitrary details on poets.)

-Anyway, this is a good time to make note of characters being compared to classic poets. IIRC, John is compared to Walt Whitman, Dave to John Keats, and Rose to Emily Dickinson.

-Captchalogs have Captcha!?

-I'm fascinated by how much Sburb is based around puzzles that require the creation of keys. This sidesteps the video game trope of needing to find keys.

-It's interesting how much of the chaos of Homestuck is caused by players trying to figure out how things work. In order for John to understand this new device, he must sacrifice cards in his captchalog. Similarly, the world destroying meteors come into existence through a very innocent investigation of how a game mechanic works. We've seen the role that being given too much responsibility to understand how things work has in this series, such as in the book on data structures. However, Sburb takes advantage of its players' lack of knowledge regarding the game's simplest mechanics in order to effectively trick them into spawning the meteor.

-Clearly everything in this reality requires a guide. Perhaps this suggest that everything in reality provides a new dimension to its construction.

-WHAAAAAAAT!? METEORS!? DESITYNY!? DOOOM!?

-It's interesting that John's father actively prepared bases for John's future new reality. Theoretically this would instigate his delusion just as his father is deluded. Or perhaps there is actively a separate reality on top of John's for his dad.

-At least the two card sylladex is more feasible as a weapon. Just put a bunch of rocks and YOU TOO CAN BE CANNON!

-Here we are ever so briefly granting sapience to inanimate objects. The implications of this within a universe that is shifted by mere points of view is disturbing.

-So too is the implication that afterlife(s) is accessible via this reality.

-This is disturbingly accurate to what it's like to read a fancomic for a fandom that you're not a fan of, an experience far too well known for me, someone who wasn't able to really sink my teeth into the internet until I was age 13 (curse you screen time). To put the consequences of this into context, my nightcore phase (of which is technically still not finished) started in 2015, the same year I watched Madoka Magica, and I wasn't even aware Homestuck existed until 2018 (technically my first exposure to anything Homestuck related was in 2015, though that's a story for later). Much of my early experience on the internet was filled with confusion regarding fandom. It's no surprise then that I mainly stuck to the Zelda fandom in my early days on the net, as Zelda, despite how corrupt the fandom was in 2014, was comfortable for me, and I was eager to find out stuff about the lore. I mention this because it seems very clear that completely missing aspects of reality seems to be just as important in Homestuck as having a clear grasp on reality.

-What's funny is that I can imagine a version of this narrative that is just Dave discovering who he is and learning to grow beyond his older brother. What's tragic is that all of these kids are kind of made in such a way that they would fit well into that story. Imagine for a second a world where Homestuck isn't this insane lore, but is instead a narrative about four kids who for whatever reason, feel different, like no one gets them, and form a fictional world together as a form of meaningfully bonding.

-Now imagine a universe where John is in a coma due to tragic circumstances and has a dream where gets this game called Sburb, but when he plays it, a giant mete

-Okay, Dave's brother is... unsettling to say the least, and we have yet to even meet him.

-Why do I get the sense that Dave won't need a meteor for his house to be destroyed.

-The Boy (2016)

-WHAT THE FUCK EVEN IS DAVE'S BROTHER!?

-I have... disturbingly little to say about Dave's doings. He's kinda just there.

-It does bother me that we will likely have to adjust our point in time every moment we spend with Dave

-Is the narrator just... changing sapience every five seconds. Are the four protagonists just alternate bases for the same concept of a person?

-This game has had an inventory THIS ENTIRE TIME!?

-I just realized how little John actually understands what the heck is going on.

-The Watchmen-esque jumps to works of literature and writings from elsewhere in reality is concerning.

-Okay, but showing a kid finding personal joy in the pictures of a book he fundamentally cannot understand is so real. I know this happened already kinda with Rose, but I was more analytical then and this seemed like a good time to drop the charade. Oh no its ba

-note to self: try to understand this interruption with magic later (might be fun to talk about for extended thoughts)

-Here's an interesting example of Reality Processing through problem solving. John is without knowledge of a lot of the fundamental mechanics of the game and their functionality, but is able to come up with an interesting idea through merely asking "What if?". Thus, ending up with a totem for a new item (granted, layering two cards would be cause for less possibilities for what totem you get. Not more. Debatably, it still works as one merely needs to divide every individual type of object by two, but that's still odd to me under the fundamental nature of a punch card, though that is probability question I cannot answer).

