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james-a-b · 18 days

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the TATINOF experience

ok so. i've wanted to make a post about this for a While now; i feel like a lot of people don't really understand or appreciate how unprecedented TATINOF really was, and for me, watching it in Seattle in 2016, it was the best day of my life.

So here we go.

(I've put the rest below a readmore bc this is an 18 paragraph post lmao)

On March 26th, 2015, Dan and Phil revealed TABINOF via a trailer set in the distant future. The book itself was not entirely unprecedented- other youtubers had written and were writing books, but for the most part (at the time) these were either fictional works or serious biographies; TABINOF was a time capsule of Dan and Phil's youtube brand, and a glimpse into parts of their lives we hadn't seen yet. (For example; Phil's hamster breeding adventures) But tucked into the pages of the book in the trailer were a pair of tickets to The Amazing Tour Is Not On Fire. This was insane. No youtuber had ever gone on tour before, save perhaps for a few musicians; no one had done a stage show. No one knew what to expect.

And, as they asked the audience of each show not to share spoilers, most of us went on not knowing what to expect until we'd seen it ourselves.

I saw the show on June 18th, 2016, near the end of the US leg of the tour. I went in knowing three things:

There were set ways in which we the audience could participate: there was Crafty Corner, Weird Kid, Phone Support Hotline, and a 7 Second Challenge submission box. (I submitted art to Crafty Corner, and I was thrilled just knowing they'd see it)

The set was a giant microwave. What this meant, I could not imagine.

Everyone who'd already seen the show said it was incredible.

I remember having had a dream that I was at the show like a week before it actually happened, and I woke up just as the show was about to start in the dream because my brain couldn't come up with anything they might do onstage lmao.

I can't even begin to put into words how incredible the atmosphere was before the show even started. Phannies were lined up for two blocks outside the theatre, and I'd never felt so welcome anywhere in my life. The doors opened. I believe Cornelia was working the merch stand pre-show, though I don't remember for sure- I got a signed copy of TABINOF and then I took my seat.

The set was incredible, and the pre-show playlist was amazing. Everyone sang along to every song, and when Troye Sivan's Wild came on, everyone screamed. Seriously, if you've never looked at the pre-show playlist for TATINOF you should. Finally, All Star by Smash Mouth played. Everyone was singing along, and laughing because of course Dan put that in there, and then, halfway through the song, the music stops and the lights go out. Everyone screamed, and the opening sequence began to play on the microwave. I understand why they opted to edit that directly into the beginning of the recording, because it would've been a little difficult to see in the recording otherwise, but at the same time it hit so much better when it played directly on the microwave.

And then they came out on stage, and they were so much more awkward than I expected. Dan kept squatting slightly, like he was trying to be shorter, and Phil moved almost like a marionette. They said their hellos, and then they addressed the microwave being there, and the plot started to become apparent- Phil had microwaved his laptop.

I'm not going to get into too much detail on every bit of the show, because I've already written about eight paragraphs and I could write about twenty more going play-by-play through every aspect of the show, but that's not the point of this essay, so I'll attempt to keep things at least a little shorter than that.

The first truly unprecedented thing was when Dan said they were "having a bit of a domestic" when Phil said he couldn't get off the lion. This was the very first time they'd come anywhere near addressing the elephant in the room (their relationship) publicly since the V-day vid. Obviously, compared to the things they've said in 2024 (we've never fucked on youtube, etcetera), "we're having a bit of a domestic" is incredibly tame, but this was huge. Everyone screamed.

And then, shortly after, Phil started singing, and everyone screamed much louder. They did little songs all the time in baking videos or while playing the sims, but this was different. This was on stage, with a spotlight and everything. It was not a surprise to me when Dan cut Phil off; I thought the song was for sure a joke, that there was no way they'd come back to it (spoiler alert, they did).

And then there was the 7 Second Challenge bit, and Reasons Why Phil Was A Weird Kid, and Uncle Dan's Phone Support Hotline, and the PINOF 75 bit. And it was all weird and crazy and amazing. But the next thing I really want to focus on is Fanfiction Live.

Fanfiction Live was... absolutely insane. My show chose cowboys on the moon, and the script they wrote for it was.... so undeniably gay? Like. "Should Phil draw Dan like a French girl"? Are you kidding? This really happened???? They wrote this in 2015. Four years before they came out. This was so far beyond unprecedented. This was unthinkable.

And then, immediately following this insanity, they began Smashing Plates and then they were like "IT'S DIL" and by this point i was hoarse from screaming but when I tell you I screamed...

And then Dil said all those things about Dan feeling like nothing he did was worth anything, but that it meant a lot to Dil and to the audience, and that Phil felt like he had to change who he was to please others but that we appreciated him for who he is... I melted. It was a moment of such genuine honesty, and they'd saved my life, and I loved them so, so much.

And then Phil started singing again, and Dan didn't stop him, and Dan started singing too, and the song was so them, ironic yet genuine, and I was out of my mind because I couldn't believe they were Singing On Stage like that, like, they were youtubers. Not professional singers. No one asked or expected them to go that far. But they did it.

it was the best day of my life.

#phan #mine #dan and phil #tatinof #the amazing tour is not on fire #phil lester #dan howell #sorry i yapped so much lol i get really passionate about tatinof

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send-me-a-puffalope · 2 months

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Take two because tumblr deleted my entire goddamn essay of a post— so um I did a bad thing (LONG POST INCOMING)

Okay, so I accidentally came up with a FNAF movie AU where William is the Bruce Wayne but evil of Afton Industries, Vanessa is his heir, and Mike is new to the city and just landed a job as one of the Afton Industries henchmen.

Mike quickly realizes something is up because all the other henchmen around him are acting Abnormal™️ as in, they feel almost drained of their humanity (they all wear animal masks, Mike’s is a fox). His first day, the other henchmen that joined the same day, Jeremy, was super friendly and talkative— only to find that the man had gone completely silent, only speaking in affirmation to orders or replying with very rudimentary yeses and nos. The only other “henchman” who seems to be unaffected by this is a blonde woman in a bunny mask, who he quickly befriends because What The Fuck. We’re the only normal ones here. This is weird as shit right??

What Mike doesn’t know is that that henchman, Vanessa, is the reason he isn’t under the same mind control the others are under. In fact, she isn’t technically a henchman at all. She’s there to keep an eye on the third wave of the latest Afton project to confirm that the product, mind control chips attached to the animal masks the henchmen wear, are working as planned (as a parallel to the animatronics in the FNAF movie being controlled by William). This is all leading up to the end of the week, where Afton Industries is throwing a giant Gala with one plan in mind: to use the mind control chips to give William control over all of the city’s elite.

But Vanessa doesn’t agree with William’s plan, instead fucking with the least eye catching henchman’s chip (Mike) so that he notices something is up. And he does. So they become close, even getting to know each other outside of work because neither of them really had a friend before. When he first sees Vanessa’s face, all that registers in his head is huh. she looks kinda familiar. but he doesn’t connect the dots because he’s new to the city and doesn’t keep up with the rich elite because why would he (plus perhaps Vanessa can pull a superhero disguise and wear glasses or some shit 💀💀💀).

Vanessa inconspicuously seeds information to Mike about how the henchmen are being mind controlled and leading him to make the conclusion that that mind control is being extended during the ever impending Gala at the end of the week. They come up with a plan to kill the main server hub of Afton Industries to break the mind control of the henchmen + prevent the city’s elite from falling under William’s control. But there’s some underlying tension because Mike is completely open about his life and even introduces Vanessa to Abby, his little sister who he basically raised, but he catches on that Vanessa always seems to know a little too much about the ongoing of Afton Industries. Worse still is when he catches Vanessa lying about her past/life as her stories start contradicting each other. He starts realizing that he really doesn’t know anything about Vanessa but she begs him to give her just a little more time and then she’ll explain everything.

Vanessa planned to feed Mike code words instructing him through their plan through their comms so that to others, it just sounded like a normal conversation. Vanessa promises him that even if the plan goes awry, she’ll make sure he’ll be okay. He doesn’t question her how.

The day of the Gala comes around and Mike finds himself conveniently positioned right where he needs to be, in the main lobby of Afton Industries, as security. This is where the Welcoming Ceremony was taking place, introducing the hosts and inviting all the guests to the reception.

But as Mike starts panicking because Vanessa isn’t responding through her ear piece, he hears a familiar voice from the balcony of the lobby. He looks up and makes eye contact with his only friend: Vanessa. It dawns on him then that that was the reason for all Vanessa’s secrecy. She’d been lying to him this whole time. How much of this had she been planning since the beginning? Was she still trustworthy or was she actually working with William? How could Vanessa Afton be the “bad guy” when she’d been his closest confidant since moving to the city?

(Was this just an excuse to put Vanessa in this fit? Absofruitly. I am not immune to woman in dress)

Immediately, Mike catches that Vanessa is keeping up her side of the plan when he hears one of their code words in her speech.

William Afton finds Mike personally after he disrupts the server and grabs him, only to be thrown off by Vanessa, who followed him. -> smth smth plot (i’ll think of it later) -> William Afton gets publicly exposed and arrested. Mike turns to Vanessa and asks what’s going to happen to her? She smiles sadly at him and says it’s going to be okay, she’ll survive. -> setup for sequel for because I cannot think of a story ever without setting up for a sequel

And that’s as much as my silly putty lump of a brain thought of while blindly walking around Las Vegas. Was this all inspired by those two pictures? Yes. Am I regretful? Maybe. Ask me again in like 24 hours *smiles serenely*

#this is so minimally about the animatronics 💀💀💀 but hey i’m here for the putting characters into situations #the way i could change these names and make a completely original story shhhh #vanessa afton #vanessa shelly #fnaf vanessa #william afton #mike schmidt #michael schmidt #fnaf movie #five nights at freddy's #fnaf AU #fnaf movie AU

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warrior-cats-rewritten · 6 days

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I'm not trying to be rude, but I feel like you're going way too far to punish Brambleclaw. Thistleclaw, the child groomer, doesn't receive this treatment. I don't understand the point of bringing him back if you're going to portray him as the most evil cat in history. Brambleclaw is buried outside, while most of the evil cats are buried within the clan's territory, which seems very extreme. If you hate him so much, don't include him in a rewrite. It will feel just like what you hate the Erins for, "forcing too much on Brambleclaw." If you dislike a character, don't focus on them. Like Jesus Christ, my friend wasn't wrong, you have a hate boner for this cat. I mean no offense, but it's weird, dude. Real weird.

Why is it that the minute I post bramble facing consequences for actions I get bramblestans in my inbox assuming I hate him? I think what's weird is very clearly trawling the tag to look for posts like mine so you can write an essay. What you should be doing is drawing him with green eyes, it looks good.

