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spitfountain · 1 year

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I MIGHT ALSO JUST BE SUPER BIASED WHEN IT COMES TO TTRPG bc i lucked into having the greatest group ever so i’ve only had terrific experiences (even our dnd session that i hated every second of . it was because it was dnd. ) last time we struggled to get together for a month we were like “fuck it anybody online rn let’s play a Roll For Shoes oneshot” and ended up as a bunch of hyperintelligent superdogs on an asteroid space colony investigating the mysterious deaths of all our human companions

#i play the great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great granddog of Air Bud (Historical Figure)#Daxton is an egotistical nuisance of a nepotism hire #but he currently has a lv. 3 in SNIFFING OUT TREATS #which makes for EXCELLENT DETECTIVE WORK but only on the meta level incomprehensible to dogs #when theres no one around to tell you you are a good boy. you will become. the bad boy.

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dee-slay · 1 year

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0.046 }{ BUTTERFLIES 🦋 }{ “It’s a celebration of a new upcoming life! ✨️ On March 31st, I attended Faith J Lavish‘s very extravagant babyshower for her unborn babygirl. Baby Ariel is already such a lucky little girl. 🎀 Judging from the turnout of the event, she has plenty of people who love her unconditionally & will be born into an abundance of wealth! What a blessed 👶🏽! Whenever I am invited to special events like babyshowers, weddings, etc.; I am so very honored to be thought of & included in someone’s special day. Thank you Faith for inviting & allowing me be apart of your beautiful moment!” 💞 - Déesse ――――――――――――――――――――――――――― 𝙁𝘼𝙎𝙃𝙄𝙊𝙉 𝘿𝙀𝙏𝙎: holiK • holiK. - Kale Dress | {Location: Mainstore}

{LINK HUB}

LUXECODE • LC> Capuci Bag | {Location: The Grand Event} {LINK HUB}

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carlyraejepsans · 10 months

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What's your interpretaion of Chara? I mean the one that we see at the end of the genocide run. Because I've seen some people now say that the one we see at the end of that route might be an entirely different species (as an actual demon) and I kind of want to hear your opinion on that

oh they're just human, but most importantly I'm of the very strong opinion that, fandom aside, you can't fully separate yourself from chara. they're the watsonian quantification of our role and influence within the game. undertale as a metanarrative lives in this precarious balance between worldbuilding that stands on its own, and its nature as a videogame, thus it being created to Be Played By Us. it makes some aspects of its world kinda wobbly. take the LOVE/EXP mechanic, for example. there's not really a reason why LV 20 should be the maximum LV you can reach, after all, there's still plenty more people we haven't killed. that is to say, no reason other than establishing when the genocide run is fully locked in. and the moment you try to apply that mechanic objectively to the rest of its world and its characters, it begins to flake apart. but i think chara is the most effective use of this kind of metanarrative in undertale.

there's this really weird moment at the end of the mother games where the game breaks the 4th wall and calls to the player directly. the games gather OUR name (and i mean our ours, the person playing the game at the moment) in... well, very silly ways. like a friend of one of the main characters calling for help on his school research about player names. it's not so much integrated into the plot, as a way to create a touching moment of connection directly between player and player characters (we pray for the safety of ness and his friends. lucas thanks us and says he's so happy to meet us in the endgame) that is not extended anywhere else in the game.

i didn't have the vocabulary for it before playing these games myself, but now i'm pretty much convinced that the fallen human/"chara" in UNDERTALE was a direct response to those moments in earthbound and mother 3. I don't need to recount those moments in the game where it becomes obvious that the intended way to name the fallen human is giving them your own name or nickname, but even if you don't do that, by the end of the game, you're meant to think of frisk as "chara" and "chara" as "your character". that's where the main plot twist of the story jumps off from.

and well... that IS what they are. "your character". the true character, in fact. so instead of the game breaking the 4th wall and calling to YOU, player, across the screen in a way that is alien and separate from the story, the game calls to YOU, THROUGH chara. through your character. remaining within the confines of its story and characters.

chara isn't us, WE are chara, and chara is the spirit of the first fallen human who died and was reawakened when frisk fell in the underground. when we play the game, we play AS "chara" controlling/guiding frisk through the underground (not gonna get into the chara/frisk dynamic here, that's a WHOLE 'nother can of worms).

however, there is an exception. because you see, although chara is meant to represent our actions ingame, we... aren't chara after all. we are real people playing a videogame. and because undertale is such a heavily meta game, it does, indeed, go there. acknowledging us as a separate entity, outside of this world, and more powerful than anything it has ever seen, and the way the game does that is through the genocide run.

it's not a coincidence that LOVEing up as a mechanic results in you "distancing yourself", as per sans' speech pre-judgement. if chara represents us in-game, then genocide is nothing but us pushing that link connecting us to its breaking point. because chara is who we are in the game, killing people is making THEM stronger (we can't get stronger ourselves, we're not fictional characters), but because EXP and LV make you distance from yourself, we are also making them independent. severing them from us and our will. it's kind of a negative parallel to our journey in pacifist, where chara is established as "not frisk" once and for all and THEY get to go on living their own life. hopefully. sorta.

so... yeah! chara is our true character in undertale and, aside from the genocide run, which tears the two of us apart, we have almost no reason to treat them as separate. and yes, that includes the violent acts. i am a narrachara/non-evil plotting mastermind chara believer through and true, but posing them as some hapless victim in our hands is... I'm sorry I can't take it seriously. it was a necessary overcorrection with the way they used to be treated by fanon back in the day, but it is an overcorrection nonetheless. YES, they might kill people. yes they might do that to their former family/friends, for very much the same reason asriel, as flowey, did. they were not the most adjusted person to begin with, but more importantly than that, the SOUL we see in undertale isn't theirs, it's FRISK'S. flowey says as much. when we defeat his omega form, the 6 SOULs disappear. when asriel died, the monsters started at 0 human SOULs, not 1 (ie: chara). chara is as soulless as asriel was when he was rein-cornaceaeted (lol) as flowey, with their ability to feel love and compassion stunted.

and with the added context of the SAVE powers removing consequences to their actions, and the repetitive nature of the game becoming tiring, well... we know what THAT did to flowey, right?

#nic we NEED to WRITE that FUCKING VIDEO ESSAY #answered asks #undertale #chara #entry log

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exiledelle · 4 months

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UNDERTALE YELLOW MERCILESS ROUTE SPOILERS

ive seen a couple people here and there be upset over how the route ends, but i want to give my two cents on why i actually really like it

(btw this is not at all me saying people HAVE to enjoy it, or arent allowed to dislike it, just sharing my own take on it)

if youve clicked the read more im going to assume youve played through the merciless route and seen its ending, or dont care about spoilers for it

otherwise what the heck are you doing here

but basically, what ive seen people get upset over a lot, is the fact that clover kills asgore and flowey instantly, takes the human souls, and then just waltzes out of the underground and beyond the players reach (which is my personal take on why resetting goes back to floweys control, and clover forgetting, instead of to when clover unlocks the save ability, is its not clover or flowey resetting, but us. the player IS a distinctly separate entity in ut/dr after all)

but honestly?? what else COULD have happened?? asgore couldnt handle frisk at level ONE. he didnt stand even a FRACTION of a chance against an lv 20 clover, who might i add, has a giant laser beam, a degree of soul magic not even frisk obtains. you COULD argue chara uses soul magic to "kill" our save file at the end of undertales merciless route though, i could see that, but still, clovers laser is a much more direct and obvious show of it. (and just to be safe, before anyone tries to say humans dont have magic, no, thats literally the entire premise of the setting is humans used magic to create the barrier, its just less present in humans than it is in monsters, who are made of the stuff)

and undertale yellows merciless route goes the route of deciding that undertales version already said everything there is to say on the meta aspects and the whole "you can so you need to" mindset, so instead it just calls it what it is: its a power trip. its mindless slaughter for the sake of getting stronger, whether its the player demanding a different ending (like deltarunes coldhearted route(im not calling it snowgrave, but this is entirely personal preference)), or again just wanting to see whatll happen. but either way its to feel strong.

