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stingrayloveblog · 2 years

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Anyways regarding mr grizz, i had a theory way back that i knew from the start was a bit outlandish, so dont take this too seriously now. Obviously this is all pre splat 3.

After octo expansion as well as the relationship chart, i studied mr grizz a bit more closely and came to the conclusion that there was a possibility of him being an ai similar to tartar.

Put under readmore bc of spoilers and also its just a long post that i rambled and trailed off like 4 times

My evidence for this was primarily started by the relationship chart. Mr grizz, despite how he speaks about the salmonids in game, only had "..." to say about the salmonids. And the salmonids have no arrow pointing back to him, implying that they dont even know he exists. They know the players exist, calling them "intruders", but they arent actually aware of mr grizz. Mr grizz says that he is relying on you. Obviously, to collect golden eggs, right?

But what reason did he have to collect golden eggs? Its implied that power eggs are commonly used as an energy source, and while its never directly stated what the golden eggs were used for (pre splat 3, of course), it would be a safe assumption that golden eggs are simply a superior energy source, just harder to come by.

Going back to the relationship chart, i found it interesting that mr grizz seemed to have nothing more to say about the salmonids, especially considering the way he talks about them. He seems to hate them a lot, almost if they had done something to personally offend him, but its also somewhat comparable to the way marie talks about octarians. And yet, he has nothing else to say towards the salmonids when we see what his relation is with them. I took this as meaning that he doesnt actually hate the salmonids at all. As if he only talks bad about them to get the workers riled up. Maybe he didnt actually ever hate them, he just needs everyone else to have no way to get attached to them. The "..." could even imply that he may even doubt what he's doing. It really does just seem like an act. And the training manual/salmonid field guide is also never worded overly negative towards the salmonids either.

So why keep it up? There was never an inplication of any energy shortage in inkopolis. We get very little information about the trade between salmonids and octarians, so its unlikely that grizzco has anything to do with octarians. Not to mention, the way he trash talks the salmonids is very different from how he talks to the player. He doesnt necessarily get angry, just disappointed. He seems more patient than one might assume just from a first impression.

An interesting detail that i noticed regarding this is the fact that he never encourages you to go after as many salmonids as you can. If he really did want every salmonid dead, power eggs would be worth more to your score. But he never says that you should kill every single salmonid, just that golden eggs are the priority and the lesser salmonids will get in the way and to take care of those when you need to.

An extremely interesting fact about mr grizz that we actually get from an interview is that mr grizz doesnt actually seem to be there, that hes just pre recorded messages. Which gives even more reason to put up an act of hating salmonids just to get everyone else to agree with you. So where is the real mr grizz then?

I dont know. But what i did want to figure out is, what real motive did mr grizz have to keep grizzco open for so long? Why did it close sometimes? Surely if he wanted every salmonid dead, it wouldve been open all the time (splat 3 really ruined everything about mr grizz for me im not even remotely joking) but it isnt.

There is a sunken scroll as well as something from the salmonid field guide regarding the very destructive nature of the salmonids. We all know of the "seven rings" (which continues to be unexplained) and how the salmonids rise from the ocean and destroy everything, and the salmonid field guide regarding the glowflies event (known as "rush") says how, in the past, many unprepared cities fell victim to the salmonid rush. Clearly, the salmonids are capable of destruction on a mass scale. Maybe mr grizz is just trying to protect inkopolis (god i hate splatoon 3 story mode plot) in an indirect way.

But even with that knowledge, how long has grizzco been open? How old is mr grizz? Has anyone else ever tried to reduce the salmonid population to a point where they wouldnt be such an immediate threat? And even if they could never be reduced to that point, if he really wanted to permanently protect inkopolis, then he would have motive to wipe out every salmonid. But that clearly isnt what he wants. But WHY?

Think back to the ruins of ark polaris. Its, well, an ark. Like, for animals. Like noahs ark. And in the story of noahs ark, the earth is completely flooded. In splatoon, its implied that whatever killed the humans happened suddenly. And we know that there is a lot less land in splatoon than there was in the human era. Almost as if... it were a mass flood. So we could assume ark polaris was supposed to take the role of noahs ark (this was confirmed in splatoon 3). Now, you wouldnt really need to put fish on the ark if theres plenty of water for them to be in. Salmonids happen to be one of those fish that evolved, not exactly the way cephalopods and some other sea creatures did, but they certainly evolved. Its also interesting to note that low tide ark polaris has signs surrounding the area that have a logo similar to grizzcos. As if mr grizz took inspiration from these signs to make it.

Now think back to tartar. Tartar had a prime directive to pass on the humans knowledge to the next dominant species but decided to go its own way about it, finding the evolved sea creatures to be unworthy. Tartar had been observing for over 12,000 years, watching as they all evolved, and came to that conclusion on its own.

This is a stretch, but i thought to myself, what if mr grizz was like tartar initially? With a different prime directive? What if mr grizz was supposed to be connected to ark polaris, but then was given instruction to make sure nobody ever dies of a natural disaster again like the humans did? Or at least to help them prepare?

Combining an initial role of preserving the many lives of various animals with this new responsibility, watching as the salmonids destroy entire cities time and time again, what if mr grizz simply marked salmonids as the "natural disaster" that people need protection from, while simultaneously recognizing that they are still a living species and should still be preserved somewhat? Through grizzco, he would be reducing the salmonid population, but never completely wiping them out, and by doing so, this would protect inkopolis and other smaller cities and towns while still preserving the salmonids lives as well.

To me, this explained why his messages are pre recorded and why he acts like he hates salmonids and why he never encourages you to kill as much as you can. And then, splatoon 3 was revealed.

I had so foolishly assumed that mr grizz being involved would mean that the salmonids would be involved too, considering how he built his entire identity around harvesting their eggs. The smallfry reveal made me think that, if mr grizz was truly another ai with that preservation/protection directive, then perhaps the story will be that he is.. domesticating the salmonids somewhat. As an attempt to keep them alive while also stamping out their destructive nature. This would cause issues as salmonids have their own culture, they arent mindless violent creatures. Doing this would erase what salmonids are as a society. And that would be an issue, because thats just a messed up thing to do, but clearly he doesnt see anything wrong with what hes doing, because to him hes killing two birds with one stone. This would explain the whole "save our salmonids" thing (I REALLY REALLY HATE SPLATOON 3 STORY MODE PLOT).

And then we got the actual splatoon 3 story mode and everything sucked and was terrible forever and ruined any and all character that mr grizz had and could have possibly had. Look, i wasnt expecting ny theory/headcanon to be true, i was just expecting a little bit of literally ANYTHING, but no. We got THAT. Not even a hint of salmonid. Like what was the point of it all then. Nothing. Most disappointing thing ever. It genuinely pains me. I hate it so much.

#splatoon 3 #weaponblog #splat 3 spoilers #splatoon 3 spoilers #spoilers

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mattressdemon · 3 years

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bitching about narrative design in bioware games part 2

to summarize part 1 quickly, i bitched a bit about how bioware wrote some characters and designed some parts of the narrative of baldurs gate 1 and 2. they killed the only black woman in the og bg games for a (supposedly) white man’s pain (minsc) and then offered a replacement in the form of a white woman (aerie).

while complaining about bg1 and 2 could stand all on its own, the reason i wanted to talk about those things in particular is to highlight the way bioware writes and designs characters and stories in their later titles, like mass effect, but especially dragon age. i do particularly pick on the writing of david gaider and lukas kristjanson and a little bit on patrick weekes, but this is not meant to be a personal jab at any of them or say anything about their character or beliefs.

overall i think a lot of the way bioware frames certain characters and manipulates the dialogue of certain characters is really more questionable than allowing for actual critical thought. the best examples of my issues with this are cullen, aveline, fenris, dorian and sera. also a special shout out for jacob from mass effect. you might notice that ive now named four characters that lukas kristjanson wrote for; minsc, aveline, sera, and jacob. that doesnt mean i dislike how he writes all of his characters: i actually really enjoy carver and joker, for example.

my issues with the way he wrote these characters directly relates to over-utilization of stereotypes, writing dialogue that sometimes sounds bizarrely out of character, and combine both of those with poor levels of representation in all of the bioware titles.

aveline, while a very enjoyable character (imho) says things that i think directly contrast how she actually thinks and feels in game. she makes many degrading and insulting comments directly at isabela (who was confirmed as a black woman by gaider) about her sexuality and i feel like its honestly really uncharacteristic of her, given how often she finds herself agreeing with a pro-mage hawke throughout the story and how strongly she feels about the real protection and care of people. this is an issue for multiple reasons:

1. isabela is only one of two black female companions in the dragon age franchise, and she does not even have black facial features (she looks pretty european to me, leaving vivienne as the only black woman in the series with black facial features). contrast that to 12 white female companions throughout dragon age including DLCS, and three white female temporary companions (not including merrill, as i already counted her).

2. isabela is expressive and open with her sexuality in a way only one other female character is, and morrigan isn’t even near to the degree that isabela is. also, isabela is bisexual, and the narrative plays hard against characters that are bisexual/pansexual and simultaneously considered slutty (they have one each game! zevran, isabela, iron bull).

3. isabela is a swashbuckler/rogue with a spotty history irt loyalty, again reinforcing stereotypes of characters that are bisexual or bipoc being untrustworthy or of dubious morality.

and none of this would have mattered if there were more black and bisexual/pansexual characters in the series. weekes’ comment about not wanting to make solas black and bisexual because he didnt want to fall into a stereotype? null and void if there were more black and/or bisexual characters in the franchise. representation matters.

i love fenris too! and you know what i hate? people writing GOTCHA dialogue that doesnt even fit a character just to push a devils advocate agenda.

the conversation in question is between fenris and anders in act 2.

fenris: there, your magic would be a mark of honor. apprenticed to the right magister, you would do well.

anders: so they all do those things?

fenris: just the ones who don’t complain about how powerless and persecuted they are.

“just the ones who dont complain about how powerless and persecuted they are” shut the fuck up. why would this come out of fenris’ mouth at all, ever? bruh gaider wrote his storyline, he knows this doesnt make sense. he has to. doesnt he???

and i feel like da2, but especially inquisition, does this a lot. they shove a lot of dialogue into the game that kinda gives you a GOTCHA sorta vibe, like they’re just tryin to snag the inquisitor on bs.

this happens with dorian in inquisition too. if you play a dalish elf inquisitor, theres an entire conversation with him about slavery in tevinter. while the game spends the entire narrative effectively shitting on a dalish inquisitor for being proud of their dalish culture and heritage, dorian is often praised by the narrative for being nationalistic and proud of tevinter’s culture and history. in the conversation, it feels more like dorian is talking at the inquisitor rather than having a thoughtful and engaging discussion about slavery and why his perspective on it might be different. i dont have screencaps off hand atm, but it’s right there in the game, if you have a copy, go play it.

in contrast, in dragon age origins, you can have a conversation with leliana with a dalish warden wherein she says some hurtful things about dalish elves, things that are typically associated with real life stereotypes about indigenous people, like them being “savage” “brutish” or “lazy”. and by the end of the conversation, no matter what you say or do, she apologizes. she says she was wrong to say those things, and she’s sorry, and she won’t do it again. that’s an effective dialogue about serious issues in a video game!!!! not whatever bullshit that dorian conversation was.

and last but not least: sera and jacob. sera is a great character, and yet, she is the only companion who you can actively dismiss / rudely ask her to leave the inquisition throughout the entire game and in every single conversation. the narrative frames this 20 year old (she is YOUNG!!!! who ISNT annoying sometimes when they��re young???) lesbian as an irritant, and most people walk away from inquisition disliking sera. consistently ppl shit on sera throughout the game, and the narrative itself likes to make her an enemy to the inquisitor, make it feel/seem wrong that she constantly questions authority, when so many other characters are shown in a positive light for doing and saying the exact same shit she does. this is part of a larger issue bioware has in general with writing elven women in dragon age (see also the framing of merrill in da2 and velanna in the expansion for origins, awakening).

do i even have to start on jacob? black man with a heart of gold and a deadbeat, creepy, abusive father? then he “cheats” on shepard in mass effect 3 and the narrative gives you the option to punch him? he didn’t even know if shepard was going to be released from custody!!! he knew the reapers were coming and he didn’t know if he would ever see her again!!!! of course some people will feel his actions were a betrayal, but its all ignorant of the circumstances he was in. its not no two years thought dead thing that everyone is okay with excusing (virmire romance), but it’s certainly fucking close.

tl;dr: i hate how bioware frames characters and designs narratives sometimes. if someone ever reads this that works at bioware: please hire more bipoc and queer designers.

#aveline critical #fenris critical #dorian critical #bioware critical #notes #sunni

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mistymark · 4 years

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VIGILANTE/S. I

part one // 2.0k words // superpowered!au // series masterlist

summary; in which you consider yourself somewhat of a vigilante.

warnings; mentions of blood and death, depiction of some violence

notes; this is shorter than its supposed to be but the second half I hated so have this in the meantime :(( also this isnt related to my superpowered!au timestamps <3

Perched atop the building opposite the bar, you had a perfect view of its entrance and the laneway beside it. It wasn’t that late, but you always made sure to stop by it on your way home. Even at midnight, well-known Supers were stumbling out the door, drunk already and on their way either home or to meetings. On their arms were Shields, combat supers with abilities that would win in any fight if you were stupid enough to challenge them. Only some of them had bruises or blood on their faces, courtesy of the barfights that always broke out at The Den.

Normally, you’d only watch for a couple minutes for any easy trouble but tonight, it came a lot faster than expected. A group of four boys only a few years older than yourself walked out, their laughs carrying in the empty city air. This part of town was always abandoned at night, and it was mostly because of places like The Den, bars and casinos that became riddled with notorious supers and criminals.

Yelling and pushing each other along the sidewalk, you watched carefully as they walked past an alleyway, a man in a sleeping bag leaning against the building catching one’s eye.

“Hey!” He called out to the rest of the group, who had continued walking. “Look who it is!” They turned around and tried to make out the man in the darkness, before turning back around and walking to the intersection on the main road, searching for a taxi.

Meanwhile, the one left behind began to softly kick the man in the sleeping bag, muttering. You stood up and carefully slid down a drain pipe of the building, keeping a close eye on the drunk boy. It didn’t surprise you when it quickly turned violent, and you rolled your eyes, Seriously?

You dashed across the street and stopped a couple metres from him, “Hey!”

Your voice caught his attention immediately, and he stopped kicking the groaning man in favour of turning on you. A lazy smile made its way onto his face as he looked you up and down, “I think you’re in the wrong part of the city, babe.”

Babe? Okay, so you’re definitely an asshole. He raised a hand slightly, palm up, and wiggled his fingers slowly, crackling white energy winding its way around his hand and wrist. Lightning. No way.

You stood casually, before turning your hands over so that your palms were facing the sky, and you could feel it. The power rushing through you was almost addictive, and you wiggled your fingers in the same way he did. Within a second, the same coils of lightning were wrapping around your hands. “I think I’m in the right place.” You cocked your head to the side, “But thank you for your concern.”

The look on his face was priceless. This was always your favourite part – seeing someone who thought they were special realise they’re not the only ones with their abilities. In truth, as far as you knew, it wasn’t possible for any two people to share an ability. That’s what made your mimicry so special – as long as you were in range of that person, you could have their abilities, too. Beat them at their own game.

There was no reason for you to harm this drunk fool, so you nodded in the direction of his friends, “Go.” He stood, frozen in shock. You rolled your eyes and focused on the lightning in your hands, swirling it into a crackling ball, and raising it threateningly. This time you tried to be as stern as possible, “Go.”

