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#Gundam Conquest
gee0man · 1 year
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Continuing the Solstice Rain #mecha art done for Lancer RPG.  Before it was identified, Union boots on the ground called the Vestan armored bruiser that led their formations the Bullfrog. A combo of its shield and leg mounted hover jets make it a nasty close range bully.
The Bullfrog belongs to the Vestan Sovereignty, an antagonistic faction in the Solstice rain supplement. They’re a familiar story. An authoritarian nation on the verge of loosening up only for the militant reactionaries to tighten their grip again. Union’s arrival on Cressidium serves as the perfect catalyst to reignite old dreams of conquest. 
Every GM needs its Zaku to be locked in eternal struggle with. I imagine in universe, armchair generals and rivet counters will argue about the respective qualities of the [G] Type Everest and Bullfrog during the Cressidium conflict for years to come.
I designed the Bullfrog in concert with my Everest variant. Whereas I looked at Gundam and Armored Core for the [G] Type, I prayed at the altar of Kazuhisa Kondo for the Bullfrog. I have always wanted to design a Kondo-inspired absolute unit.
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Giant armored skirt and shoulders to give it a brutish, imposing physical profile. These types of chunky forms give it both a sense of mass but also reflect the Vestan’s desire to punish and impose its will on others. It’s not merely enough to occupy the space, it must make everyone around it uncomfortable and vulnerable. Again, a bully.
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Original Writing Project: 916
OKAY, now that I've edited the first few chapters enough, I think it's finally time to have its debut to you all!
This is an original sci-fi story completely written by me, with MAJOR influences from things like Gundam and whatnot.
I want to post it here to get your all's feedback and just to share some good ol' storytelling, so please let me know what you guys think of it, your feedback/comments is always read by me!
I expect to have the first few chapters out sometime during this week after your normal schedule of simping, but this post will just be covering what the main idea of the story is/what shows/games is influencing it.
Below the cut is the blurb, inspirations, main characters, and a story excerpt!
First of all, thank you so much for even pressing the keep reading tab/showing any remote interest. I understand this isn't really what you come to this blog for, so it means the world to me!
Anyways, first up is the story blurb:
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Story Blurb:
The year is 1177. Thirty-four years have passed since the battlefield had been introduced to the bipedal warmachines known as Soldat D’acier. Though they only stand a few meters above tanks, they were able to reduce armored divisions to scrap metal, and fortresses once thought impenetrable transformed to piles of rubble.
The entire continent of Anis rushed their militaries into an arms race to have their own versions of these steel behemoths.
In the name of expansion and rightful conquest, the country of Florence had declared war on Cumbria in 1155. The invasion saw countless deployments of Soldats on both sides, and death quickly followed in their wake. The two nations signed a peace treaty to end hostilities after five long years, but their crimes wouldn't be so easily forgotten by the people, nor its creations.
Now, the man-made atrocities emerging from the "Enhanced Human Initiative" stoke the flames of war once more, forcing an uneasy alliance. And from the same crime that threatens them, comes their final hope: Enhanced Human 916.
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Inspirations:
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Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron Blooded Orphans, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury Mobile Suit Gundam: Narrative Mobile Suit Gundam: Unicorn Mobile Suit Gundam: Zeta The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel, Armored Core 6: Fires of Rubicon, Scarlet Nexus, Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, Girls' Frontline,
I was not joking when I said the major influences are from Gundam. At first I was worried about not being 100% original, but eh. Write what you love, right? Elements of the story, themes, suits, and a unholy amount more is snatched from all the Gundam shows listed above.
Armored Core 6 is what inspired the look of the "Soldats", and how combat flows in the story. The main lead, 916, is called numbers bc of the player character 621. (I also learned that the reasons I chose that number came from my subconscious, specifically Darling in the Franxx and that character, 196 aka Ikuno)
Scarlet Nexus inspired some of the tech things regarding the pilots being able to "read each other's minds" so to speak. Pretty much a less space-magic version of being a Newtype from Gundam, as well as other characters.
Trails of Cold Steel and Girls' Frontline inspired the other cast members, and speaking of which:
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Main Cast:
Wolf Company
Enhanced Human 916, "Vi", Age: 21
A young man who escaped the "Enhanced Human Initiative." Due to augmentation and surgeries, he remains stoic and emotionless, but thanks to his adoptive family, has shown signs of opening up. Earned his nickname after his violet eyes.
He pilots the Soldat R1-N0, "Rhino", a bulky mech utilizing rush and ambush tactics, armed with a 60mm Autocannon and Heat Dagger.
A/N: Titular character, heavily inspired by Byleth (Fire Emblem Three Houses), and Mikazuki (Iron-Blooded Orphans). My second favorite character to write so far in the story, ironically.
David Collins, "Boss", Age: 53
Leader of a PMC called "Wolf Company". David took 916 in at a young age and raised him to be part of the "family". Loud and proud, he takes great pride in all serving underneath him, and has known to have a temper in anything regarding his age. Earned his nickname since calling him "Boss" was more comfortable for everyone.
He pilots the Soldat "Juggernaut', a machine with the legs of a tank, but upper half of a mech with arms. Armed with wrist-mounted machine guns and twin battle-cannons on top of its shoulders.
A/N: Inspired by Maine from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Don't look too much into that, don't worry. You can also tell from just his dialogue how much I like writing him too. He is my number 1 favorite to write.
Chloe, "Flare", Age: 35
Second in command of "Wolf Company. Chloe is extremely loud, complementing her foul-mouthed nature. Generally regarded as the "Big SIster" of the team. Earned her nickname from her extremely short temper.
She pilots the Soldat "Mantis", a lanky and smaller machine focusing on blitz tactics, able to leap surprisingly massive heights due to its inverted legs.
A/N: Inspired by Bianca (Gundam Thunderbolt), Sasha (Attack on Titan) and Miku (Darling in the Franxx). To everyone I have shown this story thus far, she has been the fan favorite, including her partner in crime:
Hayes, "Screw", Age: 32
The newest "rookie" of Wolf Company. Impulsive, a little too confident in himself but admittedly a talented sniper, Hayes is always eager to prove himself. Earned his nickname from either screwing himself over, or the enemy.
He pilots the Soldat "Phantom", a mech focusing on stealth and sniping, able to keep itself off enemy radar.
A/N: Inspired by Connie (Attack on Titan) and Zorome (Darling in the Franxx). Him and Chloe are a fun combo, as you will soon see.
There's eight more main characters, but I'll let you read their introduction yourself! 916 and Wolf Company will be the ones we'll be following the most throughout the story. Though this part of the cast was heavily inspired by Iron-Blooded Orphans. For those who watched the show, again, don't read too much into that.
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The last thing I'll have for this post will be an excerpt from the prologue to get things started! Hopefully my slow ass will have the prologue out soon, so please look forward to it!
Without further ado-
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Story Excerpt:
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“Doctor Moreau, do you think we go to heaven?” asked the small girl.
Doctor Moreau stopped typing for a moment as her eyes glanced over the terminal, seeing the child laying on the operating table, standing out from the rest of the clean black walls and white tiles. The room was supported with soft lights illuminating the room, complemented by the blue screens and dizzying amount of automated surgical equipment quietly whirring into position.
Moreau pushed her aging white hair away from her eyes, looking at the child, subject designated 403. 403 was about seven, she barely stood up to Moreau’s stomach and had long black hair that stopped at her shoulders. The light blue gown was slightly too big for her, the sleeves extending over most of her hands and just revealing her fingers. Seeing her face again reminded Doctor Moreau of 403's rather inquisitive nature. 
“Why are you asking that, 403?” Moreau replied, her tone indifferent. Her fingers went back to typing as she sighed. “If you’re worried about the procedure, the chips are perfectly safe to implant. There has been no previous record of anyone dying from-”
“-But I’m going to die after.”
“...What?”
“After the chip goes into me. Will the others and I go to heaven?”
