#also teams don't technically exist anymore

[oddballwriter]

hello! Could i please request a one shot where Steven and Marc know about Jake's existence and they have been trying to get used to him and get to know him, and during a mission where they need help they found out Jake has been having like a long term relationship with the reader (who is Sekhmet's avatar)

And Steven its totally freaking out but also crushing on her but Marc its like "wtf how long has this been going on?"

Unexpected Addition

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Part Two

Summary: Life with a new addition is a bit tricky, but Steven and Marc are getting the hang of having Jake around. But what they don't expect is that Jake has a bit of a life of his own, including a love. Which sort of adds another addition. 

Warnings: The boys are fighting. Steven being a love sick puppy. Marc is kind of a dick in this not gonna lie. Mentions of some factors of D.I.D. . It's mentioned that Jake told reader about Marc's past, to a degree. There's some arguing about you and Jake being a thing for so long and kind of referenced that you and Jake technically overlap with Marc and Layla by a hair.

This fic is actually more of Steven just having a big stinkin' crush on you and Jake and Marc yelling at each other.  

Author’s Snip: I feel like this is good but not completely on the mark. Anon, if you want to throw me another scenario that's Jake centric with this idea/world then feel free. Just give me a sign.

Notes: I semi-proof read this so if there's weird grammar and shit just ignore it.  

I’ll shut up now. Enjoy! And don’t be afraid to request.

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Jake was a surprise. Well, in the logic of common D.I.D. systems not really, but in the sense that neither Steven nor Marc knew he was there. It felt like a bit of a privacy breach to think that Jake's just watched everything go down from the shadows only to leave as soon as he came, and it was a bit unnerving to know that Jake was more off the hinges. But it's not like they could really do anything about him. Jake's a part of the system, whether they like it or not.

Jake honestly wasn't that much of a change up though. He usually did his own things and kept in his lane for the most part. Even if his tactics were more... forceful than Marc and Steven's were. Otherwise Jake would be something of an allusive one. He didn't seem to do much but they had a hunch that there was more than just Jake Lockley, the third alter, cabbie by daylight, and system parachute and low key Khonshu's hitman. And there was.

Because there was you.

Marc and Steven found out about you because they were on a mission that Khonshu demanded that they do. And it turns out Sekhmet had the same idea for you.

It wasn't like the two were in on it and it was a ruse to get you to meet the others. It was genuinely just an "Oops, did know you were gonna get it." sort of thing.

"Jake? Wasn't expecting a surprise team up with you. Usually boyfriends surprise their girlfriends flowers." you laugh under your breath as you try to not catch any unwanted attention. You didn't need anymore than the " Excuse me?" from Marc to know that it wasn't Jake you've bumped into. "I'll explain once we get this done. Just follow my lead for now." you say as you move on with what you were planning on doing.

"Okay... so..." you roll out trying to think of what to say after having just handled the mission, and now sitting at an empty park bench in your regular clothes, "My name is Y/N. What's yours?" you settle on as you lift your hand for a handshake, trying your best to have a non-nervous smile. "How do you know about Jake?" Marc asked, ignoring your polite gesture of formality.

"Marc. That is so rude. She's trying to be nice." Steven scolded from the puddle at his feet.

"Me and Jake are... together." you mumble out. "How?" Marc demanded. He looked so angry and menacing while he interrogated you. You've seen a lot of mean looking guys but when it's the face of someone you recognize as your boyfriend, you felt a bit trapped by the tense energy. You barely squeak out "I met him a while back.".

"Marc, if you just let me explain without making a scene it'll all make sense." you quickly speak out before he almost interrupts you, "How do you know my name. You were acting like you didn't know it a seco-".

Marc violently twitches before the tense scowl on his face disappears and is replaced with a softer worried expression after a second less violent twitch.

He looks at you, he sees that you looks a bit frightened, and then he speaks, with a British accent "I'm sorry about that... that-that wasn't me. I didn't switch us." he says, "Must have been-" he tries to say before you speak. "Steven, right?" you ask in a soft voice. He's caught a bit off guard that you said his name. He points to himself with a "Me?" and nods "Yeah.".

You stare at each other for a bit before you speak up. "Jake hasn't told you about me, I know. He just barely started being known to you guys and he didn't want to rush anything. I understood that and did my best to stay clear so that I wouldn't shock you two but I knew that there would be a fumble at some point." you explain.

Steven listens intently till you're done. It was either that or listening to Marc and Jake yell at each other in the reflection of the puddles.

"I only know about you guys because he wanted me to be ready when the time came for him to think that it was a good time for us to actually meet. I didn't mean to throw any of you through a loop like that. It's just been a while since I've seen him and I got excited." you apologize as you explain more.

"It's okay , love. It's just that we hardly know anything about Jake and finding out something so personal was a bit jarring." Steven says. You feel a little flutter at being called "love" for a second before Steven speaks again. He subconsciously touched your hand. "And I'm sincerely sorry about Marc's behavior. You were being courteous and he was acting like you were a danger when you were making it clear that your and Jake had some type of acquaintance." he apologized.

"It's okay." you comment. "Jake told me that Marc would be a bit... apprehensive about me. That's just how he is." you add.

"And me?" Steven questions with a bit of curiosity to what Jake might have said about him. "He said that if I meet you then you might be a bit flighty. Said that you were easy to spook." you say in a bit of a laugh.

Steven got to see more of you after that. You would spend some time to get to know each other more, which Jake approved of. He thought it was nice to see the two parts of his life that he kept separate finally meet. It was kind of like having cats meet for the first time where you watch them interact and then get comfortable with each other.

Steven, admittedly, and a bit too obviously, took a huge liking towards you. And you the same. You were fascinated with the other. He liked hearing about what you did as the avatar of Sekhmet and what that entailed for you both in mission and personal life. Along with what you just did in your regular civilian life. As for you, you were amazed to see a person who acted, talked, and even moved so differently than the person you usually associated his face and body with.

Unfortunately, you and Marc weren't taking to each other too nicely. Well, you were still perfectly friendly towards him any time you saw him. It was Marc who wasn't very enchanted by you.

Matter of fact, he and Jake were still at it with each other.

"How long has this been a thing?" Marc asked with the same demanding voice he did to you. "Three years." Jake answered in a nonchalant tone. "Three years?!" Marc repeated, unpleasantly surprised by the answer. Jake scoffed "Didn't she say we've known each other for a while?" Jake mentioned.

"So you've just been seeing this random woman for three years behind our back-? Behind Layla's back?" Marc fumbled out with anger. "You," Jake interrupted, "- Sent divorce papers to Layla. Not me." Jake clarified. "Not to mention. She was your wife. You made it very clear to Steven that she was off limits and I already knew that she was off limits. So sorry I went and found my own woman instead of hitting up yours." Jake quipped.

"Yeah and now it seems like Steven likes yours too." Marc said making his own quip.

"Good!" Jake bursted, "At least he's courteous enough to treat her with some respect and get to know her.". Marc would have spoken again but just beat him to it. "You're acting like I was going to hide you from each other forever. I would have had you two meet at some point once you were used to me. You three just met earlier then I would have liked." Jake explained.

"Did she know about Layla?" Marc asked. "Of course I told her about Layla! I was open and honest about my situation and what that would spell out for our relationship." Jake answered with an emphasis on the words open and honest. "How much did you tell her about us?" Marc demanded again before Jake exploded.

"Everything!" Jake barked. "I told her fucking everything I could! I told her about you. About Steven. Layla. Our condition. Everything about us, she knows. I wanted her to be ready for when you cross paths. I told her how to behave and what to watch out for so that she wouldn't startle either of you. And you know what? She did! She was going to explain everything to you if you would just let her fucking speak instead of grill her like that." Jake lectured.

Listening to the two fight was something that Steven would usually ignore. It seemed like arguing while getting to know each other was a thing in the system. Usually Steven would intervene if it was getting too bad or he was brought into it. But neither of those caught his attention because he was busy paying attention to you. Again.

"You look so different." you say almost out of the blue. "Excuse me." Steven spoke. "You look so different from Jake even though it's the same body." you remark.

"You have such different eyes. Yours are all doe eyed and round. Jake has a resting angry face. It's so weird." you smile. "And you smile different too. Jake only smiles a little and with the corner of his mouth, so it looks like a smirk. You smile with your cheeks." you add.

Steven flustered and felt shy under your gaze. The way you were talking didn't speak ill of neither him or Jake. You were speaking in admiration at what made them so different.

"You also don't have the little paperboy hat or gel." you point out as you look at the curls on his head. "Jake usually wears a little bit of gel to slick back some of his hair. I sometimes forget just how curly it is." you say as you gently reach to play with a few little curls. Steven honestly felt like he should be coughing up wings by now with the amount of butterflies he had going in his stomach and chest as you touched him. Even if it was just to admire him for a moment.

He did feel a bit guilty for enjoying your words and affirmation a little too much. He wasn't entirely sure if Jake would act the same as Marc did when he accidentally made contact with Layla. But then again, he hasn't had Jake barging in and being defensive about you. It felt weird to think about it this way but at least Jake was, seemingly, sharing. That or he's too focused on Marc when he's not the one fronting.

Steven did wish that Marc was nicer to you and more open to meeting you. You were very sweet and treated them nicely.

