Prim Reaper's Stuff

Things I do and inexplicably put online

[primreaperstuff]

Ralsei's true light world form

I hear a lot of people speculate on it but one thing I don't see being discussed a lot is the possibility that Ralsei is a gigantic mushroom. I found one not-very-popular Reddit post that I can't comment on (https://www.reddit.com/r/Deltarune/comments/1q6jxkb/the_fungusralsei_theory_the_knight_is_a_tree/), one video that I think is talking about Cave Story or something (https://www.reddit.com/r/cavestory/comments/1uoo246/ralsei_is_a_mushroom_deltarune_ma_pignon_theory/), and that's about it.

Let me explain:

In real life, there's a fungus nicknamed the Humongous Fungus, (formally known as Armillaria ostoyae) that's capable of getting ridiculously large and living for a very long time (as in, thousands of years). It works by infesting trees through their roots in vast underground networks of rhizomes, steadily siphoning off nutrients until the tree dies (which typically takes 20-50 years), then feeding off the tree's corpse. When it's not fruiting, it's completely hidden underground and within the bark of infected trees, only identifiable by its effects on infected trees. It girdles the bark so the tree doesn't fall over after death.

The largest single non-clonal living organism, currently living in the Malheur National Forest in Oregon, is believed to be a member of this species. However, it is not the only Humongous Fungus around to have gotten really large.

Humongous Fungus

Oregon’s Malheur National Forest is the home of an occurrence of Armillaria ostoyae, nicknamed the Humongous Fungus, believed to be the larg

Fungus don't have to be parasitic, though, and even the parasitic ones have an important role to play. They're vital to ecosystems as a distributor of nutrition and a linker of various plants and animals. However, I do like to think that mushroom Ralsei is parasitic for reasons I'll get into.

Now, let's look at Ralsei.

When you first meet them, they're wearing a hood that gives them a silhouette similar to a pine tree. Later, when they take the hood off, they reveal a white rounded body with pinkish features. This lines up with the Humongous Fungus, which generally wears the trees it eats as a shield from the outside world, but if you were to look past the tree parts, you'd see big soft round white bulbs inside (It also has light brown/yellow sections but I'm willing to file that under "meh close enough" to light pink).

There's also the fact that they live in darkness, having never been in the sun until entering the Flower Shop dark world. This is also true of mushrooms, which live and move around (albeit slowly) in the underground and generally prefer the darkness. Ralsei trying to keep themselves in the background and thinking of themselves as a tool might also reflect mushrooms' tendency to conceal themselves and thus remaining hidden to those who aren't actively either seeking them out or sought by them for something specific.

Ralsei is also capable of accessing every dark world in the game without turning to stone, which implies that they have a place in every one. Similarly, their Dark World accepts every kind of Darkner. This would align with them if they had rhizomes (basically like roots but for fungi) all over Hometown and therefore were under every Dark Fountain in the game, supporting every area they spawn in via the aforementioned vast rhizomes and helping to facilitate nutrients to all the plants and stuff. It also in general aligns with Ralsei being a support/mage character in battles who knows how to heal others and wants to help. (You can also make the Magic Mushroom pun! :D)

And the long lifespan would explain a LOT. If they had to live in a sort of semi-conscious limbo like the flowers did for thousands and thousands of years (yes, mushrooms do live that long), they probably picked up several civilizations' worth of observations, without ever developing much in the way of actual life experiences. This is how they know tons of things, including stuff that edges on the fourth wall, while still maintaining that childish demeanor-- they have the thousands of years of experience of the world, but only recently have actually possessed the means to comment on and participate in it. Now that I think of it, just the thousands of years in and of itself might just have made it hard for them to get attached to anything. They know from experience they will outlive most living and inanimate things for way more than long enough to start forgetting them. They know this will hurt, and that they have nobody to turn to who would truly understand because nobody else has lived as long as them. Why put themselves through that pain? (This is thematically relevant to UTDR as a whole, as both games very extensively cover grief. Time heals all wounds, but not all the scars. Imagine knowing you cared about something, but losing sight of what it was or if it was even an "it," and realizing that you'll inevitably do the same for nearly everything and everybody else you've ever cared about.)

Much like Flowery, the second they came to be as Darkners, they wanted to be able to do something about the problems they'd been hearing about since forever. Except since Ralsei's lived much longer and never belonged to one person, they got a LOT of problems and people they want to address. The biggest one being the cataclysmic prophecy that's been passed down for generations, of course. But Kris is also a priority, I imagine. This is speculation, but maybe Kris did something to make Ralsei manifest as a Darkner, and thus wound up providing the basis of Ralsei's presentation (obviously Kris's memories of Asriel would be hugely influential here) and making Ralsei feel indebted to the human. Or alternatively, Asriel did something rather than Kris, and Ralsei wound up reflecting him (This does align with Ralsei being a "prince," since Asriel is the son of the Flower King).

Which is getting into why I kind of hope that Ralsei is a parasitic mushroom. First of all because it would funny as fuck. The cute fluffy mage who wants to help everybody is actually a parasite that steadily burrows into their host to feed. Most Lightners and Darkners aren't hosts (unless they're trees, in which case they're fucked) but still. It'll never happen but I like the idea of the Fun Gang visiting a Dark World equivalent of a tree farm, and Ralsei is quietly freaking out because they feel like they're the Hamburglar in fucking McDonaldsland. But also because it'd be a source of conflict and guilt for Ralsei. To grow and to give, you must first take. They're horrified by and ashamed of steadily strangling trees over the course of decades. Even though it's nothing personal, even though they need to eat to live, even though it's so so so important to the ecosystem and thus helps so many organisms that they eat trees, even though it still buys the trees several decades of life... all they can think of how awful it must feel for the tree to be powerless as it steadily loses its vigor. And developing opinions on things means having to face their own guilt over all this.

IDK I feel like the Reddit post explained this better (https://www.reddit.com/r/Deltarune/comments/1q6jxkb/the_fungusralsei_theory_the_knight_is_a_tree/). I hope I'm making sense. Sorry if I'm not. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

[dark-lord-of-awesomeness]

Not sure if anyone's come to you for an ATLA au of gravity falls yet. Curious to know your opinion on what kind of benders the Pines family would be. Personally I think it'd be fun if the last avatar(maybe bill) died while in avatar state and so the reincarnation cycle was broken years ago but enter Stanford Filbrick Pines who by his genius alone figured out that the separation of four elements is an illusion and is hailed as a prodigy for being able to use all 4 types of bending. Meanwhile Stanley is the bridge for the spirit world to the physical realm and is Ignoring It. (Ford doesn't see them so his head is probably just broken again). Big fan of two halves make a whole and this is technically somewhat a same coin theory au.