and what happens at the end of that power trip? youve reached level 20. youve surpassed floweys control. you have as much power as you could ever hope to achieve. so, realistically:

whats stopping you from just killing asgore and leaving.

nothing. so you do.

and it leaves you wondering: was the power trip worth it. was the pain and suffering you caused worth it to get such a blatantly, not just non-canon, but ANTI-CANON ending? (EDIT: and i mean this in a positive way, its the same kind of self-reflection over your actions that undertale pulls, just communicated in a more indirect way)

and it being so anti-canon is part of why its such a haunting ending for me.

there really wasnt any other possible way for it to end. lv 20 itself and the way undertale and deltarune characterize that increase in power, in retrospect it feels obvious that it would be anti-canon in a prequel. monster souls are weaker than human souls, even at lv 1. so against a human whos lv 20, and who got there by constantly persisting and trying over and over to get past whatever obstacle is in front of them, and refuses to give up on their conquest, theres nothing anyone can do, and that alone rips the canon of undertale into shreds.

even SANS realizes theres nothing that can actually stop you, not even him, so the best he can hope for is that he puts up enough of a fight to make the player give up and/or reset, same reason his final attack is a turn that never ends.

and having to face that by helplessly watching clover blast an asgore-shaped hole in the story is TERRIFYING to me, in a way i really love the yellow team for doing. idk if its actually intentional or if im reading too much into it, but either way,

#undertale yellow #undertale yellow spoilers #elle rambles

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digi-lov · 2 months

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Hey! Just wanted to ask about your thoughts on the rapidmon and megagargomon coming out in the advanced deck next month

For everyone, these are the cards in question (translation under the cut)

MegaGargomon Ace is kind of insane. With the golden Rapidmon being a Lv.4, and MegaGargomon Ace evolving from the name Rapidmon, regardless of Level, you can just skip the Lv. 5 entirely. If you play Calumon from EX2 as well, you can get from baby to Lv.6 for a total cost of 6 memory.

Also with MegaGargomon's end of attack effect letting it unsuspend, it can just easily attack twice, and thanks to reboot it will still unsuspend in the enemy's turn and be able to block!

Here's some more insight from my brother, who knows more about card games:

MegaGargomon Ace is currently the best Ace Digimon for both Green or Black decks and can be used without the Terriermon line entirely.

It's not as bustet as Apocalymon or the new BT17-077 Return to Origin Option card, but it's too generic for such a good effect, still being usable outside of its intended archetype.

For example, the upcoming TyrantKabuterimon is also very good, but useless outside of Insectoid decks.

Usually the way around Ace Digimon is to only attack when the opponent doesn't have a Digimon on the field that can Blast Evolve. But with MegeGargomon evoling from "Rapidmon" in the name, it can evolve from Levels 4, 5 and 6! (Rapidmon Armor, Rapidmon, Rapidmon X [BT16] respectively)

So your only chance to attack is basically only if the field is empty.

I would like to point out, though, that there are still many other decks being played right now, and it hasn't completely taken over the meta, at least in Asia. Not sure if this will hold true in the West too, but here's hoping.

Rapidmon (X Antibody) BT16-101

Mega | Vaccine | Holy Warrior/X Antibody [Digivolve] [Rapidmon]: Cost 4 ＜Armor Purge＞ (When this Digimon would be deleted, you may trash the top card of this Digimon to prevent that deletion). [When Digivolving] Suspend all of your opponent's Digimon. Then, this Digimon may attack. [All Turns] While [Rapidmon]/[X Antibody] is in this Digimon's digivolution cards, all of your opponent's suspended Digimon get -4000 DP. [All Turns] [Once Per Turn] When an opponent's Digimon is deleted in battle or by having 0 DP, gain 2 memory.

#digimon #digimon tcg #digimon card game #digisafe #digica #デジカ #lov asks #card game meta

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twstgameplay · 1 month

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hi of the new diasomnia cards coming out, which are worth upgrading? i’m def getting both lilia cards and malleus, but should i invest in them? does gen lilia have good meta?

General Lilia is a strong card with a high ATK stat. However, he's a lot more useful with M3 due to (1) potential double Water with M2/M3, and (2), DMG UP L on his M3. So if you want to use him to full potential, he needs to be built more. Otherwise, at Lv.80, he's already a pretty good Attack card to use for Fire or Water Basic. Buddy synergy wise, he's decent, so that's good.

As for Eternal Night Sebek, he has the potential to be a Cosmic Basic overkiller with 2 ATK buddies, Kalim and Lilia. However, forming a team where Lilia, Kalim, and Ortho (duo partner) is very difficult, and impossible at this point in time if you want to do 5 duos.

Other than them, if you want to know about the Diasomnia dorm cards, the best one is Dorm Sebek because he operates the same as Dorm Ortho, down to the ATK M buddy. Thus, it makes him a great overkill.

Dorm Silver and Dorm Lilia are also really good for Water Defense. Silver has a high base HP with HP M and HP S buddies, and on his M3, he has Evasion. Lilia has ATK DOWN L and, with M3 unlocked, double Flora. If you really want to utilize them at their full potential, they are a bit expensive, but limit breaking is not required to use them really well.

Dorm Malleus is the least recommended, not only for all Cosmic but also for his Critical not being able to be applied on his duo magic. His more useful critical, the one for self and ally, is on his M3, which makes him expensive to build. Even then, with the lack of cards that have Malleus duo, it's not particularly useful for exams. Synergy is also difficult, since he really only buddies with Diasomnia cards. Still, he has one of the highest ATK stats among all cards in the game, so outside of exams, he can be used anywhere as offense.

Hope this helps!

~ 🐙

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst gameplay #twst strategy #mod zuzu

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firedragon1321 · 1 year

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Maushold is just a living shitpost. Its pre-evo was "the mystery Pokemon on the map in this trailer for two seconds" for MONTHS, and was the last of those Pokemon to be leaked. This Pokemon- Tandemaus- is found early in the game if you know where to look, and evolves relatively easily at Lv. 25 if it participated in a battle. It just evolves randomly in your party- a mechanic we haven't seen since Gen 3 with Shedinja, kind of- into...itself with one or two babies. Then it learns a move that hits ten times and another one that removes entry hazards and subs. Then it gets banned from meta.

MAUSHOLD

#mouse facts #maushold #pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon #the fact that this exists is funny af #i will use one for violet round 2 when i start with sprigatito

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tachvintlogic · 10 months

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Who has control when? Undertale/ Deltarune meta

Undertale and Deltarune play around with the relationship between the Player and the Player Character (PC). There's Kris, who has their own personality and can disapprove of actions the Player forces them to do, and in Undertale there's 3 people attached to the PC who could control at any one time.

So here are my thoughts trying to parse out clearly who has control when.

The Player

The Player. What are their motivations? What have they done? Are they evil? These are nonsense questions because the player is not a character, the player is a role.

The player is me; the player is you; the player is everyone who has ever played these games. When you boot up Undertale or Deltarune, you take on the role of the player. Is the player evil? I don't know, are you? We cannot talk about the player in theories or metas without acknowledging that the player is us.

(Which is why it's confusing and irksome when I see analyses that treat "the player" as if they are a character who definitely did certain things.)

So when playing Undertale or Deltarune, what do you have control over? On desktop, you can use the arrow keys on your keyboard to make the player character move, move the red soul in battle, and navigate menus. You can press C to open the menu, X to exit the menu (and in Deltarune you can hold X to walk faster), and press Z to select options and interact with objects.

You can save the game, reload a save, reset, close the game, and open the game.

You may be thinking those are just the controls, and yes, they are. I mean, what else did you expect? The choices we make while playing are on us.

There are times when we do not have control. For example, we don't have control in cutscenes. We don't have control of Susie during sections when we're focusing on her (tho we do have dialogue options and choices that do nothing).

Then there's the ending of Deltarune chapter 1, where the red soul is separated from Kris's body. If you try to move around, you'll see that the red soul does move, suggesting that our control of the player character is dependent on the red soul inside them.

Frisk/Kris

And now the player character, the PC, the player avatar. I feel these two have a similar level of control over their own bodies when you're involved.