Maybe Marc would get to see you look at him and complement all the details about him like his eyes and his smile. You could get to know him and what he likes and how that contrasts with you. maybe you two could get used to fighting together in the cases that you bump into each other again.

#moon knight #moonknight #moon knight x reader #moonknight x reader #steven grant #steven grant x reader #marc spector #marc spector x reader #jake lockley #jake lockley x reader

[meamiiikiii]

a star being appeared in your apartment, wdyd?

(aka loop getting reverse isekaied into the modern office au)

also there are some scattered mumblings on loop in this AU under the cut if anyone's interested (spoilers for all of ISAT, including 2hats!)

vvv

TLDR - The Universe keeps fucking with Loop and they are not really happy about it, regardless of timing.

While I haven't decided anything 100% concrete for Loop, the idea of a reverse isekaied Loop in general is interesting to me, so I'll be exploring that a bit here. Especially in terms of timing on when Loop gets taken out of their timeline. At least in terms of immediate outlook within this AU. So, for now, have a couple of those thoughts! 

---

The two main points in time I am currently considering are the following:

1. From when they gave up their original wish and made a new one.

In this instance, I feel like their arc would play a bit similar to in game

Seeing this new world as different & peaceful

Since they don’t have to deal with the loops anymore, just watch whatever happens.

Be a lil silly for funsies! The chaos that can ensue with a star being existing within a modern world! 

Even though it hurts to see Siffrin’s team hanging around, they really don’t have anywhere to go at the moment (hard to hide a star being in this type of world)

To a slow realization of how unfair this whole situation is. In comparison to all of the horrors they went through, this Siffrin has it so easy.

This Siffrin gets to live an idyllic life, free from the world calamity of being frozen & the literal time loop.

This Siffrin gets to freely hang around their family team, with no foreseeable "end" to being with them in sight.

This Siffrin had their original wish, the wish Loop wanted granted, handed to them on a silver platter. 

This Siffrin, nor anyone in this world, would ever be able to come close to understanding what Loop went through; Loop would never truly be seen in this world, not fully anyway.

What does The Universe have against them, to put them into this world and make them witness all of this?

It should have been them, with this carefree type of life, given all they went through.

2. AFTER the fight with Siffrin.

This leans a bit more lighthearted than the last, since Loop would have gone through all the development from the game via convos + the talk at the very end with Siffrin, and has a bit more peace about their whole deal.

Perhaps they would still see the same conclusions as above, since healing from the horrors would not happen all at once, if ever, with additional flavor

Underlying bitterness in why the script is still going. 

Why is The Universe asking for them to continue into a new world and role?

Haven’t they had enough, once making them witness another Siffrin’s loops and perfect ending, and now a completely idyllic Siffrin’s life from the get go?

However, there is also a bit of hope in the entire situation. Since if The Universe keeps deciding to fuck with them (as in, sending them to different world lines) there is still, technically, the chance of going backward as well.

To their original timeline and to their family.

Once could have been a one-off, but twice?

Perhaps three world jumps might be the minimum to go back, following standard wishing rituals?

More hope in this one from the get-go, with that thought in mind.

---

Though there are probably other points in time that would be interesting too! 

Another one I was considering was RIGHT BEFORE the fight with Siffrin, perhaps even mid-fight. However, I don't think that makes much sense for this particular AU ASAFASFASDAS. Can you imagine if Loop just spawned into this world, doesn't realize this is a completely different Siffrin, and attacks on sight?????

Honestly the idea of a reverse-isekaied Loop into different AU's in general is neat, would love to see other people's takes on it!!  Especially cuz of the various reactions/conclusions Loop could have/make based on the scenario/circumstances would be interesting, if that makes sense. At least I think there is something in that thought? I dunno!

I feel like I am missing some characterization bits in here, but that was the main gist of it for now since I cannot remember LMAO.

Mumblings over, thanks for reading my silly thoughts if you got this far!!!

#in stars and time #isat #isat spoilers #isat siffrin #isat loop #yea loop is cursing but it is censored with stars #since i thought it would be a little bit funny #if i keep drawing for this AU i should prob come up with a better name than “modern office AU” LOL #which will prob be the case since i have a couple more silly ideas in my back pocket #and other characterizations for others i want to explore a lil #but i also have other ISAT drawings i want to get to so it might be a bit before i get through all that ASDFASDAS #also i will gladly take additional suggestions for doodles #since those are always fun!!! #i could prob mumble on about various thoughts for the others in this AU but like #right now everything is still a bunch of mildly incoherent headcanons in a trenchcoat with a very vague plot #and i am very much not a writer cuz words are hard!!!! #but at the end of the day this AU will mainly be silly office shenanigans #with a bit of character spice for flavor every once in a while LMAO #okay tag talk over oops #reverse entry au #reverse isekai loop au

[longlostlorian]

I don't want to add on to that good webcomic post with what I'm p sure is just my own fruitless navelgazing, but I started doing webcomics as a kid in the mid-aughts and the scene was basically unrecognizable from what it is now. I would come home from school and post sketchbook comics scanned in with minimal touchups, and I don't think I've ever gotten as much engagement on anything in all the years since. I didn't know how to implement a comments section (I was hardcoding everything in html on a domain my dad helped set up for me, lol) but I got tons of emails from excited/curious readers every week! A phpbb board (early internet forum) with 300+ human members (and all the fun of viagrabots I had to cull by hand)! People were just excited by what it was possible to see online. And that was for a bad comic made by a kid with minimal skills that nobody remembers today!

For better or worse, the grand majority of readers live on apps now. Webtoons and tapas host hundreds of the most niche, beautiful passion projects you can imagine, better than nearly anything available 20 years ago, but there's just as many stories that were literally churned out by content farms (studios with large teams producing a groupthink product they aim to sell/IP farm - in other words, something that's nobody's baby). And by and large, the userbase is simply too young to discriminate. They've literally been trained to view webcomics as content. Does that mean readers today are the problem? No, of course not! And it's hard to complain about greater access to free, often queer art that's technically better than it ever has been before. I'm glad young readers have easy access to things like that.

But webcomics have become subject to the same level of scrutinization as any other aggregated content. Don't post for two weeks and people will talk about you like you've died, and a week later they stop talking about you altogether. The culture that I grew up with by and large doesn't exist anymore, though remnants of it struggle bravely on. Part of this comes as the "wild west" aspect of the internet circles the drain. When comics are produced with the knowledge that they will go up on webtoons/tapas - sites with strong censorship requirements - people dull down their work. They have to. Anything that goes on those sites automatically becomes a product. And so the truly weird, the unexpected, the indie, and the unapologetically, freely, charmingly bad (and messy) aspect of webcomics is systematically sucked out, both by the exacting standards of a captive consumer base and by the requirements of the platform.

I don't know that I view wt/tapas as net evils or anything like that. I use them myself. And I've heard things about places like comicfury that make it sound like a great substitute for the culture that used to exist around smackjeeves, drunkduck, etc. I also think it's more accessible than ever before for creators to monetize their work, even if for most of us, passion projects never come close to paying the bills. So maybe what I really miss is the early internet and I don't think it's ever coming back.

#webcomics #idek what to tag this as because i rarely longpost like this #so... #longpost #? #I find it hard to express myself/organize my thoughts in posts like this so i'll prob delete i just like to have my grandpa moments #reminiscing about the good old days!!! #(I still love webcomics)

[soleminisanction]

What comic issue did the whole kon v steph showdown happen? In which he basically called her a poser? I’m wondering what the rest of the young justice teams reaction to her was. I think greta tried to kill her at one point? I don’t think she’s very well liked among that team, but it also makes me wonder if she’s very well liked in the wider hero community at all besides her small group of vigilantes she’s enmeshed herself with through getting involved w Tim and to a lesser extent Batman? What are your views?

Teen Titans (2003) issue #13:

That's it in its entirety. The bit with Tim and Conner is very much the story's B-plot, the A-plot is focused on Beast Boy and the rest of the Titans back in San Fran.

As for Steph and Greta -- it is true that Greta is the one member of YJ that Steph ever truly interacted with during that time period. I actually wrote up a whole thing here about the arc of those interactions, but it was kind of off-topic with your question and also long enough that it really deserves its own post, especially because lining it all up together without the multi-year gap between plot points gave me a revelation about how the story actually went.

I'm going to try to get that post up in the next day or so to prove my point but the summation here is: the first time they met, Greta explicitly didn't try to kill Steph -- but afterwards, Steph framed it as "she tried to kill me in a jealous rage" and people took Steph's side because part of Greta's story was that her "good people bad powers" thing made her kind of sus and that's what eventually drove her to join Darksied.

So while Steph did get mentioned in YJ, including getting brought in to help as part of the invasion of Zandia in issues 50-52, her only significant contribution there was a very brief stand-off with Greta and getting stuck in a bubble with a several other 90's characters who I'm pretty sure don't exist anymore.

The only other person I recognize here is Lagoon Boy. The pink filter doesn't help.

Other than that, the only interaction Steph's had with any member of Tim's friend group is the one issue of Teen Titans (2003), #66, where they're doing this membership drive thing and Steph (recently back from faking her death) tags along so they can pretend that maaaaybe she's going to join the team, but actually she's just there to have a very brief interaction with Traci 13 and Bombshell.

