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sienna-writes · 4 years

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Butterfly Blood || novel update

chapter three

I initially had a lot of trouble with this chapter. It’s been through about three drafts and it’s still nowhere near perfect, but I’m working on just moving forward with the novel now and am trying to quit obsessing over revising because... it’s unrealistic to expect a first draft to be perfect.

The first draft of this particular chapter, though, was basically all dialogue, and all very poorly executed dialogue. (Dialogue is absolutely the weakest aspect of my writing but I’m working on it.) On my second attempt at the chapter I initially attempted to create an outline, thinking this would help me find a direction. However, in my next writing session I ended up totally ignoring the outline and just winging it, and the second draft was formed. I really liked the events in the chapter now but still wasn’t happy with some of the individual scenes so I reworked it yesterday morning. The argument between Rowan and Karmen still needed revision because Karmen’s character within it was totally inconsistent to his usual disposition. So! The final (for now..) draft is a more stripped back, since Karmen is too disassociated to get as angry as he did as quickly as he did, and I think the tension and the build up is a lot better timed and more... muted? It’s less overt, more subtext heavy, and I'm relieved because that is what I had been trying to achieve all along.

Again, it’s not perfect, but it has evolved and it is definitely better than before.

The chapter is just over 3000 words now, but I am only going to be sharing the main, gritty extract. The other scenes are less exciting, but I also suspect they need the same amount of work till they're even remotely sharable. (I was going through a bad writing slump in this chapter lol.) I really hope you enjoy it? I'm ultimately quite proud of how it turned out in the end :)

excerpt:

[Rowan has missed her GP appointment + her dad uses it as an oppurtunity to also be angry about her slacking in school]

“I’ve booked another for tomorrow morning. You’ll miss some school, but I figured that’d be an incentive since you don’t seem to care about that anymore.” There is now an edge to his voice that hadn't been there before.

Rowan visibly flinches, digging her fingernails into the supple skin of her palms. The dents purple then fill with blood. She locks eyes with her father, searching for the reason for his sudden anger. He has struck a nerve and he knows it.

“Miss Phelps called.”

She pushes her toes into the dirt, white sneakers now blotted with dust. “Oh.”

He doesn’t ask for an explanation, simply straightens his back like an ancient scroll unravelling itself and meets her gaze finally. Karmen stands with his chest puffed out and his chin pointed forward. It is apparent that he won't ask her side of things. He’s heard enough, and has his made up his mind about her already.

Rowan pushes past him to get inside. Karmen doesn’t shift as she squeezes by his statuesque stance. His face twitches like a camera shutter, so fast she can barely believe the change in his expression. She convinces herself it didn’t happen and throws her bag onto the couch, almost tempting another lecture. A tamer one. Something he could murmur through his daydream fog before slipping back into his silence and letting everything remain undiscussed. Like it normally is. Her slipping grades. Her laziness in class. Not writing a single word in an entire school day. Talking back for little to no reason.

He turns as her rucksack lands, his footsteps looming behind her. Something sharpens the air between them, but she can’t tell what. The elephant is in the room and it is wrecking the place. They watch the destruction mutely, each waiting for the other to intervene and consequently letting the walls crumble into ruin. The old house audibly creaks, it is so quiet. Finally, Karmen speaks. “What’s the matter with you?”

Rowan runs through all the excuses she can think of. I was dropped as a child. I was a premature baby, so my brain must be under-developed. The content is so easy it feels obsolete. I’m being bullied. I’m just not as smart as you thought, dad, sorry. Teachers are liars and we both should have known this. “There’s just too much.” She says instead, through gritted teeth, moving into the kitchen. “I can’t focus on school and have to be there for everyone.” It is limp and she knows it. It flops between them weakly like a helpless fish. She takes a glass from the cabinet and closes it softly.

He consumes the lie like a starved ghost, though. Proving he doesn’t know her. Doesn’t know how absent a friend she has been of late. How she has become her father at school, numb and quiet. How, secretly, she enjoys the façade because people avoid her, don’t ask difficult questions, don’t tackle her with unnecessary comments about her long-lost mother. “Then stop being there.” He says simply.

Rowan scoffs. “I do enough of that at home.” She studies her dad’s face—clenched jaw and squinting eyes—as if it hurts to look at her. “Everyone’s always telling everything how things must be. I must participate, I must be smart not emotional, I must not slack for exams I know I will pass without a glance at my books”—suddenly an urge to twist the knife into his gut overwhelms her, she draws out the moment as she fills the glass with a thread of water from the tap—"I must deal with a stranger for a Dad and a god knows what for a mother. A shrieking banshee? An abusive fugitive? She’s probably become a social worker just to scorn us.”

He rolls his lips, lowers his gaze and chews on the inside of his cheek, sucking it in. Rowan’s breath catches in her throat. In this moment he looks shockingly hollow. Did she empty him? Wind him with her blows? Spoon out his entrails with an ice cream scoop? Carve him like the roasted corpse of some great beast? Karmen puts two hands on the back of the chair opposite her, clutching it as if he might just fall over. His stare is cold and unsympathetic when he raises it toward her. “Don’t you want to make something of yourself?”

Yes. “What?” She laughs bitterly, placing the tumbler on the counter with a satisfying thud. “Like how you made something of yourself?” There is a terrible moment where he sits in the midst of the cruelty, shrinks into himself as if absorbing it, before his mouth creaks open and he lets out a broken shriek.

“GOD DAMMIT ROWAN!” Rowan flies back, arms sheltering her head instinctively as he reaches for the glass she placed on the counter, spins, and throws it at the wall. One big horrific movement. A cutting arc of his arm through the air and then the shattering. “Are you ever even listening?”

Millions of glittering fragments of her life laid out before her, encircling her bare feet. She thinks of the sneakers she slipped off at the door, wishing she had them now. Something about naked feet look so naïve, so vulnerable. Her toes shrink, curling inward. Her breath quickens and her hands begin to tremble. All this broken glass. All these fragments like a lifeline stretched between them. Her eyes blink away tears in different shards, her reflection is fragmented, her features lost and bobbing about as if at sea.

“Are you, dad?” Rowan asks in an empty voice, staring at him till he flinches. He stares at the glass on the floor in shock.

“I...” He crouches, sifting through it with his bare, shuddering, and unsure hands. “I don’t know why I did that...”

Rowan gets a sudden urge to have the last word. Except she doesn’t speak. Her eyes settle on the glass and the idea flourishes like a flame in her mind, burning everything rational, everything he might think. To hell with appropriate. To hell with acceptable. One unsteady step. She expects a crunch or a crackle, but instead there is a damp muffle and squelch. Her spine rattles and her teeth prickle in response. A sunrise in her chest warms her throat but she presses against it with her palms, forcing it down. It is a scorching, molten pain. Third degree burns and all she swallows rays of light till she is drowning, gorging. Slipping through furnace tongue flames. Rowan gags. Bile and acid boils her tongue and the bright, burnt out orb slips into her stomach. She gulp, gulp, gulps every atom of the blaze that consumes her. Till she is heavy. She walks across the broken glass as he yells out. Let there be outrage. Let the sky fall. Its clouds embrace her limbs, draining everything fluid from her, letting her grow limp. Letting her rain. Heavy. As she moves away from the kitchen, she feels her footsteps peeling from the floor, warm and wet. And she is so, so heavy. Then she stumbles, splintered feet unable to keep her up—her legs can no longer hold her and her lava—as the pain erupts within her fierce and sharp and sudden. Flashing its ugly teeth. Catching one last glimpse before her vision goes dark, she sees a red ocean seeping into the living room. How could one body hold so much? Fast and gushing the rapids wash her dregs of consciousness away. It was just a few steps...

soo... yeah. Rowan walks on glass because, oh lord that girl has no impulse controls.

I'm not going to lie, although it was a pain to get this scene to the stage I have just shared, I think it's one of my favourites in the book so far. I'm proud of how much it's grown. Also, I love me some dramatic descriptions of pain and characters being nasty... :”)

I hope you enjoyed this update! (if you did, reblogs really help me out, but absolutely no pressure <3) I’m also still looking for people to add to the tag list, so if any of this interested you, feel free to send me an ask, message or comment. :)

Tag list under cut (ask to be added or removed):

@alicewestwater @elaz-ivero @coffeeandcalligraphy @hanwatchingmovies @sirfitzroys @chloeswords @nev-953

#butterfly blood #butterfly blood novel #my novel #novel update #novel wip #writing wip #writing #writing project #writing update #chapter update #writer #writeblr #writing process #novel writing #excerpts #novel excerpt #writing excerpt #excerpts from my novel #excerpts from my writing

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juneviews · 4 years

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axelle judges bl shows > Until We Meet Again

/!\ SPOILERS AHEAD

shitty summary: In and Korn were separated by death decades ago, but thanks to the red thread linking them, they find each other again in Pharm and Dean.

where to watch: youtube

grade: 7/10

pros:

- the acting. I felt like everyone was really good. there were a lot of crying and emotional scenes and the actors really slayed them

- the concept of the whole show was very original and changed from other bls which was great (but we’ll see in the cons that the execution was bad)

- the chemistry was great between all the ships

cons:

- the pacing. 17 episodes is too long for any show tbh. the fact that they added five more episodes at the last minute is just weird and messy and the pacing of the show was just too slow. nothing much happened per episode except the same thing over and over again: crying, remembering the past, discovering a long lost family member, etc... so many episodes are blurred into one in my mind because they all are too much alike. in my opinion the show could’ve fit into 10 or 12 episodes easily AND given the others ships more screentime (another con I’ll talk about in a minute) while being better in term of entertainment, delivery of message and basically everything.

- this is in link with that first point but gosh, this show was so boring. now I don’t wanna be mean since I know it’s a very beloved show but this is my review and I gotta speak my mind: there were episodes I was dreading to see because I knew I would get bored out of my mind. I fast-forwarded at least 10 out of 17 episodes because I couldn’t take how slow and uneventful it was.

- Dean was a little controlling, ngl. I didn’t love the power dynamic between deanpharm, though they were an okay ship beside that, except when Pharm looked hella uncomfortable during some love scenes. for me that ship was really the weak link of the show, whoops.

- really bad management of its characters and ships. deanpharm held too much screentime. I know, I KNOW, they are the main ship and they gotta have a lot of screentime. and I’m totally fine with that. but my problem was when their enormous amount of screentime was to the detriment of other characters and ships, especially since a lot of their scenes were really long and not much happened. in comparison we never got to see the beginning of teamwin and they appeared close all of sudden. literally if the people who had read their novel hadn’t told the rest of us their story we would’ve just not understood their story at all. and Manaow and her boyfriend were even more unfairly treated since they literally only had four scenes together. the organization was just extremely badly done tbh.

would I rewatch it: only the teamwin scenes tbh.

top/bottom discourse: 0 - 1 - 2 - 3

(1 being implied, 2 being shown and 3 being said)

I didn’t have much expectations from this show and I’m glad I did because I would’ve been disappointed. this show just did not hold my interest and did not captivate me no matter how interesting its premice could’ve been

#axelle judges bl shows #until we meet again #*goes to hide because i know some of y'all are way too defensive about your favorite shows*#bypiningbisexuals

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triciaisonline · 5 years

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THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE MISGUIDED & THE BIZARRE.

WARNING: THE FOLLOWING POST CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD. READ AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION.

THIS ISN’T A FULL REVIEW, JUST MY IMMEDIATE THOUGHTS AND REACTIONS UPON SEEING THE FILM

THE GOOD

almost every performance in this film is well done. i felt there were a few small characters that were not the greatest, like the auror who gets the job offered to newt, the circus guy. but the main cast delivered.

this film looks beautiful. colleen atwood’s costumes look beautiful. special notes to everything worn by leta lestrange, the woman who follows grindelwald & brings queenie to meet him ( did she get a name? i swear they never named her... but there are so many characters in this movie... it’s impossible to keep them straight ). i love tina’s Parisian haircut. it suited her really well and served as a good reminder of passing time between this and the first.

i do like seeing other wizarding cultures, even if they didn’t really show us french wizard culture as much as i would have liked. especially since fleur delacour, beauxbatons are already areas people are interested in... it would have been nice to see more but i liked what i did see.

i liked that leta lestrange wasn’t the dark bellatrix type figure / temptress people were fanoning her out to be after being mentioned in the first film. i actually liked her character so i’m really mad that she was killed. i liked she had complexity, even if some parts of her will be brought up in other sections.

i forget it’s name, but i really like that giant cat creature. it’s cute. i love it. i want 5 for myself.

i liked seeing queenie get overwhelmed on the streets, because she’s a legilimens and all those thoughts would be overstimulating to her. i just thought it was a nice touch.

bunty telling newt to take off his shirt to go swimming was a mood.

i liked how jude law incorporated the manipulative parts of dumbledore, but it wasn’t in a obvious way. it was so well done, i really love it. it showed the morally flawed nature of the man really well. basically everything jude law did was perfect. including how he was the only one that seemed to subtly implicate that gellert and albus were gay. it’s not perfect, but i think he actually read the books before hand and knew whom he was playing really well.

i know we don’t like him, but i do like how gellert addressed the rally. how he talks to people. reasons with them. how he rarely does the horrific acts himself, its always his followers. it’s chilling and really clever. it brings to mind cults, extreme right groups, dictators trying to induct and enforce their beliefs on the mass.

THE BAD

what the fuck was with queenie? don’t get me wrong, i’m not against queenie turning to gellert’s side or her heart being what gets used against her... because that has the making of good conflict. what i’m against is how it was done. queenie is in a total of five-six scenes in the film. one is a plot dump for what we have missed off screen, one-two are her looking for tina but they are the same narrative thread they basically count as one scene just spliced within other scenes, she meets the french lady whom i swear never had her name said... then grindelwald then she’s at the rally where the ending of the film happens. she turns so fast. the film covers maybe a couple days? and you don’t even see the full conversation with grindelwald. so not only does she do nothing in this film, she turns to the bad side on a dime for what feels like cheap and unearned dramatics at the end of the film, but they are overshadowed and never even really acknowledged by the other characters because leta has her sacrifice right after, and credence has his conversion and that one is more plot driven then queenie’s which just feels like an afterthought. honestly all of queenie felt like it was added in last minute. she just doesn’t fit the rest of the film. she looks for tina, never finds her, tina never even asks or wonders about her. we dont even see her REACT to her own sister JOINING GRINDELWALD. newt forgets about her, jacob talks about her a bit, but other than being funny to watch, jacob also really doesn’t have anything to do in this movie. ironically, jacob feels more validated as a component because at least he’s helping newt as he looks for queenie, over queenie the reason jacob is there in the first place...and who is meant to have this big shocking “plot” if you told me that this was all added in a final draft, after seeing queenie and jacob be so popular, i wouldn’t be surprised at all. so really, queenie’s betrayal not only made sense, but it literally didn’t even matter to the plot of the film or any of the character arcs.

i also didn’t like how she just essentually drugged jacob with love potion which has literally been likened to date rape drugs and everything in earlier canon and analysis but here it gets hardly any response outside of “oh that queenie.... drugging jacob again to make him marry her”. i felt at least newt should have had a stronger reaction to it. especially when a big plot point later is someone having magic used on them to essentially do the same thing and cause all this family drama for the lestrange family. i think it’s suppose to be foreshadowing, but it’s not really handled well.

this one is kind of unimportant, but i also felt like queenie’s hair colour really looked off this time. i don’t know if it was a different wig or dye or if the colouring just didn’t flatter it... but it really made alison sudol look washed out in scenes and looked the wrong shade in others. i really don’t know but it bugged me a bit.

i’m really mad that they killed off leta lestrange, she had so much build up... and she was actually more interesting than other character plots... but then they just... killed her off. and she really didn’t need to die... like its framed like a moment for newt to finally join the war properly and he sorta starts to connect with his brother again after, but i feel the entirety of the movie was enough to get him involved. so really, we just killed off a really interesting female character ( a woc character too ) just... for the sake of a male’s plot. wonderful.

on the subject of leta lestrange, i felt that whole scene with her, her brother, credence, tina and newt to be weirdly paced and shot. like so much information dump happened and people kept revealing things and it was hard to keep straight.

there are so many plots. too many plots. so many micro-plots, not subplots. but smaller. the whole movie is micro-plots that result in everyone at the same place for the climax of the film, which would be cool except many of these characters, places, etc get little to no explanation or build up. just “i’m here now’. and there is no resolution.

on that note, THERE IS NO RESOLUTION. THE MOVIE JUST STOPS. it feels like this movie either was meant to have an extended ending that got cut.. or they filmed and wrote it like it was the first part in a two parter, except it’s not. its a film in a series but its only one part. so it’s just a movie that ends abruptly and awkwardly with no kind of wrap up of anything. like yeah you want plot threads to fuel the next film, but literally nothing gets any kind of ending or closure. unless you count newt and thesus hugging? but that is all relied upon throwaway lines and its really ( again ) unimportant in the long run.. so it doesn’t count.

so in the end, credence gets a wand and grindelwald tells him he’s actually a long lost dumbledore because in 2018 joanne rowling doesn’t even know her own canon and the fact he only has two siblings. and i mean, i get its meant to be a secret surprise brother, but when so much of the deathly hallows FOCUSES on his backstory with gellert and how it intertwines with his siblings, it feels really poorly thought out. the dumbledores and grindelwald’s backstory is pretty set in stone from the deathly hallows as told by both rita skeeter’s book, aberforth and even dead dumbledore himself. how it destroyed their family, and all of that is the set up for their conflict now.. so throwing in a surprise brother after all of that feels kind of cheap and lazy at this point. and again, no build up. no set up. just... “here’s a wand. i made this bird a phoenix. you're a dumbledore. end movie’. nothing foreshadows it. just “you're a dumbledore, credence.” he’s like the worst version of the hagrid meme.

