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dalekofchaos · 7 months

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Dutch made a pact with The Strange Man

Found this on reddit and thought it makes a lot of sense. Also this one.

Dutch's pact with the Strange Man theory.

We don't know in details what really happened before the game but some tips we can find in Arthur's Journal and hearing the other members made me think about this.

The gang was an ordinary gang from the beginning (1870s) until 1877 when something happened: Dutch and Hosea were arrested and by unknown means they escaped their cell. So my guess is that Dutch made a pact with The Strange Man to set them free and to be happy.

After that the gang became a family, with Arthur, John, Mrs Grimshaw and etc. And until the game starts they rob 37 banks. So the gang went from zero to hero in 10 years. Dutch was happy living his "dream".

Then the fire happened (the one Arthur mentions in the beginning his journal) burning everything they have thus forcing them to flee. In my opinion this is the time the Strange man came to collect the debts and Dutch probably do not want to pay. So they started to flee and even after a while Dutch still want them to move. They were going to California and all of a sudden Dutch decided to go to Blackwater. Even after finding some land to buy he still wanted to move.

"Dutch had a lead for some land we were going to buy […] or he got spooked we were being watched by the law and that somebody knew who he was."

Then after a while on Blackwater camp Arthur says that he heard about someone who looks like Trewlany, i remember reading about how similar both look like. Coincidentally after that Dutch started to talk about moving again. The ferry heist was fucked up because of the Strange Man, and it is the beginning of the end. Pretty much like what happened to Herbert Moon. His daughter married, was happy, but he was sad. Dutch got what he asked: fame, fortune, but he lost everything else on the way: family, love, even his mind…

I think he's the one who caused the ferry robbery to to go fucked up, and that the Heidi McCourt incident was him testing Dutch, similar to the way he tests John with moral choices in RDR1, or the way he tests Arthur with Jimmy Brooks in Valentine. When John first meets him in RDR1, he begins by reminding John of Heidi McCourt's murder. Eventually, the Strange Man does collect his debt…in the form of John Marston at the end of RDR1. The theory even goes further to some on Reddit, saying that Ross also made a choice that damned him to the Strange Man when he decided to go after and kill John, and Ross's debt was collected when Jack Marston kills him.

Other theories are that the ship Dutch, Arthur, Bill, Micah and Javier try to escape on catching fire and sinking was also the Strange Man preventing Dutch's escape. There's also a camp encounter in Chapter IV, after the ill-fated trolley station stick up, where Dutch and John have words that ends with Dutch telling John, "I. Know. You." which is the name of the Strange Man's side quest in RDR1.

Heidi McCourt was Dutch's test from The Strange Man theory.

Both John Marston and Arthur Morgan encounter two seemingly different people at entirely separate times and places, however they are somehow connected.

In RDR1, John encounters a strange man that asks him about Heidi McCourt, a woman Dutch shot in the head 12 years prior, during the Blackwater Ferry Heist. The Strange Man makes a point to let John know that Heidi McCourt was an important person, before sending John out to deal with a man who is soon to commit adultery. John has the choice to complete this mission honorably or dishonorably, and the Strange Man appears to be keeping track of his choices. In the final meeting with the Strange Man, the Strange Man claims he is "accounting". Its widely accepted that the Strange Man is some sort of supernatural force, being connected to fate and the dead. Which brings me to my second point, Jimmy Brooks.

Jimmy Brooks is a man Arthur Meets in Valentine in RDR2, who recognizes Arthur from the Blackwater Heist. After some chasing, Arthur is faced with saving Jimmy brooks or letting him die. Later in the Strange Man's cabin, a poem regarding Jimmy Brooks, who before seemed to have no connection, appears etched in a desk.

It is of my opinion that at some point in everyone's life, at least in the Red Dead universe, they will come across a figure that judges their morals and perhaps decides their fate, same as John in RDR1. My theory is that Heidi McCourt was this figure in the life of Dutch Van Der Linde, and the execution of her cemented his path into destruction he would experience over the next 15 or so years.

#Red Dead Redemption #Red Dead Redemption 2 #Dutch Van Der Linde #Arthur Morgan #John Marston #The Strange Man #Heidi McCourt #Jimmy Brooks #Hosea Matthews #The Van Der Linde Gang

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aquaburst3 · 5 months

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One debate going around on TWST Tumblr is about the OB boys and how the narrative handles them. On one side, we have someone saying that the OB boys' actions towards Yuu are shitty, horrible and traumatizing, so that the game should take time out to have Yuu lash out at them and have the boys "compensate Yuu for their actions". Some people agreed with that OP. One person in the replies of that post even went as far as to say that they quit playing the game based on that fact. On the other side, we have a person replying to that take basically rebutting that statement. They believe that the game shouldn't condemn them for their actions, and that we aren't meant to read their actions as scaring. Another portion of the fandom agreed with them. (No, I'm not tagging anyone for obvious reasons.) Personally, I'm somewhere in the middle between those extremes.

On one hand, we all came into this game knowing that they are based on Disney Villains, right? So, what the hell do some people expect? The NRC boys to be lovable Disney heroes with a heart of gold? Of course, they are gonna be morally grey anime pretty boys, who do some questionable actions. That's the whole fucking point of the game. xD

I also agree with that second OP that expecting "compensation" from people who were dicks towards you is not how life works. Sometimes people are just dicks towards you and you have to move on. Hell, I think characters like Vil compensated Yuu to a realistic amount where they acknowledged their actions, apologized and tried to make it up to them. I don't know what else some people want here.

On the other hand, I think this is one example of a HUGE flaw with the writing —the static characters and them having zero consequences for their actions, including their fucked up ones. Something I noticed in the game for awhile now is that most of the time, it completely brushes off the boys' actions and they get only a slap on the wrist. It's not just in cases of OBs either, it's in general. Almost Thanos Snap your friend? He instantly forgives you. Almost suck out the magic out of people and want to do it to the world? Nothing happens other than "forcing you to live with your guilt". Almost turn people into living puppets? You are allowed to get away scott free without anyone being the least bit mad about being almost subjected to a fate worse than death. You see what I mean? It's fucking laughable and unrealistic. Actions always have consequences, and so should theirs', whether they are based on villains or not. To be blunt, it's shitty writing. Plain and simple. Unless you are writing a flat arc, characters need to change and develop. It can be for the better or worse. But there has to be...something. Otherwise what the fuck is the point of having a story?

You can have both. You can write morally grey teen/young adult characters in a coming of age story AND have them have realistic consequences for their actions and grow and change. The Crows prove that.

The Crows from Six of Crows parallel the NRC students in a lot of ways. They are both in the same age range. (Even though, I think aging them up to be in their 20s and early 30s in the show was a smart move, since you can buy a guy in his late 20s being a powerful gang lord over a teenager. I think that's part of the reason why aging up the NRC boys to be 20-somethings in university is so popular in this fandom. It's much easier to buy Azul as a 20-something owning the lounge, for example. But that's besides the point.) Both have morals and care about a select few while being rather questionable. Both have done some VERY fucked up actions. For example, Kaz pulls out a guy's eyeball at one point. One key difference is that the Crows are more dynamic as characters and have actual consequences for their actions.

For example, Kaz is a hardened criminal who only shows his softer side to a select few. However, at the end of Crooked Kingdom, Inej, the woman he endlessly simps after and cares about a lot, says that she needs time away from him, joining a crew to find her lost family. The reason why he did this? Because he was emotionally constipated and needed to work on his issues more before getting into a relationship with her. That is a very real consequence for his actions and how he treated others. Hell, the way I interpreted that bit is that whenever she came back, she would be more ready to be in a relationship with him. (We would've gotten that in a SOC series. Thanks a lot, Netflixs!) There are plenty of other examples like that in the series. The group doesn't instantly let in Mattias into the fold thanks to him hunting down other Grisha before, tension forms between Jesper and Wylan thanks to the love triangle between them and Kuwei, etc.

The game could've done something like that. Have them still be morally grey people, but have fallout for some of their actions and have to earn their redemption. Do more things like what happened to Vil in Book 6...but have it actually make sense and not a stupid deus ex machina to make Malleus look like a Gary Stu. (God, the whole "Vil turning into an old man thing was fucking stupid.)

Plus, these guys are based on VILLAINS, so you'd think that characters like Ruggie would be more angry and want revenge. The fact that they quickly forgive and forget makes no sense in that regard as well. Hell, I'm still surprised that Ace, Leona and Vil never got mad at Honest Fellow or called him out in the new event. I thought they would try to kill him for what he did given the fact that they are based on villains. That's what the Crows would've done.

While, yes, I think part of this is due to the game's design as a gatcha. Plus, they want to make the boys as appealing to the player as possible in order to entice them pay more, so that includes not focusing on some of their deeds. However, I also think part of this is due to Yana herself.

During the 2020 guidebook interview, Yana said that she honestly believes that the boys' only appeal is that they are "bad" and they should always remain that way. So part of the reason why the game doesn't focus on that is because calling them out and having them change would go against her own mentality as a writer, because "character development=bad" to her, which hampers the story on all levels. That's why I think the light novel was able to dive into this aspect—Yana's not behind it, somebody else is. So, yes. Yana shares a chunk of the blame as well as the head writer, and is yet another example of her being a terrible one.

Another problem is that Yuu's lack of presence and blase attitude towards everything. The aren't phased by anything that happens to them in the narrative. It's not just the OBs either, but in general. On the first night, they have a GOOD night sleep despite being thrown into another world. When their home is destroyed in Book 6, they simply don't care. Like...what? Who acts like that? They have no impact on the events and mostly act as an observer, being more like the Crew in The Office than a fucking character. Hell, my toothbrush has more of a presence then Yuu! Again, it's shitty writing.

So, yeah. I think the side wanting these guys to be paragons of virtue or to make them repay Yuu for their actions is asinine. But at the same time, I think that Yuu's unrealistic responses to things, the character stagnation and them not having any real consequences to their actions is holding the story back. While I don't think the characters should beg for forgiveness from Yuu or go to rehab or something stupid like that, I think they should have some setbacks as a result of their actions that they have to work overcoming instead of moving on to the next boy. This should be a coming of age story, so that's a basic requirement that Yana is intentionally not meeting thanks to her own stupid mentality.

#twst negative #twst critical #aqua rambles #twisted wonderland

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gren-arlio · 6 months

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Went into this with nothing, came out with Japanese History. Welcome to Episode 10 of (Waku) Puyo Extras: Educational Edition.

(Yeah Lagnus is in the Waku Puyo Manga. There's 3 versions of him due to him basically having DID, and he actually gets solid development. A win for all 10 of us Lagnus fans.)

Hello everyone, it's that teenage boy who spends his time looking into wacky Japanese games again, and welcome to Episode 10 of this series. Finally hit double digits for these episodes, I can finally say it can be it's own series.

With enough research finally under my belt, (whilst also reading Case Closed on my spare time, good manga,) I can finally discuss Arle's Travel Log/Arle Man'Yuki, a game I had zero idea what it was about, but came out with...mostly basic Japanese history, so this is the educational episode of this franchise.

So, what's gonna happen after this? I'm glad you asked. Y'see, on Halloween, it's Her birthday. Yeah, Her. May as well plan a special episode for that, since She's one of my personal favorite characters. It'll be like 80% of just me shitposting, so heads up.

Anywho, with that, hope you enjoy.

So, What're The Origins?

Let me make this clear: What I cover this time around is NOT the entire game. That'll take way, WAY too long, so I'm only covering the pieces I do know. Some parts may also be wrong, as I'm not an expert on Japanese History. I hope you understand.

Well, there's a lot to cover here. Arle's Travel Log was released for Windows '95 in Volume 13 of Disc Station Magazines, back in 1996.

