#bonus points if it creates conflict between them

[pinktwinkiezoppo]

Oh yeah one of my favorite ship tropes is "Guy whos in love with his best friend but his best friend is a superhero"

#bonus points if it creates conflict between them #savant par #parksborn #virichie #I know Richie becomes a hero later on sssssssh #this is also #benzak #but I'm not gonna explain why #zoppos posties

[esoteric-goblin]

on worldbuilding, and what people think is going on

there is one facet of fantasy worldbuilding that is, to me, the most interesting and essential but i don't see it come up in worldbuilding guides or writing prompts or anything, and that is the question of:

what do the inhabitants of your world believe about how the world works, and how are they wrong? a lot of fantasy media will set up their cosmology, gods, magic systems, planar systems, concepts of the afterlife, &c., and proceed as though the inhabitants of the world know and understand them.

from someone whose entire academic career is focused on studying human culture in various regions and time periods, with a focus on belief systems (religion, occultism, mythology, folklore): that sort of worldbuilding is unrealistic and missing out on so much fun.

people are always seeking new understanding about how the world works, and they are mostly wrong. how many models of the solar system were proposed before we reached our current one? look at the long, turbulent history of medicine and our various bizarre models for understanding the human body and how to fix it. so many religions and occult/magical traditions arise from people disagreeing with or adapting various models of the world based on new ideas, methods, technologies. many of them are wrong, but all of them are interesting and reflect a lot about the culture, beliefs, values, and fears of the people creating/practising them.

there is so much more to the story of what people believe about the world than just what is true.

to be clear: i think it's fine and important for the author to have a coherent explanation for where magic comes from or who the gods are, so they can maintain consistency in their story. but they should also be asking what people in the world (especially different people, in different regions/nations and different times) think is happening when they do magic, or say a prayer, or practise medicine, or grieve their dead. it is a rich vein for conflict between individuals and nations alike when two models of the world disagree. it is fascinating how different magic systems might develop according to different underlying beliefs.

personally, i think it is the most fun to spawn many diverse models of the world, but give none of them the 'right' answer.

(bonus points if you also have a thriving academic system in the world with its own theory, research, and discourse between factions! as an academic, it is very fun to imagine fictional academic debate over the topics i'm worldbuilding. sometimes i will be working out details for some underlying mechanic of the world and start imagining the papers being written by scholars researching it)

#worldbuilding #world building #writing #creative writing #writeblr #on writing #fantasy worldbuilding

[rallamajoop]

Translating the original RE8 trial scene storyboard

RE8’s bonus DLC concept art pack includes a couple of pages of an early storyboard for the trial scene, dating to back when Miranda was still going to be a foreign researcher rather than a village native, and Ada Wong was still part of the cast. Though the text is all in Japanese, I had a crack at translating it ‒ it makes for a fascinating comparison to the finished game.

Images and translations are under the cut below – but here’s the dot-point version of how this older storyboard compares to the finished one.

Instead of Miranda, the trial is overseen by a masked figure called only ‘shaman’ (祈祷師). Instead of lycans, the trial is attended by numerous villagers, all eager to see Ethan punished.

This may be the big one: the shaman claims an ‘Adam-sama’ has been angered by Ethan’s (unspecified) crimes. My best guess at this mysterious ‘Adam’ is that it might be a name for the megamycete. Whoever he is, all the 'Eve' connotations of Eva/Eveline (and even the Rose flasks) suddenly start to sound a whole lot more significant.

Even here, the trial is dominated by Dimitrescu and Heisenberg fighting over who gets Ethan – or at least who gets his body, after his execution. Dimitrescu still wants his blood, while Heisenberg presumably wants him for soldat-material. Moreau briefly makes his own bid, but he just wants to eat Ethan.

Donna’s one act is to apparently stop time at a crucial moment to speak directly to Ethan without anyone else hearing – though this seems to be an illusion she creates while contacting him psychically. No sign of Angie, who probably isn’t part of the game yet.

Rather than escaping through Heisenberg’s gauntlet, Ethan is rescued by Ada Wong (disguised behind a plague mask). I’m guessing Heisenberg’s role as pseudo-ally hadn’t fully developed while Ada was still supposed to be involved.

Conflict between the lords seems to be framed more as conflict between separate houses/families. Heisenberg makes a reference to ‘us Heisenbergs’ (perhaps this is from the time when his mother, father and twin brother were also supposed to be characters?) and Moreau to his ‘Kuku-family’.

Though the name ‘Heisenberg’ does appear, he’s mostly called ‘Geek’, while Moreau is ‘Half-fish-man’ (半魚人), and Donna is simply 'Spirit' or 'Ghost' (心霊). Lady Dimitrescu is the only character who is actually called that (though it’s mostly abbreviated to just ‘lady’). I could not tell you why a Japanese dev team would decide that ‘geek’ was a good moniker for their heavy-metal-Frankenstein-wannabe, but here we are. (Note that most of the game files associated with Heisenberg are still labelled ‘geek[something]’, so clearly this was a moniker that stuck. Donna’s files are almost all called ‘ghost[something]’. Moreau and Dimitrescu mostly get shortened/mangled into 'moro' and 'domi'.)

Heisenberg and Dimitrescu actually come to blows over Ethan in this version, with Heisenberg launching his hammer at her and seemingly killing her, or at least blowing her away. But I think we can take it as read that even in this version, she'll show up okay and be back to torment Ethan later.

Oh, and did I mention this little addendum at the end which hints at Miranda doing some kind of surgery on Chris? WTF?

Standard disclaimer for all my Japanese translations: I’m nothing like fluent, and rely on online dictionaries for a lot of harder vocabulary. Corrections from anyone better qualified are welcome.

Okay, on to the actual translations! I'll include the full pages as we get to them, but I'll also break them down into smaller chunks so I can share and translate smaller chunks as we go through.

Page 1

[Ethan wakes up to find he can't move because his handcuffs are chained to the floor]

[Ghost-nobles and villagers buzzing in the church]

[Banging noise as shaman bangs his staff]

Shaman: "Everyone, quiet!"

[Church falls silent]

Shaman: "I have heard from each of the lords. This man's crime threatens the very foundations of our family! Lord Adam is furious! To allow this man to live will bring disaster upon the village! Only his death will appease Lord Adam's anger!"

[Cheering from the crowd]

Lady Dimitrescu: "In that case, after the execution, the Dimitrescu family shall receive the victim. My daughters haven't had nearly enough blood to drink of late."

Geek (Heisenberg): "Oi, wait a minute. From what I've heard, you witches have had it your own way long enough."

["Geek" burns Ethan's hand with a cigar]

Geek: "Us Heisenbergs will be taking this one, got it?"

[Ethan shrieks in pain]

Lady: "Didn't you have several victims sent to you just the other day?"

