#a bit of meta and lore discussion

[kamomie]

Frequent q!Foolish defense statements and my response(long read btw):

Why are people calling q!Foolish a traitor over one lie? And why are people treating him so harshly and hating on him, in comparison to others?

I don't know why q!Foolish defenders are so adamant about that one lie, when it's clear that it's just one part of the whole issue. Arresting his friends, believing the federation over his friends, not caring all too much about what will happen to his friends, then his lie, him being purposefully deceitful when people ask him questions about what is going on. Him choosing to continue his federation work and deciding to be quiet about it. All of that adds up, all of that is the reason people consider him a traitor.

I haven’t seen anybody actually hate on q!Foolish, I’ve seen him get criticized and people(me) hoping he gets a rude awakening? Which is fair to me.

Anyway, people weren’t nicer to q!Cellbit? I know I heavily criticized q!Cellbit on twitter lmao, it first occurred to me on day 2 of him working for the federation that it could be a double game. People might be slightly harsher on q!Foolish because he’s doing this for selfish reasons, which is fine, when you don’t also harm your friends, which he did.

This is also why people are being more lenient on q!Fit, because people are waiting to see if his infiltration will help, but I, like many others, did think it was shitty of q!Fit to withhold information about q!Tazercraft from q!Forever. But mostly q!Fit is transparent about his work in the federation.

I believe people were nicer towards q!Jaiden because when she was contacted by Cucurucho, she didn’t know about q!Cellbit and q!Felps kidnapping and therefore did not know just how bad the federation is/is perceived.

Also to make it clear, no one is saying q!Foolish has done something unforgivable or unredeemable, but he deserves to face the consequences for his actions.

They didn’t take him seriously, so he felt like he had to lie! What else could he do?

I’m confused, did we watch the same thing? They very much did take him seriously, they started asking questions and when q!foolish started his empty talking, they started questioning if he was lying and asked if he did it for a cloud? No where in this situation were they not taking him seriously? Was the interrogation not a major indicator that they took it very seriously? He went into this situation already having decided to not share information and was deceitful from the beginning. Also, his lie came later when he was talking to q!Jaiden, who very much took him seriously…

Q!Foolish was always pro-federation!

Yup, but because there was trust between them, they let q!Foolish have his fun. This is also why it’s gonna be detrimental when some of them learn he was being deceitful, and he lied. Q!Foolish joining the federation would’ve been mostly fine, if he was transparent and shared information.

Q!Bad believes that q!Foolish is essentially used as a federation scapegoat and is therefore treating him much the same as before, but the trust between them has definitely taken a bit of a hit.

Poor q!Foolish, he's always been so kind and patient, even when others were killing him and bothering him. He deserves a villain arc, and to say fuck them all.

LMAO. Yes q!Foolish is a patient person, I agree, and he certainly has been very kind to others, though kind would not be the first word I'd use to describe him.

q!Foolish is an instigator. Almost all the time he's being hit or killed it's because he's actively hoping for that sort of reaction. The most prevalent example is his relationship with Dapper. q!Foolish will antagonize Dapper, and then Dapper will retaliate. It's all in good fun. It's not serious. The same with q!Bad, who is the person I know people are actually wanting to criticize when talking about this specific point. All it tells me is that you don’t understand their friendship and that you don’t understand q!Bad nor q!Foolish. Yeah, q!Bad will invite q!Foolish to a dungeon as a meat shield, but in reality, who actually tanks? Q!Bad. And that is just one example.

And if you truly believe he needs a villain arc and needs to fuck everybody over, then stop defending him and making excuses for him? It's so weak.

And a small snippet from my overview of q!Foolish in general, as it relates :)

One of the things I’ve noticed is q!Foolish is a person who rarely thinks about the possible consequences of his actions and words. This is why I hope he gets forced to face the consequences for the betrayal. I so badly want to see him handle something where the harm happened to other people and not to himself, because he can easily brush off the consequences that harmed himself, but it might surprise him that he can’t brush off the hurt he caused q!Tazercraft.

#a bit of meta and lore discussion #qsmp #q!foolish #mentioned #q!bbh #q!cellbit #q!tazercraft #i'm just gonna keep posting lmao #i'm living for this arc rn #twitter doozers before: Please angst! Please villain arc #twitter doozers now: ACtually he hasn't done anything wrong and it's so sad to see people distrusting him over one little lie #q!foolish my beloved i want to see you suffer the consequences of your inability to think your actions through #Long post

[chaldeanu]

ꕤ ₊ ˙ ⊹ . honkai star rail 2.2 version thoughts

tl;dr predictable and cliche except a few situations ノ weird ups and downs in character’s writing compared to previous quests ノ should’ve been separated into two parts and focus more on the rest of the cast because, despite being hours long, it felt rushed ノ plot twists threw you out of the mood ノ the finale was… strange

it had really strong moments (not as strong as 2.1) but in the end it all was so confusing and messy, i couldn’t pay attention to the good scenes anymore. i cry easily and cannot even count how many times i cried during 2.1 and here… not a single tear. there was a pinch in my chest once or twice though but i expected to bawl my eyes out :(

i complain a lot under the cut. heavy spoilers! the quest isn’t objectively bad (far from it!) but i personally am disappointed. if i was satisfied i would be writing fics instead of this rambling hehe ALSO my writing there is a mess and i probably forgot to mention many things but idc <3

ノ gallagher. no wonder he’s a 4 star, in the end. his character had such a bad bitch moment at the very end of 2.1 to the point of people going crazy over him from love or hate (or both), and it all just… disappears at the very beginning of 2.2 — he just shows up, says “hehe, no, i’m not a bad guy or anything like that. actually, i’m not important at all, bye” and doesn’t do anything else for the rest of the quest. what was the whole suspense and tension for, then?

ノ misha . watchmaker. i don’t know what was his role…? i thought sunday was pursuing him because he hid the stellaron, but then we learn that the stellaron was in the grand theater this whole time? i enjoyed his story, i’m serious, one of the best parts of the quest and he actually helped us reveal the truth, but… i’m just so confused about what the story wanted him to represent. i won’t judge, because i really couldn’t find much explanation on reddit and it’s still one of the good sides of the quest :’)

ノ aventurine. this one hurt me. for his arc and the final cutscene in 2.1 suggested a grand return… someday. but he quite literally just SPAWNS in the hotel lobby, together with topaz and dr. ratio, and they all act as if he didn’t try to kill himself (and, in a sense, succeeded in doing so) and didn’t make a trip into the black hole. what we later learn THROUGH A SINGLE CHAT MESSAGE is that he was saved by argenti (many questions) and brought back because acheron’s slash got him out of the dream before us all. i… i don’t know… it all feels so disappointing to just bring him back off screen, nothing has changed despite the 2.1 sequence heavily suggesting on him breaking ties with the past… you cannot escape the IPC, boy.

ノ robin. girl, you deserved so much more than that. i expected her to play a contrary role to sunday’s, especially after we got these short juicy moments where they discuss the differences in their philosophy and, while their end goal is the same, their ways of achieving it split. and then he throws her into “jail” for the rest of the plot. WHAT?! i get that her return during the last fight was supposed to be epic, and it lowkey was, i got so excited seeing her feathers, but it didn’t really feel that powerful to break out of sunday’s mind. and i hoped to see her actually sing like a performance, not doing a background noise lol i think there were leaks suggesting she’s extremely important and, awwwh, how i wish now they were true… but let’s give her a chance in 2.3 i guess… though, she really should have be the main star of the quest, she’s on the banner, please!

ノ boothill. what was he there for??? i’m happy that we got to meet him finally, but i feel like he could be called by acheron just for the finale or the ending scene and leave the same impression, maybe even more intimidating one. regardless, same situation as robin — banner character and little to no importance in the (current) plotline. it’s obvious he will get some scenes in 2.3 but that means people will either like or dislike him already after his banner ends. i wish we could get some action with him during his trial and fight some enemies instead of just running around the hotel lobby for nothing.

ノ sparkle. what was she there for (again)??? all her trailers suggested that her role is to keep a low profile for most of the plot and then go wild around the festival, but the festival did not happen… and she just sleeps through the cutscene lol i saw some comments like “she’s a masked fool, she’s just there to do random stuff and cause chaos” okay but she caused nothing. it’s just unfair to fans to tease a character and admit that she was there just to waste our time in the end.

ノ sunday. make yourself a tea because this one will be longer…

i really hate this type of writing where characters promise or decide on something as kids and, fast forward, are still deeply devoted to the cause as adults. it feels like writers put no thought into the life of said character between these two points.

and, while the story with the charmony dove could be a great spark to plant the seed of doubt into sunday’s mind, it was so UNNECESSARY to repeat it three times — we get it. we got that after the first time. sure, many of us have a memory of something from our childhood that is still deeply rooted inside, but the following years usually add layers to its core.

because of the constant repetition, it really felt like he decided to follow the order just because a guy lied to him once when confessing his sins lmao i really wish there were more difficult decisions in his life that led him to doubting harmony and time after time after time realising that the order would’ve been a better choice.

another thing is that he didn’t feel at all like an antagonist that was hinted through all 3 versions? turns out he was just a puppet and a martyr following the grander scheme out of his own misery. he snapped out of nowhere, sort of. he was just mildly concerning guy in a significant political position, so his fear for control is quite understandable. i could see him going wild because of his sister’s death or something, but literally almost everything was fine at that point of the story — she was saved, we can continue with the festival, etc. etc.

overall, i’ll be honest, aventurine was more determined to kill himself than robin and sunday with bringing the harmony/order into the world. they both look so… pitiful and not motivated enough to take these major roles of the story.

ノ POV switch. useless during this quest. there’s barely any content or other groups we could follow. everything done when controlling other characters was either too short or too boring. we didn’t even get to test their skills during a fight (which could be done during 2.1 narrative switching) — so we don’t really know how robin or boothill perform in battle.

i thought that dan heng subplot will be somewhat thrilling, but, despite including a number of characters, it brought nothing — i’m honestly so sorry for boothill and dan heng fans asdfghjkl not to mention luofu crew’s appearance 🤡

the only interesting narrative was with sunday and robin, and, even then, it was dragged over hours when we could flesh out other characters in the meantime. misha’s part was actually fine but too short compared to the quest’s overall length (the part was the perfect length, but everything else was going slow and on repeat).

i must say that probably the only character that had a consistent writing across all versions, not taking too much of our time while still slowly developing, was acheron. though, her lore feels like it should be in her companion quest or maybe in the future, it didn’t bring any change to the penacony’s plot — besides the bits about her being an emanator, of course. but her writing was stable, good. aventurine peaked during 2.1 only to be tossed aside (i know 2.2 ends with him again in the clutches of death lmao but… weird continuation of his character development).

ノ the dream plot twist. that was… i don’t even know, shitty? but expected because penacony is the land of the dreams, right? especially that it turns out that the entire penacony plot was a dream because we entered the malfunctioning asdana system already under the influence of the order.

this is why we met acheron who was concerned about our arrival — she cannot be controlled by the waves of other aeons, she knew what’s happening because everyone else got affected except her.

this is why we met misha in the hotel lobby — he’s a meme, an entity only visible in the dreamscape, not in the real hotel, but since he appeared there too, it was already a dream.

this is why robin lost her voice right after coming back to penacony — the order suppressed her harmony powers.

ノ something unto death. or sleepie lmaoooo did they decide to just throw away the whole horror story? we barely start the plot again and learn that it’s just a dog and sometimes gets lost. this guy put a fight against black swan and wanted to throw hands at firefly in her battlesuit lol i’m confused why we spent hours in both previous quests running away from it and being scared just for them to reveal that it wasn’t important. or even scary.

why did gallagher “kill” sunday if he was wary of him? why was he playing the whole “i’m evil” sequence just to bring him to robin, anyway? why was sunday with us in the “other” penacony? they mellowed down every single death that had kept us in stress after the final cutscene from both past versions. i don’t know, really… what for… why…

so, to sum this all up, i’m extremely puzzled because of the decisions made during the quest. and how shallow it feels compared to the previous ones. there are some moments i do not understand, i’m just stupid, so i’m not saying that the quest is bad. but it is unnecessarily confusing with all the riddles and underwhelming if we look at the treatment of some characters. even if i finally gather the complete picture, it won’t change the fact that i was disappointed during the game — i just couldn’t take anything seriously after they pulled the “it was all a dream” card. but even before that, i waited and waited and waited for it to swallow me into the action, the suspense, the drama… and it didn’t. barely, maybe, during the theater sequence. that’s all…

#I AM SO OPEN AND READY FOR DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THIS QUEST BTW #it’s not that i have strong opinions about this but personally i feel like it didn’t stir anything peculiar in my heart this time :( #i’m a meta player — yes — but mostly a lore player who’s super invested into plot and characters so #and i honestly would love to see what others liked about this quest because i feel a bit helpless #like idk did i read something wrong or what? my one friend was also disappointed in this quest but others liked it very much #so it’s super super confusing </3 #hoyo ノ

[danielnelsen]

i know a lot of people think andraste was a mage (im a fan of the theory), but based on the descriptions of andraste and feynriel in wot2, do we think she might have also been a dreamer?

#might get screenshots or whatever in a bit #dragon age #dragon age meta #da #da meta #andraste #feynriel #personal #i severely doubt this is in any way a new idea but i havent seen people discuss it #im sure they have--im still reasonably new to actual lore discussions--but i thought id mention it bc it's on my mind yknow

[pointless-names]

please let volume 2 be a total character reset im begging. ik its probably contrary to the popular opinion but i really think it’d be to the benefit of the server for people to make new characters and start new storylines and ideas

#look i love the discduo storyline! i love horror stuff! #i was genuinely disappointed when the prison break storyline didn't eventuate into anything! #but it's very much run it's course and to a degree it a) does prevent either person from just logging on and causing shit #and b) as someone else rightly said cdream has just become too much of a villainous influence #both in terms of how his still being at large does prevent other arcs from getting more space to breathe #and how we've come to a point where it's going to be difficult to escalate further - i mean mans has blown up a nation several times #abused a child and tortured several people through killing and reviving them. like what more do you do at this point? #also in general a reset allows people to come in with a clean slate and make content with people they dont normally interact with #and it also allows for people who are enemies or directly opposed in vol 1 lore to come together or team up #i have heard that they might be writing vol 2 lore behind the scenes which does make me a little bit eh #i'd love to see a bit more organic lore where shit begins just because someone has the audacity to steal something or kidnap a pet #or because some people form a chaotic group that influences the server in a way #and it just escalates stupidly from there #basically season 0-1 lore lmao. causing trouble for trouble's sake and adding onto it #but hey as long as theyre having fun and the pressure to go further above and beyond is alleviated a bit then hey #it's been too long since people weren't traumatised is what i'm saying lmao it's time to let the people breathe #and to let new arcs have room to flourish #ah yes long tags discussion. the meta of pointless-names dot tumblr dot com

[unreadpoppy]

I'm gonna be honest with you guys: there's a major difference between watching scenes of BG3 on youtube and actually playing the game, and I'm saying this was someone who began writing a BG3 fanfiction before playing the game.

