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theconstitutionisgayculture · 2 years

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Do you give recs? I'm looking for some woke-free medias to consume (books particularly, but it can be anything)

It's hard to give recs without knowing your taste, but I'll try. Necessarily, many of these will be older things, so sorry if that bothers you

Books:

The Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell (sci-fi)

The Nightside series by Simon R Green (urban fantasy/detective noir)

The Deathstalker series by Simon R Green (there are gay side characters in a few of the books, but the books themselves aren't woke. Just good sci-fi/space opera)

Any Conan the Barbarian story written by Robert Howard or Robert Jordan (fantasy)

The Destroyermen series by Taylor Anderson (disclaimer I'm only up to book 4 out of 15 and the last book was published in 2020 so it may have gotten woke or started to suck later on, but right now it's pretty good and pretty pro-American. Alternate history action sci-fi)

The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher (urban fantasy)

Any Dune book by Frank Herbert or Kevin J Anderson and Brian Herbert (sci-fi)

The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik (only read the first three out of nine so same disclaimer as Destroyermen. Alternate history fantasy. Napoleonic Wars with dragons)

The Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell (also the excellent film adaptations of the books with Sean Bean if you can find them. Historical fiction. You follow Richard Sharpe through the ranks of the British army during the Napoleonic Wars)

The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien (the grandfather of modern fantasy)

The collected works of HP Lovecraft (definitely not PC or woke. His cat makes an appearance in one of his stories. Horror)

The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker (horror. Hellraiser was based on this novella. tentative rec because it's good, but there's a lot of mentioned sex and very liberal attitudes towards sex so I don't know if you'd consider that woke or not. The sex obsessed characters are the bad guys though)

Any of the pre-Disney "canon" Star Wars expanded universe books.

Any of the Star Trek books written by William Shatner (they're all a connected series though so read them in order)

If non-woke is your main criteria, I'd suggest giving the Witcher books by Andrzej Sapkowski a try. I personally hated the little bit of the first one I read, and I hate the Witcher series in general, but no one can argue that the Witcher is in any way woke, lol

Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher (fantasy)

Phantoms by Dean Koontz (also recommend the movie with a very young Ben Affleck, but if you rent it on Prime use headphones. Audio is all fucked up through a surround sound system. At least it was when I rented it a few years back. horror)

The Legend of Drizzt series (and the associated sub-series) by RA Salvatore (fantasy. I stopped reading at the Transitions series--books 20-22--because I personally didn't like them and the way they changed the characters and the setting, but YMMV. I'd highly recommend books 1-19 though. Great fantasy series in my favorite D&D setting, the Forgotten Realms)

The Giver by Lois Lowry (young adult book, but has a great message of individuality and anti-government)

Since you wanted books mostly I'll just breeze through movies, shows, comics and games with a few of my favorites:

Movies - Equilibrium, Lord of the Rings, pre-Disney Star Wars, Alien, Aliens, Predator, Predator 2, Hellraiser 1 + 2, Friday the 13th series, Halloween series, The Patriot, In the Mouth of Madness, Sonic the Hedgehog 1 + 2

Shows - Jericho, X-Files, Star Trek (OS, TNG and DS9 especially. Anything nu-Trek is easily skippable), Chernobyl, Avatar The Last Airbender, Lost (it's not confusing if you just pay attention!)

Anime - Fullmetal Alchemist (both series are good but Brotherhood follows the manga more closely), Death Note, Bungo Stray Dogs, Yowamushi Pedal, Ace of Diamond, Yuri on Ice (super gay but funny and heartwarming and not woke beyond the two male leads being stupidly in love with each other even if it's never mentioned explicitly), Street Fighter II V. Honestly most anime isn't woke at all, so just look around for things that seem interesting to you and you're probably good there

Comics - Batman: No Man's Land, Batman: Knightfall, Batman: Bruce Wayne Murderer/Fugitive, Batman: The Killing Joke, any Marvel Masterwork collection, any Dark Horse Alien or Predator or Alien vs Predator comic, Spawn. Special mention: Isom and the Rippaverse. The Rippaverse is a new shared comic universe created by Eric July, self-described anarcho-capitalist and contributor to The Blaze that's specifically designed from the ground up to not be woke and offer a customer first mentality. They promise that the various books they're planning on releasing will focus on story and characters, not politics or social justice crap. So far, only Isom #1 has come out, and I haven't gotten my copy yet, but most people who've read it seem to love it, and that one comic alone has already sold over 43,000 copies and made $3.7 million so early adopting is probably a safe bet.

Games - Metal Gear Solid series, Batman: Arkham series, Halo 1-3, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Greedfall, Dishonored series, Edge of Eternity, Metro series, Mafia 1+2, Elden Ring. Pretty much any game before the mid-2010s is a safe bet for non-woke, so like anime, you should just look at older games you think you might like, or their remasters, and go from there.