(As a note, when I refer to "the player character" I'm referring to what Frisk/Kris's body does, not what they choose to make it do.)

They have control during cutscenes and have control when the red soul is separated from their body like at the end of the Deltarune chapters. (No, I'm not entertaining theories about Kris is being controlled by someone else when they're in shambling zombie mode.)

They also control how they interact with things. You can press Z to make them interact with things, but they have discretion over how that command is interpreted. (See: Kris refusing to look in the Asriel room in Queen's castle.)

Both are "silent" protagonists. Their speech is limited to dialogue options chosen by us, and we are not privy to anything else they say. If they say something we didn't tell them to say, we have to infer from the dialogue of others. (For example, Frisk telling Asriel that their name is Frisk.)

However, there's a key difference between Frisk and Kris.

Frisk doesn't show a lot of personality, and what personality they show depends a lot of what you do. They basically turn into the person that matches your choices, the person we mold them into. (See: how the narration of interacting with Mad Dummy before the fight changes depending on your LOVE)

(That narration is actually quite interesting. Not only does the narration about Frisk's thoughts change, "You feel bad [for tapping the dummy]" at LV 1 vs "[punch the dummy] Feels good" at LV8 or more, but also the actions. How the player character interacts with objects depends on LOVE, number of people killed, and the route.)

We know that Chara climbed the mountain, and it wasn't for a happy reason. In fact, it's very likely they were planning on committing suicide. Frisk and all the other children who fall into the underground are likely from the same settlement.

I wouldn't be surprised if Frisk was also planning on dying there.

If you heckle Snowdrake, there's a chance you'll get this line:

You tell the Snowdrake that no one will ever love them the way they are... | They struggle to make a retort, and slink away utterly crushed

Oof. Frisk is probably like, 10? I'm concerned where they got this from. Remember, at the end of pacifist, your options are to either travel the world as an ambassador or stay with Toriel. Going back to Frisk's human parents isn't presented as an option.

So they probably didn't have a good home life, and now they're relying on you to get them through the underground and to the end. Whether you force them to kill in order to do that will affect their attitude on killing and whether killing monsters is okay.

In short, Frisk is a very small, impressionable child who is what we make them.

Meanwhile, Kris has a very concrete personality and history, and while it doesn't show on their spite, it's clear from their facial expression, tone of voice, and the narration when you make them do something they don't approve of. (See: Basically most of the normal route dialogue choices in chapter 2 and how Susie reacts to Kris's tone of voice.)

They're not impressionable like Frisk was, and are just tolerating our possession of their body in the game. They have stronger opinions on what we should and shouldn't be making them do.

Still, neither is keen to scream at the top of their lungs that they've been possessed.

Chara

Go read A CHARActer Analysis first and then come back.

Unfortunately, the user that made that post was deactivated so here's a link to a reblog that has all the raw text and here's a link to a google drive with the original post screenshotted by @thepilotdogee

Yes, I know it's long but it's also the best analysis of Chara's character that I know of.

Now, I like the Chara as narrator theory, and considering that they tell us they woke up near the beginning and looked to us for guidance, it explains the narrator's attitude in pacifist vs genocide runs very well. I also generally agree with the conclusions made by this analysis.

However, there are a few sticking points.

For one, I think who's doing what when we as players don't have control in cutscenes is more ambiguous. Are the actions performed by the player character in genocide that we associate with Chara done by Chara or by Frisk?

Chara still mostly uses "you" to narrate what Frisk does when you have them interact with something in genocide, so Frisk still has control over how they interpret your commands. Did Frisk kill Flowey and Asgore at the end of genocide or did Chara? We have two characters who aren't us that could potentially have control during cutscenes, and the actions of one are always relayed to us by the other.

My personal belief is that Chara had basically zero control beyond narration and the UI elements. Chara isn't aware that Frisk is not us in genocide (possibly even in pacifist) because Frisk's attitude and thoughts always align with our choices.

(In the CHARActer analysis, it is explained how your actions as the player tell Chara and Asriel whether it was okay for Asriel to refuse to kill the humans when they died, and by being a pacifist you are showing them that choosing not to kill was better. Meanwhile, Frisk is relying on you to survive, and goes along with whatever you seem to think is correct. Both could've taken the initiative to do the last kills of genocide because both consider you their guide.)

...Then if you do genocide, you have to give Chara control of Frisk's soul to reset the world.

This means that at the end of a true pacifist, instead of Frisk getting the reins back to their soul, they now belong to Chara. Chara, who wants to force us to experience consequences for our actions, does the only thing they can do to affect us, which is to ruin the ending.

#undertale #deltarune #undertale theory #deltarune theory #undertale meta #deltarune meta #the player #undertale player #deltarune player #kris deltarune #kris dreemurr #chara undertale #chara dreemurr #frisk undertale

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potteresque-ire · 1 year

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孤鴻號外野，翔鳥鳴北林。徘徊將何見？憂思獨傷心。 — 魏晋·阮籍《咏怀八十二首·其一》 The lone swan goose wails in the wilderness, The flying birds call in the northern forests. What’s there to see in the lingering? Worried thoughts and a solitary, wounded heart. — Ruan Ji (210-263 AD) “82 Songs of Dispositions, No. 1”

孤雁不飲啄，飛鳴聲念羣。誰憐一片影，相失萬重雲？ — 唐·杜甫《孤雁》 The lone swan goose doesn’t drink or eat, Flying, wailing its longing for its flock. Who would pity that piece of shadow, Lost in the million layers of clouds? — Du Fu (712-770AD) “The Lone Swan Goose”

Happy New Year everyone! 🎉🧧

Below the cut, I’m offering my interpretation of Like the Sunlight, based on the lyrics and Dd’s performance on NYE. Unlike other interpretations I’ve worked on, I’m keeping this one free from the influence of what I’ve found on the Chinese internet, whether they are interpretations from fellow fans, explanations from those involved in the production, or reviews by the media—for reasons I shall explain afterwards.

This is strictly the product of my brain, my senses, based on the words, the stage art, the choreography.

As a warning of sorts, my interpretation isn’t one of positivity, or even, one of blissful happiness. It also isn’t candy-ish. However, I do believe this song, this performance is deeply personal for Dd, revealing, sharing a facet of him that with his fame, he can no longer say in words. And in doing so with music and movements, and on one of China’s biggest stages no less, he’s letting us see that side of him, and fulfilling what he sang in Nian: 為溫暖也為尋常的人間 Stand up. For warmth, and for the ordinary humankind, stand up.

(Under the cut: Yes, this meta is also very, very long. :) )

For reference, I’m using the English lyrics translation by Xiaoman, and the official performance video posted by SMG. I'll denote the time of the lyrics (Xiaoman) video by the notation “LV 1:00″ for the 1st minute mark, and PV 1:00 for the same time mark in the performance (SMG) video. Sorry this is a little clumsy! I haven’t thought of a better way to do this.

To start, perhaps we can start with the simplest questions? As with any story, we’d like to figure out the time, the place, and the characters.

Time is the easiest—it’s provided in the first line of the lyrics (LV 0:20). There’s a slight mistranslation in the video; the line actually specifies two solar terms in the Chinese calendar—清明 Qingming, which falls on the 4th or 5th of April, and the one immediately after, 谷雨 Guyu, which falls on the 20th or 21st of the same month. Hence, this line of lyrics is better translated as: The Qingming winds are blowing, waiting for Guyu to sow the seeds. The time of when the conversation in the lyrics happens can therefore be estimated as around mid-April.

Is there a significance to this? Yes. The Chinese calendar divides the seasons differently from the Gregorian calendar, and Guyu is the last solar term associated with Spring. Spring is well on its way at the time of the song. It’s almost over.

Next, the place. This one is quite simple as well. It’s the wilderness, with wide open air where the the starry skies can be seen, with forests and its many trees, with mountains where beasts can roam.

The characters. This one a little trickier ... far trickier. The lyrics never specified who they are—in fact, the narrator doesn’t even know the name of who he’s talking to.

Who is the narrator, by the way? There are three pronouns in the lyrics — “I” (我), “You” (你), and “It” (它). Can we identify them?