And an even briefer, awkward stare-down with Cassie that's only there because she and Tim's budding romance had been awkwardly cut short just so he could back to Steph the very instant she got back from faking her death no matter how little sense that made.

And then Steph wasn't even interested in joining the team anyway she was just there for quote, "moral support" as Tim told Cassie he needed to take a break for a while and focus on the pre-Final Crisis chaos going down in Gotham.

Stephanie has never spoken to Bart, Anita, Slobo, or Ray so far as I know. She's never even met Cissie because the Arrowette who went to Zandia turned out to be Bonnie in disguise.

Pre-Flashpoint, the only other people she'd met outside of Gotham are Supergirl (whom she met in World's Finest (2009)) and Squire, who's still technically a Bat even if she lives in England. Stargirl and Miss Martian show up alongside Bombshell and Supergirl towards the end of Steph's solo series but they come out of nowhere only because BQM had wanted to make them part of Steph's entourage at some point but didn't get the chance, so I don't really count them. Nor do I count her showing up in a group shot at the end of the Gail Simone Wonder Woman, since that was just a line-up of cameos from every female hero she could get at the time.

So with all that as the preamble, to answer your second question: no, I don't think Steph is very well-liked by the wider superhero community. I also don't think she's disliked. I think the vast majority of heroes and villains have no idea who she is.

If they know her at all, it's probably as, "That girl in the purple that Cass is always hanging out with" or "Robin's ex-girlfriend who faked her death that one time" or maybe even as, "There was a girl Robin at some point right? I feel like I heard that somewhere," particularly since there was a big media shake-up after War Games. Heck, they might even know her as, "Cluemaster's daughter; she runs with the Bats, yeah? Heh, sucks to be Arthur" since he's actually gotten around more than her just by virtue of being on the Suicide Squad.

But as Spoiler, as Batgirl, as a hero? Basically unknown outside of Gotham. She's always been too much of a supporting character to develop those kinds of connections.

#stephanie brown #ask me stuff #dc comics asks #teen titans 2003 #connor kent #spoiler #superboy #teen titans #young justice #dc comics #meta

[done-dm]

I really hope we get to see DX-TR again before the season ends because the bits and pieces we know about him are fascinating.

Like, he gets brought onto this elite group of mechanites for a very particular skillset. As K-LB so eloquently puts it at the end of season three, "The thing about DX-TR... MR-SN's superpower was making you believe in his dreams. DX-TR's superpower was making you believe his lies."

He's an invaluable member of the team and then betrays his party to the githyanki only to work on the exact same thing they were working on before: traveling beyond the planescape. We see in VR-LA's vision via MR-SN that DX-TR specifically wanted the whole crew to be captured, but don't really get an explanation beyond DX-TR saying to Endellion "We need them! All of them, alive! Especially him. This wasn't the deal!"

And it doesn't seem like he gets much from the githyanki aside from resources. Again, drawing from what K-LB has said...

"In some ways, DX-TR seemed as much of a prisoner as us. Like, he could go and come back, but mostly he was summoned [...] He was stuck in that same room with us, a little more space to walk around..."

And he keeps working on the project. For three years he keeps his old friends in a cell, watches as AS-TR deteriorates to the point of not speaking at all, and keeps at it.

Until he doesn't. According to K-LB, there was a certain point when he "stopped working so hard" and goes on to say "I just feel like it wasn't because he hit a dead end. It was because he didn't need to be working hard on it anymore. He was just biding his time."

But why bide his time? Kyana points out during the conversation with K-LB and the others that DX-TR probably used their attack as a distraction to escape, that he could have taken more hits at them and chose to run instead, but there might be another reason.

When VR-LA asks K-LB if they succeeded in their work under the githyanki, K-LB responds "We're still here, ain't we?" VR-LA quickly figures out this meant that the githyanki would have killed the old Per Aspera crew when they finished, which likely includes DX-TR. So he fled to save his own skin but also (either purposefully or inadvertently) saved his old crew by stalling with the githyanki.

Instead of playing on this angle with the crew during the rescue attempt, he comes across as a cut and dry villain the first time we meet him. He kills Dani while she's unconscious and no threat just to send a message to VR-LA not to come after him.

And then, once he's free and has the most valuable information in the planescape, he goes to work for the mindflayers??? Why? Why would he choose to go work for one of the most universally hated and dangerous species that exists? What's stopping them from eating his brain and using his knowledge without that pesky individuality getting in the way?

For whatever reason, he gets to remain himself and is set to eliminate other threats to the mindflayers' plan. He kills Casimir, but not C-RA or K-LB. Which, as K-LB tells VR-LA outright, he easily could have done so since he caught everyone off guard. Instead, he lets C-RA take his arm (which, granted, probably isn't as big of a deal for a mechanite and can probably be repared, but if I were in a situation as dangerous as working with mindflayers on a daily basis I would want to be in tip top shape at all times in case one of them gets hungry) and runs again.

K-LB and E-DN have explicitly stated that they want him dead despite knowing he spared K-LB and C-RA's lives. VR-LA's on the fence about it, but–even if he did fully commit to killing DX-TR–his devil deal is still up in the air and there's a very real possibility that VR-LA can't kill him. Whether someone else on the crew can do so on his behalf remains to be seen, but since he technically only gave the order to kill the mindflayer in the last episode with Kyana and Vhas doing the dirty work and Austin still almost used the deal to stop him, I think that might not be a loophole he can take advantage of.

Which means by the end of this campaign there's a fair chance that DX-TR is just going to be out there in the planescape doing who knows what. We don't know what his motivations are beyond finishing the project, what don't know how much his old crew still means to him (enough to lose an arm but not enough to keep them imprisoned for three years?), and we don't know what he plans to do after this.

Rambling aside, I want to put him under a microscope to study.

#rwd spoilers #spoilers up to season 5 episode 6 #rwd dx-tr #rolling with difficulty #vr la rwd

[weeb-polls-with-pip]

Autistic Anime Boys Side A Round 1 Match 11

Propaganda:

Yu -

"Like all Persona protags, he hardly canonically speaks. Seems too cool for school but is actually just a cringefail guy who loves his little sis Nanako, likes to fish and make beef stew, and also likes cats. He also solves murders with his friends and forcibly teach people the power of friendship! And to paraphrase one of my mutuals, "I love Yu because he just stands there like •_• and then everyone falls in love with him. Gets accused of dating like every girl he meets, gets teased by every girl on the investigation team, has whatever he has going on with Yosuke. This kid and his autism swag". Oh yeah there was also originally gonna be an option for Yu to romance said Yosuke guy, including the confession dialogue being recorded in both Japanese and English, but it was removed because ALTUS hates gay people </3 But don't worry because there's a mod that adds this option back in because the devil works hard but gay JRPG fans work harder."

Sechs -

"As a teenager his father reveals to him that he's actually not human and then he essentially intellectualizes his own crisis toward that so hard that he talks himself into enacting a doomsday plan to make all life cease to exist so technically nobody will suffer anymore. So he takes two of his fellow wizards both of whom are absolutely infatuated with him (one of which is the closest the BlazBlue series gets to a canon gay man imo), takes a super powerful weapon from his father and in a sort of misunderstanding slash random event ends up killing him, and then the three of them flee the country and start trying to act out his plan. He pretty much just stares at people silently and only talks occasionally, when he does it's usually either a short sentence that is either blunt or vague. His magical attribute is gravity magic idk as someone with vestibular/proprioceptive sensory issues gravity magic is an autistic as hell magic to master in. He also has a funny name. In the joke route he is also written adding a sort of gap moe attribute to his tendency to not talk a lot where he stops talking in any instance where he's thrown off a social script or doesn't know what to say, and in the gatcha spinoff of course because they have to make him at least cooperate with you he tends to read as less overtly evil and more just having low empathy and a strong sense of his form of "justice." There is so much more I could say about him he's one of my favorite characters in the entire BlazBlue extended universe he's just a very cool character both as a villain and a circumstantial ally. Vote for funny guy named sex as a win for autistic emo twinks everywhere."

#tumblr polls #autistic anime boys poll #yu narukami #narukami yu #souji seta #seta souji #persona #persona 4 #sechs #xblaze #blazblue #ur right OP his name is funny

[vivi-the-goblin]

5e Mechanic Variant

I'll admit I don't have every book, nor have I played a ton of systems (6 in total), so I might've just reinvented something that exists. I haven't heard of it though, and its been successful in the sessions I tried it in. It's a variant on 5e's group skill checks. When the group is trying to do something together, instead of a DC 15 four times, you'd do a DC 15 times four, so DC 60. The players add their results together and see if they can beat the DC. What this does is let the players who specialized in a skill help the others out, instead of rolling a 25 and it being functionally the same as a 15. In my opinion there are two primary types of skill checks that can benefit from this. The first is "everyone succeeds or we fail" For instance stealth, the paladin clanking behind might not get YOU caught but it will kill the stealth section. Doesn't matter if you got double the DC, you can either go it alone (killing session pacing and abandoning the party) or you can end stealth. Plus everyone is actively looking for you now, so you might suddenly get found anyway. Now the rogue is showing them the proper path or making small distractions to cover the barbarian's stumble. You don't have party members who feel like they failed everyone, and it gives benefit for specializing because you can help the party. The second is in team checks. Lets say the barbarian wants to topple a stone pillar or push a giant boulder down a hill. He could get advantage from the help action 10 times over, it's not going to make him able to move 4000 lbs of stone. This lets you say "It's like a DC 80, this thing's huge. Then the party gets together and keeps trying (I set a limit on times you can try a strength check before exhaustion) before finally getting that 26+18+14+22 and succeeding. It also lets them know something's technically possible without letting it be within easy reach, giving them a sort of puzzle on how to reach that goal (getting help, using pulleys for advantage, etc) The closest thing I know of this in 5e is "If half the people make it everyone does", but I find this works better. The basic reason is "You work together and overcome the DC 80 skill check" sounds impressive and feels like everyone contributed to a difficult goal nobody could accomplish on their own. "ok cool, the two specialists passed so we'll just call it a win" makes me feel like you shouldn't have bothered asking everyone to roll, just make it a single person check if my roll is just meaningless.