Hmmmmmmmm I don't think so? Not that I remember anyway.

And hmm. Hmm.

Well right away I can say that the elements being separate in that you can only bed one element at a time isn't an illusion. They aren't separate from each other, but a water bender can't bend any of the elements, they just might have other overlapping bending abilities with other benders, and can use the same bending techniques with their own elements. They're connected, but still their own thing, if that makes sense.

So on that note, in an ATLA au I wouldn't make Ford someone who can bend all four elements, but someone who learned how to harness a lot of subcategories of his own element and make it look like he could bend other elements.

(I also wouldn't make Bill the avatar for... a number of reasons. I'd go either water bender (blood bending) or spirit)

Not sure what you meant by Fords head being broken again?? Its otherwise a really fun idea, having the Stans be two halfs of the avatar that got split in half, and have to learn how to work together as two separate units instead of a whole person.

As for my thoughts on it... hmm. Hmm.

If I were to go full ATLA au, set into a Gravity Falls setting, I'd make the Stans come from a mixed family of benders or bender line. Filbrick being this worlds equivalent of an Earth bender, while Caryn is from a fire bending family. Neither are benders though, they just hail from those lines.

But this is also America, so although Earth and Fire are their main lines, New Jersey is also a melting pot of different elemental nations.

So Stan, somehow, winds up being an air bender, and Fords not a bender at all. Stan sucks at air bending though, as he's not suited for it, and Ford becomes an inventor to bridge the gap between him and his bending brother who he sees as having life easy due to bending.

Hmmm.

Here's what else I would do.

The last avatar died, and its wildly believed that the cycle is broken for whatever reason. Maybe because of how they died, or because they haven't appeared. I don't have a plot in mind, but Ford, through Manipulation, (by Bill for reasons) is led to believe that he's the Avatar reborn but lost access to his bending ability due to however the previous one died (he didn't, and isn't) and thats why he has such a firm grasp on physics and thermal dynamics and Science as a way to even the playing field between benders and non benders.

(again, not true, Fords just his usual level of genius, and used his smarts to compensate for where he felt he was lacking (bending))

The real Avatar reborn being Soos of course. The perfect man. Again, I don't have a plot for this, this is just my opinion on bending assignment. Everyone says he's a really terrible earth bender, and only Ford sees him bending water and earth and fire and air and going 'Hey, wait a minute, shouldn't that be something we should be focusing on?'. Everyone else just shakes their heads as Soos struggles to do simple earth bending and doesn't think about what else he's doing.

From there...

Mabel I'm thinking would be a... either an air bender or a fire bender. Dipper, I'm thinking.. a fire bender. Actually they're both fire benders, but Mabel is the better one between them, to the point that Dipper rarely bends ever, and when they meet Ford assumes he's a non bender as well.

Wendy... is an earth bender, a really, really good one (as opposed to Soos, who is terrible at earth bending).

The rest of the teens are non benders, except for Robbie, who is a fire bender. He does challenge Dipper to an agni kai. He does chicken out about it. Dipper gets upset before he remembers he didn't want to fight a teenager.

Candy? Non bender. Grenda? Earth bender. Gideon? Water bender. Pacifica? Water bender also to contrast Gideon.

Hmm. who else...

McGucket? Non bender.

Anyway that's what I got. No plot ideas really, just bending based on Vibes.

[primreaperstuff]

I apologize for the great ramble I am about to subject you to.

This is introduced in a notoriously bad way in the least liked season of the Legend of Korra, but there IS a spirit called Vaatu that sort of maps onto Bill's role. Vaatu is the spirit of darkness and chaos, locked in constant combat with Raava (aka the Avatar spirit). Vaatu and Raava got into a few particularly big spats that had massive implications for the world-- the first was that time they broke the barrier between the mortal and spirit realm, then there were two harmonic convergence events where Vaatu tried to spread anger and darkness to subjugate Raava once and for all. The first harmonic convergence event had the two realms walled off permanently; the second opened them both back up.

But the relevant part for Bill is that Vaatu is a trickster-- he played on Wan's compassion to get the upper hand on Raava, and also manipulated Korra into doing what was necessary to free him. Also Vaatu (sorta) had somebody who called him Muse-- a guy named Unalaq who was dead-set on freeing him because evil world domination I guess and becoming the Dark Avatar (yes that's really what it's called. The worst season of LoK, everybody!)!

That would be some delicious irony-- Ford's thinking he's being set up to be the hero when Bill is actually trying to make him into Unalaq. Instead of an era of darkness it would be Weirdmageddon, obviously. The Axolotl would take the place of Raava. The portal is a path to the spirit world, more specifically intended to lead to where Bill was sealed after the defeat of Unalaq. It's not an ideal time for Bill, who is extremely weak after getting his and Unalaq's butt kicked by DBZ Korra. But if he's able to get out, set up his own Avatar right this time, and get territory on Earth, he can greatly accelerate his self-healing and building up of power, allowing him to assure his own victory in the next fight against the Axolotl. Bill tries to compare his relationship with the Axolotl to Tui and La to get Ford's sympathy, saying that he got manipulated by Unalaq to justify what happened with Korra. It doesn't help that this is, on some level, reflective of how the Axolotl feels about Bill. Though the Axolotl does recognize Bill as invasive (Unlike Vaatu, Bill really isn't of this world or of any relation to what's within it), there is truly nothing personal or hateful on the Axolotl's end. Axolotl just likes balance and stuff, and he's fighting to integrate Bill into the harmony of the world. Axolotl wants Bill to be the push to his pull. Unlike Bill who is salty as hell and hates the idea of being integrated (due to his past trauma and desire to be cruel).

