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sparky-is-spiders · 9 months

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More of my TMA Somewhere Else is Dredge AU. Mostly just random stuff that isn’t enough to make a whole post all on its own. There’s no order to these btw it’s literally just whatever came to mind. (Also Jon uses any/all pronouns because I like projecting)

- Jon takes statements from people in the Dredgeverse. Back before she accepted the Greater Marrow angler job offer these were always encounters with the fears as they slowly sank their teeth into this new world, but once she moved she found that encounters with the fears were much, much rarer. Statements about the sea are still filling, however. Plenty of terror and new information to be found there.

- Jon really likes chatting with the traveling merchant. She’s seen a lot, so it’s a good way for him to learn about this world. He doesn’t want to take a statement from her (he’s sure she has many, but she might be the closest thing he has to a friend here (he doesn’t even know her name) and it would be a massive pain to constantly be going back and fourth between Greater Marrow and the other four regions). Her stories usually just contain enough scraps of information (and sometimes fear) that they can serve as a very light snack.

- Sometimes aberrations are the only things they catch in a day. Sometimes Jon will see dark shapes in the water, to big and malformed to be any of the regular fish native to the area. Sometimes they are out on the water, alone, and something is watching them. He Knows it is not Beholding.

- Jon thinks that the Eye would tell them the quickest route back to where they came from, would tell them exactly how to navigate to avoid monsters and dangerous storms. They know they could leave but they don't think they will. They need to stay. They need to know.

- Jon spends AGES trying to figure out what’s so special about the dark stone pillars. When she realizes that they grant her visions (but only if she’s frightened enough) she decides to visit all of them (at night, when the fog is thick and the fear is strongest).

- After getting a camera from the photographer, Jon tries to get pictures of the monsters. She nearly gets her boat sunk about a hundred times in the process, but finds that the benefits of being able to study them from multiple angles for as long as she wants outweighs the terror and cost of repairs.

- Got a LOT of thoughts about how the collector could play into this tbh. I don’t want to get into specifics for spoiler reasons but I can give some general thoughts:

Dude's just some guy who wanted cursed relics. Met Jon and instantly went: "They look like a magnet for The Horrors" and decided to hire them on the spot.

Dude is Elias. I feel like Elias wouldn't have too much trouble fitting into the role, and I like him well enough to actually want to include him in this au. That being said, I don't know if my grasp of the character is solid enough for me to explore the idea, and I like the idea of Jon, whose only remaining connection is the eldritch fear god they serve, having nobody and nothing in the already lonely and isolating world of Dredge.

It's Dredgeverse Jon. The collector is the Jon who was born here, and whose fascination with the sea and the supernatural drew them to this place, where they're sure all the answers they seek lie waiting, just below the surface of the water. Raises all sorts of questions I don't have answers to about who else has versions of themselves living in the Dredgeverse (if any at all) but also fascinates me.

The collector is any/all of these but also a mouthpiece for the entity that lurks in these waters (whether he knows it or not). I think dipping into these ideas any further would cross into spoiler territory, and while I think knowing the full story can really enhance the experience, I also think it's best played blind the first time. If you have the money to drop on it please do check it out, I promise it's so worth it.

Okay these are all my thoughts (for now). I'm sure I'll have more soon. Jon and Dredge both occupy massive portions of my brain all the time. However for now I need to try and get trophies for every regular fish (and possibly also the abberations, might be fun trying to spend a full in-game year just fishing).

#on the one hand I want to spoil some Dredge stuff #on the other hand I don't want to spoil anything just in case someone who sees this post decides to play the game.#I should probably come up with a name for this au #can't think of anything rn tho #anyway now onto the regular tags #tma #tma au #the magnus archives #jon sims #jonathan sims #dredge #dredge game

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helix-studios117 · 2 months

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Top 5 Favorite Depictions of Master Chief

It seems odd that I made this a list since there aren't very many takes John that exist; at least not in the same way various takes on Batman exist. But here we go.

1.) Paramount's Master Chief portrayed by Pablo Schreiber. - People tend to forget that Master Chief's characterization is very minimal, so one can more or less expand on the character in any way they'd like and it wouldn't necessarily be out of character so long as they adhere to his core traits: He's a cool badass who shoots aleins and doesn't afraid of anything. While I do appreciate that season 2 made John a more reserved, almost big brotherly, if kinda strict, guy who just wants to help humanity and everyone is just getting in his way (moreso like the games); season 1 John was more interesting to me because he was more emotive, expressive and open as a person (not THAT open, he still had his own secrets). For me, the departure from the source-material is exactly WHY I love the show and this take on my favorite video-game character. In fact, Show!John (particularly 'season 1 John') is my main influence on my own take on the character in my AU. Besides, let's be a bit honest with ourselves here, Game!John would make a terrible TV protagonist. (I also really like the 'Chosen One' stuff with the Forerunner relics, it gives John a greater sense of importance in the grander story and it makes his connections to the Halo stronger; it's yet another element I took for my version of Chief).

2.) Nylund's Chief. - Halo: The Fall Of Reach and Halo: First Strike are among the first books published during the franchise's infancy. Eric Nylund's take on the character is basically just Game!John, but fleshed out enough for me to want to care about him in a context that's not in a video-game. He's a driven and ambitious übermensch (in the "transcends basic human limitations" variety) who is at his happiest when given an order and will do anything to win, but cares deeply for his fellow Spartans and the men and women under his command; I also like the added detail of him being a former schoolyard-bully who matured and learned to be LESS of a douchebag. Nylund's take on John allows me to look at Game!John and think: "Yeah, I can understand why he's like this!"

3.) Halo 4/5 Chief. - This is the most vulnerable we've ever seen John in any context and it was 343's first real attempt that cracking open Chief's shell to see the man underneath. Emotional-vulnerability aside, I really like how proactive Chief is in these two games; he's more involved in the plot and actually makes strategic plans throughout the course of both games (well, if not 5, at least 4). It puts emphasis on John's leadership skills and makes him more active in the stories he's in; not to knock against Bungie, but their Chief struck me more as a follower than a leader, and while Bungie!Chief gave his own advice from time-to-time, he didn't feel as involved as he should've been even if it was Bungie's intention to make him a slient-protagonist.

4.) Legends Chief. - I like that this is one of the few times, up until Halo 5, where we see John interacting with his fellow Spartans. With Spartan-1337 and Daisy-023 as characters, we get to see two sides of John: His deadpan straight-man aspect and his softer side. If you've seen Halo Legends, you'll probably know where I'm getting at. In "The Package," we also see John's strong coordination with Blue-Team and the others, and I really like that.

5.) Forward Unto Dawn Chief. - Sort of the least interesting version of Master Chief on this list. I only really put him on here because he's a surprisingly really good attempt at translating Game!John into a live-action setting, but there's a reason why we see this Chief for a short period of time: This would get boring after a while.

@ionlymadethissoicouldleaveanask, @makowrites, @mrtobenamedlater, @authortobenamedlater, @biomecharnotaurus, @killer-orca-cosplay.

#halo #master chief #john 117 #halo tv show #halo the series #halo tv series

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greaterbalrogcat · 5 months

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Which legend units (as in bahamut) are actually good

before anyone asks, legend cats are classified as special cats which are able to be boosted to level 40 after first completion of An Ancient Curse and level 50 after first completion of Revival of Origin. units will be in order based on the order they are in in the cat guide. all units will be reviewed based on their true form (uril true form will not be included, as it is currently only available in the japanese version of the game, and i play the global version). if i forget any please remind me there are quite a few

STORY MODE LEGENDS:

VALKYRIE CAT: first legend cat. probably the worst. there is no point in using valkyrie unless you're doing no gacha and need as much area dps as you can physically get and also you don't have ururun. i know people who use it on eoc 3 moon, and it might work there, but i didn't lmao worst legend cat 100%

tl;dr: valkyrie bad

BAHAMUT CAT: really damn good. bahamut's first/second forms have the same stats, and for a unit you get after beating eoc 3, they're very solid stats. a 450 range high damage nuker carries you through getting a lot of crazeds, works through a lot of early SoL, and can actually help with some 4 star. however, it does kinda fall off as you get better generalist rangers, and this is why awakened bahamut (shortened to abaha) was created. abaha is a busted rusher, holding the highest base dps of any unit (previously second to balrog before abaha was buffed in 6.0) and 93.5k damage per hit at LEVEL 30. obviously, being a rusher, its health is kinda low, and it will generally die quickly. however, just getting one or two shots off on a major boss can shave off 100k-200k health (when boosted to level 40), and if the boss has a blindspot or gets knockbacked by this, abaha can typically attack again. this is especially apparent in several advents, such as clionel, which needs rushers such as abaha to get into its blindspot and kill it, and doremi, which is the easiest advent in the game due to the abaha cheese (abaha has just enough damage to knockback doremi on each attack, doremi has just enough speed and attack startup to get hit by abaha every single time). while abaha may see less use in late/endgame due to access to specialized rushers such as yukimura and idi (which we'll be going over later), it's still arguably the best legend just due to the sheer amount of use it sees throughout the entire game. the battle cats would not be the same without bahamut.

tl;dr: busted

CAT GOD THE GREAT: really weird niche unit. 350 standing range, omni hits from -850 to 850, three hit multihit with guaranteed knockback on non-metal enemies on first two hits and decent (51k at level 30) damage on the third hit, attacks less often than it really should. its standing range is kinda bad, but its omni extends 500 ahead of its standing range, which somewhat makes up for it. however, the main appeal of cat god is how omni works. cat god will stand 850 away from the enemy base. this means that it can cheese stages with a high health big boss, such as lil mohawk or lil eraser, and stages where you need to KB threats behind the base so you can destroy it, such as floor 32 of both heavenly tower and infernal tower. true form is absolutely irrelevant but it's pretty goddamn funny. not a great unit, but definitely has its uses.

tl;dr: has rare niche usages, not great

FILIBUSTER CAT X: the other contender for the worst legend in the game. filibuster is unlocked by beating cotc 3 and then beating the one time clear filibuster stage (which has the best song in the game btw). before true form, it has 575 range, low damage, freeze vs traitless for 4 seconds, low health and one knockback, and omni (but it only pierces backwards so it's irrelevant). in true form, it gains immunity to surge and curse, target relic, and its damage doubles. this doesn't seem that bad, right?

twelve (12) seconds of foreswing. this is more foreswing than twelve balrogs put together.

filibuster holds almost no use. you could hypothetically, at best, use it on a stage where you can stall and stack filibusters on the peons, but those stages are so incredibly few and far between that they might as well not exist and you could just use any better generalist or CC unit. shockingly useless.

tl;dr: filibuster bad

JAGANDO JR.: actually a surprisingly good anti-traitless. jagando is a 360 range strong vs traitless three hit multihit with surge and guaranteed knockback on the third hit curse and surge immune unit. this seems more complicated than it is. jagando has solid anti-traitless dps, guaranteed knockback + level 1 surge so it's guaranteed to knockback twice if the first knockback connects, curse immune for use in UL and against uril (the floor 50 of heavenly tower boss, not the legend unit which we will be covering later), and surge immune for use against kappy jr and any possible surge base/raynard/other surge enemy support in a traitless stage. very straightforwardly good unit. works well in 4 star.

tl;dr: solid anti-traitless damage + KB

STORIES OF LEGEND LEGENDS:

URURUN WOLF: the classic generalist. ururun is the baseline for what a backliner's stats should be equal to or above. even before true form, there are quite a few units (nurse cat, bahamut, thundia/windy outside of niche, etc) it outclasses in terms of generalist stats. in true form, its 450 range and 6.4k dps (at level 30) make it a very viable backliner, especially in early UL and 4 star, but it does somewhat fall off in later game when you get stronger generalists. its 20% chance for knockback can hinder some slower foreswing units that you bring with her (bahamut), but it can also help on occasion when you need knockback units. really not much else to say about ururun, just a strong unit overall and helps with early game.

tl;dr: good generalist

LI'L NYANDAM: despite being one of the highest standing range units you can get in 4 star, its attacks are slow, its proc chance for slow is only 50%, and its only real use is if you NEED a way to outrange professor a in 4 star and you have no stepping stones for LD units. not very good.

tl;dr: not unusable, just not good

RED RIDING MINA: pretty solid no gacha LD sniper. stands at 435, hits from 300 to 700. can hit quite a few backliners if given a stepping stone. 50% chance to weaken relic and immune to curse is largely irrelevant, but it can help on occasion. mina is one of the best snipers in 4 star, can be stacked on stages with low peons, and is just generally strong. good legend.

tl;dr: decent sniper but there are better options outside of 4 star

MIYAMOKU MUSASHI: musashi is a generalist with zkill, 30% chance to freeze relics, and curse/wave immune. musashi used to be one of the very few options available for anti-wave, and was solid due to that. however, as the meta has evolved, wave has become one of the most powercrept abilities, with units such as octopus cat, gloomy neneko, talented dancer cat, and talented li'l mohawk making it much, much easier to deal with than it was back when musashi was first introduced. the only real use for musashi is as a counter to the occasional 4 star cadaver bear that you can't deal with with shigong, which is a half decent use, but it's just too uncommon to justify musashi's low stats. very mediocre unit.

tl;dr: killed by powercreep, can work vs 4 star cadaver bears

MECHA-BUN: bad relic tank. it's a fast attacking strong against relics curse immune "tanker" with too low health and not good enough damage to be good. not interesting enough for more than a few sentences.

no tl;dr for this one it was three sentences

IDI:N: the unit i did not consider when deciding on formatting but i'm too lazy to change it. idi is effectively an anti-relic version of awakened bahamut, with massive damage vs relic, curse immune, and surge immune. idi's niche is very useful against relics that she outranges like oldhorn, relics with low damage that she can use all her knockbacks against like lowkey, relics with a blindspot that she can get into like loris, relics with long tba that she can hit once or twice in between their attacks like luza, relics with lots of knockbacks that you want to hit hard like puffington...honestly just the majority of relics. the only two relics she can't really deal with by herself are m ost and relic bun bun because they attack fast and she gets outranged, but you can tbolt or freeze them using something else and she can get solid damage on them. incredibly strong anti-relic rusher.

tl;dr: anti-relic awakened bahamut, very good, very worth beating all of 4 star

UNCANNY LEGEND LEGENDS:

DOGUMARU: dogumaru's true form is what mecha-bun dreams of being. it has resist vs traitless and relic, behemoth slayer, colossus slayer, curse and warp immune. it has 156600 base health at level 50, increased to 626400 vs its target traits, 223714/261000 vs colossus/behemoth respectively, and 894856/1044000 vs a traitless or relic colossus/behemoth respectively. this makes it a strong tanker for luza stages, with its 64800 damage (103680/162000 vs colossus/behemoth) being strong enough to take out the peons, and revival of origin having no enemies that aren't one of its target traits. dogu still works outside of luza stages, being a strong tanker for both traits, and while its behemoth niche is largely more useful than its colossus niche, as traitless/relic behemoths such as wild doge, magamojoe, and cumulus gallus are decently hard to deal with, its colossus niche does help with the occasional jj jackrabbit, or, if you have no other options, baron gauntlets. even outside these sub-trait targets, its traitless and relic niches make it work vs both yulalas, its own enemy counterpart, and any other traitless/relic enemies without too high dps. pretty damn busted.

tl;dr: great traitless/relic tanker, colossus/behemoth slayer gives it a lot more use, strong legend

URS & FENRIR: urs is effectively just a better ururun. trading out the 20% chance of knockback for a 20% chance of weaken removes any chance of making other units miss their attacks, dps and health stay the same between the two; however, urs gains 10 more range, behemoth slayer (with 30% chance to dodge, making it one of two behemoth slayers with increased dodge chance and therefore increased survivability), colossus slayer, and costs slightly less. the only thing ururun has over urs is a 3.33 second lower cooldown, but this is entirely irrelevant, as it's a difference of 161.2 and 164.53 seconds. urs becomes a strong anti-behemoth and anti-colossus; despite generalists becoming less relevant at the point in the game that you get urs, a 460 range unit with 10295 dps vs colossus is very helpful on baron gauntlets, and you can use it against behemoths to decent effect, despite the sheer amount of anti-behemoths available. just a better ururun.

tl;dr: ururun but better. decent anti-behemoth and anti-colossus. worst UL legend but not bad by any means.