So that's my list. It's by no means complete, and there's no real order to the recs, so just look them up and see what, if anything, appeals to you. If you, or anyone else, want more specific recommendations or an opinion on a certain title or series that I mentioned or even ones I didn't, feel free to ask. I'll help if I can. Mostly what I read and watch are sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and things like that. I don't really read typical bestsellers or westerns or comedies. So I might be much help with those genres.

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loopy777 · 1 year

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🤲✨🎈

Yay, now let's consult the codex to figure out what I'm being asked!

(I may have reblogged this meme solely to get a chance to use the phrase "consult the codex." I think that sounds neat.)

🤲what do YOU get out of writing?

I'd say I get three things:

All the ideas in my head get pulled out into the real world, refined, and turned into a story I want to read.

I get to engage with characters and a setting I really enjoy and crave more of.

I get validation through an art form I respect, enjoy consuming, and can actually perform myself. (This is despite and/or because of the fact that I seem to favor the baser forms of this particular art.)

✨What’s a fic you’ve posted you wish you could breathe life into again and have people talking about it? (or simply a fic you wish got more credit)

In terms of credit, I've long felt that "Death of a Thousand Cuts" (AO3, FF.net) fell flatter than it merited, compared to my other stuff. My later Maiko works get more play, so perhaps it's just that I hadn't really been 'found' by that fandom yet, or maybe it hit at the wrong time in the migration of the fandom from FF.net to AO3, but I've long looked at that one and wondered, "Why aren't you as successful as your younger siblings?"

As for what I'd like to see more talk about, I often kind of crave some discussion -- good or bad -- about "The Avatar & The Fire Princess." (AO3, FF.net) Don't get me wrong- it's been very well received and I've gotten indications that the Azulaang fandom really likes it, but every time I do a re-read, I wish I could talk about it with people because there's just so much characterization and layers to the character interactions. I want to be a fan of my own work and gush about it (or argue about it) with other fans. XD But in case that sounds massively egotistical, rest assured that I also have enough awkwardness and imposter syndrome that when people actually do gush about my stories to me, I struggle with doing anything other than blushing and saying thanks.

🎈describe your style as a writer; is it fixed? does it change?

A solidly functional storytelling formula realized by wild and inconsistent swerves between base writing and pretentious attempts at something more poetic. My writing voice is often influenced by what I'm reading at the time, which I've weaponized by purposefully reading the authors I want to mimic for any given work/chapter.

#loopy memes

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mainsur · 2 years

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Ultima iii the floor attacks you

Virtue affects how NPCs interact with the player enlightenment in the Virtues is achieved through the player's actions as well as through meditation at shrines. This is also the first Ultima where playing as a human is necessary, eliminating other races such as the elves, dwarves, and "bobbits" found in previous games (however, even in the first three Ultimas where they could be chosen as player characters, there were never any non-player characters (NPC) of those non-human races).Īlthough each profession embodies a particular Virtue, to become an Avatar the player must achieve enlightenment in all eight virtues. For example, choosing Compassion creates a Bard, Honor a Paladin, Sacrifice a Tinker, and so on. These situations do not have one correct resolution rather, players must rank the Eight Virtues and whichever stands as their highest priority determines the type of character they will play. Instead of simply choosing stats to assign points to as in the first three Ultima games, players are asked various ethical dilemmas by a gypsy fortune-teller using remotely tarot-like cards of the eight virtues. Though Avatarhood is not exclusive to one chosen person, the hero remains the only known Avatar throughout the later games, and as time passes he is increasingly regarded as a myth. Ĭonversely, actions in the game could remove a character's gained Virtues, distancing them from the construction of Truth, Love, Courage and the greater axiom of Infinity-all required to complete the game. After proving his or her understanding in each of the Virtues, locating several artifacts and finally descending into the dungeon called the Stygian Abyss to gain access to the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom, the protagonist becomes an Avatar. The game follows the protagonist's struggle to understand and exercise the Eight Virtues. The object of the game is to focus on the main character's development in virtuous life-possible because the land is at peace-and become a spiritual leader and an example to the people of the world of Britannia. Unlike most other RPGs the game is not set in an "age of darkness" prosperous Britannia resembles Renaissance Italy, or King Arthur's Camelot. Lord British felt the people lacked purpose after their great struggles against the Triad were over, and he was concerned with their spiritual well-being in this unfamiliar new age of relative peace, so he proclaimed the Quest of the Avatar: He needed someone to step forth and become the shining example for others to follow. Eventually the world, now unified under Lord British's rule, was renamed Britannia. Īfter the defeat of each of the members of the Triad of Evil in the previous three Ultima games, the world of Sosaria underwent some radical changes in geography: Three quarters of the world disappeared, continents rose and sank, and new cities were built to replace the ones that were lost. The story instead focuses on the player character's moral self-improvement. Ultima IV is among the few role-playing games, and perhaps the first, in which the game's story does not center on asking a player character to overcome a tangible ultimate evil.