A video can be edited. Or you can skip the 'boring' parts of the video. And also, the person who posted made their own decisions that could be vastly different than what you would have chosen, and many of them affect the characters of the game. The person who posted the video might not have read the various books and scrolls that the game has.

When you play the game, it's you doing everything. You who make the decisions, who go throuhg the 'boring' interactions, you. When you play, you have access to all bits and pieces of lore, access to talk with the characters how many times you want.

*also, i'm considering playing the game as finishing the game (or at the very least, getting very far into it cause I know a lot of people kinda stop after getting to act 3).

It's a different experience. You have a different perspective of the game when you play it, instead of just watching someone else do it.

And like, i will be honest, it baffles me a little how I've seen people write this long ass meta and opinion posts about characters of the game when the person has only experienced it through watching videos on youtube.

Because, playing the damn game is such a different experience that my opinion of certain characters CHANGED when I actually played the game v. when I was only watching stuff. Also, when you play and then make your meta posts, you can at least have the fact that you went through the things you're talking about, you have a different view of how those things affected the world and you.

Also, since i'm already in this discussion, we gotta stop acting as if datamines and devnotes were as important as what is actually in game. Sure, there are datamine material that eventually makes it's way into the game, but it's not a guarantee and in my opinion, it should not be treated with as much value as what is ALREADY in the game. And devnotes, they're acting directions, they're not supposed to be taken as some secret lore, they're just there to help the actors portray the desired emotions.

Anyways, i made this post cause some behaviours have been bothering me and quite frankly, if i ever have to choose who to side on with, i'll probably side on with whoever actually experienced the game. Now, i'll be back on my usual shit.

#bg3

[antimony-medusa]

"There's just something about that guy that means I don't trust him"

Okay so, Phil has got the wrong read of Sunny. I'm gonna start off with that. He thinks they're a confident unconcerned material girl who is comfortable in the fact that their dad loves them, and potentially he thinks that they're a bit older than they are? Whereas people who have been able to see her one-on-one with Tubbo know that she's quite a bit more shy and insecure and young than she puts on! He's been taken in by the facade they're putting on, and I think that's part of why he is making jokes and comments that don't hit well. To understate how yesterday went. I think he botched the interaction with Sunny in the musuem and I hope someone tells him that, so he can apologize and fix that. And to be clear, as a phil viewer, this does interesting character work with Sunny as a sensitive child and I'm in favour of Sunnymin pursuing this line of lore. I'm staring with my little cube guy watching googles looking for the result when Phil realizes he scared a child, with great interest.

Because when you look at the musum one in context, my read is that was phil pivoting badly from an out of lore discussion into "oh hey I can explain something to sunny, who is confident and centred and knows her dad adores her" and then jokingly tried to explain the tallulah experience, and then we know from Sunny signs later that that went over like a ton of bricks. Mistake. However, when we're discussing it, I think it's fair to not have that understanding of the lore though, and to take a more pointed, villainous read of the lore! Go for it with discussing phil as cold and brusque to people who aren't his family, discuss Sunny feeling all alone in the musuem, fill your boots.

But guys, when you're discussing this as meta, I am seeing a lot of tags that are really really eager to paint Phil entirely and unequivocally as a villain and specifically cruel to children and cruel within the family, and there's an element to that that concerns me.

Phil, the cc, the guy, acts working class. He has an accent from a particular part of england that is traditionally working class, but he also has storytelling cadences and humour styles and attitudes towards challenges that are very familiar if you are from a working class or lower income community. I'm from an entirely different continuent, but the area I'm from is the sort of area that people make jokes about, and the whole way Phil acts as a CC is very familiar to me. (Note: even when he's talking about travel or stuff, he still has the "worked retail for a decade" mentality and pays attention to the staff and stuff and what they're doing, check out the brazil storytelling vod.)

And Phil's cubito, when he's not deliberately making a character like osmp crowfather, tends to have the mannerisms of someone who is working class. Even if you're not from a lower income area, I think most people can clock this, subconciously if nothing else. He swears a lot! He banters and roasts his friends and family but would absolutely do anything for them. He's informal in a very specific way.

Which is why when people pivot immediately into "why is he threatening and bullying children again" and "his wicked is showing", and "oh he's a evil stepfather/cruel stepmother" and "can we kill the child abusers now" I go Oh No.

Working class mannerisms are already stereotyped as especially prone to domestic abuse, among other ills. If you are going "oh something about him just always seemed like he would be cruel to children" maybe— push back on that one?

In the same way that during the election I was going "that may not be the play" about americans who didn't know what it was but something about Forever was just so angry and agressive (and they were talking from a perspective that viewed forever as a person of colour, regardless of how he's perceived at home), you might be talking from a perspective that encourages you to interpret Phil's behaviour with children as especially suspect. Potentially. Consider it.

And again, Phil biffed it in the musuem. That was a misstep that had me (autistic) going "oh no I see how you got there but you can all but see the sims negative relationship marker thing pop up". But I'd ask you at least to consider that it wasn't intentional cruelty, and that people can make social missteps before you jump immediately to interpreting their actions in the worst light possible.

#discourse #fandom meta #qsmp #philza #qphilza

[novantinuum]

Pink Onyx AU- An Analysis and Theory Post, Part 1

[Part 1- You are here!] | [Part 2] | [Part 3] | [Part 4] | [Part 5]

~

Howdy! Those of you who have followed me for a while have probably been seeing my reblogs of the @pink-onyx-au comic made by @ceephorsshitshow. Well, today I wanna share with you something a little different than my usual SU meta… because today I’m gonna analyze this really cool fan work with the same level of seriousness as I do canon. (Like. Seriously. This first post alone is really, really long. I put most of it under a cut.)

This particular comic is a very special one for me to watch unfold, because it’s evident that a lot of deep care and attention to detail has been poured into its creation. There’s fascinating bits of expanded character development to chew into here, as well as plenty of mysteries and lingering questions for us readers to muse and theorize over. If you follow me for Steven Universe and haven’t read this AU yet I highly recommend you check it out. The most basic pitch is that it explores what a fusion between Steven and Jasper might look like, and does a LOT of deep-diving into the similarities and differences of both of those characters’ psyches.

Here’s the episode masterpost on tumblr.

And you can find it on Tapas, too! 

(Note: For the purposes of these posts, I was given permission by the comic artist to post screenshots of various pages where relevant in this discussion. For each frame used I will list the episode and page number for easy reference. Additionally, this post and all future ones on the topic will contain full spoilers for the comic thus far.)

Now with all that introductory stuff out of the way, here we go!

__

So, on the final page of the most recent update, we get one hell of a visual plot bomb for Steven as ol’ Onyx unfuses:

(Episode 9: Page 22)

He’s now visually expressing remnants of his corruption, where before he was not.

And it’s this mysterious plot point in particular that got me wanting to analyze this comic more deeply in the first place. This is completely new for him in this story. Thus far, he’s never expressed any of these remnants when he’s just himself- not in the way Jasper does. So it made me wonder… how might this shift in his appearance play into the ultimate trajectory of the plot? How does Steven suddenly showcasing corruption scars integrate into the larger story that is being spun here about him and Jasper and how they relate to each other?

Well, there’s a lot of comic details and story lore we need to unpack first before I can take my best theorizer’s stab at this. Let’s dig right in.

__

Prelude: The analyst’s treasure is in the speech bubbles

Anyone who’s been a fan of this comic for a while has probably noticed these fun visual details already, but I’m going to take a moment to break down what I believe each speech bubble style signifies for folks who may not have context. It’ll make some of my analysis later a bit easier, too, ahah.

So. Speech bubbles. What kinds do we have here? 

(Episode 1: Page 6)

Style number one: Solid with black text

This style is standard for non-fused characters, and is also utilized when a fused character is speaking whilst in a state of internal harmony.

Steven is pink and Jasper is orange, of course. Onyx’s speech bubbles are a distinct darker pink, and the main three Crystal Gems get their own colors as well. More minor characters get white bubbles.

(Episode 1: Page 10)

Style number two: Scribbly pink lettering overlaying black text

Whenever you see this type of speech bubble, it’s a sign that there is some level of internal discord going on within Steven or Onyx that is related to their diamond side. It usually shows up when one of the two is in pink mode, but from what I can tell this is not a solid rule.

(Episode 2: Page 12)

Style number three: Pink/orange mixed bubbles

This is how we see Onyx talking for a good portion of the early comic. Their speech bubbles are a clean mix of Steven’s pink and Jasper’s orange. And most vitally, the color on the top and the tail signifies which of them is “fronting” at that moment.

(Episode 3: Page 11)

Style number four: White bubble with solid pink text

So far, this style has only been used to represent dialogue that is being spoken by Steven’s gem half exclusively. Which makes things very interesting, as in Steven’s own remembrances of shattering Jasper on the very first page of the comic, the line “I have been holding back!” is shown in this specific style, instead of the scribbly pink lettering that signifies internal discord.

There is one additional sub-style here- and this is the one moment where we get Onyx’s mixed bubble but WITH the solid pink text. 

(Episode 3: Page 11)

I believe these two styles pretty much mean the same thing… only, the white/pink text is either viewed within memory or a metaphoric fusion mindscape where we the viewer are actually “seeing” Steven’s instability, and thus can “see” his gem half as a separate entity there. While, in reality, this is an argument Onyx is having with the disparate pieces of themself.

(Episode 4: Page 9)

Style number five: Pink/orange tye-dye mixed bubbles

When you see that darker shade of pink start dappling into the standard mixed bubbles, this indicates that there are small whispers of Onyx’s true personality beginning to surface, instead of them constantly being wrested back and forth between Steven and Jasper’s conscious control.

(Episode 4: Page 16)

Style number six: Pink/orange mixed bubbles, but with a darker pink tail

From this page onwards, Onyx’s speech bubbles always have their darker pink shading the tail no matter who is fronting. Sometimes there are little lines of another color etched out of it, and sometimes the tail is solid dark pink. I like to believe that when it’s solid, it means that Onyx is just a little closer to reaching a fully harmonious state than when it’s not.

(Episode 9: Page 6)

Style number seven: Onyx speech/thought bubbles with a hint of pink/orange underlying

This style seems to signify moments where it’s still Onyx fully in control of themself and their actions/words/thoughts, but they’re taking subtle influence from their components or accessing their memory a bit.

These are all of the distinct styles I have caught so far, but quite honestly, it would not surprise me if I am missing something. All of this to say… pay close attention to the speech bubbles. They can tell you a lot about Onyx’s state of mind throughout the story.

Now with all this established, I’d like to finish off this first post with my first big discussion point.

__

Question One: What does Jasper actually know about Steven’s “meltdown,” if anything?

The AU author recently solidified this comic’s placement in the SUF timeline in an ask response, saying that the first episode takes place just a week after Steven’s corruption event.

I’m glad this point was clarified, because it was super vital information which deeply influenced the way I analyzed Steven’s actions and responses in my recent re-read… it means this experience is still super raw for him. This is VERY important and we’ll get back to this in more depth later in future posts. But first, let’s explore what Jasper knows of this event.

The full extent of her knowledge is unclear-

(Episode 1: Page 6)

In Episode 1, Steven briefly alludes to his corruption as seen above… referring to it as “[his] meltdown.” Notably, Jasper does not seem to ask any questions about this stray comment. This COULD suggest that she knows what happened to him a week prior via hearsay, but given the context of the rest of the scene and the fact that she’s as isolated as she is out here I genuinely wonder if she thinks Steven’s so-described “meltdown” is his shattering of her.

This idea would make a good deal of sense, as she doesn’t start to make any commentary on the topic of corruption at all until they’re actually fused- with Steven bringing it up first.

(Episode 2: Page 14)

On this page, Steven takes note of Onyx’s very visible spikes (which are Overtly in the same placement as his own when he was corrupted), and initiates the musing upon his own corruption himself.

With the way Jasper phrases her response, the vibe I get is that she somehow gleans a bit of ambient shared knowledge about what happened to him through their fusion.

(Episode 2: Page 15) 

“That human form you wear must have been hiding your markings.” This quote is SUPER vital. We’ll come back to this later on in this post series, too.

(Episode 2: Page 15)

It’s clear that Jasper doesn’t REALLY understand what he went through or what caused it, since she then outright mistakes the casual woes and body pains of organic life as corruption. (As seen above.) 

(Episode 8: Page 4)

But later on, she outright relates to him over their shared experience of past corruption, so she must at least know enough from mere ambient thought-sharing by this point to recognize it happened.  

It’s obvious that she’s barely scratched the surface on fully understanding her fusion partner, though. Neither of them have. It’s gonna take a lot of fusion, comedic mishaps, and genuine conversation to get there. All in good time, I’m sure.

__

Please do join me tomorrow at 7am PST for the next post in this series! This has been a blast to write up and muse upon.

#su #su future #steven universe #jasper #pink onyx #su meta #pink onyx au #my post stuff

[tubborucho]

Something I think people are missing when they talk about the whole Day 12 thing with Tubbo and Bad is that Tubbo is just like that sometimes, especially with people he’s close to. Depending on how you look at it that's not necessarily better or worse, but I think it’s an important factor because so much of the recent BBH Purgatory discussion is about how he’s singled out and that’s something Tubbo would do to anyone. He’ll get a minor irritation stuck in his head just as hard as a major problem and then refuse to let it go. The amount of ranting he does isn’t always an accurate measure of how important it is to him and “I’m still on this” (or any variation) is practically his catchphrase. I’m not trying to downplay in-character analysis, it’s a trait of both streamer and character, but it’s something you might not realize if you don’t watch Tubbo very often.