ELDER MASK DORON: doron is one of very few suicide/kamikaze/self-destruct units in the game, sharing this ability with only glass cat, stone cat, and wafer cat. as is consistent across all suicide units, doron's health is extremely high, having the second highest base health of all cat units (599995 at level 50), and it has immunity to almost all negative effects (no toxic immunity). this is to make sure it can land its hit consistently. doron has a 100% chance to knockback and freeze relic enemies for 6.67 seconds and spawn a level 3 surge between 400 and 1000 range. it stands at 400 range, but its omni reaches from -1000 to 600, giving it 200 piercing range. it holds 29997 dph, and due to being a suicide unit, there's no real way to calcuate dps. it also has behemoth and colossus slayer. doron works against pretty much every relic, freezing them and keeping them away from the battlefield for those 6.67 seconds. while its surge may seem inconsistent, it will create a wall of freeze + knockback if it lands on its intended relic target, and if it doesn't, it can do solid damage versus non-relic. its anti-behemoth niche isn't great due to behemoths almost always being surge immune, but it works against great ape luza and the initial hit will still affect behemoths. the colossus niche is better; despite zero luza being immune to freeze, it can still be knockbacked, and the surge can stall it for several more seconds. doron is also surprisingly usable as generalist dps, with the surge's spawn radius making it capable of piercing to backliners or creating a wall of death at the frontline surprisingly well, although it's much less reliable than its cc role. its 1800 cost and 52.53 second cooldown give it very good mobility. strong anti-relic.

tl;dr: incredible relic cc, cheap for what it does, good damage for a reliable cc unit

ELDER BEAST NAALA: the best UL legend. naala's main gimmick is its weird multihit LD, with standing range of 300, first hit going from 1-301, second from 300-500, and third from 500-700. its dps is thus decreased to 1/3rd of its potential, still a respectable 7957.89 generalist dps at level 50, with 45360 generalist damage per hit. it holds 135000 generalist health. however, naala's main draw is its niche, being strong vs relic, guaranteed weaken to 50%, and behemoth/colossus slayer. it also has curse, wave, and surge immunity. against relic behemoths such as magamojoe and great ape luza, it has 29842 dps, with 170100 damage per hit. against zero luza, the only relic colossus, it has 19099 dps and 108864 dph. its two knockbacks and high effective health (450000 vs behemoth, 385714 vs colossus) give it good durability and make it capable of staying on the field for long periods of time to keep dishing out damage. 113400 damage per hit vs non-relic behemoth makes it a viable generalist anti-behemoth, and given the prevalence of melee behemoths, it can snipe backliners by using wild doges or behemoth pigges as stepping stones. incredibly strong unit.

tl;dr: busted anti-relic, anti-behemoth, anti-colossus. one of if not the best legend. incredible unit.

APE LORD LUZA: anti-relic nuker. luza has a somewhat weird LD multihit, with 400 standing range, first hit hitting from 1-401, and second hit hitting from 250 to 550. this gives it some piercing range and the ability to consistently hit both hits at its standing range. if both hits connect, it has 27971.22 dps (halved if only one hits) and 259200 dph (both hits added) vs relic. with behemoth slayer, this increases to 69928.05 dps and 648000 dph. resist gives it 334800 health vs relic and 558000 health vs relic behemoth. i hope i don't have to explain how insane this is. its immunity to weaken and warp aren't that relevant, but curse immune helps for obvious reasons and surge immune gives it a niche vs pesky surge enemies. luza doesn't have much outside of what it does at face value, but what it has is pretty damn good.

tl;dr: straightforward good relic nuker. worth the evolution.

HEAVENLY TOWER LEGENDS:

MASKED GRANDMASTER CAT: masked grandmaster is an anti-relic wave unit. while its 4080 damage per hit at level 30 may not look like much, it has three hit multihit and a level 5 wave. this gives it solid backliner dps, at 2891.34 dps (4337 dps vs relics) at level 30 up to 1132 range, enough to do consistent damage to any threatening backliners and clear peons decently well. while, again, this may not look like that good of a unit, let me direct your attention to its 2400 cost and **37.87 second cooldown**. this is less than 10 seconds higher than manic macho legs's cooldown. this allows masked grandmaster to be stacked on any barrier with 12.3k health or above or any high health low range permafreezeable or permaslowable enemy until you have a massive wall of death for any enemy that dares cross its path. while these situations are obviously rarer than would be preferable, it's a strong anti-relic and wave unit.

tl;dr: strong stackable waver with low cooldown.

SPIRITUAL YULALA: weird LD anti-relic rusher. 350 standing range, hits from 200 to 500. massive damage vs relics. while its 12.5k dps vs relics is solid, its low standing range and only two knockbacks hold its survivability back. 71.2 second cooldown and 4200 cost make it much less mobile than masked grandmaster, despite its much higher speed (20). could be much better than it is.

tl;dr: mediocre anti-relic rusher. usable against low range relics

MASTER URIL: pretty damn good anti-relic cc. 100% slow vs relic for two seconds, 100% chance for level 3 surge (spawns between 400 and 600), 375 range. surges hit 125 ahead and 250 behind their spawnpoint; thus, uril's surge is only guaranteed to hit the initial target if the target is between 350 and 525 away from it. while this looks good in theory, seeing as uril can guarantee slow at standing range, the permaslow ends as soon as something pushes just 25 range inward. still, this is only if the enemy you're trying to slow is at the front. if uril targets a peon with an m ost behind it, it'll slow the m ost, preventing more pushing. it also has a chance to slow backliners, with the farthest surge spawn hitting up to 725. three knockbacks and 68k health at level 30 is solid, although its damage is a little low, and is only usable for slight chip and/or peon clearing.

tl;dr: solid cc for melee relics and midrange relics with stepping stones. well worth the floor 50 grind. will be much, much better once true form comes out.

jesus christ i got this ask like. actually two days ago. this took too long but now i will never talk about legend units ever again

uril true form? busted anti-relic busted anti-aku but that mf ain't in BCEN yet and therefore no one cares

#the battle cats #battle cats #battle cats meta #long post

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interact-if · 2 years

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First up for our Pride Month Event is Anna!

Anna, Author of Wayfarer

When your mercenary work backs you into a corner, you take the only option available and accept a contract: to travel to the city of Velantis and steal an ancient artifact said to be blessed by the gods. Simple, right?

But Velantis holds more than you bargained for. Gathering a ragtag party of malcontents and renegades from across the city, you must navigate enemy factions, meddling guilds, and escalating political tensions. Your choices will ultimately determine the city’s fate – and the fate of every person who lives there.

Wayfarer is a dark fantasy interactive fiction game. You play as a Wayfarer, a member of an order of warriors born with magical immunity in a world dominated by magic. It is currently in development. The full game will include three acts and a total of 14 chapters.

Read more about Wayfarer here. Play the Demo here. Anna's Patreon and Ko-fi.

[INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE CUT!]

Q1 - Please, introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your project!

I’m a playwright! After several years working in the theatre industry, I wanted to branch out into video game scriptwriting. Wayfarer actually started as a portfolio piece and grew into what it is today.

Wayfarer is a dark fantasy game. You play as a Wayfarer, a mercenary from an order of warriors immune to magic. When your last job backs you into a corner, you take a contract to travel to the city of Velantis and steal an ancient relic… but of course, things do not turn out the way you expect.

Q2 - What or who are some of your biggest inspirations?

There’s quite a few! In terms of writing, I take a lot from the works of novelists like Brandon Sanderson, S.A. Chakraborty, and R.F. Kuang, as well as playwrights like Judith Thompson and Colleen Murphy. With game design and general worldbuilding, the Dragon Age series is Wayfarer’s main source of inspiration, alongside the Witcher 3, Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy, and D&D.

Q3- What excites you most about IF? What drew you to the medium?

Interactive fiction sits in a very special place because it’s text-based. I think sometimes we’re accustomed to thinking visual media as superior to text, but it’s not true. There’s power in prose, power in the reader’s imagination, that can push a game beyond the limitations of traditional video games.

