#DOES ANYONE KNOW IF THIS MYSTERIOUS HAPPENED IN COMICS AND WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED? I WANT TO KNOW WHOS REALLY AT FAULT HERE

[nekropsii]

ALPHA TROLLS RANKED BY HOW WRONG THE FANDOM AT LARGE IS ABOUT THEM:

This is a personal challenge, based entirely on my own experience and perspective, and also ranked from Most to Least Correct. I was bored, and thought this might be fun.

Putting this under a cut, because it's long as hell.

MEULIN LEIJON

People get her mostly correct, from what I’ve seen… Most of the time, fan content of Meulin is absolutely recognizable as Meulin, but her pride in her deafness + joy of learning new ways to interact with the world through/due to her disability is always removed, and I do not often see people tackle the Toxic Positivity aspect of her character. That seems less like character assassination, though, and more like a combination of people not actually playing through the Openbounds, people not being able to fathom disabled people (especially those who gained a disability later in life rather than being born disabled) being happy, and general fandom distaste for the idea of touching anything uncomfortable, especially when that uncomfortable topic is highly mundane, normalized, and potentially applicable to them or their loved ones. Meulin’s toxic positivity was, of course, commentary on Tumblr’s ecosystem at the time, so… It was much harder to touch back then.

ARANEA SERKET

People tend to get her general, broad strokes personality right, but unfortunately she gets treated pretty roughly for the crime of Being A Serket. People refuse to understand her motivations, and she often gets demonized for what she was doing around/during [S] Game Over, even though that was something she’d gotten pushed to and also was cool as fuck to watch. God forbid a woman do anything.

DAMARA MEGIDO

People are right about the racism, 100%. It is completely despicable, hard to look at, and extremely blatant. She does, however, have character outside of that. No, it isn’t “whore”, it’s more like “angry, dysfunctional abuse victim”, and she’s genuinely a very interesting and tragic character. But, again, people are right about the racism, so she gets to be placed way up here.

MEENAH PEIXES

She is such a chaotic little bastard. I love her. I really do. Please understand that she genuinely does not understand the concept of consequences. This girl didn’t have a Lusus, she didn’t have parents, it was functionally illegal to tell her “No, you can’t do that.” That would fuck up literally anyone’s moral compass. That’s not me hand waving away all the fucked up and bad shit she’s done, we all know what she did, but people tend to forget this aspect of her character and it pains me deeply, because it is a very genuinely interesting concept that I want to see more of. She’s capable of regret, we’ve seen her feel it, I just don’t think foresight is her forte. No one raised her to consider consequences, or help her experience them in a healthy way, because nobody raised her period.

Also, her ass is not butch, she is the girliest girl in the entire comic. She is about hot pink and glitter and kiss marks and unicorns and cute little puns and you will respect that. She is not masculine. Her ass is not masculine nor is she butch. Let her be her hyper-feminine self.

LATULA PYROPE

Please for the love of god there is more to her character than “Gamer Girl” and “Mituna’s Girlfriend”. You are falling for her fucking ruse. Please. Please. Please recognize that her entire character is about internalized misogyny, and being forced to overcompensate for misogyny in gaming circles as a gamer who happens to be a woman. Please. I’m begging.

KURLOZ MAKARA

His character is not that deep, it’s mostly just a string of events he is mysteriously, inexplicably involved with. The Makaras are extremely Function Over Form- their characters practically do not exist, they're mostly just plot devices that exist to push the story along. I'm sorry to Makara fans. You just invented a guy in your mind and decided he was real. He is also not that soft, though, and his relationships with both Meulin AND Mituna are not healthy. Hard to stop people from ascribing cutesy squishy lovey dynamics to random men who happened to have looked at each other once, though. Some people truly haven't graduated from 2012.

HORUSS ZAHHAK

I am begging people to consider that maybe the biggest issue here is not that he is “Bad Otherkin/Therian Representation” and is in fact maybe the fact that Hussie was actually making fun of Systems when he was writing Horuss. Because Horuss is canonically a system. He uses the word system. He uses the word switching. He uses the word host. He literally talks about his Plurality at length in extremely upfront, plain terms. I don’t know how him being “Bad Otherkin Representation” was and still is the main discourse about him. It makes me insane. That is a commentary that truly writes itself. Talk about having your priorities out of wack, honestly...

PORRIM MARYAM

No, she is not a MRA, she’s just a regular feminist who happens to live on a different planet with different politics and social hierarchies from Our Real World Earth’s USA. Whatever argument you’re about to pull out of your ass to say that she sucks is bad. She already explained what she meant by that, in more detail, very clearly, and she was right. Half the time she’s literally just giving you factual information about what Beforus was like, and literal plot synopses. She isn’t saying anything insane. She’s literally normal. I don’t know why people cannot handle or process this. Porrim has not ever said anything controversial. If you disagree with this you’re either misconstruing her on purpose or you fell for Kankri’s bait, and that’s just fucking sad at that point.

Also, she’s more than a sex object, and her tits are not huge. Honestly, half the shit she was saying was just “I am more than my sex life”, and so many people took that and made her main character trait her sex life. Just pathetic.

RUFIOH NITRAM

This man is a fucking war criminal and I will stop at nothing until he is behind bars for his crimes against Damara. Raging misogynist. Total fucking cunt. Just the worst. If I talk any more about this, this part will be 1,000 paragraphs long. But also, I’m begging people to recognize his relationship with disability, too. He was similar to Meulin in the sense that he didn’t mind his disability, and his biggest gripe with it was the way that Horuss tried to “fix” it… Which is an interesting way to expand upon how Beforus’s culling system is not only very explicitly ableist, but mimicking real world systemic ableism. I also want people to recognize that Hussie is actively having a conversation about the reclamation of slurs with Rufioh’s character, and how not letting people reclaim such language is doing nothing but giving the word power against them while stripping away their own personal agency. Rufioh’s a complicated guy, and he’s interesting and also the worst, and I am really tired of how he gets watered down to nothing but “Pretty Boy Victim Of His Inexplicably Psycho Ex”.

MITUNA CAPTOR

Holy Fucking Shit, You Guys Are Ableist.

KANKRI VANTAS

To this day I see people saying he was just Hussie making fun of SJWs. To this day. To this day people think Hussie was trying to make Every Tumblr Leftist look bad, and that he hates them Because They Are Leftists. When will people recognize him as a bootlicker to the oppressive class and the violently bigoted. When will people recognize that. When will people recognize that this is more of a commentary on the legitimate real flaws of Tumblr’s politics at the time. When. When.

When will people stop portraying him as a lovey-dovey Catholic Whore. I’m going to stab my fucking eyes out and then kill everyone in this building. Me when it's based and cool to ship an aroace character with a sexual predator. I GUESS.

CRONUS AMPORA

I say this with every ounce of sincerity I can possibly muster as a person: What the literal actual fuck.

#homestuck #homestuck fandom #alpha trolls #beforan trolls #dancestors #damara megido #rufioh nitram #mituna captor #kankri vantas #meulin leijon #porrim maryam #latula pyrope #aranea serket #horuss zahhak #kurloz makara #cronus ampora #meenah peixes #nekro.pdf #nekro.txt

[demonicchicken1121]

Alastor, Rosie, and Cannibal Town: an Analysis (I’m fucking at it (Alastor Posting) again)

Ok I know that a lot of people have already been talking about this, but I really want to analyze Alastors behavior in cannibal town and how it’s so much different than how he behaves literally anywhere else.

Alastors true motives, personality, opinions, etc are widely debated in the fandom. Does he actually care about Charlie or the hotel? What’s his beef with Lucifer? Why did he make a deal and who was it with? Al is such a mysterious and closed off character, and his demeanor changes so frequently that no one in or out of universe really knows much about him. I personally think that the closest we get to seeing Alastor in his truest and most authentic self is when he’s in cannibal town.

From the moment they arrive, Alastors demeanor changes dramatically, even from a few moments before, when Charlie was venting about her relationship issues. He seems genuinely excited to be there and see Rosie, to the point where he seems to forget he brought Charlie here for a reason (hell I think he forgets Charlie is even there at a few points.)

Al and Rosie HAVE seen each other since he returned to hell, at the overlord meeting, but they didn’t really have the time to interact. Even so, they are so in tune with each other. This man was gone for seven years and here they are gaslight gatekeep girlbossing like nothing happened.

But once they actually have the opportunity to interact outside of the overlord meeting they’re super excited to catch up. The only other time he shows this much enthusiasm to see someone is with Mimzy, but things quickly goes south when she puts the hotel is danger. Alastors friendship with mimzy feels very onesided, and it seems that she only shows up when she needs something. While Alastor and Rosie clearly ask each other for favors, it feels a lot more equal in a way where they each get an equal amount of benefit.

And while we haven’t seen much of them yet, I get the vibe that they hang out in their free time and respect each others boundaries and schedules. I think Al went through cannibal town hoping to see her in the prequel comic, but figured she was busy after the extermination and instead asked some of the residents to say hello on his behalf. But that’s just a theory, a gam-

Also just a little thing I noticed, when rosie is joking about Charlie being too young for Alastor, Charlie looks visibly annoyed, but Alastors body language and expression don’t change. He tends to react relatively strongly when anyone (Angel) makes a move on him or assumes he’s dating anyone, but I think he knows Rosie well enough to know she’s joking.

Alastor lets his guard down so much in this part of the episode. He’s really in his element and his behavior seems so natural and genuine.

I love how he’s so willing to just roast Susan. Every iconic duo has that one person they fucking hate and will not be subtle about how much they fucking hate them. It’s especially funny with alastor, who’s usually really pretentious and passive aggressive when he insults someone, but with Susan it’s just

“✨Ornery old bitch?✨” also this is the only time in the entire series that alastor swears in a genuinely humorous way. In almost every other example, he is trying to intimidate someone or piss them off, and also when his staff was broken.