He nodded and ran from you – in the wrong direction, but you didn’t care about that – and you bent down to see if the victim was okay. The man was already asleep before you could ask him any questions, and you wanted to stay but the sound of gunshots coming from The Den startled you into action, scrambling up a nearby fire escape. You were happy to deal with bullies and petty crimes, but gun fights, notorious criminals and gangs were not your scene. Especially when they happened to be supers, too.

You preferred to act as a sort of friendly neighbourhood spider-man, without the cool webshooters. When you were at a safe distance from the bar, you began to make your way home, only turning around when you heard muffled voices and shouts of pain.

You watched with wide eyes as the senator was dragged from The Den into a nearby black van. Everything came to you at once: the bag over his head tightened by some sort of cable, the blood on his pressed pinstripe suit, the numberplate of the van, the trio of men in matching black outfits keeping watch from the bar’s entrance, the overwhelming feeling of power you felt from them. Heat vision, bulletproof durability and light manipulation. You could feel each power. You could feel it from the top of the four-storey building. They’re more powerful than anyone you’ve ever met.

But then you felt a sudden addition – a shape shifter.

There were only three people on the street.

Fear crept across your back as you slowly turned around, analysing the rooftop for any company. There was no one there, but you could feel the familiar feeling of power running through your veins, and the trio of kidnappers had already retreated into the underground bar.

But then you saw it – the tiny bit of motion from the rooftop opposite. The one you’d been watching from earlier in the night. Whomever it was, they were not used to watching from there; retreating down the stairs slowly before walking down the street in the opposite direction to which the black van drove.

“Yeah, we were right,” Mark spoke lowly as he descended the stairs of the rusty fire escape. “They took the senator.” He had the odd feeling of being watched, but he let it go.

“Knew it,” Donghyuck responded, his voice loud and breathy from the proximity of his mouth to the microphone.

“Donghyuck, how many times do I have to tell you? Don’t speak directly into your mic,” Johnny’s voice was firm. “Get back to the house.” Mark knew that order was for him.

The ‘house’ was actually a huge warehouse located two blocks away. Though it looked abandoned, the warehouse was fully fit out on the inside as a proper training space, headquarters and dorm for the team. Mark still didn’t know how Jaehyun had paid for it all, but at this point he wasn’t going to ask. Questions weren’t exactly well-received by the team’s leader.

He walked the distance in total silence, keeping an ear out for any odd sounds or footsteps. There was nothing. Not even the sound of cars driving by – everyone knew better than to be in this part of the city this late at night – nor the sound of rain. No voices.

When he got to the entrance, he opened the squeaky gate and slipped through the small crack. He was greeted by Donghyuck, who waited in the doorway, leaning against the doorframe casually, “What’s up?” There were no working lights on the outside of the building - all the 10 year old bulbs had blown long ago – but the moonlight provided enough light for Mark to make out the look on Donghyuck’s face, and know Donghyuck was up to something.

“Let me in,” Mark’s voice was deeper, more aggressive than usual, more like a growl.

“Not until we deal with it,” Donghyuck’s voice was too eager for Mark’s liking, and there was a certain sparkle in his eye that made Mark weary.

“Deal with what?”

“This little spy,” Doyoung’s voice came from behind him, and Mark turned around to see Doyoung dragging a dark figure towards the entrance by the elbow. “Bring back a souvenir, did you?” His eyes narrowed at Mark before he pushed the stumbling figure through the gate.

“You’re taking her inside?” Even Donghyuck seemed surprised by this, and hurried to move out of the way so Doyoung could step into the warehouse.

“I’ve put a block on her mind – she won’t remember me or how she got here.” When Mark looked at the figure’s face again, he noticed the glazed over look in their eyes, and the stillness of their face, a token expression of a person who had had their mind messed with. He couldn’t help thinking, If it weren’t for Doyoung’s compulsion, you’d probably be quite pretty.

Once they got past the false entrance, a small room with dilapidated walls and holes in the ceiling, they were in the main part of the warehouse, where the rest of the team had been awaiting their arrival. Jeno and Jaemin were practicing in the large combat ring in the centre of the warehouse, and Mark could see Jaemin zipping around Jeno, dodging his punches. His superspeed gave him the advantage, but Jeno managed to land a punch, his super strength nearly knocking Jaemin out of the ring entirely. He barely gave the newcomers a second glance, until he realised Doyoung was holding onto a captive – a witness, probably, a suspect, hopefully – and held his hand out to Jaemin to help him up, the bruise on the latter’s face making him scowl. He accepted his friend’s hand, anyway.

“You’re getting better,” Jeno said, though his tone said otherwise. Jaemin probably was getting better; that was just way Jeno spoke.

“There’s a reason I’m the getaway driver and not a fighter,” Jaemin responded, dusting his pants off, before grabbing a fistful of Jeno’s shirt and hitting him square on the cheek. The whole thing happened in half a second, and Jaemin stepped back before Jeno could grab his hand and crush it as easily as he would a fly.

Jeno sent him an approving nod and they exited the ring together to greet Donghyuck.

Mark noticed Chenle and Renjun were nowhere to be found, probably off in their rooms somewhere, but Jaehyun was in his office – the walls surrounding the large space were currently clear glass, though he had the ability to make them opaque if he wished for some privacy. Johnny was in there, too, arguing with the leader.

Doyoung ignored the team as he brought Mark’s stowaway into Jaehyun’s office. Johnny immediately turned around when Doyoung interrupted their conversation, a frown on his face, but Doyoung said something Mark couldn’t make out and the walls turned black before he could see Jaehyun’s response.

“What’s with the girl?” Jaemin asked, unwrapping the bandages from his hands. He was looking at Mark now.

“She followed me from The Den. Doyoung thinks she could work for a Denner.”

“You don’t think so,” Jeno stated. It wasn’t a question – he knew this for a fact.

“No.” Mark sighed. “I don’t think so.”

“Maybe she was following you home cause she wanted to fuck,” Jaemin let out a half-hearted laugh.

Donghyuck snorts, “Yeah, that’s likely.”

There’s a split second before Jeno reacts. With a swift hit to the back of the neck, there’s a horrible squelching noise as the vertebrae in Donghyuck’s neck are crushed, his body falling limp to the floor. He’s dead within moments.

Jaemin doesn’t even look surprised. Mark can’t find it in him to be surprised, either. Jeno’s aggression was the reason he was so deadly. All his arrests were due to the same reason: someone picking a fight with the one person they shouldn’t have.

“Oops?” He offers, and it’s the closest thing to a joke you’ll ever get from Jeno.

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ryeguns · 4 years

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hey! so ive been missing streams 😭 and i was wondering wtf has been happening in the dream smp since the election results were revealed? i'm so lost and i really dont wanna watch all the streams 😔😔😔

oh god a loooot has happened; i personally recommend watching wilburs edited vids on his channel if u rlly want to understand everything but ill give a basic summary!!

major MAJOR spoilers for the dream smp (obviously) so if u don't want to hear about it then don't continue on (also its kinda long bcause all i think about is the dream smp-)

SO schlatt and quackity won the election, schlatt banished wilbur & tommy from l’manberg & renamed l’manberg to manberg. wilbur and tommy created a new place called pogtopia which is a bit away from the manberg / main area. quackity is schlatts vice president, tubbo is secretary of state (i believe?)

tubbo is a spy and is secretly working for pogtopia. technoblade joins the server and joins pogtopia to help take down schlatt. all he did for the most part was farm potatoes...and breed horses....

dream reveals he doesnt support schlatt out of fear that schlatt will begin to take over the entierty of the dream smp, but he cant show his support of pogtopia publicly. niki doesnt like schlatt, schlatt taxes her, they just hate each other in general. fundy is also secretly a spy, but hes not directly giving info to anyone, he just keeps a journal about what he has learned. fundy begins to question what side he supports, and begins to lean more in favor of schlatt because schlatt has been cleaning up the area and basically has been making everything look nice.

tommy and tubbo make a giant tunnel under manberg that leads to pogtopia (which is also connect to the prime path for, well, obvious reasons). technoblade has mostly just been trying to get the best gear for himself & has been trying to breed the best horse (he gets a trident at one point).

wilbur goes insane and believes he and tommy are on the bad side of history, that they’re the villians. wilbur gives up on getting l’manberg back and has settled on just blowing it all to shit so no one can have it. dream backs wilburs plan and supplies him with TNT and wilbur rigs the entire underground of manberg with TNT (much like dream did in l’manberg during the dream smp war) tommy doesnt support wilburs decision to blow everything up.

(this isnt exactly really story-related but sapnap killed tommys cow, henry, and dream, techno, and tommy teamed up to fight sapnap and a few others. idk it isnt rlly important to the plot but i enjoyed it so :D)

schlatt announces there will be a manberg festival, in celebration of democracy and everything. wilbur decides thats the day hes going to blow everything up. tommy still doesnt support wilburs plan. tubbo and fundy (and i think quackity?? idk) set up for the festival. tubbo has a speech written for the festival and one of the lines is the cue for wilbur to press the button to blow everything up.

the day of the festival comes along, schlatt gives a few speeches, wilbur and tommy watch from the top of one of the buildings. everyone is invited (even technoblade) to the festival, except wilbur and tommy. technoblade brings and OP rocket launcher crossbow and tries to get info on manberg. they play games and stuff.

wilbur starts to question if he really wants to go through with blowing everything up (because he will be blowing up all his friends in the process) and tommy continues to try to talk him down. wilbur ends up asking tubbo what he should do, and tubbo doesnt know. wilbur tells tubbo that if he says the cue in the speech, he’ll do it, and if he doesn’t, he wont. tubbos speech comes along eventually, and at the end he hesitates saying the cue, and schlatt begins to ask if he had anything more to say. tubbo eventually does say the cue, and wilbur goes and runs off to find the button to blow everything up.

schlatt starts encasing tubbo in a box and wilbur gets distracted and goes back to see what is going on. schlatt announces infront of everyone that tubbo is a traitor. schlatt calls technoblade up to the stage and tells technoblade to “take him out”. technoblade tries to stall, wilbur and tommy assure tubbo that techno is on their side and wont hurt him. techno gives in to peer pressure and kills tubbo with the rocket launcher crossbow, killing schlatt and quackity in the process (because they were on stage as well and just vacinity stuff yknow).

tommy and wilbur panic. wilbur goes and rushes to find the button, but cant find it. tommy reveals his position and goes in to kill techno, claiming techno has betrayed them. techno just starts shooting his rocket launcher into the crowd, killing basically everyone. tommy and tubbo meet up in the manberg-pogtopia tunnel. wilbur, tommy, tubbo, and techno all go back to pogtopia. wilbur and tommy are the most mad at techno, but wilbur forgives him. tommy doesnt and still believes hes a traitor. wilbur manipulates tommy and tells him to use that anger and to kill techno, so they fight in a pit that wilbur made. tommy dies, and everything is basically settled (though tommy is still mad at techno). niki also joins pogtopia. niki, tubbo, and tommy meet up just outside pogtopia and discuss whats going on. they all agree that wilbur has lost his mind and that they can only trust each other, and they begin to discuss plans of building up pogtopia so they can fight back to reclaim l’manberg. sentimental bit of them three looking off into the sunset as tommy plays the original blocks disc.

schlatt doesnt really care what happened, him, quackity, fundy, and a few others continue to play games after the whole techno thing. (i believe something with antfrost, bbh, and awesamdude happened? i dont quite know because i havent watched their pov yet but i believe they formed some kind of alliance to fight against schlatt? correct me if im wrong-) schlatt starts talking about his plans for manberg. he plans to replace the hto dog van with an apartment complex. fundy, quackity, bbh, antfrost, and awesamdude try to talk him down from it. they eventually come to an agreement that the appartment building will be built around it, so you cant see it. schlatt kills a few cats for no real reason. schlatt talks about how he wants to remove the white house (the one quackity built with wilbur and such), quackity gets defensive and tells him not to destroy it as it is a symbol of peace and he worked hard on it. schlatt still wants it to be removed but they plan to discuss it at a later time. fundy is left alone, he questions which side he supports. he is now more in favor of wilburs side because of the public execution of tubbo and the fact he killed cats.

day after the festival quackity and schlatt are on, tommy eventually joins as well. tommy plans to JFK schlatt and goes over to manberg to do so. he watches quackity and schlatt from a far, who are both at the white house. theyre both arguing over whether the white house should stay or go. schlatt wants it gone, quackity doesnt. tommy doesnt make a move and continues to watch. schlatt begins to insult the white house and starts to take it down. quackity gets pissed and kills schlatt and claims that he is no longer a part of manberg and proceeds to run off into the forest. schlatt then continues to demolish the rest of the white house.

tommy goes after quackity; quackity joins pogtopia and they head off to pogtopia. wilbur gets on and claims he has found where the button is and that he doesnt care if no one else is on, all he wants to do is kill schlatt and blow everything up. tommy tells wilbur quackity has now joined them. quackity and tommy then proceed to build a giant dick infront of the manberg flag.

wilbur then goes and shows quackity and tommy the button, quackity finds out about wilburs plan as a result. wilbur tries to push the button multiple times and quackity and tommy try to talk him down from pressing it. quackity says the only reason he ran against wilbur was to prevent dictatorship. they continue to attempt to stop wilbur from pressing the button. tommy at one point stands infront of the button and wilbur tells him to move to the side if he trusts him. tommy hesitates, but then moved. wilbur then destroys the button. wilbur says that now tommy will be leading them and making the next move. before returning to pogtopia to discuss the new plan, wilbur asks for quackity and tommy to wait outside. theres a sad moment and wilbur sings the l’manberg anthem and places the button back and says its just incase, as a backup, just so he knows that if something goes wrong, he can always rely on the button.

the three head back to pogtopia and discuss a plan. im going to be honest i was v lost on what they were saying when discussing the plans because they were all talking at once basically but the first plan, named plan a, is to use quackity to get to schlatt (its named plan a because ass...), then the second plan, plan 1, is yet to be determined, and the last plan, if those two fail, is plan b, which is to go with wilburs original plan of blowing everything to shit (b because bomb haha)

YEA thats the basic summary i think? theres a lot of other details like the fact that fundy, tubbo, and sapnap are now dreamon hunters but !! yea. sorry for this being so long aaaaaaa

#ask #anon #basic summary *is 10 paragraphs long basically*

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tomiyeee · 5 years

Text

finished the story quests for bl3 (but barely any of the side missions yet) and i got...Opinions(tm)

(sorry if this doesn’t cut on mobile! also if you want to hide spoilers i’m tagging all my bl3 posts as “bl3 spoilers” so ny’all can blacklist it)

in no particular order:

i honestly wanted to give gearbox some slack and try my best to like this game bc i know people had probably unfairly high expectations for this game given all the build up, but they really just kept letting me down in everything but the graphics

said this before but overall, the characters are all Quite lackluster

^^ tyreen and troy included. adding the word "bitch" to every sentence does not automatically make it funnier

that being said, i super love their backstory + relationship with typhon/nekofeyo-whatever

the character designs are equally boring. moxxi was the only one who got a real improvement imo. lilith and maya are okay. rhys...i dont think i have to explain. lia...i dislike her hair; the black felt like it balanced out her design better and the white streak was interesting and cool but full white just looks bad tbh. zer0 feels less sleek and more bulky which doesnt fit him much. tina lost her pretty color palette and cute outfit. where are all the bright pretty color palettes in general???? there are other colors besides brown and black???? use them?????

