#I don't know how the timeloop will come in. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

insertdisc5 · 4 months

Text

📚 A List Of Useful Websites When Making An RPG 📚

My timeloop RPG In Stars and Time is done! Which means I can clear all my ISAT gamedev related bookmarks. But I figured I would show them here, in case they can be useful to someone. These range from "useful to write a story/characters/world" to "these are SUPER rpgmaker focused and will help with the terrible math that comes with making a game".

This is what I used to make my RPG game, but it could be useful for writers, game devs of all genres, DMs, artists, what have you. YIPPEE

Writing (Names)

Behind The Name - Why don't you have this bookmarked already. Search for names and their meanings from all over the world!

Medieval Names Archive - Medieval names. Useful. For ME

City and Town Name Generator - Create "fake" names for cities, generated from datasets from any country you desire! I used those for the couple city names in ISAT. I say "fake" in quotes because some of them do end up being actual city names, especially for french generated ones. Don't forget to double check you're not 1. just taking a real city name or 2. using a word that's like, Very Bad, especially if you don't know the country you're taking inspiration from! Don't want to end up with Poopaville, USA

Writing (Words)

Onym - A website full of websites that are full of words. And by that I mean dictionaries, thesauruses, translators, glossaries, ways to mix up words, and way more. HIGHLY recommend checking this website out!!!

Moby Thesaurus - My thesaurus of choice!

Rhyme Zone - Find words that rhyme with others. Perfect for poets, lyricists, punmasters.

In Different Languages - Search for a word, have it translated in MANY different languages in one page.

ASSETS

In general, I will say: just look up what you want on itch.io. There are SO MANY assets for you to buy on itch.io. You want a font? You want a background? You want a sound effect? You want a plugin? A pixel base? An attack animation? A cool UI?!?!?! JUST GO ON ITCH.IO!!!!!!

Visual Assets (General)

Creative Market - Shop for all kinds of assets, from fonts to mockups to templates to brushes to WHATEVER YOU WANT

Velvetyne - Cool and weird fonts

Chevy Ray's Pixel Fonts - They're good fonts.

Contrast Checker - Stop making your text white when your background is lime green no one can read that shit babe!!!!!!

Visual Assets (Game Focused)

Interface In Game - Screenshots of UI (User Interfaces) from SO MANY GAMES. Shows you everything and you can just look at what every single menu in a game looks like. You can also sort them by game genre! GREAT reference!

Game UI Database - Same as above!

Sound Assets

Zapsplat, Freesound - There are many sound effect websites out there but those are the ones I saved. Royalty free!

Shapeforms - Paid packs for music and sounds and stuff.

Other

CloudConvert - Convert files into other files. MAKE THAT .AVI A .MOV

EZGifs - Make those gifs bigger. Smaller. Optimize them. Take a video and make it a gif. The Sky Is The Limit

Marketing

Press Kitty - Did not end up needing this- this will help with creating a press kit! Useful for ANY indie dev. Yes, even if you're making a tiny game, you should have a press kit. You never know!!!

presskit() - Same as above, but a different one.

Itch.io Page Image Guide and Templates - Make your project pages on itch.io look nice.

MOOMANiBE's IGF post - If you're making indie games, you might wanna try and submit your game to the Independent Game Festival at some point. Here are some tips on how, and why you should.

Game Design (General)

An insightful thread where game developers discuss hidden mechanics designed to make games feel more interesting - Title says it all. Check those comments too.

Game Design (RPGs)

Yanfly "Let's Make a Game" Comics - INCREDIBLY useful tips on how to make RPGs, going from dungeons to towns to enemy stats!!!!

Attack Patterns - A nice post on enemy attack patterns, and what attacks you should give your enemies to make them challenging (but not TOO challenging!) A very good starting point.

How To Balance An RPG - Twitter thread on how to balance player stats VS enemy stats.

Nobody Cares About It But It’s The Only Thing That Matters: Pacing And Level Design In JRPGs - a Good Post.

Game Design (Visual Novels)

Feniks Renpy Tutorials - They're good tutorials.

I played over 100 visual novels in one month and here’s my advice to devs. - General VN advice. Also highly recommend this whole blog for help on marketing your games.

I hope that was useful! If it was. Maybe. You'd like to buy me a coffee. Or maybe you could check out my comics and games. Or just my new critically acclaimed game In Stars and Time. If you want. Ok bye

#reference #tutorial #writing #rpgmaker #renpy #video games #game design #i had this in my drafts for a while so you get it now. sorry its so long #long post

4K notes · View notes

lukaherehelp · 3 months

Text

Okey, Detectiva Luka on the case!

I'll be cracking this plot open in order on how things will go so, sit down and relax, grab a coffee and something to munch.

This post will briefly attached things from this post by @syrena-del-mar alongside my post here on the movies,as well as the ones about Tan and Phee being the killers and Tan using poison on the guys, as well as my theory of why I think each mask is different and I think I know whom is behind each one (thanks again to @blmpff for the screenshots). All these theories have being a collective effort between the multiple minds in the bl/gl server so also a big thanks to them for being as unhinged about these as me djslkajdlkjass with that being said...

Let's jump right in, shall we?

So yesterday we discovered that the movie posters in Non's room are fake mock-ups of real life horror movies, right? and there's a fourth poster that can be found in Jin's room in the trailer that we haven't seeing yet in the series, but I'm going to talk about it as well. They go in these order:

Rivarium, Whisper and La Madre

and Jin's:

Devil

Imagine Jin's is where the bookshelf is in Non's and we get this order:

Rivarium -> Whisper -> Devil -> La Madre

or may I say:

Vivarium, 2019 -> The Whisper, 2007 -> Devil, 2012 -> Mamá, 2012

the order they are in is really important because it actually shows us how the plot is moving. The movie posters give away the plot. Let's go in order:

What is important to us from Vivarium (2019) are two things: the looping element of its plot (not a timeloop) and the brood parasitism example they show at the beginning of the film and feeds into with the plot later on with the loop element.

Vivarium shows as at the beginning the brood parasitism of cuckoos, birds that don't nest their eggs and instead, sneak them into other birds' nest for them to raise them. The gang, quote "Non's Friends" are the cuckoo, leaching out of a bird to raise their babies. Or, in their case, draining Non (the bird) out of his ideas and kindness (the nest) for their own good. The loop element comes into these with two new cuckoos, Tan and Phee, infiltrating the group (the birds), but instead of using it to rip the benefits (getting their eggs in the nest), their true intention here is being full parasites. They are a virus contaminating the body that is the friend group. They are "The Boy", ready to kill.

And how do they do this? Here is where The Whisper (2007) comes into play. David as a concept, to be more specific, comes into play.

David is an eight-year-old boy that is not really what it seems. He's the son of a wealthy woman, so kidnapping him should be easy, but this provokes many deaths in the movie amongs his captors. Why? 'cause David, in reality, is a demon. A demon that can "suggest" and "influence" the people around him to do whatever he wants. Only Max survives and is able to kill David, but not after the later has taken with him the lifes of everyone else without moving a finger. Phee and Tan haven't moved a single finger against the group (yet), but "the killer" has being doing it ever so slightly. And even like this, the only death among the boys that has happend wasn't even by the hands of "the killer". No, Por dies because Top kills him. "The Killer" (Phee and Tan) are pitting the boys against one another without them even knowing. The only thing they have done truly is poison them (going again with the loop thing as the gang drugged Non in the past) so they allucinate. And one specific allucination brings me to the next movie:

@syrena-del-mar gave a really good synopsis:

Devil (2010) revolves around five strangers that become trapped in an elevator. As they struggle to escape, it becomes apparent that one among them is the Devil incarnated, manipulating events and tormenting the others with a series of disturbing manifestations. Meanwhile, outside the elevator, a detective investigates the strange occurrences, gradually piecing together the connection between the trapped individuals and the sinister presence haunting the building. As the situation inside the elevator becomes increasingly dire, the characters are forced to confront their darkest secrets and sins, each suspecting the others of being the Devil in disguise. Once they deny their sins, the devil is able to claim their soul. The Devil is unable to claim the last survivor's soul, because these one confesses and repents for having killed a family in a car accident and fleeing the scene. "

Y'all can see why Jin is the one to own this poster, right? But I think there's two reasons for this:

the first one is the obvious, which is that Jin, amongs all the boys, is the one that probably regrets the treatment towards Non the most. He really cared about him, and he harmed him as badly as the other did. But he is repenting, and he might have already done half of the work no so long after the release of the video...