And speaking of his staff, I think it was actually a big deal that Alastor let Charlie use it, even tho it was for a very short time. This does show that whether or not he actually cares about her, Alastor does have a certain amount of trust and respect for Charlie. Despite that, I don’t think he would have done this if he wasn’t in cannibal town and with Rosie. The staff is clearly very important to him and likely holds some amount of his power, given how he reacted when it was broken.

As weird as this sentence is out of context, I think Alastor feels very safe in cannibal down. Rosie and probably the other cannibals genuinely like and respect him. it speaks volumes that not only he let Charlie use his staff, but he put himself in the position that would leave him vulnerable to Rosie if Charlie were to turn on him. While he knows it’s highly unlikely that would happen, I think it’s still worth noting that he intentionally left himself in such a vulnerable position in cannibal town and nowhere else.

Something else interesting I noticed, is that “ready for this” is one of the only songs that Alastor is interacting with another character, and isn’t competing for the spotlight. He is walking all over Vox in “stayed gone”, and getting walked all over by Lucifer in “Hells greatest dad”, but here, he’s very in tune with everyone else. He and Rosie are on equal footing and he feels secure enough to fade into the background a bit, harmonizing with the cannibals and letting Charlie take the lead.

So yeah, I feel like Cannibal town is alastors home in hell. His relationship with Rosie is probably the most positive relationship he has in the whole show. I think viv has mentioned that Alastor wasn’t a cannibal before he died, and I’m not sure if that’s still canon, but if it is, I can definitely see him becoming a cannibal when he became friends with Rosie. I can also see Rosie being one of his first friends in hell, maybe they even rose to power together. I’m clearly getting into some more speculative headcanons because I do what I want, but I’m putting them in their own section.

Now for headcanons with little to no substantial evidence ✨✨✨

I do actually really like the idea that they became friends very quickly and rose to power together. I like the idea that they were friends before Alastor became this super powerful force in hell. It also makes sense that he would trust someone who wanted to be his friend back when people weren’t constantly asking for favors or testing his power. Bc I do think that there was a short period of time between him arriving in hell and rising to power. (I have a lot of ideas about how he got his powers which probably will get its own post, but to brief, he wasn’t super powerful when he arrived in hell.) it makes sense that him and Rosie would have become friends in that period.

When he did start rising to power, I think Rosie would have guided him, given that he was a relatively new sinner. She would help him find overlords to target, possibly even letting him recruit cannibals to help him take them down. After he was finished broadcasting their screams, he would return their bodies to Rosie for her to sell. Maybe any cannibals who helped him would get discounts or first pickings.

This makes sense to me bc not only would it help explain why Alastor has never seen Rosie as a rival or a target, but also it would help explain why they’re so close. Nothing builds a friendship better than overthrowing incredible forces of power. Also they totally square dance on the weekends.

Viv please I need an episode that’s nothing but these two dicking around in cannibal town for twenty minutes.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin hotel theory #hazbin hotel spoilers #hazbin hotel season 1 #hazbin spoilers #alastor hazbin hotel #hazbin alastor #rosie hazbin hotel #radio demon #hello rosie #hazbin hotel rosie #long post

[fanatical4creation]

Warning! Biohazard!

Pestilence!Sans in InvertedVerse!

Hello! I'm here to talk about pestilence, he's so cool :D

Alright now, i didn't do a reference sheet bc 1- they're getting boring to me, 2- there's not much changes to show, all i did was reduce his color palette, buuut if the creator don't like my decision i'll do the og colors.

Intruduction:

Alright, it looks like not that many people know him, so you can learn more about him here. But i can give you a summary, but you'll still lose some details.

I don't plan on getting too deep into his backstory in InvertedVerse bc he's just a side character so i don't see any need on doing so. But maybe i change my mind in the future, my mind is a mystery box...

He's a parasite-like being that feeds off the magic of other beings. He is an out-code Sans.

His role is the sickness and he has this passive that slowly makes people sick around him, it's something related to his death from infections and diseases.

Inside InvertedVerse:

Alright now, Pesti is on the Darkside, Nightmare's side, why? That's actually a short story, idk if should say it now, but he does have a important role, so important even that i'm afraid to spoil everything, like, help.

His host ain't Zoo!sans anymore, Zootale is finally in peace from Pestilence, bc Nightmare took him off there for.. uhmmm, a mutual share of favors.

I'm not sure who his new host is, it can't be Nightmare, neither anyone from the darkside, but i have no idea. Maybe because the place he's in now has so many people he just picked up someone random... like... like Anx (it's not a offense to him)! I'm a genious.

He's a side character as i said, he's more of a comic relief than a serious guy with a whole badass arc or somethin', but he's a jester not a clown.

Hobbies:

He often spies the residents one of them the Undercop detectives, the detectives have some murder mystery going on, it's quite interesting to watch bc it doesn't happen often, oh yeah that's a big side plot for Invertedverse btw and it's through Pestilence that the audience finds out about it, maybe he even helps finding who's the murderer, who knows?

Also tries to make some "friends" to keep himself entertained until the day of depression happens... (just made out the name)

Sometimes he get into non-physical fights just for fun (idk if that's accurate), one of the fights he picked up was with Wine, the Sans from Fellswap Gold, Pestilence can pierce his skin like a needle and see what's inside, not all of it, but most of it, Wine despises Pestilence.

I have this headcanon that everywhere he goes he touches things to contaminate them like doorknobs, chairs or anything in public places that people often put their hands on, specially bathrooms. Idk i just think it's funny.

Anyway he's a funny little guy doing some funny little things with his funny little "friends" and funny little tricks and puns.

Pestilence (c) @hoshi-tsubasa

Hi, you said you wanted to read 👋😳

#invertedverse #undertale au #utmv #art #utmv au #ut au #sans undertale #undertale sans #au sans #sans au #sans #Pestilence #Pestilence sans #Pestilence!sans #InvertedPestilence #undertale alternative multiverse #undertale alternative universe #undertale alternate universe #au undertale #undertale au fanart #bad sans gang #bad sanses #undertale au artwork #undertale au art #ut au art #ut au artwork

[mochiimadness]

Hi! Can i request a headcannon for rottmnt where the guys find out their s/o is a huge fan of horror & mystery. Like for example buzzfeed unsolved and movies like the conjuring and/or it? Thank you!

Neon Leon

Leo’s a huge horror skeptic

“Psh, ghosts aren’t real! It’s probably just the wind.”

Which means for the most part, he isn’t afraid to watch horror movies or read scary stories

Which is great for you!

He won’t object to watching them

But

He also, well, a huge-

H u g e

Critic

“That isn’t even possible!”

“How did he catch up to them, he was walking!”

It can get to be a bit much

If you’re fine with that, cool!

Critique with him, you two will end up laughing at most of the movies and stories

(Mikey walks by and sees you two laughing at the scariest thing he’s seen and is convinced you two are possessed-)

If you’re not okay with that, just let him know!

He won’t take offense

Realizes his critiquing can take away from the horror atmosphere

He’ll tone it down and instead opt to laugh quietly at some scenes

Is absolutely down to lay down with you and scroll through some buzzfeed unsolved articles

“Maybe I’ll end up on there one day! I’ll be famous, baby! Just make sure they put the best photo of me.”

Leo no

He does get a bit freaked out with horror movies based on real events

Tries to laugh it off

“C’mon, it can’t actually be real.”

He’ll manage to keep up his unphased image at first

But the second the scary scenes come on, he’s clinging to you

Will try to play it off

“I just thought maybe you were scared- ahaha…ha…”

You’re not fooling anyone Leo.

Please give him a hug.

Don Tron

One word

✨Theories✨

He loves to theorize about the paranormal and such

Will share his theories with you

“BUT WHAT IF THERE WAS NO GHOST ALL ALONG??? WHAT IF IT WAS- A DREAM?!”

D o n n i e

He’s so excited to share his theories with you, especially since you listen

You two regularly have a horror movie/reading binge at least once a week

It’s one of y’all’s favorite thing to do

You’ll both curl up with some pillows and blankets

Snacks and drinks within arms reach

The highest quality screens he has

And ofc he has note pads by him

If you also love theorizing, he sets up a space in his lab for you two to record your theories

Y’all probably have a podcast or YouTube channel

And you both wear hoodies with horror puns and references on them.

He still gets scared and will knock over a bowl of popcorn or too-

But don’t worry, Shelldon helps y’all clean it up

Speaking of Shelldon-

He joins y’all every now and then

His fans whirs loudly when he gets scared but he’ll deny it.

Donnie sometimes grabs your hand when he gets really scared

Just hold his hand and tell him it’s alright- you’ll throw hands with any monster

“You can’t hit a ghost-“

“Watch me.”

Mystic Mike

Mikey likes watching horror movies every now and then

But can he handle horror???

N o

It’s okay, he’ll still try to be brave with you

“With my s/o with me, there’s no monster we can’t beat!”

Two seconds later he’s popped into his shell

Just pick him up and put him in your lap

Scratch his shell gently and he’ll pop back out after a moment

Mikey definitely clings to you during movies, and keeps a blanket wrapped around you both.

He does much better with reading horror

Loves to read buzzfeed unsolved with you

“Hey wait a minute- I’ve seen that guy!”

“W h a t?!”

He’s definitely seen one or two ‘missing’ people

Usually they’ve just been mutated

If you want, he’ll introduce you to them!

You two usually curl up on his bed and read horror stories together

He even gets a few scary scrolls and books from the Hidden City library for you two to enjoy

More often than not, they’re mainly illustrated- like a comic book.

Mystic horror books are on a whole different level

Sometimes the books come alive and try to eat y’all

Other times, they sort of work like a mystic 3D hologram-

Using magic to show the events of the story happening around you

You two get so invested that you both shriek when the monster suddenly appears in front of you both

10/10 for practically being in the stories yourself

Big Red

Oh sweet, sweet Raph…

He can’t handle anything horror to save his life

He’ll try to tough out watching a movie or two for you

But he always ends up shrieking and nearly breaking your tv- or his dads projector

(Okay, he has broken his dads projector repeatedly)

He thinks you’re the bravest person ever for enjoying horror

If you want him to watch a movie with you, you’ll usually have to coax him into it

Make the couch super comfy and cozy- with his favorite blankets and pillows

You’ll have to keep a light on- or get fairy lights

He’ll sit with you in his lap, with his arms around you

This way he can hold onto you when he gets scared

(Also so he can hide behind you)

He’ll be so happy if you get him some noise cancelling headphones

The movie will still scare him, but he’ll be able to handle it a bit better.

