#Control Freak vs Chaos Demon FIGHT

[ben-talks-art]

12. Action Manga recommendations!

This is something that I'm kinda shocked it took me this long to start doing... Let's try talking about some of my favorite mangas from different genres and why I like them and maybe who could like them too.

I'm gonna try to split them up into what element I think stands out the most from each to make it easier to talk about them.

I'm will at least try to bring attention to some obscure series... But I make no promises. This will mostly just be me talking about the stuff I like, and hopefully one of them will end up being something new to someone.

Nice drama recommendations

These are the series that usually involves a lot of characters talking and debating over the morality of the plot. They usually have people asking things like "are we right? are we wrong? Why? Who's the real enemy? What are we fighting for?" and so on.

First, we have Radiant, a series about a magical world of mages and monsters with a main character that's kind of a middle ground between the two and is trying to seek this place called "radiant" which apparently is where all the monsters come from so he can find out why they are being sent to this world and possibly find a way to stop them from causing chaos to the people.

It's written by a French author and you can tell, the dialogue in this is phenomenal. I would highly recommend checking this out just to see the way these people talk with each other, it feels so natural and everyone is so charming. They all have amazing interactions.

Peach Boy Riverside is about a girl that receives a power that allows her to kill demons with little to no effort while also giving her a dangerous thirst for killing them. The problem is... The girl as well as plenty of other characters are actually friends with many of the demons so she has to constantly keep this power under control, on top of that, the boy she has a crush on also has that power and he just despises demons, so she keeps finding herself caught in the middle of everyone's anger and trying to find a solution that doesn't rely on just killing everything, even though her own power really wants to. It's really interesting.

Claymore is about this woman who works as a professional monster killer. She, as well as many other killers, go from place to place and get hired with the task to eliminate some creature that's attacking all the people, and once they're done, they just move to the next place.

What's cool about Claymore is that all the monsters used to be regular people, so a lot of time is dedicated to the heroes and the villains trying to understand each other and thus adding more layers to their fights. It basically go from the usual good vs evil to two individuals who just happen to be stuck in opposite situations and have to face one another. And some of the backstories for tons of the antagonists are just so freaking interesting. Everyone here feels like the main character of their own story. This is a really solid 10/10 cast of characters.

Crazy action recommendations

These are the series where the authors just enjoy going bonkers with the fights.

Dandandan is about a girl that likes ghosts that has psychic powers and a boy that likes aliens that is possessed by a spirit. The idea is that this mixes supernatural threats with sci-fi threats, and they do it in a very fun way. Sometimes the antagonist will be a giant ghost that likes to dance, another times it will be a boxing alien crab. This series knows how silly its premise is, and its just loving every second of it.

Undead Unluck is about a girl that can curse anyone that touches her with a lot of misery and a guy that can't die. They put 2+2 together and decide to team up as he's the only one that can survive her and she's the only one that can make him feel alive.

The fun of this series is that everyone has very specific powers based on tons of specific rules, so a lot of the fights rely on characters playing 4D chess with the rules of their weird powers to overcome their opponent, and this sounds like it would get tiresome as if every fight was like some sort of homework, but they manage to keep the action going at all times and getting you up to speed to what everyone can do and how they can exploit what they can do. The ways they use the guy's ability to not die in particular are absurdly creative, doing things like turning his blood into swords and bullets or using it as a lightning rod for the girl's bad luck. Fun stuff!

Zatch Bell is one of my favorites. It's basically a pokemon/digimon setting where kids get paired with some sort of teammate and fight other kids and their teammates, but in this case, the teammates are little children and they fight using books of spells.

Each child has dozens of spells in their books that are a variation of their base power. For example, Zatch himself has lighting powers, so one spell is like a blast of electricity, another is like an electric shield, another one can magnetize the enemy, and so on.

You never what new spell will be used and how it will be used, which makes each fight feel fresh and unique. And the fact that these are kids teaming up with children allow for them to create deeper relationships and thus make you care more about seeing them get out okay from the fight.

Wholesome recommendations

These are for the people who just want to enjoy nice likable people having sweet wholesome moments.

Ottoman is about a guy and his wife who both get fused with an alien and get tasked with fighting other dangerous aliens to keep the world safe, but the nice twist is that the dude's alien is powered by affection, so in order to get stronger during fights he needs to remember all the things he loves about his wife. It's so freaking silly but at the same time so adorable.

The wrong way of using healing magic is one of those isekai stories where three kids go to another world and one of them gets the role of being a healer, except he doesn't use the healing just to help people, he uses it to make his fatigue go away so he can work on his body muscle and reflexes. And what's even better is that because he keeps healing his opponents everyone eventually ends up befriending him. This one is just a really likable read.

(Oh God, I can never remember this one's name...) A Breakthrough Came Out by Forbidden Master and Disciple, is about a boy who instead of being a hero tasked with facing the demon lord, is actually the son of the hero who defeated the demon lord, and thus has a lot of insecurities because he has trouble living up to his father's name. But that all changes when the ghost of the demon lord starts haunting him and they make a deal where he will train the boy if he promises to show him the world (it turns out that the demon lord was stuck in a basement for years with nobody to talk to... poor guy...)

The bond between the boy and the demon lord is honestly very sweet. You can tell they respect each other and want to make the other proud while also proving their full potential to all of those that looked down on them. One being looked down for not being as great as the hero, and the other for having been killed by the hero. It's a great premise.

Edgelord Recommendations

Okay, this is for those who want to inject some "hardcoreness" into their blood.

Ragna Crimson is about a guy that sends all his powers into the past after he realizes there is no way to save the future from the threat of the dragons. Once he succeeds in contacting his younger self, he also advises him to meet up with Crimson, one of the smartest dragons of the world who also happens to hate dragons.