Let’s start with the “It”, because the syntax actually makes it quite clear what “It” is — it’s the Lonely Nights. While Lonely Nights is plural in English, it’s introduced more as a character in the lyrics. Hence, the use of “it” rather than “they”.

And what does this “It” do? How does it interact with the other two characters, “I”, the narrator, and “You”? The lyrics says, Lonely Nights drifts away like fallen leaves of Autumn, and renews itself, like new leaves budding in Spring, on the tree branches (LV 1:17). It has a cycle then, a routine—usual as, the narrator says, the world will go on (LV 1:29). The time of renewal, he says, decides when and the narrator, the “I”, and the unnamed “You”, will meet.

This means the narrator is familiar, comfortable with Lonely Nights. He’s someone who has accepted Lonely Nights as part of life, as the way things are, as like the seasons, which may appear to come and go but don’t really, truly leave.

Nights, of course, share the same cyclic character as the seasons. They leave at dawn, return in the evening. But the narrator is specific about the kind of nights he is referring to.

They are lonely. Not only are his nights like clockwork. His loneliness is also like clockwork.

What else do we know about the narrator? We know that he has been going on long journeys, journeys that are always restricted by time, that force him to hasten his pace (LV 0:08). The translation of 趕路 (literally, rushing the road) as “rush” is technically correct, but what “rush” doesn’t convey—no single English word can convey it, to my knowledge—is the implied nature of the journey. It’s long; it invites the image of the traveller hurrying day and night without rest, whose time and effort can afford to make the journey happen and not much else. Who sees, as the journey happens, the journey being his primary task.

Such journeys, expectedly, often serves important purposes. They are often related with something life-changing, or critical for survival. Swinging by the coffee shop before work isn’t 趕路, for example, even though the coffee-deprived person may be very rushed, and may feel they can’t live without the coffee.

The narrator has gone on such long, hastened or “rushed” journeys many times. He has done it while the “You” he was talking to have dreamt for a long time.

This still isn’t specific enough, isn’t it? Not for us to understand why the narrator’s perspective is the way it is; why he equates the Lonely Nights with seasons, talks in the language of nature and not of urban life, of civilisation. The Chinese word corresponding to the most … civilised word in the English translation, “campfire” (LV:58), is 篝火. “Camp” is associated with human activity; it sounds artificial. 篝火, nonetheless, doesn’t originally mean campfire. It’s a smaller fire, lantern-like, protected by a cover weaved from bamboo. Likewise, the light in the narrator’s palm (LV 1:56), the gift for “You”, is actually specified in the lyrics as 螢火—the light from fireflies. The narrator being a member of nature is further suggested by his not being afraid of the mountain beasts—he watches the starry skies with them (LV 0:29).

Do other places in the lyrics offer more clues to who, or rather, what he is? Is there another spot in the lyrics that refers to something journey-related, and dreams? If so, that would allow us to draw a parallel and perhaps, deduce the identity of the narrator and “You”.

There is. It can be found near the end of the song (LV 3:49): Like the green grass having a dream of falling snow; like the flying bird passing through layers and layers of dark clouds.

If we apply this parallel in description, the conclusion would be …

The narrator is a bird.

Hence, his comfort around with the beasts, while, notably, also not being one of them. While the contemporary Chinese word for animals, 動物, includes birds and mammals, the lyrics’ word choice of 獸, translated as beasts, generally refers to the four-legged, big and fearsome creatures and excludes members of the avian family, which has its own word, 禽.

The narrator being a bird is implied by the dance choreography, the most obvious being at PV 2:59 where he flaps his wings:

What about the “You” the narrator is talking to then? Applying the same parallel, it would be the green grass, or something like the green grass—young (green), helpless in its inability to escape the seasons, the weather. It’s fearful. Anxious. Dreaming of and already dreading the winter snowfall in April. It’s vulnerable; depressed, some may say, prone to cry with the knowledge, the sadness that Spring will soon leave, not caring enough to stay (LV 4:16) to keep it warm.

But the “You” can’t be just the green grass. The early parts of the song make clear that this “You” not only doesn’t have a name, it shares certain qualities with the night. It’s found among the shadows of the trees under the starry skies (LV 0:29-0:47). It’s awake, if silent, in the night hours (LV 0:47). Dawn is the time the narrator asks for it to tell its name (LV 2:26), implying that the narrator is not expecting it to stay after sunrise.

More importantly, this “You” is who the narrator asks to wake up, like the sunlight. This critical line (LV 3:18) that leads to the climax of the song, that is the song’s namesake, is a suggestion, a plea. This may not be obvious in the English translation, because English doesn’t have an equivalent sentence building block in Chinese known as the sentence-final particle. Such particles—the 吧 (pronounced “ba”) after 像陽光那樣醒來 Wake up like the sunlight in this case—serve the important role of conveying the tone of the speaker. Punctuation marks were not introduced into standard Chinese texts until the early 20th century, and so, such particles are critical in communicating what the speaker actually means in written texts.

Here, the narrator is suggesting. He isn’t commanding. 吧 is softer, more polite than that. He’s asking. Hoping.

The suggestion, the plea for “You” to wake up like the sunlight also implies something important: the waking up hasn’t actually happened. That is only the wish of the narrator; the wish of the narrator that “You” will, one day, be like sunlight and be everywhere, on the crossroads, in the journeys, at sunrise, while dancing in the wind (LV 3:30). The “You”, therefore, has so far remained in the night. Echoing this interpretation, in Dd’s dance, at sunrise (PV 3:28) the “I”, the narrator’s movements turn frantic; he runs around and reaches, searches, grabs, until he finally collapses on the floor, curled up in a fetal position, despaired (PV 4:04):

He made a desperate attempt to hold on, and failed.

If the narrator is a bird—a lone bird—the lone bird is alone again. He has lost his companion for the night, his “You”. We know something more about the relationship between the narrator and “You” from this: the narrator doesn’t have the power to change the nocturnal nature of “You”; he doesn’t have the ability to transform “You”, overnight, into his company under the sun. All he can do is to bring “You” small morsels of light, in the form of small fires under bamboo covers, of lights from fireflies. The lyrics tell us what these two lights, both much dimmer, and weaker than sunlight, stand for: the stories the narrator can chat about, the small joys he has picked up during his (daytime) journey.

The narrator and “You” are not soulmates. Not yet. Their separation at sunrise explains why the narrator doesn’t know certain things about “You”, such as “You”s name. That the narrator wishes for happiness for “You” (LV 3:57), no matter where one goes (the lyrics actually doesn’t specify who’s the one going)—the phrasing making this a well-wish—not only suggests that the narrator and “You” are parting ways, it also suggests the narrator doesn’t always have a clear knowledge of where “You” will be.

But the narrator wants them to be soulmates. Exchange not only their heart 心, but their true heart 真心 (LV 1:14). Despite his unfamiliarity with certain parts of “You”, he also has insights about “You” that run deeper than names and locations; he knows “You” hasn’t made peace with the Lonely Nights like he has—it’s one of the reasons of “You”’s sadness, along with the passage of time, along with the carelessness of Spring (LV 4:07). He comforts “You”, tells “You” not to cry (LV 4:17). The tree branches where Lonely Nights renews itself, he says in the end, will not only be the time they shall meet again, but where beauty and goodness 美好 returns, along with Spring (LV 4:21).

This doesn’t sound like a happy story, does it? Moreover, some of you must be thinking, mumbling as well — Huh??? So Dd is singing a song about a bird and some … nighty grassy thing? What does that have to do with him? With anything?

Here’s when I refer to the poems at the start of the post. They are there, of course, for a reason.

You see, the lone bird — the lone migratory bird, in particular — has had a long history of symbolising uprooted people in Chinese literature. By uprooted, I mean the people have been separated from their homes, their home towns, and it doesn’t matter whether the separation is voluntary. Natural disasters like floods, man-made disasters like wars may have forced them to leave, or they have moved because better opportunities present themselves elsewhere.

Like the Sunshine is, I believe, about this lone bird, this displaced group of people.

True, the lyrics never specifies the kind of bird, but the narrator’s awareness of the seasons is the first, if faint clue of its migratory nature. The second, more significant clue is in the stage art — the existence of wide bodies of water and the creatures living in it, neither of which are found, or even implied, in the lyrics.