If you’re reading some buzzfeed unsolved or horror stories,

He’ll gladly sit next to you with a book of his own, or his phone

While he won’t read it with you, he’s more than glad to spend time with you

You both get to enjoy time together while doing what y’all like

He usually falls asleep with his head in your lap while you scroll through buzzfeed unsolved, or watch movies on your phone with your headphones in.

He may feel a bit guilty over not being able to enjoy horror with you

So he gets you a poster of your favorite movie

Or asks Splinter if he knows one of your favorite horror actors so he could get a signature for you

“I uh- know ya really love scary stuff, so I got ya a signature from that one actor you like!”

Sweet boi

He’s trying.

Thanks for requesting, I hope you liked it!!

This was pretty fun to write ^^

Reblogs appreciated :3

Updated and edited as of July 2023

#x reader #my writing #imagines #tmnt #tmnt 2018 #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt mikey #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt raph #rottmnt leo #hamato #tmnt x reader #rottmnt x reader #neon leon #don tron #mystic mike #big red #the boys

[creative-time]

The Guardian Interview 2022 (Simplified Bullet List Version Because Its 1 am)

Major Spoilers ahead so read at your own discretion

(They mention the 2019 pilot so I’ll go over that first)

Alright so someone has given me a link to the pdf of this interview, I’m not gonna say who did because I don’t want anyone going after them but they have given me permission to talk about this.

I’m also not going to be linking to this pdf, because tbh I don’t know if that is legal and I’m not taking that chance… but I believe you can find it if you look for it. (For legal reasons this is a joke)

Here are some things that I feel are important takes from this interview

The 2019 Pilot:

Becky Sloan states that Clayhill was “a bit South Park”

Baker Terry adds that they made an attempt to get an element of current affairs, but he whispers it “because it almost sounds like a dirty phrase”

They felt the timelessness and claustrophobia of the originals were missing

So, I guess this means that nearly everything in “The Key to The City” is not going to be present in the tv show, which is a bit sad but I guess is understandable.

They also did not mention if they were ever going to officially release the pilot so we are still on that can of duck organs 🙃

Alright, this next bit is gonna get into the tv show so you have been warned, it does get a little… interesting to say the least.

The TV Show

They wrote this during the pandemic (obviously), over zoom and they felt that is may have helped recapture the oppressive vibe they felt was missing from the Pilot, Joseph states that it was strange writing a show about characters stuck inside while they were also stuck inside, “so maybe there are points where we did actually go insane”

This interview states that Baker does “About 80%” of the voices, and yeah that adds up

Jamie Demetriou, Lolly Adefope and Phil Wang have come on board to voice new characters

Sam Campbell and Natasha Hodgson have joined as writers

Megan Ganz is the story editor

Lolly Adefope is playing an intercom (An intercom character or a character that just so happens to be using the intercom???) and singing a “vocoder-packed pop number about workplace stress management”

Terry says that they have spent their whole adult lives doing this (also adds up)

Just the sentence, “On TV, the homemade ethos remains - which will please fans who have been patiently waiting six years for it to appear.”

Hugo Donkin makes a brief cameo appearance in this interview along with Charlie Perkins

Apparently they went ham on the props, there’s a background prop of a travel pamphlet and inside are felt pictures of holiday locations and that’s actually kinda cute

The trio share a comically large wallet that’s only shown for a second, Joe says there’s gonna be a number and date on the credit card “that no one will notice”

“Everyone’s gone insane of set” -Joseph Pelling

There is a stop-motion area on set where they are working with clay (LETS GOOOO)

… the urinals… are gonna have eyes… and limbs… the urinals are alive and I don’t know how to feel about that tbh…

The prop making area has also been dubbed “The Puppet Hospital”

There’s gonna be a vending machine full of cigarettes and bottles of “Mysterious dark liquid”

Also a robot dog! Hopefully it is wholesome and not bad at all

there is a quiet dark stage dubbed “The Void”

Red and Duck are going to be confused and try to make out felt objects “Through the encroaching gloom”

Josh Elwell is Duck’s Puppeteer and contorted themselves on the floor behind a felt fridge to get out of shot!

Perkins says that bringing in professional puppeteers has added, “so much personality and emotion”

Becky says there’s gonna be scenes with Yellow Guy where the people might cry (what is this a call out post??)

They actually had to stop using real meat for this show and had to use silicon replicas because there was an incident where they used actual beef to fill a “horrible vending machine” and it apparently smelled so bad that crew decided to switch to fakes

Terry’s favorite dhmis theory involves Bosnian Serb war criminal Radovan Karadžić

Becky’s is a huge fan of the “conspiracy-level scrutiny they have attracted”

There is a mention of the Ed Tucker Duck Tree anagram

“They refuse the debunk any of the theories”

The trio says they put a ton of Easter eggs in this show because they know the audience has the appetite for “dissecting things” (yet another callout post)

There is a life-size felt car sitting on stilts, Becky said that the crew dumped the car “in hope that the show’s supersleuths might one day discover its location” (CIPHER HUNT 2 ELECTRIC BOOGALOO)

You’ll apparently have to swim through a swamp to get to the car, but Becky says that people can find it

Joe says that they had to give the characters little desires to fit with the runtime of a tv show, even it the desire was “I don’t want to be in this room anymore”

All the props and puppets are in storage, but the trio hope to exhibit them one day

“At some point, we’ll have built everything in the world out of felt,” says Pelling. Sloan pipes up: “No one can stop us!”

And that’s all I can think of right now, I took me an hour to write this and it’s now 2 am I’m going to bed

#dhmis #don’t hug me i’m scared #dhmis spoilers #the guardian #dhmisspoilers

[peppereddaze]

OKAY- HOLD ON-

So I just had a really weird dream last night- a really weird one! I dreamed about how the newest Layton game came out- you know it- ‘World Of Stream.’

I dreamed that I got it for Christmas and that I played it!

I can’t even begin to explain what happened!?

So-

Luke is grown and a detective and friends with this older famous engineer- who made everything in the now highly steampunk-futuristic looking America!?

He was like half robot! Had a visor and everything that showed his little emotions! Gold and blue steampunk-style look with these epic steampunk gauntlet claws! He actually was disabled- an amputee only having his one leg and the rest of his limbs where missing after an incident and replaced with cool prosthetics! He was also half-blind. His name was Arlo! I can’t remember his full name but it was Arlo! It was probably something cooler- but I’m calling him Arlo!

A ‘comic relief’ and mascot character of this little robot character named Whim! They were small and blue and had these little pipes that went from their back to their head which steam came out of! They had a full-face visor that showed their expressions through icons and such! They were like Arlo’s first creation and they looked more janky, goofy but- Omigosh I loved them!?

They were witty and a lil sarcastic but in a funny way and just- helpful and they had character and a story! They were loyal as anything to Arlo and joined the little main cast perfectly.

So like usual- drama and mystery’s occur about some flip-flop book of memories, Arlo looking familiar to Layton-

Apparently Arlo was revealed to be Luke’s older and missing brother, something about how Arlo used to be Layton’s apprentice. They one day went exploring in a cave and Layton being a archaeologist- trying to find the magical book. They find it and stuff happens and the cave collapses and Layton or apparently someone used the book which erased any memory of Arlo’s existence!? Even to his parents, even to Hershel, even to himself??

Arlo was trapped and badly injured which eventually led him to be found by people and living a new life in making gadgets to better people’s lives, then Arlo becomes the tragic villian of the story who wants revenge on Layton and chases him around with a giant mechanical spider mecha. Like damn- petty much? Plus pretty big stretch for a motive… but whatever.

Layton tries to reason with Arlo and apologies- it seems to work as Arlo settles and seems to forgive him before he suddenly slashes Layton across the cheek in like a really cool cinematic moment!? Like in a real tense and real animated moment- even a Luke gasp. Layton does dramatic fall. Hits ground. Luke’s casual- nah crying out “Proffesah!”

Whim also being there and looking horrified.

Luke is angy and Arlo is sad about that and stuff.

Flora was in some scenes for some reason- I don’t know when but she suddenly appears and disappears at times!?

More stuff ensues!

The whole story in a nutshell is just meeting Luke, wanting to go on little mystery’s, learning about mystery book, Layton and Arlo slowly remembering each other and Luke being happy for his two friends to meet finally, Whim moments, Arlo realising and remembering and turning bitter and turning to revenge mid-way and just-

Whim realising their creator is not who they think they am and agreeing to help to hack Arlo’s robo army…?

And then trying to destroy Arlo- Whim is also infected by a dangerous glitch or virus?

Whim practically sacrifices themselves and that part I was crying about when I woke up!?

Like this isn’t even real and I was sobbing!

I don’t know what to do with this dream but it was so random and just so- vivid that I had to post it!

If anyone has questions about this plot I can try and answer them??

There’s a lot more to say I’m just trying to wrap my head around it all!

I am trying to write this before I forget it! D:

#professor layton #hershel layton #luke triton #layton series #dream #did I just have a lucid dream #lucid dreaming #dreams #i have no idea #what just happened #what is going on #world of steam #steampunk #random #random dream #professor hershel layton #pl #should i draw this

[theresattrpgforthat]

Hey, thanks for all your work spotlighting these awesome games! Do you have any recs for dark comedy/tragicomic games in the vein of Fiasco?

THEME: Tragic-Comic Games

Thank you very much! I should preface these recommendations with this: folks should know what they are getting into when they sign up for these kinds of games. For anyone who signs up for a game in this vein without knowing what to expect, the rules may feel very unfair, and that can take away much of the fun in this genre.

Paranoia, by Mongoose Publishing.