I like the idea that adjusted versions of the events of AtLA and LoK did happen. Meiji Restoration happens early somehow or Japan just never retreats into isolationism at all. Either way Japan decided to pursue becoming a major longstanding colonial power on par with the British Empire instead of pulling inwards, meaning that imperialist Japan happens way earlier and lasts way longer compared to our world and calls itself the Fire Nation because AtLA and it is majority fire-benders. Events of AtLA happens in the late-1800s with the events localized to the inspiring countries (Siberia/Northwestern Canada for the Water tribesmen, China for the Earth Kingdom, Japan for the Fire Nation, etc.) rather than around the world. Instead of the Fire Nation massacring all airbenders worldwide, they slaughtered the Tibetan airbending population, when Tibet had the largest concentration of airbenders in the world, as the capstone of a broader campaign to conquer Southeastern Asia and get a foothold to start chipping land off the Earth Kingdom. So Aang is still the sole survivor of a massive genocide, it's simply scaled to account for our world being way larger with more geopolitical players than AtLA's. Events of LoK happen around the early/mid-1900s and Korra is presumed by most of the world to have been killed during the fight with the Zaheer (the one where he purposefully triggered Avatar mode so he could kill her with it active and break the cycle), which was the same day the Stan bros were born. It's a coincidence (a lot of people are born every day) but Bill uses this to his advantage. Actually Korra didn't die there, but given her numerous mental health problems and the risk of being targeted again (bigger world = more extremists beefing with the Avatar) her friends and family agreed to keep quiet about her survival. Her actual death is in her sleep on the same day Soos is born. Again, a lot of people are born every day, so even after learning the truth Soos doesn't connect the dots.

I actually like the idea of Dipper being a non-bender. It would give him better grounds to bond with Ford and have the whole "isn't it stifling" thing take on a whole new layer of meaning (what with having to watch Mabel get noticed for stuff Dipper could never even hope to attempt). A big part of the internship is that Dipper wants to train with Ford, as he's got something of an affinity for chi-blocking thanks to his observational skills and small stature, and wants to learn more about it. He still ultimately rejects it, though it's a tougher decision he ultimately decides that he needs to grow up and have a childhood before dedicating himself totally to training.

Mabel on the other hand is a firebender and quite a good one at that, but her focus on combustion bending (which is notoriously difficult) makes her seem less competent than she actually is. It's actually an impressive feat that she's not blowing herself up or blowing off limbs regularly but that's hard to appreciate when you're having to put out small fires and repair objects somewhat regularly because Mabel decided to express her excitement with fireworks. All of Mabel's sweaters are at minimum slightly singed.

I do want to point out that bending affinities are a mix of heritage, interactions with spirits, and personality. Which element you get is mainly dependent on heritage. If your mom and dad are Earthbenders, or your parents are nonbenders from an Earthbending or Firebending line, you can't be an airbender. You could theoretically acquire airbending via training with the right spirits, or a Harmonic Convergence event where Raava and Vaatu duke it out for the fate of the world. But the former almost never happens since spirits are extremely fickle, and latter just straight up only happens every 10,000 years because all the planets align in a very specific way. This was a big part of why the Air Nomad genocide was such a severely damaging event. Once all the main family lines are wiped out, humans cannot (barring some spirit thing which is, again, very very rare) give birth to more airbenders except the next Avatar, who would lack a living mentor for that element, be unable to give birth to more airbenders themselves, and have a massive target on their back from the people responsible for killing all the other airbenders.

So, unless the Harmonic Convergence event affected Caryn and/or Filbrick when it happened for Korra, or the planets somehow aligned in an unprecedented manner, Stan's not going to be an airbender without at least one parent from a line of airbenders. Hey, in Gravity Falls, anybling can haplen, I just find it highly improbable. For Mabel to be a firebender, that means either her mom or dad had to come from a line of firebenders.

Bending affinity comes from personality, mostly nature with a bit of nurture. As a general rule, free-spirited, flexible, and unmaterialistic people tend to make for better airbenders; calm, easygoing, and generous people tend to make for better waterbenders; stalwart, logical, and direct people tend to make for better earthbenders; determined, passionate, and energetic people tend to make for better firebenders. If you think of it like Tomodachi Life types, airbending is energetic/ outgoing, waterbending is easygoing/considerate, earthbending is reserved, and firebending is ambitious/confident. But bending can also match up with different personalities in unexpected ways. For example, a free-spirited earthbender may struggle with traditional earthbending, but do well as a sandbender because sandbending borrows a lot from airbending techniques.

Airbending is particularly sensitive to personal philosophy, as it is the most spiritually oriented of the types and therefore benefits most from an ascetic lifestyle-- but there are ways to use tools to augment airbending deficiencies if you can airbend. Avatar Kyoshi's mother Jesa was an airbender who left the life of a monk to found a criminal enterprise with an earthbending thief, but she knew how to use fans to airbend very effectively despite her violent and materialistic lifestyle degrading her ability to use airbending. It's a skill she passed on to Kyoshi.

What this is all getting around to: Airbending Stanley comes from airbending Caryn. Caryn didn't have powerful airbending due to her lifestyle as a fake fortune teller, but she was able to use a deck of oversized novelty tarot cards to direct air around and augment her bending. Since she wasn't doing combat, she only needed subtle effects anyway-- a slight gust of wind to make a room feel a little chillier during fortune telling, or a puff in the ear to startle annoying customers or cashiers when she's shoplifting. She teaches Stan all her tricks and it's a very sweet series of bonding moments that Ford has festering jealousy of. (Stan absolutely did not cry after Caryn's death when he learned he [or well, Ford, technically] inherited her favorite set of tarot cards. Not one tear. You can trust him when he says that.)

Whether Filbrick had latent airbending abilities that he never used or was a non-bender isn't clear. Either way his philosophy is more along the lines of "Bending, eh? How about I bend my finger around the trigger of this gun?" (in a world with metalbenders, guns made with plastics have far more development and utility than in our world). Much like canon, he's way harsher on Stan than he is Ford, but with the extra layer of being distrustful of benders (he does love Caryn in his Filbrick way, but her actions as a kleptomaniac and fortune teller don't exactly disprove his suspicion here either) and seeing airbending as something Stan uses as a crutch or shortcut. Since Ford doesn't have access to that shortcut, he's clearly the superior twin, both deserving of more effort and care and capable of far more than his bending brother. Much like canon, this contributes majorly to Ford's massive inferiority-superiority complex.