[Half-fish-man (半魚人) walks up to the Geek]

Half-fish-man (Moreau): "Oh, grant him to my Kuku-family, I.. I want to break him open and eat his insides!" (Note: I think Moreau's actually saying something even more colourful here, but I'm having trouble translating it)

[He approaches Ethan, parasites emerging from under his hood]

["Geek" halts him, brandishing his hammer]

Half-fish-man: [Groaning noise]

Lady: "I will not allow you two to do as you please!"

Geek: "Hm, how to settle this?"

Half-fish-man: "Oh, oh…!"

[Rising noise of cursing onlookers]

[Geek raises his iron hammer]

Page 2

[The moment he throws his hammer at Lady Dimitrescu, a halucination begins and time seems to stop. Direction and focus of camera fits the spirit]

Ghost (Donna, in a voice no-one else can hear): "….(You… have summoned him… receive your reward…)"

[Reality returns]

[The hammer pierces Lady D. and blows her away, part of the church collapses. Panic as villagers fall or die]

Geek: "Don't worry. Your corpse will become my plaything."

[A mysterious masked figure appears and fires three shots into Heisenberg, five into the shaman]

Masked figure: "Run!"

[Cuts the chain holding Ethan to the floor]

Geek: [getting up] "..what the…?"

Shaman (still full of arrows) yells to the villagers: "What are you doing! Don't let them escape! After him!"

Masked figure: "This way!"

[Still handcuffed, Ethan runs through passages before finally making it outdoors]

Page 3

Masked figure: [while reloading crossbow] "Your daughter is alive. Go get her back, okay?"

Ethan: "What are you…"

[Masked figure sees someone coming from behind] "No time, go!"

[Ethan screams as he's thrown over the railing]

[And here endeth the storyboard]

Page 3 Addendum

This brings us to the latter half of Page 3, which contains only a single column of panels. Remaining space features an extra half-page of Miranda in her original foreign-scientist incarnation, pictured with what I assume were some of her experiments. There's some text on these too ‒ hand-written rather than typed, which made it a right bastard to figure out. But I had a crack anyway, because even at a skim-read it had me going, "wait, does that say the monster is Chris?"

Yep, it does. The captions (as best I could make them out) read "Miranda's paranormal organism experiment" (奇生体の実験) and "After plastic surgery on Chris' face" (クリスの顔に整形後).

This only raises so many more questions. Is Chris actually working with Miranda, or has she captured him for experiments? Is she repairing Chris' face after some horrific accident? Is she altering some monster to make it look like Chris Redfield? Or ‒ in a far more entertaining possibility ‒ was this meant to be an in-game justification for why RE7's Chris looks nothing like he does in RE8?

I have no answers for you, but you can really feel how much this game changed in development just from these little glimpses of what might have been.

#Resident Evil Village #Karl Heisenberg #Lady Dimitrescu #Mother Miranda #Donna Beneviento #Salvatore Moreau #Chris Redfield #Ada Wong #meta #RE lore #Resident Evil #cut content

[fantasy-anatomy-analyst]

Bonus note relating to that fantasy culture post I reblogged.

You know what really helps build up fantasy cultures? Making them interact.

Here is my most extreme example: my orcs, descended from a species of pack-hunting wild boar type animals, and my centaurs, chalicotheres that evolved a very weirdly consistent form of chimeric twin body shape.

The ancestors of the orcs used to hunt the ancestors of the centaurs. They were basically the only major predator of that species. This began long long before either group could ever be considered "people" but only stopped after both groups evolved equal levels of sapience and had many violent conflicts over it.

The centaurs defended themselves more and more, the orcs got more clever with their hunting, and then at some point they were no longer animals but all people, and what was once a dynamic of predator and prey became a dynamic of enemies at war.

The orcs surrendered. They abandoned their ancestral lands, conceding to the centaurs. They lost a lot of their culture, most of their important heirlooms, because so much of their ancestral history was so deeply centered on following their migrating prey and treating them as a sacred animal and using their hides and bones.

But that prey is a people now, and it is so very obviously the wrong choice to cling to that old culture. They had to start over.

And the centaurs became an isolated people, keeping everyone out, orc or otherwise.

Generations later, can they ever reconcile their past? Can they draw a line between animal and people and forgive the morally neutral act of simple predators hunting simple prey? When did it cross that line? Can these two opposed groups become friendly, after all that happened?

And then their cultures actually have a lot of similarities that happened to come from different roots.

The orcs are warrior folk who live in family groups and practice ancestral veneration.

So are the centaurs.

But the orcs are like that because they're descended from pack-hunting predators, while the centaurs are like that because they were the migrating herds of prey trying to defend themselves.

By having both of these groups in the story, even if they're not entirely central to the plot, I've already created a dynamic that makes the whole world feel more alive and occupied and gives it a history beyond the main characters and their own lives.

Following the plot, only focusing on worldbuilding that is plot relevant, that's all well and good and I encourage it! You don't want your story to drown in your worldbuilding. But man, it is so much fun to add those extra details and create connections between your people groups that extend far beyond the actual plot and the main characters. I think it can really make the world more immersive.

Sometimes I read fantasy, and it feels like the worldbuilding is shallow and flat, only there if it serves the one major plot line. It's like the rest of the world doesn't even exist. And I get it, I understand the tight focus, I know why so many people only want to write the small handful of characters and only stick to details that are plot relevant.

I just also really really love stories where the world itself is full and alive and you can see where there could be many many more stories to tell beyond the limited perspectives of the main characters.

#writing advice #worldbuilding

[completelyandtotalyuneventful]

I feel like I don’t see enough exploration into thow the ancestors being their parents affects the trolls in Humanstuck au’s. Because when you think about it it’s really fucking interesting.

Vriska in canon idolizes Mindfiang and tries to imitate her in her everyday life. She even goes as far as forcing herself to show interest in and become quadrantmates with the descendants of Mindfang’s quadrantmates (Eridan and Tavros). For humanstuck this creates a kid who places her mother on a pedestal and forms her entire personality around her. Maybe Mindfang is some notable person in the town they live in, like she holds an important job or she was infamous at the schools Vriska goes to. She could be so popular to the point where Vriska and Aranea are seen as “Mindfang’s kids” first and themselves second. Vriska thinks her mother is extremely cool and can do no wrong. Bonus points if Mindfang is dead or missing and Vriska lives with Aranea or Spidermom (who in this case might be Mindfangs terrible mother or sister or something). Vriska might be trying to honor her mother by imitating her in everyday life, based on what little information she has on her from her journals and the stories people tell her. Aranea, being older and having probably interacted with Mindfang more before her death, might know her true personality (whether she was good or bad) and is hiding what she knows from Vriska so as to not crush this perfect version of their mother that she has. This would make it ten times harder for Vriska to step out of Mindfang’s shadow and form her own personality, as she would feel like she was betraying her mother or letting go of her memory.