The more complicated reason- it gives the specialized players a reason to continue their specialization. Think of the Rogue, for an easy example. They chose the sneak class to be good at sneaking, right? well now they're level 11, and they don't get to play anymore. They can't roll lower than a 10 and even a CR 30 can't find them without proficiency in perception. The fun minigame they built a character around becomes "I'd like to-" "Don't bother, you're in the next room now, moving on." Future stealth bonuses don't functionally do much. Also your ranger's still angry because they have high stealth too but don't get to use it. With this model, keep buffing your stealth, disguise, whatever, it still helps! It lets you lower the effective DC for your friends. And other people who are proud of their score but don't get to use it because you're better? Well they're really useful now too! Use a group deception to infiltrate, the bard patching holes in the fighter's story. Group acrobatics to make that leap, the others benefitting from having a perfect example to copy and someone to correct their form. Sure, in some cases it's not that functionally different from base rule, but it just feels better to me. I recommend at least trying out something like this. It has worked great for me so far.

#dnd 5e #dnd 5e homebrew #5e homebrew #5e #homebrew #5e variant rules

[extralively]

What would be Yura's fate in the CANON!Timeline? Does she just not exist in that world, or is she still living in america instead of going to Japan?

once I start thinking about multiverse stuff I spiral lmao like, there could be a number of different "canon" timeline universes out there with Yura in different states of existence lol

Like, she could indeed simply not exist, but it also could be that she never went to Japan as a teenager, so she'd be living in America doing Stuff while canon is going on, but also maybe she and her parents might have never been attacked by that curse, so..... POSSIBILITIES

there are some possibilities that I have actually thought up but would involve some spoilers tho, and I don't mean canon JJK spoilers (͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

(one AU that I've played around in my head actually involves her never going to Japan and living in America for all her life, but still eventually meeting the sorcerer community there and finding out about her whole curse thing. Then for some reason she "runs" into Kenjaku or something, and finds out he's up to no good so she ends up going to Japan to figure out what that guy's up to. But like, in a sneaky way because she has a curse in her so she doesn't want the jujutsu community in Japan to find out, and that's how she meets Satoru, by pretending she's a meager manager-level person sent from the American jujutsu community. And they kinda get along, but she's technically playing double agent and Satoru knows something is up so he's also trying to figure out what's up with her. Anyway, she eventually messes with Kenjaku's plan and she and Satoru end up teaming up, and I've thought too much about this AU and other AUs in general because idek anymore LMAO)

#don't get me started on AUs #because i WILL get started lmao #i've entertained myself too much thinking up different possibilities with these characters #halp #satoyura #asks

[stealingyourbones]

Danny gets both his ghost side and human side separated, but instead of dying.

It's a two bodies one mind situation.

At first he's horrified, but after a few moments he calms down and is just like: "Welp, I guess I don't have to tell my parents I'm a ghost anymore"

Because technically, he isn't a halfa anymore. But both of his bodies do share the same mind.

Now here's the kicker.

His ghost side doesn't feel pain.

Now normally that would be good, but it's instead where his human half receives double the amount of pain, and any injury that would scar his ghost self appears on his human body as well.

So not only does he have to be more careful about not getting injured than he was before, his human body feels double the pain of said injury as a result of the split.

And he wouldn't have a good excuse for the amount of scars he has by the time he becomes good enough at dodging to not get hit so much.

So if, lets say, his ghost side was caught by the GIW. Not only would his human side receive double the pain and scarring, he would also have to face the mental stress of the GIW's experiments and realizing that he can't even help himself.

Cause c'mon now. What's he supposed to do with his Human half? Yea sure, he might have super strength and advanced healing factor, but it's nothing compared to his ghost halfs.

And sure he might have received some martial arts training. But that wouldn't be enough to storm a government facility.

But what he can do. Is learn how to hack into the GIW server's(Thanks to Tucker) to give himself a little more breathing more and to form the layout of the facility.

And that's not adding in Danny's inventive skills. Now that he doesn't really have to worry about ghost attacks anymore, he can spend most of his time learning how to hack and invent gadgets to make sure this doesn't happen again.(Also he was pulled from school because, well y'know, the whole double pain thing)

Then when he's fully ready. He shuts down everything in the GIW's facility. The security system, the camera's, the power, the doors, just, everything.

And that. That gives him enough time and cover to make his way to his ghost half and get his restraints off. And then when they finally believe they were in the clear.

A portal opens near them.

And before he could stop, he fell face first into it.

And that. Is how Danny arrives in the Dc universe.

A world where Superhero's and Supervillains are real.

A world where the dead can raise and just, continue living.

A world where magic actually exists, and not just the occult ritual stuff. But full blown magic spells.

And now Danny doesn't have an actual way to get back home. So he's stuck here.

Now one way or another the Justice League(maybe not the whole Justice League but just one member) becomes aware of this two team superhero duo that appeared out of thin air and beating powerful foes.

P.S: Danny's double pain thing isn't anything physical, it's just mental. So if to say that his ghost half got stabbed or something, he wouldn't suddenly start bleeding, it would scar though. The first few times it happened he did drop to the floor screaming pain though :)

Ooooo ok ok ok. I positively adore this idea. Giving Fenton ‘phantom pains’ from his ghost selfs injuries? That’s such a fascinating idea to tap into. I feel like i should add onto the prompt but I really just wanna dig into the funky technicalities of this prompt.

My first thought reading this was “now just how painful would tiny injuries like a paper cut or stubbing your toe be if it’s doubled?” And then immediately after that “oh god so Phantom can feel NO pain whatsoever?!?!”

Pain is VERY important. It’s meant to let your body know “hey stop this is going to damage your body/I’ve been injured”. So Phantom having NONE of that could lead to some VERY angsty situations even before the GIW torturing Phantom. I’m guessing what Phantom feels is like when you’re under anesthetic where you can feel pressure but no pain (mostly cause it’s the only thing I can think of). So things like Phantom accidentally clipping his foot on the side of a building and breaking his foot and not noticing but Danny is ACUTELY aware of the injury and is in immense amounts of pain. Phantom could be shot and not notice until he spots that he’s bleeding while Danny is in his room and curled in a ball and whimpering. It would be really hard to know the severity of your injuries when you can’t feel that injuries at all. Phantom could have dozens of broken bones and internal bleeding and not realize how broken his body is.

So when they go to the DC universe, they probably have an option out there that could find a way to fix their injury bond. Giving Phantom his pain back and having Phantom not having to worry about Danny being hurt whenever he’s out fighting.

Now imagine having NEVER felt pain before and then suddenly being able to feel EVERYTHING. Phantom testing that it works by pricking his finger on something and he passes out from the pain. He would have a very hard time readjusting to pain now being synonymous with injury.

If anyone would want to add onto this please feel free. Radiance1 your ideas never cease to amaze me.

#bones replies #radiance1 #dpxdc #danny phantom #writing prompts #prompts #dp x dc #dc

[sineala]

Do you know of any Captain America comic where Cap thinks about or does go back to his original time, but then decides he doesn't belong there anymore and comes back (or decides not to go back at all idk)? Is that a thing, or did I make it up in my head? I figured you might know, but if you don't sorry to bug you!

You are thinking of a real comic! The comic you are probably thinking of Mark Waid's five-issue miniseries Captain America: Man Out of Time, which is a modern retelling of Steve's origin story. Man Out of Time is probably my favorite Cap comic, specifically because of the decision Steve makes.

So there's him getting frozen and found by the Avengers in Avengers #4, but the retelling also covers a few more of the issues after that. In particular, it goes up through Avengers #8, which is the first appearance of Kang the Conqueror. (Though, technically, of course, he says he's also a couple other villains who have already appeared. Kang's gonna Kang.)

What actually happens in Avengers #8 is a fairly standard supervillain fight -- the Avengers fight him, mostly get captured and taken to his spaceship, get rescued, then punch him some more. They destroy some of his weapons and reflect others, and then he gets in his spaceship and retreats, zooming away. So that's canon. Just so you know what canonically happens. Nothing that happens in Man Out of Time is technically 616 canon. But that doesn't mean it's not a good story.

So this isn't how it goes in Man Out of Time's version of Avengers #8. At all.

I was going to make this a much longer post with many more panels but the very very short summary of the miniseries is that this is a version of Steve's early days in the future focusing heavily on his alienation from modern society -- he spends almost all of Avengers #4 convinced he's dreaming and he's going to wake up any minute.