Yeah, this is also a part of it. Tubbo is very passionate about things, and sometimes those things are minor grudges that he gets stuck on for no good reason just because it’s fun for him to get annoyed at them and rant. But this is more of a cc! part of things than in character one (tho all of Tubbo’s characters also have this trait more or less).

For me, I really think it’s because Tubbo is very frustrated with the Day 12 itself, and out of everything that went wrong Bad dying is the only concrete moment he can single out. Because Quackity dying doesn’t really count in lore because he wasn’t there really (which is such bullshit btw, this is my Day 12 Roman Empire, Quackity’s death SHOULDN’T have influenced the percentage) and anyone else wasn’t there either to do the quests, for objective irl reason, so q!Tubbo also can’t really be mad at them and also who would he be mad with out of everyone on the team absent? All of them? Choose a specific person?

Meanwhile Bad was there and he died after doing something Tubbo told him not to (note: this is neutral, I am not discussing right now the moment itself and how justified Bad going in was). So it’s a concrete thing that he can blame on the percentage loss without it being meta or ‘why are you mad at me and not the others who did the same’. And it was really hard emotionally day for him, the combination of cc!Tubbo (well, q!Tubbo too but for the sake of the point we will count it as more of a cc! trait) being very competitive and q!Tubbo genuinely believing that Soulfire is cursed and that they absolutely must win this day to tie (I am pretty sure he believed it was the last day that counts? But I might be wrong) or (later) to win the Purgatory and save all the Eggs (which was his one and only goal truly, he was really clear about not straying from it even when it felt that a lot of characters forgot what it’s all for). So he singled Bad out and concentrated on it as the sole reason they lost Day 12, seething.

Now, for cc!Tubbo it’s mostly a bit, even if he acts genuinely ’not over this’, he is just having fun. And q!Tubbo may still have this grudge, but overall it does not outweigh his newfound comradery with Bad and respect for him. But q!Tubbo is also very much a Negative Nancy, he LOVES to just rant about stuff that ‘annoys’ him and get on his friends nerves. Like he find a thing and just keeps pushing it (ex: Bagi’s ‘incest’ tendencies, everything concerning Fitpac, Phil’s age and a lot of other stuff, Foolish and ‘you made it awkward now’, etc) and Day 12 is his thing for Bad along with cursing/inappropriate jokes.

Do I think it’s fair to q!Bad? When /srs – no; when /lh – yes, because it’s funny. Do I think it can count as an example of how people keep blaming Bad for everything about Purgatory? Yes. Do I think it’s actually the same as with other characters? Not at all.

All the other prominent negative after-Purgatory characterizations of Bad are concentrated on him being a bloodthirsty monster that terrorized everyone (only partially true and definitely not unique to his character). Meanwhile Tubbo never really talked about Bad being a ‘monster’ in Purgatory (afterwards) in any negative light as far as I remember, it was always very neutral. Or at least not blaming him for it. His grudge is a completely my teammate did a dumb thing so I will forever remind him it. Which tho still unfair is not hypocritical when what other characters do.

Obviously this is just my take on the situation, everyone can perceive it a bit differently, especially because I am writing this as a Tubbo main, so my view on things is skewed towards him.

#liss writes posts #qsmp #liss answers asks #qsmp badboyhalo #qsmp tubbo #soul sacrificers

[vidavalor]

hi again! rewatched the 1st season now. so first off thanks again for the excuse i appreciate it lol. but secondly hoping you wouldn't mind explaining the satan's obssession with crowley thing? cos he's obvs creepy as all hell pun not intended in the 11 years ago scene but i haven't found the bit that confirms it's a fixation on crowley and not just satan being satan. tysm!

Hi! Thanks for the ask. I can try and we can see what you think after, yeah? :) Christmas cookie? *passes plate and pours some tea*

TWs: discussion of PTSD, sexual assault, including rape, intimate partner abuse, anxiety, depression. We're looking at Crowley as an assault survivor here so it's a bit dark. Lindsay's abuse of Nina is also mentioned here. This will wind up having a companion meta at some point soon as I was also asked in comments on another post to talk about Crowley and intimacy issues which is then really also talking about Aziraphale as a trauma-informed partner so a less intense Part 2 at some point soon...

If you're the anon who asked me this (or anybody else) and you can't read something with these warnings but you'd like to see what I'm saying, PM me or throw something in my Asks and I'll see if I can do a version of this that gets the points across while omitting the darker aspects.

Meta on Lucifer and Crowley under the cut.

The Ask here was about why I see Lucifer as fixating on Crowley, in particular, and not just being generally evil as, ya know, he's Satan. It's a fair question since Satan's evil isn't exactly something that anyone would consider restrained as he's the devil. Some of this is inference here when it comes to Lucifer, since the show intentionally holds the character back a bit... but I also think that holding Lucifer back is by design to help illustrate some things that we'll look at here.

The first clue to me that Lucifer has a bit of a fixation on Crowley comes from Crowley's gigs in Hell. Before the end of S1, Crowley was high-ranked in Hell. He seems to go by quite a few names in his demonic world. By making himself Nanny Astoreth when he's looking after Warlock, it alludes the idea that Crowley is also the demon of that name, who is considered part of the "evil trinity" of Hell, along with Lucifer and Beezlebub, with whom Crowley used to spend time with pre-Fall and with whom he has history.

Astoreth is a genderbent serpent goddess in lore with an abundance of other Crowley traits so safe to say that Crowley is meant to be Astoreth as well. Aziraphale proposed in 33 AD that Crowley is also Mephistopheles and Asmodeus, which Crowley didn't exactly deny. Mephistopheles is one of the most famous demons to ever exist-- he of the Faustian bargain-- and Asmodeus is the demonic prince of lust. Crowley's already been shown to be a Bible figure in disguise-- Bildad the Shuite being a Biblical character-- so the idea that we are at the 2/3rds mark of the show and we've met all the high-ranking demons in Hell but several famous ones appear to not exist in Good Omens, despite more minor ones (Shax, Furfur) making appearances, implies that we probably actually have met demons like Mephistopheles and Asmodeus because they're all really Crowley.

Crowley retained power in Hell because it allows him what little freedom he can have in damnation. It means he likely won't be removed from Earth if he proves he's "good" at being a demon and that means he won't get stuffed in some cluttered, dark, cubicle in Hell for millennia. (Or destroyed.) More importantly, it means he'll be able to be on Earth with Aziraphale. That's easily worth taking credit for a bunch of human wars to fool Hell into thinking he's evil.

While we see that Crowley, when forced to come up with a demonic plot of his own, picks more annoying things than evil things and sells them as evil-- the M-25 design, taking down mobile phone networks, he's sometimes forced into doing things he doesn't want to do in order to not be outed as a demon who isn't super jazzed about being a demon and is really, secretly, a free-flying crow. He doesn't live to serve their Master Satan like some of the other demons do. He's going along with Hell as best he can and sometimes, he finds himself in a situation where he has to get creative because he's been tasked with something he disagrees with-- like we saw in the Job minisode. Other times, he might be forced into something he can't find a way out of, which is implied a little to be at the root of his terrible mood when he and Aziraphale meet up in Ancient Rome. He's wearing military garb that implies the temptations he's saying he's in Rome to accomplish are tied to Caligula, who wasn't exactly a swell guy.

What's interesting, though, is that Crowley is in this position of power in the first place. Other demons are shown in both seasons so far to be jealous of Crowley. He gets all the good gigs. Satan makes a bet with God that has both Upstairs and Downstairs in a tizzy for weeks and who is sent to whack the kids? Crowley. Who was sent on the first ever really Earth mission-- to get up into the Garden of Eden and "make some trouble"? Crowley, long before he'd cemented his big reputation. Who gets to deliver the antichrist baby and so kick off Armageddon, the thing that angels and demons basically "live" for? Crowley...

Across both seasons so far, Hastur, Ligur and Furfur are all given scenes of showing that they're jealous of Crowley being a favorite of Satan's and given the best assignments while they slum it in middle-management at best. What Crowley never says or admits to with other demons is that they actually don't want to be the favorite of Lucifer over here because he's the actual fucking devil and it's an absolute horror show. Crowley isn't about to admit that to them because he's supposed to want nothing more than to be Satan's slave and to express anything else is not demonic.

The other demons who are antagonistic towards Crowley are invasive and creepy but they stop short long before what we've seen Lucifer do. Hastur and Ligur pop up unannounced in Crowley's electronics-- the tv in his flat, on the screen at the movies-- and that's already disturbing. Imagine having your evil coworkers able to interrupt your r&r tv time in your own apartment... let alone the fact that Shax and even Beezlebub both pop up into The Bentley unannounced in S2. There's no evidence so far that Satan is out here "delivering instructions" like this to others in Hell the way he does to Crowley in 1.01 (and there's actually a scene in S2 that we'll talk about that suggests that he's not or, at least, that it's uncommon, which we'll get to in a second.)

He might well be but when you combine assaulting Crowley with giving him all the prime gigs in Hell and the other demons' jealousy of their Master's attention towards Crowley, you wind up with the impression that Satan is a bit fixated on Crowley.

The Bentley scene with Lucifer in 1.01 is analogous to rape. Crowley's sense of personal autonomy is violated. He doesn't consent to Lucifer forcibly entering his body. Lucifer does so by first penetrating through Crowley's two foremost metaphorical defenses-- The Bentley (enters through the radio and uses it to invade Crowley) and his sunglasses, which cannot shield his eyes/himself from Lucifer. Crowley already has these signature defenses mechanisms on in the attack scene and the horror in the scene is actually watching neither of them protect him. The scene is so early in the show that it's only the second scene we've ever seen Crowley wearing his glasses (and it's pitch black dark out, to add to it) so the glasses are basically introduced to us by showing us a situation that motivates Crowley's desire to hide his eyes from people he doesn't trust, even if they aren't human and know what his eyes look like. This is Crowley's third scene in the series itself and it's really arguably the second half of his second scene (the Hastur & Ligur in the graveyard one.) It's part of our introduction to Crowley in the modern era, with only Eden preceding it. Armageddon is new but the rest of this hell-- faking being evil, suffering violating attacks-- is thousands of years old for him at this point.

Crowley is driving when this happens.

Driving is the ultimate symbol of self-control because you're literally behind the wheel, navigating yourself through the world, in control of where you are going and the decisions you need to make to get you there, trusting yourself to make decisions that protect others on the road around you. Lucifer rips that from him by rendering him unable to drive while "delivering instructions" to his mind. Crowley-- a very powerful, magical being-- is unable to fight him off. When Lucifer leaves his body, Crowley had to grab the wheel and steer The Bentley away from hitting an oncoming truck with about three seconds to spare from a head-on collision. Crowley, The Bentley and the antichrist baby all would have likely survived that crash without issue because of their magic-- but the human driving the truck likely would not have. Obviously, Crowley would prefer not to kill anybody but Satan nearly made him against his will and rendered him unable to fight him, the powerlessness of which is then interesting when tied into things like Crowley essentially drugging himself to save Elspeth, trusting the present Aziraphale to help protect him while he did, etc..

As the attack happens, parts of "Bohemian Rhapsody" are underscoring it, picking up on a musical cue from when Crowley rolled up in The Bentley to see Hastur and Ligur in the graveyard. The graveyard scene sees Crowley arrive at the big crescendo of the song and what is it but the lyrics Beezlebub, has the devil put aside for me? and, prior to that, the eerie lyrics, especially on rewatch when you know what happens as a result of this scene: we will not let you go (let him go) x a million, not to mention the no no no no no no... bit.

By the time we're back in The Bentley and Lucifer has shown up, parts of the song play through it. I see a little silhouetto of a man plays as Crowley is literally seeing the driver of the oncoming truck in front of him, just as he loses the ability to control The Bentley. When Lucifer leaves him and Crowley grabs the wheel, we hear thunderbolts and lightning/very, very frightening/me and the Galileo segment of the song. Thunderbolts and lightning is interesting since God makes it a point to point out that this night is not dark and stormy but then that type of weather is what Crowley does in S2 that causes the power to go out and his parallel, Nina, to be trapped. It's also what demons in general can do so you could say sending a storm-- like in the Job minisode-- to be demonic and of Satan. (If it's not Crowley doing it to play Cupid, anyway.) The thunderbolts and lightning of Satan/Hell is very, very frightening to Crowley...

...Me/Galileo/Galileo/Galileo/Figaro... Galileo is arguably the most famous astronomer to ever live. He was a polymath, really, like Crowley was. Crowley, as an angel, made the stars and invented gravity. The scene with Hastur and Ligur that precedes this and ties into it has Hastur mistranslate the Italian Crowley spoke during it. Crowley said "ciao", meaning "goodbye", which Hastur correctly said was Italian but he claimed it meant "food" (mistaking it for "chow" because he's an idiot.) So a scene that ends with Crowley speaking Italian then connects directly into the scene of this attack, where Italian is spoken in the song scoring it, as Galileo was Italian and figaro in Italian is "fig tree".

While Eve does eat an apple in Good Omens, the Biblical 'fruits of knowledge' that tie to the Serpent tempting Eve in Eden are interpreted in different ways throughout different religions and at different periods in history. In Good Omens, Crowley got Eve to eat an apple and the pleasure of food opened a door to sexual pleasure. Eve shared the apple with Adam and they were *Aziraphale's hilariously judgemental voice* "expecting already" with Eve about 8 months pregnant later a day later because Eve's biology is atypical of other humans and all that. It's debated as an apple, with other different fruits and sometimes even wheat mentioned as possible things Eve ate-- if she ate food at all, as some people take the entire thing as a sexual metaphor. Figs are one fruit that some people believe it was instead of an apple, so this is a reference to Crowley as the Serpent of Eden.

Me/Galileo/Galileo/Galileo/Figaro... Crowley holding onto himself while under attack and just after it, which speaks to activation of a plan, which speaks to this not being the first time he's endured something like this. Galileo and Figaro = The Starmaker and the Serpent of Eden. The things he's done that he is proud of, that make him not evil, in his mind, and not deserving of this. Things he likes about himself. Things Aziraphale loves about him.