(The artstyle given in the game.)

The game itself is text-adventure game, and oh boy, you'll be reading a LOT of text for this game. There's light gameplay elements, such as clicking specific characters for a game or a battle sequence, but they're padded out from a lot of text.

Now, what's interesting about this game is two major things. First off, the game takes actual elements from old Japanese culture and adds it into their game, but they add Puyo characters/New characters/Jump Hero characters as the historical figures instead. We'll cover the history part in a bit. As well, Arle jumps through time period after time period, ranging from the 1100s to the 1860s.

And the second thing to mention: They have Jump Hero characters in this. You rarely saw them during Compile's runtime, but they made some appearances here and there.

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Wait, What's Jump Hero?

I should mention this actually. Jump Hero was another series released by Compile themselves, a series of games with mixed variety in them due to spinoffs (or as they're called, Gaiden Games,) such as platformers, point-and-click adventure games, adventure games, etc. It starred Billy de Babine, the Jump Hero himself.

(Disc Station Vol. 23. Guess Arle's a Yugioh player now, or are those candy? Curiously, Billy also seems to be drawn in the Puyo~N artstyle.)

There's a ton of characters to cover that I won't be...well, covering, such as Billy Burn (or Barry de Babine), Prince Ivan the Penguin, and Margarita Linda, but for those curious, here's the link to the basics of some Jump Hero characters.

Now frankly, Jump Hero can get its own episode, but for now, this is the basics, and what you mostly need to know.

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And For Those Wondering What Time Periods:

Well...it's the Heian and Edo/Bakamatsu period.

The Heian Period (Heian is current day Kyoto,) was a period from 784 AD to about 1185, most notably known not only for its virtually 400 years of peace, but also the boom it had on Japanese art and poetry. It was the Golden Age for historical Japan, as due to them making their own vast differences from Chinese art, but also their literature, caused a new and unique Japanese culture.

As well, during this time, politically, Japan was an isolationist country, basically leaving itself from most worldwide talk.

The Bakamatsu Period was much shorter one, from only 1853 to 1867, based off the end of the Edo Period (1603-1867.) The Edo Period was considered the last period of peace for traditional Japan, before they went into an imperial rule, up until their defeat/surrender in WW2 in 1945. The Edo Period was a peaceful one, though for 200 years instead of 400, known best for the economic growth of the Shogunate.

Back to the Bakamatsu Period, it was the final years of traditional Japan, though they're best known for the Shinsengumi Swordsmen, a group of elite swordsmen founded from 1863 to 1869, formerly low ranked Samurais and Farmers, founded to protect the Shogunate due to a massive divide in Japanese politics.

Unfortunately, history was not on their side, and were disbanded in 1869, as well as the end of traditional Japan. You may also know the Shinsengumi from Gintama.

Yeah. There's a lot to cover.

My history may be off so take these with a grain of salt.

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What's The Story, Gren?

Ah, the story itself.

It begins with Arle...encountering Satan once again, who's looking to grab Carbuncle. Unfortunately, Arle isn't having any of that and so they duel. However, due to this duel, they get blasted back in time. I'm talking the 1100s back in time.

The Heian Period levels of back in time.

(WATCH OUT ARLE YOU'RE GETTING MARIO AND LUIGI: PARTNERS IN TIME'D)

And now, Arle wakes up in the 1100's. Ain't that fun?

Unsure of where to go, she just sorta wanders around, checking her surroundings and runs into Mamomo, (remember him? Me neither.) and runs into...The Old Man From Third Street from Jump Hero, in the role of an historical Onimyoji, Abe no Seimei. There's even a shrine of him in actual Japan.

And hey, there's Ivan, in the role of Fujiwara no Muchinaga, the most influential person in Japanese courts back in the 10th/11th century, as well as holding the oldest autographic diary for a historically important person.

(Best image I can find...whoops.)

Throughout Arle's journey, she'll not only run into characters from Jump Hero, such as Billy de Babine posing as general Minamoto no Yoshitsune, but also Puyo/Madou characters themselves, posing as either historical figures themselves or just random people, such as Kikimora, Draco and Witch.

Kikimora is in a later year, I believe 1863, while Witch and Draco's in about year 1000. That's why Arle's clothes change. They both look pretty though.

Fun fact about Witch though: She does have a small game where you have to click her, but she must've mastered the damn Body Flicker from Naruto since she goes ALL OVER THE PLACE.

Now why did I say "historical figures" for some?

Well, let's take Rulue for example, playing the role of Tomoe Gozen, and my GOD was Tomoe a badass. A female Samurai, in the 1180s, there was a war going on in the late Heian Period, the Gunpei War, and in that, she was a leader, and went into battle alongside other Samurai. She's most notable not only for that, she's known to at least taken the head of one enemy (Hinda No Moroshige,) and presented it to her leader. Absolutely fucking insane.

Best part is...she was also a devoted wife. Ironic for Rulue but still.

(I had to put SO much respect on her name.)

Oh, and Schezo's here too, since Rulue got the role of a badass Samurai, what did Schezo get?

OUR BOY SCHEZO IS APPARENTLY THE VICE COMMANDER OF THE SHINSENGUMI, HIJIKATA TOSHIZO.

(Vice Commander ain't bad at all. Good on you Schezo. Apparently here, he really cares for his subordinates.)

Toshizo himself had an interesting history. He began off the youngest of 10 siblings, and was raised by his 2nd older brother and his sister-in-law. Spoiled as all hell, he was handsome, but rude to all who wasn't family or friends, until he saw a swordsman from another clan commit Seppeku. He went to that man's funeral and cried.

He spent most of his youth self teaching himself swordplay, and even became friends with the future leader of the Shinsengumi, Kondo Isami. When the Shinsengumi were formed, it was him, Kondo, and two other men, however those two men were kinda assholes, and Toshizo found enough evidence to make one of them commit Seppeku, and assassinated the other. Yep. He did that.

After that, he and Kondo became the leaders of the Shinsengumi, where Toshizo was very strict on the rules, and even got the nickname of "The Demon Vice Commander," and fought in many battles in the Boshin War.

After Kondo was executed by enemy forces in April of 1868, Toshizo died in battle after giving his final farewell to his servant, as well as his katana, a death poem, as well as bits of hair and a photo of himself, in June of 1869. He knew he'd die in battle, but he'd rather die with his government than live with the shame. A week after his death, the war ended...

And that dude is Schezo now. Lmao.

Oh, and who's Kondo? The leader of the Shinsengumi?

Camus. I'm not kidding.

Schezo and Camus are a team. That sounds sick.

Oh, and not shown but characters who also make an appearance (because THE DANG 10 IMAGE LIMIT...):

Minotauros

Zombie

Incubus[?]

Panotty

Serilly

Draco

Nasu Grave

Suketoudara

Skeleton-T

After all this stuff occurs, the final boss of this game is...Owlbear. I mean, could be worse.

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After That...Lesson, How's the OST?

As the guy who listened to it...it's okay. Which isn't great for Madou standards. There's nothing honestly too standout, but you're not gonna mute the game from the songs themselves. Definition of passable.

It's honestly quite a tad disappointing that it doesn't have a banger OST, but we can make do with what we got.

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And Overall?

If you're willing to check out this game for its Japanese history and some of the wackiness of both Madou AND Jump Hero...I'd say check it out. The characters being played are fairly interesting, and the lore behind the actual people themselves are so...interesting.

And with that...hope you enjoyed this lesson. It was fun researching the game.

#madou monogatari #schezo puyo puyo #japanese translation #puyo puyo #sega #arle nadja #rulue puyo puyo #witch puyo puyo #japanese history #puyo #disc station #puyoposting #The History part is why this took 2 weeks...#schezo wegey

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moebiusx9 · 1 year

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Fate/Dread

I love a lot of Fate fan AUs so I had the courage to mention my own for a bit. Don’t really have the confidence for a full fic, so I’ll just mention the main ideas.

>Story is a prequel to the main Extraverse games (Extra, CCC, Extella, Extella Link)

>It is the Extraverse’s version of the Fifth Fuyuki Grail War, called the Terminus Grail War here as it is the last possible war to exist on earth with the quickly drying up mana

>Due to this, the greater grail was meddled with further, allowing for more Master/Servant spots to open up, akin to Apocrypha. So instead of just 7 servants (8 counting Angra Mainyuu, there are now 16. A second of all the main 7 class, plus an extra class)

> The original Hakuno is the protagonist. She is the most recent of a long line of continuous Morgan le Fay reincarnations throughout the decades akin to a fairy replacing another fairy in terms of “role” in LB6.

>Her family, the Kishinamis, broke off from those in the Blackmore Cemetary decades ago, and lived peacefully away from civilization with the role of preserving artifacts from Arthurian legend. Hakuno’s parents are deceased and she is left the last of her family.

>She is one of the first unfortunate victims of the recent Amnesia Syndrome outbreak some years before the story, and gets by as a mercenary for hire, going by the name “Morgause”. Forced to kill in a worn torn world, even if she knows it’s wrong, but has no choice.

>Hakuno in general is very bitter and cynical, her laid back, optimism gone after all she went through, now focused solely on survival and preserving artifacts that disappeared from her family’s care (She’s been tracking down Avalon after it was stolen before the fourth grail war, and eventually tracks it down to Fuyuki) she’s basically made to be like a dark mirror to AI Hakuno, the person she doesn’t want to be, but still sees herself as.

>She plans to join the Fifth War to wish for her Amnesia Syndrome to be cured, since the only one who knew how to cure it, Twice, died not too long ago.

>She moves to Fuyuki and goes under the alias of “Shirano Tsunokuma” to lay low and scope out Fuyuki three years before the war starts. Here, she’d meet and become friends with some of the Stay Night cast, especially Rin

>In classic Hakuno, fashion, she starts catching feelings for Rin the closer the two get but is aware Rin the head of the Tohsakas, meaning they’ll be forced to become enemies once the war starts. This becomes one of her main conflicts as she’d accepted she’d have to kill to survive long ago, but not to kill someone she’s close with.

>This leads her to use the “Morgause” persona once the war starts in a Lelouch/Zero sort of fashion. Later in the story, she’d be forcibly unmasked by Rin, in a similar, dramatic way.

>Story would also have Shirou as a secondary protag, expanding on his relationship with Artoria, and his journey to eventually becoming Nameless once Extra rolls around.

>Hakuno would immediately realize Shirou has Avalon and his servant is basically her childhood hero in King Arthur, causing more inner turmoil.

>As for Hakuno’s own servant, I’m not sure yet. I’ve thought of multiple ideas such as Nobunaga, Billy the Kid, Enkidu, Edmond Dantes, Daji/Tamamo, Berserker Lancelot, etc. but haven’t decided yet.

>Story would end with Hakuno casting aside her own wish at the very end so Rin can win the war and hopefully, make the world a better place, as Hakuno decides a killer like her has no place. (I also like to imagine it was Rin’s doing that Hakuno was safely put in cryosleep)

>Some shenanigans with Foreigners may or may not have been involved in some concepts.

Here are some servant/master ideas as well, let me know what yall think

#hakuno kishinami #haku brainrot yippeeee #Fate AU #fate/dread

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standardquip · 3 months

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youtube

Dysphoria

A video representation of my experience with dysphoria. Made in 2020.