The question had caught the doctor completely off guard. Moreau had answered questions such as, “Will this hurt?”, or “Do I have to?”. This question was something she could not answer with her usual dismissive tone. She sat up straight in her seat now and turned to look at the child. 403's eyes were still fixated on the ceiling.
“Why are you so certain you’re going to die, 403?”
“That’s what my brother told me. When the chip goes into our brain, we’re sent off to die.”
The girl’s voice stated it as a matter of fact. There was no confusion in her tone of what was to become of her. Doctor Moreau had no response as she stared at 403 with her mouth slightly open. The child simply turned her head, facing her and expectantly waiting for an answer.
“... I certainly hope there’s a heaven, 403. I’m sure heaven will allow good kids like you and your brother.”
“What about my friends? Will they-”
“We’re about to begin the surgery. Please face up towards the light and close your eyes.” Moreau bluntly cut off the conversation.
403 pouted, but complied. It was clear that the answer did not satisfy her as much as she wanted it to. Doctor Moreau took a second to recover and focus back on the job at hand. Facing back towards the terminal, she began typing once more. With the input of several passwords and confirmations, the surgery to implant the combat data-chip into 403’s brain would commence. Afterwards, she would be sent to her brother’s unit, and be deployed to the battlefield.
Just like all the others.
This room had always been nothing out of the ordinary to Moreau. The same procedure had been repeated more times than she could count and yet why did this one make it so hard to breathe all of a sudden?
“Doctor Moreau?”
“Yes, 403?”
“Can I ask one more thing?”
“You may.”
“Can I listen to that song you always play? The one that goes ‘Lalalalala~’? I want to hear it one more time before I sleep. I really like it.”
Doctor Moreau’s lips suddenly dried up as she once again stopped typing. With a slightly trembling hand, she turned to the radio sitting on her desk and nodded.
“...Of course, 403. No more questions, please.” 
She could see the smile form on 403’s lips as the mask was gently put onto her face, the anesthesia slowly starting to pump into 403’s lungs.
“...Thank you.”
Doctor Moreau swallowed hard as her finger pressed the on switch of her old radio. Despite being in such a high tech surgical room, her radio was comically outdated. It was a small gray oval-like object that only had a speaker and a few buttons. To even put music in it, she had to insert a smaller rectangle that contained the songs in it via tape. It was a gift from her father when she was 403’s age, the thought of their roles being reversed not lost on the doctor.
‘Sing, sing a song Let the world sing along Sing of love there could be Sing for you and for me…~’
Doctor Moreau could hear 403 softly hum along to the song as her voice gradually became quieter, and eventually turning into soft breathing. The whirring of the surgical equipment and the radio being the only things in the room left making noise. The only remaining step was for Doctor Moreau to approve the procedure to implant the chip into 403’s brain.
“Is there heaven…” the doctor quietly repeated the question to herself, attempting to ignore 403’s startling self awareness of the situation.
"Authorization confirmed, Implant procedure beginning.” A deep robotic voice rang out across the room as the sound of a drill began drowning out the other equipment. Doctor Moreau sat on her chair as she closed her eyes, waiting for the procedure to be done and turning off the radio in the process.
 “For me, I don’t think so…Heaven was lost to me long ago.”
...
‘Sing, sing a song Make it simple to last Your whole life long~’
The Doctor was snapped out of her melancholy as the music continued playing. Sighing, she moved to turn it off for good.
“Piece of junk is starting to-” She stopped as her finger was about to hit the switch.
The radio was still off.
Listening closely again, Moreau realized the singing was coming outside of the door.
‘Don't worry that it's not Good enough for anyone Else to hear~’
Creeping towards the door, the doctor put her ears to it and heard what sounded like a chorus singing. The song wasn’t over the intercom, otherwise the voice would be far clearer.
Instead it sounded like- 
A sudden sense of dread hit the doctor as she swung the doors open and ran towards the hangar. Multiple guards and scientists were opening the doors along the long gray hallway, joining Moreau and investigating what the noise was. When they finally got to the railing after the doors slid open, none of them could speak. 
‘Just sing, sing a song (Just sing, sing a song) Just sing, sing a song~’
Inside the massive hangar stood rows of countless Soldats, giant bipedal machines that stood several meters tall, lined up next to each other as if they were statues. Their bulky legs stood firmly in place and the compact yet slender arms did not move an inch.
The only things moving were their horned box-like heads, slowly moving side to side in perfect sync. Each of the voices emerging from the Soldats were different but singing in perfect harmony.
Their normally offline and horizontal segregated visors were suddenly flickering to life with blue lights, illuminating the large dark room with bright blue rays.
‘La la la la la, la la la la La la la la la la laaaaa~’
Doctor Moreau could hear the voices of security guards rushing down the stairs to halt the singing, shouting orders at the others to back away.
However, the doctor could only hear their cheerful singing along with her breathing becoming noticeably shorter with each second, feeling her chest tighten.
Once again, the question 403 springed up to the forefront of her mind.
“Is there heaven?”
...
===
And that's the first part of the prologue done, hope to have this out soon, and again if you got this far, thanks for taking the time!
See ya soon, and back to the normal content for now!
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trutown-the-bard · 29 days
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I like Gundam, but this idea that “peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding” is dumb. ‪I would like them to conjure the ghosts of Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington to have them argue over if “understanding” would have prevented Napoleon’s conquests. Caesar Augustus can be the judge and the ghosts of Carthage can be the jury. Violence and force have created peace much more reliably than anything else on Earth.
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animefeminist · 4 months
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Giant Robots Against Colonialism: Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury’s Shakespearean roots
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Content Warning: discussion of colonial violence, racism, ableism
Spoilers for all of The Witch From Mercury
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury is a show that does not just wear its inspirations on its sleeve but builds on them. One such reference point is William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, from which G-Witch borrows three characters: Prospero, Ariel, and Caliban. In doing so, G-Witch spotlights colonialist readings of the play, particularly by highlighting Prospero and Prospera’s manipulative tendencies. Prospera embodies multiple roles from The Tempest, which complicates the narrative. Suletta’s victory using the Calibarn Gundam enables The Tempest’s Caliban to reclaim his rights as an indigenous person by proxy, envisioning a world where the colonized can break away and heal from oppression by joining together.
Colonialist readings of The Tempest often point toward the relationship between Prospero and Caliban as a reflection of the colonizer and the colonized. Before the play’s events, Prospero had landed on the unnamed island, killed Caliban’s mother, Sycorax, and subjugated Caliban. Colonialist readings of the play paint Prospero as a colonizer “who [befriended] the subjugated natives in the name of cooperation […] and then [exploited] and [colonized] them”. Such interpretations align with Caliban’s description of Prospero as “a tyrant, a / sorcerer, that by his cunning hath cheated me of the island.” Caliban’s antagonism toward Prospero lies not only in murdering his mother but also in taking over the island that Caliban should have rightfully inherited. 
In referring to Prospero’s cunning and cheating, Caliban supports the belief that he and his mother did not expect Prospero’s violent conquest of their island. Prospero, on the other hand, speaks of Sycorax and Caliban by exclusively referring to the former as a “witch” while constantly deriding the latter for his darker skin and suggesting both to be innately evil. Such rhetoric reflects the racist ideas that drove many imperialist powers to justify their conquests under the white man’s burden, believing indigenous people incapable of orderly ruling themselves. G-Witch’s Prospera inherits many of Prospero’s nastier traits, emphasizing these colonialist elements of the story.
Read it at Anime Feminist!
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fantasyinvader · 2 months
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@deathbirby
Regarding the whole “empathy” thing, I think there might be a bit of cultural disconnect going on.
In the parley scene, Dimitri calls Edelgard out on wanting to push her ideas on others, saying it's the height of selfishness. This is where the issue lies, it's not him saying it's bad. It's that Edelgard is taking a very individualistic approach to what she perceives as problems, that she has to take action rather than relying on others to do so, and wants others to do the same as her.