#Ultima iii the floor attacks you

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thecreaturechronicle · 3 years

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Random Thoughts on Statting Deities in Pathfinder 1E

It always bothered me that, unlike D&D, Pathfinder never even explored the idea of stats for deities above the level of demigods. So I stayed up last night thinking about it and brainstormed a few rough ideas.

Creatures up to CR 25 that can grant spells to worshipers (like Treerazer) and mythic characters with the Divine Source path ability are the equivalent of D&D’s (specifically Greyhawk’s) quasi-deities. Creatures from CR 26-30 that can grant spells (like true demon lords and archdevils) are demigods.

Note that each 2 mythic tiers/ranks adds +1 CR and that the following rules would be for NPCs only (unless the GM has a high tolerance for wild shit).

My idea is that once a character reaches mythic tier 10 and level 20 (CR 25), they can start gaining levels above 20 (see rules for epic level progression in the D&D 3.5 DMG). If they do, they become a demigod and automatically gain three instances of the Divine Source path ability (for a total of four domains) if they don’t already. Demigods can advance up to level 25 (CR 30).

Anything CR 31 or higher would be considered a true god. Instead of having class levels and mythic tiers, every true deity would be a unique creature (outsider for most deities, but aberration, dragon, fey, undead, and other creature types would be possible) with racial Hit Dice and exactly 10 mythic ranks. True gods grant access to five domains (and six subdomains), may have the equivalent of an appropriate class or classes’ abilities up to their CR (similar to the Monster Codex’s simple class templates), might have unique abilities, and possibly would have powers based on Deities & Demigods 3.0′s salient divine abilities.

For conversion purposes, D&D’s lesser gods would be CR 31-34, intermediate gods CR 35-37, and greater gods CR 38-40 (and perhaps higher, but we’re already way out of bounds for normal CR calculation).

Rules for avatars and aspects require further thought on my part.

This is all just spitballing and obviously would require tons of playtesting, especially since d20 game balance notoriously breaks down after around level 30.

#pathfinder #pathfinder 1e #pf1e #deities

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changeling-rin · 2 years

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Servo's guess: Purple, based entirely on the Discord avatar. And also looking like the sort of college student Codex started life as before his character became half hilariously evil.

My hair is currently purple, but my favorite color (and most of my closet) is green!

Also, I don't think I look like an exhausted college student, but I've had the 'you're younger than you look' conversation enough times that I probably do look like I'm in college... despite several attempts otherwise on my part

#Headcanons about Changeling #Servo #Anonymous Replies #Sort of close?#Made me chuckle though!

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self-loving-vampire · 3 years

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Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (1985)

Ultima 4 is a very historically-significant game, as well as being where the Ultima series cemented itself as something truly unique. Where the previous games in the series (as well as the RPG genre in general) often dealt with defeating some kind of evil overlord, Ultima 4 has no antagonist and instead calls on you to perfect yourself and embody a set of eight moral virtues.

Summary

You start the game by answering several moral dilemmas to determine your class and starting location. You are then transported to the fantasy land of Britannia to embark on a spiritual quest to become the Avatar of virtue and read the Codex of Ultimate Wisdom in the Abyss.

To do this, you must master eight virtues and understand the three principles involved in them.

The game has been widely ported but I will be reviewing the free version available from GOG.

Freedom

Ultima 4 is an extremely open game in many ways. There are eight possible classes and each is rather different, with a unique starting location. Most importantly, all of the many tasks the game asks you to complete prior to the final descent into the Abyss can be done in any order you desire.

You can maximize your virtues in any order, explore dungeons in any order, travel the world as you wish, find the runes in any order, and etc.

So all in all, this game is very non-linear when it comes to exploration and objective order.

Note, however, that due to the way this game is designed it is not actually very replayable. Even if the initial experience is different for each class and you can complete the game’s many objectives in any order, those objectives are still the same and they all do need to be completed by the end. There are no alternate ways to complete any objectives.

By the end of the game, you will be playing largely the same way regardless of what your initial class was or what order you did things in.

This is made worse by the fact that ranged weapons completely dominate the game. There is little reason to use melee if you have the option to use ranged weapons.

Character Creation/Customization

Besides your name, gender, and choice of class, you cannot really decide anything about your character. Once in-game, you also don’t have that many options for upgrading your party besides obtaining better equipment and finding magical orbs in dungeons.

That said, the game does get some points for the variety of classes and for how radically some of them can affect your experience, particularly in the early game.

The most striking example is the Shepherd class, which you get for having humility as your favored virtue during the character creation questions. Shepherds are terrible at everything. They can’t use magic at all (most other classes can to varying degrees) and are awful at combat, having a very limited selection of weapons and armor available. They also start in a ruined island populated by monsters. It is basically the game’s “hard mode.”

You can answer these same questions and find your class here (the link says Ultima VI but it’s really the same ones as far as I can tell, or at least close).

Story/Setting

The game world is reasonably large and memorable, but to be honest the setting of the Ultima games has always been on the more generic side, even if some of the games in the series are pretty immersive. The virtues introduced in this game are really the primary spice on the game world.