Even just speaking narratively, you can do more with nonlinear storytelling in interactive fiction than you can elsewhere. I adore the concept of choice-based gameplay. I love pushing my game in different directions and crafting concrete consequences for the player’s actions. This ultimately results in a significant amount of branching. Episode 1’s boss fight has multiple versions depending on how you handle the events leading up to it, which is not something that would be possible in traditional gaming.

I also love interactive fiction because it has become an intrinsically queer space. Our stories and experiences are so often on the fringes, and interactive fiction is a gaming medium that pushes against the boundaries of the traditional. There is so much being done here to explore gender, sexuality, and personal identity. It’s nice to be able to play queer relationships without feeling like you’re the outlier or that the content was thrown in last minute.

Q4 - Are your characters influenced by your identity? How?

Absolutely. Wayfarer’s world is inherently queer. It is littered with queer characters (major companion characters and NPCs included), and gender expression is fluid and malleable. When I did the initial worldbuilding, I really wanted to separate it from societal constructs from the “real world.” It’s a fantasy, after all, and part of that fantasy is living in a world where being queer is about as remarkable as what you had for breakfast. Sometimes it’s nice to have a narrative where folks can live their lives without facing sexism, homophobia, and transphobia.

On a more personal level, Wayfarer’s romance system is shaped by my experiences as an asexual person. Romantic and sexual attraction are two very different things, and this is typically not addressed in most fiction. I wanted a system that acknowledged those differences, while also allowing the player to change things up when they felt it was in character. So, while there’s no “Select A to be Ace” option in the character creator, the player will always have agency when it comes to how they want their character to engage with either type of attraction—whether it be romantic, sexual, both, or none.

Q5 - What are you most excited about sharing related to your project?

I’m excited to share the kind of game that I love to play! Wayfarer has a vibrant world, rich lore, a huge cast of diverse and dynamic characters, and—most importantly—choices that really do matter. Every playthrough is different, and there’s always some new piece of the puzzle to uncover, even after multiple replays.

Q6 - What would you like to see more of in LGBT+ fiction/IF community?

More of everything! Human experience is so varied, so nuanced, it’s impossible to capture all of it in a single work. I think it would be a detriment to a story as a whole to squeeze every possible experience into one place (if you spread yourself too thin, you end up with shallow writing and characters). I’d love to see more LGBTQ+ fiction and games, full stop. That’s how we will get those varied, wide-ranging perspectives and experiences, while also having fulfilling stories and characters.

I’d also love to see more authors delve into the complexities of intimate relationships. I rarely see topics like romantic and sexual compatibility addressed. This is often a huge part of asexual relationships (if what you want doesn’t match what your partner wants, you need to address it), but I think it applies to so many other folks as well.

Q7- Lastly, what advice would you give to your creators and readers?

For developers, make the game you want to play. Don’t worry too much about following trends or popular staples of the medium. If you don’t vibe with a certain mechanic or idea, don’t feel pressured to add it to your game. Conversely, if you really love a popular mechanic or idea and are worried about doing the same thing everyone else is doing, go for it anyway! If you’re passionate about what you’re creating, you’ll find your niche. Interactive fiction games are at their best when the creator is having fun and making the material they themselves enjoy.

For players, indulge in the roleplaying! Every game has something different to offer. If you try to pre-determine your playthrough before you even start, you might end up with a good, but somewhat hollow experience. The fun of playing interactive fiction games, for me, is sticking to my character’s instincts and seeing where those choices take me—even if it doesn’t turn out the way I wanted it to.

#if: events #Pride 2022 #Pride Month #Wayfarer

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fvriva · 12 days

Note

The whole 🐖 for vernautumn 😏

i'll be answering the clover ask first and then put the rest behind a readmore, haha

send me emoji asks about my ocs!

🍀 - What originally inspired the OC?

Autumn: At the time, I was getting into Webtoons for the first time (though after a lifetime of being into webcomics as a whole) and as an experiment, I tried to engineer the most generic female lead from the tropes I currently liked reading. That basically culminated as three main influences:

Shin-Ae Yoo from I Love You. I wanted to make a story with a protagonist that was spunky, but not bubbly, despite all the hardships she had to deal with in her life. A lot of Autumn's voice in my head is very much like Shin-Ae's still.

Amy from Space Boy. I wanted to make a story about an outsider, a fish out of water, slowly finding her place in the world while at the same time finding common ground with a fellow outsider. Both my approach and the source material took a very different route eventually.

Ava Ire from Ava's Demon. This is another influence that stuck around more closely, though originally Wrathia's dynamic with Ava was originally intended to be a parallel with Autumn and Winter, who later became cousins rather than haunted soul-evil tulpa.

Vernon: Like Autumn, I made Vernon originally as a way to try and engineer a comic I'd want to read. He wasn't originally a homunculus, just a cringe little witch. But here are his top three:

Kody from LUMINE. I originally wanted to do something with a witch that couldn't do magic conventionally, a theme that I ended up splitting in half with Autumn as well.

Winter from Winter Woods. This was the first true Frankenstein romance Webtoon I'd read, and despite everything I've got a really special place in my heart for it. You can thank Winter for Vernon's eyebrows.

Oliver from Space Boy. This one was primarily to complete the set with Amy as Autumn, but his arc actually has stayed pretty close to the way Vernon developed as a character! Or at least, it feels that way to me.

✨- How did you come up with the OC’s name?

Autumn: Both Autumn and Vernon are relics from when the project was named "Seasonal Depression", which was an early version of the project where Autumn was being haunted by Winter and Summer, a left-right brain pastiche. Her family name of Saffworth refers to both her hair, the exorbitant price of saffron the spice, and the little purple flowers on the saffron plant. Flaxsong, her adoptive family's surname after she runs away, is intended to evoke both their fiber business and history of bardic storytelling.

Vernon: Vernon was designed as Autumn's foil, so he had to be named a spring name. Simple as. Helfeather was mostly just the edgiest dark-witch name I could come up with. (He was originally supposed to be Vernon Helfeather-Cravitz--Cravitz was the surname of his nonmagical deadbeat dad. He now doesn't have a dad at all!)

🌼 - How old are they? (Or approximate age range)

Autumn: She starts the story at 15, but she was 12 when she officially ran away from home. I have aus where she's in her 30s as well, as I also have a few stories dedicated to their eventual children.

Vernon: Vernon is a weird one. He only has about 14 years worth of consistent memory and maturation at the beginning of the story, but he's been around for a few thousand years, rebooting and resetting like a bad computer. He'll eventually get to grow up a bit, and could be around indefinitely.

🌺- Do they have any love interest(s)?

They are each other's love interests! Autumn also has a lingering crush on her childhood friend, Olivia, but when they meet in the story Olivia already has a girlfriend. Vernon has never gotten close to people before Autumn in that way.

🍕 - What is their favorite food?

Autumn: She's famously very picky as for most of her life before the Bloodmaker woke up, she couldn't eat most things without getting sick. During this phase of her life, it was probably bread and butter, not toasted. After the Bloodmaker wakes up and she grows comfortable with trying new things, she finds she really likes spicy foods. She'd love a sichuan hot pot broth or a classic tteokbokki.

Vernon: He physically has no tastebuds or need to eat. It's sticks.

💼 - What do they do for a living?

Autumn: After the events of the story she actively turns away from the medical field and dives into the Flaxsong family business. She manages sales and helps manufacture fabric. She especially enjoys dyeing thread and coming up with cool skeins.

Vernon: Vernon has always wanted to have a very public-facing magical research career, giving Nobel Prize speeches and whatnot. However after he's finally allowed to go to school and graduate he realizes he's way too socially awkward for that. Now he just tinkers in his garage and stays at home with the kids.

🎹 - Do they have any hobbies?

Autumn: Autumn likes watching horror movies (which don't exist in her setting, but, y'know, a girl can dream) and making shitty little dolls (either with fabric or, y'know, flesh). She also would LOVE a violent video game....

Vernon: Vernon enjoys people-watching, drawing, and reading. Although he craves being with people, he's also probably one of my more introverted characters.

🎯🥊 - What do they do best? What do they love to do? What do they hate to do?

Autumn: Autumn has an innate sense for both her and other peoples' physical bodies and anatomy both per the Bloodmaker and her time as a Saffworth having it drilled into her head. She hates engaging with that kind of magic except on her own terms, though. She's adept at but doesn't enjoy magical healing because she's aware of its capacity to harm. She learned to enjoy working with textiles and has gotten pretty good at it over the years, though.