Video:Bakemonogatari, Kizumonogatari, Vision of Escaflowne, Escaflowne (movie), Revolutionary Girl Utena (movie), Neon Genesis Evangelion, Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion, Devil May Cry (anime), Fullmetal Alchemist, Noragami, Steins;Gate, Blue Exorcist, Guilty Crown, K (TV), Death Note, Death Parade, Akira (movie), Demon Slayer, KARAS, Children of the Sea, Dorohedoro, Psycho Pass, Nisemonogatari, Your Name, Paprika, Perfect Blue, Le Portrait de Petit Cossette, Weathering With You, 5 Centimeters per Second, Charlotte, Attack on Titan, Black Clover, Bleach, Erased, Darwin's Game, Deadman Wonderland, Drifters, Fate Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works, Free!, Sunday Without God, Blood Blockade Battlefront, My Hero Academia, Owari no Seraph, Chivalry of a Failed Knight, Re: Zero, Rozen Maiden, Strike The Blood Third, Sword Art Online, The Rising of the Shield Hero, Macross Frontier Audio:JT Bruce – Hypnic Jerk Premiere Date:2020 Status:Downloadable, Streamable Genre(s):Horror, LGBT+, Other, Artistic Cons/Awards: Anime Weekend Atlanta 2020 PRO Contest: won “Best Technical”, finalist in “Artistic” Agamacon 2021 – Honorable mention “Endless Nightmare” YoumaCon 2021 – “Now in Technicolor!” Award Outside Links:.org

Dysphoria AKA Skeptic’s Hypothesis AKA Multicultural Panic Attack

Started: 12 dec 2019 Finished: 11 aug 2020 Work time: 47hr 58min in premiere 26hr 16min After Effects

General Comments I started out wanting to make a weird/creepy glitch video. But as I started making it it became something way more personal.

The part where I over-explain everything

I joined AWA PRO in 2019 with a video that was completely forgettable (Exposure). I came away from that feeling very weirdly defensive of my editing skills so I set out to make something to prove I could edit. That was the AMV Esoterra, which was largely a shallow, showy piece. Aside from the technicals, it’s also just a type of video I don’t generally make because nostalgia/vibe things don’t interest me much.

While that video was coming along I got the urge to do something edgy, and I have always wanted to do text and glitch effects in a video. I’ve had a love affair with JT Bruce’s “Hypnic Jerk” for several years so worked on cutting it down to something usable (the track is ~10 minutes long). Once that was done I set it aside to make after Esoterra was done, to make sure I finished it before the pro deadline. I didn’t intend to finish Dysphoria for PRO, but I figured if I finished it in time (a big IF) I would submit it in addition to Esoterra.

Once I started on Dysphoria, the time went by so quick. I wanted something that would separate the viewer from reality and just focusing on the song would have been enough. But I got this idea to attach it to something real. And eventually decided to roll with it. It’s weird, because when you look at these 2 videos (Esoterra and Dysphoria) You’d probably think Dysphoria was the gimmicky one, but it’s much closer to my brain than Esoterra is.

I’m not super open about it, but I’m transgender. I also have clinical/major Depression. I wanted Dysphoria to be about the fight you have in your head with yourself on whether or not you want to change, or if what you’re dreaming is really something you want.

During my time in the Navy (2009 – 2012) I was constantly fighting with myself on what I wanted more– transition or to stay in the navy? DADT was repealed shortly after I enlisted, but trans people were still largely unknown and had to be closeted. This video helped me work through some of that, I think. I had a pretty good idea I was trans when I joined, but I wasn’t sure until after boot camp. And once I went on my first deployment things sort of snowballed, and I was constantly weighing the pros and cons of staying in or getting out to transition (Obama’s trans inclusion thing didn’t happen to shortly after I was discharged).

I wanted this video to be relatable to anyone imagining what a mental crisis was like. It was very important to me that it was still “gender dysphoria” but it didn’t beat you over the head with it. I wanted it to be subtle. Something that maybe trans people would get but cis people could still appreciate without feeling like the vid has a specific message. Gender dysphoria can be fairly insiduous. I don’t think many people realize how much it can affect things. It is also easily attributable to other factors, so can be very hard to identify as an issue if you aren’t already 100% sure you’re trans. I guess this video is just relaying feelings, and the general steps/phases/stages you try to work through during a mental crisis or psychological break.

For the text, I watched a lot of AMVs with text in them and I learned that text seemed to work better when you weren’t concerned with reading it. So I made the text hard to read and I used it more as an artistic framing device. Any time the character was feeling the text, I tried to put the text on the character, especially over their face. There are two “worlds” in this vid, one being reality (which is almost always starring a female character), and one being the dream/fantasy. Reality is dim, has washed out colors and hard to read text. Fantasy has easier to read text but it’s usually in another language. It’s also way more raw and emotional, and not the lyrics of the song/track.

And, as especially the case for the first minute, I started out the text being fairly legible but then got more screwed up and harder to read as time progressed. Because in the beginning you think you’ve got things figured out, but the more you think about stuff, the harder it becomes to decide, and the more frustrated you get. Especially true for ~0:28 – 0:34ish, screwing with the text in such a way to be artistic but also to purposefully frustrate you that you cannot read it.

Which introduced an ongoing problem into my video: How do you make things specifically frustrating (especially the later glitches) without it being so frustrating that the video is no longer “good”? That was an ongoing conversation I had with at least 3 different beta testers. Much more about the glitches than the text, because I had very specific visions for the text. In the end, I think I figured it out okay so there is a good balance between “messy” and “not done well”. But that took several tries to get right.

People suffering with mental crises generally feel alone. So I wanted the characters in reality to be relatable but have a barrier between them and the viewer. That being the text, blurs, VHS overlays, etc. I especially tried to pick scenes where the real characters were not looking right at you.

Dream world is brighter, vibrant, hopeful. The characters you see yourself as (the boys) are looking at you, and they’re for the most part cool, badass characters.

The glitches were predominantly hand-made using the very scenes they’re on top of. I did have some presets, but I’d say 80% – 90% of glitches were made from scratch. The presets mostly got used during the elevator scene around 2:13 – 2:17and 2:31 – 2:35. The only other help I had making this were VHS overlays which got peppered in throughout the video.

Despite Esoterra taking more time, I’d consider Dysphoria to be much more technical and difficult to edit. In Esoterra I was playing with, and learning about, flow, composition, and overlays. The time it took to effectively learn and apply those things was immediately used in Dysphoria which surprisingly has a lot of the same core concepts, just utilized differently. Despite them being nearly ideological opposites, I don’t think I would’ve been able to make Dysphoria as good as it is without having the experience of making Esoterra first.

Scene selection was incredibly intentional for every single part, and caused a lot of headache at times due to not finding what I wanted. Because my specific theme was gender dysphoria (and even more specifically, female to male) girls only show up at specific times: – the real world – the very first time the character goes into the dream world “at first it is a plunge into hyper reality” – when the character is actively fighting with themself (the yes / no sections) – after an implied suicide attempt at 1:32, when dream/fantasy start become one.

In the “Yes / no” parts of the video, the boy is always yes, and the girl is always no. That is specific to gender dysphoria, and to FTMs. When you visualize yourself? Is it as a girl or a boy? It was always a boy. But some trans people (myself included) will go through phases where they dream as their real-world (non-transitioned) self. For me, I went through a long period of denial, so would try to force being ok with myself, even though it brought me pain.

So all the scenes with girls in them are painful. The scenes of boys start out cool and confident, but then become trapped and locked away. They get angry and kill the girl around 1:20, which then results in the mental breakdown that follows. The suicide attempt, the male self saving the female self, the overall anger and confusion, and the “crisis” part of the video. The crisis is: Now you know you have to do something. Will you finally accept this part of yourself? Will you finally transition? The overlays at 1:53 signify the decision. Glass breaking, hands parting, and scissors cutting an umbilical cord.

The next section is “Help”. The character finally recognizes that they need help, because they are finally accepting that there is a problem. But just because you recognize there’s a problem doesn’t mean you’re any good at solving it. Therein goes the brief period of survival in the dream with the super clear picture of the man saving the woman. It works in two ways, one at surface gender dysphoria level because it’s a dude being cool, the secondary being that the masculine side is saving the feminine side. “Hey. You don’t have to die. You’re still a part of me. You might be transitioning to male but that doesn’t mean my feminine side disappears.”

The elevator section of the video was one of the first sections I edited, and so it is predominantly just a glitch fest as a way to transition from living in escapism to getting back to reality. It ends at the scene of the girl in bed. For me this symbolizes depression more than anything else. You know you need help, you are constantly thinking about how to get it, but sometimes you just can’t fucking do anything. So we have that scene and then shinji (the boy) appears as a reflection beneath. The video ends with shinji waking up in the hospital and the question “Are you awake?” It’s a throwback to the original video’s premise of a skeptic’s hypothesis… Can never know if you’re dreaming or not. But also a sort of ambiguous ending of never knowing if the character got the help they needed or not. Are they still living in their dream of being a boy? Or did they actually transition and this is reality now?

¯_(ツ)_/¯

So anyway that’s my over-explanation of this video. I put it off for so long, partly because I don’t like revealing this part of myself, and partly because I don’t think it’s right to force my interpretation/message on anyone. But overall decided the pros in putting this essay out there outweighed the cons.

Since I finished this video in August 2019, released it publicly in December, and only now just wrote this explanation at the end of February the following year, I forgot a lot of things maybe I wanted to touch on in between that time. But this is long enough as it is. If you have any questions, feel free to hit me up I guess. Contact info in my profile.

Some things I want to point out just because As mentioned previously, all scene selection was super intentional. But a lot of it goes by so fast and seems kind of random so here’s some things I want to bring attention to lol.

0:02 – there’s an overlay here of more rain (dropping on the camera) and also some faint glowing eyes. I wanted to bring some paranoia into this video but this is the only part that panned out.

Beginning to 0:21 – Your Name was amazing to work with because it had the perfect amount of scenes of girls looking at boys and being sad about it. This establishes the character’s life up to this point as being unhappy with who she is. The scene of her staring in the mirror at the boy and then crying really sets up the whole gender dysphoria framing device without being obvious about it.

0:24 – anthy is a fragmented, bare, vulnerable individual with a trapped and tortured boy prince inside :)

1:20 – metaphor for self injury. Also foreshadowing of some other chest-based scenes. 1:23 – the result of the previous scene. This was the best anime representation I could find for ftm chest surgery. Obviously the scar is all wrong but it was the only chest scar scene I could find that looked kind of believable for what I was going for.

1:24 – 1:32 I synced the tracking dot to the beat lol. Also the text on the bed moves when she lays down on it.

1:57 – 1:59 is all scenes with barriers because the characters are all trapped. The last scene is a first person shot of looking down at boobs, which in context of all the suffering scenes leaning up to it are meant to imply that boobs are bad. Character has massive chest-related dysphoria. It’s a quick callback to the other 2 chest scenes.

2:01 – 2:05 is dilandau!! From Vision of Escaflowne. I won’t explain the scene because it’s a huge spoiler but if you know the anime/character you’ll know why I used it here. :)

Note: the (uncredited) live action footage is a recording of myself.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many thanks to my beta testers and our discussions about the intricacies of glitches: Ash, Dr. Derpface, TheLazyDaze

Thank you to Synaethesia for helping me with the VHS overlays.

Thank you to Kriegher for the help with including Hindi as a language.

I also must mention ProstrateConstantly/ZaneWins, whose DESTRUCT vid and making of vid heavily inspired me to make my own glitch vid. And to CrackTheSky’s blog for mentioning DESTRUCT, as I otherwise never would’ve seen it. D E S T R U C T: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=878jSaMBtxw Making of DESTRUCT: CTS’s blog: https://crakthesky.wordpress.com/

Original track of JT Bruce – Hypnic Jerk: https://www.jamendo.com/track/24044/hypnic-jerk?language=en https://open.spotify.com/track/0e3aRWcOl7XqYNWP1ss5AO

I did a large amount of work to the song to make it work- here’s a screencap of my Premiere timeline for the song:

In (approximately) September 2021, JT Bruce commented on the youtube video!