Meenah and Feferi!!!! Now they live with the terrible piece of shit that is HIC. In canon Meenah idolizes HIC as a cooler alternate version of herself, while Feferi is disgusted and horrified by her actions. This translates pretty easily over to a messed up parent/child dynamic. Meenah sees her mother as extremely cool, and thinks that if she imitates her or proves to her mother how cool SHE is that HIC will love her. She wants to be moms favorite and for them to be on a team against her annoying sister. Meanwhile Feferi is disillusioned from whatever caused Meenah to have this view on their mom, and instead sees her for the terrible person she is. Feferi is constantly trying to separate herself from her mother and prove that she is nothing like her. This is EXTREMELYinteresting if you include SolFef or Sollux and Feferi being close friends. The Psiioniic is one of the people HIC treated the worst out of the ancestors, meaning that in a humanstuck setting she is likely his abusive ex or a former/current bully. Psii could even work for her and be treated terribly at his job. This would cause an immediate distrust in Feferi, and Fef would have to work extremely hard to prove to Sollux’s dad that she is nothing like her mother and is a good person. This could also lead to a Meenah and Feferi conflict, where they are constantly fighting about their mother until Meenah has a moment where she realizes that no matter how much she tries to prove herself worthy, HIC is never going to love her, at least not in the way she wants her to.

The new family relations alone are interesting. Are Signless and the Disciple married, making Kankri, Meulin, Karkat, and Nepeta siblings? Is Dolorosa still Signless’s mom (which if you go this route I would usually make Kanaya and Porrim her grandchildren and have them as the Vantas’s cousins, but age gaps between siblings that are that big DO exist so Kanaya and Porrim could be Singless’ sisters and Karkat and Kankri’s aunts)? The Vantas’, Leijon’s, and Captor’s have likely been close since before Karkat, Nepeta, and Sollux were born, so do the three of them wonder if they’re actually friends or if they only hang out due to this proximity? Are either Dualscar or the Summoner Aranea and Vriska’s dad, or do the Ampora’s and Nitram’s just have a complicated history with the Serket’s due to these former relationships? How would this affect Vriska, Eridan, and Tavros’ friendship? How does Terezi’s mom working for Gamzee’s dad affect the relationship between the Pyrope’s and the Makara’s? There’s just so much shit to look at and I find it very interesting.

#homestuck #Homestuck AU #humanstuck #humanstuck au #homestuck ancestors #dancestors #Vriska Serket #aranea serket #mindfang #marquise spinneret mindfang #her imperious condescension #the condesce #meenah peixes #feferi peixes #the psiioniic #Sollux Captor #dualscar #orphaner dualscar #dualscar ampora #the summoner #the signless #karkat vantas #the disciple #nepeta leijon #the dolorosa #kanaya maryam #redglare #neophyte redglare #the grand highblood

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Brief assessment of Maglor’s stint as king/regent while Maedhros was chained to Thangorodrim:

Not agreeing to Morgoth’s demands in order to get Maedhros back? Zero blame. It’s Morgoth. Morgoth cannot in any way be trusted. He’s going to break any deal he makes. The Silm explicitly states this (“the Sons of Fëanor knew that Morgoth would betray them, and would not release Maedhros, whatsoever they might do”).

Not rescuing Maedhros? Zero blame. There was no reason for him to think it was possible, and for most of that time it almost certainly wasn’t possible. Fingon succeeded because of 1) all the orcs and other creatures of Morgoth hiding inside Thangorodrim from the newly-created Sun and 2) Thorondor. Maglor didn’t have the former and, due to still holding to an oath that involved the committment and willingness to murder innocent people, probably wouldn’t have had the latter even in the very unlikely event it had occurred to him to ask. (Obviously, he still does get blame from me for the Oath.)

Not attacking Thangorodrim? He gets points for that, it would have been stupid to do so.

Not taking any action to explore Beleriand, make contact with other groups (Falathrim, Doriath), develop alliances with them, or really do anything at all that contributed to the Fëanoreans’ goals? That’s his key failure, that’s the part that makes him a bad king. (Granted there was no sun yet, but the Sindar managed without one for centuries.) It’s a wholly unnecessary delay. They’re in a fairly strong position as there’s not a lot of orcs at first (“from the [Dagor-Nuin-Giliath] returned of all the hosts that [Morgoth] had prepared for the conquest of Beleriand no more than a handful of leaves”), and they could have used that time to good effect rather than sitting around making no progress while Morgoth rearmed. Given that they had no reason to expect either the Sun or Fingolfin’s arrival, being locked into that kind of stasis is not a good indicator. It’s only after Maedhros’ rescue and abdication of the kingship to Fingolfin that “[the Noldor] sent forth messengers far and wide to explore the countries of Beleriand, and to treat with the people that dwelt there”. Fingolfin showing up makes a difference not only as reinforcements, but because he’s actually a proactive and intelligent leader.

(Bonus: Not abdicating to Fingolfin as soon as he arrives? I think that both morally and pragmatically it looks like the right call, except for the fact it would almost certainly have led to outright conflict between a Celegorm-led camp and Fingolfin-led one because I don’t believe Maglor had any ability to get his brothers to abide by it. But that lack of control over his brothers would also indicate that he’s a bad king.)

#tolkien #the silmarillion #maglor #fingolfin

[rimeiii]

While putting myself at risk from backlash from the majority of the WHB fandom, I have this to say about the current situation with the news of a potential boycott, as well as the login bonus + raffle announcement.

A friendly reminder that, like the Molar Office IDs login bonuses back in Limbus Company that were announced + released amidst the Vellmori debacle's fallout, the Christmas/NY login and raffle campaign in WHB is highly likely a planned promotional event before the player backlash happened, not a response to the backlash. Having a holiday promotional campaign is normal for most gachas, after all - and is likely already a part of their roadmap, even if in WHB's case they never revealed their roadmap.

If you really want to see change in the game state then make your voices known by not playing the game anymore, not just halting in-game purchases - and definitely not by harassing the devs, because harassment would only make your main message be ignored. Because when it comes to gacha games, another metric devs use to gauge how successful and profitable a game is would be player retention - because existing players, despite being F2P, represent an opportunity for them to make more money by potential future purchases from these current F2P players.

(Continued under the cut for length)

There's a reason why, during the Project Moon boycott, many players downright stopped playing and uninstalled the game, calling for others to do the same thing. It was only after a large dip in both profits and active player count that Project Moon started adressing the issue, and let me remind you that their initial statements were really fucking bad - even more so the doubling down, tarnishing their reputation to this day.

As someone in my crew server said:

As for the actual fallout of the shitty response, which was mirrored by a large majority of players (and keep in mind many players had already stopped playing and creating content for Project Moon games at this point): people uninstalling the game completely. And now Limbus Company has to make do with a tarnished reputation, lower player count, and lower profits overall.