Cause if you knew this project, you would know that Thistleclaw isn't a child goomer anymore, technically. He is Ivypaw's Dark Forest mentor (which... is grooming people but not THAT way), as Hawkfrost has a proper arc now and... Doesn't die in Sunset.

I will say one thing though, I did actually forget one thing to mention that you caught! He isn't on Thunderclan's MAIN territory. I mean... what do you call a border that shifts ALL the time? It's the Thunder-Shadow Niagara Falls.

It's where Tawnypelt is going to be buried! Under a pine tree. (It's also close to a lungwort patch Rowanstar is the protector of, territories NEED landmarks)

Also.... I don't truly hate him hate him! Sure, he sucks but he isn't real. And as a character? Dude, he's FUN. He's a self fulfilling Prophecy, he has good moments, in WCR, he is still a POV during TNP and is buddies with Cinderpelt. He's canonically a giant PUFFBALL of an animal and I've never been against adding your own pets to Xenofiction! I am also the biggest advocate for the Give Brambleclaw Green Contacts Organization. I'm giving him more moments with his family, and while those relationships get REALLY strained, it's a story. He wouldn't be interesting if he was a cardboard cutout of a cat. I think he's interesting in a way that is both intriguing and frustrating.

He's messy.

He loves his daughter Dandeliontuft, but she's the spitting image of his mother who died right after swearing to never speak to him again, and Dandy is nearly mute... It's hard to think about. Abusers are not unfathomable monsters with no redeeming qualities. He still cried when he thought Lionpaw was buried alive.

He does show up to Starclan, but when he sees the smoldering scorched earth, it's a clear message. He wasn't welcome, and he will not be staying. It's not like the actual literal groomer Stormtail, who got poisoned repeatedly, had all of his relationships ruined, and chased out of Starclan every night by a living and dead Goosefeather until his spirit eroded due to his refusal to move on. Tom got eaten alive and his spirit consumed by One Eye.

He's a ghost now. He's gonna have a long, long time to reflect on what he's done. How badly he did hurt others. He's been around too long, and his generation needs to be done away with. I think he'll find peace wandering the land, being a cat ghost.

He's not an evil cat, he's just stubborn. Stuck in the way he was taught to be by the Clans.

#warrior cats #warriors #warrior cats rewrite #wcr #asks #not tagging him because his fans are never normal in my comments and ask box #also do you think Rootspring can still see him #'oh fuck not again'#all in all #touch grass

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alcalexandria · 2 years

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Cuts, Reshoots and Changes made to Terminator: Dark Fate.

As part of another giant essay I’m working on about the possibility of Dani & Grace being an intentional romance at some point (Edit - that has since been posted, and you can now find it here), I wanted to gather up a reasonably detailed list of Dani/ Grace scenes that we know were changed at some point during production of Dark Fate.

This is mostly a reference for that post rather than something standalone, but you might find it of interest all the same. I won’t spend *too* much time on my extrapolations here, but you’ll probably get the gist of what I’m thinking.

You’re more than welcome to offer your own angle though, similar or different, and like I say I’ll have more on that front soon. Let me know if you can think of any relevant omissions or errors.

So what was changed? Why? How do we know?

There’s quite a bit to this, so I’m going to try to detail it in the order it appears/would have appeared in the movie, and try to explain both how we know it was cut/swapped, and what we know about why.

Again though, note that this isn’t necessarily a complete list of every cut or change we know about – just ones relevant to Dani & Grace, and how else they might or might have been interpreted if things were different. And a lot of these may be minor in isolation, but I include them for the sake of a bigger picture.

First, let’s talk about the Director’s Commentary (available in my country only with the iTunes release.)

The commentary involves Director Tim Miller and Editor Julian Clarke discussing the movie’s production and is well worth a listen – Miller has an obvious passion for the Terminator franchise and its lore, and his theories and ideas are engaging to hear. Clarke explains his thought processes logically, and for the most part, I couldn’t fault him.

… But.

In the commentary, the guys explain they did an entire editing pass to remove moments where Grace and Dani were overtly – in their words - “tactile”.

We don’t know the full extent of this, but the fact they call it an entire editing pass it quite a big deal – an editing pass means running through the whole movie as it’s assembled so far, to reselect cuts and alternate takes, from the many hours of dailies available, while ensuring the flow and continuity is still right.

It’s a significant undertaking and it’s not done lightly at the late stage we're talking here. It represents a lot of work hours by the Editor and Director (and in this case, almost certainly, the Producer)

The reason they give for this is that they didn’t want the audience to know that Grace and Dani have any kind of established relationship in the future – they want it to be a surprise that Grace already knows Dani in her own time.

To me that makes no sense, and I’ll detail why elsewhere - but it is the official reason they give, so I want to start with that preface.

It’s also worth saying, in the spirit of fairness, that they mention doing some (much less intensive) cuts and swaps with Dani and Diego, because the Editor was afraid that what’s normal for Latin actors would be too confusingly tactile for Cool Ranch flavored audiences, who may read it as a little weird and incestuous.

I think that’s silly, but I include it just to give additional context on the Editor’s perspective.

Now, on to the changes.

1. Pharmacy.

Originally the pharmacy staffmember who helps Dani pull Grace onto the street -

- then immediately asked Dani out, which she declines in no uncertain terms.

2. Motel.

The scene with Dani and Sarah has been tweaked considerably from the original. Initially, Dani had been seen crying more over Diego and her dad, this was almost all cut down and streamlined - the reason for the changes given being that test audiences were finding her a bit of a bummer.

But that isn't the only change, and the other isn't so cut and dry.

Source: Booasaur

This image is used to represent the FIRST AID KIT card in the weirdly excellent Dark Fate tie in card game.

Notably - images used in the card game are all promotional images that would have been approved for release by the studio, and the card company would have needed to have them as early as possible so they could design and produce their material.

Promotional images like this are not simply movie stills – they are actual photographs, taken by a purpose-hired photographer, which is why they never exactly align with a shot from the movie. However, because they are taken during the shooting of the movie, they’re clues to cuts we wouldn’t otherwise know of.

Dani never gets this close to Grace in the motel room while she’s unconscious in the final cut, and there’s no ice on her body in this shot, so it presumably sat before Sarah either ice’d or dosed her.

Presumably, also, this fell afoul of the "no touchy" edit pass. But there is no counterpart to this shot in the movie at all, and it's the only one of the card images where this is the case. The image itself hasn't been used in any later publicity releases either, as far as I can tell. The card game is the only trace of it out there.

So it seems like not only was the scene cut, the still itself was "de-approved" at some point later in production.

Additionally – though this is speculation, I’m not the only one making it - from the way scene is edited, it sure feels a lot like the first thing Dani does when she’s let back into the room by Grace after being sent for chips is immediately hug her, and the scene has been chopped around a bit to hide it.

Take a look for yourself, and see where this impression comes from – even though Dani and Grace have dialogue and are the active players in the moment, the camera lingers on Sarah, doing and saying nothing, for a weirdly long time, and for no clear reason.

It feels very much like a cutaway an editor might improvise so as not to show something else, and there are plenty more instances of this later we’ll come back to.

This trick, where we see generic reaction footage of somebody while rewritten/rerecorded dialogue is delivered from offscreen, is usually a last resort, a way to overhaul a storyline or conversation very late in the process.

It is used way more than I’d consider normal throughout DF – often during really major plot points, where you ideally want to make the best of everyone’s on-set performances and dynamism. It will come up a lot more.

We also know the road trip stuff with the three women was cut way down, in this case because a lot of it involved Sarah and Grace being snippier than they really need to be.

*PS – The motel room is pretty much an exact clone of the one Kyle and Sarah hid out in during T1. Keep that in your back pocket for later.

3. South Tunnel Future War Flashback.

We know from Tim Miller that the Future War battle was cut short. The original longer version showed us Hadrell/Quinn having a glorious last stand against the Rev-7s until they killed him, which presumably influences Grace’s decision to be Augmented.

According to Reddit users who were confirmed to have seen the test screenings, this longer version was actually in the cut they saw, albeit with incomplete SFX, so it was still intact even at that relatively late stage.

Remember from above - it’s supposed to be a surprise Grace knows Dani at all. That’s what Tim and Julian have told us, and it’s so important that it was worth time and money to cut scenes that had already cost too much time and money to film.

Here in the flashback we see in the final cut though, we are straight up shown Dani on the rescue stretcher.

And we are very pointedly shown Grace alone attending to her during the flight. Which casts doubt on that.

But the alternate/deleted version of this scene would have gone further, we would also have been shown “The Commander” in the alternate version of the volunteering scene –

While that alternate scene isn’t as well executed as the one they went with, in my opinion, it’s notable in that it has Grace volunteering much more deliberately. She insists on it, outside the immediate aftermath of battle, and her reasons seem far more personal than her immediate duty to the Commander as a leader – she demands to be Augmented in direct response to seeing the seriously injured Dani in that neighboring infirmary bed, rather than for the sake of an abstract and offscreen Commander.

Now these Future War scenes all need a ton of VFX, and bespoke sets, props and wardrobe that can’t be bought off the rack or recycled anywhere else in the movie’s main present-day storyline, so they’re very expensive. Whatever else you might shoot as a just-in-case, you would not shoot more of this than you had to.

Given she’s bundled up on a stretcher, it would have been trivial to conceal the identity of the injured VIP completely – simply by not shooting her clearly, or covering her head. Natalia Reyes wouldn’t even need to be on set.

But she was - they went to the lengths of having her, having her face visible, putting her in injury makeup, and showing us Grace is uniquely, personally affected by her condition.

Which is... odd, right? A little contradictory?

4. The Train.

Quite a lot seems to be cut from this scene – we know of at least one line from the trailers, (“We win by keeping you alive”) that’s been cut, and one line Miller mentions in the commentary (Grace’s original retort to Sarah was “The only thing you and Mother Mary have in common is a dead son”), but it’s also been changed considerably since the Audition script that circulated early on.

I want to be really clear what we’re talking about here first though.

An Audition script, a “side”, is a very rough placeholder script that is used to test chemistry and emotion. The dialogue in a side will vary from rough to terrible, and sometimes the scene is deliberately misleading, as sides very often leak via the folks who don’t get the part – and indeed that’s presumably why we have this one.

But the general mood of the scene is the important thing. It is usually in the ballpark because that’s what you’re trying to be sure your actor can bring. The side is usually chosen because the particular emotional peak of this particular moment is the Director’s priority – so a side, however clumsy or misleading the dialogue is, represents something that matters so much for this character they’ll cast solely on the basis of it.