This bird flies across, or above the waters (PV 3:49):

Still, you may ask, there are many migratory birds. Why have I picked poems about the lone swan goose? Why am I imagining it as the narrator of the lyrics? My reasoning is this: while two species of migratory birds have made frequent appearance in ancient Chinese poetry—the sparrows and swan geese—it’s often the latter that was alone. Poets of old tended to depict the sparrows as happy birds, with the sight of their migration signalling the arrival of Spring. As importantly, perhaps, they were usually portrayed as flying in pairs. The swan geese, on the other hand, were associated with the autumn migration, the impending winter and the less-than-happy sentiments from long journeys away from home. Their calls were described as wails. They were often portrayed as messengers carrying morsels of news, of deep yearning, from loved ones who were too far away. Swan geese naturally fly in flocks. They also mate for life. The lone swan goose therefore suggested separation and abandonment. Loss.

But but but ..., you may argue. Why can’t it be … single and available?

* Smiles *. As a culture that heralds collectivism, being alone is rarely, if ever, considered a choice in traditional Chinese thinking. In the old times, in particular, it was considered, assumed to be a less-than-ideal thing that had happened upon the individual. At best, it was some sort of misfortune; at worse, it was a bout of irresponsibility. Both poems about the lone swan goose that started this post are more than a thousand years old. Both are depressing.

This has something to do with what a home means in traditional Chinese culture.

In the Western world and in the 21st century, we associate flying away alone from our childhood homes as part of growing up. It has its challenges, but it’s also exciting. It’s about having an adventure and seeing the world. People don’t think of it as an act of abandoning one’s home, or one’s home abandoning them. The location of the physical home doesn’t matter as much as where those who love you, and those who you love back are.

Home is where the heart is. That’s the saying.

Meanwhile, home in traditional Chinese culture is more accurately described as where the bloodline is. It’s where your ancestors are buried, where you bow before row after row of memorial tablets on Qingming. Where the elders expect their descendants to not only take care of them, but shoulder the responsibilities of maintaining the house and the bloodline, and bring glory to them all.

To be away from home for any reason, even if it’s out of necessity, therefore evokes feelings of guilt, in addition to the sadness and loneliness of being a permanent stranger somewhere else. The longstanding belief that home is where one’s ancestors are means assimilation is next to impossible, both socially and emotionally. Others in the new place don’t think of the migrant as one of them. The migrant doesn’t think of themselves as one of them.

The traditional term for people who live away from their birthplace, their ancestral hometown, is 羈旅. Many of you may be familiar with 羈 — it’s the same character as in Wuji 無羈, and originally means a bridle. 旅 means to travel. Putting the characters together, 羈旅 is a bridled traveller. In ancient times, a bridled traveller could’ve lived in his new town for years—decades, even—and be still considered a guest in the town and his house, little more than a restraint that had kept him there. The consequence of such lifelong alienation was that the deathbed wish of many such migrants was to be taken back to their home towns for burial. 落葉歸根, they called it. The fallen leaf returning to its roots.

Fallen leaves are considered uprooted, rootless.

Fallen leaves appear in the lyrics of Like the Sunshine as well (LV 1:17), describing the passing of Lonely Nights.

In 2023, China has, inevitably, absorbed some of the Western perspectives about leaving home, the independence and self-reliance it nurtures, the freedom it brings. But the old thinking remains, stubborn and at constant war with the new. The Chinese word for freedom 自由 didn’t enter the Chinese lexicon until the 19th century, as an import from Japan. Chasing one’s dream, often the cause of leaving home, is also a contemporary concept—in old Chinese usage, to dream is not a particularly good thing. Ancient Chinese preferred something more tangible. More practical.

The dream in Like the Sunshine is an example. The dream isn’t a particularly good one—snow is a danger for the green grass.

Whereas, Confucius was already preaching filial piety, laying out its rules and rituals 2,500 years ago.

Government policies also reinforce the feelings, and “guest” status, of the modern bridled traveller. Chinese are attached to the provinces of their birth by their 户口 hukou, a household registration system that allows the government to control the flow of its population within the country, which is arguably necessary due to the vast disparity in resources from province to province, and between the villages and the big cities. When a Chinese moves somewhere else—to a big city like Beijing, for example—their hukou doesn’t move with them. Without a Beijing hukou, the migrants’ rights to buy a house, even a car, in the city are restricted. They are often overlooked by companies, which prefer to hire Beijing hukou holders, while the migrants already have little safety net should they fall into economic hardship, not being eligible for most of the local government assistance programmes. Children must go back to their hukou’s province for their college entrance exams, when top universities admit students with a Beijing hukou at a much, much higher rate — in 2011, Beijing University’s admission rate for Beijing hukou holders was almost 30 times that of Dd’s home province, Henan.

While a points system is in place for those who wish to apply for a Beijing hukou, the latter remains so difficult to get, so coveted that there is a black market for it—the price tag justified by the need to “make the right connections within the government”, i.e., to bribe. The current price isn’t something I’m privy to, but back in 2012, the state media reported that it was already at 500,000 RMB (72,480 USD).

It’s a sum of money the poor can't afford, not to say such a purchase is, of course, not exactly legal.

Yet, there are still so many modern bridled travellers in China that they have a collective descriptor: 漂族 The drifting race. 漂, meaning to drift and pronounced “piao”, also appeared in the lyrics, describing the fallen leaves that, in turn, describe the Lonely Nights (LV 1:17). Fallen leaves, as mentioned before, have been used to describe the rootless—and specifically, those approaching the end of their lives.

Drifters who have drifted to Beijing are known as 北漂 — 北, or North, is from 北京 Beijing, which literally means The Northern Capital. In 2021, this population amounted to more than 8 million people, or 38.5% of the city’s permanent residents.

This population also includes Dd and Gg. Dd and Gg may be stars, but at the end of the day, they are just another two youngsters who have left their homes for a big city to try their luck.

For Dd, in particular, Beijing isn’t even the first place he has drifted to. His first was not only another city, but another country—South Korea. Of his short 25 years on this planet, he has spent 14 of them as a bridled traveller, and many of these days he wasn’t even bridled, his home being a hotel room somewhere. Everywhere. Meanwhile, expectations remain that he should view his birthplace, the city of Luoyang in Henan, as his home. He has been repeatedly asked to perform in Luoyang / Henan’s dialect, even though he has, also repeatedly, said he isn’t fluent in it (two examples from CQL’s promotional period alone: Vid 1, 1:55; Vid 2, 5:47). His selection of Cola Chicken Wings as his favourite dish for Chinese New Year (Vid, 3:56), being a cute candy aside, also suggested a certain degree of detachment from his supposed home city. Most people would have named a dish from their home place without prompting.

Yet, strangely perhaps, Dd has also exhibited a strong affinity to Home, as a concept. When it matters, his connection to his ancestral home seems almost tighter than other’s. There are hints, too, that he’s meant to be living in a home-is-where-the-heart-is home, when, with his history, many may assume that he’s comfortable, if not more comfortable with being uprooted, being rootless.

Dd was there to help with the rescue effort for the floods in his ancestral home of Henan. He was there despite of the skepticism he must know he would get, and he did get it. Meanwhile, his years drifting in S. Korea, in Beijing haven’t appeared to have assuaged his fear of the dark, which may, perhaps, be as well understood as his need for companionship. Not the “let’s go party together” kind of companionship—Dd doesn’t have a reputation as being a party animal, not even in the most gossipy, most vile of YXH blogs—but the “let’s-be-together-when-it’s-dark-and-silent” kind of companionship, the kind that requires far more closeness … intimacy, if one will, and trust. As night falls, he appears to require the presence of another human being to feel safe, to fall sleep. On record, he had sought such presence by tactile confirmation, as his old team mate once pointed out (0:44), or by finding an imitation—the voice from a non-hostile, trusted source such as the CCTV Sports Channel (23:15).

I can’t help but feel: both of these are pale substitutes of what Dd can get from a home-is-where-the-heart-is home.