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aura-acolyte · 4 months

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Since @normal-paldean-student did a Roleswap AU with Renee in Mare's place I wrote up a roleswap AU with Mare in Renee's place.

First big change: she doesn’t have Aura. Which is a problem because it means she can’t punch her way out of situations anymore. That means she has to get a lot better at battling. She also can’t heal. Which is fine cause her injuries go away when she goes to the next universe but does mean she can’t be as reckless about throwing herself into danger as she usually is.

Second big change: She starts with Crystal cause that’s the first game with a female player character option which also means she starts in New Bark Town instead of Goldenrod.

So, I’m gonna go through each gen individually and only cover mainline games because otherwise we’d be here all day and also I don’t have a lot of experience with a lot of the side-games. She went through those but I won’t talk about them. Also she still looks like herself just wearing different clothes. Also, also I’ll be calling this version Shifter Mare and the og version Auraverse Mare.

So, Crystal. Different town, same backstory except there’s no Norman to save them. Her mom encourages her to go on her Journey to get as far away from her father as possible. She doesn’t want to leave her mom but eventually agrees, promising to come back when she’s strong enough to face him. Her starter is a Cyndaquil.

She and Silver start off on the wrong foot when she just freaking decks him. This is, like, the only time engaging in physical violence actually works because it’s just really funny to me. What a first impression. They do eventually bond over having shitty dads and wanting to become stronger, though, and Silver’s probably one of her best friends of all time.

She takes beating the Pokemon League much more seriously than Auraverse Mare because that’s how she gets stronger. Eventually she beats Lance and kicks her dad’s ass (well, it’s more like she scares him away cause he has no Pokemon) then decides “Hey, that was fun, what if I did it again” and does the Kanto circuit before climbing Mt. Silver and defeating Red, something Auraverse Mare could never do. Climbing Mt. Silver really did a number on her though so as soon as the battle’s over she passes out…

…And wakes up in the back of a moving van. We’re in Ruby now. She’s a lot more hostile towards Norman in this timeline than even Auraverse Mare, partially because she just got force into a new timeline with zero warning and partially because, in her experience, dads are bad all the time. She, um, isn’t particularly nice to Professor Birch either but manages to hold it together long enough to get a Pokemon and Brendan (who she has a comparatively less hostile relationship with than Auraverse Mare because they don’t have the “We’re cousins so we gotta fight” attitude) seems happy enough.

She does have a bit of a crisis though because unlike Auraverse Mare, who put all her self-worth into being a hero, Shifter Mare put all her self-worth into being strong (Silver-type behavior, though she actually recognizes from the start that love and friendship works better than just using the strongest Pokemon like a tool) and without her Pokemon she’s not strong and if she’s not strong then what is she?

When she gets to Petalburg she is ecstatic at the idea of getting to battle Norman, who for his part is very confused as to why his daughter is suddenly acting hostile towards him and also doesn’t seem to know who he is, and when he sets the “you ned 4 gym badges to face me” condition she goes “Yeah, sure, I’ll do that, it’ll be more satisfying to beat you into the ground when I’m stronger anyways.” She also scares the shit out of Wally with how intense she is but they do eventually become friends and she’s quite fond of the kid.

She also bonds with Archie a bit. Not as much as Auraverse Mare but he likes her spunk and she likes his spirit. They beat Team Magma, she beats the Pokemon League, and gets to stick around long enough to take on the Battle Tower before being pulled away again.

Sapphire goes pretty similar. Shifter Mare’s less hostile towards Norman and Birch this time cause she’s figured out by now that maybe they’re not all that bad. She feels a little betrayed by Archie being the bad guy this time around even though she knows it’s an alternate universe so it’s not the same Archie. Bing bang boom, Emerald time.

At this point Shifter Mare’s growing pretty sick of this. Some mysterious unseen force refuses to let her get strong. Every time she reaches her peak she gets reset. But when she screams to the sky nothing answers so she’s forced to just go along with it.

It’s also worth noting at this point that Shifter Mare isn’t shy about the fact that she’s been traveling across universes. She’ll reference past adventures, mention things she should have no way of knowing about, and just say “I’m from an alternate universe.” This is really confusing for everyone else, who frequently question her sanity and also the fact that she finishes their sentences. Half the time she doesn’t even bother letting people finish their exposition, just cutting them off with “Yeah, I know already.”

Anyways, she’s mildly pleased to see that Emerald is more different than Ruby and Sapphire. Wallace being Champ instead of certified sopping wet cat Steven Stone is refreshing and the Battle Frontier is much more fun than the Battle Tower. But, unfortunately, it can’t last. Kanto’s next and Shifter Mare’s starting to think maybe she just wasn’t meant to be strong, maybe she was supposed to be weak and powerless and friendless forever. But if she’s supposed to be weak and powerless what else is there for her.

Anyway, Fire Red. Shifter Mare feels weird about this one because she knows this one and she knows it’s not supposed to be her story. To her, this is Red’s story. Blue is Red’s rival. Pallet Town is Red’s home. She’s not supposed to be here.

She does find a new purpose, though. If this is the past (technically) maybe she can find Silver and save him from his father. It wouldn’t be her Silver but it would be a Silver. And, hey, she kind of owed it to him to try.

So she goes through the Kanto League, unnerved the whole way through, but no matter how hard she searched she couldn’t find Silver. Even after she became Champion and had all of the League’s resources at her disposal she couldn’t find him. Not that she got much time to search because she got sucked into another world not long after becoming Champ.

Take two, Leaf Green. For the first time and last time, Mare goes off-script. No Gym Challenge, only searching for Silver. And it has disastrous consequences. Though Mare is making herself quite the nuisance to them in her search for Silver, because she’s not following the main plot route, Team Rocket achieve all their goals and thus gain total domination over the Kanto region, just their first step on their way to conquering the world. And it was all for nothing too because she never finds Silver.

Next world! Diamond! Uh, Mare’s not doing too hot. She was just indirectly responsible for so much suffering. And she can’t talk to anybody about it because nobody would know what she was talking about. Plus she keeps losing her support network. So she makes a resolution to never allow anything like that to happen again. From now on, if anybody was suffering it was her duty to put a stop to it. That was the only way she would ever be worth anything and the only way to atone for what she’d done. There’s the Savior Complex. Took a while but we got there.

Aside from that, the new universe was pretty nice. She thought Barry was a bit annoying and she didn’t like the dress she had to wear (were there no clothing shops in Sinnoh?) but it was nice. Though she couldn’t help but be on edge, expecting something bad to happen at any moment. And she wasn’t wrong to be. Team Galactic was on the scene and they were far more threatening than any foe she’d faced in the past. The amount of suffering they caused and the Pokemon they abused infuriated Mare, who tore through their ranks with her Pokemon, completing the gym challenge along the way so she could use HMs. Why were there so many HMs in this universe?

Pearl was pretty much the same story but Platinum was different. Whereas in the previous two adventures she’d basically been speedrunning, here she slowed down a bit. This was her third run and she was kinda tired. This meant that she actually listened when Cyrus explained his motivations and it also meant that she saw how much pain he was in. Before she’d seen him as just a big bad guy she needed to beat but he had clearly suffered in the past. She tried to reason with him several times throughout her adventure but it ultimately didn’t work and he tried to go through with the plan anyways. It still taught her a valuable lesson, though: bad guys are people too. Oh, also people seemed a lot more willing to consider her alternate dimension story than usual. Well, Cynthia and Cyrus were, at least. Doing research into Sinnoh history makes you a bit more open to the possibility.

Heart Gold is next. It wasn’t really that traumatizing compared to the others but it was weird being back in Johto. It was all so familiar but also very, very different. Her father was nowhere in sight, there’s this guy called Ethan hanging around, and there was a Battle Frontier apparently (that was exciting). Most notable, though, was this universe had a Silver and they started off on a really weird note because the moment Mare saw him she broke down crying and hugged him as tight as she could while apologizing so much. Which was weird for him because this wasn’t her Silver and he had absolutely no idea who she was.

Other than that it and Soul Silver were pretty standard affairs. Mare tried her best to put Silver on the right path but never quite had the same friendship with him as she had with her Silver. She may have cried… a lot. She actually freaked Whitney out by crying after winning the Gym Battle because that’s what she was supposed to do, not the Challenger.

After that nice little breather, we’re back on the heavy stuff. Black is next. She has a… complex relationship with N. She can see where he’s coming from and understands not wanting to see Pokemon suffer but she also thinks he’s a hypocrite for claiming to want to set Pokemon free yet also using them in battle. Even if the Pokemon do agree to it he’s still having them do the work instead of defending his ideals himself. She also decks him at least once.

In White she treats N with a lot more sympathy, knowing his whole situation and relating to it. The first thing she does upon meeting this version of him is give him a hug and promise to get him out of this which he doesn’t really understand. She actually manages to form a genuine friendship with him because she’s the first person besides his sisters to treat him with legit compassion and not see him solely as a tool, a king, or an enemy.

Black 2 and White 2 are weird. She was used to alternate versions of her friends but it was weird seeing Cheren and Bianca 2 years older than her while she hadn’t aged a day. It was also kind of depressing because they’d moved on to new things while she was still doing the same thing because she had too. Everyone else could move forward, she was stuck in the same cycle forever.

In other news, Hugh worried her significantly because he reminded her of Silver just with not terrible parents. His only desire was to get stronger to fight Team Plasma and it seemed like he was willing to go to any length to do it. His heart was in the right place but his head wasn’t. She made sure to keep a close eye on him and try her best to set make sure he doesn’t do something stupid that he’ll regret. Also I’m taking creative liberty and Ghetsis is killed by Black/White Kyurem in this version because I think it’s poetic that he’s killed by the beast he created and was foolish enough to think he could control, thus falling victim to his own hubris.

Pokemon X. She’s kinda surprised that she has this large friend group now. Usually she’s got one or two rivals and that’s it. It’s kind of nice cause it’s something she’s never really had before. Mega Evolution gives her quite the shock as well as the Fairy Type being a thing now. She thinks it’s all very cool. Name a more iconic duo than Mare and a Mega Lucario.

She pegs Lysandre as a bad guy immediately because she’s heard his rhetoric before from other villains and tries to alert somebody too it but everyone kind of dismisses her except for her friends. So with no adults to rely on (as usual, tbh) they’re forced to deal with this themselves. Also Mare hates Xerosic with a passion for what he did to Emma. Pokemon Y is more or less the same with the exception that she tries (and fails) to get into the Geosenge Base. Oh, also Mare is terrible at fashion. Like, just the worst.

ORAS. Oh I’ve been excited to get here. The first Region Mare ever shifted too. But unlike with Heart Gold and Soul Silver’s Johto, the Hoenn of Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire is very different from the one she knew. It was still familiar but at every turn she ran into something different. The people looked different, the cities looked different. A lot of the major events were still the same and yet they were so different. It was almost disorienting, going through the same events and yet not being able to predict what would happen next. But hey, at least she finally got her iconic ribbon.

She also falls in love for the first time. Shifter Mare finally gets to meet Zinnia and cannot handle the flirting. In Omega Ruby, Zinnia takes off before she has time to actually sort through these feelings but in Alpha Sapphire they actually manage to start a relationship… which doesn’t last long because Mare shifts again. Womp womp.

Sun is another entry in the “Your parent is terrible, I am going to be your friend now.” saga. As soon as Mare figures out what’s going on with Lillie and Gladion and their mom (she has her suspicions from the start that they’ve got something going on with their parent but she doesn’t know it’s Lusamine specifically until the reveal) she makes it her mission to ensure their safety. She also feels for Guzma and Team Skull and while at first she dismisses them as kind of silly by the end she actually has a lot of respect for them.