In Japanese media, this is a negative trait at times as it ties into Japanese values. Personal aspirations is balanced against one's duties, individuality is balanced against conforming to the group and it's valued to have a place to belong to. There's an expectation to know where you stand in the world. An aggressive ego can cause suffering to oneself and others, and causing suffering is seen as immoral in Eastern spiritualism. But these sorts of things can be lost on Western audiences, for instance these same elements were misinterpreted back when Final Fantasy 9 came out. McGillis Fareed is meant to be the bad guy of Gundam IBO (he's basically a male Edelgard), despite being an ally of the protagonists, trying to reshape the world into one where people can simply take what they want if they have the strength to do so. He was more hated in Japan, but in the West people are more upset his big plan didn't work. Or even in protagonist characters, it can be seen as a negative trait. Digimon's Mimi, who lived in America and adopted their mindset) was called out in Adventure Tri by her classmates for being bossy and selfish, trying to get them to do what she wanted. Not to mention, her taking action to try by fighting to prove to people that not all Digimon are bad, only for a helicopter to accidentally be hit in the process.
Edelgard says it during the parley, she believes people are weak because they rely on others rather than themselves. Even her ending, in Japanese, is based around this. Her trying to build a “Free” country was added by the translation team, as various endings for Safflower are supposed to show that she's oppressing her will upon the people such as banning plays she hasn't seen, or having Hubert spy on them and put down any threats. As for independent, that's there but it's meant to be in a “doesn't rely on others” way. It's a society where the people will strive to become stronger by relying on their own power. This is what Fodlan was like before the Church, except the game tells us it was an era of bloodshed and wars as people stole and killed in order to gain more power for themselves.
But of course, this is all a matter of balance. Claude also expresses a belief in relying on your own power and is working towards spreading his own ideals to the world, but with Hopes in mind doing so as Edelgard does is wrong, as his Houses version ultimately works to achieve this through diplomacy and cultural exchange rather than violent conquest. Dimitri needs to learn how to live for himself, not just for the duties to the dead he believes he has. And Byleth's arc is about them becoming their own individual, not just being soulless.
Now, look at Edelgard. She says in Hopes she starts the war because of her ideals, which is consistent with her depiction in Azure Moon. She talks about how she's fighting for the weak, but she only rewards those who she sees as “strong” and if the weak don't become strong she blames it on them. She says this is for the silent, except that Edelgard silences those who don't support her regardless of their strength. She says she's doing this for the commoners but talks about how awful it is that the nobility have duties and responsibilities attached to their power with Hopes even has a reveal that she's intended to let the nobility keep their power but free them from their duties and responsibilities (her name even means “protector of the nobility”). She also sees it as her right to sacrifice her people for her beliefs despite her talk about how she needed to act to prevent more people from being sacrificed to the status quo, and her endings reveal that she causes even more bloodshed to uphold her rule. Despite her words against a false history she lies so often that she has a chapter named after her, The Lady of Deceit, where she starts by lying about her target to take Arianrhod by surprise only to end up lying to her army when it blows up in her face. Even the whole “relying on yourself” thing is undercut by how she needs the support of the likes of the Agarthans, Byleth, or Shez to win the war, Hubert to put down opposition from the shadows, Ferdinand to make her ideals workable, Petra to keep Brigid in line, Caspapa to get the army to support her. So relying on others is wrong, but everyone supporting Edelgard and her ideals is alright in her book. She even says she'll protect you if you believe in her and them.
Edelgard starts this was not out of empathy, but egotism and selfishness, so much so that she expects people to conform to her and her own goals. If you don't, then there's really no place for you in the world she wants to create, but at the same time she subverts her own ideals and rhetoric for her own gains. She can't understand why people would oppose her, or do so only to surrender at the very end. This suggests that Edelgard has very little empathy or understanding of those around her and is simply projecting her own thoughts, opinions and experiences onto others in order to justify her own actions. The fact her ending title is Flame Emperor indicates that she didn't grow from her experiences in Flower, she's still the same person she was when she put a hit on her classmates. Dimitri is given the title of savior king, Claude the king of unificiation, Edelgard remains the Flame Emperor.
And it's not just a case of her being an individual, as she's essentially the state and fighting to further increase her own power by centralizing it on herself while eliminating anyone who could challenge her. This is what the game talks about when it refers to her as a hegemon, or to her path as military rule (English) or “the path of supremacy” (Japanese). She's using her power to enforce her will upon an unwilling population. She's even depicted as using Argarthan technology to do maintain her rule. If anything, Dimitri's policies of giving the commoners a voice in politics does more to allow them to be individuals and support their own aspirations rather than simply following the orders of the strong.
In short, Edelgard's reforms are for Edelgard's benefit and no one else. Heroes even clarifies that no other lord in the franchise views their responsibilities to their people as a bad thing, as they can use their power to help others and Edelgard (even post-Flower) never considered that option. For all her anti-religion crap, her ideals are compared to Duma's and how they failed (with the added bonus of Edelgard having taken over the Church) with the question of whether Edelgard's attempt will be any different. This is someone, despite all her for humanity lines, is willing to turn people into mindless monsters as war assets, and is even willing to toss aside her humanity itself in order to rule the world.
Edelgard is everything she supposedly is fighting against.
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pandacommander24a · 2 months
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Bug Batchall
Sometimes you do silly things. @asksanguinius40k
Right so the story.
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It should maybe end with a funny joke about what I bid, but at the same time... A voice came to me, and it asked a simple question...
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And, like, I took that personally.
For those that don't think about 80s wargames lore all the time... The fuck are we even talking about?
A batchall is the Battle Challenge, get it, issued before a Trial in Clan "Culture."
The clans are a group of space weirdos who left Earth after pulling a Space Middle East, leading to a Galactic war that left hundreds of worlds burning and hundreds of trillions dead. After they almost killed themselves in the same way that the poor bastard they left behind had, the worst son of the greatest military leader mankind ever had, came up with the "perfect society" to never have that threat happen again to the human race... Except he created the very thing that would lead to happening four more times. Trail of Annihilation, which you know the Wolverines were right, the Clan Invasion, the War of Reaving, and the Conquest of the Republic. Not my Ilkhan.
A Trial is an honorable combat to settle a dispute between Clans and inner Clan disagreements. There are six, and they grow in severity, ending with Annihilation. You can't have a Trial without a Batchall.
In this case, the Trail of Possession to Call a bug looking mech a bug, https://www.tumblr.com/gort-grundlekin/739688789810823168/bug-type-mech
Normally, a Batchall would start with me issuing the challenge and declaring what I think this attack should cost; my opponent would then state what they are bidding in defense. If I was cool, and I am cool, I would counter-bid with a lower force than my opponent. Then my opponent, being a cool person, would counter-bid lower. Then, because, as stated, I'm cool, I would counter a lower force. And then... You get the idea...
The idea is to get to the lowest cost possible for the conflict, agreed to by both parties. Mind you, this is expected to cost human life; the question is, how good is my human life to be able to beat the other person's human cost.
Which brings us to the Bid;
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One War Hawk, an 85-ton gun platform, smashed into the IS forces of the DCMS so hard they named it Masakari because it hit like an ax and split forces in two. There is not a bad variant of this; all of them hit like a MACK truck, and none of them are fun face down.
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Three Horned Owl Light mechs. Relatively lightly armed, the Horned Owl makes up for it by having speed, dexterity, and staying power, unlike most clan designs. The Clan Weapons easily make this one able to punch into the Medium Tonnage, but this guy is sharing the tonnage ranking just before you get medium and is basically, in some ways, a clan Panther.
Fun fact; this mech was based on the Zaku from Gundam, and you can see it with its mono-eye cockpit.
