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todayisafridaynight · 1 year

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YEAH........... YEAH..... LIKEWISE, NO NOTES AT ALL, THAT'S EXACTLY IT... Main antagonist deaths are often treated as "comeuppance," but that would be the ultimate comeuppance for Aoki. As it stands, the only people who actually suffer for it are Ichiban and Jo, and Ichi didn't even do anything wrong. Also please I'm positive there's more to wring out of Aoki and Jo for an essay 😭😭at the very least, I always love to hear your perspective!

"he'd made a social circle for himself where people predominantly liked him for the power and influence" <- incredibly Mine-core of Aoki btw (I also feel the rest applies a little in terms of Mine probably being very quick to write off people who Do care about him as not caring about him, as with Katase, but it's nowhere near the extent of the Arakawas)

Wait actually it's kind of funny... for both Mine and Aoki, I was so sure their endings would go a certain way. Mine and Kiryu'd fight Richardson off together and Ichi'd, I don't know, shield Aoki or hug him so Kume couldn't get to him in the first place, or after that INSANE direct parallel to Arakawa running to the hospital with Masato, he'd miraculously pull through like he did on New Year's. Tormented with visions of the better timeline... With Aoki in particular, it makes me want to tear my hair out because the moment of him choosing to put the gun in the locker was REVOLUTIONARY for the series, looking at the characters he was most heavily based on.

Anyway. Bottom line. These bitches need to hug it out. It was so evil Arakawa didn't hug Ichi at Omi HQ or on the waterfront like bro stop being """manly""" for five seconds you're ruining my life you're ruining your own lives

There'd genuinely be nothing more painful yet more satisfying for an antagonist than being confronted with the consequences of their actions and having to navigate life after having making those decisions, ESPECIALLY when it comes to mending the bonds that- for anyone else- would have shattered long ago. With Aoki being motivated by the want to be loved and appreciated for himself, it would've been nice to see him finally acknowledge that he did have that love and start to better himself as a result (however much he'd be able to while in prison anyway lmao).

The Mine and Aoki comparisons are so real though, I remember joking to myself about it days after beating the game but it just fuels my mental illness every time I think about it ☠️ I LEGALLY AM NOT ALLOWED TO GO OFF ABOUT THE Y7 ENDING I'VE DONE IT TOO MUCH it makes me so mad every time I think about it 😭 ESPECIALLY THE PARALLELS WITH ARAKAWA AND THE LOCKERS UGGGHHH IT COULD HAVE BEEN SUCH AN EPIC CONCLUSION WITH THAT... Arakawa running from the lockers at the start of Aoki's life compared to Ichiban running from the lockers and getting Aoki to the hospital so Aoki can restart life I'm Going To Kill Someone (myself) (in Minecraft)

#snap chats #theres a note here about aoki's self hatred and ergo his inability to believe people could love him without 'worth'#and some kind of. I Dont Know occurs that comes with aoki accepting that love and ergo At Least Tolerating himself #and again becoming better as a person as a result. not WHOLLY you cant undo Everything Wrong With Him with one therapy session #but itd at least be a start and thats far more than anything else rgg has given since like. ryuji in dead souls #but w/e i- as per usual- have the vocabulary of a walrus so we're just gonna have to imagine i said something profound #AND THE LACK OF HUGGING IN THIS FRANCHISE IM GOING TO STAB ALL OF YOU. IN MINECRAFT.#with the power of delusions and this like seven-year-old wacom tablet i can fix that......#it'll never be enough it'll never fill the void in my soul but it'll be something i guess #BUT UGH NO SORRY IM JUST MAD NOW #nothing in my life has ever genuinely triggered anger in me than the y7 ending its just soooooooOOOOO #IT WAS SOOO CLOSE TO BEING PERFECT I CANT #im going to give myself a blood clot thinking about it anymore i feel my heart stopping Do Not Call An Ambulance I Cannot Afford It #so to stop myself from going in any more debt than i already am..... the possibility of any essays from me are very small #my ability to use words is near non existent. i feel like a right ninny sometimes #in any case im not sure what else i could expand on that isn't restating what you've said #cant ever be upset with bein on the same wavelength tho it gives my inarticulate ass a helluva easier time trying to explain LMAO #plus im petrified of trying to interpret anything from the english dub or english subs #and looking into language use is Very Much important when dissecting abusive relationships #i guess there's always just talking about general actions committed and not inspecting the exact words used #idk.. at the very least ill rotate the concept in my head and then fend off the urge to eat my teeth #i'm gonna throw up.... im still thinking of it........ gonna make an unrelated-but-arguably-related post in like three seconds #dont look at it its cringe

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heartss4val · 10 months

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"meet me in the graveyard."

synopsis: despite being a child of hades, you're the light of percy's life. pairing: percy jackson x gn child of hades reader headcanons. word count: 0.7k

• love at first sight, seriously. i like to think the first time you two met was when you saved him from being smashed into smithereens, and from that day on he was completely head over heels.

• before you two established a relationship, percy was constantly trying to find ways to impress you. he'll always go above and beyond when he knows you're watching because he wants to make a good impression!!

after a long day of training and unnecessarily using his powers to catch your eye, he finally decides to go up to you. and at first, he's all confident; approaching you with his chest puffed out, but the second you turn around and make eye contact with him, he's a sputtering mess.

"sooo, um, you- we-" percy stumbles over his words, his face getting red as he tries to think of something to say that wouldn't be an awkward compliment. you stare at him in pure confusion, one eyebrow raised as he struggles to get out any words. "um," percy leans against riptide, trying to play off his embarrassment. "so you have a really nice jawline-"

yeah, he doesn't know what he's doing.

• but when you first start dating, he's absolutely ecstatic!

• as the two of you progressed in your relationship, percy slowly started to discover a side of you that he didn't even know existed before. yes, you're both strong and independent, but you're also able to be vulnerable and sensitive when the situation calls for it. he trusts you with his whole heart and knows you would never try to intentionally hurt him.

• given the reputation your father has, percy's very protective of you. i mean, he knows damn well you're more than capable of fending for yourself, but new campers tend to make rash assumptions solely based on the fact that you're a child of hades.

but percy ALWAYS has your back. he's always quick to defend and set the record straight if anyone dares to speak ill of you, especially in front of new campers who may not know better. he wants to make sure you're not seen as evil-leaning simply because of your lineage.

• percy often steals glances at you while you're training. actually, no — scratch that, he's full-on staring. there's just something so mesmerizing about you, and if he could watch you practice all day, he most definitely would.

sometimes people catch him admiring you, and he'll try to cover it up by saying something like "oh, don't worry, i'm their boyfriend." and then he thinks about it a little and gets all giddy because he's like "i'm THEIR boyfriend!!!!"

(kicking his feet and giggling fr)

• some children of hades have control over precious metals and such. if you happen to specialize in that skill, percy makes the most out of it! he occasionally asks you to summon some smaller ones so he can figure out how to make it into a necklace to wear, or something along those lines.

• percy insists on helping you decorate cabin 13 for special occasions! unfortunately, despite his good intentions, his taste in decoration often contradicts the ominous atmosphere that surrounds hades cabin.

"babe, can we use the blue ones?" percy asks, holding up some blue fairy lights for you to see. "absolutely not." you answer, frowning. "it detracts from the cabin's overall feng shui." "feng who?"

one time during the holidays, percy decided to spruce up your cabin by placing a classic red and white santa hat on top of the skull hanging over the doorway of cabin 13. needless to say, you did not find it as amusing as he did.

• horror movie marathons for sure! you two watched the whole scream franchise in one sitting! unfortunately, percy isn't as adamant about horror as you are, so half of the time he's making excuses to hold you to distract himself from the jumpscares.

"are you scared? here, let me hold you." percy says, pulling you into his chest while his eyes are still glued onto the screen. "i'm not scared, perce. you seem to be though." you laugh, tossing a handful of popcorn into your mouth. "shh, it's okay," he replies, and runs his hand over your hair, except his hand is still shaking from the previous scene. LMFAOO

at the end of the movie, he has the audacity to be all like, "ugh, yeah it wasn't even scary." as if he wasn't clinging onto you moments before.

• all in all, you two are a perfect match!

a/n

i honestly love this dynamic sm :(( i hope i did it justice.

also i am on an absolute ROLL whipping out these percy fics, holy.

okok see u next time!

xx val.

#percy jackson x reader #percy jackson #percy jackson x you #heroes of olympus #percy jackson x y/n #heroes of olympus x reader #hoo #hoo x reader #pjo x reader #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo #x reader #percy jackson imagine #percy jackson x yn #percy jackson fluff

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thankskenpenders · 7 months

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There’s been some discussions on Twitter recently about if Blaze’s dimension is worth keeping around and expanding on or if it should be ignored/merged with Sonic’s world thanks to a Bumblekast clip. What are your thoughts on Blaze’s dimension as a story-telling hurdle/ alternate setting? I personally feel like it wouldn’t make a difference if Blaze was a princess from another dimension or a princess from the other side of the world, it would just be easier for her to show up if she wasn’t from another dimension, but I also think it’s be neat to expand on Blaze’s world as a parallel to Sonic’s.