The Post-Game, though, that’s where things get real interesting. Because Anabel is a faller, making her the first person Mare’s ever met who has also gone through interdimensional travel. And she has no idea she even did it because her memory is gone. Mare’s not entirely sure how to respond to the whole thing and neither are Looker, Nanu, and Anabel who certainly hadn’t been expecting to meet a girl who had traveled to several dimensions. The whole thing gets very messy very fast.

Also Mare meets Red and Blue and is really unsure about what to think of the fact that they’re in their 30s and she’s still a teenager.

When Moon rolls around she befriends Lillie immediately, though this is still Mare so her aggressive and boisterous personality can be a bit much for her at times. Gladion is resistant but does eventually form a begrudging friendship, guess you can’t win over every Silver-coded rival. She also treats Team Skull like people instead of jokes and tries her best to get others to do the same.

I’ll be up front, I don’t know what happens in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon outside of the fact that Lusamine is kind of sort of a good guy but Mare’s suspicious of her the whole time. I do know what happens in the Rainbow Rocket Post Game, though. Remember that one world Mare accidentally screwed over by going off script? Well that Giovanni has discovered interdimensional travel. So, uh, this one’s kind of on Mare. Anyways, she beats him, he taunts her about how she never found Silver, time to move on.

Sword and Shield… is pretty by the book, honestly. Mare is extremely frustrated that Leon refuses to let her get involved in any way until the very end but other than that nothing remarkable happens. I didn’t play the DLC so I don’t know what happened there so… moving on.

Finally, Scarlet and Violet. Because putting Mare in a school is a good idea. She gets in trouble basically immediately but is let off the hook cause its her first day and Director Clavell’s nice like that. In regards to her friends, she bonds with Nemona over their shared love of battling, she deduces that Penny is Cassiopeia but doesn’t say anything (she also does not deduce that totally radical and regular student Clive is actually Director Clavell because I think that’s hilarious), and the moment she meets Arven she’s like “Yeah, I think we should punch your parents in the face.”

She’s actually kind of on edge the whole time, actually, because the whole thing is so low level. No world ending catastrophes, no large scale criminal organizations. The stakes weren’t necessarily low, the life of Arven’s Mabosstiff was very much in danger, but it wasn’t the same “everyone’s gonna die” stakes she was used to. She was almost glad when they had to face off against AI Turo/Sada and destroy a dangerous time machine.

And, uh, that’s it. She’s kind of in the same position as Renee, waiting for the cycle to repeat once again.

#ooc #ooc post

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realfinemood · 6 months

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Just a whole lot of babbling about my girl and her violent traumatized friends! Spoilers for the game, specifically the ending and a whole lot about Lae'zel's story and Astarion's romance, and also a bit about a squid.

[Did I romance Astarion this playthrough? Yes. Was it Brecca's most important relationship? Absolutely not.]

Lae'zel - Lae'zel was Brecca's best friend in game from the start, even if that start was having a sword pointed at her. But given the situation it was the objectively correct reaction to her so she didn't mind. Not only was Lae'zel a great fighter but seemed to already know a solution for the exact problem they were having? Perfect, sign her up. Even later on, when they seemed about to turn and Lae'zel came to kill her, Brecca was just impressed at her thought out plan, even if she's glad she convinced her to wait the night just in case.

(They've decided to never talk about how the second day knowing each other, Lae'zel went on about wanting to taste Brecca's sweat.)

Brecca had zero knowledge of Githyanki before meeting Lae'zel. But she trusted Lae'zel and went along with it, despite hating everything about the creche once they got there and agreeing with Astarion that the "cure" was absolutely going to be something like getting their heads cut off. [Getting a nat20 to beat the DC30 persuasion roll to convince Lae'zel to get out of the machine before it killed her was honestly the highlight of dice rolls the whole game.]

Brecca would've been wholely supportive of Lae'zel's new mission to take down Vlaakith on its own, but finding out they had been using a captured person's power this whole time made it her 100% on board the Free Orpheus plan. When it turned out they needed someone to turn into a mindflayer, Brecca was terrified Lae'zel would hate her for refusing to make that sacrifice herself - thankfully she didn't seem to blame her. Nothing could be more satisfying than Lae'zel killing the Emperor while Brecca was busy getting Orpheus to the brain. She hopes that when Lae'zel takes down Vlaakith, she takes what she learned traveling with them with her.

Wyll - For someone who has recently decided to be a better person but isn't 100% sure how to do that, Wyll was a shining beacon of How To Be A Good Person. In the beginning, Brecca definitely had him on a pedestal. But the more time she spent with him, the more she saw how being a hero meant sacrificing himself in ways that just weren't fair. She refused to let him chain himself to another pact to save his dad when there was clearly another way, and surprised that everyone else seemed to see it differently. When they went to find Ansur, she let Wyll take the lead as she certainly couldn't claim to be the hero when he was right there, and fully supported his decision to be the Blade of Avernus and help people on his own terms.

Astarion - Despite Astarion bitching and complaining about all her goodie goodie choices in the beginning, Brecca liked him in a "best friend who also annoys the hell out of you" way. She liked him because he's funny and good at shit she's not and yeah he's an asshole but still fought and had her back anyways and that was the important thing.

[The gnome slave comments were almost breakup material admittedly - my characters are either big gnome fans or gnomes themselves, take your racist nonsense elsewhere my guy.]

As for the romance itself, she's 2/2 on not realizing she was attracted until she was hit over the head with it. His lines are terrible, but they're at least so obvious even she can tell it's flirting. She definitely doesn't believe he liked her from the start, unless headbutting someone trying to slit your throat is romantic. She felt like something was off, and didn't like the implication that he was paying her back, but believed when he said it was just an excuse. When he finally explained that he was doing it for protection, the one thing she'd promised to do from the start, she didn't feel betrayed or manipulated. Just upset that he'd thought he had to pay with something she could've done without for something she was always going to do anyways.

When they finally confronted Cazador (something she kept putting off the more Astarion seemed interested in doing the ritual himself) he convinced him he could be the better person and set the 7000 free. She definitely didn't fail to persuade him and pissed him off by refusing to help, causing him to leave the party saying he hopes she dies screaming. After the world is saved, they (and Shadowheart) join them in the Underdark to help get them started in their new lives. And once that's started, they're off to find a way to let him walk in the sun again.

Shadowheart - Brecca took a long time to warm up to Shadowheart. The constant digs at Lae'zel in the beginning and the refusal to share anything about herself was a huge hurdle. But once they started going in the Shadowlands it made sense to bring her, and she started finding the actual person under there. Her amazingly terrible powers of persuasion failed her when they found the Nightsong, so she was extremely proud when Shadowheart decided on her own to not kill her. They grew closer after that and while Brecca doesn't know if she agrees with her choice to end her parents suffering, she plans on helping her start her new life and is welcome to stay with her and Astarion as long as she needs. [Shadowheart and Astarion both died during each other's final important fight and I like to believe they're close friends. As she never spoke up in the ending, I chose to believe she ran after Astarion while Brecca handled Karlach.]

Karlach - In another life, they don't get sick from almost transforming the night Karlach wants to talk at the fire. Or Karlach asks her to spend the night at the party before Astarion gets a chance to. It's probably for the best, as Brecca doesn't take not being able to fix her engine well, and takes Karlach's acceptance of dying even worse. She's beyond grateful that Wyll stepped up at the end and convinced her to go to Avernus with him, because helplessly watching Karlach die would've broken her.

Jaheira - They got off to a rough start, Brecca super not a fan of being told to go somewhere for safety and being restrained the first step in. But she got over it and Jaheira appreciated her jokes about her age (she wasn't actually trying! She's a halfling, a century is really long time!) and decisions that apparently reminded her of Minsc. Now she's happy to have a new elf grandma.

Gale - Poor Gale was in a different story from the start. Brecca smiled and nodded through his magic talk and long speeches, gave him shoes to eat when needed without complaint, and was down to fight Mystra for him because what the hell. What was intended as friendship apparently meant way more to Gale, resulting in an extremely awkward and confusing conversation about not telling him about Astarion. In the end, he left to find the crown with a confusing offer to let her be his Chosen if she ever came around to the Become a God plan. Because nothing says Chosen of the god of magic like a barbarian who knows one spell.

Halsin - Brecca genuinely isn't sure why Halsin apparently likes her so much. He's been a kidnapped damsel in distress twice and both times she's taken probably way longer than she should've to come get him. Also sure she likes tall people but he's like three times her size how would that even work.

Minsc - Brecca met Minsc way too late to have any real opinion on Jaheira's weird friend, other than confusion that he keeps insisting his hamster is talking even though she can speak with animals.

Emperor - [I the player made the Dream Visitor look like Brecca's d&d fiance. Brecca the bg3 character has not met said fiance, so has no emotional attachment to this form.]

Brecca was highly suspect of having a random person talking in their heads, telling them to eat the tadpoles when they were trying to get rid of the one they already had. But they at least seemed to be helping at the moment so she tolerated it right up until the moment she learned who they really were.

It wasn't even that he was a mindflayer - she likes Omeluum! It was he was using a captured person's power. It was the constant "I've never lied to you" while actively hiding information. It was that she was always supposed to trust without questioning, meanwhile the one time she tried to keep something private he forcibly went through her mind to find it. Nothing he showed her about Stelmane was a shock, and when he couldn't wait two seconds to see if Orpheus would help them and instead immediately turned to join the brain, she couldn't say she was surprised. Just glad that she never has to hear his voice in her head again.

#lol i don't expect anyone to actually read this whole thing #but i had a lot of time to waste waiting for my car to be worked on #so enjoy #.gaming #baldur's gate 3 #oc: brecca

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t00thpasteface · 1 year

Note

hope you dont mind all the questions. i love absorbing information. is there more information on Hears-Voices and how'd you adapt Daggerfall & The Greymarch together?

he's one of my OCs that still has a lot of things marked "TBD" on his backstory. i'm still chewing on Daggerfall here and there so it'll be a hot minute before i have all the dots connected!!

Hears-Voices is also kind of a comic relief OC where decisions are made based off whatever i think is funny in the moment. he shares this distinction with one of my skyrim characters, Huck Holly, and my ESO characters Em Balmer and Joe Crabshack. and to me, the funniest possible way to end up as the Madgod is to make zero attempts to do so. maybe Daggerfall is just such a hard game to get through that he finally snaps once I get around to beating it. maybe his natural packrat ways led him to a lucrative fungus-harvesting opportunity in the Isles. ultimately I think he just kind of... ends up there. he happened to be in the vicinity.

probably what went down is Sheogorath was looking at the list of potential Greymarch hero-candidates, and after scratching Suzy from the list because he couldn't pick between her and his other daughter Henrietta, and disqualifying the Nerevarine Iggy Saint-Helens for being AWOL (in Akavir without official leave), he settled on some unassuming yet accomplished Argonian from the west coast as a perfectly sufficient third-best choice.

one thing's for sure: Hears-Voices has NO fucking clue who Suzy is. never met her in his life. she's definitely older than he is. but apparently he's her dad now, and she also has an equally unhinged older sister from the Second Era. he eventually settles in juuuuust fine once the Madgod persona takes over, and by 4E 201 there's a third daughter of Sheogorath running around ready to carry on the role of Demiprince of Shenanigans...

#this is such a non-answer LMAO #shebbz shoutz #oc suzy #oc hears voices #ask

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indigozeal · 1 year

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Kei Shigema wrote up a proposal for a Lunar 0, and other Lunar news

I've been systematically translating the Lunar interviews from Beep21, but there's news that I think can't wait. In the second part of his Eternal Blue interview, series scriptwriter/visionary Kei Shigema talks about having drawn up a treatment for another Lunar—and it's not the story you might first think.