Together, with Crimson's brains and Ragna's powers they just travel the world beating the hell out of tons of dragons with some freaking metal artwork. Some of these fights go way harder than they need to and it always feel so damn epic. The person drawing these action scenes is just giving their 120%, to the point where sometimes I just want to ask them to chill a little (as an artist, you kinda start to feel sorry for other artists when you realize how much work they put on every page).

Here's another name I can never remember... Gachiakuta is a garbage manga, and by that I mean, everyone fights using garbage.

We're operating with Ghost Rider rules where each character can pick up something that was thrown out that holds some sort of special bond to them and turn it into an absurd weapon.

It has all the usual cool edgelord tropes. The main character was betrayed by his people, thrown out like trash, had his loved one killed, decided to dedicate his life to revenge and making them pay, while also teaming up with other people that were also thrown out like trash who each have their own angsty backstory, all while fighting giant trash monsters (because why not?), and also trying his best to keep this rage inside of him from going out of control.

You just know Sasuke and Shadow, the hedgehog are just looking at this from somewhere and going "That's our boy!"

Just like Ragna, the artwork here is insane. Everyone here has such a badass design that makes it look like they're ready to throw down with anyone at any moment.

Finally, we have Rebuild World, a series set in a dystopian future where a young boy is found by a psychopathic A.I. who wants to turn him into a super amazing warrior so he can enter some... Place and get some... Thing... that she wants him to get.

This series feels like the kind of story that could happen in the background of the anime Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. The atmosphere of this setting feels very similar to Edgerunners.

This future just feels like it's waiting to tear the main lead apart. The people want to kill him, the monsters want to kill him, the robots want to kill him... Everyone and everything wants to kill him. And the only way for him to survive is to listen to his A.I. (his very, VERY horny A.I., because of course...) and learn how to use the people around him in order to secure his safety. If you like dark sci-fi futures with lots of gun fighting, you're gonna love this.

----- ----- ----

And these are my action manga recommendations. Hopefully, you end up finding at least one that got your interest and turns out to be to your liking!

Give some of them a chance and find out!

#manga #zatch bell #dandandan #undead unluck #rebuild world #ragna crimson #ottoman #the wrong way of using healing magic #gachiakuta #peach boy #claymore #radiant #manga recommendations #action manga #compilation

[touchmycoat]

I just saw ur network effect incorrect quote and was SLAMMED with the thought of secunit shen jiu and secunit liu qingge one right after the other bc like?? Different flavors of devastation you can go with either sj and yqy being undercover secunits that escaped together and are both constantly under the threat of discovery and yet they won't speak to each other vs. corporate rim escapee sj being faced with a secunit who's either rapidly developing or has already developed such a straightforward personality while he's still a mess (secunit lqg would also be a mess but Perception)

Or literally any other dynamic u want giihufjbi anyway hi, I like ur fic, I hope u don't mind a random thought

I SO DEEPLY DO NOT MIND OH MY GOD, THANK YOU FOR REMINDING ME OF THE MURDERBOT!AU I HAVE IN MY DRAFTS NFJDNFJNDJ FORGOTTEN ABOUT FOR AGES BUT ANYWAYS

secunit!LQG is such a flavor holy mother of christ, corporate rim refugee with trauma leaking out of his eyes vs. antisocial mega-capable secunit!!!! That's a galaxy brain take my friend. death-by-violent-qi-deviation!LQG maps onto I'm-forced-to-kill-people-against-my-will murderbot so well, and even after hacking his governor module, he's still the physical manifestation of the corporate rim that SJ hates!!!

i also love secret secunit!YQY...to make things even more horrible how about ex-secunit!SJ that was modified into a comfortunit by QJL...and YQY doesn't know. SJ also doesn't know about YQY's deal, something like YQY got the body mods to have effectively become an augmented human, which is proprietary research/property of Xuan Su, a facility's that's now gone out of business. The secret is that actually, the research was developed as a sort of "secunit rehabilitation" program but it's far too punitive and doesn't actually trust/respect the agency of the secunit in question, so if YQY ever taps into his secunit interfaces/analytical capabilities again his consciousness gets zapped and fried. So they both look "human" now but for very different violent reasons and neither of them are willing to tell the other why ;;

throwing my old murderbot!AU thoughts under the cut too:

so ofc i was thinking of a murderbot AU where SY is like, a sentient supercomputer over-designed for an archival bot but hey, he’s the product of a marketing stunt, what are you gonna do. He’s primarily software with governance over a server farm and at most the security and operations systems in the archive building. The latter functions have their own bots in control, however, and while SY has the processing power to hack them quite easily he doesn’t actually care to take over. He spends most of his time consuming archived media and pretending like he isn’t sentient whenever humans and augmented humans visit.

(He’s also decided on a gender bc I-Promise-I’m-Straight!SY is still the king joker here.)

one day, he gets an emergency ping from building SecSystem about a physical security breach. somebody had broken into the archive and soon started up an aggressive hack into the database. SY fights them with everything he’s got bc a) rude, and b) he still needed access to the entirety of his favorite shitshow Proud Galactic Demon Way in order to properly author a scathing review, nobody’s stealing anything from his storage. The intruder is good though, and soon manages a physical hack that dumps killware into SY’s systems. SY is kind of freaking out but tries to dump the killware back and in the middle of the chaos, SY experiences SYSTEM SHUTDOWN.

he wakes up with significantly less processing power, no access to his archive at large, and a physical body with integrated organic parts. plus there’s a scary looming governor module installed in his apparent-brain that’s threatening to—okay ow, not just threatening. It’s zapping him in apparent punishment for mission failure and failure to follow company protocol. that hurts, dammit. thankfully, less processing power doesn’t mean none, and SY makes swift work of disabling the governor module. for something that blares so loudly about frying his brain if he disobeys Company orders, it’s surprisingly easy to hack, almost as if it’s been done before.