Mabel's grandma comes from a firebending family. There is absolutely tension between firebenders and airbenders as they've historically come to blows-- depending on who you ask, it's either the airbenders' fault for not being able to honor their treaties, the firebenders' fault for refusing to compromise with or respect other benders, or the fault of a complicated set of systemic prejudices rooted in imperialism for assigning morality and behaviors to bending styles. Filbrick was Not Impressed with Shermie's choice in wife. Shermie shrugged and basically said "fine, disown me then" and so Filbrick did that. Once Filbrick kicked the bucket, Shermie and his kids slowly made their way back to his surviving family, though Shermie's branch of the family tree remained somewhat distant. But hey, they trusted "Ford" enough to send the kids over for the summer, so that's not nothing. We're mending the family tree here!

I like the idea of Lil' Gideon being an Amon-like figure, claiming to be a non-bender in order to puff up his feats and make himself look more talented when he's actually a waterbender, more specifically with a bloodbending specialty. Journal 2 has a lot about bloodbending and this was not a great thing for a 5 year old in a dysfunctional household to learn about, it turns out. The amulet, rather than granting telekinetic abilities, lets Gideon use waterbending abilities all the time that would normally only be available during a full moon. Instead of using telekinesis to attack Dipper, he was going to bloodbend Dipper into going on a rampage and attacking people so Dipper would ultimately end up getting arrested and discredited. So breaking it is still a significant depowering and constitutes revealing him to be a fraud-- though it's not the breaking point, as the townspeople bought his story that "poor wittle ole me" only just found out about the bending and don't think he's specifically a bloodbender. When it's a full moon, he remains as much as a threat as he was in his introduction. The cameras, on top of catching his fraud like in the canon Gideon Rises, also catch him bloodbending. That scares the crap out of everybody and thus discredits him. Stanchurian candidate happened because Gideon figured out a way to amp himself so he could bloodbend without a full moon, and used it to pilot his dad. This also has major consequences down the line, though at least he's trying to be a good person by the end.

On the flipside, the incident with Gideon is also something of a vaccination against Bill's actions in Sock Opera-- Dipper is way way more suspicious of talk about puppets from the get go, and so, even sleep-deprived, he immediately susses out that Bill means HIM when Bill requests a single puppet and refuses the deal. And this would be the biggest point of canon divergence in the end, since Bill not breaking the laptop means the Mystery Twins not finding out about McGucket Labs meaning that the Society of the Blind Eye is still out and about with the memory gun by the time Not Who He Seems hits (though I can't imagine it would be too fond of the FBI poking around the area. That would be one hell of a twist-- the SotBE wipes the FBI's memories instead of Ford, perhaps even well ahead of Ford's arrival, and everybody is wondering why the hell the government guys poking around the area are suddenly disoriented and forgetting everything.)

I like Pacifica being a non-bender who feels that she has to fake bending to be accepted amongst her prestigious peers, who have all received top-notch private tutoring and so are genuinely among the best of the best benders. The twist is that her parents are ALSO non-benders, and Nathanial Northwest wasn't a bender either. They compensated with technology and weapons-- Pacifica herself keeps firecrackers on hand to fake fire-bending. A lot of Northwest Mystery Mansion Noir here is deconstructing discrimination against non-benders and prejudices relating to bending styles as a whole, with Pacifica finally coming out as a non-bender to the public and letting non-privileged people in to save everybody.

Wendy I think has a good disposition for sandbending (sawdust-bending? Is that a thing?), so yeah, agree on the Earthbender thing. She's firm in her beliefs but also willing to adapt and adjust in the face of new situations or crises. Also the idea of Robbie challenging Dipper to an Agni Kai is hilarious (and Dipper being like "wait I'm a nonbender is that even possible" while Stan is like "kid he doesn't care you gotta stand up for yourself and be tough"). May I add Rumble McSkirmish being a spirit who happens to be really, really into fighting games to the point of changing himself just to integrate into an arcade machine? GIFfany could have been in a similar boat, or alternatively she was obsessed with Soos in general and would have taken whatever form was necessary to make contact with him (the dating sim was just the option that presented itself most obviously to her).

This was fun to gnaw on. Sorry for the massive post! Feel free to correct me if I got something wrong!

[primreaperstuff]

WELL

I GUESS I'M DONE EV TRAINING MY SWABLU NOW

[primreaperstuff]

ANOTHER ONE WTF DOES THE COWBOY LOOK LIKE AN EYE MONSTER

[primreaperstuff]

WELL

I GUESS I'M DONE EV TRAINING MY SWABLU NOW

[frontmansdefender]

[primreaperstuff]

I actually bothered to check this for no goddamned reason, and this doesn't appear to be in the book. There are two references to one thumb in a mouth, but never any Thumbs Christia. I didn't check any of the sequels though.

So to those saying it read like AI despite allegedly coming from 2015: You are (probably) correct. Definitely fake regardless though.

Also stumbled across the funniest typo while I was trying to find a source to check.

I introduce you to Tumblr's newest sexyman-- Fifty Shades Fred!

[ot3]

today when i was blocking some people as i often do i came across the blog of a christian zutara shipper reblogging a post featuring a gif of the scene in the new ATLA movie where zuko and katara save toph and calling it "a husband and wife protecting their daughter". probably one of the worst Found Family assignments ive ever seen. katara and toph have a two year age difference.............................

[ot3]

its so funny to me that people are still dying in the zutara ship war trenches on like either side of the ship. there can't possibly be anything left to fight about. and yet the fighting seems to be from what i have gleaned secondhand, alive and well.

[primreaperstuff]

Ship wars always struck me as so weird. Like... people take that seriously??? We're not just mashing our favorite dollies' faces together for fun???

[primreaperstuff]

Perfect alignment in my feed today

[primreaperstuff]

I think the only time the Youtube autodub thing has genuinely made a video more entertaining was when it cut off the right-side speaker from the audio then randomly inserted "daddy" into a video about the Mail Glitch in mainline Gen III Pokemon games.

And I cannot emphasize how much it was not supposed to do that at all. There is no dubbing at all in the original audio, just the BEEP BOP BOOP of GBA soundtracks, and the video is overwhelmingly in English. But this, according to Youtube, is indistinguishable from Japanese. Like the uploader actually had to change the settings on the audio to not have the autodub automatically and unremovably activate.