ending of pre-sequel: “you will need all the vault hunters you can get” me: “ooh does that mean all the vh’s from previous games are back? i can’t wait to see everyone meet each other! :D” bl3: only nine of them come back, 3 of them die, the rest are involved in maybe one mission at most

boss fights. super. boring. and tedious. i mean this could be partly because i was playing on ps4 which made it extra not fun but if the only reason the fight is difficult is because they have a lot of health...it's not fun or challenging. i want fights like handsome jack with interesting mechanics. i want fights like angel with emotional impact. i want fights like the pre-sequel final boss that i forgot the name of with variation that isnt just "now they have an attack that shines bright lights in ur eyes, covers the whole arena, and can knock you down in one hit im looking at you traunt and killavolt". tyreens fight was the only one that i somewhat enjoyed because of this. all the others were just like "ughhhh again?"

im really enjoying melee amara playstyle. taking out badass enemies in four hits is my jam. this is just my fallout 4 playthrough all over again babey heck yea

typhon just wanted to be a good dad!!! he called tyreen starlight which is adorable!!! he did the best he could and tyreen hated him for it!!! i don’t blame either of them for that tbh, it makes sense from both their perspectives. tyreen definitely should have been more understanding, but she’s a dick so :/ (not saying this is a writing flaw, just a character flaw)

hammerlock needs higher standards in men but i really appreciate the undeniably in-your-face "fuck you" to all gamer dudes

i really. hate. how little the player character seems to matter in the story. in pre-sequel the vh's all had unique dialogue AND npcs would respond, sometimes even with character-specific lines. even when it was the same across vh's, it still felt like the npcs were interacting and speaking directly to them. the player character felt like a character of their own, rather than just a vessel for the player to do quests and kill enemies with or an errand runner for the important characters. i thought that was the direction they were going in with bl3 too but this just feels like bl2 only worse. there’s a separation again between you and the story and it feels like you’re just watching things happen. now ur not just a silent protagonist, but instead your a speaking protagonist who gets completely ignored. whats the point of including unique dialogue if it's not even acknowledged beyond an "uh-huh, moving on"?

sometimes the logic just feels kinda dumb. the twins killed/disabled maya and lilith in a heartbeat, they can literally disintegrate the most powerful beings in the universe, but the vault hunters? absolutely not. they must fight them for 40 minutes and then die.

after the fight with troy, no one even touched tyreen. there's no way they could have thought "yup she's definitely dead, no need to shoot her in the head or anything just to make sure. we didn't do anything to even hurt her, we just assumed." turns out she's 100% alive and gets up to start the apocalypse. who'da thunk! i know they wanted the end to seem more dramatic but it just seems stupid that they could have stopped tyreen like 5 missions earlier had they even the slightest bit of common sense.

lilith was one of the biggest threats to tyreen and troy's whole plan. of course they should leave her alive and simply steal her powers. let's kill the monk siren instead.

i know they didn't include this to give all players a fair experience instead of favoring sirens, but it kinda sucks playing a siren character and it's just completely ignored outside of ur action skill. tyreen and troy are sapping siren powers left and right, but they choose to leave you with yours. when you enter the eridian place with typhon tannis starts glowing because it has "something to do with sirens". what about the one standing right next to her? this applies to bl2 as well...jack i would willingly charge ur vault key for u pls why do u take lilith instead :'(

oh yeah speaking of tannis! i LOVE that she got angels powers. for some reason it just makes me really happy. maybe it's bc i think it's sweet that part of angel survived. maybe it's because it makes for cool fanart. maybe it's just cool. idk. also like that we got a solid explanation of what angel's powers were (influence over technology). i always thought her having control over it in bl2 might've been cuz it was hyperion tech and she had access to it same as she had access to the satellite from bl1. it wasn't super clear since it seemed like she could also materialize things like the ammo during her fight.

that also reminds me: all the dramatic reveals in this game felt kinda badly done.

the very first one with zer0/katagawa. like the whole time i was walking around looking for him i was trying to think why he might've turned/something must have happened to him or rhys. everyone was saying it was undeniably zer0. i finally meet him and take one look at his bright ass maliwan armor and its like. really. you couldnt have made it anymore obvious that thats not zer0. and then his helmet gets knocked off and surprise! it's not him. i totally didnt already figure that out with one glance 10 seconds ago. (maybe even earlier when you got glimpses of him around the building but i always missed it cuz i was looking at the fish tanks n shit)

also the tannis reveal. she was speaking to me in the same way that only known siren characters could. weird unexplained things were happening and seemed to be related to tannis. i wonder if she's a siren? surprise! she's a siren.

tyreen and troy knew about the great vault through some unknown means. typhon was talking about having a son and a daughter who he told stories about the great vault. typhon calls tyreen his daughter a while later and lilith acts surprised like honey ur a little slow, i figured that out several lines ago.

basically i'm not saying they were so obvious that i knew from the beginning of the game; i only figured them out a little before they were outright stated. but it was enough that it kinda ruined the effect and the characters acting surprised only when it was blatantly spelled out for them just made it annoying.

i feel like most of this is pretty negative, but i don’t mean that i hate the game and was miserable playing it. it was honestly okay...like i said i wanted to like it, but gearbox hates me specifically and killed/ruined all my faves just to spite me sooo...*waves hand back and forth in a sort of “ehhh” gesture*. i think my opinion on bl games from most to least fav would be: tftbl, bltps, bl2, bl3, and bl1. so it’s not the worst, but deeefinitely not one of my faves. i mean jack’s not in it (or if he is he doesn’t have a big role) so it’s already at a huge disadvantage. the ending was ok, it was all dramatic n stuff and it kinda makes sense i guess, but it was just about as okay as the rest of the game really. i don’t hate it but it’s not great either yknow?

#equishit #bl3 spoilers

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fluffyheretic · 4 years

Note

I’m so fucking tempted to say “every single question with Kazushuu or Hitoshuu (except for the nsfw ones i guess)” But I don’t want to singlehandedly kill you

ok let’s do it

as a side note sometimes the answer is the same or similar for both ships just bc shuu is uh. the same person. but ofc not always

under cut for lengthhhh

1. Who makes the first move and how?

hitoshuu: normally im gonna say definitely hitori. he probably decides to be direct and just straight up ask. in iwasweetie au specifically tho i want it to be sweetie if only bc i need to make him get over his shit. he also asks “directly” but it actually involves a lot of stuttering and beating around the bush so it ends up not being very direct

shuukazu: im not sure if it would really be one of them specifically, i can see them as the “this kind of just happened” couple. maybe kazuaki is the one after several months whos like “so um… what are we…. lol………..”

2. Who is the most insecure and what makes them feel better?

hitoshuu: shuu, not that hitori is the paragon of confidence but shuus like “wtf hes the ideal young man and im Bastard Supreme but ok i guess”

shuukazu: BOTH LMAO but kazu is more vocal abt it and shuu is the Bottle Up EVERYTHING type

some good ol body positivity cuddle sessions work in both cases

3. Who is the most romantic?

anyone but shuu for obvious “i dont even know what feelings ARE” reasons

4. Who can’t keep their hands to themselves?

again anyone but shuu for obvious “i dont even know what intimacy IS” reasons but specifically hitori is just more confident and kazuaki isnt necessarily confident but is more just. shameless

5. Who says ‘I love you’ first?

not shuu for similar reasons as above. there’s a trend here, you see

6. Who would they ask if they ever had a threesome?

THIS is a CHRISTIAN blog

7. What do they get up to on a night out?

hitoshuu: going to dinner at a place thats nice but not TOO nice. like good comfortable atmosphere and good food but not posh

shuukazu: they probably just wander around, maybe go shopping, kazuaki keeps pointing out stuff he wants and dr iwamine “i dont know what to do with my money bc i dont want for material things” shuu just buys it for him. shuu please stop enabling him. stop it.

8. What do they like in bed?

hitoshuu: cuddling :)

shuukazu: snuggling :)

9. What is the most embarrassing thing they have done in front of each other?

i feel like shuu considers every single new couple-y thing he does to be the new most embarrassing thing he’s done. we’re holding hands? embarrassing. i kissed you? god now THATS embarrassing. you caught me wearing your sweater that you accidentally left at my place? well put me in the fucking ground thats literally the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to anybody. how dare i show sentimentality. despicable

kazuaki is similar in that he’s constantly one-upping himself and getting a NEW most embarrassing thing but his things include stuff like getting caught watching really strange anime and scream-singing pop songs and anime OPs in the shower

hitori probably like tripped on the sidewalk once

10. What two songs, two books and two luxury items do they take to a desert island?

these questions are difficult bc man idk what media exists in 2188 bird japan

11. What do they hide from one another?

in both cases shuus answer is “just about everything” hes terrified of the mortifying ordeal of being known. pretty much everything you learn about him has to be squeezed out

hitori hides how troubled he really is because he wants to seem like the responsible one everyone can depend on so that they dont have to worry about him. he does his best to hide when hes struggling but since shuu has that exact same impulse they pretty quickly start to see through each other, but are also very understanding about it.

kazuaki probably doesnt have as much to hide but he might be shy about portraying how REALLY in love with shuu he is too soon because he doesnt want to scare him away. he also hides the weirder shows and games and stuff that hes into lol

12. What first changes when it starts getting serious?

hitoshuu: i can see them having that kind of relationship where at first its casual and almost competitive in a way, like a “i think youre sexy and the only thing i know to do about it is see what i can do to make you flustered, then act smug when i succeed” thing. but over time when the novelty of that starts to wear off they both kinda realize they just straight up like each other and start being more genuine and soft.

shuukazu: again its a similar thing with shuu where he starts feeling more comfortable with letting himself be a little more genuine and START opening up. kazuaki picks up on this as a good sign and starts to worry less about trying to impress shuu and more just enjoying their time together.

13. When do they realize they should get together?

this is another one that i think is a similar answer in both cases, at least for shuu’s part he has a “dammit. i cant lose him” moment. since hes a person of very few words he tries to communicate “i want us to be serious” via letting down his walls a little bit, which hitori/kazuaki hopefully notice is happening and then are like “oh maybe we can work”

14. When one has a cold, what does the other do?

for shuu and hitori its “responsibly take care of you, bc its what i should do but also secretly i get STRESSED AS FUCK when someone i care about is sick so i gotta make sure youre okay”

for kazuaki its “take care of you, although i dont really know what im doing, also i thought since youre bedridden we could cuddle but its not as enjoyable as i wanted so like I’m Here but also im gonna watch tv okay? ill get u crackers and ginger ale”

15. When they watch a film what do they choose and why? Who gets the final vote?

hitoshuu: shuu’s gonna say he doesn’t care, but hitori also doesn’t really care so eventually he’ll get shuu to admit that he’d like to watch a nature documentary. especially if it’s marine-themed. hitori likes that too so hey there you go

shuukazu: shuu WILL watch the 76th pokemon movie OR ELSE

16. When the zombie apocalypse comes, how do they cope together?

hitoshuu: both are cutthroat bastards that do anything it takes to keep each other safe. their reliance and trust in each other is probably 99% of what keeps them going.

shuukazu: again shuus gonna do literally anything it takes to keep kazuaki safe, but to be real i dont know if kazuaki is making it out of this one. and if he doesnt then shuus not either.

17. When they find a time machine, where do they go?

shuu’s answer is going to be at various points in prehistory to study organisms that are now long-extinct (side note god thats definitely my answer too). his bf is worried abt the dangers but comes with him to make sure he doesn’t get into trouble.

i think hitori might not have anything specific in mind but going to historical sites in their heydays seems like a good choice.

since kazuaki likes literature he’d probably want to see historical stuff related to that, like seeing shakespeare plays when they first came out and meeting his favorite dead authors to ask them questions.

18. When they fight, how do they make up?

hitoshuu: hitori doesn’t like to dance around that kind of thing, after a little time has passed for them to both think about it then he’ll just be direct and say “hey lets talk about that thing that happened” if he feels he was in the wrong then he’ll then follow that up with an apology. i can see hitori being a little grudgy but then quickly getting tired of it and just wanting things to be resolved. shuu hates talking things out because hes bad at it but he knows its best so he’ll just try to explain how he felt at the time but also what he’s considered since then. even if he’s not good at explaining himself, hitori is good at understanding him anyway so they usually work it out pretty quickly.

shuukazu: they can be messier since kazuaki gets really emotional really quickly and sometimes says things he doesnt mean. theyre both bad at dealing with it afterwards though until after a few awkward days, kazuaki cant take it and is like “waaa i dont want us to be fighting anymore 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺” and shuus like “ok.” because yeah he’ll take the easy way out. they could probably improve their communication tbh

19. Where do they go on their first date?

hitoshuu: they probably decide to do something simple and casual to make it less awkward so they just get coffee. shuu feels like, from what he knows, that he should be expecting hitori to make a move on him. hitori doesnt because he wants to be considerate of shuus comfort level, but shuu takes it as a sign of disinterest. luckily shuu realizes hes wrong about that when hitori quickly invites him on Another date where they take a stroll in the park, and thats when hitori goes in for the tactical hand-hold maneuver.

shuukazu: kind of the opposite of hitoshuu in that they dont really declare it officially as a date. kazuaki just asks shuu if he wants to see a movie with him, not really calling it a date but kind of implying it to be one. shuu probably doesnt care about the movie but thinks this might possibly maybe be a date so he should go. kazuaki then uses it as a chance to Put On The Movies, as awkward as that might be, including the classic “stretch with my arms up and then let one down over your shoulders” move. shuu doesnt really know how to indicate his own interest in response but hopes the fact that hes also not complaining in any way gives a hint. despite it not REALLY being an official date at the time, later on theyll look back on it and decide that yeah that was their first date.

20. Where do they go on holiday?

shuu hates taking time off work, but if he must, then he’ll be content as long as theres something scientifically interesting there like a museum or an aquarium.

hitori doesnt really mind where they go, hes just grateful to get to go on holiday at all, so he’ll let shuu pick. and again, that’s going to be somewhere with a natural history museum, probably a very nice one and they’ll both enjoy it.

kazuaki is similar in that he’s just happy to be there but his ideal holiday destination is probably just…. akihabara. so shuu relents and goes there with him occasionally. kazuaki does like to visit aquariums with shuu though! they do both

21. Where do they get nervous about going with one another?

hitoshuu: the cemetery, at least at first when they arent used to being that vulnerable in front of each other

shuukazu: well shuu sure as shit is nervous about going to anime cons with kazu

22. Where does their first kiss happen?

in both cases, definitely at one of their homes, because shuus too much of a wreck to have a moment like that in a public place.

for shuukazu, i picture it that theyre just hanging out at kazuakis place and relaxing, and they end up cuddling a lot, and kazuaki kisses him kind of impulsively. hes then very apologetic about it before shuu manages to assure him that its fine.

hitoshuu, maybe hitori walks shuu home after a date and goes for the classic end of date goodbye kiss, but just on the cheek. then when once again hitori has walked shuu home, shuu wonders if he should expect a real kiss this time, but hitori goes for the cheek again. shuus disappointed and grabs hitoris sleeve before he turns away because he doesnt know how to say he wants more. but hitori takes the hint and kisses him for real this time.

23. Where is their favorite place to be together?

in both cases it’s at home, because shuu finds it much easier to be intimate when they’re in privacy. i think all three of them really appreciate just getting to relax together.