THE MISGUIDED

lets talk about nagini, i’m not the high most authority on the subject as a white female, but from my understanding of the controversy from people much more informed than i am, the fact that nagini turned out to be basically a nothing almost feels worse than when she was framed like this big controversial focal point for the film. okay so, nagini literally didn’t need to be nagini. at all. she’s a snake once, and it’s in such an obvious “look its nagini from harry potter”. moreover, she literally didn’t even need to be a snake. its such a irrelevant part of the story. which just shows how much this nagini thing was just slapped on the character to create controversy to sell tickets and get people talking about the movie. WHICH JUST MAKES IT EVEN MORE WORSE, when you factor in that nagini is a nothing character on top of this. she is essentially scenery. she does nothing contribution wise except be there with credence until he goes to grindelwald and then stands with the heroes at hogwarts at the end for some reason, she just tagged along i guess. AND ALL OF THIS MAKES THE CONTROVERSY FEEL SO MUCH WORSE, because it’s literally an insensitive & thoughtless character created for the purpose of nothing. there isn’t even a big plot reason, nothing is contingent on her. you could remove her from the film and it changes nothing. which makes this the second woc character to get the shaft.

okay so the first film set up that there was a love plot of some kind involving newt and leta that would be explored in future films. and it’s not that it wasn’t there. you saw that with leta and newt; but what isn’t explained is how 1) she ended up with his brother, 2) how she got him expelled, 3) how that affected things between them, and 4) where is his brother in all of this? and they killed leta... so are we just done with that now? because it was set up that this would matter and it really didn’t. not that i didn’t like that her whole character wasn’t around a love plot... but i also kind of want answers? but also don’t think i didn’t notice how her whole plot was related to men in her life. i liked her, but she wasn’t perfectly written. truthfully this film is held together by amazing design and actors. zoe kravitz brought this to life.

i didn’t mind the flashbacks... but it was weird how they didn’t really do any camera or editing tricks to differentiate between present day and flashback. more for the hogwarts one, its edited so it looks like the movie just changes to another movie for like fifteen minutes ( its a long flashback you guys ) and then cuts back. it was just really weirdly edited.

so, when did we stop calling MACUSA... MACUSA? it was just called american ministry of magic this time and since it had a name that was a huge part of marketing for the first film and was used a lot in the film as well. it just felt weird that they dropped it. also, they dropped the no-maj thing except for once when grindelwald uses a bunch of terms to describe muggles in his speech. i mean, i know we all mocked it.. but once you establish a universe, its jarring when the rules of it suddenly are changed because of focus group testing not liking it.

i briefly touched upon this with queenie’s note, but jacob really felt like he was added just because he was popular in the first one. like in the first one, he’s essential to the plot and the character arcs of the main characters as well as a good character on his own. but... he felt shoehorned into the film. like he had a good ending, and the implication that he found queenie in the end felt like a good solid ending to his story. but this time, he’s just there. he helps newt a bit, has funny lines... but again, if you cut him out... you lost nothing. actually, you could cut queenie out and the film would progress as normal. they were entirely subplot and background noise.

i know we wanted to build up tina and newt, but its been 9 months. they havent seen each other since new york... this whole bit felt forced and was essentially the “misunderstanding trope”. and again... there was hardly any reward or pay off for that time. the whole thing is dropped by the third act and become irrelevant again. because the movie just... ends.

THE BIZARRE

there were a lot of dead babies for a wizarding world film. like two babies are killed/murdered in the plot of this film and that felt.. kind of dark for this series. its like they want to be edgy but can’t commit to it so they do it in small bursts but then the rest f the movie is madcap adventure. so it really stands out.

the cast and crew went out of their way to state that the gay stuff wouldn’t be a thing in this movie. the bullshit reason being “everyone already knows so why bother”. and yeah, this is a clear case of insincere representation --- but then you have jude law over here giving lines deeper meaning with his acting... the blood pact having them entwine hands and fingers and framed intimately when shown on screen.... and i swear, while not heart shaped, the blood pin thing that newt steals from grindelwald invokes the idea of heart shaped jewelry... and even if its not.. its worn on his chest above his heart? so it invokes the idea that way. which makes me beg the question, if it was going to be subverted anyway... and EVERYONE HAS KNOWN FOR 11 YEARS.. why oh why was it being treated like a hush hush secret ‘ gay but not really gay’ thing. just fucking let them be gay. let them be shown to be former lovers / someone dumbledore used to love. even if they don’t say it to characters, there are ways to convey that visually. and the mirror scene isn’t enough. i’m sorry but its not. like calm down. its 2018. it’s not a secret.

in the beginning, grindelwald looks a bit like haymitch from the hunger games

thesus looked like percy weasley in a lot of scenes.

I’LL HAVE MORE COHESIVE THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS LATER ONCE I PROCESS IT ALL MORE. BUT THESE ARE MY INITIAL REACTIONS AND THOUGHTS UPON JUST SEEING THE FILM FOR THE FIRST TIME.

OVERALL, THIS FILM HAS WAY TOO MUCH GOING ON. DOESN’T FOCUS ENOUGH ON THE IMPORTANT PARTS, NEEDS TO FLESH IDEAS OUT MORE.. A LOT OF THINGS HAPPEN BUT ALSO, NOTHING MATTERS TO THE STORY. IT FELT LIKE A LOT OF SCENES WERE CUT OUT FOR TIME. THE MISMATCHED NATURE OF PLOTS FELT MORE LIKE TV EPISODES RATHER THAN A FILM. BUT THE ACTORS REALLY GIVE THE FILM SOME CREDIBILITY AND MAKE THE RIDE AT LEAST ENJOYABLE TO WATCH, BUT I’M NOT ITCHING TO SEE IT AGAIN. A LET DOWN AFTER THE FIRST FILM, BUT I HOPE FOR IMPROVEMENT. ALL IN ALL, JUST STOP LETTING JOANNE TALK / WRITE. SHE MAKES BEING A HP FAN IN 2018 SO HARD; AND GOD BLESS JUDE LAW.

#fantastic beasts spoilers*#fantastic beasts #fantastic beasts: crimes of grindelwald #wizarding world #crimes of grindelwald #fb spoilers #newt scamander #tina goldstein #queenie goldstein #leta lestrange #albus dumbledore #gellert grindelwald #jacob kowalski #thesus scamander #tricia talks.

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dangermousie · 5 years

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Book Pusher post - The Hedgewitch Queen by Lilith Saintcrow

Be warned - spoilers below...But this is only book 1 of a duology (it’s complete and book 2, The Bandit King, is also out and awesome so not sure it’s toooo spoilerly.)

THQ is set in what is essentially a fantasy version of southern France during the High Middle Ages. Our protagonist and narrator is Viviane, a lady-in-waiting to the princess and distantly related to the royal line. When the novel opens, Viviane is a consummate court lady and the biggest problems facing her are keeping court intrigues from harming her princess and practicing her hedgewitch skills in peace (hedgewitching is viewed as peasant magic, as opposed to court sorcery). But within hours of the opening, Viviane's world is in ruins - the king, the princess and all the ladies-in-waiting except for her are assassinated and the King's brother, the leader of the coup, declares himself the new King. Viviane goes on the run with Tristan d'Arcenne, the captain of the King's guard and his men, who are determined to declare her the new Queen. In the process, she develops strength, confidence and pragmatism, decides what it is she really wants and is capable of, gets to be the owner (or is it the ownee?) of the magical amulet that activates in the presence of the true heir, deals with death, illness and nightmares. Oh, and finds out that there are dark secrets everywhere, some of which may destroy what is left of her world. So, why did I love it so, when most medieval fantasy books annoy me like the plague? a. I like the writing style. It's first person narrative, which can be a hit or miss, but here the almost-claustrophobic feeling being only in Viviane's head gives us, is oddly fitting. Viviane's world has been destroyed and narrowed to (for most of the book) escape and survival and a very small group of people. Plus, I think the main thread here is how Viviane grows into her role and, seeing how self-possessed she is, if we were looking at her from the outside, a lot of this struggle and inner growth would be lost to the readers. b. It's not high fantasy. Sure, there is magic and some interference by Gods in the world, but there aren't dragons, multiple races of elves or whatever. It really is very close to High Middle Ages, an area of particular interest to me. In a lot of ways, it's like a darker, denser version of one of those Lais of Marie de France, which had magic of their own. (Caution - for worldbuilding purists, there might be things that bug you here - this is supposed to be a society with matrilineal descent but some things don't seem to fit what that would do to the society. It doesn't bug me, but MMV. Also some names for things are fake-medieval which might also be a drawback. I liked the rest of it enough to overlook). I love high fantasy when done right but a lot of medieval high fantasy is not. c. The characters. There aren't any characters in this I love but all main characters are uniformly interesting and complicated (OK, maybe not the villain, who is just plain bad. I am mildly surprised we didn't see him eating a puppy). d. The main relationship. If you guys like intense and really dysfunctional, come right in. Viviane/Tristan is pretty much a goldmine for a therapist, except I don't think they have them even in a fantasy version of High Middle Ages. It's a rare book where I ended it convinced both that (a) they really love each other (b) I don't think of a way they can stay together, and not due to outside forces, but due to their own stuff. e. I really like the plot - there is a lot of adventure, twists etc. Nor is every twist predictable, though unlike a lot of people (if reviews are anything to go by), I was neither surprised nor appalled to find out that it was Tristan who killed the King. Mainly because his job description could have been pretty much summed up as "King's killer psycho," and it's not surprising that King's killer could finally turn on the King himself. Also, I kind of find it funny she spends the whole book certain of his loyalty to the dead King, even thinking at one point that he's only protecting/wooing her for the dead King's sake when he basically brought the downfall of the dynasty for her sake. I have to say that was the one part that made me impatient. I mean, total strangers see that he is obsessed with her, and he does everything but set himself on fire to show his feelings, and she is totally 'he can't like me, can he?'

Tbh, I was perhaps wrong when I thought of Marie de France. It's more like a verbal pre-Raphaelite paintings - intense colors and beauty and middle ages through a very misty mirror. I've seen some reviewers mention faint shadows of Jacqueline Carey's famous "Kushiel" series, but since I loathed that so much I not only stopped a quarter in, I actually threw out my copy, I am in no position to speak to that. (Yes, I know everyone loves it. The s&m is not my bag, to put it mildly). So, go read. It's dark and smart and intense and wonderful

#books #lilith saintcrow #the hedgewitch queen

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aprilmillerphd-archive · 7 years

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This is a Bias List. Because I am Biased, and also a Follow Forever. For reasons. Mostly that April hit a milestone and that’s friggin’ amazing in my book.