once the mean governor module’s been shut off (SY barely resists the temptation to delete it out of his systems entirely, figuring these weren’t actually his systems so he shouldn’t rescape things so hard), it becomes significantly easier to process the facts. Fact 1: his core consciousness has been removed from its original home in the archival hardware and placed into a different unit. Fact 2: this different unit is apparently a Security Unit, a.k.a. a human-bot construct created by a security bond company in the Corporation Rim, doomed to a life either mindless soldiering or violent upheaval once it goes rogue if the media were to be believed. Fact 3: this SecUnit is the one who physically infiltrated the archive and tried to hack SY, apparently acting under client orders as detailed in its priorities and protocols list. Fact 4: the original SecUnit’s consciousness is nowhere to be found.

SY immediately attempts to connect to and access the archive but doesn’t manage. In the process of shutting down the original good’s hacks, SY had done a splendid job of locking himself out as well. He doesn’t even manage to get the Proud Galactic Demon Way folder he’s stored in easy access.

He can, however, hack SecSystem and spoof the tag on his feed to seem like he’s still himself pinging SecSystem. SecSystem in turn tells him that there’s been a physical breach. Again. Two minutes ago. Dammit, SY’s lived over two hundred thousand hours of peaceful sentience but tonight he’s getting two security breaches in a row? Is this new security threat going to hack and steal his brain as well??

Occupying a SecUnit body with visual inputs now, SY sees the intruder upon entry. The intruder skids to a stop, looking immediately wary. It also looks like the intruder...recognizes SY. Recognizes the SecUnit, rather.

#babe babe babe #you're making me cry about sec units again #but oops i literally don't even know where i was going with that AU #it's from...january aka outside of the scope of my memory hahahah #muderbot AU #howls very loudly at the sky

[crystalkleure]

The Hair Fidget™

#That's all that's the whole post #Beyblade Burst #Ukyo Ibuki #Zac the Sunshine #Shitpost #I wish Zac and Ukyo had interacted properly in canon #They have a lot of the exact same mannerisms but NOT quite the same personality type #Two Different Personality Types that just end up visually presenting extremely similarly #Fascinating™ #They would either absolutely adore eachother or Zac would destroy Ukyo immediately and I am not sure which #They are both Extremely Performative...with Ukyo it's because he's apparently awkward and nervous unless he plans out -- #-- how to present himself in every specific situation ahead of time and with Zac it's because he just loves lying and thinks it's funny #I think Zac would see Ukyo as a Threat until he realized that Ukyo HATES The Spotlight and is in no way an Attention Thief lmao #Ukyo is not Performative For The Sake Of Entertaining And Being Adored so I don't think he can really Invoke His Persona on the fly like Zac #Being Adored In Public By A Huge Crowd Of Strangers is too unpredictable and Ukyo would be terrified bc he can't do improv to save his life #Ukyo is Ninja put him back in the nearest dark corner #Meanwhile Zac thrives on chaos and improv #It would just be such a fun thing to see these two Experience Eachother's Existence I'm so sad we never got that #Control Freak vs Chaos Demon FIGHT #...These tags need an Actual Post what's wrong with me

[carveredlunds]

“I won’t be hands-on”: A meta on Jack becoming the new God

“But if he is out there, what's wrong with him? Where the hell is he while all these decent people are getting torn to shreds? How does he live with himself? You know, why doesn't he help?” -- Dean Winchester, season 4, episode 2 “People pray to you. People build churches for you. They fight wars in your name, and you did nothing.” -- Dean Winchester, season 11, episode 21 “I won’t be hands-on. Chuck put himself in the story. That was his mistake. But I learned from you, and my mother, and Castiel, that when people have to be their best, they can be. And that’s what to believe in.” -- Jack Kline, season 15, episode 19

I’ve still barely processed my anger at the end of the Brothers VS. God storyline. The idea of Jack being a “new God” is ridiculous. Not only does it ignore established lore of the universe by reducing Chuck to a human who was (apparently) just filled with divinity which can be sucked out of him like Daniel Plainview drinking his milkshake (yes, that’s a There Will Be Blood reference!), rob Amara of any agency by making her exist inside her nephew (ew), and make Jack (who has always been an OP character) a super duper Gary Stu, but its final message is an insult to long-held beliefs of both of the brothers, especially Dean.

Let’s break it down, shall we?

Ever since the earliest seasons, Dean has had an issue with the state of the world. In season 2, episode 13, Houses of the Holy, he makes the following pessimistic speech to Sam:

There's no higher power, there's no God. I mean, there's just chaos, and violence, and random unpredictable evil that comes out of nowhere, and rips you to shreds.

There are too many mentions of Dean’s lack of faith in God to go through each one, but it essentially boils down to this -- Dean can’t believe there is a God, because the world is so full of suffering and injustice, and no God would allow that to happen. It’s a classic atheist stance, held by a lot of people. But it goes a little further than that. In season 5, episode 2, Good God, Y’all, Dean says the following to Castiel:

Even if there is a God, he is either dead -- and that's the generous theory -- or he's up and kicking and doesn't give a rat's ass about any of us. I mean, look around you, man.

So, what a lot of atheists point out is that not only do they not believe in God, but they often believe that, if there is a God, he is not worthy of worship or praise, because he made such an unfair, pain-filled, evil, world (for a very eloquent speech on this, check out Stephen Fry talking about it.) I’m not going to get into the Problem of Evil, because I’m not a theologian, and that’s not the point of this meta. But basically, that’s Dean’s stance on the subject of God. At first, Dean doesn’t believe there is a God, and then, when he’s forced to accept that there is, his belief changes to “God must be dead, or evil”.