I think there's a whole cottage industry of Sonic fans who just like to take things Ian says out of context so they can rile people up on Twitter, and the fandom falls for it every time, and it's extremely tiring

But also I think Ian is right

This isn't something I've really shared, but I actually have a document where I've kept ideas for what I would do with a hypothetical modern reboot of Archie Sonic where I'm allowed to start from scratch and change anything I want. (I might share some of this someday, perhaps with some character designs, but for now it's just a thing for me. It's not like I'm gonna do a comic or anything.) For Blaze, I immediately decided that all of the elements from the Sol Dimension should be merged with the regular Mobius. I would just say that Sonic and friends have all their adventures on one hemisphere of the planet, and Blaze is from the other. I mean, the Sol Dimension already has a heavy Australia/Oceania vibe. It'd be really easy. This way, there would still be some level of separation, and Blaze would still have her own territory where she gets to be the main hero, but it'd be WAY easier to actually use those elements. Characters can just show up on whatever part of the planet they need to be on for any given story

For some reason people seem to think that Blaze being from a separate dimension isn't a storytelling hurdle at all, and I really don't know what franchise they're following, because it sure as hell isn't the version of Sonic I know. Yes, in theory it could be as simple as just using a warp ring to hop over to the Sol Dimension whenever. There are ways to write around it. I'd love to see that happen so that we could flesh out Blaze's world some more. Give Blaze some more allies and villains of her own! Give her more to do over there, and more reasons for Sonic and co. to visit! But clearly Sega isn't down with that, considering the Sol Dimension has only ever been in one game and, what, two issues of the IDW comics for maybe ten pages total? Sega's just sitting on it, and it's impossible not to see the fact that it's a whole separate dimension as the reason.

Even if we were getting more stories about traveling to and from the Sol Dimension, it'd still be a hassle. You want to use the Chaotix in a story in the Sol Dimension? Wanna use Marine or Johnny or whoever in a story set on the main world? Well, you'd better think up an airtight excuse for why those characters are traveling between the dimensions and pray that Sega approves of it. And right now that seems to be one hell of an obstacle, given how little we see of the Sol Dimension even though I know damn well Ian and Evan would love to explore it more. It's gotten to the point that Blaze is now on an endless "vacation" on Sonic's Earth so that they can actually use her in stories. People have been acting like merging the worlds would completely take away everything that makes Blaze special as a character, when it would just make all of her personal story stuff infinitely easier to work with than it is right now.

"Oh but what about the Sol Emeralds?" There's no reason the Sol Emeralds couldn't exist on the same planet as the Chaos Emeralds. We've already got other magic rocks like the Time Stones, the Phantom Ruby, and the Warp Topaz. "But what about Eggman Nega?" I could not give less of a shit about what happens to Eggman Nega and Sega doesn't even use him anymore, but also he's already supposed to be from Silver's future, not the Sol Dimension. "But what about the plot of Sonic Rush where the whole point was that they had to stop the worlds from being merged because they thought it was a bad thing?" Yes, because Sonic has always been a series that treated canon as sacred an immutable, and Sega would never do something that contradicted a game from almost 20 years ago

Anyway, all of this is a moot point. It's not like this is going to happen. Ian just brought up the possibility on the BumbleKast as an "if I could change literally anything" type deal. Sega is not going to do this. He is allowed to have his own opinions on Sonic things without fans having to take it personally and scream and cry about it. You don't have to agree with him on everything. I've certainly had points I disagree with him on! It's fine! That's normal! He's only human. Yes, Ian is on the Lore Team, but he's just one voice in the room. He's not even the boss of that team. If Ian could get whatever he wanted, we'd have seen the Freedom Fighters and Sticks by now

#nintendweeb #ask #tkp asks #this got long but i did in fact catch wind of this debacle while scrolling twitter on my phone when i woke up today and it made me mad lol

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copperbadge · 2 years

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please tell us what the Sandra Bullock clause is! (if only so i can use it on all of my friends this holiday season)

Oh, that was just a throwaway joke line, there isn't actually one -- I just said "per the Sandra Bullock clause" because she's the star of While You Were Sleeping.

Although I suspect there is merit to the idea that any given movie made by Hollywood, Sandra Bullock has made a version of it which is either better, more fun, or more interesting.

So Die Hard, if it indeed is a Christmas movie, is mooted by While You Were Sleeping. There's Ocean's 11 and Ocean's 8, of course. She wipes out an entire genre of car chase films (the FastFurious franchise, the French Connection, etc) with Speed. I'm not sure what Two Weeks Notice is a better version of, but there's bound to be something. I haven't seen The Lake House but I bet nobody else has either so they can't argue with you when you assert it's a superb time travel movie. She played Miriam in Prince of Egypt which wipes out every swords'n'sandals epic. Miss Congeniality is a fantastic undercover cop film. She's done at least one spy movie too, hasn't she? And she did The Blind Side, which while kind of a creepy film is more interesting than most sports films.

I started the response to this ask as a joke but I think I might actually be onto something profound here. I think if you are hanging out with a bunch of pretentious film nerds and you mention the Sandra Bullock Clause, ie if a film exists she has been in a version of it which is either better or more fun, you could really make some people BIG mad.

#sandra bullock #film studies #cinema

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a-person-whos-alive · 6 months

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Why TotK fails Zelda

Heads up, this is a long post. Ive cut this down like a motherfucker but it still reads very long. My thoughts are divided into four main categories;

1. Her relationship with her magic & tech

2. Her relationship with Hyrule

3. Her relationship with Link

4. Her relationship with the player

Also, these are my opinions, I'm certain there are people with far better analysis skills than me! I am just in love with this franchise and a little disappointed with the recent game. Zelda as a character holds a special place in my heart and its sad that her character was done dirty like this.

Theres a TLDR at the end and before I forget, SPOILERS!!!

1. Her relationship with her magic & tech

Zelda is not someone who magic came easily to, and I think BotW & AoC did a great job exploring that. They contrasted her natural interest with the sheikah technology and her lack of power and it was 😘👌

How did TotK do? With the Zonai tech being the main selling point, how would Zelda, a scholar at heart, interact with it? To my memory, the only interaction she has is to put Mineru's soul into a piece of Sheikah tech and hand it to a construct.

Well what about magic? Finding out she has light AND time powers was at first a great throwback to OoT with the Sage of Time. The fact that her Time magic awakened immediately unlike the Light magic in the last game was a nice contrast. But then, she immediately has a similar dilemma, she can't USE her magic to propel herself forward because she doesnt know how. Unlike BotW though, she has the "mother" she was lacking to teach her. This was a decent set-up. It was different enough to be its own thing but still was familiar enough. This is up to memory 4 - Mineru's Council

The issue the NEXT MEMORY, memory 5 - Gerudo Assualt shows her being even more proficient than Sonia. We don't see her train, or struggle, or even ask a question about how the stone works. She just does. It's not until memory 8 do we see her get any guidance about her powers? And even then we don't see her attempt recall at all. In the next memory she simply uses it perfectly and effortlessly.

The purpose of her strengthening Time Magic was to get back home. Yet, she gets back home by swallowing a sacred stone, that she already had the ability to do at any point. She turns into the LIGHT dragon, using her LIGHT magic to strengthen the Master Sword. Her whole arc about her magic was pointless because in the end she used the powers from the previous game for everything important.

2. Her relationship with Hyrule

Positives first! Its clear that Zelda loves her people, and during the 7? year gap she obviously took the time to connect with them and problem solve. Penn's quest really demonstrates this, and so does the Hateno school quest. (Even if the children don't believe in the Calamity). I found it very endearing that the people had such faith in her, that even with Ganondorf causing havoc with her face, people refused to believe it. The Great Fairies MUST have seen wrong because it was dark, Dorephan MUST have been mistaken, the Stable Trotters MUST have seen someone else - Zelda wouldn't do that.

I additionally liked that Zelda wasn't immediately trying to set up a monarchy again. In fact, she seemed to be doing the opposite. She wasn't living in Central Hyrule, at Looking Landing, she was living in Hateno. She was a teacher, and on some level a researcher (even if the Don Dons were scrapped ideas from the first trailer).

But the second she goes to the past, she is put back in her box. Her interests in tech are non-existant, she does not interact with anyone who isn't royalty, the King doesn't listen to her about Ganondorf and tells her to not to worry - after all she's just supposed to wear that white dress and hope her magic works soon. She's regressed back to before the Calamity, waiting for something terrible she knows is coming and is powerless to stop.

Crucially, she doesn't speak to Ganondorf once.

This is by far the most egregious waste of their characters in my opinion, and I've just deleted a 3 paragraph Ganondorf discussion - another time. But come on! This is legitimately the PERFECT scenario for Zelda to find about about WHY people opposed her royal family, WHY everyone she's ever loved died in Calamity caused by this guy, WHY she's had to go through all this. But no, if they did talk, it wasn't on screen.

Ive seen in translations of parts of one of the interviews with a developer saying she was able to see what a ruler should be like by going to the past, but until a see an official source I'm going to hope that's not true

3. Her relationship with Link

"Link is still entrusted with the role of protecting Princess Zelda." - Hidemaro Fujibayashi https://www.npr.org/2023/09/13/1199307678/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-dlc-video-game. Maybe I'll write a post about Link sometime, but I'm focusing on just him and Zelda.

Whether you ship the two or not, the pair would obviously have a unique bond from both fighting the Calamity and losing the Champions/everyone. So, how did the pair cope with the destruction of everything the love? How did Zelda come to terms with the ruins of Castle Town, the harsh reality of all those who were dead? Zelda doesn't have Link's amnesia to temporarily soften the inital blow.