So I have to start with @darcywho who has been my main and exclusive Darcy since... well actually since I took April from the private rpc into the independent rpc something like four or five years ago. I know Mariah IRL (and will soon be living within easy driving distance of her)-- and basically. Mariah is bombtastic. She’s hella smart and funny, and when I’m having a crappy day (or given how the beginning of this year went, a crappy year) -- she texts me incessantly to talk about what Darcy is doing, and what April and Darcy should be doing, and I have so much character history, and Important Events, and developmental experiences just from talking and writing with Mariah, that I honestly don’t think April would be the character she is, without having had Darcy’s mitigating influence. We’ve just done so much that we’ve reached a point in our friendship and writing relationship where I literally feel as if Mariah could write April, and do her justice and vice versa. If y’all don’t follow her already, you should get on that because seriously, she is the absolute best take on Darcy Lewis that I have ever encountered in the Marvel RPC, and I know the PC rp com is going to jump down my throat for ‘making comparisons’-- but again. THis boo is my main and exclusive Darcy Lewis, also I do whut I want. @scarsearned MANGOOOOO. Okay so funfact; this brat used to have a diff url and we chat on dis/cord and it STILL took me like three days to realize on tumblr they were the same person. I FOLLOW YOU ON FOUR BLOGS MANGO. THis is what you signed up for all those years ago. I’m sorry. SO TO THE POINT! Mango has a bevy of blogs she runs, I met her when she wrote almost exclusively on Rummers here, and what I say ‘met her’ I mean I started sending her asks talking about Brock Rumlow, reread her rules and realized she had a password, at which point we were already talking over Skype, and then I sent in her password and she teased me relentlessly for it. (I deserved it, I’m a total goob)-- Mango is right up there with Mariah in terms of IMPORTANT character development shit. Mango writes a CANON DIVERGENT Brock Rumlow, and has put so much time into developing him, I think Marvel should give her a fuckin’ job. She’s also like... insanely smart. I say this as someone who likes to play at being really intelligent. Mango talks and I feel like I’m back in grade school and I want to hide myself away in shame. So obviously it’s no wonder we ended up shipping. (Actually no, I still have literally no idea how or why THAT happened tbqh I’m a fuckin’ potato) -- but Mango and Mariah go hand in hand because I introduced them and now their Brock and Darcy are inextricably linked forevermore as siblings and it’s fuckin’ A Plus. @russkiyuragan YET ANOTHER PERSON I MET BECAUSE OF MANGO. But also hella quality child of canon OC. Like, legit we started talking because Mango dragged us into a group rp and it turned into us mutuall talking about character development and now basically Seamus is one of April’s smols. Even though he really ISN’T one of hers. She’s basically claimed him as a child who needs mothering and dammit she is going to give him all the mothering ever. Even if he doesn’t need or want it. AND BASICALLY THEY ARE A FUCKING SWEETHEART WHO NEEDS ALL THE FUCKING LOVE because they’re really insanely smart and super sweet and friendly and I heart them. @phxtxn PHIL!!! OKAY SO I MET PHIL IN A CLOSED RPC FOR-FUCKING-EVER AGO. And immediately Genis and April butted heads. (He destroyed like half her office, ruined a couple PRICELESS books and then offered to buy her lunch in apology. Suffice to say April was less than impressed) -- except over the years, they’ve gotten really close. Occasionally Phil and I delve into the divergent canon where April and Genis actually end up romantically involved but it always ends in heartache because April is bad at being happy and Genis is bad at... well.. mitigating April’s more extreme bouts of self-loathing. BUT they are exceptional friends and Phil has a fantastic knack for finding the fun and funny in every situation and driving April absolutely UP A WALL. Phil’s also another rp partner I dragged into the collective with Mariah, because I like it when my writing partners all write together because I’m a spoiled princess. Phil’s a total sweetheart though and his Genis Vell is motherfucking spot on. He’s spent a lot of time with the character and it shows, but he also understands pragmatic, human interactions from a writing sense so it’s always a joy when we write together or chat. @askprofessorx NAAAAYYAA -- Naya’s another of those rpers I sort of. Grew on. Like a fungus. I wooed her with poetry first and then introduced her Charl to April and what I consider to be one of my more beautifully painful plot ideas. It involved time travel and the overhanging possibility of April dying. And because April was from the modern era trying desperately to get back, it was that much more painful when she started developing connections. And basically Naya and I plotted everything out over IMs and asks and now we have the most ridiculous tiny person ship in the history of ridiculous ships and Naya’s Charles is like... the cornerstone of my favorite Charles’s. She’s got this beautiful grasp of our fave telepath’s charming flirtatiousness and paired with the very Serious way he views morality and the world, which combined with April’s general cynicism (and it should be noted, our mutant verse involves April being a touch-telepath who can’t actually touch people without destroying their brains because control? what is that)-- and you have an April experiencing her worst fear. Which is not being in-control of herself. It’s beautiful and Naya is beautiful bean. @iremembereveryonethatleaves AHAHAHA Lilo was the first ‘child’ April ever like. Accidentally adopted. And it happened entirely because of my age of aquarius verse, wherein instead of April seeking out Charles Xavier, she looked for Magneto instead. She found him. And his kid. And I literally have no idea WHY OR HOW April ended up becoming surrogate mom to Lilo since there’s no rational reason for Magneto getting along with April who is a cynical, borderline nihilist with Serious Rage Issues. But-- April and Lilo. Mommy and daughter and just. LITERALLY ALL MY HEART AND LOVE FOR THIS PERSON WHO MADE WRITING MUTANT APRIL FUN AND NOT PAINFUL. Until you (you asshole) made it painful. I still go through our tags to read all th angst, and I didn’t do it half so well as you and Tori did so.. @actually-i-prefer-magneto frick me so apparently I did my mutant crew in a triumvirate. The flipside of the age of aquarius verse, where April found Magneto instead and became part of his Brotherhood. Because who wouldn’t have a need for a hyperpolyglot, with genius level intelligence and touch-telepathy? Magneto knew what he was getting out of the bargain, I just don’t think he expected April Miller. TBQH. Nobody ever expects her which is great, and this basically started as an incredibly painful, probably tragic plot that I had (sort of) intended to result in April’s death and it didn’t go that route. Like. At all. probably because these two babes understand that good angst is hard to come by and with the persistent low-hanging threat of April’s head getting blown off, or even worse, her returning to her own time, it meant that every interaction was always charged with a lowkey kind of desperation and tension. Even when Erik and April got that ‘happy’ ending. It took an actual fucking lifetime to get there. And the best thing about Kristy is that she’s smart as fuck, I seem to surround myself with people who make writing look easy, and whose ability to thread together a long arching plot is so absolutely bafflingly amazing I am often struck stupid. @captain-outoftime AaBbbbYyyyYyy. So like- I met Abby through Mariah. Abby is the Steeb to Mariah’s Darcy. They’re hitched. It’s great. April helped Steve propose to Darcy even though April seems to have a PERPETUAL ISSUE with Steve Rogers that defies all explanation. IDK-- it’s probably something to do with the fact that April is a giant pain the ass and a tiny, fight-y blonde? WTF knows. Steve tolerates April. Abby tolerates me. Abby is a goddess. Beautiful, smart, funny as fuck, and like. Constantly busy. How she manages to balance RL shit with rp is beyond the scope of my ability to grasp yo but she’s the bomb-diggity. @americanasitgets MOTHERFUCKIN’ GABBY! My DC babe. Light of my liiife, fire in my loins, (not really but I was on a roll yo) -- I also met Gabby because of Mariah. And Gabby’s Clark. Gabby’s Clark is made of fucking sunshine okay, and the best part is, is that we’ve had like a sustained rp universe where April harasses Clark and doesnt know he’s superman, WHILE TASH-TRALKING SUPERMAN TO CLARK’S FACE. It’s comedy gold. Poor April. But I love Gabby, because she’s smart as shit and fuckin’ hysterical, and will literally snowball crack scenarios over IM into the wee hours of the morning. Even better, I’ve found someone whose as bad at keeping track of threads as me. (I say, as I eyeball our New Krypton thread that’s been in my drafts folder for like. Six months. Oops). @talonscourt D I KNOW THROUGH MY TIM BLOG-- but who I first met on April and then promptly FORGOT ABOUT because I’m a total dipshit. D writes Jason Todd, April surrogate son. This is a recent development. Tim loves Jason, April loves Jason. D is amazing as Jason. D is like... my platonic lover from Narnia. They’re smart as hell, and incredibly sweet even when I’m shit at keeping in contact because my real life is a hot-fuckin-mess and I’m always sick and on the verge of nuclear collapse. I would be TOTALLY LOST WITHOUT YOU. @galaeus Echo. As written by the ever talented Amy who I’ve known since April’s very first incarnation. Which... is a long ass time, Amy’s seen April through several character developments and rewrites, and has legit known April as a character since like. Legit. Post Tim. When April was a baby. Echo is April’s other southern, raised by a pageant queen biffle. They shoot the shit together, Echo is also legit the only person in existence whose allowed to give April nicknames, or turn April into a diminutive. Amy’s basically like... hands down the reason why i never gave up on writing an Indie female OC, and that’s because Amy’s a boss and she also happens to be a spectacular writer, both in the RPC and in real life. @agentharrisonofshield and last but not least, this girl. Right here. April has like... a bevy of Awesome Girl Squad frands. All of whom are infinitely more talented and bad ass than she is, like. Legit. April’s smart. but in a fight? She’s basically cannon fodder by comparison. She just isn’t built for the field. April and Viv became friends because they got locked in a closet together. I’m not sure HOW that happened, but now they get together and chat in other languages and April feeds her, and basically this s the woman April goes to when she wants someone shot. I literally love all the headcanons we’ve put together and that Agent Harrison is invariably the first ‘shield agent’ April casually mentions outside of Echo, in threads of mine. That’s how you know you’ve found an awesome rp partner and friend. When their own characters start casually infiltrating your threads in the form of namedrops.

#bias list #how the fuck did I hit a milestone y'all?#im confused #follow forever

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solerey · 4 years

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Rules & Verses for Mobile:

Having had these requested for my Finn account, I thought I should go ahead and make some mobile-accessible rules/verses for the rest of my accounts too, so here are Rey’s! (This also includes the various parental backstories I will play for her.) Note that while I don’t change my rules much (or basically ever lol) the VERSES information here is definitely not going to be up-to-date because I am forever making new aus…but here’s a start, at least, to give you something to explore until you get back to your computers!

Mun is named Nicky and is well over 21. Muse’s age will vary. Multi-ship and multi-verse.

RULES:

Following and Mututals:

This is a sideblog of nickyrp and as such cannot follow back.

We do not need to be mutuals to send memes or starters. Feel free to throw things like that at me at any time even if we’ve never played or plotted before. If I’m not interested or just too busy etc I promise I will let you know politely and not just leave you hanging!

If you want to play please send me a message or toss me a starter; I’m bad at paying attention to my follower count and probably didn’t notice your subtle arrival! Or thought you wanted to lurk idk. Say hi!

If you are a multimuse with a lot of characters or a lot of fandoms all on one url, I may not follow you because that tends to be overwhelming for me. It’s nothing personal nor a comment on your writing style; it’s just more than I can easily keep track of, myself. (That’s why mine are all on their own sideblogs.)

If I can’t read your blog (small text, low-contrast colors, etc) I will not interact with your character. I don’t have the best eyes and straining to read sucks all the fun out of rp. If you need any of my formatting or color choices adjusted for your own ease of accessibility please let me know! I will do so happily.

You can reblog any of my shit (headcanons, graphics, verses, meta, whatever) even if you’re a personal blog, I don’t care; it’s all one fandom imo. That said please don’t reblog my interaction threads with other people because most rp-ers do not like their things reblogged and I want to respect that. If I reblog anything of yours you do not want reblogged just let me know and I will delete it; I promise it’s just because I thought the thing was cool and got excited!

Interactions:

I am always up for trying new things so if you have a crazy idea, please hit me up! I promise I rarely disintegrate anyone.

I am happily open to interacting with Original Characters! I need to know who your character is though, so if you don’t have a bio or background I can find on your blog I’m not going to be interested.

I will not write smut with anyone under the age of eighteen.

If I ever do something that upsets or confuses or offends you, please let me know. It probably wasn’t intentional and I always want to be called out on problematic behavior because how else can I learn to do better? I promise to react apologetically, not defensively.

Formatting:

I’m a visual person so I like icons and gifs and will almost always incorporate them. If you don’t want to use images that’s cool with me, but I majored in comic book art so I enjoy the marriage of words with images. I should further admit that interactions with visuals do tend to keep me more excited than plain ones – I’m shallow!

I’m not a big fan of fancy formatting. I don’t mind if you use it but I don’t. Feel free to adjust my formatting to suit your aesthetic if that makes you more comfortable, but I’ll likely keep mine simple.

If you need any triggers tagged message me and I’ll do so gladly.

Canon & AUs:

I have as of yet read very little of the expanded universe materials for the New Canon (a few comics, the Thrawn novel, etc). As such, my portrayal of Rey may at times be lacking in regards to supplemental canon information. Please never hesitate to inform me of any details relevant to your character or any ongoing/burgeoning threads. I appreciate that assistance!

As far as the Legends EU goes, I have read most of the old novels (excepting NJO period) and many of the Dark Horse comics but that is a lot of material and I do not promise to remember everything. Please let me know if I make a mistake or assumption you do not agree with; I promise I will not be offended!

I will generally default to putting Rey into the canon of the Sequel Trilogy because that is where she comes from, but I am happy to play her in Legends Canon too – just let me know! If you don’t indicate verse/time on a meme or starter, I might pick another verse (or make a new one) so please indicate where you want to play if you have a preference!

I also love making AUs whether canon-divergence or totally off-the-wall so please don’t hesitate to throw new verses my way! I love both plotting and winging-it when building new worlds, so don’t be shy!

Characters Relationships & Shipping:

Platonic Ships: I generally enjoy Rey without any ships and am thus extraordinarily eager for friendships, familial relationships, and Found Family interactions. (Antagonistic and abrasive interactions are also welcome – it doesn’t have to be all sweetness and light all the time!) Rey very much wants to be loved, but it isn’t romance she is primarily looking for. I will usually write Rey as being either an aromantic or biromatic asexual.

OTPs: That said, I do thoroughly enjoy the idea of a Finn/Rey/Poe polyship and would be thrilled to play out interactions under that set-up. I will also happily ship her with either of those two gentlemen on their own, or with Rose Tico or Jess Pava or Jannah or really anyone whom it makes sense to ship her with, providing there is chemistry and a basis in friendship to build the ship from (whether that be formed via interaction or plotted ahead of time). Interspecies ships with non-human characters are also welcome!

NOTPs: No teacher/student, adult/minor, or incestuous ships, please. Additionally I will not ship Rey with Kylo Ren in any verse. I have no objections to playing in verses where they are not related, but due to the fact that I started thinking of them them as siblings about five minutes into my first viewing of TFA (the Jaina/Jacen vibes were too strong for my Legends-based heart, sorry!), it is simply something that I am not comfortable shipping regardless of their actual familial status in a verse or lack thereof. Please tag your reylo so I can block it?

One-Way Ships: I will never force a ship on you. I expect the same courtesy in return. That said, you are more than welcome to have your character express unrequited romantic feelings toward mine. (In most cases I expect I’d even be okay with this sort of one-way attraction coming from a Kylo Ren character; if it ends up crossing the edges of my comfort zone I’ll let you know!)

Main Faceclaim: Daisy Ridley [older: Keira Knightley] [younger: Raffey Cassidy]

“We are the spark that will light the fire that will burn the First Order down.” ―Poe Dameron

VERSES & BACKSTORIES:

I am a big fan of AUs and canon-divergent verses so if you don’t see something here that looks like your cup of caf know that I am always happy to plot out a new one! Also feel free to pull anything from my wishlist.

BACKSTORY OPTIONS: I find that I enjoy the Rey Palpatine/Rey-Chooses-Skywalker Idea more and more the longer I contemplate it. I do however remain wholly convinced that Rey Organa-Solo was the original intention with the character in TFA. Thus, for threads set early in Rey’s character arc I am likely to default to Rey Organa-Solo while in threads set later I’ll probably go the Palpatine/Skywalker route. (And I have other options too!) If you have a backstory preference, please specify before starting a thread.

The Last Solo (default canon verse): Rey was too little to remember that her full name was Breha Organa Solo but it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d been one hundred; when Emperor Palpatine decides to mind-rub the entire galaxy, they forget. Sensing the all-but-unprecedented power within the little girl, the half-resurrected shadow of Palpatine was too tempted by her potential to destroy her outright; instead he erased her life. He couldn’t erase the emotional weight of her absence, though, nor the instant sense of connection felt by both Rey and those who had once loved her. Even Kylo Ren didn’t know why the little girl he dragged from the ruins of the Jedi Temple mattered, but he couldn’t bring himself to kill her, instead abandoning both her and his father’s ship on Jakku before following Snoke into the Dark. Palpatine’s lies about Rey’s lineage fooled everyone for a time – but in the end, the truth felt real in a way that the lies did not, and Rey reclaimed the heritage he had stolen. In the end, Palaptine lost everything.

The Last Skywalker (secondary canon verse): When the half-resurrected former Emperor mind-rubbed the entire galaxy to forget Luke Skywalker’s daughter, he succeeded – but his former Hand recognized the feeling of his touch on her thoughts. Mara Jade immediately knew he was back. She didn’t know why she felt such a connection to the little girl buried beside her in the ruins of the Jedi Temple, but she knew she had to kill her former master – and that she had to keep this child safe. She “borrowed” her brother-in-law’s ship and went searching for Palaptine, her forgotten daughter in tow. When she reached Jakku, she left the girl and the ship behind, knowing the next step was too dangerous to bring a child she loved along – but the Final Order she found was more than the fragments of the Empire she had expected, and Mara never returned for her daughter. That didn’t stop the girl who called herself Rey from sensing a connection to her true family when she finally found them again, nor stop her from claiming her true lineage in the end in spite of Palaptine’s lies. (Can also be played with a different mother!)

Palpatine’s Heir (canonical canon verse): When Rey at last discovered her lineage, she was horrified. She was the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine, the man who had destroyed the Old Republic and created the Empire – and was now the resurrected Lord of the Sith. After initially giving in to fear and despair at the darkness she believed she saw within herself, Rey eventually returned to the war. With the assistance of Kylo Ren, who had turned his back on the Sith at the last minute, she was able to destroy Palpatine while the Resistance obliterated the Final Order’s fleet. Hope was restored to the galaxy, Rey was restored to life in a final act of atonement, and the stain of the Sith was at last ended…at least for now. Choosing to turn her back on the bloodline that spawned her, Rey has instead declared herself a Skywalker in essence if not in birthright, carrying on the legacy of the late Luke and Leia. As the first of the new Jedi, Rey now looks to teach others the ways of the Force as Leia did her – starting with her dearest friend, Finn.

Not So Nobody (alt canon verse): The daughter of Kam and Tionne Solusar, two of Luke’s earliest Jedi students, Rey was the first child born within the Temple. Kylo Ren desperately wanted to make her his first apprentice of the Dark Side, but the Solusars escaped the slaughter and fled across the galaxy. The First Order pursued. Unable to shake them, Kam and Tionne made landfall on the nearest planet: Jakku. They hid Rey with a junk dealer and left, planning to lead Ren away and double-back when it was safe – but the First Order caught them. They convinced Kylo Ren that Rey had died of wounds taken during the attack on the Temple, but the deception cost them their lives. Kylo Ren was irritated to have lost Rey as an apprentice but had more important things to do than dwell on the death of one child…until he heard about the girl on Jakku who helped the deserter. He knew immediately who she had to be – and that she would become his apprentice after all, or he would ensure that her parents’ lie became the truth.