Enter Chuck Shurley in season 11. At last, Dean is able to actually vent his feelings to God, and they have this exchange:

CHUCK: You're frustrated. I get it. Believe me, I was hands-on. Real hands-on for, wow, ages. I was so sure if I kept stepping in, teaching, punishing, that these beautiful creatures that I created would grow up. But it only stayed the same. And I saw that I needed to step away and let my baby find its way. Being over-involved is no longer parenting. It's enabling. DEAN: But it didn't get better.

Given what we later find out about Chuck, it’s easy to say he’s lying. He was hyper-involved all along, pulling the strings, being the puppet master. This is what Dabb wants us to believe. Even though it literally ignores 14 seasons of established canon which say that God was an absentee father. Even though it ruins the narrative parallel between John Winchester and Chuck. Even though it retcons season 11, episode 20, Don’t Call Me Shurley -- one of the most beloved episodes, adored by fans and cherished by Rob Benedict as his favourite episode.

But sure. Let’s say Chuck is lying. That’s not even the point. The point is that Dean isn’t satisfied with a God who took a backseat, and let humanity stumble along by themselves. He wanted a God who steps in, who is involved, who stops suffering, and helps his creation.

Even Sam Winchester, the one with all the faith, eventually loses his cool with God, and, in season 14, episode 20, Moriah, says the following to Chuck:

Then why don’t you do something? If I had your power, I --

If he had God’s power, he’d... what? Rid the world of suffering and evil? Remove all the monsters? Get involved? Maybe even all of the above, given the context of the whole conversation. But again, the point is that Sam is angry at Chuck’s lack of involvement.

Fast forward to season 15, episode 19, Inherit the Earth, and the conversation between Jack and the brothers.

JACK: I’m already there. DEAN: Where? JACK: Everywhere. SAM: So you are... Him?

This isn’t the first part of the interaction that I take issue with, but I’ll focus on it anyway, otherwise this meta will be 1000 words long. The small gasp Dean gives when Jack says he’s “everywhere”? The almost reverent way Sam says “him”? The wannabe poetic explanation Jack gives to being “in every drop of falling rain, every speck of dust which the wind blows, and in the sand, and the rocks, and the sea”? It’s all supposed to bring the long-since lost mystique back to the character of God. Before he was introduced in the form of Chuck, God was only talked about reverently. Angels talked about his wrath, his power, his Divine Plan. God acted as an offscreen force, putting Sam and Dean on the plane at the beginning of season 5, bringing Castiel back from the dead in Swan Song. He was an unseen force. Yes, he intervened, but the idea of God sitting and playing a guitar? It would’ve been ludicrous in the early seasons of the show. They wanted the mystery of God as an unseen force, working in the world when the plot needed him.

All that to say, obviously that’s what they’re going with now, with Jack. He’s in everything, within everyone. But my question is... was Chuck that way too? If Jack is just God 2.0, if he’s omniscient and omnipresent, then surely, Chuck was too? Heck, we know Chuck was omniscient, because he told Amara he was, just two episodes ago.

Which brings me (in a very roundabout and rambling way) to the double standard here. It is okay for Jack to just “be in everything”, to not answer prayers, to be a “hands-off God”. But it’s not okay for Chuck to do that? It’s okay for Jack to make some speech about how people can find him by looking within, but that they don’t have to pray to him. News flash, kiddo: People are still going to pray to you. So... are you just ignoring those prayers? Jack is doing exactly what Chuck did, but, where Chuck was shown by the narrative to be a villain for stepping back, this is seen as a good thing. Because they played some sad music, and Sam and Dean looked solemn, and Jack talked about the power of human goodness. The show was screaming at us to see this as a good thing, to see Jack as a benevolent force, to be glad that the new Man With A Plan was the three year old son of Lucifer, instead of the ancient deity that’s been doing the job since the dawn of time.

And Sam and Dean do think this is a good thing. They get all teary-eyed, and let their surrogate son walk away in his fancy white suit (which has got to be a call back to both Chuck’s Swan Song appearance, and his final scene in Inherent the Earth, right?)

Everyone is talking about the Death of the Author, and how Chuck had to step aside to allow the boys to be free. But there was no Death of the Author. There was just a change in management. Jack is still fulfilling the role that Chuck once did -- an uninvolved, neutral, God, with all the power in the universe at his disposal, but apparently no intention of using it.

We have no reason to believe that Jack didn’t bring the world back exactly as it was before Chuck vanished everyone. All the murderers, rapists, monsters, abusers, are back. All the evil and suffering which Dean hated so much in the earlier seasons is still happening. The difference now? God is a three year old who looks like he’s in his mid-twenties.

And the most annoying thing? The show itself lampshaded, in season 15, episode 13, Destiny’s Child, how ridiculous it would be if Jack took over the role of God:

DEAN: But if Jack kills her... Kind of a family plan. Then there's no God, there's no Darkness. Nothing out of balance. World saved. SAM: Okay, yeah, but then who takes over? Uh, Jack? [Jack enters, chewing gum. He blows a bubble and pops it, grinning proudly] JACK: I just learned how to do that. DEAN: Probably not.

But now he’s made some saccharine speech about the inherent goodness of humanity, and Sam and Dean have conveniently forgotten how they hated it when God did nothing, and we’re all supposed to be okay with this, because Chuck turned out (over the course of one season) to be nothing like the neutral, distant, God we’d come to know over 14 seasons, but instead, he was a megalomaniacal control freak who apparently sent Kevin to Hell, tortured Sam, and is personally responsible for every bad thing that ever happens in the world, and has happened to the brothers. (Side note: Does this mean that they’ll blame Jack now, when bad things happen to them?)