This side, which can be Google'd up pretty easily, was used to audition actresses for Dani. It sketches out a Grace who does not know, or claims not to know, Dani or what’s so important about her, and this scene is clearly a tentative bonding moment between them. Sarah doesn't even seem to be present.

In it, we see Dani show concern for Grace’s shoulder wound, before comparing it to a severe shoulder scar of her own that she shows Grace, from a bus crash in Puebla when she was fourteen, and here's an extract -

She touches [her own] scar, gently with her fingers.

DANI (CONT'D)

I'll never eat obleas again.

(Grace studies Dani as she traces the line of the scar with her finger.)

GRACE

You wanted to understand where I come from? You already do.

(Dani's eyes meet Grace's for a moment.)

DANI

My mother told me scars make the skin stronger.

Dani covers her scar with her shirt, then looks out again as the train slows, approaching Nogales.

I mean... if a movie showed you a heterosexual pair of characters doing this…?

But, we'll get to that in a subsequent post.

5. The Truck.

Here's the version of this we saw in the early trailers -

Source: Booasaur

Vs the version in the movie -

This scene, like the motel room, is an homage to a scene with Kyle Reese and Sarah Connor in T1. There are a lot of those.

6. The Crossing & The CBP Detention Centre.

There are a number of major cuts made to the sequence where the group cross the Mexico-US border, but chunks of the original version are visible in the trailers, and the deleted scene is provided in the home release.

Originally, for starters, the Rev 9 managed to track Dani to her uncle’s house, killing everyone there.

He goes on to manipulate the Mexican Federales into actively herding Dani & Co towards the CBP trap he’s set for them. Grace then spots the drone and realizes he’s tracking them, has them ditch their bags and tells them to run for it. She exchanges fire with the Federales in a running battle, and Dani’s uncle is killed.

You can see this full scene here. And actually now that I rewatch it, I'm struck by how effectively sinister Rev 9 is in the first bit, and what a shame that was to lose:

youtube

Miller says the scene was cut down in part because whacking Dani’s relatives threatened to get a little repetitive, and he has a point (her cousin later also dies in the CBP centre), but there are some really valuable character moments in here too.

Before Grace starts shooting, Dani strictly warns Grace not to kill anybody. Which is a T2 callback, of course, but it’s also establishing Dani as taking the initiative, and it makes it apparent that Grace is already treating whatever she asks for as an order.

The gunfight itself isn’t great, frankly, but I do think the movie feels this cut. It cues up the scenes coming after it in a way that just leaves them kinda awkward without. The reason Grace is so fired up and ready to throw down with the CBP when they're caught in the spotlight is because, as far as she's concerned, she’s *already* in the middle of a gunfight; Dani’s “I’m not watching you die” to her is meant to directly address the fact she’s still feeling her uncle’s death, and can’t bear to see Grace get shot now too, rather than just something she blurts out randomly. She’s already seen somebody she cares about die, and she won’t risk it again.

But Dani’s grief at the death of her uncle would also have played into the next bit, too, something which is still in the movie - when Rev-9 drops the drone on them. Dani sees Grace easily break out of her restraints to save her from it, only to be KO’d by the blast.

In other words - having just surrendered to save Grace’s life, Dani has to see her being killed after all, and we see her looking at her lifeless body with a moment of despair. And after binding Grace with a No Kill order so that nobody else will die over her, she now sees that Grace has apparently sacrificed herself to save her.

This pays off – or would have paid off – in a deleted moment later, too. A shot seen in the trailers from when Grace finds Dani in the cages shows us Dani’s clear relief at seeing Grace is alive.

A subsequent cut shot has Grace and Dani fleeing the Rev-9, hand in hand, in slow motion.

Compare this to the much messier, more rushed sequence we see in the movie -

The Federales shootout sequence on its own is a little redundant, sure, but without this bit, the drone stuff is just... kind of orphaned, and pointless. It's a very dramatic splash of fireworks with little consequence. The shot of Dani looking at Grace's body after the blast has no purpose, and the attack has no real effect, so it might as well not have happened.

More than that, this set of cuts make for really messy continuity. There's a big mismatch between them hauling a bunch of presumably very useful gear through the desert one moment, and then abruptly having none a few shots later; and it feels silly to see everyone set out armed to the teeth with guns they never even try to use.

The way Dani’s uncle just dips out to let the cousin lead them the rest of the way in the theatrical cut feels bizarre, and the escape from the CBP centre feels tangibly choppy and not nearly as clearly composed without the moments seen in the trailer, like missing frames of animation.

7. The Plane Chase.

This whole sequence has been totally overhauled, and maybe several times.

The plane battle was originally longer (which I don’t think it really needed to be) but one notable feature is that Major Dean and the EMP grenades all appear to be later additions.

Many people had guessed this anyway - he comes out of nowhere, provides the grenades, and bows out again, without much explanation or grounding outside the few minutes he appears. And the (oddly cheap) looking grenades themselves are destroyed before ever affecting the plot. So it has all the hallmarks of a reshoot that was plugged into an existing sequence.

The original version of the sequence though, seen in the “pre vis” computer storyboard included on the home media releases, had the gang actually seize the plane by force, and physically subdue two crewmembers. The two end up tied up in the hold after one of them hits Arnie with a wrench (he still sports the injuries from this in the film)

When Rev 9 attacks, one of the crewmen is killed by cargo debris; Dani frantically tries to save the other, but he’s sucked out of the breach in the fuselage before she can.

That original version involving the kidnapped crew appears to have actually gotten as far as being filmed – two “injured” Air Force actors who seem to fit the bill are visible in some of the “Making Of” featurettes.

The prop auction blurbs – some notes from it here – seem to suggest Carl used chain brackets as weapons in the fight, which I don’t believe he does in the battle as seen.

Now why does this matter?

Well, because if there were no EMP grenades, then the conversation in the cockpit must have been completely different, since Carl and Sarah don’t have to interrupt Dani and Grace’s conversation to alert them to the damage.

The cockpit scene is a continuity mess start to finish anyway though, which is another a tell-tale sign of reshoots and re-edits - just for fun, for instance, watch out for Grace’s disappearing drink.

It’s worth watching it start to finish too just to see how much dialogue is delivered from a character who is speaking from offscreen, suggesting these lines were written and then recorded in a Sound Booth after the scenes were shot.

There’s a lot of that in this movie, which I’ve mentioned previously, but this scene in particular is rife with it; almost all its key dialogue is delivered from offscreen while we’re watching what amounts to stock footage of Sarah or Carl.

That much ADR/ overdubbing from off camera is a dead give away that a scene has been almost totally reworked.

And why? Why did it need to be arranged so much?

Well, that brings us to what I think is the biggest change of the movie.

8. "You Saved Me" / "You Raised Me"

The suggestion Dani found and raised Grace from childhood is entirely a post-test screening addition. It was not in the original version of the movie, at all, and this has been confirmed by the Reddit test screening participants. The whole implication comes from a single line and scene which was added after the testing, and at the cost of all that continuity mentioned above.

The scene we see of Dani rescuing Kid-Grace is a reshoot which was inserted in place of another deleted scene, set during the Future War, wherein an adult Grace begs an adult Dani to let her go back and save her. That’s why the Kid-Grace scene has a different look and feel to everything else in the movie, Present Day and Future War, because it was shot way after everything else.

Before I go on, please take a moment to see the scene they cut, and imagine it back in place –

youtube

I mean... dang, right?

Unlike Major Dean or the grenades, this scene is not some neatly isolated little island, and unlike the one replacing it, it's aesthetically in tune with the South Tunnel battle. It depicts a post-Augmentation Grace, wearing “Augment” style sleeveless gear, and it’s the source of at least one promotional shot.

It also explains the circumstances Grace came back, lets Dani off the hook for sending her back to her doom, and even ties directly into a significant exchange of dialogue later on; Commander Dani is shown shedding a tear here when Grace asks to be allowed to save her, presumably because she remembers they will be some of Grace’s last words later, too.

The Theatrical Cut also still has the moment later when Grace quotes this scene to Dani’s younger self before she dies, so this scene is actually the foundation for a later one.

So it’s important, is what I'm saying, it’s laying down all the emotional groundwork for Grace’s death and the tragic implications of the movie’s Bootstrap Loop.

It makes the Commander far more sympathetic, gives Grace a ton more agency, and there are lines still in the movie which call back to it.

Without it, we even lose the visual parallel of Grace on her knees to Dani in the present day just as she is in her memory from the future, in the TDE facility.

For now then, let’s just say that I think you would need an excellent reason to pay more money to replace that original scene, especially with a scene that both looks cheaper, plays worse, and lacks the same connective tissue to anything else. And that this reason would have to be something unrelated to the needs of basic storytelling mechanics, or the Director’s preferences.

9. Underwater Battle.

Grace originally fought the Rev-9 underwater briefly, after the plane crash. That’s why she’s so exhausted when she resurfaces and they have to try to climb up the dam, and it’s why she couldn’t come to help the two others when they were trapped in the flooding Humvee.

10. Turbine Room.

Dani originally finished the battle with the Rev-9 pretty much on her own. This was reworked, apparently, to give Arnie “more of a moment”.

You can see images from the original version here.

Which I do believe - but the original flow would have meant Dani screaming at this thing that it’s taken everything she had, before going apeshit and killing it, in direct response to Grace’s death, which is pretty intense.

(Incidentally, I’m not convinced the subtitles are quite capturing her literal meaning in Spanish either, can somebody help me out?

Edit - BeneathTheThunders has confirmed this in the comments, Dani actually says "Killed everything I loved")

11. Final Scene

The playground scene with Grace as a kid is another post Test Screening addition. Originally the movie ended with a rolling road, just like T2, and a voiceover from Sarah.

Along with the added scavenger attack scene, that means it’s probable we never saw Grace as a child in the original version. At all.

Which would make for a quite different narrative bent, especially if the original Future Dani/Grace seen had still been in place.

In Summary.

Let’s consider how different that alternate narrative was.

Remember that Grace rarely, if ever, discusses Dani’s survival in terms of saving the world or winning the war, apart from her freakout in the chopper – her devotion is to Dani, personally, somebody we only ever see or hear of Grace knowing as one adult woman to another. Somebody she knows, somebody she sat vigil over in the Dragonfly and inspired her to become augmented.

Somebody, we hear only from an experienced, Augmented Grace who has saved her, with her exact meaning left to our imagination – when and how or how poetically she might mean that, we aren’t shown.

Remember that somebody, we see then, is a hardened uniformed military Supreme Commander, who nonetheless cries at the prospect of having to send Grace away to danger, something she’s tried “everything in her power” to avoid.

