#this is a version of their story where they kind-of-sort-of get along with their dad lol

[lady-arc-art]

THEORY: “Welcome Home, my son…”

For a while I wondered why puppets are used specifically to help tell the story of this ARG? Then it was brought to my attention from another Welcome Home fan that maybe there are some parallels to the story of Pinocchio. In versions of the story, Geppetto had a real son that passed away and from his grief he created a wooden puppet that looked like his son, who would later become Pinocchio.

I also think it kind of is that way because there’s a big emphasis on family and children/babies in this update. With Howdy’s family coming over for the Homewarming, Julie and Frank trying to get everyone to be quiet so they don’t wake up the flowers and bugs that are hibernating (which is something parents do when they don’t want any loud noises that could wake up a sleeping baby), and the commercials targeted towards children, also Frank singing a lullaby and Wally singing a song about children going to a place called Toy Land and never leaving.

Then it hit me, sorry if any of this sounds fanfic-y or if I’m reaching a bit, but this is what think could be going on.

In the early-mid 60s, Ronald Dorelaine was a children’s entertainer, specializing in puppetry. He ran a troupe with some of his other puppeteer friends called “The Playfellow Puppets” and they would put on little puppet shows as part of the children’s theater slot at the local community centers.

The cast of characters included (and in order of creation): Julie Joyful (she was the first created since she’s a simple hand rod puppet), Frank Frankly, Eddie Dear, Sally Starlight, Howdy Pillar, and Poppy Partridge.

Since a part of me feels like almost everyone else was created before Wally and Home also it would make sense if Poppy was kind of “new” since she’s the most complex puppet to operate.

Ronald Dorelaine had a young son who would often tag along during his father’s performances, and his son’s named was Walliford, but sometimes his dad would call him “Wally.” Walliford was very fascinated with his father’s work and the characters he created, and one of his favorite things to do was draw and paint, hoping that someday he would create something when he grows up just like his father. Walliford even helped Ronald come up with a new character for “The Playfellow Puppets.” Barnaby B. Beagle. A blue dog that was inspired by one of his son’s drawings.

Which would explain this.

Ronald’s puppet shows started becoming so popular that it even started gaining attention from producers of a local tv station (sort of similar to PBS) where they offered Ronald the idea to turn his puppet show into a television series. Ronald took up on the offer, and the show began to develop. However a tragedy would soon happen….

Ronald was a heavy smoker (hence why there is a a big emphasis on cigarette ads in the recent update):

One day when trying to discard a cigarette before Ronald had to leave the house (possibly to go to a last minute meeting with the producers that would be helping him develop his new tv show). However he was unaware that the cigarette was still lit, and it set a fire to his home. Ronald was safe because he wasn’t in the house at the time of the fire, but his son Walliford was nowhere to be found and his body was never recovered so he’s presumed dead.

(Probably hinted at when Home’s eyes turned red in the commercial compilations)

I also think maybe Eddie’s puppeteer was a witness or somehow involved with this incident (possibly because he agreed to watch Walliford while his dad went out) since I noticed during his breakdown, everything turned bright red and Eddie looks like he feels guilty about something, hence why he’s sweating and Home appears to be starring him down as if he did something.

From his grief and in order to cope with the loss of his son, Ronald created a new character as a tribute to him. Wally Darling, and from there the plot of the show changed. The show would now be about a neighborhood, all of the previous characters would be neighbors with Wally Darling, who would now be the lead of the show. Ronald also added some traits that were present in Walliford, such as his love for art and his friendship with Barnaby (who was Walliford’s favorite of the group) for the new Wally character.

Then for a last minute edition, Ronald included a sentient home for Wally to live in. The Home was meant to keep Wally the puppet safe and to watch out for him, which was something he wasn’t able to do for his son.

Hence why the title of the show changed to “Welcome Home,” since to him he wanted it to feel like his son now has a second chance at life and he’s finally back home where he belongs. Almost like saying “Welcome home, my son.”

However none of this was enough for Ronald, even though he created a new character to keep Walliford’s memory alive, it was hard for him to find a puppeteer to play Wally because it wasn’t the same. All he really wanted was his son back and he would go to whatever means necessary even if it means going to the extreme. He later came across “the entity” and made a wish for Wally Darling to become real (like how Geppetto wished for Pinocchio to be real and The Blue Fairy brought him to life). And with that his wish came true. Wally was now sentient without the use of puppeteer.

I kind of believe this to be the case because Wally to me feels like the odd man out, everyone else feels lively and zany since they’re real people, while Wally just feels like a blank slate, with the way he speaks sounding very monotone. Here there was a bit of an innocence to Wally since he’s always learning things for the first time and asking questions about certain concepts and feelings, since he was literally a puppet brought to life and “the baby” of the group. However the producers, and parents watching the show didn’t think it was odd since they thought Wally was like this since he was meant to be a character that children can project themselves onto.

However what everyone didn’t know is that the entity that helped bring Wally to life manifested it’s way into the show possessing The Home puppet, and since Wally had no one attached to a real person playing him, the entity used Wally as a vessel to carry out their agenda. Day after day, the show started to go more and more off the rails, but what was really happening was through Wally the entity started to brainwash each of the puppeteers into believing that they were the actual characters, possibly by using the sleeping pills advertised in the commercials, or there was foul play on Ronald’s end and he gave all his puppeteers the sleeping pills to “put them out of their misery.”

By 1974, Ronald tried to put a stop to the entity, and he had no other choice but to end the show and destroy all the evidence that it ever happened. Ronald himself also began to slowly disappear from the public eye and he hasn’t been seen since then.

For years “Welcome Home” has gone on being a lost media, until now.

That’s not the end of story, because it turns out the real Wally Darling, Walliford Dorelaine, is actually still alive, but he has amenesia from the incident and he was no memories of his previous life. Doesn’t know what his real name is (it probably started with a W) or who his parents were, which is why he was never brought back to Ronald. By the time Walliford grew up, his friends started talking about this mysterious puppet show that was on TV years ago called “Welcome Home” which was kind of like Sesame Street, but they all thought it was some kind of urban legend. Then suddenly Walliford started getting all these tattered artwork and pictures of merchandise from the show they were talking about, and he showed it to his friends and together they formed The Welcome Home Restoration Group to try and uncover the mysterious Welcome Home show.

Walliford however started experiencing strange feelings both physically and mentally. There were times when he doubted if the show was even real, but whenever he did have any doubt, he had dreams and hallucinations of Wally Darling trying to communicate with him through the phone and he also starts seeing all these strange video clips from the show itself sprinkled throughout the website that he and the team built. The team however started growing concerned for Walliford thinking that he “lost his mind” so they kindly tried to distance themselves from him while they are trying to rebrand the site after seeing that Walliford was trying to communicate with what he believed to be Wally Darling haunting the site, before they shut it down.

This only caused Walliford to create his own website with his own evidence, since it seems like his own restoration team is starting to mistrust him, and now he’s going to get to the bottom of this all by himself.

But what they all don’t know is that Walliford’s connection to “Welcome Home” goes much deeper than that, as it’s in his blood.

#welcome home #welcome home arg #wally darling #barnaby b beagle #julie joyful #frank frankly #eddie dear #sally starlight #howdy pillar #poppy partridge #welcome home theory #welcome home puppet show

[bonefall]

what do you of "the man who sold the world" for fallenleaf? friend is getting me into nirvana and i cant do anything without thinking of the Beasts

Hmm... honestly? I think it fits other characters much better!

Man Who Sold The World always reads to me as like... a dangerous character, could be a demon, could be an evil parent, could be a more literal villain in some kind of story, who has unambiguously gotten its ass kicked and banished. In its defeat, it realizes that it can turn it around; by trying to convince one of their Victims to join them.

And succeeding.

(and it's why Nirvana's version is my favorite, Cobain's voice is just the right amount of hoarse that makes me feel like the Victim Character has lost a lot of sleep over it. Vulnerable and open to the offer of the Villain, possibly on the brink of desperation in their own life. It has that sort of angsty-young-adult madness that makes choosing bad decisions sooo much easier. Bowie's and Ure's versions are also fantastic, but imo they're a lot more dreamlike, like the victim is being more entranced than convinced!)

The song isn't about breaking out of that cycle. It's about "laughing and shaking his hand," returning home almost unaware of any change. But over many years, in tiny little ways that add up into even bigger ones, slowly the Victim becomes another man who sold the world.

They doesn't even realize when they died alone along their quest, just that it must have been long, long ago.

Some of that fits Fallenleaf, but it's not quite the same vibe. She killed Ashfur in revenge. She sought out Sol and took his deal for power, and tried to kill her own brother. She subjugated an entire Ancient Lake society-- and the only thing she can really blame Sol for is how it got bored of her and kicked her out of her own body.

Those were things she did. And they're things she lives with. Trickery was less a part of it than she might have wanted to believe at some point in her long, guilty life.

NATURALLY I'm inspired by Cheecat's really great animation they made with Brambleclaw and Tigerstar, and I think it fits Tigerstar to a T, but who I always think of is Hawkfrost.

Especially in BB, where RiverClan raised him to lean into his legacy. Not Clanborn, from a young age he had to work twice as hard, prove that he and his sister were "worth" keeping around, told that they were only protected by that diluted Tigerkin blood that trickles through their veins and that Tigerstar was an ideal to live up to...

Only the thinnest veneers of, "Be what he was, without his flaws" to hold him back from fully adopting everything his father ever stood for. A father he never met, who hurt his mother, who killed and traumatized countless clanmates.

And then Hawkfrost sees him. The song kicks in. "I thought you died alone, a long long time ago."

"Not me. I never lost control." It means that those "flaws," they weren't so bad. "You're face to face with the man who sold the world" and I can teach you the value of that.

He leaves that exchange feeling warm. "I laughed and shook his hand." He goes through the destruction of the forest (looking for form), the great journey (and land), and eventually finds himself in all the conflicts of TNP. No one knows at what point he stopped being the noble young warrior who stood up for Reedpaw against his tormenters, or when wanting to protect his sister became abuse and belittling.

But at some point, he died alone, long before his heart stopped beating on that stake.

He ends up in the Dark Forest with his father, preparing for the change that's coming in OotS, but not by the end of the song. At the end of the song his father has successfully dragged him down to his level, singing the same tune, trying to pretend that his dad getting him pointlessly shish-kebabed for a petty personal dispute wasn't a critical L to the chest.