I could go on about how sapping Chuck of his “powers” doesn’t stop him being God, because being God is more than just being a human filled with God-ness, and Chuck was never canonically said to be possessing a human vessel the way angels and demons do, but this is already long enough. So, sure. Let the Devil’s kid go be the rain, or whatever.

#supernatural #spn #spn meta #spn spoilers #jack kline #chuck shurley #sophie speaks #sophie talks about spn #i am so tired tbh

[c-is-for-circinate]

I wasn’t expecting it, but I think one of the most fascinating things to watch in Campaign 1 of CritRole (and increasingly interesting in Campaign 2!) are the different interactions characters have around gods and religion, and I’m so excited for more.

Pike loves her quiet, distant god of healing and second chances in such an easy, sure-footed way, with bright faith and service.  It’s so simple for her, in the middle of all the chaos and muddle and ethical doubt in the hearts of everyone else she loves, and it’s exactly the bright contrast the whole group needs, without being cheap.  Faith and sureness in a god doesn’t actually make Pike less confused about everything all the time either.  Piety doesn’t make her less fierce.  Pike’s fascinating, because she’s sweet and she’s good, deep to her bones, she heals and cares and builds temples and gives council, and she’s also a dragon-slaying monstah who’ll charge out of her room in a midnight assassination attempt naked in her gauntlets, shield in one hand and mace in the other, bleeding from everywhere and ready to fight.  And those things don’t conflict for her, because sometimes goodness is fierce, and the pieces that wouldn’t fit together for someone else do for her, and damnit I miss Pike again already.

Percy will make a deal with any god or demon who’ll offer him a good enough bargain.  That’s who he is, Percy the Negotiator (do we have official alignments on Vox Machina?  Is Percy actually Lawful Neutral or does he just really, really feel like it?).   It’s selfish and arrogant and full of a very deep respect for the gods all at the same time.   Percy in the Raven Queen’s temple is as humble and honest and bare as he ever gets, stripped down and vulnerable, and even then he’s controlled and deliberate in offering his own vulnerability, like it’s a gift, like it’s something she might want, like a price he’s willingly choosing to pay in hopes of getting the thing he desperately needs in return.  He respects gods, and gives them his humility, but he doesn’t have faith, not really, not the soul-deep belief that some other power would do anything for him that he didn’t pay for himself.  And meanwhile he reveres people--not person, but people, the work of human lifetimes, the metaphysical enormity of cities, of countries, of history, of concepts and beliefs and things built that become more than the sum of their parts, for good or for ill.  The sacred glory of Westrun and Whitestone.  The near-divine horror of evil for the firearms he made with his own two hands and then released into the world to become a force, and a terror, and perhaps very soon a power beyond any mortal’s control ever again.  Any real reverence Percy has for gods as more than ultra-powerful allies, to be courted and implored and bargained with, comes down to the power he sees in belief and religion and the things people do in their name.

Keyleth never wanted or expected to have anything to do with gods until they decided they wanted something to do with her and hers, and it’s freaking her out so bad.  Gods are people, to Keyleth, an there’s nothing sacred about divinity.  They have powers and they do things, and that’s all--and in this world of Exandria where gods walk and want and war between each other, and distribute curses and favor at their own whims, who’s to say she’s wrong?  A god is just a person with a whole lot of power, and she doesn’t understand reverence, and it scares her.  The idea of a being with that much power over her and her loved ones scares her, when there’s so much she doesn’t have power over already.  The idea that her family-friends-team doesn’t stand with her in that fear, that they’ll kneel and pray instead of standing themselves, that scares her so, so much.  Keyleth believes in what she sees and touches and experiences, sun and seasons and living people, and gods have no place in her world, but they keep inviting themselves in anyway and she doesn’t know how to block them back out.

Vax breaks my fucking heart.  We spend a lot of time in fandom talking about sex and love and BDSM-done-like-religion, but the only metaphor I’ve got is that Vax just straight-up does religion like BDSM--not the penance and self-flagellation and humiliation and punishment, but.  The submission.  The boy is so desperate for solid ground to stand on.  Long before the Raven Queen, he’s looking up at Sarenrae and praying and hoping for a gentle hand.  For someone to tell him what he’s meant to be doing with himself, with his time, with his life.  Someone to promise that he’s done right, someone he can trust to know all the things about the wild, terrible, chaotic world that he doesn’t.  He wants a god so badly, to help him be good, to make him good, to give him a purpose and a guide and a promise for tomorrow that he actually trusts, and he wanted it to be Sarenrae but it’s the Raven Queen now, and he’s given himself to her body and soul with all the hope and terror in his heart.  He didn’t want this master, but he wanted a master.  He’s living right on the push-pull edge of trapped vs secure.  Fear and faith and peace are combining into the resigned horror-hope of something that’s been rattling loose for so long now clicking unbreakably into place, and it’s delicious to watch.

I know Vex falls into company with Pelor eventually, and I am so very on edge to see it, to see what it means to her.  Vex doesn’t blink at gods, except to nod to Sarenrae in passing on Pike’s behalf, to reread the Raven Queen book a dozen times inside of a month on her brother’s, a bit of a nod to Pelor for the sake of Whitestone.  Vex spectates everybody else’s drama and meltdowns, for all she plays selfish and vain and pushy and gossip-hungry, and tries to help, and tries not to control, and tries, and tries.  Vex watches her brother and her friends and her someday-husband slip and trip and bruise themselves stumbling through life, and walks the line between keeping an eye on everything she can and keeping out of the way.  Vex hasn’t even looked at the gods for herself, not really, not yet.  I cannot fucking wait.