Because the second reason Jin has these poster is the fact that he shares the same sin as Tony, the survivor, in Devil: a hit and run. In Jin's case, Keng's hit and run.

Jin's only allucination speaks for itself, so I don't think I need to add anything else to this point.

but Devil also begins with a bible verse:

"Be sober, be vigilant: Because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour."

The devil, the lion here, are Tan and Phee... or in Jin's case, Phee specifically. Both boys are playing the long game dragging these revenge for three long years, but Phee has make it upon himself to get the closest to Jin. And I think is because he knows, he knows Jin was involved with what happen to Non, he knows about the video, and he wants Jin to pay as well. But avenging Non by killing Keng might be what could keep Jin alive at the end... or at least to not be killed by the hands of Phee and Tan.

Talking about killing! A little side track to point out that I definetly believe that White will survive yes or yes and as I said this morning, I need him to be like the main character in the book Final Girls by Riley Sager and kill Tee himself. Period.

getting back on track, LET'S BEGIN WITH @blmpff BLORBO, THIS SILLY GUY, or well, these three silly guys:

But there's four! - it looks like we have four masks but upon closer inspection I think is just three. Not only the eyes are different but also the face structure of each changes a litte bit and the last two here look identical, so I just think is a matter of actual production of the series and them having that same mask duplicated but because it has more "dripping blood" on the eyes, it doesn't look the same in both. In any way, I'm about to tell you whom is whom.

Our first Killer, "Clear Sight", is Tan.

Tan, in this theory, is New, Non's older brother.

So yes, I know, this whole plan is a revenge for what happend to his little brother, so you'll think that he would be a little bit more "passion" driven when it comes to revenge, but taking in account the other two killers... well, makes sense that the older one is the one being more focus and calculating about what they do. A "Clear Sight" amongs them. He's also the one that has poisoned the friend group, as I explain here. So yeah, cold blooded and with a plan in mind.

Which he has really well tight up with the second Killer, "Bloody Tears", since they flawlessly were able to fool us all when CS stole the motorbike from Tee but then BT pulled up with it.

So, whom is "Bloody Tears"? Say it with me class: is Phee. Yes.

His eyes are bloodshot and he's crying blood because hiswhole purpose with all of this is to avenge Non. He feels guilty over his last words to Non:

"You want me to forgive you? Just get lost and die."

He's the one being more driven by passion, by rage, by wrath. These absolute fuckers destroyed the Non he loved so dearly and he will destroy them.

So if "Clear Sight" is Tan, and "Bloody Tears" is Phee... Then whom is "Fresh Blood", our third Killer?

For the sake of this these "timeline" theory, we will go with the idea that "Fresh Blood", the masked killer with the fresh blood on its eyes and the cruch, is Non.

The obvious reason: the crutch. FB is the only one holding it, both when he appears in front of Top and when he's in the woods.

And we saw what Non was capable of three years ago when he finally snapped in front of the others, so I don't need to explain why the blood of his eyes is till fresh. He's a goner, he's fully commited to the bit, he will take all this fuckers to hell with him... including Jin.

Because Phee could spare Jin, but Non will not. And so we are down to four people by the end of these tale: White, Tan, Phee and Non.

Here is where the last movie comes into play: Mamá (2012)

Mamá is about two sisters, Victoria (f8) and Lily (f6), whom were living as feral children for five years in a remote cabin in the woods after their parents' death. They are put under the care of their uncle Lucas and his girlfriend Annabel, but when the two girls start to build a bond with Annabel, what kept them alive in the woods, Mamá, wants to take them back with her. And by the end, she almost does. On a cliff, both sisters make a choice: Victoria chooses Lucas and Annabel, and starts a new life with them; but Lily, whom loves Mamá dearly, decides to stay with her. Mamá after this, jumps off the cliff with Lily on her arms, activily killing her and turning them both into moths.

Tan is Victoria, Phee is Lily and Non is Mamá.

Phee, like Lily with Mamá, will choose Non. After all the blood they have spilled, is better to get lost in the woods than to comfront the police, honestly. They can just get lost and enjoy nature like they did when they used to visit the lake. They will just count Phee as one of the many victims these cabin has taken.

And so is Tan because he, like Victoria, will choose to live his life. But he was never Tan. He's New, and he can just let Tan die at these cabin and go back overseas as himself, leaving all of these behind...

And leaving only White as our final boy.

so yeah, those are my theories and how I think the series is going to play out, this post has taken me 3h and a half to right down, I can't feel my brain any longer dljsaldjalkjsd

#dead friend forever #dead friend forever the series #dff the series #thai bl #thai drama #bl drama

88 notes · View notes

genshin-scenarios · 3 months

Note

Feel absolutely free to ignore this, but after the corrupt!xiao fic I’m curious: got any corrupt venti thoughts you’re willing to share?

Corrupt!Venti AU

DISCLAIMER: the rest of this is just an AU setting! not canon-compliant + may reference SPOILERS in general for the archon quests and genshinlore

"My dear warrior, have you come to devote your voice to me?

Don't worry now! I'll make sure to put it to good use. With my help, your story will never fade from the songs of time. That is what my love can promise you. Have I ever led you astray?"

I can see this being caused by the defiled statue the Traveler found a while ago! Along with some other attempts from the Abyss to weaken the Anemo Archon's power...

Perhaps in this AU, Venti tried going against the summoning of archons to Khaenri'ah, which led to a warning/consequence from Celestia; tying the entrance to Celestia somewhere on Mondstadt, so that if their enemies were to seek it out, he would be placed under the burden of protecting them, for if not, Mondstadt would too be run down (punishing a god for his kindness... things like that)

ANYWAYS, in this case, I think if the Abyss did manage to weaken him enough, he'd probably sense his own corrosion coming and put Mondstadt into a timeloop as a last means of keeping his people safe + keep out the Abyss?

It takes the last of his power and he leaves to the outskirts, where he hides away in a hidden domain to 'rest', but of course he can't stave away the corrosion forever, and it takes form.

You're within Mondstadt during this timeloop, and are eventually led to the hidden domain because you're the only one that can hear a mysterious song calling out to you

Cue corrupted!Venti luring you in, because by now, he's not exactly himself anymore - dark purple energy replacing his previous anemo teal powers and the shade of his eyes

But it's Venti, and even if he's forgotten about his nation by now (only that they're locked away to keep them safe, in the illusion of freedom and peace), he remembers you.

...Well, he remembers his attachment to you, and asks if you'd like to stay with him there, in that domain. If you lend him your voice, perhaps he can figure out a way to keep you with him forever too! (Read: do not, he is stealing your voice as a source of power to use)

But perhaps even this is because a part of himself deep down remembers how he loved to hear you calling his name, laughing with him, and the way you used to look at him with...