- Do you think you'll be able to be present the tale of the Four Heroes era (the so-called Lunar 0) touched upon in the PSP version of Silver Star in a game or other media?

Shigema: Lunar 0 has become a story of a bit different era! As for the tale of the Four Heroes: the emotions and conflicts and fated bonds involved are released and resolved in Alex's story, so I don't think there's any need to depict it independently. However, I'd like to write a little bit about Laike's story after the end of the game.

- Be honest: is there even a 0.1% chance of Lunar 3 in the future? I'm on pins and needles!

Shigema: I think the statute of limitations is up, so... (Actually, about 21 lines of grown-up stuff was deleted here...) ...So several years after the above was suspended, there were talks about whether we could now create a Lunar 0 about the details of how humanity moved to Lunar, and for consideration, we created a simple plot and characters. Mr. Kubooka even drew up rough sketches of the main characters. These were just for consideration; they didn't go to production. That means that, as for as the 0.1% chance goes: I don't think it's zero. However: an extraordinary amount of manpower and funding is necessary to create an RPG from scratch in this day and age, and when I think of getting to the point of getting that all together, I think it would be enormously difficult. I myself still want to hold out hope, so let's give Game Arts our support!

He also talks about his ideas on what may have happened after EB, which include a number of surprising concepts...

- What happened to Hiro and Lucia afterward?

Shigema: Welllll, I don't know—I suppose they went on a variety of adventures together? Lucia may have awakened the Blue Star, but I don't imagine it would have revived immediately just like that. I wouldn't be surprised if an exhausted Hiro & Lucia had two or three more adventures on the level of Eternal Blue! Making new comrades from people sleeping on the Blue Star—maybe everyone on Lunar coming to help, of course. I also kind of doubt whether that would've really been the last we saw of Ghaleon-sama. And perhaps at the end of Hiro and Lucia's adventures, the frozen earth would have changed to green...

Shigema also thinks that the spiritual successor to Lunar has already been made:

Incidentally, while it's not a sequel to Lunar, Tales of Destiny 2 (TOD2) is its spiritual successor—its emotional heir.

I'd wanted overseas Lunar fans to play it, too, but, alas, there was no overseas release! Abroad, Tales of Eternia was sold as "Tales of Destiny 2".

The role of TOD2's lengthy animated cutscenes; the expressions; the characters and story construction; the thematic material; the position of the heroine; the music production; and on and on—I think they're all connected fairly directly to Lunar. The element of romance between the characters etc. too is that way.

Particularly thematically, Lunar is, as an action-adventure tale, thoroughly about how the hero fights to save the girl he loves and saves the world in the process. With TOD2, we tried to go further and depict the decisions and growth of a hero forced to choose between the girl and the world.

Shigema is credited as a “script producer” on Tales of Destiny 2.

So, to recap:

Kei Shigema spoke with an unspecified somebody (Game Arts seems likely, but it's not explicitly specified) about making another Lunar game, to the point where he drew up a rough plot and characters (for which series character designer Toshiyuki Kubooka drew up rough sketches). Nothing’s gone to production, and he thinks funding would be a major obstacle.

This proposed Lunar game, "Lunar 0," would be about how humanity came to live on Lunar.

Shigema does not want to do the Four Heroes story as a standalone work.

Shigema thinks Hiro and Lucia might have had adventures after Eternal Blue in order to revive the Blue Star fully.

There are other people sleeping on the Blue Star, apparently.

Ghaleon might have shown up in some manner after his passing in Eternal Blue.

Shigema considers Tales of Destiny 2 (the Japanese title, not Eternia) to be the spiritual successor to Lunar.

#lunar #lunar games #lunar series #lunar dragonmaster #i can't add links because that buries the post #look at my other lunar posts

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lazy-aroace-writer · 1 year

Text

Writing a Villian x Hero Prompt #1

!!NOT PROOFREAD!!

Villain had decided, they would go to Hero's house and kidnap them so that they could no longer try and stop them from their plans. It had been a really simple game they were playing. Villain would go and do his daily activities that may or may not include taking random people as hostages, putting people in danger by throwing bombs at their house and more. And Hero will get a very bad sleep schedule and an injury or two. Anyway the game was all in Villain's favor and Hero never minded.

Villain got up and went to a specific room where they would take weapons that would help them take down Hero, if ever needed, they were stronger anyway. They took a dagger and stuffed it in its rightful sheath while putting it to their belt. They went to Hero's house without any problems, but as they walked in, they saw Hero eating an ice cream cone. They were dressed rather casually, white t-shirt, a pair of shorts and they were doing.. Paperwork? Well that's honestly just weird, Hero seemed like a child sitting on the floor, but like an adult hovering over documents and signing a few before putting them away on a separate pile.

Villain stood behind Hero, wondering if they were ignoring them or if they just didn't hear them come in. Hero suddenly turned, locking eyes with Villain for a split second, before Hero's face lit up with embarrassment, wide eyes quickly looking away from Villain's surprised ones. Hero's ice cream flew from their hands onto Villain's attire.

"What are you doing in my house Villain!?" Hero suddenly yelled as they fell back onto the tiled floor, knocking over a few papers. They then noticed that their ice cream was smudged onto Villain's clothes. Hero suppressed a smile, keeping an angry face.

They expected Villain to get angry, yell at them, but Villain only touched the ice cream stain and licked their fingers clean. They looked at Hero smirking.

Villain couldn't help but smile at Hero's puzzled and confused face. When hero didn't answer, Villain took a step towards Hero but they immediately took a step back.

They continued to do this process until Hero's back hit the wall. Villain crouched, looking at Hero, they were now furiously blushing, they took it upon themselves and took Hero's chin in their hands, making them look at them with wide eyes.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Hero seemed confused "What am i doing..?Eating ice cream..?"

"Hero, you're lactose intolerant, you shouldn't be eating this." Villain said as they pointed to the stain on their jacket. Their tone was nothing but scolding. Hero looked relaxed after Villain said this, they looked at them teasingly, as if this was a normal conversation between friends and not a dangerous situation where his arch enemy broke into their house and cornered them against a wall.

"I actually thought you broke into my house to kill me or some shit like that, I didn't think that you would be acting like you're my babysitter."

"Well, i mean, i was planning to kidnap you, but now I'm more intrigued by the fact that you have zero self control." Villian said as if it was a fact (it was).

"Hey! That's not true, i have plenty of self control! Besides who are you to judge? I bet you have no self control either." Hero spat back at Villain. Villain, however looked quite amused by Hero's will to fight with him as if they didn't look like they haven't slept in days and as if they don't have an ounce of energy in them.

Villain only looked at them as their eyebrow quirked up. "Yeah, right. Give me an example." They challenged Hero.

"Alright, fine! Uhm.. Uhhhh.." They couldn't remember, because Villain wasn't the type to do risky shit whenever they had the chance. They planned everything, even when things take turn for what they hadn't planned, they somehow get away with everything.

Villian only smiled at hero knowingly. "Just as i thought." They exclaimed proudly.

Hero only got up abruptly and furrowed their brows at the sight of Villain looking as smug as ever. "Don't look at me like that. Just because you haven't done anything reckless doesn't mean that I have no self control, maybe i have less but i still have some and you can't deny that!" Hero argued.

Villain got up from their crouching position to stand in front of Hero.

"I never said that i deny that." Villain stated simply.

"At least i dont leave my work unfinished like you do." Hero mumbled under their breath.

"Sorry, what was that?" Villain asked.

"You heard me, you dumbass."

"You sound remarkably childish right now, you know?"

"Oh so you admit i was right just now?"

"I dont leave my work unfinished Hero, you should know that firsthand." Villain's eyes darkened as they finished that sentence.

Hero only seemed encouraged to continue provoking Villain. "Enlighten me." They demanded.

"I don't think you're in a position to be demanding anything from me." Villain stated, voice starting to grow more and more deep.

"Really? And why is that?" Hero requested.

" Because you look like you're gonna drop dead any second now. " Villain's eyes traveled up and down Hero's body, making them shiver.

"Not true" Hero tried defending themselves, voice getting lower with each syllable.

"Is that so? Let me prove you that i dont ever leave my work unfinished, then?" They stepped towards Hero. "Hm? What do you say?" Again, there was a shiver that ran down Hero's spine.

"I-i.." Hero stumbled over their words, they were frozen in place, Villain's eyes pinning them down.

Before they could react, Villain flew forward and stopped when they were right behind Hero. Hero tried turning around but a hand gripped their stomach and they were forced to move backwards. Now their back was against Villain's front, one of Villain's hand were holding both of theirs to their sides, they couldn't move. While the other hand was around Hero's mouth. Hero couldn't breathe. They wriggled against Villain's hold but to no avail.

They could feel the god damn ice cream that got them in this situation in the first place, it was tickling their back.

"Mmph..!" Hero tried to protest, but their body was only snuggling against the warmth that Villain provided.

After a, what felt like, minute, there were black spots surrounding their vision, they could feel Villain's breath ghosting over their neck and it stopped just behind their ear.

"I came here with the intent to kidnap you and i plan to finish that job, is that enough proof for you or should we wait for after you pass out and after I've brought you back to my home?"

Hero couldn't keep awake much longer and before they knew it, they blacked out.

...

Villain removed their hand from Hero's mouth and picked them up. Their head was now resting against Villain's chest. Once again, their job was done successfully.

"Guess I've got my answer then...Sweet dreams, my dear Hero."

With that Villain kissed Hero's forehead and started walking back home, satisfied, with a very deserved prize in their arms.

Idea from: @flufftail-writes ! (Follow them)

#villian x hero #writing #writing prompt #short prompt #this was better in my head #enemies to lovers #NYAHEHEHEHEHEHE

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octoxen · 1 year

Text

MY BRAIN IS GOIN KABONKERS

gets ready for Xen happily rambles about the Final Episode of Alan Becker, THE KING

i was supposed to ramble about this last night/ after its premiere, but i was so sleepy lol-

If you haven't watched it, here it is!

youtube

For those who do not know about the series, I highly recommend watching from Episode 1 before this episode to prevent spoilers and confusion.

•••••

Basic Information:

AVM - ANIMATION VS. MINECRAFT

this amazing series that I always ramble and brainrot about is made by one of my favorites, Godliest Animator of the whole time, Alan Becker! (It is also a part of my childhood btw.) The Mini animated series features 5 stick figures, Second Coming, Blue, Green, Red and Yellow who are created by Alan himself on his computer, the legendary AAA game, Minecraft is also featured in the series. The series' plot basically starts with the Stick figures messing around and playing with the minecraft icon which it then turns to the five venturing deep into the world of minecraft, from a soft or happy story to intense and angsty lore, the series currently contains 3 Seasons and 30 Episodes, it started in the year 2015.

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SPOILERS WARNING!

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Now I'm gonna talk about the final Episode:

The King [Ep. 30]

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Honestly...this has to be the best episodes and one of my favorites from the series itself, Alan and his Animation crew outdone themselves, making the 7-8 months of work and compilation all worth it, all I have to tell them is they did an Epic job and thanks to them, the episode was possible to be made, I thank all of them, including Alan for making this series, its already like the series we see on our local TVs, but this is different. There are no voices, nor dialogues, but just Stickfigures, movements, perspectives and beautiful music, and an epic Tale of 5 stickfigures.

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I also had no idea King Neo/Orange's background was like that, what DJ (Alan's friend) said from the commentary was true, "Every villain is actually a hero in their own stories/head", yes, just look at how Orange hated minecraft because of the test gameplay and glitch that happened which caused his son's/sibling's demise, he just wanted to get his son back, unfortunately King can't because his beloved one is already dead. (maybe.)