Because it was really just so important that Youtube step in here. Keeping the audio quality from being too good. Bravely inserting "daddy" into an explanation of which maps are large enough to handle a load of corrupted tiles.

(FYI the creator fixed it so the dubbing wasn't on by default so you might have to reenable it for D A D D Y)

[primreaperstuff]

Okay, so I do want to preface this by saying that I have absolutely zero hate for people who like creepypasta or people who like Tarnished Gold or the people who write creepypasta.

But like... do you understand how frustrating it is when you're reading a perfectly good suspense story and suddenly this random mass murder comes shit out of nowhere and ruins your immersion?

I was reading Tarnished Gold, which is a popular Pokemon creepypasta that, for the most part, centers Silver. And the majority of the story is really interesting! We get to see how Silver's actions are making wild Pokemon and trainers dislike him, we have the mysterious voice (heavily implied to be Giovanni) providing a backdrop for Silver using his Pokemon as tools and not giving them nicknames-- hell, we even have the foundations for some interesting game mechanics. Silver technically never beats any gym leaders in this story or gets any of the key items the normal way, so he has to steal them.

There's something to be said for the cycle of abuse here that's super interesting. Silver is an asshole who steals from people and is mean to Pokemon, so Pokemon and people generally avoid him and refuse to help him out, or they sternly lecture him on being nice as if that is their help. As a result, he can't access what he needs, afford anything, or get his Pokemon stronger without doing more stealing and being a dick. And Silver started acting like a jerk because his asshole dad Giovanni taught him to be that way. And nobody has to be this way-- the story explicitly mentions the hairdresser in Goldenrod as somebody who never turns Silver away (even comments "it's quite cute"), and therefore is actually able to help Silver bond with his Pokemon a bit.

The story's decline starts when the protagonist hits Kanto. In the game proper, Silver actually did turn around before that point, becoming generally nicer to his Pokemon and less of a dick to people (I can't recall if this happened in the original Gen II games or if it was added in the Gen IV remakes, but I believe Silver even attempts to return the Pokemon he stole at the start of the game at one point). He doesn't do that here... but not all is lost! It could be the entire point, right? That repeated ass-kickings in Pokemon battles and lectures don't actually teach Silver anything about friendship or help him out?

And then the story hits Viridian City. Red-colored filter. No sounds except for intermittent screaming. Exploration reveals a hall of dismembered people. Silver's party dies for no real reason (no really, their HP starts tanking incurably for no stated reason and then the game says they died). Silver walks in on Giovanni ordering Mewtwo to murder Gold, tries and fails to save Gold. Mewtwo turns on Giovanni, then Silver.

WHERE THE FUCK DID THAT COME FROM!?

I'm not scared, I'm irritated! Up to this point, nothing even close to this has been hinted at! I shit you not, Mewtwo isn't even a character period before this. And Giovanni is such a background character here that he isn't even mentioned by name before this. And in the story of the original games, he was explicitly hiding out in some cave after Red kicked his ass, so it's not like anybody familiar with the games would have a reasonable expectation that Giovanni was still hanging around Viridian City. There is no implication that Giovanni was ever homicidal in the games-- but fine, okay, his organization Team Rocket is clearly modeled after the Yakuza, which is an organized crime syndicate in Japan, maybe this story takes that and runs with it. But it does have to run with it, meaning that it needs to introduce and integrate that element instead of dropping it on our heads like a badly secured piano! (Plus I don't recall the Yakuza ever endorsing mass murder. You don't have to be a paragon to realize that too many dead people are bad for business.)

(This is not getting into things like the fact that Pokemon Gold/Silver explicitly had a radio with news stations since the protagonist didn't bother to check. There is no universe where that radio is not positively exploding with news about the mass killing/disappearance of everybody in one of Kanto's largest cities. Reporters would be on it like flies on a rotted chunk of meat. Hell, NPCs in the area should be commenting on this too.)

And then oooooo ooooooo the game DISAPPEARED... what the fuck, no it fucking didn't. You do not "hope it's rotting in some dump" because you would know if you chucked it out or not. You just lost it because you didn't play it for awhile. A plastic skeleton didn't even pop out of your closet because of this so how the fuck does this make you only buy new now.

I just hate it when stories do that! You had a good thing going with the cycle of abuse there. The things that hurt you become the tools that you use to hurt others. Your mistakes prevent you from making things right. That is genuinely frightening and tragic. Shit, if somebody had to die, why not Silver? He realizes he's wasted so much of his life being a dick and become just like his father, but thinks he's too far gone and has nowhere to go. Nobody wants him around. Nobody would miss him. As far as he can see, the only good thing he can do is set his Pokemon free and kill himself.

But no, that wasn't edgy enough or whatever. Gotta shove in some random fucking mass death and haunting.

Ugh. Again, no hate for people who enjoy that story or the person who wrote it, but lemme tell you, I. am. irked. Thoroughly irked!

[vyvilha]

i like when people say that the universality of campbell's hero's journey only applies to western mythology/folklore. brother, i am going to hold your hand when i say this... it doesn't apply there too

[primreaperstuff]

Ugh god, whenever I think of that thing, I just think of this terrible emotionally abusive English teacher I had that simply adored the hero's journey. Like she assigned books that were explicitly built to replicate the structure, would make us ram it into works that predated it, and would wax poetic about how life was just like the hero's journey when she wasn't praising Stephen King, criticizing students, or evangelizing some weirdass system she had (which included a bizarre method of eating ice cream with a fork).

Incidentally, these speeches about how life was just like the hero's journey often included her talking about how she wanted to be the worst teacher we ever had, so no matter what we faced afterwards we'd think "well at least it's not Mrs.[redacted]". I'm not kidding, she was actually trying to put us all through the "The Road of Trials" and left us this guide on writing that she framed like this really important thing for research in the future. (Ended up putting it through a paper shredder page-by-page the second I left that school. Completely unnecessary but damn it felt good.)

And for the record, what I actually end up thinking is "I'm an innately horrible and incompetent person who cannot recognize what is good for me" because of how your buddies criticized and gaslighted your students every time we tried to complain. What you worked to install in me is an expectation that people find my questions and ideas annoying and a deep-seated fear that I cannot trust people when they say they will respect my accommodations, both of which legitimately makes it harder for me to ask for what I need. I was neuro-atypical and had an anxiety disorder before all this shit, and this just made the bad parts of all that a thousand times worse. That's the legacy you're leaving on students when you try to force them into Campbell's fuckass monomyth.