TotK explores none of this.

Similarly, there is a level of formality on how Zelda speaks of Link. When she tells Rauru of Link she starts, "He is a royal knight. He had been originally appointed for my protection, but later he became a hero by saving both me and Hyrule from a great evil". Not "he and I became close" or even "he became my friend". Zelda is talking to the two people closest to her right now,

All their interactions are the bare minimum.

Link has ALWAYS been a self insert for the player, but he's still a character, and more recently Nintendo has been acting like having emotions means a player can't project onto them. Zelda is Link's closest person, and when she returns he is piece of cardboard, at least help her up!

4. Her relationship with the player

First, as everyone who played BotW will know, many things were removed or changed in TotK to allow it to be standalone for new players. Sheikah tech was removed, important characters forgot Link, the majority of the last game was rarely if ever mentioned. Kass

However TotK does not properly establish Link and Zelda for new fans AND doesnt not elaborate for old fans. They interact twice until the end - the intro and memory 1. All of her characterisation is in that little history moment, the rest of it is 50% sacred power lore and 50% time power lore. Additionlly, anyone who is new to the game has no context for her light powers.

Actually, TotK literally retcons her light magic to be from Rauru and not Hylia. Which was the WHOLE POINT of BotW so great sequelling there guys.

TLDR: The Conclusion

Wow, you made it this far. Or you skipped to end, I would too. My main gripes with Zelda:

> She doesn't interact with Zonai Tech.

> Her arc is about learning time power to go home, only for her to not use said magic and instead use the light magic from the last game to fix the sword and be a light dragon.

> Having her worries about Ganondorf shot down by the King and not holding her ground/ insisting (did you learn nothing from Rhoam??)

> never interacting with Ganondorf him being in Hyrule as a diplomat

> nintendos approach to her and link, they dont once touch while both conscious. Not even a handshake or pat on the shoulder. See images above with prev. Zelda and Link.

> the instance on making it not complicated for accessibility to new players, but also not fleshing it out enough to be compelling on its own.

#legend of zelda #tears of the kingdom #totk #zelda #zelink #skyward sword #???#kind of #if i said all i wanted to say about skyward sword zelink it would be three times as long #i dont even ship totk zelink but im mad for yall #i hope this is readable #i do math all day #i have little media literacy #i try

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victimsofyaoipoll · 10 months

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Round 2

Propaganda Under Cut

Annabeth Chase

I feel like fandom is kinda split on her with percabeth shippers loving her but any m/m shipper I've seen does not like her, really. She is my bae tho <3

Percabeth antis grind my gears so much because they never hate Percy, nono, even though he's arguably done more questionable stuff than Annabeth. Not everyone who hates her is doing so because of a mlm ship— the Perachel stans claim that Annabeth is a misogynist. However, basically everyone that isn't trying to ship her boyfriend with Rachel is trying to ship him with Jason, Nico, or her old friend Luke. They make her out to be this horrible abusive girlboss(derogatory) that she's simply... not. She doesn't insult Percy for having ADHD just because she's highly intelligent. She doesn't physically abuse him, and doesn't lay a finger on him outside of training. She's really devoted to him in a non-anti-feminist way. They just hate her for 'getting in the way' of Nico's convoluted attraction to Percy, or Jason's close friendship with him, or Luke's rivalry with him. But those relationships all flourish the way they were intended by the author: non-romantically. It's not Annabeth's fault for being intelligent or capable or jokingly snide or determined or any of those non-stereotypically-feminine qualities. She's just out here existing and people hate her for not being a man. Sorry for the rant.

She's canonically in a relationship with Percy Jackson for most of the books they're in, but he often gets paired in canon with other male characters, such as Nico di Angelo or Jason Grace. In fan fiction (especially yaoi focused ones) she's characterized as being a stuck up know it all, but she gets into plenty of shenanigans in canon and can be pretty goofy and sweet!

Sakura Haruno

Her husband is gay and her author doesn't know how to write women. So many people say she's the worst but she. DESERVES. BETTER!!! Save her from this franchise.

My baby girl my bestie my best friend. She committed the crime of um being written by kishimoto who both doesn’t know how to write women and somehow writes men in the gayest way possible specifically naruto and sasuke. Like the thing is naruto and sasuke ARE gay and also she gets so much hate for the crime of kishimoto writing her one dimensionally in love with sasuke. I know her personally she is a butch lesbian to me just trust me she’s in love with Ino and has a lesbian thing going on with Karin okay just trust me. My everything. She needs to divorce the loveless lavender marriage she’s in

What is there to say, even? The OG Threat to my 90s anime brain, the only woman I've ever hated with such a passion she made me turn away from the color pink. I used to write fics with my friend where she got left behind on purpose so our OCs could join the Naruto and Sasuke team instead. I loathed this bitch until I was 16 and realized the author simply couldnt write women and decided it was time to make peace with Sakura. It is not her fault she's vaguely written and obsessive over Sasuke. She deserves better. Sasuke and Naruto still should be together and Sakura shouldnt be with Sasuke but I no longer believe this because I hate Sakura, it is because I love her. She deserves a spouse who will actually put in the time to treat her like the hero she is.

#poll #round 2 #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo #annabeth chase #naruto #naruto shippuden #sakura haruno

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derseprinceoftbd · 3 months

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This is a rant I've been meaning to get off my chest for a while, but the conception on Tumblr, AO3, and sometimes here, that Jake is capable of "teasing" Dirk, and all that implies, irks me deeply.

Let me be clear: Jake English is not self-aware. He, in Canon, never does anything resembling self-awareness, maturity, emotional boldness, or anything else that requires a spinal column. This includes apologizing to anyone, talking about his problems in a way that doesn't end up being selfish, teasing someone, particularly Dirk, or transitioning. (I maintain this especially; he does not have the boldness, maturity, self-awareness, or nerve to have transitioned his gender presentation pre-Act-6.)

He has an *understanding* of pranks, if we allow Paradox Space as evidence, but that's it. He makes *Tavros* look like a fully-roleplayed-into-Class-shift Lord.

You know what the popular Fandom perception of Jake, as a member of a DirkJake relationship, lines up with? *John*, before his main writing trait became a deep, all-consuming depression and repression thing.

Like, John’s original Act 5 and earlier characterization before his underreaction to his dad's death and the spiral that sent him down towards his current "transition would not save her" characterization is what people use for Jake (charming, funny, actually seems to have his shit together enough to maybe be transmasc (man, remember *transmasc John*?), and, most importantly, seemingly capable of dealing with the levels of vaguely sociopathic bullshit that an even-close-to-accurate Dirk would throw at him), but DirkJohn/JohnDirk is less popular, to the point of not having a consensus order, simply because Jake and Dirk are *coded* as liking each other.

I think a lot of people miss that DirkJake is fundamentally the Equius of relationships; Hussie isn't one of those writers that feels pride in finding pathos in the ridiculous, but spiteful glee and humor. He genuinely does not care if he accidentally touches people's hearts in a way that doesn't involve Dave, or *maybe* Vriska. The fact is, DirkJake is a joke relationship, which is spelled out very clearly in their conversation.

You know, their conversation. The one they have together. The time we see someone who is actual Dirk Strider, not Hal pretending, not Aranea co-opting a memory, not a Brain Ghost, talking to Jake. That time.

Yeah, that doesn't exist. DirkJohn has as much conversational basis as DirkJake.

Edit:

LESS! GAME OVER! "I FAILED"! LESS!!!

DirkJake is a joke, a long, subtle one being made on everyone who saw Dirk's affections and immediately wanted him to get together with his disabled(?) ongoing harassment victim. Hussie was having a lot of fun making it seem like Jake found it important in the Masterpiece, I'll tell you that much.

@thelifetimechannel/@geejaysmith/@clonerightsagenda did magnificently wringing blood from this stone, I really do mean that, their Alphas are genuinely written better than Canon for 3/4, but that's all it ever was; every DirkJake writer is the YouTube comments under [this video](https://youtu.be/B7bpv5xyrOY?si=wYTCFDHM5ZzOY8fp) saying Equius could ever have been more than what he was.

TL:DR

1, Jake is pathetic, and we should remember this.

2, Hussie is a jackass who hates us one and all for the sin of caring and everything he has done with this franchise since maybe EOY2 has had an ulterior motive, and we should remember this.

3, Most people who write longfics set in SBURBless AUs, whether normalcy or fantasy, and want to ship Dirk and Jake should really be shipping Dirk with John, since now that history of Dirk-Jake interactions that justifies the ship in-Universe is gone at the Author's leasure, John would have the dynamic they want, and they talk *exactly as much*.

4, If you want to trans Jake, [there's a sensible way to do that](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8619856), but there's no in-character way to make him transmasc.

5, Read DDOTA, I beseecheth of you. Like yeah the Striders are emotional to a kinda weird degree but apart from that they really got everyone down right.

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snortoborto · 5 months

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This is literally the only website where fans of G3 Monster High can exist in peace without being fucking crucified by G1 purist types.

I grew up in Pony Fandom, I'm used to seeing how adults react to reboots, but I have never seen a fandom (of a children's toy line, lest we forget) act so horribly vindictive towards a reboot, and it's fans. A very high quality, thoughtful reboot at that.

You literally can't just enjoy G3 without someone screaming in your ear about how bitter they are that theyre not a kid anymore. That Monster High isn't catering to the youth culture of of 14 years ago.