24. Where do they first have sex?

what did i say about this being a christian blog

25. Why do they fight?

usually its because shuu said something a little too tactless. hes not so clueless that he’ll say something really obviously offensive, but sometimes he really doesn’t know what’s too much. but his bf is hopefully understanding of this and corrects him Still Firmly but still with some “but i know you didnt mean it like that, we’re okay” way, because chances are he really didnt.

for hitoshuu specifically, hitori has to be on shuu about eating properly and can sometimes get kind of annoyed about it. shuus kneejerk reaction is to then be offended because hes an adult who can take care of himself. but they calm down and make up when shuu remembers that hitori just worries for him, and hitori remembers that shuu doesnt not eat just to spite him.

for shuukazu, i can see kazuaki’s lack of responsibility and aloofness start to get on shuu’s nerves, and when he brings it up kazuaki thinks he’s just being mean. again, similarly to hitoshuu, they get over it when kazuaki reminds himself that shuu wants him to be able to take care of himself, and shuu reminds himself as well that he can be too abrasive and should work on it.

26. Why do they need to have a serious chat?

hitoshuu: they dont have to right away but over time it would be good for them to be honest abt their respective traumas and the shit theyre dealing with instead of hiding it

shuukazu: similar, shuu should probably get around to being more open abt his shit. they might also want to have a talk abt what a serious relationship is gonna look like for them

27. Why do their friends get annoyed with them?

hitoshuu: i answered this already! but again, its bc theyre so ~responsible~

shuukazu: ppl either see kazuaki being super clingy and think “man hes so overbearing, his poor partner 😒” or see shuu being emotionless and think “man theyre so cold, their poor boyfriend 😒” actually they gotta mind their own damn business

28. Why do they get jealous?

hitoshuu: i feel like hitori actually gets hit on a pretty decent amount. shuu is never happy about it, but the death glares he starts sending usually scare the person off anyway

shuukazu: both of them think the other is too good for them so if anyone looks at them with even a little too much interest the other is immediately like “well i guess this is it”

29. Why do they fall a little bit more in love?

hitoshuu: little moments shuu loves is when hitori asks him how he is, how he slept. when he makes him dinner. hitori loves when shuu looks deep in thought, tucks his hair behind his ear, and he definitely likes to see him get along with nageki, which he does.

shuukazu: shuu loves when kazuakis eyes light up with excitement when he sees something he likes, especially when shuu realizes that hes one of those things too. he also loves kazuakis really nice hugs, especially when shuu just woke up from a nightmare. kazuaki loves how shuu listens to him intently, and asks questions about the things hes interested in, and sometimes rests his hand on him when hes getting tired.

30. Why does it work (or not work) between them?

hitoshuu: both are important figures in each other’s lives, obv shuu helped nageki but also hitori is probably the first person to get even a little close to shuu after ryuuji died. theyre both just pockets of trauma but are doing their best so it would be good for them to support each other and try to heal. theyre both pretty dependable so when the going gets tough they’re each other’s rocks

shuukazu: theyre definitely the “it will never work” couple that ends up working anyway. shuu might think kazuaki is annoying at first but if ryuuji is any indication shuu definitely seems to gravitate towards people who are more chill and even a little silly, and when shuu realizes that kazuaki isnt as dumb as he makes himself seem that helps a lot. for kazuaki shuu definitely has a ~mysterious~ aspect that draws him in initially but when it wears off as he learns more about shuu, instead of the magic being gone he just starts finding him more relatable and endearing so their relationship actually improves.

#hato #hitoshuu #shuukazu #shuu #hitori #kazuaki #kirogaraii #these were really interesting to answer #it made me think a lot abt the ways i think these ships are similar but also different #and how theres always one constant: shuu is a mess #but theyre ALL messes so its ok theyll be messy together <3

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nero-the-truth-sable · 4 years

Photo

So I am commonly known as Nero, and I have played a popular MMO since it came out, and I have enjoyed this MMO with a small group of people, and in particular someone who has become a very good friend of mine. Now last year my friend began having some trouble, but here is the catch, my friends account was not active because she was away having major surgery. Now I know what everyone is thinking, your thinking I am always going to defend my friend because they are my friends, well no I am not like that. I say it like it is. I am going to put the screen shots of various discord conversations up on this tumbler, I will also explain a bit about them and I will let you judge for yourself. SO here are some things that discord user Yuri-Fairytale / Robin Fairytale / Fairy_tale has said about my friend, now I am going to say this person does keep changing their name and profile pick so we have had to identify them by the Account ID number the long one, and its this 343331401401368576, this is how we know this is coming from the same person. Yuri considers himself the leader of this BS Congress, and he likes to think himself the leader / hero of the people. Yuri has been in this BS congress for roughly 6 years he actually founded it, Through out the years Yuri has been involved in most of the Drama on the server of this MMO that me and my friend play. I myself can name at least 100 other people Yuri has had issues with over the years. . . people who had no issues with anyone else, people who just didnt want to be involved in drama, and wanted to do their own thing. Which annoyed him, Yuri likes to be in charge, of everything and everyone. Yuri has got a discord server called the Lich congress and on it he openly tries to influence people, by influencing their judgement of others he dislikes, and by spreading untrue things about others he dislikes, as you can see in the discord screen shots above. He uses this as a weapon. The original post was made on Yuris server on the 30th of November, he claims that my Friend had been acting up before that date, the majority of the month of November 2019 and some of October 2019. However my Friends account was inactive and at this point had been for 4 - 6 weeks, due to medical reasons. I knew about this, she had told me before hand, so I can tell you that these claims are untrue, she did not do anything to these people. So I noticed in game there was some gossip going around about my friend and I knew by what was being said it came from Yuri, it 100% did, I contacted him directly over discord to try and sort this out, I spent 2 hours explaining to him that my friends account was inactive. I even sent him screen shots showing she had not been online for a number of days because we are in the same Free Company and it does show the number of days people are offline for. Yuri accused me of altering the in game screen shots. You really just cannot win with this guy. Honestly I think a dentist appointment where you have some teeth taken out would have been more appealing than talking with and trying to explain logic to this guy. However what I am going to say is this when confronted about the untrue things Yuri had been spreading about my Friend, Yuri immediately says he is blameless, and names 2 other people Judy Judy and Valeria Mae, as the people who deserve the blame, because they sent Yuri screen shots which were staged or Altered. Now while this is True, Yuri was told this information about my friend being away and he was shown proof she was in fact inactive, he even says he has not seen her in game for a while, and yet Yuri continued to post untrue things about my friend on other social media sites, and also on other discord servers. He deserves a good part of the blame in my own opinion, for spreading things about someone he knew was not doing anything. Eventually the conversation went way south and ended with me blocking him after he threatens me and my friend and tells us to leave server or else this will get very messy for the both of us. I will say this there were screen shots given to me by Yuri, Yuri gave me like 5 - 10 screen shots, some were of a discord conversation, the account in it, while named Freya was not my friends account it had a different account ID to hers, I checked this a number of times, I also did tell Yuri this, I will also say the account that was supposed to be my friend, spoke in broken English, now my friend speaks fluent English and actually has a very good understanding of the English language. While English is not her first language you would not be able to tell. Also the person pretending to be my friend on discord, had an old picture one my friend was not using anymore, my friend does have an instagram, and a twitter account where she does post her in game screen shots, so easy enough to get access to an old one (she has changed the privacy setting recently) I will say I did report this discord account, the one pretending to be my friend to discord. The other screen shots were in game screen shots, of in game mail, now these screen shots came from Judy Judy and Valeria Mae, and they claimed my friend was threatening them, now while the mail messages did contain threats, firstly it was again written in broken English very much the same as the discord account and also the screen shot had been altered it had been cropped a lot to basically only show the small mail box, also the name of the person who had sent the in game mail had been blacked out, now if you have someone threatening you why would you take a screen shot and you yourself black the name out of the person who sent the mail, I mean if you do that you can not prove who sent it to you, unless you yourself do not want the name to be seen not because its not from the person you are claiming it is from. I pointed these things out to this person as you can see, and I pointed out that the so called EVIDENCE Yuri claimed he had, was questionable at best, I mean honestly, you cant call it evidence. I personally think, this so called evidence was staged, I think Judy Judy and Valeria Mae, sent in game mail to each other and thats why the senders name is blacked out in the screen shots, and I think Judy Judy and Valeria Mae, and Yuri Fairytale are also the people responsible for the discord account that was pretending to be my friend. I think Yuri knew this to an extent, but just wanted to cause some drama, because we all know he loves his drama. Yuri and the others refuse to let this go, so now I am doing to them what they have done to me and my friend. I hope they enjoy it, I know I will get some small satisfaction out of it. To date this ass hole still claims my friend is the one responsible for this crap, but today he says Fairy_tai lYesterday at 10:27 In short the 3rd party found out from a leak that we had evidence of them breaking ToS and other issues and then went on a hunt for fc's in the congress to again leak info to them. . And alot of people that was once friends to that individual, defending them ect they got turned on by that individual later making accusations against them. Fairy_tail Yesterday at 10:31 Also during one of the times we was helping the 3rd party to try fix a misunderstanding it was found that they had redacted parts of convocations to go in there favour and even faked discord screenshot convocations that hadn't even took place trying to pit ppl against each other . That's when I myself cut contact with that individual https://www.facebook.com/groups/1559001954387688/ They have a Facebook group, it makes me laugh because of their rules. 2 - No hate speech, bullying or discrimination. Make sure everyone feels safe. Bullying of any kind isn't allowed, and degrading comments about things such as race, religion, culture or sexual orientation will "NOT" be tolerated. 4 - Absolutely no witch-hunting Any posts relating to bad in-game experience must have any character and FC names redacted. Any mention of whom the posts refers to will be deleted. Perfectly ok when they do it though isnt it. Got to love hypocrites who are so far up their own arses they cant even see the light of day, and love drama so much they make lies and spread shit about someone whos not even done a single thing to them. He has done this to so many people now.

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tumblunni · 5 years

Text

Random game idea that came to mind: clockwork man simulator

I dunno, i just got the general image in my head of a soft homey aesthetic equivelant of that terrible game about the androids. Itd be more like just a life-living game, like stuff like animal crossing or harvest moon. Just fully exploring the perspective of these creatures and the world that created them, rather than BOOM ACTION SETPIECES or whatever

I only have some scattered ideas for it tho, and not really any idea of a main plot or gameplay gimmick or 3 act structure or like.. Anything to take this from idea to game, lol.

SO ITS MISC IDEAS TIME

* more of an olden timey fantasy style instead of sci fi. Youre still an artificial person created to run errands for humans, but youre more of a combination of clockwork and magic. There's still an element of being made of inanimate object parts but there's also some glowy energy core or something. Possibly would be interesting if it was something unusual to use as a power source? Like i dunno, a bell or an acorn or a teacup or one of those rocks with the hole in it that sometimes wash up on beaches. Or just a glowy orb of Generically Defined Energy Substance, which flows through you like aesthetically pleasing glowy veins

* you're a service clockwork homunculus thingy, bought by a disabled person who needs help around the house. PERHAPS A SWEET OLD GRANDMA! Whatever i decide on (IT'LL PROBABLY BE THE GRANDMA), your owner is a kind person who sees you as part of the family and feels guilty using an android as they believe you are absolutely a real person and wish they could set you free. Unfortunately theyre kinda one of the people who needs androids the most, as they dont have any family who can help them. At the same time though, they are very old and quite resigned to nobody caring about them, plus theyre just a good person who'd put your life over their own. So i feel like the plot would literally start with this person trying to set you free and you are just like "i do npt understand the concept, that is not in my programming". Its become kind of a morning routine now to hear "youre free! Get out, dammit!" and have a brisk argument over breakfast that inevitably always ends with you refusing. Grandma's prpbably got so desperate they're resorting to tactics like trying to trick you into getting on the bus out of town or "if you dont leave im gonna hold my breath and i wont stop til i pass out". All inevitabley failing! So they just try and help you understand your sentience and become more independant, encouraging you to take free time every day and go around the town to enjoy yourself. Which is kinda a concept you dont understand yet, so its just like MISSION RECEIVED: WALK IN CIRCLE AROUND PERIMETER OF TOWN. And its kind of a hit and miss experience because the people in this town have never seen an android before- this magic is usually a thing for rich people and this proposed scheme of disability assistance androids is still in its test run. Some people are suspicious or hateful, but there are others who welcome you to the village and brighten up your day. Not just a world of 100% everyone assholes to make a melodramatic point delivered awfully through racist stereotypes.

* i think a good subplot with this disabled grandma would be to show her regaining her independance too. Like she starts off quite fatalistic and used to nobody caring about her, all this mobility aid stuff is new and she feels like its too complicated and she'll never get it, or its too expensive and she doesnt deserve it, or all the nonsense that ableist society drills into people. But with the support of her new friend and access to more tools to help take her life into her own hands, she starts regaining hope again! Like ironically she felt like her previous carers were all the kinds of awful things people expect these androids to be. Robotic, emotionless monsters who dont care about the person's feelings and comfort, and certainly not independance. She suffered from a lot of the same nightmares that androids do too: being forced into a rigid schedule, limited in her options, deprived of basic rights, being told how she's supposed to feel, etc. But to an android that all seems like an inefficient way to do things! My function is healing and human healing efficiency is decreased in this circumstance! I am incapable of ignoring data due to personal bias! Basically imagine MAGIC BAYMAX ok. Anyway this plot would progress with grandma regaining her smile and eventually itd be a super happy day when she's able to get her new wheelchair that she can wheel to the shops on her own without needing someone to push her. Itd be really sweet from the player's perspective to get used to saying goodbye to her every morning and then suddenly you see her wandering around the shops with everyone else and she can become a part of the vibrant town too. Im thinking give her more complex AI than all the other villagers even, like give her a more complicated set of actions and move routes and stuff like SHE IS EVERYWHERE and she is LOVING IT! Life is back where it belongs: in the hands of the person living it! And it also intensifies the message of android slavery not being necessary or moral or good. Like i mean here this lady benefitted from getting an android but literally all she needed was a friend, a healthcare professional who gave a shit, and affordable access to mobility aids. Humans could have done that if they werent lazy assholes! And this android deserves the right to the same uplifting independenceifying experience they helped this grandma have!!

* random idea: all the events you encounter on each daily walk are actually stored in your inventory as items. Memories of experiences, good or bad, become literally experience for you! They each affect stats in different ways because of what you learned from that moment. Maybe bad experiences give you combat abilities and good ones help with your daily life skills and development of personality? And its possible to crack or even shatter a memory, if new experiences end up clashing with it. Usually its just 'oh i learned the more advanced version of this skill through better understanding of why humans do it', but also traumatic memories damaging good ones, and good ones helping ease traumatic ones. And maybe you could solve puzzles and make friendships through using these memory items? Youre faced with a challenge and have to make the connections in your mind to figure out which past experience is relevant here. And becoming more talented at something would help narrow down the choices you get given? And being unskilled would do screwy stuff with the interface like putting the correct option far away near the bottom or mixing up the names and icons of each memory. (Dunno how i'd program that though!)

* Maybe character customization similar to Medabots? The games were so cool and ahead of their time, you get to collect hundreds of different robot base frames and then mix and match the parts to make your own cool aesthetic! Shame it was only used for fighting though, that could be cool in a more social game too! Like go out wearing different fashions to help befriend different people, but its more fun cos its ROBOT FASHIONS! 'hey grandma do u think fred will like this arm or this arm?' She fusses over you all excitedly cos you showing an interest in fashion is a good sign of developing free will! Though you still get stuck in logic loops of 'you should wear what you like best, honey' 'HUMAN OPINION IS OF HIGHER PRIORITY' ...god i think i just made this character so i can ramble Relateable Social Anxiety Moments BUT ROBOTS

* possible ideas for Memory Events you can find around town! Meeting a cute neighbour cat- a fascinating creature you were not programmed to deal with, as you're a hospital android who isnt even meant to leave one single room for your whole life. You get absolutely entranced by the confusing small carpet with legs, and spend all morning interrogating it on why it wishes to rub its face on you. Why is your motor overheating, tiny carpet? Human master, how do you troubleshoot this noise?