You are a Troubleshooter! Congratulations!

As a Troubleshooter, you are a member of Alpha Complex’s most expendable elite force. Tasked with finding trouble and shooting it, you will be hunting mutants, terrorists, traitors, [CLASSIFIED], secret societies, renegade bots, and DAIVs, which are [REDACTED]. You’ll save Alpha Complex from its greatest threat, unless you accidentally become Alpha Complex’s greatest threat.

The mechanics include a simple yet brilliant character-generation system, a bluffing-based card-driven combat system, a special Computer Dice which means even the simplest interaction can become hilariously fatal, in-game XP Point rewards, and more advice to GMs than you can shake a stick at.

Your characters will do their best to please Friend Computer without making their secret allegiances known, as Alpha Complex is a horrifically over-the-top dystopia. Players will be encouraged to work against each-other, so expect your friends to try and throw you under the bus. If you want a game where your character is most likely going to suffer a comically tragic fate, Paranoia might be right for you.

Mission: Accomplished!, by Jeff Stormer. 

Mission: Accomplished! is an RPG of Super-spies and office meetings inspired by shows like Archer, The Venture Brothers, and Better Off Ted. You are a team of highly trained super-spies who spend every day saving the world, and no one is better than you. But that's the easy part of the job... 

Once the mission is over, it's time to sit down with your friendly HR manager and hash things out as a team. Finger pointing, credit stealing, and unfounded accusations against your teammates are your weapons in the meeting room. Your job, no, your DUTY as a secret agent, is to get as much credit as possible for being the one that saved the day. 

You don’t actually play out the super-secret missions your characters are expected to carry out - you just play out the de-briefing afterwards, and figure out what exactly you did (or didn’t) do right. It’s a game of pointing fingers, back-stabbing, and deal-making as the game master writes and re-writes the rules of conduct for special agents, with extreme and hilarious endings depending on how impressive you were at bullshitting your way to success.

Try Not To Wrestle, by Hark Forsooth Games.

Ah Pro Wrestlers- masters of making pain, and talking trash.

But what happens when you put a group of them in a situation where those skill could only make things worse? That's what this game is about.

How does a Pro Wrestler solve a murder? Not very well, I’ll tell you that. In this game, your characters will have skills like Promo or Wrestle, but they’ll have to use them to solve mysteries, work in an office building, or help someone find true love. This is a game in which your characters are expected to fail, and fail in comical ways. What will you try to do? And how will you fail at it? Find out in Try Not To Wrestle. 

#dnd #game recommendations #asks #tabletop games #indie ttrpgs #comedy

[scruffyssketchbook]

i think part of the reason people are upset about Nego being discarded/removed from the series is likely for the same reason people may be upset about other changes to the series---people are afraid that the things they love will be changed, and they don't understand why.

as the author of this story, you know every inch and centimeter of the story. you have knowledge that the readers do not---you know how plots connect and the backstory of characters and everything else, but us as the readers don't. so while you can see where all of the issues from previous bad childhood writing are, we don't. we just see something we enjoy, something we like, and we are far less likely to see the flaws, especially if it is something in the future that we don't even have knowledge of yet. so, to the readers, Nego being an "issue" to the story/to characters and needing to be removed just doesn't make as much sense to us as it does to you, because we don't have the knowledge of why he's causing so many issues (even if you try to explain it, its kind of hard to do without potentially spoiling a whole bunch of plots, right?)

Nego was for sure one of my favorite characters. i just liked how silly it was that Vay could have a secret child that literally no one knew about, and I also liked the mystery and angst potential of "how? how did he get this kid?" and then as more was revealed, the "why? why doesn't the mother remember? is this really Vay's child? who is the one that truly doesn't remember?" it was so interesting to me. i was really excited to see how Blizz would react to learning Nego was a real eevee, and actually Vay's child. I would have loved to see Blizz and Nego have a relationship---be it positive or negative.

but i also completely understand that i dont have the context you do, and that i cant see the flaws you can, and i completely understand if things need to be scrapped/changed so you can be happy with your story. its your story, after all, and you should get to choose how you write it, not anyone else

Ah yes, and I agree with/ know all of that, which is why I'm kind of being very vague about what I'm doing. Cause once I say what is ACTUALLY happening, MORE people will flip out. I do see the flaws of the story and I'm aware that people are attached to the characters, but in the long run honestly, its better for everyone, including the characters if I do make these changes, rather than leaving things how they are now so everyone will be disappointed when things are just found out to be- SUPER WEIRD AND NOT MAKING ANY TYPE OF SENSE. Plus ofc, this way it's better for me personally. Like yeah I'd rather write a story that I enjoy, rather than having to keep forcing myself to make sense of writings I made when I just got out of middle school for another decade and a half when I know I can do better. But the thing is! I know people are very attached to the characters in the series, Even Nego! that is why I'm only doing the things that I'm doing with all of these changes now, and not in the past, cause I didn't want to disappoint anyone or make people sad. But doing that kind of just hurt the comic and me. So. I'm just going to do what I want to do, and NeeNee the plushie sounds cute! (Also, this way I can keep Nego in the series without him being a weird after thought. Because with the direction I'm trying to take the series, there is no way he could even be Vay's son.)

#rambles

[sweetfirebird]

Okay, I do not have a formal review of Legend (The Director's Cut), but informally... it's a mess. The structure was odd. It's trying to be a high fantasy story (save the world, true love) and also a Brothers Grimm fairy tale (comical forest creatures, some vaguely Christian background shit with implied Devil) with maybe a dash of Tolkien in there. but idk. Like so much of 80s fantasy it has good moments and stunning moments or a cool idea... and then it just gets weird.

Which I kind of wonder is just a product of the 1980s in general. But I don't have deep thoughts there at the moment so I will ignore that point, and it's just... it's really interesting how the 80s *wanted* fantasy so bad though.

Fairy tales are kind of just tropes? The characters are Types. The stories are Types even. We enjoy them but we more or less know the story before it begins. Fantasy stories can have Types but they have to also be Real People, or the stakes don't matter. (And subverted fairy tales would be something else... like Into the Woods, I suppose. Types becoming Real People.)

Legend doesn't really do either. ?? The hero is... a mystery, and bland. The Princess is sort of a Type... almost a real (unlikable) person... though she gets a moment to shine and actually be someone clever and crafty and a fucking match to Darkness and how anyone imagines her content with the hero I do not know. She might not be destined for Darkness but Jack is not her equal that is clear. Anyway.

So the moments of concern and worry and tension basically just come from... the unicorns being threatened and because whoops the story once again made the Devil's (son) more interesting than the hero. (a recurring problem when evil pops up lol)

Also, there is where you get the problem of... who is this story for? Is it for children or adults or both? The movie does not know. My guess though is it was trying to do fairy tale/high fantasy which has adult themes but is for everyone, and then like, 1980s movie censorship and imagined lost ticket sales made them weaken it. But that's just a guess.

Ugh the movie itself even ends with a "nothing happened and nothing changed really and most of the people involved won't even really remember" which feels like what watching Legend was like.

Except for Darkness, obviously.

Darkness creeping on Lili--who fucking gets in his face! with no defenses available to her! is clearly the best part of the thing. And I am pretty sure The Cell had to be (lovingly) referencing this movie in a few shots but I don't want to watch The Cell to be sure.

#legend

[raphael-angele]

Sports the Teen Justice Characters Would Be Good At

Besides martial arts, Talia would be good at horseback riding. C’mon, is this really a surprise? She loves fighting and martial arts but she loves animals more. Talia is known in horseback racing as a rich kid niche but even out of the track, she loves to take care of the horses before and after the race. The team (besides Laurel) finds out about her skill in this when they went to Laurel’s farm house and Talia went straight to the stables to get the black horse the Kent family got for she who she named Chiroptera, which is the scientific name for bats.

As we’ve already seen in the Super Sons comics, Laurel is good at soccer. It was early on when the team found out about this since she suggested they play it as a team building exercise. What they didn’t count on was that she gets her competitiveness from Talia. Klarienne, Talia, and Laurel were up against Troy, Jess, and Jacqui. The other three thought they had an advantage since Jess is a speedster but then again, Superman can move as fast as Flash. It ended with Troy getting a sprained wrist, Jess got bruised on both legs and Jacqui got stiff muscles on her back. They got better and Laurel was extremely distant and apologetic for the next week.

Klarienne, as we know it, loves baseball. I don’t know why this is and I don’t care, it’s adorable. She just wants to play baseball with her team. Jacqui, let her play baseball now that you have Raven on the team. Nonetheless, the first time they played baseball and Klarienne volunteered to be batter/hitter and ended up hitting the ball too high up, it burned when it reached the ground. They looked at her and she was just smiling innocently. At the time, Jess was on the team and they were like, “Oh, we’re gonna win, not because we’re good, but because I’m scared to see what happens if we don’t”.

Troy is basketball. This is the reason I made this post. The latest issue implied that there was a sport similar to it and even if he wont admit it, he’s good at basketball. He also suggested they play this as a team building exercise. They’d often play three on three but with Raven now, they had to pick one member to be referee and it would often be either Klari or Raven. There are times though that Troy would want to challenge himself and suggest that they’d play 6v1. So far, they’ve only defeated him twice. 

Track and field aside, Jess likes to skateboard. I don’t know why, I just feel like they would. I think they like the fact that they don’t have to run everywhere at every time and skateboarding was the easiest excuse they could give to people when they ask how they’re so fast to get to somewhere. So they actually taught themselves how to use it and learned quickly. The team found out about this when Laurel suggested they go to the skate park and Jess was more than excited to try out their newest skateboard. 