#song talk #better bones au #Fennelposting #BB!Hawkfrost #BB!Tigerstar #Local Tumblr sexyman impales self on a stick and has complicated relationship to father. Even goes to hell #explored through song #More at 11

[pencileraser1]

i think dead poets in nyc has permanently changed my perception of both todd and neil, anytime i think of them post canon i always picture them as more ethan hawke and rsl like than they are in canon.

if i remember correctly that was kind of the point, there was something about how they both had auditioned for opposite roles and peter weir decided to switch them so that by the end of the play they have swapped places in the story. it’s interesting to me how that plays out, particularly since I do think in a way they are both more themselves at the end of their character arcs than any other point. for todd it’s kind of obvious, as someone with social anxiety, although it seriously affects how i am around people, i mostly don’t really consider it to be my actual personality or what i’m really like even if it has a significant constant effect on my life. by the end of the movie todd has overcome some of that anxiety and is more comfortable existing as himself at least around the poets (see the later cave scenes and when they’re getting ready for the play) and additionally is able to stand up to nolan at the end of the play completely by himself (once he stood up it’s not surprising that half the class followed but still it was him that stood up first and he had no way of knowing what would happen).

neil to me is a bit more complicated but the way i’ve always interpreted his character arc (which is a pretty common interpretation i think) is that he always had some underlying mental health issues that he was able to hide, which was even easier since most of the movie takes place during probably the happiest period of his life. it’s interesting to me that in earlier versions he is more obviously depressed, and although i don’t consider them canon at all, i do think the intention kind of carried over, he’s still depressed but he’s hiding it instead of letting people see him in that way. although this anecdote was about todd, i think the interview with ethan hawke and rsl about the original desk scene kind of encapsulates the whole thing, i think it was ethan that said the reason the original scene didn’t work was because todd would never be that self deprecating in front of neil. i think it’s exactly the same for neil. (on a side note; the original scene i think still exists, like the whole $5.98 thing, just todd never externalizes any of those thoughts. there are multiple examples of this sort of thing comparing older versions of the script to newer ones, and i personally think they may exist in the same way, like an older version of the scene after the first confrontation with neil’s dad where neil is visibly angry, in the final version he hides it but i think he would be feeling similar emotions as could be seen in that version) to an extent i do think some of his personality is fabricated both more obviously for his father (see im trapped scene) and also in general around his peers, even if it is just pretending he’s more okay than he is although i kind of think it might go further than that . we only briefly see him pre-keating/the society/acting so it’s a bit hard to gauge what he was like before. the dropping the annual scene is the first and biggest sign something was off until the i’m trapped scene and i think it says a lot about how he deals with his issues as well as how he attempts to hide them (telling charlie and knox that they wouldn’t stand up to their parents either- im not entirely sure how true this is at least for knox but they both go along with it). since it’s an isolated incident it’s kind of easy to brush off if you don’t know where the movie is going to go, which is probably also true for his friends. after that one scene he never outwardly shows that anything is wrong other than briefly while talking to todd and in one filmed cut scene which i think was cut for a reason. to an extent even keating doesn’t know how bad it had gotten for neil; i don’t think if he knew neil was at risk of suicide he would’ve given the advice he did. the only time in the movie he actually seriously confides in someone is with keating briefly, and the next time they talk he goes back to pretending things are fine. his suicide attempt is him attempting to take control over his life in the only way he knows to do at that point. although it’s possible the only thing he hid from his peers was his mental illness, the possibility that he is masking to an even more extreme degree has always been interesting to me. for his whole life he has had to pretend to be someone else for his father, it makes sense that he’d feel the need to do the same for his friends. i don’t think he really fully learns that he can drop that mask around his friends, i think it just becomes too exhausting to hold up any longer.

i don’t thing neil would be the same post canon (if he lives). he ultimately fails at being the “dutiful son,” which even during the final argument with his father this is still something he is trying to sustain even if subconsciously, and that is part of the reason he can’t stand up to his father. i don’t think after the attempt that he’d continue to try to fulfill that role, which in turn i think could cause him to drop other aspects of his mask, esp. since everyone has already seen him at his worst. also i could see how after attempting suicide it might feel like none of this matters as much as he thought before. (to be clear i’m not trying to say his depression or his attempt is who he is, the depresson has a heavy impact on him which he hides from everyone else, up until his attempt, although i can see how comparing him as an inverse to todd whose social anxiety prevents him from doing what he wants and other people knowing who he is could come off that way.) we know todd has social anxiety and that isn’t Who he is even though it significantly impacts him and his life, and we get a better idea of who he is when his anxiety is lessened, at the same time neil is hiding the effects of his depression as well as other parts of himself and acts in a way that is most honest to who he is during the play, and to how much he is struggling in his last scene

this might be a big pile of nonsense sorry i just have too many thoughts about neil

#dumb side note; the point where we see neil the most honestly is during the play #and rsl is primarily a stage actor soooooo my point stands #to be clear i am depressed i am at least slightly qualified to talk about depression #tw suicide #dead poets society #dps #neil perry #todd anderson #anderperry

[thekingofwinterblog]

Any next gen Soul Eater ideas, like CroMa kids or something? Maybe they could finally start really healing the human-witch divide, unlike the copout super convenient manga truce🤷🏿‍♀️

Well to cover it in full, i'll start with how i would have handled their role in the plot, then gone over the individual characters and how one might handle them.

Now i would very much have the younger generation be directly involved/responsible for the two sides making peace, but one thing i would put a lot of emphasis on, is that this is NOT the case that the young was able to make peace with the witches because they had lost nothing.

This is one of the cheapest aspects of the way Kid made peace with the witches. Rather than forcing him to have to accept that people he cared about would go unavenged, kid never had to deal with having witches as a faction kill people he cared about, and so he never developed real hatred for them the way his father did.

This is very cheap, and it's the opposite of how i would have handled it with the next gen.

I would have had most if not all of them suffer real, genuine, personal losses in the war against witches which has ramped up during their early years.

Thus them eventually growing to tire of the war, and realizing that the conflict has to end at some point, even if it means giving up on revenge and payback would have had real, genuine bite.

And with that said, lets get into the real fun part. Dissecting the various aspects you could use to craft the next generation.

In regards to our favorite triangle, there is a lot of potential here.

To confront the most obvious thing out of the way, there is of course the question of wheter any biological child of Kid would also be a shinigami, and if so would the child be like Asura, who's senzu lines was already finished, but not full, or would they be like Kid's own.

If the latter, that completely changes the dynamic, because it means that the child in question has the potential to succeed him as the next great old one of order.

Kid was created with the goal of his father making a true successor that would ideally surpass him.

If kid has a child that has that same potential, it means that the kid in question is both someone Kid loves, but also the reality that to achieve that same potential that Kid unlocked, Kid in turn would have to die.

Even if any kid of Liz and Patty are not shinigami, their nature would still be very big parts of their dynamics with the world and their dad.

Because if fully Human, there is the very real fact that Kid will outlive them. Even in the best case scenario, where they die of old age, peacefully in their bed, their dad would still be eternally young and at their side to see it happen.

Needless to say, this is a great springboard to build character drama off, as the kids in question could easily have a very complicated question with their dad, who might be overprotective of them, and struggle to balance being a father, being the effective monarch of Death city, and their boss if they are Meisters or weapons.

And thats not even taking into account that as any story with half siblings born from a triangle, there is no guarantee that the kids would get well along. Liz and patty worked great because they had a very clear, uncomplicated and mutual love for one another.

As any look into histotical harem politics can tell you, this sort of dynamic very, very rarely appears amongst half siblings.

I imagine both liz and patty would both try to make their kids essentially the next generation's version of them, and that kind of thoughtless but well meaning parenting could easily lead to a very volitile couple of half siblings

And thats great, because theres a lot of ways you could write them with that background and dynamics in mind. And subsequentally, lots of character development you can get by putting this kind of complicated relationship of love mixed with rivalry through the wringer.

As for the kids personalities, the fact is that Kid, liz and Patty all have so many different traits and quirks that they could easily pass on to their kids that it's sorta all up to the author how each would turn out.

Moving on from the triangle, to the ninja duo, we have a parent and child dynamic that would either be great, or absolutely terrible.

Given how black star is, i have no doubt any child of him and tsubaki would probably embrace the fact they are the child of the strongest meister alive, essentially being very similar to him, or they would grow up to absolutely resent it.

Its not hard to see a kid who grows up trying to be black star, growing to absolutely reject the very concept of attaining power just because they want it.

And there are actually several ways to write that.

Obviously the kid could absolutely fail, and the story is about the fact they never had any shot at becoming as strong as he did, and so had to fidn their own way. But you could also write the opposite. Someone who DID attain the absolute peak... Then came to feel that it was all a waste of time, that by trying to be as great as dad, they wasted their entire life so far. That power was not all that important in the end.

Or they could be a happy go lucky kid who takes everything in stride for the most part like Black Star himself.

There are a lot of ways to write this relationship and the kind of person the kid would be.

Im not sure whas aort of relationship the kid would have with their mom though. I imagine Tsubaki would be a good caretaker, but other than being a good mom, i don't really see her as nearly as large a defining presscence in her childs teenage development as Black star is.

As for personality, wheter cynical or joyful, i would probably have them share a lot of traits with black star, like a love for the dramatics, a natural inclination to act over the top(if not mayhaps in the same attentionwhore manner as their dad), and maybe not being the brightest tool in the shed.

As for a child of Maka and Chrona, i would have said kid be the main protagonist of this story, just like her mother was the protagonist of the original.

And the reason for that, and for giving her a very distinct gender, is that i would explore this big conflict between Death's side, and the witches as a whole, by someone who is both.

Namely i would make full use of the fact that said child would be the granchild of Medusa, and in turn, be a witch just like her. Heck you could even have her take more from Medusa than either of her parents when it comes to look, which people have no problem pointing out.

One of the big problems with the witches as a faction is that we never really had a character to explore their inborn desire from destruction, and what that actually means... Well here's a great character to do that with. Someone who has chosen the side of order and law and is generally a good person... While also having all the same inborn urges that the opposition, the ones her own side deems as pure evil, has.

Its a great idea for a character journey, and thats withouth taking into acxount that if she has black blood, she would probably be prone to madness, just like Crona was.

That could manifest itself in bouts of utter bloodlust against evil enemies, just like how stein was when defeating medusa.

As for relationship with her parents, i like the idea of her growing up in a loving home, in stark contrast to her parent Chrona, she was the pride and joy of both her parents lives, and unlike her mother, she didnt groe up in the shadow of a broken relationship where everything just disitegrated.

Heck, even her relationship with spirit(as it would not be tainted by the man's infidelity), would probably be great.

No, her journey and character voes comes from the fact that while she has a great relationship with her family, unlike the rest of the cast, she has a far, far more tumoltous relationship with her homeland, the city state of death city.

There is an old african saying that "The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth". That would be her personal conflict in a nutshell.

She has loved ones in Death city... But she does not love her home the way the rest of the cast does.

As a witch who kills her own, she suffers not only from racism from both sides of this conflict, but would probably also feel like nobody loves her, with all the self loathing that entails. Every single relationship she has is either family, or someone her parents introduced her to.

In other words, she is a very lonely individual, with a lot of issues regarding wanting to make friends, but having huge problems doing that.

In fact, i would use Maka and Crona's best moment, their connecting in the basement so long ago, as something she holds up as an ideal. She WANTS something like that... And the reality is she probably is not going to get it. If she wants to find her own soul mate, she'll have to do it her own way, just like her parents did.

And if she cant... She will one day find herself completely alone in the world, as the only one who'll live as long as she will, is her boss Kid, who she isnt all that close with.

So a bit of a mix between her parents. She has maka's bravery, but just like crona, she has terrible absolutely capacity for friendmaking, and because that attempts at making new relationships leads to constant failure, at some point she became afraid to even try, to risk rejection.

Needless tos say her coming to terms with her issues would very much tie in to the two sides who she like it or not, are connected to both of, begin making peace.

As for personality, probably a mix of her parents with Maka's overall attitude and fluctuating confidence levels, but with Crona's inclination of selfimposed withdrawal and isolation.

As for Soul, if this story has maka and Crona hook up, that probably means he hooks up with... Blair.

Now there is a lot of irony here, that the relationship that was set up as the obvious "false lead" ended up becoming the actual one that happened, and by the time it did, Maka was actually okay eith it, but there is one idea i kinda did want to explore with this relationship.

Namely their kid.

Blair is unfortunately one of soul eaters most wasted characters. Other than fanservice, and one later arc where they got to be cool, she was never really used to good effect.

Essentially what i would do with her and Soul's kid is a do-over. Explore the ideas of having a very distinctly non human main cast member, who has a very nonchelant attitude to everything, life, love, death and so on.

They are the observer that doesnt really fit in, who has very different priorities than the rest of the crew, who yes, is fighting against witches, but isn't actually ideologically invested in the conflict the way the rest are.

Wheras all the rest have very distinct ideological and personal reasons for wanting to comtinue this fight until they "win", they dont care.

This is just a job, not in the sense they get paid to do so, but rather it's a lifestyle choice, that just happens to also include a lot of cash that can be traded for fish and other goodies.

As such, this cat boy/girl could also act as a voice of reason as the ultimate point of this story is the painful march to peace.