It is a medieval fantasy setting with all the staples: Fireballs, orcs, dragons, liches, skeletons, and so on. It does have a few less common creatures as well (like balrons and zorns).

A generic fantasy setting is not necessarily bad, but it is not particularly good either. It is just the baseline as far as I am concerned, and can be boring on its own if you are not drawn in by anything else a game offers.

In this case, the setting is not really the game’s selling point so much as its unique objective. It is also still a massive improvement over some of the earlier games in the series, which feature things like space travel and time travel.

Another point in favor is that the towns scattered throughout the land are not just generic fantasy towns, they are dedicated to specific virtues. Those virtues seem to be particularly alive in the minds of their inhabitants in this game as well. The virtues are so embedded in the setting for the rest of the series that it does give it more of an identity.

The story itself is, as previously mentioned, unique among all RPGs I know of. While there is a lot of combat and dungeons to explore, there is no big antagonist for you to defeat.

Your behavior is tracked from beginning to end. You will need to do things like donating money to the needy, donating blood at the healer, and letting non-evil creatures (generally animals) flee in order to become the avatar. I also do not recommend “grinding” out these virtues unless you really need to, as I found that as long as you know how to raise them you can easily achieve avatarhood in several of them just by playing the game normally, talking to everyone and visiting Hawkwind every time you’re in the castle.

In addition to maximizing your virtues and then meditating at the proper shrines, your quest will see you travel throughout the entire world to collect the artifacts you will need for your descent into the abyss.

You will need the eight stones of virtue (most of which are within dungeons), the Key of Three Parts, the three artifacts of the principles, the word of power, and more. You will also need to recruit seven party members to aid you in your quest, each representing one of the virtues (you are the representative of the eighth).

Immersion

I know it’s probably not that bad by the standards of its time, but I can’t say the game’s immersion is all that good. It does gain some points in some areas such as the way the manuals work and how you need to actually do things like keep track of the phases of the world’s two moons (clearly not something you’d see in our world!) to make proper use of moongates, but overall it is definitely not on the same level as other RPGs I have played. As was sadly the case for the technically-limited time period the game was made in, the world does not really react very much to your actions even though your virtues are tracked.

I do like the initial character creation questions, however. Trying to answer them honestly based on your own moral principles can be a good way to get started. It is also good that the whole virtue angle requires you to actually roleplay the quest of the avatar in order to win.

Gameplay

Playing the game is extremely simple as long as you reference your keys as needed and read the manuals (perhaps it is even too simple, with only one type of non-spell attack action and relatively few and uninteresting equipment options). Talking to every NPC you meet is also recommended, as they not only have a lot of advice but also several vital clues that you will need if you plan to complete the game without a walkthrough, as the whole thing is rather obscure about certain aspects of your quest.

The magic system is a mixed bag. You have to gather and mix reagents to cast spells. The reagents must be mixed ahead of time and are consumed. You must also know which reagents to mix. The spell manual that comes with the game explains most of the combinations, but there are some that you must discover on your own within the game, and they are for some of the most potent spells too (such as Resurrect).

On one hand, I like how the game invites you to actually learn its magic system in order to make use of it, with many reagents having consistent qualities that can let you guess what kinds of spells they may be used for. On the other, it can be a bit time-consuming to manually mix these reagents every single time you want to prepare a spell.

However, the thing that really kills the second half of the game is the combat.

The combat is initially a bit simple but functional. You can press one of the arrow keys to move in one of four directions, you can press A followed by a direction to attack in that direction, or you can press C to cast one of your prepared spells.

With such simplicity, combat in the early game doesn’t take very long, especially since as far as I can tell there are less/weaker enemies early on (though there’s enough encounters to make it a bit of a pain still). However, as you gather more companions (and you must have a party of 8 before venturing into the final dungeon and completing the game) combat starts to drag on as you have to manually command each of your eight party members.

It’s especially bad in that one party member in particular (Katrina the Shepherd) is, to put it bluntly, a complete burden on the party as you might expect from a shepherd. She will be missing every single attack against the stronger enemies that populate the late game, and not hitting very hard when she does hit due to the awful weapon selection shepherds get. I wish you did not need to recruit everyone.

This would have been a bit of a pain on its own, but not that bad. No, the real problem is one single spell: Sleep.

A handful of late game enemies (such as gazers, but especially reapers, and balrons) will spam this one spell without mercy, even if your entire party is already sleeping.

This is a spell that can incapacitate multiple characters, potentially half your party or more, for several turns. The Awaken spell is pointless as a counter to it, as it affects a single target and the enemy can spam Sleep every round while you will quickly run out of Awaken even if your spellcasters somehow manage to avoid the sleep themselves.

Your characters do not wake up if they take damage, and there seems to be no limit to how often the enemy can use Sleep.

This is still manageable when fighting only one or two of these enemies in reasonably open ground, but in tight spaces where sleeping characters can block the way for the rest of the party or in dungeons where you face half a dozen or more of these enemies in a single room it can make for an experience that is just painful.