Vernon: Vernon has a lot of very small talents that he doesn't even know about fully, stored in his muscle memory. He's also a very fast reader and usually had pretty good information retention despite his memory issues. He loves learning new things and trying to come up with creative ways to approach problems that accommodate his needs better. However, he hates putting himself in even minorly risky situations, because he hates the threat of losing all of his progress every time he gets a small injury.

❤️ - What is one of your OC’s best memories?

Autumn: Sometime midway into the story, possibly offscreen, there's some kind of mundane luncheon where both her adoptive guardians, Vernon and his family, and some of her friends are all spending a lazy afternoon together decompressing after a stressful week. Everyone is happy and lively and chatting together and well-fed.

Vernon: In one of Vernon's lingering first memories from when her resets in front of Autumn, and instead of recoiling in fear and disgust or a similar reaction, she instead helps cut him free of his husk and gives him a big hug.

✂️ - What is one of your OC’s worst memories?

Autumn: This one's tough but it's probably something from her childhood. I haven't fully ironed out all the Horrors but it was probably at the hands of her cousin, Winter, and it probably was what gave her the inertia to finally leave. She's got a lot of educational, medical, and familial trauma in general.

Vernon: The benefit of having chronic memory issues is he does tend to lose a lot of the bad memories, but one that lingers is an especially nasty one from a couple dozen years ago where he got injured, reset, freaked out whichever peers he was with, and that event started a chain reaction where he almost melted down. (read: went thermonuclear and exploded like a bomb)

🧊 - Is their current design the first one?

Autumn's outfit changed from being very preppy to just being cold at all times, but her hair has stayed pretty consistent. Vernon has always worn the same thing but the hoodie pattern/colors changed. He used to have longer, blue hair, and the specific hue of purple used shifts, but he's also pretty similar to his original form in ways.

🌂 - What genre do they belong in?

Autumn: Honestly, she lends herself a little better to a political noble family drama story than what Animus Vitrum actually is, which is an adventure fantasy, but she also does pretty well in a modern setting.

Vernon: Vernon is PEAK sci-fantasy. Rogue alchemist's spawn. If anything, Tela is too mundane for his ass.

💚 - What is your OC’s gender identity and sexuality?

Autumn is a bisexual cis girl. As for Vernon, honestly , he's probably aspec to a degree, but he loves Autumn wholly. He's also physically speaking basically...intersex? Kind of? He doesn't have a lot of the built-in sexual characteristics to the degree of it causing him some discomfort. It's complicated.

🙌 - How many siblings does your OC have?

Autumn: No blood siblings, but she was raised alongside her cousin Winter. She's got a lot of cousins in general.

Vernon: Cy is an imperfect clone made from one of Vernon's old husks by Ozymandias to try and kill him. After they chill out a bit they're kind of like a sibling, sorta.

🍎 - What is the OC’s relationship w/their parents like?

Autumn: BAD! Autumn's father was mostly neglectful of her and she only tended to interact with him when he was asking about her magical potential, and when he didn't receive the answer he wanted, he'd simply dismiss her. Her mother was more hands-on abusive, and had a penchant for pitting her against Winter constantly.

Vernon: He's got two moms and like, two not-dads. His moms are very sweet and they look out for him, but they have a tendency to be a little bit protective of him given his overall history and needs. Amelli in particular is also very concerned with the fact that Vernon's existence is technically a national security concern, where Clove is more worried about his emotional well-being. Vernon was technically created by a sorcerer a few thousand years ago and has kind of conflicting feelings about that. And then Ozymandias featured strongly enough in his more recent life to cause him a lot of problems, to say he doesn't like him is kind of an understatement.

🧠 - What do you like most about the OC?

Autumn: Autumn's managed to really worm her way into my friends' hearts with her pre-story quiet and shy demeanor. It's going to be exciting once I finally get around to writing her coming out of her shell. I'm looking forward to it.

Vernon: I'm very proud of Vernon's personal cocktail of gender issues, chronic physical/mental disability issues, and of the way he hatches from his own skin like a cicada. He just exudes such potent narrative vibes and I'm always a little in awe of it.

✏️ - How often do you draw/write about the OC?

Not as frequently as I have in years past, if I'm being honest. I did rp both Autumn and Vernon a few years back with @the-goblin-cat's Cherise and Neville to try and figure out their voices and I vastly enjoyed doing that. I've mostly just been both too busy with commercial projects and writing Exordium, but also too intimidated by the project to make solid headway into it.

💎 - Do you ever see yourself killing off the OC?

Autumn: Not really, except as a fakeout with the Bloodmaker. She's textually immortal due to it, and I have too many plans for her going forward in the story.

Vernon: Also not really, though if we're splitting hairs, he's kind of dying every few arcs and is also textually immortal, if not coming back changed.

💀 - Does your OC have any phobias?

Autumn: She's actually pretty fearless despite everything! She isn't very fond of pristine environments or disturbing imagery, but while she's able to easily avoid the first thing by allowing herself to take up space, the second she's actually been able to acclimate to it to a degree through the Bloodmaker and a burgeoning fascinating with horror media.

Vernon: He's rather squeamish. He has a tendency to be very careful whenever doing anything and will take any available precautions, as he's got a bad history with injury. He also tends to be very guarded and reserved emotionally, even with his friends, though it tends to just look like his normal bubbly self.

🍩 -Who is your OC’s arch-nemesis or rival?

Autumn: Her cousin Winter is an early antagonist and hurdle for Autumn to overcome. While Winter does have her own cluster of problems from her upbringing, she and Autumn's dynamic is bad for both of them, and Autumn finally being able to beat Winter at something sets Winter on a path towards getting her shit together. She and Vernon also share her other cousin, Emrys, as a nemesis, as he's kind of the antithesis to her "puppet of the family bloodline" narrative.

Vernon: Vernon has TWO arch-nemeses, their clone/sibling Cy, a fellow homunculus, and Autumn's cousin Emrys, who has pretty similar aspirations to him.

🎓🍥 - How long have you had the OC? What age were you when you created the OC?

I made both of these guys close to the same time, in roughly late high school, probably something like 18. (I'm currently 24, as of writing this, which makes this project 6 years old.) I was in the throes of teenaged hormones and this was a great way for me to vent in the moment, but I've since matured out of/moved away from the issues that incited a lot of the edgier subject matter central to this story. In the time since, I've also begun to reapproach teenagedom from the perspective a teacher working with this age-group, so this kind of change in perspective is also what's contributing to all the changes I've made to these characters.

#answered ask #the-goblin-cat #cervicrazed #chesca.oc #ask games #animus vitrum #long post

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nalyra-dreaming · 11 months

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Regarding that casting call, either way we are winning. If the date is a mistake and it's actually 1985, then it's yet another confirmation that Devil's Minion is happening. But if it is really 1785 *puts on clown face* then it's definitely a flashback to finally show us Nicolas (and Lestat) in the theatre. Like, narratively speaking it doesn't make any sense for the show to wait at least 3 or more years to cast someone as important as Nicolas, specially when he has aleady been hinted so many times in S1. Let's not forget that Lestat's first spoken words in the show are literally A DIREKT QUOTE FROM NICKI. The question is ofc who would be telling that part of the story. It would make sense for it to be Armand but I can't really see him sharing that information with Louis and he's very capable of keeping his mind shut. It could be Louis reading some member of the old troupe's mind though. Imagine someone who knew human Lestat first hand and then was turned and ended up working with Armand... Since Louis can read minds in this version it wouldn't be too far out of reach, wouldn't it?

If it was up to me (and given the beautiful way the show has been working with the concept of relics so far) I would just give Louis the Gift to see the past by touching objects (like that character from Mayfair Witches) and make him find the red velvet cloak hidden somewhere in the theatre 🥲

Ha, yeah I'd love that too (and have actually written about it in a fic^^). And yes, mistake or not, both years are "winning", agreed!

As you said - it is highly unlikely that Armand would volunteer that tidbit of information though... I cannot really think of who might do though (except if they massively changed a certain fact).

I just answered another ask, and theorized there that it might have to do with Marius and Bianca in Paris... and the fact that Les Innocents was closed in 1780, and that the bones were moved to the catacombs in 1786.

