thinking about mirabelle in stars and time once again and how much it meant to me to see an aromantic asexual character whose asexuality and aromanticism was not only crucial to proceeding the plot but also featured another asexual character using their experiences and feelings to try and help mirabelle understand herself.
AND mirabelle's relationship to her asexuality and aromanticism was explicitly tied into her religion and god i just love in stars and time
i mean this with my whole heart, i almost started crying when i first played through the game.
mirabelle means so much to me. she is strong and nerdy and loves her religion and her friends and her kingdom. she has so much love in her heart and wants so badly to help people. and she struggles with it and she struggles with wanting to accept change but wanting to stay right where she is in this specific, extremely personal, part of her life. and siffrin looks at her and tells her it's okay. it's okay to stay still here. she doesn't have to love romantically or have sex or anything if she doesn't want to.
AND HER GOD LOVES HER TOO. SHE IS HER GOD'S SPECIALIST LITTLE GUY. the change god literally goes "oh yeah mirabelle, love her <3" [which is yet another thing i love btw. the change god religion feels like a real religion. it is so well crafted as an in game narrative and i adore how both odile and siffrin have outsider opinions on it given they are not from the religion]
thank you in stars and time [and insertdisc5 obvs for making the game lmao]
I used to be a Tech is dead truther bc I don't like when ppl complain about every character death bc sometimes characters need to die, its part of the story. I also don't like when characters die and come back with no consequences.
However I'm thinking about tbb again and I think they should've brought Tech back. I think it was interesting to give him a sacrifice moment but it was not a satisfying end to his character. Its been a while since I've watched the show, but both times that I watched through it I was not satisfied. It kinda felt like any of tbb could have been the one making the sacrifice, which isn't good. If Tech is the one making the sacrifice and dying, they should have good reasons narratively and character wise for why specially he is the one who has too make the sacrifice.
And I felt like it didn't wrap up his character well. Yes, he'd recently had a good episode with Omega that gave him good character development, but I don't think that was everything they could have done with him. They could have kept developing him and his relationships with the rest of tbb. I think they especially could have done a lot of good work with him and Crosshair and him and Phee.
With some stories it does work to explore the way that death is sometimes random and not everything is tied up nice and clean. However, most of Star Wars really isn't that type of story and I really don't think tbb should have been either. If they were trying to explore that, they didn't do a great job. Tech was barely acknowledged in s3 iirc.
And it kinda felt intentional that his death was unsatisfying. Like they were trying to keep us on edge and give us hints that he's still alive. There were so many things that ended up being red herrings and it felt like there was no reason to have the red herrings in the first place bc they didn't do anything super special with the CX troopers.
None of this is to say they shouldn't have had him "die" or brought him back without consequences. I just think they either could have given a lot more meaning and sense to his death. Or, they could have brought him back in some interesting and meaningful ways and played with the consequences of that.
Sometimes you have a day weird enough that you're desperately typing "hobbies for anthros" into your search bar at 4 am because you have a collaborative writing thing due in less than 24 hours and you're getting desperate to flesh out your character even a tiny bit. And that's just life. I guess.
So... Unstable Universe Parrot. I've got thoughts I want to get off my chest about his character, so I'm here to ramble about it.
Parrot kind of drives me crazy. I know I'm not the only one upset by some of his choices throughout the series. But something kind of dawned on me that put the guy in a new light.
Spoilers ahead. Tldr at the end.
Parrot's regularly proven himself to be a hypocrite, what with telling Wemmbu off about how stealing is wrong and you shouldn't stoop to your enemy's levels, only to immediately turn around and talk about stealing from Reddoons the next video later BEFORE he even realized there was anything wrong with Red or Capitol City's way of business. Then there's the blatant killing off of Dean and Wifies' pets while arguing it's fine for him to have an allay just to make it super obvious that, yes, he is a hypocrite.
Then there's the entire mess with Wifies during their fight. They "broke up," sure. Parrot ran away despite Wifies begging him to come back and then later accused Wifies of being the one to leave. Wifies has since apologized profusely and no longer made any attempt to argue with Parrot on the matter of his own safety because he fears Parrot will leave again. Parrot has not yet apologized as of the time I am writing this. Wifies may have overstepped by burning the compass, but Parrot refused to hear him out on a very real concern that Parrot is throwing himself into danger, and Wifies just doesn't want to lose him. Considering Parrot's hero complex, as shown by repeatedly jumping into fights that aren't necessarily his with little to no regard for personal safety, this is a very real risk.
And, you know, also hypocritical on Parrot's behalf for refusing to listen when he himself has expressed one-sided concern for Wifies' well-being during the entire confrontation with Clown. A scenario where Parrot literally refused to let Wifies help despite Wifies wanting to because he did not want to risk Wifies safety.