As for relationship with their parents, I would have this also be distinctly non human like. Soul WANTS a traditional, father child dynamic. But the reality is that while his kid is both fond of, and loves him, at the tender age of early puberty, they feel like they have grown up and it's time to leave the nest forever and be independent.

Something that weirds out the rest of the cast, but which blair finds perfectly normal and is proud of.

As for personality, very similar to Blair, just with way more focus on their friendship with the rest of the cast.

As for the main other pairing who would probably be really important here, stein and Marie, i... Have no idea honestly.

The fact is both of them are wacky, and insane, just in very different ways, and you could combine both... Or you could have their kid end up being completely normal.

It depends on what role you need them to fill honestly. If you need the older, cooler upper classman who is a few years older than the rest that could work, or if you wanna have them be the next stein with all the screws loose, that works too.

Honestly if you just wanna have them be the love interest who is more science oriented than fighting, that could work too as well.

Any of these combinations could emphasise different aspects of both Marie and Stein and still work just fine for their role.

#soul eater anime #soul eater #soul eater evans #maka albarn #crona #cromaka #croma #soul x blair... I dont know what this is called #liz x kid x patty #marie x stein #meta #next gen #black star x tsubaki #black star #tsubaki nakatsukasa #death the kid #liz thompson #patty thompson #franken stein #marie mjolnir #witch #questions and answers

[j8kethewizz]

I started writing this in the replies of a different post but quickly reached the word limit so I'm putting it here instead. These are my thoughts on across the spiderverse and they contain heavy spoilers. Please only read if you have seen the movie because it's the kind of movie that gets absolutely ruined by being spoiled.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

So the antagonists in both ITSV and ATSV have a lot in common.

Miguel and kingpin have the same motivation in each of their respective films. They both wanted to live a life that didn't fuck them over and they crossed through dimensions to try and make it happen.

They both fail to achieve their goal: kingpin's attempts to bring his family back are thwarted by the spiders, and the world Miguel enters literally falls apart around him.

Their actions have ramifications that further the conflict of the series. By creating his collider, kingpin gave the spot his powers, allowing the spot to wreck havoc through dimensions. Miguel's new dimension unraveling led him to believe in specific canon events that must happen to every spider person, and that any anomalies to his formula would cause the multiverse to unravel.

There's a pattern to be seen here, and while the next movie is likely going to focus somewhat on the conflict against the spider society, I think it would be cool if the conflict between miles 1610 and miles 42 followed a similar pattern.

Miles 42 lost his father, and 1610 showing up has proven to him there are other dimensions out there, including one where his dad is still alive, which would provide a motivation in line with the previous ones. Miles 42 is framed pretty clearly as an antagonist, meaning Miles 1610 as the protagonist will likely find a way to stop 42 somehow, meaning all that's left to see is the ramifications. I honestly don't know how it all will play out. Beyond the spiderverse could take this story in so many different directions and most of them would be satisfying enough for me.

The ultimate coolest move in my book would be to create a meta narrative of sorts where each movie has the same key elements that make up the story, but handle the conflict in three different ways; what if each spiderverse movie was an alternate version of the same movie? ITSV would be a man vs man conflict (kingpin pulled the spiders out of their own universes and miles has to defeat him to repair the damage done). ATSV would be a man vs society conflict, as miles is up against a society of other spider people who believe he's an anomaly who needs to be contained, destroyed, or forced into conforming to the spiderman formula. I predict that BTSV (at least miles' main arc) will be a man vs self conflict, showing miles a version of himself who behaves the same way as the villains he's faced so far, and having him reconcile with that.

The villains this series has given us have all been victims of circumstance, people who are trying to do what they can to get themselves out of a difficult or painful situation. What makes them villains is the choices they make in trying to get out. Kingpin, Miguel, and the Spot (and presumably Miles 42 but it's a bit too early to say) will stop at nothing to get what they want, and they don't care about the people they hurt along the way.

Destiny and canon want to put Miles through the ringer like every other spiderman, but Miles rejects these very concepts in the climax of ATSV. Miles chooses to reject these ideas, trying to find an alternate path much like the antagonists. But Miles has a different motivation: in addition to making a better world for himself, he's fighting to make a better multiverse for all of the spider people.

I'm not a super active writer, but a writing adage I've picked up over the years is that protagonists ask questions and antagonists give answers to those questions. Its up to the protagonist whether to believe if those answers are true. In BTSV Miles' question would be "Am I a villain too?" Miles 42 answers yes by showing our Miles that at the very least, he is capable of becoming a villain. If Miles rejects that answer, he will no doubt do so by remembering that unlike the villains he's faced, he's fighting for something greater than himself.

#'im just going to write a few sentences about a cool littke pattern i noticed' i said like a liar #across the spiderverse #spiderverse 2 #atsv spoilers #im so normal about watching movies lmao #i think this is one of those cases where homestuck metatextual brain poisoning has come in handy #if for no reason other than priming me to recognize other metatextual stories in which characters are fighting the narrative #when they said the word 'canon' in the movie for the first time my immediate thought was 'they better not do some homestuck shit' #and they almost did but they DIDNT AT THE LAST SECOND AND DID SOMETHING WAY BETTER INSTEAD #that better thing being the same homestuck shit if it wasnt actively hostile to its audience and took itself seriously #jake waxes philosophical #jake doesn't have a writing tag #autism mode activated #homestuck #< because we're more than 5 tags in so it wont show up there and i name dropped it in previous tags #come to think of it i think regular show also did some metanarrative stuff with fate and choice in the series finale #regular show also had one character and a shadow version of that character whos Them but Evil and they fight each other #which is one of my favorite narrative devices btw #especially if the Evil one isnt a 'real' person but rather a representation of a character's self doubt or loathing #i fucking love man vs self conflicts

[aroacemisha]

[Retired Leaders AU]

Thought I'd post a portion of the info post, specifically the basics and part of the characters section. I'll use "[...]" where there is more stuff within the sections I included, but I cut it out.

----

The Basics:

It's a "Good Uncle" kind of AU, where Belos is a better person. He actually tried to unite the realms, because he believed it would be beneficial for both, but it was doomed from the start and went horribly wrong. He has publicly admitted to and apologized for his wrongdoings and resigned from his position, and the Coven System was abolished. His family occupied leadership positions within his Coven and also left those roles behind, hence the AU's title.

I refer to the family as the Wolf Fam. It consists of Belos, Steven, Hunter and Kiki, along with their palismen. They all live together in a newly built house.

The Characters:

This isn't a list of all characters that exist, just the Wolf Fam and a handful of others, mostly OCs.

Belos Wittebane (he/him; mid 410s): Former Lord of the Boiling Isles; now a palisman carver; husband of Steven.

Steven Bellamy (he/him; 53 y/o): Husband of Belos; former Head of the Lord's Coven; now a P.E. teacher at Hexside.

Hunter Wittebane (he/him; 17 y/o): Nephew of Belos, raised by him and Steven; former Golden Guard; now mainly focused on pursuing his interest in engineering and tech.

Kikimora Volk (she/her; mid 20s): A sort of adopted daughter to Belos and Steven and adopted sister to Hunter; former Secretary; now works at a history museum.

Crescent (they/them): A floating snow leopard palisman belonging to Belos.

Ash (he/him, they/them): A dark gray wolf palisman belonging to Steven.

Waffles (she/her, they/them): A winged red wolf palisman belonging to Hunter.

Grusha (she/her): A spotted hyena palisman belonging to Kiki.

[...]

[...] One thing to note is that the Collector doesn't exist in this version.

And you may have also noticed that "Steve" is a little different. I created this version back when we only had one scene with Steve and had no idea he was going to get a face reveal and more canon info, and I just chose not to change the name after that happened. So Steve technically exists, but it's not canon Steve. They do have some similarities though.

----

The full post will include more characters, a few paragraphs summarizing the story, and some extra info I thought was worth including.

Btw in case you're wondering if Steven is related to Matt, yes, he's Matt's uncle. Matt's dad is Steven's half-brother. I made this change/addition sometime after the face reveal of canon Steve.

#toh au #the owl house au #retired leaders au #rlau info #belos wittebane #steven bellamy #hunter wittebane #kikimora volk #good uncle belos #good uncle belos au

[cadybear420]

Cadybear's Reviews- High School Story (OG Trilogy)

Welcome to the third official Cadybear's Reviews post! Today I'll be talking about the OG High School Story trilogy, which (to the surprise of absolutely no one) I have ranked on the "Diamond Tier" at 10 stars out of a possible 10.

Everyone and their dog who knows me knows that this is my favorite Choices series of all time. And even that bias aside, I can in good faith consider this one of Choices’ best-made series too. 

Buckle up bitches, this is gonna be a long one. But I’ll try to keep it as concise as I can and break it up into each of the aspects that make the series so great. 

First, the MC. 

I do genuinely consider them among Choices’ best MCs. Probably unpopular opinion, but them being a blank slate works heavily in their favor, as it allows their character to be more flexible to what kind of character and story routes the player wants for them. You have different kinds of options in how you respond to things, a lot of which do have a significant impact on the actual story outcomes. The MC is a sort of an audience-surrogate character, but in a way that takes advantage of the interactive story medium and allows them to be proactive in the story, rather than making them bland or obnoxious or passive and then passing that off as self-insertable like a lot of modern stories try to do. 

Although there can be some noticeable traits reminiscent of a Mary Sue type character, they’re very minimal and never overbearing. The story rarely if ever makes a big deal of MC being popular, rather than turning them into some OP god/goddess where everyone else just blindly worships the very air they breathe. For the most part, being popular and winning hoco/GoH/prom are simply just bonus things for the MC rather than the crux of their entire character. 

Yeah, they can initially seem “too perfect”, but they’re really only perfect if you make them that way. You can make them do things like slip Koh’s secret to Isa, treat the incoming Hearst kids poorly, or be shit at their activity. You even get a few more gray decisions such as whether or not to turn in Myra or who to side with during the basketball game. And most of them do have consequential outcomes. Maybe not as major as the outcomes of stories like ILS or TH:M, but enough that they do significantly alter the story experience. I legitimately have so many different routes and versions of the MC I wanna try out in this series.

Second, all of the supporting/side characters. 

Along with ES, ILITW, and TH:M, OG HSS is one of few stories where having a large cast is handled well and benefits the story more than harms it. Although the high school environment can be a bit cliquey and some of the characters are based off of typical high school stereotypes, they each feel like their own unique individual person and there’s even a lot of subversion of the stereotypes they’re based on. The jocks aren’t all just meatheaded alpha males; the cheerleaders aren’t all just snobby mean girls; the nerds, despite being more sidelined, aren’t pathetic losers; and each of the LIs have some depth to their supposed high school stereotype traits. 

Aiden and Michael are my two most favorite LIs of all time. Aiden’s route especially is really genuine and earned and develops at a good pace, and I could probably make a separate post just about him alone. But really, all the LIs have some amazing growth arcs. And they, as well as all the side characters, are overall just interesting, down-to-earth, and memorable characters. Julian, Payton, Mia, Frank, Myra, Jade, and the rest all feel like distinct characters that I feel like I have actual reasons to give a damn about. Lest we forget the non-student characters. Characters like MC’s dad and Principal Hughs are especially iconic too, and give the story its own extra warmth and just that little touch of campiness. 

Even the antagonists were pretty compelling– although they maybe weren’t all the most common or realistic kinds of antagonists, the conflicts they created still felt believable and threatening, and they were utilized in their roles relatively well. Brian, Zoe, Isa, Max, and Kara are all characters where I can actually care about what they do. 

Third, the extracurricular activity system. 

This technically goes hand-in-hand with the MC, but it’s a big part of why this series is so immersive and God-tier for me that it deserves its own section too. There are quite a handful of choices in this series that have an impact on the story, but this one is by far the strongest one and it gives the story and MC a lot of flexibility and variance. 