Orphan of Jakku (alt canon verse): Kylo Ren told the truth: Rey’s parents were nobody…but what does that matter? A person’s worth isn’t determined by their lineage but by their choices. And Rey chooses the Light and the Resistance and she will give her all to defend her friends and to free the galaxy from the shackles the First Order wants to wrap them in. Kylo Ren might be descended from Darth Vader but Rey doesn’t need to be a Skywalker too in order to end him and his reign.

Twinverse (for duplicates): Twins run in the Skywalker line, and B(rey)ha and Pad(mey) were no exception. Named for both of Leia’s mothers, their loss hit her as hard her son’s fall to the Dark Side – and hit the girls even harder: separated for the first time in their lives, they were scattered to distant planets and lost, abandoned. So young they could barely remember their own names let alone those of their family, they grew-up like orphans until one day “Rey” found herself leaving aboard a ship whose controls fit her hands like they’d been made for her. When the Force stirred in Rey, it reached out to her sister as well and Mey went looking for the family that had never come back to find her. (I’m happy to play either Rey or Other Rey in all versions! Can also be done as Skywalker twins or nobody twins. Names changeable!)

SEQUEL TRILOGY VERSES:

Her Mother’s Daughter (alt post-TFA): Leia had always been too busy running rebellions and piecing-together governments to truly master the Force, but she knew enough to teach Rey the basics – at least until the old friends she dispatched to fetch her brother could talk him into coming back. She could have sent Rey, but after losing Han she didn’t want to let her daughter out of her sight – not so soon after finding the long-thought-dead girl again. Besides, they had so much to catch up on…and the Resistance could use a Force Sensitive woman like Breha, training or no training. And for General Organa, duty always came first.

Corrupted Coordinates (alt post-TFA): the map did not lead them to Master Skywalker. Artoo wasn’t sure if the data was corrupted or if Luke had been there at one point and then moved on – but wherever he was, it wasn’t here. Unwilling to return to the Resistance empty-handed (to fail again the way she had failed to save Han, to protect Finn) Rey went looking for every rumor of Luke she could find. Aboard the Millennium Falcon with Chewbacca and R2-D2 in tow, she is determined to keep searching until she can come back to Leia with something that will give them all hope.

A Newer Hope (alt TLJ): It wasn’t Rey who finally convinced Luke Skywalker to come back to the Force, back to the Resistance, back to his sister; it was the droid Artoo Deetoo, perhaps Luke’s oldest living friend. Artoo’s old hologram reminded Luke of the boy he’d once been and the hopes that had once filled his life to brimming. Lifting her Jedi Master’s ancient X-Wing from the water had been the last task Rey completed before Luke deemed her ready to return to the galaxy and to continue her training from within the Resistance, although he was cautious about letting her progress too quickly, unable to shake his fears of creating another Kylo Ren.

A Skywalker Returned (alt TLJ): If Luke had not cut himself off from the Force he would have recognized his daughter’s presence the moment she set foot on that island. As it was, the resemblance she bore to his sister – to the woman his daughter would have been if she had lived to grow-up – seemed like a cruel joke of the Force and inspired him to push her away instead. His daughter had died alongside her mother, murdered by Ben Solo in an attempt to hide his fall to the Dark Side…or so Luke had thought. Unable to kill his little cousin, Ben instead mind-rubbed her and dumped the confused girl on an out-of-the-way planet. He never expected the girl from Jakku to come back to haunt him – but the Force has a way of returning things to their proper balance, and Kylo Ren knows now that no lies will keep him safe from his long-lost cousin. Unless he can twist her to the Dark Side the way Snoke once twisted him, their next meeting will leave one or both of them dead.

The Rise of Organa-Solo (post-TLJ): Rey felt an instant connection to Han and Leia (and Kylo Ren), the Force within her whispering that this was the family she sought. Her father thought her resemblance to his beloved Leia was mere coincidence and died before learning the truth; her mother surely sensed something when they met but whether out of concern she might be wrong or hopes of sparing Rey further emotional turmoil before she started her Jedi training, Leia said nothing…and Luke had cut himself off from the Force and thus was unable to recognize his niece. Now only Leia remains to guide Rey into the Light away from Snoke’s lies and toward her destiny – but will the truth make it harder or easier for her when she has to kill her brother?

The First Jedi (alt post-TLJ): While Leia reforges the fragments of the Resistance into a New Rebellion, Rey has a mission of her own: finding other Force Sensitives and leading them with her into the Light before Kylo Ren’s agents can drag them to the Dark Side. She is no Jedi Master but she has the ancient Jedi teachings to draw from, friends to support her, and her own clarity of vision to guide her. She will learn, and she will teach. The Jedi will not end with her.

The Sunrider Option (alt TROS): With Kylo Ren dead at her hand, Rey faced Palpatine alone – but she had read the old Jedi texts and knew of a different sort of sacrifice she could make. She did as commanded and struck him down, claiming her position as Empress of the Sith – but severed herself from the Force at the same time. The spirits of the Sith moved from him to her…and found nothing waiting there that could house them. They faded, dissipating into nothing but impotent screams. Before the Final Order could realize the ritual had failed, she gave the command for their fleet to stand down. The combined Resistance and Free People’s Fleets destroyed most of their ships before they could fight back or flee, and Rey returned to her friends alive and untainted – but forever sundered from the Force. Now she does her best to pass her training on to Finn so he can guide the new generation of Jedi that she will never be a part of…and learns to live with a world that will feel forever muffled, forever less.

The Balance Restored (post TROS): While Poe Dameron, Rose Tico, Kaydel co Connix, and the other leaders of the Resistance turn their hand from rebellion to building a government, Rey has a mission of her own: finding other Force Sensitives and training them as Leia did her. From the fragments of the Jedi Order, something new will rise – something that is not bound by the limitations of the Jedi Code or the sins of Jedi past, but something nonetheless firmly rooted in the Light. She will restore balance to the galaxy one student at a time, starting with her first apprentice: Finn.

Rebel Daughter (pre-TFA divergence): Breha was not lost when her brother fell to the Dark Side. She grew-up amidst the strain and stress of political upheaval and imminent war, but she also grew-up surrounded by family. Breha’s devotion to the Resistance is total – almost. The loss of her brother cut her too deep for even the dozens of unofficial aunts, uncles, and quasi-siblings of her parents’ friends and allies to assuage – but dragging Ben back to the Light would do it. Breha refuses to give up on the big brother she once adored, no matter what Uncle Luke or her parents caution her, but will she risk the continued survival of the Resistance she loves on her certainty that Ben is still in there somewhere, and she can bring him back? She tells herself it’s the will of the Force guiding her – but maybe she just misses her brother.

Scoundrel Daughter (pre-TFA divergence): when Ben Solo fell to the Dark Side, Leia and Han decided that the Force was too dangerous for their remaining child. Duty demanded that General Organa stay with her burgeoning Resistance, so Han and Chewie took young Breha away from war and into the safety of the seedier side of life. She grew up more on the Falcon than off, flitting from port to port and learning the tricks of the smuggler trade rather than the ways of the Force. It wasn’t until Hosnian Prime met its grim fate that they came home to Leia, joining the Resistance for a desperate mission to Starkiller Base – and Breha’s first confrontation with her brother since she had been a little girl and he had not yet become a monster.

Dark Lady of Ren (pre-TFA divergence): When young Ben Solo proved resistant to Snoke’s manipulations he set his sights on an easier target: the boy’s baby sister. His assault on the Jedi Temple left many survivors, but it had all been a distraction so he could kidnap Breha. Raised to the Dark Side and indoctrinated with the beliefs of the First Order, Kreya Ren has few memories of any life before and even less interest in uncovering them. With her family convinced that she died thirteen years ago, she might never have discovered her origins – save that Poe Dameron knew the moment they came face to face who this woman who looked so much like Leia had to be. That had been Kreya’s first mission as a Knight of Ren and she took Dameron’s escape and the defection of the traitor FN-2187 personally. Vowing to destroy the Resistance once and for all, Kreya Ren never expected to discover a brother barring her way – nor parents who refused to accept that she would never turn her back on the Dark Side.

Orderly Mechanic (pre-TFA divergence): The First Order was never picky about where it harvested its resources – or about how willing they were. Rey didn’t want to leave Jakku but she wasn’t given a choice when stormtroopers marched over the sands “recruiting” anyone useful. She was barely a teenager but everyone knew she was good with machines and they needed people to keep their ships spaceworthy. At least she’s learned a lot, although “traveling the galaxy” probably would be more exciting if she ever got to step foot off the ships for more than the occasional dirtside repair. Being a young and self-taught prodigy has netted Rey few friends among her co-workers, but some of the stormtrooper recruits at least are nice to the girl who helps fix their boots and blasters…and so far no one, not even Rey herself, has realized that her instinctive avoidance of Kylo Ren is anything more than ordinary prudence. And every day, her lost family feels a little further away…

More Coming Soon! like literally as soon as soon as someone asks for or suggests one, I love AUs. Don’t be shy!

LEGENDS EU VERSES:

Another Desert Daughter (as Shmi’s great-granddaughter): Luke felt an instant connection to the new Jedi trainee the moment Rey stepped into the temple. Here was yet another Force user from Tatooine, another orphaned child of the sands who dreamed beyond the confines of her hot and distant world, like Taihiri Veila and himself before them. So why did the extent of her powers frighten him? Was it because the coincidental resemblance of her features and his niece’s, his sister’s, had Luke making the mental leap to yet another Jedi from Tatooine? But this girl was no Vader, surely! Of course, if he had known that she too carried Skywalker blood in her veins, Luke might have let himself worry more…but Shmi Skywalker had died too quickly to tell her son that there was another. (can be set at any time in Legends Continuity but probably not NJO because I don’t know it)

Lost Hapan Princess (as Allana Djo Solo): deeming it too dangerous to hide her daughter in plain sight with Han and Leia Organa-Solo, Tenel Ka sent Allana to Dathomir after faking her death – but the ship never made it there. Left on the nearest planet for safe-keeping by her escort while they dealt with the threat pursing them, Allana soon found herself abandoned and alone. Her memories damaged by the upheaval in the Force following Caedus’s fall and Abeloth’s rise, she spent the next several years sure of nothing but that she had family out there somewhere who would be coming back for her…but as the amnesiac girl drew inward to shield herself from the darkness in the Force, Tenel Ka was forced to conclude that her deception about her daughter’s death had become the truth: Allana was gone. But the Force wasn’t done with the woman now called Rey just yet… (for post-LOTF interactions)

Littlest Solo Sister (as Breha Organa-Solo): either taking Anakin Solo’s place as the youngest of the three Solo children, standing alongside Anakin as the second set of Organa-Solo twins, or as the fourth and youngest of the siblings, Breha grew-up as the daughter of the New Republic’s Chief of State and the niece of the Jedi Grand Master. It was a life that involved lots of affection from a host of unofficial aunts and uncles, the occasional kidnapping, and training in the Jedi Temple on Yavin Four. It eventually involved war as well, interspersed with tragedy and darkness. (can be set at any time in Legends Continuity but I really don’t know the NJO so assistance with details may be necessary if you want that)

More Coming Soon! like literally as soon as soon as someone asks for or suggests one, I love AUs. Don’t be shy!

#rules #verses #rp style #sw rp #ooc ramblings #for mobile users

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lebibish · 4 years

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Dear Yuletide Author 2019,

Happy fall! (Or winter, which it feels like here!) The Yuletide fic exchange is one of my favorite times of year and I am always amazed with the wonderful and lovely stories that come out of it. I absolutely promise—I will love whatever you write because you have put time and effort into one of these fandoms which I adore and which deserve so much more love. So thank you!

(This...got rather long...)

Things I am generally interested in:

- World building – both cultural shenanigans and language and how does this actually work and let’s dig into the stuff that was handwaved—did I say both? I obviously meant everything)

- Family feels – found family, kidfic, good sibling relationships, comfort, people you would fight to live for, snarky banter, deep understanding of someone else. Also, I love kidfic. Also, good parenting.

- Competence – I really, really enjoy watching/reading about/listening to people being really, really good at something.

- Magic – fairy tale magic, magical realism, that whole social media thread about people having small everyday magics, hidden magical realm, magic school, I love it all.

Squicks, or things I am not interested in: For Yuletide, I prefer not to have unhappy endings. Bittersweet I can handle. Not a fan of cheating in relationships (consensual polyamory, on the other hand, is VERY GOOD.), grim!dark cynicism, unlikable heroes, angry-teenage-boy angst (this does not just apply to teenage boy characters btw, just saying I lost a lot of interest in Harry Potter after book 5. It was good characterization, he had all the reasons to feel that way! I’m just not that interested in reading from his point of view at that point).

That got long, sorry!

Specifics:

Fandom: Horror Movie Daycare (CollegeHumor)

What I like about this fandom: I love kidfic. I love people taking care of kids, being good with kids (even if they’re nervous and unsure of what they’re doing—genuine interest and care goes a long way), and the subversion of expectations in this.

What I would love to see (optional details are optional! Tell me a story you’re interested in and I’ll love it!): I am torn between wanting to know Ms. Katherine Daisy’s background (where did she come from? Why is she like this? How does she keep getting these creepy jobs? IS SHE FROM NIGHTVALE?) and wanting her to remain a mystery (particularly, seeing her from an outsider’s perspective—what do the families of her kids think of her? How did they find this daycare? Does she have any coworkers? Neighbors? Family? What do think of her and her job? Do any of the kids she takes care of grow up and come back to visit her?)

Fandom: Assassin’s Creed Odyssey (game)

What I like about this fandom: What do I not like about this fandom? I play as Kassandra—she is pansexual, always down for sex, not great at emotions, totally motivated by family, kind of protective, kind of an asshole, and I head-canon her main relationship being Roxana BECAUSE THAT RELATIONSHIP IS ADORABLE. But I’m more than happy to read other people’s versions of Kassandra too! I love the attention to detail in the culture, I love the connections to Greek mythology, I love Kassandra’s relationships throughout the game (families, friends, lovers…)

What I would love to see (optional details are optional! Tell me a story you’re interested in and I’ll love it!): Kassandra in different time periods—they opened up so much room for amazing stories in that plot. Kassandra in the middle ages, messing with the patriarchy. Kassandra hanging out with the all the queer Classics majors at Oxford, (OMFG I just pictured Kassandra meeting Miss Fisher and having sexy, sexy adventures solving murders together), Kassandra in YOUR favorite historical period being her awkwardly kind, aggressively violent self. But also, that opens up so much angst? Because this woman has spent so much time separated from her family and has fought so hard to find them and now she is going to outlive literally everyone? (sort of spoiler warning: Phoebe in the DLC makes me cry so hard and if you want to make that a real thing and bring other people too I WOULD BE SO HAPPY). How does Kassandra cope? I kind of imagine she basically just keeps building families around her over and over again, but I could also see her retreating from getting close to people. ALTERNATIVELY. Kassandra growing up—why does she stay on Kephallonia so long? What is she like as an awkward teen? Kassandra being a big sister to Phoibe. Or. After the main story, I made Alexios one of the crew members on the boat and that was consistently hilarious. I also got the entire family together for that dinner scene—including awkward, angry step-brother together and the family shenanigans of two awkward, angry brothers and AWKWARD AGGRESSIVE Kassandra somehow being the reasonable human sibling is AMAZING.

Fandom: Sinbad (TV)

What I like about this fandom: I ask for this fandom every year because: people with different cultures and languages coming together and forming a functional group/found family/deep friendships, real mythology being played with, magic hiding in the world as science becomes more prevalent…it’s all amazing.

