#This is a very long post

[undying-love]

Paul being very secure about his sexuality: A compilation

"The reason why we didn’t do Up Against It wasn’t because it was too far out or anything. We didn’t do it because it was gay. We weren’t gay and really that was all there was to it. It was quite simple, really. Brian was gay…and so he and the gay crowd could appreciate it. Now, it wasn’t that we were anti-gay – just that we, The Beatles, weren’t gay."

“It was always obvious Brian was gay and we could talk to him about gay things, but he would never come out with, ‘Hello, Paul, you’re looking nice today.’ I was quite obviously un-gay, due to my hunting of the female hordes. I think we all gave that impression."

Q:  You must be very secure with yourself.

Paul: I think it is that. I'm OK with gay people, too, because I'm essentially comfortable with my sexuality. I can goof around with gay people. I sort of know who I am by now.  And it's about time.

"I imagine he heard it [Dear Friend]. I think he listened to my records, but he never responded directly. That wasn't his way. We were guys; it wasn't like a boy and a girl. In those days you didn't release much emotion with each other."

"One thing he told us was that one in every four men is homosexual. So we looked at the group! One in every four! It literally meant one of us is gay. Oh, fucking hell, it’s not me, is it? We had a lot of soul-searching to do over that little one."

"There's a song I do called Here Today which is specifically written for John. That sometimes catches me out. I realise I'm telling this man that I love him and it's like I'm publicly declaring this in front of all these people I don't know. I sometimes wonder what I'm doing.

Q: In “Here Today”, you talk about your love for John. Did you ever say that to him, in those days?" Paul: No. I'm sure we both felt it. But that is not something two boys use to say to each other. If they were gay, maybe. Otherwise it is rare that that happens."

"My view is that these things are there whether you want them or not, in your interior. You don't call up dreams, they happen, often the exact opposite of what you want. You can be heterosexual and be having a homosexual dream and wake up, and think, 'Shit, am I gay?' I like that you don't have control over it. But there is some control -- it is you dreaming, it is your mind it's all happening in."

"We were in New York before he [George] went to Los Angeles to die, and they were silly but important to me. And, I think, important to him. We were sitting there, and I was holding his hand, and it occurred to me — I’ve never told this — I don’t want to hold George’s hand. You don’t hold your mate’s hands. I mean, we didn’t anyway. "

"Yeah, I think he [John] did [love me], yeah. It wasn’t actually a spiky relationship at all. It was, uh, very warm, very close and very loving, I think. All The Beatles. We used to say, I think we were amongst the first sort of men to come out openly – and you remember, it was quite sort of strange in those days, we’re talking about a long time ago now when homosexuality was still sort of largely illegal."

"Because he [Robert Faser] was gay, it raised a few small-minded eyebrows, and funnily enough, one or two of them were from within the Beatles: ‘Hey, man, he’s gay, what you going off to Paris with him for? They’re gonna talk, you know. Tongues are going to wag.’ I said, ‘I know tongues are going to wag, but tough shit.’ I was secure about my sexuality. I always felt this is is fine. I can hang with whoever I want and it didn’t worry me. I mean, we didn’t share a room or anything."

"With Robert’s thing of course there would be gayness. But there was no open gayness. If there was to be gayness it would be a quiet phone call that Robert would go and take in the bedroom or something. That was one of the good things, actually, because I knew he was gay and he knew I wasn’t gay so we were quite safe in our own | sexuality. We could talk to each other. "

Lastly, there is this odd anecdote that may or may not mean anything, but here it is:

One of the strangest of these incidents came at the end of 1992 when Mark Featherstone-Witty attended the MPL Christmas lunch. Mark took an accountant friend to the meal, a McCartney fan he'd known for years, which led to a strange and unpleasant row. By Mark's recollection, Paul's manager Richard Ogden summoned him into the MPL office the next day where he read him the riot act for bringing an unwelcome guest to Paul's party. 'What do you mean by bringing someone who was so obviously gay to Paul's Christmas party? Have you any idea about the responsibility you carry in this project?' he allegedly asked. 'What are you talking about?' replied Featherstone-Witty, explaining who his friend was. 'But he was gay, you stupid fucker!' 'No, he isn't.' 'You've got to be careful. You can't do anything that would embarrass Paul...'"

Fab : An intimate Life of Paul McCartney by Howard Sounes

#paul mccartney #Mr “I'm very secure about myself” #mclennon #oh paul #This is a very long post #probably my longest ever #but there is a lot to unpack here

[lilyginnyblackv2]

Animate Times did an interview with Kazuki and Rei’s Japanese VAs. Here’s a rundown of the interview:

1. The interview asked how they were able to act out characters that have a job that basically involves killing other people. Rei’s VA brought up the fact that a work doesn’t always have to be super realistic in its approach, and Kazuki’s VA added on to that, saying that the basic premise is that they are humans beings first, assassins second. Their job just happens to be killing people, so they don’t waver in regards to that, but that is their only main difference between ordinary people.

2. Kazuki’s VA’s favorite scene, even after Episode 6, is still the scene between Misaki and Kazuki in Episode 3. He likes the complexity of it, specifically on Misaki’s side, and how it showed that the series was more than just a comedy. When the interviewer asked, “You don’t sympathize with Kazuki?” Kazuki’s VA states that he does, of course, understand Kazuki’s side of things and that the theme of the series is “parenting is eternal” (or more natural put, “parenting is a life-long commitment”), but that he also understands Misaki’s side of the things as well.

3. Rei’s VA’s favorite scene was seeing Miri at the zoo in Episode 6. He liked seeing how she acted and behaved without Kazuki and Rei around, seeing her get into arguments and how her dynamic is at the daycare, etc.

4. When asked what their impressions were of Miri, Kazuki’s VA was like, “SHE’S SO CUTE!” lol (I feel that is so in-character too!). He then mentions how she was very proactive for a 4 year old, like it was the TV show “Old Enough.”

Rei’s VA says, “I think I can hear the theme song. (lol).” And Kazuki’s VA goes on to say that he thought that there might be some camera operator around, lol. He then talked about how his own daughter, who is around Miri’s age, isn’t as proactive as her.

5. They continue to talk about how Miri isn’t shy and is pretty skilled at a lot of things (for her age). They bring up that there is a bit of a maturity to her, but that she still has a child-like innocence and that a lot of fathers likely would not be able to resist her cute smile, forgive her, and dote on her. haha

6. Rei’s VA referred to Kazuki and Rei together as “The Buddies” (バディ), lol, and he also praised Miri’s VA. He also talks about how Rei is very concentrated on his own interests and keeps to himself a lot, but that Miri has helped him break out of his shell (lit. brought a new wind into his life).

7. The final thing that the interviewer asks about is what facial expressions of Miri’s the two of them would like the audience to pay attention to.

Kazuki’s VA: “Hmm, well, she’s basically cute all the time!”

Rei’s VA: “But, her facial expressions change quite often.”

We learn from Kazuki’s VA that the back of the script has a picture of Miri’s face on it, and that the expression is different every time. He also mentions how he likes the way Miri’s VA does Miri’s laugh. 

Rei’s VA finishes off the interview by saying that while Miri makes a lot of cute faces, she also makes a lot of comical ones too, so be on the look out for those!

----

A link to the interview will be in the comments below. It was such a cute interview and honestly feels very in-character to both Kazuki and Rei. I also love how Kazuki’s VA is a father and has a daughter right around Miri’s age, I think that aspect of his own personal life experience likely adds another layer to his performance.

#Buddy Daddies #BD #KazuRei #Kazuki Kurusu #Rei Suwa #interview #translation #English translation #kinda #more like a summary of the interview rather than a direct translation #this is a very long post

[luciano-nightstar]

Sharing some of my unfinished Nimona aus because... well... I just thought of sharing it, Part 1.

I call this the Golden Guardian au

Same events for this au, but Ballister is a guardian angel

He was originally Gloreth's guardian angel (not sure if I should do it before or after she met Nimona). Before her death, Gloreth prayed for someone to protect her descendant and guide them to good. And since Ballister was her guardian to begin with, he got a new job to be the guardian angel for her descendants for the next generation until the bloodline has ended.

Ballister took his job seriously to protect and guide Gloreth's descendants so that they could end up in heaven. After seeing at lease 3 or 4 generations feeling pressured to be like their great grandmother, Ballister decided to pretend to be a human and befriend those descendants to help them cope with their pressure in being a perfect knight. He saw how much he helped ease their anxiety, and decided this would be a normal thing he would do for the next generations to come.

Now to Ambrosius. Ballister thought of a different way to get close and befriending to the young Ambrosius, which is to join the knight. For two reasons - Since Ambrosius has been training since probably after being a toddler, he would feel comfortable to have someone close to train with him. - Second reason is that he noticed how awful noble's perspective are with commoners are. And Ballister believed that he can change the mindset of people about commoners by pretending to be one then becoming a knight and protecting them.

So he shapeshifted into a commoner kid then snuck in and, with the power and kindness and help of the queen (may God bless her kind hearted soul), he was given a chance to become a knight.

(Oh how that different approach backfires badly...)

Same thing with the knighting ceremony, the queen unexpectedly gets killed by Ballister's sword and he takes all the blame for it (I can't decide if I should have Ballister lose his arm or not or have angelic regeneration and regenerate a new arm)

Alternative path 1

The stadium screen crashes on top of Ballister, but he surprisingly survives and escapes through the hole on the ground that was made from the crash.

Ballister finds an abandoned tower and hid in there to process what has happened to him. In the end, he decided to return to Heaven to apologize and beg for forgiveness from the queen for killing her, even though it wasn't his fault. And she forgives him because she knows he wouldn't do it.

Ballister returns back to earth to continue his job as a guardian angel, only to see that Ambrosius was a mess because of the whole ceremony incident, Ballister is now wanted in the whole kingdom, and he thought that Ballister dead because of the stadium screen crashing on top of him.

(That's where I left off with alternative path 1, and I don't have enough ideas on how to finish it, sorry not sorry)

Alternative Path 2

Same thing with the whole plot of the movie. Ballister tries his best to find who murdered the queen and prove his innocence.

Nimona (who's still a shapeshifter in this au) finds him in the tower while he was still in his angelic form. They first thought that he was a fallen angel because of the murder incident.

”Should we pillage a village? Oh! Maybe make a cult? Or, lay low until they don't remember and then we RISE LIKE A FIERY PHOENIX FROM THE ASHES AND OVER THROW THE GOVERNMENT! And the people will scream “AHH THE EVIL COMMONER KNIGHT IS ACTUALLY A FALLEN ANGEL AND HE HAS COME TO DESTROY US!!”...…or we could just talk. :)” "I'm not a fallen angel."

He attempts to shoo away Nimona. Reasoning? He doesn't want her to get hurt because of him, he sees him still being too young to even be involved in any of this (Just so you know, Ballister is one of the angels that existed before earth was made)

Skip to near end of the movie (I'm running out of ideas, help me). Instead of Nimona sacrificing himself it's Ballister, he transforms into his true angelic form and destroys the cannon before it could hit the kingdom. Nimona and Ambrosius hoped and prayed that Ballister would come back, but all there was left was white ashes slowly falling like snow flakes, Nimona hugs Ambrosius who hugs her back. Both mourning over what happened.

Physically Ballister is gone, but he was already an angel to begin with so he will regenerate his physical body back again. As soon as he destroyed the cannon he wakes up in front of the gates of Heaven with saint Peter asking if he's okay. He turns around and sees the Director falling down to the fiery pits of Hell (deserve).

Time skip, Nimona gets (platonically) close with Ambrosius only because it would be something Ballister would want from them and everyone sees Ballister as a hero and honored him.

Nimona goes back to the lair where she first met Ballister. She goes inside looking around her, reminiscing of the things they did together there. They smiled as he decorated the "murder wall" and saw one of the pictures that they took together during their small dance celebration. She held the picture close, then- "hey kid." "HOLY SH-"

I am debating if I want Ballister to reveal that he was a guardian angel to Ambrosius or not...

Alternative path 3

It's the same as path 2 but after Ballister sacrifices himself, he was sent to the courtroom of Heaven (yes Hazbin hotel refence) and was given two choices. The first choice was that he could stay as a guardian angel and continue to protect the Goldenlion bloodline like he did before, the second option was that he can become human and live amongst the mortal until his death.

(Your choice on which one he chose :D )

✨ Design Ideas ✨

This is kind of what I imagined Ballister's angelic design would look like... now

(Found this on Pinterest but the original artist is critbit on Instagram)

Another idea design (this one is from puFik 🥀 on Tiktok)

(But their Tiktok account name is aleluia._.0 give them a follow their amazing)

But this was originally my idea for his angelic design

He had two gold halos with many eyes crisscross, covering the upper part of his face. Those two halos can transform into small hoops earring with eyes incase he doesn't want to use the covering halos.

A third halo slowly spinning behind his head, two eyes under his normal eyes (because angels do have a lot of eyes), six white wings with some gold feathers, a small crystal on the center of his back, and white marking all over his body (I added those last two because I thought it would look cool)

Also, for the clothes... I didn't have any ideas...

Some headcannons as well :)

(some are probably canon to my au, it's your guess on which one)

Ballister can hide his wings, his halos, and his many eyes. He can make himself invisible to humans and other creatures. Another fact about his invisibility is that he can make himself visible to whoever he chooses. (There might be some scenarios where people were called crazy for seeing him when others cant... especially with Todd)

During their training years, Ballister developed feelings for Ambrosius, but since it was the first time he fell in love, he wasn't aware that he was in love.

Even in his human form/disguise, Ballister can see and interact with other spirits.

Since I heard that Nimona can see the dead, I thought of this idea that even if Ballister is in his human form to others, he's always in his angelic form in her eyes.

When Ballister is angry in his angelic form, eyes would appear on his body and even some on the air, and the sound of his voice becomes a chorus (-like?)

His angelic sword can transform into different weapons that he could use. Like from sword, to a spear, then to a bow that can magically generate an arrow when pulling the bowstring.

I have a scenario idea where Ambrosius is out late doing his patrol duty when it suddenly rained. After a moment of silence and getting soak on the rain, Ballister used one of his wings to cover Ambrosius from the rain. And that is when Ambrosius first saw Ballister since the ceremony, with a "new" angelic look.

Another scenario is when Ambrosius is in deadly danger, and Ballister is forced to show himself in order to protect him. That is the first time when Ambrosius saw Ballister as an angel.

This is a lot of information about my au and you can definitely tell that this was my favorite...

Anyways, would you believe me if I said that I also made a fallen angel au called The Blackheart Angel au (it was originally made for the comic version, you can also call it An angel with a Boldheart if movie version) and another au called Celestials au? I will be making another post explaining those two aus and maybe a few more of my unfinished aus as well.

#nimona #nimona au #goldenheart #ballister boldheart #angel Ballister #Nimona unfinished aus #This is a very long post #mix match pronouns for Nimona #ambrosius goldenloin #ambrosius x ballister #ballister x ambrosius #Ambrosius #Ballister #Golden Guardian au

[disco-elysium-via-polls]

[content warning: this post contains textual descriptions of sexual assault.]

🎵 Whirling in Rags, 8 AM

5. (Point at the harbour.) "Evrart Claire runs the Union. You answer to him, right?"

