#5n

Thailand is a conservative monarchy formally led by a god-king with frequent far-right coups, which has been a strong ally of US militarism since the Cold War. The view they have of themselves strongly matters, because their stand towards the world fundamentally does not accept the concept of a Cambodian (or Lao!) state as having equal standing to them. Thailand's long-standing territorial claims include Laos up to the Mekong River and a huge chunk of Cambodia, including Siem Riep, where Angkor Wat is. Thailand fully expected to inherit these territories after the French left mainland Southeast Asia.

The UN has specifically ruled in favour of Cambodia multiple times as regards the temples that Thailand is currently destroying and the land that it is currently invading. Thailand is attacking specifically those temples and that land because it is an irredentist fascist theocracy led by a god-king who views himself as above international law and certainly above Cambodia, a view Thais themselves corroborate.

This view is based on Thailand's self-image as a religiously backed state that predates the post-WWII international order and is not bound by it, and it's a project that is clearly aligned with similar fascist theocracies like the Zionist occupation. Cambodia claims equality with Thailand under international law and it is that, specifically, which Thailand rejects.

3d. Rank the endings (for one game of your choice or the true endings of the 3 games)

In terms of all games, I think I would rank 999 ending > VLR ending > ZTD ending.

However, each one of them gave me a different experience so I really enjoy them as a whole package. For example, when I finished VLR, I felt I needed more. The experience had been so intense that I wanted to play ZTD right away. On the other hand, ZTD's true ending made me feel very introspective, even if the writting felt lacking sometimes.

I ranked 999's ending higher because I feel like 999, in general, felt more concise and it had my favourite cast. I loved the epilogue and how the game could simply end there and not even have a sequel. It felt like a complete game by itself. Of course I was a bit desperate with the situation between Akane and Junpei, and how they ended up in separate ways, but it felt fitting.

As for VLR I really enjoyed the plot twist. I felt the true ending was a bit too long, like a never ending ride, but, despite the confusion, I enjoyed the general explanation of it. I also enjoyed the sad tone of the story, and I absolutely loved some of the reflections from the another time (even if not considered as canon).

However, the game asked for more.

And there's where ZTD enters. I had some problems getting used to the cinematics of the game and the characters, and, at the time I played, some things felt weird, like how suddenly it seemed so simple to just shift. As for the ending, I really like how it was put as a moral dilemma, a ZERO TIME DILEMMA, in fact, the situation of shifting (not sure if to think that the shifting until then had been made too easy, or it was purposedly used so that only later they had to face the fact that they doomed their other selves). The ending made me think a lot about how, despite them being alive at the end, despite this seemingly good turn of events, it still felt all like a gamble, as the begining of the game. In the end we didnt' even know the identity of the terrorist, and they still doomed their first ending iteration, for their last iteration (which has the trauma from playing the decision game).

Delta's character is generally a source of memes due to his quotes, but his words still left some marks. His whole plan was convoluted. It's almost like the second nonary game, but here the multiple timelines had to happen in order for this future to come true, and for him and Phi to exist.

I also love the ending theme and it plays very well, complementing this interminable dilemma mood the characters live through. I also love how, in the end, we can interpret Delta as a character portraying the player: "One of Delta's motivations for creating the Decision Game: he can't shift himself, but can read the minds of those who experienced other timelines, and was interested in learning about them. Given that Delta is technically the Player Character, this is probably a meta-narrative commentary on player curiosity" (taken from ZTD TV tropes).

So in the end this was all to say that, despite liking 999's ending better for how solid it seemed to me, the other games' endings also deserve a lot of credit for their worth.

(I didn't know the ranking was for the endings of all games or one in specific so I went with this, but I may try to rank for a specific game later).

5d. Do you consider Another Time to be canon? If so, do you have any theories on ?'s identity

I think at the time I finished ZTD I found that Another Time was not considered canon. Nevertheless I really liked its contents so I like to pick elements from it and incorporate in canon. One of my favourite part of it is Tenmyouji’s thoughts on this plan of jumping to the past and change it. The bikers’ story is one of my favourites there and I felt it was a message about how, despite losing Akane, he found Quark along his journey in this doomed timeline, and how, even if their plan works, this timeline still exists. There is also a possibility that the transporter was hinted with Alice and Clover’s conversation, but not sure if that was the alternative or not.