-Rose's revelations indicate a dissonance between Future Guy and the game design philosophy of Sburb. The game values free will to the point that it will include mechanics that will prevent taking said free will away from players. Simultaneously though, Future Guy manages to take a certain amount of free will away from John entirely. And yet, it is in playing Sburb that John becomes vulnerable to Future Guy's influence. This leads to a couple possibilities. 1. Sburb is a poorly designed game, or 2. Future Guy has managed to circumvent Sburb entirely, possibly by disregarding Sburb's logic.

-Interestingly enough though, we have repeatedly seen that the narrator of the story has little to no control over the characters.

-I am making a note, that we still do not know how John can set up a server for kid #4. This is noteworthy as the narrative just now set up an entire methodology for potentially solving this before shooting it in the foot, metaphorically of course.

-Dreams are real. To be fair, I already knew this from a previous homestuck summary I attempted to watch. I feel the need to mention this to indicate that I am aware of some spoilers such as the relevancy of Dreams. I can assure you that I had much difficulty understanding a lot of what was happening in that summary due to the very nature of Homestuck and stopped in act 5 around the time the human kids become relevant again. Hopefully this clarifies to any readers. I apologize if you feel lied to by this note.

-I love how GG just knows everything somehow.

-Here, we see GG allude to a later jump in logic before one is ready to wrap their head around it.

-I'm very concerned with how the narrator keeps commanding our other protagonists to "stop being" each other. With the assumption of best intentions, I assume the narrator's functionality is grounded. What does stop being mean? It suggests a player switching between minds, point of views, and characters, but it also directly alludes to a a particular character to "be" or "not be". This segment isn't John being Dave, but this last segment is Dave being John. Why?

-The eye in the sky is... concerning.

-What are those towers in the distance?

-I'm interested in the use of the word "Psyche". Perhaps a comparison between Jade and Psyche from Greek Mythology? I'm sure I'll have a lot to say about this later.

-The allusions to the beginning of the comic act as a good format of character introductions.

-I'm interested in how the Wayward Vagabond is set up as one to rebel against the narrator. Every character thus far has been fairly resistant to the narrator's whims, but in this way the Vagabond is off the grid. The Vagabond is not named and the Vagabond does not have a captchalog. This proposes that the Vagabond is somehow outside of reality as we know it. Like the laws of physics thus far do not apply to them. The story itself is making fun of its own rules, acknowledging their arbitrary nature. The captchalog is only convenient if you don't use it. Similarly, so is not having a captchalog at all.

-OH NO THAT'LL GIVE YAH TETANUS

-The Vagabond is kinda pathetic

-One of the most notable things yet: reality does not operate in accordance with the Vagabond's mentality. The Vagabond understands the world being operated through democracy, yet exists in a world that, if the chess metaphor is anything to go off of, is ruled by kings, including the forces of good. The Vagabond needs to make a town out of cans to claim ownership of some semblance of control. In way, they are playing more than the kids. It makes some sense then that the Vagabond wants to control the mind of an individual whose view of reality is its basis, though that may be more of a corruption than anything, as John is no god (I think). After all, we can assume that if nothing were to happen, John and the others would be conditioned into becoming the same clueless individuals their parents became. If we are to give Sburb anything, it's that it provides a possible escape from that fate.

-Note to self: The firefly in amber is probably a symbol for something (not a metaphor as it has a literal presence in the narrative)

-The Vagabond is a child. John, Rose, Dave, ----, they are the enlightened.

-OR DOES THE VAGABOND HAVE SOME POWER THROUGH MINDSET (its possible they're drawing what they already know)

-Simpsons did it!

-OH GOD TAB WAS REAL!? OH THANK GOD ITS DEAD!

-The approach towards this computer is interesting. Like Sburb itself, we are understanding how it works through the eyes of a figure who initially, like us, does not understand it.

-The Vagabond cannot recognize a wizard. Another example of them not understanding their world. So what does the Vagabond know? In a way, by creating Can Town, they are allowing space for a new reality with new functionality. In other words, they are making a version of the idea of this very narrative.

-Aha! Again, like Sburb, the entire actions that setup the timer and whatever consequences it entails are not only pointless to try and predict, but are actively designed to be something a user stumbles upon without their permission. The technology operates on the cruel assumption that the user knows what does or does not trigger the timer, all the while knowing very well that that assumption is false.

-It's disturbing that in such a stressful scenario, Vagabond cannot help but conform to the reality they are trapped in. The implications of this series are kinda depressing.

-Note: The White team in this game of chess loses. So, going off of what we know, the Vagabond's conscious mind is totally out of sync with the reality they live in, but their unconscious mind is pretty heavily synced up. One wonders then whether it is the opposite for the children. Could it be that their conscious mind grasps reality, but subconsciously they struggle to operate within it. Perhaps this is the origin of the flawed nature of humanity.