What I would love to see (optional details are optional! Tell me a story you’re interested in and I’ll love it!): Sinbad’s original curse—not being able to stay on land for more than a day and what that would mean if they had succeeded in being traders; the possibility that Cook has something strange going on with his own refusal to leave the ship; and post-series what these people end up doing and how they interact. Any and all back-stories are love, any and all myths, legends or monsters entering the story are brilliant.

Fandom: Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare)

What I like about this fandom: Beatrice/Benedict – snark. So much snark. Smart, competent people who are confident, but also insecure in some really specific ways. NOT a fan of Claudio.

What I would love to see (optional details are optional! Tell me a story you’re interested in and I’ll love it!): Ok, so, I love the original play and I love it’s various incarnations (the David Tennant and Catherine Tate one is amaaazing) but my first introduction and the one I always imagine is the Kenneth Branaugh version. Beatrice/Benedict is my OTP…except. Except. The speech where Beatrice and Don Pedro are talking and he asks if she’d have him and she says no unless she could have another for working days…I want that story. Beatrice/Benedict and their home together becoming a place where Don Pedro goes to rest and hide from the demands of the world (romantic polyamory OT3, platonic friendship, it could play out in so many ways). Or, Beatrice/Benedict going with the Prince. Beatrice having adventures and charming and outraging people everywhere and Benedict and Don Pedro amused and indulgent and jumping in to troll people left and right.

Fandom: The Pirates of Darkwater

What I like about this fandom: SO MUCH WORLD-BUILDING. All the islands and the magic and the ship (see also, any of the details for Sinbad…). Grumpy thieves and mercenaries who are secretly good people but have bad impulses/habits.

What I would love to see (optional details are optional! Tell me a story you’re interested in and I’ll love it!): Since the series was never finished—HOW DOES IT END? Does Ren become a King? Do the islands come together in a diplomatic alliance? Do they save the day and sail off into the sunset? OR Ren growing up. Living with his old guardian in an ancient lighthouse and entertaining himself by being a gymnast—but also, how do you raise a secret heir to a kingdom without letting him know he’s a secret heir to a kingdom? Shove a lot of books at him and cross your fingers? Teach good governance through a series of ridiculous hypotheticals and then hem and haw whenever he says “When will I ever need to know this?”. OR pick an island and explore it . Look, magic, pirates, adventure, mysterious islands with a variety of civilizations...you can't really go wrong here.

Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV)

What I like about this fandom: Aha. Ha ha. Ok, seriously—time travel, magic, SO GAY, teams, SO COMPETANT, the constant jostling for who gets to sacrifice themselves for someone else this time, other worlds, WEIRD AF worldbuilding (magic? Aliens? Energy beings that are totally not ghosts because the censors don’t like superstition?), TIME TRAVEL, cats, shape-shifters, I will Wait for you, two cultures colliding, hurt/comfort everywhere

What I would love to see (optional details are optional! Tell me a story you’re interested in and I’ll love it!): Fix it fic. FIX IT FIC. Reincarnation? Not actually dead? Someone, something rational and reasonable steps in before tragedy becomes inevitable? PEOPLE GET THERAPY? I don’t care. Fiiiiix iiiiit. AND/OR Shen Wei waking up and negotiating a brand new world—new Dixing and new Haixing. I…kind of prefer that happening much longer than the show makes it seem in the end? Like, I have unreasonable feelings about him waiting 10,000 years to see the love of his life—but I also kind of like the idea of him waking up and being incredibly confused by the culture that has built up in Dixing. Also—more of the actual culture that has built up in Dixing so that it’s not just the desperate poor neighbor but a functional, interesting society that has it’s own traditions and families and no sense of seasons or time but what they designate for themselves (does the lantern change that?) AND/OR I’ve been haunted lately by the idea of the original Kun Lan who we never meet…actually being reincarnated as Zhao Yun Lan?

ALL MY LOVE AND GRATITUDE! YOU ARE AWESOME! I really hope you enjoy this Yuletide!

#yuletide #dear yuletide author #yuletide letter #challenge prompts

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ryuuguu-rena · 5 years

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→ R ・U ・L・ E ・S

Rules { last UPDATE - 05/30/2019 }

x- I will not rp with everyone, I’m currently indie but very selective.

please note that my blog here is highly selective. I will only interact and rp with people I feel comfortable with. With other words I can be picky when it comes to whom I follow. If we aren’t mutuals it doesn’t mean you can’t send me asks or memes but please know that it’s very unlikely that I will start a rp with you. I will however, always try to answer everything as much as I can ic; and eventually ooc;

x- posts&&;threads

I can write starters but not particularly fond of doing so. I think I’m not skilled enough to come up with an interesting intro. Sometimes I’ll post starters however…

Each day, there is a chance I reblog at maximal 5 memes. Exceptions can happen but it will never go beyond 7 memes per day. I don’t want to spam your dash.

If you want to reply to an ask or meme , then please post a new thread tagging me in it. I don’t like reblogging asks.

When I reblog memes, feel free to send me some it can be either ic, on anon or off. I will definitely try my best to reply to each ask

my writing style differs via mode. Sometimes I write a lot, sometimes not. My preferences are para-semi and novella. There is absolutely no need for you to do the same in return. But if we have chosen a semi para rp I ask kindly that you refrain from sending a single line as reply. I always allow this for asks and crack rps tho. I’m not a professional writer so please expect me to have writing flaws. English is not my native language after all. But I do my best.

roleplay

Planning to kill my character? Notify me first and we’ll discuss it. mentally or physically tormenting my character is okay but refrain from anything lewd.

When we start a roleplay, I try always strictly to stay in character, Rena will not just appear in your timeline/world without a proper plot.

I approve of M!A’s but I have a right to refuse them when I don’t like them, or think of them as too ooc;

If you are part of a MMOFRPG group and would like to rp with me, don’t be afraid to approach me. I used to rp at MMOFRPG for an entire year and I don’t mind roleplaying with you just because you’re part of a group.

I do have mains, And I don’t intent to replace them. Chances are very high I will reply to my mains first before anyone else. but that does not mean I ignore you, I will get to your reply too. If you however think I missed it, hit me up pls.

I try my best to make each roleplay enjoyable for my roleplay partner, chances are , I’m trying even to meet your way of writing, to please you.]

I can be very slow with replies, please be patient.

Threads come and go. Don’t take it badly when I drop our thread, we can always start a new one. or maybe our preferences of writing just doesn’t match, in that case I’m still willing to interact ic; via asks and similar but long threads are out of question.

If I drop a rp it can have many different reasons but certainly not because I didn’t enjoy to rp with you. The same goes vice versa.

Mun is over 18 years old

Personally, when it comes to smut, I prefer noncon themes, Unless you rp Keiichi. because Rena loves Keiichi and out of her own will she wouldn’t even consider to sleep with anyone else. However, she often deals with people that clearly cross the line. Making her more insane.

IMPORTANT: I will not rp any lewd here with anyone.

The only one I sometimes rp this with is my husbando but we do not rp it here on tumblr.

Rena was almost raped in the past in Ibaraki. By the only male friends she made, 3 classmates- one of them ( Kouhai ) was related to her best friend Ozaki Nagisa. During the rape attempt , she injured the boys with a baseball bat, and smashed all the windows of the school. After that happening and after Nagisa’s death* who was actually murdered ) she was left with a major trauma. Increasing her to believe more strongly into Oyashiro-sama’s curse. This is not made up or a headcanon, but it’s actually canon from Higurashi Sui - Tokihogushi-hen. You can look it up , if you wish to do so. The reason I mention this, is because not everyone knows about Tokihogushi-hen arc. I approve of that kind of rp because I absolutely love angsty-themed rps,

another aspect of this might be my husbando, since he roleplays mainly edgy Battler, it’s more ic; for our muses; rena loves Keiichi, and even if she falls for Battler during an rp, there is no way she’d fall for the edgy Battler too. Since he’s literally a nightmare of the original Battler.

mun&IMPORTANT details!

Please note that what I write has nothing to with the real me. Though, I won’t lie that my muse and me are very similar, I’m in no way supporting everything that my muse does.

Furthermore, I know that RP is just for fun indeed, However. Rena is REALLY important to me. I rp Rena since a long long time and never got bored of it and never will. Rena is not just a muse/character for me, it’s basically part of my life and very strong influence on me. Not to mention we share lots of things in common. Rena helps me to keep my cool. This character means all to me. It’s literally a part of myself, very important to my soul. So much that I changed my real name to Rena long ago.

This is also why , I’m trying absolutely always my best to be absolutely ic; and that’s not difficult to do for me because I know all the higurashi games and even study japanese. You may will realize this whenever I talk/rp with someone of my rp partners in kanji.

Due to learning japanese, I keep using lots of japanese catch phases that Rena says during rp’s. However, I never use anything that may seems too hard to be understood. So please do not let this be of a disturbance to you , If you ever want to know what I’m saying however, please just mention it in your tags.

Now as for myself, there isn’t much to say. I told you already my real name is Rena and I’m a hardcore 07thExpansion fan. I’m actually mysterious and not very open hearted. Some may even see me as arrogant for being an INTJ. but that’s not true at all, I’m just a picky person in general. I have a sideblog that I use mainly to reblog and post all kind of 07thExpansion stuff and moe culture. @maid-rena

Discord/SKYPE/TWITTER: is eventually available upon request

this blog will have trigger warning contents.

RP’s can get quite dark, angsty, psychotic and bloody. Trigger warning content such as gore, homicide, torture, self-harm, can or will happen, but will be tagged accordingly.

IMPORTANT: Again, I will never approve of a smut rp here on tumblr.

formating

Edits, Icons and Layout are made by myself unless otherwise stated. Most of my icons are edited and cleaned by me, please don’t use them.

I made over 1k icons before but unfortunately. I lost many, likely I will make new icons again.

the mun faceclaim here for myself is roon from azur lane

I’m not the best editor however and I really suck making themes so chances are low that I will update my theme often. However if you’re skilled and talented in editing and making themes, then you’re absolutely free to help me out, Like, totally ~

I sometimes use scripting and sometimes not, it’s always up to my laziness and mood and it often depends on me being mobile or using my laptop.

about rena

Rena has been through a lot of shit. She is bad-ass insane at times. However, Rena isn’t a killer-loli, She’s much more than that. Despite her usual cheerful and childish behavior, she’s actually one of the most matured characters in Higurashi with a really deep personality. And I will roleplay her accurate to the games not the anime.

You may consider Rena as a Yangire which isn’t just wrong, but please keep in mind that her deceiving treats come from her delusions most of the time and such come again by 80% from the hinamizawa syndrom.

Rena has the highest number of murders of the club members because in Yoigoshi-hen (the alternate version of Tsumihoroboshi-hen) she successfully blew up the whole school which killed 15 children (including herself, Mion, Satoko, Rika and Keiichi), likewise, she murdered Houjou Teppei and Mamiya Rina.

Rena is not mentally labile, tho she may seems evil at times, she is neither good or bad. One could most likely say she’s very ‘sick’ at times. Absolutely delusional. If I had to categorize her, I’d say she’s “chaotic good”.

For further information about her mental disorders, please follow this LINK

#rules #( finally updated this )#(; long post )#(;; wall of text )

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jira-chii · 5 years

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Let's talk about Trance Tsubasa

Oh man, what an ikemen

To celebrate Tsubasa's appearance in the anime I'm going to write about his Trance form 9* advent, although it actually looks to be more about Rui than Tsubasa...

Trance Tsubasa is a continuation of Trance Yoshiaki. In that ranking quest, Yoshiaki asked Takuya and Yuki to help him find Tsubasa. They ended up in Nostalgia’s hideout where the brothers teamed up to defeat them. Unfortunately due to their opposing powers (Tsubasa’s “disappearance” vs Yoshiaki’s “creation”), they were unable to stay together long. Before they parted, Tsubasa vowed to find a way to subdue his powers so they can be together again.

"It's not goodbye, it's see you soon"

With the reunion, Tsubasa seems to have recovered his true power, and also a renewed keenness to continue to search for a way to be with Yoshiaki, through the artefacts. Rui is concerned when he learns Tsubasa actually went and fought Nostalgia by himself but Tsubasa dismisses his concern because he wants to hurry and find more AFs.

Tsubasa casually mentioning he totally trashed Nostalgia's hideout the night before

After they successfully retrieve the AF, Rui cautions Tsubasa against moving too fast, quoting Shakespeare in the process.

"Wisely and slow. They stumble that run fast.” (This is a quote by Friar Lawrence from Romeo and Juliet)

Back at the base, Tsubasa tells the story of the "clock tower incident", where he had his first reunion with Yoshiaki after more than ten years.

The rest of the Kaitodan are super stoked that Tsubasa finally got to meet his brother, but Rui feels conflicted. What is going to become of them if Tsubasa leaves? It's not like they're actually related by blood, so they won't be able to be together forever.

Truthfully, Rui is a little jealous of Yoshiaki, Tsubasa's 'actual' family

Tsubasa finds Rui and apologises to him. He had underestimated not just him, but Yoshiaki and everyone in the Kaitodan. He wanted to protect them, but now knows everyone is capable in their own right (note parallels to World 1 Tsubasa). Tsubasa acknowledges Rui's skill and wisdom, giving examples of the advice he should have listened to: when Rui was undercover in the circus to keep an eye on Yoshiaki, he told Tsubasa he should have met Yoshiaki at least once. Also, Rui was the one who said going to Nostalgia by himself was dangerous (because it was).

Tsubasa concludes by saying Rui is his precious family, and that will never change.

The Kaitodan throw a party to celebrate Tsubasa's reunion with Yoshiaki. Jack throws bombs while crying. Kana berates him.

Sorry just had to throw a Jack pic in there. He's too iconic, even without showing his character sprite

Sumire reveals an ice sculpture she made...with her chainsaw. Yayoi notes it is of the Kaitodan, although there is no Yoshiaki because they haven't met him yet. Even if Tsubasa can't meet him, that doesn't mean the rest of them can't either right?

Tsubasa is incredibly happy. He tells them of his dream:

“When everything is over, I want to find a beautiful location and set up a base for my family. It'll be a place where you can come and go as you please, and I'm not forcing anyone to stay. But there will always be a home for you to return to."

So the actual story behind the advent isn't terribly interesting by itself, but I find it fascinating to see the similarities and differences with the other parallel worlds.

This family, of course, includes not just Yoshiaki, but all of the Kaitodan too.

Rui is moved to tears. As an orphan abandoned by his parents, to have a chance at a real family again makes him so happy.

Yayoi: "Are you so happy you're tearing up?"

Rui: "Noo of course not (B-baka!)"

And with this, it looks like Rui's character arc reaches an end? All the Kaitodan quests are about the members finding a place to belong but I think this theme applies especially to Rui and Kouji, who were there since the beginning, and were the ones to help Tsubasa find his place of belonging first (are we ever gonna get Kouji's story though lol).

Time for a comparative study!

*SPOILER* warning for Tsubasa 6* ranking, Trance Sumire 9* advent, and anime eps 5 and 6.

Before we start, please note I will refer to the world of the first Shoumetsu/Lost as “World 1”, and the world of the second Shoumetsu/Shoumetsu Toshi 2/the one with the ice pillar as “World 2”.

Note that Tsubasa 6* occurs in World 1, while Trance Yoshiaki and Trance Tsubasa occur in World 2.

First, let's talk about the similarities between the Tsubasa in the game. Tsubasa awakening his AF in World 1 is a direct parallel to him “unlocking” his power after teaming up with Yoshiaki in World 2. Through those battles each also comes to realise the true strength of the people they want to protect.

The difference is that in World 2 he gets reunited with Yoshiaki, while that is yet to happen in World 1. Consequently it feels like the Kaitodan take a bit of a back seat in World 2 (for example, in Tsubasa's 6* ranking, the members actually intervene to bail out their leader, while in World 2, Yoshiaki takes more of the spotlight). However to make up for that, we get to see more of the mental implications on each individual. This is particularly prominent in the case of Trance Sumire.