Each book, you can choose sports, band, or cheer, and it gives you a very different experience of the story. Book 1 gives you a different conflict for each activity. Book 2, you don’t really get involved in your activity much, but it does affect how you may experience Isa’s reign and how characters will respond to which stances you take. Book 3 has pretty much the same base conflict in each activity, but the characters are all different enough that it does feel pretty distinct. 

 Not to mention that the different activities can give extra scenes with certain LIs. Romancing Aiden as a jock is still pretty damn good and I love it, but romancing Aiden as a band kid hits so much differently. You get extra interactions with him, a few more opportunities to score romance points, and you can feel this bit of extra connection between him and your MC. There’s a scene during the band concert where just before you play his song, they say that “you see a glint in his eyes that you haven’t seen before”, and after you finish playing it you see “his eyes gleam with pride”. 

Bonus points also for sports and cheer both being open to both m!MC and f!MC; getting to be a female football jock is very euphoric for me. Although I’d have loved more female jock rep and male cheerleader rep besides MC, Emma in Book 1 if you do the football route, Jade, Kieran, and one or two one-offs, it’s still incredibly enjoyable. Especially with how un-sensationalized it is– the jock guys on the team don’t pathologize or patronize or tokenize my f!jock MC– they just treat her as yet another normal part of the team. Which is how it should be. I haven’t done a male cheerleader MC route yet but I think it’s fair to assume that the same applies there. 

Obviously, this is probably not realistic to how most high school sports would work, but who gives a shit? It’s still believable and still makes the experience much more unique and enjoyable. In fact, nowadays there are some people advocating for sports to have a similar system to wrestling weight classes instead of gender/sex-based divisions, so if anything, this is kind of ahead of its time. To quote Caleb Mitchell, “If you’ve got the speed, who cares if you’re a guy or a girl?” 

Fourth, the storylines themselves. 

They’re not super emotionally deep or realistic stories, but that’s okay. They’re really fun and engaging, and if anything, that’s why they work so well. They’re able to think outside the box for what can be done within the high school setting. So we get situations that are fun and exciting and escapist, but never get overly absurd or juvenile or feel cheap in their conflicts, and are made to feel grounded with characters that are very down-to-earth and human. 

It’s a very idealized high school experience for sure, but it’s not without humanity or conflict and challenges, and overall it does feel organic. It makes you actually want to attend that high school, which is a pretty damn good accomplishment considering IRL high school more often than not is a traumatic experience for a lot of us. HSS is basically “high school but if it were actually good”. 

A lot of the conflicts are seemingly basic high school drama, but we see how it can have a very real influence on the characters and their personal struggles. Such as how band in-fighting and a screwed up half-time performance basically sends Aiden into a near breakdown over his fear of failure and strive for perfection in music. Or how the Ollie the Tiger statue being vandalized is deeply upsetting to Michael due to Berry being the one high school that was the most welcoming to him and his desire to preserve that. Or how people’s low energy for homecoming causes Maria to get frustrated and eventually snap from struggling with her leadership roles. Even if these situations are unrealistic to your average high school, it sure as hell is believable. Sometimes, it’s those seemingly small or petty issues that can be taking the biggest tolls on us. 

Fifth, no smut scenes. 

I mean, it makes sense, since I don’t think it would go down well for PB if they wrote smut of under-18 characters. But as someone who does not like how PB writes smut, I’m fine with that. Even if these guys were 18+, I wouldn’t want PB’s mediocre formulaic-ass smut writing to ruin the LI scenes, especially since characters like Aiden and Michael are my all-time favorites of Choices LIs. 

Granted the 30 diamond scenes we do get aren’t exactly immune to being formulaic either (I swear to God if they make my MC sit in Michael’s lap one more goddamn time instead of the other way around I will actually die on the spot), but it’s a lot less… glaring here. And frankly, I prefer it that way. Leave the NSFW bits (if any) of their relationships up to interpretation. 

Sixth, its relevance to its past installment, AKA the original High School Story mobile game. 

For the most part, I think it bridges pretty well with HSS Prime. I actually played Choices HSS before I heard about and downloaded the Prime game, and even then, I found all of the returning Prime characters like Julian, Mia, Ezra, Payton, Koh, etc. to be really memorable. Even Nishan and Sakura, who barely had relevance in the trilogy, were endearing to me. Hence going into the Prime game was like delving into the HSS lore and getting “The Origin Story” of the seniors and the school. 

Heck, I’d even say some of the characters– Julian, Mia, Koh, and Sakura in particular– got a bit of upgrade in Choices, being more mature from how they were in Prime. Honest to God, stuff like Julian’s over-machoness and Mia’s snobbishness could get pretty grating in Prime. While the Prime versions were obviously all more fleshed-out characters, seeing them the way they are in Choices is sort of like seeing how far they’ve come from how they were in Prime. Which I think is a pretty neat way for us to see them off as they’re about to graduate.

Returning for a second HSS playthrough after playing a fair amount of the Prime game, I was later able to notice all the Easter Eggs that showed up in the OG trilogy- Wes and Autumn’s history, Koh’s relationship with her grandma, Koh’s love for buffalo wings, etc. They were able to keep the two very connected, while still allowing OG to be able to stand on its own two feet. 

I also love how they make it so that the switch from the old MC and cast to the new MC and cast feels justified. The writers knew that taking HSS to Choices would need to be welcoming to both old and new fans, and to try and make the Choices trilogy continue the story of the Prime MC probably would have made that a bit more difficult. So they write off the Prime MC as having graduated the year prior and sort of set up the implication that the new cast was being “passed down the torch to unify Berry and take on Hearst”. Which works because it maintains some grounded relevance to the HSS franchise, but doesn’t alienate the fans who are new to HSS. 

It’s not perfect and it did have its shortcomings, but for the most part, it did feel like it was truly a part of HSS. 

Of course, the trilogy as a whole isn’t without its flaws. There are actually quite a handful of problems ranging from minor nitpicky general Choices problems to a couple that are pretty glaring. I think I’m gonna make a separate post for that, so stay tuned for “Everything right and wrong with each of the HSS Books”. But for the most part, they don’t really bring down the series all that much. 

Overall, I definitely consider this one of the best Choices series. It’s fun, escapist, immersive, a lot of your choices actually fucking matter, and it’s a good continuation of the HSS franchise.

#choices stories you play #choices #choices game #choices stories we play fandom #high school story #choices stories we play #hss #choices hss #choices high school story #cadybear's choices reviews

[covecornerarchive]

corbinthemysterypirate asked:

I wanna know, since it seems that most people don't really realize this but, are there any other kids in candle cove. And if so has Janice ever met them, how does she react to others?

Ok, I can only really speak for my au, not other people's, but yes there are other kids in candle cove besides Janice, it's just that she's the only one there from our world.

I know on the wiki Nathan is mentioned as another kid member of the Laughingstock Crew who was Janice's neighbor in the real world, but because I think that's kind of distracting and takes away from Janice being the focus of the story (and creates a HUGE plot hole for my au's world building) in my version he's also a puppet like everyone else. He's also a little older than Janice in my version, about 13 (just to make sense out of why Calvary seems more chill with him being on the crew than Janice at first), and while he and Janice are pretty close friends and can come to each other as kids about stuff in a way they can't with the other adults I also cut the tid-bit about them having a crush on each other out cuz, again I made him older and it felt like another distracting thing.

There's also Auburn! I don't nearly talk about her as much as I should considering how much she rots my brain (again just referring to her in my own au not the wiki). In my version Thade and Lillian aren't her biological parents, but rather she was a stowaway on the Tarantula ship (for reasons I'll get into later) and was just sort of...adopted by the crew over time? Lillian did practically become her mom and while it's more difficult to discern what relationship she had with Thade, since I hesitate to call him a dad sometimes because they feel like a more terrorizing little sister and very tired older brother duo, they were all family none the less. This also means Auburn was there for Red Mary's attack on the crew though, and along with Thade and Percy, was the only survivor (though the other two aren't aware of this and presumed her to be dead since they were separated).

I can't really get into her too much since I also have a big sequel au where the good guys and bad guys team up to defeat Red Mary and Auburn is involved in a big way, but the basic gist is after the attack she was just on a hellbent path for revenge which ended up getting her involved in a bunch of magic stuff, as well as hurting others and herself. In the same au she does end up joining the team and by this time both her and Janice are a bit older, Janice 14 and Auburn 16, but they actually get along great. Much like how Janice has Thade parallels in her characterization and story arc, Auburn has a lot of parallels to Lillian in the same way, so the two of them have a similary dynamic personality wise. Janice honestly just thinks Auburn is super cool and learns much more about magic and abyssians through her, and Janice helps Auburn give herself a break and move past some of the survivors guilt from the attack on the crew and how she was never able to avenge her mother on her own. I think they may also bond over losing their moms at young ages and having to live without them.

I've always loved to imagine Janice, Nathan, and Auburn just being this super chaotic trio of rag tag kids doing pirate crimes and getting into trouble. Auburn is usually the one to start chaos, Nathan tries to stop her, and while Janice helps her with it she's also usually the one to get them all out of it. It's their thing :] They should have like....a "Traumatized pirate kids who have been through some shit" therapy group they all need it.

Also, even though in my version she never actually makes it to the cove itself, me and a few friends on discord have come up with this sort of spin off story focusing on Melrose and what's happening back in Ohio after Janice goes missing that has more of that og candle cove cursed tv show feel than the main candle cove story I have where the feel is more aligned with grimm fairytales.

It's basically Melrose, who's going through guilt hell after Janice goes missing, seeing her sister in candle cove on the TV one day, basically the actual candle cove show described in the og creepypasta. Because everyone else only sees static though, she feels like she's going crazy, until one day a kid from school tells her "I saw your sister on TV too." From there Mel and a few other kids who have also witnessed the show (all oc's I'll share later) form this little group aiming to figure out what the hell's going on and to hopefully get Janice back from where ever she went. It sort of has that 80's horror movie vibe with the group of kids banding together over weird shit happening to them and having to solve a mystery or face off against something evil before it's too late. It's fun, it'll be fun I'm definitely not going to drag them all through trauma.

(April 12, 2022)

[mar64ds]

can you go in-depth about every untitled story idea featuring your OCs you have?

Oh my god!! Thank you so much for asking! I love to talk about them!

I’ve just talked a little bit about ‘A Loving House’ so I will talk about the others, I have other 4 main stories! Maybe 5… I’m still thinking about it. One of them does have a name but yeah the others still don’t have titles. Warning: this is very very long and I’ll probably not express all my ideas really well lol

-The Big Bad Bird: So this story does have a title! The title is a bit essential to the story, even if it just seems like the bird version of ‘the big bad wolf’, there is a bit more meaning to it…

This is a story about two arch nemesis, an evil supervillain wolf and a fun even if rather chaotic bird. The idea of the story is that they are a very typical hero and villain duo: villain tries to kill hero, hero outsmarts villain, hero wins, and this repeats again and again in every episode. But the thing is, at some point these two characters realize that they have formed a strong bond, that when they are alone and upset the person that is always there for them is the other, even if it’s to annoy or to fight to death, they are there. It’s a found family kind of relationship, Wolf becomes some sort of parental figure to Bird.

Wolf is a distant, cold and grumpy wolf. Wolf is really not dumb, that’s not the kind of villain I’m trying to write with him, he does get frustrated and angry pretty easily and he can be petty, but he’s not stupid, you do believe he is a pretty capable supervillain. Wolf is most of all very theatrical, he likes to put on a good show

Bird is cheerful, positive and energetic but they are not exactly the nicest person ever, they pull pranks and are pretty chaotic and things like that, although it’s not out of malice, they just can come across as rude and mischievous

The thing that is interesting about this ‘enemies to family’ dynamic is that it’s usually the villain who struggles to accept they care about the hero, and yeah Wolf does deny it at first but he’s quick to accept it, the one who really struggles with this is Bird. I won’t get into spoilers, but Bird is someone who has been rejected by so many people so many times that they have kind of gave up… so now they annoy people on purpose, because better to be hated than to be ignored, right? So they really don’t know how to… let someone care about them? They don’t like it! It’s strange! They are used to have fun annoying people because they have adapted well to not being cared for by anyone, what are they supposed to do now?!

