Ouugughh I was not expecting the brainrot to be this bad, but this week's prompts of the Hermitcraft Character Design Event inspired me to take a look at my old Yogscast botw au, back when the common hc for yogs c!martyn was so different! Seeing my old designs for everyone in the au made me want to redesign them, and I had so much fun updating both martyn, who’s basically a human-shaped korok, and Toby (SoTotallyToby), who Martyn befriended and knighted as the defender of the Great Hyrule forest, that iiiiii kinda started entertaining the idea of throwing some hermits into the au, too.
Amused thoughts about Ren being Littlewood’s new guard dog and the subsequent thought that Toby and Ren would probably end up fighting over the Korok Prince has led to more brainrot than I’d like to admit, honestly. So… yeah. Botwcast, featuring Korok Prince Martyn, Defender of the Lost Woods Toby, and Blood Moon werewolf Ren!
ALSO how a guy in a rap battle gonna ask his opponent why he hasn’t dragged his girlfriend in to defend him?? aubrey, you’re in the beef of the century rn and he’s winning, he doesn’t need to make it her problem
say hello to the first Official Canon Characters aboard the HIVE o7 (joking, but they are legit ocs which is kinda weird to say 👀)
random lore + some extra tidbits below the cut
OKAY this is all pretty loose bc i don't wanna get top restrictive with it, the vagueness is half the fun. but here's what i got:
in the “HIVE canon”, sector heads/ranking officers (which for now is just leander and COL ig until i eventually cave and make more lmao) are specifically given custom uniforms and number prefixes instead of the CR[insert number here] format.
the “M” in front of leander’s stands for medbay. COL didn’t pick one so it’s just his name lol.
crewmates can wear any accessories they want as long as the base uniform stays the same (bee arm patches, grey, etc). all crewmate numbers gotta start with CR to be canon, but that doesn't apply to shitpost comics or like. general vibes
(there’s a reason the crew uniforms are grey. it’s the same reason leander made the captain’s gloves. )
the ship shuffles itself! it's not random all of the time, sometimes you open a door and end up in the room you were heading to like a shortcut, but other times you can open a random door and end up in the kitchen, or the training hall, etc etc. i just think an eldritch abomination ship is funny.
weirdly enough though it doesn’t do this in crisis situations. guess it’s only fun if the pranks are harmless ;;
if you get lost, call the captain (ello! o7) or COLONY over comms. they can generally get you wherever you need to go bc COLONY is directly connected to the ship and the captain’s able to make [INQUIRIES], which let us pass freely.
it’s kind of hard to tell if leander has a similar ability. the running theory is no, but he never seems confused?? when he enters a room?? so either he has one or he really just rolls with the punches. both are equally possible tbh.
in actual lore these two were probably some of if not the first few people to be recruited. obvs that’s a retcon now but shhh.
random characters from fandoms still get dragged into our shenanigans. at the end of the day this is all just for fun, and that’s one of the best parts, so hell yeah i’m keeping it.
Guys, I think Grizzly hid lore in Dark Puckered Hole.
NOW JUST- JUST HEAR ME OUT. (Mieru, look away).
I’m not just talking about the potential purity culture of the Undersea being exposed through Finn’s self exploration… I’m talking RAFT lore.
In Chapter 69, “Behind Bars,” of Dark Puckered Hole, Finn Tidestrider is imprisoned “somewhere in the eastern sea” with another triton, who is on the brink of death. They fall in love and bang before the anonymous convict passes in Finn’s arms, but that’s not what I’m focusing on. Im focusing on the presence of another triton, an injured one, in the Oversea, especially the Sakura Ocean.
Historically in Mana, Finn Tidestrider was one of, if not, THE FIRST to leave the Undersea behind. A decade or so-so later, in modern day Riptide, there have been practically no other triton. Gillion, who was banished, and Edyn, who left to find and avenge him, are the only ones. Even more so, the only other Undersea characters are found in the Undersea (Unnamed NPCs in The Tank OR Felipe, a grung, being from Liquidus) or having left it behind for personal reasons a la Edyn (Caspian, a water genasi). When the Tidestrider siblings go around Allport, they have to wear cloaks to avoid standing out. There aren’t even other triton in Liquidus!