It is not even that this makes the game difficult either, the enemies do very little damage even when they are not spending all their turns casting Sleep over and over again, but it does make some dungeon rooms feel like they exist merely to waste your time.

The single worst offender was this room at the bottom of the Abyss.

10 Balrons that you can’t even reach due to a wall of force (central blue square) in the way. They can Sleep half your party despite this, regardless of where anyone is in the room. I timed it and it literally took me about 20 minutes just to walk everyone east at this one turn. There are other rooms that have this same issue as well.

While there’s annoying things like that, the game is actually extremely easy in terms of combat, at least once you get over the initial hump.

Aesthetics

As noted in the setting section, the game is on the more generic side aesthetically. That said, the simple graphics are at least readable for the most part (magical fields and the like aside) and the unique main quest gives the game a very distinct feel.

Accessibility

Surprisingly high due to its simplicity. Combat is about as mindless as you could ask for in an RPG other than making it completely automatic like Ultima 7 did, and there are not actually that many keys to remember.

However, there are still a couple of things that modern players will have to adapt to. Chief among them are consulting the manuals throughout the game and taking notes.

The game has no quest log to record all the clues the game’s many, many NPCs provide you with. You have to actually write those things down together with things like the mantras for meditating at the shrines, the visions you get as you achieve partial avatarhoods, and etc.

Your knowledge of the virtues will be tested at the very end.

Conclusion

I would not blame anyone for jumping ship once the late game begins, as things become slow and repetitive at that point. However, I believe that this game is worth trying regardless (especially now that it is given out for free).

This is an RPG unlike any other I have seen, demanding its players to not only live up to heroic (and largely secular) moral principles but also encouraging them bring them out of the game and applying them to their lives and become better people.

While its combat can become a bit of a pain later on, the game’s ideas remain interesting at the very least. It is also possible to import one’s Ultima 4 save into Ultima 5, and then from that game to Ultima 6. Both of those games also have rather interesting premises that I will talk about in time.

In the end, I think you should at least try it if you are interested in the history of RPGs. This is the point where Ultima really “gets good” and ditches the nonsense that plagued the early games, though Ultima 7 is still likely a much better starting point for modern players.

The game ends with a call to action. The Quest of the Avatar is a lifelong journey that does not end with the game. You are told to return to your own world and put the virtues you have learned into practice and live as an example to your people, to truly be the avatar.

In the future, other games in the series will challenge and twist these ideals in various ways, but I like the heroic idealism on display here.

#vampire reviews rpgs #ultima 4 #quest of the avatar

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5lazarus · 3 years

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August Wrap-Up and Reflection

I was very productive this month, because of a few reasons: escapism from my shitty job, covid lockdown, horrible weather, and of course the 50k challenge I gave myself. Here's what I wrote, minus two things for a gift exchange, and my reflections on them:

Dragon Age Oneshots To The Victor The Spoils In the Skyhold gardens, in Adamant's wake, Solas meets Loghain. A character study of two trickster-kings, speaking a little too honestly. As Loghain himself says, "The past is always with us. It’s in our bones and our blood and we wear it on our skin. You can think otherwise, but you’ll never get far without it." This was fun to write, and I enjoyed talking about two out of three of my favorite trickster characters. I played the Dragon Age games in reverse order, and when I finally got to Loghain, I saw the seeds for the character they'd develop for DA:I. What was difficult about this story was writing the perspective of a character who knows everything, talking to someone who views him very much as a minor character in the vast tragedy that is their current battle. But developing their relationship via both of them as soldiers in the same party helped figure out what tack to take for the conversation. I think I relied a little too heavily on dialogue, especially in-game dialogue. I should've had this be busier, focused on the two in battle or something like that, which would have been more unique, more fun to read, and more fun to write. That's the problem with getting impatient with yourself and your writing, I guess. But I'm glad it's done. Love and Red Ink Varric tries his hand at a more literary Bildungsroman about his youth as a Kirkwall bohemian. Bianca tears it apart, editing for his own good. Sometimes love is in the margins, your almost ex-girlfriend telling you--I wasn't that pretty, when I was that young. Again I could've been more experimental with this piece, specifically having the two in bed and Bianca editing his work without him asking, her picking up his work and laughing at it. But in the end, I like this more passive version, because it's truer to Varric's character--the idealism and the disappointment. Got a lot of traction on Tumblr and less on AO3, which was interesting--Varric's more popular on this platform than AO3, maybe? The Domestics Alistair runs into an older elven woman on the battlements, watching the children play in the Skyhold courtyard below. They get to talking: isn't it nice that the mages get to keep their children now? Then, in the course of the conversation, Alistair figures it out.