"Is that fear in your eyes?" Venti hums, circling around you with lightness in his steps. He's in his archon form, wings brushing against your shoulder. You try not to think about the last time he showed you this form - back when it was a secret between the both of you, under clear skies and teal feathers that made your heart soar. The purple that cuts into your gaze sobers you. "Would you prefer if our new home was more reminiscent of old times?"

New home, as if he's already decided you aren't leaving now that you've found your way to him again. You briefly wonder if there's any ounce of the old Venti still in there, and if he was perhaps keeping you close to stop him from doing all this.

...Or maybe, he was asking you to keep him company before the world falls down, knowing that once the timeloop could no longer be sustained, even with his corrupted powers, you'd have to step up as a hero once more. Slay the monsters, free the kingdom. Save your friends.

With a lilting giggle, Venti covers your eyes with his hands. And when he takes them away, the domain has turned into...

Windrise? No, some condensed version of it, with azure skies and calming wind trailing on for miles. The tree still sits there. You remember the first time Venti introduced you to the sight.

He calls your name, and before you is Venti, still in his archon form, but with his blue glow and green eyes again. He gives you a cheeky smile, and you feel your heart ache.

"Better?" Venti cups your cheeks, stepping closer to you to place his forehead against yours. It's gentle, but you feel a foreign energy that's seeping away at yours, like it's trying to steal more away.

Like he can no longer love the same, needing to take something as a keepsake, before this illusion ends.

Maybe doing so in this form is an act of mercy to you. Venti's always been one to make sacrifices that were lost to the wind.

#this... became longer than i thought #with a bit of a drabble at the start/end!#on a diff note - you guys really liked that wanderer-kabukimono thing huh /pos #genshin venti x reader #barbatos x reader #genshin x reader #genshin reader insert #genshin writing #genshin x you #genshin imagines #genshin headcanons #traveler wishes #genshin corrupted au

67 notes · View notes

eldragon-x · 13 days

Text

I said before that I think Bonnie is a well-written child character because they nail the being blunt in an unintentionally funny way aspect but I also think they work well in a lot of other ways.

Something about how a lot of rpgs, especially ones with a younger target audience, have child protagonists because children want to feel capable and be taken seriously and be heroes while Bonnie is just a minor support in ISAT and they feel like the adults around them underestimate them because of this. And sometimes they do! Because people underestimate children sometimes!

Like how Bonnie was told that people frozen in time are sleeping and have nice dreams because their sister was frozen. And they think it's a nice thing to think but make it clear that they know it's not true. And how the adults in the party talk about their theoretical deaths when they think Bonnie's out of earshot but they're still listening in. And It's understandable that the adults around them don't want to upset them or want to ease their worries but they do understand what death (and adjacently, being frozen in time) is.

On the other hand they react the most poorly in Act 5 where all the other characters tell Siffrin outright that they're being an asshole and they don't want to talk to him for a while, Bonnie just cries and yells at him that they hate him and runs away because they're scared and don't know how to deal with the situation. And once the timeloop thing comes out, the way Bonnie comprehends Sif's situation is by comparing it to something that relates to them. They don't really get the timeloop thing but they compare it to "what if you had to go to school everyday and always learn the same subject without rest" and they know Siffrin was sick and tired and sad and Bonnie understands how you can get cranky when you're tired and they remember that time their sister got mad because she was sick. Bonnie is good.

#isat spoilers #stars n time

41 notes · View notes

percheduphere · 6 months

Text

This image bothers me so much.

I wrote 2 long posts on speculation of a time loop occurring, where I think Mobius and Sylvie are in the narrative, and what may happen next if Loki, Mobius, and Sylvie are indeed the 3 original timekeepers.

Theory Post 1: read here

Theory Post 2: read here

I haven't discussed where Loki's positioned on the narrative in-depth. We know that his growth, very much influenced by his relationship with Mobius, has led him to:

1. Trust others

2. Believe in others

3. Care for others

4. Self-Reflect

5. Compassion for self

6. Compassion for others

7. Rely on others

NOTE: I don't think Loki ever lacked these capabilities. They were just pummeled by trauma. Mobius knew this, which is why he emotionally invested in him.

There are three plot points Loki needs to meet:

1. Convince Sylvie to join his side by passing on how he's transformed from Mobius's compassion to her.

2. Communicate, in no uncertain terms, how much Mobius means to him.

3. Discover the timeloop and break it to free the timestream they're all in.

Point #7, under his growth, is what makes me dislike the above screen capture. It suggests a self-sacrificial move to either fix or remove the Loom on his own. The implication would be that he's grown to the point of sacrificing himself for others, but we've already seen him do this in Avengers: Endgame. And honestly, he's died and suffered enough times that this feels exhaustingly rote.

On top of this, Loki may additionally be challenged to reverse his stance on TVA recruitment and/or allow Mobius (John?), B-15, and Casey (and OB?) to return to their lives with no memory of him. In other words, out of love for these people, he will sacrifice his friendships with them and choose to be alone (with the potential exception of Sylvie). Doing all of these things may break the timeloop, and it would certainly not be something HWR would expect (as he believes Loki is selfish).

Regardless, I hate this possibility. HATE IT. Yes, the self-sacrifice would show how far Loki's come, but I don't think heroism must always have such high costs. I would much rather have Mobius and Sylvie accompany Loki to the Loom, so that he will not have to make the sacrifice alone (proving that Loki ISN'T alone, but Mobius is not a god and wouldn't last 2 seconds at that level of temporal radiation.

My hope is the above screenshot was purposely used in the trailer as a mislead and that the true solution is something else.

My ideal outcome is for Loki to return everyone to their timelines with their memories intact. Everyone keeps in touch, stays friends, and can be called upon to reactivate the TVA as an emergency response team when needed. I would also love to see Mobius open his home to Loki (and Sylvie) if they need a place to stay and insist upon staying friends with regular visits (if not outright letting them live with him; besides he could use the childcare assistance). If the final shot is the entire team (B-15, Casey, OB, D-90...) sitting around Mobius's dinner table, sharing pie together, I will be so happy.

#loki #mobius #sylvie #lokius #sylki #loki season 2 #loki meta #mcu #my theories #my meta #loki speculation

54 notes · View notes

manytoonepoet13 · 7 days

Text

Fragaria Memories - Ever Red Visual Analysis Essay

"I still remember, the sun, the memories, and the lack of guidance, shown in this cross section of this red pieces/fragment. Truth/reality, even in time, you can't take it away. Forever certain, this is something I will not forget."

(Duration of Analysis: December 2023 - April 2024).

A. Wiki (Intro Tab: Overview of the story section).

The mains of each bouquet is shown through little fragments with the colour of their respectively bouquet. Though, note that Cielomort and Badobarm's fragments are showcasing their entire face, this shows that they're a whole, complete, untouched by the corruption of the anxiety brought by the seeds.

Now, look at Hallritt's fragment, a part of his face is cut-off right across the surface of his fragment, "Cross section of this piece/fragment". His purity - something so precious to him was taken away, not only that, but it was reversed. He was reversed, giving birth to his alter-ego, this evil Hallritt. Additionally, the part that was taken out matches perfectly with the "evil" part shown in the mv - this being a little clue for what is to come.

B. Music Video (Analyzing frames that feel important).

From what I've noticed while watching the mv, it has this margin that maintained throughout the mv, which is rather reminiscent of a camera, befitting the line "I still remember", 0:55, that would pop up along the intro. The connection here is that he's recalling these memories as if he was watching them through an old videotape. Though since his and his friend's memories don't align, it felt like an error in his mind(think of a movie where you told your friend about a certain scene and they disregard it, saying that it didn't happen in the movie and told you about a completely different scene instead), therefore causing the glitches we frequently see in the mv.