In Sumire's 9* advent, we see she feels a sense of unease at the changes Tsubasa underwent after the clock tower incident, fearing it might change the current dynamic within the Kaitodan (note similarity to how Rui feels). Also similar to Rui, her fears are allayed by the end and she becomes able to accept change. Essentially we see the trust between Tsubasa and the rest of the members happen along the same vein in both worlds, just in different ways.

The anime draws on a very different set of events. The two biggest changes are Tsubasa's absence, and the nature of Yoshiaki's power.

Tsubasa is missing in the anime, and the Kaitodan is only half of what it is in the game (missing Yayoi, Kouji and Saori). It definitely feels sadder although I do appreciate the details they added to the base to give it a homely vibe.

Without a leader, the Kaitodan are forced to act on their own and make their own decisions. We don't really get to see the impact of Tsubasa on the group, except in a flashback which basically shows the group's founding. Although in a way this does reinforce the idea that each member is perfectly capable in their own right and don't need Tsubasa's protection, the fact they couldn't hold their own against Souma kind of undermines this. Nevertheless, I definitely think Tsubasa's role in the anime is as a guide to help these delinquents find a way to stand on their own.

The other big change the anime made is give Yoshiaki the same power as Tsubasa, instead of an opposing one. Unfortunately they still can't be together because Tsubasa was, first, in an AF, and now he is gone. Rip.

Anyway I think the biggest motive for this change was to fit the storyline the anime was going for. One that emphasises the bond between the brothers, while conveniently resolving the AF plot thread. From a strategic point of view, this means the audience should be invested in Yoshiaki enough to justify his inclusion in the main story going forward, and also the creators don't have any more Kaitodan-related loose plot threads they need to consider, which frees them up to explore other characters and stories in the rest of the anime.

Sooo, the anime made a lot of changes I don't completely approve of, but I can see reasons to agree with them. And the characters do think and act appropriately for that context, which is all that I really need.

When we view these similar plots in combination with each other, I feel we really get a sense of how consistently Shoumetsu Toshi is able to convey its characters and narratives. I can also appreciate how every character, no matter how similar, is a product of their own individual circumstances, something we see clearly in all the parallel worlds.

#Shoumetsu Toshi #analysis #trance #Tsubasa #Kaitodan

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soaker87 · 7 years

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A Spider Riders guide for beginners (mainly anime-centric)

Sort of a sequel to my guide for getting into Battle Spirits, but yes, I wrote a massive essay on a much smaller and easily digestible franchise. And it was fun.

Honestly, half of this is me ripping on things, but yes, I honestly love this show and wish it was more popular. And it’s my main interest when Battle Spirits is bad/on hiatus and I’m in denial about Code Geass.

Put it here instead of my SR blog, since established fans probably don’t need a guide. And I think it’s only fair when I don’t shut up about it.

1)The first pressing question that seems to bug people. Is Spider Riders a “real” anime? Not that it particularly matters, but the answer is yes. Spider Riders is officially a Japanese/Canadian co-production. But, based on official statements made by both the Japanese and western staff, the actual production went something like this. A book (which was meant to be the first in a series of 5) was published in English, and at the same time, the Japanese studio Bee Train was commissioned to make an anime based on the same general concept. The show was completely crafted in Japan. That is, the animation, writing and directing was done there. The English side of things got to make specific requests and got a minimal amount of creative control, but it was largely left in Bee Train’s hands. The people on the English side of things consider the series Yosuke Kuroda’s vision, and admitted to not really knowing any more about the characters and world than what the viewers know. So it’s just as much a “real” anime as The Big O season II, Bakugan, Dimension W and the like.

2)Now, the deal about those books I mentioned above, which were the “source material”. Well, as anyone who’s read them can tell you, they have almost nothing in common with the anime. There are characters with the same name and alliances, and the very basic setting is the same. Other than that, you can hardly compare the two. So while the books came first (at least the first one did) they are in no way a pre-requisite for watching the anime. But still very much recommended. Without spoiling anything, they’re certainly darker than the anime (while still remaining kid-friendly). Anyway, there are three canon books total, because the publisher never ordered the planned five. Thus, the story is never fully resolved. Additionally, an unfinished 4th book exists on Tedd Anasti, the main author’s website. This book can not be considered explicitly canon, because it’s basically a re-write of the 3rd book with some added plot points, and it mixes things from anime canon that contradict the previous books. However, it is highly recommended for Buguese and Aqune fans, as the added plot points concern them.

For the record, if you want to read the novels and can’t buy them (because they’re rare and expensive if you want to buy them new) I can point you to download links. And you can read the 4th one here: http://teenovels.webs.com/spiderriders.htm

3)A Spider Riders manga also exists. It’s interesting if you’re a fan, but really not suggested as a good starting point for the franchise. While the manga has more in common with the anime than the books, it’s also a very different take on things. The manga is probably the most comical entry in the franchise, only becoming serious on occasion. It also includes more violence and fanservice (especially panty shots) than the very tame anime. The art style is considered rather unattractive by most people.

Like basically every other entry in this franchise, the manga is unfinished. 10 chapters exist total, but only 9 were released online, the 10th appearing exclusively in Shounen Fang magazine. Of these 9 chapters, only the first 6 were published in tankouban format, and only those 6 were scanlated, as the online releases of chapters 7-9 were not high quality.

Translated scans for chapters 1-6 here: http://spiderridersftw.tumblr.com/tagged/sr-manga

4)Getting back to the anime, another thing that trips people up in exactly how many seasons the anime has. Theoretically, it only has one season, consisting of 52 episodes. A series which yes, I’ll admit right here, ends with a heck of a lot left unresolved. I’ll get back to that point later. However, most anime encyclopedias list Spider Riders as having two series of 26 episodes each. The first is called “Spider Riders ~Oracle no Yuusha-tachi~” and the second is called “Spider Riders ~Yomigaeru Taiyou~”. Why? Because the series tanked in ratings when it aired in Japan. And this is starting from the very first episode, so very few people gave it a chance. It probably wasn’t on many people’s radars, due to the show getting virtually no publicity before airing in popular anime magazines, and due to the stigma it carried being a “co-production”. Because the series tanked, TV Tokyo, who was broadcasting it, stopped airing Spider Riders after 26 episodes. Another network, Kids Station, picked it up and re-aired the first 26 episodes. After that, they continued with episode 27. But they gave the series a new title. It was outright advertised as being a second season. This is most likely because of the reputation the first “season” carried. So there you have it. Spider Riders, a 1 season show, had two seasons when it aired in Japan, but the episodes were exactly the same.

However, the saga thickens. What I mentioned above about the ending being rather a non-ending? It’s because the staff hoped for a true second season of Spider Riders. So they went out of their way to leave questions unanswered. You see, Spider Riders originally did have a true ending. Teletoon, the channel that broadcast the series in Canada, put out a press-release about the anime on their corporate website very early into the anime’s run. This press release contained character bios and episode summaries, which essentially spoiled the entire series. It became known as “the Teletoon Corp spoilers”. For the first 24 episodes, everything these spoilers said matched up with what happened in the anime. The second half of the series, the “second season” in Japan, did not. There were some things that matched, and others which didn’t. So yes, they changed a perfectly thought out second half to the series for the sake of leaving opening for a sequel. A sequel that was never going to happen with the ratings the series got in Japan. In hindsight, Spider Riders ~Yomigaeru Taiyou~ may very well be a “second season”. Because that’s when the series starts to diverge from its intended route.

Because of the convenient break, I’ve actually suggested to people to just watch the first 26 episodes and stop there. The story won’t be resolved, but you’ll still have a lot of questions even after watching the second set of 26. And ep. 26 is actually an epic one, so it makes a pretty great ending point. Better than episode 52 anyway.

Obviously, I don’t hate the second half. I just have very mixed feelings about it. There are severe pacing issues. Plot twists that don’t really make any sense (probably due to having no basis in the first half/original plans). Beerain/Buguese/Aqune/Hunter/Corona love triangle nonsense that goes nowhere. Yes, I spoiled it. None of them end up with anyone. (Also, I am under the impression that love triangles are a plague and rarely ever done well.) Hunter and Corona becoming black holes in terms of focus, while other characters are mis-handled in various ways, especially Magma and Aqune. And Beerain’s handling is a whole separate issue I’ll talk more about later. But probably, the biggest problem with the second half is the forced portrayal of a certain character as sympathetic when I personally did not see them that way. (And no, I’m not talking about Beerain. This could apply to her too, but she didn’t cross the line like this character did.) Also, the writers go out of their way to make sure this character gets everything they want in the end, even when the more important characters have massive unresolved plot threads. Though, considering that I occasionally go to TV Tropes to try and prune some of the leather pantsing for this character, many other fans saw them as sympathetic too. So maybe it’s just my problem, but it still bugs me.

Now, the second half has some good episodes and scattered moments that were awesome or cute or funny or whatever. It has episode 49, which was very validating for me. I love what they do with Igneous in the later episodes, because it helps flesh out his character, even if he doesn’t actually get to do anything useful. Grasshop’s subplot in the second half is well regarded by fans for a reason. Buguese gets to pilot a giant robot, which is beautiful. Stags finally gets some time to shine. Corona gets some good development. So it’s not all a lost cause. It’s just not the second half that should have happened, and the executive meddling made it suffer in quality.

4) Now, if you still want to watch the show knowing all this, should you watch it subbed or dubbed? Coming from someone who never had any problem with dubs, this is one show which really should be watched subbed. While the dub (produced by Cookie Jar Entertainment, not 4Kids, contrary to popular belief) is not the most horrible dub ever, that does not by any means make it an acceptable dub. I’m going to break it down into a few aspects. And these are not the only flaws it has.

First, translation. The dub is not a straight translation of the Japanese script. Except for when it is. But that’s the exception, not the rule. Many times, they just take the Japanese footage and make something up that might fit with it. Even if it has nothing to do with what the characters actually said. Sometimes, this doesn’t really affect much. But other times, it’s created actual plot holes. Avoiding spoilers, the most glaring case of this occurs in episode 23, which is a very important episode about the villains and their motives. And the differences in the script are outright jarring. Especially factoring in that the dub goes back to the true story later on.

Second, the cheese factor. Yes, it is a show where people ride giant spiders. But this is anime. It’s far from the most absurd premise in the medium. And it’s also a premise that the show itself takes seriously, even in the dub. It’s not meant to be a comedy anime, despite having a fair amount of humorous episodes in the first half. So that poses the question of why the people writing the dub script decided to take the cheese factor up to eleven. The dialogue is outright cringey a lot of the time because of it. You have characters constantly shouting “Arachna Power”, a phrase which is never uttered once in the Japanese version. When every other line sounds like it was written by an 8-year-old trying to be hip, it makes the show very, very hard to take seriously. And, as I said, the anime takes itself seriously, even in the dub. So that’s why you have a problem.

Third, censoring. Now, like I said earlier, the anime is pretty tame. There’s no blood and gore. Nothing sexual. There’s not much that needs to be censored at all. Tell that to the people at Cookie Jar. When they decide to censor things like characters being grabbed by the arm (which they frequently cut), all while having other kinds of violence when the characters are fighting a war, you just have to wonder. When they cut a male and female character innocently sleeping in the same room. Characters who get absolutely no ship tease, I might add, and one of them is happily married to someone else, you really have to smash your head against something hard. There are probably two things in this show that could understandably be censored for western viewers, although I personally don’t believe in censorship at all. But the dub does not stop with those two things.

Fourth, name changes. Now, most of the main characters keep their Japanese names in the dub. This is probably to keep consistent with the books. But basically any secondary character has their name changed for no reason, even though their names don’t sound “foreign”. Even if their name is Melissa. The Insectors, the main enemies of the series, were changed to Invectids in the dub. This was apparently due to legal reasons. But due to the prominence of Insectors as a whole, it’s a notable change. Brade, called Quake in the dub, is probably the most important character who underwent a name change. (He isn’t in the books, so that probably contributed to the change.) And one character’s first name is actually their last name in the dub, in a world where no one even has last names. That’s a pretty weird one.

Fifth, the dub treats viewers like morons. Very frequently, the dub will take a scene where in the Japanese version, nothing was being said (the show has a lot of dramatic silence) and make a character whose face isn’t shown on screen state something obvious. It might not be something the Japanese script outright said, but it’s something that anyone paying half-attention would have figured out. Additionally, the dub will regularly add shots of Shadow in manacle space when he talks, assuming viewers won’t be able to pick up that he’s talking despite not being on screen. It’s really kind of insulting. Even if kids are the target audience, they’re not that stupid.

Sixth, the acting is terrible. People make fun of it for a reason. The dub has frequent awkward pauses between lines. Additionally, some of the voices do not fit the characters. And I don’t mean, because they’re not sound-alikes to the Japanese cast. I mean, it was gross mis-casting. The most glaring case is Beerain. Most fans, regardless of their opinion on her character, agree about her dub voice being horrendous, which makes her sound like an old lady, and is even worse during emotional scenes. In general, the actors also tend to change the tone of some scenes, which give off the very opposite impression that the same scenes did in the Japanese version.

And, I won’t link it in this post for reasons, but there’s a torrent for the subs on Nyaa, and it also includes a link for DDLS if you prefer (or if the torrent is dead, because it probably is.) If you must watch the dub despite reading all this, look it up on your own time. It’s definitely on some streaming sites.

5) So, now that we’ve got all that out of the way, what is the show actually about? Well, the plot follows a 13-year-old boy named Hunter Steele. (11 in the dub.) He follows the notes of his deceased grandfather, in order to find a place called the Inner World that his grandfather used to tell him about. Naturally, he finds it within the first few minutes of the show, and the rest of the plot takes place in the Inner World, which is basically like some sort of pocket dimension inside of the earth itself. Hunter meets with Shadow, a spider, and the two reluctantly become partners. After Hunter joins up with the other Spider Riders, he takes part in a war to save the Inner World from the Insectors, a race of bugs with human-like qualities.

6)So what are the characters like? Okay, here goes. First, the main Riders and their spiders.

Hunter Steele- The hero. Typical shounen lead. He loves adventure, he’s a bit clueless, but he’s generally friendly and well-meaning. Which doesn’t make him perfect, either. He can be bratty and disagreeable, especially early on. And while he has a sense of justice, he’s actually incredibly self-righteous and sees everything in black and white. But he does get to develop as the series goes on. And he’s the true heart of the team, who keeps everyone in line. Unfortunately, he does get a disproportionate amount of focus, even for a main character, especially later on.

Shadow- Hunter’s spider partner. He’s cocky and prideful. He has a tendency to bicker with Hunter, and he’s usually the one who’s right. They actually become really good friends. Their bond is pretty cute and needed more focus. Out of all the spiders, he’s the only one who really gets much screentime.

Corona- The heroine. Of course she has a crush on Hunter. That’s obvious from almost the get-go. But she’s absolutely not a bland swooning cheerleader like some shounen heroines. She’s a genuine action girl. After Hunter, she’s the character who gets the most focus. Sometimes the show feels more like it’s her story than his. Corona is riddled with insecurities, but Hunter inspires her a lot, and she gets to grow and develop as well as him.

Venus- Corona’s spider. To be honest, she has the personality of a rock. Yet she will get occasional lines that are longer than one word, unlike most of the spiders.

Igneous- He’s a knight of Arachna. Very protective of his kingdom, and the royal family. At first, he comes off as very serious, but you see later on that he’s one of the biggest dorks in the show. Refreshingly, he doesn’t become Hunter’s rival, despite early episodes hinting towards that. He takes on more of a mentor role. At first. Then the writers kinda forget about that aspect.

Flame- Igneous’ spider. He doesn’t speak. Not even once.

Lumen- The prince of Arachna, but you’ll just have to take his word for it. He doesn’t act much like a prince. He’s super lazy, and he loves to flirt with girls. Every girl. Even if they’re his sister or an Insector. And did I mention he’s only 12?

Ebony- Lumen’s spider. He does speak, but only once.

