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flamerunn3r · 4 months

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Sorry this is unfinished but I need to post these now just bc idfk when i'm gonna actually finish the rest realistically. Idk it will happen eventually. For now heres the great p5u ramblings post detailing my thoughts designs

This is my own personal interpretations but is also somewhat speculative in nature. I'm mostly trying to deal in already established characterizations and epilogue set ups but there might be stuff I've missed or forgotten (i also haven't played dancing yet sorry if there's something in there I hadn't accounted for). This is kind of like if I took the creative reigns on the story where I'd continue for it. Only the investigation team for now (and 2 boss characters I have an idea for) but maybe I'll do the shadow ops at some point. Only 4 characters for now but I'll reblog with additions when I finish the rest or if I edit any of these

Yu Narukami

He's currently attending school as a journalism student in the city or just starting out as one. Enthusiastic about his field but still tries to find the time to keep up with his friends and visit Inaba on his holidays. I felt journalism made alot of sense for him with the themes of persona 4. I liked the sport jacket and turtleneck but wanted soemthing different so the scarf was chosen to keep the same kind of silhouette. I made the collar on the winter coat large and I feel like Narukami's large uniform collar is a key part of his design. and I wanted to call back to that in his casual outfit. The summer outfit I mostly kept close to his summer outfit from p4. I'm kind of unsure on it though I might come back to it. I mostly wanted to keep his outfits smart and simple. For his meta verse outfit I really wanted to go all out with the bancho (kingpin) stuff and other delinquent tropes. I lengthened the uniform coat a little because I wanted it to look like a tokko-fuku. Alot of smaller detail inspiration was taken from Izanagi. The lenses in the mask are supposed to mimic glasses. I'd imagine he'd take off the mask the same way he throws off his glasses in myriad truths.

Teddie

I can't imagine him leaving Inaba and the TV world behind. Still staying in town and working largely the same job. He's got his own place now albeit small (still a step up from the closet though). At some point the IT asked Mitsuru to pull some strings so he actually has a legal personhood now. The animal hoodie is something that came to me spontaneously but I knew I needed to include it. I really that his normal outfit in 4 keeps the white and red of the bear costume in the outfit so I tried to keep the colour scheme here too. Most of his later outfits are less flashy and more casual so I tried to continue that trend. I didn't want to lose the rose from the corsage completely so I included a rose pattern in the second shirt. Alot of his outfits feature light blue so I wanted that in at least one outfit. I considered making the hoodie light blue initially. I don't think he'd have a metaverse outfit he'd just use the bear costume.

Naoto Shirogane

I'm under the assumption Naoto is still presenting masculinely to the general public as of p5 but I may be mistaken in this. If I'm wrong I'd still probably largely keep the outfits similar to this. Naoto's still working as a detective and I don't think that's ever really going to change. One thing that a hypothetical p5u would have to address is what Naoto and the shadow ops would have been doing during the events of persona 5 and I unfortunately do not have any ideas for what that would be at the moment.

I feel alot of the appeal of Naoto's design is the kind of boy detective fashion. I went at this design with the intention of kind of refining that into something a little more adult while still keeping in a similar vein. I did have to ditch the pageboy hat unfortunately as I felt it made them look too young. These outfits were kind of design as pseudo work clothes which is why I tried to make them a bit more formal then the other characters. Something I consider notable about Naoto's design but deliberately avoided here was the rolled up pant legs. It's very obvious in 4 it's done because Naoto is short but I feel like Naoto would start getting that either custom made or tailored to fit. I was initially going to forgo the blazer on the summer outfit but the design felt empty without it. Naoto having a noir detective themed metaverse outfit is an idea I'd had for years but I tried to incorporate design elements that were princely. I alot of the inspiration was from Sam Spade specifically. Deliberately made similarities to Akechi's white crow design. The band around the hat is supposed to invoke the similar one on the old page boy hat.

Yukiko Amagi

Still working at her families in but is taking online courses during the off seasons. She's mostly happy where she is but is keeping her options open. Occasionally makes visits to other ryokans out of town for ideas for her families own inn, as well as an opportunity to for her to sight see.

The headband was included in her design in p4 as a like retro design thing but I find it too important of a marker of her design to remove it. I understand the why they went with the hairstyle they did for her golden epilogue but I feel it just ends up making her look way older then she is. I thought her having her hair up would be a nice change since she does it so rarely and settled on a ponytail. Tried changing the bangs but the ones she already had just felt right. I wanted her clothes to carry this kind of air of sophistication so I tried to keep them relatively simple and sleek. She's wearing pants in the winter outfit but I chose the longer coat to keep a similar skirt silhouette. The choker was largely inspired by the scarf she has in her winter outfit. Despite being a different colour the cardigan was also chosen to tie back somewhat to the sweater she wears with her school uniform.

In some side material it's mentioned that Yukiko has an interest in western fashion and aesthetics (part of what made the castle manifest the way it did) and I wanted to lean on that in some way for her metaverse design. I ended up going with a masquerade ball theme. I tried to keep the dress to something simple and easy to move in. The gloves and boots take inspiration from her persona in terms of design and size. I wanted to incorporate elements from her work kimono as well hence the ribbon around the torso and flower patterning. Probably the most unsure of this one of the metaverse designs so far. Especially the colours (considered making the reds pinks initially). Might revisit this one.

Ok that's all I have for now I'll probably do Rise's next 👍👍👍

#sorry these are of wildly varying quality i did them at completely disconnected times #i guess feel free to critique my ideas if you want but be nice pleaseeeeee #persona 4 #fine this can go in the main tags #also this took like 3 days to type up. i just proofread it but if theres something that makes no sense then oops my bad #ul

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gamble74vilstrup · 2 years

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stellocchia · 3 years

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So, I once made a post about c!Tommy and c!Dream’s relationship throughout season 1 (which you can find here), but today I was thinking, why not do the same for the Exile Arc?

There are some people that still don’t seem to have a comprehensive idea of what actually went down during that time (either because they joined the fandom afterwards or haven’t watched it at the time) so I’ll try to do that here. I’ll cover the first 2 streams here, and then continue in the next part because this is gonna be way too damn long otherwise...

As always I’ll be talking only about the characters and the roleplay from here on out and also I’ll be touching on some very heavy topics under the cut (such as gaslighting and abuse). Also this is gonna be another one of my Overly Long Analysis, so... you know... be warned of that.

I’ll be going through this vod by vod, so It will be so long... God why do I always do this to myself?

Let’s start with TommyInnit Is Exiled From The Dream SMP... which is the vod when Tommy actually get’s exiled.

So, the exile scene per se has been covered a 100 times over, but, right after Tubbo asking Dream to “please detain and excort Tommy out of my country” Dream yeets Tommy off the walls and then he immediately establishes the general idea of how it’ll be in exile: “I don’t think you wanna die Tommy. You need to- to listen to me”.

Also it is to be noted that in this “exile” time and time again Dream establishes arbitrary rules that were most certanly not meant in the initial sentence (which is why it’s much more of a kidnapping then an actual exile). Starting from before they even leave L’Manburg completely. In fact when they are still in the vc with the others and still just down from the obsidian walls, Tommy and Dream have this exchange:

“Do I have any time to speak words? What can...” “NO. NO. NO. NO!” “what the...”

And then right after (just after leaving the vc):

“Do you have food?” “Yeah...” “Good, we’ll be going a long while still” “Am I not allowed- well surely- surely I’m only exiled from L’Manburg-” “Oh, no no no. You’re exiled from everywhere that’s been touched”

The sentence was only for him to be exiled from L’Manburg. Dream theoretically only had authority over the Greater Dream smp in any case, so how come immediately Tommy’s “sentence” becomes being exiled from “everywhere that has been touched”? What authority did Dream have to exile him from the Badlands? Or the Holy Grounds (considering those are widely considered neutral)?

This is from right after Ghostbur joins them:

“Well, I don’t- I don’t have to come with you” “Well, I mean, I’ll kill you” (...) "I don’t have to follow you! I don’t-” “Tommy! Then I’ll just kill you. What happens if I kill you?” “I die...”

Again, technically Tubbo only asked Dream to escort Tommy out of his country, not all the way to his place of exile. Tommy here is right, he is exiled, he is not supposed to have a jailor going with him, he is not supposed to be imprisoned. All he supposedly had to do was get off the lands he wasn’t allowed into and then he’d be good. Of course Dream’s plans were different there.

Also the trend of constantly undermining anything Tommy is feeling at any given moment sure doesn’t stop with the Exile Arc!

“No, no! I don’t want to head anywhere! I wanna to go back! I wanna go back!” “Fine fine, we’ll head this way then. It’s fine, this is fine” “I don’t wanna go!” “Tommy come on...”

Honorable mention to Dream talking about the first time he exiled Tommy:

“Do you remember- this is actually funny! Do you remember the first time you ever joined the server? And uhm... you got exiled? By me?” “Yeah?” “It’s kinda like that, except now if you don’t listen you die”

And the conditioning begins all the way here, with Dream trying to decide Tommy’s emotions for him:

“Oh... I hate you” “*laughs* Okay Tommy, you don’t hate me” “No, no I definitely do” “Noooo, you don’t hate me”

Cue Dream just blowing up Tommy’s second Summer Home after he explained that it was supposed to be a safe haven for him and Tubbo. Also note that Dream is already getting rid of any mob attacking Tommy even if at this point he still had armour and weapons to defend himself. I talked about this before, but Dream does seem to want Tommy to be as dependent on him as he is on Tommy, which is why during exile he made him dependent on him for protection/safety and company and in prison for food. Also Ghostbur going: “I don’t think this man is very nice...”, thank you Ghostbur, I wish you could remember that, but you’re trying your best and I appreciate it...

“How long is- how long am I exiled for? When can I just go back?” “You can’t (...) if you go back you die”

Again, not Dream’s decision to make. Tubbo was the one exiling Tommy meaning that, if Tubbo actually had the decision power in that istance, Tubbo was the one who should have decided when he could come back. Also, again reiterating the point from before:

“I thought I was only banished from L’Manburg, that was the deal, not the entirety of the smp-” “Oh no. No you’re banished far enough where they don’t see you”

Also, a little look into Tommy’s mentality here:

“Tubbo said he wasn’t thinking with emotion, but with reason, but: what the fuck is the point if there isn’t any- any emotion?!”

This is honestly why he is Dream’s exact opposite and probably why he finds him fun, while Tubbo is irrelevant to him. Tommy thinks emotions should always be taken into account when making decisions and he values sentimentality over everything. Dream is the opposite, to him emotions are irrelevant and sentimentality is a weakness. Tubbo is a bit of both, which makes his clash of ideologies with Dream a lot less evident.

Anyway, they get to the island and Dream builds Tommy a dirt shack for him to set his spawn into. And then there is the first istance of Dream taking all of Tommy’s stuff (building blocks and food included) and blowing it up. Which, again, is in no way an actual exile condition. Tommy is in jail basically. He got kidnapped and now he is in jail. Also right after that Dream gives them food and obsidian (of course acting like he is doing them a big favour, when he actually just created that need), which Tommy bromptly refuses, later burning the obsidian.

Also Dream’s parting words here are: “I’ll see you never”. Which couldn’t be less true! There is quite a bit more after that, of Tommy and Ghostbur settling in, finding a ruined portal with some armour and the village nearby and Techno visiting, but this is about c!Dream and c!Tommy and it’s already incredibly long as is, so maybe I’ll talk about everything else another time...

Onto the next one: Tommy Is Alone in Exile with Dream...

This stream starts off with Bad visiting Tommy to give him a few presents (which consist of Chirp, 2 diamonds, an enderchest, and almost dead diamond pick with silk touch, some coocked chicken some bones and a few stacks of oak wood logs). Also Tommy sees Logsteshire for the first time. Then Dream arrives and he is not happy about the present (something something, having other people giving Tommy useful stuff would make him less reliant on Dream). Also Bad seems to be slightly scared of Dream since he immediately tells Tommy that he should not say that any of the stuff he gave him was from him. Anyway, Dream destroys everything, but Tommy, with Bad’s help, manages to save Chirp. Here’s their exchange in this scene of course:

“Tommy?” “Yes! Yes?!” “Do you have uh... something you wanna put on the floor here?” “Yes *throws in 3 red concrete blocks*” “Anything else Tommy?” “No! You’re evil by the way, you’re an evil man-” “Come on... I know there is something else you wanna drop down here...” “No there-... *gives disk to Bad* I don’t reckon there is!” “Okay are you sure...?” “Yes!” “Alright... how about uh- how about your armour Tommy?” “No this is- I actually earned this myself” “I know you did! Just drop it in the hole Tommy” “No, no! You can’t just come and demand things from me! I’ve been exiled, I’ve done your shit! What- what do you mean-” “Tommy~” “What?” *Dream hits Tommy with an enchanted netherite axe* “Drop them down~” “Hooooo okay okay okay!”

So, in case anyone was wondering, physical abuse is there as well. And this is fully depicted as physical abuse. Like, normally, with this being Minecraft, it is implied that violence is generally inconsequential, here though c!Tommy reacts to it clearly in pain and shock. There is no doubt there.

Sapnap arrives at this point as well. After that Dream makes it a point that Tommy cannot have the enderchast that Bad gave him because you can never have enough random arbitrary rules when kidnapping someone apparently!

“Why are you here? Why are you here? What- what could you- what could you possibly want more from me? You’ve tortured me-” “I’m just! I’m just... keeping an eye on you Tommy”

I’ve highlighted this because, considering the last time Dream was there he said he would never see Tommy again, Tommy’s confusion here is more then understandable. But of course Dream acts like it’s obvious that he would be there and that it’s necessary to make sure that Tommy is not “up to no good”. Also, another extremely important exchange:

“You’ve exiled me you stupid manipulative green bastard!” “Yeah I know! I know! And you know why I did that” “Yes? Yes?” “No, you know why” “Why?” “Because you don’t listen to me ever. You’re the only person who doesn’t ever listen to me (...) listen, you are like a little annoying bug in my room and it pisses me off so I take you and I put you outside and that’s what I did. And now I’m just making sure that you stay outside”

So... the bullshit about this being about George’s house is out of the window by the first proper exile stream. Also Dream goes in the ever increasing list of villains who, if annoyed enough, will reveal all their evil plans to the protagonist. Like Tommy screaches enough and Dream will immediately go in evil monologuing mode...

“So what do you actually want from me then?” “Well nothing, I’m just here to talk to you. Tommy, we’re still friends ok? Just because I exiled you doesn’t mean we’re not friends-” “Just because I killed your friends and family doesn’t mean we can’t be bros...” “Well, it’s true!”

Ok so, it’s confirmed that Dream would still go on with this “friendship” facade even if he killed Tubbo or Wilbur then. Also:

*Tommy sees a creeper* then in the most monotone tone ever: “Help me” Dream sprinting from the other side of the cave: “TOMMY!”. I love this scene and I love this two dumbasses (and I mean the cc’s here). Also, to go back to the serious stuff: once again Dream is the one killing every single mob around Tommy because he blew up all his means for defence. Also Bad and Sapnap are still there as well, but Dream is always the on interveening (mostly because he is the one following Tommy around more closely). I’ll have a few of the more interesting quotes here afterwards until the next interesting scene:

“If I had 8 legs I would fuck you all up” “Oooh, no you wouldn’t” (Dream de-valuing Tommy’s anger once again)

“Stop following me” “NO” “Well okay then...” (honestly this was just funny...)