Another connection to the glitches is this shot of the Fragaria crest with impeccable lighting, I may add, making everything look oh so great before the "camera fell" and the lenses shattered (shown in various scenes throughout the mv but it's more prominent in this scene), the everything became lone, corrupted and gray, 1:05 - 1:11.

Who was holding the camera you might ask? Hallritt. After all, the ones who get to hold the camera are those who get to tell the story (quote pointed out by my best friend).

This is due to the reason that 1.) This is Hallritt's pov and he's the main character and 2.) He's too optimistic - Merold, 2024.

He's always excited whenever he's given the chance to help, he's passionate about fulfilling his duty that it feels like his joy and love for his job and the people around him is overflowing. This is why he's holding the camera, the one who got to tell the story. The one who caused all of this.

The next scene needed to be taken into account is the overlapping clocks 1:28 - this may symbolizes the, as the name suggests, overlapping of timelines. - As we know, there are two separate timelines, told by the voice dramas and the songs. The latter somewhat foreshadowing what happened in the past timeline.

Other than that, I have a feeling that maybe, just maybe, there might be a timeloop in Fragaria.

now, why do I think there's a possible timeloop?

CLOCKS. While yes, the clocks may mean that time has passed and they can no longer turn it back, they could also mean that they are running out pf time before the loop restarts.

I'll assume that it's the seeds' corruption on Hallritt that allowed this timeloop to start. And this aligns with the seeds' form of corruption as well, anxiety.

This timeloop theory is more on a figurative and psychological sense rather than a literal and physical one. This will be in relation as to how Hallritt was feeling upon being corrupted.

Since the seeds bring anxiety, I believe we should take a look at that. -Many people have repetitive anxious "thoughts" that trigger fear responses and believe they will never be able to get rid of them. - AnxietyCentre.com. "Can't take it away." "I still remember."

This is where the timeloop theory comes into play:

Hallritt's been corrupted, and is now having these anxious thoughts (memories), about causing the destruction during the first timeline. And now in the current timeline, he's once again having these thoughts because he still remembers what he has done, and while he's trying to make a change, he's also anxiously counting down the minutes until it's gonna happen again.

When corruption shall resurface.

After all, the current world is already corrupted, shown in this close up of the Fragaria crest now rusty (shown in various clips). The knowledge and sight of this may be Hallritt's trigger, causing him to have a fear response.

That response being the glitched out image of him and his friends, 3:29, that paired with the margin, makes it look like an actual videotape that one could watch (as pointed out earlier). This may contribute to the next scene where the words "Live in memories" appear, as well as when the color of the background went from, red to white, the red again, only for the transition to take place (which looks like the opening and closing of the eyes, most probably Hallritt's), switching to white once more, then a blur, , then gray, with each of the other knights' crest orbiting around Hallritt's before disappearing one by one.

What I would like to pay attention to is the thing is, despite Merold's crest being flashed first, his crest disappeared last, giving the impression that he knows something. Given that earlier, 1:27, him and hallritt were together in the middle of the line "Can't take it away". Other than that, later on, 2:43, he transitioned from his usual color palette to black and white. (Your Melody may give us some insights as to what that may be).

The transition from red, to white then black represents how Hallritt vies the current timeline, how every was so vibrant, rendered to black and white. (This, I believe, is where his repetitive, anxious thoughts is shown).

Other than that, my bestfriend also pointed out that the mv is basically just red, gray, then glitch and repeat, which gives way to the timeloop theory pointed out earlier.

I would also like to point out that in the second timeline, it's not Hallritt that is corrupting the world, it's the world that's corrupting Hallritt. Let me explain; the overlapping of timelines I've mentioned earlier plays here: It is because of that fact why the seeds are still having power over the world, why the Fragarian crest is already rusty, because despite the fact that the timeline restarted, the overlapping caused it to be corrupted by default, further triggering Hallritt's thoughts, leading him to think this will only last until the "end" of time.

"Ever Last".

He can never forget it, he will always be tied down by the ribbon's hold as if he was on a leash, bring everyone down with him, 3:42 - 3:45.

But he doesn't want that, no.

He doesn't want to hurt people, especially since it was all his fault, because of his "lack of guidance".

So he'll just glitch himself out of the picture, just so he'll not cause any more problems, 3:49. After all, that's what he is, right? A glitch?

But if there is one that's certain, "this is something I will never forget".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"The knights ask for nothing in return for their love."

#fragaria memories #fragaria sanrio #fragmem #hallritt #why are there so many clocks?????????????#theory #time loop #sanrio #merold #tumblr stuff #analysis #fan theory #discussion

20 notes · View notes

yuri-is-online · 1 month

Note

I was scrolling through older Yuu angst posts and remembered the “Yuu isn’t Yuu’s name” and “Yuu snapping” posts. I started bouncing some ideas around in a couple of different scenarios and now I have random (and somewhat disconnected) thoughts to dump. Do what you will with these haha.

1. What about tossing those in with the whole time loop mess? I believe that the extra attention paid to Yuu in a time loop scenario would bring the isolation and loneliness Yuu feels a little more into the spotlight. This could provide some fun reactions to how much Yuu actually suffered before meeting an unfortunate end.

2. Would any of the boys be able to have some semblance of a normal relationship with Yuu again after the time loop? Assuming they can break it, the mental toll of watching Yuu repeatedly die would have to screw with them somehow. Especially in the cases that resorted to more unhinged ways to keep Yuu safe.

3. It’s a little sad to think how Grim and his personality serves as a liability of sorts for Yuu. It can’t be easy to try to spend time with your classmates when you have to corral what’s essentially a child 24/7. Especially when you are still learning the ropes of a new world yourself. I wonder if there moments where Yuu almost resents him.

-🦐

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. I think that depends on who is aware of the timeloop and if they ever found out Yuu's real name. If it was Yuu I could see them making a sort of persona out of "Yuu" to help them survive the turmoil of never getting a break, whereas if it was one of the boys... Ace immediately comes to mind... I could see that really messing with them as they are forced to realize just how messed up Yuu's situation is. Would they go and get Yuu's real name? Would they break and admit why they know and beg Yuu to work with them, to trust them, because all they want is to keep you safe? Could you even accept that?

I'd like to think so? I'm thinking about Uyoko Amnesia and his happy ending and he manages it just fine (eventually) but I do think there would be an adjustment period. The nightmares, the tragedy of all of it, the weight of your dead body in his arms... he would need a moment to pull himself together and know that's not real anymore, which would be easier for some of them than others. I don't think the nightmares would ever fully go away though.

You can pick certain dialogue options to be snippy with him, but if I'm honest I feel really bad for Grim. Yuu is seen as a person, even if their vulnerabilities aren't noticed, but Grim is only really seen as a person through his connection with Yuu. We don't know if he will get to stay at school if they leave, and no one else really has the option to be supportive of him and his goals to be a great mage. There certainly is room for that older sibling resentment, for Yuu to hate that they need to be there for Grim when an adult should really be parenting both of them, but there isn't one. It's just Yuu and Grim against a world that really seems to hate you.

As a side note, there is a lot of dialogue that suggests Grim does stuff on his own without Yuu, so I don't think that it's too much of a jump to think Yuu does get some time to themselves to explore. You can say you've been to Craneport before in the Portfest event and it will imply you have been there without Grim, so while it might be hard it isn't unrealistic, and honestly that relieves me. Yuu deserves a break.

#<3 asks #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #shrimp annon #that older sibling resentment for grim hits too close to home for meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee #i get it #but i do wonder if it would be different for someone if they didn't have fundie parents like mine framing their mindset on it

47 notes · View notes

aeor-is-for-reccing · 11 months

Text

Shadowgast Recs: Time Travel and Time Loops

This week, we have 12 fics that feature time travel or time loops under the cut! Check them out, and don't forget to comment or kudos if you like them!