Remember that, back present day, that person’s first instinct when left alone with her unconscious body (after resting her head in her lap in the jeep for some reason?) is to care for her so tenderly it produced the mysteriously memory-holed First Aid Kit image. When reunited with her after being briefly parted, it’s apparently to embrace her.

While being pursued, it’s to designate her terms of engagement, and then surrender to protect her.

And notably, it is also Grace, not Commander Dani, who outlines what’s going to be done about the TDE in the flashback/forward to 2042.

So they don’t behave like either Mother/Daughter or Officer/Soldier. But they are something. And throughout the movie these two were, apparently, so physically close it was worth spending money and losing shot-to-shot continuity and clarity to put distance between them.

And in the end, when Grace does die, literally giving Dani her life with which to fight her attacker (“I’m sorry Grace!”), Dani tenderly touches her face before destroying her enemy, for taking everything she had from her - for "killing everything she loved".

I’m sure you can infer what I’m getting at there... but we’ll come back to that in a future post.

For now, here's what I'd love to know - the original cut apparently ended a little after the dam battle, with a Sarah voiceover on the rolling road.

I wonder what she said?

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atanx · 5 months

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Hello and welcome to my meltdown about Subnautica's timeline!

Okay; for context: I'm writing a fic in which Ryley Robinson, my blorbiest of blorbos, hitch-hikes a ride with Robin to escape Alterra (Robin doesn't know this). And I, in ignorance, set this to take place five years after their departure from 4546B.

And then I looked on the wiki and found out that apparently Below Zero is set two years after Subnautica??? I went like 'huh, guess I'm canon-divergencing harder than I thought' and went to construct my timeline in-between the games in detail like any normal person writing gay subnautica fanfiction, and WHAT I DISCOVERED WILL SHOCK YOU!!!

(Disclaimer: the two years figure is from the Wiki and I couldn't find a source for it. So either someone invented it or the devs didn't pay attention to their own lore.)

In this essay I will explain why it is impossible that Below Zero takes place two years after the end of Subnautica!

The Aurora was at 4546B to install a phasegate in that part of space, something that would have been a really big deal because it would have made a far-away part of the universe accessible. They weren't able to, because of giant gun.

The Aurora will travel from spacedock on the edge of Alterra space, making hundreds of consecutive phasegate jumps through nine different trans-gov authorities, and arrive on the far side of the Ariadne Arm in three months' time. From there the command crew will pilot the ship beyond the final phasegate, arriving in the next solar system approximately 18 months later.

~ Databank entry: “Alterra Launches the Aurora”

So in total, the Aurora took 21 months, almost two years, to arrive at 4546B. And Alterra sent the rocket because they could only meet Ryley halfway. Let's say that 'halfway' is halfway from the last phasegate. So logically, since the Aurora launched from the edge of Alterra space, Alterra's rescue ships would also need to make those hundreds of phasegate jumps, which took the Aurora three months. I'm going to assume that the rescue ships are smaller than the Aurora and thus possibly faster, taking 2 months for the jumps.

Then, with a faster ship, they would maybe only need 14 months where the Aurora took 18. Half of that makes 7 months, for a total of 9 months at the earliest when they could meet up with Ryley. Since the Neptune would also need about 7 months to get to the halfway-point (yes, this means Ryley had to spend 7 months cooped up in that small-ass rocket. Best have brought enough rations when leaving 4546B!), this assumes that Ryley only took two months to cure themselves and build the rocket. If they took any longer, you'd have to add that time on top of everything.

So at 9 months, Ryley meets the rescue ships. I'm going to say that the post-credit cutscene was PDA-generated bs and Ryley was very much allowed to come aboard although they owe Alterra 'a trillion credits'. Since I doubt Alterra would send high-ranking personnel into the ass of space where a kilometre-long capital ship, top technology, got fucking obliterated, Ryley only gets interrogated 9 months later, when they have been brought back to Alterra space.

We're at 18 months now.

Now, let's say Alterra goes like 'Huh, interesting planet and cured plague, shut-off gun! Let's investigate!'. The journey back to 4546B takes at least 16 more months if the ship is fast as fuck, so I'm going to push that up to 18 months since a ship loaded with materials and scientific equipment would need to be larger and thus slower. Since the non-realised construction of the phasegate was a multi-trillion credit investment (source: same databank entry as cited above), I'm going to propose that Alterra doesn't care about a small, far-away planet enough to risk bankrupting themselves for another phasegate, no matter how mineral-rich it is on the surface. They're interested in studying any remnants of Kharaa and also claiming the planet symbolically by staying there for an extended period of time and 'setting up base'.

We are at a total of 36 months. Which is three years. Three years and Alterra has just barely arrived at 4546B again.

How did the game arrive at two years??? Even if Ryley were questioned the second they step foot on the rescue ship, and Alterra immediately launches the crew that'll be stationed in Sector Zero, that makes 9+18 months, which is 27! More than two years and the crew has just arrived!

And then the story of Below Zero is also too complex to have taken place in a matter of days, so I would give it at least a few months, maybe like 4, which makes 31. And then Robin will have to undertake that same long journey, although she might not have to start all the way back in Alterra space, but it would take her 5 months at least!! And that's three years again!

The timeline doesn't even add up if a phasegate is constructed. Because let's say that along with the rescue ships, a ship capable of carrying all the materials and equipment necessary of phasegate construction is sent off. It would need to be of a similar calibre to the Aurora and would also take like 21 months to arrive at 4546B. From the same databank entry I've already mentioned like twice, we know that construction (for the Aurora), would take 6 months. So it would take this new ship at least that long, too, for a total of... 27 months! More than two years! Again! And this is also the earliest possible point that the research crew can arrive. So in the end, if we give the events of the story a couple of months, we are at 31 months again, and a couple of months for Robin to arrive, three years!

Now, there is one concern I want to address: the Sunbeam. "If it would take the rescue ships 16 months to arrive at 4546B, how come the Sunbeam arrives pretty early in a playthrough?", you might ask.

And fret not, for I have come up with a solution! We know that the closest phasegate from 4546B is 18 months by Aurora away. However, this says nothing about space-stations without phasegates. Quinn says that they're from a small trans-gov in Andromeda. Now, we don't know where Andromeda is located and what its relation to the Ariadne Arm, which 4546B is situated in, is, but since it's a trans-gov we do know that they own and operate at least one phasegate. It would make sense for that to be the closest, 18 months away from the Ariadne Arm. However, the Sunbeam could have been in the area delivering cargo to a space station without a phasegate.

The Ariadne Arm itself, is supposedly uninhabited, seeing as the databank entry claims the construction of the phasegate will expand inhabited space, but this could be an exaggeration or 4546B might simply not be too far into the uninhabited Ariadne Arm. Or both!

In conclusion, while it is possible to invent a plausbile explanation for the presence of the Sunbeam, there is no plausible explanation for Below Zero being able to take place just two years after Ryley's escape (that I could come up with). The only thing I can think of is that maybe the Mongolians or some other trans-gov built a spacegate in the vicinity, eliminating the 6 months construction time in the phasegate calculation, but this is somewhat of a stretch, since the earliest with that is 25 months. Now this figure would look quite good, but it doesn't account for the fact that the Mongolians wouldn't have built a phasegate right in front of 4546B, because if they had, they would have claimed the planet, and as we can see through the Alterra domination of it, they didn't. So there is inevitably some travel time which adds up to those 25 months. Not to mention that with relatively high likelihood, the new phasegate wouldn't be accessible through the last phasegate before 4546B, since everything we have seen implies that phasegates form tunnels, with two making a pair and having sole access to each other.

In the end, I think my figure of 5 years, 60 months, is much more realistic. It gives ample time for research proceedings and relationship development within the research crew, as we have seen exists. With this calculation, it takes Robin maybe (since she is traveling on a small, lightweight and fast ship) 14 months to get to 4546B, and from Lil asking her kids to send her art, we know that a form of fast-ish digital communication probably exists (although messages are probably inspected and need approval before send-off, meaning the reason we only get Sam's messages on entry to 4546B might be that some simply weren't sent), so she could have left immediately after learning of Sam's death. It taking this much time also explains how calm she is in the game: she's had a lot of time to process.

That brings us up to 50 months, leaving a 10 month window for any research crew bonding. This actually looks rather tight considering Alterra shipped an investigator to 4546B, but said investigator might have left shortly before Robin arrived, so that gives a larger time frame for her.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk! :D

#subnautica #below zero #that moment when all you wanna do is construct a timeline to explain your increasing canon-divergence #and suddenly you realise canon doesn't make sense #did i overthink this? probably! but eh!#i made this entire rant into a post because i realised that this is kind of too long for an author's note if i ever publish the fic #so this is a thing to like link to like 'hey! if u wanna know the behind the scenes here it is!'#atanx.txt #also if im missing anything feel free to tell me and correct me and such! i havent put too much effort into researching this so its possibl #:P

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randomfoggytiger · 2 years

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Arcadia Analysis: Scully Was Enjoying Herself Immensely

In this essay I will-

Arcadia is one of the most misunderstood episodes of The X-Files. It’s easy to see why: it’s one of the episodes that follows Two Fathers/One Son, making it easy to lump the characters’ intentions in with the aftermath of the “you’re making this personal” trainwreck (that is never directly addressed.) HOWEVER, this episode is completely divorced from One Son ala “Chris Carter wants his MOTW eps to be their own separate Scooby Doo mysteries.” While it is frustrating to viewers to not have continuity bleed over, (even the actors have stated they had to view each episode as a clean slate each week), it makes a lot of sense with how Mulder and Scully act throughout this case.

Furthermore, and the nail in the coffin of my assertion: Scully was having the time of her life.

“BUT HOW???” you query, “Everywhere I have looked for Arcadia discourse I have found an overwhelming amount of information and theories and fics supporting the idea that Scully was hurt, angry, and withdrawn from Mulder, using her masks and her granny pajamas as a shield against him. How could she- as your title suggests- like (let alone enjoy) her time in Arcadia???”

Very simple.

Because she did.

The tormented, bitter soul in the episode was Mulder, actually (who will be getting his own write-up soon, btw.)

Now, onto proof for you skeptics.

We first see Scully arriving with a big grin on her face. A front, you say? Perhaps....

Her expression dims somewhat when a giant basket is foisted into her hands; but it truly dips when Mulder makes his first wisecrack response about their last names. (This will be addressed later in the kitchen.)

After she is able to put the heavy welcome basket down, her expression further compounds when Mulder throws his sweater on top of it and makes a jab at the house’s cleanliness (something that will be revisited throughout the episode.)

The first time Scully rebuffs Mulder’s efforts is after he’s hammed up their relationship to Welcome-Wagon Pat and she tries to establish that she is not to be trifled with. (Mulder seems to be cooperative at first; this is, also, revisited in the kitchen.)