Alistair says, “I always wondered. What my life would’ve been like, if she could’ve kept me. I always kinda knew she didn’t have a choice. King’s bastards are the king’s, not whoever carried them. If she were a servant and if I’d end up in the kitchens or, better yet, the dairy. I really like cheese. But if she were a mage, I guess we never had any of that. Unless she ran away.” Okay I'm proud of this little fic. It was nice to write something with a happy ending for once, originally I wasn't going to do that, but then the story would've been boring. My favorite part is Dorian resurrecting Blackwall from his snowy pyre as Sera mourns in the background--I think both Fiona and Alistair would be very aware of the way children are playing around them, wanting that domestic sense lost to them both. Especially because they both get their babies taken away. The Bane of Red Crossing In the astrarium cave in the Storm Coast with Inquisitor Lavellan, Cole, and Solas, Sera opens a chest and finds a beautiful bow, named the Bane of Red Crossing. But what is the Bane of Red Crossing? According to the codex: "Ser Yves de Chevac used this bow in the Exalted March against the Dales – specifically, in the liberation of Val Royeaux, where the chevalier famously struck down the elven forces' commander with a shot to the throat at two hundred feet."

Lavellan is not pleased, but does not know how to communicate effectively with Sera. Cole and Solas make it worse.

Sometimes there is no adequate resolution, when you are faced with the instrument of your great-grandparents' destruction. Sometimes there is nothing that disinterested compassion can say. I should've made this story nastier, and it might have been more interesting from Cole's perspective. But I think it works, I think having Lavellan and Sera and Solas like that is interesting, and this is a theme I might explore further in Fen'Harel's Teeth--the very different ways the three of them respond to Red Crossing. So Much Lore! So Much Information! Dorian has a wonderful conversation with the Skyhold Librarian about improvements to the library's filing system and the innovations coming out of Minrathous when Vivienne comes by and points out he's just talking to himself. He's been waxing rhapsodic about the Tevinter equivalent of the Dewey decimal system to a spirit--or maybe a demon. So clearly they must go and investigate.

Featuring Solas singing to keep time as he paints a very time-sensitive fresco, a small child whose name Dorian just can't get right, and a spirit of Wonder. (I wrote this yesterday, so it counts) This was fun! I don't think I quite got Dorian and Vivienne right though, and the most interested part of the story became Solas singing a very old love song--it might have been a stronger story if I took Vivienne out of it, who I struggle to write. She's appearing in a different story. But it was nice to write a fluffy fic--but now I want to write about Solas, Dorian, and that song. Star Trek Oneshots Jane Austen Book Club Dukat reads Pride and Prejudice to help him understand human relations (and fuck the Sisko). He thinks he’s being Darcy but really, he’s just Mr. Collins…and evil.

Garak lends him a copy of Jane Austen and a horrific cravat, and really, it's all downhill from there. Ahh, I love this story. I was really worried the jokes wouldn't land, but I think it worked out. Again I took too long to get to the point, two scenes could've been cut (Kira and Dax, probably, though it does move the plot), but this was a lot of fun. Tear of the Prophet Was prompted by ToasterBonanza to write about Kira Nerys repatriating an artifact sacred to Bajor from Cardassia, and this is what we got!

The Shakaar cell leads a procession after Cardassia returns the Orb of Contemplation to Bajor, to collective joy. Kai Opaka says, "So I say to you my people, the survivors of atrocity and keepers of the wormhole—the Prophets cried for you millennia before you were made. They sent their Tears from their temple as a safeguard as to what was to come. And now that it is safe, now that we have won—their Tears are for all."

Featuring Latha having an Orb experience, explaining why he became a vedek. This was cute, a little facile. I had trouble with this one. I should've taken my time and expanded it. Avatar: the Last Airbender Oneshot Cages Mai visits Azula. It is not easy. God I've never gotten more shit for a story than this one. I like this story! The point is that Azula's end is not nice, and that Mai is not a nice person, and neither is Azula. The ending is supposed to be upsetting. Her end is upsetting. Welcome to the world: bad things happen, all the time. As the summary says: it is not easy. All in all, a good month. My stories were a little too talky, though. For Fen'Harel's Teeth, I need to focus on action scenes. And for the remaining oneshots, a more interesting writing style. And picking up the pace!

#monthly roundup #august monthly roundup #august monthly reflection

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the-astral-express-archive · 3 months

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Honkai: Star Rail | Character Codex Avatars (4/?)

#Honkai Star Rail #Assets #Character Artworks #Character Codex Avatars #PNGs #Argenti #Luka #Welt Yang #Arlan #Gepard #Dan Heng - Imbibitor Lunae #Blade #Dan Heng #Yanqing #Jing Yuan #Luocha #Dr Ratio #Sampo #In-game Assets

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in-an-ecotone · 4 years

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tagged by: @voidistooshortforausername

rules: name 10 favorite characters from 10 different things and then tag 10 people

1: Felix Hugo Fraldarius from Fire Emblem: Three Houses (my current obsession)

2: Ling & Greed (sorry i can't just choose one) from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

3: Zuko from Avatar: the Last Airbender

4: Donna Noble from Doctor Who

5: Five from The Umbrella Academy

6: Araris Valerian from The Codex Alera (this is a great book series, go check it out!)