Something Worth Saving by cow_queen (35341,Not Rated) Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence and Major Character Death (But they get better eventually)

A Groundhog day AU where Essek keeps reliving the day the Dynasty killed the Mighty Nein, constantly going back to the beginning in a desperate attempt to save his friends.

Reccer says: I really enjoy the way the timeloop mechanic is handled here actually, and rather enjoy the slow realization of who is really causing problems.

in the times in between by jakia (8098,Teen) Warnings: None

A strange man keeps showing up to help the Ermendruds, but Una thinks he's really swell, if not a bit odd and strangely familiar...

Reccer says: Look, I just love Una's perspective and how we as an audience know who this man is but she doesn't. I just adore this fic so much.

To be Defeated and Victorious by basically_npr_trash (6394,Teen) Warnings: none

While on a mission for Master Ikithon, Bren receives a letter from a mysterious Dynasty stranger offering a tenuous olive branch. Bren's rational side tells him to burn it immediately, but something pulls on him to follow through. A This Is How You Lose the Time War AU

Reccer says: It's got enemies to lovers, time travel, spies, clever places to hide letters, and the letters themselves!

Another Time, Another Place by Operafloozy (9780,Teen) Warnings: none

Essek and Bren are time travelling spies that write each other letters. They fall in love.

Reccer says: It's This is How You Lose the Time War AU that focuses a lot on how their relationship changes from enemies to falling in love, and has some great visuals and lines in it. Also has a great Astrid and Eadwulf Cameo

the better version of our past by KmacKatie (5840,Explicit) Warnings: None

In the split moment where Caleb and Essek use the gem to give everyone some much needed rest, they see visions of alternative timelines

Reccer says: The vibes are so perfect and weird. A wonderful emotional roller coaster for our boys

displacement by mllekurtz (12834,Explicit) Warnings: Dubcon in the flavor of past!Essek sleeping with present!Caleb without disclosing that he isn't present!Essek

Post-97 Essek gets body swapped with his post-campaign self, sleeps with Caleb, and reckons with the fact that the Nein seem to love him.

Reccer says: This is Essek at his most self-loathing and Caleb at his most Essek-loving. That combination is heartbreaking in the best way, and makes the comfort that comes at the end hit that much harder.

Breaking Inertia by futureshieldmaiden (31096,Teen) Warnings: none

Caleb and Essek get stuck in a time loop, and have to work together to get out of it.

Reccer says: An interesting take on the time loop idea - I like how having both of them stuck in the time loop changes the dynamics between them, even as they discover more information about each other along the way.

a shape made by our hands by saturdaysky (4158,Teen) Warnings: none

Caleb time travels to a decaying timeline and meets a young Essek.

Reccer says: The look at Essek as a child is both adorable and heart-wrenching, and the way present day Caleb and Essek respond to what happened is perfectly them.

time will come by mieletthe (5750,General) Warnings: None

In his old age Essek travels back in time to visit an elderly Caleb for a conversation on grief and death.

Reccer says: A remarkably cathartic and tender story. If you need a good cry, here it is!

if only for a moment by saturdaysky (2035,General) Warnings: deals with the eventual future death of a main character, but no one dies in the fic

Caleb accidentally travels forward in time, far past his death. Essek is there and has been expecting him. They share a soft moment.

Reccer says: Sky handles the topics of grief and love with such exquisite care. I cry wonderful cathartic tears every time I read this fic. I'm tearing up writing this summary. Read this fic, you guys.

Twelve Thousand and Sixty-Five Seconds by LessAttitudeMoreAltitude (1945,Teen) Warnings: There is repeated major character death and suicide, neither being permanent but is nonetheless present

Time was Essek's speciality. Which was why, waking up in his dark cell on the day of his execution, he immediately noticed the dozens of threads of possibility. Countless echoes of Caleb trying over and over again to save him. And they only got more numerous the closer he came to his death.

Reccer says: I liked it!

And then two for this last fic:

The Fullness of Time by Cers (162788,Teen) Warnings: None

In the battle against Lucien, Essek makes a gamble that accidentally sends himself and Caleb back in time. They have to work to figure out how to get back to save their friends.

Reccer 1 says: This fic is incredibly well written and the last couple of chapters left me a mess with my emotions. Lots of good bits of the wizards trying to figure out their feelings and then avoiding talking about them Reccer 2 says: One of, if not the best Time Travel fic out there. Cers explores the highs and lows of time travel, along with the paradoxical risks associated. HIGHLY Recommend.

Aeor is for Lovers is an 18+ Shadowgast Discord server. The above fanfic recommendations were pulled from our community for this weekly event. All fics, unless otherwise specified, will primarily feature Shadowgast.

Have any questions about what this is? Check out the FAQ! Next week’s we’re going to have fics that go a little darker - featuring Ludinus Da'Leth!

#shadowgast #time travel #critical role #cr fics #fic recs #critrole fic recs #essek thelyss #caleb widogast

96 notes · View notes

friends-to-lovers-tournament · 9 months

Text

Friends to Lovers Tournament: Quarterfinals, Match 1

propaganda under the cut!

Makoharu:

They are the first ship that comes to mind when I think of friends to lovers. I know Free! hasn't been popular since 2013, bug I just love them so much... Makoto's devotion to Haru. There's even a movie that flashes back to when they're kids when Makoto says "I love swimming and I love Haruka". Soft...

Fuyupoly:

Submission 1:

they're from the winter troupe of the mankai company, and unlike the other troupes they're all adults. that said, they all have varying degrees of trauma and emotional stuntedness. it takes them some time to fully open up to each other bc they're all very cautious of each other's boundaries and don't want to cross any lines which initially led to some issues in the group's formation. over time they've learned to bridge the gap while still being mindful of hard boundaries. at one point they have a discussion about what exactly their relationship is (gay) cuz they were talking about how the other troupes have clearly defined dynamics (spring=family, summer=besties, autumn=rivals & teammates) but they don't,, and homare deadass says they're "people bound by a common destiny" which in and of itself sounds very Gay (like why are you as a man bound to other men by a common destiny), but it goes even further because homare starts spouting WEDDING VOWS: "In sickness and in health, for better or for worse, we shall share our laughter and our tears as those with an intertwined fate... How beautiful we are!" THIS IS A DIRECT QUOTE FROM THE GAME AND THE MC EVEN REMARKS "i can already hear wedding bells in the distance..."

gradually they become closer, in individual sub-units based on who's paired up as co-leads for a play, and as a troupe overall. also two of its members are childhood friends who had a messy 'divorce' in their young adulthood and it took the game breaking its genre to introduce a timeloop for them to finally make up if that means anything to you. one of their troupe songs "precious to us ~bokura no kisetsu" has some pretty beautiful and fruity lines: "The many kindnesses born in me here / Never fail to breathe life into my chest / Even all the pain and bitterness / Have now become dear to me (Ah…Stay with me)", "No matter how many times our season passes / Let us keep living together / Holding our hands, without ever letting go / Let us open up the curtain of tomorrow", "There is no need for words, because once our gazes meet / Joy sparks a light in your eyes", "Our journey, may it be a brilliant one / As our breaths overlap as one"

a lot of their plays has a LOT of homoerotic tension between the two leads too. their first play has tsumugi and tasuku play angels, and it's heavily implied that tasuku's character has an unrequited crush on tsumugi's character. their third play has azuma play a vampire and tasuku play Just Some Guy and it's generally agreed in the fandom to be one of the gayest, if not THE gayest, play A3 has ever written. obviously the vampire thing is very fruity, but there's also how the vampire was longing to bite the human but was holding himself back, and when the vampire left the human in the end, the human was absolutely HEARTBROKEN over it and was swearing they would reunite one day. the stage play of this takes it even further by having the vampire embrace the human from behind and BITE his neck. the fourth play is a watered-down adaptation of Phantom of the Opera where they genderbend Christine into Chris among other things and change the relationship between Chris and the Phantom to one of friendship.... ostensibly so, because there's still a lot of homoerotic undertones in their interactions. i could go on but this should be enough of a sampling taste