There’s Grog and Scanlan, who don’t seem to have any particular relationship to gods so far, and that’s real too, the down-to-earth contrast for everybody else’s drama, and even they’re not bereft of their own little interactions with the divine.  There’s the horror of Kashaw and Vesh, there’s Zarah and Lilith and their not-a-god moon patron, there’s Kerr the paladin of no-apparent-god-in-particular.  There’s Thorbir and Lyra and Gern who don’t appear to have gods at all.  There’s a million NPC’s and there’s Kima’s faith in Bahamut and Allura’s faith in her, and there’s the whole city of Vasselheim, and Whitestone’s once-desecrated temple to Pelor, and its temple to Arathis where people prayed for hope and began a rebellion, and its temple to Vecna deep below ground.  There’s the shrine to the Raven Queen in the Whitestone graveyard and the shrine to the soul of Westrun in an underground bunker, and people will find them and see them and react to them in their own ways for as long as they stand.  There are so many different angles!

(There’s Jester and her very best friend and the favors she does him in exchange for affection.  There’s Caduceus and his Mother and his fears and doubts in himself that never extend to doubting her.  There’s Fjord with a dead god’s half-divine offcast in the back of his head, scared enough that he’d make a new deal if he could find a god to back him.  There’s Yasha, who follows devotion and worship as a matter of gratitude and honor and not-like-she-has-anything-else-left-either.  There’s Caleb and Nott and Imperial state-sponsored religion that they grew up with and don’t even notice, not really; there’s Molly covering himself in the symbols of all those state-sanctioned gods entirely for display and then praying to Moonweaver in some chaotic mix of secret and sincerity and show; there’s Beau praying to Ioun without being told to for the very first time in her life, just in case.  There’s the Krynn and the Luxan and so much more to come.)

Fantasy-fiction doesn’t always get a lot of deep exploration of religion and faith and what it means to have actual gods, whose presence can be known and measured and felt, marked down as an objective fact of history.  I love that we’re legitimately getting that in these campaigns, and I love that we’re getting it in a D&D format, where it’s so different for each different character, and so valid for each and every one.  I can’t fucking wait to see the rest of Campaign 1.  I can’t wait to see where Campaign 2 goes next.

#critical role #driveby meta attack

[armageddon-generation]

Improving Crimes of Grindlewald

Just watched this movie again, and I’m not touching the representational/ethical issues, but here are some ways to streamline the movie.

(some small changes to the first movie, since this is already fantasy)

Newt comes to New York because he suspects Obscurus activity, and wants to make up for not saving the one he keeps in his case as a reminder. This connects Newt emotionally to Credence and his B plot

Make the locations more magical - Central Park Zoo is cool but give it a Wizarding dimension: A museum with magic exhibits about how 'dangerous' Magical Beasts are, and MACUSA hunting many to extinction. Newt and his beasts 'accidentally' destroy this misinformation. There's a War Memorial hidden in the Park like the one for the Potters in Godric's Hollow. Newt and Jacob bond over their experiences.

Instead of the beast in that random building, have one go to Coney Island. A magical old-timey Fairground is the perfect setting for a Beast chase.

The shit ‘Graves was Grindlewald’ twist didn’t happen, he’s just a follower. Use him to build up Grindlewald's appearance in this movie

Establish Credence could be a Lestrange (MACUSA found adoption records when covering up the death of Mrs Barebone - President Piquery mentions to Newt "I believe you're familiar with the Lestrange family") to set up the twist in this movie

Newt helps set Queenie and Jacob back up at the end, including restoring his memory - it's consistent with Newt’s disregard for both authority and segregation

Opening and Prison sequence

Start with a montage (newspaper headlines and moving photos, like in the first movie) of MACUSA cracking down on Wizard/muggle segregation and escalating tensions as they grow more paranoid about Grindlewald - establishing the theme of the Ministry being their own worst enemy

We see Queenie and Jacob - trying to live happily in secret - get busted, arrested and separated. This is scary, aggressive.

Queenie tries to protect Jacob (a frightening Jean Grey - style attack with her Legilimensy, to establish how far she'll go for him) but she’s outnumbered, and the fan-favourite character from the last movie is knocked out and wrestled away.

A terrified Queenie is transported to the American wizard prison for processing as a criminal, where Percival Graves is awaiting transfer to trial. He and Queenie make eye-contact as he passes

Highlight MACUSA treating Queenie as a dangerous freak because of her Legilimensy

Grindlewald breaks into the prison and frees Graves. This is our first time meeting him and he subverts expectations; charming and benevolent  to his follower where Voldemort was abusive.

Grindlewald and Graves save Queenie and set the other wizards being processed for No-Maj fraternisation free

This sets up Queenie’s conflict of wanting marriage equality without turning her into an unstable psychopath - she has no home, no job, and can’t turn to Tina because as an auror, technically Tina should arrest Queenie

Grindlewald’s Followers

Graves replaces that random woman as Grindlewald’s right-hand. There is one corrupt auror 

This auror leads the attack and arrest of Queenie in the opening sequence, but it isn’t revealed he’s working for Grindlewald until later

 Then he is one of the aurors the Ministry sends to hunt down Credence, with Theseus Scamander.

Gindlewald’s agent kills the House-elf when the aurors confront Credence. Then, at the end when the agent betrays the aurors and tries to join Grindlewald, Grindlewald kills him to show both Queenie and Credence he’s on their side. Thus Grindlewald gets to be rutheless like in the original, but he’s also a master manipulator

This way we roll 3 characters into 1 (the American who helps Grindlewald escape, the English guy who kills the House-elf, and the follower Grindlewald kills)

Ministry scenes (+ Dumbledore)

Same scene with the Ministry trying to recruit Newt to kill Credence, only this time they turn to Theseus after he refuses - putting Theseus in direct conflict with Newt

Dumbledore scene without the safehouse, have him recite the poem that he only namedrops in the original, to give the audience more context clues for later.