I grew up in the 2010s and so many franchises from that time have been reworked. Some good and some bad, but I've never really seen quite the level of dedicated, continuous, distain for a reboot, that I see in the MH fandom.

Its just weird cause they're the same people who tout the "Be Yourself, Be Unique, Be a Monster" tag line of G1. Unless you like a different doll than them...I guess? It's so unserious. I think they remember G1 as being better, or more countercultural/progressive than it actually was. Those dolls and movies are not quite the high art, people pretend that they are.

They also constantly act like G3 killed G1. Wiped it off the face of the earth. All the old stuff is still there, PLUS Mattel is constantly releasing G1 collector dolls. Like, a lot of them.

The pride merch for this year had the G1 ghouls on it, eventhough G3 is the only version with actual cannon representation. (Yes Ik the G1 creator confirmed queer theories and intentions on social media, but it never explicitly made its way into the TV/movies. Its just coding, which is good, but still NOT explicit representation. Plus Garrett likes the new dolls, and posts them on socials. G3 has his blessing.) Why didn't we get some G3 Frankie merch to rep their NB identity? Why didn't we get G3 Clankie on a shirt or something? Mattel is still putting G1 first.

There's plenty of normal G1 fans, obviously, but the shitty ones are LOUD. Mattel can't even post an insta or tiktok video of the G3 cast, without the comments being full of people trashing G3 and attacking any commenter who likes it. Sometimes even shitting on the live action actors and VAs on their personal socials. It's gotten a little less bad since the reboot has been out over a year, but it's still a huge problem.

I'm genuinely confused as to why MH fans are acting worse about a reboot than literal bronies did about MLP G5. I love bronies, I'm a life long pony fan, but ik the fandom can have STRONG opinions on horse show.

When I started using Tumblr, I was surprised to only see love for G3. I'm sure there's hate somewhere, but not that I've seen.

Anyone else have any idea about why this might be? Are other doll-centric fandoms like this? I only really like MH dolls, so idk.

#monster high #monster high g3 #g3 monster high #mh #mhg3 #mh g3 #monster high reeboot #monster high dolls #queer representation #g3 mh #frankie stein #clankie

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ashe-studies · 2 months

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things i wish the sonic franchise brought back or implement.

Dark Sonic

seriously, i love imagining a fight between Dark Sonic and Eggman inspired by Korra vs. Zaheer ( when she was poisoned ). where he loses the cool attitude, the smile, everything, and goes in with full power, charging himself left and right at Eggman. it'd be even more fascinating to still have Dark Sonic lose. not because of his lack of power, not because of lack of skill, even when blinded by rage, but because of Eggman's ingenuity.

a lot of people, to this day, misinterpret Dark Sonic as a murderous, rampaging monster, but that completely misses the purpose of why he exists to begin with. i believe this is a case of people not exactly knowing where he comes from, or just a lot of fans drawing a murderous Sonic and it took the internet by storm one day, but just in case you don't know:

Dark Sonic is from Sonic X, a TV show that is sort of an expansion on Sonic Adventure 2, adding more lore, character arcs, and overall meaning to the game's original plot. Dark Sonic was revealed in the episode "Teasing Time" in s3, and the reason he appeared is because he discovered his friends ( Cosmo and Chris ) were injured and that one of them ( Chris ) was unconscious.

the whole reason this form exists is Sonic's love for his friends essentially fueling his rage. it's like Darkspine Sonic from SATSR, or has similar formula. Dark Sonic isn't inspired by any bloodlust or desire to kill, but rather by burning anger at seeing his friends be put in harm's way.

Dark Sonic is made from the strong desire to protect his friends.

2. An Actual Arc For Shadow

you guys might be confused, especially if you consider some of my previous posts, but lemme explain.

for a long time, it's never felt like Shadow has actually recovered from his trauma, atone for his actions ( yes, i understand he saved Earth ), or live life really at all. it doesn't help that, to this day, SEGA continues to make Shadow relive the past.

i don't consider the movies to be a part of the problem, as Shadow being introduced to the plot was basically a given, and you can't introduce him in your own take without his general backstory ( unless you're Boom or Prime, i guess ). i believe the movie will be doing taking some creative liberties to his story, as they did so with Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, and i see no reason that they should stop.

the reason why i have an issue with this is because it's an ongoing issue within the games, specifically. Shadow the Hedgehog ( 2005 ) was a disservice to his setup and the 'first arc' ( considering he's still alive after the fans demanded his return ) to his story.

aside from it just giving 'early 2010s deviantart edge', it's just so...

childishly handled.

for one, you're immediately given a Hero or Dark route, like in SA2, which i feel completely misses the point of SA2's true ending. Shadow has redeemed himself ( or began to ), so to give him complete reign to just become an antagonist all over again defeats the whole purpose of a redemption.

it's like what Prime did with Dread, giving him an already established redemption arc ( sort of ), but then corrupting him again for no real reason other than just because.

another issue i have is Shadow's amnesia and attitude in general within the game. technically speaking, yes, it does make sense for him to suffer memory and // or physical issues from his fall from space, but to completely wipe out every single thing he did just to give him the opportunity to relearn his past, do some fucked up shit, do some less fucked up shit, then throw away everything in the past, Maria and her wish included, is...

amazingly obtuse, for lack of a better word.

again, while it's technically not out of bounds, i feel like giving Shadow complete and total amnesia just disrespects SA2's vision and execution of the story. it's redundant, it's lazy, and overall just really damn frustrating to watch.

Shadow deserves to have a story that allows him to heal from his trauma, discover who he is, and respecting Maria's wish along the way. a lot of people seem to think it's either he forgets about his past ( or buries it ) or full-on dedicates his entire life and doesn't bother picking up a life lesson or two, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Shadow can heal, grow, and change. SEGA just won't let him.

3. The Echidna Tribe & Knuckles' Story

Knuckles is one of my favorite characters in the entire franchise as a whole, but his character and story is sorely dismissed. while Shadow has the issue of repetition, Knuckles suffers from being dropped on the head multiple times and played for a joke ( i think Frontiers is one of the more recent games that didn't do this, but i might be wrong ).

one of the reasons why i love Knuckles is how straightforward, yet reluctant he was about finding out his past. at the end of Sonic Adventure 1, he says something to the extent of:

"maybe i'm better off not knowing the meaning behind all of this. because i feel something terrible will happen if i do."

he is content being ignorant for the sake of his own peace of mind.

but in SA2, he's more or less forced to start facing his fear and learn more about the past. unfortunately, though, we don't actually get to see much after this game, because the tribe is almost entirely forgotten. instead, it's brought up in comics that are more or less canon ( i think ), but not fully aligning with the games. i think it's safe to say the comics are their own canon?

like with Shadow, i would've loved to see an actual conclusion on this arc of Knuckles' story. to see more of the tribe in the past, of their wrongdoings, character moments, more of Tikal or Chaos or the little Chao, and how it all ties together.

but instead, we have lots of media repeatedly insulting Knuckles' intelligence, ignoring his tribe and // or his job entirely ( i guess they forget the Master Emerald is portable? ), and just generally dumbing him down to be a hotheaded moron that apparently doesn't care about being the Guardian!

Knuckles is one of the most relatable characters in this series for me, as there's a lot of things i would rather not know and stay ignorant to, but have to face head on in order to fully move past it and grow to be better.

he was completely isolated on Angel Island for so long, yet people still make fun of him to this day for being manipulated by Eggman in SA1 ( even though he didn't even fully believe Eggman, it was just a precaution, but who cares about the details- ). he's not just a hothead, he's strong, he's kind, he's pretty blunt and, honestly, really fucking adorable, i love this echidna.

look at him, just standing there. i love him.

anyway, Knuckles deserves a proper story surrounding his tribe, his identity as the Guardian of Angel Island, his relationships, and to have a satisfying conclusion. or, at the very least, more games or media in general not dumbing him down to an angry hothead with nothing better to do but to yell and ignore his responsibilities.

3. Sonic

"what're you talking about, ashe? sonic's meant to be a flat character! what could be wrong with him?"

yeah, but after frontiers, i want more mentally ill sonic that needs to be concerned for by his friends, okay, that's all i want-

4. Storybook Era

now, now, i know a lot of people don't like the storybook games because of their shoddy gameplay and all that, but i genuinely love these games, their flaws included.

i do believe satbk has a better story than satsr, but i still have an attachment to the latter game, so suck it.

it'd be really nice to see a storybook game with switch, xbox, ps, or similar controls. as the era has Sonic diving into different worlds, maybe a world like Alice and Wonderland could be an interesting game. several elements to work with, locations turning into creative levels or even hub worlds. this is sort of a long shot dream that will probably never exist, but i wanna see an adventure-style storybook game one day.

i'll probably die before that idea is even considered, but it's a fun thought and that's all that matters at the end of the day.

there's no real big reason as to why these matter or anything, as i don't believe you need a storybook in order to send off the messages these games try to give, but they're just really charming to me and i love to see how this type of game could be implemented into video games today, with all the new engines and whatnot.

5. Teams

oof, okay, um-

there's a few games that have teams in them, and i guess you can count sonic forces as one of those games, so i should be more specific here.

i like SA1's flexibility with the roulette-like system, where you could play as any character you wished, but i also like SA2's team system, where they all had a close-knit role within the story from a similar perspective ( hero vs. dark ).