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The glitch scene, specifically THIS scene

This. Shocked me. It reminded me so much of Pibby apocalypse. I was screaming "NOOOOO" while the video progressed, look at Orange :(, much worse, HE SAW HIS OWN BELOVED ONE DIE AT THE FRONT OF HIS VERY OWN EYES!!! I MEAN- WHO WOULDNT BE ON DESPAIR SEEING THAT? YOUR LOVED ONE, MEETING THEIR DEMISE INFRONT OF YOUR VERY OWN EYES!! My goodness...ALL I CAN SAY THIS IS VERY GOOD, SNACKABLE ANGST HMHMHMHMUHEHHE. The quality of the animation was so good too! The series really became an anime in a matter of time lmao-

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next up, when Orange planned how to destroy minecraft, I saw some scientific formulas there which activated nightmare fuels..hahahhehe. Mans really doing everything just to get his son back :(

When Purple saw that Orange was looking for the colored stickfigures (because he saw them playing minecraft at one of the local tvs in the city, he figured out they might know where the minecraft icon is and help him destroy it.), Purple went to Orange, telling him that he has already met them. Proving that, Purple did some fighting moves, but Orange didnt respond, Next, Purple pulled up and elytra which was from minecraft and equipped it, flew up and away with a firework and Orange finally responded and took him in.

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Finally, the fight scene. Purple punching King Orange was kinda satisfying after that betrayal, but the staff was stolen by Orange once again so their plan to catch King Orange failed-

HEROBRINE MADE A FRICKING APPEARANCE LMFAO I WAS ROFL SO HARD BECAUSE MANS WAS JUST DODGING LIKE THE ZERO TWO MEME 😭😭 ALSO. He possessed red again, that also shocked me, i was shouting "EPISODE ONE FLASHBACK?!?!?!" I JUST- AUSHEJEHWN ITS TOO EPICLY AMAZING AND FANTASTIC

the movements were also clear to see, I wonder how many animators animated every single stickfigure and mob in there to make the movements-

--------skipping few of the scenes

ENDGAME PART OR WHERE THE WHITE THINGY- VOID THING GOT STRONGER FROM THE STAFF, I STARTED TO STIM SO HARD BECAUSE IT WAS SO GOOD AND INTENSE, CUE THE MUSIC AND GRAPHIC, LOOK AT THE 6 STICKFIGURES GOING ONE BY ONE TO THE KING TRYING TO STOP HIM FROM DESTROYING MINECRAFT,, THEY WERE PUT IN THE WHITE VOID AND THAT CAUSED THEM TO GLITCH! THEN-THEN-

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Purple stood up and ran to King Orange, he countered the white void, reaching his hand to the King, this activated Flashbacks of the tragic Past, Purple struggling similar to Orange's son struggling to get out of the glitch. and when Purple gave up, Orange put the staff down and ran to Purple, he then realized that he was doing the same thing that Minecraft did to his son. He also realized Purple was the only one who understands him, who was with him through his plan and is like his beloved one, He also jumped in to the void to get Purple as his memories of him betraying Purple flashed, but Purple dissapeared to particles as Orange also dissapeared..

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ALSO! SECOND COMING'S QUICK THINKING WORKED, SAVING EVERYONE OMFG I LOVE HIM SO MUCH!

The way they did everything together just to stop minecraft from getting destroyed..the audacity of these 5 stick figures, I love them and their friendship so much!

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And now the part that really made me scream.

This scene.

I know some actually dislike the ship, King Orange x Purple because their relationship is more of a Father and Son dynamic, but for me and as one of the ones liking their dynamic, I actually cried when they hugged..King Orange is the new Father Purple needed, and Purple is the new son King Orange needed. I cried so much at this part, being happy because they finally realized they needed each other to fill the hole in their hearts. NOT TO MENTION THE DRAMATIC MUSIC HOLY GDOSYQJHWJQHWMAHAKH

ALSO SC APPEARING FROM THE NETHER PORTAL AUGHHHHHHH FHDJEHSNJ THE SLOW MOTIONNNNN

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by the way this isnt the end of my rambling- Im editting a few later but

THIS IS THE BEST EPISODE EVER. ITS BETTER THAN THE ANIMATED SERIES I'VE WATCHED ON NETFLIX. I LOVE AVM SO MUCH!

THANK YOU ALAN BECKER FOR MAKING THE BEST MINECRAFT SERIES EVER!

"It all started with 5 curious stick figures, ended with an epic legacy."

-Octoxen

#Alan Becker #Reaction time!✨#xen rambles #Youtube #✧Octoxen

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tathrin · 1 year

Note

Revan = Isildur but with Light Side ending how?

Oh, okay! So I haven't actually figured out exactly how things went down, and actually trying to write it out semi-coherently now may end up toppling the whole house of cards let's see lmao...

But: I've extended the existence of the Empire from 20 years to 400 (I picked that number because Revan was 4,000 years ago in SW canon so it's tidy to just lop a zero off, but there's no actual specific plot reason for why it's 400 years specifically; that might get shortened a bit?) because I want this to be something that's been going on for multiple generations. Likely the Empire did not take over quite so immediately in this universe, probably because it had to actually conquer some places instead of just slot itself in as the auto-replacement for the Republic? So it's been in complete control of the galaxy for less than 400 years, but 400 years ago is when it started.

Revan themself is a rather ambiguous figure at this point (because I LOVE ambiguous Revan! that's the whole point of the game! Revan has to be ambiguous enough that they can potentially be anyone because you need anyone to be able to be Revan! ahem sorry I'll get off that soapbox now) so no one's exactly sure how things went down...but the legend goes that Revan defeated the Dark Lord, but then Fell themself and that was how Dark Lord II survived to ultimately lead the Empire to victory in the end. So Revan died (or "died"? no one is sure! but they sure did disappear from the historical narrative at that point!) a hero, but their victory was short-lived and ultimately led to the Empire's rise and conquest of the galaxy.

Aragorn may or may not be an actual descendant of Revan, but he's definitely descended from the survivors of the Jedi Purge. They have lived in secret, at the edges of the galaxy, passing their teachings down, training any Force Sensitives they can get to before the Empire does, their numbers slowly dwindling. They often wander alone, trying to help without attracting too much notice; they do not wield their lightsabers, for those would be too noticeable. They do not call themselves Jedi in public any longer (although they always remember what they are; why it matters) but rather the Grey Company, for they bring light to the darkness—but the darkness is so thick now that it is only a faint twilight. But there is a prophecy that someday their light will shine forth again, and it will be time to replace the crystals in their swords, and blaze bright again in one final stand against the Dark Side that will decide once and for all the Balance of the Force. Aragorn has carried an empty lightsaber hilt and a cracked kyber crystal around for ages...perhaps one once carried by Revan themself?

But there is a second story about Revan, one whispered by the Grey Company among themselves: that it was in fact Revan who was the Dark Lord who rose from the defeat of the first one; that in order to destroy the Dark Lord Morgoth, Revan leaned too far into the Dark Side and fell. The power was too tempting and they became what they had once fought against, and went on to slaughter hundreds of their former friends and fellows in the formation of their Empire; in the great Jedi Purge that decimated the Order and sent its scattered survivors into shadows and hiding. Aragorn fears the temptations of power above all; fears that the Force itself might be his undoing, even as it is his guide and strength. Because if Revan, brightest of all Jedi, could fall then so could he.

So not Light Side Ending Revan, no...rather, we're set before the game begins (and the tales do not speak of whether Revan died as part of the Dark or the Light, because in the tales Revan dies before they could Fall). Most of the galaxy only knows the part of the story that ends with Revan's "death" in a Heroic Last Stand, a parry-of-two-widows situation if you will; they know that Revan destroyed Morgoth and was destroyed themselves in the doing...but they don't know that in this case destroyed does not mean killed, but rather corrupted. The Jedi know otherwise, but even they do not how the Dark Lord that was once Revan eventually died.

#btw i'm delighted to take Species Suggestions for any of these characters if folks have thoughts!#revan #aragorn #lord of the star ring wars #star wars au #lotr au #my stuff

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aquaburst3 · 5 months

Text

The Masquerade Event came and went on the ENG server. Just a couple weeks ago, I seen plenty of takes where OP rolls their eyes at people who say that Rollo is "problematic" thanks to who he's based on or him being "racist". (Which makes no sense, because fae aren't real.) Sorry, but I have to play devil's advocate. To be quite honest, I agree with some of the sentiment behind that, I just think some people aren't articulating their points well.

The issue some people have with Rollo isn't that he's based on a villain so therefore he's problematic and anyone who likes him must be sent to the Shadow Realm. All of them are. Hating Rollo based on that would be fucking stupid. The issue people have is how the game glorified Frollo by honouring the school after him and handled Rollo as a character, despite who he's based on.

For the former, again, yes, some of the Great Seven did some messed up shit in their movies. Hell, Jafar has that creepy Jabba the Hutt style captive princess scene with Jasmine, despite the fact that she was a minor. I'm a huge Jamil fan. What sets Frollo apart from them is that he's based strictly in reality. You will never meet a Hades, Ursula or Jafar in real life. They are fanatical villains with magical powers or objects. However, there are thousands of people like Frollo in real life, especially in the west. Plus, Frollo is on a whole other level compared to the Great Seven. All of the Great Seven have good traits, so you can see an argument for how they might be seen as heroes of their stories. Frollo has ZERO redeeming qualities. This is the same guy who killed a lady and wanted to drown a newborn baby for being disabled in the first scene he was in, lusted after an underaged girl and wanted to genocide all of the Romani in Paris! So there's no in universe explanation for how that would come to be.

Christianity is one of the most popular religions in the west, so everything tied to it cares much more weight here. A lot of people have religious trauma. There is a very real issue of residential schools, especially in the US and Canada, where indigenous/native american people were abused which were ALWAYS Christian. Basing the school on a fictional figure with that much real life baggage is in poor taste. While I know Christianity is a minor religion in Japan, hence why Christian elements are often added to Japanese media due to it being "exotic" to them much like how westerners view the Greek Pantheon, the game is being distributed internationally, so the developers should've considered these things and handled that topic much more respectfully and reconsidered some of their decisions.

One may argue that Gaston and Cruella are the same way, since they are realistic villains as well. But guess what? They don't have a dorm let alone a whole fucking school honoured after them!

Honestly, I think it would've been FAR better if the game made Rollo like the staff where he's based on Frollo, but honoured the school after Mother Gothel instead. Hell, you could've done a plot twist where all of the stuff in the town is based on Tangled, and then Rollo pulls the flower shit inspired by Hunchback of Notre Dame. That would've been so cool!

That leads to that second thing—how Rollo was handled. For one, he's a woobified version of Frollo. A woobie, for those of you who don't know, is an older fandom term used to describe bland pretty characters with a tragic backstory that the author expects you to feel sorry for them and get away with everything. Oh, boy. Does he fit that definition in spades. He's pretty bland. His only real standout personality traits are that he hates magic and the fae, prideful, traditional and possibly athletic. That's it. He has a sad backstory where his brother died in a fire after his magic got out of control. Fine, that's cliche, but it works. Hell, it's kinda clever in a sense where it's inspired by the Hunchback of Notre Dame off-broadway musical. Characters like Idia point out the hypocrisy in Rollo's ideology and that he is really doing this thanks to his own guilt for his brother's death, which is a good thing. The problem is, outside of him being boring as a character, that despite wanting to suck out all of the magic in the world, he got away with it scott free, and his only form of "punishment" was living with the guilt of knowing everyone thinking that he was some sort of hero...despite Malleus wanting revenge on him five minutes earlier. (I don't get it either.) I think a lot of this problem plays into a reoccurring one the game has a whole—the character stagnation and Yana's utter unwillingness to let them face any consequences for their actions.