Besides swimming, Jacqui is good at darts. She isn’t so good with archery no matter how much training Talia or Troy teach her, it’s not cut out for her. Talia thought of something and realized she’s used to using her spear and thought she could be good at darts since she’d have better control over it. She started with darts and the team gifted her with new ones that were designed to look like her spear. Talia didn’t tell anyone in the team but she told Jacqui that the darts were designed to release a toxin once it hits something/someone even if it’s just a graze. (Like the blade in the shoe in Kingsman)

Raven is great at ice skating and you cannot change my mind. I just love the idea of Raven, who is always so quiet and unsocial and mysterious adds more mystery to his life and shows how natural he is when it comes to ice skating. The team found out during the winter and one of them suggested they go ice skating in the city park’s frozen lake. While everyone was hesitant to step into the ice, Raven just skates in and does his own thing. The team just watches him and Troy is in awe because he’s head over heels for this boy and loves how graceful and unbotheredly happy he looks. When he skates over to them, they just stare and he’s like, “What? I like to ice skate.”

#dc comics #dc #multiversity #teen justice #multiversity teen justice #earth 11 #genderbend #teen titans #young justice #raven #robin #troy #troia #supergirl #superboy #aqualad #aquagirl #jess quick #kid quick #klarienne the witch girl #klarion the witch boy #sports

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

When I was a student, a classmate of mine often spoke fondly of "E. T. Jaynes," since Jaynes was not only famous but a personal hero of his.

And I never questioned this because I was too intimidated. I didn't want to think that I was just a Jaynes imitator, copying some old dead guy on faith and not even understanding the basics of probability theory. It was enough of a mystery how anyone could think Jaynes's work was worthwhile.

In retrospect, I am very happy to say that I don't have that problem today. What I do have is the opposite problem, of thinking Bayesianism is so obviously correct that it isn't worth worrying about "what Jaynes actually said." I sometimes have this in the opposite direction too: I start out thinking of Jaynes as if he's "talking out of his ass."

I don't even remember who said it first, but I have heard that Jaynes was once asked about the likelihood of something "one million times a day" and so on and Jaynes "looked straight" at the questioner as if he'd said something so stupid that it would be almost comical if it weren't so embarrassing. This is funny for some reason, and I guess it's funny because Jaynes was the sort of person who would think something like this, but would also be so very wrong -- and if he were right, why would he be so stupid?

And I guess what I'm saying is that now that I think about it, Jaynes really does have some weird takes. He's full of stuff where the only way to make sense of it at all is that Jaynes's "axioms of thought" are actually all wrong and inconsistent and you just can't say any of it because it makes no sense.

(I think some people really do think this about some aspects of logic -- but then, that's what I say about most aspects of logic -- it just makes no sense to me as someone without formal logic. Why am I even wasting my time talking to other people about "propositional statements" when I could just spend a week reading Peano's Arithmetic)

When I say this I tend to go on like, "if you read Jaynes and didn't think his axioms were crazy, then you didn't understand Jaynes well enough," but if I think about it, it sounds to me more like Jaynes did not fully understand the probability theory he was "talking out of his ass about" when he was writing his book. Like, he had to know about something but his "axioms of probability theory" are the sort of thing that are so obviously wrong that you can't write a big book about them and expect people to have any idea what you're talking about. And the fact that people do means he probably didn't know.

Maybe it's just that some of Jaynes's axioms strike me as really "counterintuitive," although I'm not sure that is actually a meaningful distinction, so I may just be missing something about Jaynes's own thinking.

There is also the fact that Jaynes clearly had some ideas that did not survive his death. I mean, it's just a fact that when you die you forget about stuff that happened during your life, and it makes perfect sense that Jaynes forgot about some of his old ideas that didn't quite "work out."

For one thing, Jaynes had ideas about how the mind works that were not exactly mainstream: he thought that "probabilities" were not supposed to be assigned to propositions themselves, but instead were supposed to "refer to" certain propositions about the mind (you could have many such referents, one for each different mental thing you can think about, etc. etc.) And that, somehow, this fact explains how probability theory could account for our ability to do Bayesian inference, even though it doesn't seem to relate directly to the contents of our heads at all.

For instance, in Jaynes's old paper "Probability Theory: The Logic of Science" you read:

Although we are tempted to believe that some things are certain and that everything else is uncertain, this is a false belief. The true belief is that everything is uncertain, not that some things are certain. A false belief in the nature of our world may cause us much more trouble than a false belief in the nature of mathematics.

The question that I want to ask today, then, is whether any logical or mathematical structure can be proved "tautologically" certain, without appeal to any particular "principled basis for probability" or to "axiomatic or intuitive certainty" or to any other such basis.

This sounds a bit strange when you read it today, and yet I think the idea is really an important one and it was an insight Jaynes had, but it doesn't seem to be as widely acknowledged as it should be. In the "Probability Theory" paper Jaynes seems to be trying to draw the same type of connection between the "mathematics" of probability and the "logics" of logic that Wittgenstein (and other great logicians like Frege) were drawing in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And the kind of work that these "logicians" were doing was all about trying to "explain" the concepts of logic using the tools of mathematics (in the same way that Jaynes's own "probability theory explains" Bayesian inference using probability theory) -- in other words, by showing that logic is part of a certain mathematical system. Jaynes's "probability theory as logic" is just one example of this kind of project, which is why he was very proud of the fact that he had found a place for it in probability theory.

The problem is that this kind of "explanation" involves making a claim about logic, not about the "explanandum," which is a different thing that we want to explain. So in a certain sense it is all wrong -- the whole project isn't really one of "understanding logic" or "understanding probability" but rather of understanding the relation between logic and probability. And of course, in Jaynes's case he can only "prove" that such a relation exists, not that it has any concrete "truth conditions." He's really "just" saying something like: "probabilities are a mathematical thing, and the stuff you say is true or false just like the stuff I say, which is itself a mathematical thing." Which is exactly what he says in the opening paragraph of the book, but I think this is a misleading view of how the book's entire body of work "justifies" it. In fact there is no justification, so much as he "justified" himself, with all his talk of "axioms."

Maybe there's a more subtle form of this distinction to draw. So there's the problem with Jaynes's book that he "justifies" it on the basis of "axioms of probability," but it doesn't seem like that justified him. Jaynes's book was well received and praised as a major contribution to philosophy and mathematics, yet it was widely criticized in both these areas. And the question that seems relevant is: can Jay

#you just gotta place your faith in a theorem called bayes

[laf-outloud]

I’m officially sending in my petition to rebrand Walker: Independence as a mystery. I don’t even know where to start this week.

We’ll start with Hoyt. I’m glad this week we returned to Hoyt as a serious man/wily criminal who happens to be funny vs being the comic relief. I was audibly aw-ing throughout the entire exchange between him and Luis. It was so sweet to see that the Reyes’ actually do care for Hoyt, and we got to find out a little bit more about Hoyt’s family. Everyone is so untwined in Independence, it makes for such an interesting story. I died when Hoyt protected the tree stump as a landmark, so funny. Him throwing the fight and passing out on a chance for glory to get money and pull his weight on the ranch was indicative of the kind of man he is (secretly honorable underneath all of the ruffian behavior). And not to skip forward too far, but did anyone else catch the look on Francis’ face when his father mentioned there’s potentially a place for Hoyt at the ranch? I’m wondering if he killed his father in order to keep the ranch for himself, he did not look happy at the prospect of sharing the ranch with Hoyt.

A surprising amount of insight into Kate this episode, though it’s not super obvious. A past affair with her boss (no matter what wording she used with Abby) has me wondering if she used her feminine charms to get her job as a Pinkerton agent. Her inability to see who Hoyt actually is has me thinking that sometimes her self confidence blinds her, and while it’s what the team needs it could be her downfall at some point. Side note: I don’t trust Elliot at all. Between his meeting with the Sheriff and brushing Kate off after it became apparent that she wasn’t interested in sleeping with him, I think Kate might be a free agent soon.

I was not expecting the former sheriff to be Gus’ suspect! I really thought it was going to be Abby. In fact, I wasn’t expecting the former sheriff to make an appearance at all. I had just assumed he was an old man who died. What a character Otis is (or rather was, do we think he survived a shot to the abdomen?). Obviously looks are in the job description for sheriff of Independence, and I appreciate that. The case of who killed Liam Collins that seemed so straightforward has so many twists and turns. Plus now we have even more unanswered questions. And it looks like Abby is going to have to take a little break from that mystery to solve a more pressing one and clearing Calian’s name. A shame that it looked like Gus and Calian’s relationship was on the mend only for another suspicious death to happen. Was Calian hallucinating the little girl and accidentally shot Luis in a trance? Did Francis shoot his father and take advantage of Calian’s state to frame him? Who was that little girl, and what does the town of Independence/Otis have to do with her disappearance? It’s a shame that Calian’s fears about getting involved with the town had come true- he’s framed and behind bars in a world that doesn’t care to understand him or even see him as human. At least he has allies now, but will they be enough? Will his people stand behind him? What’s going through Gus’ brain? Augustus is so hard to read. I have so many questions! What a good cliffhanger.

I fall more in love with Tom Davidson every week. He’s scheming, but not in the way we all originally thought. I think he wants to put his criminal past behind him, become an honest (or as honest as you can be in the west) man, do his aunt/family proud and put Independence on the map. It was so hot when he got in that ring, and he didn’t even have to take his shirt off. What a man. And the way Abby’s presence gave him the strength to get up and got back to fighting? I will do anything for a Tom and Abby slow burn romance!!! His smile when he saw her, and her look of disgust 😍 I’m also so here for a Kai and Tom alliance, those two could effortless run the town. It was so sweet that Tom made sure that Kai got a shout out in the paper alongside him, I love that he sees him as an equal. And I would love to see Kai go from working the railroads to helping run them.

Not a lot of Abby this episode, but everyone is this cast is so good I didn’t really feel her absence. I loved her dress and hair this week, and her horse matching her so well (meaning they’re both beautiful and polished lol). I love that Abby never backs down when the men are trying to protect her. She’s really finding herself. And Kat did such a good job portraying Abby’s heartbreak over her husband not being the man she thought he was. How do you mourn someone you didn’t actually know? How do you avenge the death of a man who may have been just as corrupt as his killer? Is it even worth doing so, or should she officially leave Boston and Liam behind in favor of moving forward? Her life is very promising for a widow (law career that she thought would never be possible as a woman, handsome men, good friends), it’s almost as though she’s better off without him.