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Finally, a star of Elementals. Imagine Astates in a hard Sci-fi setting instead of a Space Opera one, and that's the Elementals. Genetically engineered super soldiers clad in advance power armor, allowing them to rip apart tanks and mechs while moving faster than
In a bit of humor, the two clans that have championed this fight, the Goliath Scorpions and the Coyotes, are more responsible for the Elementals than their credited creators, Clan Wolf. All they did was steal better ideas for themselves; it is almost as if that will be the trend for their narrative...
Thanks to the Goliath Scorpions' creation of underwater suits known as Water Elementals to complete complex tasks at incredible depth, the Elemental Suits have incredible armor and a flexible chassis.
However getting any weapon systems or the amount of options that are fielded by the Elementals would not be possible without the OMNITECH created by Clan Coyote. The "Hey man, if you keep changing your fucking work order every five minutes, I'll brain you, warrior caste or no warrior caste" clan. Coyote Tech Caste created the flexible slot system to allow a greater amount of customization in payloads which allowed for rapid force changes in battle and easier repairs to a degree.
Additionally Clan Hell's Horse created the genetic template that would become the Elemental people. The first drafts were so good without the elemental suits they almost won against normal Clan Wolf Dudes in the power armor.
That is a good Star, strong punch, movibility and a surprise waiting at your feet.
My Rebuttal Bid:
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Savage Coyote is an 85 ton Assault Mech built to showcase two weapon systems; Omni-Tech Advance Tactical Missiles or the Clan ATM, all the fun of LRMs with SRM fun. Thanks to a XL engine this bad boy is stuff with armor and weapons. Built to bring the Coyotes in tho the post Golden Century Swinging.
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An oldie but a classic, the Coyotl is the first Omnitech. However, built to prove the concept, it is a capable machine. All of its variants are built to have a solution to any problem.
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The Rabid Coyote is a medium mech designed to serve as backup to slower mechs. It's moderately armored, but its pulse laser ensures its deadly accurate and carries a mixed tonnage of ATM ammunition. It is more than able to punch up from its modest 55 tons.
To round this out, I have also taken;
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TWO ELEMENTAL STARS!
The total of my Bid is 180 Tons vs 195. Kids never play tonnage, however, since everyone was Clan... It was the only way to do this. However surprisingly?
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Pretty close in BV.
Right, so let's get to the actual fight:
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For the purpose of not knowing and also keeping things relatively interesting, I decided I would use late-era mechs, mostly Jihad mechs.
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Also Clan Coyote stops being important in the Clan Invasion and suffers from the "Don't want to write a complex Clan narrative anymore" that CGL blessed us with in the War of the Reaving. There are a lot of reason people hate the Jihad, and besides its name, this is one of the reasons.
Lamba Galaxy is generally my go-to pick for Clanners. Coyotes and I like our mechs experimental and they have a neat paint scheme in the lambas. Seen here on a group of bois I need to touch up at some point:
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Clan Coyote will also join the Society in a big way; Lamba Galaxy almost completely defects to them during the War of Reaving. The Society was a revolt from Clan Scientists Caste who was tired of Collage Jocks making all the big choices because dying young is a big clan ethos for Warriors. So they threw out a bunch of tech and advanced battle mechs to maybe save the clans from their ways. They lost, big shocker right?
Clan Coyote however gets to stay in the Tree house and disappear from the game's story. Possible forever... Fucking Jihad.
The Savage Coyote Variant was one such model built by the Society, with a HAG, targeting computers and Imporved ATM its a tough nut with a great punch.
The Coyotl, like wise was a bunch of tech from later than the Golden Century but felt right as a good addition to my bid.
Finally I brought a regural Rabid Coyote default, because 3 pulse laser should kill Elementals dead. It is why the Komodo has 9 fucking Medium lasers after all.
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Clan Goliath Scorpion got kicked out of the tree house and is running around the Deep Periphery kicking ass and taking names. They, too, lost the War of Reaving, but they aren't bitches like Jade Falcon, Wolf, and Ghost Bear. Ultimately, it looks like they are going to pull a Clan Invasion 2.0. It's going to be more Revenge of the Periphery than Attack of the Clans though, I'm hyped for it. So the Scoripon Empire moves on closer and closer to the Inner Sphere.
For the Warhawk, I picked the mixed tech Alternate Configuration T to reflect this era. This does drop the long-range murder effect to a degree but it gives it two PPC that are also flamers, which for a clan mech is murder on the wheel, they run hot, and it also kind of better puts it in the timeline for a dust up of Clans in a late-era that aren't just Sucessor States that were once Clans... Fucking Wolf Empire.
For the Owls I pick two later eras ones and one default. The Default is murder; the other ones are just fun. I do this when I field a bunch of the same much, take variants, and they stacked up well enough to help each other out and make so I can't quite use the same tactic on all three.
But I made creative choices that might not be made if we did this for real.
BV and tonnage works out. Sadly I didn't have any friends online, so I had to resort to Princess, megamek's ai, and since this will be a quick game, brawler seemed good (maybe I shouldn't have had the Run Away so high in hindsight.)
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Default victory I used with my friends is 40% BV lost, which is a good place for a friendly fight. Also so it doesn't last forever which can happen with bad dice.
For Pilots, I set all to the Clanner Default, 3/4 for everyone.
I picked the terrain.
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A good mix of hills and vegitation. Flipping a coin, I was north, and my opponent south.
The fight was pretty fast. we moved quickly towards each other and started blasting, mostly missing. My Rabid Coyote got caught in the open and was knocked down, but the pilot managed to get her up and moving next round.
Then we slammed into each other, and the first blood went to the Scorpions.
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The Coyatl has ECM, but it really didn't do much. It was funny. The Owls proved to be deadly, swarmed my Rabid Coyote and just sliced him to pieces. Managed to knock one of the Owls down.
The Toads jump in behind.
The next phase, I pulled back into the forest, and as my Coyotl pulled rapidly back trying to catch the Owls in a better firing line. The Owls that could jump far and wide, with one finding my rear armor of the Savage open to their pulse weapons. The owl, knocked prone, made an effort to go hull down, unable to get back up the next round.
The Warhawk fell back and opened fire on my Savage as well; with the high advantage and those long-ranged guns, it was the smart call.
In the firing phase saw my Savage tooke nearly 120 damage. Luckily no punches through the armor for the Warhawk and some how under the pulse lasers the back armor held.
Thanks to that barrage, my savage was knocked down, but the pilot pulled a hull down, allowing it to stay fighting.
Since this massive exchange happened in rapid order and heat was running red for both of us. I couldn't get the Savage moving too much heat, but to my dismay, the Warhawk bet heavily on that attack as well and was left unable to move and, worst, exposed on that hill.
Moving my elementals I forced them to get the Owls off the Savage while moving my Coyotl into minimum range bracket for all its weapons. This allowed me to pour fire from both the Savage and the Coyotle, scoring two engine hits despite not punching through the massive armor. The Warhawk had been cripple and couldn't likely survive another attack with that savaging, and with its engine compromised, so too were the heat sinks.
The Warhawk had to pull back and try and get off that hill.
Meanwhile, the Owl knocked prone manage to get up and turn on my Coatyl near it. However, thanks to the coyotes movement, I was able to win that fight and knock out that Owl.
In the moving away from the Toadies one of the other owls messed up a jump roll and was forced off the game, considering it retreated bummer...
Unable to get the Warhawk moving, the AI punched it out as well.
Finally with the toadies in range the real fight got started as the last owl jumped in to finish off my Savage, but my elementals were waiting and pounced on the light mech begingin to swarm as their elements closed distance and proceeded to bloody my other elemental unit.
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And the game ended because a lot of BV was scraped off the board.
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So I win.
And as my right to decide... It's a bug mech, the king of all bugs even. Realized now, after writing this 3 hours later, that the Trail was for our Gender... Does this make your pronouns my bond servants?
Thanks for Reading. I am now going to have to think about Clans created in the 80s by dudes who gave us a legacy of yellow scare to unpack and how they would have written gender.