“Can I call you Wilbur? Or is it Ghostbur...?” “You can call me whatever you like” (for those saying that Ghostbur not correcting Tommy was weird)

“Alright Wilbur, what do you need an enderchest for? I might make an exception but-” “We- we need it so that we can access our stuff from the old world, the old world” “But not to go back” “How would we be able to go back with an enderchest?” “Well I don’t know maybe there is stuff in there that’s... better” “Tommy do you have anything that could get you to go back? In the enderchest?” “A boat? What’d you mean?” “Yeah to be honest we just need wood to get back, it’s not really-”

Here we have Ghostbur poking holes in one of the new rules that Dream added that day. As a matter of fact, why would an enderchest be dangerous? Tommy mostly keeps sentimental stuff in there and a bit of iron. Still that’s the whole point: Dream is trying to get Tommy under his control so he needs to bring him to a point where he’ll listen to his orders even when they don’t make any actual sense. Also, btw, Dream doesn’t actually give them an enderchest after this exchange.

“Do you want to come with me Tommy? Do you want to come with me and visit the old library?” “No no no” “Yes! Yes please!” “No he wants to stay here with me” “I don’t. I definitely don’t” “He does! He’s just trying to be nice to you Wilbur. He’s trying to be nice to you” “I’m not Wilbur, I want to come with you” (way to gaslight an amnesiac ghost...)

“So how long is Tommy supposed to be here?” “Like a week?” “Oh, a week is not bad!” “*laughing* No he’s here forever” (Like goddamn, imagine if every minor griefing was punished with permanent exile!)

“M-maybe like- does Tommy gets like visitations? Like once every month he get’s to go to L’Manburg-” “No! No no no” “No visitation, huh?” “No visitation” (well, let’s thank Sapnap for trying...)

So, after this Tommy gets his plan to go through the Nether and find a quick way to and from L’Manburg to, perhaps, sneak in unnoticed at some points. Dream “allows” him here to go to the Nether (even though technically there is no reason why the exile would extend to there as well), so they get to work on fixing a ruined portal. “Did you know, I apparently blew up a nation and killed everyone” (thank God we have Ghostbur, he makes everything better). One thing I want to note though: at this point Tommy still kills the mobs attacking him when Dream is not stalking him and doing it for him, which is kind of nice. We are still at the first exile stream though...

“Can I go back for like an hour and see all my friends?” “No, they can come here though. I-I mean Tommy, I think- I think that someone could come here and visit you, but you can’t ever go back. Like I-I don’t have anything against people coming here and visiting you if they want to. They don’t HAVE to, but they can if they really want to” “Tommy think of it this way: whenever you’re in prison you can’t just go and visit your friends, but they can come and visit you” “They can come and visit you, yeah, that’s actually a very- that’s a perfect analogy”

I wonder why the best analogy for Tommy’s situation is not a f*cking exile analogy, but actual prison. Maybe because he is confined to one place, not allowed to keep any personal items and never allowed to go back? Also they actually get to Nether hub at this point and there is the famous scene with Tommy looking at the lava:

A curious thing about this scene (aside from being a clear indication of the beginning of Tommy’s depressive spiral) is both that Dream didn’t seem to particularly care about Tommy dying up until now (and in the future as well) as long as he is the one to kill him. Meaning that he seemed fine with it as long as he had control over it. And yet at the end there he agrees with Tommy’s statement of “it’s never my time to die” which kinda makes me think that Dream by this point was already entirely set on his idea of Tommy needing to be alive for Dream to control the whole server. Tommy and Dream head back to Logstedshire after this scene.

*Tommy looks at the lava while standing very close to the edge* “I’ll go back through just to... check and see” *Dream hits Tommy away from the edge* “Come on” *Tommy goes back to the edge and Dream pushes him away again, this time covering the hole* “It’s not your time to die yet Tommy” “It’s never my time to die” “That’s true”

“Home sweet home...” “Home sweet home. I think it’ll be good! People might visit you all the time, I mean, I can visit you! It’s- it’s actually fun to come here! It’s a little bit- it’s a change of scenery, you know?” “It’s not fun to be stuck here” “Well... you’re not ’stuck’ it’s your vacation home!” “Can I go back? I’m ready...” “No but you can leave this area, you can go somewhere else. This is just- like, I took you far away, you can go further if you want”

So, if anyone is wondering, this is not, in fact, Dream giving Tommy more freedom. Especially considering that when Tommy does leave Logstedshire later on Dream literally hunts him down, so no, that was never an option. What Dream is doing here is make himself sound benevolent by comparison by telling Tommy that the only other options he has are worse since they are even further away.

“I’m here for a good time, not for a long time” (more hints towards Tommy’s depressive spiral)

“Guys how do you know when it’s too much?” (and again)

“Can I go and see the tree?” “Tommy, you can’t go and see the tree” “Dream why don’t you let him just- it’s not in L’Manburg! Why don’t you let him just see the tree and then escort him back?”

Ghostbur my beloved, pointing out holes in Dream’s rules all the time. Something tells me that’s the reason why Dream tried to kill him later on...

Anyway! This concludes this first post because it’s... Oh fuck this is REALLY long.... welp! I’ll make the others in the next few days!

#dreamwastaken #tommyinnit #ghostbur #dream smp #exile arc #tw abuse #tw manipulation #c!dream critical #character analysis #relationship analysis #this was supposed to be just all the quotes of c!dream being an asshole during the exile arc #then I went 'how about I write a couple of my thoughts in as well?'#and mistakes were made...#long post #my post

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accio-victuuri · 3 years

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Style Guide : Xiao Zhan

Zhan Zhan’s style evolution from the cute and warm boy next door to a Top Entertainer. from his trending airport fashion, designer bags and transition to streetwear— here is his story.

I originally wanted to include stuff from his university days but settled on when he started on c-ent. It’s not secret that he was popular in his University and is a fan of designer brands from the start. I will also use airport photos before the ban. for the clothes after, I will just post the picture of what he wore.

I. XFIRE & Idol career

He initially started as a contestant in survival show called x-fire where people saw him as this warm guy who had a really good voice. Once he debuted as part of XNINE, more and more people started noticing him. His unique style that leans more on Japanese chic is what makes him a favorite of fans to photograph in the Airport.

You will see videos of him talking to fans who are there and visiting. You would not think he is as tall he is when you look at his photos. With X-NINE, he blended well with the concepts they have and it’s not as drastic as how KPOP acts do it. He still preserved the quiet and gentle image.

II. Life as an Actor

Xiao Zhan was still promoting with XNINE when he started being active in Dramas. Including the Wolf, that made him decide he wants to be an Actor.

Around this time, he also started shooting the Untamed. His style pretty much remained the same. With his soft and oversized cardigans. However, we get glimpses of him starting to use streetwear. And definitely darker colors.

III. Rising Star

In 2019 and with the Untamed making him a household name— his style has transitioned into a less complicated one. He still had the quirky tops from time to time but his general style has moved into street. I don’t think he ever had an interview where he addressed this and why he changed. One thing is, this makes him less recognizable by people.

In events, he always stuns with high end brands that he partners with. You can also notice that his style has a more matured edge to it. A top actor who is confident who he is and it just make the clothes match him so much better.

IV. Spotlight

After the ban of airport photos and anything outside of his live events— he still continues to carry himself with the same style. oftentimes with a cap and his mask on, completely covering his face. He also preferred baggy pants and nike shoes.

In his rehearsal pictures, the same style is also seen.

HIS STYLE QUIRKS.

1. Oversized cardigans - This is his signature style especially in the early days. It’s impossible to not search for him and not see these moments. In his interviews, he is always asked about this type of style and how achieves it. He countered saying that just use clothes that are comfortable to you. Yeah, those big cardigans really look soft and comfy.

One other thing is that he became really know for a few that he wore at that time. They either get sold out or someone makes knock offs.

2. Eyeglasses - This is more of a necessity than a fashion statement for him but he looks good on them anyway. it adds something special & it just adds to his charm.

3. Stuffed toys - Aaaahhhh! The ones he carries with him at airports. Who can forget? He even accepts ones given by fans and carries it with him. He stopped doing this in 2019 onwards but it’s still nice to reminisce.

4. Bags - Men usually don’t pay that much attention to bags. Just one or two that they use regularly, but it’s different for Xiao Zhan. In one interview, he said that it’s a good accessory. from backpacks, slings and really small ones— he uses it. The Tod’s bag from his shanghai vlog? Sold out so quick.

5. Red bracelet - This one is actually not a fashion statement. GG started wearing this bracelet that his mom made for him in 2015. Since it was his year, he was told to wear it and so he followed. We know how superstitious he is and so it’s not a surprise to see him wear something that is supposed to keep bad things away. This gained more attention to fans when he was seen wearing it in his appearance after the 2*7 fiasco. KXZ, a brand he endorses even popularized it by allowing fans to put red bracelets on his standees in stores. To this day, you can still see him wearing it in his personal time.

TOP BRANDS HE LOVES THE MOST.

1. Gucci - The real leader of the Gucci Gang. If he wears something, the first thing that comes to mind is Gucci. No matter how generic it is, like some baggy jeans or simple shirt— it’s gotta be Gucci. both as a personal preference and what he wears in events. Gucci even invited him for their 2019 fashion week.

2. Balenciaga - I am adding it here because of his iconic balenciaga cap. He wears it frequently and has been associated with it.

3. Nike - I mean, who doesn’t love Nike. Especially Air Jordans. He’s been seen wearing the same pairs multiple times. In 2019, he was even seen wearing a pair of that much coveted paranoise shoes.

4. Off white - Is a streetwear brand is based in Milan. The name of the brand is defined as the grey colour zone in between black and white. They collaborated with a lot of other brands & cater more to the millennial generation. Xiao Zhan has been seen wearing this brand frequently.

5. Stussy - is a brand that started from the surf scene in California. They have a store opened in Shanghai and has a special collection dedicated to it. Xiao Zhan has been seen wearing it since 2016 at the earliest during his off time.

That’s it for Xiao Zhan. I would like to add that it’s really exciting to see what he will wear next, especially in events. In his track record, he prefers Gucci, Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and Balmain.<3

#xiao zhan #bjyx

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findingjoynweirdstuff · 3 years

Text

completely brainless 1am ramble

On the topic of stagnation, and the geopolitical plot vs. character-driven plot discussion people are having rn:

Maybe this is just a nostalgia-blinded bias of mine, having started with the Disc War, but...I’ve never minded the more character-based plots? Anyone who’s followed my blog for a bit knows that I love the Pet War, but I also loved the Disc War and the Final Pet War too. In those conflicts, the factions served as a backdrop rather than being the main focus, and the plot was driven by the characters and their grievances with one another.

One of my favorite smaller plots from Season Two was Fundy and Ghostbur. That had absolutely zilch to do with factions, or L’manburg, or geopolitics, but it was honestly one of the most well-acted and heart-breaking plots I’ve seen from the SMP in its entirety.

I think that character-driven plots are places where the SMP’s really shined, at least to me personally.

Maybe that’s not everyone’s thing, but I don’t think it’s bad for the stories to be more character-driven! I think a lot more of the SMP than people realize has been like that this entire time. I think people sometimes overestimate how much the factions have actually mattered, in a sense?

Remember how the Disc War started?

Tommy and Sapnap were a pair. Punz and Tubbo were a pair. Ponk and Alyssa were a pair. Dream logged on to stop the fighting and Tommy and Sapnap killed him, leading to Dream allying himself with Ponk and Alyssa. These weren’t faction lines dividing everyone, but personal grudges. That’s how the SMP’s entire plot started. “You and me, versus Dream,” right?

While the L’manburg War was amazing and a game-changer for the SMP storyline as a whole, I feel like the motivations, the driving forces for that war were actually a lot weaker than the recent conflicts. It was a cool bit of political roleplay, yes, but it was kind of just a war for the sake of a war, to be honest.

L’manburg was founded because some Americans got in the way of Wilbur and Tommy stealing everyone’s blaze rods. It went from a hotdog-selling business to a literal independent country because...revolution, I guess? And Dream declared war because...sometimes you just gotta kill some people sometimes, y’know...?

It was the character-based conflicts from before that war that ended it. The discs ended the war even though they had nothing to do with the reason L’manburg seceded, because Tommy and Dream’s grudge against each other held more weight than the actual country. Who cared if L’manburg gained its independence as long as Dream gained the discs? That was a bigger win for him.

The conflicts that happened afterwards continued that trend of being character-driven rather than faction-driven. L’manburg kind of disappeared for a month as the Disc Saga continued with Tommy and Dream, Tommy and Quackity founded the Cartel and then the Pet War started up because of Sapnap.

None of these conflicts had anything to do with factions, really, and having all these little smaller stories gave a chance for people like Quackity, Fundy and Skeppy to get in on the drama more and throw their hats into the ring.

That’s what I think is happening right now, except since there are a lot more people on the server now, they’re starting up their individual plots around the same time so that they start to overlap.

And remember how Fundy and Tubbo started up the Dreamon Hunters plot, picked out new skins, built a new setting and everything just for that plot to never take off due to needing to prepare for the Manberg Festival? Such a cool plot idea, and it just never happened, really.

Well, now, the Badlands have been having fun creating their own Blood Vines plot, and since they aren’t very involved in what Tommy and Dream are doing, they have space to flesh out that idea and not have it be overshadowed by other things. Whether or not you, as a viewer, want to follow along with the side plot is your choice! But Bad seems to be having a lot of fun telling his own story.

Quackity creating Mexican L’manburg and having that turn into a five-day plot that ended in war? That’s basically just the L’manburg War 2.0, and if you don’t feel like following along with the plot -- again, no need to! But Karl finally getting his chance to shine, Sapnap and George having character development with Dream, and Eret, Puffy and H getting in on some drama was honestly pretty exciting!

The thing about the SMP is that it’s not really built to be just one storyline. It’s never just been about L’manburg.

While the Camarvan was built, Fundy and Eret were having their Prank War.

The same day Dream and Tommy fought to bargain with Skeppy, Fundy was getting into a court battle with Punz, Eret and Tubbo.

While the Election was happening, so was the Pet War.

In the middle of Pogtopia building its resistance, the Battle of the Lake happened with Tommy, Sapnap and the Badlands.

The SMP has always had storylines going on at the same time. It’s just that since most of the viewers have always focused on Tommy and Wilbur for the most part, a lot of the time those extra storylines slipped through the cracks of memory.

Now let’s get back to the geopolitics vs. character-driven thing:

This feeling of “stagnation” isn’t new! The SMP’s had periods like this, where it feels a bit slower and everyone’s a little confused about where it’s going before.

Remember that period from like, October 18th to November 6th or so where pretty much nothing happened to progress the plot? And since none of the other streamers on the SMP were doing their own plots, it was just kind of this period of...”who knows what’s happening right now?”

The thing about a politics-based plot vs. a more character-driven, million side-stories type deal is that as long as none of the country leaders were online, nothing could really happen to progress the main plot, and since the character-driven stuff wasn’t the main focus, that couldn’t drive much either.

So...yeah, you got the Tubbo Bathwater stream three days after the Festival happened. That’s just kinda how it went.

Schlatt only got on very rarely, Wilbur a bit less rarely, and Dream logging onto his own server was always more of a surprise more than a routine. Tommy and Techno were getting into hijinks, but there weren’t really any political stakes. Even though he was supposed to be exiled, Tommy just moved back into his house anyway, because who was going to stop him? The one person who cared about him staying out wasn’t there to do anything.

Yes, the Big Plot Days like the Festival and the Meeting were jaw-dropping and amazing! I loved them! Incredibly-written, incredibly-acted.

But what about what happened between them?

One thing I’ve enjoyed about the recent period is that it feels like a lot more streamers are keeping track of their characters and holding onto longer plot threads. It feels like more people are interacting with each other instead of doing builds by themselves. And even the main plot is progressing at this more subtle, bit-by-bit pace where there’s a bit of new development with each stream. The big event days still happen, like the New Festival and the Execution, but the pacing’s a lot more consistently spread out. And with all these other streamers keeping their own mini stories as well, it’s more of this melting pot of different people interacting, each with their own arc and tale to tell.