He must be dreaming. Why are the Dodgers in Los Angeles?

When he finally accepts that it's real, he immediately wants to find someone who will send him back so he can try to save Bucky.

Reed Richards has a time machine, so Steve does possess the capability to go back.

Tony takes Steve on a date to the Smithsonian (as well as a private Radiohead concert and apparently Steve likes Radiohead?) and tries to sell him one last time on the wonders of the future, like how we have space travel now and less sexism and less racism and way fewer vaccine-preventable diseases and God I liked this book so much better when I thought people would all want to be vaccinated against diseases that could kill them.

Anyway. Steve can't be convinced; he still wants to go back to the forties. Eventually the president has to tell him he can't go back because he knows too much about the future.

Steve's not happy.

I was going to say that Mark Waid did not have to go this hard but I think maybe he did.

So Steve has to stay and he's miserable and then he starts to hate a lot of things about the future that are still bad. He finds out human trafficking exists. He finds out the designated-hitter rule exists. These things are not really comparable but he's upset about both of them. He finds out about domestic terrorism. The Vietnam War. MLK's assassination. This wasn't what he thought he was fighting for.

(The events of Avengers #5-7 happen in the background.)

And that's when we get to Avengers #8 and Kang. Kang captures the team. And Kang sends Steve back in time. To 1945. To V-J Day. So this is after Bucky is gone, but still, this is Steve's home, right? He should be happy. And for a bit, he is. He's a returning soldier, just like all the other GIs. A hot dog costs a nickel, like it ought to.

And then things start to fall apart. He goes to a Dodgers game, the Brooklyn Dodgers, as they obviously ought to be. I don't know why so much of Steve's personal betrayal by the future and also the past is about baseball, but, yeah, it is. So he watches the game and he starts talking to the kid and his father sitting next to him and the kid's a big Dodgers fan, right? Loves baseball. So Steve asks him if he wants to play for the Dodgers when he grows up.

Relevant information: the kid's black.

(Other relevant information, if you're not a baseball fan: Jackie Robinson, the first black man to play in major-league baseball, started playing for the Dodgers in 1947. He was in the minor leagues in 1946. But this story is set in 1945.)

So naturally the father would like Steve to stop lying about how his son could ever play for the Dodgers because obviously integrated baseball is a fantasy.

Steve is starting to suspect that maybe the past isn't as great as he remembered.

(Incidentally, a nice development in actual baseball news a couple years ago is that Baseball Reference, the big baseball stats organization, finally integrated... their data. All of the Negro Leagues statistics are now listed as major league, so a lot of good players are finally getting the recognition they deserve.)

Anyway. Steve can't find most of the people he knew in the war but then runs into a GI he knew, who wants to talk to him about how great life is now. He's not feeling it.

He realizes it's because he left the Avengers. He couldn't save Bucky. But he can still save the Avengers from Kang. He needs to help them. That's where he needs to be.

Luckily, he has his identicard still on him! And he can leave them a message!

He tells Rick when and where he is, and Reed comes and picks him up in his time machine.

And then he and the Avengers kick Kang's ass.

The miniseries then ends with Steve going to the Grand Canyon, where Bucky said he always wanted to visit. So Steve draws Bucky. But Steve knows now that he can't live in the past. It's tempting, he says. But it's where fossils come from.

So he lies there. He goes through his CDs. He sets aside Bing Crosby. And he listens to Radiohead. Because he lives in the future now.

So, yeah.

I love this miniseries and it really shaped how I view Steve as a character and I love that he got the chance to make this decision and he made it and I really didn't like Avengers: Endgame.

(There is another universe where Steve faces a similar decision. This is probably not the issue you were thinking of, but Marvel Adventures Avengers #37 has a plot where the Invaders -- who seem to be some kind of combination of the Invaders and the All-Winners Squad, and also it's the 50s -- come to the present and offer Steve a chance to come back. Steve seems to be seriously considering it but before he can decide whether to use the doll that will send him back to the past, Wolverine destroys it because the future needs him here and Steve's like, yeah, you're probably right. So he's still in the future but... he didn't actually get to decide that.)

I hope Man Out of Time is the comic you're thinking of! If you like Steve at all, you should read it. It's the best.

#replies #snooglepoot

[galacticfoundation]

Heya... Mars here. This is a little awkward, but Miss Cynthia seems to think it's a good idea, so... FAQ??

Q: Team Galactic? The doomsday cult?

A: It's not a cult anymore! We've been busting our butts in that court mandated therapy!

Q: Why are you still around?

A: We just want to fix things. The Champion and Cynthia did a really big favor, keeping us out of Forever Jail. Plus, some of us didn't have anywhere else to go. There's only about... 33 of us now?

Q: Why is Mars running this shebang? Wasn't she like, bottom of the totem pole.

A: Rude. But true. Saturn is technically in charge, but he's... not been doing too well. Can't blame him, really. It's a miracle he lasted this long. Jupiter went to Hoenn to work at some space place because we kind of ran out of money. So that leaves little old Mars! Jupiter thinks shes superior still, but I'm not the one with a live in Interpol agent.

Q: What do you even do?

A: Classic community service stuff. Also, working on reuniting stolen Pokémon. And cleaning up the lakes after the whole bomb thing. That was Jupiters idea, by the way. NOT mine. Oh, and about half the grunts have day jobs, for previously stated broke reasons. Saturn does some online coding stuff that I don't understand in the slightest.

Q: Is Cyrus alive?

A: I don't know.

cassini starts another blog, part... 11??? main blog @plasmaapologist blah blah blah. i could use this app to get an autism diagnosis i think

this blog is based on an au of my own dppt interpretation/au. it is canon based but not compliant. ye have been warned. blog will deal with heavy topics from time to time, all will be tagged

- the plot was that of platinum, for the most part

few things to note:

- this blog takes place very closely after dppt. only the events of kanto, johto, and hoenn have happened. asks relating to things in the other games will be answered, but will likely be met with confusion

- the start of this blog is 5-6 months after the events of the game

- charon does not exist. hes stupid and i dont like him. 👎

- lucas is the champion, dawn is the professors assistant

- dawn is probably one of my most heavily headcanoned characters. just a warning ♡

- despite being based on platinum, lucas failed to capture giratina. he later gained the trust of dialga, though their relationship is more of friends than pokemon and master.

- mars and saturn genuinely have good intentions. however please feel free to accuse them of otherwise. (jupiters only acting good to stay out of jail)

reoccurring characters blah blah blah. you know them but i thrust my headcanon upon ye

mars: she/her, 20. main poster. interim leader while saturn recovers. trying her best

saturn: he/him, 26. may occasionally post. not currently acting as leader after a mental breakdown, but still handles finances and does announcements when he can.

jupiter: she/her, 28. currently working at mossdeep space center in hoenn under the very careful eye of interpol. she never actually cared about team galactic, but its keeping her out of jail...

---------------------------------------------------

lucas: he/him, 14. current champion of sinnoh. has been helplessly busy since becoming acting champion. someone give this man a break, please. hes got a bit of a hero complex now. enjoys hanging out with barry and dawn when hes free, which often puts him around team galactic when hes with the latter.

dawn: she/her, 13. professor rowan's assistant. a quiet girl with a melancholic side; her real passion is art, but no one seems to appreciate it. has an odd but strong friendship with mars, and likes helping out.

barry: he/him, 14. impatient as ever. does not get why his friends want to help those galactic freaks so much!? why can't we beat them up and put them in jail forever?!?! main goal: blow up beat his father in battle

cynthia: she/her, 34. former champion of sinnoh. trying to enjoy her newfound free time, but she's been tasked with keeping an eye on team galactic. she secretly doesn't mind, and has developed a friendship with saturn. she wants to visit unova sometime soon, but she's just so busy...

professor rowan: he/him, old. early 60s? haven't decided. it's the professor, man. pretty much dawns main family, since her actual one doesn't seem fond of her. he doesn't really like her hanging with former terrorists, but also, doesn't want to control her.

#pkmn irl #rotomblr #pokeblogging #pokemon irl #pkmn rp #pokemon rp #pokeblog intro #rotumblr #pokemon au #pokemon au blog #pokemon au rp

[astralartefact]

Placeholder Name for Atarase's Media Diary

Entry 005 - Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door Remake <<Prev: Unicorn Overlord

Synopsis

The Only Plumber I know is made to visit Fantasy America to collect yet another set of mystical stars - and we gladly do it all over again.

How much did I know before playing?

I played the Original and I liked it very, very, very, very, very, very much. One of my favorite games ever.

Did I like it more than I expected?

It was everything I hoped for <3

If you say you like Turn-Based RPGs and own a Switch you owe it to yourself to play the Classic.

Since I liked it, here's what I hated about it

I would be hard pressed to find anything really.

I guess they could have added more things (the Luigi fight we all crave and the rest of the Paper Mario 1 cameos that were even hinted at in the game files of the original) - but I think what they added is good enough. They added Super Bosses, they added non-intrusive QoL - I don't need them to change the face of the game, I like the OG for a reason.