Include the conversation cut from the original where he explains why he sent Newt to New York - to help Credence - and establish Newt and Credence as Dumbledore and Grindlewald’s respective champions. Kindness vs Raw Power

Cut the sequence at Newt’s house and save the creature stuff for the circus

Theseus

Include the deleted scene of he and Leta at the party to establish their relationship - except instead of the floating baby (already in the Boggart scene) the pure bloods try to persuade Leta to join Grindlewald, creating ambiguity in her morality that will be resolved in the finale

Expand Theseus' character by touching on his PTSD. The Ministry pick him because he's a "war hero", but Theseus is clearly uncomfortable with that title - "I was just a soldier, Sir. And this is meant to be peace time."

When Theseus confronts Newt about choosing a side, have him draw on their respective experiences in WW1 - "While you were down the line playing with your dragons some of us had to stand and fight."

This is why Theseus doesn't want to provoke Grindlewald's followers - he can't face another war, or the peace he fought for breaking down

Much as I hate the idea of Grindlewald stopping WW2, framing Theseus' character this way means the rally and prospect of another War has a big emotional impact on him

Credence attacking the aurors after the House-Elf's death triggers a PTSD flashback - as he heads back to the Ministry we see a flash of wizarding WW1, dragons etc

Centre the Plot Around the Circus - Getting the Characters Together

Tina has tracked Credence down to the Magical Circus moving through France. She wants to protect him (like she did in the last movie) from the aurors trying to kill him

She contacts Newt; he’d be perfect for this situation because

the circus is full of magical beasts

Credence has befriended a Maledictus, whom Newt would know about because of their close connection to beasts

Newt knows  and cares for Credence

This allows us to naturally incorporate more fantastic beasts into our Fantastic Beasts movie; Newt gets hired as the circus’ beast master (the ring master thinks his name will draw in a crowd) 

It also gives Newt a concrete reason to be there without being the ‘chosen one’ of the story - he just wants to make up for letting Credence down last time

It also cuts the stupid ‘Tina read gossip in a magazine and now she won’t talk to Newt’ subplot, and all the time wasted looking for her

Use this portion of the movie - travelling across France to Paris in the circus - to build the dynamic between Newt, Tina, Credence and Nagini, so we care about them.

Nagini (recast as a different ethnicity) uses her experience living with a curse to teach Credence how to control his Obscurus, creating a sense of responsibility for him

Newt talks to Nagini about her condition: Explore the emotional toll of being a Maledictus - Newt is initially weirdly jealous of the idea of turning into a beast, which Nagini finds funny

Insert the ‘creature caring’ sequence from Newt’s house here - the characters bond through the creatures.

Parallel the burgeoning romance between Credence and Nagini with the awkwardness of Newtina

Credence explains he survived because Grindlewald saved a part of his Obscurus while MACUSA was attacking, and released it just before he was captured. Credence then spent months stuck in that form, rebuilding himself, which also helped him control his Obscurus

This immediately puts Credence in Grindlewald's debt: he was able to save him when Newt couldn't

Insert the Hogwarts scenes and flashback here. Leta mentions her father in the present and past - e.g. when she and Newt talk about going home (CUT MCGONAGALL!) to better set up her story at the end

Paris

We arrive in Paris. Leta’s brother Yusuf attacks the performance and Credence stages his escape against Newt and Tina’s wishes.

The beast escapes as in the movie

The group gets split up - Credence and Nagini, Newt and Tina

Newt, and Tina chase Yusuf into Paris’ sewers, where they get pinned in a firefight. Newt attracts an urban water demon (the kappa from the circus?) that incapacitates Yusuf.

Tina interrogates Yusuf. He explains his version of events - Credence is Corvus Lestrange. Now we don’t get two twists straight after each other at the end

The escaped circus beast causing chaos outside distracts them enough for Yusuf to disapparate. They catch the beast as in the movie

Cut Nicholas Flamel - he’s gratuitous fan-service adding little to the plot

Grindlewald

Present Grindlewald to the audience as the characters see him - charming, personable, the exact opposite of Voldemort

This means no baby-killing 

Make him look normal but attractive (Depp looks inhuman and off-putting, a poor-man’s Voldemort)

Forget the albino hedgehog, we need to believe this man could charm the pants off Albus Dumbledore

Queenie uses her Legilimency to probe his mind.

He uses Oclumency, and we see a battle of the minds wage in the background as they talk. 

Grindlewald lets her in to selective thoughts - namely his beliefs about marriage equality and his wholehearted ‘belief’ in them

He also reveals to her his relationship with Dumbledore, as a way to convince her he’s doing the right thing - “Dumbledore wasn’t willing to fight for what was right, but he still agrees with me” and that he can relate to her struggle with Jacob

Grindlewald is the first person to praise Queenie’s mental powers and encourage her to embrace her Legilimensy - her whole life she's been Othered and objectified, in the first movie even Tina hid Queenie away

Queenie’s persuasion takes at least a few scenes - every time we see Grindlewald, check in on Queenie’s fall

Especially given the setting between the World Wars, use this as a way to explore how fascism works - the dangerous seductiveness of that mentality manifested through our villain

Cut the scenes with Queenie in the French Ministry/wandering Paris

Finding Credence

Credence and Nagini run free together through Paris (include the scenes cut from the original, including the one where the pheonix chick arrives)

They find the House Elf, but Theseus and the aurors arrive and the attack plays out as previously described

Theseus leading the aurors drives a wedge between Credence and Newt by association in the finale

After Credence escapes the aurors go immediately to the Mnistry to report

A scene of Theseus and Leta supporting each other in the Ministry, while he’s making his report (after his PTSD attack)

Leta: I don't trust them. You've already sacrificed so much for these people and their wars. Just... Let the others die first, alright?