Ponk and Jack, for example, are keeping their ongoing rivalry. Sam, Bad and Ant are getting into their own storyline whereas before, the Badlands weren’t really doing much of anything. And Karl’s been doing the same fun side-things that he’s always done for months, but he’s recently started to try and find a niche for himself by trying these light-hearted events or his new Tales series, which could end up being really cool the more he refines it!

I feel like a lot of the “chaos” feeling isn’t really from how the SMP’s main storyline has been written; most of the main plot has still kept to L’manburg and Techno.

It’s just that more people are taking notice of all the side hijinks that are going on in the background all the time, and some of the people who weren’t involved in the main plot before have started creating their own storylines for fun.

I will say it again and again: you don’t have to follow along with every storyline! If it overwhelms you to try and keep up with the Blood Vines? That’s okay! You as a viewer have the freedom to create the viewing experience that makes you the most comfortable, that brings you the most joy!

But I also think people could try and branch out a bit too. Give some new creators a try. No pressure or anything, and it’s fine if you just want to stick to Tommy or Techno! But there are a lot of talented people on the SMP, and I feel like some of these smaller stories are worth paying attention to if you’re interested!

Aaaaanyway, this is just a long, long post with some nonsense thoughts that I felt like getting out. Feel free to disagree! The SMP’s an interesting piece of media that everyone’s going to experience slightly differently. What may be my cup of tea might not be yours, and vice versa! :]

#dream smp #long posts #meta #dream smp analysis

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jeonjk0504 · 3 years

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Their in the soop conversation to me isn’t proof that taekook isn’t real. That conversation seemed so weird to me. Not what they spoke of but just the conversation being aired period. Maybe there were some inklings of truth to what they spoke of but I think that was a staged talk for the most part. Just because a lot of TaeKook were not shown in official content in the past couple years doesn’t mean they weren’t close. Now the reason why Big Hit didn’t have a lot of TaeKook moments may have been to protect TaeKook (I don’t see any other reason why they wouldn’t promote one of their most popular ships and make money, just my opinion though).

To me personally, JK and V’s conversation was a strategic move by Big Hit to be able to show more TaeKook content going forward. I really think something like that was discussed when they were renewing their contracts. To be allowed a little more freedom between them. It would be weird if after not showing much content all of a sudden TaeKook are so close, so I feel like that was the purpose of that talk. To let fans know everything is “good now” and they shouldn’t be shocked to see them glued to the hips and being touchy with each.

Again, this is just my personal opinion. No hate to anybody that doesn’t agree. I am happy to see all the TaeKook moments that have been shown after that talk. So regardless if some people use that against TaeKook, I am grateful for it lol.

Is TaeKook real?? The world may never know until they come out and say so. Until then, let’s just all have fun speculating and enjoying all the boys’ interactions. Thank you for reading my rambling lol.

Hey hun 💓

I‘m answering late but i had this in the back of my mind constantly, since i think it‘s a very interesting topic and i have a lot of thoughts.

I do think their convo had a true core (what i explained in my post about the episode in general and FESTA) but the fact that this was something shown to an audience, should stay present in our mind.

I also do think that Taehyungs problem with his distant behavior was real and Jungkooks advice was earnest.

But I see it like this: In the Soop is an entertainment format that is supposed to be calming/authentic/natural and approachable. It‘s supposed to give us a sense of „ah, so this is what they are like when they have free time and do what they want! This is what their actual relationships look like! This is how they talk to each other casually without pressure and entertainment purpose“ Because this is something that BTS Fans like about them: Their authenticity and the relationship they have. So they gave us a format we might enjoy. It‘s similar to Bon Voyage, but Bon Voyage has clear entertainment schedules and serves a different purpose.

But if you put BTS together, a group who have simply known each other for years, you don‘t see them fight or have deep talks all of a sudden and even less if it’s just a week and while shooting something for an audience. And even if something was up they probably would think „ah, we should talk about this when the shooting is over.“ Pretty sure you wouldn‘t choose an entertainment format for private matters, right? Even less if you are a professional (and BTS are professionals).

So in my opinion their talk was deliberately included, ergo planned, ergo not 100% a good representation of how they would usually go about this and this talk served a purpose. The purpose of „look, they are close so they have deep talks and care about their friendship“. And that‘s why i don‘t give this whole thing too much weight, even less if it‘s to say anything about their relationship really. I even think it wasn‘t important that it was Tae & JK. This could have also ben JK&Jimin or Yoongi&Hobi.

Now, i’m saying this while knowing this is my personal opinion and in no way a fact…you can disagree (and a lot of you probably will to some extent because i‘m deromanticizing the whole thing a bit 😬 or simply because you have a different view on the matter) and that‘s fine with me.

The other implications of what was the motivation of BH/HYBE to have them talk about this stuff… i won‘t go into that because i really don‘t know. It could be everything and nothing.

If we blame BH or HYBE for deliberately cutting moments or choosing other pairs for content, we should know it‘s still possible that Taehyung and Jungkook actually asked for it. I think sometimes we forget in what kind of position they are in. And it doesn‘t matter if they are just friends or secretly romantically involved - if you get this much attention (and as the most popular pair, they trend if they only sit together and breathe) it can make you conscious and uncomfortable if people are so focused on you. And what we do know is that they like to keep things private. They don‘t share when they go out or spend time. They only sometimes let it slip or you can guess by the amount of info they have on each other.

It could also have been coincidental and we are simply too biased and over-sensitized when it comes to the amount of interaction/screen time/ promo we get.

I know some of you will think „that doesn‘t seem very likely“ but it‘s still a possibility and as long as we don‘t actually have facts on this matter, it‘s important to stay open minded. :)

Thank you for sharing your thoughts love!! Pls continue to do so mwah 💕

#ask mo #mo replies #taekook in the soop #taekook #vkook #kookv #kooktae #taeguk

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realcube · 3 years

Text

i would just like to thank you for crunching out sm stuff for us and blessing us with such good writing!! 💕💗💕💗😩😪 truly *chefs kiss*

also could i request hcs on how tendou, fukunaga, matsukawa, bokuto, and iwaizumi react to their s/o doing this tiktok trend?

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMee9HVe8/

(a/n): 🙏 i should be the one thanking y’all for reading my content tbh! 💕 oh and this request is absolutely adorable!

summary of the video: a person peppers their cat with kisses to the audio of a man saying, ‘i love you. mwah mwah mwah. you set my soul on fire’

content warning: sexual references, choking & dick sizes

satori tendō

♡ he would cackle if you tried to do the accent

♡ i’d say he knows the trend but he doesn’t look like he uses tiktok and even if he did, he’d be on deep tiktok

♡ anyway, if you don’t do the accent and you just start kissing him while filming, he’ll just smile

♡ like he just got all warm inside

♡ he thinks his smile is subtle but when he rewatches the video and notices his foolishly large grin, he insists that you delete it

♡ but plz don’t- he really appreciates the fact you aren’t ashamed to be dating it and you actually want to show everyone on social media that you love him

♥　♡　♥　♡　♥　♡　♥

you propped your phone up against the salt shaker on the dinner table so the camera was angled at you and tendō, then you turned to him with a mischievous grin plastered on your face which made him falter in eating his chicken nugget.

“are you okay, babe?” he inquired through a mouthful of mcnugget as your eyes seemed fixated on him, though you weren’t doing anything besides stare.

he was forced to swallow once the sound began and you started peppering his face with kisses to the beat, leaving him sitting like a statue in shock. the only part of his that moved was the corner of his lips twitching up to form a large grin.

once the sound finished, you snaked your arms under his and chest your head against his chest for a moment before grabbing your phone to watch the video, allowing tendō to peer over your shoulder and watch it too. then, he realised how insanely wide his smile was, “are you gonna post that?”

“not if you don’t want me to.” you hummed against his chest, feeling his slender fingers slip through your hair to cradle the back of your head and hold it tight against his chest.

“eh.” he shrugged. if you were to delete it, at least the world wouldn’t have to see him smiling like an idiot upon getting some sugar but if you were to post it, he’d be beyond flattered that you’d want to share you relationship publicly - it reassured him that you’re not embarrassed to be with him.

hajime iwaizumi

♡ while you do it, he just sits and stares at you like ◉_◉

♡ he has no idea what’s going on UIEFLAERN why are you filming while kissing him and lipsyncing to some guy with a hot accent??????

♡ bc he wants to do it back to you but he’s just frozen in shock for a moment

♡ but if you lipsync to the words, at the ‘you set my soul on fire’ part, he’d probably make a sarcastic comment like ‘you have one of those?’

♡ anyway, for the most part, he’s paralysed

♡ like he doesn’t want to do anything embarrassing on camera yet he’s also extremely confused so as soon as you pick up your phone and end the recording, he literally tackles you to the ground

♡ ‘WHAT THE FUCK?! DELETE THAT RIGHT NOW!! DON’T YOU DARE POST IT!’

♡ and he doesn’t just have hajime iwaizumi body btw- he’s got hajime iwaizumi (27) athletic trainer body

♡ so don’t expect to escape his grip unless he lets you

♡ but if you manage to get away with the video, plz don’t send it to any of his friends- they will tease him and use it as blackmail-

♥　♡　♥　♡　♥　♡　♥

you set your phone down on the coffee table then hit record, leaning back and shuffling even closer to iwaizumi on the couch. this caught his attention so his eyes momentarily shifted off the tv to look at you with a perplexed expression which became more prominent once he noticed that he was also being filmed.

“wha--” he cut himself off upon feeling your lips press against his forehead, then his cheek, then his chin; basically his whole face had felt your affection by the time the sound finished.

he was taken aback, to say the least. the whole thing went by in a blur - a pleasant blur, but a blur none the less. he was too busy enjoying the feeling of your soft lips against his skin to realise that his resting expression looked similar to the one he wore when walked in on matsukawa and makki comparing dick sizes in the changing room.

once you pulled away and grabbed your phone to watch the video, he got the opportunity to observe the stupid look he wore and he instinctively tried to snatch the phone from your hand. This resulting in him lying on top of you on the couch, suffocating you with his cologne, trying to grab your phone but the frantic flailing of your arms posed challenge.

“Gimme that damn phone! Don’t you dare send that to anyone! Did you see my fac--”

“Iwa, get the fuck off me!” you wheezed, your voice muffled from his beefy chest being pushed against your face.

RIP (Y/N). Cause of death: Iwaizumi Hajime’s muscles

kōtarō bokuto

♡ whenever you start filming him, he immediately goes like :)

♡ but then when you sit down next to him and film y’all together then he goes like :D

♡ THEN WHEN YOU START COVERING HIS FACE WITH KISSES TO A CUTE-ASS SOUND, HE’S LIKE 🥰

♡ but fr, he melts

♡ you’re just so damn cute

♡ he doesn’t really question what you are doing, he just enjoys it

♡ he probably wraps his arms around your waist too and tries give you kisses back

♡ oh! and if you repeat what they guy in the audio says (’i love you’ & ‘you set my soul on fire.’), bokuto will say the same back 🥺

♡ pulls you onto his lap if you weren’t already sitting on him

♡ he insists that you post it, no matter how silly either of you look - he wants the world to see how in love you two are

♥　♡　♥　♡　♥　♡　♥

you plop yourself down next to him as soon as you hit record on your phone then immediately began placing kisses all over bokuto’s face and if you wasn’t grinning like an idiot before, he sure was now.

“I love you!” you tried to do the accent while desperately stifling a giggle, continuing to peck his cheek, “you set my soul of fire-”

you were forced to pause as bokuto caught your lips in his own, pressing down on the small of your back to deepen the kiss, “i love you more, baby! you set my soul on fire too - whatever that means.” he exclaimed, all while wearing a wide, toothy grin.

once you finally pull away to grab your phone, you held it in between you and bokuto so he could watch it along with you. he bounced giddily in place, squeezing your other hand tightly, “you’re precious, (y/n).” he muttered before pumping his fists and cheering, “post it! post it! post it! post it!”

issei matsukawa

♡ you tried this on him while he was studying chemistry and although neither of you thought much of it in the moment, he’ll never forgive you bc he ended up failing his chem test 😭

♡ anyway

♡ he questions what you are doing at first but when he hears the sound, he realises what trend you’re doing immediately (bc i hc that he lowkey has a social media addiction)

♡ so he just sits there with this cocky ass smirk on his face while you shower him with your love

♡ not bc he’s unappreciative - like he think you’re cute as hell - but if you’re gonna post it, he wants to look cool, yk?

♡ also he wants to just keep up his nonchalant attitude towards all physical touch

♡ yes, even sex

♥　♡　♥　♡　♥　♡　♥

you propped your phone up on the water bottle sat on his desk and stood a seat on his lap, to which he gladly welcomed as he slipped his arm around your waist to hold you in place as you straddled him.

your hands cupped his face so he looked you in the eye, hence he dropped his pencil and slammed the brakes on whatever studying he was doing as nothing was more important to him them tending to your prettyself.

once you began pecking him along with lipsyncing along to words the guy said, he just stared at you with a smug smirk gracing his features, humming lowly in agreement whenever you’d say anything. of course, he ensured that his head was angled in a way that the camera got the holy sight of his sharp jawline.

his gazed at you though hooded lips, staying frozen in place until your eventually picked up your phone, swiftly deleting the video with a pouty expression. “hey- whatcha going? why ya deleting it? did you see my jaw?” he asked, clearly offended.

“you’re so boring, issei.” you whined, trying to conceal the fact your pout was slowly becoming a smile. “You were supposed to rail me, that’s the whole point of the trend.” you joked, not expecting for matsukawa’s hand to immediately latch onto your throat, “hah, well, you could’ve just asked nicely, doll.”

shōhei fukunaga

♡ he kinda just chuckles at first

♡ but as you continue, he’ll jerk his head around with his lips pursed to try capture your lips with his

♡ he’s honestly not sure what he’s supposed to do so please guide him

♡ i’d say he seems like the sorta guy to hate being filmed but post-timeskip, he’s a comedian so he’d probably try put on a show for the camera

♡ maybe subtly massage the back of your head, perhaps he’ll bite his bottom and give you ✨the look✨, or he’ll hold your jaw and longingly gaze at you- who knows?

♡ anything to keep you entertained （づ￣3￣）づ╭❤～

♡ WRUGETG BUT WHATEVER HE DOES, HE’S GONNA CRINGE IMMEDIATELY AFTER AND REGRET IT ><

♡ like you’ll try show him the video but he just turns away and covers his eyes like 😑 ‘no i don’t want to see’

♡ if you try post it though he will go feral

♡ probably tickles you, snatches your phone then deletes it

♥　♡　♥　♡　♥　♡　♥

you clutched you phone as you looked at fukunaga dreamily while recording yourself. the noticed your odd behaviour but once he realised you were also recording, he just thought, ‘ah, that explains it.’

but what he didn’t expect was for you pounce on him then start covering his face in kisses. at first, he crinkles his nose and chuckled but just as you were about to say the second bit of dialog, an idea hit him. so without thinking, he gripped your throat then flipped y’all over so he was now on top, then he pressed his lips against your forehead while making the ‘mwah’ sound effect.

this took you by surprise so the last frame of the video was of you looking truly shocked and him looking down on your with a suggestive smirk - which was followed up by a sweet kiss but the video cut off before that.

you both stared at the video as it replayed, neither of you liking what you were seeing.

fukunaga was the first one to mention it though as he scrambled off you to grab your phone, “gimme that! you’re camera makes me look so weird.” you allowed him to yank your phone from your hands as you folded your hands behind your head, “my camera. sure.”