About ?’s identity, I think my favourite take is the player. Because the player is an irregular identity in the game. To get the Another Time, the player has to achieve certain goals, such as collecting the golden files. The player can play with timelines as much as they want since they can jump through the flowchart freely and they even command Sigma’s action through the game (which can explain the way sometimes he was surprised with his vote during the Nonary Game). And I believe it refers to the player coming from the true ending of ZTD, but this is merely speculation...

Since Delta could be meta commentary about the player, I also liked to think he could be involved in this, but since he can’t shift , it’s much improbable. However I like how there is a link with how the end of ZTD is Carlos pointing the gun at him, which represents a situation of danger that could trigger a shift.

Other than this, I think I haven’t thought much about it. I may have read some theories some time ago, but I don’t remember them now...

5n. Do you have any fanart/fanfic/fangame recommendations?

Fanart is probably what I consume the most. I really love @/keycrash’s works, @/kisschasey’s portraits of Snake, @/caelytrix, the way @/aestheticcannibal portrays Kyle and Dio, @/i0n4 and much more artists. I always try to reblog the amazing works I find from the fandom and sorry for not listing more, nor any work in specific.

Twitter is also a very good media to find a lot of good ZE fanarts. Not all of them are tagged, but generally searching the ZeroEscape tag allows you to find very cool works, along with other tweets and memes.

Now, on fanfiction I can’t really give much recommendations because I haven’t read many. I mainly read some from Zecret Santa event. I remember enjoying the one I got about Tenmyouji and Quark because I really love their wholesome relationship. Link here

There’s also one I once started to read but didn’t finish due to lack of time, but which was VLR’s story told from Phi’s POV and I found the idea extremely interesting although I still haven’t read it. It’s pretty long too. Link here

Now for an idea which concept I feel it’s funny and interesting: I once found one that was a Nonary game in the IKEA. I actually haven’t read it but at the time I thought it was a really funny idea. Link here

I’ve only read the first recommendation, but thought I should leave the other two, as they seem interesting and funny.

Sorry for the long post and the delay in replying. I also apologize for any mistake I made. I’m a bit tired but I really wanted to finish this post.

First, the Terms of Service was simple and legible. The point of them is that when you mark a message for moderation, you're marking it for violating a specific rule. Marking for hate speech was the same process as marking for harassment, stalking, NSFW, illegal activities, unmarked spoilers, and so on.

Second, there's a karma system. You log in, you get 1 karma per day. There's no Reddit-style upvotes; karma represents real time investment. Certain privileges on the site are tied to having a reasonable but real amount of karma, with the higher end here capping out at around 100 karma.

Thirdly, there were two tiers: moderators and administrators. Moderators are recruited from the ordinary userbase, while administrators, in this case, are probably a paid position, probably with direct accountability to human rights bodies, possibly one formed from the lawsuit itself.

While a moderator has the right to act unilaterally, a normal user can mark a message and in so doing add it to the moderation queue. A moderator's main responsibility is going down the moderation queue and either taking action or not; in the case of a no action the mark is removed.

A normal user has a Marked Message Accuracy stat tied to their account. If a moderator takes action on a message they mark, it improves their MMA, if they don't it hurts it. Users who frequently make false reports have their marks algorithmically throttled, users with high MMA have their reports moved to the front of the queue.

Moderators have a choice for what kind of action to take:

-Deletion without karma loss. Post removed, but no penalty to the user. -3 karma loss; slap on the wrist. -10 karma loss; more serious but won't be a major problem for long-term users with good records.

And if memory serves, more serious penalties, like more serious karma loss, longer-term suspensions, bans, and "axings", that is, banning all accounts tied to an IP, are reserved either for higher-ranking moderators or administrators. Your average Jill Terfbribes can't do it.

A user who has action taken against them has the opportunity to appeal it to multiple levels: first to the original moderator, then to a different moderator, and then to an admin.

The iconic form rejection response here was "This is a clear and flagrant violation of the TOS; there is absolutely no question of this. Please re-read the TOS rule in question." But overturns were frequent.