Mulder seems to concede with a nod that he’d laid it on too thick and she scoots back in close as they peer through the doorway at their bizarre neighbors. (It’s Mulder who moves away first.)

Once the neighbors finally leave, Mulder continues his married-life quips; but it’s Scully who ups the ante and reciprocates.

She is extremely pleased with herself, her joke, and making Mulder finally genuinely crack a smile. She is having the time of her life instead of enforcing professional distance and boundaries (which she would be if she were in self-preservation mode or still hung up over the Diana fallout.) Her wide smile that just won’t quit shows it all.

While she briefly slips into “professional-mode” when taping the house for evidence,

her whole face lights up when Mulder buzzes by to put his two cents in

and when he returns to quip once more. This time she tries, Scully-style, to conceal her grin; and is marginally more successful.

The dynamics are spelled out in the kitchen: Scully is more invested in this case and its potential, viewing Mulder’s disregard as flippancy. He denies truthfully: just “doesn’t see the point.” When he prods about how seriously she’s taking the assignment (“you just want to play house”), Scully doesn’t deny it and looks away. At his “make me a sandwich” joke, Scully takes the opportunity to enjoy chucking her gloves at his head

to decoy Mulder’s current line of attack and attempt to reestablish their normal banter. (This kitchen scene is where Mulder, however, doubles down until the finale-- which will be revisited in his own post.)

When she and Mulder examines the “blood” on the ceiling fan, she is unfazed by Mulder being in her space, and even turns further towards him.

After slinging her “poopy head” barb at Mulder (reminding him of their earlier conversation in the kitchen)--

Scully notices his distance after questioning Win. She moves closer,

and sticks onto his arm until he uses it to wrap around her shoulders.

When Win invites them to dinner, she rests her head on Mulder’s shoulder while she accepts.

and keeps it there while Win continues to talk.

At Gogolak’s, we see the bigger picture of advance and retreat.

Scully, caught up in having her fun acting the sympathetic wife, lands her hand on Mulder’s.

Then he looks her dead in the eyes until she retreats.

This is one of those moments that One Son could easily discolor. Scully is not “accidentally” betraying her interest in Mulder. She has been advancing this episode in small ways: her assertion in the kitchen about this case being as important as “aliens, tractor beams”; her sidling up next to Mulder when he isn’t being overly saccharine or cheesy; and only retreating when Mulder pokes at her deeper motives and firmly redraws their boundaries when she tries to make a deeper advance (again, another post for the future~.) Very obviously, Scully is queuing Mulder for “more”, and Mulder is retreating from and poking at her investment in this case (and potentially a future together like it.)

She withdraws because MULDER is uncomfortable, his reaction riding the fence between “ha, caught you” and “this blurs the lines too intimately.” His eyes aren’t shining and his face is dour while he maintains contact. He’s not hostile, per se; but he wants the purposed hand gone ASAP.

Scully thoughtlessly initiates again later in the conversation

but retreats once she notices,

having been slightly stung only moments before by Mulder’s unspoken barriers.

At the Shroeders’ dinner, Scully spends her time slightly annoyed at having to cover for Mulder’s cheap shots at their neighbors

but brightens when she gets to interrogate them, enjoying watching them flail at softball questions. Scully has a cheeky side, after all.

Her mood dips again when, from the corner of her eye, she sees Mulder dipping in for a cheesy smooch

which she deflects. (This makes Mulder genuinely happy since it deters them from getting into uncomfortable territory-- another post coming soon.)

Her good mood has returned by the time Mulder joins her with Mike’s drain sewer caduceus. She is completely comfortable with Mulder traipsing around her bedroom and ripping his shirt off UNTIL he tosses it in front of her face, close enough to disturb her bangs.

She retreats to the bathroom where she insists he call her by her married moniker “Laura” before stating he left the toilet seat up for the THIRD MORNING and critiquing his toothpaste techniques because they’re SHARING IT.

In a giant house where there are countless other bathrooms, these two choose to cohabitate in this one, and chose not to buy separate toothpastes when they had ample opportunity to do so previously (unless they both forgot to pack theirs and she just grabbed one in the airport... need that fic now.)

Now, the controversial issues: her nightgown and facemask.

1. Her nightgown is incredibly short (seen better when she reaches up to toss Mulder’s shirt at him.) Scully, a satin pajama top and bottoms girl, is wearing a cotton above-the-knees nightgown with a super thin robe on top. Take that as you will.

2. In the original script (shout out to @x-files-scripts), Mulder was supposed to react like he’d seen her facemask before, adding to the ambiguity of two people sharing a toilet and toothpaste. I like the creative change DD took in acting startled; and think it still works well with both Scully and Mulder’s characterization in this ep: that Scully is more annoyed that he is shocked by her domestic rituals than bothered at breaking their professional and personal boundary by displaying said intimate routine.

She continues, unfazed, to toss his shirt at him and listen to Mulder’s ponderings and theories. Her attention only halts when he pokes at her neatness, inferring by extension that he doesn’t fit in with her ways or this life (harkening back to early S6 episodes.)

The bit where Mulder taps her bed is interesting: she is pulled up short, freezing long enough to actually contemplate his offer-- you can see her weighing his seriousness and wondering if she should probe further.

And then he makes a further joke, and she realizes it’s all a fake.

That’s when she drops the “Laura” moniker and insists on being called “Scully.”

Her resigned face as he leaves is almost a carbon-copy of her response to his “this is a life” from Dreamland I.

After she returns from a trip to San Diego, Scully hears a noise and grabs a poker to confront the intruder. An interesting thing happens: the camera purposefully does an up-close on her ring while she grips the fire-poker, an unnecessary shot they don’t normally do when she grips her weapons in the past. It’s a little extra symbolism of how seriously she is taking this whole venture. Mulder, meanwhile, is never given that up-close shot.

As Mulder is showing her the tunnels in the grass, Scully is torn between interpreting Mulder’s “always” to her “do you want to hear what I think?” as serious or flippant, the only time in the episode where she looks truly peeved.

After a brainstorming session and a full day of fruitless digging, Scully softly checks up on Mulder, gentleness oozing over his potential failure.

I’m skipping the big showdown purposefully-- once again folks: another time, another post-- because it deserves a category of its own. Needless to say, it’s the worst of her’s and Mulder’s nightmares come to life.

After Scully escapes the closet, she rushes outside-- too late, as the monster is now just a heap of garbage. A perfect cherry-on-top for all her crumbled hopes of enjoying this case-- and by extension, life-- of normalcy with Mulder.

The last we see of Scully is her watching a remorseful Mulder trying and failing to fix the mailbox (see my Arcadia Mailboxes post) before she hops into the car, letting Mulder drive away. A sad little symbolism of leaving it up to Mulder to make the moves from now on as hers have failed. (This bleeds perfectly into Milagro-- when Mulder realizes that Scully LOVE-loves him-- and into The Unnatural where he is awakened to “life on this planet” and “the mystery of the heart.” But I digress.)

Up next-- Mulder’s true motives and torment in Arcadia, and the two living their worst nightmares both in one singular moment. Fun times ahead!

#txf #meta #Arcadia Analysis #Scully Was Enjoying Herself Immensely #Arcadia #xf meta #x-files #the x files #xfiles #txf meta #S6 #Analysis

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sahonithereadwolf · 10 months

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I forgot to turn my asks on (they're on now) so I'll answer this here 🌈 Share your favourite class/playbook from one of your games (name the game, or let me choose). I love the domain from the Welcome to Reedsboro expansion of Exceptionals. It's not the most politically radical or emotionally intimate playbook but it's that weird high concept stuff I love from comics sometimes. I think it shows off what this system can do with the right folks.

❄️Share a piece of flavour text from a game you’re working on. Unfortunately most of what I'm working on is under NDA or not at a stage where I have flavor text. But I can show you some of my favorite. My friends quote this poster from Exceptionals a lot.

But mine is tied between this comic which encapsulates a lot of my community feelings well

And the giant essay on the civil rights history of North Carolina of which this is a part of:

#indie ttrpg #ttrpg #exceptionals #game design

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paracosmic-gt · 1 year

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Dreamwidth

Cohost

---

Hello! We're Wanderstars.

Collectively, we go by Wander with plural pronouns.

We are a mixed origin system that is bodily 18+ and neurodivergent. We like to post system and alterhuman positivity, alongside our own experiences in day to day life. You'll find poetry, writing, art, hand made memes, and sometimes vents.

We also play Sky COTL so please DM if you would like to be light friends. Our inbox is always open for asks!

Have a good timezone!

Please check the list linked below before going further or considering a follow.

DNI and Welcome List

🌸 COMMISSIONS 🌸

Pride [OPEN]

Character [OPEN]

🌊 ESSAYS 🌊

Giant/Tiny

skinny legs, big ears

my holothere experience

🌿 COINING 🌿 - tagged #wandercoin

Aldersize

Plural Coining

Anchorbeing

#intro post #blog intro

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dark-nimbus · 7 months

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Welcome to the Void!

About Me

I’m Nimbus (they/them), but I’ll answer to any of my other names and users. I’m just a giant fuckin nerd with no idea how I ended up here. Also a broke sleep-deprived college student with raging ADHD but we vibin’ ✌🏽

Enby Panromantic/Demisexual (if you’re bothered by that statement this blog is not safe for you)

Polytheistic pagan witch

East Asian transracial adoptee (transracial as in adopted and raised by people of a different race)

Aspiring artist and writer

If it wasn’t already clear from the college student mention, I am indeed an adult. No age number because 1.) I don’t actually know it and 2.) people for whatever reason act creepier when I do put a number

General Blog Info

You know how some people have an art dump account? This is my nerd dump account. Enjoy this dumpster-fire of a blog lmao, I post what I please without rhyme or reason

Possible content you can expect to see:

ThePandaRedd memes

Nerdy fanart

Essay rants on nerd shit and mainstream media

Fics? Maybe? Eventually? Idk y’all are gonna need to request shit I already got my hands full with my own writing projects

Blog Warnings

I am. The most inconsistent bitch on this Earth. I’ll more often than not appear for a time then randomly dip. I promise I didn’t abandon this blog I just have ADHD 💀

While I’ll never go into sexually explicit content on this blog, I do talk about other controversial, mature, and potentially dark topics. I’ll always have content warnings at the top of those posts, but please be aware of your own triggers and mental health

Minors are welcome here, but keep the above note in mind and be respectful

DO NOT INTERACT IF YOU ARE:

Antisemitic

Racist

RCTA/ECTA (aka the racist/misappropriated kind of transracial)

Xenophobic

Zionist

Queerphobic (including transphobia, homophobia, biphobia, acephobia, etc)