SA1 served multiple perspectives, all giving you pieces of the same puzzle that you have to figure out as you go. by the final story, all of the characters ( except Big, but idc, i love him ) have their character arcs and it's with their changes that the story is fully complete.

SA2 served the entirety of two perspectives and merged them together for the final story, heroes and villains having to work together to fight off the greater evil at hand.

overall, i want more games having the characters work together, having different details // information or even moral differences ( it depends on which system they go with, though ) on the situation at large, but maybe still having to come together.

whether or not they use official teams, i want the sonic franchise to bring back using other characters as necessary plot points with their own individual arcs.

it may not be needed, per say, as there's still a few games that work and don't have either of these systems, but i really miss the adventure games and wish for more of their elements to be implemented in future games.

6. CHAO!!!

BRING THESE LITTLE CREATURES BACK, GODDAMN, WHY ONLY TWO GAMES?!

anyway, that's all i can currently think of. i think these would serve either character or charm to the franchise, but maybe you have some other ideas of what the games could give! maybe proper returns of characters, other forgotten stories, or even new ideas!

lemme know what you think.

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic adventure #sonic adventure 2 #sa1 #sa2 #dark sonic #sonic #shadow the hedgehog #shadow #knuckles the echidna #knuckles #team sonic #team dark #team rose #team chaotix #chao #chao garden

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david-talks-sw · 10 months

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An allergy to the Prequels

While I'm putting together a post about the evolution Lucasfilm's transmedia strategies, this part kinda turned into its own thing!

So I'm not sure if anyone else noticed, but, uh... there hasn't been that much Prequel content since the Disney sale, right?

'Couple novels and comics, some episodes... but nothing meaningful.

The more I look into it, the more it feels like a deliberate avoidance to touch on anything Prequel-related - beyond the required quota, that is - to a point where they'd rather tell stories set during periods that are Prequel-adjacent (Dark Times, High Republic) than something set around Episodes I, II and III.

On-screen policy: "pretend they never happened"

I mean, this one's no secret. When The Force Awakens had been announced, with J.J. Abrams at the helm, everyone sighed in relief. "Finally, George Lucas won't keep ruining the franchise."

When Abrams had been announced as the director of Episode VII, I remember this cringey animated video started circulating online, titled "4 Rules To Make Star Wars Great Again" or "Dear JJ Abrams":

“Star Wars isn’t shiny and clean... Star Wars is a western.”

If you ask me, those two things are not mutually exclusive.

'Cause Star Wars has always been both, for many Prequel kids. Both clean and dusty, Coruscant and Tatooine. There was never a disconnect between the Original Trilogy (OT) and the Prequel Trilogy.

Even the documentary The People vs George Lucas shows Prequel-hating fans begrudgingly admit their kids felt all six episodes tied seamlessly.

Abrams, on the other hand, said: "I think [the "Dear JJ" video] was right on." Later on, he also said:

he considered "putting Jar Jar Binks's bones in the desert" on Jakku, somewhere, and

he intentionally made the lightsaber fights "rougher", "primitive" and "more powerful" unlike the fast-paced ones in the Prequels.

Later, we found out he wanted to blow up Coruscant.

It's clear he wasn't a big fan of the Prequels.

But y'know what? Not many fans over 20 were, at the time. And when The Force Awakens came out, most them celebrated it as a wonderful love letter to the OT.

Star Wars is cool again. Mission accomplished 🙌 !

However movies keep coming out, and references to the Prequels - if there are any - are literally just that... references.

Sometimes in the shape of a cameo ("hey look, Genevieve O'Reilly from the Ep. III deleted scenes is playing Mon Mothma again!")

Sometimes in a name (Luke name-dropped "Darth Sidious"!)

But nothing set during the Prequel era, and nothing treating the events that happened in that period as relevant or impactful, beyond subtextual nods.

In fact, the trend of avoiding anything Prequel-related continues as the final film in the Skywalker Saga comes out:

The Rise of Skywalker has a secret Sith society that chants the name "Palpatine" instead of his Sith name "Darth Sidious",

the film pretends the Kaminoans never existed,

and neither TROS nor Trevorrow's Duel of the Fates script even try to bring Hayden Christensen's Anakin Skywalker back on screen. Let that sink in, we're talking about the Chosen One, Skywalker Senior, whose sins caused this whole mess... and his name isn't even uttered once in the final chapter of what Disney dubbed the *Skywalker* Saga (or the entire Sequel trilogy, for that matter).

But hey, The Clone Wars got renewed for one last Season! That's cool right? So many stories had gone unfinished and somehow the animation looks even better than befo--

-- oh. It's not 22 episodes? Only 12?

Four of which had already been shown to us, but hey! We need to set-up the Bad Batch series, so let's shoehorn those episodes in there, and forget Son of Dathomir, Dark Disciple or Crystal Crisis.

*sigh* Better than nothing, I guess.

In other mediums: "just not a priority"

Now this is something that I'll explore more in the transmedia post (and purely my interpretation), but the noticeable change between Lucasfilm's transmedia strategy *post-ROTS* and the one post-Disney sale is that:

Before, the games, comics and novels were the main content. After all, Revenge of the Sith had been released, so that was it, for the movies. Thus, a variety of other content was being cranked out to keep the Star Wars franchise relevant. There were comics set 100 years after Episode 6, comics set 25,000 years prior, games set in the Old Republic era, other stories in the New Republic era, novels galore, a couple of parody films and an animated show, The Clone Wars, which sometimes received its own tie-in comics, novels and games.

After the sale and ever since, most of the transmedia products have had only one goal: promoting the films & streaming shows.

So while in 2015 you won't see an abundance of Prequel content... you'll see an avalanche of OT books and comics come out.

Why? Because the heroes of that era will be in the Sequel Trilogy movies. It provided context to the kids who hadn't seen the OT yet, and reintroduced those films to a new generation of fans, while priming them for the Sequels.

A multimedia marketing strategy that ultimately proved successful.

However, it continued even after The Force Awakens came out.

Don't believe me? Compare how many comics there have been set during the Prequel era vs the OT era.

If they make comics about the Prequels, they're limited runs.

Case in point: before the current Yoda series, the best any Disney Prequel-set comic series ever got was 6 issues.

Note: it's worth pointing out that the frequency of mini-series aren't just a Star Wars-specific thing, it's a comic book industry thing. The readership for comics is dwindling, many people are reading scans online, and so no publisher wants to commit to a story that lasts more than 4-6 issues. My problem is: there absolutely would be readership for a Prequel comic series to warrant an extended run instead of a mini-series.

Let's talk books. There have been give or 64 canon novels published since the Disney sale.

Only 11 of them are set during the Prequel era. And even those stories only came out when the planets were aligned.

Almost half of them were released while being a part of some bigger multimedia push.

Example:

Before the Obi-Wan Kenobi series was being released on Disney Plus, we'd had one novel and like two comic stories about him during the Prequels... released between 2012 and end 2021. That's about three pieces of content in almost ten years.

Clearly a low frequency.

Then, when the series is around the corner, two books and a comic story comes out in the space of months, plus an anthology book with an alt cover with his face on it and a comic with a story of him and Anakin in the first issue, all in 2022.

My takeaway: short of there being a film or series that needs to be promoted, you'll rarely get any Prequel comics or books.

And this is OBI-WAN we're talking about. The character who even the Prequel haters love. Imagine how little attention the other ones get.

Gaming-wise, Battlefront had no Prequel content at all (again, 2015 was the year where OT content was shoved down the consumer's throats to prep them for Episode VII), and Battlefront 2 only released Prequel content a full year later.

All that being said, we did seen some Prequel elements here and there. After all, some actors got to reprise their roles, books and comics came out featuring Prequel characters... but there's a catch.

The stories they appear in are set in-between Episodes III and IV, a time-period known as "the Dark Times" or the "Imperial era".

"Dark Times" being used instead of the Prequel era

It's easy to see the appeal of this era. You keep the same threat from the Original Trilogy - the Empire - but redress it with Prequel elements... while also cherry-picking the best characters of both the OT and the Prequels and giving them a chance to shine again.

The situation is more clear cut, as opposed to the complex one in the Prequels. Bad guys are stormtroopers, good guys are anyone else. And the stories no longer take place in the shiny capital, you're back on the frontier.

But at this point... it feels like a cop-out.

When you consider how much content has been set during the Dark Times, it's nothing to sneeze at. Since the sale, we've had:

2 movies (Solo, Rogue One)

4 series set in that time-period (namely The Bad Batch, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Andor, and Star Wars: Rebels).

2 video-games (Jedi: Fallen Order and Jedi: Survivor).

17 novels (such as Ahsoka, Lords of the Sith, the new Thrawn books, etc)

And just a whole bunch of comic book series & mini-series (like Kanan, Princess Leia, various Vader-centric comics including Darth Vader: Lord of the Sith, many tie-in mini-series promoting Rogue One, Jedi: Fallen Order, Obi-Wan Kenobi, etc).

There's been so much content made for this time-period that it feels like an unwillingness to do the work and create something set something during the Prequel era, let alone something that follows its Jedi.

After all, why make a story set in the Prequels (disliked by vocal fans) when you can just take the characters in that story and put them in an OT setting (which will appease the Prequel-haters)?

Maybe these stories get relegated to the Dark Times because:

there seems to be a perception that anything set in the Prequel era won't sell?

or maybe the current SW writers weren't fond of Episodes I, II and III, and don't find those Jedi characters likable, thinking they're too righteous and dogmatic which makes it hard to craft a story around them.