So how, why, is there another triton in the oversea? Finn himself is shocked by his presence. “In this prison, to find another man from the Undersea… my mind raced with questions.” He doesn’t dwell on this weirdness because his questions are drowned out by the sound of his blood beneath his skin, rushing downward, BUT it’s very bizarre, no?
Another detail: Why was the other triton on the verge of death? Of course, inadequate care, but could he have been thrown back into the cell like that? Whoever imprisoned them did not care about their lives. They could live, or they could die.
To go further, isn’t it kind of weird how Finn Tidestrider doesn’t specify where his imprisonment is? He is a very detailed author. He could have said one of the villages in Onawa Country or anything else to feed more detail into his writing, but he didn’t. I feel like the reason he wouldn’t be specific is because he himself was unsure exactly of where he was. He was taken in secret, likely kept out of sight while being arrested and transported to his cell.
I also have to wonder… who imprisoned them? I think you know what I’m getting at. I think RAFT did. RAFT has the resources. RAFT has the political sway. RAFT has governmental power. And it’s worsened by the fact that this imprisonment occurred in the Eastern Sea, the site of the Promised Bastion, where triton are imprisoned, tortured, skinned, and experimented on…
Judging by the fact that Finn refers to the other triton’s you-know-what as “a lighthouse to guide this lost sailor home,” Finn was likely a part of the Black Rose Pirates at the time. He couldn’t hide his presence in the Oversea as a crewmate for a pirate lord, let alone Captain Rose. Finn was on wanted posters, Finn was in newspaper headlines, Finn was a published author. I think RAFT had its eyes on him, but when they arrested or kidnapped him, it wasn’t for crimes of piracy… at least not on the surface.
I think this experimentation on Undersea people and gods has been going on for a long time, and Dark Puckered Hole could be evidence of this fact. Finn was intended to be a source of skin, of blood, and of magic for RAFT’s experimentation in the artificial leviathan and black ops projects. His lover was too, maybe already was (I say maybe because Finn doesn’t allude to the idea that he was physically ripped apart… that would have been unignorable). Finn probably only made it out because he’s that strong (in episode 82, when Drey is talking to and comforting Jay, he said Finn was terrifying when angry or passionate) or his crew came to his rescue.
I think political and military purposes against the pirates weren’t the only reasons RAFT wanted to ally with the Undersea. “Joining forces” with them led either to less suspicion as they funneled triton out of the ocean and to the recently abandoned Promised Bastion, or coming to dominate them allowed RAFT to simply take triton without enough pushback. Either way, without their Champion to rise against them (the one triton on the hooks accused Gillion of abandoning them), they’ve been taken en masse. And maybe Edyn’s collaboration with the navy permitted her some of this knowledge, and that’s how she knew to hide Gillion from prying eyes in navy territory.
Uhhh tldr: It’s weird that there’s an injured triton in the Eastern Oversea. I think DPH could imply that Finn and his lover were imprisoned by RAFT as test subjects for the artificial leviathan and black ops projects, proving the longevity of Fay Ferin’s plans.
Helix: *goes to help pull a halfway melted part of Cody’s blacks up so he could cut it off, and get smacked on the hand for it* hmmm…
Cody: *did not mean to do that just got startled while he was trying to do the same thing to his left ankle, isn’t actually hurt just annoyed because melted blacks apparently stick to your body hair* …!!!
Helix: You know. I once had a dream where you drank so much coffee your body started to shut down.
Cody: …???
Helix: Yeah. I guess it starts with paranoia, huh?
Cody: -_- I think it has more to do with the shinies that tried to wax me with my own melted blacks.
it's yellowjackets / jennifer's body parallels time!
hi hello keep reading if you would like to hear about shauna/jennifer and jackie/needy, here's my totally noncomprehensive, very much off the cuff thoughts on this very complex and interesting dynamic!!