The idea for this story is that it would be a… miniseries? It would be 10 chapters/episodes long. The first ones would follow a pretty episodic formula, Wolf tries to kill Bird, it doesn’t work, Bird wins. Then in episode 5 you start to see that maybe their relationship can be a bit more deep and complicated than just your typical saturday morning cartoon hero and villain. Bird seems to be more complex than it seems, Wolf seems to have a good side, things like that. So the next episodes are silly too but they have a bunch of a bit more serious and emotional scenes where they get to learn and understand each other better, and maybe even help. No spoilers for the last two episodes but oh boy……. I really like them, they are good I think.

-Story about a demon cat and a normal dad mouse.

A mouse finds a little cat one day. It’s alone, hungry and hurt. He feels bad for it so he takes care of it and grows attached to it so he adopts the little cat. Of course, everyone has that worry in mind, won’t the cat want to eat mice at some point? Well, don’t worry! The cat grows up and it doesn’t seem like it wants to eat mice, or rats or anything like that! This is great news, and the cat is loved by all the mice and gets along with the other cats too, all seems to go well.

However, recently there has been news of a creature that is feeding on humans. Weird. There are news everywhere about this, the humans are scared and it worries the animals too. Just what the hell is this creature? Hahah it couldn’t possibly be-

Yeah it’s the cat. You might have figured out that this is not a normal cat. This is in fact a demon… cat? So its origin story is very silly, but I wanted to capture a story with absurd comedy and a little bit of horror. The animals don’t talk in this story, only the humans that occasionally show up, but there are two humans that are important characters too! One is a scientist, who wanted to play god and bring a creature to live, the other one is her girlfriend, who is goth and wanted to try to summon a demon because her friends have done that before and she was feeling left out. So one day they find a dead cat and decide they could save it! Science wasn’t enough so they tried the demon thing and it worked! But the cat ran away. Well, as long as the cat was okay I guess it’s okay- oh god it’s eating people now. They have to find it now and look for a solution to this!

The little mouse guy… how is he doing? Well, not great. He slowly figures out his kid is the human-eating monster and it’s pretty pretty tense. And after he knows it’s even worse. What’s he supposed to do now? Despite eating humans the cat is… nice, it’s sweet, kind and it’s his kid, he loves it. If anyone finds out the cat is the monster they’ll take it away and maybe even hurt it

The girls and the mouse want what's best for the cat, it’s some of the other humans and the animals who they need to worry about, and maybe even the cat itself might become a bigger problem.

Perhaps there is a way for the cat to turn back to normal but if that works… would it want to eat mice?

-Story about a group of minions that work for a supervillain. This is my favorite one aaaaagh!! I want a tv show about this, I would sell this idea and someone else could do it just so I could see it on tv, this is just ‘my favorite things ever’ the story

We have a bunch of stories from the point of view of the villains, but the formula of this story it’s a bit different: we only see these minions BEFORE or AFTER an evil plan. It’s not about the evil plan, it’s not about seeing them try to conquer the world or defeat the heroes, it’s about seeing their everyday lives. Living with co-workers, cleaning up after a tough battle, the consequences of an evil plan backfiring, the enthusiasm before executing an evil plan, work struggles, personal struggles, etc.

This is a story with a large number of characters, think of the muppets, like that, there are a lot of different muppets but there is also the main ones, that’s kind of where I’m going for with this story. But even if there are central characters, I do want the secondary or even background characters to shine at least once, think of ‘villain of the week’, but instead of said villain being an antagonist they are just the main focus. It also makes me think about ‘Ojamajo Doremi’ and how that show has a lot of episodes that focus on the different classmates Doremi has and not just on the main characters, I kind of want to do that.

So, the three main minion characters are:

-Primary and Hellmet. Primary is a drawing that came to life, doesn’t care that much about the evil plans, they mostly just want to have fun. She can break the laws of physics since she is a drawing after all. While pretty energetic, he also has some sort of sarcastic humor. He likes teasing others but not to the point of upsetting someone, they are a genuine good friend. They can be a bit insecure but don’t worry she hides it well (give her a hug please)

-Hellmet is a pretty powerful monster, like one of the strongest people you could have in a supervillain army. And the thing is, they love being a monster! But there is one problem, they don’t mind being a monster but they DON’T want to be like their parents, who were awful to them and others. So in a way, they want to improve themself, break the circle, but in their own strange clumsy way. For example, if they are fighting someone in a restaurant, the fight will be intense, but then before leaving they will tip the waiters, because it’s the nice thing to do. They seem pretty serious but they are genuinely trying to be nice to their coworkers all the time

-He is a motivational speaker/life coach, who accepted this job as an employee on this supervillain base. He thinks that if anyone really needs motivation it’s the minions of a supervillain, who lose everyday over and over again, he feels bad for them and cares for them and is kind of impressed by them, so he sticks around. He can be kind of anxious but he has his feet on the ground. He is usually the person with the most common sense and that finds the solutions to stuff the fastest. He is pretty much Kermit the frog

I have some ideas so far for the secondary or background minion characters, here are a few but I need to think about a lot more of them, this is just the beginning:

-Croak Frog. This OC is pretty old, he has a name. So the idea of this character is that he is actually on the side of the good guys, let me explain. Croak Frog is someone who is willing to play the role of a villain just so someone else can be the hero. He loves comic books, he knows a hero goes through a character development thanks to adversity, he wants to help people that way, find that inner hero everyone has inside of them and he will be the villain if he has to. Of course, he has to pretend he is a true villain with his coworkers, but some of them can tell what’s going on

-A good guy that was captured by the villains, hoping that someone would try to rescue them and defeat them. But… no one showed up to save this guy. They felt so bad that they offered them any help, support, money or maybe they could even stayed with them. They now live here with the rest of the minions and they don’t really do much other than be sad, sarcastic and tired. They don’t really work for the boss, they are just here

Since this is a story that focuses a lot on the everyday life, we don’t see that much of the actual hero that defeats them. He always defeats them off-screen and is the person they always need to worry about, but he’s not a big focus. I imagine the hero as very similar to Super Mario, he is nice and simple, he probably has his own family and friends too. He does show up sometimes but he’s not a main character

So apart from the minions, the good guys we do focus on are the neighbors. The evil base they live in, well, they have regular neighbors living in regular houses. Three in particular:

-Pink otter. She is a sweet, positive and loving girl that spreads kindness and positivity and cuteness everywhere. So… she’s pretty much the opposite of a super villain. Kind of similar to Wander over yonder, she’s just really nice and that can be the kryptonite of a bad guy, or maybe they just like her so much they just let her do whatever she wants even if they are in the ‘before or after’ of an evil plan. She believes in kindness but she’s not naïve, if you are being too much of a jerk she will call you out. She loves nerdy stuff and she is very creative (she loves drawing fanart and writing fanfics and things like that, but also her own personal art). She can be a bit insecure and socially anxious but she has good close friends that can take those insecurities away

-Green bunny. She is pink otter’s best friend and roommate. Best way I can describe her is she is very similar to Pipimi from Pop Team Epic. She can easily emotionally destroy any bad guy at any second. But other than that she is very sweet and loyal to her friends, and she is overall really really cute. She struggles a bit with depression as well, but her close friends help with that too

-grumpy crocodile. I have the design in mind but I haven’t drawn it yet. Basically really similar to characters like Susie or Mad Rat, I just love grumpy or rude characters that are genuinely really nice people. This crocodile is very distant and doesn’t like to be bothered but they do care about others. They get mad pretty easily, but they can be very easy-going as well

A lot of times, the three neighbors are the ones that really stop the evil plan. For example, if the villains steal water for one of their plans, but grumpy crocodile wants to take a shower, they go to the castle to demand them to bring back the water or find a way to bring it back themself, not to play the hero, it’s just neighbor problems. Although sometimes if the plan is way too dangerous then yeah they need to play the hero even if they don’t really want to.

Speaking of heroes, the minions do have a boss, or other more powerful unkind individuals.

This is their boss, he is a very powerful supervillain, and while yes there is a comedic side to him, he is a really good villain. Think of Bowser, he has his funny side and he always loses, but we all consider him a good antagonist!

Despite how serious and powerful he is, he is also a very very petty person that has a lot of drama in his personal life. From exes, to rivals, to friends, to family members, etc. He gets very consumed in his worries about his image and reputation, he can get distracted from his evil plans because of this. For example, his ex could be the mayor of a town that has just built a nice fountain. Well, he NEEDS to build an even nicer fountain now in his kingdom, forget all the other plans, his kingdom needs to be BETTER. Things like that

Then there is this funny little creature. He has a VERY complicated long backstory, but basically, he is practically a god. He has infinite power and because of that, he is bored. He doesn’t try to do good or evil, he just wants to be entertained, and yeah that entertainment can be cruel sometimes. He only uses his powers to make things more entertaining, so you know, way more complicated. He bothers both villains and heroes

At one point, he gets to know pink otter, and for the first time in a long time, he genuinely cares about someone. She is really nice, she is really sincere, she is really passionate, he really likes her. She loves fictional stories and in his own way he can relate because he finds real people drama’s entertaining. They have that sort of Molly McGee and Scratch dynamic

My idea of storytelling would be comics. This is a pretty episodic story but I do have storylines and character arcs in mind. It would be mostly comedic but it has a lot of sweet and emotional moments. This is NOT a mean-spirited series, I just can’t write things like that, even when they are mean they are pretty nice. Again, if I could, I’d let a tv studio steal this idea from me just so I could watch a tv show about this

+ Story about a villain and a hero being roomates

So I’m not sure if I should include this one in the previous story, it works really well there too, but maybe I should just make it its on separate series.

The basic idea is that a supervillain and a hero live together, so everyday they go to work, villain tries to conquer the world and kill hero, hero wins every single time… then you go home and you have to live together and have roommate problems. It’s like a sitcom

Now why would they live together? I have two possible answers. If this took place in the other story, they could be cursed to live together by the puppet character, you know, he has god powers and likes being entertained, of course he would do this. If this takes place in another universe, then it would just be a joke about how the economy is so terrible they just have to live together

If this is a separated story then it would be a series of episodic comics, there is no story in this one, maybe from time to time there could be an arc, but this would be a silly comedic comic

-Story about being aromantic lol

I don’t know much about this one, just a series of comics about a duo that talk about aro experiences

Aaaand that's it! Thank you so much for giving me an excuse to rant about this, and if you have read all of this thanks again!

#my ocs

[phantastragoria]

Hey I’m not sure don’t remember if I sent this too you already or if I sent it to someone else but if I didn’t, I’d like to ask, what would you want in a sequel to the 2021 guardians game if they made one in terms of gameplay, characters and story?

Omg what don't I want LOL. This is opening the floodgates of my mind so reader beware, you're in for rambling insanity...

I'd want it to heavily focus on Nikki! I feel the first game boils down to being her story and I'd like if we continued that but with her having a more direct presence, obviously. Eidos Montréal giving Pete a daughter is the realest outcome ever they were so right for that and I desperately need to see his cringefail dad escapades of figuring out how to raise an emotional preteen girl like this is literally a sitcom setup I NEED to see the outcome of it all.

Joking aside I really want to see how Nikki actually is on the team (Is she allowed on missions? Is she a goofus like her dad and running off into danger??) and how she's dealing with everything post the Magus/Promise/Church shenanigans. The teen years are already really hard to navigate, especially for a young girl, but also adding on having been a bit sheltered from growing up on a Nova Corps ship AND going through the events of the first game... It's definitely going to be rough as hell and I really doubt the Guardians' chaotic lifestyle would help at all. And what's with her immediate connection to the soul stone/gem when it hurt everyone else? Something is going on there with her origins...