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austinramsaygames · 1 year
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Hello!
I'm Austin Ramsay, a TTRPG designer and podcaster. I'm best known for the Forged in the Dark game Beam Saber, but have also made several other games.
I was the primary GM and community manager for the actual play podcast You Don't Meet In An Inn (which concluded in early 2022), and have guested on several other podcasts including Game Closet, Great Gundam Project, and Party of One.
I'm also currently developing the mega game actual play show, CalazCon!, which features 31 participants across 6 play groups all telling the story of one front in a war of conquest interrupted by a nomadic media convention.
Follow me if you're interested in TTRPG design, mechs, and actual play shows!
Where to find me on the Internet
With Twitter potentially burning down I have expanded my social media presence. Some of these are old, some of these are new, all of them are me. I'll be continuing to discuss TTRPG design in these places and here.
Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/austinramsay
Cohost: https://cohost.org/AustinRamsayGames
Itch: https://austin-ramsay.itch.io/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AustinRamsay
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@notaninn
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/you_dont_meet_in_an_inn
Mastodon: https://dice.camp/web/@AustinRamsayGames
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Notaninn
And of course you can find the Austin Ramsay Games discord at https://discord.gg/WuC8r5W
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hamatime · 9 months
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Witch from Mercury finale politics post. I'm happy for you all! But this is a long boring post about the military industrial complex in the show.
Somehow, I thought they weren't going to go with "the villain was right and only his means were wrong". It makes sense for Shaddiq to want to capture the means of war production for the Earth, as someone who likely has allegiances on one side of the many conflicts. Arming a wronged people and giving them the tools to create their own borders and their own nation is a classic motivation for a terrorist.
But that's clearly a measure of escalation and proliferation of weapons. Not something that pacifist Miorine would be expected to support, especially given that she has seen firsthand the violence that even a few mecha can inflict have on a civilian populace. She values peace as a concept, and has no ties to any specific region or nation on the planet, and it would require too much suspension of disbelief that she would be ignorant to the effect that escalating Earth's capacity for warfare could have.
It's a flawed solution, and not just for the given reason that "space will just scoop up the means of war production again". It creates a power vacuum twice, by escalating the amount of firepower that exists on the Earth, and by chasing away the Spacian interests that were previously controlling it, opening room for Earth corporations and warlords to take over that role.
Rather than being "consumed by proxy wars" between Spacian corporations, it would be consumed by wars fought in earnest, settling old grudges with newly bought war production capabilities.
It sidesteps the political implications of telling a story about the military industrial complex, which G. Witch has been about since the beginning, which is a bit disappointing in my opinion. The only commentary out of the show seems to be that Spacian war production is wrong because they have no stakes in the wars they support. But that's also a problem with Earthian war production.
Sure, Spacians are comfortable and unconcerned with the conflicts that are funding their lifestyle. But wouldn't Earth corporations still have the same profit motive? Does Lockheed Martin have any interest in stopping wars? Of course not. They would be just as profit-motivated and just as disconnected from the human cost of war as those in the Benerit group. Where Spacian war partitioning would encourage stalemates for stable consumption of war materials, the many divided elements of Earth's military industrial complex would encourage wars of conquest and revenge with one another as an engine for their growth.
While this is a fairly distant concern for a show that is about a girl going to school and making friends, it does matter how the protagonists affect the fate of the Earth. The politics are just too simple here. It treats both Space and Earth as simple monoliths, and the only balance of power it regards as important is the one between Earth and Space. The show ignores the other questions, like whether war manufacturing corporations can be trusted just because they're on Earth.
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Who will fill the power vacuum? Will Earth corporations use Gundam and cloning technology for good or evil? Will the dream of using Permet technology for medical research ever find funding under its new owners? And most importantly: is there any solution for a status quo sustained on a war-for-profit economy? Because transferring ownership and simply hand-waving the effects of worldwide war-manufacturing and proliferation is not a roadmap towards peace at all.
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xtrain · 5 days
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1979-1990 Anime Primer
I wrote this primer to serve as an introduction to those new to 80s anime. It features 50 titles (plus one bonus title), all of which are either films or OVAs for ease of viewing. Please note that Studio Ghibli films from this era were purposefully excluded since they are already so well-known (I consider Nausicaä to be pre-Ghibli).
1979    Aim for the Ace!
1979    Galaxy Express 999 
1979    Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro 
1981    Ashita no Joe 2
1981    The Door into Summer 1981    The Fantastic Adventures of Unico 
1981    Mobile Suit Gundam: The Movie Trilogy
1982    Arcadia of My Youth
1982    Space Adventure Cobra: The Movie
1983    Urusei Yatsura Movie 1: Only You
1984    Birth
1981    Daicon IV
1984    Macross: Do You Remember Love?
1984    Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
1984    The Star of Cottonland
1984    Urusei Yatsura Movie 2: Beautiful Dreamer
1985    Angel’s Egg
1985    GoShogun: The Time Étranger
1985    Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko
1985    Megazone 23
1985    Minky Momo: La Ronde in My Dream 1985    Night on the Galactic Railroad 1986    Fist of the North Star
1986    Megazone 23 Part II
1986    Project A-ko
1986    Windaria
1987    Black Magic M-66
1987    Bubblegum Crisis
1987    Devilman: The Birth/Demon Bird
1987    Dirty Pair: Project Eden
1987    Neo-Tokyo
1987    Robot Carnival
1987    Royal Space Force: Wings of the Honnêamise
1987    To-y
1987    Twilight of the Cockroaches
1988    Akira
1988    Dominion Tank Police
1988    Dragon’s Heaven
1988    Gunbuster
1988    Legend of the Galactic Heroes: My Conquest is the Sea of Stars
1988    One Pound Gospel
1988    Vampire Princess Miyu
1989    The Five Star Stories
1989    Gosenzo-sama Banbanzai!
1989    Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket
1989    Patlabor: The Movie
1989    Venus Wars
1990    Cyber City Oedo 808
1990    Nineteen 19
1990    Record of Lodoss War
BONUS    Blue Blazes
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maguro13-2 · 3 months
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Darkness Reborn ~ Origins of the Ink Demon Final Chapter Pt.12 ~
Duo Maxwell : Ughhh! I think I managed to survive. Good thing I was able to survive that shock. I can't die if my Soul Data would be gone for sure. Still, I hope the guys of Wing would reunite with me very soon. But without any help from any of the Gundam Pilots, I just thought that we and Lain would appreciate the true kind of Deathscythe, but what's the use of it? Stupid Soul Eater and this stupid Square Enix. Those JRPG assholes are just a bunch of maggots.
Heero : Hey, isn't the time to give up. You still got some hope within us. Maybe it's time that you needed to find the true meaning of friendship in combat.
Duo Maxwell : Not now, Heero. I'm still waiting on something for you...[turns sees the Gundam Wing cast in suits] to return! Heero, Trowa, Quatre, and Wufei.
[S3&K Jingle : 1-UP - Howard Drossin]
Duo Maxwell : Guys! You all came back to me. I thought you were...
Heero : Alive? Yes, we were all alive and thanks to the help of that girl you fell in love with, we linked our Gundam's brains to become the robots that we piloted! We were lost in defeat to the hands of Necrodeus and that girl from the movie. Thankfully, we manage to use the ability to link with our robots' computerized brains. We knew it all along to finding out that Deathscythe was controlled by that Wired Girl.
Duo Maxwell : Yeah, that figures. She and I have a lot in common, but it's all good that we're finally back together. Listen, Necrodeus staged the Soul Eater thing, it was all a setup to bring the evil forces from Asura as a diversion for this galactic conquest thing from Demon Vibe. You all heard the thing right?
Quatre : Of course we heard the whole thing. Not just a thing thou, but the "entire" thing. Looks like the Ohkuboverse is was really facade the entire time and Demon Vibe behind all of this! The Real World AU got nothing on them. By the time, it's going to shatter Real World AU very soon.