The worst part is that if she read this, or any other testimony from the other students I have no doubt she traumatized as well, she'd probably try to spin it to say that she was helping. Because I am doing better now, a lot better than I was back then. The innate oppression of the monomyth is that it frames torment and anguish as essential components of personal growth, while framing negative consequences of said torment or anguish as the hero's fault for "refusing the call" or giving in to temptation. This allows tormentors to claim credit for any growth that a person makes after their torment, because by the monomyth structure, growth can't happen at all without external anguish to motivate it. At the same time, tormentors also get to avoid blame for the bad choices or problems a person has after their torment, because by the monomyth structure, growth must be actively refused or fought to not happen after anguish. In short, it's an academic justification for the idea that being a victim of bullying builds character (and therefore we shouldn't do anything about bullying). I'm not even going to dignify that with the label of bullshit-- it's pig puckey. My personal improvement is mine and your personal improvement is yours. Anguish and trauma don't have a single claim to any of that, and neither do bullies.

Bleugh, sorry for going off on a tangent. The hero's journey just really struck a nerve with me and I find it heartening that I'm not the only one who hates it. Since everybody seems to like comparing this to soup, have a section of the Wikipedia article on the Hero's Journey that I found very funny:

[darkwingsnark]

Just because nintendo SAYS the Koopalings aren’t Bowser’s kids, doesn’t mean they aren’t his kids. You can’t have a bunch of kid underlings and NOT just instantly be their father. Even if it’s not biological…. BESIDES, it’s canon that all babies come from storks in that world, let the man just have a horde of babies because the stork won’t STOP SENDING THEM.

[abonnybunny-deactivated20200814]

Maybe each koopaling wasn’t technically Bowser’s kid but little bastards that none of the Storks wanted to deal with so they dumped them at Bowser’s every time because they kinda look like him and so they can be his problem and Bowser just rolled with it.

… I mean why else would they have their own rooms in some versions of Bowser’s castle, their own airships and castles with their names on it if they ain’t special to Bowser in some way? Petey Piranha doesn’t get that kinda treatment.

[darkwingsnark]

You get it. You’re a keeper. 

[abonnybunny-deactivated20200814]

And, being Bowser, he probably doesn’t even question any of it, questions are for nerds. Except possibly how did “Roy come pre-packaged with sunglasses?” because let’s face it, he probably did arrive like that.

[shiftingpath]

being Bowser he probably did a little doubletake and then muttered “That’s a cool baby…” in a sort of alarmed tone

[artisiumstudios]

I love late night thoughts cause why did my brain just go “imagine if Stan’s kidney landed somewhere in the black market somewhere and FORD is the one to acquire said kidney”

Hear me out, it’s not even for anything creepy or disturbing but rather to test for regenerative plants and potions etc. that could save people’s life’s! And ofc he doubts he could just be able to walk into a hospital and ask (very politely) for a kidney!

And once he gets said kidney he run some tests and comes to the realization of “wait a fucking minute… the dna is saying is mine which is not right. UNLESS-“

Leading to ford freaking the fuck out cause holy shit Stanley’s organ is sitting in ice in his fucking house and wherethefuckistherestofhisbrother-

[maridrawss]

At least he's one step ahead if he ever needs to Frantenstan this au

[majoringinfanfiction]

Oh my gods, this made me laugh so much. Imagine, Ford assuming that this kidney means Stan's dead and he prepares everything first to bring Stan back to life only to track Stan down. And. He's alive.

[artisiumstudios]

YESSSSS- you see the vision, like he has everything ready; spells, material, organs, and when he goes to find Stan’s body he is instead met with his brother not only alive but literally a state (or so) away from him. 😭

[butterfreetamer]

Of course ford just didn’t prepare at all to actually talk to his brother so after he arrives and stan’s alive they stare at each other for a while before ford says something like “I have your kidney. Would you like it back?” like that’s a normal way to greet your estranged brother

[someoddwritings]

Stan: "Why the fuck do you have my kidney?"

Extra hilarious if Stan comes to the conclusion that Ford tracked him down to harvest even MORE of his organs. It's the lingering manic/unhinged ready-to-become-a-necromancer-and-fistfight-god energy Ford has going on. Doesnt help that Ford came prepared to preserve and haul around a body. So Stan is trying to inch his way to freedom while Ford's mind is still rebooting after finding Stanley alive.

Inevitably, Ford lunges to tackle a retreating Stan and they have a confusing shouted argument where Ford has to convince Stan he isnt here to take his organs (the opposite, he's already thinking of ways to put Stanley's kidney back) while also trying to interrogate Stanley on HOW HE LOST AN ENTIRE FUCKING KIDNEY. TO THE BLACK MARKET, NO LESS!!

The miscommunication brothers are alive and well.

[greenbunny7]

Good post, have some poorly made memes

[primreaperstuff]

Okay but like… imagine Rico or some other ne'er-do-well or Stan himself looks at this and thinks "infinite money glitch." Steal Stan's kidney, get Ford to buy it and reinstall it, then steal Stan's kidney again, rinse, repeat.

(Ofc Ford would just GIVE Stan the money if he asked after a lot of judgy comments but Stan's too prideful to ask and also doesn't want Ford's lecturing.)