-Alternatively, it's possible that the main world is easier for the conscious mind to comprehend, yet is harder for the subconscious mind, while the Medium is the other way around. This is dubious as captchalogs and the fundamental nature of Sburb still exist within the medium. This also operates on the assumption that the Vagabond is in the medium.

......that was weird.

So for context, this represents the big jump in time between what I had written then, and what I am writing now. I had been away for various reasons. It can be hard at times to give big thoughts and analyses for media while actively consuming it and while life is happening. Frankly, I'm sure I could have kept going or something without putting this big space in, but it felt right to acknowledge it. Anyway, onward for now?

-Ah. A new character.

-Oh. So the vagabond is still alive. No meteor? Perhaps...

-The first time Plato's allegory of the cave was described to me, I got an idea that the world outside of the cave was a lush forest or a jungle. Later, in school, I watched an animation of it in Language Arts class (I can't remember what for, though. My best guess is something to explain the allegorical nature of House on Mango Street to 12/13 year olds). In this animation, the outer world featured a desert. How strange it was to witness the concept of the world that the prisoner is brought to being so barren compared to the wondrous forest from my imagination. One wonders then what matters in the context of what is immediately outside the cave. Humanity has sought to leave Earth, only to realize that space is mostly just an empty void and what little there is is not alive, yet we still seek to leave. In the context of Homestuck, the medium appears to be mostly nothing. Yet, the remaining three children must seek to leave, and John must continue walking. As for our vagabond, well...

-timmy's stuck in the well guys

-A thought about Game Design. The escape room that the Vagabond seems to be trapped in is debatably more of a "game" than John's house. Yet, this is very serious for the Vagabond and initially John's house was a place where John "made play" by traversing it the way he did. You know, before the meteor destroyed it.

-It is interesting that we are denied the space between the doors that the clock is. (future me here, there was no clock finish)

-The existence of Pumpkins on other planets is not without note.

-Oh wait... there already was one.

-Appearify giveth and taketh away

-TAB

-The pumpkin guts dripping from the Vagabond's face is already gross

-You would not believe your eyes.

-Sludge farm let's go

-Is that... morse code on the wall? (LETS GO!)

-As I was figuring that out, it occured to me that it is the FIREFLY doing this

-In the book series Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins (yes, that Suzanne Collins), there are a number of codes which convey meaningful plot information which the reader must manually translate. To be fair, the reader also has the ciphers for such codes, but still, it's a tedious process. I mention this because I fear for what I may have to do in the future. Don't get me wrong! I love ARGs, but code breaking can be annoying and tedious at times.

-There is an apparent parallel between this and the end of act 1. Both stories end with a rush against a timer.

-Oh thank god, the fly has subtitles!

-In this parallel, it is very apparent that the Vagabond.... has no clue what they are doing.

-UNPSYCHE WHAT!?

-Wait. THIS IS ON EARTH!? OH MY ANALYSIS OF THE MEDIUM FROM EARLIER IS WAAAAAAAY OFF BASE!

-A lot of visual info is being conveyed at once here, but it is fascinating how elaborate Sburb truly is.

-F- Frog people?

-That's not a creepy shot of Rose's mom

-Wait, so are the frog people ancient by our standards or...? (I acknowledge that a temple with a frog on it does not necessarily indicate frog people)

-Mangrit?

-Wait, so Grandma Egbert knew about Sburb somehow!?

-That is concerning

And that's that. I think the big mystery in my mind at the moment is:

What is Sburb? Who created it and why? This is left as a mystery for the time being and there are many more to solve.

The thematic and storytelling structure of Act 2 is in and of itself odd in that I'm not sure what it is. Act 1 told a pretty barefaced story about the death of normalcy in the life of one thirteen year old boy. Here, it's harder to grasp the narrative of Act 2 or what defines it. From the start it's the first venture forth into the medium. To the end, well I'm not sure just yet. We seem to end on a darkest hour of sorts, though I fail to understand the notion that led us there. It feels we are partway through the second stage of the story. Not finished with it. I may need to do more analysis first.

Before beginning Act 3, I plan on doing a slightly more formal look at Act 1, followed by Act 2, though I may start act 3 before Act 2's analysis to place it better and keep my interest. We'll see how long any of that takes.

I leave you with this: To bear witness is to form meaning. To form meaning comes a symbol. When what that symbolizes is lost the symbol is no longer a mere symbol, but a memorial.

#homestuck #character analysis #story analysis

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