“sh-”

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infinite-xerath · 3 years

Text

Runeterra Retcons 8: Kog’Maw

I’ll be honest: when people consider Champions that could use a lore rewrite or update, Kog’Maw is probably far from the top of the list. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if this was Riot’s thought process as well. Kog’Maw is another case similar to Twitch where his current story isn’t bad per se, but more-so that there isn’t really much there. His bio on universe consists of only two paragraphs, which obviously leaves him feeling a bit neglected compared to other Champions post-reboot…

Except it kind of doesn’t? While significantly shorter than most Champions’ bios, Kog’Maw’s actually more-or-less does what it needs to. See, Kog’Maw is a Voidborn, a monster born from the eldritch realm of all-consuming cosmic horrors who want nothing more than to see Runeterra and all of reality assimilated and wiped out. While champions from the Void have been shown to have capacity for intelligence, they’re all really just monsters at the end of the day with their only driving force being to consume and grow. They enter Runeterra for that express purpose and that will continue to be their only driving motivation until they either die or until the world ends.

Now, every Voidborn is slightly unique in the ways they go about consuming things. Cho’Gath eats stuff just to grow larger, whereas Kha’Zix eats to evolve, adapting the most useful traits and abilities of his prey. Vel’Koz absorbs the knowledge and information from what he disintegrates, while Rek’Sai eats primarily so that she can continue to multiple and spread her brood across Shurima. It is interesting how Riot made a bunch of monsters whose primary goal is literally just eating and gives each of them a unique twist on the act, and though Kog’Maw is little underwhelming in that department. To get what I mean, let’s take a look at his bio.

So Kog’Maw, similar to Vel’Koz, eats primarily to learn and satisfy his endless curiosity about the world. Kog’Maw is a little unique among the Voidborn in that he’s not malicious or apathetic, but rather possesses an almost childlike innocence that drives him to simply learn all he can. Unlike the others, it’s not clear if Kog’Maw really even understands the Void’s mission or purpose to destroy everything, making him arguably the most sympathetic Voidborn by far.

As things stand, Kog’Maw’s current bio says all it really needs to about his character… Well, all but one thing. Since his inception, Kog’Maw has always been somewhat special among the Voidborn, having a direct link of sorts to Malzahar. The only real change from his original bio is removing any mention of the Fields of Justice or the League itself, but the fact remains that Kog’Maw has always been driven to find Malzahar for some unexplained reason. He wasn’t directly summoned by the prophet like his Voidlings are, but rather, it seems like the Watchers sent Kog’Maw to Runeterra to find the prophet...

But that’s all we know. Seriously, even Kog’Maw’s bio literally says that it’s “anyone’s guess” what will happen when the two finally meet, which, knowing how League storylines rarely get to see a conclusion of any kind, will probably be never. What makes Kog’Maw so special? Why does he need to meet up with Malzahar? How does this acid-spitting Void dog pose more of a threat than the likes of Cho’Gath or Baron Nashor?

Today, that’s what I wanted to explore. I suppose you could say that this episode is less of rewrite or retcon, and more an expansion. I want to give Kog’Maw a more significant role in the story, and while we’re at it, continue the trend of giving him a unique reason to consume things that makes him stand out from the others. So, without further ado, let’s build upon the Mouth of the Abyss and finally give an answer to these age-old questions.

For eons, the Void has gnawed at the barrier between itself and reality, aiming to break through it to usher in the end of all things. The unfathomable horrors that rule over the Void have sent countless of their malformed spawn through cracks in the barrier to further their ambitions, and on occasion have even contracted humans desperate enough to become their heralds. The most prevalent of these heralds are the traitorous ice witch Lissandra and the Shuriman seer Malzahar, but none would ever suspect that the true key to oblivion is a lone Voidling simply known as Kog’Maw.

When Malzahar swore himself to the Void in the remnants of Icathia, the broken seer proved oddly compatible with the otherworldly powers of the Watchers. Just as the Void had called to him, the seer unknowingly called out to something in the depths of the Void. As Malzahar left Icathia behind him, a writhing, twisted creature emerged from the cracks in the earth. A strange, caustic substance secreted from this larva as it slowly took shape. Eventually, the creature formed a mouth and eyes, and found itself intrigued and perplexed with the strange new world around it.

For months, the Voidling wandered the wastes of Shurima alone, driven by a deep-rooted desire to find the one that had summoned him to this world. The more he wandered, the more he began to develop a taste for the unusual, fascinating creatures of Runeterra. Even as he sampled everything he could, however, the Voidling continued to search for the one who called for him. It wasn’t long before he encountered other humans, but they were of little help, offering screams rather than any means of finding the one who summoned him. In response, the Voidling simply melted and devoured those who proved otherwise unhelpful. Those who survived such encounters named the beast Kog’Maw: Mouth of the Abyss.

Having no luck with the caravans, Kog’Maw turned his attention to one of the strange human cities to resume his search. As expected, the humans all screamed and ran, but some, to his surprise, lashed out. Sharp objects pierced Kog’Maw’s flesh, leading to him retaliating with globs of acid that burned through the armor of his attackers. Despite the potency of his bile, though, Kog’Maw was outnumbered, and soon found himself surrounded by soldiers who all drove their sharp sticks into the Voidling’s hide.

In that moment, a violent explosion of energy burst forth from Kog’Maw’s body, consuming the soldiers and their weapons and leaving nothing behind. After that, everything was darkness.

Kog’Maw awoke hours later, alone in the desert once again. Though confused and hungrier than ever, Kog’Maw resumed his search with renewed resolve to find the one called Malzahar. He believes that the Void seer is the only one who can satisfy his curiosity and help Kog’Maw to understand the nature of the mysterious power that dwells within him. The more he consumes, the more this power grows… And all-the-while, Malzahar waits for the destined time when Kog’Maw will arrive before him, ready to unleash that power and tear open the veil of reality once and for all.

So, ominous, right? I admit, it’s still a little vague, but I’d like to think that the implications are clear enough without me flat-out saying it. Basically, in my rendition of the lore, Kog’Maw is a bomb.

One of Kog’Maw’s most notable but also most out-of-place abilities in-game is Icathian Surprise. This passive ability basically makes it so that Kog’Maw explodes when he dies, allowing him to deal True Damage to members of the enemy team. This ability is never brought up or referenced at all in the lore, and it’s certainly a strange ability to have for a creature who’s all about melting things down with acid.

So, crazy thought: what if we actually gave Icathian Surprise lore relevance? What if Kog’Maw’s ability to self-destruct is actually his main ability? He melts things down to eat them, and the more he eats, the more the power inside him grows and swells. When he’s killed, Kog’Maw unleashes that power in a violent explosion powerful enough to obliterate everything around him… And if he eats enough, that power could even become so strong as to blow open reality itself.

Yes, Kog’Maw is more than just an acid-spitting Void dog. In my interpretation of the lore, Kog’Maw is a doomsday weapon. His purpose for eating is to build up power, and when he’s consumed enough, Malzahar will bring him to Icathia. where the Void already has a foothold. There, the prophet slays Kog’Maw so that the resulting blast will widen the gap enough for the Void to begin its assault on Shurima once again. This is the prophet’s grand plan, and for now, all he has to do is let Kog’Maw wander and feast…

The one silver lining is that if Kog’Maw dies prematurely, all the power he’s already built up is released and he has to start over from scratch. This, I think, is a much more interesting direction to take the character and gives him a much deeper significance in the Void plot overall. I also really like the idea that, despite seeming like the weakest Void Champion in the game, Kog’Maw is arguably the most dangerous because of his true purpose. I suppose I’m just a sucker for the trope of relatively harmless-looking characters possessing terrifying hidden powers deep down.

But, that’s my take on it. What do you guys think? Does Kog’Maw work as a secret doomsday weapon for the Void, or do you prefer to keep him vague and more comedic? Leave your thoughts below, and I’ll see you all next time.

#Kog'Maw #League of Legends #Runeterra Retcons

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shepscapades · 4 years

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Yogscast Starter Pack/Master Post

Hello!! I’ve had quite a few people express interest in exploring the Yogscast’s content recently! The yogs fandom’s source of content is a little hard to pin down and it’s kind of a lot of information, so I wanted to put together a more thorough compilation of summaries and places to start for anyone who’s not sure or just curious! Below the cut is my Yogscast Start Kit Master PostTM.

I hope this helps, and don’t hesitate at all if you have any questions :)

Who are the Yogscast?

The Yogscast is a large group of youtubers who have a history of creating largely Minecraft-based content; they create stories, develop characters, and create lore-filled worlds through the many facets of minecraft that’s essentially been modded to hell.

This content isn’t just in one place or with one group of people, but rather a large collection of pairs, individuals, and groups of yogscast (and non-yogscast) members who’ve created a large number of respective series, often featuring a specific modpack, specific characters, a specific storyline, etc.

For example, Simon and Lewis (Honeydew and Xephos are their characters, respectively) are the main two individuals that started the Yogscast youtube channel, Duncan later joins them, they become the main three yogscast icons, sips and sjin become the secondary two, and it goes on and on as the fanbase and number of creators grew. This means that, collectively, there are a…. STUPID large amount of different minecraft series that can technically be filed under “yogscast minecraft lore/ universe”.

Most of their series are unscripted, but they follow general arcs or set goals (e.g. going to space, building a jaffa cake factory, becoming proficient at a specific mod, etc). This allows hilarity to ensue when everything inevitably doesn’t go anyone’s way lmao

Oh cool, w. where am I supposed to even start, then

Compilations are always a good go-to if you’re interested in getting a feel for personalities, humor, and content style (I recommend looking up Yogscast Ultimate Edition videos!). If you’re just looking for a place to dive in, you’ve got a couple of options! I’ve sorted everything below by creator, as most yogs creators tend to do series within a specific set or group of people.

MAIN CREATORS & THEIR SERIES:

Lewis (Xephos) and Simon (Honeydew): These two are the “main two” figure heads of the yogscast! They started the main Yogscast channel about a decade ago and started their minecraft beginnings with the infamous series “Shadow of Israphel.” Xephos, the Spaceman and the one with the braincell, and Honeydew, the dwarven brawn and charisma of the two, also often team up with Duncan, as the three of them are featured in some of the Yogs’ most well-known minecraft series.

Shadow of Israphel – The OG series! Started all the way back when Minecraft was in beta, as soon as multiplayer became available. No mods, eventually scripted when NPCs are introduced. Hilarious interactions between NPCS and our heroes, and the nostalgic series that most every Yogs fan holds close to their heart!

The Jaffa Factory – Modpack: “Tekkit.” This was the first big modded minecraft series they did, and the beginning of the trend of hosting huge servers that almost every yog member hosted a different series on. Not scripted. Duncan (Lalna or Lividcoffee) joins them for the first time, and from this point on, they become a trio! unscripted and a mess. Sips and Sjin also eventually join!

Moonquest – Modpack: “MoonQuest.” Lewis, Simon, and Duncan attempt reaching the moon! It’s… in more than one way, a tad bit disastrous. This is the era when the Yogs started making songs and animations based off their minecraft series! (Watch this!) unscripted and disastrous.

Yoglabs – Simon and Lewis. This one was a weekly mod review that developed into some questionable behavior via Lewis (Xephos). Really enjoyable, not chronological (each episode is independent, more or less- you can watch out of order)! It spans most of the entirety of their time on youtube. Various mods, just Simon and Lewis. (Watch this!) Most episodes of this series end up with Simon blowing up Yoglabs tbh

Duncan (Lividcoffee, or Lalna) and Kim (Nanosounds): Lalna, or lividcoffee, is the well-known mad scientist of the server! His personality tends to change depending on the context and series, but when he’s with kim, he’s a friendly goof! Kim/Nano, his apprentice, starts as a true-to-definition noob at minecraft and eventually becomes a pro with magics and whatever Lalna happens to teach her! These two have their own narrative and call their storyline series “Flux Buddies,” which involves them trying to cure Kim’s infection of a magic substance called “Flux.” Good Duo. Pure. Eventually, drama with clones ensue!

The Apprentice – Their first series, in the “Tekkit” Era. It’s worth noting that Duncan has a solo series in the “Tekkit” Era called Duncan’s Laboratory as a precursor to The Apprentice as well. The apprentice is worth checking out just to see what happens to Kim, how she becomes fluxed, and what the aftermath is, but that’s p much it imo. Primarily unscripted, save for when Nano becomes fluxed!

Flux Buddies – Flux Buddies is the biggest/longest-running series, with several “seasons”. It begins after the events of The Apprentice, with…

Flux Buddies – Panda Labs! Kim explores witchcraft, they explore several different facets of science and magic, and Duncan begins the search on how to unflux kim! It’s kind of his fault, so he feels pretty bad about it,,

Flux Buddies 2,3, and 4 – A continuation, with more mods and more hijinks! Becomes more scripted as villain characters Lalnable Hector and Specimen 5 (clones of Lalna and Nano) are introduced!

Flux Baddies – A spinoff, featuring Lalnable and Specimen 5 as the main duo! Half scripted; an evil perspective on the Flux Buddies plot! This series is hilarious because half the time Duncan and Kim are trying to get stuff done, and half the time they’re trying (struggling) to stay in character as the mega bad-guys of the series.

Sips and Sjin: Sips and Sjin are the famous, much loved duo of the yogscast! These two are the, er. Magnificent, definitely not gay at all nope,, duo in charge of ‘Sips Co.,’ the Dirt Company! CEO Sips and his lackey Sjin (<also architect and farmer) are an absolute disaster. But like,, in the best way possible. They spend the majority of their time in each series bantering instead of getting anything done, but everyone accepts that its just part of the charm.

Sipsco. (Sips and Sjin Tekkit) – Modpack: “Tekkit.” This occurs at the same time as the Jaffa Factory! Sips and Sjin build up their dirt empire whilest also making sure to spy on and keep an eye on those weird Jaffa Factory goons and their girl scout cookies. Unscripted and hilarious! These two eventually go over and join the Jaffa Factory boys (Honeydew, Xeph, and Lalna!)

(Most of Sips and Sjin’s series follow the same formula: Get started, joke around, never really finish the series. Even still, they’re iconic to watch and enjoyable to listen to C: This goes for):

Volts – IMPORTANT NOTE: if you decide not to watch any of sips and sjin, just watch this. somehow this is completely unscripted, but THE BEST

Sipsco Space Program – Occurs at the same time as “Moonquest”. These dopes try to get to Mars. Clone hijinks eventually ensue, briefly. Unscripted

Cheat Police – A pun on the series “Magic Police” (In which Sjin and Duncan attempt to jail all of the most powerful mages on the server). They try to call out all of the “cheaters” on the server. The dopes fool around in creative mode while trying to call out everyone else who uses creative mode.

Zoey and Rythian: These two only have one series, but it’s one of the yogscast’s most known! Rythian, the serious, vengeful, loner-type endermage and hater of science, recruits Zoey as his apprentice (goofy, friendly, passive, interested in both science and magic)! These two are complete opposites but a much-loved duo!

The Blackrock Chronicle – Three short seasons long, this series follows Rythian as he recruits Zoey (and their sharpshooting, mute dinosaur, Teep,) to get payback and revenge on Sjin and Duncan for nuking and destroying the “old world” (The first tekkit server, unrecorded). He’s also determined to prove to them the superiority of his magic and the flaws of science; conflict arises when Zoey, his mage apprentice, also expresses interest in becoming a scientist. This series’ events are scripted, and includes cameos of many other loveable yogs folks (including Nilesy, Duncan, Ravs, and Zylus n Daltos).

^This one is a must-watch for sure!! A very heart felt and endearing series!

Strife and Parvis: These two, another well known duo by the fandom, are a fun pair for sure! (They’re my personal favorite, so I’m a tad bit biased,,) William Strife is a no-nonsense, cutthroat business man and CEO of his solutions company, Strife Solutions. Not particularly fond of magic. Alex Parvis, absolutely-all-of-the-nonsense guitarist, chaotic newby who Strife hires? Adopts? Is burdened with? Strife is forced to teach Parv the ways of minecraftia and whatnot, much to Strife’s chagrin. Parv becomes a very chaotic bloodmage.