Sparkle- The princess of Arachna. Yes, her name is Sparkle, but just deal with it. She’s cute. Super cute. Apparently, the writers had no idea what to do with her and changed her character like a million times in the pre-production. So at first, she seems sort of wise and mysterious, but really, her purpose is to just be really cute. Which doesn’t make her any less awesome.

Hotarla- Sparkle’s spider. Like Sparkle, her purpose is to be cute. All she can say is “kyu.”

Magma- He’s introduced as a brooding wanderer, looking for his spiders’ long-lost sister. That doesn’t last for long. He’s also a total dork. He also basically clings on all the other guys. And serves as obsessed fanboy to an old man. Like, Magma is as gay as possible without the writers actually going out and saying it.

Brutus- Magma’s spider. Because he’s a flat character, he doesn’t even seem to care about finding his long-lost sister as much as Magma does.

Now, the villains’ side. They actually get more character development than most of the good guys, for better or for worse.

Mantid- He’s the Insector emperor. The main villain. But saying much about him is spoiling.

Buguese- The leader of Mantid’s Big Four. He looks pretty human-like, despite being an Insector. Based on old information, he might be an artificially-created Insector, except that never made it into the actual show. He’s a cold and calculating person, who treats everyone around him pretty badly. He seems to think the ends justify the means, when it comes to making sure the Insectors win the war. He’s constantly brooding, also. He absolutely hates Hunter, and is pretty much the rival character. He always uses various robots to attack the Spider Riders. He usually has Aqune accompanying him too. It’s clear that he cares about her a lot, but because she’s a human, he makes every effort to hide it, even from himself. He’s my favorite character, as you can probably tell since I don’t shut up about him. As I’ve put it before, a fascinating mess of contradictions, who flips between being a total jerk and the most sympathetic character in the show. He really needed to be in a better show.

Grasshop- Easily the most popular of the Insectors with the fandom. This is because he’s very much the butt monkey. He’s sort of like a one-man Team Rocket. Always coming up with crazy schemes to defeat the Spider Riders. Always failing epically. And even the other Insectors treat him badly. Even Aqune of all people isn’t particularly nice to him. Well, he’s actually a lot of fun, and more than that, he has a lot of depth. He might be the most well thought-out character in the show, to be honest. And his development is very satisfying.

Beerain- Another Big Four member, and the only female. She doesn’t really do much for the early part of the series. Mostly just summons flying insects to do her bidding. Kind of a flat character, to be honest. She makes a good comedy duo with Grasshop, at least. Later in the show, she gets more focus. I found what they did with her character one of the absolute worst subplots in the second half of the series, mostly because it came out of nowhere and felt like extreme character derailment based on the little we know about her, dragged out until it became a plot tumor. But saying much more counts as spoiling.

Stags- The last of the Big Four to be properly introduced. But he’s the strongest and most dangerous. Stags actually is an honorable villain. But at the same time, he’s absolutely crazy. This is the guy who bursts out into maniacal laughter for literally no reason. And later in the series, when he really gets some focus, woah. Well, his fight scenes are epic, and he’s a character who deserved more focus than he got.

Aqune- She’s a Spider Rider, but on the enemy’s side. However, she’s not a villain by any means. She’s an incredibly nice person who is willing to sacrifice her own happiness to help others, whether friend or foe. Aqune is a very tragic character, and like Grasshop, is one of the most popular characters (though Hunter is the most popular of all.) She’s a favorite not just because she’s tragic, but because she’s incredibly tough. If Corona is an action girl, Aqune is even a step above that. She’s strong enough to take on multiple armed opponents alone, and she gets the most stylish fight scenes. It’s hard to talk too much about Aqune without spoilers, but she’s my other favorite character, and one of the best written, even considering she gets screwed over in the second half.

Portia- Aqune’s spider. She also has the personality of a rock.

There are other characters too, but like, watch the show and you’ll see.

7)Anything else? I ship Buguese x Aqune like it’s my job. Honestly, I’m much more fervent about them than I am my job. I would love more fic about them. Yes, I’m shameless.

8)Anything else else? There used to be an online game. It was a dice and card battle RPG with weekly quests. It was more popular than the anime. It was fun. It doesn’t exist anymore.

9)Final notes/warning- Okay, I’m straying from the point, but I’ve wanted to get this off my chest for a long time. The Spider Riders wiki is basically toxic and should not be treated as a good source. I don’t go and edit there because I know I’m not wanted, and I think it should be allowed to exist. Freedom of speech and all. But it hurts that people use it as a go-to source.

Basically, everything you might need to know about the anime is on the very detailed Wikipedia article. Go there instead. The reasons the wikia is so bad are as follows:

It is 100% dub biased. As I said above, the dub is not always accurate to the Japanese.

It is all about the anime with very little on the other canons. Yes, the anime may be the most famous, but it’s not all there is to the franchise, and a wikia should be more thorough. I say this as the owner of the Battle Spirits wikia.

Some of the information is outright wrong, even going by the dub. It feels like whoever edited it was throwing in their headcanons and misconceptions as if they’re fact

It’s super clear what pairings one writer does and doesn’t ship by what they wrote. That’s called bias, and doesn’t belong on a wikia. Friendly reminder that a one-sided relationship is not “close to canon” or however they put it. That would be like if I edited the Battle Spirits wiki to say Gilfam and Lucretia were probably lovers. Which they are as far as I’m concerned, but according to canon they were “friends.” Ship meta is an awesome thing, I love reading it, but keep it to your blogs and off encyclopedias.

A lot of the information was outright ripped off from my old fansite, then modified to fit the writers’ opinions. They did not ask me first. I might have even said yes, but the point is, if you’re going to copy someone else’s writing, you should ask them. I put my contact information on my site. On top of that, I don’t even consider my old website a great source for SR. It was something I threw together for a school project when I took web design, and had to follow particular guidelines on. So basically, they copied my half-assed schoolwork.

The wiki contains actual bashing of me. And my writing. I’m not kidding. That’s all the more insulting when my “writing” was good enough for them to rip off. Or at least it did have this at some point. I don’t really lurk around it, so I don’t know if it’s still there. That’s called bullying. And yes, I take it personally. Even if the wikia didn’t have all the other problems above, I would still loathe it just for this point alone.

#spider riders #geez this is almost 5k words #but really it was super fun to write #i'll probably regret this later #especially the last part #but right now I don't care

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riftp · 6 years

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Read It For The Pictures 33: The New World by Ales Kot and Tradd Moore

NK: Hello and welcome to Read It For The Pictures, the comic book Blog where we Read It For The Pictures! I'm Neil Kapit, and with me as always is the virgin formalist to my chad animist, Dave Clarke! How you doin' Dave?

DC: *grumble* You know I’ve had sex a few times, which weirdly works as a segue into this week’s book: The New World #1

NK: Yes: the New World #1 written by Ales Kot and drawn by Tradd Moore with colors by Heather Moore. It is a thing of beauty.

DC: Thing of beauty hey, now who’s the one not getting any?

NK: The premise of the book: in the post-apocalyptic remnants of the United States (specifically, the "New California", Hunger Games-style media-centered fascism has taken over. The boy Kirby is an anarchist, the girl Stella is a cop (albeit a good one). Neither of them knew that about the other until AFTER they spend the night together. It's a pretty straightforward first issue but does a great job establishing everything about this New World.

DC: (I was going to clarify that this was just a book about fucking, but also the comixology version of this is 69 pages long Hehe, nice.)

DC: *cough* anyway yeah, this issue was kinda great

NK: Tradd Moore is definitely a comic artist's comic artist, and his style is something that plays up the unique strengths of the medium He draws figures and movements that have the kind of sense of motion and fluidity you could only capture with a still frame of a drawn figure.

DC: Also I love how he does expressions.

NK: In an inversion of how we usually see comic art, he does comparatively simple figures against meticulously detailed and dense backgrounds

DC: Yeah, it’s very impressive how he manages to use detail without being overwhelming. Though, he does a scene in the dark without that detail and that doesn’t work as well.

NK: Possibly a deliberate design choice; Stella lives in a huge luxury penthouse provided by her bosses that is mostly big empty space, except for the clutter in her one little area of the apartment. By contrast, Kirby resides in his father's house in the city, which is extremely cluttered and lived-in but cozy.

DC: Every other scene, even the meeting with the father that you’d expect to be sterile is similarly busy. There’s an weird layout trick, the opening exposition is done in landscape spreads across 2 pages (or Wyrecats style) and when we zoom in on the characters it’s all normal single comics pages that are loaded with more panels than normal The extra panels kinda work like an additional level of crazy detail.

NK: It certainly avoids the repetitive banality of usual comics conversation scenes…

DC: Hehe are you going to explain that reference as well as the case of King fever you’ve come down with? ( Before Neil starts melting down, the new world is great, and this is the first single issue I’m eager to follow for the rest of its run. )

NK: Tom King, CIA officer turned comic writer best known for the aborted Batman/Catwoman wedding, has a very particular style of scripts that are incredibly fascinating structurally and often horribly shallow and tedious in terms of actual content. People will rightly point to his Vision and Omega Men stories or his creator-owned Sheriff of Babylon as examples of his talents, and I don't dispute that or deny some of the great work he’s done, which is why the bizarre writer's workshop exercises he turns in as Batman scripts befuddle me.

This is from a Batman comic where Booster Gold fucks up the timeline by saving Bruce Wayne's parents and thus turning Gotham into a hellhole, and this is a whole page of him mugging to the "camera" and explaining why he did it. And this was a three issue arc with a lot of pages, as usual, spent on narratively superfluous banter and formalist self-congratulation (with all these repeating nine panel grids, Because Watchmen).

I bring this up because the 69 (tee hee) page New World comic had relatively little story beyond establishing world, character, and conflict, but Kot's script and Moore's art made every page feel like it was useful and important. E a splash page like the iconic standing fuck page feels like it has a lot of depth in terms of setting up the characters and their movements and how they feel for each other

And when extra pages are used like the two-page spread of the satellite, it's genuinely visually novel and compelling and deliberate to set up a sense of scope. Even in these post-apocalyptic “Divided States of Hysteria”, mass media controls everything and nowhere is free from surveillance.

DC: If we’re talking wider trends, what’s the deal with streaming stories? We’ve seen four of them recently.

NK: Which were all of them for our two readers' reference?

DC: Sideways, bonehead, VS and this

NL: It's the zeitgeist of an era where everything is broadcast constantly.

DC: ( Can’t be that much of a zeitgeist seeing as I got no viewers when I streamed myself playing “the shrouded isle” last night…)

NK: For example, in this comic Stella isn't just a cop, she's a cop on a reality show where the audience is given the chance to vote whether or not she spares or kills criminals. Even when the vote is for killing, she still lets a perp go to have a second chance, upsetting her masters by going "off script". Stella is the all-too-infrequent (in reality) trope known as the good cop, but it works because she's totally aware that her job is unjust on a systemic level, as opposed to just seeing bad cops as a few bad apples.

DC: Also with have a main character saying ACAB in this (all cops are bastards)

NK: That panel is the perfect "this is the future liberals want" image that I share with completely unironic support. Also note that the vast majority of coloring in this comic is flat but bold colors. and the sky there is a basic gradient effect, but the sheer density of content on the landscape makes it feel 3D

DC: Yeah, it’s a very groovy looking book

NK: Oh, and if we’re checking off clichés of our reviews, I’ll get us to bingo

I badly want Tradd Moore to do a Metal Gear adaptation now.

DC: I thought you thought Ashley wood was the perfect MGS artist, Tradd moore is kinda the opposite to that style. Sadly Death Stranding doesn’t similarly groovy... and now we’ve lost the thread of this review all together..

NK: No, we're doing an elaborate formalist experiment!

DC: I’d be interested to revisit this when we’ve got the first 5 or so issues, curious how much of its appeal is from having an extended first issue to establish things

NK: I just hope Stella's cat Godzilla appears frequently

DC: Bingo!

(Also: Checkout http://twitch.tv/daveclarke10 , Sometimes I stream stuff come say hi)

NK: Also, if you love military-industrial paranoia with your cats, http://wyrecats.com is here as always

DC: Maybe we’ll find something, maybe we’ll do one of the good Tom king books…

#dave clarke #neil kapit #read it for the pictures #the new world #ales kot #tradd moore #metal gear #image comics #cats #comic books #art #drawing #how to draw #tom king #nine panel grid

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ghostsonabiketonowhere · 6 years

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Ghostman: The council calamity retrospective

Well christ, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? I know literally nobody follows this blog, but as of this writing, i’m waiting on the steam direct fee i paid to be fully processed (Basically, in a week i’ll be able to publish the game)

I’d like to take a second and stroll down memory lane for a little bit, and why it took so fucking long to make this game, this is basically going to be a list of every time i tried and failed to make a game, so strap in, these aren’t in chronological order either, and i’ve kinda forgotten the proper order.

Bill’s excellent adventure:

There’s incredibly little to say on this one, after reading a 4chan thread on games development i downloaded GM:S, tried making a platformer, saw my art, didn’t see any progress after trying a little bit, and gave up.

Mugman:

Mugman was the first time i tried making an adventure game, other than the main character, i had no ideas for the game and dropped it like a rock.

Radiation Seat:

Radiation Seat, for the more dedicated gamers in the audience, is just a synonym for nuclear throne, i tried messing around with random generation in GM:S, realised i’m not very good at coding and gave up, the game actually kinda works though, so theoretically if i’m a moron/psychopath i could try working on it again.

Asterodis:

First real game i ever made, it’s an asteroids clone, but with a bunch of the stuff i saw in Vlambeer’s game feel talks crammed in, it’s essentially idenitcal to a tutorial on youtube except shooting takes away points and there’s a limit to the number of bullets on screen.

Poltergeist (Aka: Ghostman when he was a person)

I posted a lot about Poltergeist (the version of ghostman with good art and a completely different setting), the secret to this was having a good artist, Robert Thomas helping me out, we never finished it, and Bobby got caught up in school work, but that’s almost over so if he’s willing to pick up the pen again, i’m willing to do the coding and fix the reall weird bugs (randomly the game would massively lag for a reason i never figured out, i assume it had something to do with the way AGS handles characters over non walkable areas)

Grall and Foegart goto whitecastle:

I’d had the idea of wanting to make a high fantasy adventure game after reading a couple of discworld novels, these games didn’t get far, but it did have an interesting character switching mechnic similar to DOTT, this also appeared in a couple of other half finished games i’d made, why i thought it’d be funny to make a game based on it when i’d never seen Harold and Kumar go to whitecastle? Iunno.

H.E.L.L:

H.E.L.L (Hyper Energetive Love Lab) was a shot at making a VN, i’m probably going to still do this, so i don’t know if putting here’s sensible but eh, fuck it, i’d had the idea of a reality show crossed with a death game for ages, and tried writing a short story about it, which went nowhere.

Gender Girl:

Gender Girl was the first video game i ever made, it was a scratch program with the cat repainted to be pink, moving left killed you by a spike, moving right displayed a message that gender girl had liberated herself (Hohoho, very ludonarratively insync, 12 year old me), i uploaded it to the scratch website, and it, containing swear words(such a rebel was i) it was deleted 5 seconds after publication, truly, a light gone from the world, what did it have to do with gender? If i remember literally nothing, or you were supposed to cut your dick off with the spikes.

Yeah.

PAGAN:

Pagan was a pokemon rip off i was making, i didn’t get far beyond changing sprites and types, world design is hard, as of writing it’s still on my site, i ought to take it down buti just don’t have the heart, poor Pagan.

BORB (Ghostman 1)

Borb, as it’s affectionatly called in the files, is ghostman 1, it’s the source of the Alien King sprite, and the Ghostman sprite used in Ghostman: The council calamity, and was distributed amongst my friends for like, 5 seconds, it’s 4 screens and one “Puzzle”, which doesn’t actually work because the last time i did work on it, it’s fun to see how my humour changed, in GM1 we’ve got the classic line “It’s locked up tighter than a jewish bank” and a character named Snil, whose ribbing snarky asshole persona was basically every persona i used to write until i started playing dnd with my friends, and had to make more than 1 character, i don’t really like anything about GM1, but i find it oddly charming, it’s terrible perspective and total lack of story or theme (You’re kidnapped by bandits and the game ends in leaving on a spaceship having never seen a single bandit.) just makes it like lenny from of mice and men, it probably should die, but i can’t help shooting a game that thought the way to add taste was to remove the words “Fuck off” from a wall.