Submission 2:

the writers rlly said "let's take 2 normal guys who are childhood friends and have been into theatre since their school days and have them go through a pre-canon messy divorce, an eccentric poet with a potentially controversial haircut, an amnesiac sleepyhead who can only be awoken with marshmallows but is also somehow extremely athletic despite doing nothing but sleeping and eating marshmallows all day, a man who is so beautiful and mysterious he breaks gender, and a supposed android from a fictional south asian country, and throw them into a blender, oh and for good measure let's throw in some theatre and angst and gay and angst and gay" and the end result was marriage. i mean it took them a lot of awkward fumbling around and conflicts to get there but they got there and thats what matters. ok *technically* in-text they're all rlly good friends and kinda found family BUT they are found family via marriage papers i do not make the rules chief

Submission 3:

The reason why they are so friends-to-lovers to me is because their relationship is founded on quiet and unconditional acceptance of each other—regardless of how flawed they may be or how heavy their burdens and trauma may be. When the troupe first formed (sans Guy who was in another country at the time), they didn’t have any major clashing personalities at the very beginning and generally they were mindful of each other’s boundaries, unlike the other troupes that came before them. However, it’s BECAUSE they were too mindful of said boundaries that it was difficult for them to break down their walls and bond as a team—and there were a LOT of walls to break down, as all of them had varying degrees of emotional baggage and trauma.

In fact, it’s only three plays in that they finally truly start opening up to each other, with Azuma getting the ball rolling by opening up about the deep loneliness that haunted him ever since his childhood. It’s during this conversation that they also discuss what their relationship as a troupe is, because the other troupes have defined their relationship as a team (Spring is family, Summer is best friends, Autumn is rivals & teammates), and Homare goes on to declare that they’re “people bound by a common destiny” and goes on to spew wedding vows: "In sickness and in health, for better or for worse, we shall share our laughter and our tears as those with an intertwined fate... How beautiful we are!" I mean… it can’t get any more obvious than this, really. They are married.

But anyway, Tsumugi says he wants their relationship to be one where while they respect each other’s need for space, they’ll also be there for each other and share their pains and burdens—or in his words: “supporting each other when our burdens become too heavy to bear on our own”—which I think is really sweet because it carries this idea of quiet, unconditional acceptance; they don’t push each other to share more than they’re comfortable with sharing, but with whatever they ARE comfortable with sharing everyone carries the load and pain because pain is easier to bear when you’re not bearing it alone <3

A later part of the story focuses on Hisoka, a mysterious amnesiac, being terrified of regaining his memories and facing some “sin” from his past that has led to another character, Chikage, trying to take revenge on him. When he confesses this to the rest of the Winter troupe, Homare asks, “How heavy is this sin you bear?” and Azuma suggests, “Perhaps it’s just heavy enough for the five of us to carry together.” (at this point Guy hasn’t joined yet). The stage play adapts this scene into a song called Key to Memory. The key (pun unintended) part is 1:27 where there’s a back-and-forth between Hisoka and the other Winter troupe members (sans Tasuku because he wasn’t in that particular play)

Hisoka: “I’m scared…”

Tsumugi, Homare, Azuma: “It’s okay.”

Hisoka: “My unforgivable sin…”

Tsumugi, Homare, Azuma: “Let’s carry it together.”

Hisoka: “I might not be me anymore.”

Tsumugi, Homare, Azuma: “It’s all right. We understand and we accept you, so let’s go together.”

And it ends with Hisoka singing: “I was afraid to open the door of my locked memories. But if everyone is here, I believe I can do it.” In both the game and stage play, Hisoka fully regains his memories and reconciles with Chikage (long story). He tells Fuyupoly he can’t go into detail about his past with Chikage because it’s dangerous but he’ll tell them when the time is right, and they accept this saying that no matter what his past is, they know and love him as their Hisoka which obviously is a very sweet thing for friends to say, but it’s also very Marriage-coded to me.

Later, Guy is introduced as an android from Zahra (a fictional South Asian country) and joins the Winter troupe as a temporary member—because he’s stuck in Japan for the foreseeable future—until they find a permanent member to replace him. The other Winter members have a conversation among themselves and agree that regardless of whether he’s really an android or a human they’ll accept Guy for who he is and help him improve his acting, which again harkens back to the idea of ‘unconditional acceptance’. Eventually it’s revealed that Guy is in fact a human who has forgotten his memories of the past and his emotions. He recovers his memories all at once which shocks his system and causes him to pass out. When he wakes up in his room, he finds the rest of the Winter Troupe asleep around the room—which I believe is symbolic of their whole theme of “quiet acceptance”: they don’t want to push Guy to share beyond what he’s comfortable with, but they’re always there to listen to him and share his load if that’s what he wants. He opens up about the memories he recovered, and they don’t treat him with pity like he’s a lost child, but still extend gentle empathy and understanding. They also emphasise that it genuinely doesn’t matter to them whether he’s human or android because he’s Guy first and foremost. It’s at this point that Guy truly lets himself become part of the Winter troupe/Fuyupoly and not just as a temporary stand-in member, because he’s found a place where he’s found himself again and people who will accept who this “himself” is, whether that be an android devoid of emotions or a human brimming with vivid beautiful emotions.

[Mod note: There’s a LOT more but we’re afraid of crashing the post. I (Deli) summarised it the best I can since I’m familiar with A3, but if you want to read the full thing you can check it out on this google doc)

#friends to lovers tournament #a3! act! addict! actors!#a3!#fuyupoly #tsumugi tsukioka #tasuku takato #hisoka mikage #homare arisugawa #azuma yukishiro #free!#makoharu #tachibana makoto #nanase haruka #tournament polls #polls

53 notes · View notes

evilwickedme · 1 year

Note

Ooh, do you have any good Jason fic recs?

anon I cannot tell you how long I've been waiting to see those words!!!! yes I have good Jason fic recs in fact I have so many good Jason fic recs that after narrowing it down I still have fifteen links for you

I have read more fanfic for Jason Todd than maybe any other character ever. I do not understand the hold this man has on me but it's simply the situation we're in. anyway

Jason comes home fics

Make a Little Birdhouse In Your Soul is hands down my favorite. I'm talking favorite DC fic, top fics of all time period, not just from this list. I love this fic series. It is actively and regularly updating, thank fuck, because that little boost of serotonin is everything keeping me going I swear

The 70 Days After Groundhog Day is technically from Dick's POV, but it's about the aftermath of a timeloop that Jason was stuck in. it's. oh my god it's so good. just trust me on this one.

Emotional Motion Sickness is the "bruce goes to therapy" fic series we all want. canon get on this level

Retrograde Motion - I never used to like de-aging fics; not for any particular reason, I just never vibed with them. Recently I decided to see what all the fuss was about (bc there's so goddamn many in this fandom) and I'm glad, because I opened this fic and it's just. oh my god. the use of the de-aging trope here is truly incredible. after a whole week of dipping my feet into the trope I never need to do so again, because this fic made me fucking lose it. this is not going where you think it's going. also, for some reason there's not that much rebirth outlaws fic, and I really like what this author did with that team

matching wounds haha just gonna sneak my fic series on here and pretend that it was an accident, wait how did that get there (some jayroy later in the timeline too which can be read on its own if Jason coming home fics aren't for you)

other non-ship

Too Much Fucking Salt deals with the straw that broke the camel's back. I've read all 22k words of this in one sitting more than once. this is the anti "Jason Todd comes home" fic (this is in itself a whole genre of fic too honestly).

take his name out of your mouth (you don't deserve to mourn) is about Jason mourning himself, which he fucking deserves to. also he smokes a joint with Dick

Sown in Winter is about Jason pulling himself out of a depressive episode partially through the power of Stardew Valley. also technically jayroy, but it's honestly incidental to the story for the most part imo

JayRoy

I do read other ships for Jason but unabashedly this is my favorite, so

A Solid Resume - competency kink. that's all I have to say.