And of course the cliffhanger! Tom being stabbed! Clearly there’s a conspiracy going regarding the Independence sheriffs office, and now that Tom is a casualty the previous suspect the Davidson’s aren’t the ones behind it. Nothing is as it seems. I’m assuming Tom lives because Greg has been filming, but it still hit me hard! How am I supposed to wait for next week? How will I survive the holiday season hiatus? This show is so good, it has surpassed all of my expectations and blown me out of the water.

"I’m wondering if he killed his father in order to keep the ranch for himself," Ooh... I hadn't thought of that! (I'm rewatching right now and Hoyt called the father Francis, so Luis is the son.)

Interesting thoughts about Kate and her self-confidence. I have a feeling if there is a downfall, it will be at the expense of a friend and might shake that confidence.

Why do I get the feeling there's an incredibly tragic story behind the little girl. Also, I'm going to have to listen to the conversation about Calian and Gus' backstory (and the references to someone being shot) because I'm reading the biography of Bass Reeves, and as the story goes, he was a slave who ended up in an altercation with his owner and fled (as a runaway slave) to Indian territory where he joined up to fight against the confederacy as a Buffalo Soldier. It sounded like Gus may have a similar story.

I worried about Kai owing Tom, but it sounds like Tom might be the right kind of ally. And I loved Kai offering boxing tips! Tom is a sweetheart that needs to be protected (especially from his scheming relatives.)

I find it interesting that Abby is technically the main protagonist, but I'm so much more enamored of all the other characters. I know Abby's story drives the plot, but I'm afraid I'm losing interest in her... (don't kill me!)

"How will I survive the holiday season hiatus?" I have no clue, because I have a sneaking suspicion they're going to end on a cliffhanger next week.

#ask box #walker: independence #WIndy review #WIndy spoilers #WIndy 1.06 #abigail walker #hoyt rawlins #calian #augustus #kate carver #tom davidson #kai #francis reyes #luis reyes #elliot #bass reeves

[emma-d-klutz]

I think you're onto something with your post and imo the actual reason why he works better as an ally than an antagonist isn't the position in the story itself but the writers' different approach to the character. usually when comic book writers write a villain they will write them so that they are feared and hated by the audience, with some sympathy strewn in in some cases, so that the audience knows they're a threat. The problem in the Riddler's case is that if writers do that he'll usually end up as one of 2 options: a genuine 'mysterious mastermind' villain who to work as a threat has to be calm and serious, which strips him of the emotionally unstable playfulness that's usually one of his core characteristics, or an unstable sadistic maniac serial killer or terrorist, which either ends up making him just 'joker but with the color scheme flipped' or ends up making him appear as a violent whiny man child who thinks he's smart but is really a pathetic idiot, all three of which aren't perfect options (although I don't mind the occasional iteration being the first type). But when he poses as an ally the writers don't have to get the readers to hate him, so the writing can make him weird and playful without making him seem pathetic and incompetent. And I think that's an approach they haven't really tried for riddler as an antagonist yet: making him a proper villain or threat without trying to make the audience hate him. You know, one of those villains you just can't truly hate. How would that work? Well I think making him mainly a high stakes thief that steals important artifacts or museum pieces that really have to be found again and can only be found by Batman due to riddler being basically untraceable by anyone that can't solve his elaborate clues would work. throw in some network takeovers and hostage situations, some of them grand game show style scenarios to get in his full showman deal. have him be generally not very violent or sadistic but make sure to show that if he wanted to he could be terrifying, maybe by letting him have his occasional big temper tantrum so that it's clear that should he ever snap he'd be extremely dangerous. Let him loose his cool just for a second and backhand a hostage with his cane before snapping right back into his regular fun persona as if nothing happened. Let him make death threats where it's never really clear if he'd go through with them or not, because so far he's never made these threats reality but what if one day he does? This approach I think would give you both the full playful eccentricity and 'little guy'-ness while also allowing for an undercurrent of unease that never really has to be cashed in but is enough to make sure the audience knows he is or could be a genuine threat, without making him too serious, too pathetic or too 'joker'. and additionally it would make him 'harmless' enough that him playing occasional ally via helping Batman with a case doesn't feel ooc, while also making him dangerous enough that his classification as a proper villain is validated. because you're right about the 'consultant' storylines being the most fun ones for the character, but for them to work properly imo he needs to be well established as a villain first or else he'd come across as too much of a regular sidekick.

Ok first off let me just say that I am grateful and delighted that someone read through that whole long post and then even went so far as to give me a big long response, and I have read over this ask several times with joy. So thank you.

You know what? Now that you've said it, I think I agree with you that part of the fun of Riddler being an ally sometimes is that he's still the Riddler, and the inherent, "What is he doing here?"ness of it, and maybe if he became more usual ally than occasional ally, that special sauce wouldn't hit right, and he'd wither into sideshow informant with a quirk. It's a possible regression and a risk I hadn't considered.

I was thinking if he became more permanent as an ally, though, he could be one of those, "I'm on my own side," characters, you know? Maybe like how you can't be too shocked when John Constantine double crosses you. Hm, but that could have its own problems... It's a riddle.

Honestly, reading through your suggestion for how to use him as a villain, I started like thinking up little ideas based on yours. Like when you said he'd steal priceless artifacts, I was thinking, "Unless the artifacts or the robbery itself pose a danger to civilians, Bats might put it on the back-burner and piss him off..." but then you mentioned, "network takeovers and hostage situations, some of them grand game show style scenarios," and I thought, "What if he steals missile codes and makes a puzzle race with it as the prize?"

(With the endless amount of Batman IP content, this has probably already been done before somewhere some time but-) I'm thinking he has the codes on a drive, and he invites "Batman +2" and a few mercenary and thief type villains to compete to get to it. Now Batman doesn't think Riddler would ever use those codes, but he knows some of the others might and if not would definitely sell it to a bidder who would. So now everyone's stuck doing riddles and escape room bullshit again while Riddler hams it up.

At some point, a villain contestant, someone like Deathstroke, just brute forces and tries to get the drop on the Riddler in person and demand the codes, and he's just like, "Hey, you can't do that. No, don't hurt me, I'm just a little guy :( Oh ow why is it always the stabbing and the nose with you people? Time for the anti-cheating software :(" and presses a button on his cane, and we just don't see Deathstroke after that. (He's alive, ofc, but this is not shown.)

At the end of the story, once Batman and two sidekicks of his choice have bested the game and beaten up several other villains inside, Riddler (still covered in dried blood) graciously hands over the flash drive and assures him he made no copies.

Then he's like, "Don't look mad -" upon being immediately grabbed by the collar, "There was never any real danger."

And the group is like, "What do you mean? These aren't fake."

And Riddler's like, "Of course they're not fake. But I always believed you would win. <3"

And Steph!Robin is like, "I'm going to kill him. Can I kill him?"

And Batman says, "No."

And Stephanie says, "I'm gonna."

#thank you so much for the ask anon #long post #riddler #batman #it's funnier with steph because she is a puzzle master and riddler is basically her uncle

[askaceattorney]

Dear Skibot99,

Shi-Long Lang essay, part 2?  You got it.

Let’s see if we can’t take a closer look at our favorite antihero lone wolf underneath that cool exterior.

To summarize The Mod’s essay on him, Lang is a top-of-the-line Interpol Agent with his own way of doing things, a deep-seated hatred of prosecutors, a team of 99 trusted agents, unwavering loyalty to those he trusts, and an indestructible sense of duty.  In other words, he’s all bark and all bite.

So, what's next for him after his and Edgeworth’s run-in with Tree Man Ambassador Alba, and what more is there to learn about his past?  Similarly to his first introduction, he shows up randomly in the middle of one of Edgeworth’s cases.

Something’s a little different this time, though.  He seems to have less “presence” for some reason.

For some reason, his "pack” is nowhere to be found this time around.  Even stranger than that, as Edgeworth points out, he and his men were absent a few days ago when an assassination attempt was made on Zheng Fa’s President.  The reason Lang gives is equally surprising.

Anyone who’s seen Lang and his men in action knows how trustworthy they are (not counting that time they almost arrested Officer Meekins, that is), so what would cause President Huang to be so doubtful?  Thus we’re presented with two mysteries already: the President’s doubt of his police force and the whereabouts of Lang’s subordinates.  All we know for sure is that we won’t get the answers from the lone wolf himself.

And with that, Lang exits the scene, leaving us to wonder what could’ve happened to him for another three episodes.  It’s moments like this that make we wish the game would keep track of all the mysteries we run into like the Professor Layton series, but gamers can’t be choosers, I guess.

The next time we run into him, the circumstances couldn’t possibly worse.

President Di-Jun Huang now lies dead before him, and the disagreements between the two of them apparently did nothing to lessen his shock and pain at the sight.  Whether he was actually the victim of a Mighty Moozilla’s rampage or not, this marks a tragic day for the people of Zheng Fa.

Lang’s killer instinct is triggered right away as he begins his search for a suspect.

Poor Penny has to be on the receiving end of his anger, but thankfully, there’s a mild-mannered prosecutor there to bring him back to his senses before anyone gets bitten.

Edgeworth gets him to calm down and investigate properly, but his mind still seems to be fixated on one goal.

In other words, the case has become a personal matter for him.  One can’t help but admire his willingness to put duty before personal feelings about his President.  If nothing else, this shows some serious patriotism on his part.

Like last time, he doesn’t want to talk about his reasons for being there, but he does share an interesting tidbit about his father and President Huang.

The President’s death turns out to be even more personal for him than we thought.  The Lang clan was once in charge of protecting the President’s life, and he even trusted them enough to protect his will.  This close bond of trust makes it even more confusing that Lang and his men were nowhere near the President during his speech at Gourd Lake.

For some unknown reason, the President suddenly “became a different person” 12 years ago, and his attitude toward his police force did a complete 180.  Nonetheless, Lang’s character shines brighter than his current feelings toward the now-deceased President. 