Solutions in Chaos – Their first series, taking place in the Chaosville server. Will, arriving for the first time ever in minecraftia, begins to explore the region before Parvis shows up, exclaiming that lewis sent him to be taught minecraft by strife. Strife now must babysit this child and teach him minecraft. Hilarity and much exasperation ensues.

Blood and Chaos – Following Parv’s series with Martyn (Inthelittlewood) ‘Heroes of Mine’ (in which they explore Ars Magica), Parv finds Blood Magic Items and insists that Strife helps him become the most powerful blood mage on the server! Strife does not approve At All n doesn’t really wanna be involved in this whatsoever, but he thinks parv will either destroy himself or destroy the server If someone doesn’t keep an eye on him. So, Mr. Strife must continue to babysit this now dangerous knife-wielding child.

Hat Films: Smith (Alsmiffy), Trott (Trottimus), and Ross (djh3max): These three are a TRIP and have a large fan base of their own. They’re an inseparable gang of swindlers and chaos bringers, and they’re pretty much all sharing the same single braincell. They make everyone else’s business their own business, as their motto is “what’s yours is ours,” and prove themselves to be the havoc-wreaker of whatever server they happen to be on.

Hat Corp – This is their first main minecraft series that features them interacting (aka messing) with other people on the server. From “"fairly”” selling land to all of the other groups of people on the server, to starting a dangeorus rivalry with the Flux Buddies, they’re. 100% disaster energy.

Hannah (Lomadia) and Nilesy: Very wholesome good duo! They tend to explore the magic mods, most of the time with Lomadia (powerful witch, owl lady!) teaching Nilesy what’s what. Nilesy is a just a simple cat lad. Likes to sell portable pools, he’s a potion master, he’s a man of the cats.

Evicted – After being evicted from their Tekkit base ‘owl island’ as pirates took over their home, Nilesy and Hannah leave to set up base elsewhere and focus on Witchcraft!

The following series’, Owl Island and Cat Island, are very similar in caliber! Just our wholesome magic animal loving duo doing witch stuff c:

Kirindave, Lyinginbedmon, and Ridgedog: The last extremely notable lore-heavy minecraft characters making appearances on yogscast minecraft servers are regarded as the “demigods” of the yogs minecraft universe. Though they don’t necessarily do a lot of content together, I grouped them together for relevancy sakes. Kirin and Lying, both mod developers and masters at their respective magical crafts, have a bit of a rivalry going on, where as Ridgedog is the kind of “trickster” demigod, doing what he pleases and happily poking fun or messing around with others as he does so. They’re all a lot of fun to listen to and their series are all super interesting, so I’ve listed a few below!

Ridgedog: Yogscast Complete – Ridge sets up his base and plays by his own rules to become extremely proficient at a majority of mods in the server. He’s hilarious, plays largely by his own rules, and often does content with BeBopVox, another gaming and songwriting youtuber.

Kirindave: Chaosville and Minecraft the Hard Way – Chaosville sees the development of his rivalry with Lying as Kirin masters blood magic and other magics on the server, and Minecraft the Hard Way is the series following that!

Lyinginbedmon: You can find the opposite perspective of the Chaosville rivalry in Lyings Chaosville S2. As Lying masters witchery, he and Kirin have a dangerous magically fueled ““prank”” war. Lying’s Witch in the Woods follows suit just like Kirin’s Minecraft the Hard Way.

#yogscast #yogscast start pack #I finally updated it and made it a bit more elaborate #hopefully it makes some sense and isn't too complicated???#aaa

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flamerunn3r · 29 days

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Ok making this as a new post bc I adjusted a couple of minor things on these. In the order I drew them in, heres the great p5u au design post finalized after working on these on and off for like 5 months

This is my own personal interpretations but is also somewhat speculative in nature. I'm mostly trying to use already established characterizations and arena epilogue set ups as a branching off point but there might be stuff I've missed or forgotten (i also haven't played dancing yet sorry if there's something in there I hadn't accounted for). This is kind of like if I took the creative reigns on the story where I'd continue with it. Only the investigation team for now but maybe I'll do the shadow ops at some point.

Yu Narukami

He's currently either attending school as a journalism student in the city or just starting out as one. Enthusiastic about his field but still tries to find the time to keep up with his friends and visit Inaba when he's free. I felt journalism made alot of sense for him with the themes of persona 4. I liked the sport jacket and turtleneck but wanted something different so the scarf was chosen to keep the same kind of silhouette. I made the collar on the winter coat large and I feel like Narukami's large uniform collar is a key part of his design. and I wanted to call back to that in his casual outfit. The summer outfit I kept close to his summer outfit from p4. I mostly wanted to keep his outfits smart and simple. For his meta verse outfit I really wanted to go all out with the bancho (kingpin) stuff and other delinquent tropes. I lengthened the uniform coat a little because I wanted it to look like a tokko-fuku. Alot of smaller detail inspiration was taken from Izanagi. The lenses in the mask are supposed to mimic glasses. I'd imagine he'd take off the mask the same way he throws off his glasses at the end of P4.

Teddie

I can't imagine him leaving Inaba and the TV world behind. Still staying in Inaba and working largely the same job. He's got his own place now albeit small (still a step up from the closet though). At some point the IT asked Mitsuru to pull some strings so he actually has a legal personhood now. The animal hoodie is something that came to me spontaneously but I knew I needed to include it. I really that his normal outfit in 4 keeps the white and red of the bear costume in the outfit so I tried to keep the colour scheme here too. Most of his later outfits are less flashy and more casual so I tried to continue that trend. I didn't want to lose the rose from the corsage completely so I included a rose pattern in the second shirt. Alot of his outfits feature light blue so I wanted to feature that. (I considered making the hoodie light blue initially) I don't think he'd have a metaverse outfit he'd just use the bear costume.

Naoto Shirogane

I'm under the assumption Naoto is still presenting masculinely to the general public as of p5 but I may be mistaken. (If I'm wrong I'd still probably largely keep the outfits largely similar to this.) Naoto's still working as a detective and I don't think that's ever really going to change. One thing that a hypothetical p5u would have to address is what Naoto and the shadow ops would have been doing during the events of persona 5 but I haven't worked that out yet

I feel alot of the appeal of Naoto's design is the kind of boy detective fashion. I went at this design with the intention of kind of refining that into something a little more adult while still keeping in a similar vein. I did have to ditch the pageboy hat unfortunately as I felt it made them look too young. These outfits were kind of designed as pseudo work clothes which is why I tried to make them a bit more formal. Something I consider notable about Naoto's design that I deliberately avoided here was the rolled up pant legs. It's very obvious in 4 it's done because Naoto is short but I feel like Naoto would start getting that either custom made or tailored to fit. I was initially going to forgo the blazer on the summer outfit but the design felt empty without it. Naoto having a noir detective themed metaverse outfit is an idea I'd had for years but I tried to incorporate design elements that were princely. I alot of the inspiration was from Sam Spade specifically. Deliberately made similarities to Akechi's white crow design. The band around the hat is supposed to invoke the similar one on the old page boy hat.

Yukiko Amagi

Still working at her families in but is taking online schooling during the less busy seasons. She's mostly happy where she is but is keeping her options open. Occasionally makes visits to other ryokans out of town for ideas for her families own inn, as well as an opportunity to for her to sight-see.

Rise Kujikawa

Canonically still making music as an idol as of p5. She thankfully has a little more time to herself now then she did at the height of her popularity but shes still enjoying herself and her career.

I really liked her epilogue design having her hair down because it feels alot more relaxed. I feel she probably stop wearing the pigtails as regularly outside of work as time goes on. I went for a more casual relaxed style for her in for her general casual wear, but I still wanted a kind of cute vibe.

Wanted her to have two metaverse outfits mostly because I wanted her to have this little magical girl transformation thing when she fights. But I also think it kind of emphasizes her thing in arena with Himiko about having different sides of herself. Tried to keep them visually similar. General coloursheme of these were inspired by the album cover she has in p5 bc I really liked the kind of more mature vibe to it then weve been shown with her previous idol stuff.

Himiko kind of has this like emphasis on a lack of mobility with the mermaid dress so I ended up using this with Rise as well bc I thought it would be fitting for a navigator. I based the battle outfit mostly on her idol oufits from the anime and DaN. I was really unsure the direction to go with for the mask but I wanted it to be two-toned to emphasize the multiple faces thing again and I like what I ended up with.

Yosuke Hanamura

Studying in the city and struggling to juggle college and a part time job. I'm unsure on what he'd major in but he's paying his own way through college. He's working at either a Junes branch or a Triple Seven or something. I think he's rooming with someone in a rented apartment currently (either Narukami or someone outside the IT. Leaning towards the latter)

I'm trying to go for outfits that are like flashy but still pretty casual and I think I did an alright job. Darker colour pallete in his outfits here then the p4 ones but I think it works. The headphones being wireless was an immediate obvious design choice I thought of as a way to show the difference in time period (sounds weird to talk about it like that since its like 5 years difference but it is what it is/)

I went for this kind of tropey ninja/super hero thing with his metaverse outfit. The primarily black colour was something I also chose for this reason. The tools on the belt are also kind of typical in this regard. The headphones were something I felt was integral to his design so I had to include them. Charge suggested the googles as a mask idea and I think it works really well.

Kanji Tatsumi

Continuing the family business as well as expanding to sell his work online. Generally doing fairly well for himself, rightfully confident in his work. I feel like he's probably tried out a few things when it comes to his personal style before settling where he is now. Has gone back and forth quite a few times on his hair but eventually decided on keeping in black.

Going to be honest I sketched this out after Naoto's but ended up psyching myself out of working on it for a while. Anyway I went at this with this kind of idea of trying to like soften the though guy aspect of Kanji's appearance without losing them. I did try out a couple of other hairstyles but I couldn't come up with something else that felt right.

The Metaverse Design was initially going to have more samurai inspiration but it ended up only coming through with the mask in the end. Deliberately harkening back to his initial design with this but I feel like it's warrented because Kanji's fashion in 4 is as much a facade to keep people away as it is just his own personal taste.

Chie Satonaka

Still pursuing police work around the Yasoinaba area. I think all the IT are signed on with the Shadow Operatives in case of emergency but Chie is more actively involved with the Operatives then the rest of the IT as she actively asks and tries to be. Still talks to Akihiko fairly regularly as well (mostly exchanging texts).

Generally with her everyday outfits I mostly wanted to keep it sporty but relaxed. Deliberately made these a little less overtly feminine then her p4 outfits because I feel like she'd grow more confident in herself not being as feminine as her peers. Tried to keep an article of clothing the same between the two of these outfits to call back to the jersey she was wearing in 4. I considered having her not continue to dye her hair but I didn't feel like Chie once I changed her hair colour so it gets to stay the same.

Her metaverse outfit takes inspiration from kung fu uniforms, particularly the pants. The chest plate is styled after a hotoke dou albeit shortened. Charge also came up with the mask for this one; a blindfold to invoke the idea of a uber competent blinded martial artist, the fabric here is sheer though. The shoes on this design are not necessarily finalized as they are not technically part of the outfit. They are her weapons and would change as such like in the rpg.

Ok that's all for now. Glad to finally have this done

#persona 4 #ul #most of this text is copy pasted from the original post if you've seen that already #its late sorry if some of this doesn't read correctly.#feel free to leave asks as well if you want more like clarification or whatever #I do have like a loose plot for this but i didn't want to write it out rn #2023 #2024

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bespectacled-panda · 3 years

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after seeing dumpywoof’s post I was inspired to do a tier list of my own!!! and boy howdy do I have some hot takes of the century it turns out,,,

the seasons are more or less organized in descending order within the same row as well (e.g. MC 4 > MC 5). also, shamefully copying dumpywoof & putting a detailed & overly verbose explanation for each season:

S Tier

Terraria 3: For me, absolutely nothing compares to Terraria 3. No other season combines such perfect participant dynamics with such heart-wrenching drama—not to mention the existence of Team New Kids who make me cry on a daily basis, or the incredible fake twist ending. It would be a sin to put this season anywhere but alone at the very top. Also props for being the only (1 of 2) post-show that actually includes all of the cast.

A Tier

Minecraft 4: This is the best season for shenanigans alone, hands-down. It’s largely just the participants shooting the shit together, especially in the latter half of the season when it gets down to just the four of them. & I have a huge soft spot for men being wholesomely foolish together I suppose, so here it goes fhdhfhd.

Minecraft 5: To be honest, I have not seen this season since it released, which is a crime, I know, I’m sorry :orb: But I remember it being very very good, & I cannot imagine my taste will have changed that dramatically in just a few years, so. in truth, this one might be actually better than MC 4, but as I have not seen it in many years I can’t say that for certain. Either way, though, it’s definitely one of the best seasons out there.

MineZ 1: To me, MineZ 1 is the reverse of MC 4: low on shenanigans & high on drama. It’s pre-Todd era, but the editing in this one is honestly Todd-level, I would say. It’s so incredibly tense, especially the scene with McJones & PBG trying to escape the caves, and I feel like the sheer stress of it all brought out a new side of a lot of the participants, most notably Dean—who sounded genuinely agonized at times. A very very quality season all around, IMO.

Terraria 2: This season probably objectively deserves to be B tier, but I am it giving A tier for personal bias. I just,,, love the dynamics okay. Jeff & McJones especially made for a killer duo. It was a rare instance of McJones being the funny man himself rather than being the straight man to someone else’s funny man; he was super uncharacteristically goofy & almost borderline flirtatious at times, it really made for some good moments fhdhfjd. Plus then you got McJones solo commentary at the end which I greatly enjoyed. Just,, a very enjoyable season, very mid-HC era, very light & easy to watch, all that good stuff.

Diablo II: Man,,,,this absolutely 100% does not deserve A tier, I know, I’m sorry, but I just can’t bring myself to put it lower. I have A tier love for it :orb: Admittedly, the game is horrendously ugly and confusing to watch, but the shenanigans + the cast dynamics win me over in the end. Paul especially was great in this, & I hope he makes a return someday. Loving fathers Paul & Jirard with their sorceress son McJones making their way through the end-game just cannot be beaten. (Anti-shoutouts to Ross though, I don’t know anything about him, I am sure he is a lovely man, but GOD. WHY DID HE KEEP RUNNING OFF ON HIS OWN & GETTING LOST BUT THEN FORCEFULLY REFUSING HELP,,, ROSS YOU ARE THE WORST DHDHFJDJD)

B Tier

Minecraft 7: Boy,,, this is going to be a controversial take fhhfjdjf. I just don’t know how to explain it, but something about MC7 felt,,,, Very off. I don’t know what it was, just something about the season seemed very,,, almost like you could tell things were falling apart behind the scenes, & they were trying to pull it back together but weren’t quite succeeding. It’s not a bad season in any regards, of course, I just,, don’t enjoy it nearly as much as a lot of others,, it’s missing that crucial spark of life in my opinion,, also Dean leaving to go to work was kind of strange,, I get it, it’s probably difficult to work around his real-life job,, but it felt strange,, he got like temporary immunity. Nothing like that had ever happened before I don’t think. And also they never even explained why Dean wasn’t there for like three episodes fjdjfjhd,,

Minecraft 3: God I feel like I just keep digging myself into a deeper & deeper hole here fhsjfjd,,, but man, I did like MC3 to be honest. It wasn’t the best season, it kind of went nowhere, but I liked the cast & there was a lot of good funnymoments. Smooth & Shane were very good guests who I feel like really rounded out the season, & Jontron did not come off as terribly overbearing as I believe that he has in other seasons. Overall, pretty decent, I’d say.