The other way to make your voices known is to be loud in social media, though this is very dangerous in a sense that it could devolve into all-out fighting between players. And it also needs to be a united front between all players. My mind returns to the Summer Fortune debacle back in Granblue Fantasy, which was an entire fucking mess of bad decisions. For a tldr of the campaign, written as I was trying to make sense of the campaign (which may also include incorrect calculations):

And the fallout, which happened the moment the lottery results were announced:

As much as there were conflicts in the game between high-tier reward winners and those who only got the lowest tier (highest tier is basically a choice of any fucking unit you want, lowest tier are just some upgrade mats), everyone was mostly united in the sense that their anger is for the most part directed towards Cygames, the devs. People filming themselves getting rid of everything in their account (grid burning), quote tweeting the announcement tweets, getting Granblue trending - all to make a statement. And it paid off, because the very next day...

Cygames not only compensated everyone with a higher tier reward (T3, the second lowest tier that only has roughly a ~26% chance for a player to grab - free Gala limited unit. You can see how unbalanced the reward tiers are and how it sowed frustration and anger in the playerbase atp), they never released a campaign as bad as Summer Fortune. However, it did turn a lot of players away from the game - this was the start of most of my server just not really caring about GBF anymore.

People boycott and protest to make a statement, to make their voices heard. And sometimes you need to go to such an extreme length to do so - including deleting your account and your game, as well as sacrificing your enjoyment of the game. It's like the Korean VGC Nationals for Pokemon (basically competitive Pokemon) - they risked it all to protest the bad treatment TPC Korea gave towards the Korean players by playing top 4 using full Metronome teams as protest (a movement backed by most, if not all Korean VGC players), and while the players did suffer from it (their invites for Worlds got revoked), the damage has been done (the entire Nationals tournament got canceled).

TPC lost a lot of respect from VGC players worldwide, and after the mess that was Yokohama Worlds with the sudden rule changes (increased hack checks announced a few months before the event, which included a note for all players to be safe and use their own mons without trading with others - at a state where players were still testing out teams before making them in-game, commonly with the help of others), many players have expressed that they wanted to quit competitive Pokemon. A lasting impression, especially in the competitive scene, as detailed below.

And do you want to know why no moves were made on Pokemon, yet actions were taken for both Limbus Company and Granblue Fantasy?

VGC is one of if not the tiniest part of the Pokemon franchise. Most of the money Pokemon gets is from merch sales, if I'm not mistaken. VGC players complaining won't make a dent in their earnings - especially with how obscure VGC is.

Different case with Limbus and Granblue. Players dropping the game, getting rid of all their core equipment, uninstalling the game? They all directly impact the game and potential profits - so, they eventually addressed their respective situations. I could go on about other forms of protest that resulted in concrete actions, which end up benefitting the game (the Passenger buff situation in Arknights, Punishing: Gray Raven's rocky launch with an apparently P2W campaign), but in fear of this post getting too long, I shall stop.

Am I being harsh? Yes - perhaps to some people, overly so. But unless something drastic is done, I don't see the devs planning to fix anything massive in this game, and I wouldn't be surprised if paywalled seasonal gacha units with high prices will eventually become the norm.

#what in hell is bad #pls realize that boycotting =/= hate speech or harassment #a gacha needs money yes but there are less predatory and wallet-breaking ways to do so #and i'm done enabling this sort of shit by playing the game and contributing to player retention #i might return if they make things more accessible in the future (in particular for f2p players) #but as it stands i don't feel like this is a game worth my time #not at its current state

[clonerightsagenda]

I was going to save this for one of my podcast girls week entries, but I wrote it out and then thought, why sit on it, so here is today's ladies night content before I go on a walk: Alien zombie Alana Maxwell is an underutilized concept and here's why.

She'd be cool with it. Maxwell works with AI who are ported between containers without that changing who they are, so she's primed to view her mind and memories being rebooted in a new container similarly. I don't think she'd have any identity crises. Also, her dad was a preacher, she's not on good terms with her family, and she tried to ditch the holiday party, which makes me guess she's ex-Christian. How better to spite your Christian parents than coming back from the dead in a distinctly non-God honoring way? This could generate some interesting conflict with Lovelace, who is significantly less cool with it and might be annoyed and dismayed to see someone else taking alien resurrection in stride. Bonus points considering I hc Lovelace as being raised Catholic and the soul question being an additional level of identity angst that Maxwell immediately dismisses.

The aliens have motive. It's clear that watching through their surrogates' eyes doesn't mean they understand what they see. Once Lovelace gets back to Earth, they might want help with context. They seem to have grasped that humans don't like multiple copies of a person running around, and of the others they have on file, they dislike Kepler and Cutter, and Rachel and Riemann were there when Cutter killed one of their meatsuits, so Maxwell seems like the one they'd have the least aversion to. Then she would immediately try to talk them into roadtripping to see things in person, which is how we can get all the other interactions I'm describing.

The aliens have opportunity. It's not stated what the crew did with Maxwell's body, but the likely options are either tossing her into the star or freezing her on the station, which later went into the star. Lovelace was frozen (albeit alive) when she got scanned, and Word of God is that the Dear Listeners are perfectly capable of creating a functioning surrogate from a corpse. If you don't want to go that angle, almost everyone got hit by multiple rounds of stellar activity in "Persuasion". However, the corpse angle creates an opening for...

Fun body horror. I am a 'came back wrong' enjoyer and think it would be very good if the aliens got their scanned corpse up and running but didn't fuss too much about the cosmetic stuff. Maxwell's skin is colder than it ought to be. She has a gnarly scar on her forehead. Neither of these bother her much, but she's not a fan of the tingling neuropathy left over from tissue damage or the brain fog from the bullet that went through her head. (A fun parallel to the issue she first helped Hera with. Hera is now in the brain damage club with Doug, Miranda, and Maxwell. She hates this.) She can fun-terrorize Jacobi with perma-cold hands and real-terrorize Minkowski by making her look at the hole in her head. She's honestly over it but it's still funny to watch her squirm.

The Hera thing. Hera was furious with Maxwell immediately after the mutiny, and although her opinions softened near the end of the show, I think she'd be furious again if Maxwell actually showed up. She embraced non-human solidarity with Lovelace and now here's Maxwell. What is she supposed to do, have non-human solidarity with her too?? Did Maxwell become an alien to spite her??? The nerve. I got the impression that Maxwell saw her actions during the mutiny as for Hera's own good - better than deleting her, right? - just as she was willing to ignore Hera's wishes and erase her memories in Memoria. She'd probably insist on that if they had a chance to argue about it, and I could see Hera throwing the restraining bolt incident in her face. ("If you're so comfortable putting something into people's brains to make them more useful to you, I'm sure you won't mind hearing how Jacobi got that scar on the back of his neck.") Could be juicy, is my point.