* Another idea! You get 'mission: count the steps on the stairs to town' popping out of nowhere, and at first you ignore it because this is an illogical directive that does not come from a human. But it keeps happening every time you go here!! You try finding new ways to get to town crossing through fields or forests or walking directly into the path of a horsedrawn carriage, but ALAS it seems the only efficient path is those curious curious steps! Only then do you finally realise the mystery command is coming from yourself! You're not used to this strange concept of just..wanting to do something, all by yourself. You talk to your human and she says that's 'natural curiosity', 'personality', 'free will'...things that seem impossible to understand. You ask her to take you back to the shop to get this fault fixed, but she says its good and you should try acting on it. But it'll serve no purpose!! BUT AAARGH I HAVE TO KEEP SEEING THOSE STEPS EVERYDAY!! Eventually you do count them and you find it makes you satisfied for no logical reason. And that was the end of that small crisis, but you'll forever be confused by the whole thing! The next week you're like "what if i organized all the blue things with the blue things" and youre intensely frustrated at yourself. Human grandma says this is a "taste for fashion" but you remind her that you do not have a tongue. (And then she gets you the robo parts catalog and you unlock customization. Yay!)

* Possible idea for a sad subplot! A new human visits the village and he seems very strange, sometimes seeming kind and other times being angry and standoffish. You think its a simple 'jerk with a heart of gold' story but the truth is a lot stranger! It turns out this stranger is actually an important bishop in disguise, and he has multiple androids acting as body doubles to protect him while he's on the road. Theyre supposed to just be empty husks who only know how to imitate, but they clearly have their own personalities! You're tasked with finding all these runaway androids and returning them to their master for a reward, leading to a goofy lil game of hide and seek with twelve of the same guy. But it starts to get a bit sad because they're all convinced theyre the real one, and whenever they stumble into holes in their memory they freak out. When they all see each other gathered together its an absolute despair explosion and theyre forced to face the truth. And you can help them bond together as brothers and develop their own individual identities, even helping them pick out their own new faces from your set of fashion roboparts. Sadly you cant keep them here for long because itd obviously be suspicious to have exactly twelve new people move into the town right when twelve bots went missing. So you get help from one of grandma's friends to send them off in a stagecoach to another town where they can find employment and start their own life disguised as humans. The asshole bishop obviously doesnt react well to his androids vanishing into the night, but he never thinks of blaming you because after all you're only an android and you could never choose to help others out of all that free will you dont have. He just berates you for being so incompetant as to fail his quest to find them, and you get your reward taken back. Oh no~ i am~ very ashamed~ i will go tell my human that my ocular circuits require recalibrating~ (internally: HAHA YEH FUCK U OLD MAN) Grandma is super proud of you!

And thats all i got so far

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granpris · 7 years

Text

Please listen for once.

Hello, I'm Granpris. I'm known as the current leader of Team Switched and the TS:Underswap project on Gamejolt. For several days drama has been going on on Tumblr, Gamejolt and wherever.

I'm quite sick of it having it cause me to become very ill recently and stressed, my team alike, due to the amount of false accusations and attacks directed towards me and my team.

I'm here today to debunk several popular claims and accusations that have been made towards our team, and hopefully end this mess. Please do not see this as an attack. I simply want to debunk some claims, as I’ve previously stated, and get my thoughts out there.

Before moving on to read my own post i highly recommend checking out the following posts as well for they also contain vital information and are a bit less opinionated than mine:

http://megaderping.tumblr.com/post/165903415711/regarding-the-drama-over-team-switched https://emeraldheck.tumblr.com/post/165910458062/hey-everyone-i-know-this-isnt-what-you-would https://gamejolt.com/games/undertale-underswap/160094/devlog/the-sans-dillema-jiagyb7p https://gamejolt.com/games/primus-underfell-official/249907/devlog/regarding-the-recent-team-switched-drama-mc9frvdb

- "You have/had a GoFundMe and have been scamming us for a year!"

No.

Back when the team was first founded, some members expressed wanting to put up a crowdfunding for the game, one having made a private page for it even. However, this was taken down, as it went against fangame policies. The same person later tried to get funding through Steam gifts, as receiving money directly wasn't allowed. However, none of this was ever shared with the team, and this member was booted off of the team. This project is free, and will always be free, no matter what. If we had a GoFundMe, Ko-fi, Kickstarter or anything of the sort, we would have likely been taken down ages ago, and we would have been called out for this way earlier. Long time fans can confirm we have not had any form of a crowdfunder.

- "This isn't Underswap! You're falsely advertising your game!"

Also no.

Underswap is a community owned AU now, meaning it has no set-in-stone owner and thus, everyone can do with it what they want. Not everyone has to stick with what has been introduced, and this was the case even before the original creators abandoned the AU.

The original creators had always encouraged different interpretations of the AU, even ones where personalities do not swap like with our project (As is clearly evident here). (I recommend right about now checking out Megaderping/Dorked’s post i linked earlier if you haven’t for it adds to what follows after this sentence.)

And that's what it is! AN INTERPRETATION! I think this is something a lot of people misunderstand; it isn't meant to replace Underswap, or Blueberry, or Carrot, or anyone! This is just how we would've tackled the Underswap AU, using the base concept of characters having their roles swapped. If you don't like it, that's totally fine! If you don't like our designs, that's fine too! However, what isn't fine is making hate art, rant posts, and launching attacks and campaigns at us, all because we do not obey your every whim and make what YOU think our game should be, rather than allowing us to have the creative freedom this fandom has been given as well.

We have been very transparent about our project for well over a year now, having stated numerous times what our intentions are. We aren't doing personality swaps, we aren't going to have Sans be a sugar rushed childlike character wanting to be in the Royal Guard, nor will we have Papyrus be a lazy, honey chugging smoker, we won't have any of that. It isn't true to the characters so many of you and us fell in love with, and robs them of their character. We find it more interesting working with characters who retain their personalities in different scenarios rather than personality swapped characters who you can expect to just respond and act the same way towards situations as the character who had the role prior would have.

I find it honestly quite offensive when people tell us this is not Underswap, and that we aren't doing things how they were meant to be, when looking at Underswap's current state in hands of the fandom, that's exactly what's been done to it now. Underswap used to have a canon, and it was disrespected with people misrepresenting the AU and its characters, primarily Sans; he was made into a super smol, star eyed, sometimes if not permanently cat mouthed character with a personality nowhere close to either Sans' or Papyrus'. There is nothing to their character besides just being and acting cute.

If you are looking at this from, let's say, a fanartist's perspective, that doesn't matter much. It's just a cute character you enjoy, right? Which is perfectly fine! However, try looking at Blueberry from the perspective of a writer, or a developer... you can not work with this. It's a flat, 1 dimensional character. They have barely any personality, and as previously stated, they're just meant to be cute. They aren't relatable or appealing at all. This is simply not something we want to work with.

I've gone on long enough here, so I'll end it off with something my co-worker and friend Kalin had to say:

We are trying to focus on making a game that tells the main story of Underswap. But let's just pretend all the unique art and music doesn't exist for a second. If we truly did it like that, we'd be telling the exact same story but all the names are switched and some objects and phrases would be switched around as well. Anything we could salvage out of that would be violating copyright of the original work, which Toby has explicitly stated before to not dis-encourage people from buying UNDERTALE, which would not only rob Toby of money, but also generally just be really disrespectful.

If you wanted Underswap to go the way it did, it would've been shut down by now.

Blueberry is only really meant to work in really short comic form or fan art. Our Sans, on the other hand, is written with more long-term stuff in mind; with the original Sans' character being placed in a different scenario, the outcome of the story can be different. Think of it like this: Would you rather have a game where you can predict everything that's going to happen, as in, Blueberry acting exactly like Papyrus, or would you rather play a game where you don't know what is going to happen?

- "One of your members used a ableist term to describe Blueberry and insult us!"

Yes, this member used an ableist term to describe Blueberry, and they are terribly sorry for it. However, he should not be the one getting hate. He showed me the message he was going to reply with containing the slur before he posted it, and I didn't point out the slur. If you have to be mad at someone, be mad at me. Do not get mad at them, and do not put my entire team in the same boat.

I, too, am sorry, for I approved the message knowing the term was used in it. It was unprofessional of me and I should have pointed it out when I could. I'm sorry for anyone offended by this.

HOWEVER.

It was never used to insult real people. The member used it to describe the current representation of Underswap or otherwise known as Blueberry Sans. No real person was meant to be targeted with the word.

- "You've been very rude to fans and have been bashing the fandom!"

Yes, this is somewhat true.

There have been occasions where some members have been kind of rude, and while I do not speak for them besides myself, we are sorry for our behaviour to some people. Working on a game for over one and a half years without any form of income and scraping for time to work on it, combined with other factors such as bad personal lives and impatient fans pushing for a demo/full release, may cause us to lash out sometimes. We're only human, after all.

As for bashing the fandom, this is also true to a degree.

Some of us, including myself, have been making several remarks towards the fandom and some of the people in it. I apologize for my part in that at least, for I can not speak for any of the others. I'm not going to try and justify my actions when it comes to this too much, but most of this originates from some things like Blueberry Sans that I've seen in the fandom and have a strong disliking towards. Yes, I apologize to the people I've possibly offended, but I shall not apologize for the bashing of any fictional AU characters and such. I am allowed an opinion on these things, and while I can be rude and extreme with this at times, which again I do apologize for to a degree, it is, nonetheless, an opinion. One of our members recently has gone a bit wild mocking several people and bothering them. I was not there when this happened as i was paying attention to our Tumblr at all times. Know, however, i do not approve what they did. I told them to stop and i hope that nothing more comes from this. I’m sorry for the long LONG post but I’ve been stressing out, throwing up, breaking down and whatnot because of this situation and needed to get my word out there. I just pray this drama can just end already because it’s not necessary at all and frankly quite petty.

#underswap #notmyswap!sans #underswap sans #blueberry #undertale #undertale au #drama

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comicteaparty · 6 years

Text

November 8th, 2018 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party chat that occurred on November 8th, 2018, from 5PM - 7PM PST. The chat focused on Anacrine Complex by Sae.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- THURSDAY BOOK CLUB START!

Good evening, everyone~! This week’s Thursday Book Club is officially beginning! Today we are discussing Anacrine Complex by Sae~! (http://pigeoncomic.com/)

Remember that Thursday discussions are completely freeform! However, every 30 minutes I will drop in OPTIONAL discussion questions in case you’d like a bit of a prompt. If you miss out on one of these prompts, you can find them pinned for the chat’s duration. Additionally, remember that while constructive criticism is allowed, our focus is fun and respectfully appreciating the comic. All that said, let’s begin!

QUESTION 1. What is your favorite scene in the comic so far and why?

RebelVampire

i liked the whole sequence in Lee's head. illustrative wise it was really creative and had so much subtle detail that helped breathe that sense that they were not in the real world. not to mention the color balance really leaves you feel kind of ominous

ShaRose49

What criticism? Man, I agree! I loved the sequence in his head, it was cooler to me than Inside Out in many ways cause it reminded me more of my own head

I think Lee was my favourite but Ben was so funny he reminded me of Hinayana from Haikyuu

Superjustinbros

Hello there~

ShaRose49

Hinata

Is what I meant to say

Hi!

Superjustinbros

Pleasure to be here ^^

ShaRose49

My favourite scene was probably the scene in Lee’s mind too-but I also loved the Jujitsu scene, and the scene at the beginning with Ben and Lee and the explosion

The pleasure is all ours

And I just found out that I have nowhere to be this evening so I’ll probably be chatting more than I thought

RebelVampire

fantastic

Superjustinbros

http://pigeoncomic.com/page/4

Looking through, I found this one charming

ShaRose49

It was a ton of fun

RebelVampire

i think ben is my favorite. cause while hes not as serious or practical as lee (which lee is a precious angel), i like how he has to basically interpret everything as a game. and i think they just make him really unique and entertaining

i like ben and lee as a package though. i think they have an interesting personality mesh that isnt quite perfect for drama but isnt quite completely opposite so they can work together and achieve common goals. like its that perfect blend of subtle awesome that not a lot of comics can achieve

Superjustinbros

http://pigeoncomic.com/post/170447488832/spider-ben-spider-ben-does-whatever-a-spider-ben This one was also good, the effects especially.

ShaRose49

Yeah I think characters were this comic’s greatest strength, which is the most important part of a story to me

AAAH that was great

Superjustinbros

Oh yes

Characters mean lots to me

Of you write them well and provide enough side-material to back them up

RebelVampire

yes that was definitely a fun scene. in general i like how the powers are visually depicted. i think it was a great choice to give them all diff colors schemes and aesthetics. it makes them stand out and you can always tell who is doing what.

i also love the random pigeon cameos.

these are the most photobombing pigeons in the land

Superjustinbros

Giving powers different colors is part of the fun, IMO

mathtans

Made it. You can probably guess at my favourite scene.

Superjustinbros

Glad I don't live in New York City then

Let me guess

It's loaded with puns

mathtans

It's where the trigonometry was used to knock the guy out. ^.-

Superjustinbros

mathtans

Also, Ben was using degrees, rather than radians, implying that it is coming from his own experiences rather than some meta-math in the environment.

'Course he uses the imperial system too, for whatever reason.

RebelVampire

that scene made me sad with jealousy because even when i was good at math, i always sucked at mental math. XD

mathtans

The sequence in Lee's head was pretty cool and creative. I suppose I felt I couldn't get as into it, I think because it just represented such an invasion of his privacy. (I liked how Lee addressed the whole "manipulation" thing later.)

Heh. I think that sort of mental math is beyond most people.

The visual depiction of the math-type powers as more cubic/angular was a nice choice too, I found.

Superjustinbros

>Rebel mentions math while Mathtans is in the chat(edited)

mathtans

Math's good stuff.

Superjustinbros

yes

It was my best school subject

till they stopped teaching it after tenth grade

mathtans

Actually, I kind of hate it when "doing mental math" is presented as some kind of superpower. I don't feel like that's the case here, because being able to judge distances, monetize portions of food, and hit precise estimations isn't the same thing as "I can multiply real fast". So that was good.

Superjustinbros

Yea

mathtans

Incidentally, how does magnetization powers give one the ability to X-Ray? Maybe I missed something in my science classes.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 2. Of all the characters, Lee seems to have the past that is most covered in mystery. What do you think happened in Lee’s past that caused him to have such a core of guilt? Was it related to Ana or was there something else going on? What even was Lee’s relationship with Ana? Why do you think Lee turned to illegal car theft activities, and what do you think caused him to go clean? Why do you think Lee is so desperate to patch things up with Sterling? How do you think Lee even knows Sterling in the first place? What do you think any of this has to do with the comic’s opening scene? Lastly, do you think Lee will manage to meet Sterling? If so, what do you think will happen?

mathtans

I think Lee and Sterling worked together in the past, maybe in a post-doc or something. There was that flashback sequence with the motorbike (I think that's what it was?) and stuff.