I don't want Gamora getting defaulted to a mother figure, but I'd like to see how her and Nikki get along, if at all. I'm sure she's crazy protective of her even if she's not projecting onto her as bad anymore but... only time will tell.

A thought that might not be important to anyone else, but I hope there's a discussion about how Peter needs to deal with Nikki's schooling. I'm sure he'd want better for her than he had had (see- no education past the 7th grade because of the whole being imprisoned thing.) I really really hope he DOESN'T decide to homeschool her though 😵‍💫 She deserves an actual education, but... the Guardians are poor so I'm sure it's going to be a problem of some sort and a struggle unless there's resources for that in their version of the Andromeda galaxy. 🤔

The most important thing ever... I need Drax to learn a musical instrument (saxophone) for fun. Our world will never be at peace until we get to hear him play a little musical tune for real. The character has existed since the 70s and I have no clue as to what kind of jazz music he even played... please let him play :( Less important (jk) but are the eternals like Mentor going to get on his case for not finishing the job with Thanos..?

Obviously, i want to know whatever is up with Richard Rider and his absence. The way the first game continually references him... I don't particularly want it to only devolve into romance, but i do want to know more about what sort of relationship he had with Gamora and exactly why he just vanished without a word to her about it.

Also, why does Peter seem to dislike him? Have they met beforehand? Is he just uncomfortable with another human?? Was he an extreme weirdo to Peter if they had met for real before??? (In the prequel novel Peter saw him during a 3D communications thing, but they didn't speak to each other.) I need answers!!! I want to assume wherever he went, he left willingly, considering he left his Nova helmet with Tivan... but why he trusted the Collector with that, I'm unsure and find it suspicious.

I've seen people suggest there's an obvious setup to some sort of infinity stone/gem and Thanos plot but I dunno... I definitely want to know where the hell his goofy ass went and it'd likely deal with that but if anything, I very much feel the plot would be dealing with more fallout of the War + recent Magus stuff that happened BUT especially dealing with political unease. Specifically the Spartoi Empire and why they went into extreme isolation, cutting themselves off from the dozens of planets they had under their control. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of there being another plot revolving partly around another single stone/gem, or one making a small appearance at the very least, however.

I'm not sure how it'd come together but I think it'd be fun if Mantis + Lady Hellbender + Adam/Pip and Nikki had a B-Team sort of moment if the main team was incapacitated. I'd also be remiss to not mention wanting to see a sort of Infinity Watch reunion/meetup if Heather makes an appearance.

And related to the above, I'd like if we got a moment where specifically Pete is out of commission and we have to play as someone else, if even for only a single chapter (I would love a stealth-like segment where you play as Gamora. Maybe if the team ends up on Spartax she has to snoop around for information?) I do acknowledge that'd be a hard sell for the devs though to add in a completely new gameplay style for just a singular short segment, so I could live without it.

I WOULD like to note I'm in the minority of players who like Peter being the main player character however! I'm biased in finding the concept of the element guns so fun and wanting to be the devil on his shoulder telling him what to say or do lol. That said, I WOULD like to see the base gameplay style expanded upon, especially if it went more of a puzzle focused route! I'm not good at explaining what I'm visualizing in my head, but I doodled a quick diagram that hopefully gets the point across of what I mean about that LOL.

AND!! This is something that bothered me gameplay wise with the first game, with how you can't backtrack to previous levels with your element gun upgrades. This makes sense in-universe since the plot is one linear story but the element additions don't even roll over to New Game+!!! I am haunted by those teal cat beasts on Seknarf-Nine having an elemental weakness icon above their heads and how you can't go back and beat them with plasma and such 😔 I also think it would just add fun replayability and encouragement to find new puzzles in old levels when you get new elements. Maybe this is how you could find more outfit boxes in previously locked off areas? Speaking of outfits...

I NEED new costumes AND all the previous ones used in the first game to be included... this is not a want it is an absolute need. There are so many possibilities for outfits, there's too many to even list here. One outfit related suggestion I have is that, not necessarily having to swap every part of an outfit for different ones, but I'd like to be able to change helmets/hats/hair separately from the clothes themselves. That last one isn't a need, though. I just want more dress up options lol.

Maybe an inclusion of silly in-game visual filters? Like a black and white mode or a faded 70s filter, perhaps one with harsh dark shadows and saturated colors... I doubt this is possible and it's definitely not needed, but who knows where game development will be by the time a sequel happens! (I'd also like silly cheat codes... let me fly out of bounds in godmode and explore the level boundries... jk)

I'd like if the music choices started including 90s/2000s music, perhaps through Nikki collecting Earth junk and her bonding with Peter through that? Very inconsequential, but I would like it if Peter found out that the Star-Lord band DID make a new album at some point and he just never knew. He needs a small win in his little fanboy life (I feel deep within that this metaphorical album would have a blue cover... don't ask me why it just feels right.)

Quick last second list of people I would like to see appear/have some form of significance in the plot:

1. VICTORIA OF SPARTAX!!! Genuinely I want to see her more than anyone, even more than Richard (RICHIE IM SORRY!) I just need to see someone actually write her with respect and not as the second to her brother 😭 I'm absolutely certain she exists in this universe, so please...

2. Phyla-Vell (either as this universe's Captain Marvel or as the new Quasar incase something happened to Wendell between the first and metaphorical second game- Personally I think it would be more creative getting to see how Eidos would adapt Quasar's abilities.)

3. Heather/Moondragon (WHAT is she up to since her Nova Records mark her current whereabouts as unknown? From the same Records she's already been connected to the Dragon of the Moon and -was- prophesized as one out of three people to be the Celestial Madonna, but Mantis holds that title. Did they already fight over the right to it?)

4. SHIP/Aurora/the sentient spaceship from Peter's original 70s comics LOL LISTEN... I have faith in the madlads at Eidos to see the potential in her... PLEASE... It would be so funny.

5. Bug (😔 I know most people don't like him but I swear we can fix him... We already know he exists in-universe by his appearance in the prequel novel AND Mantis literally stating that, in regards to making a comment about Bug during the attack on Sacrosanct "I forgot you guys haven't met him (Bug) yet." Like come on, he's out there!!!)

6. Aradia and Mors, which I know will never happen, but let me believe.

7. ANY of the cosmic/abstract entities... we already know that Lady Death exists + Eternity and The Living Tribunal are known to the general public. I'd like to know where exactly they are because it's a bit concerning that they disappeared when the War had started years ago... perhaps Thanos had a hand in that. 🤔

8. If any Heralds of Galactus happen to show up, even if briefly, I would like the current herald to be Stardust.

9. Halfworlders like Blackjack and Wal-Rus or this universe' equivalents... Theory moment, but the prequel novel confirming that similar experiments happening on Halfworld were also going on in the Mercury base during the War makes me think that they have to be out there. I'd also like to see that Lylla survived and Rocket just didn't know. It'd be nice to see her get to exist outside of being a sad backstory thing that she's been relegated as for the last decade+ in media tbqh.

AND IMPORTANTLY if we indeed get more humans or extremely humanoid aliens in the cast, we desperately need some more diversity because there's no way every single human that makes it to space is white lol...

We're nearing the end now... so miscellaneous wants:

If it wasn't obvious by all my talk of Spartax by now, I want to see what Eidos had in mind for Spartoi culture so badly because the possibilities make my mind race! There's a bunch of little things I took as hints about them scattered throughout the first game, and it's part of why I think the sequel would involve them heavily in some way.

Related to that, I need Peter to think more deeply on his connection to his element guns and the implications of what they're actually capable of. Another gameplay specific suggestion, but I'm SO extremely curious if there being two of them means he could dual-wield two elements at once if he was more confident in using them?? I've been thinking about this for everrr.

And, just throwing this out there, I think it'd be very funny if/when Peter encounters J'son he has the option to just punch him square in the jaw without saying anything LOL.

I hope the epilogue stating that Peter is teaching Groot sign language becomes a significant thing that appears in the sequel :o it'd be really cool to see ASL in a game honestly because I can't recall seeing it elsewhere... and I want the others to learn it to communicate with Groot too!

I want Jack Flag in his prison cube that was drifting off into space to crash land on a tropical planet... but he is then eaten by a space whale RIP...

Finally, Rocket and Drax should start a space Etsy account selling gadgets/knitted items. Perhaps that is how the Guardians will get out of their financial hole once and for all.

#gotg game #guardians of the galaxy game #lex thoughts #gotg thoughts #universe: eidos game #none167 #ask tag #genuinely so sorry for disappearing for so long... ive thought about this ask ever since i got it 😭 #thank u for letting me ramble about the game literally i need a sequel so bad. i will wait as long as it takes to get it. #what would YOU like to see from a possible sequel dear readers?? i also wanna know #kept everything in me to not go on a whole thing about wanting more gay stuff but also i want way more gayness. that's very important to me #peter has the perfect opportunity come to terms being a cringefail single bi dad it's right there in front of him... #and when richard gets involved... well... #this all sounds so peter focused because i suck but i wanna know where the others could end up too!! l #there's sooo many things to explore i cant keep it all in. -passes out- #long post #if phylla and heather end up both appearing id like it to be their first meeting and us getting to see them bond/date btw. it could be swee #also what is kammy's deal... my current theory is that she's an aspect of an abstract entity or one of them cursed into a beast-like form. #or shes just an evil looking but normal galaxius omnipacus. it could go both ways really #... she eats through metal... can she eat vibranium lol... #the fear i felt in how i thought i lost this omg for some reason this overwrote the other ask you had sent when i saved it as a draft??? #not complaining IM GLAD THIS WAS SAVED AFTER ALL LOL #anyway. thank u for asking 🫶 i hope this makes a little bit of coherent sense LOL #genuinely i have too many wants and thoughts on a sequel... so many possibilities...

[cringecompanionapologist]

Cradle of the Snake Part ???: A Break to Talk About Turlough Headcanons and It'll Make Sense Later I Swear

Once again, I took a lot of screenshots. I've decided to avoid some of the tangents I could go on and try to focus primarily on Turlough stuff, though I might get sidetracked along the way anyway.

I'm actually going to start with a bit of a tangent about Turlough's arc. Turlough is one of the few classic companions with a clear arc, but most of the televised arc is confined to the Black Guardian Trilogy and Planet of Fire. The writers didn't know what to do with him, so they kind of stalled on his arc until they needed to wrap it up.

Big Finish audios have since done what Big Finish audios often do, expanding on the arc, but the audios don't always follow a clear chronological order like the TV episodes do. You know for certain, even if there's room between stories, that Warriors of the Deep occurs sometime after The King's Demons and sometime before The Awakening, for example.

A lot of Big Finish audios come in trilogies, allowing for a brief period of time when things are clear. The Nyssa/Tegan/Turlough stories are a series of trilogies that all take place one after the other. This means that pretty much everything between Mawdryn Undead and The Entropy Plague can be placed in order. After that, things get more vague. If a story has Kamelion in it, it would have to be after The King's Demons, but plenty of stories without Kamelion take place after The King's Demons. So, it gets confusing.

When you can't put a character's stories in order, it's difficult to give them an arc. Sometimes characters seem to go backwards. After Freakshow, Tegan's attitude towards Turlough resets for Cobwebs. For this reason, even though Turlough's arc is fleshed out, it's still a bit vague.

Turlough's arc is also hindered by the fact that his backstory, which has a lot to unpack, isn't revealed until his last story, leaving a lot of interesting material off-limits. Kiss of Death tries to play with Turlough's backstory but has to add on awkward "Turlough decides to never mention this again" at the end, to avoid contradicting Planet of Fire. The only way to really resolve this would be to do something with Turlough similar to what was done with Nyssa: Have him come back for a while for some adventures post-Planet of Fire, where the Doctor knows his backstory and it can be discussed openly. There's an old Choose Your Own Adventure type of book that features 6 and Peri, and Turlough is with them without explanation. Some actual 6/Peri/Turlough adventures could actually be fun.