Meanwhile, Jacobi: Of course this is my very good friend Maxwell back from the dead. Yes this has implications for the version of myself I listened to die screaming. No I'm not going to unpack that.

Finally, I think it's a missed opportunity that Pryce and Maxwell never got to meet. I suspect pre-mutiny Maxwell would want to believe she was ethically better than Pryce while pre-finale Pryce would see Maxwell as a bleeding heart amateur, but after all that? I think they'd still get each other's hackles up, but there's room for some interesting interaction, especially as I think Miranda's memories would start trickling back after a while, and immortal alien surrogate Maxwell is basically her white whale. Miranda trying to navigate social niceties enough to determine an acceptable way to ask someone for tissue samples. Maxwell might be willing to swap some for custody over a few of Pryce’s experimental AIs.

In conclusion, while I enjoy postcanon scenarios dissecting people's trauma, I think it's fun if while everyone else is grappling with the Horrors, Maxwell is also there enjoying herself. *commercial voice* Add an alien Maxwell to YOUR postcanon today.

#for 12 low payments of $0.00 #perpetual perpetual ladies night #wolf 359 #visibly undead Maxwell dragging an alien doing a really bad human impression around Florida: :D #everyone else seeing this: D: #spending my last day of winter break blogging furiously

[burningsuitfire]

Ludinus's Research (and Essek)

Okay so. I actually think Essek might've known way more than the fandom assumes.

First of all, he hints multiple times that he knew Da'leth had a secret weak spot, research that he couldn't afford for anyone in the Empire to discover. And as such, Ludinus needed the war to stop.

How much do you want to bet Essek keyed onto and was talking about the Martinet's secret dunamis research for his moon plans?

(91) Caleb: I want to see the conflict end and I do not get that sense from them. Essek: ...What is the biggest danger... to secret research? Caduceus: Discovery. Essek: Discovery. What better way to avoid discovery than to find a way to stop a conflict that pries into what you're doing?

(125) Beau: You'd be smart to focus your attention to Ludinus and Ikithon. Yudala Fon: It never leaves them. And they've been acting quite nervous recently.

(97) Essek: (...) you're all in terrible danger for the things that you know. Their research is to continue and we are to correspond as the research progresses. There is intent to end this war.

Also, common fanon seems to think Essek didn't get any research when Matt, Da'leth, and Essek himself said the deal was an ongoing cooperative exchange.

If anything, DeRogna, Yeza, and Ikithon said that the Assembly was having a massive amount of trouble on their end trying to work with dunamis and the beacons, and would really need Essek in their work for insights (as Essek said was happening) and to work with the dunamantic expert and intelligence lynchpin.

And another point. The raids. Even if Ludinus wasn't forthcoming with Essek in their meetings (which Essek said he was), the Kryn were raiding research facilities.

The Felderwin raid, which people seem to take as evidence that Essek wasn't getting information, kinda looks like it suggests the opposite. Only after months of experiments and effort and expense and problems did they get a single potion, and Yeza said it was barely days after the completion when the Kryn raided. Incredible timing.

Meaning that it sure seems like the Martinet gave Essek information, possibly even more than he intended, and Essek wasn't playing nice.

Essek, who said his being in Rosohna was the exception right up until the ceasefire (where we saw him constantly in both important wartime full den meetings and sparse late night meetings, seated on the council, deeply influential and personally requested for the Bright Queen's strategy and war efforts)

(94) Essek: It prevents me from some of my capabilities throughout the day each time I do this, so while I'm here in my home and things are not requiring me to be elsewhere rapidly, thankfully this is a moment in time in which I am more useful here in the city.

He could've even been in Felderwin.

Also, if Ludinus was trying to sway Essek over to the Vanguard and his side, easy money that the heretic (a self-proclaimed "coward" who refused self-preservation via consecution, and managed to annoy his own intensely religious father to the point of self-destruction) wouldn't be happy about it.

That attempt at recruitment and following rejection could've easily been the cause of the unpleasant dynamic and tense conversation between the two on the Assembly's boat.

Bonus, Essek's leyline device. That's relatively simple, and a friend clued me in. Essek being able to track leyline strength is just useful for timing dunamancy research for his "personal studies" as he calls them. It's been pointed out multiple times in CR lore that wizards like ley spikes and solstices because the flare in leyline strength and ley energy just means it's easier to manipulate arcane energy and make new spells.

Look where the Tal'Dorei Guide talks about leyline strength and spellmaking.

The Verdant Expanse is saturated with magic. The ley energies that suffuse the greenwood make it easy for arcanists to create works of spellcraft by themselves, when it might take a half-dozen mages working in concert in other lands.

#essek thelyss #essek #ludinus da'leth #ludinus #ruby vanguard #c2 #campaign 2 #cr meta #c3 #campaign 3 #critical role spoilers #cr spoilers #critical role #mighty nein

[elhnrt]

Could we have the long answer to why you ship Madatobi. Because I really love your blog/opinions and I really love madatobi.

i’ve been like. chewing on this for a while because i’m much better at visuals than i am with words and for good reason because without constant revision a lot of what i say is just so unfiltered and goes from point a to c to g to m because it makes sense to me but nobody else. so instead of fretting over whether this will be given a grade i think i am just going to spill my spaghetti moderately uncensored

i like mdtb so much for what i have seen it as on paper with additonal interprative life pumped into it. many words to say “i get into pairings with like 5 panels of interaction time and bonus points if they are being mean and vicious to each other” BUTTTT adjunct to that mdtb is potential at its finest to me, which is my ultimate baseline. there are, canon wise, plotholes and shit writing galore (OBVIOUSLY) while also having enough room to make me think, okay, what if? what if what if, in these areas that will never be explained but still have their niche? tbrm is driven and logical, and mdr is driven and passionate, and both desire to bridge the gaps between the two ideals, so there is a point within conflict. prime ground for a personality clash and conquer be it civil or dislike/hate. if there is dislike they can body each other up with the strength of only the finest shinobi, and fuck viciously and sexily along the way of course, in ALL universes. after all i did get into the ship literally by going haha what if they both had sex that would be funny i think (<- CLUELESS). and if it is respectful and civil then they can build not only the village but a decent relationship between one another, and no it will not be perfect but literally no relationship is perfect so is that not reason enough to ponder upon them. canon aligned stories can give so much interesting, personal extrapolation wrt how they would proceed and dance around each other with disdain/outright hate, and canon divergent where izn lives just has a whole entire universe to explore, which i think is so wonderful and in a way is a form of magic and very whimsical. is it not enough to sigh with your chin in your palm and give a wistful smile to your wall as your images play behind your eyes like a shadowplay and think, gosh it's so nice to like this pairing that can go from hate to common ground so quickly or oddly or sexily, isn't it wonderful to like something that contains such passion, and feel passionate in turn, and have all these ideas and scenarios either created by myself or others to inspire me. i just think there is so much potential in all regards and i love mdtb so much i love them i love them i love them i want more and constantly, every idea is a new exploration and thats the beauty of it all.