RebelVampire

arent mri machines basically just giant magnets?

i assume they took creative license based on that

mathtans

Ahh, maybe they are, right. Can't bring metal in and such.

RebelVampire

which actually explains why ben has that headache meltdown everytime hes near lee using his powers

cause like an mri machine, lee is pulling those metal shards

causing more damage

good job lee

lightlybow

Creator here, hey guys!! I'm so happy to see this discussion! To address the x-ray thing, there is a bit of creative license applied for sure. Lee can't literally see people's bones like in an x-ray, but he can sense metal objects and magnetic fields. I just had to find a way to visually represent that, and x-ray visuals felt like something that would be a really quick read for most of my audience.

And yeah Rebel, you're right on the money! Lee can easily move the little bits of metal around in Ben's brain if he isn't careful

mathtans

Right, the metal shard pulling thing I figured. (Also, I tend to agree with Lee that the guy should get that checked out! It cannot be good for the health.)

Oh, hihi creator! Must be early morning for you I guess.

Superjustinbros

Hello Lightlybow!

ShaRose49

Will Ben not have superpowers if the metal is removed?

RebelVampire

tbf going to the hospital might not do ben any good. cause if theyre in his brain thats already a very dangerous surgery

Superjustinbros

ShaRose49

But will he get killed if he doesn’t remove the metal?!

mathtans

I feel like he might be able to calculate a way to deal with it mathematically. I mean, it was the substance on the metal that gave him the abilities, right? And it's supposed to be healing or something, so that's probably why he's still functional.

ShaRose49

Yikes wow but still

mathtans

Removing metal from head before wounds close seems prudent. shrugs

lightlybow

Ding ding ding! Ben's powers do come from the metal! Idk how many details you guys want...

Superjustinbros

Now that's why he can't do the surgery then, cause, well.

He loses the powers

ShaRose49

I think Lee worked with Sterling and they both love the same woman and that caused a rift between them. Maybe Lee tried to win Ana away from sterling or left him when he needed him because of Ana. This may be the biggest cause of his guilt since the thought of talking to Sterling is the only hope he has

But what if it’s unhealthy for Ben to have that metal??

mathtans

Ahh, interesting. (I mean, what do I know, right? ^.- ) Maybe Ben will learn that he doesn't need superpowers to be a cool guy. Particularly if he retains the fighting techniques.

RebelVampire

it is definitely unhealthy for ben to have metal in his head, especially around lee who can make it worse. XD i dont forsee ben wanting to give up powers tho

mathtans

Sha: I'm kind of with you, but I'm not sure Ana necessarily caused a rift directly... I feel more like maybe Lee decided he just couldn't work that close to them any more, and went looking for other work.

Illegal work, possibly.

Maybe he's got a bit of self loathing or something.

lightlybow

In terms of metal in the head/ injuries! There are reported cases of people living normal lives with shards of metal stuck in their brain matter. I was going off those when writing Ben, especially a case of someone who shot themselves with a nail gun and turned out to be just fine

Superjustinbros

That's an interesting piece of trivia

I have heard of people living with bullets lodged into their brain for years

as an example

mathtans

I've heard of that stuff, possibly even seen an XRay one time. Gives me the willies.

RebelVampire

yeah its definitely possible. but basically no mris ever which limits diagnostic tools ppl can use

which is not good cause mris are super powerful

im gonna go out on a limb and assume ana is dead or potentially in a coma. and that lee is (or assumes he was) the cause because whatever he used to contain the medicine that sterling had him built

and thats where his guilt is

mathtans

Lee's kind of my fave character, actually. Ben is too eager to treat everything as some kind of game, and Veda has no respect for boundaries.

RebelVampire

and that what happened between lee and sterling is they both feel responsible for what happened

and while lee wanted to move on, sterling wanted to obsess

mathtans

Rebel: If that's the case (interesting theory), maybe Lee just feels like if he'd stuck around (assuming it happened after he left), he'd have been able to do something.

RebelVampire

yeah.

alternatively

maybe ana is just sick in the hospital

and sterling is obsessing trying to save her

mathtans

Maybe he even has a theory for how to fix things but Sterling put a hit out on him and refuses to hear anything.

RebelVampire

and while lee should be supporting her he doesnt have the strength too

mathtans

Either way, if they end up talking, I feel like it would be near the climax.

Superjustinbros

Seconding Math

ShaRose49

I don’t think Ana is dead, otherwise this would be a lot like Miraculous Ladybug is recently

RebelVampire

i forsee that, but i also hope they dont wait till the climax. and that they hug and talk it out. and while they patch some things up theres stuff about the disease that fall to deaf ears on sterling's part(edited)

mathtans

I don't follow the reference, but okay.

ShaRose49

Sorry Miraculous is a silly romantic superhero cartoon that I love for some reason

RebelVampire

yeah i go back and forth on ana being dead. although i think we can at least assume something bad happened to her

mathtans

Just want to say, I thought putting in that scene of Sterling was a great move. I'd kind of pictured him having gone all "mad scientist", so the idea that he's kind of tortured and trying to fix things was an interesting window.

ShaRose49

Yeah I felt sorry for him he’s like an even more realistic Hawkmoth sorry I keep referencing Ml

I love the realism in the drama for this comic

mathtans

Plot twist: Ana is actually one of the pigeons. Things went terribly wrong.

RebelVampire

yeah i really liked what that scene of sterling did

cause it knocked him down from enigmatic evil overlord to tortured human soul who is trying to fix something he doesnt know how to fix

lightlybow

OMG MATH

I'm crying

RebelVampire

ana is trying to tell lee shes a pigeon this whole time but lee just doesnt get it

lightlybow

all the pieces are falling together

mathtans

Ana tried to use the bird woman to get her message across. That also went badly.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 3. Much of the current events of the comic are now being driven by Veda who wants to save her sister. Do you believe all Veda really wants to do is save Dani, or is something else going on? Do you think Dani is being held against her will, or might there be a reason she doesn’t want to see Veda? How exactly do you think Veda became exposed enough to the medicine to gain her powers? Is Veda so aggressive with her powers because of desperation to save her sister, or do you think it’s telling about what Veda does for a living in some way? At the hotel, we also see Veda get sick for a moment. Do you think her sudden illness is revealing? What about her words as she looked in the mirror? What consequences do you think this “sickness” will have for the group as a whole?

Superjustinbros

Math does it again

But I do wonder if there is some kind of dark secret to the pigeons, and why they're everywhare

lightlybow

"That also went badly"

ShaRose49

I think Veda is trying to save her sister, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was another motive as well. I think she gets fatigued severely from using her powers too much

Superjustinbros

I mean, magic exists in this world so that wouldn't be far out of the ordinary

but back onto the subject

RebelVampire

on a tangent i liked lee's convo with the old lady because it was so utterly ridiculous on so many levels. like who approaches some old lady on the bench and assumes she knows a lot about pigeons just cause shes showing them mild affection.

ShaRose49

Wait magic?! I missed that

Yeah but he was desperate lol

junebugjo

More like superpowers

Superjustinbros

As in, the en mase of pidgeons being a result somehow of everyone having powers

ShaRose49

Yeah I don’t think this was magic I didn’t get that at all just superhero sci-fi

Superjustinbros

lol

ShaRose49

Magic and sci-fi together can annoy me sometimes I just love my scifi

RebelVampire

i do think veda is trying to save her sister. but part of me wonders if its not just that her powers exhaust her. what if veda has the disease too and thats actually why she was exposed to the medicine? that is my out there theory

ShaRose49

Oh yeah....

That could be it

I wonder if people get the disease if they get the powers or if the powers don’t actually cure you

RebelVampire

oh man thatd be ironically sad. that the cure comes with the disease

mathtans

Sorry, in and out as the little one makes a fuss. I wonder if Veda's trying to save her sister more for herself than for her sister's sake. Like, she feels guilty over letting her go in the first place. (And what other doctor is she going to take her sister to if they get out? I mean really.)

RebelVampire

yeah i thought that too

about where would veda even take her

lightlybow

Yeah there aren't really any other doctors who can solve her problems but she's desperate

ShaRose49

Yeah Math could be right. (I’m doing Laundry right now lol) good luck with your little one!

RebelVampire

any other doctor is probably gonna tell her theres nothing they can do but make her comfortable and manage the symtoms

and give a death time estimate

lightlybow

*curently

*CURRENTLY DANGIT

Superjustinbros

Guess doctors aren't common in this universe or soemthing

junebugjo

Well doctors who can cure the disease aren’t

RebelVampire

well doctors who can cure this specific disease, yes XD

lightlybow

Junebug! Hello!

junebugjo

Hey!!!

RebelVampire

to answer another question on the list, i think dani's imprisonment is a bit of both. that sterling 100% is holding her but that even if veda came dani would tell her to go away for some reason. maybe to protect veda...or maybe veda and her had a fight just like lee and sterling had a fight. and later on that fight is something lee and veda can bond over

junebugjo

Certainly the fact that her ailment can’t easily be cured by someone else is a motivation for Dani to stay with Sterling

mathtans

Or maybe Dani also has mind powers and can tell that Veda's not being real sincere or something.

Superjustinbros

Hello Junebug~

lightlybow

Something the future script will touch on is whether the Cure is more important than the Person. If their physical health should be prized over their emotional well-being

RebelVampire

that sounds deep

ShaRose49

Hmm. I don’t know I wonder if Lee and Veda will start to like each other. Probably not but they do have some things in common

junebugjo

I really want them to(edited)

ShaRose49

What good is emotional well-being if you’re sick as a dog? You need a combination of both I guess

junebugjo

I desperately need them to be begrudging friends / partners in crime

ShaRose49

Haha

mathtans

He is a chick magnet. (That was a good line.)

Superjustinbros

Good one Math

RebelVampire

i feel like before lee and veda can get along they need to have a huge fight. like get all their reservations an stuff out in the open air. cause at the moment the entire relationship is kind of soured by veda's emotional blackmail

lightlybow

Yeah as it stands there's not much room for "getting along"

Superjustinbros

Yeah, that there's pretty twisted

junebugjo

I’m just a big sucker for characters like Veda esp if she goes through some good ol character development

lightlybow

wink wonk

RebelVampire

i think of the characters veda is the most likely who's gonna grow too. cause right now shes toeing that bad guy line a bit too hard

QUESTION 4. All these super powers are caused by one thing: Sterling and his magical Anacride medicine. Why do you think Sterling developed this medicine in the first place? Does it have something to do with Ana given the number of times she’s shown when talking about the disease it cures? What is going on with Sterling currently given he refuses to let families see those in his treatment program? Are there some sort of detrimental side effects he can’t control, or is something else afoot? Do you believe he can fix everything, or are the powers and other side effects now permanent? Also, what do you think happened to him that landed him in the hospital during one flashback? Finally, what does all this mean for Ben given that he has metal dangerously embedded in his head? Are Ben’s powers really caused by a brief exposure to the medicine, and will this journey change him in some way?

Superjustinbros

Character development makes the world go round

junebugjo

Ana could have the disease

Also is the uh medicine named after her

I feel like he could be desperate to find her a permanent and less detrimental cure so he goes through others not caring what happens to them so he can save Ana ?

RebelVampire

omg

i never connected ana's name was in the word anacride

junebugjo

I just now saw it capitalized and was like ???? Maybe ????

lightlybow

DING DING DING

junebugjo

Do I win a prize

Lol

lightlybow

Yes you get a pigeon. Here

junebugjo

I will take good care of him

Superjustinbros

Aww

RebelVampire

thatd be a sad approach is sterling was using everyone else to test the medicine before testing it on ana, assuming shes a victim. but now im wondering if maybe she isnt a victim. maybe she helped make the medicine but she had a falling out with sterling and now sterling hopes that if he makes the medicine succeed ana will love him again

Superjustinbros

Maybe

junebugjo

I feel like Ana has some dark side to her

mathtans

Okay, back, mostly. Oh, good call on the naming! Didn't register that.

junebugjo

Like she at least a little bit fudges the lines when it comes to pharmaceutical experimentation but wouldn’t go as far as sterling would idk

mathtans

Remember there was that flashback scene where Ana was actually helping Sterling due to his heart problem or whatever. I think maybe SHE developed the medicine, and Sterling's trying to perfect it for her.

So I guess similar to the "love me again" idea.

Except maybe it's just in her memory.

'You will be the last victim of this disease'...

RebelVampire

well tbf, the only viewpoints weve had of ana are those from ppl who love her in some capacity. so to them ana is probably an angel. so her having a dark side would not surprise me at all cause nobody is perfect an all that jazz

and yeah i considered that too, math. that this could just be a "last victim of the disease" sort of thing

mathtans

Ana is actually an NPC in the story.

She hands out the quests.

As a pigeon.

RebelVampire

its a good thing they have ben. he will figure out you have to accept the pigeon quests in order to progress the story

Superjustinbros

I shall do that o_ o\

Give me all them challenges

lightlybow

The clues were there all along. There she is, pigeon # 62

mathtans

Yeah, some of the "deluded Ben" stuff when Lee first found him was amusing. I'm glad it didn't become an overlong gag though.

lightlybow

http://pigeoncomic.com/post/162180122762/the-horror

Superjustinbros

For a sec I thought those were bats

mathtans

Speaking of amusing things - I liked some of the little background naming things. Like the diner that had been crossed out and it's like "Al's now" or whatever. Or the donut box saying to drink juice.

lightlybow

I'm so happy you noticed

mathtans

My favourite was the self defence book. "This convenient book is going to show you how not to get punched in the face".

Superjustinbros

The best kind of book

lightlybow

And in Ben's apartment there's a statue of Han Solo with the words "_ shot first" and the name is covered

mathtans

I think it also had a picture of the Matrix in it or something.

junebugjo

THATS MY FAVE

the Han statue

mathtans

Ahh, I interpreted that as "Han" (the statue) "shot first".

lightlybow

Oh I see!

mathtans

Probably why Ben's roommate moved out. A Star Wars disagreement.

lightlybow

Anyway I'm glad you guys enjoy the stupid jokes in the flavor text

junebugjo

I almost walked out of watching a new hope bc my friends all said exactly the opposite of who I think shot first

Superjustinbros

Always fun when the author sneaks in background gags/jokes

lightlybow

OMG

mathtans

I wonder what's in the van. Like, is it more of the drug? Could they actually analyze it before they do the run? (Though, they probably don't have time for that.)

RebelVampire

i assumed it was more of the drug

although

that begs the question of how its made

cause youd think sterling would make the drug in his lab

mathtans

Maybe he outsources.

junebugjo

Maybe ingredience

mathtans

Right, just gotta mix it with fructose.

lightlybow

The drug needs to go through a special process of pressurization and maturation before it's viable... so Sterling designs the drug but no one knows if it will work for a few weeks until they test it

mathtans

It's important to be mature about such things.

lightlybow

pun game on point

mathtans

Oh, nice detail about Lee's card being demagnetized btw. Hadn't occurred to me.

Poor guy.

lightlybow

In that pigeon comic it's implied that he keeps breaking watches too. It's really inconvenient!

Superjustinbros

Well, I guess it's almsot the end

RebelVampire

having magnetic powers sounds like all kinds of trouble. cant take him camping cause hell throw off the compasses. although you could use him to hold metal screws for you without them getting lost

mathtans

Right! I remember noticing that. Guess it does make it easier to fall off the grid.

Superjustinbros

In that case cya, and thanks for the great reads, @lightlybow

It was great metting ya.

mathtans

I wonder if Ben will compare him to Magneto.

junebugjo

He should

ShaRose49

I wonder what Dina!s gonna be like she looks like she could be a sweet but tortured soul

lightlybow

Great meeting you too @Superjustinbros !!