A TERF

Sexist

Misogynistic

Fatphobic

A “MAP”

Pro-life/anti-choice

A trump supporter

Ableist

Anti-vaxx

Islamophobic

Antiziganic

Support cultural appropriation

Support AI

Publicly advocate for piracy

Tags

To be added

Notes About Rant Essays

I try to choose my topics based on what problems I notice and what I have a deep understanding of or affects me directly. If I myself don’t experience it I speak based on the communities I’ve surrounded myself with and my own in-depth research. That being said while I am many things, being omniscient and having every experience in the world is not one of them. If I speak on something directly relating to you that isn’t completely factually accurate or is offensive/insensitive to that community you’re a part of, please let me know. I have an ask box and my DMs are open, and I’m open to conversation and criticism as long as you’re respectful and have constructive intentions. I try to educate myself as best I can, but I am still human and still learning. However I will not accept any conversation that vehemently insists on defending anything or anyone listed in the DNI section above. There’s no excuse for bigotry, ever

Nerdy Interests

More will be added to this list as I remember them or find more interests. If you don’t see something but want to know if I enjoy or will make content regarding it, feel free to leave something in my ask box

Also: if there’s anything problematic about any authors or things listed, please let me know. I try to ensure what I enjoy has no negative content within or attached to it, but my awareness of such issues is nowhere near perfect

D&D

Critical Role

DC Comics

Batfamily

Mr. Miracle

Titans (not HBO)

Young Justice League

Marvel Comics

Cosplay

Video games

Assassin’s Creed

Skyrim

Overwatch

Until Dawn

Manga/Anime

Arslan Senki

Boku no Hero Academia

Shingeki no Kyojin

Studio Ghibli

Books/Authors

Ranger’s Apprentice

Adrienne Young

Margaret Rogerson

Ready Player One

Lord of the Rings

Not Even Bones

The Witcher

Webtoons

Purple Hyacinth

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#nerd shit #intro post #welcome to my blog #dark nimbus

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lady-lancer · 2 years

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A personal rant about why I dislike the inclusion of Celestica/Volo in PLA, or rather, the way it was used

If you're expecting a nicely organized essay, move along. This is one giant brain dump that has been percolating in my brain for months, and I just needed to get it out.

Comments and asks are welcomed, but don’t expect to hide behind anon. You want to talk? Let’s talk.

Volo and Celestica are interesting in Pokemon Legends Arceus. And by interesting, I mean “why the hell are you here?”

There are the known parallels. Sinnoh is the Pokemon version of Hokkaido. Hisui has a new name because Hokkaido used to be known as Ezo by the local indigenous population - the Ainu.The Galaxy Expedition Team is obviously a parallel to the Japanese government colonizing (yes colonizing) Ezo into Hokkaido.

So that leaves the Ainu. My thought was that the Diamond and Pearl Clans are the Ainu parallel.

So where does that leave Volo and Celestica? Well, Celestica is the Greeks, and Volo is an entitled brat.

Confused? Let me explain.

Well, as this graduate student on AO3 writes, there’s a pervasive idea in Japanese history that the Greeks lived in Japan long before anyone else did. The TL;DR of the post is that based on the architecture of one important temple in Japan, the Greeks had contact with Japanese soil back in the BCE era. That theory includes the idea that the Greeks settled Hokkaido before the Ainu.

Now, if we take the parallels from above, that sentence becomes: The Celestica people settled Hisui before the Diamond/Pearl Clans.

This would explain the Temple of Sinnoh being very, very Greek-like, down to the Parthenon style building its in. It also explains why Volo wears that chiton Arceus outfit - because he’s Greek coded.

Now, why does this make me mad? Simple - because it makes it look like the Diamond/Pearl Clans are like the Galaxy Team - colonizers taking over a land that isn’t theirs.

And it's not just that. The Old Verses bring it up as well. And let me break down why it makes me mad!

Take Old Verse 5:

The first line is clear: Long and longer yet ago, Celestica was here. But folk and town alike, both did disappear.

Celestica was in Hisui, and for some reason they “disappeared.” We have no idea why they disappeared. The only clue of what happened to them is most likely in Old Verse 20, where it states that the writer’s people - ostensibly Celestica - ‘weep, to grief we fall, starved of light now it has gone.’ We know something happened to the people of Celestica. But it continues with “And some they go, despair withal, in search of it they reel and run. They quit their hearths, abandon hall, and leave our lands to be undone.” I read this as the people of Celestica choosing to leave, not being forced out, especially when you read the next part.

Back to OV5, the second and third lines are: In time, came new folk sailing, sailing ‘cross the sea, called by their love for Sinnoh, great and almighty. But diff’rent were the Sinnoh that each folk did hold dear, And bitter strife and angry war were always at the near.

The arrival of the Diamond and Pearl Clans. Reading between the lines, we see that the clans came after Celestica left. And they were called to Hisui by their love of Sinnoh. Eventually, they fall into battle because they can’t agree on who’s the “right” Sinnoh, leading to the clashes that made the Clans dislike each other.

The fourth and fifth lines: ‘Celestica’ they called themselves, the name not theirs to take. Yet claim it from the past they did, for tragic quarrel’s sake. So once again did our name live, though all our people gone. But even if the name endures, its heart does not live on.

Now these lines. These lines grind my gears.

I have scoured the game, looking for where the Clans claim to be Celestica. There is only one place I can find it: on the Celestica Flute.

And I see nothing that tells us where ‘for tragic quarrels sake’ the clans claimed the name.

The only other places the names of Celestica are found are in the ruins.The Celestica Trail and Ruins in the Coronet Highlands are the most obvious.There, you also find the Primeval Grotto, Ancient Quarry, and Sacred Plaza (where the statues of Dialga, Palkia, and shattered Giratina are). Outside of the Highlands, there’s the Shrouded Ruins and Solaceon Ruins in the Mirelands, but that’s it. Of course, that’s not to say there aren’t other, non-named locations of Celestica ruins, but I have only ever seen them in the area’s I named above.

Now overall, why does this Verse make me mad, besides what I said above?

There’s a couple of things. For one, it insinuates that the clans don’t have the right to call Hisui their home. Just like the Galaxy Team, they came to Hisui and took over; they were not born on the land. Except that’s just human migration. Celestica left Hisui for some reason, and the clans came upon an empty land and settled.

For another, it claims that the clans ‘took over Celestica’s name’, but again, there is no evidence for that claim. The clans came to Hisui following Dialga and Palkia. There is no proof that the clans even knew much about Celestica except for the ruins that remained. (And their interactions with Celestica architecture is interesting as well, but that's a discussion for another post.)

And then, Volo. Volo comes in, claiming that because he holds the blood of the ancient Sinnoh people, he is…. *checks notes* you know, I have no idea what blood has to do with anything.

In the post game, Volo takes you on a journey to find the plates and Arceus. Then at the Highlands, he drops this tidbit. “You see, ever since I was young, whenever I met with something painful or heartbreaking... I couldn't help but wonder why life was so unfair. Why I was cursed to live through such things. Of course, I imagine we all go through something like that. Eventually, I chose to direct all my energy into my own natural curiosity and ambition. And what tickled my curiosity more strongly than anything were the mysteries to be found in legends, in history, in ruins... You see, I fancied that by unraveling these mysteries, I could find out how the world itself came to be–and with that knowledge, maybe even forge a new, better world!” Then you meet him at the temple, and you meet Arceus-hair version Volo. No more lead up, just *BAM* Greek Volo.

There's the subtext, of course. Volo claims to be Celestican, and has all the knowledge about the plates, the myths, ect. Ergo, one can consider that Volo learned all of this as a way to reconnect with his heritage. But that doesn’t fit, when you consider his ultimate goal: If I can meet Arceus myself, then I may also be able to subjugate its power... And using that, I will attempt to create a new, better world!

That… doesn’t sound like someone who wants to reconnect with his heritage. It sounds like a bratty teenager who’s mad that their parents enforced a curfew, and are moodily claiming that when they have their own house, they’ll never have a curfew. But ‘their own house’ is running back to the home their great-grandparents lived in and trying to evict the new residents, all while working with a loan shark to tear the house down to build one that suits them better.

So, let’s tie it all together.

Gamefreak has written a game that perpetuates a historical theory (that can’t be proven or disproven because of lack of evidence) that the Greek’s colonized Hokkaido before the Ainu (Aka, Celestica lived in Hisui before the Diamond/Pearl Clans). They claim that the Clans appropriated Celestican culture and presented it as their own, despite the fact that we see no sign of what is Celestican versus Clan based, after such a long time.

They barely touch on it until the end game, where a blonde hair/ light eyed white skinned male coded character suddenly claims to be a heir to the land of Hisui. Volo feels they are entitled to their God’s favor, because they learned and searched for a way to meet Them. This becomes using God’s ‘banished’ child to cause another tantrum to call Them down. When the child that God sent to defeat them wins, Volo refuses to learn his lesson and states that he will meet Arceus and conquer it.

And now, the real world implications.

The Ainu aren’t the indigenous people of Ezo/Hokkaido. The Greeks are.

Therefore, the Japanese government did nothing wrong in forcefully colonizing the Ainu people.

In game, can you see Volo as indigenous? Sure. But I’d be more inclined to think that way if we had more signs of other Celesticans. Or hell, instead of Celestica, a third Clan that followed Giratina. If Giratina was banished, then so was its clan. And Volo is here to get revenge for that.

But no. We just get a man who wants to remake the world because someone was mean to him.

#pokemon legends arceus #pokemon rant #my writting #my issues with volo and celestica go beyond bad writing and poor twist villainy #spitting all my thoughts about them in one post #i should clean this up and make it flow better #but im too lazy to fix it

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theloniousbach · 8 months

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Contributing writing as a Contributing Writer should.

This time we (the show’s host and I) polished up a Thelonious Bach essay from April.

https://www.wgte.org/blog/discovering-john-coltrane-again

JAZZ SPECTRUM BLOG: DISCOVERING JOHN COLTRANE AGAIN

September 26, 2023

By Kim Kleinman, Contributing Writer

In his Sept. 13 blog post, titled “An Apex of Innovation,” Fritz shared a few of his thoughts about the recent release of “Evenings at the Village Gate,” a live 1961 recording of John Coltrane with Eric Dolphy, along with the pianist McCoy Tyner, the bassists Reggie Workman and Art Davis, and the drummer Elvin Jones. It’s an important release and well deserving of the attention Fritz gave it on Jazz Spectrum and Jazz Spectrum Overnight and no doubt will again.

I too am giving it a serious listen, just as I did with the 2018 release, “Both Directions at Once,” a lost recording from 1963 by the seminal quartet of Coltrane, Tyner, and Jones, with the usual bassist, Jimmy Garrison. In his liner notes, Sonny Rollins said the release was “like finding a new room in the great pyramid.” This new album is an even greater treasure, and any opportunity to listen to Coltrane and this band again is welcome.