(and also a thought I had was - I don't know how many writers from the OG Games (both PM1 and TTYD) worked on the Remake and if there isn't much overlap I could see the Remake Devs feeling weird about putting those fanservicey kind of things in on their own)

Also the Thinking Music is punishing don't stop the banger while I'm over here being stupid navigating the UI q_q

What did this game make me think about?

Similar to what I said in my Entry on Unicorn Overlord, I kept thinking that this game - at least in this day and age - isn't even all that groundbreaking - it just does the thing you're supposed to do, the normal Turnbased RPG Overworld-to-Dungeon-to-Boss Loop really really well and it's kind of weird that people don't do it more often.

I guess Thematic Takes on RPG Staples aren't interesting enough for the Unique Selling Point Crowd anymore :/

Specific Impressions that will stick with me

the soundtrack

The Excess Express was the Progenitor of my love for Train Levels.

Specifically for this Remake - How having Vivian's Trans Moment* makes Mario's actions more heartwarming.

*look forward to hearing about this in the ramble section

Outstanding Audio

Very non-exhaustive List because Goddamn. This Soundtrack.

vs. Shadow Sirens

vs. Atomic Boo

Moon Battle

vs. Magnus Von Grapple 2.0

All the Partner Themes they're all so good and they're used like twice each

There is one single "bad" thing I have to say about the Soundtrack and it is... that I think Origami King's OST is still unbeaten as my favorite. The banger ratio of that game is simply unbeatable.

Besides that they did exactly what I wanted them to do. The Paper Mario Sound Team is just amazing, they do not get enough credit. I'm so excited to see what's next - whatever it is the entire team decides and/or gets to do.

btw there's nothing quite as irritating to me than people complaining about remake soundtracks, even in the off chance that i agree with the sentiment its always voiced in the most condescending tone possible and it drives me up the walls. and sure, ppl can voice 'valuable criticisms' and disappointments or whatever, but i also can read them and be baffled why you thought you needed to share it sounding like you're the only person on earth who understood the original, especially when - like it is in this case - the remake sound team is the same as the original, they literally made the thing you like so much and you thank it by calling them names for daring to 'not get' one specific second in their own work as much as you do.

especially now that we don't really have technical sound quality to improve on there's always going to be changes you like more and less because any remaining difference is closer and closer to a lateral move and the only 'value' difference is subjective opinion. and regardless, the original keeps existing, you hear the new soundtrack in context for a playthrough at most, afterwards you can just listen to the og again.

Favorite Character

Toadette. My All Time Fave, she steals the show everywhere she goes <3

Also Mini-Yoshi, Vivian, the Rich Bob-Ombs, Kammy Koopa,...

Favorite Arc/Story Line

The Excess Express, I know it's relatively short but I just really love Train Levels

Also Glitz Pit, I guess I just like when the Dungeon is the RPG Chapter Location.

Favorite Set Piece

The Remake is so beautiful I could really put anything in here.

Honestly I love all of the Chapter 6 locations, the train in the different atmospheric lightings, the Sunset train stop, Poshley Heights,... (Bad Glimmerich in german, one of the reasons I will allow Fluffy)

Favorite Scene

The Excess Express being covered in the Smorgs (is that the name, they're called Fluffys in german which is kind of lame but I will allow it)

Best Performance

I'm leaving this in here because they didn't replace Charles Martinet for this one and they got me too often with random Luigi Dialogue sounds there's a really good one where they talk about luigi and when they show his picture he echo-ey goes 'wahoo!'

Also the new voice sounds they gave all the characters were too cute, some of them sounded really really nice.

German Localization Notes

I can happily confirm that Barbara is Trans in German too! I can't tell you with certainty how the situation was with the original but I'm pretty sure it was also removed there.

Honestly the German Localization for this Game is and was so good, you people have no idea. I don't know how similar the text between the two is (I haven't played the OG in years) but they kept all the names from the old Localization - which I was a little bit worried about since the german names are so wildly weird (in a good way) I could have seen them go back and 're-align' some of them.

The OG Localization didn't give that much of a damn about keeping in line with the source material when it comes to Character and Location Names, but also they got the Vibe so well they honestly did a better job at it in certain places.

For every weird thing like calling Petal Meadows Fire Valley (which makes more sense when coming from the japanese name but still mischaracterizes the 1-1 world of this game in a way that's honestly fascinating to think about) and boring names like Fluffy we have things like calling "The Great Gonzales" Bomba Luigi, a change I will defend with my life, that's such a funny name, it even makes that Bowser Scene with Rawk Hawk funnier when Bowser is perplexed who the fuck Bomba Luigi is supposed to be. (mini yoshi calls you bomba throughout the game and nobody remarks on you being called like your brother - not even luigi himself, which makes it funnier)

Also the Grandma Bubu (Puni) yells the phrase "Soll ich mir in der Kälte hier Gicht holen!?" (do you want me to get gout in this cold) at the Boy Bubu and that's just. I'm still laughing about it. I hope you have a similarly fun-to-shout sentence in its place.

Ugh, I love it. I know if I looked it up people would complain about how much they 'changed'.

--- ENTERING THE PRETENTIOUS SECTION OF THIS ENTRY ---

What about this game gives me Hope for the future of gaming?

I just want this game to be a sign to let future Paper Marios break the character design regulations again. (if you didn't know, these are an actual thing and are why post ttyd has either fully unique looking npc or entirely non-unique npcs, it's for brand integrity reasons so new characters aren't confused as 'official' and like all brand integrity stuff it sucks the fun out of everything)

I'm even one of the four people in favor of letting them do whatever they want with the gameplay if they don't want to do Standard Turn-based RPGs anymore - by which I mean to say I was fine with Sticker Star - but the texture that only PM and TTYD have, the Texture we all want and crave so much, comes squarely from the unique Toads and Goombas and Koopas and Bob-Ombs..., all the ones they're not allowed to do anymore because the Brand Integrity Manager says no.

(okay so to put this a little more thought out: specifically the unique npcs make the paper mario style less about 'haha paper pun' (which, as funny as they might be once in a blue moon, not a single person cares about) and more an abstracted story book-esque depiction of the mario universe. it makes the entire thing work better by just being 'real but less detailed' - which also makes the plot work better with fewer details - instead of... well, a paper(thin) joke.)

What about this game makes me scared for the future of gaming?

The Unique Selling Point will be the end of me.

Ever since Dexit (yes i'm specifically blaming that hot mess) awakened the worst type of Gamer to the fact that complaining about Problems caused by Capitalism means nobody can disagree with you, Nobody gets to have fun anymore. Not gamers, Not devs, Not anybody.

Everything has to have Value now, everything has to have a reason to exist, a unique take and always also a quantifyable improvement on what came before. If it isn't as good as 'it should be' it's an insult to the people paying money for this! You need to fix this, I paid for this! I know what's good and need to share my intellectual opinion on this minor detail that you clearly don't have any idea about! What in god's good earth are you smoking that you thought this was acceptable?

It comes with this "Customer can do no wrong" mindset (which is often enough wrong btw, you're very much responsible for your own goddamn actions) and it always belittles the thoughts and decisions of the developers who more than likely have to fight higher-ups for those to actually end up in the video games they produce.

Sticker Star really is a good example of that, aside from the Brand Integrity stuff that made us lose unique NPCs the other thing people endlessly complain about is that the Sticker System disencourages Battles which i'm pretty sure they just heard someone smart say once and that therefore the system sucks, who could ever have thought of pivoting to something that stupid???

Well, it's actually a really creative idea on a very foundational RPG problem: Turnbased RPG Battles and the Overworld are for the most part distinctly seperated from each other. For a standard TRPG what you do in the Overworld has fuck all to do with your battles. This is an attempt to make Overworld Exploration a meaningful part in the Battle Gameplay Loop. It has its downsides and it didn't work out perfectly, but I think it was an interesting idea to put to the test!

But I guess that's not allowed. The Devs simply were too stupid to realize you would just end up doing a lot of backtracking to get good Stickers. They just simply don't know what they're doing and we have to make that clear to them by lambasting the game whenever it comes up. (and also to prove to everybody that you have very smart opinions)

There's a thing I learned in school and you might have heard that too before: You shouldn't tell people negative feedback (first). And that might sound like "a nice thing" to do, you "shouldn't hurt anybody's feelings" after all, but here's the thing why I think we should do that: Most of the time People already know what they did wrong, but they don't know what they did right - what they can capitalize on.

Maybe keep that in mind the next time you share your "Valuable Criticism" underneath an official Instagram post (btw who in their right mind does that)

The Ramble Section where I get to actually talk about what I thought about

Let's talk about 'Nintendo adds Transphobia.' I know it's just a meme. Still don't like it :) I liked that they added the Transphobia! I just don't like the meme.

It's like bnuuy. I don't get the joke. It's not fun to pronounce. If the joke is that u and n are upside down, then you could also type pnuuh, that's the entire word upside down. Why are you all finding this so funny. I just don't get it. And just for the record, it's fine you find it funny. I hope you feel validated that I'm okay with your choice of meme. I just don't get it.

But with 'Nintendo adds Transphobia' there is this undertone of "What they did is good" (that's the happy reaction gif in the background) - but the thing they added, the Transphobia, is some amount of bad, or else it wouldn't be funny to be happy about it. We would prefer if you added the Trans Character without including Transphobia after all. But would we? Would that be "better" - whatever that would even mean?