TITUS HARDIE - "You keep him the fuck out of this." He leans toward you. "We have *autonomy*. It's all on us. Evrart runs the Union -- *I* run the Hardie boys."

AUTHORITY - You stepped on some big toes there. Tried to take out a satellite. That's not how it's going to go. They'd rather rot in jail than implicate Mr. Claire in this mess.

ELIZABETH - "When Titus Hardie says he *runs* the Hardie boys," the woman adds, "he means that in an *administrative* capacity. On that night everyone acted as *one* man."

That wasn't a *wrong* answer, but I'm not sure it's the *right* one.

3. "When did this *hanging incident* occur?"

ELIZABETH - "You don't have to keep answering his questions," the fixer turns to remind Titus.

TITUS HARDIE - "I know, Lizzy, relax." He takes a sip. "We killed him last Sunday night. Seemed like a good way to end the week."

"How long had you known the victim?"

"Understood. Next question."

GLEN - "*Known* him?! We don't associate with scum like that, asshole!"

SHANKY - "Yeah, who do you think we are?"

TITUS HARDIE - "Quiet!" Titus gives Glen a stern look. "He came around 'bout three weeks ago, when that *Pines* cow first sailed into town. Happy?"

KIM KITSURAGI - "By the 'Pines cow' you mean Joyce Messier, the representative for Wild Pines?" The lieutenant pretends to check his notes. "The same company you're striking against?"

TITUS HARDIE - "No," he stresses, "I mean *the Pines cow*. The stupid-ass cow they sent in to fuck us over. But you know what..." He rubs his chin, pretending to mull it over.

SUGGESTION [Easy: Success] - This is where he tries to sow discord between you two -- because he knows the company is responsible for bringing the mercenaries into town.

TITUS HARDIE - "Why don't you ask *her* about the Pretty Boy? I'm sure she has interesting things to say -- when you ask her *hard* enough."

ELIZABETH - "That's enough insinuation for today, Titus." She turns to you. "Officer, your interview is drawing to an end. Don't waste your last questions."

There is not actually a limit on the number of questions we can ask here.

4. "Why did you kill him?"

TITUS HARDIE - "Why?" he hisses through his teeth. "Because he was worthless mercenary scum -- *and* he stepped out of line. In *my* town."

"So he was a mercenary, that's it?"

"Glad we cleared that up."

TITUS HARDIE - "*And* he stepped out of line," he repeats, jaw clamped shut like a vice.

KIM KITSURAGI - "What kind of mercenary?"

TITUS HARDIE - "The kind that shows up when you start a strike. The *experienced* kind, too. Had Co Hoi and Semenine written all over him -- ex-Oranjese Special Forces."

EUGENE - "A live grenade." The man spreads his arms. "Right here in *our* bar!"

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] - This one has a special gripe with him coming here.

TITUS HARDIE - "I can't prove it, but I *know* he was sent by the Wild Pines. They hire merc-shit like that. Story of every strike from here to Samara."

"Hold on, how do you even know he was in special forces?"

"Right, but what did he actually do *wrong*?"

EUGENE - "Cause one night he walked straight up to the mic and said: 'I'm Oranjese goddamn Special Forces and I'm gonna fuck you all'."

KIM KITSURAGI - "Really?"

EUGENE - "Yeah -- really. Had a gin and tonic up there, sang some Oranjese paratrooper song, and said he's gonna fuck everyone."

SHANKY - "We couldn't believe it, either. But he fucking did. Right there," he points at the stage, "like some kind of animal."

DRAMA [Medium: Success] - Sire, the tale is true.

CONCEPTUALIZATION [Medium: Success] - This is a serious violation of the karaoke code.

"Right, but what did he actually do *wrong*?"

"Okay, besides crimes against karaoke, what did he actually do wrong?"

TITUS HARDIE - "Wrong?!" he roars. "He harassed women. Raped one. Harassed workers. Threatened to kill some as a *warning*..." He wipes spittle from his mouth.

EMPATHY [Trivial: Success] - There's slight unease in him, suddenly. He regrets mentioning the rape.

TITUS HARDIE - "... to kill us all if we don't open the gates, if we don't let the scabs in. If we don't bend over." He cracks his knuckles. "And that was *before* he started coming *here*."

EUGENE - "Yeah, he said it was his 'favourite joint' now, started coming here every night! Drinking, grabbing girls -- grabbed one of ours mid-karaoke. Right there on the stage!"

KIM KITSURAGI - "He grabbed someone?" The lieutenant is trying to make sense of this flood of information.

EUGENE - "Yeah, this girl's on the mic, a beautiful girl, young. Gets into the second verse of 'Lover Lake'. The fucker grabs her legs, starts screaming..."

"'Show me your cunt! Why don't you show me your cunt?' Then he gets knocked on the head with a wine bottle -- doesn't even fall down!" He shakes his head in disbelief.

"Was this the same girl who was sexually assaulted -- *raped*, you said?"

"Okay then. Now, about the man you killed…" (Conclude.)

TITUS HARDIE - "Aren't you fucking listening? My man is talking to you. He took *care* of it. They got the girl out before anything else could happen."

SHANKY - "Yeah, me and Eugene got her out. Aren't you fucking listening?!" he repeats like a parrot.

DRAMA [Medium: Success] - There's something odd here.

"Right, but *who* did he rape then? This is a very serious allegation."

"Okay then. Now, about the man you killed…" (Conclude.)

TITUS HARDIE - "No." There's a moment of silence. "You're not getting a name. That's a Martinaise matter and I'm not discussing it with you clowns."

VOLITION [Challenging: Success] - Despite the stonewalling you can slip one more question in.

"I'm going to ask for one last time: Who did the dead man rape?"

"Okay then. Now, about the man you killed..." (Conclude.)

ELIZABETH - "Titus, do *not* answer. You have been forthcoming enough."

TITUS HARDIE - "Fuck off, cop." He does take the advice. "She's gone through enough without you harassing her too. She doesn't need more embarrassment."

KIM KITSURAGI - "What are you talking about -- embarrassment? If someone has been sexually assaulted, we need to..."

TITUS HARDIE - "What you *need* is to get THE FUCK OUT OF MY FACE!" You hear the aluminium crack in his palm as he squeezes the beer can. "I've had enough of explaining myself to you fucks. He's dead, it's done!"

ELIZABETH - The woman turns to you, calmly: "As you can see, these men can only take so much baseless scrutiny. I'm doing my best to keep the situation civil, but..." What follows is a slow headshake.

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - It's true. She was the only thing holding him back.

5. "*How* did you kill him?"

TITUS HARDIE - "We hanged him up by his neck until he got real still. Wasn't that obvious, copper?"

SHANKY - "Didn't they teach you *anything* at the cop school, idiot?"

AUTHORITY [Easy: Success] - You're pretty sure you've had at least two years of *cop school* and many more of active service.

KIM KITSURAGI - "The autopsy showed there were no ligature marks. His hands were not tied. Can you explain that?"

TITUS HARDIE - "Uh... we, huh..." He looks even more irritated than before. "Look, I'm not gonna play Twenty Questions with you, coppo. I'll say it again: We killed him."

+5 XP

ALAIN - "Yeah, *I* knocked him out." The tattooed one speaks up, banging on his chest. "Came up behind him and clubbed him in the back of the head. He went down like a sack of sand."

TITUS HARDIE - "That's right, lawman." He spits through his teeth. "And then we hanged the fuck."

"Mr. Tatts, what did you use to knock the victim out?"

"Where did all this action take place?"

[Composure - Challenging 12] Things aren't quite right here, are they?

"Right, I have other questions about the lynching."

ALAIN - "My fucking elbow, copper." He looks you straight in the eye. "Samaran boxing-style."

2. "Where did all this action take place?"

ALAIN - "Right fucking here." He spreads his hands. "Eugene already told you that the fuck had started coming to *our* bar..."

EUGENE - "Yeah, man, weren't you listening?"

AUTHORITY [Medium: Success] - They keep speaking for Titus so that he wouldn't get his hands muddy with too much explaining.

3. [Composure - Challenging 12] Things aren't quite right here, are they?

+1 Strange answer to the tied hands.

COMPOSURE [Challenging: Failure] - Actually, they're admirably -- surprisingly -- composed. The entire room. Given how many questions you've lobbed their way.

All of them? Maybe *one* of them is fidgeting, cracking under the pressure?

SHANKY - Well, this one -- but he's *always* fidgeting, so don't get your hopes up.

Looks like we're not getting information that way.

3. "Right, I have other questions about the lynching."

TITUS HARDIE - "Like what, copper?"

6. "How does the *bullet* in his head factor into this?"

TITUS HARDIE - "Huh?!" A sip of beer makes the surprise go down easier.

KIM KITSURAGI - "There was a bullet in the dead man's brain," the lieutenant checks his notes. "Why was it there, if you hanged him?"

TITUS HARDIE - "How the fuck do I know? Anyone could have shot him. Target practice maybe?" Another sip. He's tight-lipped suddenly.

+5 XP

ELIZABETH - "This line of questioning is *over*," the woman steps in before you can answer. "You got the cause of death already. Hanging. If there's any *post-mortem* trauma, it's your problem. This will not turn into a cross-examination."

SUGGESTION [Medium: Success] - This was a good move. Also, notice how Titus doesn't *like* her much. Especially when she's calling the shots.

Authority told us not to try and arrest anyone, and it seems like we don't have all the information yet anyway. Now that we've thoroughly questioned Titus, the last option has changed.

8. "So, what are we going to do now?" (Conclude the questioning.)

ELIZABETH - "Nothing," her reply comes sharp. "Your investigation here is done. Leave Martinaise, go back to your stations, where you belong."

New task: Prove your authority to Titus Hardie

KIM KITSURAGI - "I think we're going to stick around, thanks. Some things don't add up here, Titus." The lieutenant closes his notebook.

"I've done this job for long enough to know that people don't just confess to first-degree murder. *Even* if it is a group responsibility. We're going to look into this."

TITUS HARDIE - "Good luck with that." He grabs another beer. "You've heard everything a *rent-a-cop* is gonna hear from us *real* law officials. You're lucky you didn't get a beating."

SUGGESTION [Easy: Success] - Rent-a-cop? So that's what this is about. He doesn't see you as his equals.

We still have a *lot* to talk to Titus about, but let's back out of the conversation so I can save our progress.

Scan the room.

"I want to talk about the hanging again."

"You still haven't explained the bullet I found in the hanged man's head."

"I found eight sets of footprints, but there's only seven of you. Where's the eighth Hardie boy?"

"Guess what? I've connected you to the local drug trade."

"I talked to Joyce. The merc you hanged -- his friends are coming for you."

[Authority - Godly 16] Establish authority.

"I'm going to take off now." [Leave.]

THOUGHT COMPLETE: APRICOT CHEWING GUM SCENTED ONE

BONUSES: +2 Perception: Betrayal lingers, everywhere

August 2nd. Early late summer. You’re getting off the streetcar in Le Jardin, east of the river. Her father and mother are middle class. The nylon of her little jacket rustles next to you, in the dark, like autumn leaves. Her heels click on the pavement. You're walking up to the gate in front of her parents' house. She takes out her chewing gum and you kiss her. A feeling like electricity flows through your whole body. Immediately you know that you've entered a completely different world...

Where were we?

TITUS HARDIE - "Looks like the circus left town, but the clowns are still here." Titus does not look particularly happy to see you.

3. "You still haven't explained the bullet I found in the hanged man's head."

TITUS HARDIE - "You still on about that bullet?" He pats the back of his head. "A bullet in a hanged man's head. You're right, copper -- that *is* mighty curious."

KIM KITSURAGI - "Indeed. *Mighty*. How did it get there?" The lieutenant is fixed on Titus.

TITUS HARDIE - He gives you an indulgent look. "Well there are so many bullets in the world and so many heads..."

He sighs deeply. "I guess it's only logical -- at some point one of them bullets had to end up in one of them heads..."

ALAIN - "It's bound to happen again, you know." He taps on his right temple. "Just statistically speaking, of course."

DRAMA [Medium: Success] - Sire, it would be an event most dramatic if you were to produce the bullet and dangle it before their very eyes!

"I'm gonna ask you again, why was this..." (Show them the bullet) "... in the victim's head?"

"I think the hanging was a cover-up for the shooting."

"Did you guys shoot him?"

"Don't worry, we will figure this out sooner or later." (Conclude.)

SHANKY - "Wow." The little man leans in to inspect the leaden blossom. "He's got it in a real evidence bag and all..."

ELIZABETH - "Why don't you go home and log it into evidence. These men have told you what happened."

2. "I think the hanging was a cover-up for the shooting."

TITUS HARDIE - "You know what I think?" He raises his finger. "I think he was shot in the head as a kid. And his brain grew around the bullet."

ALAIN - "Around the bullet, man..." Alain pinches the root of his nose. "That's a good one."

DRAMA [Medium: Success] - All the goofing around is to avoid lying. It's a technique.

EMPATHY [Easy: Success] - They're only pretending to enjoy this. Beneath the act -- they don't like you knowing this.

3. "Did you guys shoot him?"

GLEN - "Shit!" He throws his head back. "*I* probably did shoot him. I was drunk last night. You guys know me when I'm drunk..."

SHANKY - "Yeah, Glen likes to shoot his guns when he's drunk." The little guy looks you in the eye. "Better hope he stays sober."

KIM KITSURAGI - "No, he meant *before* he was hanged. Did you shoot him *before* you hanged him?"

ELIZABETH - "Before? After? *During?*" She spreads her arms. "This is getting ridiculous. They told you what happened. Stop wasting your time."

4. "Don't worry, we will figure this out sooner or later." (Conclude.)

TITUS HARDIE - "Never been worried in my life, lawman." He crosses his hairy arms, having forgotten his beer for a moment.

LOGIC [Easy: Success] - It's not like you blew it *wide* open, but there's a little crack in there, somewhere...

3. "I found eight sets of footprints, but there's only seven of you. Where is the eighth Hardie boy?"

TITUS HARDIE - "What are you talkin' about, madman? There's no eighth Hardie boy. There's seven of us and we're all here." He sizes you up.

"Or what -- *you* want to be the eighth Hardie boy? We ain't hiring!" He shakes his head.

GLEN - "Actually, boss, we've been talking and we think she could maybe..."

+5 XP

SUGGESTION [Easy: Success] - This person Glen wants to hire -- he really respects her.

TITUS HARDIE - "Shut the *fuck* up, Glen!" he roars. "I do the talking here! Now what the fuck do you want, cop?"

KIM KITSURAGI - "So let me get this straight... there *is* an eighth Hardie boy, it's a *she* and you don't like us talking about her?"

TITUS HARDIE - "That's right, we're not talking about this. This is a private Hardie boys matter, nothing to do with your shit. *And*..." He points at the lieutenant.

"You're not cops here. Don't go digging around, if you don't want a bullet in the back of your head. I'm watching you."

KIM KITSURAGI - "Good -- we're all watching each other." The lieutenant adjusts his spectacles. "Officer, your question?"

ESPRIT DE CORPS [Easy: Success] - There's no point in pushing it further, he thinks. This is already a victory. We'll learn more about this eighth Hardie sooner or later.

3. "Guess what? I've connected you to the local drug trade."