Some people don’t mind being alone. Some even enjoy being uprooted. Dd doesn’t seem to be one of them.

He isn’t the only one. There are many other young Chinese drifters who have elected to drift, but also wish for an ancestral home, a home-is-where-the-heart-is home, to return to at the end of the day. The hardship of the drifting race has been well documented. Many spend the night alone in the tinniest, cheapest apartments in their new city, exhausted from a day of “rushing”, depressed from missing their loved ones and anxious about their new environment, their new job, their being from a poor province that big cities tend to look down upon.

They worry. Many have promised their families back home that they will mail back money with their higher income in the city. After all, a good fraction of them only manage to secure employment in the big cities after their family—their parents, their grandparents—exhausted most of their savings to pay for their college education. They want to repay these elders who love them. They want to bring glory to their blood line. These expectations, both from others and from themselves, have never gone away.

They cry. At night, mostly, when nobody can see them, because they must put on a brave, mature face when the sun is up. With the guilt associated with leaving home, with the investment of time and money and effort required, the decision to leave is seldom made lightly, and many of them are set on making their journey a worthwhile one.

As one Beijing Drifter from Chongqing said: Even if I have to get on my knees, I’ll take this path to its end. (Vid,13:38)

If time and space are limited, how would I succinctly describe these drifters? How would I depict them with a simple piece of artwork? I’m no artist, and so, Google is my friend and perhaps, this is what I'll find and show:

(An off-angle shot of this in the performance is found at PV 4:28)

The hunched back, overladen with guilt and anxiety, and often, too, with the weight of expectations. The paper plane, representing their pursue for a better life. Flying high while being small, childlike and vulnerable.

The last three years of Zero COVID policy have not helped with the drifting race’s predicament. Chinese New Year is usually the time the drifters travel home to visit their family, but many didn’t for the last three years. Leaving the capital city, especially, had been heavily discouraged by the local government, for fear those who did would bring back the virus when they returned. Travelling also created a risk of being subjected to involuntary quarantine, or of being given a yellow or red COVID health code that would bar them from returning to the city, too often for long enough to jeopardise their employment.

These lone, migratory birds are, I believe, what Like the Sunlight is about, and who Like the Sunlight is for. The teary faces these drifters don’t allow to see the day, that stay awake and silent after night falls, is the “You” of the song — young (green), worried about their future and the challenges it will undoubtedly bring (winter snow), still not used to the lonely nights and wondering if anyone cares, realising that even the kindest souls can only do so much for them with their own obligations to keep, their own routines to follow (Spring).

The “You” doesn’t have a name because it’s actually a part of the lone migratory bird, the narrator. The “You” is both familiar and unfamiliar to the narrator because it harbors his deepest, most hidden if also the most unadorned and sincere feelings—feelings that must leave, return to the dark when the sun is up.

The Chinese work environment is very much survival-of-the-fittest. Competition is fierce. Work load is brutal. Youth and immaturity, sadness and fears have no place there.

I imagine, Dd chose this song because he, too, has been one of these migratory birds, one who left home at an even earlier age than others, who flew even further away than others. At 25, he has already spent more than half of his life drifting, and this experience must have left a mark on him, he who was (is) so adversed to being in the dark and being alone. One may argue that Dd is so much luckier, that his job now pays so handsomely that the financial woes that plague most other drifters will never touch him again. That is true, but no compensation can alter the fact that his job is also among the most isolating. His every move is watched, his every associate placed on a scale and judged—is Dd too good for him, or not good enough? His hastened journey, his flight through the stormy clouds of c-ent is further darkened by the thick wall of hounding paparazzis and sasaeng fans.

As turtles, we believe his heart has found actually found a home. But we also know that he’s separated from that person for most of the year. We know, too, that because of the common practices in his line of work, because of cultural norms and government policies, he can’t turn himself from a lone migrating swan goose into half of a pair of happily migrating sparrows. He can’t even be seen in the same camera shot with his him. He may not have to worry about money, but he has to worry about the ever fickle, ever brutal public opinion. He may not be anxious about his next pay check, but his industry has been ailing, and many relies on him, directly or indirectly, for their pay check.

At some point, I imagine, there’s got to be a “You” in Dd too. A “You” that is his actual age, not the age of his maturity. A “You” that, after the night falls and all is still and quiet, frets about what will come and that, just like other humans, is prone to being brokenhearted when its trust is misplaced.

A “You” that still doesn’t want to be in the dark, to be alone.

And he must have talked to this “You”, comforted this “You” inside him. He must have done so in the lonely nights, which he has made peace with after so many years of travelling, the lonely nights that he now sees as benign—always returning, true, but isn’t it just like the seasons, with their falling, drifting leaves, followed by their constant renewal on the branches? He must have shown this “You” the morsels of joy he picked up during his day time journeys. A cool skateboard trick he mastered, maybe. A new dance move. A freshly delivered box of limited edition Lego. The company he kept when these things happened; the company that made these thing happen.

He must have wished his “You” happiness. He must have wished it to be like sunlight, to be something that can be out there in the open for all to see and is light and free enough to dance on the journeys with him after the sun rises, at the many crossroads he must pass. To me, what this performance practically shouts to the world is: Dd may be taciturn, but he’s expressive. There are things deep inside him that he wants people to know, to understand, if just so that others who feel the same can whisper “Me too”. He must have been disappointed before, despaired that that hasn’t happened, that his “You” has remained in the night, that this soft, gentle part of him has to be wrapped up and hidden from public eye and he must put on a brave, mature face when dawn breaks. But he’s making peace with that too. After all, the “You” that stays in the night keeps him company when there’s no one else. He recalls the small joys of his life for it, recounts the small joys of his life to it. He exchanges his true heart with it, acquaints himself with his deepest, most unadorned, natural feelings—feelings that he keeps from other humans, from civilisation.

Despite dreading winters, this “You” in him has helped him through the winters.

I would insist that Like the Sunlight is a positive song, in that it’s about acceptance and healing—not the outcome of healing, but the process of healing. At the same time, I also recognise that it isn’t a positive song the way positivity is conventionally defined in their country: that everyone is living a happy, inspirational life, that wounds are no more than plot points leading to a climatic preaching scene. I see open wounds in the dance performance. I see pain, and I appreciate it not because I enjoy seeing anyone hurting, but because unlike so much of their country’s entertainment, it doesn’t pretend that such wounds don’t exist, or that they can be healed and numbed by some stock phrases of encouragement, a few slogans, a chant of core socialist values.

To pretend such things is to make light of pain, to diminish the humanity that makes the pain.

Healing isn’t a game of mathematics, in which fortune in one area cancels out the misfortune in another. Just because one has an illustrious career, or even, an enviable romantic life, doesn’t mean they can’t be hurting somewhere still. Healing is slow. Healing is difficult. Healing is patching a wound, the deep hollowness within, with one firefly light after another. Healing is to have the wound ripped open again and again at the most unexpected, most inconvenient of times, and still believing, insisting that the wound will close one day.

Healing is learning to accept that the hollow is there. To make peace with it. To see it as part of oneself.

Healing is to wait, to be patient season after season.

These aren’t viewpoints that public figures in China can express freely, or at least, without great care. Recognition of the existence of real, open wounds, of the pain they inflict, may be misconstrued as dissatisfaction about the country’s way of life, and the powers that be that make their way of life the way it is. Public figures in entertainment, in particular, are far better off in 2023 being talked about as role models of the government-approved kind of positivity, their work as vehicles for warm fuzziness and slogan-y life lessons. Sunlight is everywhere, always. Sunlight is a reality, never just a wish. Embraces happen under the sun and with the sun, not in and with the darkness (PV 0:40). And such things are to be represented as observations, as what the audience sees, even though the lyrics doesn’t say it, the stage art doesn’t show it, the dance choreography doesn’t suggest it.

Chairman Mao was the Red Sun.

How far does this insistence of positivity go? The following is a digital banner photographed in a Chinese hospital a week ago. The bright red banner looks, and is, congratulatory. Something very happy has happened! What is it about?

This: Good News! On 2022 December 21st, Our ER department has served more than 2 million people (Source).