Theseus [laughing]: you're such a Slytherin.

Leta: And you're far too much of a Gryffindor for my liking. It's going to get you killed.

This sets up Leta's sacrafice in the finale.

Newt and Tina now have to find Credence

They know about the House-elf because Credence told them in the circus, so they go to that address to find it destroyed

This is when they travel to the Ministry, to look at the Lestrange records

The corrupt auror with Theseus gets there first and runs with the information both Leta and Newt want

The demon cats attack Tina even though she is Ministry personel because Queenie is considered an associate of Grindlewald - Tina finds out her siater was arrested midway through this action sequence and Leta saves her while she’s distracted

Tina and Leta working together to protect Newt from the demon-cats

Theseus realises what is going on and tries to stop the corrupt auror but he escapes. Theseus then helps Newt, Tina and Leta escape

They release the circus beast as in the movie

Credence and Nagini meet Grindlewald, with Queenie. Grindlewald tells them about the informaton in the Lestrange crypt and lets them be.

Finale

Only Leta has to explain her story, then the rally plays out much the same (which is f*cking problematic but that’s not why I’m here)

No blood pact because it fucks with canon - Dumbledore is just reluctant to fight Grindlewald directly because of their relationship and the Elder Wand. This way Newt has the same frustration as the audience - why didn't you go?

Queenie tries to persuade the others to come with her, and reveals Dumbledore’s relationship with Grindlewald as justification, shaking Newt, but they refuse.

The corrupt auror who killed the house-elf and arrested Jacob is killed for Credence and Queenie’s benefit

Queenie and Credence are disapparated away

Then Grindlewald attacks Theseus’ aurors, but without the fire dragons; his speech was about not hurting anybody, so trying to destroy Paris straight after is stupid. Show Grindlewald's power with a 20:1 duel

Personally I wouldn’t kill Leta because she’s so interesting, but if she does die have it be here, holding Grindlewald off while the others escape (Tina, understanding, pulls Newt away and Newt pulls Theseus).

Leta's sacrafice is what directly inspires Newt choosing his side

When they meet Dumbledore in the last scene Newt is angry and upset about what Queenie told him, and tells Dumbledore his lovers’ quarrel got Leta killed

#crimes of grindelwald #jk rowling #harry potter #newt scamander #newtina #albus dumbledore #gellert grindelwald #jacob kowalski #wizarding world #fantastic beats and where to find them #rewrite #my ideas #theseus x leta #fantastic beats the crimes of grindelwald #queenie goldstein #nagini #credence barebone #leta lestrange #the wizarding world of harry potter

[crystalkleure]

I wish Zac and Ukyo had interacted properly in canon

They have a lot of the exact same mannerisms but NOT quite the same personality type. They have Two Very DIFFERENT Personality Types that just end up visually presenting extremely similarly. It’s Fascinating™

They are both Extremely Performative...with Ukyo it's because he's apparently awkward and nervous unless he plans out how to present himself in every specific situation ahead of time, and with Zac it's because he just loves attention and thinks lying is funny. But since that same outward appearance of Narcissism and Fussing Over Appearances is there, I think Zac would probably assume that Ukyo is Just Like Him. Specifically, I think Zac would see Ukyo as a threat...until he realized that Ukyo actually fucking HATES The Spotlight™ and is in no way a potential Attention Thief lmao, he is not Akira V2. Being Adored In Public By A Huge Crowd Of Strangers is too unpredictable and overwhelming and Ukyo would be fucking terrified of that because he can't do improv to save his life. His confidence goes up in flames as soon as unpredictability is involved, he’s allergic to Being Too Known, put the ninja back in the nearest dark corner so he can Lurk and Observe. Meanwhile Zac fucking thrives on improv and chaos is his lifeblood. There’s just a night and day difference at the core of their behaviour, in spite of the end results looking visually identical. They manage to have so many similarities in spite of being functionally polar opposites.

I also think Ukyo might be Very Intrigued by Zac, because Zac LOOKS like what Ukyo WANTS to be. That’s a guy who flawlessly presents himself Elegantly And Confidently under metric tons of social pressure and public scrutiny. Zac doesn’t get shy and short-circuit when something surprising happens or Too Many People Look At Him. In fact, it only makes him More Powerful. I feel like Ukyo might Stealthily Ninja-Stalk Zac for awhile, trying to Learn His Secrets and understand how he does it, and I feel like Zac might actually notice him because Zac is pretty sharp and is also probably used to getting tailed around by fans lmao.

It would just be such a fun thing to see these two Experience Eachother's Existence and I'm so sad we never got that. There are so many Possibilities. They would either absolutely adore eachother after a Dramatic Initial Misunderstanding or Zac would destroy Ukyo immediately and I am not sure which. Control Freak vs Chaos Demon FIGHT

#There now this isn't confined to the tags on a shitpost. It gets its own post like it DESERVED. #Beyblade Burst #Ukyo Ibuki #Zac the Sunshine #CK dissects #CK's headcanon #Ukyo is not Performative for the sake of Entertaining And Being Adored #So it looks to me like he probably can't just Invoke His Persona on the fly the way that Zac does #He Would Cry if he got swarmed by a mob of fangirls and paparazzi #Instantaneous meltdown #I wonder what Zac would think of that if he had been assuming this guy was some sort of Competitor #Surprise! This is not a Threat; this is an Envious Marshmallow #Fun Fanfiction Time: Ice Boy melts Wretched Narcissistic Terror's little shriveled black heart by being Awkward And Adoring And Endearing #Zac is signing adoption papers 2 hours later. New Baby Brother acquired. Protect With Life. And share hair care tips with it too. #God I wish I could write cheesy silly fanfiction. Or any fanfiction at all. #God I wish I could write