Which means Armand and his coven had to relocate sometime 1785. Which must have been, of course, a rather harrowing event for the Children of Satan, then.

So, while my first thought also jumped to Lestat and Nicki immediately (and I'll be very happy if they go this route, I hope that doesn't need to be said, because YES *laughs*)... my gut feeling does point more towards that now... ugh. We'll see.

But I love it either way, all the little tidbits of events and lore they use to tie this show in reality... they did it so wonderfully in season 1, I bet they'll be brilliant in season 2 as well.

#chicalepidoptera #asks #amc iwtv #iwtv #amc interview with the vampire #interview with the vampire amc #iwtv amc #iwtv 2022 #interview with the vampire #armand #les innocents #1785 #future season speculation #lestat de lioncourt #nicolas de lenfent #ask nalyra #iwtv s2

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jamesshawgames · 1 year

Text

Next Project Reveal Time...

Hello, I’m still not dead!

So I might as well let you all in on the project I’m concocting now that the Relics trilogy is finished. It’s going to be long and difficult, but I’m really excited to see where it goes. This could get long, so I’ll put the details under the jump for those who are interested, but I’ll put the title and a few basics up here for all of y’all to see.

SHADOWRUN: NEON FIRE

Yeah, it’s cyber-elf time!

It’s a fan-game, which will be freely available in full to everyone on Dashingdon (I’m not trying to make a buck off someone else’s IP, I’m just trying to craft a tribute to one of my all-time favorite fictional universes!) The aim is to combine some of the best elements of IFs with some of the best elements of tabletop RPGs. It’ll be more statty that most IFs, and will make use of dice rolls and a simplified version of the Shadowrun 5th edition tabletop rules, but it will also make telling a great story with great characters and choice and consequence a high priority, thus hitting some of the more usual IF beats.

Don’t get too excited: it will still be a long time before anything gets posted (I want to make a particular point in the story before I unveil anything), but I’ll do my very best to make this thing actually happen!

More details below!

About the Project

For the uninitiated, Shadowrun is a beloved fantasy-cyberpunk tabletop roleplaying setting which has spawned six editions of the tabletop game, a huge number of novels, and multiple well-regarded video games going right back to the 90s. I flipping love Shadowrun. I love it so much that I’ll take on the ill-advised burden of trying to write a lengthy Choicescript story that uses actual Shadowrun RPG mechanics. It’s a famously dice-heavy game. That’ll be a lot of *rand variables, then.

Received wisdom seems to be that, in interactive fiction, detailed RPG mechanics and great stories with choice and consequence are mutually exclusive. I think that the received wisdom is wrong. This project is where I prove it, or go down in flames trying.

About the Shadowrun Universe

In the world of Shadowrun, human history is much longer than we currently believe. The earth projects a field of natural mana, which is the source of magic, and which waxes and wanes over very long periods of time. Every five thousand years, the earth's manasphere reawakens, and magic emerges into the mundane world, bringing with it dragons, spirits, creatures of legend and fantasy races. Then, five thousand years later, mana mysteriously recedes again, leading to the beginning of another mundane age. Every time magic either reappears or disappears, it produces tremendous civilization-level traumas leading to the collapse of human society and the need to rebuild from scratch. Until 2011, when magic reemerged in a technologically advanced world, ending the Fifth World and inaugurating the Sixth. For the first time, human society was robust enough to withstand the shock, and it (just about) held together. For the first time, magic and advanced technology needed to coexist.

The return of magic at the beginning of the twenty-first century had profound consequences. The old United States and Canada fragmented into multiple successor states, while wars and magically-awakened natural disasters racked much of the rest of the world. Animals began to mutate rapidly into magically-awakened versions of themselves: now hellhounds, devil rats, harpies and many other paracritters stalk the wilds. Babies started to be born who resembled the elves and dwarves of legend; as they grew and time passed, elven and dwarven culture developed along distinctive lines. Metahumanity diversified further with the phenomenon known officially as Unexplained Genetic Expression (UGE), and unofficially as "Goblinization", when, for unclear reasons, some people began to grow tusks and horns and thick green skin, undergoing dramatic and often agonizing transformations into orks and trolls. The majority of the Sixth World's inhabitants are still human, and a high proportion of humans are prejudiced against other metatypes, aligning themselves with human supremacist organizations like the notorious Humanis Policlub. Human supremacism has in turn spawned a violent response, in the form of militant metahuman supremacist groups across the globe. Different countries and regions have responded differently to the challenges of metadiversity, but everywhere tensions between metatypes are never far from the surface.

When magic reappeared, the great dragons reawakened. Impossibly majestic creatures who have lived through all the previous cycles of the world but who hibernate deep in the earth during mundane cycles, dragons rapidly established themselves as major power players in Sixth World society. Unimaginably subtle and intelligent, every dragon is a force to be reckoned with. Some have become heads of state, others CEOs or board members of megacorporations. You never truly know where you stand with them, hence one of the most common pieces of advice you'll hear in the shadows: "Never deal with a dragon".

Alongside the dragons, the real powers of the Sixth World are the corporations, and above all the Big Ten triple-A megacorporations: Ares Macrotechnology, Aztechnology, Evo, Horizon, Mitsuhama Computer Technologies (MCT), NeoNET, Renraku Computer Systems, Saeder-Krupp, Shiawase, and Wuxing. Any one of these corps could field a private military which would vastly overpower that of any nation state. Since 1999, the megas have enjoyed extraterritoriality, meaning that, on their own corporate property, they are exempt from local laws and responsible for their own policing and protection. Making every product and providing every service you could possibly imagine, these beasts often own lesser A- or AA-rated corps and seem unshakable in their global dominance.

In the cracks between the shining corporate enclaves you'll find the shadows, sprawling slums dominated by feral street-gangs and organized crime, inhabited by the desperate and the SINless (those who do not possess a System Identification Number, and are not considered productive citizens). The shadows are the natural home of shadowrunners, guns for hire, highly-skilled deniable mercenary criminals, often hired by corps or wealthy private clients to undertake shady acts of espionage and sabotage. And you will be one of them!

About Neon Fire

I’ll be posting more game-specific info in a future post, so I’ll just give you the basics now. In Neon Fire, you will create and play as an experienced shadowrunner in the Seattle Sprawl in the late 21st century. After a Seattle-based prologue mission designed to introduce the world and the rules, you’ll receive a puzzling message from a figure from your childhood, calling you away to the far side of the world. For the bulk of the game, you’ll be living in the Neo-Tokyo megasprawl, running the shadows with an all-new crew of (romanceable) fellow runners, while also investigating a mystery which will uncover secrets about your own past as well as a sinister conspiracy that threatens Neo-Tokyo’s future!

More details to follow soon. In the meantime, if you want to learn more about this setting, maybe try the video games Shadowrun: Dragonfall and Shadowrun: Hong Kong. If you like fantastic RPGs with great writing, you’ll thank me - and you’ll get suitably psyched for Neon Fire!

#relics of the lost age #shadowrun #hosted games #choice of games #interactive fiction #announcements

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bots-and-cons · 2 years

Note

do i really have to ask it again because my fingers are killing me from writing it before XD but please the bots turned human tall story please

I considered not writing this because I felt annoyed at you for first of all sending the first two versions when I told you the requests were closed and now not even really requesting properly. I obviously don’t know if you have a condition or something that would cause it to hurt when you have to type something, but I just get an annoying vibe from this. I wrote it anyway though, even though it took a bit of looking to find the proper version of this request. I felt like being a petty bitch about this, but I decided against it. I’m not looking for an apology or anything, I just wanted to express what I thought

•You had followed Miko through the ground bridge when she went through after the bots, in an attempt to bring her back

•You were too slow though and she managed to touch the relic thingy and it went off

•There was a flash of light and when you got your sight back, you didn’t see the autobots anywhere

•Luckily the decepticons weren’t around and when you realized what had happened you called Ratchet to open the ground bridge again so you could get the bots out of there

•The bots started waking up and also noticed what had happened, they had turned into humans

•You were super confused about the whole thing obviously, but you were also worried, because Optimus wasn’t getting up

•So you slung his arm over your shoulder and started helping him through the ground bridge

•You all got back to the base and Ratchet is just sighing and asking “What the scrap happened?”