And just to get it out of the way, yes, for a lot of people it's probably haha just a joke about how it sounds funny to be happy about adding transphobia - but then i still don't know what you people think you're doing when spreading a haphazard joke about 'nintendo does a transphobia' in a day and age where nobody checks any of the news they receive when nintendo is literally doing the thing they are supposed to be doing, like come on guys i do have the moral high ground here and i am firing shots

Fully aware that I'm taking this too seriously - If this is what's resting at the heart of some these jokes then I would guess this comes from the "It shouldn't be a huge/integral part of their character!"-BS that people (on both sides) have been peddling for years (because assholes really want that and well-intentioned people rightfully don't want to be fetishized) - but regardless of what you're using that sentiment for, clearly it's not that easy. Like, it should matter to the character or else it might as well be a JK JKRO "Dumbledore is Gay" Tweet and never be talked about again.

It's not like Beldam bullies Vivian just because she is Trans, Beldam bullies everybody, she almost bullies Doopliss more than her. It's just that 'her bullying feels meaner ever since she realized she was a sister, not a brother.' You know, exactly what they state in game and exactly like somebody would probably feel about it even if Beldam's Transphobia didn't play any part in the bullying at all, Feelings don't really care about Facts after all and it creates another dimension to Vivian, a tangible relationship between her and her bullying.

Sure, everything about her story would work without her 'being trans' - but a little change like that goes a long way to color all of her interactions. Even just the simple fact that Mario is nice to her hits a little different knowing that her sister treats her differently since she lives as a woman.

But that's all kind of besides the point because while they wrote a Trans Character facing a struggle that hopefully people will at least feel a little represented by - that's not the only thing they did. They put a Canonically, Directly Stated Trans Character right next to the best plumber you know. And that's kind of the thing that annoys me the most about "They Added Transphobia." Like guys. She's a main character. She's not some weird side quest character that appears one time, doesn't even have a name and says a weird line about it before disappearing forever like that one quest people bring up to say FF14 has Gay Representation. You Can Have a Fully Canonically Trans Woman on Screen for 50% of this Game, Right Next to The Mario Man, And He's Like "You Rock Girl. Love Wins." He doesn't even wince when she implies she has a crush on him.

This is a much bigger deal than some of you make it out to be! This is a serious occassion and you made the social blunder to show up wearing "They added Transphobia"!

And for the people that missed it: Origami King also had a Trans-affirming Birdo Moment where they used her for a Secret Drag Show at the Coffee House at the Rainbow Spring. The Paper Mario Writers know what they're doing with Mario's Image and even Nintendo's Brand Identity Manager can't stop them. You look foolish and don't know who you're talking to. These people made Mario canonically visit a gay bar hiding as a coffee shop. Fix your wig.

#Paper Mario #pmttyd #atarasegamediary

[captain-astors]

001 for furutui (and/or 002 for Hairu Ihei and Mahito (jjk)) if you want to? (can't see the ask post on your blog anymore so ignore this if you don't feel like it)

Oh! Yes this seems fun.

For Furutui!

when I started shipping it if I did:

I had a dream in which the two of them were out drinking and eventually started to walk back to the office, and while they were crossing a bridge Furuta, was walking up on top of the barrier like a child while they talked about life and ghouls and statistics. Eventually the conversation turned to a sort of dull, half-serious banter. "Get off the wall" "Why?" "You'll fall, idiot." "Aw, do you care?" "No, just get off it." at which point Furuta let himself tip to the side experimentally, and Koori reached out to grab his arm and pull him back. Furuta stepped down onto the normal path, then after that they walked silently and then fell asleep at the office, tangled up too closely to each other with Koori crying silently for a reason he couldn't name himself. When I woke up I decided I liked it and would stick with this.

my thoughts:

They're funny and terrible for each other. I think there should be some biting.

What makes me happy about them:

The inherent complications, nuance, dislike and attachments that come with it make this pairing a lot more intriguing for me than most others in TG for some reason. Also the potential of them both getting what they want, in the most offending way to them possible. Furuta wanted a family and a normal life, but it's a man and the children are sort of feral and adopted, and he cares about them all to some extent anyways? The toybox has caught him. Disastrous for him, delightful for me.

what makes me sad about them:

There's no content for them at all, even from before the great fandom die-out. I feed myself and pester others.

While I like their mindgames there's really just a specific window of time in which most of my contemplations must remain and not a lot of room for things to change without a decent amount of canon-altering which is not my forte.

things done in fanfic that annoy me:

I dislike Koori being portrayed as completely clueless about Furuta's weird schemes and manipulations. He allows them because they provide temporary shelter not because he thinks it's normal. Though, there's only like 3 fics for them in English so I guess beggars can't be choosers.

things I look for in fanfic:

Existing. I'm starving

who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: 

Furuta shouldn't touch anyone really, I like them together because they're both terrible for eachother in a way that most other characters don't match, but I could see either of them with some variant of Kaneki (Haise for Koori Black Reaper for Furuta). Due to an ask I really need to get around to answering I actually like imagining them all in one terrible Koori-annoying polycule of self-destructive tendencies.

my happily ever after for them: Post-Dragon, Furuta lives, heavily injured and at a mere fraction of his previous potential after the Dragon essentially siphoned all of the power Rize's Kakuhou lent him. Annoyed with the narrative loose ends Furuta is pretty much content to just wait around until he wastes away, that being until a team dealing with the dragon orphans finds him and takes him back to a hospital, not recognizing him due to just how badly he's been eaten by the Dragon. He sure gets recognized by some of the other members of the cast though after treatment and the question basically comes down to "How do we murder him", because V is still trying to protect itself and no one wants to deal with this guy. He's to frail to do much for the time so they just kind of leave him be as he's treated and come to the conclusion that he can live under extremely strict surveilance and secrecy because technically he does still have a lot of intel. Koori, as someone who knew him well to their knowledge, is charged with trying to help pry that out of him. Furuta's knowledge has to help with soothing Shikorae's rampage (who, in this narrative I imagine mainly rampages after the scent of his brother's Kakuhou, which is still in the engine of Furuta's old Quinque) and along the way Hajime, faceless but alive, gets scooped up into the same facility they're keeping Furuta at, and together Furuta and Koori have to navigate being people together as, mostly by Koori's instigation, trying to let Hajime have the "normal life" Furuta deprived him of by proxy under the assumption that his parents were dead and Hajime would be dead soon too, but surprise, you can't just sweep all of your deeds under the rug with a disappearing act. Basically the entire premise is that Furuta has to actually try to take a more constructive approach to this whole fated early death thing and clean up part of the mess of his show, and he is Not Happy but it will be good for him.

who is the big spoon/little spoon:

Usually Furuta’s the big spoon and Koori just huffs about it, but sometimes when Furuta just won’t stop talking while Koori wants to sleep, he flips around and basically shoves Furuta’s face into his chest, drawing him closer to quiet him down and then they’re just left clinging to each other like begrudgingly complicit koalas.

what is their favorite activity:

Most things that they don't have to talk through.

Ihei Hairu

How I feel about this character: 

She's very intriguing to speculate about, and I enjoy how intense she is about her motives and desires, and how obviously corrupted by her upbringing her worldview is. Just wish she was a part of a different series so she could be directly and completely compellingly well-written, but since one cannot change her source the strange thing about TG characters is that I feel the more Ishida leaves vague for them the more fun they are. So I like her a lot.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: 

Matsumae, Koori. Both of these relationships are very bisexual to me.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: 

Rize! I think it would be fun to see the two interact and be strange together.

My unpopular opinion about this character: 

Not much of a fandom left to argue against, not sure.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

my OTP:

Matsuhei probably long-term. I like Koori and her having feelings for eachother as a past, developing event, but they really don't have the messy strangeness I enjoy other than some miscommunications, nor are they just dynamic enough to make up for it. Matsuhei on the other hand, can get strange.

I have a whole fic scenario in my head where they both survive the fight but pass out, leaving Furuta to run off and play the know-nothing cowardly part he still desires to keep without killing Matsumae completely. Ihei survives because despite being stabbed, her half-human nature manages to knit her back together enough to survive, but the this fact spreads quickly and to keep the knowledge that they're all partial ghouls from spreading, the Washuu declare she was actually a full-ghoul who infiltrated their ranks, and throw both of them into Cochlea. Her continued loyalty despite this means they're pretty confident she won't try and tell anyone the truth of her nature, even in a cell. The two of them are placed next to each other, and begin a very messy dynamic of hatred and discussions, which leads to Ihei slowly changing her unquestioning loyalty, which leads to "We have a better chance of getting out some day if we work together" which leads to strange romantic feelings eventually.

my crossover ship:

Uncertain.

a headcanon fact:

She can walk on her hands.

Mahito

How I feel about this character: 

He's interesting, I'm not actually that invested in him his design's just very fun to draw

All the people I ship romantically with this character: 

Not sure! I read a fic between him and not-Itadori-brotherified Choso once which was funny, he was so weird about it. A couple people tagged the art I did a while ago with Nanahito which sounds intriguing, Mahito is definitely too strange to hold up a lasting relationship with either of these people but I think they could be fun having on-and-off things.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: 

His dynamic with Junpei is fun to watch, I love them both.