Or maybe it's because they're under the impression that the Prequel Jedi are bad. Like, canonically, in the narrative. Not just in a "I don't like them" sense, but also in a "the story is all about them becoming corrupted" sense.

Let's expand on that last point.

Retconning the Prequels as the "Fall of the Jedi" era

Somehow the rare stories set during the Prequels that we do get seem to automatically be about how "the Jedi lost their way/failed".

The series Tales of the Jedi is explicit about it...

... and I already explained why it contradicts what George Lucas established here and here.

You also see it in Rebels and the new season of The Clone Wars...

... in comics...

... in games...

It gets to a point where the Prequels era has now been redubbed the "Fall of the Jedi" era by Lucasfilm.

You wanna know what that period was referred to before the Disney sale? The "Rise of the Empire" Era.

Because - and I'll never get tired of saying this cuz it's factual - the Prequels aren't about the fall of the Jedi, they're about the fall of the Republic and Anakin, and rise of the Empire and Vader.

So in addition to being overdone, the "Jedi lost their way" is not even the intended narrative of the Prequels (if one puts any stock in Lucas' words). It's a minor subplot at best, hardly the focus of the films, let alone a whole time period.

But dubbing it "Fall of the Jedi" implies that there's another era in which the Jedi were in their heyday.

Because Star Wars authors are in luck! Yet another alternative has presented itself in the shape of a new transmedia initiative, and it's even better than the "let's set it during the Dark Times" solution:

A new transmedia initiative: The High Republic

You wanna deal with the Jedi before the Empire, but for some reason you wanna avoid dealing with the ones seen in the Prequels?

Look no further. Meet the Jedi of the High Republic.

Noble, adventurous, inspired by the Knights of the Round Table, they're everything the OT kids dreamed about when they heard ol' Ben Kenobi talk about the Knights of the Old Republic.

That's more like it!

Note: the High Republic was created for other reasons and has many more upsides than the ones mentioned above. Namely, a fresh new spot in the timeline that allows for creative freedom and a beautifully-coordinated transmedia storytelling effort where retcons are non-existent. However it does seem evident that not having to deal with the 'unlikable' Prequel Jedi and their "fall" is one of those upsides.

Another perk that the High Republic era offers is more freedom in terms of storytelling compared to the Prequels.

In 2016, Pablo Hidalgo tweeted he still quotes to authors the following excerpt of West End Games' guide for aspiring Star Wars writers, from 1994.

You can't write "this was the best day in Luke Skywalker's life", for example, because another author may want to write a better day than the one you just wrote.

My guess is that a similar approach applies to how all characters from the movies are treated. They're massively iconic. So you can't write a book that drastically changes how Mace or Yoda or Obi-Wan are perceived overall.

The stories need to be self-contained, disregardable if necessary, because you'll have dozens of writers coming up with new stories for those same characters, and you need to leave them some room.

Examples:

Notice how in the book Dooku: Jedi Lost we never see how Dooku turns to the Dark Side and joins the Sith.

Same goes for crossover comic book arcs of the Star Wars issues, like Vader Down or Crimson Reign... the characters don't really change by much in those comics. You could stick to just watching the movies and you wouldn't really miss anything.

But with The High Republic, you indeed can develop these characters as much as you want.

All stories featuring Avar Kriss leave an impact on her, you can nail down who she is perfectly in one book or one comic arc, both being just as meaningful to her character.

The fact that she's not as iconic/famous a character as Mace Windu means that authors can go to town on crafting an interesting and nuanced character arc for her that'll have a beginning, middle and end... something Mace will never really get.

CONCLUSION:

Back in 2015... let's not kid ourselves. The Prequels were unpopular and Disney is a multi-billion dollar corporation. Opting to make as much money as possible is what they do.

It's the same reason they decided not to go with George Lucas' original plans for the Sequels, in 2012.

I mean, imagine you're Disney. You just dropped 4 billion dollars, with a B, on this franchise. Your next Star Wars movie needs to be worth the price tag. Now, you can pick between two options:

Option #1 is uncharted territory and it explores the midi-chlorians (the cursed word…!) and the guy who presented you with this option also openly admits that a big chunk of customers won’t like it, but he wants this to be done because it’s his vision.

Option #2 is very simple: a soft reboot, that plays on nostalgia that the same chunk of customers (aka the 'boomer and Gen-X fans who grew up with the Original Trilogy and now have kids, grandkids and MONEY) will like.

It's a no-brainer. They gave the customers what they wanted.

But time has passed, the fans who were children when the Prequels first came out have grown up, and grew up with characters like Yoda, Mace, Plo Koon, Kit Fisto and other Jedi as their heroes, aside from main characters like Anakin and Obi-Wan and Ahsoka.

Can we maybe expand on them, flesh them out more?

No, let's either ignoring the storytelling potential of these characters or reducing it to them being "righteous, arrogant and dogmatic".

God forbid we get a story showing the Prequel Jedi in a *gasp* more positive light? One where their POV is more understandable, instead of the same old "we brought this on ourselves" storyline.

There's a whole decade between The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones... you're telling me there's no space to show us Anakin's training and how he formed bonds with the Jedi we later see in The Clone Wars? I tried my hand at it here:

Interesting or fun Prequel-set ideas from other pro-Jedi fans on Tumblr can be found here, here and here.

And y'know, part of the Star Wars intent is for fans to take the ideas in the movies and come up with their own stories. You're supposed to create headcanons.

What I'm saying is fans of the Prequels are being given less "imagination food" than the rest, and many of us who like the Jedi in particular are forced to rely on headcanons only. "Better than nothing" is no longer an acceptable standard.

There's a range of recognizable Jedi characters that have already been established in films and TCW, can we maybe expand on them, flesh them out more, instead of whole new ones?

#jedi order #star wars #sw meta #long post #meta #lucasfilm #star wars prequels #prequel trilogy #sw prequels #high republic #the high republic #dark times #imperial era #the clone wars #tcw #sw negativity

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deliciousdefendorinternet · 3 months

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can we talk about how the one time in the Third film the brothers showed even a bit of remorse was when Branch had walked off meaning he never actually witnessed it so he decided to give them another chance despite the fact the last interaction he had with them was JD and Bruce mocking him for thinking they'd stay in his life this time 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

I swear this movie had way too much in it that pretty much what was meant to be the heart of the film got neglected Branch deciding to give them yet another chance when his last interaction with his brothers was them at their very worst is just nonsensical.

and no what he overheard Poppy say to Viva doesn't explain it since their situations are too different Poppy nor Viva were to blame for their separation either times.

Bro zone were to blame both times and were cruel and petty about it so what she said doesn't apply to Branch's situation especially not when his bros had shown no posotive signs of change.

despite them already being given a second chance but they Blew it the film encouraging him to forgive them yet again is just irresponsible of the film tbh.

its targeted towards young children some of whom may be in toxic abusive family environments and what this film does is encourage them to stay to never try and get away from their family.

to keep on giving them chance after chance no matter how many times they let you down and hurt you and to never try and find anyone better who actually treats you right and is consistent in your life.

I'm sorry but why do people like the message of this film again? 😞😞😞😞😞😞😞😞

in the modern day people want to tell family stories that feel more real by exposing how family isn't always perfect but this is going too far Bro zone weren't just not perfect they were Toxic and they didn't Redeem themselves at all imo.

not to mention they were only family in the loosest old fashioned sense in that they were blood related Branch was literally a baby when they left he had more of a relationship with Creek throughout his life than he did any of his Bros.

Honestly Trolls as a franchise has a Habit of ditching characters after their appearances in one film such as the characters in World Tour.

so on the off chance that also happens with Bro zone maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing to just act like they never existed and write them off as none cannon.

either that or just have the message of the next film be something more posotive that fixes this like him learning that they are still unreliable people who he Barely knows so he cuts them off.

or have Bro zone actually do some stuff to redeem themselves somewhat and act in a better way overall.

either way the Third film's story messed up badly in my opinion and this needs to be fixed in the future.

#trolls branch #trolls #trolls brozone #dreamworks trolls #trolls band together #trolls dreamworks #branch trolls #branch #brozone #trolls 3 #Trolls #Trolls Branch #Trolls Bro zone #trolls bro zone angst #trolls branch angst #trolls 4 #Trolls Band Together

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artoatsblog · 5 months

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What your favorite Nick toon says about you but it's EVERY Nick toon

Doug- When you were asked what you wanted for Christmas, you said "plan white bread."

Rugrats- You're a "90's kid" who wants the modern cartoon enjoyers to get off your lawn.

Hey Arnold-Same as Rugrats, but 5 time worse.

Rugrats (2021)- You only said this one to piss off the above two.

Ren & Stimpy- You're a gay man and all you OCs are ugly men who you need to kiss each other or else you'll die (This isn't an insult, you're the strongest member of our society.)

Rocko's modern life- You relate to at least one character way more than you would like to admit to others.

CatDog- Weird furry.

The angry beavers- Weird furry with taste.

Aaahh!!! Real monsters- You like the idea of Tim Burton's movies but your too cool to actually enjoy them, also your probably non-binary.

Kablam- As a kid you wanted to make something with this exact energy and now, you're a youtuber.

Oh Yeah! Cartoons- same as Kablam but you really miss Cosmo's old voice.

The wild Thornberry's- You worship the ground Tim Curry's walks on SO BAD.