TITUS HARDIE - "Like hell you have." He leans back, unruffled. "There is no 'local drug trade'. This place is as clean as a rifle. Go back to Jamrock and ask the local junkies how clean *your* streets are in Precinct '41-Kilos'."

KIM KITSURAGI - "We'll do that. In the meantime," he points south, "did you know that there's an abandoned lorry at the intersection that was used to move raw ingredients for drugs from Terminal B to Jamrock?"

"The person driving it was present at the hanging. It was one of you. We've connected the footprints." He taps on his notebook, then turns to you. "Detective, do you want to deliver the coup de grace?"

SUGGESTION [Easy: Success] - No, the thunder is his. Leave it to the lieutenant.

"You're right, there is no local drug trade -- except you."

"No, you do the honour, you've earned it. (Nod at the lieutenant.)

"Forget it. I knew they'd never own up to it." (Back off.)

KIM KITSURAGI - "Thank you." He turns to face the man. "You're right, Titus. There is no local drug trade, because it's all controlled by *you*. *You're* the drug trade."

TITUS HARDIE - "That's a mighty interesting theory." He rubs his jaw, smiling. "I guess that's what you would need to do, theoretically. A big, strong, state run monopoly *would* out-compete the runts on the street."

EUGENE - "Yeah, man. *Theoretically* that's what you would do -- to get rid of the gangs, the dealers, even some of the junkies."

TITUS HARDIE - "You would need good, trustworthy people to take their place, of course. *Hardy* men to run such a monopoly." He grins. "For the good of the community, of course."

#disco elysium #kim kitsuragi #titus hardie #elizabeth beaufort #hardie boys #this is a very long post

[derxwnakapsyla]

Derxwna Analyzes: Pokemon Reborn

If you're familiar with my blog, you may remember that six years ago, I posted an analysis on the concept of "Edge" in Video Games, specifically Pokemon games, as inspired by the fangame Pokemon Reborn. In that analysis, I stated that Fangames should be allowed to broach darker topics, more serious ones, because they don't need to be marketable to children and families as a whole. To that notion, I still mostly agree, however, there are things I would like to adjust in wording. That is something I'll be attempting to do in this essay of sorts. This essay however is more focused on Pokemon Reborn as a whole, as I'd like to give my full, unfiltered thoughts about it. On occasion, I will be covering the general concept of "dark", "edge", "grit", and "cringe" in Fangames and Media. Do note, going beyond this point will provide significant spoilers for Reborn up to and including E19 content. If you have yet to finish the game, and would like to remain unspoiled, I would not suggest reading this essay.

Trigger Warnings for the following content: Death, Suicide, Gore, Child Abuse, Implied CSA

With that said, let's kick it off proper.

--- Pokemon Reborn: What is it? --- Pokemon Reborn, probably one of the more well known fangames in the Pokemon Fangame Scene for a variety of reasons, released it's final story update to its community on the 18th of April, 2022, 10 years after its first release back in 2012 on the same day. 19 episodes worth of content spanning over 100 hours, easily. With gyms spanning every type, field effects that range from simple (Glitch Field is literally just Gen 1+) to the utterly deranged (Ame I swear to god the Flower Garden field is miserable but I love the complexity of it fuck you and god bless your patience), custom shiny pallets for every single Pokemon, and a plot that you could literally cut deli meats on, Reborn has gained quite the following and acclaim for its features and its story. At the same time, it has also received some harsh, considerably valid, criticisms that I genuinely can't dispute. It is very much the definition of "You can't please everyone", and "You may not be the target audience".

For the unaware, Reborn's plot is about a starting-out trainer traveling to the Reborn Region to challenge its newly rebuilt League. As they're boarding the train, the conductor at the station informs them that the region is basically a "dump", which isn't too far off the mark. On the train, the player gets introduced to the "Professor" of the region, Ame (who is the developer self insert, but she plays extremely minimal impact on the story). As Ame and the Player are finalizing registration, the player gets a very quick introduction to what kind of game this will be, as the train they're on crashes into its station, with the only survivors being Ame and the MC themselves. Reborn City, upon inspection, is quite literally a decrepit city that is being racked by water pollution, earthquakes, gangs and thieves, and is all around a miserable place to be. Not too long into the game, the player encounters Team Meteor, the group responsible for most of Reborn City's current miserable state, utilizing technology called PULSE Machines to mutate Pokemon and cause them to wreak havoc on the city, such as a Tangrowth that is causing vines and other foliage to erupt through the pavement. Their goal is to destroy the "taint" that is Reborn City, and to create a new world in the process- a better world.

As the player progresses further, it becomes more and more apparent that the game relies heavily on darker tones of storytelling- if it wasn't obvious in the intro with the player and Ame being the only survivors of the train crash, there is constant references to people dying as a result of Team Meteor's actions, or of some other actions. This really makes itself apparent after the player deals with Rhodocrine Jungle, where it's revealed that one of the Team Meteor agents, Borealis, is one of the former Gym Leaders, Corey. With his identity exposed and being cornered, he retreats to his former gym, where he battles the player. After losing, he makes for the nearby Beryl Bridge, where after releasing all of his Pokemon, he falls off Beryl Bridge, committing suicide. This is one of the defining moments that most people think about when Reborn is brought up- people die, not just random npcs, but actual people with names and faces, and in very... specific ways. Suicide. Bisection. Decapitation. It gets bloody and gorey.

All in all, Reborn isn't one to shy away from darker topics. One may argue whether or not it did them correctly, or whether or not it was necessary, but regardless of that they were still there. It is argued considerably so, especially since, at the time, it was believed that most of the people in the game were based off of real, living people- dead or alive. This made it very... morally and ethically dubious about this game's "plot". However, a lot of these "events", and the legacy of this game, can all be traced back to its real origins.

Pokemon Reborn started out not as a fangame, but as a Pokemon Netplay Battle Server. A small scale one at that, where initially, Amethyst decided to run a "challenge circuit" for her friends irl, and in the process she created gym leaders for every type and built teams for them. At the time, she was effectively roleplaying as all of the Gym Leaders for that league, as she states in her developer room dialogue. Eventually some random strangers came into the server, and started believing the gym leaders were actual people. From there, it sort of became a "if you know, you know" sort of deal- kind of like wrestling. It's fake, and most people know it, but it's not about whether it was real, it was about having fun, and letting others have fun in the process. Ultimately though, this meant that none of the events- Corey's suicide, Kiki's death, the existence of Connal's orphanage that also doubled as an Electroconvulsive Therapy Center- none of it was real. The people never existed. The events, the people, they primarily stemmed from what would become Amethyst and her fellow admins creating lore within their server, sometimes unintentionally so, sometimes by necessity for their own sake. But that being said, events that happened within the roleplaying of the server got translated into the game, which means that most arguments about the "morality" and the "ethical" state of the game start to go up in smoke with that.

--- Pokemon Reborn: The Dark and the Gritty --- There are quite a few notable events that happen within the game that people like to point out when the game is brought up. The two big ones are Corey's suicide, and Kiki's death at the hands of Solaris', head of Team Meteor, Garchomp, as well as the death of her Medicham in the same scene by being thrown into a volcano. The existence of Sigmund Connal, the Electroconvulsive Therapist who also runs an orphanage and basically "treats" his wards with ECT is another thing people like to bring up as well. All of the blood, all of the gore, some of the implied sexual undertones here and there, it leaves a certain taste in people's mouths. You're either okay with it, or it really bothers you.

That being said, there is... some things that I personally find very hard to stomach. One of the bigger ones involves the scene involving the Dragon Gym Leader, Sapphira Belrose, and Sigmund Connal, her former guardian. In one of the patient logs in the orphanage, it's noted that Sapphira has constant delusions, especially of people in power/male authority figures, going so far as to make up events that didn't happen. During a scene in Calcenon City, just before the raid on Labradora, there is a scene with her and her sister, Laura, where she starts to recount an event that happened to her at the hands of Connal. Further in the game, when you're battling her at her gym, she mentions more about this event, but never goes into explicit detail about it. From the dialogue alone (and after asking Ame for clarification), the scene is intended to be interpreted as Sapphira as a CSA (child sexual assault) survivor who has been traumatized by Connal while he was in in a drunken state. This scene, in my opinion, feels... a bit much. This might be my own personal opinions on the subject, though at the same time, the event isn't being portrayed positively, and I can't imagine that anybody is suddenly rooting for Connal to become a good guy. It portrays him in an even worse light than he already is. With scenes like this, one has to ask the personal question: "Is this scene bad, or do I just have a personal problem with it" (Though sometimes, it could be both).

Ultimately, this is what a lot of the game comes down to- asking that very question. A lot of people will rightfully argue that it's the former. It's not my position to say whether they are right or not, just to acknowledge that their beliefs and perceptions are entirely unique and valid. However, I would find someone who thinks the scene glorifies the event, or any event like it, to be very odd, and potentially worrisome- I’m sure they exist, but I’d like to remain blissfully unaware. In my eyes, Reborn is a game that, while it showcases a lot of dark events, it doesn't normally go out of its way to glorify them, or make it seem right. Sure, sometimes in the heat of the moment, it showcases a normally bad action in a good light (Sapphira being introduced to the player by coming on screen after murdering like, a dozen Team Meteor Grunts, or Titania ripping through Team Meteor Grunts with her Aegislash), but these moments are usually fairly sparse- if I'm remembering right, at least.

As I mentioned in my previous essay, I believe that fangames should be allowed to touch on subjects that would never be covered in official Pokemon games. They don't need to,  but the option shouldn't be shunned. Whether or not a person believes that the subject material is portrayed correctly- portrayed appropriately, that's a very difficult thing to answer or judge. I can't speak for everyone, and I know my personal thoughts are my own, but I believe that at times there's lots of the elements within the story that feel like accurate, if unfortunate portrayal. Amaria's depression and co-dependency disorder is something that resonated a bit too strongly with me, even though I'd like to believe I'm not that bad... anymore. Granted on that note, I should clarify that I didn't do the other route where apparently Amaria goes nuclear because Titania does xyz. It doesn't mean I like them though. As I mentioned above, I really dislike the segment with Sapphira and Connal. But that's very much a personal thing, and I don't believe it's a story failing. A scene that makes you think about it critically is- well, it's not always a sign of good writing, but it's certainly a sign that it was enough to make you, the reader/player, think. If it was just thrown in for shock value, just for the sake of grit and edge, as opposed to story cohesion, it'd be really easy to just shrug it off, because there'd usually- not always, but usually- be no real thought behind it to begin with. Your own mileage may vary on this though, and that's just how it'll be.

--- Pokemon Reborn: Flower Gardens are not Peaceful here --- What, you didn't think I'd only be talking about "OW TEH EDJE", did you? That's only one facet of Reborn, and for people who don't care about story it's entirely irrelevant. The other well known thing about Reborn is how brutally difficult it is. At the very start of the game you're told several things. In a non-specific order, you're informed of the following: Gym Leaders use six Pokemon, and have pretty specialized teams, and that there's a soft level cap that, if you cross, your Pokemon will have a chance to disobey you, even if you caught them yourself. It also isn't long before you're introduced to the other massive quirk of the game: Field Effects, which make the terrains introduced in Generation Six look like the cotton gin. These hyper specialized fields have interactions with battles as a whole- on the Pokemon, on their moves, on their abilities, sometimes even the overworld. Every Gym Leader battles on a field effect that benefits them strongly, and combined with the two aforementioned other facts, it makes each gym battle a very daunting clash. You either need to figure out how to strategize around breaking the field, or potentially using it to your advantage, as its effects can benefit you as well and turn the battle in your favor. Something else you would expect, important trainers have competent AI, and are also EV and IV Trained, a very marked difference from official Pokemon games. Sure, it's not IMPOSSIBLE to beat the game without efficient stats, but it definitely makes the game more tolerable if you do so. But are all of these bad things?

Some think the Field Effects are aggressively stupid, and at times they really can be. Let me just post two examples of field effects. First example is the Desert Field, primarily featured in Tourmaline Desert. https://i.imgur.com/c3dcsHZ.png https://i.imgur.com/GJv7khi.png Pretty simple, wouldn't you agree? A good majority are like this. Some are a bit more elaborate, a bit more involved. And then we have the field that Ame herself said "please set this field on fire" in her dev blog post about it - The Flower Garden, featured exclusively in the Elite Four battle against Bennet and Laura. https://i.imgur.com/sFSySSZ.png https://i.imgur.com/bxhdUPd.png https://i.imgur.com/mMpC5pe.png https://i.imgur.com/JeVWSnM.png https://i.imgur.com/v5leLla.png How anybody is able to memorize all of these, I couldn't tell you. Sure most of the effects are just scaling versions of previous stages, but I have dumb bitch disease and forget things fast! As Ame said, just set fire to it (but not with Flamethrower, because that doesn't count as a move that can remove it!!!!) and scatter its ashes. One thing I will give this field, and all 36 other fields in the game, is that they're really fascinating on a conceptual level, with a lot of thought put into their interactions. It is a remarkable addition to the Fangame scene, and until Reborn it was never done to such an extent.

And then we have a feature that comes later in the game. Team Meteor's PULSE Project culminates in a product called PULSE-2, which amplifies the potential of Pokemon to the absolute pinnacle without mutating them. Mechanically, this means that after a certain point, all of their Pokemon have 252 EVs in every single stat, thoroughly breaking the 510 EV cap on Pokemon. This comes around the time the player and opposing trainers are around Level 90~100, where there isn't much left to do for numbers to change. As a result those fights become a fair bit harder, and things that would become a clean victory make a very drastic turn otherwise. This, however, is just a cherry on top of the cake that is already full of pain.

Another thing to bring up is the distribution of certain resources: namely, TMs and Pokemon. The funniest example is the way Magikarp is kept from the player for like, 3/4ths of the game through a long, drawn out sidequest that starts not long after you get your starter. A series of mishaps and shenanigans keeps the Magikarp you end up spending 1000 PokeBucks on at the start of the game isn't obtainable until you reach Tourmaline Desert, which is like, badge 14 of 18. Gyarados is good, but is it _that_ good? This is a common thing in the game, where certain Pokemon are locked behind sidequests or certain areas, or just really late into the game. Items are similar, but none more so egregious than TMs. It isn't until around the second half of the game that you really start getting access to the gnarly TMs. But until then, it's a bunch of lower power/utility TMs which you're expected to strategize with, which it is very possible to do. Some really good TMs are, understandably so, locked behind expansive sidequests or areas that require some hefty finagling to get through. Fortunately, there's nothing locked behind postgame (except for Legendary Pokemon and their relevant items), so that means you can build your ideal team, sans legendaries, by the time you reach the Elite 4.

Then there's also the fact that there's 18 uniquely designed gyms, with each needing to be beaten to clear the game still. Every single one of them is based on most of the leaders from the Online League. The gyms themselves are already difficult endeavors, but you suddenly go from 4 badges being the halfway point, to 9 badges being the halfway point- and you can see it reflected in the game. I believe when I got access to Agate Circus to begin the second arc of the game, I was already clocking in around 60 hours. The game is long.  Long and really hard (Terra don't interact). All of these factors coalesce into one grand epic, narratively and mechanically. It can be a very daunting experience, especially for someone who's used to only spending 20 hours on a Pokemon game- for both its maingame and its postgame. At my time of writing, I'm not even done with Postgame, and I'm clocking in at 130 hours. That's over six times longer than a normal Pokemon game! Fortunately, the game does make the process of grinding much easier, through the use of grind trainers in the Grand Hall (and Agate Circus) that give you EXP Candies, which allow you to blast prospective party members into the level cap extremely fast. This is also useful for a sidequest in which you have to fill out your Pokedex to get certain rewards (such as the Ice Beam TM........).

