Moss.

* im allowed to change my ocs design

* nobody will kill me if i change my ocs design

* compliments are not threats

* just because somebody said they like my ocs design that does not mean they will hunt me down and kill me if i change my ocs design

* my ocs are mine and i can design them how i want

Like we started this series with him as the major antagonist for the entirety of season 1, tormenting these stick figures on his computer. Victim was completely powerless against him, Chosen put up a good fight but was eventually defeated, and it was only Chosen and Dark working together that finally seemed to make this god-like outsider check himself.

Season 2 and the Showdown he got to fight the Virabot and Dark a bit, but he was nerfed pretty quickly by both.

Now here in season 3, he’s barely been present aside from a single fight that he was literally forced to run from. And I can’t really see him coming in for the climax, given that his computer’s likely in a bad state and he’s completely locked out of the Outernet even if he did get it back online.

It’s just very interesting to me that a character who is literally in the title, the guy who started everything, has now become barely an afterthought. It’s not like he’s become any less invincible; at the end of the day, he’s still untouchable. Even if you shut his device down, he can always restart it, disconnect, get a new computer; he can always come back.

But the same thing that keeps the stick figures from getting to him is no longer an advantage, it’s a hinderance. Because they’ve gone beyond his computer, they’re beyond his reach. He can’t do anything unless they call on him, and even then, it takes almost no effort to kick him back out.

Victim has been emulating early noogai throughout this season, both in how he fights and in how he sees other sticks as tools rather than people. He deliberately reenacts his own trauma unto others just to gain power over those he sees as his enemies. His whole crusade this season started because he learned that his partner was killed by another creation of noogai.

Dark is now implanting missions into other sticks, despite his continuing defiance of his own mission. Moreover, he's turned to "creating" other sticks to do his bidding and kill for him, just as he was created to kill on noogai's behalf.

Chosen is repeatedly bound, leashed, and imprisoned, and on top of that has been robbed of his powers, a change displayed through an altered name; all things that hearken back to his own time under noogai's thumb.

Even Orange is not exempt: he and Alan may get along now, but their relationship began as a transaction; one where Alan used Orange's innate abilities for his own purposes. And once again, Orange cooperates, for the sake of his friends.

We NEED to talk about this scene because it shape-shifts when you watch the movie a second time???

On your first viewing, when Grace leaves the party to join Stratt on the deck, you’ve been following Grace's POV for the whole movie. You can feel how he's trying to break the ice and connect with Stratt via humor: "Permission to come aboard, captain?🫡"

And Stratt being Stratt kills the joke immediately: "You’re already aboard." And by killing that joke she also kills his attempt at connecting with her. That's her thing. You feel it in the knock-knock scene and you feel it here because Grace is feeling it. He stammers and he's nervous ("Talk too much, that's my problem, like right now"). His attempt at human connection is painfully unrequited (again).

When you finish the movie, you learn, however, that that is not true at all. You hear Stratt's voice crack when she has to do what she has to do, and you realize how her carefully constructed armor fractures because of him. He is not nothing to her.

And when you (inevitably) watch the movie again, and your POV is not limited to Grace's anymore but you can shift your view to Stratt ever so slightly, then suddenly the whole connecting-via-jokes business drops away to make room for the metaphorical meaning of "coming aboard".

"It is okay to be in your space? Am I allowed to be closer to you?"

And her answer?

He is already in her space, behind her defenses, and he doesn't even realize it (blissfully unaware about SO many things in fact). He is asking to be allowed inside the house while standing in the damn living room.

Of course watching a movie a second time will always deepen your understanding of the characters, but it's remarkable that Stratt's answer does not just gain a more differentiated level of meaning. Instead, it is transformed into it's opposite, from a very clear "I am not letting you in" to an equally clear "You've come in uninvited a long time ago", and both can be true at the same time!

I spent several minutes just staring at them (and trying to convince them to bite my fingers.) When my sister’s violin lesson ended, her teacher came out to the yard and explained that these goldfish were the same small creatures that were often unfortunately sold in plastic bags at state fairs. They were only about two inches long apiece, when she bought them and put them in the new, empty pond. In essence, they were like every goldfish I had seen before, but they had been given a much larger, much richer environment in which to flourish. As a result, they had grown into some of the most remarkable, vibrant creatures my twelve-year-old self had ever met with. All because of a pond. 

“Grace says he would like half of dome to be water.”

“Oh, is necessary for humans to have large amounts of water question?”

Small Eridian equivalent of a sigh. “No. Not needed for life. In fact Grace will die if he falls in water and does not get out.”

“Tell him we give him water in containers that won't kill him. Lots lots lots of water on Erid for Grace to drink.”

“No. Grace say he want water on ground. Also want it with excess sodium chloride compound so it will be unhealthy for drink.”

“Grace want this liquid for celebration.”

“Of course.” They scan it. “You have wrong liquid. This contain compounds which are poisonous for humans.”

“Yes yes yes. Grace say humans like feeling of being slightly poisoned.”

Pros and cons of being let alone

Pros: youre alone

I don’t know if anyone has ever done this before but, here ya go… The Different Types of Fanfiction!