The song is narrating for us Crowley through the attack as he's basically frozen there enduring it, seeing the driver of the truck coming at him and Scaramouche/Scaramouche/Will you do The Fandango?

A scaramouche is a kind of mischievous scamp-- so, Crowley; The Fandango is a Spanish couple dance. Historically, one version of it is done between a pair of men who try to outdo one another with skill, in a kind of homoerotic competition. It's also slang for fucking during a concert and I have the feeling that Crowley would probably enjoying doing that Fandango a lot more as that would be consenting with a partner of his choice at a live concert rather than being mind-raped to Queen by the devil in his car. Regardless, it's another allusion to sex in the scene, adding to the rape overtones.

There's also something that is pretty horrifying about the fact that these scenes of Crowley and Aziraphale being separately reintroduced to us in 2008 after we first met them both together in Eden are intercut so that Lucifer's attack on Crowley scored by "Bohemian Rhapsody" ends with the Italian sung and cuts directly into Aziraphale speaking Japanese to the chef at the sushi restaurant.

He'll try to explain to Gabriel that eating sushi is "what humans do", which is the same phrase he'll use to try to explain to Michael and Uriel in S2 what falling in love is. During the bookshop attack, Shax will bully Aziraphale about his humanity-- about the same two things (food and love) in the two previous, connected scenes. (Gabriel, initially the one repulsed by tea in 1.01, leaves the scene after Aziraphale tells him to hide by asking if anyone wants a hot chocolate, in a pretty hilarious turnabout.) Shax calls back to the food-related and the love-related "it's what humans do" moments for Aziraphale by asking if she should "send up the sushi" and by mocking his relationship with Crowley ("What are you? Crowley's emotional support angel?"). Crowley and Aziraphale are the ones in love and it's tied together throughout multiple scenes in both seasons to sushi, in reference to the night Armageddon began in 2008.

The point then is that, making this all even worse, Crowley is actually supposed to be at a back corner table in a dark sushi restaurant sneaking a date with Aziraphale when he's attacked by Lucifer in The Bentley-- and then forced into helping start Armageddon, which could bring about the end of his and Aziraphale's relationship... and that's our grim introduction to his world in the modern part of the story.

As we go learn what Aziraphale is like in the modern era and contrast him with his head office's mentality via Gabriel's arrival, we also are given clues in the scene that suggest that Aziraphale was actually expecting Crowley, as he looks to the side Crowley comes up on when he hears the miracle sound that actually signals Gabriel's arrival instead. Aziraphale will then explain that he's there, doing "what humans do" and enjoying it, to Gabriel, and it will be only eating sushi in this moment, just as Crowley will not be present when Aziraphale explains that falling in love is "what humans do" while objectively talking about Maggie & Nina but, ultimately, talking about himself and Crowley beneath it-- his real motivation for keeping Heaven off their backs is Crowley. The writers then have Shax combine the two "it's what humans do" scenes around love and sushi and throw them back at Aziraphale while Crowley is once again not with him because of Heaven/Hell but is present in his absence in the moment.

All of this happens in the first scenes of Crowley in the modern era, all the way back in the first episode, and it's done to give us an understanding that he is a survivor of attacks like this and how that impacts his behavior, his choices, his relationship with Aziraphale. It's to give us a finer appreciation for his strength and his humor and his capacity to love in the face of it. It's to show that while some of the demons are just kind of amusing idiots, if dangerous, and that there's a lot of humor to mine there, some aspects of being a demon are not at all amusing. Crowley is really just doing the best he can to survive the absolute horror show that is an eternity of damnation as Satan's favorite over here because there are very dark, very violent aspects of it that he cannot permanently avoid.

While the attack we are shown is a mercifully short, if horrifying, scene, the implications of it are even worse. The assault we are shown had a plot purpose in that moment-- Satan giving instructions on delivering the antichrist baby to the satanic nunnery-- and since everything was in motion, that was the extent of it. Armageddon took precedence. What we are left with, though, is the impression that this type of demonic assault with its massive rape overtones is something that Crowley's experienced before and that the implication is that Lucifer attacking him is not always just to deliver a message related to an assignment but to deliver one of forcible control over him and that this is something that Crowley has been dealing with periodically for the 6,000 years he's been on Earth. It's akin to a kind of rape in 1.01 and that is already way more than enough to see how that would affect Crowley in the story... but then S2 takes this scene and both alludes to it in a key moment and gives it a whole paralleling subplot, highlighting its importance and continuing to expand upon the meaning of it. Both things together then suggest that while we saw a rape-coded assault in 1.01, the feeling that the scene was alluding to other instances where it was rape itself was definitely the implication of it.

In S2, in the group scene at the end, Crowley is out of the bookshop taking Maggie and Nina away from the angels for their safety when the subject of Satan comes up for the only direct time that season. Shax demands that Gabriel and Beezlebub be taken to Hell to be given "as gifts for Satan, our Master" and Head of the Dark Council Dagon replies that "he wouldn't want them-- maybe as hors d'ouerves." On the show obsessed with food symbolism and that codes different types of food with relation to sex-- in particular, because of Serpent of Eden Crowley-- and with the brothel owner named "Mrs. Sandwich", to say someone would want a being as a "hors d'ouerves" implies sex and if we're talking about Lucifer, then we've already established that consent isn't exactly a priority. Rape isn't about sex-- it's about power-- but the show is coding Lucifer's behavior in line with its coding of sex to highlight that his violation of Crowley isn't just of the heavily rape-coded variety that we saw in 1.01 but has actually, at other times, been rape.

Dagon's most significant line in S2 is essentially to point out that Satan's a rapist-- but it's also to point out that not everyone in Hell has been through that horror. Satan's choosy. Satan's a bit fixated. Dagon's comment is actually surprising. Your first thought when Shax suggests giving Gabriel and Beez to Lucifer is that he's the devil so they'd be in danger and what you've seen of what he's done to Crowley was skin-crawling and you don't want that to happen to Gabriel and Beezlebub. You assume that it might because we're talking about Satan but then Dagon puts a check on that and says-- to not a single bit of even implied disagreement in the room-- that Satan wouldn't really care that much about getting Gabriel and Beez.

Think about how truly kind of crazy that is.

Satan would not be that interested in being handed over his old friend and the Grand Duke of Hell who betrayed him and the Supreme Archangel of Heaven? He'd maybe rape 'em, sure, possibly, casually posits Dagon, but they aren't what he's really after. They'd just be hors d'ouerves.

Not a single being in the room even so much as signals disagreement with that assessment that the not terribly subtle Dagon chose to voice aloud, which means they all agree with her. They all know who Lucifer's fixated on.

*Gabriel* and *Beezlebub* would only be fucking *appetizers* to Satan.

That implies the existence of *a main course*, does it not?

Who else but Crowley (and Aziraphale) could be on that menu? No one.

We also have that Crowley is conveniently out of the bookshop for the moment that Shax and Dagon have this exchange about Lucifer. He comes back in on Dagon saying "hors d'ouerves" but was outside when Shax was referencing Satan so he didn't hear any of it. This seems very deliberate on the part of the writers, as if Crowley had been in the room, it would have prompted some kind of response and changed what happened in the scene afterwards. Instead, the only reference to Lucifer is specifically when Crowley isn't in the room, probably because this conflict is on-going and going to continue into S3.

Prior to Dagon's line, the show also paralleled Lucifer assaulting Crowley in The Bentley in 1.01 with Lindsay abusing Nina, which adds another layer into this. You could even make an argument that one of the reasons why we never see Lindsay and we just see their abuse of Nina via the text messages they send Nina is to draw an intentional parallel to how little we've seen to date of Lucifer/Satan in the series.

It directly ties to the 1.01 scene in The Bentley because, prior to Lucifer coming through the radio and assaulting Crowley, Crowley was trying to call Aziraphale (the Maggie to his Nina in this parallel, though obviously much further along in that relationship) to tell him about Armageddon but he'd taken out the mobile phone networks earlier in the night to have something demonic to share with Hastur and Ligur. This parallels Crowley knocking out the power in S2 accidentally and Nina getting locked in the coffee shop with Maggie. Lucifer and Lindsay both attack through electronic communication devices-- The Bentley's radio and Nina's phone-- and unleash a torrent of abuse. The difference is that Nina might be more easily able to escape Lindsay and live a more peaceful life after S2 while Crowley has yet to be truly able to evade Lucifer.

While Lindsay's abuse of Nina is at least psychological and emotional in what we are shown and Lucifer's abuse of Crowley is that with physical and sexual aspects that may or may not be present in Nina's relationship with Lindsay, the type of abuse doesn't matter to the parallel as it's all terrible and that's the point. Lucifer's abuse of Crowley is paralleled with the intimate partner abuse Nina is suffering in her relationship. This is objectively pretty interesting since it sort of suggests that Lucifer is Crowley's Lindsay, in the sense that they might have once been involved pre-Fall, which might add another element to why Lucifer is fixated on Crowley.

So, while Crowley can encourage his parallel Nina all he wants to take a risk and trust more and to trust him when he promises that it will be worth it, Crowley himself can't really extract himself from his own Lindsay-ish situation yet. He does know how to survive it, though, and it's not all about the defenses he and Nina put up-- it's about learning to shed some of those defenses enough to have a sense of intimacy with a kind person you can trust to love you and help you feel safe.

#ineffable husbands #good omens #crowley #aziraphale #good omens 2 #good omens meta #aziracrow

[fireflysummers]

Final Thoughts on GO S2

I'm probably gonna pull back on discussing S2, at least publicly, after this. I did actually like a lot of the season, but it's triggering some of my religious trauma and also the fandom is already stressing me out. So here, let's have some final thoughts.

First and foremost: I am not a Gaiman simp. I've read a decent amount of his work: comics, short stories, essays, and novels. Aside from Good Omens, I've liked Coraline and The Graveyard Book the best by far, whereas American Gods just. Did Not Connect with me, even though it's should have, given the stuff I tend to enjoy.

However. Regardless of whether I like a given work (or even like how he adapted it, a la parts of The Sandman TV series), he is a veteran writer who has proven that he does, actually, know how to write a story with consistent characters.

Beyond that, I do actually believe that he's trying to do right by Pratchett, and loves and respects the story and characters they created together. He's generally shown up as an ally to a variety of social causes, and directly and respectfully responds to fans on Tumblr. While no saint, I feel that there is cause to give the benefit of the doubt that things will resolve satisfyingly in S3, and that there is Intention about some of the things in S2.

This, of course, does not absolve it of being "bad," but even here I think we need to articulate better the different types of "bad" that people are reacting to. There seems to roughly be three camps here: 1) People who thought it was "bad" because of how it ended, with the breakup and a lot of unresolved plot threads; 2) People who thought it was "bad" because it struggled on a technical level with its set, lighting, directorial choices, editing, etc; 3) People who thought it was "bad" because they felt the characterization was significantly off and that the internal logic of the series had been violated.

With regards to Point One, the only solution is to Wait and See. Judgement should be reserved until the story is properly finished--easier said than done, especially considering the current media landscape, and the number of series or franchises that fail to live up to their promises.

Point Two isn't something I understand well enough to contribute meaningfully, except that I suspect the pandemic affected this aspect the most and am willing to give it a bit more mercy. That aside, I for the most part I don't find it bad so much as not as good as S1. Except for the parts with epilepsy warnings, surely there could've been a better way to do that.

Point Three... that's the stumbling block for me, and I find it interesting that most of the folks who struggle with this point in particular are long time fans of the book.

I trust that instinct.

There are two different directions to go from here. The first is the assumption that these problems are a result of ego, carelessness, or lack of skill from the showrunners/writers/director. It's cynical but not unjustified. The second is the belief that the breaks in lore or characterization were intentional, building towards a much grander conspiracy. Of course, even in this case I don't think it forgives the lack of signposting that would indicate that this is a choice rather than an accident. It just makes it feel clumsy and poorly constructed, a major risk on a show that hasn't had its third season confirmed.*

However, regardless, it still feels salvageable. I've enjoyed reading a lot of meta on all this, and I've pulled some things from others (particularly That Theory by @ariaste), but I don't really want to put forth a single, defined theory myself. Instead, here's some questions I've got, why those questions are important (to me, at least). Actual theorizing comes after, and anybody who snidely mentions Sherlock in the comments or tags is going to get auto-blocked. Like seriously, I'm aware that some stuff is a stretch, but it's fun??? To theorize????? And I'm here for me and my peace of mind rather than trying to argue a point.

*I have some suspicions here, particularly with Gaiman stating that the decision from Amazon would come much faster than The Sandman's second season (which was four months). I don't know enough though to say if that's actually significant.

Questions

Who the fuck is telling this story?

This is the most important piece, in my opinion. There's this assumption when reading books (or research papers, newspapers, etc...) that the narrator who is writing the words is a non-presence, Neutral and objective. That's not the case, and an important part of literature critique is figuring out who the narrator is, and what their goals are. Oftentimes, the narrator and the author are the same person, but with Pratchett's work, particularly on Good Omens and Discworld, the Narrator was its own unique character.

This is why people struggle adapting Discworld to live action--that medium requires a Reason for having a Narrator, and especially in the age of method acting that's often considered immersion-breaking. Good Omens worked so well because they not only kept the Narrator, but they made Her God.

This added some really interesting new dimensions, such as the scene where Crowley speaks to God about his fall and the destruction of humanity. He doesn't receive an answer, but we're watching from God's perspective, so we as the audience know that She's listening.

Another advantage of making God the Narrator is that it justifies all the goofy little asides we get into the lives of minor characters (i.e. Leslie the Mailman), without losing focus. It helps the world feel like it’s full of people, rather than characters and plot contrivances, and the theme that individual people and their choices are important. The Narrator is such a central character of Good Omens that without it, the story struggles to stay focused.

It also highlights a key difference in the writing styles of the two authors. Pratchett’s work tends to introduce four or five totally unique plot threads that feel completely disjointed until the last act (if not even later), when it turns into a Chekhov’s Firing Squad. Plot twists around secret identities and backstabbing and schemes are relatively rare, as the omniscient Narrator doesn’t lie about the intentions of people or their actions.

Gaiman’s writing is typically not like that, to my knowledge. He buries characters in misdirection and hints, and you never know the true identity or motives until all the chips are down. It’s a perfectly valid way to approach storytelling, but it makes it jarring to see it in S2. The lack of a Narrator is a huge reason why S2 doesn’t feel like Good Omens to some folks.