•You explained the whole relic going off thing, glaring at Miko for causing it and Ratchet was like “Ah, well it will pass… hopefully”

•You’ve been paying a lot of attention to Optimus since he seemed to be the one in the worst condition, but now that he’s fine you make sure the others are too

•You notice Arcee has a very attractive human form, you liked her a lot as a bot too but damn

•Arcee is also telling Miko she shouldn’t touch the relics, since it’s always caused problems when she does that

•You ask Arcee if she’s okay rubbing the back of your neck and smiling awkwardly

•She tells you yes, but that it’s a bit weird to be a human

•You sort of help Arcee be a human, while it lasts and you actually end up talking a lot

•You’re also like wayyyyy taller than her

#transformers #tfp #transformers prime #autobots #optimus prime #arcee #ratchet #tfp headcanons #reader insert #platonic transformers x reader #transformers x reader #tfp x reader

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askmerriauthor · 11 months

Text

I'm still trying to puzzle out the timeline implications of ToTK, but I rather like what the story does for the overall LOZ timeline as a concept. Spoiler talk, so more after the break.

I've always liked the approach BoTW took where it basically gathered up all the games in one big bundle and said "maybe these happened, maybe they didn't, but it was like 10,000 years ago and it doesn't matter anymore". Literally making the previous Legend of Zelda games into legends in-universe. There's combined traces of all the games, be they direct references or sidelong allusions that make it seem like that element might've been lost in translation, or the version we originally saw was incorrect in the first place.

So far ToTK does seem to anchor certain concepts in stone, however, but others are very much brought into question.

Skyward Sword is Core Canon While the actual events of Skyward Sword in terms of its overall presentation are up to debate, there are facets of it that seem to be hard-baked into the game's lore now. Namely Fi and the divine origins of both Zelda as the incarnation of Hylia as well as the Master Sword. ToTK actively refers to the Master Sword as "she" and the sword makes Fi's prompting noise a number of times, so it's safe to say Fi's still in there after all this time.

The actual state of things with Demise, however, seems a bit less clear now. Skyward Sword told us a tale of how Demise - an original ancient evil demon from before the dawn of time - cursed Link and Zelda's bloodlines to always be in conflict with his reincarnations. The evil pollutant effect Demise had on the world, Malice, was overtly present and utilized in BoTW by Calamity Ganon. It was what brought on the end of Hylian civilization a century before the events of the game. But the overt parallels between Demise and ToTK Ganondorf raise the question of whether there ever was a Demise in the first place? Or was Demise an exaggeration of Ganondorf's ascension into the Demon King via the Secret Stone? Or is Ganondorf's nature as the Demon King directly the result of Demise and his curse?

There's also a mix up with Calamity Ganon to consider. Previously, I was under the impression that Calamity Ganon was the same OoT Ganondorf who'd eventually degraded over time and multiple revivals, turning into the mindless force of destruction we saw in BoTW. But ToTK makes it clear Ganondorf was perfectly fine, albeit dehydrated and locked beneath Hyrule Castle. Malice and Gloom are pretty obviously the same thing, and Gloom was freely seeping across the land even before the Upheaval occurred, so it's not like Ganondorf was fully contained even in his sealed state. While running around ToTK Hyrule, we often encounter Gloom Hands and a Phantom Ganon doppelganger. That gives me the impression that Calamity Ganon was just a similar phenomenon: as the time neared where the seal would break entirely, Ganondorf was able to exude enough force to manifest it and attack Hyrule on instinct. But any notions of Calamity Ganon being an individual itself made by the Hylians were misattributed.

Did OoT Actually Happen? Something very confusing/interesting in the flashbacks of ToTK is that it basically retells the events of OoT in a different frame. Ganondorf, the ruler of the Gerudo, deceiving the King of Hyrule by pretending to swear allegiance while in pursuit of an ancient, divine relic the Royal Family and the Sages hold safe. Called out by the young Princess Zelda. But Ganondorf succeeds in his efforts and Hyrule is thrown into an age of turmoil where monsters roam the world, only to be ultimately defeated by the efforts of the Sages and a foretold Hero in the distant future.

The events of Rauru sealing away Ganondorf were explicitly stated as The Imprisoning War, which was previously established as happening after OoT in an alternate timeline scenario where Link failed to stop Ganondorf. Given that Link didn't exist at all prior to Ganondorf's arrival and ascension into the Demon King, it feels to me as if ToTK is shifting OoT - and thus Majora's Mask - fully into legend. It also raises the question of whether there was ever a split Triforce, or if that too was just a misinterpretation of past events. The Triforce didn't feature in any way whatsoever within ToTK; it's not even mentioned or seen once. Ganondorf coveted and gained power through a completely different relic. In BoTW, Zelda seemed to innately have the complete Triforce by way of birth, passed down through her divine bloodline. Presumably Zelda still has it, or the Triforce itself is simply a symbolic manifestation of her divine powers outright rather than a physical relic that can be taken.

Who are Din, Nayru, Farore, and the Other Divines? So ToTK introduces the concept of "draconification" where devouring a Secret Stone turns a person into an immortal serpent dragon. We see this in practice in the game, and in BoTW we're introduced to a trio of such dragons who have names similar to those of the Three Goddesses. Mineru is very much aware of the process and what its consequences are, so that indicates that draconification was performed prior to her arrival in Hyrule. Is this meant to indicate that these three were once Zonai who turned into Dragons? Were they ever Goddesses to begin with, or was that also a legend that grew over time?

What does this make of the "other gods" in the setting, such as the Bargainer Statues or the Horned Statue? The Horned Statue is pretty up front about it being a Demon who was punished by Hylia for its acts, but the Bargainer Statues seem to be different. They're also all found nearby Hylia Statues and express a neutral view of good and evil, while supplying items that both embody and defy evil outright. They're also the source of the Dark Link outfit, which makes me wonder if they're intended to represent a sort of mirror/shadow aspect to Hylia. Not evil that opposes her (that's what Demise, Ganon, and the Primal Demons are for), but just a natural off-shoot. Hylia creates life while the Bargainer Statues manage death.

Soul-ar Powered Technology I can't be the only one who thinks Sheikah Tech was basically powered by the spirits of the dead after everything we've learned in ToTK, right? With the return of Poes (which were totally absent in BoTW), the blue flame furnaces that connect underground into what we now know as the Depths and the ancient Zonai refineries, Mineru's spirit being able to house itself inside the Purah Pad, and the obvious correlation between Zonai and Sheikah technologies?

#totk #botw #legend of zelda #totk spoilers #totk speculation

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theartfulmegalodon · 7 months

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Well dang it, I've had a nibble of engagement, and I'm finally letting it tempt me. Wanna read my comic scripts? I'm really hoping you do!

It is planned as a 30-issue comic series. I have chosen to write the entire thing and make it as good as I can before I attempt to draw any of the actual pages. Partly this is perfectionism, and partly it is because I know how long it would take me to attempt to draw it, and how unlikely I'd be to ever complete it. I wanted to focus on completing something, and I've chosen the writing.

I have written 15 (half!) of the 30 issues, and they have already seen many, many revisions. (Much thanks to the three people who have read them and given me feedback!) I am quite confident that these first 15 issues are very close to their final forms, and they are definitely good enough for me to share with you all.

I have also done a few sketches and bits of standalone art for the characters*, so while I have no comic pages drawn yet, I will occasionally include some of these sketches in with the script, just to give your optic nerves more of a workout. It's the least I can do! I'm thinking I can post one issue script per week? That's 15 weeks of new content for ya, with more to eventually follow!

*All designs subject to small changes down the line.

I post these issues mainly to share them. My experience has been that people almost never want to read a comic script, but sadly, the writing is as much as I can do right now, and I am in fact proud of what I've done so far, and very much looking forward to tackling the second half. However, I am always looking for feedback, and I will be WIDE OPEN for questions, critique and suggestions. Not saying I'll necessarily change things based on your feedback, but I do welcome it! Also, of course, I'd love it if you shared these around, talked them up to your friends, if you like them!

Read on for more about the story itself!