The concept of the level cap is also its own can of worms. The idea of a level cap in a Pokemon game isn't exactly an uncommon one, but a lot of people have felt it weird whenever it gets introduced. Regardless of opinion, it can definitely be felt a lot, especially in certain battles. As you can't grind levels to overpower certain enemies, you have to resort to strategizing with moves and Pokemon. However, sometimes this can lead to unfortunate circumstances. One of these unfortunate circumstances is the Gauntlet in the bunker near Calcenon City where you have to fight Cain and Shelly in a double battle, then you have to fight Luna, then Radomus and Serra in a double battle, all back to back. Sure, you get healed (to an extent), but good LORD if you don't have hard cap enabled, it is very easy to get over the level cap and have your Pokemon not obey you anymore. In cases like this, it can be quite annoying to keep on the level cap, and the further you get into the game then the more you'll run into this issue. It becomes necessary to have a hundred common candies on hand to keep their levels in check.

There's definitely more that I didn't cover in regards to mechanics and balancing, but these examples showcase that the game has a lot of avenues of difficulty that some people may or may not enjoy. The game takes great strives to keep each experience unique and diverse, with its field effects and challenging AI, trying to make players think outside of the box and use things they wouldn't normally use, or do things they wouldn't normally do. None of this even goes into the myriad of puzzles of all kinds of difficulty (For the love of god why does the Magic Number puzzle exist aaaaaaaAAAAAA, and don't get me started on the fact that Victory Road could be its entire own game lol).

--- Pokemon Reborn: Scattered Thoughts on Murky Waves --- The difficulty, the story. Those two things make up the crux of Reborn, and the crux of what I wanted to talk about. However, that isn't all, and there's miscellaneous things I'd like to bring up that don't really fit anywhere else. So, in this rapid fire segment of topics, lets start with my personal big favorite: the introduction of the password system, and all of the QoL that comes with it.

At the start of the game, you are given the option to input passwords that control like, so many facets of the game, ranging from difficulty, quality of life, to... uhh... [reads smudged writing on hands]... no fonts? Weird flex, but okay. I won't go into all of the types of passwords here, but just the concept of having passwords that allow you to disable the soft exp cap and make it a hard exp cap is really nice. The ability to make it so the grind trainers just freely give you the candy without needing to battle them further cuts down on grinding. The password to remove EVs and IVs from trainers pokemons makes it more in-line with vanilla Pokemon. The password to make it so every trainer is literally PULSE-2'd is, well. If you're insane enough to do that, god speed. A nuzlocke password, a type inverter password, a monotype password for every type, a password to give yourself more cash after every battle. The system is robust and, honestly, I love it. The passwords aren't some like super secret thing that’s hush hush and if you want to find them you have to crack the game open and find them yourselves. No, they're freely given out in-game from certain npcs, and you can activate them whenever you want at a PC (provided you have a data chip). This system is honestly what I'd want my own password system to be like.

This next thing kinda ties back into the story, but it's only really relevant because I played earlier versions of Reborn; Around e17~e19, Amethyst begun to rewrite the earlier portions of the game to make things more consistent and flow better, instead of just making things just feel like they happen for the sake of happening. You get introduced to Corey much, much earlier, as a person helping the police giving aid to people in the city, and it's made more clear much earlier on that he works for Team Meteor not completely out of choice. From a narrative perspective, they also made it so Corey and Kiki were retired, so when you fight them, it isn't under the pretense of getting a badge that you won't get due to plot events. Lin is also introduced like, really goddamn early on as well, as compared to like, what, around Tanzan Mountain? It's showcased immediately that she's a goddamn anomaly of some fucking sort, and she just starts skyrocketing through the ranks of Team Meteor, eventually becoming the leader of it. Overall, the changes made to stuff Pre-Route 1 make a lot of things flow and feel a lot smoother.

The in-game Field Notes app is pretty nice, and did come in clutch for me quite often... However the fact that you can't access it in battle makes it difficult to call reference to what field effects do if you forget, and since they're no longer documented on the website (at least, not that I could find, but I suppose I didn't search enough), felt kinda restraining. Several times I found myself needing to restart a battle just to rehash what a certain field effect did in regards to a Pokemon or Move that was in play at the time. I know I keep coming back to it, but battling Laura and Bennet for the first time was terrifying because I didn't have a move that could nuke the field, and we couldn't reference what all the field did on demand to see how much trouble I was in, lol. Still though, having an in-game resource like that is really handy.

All the shinies. Every single one. They're so good, and I love all of the work put into them. Even if the shiny rate means you run into one every -2 encounters and will scream because it's just a gauntlet of shiny after shiny. Shinypocalypse is real and it is your friend. Be afraid, but welcome it wholeheartedly.

ame thank you for not forcing us to read titania's diary, i know that was done in like e16 but thank u i cry every time i remember being forced to read it to progress that scene. it's okay, i didn't read it, amaria did, she just read it out loud. i'm absolved of guilt, right? right. it's fine. i am free of sin.

--- Pokemon Reborn: The End Result of an Individual's Ramblings --- So, where does this all lead to? Honestly, I still liked the game. It has a lot of things I don't like, and at times the story and writing can be considered "cringe", but like... that's not inherently a bad thing. And like... who cares? People engage with "cringe" content all the time- so long as it isn't hurting anyone, and I guess thanks to recent realizations, it's not walking over real peoples suffering, I just... don't see an issue with it. Sure, one could argue that the inclusion of these events that happened in the Online League's RP setting, then passing it off as events that "actually happened", all under the guise of like "If you know, you know. If you don't, enjoy the show!" is really bad, but... I don't know, perhaps I see it differently here. I see a lot of things differently- it's gotten me into hot water at times because I try to not accuse someone of outright malice.

The difficulty wasn't necessarily what interested me about the game at first- it was its visual aesthetic, I'm not ashamed to admit that. Once I started playing I just... I dunno, I felt engaged by the story in a way I felt normal Pokemon hadn't been able to for a long time. Then the difficulty started kicking in and I just started... going with the flow, y'know? I learned how to get better (perhaps not good, because I still struggle with memorizing even the vanilla type chart, lol), and watching my progress felt really rewarding.

Reborn isn't my most favorite Pokemon game, or even my most favorite fangame, but it's definitely up there for a lot of reasons. I wholeheartedly enjoy the game. I enjoyed the time I spent with the community. It's inspired me, it's driven me, it's sparked things in me that I thought didn't exist at times. I try not to get bothered whenever people (reasonably so) harp on the game, but it... it's really difficult, because unless I'm in the Discord server for the game itself, nobody around me even remotely likes the game. They take any opportunity to rail on the game any time it's brought up. And again, I get it. I get it! The game isn't the best. The story is dark and cringey. It's not for everyone. But... it's for me. I tend to hold my tongue any time it gets brought up because I don't want to give the wrong impression, or cause a scene because I let my own dumb emotions get the better of me, haha. Streaming Episode 19 from start to finish was a kind of stressful experience, because I knew a lot of things that were coming. Any death I knew that was coming. Any absurd boss fight that I knew was ahead. Stuff I knew would cause a stir, I dreaded it. And for the most part, yeah, I was right to dread it. But there were a few people who were watching that, despite them saying the game was cringe, genuinely enjoyed watching it, and found it fascinating, and some even found it interesting enough to pick it up and play it! I binged it as hard as I did because I had some of an audience that seemed to really enjoy it- one of these people was my roommate who just even offered straight up to handle doing some stuff in game for me while I was at work.

--- Closing Thoughts in the New World --- I'm not a fool to think that just because these things happened that the collective opinion of the game can be changed, nor do I strive to change the opinion of the game. The point of this essay was never to change people's mindsets. It was to just get my thoughts onto paper. I have a lot of thoughts about Reborn, thoughts I tend to keep to myself, because aside from like one friend who I talk within in private about the game on occasion, I don't have a place I feel comfortable talking about the game in. And I mean, I guess that's fair, given everything I've said about the game.

But still, despite all that, Reborn is special to me. So, thank you Amethyst for making this game. I know it may have started off as a delayed April Fools joke of sorts, and it may have grown far beyond what you ever imagined, beyond the small project for the community it was made for, but, if not for that, I don't think I would have had some of my favorite memories of playing a Pokemon fangame- of playing a Pokemon game as a whole. I wish you the best in your future projects, and I hope to see Starlight Divide shine even brighter than Reborn does.

And for the love of god, PLEASE rest more. As a fellow developer, I know how vital rest is, and how easy it is to slip into habits of overworking on passion projects.

--- A Grand Hall of Special Notes --- I would seriously like to thank Ame and the development team for having as much representation as they have in the game. Race, Gender, Sexuality, Physical and Mental Impairments, r/niceguys- These people exist, and they're normal people. They do the same things everyone else does, and should just blend into the game. In some ways, Reborn has helped me to realize a few things about my own identity, but that's not really relevant right now. I just really want to thank Ame for taking the time to do this. It means a lot to me on a personal level.

And finally, I would like to give a special thanks to Reborn for reintroducing me to an old, old friend of mine from school. We weren't super close, and as a result once I changed schools we fell out of contact. Our paths diverged greatly; he went on to become a person who enjoyed competitive Pokemon, I went on to enjoy Glitchology. Despite that, ten years later, this one fangame that he helped make managed to reconnect our paths, with both of us as better, wiser people. I don't know if he'll read this, but if he does, I just want to say this: We made it this far, let's keep doing the best we can for another 10 years. And don't worry, your secrets remain safe with me chief.

Until we next meet again, this is DerxwnaKapsyla, signing out. Hopefully to finish the postgame, and possibly update this post with more thoughts, lol.

#Pokemon Reborn #Derxwna Writes Things #This is a very long post #I'm not out here seeking anything in specific #I just wanted to get my thoughts in order

[lukas-crying-heart]

Demon world. Inform. Me. Now!

:DDDDDDDD

Okay so the main character (Luka, yes he’s names after me) has always had some connection to the part of him that’s half demon, but this isn’t your normal every day magic, oh no, he has dream-centered magic. For example, he could dream of very specific events and they will happen. Prophetic dreams if you will but they’re usually just small events (what he’ll have for breakfast etc) but sometimes he will have dreams of bigger events (if someone were going to die he would have a very vague dream out it) but he, only being half demon, does not have very strong powers. These abilities are uncommon for him to be naturally gifted with, all other spells he wants to learn will be learned through study.

But then there’s the character that Eva ( @justexistinghere122 ) made for this whole thing named Stefan, he just has demon magic, though he seems to have a talent for memory spells. He is a very powerful demon and doesn’t use his powers for good or evil purposes, he just does whatever suits him.

And then ofc there are demons who specialize in love based spells, Jules is the best example of this. Now someone could look at them specializing in love based magic and think “oh they’re so sweet, and a romantic!” And while yes this specific character is, love in itself is a very very powerful kind of magic. You can make anyone do whatever you want with a simple love spell. Jules chooses to not to control those around them with love spells because they see it as one of the worst things that you can do to a person, but many demons like them will use it for not-so-nice purposes.

And while we’re talking about love-based magic, it is prominently used by succubi (like Jules) and most of them use this magic to do what succubi and incubi do. But there are some like Jules who just want to be happy and want the same for everyone else.

Now we have the demons who do more work in the mind (brainwashing, possession etc) these demons are more likely than not evil, two of my characters (Cas and Rose) have talent in these spells, and while Rose used her powers to find her son (Luka) Cas uses his to control and destroy anyone and anything. Physical and mental torture is what he does to get his way and if he doesn’t get it he kills the poor soul he chose.

And demons with the most potential to be some of the most powerful demons are those who are directly related to Satan himself. Quinn and Lilian are his half sisters, their mother being Lilith. Quinn did not know she possessed such power until she was well into her teenage years due to her not growing up in hell with her half sister (different dads), Lilian, so her powers developed on a small scale. Only having used them two times by accident in her younger years and nearly killing Luka at the age of 15.

Lilian on the other hand who did grow up in hell with full access to her full power throughout her whole life became one of the most feared demons hell had to offer (just below Lilith and Satan)

Lastly, we have humans who happen to have some natural connection to magic, Micah is the only one who spent a good portion of his life studying spells and who now has a gift for protection charms.

Yeah so, that’s most of the types of magic that’s used a lot throughout the whole story. Oh and ofc harming spells but every demon and magic user knows those. I’ve spent a better part of a year tossing these characters around in my brain.

There’s so much romance and tragedy in this, it just makes me so happy. This has been a passion project of mine for so so so long and I can’t wait for it to be finished so I can share it with people. But very select people will be able to read it as it’s being written (maybe)

#this is a very long post #can you tell mh adhd goes bonkers when this is brought up?

[berah-ronah]

so i think i remember you talking about fate and hwbm in relation to each other at some point (idr the context) but it made me curious what the pitch on hwbm was, like whatd you like in it?

OH RIGHT, the basic pitch for Heaven Will Be Mine is that it's a visual novel about homoerotic mech duels between the pilots from three factions that formed after humanity won a space war against an Existential Threat: Cradle's Grace, a space liberationist faction pursuing independence from earth; the Memorial Foundation, an earth-based faction that urges humanity to unite back in earth's gravity well now that their enemy has been defeated; and Celestial Mechanics, a space-based organization pursuing mysterious goals of their own

the basic pitch is that you control one of three characters, and duel/make out with the other two over eight days, choosing whether to win or lose (which allows you to side with your faction or betray it to help another faction win). The themes mostly revolve around transhumanism, transgenderism, and the need for humanity to unite themselves by defining specific groups of people as a nonhuman Existential Threat; lots of stuff about how culture is like gravity, and its difficult-to-impossible to escape.

Most of what I liked was the prose and the character writing; WKTD has fantastic writing, but its scope is fairly limited by them being awkward semi-closeted teens (which 100% works for the story they're telling); HWBM has a LOT of good mech duels that vary between homoerotic to just straight up erotic, and having a supporting cast of minor characters with their own personalities and motivations and political attitudes makes it feel like a much deeper world. WKTD showed a small glimpse of a world while giving us throwaway lines that hinted at what the rest of the world might be like, while HWBM shows a fully fleshed out world with larger political and societal stakes (while still leaving some ambiguity)

ALSO it asks questions like "what if Char was a hot white-haired trans lesbian" and "what if there was a pilot whose piloting style revolved around them being a brat"

#this is a VERY long post #and its been a while since ive played it #but its very good! #ive done the Cradles Grace and Celestial Mechanics endings #but i do need to go back and finish it

[shivasdarknight]

ask 2 of 3

12. How has their job affected whatever headcanon version is of the MSQ if any? 

{original question collection post - curious about anything else?}

Quite a lot, actually! Especially with regards to public image and how playing specific roles led to certain things happening.