My gut feeling is that the decision to shift from the original Narrator was highly intentional. It helps to obscure the thoughts and intentions of people, and it also muddles the insights that we’re supposed to take away. (I would have loved hearing God monologue about what’s going on in Jim’s head. I think it’d do a lot to make him seem less.... obnoxiously stupid.)

More than that, it brings up a reasonable potential plot point of: Where did God go? Why isn’t She present in the story? Even in her early appearance in the Job flashback, she doesn’t sound like the narrator for last season. After the first part of her speech (which Gabriel later quotes), her tone turns casual and condescending, which might line up with her being a bit of an asshole, it doesn’t line up with the whole “dealer of a mysterious card game who is always smiling”).

Also, I don’t think it’s safe to assume that nobody is telling the story either. Just because they’re not making their presence known doesn’t mean they aren’t there, and in a story like Good Omens, that’s concerning.

Wait, where's Satan?

Another person I saw while scrolling the tags pointed out that Satan is nowhere to be seen this season. He's really only mentioned in reference to a bet God made in Job, but then Crowley is the one on the ground causing mischief. There's no Hail Satan among demons (like Hastur and Ligur did at the start of S1).

That's might be because the writers didn't want us to think it was important (a la Hastur), but that feels off. Given that Satan speaks directly through the radio to Crowley in S1, complimenting him on his work, it's safe to say that he was at least aware of and involved in the goings-on in Hell. The fact that he wasn't even an worry for Beelzebub in abandoning their post? Feels weird.

(Also if you know where that post is, I'll happy credit + link)

What is Maggie?

Look, I love cute lesbians in love as much as the next queer, but I don't like Maggie. I don’t think she’s a person. Contextually, she’s a plot device, but I agree with That Essay that she might be an actual Plot Device.

Her characterization is simple and relatively shallow—a bit of an airhead, ray of sunshine that’s supposed to remind you of Aziraphale. When she describes her past to Nina, it’s almost robotic (also, her story implies it was Mr. Fell who first rented to her ancestor, not Mr. Fell’s great-grandfather like Nina implied). Her emotions are over-dramatic and seem to be turned on and off at random (scenes with her crying to Aziraphale about her woes had my “manipulator” senses going off for some reason).

When asked about a song, she not only IDs the song, its singer, and its year, but how and on what it was distributed. (Honestly thought this would’ve been something interesting, because she’s been pretty ditzy so far, it’d be interesting if she had like... an insane memory for music history.) And then she’s the one that sets Aziraphale on his little investigation by giving him the transformed records, while also planting the seed about her love troubles with Nina. Later, her advice to Crowley is... not awful, but feels insincere and a bit too forward, given her own self-proclaimed lack of relationship experience.

I don’t know what she is (a demon, hastur with amnesia in disguise, a literal plot device inserted by the current storyteller, etc...), but there’s something not right with her.

(Also the joke of “who listens to records anymore, it’s so old fashioned” just doesn’t land, lots of people buy records, and I’m saying this as somebody who has worked at a record store before.)

What's going on with Aziraphale?

There’s something Off about Aziraphale, and it’s not his choices at the end of the season. That makes total sense if you read him as somebody with severe religious trauma getting dragged back into the abusive system because other people need him and he’s been promised the ability to change things.

But I do think something is happening to his memory. Nearly all the flashbacks are from Aziraphale’s point of view and retelling, which means that they’re less reliable than God’s version of events in the previous season. Many of them don’t make logistical sense (post-church scene in 1941), depict Crowley as meaner or more sinister than we know he is, or frame events... weirdly. The scene with him trying food for the first time feels Really Bad, especially when the series has previously established that he’s a) prim and proper and b) his interest in food is one of the beautiful things that connect him to humanity, not some kind of gluttonous sin. Also he turns down alcohol.

Their meet-cute at the  start of the universe also doesn’t line up with their reactions to each other in Eden, or the fact that knowing each other Before has never come up or been hinted at anywhere ever. I don’t know what’s causing this to happen, only that Aziraphale repeatedly looks pensive when coming out of flashbacks, and Crowley is never there afterwards to corroborate said memories.

His actions also seem pretty inconsistent with what we know of him—i.e. I refuse to believe he would ever mistreat his books, even if they’re just old encyclopedias. Also, he feels a bit too...forceful in trying to get Nina and Maggie to fall in love? I mean, he didn’t exert that much direct influence on even Warlock, when he was actively hoping that the boy would turn out angelic rather than neutral.

I don’t think this removes his agency in that last decision, so much as explains how he was in such a vulnerable place at all. He still needs to apologize and fix things, because he messed up, and even if he hadn’t he still seriously hurt Crowley.

What's going on with Crowley?

There’s something Off about Crowley. The most obvious thing, of course, is his memories. At multiple points in the present day, characters state that they remember him or have met him before, only to be met with confusion. This is especially concerning given that he has a nigh photographic memory for faces (something mentioned in the book when he immediately IDs Mary Loquacious, 11 years after a 30 second conversation).

Overall, he seems to be better known by other supernatural entities this season, in ways that often tie him back to his angelic identity (i.e. saying they fought together in the war, Aziraphale stating he knew the angel he used to be, etc...). This doesn’t feel right, because S1 we see that Hell is largely apathetic towards his schemes, and definitely does not defer to him at any point in any capacity.

Then there’s the issue of his power level. It’s always been speculated that Crowley was a powerful angel prior to falling, when he mentions in S1 his involvement with star making, his seemingly unique ability to freeze time, and creating a pocket universe for Adam before the confrontation with Satan. He also has a tendency of breathing life into inanimate objects, like his plants or car. He also has the regular demonic skillset: miracles that can adjust physical appearance; the ability to change inanimate objects (like paintball guns into real guns); the ability to manifest clothing and similar items; and summon hellfire to his fingertips. This, plus the way he monologues to God with a degree of familiarity rather than reverence seems to indicate that he was Somebody Powerful and Important Before.

But in S2, his skills are significantly expanded upon. The miracle he and Aziraphale summon sets off alarms in heaven and hell, and it’s powerful enough to mask Gabriel from the Archangels. He summons a miniature sun to rain fire on Job, which is way bigger and flashier than anything we’ve seen him summon in S1. (If he needs fire, he alters the course of a dropping bomb, without creating one himself.)

Yet he’s able to cloak his presence so well he goes wholly unnoticed in heaven, or in front of heavenly agents on earth (i.e. the Job flashback). Muriel can’t clock him as a demon, or even as another supernatural being, despite their auras usually being pretty significant, such Aziraphale immediately sensing the archangels when they arrive.  He’s able to interfere with files that Muriel claimed required clearance (although I feel like that might just be a snark about Obeying Without Thinking? I would really need a Narrator to know.)

I might be misremembering, but I don’t think we’ve seen angels or demons transmogrify living beings before either. In the book, Crowley brings Aziraphale’s dove back to life after the failed magic show, and occasionally sinks ducks, but he doesn’t alter them? Not even Adam demonstrates that skill in S1. But he has no trouble turning Job’s children into lizards, however temporarily. Boy that would’ve been convenient during the flood. Or when the guard stopped then from getting to the air strip.

I might be misremembering, but I don’t think we’ve seen angels or demons transmogrify living beings before either. In the book, Crowley brings Aziraphale’s dove back to life after the failed magic show, and occasionally sinks ducks, but he doesn’t alter them? Not even Adam demonstrates that skill in S1. But he has no trouble turning Job’s children into lizards, however temporarily. Boy that would’ve been convenient during the flood. Or when the guard stopped then from getting to the air strip.

I don’t have any real issues with his characterization in the present day parts of S2, but there’s something weird happening with Crowley.

Where's all the people?

I really like a lot of the new characters, but how were there only like, 2.5 new humans named in the present day? Flashbacks don’t count bc the humans are all dead and can’t affect the story.

As much as I like Nina, she and Maggie don’t drive the story beyond being an occasional and awkwardly inserted plot contrivance? Both are actively robbed of their agency at several points, forced into situations that they could not have avoided or escaped. I’m not really sure what growth they’re expected to experience other than deciding not to date each other after everything. I literally can’t tell you anything about Nina other than that she remembers her regular’s orders, runs a coffee shop, and has a textbook abusive partner we never see. The only meaningful interactions they have are between those two, or in conversation with Aziraphale and Crowley.

Compare that to S1, where Anathema gets hit by Aziraphale and Crowley, but her primary relationships are with Newt, Adam, and Agnes Nutter (I think that counts as a relationship). We know that she’s got a wealthy family back in Puerto Rico, and that she was literally raised to save the world, and that she isn’t happy under all that pressure. Newt on the other hand is connected to not just Anathema, but Shadwell and Madame Tracy. He never even directly interacts with Aziraphale and Crowley. We know about his hobbies, his struggle to hold down a job, and his almost supernatural ability to destroy any electronics he touches. I don’t necessarily like how their relationship came together, but they were both very, very well fleshed out characters with unique backstories and goals. They weren’t just... waiting around to give Aziraphale and Crowley a new questline.

And while there’s no requirement to include a large cast of human characters that are exerting influence over the story, the lack of it is another aspect that makes this season feel not like Good Omens.

Also, it's just. Really weird to me that the events of S1 aren't really referenced at all? Like, Adam isn't mentioned, nor is Warlock. I don't expect them to keep track of the humans they met on the airfield for 20 minutes, but none of it is ever specifically referenced as far as I can tell, beyond Crowley threatening Gabriel. Like, I get that it's been a few years, but the pair caused a big enough disturbance that you'd expect some kind of ripples in their supernatural communities.

Promised by the Narrative (Obvious Chekhov's guns that I will be legitimately upset over if they do not go off)

A sincere apology from Aziraphale to Crowley that doesn't come with the expectation that Crowley will come back to him, but because he deserves an apology, even if the choices Aziraphale made were done with good intentions. Aziraphale does not expect forgiveness, and is shocked when Crowley grants it without hesitation.

A clear declaration of love from Aziraphale, which can't be rationalized away by either of them.

An "I'm Sorry" dance between Aziraphale and Crowley, but with greater sincerity and gravity. The most important piece is that they end up dancing together, which signifies a mutual apology and dedication to come together.

Since kissing is on the table, I expect an actual joyful, mutual kiss between these two assholes.

A shared cottage in South Downs.

Predictions/Theories (just some fun thoughts I've had)

When Adam declared that Satan was not his father, he didn't make himself not the antichrist, but accidentally crowned his human dad the King of Hell. Nobody knows this, because Adam doesn't have a good measure for "normal" supernatural situations, and Mr. Young because he's so "normal" that he explains away all the magical bullshit that's started going down.

When Adam declared that Satan was not his father, he erased Satan altogether. However, this left a vacuum in both power and reality. The defection of both Gabriel and Beelzebub only widens that crack. In an attempt to Fix things, reality is warping the story. Crowley has become leagues more powerful between S1 and S2, as the narrative is trying to force him into the role of his previous boss. Aziraphale is unknowingly being pulled into a similar version on the Other Side, perhaps to replace Gabriel or perhaps to replace God herself, who has been fairly absent in all this. The alterations to their memories or past have come about to keep the narrative running smoothly.

When the Metatron asks Nina whether anybody has ever asked for death, he was actually referring to Death, the sole remaining rider of the apocalypse.

If Maggie is indeed a Plot Device, it would be a fascinating exploration of Free Will to see her become aware of this (cue existential crisis), and then fall in love with Nina on her own terms, rather than because she was written that way.

Hastur will be back. Somehow.

The reason why S2 focuses so much on the supernatural characters is because S3 will be about how the events in S1 have changed the political landscape of heaven and hell. Angels are questioning their roles, demons are yearning for something more. It's scaring upper administration, and then the two most reliable folks in employment run away to alpha centauri. Recruiting Aziraphale and getting him back in line prevents him from becoming a martyr, control the range of his influence. The series reasserts its theme of choice and agency by highlighting that Aziraphale and Crowley aren't that special, they've just had the chance to live and grow, and that the others have free will too, if they want it.

The reason why they wanted to separate Aziraphale and Crowley, is not to get Aziraphale on his own, but to get Crowley on his own. He literally stopped time and made a pocket universe in front of Satan last season. He's powerful and dangerous and somebody wants to see that reigned in.

Wishlist (stuff I desperately want to see)

Crowley getting an audience with God and an opportunity to ask his questions, only to refuse to do so because he's found his own Answers and he no longer needs hers

Aziraphale and Crowley growing more into their book incarnations. Aziraphale becomes confident in his sense of morality, which he developed the hard way through millennia on earth besides humanity. He slowly learns what it means to be loved, unconditionally, but also is better at asserting and maintaining his boundaries. Crowley, still anxious and unwinding, works through his fear of abandonment, providing him opportunities to be kind and gentle and nurturing--all traits that he's aggressively hid since being a demon.

Hand holding. I know that Gaiman was referring to Ineffable Bureaucracy, but I still feel like we'd benefit from meaningful hand holding, especially since that got cut from the adaptation of the book.

Shifted focus away from the supernatural shenanigans, and back onto the humans that actually drive the story.

Cameos from S1 characters (if not a more substantial appearance).

The Four Other Riders of the Apocalypse.

Cursed Thoughts (why I shouldn't be allowed a social platform)

Ineffable Bureaucracy turns up in season 3 because Beelzebub got Gabriel pregnant somehow.

#good omens #good omens spoilers #good omens season 2 #good omens s2 #good omens meta #good omens 2 spoilers #good omens 2 theory #good omens 2 analysis #long post #text

[aha-chuu]

My thoughts on the Fontaine characters rn (pre 4.0)

I saw someone making a post about their thoughts and they were tragically wrong and I disagreed. So here I am, being opinionated.

I'm not gonna discuss leaks, I'm just talking about the character designs and what lore we know from the trailer and teaser :))

Lyney

So, Lyney is great. I love that he's kind of sussy, and his teaser that recently came out is almost... Sinister. And yet, he also checks the boxes of being really fun and extroverted! Venti vibes tbh.

Design wise? His animations are the best in the game, hands down. They suit the performance aspect of his character perfectly and are almost enough to make me pull for him.