River & Ash is a slow-burn supernatural gay romance, set in an alternate version of our real world. The material is treated maturely (I like to think) but with only about a PG-13 rating. (No smut, no super-strong language.) There is angst in parts of it, but there is also a lot of wholesome shmoop. And while the focus is mostly on the evolution of the relationship between the two main characters, there is also plot, and mini-arcs, with minor superheroics, alternate history pop culture, and an original mythology and history that is teased and then slowly revealed over the course of the story. It also happens to have a very proactive, driven individual for a main character (River). I say this just in case, like me, you don't love when magic/the supernatural just sort of happens to the protagonist to kick off a story.

Ripped from the introductory page that begins every issue…

"Once, the world was full of magic… because humanity once shared the world with demons. History tells that for thousands of years they coexisted, sometimes happily, sometimes not, but one truth never changed: any human who made a deal with a demon would be granted incredible power of their own… for a price.

But in the Middle Ages, during the rise of the Catholic church, a small pocket of humanity attempted to purge these magical beings from existence. The details were lost to time, but what is known is that the demons who survived collectively renounced mankind and disappeared, removing themselves and their influence. 1101 became known as the year magic vanished from the world.

Centuries later, on the same day he suffers a horrifying loss, River McAllister is given what appears to be a real demon book. These rare, indestructible relics have been mostly hoarded away, and there hasn't been a confirmed demon sighting in over a thousand years. It seems impossible. He knows it probably won't work. But if he can find a way to translate it, he might just be able to summon the demon that belongs to it… and maybe make a deal of his own."

The first will be posted forthwith. Thank you in advance so very much!

#River&Ash #comic writing #comic scripts #really hoping to find even a smidgen of an audience here #Godlings? never heard of it

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a-la-campanella · 5 months

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"Campanella, I saw you in a dream."

「カムパネルラ、夢を見ていた。」

My profile picture is from the 1.5 Nameless Medal reward, "Yanqing: Odyssey" in-game profile picture. The username is a reference to the character Campanella from Night on the Galactic Railroad, and La Campanella by Liszt., which you can listen to here.

A side-blog for Honkai: Star Rail. My UID is not up for sharing, mostly because my Yanqing is pitiful and nobody borrows him. (I'm still grinding for better relics and nothing is rolling crit.)

I downloaded Honkai: Star Rail because I've been playing Genshin Impact since the first Lantern Rite (or launch if you want to argue technicalities) and kept playing this game since I was enamored with the space-fantasy elements. The feeling I get from playing and hanging around the Astral Express reminds me of Kenji Miyazawa's Night On The Galactic Railroad, which is a story I'm very fond of.

Futilely trying to learn more about the game's lore. Unfortunately, I'm not particularly invested in most of the characters or going through the in-game readables, but the worldbuilding is interesting enough.

I might write fanfic or draw fanart about whatever catches my interest, who knows. It might be NSFW. Ideally I'll keep in mind to tag for that sort of thing, but I'm not perfect and it might slip my mind. This is your warning.

Fun facts (STC)!

Trailblaze level 70. Played since launch, got bored and skipped out on most of 1.3 and all of 1.4 (not that I missed anything important), and crawled back in 1.5...

Trailblazer: Stelle. I don't care about Caelus.

Favorite character: Yanqing. Runner up: Acheron.

I like reading about lore (sci-fi fantasy worldbuilding goes hard) and, against my will, character meta/theorycrafting.

With a couple of exceptions, I see everyone as bisexual. Do not separate BronSeele.

I'm not picky with ships, but I can't bring myself to say I actively enjoy some of the more popular ones... ships like RenHeng, KafHime, (and to an extent) SamPard, and RatioRine don't hold much weight, the way I see it. That can change in a distant future.

Please don't expect much. I regularly fall off the plane of existence to a vanishing point in the horizon, and I don't know when I'll be back when that happens.

Tags, for my own navigation more than anything else:

ringing forward -> personal thoughts/in-game experiences (reactions, screenshots, web events, things like that)

bells chime in the wind -> offline memories (think pictures, merch, irl events)

strike the bells -> events to add to the calendar

recall and retrieve -> looking back or looking forward on the game's story and events (new version livestreams, myriad celestia trailers, etc. (not actual gameplay experiences))

building an accelerated tree -> theories, headcanons, crack, lore, and the dumpster in the back

a bell strung on -> fanfic-related posts

la campana al mediodia -> OCs

swimming through mountains of fire -> WIPs, which current include:

Journey on Penacony (2/7)

Black Swan Myriad Celestia post (probably)

Sparkle Myriad Celestia post/character analysis

LNY Animation post(???)

Clockie videos (if more of them come out)

Data Bank Update (OC stuff)

Wang Qiming Character Profile

seek the empyreal (Misha x Sunday fic)

#honkai: star rail #hsr #intro post

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mydaroga · 2 years

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Thoughts on ‘The Birth of the Beatles’

I watched this 1979 biopic originally early in my obsession (you know, lo five months ago or so) and it was interesting to look at it again having read and learned and thought a lot more. And I’ve been mulling it over the past few days, because it’s interesting.

I don’t love biopics of this nature, where it’s just “this event happened then this event and then this one.” You don’t actually learn anything you couldn’t get from a wiki entry, and it’s invariably far less accurate. This movie does not dispel that at all. It’s a pretty straightforward narrative of the newly-formed band going to Hamburg, coming back, meeting Brian, scoring their first hit. It skips over some stuff and gets some stuff wrong, of course. And most of the actors seem to have been chosen for a distinguishing feature that’s kinda like a feature the guy they’re playing has. (George, actually, looks the closest and is pretty dang cute.)

But aside from the general, there are some interesting aspects. Interesting given that it was made in the late seventies, it seems to be on the “John is the best” train, and quickly it becomes apparent that John is the lead character. By the end, it’s clear that this is The John Story. John is So Good, y’all. He is a good leader. And a good friend. And he even gives a very encouraging speech to Brian about how any love is good and you shouldn’t be ashamed of love in any form! It’s very nice. Except for how they do the “We’re going to the top!” bit but get it wrong, which is baffling.

Like many biopics of this nature, characters sort of drift in and out when necessary, so Cyn is a thing when it’s convenient, and just sort of pops up. Stu is there, and important, and he dies, but when he does John makes a heartfelt speech from the stage--they’ve already done the toilet seat madness bit earlier on. Mimi pops up at the end to be appalled by the scene in the hotel room as they’re finally about to make it, because Paul (of course) has a girl stripped down to her slip in there. I’m not exactly sure what is being foreshadowed here but it does feel portentious?

Speaking of Paul, while he’s a bit more marginal than I would have expected I do think this film does him a service by making him fucking weird and not at all a goody goody and there are some actually good bits with him being just as annoying as John. At one point he rides George like a pony with a mop in one hand in order to get John’s attention so he’ll cut class, which is all right with me. He is not my favorite Paul but his eyebrows are quite decent and for a side-man version of McCartney I will accept it.

But I think the absolute BEST thing about this film is the fact that Pete--yes, Pete Best--was the only actual band member who was consulted on the making of the film. Granted, that’s probably because none of the other guys wanted any part of this, but the result is stunning. Did you know? Pete Best taught Ringo everything he knows. Pete Best was the best drummer you’ve ever seen. Pete Best was only let go because he was just TOO POPULAR in Liverpool. The bias is truly glorious. There’s literally two scenes of Pete Best epic drum soloing, one of which prominently features Ringo watching avidly, soaking it all in.

All in all, this film is not actually instructive to true Beatles fans, especially in an age where we have more than one biography and the actual footage is available on Youtube. However, it’s a really interesting relic of an age where there really wasn’t that much out there: Compleat Beatles wasn’t out yet, and Anthology is ages away. Shout hadn’t even been published. John was still alive and really, things were fairly quiet in Beatledom. I was pretty dismissive upon first viewing, because I didn’t feel I learned anything I didn’t know. But on further reflection, I’ve realized that while it’s not actually a good movie, it does tell us something interesting about how the legend of this band was formulating, 9 years or so after its demise, and with considerably less information than we are now able to access just through a google search.

#beatles films #beatles biopics #birth of the beatles #i'm so glad i watched it again actually #because I was able to analyze it against my accumulated knowledge #and confirm Paul's weirdness #bless them #also i know i said it a lot but PETE BEST CONSULTED ON THIS FILM AND IT SHOWS LIEK WHOA #kris talks a lot

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