Wufei : I will get the heartlesses' attention. Will call out our Gundams to distract the darksides and you meet Deathscythe at it's arrival to the city.
Trowa : With that in order, we can all finally have this world's moment of peace at last when the Ohkuboverse meet it's goodbyes. Real World AU won't be bothered by it for good.
Heero : So what do you say max? Need a hand to reunite us, Maxwell?
Duo : ....Yes, I'll give you a hand...for Earth! [shakes hands in agreement]
"REUNITED!"
Trowa : It's good to have you back, Maxwell! Now then, let's go kick some invading butts!
[Deathscythe arrives]
Deathscythe : DUO MAXWELL. I HAVE ARRIVED. LINK NOW TO BE IN BATTLE.
[the four other Gundams arrived]
Heero : Duo! That's our cue! Now's the time to link our souls to the Gundams.
Duo Maxell : Right!
ALL : DATA RESONANCE : GUNDAM LINK!
[The group transfers their bodies into the brains of their Gundams]
[Just Communication plays]
Heero : Aw, Yeaaaah-hahaha! WOOO-HO-HOOOOO! We are back! the Gundam Wing is back and ready to open our wings!
Duo Maxwell : And of course, I will make our revenge to complete option for ourselves!
Heero : And now we all finally knew that you were in engaged with Lain Iwakura at an age like this!
Duo Maxwell : Hey, don't get me starting the engage, you know that's our secret and the people will never know.
"Meanwhile..."
Inky Albarn : This world shall nothing become than a prison of mine. If only Bendy was here to see that...How much that I was going...to be a great mother. A mother that I was going to be proud of...
[images shows of Inky and Bendy on a date in the past]
Inky Albarn : What am I doing? What have I become? Who was I responsible for? This is not the Inky Albarn I know...
[Heart and Soul - Takahito Eguchi]
[a flashback shows Bendy and Inky in the 1930s]
Bendy : Inky. There's something that I needed to tell you this before.
Inky Albarn : Go ahead, my love. I'm ready to hear.
Bendy : Well...Ummm...okay! Here it goes. Inky Albarn, for having the best thing for taking me to a date and I've been waiting for this exact moment for us to be the love of my life. So, ummm, Inky Albarn I've been giving you this from a secret to keep it from those people in society.
Inky Albarn : What did you get for me?
Bendy : Uhhh...[thinking] roses that I gave her, giving a her good meal, and uhh, what was that last part again? [sees Boris behind the bushes]
Boris : [quietly] Go on! do it, man! She's all yours. Answer it and she will be yours!
Bendy : Okay...be brave! Let me show you a little magic. [straining]
*POP*
Bendy : Tada! Inky, will you be the woman that I wanted to be with? [opens a box that contains a wedding ring]
Inky Albarn : [blushes] I...I never been blessed like this before. [giggles] Yes, Bendy. I do.
[flashes back to the present]
Inky Albarn : [sobbing] Bendy...I promised that I would come back to you. I promise that...I wanted to bring everything back the way it was. [starts crying] What have I...What have I done!? Bendy! Please come back to me! Please come back to me! [her dress starts changing from black to white] Why did I let everything go, Why did I have my heart torn to pieces? Evans...I could never forgive you do such a thing! You will pay for everything what you've done! When I do...I will get my hands on that are really something, the hands of you that are red with humanity's blood, I will destroy you for everything, and for making me as a tool for destruction! I will have my revenge! I am going to make you pay for what you've done!
[door opens]
[To the World of Memory - Yutaka Minobe]
Inky Albarn : Hmm? Who's there?
Dr. Stein (?) : My, my. If isn't Inky Albarn. What are you doing here alone in this basilica of Italy, the one they call it the beautiful and famous Santa Maria?
Inky Albarn : How did you know about me that I was here in the Santa Maria and who the heck are you? Are you Inky Evans or are you some kind of trespasser?
Dr.Stein (?) : My, My. What cold receptions await you to have your exact revenge. Now then, don't you tell me you were interested someone. It was I who broke your prison along time ago after those technicolor maggots defeated you to stop your bad behavior. After all you are the mother of the new lord that I planned you to give birth. [takes his off clothes that appears to be a disguise and reveals himself as Sammy Lawrence]
Inky Albarn : [gasped in shock] It can't be...You? You're the one who broke my prison and set me free! Sammy Lawrence!
Sammy Lawrence : So nice of you to see in a fair reunion, I was hoping that I would see your face once again after your imprisonment in the place where I awakened the original Ink demon. Your husband is alive and he would await your return. After all, this is the place where you and him married at many years ago.
Inky Albarn : This is the place where I married Bendy? Many years ago?
[flashback shows Bendy and Inky at the altar, where Bendy is the groom and Inky herself as the bride]
Sammy Lawrence : That's right. Years before you escaped from your imprisonment, you were chosen as the bride to the Demon King's ceremonial marriage, a ceremony situated by the true ruler of his world, the King of all Ink Demons. And of course, you married the lord that was his "son".
[Bendy's Father is shown with Alice Angel and Boris]
Inky Albarn : His "son"? So I was there before I became queen of his world, Bendy's father was there and I knew him as well. So does that make me...
Sammy Lawrence : Yes, it is true. Very true. You are the mother of his "child", you were his spouse. A true heir that serves the royal bloodline of all Ink Demons! For Generations the bloodline has passed throuhout the ages and then when you will become part of that bloodline, an heir will become the part of it as well! The new lord is revealed to be the child you wanted to give birth. That is your wish that you must never forget.
Inky Albarn : My wish. I finally understand what my wish is form. If it means what it means to to be the part of the bloodline, then I will have my revenge, the one who betrayed me from the start and I will make their transgressions pay.
Sammy Lawrence : Hurry now, the door will vanish soon, we must be get going to get you prepared. Let's give them the meaning that anyone is the creator and lover who are traitors. And you Inky is alive and Immortalized.
Inky Albarn : Alive and Immortalized, When there is no vaccine to cure the dirty need, they will build the machine, which they will die tonight! That is what those wishes are for. Inky Eater Evans, you're next!
~ Ninety-First Scene : Inky Redemption ~
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faroreswinds · 2 years
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Japanese anon, hello, I hope you’re enjoying your trip. There were a lot of unhappy responses on twitter to Houses 3 year anniversary and people blaming koei specifically. A lot of people just put down hopes after playing blue lions and went back to azure moon. An english language article discussing low sales in japan has a small comment section saying japanese have no sense of good storytelling…which was not appreciated by some japanese speakers who found it. Or for also insulting fire emblem if, which is still a beloved title. Now there is conflict with traditional musou fans (musou is a niche genre in japan and is sometimes derided as a “mowing” game, where there is no thought or effort except pressing buttons according to critics), and especially musou fans who say koei abandoned them to make nintendo spinoffs instead of paying attention to dynasty warriors and sengoku warriors.
There is also concern over the war message because especially after the fallout from the world war, many people were careful to promote stories about peace and harmony, and especially why many japanese movies show homes and cities being attacked and destroyed in war scenes. gundam is also usually quite pacifist at heart. Miyazaki-sensei is another good example. But lately there seems to be a shift with some stories trying to be casual about war, or trying to promote war as glory, like with that jsdf isekai, or the ending to attack on titan, which left many people quite stupefied. And fire emblem has always been about good characters resisting invasion and conquest by larger, stronger neighbors, so this shift is concerning. On twitter people are now raking over the coals (i really like this expression) the red route for hopes and saying nintendo and koei are playing coy and lying about edelgard and not calling her what she is: an aggressor. But fans of edelgard give the game high marks.
Thank you, Japanese anon. Truth be told, I have thrown out my back and I am now trapped to the floor mainly. My trip will improve once the muscle relaxers do their job.
Don't worry, this isn't the worst I have had. This time I am not screaming in pain and I can at least walk, I caught it early. So I'll be fine.