My unpopular opinion about this character: 

Liking him at all?

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon:

I don't know, haven't kept up with JJK well enough to know if "geto" used him yet but I think that would be interesting.

my OTP:

Don't have one.

my cross over ship:

I'd like to put him in a container with all of the other messed up love-deprived murderers I like. Not romantically but to have them fight to the death and take the winner like the cricket jar thing.

a headcanon fact:

He does not have an "assigned gender" by design as a curse, but he modified the shape of his soul to give himself the top-surgery stitches because he saw them on Geto and thought they were neat. I added them reflexively in that one drawing but I will commit to the bit now.

#tg #miscellaneous not-art things #furutui #Warning this post is LONG

[naryrising]

Hi there! I'm sorry if you've answered this before, but how did you get involved volunteering with AO3, and what's it like? I'm a current MLIS student and it's something I'm interested in doing in the future. Love your blog!!

I got involved in volunteering with AO3 in 2010, when you could get involved by saying "Hi, I'm interested in helping out" to the people you probably already knew from other fandom spaces, and they would give you some work to do. It was much a smaller team then and there was enough of everything to do that basically anyone who wanted to help out could do what they felt like working on. So I can't really recommend my way of getting involved, as it doesn't exist anymore.

But if you do want to get involved, keep an eye on when recruitment opens up for various teams. This will always be posted in multiple places: the news page, AO3's official twitter and tumblr accounts, and the Transformative Works volunteer page. Pick whichever one appeals to you/is easiest for you to keep up with, and keep watch on that. Pretty much every month there will be some team that's recruiting (other than in December, we don't recruit in December). Some large teams (like tag wrangling and translation) typically recruit about 3 to 4 times a year, but they often have specific things they're looking for, such as particular language skills, familiarity with specific fandoms, etc. Smaller teams may only recruit once a year.

If you see a position you would be interested in, jump on it and apply quickly. Applications are almost always capped (for instance, will close after 50 applications are received, or whatever number the committee is able to review), so if you take a few days to think about it, you may miss your chance.

The first secret I'll tell you is, once you're involved, it's much easier to find other ways to be involved. So if you really want to be, idk, on the Open Doors team, but they aren't currently recruiting or you don't manage to apply in time, try applying for Support. If you want to do graphic design but what's open is tag wrangling, apply for tag wrangling. Now, I'm not suggesting you apply for something just because you want to jump ship to another team as soon as possible, or for something you're going to dislike doing - that will just make people annoyed, and won't be a good experience for you either. But what I mean is, internal movement around various committees can happen much more easily than external recruitment, and often outside of regular recruitment rounds. For my part, the Support team recruits externally once a year, usually in spring, but if someone who's already gone through training as a tag wrangler and has been successfully doing that for a few months comes and talks to me about their interest in also trying Support, I'll likely be willing to take them on outside of regular recruitment season. Familiarity with one team's processes and procedures helps make you a better deal for another team, if you've already proven you can do the type of work we do, and other chairs are willing to vouch for your reliability/enthusiasm/ability to get along with others.

The second secret I'll tell you is that the most important characteristic for a volunteer, and the most impossible to train for, is time/energy/willingness to sit down and do the (sometimes unfun, often unrecognized and unrewarded) work. In my position as Support chair, I can look for people who have, say, previous tech support experience, and that's great, they probably have useful knowledge they would bring to the role. But knowing whether they have the right temperament to do a part-time job without extrinsic motivation (no pay; no boss standing over your shoulder to make you work) is more important. I can teach people the technical knowledge they need to have. I can't give more time, motivation, or energy to someone who doesn't have the personal headspace necessary to come home after work/school and sit down and do more work. So if you are interviewing for a volunteer position, the thing you most need to convince them on is your willingness and enthusiasm to do the work. Some things I look for include: does the person reply promptly to emails? Do they follow instructions well? Do they show up on time for interviews/training, or do they communicate with me if they need to reschedule to another time? Do they complete requested tasks in the requested time? All of those tend to be promising signs that someone is likely enthusiastic and responsible enough for a position like this.

#nary speaks

[glassprism]

With Broadway closing, Sydney and Vienna doing the restaged version and Italy and Spain doing a non-replica production it really seems like they are slowly trying to kill the original version. I know Japan, Korea and London still (more or less) show the og, but with the exception of the Chinese production (I think) it seems like there won‘t be a new production of the Prince/Lynne/Bjornson version anymore. :(

Honestly, if it were me, I'd say it was only Japan that has the original version (meaning, the version we had on the West End and Broadway pre-COVID). London has obviously had most of the changes from the most recent UK tour implemented (as well as a few new ones of their own), Broadway has fewer changes (but is closing, obviously), and as for the others...

The Chinese production has stated that they are using the creative team from the most recent World Tour, so it would not surprise me if they use the same sets from there, as they are available and which were also modified slightly to tour better (though nowhere near as much as the modified UK tour, much less the restaging). The Korean production has vaguely said they will use "upgraded technical elements", which feels like code for "we're going to make the same changes as in the reopened London production". And as you say, the Australian tour and the Vienna production (possibly the first stop of a European tour?) are using the restaging and Spain and Italy will be non-replicas, plus any non-replicas that were established before COVID, such as the Greece and Kristianstad productions.

I think what's also notable is not just the lack of the original version, but the lack of sit-down productions. It seems almost everything being announced is a tour; if it's not a tour, then it's a production where musical theater is less established, necessitating a non-replica. And it makes me wonder if that's deliberate. With a tour, you can justify having a modified or restaged version because "it needs to be able to move around easily, it needs to be cheaper". With a tour, you can hire a younger cast of up-and-coming actors who are less likely to have family tying them to one city and will be fine being paid less. With a tour, you can hit multiple cities or multiple countries in one run and establish this new, modified version in the newer generation's memories ("and it's practically the same thing, really!", they can also say). With a sit-down production, you can't really do all that, which is why it makes me think they are strategically avoiding announcing any sit-downs.

And I might be paranoid for saying this, but it feels a lot like what happened to Les Miserables, where a new staging that first started with a tour, was pushed into international productions (Madrid, Toronto, Seoul, Sao Paulo), tours (international tour, US tours, UK tours), Broadway itself, before finally replacing the London version entirely. And you know, obviously it's different for Phantom in that London was one of the first to change and the various modified stagings aren't nearly as drastic as the changes made in the Les Miserables restaging (can't say that about Phantom's restaging, though)... but it definitely feels like CamMack and co. are going, "Hey, this strategy of slowly doing away with the original worked for Les Mis, let's do it for Phantom."

This is not to say I don't appreciate the non-replicas or the modified stagings or the... sigh... restaging (I guess)... because I do! I like the new interpretations, I like that they allow more people to see the show. But I also like the original, I still want that to exist as well. And most of all, I question the motivations behind pushing tours and new stagings, because it feels like it's all about money.

Makes this old ask of mine look almost prophetic...

#GP gets asks #anonymous

[exeggcute]

dont feel obligated to post this but you asked on that one post why people accuse staff of being terfs and i dont wanna clog anyone's notifications so im sending an ask kjhgfdsgsgd sorry again feel free to ignore.

there was a situation where some popular blog made an accusatory post about a known member of staff openly having a case of Hogwarts House In Bio on their personal blog and it got hard deleted from the site for "encouraging violence towards staff." nobody could reblog it, the blog responsible for the post was terminated for violating tos, all physical evidence of the post existing (besides screenshots) isn't there anymore, etc. the post was kind of "mean" but in a way that was pretty typical for tumblr so staff's actions are widely considered an overreaction and/or indicator of sympathy for the transphobic population of the site.

okay I do remember when some marketing staffer was "ousted" as a hardcore harry potter fan (which like, to be fair, is reasonably tactless behavior at best and a sign of blatant transphobia at worst... although if there's one thing corporate marketing normies love it's harry potter so my money is on the former here) but this is preeeeetty flimsy evidence imo. like we all know how people on this website are. three days ago people were on the verge of doxxing me because I spent eight whole dollars wrong lol.

I have not read the entire tumblr terms of service because I read enough stupid technical jargon as it is but I am guessing there's some kind of specific clause in there that you can't be a dick to their employees, and even if there isn't I can 100% imagine why they'd delete a post that was directing negative (and/or potentially baseless) ire at an employee. I am also not an HR professional (thank god) but there's probably also something at play where you have to provide employees a safe working environment and that also includes an environment where twenty-somethings in your inbox aren't telling you to kill yourself or whatever.

like, I could totally be wrong! I know this is mostly speculation on my part, but it sounds like the evidence in favor of "tumblr is run by terfs" is also mostly speculation and we're sorta just getting into occam's razor territory here. if the evidence of a vast transphobic conspiracy is that tumblr shut down people who were being mean to an employee about liking what is (regrettably) one of the biggest media franchises in the world but not otherwise being overtly transphobic, my money is on boring corporate bullshit ever time. I can't imagine it even occurred to the people making these decisions that it was gonna come across badly; like, truthfully, I just don't think your average software company employee is tapped into the broader pop culture "guess which famous children's novelist was posting transphobic rants on twitter again" apparatus, let alone the microclimate of this website. the HR team at my work is mostly Extremely Extremely Offline (and very nice) middle-aged women and one slightly thotty gay dude from new jersey.