7: Ban from the Seven Deadly Sins

8: Spiderman/Peter Parker from the MCU

9: Undyne from Undertale

10: Crowley from Good Omens

tagging: @asexual-shepard-roronoa @stillebesat @a-very-real-human @themanwiththesuitcaseofflies @ricebattt @leannedirewolflover

#i know that's not ten people but whatever i just picked a couple mutuals #thanks for tagging me!

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that-soft-earth · 3 years

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My TMA post-ending headcanon - crunchy variety (The Magnus Archives)

MAJOR SPOILERS for the ending of The Magnus Archives! I originally wrote these fics as a feel-good resolution that felt realistic to me. I think the possibility of Jon and Martin dying together is a good ending, narratively speaking, and that the writers did well by their representation given the themes and ideas they were exploring. I’m not opposed to stories with unhappy endings for LGBT+ characters, when done with awareness. But I, personally, couldn’t bury THESE specific gays. We’ve buried enough gays: to AIDS, to violence, to addiction, to suicide. Sometimes we just can’t deal with it in fiction. So it’s a gift to anyone who needs to headcanon a story where Jon and Martin live and recover – not unmarked, not perfect, but together and happy. That fic collection (work in progress) was originally set in a world where the main characters really are free of the Fears. The original universe where Basira, Melanie and Georgie remained was reverted, Jon and Martin ended up in a second universe (similar to ours) and the Fears ended up in an unrelated third universe, but the main characters never get to know for sure about that third universe. The collection explores how Jon might survive after being separated from the Eye. But for those who feel that’s getting off too lightly, and doesn’t explain how Jon managed to come back from the stab wound (especially since my fic hints at Web involvement) there is another idea I had that would fit along with this fic, and this is its story.

In this version of events, the Fears HAD come through with them, and the Web had helped them somewhat, first by healing the stab wound (with a web-like scar), secondly easing their path a little by pulling strings to lead to the job Martin found that let them get back on their feet (unless that was just incredible luck, who knows). Maybe the Web helped them out of gratitude that Martin had gone along with Annabel’s plan. Or maybe to solidify its own foothold in the world. But all of the fears were set back a long way, far less powerful than they were at the start of TMA. After all, they’d had millennia to build up to what they were, and at least several centuries of overt connections to the world through avatars, monsters, artifacts etc based on the historical stories. So it would be well past Jon and Martin’s lifetimes before there would ever be a risk of a successful ritual. Jon eventually more or less came to terms with the events in the Panopticon. But he was tormented with the possibility that someone might ever be put in the same situation that he was, no matter how far into the future. He knew that it was essentially out of his hands, and that whatever the Fears ended up planning in the future might not even be an apocalypse. But he resolved to do what he could to tip the scales so that next time, if there was a next time, choices could be made earlier and with more knowledge, before the options became so narrow. He wrote a codex detailing their story and everything he knew about the Fears. It was difficult to revisit everything he’d been through as he worked on the codex over the span of many years. Martin was there to support him, and eventually new friends in his new world. He kept the writing practical, impersonal – nothing that sounded like a statement, nothing that might feed the Eye, diminished as it was. He never felt the connection within himself again, never found himself suddenly wielding any of the powers of the Archivist. But he was careful nonetheless.

Jon knew that in the span of lifetimes, libraries may be destroyed, books may be burned, stories forgotten or tapes hidden. There was no fool-proof way to ensure that his codex fell into the right hands at the right time, especially if someone was actively working to make sure it didn’t. He needed to make sure it was spread in such a way that all the copies could never be hunted down and destroyed or hidden. He needed to make it somehow diffuse, accessible from anywhere and by anyone when the time came, threaded through the whole world by an invisible network… a Web. But the Web, if he relied on it, would never allow his plan to have the effect he hoped. It would find some way to twist or pervert his work to achieve the opposite of its aims, because he was trying to give those people of the future the freedom to choose, something that was entirely antithetical to the Mother of Puppets. But the way the Web had entered this world, re-formed itself in this new reality, was through a choice. A choice based on human connection. Maybe the Web in this new world had expanded its scope, become something more complicated than an entity that fed on fear: an entity that fed on connection. The connections we have with each other, the influences we have on each other, whether good or bad, fearful or wonderful or anything in the messy, complicated span of human experience. And there existed already the perfect conduit for both influence and connection, born from the weavings of many threads and already devoted in a multitude of ways to the purposes of influencing and connecting. A great Web. The World Wide Web.

#the magnus archives #tma #tma jonmartin #the magnus archives fanfiction #the magnus archives fanfic #jonmartin #my fic

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jbk405 · 3 years

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I watched Shadow and Bone over the weekend since I was looking to fill the time.

I wasn’t particularly impressed by anything, but it at least kept me in to the end of the season. Which is a far sight better than several other shows I started recently.

The characters are all standard archetypes so after the first episode you’ll know exactly how they’re all going to act for the rest of the season. The story also doesn’t offer any surprises, if you’ve read any number of fantasy adventure books or watched TV before you’ll be able to plot pretty much the whole arc by the end of the third episode. But provided you don’t expect to be Surprised and Amazed then you should be satisfied.