It's not even with the one shot villains. You see this play out all the time with the main cast. All of the OB gang get a slap on the wrist for their actions. Everyone instantly forgives them, including people like Kalim and Ruggie who were almost MURDERED. (Kalim I kinda get, because he's a ball of sunshine and is deep in denial about a lot of things. But Ruggie? You think he would be at least upset at Leona for almost Thanos Snapping his ass.) It's not even just for OBs either. Malleus faced zero consequences or is even properly called out for his actions during the second Halloween event or deciding to tag along, despite damn well knowing it would make Jamil's life harder and that he couldn't refuse him.

So in that sense, the way that Rollo got away scott free is super annoying, but not surprising. It happens all the time with the main boys, so why not him? Hell, the same thing happens with with Honest Fellow.

However, this problem hampers the writing on all fronts. Unless you are writing a flat arc, characters need to change and grow, especially in a coming of age story like TWST should be. So instead of learning and growing like real people, every single character in the TWST cast always remain the same and never face any repercussions for their actions. It's asinine, since they realistically would, even if they are based on villains. Hell, you think it would make it even more so, since they are based on villains and would be more revengeful and not merciful.

The game should've punished Rollo for his actions. I don't think he needs to fall to his death into a lake of fire like his original counterpart, but him being expelled or everyone at his school hating him after learning the truth and him being stripped off all of his titles would've been nice!

Don't get me wrong. Rollo isn't bad as a concept. Hell, I'm even adding a version of him to my own fic, so saying that you can never add a character like that to a story would be super hypocritical of me. It's certainly cool if you enjoy him as a character, even if I don't jell with him personally. Just that the way that Yana could've handled Rollo and the other Hunchback of Notre Dame elements in a much more respectful manner and nixed basing the school on Frollo himself.

#aqua rambles #twst critical #twst negative #twisted wonderland

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jigensass · 1 year

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My 2022 Review - Section 1: Anime

So… we can all go on record and say anime isn’t cringe anymore, right? Not sure what happened, because now anime movies and merchandise are more accessible than ever. Back when I was a kid, it was cringe to go to the manga section at Border’s but now, it’s a normal thing to do. I’ve bought more manga this year than I ever thought I would. Just today I managed to find a Yuyu Hakusho t-shirt at Wal-mart of all places and I snagged that bad boy so fast. You know how difficult it is to find YYH merchandise in general? Next to impossible.

I’m not exactly sure what fired off this Renaissance of anime, but it has gotten me back into my roots of what I grew up on. This is the first year in a long time where I have watched multiple series of anime more than actual tv series because there were a lot of home run hits that came out this year. To be honest, I don’t think I’ve watched this much anime since I was in high school. I know many have watched a lot more, but here is my definitive list of what I have watched this year.

Demon Slayer: The Entertainment District Arc

Already starting out of the gate strong with what was to come. It was a beautiful 10 episode run, and with the next arc already announced for April 2023, I'm excited to see more. 10/10

Shenmue

Oh? You didn't know there was a Shenmue anime released back in February? Well you should have. Taking concepts from Shemue I & II, hopefully maybe that the Shenmue story can continue on in this media style instead of waiting for a game every 20 years to complete the story of Ryo and Lan Di. 8/10

Tomodachi Game

What if Among Us & Squid Game had a baby? Yeah, that's Tomodachi Game. It was alright, but I have a feeling this isn't going to be getting a second season. There were two many questions that led to more questions than answers and despite Crunchyroll showing this on their site, it was kind of meh. 6/10

SPYxFAMILY

'YOU HAVE TO WATCH IT!' I hear being yelled from the rafters. 'YOU MUST WATCH SPYXFAMILY'

"okay, few episodes, in and out"

1000000000/10.

Rising of the Shield Hero (Season 1)

This is probably the only anime on this list I started watching as a suggestion from my boss. She was right, it is good....until the very end of Season 1. When the romance subplot started going through and it was slowly turning into a harem rather than a dad simulator....I lost hope. I loved the Shield Hero as being this anti-hero character who was forced into this corner due to being dealt a bad hand, but when that plot went out the window by taking away the most interesting part of his personality and making him a more likable character because friendship, I couldn't go on. Also the CGI in Season 2 was so bad it made my eyes hurt.

6/10

Bleach (specifically the Soul Society Arc)

I initially went into Bleach to prep for the new arc that is running now (more on that late), but damn the Soul Society Arc goes hard....and then the entire series just kind of wanes away. After I found out through the Crunchyroll comments about the shitton of filler the anime had, I just kind of gave up. The new arc's popularity is probably in a niche community outside of tumblr because I have not seen it mentioned or hit trending (like most of the other shows on this list), most likely due to its exclusivity to Hulu & Disney Plus of all places. I watched one episode of the new series and the art style was jarring and getting back into the show felt like whiplash and not a steady flow.

Needless to say, I did like the Soul Society Arc for one reason and one reason only and it was to hear this, from an anime...back in 2006.

8/10 for Soul Society.

Lupin the Third Part 1 dub, Part 6 Section 2, and Part 6 dub, and some of Lupin Zero.

Lupin has once again consumed most of my year...again. In January, we got the last few episodes of Part 1 dubbed, which then led into the second half of Part 2. This second half has some of the better episodes of this part so Part 6 could hold some dignity. The dub of Part 6 was fantastic as well. Gayest stuff I could ever listen to.

I'm not going to get into great detail about it here because I've gone through it several times.

Part 6 overall gets a 6.5/10 If I could by each individual episode, this is their ratings Episode 0, The Times: Infinity/10 - Objectively the best Lupin episode to have been made and will ever be made. Episode 15 - 10/10 Episode 16 - Magma/10 Episode 17 - Kiss My Ass/10 Episode 19 - Slay Yata Slay/10 Episode 20 - GAY GAY HOMOSEXUAL GAY/10 Episode 21 - Best fanfiction/10 Best Quote of the entire Series - "I didn't get most of that, but I'm down to smack his [Lupin's] ass" - Daisuke Jigen (as voiced by Richard Epcar), episode 24

Also so far, Lupin Zero looks, sounds, and feels fantastic.

Tokyo Mew Mew New

My initial reaction when this got announced

My secondary reaction after watching the remake

It was pretty decent and it left me pleasantly surprised. 7.5/10

Jojo Part 6: Stone Ocean

This series had so much potential, and it held off until the very end (like literally the last 14 episodes). To truly appreciate what this part meant you would have had to suffer all the way through. My favorite fight was Weather vs. Pucci and completely forgetting how the KKK got involved and the plot was 'Sweet Home Alabama' for a hot minute threw me for a loop. That last episode ending was pretty dope though.

6.5/10 because of how the quality had to get better through the whole part to truly enjoy the ending and even as a Jojo fan, I'm still confused by what Emporio held as significance to being the key to saving the entire universe.

Chainsaw Man (still in development)

So far, this show has been going hard and I'm loving it. To pull the card of killing off a bunch of characters early on in the show was a nice move. There are still unanswered questions, but I have a feeling we will get answers in due time.

Love Denji, he's a simple man with simple needs.

I saved this one for last because it IS technically an anime, despite being more of a...mini-series. And to truly understand what is going on...you need to play the game.

Obey Me! Shall we Date?

The main premise of the...franchise is that this is an isekai where you are thrusted into the pits of Hell to attend Hell School and live with the Seven Princes of Hell. By the way, the main character (MC aka you) are a sheep.

Did I mention this is an otome gacha game? So go ahead and pick your poison.

There's also a side salad of characters as well.

Oh yeah, we're segwaying into the next section with these boys.

#out of the fiat #lupin iii spoilers #spoilers #lupin zero spoilers

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tenebraevesper · 2 years

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From Sonic the Hedgehog to Sonic & MegaMan: Worlds Collide

So, having recently returned to the Sonic Fandom, I had figured that I should familiarize myself more with the Sonic media I had missed. A piece of media I got interested in were the Sonic comics. Until now, the only Sonic comic I have read was World Collide, so I decided to start from the very beginning, with a bit of help from Sonic_Speed, who appears to be quite a source for anything related to the comics.

As a newcomer to the comics, I experienced a very wide range of emotions and thoughts concerning what I read. It went from ”Huh, interesting...” to “Okay, weird...?” to “Heh, neat!” to “What?” to “What the hell am I reading?! What were the writers thinking?!” to “Is this still a Sonic comic?” to “Okay, this is actually cool!” to “Holy friggin’ Hell! This is amazing!” to “Aw, com’n! Is this really how it’s gonna end? I want to see more of the story/character!”.

Needless to say, where I actually started getting more and more invested into the story was around Issue #160, aka the start of Ian Flynn’s run. I am aware that not all of his stories were perfect, but his stories were also the ones I enjoyed the most. I especially loved the Sonic Universe stories, Hedgehog Havoc and the Secret Freedom Fighters stories.

As for the characters, the only cartoons/anime I have watched when I was younger was Sonic Underground and Sonic X (and recently, Sonic Boom and the Sonic OVA). I have never watched Sonic (SatAM), meaning that I wasn’t that familiar with the Freedom Fighters (or any character that wasn’t from the video games) nor had any attachment to them. It took me a while to warm up to them, but rest assured, I’m certainly not part of the fandom that is screaming to bring the Freedom Fighters back. However, I will admit that my favorite Freedom Fighters are Antoine D'Coolette and Bunnie "Rabbot" D'Coolette.

I also understand why people don’t like Geoffrey St. John. I don’t like him either.

Now, there are actually a few characters that left quite an impression on me, even managing to get on the list of my favorite Sonic characters (which, until now, consisted only of video game characters - Shadow the Hedgehog being on top).

One of them is Scourge the Hedgehog.

Upon his first introduction as Anti-Sonic, I wasn’t really impressed by him. At best, he was ‘meh’ and at worst, he was a nuisance. Then, Issue #160 came around and he went from ‘meh’ to AMAZING!! in zero seconds flat. He wasn’t just an evil version of Sonic, but he actually became a character of his own, with his own motivations and ambitions. He managed not only to stand on his own, but also stand out as one of Sonic’s greatest threats.

I also really liked his mini-arc in Sonic Universe and I had hoped that we would see more of him, but unfortunately, he won’t be seen ever again in any official media. It is shame to see such an interesting character go to waste.

Speaking of wasted potential, there is one more characters who had managed to make it to the list of my favorite characters.

Say ‘Hello’ to Shard the Metal Sonic.

Honestly, while I liked him in his previous appearances, the moment he popped up in the Secret Freedom Fighters arc, I immediately went “I want to see more of Shard!”. He is such a fun character and I absolutely loved his interactions with the Secret Freedom Fighters, especially Silver (who is also my list). I believe that he could’ve been explored a lot more in depth, especially since his interactions with other characters show that he is insecure due to his past and robotic origins; which really made him more endearing to me.

Unfortunately, just as I started looking forward to him, he got killed off by an upgraded Metal Sonic, but even then, his last battle was quite epic. I really wanted to see more of his redemption quest and I enjoyed the idea of a heroic Metal Sonic, but that isn’t possible anymore. Rest in peace, Shard, you died a hero’s death.

Now, after having finished Worlds Collide, my plan is to start reading the Reboot Era and I’m really curious how the story is going to continue. Once I’m done with the Reboot, I’ll finally move on to IDW Sonic.

If you guys know any good fanwork/fanfic with Scourge (FYI, I know about Scourge Eternal Blackout) or Shard, please let me know.

EDIT: My opinion of Sonic (Archie) Post-Reboot.

#Ten's Thoughts #scourge the hedgehog #shard the metal sonic #sonic the hedgehog #archie sonic #archie sonic the hedgehog #worlds collide

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