So anons, I do SEE your asks and I WILL get to them, but I can only focus on writing in short spurts, so please be patient. I promise to answer EVERY ask.
Also, that means my gameplay notes and my GW review is even more delayed now. Apologies, I feel frightfully guilty.
Do Japanese fans really prefer AG that much more than the others? Wow. Still, I get it though...
Bah, those comments from the English speakers should just be ignored. It's embarrassing that those comments even exist, frankly. :/
And I do feel sorry for dynasty fans but... from my understanding, the series hasn't done that great in general. The Nintendo property titles have been doing phenomenal for the series... even Hopes sold well, despite the drop in sales and the bad reviews - it sold well. So, while I feel terrible that they feel abandoned, I'm not sure how long the series would have survived without them. Still, it would be nice if a true Warriors game came out again.
Now, please correct me if I am wrong but... I was under the impression that IS themselves (and mainly, the main dev if Houses) recongizes Edelgard as an aggressor. But you are saying Nintendo and KT does not, correct? Heck, I'm pretty sure IS delayed Advance Wars due to what's happening overseas.
But I'm not surprised they don't want to call her an aggressor. She's meant to be marketable. Which sucks but it's true. I'm glad to see some people are willing to call it out. I just don't know if Nintendo or KT care. They made their money....
I can't speak to why war has become more... glorified lately, though. I guess the more time creates a separate between memories and history, ideas and virtues change. Doomed to repeat, humans are..
Still, it saddens me to hear about it.
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fortune-maiden · 1 year
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questionsf or fic writers meme: 7, 17, 37, 50!
Thank you! :3
7. Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of?
Hmm... I feel like with the kind of fanfic I write I rarely really get to dive into worldbuilding. I'm more the person who takes 1 randomly mentioned characterization detail of canon and goes to town with it. xD
I am very proud of the Koi Tower eats people headcanon though. Never got to do anything with it yet, but I think it's fun :3
17. What highly specific AU do you want to read or write even though you might be the only person to appreciate it?
There are so many xD
So many highly specific canon divergence scenarios I want to read. Crossover AUs. Plot Derailment Aus.
(a lot of these usually involve someone dying thought....)
But also, I've been toying with a TGCF Gundam AU. I don't have any plot for it, only vibes, but I just think the characters should get to pilot giant robots and have a lot of Drama. and black water arc mecha battle in Space featuring HX stealing a mech he & SQX built together, SQX being the Worst Pilot Ever but also the only one available, and SWD going out in a epic blaze of glory.
I also had an MDZS King's Avatar AU at one point, but all that really featured was WWX getting kicked out of his pro esports team, moving across the street to Wen Qing's internet cafe, and starting over in the game with a new ridiculously overpowered character and building a new pro team with Wen Ning.
Also Pokemon AUs are common enough, but what about Pokemon Conquest AUs! If Pokemon can canonically crossover with Sengoku-era Japan featuring Koei Samurai Warriors, then I think there is potential for an R3K or a Jianghu version!
And also also, Yugioh AU. I cannot write duels to save my life, but I know enough about the game to fantasize about what kind of Yugioh decks characters would have or which clans would focus on which summoning techniques a la Arc-V xD
WWX has a graveyard focused zombie deck. or maybe he invents pendulum summoning in this verse and everyone hates him forever for it
Probably the niche-est AU I have though that very definitely no one other than me would ever read is the Warriors Orochi AU where MDZS characters get summoned to WO3 verse and interact with R3K, Sengoku era & assorted historical/mythological/video game figures. I have had some ideas for 'stages' haha xD
(or maybe a general WO3 mxtx fusion could work. I just really like WO3's plot and stage setups)
37. Promote one of your own “deep cut” fics (an underrated one, or one that never got as much traction as you think it deserves!). What do you like about it?
It's kinda hard to say what a fic deserves but I was always a little sad 'Supporting Role' didn't get a little more love (although it's certainly done better than some of my more recent fics orz). It was a fic that had always been on my mind from the first time I watched The Untamed, and especially after learning how different Meng Yao's role with the Nie was in the novel vs. CQL.
The fic was originally going to have a follow up Nie brothers chapter, but I got a bit discouraged at the initial reception and shelved the idea ^^"
50. Answer any question of your choice, or talk about anything you want to talk about!
Writing has not really been easy for me lately, but I'm slowly getting back into it... though without much success at finishing things. I have a lot of ideas, but it's been more fulfilling to talk about them with people than actually writing them. Oops?
I really want to try writing more longfics though. But also short snippets (au or otherwise) that can just stand alone without 1000s of words of buildup
One day I'll get my mojo back!!
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grayrazor · 3 months
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I’m really glad that Destination Moon, The Conquest of Space, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Mobile Suit Gundam, Babylon 5, Firefly, the rebooted Battlestar Galactica, The Expanse, and ultimately For All Mankind happened.
Finally decade-by-decade put an end to the kind of guy who watches Star Trek or Star Wars with you and is like, “did you know that this is actually very unrealistic? Actually, they should all be floating around because there’s no gravity in space, and actually you shouldn’t be able to hear anything because there’s no sound in space, and…��
If only we could find a way to similarly silence the kind of person who got into sci-fi with Star Trek, only knows any science from watching Star Trek, cannot distinguish between actual technical jargon and Star Trek technobabble, and criticizes other sci-fi (or even real science!) for not using technology in the same way. (Star Wars, Doctor Who, Warhammer 40,000, and other popular long-running franchises also have That Guy)
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gwimgamer · 3 months
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SD Gundam G Generation Genesis - Mechs, Strategy, and Galactic Conquests on the PS Vita!
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Rating: 4.5 out of 5. PlatformPlayStation VitaGenreTactical Role-Playing GameRelease Date November 22, 2016Developer Tom CreatePublisher Bandai Namco EntertainmentMODESINGLE PLAYER   Embark on a cosmic journey filled with mechs, strategy, and intergalactic warfare with “SD Gundam G Generation Genesis” on the PS Vita! Released in 2016, this tactical role-playing game invites players into…
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gonagaiworld · 5 months
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È morto il cantautore Shinji Tanimura Il fondatore del gruppo musicale Alice ha eseguito le sigle di Turn A Gundam, Great Conquest: The Romance of Three Kingdoms. Info:--> https://www.gonagaiworld.com/e-morto-il-cantautore-shinji-tanimura/?feed_id=406365&_unique_id=652d5fecd63d6 #Anisong #Lutto #ShinjiTanimura #TurnAGundam
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scope-dogg · 3 years
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Knight’s and Magic: Final Thoughts
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Isekai anime have been very popular in recent years, and 2017′s Knight’s and Magic was one of many cashing in on that trend, with the added twist of being a mecha series. However, what many may not realise is that the Isekai genre of anime was originally born out of the mecha genre, with the first Isekai anime arguably being the 1983 classic Aura Battler Dunbine by Yoshiyuki Tomino. While Isekai has split off and diversified into its own extremely prolific and popular genre, mecha has kept a foothold within it, and subsequently some of the greatest mecha shows have been fantasy-themed, with great titles like Magic Knight Rayearth and The Vision of Escaflowne following in Dunbine’s footsteps over the years, so really Knight’s and Magic should be viewed rather as the continuation of a fairly long tradition of fantasy mecha rather than Isekai but with robots. Adapted from the early volumes of a currently ongoing manga by the same name, it’s a short series, but one with high production values, superb mechanical design and entertaining action. It’s also a series that I ultimately simply cannot stand.
The plot setup is that Tsubasa Kurata is an unassuming but highly talented programmer working in contemporary Japan - or at least he is until he’s killed in a road traffic accident. As he dies, he has but one regret - that he’ll no longer be able to live with his hobby of building plastic model kits of giant anime robots. As is often the case with such a setup, he finds himself reborn into a fantasy kingdom called Fremevilla as the son of nobles called Ernesti Echavalier. However, to his joy, he finds out that the main weapon for fighting back against these monsters is the Silhouette Knight, a kind of gigantic magic-powered mecha. Thus, he devotes himself to the art of learning everything there is about these machines and one day building and piloting one of his very own.