The magic system of the setting is easy to understand, albeit with the inevitable comparisons to Avatar that you’ll get with any sort of elemental powers. Although I’ll actually say it’s more of a Codex Alera vibe if you ask me.

I do have several questions about the history of this setting, because as presented I don’t understand how Ravka continues to exist as functional state. The Fold has existed for hundreds of years, preceding even the invention of firearms, so how is it that West Ravka is only now attempting to secede? Travel across the Fold is perilous even with armed soldiers to fight off the volcra when they attack the skiffs, the idea that they could be repulsed by bows-and-arrows is so farfetched I won’t even entertain it. The Grisha weren’t accepted in the Ravkan army back then, either. With absolutely no way to defend the skiffs, in fact no skiffs at all without the Grisha to propel them, the Fold would have been fundamentally impassable. Not “dangerous” or “difficult”, but impassable, which would have meant that the west and east would have had no contact at all. Not “limited” contact, but no contact. How did these two territories not diverge centuries ago? Add in the actual war that Ravka is waging against their neighbors (Their technologically superior neighbors at that) and I am flummoxed that Ravka exists at all. It should have broken into two (If not more) successor states long ago.

It would make some sense if the two halves had diverged long ago, and then the East had reconquered the West after developing the technology and abilities to make crossing the Fold at least possible, but that’s not how it’s presented. These two regions have apparently remained united all along, and only now is the simmering resentment in the west blossoming into rebellion.

I understand that the setting is partially based on Tsarist Russia, and so I realize that this is deliberately leading up to the societal collapse to metaphorically represent the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War and other events of the early 20th century, but we should be past all that. Given the time involved we should have already seen the metaphorical rise of communism and the metaphorical cold war and probably also seen the metaphorical collapse of the Soviet Union as well.

#Shadow and Bone #TV #Netflix #Worldbuilding

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companionwolf · 3 years

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Thing to do for C&C+ (as of 9/27/2021)

Overall

Rewrite power converter mission to be more loss-heavy

Finish writing conversation paths for Shadow

Implement if-statements in commander nightmare sequence to determine if Central shows up (passages that may be of note for this: if the commander ‘chases the rabbit’, if the commander says specific dialogue to Shen during her introduction, if certain dialogue choices are made during Kelly convo)

Set up variable for commander vulnerability score (do the same for central? possibly for other characters?); put in StoryInit but first change in this variable occurs (possibly) during nightmare sequence

Possibly set a variable for commander/central … bond score? Does this mean anything? In any case, it would tick up during commander nightmare sequence if central comes to their aid— set in StoryInit tho remember that

Review vial/prototype/codex brain/psi gate/avatar analysis cutscenes and rework their one sentence/paragraphs

Review LnA cutscenes for some juicy dialogue but don’t replicate beat for beat you don’t need to do that

Same as above but with the alien hunters mission/s

Just Fucking Replay the Game with the Save You Made BASED ON C&C+???? bro

tag all passages with ‘callmenu’ (red)

add menu button code to all passages

Figure Out the Save System Better (you want something similar to OS’s)

Iteration specific

Iteration 3: add Kelly funeral convo

Iteration 3.5: conditional text and variable setting

Iteration 4: Rewrite entire prose (it’s not GOOD ENOUGH); add more player choice, expand ‘Again’ into something more transitional to 5’s opening, rewrite the bits of this section that conflict (is Raine dead or not?, make Warlock … more Warlock (game dialogue inclusion? who knows.)

Iteration 4.5: figure out conditionals (during convo w Shen, based on where the players goes looking); flesh out nightmare scene more (pull from old builds?); eventually rewrite entire sequence so central is not so ooc (he feels ooc right now; I could argue ‘drunk’ but :/ no), reconfigure this section to be later in the evening and not immediately post mission, finish ‘short circuit’ tree and ‘commander and central talk about the nightmare’ tree (‘you want to talk?’ tree from earlier folds into this), finsh choice tree where the commander just stays by the bedside

Iteration 5: write proper introduction for Outrider, input game dialogue about the Lost from Tygan, rewrite the Assassin fight scene ?

Iteration 5.5: figure out if expansion on rescue scene/s is needed, rewrite/expand if so; figure out if we actually need beat for beat chip scene w/tygan

iteration 6 and 6.5 have no notes

iteration 7: expand sleepover scene from placeholder (more detailed interactions, a few player choices, actually telling the stories instead of just mentioning them

Iteration 7.5: expand blacksite scene from placeholder (more description, player choice?, determine whose names for the name blanks), write out ‘Darts’ 'sit down' 'poor impulses' 'shotgun' 'garbage night 2' sequences, conditionals for lie down seqeuence based on drink?, implement conditional nightmare graf if player chose to consume alcohol

Iteration 8: finish the 3 different conversation routes and the 2 ‘do you move?’ routes; add code for the routes where you get a rock

#wolf barking #c&c+#consolidating from all the posts I’ve made about what needs to be done

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