Tenderize is a series of oneshots all of which slowly build Jason and Roy's life together and coparenting lian and I just !!! could also double as a Jason coming home au but honestly that's mostly in the first fic. also a lot of discussion of various chain grocery stores in the united states that I will probably never actually step foot in

Dick Grayson and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Two to Three Weeks (But Who's Counting) is so fucking funny I die every time I reread this. there's a scene early on in a coffee shop that just. I don't even know what to say everything about this is perfect. I AM the girl sticking her nose in their business, at least spiritually.

dust devils on the horizon isn't even the only western au I've bookmarked for these two. something about jayroy and horses, man

unity of time: april 27th, 2020 is just,,,, super sad, man, idk what to tell you. it's f!jayroy, but happens after Roy died in sanctuary during the 24h of Jason's death day, so all of it is very fucking depressing. It's also fucking beautiful. I want to reread it now.

Promise After That I'll Let You Go is a poisonivory fic. I was introduced to poisonivory through the daredevil fandom earlier this year and may I tell you when I found out that this author writes for jayroy I lost my goddamn mind. this is my personal favorite, but I almost recommended at least two more aus. Their jayroy sugar daddy au is one of the only sugar daddy aus I've ever truly enjoyed. also really like the one where roy has had feelings for dick since their teen titans days but still starts a fwb thing with Jason. poisonivory can make me into kinks I'm not even into I s2g. anyway this one has lian literally dragging roy back into jason's life

finally, Reciprocation (or: Sex as Violence) shouldn't even really count as a jayroy fic but I feel weird putting it in the other category since it is sort of a jayroy fic. it's ace-aro!jason, which is one of my personal favorite interpretations of Jason (with so much textual evidence wtf), but there's still like... a lot of sex in this. Jason does not have a healthy relationship with sex in this fic. I would describe this as ending in a QPP for jayroy and lian.

honestly there's a lot of good jason and roy and lian fic out there I didn't rec cause this is already long enough

so yeah this is my very VERY pared down fic rec list for Jason Todd let me know if you want more and thank you so much for asking

#I have 632 fics bookmarked for dc and 130 of them are jayroy #most of the folder is misc and a considerable amount of that is jason focused batfam #oh I should've linked the jason and ollie fic I bookmarked ages ago. oh well I'm not looking for it now it's one thirty am #and I need to be up for work in like. six hours #jason todd #jayroy #batfam #dc #fic recs #before and after fic #gail speaks #ask #anonymous #can somebody confirm redfam is the name for jason roy and lian's dynamic I wasn't confident enough about it to put in the post itself #also it looks like radfem if you're not paying attention

216 notes · View notes

maifazcomics · 4 months

Text

After a little discussion i had about if the ARG is important to understand and appreciate Sea of Stars and the Saboverse as a whole, i have some thoughs

Mainly that: no, you don't need to read the ARG

It was always planned as something only for the most hardcore of fans, the ones actively searching for more stuff

There are only three informations that are at the moment ARG exclusive:

- the Demon King in The Messenger (AKA Dweller of Strife + the Acolytes) is a pale copy, and the real one's remnants are inside Clockwork Castle

- Resh'an and Aephorul were lovers, and created the Elixir of Life to escape until society accepted them

- the Shopkeeper is a woman, and she descended from The Watchmaker

The rest is just community fluff and Resh'an being incredibly emo, nothing essential

I feel like these informations are important, but they just weren't able to be explored yet.

Continued ramblings below:

About the DK, with Picnic Panic being part of a planned three-act DLC (Barma'thazël's Revenge) that they stopped working to prioritize Sea of Stars, and the final one presumably having you reach Clockwork Castle, this could have been explored there. Or maybe in another game. We still have 3 more books to go, in the end

Shoppy descending from the Watchmaker... with the DLC being called "Throes of the Watchmaker", this has the potencial to be explored there. Or not. They are characters so far apart, HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS APART, knowing this information would change your whole perception about the games? This only happens because of the curse of knowing stuff lol, and as someone that knows I would like to see this being explored. But my point is that this isn't fundamental.

And Shoppy's gender... people misgendering her after playing The Messenger bothers me, but it isn't the devs fault IMO. They never use pronouns with her in the game for a reason (iirc Thierry said he didn't want anyone to assuming stuff about the Shopkeep, and that's one of the main reasons behind him writing first in English and having ENG as the only canon language), and people using he/him are taking that out of their asses. Just a one minute Google Search and you find that information, you don't need to read all the ARG logs

There are other stuff like Primals or Shoppy being the first Messenger, the Artificer giving the scroll to Monk that Bowman got because she got transformed into the Queen of Quills and then gave to Ninja, or the entirety of Void Logic being explained and still making us confused to this day, and this is all fluff. Like for real, all that was needed to be in The Messenger for the BIG LORE is already there, and for Sea of Stars too

And for the big elephant in the room, Resh'an and Aephorul being really gay for each other. This is something not even the ARG explored further! Resh'an said that at February 2019, when we didn't even knew who a Fleshmancer/Aephorul was, then when he got to tell the community about him Resh'an explicitely said that he didn't want to elaborate further on his personal past with Aephorul. And with Sea of Stars, we got a taste of that, but it was only their introduction to the world!!!

More like anything else, this feels like something to be explored on the next books (just explaining this better, Thierry Boulanger, aka Creative Director and Writer and some other stuff, has come and said that his dream is to tell this grand story in 5 arcs/books (books because Sabotage works directly with Resh'an, translating the books he writes into videogames) book 1 being TM and book 2 being SOS). This narrative, at least for me, feels like it is about them. About these "gods", the harm they created to this world, and how Resh'an wants to redeem Aephorul. It feels... like a slow burn. And that's why i think they didn't want to tell this right now

Like, Time Shards. We didn't have much lore about them in TM, then SOS comes and BOOM, Time Shards indicate the presence of a timeloop. And maybe Resh'an created them too?? This recontextualizes the nature of the Messenger narrative. And them being More Than Friends can be that too, both for the general public and the Lore Nerds. We still don't know about their society back then, or if the flashback cutscene was pre or post elixir, or why specifically Aephorul became evil, etc. This all feels intentional, ya know

The rest of the ARG is just a bunch of fun interactions the characters and the community had, and a buuuunch of foreshadowing to what we get to see in Sea of Stars. Either Clockwork Concierge (AI Core) hinting about his past with Caël and the Kids, Arty saying he was a robot, or Resh'an literally infodumping about the Guardian Gods, Dwellers and World Eaters. We see all of this in Sea of Stars, and that's amazing!!!! It's so cool to see all of that being real, and that makes me confident that all of this unresolved stuff is something thar Sabotage wants to make real too

/rant over

But would i recommend reading the ARG? oh sure i do. It's very fun. The narrative framing of the games being books written by The Archivist and SaboTeam working for him is so interesting. And also, we get tons of insight into Resh'an's mind and how he's just extremely depressed, how he misses Aephorul and yearns for being loved but doesn't know how to deal with that when people love him back

Also Clocko's adorable

---

EDIT: After chatting with someone, they pointed something about Shoppy's gender that is really relevant to bring out. Yeah yeah, Sabotage wrote the game with English in mind and in ENG they didn't pronoun her at all. But two things

First: in many languages got translated into, including Quebecóis which is a script Thierry himself wrote, since you need to gender stuff, the Shopkeeper got treated as male because of defaulting. So if you played the game on those languages, and didn't follow any stuff related to it, you just assumed Shoppy was a man and moved on with your life.