#ppppp #lenask #anonymous #smiles dreamily #unfiltered rambling about yaoi consolidated into one post this is da elhnrt way

[henrysglock]

Your account has given me creelark brain rot so now I'm imagining a scene in s5 where Scott has found out about the UD and everything and the party is explaining to him that Henry is behind all this (cause they don't know about Edward and the timeline fuckery yet)

And Scott is just insisting that "no you're wrong. Henry wouldn't do this. He can't be behind all this." And basically not wanting to believe that His Henry could ever be this way

Idk this scenario is very interesting to me

please haha this scenario actually has a non-zero chance of occurring on screen (and i think about it all the time)

it's especially fun to consider in light of TFS, given that Hopper definitely isn't going to like young Henry. Joyce tends to side with Hopper, but we don't know how she felt about little Henry. Scott, though? Little Henry Defense Squad. I can feel it in my bones.

This could create a really interesting conflict between the three of them, with Hopper doing his normal "shutting unlikely explanations down" shit, Joyce maybe not particularly caring who did what as long as her boys are safe, and Scott sitting there like:

because little Henry never had those vibes. Just the sheer confusion and "don't slander my dead friend???" of it all.

Bonus points for Hopper getting proven wrong about it all. Jim "has to admit, after 30 years, that he may have misjudged queer little weirdo Henry Creel" Hopper is so real to me for ST5.

But I digress! All I mean is that the scene you're talking about is very much a possibility in ST5

#asks #timeline theory #creelarke

[wondereads]

Review of Gwen and Art Are Not in Love by Lex Croucher

Summary

Princess Gwen has been betrothed to Arthur, the son of a duke, since childhood. They hate each other, but their engagement is made only more complicated by Gwen's crush on lady knight Bridget Leclair and Arthur's penchant for kissing boys. In an attempt to cover up their respective romantic pursuits, they pretend to fall in love, but the ruse can only last for so long.

Plot 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I really liked how this story took some fun, more contemporary romance tropes and put them into a historical setting. Historical romances can often be quite dramatic and perhaps not the best fit for the YA style, but Lex Croucher did a great job of creating a more lighthearted story that still didn't make me forget the setting. There was an unexpected bit of plot at the end; I certainly didn't anticipate it, and it felt a little out of left field, but I think it ultimately gave some good character development and provided a nice conclusion to the story.

There were some points where the actual situations the four main characters got into felt a little unrealistic. Like it was stretching my suspension of disbelief. However, that's pretty par for the course for romance. The worldbuilding was a lot more in-depth than I thought it would be. It was wildly historically inaccurate, but it brought a lot more diversity than is normally present in historical romances.

Characters 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

I really liked the characters of this book, especially Gwen. The romance was great too, and I'll talk about that, but I appreciate that they all had their own arcs to follow and develop through outside their romantic attachments. Gwen has issues with her confidence, Arthur is the king of all daddy issues, Bridget struggles with her place in society as a female knight, and Gabriel has to come to terms with his sexuality. Them all having their own arcs really helps establish them as characters.

The romance itself was very sweet. Even if some of the situations were a bit unrealistic, the characters dealt with them very naturally and the build of both relationships felt well-paced. There was good conflict in both of them as well, ones where neither side was wrong or right and they had to come together to understand each other. By around halfway through the book if not sooner, I was wholeheartedly rooting for both Gwen and Arthur's happy endings with their love interests.

Writing Style 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Although this is a historical setting, the writing is quite modern (bonus points if you catch the Riverdale meme reference in the first few chapters). However, considering this is pitched as a romcom and makes no pretense of being historically accurate, I don't mind it. The tone and language is consistent throughout the book, and I really only think it's an issue if it changes between 'modern' and 'historical'. The writing itself isn't amazing, but it is still good and Croucher does a good job portraying emotion.

Overall 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

This was a great historical romance. It was super sweet with a lot of great representation, even if it wasn't what most would consider historically accurate. Both relationships developed naturally with some pretty realistic bumps along the way. Some scenes felt a little forced, but more in the uncanny probability of the world, not the characters. Gwen was my favorite character, and I loved her arc of self-improvement. There was an unexpected bit of plot at the end, but I think it worked well in the context of how the characters were developing and what needed to occur for a happy ending.

The Author

Lex Croucher: British, also wrote Reputation and Infamous, has a cat

The Reviewer

Hi, I'm Wonderose, and I write reviews! Check out my pinned post for more about me :)

#books #reviews #gwen and art are not in love #lex croucher #ya #historical #romance #lgbt #wlw #mlm #secret relationship #fake dating #royalty #arranged marriage #arthurian legend

[mirageofadesert]

C-Drama Review: My Journey to You

Broadcast: iQIYI, 2023, 24 Episodes Genre: Romance, Wuxia

My Rating 7/10

A beautiful show with a promising premise, ultimately disappointing with a poorly realized asynchronous story-telling and unsatisfactory ending.

Acting: 6/10 World-building: 7/10 Production: 9/10 Storytelling: 4/10 Pacing: 7/10 Re-watch Value: 6/10  Bonus: for Jolin Jin's and Tian Jiarui's characters. One of my favorite big sister and little brother!

Summary with minor spoilers: My Journey to You tells the story of two assassins, Yun Weishan (played by Yu Shuxin) and Shangguan Qian (played by Lu Yuxiao), who are sent to infiltrate an enemy sect territory, the Gong residence, disguised as potential brides. However, their respective objectives are in conflict with each other, and so are their targets. They encounter two very different young masters and their respective families. Young Master Gong Ziyu (played by Zhang Linghe) surprisingly attains the title of Sword Wielder of the Gong family, but faces accusations about the legitimacy of this status and title. Only by completing three challenges can he prove himself and take up his family's legacy. He falls in love with Yun Weishan early on, meanwhile Shangguan Qian future husband Gong Shang Jue (played by Cheng Lei) distrusts his new bride. In a balancing act, she must win his trust without revealing her true intentions. Thus begins a dangerous game, wherein the lines between friend and foe are blurred. The price? Freedom from the oppressing employers - and their own survival.

My review - spoilers ahead!

The show started out incredible promising: A captivating premise, a darker tone in both cinematography and theme, beautiful sets and costumes, decent special effects and a different voice for Esther Yu. And while the show had great moments, it overall failed to deliver what it promised. So what went wrong?

The short version is that the show suffered from the typical shortcoming: mediocre acting, misguided directing and bad writing.

Esther Yu and Zhang Ling He never stood out to me as particularly great actors, and this holds true in this show as well. However, I don't think the problem with My Journey to You can be blamed on their unconvincing acting, but is rather a product of the direction the writing took them.