I think Parrot was telling the truth. He doesn't understand.
And that, when I really thought about it with this last episode, is kind of fascinating. Even when Parrot has lived through an exact scenario beforehand where he felt the desire to keep someone he cared about safe, he refused to listen when the situation was reversed. In fact, Parrot said his usual "I don't understand" multiple times after Wifies burned the compass and explained he wanted to keep Parrot safe.
He doesn't understand, despite having been in a very similar situation before.
The more I thought about Parrot's actions throughout the entirety of Unstable Universe, the more I realize that Parrot doesn't seem to experience empathy. At all.
He feels sympathy. He feels bad for the people forced to mine for ores to line Capitol City's koffers. He feels bad for Wifies being chunk banned and missed him dearly because he does care about him. He felt bad for Dean's predicament with the mafia and took him under his wing. He has a strong sense of justice. He helps people. He knows what's wrong and fights for what is right. In fact, Parrot is an objectably good guy. But he can't put himself in someone elses place. And when he does end up in the other person's shoes, he can't handle it.
Just look at how freaked out he was over Clown saying they were a lot alike. Something that had a profound impact on one, possibly more videos. Let's ignore the moral high ground Parrot tried to scrape together at the end that was absolutely unjustified and focus on Parrot's actions after Clown said that for the moment. Even after getting Wifies back from the threat of Clown almost killing his friend, Parrot STILL wanted to go after Branzy again despite very clearly seeing what that kind of a hostage situation would lead to. Even after experiencing the same threat to a loved one that he was trying to hold over Clown's head, Parrot could not make the connection that Clown may feel the same. That history would just repeat itself.
Heck, he doesn't even care that he's planning on dragging into a war a bunch of innocents who had only been trying to escape the mafia when he went to the Farlands. Despite the fact that he had his own civilization already taken over by the mafia.
Parrot has his hero complex and acts narcissistic and hypocritical because he can not make the emotional connection between his own feelings and others.
I'm no psychologist, but he strikes me as someone with Empathy Deficiency Disorder. People with this disorder tend to criticize or blame others without understanding where they are coming from, don't take responsibility for their own actions, have little to no patience, rarely show any appreciation for others, and regularly put themselves first and foremost.
Sound familier?
You could probably consider someone like Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean as someone with something similar to this disorder. That or more of a narcissistic disorder, but those tend to go hand in hand.
I don't know if this was the content creator's intention as he wrote up his character, but it certainly helped me put Parrot's actions into perspective. It's really cool to think about watching a character go through the hero's journey without something as basic as empathy. While it's too early to tell, the only other character that might come close to such low empathy is Ash, who is literally the big bad. Then again, we see so little of Ash and his spoken word makes him an unreliable narrator regarding his own goings-ons. Not even Clown, who we've seen has plenty in common with Parrot. Clown experiences empathy, because he knew how upset Parrot would be if Wifies was threatened. Just as upset as Clown would be if Branzy was threatened.
Parrot has changed a lot as a character through the series, but his ability to empathize has remained static. I imagine at the true climax of the story whenever that may be that Parrot will somehow come to understand that other people can and do feel the same. And I'd like to say that will be a satisfying moment, but who knows what it might take to reach that point. A lot has been lost already.
(Tldr: I think Parrot's character has Empathy Deficiency Disorder and that's why he does the most frustrating, seemingly selfish things.)
I heard this song for the first time two days ago and it has not left my head since. It's so good.
Also, because hyper-fixation, it gave me ideas.
None that will become a full fic, but enjoy these Welcome to Dreamworld rambles from Discord, presented in bullet points.
It's so fun [[this is past me talking about the song]]
Also imagine an au where Carlos finds out he has a grandson shortly after Owen disappears and he's like, "Wait I have a grandbaby and he's all alone??? That won't do!" And he comes back to take care of Wiatt
And Wiatt is like ??????
I was going to joke that he is possessing Winnie but that doesn't make sense timeline wise
Unless Winnie was something Carlos built between his death and the founding of Dreamworld and each founder assumed one of the other founders built him
Just this shifty pegasus in pajamas and a nightcap making eggs for Wiatt, possibly with blood stains on the cuffs of his pants telling (Grand)dad jokes and being spooky/ominous at the same time.
TheItalianScribe (TheIcyMage) — Today at 11:23 AM
He notices Wiatt had a crush on Lewis and is like, "Oooh! Someone has a crush! Want me to help you take his heart? Wait that's not the phrase. Capture his heart?"
"N…no, thank you."
Winnie going to PTA meetings in a bad human disguise
Why does this idea make me chuckle?