Which, by the way, is something I MYSELF made. I stopped following the ARG in 2019, so I didn't see the conclusion about her gender for years until some months before SOS came out. And as something I still haven't told, I come from the forbidden land of Brazil, and the PTBR translation of TM is one that suffers from that, so I defaulted her as a dude for years and years

And second: even if you played the game directly on english, if you speak a language that also does the male-defaulting, you probably did that too, and that is not your fault

In the end, this isn't anyone's fault. I may have been too mad at seeing native english speaking redditors calling her a dude? Yeah maybe. But yeahhhhh we live in a society in the end, and them being explicit on the text about her gender on the future would help that at lot

Thankfully on the easter egg she's referred as a woman on SOS in PTBR, which is GREAT

#sea of stars #the messenger #resh'an #aephorul #the shopkeeper #long ass rant #random saboverse thoughts

29 notes · View notes

bonefall · 1 year

Note

What do you think of Fallen Leaves (as in, canon Fallen Leaves)? I'm pretty neutral towards him, but I'm curious to know what you think of him and why you decided to merge him with Hollyleaf. Also, does Hollyleaf ever regain a better understanding of Clanmew again since you mentioned she only half remembered it? Does she ever teach anyone the ancient language or nah? I can imagine kits begging to know ancient swear words.

i dont like jhim

BANGER idea, wasted. Ancient ghost in the tunnels??!? He drowned to death in an ancient ritual?!!? He has been unable to move on for a thousand moons ??!?!?!?!?!?!

Idk make him a lonely sadboy or something. No he doesn't try to drag people down. No there's no ghostly powers or anything. No he's not like a folklore ghost.

He just lives in the tunnels and Is Sad. Lame.

Erin Hunter LOVES coming up with cool ideas for characters and then doing nothing with those ideas, slowly turning them into boring ship material and cardboard background cats.

"We can't just do nothing with the ghost, idk. Hollyleaf is the closest female character. Ship it"

Do they have chemistry? No

but holly is a Girl and fallen is a Boy so that's good enough. Have him (ghost) nurse her back to health ig, people eat that trope up, no effort required.

It also frustrates me that this random ancient Softpaw's death made the entire Lake Society consider leaving their very bountiful home. "Oo it's been a hard year or something. Let's leave everything we've ever known."

Broken Shadow being dramatic about his death is also... fuck it I'm gonna be honest, it's annoying. I hate how women in this series are always more torn up than their husbands over dead kits, I hate how they needed to make Broken Shadow "insane with grief" and completely hysterical to drive home how sad this one, random, singular loss is

Honestly, I don't think there's a single part about Jay's Time Travel Adventure that I like. I'm seriously trying to think of one thing I enjoyed and I'm coming up with a blank. I like the vague idea of the cats leaving the lake I guess fgsdfgf

So, personally, I think there's 2 things you can really do here with Fallen. You replace/merge him with someone for a stable timeloop, or you replace/merge Rock with Jayfeather for a stable timeloop. Without that, being in the tunnels for so long doesn't matter.

Fallen could have been in there for 2 years or 200, nothing about him is legitimately old to contrast modern cats. He was waiting for someone who no one has any actual attachment to because her entire personality is being a crazy-with-grief mother.

Hell, you could replace Fallen with a weirdo who hates sunlight and it would fill the exact same role as Love Interest Who Doesn't Leave Tunnel.

He has the bland honor of not being as bad as Moth Flight but I'm sorry. I would squarely place Fallen Leaves in F tier. You can definitely make an argument that the idea of him is cool, but somehow that feels worse because he could have been GREAT and he wasn't.

SO INSTEAD I merged him with Holly! Because making this unnerving connection between Hollypaw and the tunnels, catching glimpses of a strange ghost, and interacting with her mother when she was young and wreckless is FUN imo and accomplishes a lot more about her whole arc coming to terms with the lie.

Naughty god goes into the timeout tunnel to be adequately wiggled, indeed

And YES she does eventually get a better handle on Clanmew again, it just takes a couple years. And 100% she teaches some kittens how to swear in ancient Lakemew.

#bone babble #I'm sorry everyone that today is just Bones Biting Jayfeather's Adventure sgfdgff

60 notes · View notes

blorb-el · 3 months

Text

superman: lost finale

tldr: huge L for people who want to see clark reintegrate into his life with people who love and accept him even when he doesn't feel he's 'being' correctly due to his enormous amounts of horrible trauma (me). but also huge W for people who want to look at clark ultimately addressing his trauma by doing something so batshit insane he would never ever inflict on another person but his self standards are so toxic babygirl you are SO fucked up (also me)

short plot recap: at the end of this issue, clark and hope go back in spacetime to the beginning of where he was dumped out of the space trawler's ship, and send past!clark back to earth. then the clark we've been following goes on to help the evacuation for ten years, and then become the time loop clark we saw in issue 7, warning his past self not to try to escape, while the past!clark he and hope sent back goes on to live with lois and be the in-continuity clark we're familiar with.

various disorganized notes upon this:

clois book and clois divorce book at the same time

the book is metacommentary on how editorial will never allow clark to actually have lasting effects from trauma because that's not marketable/palatable to people both inside the dcu and outside

nerds bein like 'ohhh that's not how time travel works' news flash: time travel is not real its a storytelling device. if it serves the author then it's how it works

i. loved lois in this. all throughout. i know some people think she's ooc but she's so angry and compassionate and her concern and drive is what intersects with clark's self sacrificial brain in the end to make his FUCKED UP choice it is just. tickles the brain in a capital T Tragedy way. fatal strengths/fatal flaws chefs kiss

immediately headcanoning Gatekeeper/timeloop clark to eventually become the superman-null of Strange Visitor even though i think he was visually based on Maggin's Ghost of Superman Future from Superman 416 (which, if you like time loops, you should read, and if you dont like time loops you should read anyway because it fucks). let me have this. or, i know that Gatekeeper says he's had this conversation over and over, but i would would also accept if he figures out how to break it eventually and then becomes an iterant space paladin

the hope-is-pregnant jumpscare was. fine whatever 😔 a concession to serialized storytelling demanding cliffhangers. shoutout to parthenogenesis was nice but That Aint How It Works......like That's The Point Of Asexual Reproduction You Don't Need Another Person's DNA.......

this issue was fun to read alongside the current arc of WF since mark waid is also pointing out clark's flaw of impossibly impossibly high standards for himself in the way that main universe clark is so furious and disgusted with kingdom come clark; main universe bruce has never seen him that angry before bc clark's hatred/fury/fear of his own failures is obviously usually internalized

lex's part in this book was so damn good. that egotistical genius delusional psychosexually obsessed loony. especially the bit about the paintings. stop imagining yourself in a naked wrestling match with your enemy. time to listen to les troyens i guess

throughout the whole book the art has just been. incredible. coloring lines inking the whole thing. the stylistic change in 7 was interesting, not my favorite art, but it worked bc they were in a black hole at the time. i got some of the lee weeks variant covers and they're so incredibly good.... but the mainline covers were also wonderful.

slaps roof of superman. this fellow sure can get lost

anyway. if you made it to the end low effort mspaint sillies

#comics impressions #tuesday spoilers #superman: lost #clark kent

18 notes · View notes