C Tier

Minecraft 2: MC 2 & MC 3 are very similar, but I think MC 2 is slightly worse, both in terms of entertainment & cast. NCS & Kyrak did not hit like Smooth & Shane did,,, and I feel like just everything that happened in this one was fairly forgettable. I was torn as to whether this should be a B or a C, but I put it here in the end just to drive home that I really don’t like it as much as MC 3, I don’t believe.

Minecraft 6: Oh lord, this is a nuclear take fhdjfjd. Again, this isn’t a bad season at all, it has its good moments, especially Chad & Dodger, they are angels & I love them & want them back. But boy,,, just. Many things went wrong here. None of the twists panned out like,, at all, which I know isn’t necessarily anyone’s fault, the concept of this twist & of twists in general is very good. But it fell so flat here, especially with the revival. There was,, no debate at all about what to do. They hyped it up like they had this big decision to make, but then nobody made any effort to dramatize it at all. It was basically just Dean deciding by himself and everyone just sitting back & letting him. For the record, I have no qualms with the fact that Dodger was revived, I fully agree that she deserved it over McJones, but it was not played well at all IMO,,, I do have to admit, though, with a fair amount of sheepishness, that the thing that most sullies this season for me is McJones’s death. Just,,, his horrible, so so avoidable, insanely early death, coupled with his retirement shortly thereafter & him becoming so jaded with hc that he expressed borderline hostility & hatred towards it just,,, hurts. I kinda don’t wanna see the events of MC 6 now knowing the aftermath. I understand fully that this particular point is not something most people care about to say the least dhfhdjd, but,,, in all honesty, I really don’t have any desire to rewatch this one, as objectively good as it might be. It was a win but it felt like a loss, if that makes sense. Also the post-show lacked all three people I actually wanted to hear from fhdjfjd neither the two people who could’ve been revived nor the actual person who did the reviving were there to share their insight & perspectives on it :pensive:

D Tier

Starbound: man,,, starbound. This is a very mixed bag for me. On one hand, I disagree with people who say that it was boring or that nothing happened, I found it very tense, Todd’s editing had me on edge throughout every episode. But on the other hand,,, man. Very few memorable moments, what even happened in this one,, also I feel like the game mechanics/plot weren’t explained very well, I feel like I remember being vaguely confused all the time as to what was happening. Probably will not ever rewatch either.

Have Not Seen

DayZ: I will not ever be watching this season both because I do not know anything about DayZ & because from what I’ve heard it was an absolute disaster, I’m just not interested in getting involved in that fhdhfjdk

Terraria 1: There’s not really a reason I haven’t watched this one. Just,, I haven’t made my way down to the earliest seasons yet. Although as mentioned before, I have seen a few clips of this season, & Jontron seems to be pretty obnoxious in this one, so I don’t how much I’ll enjoy the parts with him in it, but I definitely do want to watch it someday.

Minecraft 1: The same as Terraria 1, I just happen to not have seen this one by chance. But unlike T1, I am much more looking forward to actually watching it, it seems really good, I want to experience that legendary very first season at last dhdhfjd

MineZ 2: Man,,, many things about the behind-the-scenes of this season make me sort of uncomfortable honestly. Just,,, the visceral second-hand shame & embarrassment of someone in the hc fandom being so rude & bothersome to the cast,, somehow it makes me feel personally responsible even though I didn’t do anything fhdjfj,,, Also,, once again continuing with the trend of me being saddened by McJones expressing dislike for seasons fhdjfjd,, I do recall him saying, regarding this season, something like “I think it would’ve been better if we just never did this,” which,,, ow. That doesn’t make me particularly enthused to watch it fhdjfjd. I probably will end up watching this season someday to be honest, but I’m not looking forward to feeling the cast’s frustration & unhappiness with the situation,, (EDIT: I want to be clear that there is no actual drama surrounding minez 2!!! it is a perfectly fine season, there is nothing wrong with it, it just happens that I personally am bothered by the fact that there was a lot of like,,, frustration coming from the participants regarding the player who was stalking them. this in no way means that minez 2 is an objectively bad or problematic season!! if minez 2 is your favorite season I completely respect you, there is nothing wrong with that!! there is a lot to like about the season as a whole!!! I just personally care too much about mcjones having a bad time in seasons bc it’s what ultimately led to his retirement, & that makes me sad fjdhfjdjd. but it has come to my attention that my wording made it sound like there was drama about minez 2, which there never actually was, I am very very sorry for my unintentional yet poor choice of words.)

#私がポストしたもの #about time I have a 'my own posts' tag #I hardly make them but they do exist from time to time #also god. good lord this is so long.#get me talking about pbg hc & I just won't ever stop fhdhfhdh #shoutouts to anyone who actually reads this #also again. this is by no means my opinions on objective season quality. fhshfjdj #this is just my opinions on how much I personally like & would rewatch each season

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bladekindeyewear · 5 years

Link

Andrew has a post over here (or rather, “a message Hussie sent to the Perfectly Generic Podcast”) detailing his thoughts on the Epilogues, how he thought people would feel about them, and why he made them the way he did. Interesting read-- here are my thoughts as I was reading:

Wakraya -Today at 4:34 PM

Pst pst :3 We just got a statement from Hussie on the Epilogues if you ever feel ready to check that out

BlastYoBoots -Today at 5:00 PM

ooh

yeah if there's a link?

Wakraya -Today at 5:01 PM

https://www.reddit.com/r/homestuck/comments/cuywff/the_homestuck_epilogues_bridges_and_offramps_new/

BlastYoBoots -Today at 5:02 PM

yeah I was like "there's a HARDCOVER version?!??" trying to google what you described

Wakraya -Today at 5:02 PM

Oh yeah it just got announced recently, and this is what Hussie said about it, sent to the PGP people just a bit ago

BlastYoBoots -Today at 5:03 PM

collapsing the bubble, yeah... he understood all this pretty well

readin further

"it's heavily implied to be a piece of bridge-media" --definitely, so why... there couldn't possibly be a follow-up, could there? ...

"Our continued attention is the very property which incites new problems," -- yeah, I definitely understood that as a theme of the Epilogues... but it also felt like a slap in the face to everyone invested in those characters for that exact reason, and torturing us like that should give way to SOME kind of more settling payoff to offset it, right? right andrew?.....

"But "implied" is all it was. There was no immediate announcement for followup content, and I'm not announcing anything here yet either. More time was always going to be necessary to figure out what to do next, including what form it takes, the timing, and all those questions." --okay yeah that's... SANE. That's MORE sane than the follow-up to Homestuck it seemed to be implying, the creation half to the destruction half. Because as much as it seemed to be implying that with those ending sections, I really couldn't imagine a continuation to such a ridiculously saturated story as FEASIBLE; you couldn't possibly loop in anyone who wasn't into the first body of work in the first place. But... then why leave so many of the characters in such dire straits, unsatisfied, their happiness jeopardized even after the lesson was imparted about how our looking in damaged things?

"For now I think it was alright to just let things simmer for a while, and give people an extended period of time to meditate on the meaning of the epilogues and why they involved the choices they did. But regardless of anyone's conclusions about it, I can at least confirm that it WAS designed to feel like a bridge piece since its conception." ...I'm not, uh. ENTIRELY. sure. that Andrew understands. how paralyzingly invested we are in some of these characters. :neutral_face:

"Is it this way because an epilogue SHOULD be this way? No. It is this way because I thought that was the most suitable role for an epilogue to play in the context of the weird piece of media Homestuck has always been." Fair... but that was the impression the end of Homestuck gave us in the first place, right? Art and message over our feelings. That's been the strength AND curse of Andrew's work. His relentless artistic integrity. He's going to give the message he wants to give even if it kills us. :c

this mulling over how he played with "Intermission" is fun, spelling it all out and how eagerly he wanted to play with and subvert those tropes...

Wakraya -Today at 5:14 PM

Oh, keep going

You're going to like the end I feel

BlastYoBoots -Today at 5:15 PM

yeah all this is gonna go up on my blog if you let me

Wakraya -Today at 5:15 PM

Absolutely! :p

BlastYoBoots -Today at 5:16 PM

"So now the label "epilogue" has been toyed with in a similar way, and also in a manner which exposes an apparent flaw with the label. Or actually, just by using the label "epilogue" at all, it seems the story is admitting to an apparent flaw." --So how were those who DID interpret the ending of Homestuck as not addressing stuff that needed to be addressed supposed to interpret it, though? Those who needed a more explicit explanation of why Andrew was seeming to "toss aside" so much of what they cared about as stuff that "didn't matter"?

He knew those people existed... hence the outcry!

you can't deliver a message to those people with a mocking thrust, you've gotta be, hm... more delicate about it? IF, that is, you feel an obligation to those people in the first place

and I was never sure whether Andrew DOES....?

hmmmmmn

"It's already an unhinged implementation of the label before you even read it, which means it's probably time to get nervous about whether it satisfies your expectations about what the content existing under such a label should provide." Yes, you knew people were gonna get super nervous even before they cracked open the cover... and then you DELIVERED, rather intentionally, on some of their worst fears.....?

"My feeling is, there's almost no choice but to turn the conventional ideas associated with epilogues completely inside-out, because of the inherent contradictions involved with crossing the post-canon threshold and revealing that which was not meant to be known." Yes, and I understood Andrew was trying for that. But... um....... what about satisfaction? You gonna give us ANY comfort after that's been dealt with, that lesson imparted? Why throw all our feelings by the wayside after you've communicated that overall lesson?

"By deploying it as mock-fanfiction, and including other authors, I'm making an overt gesture that is beginning to diminish my relevance as the sole authority on the direction this story takes, what should be regarded as canon, and even introducing some ambiguity into your understanding of what canon means as the torch is being passed into a realm governed by fan desires." --Yes, I've read that really good tumblr post I won't bother linking (EDIT: because I can’t find it, or where I commented on it, it was probably in discord; could someone link that to me? the one that talked about how this epilogue posed as Fanfiction and took on those trappings but could never BE that, and how it was their opinion ((though not mine FYI)) that Andrew didnt understand that?) that expresses how the author's intervention into this "territory" ruins the effect that this sort of work is supposed to have, and how it can't be judged as similar, but given the stuff that Andrew was TRYING to get across -- the sort of, "freeing fanwork from the vestiges of canon" stuff and the other lessons he's alluding to in this very Reddit post -- he didn't have much choice in terms of presentation framework. Could it have been presented more elegantly, less fanon-hijacky? Sure, he ain't perfect... Could it have more explicitly endorsed other interpretations of so-called canon as more valid than this, or AS valid? Absolutely, but he's never been one to spell things out for us so plainly... Ah, but could it have ended in a way to give those of us so nervous about the work more SATISFACTION, less grief? THAT is an entirely DIFFERENT matter that I hope he answers as this post goes forward.... readin readin'.......

"If the epilogues really prove to be the bridge media they were designed to feel like, then I expect this trend to continue. The fanfiction format is effectively a call to action, for another generation of creators to imagine different outcomes, to submit their own work within the universe, to extend what happens beyond the epilogues, or to pave over them with their own ideas." True, but... gosh darn, Andrew, you coulda been more explicit with that. Especially with the potential pave-over-ability of it all. Expressing that a lot more explicitly would have gone to help smooth over a bunch of that one tumblr post I mentioned's concerns. :T

"It's also an opportunity for people to discuss any of the difficult content critically, and for fandom in general to continue developing the tools for processing the negative emotions art can generate." Yeah, I... have to admit, I'm not as good at dealing with negative content in media as I should be. And that's definitely part of what is making the fanbase feel stabbed in the heart, yeah, but..... again, it feels kind of as if Andrew does NOT understand how irrationally attached so much of the fanbase is to these characters and how irrationally overinvested in their happiness, and all of this feels kind of callous. :frowning:

Wakraya -Today at 5:27 PM

He's very aware of how powerfully a lot of people feel about it, with all he's gone through with the Fandom. He really is just like this isn't he?

BlastYoBoots -Today at 5:27 PM

"fandom is something which can develop better skills as well. Skills like critical discussion, dealing constructively with negative feelings resulting from the media they consume, interacting with each other in more meaningful ways, and trying to understand different points of view outside of the factions within fandom that can become very hardened over time." Hmn! That's...... true, yeah, but wow did you take a HAMMER to it instead of a scalpel

yeah

Andrew's always just

well it's like I said isn't it?

He's got that artistic vision, and even though he knows he's in an interaction with the fandom and shapes things to it by the design of the story, he is N O T compromising that artistic vision

even if it feels like a punch to the gut to us

immersion therapy :frowning:

not sure I can say whether that's right or wrong! only that it hurt XD

Wakraya -Today at 5:29 PM

It hurts, but he does understand.

Perhaps precisely because he understands, he pushes us to our limits

He doesn't matter if he loses part of his audience in the process- He wants to showcase a message.

Painful as it may be, that's kind of admirable in a stubborn way.

And when he delivers happiness, he does it in spades

BlastYoBoots -Today at 5:30 PM

yeah, he never cared about losing support because he said what he felt was necessary

Wakraya -Today at 5:30 PM

And if it is something actually like

Problematic

He does backpedal and fix things up

BlastYoBoots -Today at 5:31 PM

"But I don't see why it can't be an objective to try to improve fandom, just as creators can improve their work." --and he was DEFINITELY, DEFINITELY trying to improve the way members of the fandom treated a WHOLE BUNCH of different affectations of the Homestuck fanfiction in the community. that was something kind of admirable and insane throughout the epilogues... on the deeper scale, how he used the Roxy arc in Candy to at the end put the reader to task with "HEY!!! How do you know this wasn't how Roxy would canonically act in this situation? You don't know the inside of her head! ALL SORTS of stuff is valid! You can't use those reasons to point at certain fanfiction and call it BAD." And I do love that. With a more insane surface example, the dog dick stuff. Jesus. XD

"So now I'm looking to all of you on the matter of where to go next." --oh SHIT. :X

Well, there's a problem. XD

fuck, you can't just ASK us what we want XDDD

"Wherever the most conscientious and invested members of fandom want to drive this universe, as well as the standards by which we engage with media in general, that will be the direction I follow." mother FUCK

well, now the pressure's on. god help us all XD

time to post this

#Homestuck #Epilogue #Homestuck Epilogue #upd8 #Andrew Hussie #spoiler #spoilers #Homestuck Spoilers #Epilogue Spoilers

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xhxhxhx · 4 years

Text

“The Only Real Exception”

After writing about the education-polarization thesis and the future of Europe and Asia, I was curious: Has Japan polarized? One of Thomas Piketty’s students studied the question. They came to a surprising answer.

As Western Europe and North America have become increasingly polarized around education and income, Japan has actually depolarized.

Western Europe and Japan started in different places. In Western Europe, the educated classes traditionally supported parties of the right. In postwar Japan, they supported parties of the left. They moved in different directions. In Western Europe, the educated moved left. In Japan, they moved right.

From Amory Gethin, “Cleavage structures and distributive politics”:

7.6 The end of ‘cultural politics’

One of the other specificities of Japanese electoral behaviour is the fact that higher educated individuals have continuously supported left-wing parties, especially during the twenty years following the end of World War II. The historical strength of education levels in predicting party choice in Japan is well-known: it reflects the freezing of the party system which had emerged in the context of the ‘cultural politics’ of the 1950s (Watanuki, 1991).

Even when controlling for the significant improvements in citizens’ education levels since the 1960s, this pattern has persisted for most of the second half of the twentieth century. In the 1960s, 65% of the 20% least educated voters supported the Liberal Democratic Party, against 41% of voters belonging to the top education decile (figure 7.3c). During recent years, however, these differences have decreased considerably, and popular vote for the LDP has oscillated between 40% and 45% for all education groups in 2009-2014. Looking more closely at intellectual elites confirms this evolution (figure 7.3d). In 1963-1967, top 10% educated voters were indeed less likely to support the LDP by about 15 percentage points (8 percentage points after controls). This figure remained broadly stable, staying between 5 and 10 percentage points during the 1963-1996 period. Starting in 2009, however, education lost significance, even when including controls. The decline of the Social Democratic Party during the 1990s and its replacement by the Democratic Party of Japan – which culminated by its victory in 2009 – therefore seems to coincide with the disappearance of what was one of the most fundamental political divisions of Japanese society. The fact that this dealignment was sudden and occurred at the same time as shifts in the structure of party politics suggests that this process is driven by top-down mechanisms rather than long-run evolutions in collective beliefs.