(i'm not getting into the basic parallels, i'm gonna assume you know the karyn kusama of it all, the heart necklace, the homoerotic female friendship, the death)
yellowjackets is so brilliant because it feeds you stereotypes and absolutely does not deliver on them. there could be an entire paper on each girl and how this is true for them specifically, but walk quickly with me because i want to get into the nitty gritty gory fun stuff! a brief oversimplified example: nat is referred to as a burnout, some would assume she's a loner based on that, but she cares about the team as a unit more than arguably anyone else. (this is common in real life too, our stereotypes often don't hold water in reality and yj reflects that beautifully!)
now to the jackie/shauna of it all. it would be oh so incredibly easy to look at jackie and think she's the jennifer of the duo. we are set up to see her as prettier, more popular, more demanding. but that illusion falls apart QUICKLY if you pay attention to the things that jackie actually says and does. she's not a mean girl. she's actually one of the kindest on the team. she doesn't pick on shauna, she clings. there are plenty of takes on this on tumblr so i won't exhaust it, my adhd loves to digress and meander but i'm forcing myself back onto the trodden path to this point: people look at the first few minutes of the pilot and they immediately decide that they know who these girls are. the audience typecasts jackie as a jennifer and shauna as a needy. the popular, bubbly girl and her shy, bookworm best friend.
a lot of people, especially casual viewers who don't study this show like its their job (god, wonder what that would be like lol) understandably stop here. but to me the BRILLIANCE of yj is that they don't actually make it HARD for you to undo your initial impressions. the material is there. it isn't hidden. it isn't some deeper self of each character that is unraveled throughout seasons. they push, push, push to see just how far they can carry our deeply held stereotypes/expectations. how forward and violent can shauna be, with viewers still clinging to a shy and sweet girl, who was really their own creation? how kind and honestly pathetic kicked-puppy can jackie be, with viewers still clinging to a mean girl, who was really their own creation? how far will we go to warp the characters intentions, so that we can keep them in the box we understand them in? they ask this of the viewer and of other characters, but AGAIN i digress.
so, while this might sit strangely with some, yes i think that jackie is very much aligned with needy if you peel back just one layer. but far above and beyond that, shauna is so very fucking jennifer.
the overall veneer is thinned immediately in yj. there isn't one girl in the stands and one on center stage. jackie and shauna are both on the team. they go to the same parties, they play the same sport, i would argue that shauna isn't even coded as "less pretty" (please note the word coded, because i'm not saying needy is literally less pretty than jennifer, i am simply saying that we have hair, makeup, clothing, glasses trends that we use to stereotype characters, are you with me?)
so now what? now these girls are both and neither. shauna thinks that she is the needy to jackie's jennifer. jackie wears the necklace and the introductory shots frame her as important. but we're already diverting from that set-up.
our absolute clearest common denominator here is one that i rarely see people mention funnily enough: JENNIFER IS A SUCCUBUS. she CONSUMES. she KILLS. she WANTS and she TAKES.
now before you get TOO EXCITED!!! i see some of you getting ready to say i'm a shauna shipman hater, put the pitchforks down!! shauna is one of my favorite characters of all time. i love her crazy ass so deeply that it's alarming. (i don't hate jennifer, either, for the record.) i love her largely for WHAT she is. i think sanitizing or sweetening her is a disservice. she's amazing and complex and wounded and capable of deep love. but she also, quite LITERALLY, consumes.
her character is sex and desire and violence and obsession and consumption. and it's AMAZING. she's POWERFUL. she's our main framing character (in this dynamic), rather than needy. the scripts are switched. jennifer dies and needy lives, and that's one story. that's clearer cut, simpler, made for a horror film. but here, jackie dies and shauna lives, and that story is deep and rich and goes on to include a whole lot more death and destruction and chaos.
shauna tells us herself that it excites her. she likes it. she is this girl. this woman. she reminisces and she recreates and she covets.
jennifer tries to consume needy, shauna literally consumes jackie.
there's more to this story, obviously. you could deep dive and mine for the intricacies of the set up and fall of stereotype and expectation, or collect all of the exact parallels. but i'll stick with a few, because this is a quick outburst of thought.
a huge one, who is taking whose boyfriend?
here's another personal favorite of mine, just for kicks
is it too complex to neatly tuck away? absolutely. they're different stories with different themes. shauna isn't simply a teenager possessed by a demon. it runs far deeper. as is the essence of this show.
but if you want to look at parallels, look at the one who has been holding the knife the whole time.