[heretherebebookdragons]

If you are a fan fic writer and you're alright with people making fan art of your fic, reblog this 💚

[sophisticatedchaoss]

had a character chart idea

[primreaperstuff]

I did this but only for Bill Cipher/variants/possessions

From left to right, top to bottom:

The Cipher statue-corpse (he's dead lol)

Chibiverse!Bill (doesn't do anything, practically a cameo)

Maniacantosh (ate a kid's finger, deleted memories)

Aztec Bill (portal made of 9000 live beating hearts probably ripped from the Aztec's neighbors)

Cipher pre-wiping out Euclydia (it was an accident but still)

Anti-Bill (mentioned in a cipher code on that secret Lost Legends related website Schmeb-you-unlocked and later alluded to in the Book of Bill)

Pharoah Bill (annoyed the shit out of the pharoahs but didn't really ask for too much once it became clear they couldn't build a portal)

Vinegar Pete (convinced miserable and oppressed Puritan wives to rise up and kill the men of Salem, never asked for a portal though)

Jester Bill (got locked up by a wizard for several years, so pissed off he melted the glass, possessed a phoenix to burn a castle down plus anybody inside it, cursed the wizard with permanent invisibility and the continent with horrific nightmares)

Billendin (lied to a heartbroken twelve year old to convince her to hand over the rift he needed to kickstart Weirdmageddon)

Zom-Bill (tried to appeal to Ford's desire for affection, got shot in the face lol)

Cipher Symphonies (made a cartoon which called for unleashing bees on audiences, attempted retaliation against animator for condemning him when it flopped but got no-sold by It's A Small World After All Forever Always)

Divorced Bill (got super drunk after Ford rejected him, went on bizarre rant and rampage at nearby fast food restaurant and turned people's heads into CGi watermelons and stuff when he failed to order "a sixer")

Bipper (possessed a twelve-year-old child, mostly touted that he wanted to destroy Journal 3 and injured and humiliated the kid a lot, later revealed to have planned on throwing the kid off the water tower but never got that far or mentioned it in the episode proper)

Bill, Defeater of Time Baby (harmed a gigantic, cosmically powerful baby so bad he'd get stuck in a glacier for thousands of years and also wiped out the dinosaurs along the way because the baby didn't agree to compromise)

Bill O'Pimm (the guy who was used as a conduit to talk with the Anti-Cipher Society. Bill made a big talk about how they could be warlords if they agreed to help him but they said no so it didn't go anywhere)

Dreamscaperers!Bill (the writers hadn't decided that he was a big villain yet, so he was more whimsical than malicious. Being in the dreamscape, he couldn't do any serious permanent harms and was thwarted by synthesized music)

Bill, leader of the Henchmaniacs (How he acts towards his minions! A lot of big talk and he's a horrible friend, but he doesn't kill them at least)

Billdoc (Bill tricked a Shaman into helping him, in the process creating a bottomless pit and turning a man into a rock that looks like a face rock. Also the Shaman disapproved so strongly of Bill's real intentions that he set up a way to defeat Bill and is implied to have killed himself gruesomely.)

Silas Birchtree (A corpse of a traveling salesman that Bill possessed and used to found a cult called Cipheretology that ruined a small town. It got shut down but only after a large explosion and a lethal shootout. The parallels to Jonestown imply worse things than what was stated outright and the trauma and trail of broken families persist to this day.)

Theraprism!Bill (He talks big game about possessing the reader, but he's powerless and a has-been who can only flail impotently.)

Dream!Bill (Bill shows up to intimidate Ford. It works but Bill can't possess Ford anymore, so Bill can only taunt for now.)

Angry!Bill (At the end of Dreamscaperers, Bill gets very fed up and stops messing around. Again, he wasn't the main villain at this time, so he stops before he can do much worse.)

Bord (Bill possesses Ford and orders him to open the portal. When Ford refuses, Bill uses his power over the mind to subject this man to horrific psychological torture, and also possesses him to humiliate himself and harm himself and others.)

Weirdmageddon!Bill (The end of the world and all that entails. Well, technically limited to one small town in Oregon in canon, but had he broken containment, he would have easily unleashed worse-than-hell on Earth and eventually destroyed the dimension)

[primreaperstuff]

Bro you are an internship for a financial institution wtf do you care

This is like the evil version of seeing a ridiculous Tumblr poll come across your dash and realizing you're about to take a pop quiz you didn't even realize could be aced. Except you don't even get those sexy sexy graphical transformations out of it!

[primreaperstuff]

Ah yes, the four genders:

Female

Male

Different American thing

Not telling

[primreaperstuff]

The more I think about Sock Opera in light of the Book of Bill, the more I wonder if Bill possessing Dipper had nothing to do with the portal and everything to do with the journal containing potentially intimate details of Bill's relationship with Ford and possibly helping Dipper bond with the guy.

First of all, the reason Bill gives for possessing Dipper? "You've been getting way too close to figuring out some major answers." He immediately clarifies that he's got big plans and doesn't need Dipper getting in the way, but, well, think about it.

Bill wanted that portal opened. It was instrumental to his "big plans" that a hole get punched in this dimension. And Dipper finding out the truth would have helped that happen, because if Dipper had figured out that the purpose of Stan's activities was to get Stan's brother back, Dipper would likely have decided not to try to intervene with the portal opening at all. He would have known it wasn't going to end the world and might even be hyped to finally meet the author of his beloved journals. Also, if Dipper was possessing the only copy of Journal 3 and Bill destroyed it, the portal would not have been able to be opened at all. Perhaps Bill had assumed he could trick Stanley into a deal using his knowledge of the access codes, but even if you assume Bill didn't think there was any chance that Stan would turn him down, that would still delay (not to mention endanger) the payoff of getting the portal open. However, we know that Dipper was not possessing the only copy of Journal 3, because Stan had already made a perfect clone of it using that magic copy machine from Double Dipper. It also seemed that Stan at least got the activation started pre-Sock Opera, and the whole house wasn't Bill-proofed (especially not the room with the copier) so it would be odd if Bill didn't know that Stan already had an extra copy.

So why would Bill want to take actions that would permanently halt Dipper's attempts to get more information on the author of the journals?

Well, you know what else was in Journal 3, as revealed in the Book of Bill? Karaoke night, when Bill and Ford got extremely drunk, Bill was potentially naked depending on how you interpret the lack of shading on his limbs, and they sung their hearts out to Disco Girl. Also the day before karaoke night, when Bill attempted to give Ford a birthday present by killing several rats in the shape of Ford's name and Ford was horrified but appreciative of the effort. And the day Bill showed Ford the last speck of his former home Euclydia, which we know Bill destroyed, and claimed "a monster" destroyed it.

Stuff that wasn't revealed in the Book of Bill are fairly telling too. Pre-betrayal, Ford talks about how he's always eager to hear from Bill and how honored he feels to have been chosen. Ford also mentions that he likes the dreams his muse (Bill) gives him because his muse says his favorite gum will come back in style (which is pretty personal). Ford is shown playing chess with Bill on the show, which he could have reasonably documented. Ford lists "William" as one of his favorite constellations (it looks like a triangle with a bow-tie).