7.7 From a multiple elites party system to political indifferentiation?

Bringing these two dynamics together points to a trend which is the exact opposite of the one observed in most Western countries (figure 7.4). In the 1960s, intellectual and economic elites were clearly separated into two different groups. On the left of the political spectrum, university graduates were highly supportive of the Japanese Communist Party and the Japanese Socialist Party, who based their appeal more on liberal values than on class antagonisms. Meanwhile, the Liberal Democratic Party attracted both low income earners and business elites. Through its defense of organized capitalism, it created strong ties with top executives and industrial leaders who participated in developing Japan’s growth model. This structure of political competition suddenly ended in 2009, when the LDP was defeated for the first time.

While these figures suggest that Japan was originally a perfect example of a multiple elites party system, this characterisation should not be over-emphasised. Persistently strong levels of support for the party among low income earners demonstrates that the LDP has never favoured exclusively economic elites. As was highlighted above, part of its remarkable hegemony came from its ability to distribute equally the fruits of the country’s long periods of growth. The non-linearity of the relationship between income and electoral behaviour is, to some extent, an interesting representation of the Japanese social compromise, which came with its dominant-party system.

Piketty describes Japan as the exception to the education-polarization rule. From Capital and Ideology:

The only real exception to this general evolution of the structure of political cleavages within the electoral democracies of developed countries seems to concern Japan, which has never really experienced a party system of classist type comparable to those observed in European countries and Westerners during the post-war period. The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been in power almost permanently in Japan since 1945. Historically, this almost hegemonic conservative party has achieved its best scores in the rural and agricultural world and among the urban bourgeoisie. The LDP thus succeeded in synthesizing between the economic and industrial elites and traditional Japan, around a project of reconstruction of the country, in a complex context marked by the American occupation and an anticommunism exacerbated by the Russian-Chinese proximity. Conversely, the Democratic Party (main opposition party) has generally achieved its best scores among modest and average urban employees and among the most highly qualified, who are willing to protest against the presence of the United States and the new moral and social order embodied by the LDP, but without succeeding in sustainably gathering an alternative majority8. More generally, the specific structure of the political conflict in Japan must be linked to the particular form taken by Japanese cleavages around nationalism and traditional values9.

8. See A. GETHIN, Cleavages Structures and Distributive Politics, op. cit., p. 89-100. See also K. MORI MCELWAIN, « Party System Institutionalization in Japan », in A. HICKEN, E. MARTINEZ KUHONTA, Party System Institutionalization in Asia, Cambridge University Press, 2015, p. 74-107.

9. In The Game of the Century [The Silent Cry] (1967), Kenzaburô Ôé magnificently evokes the complexity and the violence of the relations between the intellectual elites and the popular classes in Japan, in particular around the urban-rural divide, traditional values and the question of the modernization of the country since the beginning of the Meiji era (1868), without forgetting the role played by the geopolitical positioning of the archipelago, the relationship with the United States and the antagonisms aroused by the presence of Korean workers.

Perhaps Japan was a precociously modern society in the 1960s, with an educated left and a uneducated right. Or perhaps it was a “post-colonial” society, with a self-consciously anti-imperialist left.

The Japanese experience of the 1960s can certainly sound precociously modern. In Haruki Murakami’s Norwegian Wood (1987), one working class student was put off by the 1960s educated left:

"You know, when I went to university I joined a folk-music club. I just wanted to sing songs. But the members were a load of frauds. I get goose-bumps just thinking about them. The first thing they tell you when you enter the club is you have to read Marx. ‘Read page so-and-so to such-and-such for next time.’ Somebody gave a lecture on how folk songs have to be deeply involved with society and the radical movement. So, what the hell, I went home and tried as hard as I could to read it, but I didn't understand a thing. It was worse than the subjunctive. I gave up after three pages. So I went to the next week's meeting like a good little scout and said I had read it, but I couldn't understand it. From that point on they treated me like an idiot.

“I had no critical awareness of the class struggle, they said, I was a social cripple. I mean, this was serious. And all because I said I couldn't understand a piece of writing. Don't you think they were terrible?"

"Uh-huh," I said.

"And their so-called discussions were terrible, too. Everybody would use big words and pretend they knew what was going on. But I would ask questions whenever I didn't understand something. "What is this imperialist exploitation stuff you're talking about? Is it connected somehow to the East India Company?' "Does smashing the educational-industrial complex mean we're not supposed to work for a company after we graduate?' And stuff like that. But nobody was willing to explain anything to me. Far from it -- they got really angry.

“Can you believe it?"

"Yeah, I can," I said.

"One guy yelled at me, "You stupid bitch, how do you live like that with nothing in your brain?' Well, that did it. I wasn't going to put up with that. OK, so I'm not so smart. I'm working class. But it's the working class that keeps the world running, and it's the working classes that get exploited. What kind of revolution is it that just throws out big words that working-class people can't understand? What kind of crap social revolution is that? I mean, I'd like to make the world a better place, too. If somebody's really being exploited, we've got to put a stop to it. That's what I believe, and that's why I ask questions.

“Am I right, or what?"

"You're right."

"So that's when it hit me. These guys are fakes. All they've got on their minds is impressing the new girls with the big words they're so proud of, while sticking their hands up their skirts. And when they graduate, they cut their hair short and march off to work for Mitsubishi or IBM or Fuji Bank. They marry pretty wives who've never read Marx and have kids they give fancy new names to that are enough to make you puke. Smash what educational-industrial complex? Don't make me laugh! And the new members were just as bad. They didn't understand a thing either, but they pretended to and they were laughing at me. After the meeting, they told me, "Don't be silly! So what if you don't understand? Just agree with everything they say.'"

[...]

"So then what happened with your club?"

"I left in June, I was so furious," Midori said. "Most of these student types are total frauds. They're scared to death somebody's gonna find out they don't know something. They all read the same books and they all spout the same slogans, and they love listening to John Coltrane and seeing Pasolini movies. You call that "revolution?"'

"Hey, don't ask me, I've never actually seen a revolution."

"Well, if that's revolution, you can stick it. They'd probably shoot me for putting umeboshi in my rice balls. They'd shoot you, too, for understanding the subjunctive."

"It could happen."

"Believe me, I know what I'm talking about. I'm working class.”

But those dynamics changed. Today, Japan is about as polarized by education as France and the United States were in the 1970s and the United Kingdom was in the 1990s: the more educated and the less educated vote the same way.

I am still interested in whether Japan has depolarized at the level of opinion and policy. Under Shinzo Abe, the country has liberalized. It has more immigration and more women in the workforce. Perhaps that reflects the preferences of an increasingly educated population.

But it might be something else. The Liberal Democrats have a freedom of action that parties in competitive systems do not enjoy. In the United States, Democrats and Republicans must respond to changing preferences. In Japan, the Liberal Democrats can, more often than not, ignore them.

Perhaps Abe simply decided that cultural conservatism is not a winning program. But perhaps the country is changing beneath his feet.

#effortpost

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edorazzi · 5 years

Text

Well, here we are again! Twitter said yes to a review post for a Miraculous magazine that suddenly showed up in my local area. ‘Tis the season after all, and by that I mean someone bought it for me as a joke birthday gift and I was way too happy about that.

I’ve done previous reviews of the Miraculous Christmas calendar, Easter egg set, superhero fashion dolls and action figures, so let’s dive into the unknown world of merchandising yet again!

(As always, if you enjoy my posts, please consider checking out my Twitter page or supporting me on Patreon for lots of bonus content!)

4 FREE GIFTS! PACKED WITH ACTIVITIES! MEET THE KWAMIS! PRANKS & LOLS! CUT-OUT MEMES! FANGIRL ALERT! NAIL ART! 100% OFFICIAL! I’m overwhelmed! It feels like I’m having a seizure just from the packaging!!!

I should preface this by saying I haven’t bought a magazine like this in years. Possibly ever. I read things like the Beano, Animals & You and the odd Disney Princess zine when I was a kid but I have no idea what to expect from a free-gift-packed kiddie magazine in 2019. If the outside is anything to go by we’re in for a wild ride.

I’m noticing that it says “Miraculous #20″ on the back. Does this mean I’ve missed 19 previous issues? I’m genuinely a little upset by that. My local area is a complete dry zone for Miraculous so I haven’t had the chance to pick these up.

First step: let’s separate everything out and get a look at these freeeee giftssss. Except they aren’t free, because this magazine was like £3.99. This does seem to be the current trend - it’s kinda rare to see any kids’ zines without the excess packaging crammed with ‘free’ stuff. Is it really too expensive to just produce the magazine? Probably, in this economy.

Chat Noir is revealed on the cover! He was on the back of the plastic jacket, but it’s still nice to see the kids as a front-cover duo. Apparently we’re going to learn to draw Pollen, too, which sounds fun. I’m actually liking the look of the gifts as well, but we’ll get into those in a minute.

This hairbrush............. is adorable. Oh my god. It’s pretty cheap and flimsy but it functions the way it’s supposed to, and the Ladybug design has been taken into account in a better way than “it’s red/black, that counts” (lest we forget the UTTER BULLSHIT of the Christmas calendar, and YES I’m still mad about that). I don’t know how well I expect the outer sticker to last, but if it can take a bit of wear and tear this would be an adorable little travel brush. Nicely done, lads!

These nail stickers? Also adorable. They remind me of the kiddie makeup sets I had when I was little, back in the early 00s when plastic stick-on nails and decals were all the rage. Are they still a thing? That’s nice to know.

There are 13 designs (that I can count) - a Queen Bee mask, Chat Noir pawprint cake, macaron, cupcake, heart-print cookie, Ladybug stud, flower, lightning bolt, love heart, Marinette heart, bee, fox tail and star. The majority are directly related to the show and that makes them feel special. No Carapace though? :(

I’ve put a little Marinette heart on my furthest finger. At the time of typing this up (about a day later) it’s still firmly in place. I haven’t really knocked it around, granted, but it’s not flimsy enough to fall off after five minutes either. It’s also really cute to look at. Guess I’m still a decal-loving 2004 girl at heart......

These stickers though!!! Wow! They’re those holographic and slightly-puffy kind and they feel like pretty good quality, and the designs are so cute! I can’t fault these, they’re absolutely adorable. I immediately want to stick them everywhere.

So I’ve stuck them everywhere. I’m especially proud of the light switch pun. My room looks GREAT.

I saved these “mystery stickers” for last because I’m weak for the thrill of mystery bags, and there wasn’t anything on the packaging to indicate what kind of designs to expect. And OH!!!! OH, IT’S MY BOY!!!! Look at him!!!!

I made jokes with the Christmas calendar about all the Chat Noir items being stolen ahead of time, but that’s definitely NOT the case with this magazine. I have been SPOILED with the presence of my cat son.

These stickers are similar to the sticker sheet (and the Chillin’ Out design is reprinted), but they’re puffier and non-holographic. I’m deeply allured by the “decorate your phone or tablet” suggestion on the packet, but I’m going to see how the previous stickers withstand the wear-and-tear of my laptop lid before adding any more. If I damage these beautiful Adrien stickers I’ll be devastated.

Those are our free gifts! They’re actually very fun and cute, I’m really happy with them! I guess now it’s time to get into the magazine itself...........

I genuinely almost forgot the magazine was the main part of this package. I figured I was done, but we’ve barely even started! Here’s a splash page of the kwami. Kwami with a capital K? Kwamis? I still feel like it should be singular-lower-case-k-kwami. I’ve never been happy about this “miraculouses” business either.

But is that--

It IS!!!! It’s Nino!!!

I guess this is the new flavour of Miraculous tie-ins. Now they’ve broadened out to a full team we’re seeing a lot more of Adrien alongside the girls, and Nino is the elusive hero who shows up once in a blue moon. At least this time his name isn’t in the title of the gotdam show.......

Anyway, I can see I’m supposed to draw my “fave Kwami”. Better get to it.

Felix just wants a break. Just one break. But not in this magazine.

Speaking of seeing more of Adrien (and, tragically, less of Nino), this is the kind of splash page I want to see! Both kids are here! The banner themed with Marinette’s signature flowers is a nice touch too; that’s associated with her arts ‘n’ crafts in the show already and it makes sense to apply it to the creative portion of this magazine too.

I LOVE the promotion of Chat Noir nails as something the little girls buying this magazine will definitely want to try. I’d expect them to do Marinette vs Ladybug nails, but instead we get a boyish option! Hell yeah!

I’m a little confused by the Queen Bee masks apparently going on the Chat Noir nails though. I guess they’re friends? Is this secret AdriChlo confirmation? Watch out, Marinette, Kagami’s not the one to be worried about.

SURE WOULD BE NICE TO HAVE SOME TURTLE STICKERS FOR AN ALL-BOYS THEME BUT I GUESS NOT HUH

Next up is a short merch catalogue (why would you put the big bold arrow pointing right to the underoos.....). Would those Chat Noir socks come in my size? Asking for me.

Then there’s......... this page. FANGIRL ALERT. God. It’s like the Ladyblog, if only the Ladyblog ever gave a heck about reporting what Chat Noir’s up to.

THE SPELL WAS BROKEN AND THE FANDOM IMPLODED WITH JOY.

I really have to wonder what age range this is meant for. Do kids know what a “fandom” is? Do little girls consider themselves “fangirls”? I guess most kids have enough internet access to figure it out these days (all the hashtags and LOLs and memes speak volumes), but I can’t imagine being young enough to fit the target range of this magazine while also knowing these terms. I dunno.

(Also, the definition of ‘implosion’ is ‘an instance of something collapsing violently inwards’, so I’m not sure that’s the word they’re looking for. Unless the return to the status quo in Dark Cupid and the continuing stagnation of the love square was enough to make people quit in frustration? Probably.)

I’m filling it in, of course. Because I must.

I gave up on the pre-approved ratings system pretty much right away, but I think this is an accurate rating of my LadyNoir opinions.

I might be kinda cynical about it here, but I am actually pretty fond of how this magazine sells Ladybug and Chat Noir as a couple. The show’s portraying it as very onesided lately, with Chat pining over Ladybug who has absolutely no interest in him (Glaciator was a TERRIBLE episode and I’m still hurting from it), but reading this zine I’d guess they were already dating. It’s cheesy, but in a nice way.

I have to laugh at “the most amazing thing about this super duo is that they always look out for and protect each other” though. Chat’s usually pretty focused on LB, sure, but there are endless instances of LB using Chat as cannon fodder and just generally abandoning him to get mauled by akuma while she carries out her personal private plan to save the day. Maybe we’re just focusing on the better-written episodes, huh?

Moving ahead. I’ve been dreading this page since reading “Plaggs Pranks & LOLs” on the back of the packaging. I feel hatred in my very bones just looking at it.

I like that there’s ONE instance of the term “ladybird” in the joke column. This is a UK-based magazine and that IS the word we tend to use over here - “ladybug” is an Americanism - but it’s like they’re worried kids could have got to the middle of this magazine about a superhero named Ladybug and then not understand the bug jokes. Maybe whoever was writing this page slipped up?

OH NOOOOO. MARINETTE, NOOOOOOOOOO.

THIS IS WHY FELIX GOT RID OF YOU, PLAGG. THESE ARE ADRIEN’S PROBLEMS NOW.