I confess though that it isn’t easy for me to listen to Coltrane. He is just too good and too important and thus only to be savored on occasions more special than the particular one I happen to be in. There are believers in San Francisco’s Church of St John Coltrane. I am not one, but I suppose I recognize that the relics—especially THE Quartet and the Impulse recordings—are to be protected and treasured.

It was in a spirit of enquiry and wonder that last April I surveyed the Coltrane albums NOT on Impulse. I knew “Giant Steps” on Atlantic and the sole Blue Note album “Blue Train” but I saw them as, in their own way, hems of the sacred garments. The Atlantic “My Favorite Things” is quite fine and also includes a wonderful version of “Every Time We Say Goodbye,” but I have too often thought “Wouldn’t it be better to find a version with Jimmy Garrison and not Steve Davis?” And great as “Blue Train” is, why does he have to share the front line with Lee Morgan and Curtis Fuller?

My April survey showed me my foolishness on these and other matters, and I now have a better sense of John Coltrane as a gigging musician, sometimes a sideman even, scrambling for recording dates, to have a band for every gig, and to have material when the revered recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder hit play and the red light was on in the studio. I also see the legendary style develop with some inevitable missteps and growing pains. I begin to see him as just another tenor player, albeit a very good one, who played with his worthy contemporaries—Red Garland, Kenny Burrell, Freddie Hubbard, Donald Byrd, Tommy Flanagan, Paul Chambers.

The “Prestige ‘58” collection is extended exhibit A, putting “Soultrane,” the only album actually released in 1958, with other dates Coltrane led in that year—eventually titled as “Standard Coltrane,” “Stardust,” “Bahia,” and “Dakar”— but that weren’t released until after he was THE John Coltrane, on his way to the distancing reverence. It’s a chance both to experience his music develop in real time and to reflect on the trajectory of his career.

I also treasure getting to know “Ole” from the Atlantic years and to see how widely he was listening early. That Spanish/Moorish/North African music was in the mix anticipates the Indian sounds that informed “My Favorite Things” and those that served as an impulse behind “Africa/Brass.”

In any case, these are some wonderful albums, well worth listening to, without the burden of too much reverence. And that makes them even better.

#jazz #2023 #wgte

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only-angel-28 · 9 months

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Okay I’m finally here! I wanted so badly to read it when you posted but I was so freaking tired I crashed 😭 But I’m here with another rant/essay of thoughts and emotions haha I feel like with every chapter I write more and more 😂

Getting a glimpse into Conrad’s head in any fic itches my brain nicely, idk I just love him?? Anywho, the way you write his like emotions and his anger/frustration? I’m here for it, he deserves to be a little upset instead of just shutting himself down to protect himself 🥺🖤 BUT him tracking Dean down and punching him before the ass can even get a word in?! Yes!! Thank you omg, protector Conrad getting his emotions out AND making sure Dean knows he’s not welcome anymore? no and then he comes home and tucks us in??? After beating a guy up?? God I’m feral for him I need therapy 😂

Him and his moms? (Bc lbr Susannah x Laurel is the real otp here 😭🖤) I tear up every time Susannah’s cancer gets brought up bc of personal stuffs so like Conrad crying on her and letting himself feel bc he didn’t mean to hurt us while his mom was sick?? My eyes were sweating I wanna give him cuddles and back rubs and forehead kisses 🥺😭🖤🖤

Steven would be that person tho “oh don’t worry I watched the cooking channel I can do this!” And then fucks it all to hell 😂 I love him, I feel like Steven and I would be those besties that are complete idiots together because we share half a braincell 😂

And Connie calling us my girl?!?! AND baby?!! That shit gives me butterflies omg 😭😭 im so lonely lmfao ahh the whole living room scene has me in a choke hold I love him, just ahhhhh the domesticity of caring for your lover after he beats someone up for you 🥺🖤

The almost kiss on the beach had me swooning too 😭 Fucking Steven and cockblocking us 😂😂

MATCHING TATTOOS AHHH 😩😩

No but who tf does Thérèse think she is???? “Sorry I stole your bf I was jealous but I ended things with him” like good for you but stay away lmao like that trust would be so damaged!!! Thérèse and Dean really do deserve each other 😤😤

Okay but us hitting Dean? And just being a feral cat about him not shutting up? Yes please?! Couples who beat shitty exes up together are top tier 😂 (I know we’re not a couple yet but in my heart Conrad’s already my husband 😂🖤) AND AGAIN the of checking over each others wounds?!!! I love them, your honor. 🖤🖤

Okay but Connie immediately wanting to take off and beat the shit out of Dean, while the love of his life’s injured??? But his tunnel vision is just like “gotta kill this guy”?? Like you idiot I don’t want Jere to take me to the hospital I want the person that makes me feel safe there 😭😭😭

Overall I love how theres a bunch of little moments showing how we love each other but it doesn’t feel forced or too fast? Like obviously Conrad and her just wanna kiss (damn you Steven) but also they’re comfortable just existing together too because they both know they care?? Does that make sense? Is that even what you were going for? Idk but that’s how I’m feeling it rn, maybe it’s just my craving for love that’s reading in too deep 😂😂

AHHH 😭 Anyway thank you again for another glorious chapter, I love it, I adore you, and I’m so so excited for more! I can’t wait to see the moms reactions to their tattoos (and for getting into a fight and getting injured 💀😂) and just for more shenanigans in general with everyone 🖤🖤😭

oh. my gosh. STOP I LOVE THESE COMMENT THINGYS SM THEYRE SO FUN.

ok so i totally agree, dean is a RAT he deserves whatever happens to him ik i wrote the damn thing but i stand w it🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️

no but fr someone needed to humble dean and thérèse both like they’re so annoying. i didn’t want thérèse to have a giant monologue just explaining why she did what she did bc honestly people like that don’t rly say all that much irl, they’re just looking for ways to get back in ur life and mess it up again tbh and she was just annoying too like

and i mean i didn’t wanna say it myself but yes the main characters here ARE susannah and laurel, glad we cleared that up. they’re literally so cutesy and wonderful i love them sm

STEVENS SO FUNNY STOP- hes literally hilarious i love him sm

no honestly i love the living room scene too it’s so cutesy and domestic i thought those two needed a tiny little cute relaxed moment before it all went down tbh💀💀

and i agree, if someone called me baby??????????

🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️

that’s all i have to say. next question.

no everytime i write an almost kiss im literally on the edge of my seat as well like should i make them kiss or should i wait🤨🤨

REAL. we’re not officially w conrad yet but we bascially are married w two dogs and an adopted son (steven) so we don’t even need to go through the formalities anymore

no fr like ily conrad but now is not the time, you better get in that car and drive to the hospital.

YESS IT DOES MAKE SENSE IM SO GLAD YOU NOTICED!!!! i didn’t want to make this one too like fast paced or too like oh everyone gets what they want happily ever after like i feel like you don’t need to be constantly making out or talking w someone you care about, even just spending some time w them is more than enough like just having these tiny cute little moments is so lovely

YESS IM SO EXICTED TO WRITE MORE ON THIS ONE sadly i don’t think i can post another part until like friday night / the weekend bc schooo started again today (kms) and it’s gcse year (double kms) but im so happy you like it, i love love love these conment things so much you have no idea🫶🏽🫶🏽🫶🏽

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jamiefantana · 1 year

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it’s the year 2023 and i made a tumblr

I read an article somewhere, sometime recently, on the resurgence of Tumblr. Or what resurgence can be expected. Apparently a lot of people left because some giant company bought it and took out all the porn. Imagine that, a giant company buying something just to buy it and not understanding why people like it.

I mean, I didn’t like it for the porn. I liked it for thischarmingcharlie, and garfieldminusgarfield, and for how many standup comedians were on there in the Obama years. But also... why didn’t anyone tell me about the porn?

Had a Tumblr on here once. A couple, I think. One is lost to the ages, I found another and boy is it hilariously emo. I’m gonna copy the entries down to a private doc, and then try to nuke it from orbit so the secondhand embarrassment doesn’t make me shrink into the earth. Although... fuck if I know the email address I started it with. I change emails like others change socks.

The article was kind of about how Tumblr never really got commercialized. There are no Tumblr influencers. The Karens and the conspiracy theorists never discovered Tumblr, or if they did, it confused and frightened them... like higher education or the existence of other languages. They’re outnumbered on here. Tumblr is full of young obsessive fan-types with politics progressive enough to make me look like G. Gordon Liddy. If any middle-aged Elon Musk fan were to come on here, they’d be chased out in an instant by an array of people with rainbow-colored hair and a tidal wave of Schitt’s Creek gifs. I kinda dig that.

It’s a little poignant, however, as I look over all of the tumblrs I used to follow and see how most of them stopped entirely years ago. Multiple years ago. The most recent entry, barring two people I “know” from twitter, is garfieldminusgarfield with an entry from six months ago. Holy shit, good for them... still plugging away despite the book deal already having come and gone... fifteen years ago, gulp.

I’ve been in a nostalgic mood lately. Been thinking a lot of my college years, of wandering around Urban Outfitters, of a time when I could afford to wander around Urban Outfitters, thanks to student loan money. If my current life crisis is reminiscing about that one year I spent in Brooklyn ten years ago, and trying to bring back iPods, going to actual websites, and buying point-and-click cameras like I’m the Cobrasnake that never goes to any parties, then I suppose that’s far healthier than buying a matte black sports car and trying to nail co-eds.

Anyway, welcome to my Tumblr. I’m gonna use this to post various essays I also post on tinyletter, plus some more personal stuff that wouldn’t fit on there, plus repost some classic stuff from back in the day from all the old tumblrs I’ve talked about. Maybe some original photos. Maybe I’ll convince some people I know to start their own, like my director friend or my artist friend or my game designer friend. We’ll see.

#welcome #welcomeback #reminiscing #sweetmems #college

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localcrisis · 1 year

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intro post

hello and welcome to my blog :)

my name is izzy and i’m an 18 year old writer/character designer. my pronouns are they/she/it and i am non-binary, asexual, and queer. i am currently going to school for library sciences and love reading and writing. i also love watching youtube video essays so i would love some recommendations

i will mostly post pictures of my cats Callie and Ember, random thoughts, things about my ocs, and story ideas

i would prefer no one under 16 interact with me, but it isn’t mandatory (just out of comfort)

some things that interest me are pokemon, stardew valley, the sims, horror movies, dragons, cross stitching, writing, cats, and dr. pepper

some of my favorite bands are will wood and the tapeworms/will wood, they might be giants, diablo swing orchestra, ghost, and that handsome devil

my dms are always open and i’m always willing to talk to new people so feel free to shoot me a message if we have something in common you’d like to talk about

also here’s my carrd link

https://mossmutt.carrd.co/?fbclid=PAAaZWcYrVN0yCKuv7Vd0bMqiw5QFatH-TnF4z5p_33TEgDJgGqrsK-Mdvs54

#intro post #intro #hello #blog intro #introduction

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pyreo · 3 years

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deltarune megapost

I wanted to make a Deltarune post about the lore and the things that aren’t obvious. And once I do that I wanna focus on why Mettaton is incredibly important to this setting

And also why he poses a problem

Why did Toriel and Asgore get divorced?