The tension arcs get boring really fast: Again and again the female leads are in danger of being exposed (or better: exposing themselves), but by the third time it doesn't feel exciting anymore. The other major plot line is the conflict surrounding the succession of the sword wielder title, which I was never able to care about. I think a different story-line for the ML would have greatly benefited the drama. Trying to make the audience care about him by putting a lot of emphasis on his hard childhood early on in the show, didn't work, because it felt so irrelevant compared to the backstories of the other characters. It didn't give him depth, it actually took it away.  Therefore, the dynamic between the main couple wasn't working either - she was too cold, he was too immature for them to create any interesting chemistry.

The second couple not only had the better written characters, their storyline had more suspense. I have seen mainly Esther Yu being criticized for this drama, so my potentially controversial opinion is, that it's actually the fault of the dull main storyline and the bland ML.

The other big problem are the poorly build-up plot twists. Some of these plot twists themselves were great, like the switch of the medical document and the death of the little sister. While these were great plot points, the narrative build-up wasn't. In retrospect, it made sense we got so much information about the MLs unhappy childhood and complex relationship with his parents, because that build-up both to the medical record swap and the betrayal of the older brother, however... it was just done in such an annoying way, that it made the ML look unnecessary whiny and the storyline boring.

As the show progressed, they increasingly used the element of time-jumps and flashbacks to tell the story. There should have been a better way to deliver tension and twists, than constantly making jumps in order to catch the audience off guard. Part of the fun in mysteries like this is to make guesses while watching, but that only goes so far, when it is all in the editing and crucial information is simply being withheld. And what made this even worse, it that the final plot twist (e.g. the brother coming back) was so predictable, all the asynchronous story-telling wasn't even necessary!

Worst of all was the ending: A twin sister out of nowhere? A villain that was poorly build up? No resolution for the second couple? A cliffhanger for a next season that does not fit the tone of the first 23 episodes and is unlikely to ever happen? Frustrating.

It wasn't all bad: The supporting cast was great. Ryan Cheng, Jolin Jin and Tian Jiarui were amazing! The dynamics between all the other couples were engaging as well. Gong Zishang was my favorite comic relief in any cdrama, and she gave the whole show such a unique vibe! Tian Jiarui's character was right done my alley - I just love my twisted little psychopath in emotional turmoil!

Just one last thought ... please no more Chen Duling? She has been in most shows I have watched this summer and has failed to charm me every time. She is a decent actress, but the type casting of "sad, whiny girl" isn't doing her any favors.

Overall, I think this was a decent drama. I still would recommend you to watch this show, especially if you value intriguing characters over plot!

#my journey to you #cdrama #cdrama review

[sometimesthatsbetter]

Everything I've read in Jan. 2024

Yona of the dawn

Yona was the first story that i read this year and damm was it the right way to set the tone for the year. It's a story that has all of the elements that I adore in the fantasy genre, its got the action, political drama, the multi-facted characters. I won't be saying much about this manga because i have already have an older post talking about my favorite aspects, so if you want more in depth thoughts you can search for that

Kashoku no shiro

Now here is a fun setting, Taisho era Japan with supernatural elements. Quick run down of the story, people are being affected by a mysterious disease that makes flowers bloom all over their bodies, once the flowers wilt so does the person but there are cases where they recover and become even healthier. But plot twist, the ones who survive will become demons who feast on human flesh. So thats where our protagonist Shiraume comes in, she acts as 'bait' for these demons, essentially luring them out for her master to slaughter

If i had to tell you what drew me to this story, it would be the art style, like it is drop dead gorgeous. Also the design of our heroine is just my type too which is a bonus

Plot wise it does feel a little all over the place, it jumps persecptive quite often. Like it jumps form a detective story, to a josei love story, to Demon slayer which feels kinda jarring for me. But the backstory of our protagonist was done quite well, one thing i can praise is that our heroine isn't a simpering doormat. It's true that she has lived a hard life but she just keep living in the best way that she can manage. Shiraume is never the type to mope around or bemoan her fate, she takes charge and endure, she does everything in her power to live for her loved ones.

Its a good read all in all, but since theres only about 20 chapters that are out i can't really tell if this is gonna flop or not. I'll be keeping on eye on it to see if the author manages to get it together.

Bibliophile princess

The most mediocre otome isekai story i've ever fucking read. Its vanilla, like 'sex with the lights off no kinky shit' vanilla.

Story-wise, it's a very simple set up. Book enthusiast Elianna is in a contract fiancee relationship with the crown prince who i cannot be bothered to remember or google the name of. She is beloved by all of the staff memebers, all the secondary male characters love her and she has a great family but oh no! It seems that the prince has fallen for another woman, which means that her engagement with the prince will be ending soon. Yeah if your an otome isekai reader you can guess where this is going, villainess tries to ruin our heroines rep by spreading false rumors yada yada yada...

Similar to Kashoku no shiro, what drew me in was the art nouveau style. I mean the amount of details in the illustrations are amazing, coupled with the dreamy pastel color palette it creates this feeling that you really are in a fairy tale world

One of my main problems with the first volume is how weirdly structured the story is. Like it begins with the prince asking Elianna to enter a contract relationship with him and them jumps to a four year time skip for no apparent reasoning? Like we don't get to see alot of romantic development between them so now suddenly Elianna is in love? But moving on, i felt like Elianna has like little to no self awareness or agency. The first volumes conflict is about how this noble girl is rumored to be the princes lover and is planning to take Eliannas place. At this point you would expect to see our heroine stand up for herself and assert her place in the court right? Wrong. She was basically left in the dark about whats truly going on until the end of the volume. It was revealed that the noble girl was a villain all along who was trying to frame Elianna for shit she didn't do, also conveniently our MC has a mile long list of accomplishments that we as the reader didn't know about, and apparently she didn't either. So yeah, the male leads basically was protecting her for the whole story and she just wandered around feeling insecure about being replaced

Cold game

Do you like the story of king Henry the eighths six wives? Do you wanna see all six of them do a battle royal for the chance to become queen? Do you like crossdressing heroines? Well look no further than Cold game

Our MC is princess Aruna of the B kingdom, yes i know weird name but bare with me here, who is meant to be engaged to the king of the E kingdom. But here's the sus part, he already has a queen from the S country but he's demanding another wife from the B country? Quite the odd request but since B is weaker than E they had to comply with the demands. Aruna knows she's being sent as a sacrificial lamb but her lord father told her to hang on for a bit, one day he will get her out of that place. So to protect herself, Aruna swap places with her handmaiden and pretended to be crossdressing knight.

One of the best things about this story is the political intrigue. Like from the get go, we are shown that the court is a brutal place where an inconspicuous letter can be the cause of your down fall. People here will always watch your every move, everyone fears one another to an extent. Also the side characters are so fucking cool, like these people can star in their own spin off kinda cool.