(mmm whatcha saaaaay)

I mean........... YEAH, I guess, but we absolutely did see Plagg destroy Felix with an entire shelf of heavy books. I guess he’s nicer with Adrien. It’s all fun and games until someone has a nervous breakdown in the library.

I do love the concept of Tikki getting glitter-bombed by Plagg through the mail. She just curiously opens up the little letter which got slipped into Marinette’s purse, and-- WOOSH. One entire wall of Mari’s room is glittery except for a little Tikki-shaped silhouette.

Next up is a two-page comic which is absolutely adorable! Look at those little chibis! The warm and soft colour palette! This is nicer than most of the official Miraculous comic book art I’ve seen, I hope they keep giving this artist work.

Nino’s here too (and he looks great!), and I like the touch of Marinette and Adrien playing as each other’s superhero characters. Adrien even wins the match, though I guess there’s something to be said about Ladybug beating Chat Noir (again)......

It does raise the question yet again of where this tie-in merchandise is coming from! They’ve had action figures, a movie, music video features, now an arcade game... Who’s getting the royalties here? Who’s profiting? Is this how Fu can afford to buy all those rare ingredients for the magic potions?

Over the page we have an activity to Design your Secret Lair! Right away I love the Marinette theme of the page, the soft pink and flowers, and the drawing space looking like a page in a binder with marker tabs and everything.

I have to design my secret lair, of course:

What do you think? I’m very creative. I’ll need an adult to send in the drawing of my hideout but I think I’ve really got a shot at those unicorn headphones.

Now we’re on to puzzles and character pages. I don’t know what ol’ Gabe is doing trying to meet a 13 year old girl in the dead of night without telling anyone, you’d think if he’s got that much free time on his hands he could be spending it with his son.

I don’t know how those points in Ladybug’s power profile are awarded or what they mean, but you can tell this is a fan magazine. Official sources would have put her at a 10.

Standard House of Villains page! Most of these were good episodes but I’m deeply offended Riposte isn’t on here. Maybe her motives weren’t dramatic and cartoonish enough to be up in the ranks with Glaciator and Gorizilla?

“Cat Noir’s dad is also the evil Hawk Moth”, huh? I mean that’s not WRONG, but is it really something to put in his power profile when Adrien doesn’t even know yet??? Feels like we’re kinda jumping the gun on the poor boy. What if he picks up this magazine?

Apparently he’s one point weaker than Ladybug (seriously???), two points faster, equally as agile, one point less skilled and two points less cool. Despite all those lesses he still comes out at an equal 9, which is a relief! These kids are a team, putting either of them below the other would have been a big no.

I did the colouring page too, naturally. Je suis un artiste.

Now we’ve got a page fresh from the Ladyblog, a Miraculous quiz! Not a lot of excitement, but it’s nice to see Alya getting her own section.

I like that the qualifications of “you could be Ladybug herself!” are knowing what city Marinette lives in and what school she goes to. Well done, Mari! You’re doing your best!!!

TEACHER I AM SO HUNGRYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

I gotta say, I’m not so sure about decorating donuts with fondant. I’ve never tried it so I could be wrong, but it feels like rolled icing instead of frosting(?) would be too heavy for an entire donut. The texture is totally different.

I mean I guess if you’re going to load your kids up on sugar you might as well go all the way. They’re going to look like they’ve eaten something horrible with all that black fondant, but they’ll have fun. Adrien would love these.

WHERE’S NINO. THIS IS JUST UNFAIR. You’ll have four out of five heroes, then a double of Marinette and Tikki? Maybe this just goes to show how little memorable dialogue Carapace has.

Though if “Spots On!” is Marinette’s dialogue and not Ladybug’s, why are the other transformation phrases attributed to Rena Rouge and Queen Bee instead of Alya and Chloé? Surely they could have picked something better for Marinette to justify having her on this list twice instead of Nino.

The next page brings us one of those flowchart quizzes! And ouch, yet again the absence of the other heroes is obvious. I can understand not including Chloé here since she’s technically not a “friendly” character yet, but no Nino? Alya and Marinette are close friends, but Adrien doesn’t really hang out with them without Nino around. Having the three of them together just seems strange.

I do like the little fashion page! They’re all cute and affordable and easy to find on the high street here. I’d love to see how other issues of this magazine are structured; is there a different fashion spot every time? Styles to channel each individual hero would be adorable.

Moving on to a tutorial for a Ladybug notebook! I would have made this, but I didn’t have the time nor a notebook to stick it to.

Between this and the donuts, it seems weird that these designs are based on, like... an actual beetle, eyes and antennae and all. Shouldn’t it be Ladybug’s symbol? These come across more like “fun animals” arts ‘n’ crafts instead of themed after Miraculous specifically. I think if I made this (or decorated the donuts) I’d miss out the head and match the spot pattern to Ladybug’s symbol.

The hidden message design is adorable though. I can see this being a craft kids are super proud of.

Another activity page! I didn’t have a go at these but they’re pretty standard. It’s cute that the coded message designs are the same as the stickers and nail decals!

Also, apparently Ladybug’s ‘secret’ is “LB mask + heart + CN mask”, which was (somehow) stolen by Volpina. Is that the secret Hawk Moth was talking about earlier in the magazine? Is he blackmailing Ladybug with revealing she has a crush on Chat Noir? How did Volpina ‘steal’ this secret? Is LadyNoir finally reciprocated???? THIS IS A WHOLE EPISODE IN ITSELF, I NEED ANSWERS--

Next page we have an ad for another girly magazine (Quizzes! LOLs! Celebs! Cringes! Puzzles!). I think I’ll pass, no matter how appealing that giant microphone pen is.

And a “Miraculous Identity” quiz! Tikki’s apparently super fickle with her wielders, three seasons of relentlessly praising Marinette and now she’s telling us we’re the Chosen Ones. You can’t fool me with those big ol’ eyes.

My inner superhero is Marvellous Fox, by the way. Though yet again I’m noticing we don’t have turtle options...................

And on the back cover... the memes. Oh, sweet lord, the memes. They’re hashtag-SoRelatable! And I can cut them out to keep! Oh boy!!!

Is this what kids do when they have limited internet access? Cut fresh memes out of magazines and carry them around? I need to know.

That’s a very sinister Ladybug at the bottom of the page though. What’s-- What’s she going to do to me if I don’t cut out and keep these memes. Ladybug what are you going to do if I d--

Well that brings us to the end of the magazine! And yet again I’m surprised by how much time it takes to just put a bunch of photos together and write about them.

This is a neat little magazine all in all! The ‘free gifts’ are pretty nice, there’s a fair amount of content and the whole thing is pretty cute for young fans of the show. I could see myself buying this again - if it ever shows up on shelves, Miraculous is so scarce around here that I fully expect it to disappear again after this one issue - just for the free junk, but it would be interesting to see how they’d structure different issues too!

I notice we never did get that promised tutorial on how to draw Pollen; the one advertised on the cover. Was the “draw your favourite Kwami” activity supposed to cover that? I’m not sure that really counts.

If you got this far, thanks for joining me on this Miraculous journey! We’ll meet again whenever I get another piece of weird ML merch to cover. Bien joué!

#miraculous ladybug #josie talks about things #josie's art #i really should get a review tag #ANYWAY there's a bit more art in this which isn't just the header image so give it a look!#and felix features a couple of times because WHY would he not on edorazzi dot com

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f4liveblogarchives · 4 years

Text

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #196

Sun Aug 25 2019 [01:53 PM] Wack'd: Normally I don't post covers but there's a lot going on here

[01:53 PM] Bocaj: A lot to unpack [01:54 PM] Wack'd: So for the record [01:55 PM] Wack'd: What actually happened was that Skrulls abducted Franklin Storm out of prison, replaced him with a Skrull. Skrull Storm then broke out of prison and claimed he'd given himself superpowers and was now a supervillain [01:55 PM] Wack'd: "The Invincible Man" [01:56 PM] Wack'd: When the Four figured out the truth, the Skrulls send Franklin Storm back with a gun strapped to his chest, but rather than murder his kids he dropped to the floor so the gunshot would rebound on him [01:56 PM] Wack'd: So, uh, no. By no metric did Sue and Johnny "murder" him [01:57 PM] Wack'd: This was all back in the 60s which I read a fucktillion years ago in 2016 so I hope that recap helped [01:57 PM] Bocaj: That sure is nonsense [01:58 PM] Wack'd: In fairness. Not bad revenge for being tricked by a comic book and having your soldiers turned into cows [01:58 PM] Bocaj: Fair [01:59 PM] Wack'd: So anyway Reed is in a hypnosis chamber to have his will broken so he'll kill his friends [01:59 PM] Wack'd: When his new bosses said that there was free mental health treatment I don't think this is what Reed had in mind [02:01 PM] Bocaj: Truly businesses supporting mental health hasn't gotten any better since the 70s... [02:01 PM] Wack'd: This mystery man who may or may not be Franklin Storm somehow has cannibalized Psycho-Man's suit for more effective hypnosis. You might remember him from the Four 1967 annual [02:01 PM] Wack'd: Also other stuff [02:03 PM] Wack'd: Also his assistant is Hauptmann, from the 85-87 arc where Doom tries to trap the Four in Latveria forever [02:03 PM] Wack'd: I really should be keeping a running list of who's been doing the most cannibalizing from the 60s [02:03 PM] Wack'd: Because jesus fuck have we been on a continuity kick lately [02:04 PM] Wack'd: BACK TO HOLLYWOOD [02:05 PM] Wack'd: Sue tries desperately to pretend she's had a single meaningful conversation with Johnny since 1964

[02:06 PM] Bocaj:

"Hey.... you" "Its me, Johnny! The loveable rascal! Your brother!" "Right right right of course!" -to Reed- "I have no idea who that is"

[02:06 PM] Wack'd: I'd like to nominate Keith Pollard for worst-ever drawing of any child, ever

[02:06 PM] Bocaj: Kill it with fire [02:07 PM] Wack'd: Maybe Pollard is just...bad at art?

[02:08 PM] Wack'd: The coloring isn't helping though [02:08 PM] Umbramatic: oh god [02:08 PM] maxwellelvis: I was about to say [02:08 PM] maxwellelvis: Good lord! First-phase Liefeld's Syndrome! [02:10 PM] Wack'd: Something I haven't mentioned is that Agatha is now Franklin Richards' live-in nanny which, I think, would probably have been a smarter writing choice from the beginning [02:10 PM] Bocaj: Oh so she returned to the job? [02:10 PM] Wack'd: It was always kinda weird that Reed and Sue had to shlep out to Agatha's house to see their kid [02:10 PM] Bocaj: This must have been around the time she told Wanda 'I've taught you all I can, laters' [02:10 PM] Wack'd: Yeah since New Salem and also her house got got she's been following around Sue and Franklin, including to Hollywood [02:12 PM] Wack'd: So Sue, Ben, and Johnny go sightseeing, and talk about reforming the team. Only problem is convincing Reed [02:12 PM] Wack'd: They arrive on the Walk of Fame, and--

[02:12 PM] Wack'd: I am officially declaring Pollard the worst [02:13 PM] maxwellelvis: AHH! ART ATTACK! [02:13 PM] Umbramatic: my eyes [02:13 PM] maxwellelvis: THE ART IS COMING RIGHT AT US! [02:14 PM] Wack'd: Ben tries to get an autograph but is shoed away by cops [02:14 PM] Wack'd: Who think he's a guy in a costume because Let's Make Another Deal™ is shooting across the street [02:15 PM] Wack'd: Okay, I laughed

[02:16 PM] Bocaj: Hah [02:16 PM] Wack'd: *Alex Ross goes on to use this panel as the basis for his drawings of Sue and Johnny* [02:16 PM] Bocaj: To choose which celebrities they look like? [02:16 PM] Wack'd: Yes [02:16 PM] Wack'd: Dats da joke [02:17 PM] Bocaj: Is it a joke? I thought you were seriously imparting trivia [02:18 PM] Wack'd: It was a joke, I can't actually name the celebrities off the top of my head that Alex Ross picks, sorry [02:18 PM] Wack'd: So the scenes from the cover happen but they're hallucinated in the middle of this lovely restaurant [02:19 PM] Wack'd: Also, this

[02:20 PM] Wack'd: So apparently this was all a battle in the center of the mind not in physical space. Sue, Johnny, and Ben lose, allowing Invincible Man to extract them from the restaurant [02:21 PM] Wack'd: Just another day in Hollyweird, lol

[02:22 PM] Wack'd: So back at Reed's new job, it turns out Invisible Man was--REED! [02:22 PM] Wack'd: He was hypnotized [02:23 PM] Bocaj: 😐 [02:23 PM] Bocaj: Another Evil Reed? [02:23 PM] Wack'd: But then he snaps out of it and gets angry so they're all thrown in a dungeon [02:23 PM] Bocaj: Another Evil But Its Not His Fault Honest Reed?? [02:23 PM] Wack'd: YEP [02:23 PM] Bocaj: Weird trend lately [02:23 PM] Wack'd: I know, right? [02:25 PM] Wack'd: I maintain that Wein was throwing a hissy fit over the idea of Reed having character flaws. But Wein is gone, and it's a weird grudge for two consecutive writers to hold, especially when the divorce arc has been over for like 45 issues [02:26 PM] Bocaj: Maybe the current writer is just copying Wein [02:26 PM] Wack'd: Maybe [02:27 PM] ThreeOfFour: someone tell The Maker he isn't special [02:27 PM] Wack'd: So anyway Reed agrees to go back to work because otherwise his friends die I guess [02:28 PM] Bocaj: Hey, the Maker. You're not special [02:29 PM] Wack'd: ...this guy hasn't appeared before this issue so I'm not sure why I'm supposed to care here

[02:30 PM] Wack'd: I actually went back and checked just now to see if this guy was in other issues at Reed's new job and no, he's not, Wolfman introduced to this supposedly important character just to make a joke about the fact that he's not important [02:31 PM] Wack'd: The beginning of the issue kind of implies that he's the mysterious man in chair? But there's a panel later on that implies it's Doom, so [02:32 PM] Wack'd: So this is what Reed's been working on

[02:32 PM] Bocaj: The set of a high budget fantasy movie? [02:32 PM] Wack'd: These mirrors are so powerful that they will drive you insane if you look at them with your eyes open, and even with your eyes closed it's not great [02:32 PM] Bocaj: why [02:33 PM] Wack'd: I guess this is what they thought solar power would be like in 1978 [02:34 PM] Wack'd: The Red-Haired Man is also planning on getting Reed his stretching back for some reason [02:35 PM] Wack'd: Back in the dungeon, Sue uses her force fields to break the team's shackle and the--okay

[02:35 PM] Wack'd: I know Janet has that whole speech about how when you focus on power sets and not what each personality brings to the team, you don't build something that lasts as long as the Avengers do [02:36 PM] Wack'd: That said I'm kinda feeling like Sue can do everything Reed could with far less threat of bodily harm [02:36 PM] Bocaj: But can she be a giant asshole who tells the others what to do all the time? [02:36 PM] Wack'd: Fair [02:37 PM] Wack'd: Also why are so many artists convinced Sue's powers come from her forehead [02:37 PM] Bocaj: That’s where psychic powers come from [02:39 PM] Wack'd: I should probably take a moment to point out the interior blue highlights on Sue's powers, an embellishment that will gradually lead to more dynamic illustrations and the eventual obsolescence of the classic dotted-line look

[02:40 PM] Umbramatic: Sue's slow evolution into one of the most powerful people in Marvel pleases me [02:41 PM] Wack'd: Anyway no sooner do they escape then they are immediately re-captured by Doom, who let them escape because they are powerless and he is great and yada yada yada [02:42 PM] Umbramatic: DOOOOOOM [02:43 PM] Bocaj: "There would be no plot if DOOM did not allow you fools to escape"

#1978 #Marv Wolfman #Keith Pollard #The Main Book

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