Without the setting of Undertale, Asgore and Toriel’s marriage still broke up after they had Asriel. There needs to be a reason though. In UT it was Asgore’s ‘worst of both worlds’ decision regarding killing anybody that fell from the human world, including children. We saw how close they were before this happened. Only something deep and serious caused that rift. In Deltarune, what on earth did Asgore do?

What happened to Dess?

Mentioned a handful of times by Noelle, Dess was her older sister and is mentioned In Undertale.... in that Xbox exclusing casino thing. The way Noelle talks about her, the conspicuous way Noelle gets locked out of her big house - it implies Dess is gone or deceased. Berdly recalls a spelling bee when he and Noelle were younger where she, despite being smarter than him, misspelled ‘December’, allowing him to win.

In the two-player spelling puzzle, it also spells out ‘December’ as Noelle recalls the past and her silhouette regresses to a child while she does so. Being distracted by her sister’s disappearance, rather than pure shyness, could account for her misspelling her name on stage, and it clearly left a big psychological mark for her to have this visual regression in the Dark World.

However, there’s a graveyard in Hometown with no Dess. I heard another theory that she has been missing for years, because where each character’s personal room is made by Queen to reflect their tastes via their search results, Noelle has a calendar where every day is December 25th. This could imply that Noelle continually searches the internet for ‘December Holiday’, her sister’s name, to see if there are clues to her disappearance, but of course the only result you would get is the date of Christmas.

Who is the Knight?

It’s now implied to be Kris, who has been forcibly removing the player’s influence to act on their own. By all accounts the Knight is the game’s main antagonist. Spade King and Queen both mention the Knight as someone who influenced their position - they brought Spade King to absolute power, and showed Queen that creation of new worlds was possible.

We’re led to believe that Kris was doing this, because they’ve been acting outside of the player’s control. Eating the entire pie between chapter 1 and 2 might have been a red herring to cover that they also went to the library and used that knife to slash open a dark fountain there.

However. This has issues. How would they even manage to shuffle slowly all the way to the library and get in the computer lab? The Knight is also the one creating the hidden bosses. They talked to Jevil until he realised he was in a game and he lost his mind; they ruined Spamton’s life by elevating him to success and then crushing him. Whatever the Knight is doing seems to be deliberately planned with key players in mind.

Kris opening the fountain at home at the end of ch.2 can be explained in that you just figured out in Cyber World that anyone determined enough can do this, and so, Kris decided to. So a better question might even be...

What does Kris want?

We have no idea. They are capable of removing the SOUL, ‘us’, temporarily, and putting things in motion we cannot influence. But they also keep putting us back in control afterward. This is hinted at right when ch.2 starts, where if you inspect the cage in Kris’s bedroom they threw us into, the description says it’s inescapable. Meaning Kris came back and took us out, willingly.

They allow us to pilot them through the game. Why? Because they cannot live without the SOUL for long for some reason? Because they’re bad at bullet hell? Why did they slash Toriel’s tyres before opening the fountain, making sure nobody could drive away?? Why did they specifically open the door?

You can find out details about Kris through the creepy way you interact with the townsfolk, who think you are Kris. They play the piano at the hospital waiting room - better than you. They used to go to church just to get the special church juice. It’s all normal, relatable things, not like someone who’s trying to plunge the world into darkness. Judging by their search history portrayed in their Queen’s castle room, they really want to see their brother again. However the castle has a room based on Asriel’s search history too, and Kris (not you) closes their eyes and won’t look at it.

What is Ralsei?

His name is an anagram of Asriel. Is he an extension of Asriel? The slightly flirtier dialogue in ch.2 would point to no. Is he an extension of Kris themselves, given the link between Kris’s childhood habit of wearing a headband with red horns on it, to pretend to be a monster like their family?

Ralsei knows exactly where the Dark World in the school is located, and unlike regular Darkners, knows the world is folded up inside the ‘real world’. There’s a certain whiplash to Ralsei telling you to hop out of his reality into yours and go down the hallway to retrieve all the board game items.

How does he jump from one Dark World to another, without assistance? How does he not get petrified like Lancer and Rouxls? Is this a power level thing because he’s a prince or something else? We definitely do not know enough about Ralsei.

He also says this incredibly suspicious thing after you spare Spamton NEO. Susie was also curious but accepts that maybe it ‘didn’t mean anything’, which is a sure tell that these optional bosses do mean something.

Someone is orchestrating what’s happening, opening fountains, manipulating the rulers, and influencing NPCs to become the optional bosses. Why? I suspect Ralsei for both knowing too much, and pretending something doesn’t matter when it clearly does. Until Asriel actually comes home from college I’m going to suspect he’s involved in this too.

How much does Seam know?

Seam on the other hand knows a lot about what’s going on but is openly withholding information while helping you. He’s nihilistic. He says things like:

One day soon... You too, will begin to realize the futility of your actions. Ha ha ha... At that time, feel free to come back here. I'll make you tea... And we can toast... to the end of the world!

Either this ‘end of the world’ is a reference to The Roaring, where opening too many dark fountains dooms the Dark World and the real one... or, I can’t get out of my head the idea that Deltarune takes place in a fake, or weird reconstruction of Undertale where things don’t match up, and eventually it will have to disappear. After all, powers of determination and creating and manipulating universes are Undertale’s basic bread and butter. How can we look at an Alternate Universe containing the characters we already know and not suspect that? Seam also uses Gaster’s key words, ‘darker, yet darker’, seemingly to clue us in that he’s not off track here.

Why haven’t we seen Papyrus?

This is a bright neon flashing ‘something’s not right’ sign. It’s not like Papyrus’s voice actor was too busy or anything. His absence is noticable and for a reason. Nice of Sans to promise we could meet him despite being aware we’re piloting a child’s body around, though, even if he didn’t follow through.

What locations in town could be used for dark fountains in the next 4 chapters?

If the sequence continues, we have chapter 1 in the school games room, chapter 2 in a computer lab, and chapter 3 in front of Kris’s television, where the aesthetic of each setting influences the world, characters, and enemies in the Dark World created there. Future possibilities include the church, the hospital, sans’s grocery store, Noelle’s house, and the closed bunker.

What the hell’s in the closed bunker

This one’s too obvious, honestly. I think it’ll open for no reason in chapter 7 and a little white dog will bounce out and steal one of your key items and nothing else happens.

Why does Asgore have these

Unlike the bunker feeling like a joke teaser, I gotta believe this is foreshadowing something weird. For example, what does opening a dark fountain in here with the seven flowers do? Does it just take you into Undertale?

Each chapter will have a hidden boss with a ‘soul mode’ from Undertale

Chapter 1 let you stay red, but I think each subsequent chapter is going to change your soul mode to one of the seven colours and design the encounter around that. Purple, yellow, green and blue were used in Undertale, leaving the light blue and orange modes yet to be revealed.

How does Spamton emulate Mettaton Neo’s name, body, and incorporate his battle theme, and the ‘Dummy!’ theme, with no actual connection between them ingame?

This is a really fun one that’s explained over in this post here. Swatch is the Dark World creation from the paint program on the library computers, so he’s able to explain that a Lightner made the robot body decaying in the castle basement that way.

Mettaton went to the library and drew his ideal form, Mettaton NEO, in MS Paint, and the Dark World formed that into a puppet body which Spamton was able to hijack temporarily. So by doing that Spamton was able to channel Mettaton’s appearance, attacks, music, and SOUL mode for the fight.

This might mean that the future hidden bosses, each with their own SOUL mode, might be based on the associated character for that mode (Muffet, Undyne, and Sans or Papyrus), and the boss will take on some aspect of them from their world to leech their fight mechanics.

The Problem With Mettaton

We don’t exactly know what Deltarune is about. It’s an alternate universe where the characters from Undertale already live on the surface, have completely normal lives, but diverge from the storyline of Undertale and, crucially, have not lived through the changes Frisk brought to their lives.

Remember how Undertale had a dozen different ending routes depending on who you befriended? The constant reinforcement in Undertale was that your choices mattered. Through Frisk, you chose to bring Alphys closure about her mistakes, you chose to befriend papyrus instead of attacking him, you chose to help Alphys and Undyne realise their feelings for each other and it’s only doing that that leads to the golden ending and escape to the surface.

Deltarune is the opposite, your choices do not matter. The only thing you can do to force the route of the game to change is to force Noelle into a No Mercy run, which is indirect, and also, a total desperation to mess with an otherwise set course. This version of the characters have not been helped by Frisk - Undyne and Alphys are not together, Papyrus has no friends, Asgore cannot get over himself, and they’re clearly the worse for it, but potentially, you COULD still do these things. In fact it’s hinted that you already are.

But there’s Mettaton.

He’s still a ghost and does not leave his house. In Frisk’s world, Gaster deleted himself, promoting Alphys to royal scientist by bluffing with Mettaton, and she then build him his ideal body. In Kris’s world... Alphys is a school teacher. There’s no barrier to break, no reason to experiment on souls, no Flowey mistake, and no body for Mettaton.

It was sad in Ch.1, but now with the Spamton NEO fight in ch.2, it’s unmissable. Mettaton wants that body and he cannot get it. Alphys in this universe is not going to leave her teaching job and suddenly be able to build a robot. Mettaton is just... screwed out of his happy ending and cannot get it.

So what resolution could this have? If it wasn’t for Mettaton I might believe in the vaildity of Deltarune and Hometown. But. How can you doom this character? If Undertale was the only way Mettaton could be befriended, then Undertale is Primary Universe A and Seam is right - the world of Deltarune is doomed as some kind of aberration. It all relies on how this gets explained in the future, but the core mystery of Deltarune is how exactly this universe intersects with Undertale and whether one is an offshoot of the other. How the Dark World links into that is another complication. But even as we get more fun characters and neat stuff in the Dark Worlds, let’s not forget we have absolutely no idea why Undertale’s characters are living here with no mention of underground or why there are no other humans beside Kris.

#undertale #deltarune #welcome to my giant essay post

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