Man, some politicians could learn a thing or two from this guy...

And as part of his respect, mingled with his bloodlust for the culprit, he vows to solve the case by any means necessary, with or without Edgeworth’s help (or the help of the Zheng Fa police, for that matter).

And judging by his actions in the first game, he ain’t bluffing.  As angry as he is, though, he’s hilariously speechless when faced with a certain young punk and his punky attitude.

There’s nothing like a good moment of comic relief, is there?  Don’t judge by appearances, as they say.

Lang leaves in a huff, but comes back with the President’s bodyguards and some good news -- the U.S. police were kind enough to let him join the investigation (or “hunt,” as he views it), and he’s already picked up the scent of a potential suspect.  Who is it, you ask?  Someone we’ve already met, naturally.

Not only have Edgeworth and company (and we) gotten to know Justine pretty well by now, but she was even willing to stand in Edgeworth’s corner against Blaise Debeste only recently.  Wouldn’t it be something if she had it in her to murder a foreign dignitary after all that?  Luckily, Edgeworth’s around to offer some perspective about--

Oh...right.  Edgeworth gave up his badge during the last investigation, didn’t he?  This brings the conversation to a screeching halt, until Edgeworth poses a question to him.

It turns out that Edgeworth’s reasons aren’t all that different from Lang’s -- he wishes to find the person responsible for putting Kay in danger, as well as engineering Jill Crane’s murder.  In other words, both of them are on the trail of someone whose crimes affected them directly, and while they don’t know it yet, their respective trails happen to lead to the same person.  Not only that, but they’re both now at a disadvantage.

This shared goal and shared experience makes them a pair of unlikely allies, much like they were during their adventures involving a certain foreign ambassador and smuggling ring.  Reliving the good times, you know?

Unlike most allies, however, they prefer to get things done by battling one another, courtroom-style.

Well, at least they’re on the same side now.

This battle of logic proves helpful when Edgeworth introduces the possibility that Huang didn’t fall from the Grand Tower, but instead exited through the secret hatch to the hidden 51st floor.  But in order to do that, he would’ve had to know about the black market auction going on there.  That idea doesn’t sit well with Lang.

In an explosion of rage, he once again shows his deep respect for Huang, which leads to a contradiction between his and Edgeworth’s descriptions of him.  Edgeworth decides it isn’t the best time to reveal this contradiction to Lang just yet, considering the implications it could have.  In the meantime, a certain Southern journalist(?) shows up with good news.

Thus the possibility of Huang knowing about or taking part in the auction becomes much smaller, but the mystery remains as to how he left the Grand Tower’s roof.  Some bizarre testimony from Penny suggests that John may know something, since he was practicing at the film lot the night before, so Lang and the gang (if you will) begin searching for him.  Naturally...that’s when he suddenly goes missing.

Before any of them start making plans to find him, Lang takes a moment to reflect on the positive side of working alone.

Considering how close he was to his “pack,” one has to wonder whether he’s actually warming up to being on his own, or if he’s just putting on a facade to avoid looking insecure in front of the others.  My guess is the latter, but it’s ultimately left up to interpretation.  Either way, you can’t help but feel a little sorry for the guy.

After this, he saunters off, not to be seen again until after John is located and rescued -- not to mention the "The Best” prosecutor -- and Judge Courtney is finally able to deliver a truly just (and well-deserved) verdict.  Or, more accurately, he shows up to interrupt said verdict.

Evidently, it’s “too late for a happy ending,” because Lang has his own bone to pick with the defendant.

What happened between them 12 years ago, you may ask?  As Lang explained to Edgeworth before, President Huang’s relationship with his police force took a sudden turn.  This time, however, he gets a bit more specific.

According to him, Patricia Roland and Blaise Debeste killed off the Lang clan (and just when we thought they couldn’t sink any lower).  But it’s not them he’s after now -- he apparently still has sights set on Judge Courtney as Huang’s killer.  Judge Courtney and her recently rescued son, that is.

These sudden twists leave us with a lot of questions, but the one that stands out the most is: What are you up to, Mr. Lone Wolf?

After some questions are asked, we learn what his theory is: Courtney pushed the President off the roof, hid his body inside a monster costume, and later moved it back to the “footprint” where it was found.  And since she couldn’t enter the locked film lot, she had her son, who knew the lock’s combination, help her.  It sounds pretty far-fetched, but the two of them do seem to be clamming up for some reason.

What’s Edgeworth and Kay’s answer to this dilemma?  Dirt, of course!

It turns out the dirt in the costume came from a dirtbag called Blaise Debeste.  The same dirt, with bits of concrete, is found on his gloves, thus identifying him as the “monster” who made those “footprints.”  He also had the good fortune of being interrupted by someone who would assume the holes he'd dug were part of the set and having a costume nearby to hide in.  This leaves one mystery unsolved, though: What would possess a man, even one as crooked as him, to do such a thing?

We don’t discover this until a bit later, when the horrible truth about President Huang is finally “unearthed,” shall we say.  Apparently, Blaise was involved in something 12 years ago involving President Huang, but Lang doesn’t seem to want to bring it up for some reason.  Naturally, the only way to get him to open up is with evidence connecting that event to the current case.  Said evidence (also naturally) is already in Edgeworth’s possession -- a report from Patricia to Blaise.

And those two aren’t the only ones who seem to be concerned with this mysterious event -- an unknown party had something to say about it in a letter to Jill Crane, a recently murdered defense attorney.

It’s becoming clear that this event is no longer too irrelevant for Lang to bring up, but that doesn’t make it easy for him.

Much like the DL-6 and SL-9 Incidents, this one carries some unhappy memories for those involved in it, which must now be relived in order to finally lay it to rest.  We’ll never know if Lang had it in him to put himself through that on his own, because just at that moment...

A few stray members of Lang’s former “pack” show up to provide him with some much-needed support.  And judging by their excitement, it’s clear that they never gave up their loyalty to him.  It’s pretty touching, to say the least.

And wouldn’t you know it?  This incident has a two-letter, one-number name as well.  I’m starting to think that naming system might be cursed.

With his former subordinates and Edgeworth insisting that he reinvestigate the SS-5 Incident, Lang finally caves in and agrees to it.  In his own stubborn way, of course.

This incident turns out to be the case of President Huang’s kidnapping, with a nine-figure ransom from the kidnappers.  Thankfully, the money was accepted from Zheng Fa’s government and the President was returned safe and sound, but the kidnappers somehow vanished without a trace.

Well, that’s not entirely true.

At this point I started thinking, Good grief, how much can a pyromaniac and a lady who wears a coat made of living minks get away with...?  But now we’re finally getting some context for what Lang was doing at the prison -- he’d been separated from his pack, so he wanted to see what he could learn about SS-5 on his own.

And then we find out what Lang’s personal connection to the case is -- his father took responsibility for the kidnapping and was relieved of his post as bodyguard, but continued investigating as a regular police officer, which led to him identifying Patricia as the culprit.  This would’ve made a great comeback for him, if nothing else, but unfortunately, her trial ended in a Not Guilty verdict, and the case went unsolved.  Thus Dai-Long Lang’s career, as well as his family’s reputation, were crushed.

Say, this is beginning to sound kind of familiar, isn’t it?

While the circumstances are somewhat different, it turns out that both Lang and Edgeworth’s fathers were the victims of the unjust actions of unjust people in power.  That seems to happen a lot to the good guys in Ace Attorney, doesn’t it?

And to top it off, Lang himself has no access to the mountain of evidence against Patricia Roland.  Sounds like a good time for someone to show up with just the right solution...

Right on cue, Franziska and Uncle Ray show up with the case files for SS-5 in hand.  And Franziska’s reasons for seeking it out are a bit unexpected.

She picked a great time to show her compassionate side, didn’t she?  And speaking of great timing, Blaise Debeste, who just “happened” to be the prosecutor in charge of SS-5, just recently lost his authority to keep its information from the public.  Things seem to be lining up perfectly for Lang, Edgeworth, and everyone else striving to uncover the secrets of a 12-year-old case, don’t they?  It’s almost like it’s fate or something.  And if Edgeworth’s previous case taught us anything, it’s that fate is no joke.

With this new information and some help from Little Thief, Edgeworth discovers a number of contradictions in SS-5 -- the victim’s shoes, the location of his body, the location of the murder weapon, the photograph of the President’s kidnapping...and to whom the spilled blood in front of the orphanage belongs.

And just then, Lang suddenly remembers why this scene looks familiar to him.

And not only is this drawing a key piece of evidence -- it ends up being the bomb that blows the lid off the case.

I have to say, for a child’s drawing, this has some pretty amazing detail, but...who’s that guy with that knife?  And where did the black dog come from?  And why do they look...?

...Oh.  Oh, no.  Could it be...?

Before we learn what this means, another piece of evidence reveals another crazy secret -- the existence of the President’s son.

Thus the mystery of her unwillingness to explain her meeting with the President is cleared up.  Exposing the relationship between him and John would’ve been...impolite, to put it mildly.

But with that out of the way, it’s finally time for Lang to catch up with his father...

If Lang were the main character, this would be his climactic moment, so...let’s treat it that way, why don’t we?  Cue the music!

In his final confrontation with Edgeworth, they both do some more digging into SS-5 until they run into a startling contradiction.

It turns out that drawing wasn’t the product of a child’s imagination, but a reflection of the ugly, sinister truth.  The incident he witnessed wasn’t a kidnapping at all...

Naturally, Lang is far from eager to jump to that conclusion.  Besides the fact that it’s too horrible to be true, the President’s body was discovered just recently.  How could he have died 12 years ago if...?

Crazy?  You bet.  But alas, truth is stranger than fiction, and in this case, it’s a truly tragic truth.  Edgeworth has the evidence to back it up, of course, and by presenting it, he finally unleashes the beast inside of Lang.

Given that the President had a number of people who envied his power, the list of potential culprits is practically infinite, but by piecing together the fact that no one was aware of his murder and the existence of his body double, Edgeworth arrives at the uncanny truth -- his murderer was one of the people closest to him.