For reference, here's what the four are classed as:

Surkukteni: LNC>DRG - ROG (ARR, only actual class as ROG isn't used seriously); DRG - RDM (post ARR); DRG - DRK/MCH/AST/RDM (HVW, DRG is still main class while the others are still being learned/use sparingly); DRG > DRK - MCH/RDM/DRG/AST (post HVW-SHB, DRK becomes main class); DRK - MCH/RDM/DRG/AST/WAR (post SHB, WAR is from Ardbert); DRK + RPR - MCH/RDM/DRG/AST/WAR/MNK (ENW, other things are mixed in); DRK+RPR+MNK+DRG - MCH/RDM/AST/WAR (post ENW)

Gwendoline: CNJ>WHM* - THM>BLM/ACN>SMN/SCH (ARR, only plays role of WHM and rest are...curiosities); WHM* - BLM/SMN/SCH (post ARR, other jobs see use but still WHM main); WHM*+MCH - BLM/SMN/SCH (HVW, basically just carries a gun on her now); WHM*+MCH+BLM+SMN - SCH (STB-post ENW, she's now figured out how to multi class and has become obnoxious about it)

*SHE'S A NECROMANCER.

Teodore: BLM - WHM/SCH/SMN/SGE (ARR-HVW, needs...a lot of explanation); BLM+SCH - SMN/SGE/WHM (post HVW-SHB); BLM+SCH+WHM - SMN/SGE (post SBH-post ENW)

Seraphin: GLD > PLD* (ARR, has been a GLD for a while); PLD* - RDM (post ARR, very serious about this); PLD* - RDM/MNK (HVW-post HVW, actively working on the latter); PLD*+RDM - MNK (STB-post ENW, MNK is more of an outlet than anything)

*He was not trained by the Sultansworn and is more of a rogue PLD, more below

The in depth stuff is below :3c

So each WoL has gone through ig a redefining of what each of their roles mean to them and the party, especially as they grow as adventurers and are confronted with things that don't particularly mesh with their preconceptions - with the exception of Teodore, but there's a reason there. Surkukteni sees the most change, Seraphin Teodore honestly sees the least out of them despite Seraphin only maining two classes - but Seraphin's two classes matter a Lot to him.

Let's start with Surkukteni.

The entire reason why she started with LNC was because it was what her captain Kitase was familiar with, and thus she was taught it. So she does not go to Ywain with no experience and instead comes in with naginata experience. Between her bullheadedness and leftover training from a former Doman soldier (plus her siding with Foulques), it makes early ARR!Surkie very prone to resisting teaching from Eorzeans. She picks up ROG more as a side gig than anything (which many of the skills from that will become useful), but her being an obnoxious 20something is what gets her thrown into Coerthas. Ywain sent two potential candidates to Alberic when the request was put through: Lillith (the genuine one, because he wasn't aware this was a way to shove accountability onto a foreigner) and Surkukteni (who he wanted to see broken by the much more rigid training structure of the Dragoons). This leads to confusion as to who the Eye picked between the two, but unfortunately for Ywain, the better candidate was Surkukteni - entirely because. I mean she's fucking based on Vergil Sparda while Lillith is a goody-two-shoes butch who just wants to find his dad (because ofc he does, he was a Lone Wanderer with the highest possible good karma originally); of course Surkie's the better candidate. So this bleeds into the public image of the Warrior of Light as "the Azure Dragoon Cloaked in Ivory," in part because she shifted from the "obnoxious greaser/biker in all black leather" to the white uraeus overcoat she began to favor in part because it made it easier to jump people from above (same logic as to why so many birds and fish have darker backs but lighter bellies), but also because she's an edgy bitch it's just flipped for her (she was a Borlaaq who are devoted to Nhaama and have the dark color scheme of black/purple/blue+some reds, and was raised in Hingashi by a Doman; she views dark colors as the more virtuous stuff because of Nhaama, but because of that same belief + Doman and Hingan ones, white is more associated with death. She's conscious of how Nhaama's colors are used, so she's openly edgy with both but Eorzeans didn't get the white association so it peters off eventually). So DRG became Surkukteni's identity as a Warrior of Light, and it influenced initial stuff with Ishgard more favorably...at first. It was at first, it doesn't really last because this is while Surkukeni's still under the hyur glamour and only Alberic (and Estinien, actually) know that she's an au ra.

During post-ARR, Surkukteni (and Seraphin) meet X'rhun - and because he's met prior to Stormblood, his offer to train them is more based in what he sees immediately. Yeah, he knows that the two are Warriors of Light, but he's more interested in their character and how they respond immediately. While Surkukteni is at her most obnoxious and sardonic, he extends the offer to her and this matters a lot because it's him extending her a courtesy she's never gotten before. She's outwardly auri at this point, but she's more surprised he's willing to work with her given her extremely volatile and powerful aether. She was rejected from every guild on the grounds of her being a liability to herself and those around her, so having someone be willing to slow down and work with her based on her needs? Yeah, it catches her off guard and it allows her to begin to learn magic through red magic. This is her first teacher since Kitase to actually care to teach her from the get go (Alberic doesn't count, it took a while for the priority to shift) and she ends up very close to the guy just because he took the time to meet her where she was at and help her grow into her style of red magic (which leans more into her Dominants (ice/levin/water) than the standard stuff). This nets her an ally in the Crimson Duelists, and becomes important down the line.

DRK becomes the most important aspect of Surkie's classes even if it's not her main one in HVW. She gets through the intro stuff very quickly, but the important impact is the fact that she's taken to getting rid of Temple Knights since nothing seems to come of their horrific acts against Brumites. That opening scene gets amplified as yeah remember the skills from ROG? They apply here now plus the little caveat that DRK is yes Dark Knight, but she's more of a Demon Knight. Surkukteni has a voidsent pact at this point with a Hellhound by the name of Sétanta, and in combination with her hyur glamour from ARR, the rumors of a "heretic in indiscernible armor that's as likely to maim you by sword as they are to maim you by devil" begin to circulate like wildfire and this gets back to Surkie through Aymeric. She was doing odd jobs in a sense for Aymeric with Estinien while her allies were caught up and not allowed in (gee it's like one of them was caught in the act of working with necromancy or something), so she does a lot of random stuff around Central and Western Coerthas along with the Sea of Clouds. It's during one of the meetings where they're going over recent heretical activity and attacks that Aymeric lets slip that there's been an increase of Temple Knight deaths from within the city. Estinien, to no one's surprise, is pretty pissed about it and assumes that some heretic must have slipped past their grasp - but he's mostly worried about how this is going to reflect onto Aymeric. So he's not catching onto what Aymeric sees, and that's the fact that Surkie keeps coming into meetings with injuries that don't line up with how easy these jobs were - and how much it isn't like her to be getting into petty fights (this was the only thing he misread about the situation - that was her excuse because she's picked so many fucking fights). What led him to this assumption was: the fact that the blood that he saw on her was weirdly dark, much like the fouled blood rumored of Dark Knights; she was seen more around Sidurgu; and she's the only one he knows of with a glamour that can mask traits like horns and tails. So after the meeting talking about the new Dark Knight, he asks her to deliver a letter to someone working on the Dark Knight case, which is so fucking obviously bait. Surkie tries to not fall for the bait, but it gets at her anyways and she opens up the letter to find a list of names and an already signed envelope addressed to Aymeric, so clearly meant for return. Against her better judgement, she investigates the names and finds them all to be Temple Knights? And each has done something pretty reprehensible, but she's pretty sure this must be some trap. But again, against her better judgement she hunts them all down because she doesn't want to allow them the free reign they already have since someone down the line of command is openly covering for them and against Aymeric's orders - which is almost definitely motivated by who he is. She delivers a "letter from Camp Cloudtop", and is handed one that's "for Falcon's Nest". She's well and truly been found out, but this goes on back and forth through HVW until she gets a letter asking her to come to his home in civilian clothing so they may discuss a more sensitive job in person. AND SHE STILL DOES IT, she still shows up and this is when they're finally on an upfront basis of what these jobs are and who's who and it's also where he admits to the fact that he's trans and these next names were extremely sensitive because they were people who were onto him and they needed differing levels of dealing with. So while HVW is going on, Surkie's got this whole fucking side job where she's acting as Aymeric's hitman and getting that much closer with him - and part of what let him know what was up was because Sidurgu's his ex, so he was already familiar with this. So when she's finally working with her allies again and they start seeing the DRK stuff slip in, they're all extremely confused because Surkie just seemingly pulled this out of her ass.

HVW is where it really gets messy. As the other Azure Dragoon, Surkukteni initially gets a few more privileges in regards to Ishgard than the others - to where she's the only one of the group who's initially allowed into the city (along with Alphinaud and Tataru, since they were vulnerable). She's still there on the graces of House Fortemps, but most of this is carried on her title. HOWEVER. This immediately backfires with the heresy charges and the trial by combat, in which she is now landed with Significantly more charges than the others - including those who are still trapped in Camp Dragonhead - by virtue of the fact that they were expecting a Highlander and they got an a 6'1" auri bitch. Instead of seeing it for what it was, they saw it as her revealing her heretical nature to get access to one of the most vaunted positions within the military and to destroy it from the inside out. Because of fucking course. Obviously, she wins but this haunts her during the limbo of trying to get her party into the city (because even the others like W'khittri and her siblings are stuck). She's trusted by the likes of Aymeric, Lucia, Estinien, and Handeloup since they know better, but the general populace just saw her for what happened in the trial by combat - so all of that capital she could've used as the Azure Dragoon doesn't work as well because they see her as the assumed-heretic Azure Dragoon. So it's during this limbo that she goes and tries to find things to occupy herself with and it results in being dragged off the street by Jannequinard and being taught astromancy. She tries to argue that it won't work, but he won't hear it and she learns anyways - mostly from Leveva, but y'know. Yes, the tarot and star stuff becomes a way for her to connect with an aspect of her home culture, but mostly she connects with this due to the secret fate stuff going on. This - however - isn't really applicable to HVW's story; instead, it's the gd butterfly wing flap turned into a hurricane that bites them in the ass in post SHB. What does matter is when she went to go investigate a body in the Brume and wound up with a lot of trauma.

But this is also where her connection with being a Dragoon was shattered, as she began to view it as something frankly horrific because of what her role was in the Dragonsong War, how close she got to Ysayle, and then everything at the end. The shift to DRK was already happening since Seraphin was injured pretty badly and needed to back off but also because Surkie was disgusted by what she had done to get there. The hard shift came when Nidhogg - with Gae Bolg - injured her so severely that she couldn't keep up with it. She tried one last time at Rhalgr's Reach, but by then that was that. She gave up the lance in favor of a claymore because she was too physically injured to keep up and Zenos had shattered the spear tied to her identity. Sure, she kept up with the other classes and being a RDM gave her some advantage with the Resistance and working with X'rhun advanced some of her other studies, but at this point that image of the Azure Dragoon Cloaked in Ivory was gone. Unable to continue in that class and having it thoroughly ruined by its history, she fell hard into DRK and found that her shit mood only helped fuel it (NOT A GOOD THING). Her inability to continue as a DRG was something that wound up coloring how she interacted with Estinien during the Steppe stuff for drg70, especially since the final nail was Zenos' fault. RDM70 gave her the three scars over one eye, her work with X'rhun and the side trip to the Steppe wound up with this spur the moment idea that WORKS and that's sending the teenaged Borlaaqi with the potential for red magic to be trained by him, which built interest and thus more people getting involved in the revival in Ala Mhigo but also it fostered good relations between the two groups, some of the Borlaaqi stayed as Crimson Duelists, while others took the magic back to the Steppe to work with it further. So now there's just a bunch of deadly teenagers with foreign magic that are gonna be so obnoxious during the Naadam.

It's more that the lack of being a DRG is what impacts Surkie through everything. She didn't get the chance to redefine it in the way Estinien managed to since she's unable to keep up. She leaned further and further into DRK, especially as breakdown after breakdown and pain over seeming to lose Ysayle gave her a fragile yet extremely potent form of power through the class itself. And through SHB, this was how Norvrandt was introduced to their Warrior of Darkness, which fit all too well and kinda had her spiralling. Dark Knight has resulted in Esteem acting as someone who can talk for her and talk her through stuff, Esteem is now actively recognized by the Scions and people she works with. Esteem is as apart of MSQ as much as regularly recurring non-Scion npcs tbh.

Post SHB is where AST comes back to bite Surkie in the ass because Werlyt and Zadnor are heralded by the addition of a new party member: Krystsyng. Who they are quick to discover (thanks to Teodore) is an agent of the Forum sent to hunt down Leveva and her pupil. And Krystsyng figured out Surkie quick, and so there is a running plot up until half way through Endwalker of trying to deal with the fact that the Forum didn't let up like they said they would, and Krystsyng would see Surkie dead. ...Until she's called off and now she's just this menacing neutral figure that is way too friendly with them, but that's for post ENW.

.............surkies class situation is messy anyways

MNK is tacked on as something for Surkie's recovery period between 5.55 and 6.0, since this is when she has the twins. She picks it up to stay active early on, but W'khittri helps her get more into it post-delivery to help her get back up on her feet and maybe help her get back into DRG. It's a bonding activity between Surkie and her sister's girlfriend, and while she doesn't fully class as it, fundamentals are now incorporated into her other classes. This is also when she summons Diarmuid Ua Duibhne as her Reaper contract. This part is crucial because of how it ties back to Donovich, Saoirse, and even Ammut. Diarmuid is 13th Estinien, aka Donovich; Donovich was the younger brother of Cylva, and a close companion to Saoirse; Saoirse is 13th Surkie who is now the Morrigna; Ammut (Surkie's previous life) was executed by Amon with Diarmuid, and now Surkie is using Diarmuid as her voidsent. Beyond it affecting her combat, she has now thrown herself into a further chaotic situation with Fandaniel and Tiamat, and it makes Fandaniel more of an antagonist than Zenos just by the virtue of her being Ammut and seeming to just drag up everyone from that past. Diarmuid is equally as much of an involved character as Esteem, and if she hadn't summoned him she might have just died in the void. He fused with her to get her back to the Ragnarok in time (not the canon stuff by any means) and so now RPR has evolved in a sense because she's now half Voidsent. She's got a deeper connection with 6.X, she has more direct info about the turf wars, she's now a direct target because of who she fused with (ty Saoirse, you're so fkn helpful), all of the trial fights have been 1v1s because of RPR stuff, and in order to even have that contract to begin with Surkie had to swear to work on restoring the 13th, which was already in the plans. She does start to get DRG back, and putting an end to Zenos does help her start to work through things, but what really marks her shift in attitude is that her relationship with being a Dark Knight has finally and firmly reoriented itself away from trauma and more towards keeping her loved ones safe. Because she went from "messy relationship with friends/co-workers she's sure would abandon her + messy sibling relationship = feels alone constantly" to "she suddenly has a lot of romantic partners, three of which are her fiances, and also she's a parent now??" very quickly. And it forced her to reconcile quickly so she could be more self sustainable and get her priorities straight.

so like the gist of it is that the DRG>DRK pipeline was Surkie learning that her original goals were very off (she sought power; she needed agency) and the way it affects msq is that it's the tangible mark of her growth as a person and how she's really grown for the better. Her classes are more of how she's viewed, but some - like RDM, AST, MNK and DRK - have led her to forge deeper bonds and allegiances with others as well as create powerful enemies that won't leave her alone lmao

More than anything, her spells allow her to not only gain a better understanding of people and how the world works - driving her through her own curiosity - but it also backfires in that she's constantly getting into hot water over the legality of her studies. And she wouldn't want it any other way because she loathes the fact that stuff (like phytomancy) is illegal for deeply petty reasons. It allows her to shift into working with the alchemists of Radz-at-Han, it gives her a place at the Great Work, and she's one of the people who helped develop a vessel for Venat after Endwalker to keep her around. She wants to keep challenging what people understand and think of magic while simultaneously redefining stuff that has been scorned. Her classes are her story, and they both help and hurt msq because she's stubborn and she's the fucking necromancer.