There’s nothing really wrong with this premise, but Knight’s and Magic is flawed in how one-track it is. The show’s really only about one thing - how robots are cool. Of course, I agree that robots are cool. Knight’s and Magic’s lineup of robots in particular is very cool, both in their form and unique functions. However, anyone who’s actually a fan of the mecha genre knows that just having cool robots isn’t enough to carry a show - you have to have compelling characters and interesting narratives. The all-too-frequently trotted-out line of “[x mecha show] is actually good, unlike the rest of the genre, because it focuses on the characters instead of just the robots” is probably the single most effective thing you can say if you want to piss off a mecha fan, because that sentence describes literally every mecha show that was ever worth a damn, even going back to the genre’s roots in the 70s. However, it arguably doesn’t really describe Knight’s and Magic. The series’ creators come off as just as obsessed with robots as its main character, and it comes at the expense of the characters and setting. Each new episode comes with a cool new robot or a cool upgrade for an existing one, but practically none of them feature development of the setting or its characters. Fremevilla and its neighbours never come off as anything more than “generic fantasy kingdom”, the supporting cast are all cut from extremely generic-feeling moulds, and Ernesti never undergoes any growth or exhibits any notable character traits beyond “likes robots.”
Now, there have been several characters in mecha anime who are in large part defined by their dedication to giant robots as an ideal, or simply to their aesthetic, and some of these are truly excellent characters. For instance, Gai Daigoji from Nadesico, Akagi Shunsuke from Dai-Guard, Noa Izumi from Patlabor, Sei Iori from Gundam Build Fighters, or the Super Robot Wars Original character Ryusei Date. The difference between all of these and Ernesti is that being fans of robots isn’t the only thing that makes them relatable or endearing characters, whereas in Ernesti’s case it’s basically the only thing that defines his personality. It also doesn’t help that he’s perhaps the biggest Mary Sue main character that I’ve seen in a mecha anime. His gimmick is that his past-life experience as a programmer also makes him profoundly adept at magic, and that he’s a genius Silhouette Knight designer. He’s always totally successful at everything he tries and everyone loves and respects him for his accomplishments. Ironically, it’s this that makes him an unlikable character for the viewer, because, again, he has no real admirable qualities beyond liking robots and being good at making and using them. It’s a character’s struggles and tribulations that ultimately make them truly sympathetic, and Ernesti is never really challenged until right at the very end of the series, and ultimately that challenge only feels like a mild speed bump for him. This results in a series that despite all its cool robots and flashy battles is fundamentally dead as a story at its core.
However, all of this simply describes a series that I would find boring and mediocre rather than one I actively disliked in a serious way. However, this is arguably the first series I’ve watched since Gundam Seed Destiny that really ground my gears quite badly, and it all boils down to one specific moment in the show’s narrative. To explain why, I need to diverge from my usual review format and spoil not only this show, but also it’s forefather, the original mecha Isekai, Aura Battler Dunbine. I really don’t think spoilers for the former is anything to worry about but spoiling the latter is probably more of an offense. As such, the remainder of this review is below this spoiler cut:
Dunbine is not everyone’s cut of tea. It’s old, has bad animation, it’s long-winded and has a sometimes confused and scrambled narrative in accordance with some of Tomino’s worst habits. However, it was also a work of great imagination that really delivered on communicating a valuable message in some engaging ways. It’s a message that Knight’s and Magic cheerfully and infuriatingly tramples all over. Let me explain.
In Knight’s and Magic, the show’s hero is an outsider who enters into a fantasy world and uses his real-world knowledge to bring about a revolution in technology. This also happens to be the chief descriptor for a major character in Dunbine too.
However, this isn’t the description of the show’s protagonist, Show Zama.
It’s the description of the show’s villain, Shot Weapon.
Shot Weapon is the creator of the Aura Convertor, the technology that powers the show’s mecha, the Aura Battlers, and other weapons besides. The introduction of this technology destroys the peace of Dunbine’s world, Byston Well, and causes it to descend into anarchy and bloodshed. However, the real devastation doesn’t occur until Shot’s creations are transported back into our world, where they inflict destruction almost beyond imagining. Ultimately, Shot Weapon’s actions condemn him to a punishment of being forced to live forever in Byston Well in a state of eternal suffering, like Cain after murdering his brother Abel. Dunbine’s ultimate, most crucial message is that those who manufacture weapons and spread death are to be condemned.
Knight’s and Magic gave itself the exact same opportunity to deal with this exact same theme. The show’s final arc is that a kingdom called Zaloudek has accumulated vast military power and used it to invade its neighours. We get to see as they descend into a neighbouring kingdom, slaughter its just and rightful rulers and install themselves as tyrants. Now, enter Ernesti and his friends at the conquered kingdom’s borders. At this point he’s achieved his aim of creating his own unique robot called the Ikaruga, and in its first battle effortlessly dispatches the Zaloudek soldiers guarding the border. In the aftermath, he examines the wreckage of a destroyed Zaloudek Silhouette Knight. He and everyone else see the obvious - this machine, the Tyranto is based on Ernesti’s designs. Previously, one of the prototype Knights he’d constructed in an earlier arc was stolen by a mysterious foreign agent, and now it’s become clear what happened to it. The source of the military strength that’s fuelling Zaloudek’s ambitions of conquest are the new technologies that he created, reverse engineered from the stolen mecha. As he looks upon the wreck of the Tyranto, the show is presented with a unique opportunity to do something that it’s thus far not done - challenge its protagonist with the consequences of his actions. Sure, Ernesti is not exactly the same as Shot Weapon - he only wanted to create robots because he thought they were cool, while Shot Weapon wanted power. However, in this case the end result has been the same - death, destruction and oppression. Ernesti has a chance to think about whether the things he’s done are right and acknowledge that he’s at least somewhat responsible for the disaster that’s played out, even if it’s just to acknowledge that he has a duty to set things right by beating Zaloudek. This is an opportunity for him to grow as a character for the first time.
The show swerves this opportunity without flinching.
Sure, Ernesti does liberate the kingdom in the end, but it’s clear that it’s not as a result of any real moral calling. He just wanted to build more robots and fight with them. His motivation in the final battle is that he wants to destroy the enemy’s flying battleship because he’s worried that battleships might replace Silhouette Knights if he doesn’t. He remains a totally one-dimensional character right to the end.
As I said before, Ernesti’s obsession with cool robots arguably mirrors that of the creators of this show, if its myopic focus on them is anything to go by. Perhaps this seems extremely out of character for me to say, but this is an infantile obsession. Yes, I like giant robots, but I don’t like them so much that I miss the point. The core of not only the real robot genre that both Knight’s and Magic and Aura Battle Dunbine belong to despite the fantasy trappings of the show, but arguably of the mecha genre as a whole, is that technology can be a force of destruction and great evil when not used responsibly. Yes, the protagonist mecha in these shows are meant to be heroic, but only in their opposition to those who’d use technology as a tool of death and oppression. This is the core of the soul that makes mecha as a genre compelling. It’s a point that Knight’s and Magic completely misses and why it’s fundamentally a failure. It’s as if it’s trying to be what the mecha genre’s detractors try to paint it as.
That said, despite my misgivings there is entertainment to be found if you only want dumb action. But I’d highly encourage you to check out any alternative. If you want a fantasy mecha series, Dunbine, Escaflowne and Rayearth are all much more compelling stories than this - even ones I’m not so keen on like Panzer World Galient and Ryu Knight are fundamentally more interesting as stories than this. If you want a story with a mecha fanatic in the lead role, you’re much better off watching Patlabor or the chronically underrated Dai-Guard instead.
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