Rebet:

Rebet’s the first time we see the actual character “Rebut” appear, in some weird tron like backround, i remember wanting to make something that looked like tron, and failing, other than that Rebet remains a total mystery, even to me, andi made the fucking thing, looking at the code, i remember a little bit more about the game, the main gimmick was having a variety of ray guns that could effect peoples emotion, the example in the tutorial was a “calming ray” to prevent a drill seargeant from screaming at you, this didn’t go anywhere.

Wing Wang:

This is literally an empty ags game, there’s nothing in it, i don’t know why i haven’t deleted it.

Ye Men of Valour:

Ye Men of Valour was a weird idea, i’d read a book called “The decline and fall of the British Empire” (Based upon the work, the decline and fall of the roman empire) and decided to make a game based upon a variety of British figures from across time entering into a house they must escape, only to be killed by Aliens, the goal of the game was to get players to reload the game with the knowledge that following the puzzles as they were laid out would kill them, and use a different method to escape, Ye Men of Valour really ended up going nowhere because i was in a pretty dark place and wasn’t motivated, like at all, i’m gonna put this in the “Might come back to it” pile.

Ghostman 2:

Ghostman 2, like Grall and Foegart, had a character switching thing, this ended up breaking the game, so i scrapped it, Ghostman 2 was when the idea of Ghostman being a space adventure comes from, following from Ghostman 1, where you leave on a ufo with an alien, it’s what i thought would happen next, if i remember there was literally no story, just the characters, and switching gimmick.

I.A.C.M

I.A.C.M was a project i worked on with Bobby very breifly, the idea was to make an adventure game set inside a mentally disturbed girls mind, this basically didn’t pan out due to AGS engine limitations, the sprites sent in were too big and ended up looking kind of lame squashed down.

You cannot name this file, insect.:

This wasn’t a game, this was shit poetry at a time in my life where i knew my poetry was godawful, there was no story here, just a Shodan like figure who’d insult me, like personally, i’d write insults about myself into a script and then play it.

Robot Initation:

Adventure game, starring “some random guy named mike”, drew the first character sprites, hated them, didn’t want to improve them, gave up.

Assault and Battery/BatteryMan:

This was a go at 3d platformers made in unity, fell apart because the models i’d made in blender weren’t done properly at all, breaking practically everything.

PirateTextAdventure(ActualTitle):

Sounds exactly like what it is, never got a single line down for this.

Shield Slide:

A rip off of free ski based on the idea of riding a shield i think i saw i a lotr movie? Never got to prototype.

AAAH!

AAAH (Aimless aeronautical adveture, huzzah!) was an experiment i wanted to make, an adventure game that was procedudrely generated, every game would involve a one minute timer, which upon reaching zero, would result in the player dying, the story was the player had just survived a plane colliding with another plane in midair, and had to find a way to live without a parachute just using debris, lessons learned: Random generation is hard, i also ripped off the title from AAAAAAAAAAAAh for the awesome.

Sweet Goodnight:

Sweet goodnight was an rpg i planned to make about dying alone in a spaceship, it never got far beyond idle doodles and some game design docs that i’ve since lost, may go back to this in future.

Spaceman and Woodboy:

A mario and luigi superstar saga ripoff, never got to properly playable state, GM:S is hard.

Quest of Halden:

Shit rpg.

Ghostman: CNC :

Ghostman: CNC (Caverns and creatures) was a weird idea, i wanted to make an Rpg based on my dnd campaign, but for some reason i felt the need to justify it with a weird ghostman shell, may go back to this one.

Legend of Negro:

I don’t know why the fuck this is on my computer, i tried pissing around with a legend of zelda game maker thing.

Generic Units:

Supposed to be an xcom like, fell apart.

Airman/Pacifist run:

Something i still want to do, an fps with non violent weapons and stage hazards that you have to use to defeat enemies, got as far as modeling a single gun.

Sepsis man:

A 3d platformer starring a drinks machine, modeled main character, gave up.

Slime Game (actual title, again.)

Slime game (Or Slime Quest) was going to be an incredibly clever subversive take on the Rpg genre by having the grand villain actually be a low level mook, think cave rats and dungeon bosses, that kind of thing, stopped making it because i thought “Woah, that’s dumb, and lame, and i really don’t like making art for ideas that are dumb and lame!”

Zug’s Glorious road trip for the glory of the party and wealth of the nation:

ZGRTFTGOTPAWOTN for short, this was a text adventure based on wormhole shenanigans and Soviet propaganda films, never really got that far, fun little fact, Zug’s the name of the alien in my twitter profile pic.

Ghostman: The council calamity:

I didn’t quit, i made the game.

THANK GOD FOR THAT.

#gamedev reflection didireallyjustypereflection? iamawanker

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spynotebook · 7 years

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Image: Star Wars Rebels, Disney/Lucasfilm

Thrawn is a great Star Wars book that stands on its own. But the little nods and winks Timothy Zahn makes to Thrawn’s old life in the Expanded Universe novels—and to the events in Rebels, where Thrawn is currently the main antagonist—add another layer of delight. You should definitely read Thrawn (and watch Rebels), but if you don’t have time to go read a hundred EU books and watch three seasons of a cartoon, we’ve collected the major additions to the new Star Wars canon, as well as the threads planted in Thrawn for later stories.

[Note: There are some spoilers here, but we’ve avoided most of the novel’s main plotline. But seriously, just go buy the book already.]

$32

From amazon

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Thrawn is effectively a prequel to season three of Star Wars Rebels. So events like Rebels making his flagship the Chimaera again don’t make this list, but Lothal, Governor Pryce, Wulf Yularen, and other aspects of Rebels all play important roles in the book. I’ll hit some of that stuff here, but if you like Rebels, again, you really should just pick this book up.

Still, if you haven’t watched Rebels, Thrawn is easily read without knowing anything from the show. It’s a prequel that is truly its own story, and not just an excuse to throw out references to later material for fans.

Thrawn in his Chiss Expansionary Defense Force uniform (Outbound Flight cover by Dave Seeley, Del Rey)

Thrawn and the Chiss

The Chiss

Pretty much everything that was true about the Thrawn’s race, the Chiss, is true again, including the fact that the blue-skinned, red-eyed aliens are a fairly strong power in the Unknown Regions. Now, just as when we first met them in the EU, the Chiss Ascendancy rules a portion of the Unknown Regions and have a strong military with the inviolate rule that no preemptive strikes be taken. Their language, used fairly commonly in the Unknown Regions and their borders, is once again named as Sy Bisti. Chiss eyesight is also better than human eyesight, even getting close to seeing the infrared spectrum.

All of that has moved from old Expanded Universe to the new Star Wars canon pretty much intact. Slightly new is the idea that the Chiss have reached the level of urban legend/myth among the people who live near their area of the galaxy. One of the main characters of Thrawn is Eli Vanto, a young Imperial officer who was born in Wild Space, which borders the Unknown Regions. As a result, he speaks Sy Bisti and knows of the prowess of the Chiss from the local myths. However, just as before, the Chiss know far more about their neighbors than they do about the Chiss.

Additionally, the reason given for Thrawn leaving the Chiss is the same as his EU counterpart—he was exiled because he broke the “no preemptive strikes” rule. The opening chapter of Thrawn is almost identical to Zahn’s 1995 short story “Mist Encounter.” That means that Major Wyan, Colonel Mosh Barris, Captain Voss Parck, and the ship Strikefast are all brought back in their original roles of introducing Thrawn to the Empire and the Emperor. (There are some subtle changes that make sense within the new canon, like using Clone Wars-era ships types, for example.)

Thrawn’s Motivation

In what is actually a very smart subversion of what EU fans were expecting—we all know Thrawn was exiled and why he was exiled—Thrawn alters its eponymous lead’s motivations slightly. As before, Thrawn wants security and safety and sees the Empire as a better way to fight dangers than the Republic was. He basically thinks the Republic was useless in a fight and, while the politics and corruption of the Empire frustrates him, their military might and control is useful to him.

But now Thrawn’s exile was a ruse. Thrawn was sent by the Chiss to gather information about the government next door. When the Emperor refused to have Thrawn as a counselor, he took a job in the Imperial Navy in order to further his goal. The position helps him keep the Empire strong, but also always allows him to do what he thinks is best for the Chiss.

As he did in the old EU, Thrawn recruits humans to his cause and sends them back out to Chiss space. In this case, Eli Vanto is eventually sent by Thrawn to the Chiss. It’s both a way of exchanging information and Thrawn’s way of making sure everyone is strong enough to fight whatever dangers lurk out in the Unknown Regions. Vanto is met by Chiss admiral Ar’alani, who was Thrawn’s superior and ally in the EU. We still don’t know anything specific about the threat, merely that there is evil somewhere out there and it is bad enough that Thrawn will do anything to stop it.

It’s worth remembering that the Aftermath novels have said that Palpatine is obsessed with finding out what’s lurking in the Unknown Regions and was putting a significant amount of Imperial power was sent out there. We also know that Thrawn shares his knowledge of the region with the Emperor—everything except the information about the Chiss. What everyone finds out there had fucking better not be the Yuuzhan Vong (as it was in the EU) or I will lose it. Most fans are assuming it’s where the Imperial remnant—who fled to the Unknown Regions after the Rebel Alliance kicks their asses and became the First Order—picked up Snoke.

Thrawn Connections

Demanding its own book, novella, short story, whatever is the news that Thrawn met General Anakin Skywalker during the Clone Wars. They worked together in some sort of engagement in the Thrugii System (a locale from the EU that is now presumably closer to Chiss space in the new canon than it was in the old) and Thrawn was able to deduce even then that Anakin was under thrall to Palpatine. Whether or not Thrawn knows that Vader is Anakin is left unclear, but it’s Thrawn, so I assume he totally knows.

Thrawn’s time training in the Imperial military puts him under Commandant Deenlark from the new canon novel Lost Stars. And he gets some troublemakers sent to Skystrike Academy, which is where Wedge and Hobbie defect from in Rebels.

Rebels established that Thrawn attained the rank of Grand Admiral after the Battle of Batton, where he led forces against a group of rebels. The rebels died, but so did a lot of civilians. Thrawn makes Batton the last move in a long chess match between Thrawn and a criminal-mastermind-turned-Rebel named the Nightswan. It struck many as odd that Thrawn’s career-making battle would have so many unnecessary casualties, so Thrawn makes clear that he tried to avoid them; it was a selfish action by future Governor Arihnda Pryce—often seen in Rebels—that caused the many, many deaths. Thrawn knows it, and Pryce knows he knows it, but Thrawn doesn’t have any proof. But he’s not happy about it.

Thrawn’s ally from early on is Colonel Wulf Yularen, whose Imperial Security Bureau position helps the unconnected alien out. Thrawn is fairly awful at politics—well, specifically the full-contact sport and nepotism party that is Coruscanti politics. He always wins, but he makes connected people look bad, and his promotions usually follow court martial proceedings.

Thrawn with Pryce and Kallus in Rebels

The Empire

Since the old EU got junked, Palpatine’s non-human attendants and other smaller things gave the impression that the new canon Empire might hate non-humans a little bit less. Thrawn throws that out the airlock. Instead, everyone give a big warm welcome to the old EU’s love of characterizing the Empire as anti-alien, classist, and very, very corrupt.

Thrawn reveals that even if Palpatine himself doesn’t care about aliens (Palpatine cares about himself and his power only), the rest of the Empire has a very clear bias. Thrawn’s rise to power is faced at every turn by people not happy to see a non-human advance. Thrawn gives what I would call a justification for the racism rather than a reason: the Clone Wars were bloody and awful and the Separatists (the faction that lost) were mostly non-humans. So everyone’s content to generally blame all non-humans for the war and the resulting devastation. That’s obviously illogical and is clearly a justification for bias, but it’s unfortunately plausible.

Thrawn pairs this with a bias in the Empire’s government for the connected and those from Core Worlds (like Coruscant) rather than people from more “primitive” Outer Rim (Tatooine) or Wild Space (where Eli Vanto is from). Turns out the Empire—gasp!—is very corrupt. Who you know is most important and most people are lining their pockets. Pryce’s rise to Governor of Lothal is detailed heavily in this book and she faces obstructions for the same lack of connections, and suffers from bias for being from an outlying world. Also mentioned as a little shout-out for Rebels watchers is a reference to Governor Azadi retiring “against his will” and an explanation of how Minister Tua got picked to act in Pryce’s stead (and why). Admiral Konstantine also gets a brief appearance prior to Pryce asking for Thrawn’s forces to replace his in Rebels.

We also are reminded that the Empire uses slave labor, Wookiee slaves especially. A ship full of Wookiee slaves is intercepted en route to where else, the Death Star. Thrawn, rightfully, thinks the Death Star is a hideous waste of time and resources. Unfortunately, it is not his Empire. It belongs to the melted man with the lust for power.

Zahn brought back some things you wanted. But not even close to everything that fans really wanted (Del Rey).

Minor Shout-Outs

Ch’hala Trees

This is a very minor bit, but early on in the book Emperor Palpatine takes Thrawn into a garden where “small trees with shimmering bark stand at the periphery like sentinels of privacy.” Longtime fans will remember that trees with color-changing bark were a favorite of Palpatine’s in the old EU. The Ch’hala trees were both pretty and also a giant spy network, recording and transmitting everything that happened in front of them. Zahn used them in his original books as an important source of information, and if this wasn’t a reference to them, I’ll eat my hat (Thrawn describing them as “sentinels of privacy” is what sealed it for me).

Sturm Dowels

In the very first pages of the book, there is an improvised explosive made with blaster packs with the “sturm dowels” pulled out. “Sturm” is a favorite name in Star Wars, popping up a fair amount. The first instance is Zahn naming one of Talon Karrde’s pet vornskrs “Sturm” in his first Star Wars novel, Heir to the Empire.

But an overloaded sturm dowel was used by Zahn in Specter of the Past and the short story “Mist Encounter.” (As mentioned above, the first chapter of Thrawn is basically just “Mist Encounter,” slightly retooled.) It involves Thrawn, alone on the world he has been exiled to, utterly destroying an Imperial landing party. His tactics are impressive enough to gain him entry into the Imperial Navy, but we’ll get back to that chapter in a bit.

Doonium

In the old EU, doonium was a metal used to make starships. In the new canon, it’s a metal that is worth a lot of money, and acquiring it and the mines that produce it drive the plot. It will shock no one to find out that large amounts of this metal are being bought by the Empire and sent to the location of a large, unnamed secret project. (*cough* the Death Star *cough*).

H’Sishi

I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but Mara Jade, Talon Karrde, and even Gilad Pallaeon are missing from Thrawn. However, Thrawn does bring back H’Sishi and her people, the Togorians. (Think... large cats walking on their back legs with a culture based on honor and warriors. Yes, another one.)

Through a series of events in Specter of the Past, H’Sishi ended up working for Karrde. In Thrawn, she shows up as the owner of Yinchom Dojo, where Pryce trains—and which, unfortunately for H’Sishi, is used by others in an anti-Imperial plot. H’Sishi’s not involved with it, but she’s told to leave Coruscant quickly after it’s discovered.

Raider-Class Corvette

Welcome back to the canon! Please join your fellows over on this list.

Beckon Calls

Basically, a beckon call is a remote control for a spaceship and Zahn used the technology to good effect in Heir to the Empire in 1991. He brought the idea back for Thrawn, where the title character uses one, along with some Clone Wars-era droids, to really just fuck some shit up in the usual, over-planned, steps-ahead, badass way Thrawn traditionally does.

#IFTTT #Feedly

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