Tragically, his character design isn't really for me. I think the simplicity works with the bombastic animations, and I'm glad to see he's wearing a reasonable outfit for the job he does (a rarity in Genshin). And yet, I'm a bit too much of a lesbian to be uber interested in the twinky direction his design leans.

Not pulling.

Lynette

So she's super cute. We have got a lot of cat girls already (I think Lyney should have also been a cat-person tbh) but I love that Lyney isn't actually doing cat things. Like, she's this subdued introvert, no meowing during her attacks or curling up in boxes like Kirara. She's just a person.... Who's also a cat.

I like her character design better than Lyney's; the blue just stands out a lot more than his red does, and the big bow is a better centerpiece to her design than Lyney's hat is to his. Plus, her animations are also nice.

We're getting her for free so I likely won't pull, but I am already preparing artifacts to build her on my account.

Freminet

Have I said how much I like sibling dynamics? These three actually seem pretty close and like they will gasp interact with each other! In comparison to the likes of the Kamisatos, this is miraculous.

I know several people who love this guy, and I do think he looks good. I saw some complaints about his hair cut (I think it's adorable), and the chunky boots & coat really serve to emphasise his awkwardness without sacrificing aesthetics.

Unfortunately, he's a physical claymore character, so it's a big skip from me.

Focalors/Furina

Well she's a brat huh. I worry after Raiden that they'll destroy Furina's character arc in order to make her more palatable, but I want her to go full Marie Antoinette. All the lore with the Oceanids disliking her and the general stuff about using the court for entertainment make me very interested in her.

As a design, I just dislike the twin tails. I love the blazer and the huge gem and the hat that's actually a crown!! Like, Furina is extravagant and over the top, obviously self obsessed - she looks perfect in that regard.

Since she's the archon and she's Hydro, she'll probably be broken meta wise. I'll likely pull, but mostly to make cool teams with her, not because she's a fave of mine specifically.

Neuvilette

... Father?

FR though, I understand why several people are crazy about this man. I do wish he looked a bit older since that's sort of where his characterisation is - he's done with Furina's shit and he's doing all the actual work of running Fontaine. With the elf ears, I expect him to be some sort of long-life species - he has no visible Vision and his hair kind of looks oceanid-like, so I figure he's not actually human. That along with the slits in his eyes. I hope he turns out to be older than Furina, and that he has a kind of reluctant dad & spoiled daughter relationship with her; we do see him tell her off in the teaser.

Neuvilette is the most feminine tall man character and the hair is a great aspect of the design. The colour palette is good and I do like the robes since he's a Judge, however I think it might get a bit boring to look at when you're playing as him - which is probably why the hair is so dramatic, in order to bring interest to the design.

He'll probably be Hydro and he'll probably be a catalyst based on that outfit (it's not exactly maneuverable enough for anything else ':))). I am interested in pulling almost a 100%.

Wriothesley

Another man???

I don't understand people talking about the lack of husbandoes in Fontaine, like look at these fine gentlemen.

We don't have much official info on Wriothesley so I'm gonna dip a little into leaks here, skip if you don't wanna know. He is some sort of prison warden which I bop with - it's an expected expansion on the justice landscape of Fontaine. He's on the rough side of the Fontaine infrastructure, in comparison to most of the other characters. That interests me since it feeds more into the duality themes of Fontaine, though currently we're unevenly biased rn to the more santized characters.

Design wise he's one of my favourites. White/black/red looks so good, as does his kind of punk esque chains. The tie puts me off somewhat, like he looks sort of smart and put together, but then the rest of the design undercuts that.

Leaks say Wriothesley is a physical standard banner five star. This fills me with fear. I also don't know what his actual personality will be, so let's say I'm undecided on pulling him.

Charlotte

I liked her personality and en VA in that one TCG event, unfortunately much like that event, Charlotte looks boring. She's cute, whatever, but she doesn't seem particularly story relevant and her design hasn't captured me.

I'm just not that interested.

Sigewinne(?)

Okay, she's cuter than Charlotte she's a sea slug person so immediately more interesting. She was also hanging out with Wriothesley, which is so adorable considering how different they seem.

We're dipping back into leaks here, but it seems like she might be another Hydro healer. I've seen people annoyed by this, but I'm perfectly fine with it - I don't have Kokomi and I like Nilou bloom as much as the next person.

If Sigewinne is a four star, I hope she's on a banner for a cool five star.

Navia

I know a lot of people like this woman. Taylor Swift etc (I am not overly into Taylor Swift), but I think Navia could be cool.

I find her design overcrowded. I do think this suits the fact that we're playing with French Revolution ideas and she's part of the bourgeoisie, so ofc she's overdecorated and elaborate in her fashion. Even though it makes sense, I still don't like the arsthetic of it.

On the other hand, I do like the yellow - it's not a colour we see in too many Genshin designs. I don't really like how it fits with the blue jewellery though.

Personality wise, I worry a bit that she's gonna be our waifu bait, but they did Dehya's characterisation really well without falling into that trap. Navia could be very fun and I think there's a lot of promise in the idea that she might be a class traitor, teaming up with us against the Fontaine government (wow Genshin loves a corrupt government huh).

Will I pull? She's a geo claymore user and my triple crowned Itto is already collecting dust. That's a no from me.

Clorinde

Everyone say hello to my wife:

(I'm waiting)

I've seen so many people mad at Clorinde when I think she looks great. Her outfit is simpler than is typical for Genshin, but that's cos she's a no-nonsense fighter type! Like how we saw with Lyney, more muted designs often mean more dramatic animations, and we already saw Clorinde doing some dynamic fight stuff in the trailer.

She really interests me in that she's a champion duellist, strong enough that even Childe wants to fight her. We see Clorinde works directly beside Neuvilette in the trailer, so she must be high up in position. A gun and a sword? She's trying to kill Navia, but the Devs describe their relationship as "complicated"??

Clorinde is an Electro woman and these are always queer fyi.

I hope she's pretty straight laced, but not quite in the Sara way. She's boring tbh, mostly because she is always answering to someone else, and she gets so little screen time. For Clorinde to work, I think she needs to have independence and apt presence in the story to be explored - not just a prop/obstacle.

Her personality makes me fearful, but rn I'm pulling 100%.

#genshin impact #Fontaine #Lyney #lynette #neuvillette #focalors #Furina #navia #Clorinde #sigewinne #charlotte genshin impact #freminet #Wriothesley

[changeling-fae]

Gave my unicorn Tav, Iluatria (Lua for short), an update. I'm a The Last Unicorn hoe.

Her lore:

Lua was a unicorn who lived on the coast before an old dying wizard made a deal with a sea hag to capture her so he could force her into healing him and giving him more life.

He went to the local sea hag and had her help him capture and transform Lua (wild unicorns are notoriously difficult to capture otherwise). It worked obviously, but he betrayed the hag and killed her (who cursed him to be killed by his own folly soon enough, aka Lua).

He basically had her captured Calliope style in the Sandman, trying to persuade/intimidate/force her to give him power but she refused because it’s not something that can be taken. He gets drunk one night and tries to take it by force (by sawing her horn off which would kill her) and she instead impales him with her horn.

She then returns to where her sisters and brothers are like “hey, help me turn back” but then they said they can’t and that’s when Selûne is like “actually I’m going to need you to investigate Moonrise/the Absolute cult that’s forming and then I can turn you back”, so then Lua is forced to investigate which is then when she gets captured and tadpoled.

Since the gods were already sending their clerics and agents to check out what’s happening, Selûne would be like “actually this works in our favor for a bit” and is taking advantage of the situation.

I imagine Lua got nerfed a bit when she was transformed, then the tadpole nerfed her the rest of the way.

She knows she’s a unicorn (horn makes it obvious) but her memories of her life as a unicorn are starting to fade and the more connections she makes in her new form, the more she loses her old self. I’m using it as a form of meta too, since Tav is such a blank slate and feels like they didn’t exist before the events of the game, this is my meta of her literally being a new person.

She’s old, like older than Raphael old, but since I’m stealing so much from TLU, to quote Prince Lir, “she has a newness”.

She was a unicorn under the service of Selûne specifically, and she helped guide sailors and lost souls home along the coast. Keeping with the sea and navigation themes.

She’s not only trying to remove the tadpole but also trying to return to form before she “loses herself” forever. But of course she makes connections and once she and Astarion fall for each other, it’s when she has to make a decision. His spawn route is him deciding to try living again with his old self dead and buried, and with her it’ll be deciding to let her old self die as well.

She doesn't get on with Gale at first because she thinks wizards are selfish and power hungry but over time they become friends and they have interesting discussions around magic.

Right now her goal is “yes, I want to go back, this form is unnatural and torture” but she’ll start to develop an independent sense of self that starts to overtake her old self.

She’ll always have natural grace and beauty, but that ethereal otherworldliness will disappear over time.

While she's in this form she can feel her immortality and old self fade and it horrifies her but once she falls in love with Astarion she eventually comes to accept her new life. My end goal is at the end of the game, she chooses to use what's left of her powerful unicorn healing magic to cure Astarion of his vampirism. Her horn disappears and she's made fully mortal (as an elf) and they live their new lives together.

It's a cheesy idea but Selûne takes their souls (since Corellon won’t have him), and then they get reincarnated as unicorns. They’re essentially new people again, the way reborn souls are, but they find each other again and mate for life once more. And now he gets to be a unicorn; wild beauty, grace, and never again tamed too.

It’s super romantic and cheesy but sometimes I be a sucker for that.

And I do like the idea that Astarion, (who he himself and most people see as used, dirty, and corrupted), is actually seen as worthy enough and loved by a being in universe as pure as they come. And there’s an innocence in his passion for life that would attract her.

#bg3 #bg3 tav #astarion #oc: iluatria #she's unfortunately probably going to be one of my few tav's who kills raphael rip

[nalyra-dreaming]

Hello again!

Reading some interviews I’m curious about the teaser that “Dubai will be explosive/spicy etc.”

What do you think will happen in Dubai this season- if you were to speculate freely? Will there be violence? Do you think there will be horror and even frights? What kind of horror in that case? Truths seem to be coming to the surface - from maybe all of our main characters? Also how(!) do you think stuff will play out - I feel there’s been a lot of good speculation and of course the books are there about the what - but I’m getting more and more curious about the how of it all - if that makes sense?

Would love to hear your thoughts! Thank you!

Hey!

I've spoken about this before, but... I expect some kind of Merrick-esque fallout in Dubai, coming also with some kind of reveal wrt to "The Groan".

So - emotional impact and also lore-story-line explosion: 1000% :)

I just reblogged a bit of a discussion-meta wrt the revisit of episode 5 here, and I really am nodding along there, because I also feel that one of the big emotional gut punches will be that Merrick-diary-reveal (that was also a sucker punch for book readers back then!). And the attempted suicide after that.

Now, if that is really Marius in the trailer... then "Those Who Must Be Kept" are likely near. IF that holds, then they could be connected to "The Groan". That said, Lestat has to show up for s3 in some kind of manner as well, soo...

I think that Dubai will be increasingly painful. Memories will come back, years of memory, as was said in the trailer. Both Daniel and Louis will be deeply affected. Truths will come out. About their lives, about what they believed of themselves.

About what happened, and why.

The why will be the horror I think.

And the who.

Now, there are a lot of possibilities flitting around my brain as to how the season could end, tbh, but it's a bit difficult to pin down:

There's

Lestat waking up to save Louis , literally shaking the tower's foundations (which would be in line with Merrick, but might be too much "white savior" for the show, however, there was a version that Anne thought about writing first that the show might play with). This is what I think will happen.^^

Akasha waking up in the basement, literally shaking the tower to pieces (she did destroy the tomb under the ice when she rose)

Lestat coming from somewhere else and crashing the party

or Lestat coming onto the radio/TV/internet after all with his rock career

or something entirely new which has to do with the "great conversion"

Personally I think the rockstar career happened in the 80s, it just didn't lead to the same events, in a way proven by Daniel being old now.

We will need to have Lestat "there" somehow for s3.

I think Daniel will continue the interview for at least the next season. I think he will also remember something wrt Lestat.

I do hope for a 4 person play in Dubai in s3.

Imagine Armand, Louis, Lestat and Daniel on a couch, all aware of what the other knows (well, apart from life stories). The bitching, the pettiness, the hidden aggression. Glorious. I would love that.

I do not think there will be violence. Armand loves both Daniel and Louis way too much for that, and Marius would not hurt them either. IF there is violence then that is coming from another source, and if it isn't Akasha... I cannot quite see someone becoming violent, not really. Self-destructive, yes. But against another there? Mhhh. The books coming down on Daniel will most certainly connected to a cataclysmic event, and that... will likely be connected to "The Groan", imho.

And that cataclysmic event will then carry us into s3 :)

Sorry if this isn't... precise.

There is a LOT they could play with and while I see the arc building they might choose to pull something else in, maybe, like the threat by Rhoshamandes, maybe. Or even a Talamasca threat, something Anne toyed with, but never really wrote up.

So there are... possibilities.