Onto Gwendoline.

Gwendoline's relationship with classes and MSQ is interesting because her entire reason for hiring Surkukteni in the first place was a scapegoat and alibi should she get caught in her studies. She's a very skilled CNJ and ALC from the get-go, but she prioritizes necromancy, some aspects of voidsent summoning, and eventually white magic, black magic and other banned magicks. She has a very antagonistic relationship with magical law, will not shut up about it, and will not stop breaking said law because she has a personal vendetta against it for very valid reasons. Part of what allowed her to become a skilled CNJ was the fact that she is a chirurgeon for a medical underground in Gridania that takes in people that are shunned by the Guild and any healers. This means poachers, outcasts, and most notably (and importantly) refugees. She knows from intimate experience with various magicks and these groups that most of the arbitrary bans are hurting more than helping and she refuses to fall in line with them. Her entire interaction with MSQ is causing problems with her classes to challenge their very bans because she's VERY cocky and she would love to try and see someone stop her.

She views necromancy as an extension of her conjury, especially since it's helped her expand her abilities in ways that include stasis and other forms of preservation to keep someone at the state they're in so that they don't run out of time. Over the course of ARR, she picked up what magicks she could for the sake of learning, and wound up falling deeply into black magic and summoning to a degree, but mostly to see how she could implement them into her already expansive abilities.

Yeah she's a lot like Y'shtola in this regard it's no wonder they're together. It also makes it very obvious as to why she works so well with Teodore, later Katsuro, and then later also gets with Nidhana: she values intellectual curiosity and this is how she navigates her own jobs. They're useful tools, but she sees them as something for her to tinker with and expand beyond what the nations allow. It's through this that she revives phytomancy to a degree (which is something I came up with; it's a nymian attempt at replicating white magic that has vestigial spells in arcanima through bio and all the other spells) because it's through phytomancy that they bring back the "graft" spell to aid in Surkukteni's recovery from Nidhogg, then implement it on a wider scale since its use as temporary flesh could save a lot of lives that current healing magic can't address.

Teodore's main proficiency is Black Magic, and a lot of his studies are looking into the classical spells of Mhachi mages and trying to figure out if they've documented everything that was available. While he was in Sharlayan, he used to cycle through jobstones due to the fact that each one held various experiences and often very different spells depending on the original user and what point in the 5th era they were from. This work has manifested in what was originally a very middling stone from the 5th era that wasn't anything special being used as his stone and a culmination of his research. So while it wasn't really anything better than a paper weight, it now contains a plethora of spells from across the reign of Mhach that range from "vestigial black magic in thaumaturgy" to "spells that were likely only used by the likes of Shatotto or other mages of legend or infamy". His goal through ARR - and this influences where they go and what they're involved in - is to create stones that act as an entire database of Black Magic, which is then applied to all of his other stones - with WHM and SCH having fairly high priorities. He maintains SMN as a way to see if he can manifest egis separate from the usual affair - especially with that known limit of 3 egis + demi- summons - which again leads the group down some weird diversions into what primals he wants to seek out. SGE is the only one that's not for research purposes as that's actually his stone. It's what he learned prior to getting into magical history, preservation, and experimentation. Like Gwen, he inherently challenges the idea of why these things are banned...but unlike Gwen, he's not keen on breaking the law that lets him have this power because he genuinely cares about preservation! It's just he can't do that preservation if everything is dead!! So yes, Sharlayan comes up quite a lot because he's in a lot of shit - politically and academically - for getting involved in Eorzea's business. His ability to be in Eorzea as a Black Mage is tied together, and he ends up developing more spells as time goes on just by virtue of that adventuring. So yeah he's another problem in that he's using illegal magicks like Gwen, but he's also breaking Sharlayan law like Surkie and that has consequences later into the story.

Teodore is a lot like Gwendoline in the regard that his magic directly correlates with his story. He's the only one of the group who openly wields 3rd and 5th era magic without being apart of the guilds initially. The reason being is that he's a fairly renowned experimental magician - a sage in the classic FF sense and not the XIV sense - and has all of these jobstones on loan from the Forum for his research on the condition he doesn't meddle in local politics.

That condition was long broken and he hasn't obeyed it since the fight with Ifrit.

And finally, onto Seraphin.

What's funny about Seraphin is that his main class doesn't have as much impact on story as his side class ends up having. Seraphin is a gladiator to make money for his family; he is also one of the best on the Bloodsands as of ARR, but he doesn't enjoy it which is what leads to the bodyguard work and why he and Teodore got caught in the Ifrit bullshit when they weren't involved with MSQ prior to it. If anything, Seraphin didn't want to be involved in MSQ because he was still a gladiator and he still needed to support his family first and foremost. But as he was exposed to the Scions and the state of things outside of it, his goals started to get lofty - especially with regards to the liberation of Ala Mhigo and getting his family back to their homeland. Which is why even if he is a canon Paladin, he is not a sultansworn. One of the problems through ARR is how the party deals with Ul'dah and its governing bodies, and beyond what I already said about Little Ala Mhigo and the Amalj'aa in that other answer, a sticking point is the fact that Seraphin is hired to take down a rogue Paladin, but ends up joining him instead. This is someone who's well versed in the old practices and is more in line of the morality of what Paladin should be, instead of just a cop for the Sultana and Syndicate. Seraphin holds an illegal jobstone, and this is frequently used against him as they try to work with the Grand Companies - and he doesn't like any of this! He tries to keep his head down to not draw attention by the Brass Blades or Immortal Flames, yet now he's embroiled in this nonsense because he wanted to do the right thing. It means that every interaction with Ul'dah is made significantly harder because an Ala Mhigan Duskwight refugee is embarrassing the Sultansworn through outperforming them, is working with someone who broke from them to begin with, and is aiding the local tribes. Frankly, they don't even need to do the false regicide plot (even though they do) because they were already building a case against Seraphin prior to being named Warrior of Light. Branching out and learning from Ishgardian Paladins (another state institution, he doesn't stick around with them) and even from Skuld (who is a ~120yo Sharlayan Paladin trying to get that part of herself back) lets him figure himself out and what Paladin means to him, and it sort of ends up a blend of Cloud's initial energy in ff7 to something more like Cecil after he ditched the dark knight stuff and became a paladin in ff4. It's not state affiliated, it's entirely morality driven, and it's the other side of the coin to Surkie as a Dark Knight because it's doing the right thing For The Sake of doing the right thing on a very wide scale vs doing the right thing to protect those closest to you. Like Surkie, this becomes tied to his identity; and like Surkie, he suffers a grievous wound that makes it difficult to keep up (Fenrir mauled his leg in Snowcloak) so he shifts to two things to help with recovery.

MNK and RDM mean a lot to Seraphin due to their connections back to Ala Mhigo, but RDM means the most to Seraphin. MNK is an outlet for him that he initially picked up from W'khittri (like Surkie) but continued to train in it with the likes of Widargelt and Lyse as something to keep his mind off of the stress of Stormblood and potentially losing his homeland to the Garleans again since shit was looking bad. He doesn't really use it in serious combat and just handles it as a social thing - not that it doesn't help with the others, he just doesn't main class it like W'khittri.

RDM is the one that has a lot of importance due to the fact that he grew up on stories of the Crimson Duelists and really admired them, and now he's working directly with X'rhun. Where Surkie goes off to utilize that to learn how to better manage her aether while making connections elsewhere, Seraphin is the one to work directly with X'rhun to build the Crimson Duelists back up with members of the Resistance and help train them. He does this, in part, through the Doman half of Stormblood since he's in Gyr Abania then, but building up a new faction of Crimson Duelists is something he works on while X'rhun continues to travel to see if he can help others. This means there's a fair group by Endwalker to help with things, and this means he has an outlet during post Endwalker and something to occupy himself after the "disbanding" of the Scions. When I said that this has the most story impact, I mean it in the sense that the most changes because now there is a fairly strong revival of the Crimson Duelists compared to the handful of practitioners as seen in canon. PLD has a lot of consequences early on, but it's more personal stuff for Seraphin; RDM, however, now has an entirely new dynamic and function within MSQ because he is one of the people working to revive the spellcraft. He's also the only one of the group who's not immediately torn into by Sharlayan, and frankly they want to see if he or X'rhun would be down to help archive what they know of the magic and what Seraphin (and Surkie, tbh) have developed beyond its standard teachings. There are way more Red Mages in this version of MSQ - and a VERY diverse group of them, btw - than in canon as Seraphin doesn't want to let this die. This is a part of his identity and it's a facet of reclaiming part of what Garlemald destroyed by working on this facet of restoration.

And that's.

That's a lot but that's it! :D

god help me.

#original #ffxiv #final fantasy xiv #answered wol question #answered wol questions #mxkelsifer #writing #asked #asks #surkukteni #surkie #seraphin #sera #teodore #teo #gwendoline #gwen #THIS IS A VERY LONG POST #god i know i rambled off the point a bit but i felt its really important to note that like. while msq does change theres a lot of stuff #thats going on thats crucial to them and their relationships with these classes #ESPECIALLY Dark Knight for Surkie; White Mage for Gwen; Black Mage for Teo; and Red Mage for Seraphin #Paladin is more like Dark Knight for Seraphin but his crucial class is the development of Red Mage skills #its a lot. it meshes with others a lot but i have a lot of fun with it #if the uh. great wall of text is indicative of this

[delulu-4-lewlew]

So on Friday, I’m semi sure one of the workers at my train station was flirting with me.

Here’s the story, there’s a tldr at the bottom and in the tags, however I’m probably making a mountain out of a molehill.

My monthly train ticket ran out today, so after work, I go to by my ticket before I go home for the month. Now, I already saw him serving someone else and was hoping he’d serve me, because he cute anyways and he’s served me before, and he does.

I say my lil say in order to get my ticket. This is the interaction:

Him: “Do you want it to start tomorrow?”

Me: “Sure, why not.”

Him: “Well, are you going in tomorrow?”

Me: “No?”

Him turning screen, “Well on you going in on the 7th?” (Sunday)

Me: “No.” Me doing that ‘I know what you’re getting at smile’

Him: “Are you going in then?” (Pointing to 8th)

Me: “No. It’s a bank holiday.” (My small brain forgetting that people still work on bank holidays)

Him: “So your ticket can start there.” (Pointing to the 9th)

Me: “It doesn’t really matter to me, it’s neither here nor there.”

Him: “I’m just trying to save you money.” Please bare this in mind, he has that cheeky chap smile going on.

Me: “How though? It’s still the same price, just starting later”

Him: “Ok. Looks like you got too much money.” Now, this slightly triggered me because my parents also say this whenever I buy anything and the fact that he thought that I pay for a £600 train ticket out of my own pockets?! Insulting

Me: “ Well, my company comps it so it doesn’t matter when I buy it really.”

Him: “Ahhh.” Bit of a pause. “What company do you work for?”

Me: Dumbly tells him the actual company I work for and the industry because I can’t make up lies on the spot when I’m kiki-ing it up with a cutie.

Him: “I’m gonna call them up. Let them know of what you’re doing.”

Me: “Go ahead. I’m not stopping you.”

Then he goes into the professionalism, “would you a receipt” blah di blah di blah. Gives me my smart card, tells me to have a good weekend and sends me on my way.

TLDR: I’m now engaged. The ceremony is next month and you’re all invited

#this is a very long post #tldr: I’ve found my new husband. we are very much in love and the wedding is next week #please. let me be delusional #I know he doesn’t want me just because we had a jokey joke #but let me dream #he’s the only cute one there #actually. I think there’s 2 but I haven’t seen one of them in a while #I say all this #he’s actually kinda useless #completely spelt my surname wrong even though he had my license in front of him

[savefrog]

That last post is so funny. Besides the whole "GIVING TREX FEATHERS IS LITERALLY GAY. ITS LGBTS RUINING EVERYTHING"

I especially love the "DO YOU NEED TO SEE T REX SHIT TO FEEL SAFE" as though shitting was part of the evil lgbt leftist agenda?? Shitting and pooping propoganda???

But. The irony of them acknowledging T Rex did all these things but depicting it as anything but a brainless death monster is "to make you feel safe" when it's so obvious that they're the one who feels discomforted by not being catered too and is wanting the safe unchallenging depiction back is both so stupid yet unsurprising

And you know what. MY NEW HOT TAKE: MAYBE T REX IS GAY. (Metaphorically)

This is not dead serious but. I have thoughts. Here's my essay based on the gutfelt comradery I feel toward t Rex: Every accusation from the conservative right to anyone/thing being outwardly LGBT is filled with mentions of Safe Spaces and catering and the softening of society. But they're the ones who are deeply uncomfortable, not ok handling their worldview being challenged and wanting to make the world their "Safe Space" by asking people to conform when it's not their damn fucking business (but anyone else existing is "shoving it down their throats). They think they're rebels just because they're being assholes and facing the repercussions.

In reality it's LGBT people who are the ones being rebellious, who are tough as shit for not conforming and being themselves and challenging society. Just because society is becoming more accepting doesn't mean it's easy at all. And science supports LGBT people.

Depicting T rex with feathers is something that CHALLENGES people. It took a long time for it to even reach the public and even now it is scoffed at for shallow reasons. Even with science supporting feathers on dinosaurs (SCIENCE NOTE: It's still unlikely adult T rex was feathered, but likely young t rex was. But the rejection I'm talking about isn't "T rex would've overheated and we only have evidence of its predescors having feathers not first hand evidence-" im talking about the "ITS NOT JURASSIC PARK" kind of rejection) people won't accept it to the point that it took this long for the Jurassic World series to acknowledge it (ANOTHER NOTE: We actually knew velociraptor likely had feathers by the time the movie was made.)

And similarly, depicting T rex as an actual living animal that cared for its young and slept and probably didn't Roar and probably spent most of its time chilling out like most large predators do is CHALLENGING. This is the "rebellious stance" in mainstream media because it challenges the decades old view of dinosaurs as defunct slow lizards that were replaced by something "better". (Theres even something to be said about how Christian Creationist viewpoints drove this thinking) People FLIP when T rex doesn't match what THEY think it should be. They selfishly want a cool movie monster and don't consider that a living animal exists outside of what humans WANT it to be.

Both T rex and LGBT people are called soft and weak just for being true to themselves, when doing so is actually an active battle.

They both have science on their side, and yet people insist it is wrong simply because it doesn't match what THEY feel. They blame realistic depictions (of lgbt couples, youth or just dinosaurs not killing something) for being Too Soft as though we must be ready to KILL at ALL TIMES. (GIVE T REX GUNS) Both are easier for mainstream people to consume when they're exaggerated for show, but when it comes to real life, people are once again uncomfortable with what they aren't used to.