Rocket power- Honest 90's kid.

SpongeBob SquarePants seasons 1-4- You're annoying about seasons 5+.

SpongeBob SquarePants seasons 5+- You know better than me about those people being annoying about seasons 5+.

As told by ginger- You were going to say Hey Arnold, but you didn't want to be lumped in with certain other people.

Action league now- You made at least five short films that look exactly like this.

Chalkzone- Your playlist for working out has the theme song for this show looped for five hours and nothing else.

The fairly oddparents- Your trans, and you hate no other person more than Elmer Hartman.

Invader Zim- You were a vary emo kid/teenager in the late 2000's (same, no shade)

Jimmy Neutron- you're really glad that that you picked the show in "Jimmy Timmy power hour" that wasn't made by an asshole.

All grown up- Come on guys "As told by ginger" is right there.

Avatar: the last airbender- I don't want to hear the lore of the fantasy book you wrote.

Avatar: the legend of Korra- Same as atla but You also made a LOT of shipping fanfics.

My life as a teenage robot- Transfem.

The X's- You don't exist, if you're going to go into the comments and say this is your favorite Nicktoon, you're lying.

El Tigre- This is just the good version of Danny Phantom.

Danny Phantom- That was a Joke don't yell at me.

Mr. meaty- You want this odd but cool type of puppetry to come back (if you thought I was going to make fun of this one your wrong.)

Tak and the power of Juju- Your enjoyment of this show is based entirely on the fact that you liked the games.

Back at the barnyard- Shitposter.

Fanboy and Chum Chum- Shitposter but awesome.

Catscratch- Yeah, I think Wayne Knight's voice is hot too.

The mighty B- Gay.

The penguins of Madagascar- I don't have a joke for this one I just think you have impactable taste.

Planet Sheen- You always wanted Jimmy Neutron to have more "Rawr XD" swag.

T.U.F.F puppy- You ether are Jerry Trainor, or you have a Jerry Trainor stan account.

Kung fu panda: legends of awesomeness- You have a three-hour lore video on this franchise, and I hope it does well.

Winx club- You wanted to help them get free from Netflix.

Robot and Monster- It may just be me, but I think you might enjoy Dan vs.

Teenage mutant ninja turtles (2012)- You don't like rise of the tmnt.

Rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles- You don't like tmnt (2012).

Sanjay and Craig- You used to freak other kids out with your scabs.

Monsters vs aliens- You can deny Coverton's rizz (sorry).

Breadwinners- Your about to go into every cartoon reviewers house with a shit ton of water balloons.

Harvey Beaks- In the middle/late 2000's you were more of a cartoon network kid, you loved Cowder.

Pig, Goat, Banana, Cricket- Same as Harvey Beaks but with Flapjack instead of Cowder.

Bunsen is a beast- Your Elmer Hartman.

Welcome to the Wayne- You wrote at least one fanfic for the ending of this show.

The adventures of kid danger- We don't talk about this one.

Middle school Moguls- it's ok monster high is about to come to Nick for real.

The loud house- Your ether a sapphic girl or a straight guy with a DeviantArt account who needs to be punished.

The Casagrandes- Same as the loud house but with the added advantages, because if you have a DeviantArt account in this one you're more likely to have a normal relationship with your family.

It's pony- You don't hate the British as much as the rest of us.

Middlemost post- John trabbic III is such a bad ass name though, wait this show has Del the funky homosapien and Tony Hawk as guest stars, I might need to which this.

Star trek: prodigy- You really like Netflix original animated shows don't you.

Big Nate- You haven't read the books.

Monster high- You the perfect in-between of goth and prep.

Transformers: earthspark- Why does this show have better non-binary rep than most other shows...I mean they are called Transformers for a reason.

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deusvervewrites · 21 days

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I am bored and in the mood to bother you about it. What's the problem with how Overpowered is used? (Not by anon specifically, and keeping in mind I say Warframe lets you be overpowered as an excellent gameplay mechanic.)

There are a few problems with an Overpowered character, but what bothers me more is the people who use the term incorrectly.

Warframe does not let you be Overpowered. Warframe is a Power Fantasy. Both Warframe and Dynasty Warriors and the like feature individual super-badasses mowing down thousands of nameless mooks, but progress isn't made that way. It's made by fighting people on approximately the same level. In DW, that's named enemy units who can fight as well as you can. In Warframe, that's mostly done in big story moments. And no gun you have in Warframe is big enough to stop Praghasa or The Man in the Wall.

Generally, the term Overpowered in fiction is applied to works with some form of power system, for reasons I feel should be obvious, but technically the idea exists in other genres. A phone trivializes being stuck in the middle of nowhere with a slasher villain, which is why the phone signal always goes out. A single Xenomorph can slaughter a small crew of civilians, but Aliens had way more of them because the protagonists were now trained soldiers. (Also there was some social commentary but that's less important to the topic at hand)

But in gameplay terms, Overpowered refers to a strategy or game piece--something that the player can use to interact with gameplay systems, ranging from cards to characters to powers to weapons--that is objectively better than alternatives. It doesn't even have to be by much. Let's say your game has two weapons in it, a sword that deals 2 damage, and a sword that deals 3. Assuming that enemies have more than four health, there is literally no reason to ever use the sword that deals 2 damage because it is objectively worse. Thus, the 3-damage sword is Overpowered because it has forced everyone to use it.

But why would a game developer introduce an objectively better weapon? Power Creep. This is another gameplay and game design term that got thrown at fictional power systems for some reason. Power Creep is when developers make new game pieces that are better than old ones. Any game that goes on long enough will have Power Creep simply because of the number of new game pieces introduced, because human brain like it when number go up, but a good designer knows to limit Power Creep as much as possible. Why? Because Power Creep invalidates previous content, and people don't like it when the devs take their stuff away. Instead, most designers try to progress sideways. New gear and strategies are introduced, but are roughly on-par with what came before.

What does this have to do with fictional power systems? Well, authors often feel as though escalation is the best way to raise narrative tension. Introducing a new bad guy who's like the old bad guy, But Stronger, is an easy way for an author to raise the stakes. The problem with this method is that it's unsustainable. It turns everything into a numbers game. Whoever has the biggest number wins. In essence, every arc is, "Bad Guy arrives and trounces Hero. Hero then gets stronger and has a rematch and wins." You can write a story that way, it's how Dragon Ball works, but after a while, the numbers become meaningless. People have been leveling this complaint at the Dragon Ball franchise for years now, even before Super started and those criticisms really got going.

Authors have gotten around this in a few ways, such as giving the Stronger Bad Guy an exploitable weakness, or giving their major antagonists unique gimmicks instead of higher stats, but that's getting off-topic.

Can you see the difference here? A character's power level is oftentimes very different from how overpowered items and strategies work in games. Goku isn't Overpowered because he's the strongest protagonist, he's Overpowered because he's so strong that none of the other characters ever get to do anything. Both Super and GT tried to fix this, Super by making Vegeta also do things and GT by making Goku a kid. Unfortunately, neither of these are great solutions since Super put a bandaid on the problem and GT did it in a really stupid way that should've been easily fixed if the plot didn't mandate that it wasn't. A better solution was used by Super later on in their Tournament of Power arc because, and I need you to follow me on this one, characters who were not Goku or Vegeta got to participate. Shocking I know.

The flaw in an overpowered character is in poor story structure, poor planning, and underutilizing the cast. Not how strong they actually are. Koro-Sensei from Assassination Classroom is the Unkillable Teacher, but the show is about how E Class rallies and grow as people, plus a lot of social commentary, so the fact that their assassination attempts fail doesn't matter as much.

And that's why I'm so furious that when you look up advice for writing power systems, the only argument they have for putting a limitation on your power system is that "an overpowered character isn't realistic."

I want to write a story about people who can magically make someone's head explode, Janet! I don't give a fuck about realism!

You know who gets it? Of course you do. I'm talking about the author when it comes to power systems. Brandon Sanderson. More specifically, his Second Law of Magic Systems: Limitations Are More Interesting Than Powers.

If anyone can blow up a mountain, who cares? But if your characters can only use their special moves when certain conditions are met, then suddenly the fight becomes a race to meet your conditions first. And that has tension! Drama! You know, that thing stories are supposed to have!

#asks #writing advice

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felassan · 1 year

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Some snippets of interest and insight from Mark Darrah, from a Mark Darrah on Games YouTube video where he is livestreaming playing Dragon Age II -

On Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and sort've like, the franchise in general:

A comment in chat asked "What do you think about the recent DA:D leaks?" Mark replied that he doesn't really think that there is much in those leaks.

A comment in chat mentioned the possible 2 companions setup from the leaks. Mark said "honestly, I think the 2 companions is probably better for storytelling than 3, because you're able to have a more consistent banter setup, as opposed to having someone [else] there just hanging on".

Chat asked if he was worried about the quality of writing in DA:D. He replied "I'm not worried about the quality of writing in Dreadwolf at all, no".

Chat asked "What are your thoughts on the Dreadwolf leaks as far as the Dragon Age gameplay moving towards hack'n'slash vs cRPG?" He said that DAII and DA:I are both action RPGs, it's just that what action RPGs are has changed over the last while. He said he thinks DA:D is continuing to try to be an action RPG, and that "I don't think they're trying to be God of War, in spite of what the rumors say. Though if you're making an action RPG these days you have to at least be influenced by God of War. Dragon Age has always had to be, it's always been in this problem of not being able to be itself within EA, so it's always having to change."