The only sure thing is, imho, that it's going to hurt, and that it will bring us to s3 :))))))

#Anonymous #asks #ask nalyra #amc iwtv #iwtv #amc interview with the vampire #interview with the vampire amc #iwtv amc #iwtv 2022 #interview with the vampire #future season speculation

[iintervallum]

some tma and tmagp meta and thoughts, disclaimer that this does contain some more negative critique

i think i realized why i still think about tma despite not actually fully loving the podcast. i like a lot of the lore and the workings of the avatars and the meta narrative around power structures,and many of the themes it discusses and disects through the subtext are intriguing, it has a very interesting tapestry of the inner workings of it's universe

but the actual way the podcast tells it was, at some points, repetitive and a little bit boring, i would have to relisten sometimes to episodes just to remember what was happening even though i was listening to a lot of it in the same time span and should have remembered, i havent felt as much of a need to revist the story as i have with other audio dramas ive listened to. I do want to say that i genuinely enjoy tma its just not something that ive latched onto as i have with other shows.

side tangent -> and seeing how volatile the fandom was in its peak i don't want to be involved further lol. I'm someone who has a bad habit of looking at discourse and critical tags because i like fandom history and I'm nosy, and seeing posts about jmart being "too fluffy" and the ending of tma having "no impact" and how they were "pandering" right next to posts about how "traumatically tragic" the ending was and how jmart was "extremely toxic" and they made them "do terrible things how dare they" was really funny. there were legitimate critiques of things there as well but the divisive nature of s5 is amusing to me as an outsider that came in late additionally some stuff with how fandom centers whiteness and white narratives, as nice as it that there is a widely adopted fanon of Jon as a person of colour, specially a brown asian man, i think the fandom still didn't really decenter whiteness at all, like sure you're solving the sexy man problem by making them non white but have you done...any thinking into the deeper implications of it? i have, being south asian myself makes it impossible not to. tangent over

I guess some aspects did not feel as tight as they could have been, with some themes the show deals with being hits and misses. i think the structure and the statement format as iconic as it is, restricted the way the story could be told, if i'm making sense? (and the decision to go with more realisitc and more grounded horror that intersected with real world issues are a part of said hits and misses from my perspective, some things i feel didnt fully work from a narrative standpoint but thats a subjective thing that i wont get into)

thats why i'm enjoying tmagp a little more, i think they took what worked well with tma and expanded on it with a fuller cast from the offset,the inclusion of the non statement parts that tma had (the interpersonal relationships and conflicts) and intergrated it without fully losing what makes tma intriguing to listen to. tmagp so far seems to balance the cases and the character interactions well. it doesnt feel like we're just going with the same format and its not too unfamilar either.

like one thing i'm looking forward to is the guest writers, specifically a few of them since ive listened to their work and loved them, and it will be really interesting to see how their writing would work within the tma universe.

and an aspect which makes tmagp intresting as well is if you have proior knowledge of the tma universe, we know much more than the characters, and have our own perceptions of what is going to happen to them based on our previous understanding of the series and the events that transpired. we're just waiting for the characters to catch onto what we know, and all the foreboding tragedy and devastation that will come with it.

some part of me wonders, if this season will be about how tragedies like the universe ending in the way it did in s5 are unavoidable, how even in an alternate universe where the circumstances are different the same things are bound to happen again. no matter what its inevitable, the mark of what transpired cannot ever be reversed,

like there are parallels to be had with how jon was ultimately pulled into everything against his will and had not that much agency in what happened to him, even if he did make the decision to use the power he had(for both good and bad reasons), it was forced onto him in the first place. meanwhile we have sam who is desperate for a connection to something greater, as a part of his self worth is tied to being chosen, even if we know that being chosen is not what it seems, hes willing to endanger himself if it means finding out more with his curiousity overpowering the risk factor. i wonder if the outcome of it all will be the same because that would be very very interesting.

either way the tighter nature of tmagp seems to work well for it and i hope that the momentum continues till it's conclusion, and even if not I had a decent time with it so it still would have been worth it

#aster.txt #the magnus archives #tma #the magnus protocol #tma spoilers #tmagp spoilers #meta #fandom meta #critical #tmagp theory

[blindtaleteller]

MCU Asgard Canon Observation Research [Part 1]

Firstly and before I even start in on the subject, keep in mind that this is what it says: a collection of research into actual Canon Lore from the Marvel Cinematic Universe: not the comics, or the Nordic lore twice removed from it.

Secondly and alongside that, also keep in mind that even back at the start of the MCU as a long term project, while the MCU is based on the Marvel comics universe: the creators made a point of making it a completely different universe: for many varying reasons, including the spaces lacking continuity in the comics over the years that the MCU as a project wanted to pursue from it's first conception.

This is a large part of why there are phases and why they were numbered from it's creation. (And yes also why my tags recently mentioning counting phases are what they are elsewhere, but that's a whole other post.. or set of them.)

These are important to remember because, I would like to avoid previous iterations of people wasting their time trying to insert comics-universe lore and more excessively into or onto this requested post purely for the sake of, well; being argumentative or just trolling:as much as possible. I do try to take some time to respond to comments and reblogs as much as possible, but I can and will ignore or yes, at times point out people unable to manage these things.. and respond as necessary.

I normally wouldn't bother to mention this except yes, that has happened before so: consider this your disclaimer.. I ain't dealin' with you if you're gonna be a trolly shit disrespectful enough of the time effort and willingness to share what research and observations I have, by shitting on it or me in your pursuit of whatever flimsy excuses might be given for any inhuman reactions posted passive aggressive or worse.

More frankly: be respectful on my posts or get lost. I don't tolerate harassment on my blog whether it's aimed at me or others. Passive aggressive or otherwise. I'll discuss stuff, am happy to have any valid references I might miss added to and pointed out. Just don't be an asshat about it, and you'll get the same from me. That's how basic-bitch Karma, and I; both work: you'll get what you give along those lines, while in my space.

The necessary now out of the way... Next!

More as a side note with that mentioned; while I may mention some meta/theory in the form of the most probable (as that's how my meta in particular is formed) it is again: based on the facts of the canon lore and contexts confirmed presented in it; visually, in dialogue, and out of the mouths of the very people who made all that themselves, at the time that lore was given to us on screen: and will be mentioned as the theory and supposition that is 'meta' rather than 'canon'. I have gone out of my way as a fan of world, universe, and character building as a part of the creative process in particular: to watch, rewatch, rewatch again and again, and hunt down all this stuff (often lol purely out of my own curiosity.) All in all Meta is theory, Canon is story/film-established fact; and I do try to keep a clear line between the two of them. The early world and character building in the MCU has always been interesting enough to me alone, to do all that with my free time.

And that's especially true with Asgard in particular, as a main story driving force in one form or another as far back as 2010 when both Thor and CA: tFA's scripts were being filmed and their sets/settings picked out and created.

Final few bits before we get into it..? As Asgard lore (and even a lack of it's presence at times) is directly and appropriately attached and or in relation to the lore of several races, species, and massive events in the entirety of the MCU's first three phases.. I will be touching some of those cultures and places too, where important. Probably not in this particular part, but yeah. It's gonna happen.

As with the research post into Loki and his year of absence prior to Avengers 2012: (yes that's a link to an ask that contains a good chunk of info and years of interviews on that particular subject) this might not be an entirely complete compilation: for the same reasons. As I said, i didn't just watch, I rewatched repeatedly from differing personal mental angles: not just three or four times, but and as I wrote my own fanfiction.. I would also re-watch once or twice just prior to fleshing out an outlined story of my own to refresh my memory, seek out interviews official and otherwise from the creators and actors who made that lore and put it on screen for us to enjoy as part of the stories we enjoyed (or not, depending lol) and well.. the resulting organization of the whole outside of this post is less than comprehensive for anyone else. You can see the explanation for how that happens in the foreword of that thread if you're curious.

As a result, I may or may not exclude the actual interviews if this gets too long. Much of the visual in this first part especially are pretty self explanatory, as I did find some of my dissection pics too.

All said (I think? Gods I hope so that was a lot wasn't it? XD) and as suggested/requested recently in discord?

This one is gonna be expansive.. and hellaciously so: so grab your drinks and your snacks and still be prepared for this series of posts to be going for while (not kidding, may be compiling this properly between jobs for weeks) so yeah..

Here we go again!

The major forgotten fact of Asgard's depiction in the MCU is this:

We the audience are only shown a very tiny fragment of Asgard as another separate planet in space, and: they do show us we're missing as much, from the very first film.

That gif directly from the movie I used at the top? I'm using it again, because...

..look at that.

With topography, perspective and size in mind.

That tiny golden triangle in the middle is the Palace at the center. The little golden bar along that tiny portion to either side? Is the city attached to it proper, with the Bifrost, and as far as we've seen the 'Heroes Road' (as soem are calling it) and city walls cupping the Bifrost Bay directly facing the camera.

This is a space shot (of course,) and that tiny itty bitty moving spec that is still shrinking as it gets further from our perspective and closer to Asgard at the bottom, is the Bifrost in use.

And, they do give us a few views of that as early as five to six minutes into the first movie in 2011, as seen in the first clip below. I've set it to share at the first view of Asgard itself.

Hopefully that works. If not, the timestamp you're looking for is 2:04.

I recommend shutting off the audio, as it's a bit distracting. Trust me, we will get back to the very interesting audio from a world builder's perspective, when we get to the History and Relations section of Asgard's break down.. there are several tons, of that and in that opener alone, to examine later.

IMPORTANT!! When looking at any of these images or videos, keep in mind and look at the scale. Not just in the scene on screen at that moment, but also in reference to previous shots. Distance is a thing. The size of trees and people are a thing. This place in the MCU is much more massive than where it's very cloistered story parts take place.

This is not a city-planet like and for comparison: Coruscant, from Star Wars... though I am very aware that some people will throw out Asgard's concept art to try and 'debunk' that (yes its' been done and proven pointless in other threads).. that does also bring us to another couple of facts that slip by in their context.

In fact, you know what? I'll throw it in here right now myself:

This concept art: does still apply, if slightly adjusted with the topography and likely under ground portions taken into account.. because Asgard is the name of both the planet AND the city as separate entities of the same locale.

In other words, the concept art is VERY valid as a map of the city itself: but not the outlying locations outside of Asgard as a Capital City Proper, of Asgard as a disk planet.

And again.. they do show us this, and not just in the first film: although that first shot going into the city says as much too, being that..

A. Asgard is established as a society greatly more advanced than Earth and most others, and;

B. there are whole swaths of land (and especially mountain they like to build into) without structure between the edge panned through and the City itself. (see still image below: not the best quality but it's also in the video.)

Which.. we'll touch again a little more in a bit (and probably the biggest lol) part of this breakdown set; digging at History, Culture, and Relations.. as the fact they do prefer to build INTO their environment much more than on top of it is also shown in the shot of the canyons and canals on which not only that city is built, but even what buildings are shown outside of it on that panning-in shot.

We can see in the one above though: that while they did redirect some of the water through canals in the lower shot; they also kept and built into the natural(?*) lay of the river canyons below.

This theme is kept even before we get into the city though with the first part of the shot above the water.

Want a more visual view of the breakdowns as I do them?

Here you go, here's one example from out of my crazy folders and docs, that I made in paint back in 2013 (LOL yes I know. XD) while once again re-watching that same scene.

I would highly suggest clicking on it, as tumblr does downsize images making text on them hard to read otherwise. Crappy in-motion quality screen cap but, it was made more for breaking down the visual elements on screen for what it told us about the land, and more; on it.

----[?*] As a set of side/foot notes to that last bit and the image..

A. the top left corner yes: does reference some of where I use certain observations of canon in my own fics; and how they would have grown or evolved depending on that story. In this case, and at the time: the pink text is making note to utilize those observations in outlining Hvedrungr (Loki from Uni 0) and Flykra's (Loki from Vesti1 Uni 14) universes in particular: both of which return to Asgard at VERY different times and in different situations: while the history and culture I've been able to glean and expand on in some cases is still part of their and the location's background. As I don't have the patience to remove the text from an old paint shop cut.. I thought I would at least explain it's presence left there. These things are, ultimately connected by the culture that originated on and created them on that planet after all.. and why there's an entire section dedicated to the varied aspects of Asgard's presented Cultural, Relations, and History lore. B. The '?' at the 'natural' mention in parenthesis above, also takes into account that Asgard is much older than Earth's culture and has to be: if only because as only three generations have come and gone over the passage of what to us is five thousand years! (see the next installment Thor the Dark World: Bor and Darkalfheim, or just watch the movie with info gathering in mind.) In other words, between Bor's War, and Odin's Asgardian Great Wars: we cannot be certain whether or not 1. those canyons are actually natural or the now aged result of one of many previous interplanetary wars, or 2. whether Asgard at this stage of it's showing timed at 2011 more than a millennia later, has even always been this size, given their advancement in technology and study of magic as presented OR left in question, either. For my part, as there's no conclusive dialogue from that era to state otherwise in the MCU or it's interviews that I know of, and knowing the context of Malekith and Darkalfheim's familiarity with Asgard itself during their raid to reclaim the infinity stone: I tend to veer towards a mixture of the two. While it's very likely at least some of the canyons are indeed natural; the great age of the culture and planet both, along with the nature of Bor and Odin's rules alone as we've seen them: leaves a HUGE and LONG period of time and opportunities for some of those nasty fights to come directly to them... or even their predecessors. Which would also explain why they had that shield for the palace too. You don't build and more importantly upkeep something like that without a very good set of reasons or examples experienced, to do so after all. Much of that is meta though, however based on canon fact it may be: and as many of the creators were not asked publicly during that era, and have been dismissed or moved on to other projects since.. it's hard to know if we'll ever see a *genuine* answer from the people who actually made it all starting sixteen years ago.

Anyway, let's look at a few more shots of Asgard with that breakdown going. Some of these are all old, from as far back as about ten years ago when I first started writing outlines for the varied universes in my Lokiverse Project: but they do still hold up. theer are some from TDW in this bunch too. I heavily dissected these scenes knowing I was going to do whole chapters in multiple differing universes, and wanted to have the presented layout and feel laid out in my head, before I started adding in locations on the planet not yet shown on film. And given my first Book was already going to be DREAMS.. where Asgard has been blown to bits post Endgame? I really wanted to get it right so I could deconstruct it as many times as I and the muses wanted to. Laufeyson (Universe 10 Loki) was pretty insistent too with the opening chapters on his end focusing partially on that chase with Abell through Asgard's blown apart ruin

Sorry for the ramble of an explanation, but that's how it is and how it works over here...? XD

..uhmmmm. Yeah lol! When I said I watch and re-watch from differing mental perspectives..? That's what I mean. I don't usually share those at all... only the unedited pics. Genrally I will take caps or take existing raw caps and pick out piece that catch my eye. I've been told they do help put your brain in the right mode for those who have difficulty processing them in that way, like I do when in that mode. Also yes, trees and fish ...bruh. lol!

It's there, has been for years in some cases; and I'm not messing with it now.

That basic bit out of the way (doesn't sound so basic does it.) Let's backtrack a bit, specifically to Asgard's shape and the placement of it's location and the locations on it.

As I first write this, I don't have the talks I had with a few wild meteorologists and geologists back then directly on hand (as this is a part I still don't focus on too much; but:) shaped as it is, those I did talk to theorized that between the shape and placement of planets as well as the nebula they're partially inside, that Asgard may be shaped and in rotation as it is because of its' placement in it's system: or because of late interference by Asgard's inhabitants to keep it stable.