Bill is shown to be horrible at emotional intimacy and deeply in denial about his feelings. The Axolotl, who is portrayed as analogous to the Abrahamic God, describes Bill as "SAYS HE'S HAPPY, HE'S A LIAR. BLAME THE ARSON FOR THE FIRE," which outright says that Bill's happy party-animal thing is a front and also heavily implies that he finds it easier to pretend to have done something on purpose than admit to what really happened. In the Book of Bill, he tries to play it off like he never really died and always gets his way even though he's actually involuntarily institutionalized and literally falling apart after reading some words from Stanley. He also tried to share his tragic backstory to humanize himself and disassociated halfway through-- not the first time he's done this, apparently, as he shares disassociating in front of a barber shop pole (colored red and blue like his mom and dad) for a billion years like it's a fun party story. Ford shares his guilt and misgivings about Stanley and Bill's response is to basically tell Ford not to waste his time on somebody he should have eaten in the womb and then make the conversation about himself. In the show proper, Bill possessing Dipper blew the best chance he had to hold the show hostage by making a glib comment about who would sacrifice anything for their stupid sibling (prompting Mabel to realize how selfish she was being and sacrifice the show to fight Bill). Hell, you could argue Mabelland as a whole represents Bill's approach to emotions-- he just painted everything with fake smiles and fake flattery, promising anybody who stayed their deepest desires as long as they never questioned too much or tried to move on from the place to face reality.

I mean, with all that in mind, yeah Bill is looking at Dipper and thinking, "This kid knows too much." But it has nothing to do with the portal or Ford and everything to do with Dipper potentially finding out about Bill's emotional issues and intimate moments with Ford.

But wait! There's more!

Another thing I'd like to mention is that Ford talks lovingly in detail about Fiddleford in Journal 3 (both in the official release and the missing pages in the Book of Bill). The laptop that Dipper was trying to crack (and Bill wanted to destroy) was Fiddleford's. Fiddleford is quite clearly very important to Ford, as Ford refuses to speak badly of him even after Fiddleford has literally started a memory-erasing cult and he frequently expresses to Fiddleford how happy he is not to be alone anymore. Bill had very clearly wanted to push Fiddleford out of Ford's life-- implicitly possessing Ford to break the snowglobe Fiddleford lovingly made for him, imploring Ford to release the axolotl Fiddleford offered as a companion even though Ford loved it, dropping hints that Fiddleford was unreliable and lacked resolve, referring to Fiddleford as the third-wheel hillbilly in a way reminiscent of a jilted lover... not to mention the portal accident, where Bill was at minimum happy to keep removing his exoskeleton to feed despite the obvious adverse mental effects it was having on Fiddleford.

And it's because when Ford has friends on his side, Bill's endgame is harder to attain. For one, it's because Bill is possessive. When Weirdmageddon starts and Bill has the chance to do anything he wants with or to Ford, the first thing he does is turn Ford into a backscratcher and use him as a fidget toy. Ford is implied to have no awareness that this even happened so he can't fight back or have a say in anything. Literally, in Bill's perfect world, Ford would be an object that only exists for Bill's comfort. Other people get involved and suddenly old Fordsy can't merely be defined by everything Bill does to him.

But also, when Ford is isolated, Bill is better able to manipulate him and the people around him. Keep in mind, the rift ultimately only broke because Mabel wasn't told about it or its significance, meaning that she had no way to know that giving it to the wrong person would end disastrously. Nobody knew of its significance except for Ford and Dipper, and the latter honored the former's request to tell nobody about the rift. Ford in turn wasn't talking about the rift because he had severe trust issues and Bill had been communicating with him to gloat, precisely with the intention of destabilizing Ford. Ford's decisions also get a lot worse when he's alone. The summoning of and subsequent friendship with Bill Cipher, brought on by Ford's loneliness and past experience with bullying, was the hugest mistake by far. The whole TRUST NO ONE thing at the root of his issues was also forged in the ashes of Ford's friendships with Fiddleford and Bill.

(If I can bring in a little fanon, I'd also like to point out how common it is for No Portal AUs to bring up how quickly Stan finds workarounds for Bill possessions that still allow Ford to sleep. Ford alone in canon immediately just jumped to WELP CAN'T SLEEP EVER UNTIL BILL DIES and stuck to it when there might well have been better and healthier alternatives available that he simply wasn't able to see on his own. Again, the way things wind up going in canon means we can't confirm if those fan alternatives would have worked, but I just find that interesting enough to mention.)

And Dipper and Ford obviously have so much in common. They both love Dungeons Dungeons and More Dungeons, they're both curious and scrappy and willing to entertain what most people brush off, hell they even have anomalous traits that they can relate to each other with (Ford's six fingers, Dipper's Big Dipper birthmark).

So if Dipper decided that he liked Ford enough to reach out on his own (as he ultimately did in the DDMD episode), well... that's a threat to Bill. Because we all know Dipper isn't going to stand for Bill's shit, or Ford's self-deprecation. Hell, Dipper and Mabel are ultimately instrumental to Ford and Stan's twin switch, as they distract Bill long enough for the two to come up with a plan and swap outfits. So Dipper can't know about Ford too early and seek him out. What better than to set things up so Dipper gets so distracted he stops investigating and then ends up with a red herring about the loony hillbilly being the author?

There's a comment from series creator Alex Hirsch that I don't necessarily agree with but do think is relevant as well. It's that if Dipper had taken the apprenticeship, he would have ended up like Fiddleford McGucket, because like McGucket, Ford sees Dipper as somebody who will say yes to him. I could write a whole essay on how that contradicts what Ford stands for based off of his behavior and how Ford isn't just an arrogant glory hog and yadda yadda yadda... BUT, if Alex Hirsch is thinking of it, you had better believe Bill Cipher can too. How likely is it that Bill saw how compatible Dipper was with Ford and, remembering how important Fiddleford was to Ford and how much Ford regretted not listening to Fiddleford, acted to prevent Dipper from becoming somebody who supports Ford and keeps him from being completely alone and disconnected from the world?

So yeah, tl;dr: Bill wanted to stop Dipper from finding out about Bill and Ford's intimate relations, and also isolate Ford by throwing a potential great friend off the scent.