And that side has recently lost in a way. People eventually learn. The scale has gone to the other side in support of LGBT people, and feathers on dinosaurs. But this has created the illusion that these are now just status quo and to oppose them is rebellion, when historically that is not true and historically you are just adhering to inflexibility; their mindset didn't change, but much of society did learn and grow.

And the absurdity of just being true to life and science being "The Rebellious Side" feels so absurd.

And the ignorant only take pride in rebellion when it supports their shortsightedness.

Whereas the rebellion of being gay, trans and believing dinosaurs had feathers is a rebellion based on open-mindedness and learning new things.

Anyway that's my really stupid essay on why I feel a connection to T rex and why its a potential LGBT symbol. Also I want the gays to claim T rex en masse to make that Facebook guy mad.

Also t rex was gay and trans. It's called T rex for fucks sake !!!!! he's trans masc I saw him wearing novelty button up shirts.

#this is a very long post #THIS IS TRAIN OF THOUGHT TYPE WRITING #this is not dead serious but #i do feel a connection is there #dullblogging

[convexicalcrow]

Can I ask? I’ve read a lot of your fics by now, and the way you write the vex is interesting.

What are some of your personal headcanons of these guys? They seem equal parts pleasure givers and evil spirits.

Scar seems to be the default leader (which I don’t see often as usually people make it Cub).

Also how does someone get chosen by the vex in your AU’s?

Thanks!

These are all great questions, anon! Thank you for reading and enjoying my fics enough to ask about my lore. I adore talking about my lore and I'm going to enjoy answering these questions for sure. :D

This is gonna be a long post, so Imma split it up into sections to make it easier to digest as I ramble on about my lore. <3

Vex Headcanons and Lore

So, I tend to see the Vex as very hedonistic creatures. They're pleasure-seekers and sometimes aggressively so. It's just, murder is also one of those things they find pleasurable. So they are evil spirits! But they are also hedonists. They will happily indulge in cake and diamonds while also enjoying some light murder. They primarily attack with their swords, but also by biting. Not all Vex eat people, but some do, like Scar.

I don't see the Vex as like, servitors or familiars created and controlled by Evokers. The Vex, to me, are a collective hivemind who look out for themselves and have their own goals and agency.

Mostly, they are selfish creatures who really only look out for the Vex, and this is broadly true. Even when they are working towards finding a cure for skulk infections in Fog, it's primarily motivated by clearing the skulk from Cub, a fellow Vex, but they also do not like the skulk and that is like the one thing they will selflessly work towards fighting against.

I do have separate lore surrounding Evokers taking Allays down to ancient cities to convert them into Vexes with skulk, but that's not really part of my broader Vex lore.

The Vex do need the Evokers though, and they work together on the same goals. The Evokers gain assistance in protecting mansions and fighting in raids, and the Vex gain a gateway to the overworld, albeit temporarily if they are not named or possessing a player. It's a symbiotic relationship where the Evokers serve the Vex and enable their plans to come into fruition.

The Vex exist in a fourth dimension when they are not in the overworld. That's where they're summoned from. I call this Vexspace, as it's where the Vex reside. It's separate from the overworld, nether, and the End, but can access all of those dimensions, so the Vex can be summoned anywhere. It's accessible to the Vex, but not to the Evokers. It is also constant. Scar and Cub are always connected to it, unless they are either forcibly shut out (as in Fog my skulk Cub saga), or if they choose to do so. Not being connected to the hivemind means the Vex no longer have access to their thoughts, but on the other hand, Vexspace is no longer accessible, so using it for fast travel is not possible.

Fast travel is a way to use Vexspace to travel between mansions and pillager towers across the overworld almost instantly, speeding up extremely long travel that would otherwise take hours even through the nether. (This ignores that the game only spawns mansions up to a certain distance out; they can spawn anywhere for me.)

Mansions are safe havens for the Vex. Evokers act as priests and healers, and as particularly strong centres of power for Vex magic. This is why they are protected. The Vex use the mansions as overworld bases, seeing the world through the eyes of their Evokers. From here, they can carry out plans for controlling territory and enacting other plans they have.

Also! The blood thing! For me, the Vex enjoy feeding on blood. They're not vampires, and they definitely don't need it to live, but it's a pleasureable act for them, and they seek out those with very tasty sweet blood. Which is why they feed on Cub a lot because they love the taste of his blood. It's a way of bonding as much as sustaining the Vex and giving an offering to them. Giving your body up to them to feed off is a sacrifice and a willing one that Cub often makes because he's masochistic enough to enjoy it. It's part of his worship of the Vex.

And that worship aspect that Cub and Scar brought in with the Cathedral is important. There is a hierarchy. It's strict but it's not strict at the same time. The Vex are creatures worthy of worship, and the things being offered include blood that was laid on the offering tables. This distinguishes Scar and Cub as players and Vexes as being on a different level to those in the hivemind as players turned into Vexes are like Vexes that have been named, and can therefore persist in the overworld. Because Vexes normally don't have names because they have no need for them.

Scar as Leader

This is... Okay. See, I think this is more an extension of their personalities and of Scar having a more natural leadership energy than Cub does. It's also related to their roles as Vex and how they work best together. They complement each other very well. But Scar isn't The Leader by default either. They are both in service to the Vex and obey them as their masters. I see them as equal partners, just with different roles and abilities. Scar is better as a leader/front, and Cub is better behind the scenes with redstone stuff, but this doesn't make one The Leader over the other. They're both capable of driving things along on their own, and they both contribute ideas to their future plans.

For the more kinky side of their dynamic, I do tend to write Scar more Dommy than not, which may also tie into this, but Cub is just as capable of that, it's just not usually his preference. When Cub does Dom, he's usually much more gentle than Scar, who's more sadistic than him, because they want different things out of a Dom when they are subbing.

For me, Scar is the salesman. The leader. The one who can do the talking and wield the power of the ConVex and ConCorp in ways that Cub isn't as good at. Scar is motivated by power, and seeks out power, and so that's what he does with the assistance of the Vex. As a Vex, he is tuned in with the Vex magic currents that flow between the three realms and Vexspace. He can make those connections and bring power and magic between them. And yet, he is still weak to the pleasure of Vex magic, much more than Cub is.

As for Cub, he's the brains for sure. He's good at strategy, tech, seeing where opportunties are to make even more wealth, and does more of the behind the scenes work. He can absolutely be a leader, but he'll make Scar front things and work from his plans. As a Vex, Cub is motivated by pleasure, and acts as a vessel. If the Vex are going to possess one of them, it's going to be Cub. He's basically given his body over to the Vex to do with as they wish, and he's in a much more subservient position with the Vex than Scar is. At the same time, Cub is still motivated by power and wealth, but these are more public-facing motivations and drive a lot of what he does. But there's more going on internally than that suggests.

You can't have one without the other. On his own, Cub would be lost, and there wouldn't be as great a drive without Scar. He would still do well, but he needs that bigger picture energy that Scar brings to really shine. And Scar needs Cub to do the infrastructure and tech stuff that he just can't do. Scar could definitely have build the aethetics of the ConCorp industrial park, but the farms would have been beyond his skill level, especially the super-smelter. it's only together that they are able to shine and profit handsomely from their efforts. They make an excellent team and you can tell they are aware of this as well.

How Do The Vex Choose People?

There are no real hard and fast rules on this for me, but I do tend to work from those who canonically are/were friendly to the ConVex/ConCorp or aligned with them, helped them out in some way, or just feel like they should be Vex.

Why did Cub get chosen? They could sense his use and his skills, and his prankster urges. He's also a big grinder, so they know he'll put in the work if they give it to him. Plus, that late stage capitalism sense, of profitting at any cost. This was less important in s5 bc of the lack of Stuff being sold, but it definitely came into play in s6 for sure.

Scar, of course, has similar vibes and values as a player, and being close to Cub, they can be sure he's going to work well with him. And he has those other motivations and he can play a slightly different role to Cub and make them both successful.

So it's finding the right sort of player who's got the right sort of values. Don't pick a couple of guys to start a war if they aren't immoral enough to not only instigate war, but also get the two teams to pay them for the privilege of fighting it.

There are good reasons as to why the fics I have of them becoming Vexes are quite different, even if there are similar scenarios/motifs. Cub, being motivated more by pleasure and subservience, is more open to being seduced by the pleasures of Vex magic than Scar would be. For Scar, he craves power and wealth, and self-preservation. Scar dying from that fall to earn his Vex head is something that was necessary to get Scar to agree, because they can simply let him die if he doesn't join. But they also offer the things he wants the most, and pranking Hermits and hanging out with Cub are two of those things.

Then we get to the others! False, Joe, and Bdubs! These are the other three that I've written as Vexes and I'll talk a little about why them in particular, and why they might have been chosen.

False is probably the most obvious of the three. She helped them out in s5 with the prank on X's base, and was named as an honourary Vex and given a Vex head. So making her a proper Vex isn't that much of a stretch. The Vex like her and trust her, and why would you not want the strongest pvper on the server on your side when you are a hivemind who loves a good murder?

But in her conversion fic, she has a totally different process. She isn't just seduced into joining, because that's not really her style, but also that's not what they want from her. She fights them, because power and a vessel aren't going to do anything without a Will to give that power intent and direction, and that's what False brings, on top of the corruption and greed she carries with her. Plus the whole evil clone thing ofc.

For Joe, he's a friend, and in Fog, he was kind to those in the mansion. He fed them and befriended some Vexes, and that kindness was rewarded with becoming a Vex, so he could do the fast travel he needed to help them with the skulk cure. I am undecided if Vex Joe is something I'd write more of outside of that specific AU, but we'll see. Stranger things have happened.

Bdubs is a special one, and it's based on only one thing, and that's him falling into s6 with an elytra named 'Vex Wings'. Neither Scar nor Cub have ever called their elytra that, so it's an odd choice for sure. bc why carried named elytra anyway for an entrance like that and do absolutely nothing with that named elytra? For me, it's more relevant in s7 with Bdubs approaching Scar to convince him to run for Mayor, because Cub was busy doing other Pharaoh things and a Vex never works alone. Cub just isn't motivated by power enough to run for Mayor himself, let alone convince Scar to run for Mayor, but Bdubs could do it for sure. And that's why he was chosen.

Sure, Cub does eventually work for him as his enforcer, but Scar clearly wanted him as much because he was a Vex than anything else. So you have three Vex in the Town Hall wielding power over the server in a different capacity than with ConCorp. Again, it's that Vex drive to seek power over the server, and Scar is a natural leader for that specific thing. Cub couldn't have done that. And Scar is great at playing villains and should have been more villainous as the Mayor and I am forever salty that he wasn't, even if I do understand why he didn't push it too far.

I have, like, a ton more things I could say about all of this but my hands are getting sore again :( so please do send asks if there's anything else you'd like me to ramble about! <3

#convexical asks #hermitcraft #convex #cubfan135 #gtwscar #bdoubleo100 #false symmetry #joe hills #vex scar #vex cub #vex false #vex bdubs #vex joe #mayor scar #pharaoh cub #evoker/vex lore #vexspace #vex lore #this is a very long post #but i hope that covers everything for now #tw blood feeding mention

[lilyginnyblackv2]

Buddy Daddies - Character Names: Meanings, Sentiments, and Kanji Images - SPOILERS!

It’s always fun to take a deeper look at the names creators choose for their characters, so I wanted to do the same with the Buddy Daddies characters that we have and know so far. In order to do this, I used the website: 名付けヒントボックスー赤ちゃんの名前を考える, basically, a Japanese based website to help parents think of names for their children. 

The site breaks down the kanji characters used by their Pronunciation, Definition/Meaning, Sentiments (for example, what this kanji used in a name tells that the parents wish for their child, what kind of person they want their child to be, etc.), and Kanji Image (what imagery is this kanji associated with). Not all kanji have all of these, some may only have a meaning, but it is interesting to see how they all come together. Oh, also, to clarify, this website is only concerning given/first names, of course. Family/last names are a different story, lol.

I’ll link to the website, as well as to the Official Buddy Daddies website, in the comments below. So now, let’s get started! :D

KAZUKI 一騎

The name Kazuki is broken up into three syllables “KA-ZU-KI,” but only two kanji 一 (KAZU) and 騎 (KI). So, let’s look at “KAZU” first and see what that tells us.

一 (KAZU) 

Meaning: One, First, Solely

Sentiment: Wanting your child to aim for the top. A precious and irreplaceable child.

騎 (KI)

Meaning: Riding a horse. To straddle (sit astride, mount) (LMAO, I KNOW!)

We see in the series that Kazuki is kind of the one in charge of the two’s job, he does a lot of the planning, and they did seem to be top assassins before Miri came into their lives and has made that aspect of their lives a little more hectic and challenging.

Also, from what we’ve seen so far, Kazuki seems to be the main driver, thus the “riding a horse” meaning of his name fits in well there.

REI 零

The name Rei is broken up into two syllables “RE-I,” but only one kanji character - 零. So let’s take a look at this kanji character:

零 (REI)

Meaning: Silently Falling Rain, Spill, Overflow, Become Visible, To Escape (Smile, Tears, etc.), Not Much, Small Amount, Zero

We see how this fits his character, due to him being the one chosen for the more stealth aspects of their plans (though, he seems to prefer being more loud, direct, and flashy). He’s also more quiet than Kazuki and low energy. 

The meanings like “spill, overflow, become visible, and escape” are very interesting and will likely fit well once we see Rei opening up more to Miri.

MIRI ミリ 

The name Miri is written completely in katakana, there is no kanji used in her name. So her name could mean a variety of different things. However, a pattern I, and maybe you too, may have noticed is that Kazuki has the number 1 in it (一) and Rei has the number 0 in it (零), so Miri’s name is likely meant to be the word “Milli,” which is an English prefix used in mathematics to mean “one thousandth part of,” such as in millimeter and the like. In Japanese, they write “milli” as ミリ. 

This, then, fits in with the number naming pattern that we see with Kazuki and Rei, thus making them a whole family with numbers in their names. It also fits with Miri’s size, age, and maturity (all are very “little”). Kazuki is the oldest (28) and the most mature of the three too, so he has the “biggest” number of them in his name, haha. 

The other three characters I am going to put under a Read More due to both length and SPOILERS!

KYUTARO 久太郎

His name consists of five syllables “KYU-U-TA-RO-U” and three kanji characters: 久(KYUU) 太(TA), 郎(RYOU). So let us have a look at those three characters now:

久 (KYUU) 

Meaning: Long Time, Long, From Long Ago

Sentiment: May prosperity last forever.

Kanji Image: The Future, On a Large Scale

太 (TA)

Meaning: Extremely, Very, Thick, Large in Circumference, Have a Discerning Eye, Bold

Sentiment: For strong, courageous, and generous people.

Kanji Image: Tough.

郎 (ROU)

Meaning: Male. A Beautiful Name for a Boy, A Young Man, A Son

Note: The ending 太郎 (TAROU) is very common for boy names.

We don’t know much about this character yet. But we know that Kazuki and Rei seem a bit frightened by him, they want to stay on his good side, and he is the one that supplies them with their missions, information, and money. So he is reliable and has a tough aura about him (like, in a serious, about businesses kind of toughness, from what we’ve seen so far). 

He does seem generous and kind though. 