ShaRose49

He already did compare Lee to Magneto!

I remember he said “You totally Magnetoed him”

mathtans

I am clearly not paying enough attention. Must have read it as magnetized. It makes sense given his Marvel references.

lightlybow

Omg rebel I just imagined Veda sticking screws to Lee's face like "Here, hold this"

ShaRose49

Omgosh

mathtans

I could see that.

Anyway, definitely pulling for Lee. Guy can't seem to catch a break. Hope his mental demons are appeased.

lightlybow

Me too, buddy. Me too

RebelVampire

COMIC TEA PARTY- THURSDAY BOOK CLUB END!

Sadly, this wraps up this week’s Thursday Book Club chat for now. Thank you so much to everyone for reading and joining us! We want to give a special thank you to Sae, as well, for making Anacrine Complex. If you liked the comic, make sure to support Sae’s efforts however you’re able to~!

Read and Comment: http://pigeoncomic.com/

Sae’s Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cottonart

Sae’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/lightlybow

Comic Tea Party- Thursday Book Club

Next week’s Thursday Book Club will be about Skeletons in the Closet by Niah. For participants, you have the next week to read as much of the comic as you would like~! We hope to see you on Thursday, November 15th, from 5PM to 7PM PST for the chat in #thursday_bookclub!

Comic’s Main Site: https://tapas.io/series/Skeletons-in-the-Closet

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #book club #bookclub #webcomic book club #webcomic bookclub #comic tea party #ctp #anacrine complex #sae

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tumblunni · 5 years

Text

okay to talk about EXACTLY HOW i would handle giving charon a big good boss fight and also sympathetic backstory and redemption and all that jazz

there are approximately ten million words beneath the cut, and also ten million raspberries in my shampoo, and these charon thoughts are just as sweet as that

alright so ALREADY i kinda did feel like he was sort of a friendly enemy when i first played the game?? like his Thing of being the constantly never fightable dude actually was kind of sympathetic in a way. it always just felt like he was Chilling Out and not giving much of a shit about being evil and also had nothing personal against you the player. he doesnt follow any of cyrus’s big philosophy and he’s clearly only here for the money and really phoning it in, and that kinda makes him not your enemy at all, even though he’s on the team youre fighting. Like I always found it a good establishing moment that in the Valley Windworks when they first introduce “hey this time there’s two galactic teammates here” and all, CHARON IS STANDING DIRECTLY IN EYELINE OF YOU RUINING EVERYONE’S PLANS. he’s just standing there! and of course he’ll never do anything to warn mars about you, the game just isnt programmed that way. but it fits really well with his character if you think of it as an intentional thing? just imagine this random gramps sitting there drinking tea while all his teammates actually Care About Things and Use Effort. He’s always criticizing team galactic’s plan too and like WHY IS HE DOING THAT TO YOU if not because Nintendo Wants Him To Be My Best Friend ok. Like he doesn’t fuckin trust anyone on his team so why would he spill the beans about his big secret plans he has to make money off of this villain plan and then bail before they actually do all the dumb shit with legendaries and such. Yes ok its PROBABLY just because its a videogame and they need to exposit stuff to the player that the character is probably just thinking and not saying out loud. But wouldnt it be so much better this way!!!! Also even when you finally face off against him personally in the postgame for his actual dumb money plan he’s still like ‘lol fourth wall breaking time im gonna not have a boss battle cos if you beat cyrus’s ass i aint got no chance’. Dammit nintend i still wanted to fight him but thats endearing so i cant stay mad at u! And he has several lines during it with stuff like “i like seeing children trying so hard BUT YOURE TOO LATE” and “youth like you can live in idealism but for me its all about the money”. Like man u remember that time i had a big angry rant about how his manga version was super OOC cos they didnt just choose to make him eviler but made him murder a child? like the only time anything involving children is mentioned in canon its him being mildly more polite to children!!! MILDLY FRIENDLY! LET ME HAVE THIS...

okay so YEAH the first big change would be just giving him more screentime and more fleshed out character in these early scenes. Make him a full on friendly character who is technically on the opposite side but has no beef with you and no loyalty to the greater plan of his team. So he’s just comically like “oh hi again! yeah lol today’s plan sucks huh?” and makes idle conversation while the main character villain admin of the day is actually doing important plot stuff. like have him along for everyone’s scenes not just mars at the start, dissappear for hours until the very end. And yes definately keep the thing of the game constantly lampshading that he’s a new character for the third version of the game, and everyone in the team thinks he’s useless and forgets he’s even there. it was annoying in the original game cos he actually didnt get any love from the writers themselves, but yknow you could give him an expanded role and rewrite that stuff to be more like “oh poor guy he’s the underdog”, yknow? am i the only one who felt inherantly sorry for him?? i mean he’s a tiny grandpa!!! and he looks so sad on his official art!! Oh oh and also add the additional running jokes and expanded characterization he had in his very brief anime appearance, which was honestly the only well written part of the entire team galactic arc. It fleshed out a bit of his relationship with jupiter who never really appeared alongside him in the game except to say “im not teaming up with you” at the end. Having the context that she finds him annoying cos she’s very serious and also very dedicated to cyrus so she hates this opportunistic bastard pretending to be dedicated when its an obvious lie. And also she thinks his laugh is obnoxious XD Oh also I liked how they expanded upon that one scene of Saturn being sarcastic at gramps and made it into an actual thing that him and charon most often work together and have a mutually sassy dynamic. I found it humanizing that anime saturn is very serious but can comically overreact to very minor teasing from this grandpa! I thought that was better than the games where he’s just serious or the manga where he was 100% changed to be 100% silly and kinda stole charon’s personality for reasons i will never understand.

ANYWAY! IN SUMMARY! show scenes of charon being endearing by being not really interested in the big evilness, being underdog-y by always failing at his smaller evilnesses and getting disrespected, and also maybe drop in some more interpersonal relationships between the admins to hint that charon does indeed have some friendship going on even if he’s a tsundere bitch who’d never admit it. Also maybe the other thing from the anime where they made him a cool computer guy? cos srsly it was lazy that the games just said “he’s the science” and never clarified wtf he actually does at his job. cos cyrus is already a science boss??? he kinda already did most of the big sciencey plans?? why does he need this man if its not for mechanical or legendary pokemon stuff OK HEY MAYBE COMPUTERS! also its funny to imagine him being a memey blogger but sun and moon actually made faba canonically that so i dont think you could improve on him. TAKE NOTES FROM BEAN MAN, NINTENDO

Also maybe you could hint at the rotom backstory before it actually happens? like could just show some mild implications that he is sad, cos the ‘friendly enemy’ thing would already be decent foreshadowing for him potentially having a soft spot. “Wah i am an emotionless evil money man” says local villain, while gossipping with Dawn about his coworkers and sharing lemon squares. But like I mean i don’t really want him to be LITERALLY that, i still like him being grumpy and guarded about his secret good heart. I’m just saying “friendly” as in.. sort of a disconnect between what he says his personality is and how he actually acts. The stuff he actually says is very grumpy but like.. hey he’s saying stuff to you when he doesnt need to, and nobody else on this team is casually talking to you as if youre not an enemy. Like he’s SUBCONCIOUSLY friendly and doesnt realise it? He’d never SAY “i am lonely hello please talk to me” but he’d sure as hell walk over to you and talk to you anyway. About grumpy things! Grumpily! And maybe express occasional compliments in a sort of “haha im surrounded by idiots you’re way more down to earth than all these adults who act more like children”. Cos in that fourth wall breaking moment he has, he respects that you’re a badass and decides thats why he’s not gonna have a boss fight. “You’d just kick my ass, so lol fight these grunts instead while i run away and do my evil plan” That is the kind of sympathetic charon i want!! He’s doing a douchey thing by breaking the script of how boss battles work and making everyone else fight you instead even though he knows that they’ll lose. But he’s also likeable because breaking the script of boss battles is unexpected and comedic! And he’s also accidentally being complimentary to you so its like SIMULTANEOUS JERK AND NICE AT THE SAME TIME. Thats the good stuff!! That quality grumplegramp content!!! if he got redeemed and just 100% changed his personality to lose all the sass and sneakyness then that’d be boring yo...

OKAY WHERE WAS I? Okay hey once you’ve established that, maybe now you have a basis for the sad foreshadowing!! Like you could have one scene where he’s suddenly NOT friendly, he’s not just grumpy in the funny sort of way but actually seems cold and stoic and actually does something useful to the team’s mission or whatever. Sort of a ‘whoa what’s wrong with him today’ thing and it could be subtle cos on the first playthrough you’d just think he was being a jerk cos he’s a jerk and all. but maybe it happens on a scene of team galactic doing some evil plan in eterna forest/other place that’d potentially relate to the rotom sidequest. like he’s just really fuckin depressed to be reminded of his one big failure in life. OH maybe it could actually be at the unnamed junkyard thats mentioned in his backstory but doesnt actually feature as an area in the original game? It could make sense that it’d be part of their plan cos team galactic attacks various energy sources and other technology related places to find the stuff they need to make the big world erasure machine. could just be simply them robbing some old generator parts after their attempt to take the whole power plant failed.

Oh and also maybe add a lil something to his last scene at the galactic lab? Cos like.. what we already have in the game has potential to be a moment where he did a good thing but no its not. Like when you look at it, hey he kinda helped you out here by being all “hey lol saturn the kid is here, bye im not stopping u, feel free to take the lake trio”. Even if saturn is the one who actually SAID feel free to take the lake trio and actually had a good hint at redemptiveness moment and all. Please never take that away, that was good, you just coulda had both of them do it, yknow? And we dont wanna make charon go full good guy all of a sudden when he hasnt even finished his characetr arc, so instead make it more of a moment where its like “im a bad guy but this is going too far”. Like maybe ACTUALLY HAVE A PAYOFF for the foreshadowing that he has no loyalty to cyrus and is blatantly plotting to betray him at some point. He never actually did!! He only tries to capitalize on cyrus already being defeated in an entirely optional sidequest that fails at delivering a proper payoff.

So hey! My idea! Add some complexity here by making it clear that charon is evil in a more petty and mundane way and not in a.. like.. actually dangerous way. Once things start getting actually dangerous he starts chickening out! Like he’s a jerk who does mean things to get money but he’s just MEAN and not friggin murderous or worldending. Give him a moment of “oh shit cyrus was actually serious oh god how do i get off of this train”. Like it seemed that he never really believed that team galactic would ever truly create a new world, and he certainly didnt give a shit about it, he just thought he found an easy opportunity for a paycheck in some dumbass’s deluded plan that’d never really work. But OOPS i guess it actually is happening, oh fuck! Give him a bit of a crisis where he realizes what he actually helped this man do, but not like a full on “everything ive ever done is bad and i dont wanna be evil anymore”. Not YET! Just friggin.. “oh fuck i cant spend money if the universe doesnt exist and also i am dead”. “PLEASE HELP ME CHILD, CYRUS IS GONNA TAKE AWAY THE MONEY!!” xD It’d be fitting for his character and a good light moment of comic relief after the emotional and dark stuff happening around this section of the game. Like he already kinda does that by having that scene of saturn snarking at him, but it could be even more funny! Move the first him and saturn bickering scene to earlier on and have this be like a satisfying scene of saturn actually winning? cos in the anime it was always charon being smug and making fun of him while saturn gets all grumpy about it, now it could be the reverse with smug charon having a breakdown and realising his whole money plan is in shambles and its his own fault.

Also maybe it could have additional payoff with Charon actually helping you take down cyrus? Again, not actually because he’s switched sides but because he's still evil but evil for different reasons than cyrus. That good ‘reluctant teamup with minor goofy villain to take down big actually scary villain’ thing. With the added bonus that the minor goofy villain is objectively a worse person than the scary villain and the scary villain is still redeemable, as opposed to in the manga where they used this same trope in the form of “cyrus is good now and we’re making charon the big scary villain to prove how good cyrus is cos charon is worse”. That was dumb. It was especially dumb cos WHY ON EARTH would you pick charon for this??? like they still had moments of him being comedic and wimpy yet at the same time wanted us to believe he was legitimately threatening? ANYWAY my idea for this is that charon’s computer skills could pay off and it could be something like “oh i always put a failsafe kill switch in my computer just in case i need to grab the money and run”. Like him being a paranoid untrusting selfish asshole was actually the reason he was able to save the day! Also it would explain why cyrus’s machine only fails and summons giratina in platinum version. the manga actually did say that charon sabotaged the machine so thats one actually good thing that came from it! Congrats u filled one plothole while making twenty more XD

OH and perhaps this same section could also foreshadow the rotom thing? like I was thinking about how he could actually choose to give up and let you take the lake trio and have it still be 100% in character. It could be an extension of his “shit, i didnt think things would get this serious, please save me from the consequences of my own actions!” moment. Cos I think that any normal dumb greedy money man would still be horrified at the idea of mutilating a thousand year old majestic unicorn of mythology and then flushing it down the toilet when it outlives its uselessness. Like he doesnt do it because he wants to help you save the day or anything, just cos the idea of killing the lake trio is just too evil for even him. It could be kind of a meaningful moment about how cyrus is doing all this for good reasons yet they caused him to do these actions that are even more evil than the actual dude with evil motives. And maybe you could establish this through a scene of him and cyrus inetracting, which could also help amp up how intimidating cyrus is, in preparation for the big climax? Have charon trying to wimp out of “disposing of the useless specimens”, but cyrus is having none of it. Like it could start off funny with him making up loads of other excuses cos there’s no way he’d admit he’s having Feelings and all. “Wait but let me have them! if theyre useless to you then i can just sell them right?? ha ha thats the only reason im saying this, lol you know me i’d never be swayed by any sentiment” But cyrus sees through it instantly and gets right up in his face like fuckin Raw Cold Fury, no you are NOT going to disobey me. He is PISSED OFF because the only reason he kept this useless senile old bat around is because he’s the only one in this group who isn’t a simpering moron at the mercy of their pitiful heart. If you can’t even do that, then what’s the use of you? So everything charon tries fails and all he accomplishes is getting fired on the spot for even TALKING ABOUT defying his boss. And cyrus just orders saturn to dispose of the lake trio instead. Saturn of course is smarter and says nothing in defiance, but then the both of them work together to let you take the pokemon and just act like they failed to stop you rather than doing it on purpose. And its kind of an uncharacteristically quiet and intense moment between these dudes that are usually at each other’s throats with funny banter. They’re united for a moment but for very different reasons. Charon knew that cyrus wasnt a good guy from the very beginning and he just underestimated him, and is now feeling in over his head and worried this could be the end. And saturn always thought cyrus was good but is starting to struggle with doubts. And maybe charon actually tries to warn saturn about it? Like “hey i knew this all along but i never told you but HEY CYRUS MIGHT ACTUALLY KILL US ALL” and saturn starts on his usual speech about cyrus being the greatest but he starts to question it and AAAAA! but ultimately this moment isnt the moment where he makes the right choice, and he does end up going back to cyrus and continuing the plan. and also charon is on the edge of actually doing something good and trying to stop cyrus’s big ol doom time (albiet for selfish reasons of No Money In The New World) but he also wimps out from this chance and instead decides to grab as much cash as he can and run the fuck away, as if its even possible to outrun the destruction of a whole dimension. but at least him and saturn agreed on the lake trio rescue operation, thus their moment of almost-redemption helped the player even if they didnt actually turn good. AND then you’d have the surprise moment of charon actually stepping up at the last minute and doing his thing to sabotage the machine and all. which again doesnt really solve the whole thing and doesnt really make him turn good but at least it downgrades the threat from ‘cyrus actually succeeds in destroying the world’ to ‘okay we just need to deal with a slight case of poke-hell and one collossal centipede’. Srsly man sinnoh’s plot has the highest stakes cos in platinum you straight up actually fail and cyrus actually would have destroyed the world if not for giratina! Oh and also a random note is that i think it’d be funny if charon helped you out while still running away? like you just learn about the machine sabotage being his responsibility cos it flashes his goofy hacker logo from the anime or something. Maybe instead he hacks your Poketch and is like HEY HELLO IM GONNA SPLODE THE THING BUT NOT COS IM A GOOD GUY, BTW I AM A SAFE DISTANCE AWAY PLEASE DONT LET CYRUS KNOW I DID THIS

SO YEAH! whatever! whether or not we get that added bit of teamup with charon in the climax, we’ve still given him a bit more screentime so the player actually remembers him and actually cares about doing his optional sidequest in the postgame. so him not having a boss fight would be less of a letdown and all. But having the teamup plot would be a good opportunity to turn the wifi event into not a wifi event! maybe during his panic charon drops the key to his secret lab and thats how you get it? cos really it makes no sense at all that the magic wifi gods can just hand you something you’d have no idea existed and never have an opportunity to get. none of the other wifi items are literally a thing owned by a significant character that needs to be teleported out of his pocket by plot magic! Also it sucks that a chunk of important backstory would be hidden in a wifi event so if they still wanted rotom’s alt forms to be a wifi event then JUST make it the ability to get the forms and not the charony diary bit. Cos it makes no sense that the ENTIRE REASON CHARON EXISTS is to introduce the rotom form event yet you’d have no clue he was connected to rotom until after youve already finished the event. It gave no damn indication you had to take the key to this particular dude’s lab in team galactic!! ANd click on an otherwise unmarked wall!! Put the diary somewhere else and hey there’s a Charon Clue(tm) and now you can actually find the damn event, there you go, fixed. Also annoying cos nothing in the event tells you you have to go somewhere entirely different to catch the one rotom in the game, and click another unmarked piece of scenery that only has a staticky screen to indicate rotom if you happen to be playing at night. Seriously this is why serebii.net was such a lifesaver!!