See? I got sidetracked.

Anyway, because Turlough's arc is so vague and inconsistent, pretty much by necessity, you can kind of interpret it however you like. I'm going to have to sort of explain my take on Turlough's arc, because it affects my take on The Cradle of the Snake.

I'll try to keep things short under the cut.

So, what I consider to be my version of Turlough's arc. It's probably not what was intended, but what was intended was intended by many different people. There are no rules and I can do what I want.

Turlough had a pretty sheltered childhood before the civil war. He never really had to be afraid of anything. He didn't know much about the world outside whatever palace he was living in. He had servants to do everything for him and guards to protect him. He also had his family, his mom and dad and at least one older sibling that he could also turn to for comfort and support.

Then the war happened. His mom died and his family was scattered. The war was a revolution against the Imperial Clans, so many working class people who served the Imperial Clansmen probably turned against them to pursue a better life. Fair enough. Good for them. But from the perspective of a sheltered child, his mother was murdered and the people who were supposed to protect him joined the side of the murderers. In all the chaos, with all the adults focused on getting out of the war alive, nobody tries to comfort the grieving child. The guards and servants are gone. Parents, teachers, family friends, all either dead or too busy with the war effort to spend any time on him. Turlough suddenly finds himself completely alone.

So, he learns to take care of himself. He learns to fight, joining the military even. He has to take care of himself because no one else will. It's not easy. Everywhere he turns, it feels like someone wants to hurt him. He's from an Imperial Clan and that alone means that people want him dead. The Imperial Clans are apparently scientists. He's an intellectual who probably never expected to have to fight. That's what guards are for. People fight for the Imperial Clans. Not anymore. They have to defend themselves now and they really don't stand a chance. The violence is scary. Turlough finds himself running away a lot. He keeps letting people down, so they reject him.

Turlough gets taken prisoner at the end of the war. The prison guards probably aren't very nice to their former oppressors. There's violence, abuse of power, it's ugly. Eventually, Turlough lashes out, speaks out against the revolutionaries, and is sentenced to exile. He's exiled to a school instead of a penal colony because whoever judged his case decided that he was too young to really know any better and can be reeducated. They send him to a primitive planet where the name Turlough means nothing. He'll have to learn to live without privilege, like the common Trion people.

Of course, since an English public school is a place full of privileged kids, this doesn't exactly work. Turlough's met with the opposite extreme. He's nobody and his classmates are his superiors. Furthermore, the culture of the school is a bad fit for Turlough. Sports are mandatory and he's still not used to doing anything physical. He also struggles with Earth's atmosphere, so he's weaker than he was on Trion. He's bad at sports and doesn't like them. He doesn't fit in with his peers and goes against the school's values. He's bullied and the adults do nothing to stop it. Suffering builds character, in their minds, and Turlough has a bad attitude that needs to be "corrected". Turlough already had a mindset that he had to look out for himself because no one else would, but Brendon makes him double down on that.

After a few years of this, Turlough is worn down, becoming severely depressed. He can't escape the school. He realizes that he probably wouldn't mind being dead. He doesn't hurt himself. His self-preservation instincts probably won't let him, but it's getting to around that point.

This is when the Black Guardian shows up. He's a Guardian, able to pass himself off as a guardian angel, in a sense. He can get Turlough away from Brendon, away from Earth, possibly even home. He has the power to protect him from every conceivable threat. There's just one catch...

Having fought in a war, Turlough was probably involved in someone's death at some point, but it was kill or be killed. Now he's being asked to kill someone who isn't a threat to him. He soon realizes that his "protector", by being the sort of person to demand coldblooded murder, doesn't have his best interests at heart. He even lets him get taken back to Brendon.

In the process of following the Black Guardians orders, Turlough starts traveling in the TARDIS with the Doctor, who continues to be nice to him no matter how suspicious he is. When the Black Guardian decides to do away with him, the Doctor saves his life, appearing on Wrack's ship seemingly out of nowhere. He'd seen Turlough jump off the other ship and he'd gone after him. Now the Doctor seems like the guardian angel and Turlough chooses him over the potential to gain wealth and power, the power to protect himself, because no one else will. That's not true anymore. The Doctor will protect him.

But, this is the beginning of Turlough's arc, not the end. He hasn't really become a "good guy" in a conventional sense. He was never a villain, but he's not quite a hero yet. He's still scared, expecting to be bullied and attacked. He's also scared of being abandoned. His former protectors had abandoned him. He's still scared that if he doesn't became a "good guy" quickly, the Doctor might lose patience with him and he'd be alone again.

The Cradle of the Snake is still early on in Turlough's arc. He's starting to act more "heroic" at times, but that's mainly because, with the Doctor protecting him, he's not as scared as he was before. He's also formed a bit of a bond with Tegan and Nyssa, so he's capable of being brave for their sake. But, they're his fellow companions, all connected to the Doctor. The Doctor is the center of their universe. The Cradle of the Snake, with the Mara possessing the Doctor, removes that stability. Turlough is losing the Doctor. Like the Black Guardian, his protector attacked him.

That's where we are by Part 3.

#vislor turlough #the cradle of the snake #big dramatic headcanon stuff #as i've said before #the fifth doctor who is known for being the vulnerable one #who faints in every other story #is turlough's big strong protector #this doesn't always work out well for either of them

[mooncaps]

I've had a...complicated relationship with my dad over the course of my life. Today he's beginning whatever happens after this mortal life. He'd been with hospice over a month and I think I've pretty much made my peace with his passing. Within the past month or so, I've thought about that complicated relationship. To put it mildly, he did some things that shaped me into a worse version of myself than I would've otherwise been. And yet he also did some things that would ultimately lead to me finding my way to being a better version of myself than I would've otherwise been. One thing that really stands out for me is Sailor Moon.

I was getting into Sailor Moon on my own; it aired early in the morning before I went to school. One thing I'll always remember though is that my dad recorded it on VHS tapes, so I could watch the parts I had to miss when it came time to leave for school. It was a small act of kindness in the grand scheme of things, but it's something I'll never forget.

Sailor Moon inspired me as a youth, and it was also the gateway drug that helped me be open to stories like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Avatar the Last Airbender when they came along. Those stories and their fandoms had a tremendous impact in shaping me. One of my most enduring beliefs is in the power of storytelling to shape a life and even a world. Stories can inspire, they can teach, they can heal, and so much more. The stories I like bring me joy, engage my mind, and sometimes make me think about the kind of person I want to be.

There were others in my life who were eager to say that Sailor Moon wasn't the sort of thing I should be interested in. Both of my parents supported my interest though. Sailor Moon wasn't the first story I ever loved, but I view it as an important stepping stone in the path of my life. And for whatever it means, my dad was willing to be a part of that. It doesn't erase the other things that happened, but that's just how life works sometimes. Your worst enemies will sometimes do things you'd view as good and your closest companions will sometimes disappoint you. Everyone contains multitudes. I wouldn't even say the good outweighs the bad, but nevertheless there was good. And on this day, that's where I'd like to place my focus.

#Sailor Moon #stuff about me #DiC dub #Buffyverse #Avatarverse

[imnobodyuknow]

Operation Spy x Family Review: Commence!

All righty, time to share my thoughts on one of the greatest (and most wholesome) anime I've seen! 😄

I've described the show before, but I may as well do it again in order to set things up for the reviewing part. Spy x Family (which is apparently pronounced without the 'x' for some reason) takes place in the fictional rival nations of Westalis and Ostania (alternate-world versions of West and East Germany, respectively, during the Cold War). Its main characters belong to an ordinary upper-class family living an ordinary life in an ordinary home Ostania...minus all the "ordinary"s.

The father, a Westalian agent for the spy agency WISE -- codenamed "Twilight" -- is known to his family by his current secret identity: a psychiatrist named Loid Forger.

The mother, Yor Forger (formerly Briar), is a civil servant with a secret second job as a professional assassin.

Then there's the daughter, also known as the star of the show. 😊 In order to fulfill his current mission, Twilight finds and adopts young Anya, unaware that she was once a human test subject and now has the ability to read others' minds. She also happens to be a big fan of spies, whether real or fictional. Coincidence?

And thus we have a premise that mixes crime-fighting action and a (mostly) wholesome family narrative, in quite a creative way, not to mention a triple irony in which a spy and an assassin get married without knowing each other’s true identities, while also being unaware that their adopted daughter is a telepath and knows both their true identities.  And to top it off, there's, well...Anya being Anya.

That on its own makes for at least 50% of the fun in this show. 😏

All righty, on with the reviewing! In terms of intriguing and intermingling plotlines that are fun to follow:

In terms of music, art, and animation that puts the viewer right in the middle of the action and/or drama:

In terms of side-splitting humor:

In terms of relatable family dynamics:

In terms of decency:

In terms of emotion:

And finally, in terms of being a fun, lovable, satisfying show that doesn't take the usual anime route of relying on fan service and overexpression to be so enjoyable:

Sadly, it's not without its faults -- it includes a bit of harsh language, some graphic bloodshed (sure, it's pink, but we all know what it is), and a guy openly showing romantic feelings toward his sister (apparently, that's some sort of trope in anime, but where I'm from that's an "ain't bein' done" kind of thing). So, while it could be a lot worse, I find it kind of sad that it's less family-friendly than it could be, considering it's an anime about family. That's just me, of course. *shrug*

Here's one thing I really loved about it, though -- if you take away Loid and Yor's secret professions, Anya's secret power (not to mention their dog and his secret power), and the off-the-wall situations they find themselves in, Spy x Family is basically a story about a family dealing with common family issues. It covers situations that just about anyone familiar with family life can identify with, from dealing with a stubborn child...

...finding ways to make them stop crying...

...getting them to study...

...counseling them on how to deal with bullies...

...playing along with their wild imaginations...

...the fear of not knowing where they are...

...encouraging your spouse when they need a boost of confidence...

...the tension of distrust between in-laws...

...and doing your best to look like a happy, civilized family in the eyes of your neighbors.

Who'd have thought an anime about a spy, an assassin, and a telepath could capture family life so well, am I right?

Also, while it's possible that I'm reading too much into it, I couldn't help but see an allegory for the important role of the strong, close-knit family in society. After all, it's the dads who encourage their children to do their best while being patient with them...

...the moms who value their children's safety over anyone else's...

...and the hard-working children of all ages...

...who serve as the bedrock for a strong, livable, and praiseworthy community. And that's true for dads who aren't spies, moms who aren't assassins (which I assume is most of them), and children who aren't telepaths as well. At the end of the day, they're the biggest heroes out there. This show kind of reminded me of The Incredibles in that sense. 😄

And finally, I have to mention what might be my favorite line spoken by Anya, and perhaps from the entire show:

That's the kind of line that warms your heart even without knowing the context. I don't know about you, but childlike optimism (especially from an actual child) is one of my favorite things to see, whether in fiction or reality. I'm kind of envious of it sometimes, in fact. 😊

So, to summarize, I highly recommend this anime to anyone who enjoys stories that involve action, high-stakes adventure, family dynamics, or just something wholesome to watch (with a little inappro-pro stuff here and there). And this is coming from someone who approaches anime he's unfamiliar with veeeeeeeery carefully. Huge props to Tatsuya Endo for making an anime that even a conservative Christian like me can enjoy. 😉

And as fate would have it, Season 2 of this show is coming out October of this year! Needless to say, I eagerly look forward to seeing where the Forger family's adventures take them next. 😁 In Anya's words, "Waku waku!"