The surge in patient visits was due to the country’s 180-degree turn in its Zero COVID policy, and the associated surge in hospitalisations and yes, deaths.

The next day, a crematorium’s notice wrote the following about the doubling of corpses it had processed over the course of a week: 受到了群眾的好評和領導的肯定 ... 確保年底前各項工作任務圓滿收官、爭創佳績. (The work) has been well received by the masses and affirmed by the leaders... (we shall) ensure all our year-end responsibilities will have a perfect curtain call, and strive for the best results.

This is how strong the country’s insistence on positivity is. Humans are behind the banner, the notice. Do they understand the less-than-happy, less-than-inspirational sentiments behind the ER visits, the deaths? Of course they do. But this is how much people are being pressured into saying happy, inspirational things these days. This is the length people are going to avoid saying things that are otherwise, at the intersection between 2022 and 2023.

And so, I shall say this again—the above interpretation is entirely my own, from my angsty fic writer’s brain, and have nothing to do with any interpretation, explanation or review available on the Chinese social media, which are all happily, inspirationally and most importantly, appropriately positive. It’s my being obstinate and ridiculous and delusional that makes me disagree with them, that makes me confess the following:

I have doubts about the … honesty of certain things that have been said.

The explanation offered by the studio about the stage art, for example. The explanation says, the art depicts a fantasy, which culminated to the narrator finding his lost home and that union leads to a finale of golden light passing through the clouds, waking up millions of lives and souls.

I have doubts because I have trouble matching it to what I saw. While the exact moment can’t be pinpointed due to the camerawork, the shade of red on Dd’s face suggested that the sun, the golden light, started shining at the PV 3:28 mark. At that moment, the creatures, the lives and souls remain on screen, thriving in the dark, in the nature. As the sun continues to rise, they are lost, transformed into (lifeless) objects from civilisation—things like furniture and laundry lines. Finally (PV 4:24), the lone man appears, united with his home in that he’s carrying it like a burden on his back. Not one life or soul appears after the man and the house did. Dd’s final interaction with the stage art is to walk towards the man, the uprooted house that just had a paper plane fly out of its window.

The stage art thus presents a story that is almost opposite of the explanation given: the rising sun, in fact, drives away the creatures, the lives and souls and nature that accompanied the narrator before. The civilisation the narrator returns to has nothing but a home that is rootless—in contrast its being rooted at the beginning of the performance (PV 0:10)—and its paper plane carrying, one may presume, a fragile childlike dream.

Winter is turning the corner, the explanation says in its conclusion. Warmth has arrived, unexpected. The stage effect, meanwhile, is a wild dance of drifting, yellow autumn leaves. Winter may indeed be turning a corner, but it’s more likely to be doing what the green grass has been dreaming of, afraid of. It is lurking, waiting for the right moment to bring in the cold, the snow.

As such, the stage art goes well with the lyrics—assuming my interpretation isn’t too off the mark. As such, the stage art also, in my (obstinate, ridiculous, delusional) opinion, sets the explanation’s pants on fire.

The thing I can say about the explanation is … it’s positive; it’s a good thing to say on record. Even the flood isn’t real.

Another thing I can say is: to everyone reading this, please trust your senses. Please believe whatever the performance makes you feel is real. Don’t let anyone tell you, this is the proper interpretation. Don’t listen to anyone who says, this is how you’re supposed to think. Including me. Including this post. Even if a language barrier exists, music is universal. Art is universal. Movements are universal.

Okay, this is getting ridiculously long, which is hardly surprising 😊. One last thing. Some may be asking (assuming you haven’t all fallen asleep)—do I think there are candies in this performance?

Frankly, I don’t think there are any on the surface. Not in what was sung, or illustrated, or danced. However …

If you’re a lover / follower of LRLG like I do, you may remember the famous episode (#6, published 2020/12/25) that talked about Dd keeping Gg’s ring in his pocket while he sang. Another confession: the ring part was never my favourite from the episode. Instead, it was this tiny piece of conversation that few likely recall:

(Context: Dd had to make an overnight car trip to somewhere else after the show. Gg was staying. They just joked / wishful thought about Dd bringing Gg with him.) ❤️: You know what to do after you get on the car? 💚: Didn’t you say you’re leaving with me? ❤️: Turn on video conferencing. I’ll watch you sleep.

While fake rumours are officially fake, certain elements have made repeated appearances—such as, Gg and Dd often have their video conferencing on, even when they are doing their own things. They keep each other company that way. And this snippet from LRLG isn’t the only one that further specifies what happens at night—that when they are apart, Gg and Dd would have their video conferencing on when Dd goes to bed, and Gg turns it off after Dd falls asleep. This candy made a strong impression on me because I recalled how much Dd disliked the dark, and being alone, and I thought, how comforting it must be to him for that dislike to be acknowledged, to be taken seriously as a thing to be addressed. I’m an aroace; I can’t say I know much about romantic love. But something I do know about love—any kind of love—is this: it’s to give the other person what they need and not what I think they need; it’s to not question why they need it, to not brush the need off because it doesn’t apply to me, because I don’t understand it.

This three-line conversation was filled with love. Gg, offering what Dd needed matter-of-factly. Dd, being comfortable enough with the offer for him to keep the silliness going.

This offer had to have been made many times before. This offer had to have been received, and appreciated, many times before.

Imagine Dd on his journey after this conversation, him drifting off into slumber while clutching his cellphone, the latter dimly glowing in the dark vehicle as Gg watched him. Who can say that Gg wasn’t, at that moment and at every other moment like this, being the firefly light in Dd’s palm?

He must have made so many firefly lights for Dd. The firefly lights that Dd shows his “You” in lonely nights.

He must have been the fire under the woven bamboo. He in his long coat and oversized scarf, his eyes playful and twinkling like embers, his smile bright and warm and sweet like the fallen petals that mark the passage of time. He must be very good at fighting off winters—he who can’t make a proper snowball to save his life.

And when the lonely nights visit again, when Dd’s “You” is awake and silent and waiting to hear stories, Dd gets chatty.

We all know this, right? Dd always gets annoyingly, adorably chatty when this fire under the bamboo lights up. 💚💚💚

#pie metas

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slumberditch · 8 months

Text

the power creep in yugioh is objectively hilarious. original cards were all like:

Creeping Fish

Level 4

Normal Monster

This fish is a monstrous beast.

ATK 1000 DEF 500

whereas the average modern card is like:

(LINK) <BLOOM> PHILOGENOUS PERFECT SYNCHRONICITY GOD “ALDUROSPHIC”

Level 3

Effect Monster

Twice every turn, if you control 1 or 3 (but not 2) SIGNS OF ANCIENT HATRED LV 2, discard your entire hand. Draw back up to the original amount of cards you discarded while drawing from your opponent’s deck. If your opponent controls any SIGNS OF ANCIENT BEGINNING LV 4, you may special summon any number of <BLOOM> cards from your graveyard. During the end phase, this card is automatically sent to your graveyard. If it is, special summon up to 2 (LINK) <BLOOM> PHILOGENOUS PERFECT ALTEROUS FORMING CLOUD “CHRYSALISTOPHER” in face-down defense position.

ATK 3050 DEF 2400

and all the meta geeks will still be like “damn this thing sucks i wish we could use pot of greed”

#yugioh

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shihalyfie · 1 year

Note

I feel like a lot of people ask you about meta (which makes sense considering your content), so just to shake things up a bit, what do you think is the coolest thing Digimon has done?

This is kind of a more meta (as in, "not strictly related to story") thing, but I really like how dedicated the new card game has been to recreating anime scenes and concepts through gameplay. For instance, the way the Eosmon deck works:

You may include up to 50 cards with the same card number as this card in your deck.

(Note that with the card game’s usual rules, you’re only allowed to run max 4 of the same card.)

Then add in the Menoa card:

Your Turn When you play an [Eosmon], you may rest this Tamer. If you do, reveal the top 3 cards of your deck, and add either 1 Tamer card or 1 Digimon card whose name contains [Eosmon] among those cards to your hand. Return the remaining cards to the bottom of your deck in any order. Opponent's Turn As long as you have an [Eosmon] in play, all opponent Tamers will not turn Active during the Active Phase.