Okay so WOOP there we go, here we are at a point where the player has seen more of charon and had oppotunities to grow to like him as a character and be suspicious that maybe he could have some sympatheticness. And if he drops an Importante Key Itemme right before the end of the game then thats a hint that postgame stuff exists involving him, and at least one clue where to find it! All the rotom diary stuff would play out exactly the same except that its less of a hell to find, lol.

BUT THEN the big difference in Stark Mountain is that now you have the full context of charon’s backstory and the game actually reacts to you having that knowledge. Like maybe if you dont do that step first then either charon never appears at stark mountain until you do, or you get an abbrieviated version of the quest without the redemption plot? I was thinking actually maybe make it one of those daily repeatable quests, to avoid the player doing the quests out of order and permenantly losing the chance to redeem gramps. Like if you dont see the rotom diary then instead of a big actual quest you just get some five minute “oh we’ve seen team galactic sneaking around stark mountain, defeat them for Some Money Or Something hey thats weird that they were only stealing money hey yknow who’s all about the money? charon! maybe go follow up on his Importante Key Itemme to continue the plot.”

SO THEN once you return Emboldened By The Knowledge Of Good Gramps, you get the proper thing. And... it would actually play out totally the same as in vanilla platinum. Charon doesn’t have a boss fight, all his minions leave him and say he sucks, he gets anticlimactically taken out by someone else in a cutscene, and his last moment is someone making a crack about him being so frail and useless that the hot volcano breeze could knock him over.

BUT THAT ISNT THE END

Its just a fake out that its gonna have the same funny ending as every other charon appearance, and the same lack of him being remotely threatening.

cos NOW WE FINALLY GIVE THE MAN A GODDAMN BOSS FIGHT

and yknow how i said i hate the manga where he’s all super evil and owns three legendaries and kills a guy? okay take away all that stuff but KEEP THE MOMENT OF GRANDPA GETTING TO DO SOMETHING BADASS FOR THE ONLY TIME EVER

Maybe he surprises everybody by actually not being down for the count! And by now he’s just SO pissed off from a whole game’s worth of failing and being disrespected that he does something desperate and stupid at the last minute. If he was meant to be the dude who invented the red chain, maybe he could use it to control heatran even if looker took away the magma stone? like i feel it’d be in character for charon to secretly steal a prototype red chain for himself during the whole “oh fuck my boss is legit destroying the world i need to get out of here” thing. Grab some stuff to sell now your last paycheck is dissappearing into an ominous void, lol. He didnt expect to actually be using it, and if the actually completed red chain puts enough stress on its weilder to make them cry blood then this thing must be even more risky to use! so its a really huge holy shit moment of tiny gramps actually doing something intimidating! and his boss fight could actually be using heatran and actually having heatran get to goddamn appear in this sidequest. it was soooo underwhelming to have to return thru the dungeon a second time to actually see heatran, this time without any story stuff to break up the long walk...

also this entire thing could be a great climax to his character arc and sort of a moment of “okay THIS was actually his motivation all along!” Cos I always felt like Charon’s real motive was low self confidence? Like he’s always on about money but he seems to focus more on SUCCESS instead. Fame and success. “Ha ha i am the greatest scientist and i want people actually aknowledge me” is a thing he repeatedly brings up and also that other characters directly demonstrate in how they act towards him. It just feels like he thinks he can buy that with money if he’s failed his whole life in earning it. And the old “acts egotistical because he actually hates himself” character archetype would work really well as a sympathetic interpretation of his character. It would be like how he’s ‘subconciously friendly’. The thing he actually does (being boastful) is because of a different reason (not believing his own lies and being super insecure about his self worth), but he keeps it so well hidden that not even he realises that its really what he feels. Similar to how he acts grumpy because of a different reason, because he actually DOES want friends and he’s just guarding his emotions under a million walls cos he’s scared of being hurt again. And scared of how he knows he’s a weak willed person who might betray his friends again for his desperation for money. Which is really a desperation to feel valid as a human being, which is really just ‘i want friends’ again under another coat of paint. So depressingly he caused his own problems because of the same character trait that was once a positive in his life! I think he works well when interpreted from that angle, he’s like a dark subversion of a pokemon professor or of your classic ash ketchum figure. Like “the power of friendship” is what turned him evil, and also turned him into a guy who acted awful to his friends. And it could add to this thematic thing if “loving pokemon” was also referenced throughout his plot in a negative sense?

That’s actually one other good thing about the manga, they removed his greedy grumpyness (bad) but replaced it with the same motive as the villain of the 2nd movie (weird flex but okay). Aka “a guy who collects legendary pokemon just as trophies and has forgotten how to treat them like genuine friends”. Even if that wouldnt be his main character concept in this hypothetical rewritten game, it could still be a secondary trait that’s used to suppliment the main emotional arc. Like instead of just saying “money money money” you could flesh out more scenes of him actually talking about HOW he’s gonna get the money and what he’s gonna use it for. Via collecting all the rare pokemon, and to collect more rare pokemon. Which will somehow (in his twisted cynical perception of how the world works) make him a person of value and get people to respect him. It could also tie together pretty much every scene he already has! Cos his backstory is finding this pokemon friend... who was a rare unknown species. And maybe as a kid he decided to become a scientist initially just out of excitement to learn more about his new friend and show them to the world! But then the realities of the difficulties in being respected as a scientist gradually wore him down and he became more cynical, more obsessed with recognition, more believing that the only way to get it was by being an asshole and he’d just get taken advantage of if he kept being soft. And he started to forget why he really wanted that fame in the first place, and instead it just became an obsession, a vain hope that he’d hate himself less if he accomplished his life’s dream. When really from the player’s perspective its obvious that even if he succeeded he’d still be depressed when he realized how he’d lost everything in the process. And it’d be a more realistic sort of way he could have turned from a good kid to an asshole gramps. There wasnt any single day he suddenly made the decision to change, it was just a gradual wearing down of his morals over the years. he became more obsessed and more cynical that normal moral ways of doing things would never get him what he wanted. he started making small sacrifices to his personal sense of morality, and eventually reached the point where he’d completely abandoned it all without even noticing the gradual change. And somewhere along the way he forgot that he started this because of his pokemon friend, and discarded it as “not good enough” in favor of this vain quest to acquire a million other rarer pokemon and just friggin put them on a shelf to boast about them and feel less empty inside. And then also his redemption was a gradual change too? After he reached that point of completely betraying his own sense of goodness, he gradually got sadder and more tired with living this way. By the time you see him ingame he’s not remotely happy with being evil and he’s just a poor dude who’s deluded that being evil is the only way to escape the sadness rather than the cause of it. And thats why his whole ‘oops im accidentally subconciously befriending my coworkers and also the enemy’ thing kinda set him on the road to eventual redemption, cos its the first bit of small upliftingness he’s had in ages. sorta recharges his Ability To Care and he starts realizing what he’s doing and feeling regret. But yeah throughout the main game he never actually acts on his doubts and just repeatedly misses the chance to get redeemed and makes you Kinda Frustrated, similar to zuko or peridot’s redemptive arc? And ultimately reuniting him with his old best friend and showing him that its not too late to fix what he broke = the actual catalyst for his changes to fully stick and he completely switches to the good side.

BUT ANYWAY thats why he needs a boss fight first!

Something like 50-70 years worth of self hate and frustration from devoting himself to a super incorrect way of defeating that self hate, and sacrificing EVERYTHING for the sake of it, and being disrespected the entire time, and being terrified that you’re getting old and running out of time, and almost dying to some guy’s weird void plan, and losing the only thing you had left aka the team galactic job and a few maybe sorta kinda friends you had, and now being disrespected AGAIN by those same people you thought were friends (but never actually admitted it to them) and then also bitchslapped by a frog?? Also this place is real fuckin sweaty?? Yeah stark mountain is a great climactic point for his entire frustrations to boil over and be a bigger eruption than the actual volcano!

Thus we have Grand Dad Gets Serious And Has An Actually Interesting Boss Fight!

but also grand dad is being emotionally open and whoops accidentally might be tearing down those walls he built up around his big ol soft as fuck heart

like the battle would possibly be more ‘you talk him down into giving up, realizing he was wrong, quitting being evil, and going home to his friend that he misses so much. and finally realizing that thats actually the only way he could ever really defeat the self hate that drove him this far in the first place. also he’s not worthless and his friends always believed he was the awesome dude he always wanted to be’. Yknow, rather than actually defeating him and all. I mean you still do that but i think it’d be a case like with the giratina fight where even if you lose or run away you get the same result, just slightly altered text? Just as long as you come here with rotom in your party your victory was already a foregone conclusion. you just get a really cool boss fight as your reward, yknow? cos seriously I WAS WAITING THE WHOLE GAME FOR THAT DAMN BOSS FIGHT!!!

obligatory link again to the cool song i think is a great summary of all of my headcanons for this man’s character arc and would also be badass backing music for a hypothetical boss fight:

youtube

context: it makes more sense if you imagine it as his own internal thoughts of all the stuff he’s been running away from accepting in his own feelings. and/or what he THINKS that the player and rotom would be saying to him, so he’s shocked into speechlessness by the fact that they actually do think he deserves a second chance and has the potential to be good.

actually that could be a really good ending to the fight!!!

like when you get through to him and convince him to stand down, he cowers in fear thinking he’s gonna get the karmic payback for everything he’s ever done. and he tries to run away from reuniting with rotom. half of him is scared that his friend hates him and the other half is.. well..

i think it would be thematically appropriate to end it with a hug

just an image of this lil toy robot pokemon hugging this scared old man, and he’s just so empty and doesnt know what to say. its the last thing he ever expected. and then his shock turns into pain and sadness, as he was really the most scared that his friend actually would forgive him. that everything he ever did really was all for nothing, and he should have done this years ago and saved all that lost time. he’s so scared because he thinks he doesnt deserve forgiveness and he doesnt know what to do now its happening. so he just lets out all those tears he’s never cried over all these years, and the scene ends with him desperately hugging his best friend and never wanting to let go ever again

And then that’d be the big moment that was really the turning point for him, though of course that wouldnt be the end of his redemption and if there was any further postgame content you could show various scenes of him atoning throughout that. or just some images in the second credits scene after you beat the postgame stuff. i’d kinda like if there was some moment of him apologising to the rest of team galactic and joining them in their attempts to rebuild the team into something good. and maybe an extra postgame segment where this redeemified team goes on some bigger quest to try and rescue cyrus from the distortion world and heal his pain too. i think you could get a lot of good scenes out of a redeemed charon being along for the ride! like you’d obviously have cyrus being skeptical that this dude really has changed so much, and probably an extension of that earlier scene where he’s pissed off that the one guy he thought agreed with him about emotions being foolish is actually being the most emotional of everyone. but i think because of that they could also have scenes of relating together and actually starting to form a friendship in the end? like i can see charon feeling guilty for never trying to reach out to cyrus before, and also believing really strongly that cyrus can be redeemed cos like ‘yo i’m way worse than you and i was able to change, please believe that its a possibility for you too!’ Also cyrus likes machines so i think he’d be happy to meet rotom and become friends. And he has that whole grandpa related backstory so it might help a lot towards healing those scars and reuniting the two of them if he starts forming a friendship with a different gramps? THERES A LOT OF GOOD THEMATIC LINKS BETWEEN THE DIFFERENT TEAM GALACTIC MEMBERS THAT ARE NEVER EXPLORED IN THE ORIGINAL GAME

also in the original version of this plotline it was a fanfic/fangame idea of an alternate universe swap where dawn/lucas/other customizeable protagonist is a galactic grunt instead of the hero. so a lot of the details were different but in that version the protag was literally adopted by whichever galactic admin they picked as their main friendship route. entirely because of self indulgent ‘i wish these guys were my dad/sister/grandpa/whatever’ feels cos sinnoh helped me thru a tough time as a kid. soooo i cant really do that charon grandpa idea where he also renovates the Old Chateau into a ghost pokemon sanctuary and becomes like an actual good pokemon professor. (also rekindles his friendship with prof rowan and agatha from the kanto elite four cos thats just a random headcanon i have) BUT i could still do all that except the part where he adopts u cos canon dawn/lucas already has a mom lol. And i think it’d be more fitting of canonverse protag to adopt Cyrus? Like obv in the canonverse itd probably be the main boss of the team who gets the bigger redemption plot and is canonically the best friend EVEN THO for tumblr user tumblunni in particular it is All Grandpas All The Time. And i like the idea of Cyboy being a survivor of child abuse who tries to become a good dad just like his parents werent. But i also like the idea of dawn’s mom adopting him as her new big brother and him getting to experience a genuine loving family for the first time! I think itd work that way cos cyrus is meant to be 27 even tho he looks older, and i dont think dawn’s mom is that young and also i just see no chemistry between them as any sort of ship. (and headcanon cyrus as asexual anyway) But also the family does still keep in touch with all the other galactic friends!!!

hhhh i wrote So Many Word just about grandpa redemption holy shit i’ll probably die if i try and cover all the other teammates now

ok i will leave it here but just know i also have Deep Headcanons about all of them, even if charon gets the most. somedaayayyyay i will share with you more!!

#commander charon #why. why am i like this #okay apparantly i have used that exact tag like 15 times already on this blog and im betting most of them were also about charon #please love charon

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