I guess I could just read the manga to find out, but...eh, where would the fun in that be? 😏

#spy x family #anime review #loid forger #yor forger #anya forger #yuri briar #henry henderson #becky blackbell #bond forger #just barely stayed within the image limit per post 😅

[thisismyrocket]

talking about disco elysium now that i’ve reached the end. so, don’t read under here if you’d like to remain unspoiled on some things.

these are my sloppy unfiltered thoughts after playing the game. sloppy and not thought through, i just want to say what’s on my mind.

harry reminds me of my dad. there’s no other way around it. it’s incredibly awkward and creates this bizarre quality to how i look at the character. he’s like a sympathetic version of my dad if he was a cop, i guess. maybe not, i don’t know, i just can’t escape it. the alcohol. the way he looks. the “get her back!” shit. fuck.

no, not really. not that similar. especially because of Inland Empire. my signature skill... inland empire is the wellspring of imagination and wonder and i will be damned if i don’t have a decently high inland empire stat in real life, because i am insane as well. to me, inland empire kind of embodied this “inner child” quality and i just thought there was something sort of beautiful about harry having that of all people...

here’s a man who probably felt like his life was already over a week ago, and now it’s like he has this blank slate and this wonderful ability to see everything with mostly fresh eyes. my harry was a very eccentric and silly person, even when investigating murder. always going off on strange hunches and saying bizarre things just because it feels possible to consider... digging through crummy dingy shops to find little things for 32 cents that spark joy in him.

to me, it felt like “no matter who you are, what you’ve gone through, you can see the world in a way that sparks joy. you can find beauty even in hell, if you just open your mind to the possibilities.” you remember it, right? when you were a child, even something as simple as a cardboard box or tree branch contained infinite possibilities. everything could be anything, and it was all wonderful.

if a hero can at least save themself, to me, that “inner child” quality is my heroism... it’s a personal thing to me.

so, it meant a lot to me to see lena’s whole sidequest play out the way it did. from the very start of the game, before i even had my bearings, it felt like lena was the only person who believed in harry, or was kind to him. she decided to show this alcoholic stranger wreck this beautiful “naive optimism” where against all odds of him being someone worth the kindness, well... let’s imagine a world where dreams can come true. shouldn’t i want to help him?

so i naturally jumped at the chance to repay that kindness and look for her husband, and when i found him i offered to check the phasmid traps because i wanted the two of them to be reunited. i kept checking the traps, even after morell and lena seemed to have given up hope, because it felt like the right thing to do. imagine a world where dreams can come true. lena is a friend, so i have to try and help, even if LOGIC tells me it’s impossible...

so, actually encountering the insulindian phasmid at the island, at the end. having that conversation with it. i mean, oh my god, right? it was real, dreams can come true. and he asked it if it was the miracle, and it told him he was, all along. extreme, all-consuming madness is the miracle.

even if her memory was totally fabricated, think about it? my harry only ever hears about it because of her, and if he never heard about it from her he would never think to seek it out, and it would never show itself to him on the island, then. and, well, i think for my harry, the encounter with the phasmid is very meaningful to him, personally. after the credits, i just know that encounter saved his life. a life saved by a childish story from a stranger-turned-friend that he believed in so earnestly that the dream came true.

i could keep talking about all this. i am not the kind of person who cries very often, at all, let alone in games. but the entire duration of the game from the krenel tribunal to the insulindian phasmid, there were tears pouring down my face. i don’t even know why.

it was all just boiling over, it felt so real to me. i didn’t know what to do, i didn’t have my gun but i ran in there because someone’s got to do something, it went badly but even running in there without a weapon... waking up and talking to kim, so relieved that neither of us are dead if nothing else... talking to gaston and hearing about rene... the dream with dolores dei... genuinely everything with the deserter... until finally the beauty of the insulindian phasmid. this beautiful, awful world... this thing called “HELL” i try to be enamored with the little things in, it’s all connected. people are suffering, and breaking, and dying, and i haven’t got a weapon and i can’t talk them down and it’s too late and behind you and i think im dying and help me and this is still the world where dreams can come true

You are the miracle.

#babel #disco elysium

[29pageshomestuckeveryday]

Homestuck, page 3,725

[S] Terezi: Play records.

You select appropriate crime solving music to set the right mood. With this kind of atmosphere, it is highly unlikely that any crime will stay unsolved for long.

storyboards:

Songs used: Trollcops by Erik Scheele, Havoc To Be Wrought by Thomas Ferkol, Rumble at the Rink by Toby Fox, Unlabeled by Erik Scheele, XROM by Toby Fox, and I'm a member of the Midnight Crew by Eddie Morton

Song commentary for trollcops:

Erik Scheele:

(Alternate Universe Intermission)

So this pretty much happened when Radiation went "yo jit make something" and I was like "okay", and then later I was like "bluuuuuuh don't know what to write", and then Radiation went "do trollcops", and I went "no that's dumb, stupid dumb, what is trollcops even", and Radiation went "DO IT JIT YOU BUTT", and I was like "NO RADIATION I HATE EVERYTHING". And then, Mellotron samples happened, and here we are. Also, it should be pointed out that in the version with vocals, Trollcops (Radio Play), there's a name drop of the fan music piece that htis is based off of. Yes, it takes this long to re-use things, sometimes.

Besides that, I dunno, just enjoy it.

Toby Fox:

Don't tell anyone, but this is actually a remix of one of Jit's old fansongs called Under the Hat, which was a battle theme for Dad. So if your heart still pines for him... his soul and pipe are contained deep within this track.

So damn catchy and sleuthy.

song commentary for havoc to be wrought:

Thomas Ferkol:

Havoc to be Wrought was spawned from an idea for a short story I had in my mind about a man climbing the old bell tower of an abandoned church investigating strange sounds that had plagued a small town, only to be forced into a confrontation with the “King of Owls” once he reaches the top, and ending with the KoO cutting the bell rope that the man clung to and screeching in the night.

Things changed though.

Once I had actually started writing and refining it, I decided to change its message, from a mad owl thing to the mysterious demon in the troll’s session which had been recently mentioned in the comic (I wrote this sometime in Fall 2010). Also, yes, that is why there is distorted owl screeches at the end, although they were more meant to evoke the horrorterrors crying out in pain than owls by the time it was finished.

Contains some very powerful organ and some great chord progressions, but also some structural choices I am not completely proud of, which remained in the piece until its release months and months later because the original Finale file crashed on me before I had a chance to save it. So, rather than attempt reconstructing it, I went with what I had, and it stuck.

Song commentary for unlabeled:

Erik Scheele:

This is the second of the solo piano pieces on this album, at least in the main tracks, and a really late release as well, given that it first appeared in the comic some time around a year ago. I've held it back from getting released just so it could go on this record, so I'm glad it could finally go out.

This is also the only piece on the album that doesn't have a specific event to go along with it. Instead, I went for where it appeared in the comic when placing it, and see it as more of a small interlude. The intermission between Act 1 and Act 2 of a musical, if you will. The art is meant to go along with this as well, a sort of non-canon get-together of the first set of trolls and kids we know, and I can imagine them playing this record while they chill.

#Youtube

[jadenightthewriter]

In their defence they may be stupid but marcellus is a) traumatised and b) a child. Idk what marcias excuse is tho 😔 in the esmerelda version she is also so so traumatised and has barely had time to recover from althers death before ending up with a baby for a second time except this time she can't dump it on someone else 😔😔😔 (the bit where she goes to the heaps in that version is So funny,, she shows up like um. Haha hi uhhh help. And she has a teenage boy with her and also a baby (identical to baby #1 silas got handed) and silas is like marcia wtf. Marcia why is there a baby who looks exactly the same as the one u gave me before. Marcia where r these babies coming from)

Honestly I think real au esmerelda probably had it better than canon esmerelda?? Like in canon everyone had caught on that etheldredda was killing her kids and tried to protect her, in this au etheldredda isn't even killing just the princesses she also killed her son who wasn't a threat at all and everyone is so on guard abt it. Esmerelda is never ever left alone w etheldredda not even once and all the palace staff r so careful abt it

YEAH <3333 septimus and marcellus get along So well here,,, septimus is having some kind of panic attack at one point and marcellus is like look i get it- and seps like LITERALLY NO U DON'T. And marcellus goes haha. Lmao. And then there r explanations (once sep is not actively crying on the floor) and septimus latches onto marcellus as his new favourite person (equal to marcia) and also septimus gets twice the amount of hugs and its all very sweet and nice <3 also I'm assigning marcias rooms another bedroom so marcellus can also stay there 😌 they may already have one?? I think it's mentioned in thm somewhere??? But. I'm putting it properly in the story this time <3 marcellus is staying in the tower while all his alchemy stuff is under construction and marcia HATES it bc he can spot when she's not sleeping and literally pick her up and put her into the bed and it's the WORST and sometimes he makes food and then she has to actually stop what she's doing to eat it and it's awful 😔😔 (<-she's doing better physically and mentally than canon marcia tho so). He's also very much a shoulder to cry on abt dn1 related stuff so literally this marcia is like canon marcia but 100% less. Lonely and sad.

Anyway I got off track,, yeah septimus and marcellus bond over being two guys with the same variety of trauma and both marcia and marcellus r able to help him more in this au than in canon bc they have. Experience. Does it help septimus that much?? Short term kind of long term definitely. Marcellus to septimus is like a kind of cool uncle/sort of dad figure,, they hang out when neither of them have smth else to be doing (sometimes when they do) and marcellus teaches him abt alchemy and marcias like wow marcellus :/ I can't believe you'd steal my apprentice :// that's so rude and mean 😔😔 and he's like lmao <3 and keeps teaching septimus stuff. Also marcellus does eventually tell more ppl abt his Actual backstory and jennas like WAIT WE'RE RELATED????? and decides he's cool actually now that she can bully sep abt how that's her great uncle 🥺 how could he steal him from her like this 🥺🥺🥺

This ask is so long abdhdbdjd rip and uhh. Well i have Plans for a fic but I think we all know what happens when I have a plan for a fic (<-it never ever gets written) so PLEASE write smth if u want to i will love it forever and ever and ever <3333

Consider: I would call them stupid even without the trauma, hence they have exactly 0 excuses sorry babies I love you but no

I bet Silas thinks Marcia did something stupid and kidnapped them all which is,,, aha not exactly wrong?? But it's not like she's going to admit that. (side note i feel like marcellus and silas probably get along shockingly well and marcia is Upset about this she's been betrayed how could you marcellus)

hmm.... that's a good point about esmerelda. I think mentally it might be harder for her though, because there might be lots of people who love her but i feel like there wouldn't be many who would try to get super close, because she's still royalty. i think septimus should accidentally trip and fall through one of marcellus's silly experiments and meet esmerelda and maybe be her friend for a bit.

ngl marcia sounds like a cat here i love this. do you think sep and marcellus (help i need to shorten his name i can't keep typing it T^T) scheme to like,, trick her into doing things they want. i bet they do like pspsps marcia look here. (i bet marcia and marcellus fight over how much alchemy and magyk stuff they're allowed to leave lying around. their rooms look pretty much exactly the same because they both hoard so many things except marcia's has like 2% more purple. relatedly i bet their horrible sense of fashion has infected the other.)

marcia and marcellus working together is probably the best possible thing to happen for sep it's like,,, someone understands almost all of what happened to him, there's always someone to talk to, there's someone to be responsible and someone to be irresponsible, he gets all the good things he deserves <3333

i think the jenna sep marcellus dynamic would be so funny idk how much an age difference they have (depending on AU version i would guess 10-15?) but they probably have the same sort of influence from marcia and all love to make fun of each other. they probably wear purple a lot and don't notice until silas points it out lmao and then make a point to see who can wear the most outlandish purple thing until marcia yells at them.

bestie same 😭😭 i can't promise anything (fuck you, school) but i have so many ideas i'm serious when i tell you this au is one of the best things i've learned of in months

#septimus heap #don't look too closely at this i bet there are So Many typos and incoherent sentences whoops #M&Ms au