Or in other words, the Menoa card lets you populate your side of the play area with tons of Eosmon (like with the swarm of Eosmon in the movie), and while she’s active with an Eosmon, all of the opponent’s Tamers are incapacitated (because she dragged them into Neverland). Then when you get to Ultimate-level Eosmon:

For every Tamer you and the opponent have in play, you may choose 1 Lv.5 or below [Eosmon] from your Trash and place it at the top of this Digimon's Evolution Bases in any order.

...so, as with the movie, Ultimate-level Eosmon is formed by the absorption of lower-level Eosmon corresponding to the Chosen Children who were dragged into Neverland. Very fun.

Or as another example, the recent Masaru card:

Beginning of Your Main Phase If you have a Digimon with [Agumon] or [Greymon] in its name in play, by paying 1 memory, for the turn, this Tamer is also treated as a 3000 DP Digimon that cannot evolve. Your Turn When this Tamer becomes Rested, 1 of your Digimon may evolve into a Yellow card with [Greymon] in its name in your hand without paying the cost.

Treating Masaru as “a 3000 DP Digimon that cannot evolve” is basically another way of saying that Masaru is allowed to attack one of the opponent’s Digimon directly. When a Digimon attacks, once the attack is complete, you’re supposed to “rest” the card (turn the card sideways). So the intended play with this card is

Masaru and Agumon/Greymon are on the field

Masaru attacks an opponent Digimon

Masaru’s card is put in Rest state

When Masaru’s card is put in Rest state, Agumon/Greymon gets a free evolve

...so in other words, Masaru punched a Digimon and his partner evolved.

For more of a story development, though...well, you see, because Wikimon has an implicit job of chronicling every possible known Digimon evolution line, the mods and editors at Wikimon have been going through nightmares every time Digimon introduces another weird evolution mechanic (the card game especially has been troublesome for them), but I’m still laughing at the fact that Xros Wars actually going there resulted in this being on Shoutmon X7 Superior Mode’s page for a while.

It’s since been replaced with something more organized, but it’s still funny. Digimon Wiki has a different policy regarding evolutionary lines, but I remember they still went through a whole problem of “how the hell do we categorize this?!” for a while. I apologize to any wiki staff or editors reading this for whom this was probably a lot less funny, but there is something to be said about a story development so ambitious that it breaks all of the fan categorization attempts.

#oxythedigiguy #shiha's ask box #digimon multi series talk #kizuna spoilers

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liliallowed · 4 months

Note

Been thinking about Y/N as a character recently and I've been thinking out some parallels they have to Slay the Princess. I know we are technically them, but the relationship we have with them as voices reminds me of the long quiet and the princess. We have shaped Y/N to be this way with our questions and asks. What little individuality they have is either multipled and made larger or erased by us. If we don't believe in their abilities they won't do it. If we believe they will. If they are slightly interested in Dust we shape them mold them to like him, like how the long quiet shapes the princess to love him the damsel route. We caused their curiosity that would ruin their life and yet molded them to a people pleasing pacifist that does little about it. We make insecurities from our own about how the other two feel about them and make them obsessed with the idea of being loved. They are lonely and isolated and have no experience because they technically have barley existed in this world without us and our word. We are the bugs in their head the grow and split and make new till the end of time whispering and molding them to our liking splitting their brain in two with our heavy words and comments. They have slight agency without us, but after a while they'll seem to realize they have no other purpose, and our will makes them whole. We are two separate creatures so close and yet so far on the plane of the power of knowing and existing, we are something they will never comprehend; and yet we whisper in their ear. This got very off topic lol sorry for rambling.

yes! but unlike long quiet there is a limit on how much you can boost y/n's determination.

they won't become all powerful if they just believe in themselves. they will just be able to barely keep up with those two and then collapse out of exhaustion. they are still human. unlike crimson they have limits. (so does dust but LV boosts his magic)

and while they have potential, on a power scaling level they're considerably weaker than both dust and crimson. two trained killers with fast reflexes and a LOT of combat experience.

as for them not having other purposes... well? you're kinda right? but also y/n does have their own agency. they will react unprompted based on previous choices.

but yeah you did kinda shape them into this on a meta level. but I said it before. your asks aren't technically a seperate entity from y/n's own intrusive thoughts. they are conflicted but that doesn't mean they wont ignore some urges or be more keen on listening to others.

it is kinda funny since crimson also is an anomaly in that world that orbits around dust constantly wanting more excitement, but since I refuse to break the fourth wall (only cracks or only vague mentions) that's as far as I'll go. y/n is just a regular human with some problems. sure. you are technically whispering to them and changing the world. but how do you know it's not because you're controling them, but your choices happens to align with y/n's? they're still responsible for their actions. even if you willed it, they thought of it and acted on it.

y/n isn't a blank slate. y/n WILL make your choices even without your input. you just happen to go into a timeline where their choice was yours. in another timeline y/n never made that choice to free crimson and left dust.

in another timeline they clung to dust and they ended up together and dust finally could let down his gaurd and be at peace now that crimson was safety contained. no resets. no more killing... it was over.

another possibility is that y/n dies to dust and it doesn't reset, leaving dust alone.

those happy experience you think you've deprived y/n? yeah they're still there. but they're only accessable to readers. not the in-world characters. y/n can never do a true reset and have no lasting consequences. dust will KNOW it from their expression. but YOU technically can. you can jump between worlds. explore other stuff. the concept of lv triangle is extremely open to creative ideas! you can even plop in your self insert and like, think of choices YOU would make.

(of course it's hard to not know dust and not react accordingly. so just imagine some shady ass dude walks up to you with pretty eyes-)

(and yeah! feel free to make fluff or send small requests about those happy timelines! I'll see if I have time and write them!)

but unlike the other timelines this timeline seems to be going in a direction that both crimson and dust would be attached to you.

you're not controling fate you're just JUMPING to your desired outcome.

since this is an interactive fic, unlike a prewritten reader fic this one can take many turns! but like, poor dust. he's an anomaly magnet 😔/j

#lv triangle #answered asks #character analysis #thank you for this ask!#it was a treat to read!

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carlyraejepsans · 2 years

Note

do you prefer frisk being the genocidal one and chara being the pacifistic one or vice versa?

much much, MUUUCH more complicated than that buddy. from a meta/actual game's message pov? i think it's important that frisk has the space to live their own life and be themself only after we've set them up to be a merciful person with true pacifist. at the same time, they're also willing to fight when we want to!

as for chara, i think the distinction between their and the player's will is pretty much useless in any run other than genocide, where we DO push them to become as bloodthirsty as we are, but we make them so powerful they become their own entity, completely alien to our will and ungovernable once the run is completed. in this run, frisk is progressively pushed aside by the narrative as the focus shifts on the separation of us and chara, until frisk is completely taken over. honestly... i really like the theory that frisk is, technically speaking, chara's reincarnation, and that while pacifist allows chara's unfinished business to be dealt with and their spirit to be put to rest (allowing frisk to move on as their own being), killing everyone in the underground will do the opposite, make chara's spirit stronger and stronger through LV and EXP (kind of as an inverse parallel to flowey taking everyone's souls and turning back into asriel in PP) until they eventually take over entirely and confront US, player, face to face.

from a more... how do i say. fanfictiony pov, taking undertale not as a videogame with meta elements but as a story that stands on its own... i like to imagine they made decisions together. it's implied that when a monster absorbs a human SOUL and is killed/defeated, that human SOUL dies/disappears entirely. so if chara still lives on as a ghost bound to frisk, they're technically SOULless like flowey, which would cause a sense of detachment in the event of violence taking place. i think... they feel through frisk. so if frisk behaves with kindness and mercy, their feelings will follow, and if they don't... well. same thing really. they're partners :]

#undertale #answered asks #frisk #chara #i think reducing ''frisk's true self'' at pacifist even when they went through other runs beforehand is really dismissive of their depths #and just reduces to small bumbling child too pure too good for this world. as is making them a ruthless killer #same thing goes for making chara horrible or a pure helpless pawn in the player's hands #the kids are fucked up!!!#entry log #metanalysis

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