Whew...  Politics is one messy business, to say the least.

A couple of searches from the forensics team confirms that the real President’s body had been underneath the filming lot since the incident occurred.  With that information, Lang deduces the reason why his father kept both the drawing and the President’s murder a secret -- revealing them to the public would’ve caused chaos in Zheng Fa.  And with that, he finally knows the full story of the fall of the House of Lang, and his father is no longer a failure as a bodyguard, but an unsung hero.  Who would’ve imagined it?

(You can stop the music now.)

As gratifying as this must be for him, I don’t imagine all of his feelings about it are positive.  This marks the second time (that we know of) that he’s seen someone he trusted turn out to be a fake.

As satisfying as uncovering the truth is, it often leads to some pretty unsettling discoveries, whether it’s discovering that your assistant is part of a smuggling ring or that your President has been replaced by the Cowardly Lion.  But amazingly enough, Lang's ability to trust others has only been strengthened by these revelations -- he learns that not all prosecutors are untrustworthy, he lets go of his suspicion of Justine and John as soon as their actions are explained, and he even comes to depend on Edgeworth’s logic to help him find the truth of SS-5, and thank goodness for that.  In short, he may be a bloodthirsty wolf, but over time, he proves himself to be a bloodthirsty wolf with character.

And as fate would have it, an escaped Sirhan Dogen shows up just then to confirm that he took the life of the real Zheng Fa President at the behest of his body double.  On top of that, he has a lot of details to share, including the mastermind behind the body double’s murder and everything leading up to it, but that’s another story for another time.  Or rather, one that I’ve already told in a previous essay.  Thus Lang and his allies pick up a new scent, and the final loose end is tied up.

That’s not the end for Lang, though.  On top of becoming more trusting in others, he’s changed for the better in one more way -- he’s now expanded his goal of restoring the Lang clan’s reputation to something nobler: the revival of Zheng Fa as a nation.

Hmm...  Do I hear a potential sequel in there somewhere?  In any case, one can’t help but feel hopeful for Zheng Fa (not to mention worldwide justice) with bloodthirsty wolves like Shi-Long Lang around.

-The Co-Mod

#skibot99 #Shi Long Lang #Mod Post #Character Essay #Mod Commentary #Co Mod Essays left: 1 #You decide if he's taking the shades off or putting them on

[floralovebot]

I honestly don't think show!Helia and comics!Helia were all that different from each other. It might feel like two different characters, especially if you don't like him/feel neutral, but as a certified Helia Lunatic, I can say with ease that they're very similar.

I've always felt like the earlier comics were more of a reflection on what Rainbow couldn't fit into the show. So it does have a different canon (Tecna being a princess, Bloom's pet dragon, etc) but the scenarios are really more to outline the aspects of the characters that Rainbow couldn't fit into the main show, while still making it interesting and new for anyone who reads them.

In regard to Helia specifically, they handled his introduction badly, to say the least. It felt more like they were just trying to add him as quickly as possible while also keeping him away because he's not Part Of The Group yet so you get this weird mix of him Being There but also Not. And I think that's the biggest reason why his characterization in the comics can feel so out of place. At this point in the show's canon, we don't know much about Helia himself, almost nothing from his inner dialogue. We get bits and pieces from other characters that are often proven wrong (Brandon's pacifist comment for example) and the occasional scene of Florelia and that's pretty much it. His relationship with the other characters, especially the specialists, is left largely off screen and up to interpretation (like yeah Rivelia are chill by the end of s2 but like,,, howmst did that happen).

ANYWAY with everything we do know about Helia from just the show, none of it actually goes against comics!Helia. From the show's introduction, we know he was a good specialist (one of the best according to Timmy) who left to join art school and then eventually came back. He likes art and writes poems and he seems pretty quiet, maybe even mysterious, especially when interacting with other characters.

But like... literally none of this goes against what was shown in the comics. Comic!Helia is still a good specialist who left to join art school, who likes art and other creative endeavors, and can be pretty quiet and sometimes mysterious. The only thing the comics did differently was expand on his characterization and personality. Instead of his reasoning for leaving Red Fountain and going to art school being left up to interpretation, it's stated that he enjoys being a specialist but loves art more and wants to prove himself in that field. Instead of his reasoning for coming back being left up to interpretation, it's largely implied that he wanted to help protect the school and had a rough time choosing between RF and art. Instead of him being Just Quiet and Maybe Shy, it's shown that he's quiet with people he's not close to and doesn't feel the need to be Out There with people he is. Instead of Brandon's pacifist comment being extremely confusing because What's The Truth, it's shown that he's perfectly fine with violence but just prefers to not be.

The comics just expanded on what was already there. It explained everything that hadn't been explained. His relationship with the specialists is no longer completely random and out of left field; now it's shown how they interacted, who trusted him first, how he got closer to them, etc. It's the same thing for Florelia as well. Instead of it being Flora Has Crush And Oop Now They're Kissing, the comics actually take us through their first interactions, how they got to know each other, issues they had prior to and after getting into a relationship, etc.

I honestly don't fully understand why people think show!Helia and comics!Helia are different characters? I feel like for some fans it could be his characterization in the newer seasons but that can be said for any of them (Stella being a prime example). But for fans who haven't watched past s4 or don't like to view the newer seasons as canon, I don't get it. I feel like it's primarily due to fanon!Helia and how badly that affected fans' perception of canon!Helia. People got so used to fanon!Helia (who is a completely different character), it got to a point where they started thinking canon!Helia is ooc. But like... if you think every single thing a character does is ooc, maybe you just don't understand that character? And I'm not saying that in a nasty mean way, I mean it genuinely. If you don't pay attention to a character, I don't expect you to understand them in the same way you would a character you do like. It's the same thing with Helia.

#another day of me hating the fandoms perception of helia #when will the pain end #you guys think every single thing he does is ooc. HOW #its not even the later seasons some of you are pointing at the older ones too 😭 #anyway if you dont like helia dont speak about him!! (joke) (or is.....) #akjdhgjkladhgl #im crying #will y'all please stop mischaracterizing my blorbo 😭 #long post #winx helia #oh no... not the wi.nx meta..... please free me

[sollucets]

twcposting advanced special: back half of book 2

mason, it’s very cute of you to acknowledge this and i love masonivy friendship, but like, why were you surprised. ivy is 500000000% team nate in like every possible situation at this point they are fully on the nate train and with ivy this usually means protective violence, so like, (ed: i Meant this rest in rip sanja)

ohhhh. gah that conversation with n and a is super cute what the fuck. “i don’t want your gratitude i want you to be happy” i am actually so much more endeared to a from this route?? this is so sweet. ;u;

sigh. in the most resigned tone possible, n thinks boomer memes are funny. they do don’t they. somewhere in my soul i know it. they have a reasonable chuckle over newspaper comics about people who are obsessed with their phones

n’s route has a Eye Contact thing sure, but i think now that its specific quirk is actually a Hand Thing, isn’t it. wrapping their hand on that first patrol, warming up their hands on the walk, the finger kiss, holding hands all the time, snapping them out of the mirror trance by holding hands... yeah its a hand thing. i gotta think that with ivynate, with the height difference (it’s fully 10 inches, nearly a foot) their hands have gotta be real different sizes too.... ah. tender

seeing the combat scene on this route confirms my earlier suspicions about Hot Sparring Scene, so i’m gonna have to go through this way on the m route.... like. i actively HAVE to. if m doesn’t pin them to the floor and kiss them what is even the point

heehee. i love the “taking advantage of someone’s romantic distraction during sparring” thing....... yes. yes that is where it’s at. that said the height difference makes that description of them back hugging him very funny their nose is going to be like in the middle of his back

m being a little shit to n on this route is So Fuckign Funny compared to n --> m. m is like a Selective Dumbass

im really delighted by ivymason friendship actually. they’re kind of similar, honestly? ivy is a lot nicer, mind, not that that’s a high bar, but they hit back when pushed. i like seeing mason being nice without all the extra romance baggage. it’s cute.

i really liked their nighttime talk except how i couldn’t control the detective going “hey nate have you killed anyone” because..... like..... why would you do that,,,,,, LMAO. also the silly little moisturizer joke i want him to wear a facemask and cucumbers.

“the way that man looks at you could inspire a thousand love poems” oh hell. also i’m fairly certain i’ve Seen sonnets about this lol

i like elidor please don’t let him be evil. he’s the first character i’ve gotten to hug

can’t help but think there’s a missing opportunity after the maalused break all the glass in the living room for injury take care. wouldnt you have glass shards embedded in your hands. fucked up

ivymason do the cannonball special!!!! what a delight. again mason is unreasonably taller than ivy so this definitely works

yeah i mean i hate to fail the mission but there’s fully no world where ivy doesn’t choose their li lmao. it will Never happen

it’s kind of cute a being protective over them against falk. like i understand it’s probably just what happens whether you’re friends or not but a and ivy did not get along for a long time so it’s kinda fun to see them wearing a down

i got the treaty this time! even though sanja died! wild. not sure how i managed that one when i failed with her alive last time. game works in mysterious ways i guess?

that said uh rereading that ambush.... goddammit elidor’s definitely sus, isn’t he. like we know the agency has a leak, specifically about their blood tests, and he took care of them after that.... dammit. :( oh well. at least ivy’s complete and utter trust of him will make for drama should it be true

HELL YEAH FERRIS WHEEL KISS

in conclusion: yes i think i was right to put ivy here. yes nate Does have some ... some edgy shit going on, re: fortune teller and that mysterious “oooh can i tell them everything” thing but i think it needs more emotional damage and that’s exactly what they’re for lmao. it’s... a little less canon i think? or i need to play it a little different. but still godtier i like it. anyway this was nice. had fun. tired now we sleep

#twcposting #cut for 'this is a long post' reasons #gods i sure am talking about m a lot for a post that is hypothetically about ivynate huh #i am so predictable #rowan chatter #i think this is also technically #ocposting #and i am sorry for that