^ That one scene in particular from Thor 2011 really made my eyes pop. Not because of what's going on in it so much as trying to answer the whys and hows and what the actual fricks man: because..

Can you imagine, the conversation: trying to pitch that spinning death ball to the King there OR anywhere else on the planet before Bor or even his great grandfather?

Or, trying to talk the royalty down from the idea of putting it anywhere NEAR the palace, or other people's homes?

How about testing that house sized death-by-velocity-alone gilded mess? (Yes I still laugh thinking about that. Some poor scholar/engineer type trying to dissuade Bor's grand-daddy from building what would definitely become a giant pinball of death in the canyons and canals, if that thing ever came off it's anchors even once in the city. Good gods! lol!) Who knows; maybe that was when people started moving to Vanaheim... XD! Just (mostly) kidding.

Cray-cray thoughts of high velocity gilded pinball hell that was probably somewhere way back in the Bifrost's likely development and evolution as tech/normie science boosted by magic, and or vice versa, aside:

You probably notice I've mentioned the nebulae and the planets in their rotation more than once. And with good reason.

Backing up a bit; Asgard is interesting well before you hit her shores.

Not only is she a top-shaped disk-planet: but with the way the sky is shown: Asgard has a very interesting rotation if she has any left at all. There's very little we know, but what we do know is she is not alone in her systematic rotation either way.

(Asgard's sky from Thor's personal Hall in Thor: the Dark World)

In fact and as seen in the screen caps above: Asgard has an incredibly close relation to at least three planets in her nebulous solar system. At least one of which is absolutely massive: massive enough that it's close proximity is theorized as being pretty likely to be the only way Asgard experiences night cycles as seen in Thor: the Dark World... mainly through eclipsing the nebulous sun by passing between it and Asgard as a planet.

Which is both cool -and- scary when you take things like degrading orbits, space debris and projectiles like comets and other space science into account.. but also very, very interesting.

It also begs the question either way: why didn't Asgard at their earlier establishment of a greater technological level, colonize or move to those planets sooner? Of course.. the first obvious answer is.. they probably couldn't, at first. And even more probably were past trying by the time the Bifrost was built, prior to Bor's time (I say prior because we have seen Bor use it in Thor the Dark World: and on a massive scale moving whole armies, the same as his son Odin. See some of the scenes from Bor's seizure of the Aether below.)

But yeah, Asgard is a pretty unique place even before you get to the water fall's edge: or questioning what kind of condensed mass it has to retain gravity at it's very small size.

Or, whether that gravity and the shape is in fact generated in some form or another after millennia upon millennia of just the Wars we do know about in their history.

(At current we know about Darkalfheim and the series of Wars including Jotunheim and Muspelheim that they call the Great Wars. While they are definitely aware of the extensive millennia of intergalactic war between the Xandarian based Nova Corps and the Kree Empire put front and center in GotG.. there hasn't been any actual confirmation as to whether Asgardians fought in that war on either side: only that they are at that stage at least loosely allied with Asgard.. if not a more separated protectorate being considered among the nine realms in the MCU.)

Why do I keep pointing out trees, and perspective; or teh size of the city in that first little gif again?

Because.. that is our repeated visual evidence of just how much of Asgard as a planet; the story did not take place in.. huge parts of the place we haven't seen. And that makes sense.

Power plants or generators, smithys, and even schools can be easily placed in the city proper, at this stage.

But what about BEFORE, they got to this stage.. because that is a thing in the MCU in regards to Asgard: and a major plot point for three movies of script running, from 2010 all the way to 2015 when Taika Waititi was hired (unfortunately, for those of us who know the root of what happened there.)

What about food, for thousands of 5000 year lifespans and their kids. And their grandkids. And.. the food for the livestock, or the wild game

Or the bilgesnipes and dragons--well we can guess what happened to the dragons of Asgard in particular actually. If they were anything like Muspelheim's; and on a planet that size..? It doesn't take much to figure out Odin, Bor and their predecessors probably couldn't excuse not hunting a predator big enough to swallow people to extinction: not for much longer than they absolutely had to anyway.

What about fibers and leather for clothes.

How about waste management, for both the city and suburban areas? Sewers? Water filtration? Factories or slaughterhouses to process it all, and the means to support those things. Everything man made, is grown, processed or made somewhere.

We know they have these things, because we know they have and make their own alcohol (fermentation of grains, fruits, and more); as well as other things to eat: displayed in both T1 and TDW.

(The top image is from Thor's table flip scene in Thor 2011; while the one below it is from the tavern scene in the beginning of Thor: the Dark World.)

Meat, vegetables, fruit, grain, herbs, and seasonings are all represented on the tables above. While some might be imported (I really do wonder about the platters of golden apples myself:) it's not very likely all of them are. And it wouldn't make sense for them to have been imported from off world throughout their species development either. After all and again: they would have had to have survived and developed enough to GET TO, that stage in the first place.

You're also looking at Varnish in the shine of that table; smithing and metal working and ceramics in their table ware. Weaving either plant or animal fibers in their clothes, as well as the likely production of tannin (or it's equivalent) and leather working in every leather piece on screen. Candles can be made from varied sources, whether that's actual wax of some form, or condensed animal fat.

Oh, and if you find the enlarged version of those images: you'll also notice things like fine engraving and metal sculpture to the goblets and platters on the Thor 2011 table in particular.

Either way, the images above show us directly that unsurprisingly, they have come to understand whole other sub-levels of production: before you even get to the high-tech and magic ends of any of that to be able to reproduce it in that modern era.

As another side note related to that: the booze alone is pretty telling as to how far off the "Loki" series is on this mark, as well. Creators of current content 'conveniently forgot' that this is supposed to be a space faring, technologically advanced society (even if they're the social equivalent of medieval imperialist thugs .. lol sorry not sorry! That's literally how they're depicted... and honestly that really weird twist IS some of Asgard's most interesting and strange development) whose friends, allies and other examples of places visited DO and HAVE included Earth, Xandar, and six other 'realms' as their etymology names them: for literal millennia. Even taking the other, long established cultural influences and visitations aside? For a society who 5000 years ago was still porting whole armies to other planets to kick peoples asses? The idea they never discovered honey; or sugar especially even on the inside of a fermentation barrel for wine; OR how to process it into something like candy? Is more than just a -little- dumb in the stretch. Sugar often naturally starts to separate and crystallize during the fermentation process. Ask a vintner, or look it up if you don't believe me. Just sayin'.. just on Earth alone, we know sweets were discovered more than 8000 years ago. Eight thousand. And the only reason we haven't been able to confirm people older than that finding things like bee's hives?? Is because well.. that kind of thing rarely survives even that length of time at all, to be found in archeology in order to tell us more. I'll touch that and how it's pretty damned near impossible that 'Loki doesn't know wtf candy is' being 1k+ years himself, and a guy raised as an Asgardian prince & spymaster to boot later into the culture section I think, but mmm.. that whole bit still reeks of stupid, to me And more so after their own DB Cooper scene. Gonna say candy wasn't a snack in that era either? Cause if so; I got big shocking news, for those who think so... XD

In closing.. for this part?

As far as the world of Asgard goes, we have only been allowed to see a very small part of it: and even then? It is still undoubtedly massively larger than even what's implied: and definitely capable of supporting it's comparatively small base population of less than 10k people.

(Odin's subterranean vault reference: exterior)

The only reason we don't see even more of it; is the fact that films have a limited time to give you everything, and the story focuses on the royal family from the get go. And they live, in the heart of Asgard's capital city... so we largely don't see as much of that as weirdo world building fans like me would absolutely love to see in the process... and frankly; they gave plenty enough to start us off with.

The films would have suffered for having too much more of that, rather than the stories they were trying to tell.

The same.. I would love to know more: and I do wish the current teams paid the previous ones more respect by using what was already there and expanding on it: instead of making mismatched new things up, as they went.

The early creative teams really knew what they were doing back then.

(Asgard's defensive cannons defending against the Darkalfheim air raid in Thor the Dark World.)

And no, this isn't all they showed us, in the show and tell they did manage to give us over the course of years of work... far from it.

Hope you enjoyed part one! Maybe you learned or saw something you missed.. or have been inspired to watch the older films again..?

I know I often am.

#MCU #Asgard #MCU Asgard #Lore drops #research #scene dissection #location and culture dissection #world building #universe building #Lokiverse references #writing references #writing research #Youtube #MCU Lore #part one: #about the land more than the people on it #don't worry: we'll get to that #:3

[onesunofagun]

You know, I'm going to put a thought down because I'm thinking about this again because of the post earlier.

It might be a vent? I think it's more just me trying to describe a feeling so it's outside me and I can look at it.

I've seen a lotta discourse and a lot of theories and different takes out there. There's always gonna be some stuff that's frustrating because it's something Sus being widely normalised, but generally speaking, I think the varied perspective and ideas are always good thing in a fandom.

I've seen all sorts of ideas be explored-- in fics, in doujins and art, in roleplay, in lore essays-- over the years. I like to think I have a pretty good map on the fandoms I've been online and present in since the early 00s. I can usually remember context about how certain stuff came about, like what tropes or ideas got popular when and how, whether through shipping or fanon or mangas or general knowledge about the development process.

When you've been in a fandom a long time-- especially if you have made a lot of contributions to it, at any point-- sometimes you even have a part in shaping certain idea flows within it, yourself.

So I have had the chance to see and contribute to a lot of conversations that have happened over and over and over again, in a kind of generational way. I have seen certain discussions from old forums, translate to fics. I've seen them pop up on tumblr, then tumble to Reddit, then YouTube. I have watched the spread through the general sphere of things, get added to and turned over and re-examined.

For the record: I love watching that process, and I like being part of that process! Mentally tracking the grandfathered in fandom history has also become its own kinda hobby for me.

I've always found it interesting mapping where new fans come in, seeing how they orient themselves and what they pick up-- how and why and what they do with it, whether I appreciate it or not (I highlight biases that are related to harmful ideas when I see them to illuminate them).

Seeing certain concepts be repeatedly rediscovered and watching how certain waves of fans digest them is fascinating. Sometimes with surprising results, sometimes with disappointing results, but it's fascinating either way. That's kind of part of the appeal having been here so long and why I came back into (mild) activity-- I get to study and dissect the fandom behaviours as well.

But despite all of that, I've found I don't really appreciate a good number of the popular YouTubers who focus on Zelda as their channel topic.

I think I've developed a bit of a distaste for a few of them in particular, actually--the big number Zeldatuber channels. Mostly the ones that seem to be the theorycrafters that kinda followed on from a MatPat style format. All of my love to well researched videos analysing the themes and meta, and all the silly boundary breaks and speedruns, mind. But I found I got really disillusioned with the handful of channels that rose to prominence and how their content shifted with that growth.

With the potential to monetise their discussions and discords worth of people and patrons driving this kinda content, I do think a lot about things that have been discussed in the fandom in the past that get taken up and regurgitated as part of that grind. I have lost track of how many videos that have come out of a few big Zeldatubers of this vein gave me a really weird slimy feeling and I am trying to work out what it is.

I'm not super invested in watching much of Zeldatube at large, mostly because I've seen most popular subjects covered in many variations. I'm a lot more personally interested in analysis, rather than theorycraft, so take it with a grain of salt that I may have a bias too (The popular Zonai fixation really doesn't interest me at all, and Zeldatube burnt out on that hard).

A lot of the channels like this seem to present their stuff like it is brand new and never been seen before, and like it's a great achievement in sleuthing or that they've cracked a code-- but not in a fun feeling way. Not in an exciting personal discovery way, but in a way that feels like it's propping up an exclusivity around that channel, and its validity as a leading authority on Zeldadom. There's something vaguely newsfeed-like, or sensationalist about it to me, with tight knit associations to other big channels making the same type of content (and about the same types of subjects as far as I ever noticed, and widely overlapping perspectives).

I wonder if that's a cynical feeling that I have where I'm just being an old man yelling at clouds, but there's really something that rubs me wrong about the handful of top channels like this. Something about the way they generate and present, and potentially profit from, often long running fandom concepts and otherwise freely shared ideas that have had many contributions feels off.

Maybe it's also me struggling to understand the closed off nature of how a lot of people just absorb the series secondhand now, and how normal it is to have the most popular Zeldatube channels setting the tones and assumptions around lore for large swatches of the newer fans. And not because old guard gatekeeping, but because there's an obvious chasm there between new and old fans of the same media that now exists that's seemingly getting wider.

I do sometimes worry about the trend of recycled old fanon staples presented as brand new takes, because of that-- or worse, sold as the definitive take, especially when a lot of people do just accept them and then go off and start arguments because 'big Zeldatube said so' and they must know best.

Sometimes I wonder if the trend is actually adding to issues with consumption vs engagement, in terms of media literacy and fandom interaction. There's certainly some theories, because of these channels, widely taken as a kind of gospel from the 'zelda experts' like the discussion is already closed; mystery solved. I've legit seen smaller youtubers be accused of stealing or copying theories from the larger channels, when making detailed and well researched videos about canon lore. I have had multiple interactions with fans who just link to a popular video and be like 'here watch this, it'll explain it' like they can't even be bothered to have their own take, but they're also not interested in yours.

The way big Zeldatube presents itself and gets consumed at large, though, I guess I just don't recognise that as the same as seeing a new fan have a joyful discovery of something from their own interactions with the franchise and fandom. I realise that the channel runners are fans themselves, but I suppose I mean that the platform feels more like a degree of professional separation that's very closed. It's become 'Zelda is my job now' thing that's focused on interest trends and news.

Something something, decades of fandom interaction and discussion and archiving getting scraped and haphazardly slapped together again for the content grind because clout and profit??

That feels mean to say but--

"Like and subscribe and join my patreon for more content, often mined from various thoughts around the fandom to make up a new video to schedule" is how it often tastes to me and that's not a flavour I enjoy.

Again, by all means, not applicable to the whole of Zeldatube or many fans who do watch the big channels. But this kinda thing does feel like a pervasive and popular part of the theorycrafter channels. Commodification of theory, and exploitative platforms built off a community's back, leave a lot of the big Zeldatubers without my support or endearment. I feel incredibly conflicted about them.

Is that anything?

#shut up hero #its about the big zeldatube theory guys #I don't know I've got some weird feels about it #long too sorry