Chat asked "Why God of War, and not, say, Dragon's Dogma?" Mark explained that when looking for previous other games as comparison points/inspiration points etc, devs have to be careful not to go too far back into the past (& that Dragon's Dogma is a great game, but from quite a while ago now).

When talking about primer and detonator tactics like grease and fireball, he observed that the series generally has been moving away from this type of tactics. Grease/fireball for instance requires a certain degree of targeting that he thinks is a bit impractical, but things like mana clash are things which could continue to exist.

Red Hawke-style options in terms of metrics are the least picked by players, same as Renegade options in Mass Effect. (while Blue Hawke is likely the most chosen) They're there to simply be there more than they are to be the most-picked choice. There could be an opportunity here for devs to spend less resources in development on evil or mean choices in future, but they still need to be there.

Varric is pretty much the only true non-quantum companion from DA:I. Mark noted that if a character's quantum state isn't dead/not dead but is rather recruited/not recruited, they can always write it such that the character survived. (He also mentioned as an example that Isabela's quantum "collapsed" and was "undone" in DA:I).

He also mentioned that he will probably do livestreams playing DA:D as he has done with DA:O and is doing with DAII, but thinks it's unlikely that he will be done with streaming DA:I by then, so at that point he'll likely set DA:I aside, do DA:D and then come back to DA:I.

On Dragon Age: Absolution:

Chat asked what he thought about Meredith coming back in the show. "I don't have a problem with Meredith coming back because as revealed, it looks like she's basically almost entirely embedded in red lyrium or maybe is some kind of lyrium ghost, so I think it's certainly beyond plausible."

[source]

He also talked more generally about DAII and the previous games in general. These bits are collected under a cut due to length:

Regarding DAII's overkill, he said that the goal of DAII is to make the game "look like something", as DA:O doesn't really "look like something". The overpowered, Varric-embellished introduction to the game anchors this

Cassandra's hair isn't supposed to seem light-colored during the Varric interrogation sequence, this was probably a lighting issue

He commented that he feels Varric's voice has changed quite a bit from DAII to DA:I

Mages are super overpowered in DA:O in a very D&D way

DA:O is more difficult on PC than on consoles. He doesn't think this is the case for DAII and DA:I though

DA:O was trying to be a spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate (at least, that's what was said out loud). But Neverwinter Nights snuck in there a few times as DA:O bounced in and out of Multiplayer. So DA:O has some fingerprints on it which look like NWN. Also, it was originally built using some of its code, which ended up in the engine, Aurora

In the MET, because it's a trilogy and Shepard is the PC in each game, every single choice you made still mattered going forwards, whereas with DA, a lot of the more personal choices can be washed away game to game. That's an advantage in terms of responding to choices (as devs can set aside what they want to set aside, whereas ME3 was really bogged down by the weight of 2 games of previous choices)

On Flemeth's appearance in DAII, as a voice actor Kate was really "chewing the scenery" there and allowed to do so (to chew the scenery means to play a role in a very energetic, emotional or dramatic way); it got too expensive with Orange is the New Black to keep Kate in a big role going fowards

The slave statues at the entrance to Kirkwall are huge and probably magic

He mentioned that he thought Freddie Prinze Jr. was awesome as he was one of the most active voice actors that they had in terms of talking about his experience and how much he loved it

A comment in chat said "I just wish we had black stones in Kirkwall. any reason they made the stone white in this media only? books, animation, and codex say it's a pitch black stone city" and he explained that this is because black is almost incredibly hard to do in this engine, and that pitch black is not a good choice for level art in a video game

Chat asked "Do you feel DAII was too narratively ambitious at the start?" and Mark replied "Yeah probably, the writers have always had some difficulty keeping their ambitions in check"

Chat asked "Was it known since DA:O what Flemeth's story was?" and he replied that he thinks they always knew Flemeth was Mythal, but can't remember for sure

DAII is the most character-focused game, partially because during its development everything else had to get stripped away, but also because it laid the seeds of the devs finally admitting what BioWare are about

Chat asked "Was it ever discussed, bringing a Warden Hawke sibling to Nightmare in DA:I?" He said that he thinks it was discussed but the problem of bringing in the Warden sibling is that only one of them is alive, so they would have been dealing with quantum. They already were dealing with quantum, so they could have brought them, but only a small group of people would have the attachment to each character, because half of people would care about one and half about the other

Chat asked "Was DA:O or DA:I considered more of a success by BioWare?" DA:I sold better and has more awards, but it's hard to be down on DA:O as it was the first game and set up the IP

He feels that in a weird way, DA kind of ends up being in a similar weird place as Star Wars, in that the trilogy a fan likes best is often the one they saw when they were a child. There are people for whom Clone Wars is the pinnacle of SW, and people for whom the prequels are. Similarly, with DA, the one a player got introduced to first is often their favorite one

Mark mentioned that they probably switched to Welsh accents for Dalish elves in DAII because they liked how the accent sounded. The dwarves were always intended to sound American

Were he to remaster DA:I he'd like to push the Power requirements down a bit, so that players can go through the gates to the main storyline pieces quicker

He discussed a bit around remakes vs remasters in the context of things that have aged badly (in terms of what's politically/socially acceptable now and what isn't, compared to back then) and said that if you remake a game, you have to re-address those issue, whereas with a remaster you get away with not doing so

If they were to remake/remaster DAII they would probably only do it because they were remaking/remastering DA:O

A comment in chat said "hear me out, a VR remake of DA:O" and he replied that VR still remains pretty niche, and that making VR work well requires a certain smoothness that is missing from DA:O

(pls note that in places there is a bit of paraphrasing of the info, the best source is always the primary source with full quotes in their original context)

[source]

#dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age: dreadwolf spoilers #dragon age: absolution #dragon age #dragon age: absolution spoilers #bioware #mass effect #video games #long post #longpost #cassandra pentaghast #my lady paladin

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phonkscribes · 3 months

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Loser Wesker practically barking because reader is back and now in hd in Evil Resident™ Remake!!$!$!$!!$

Back from the Dead... sort of.

He hasn't seen them in ages, and as a fan of such an iconic(and unfortunately deceased) character, the smallest crumb or appearance of his favorite Evil Resident character is enough to have him obsessing over the remake just to view the Reader in all their glory. In which, Loser! Wesker starts raving like the fanatic he is over his beloved villain.

When it was first announced that they were remaking the fourth installation of the mainline game, Wesker couldn't say that he really cared, the protagonist of that game wasn't his favorite to play through but it set the foundation for how the future games would play like. The grinding for better weapons wasn't all that great either, and there were certain parts that he'd rather skip over from how tedious they were, and he honestly wouldn't have pre-ordered it had it not been for one very important detail. Since the fifth release of the Evil Resident franchise, you would finally be making a return, and such was teased in the trailer for the remake. He recalls watching it for the first time, with baited breath as the teaser played out. The better graphics was certainly something to behold, but none of that mattered until he saw the familiar outline of your face, only in better detail and played by someone who encompassed the very idea of who you were.

And then, when he didn't think it could be any better than it was, he was graced by that lovely voice of yours. The sweet sound of your timbre elicited a response within himself that could be likened to a starving dog, just about ready to have his treat. Swallowing thickly, he had to calm himself, pressing a gloved hand to his mouth to quickly muffle and suppress the downright joy at finally having his muse return to him. And in such an honorable fashion. Wesker had his doubts, because there was only so much a mere actor could comprehend about you, they likely wouldn't play you to the tune he desired for your image and character... but this was something, something after years of nothing. The only thing he could celebrate your existence through was the erasure of your death via fanfics and indulging in the content that others lovingly crafted for you.

Now he could have more to play with, more content to keep him pacified and sated until the next installment receives its inevitable remake or remaster. You might be nearing the precipice of your death, retold for the next generation, but he would savor every moment he could have with you. Yet again, you're at the front and center of his mind, this time seating yourself(literally) in the center of his screen as he analyzes every subtle movement that he can. Hell, he hasn't even started playing it yet, and he's already taking as many pictures as he can for his designated folder on his hard drive. The devil works hard, but Wesker works harder. And when he finally receives his copy, he cannot help himself but to stare at the paused cutscene where your mocking grin graces his monitor. Observing you closely, he wants to make sure that he gets everything right, equipped with a notebook in hand even.

If you think the slightest thing is getting past his eye, you'd be dead wrong. This close appraisal of your character is imperative to the new wave of fics he has to write now, because if even the slightest detail is off, it will irritate him. Especially if some upity new fan thinks they can unseat him from the throne he has crafted within the community. No one gets you like he does, and Wesker isn't shy of announcing that to the new fans that make abhorrent judgements about your character. The mischaracterization of his beloved muse could very well be his demise, but he would rather die than to let those degenerates capture you all wrong. Your time might've been sparse in the remake, but it was time enough, DLC included.

#phonkscribes #loser wesker au #albert wesker x reader #wesker x reader #resident evil imagines #[ heyyyy im back ]#[ real sorry that this took as long as it did to get out and with how short it is ]#[ i think he would throw a fucking fit on a tiktok slide show or make a vague post on his twitter like: ]#[ “Reader would not call you 'kitten' or 'baby girl' are you all delusional? At the very sight of you they would rip your hearts out” ]#[ “If I see another objectifying AI picture of Reader I am sending anthrax to your house” ]#[ he does NOT play around ]

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