#every thing i've read #review #shoujo #shoujo manga #otome isekai #cold game #kashoku no shiro #akatsuki no yona #yona of the dawn #bibliophile princess #manga recommendation #recommendation

[its-captain-sir]

Oh we doing Chicago Style lore I Gotta get in on this. 6, 15, 21, 22, 76, 78 AND special bonus you pick a question you wanna answer if you'd like heheh

6. Is there a battle nexus? Is it a respected facility or operated by criminals?

Oh man I haven't really thought of the battle nexus before...... tbh if I include it I'd like it to be a part of their space arc maybe, so leaning towards it being more of a respected facility, or at the very least an institution that is very clear about how it operates even if some of the rules aren't great

15. Is the Hamato clan history relevant? How did the clan originate?

It's SUPER relevant, much of the plot stems from the story of the Hamato clan. The clan originated from a much larger clan actually that was set to be inherited by two twin brothers. They disagreed on how to run the clan so they split it into two, one called the Hamato and one called the Foot. I don't want to go too much into the specifics of the rest of the history of the clans since I'm planning on a little art piece involving that soon, but basically the two do become enemies and even more important, the Hamato clan are designated as the liaisons between the human and mystic worlds. When Saki defects to the Foot and Yoshi seems to be shirking his duties, a bunch of yokai leaders commission for the turtles to be created to continue to have protectors of the Hamato bloodline. So yeah big effects on the story even just beyond the later fighting with Saki and the Foot over the Shredder armor hakdhskdh

21. Do the turtles time travel?

I know I definitely want them to cause that's a classic tmnt trope at this point but I don't know what that would entail. I really am a sucker for the stuff that loops, like whatever they did in the past affects their existence in the present and because they exist in the present they're able to go back and do those actions in the past, it was always destined to happen, etc. So it'd probably be something along the lines of that + just some fun stuff like always :)

22. If there is a battle nexus, who fights in it?

If I go with it being attached to the space arc, I think all the turtles might end up fighting in it, either on purpose or accidentally. I'm really attached to battle nexus champion Mikey so if they fight he's definitely winning the whole thing hakdhskdhsk 16 years old and champion of the universe(multiverse??) <3

76. Who is your favourite character?

HMMM THIS IS A HARD ONE..... it's like an even split between Leo and Raph, they're so compelling to me..... gives them problems forever and forever.

78. Tell us something you want to share about your au/iteration!

I think of the story for this iteration as split up into 4 main arcs! Each arc is based around a specific turtle and has a major conflict associated with it as the focus, though obviously all plots and character development continue to varying degrees throughout the course of the story. But anyways, in order they are:

Raph - conflict is Foot/Shredder based, deals with the past catching up to them and the cycles of past vs present. Big focus on Raph and Leo's strained relationship and the lengths Raph is driven to for his family, culminating in [REDACTED]

Donnie - conflict centered around the hidden city, marked by delving into mystics even more than before and uncovering secrets of the yokai world and their creation. Donnie's efforts start to unveil the larger webs

Mikey - conflict based on the Krang and associated space adventures (certain time related shenanigans also come to a head), involves truly stepping into the larger world and universe and continuing to follow the threads. Mikey reflects a final coming of age and shaking off forces seeking to control them

Leo - conflict with the pantheon (hello idw fans <3), embodies the final culmination of taking their lives into their own hands and refusing to be used as pawns. Addressing the issue of their influence is the last step Leo needs to take as a leader.

As for a bonus question, I'll answer:

39. Is there a Karai/Miwa?

Honestly? Maybe both! Karai for sure exists in this au, she's the turtles' cousin and ends up on their side of the Foot/Hamato conflict after a while, but I might also have Miwa in there as a person totally removed from most of the plot as Tang Shen's daughter. Not quite sure on that yet though

#TYYYY FOR ASKING QUESTIONS I'M HAVING SO MUCH FUN ANSWERING #had to physically restrain myself from saying more on all the hamato and foot clan stuff though. i have so much going on there it's crazy #the lore dumping is real HAKDHSKDHSKDJS #asks? #norfre #tmnt chicago style

[honourablejester]

My sister and I have been replaying Fallout 3 the last little while, and tonight we were playing Point Lookout, and I had forgotten how much I fucking love the Desmond Lockheart/Professor Calvert questline. I’m sorry, it’s just quintessential silver age spy comics/80s cartoon cheese. A ghoulified pre-war british spy vs a telepathic brain in a jar monologuing supervillain, one of them with a besieged gothic mansion (that’s actually his nemesis’ ancestral family home, for bonus cheek) and the other one with a full underground supervillain lair underneath a local landmark. It just makes me giddy, it’s like an old school Diabolik or GI Joe or Johnny Quest plotline. They’ve been doing this for 200 years, just these ridiculous shenanigans, playing out a pre-war rivalry across the post-nuclear hellscape, unperturbed by the fact that there’s nothing left. I love it. Plus, Desmond is hilarious.

Like, if Fallout ever do a spin-off comic series, the post-war adventures of foul-mouthed ex-spy Desmond Lockheart and his villainous and increasingly unhinged opponent Professor Calvert would 100% be my recommendation.

It makes the Antagoniser/Mechanist rivalry in Canterbury commons look so shallow by comparison. It’s just such a great little tidbit of lore. It’s a fully functional rivalry that has lasted since before the war, involving an American old-money villain and a British spy, and they have been in recurrent conflict the entire time, with temporary victories for both of them. A lot of Fallout lore struggles to bridge the ever-increasing gap between pre-war and post-war, in a lot of cases feeling a bit like there was a void for those two centuries, but this absolutely ridiculous storyline from a DLC has a constant through-line, an adventure and characters that have been doing things those entire two hundred years, and possibly not just in post-war America. IDK, it just feels crunchy, like shit went down, in a smaller and grittier and sillier way than a lot of the big factional politics of the games manage? For real, I would read those comics and/or watch that cartoon.

In a similar vein, by the way, I will also give points to Herbert ‘Daring’ Dashwood and Argyle and their radio adventures, because that’s a post-war radio programme, based (however loosely) on the post-war adventures of two men. That’s a radio programme that someone in-universe created and dramatised and broadcast, instead of the endless replays of pre-war music. There’s such a creative void in so much of Fallout, like nobody’s been doing anything or making anything in the entire time since the war, no music or drama or nothing, just reusing the resources (and skeletons) so implausibly still lying around from two hundred years ago like nobody’s made anything since then. But this guy & Three Dog made a radio show out of his old adventures with his incredibly long-suffering pal and broadcast them. I do enjoy that.

But, yes. The Adventures of Lockheart & The Villainous Professor Calvert would also be deeply appreciated. Heh.

#fallout #fallout 3 #point lookout #desmond lockheart #professor calvert #herbert daring dashwood #argyle #three dog