I also got a sense, from Episode 2, that he was likely aware of Kazuki and Rei having Miri (or, rather, that he caught on to the fact that they likely had the mafia boss’ daughter). Rei’s line about how he can’t game at his house right now seemed to tip him off:

That fits with things like “tough” “have a discerning eye,” and even “generous,” imo, since he seems to be giving them more leeway than others in his role and business, I’m sure.

RYO 埜了

This name is the most interesting from a kanji perspective. The characters name is made up of two syllables “RYO-U” and there are two kanji. BUT! The first kanji: 埜, does not contribute to the phonetic reading of his name. It seems that this kanji is there simply for the meaning that it adds to his name. Names like this are kirakira names, basically, names with uncommon readings, spellings, and etc. found in Japanese. 

So, what does this first kanji mean? 

埜

Meaning: Wilderness. Outskirts. Rough. Shallow. Untouched by Nature.

Sentiment: For those who are healthy and dedicated to going their own way.

Kanji Image: Earth

了 (RYOU)

Meaning: To Finish, Resid, To Understand, Smart, Clever, Finally, Eventually

Sentiment: To be considerate and understanding of other’s feelings.

We’ve only seen this character very briefly at the end of Ep 2. But from what we saw, they seem a bit more “untouched” than Kazuki and Rei. Since we see him finishing the job that they left incomplete, that aspect also fits with his name. 

Finally, we see him asking for the man’s (the target’s) last words. He finds those last words banal, and states that they “add nothing to [his] collection.” That definitely seems to fit in with this idea of “understanding of other’s feelings,” in the sense, that I feel he uses people’s last words to understand them better. He isn’t necessarily “considerate” though, but his quick and short way of killing them, may be considered that from a certain perspective.

MISAKI 美咲

Her name has three syllables “MI-SA-KI” and but only two kanji characters: 美(MI) 咲(SAKI). Now, let’s dive deeper into those kanji and their meanings.

美 (MI) 

Meaning: Delicious, Beautiful, Lush, Good Taste, Fine, Excellent, Complimentary

Sentiment: To be a beautiful person. To be a person with a beautiful heart.

Kanji Image: Beautiful

咲 (SAKI)

Meaning: Blossom. A Flower Opening. Laugh.

Sentiment: To be a cheerful person who makes those around you smile. To be a charming person who attracts people.

Kanji Image: Spring, Bright, Cute, Grass and Flowers

I find this character and name combination to be the most fascinating, due to its seemingly contradictory nature. We see, on a surface level, that Misaki is a very beautiful woman. 

But, her treatment of Miri doesn’t correlate with the idea of someone with a beautiful heart. 

However, we do see moments in this week’s episode (and likely the OP as well, where I am like 99% certain that the crying eye we see is Misaki’s), that there is a better person inside there. 

I think the episode makes it really clear that her responses and reactions to Miri are due to her own experiences with trauma and abuse. Her actions aren’t right, by any means, but she did stop herself from physically harming Miri, which is something.

We also don’t know how consensual the conception of Miri and the keeping of Miri was. Ep 3 does lean a bit into the idea that women are naturally maternal, but Misaki challenges and scoffs at Kazuki’s assumptions of that. And, I do think that is important. Basically, I see potential there for her character.

I want to see her show up again in the series, I want to see her get to a healthier mindset and place in her life, but I don’t want to see her become Miri’s caretaker and mother again. I honestly think a more powerful message would be her not doing that. It would hold the same energy as Matilda’s parents signing the adoption papers and allowing Ms. Honey to be her guardian.

Bringing this back around to her name though. She is a Mama at a Snack Bar in Japan. There is a great article on this that I will link below in the comments, but essentially, things like “being a charming person who attracts people” is a key element of her job. So I feel the name of Misaki really fits that aspect of her as a character - the fantasy role she is playing at the Snack Bar every night. 

However, I also think that her name is symbolizes Miri’s personality a lot. Specifically the “cheerful person who makes those around you smile” part. That’s Miri 100%. 

And I think that may have also been very triggering for Misaki. Miri was what she was meant to be, but wasn’t.

#Buddy Daddies #Rei Suwa #Kazuki Kurusu #Miri #BD spoilers #Buddy Daddies Spoilers #Kyutaro Kugi #Ryo Ogino #Misaki Unasaka #meta post #thought post #analysis post #long post #image heavy post #I also included some thoughts on Ep 3 #specifically in regards to Miri's Mother #this is a very long post

[theweepingegg]

got uhhhh any tips on how to do commissions?

Good question! - Before you start on wanting to do your commission, It is better to sit down and write down the things you want to do for your first commission sheet.

Start of with what KIND of commission you wanna do. Is it an art commission, a literature commission or an animation commission or whatever you can do. Jot it down

Then next is WHAT can you offer. Let's take art commission as an example. If you're doing art commission, what can you offer? Would you do chibi style? Or your normal style? Would you offer ONLY one style? Or can you do differently? Would you offer bust shot? Headshot? Full body shot? Colour? No colour? Jot those down as well

Don't forgot to write down your DOs and DON'Ts. This is VERY VERY important. Sometimes when a thing makes you uncomfortable and you rather not do it, then you should make it known before starting on the commission. Jot down what you can do and what you won't

Now the tricky part is the pricing. I've heard some price their commission by the amount of TIME they spent on it. Heck, some artist uses a timer on themselves to see how long it would take them them to do. From there they can decided how much the price is. Some price it based on their art style. For me, I price mine very cheap because I'm not really confident enough with my own artwork. Some commissioners will say "You should price yourse'f more" but I'd say TIPPING is another good way to support us too.

Next is COMMUNICATION. How would your future client contact you? Via your blog? Via email? Jot that down as well

I almost forgot about this but don't forget what app you wanna use for payment. See which one works best for both you and your client. I personally use Paypal, but I think there's more friendlier cash apps.

Last but not the least, is the Commission Sheet! Do you wanna make it plain? Or fancy looking? My suggesttion is for you to look up all kind of commission sheets. See what catches your eye. I guess that's about it. If you need more help, you can always come to my ask box homie!

#ask #anon #text post #long post #this is a very long post #theweepingegg

[wingsyliveblogs]

Amity's aloof and detached attitude in the episode's beginning not only serves as a contrast to luz and willow genuinely hanging out and going dumb goofy friend stuff together even when they're ridiculed for it, but also makes sense with the reveal that she's been forced to hang out in a certain social group from a young age. Even when she's 'got' to be friends with them in case it reflects badly on her parents and family name, amity can't lie or force herself to genuinely enjoy being with them when she used to be happier with a genuine friendship. Since they'd be able to tell if she was faking liking the same things they do, amity instead keeps up a cool and detached attitude that prevents anybody getting too close to her, and thus exposing her real 'imperfect' self. Willow was not the only person suppressing things about herself this episode, and it's interesting how both willow and amity wound up forcing the other to show how they really felt on the inside.

1. Yeah, I think it's pretty cool that "Understanding Willow" also leads us to understanding more about Amity as well! Their pasts are so deeply connected by their former friendship and by that one incident in particular that we get to learn a lot about both of them in this episode, even if it's just Willow's mind that we're looking into.

And that's a very good point about the contrast between Amity with her "friends" compared to Willow with Luz. Amity shares the same space as Boscha and the others, but never makes much effort to engage with them. Contrast that with the friendship trio - or even with Amity when she does get to hang out with people whose company she actually enjoys! For example, she seems to make an attempt to retain her detached persona around Luz in Episode 12, but it doesn't last.

(Is this an excuse to post this screencap again because I think it's a very cute Amity moment? Possibly.)

2. I've recently rewatched Episode 3, and it's very interesting to examine Amity's actions in that episode with the added context of everything we've learned about her since. Her lines in her introduction scene definitely feel a bit like an awkward attempt at a Boscha impression in retrospect, as does the cupcake-squashing in Episode 5.

I do think that it's a very plausible read that she was genuinely trying to encourage Willow at first, while also trying not to act in a way that could be interpreted as friendly towards her (because they weren't friends and they couldn't be friends) - and the combination of these factors came out as "extreme condescension" and just added to Willow's already building frustration with the class as a whole.

It certainly seems consistent with one major element of Episode 15, which is that everything that Amity has done to Willow in an attempt to protect her has really only hurt her more, and that Amity didn't truly understand the full extent of that hurt until Inner Willow spelled it out for her.

3. The birthday party photo is very interesting to me, because it's the only one that doesn't seem to represent what the actual memory is about. As far as we saw, every other photo was directly related to what happened in the attached memory, but we never even get to see Amity and Willow being happy together before Amity's parents intervene. The photo itself is deceptively cheery - covering up the truth, just as Amity was doing and just as Willow herself wanted to.

4-5. These are some interesting points! I didn't really consider the possibility that Amity was avoiding Willow specifically because she'd given up on making things right and felt that Willow would be better off without her. It's not quite how I read her actions throughout the episodes so far (it seemed more as though she was still trying to keep herself separate from Willow due to what her parents said, and that she wasn't quite taking Willow's own feelings into the equation until Willow threw them in her face) but it's a reasonable interpretation and could very well be what she was thinking!

I'm still not quite sure if Amity knew the full extent of what erasing herself from the photo could do... because what she was trying to accomplish really depends on how much she understood what she was doing. Was she trying to erase herself from Willow's mind (just like Inner Willow herself?) Was it just a panicked attempt at destroying the evidence of her old friendship with Willow that was out in full view for anyone at Hexside to see?

Both answers seem plausible... though as you say in one of the messages below, it's quite likely that Amity never took the photography class at all, and thus would have had limited knowledge of how the memories and photos worked. I don't think she'd ever have risked setting Willow's entire mind on fire if she knew that was a possibility, so it's reasonable to assume that she didn't know about the connection between the photos and memories at all.

6-7. Ooh, this is certainly a fun topic to speculate on! Willow's mindscape has a very solid theme because plants are very much her thing, so it's actually a bit tricky to imagine what some of the other characters' mindscapes may look like when their own interests may not translate so easily to a clearly defined space inside their mind. I like to think that a healthy mindscape would represent what someone would personally want to have in their mind, in addition to reflecting their personal interests.

For example, Luz is very much into fantasy stories, but I'm not sure if she'd have a library as her mindscape? She proved to be a bit of a troublemaker in the library environment in Episode 7, after all, so I'm not sure how well it really suits her. But based on her comment about Amity's secret hideaway and her excitement over the hidden area in Episode 13, I think that her mindscape might have a lot of hidden doors and passages - not because she's trying to hide anything, necessarily, but because she thinks they're cool.

I think that her mindscape might also incorporate physical manifestations of elements from stories she likes, sort of like that fake quest from Episode 2? Basically, I don't think she'd have the books themselves inside her mind; I think she'd want to bring those books to life inside her mind instead, if that makes sense.

Similarly, I think Gus's mindscape would probably incorporate his skill with illusions and flair for the dramatic, in addition to his obsession with the human world.

I'm honestly not sure what Amity's mindscape would be like? Your idea seems quite plausible - alternately, she might be the one with the library mindscape, since Episode 7 indicates that she sees the real-world library as a relatively safe space compared to basically everywhere else. It's where she hides the things she doesn't want anyone else to see.

I would honestly love to see what Eda's mindscape is like, because she definitely has a pretty consistent owl theme going on, and I'm curious about what that would look like in her mind, but also I'm starting to wonder if her curse might have an effect on her inner world and if so, how would that manifest?? Sadly, since Eda is the only person we know who can cast the mind projection spell, she's probably the last person whose mind we'd ever get to see inside...

meanwhile, I'm not entirely sure I want to know what goes on in Hooty's mind

#wingsy liveblogs #ask #wingsy watches owl house #owls ep 15 #this is a very long post #I was initially going to leave the last two messages for a later post #but that point about Amity avoiding photography class was relevant here #finally getting around to answering these! #then I've got a few posts to make about those episodes I rewatched... #and the one thing I'm really procrastinating on which is writing out an intro page for my blog #for FAQs and info about what to avoid sending me with regards to spoilers #I'll... get to that... eventually... #thanks for the ask!

[finlands-beret]

The party members’ names (plus everyone’s favourite Heliodorian knights, and Dave) in all available text languages:

English: Luminary Erik Veronica Serena Sylvando Jade Rab Hendrik Jasper Dave French: L'Éclairé Érik Véronica Séréna Sylvando Jade Théo Hendrik Jasper Gonzalo Spanish: Luminario Erik Verónica Serena Servando Jade Rob   Hendrik Jaspe David Italian: Lucente Erik Veronica Serena Sylvian Jade Rab Hendrik Jago Dave German: Lichtbringer Erik Veronika Serena Rionaldo Jade Bodo Hendrik Euklas Fred

#This is a VERY long post

[sammysatto]

(POST CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS KIND OF)

I think many Marvel fans need to brush off the assumption that Wanda fans only like her because of her ungodly amount of power. And the whole notion of calling Wanda a “girlboss.” Of course, there isn’t anything wrong with liking Wanda for her power. I mean, her powers are what drew me to her. But I believe there is something deeper about Wanda that many of us seem to come back to. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I love Wanda, and many others do too, because of the intense level of emotions she has been allowed to feel. Thinking about it, we live in an age where we are trying to break away from the cool, crime fighting, never has a lack of witty comebacks female protagonists in superhero stories. Even though we seem to still fall into the pit, Marvel specifically seems to be attempting to move past that. Even if those characters are fun to watch on screen. Wanda was the first female superhero character that I ever saw break down. Truly break down, all the way back in Age of Ultron. Seeing her grieve, slightly, in Civil War, then see her lose even more in Infinity War, and bits more of her grief in Endgame, but it wasn’t until Wandavision that really took her large emotions to the next level. Wanda seems to be in an eternal state of grief and suffering, which isn’t something I agree with, considering what the writers of done with her grief. Turning her into a villain with lifeless dialogue and unrealistic motives and actions. But I haven’t really turned away from her as a character. Going back to Wandavision, we see all her unprocessed grief and how she never really moved from her grief to mourning to acceptance. There was always something else she felt she could do to have people in her life. She knew to a certain extent what her powers could do. I loved her storyline of being in a constant state of denial about losing Vision. How Westview was a literal manifestation of her denial. How the series seemed to try and serve as a way for her to close that part of her story, to allow her to come into her own as a character and work past her grief. How healing from loss is not linear. How healing takes time. She cried, she threatened, she was never “herself.” I put quotes around that because, what really is “herself”? This is where I want to unearth my grudge and issues I have with Marvel regarding Wanda. If you were to look at me and ask, “Describe Wanda Maximoff to me. What’s she like?” I don’t think I could tell you. It makes me beyond happy to have her grieve and actually feel such intense emotions, because I feel such intense emotions. And yet, Marvel has taken her grief and made that her entire character. She’s the character who’s always suffering, she’s the character who lost everything, she’s the character destined to destroy the world. Where did it all go wrong? I fear that if she ever is given the healing she should get, will she be whittled down to nothing more than a cool, comeback filled superhero? It feels like the writers are afraid to let her move on. That a woman with large, intense, big emotions can only have just that. Women should be allowed to move on, especially Wanda. The bottom line is, I love Wanda, I love she gets to have really intense emotions, but this can’t be the end all be all for her as a character. 

#wanda maximoff #marvel #mcu phase 4 #scarlet witch #analysis #this is a very long post #i needed to share this